In the car this morning:
Me: Gabriel, please stop chewing with your mouth open. You sound like a friggin' animal! (I normally hold back using even the "nice" swear words, but chewing noises make me lose my cool)
Gabe: {indignantly} Mommy, I am not a friggin' animal!
Said, of course, clear as day. Yeah, I'm that mom. Go ahead. Shun me.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I Hope Their Car is Stinky
Last night just as I was drifting off, I was yanked from the verge of peaceful slumber by the telltale sound of squealing tires, impact, glass breaking, and a speedy departure. Fearing a hit and run in front of our house, I ran to the front window to see that someone had swerved through our front yard and distributed our trash and recycling bin (full of glass, of course) all over the yard and street. Lovely. I called the local police who were lovely as pie and came out to check the situation. My main concern was to avoid any other accidents from the detritus on the street (and there is no way we were going to stand in a dark street and sweep). The officer and Mr. D got the larger bits off to the side (with the cruiser as a barricade), and we were told that they would send a crew in the morning to clean up the mess.
Given that you need to exert a bit of effort to jump the curbs in our area, the driver must have either been drinking, sleeping, or driving so fast that they overcompensated the turn. In any case...scary.
This morning, as I left the driveway, a public works truck was pulling up to our house, and Mr. D informed me that they cleaned the street and our yard of the whole mess. Our tax dollars at work! Seriously, though- I was impressed and grateful for the service. I guess that’s an advantage of living in a small suburban community.
And is it terrible of me to hope that one of the poopy baby diapers lodged in the undercarriage of the offender’s car...and that it is parked in the sun today getting nice and ripe?
Given that you need to exert a bit of effort to jump the curbs in our area, the driver must have either been drinking, sleeping, or driving so fast that they overcompensated the turn. In any case...scary.
This morning, as I left the driveway, a public works truck was pulling up to our house, and Mr. D informed me that they cleaned the street and our yard of the whole mess. Our tax dollars at work! Seriously, though- I was impressed and grateful for the service. I guess that’s an advantage of living in a small suburban community.
And is it terrible of me to hope that one of the poopy baby diapers lodged in the undercarriage of the offender’s car...and that it is parked in the sun today getting nice and ripe?
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Gabe-isms
I'm short on time, but I thought I'd tickle you with some Gabe-isms.
Latte = milk (Yes, I know that most of you realize this, but you'd be surprised how many people think the kid is asking for coffee.)
Has no words = doesn't talk ("Mommy, the squirrel has no words.")
Cheesy bread = grilled cheese
Monster, Donkey, and Lady = Shrek movie
10, 9 ...... 3, 2, 1, BLASTOFF! = the microwave is done
Pack-pack = backpack
I made a snake = I pooped in the potty (yes, we've had some success...halleluiah!)
Back to cleaning...I have houseguests coming in eight days. Gah!
Latte = milk (Yes, I know that most of you realize this, but you'd be surprised how many people think the kid is asking for coffee.)
Has no words = doesn't talk ("Mommy, the squirrel has no words.")
Cheesy bread = grilled cheese
Monster, Donkey, and Lady = Shrek movie
10, 9 ...... 3, 2, 1, BLASTOFF! = the microwave is done
Pack-pack = backpack
I made a snake = I pooped in the potty (yes, we've had some success...halleluiah!)
Back to cleaning...I have houseguests coming in eight days. Gah!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Green Wednesdays
I have decided that I need a bit of structure in the blogginess to keep me posting on a regular basis. And something that has been on my mind a lot more in the last year is being "green." How green am I? What can I do to be a little greener? Is it really making a difference to the planet?
Let me say up front that I am far from the greenest person you will meet. But I'm also not the, um, purplest (what is opposite of green anyway?). It's something I keep in mind, it's something that I'm not radical about, but I do try to take small steps as I can. I think that probably sums up the green state of a lot of people, which is part of why I wanted to share. Maybe one of you will give me a good idea of something else to greenify a piece of my life.
With all of that in mind, I have decided to make Wednesdays a theme day, and green it is. Because Wednesday is green. What? Your days of the week are not colors? No, I'm not synesthesic, I've just always thought of the days of the week as colors. Monday is red, Tuesday is yellow, Wednesday is green, Thursday is turquoise, and Friday is orange. Saturday is black and Sunday is white. Maybe it has something to do with notebooks in school when I was little. Maybe it was a book I read as a kid. Who knows?
So, I thought I would start with a question. What is your greenest habit? What is your most purple?
Most of my green habits are really little things, so I'm not sure which one is actually the greenest. I'm going to just pick one and say using my own dishes at work. I avoid the disposable plates, cups, and plasticware and just use the "real" thing for meals. And since I eat breakfast and lunch at work, that's more than half of my meals. I'm sure that the water and soap to wash the plates offsets the landfill volume a bit, but I still feel good about it.
