At exactly one minute before we had to leave for the bus yesterday morning, a boy started to cry because he had no mittens.
I checked his coat pockets, his backpack and the bin that holds all of his winter gear.
Zip, zilch, nada.
I sent him to school with two mismatched gloves that I found in his brother’s bin and strict instructions to check every “Lost and Found” he came across between the end of our driveway and his classroom.
Because I am not the sort of mommy who sends her kittens off without their mittens, I did some sleuthing of my own around the house. I grabbed my favorite “collection” basket and emptied both boys’ hat/glove bins into it. Then I reached under their beds, under the seats of the car, behind the washing machine and all around the garage entrance to the house – all obvious enough hiding places for missing mittens.
I emptied my basket on the laundry room table and spread out my treasure.
I had collected myself 15 mittens!
Seven pairs with one extra, right?
Nope.
Two pairs. With 11 (eleven) mate-missing single gloves.
The seven-year-old boys had managed to lose exactly one mitten or glove from each of 11 pairs in the 13 short weeks between the first of November and the end of January.
Crazier still, the crying boy had received a brand new matched set of hat and gloves the day before and COULD NOT FIND THEM, even though they still had the little plastic pokey thing holding them together and had never left the house!
Now, I’m no Statistician, but if you include the new set of gloves in the tally, even I can see that’s almost-nearly-basically one a week. (Which is, in fact, a technical math term. Look it up.)
That is a ridiculously high turnover rate for little woolen hand warmers, if you ask me.
My current plan is to just make them wear mismatched gloves (or perhaps one of their big sister’s extra pairs in some variety of pink…) but I will hold off on any major parenting decisions until I see what the “Tour de Lost-n-Found” produces.
Wish I could remember how the kittens’ mom handled it…
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
The Helpful Child: A Cautionary Tail
I have never, in my life, worried about using public restrooms.
Obviously, one always proceeds with caution but I’m not neurotic about it. I wash my hands thoroughly, I squat if it looks risky and I do that thing where you use the paper towel to open the door. Other than that, as dad used to say, “If you don’t go when you gotta go, when you go to go you find you went”. I have trained my children up with this same, worry-free process and – thus far – we’ve all been problem free.
So, the other night I was tidying up around the house. My in-laws were coming into town for an overnight stay on their way to warmer weather and I was going to have to toss dinner in front of them and then head out the door for work (I am a water aerobics instructor). My adorable, loving, practically-eleven-year-old daughter asked if she could help me by cleaning the bathrooms.
Who says “no” to that? Not this mom!
I did my thing. She did hers. The boys did a thing that involved Legos, superheroes and a barking Brussels Griffon/Poodle mix. Everyone was happy and I was experiencing some serious “Mommy Pride”. The pre-teen offered to help CLEAN THE BATHROOMS! I must be a seriously gifted parent.
Then, the dinner hour chaos struck. It’s the same in every home with small children. You’ve been there, too.
It goes like this:
The hubs walked in, the in-laws called to say they were 15 minutes away, the kids began to literally fade away from hunger right before our very eyes, the dog asked to go out, the oven timer dinged, a telemarketer called and I might have screamed something about living in a three-ring-circus but that part is just a little bit fuzzy.
Thankfully, dinner – and all of its grateful recipients – made it to the table and I was finally free to pack my bag and head to work. I ran around looking for a dry swimsuit and my favorite comb that always seems to get “borrowed”.
And here’s the other thing that we moms are all too familiar with:
There is never time to – ahem - “go” until your bladder has reached maximum capacity and you are in danger of sneezing your way into a clean pair of blue jeans. I knew I wasn’t going to make it the 10 mile drive to work without a quick pit stop so I hit the head (Can women use that expression? I have no idea what the actual origins are for that phrase.).
Anyway, I sat down and after a second or two I began to notice a burning sensation across the back of my tushie. It was one of those things that don’t register immediately and, by the time I figured out what was going on, it was too late.
I don’t know what my beautiful child used to swab the john in the master bath, but whatever it was left me with a chemical burn on my buttocks.
I was running late, I didn’t want to embarrass my daughter and I didn’t want my in-laws to know that I burned my butt so I did what all good wives do…I called in hubsy and snuck out the back door.
The ride to work was fine so I assumed that my quick cool water rinse had done the trick. Then I stepped into the pool.
The ladies in my class giggled when I screamed but only because they thought it was another of my silly outbursts over the frigid water.
Not this time, my friends. Not this time.
Fortunately, one of the gals in my class is a nurse so I asked her how the heck I should handle this latest of my messes. She told me a little over the counter burn medicine should do the trick and then she mentioned that marinating in a chemical laden swimming pool while jumping around in a polyester, chlorine-resistant swimsuit was probably not one of my best choices.
