Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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| M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Thursday, May 08, 2008 War of Attrition We've hated the carpet that came with this house ever since we bought it, sixteen years ago. Okay, that's an exaggeration. Before we moved everything in, we had it professionally steam-cleaned and it looked pretty good. For a few weeks. Then we realized that we were probably going to have to break down and buy a vacuum cleaner. But even that wasn't going to keep it looking nice for more than a few days after our increasingly frequent visits from the guys with the van and the big hose. Tearing out the carpet in the study six years ago was liberating. Doing it in the living room four years ago was also liberating. By that timeline, we were probably due to take care of the back bedroom two years ago, but we had a one-and-a-half-year-old back then and the only liberation we were getting in that period of our lives was naptime. But this past Sunday, I talked Trash into taking on that final room with me. Normally she's the one who motivates us to do these big household projects, whereas I would rather sit around and read or watch movies or play computer games than spend my weekend renovating the garage, or fixing an electrical outlet, or unloading the dishwasher. But as I pointed out to her on Sunday, we're going to have visitors for the next few weekends, plus Sunday was a nice, warm sunny day, perfect for taking all the shit out of that room through the back door and piling it on the deck for a few hours. That did it. So by ten o'clock, the spare bed was in pieces in the living room, and the rest of the furniture from that room was piled on the deck along with about half of M. Small's toys. Trash and I tore the carpet out, leaving the back door open so we could keep an eye on the kid in the backyard (or, more accurately, call out to the next-door neighbor every few minutes to make sure he wasn't bugging her too much). I only slashed my thumb on a rusty carpet tack once in the process of getting the carpet out of there, and Trash was almost entirely uninjured. Even better, after almost a week without experiencing any symptoms, I'm fairly confident that my tetanus shots were up to date after all. Except I kind of tricked Trash. I had more or less implied that we'd just take out the carpet and be done. But before we moved everything back in, I wanted to also take the carpet out of the closet, fix the closet door that's been sticking (a sawdust-intensive process), paint the inch of newly-exposed puke-beige baseboard between the floor and where the carpet used to be, and then sweep and Swiffer the hardwood (which, by the way, is in the best shape of any room we've done this to). Anyway, short story long, it was late afternoon and all that stuff was still out on the deck. We were kind of putting off the restocking, you see, each for reasons of our own. Trash wanted to leave the bed out and replace it with the futon and frame. The only problem with that plan was that we own neither a futon nor a frame. Whereas I was procrastinating because my usual laziness had reasserted itself. But a neighbor family up the street happened to stop by, and when they wondered if the sight of all our crap out and exposed to the elements meant that we were being evicted, we both abandoned our reservations and loaded everything back in. Well, we abandoned them temporarily. Which is to say that Trash is still looking for futons on Craigslist and I'm still lazy. But I'm still declaring victory, because as of now, every bit of that hateful, awful, depressing, stain-magnet carpet is out of our house forever. Except for one scrap in the basement. I'm keeping that for the cats to pee on. posted by M. Giant 8:53 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:
"Normally she's the one who motivates us to do these big household projects"
By I just don't understand the point of wall to wall carpeting. Congrats on ridding yourself of it. Monday, May 05, 2008 First Day M. Small picked out his own lunchbox for school. It's plastic and shaped like a ladybug. If a kid makes fun of M. Small's lunchbox today, I will bury it in that kid's head. Which will be okay, because M. Small will probably want a different lunchbox anyway. Yes, it's M. Small's first day of Montessori school. We knew this day was coming, and so did M. Small. That didn't make it any easier for us. Trash and me, I mean. M. Small was just fine. We went together to drop him off, because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to handle it. It was hard enough watching him jauntily snag his lunchbox off the center island without being asked and trundle towards the car like he's been doing this every morning. "Look at him!" Trash and I whispered to each other. "Doesn't he realize this is killing us? Couldn't he take pity on us and act a little worried?" I'm not sure why this feels harder than his first day at day care. Maybe we just don't remember that as well, because it was three years ago and we were sleep-deprived. Or maybe it was because back then he was a powerless blob who experienced the world as one might experience a particularly chaotic screensaver and today he's a person who can walk around and tells us what he's thinking about and what he's feeling and what each stage of a Saturn V rocket does. He chattered happily in the car the whole way there. He did ask me to carry his lunchbox into the school, but while we waited outside to be let in, he told us he was excited. And then, inside, he kind of wandered around quietly, not sure what to do with the three or four other kids who were already there. The early-shift teacher showed him his new locker, into which he wanted to put everything he had. He put the toy jet he'd brought in there. He tried to put his lunchbox in there. He took off his sweatshirt and put it in there. I think he would have happily gone home to get more stuff to put in there if we'd offered. He'll probably want to pack a suitcase tomorrow. While Trash talked to the teacher about logistics and business stuff, I squatted down and quietly talked to M. Small. "Are you nervous?" I asked. "Yes," he said, barely audibly. "That's okay. New situations are always nervous, and this is really new. I know you'll do great. I'm so proud of you." "Okay." He wasn't crying when Trash and I left, but his solemn blue eyes were fixed on us as the door closed behind us. The crying took place after the door was shut. And I couldn't even tell you if there was any crying on his side of the door. It was 8:00 a.m. It was going to be a long day. Trash called me on my cell phone at 8:15. "I'm going to go get him," she said. "Not if I get him first," I responded. Eventually we talked each other down. But it's still going to be a long day. posted by M. Giant 11:20 AM 14 comments 14 Comments:Hang in there guys!