My most purple activity has to be the disposable diapers. I thought long and hard about using cloth. And then I took a realistic look at how many hours I work, how many Mr. D works, and realized that we would literally be drowning in dirty diapers and would be miserable. Not to mention that we would likely negate any benefit of using cloth by ordering takeout all the time, spraying nasty chemicals around our house which would be littered with dirty cloth diapers, and going to the store to buy more cloth diapers because we were out and they were all dirty and scattered around the house.
How about you?
Let me say up front that I am far from the greenest person you will meet. But I'm also not the, um, purplest (what is opposite of green anyway?). It's something I keep in mind, it's something that I'm not radical about, but I do try to take small steps as I can. I think that probably sums up the green state of a lot of people, which is part of why I wanted to share. Maybe one of you will give me a good idea of something else to greenify a piece of my life.
With all of that in mind, I have decided to make Wednesdays a theme day, and green it is. Because Wednesday is green. What? Your days of the week are not colors? No, I'm not synesthesic, I've just always thought of the days of the week as colors. Monday is red, Tuesday is yellow, Wednesday is green, Thursday is turquoise, and Friday is orange. Saturday is black and Sunday is white. Maybe it has something to do with notebooks in school when I was little. Maybe it was a book I read as a kid. Who knows?
So, I thought I would start with a question. What is your greenest habit? What is your most purple?
Most of my green habits are really little things, so I'm not sure which one is actually the greenest. I'm going to just pick one and say using my own dishes at work. I avoid the disposable plates, cups, and plasticware and just use the "real" thing for meals. And since I eat breakfast and lunch at work, that's more than half of my meals. I'm sure that the water and soap to wash the plates offsets the landfill volume a bit, but I still feel good about it.
My most purple activity has to be the disposable diapers. I thought long and hard about using cloth. And then I took a realistic look at how many hours I work, how many Mr. D works, and realized that we would literally be drowning in dirty diapers and would be miserable. Not to mention that we would likely negate any benefit of using cloth by ordering takeout all the time, spraying nasty chemicals around our house which would be littered with dirty cloth diapers, and going to the store to buy more cloth diapers because we were out and they were all dirty and scattered around the house.
How about you?
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
I'm fine...mostly
Many thanks for the support the other day. I probably made Mr. D sound like a monster, but, to his defense, I really was being a bit of a pain in the butt. I was getting quite overwhelmed with work and ended up taking out my stress on the people closest to me. I know that's totally normal, but I still feel bad for doing it. So, don't send hate vibes to Mr. D. He needs all the help he can get--he's married to me after all. :-)
I was finally able to relax a little (only a little) and so we went on Friday night to see an outdoor concert at a local park. We took a picnic dinner with us, which excited Gabriel to no end (he is lately obsessed with the idea of having picnics). Because I was operating on squishy brain Thursday night, I forgot to buy lunchmeat for sandwiches. So, we had cold sesame noodles and cucumbers. I also brought some little cans of peaches for the kids and some homemade banana muffins for dessert. The kids loved it, although it was a bit messier than I had wanted for an outing. Oh well. We decided when we arrived to sit in the area where most of the families seem to gather. As I sat there and people-watched, I realized that the audience was almost enirely yuppies and hippies (well, old hippies with money- what the heck do you call those?). Everyone (including us) had their dinner packed in a wicker picnic basket. Most people had wine with them (not us- poor planning). And our entire section was chock full of kids and pregnant women (all of whom were wearing black dresses on a really hot day...I was sweating just looking at them).
Because the neighboring blankets were so close, I was able to overhear a lot of conversations, and one comment captured the flavor of the crowd so well that I thought to myself--I must blog this. A young girl asked her mom if she could have some butter on her bread. The mom replied, "Sorry, honey, I didn't bring any butter. Here, have some pate."
I was finally able to relax a little (only a little) and so we went on Friday night to see an outdoor concert at a local park. We took a picnic dinner with us, which excited Gabriel to no end (he is lately obsessed with the idea of having picnics). Because I was operating on squishy brain Thursday night, I forgot to buy lunchmeat for sandwiches. So, we had cold sesame noodles and cucumbers. I also brought some little cans of peaches for the kids and some homemade banana muffins for dessert. The kids loved it, although it was a bit messier than I had wanted for an outing. Oh well. We decided when we arrived to sit in the area where most of the families seem to gather. As I sat there and people-watched, I realized that the audience was almost enirely yuppies and hippies (well, old hippies with money- what the heck do you call those?). Everyone (including us) had their dinner packed in a wicker picnic basket. Most people had wine with them (not us- poor planning). And our entire section was chock full of kids and pregnant women (all of whom were wearing black dresses on a really hot day...I was sweating just looking at them).
Because the neighboring blankets were so close, I was able to overhear a lot of conversations, and one comment captured the flavor of the crowd so well that I thought to myself--I must blog this. A young girl asked her mom if she could have some butter on her bread. The mom replied, "Sorry, honey, I didn't bring any butter. Here, have some pate."
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