She is a good nurse. She was right. About all of it.
Life lesson learned:
You may not need one of those flimsy tissue paper seat covers in the kid’s play land bathroom at your local McDonald’s but, if you don’t teach your children how to clean the toilets properly, they may do something that will, quite literally, burn your hide…
Obviously, one always proceeds with caution but I’m not neurotic about it. I wash my hands thoroughly, I squat if it looks risky and I do that thing where you use the paper towel to open the door. Other than that, as dad used to say, “If you don’t go when you gotta go, when you go to go you find you went”. I have trained my children up with this same, worry-free process and – thus far – we’ve all been problem free.
So, the other night I was tidying up around the house. My in-laws were coming into town for an overnight stay on their way to warmer weather and I was going to have to toss dinner in front of them and then head out the door for work (I am a water aerobics instructor). My adorable, loving, practically-eleven-year-old daughter asked if she could help me by cleaning the bathrooms.
Who says “no” to that? Not this mom!
I did my thing. She did hers. The boys did a thing that involved Legos, superheroes and a barking Brussels Griffon/Poodle mix. Everyone was happy and I was experiencing some serious “Mommy Pride”. The pre-teen offered to help CLEAN THE BATHROOMS! I must be a seriously gifted parent.
Then, the dinner hour chaos struck. It’s the same in every home with small children. You’ve been there, too.
It goes like this:
The hubs walked in, the in-laws called to say they were 15 minutes away, the kids began to literally fade away from hunger right before our very eyes, the dog asked to go out, the oven timer dinged, a telemarketer called and I might have screamed something about living in a three-ring-circus but that part is just a little bit fuzzy.
Thankfully, dinner – and all of its grateful recipients – made it to the table and I was finally free to pack my bag and head to work. I ran around looking for a dry swimsuit and my favorite comb that always seems to get “borrowed”.
And here’s the other thing that we moms are all too familiar with:
There is never time to – ahem - “go” until your bladder has reached maximum capacity and you are in danger of sneezing your way into a clean pair of blue jeans. I knew I wasn’t going to make it the 10 mile drive to work without a quick pit stop so I hit the head (Can women use that expression? I have no idea what the actual origins are for that phrase.).
Anyway, I sat down and after a second or two I began to notice a burning sensation across the back of my tushie. It was one of those things that don’t register immediately and, by the time I figured out what was going on, it was too late.
I don’t know what my beautiful child used to swab the john in the master bath, but whatever it was left me with a chemical burn on my buttocks.
I was running late, I didn’t want to embarrass my daughter and I didn’t want my in-laws to know that I burned my butt so I did what all good wives do…I called in hubsy and snuck out the back door.
The ride to work was fine so I assumed that my quick cool water rinse had done the trick. Then I stepped into the pool.
The ladies in my class giggled when I screamed but only because they thought it was another of my silly outbursts over the frigid water.
Not this time, my friends. Not this time.
Fortunately, one of the gals in my class is a nurse so I asked her how the heck I should handle this latest of my messes. She told me a little over the counter burn medicine should do the trick and then she mentioned that marinating in a chemical laden swimming pool while jumping around in a polyester, chlorine-resistant swimsuit was probably not one of my best choices.
She is a good nurse. She was right. About all of it.
Life lesson learned:
You may not need one of those flimsy tissue paper seat covers in the kid’s play land bathroom at your local McDonald’s but, if you don’t teach your children how to clean the toilets properly, they may do something that will, quite literally, burn your hide…
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
You Say It's Your Birthday? Well It's My Birthday, Too!
Worst.
Birthday.
Ever.
I don’t know why, but this one is killing me. I’ve been in serious mental anguish for the last week and a half. I feel old. I feel powerless. I feel like it’s over before it even started. I should probably see somebody. Or I could close the curtains and take to my bed.
But I won’t.
Because I’m the mom and they need me and no one would understand anyway because it’s not my birthday.
It’s the Big Girl. She turned ten and I am already so over this “growing up” thing. In fact, I was over it the day before it even happened.
When she was still nine and 364ths.
I swear to you – and I am not even exaggerating – that just yesterday she was urping strained carrots and wriggling baby poo out the side of her diaper into the toes of her footie pajamas.
Yesterday.
And you might think to yourself, “Urp and poo? Get over it!”
But I can’t. Because that urp came out of the cutest little chubby cheeks and that poo got stuck between the tiniest little pink toes.
And now she closes the bathroom door to poo (who knew that would be the beginning of the end?) and the only time I see the toes is when she asks me if she can have a pedicure.
What?!
You’re ten. You can have a pedicure when you can pay for it and drive yourself to the salon. Which, based on the “Parenting Time Warp” that I just recently discovered, should be possible sometime the end of next week.
That is, if my “Time Warp” math is correct.
Basically, I only have about a minute before she packs up and heads off to college. One more minute to turn her into a responsible and respectful adult.
Crap.
Thankfully – despite my best efforts to the contrary – she is already a pretty great kid. A really great kid. She’s kind and funny and she tries really hard to always do her best work. Yet, not a day goes by that I don’t wonder at the stupidity (thinly disguised as parenting) that comes out of my mouth. But, in my defense, I really thought I had more time to fix the mistakes that I’ve made.
Then she went and turned ten, which is way more than halfway to “I’m outta here”.
Plus, I found out that all of those obnoxious people who stop new parents in the grocery store to say things like, “enjoy this time with them” and “they grow up so fast” were on to something. As if I could hear anything they had to say through the fog of sleeplessness and stink.
As if.
And now it’s too late to listen to all of those folks who actually knew what they were talking about because the girl is already ten!
Ten.
I’m going to go hug her before she moves out…
Birthday.
Ever.
I don’t know why, but this one is killing me. I’ve been in serious mental anguish for the last week and a half. I feel old. I feel powerless. I feel like it’s over before it even started. I should probably see somebody. Or I could close the curtains and take to my bed.
But I won’t.
Because I’m the mom and they need me and no one would understand anyway because it’s not my birthday.
It’s the Big Girl. She turned ten and I am already so over this “growing up” thing. In fact, I was over it the day before it even happened.
When she was still nine and 364ths.
I swear to you – and I am not even exaggerating – that just yesterday she was urping strained carrots and wriggling baby poo out the side of her diaper into the toes of her footie pajamas.
Yesterday.
And you might think to yourself, “Urp and poo? Get over it!”
But I can’t. Because that urp came out of the cutest little chubby cheeks and that poo got stuck between the tiniest little pink toes.
And now she closes the bathroom door to poo (who knew that would be the beginning of the end?) and the only time I see the toes is when she asks me if she can have a pedicure.
What?!
You’re ten. You can have a pedicure when you can pay for it and drive yourself to the salon. Which, based on the “Parenting Time Warp” that I just recently discovered, should be possible sometime the end of next week.
That is, if my “Time Warp” math is correct.
Basically, I only have about a minute before she packs up and heads off to college. One more minute to turn her into a responsible and respectful adult.
Crap.
Thankfully – despite my best efforts to the contrary – she is already a pretty great kid. A really great kid. She’s kind and funny and she tries really hard to always do her best work. Yet, not a day goes by that I don’t wonder at the stupidity (thinly disguised as parenting) that comes out of my mouth. But, in my defense, I really thought I had more time to fix the mistakes that I’ve made.
Then she went and turned ten, which is way more than halfway to “I’m outta here”.
Plus, I found out that all of those obnoxious people who stop new parents in the grocery store to say things like, “enjoy this time with them” and “they grow up so fast” were on to something. As if I could hear anything they had to say through the fog of sleeplessness and stink.
As if.
And now it’s too late to listen to all of those folks who actually knew what they were talking about because the girl is already ten!
Ten.
I’m going to go hug her before she moves out…
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Boxelder Bug: Friend or Foe?
This is a particularly bad year for the boxelder bug infestation on our property and in our home. According to my limited research, those little guys hide out in walls and attics for the winter and come out into the open to visit on warm, sunny days. Milder weather means more bugs so obviously some years are worse than others. The last really bad year was the fall the twins were three. One of the boys hated those bugs so much that he would yell at them and jump up and down or stomp whenever one approached. He was so distressed that I eventually left the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the living room with the attachment hose connected and showed him how to turn it on and off. Several times over the course of any given day that winter I would hear the machine turn on followed by the “fwoop, fwoop, fwoop” of little bugs being sucked to their death.
The following two years weren’t so bad and the presence of the little red-winged squatters went relatively unnoticed.
Not this year. This year those guys are all up in everything around this place. Unfortunately for them, the boys are now six and bugs are less like scary mini-beasts and more like teeny-tiny little playmates.
It is sort of unfair for the bugs.
Truly.
Because 100 million winged insects are no match for two kindergarten boys.
Evidently, the torture began this fall, when the bugs first started to arrive in their bedroom window. They decided to try to colonize the boxelders by stuffing every single one that they found into the heat vent in their floor. When I first discovered that this was happening, nearly three months after it all started, they appeared to be very sincere in their belief that their teeny friends were happily setting up house in the vents beneath their floor. Sort of like underground ant tunnels. Right? Unfortunately, when we removed the grate, we did not find the picturesque boxelder bug village that they imagined.
We found a heaping pile of cremated insect.
Then, quite by accident, they discovered that boxelder bugs could swim. This led to a house-wide collection of the little guys so that they could host a “Boxelder Bug Swim Meet”.
In the toilet.
A few days later they offered their friends a high intensity carnival-type ride. By which I mean that they stuffed a balloon from the local hardware store with bugs, blew it up and released it from the balcony in our home – thereby blowing a lovely combination of boxelders and boy spit all over the living room.
Another day, I found several of them suction cupped to the glass sliding door with Nerf “bullets”.
Ummm…gross.
So, by now you are probably thinking, “Boxelder Bugs? Foe, I say! FOE!”
Well, I would have agreed with you until my boys launched their latest mission.
They came out of their bedroom and announced to me that they were going in search of the “Boxelder Bug Nest”.
I have no idea what sort of epic adventure they were envisioning but they were prepared. One boy was wearing his Spy Gear Night Vision Goggles. The other boy was wearing a Kung Fu Panda sweatband with toilet paper tubes tucked in over each ear. They both had on Spiderman fanny packs stocked with fruit snacks and string cheese. The boy with the goggles was wearing a cape and the other had a Nerf gun stuck in under the strap on his fanny pack. One of them was also wearing a belt over his sweatshirt but that appeared to be less about function and more about style.
I didn’t ask any questions other than “whuzzup little explorer dudes”?
They outlined their plans in a whisper, peeked around the basement door and tiptoed down the stairs.
Full disclosure: I ever so carefully closed the basement door behind them and did not check on them once the whole time they were down there. They were very quiet. For an hour.
An entire hour.
Do you have any idea what a stay-at-home-mom can accomplish in one uninterrupted hour?
I didn’t know either because in ten years of parenting, IT’S NEVER HAPPENED!
Here’s what one could feasibly do in an hour:
Empty the dishwasher in record time. Spend five minutes vacillating between throwing out all of the Tupperware, reorganizing the cupboard to make it all fit or just slamming the door with the hope that everything falls out on someone that isn’t you. Settle on option three.
Clean the kid’s bathroom. Including the section behind the toilet where the hand towel always seems to mysteriously land in a puddle of pee.
Put away the grownup's laundry. Because, given time, the kid's laundry always gets put away first. Grownups can get a pair of socks out of the bottom of the laundry basket without dumping out every other neatly folded piece of clothing in the place. Kids can’t.
Speaking of socks, a mom might decide to go ahead and clean out her sock drawer while she’s putting away laundry. Good thing - because who knew that she would find a pair of panty hose from her wedding nearly fourteen years ago? What we can’t seem to figure out is why she decided to try them on and make the startling discovery that “muffin top” is a wholly inadequate description of the phenomenon that occurs when one tries to squeeze a mom body into a pair of tights from her youth.
Fortunately, there was still time left in the hour for the mom to viciously stuff the hose into the trash and soothe her scarred soul with a handful of chocolate.
In short, it was probably the most productive hour I have experienced in years.
Thanks to the boxelder bugs.
So, Mr. Boxelder, let me shake your teensy weensy hand and call you “friend”.
Welcome.
Mi casa, su casa…
The following two years weren’t so bad and the presence of the little red-winged squatters went relatively unnoticed.
Not this year. This year those guys are all up in everything around this place. Unfortunately for them, the boys are now six and bugs are less like scary mini-beasts and more like teeny-tiny little playmates.
It is sort of unfair for the bugs.
Truly.
Because 100 million winged insects are no match for two kindergarten boys.
Evidently, the torture began this fall, when the bugs first started to arrive in their bedroom window. They decided to try to colonize the boxelders by stuffing every single one that they found into the heat vent in their floor. When I first discovered that this was happening, nearly three months after it all started, they appeared to be very sincere in their belief that their teeny friends were happily setting up house in the vents beneath their floor. Sort of like underground ant tunnels. Right? Unfortunately, when we removed the grate, we did not find the picturesque boxelder bug village that they imagined.
We found a heaping pile of cremated insect.
Then, quite by accident, they discovered that boxelder bugs could swim. This led to a house-wide collection of the little guys so that they could host a “Boxelder Bug Swim Meet”.
In the toilet.
A few days later they offered their friends a high intensity carnival-type ride. By which I mean that they stuffed a balloon from the local hardware store with bugs, blew it up and released it from the balcony in our home – thereby blowing a lovely combination of boxelders and boy spit all over the living room.
Another day, I found several of them suction cupped to the glass sliding door with Nerf “bullets”.
Ummm…gross.
So, by now you are probably thinking, “Boxelder Bugs? Foe, I say! FOE!”
Well, I would have agreed with you until my boys launched their latest mission.
They came out of their bedroom and announced to me that they were going in search of the “Boxelder Bug Nest”.
I have no idea what sort of epic adventure they were envisioning but they were prepared. One boy was wearing his Spy Gear Night Vision Goggles. The other boy was wearing a Kung Fu Panda sweatband with toilet paper tubes tucked in over each ear. They both had on Spiderman fanny packs stocked with fruit snacks and string cheese. The boy with the goggles was wearing a cape and the other had a Nerf gun stuck in under the strap on his fanny pack. One of them was also wearing a belt over his sweatshirt but that appeared to be less about function and more about style.
I didn’t ask any questions other than “whuzzup little explorer dudes”?
They outlined their plans in a whisper, peeked around the basement door and tiptoed down the stairs.
Full disclosure: I ever so carefully closed the basement door behind them and did not check on them once the whole time they were down there. They were very quiet. For an hour.
An entire hour.
Do you have any idea what a stay-at-home-mom can accomplish in one uninterrupted hour?
I didn’t know either because in ten years of parenting, IT’S NEVER HAPPENED!
Here’s what one could feasibly do in an hour:
Empty the dishwasher in record time. Spend five minutes vacillating between throwing out all of the Tupperware, reorganizing the cupboard to make it all fit or just slamming the door with the hope that everything falls out on someone that isn’t you. Settle on option three.
Clean the kid’s bathroom. Including the section behind the toilet where the hand towel always seems to mysteriously land in a puddle of pee.
Put away the grownup's laundry. Because, given time, the kid's laundry always gets put away first. Grownups can get a pair of socks out of the bottom of the laundry basket without dumping out every other neatly folded piece of clothing in the place. Kids can’t.
Speaking of socks, a mom might decide to go ahead and clean out her sock drawer while she’s putting away laundry. Good thing - because who knew that she would find a pair of panty hose from her wedding nearly fourteen years ago? What we can’t seem to figure out is why she decided to try them on and make the startling discovery that “muffin top” is a wholly inadequate description of the phenomenon that occurs when one tries to squeeze a mom body into a pair of tights from her youth.
Fortunately, there was still time left in the hour for the mom to viciously stuff the hose into the trash and soothe her scarred soul with a handful of chocolate.
In short, it was probably the most productive hour I have experienced in years.
Thanks to the boxelder bugs.
So, Mr. Boxelder, let me shake your teensy weensy hand and call you “friend”.
Welcome.
Mi casa, su casa…
Friday, November 26, 2010
Finnegan
My daughter desperately wants a pet.
We have a cat but he is not enough. She never got to experience him as a kitten and now he is just a grumpy old man who hates kids and sleeps all day.
Her ideal pet would be a puppy but I have enough small bodies to clean up after and a puppy is not in the cards. If we get a pet, it needs to be a practical pet. A pet that gives back.
Like a chicken.
Anyway, she wants a pet so badly that at the beginning of the year she instigated a request for a pet in her fourth grade classroom. After much coercion, the teacher agreed to a fish. She brought in a bright blue Beta. They named it Finnegan.
I’m not sure how the other fourth graders feel about Finnegan but my daughter loves him. She feeds him most days and occasionally stays in at recess to clean out his tank. Because of her deep affection for Finnegan and her commitment to his care, her teacher allowed her to bring this class fish home for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Finnegan survived our house for three days and now the guy is belly up in his Tupperware travel tank.
Ding, dong the fish is dead, people!
Of course the fish is dead. Because that’s the kind of ridiculous crap that always happens here, just west of Wacky. The fish should have known better. The teacher should have known better. I should have known better.
That little blue back-stroker was cursed from the get go.
And now he's Finne-gone.
My daughter is wandering the house in her dirty pajamas quietly crying over the loss of her dear BFF (Blue Fish Finnegan).
I just sighed the “Mom Sigh”.
So, what do I do now?
Do I send the fish to school in a little cotton ball padded box so that her classmates can say good-bye?
Flush, cremate or bury?
Do I buy a new fish?
Do I buy the same color to help them forget or a new color to distinguish between the old fish and the new fish?
And, most importantly…
Can I call the new fish “Finn-again”?
We have a cat but he is not enough. She never got to experience him as a kitten and now he is just a grumpy old man who hates kids and sleeps all day.
Her ideal pet would be a puppy but I have enough small bodies to clean up after and a puppy is not in the cards. If we get a pet, it needs to be a practical pet. A pet that gives back.
Like a chicken.
Anyway, she wants a pet so badly that at the beginning of the year she instigated a request for a pet in her fourth grade classroom. After much coercion, the teacher agreed to a fish. She brought in a bright blue Beta. They named it Finnegan.
I’m not sure how the other fourth graders feel about Finnegan but my daughter loves him. She feeds him most days and occasionally stays in at recess to clean out his tank. Because of her deep affection for Finnegan and her commitment to his care, her teacher allowed her to bring this class fish home for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Finnegan survived our house for three days and now the guy is belly up in his Tupperware travel tank.
Ding, dong the fish is dead, people!
Of course the fish is dead. Because that’s the kind of ridiculous crap that always happens here, just west of Wacky. The fish should have known better. The teacher should have known better. I should have known better.
That little blue back-stroker was cursed from the get go.
And now he's Finne-gone.
My daughter is wandering the house in her dirty pajamas quietly crying over the loss of her dear BFF (Blue Fish Finnegan).
I just sighed the “Mom Sigh”.
So, what do I do now?
Do I send the fish to school in a little cotton ball padded box so that her classmates can say good-bye?
Flush, cremate or bury?
Do I buy a new fish?
Do I buy the same color to help them forget or a new color to distinguish between the old fish and the new fish?
And, most importantly…
Can I call the new fish “Finn-again”?
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Washed Up and Washed Out
My washing machine took a dump this morning.
It hit the spin cycle with my husband’s hockey gear tucked inside and then stopped. And then started. And then stopped. It sounded like “The Little Engine That Could” except it was more like, “Chug, chug, chug…Hell, no! Chug, chug, chug…No way! Chug, chug, chug…Give it up!”
Plus, I smelled something that reeked a teensy bit of melted rubber and that is never good.
I am not sure that this family of five can survive without a washing machine. Props to the pioneers for handling it old school with lye soap and washboards but the only kind of “mettle” in this 21st century gal is in one of my teeth. Which is obviously not going to get the laundry done.
Honestly, if I were my washing machine, I would have quit way before now. I mean, just last weekend I loaded up that guy with the fiesta of puke and poo left over from a six-year-old boy’s bout with the stomach flu. Not to mention my husband’s hockey and workout gear. No amount of spinning and rinsing can get the stink off that stuff.
To the machine’s credit, it lasted three years longer than its partner, the dryer. Both were replaced 12 years ago and the dryer pooped out first. We found out that the repair would cost nearly as much as a new dryer, and factoring in advancements in energy saving made a new one the more cost effective choice. Plus, the nice men at the store agreed to deliver it right to my house and carry the old one out and they didn’t even laugh at me when they got the old one in the truck and discovered it was still full of our undies.
Props to those guys, too.
But really, my friend the washing machine…did you have to die just before the holidays? In the season when the kids are wearing layers of clothes? Now that my husband is playing hockey twice a week and hunting? This is just cruel timing. It’s inconvenient. And, frankly, I would rather go without my right pinkie finger than my bestie, The Washer.
I’m serious. I haven’t used that thing since I gave up piano 20-something years ago and I almost never drink tea.
So, pinkies?
Whatev…
What I need is a washing machine.
I called my husband with the sad news and he told me to call a professional. That’s when I really lost it. I started to wail about scheduling those awful appointments where they tell you that they will be there sometime between 7:18am and 6:27pm. Then you have to wait while they order the backordered part and then they have to get you back on the appointment schedule (because they are only in your neck of the woods every other Tuesday in months that have an “r”) and then the part is the wrong one so the whole cycle starts all over again and it is NOT the washing machine cycle which is the only cycle that I am really interested in…
And when I paused to take a breath my husband said, “You can at least call and find out when they can look it over. And if that doesn’t work, maybe your dad can take a look at it”.
Is he the voice of reason in this relationship, or what?
My dad. That guy is all kinds of great things. Like handy, retired, local, and he doesn’t mind being paid with leftover Halloween candy. Plus, I am pretty sure that he remembers lye soap and washboards and I know that he wouldn’t want me to suffer those indignities.
Anyway, I called the 1-800 number and turns out they can put me on the schedule for tomorrow. Sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. The visit will only cost me $69.95 plus parts and labor.
$69.95 plus parts and labor.
Sorta makes pinkies and Halloween candy look viable…
It hit the spin cycle with my husband’s hockey gear tucked inside and then stopped. And then started. And then stopped. It sounded like “The Little Engine That Could” except it was more like, “Chug, chug, chug…Hell, no! Chug, chug, chug…No way! Chug, chug, chug…Give it up!”
Plus, I smelled something that reeked a teensy bit of melted rubber and that is never good.
I am not sure that this family of five can survive without a washing machine. Props to the pioneers for handling it old school with lye soap and washboards but the only kind of “mettle” in this 21st century gal is in one of my teeth. Which is obviously not going to get the laundry done.
Honestly, if I were my washing machine, I would have quit way before now. I mean, just last weekend I loaded up that guy with the fiesta of puke and poo left over from a six-year-old boy’s bout with the stomach flu. Not to mention my husband’s hockey and workout gear. No amount of spinning and rinsing can get the stink off that stuff.
To the machine’s credit, it lasted three years longer than its partner, the dryer. Both were replaced 12 years ago and the dryer pooped out first. We found out that the repair would cost nearly as much as a new dryer, and factoring in advancements in energy saving made a new one the more cost effective choice. Plus, the nice men at the store agreed to deliver it right to my house and carry the old one out and they didn’t even laugh at me when they got the old one in the truck and discovered it was still full of our undies.
Props to those guys, too.
But really, my friend the washing machine…did you have to die just before the holidays? In the season when the kids are wearing layers of clothes? Now that my husband is playing hockey twice a week and hunting? This is just cruel timing. It’s inconvenient. And, frankly, I would rather go without my right pinkie finger than my bestie, The Washer.
I’m serious. I haven’t used that thing since I gave up piano 20-something years ago and I almost never drink tea.
So, pinkies?
Whatev…
What I need is a washing machine.
I called my husband with the sad news and he told me to call a professional. That’s when I really lost it. I started to wail about scheduling those awful appointments where they tell you that they will be there sometime between 7:18am and 6:27pm. Then you have to wait while they order the backordered part and then they have to get you back on the appointment schedule (because they are only in your neck of the woods every other Tuesday in months that have an “r”) and then the part is the wrong one so the whole cycle starts all over again and it is NOT the washing machine cycle which is the only cycle that I am really interested in…
And when I paused to take a breath my husband said, “You can at least call and find out when they can look it over. And if that doesn’t work, maybe your dad can take a look at it”.
Is he the voice of reason in this relationship, or what?
My dad. That guy is all kinds of great things. Like handy, retired, local, and he doesn’t mind being paid with leftover Halloween candy. Plus, I am pretty sure that he remembers lye soap and washboards and I know that he wouldn’t want me to suffer those indignities.
Anyway, I called the 1-800 number and turns out they can put me on the schedule for tomorrow. Sometime between the hours of 1pm and 5pm. The visit will only cost me $69.95 plus parts and labor.
$69.95 plus parts and labor.
Sorta makes pinkies and Halloween candy look viable…
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Lost, But Not Forgotten
There is a black hole of toys somewhere in my house.
If it’s not a black hole than its Casper the Toy Hiding Ghost. Or maybe there is an alternate plane of reality in the basement of which I am unaware. Or one of those secret cupboards hidden in the back of the closet. I’m leaning toward the paranormal because I’ve seen the blueprints for our house but I suppose one can never be certain…
In any case, there is some sort of top secret “Area 52” in my home where all good toys go to die. I know that I am not the only one who has one. In fact, at a recent wedding shower with friends, another gal mentioned cleaning out a game cupboard and finding three INCOMPLETE Scrabble games. Honestly, People. Does the “Z” chip really just get up and traipse across the “Double Word Score” to freedom?
I don’t think so.
Before children, these things rarely (if ever) came up missing. Now, a pair of matching Barbie shoes is a miracle worthy of papal attention.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been doing some fall cleaning now that the kids are back in school. I have already made two trips to the local Goodwill and now I am left with the stuff that I can’t figure out how to dump.
It causes me too much guilt.
I just can’t leave games with missing pieces at the VOA Store. It seems like a mean trick to dupe a fellow bargain seeker into buying a Disney Princess game that simply cannot be played properly without the totally unique eight-sided glass slipper die.
You have GOT to have the glass slipper die. Things wouldn’t be right without it.
I can’t throw these things away, either. I actually have nightmares about all of those bright little plastic bits languishing in a dump for all eternity. It’s like Wall-E in my head but without the cute soundtrack and happy ending.
I could just buy another game and merge the two but then I would still have an incomplete set and you can see what sort of an Idiot Circle that could quickly turn into.
I could also probably order just the pieces that I need on-line. And then pay $5 in shipping for a .25 part.
Sorry, but I am just too cheap for that kind of crazy behavior.
So, I did the only thing that I could reasonably do. I set out in search of the…
TOY BLACK HOLE (insert ominous piano chord series here).
This was a quest worthy of Frodo Baggins and his crew of weirdoes (except for the elf - who I still have a teeny crush on). And, boy, did I need me a magic wizard in the lead.
I don’t know if our house will ever be the same.
In case you are thinking of repeating the same mindless search in your house, here a few of the places I checked: pulled out all major appliances, looked inside the heat vents, poked through the contents of the vacuum, raked the sandbox, lifted all of the mattresses, and completed 47 puzzles in search of one missing piece.
To no avail.
I did find an unsuspected cache, albeit an obvious one. While vacuuming under the couch, I bumped my hand against the fabric base of the furniture and heard a little jingle. I reached in from the top and found all the pieces and parts I was missing the LAST time that I went on this rampage - I mean, cleaning binge – as well as a set of Pampered Chef bamboo tongs that I am pretty sure have been missing since New Year’s 2007. Upon hearing this good news, my husband (in a fit of genius) took his pocket knife to the fabric covering the bottom of the couch so that future bits and parts lost in this manner would fall directly to the floor. Not normal. Just necessary. In fact, one would think that furniture manufacturers would have discovered this faulty engineering decades ago.
Seriously, Peeps. It takes a mom.
So, absent any other options, I’ll just throw this out to all my readers…
Anyone need four red “Battleship” pins and a 150 piece dog puzzle that’s missing one corner?
Yeah. I didn’t think so…
If it’s not a black hole than its Casper the Toy Hiding Ghost. Or maybe there is an alternate plane of reality in the basement of which I am unaware. Or one of those secret cupboards hidden in the back of the closet. I’m leaning toward the paranormal because I’ve seen the blueprints for our house but I suppose one can never be certain…
In any case, there is some sort of top secret “Area 52” in my home where all good toys go to die. I know that I am not the only one who has one. In fact, at a recent wedding shower with friends, another gal mentioned cleaning out a game cupboard and finding three INCOMPLETE Scrabble games. Honestly, People. Does the “Z” chip really just get up and traipse across the “Double Word Score” to freedom?
I don’t think so.
Before children, these things rarely (if ever) came up missing. Now, a pair of matching Barbie shoes is a miracle worthy of papal attention.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been doing some fall cleaning now that the kids are back in school. I have already made two trips to the local Goodwill and now I am left with the stuff that I can’t figure out how to dump.
It causes me too much guilt.
I just can’t leave games with missing pieces at the VOA Store. It seems like a mean trick to dupe a fellow bargain seeker into buying a Disney Princess game that simply cannot be played properly without the totally unique eight-sided glass slipper die.
You have GOT to have the glass slipper die. Things wouldn’t be right without it.
I can’t throw these things away, either. I actually have nightmares about all of those bright little plastic bits languishing in a dump for all eternity. It’s like Wall-E in my head but without the cute soundtrack and happy ending.
I could just buy another game and merge the two but then I would still have an incomplete set and you can see what sort of an Idiot Circle that could quickly turn into.
I could also probably order just the pieces that I need on-line. And then pay $5 in shipping for a .25 part.
Sorry, but I am just too cheap for that kind of crazy behavior.
So, I did the only thing that I could reasonably do. I set out in search of the…
TOY BLACK HOLE (insert ominous piano chord series here).
This was a quest worthy of Frodo Baggins and his crew of weirdoes (except for the elf - who I still have a teeny crush on). And, boy, did I need me a magic wizard in the lead.
I don’t know if our house will ever be the same.
In case you are thinking of repeating the same mindless search in your house, here a few of the places I checked: pulled out all major appliances, looked inside the heat vents, poked through the contents of the vacuum, raked the sandbox, lifted all of the mattresses, and completed 47 puzzles in search of one missing piece.
To no avail.
I did find an unsuspected cache, albeit an obvious one. While vacuuming under the couch, I bumped my hand against the fabric base of the furniture and heard a little jingle. I reached in from the top and found all the pieces and parts I was missing the LAST time that I went on this rampage - I mean, cleaning binge – as well as a set of Pampered Chef bamboo tongs that I am pretty sure have been missing since New Year’s 2007. Upon hearing this good news, my husband (in a fit of genius) took his pocket knife to the fabric covering the bottom of the couch so that future bits and parts lost in this manner would fall directly to the floor. Not normal. Just necessary. In fact, one would think that furniture manufacturers would have discovered this faulty engineering decades ago.
Seriously, Peeps. It takes a mom.
So, absent any other options, I’ll just throw this out to all my readers…
Anyone need four red “Battleship” pins and a 150 piece dog puzzle that’s missing one corner?
Yeah. I didn’t think so…
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