By Hey, we're in sync...today is Miss Kelly's first day of daycare. We're where you were three years ago! Hugs all around. "That's okay. New situations are always nervous, and this is really new. I know you'll do great. I'm so proud of you.".....these are words you will utter for the next 12 years! I am a longtime reader, and love reading your blog, and this post made me cry. My "baby" graduates high school in 3 weeks; it does not get any easier! Best of luck and congrats on this newest milestone in his life!
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Ohhh man, this made me cry. Beautiful post.
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Don't worry--I've got a friend with two girls in Montessori pre-school, and the girls LOVE it. (You're in MN, right? It's the one up in Shoreview.) They come home talking about the "work" they did that day and the kids they played with and the songs they sang. It helped my friend get over the separation anxiety pretty quickly, knowing that her kids were having such a good time.
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Our 5 year old basically left us in the dust when she started pre-k 2 years ago. If he's in school isn't it about time to upgrade his nickname to M.Edium?
Awwwwww mannnnn... I just had a flash. I hope you all survived the first day and had a tearless morning. I of course having just read your blog of yesterday have done enough crying for you and the Mrs. Add my tears to those of "me at 6:02am". Now, please to post and tell us how it went!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Aw I was all set to be melancholy and sweet with you and then I saw KG's comment and I can't stop giggling!
Aw, he'll do great, and so will you!
I remember the first time the wife and I left our daughter with "strangers"...
By I didn’t go to daycare or any pre-K school, so I was very excited for Kindergarten. I got up that first morning and put on my dress, but couldn’t zip it up in the back. So I just put my jacket on over it and decided I would ask my teacher to help me. I went next door to meet up with the kids who were going to walk with me to school, but they weren’t ready, so I carried on alone. I was just getting to the school when my mom showed up, opened the car door and growled “Get in the car.” I guess Kindergarten didn’t start at 6 a.m.
By Thursday, May 01, 2008 Green Telecommuting Of all the things I like about my current day job, my favorite would have to be the fact that I get to work at home on Wednesday. It's not only convenient, it's a huge moneysaver. And it's good for the planet as well. Here's how: When I telecommute, I don't have to drive to work. That means that I save money on gas, and reduce my carbon footprint, all at the same time. This became even more true when I stopped idling my car in the driveway all day just in case I was called into the office for an emergency. I don't have to dress up to work at home. I can be just as productive in my pajamas, or in the previous day's clothes. This means we don't have to do as much laundry (which saves money on our gas and water bill) or buy as many clothes (which are expensive, and which I hate doing). I also save money on our electricity by fully recharging my laptop at work the day before and then using the battery to do my work at home. This also has a twofold benefit: I'm able to work until about 11:30 in the morning or so before my battery punks out, and then I spend the rest of the day napping. Which, again, reduces my carbon footprint. It's now getting nice enough that I can work outside on the back deck during the day. I just bring my laptop out, borrow the neighbors' wireless connection (it's not stealing if they know I'm doing it), and do my thing. That's not really economically or environmentally advantageous; I just like it. Another cost benefit of working at home is the absence of vending machines tempting me with their overpriced, overpackaged wares. If I get hungry, I can just raid our own pantry. Which is free. I would go even further, but since Trash usually works at home on Wednesdays as well, she insists that I flush the toilet every time I use it. I just hope she'll still be able to look our son in the eye when he's old enough to ask, "Mommy, what did you do to save the environment?" posted by M. Giant 8:31 PM 2 comments 2 Comments:
Working outside lets you save electricity and keep an eye on all that nature you're saving. It also promotes physical well-being since you have to walk back into the house for supplies. Unless you're working in the middle of a veggie garden, in which case you can just graze.
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If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down. Monday, April 28, 2008 Shopping for the Apocalypse Trash sent me to the wholesaler near my office the other day to "stock up on staples." First of all, let me tell you about this wholesale outlet. It's highly convenient to my workplace -- almost literally next door, although the fact that we're talking about multi-acre property lots makes walking there a nonstarter. However, it sits at the top of a hill, which means that as soon as you get out of your car you're lashed by frozen winds that have arrived unobstructed from the Arctic Circle. Even in July. The kind of wind that makes you stump along the pavement, stoop-shouldered, with your hood up whether you're wearing one or not, hissing to yourself, "We hates it, preciouss, yes we does." Also, it was raining uphill. But once inside, I had a mission. Trash has gotten word that food prices will be going up sharply in the near future, so I was instructed to prepare. "Am I shopping for a recession or for a nuclear holocaust?" I asked, seeking clarification. Trash didn't know what that meant, but when she asked me to just get non-perishables, I took her at her word and assumed that I was to prepare for a scenario in which we had no utilities and were besieged by CHUDs. So I stalked the non-refrigerated food aisles, loading up my cart with large quantities of anything austere that we can store indefinitely in our basement (the garage is out, thanks to that little fucker Squirrel Goodnut). A giant box of crackers. Cans of tuna by the dozen (albacore, naturally; the end of the world is no excuse to bail on the dolphins). Canned soup by the dozen. A brace of giant peanut butter jugs. A 25-pound bag of rice, to go with the other one. Enough spaghetti to line up the noodles halfway to Venus. Beef jerky, which we never buy except at gas stations during road trips. Even -- shudder -- canned turkey. Which, if we ever actually eat it, we'll know we are very hungry. I also considered getting some bulk cat food for Phantom and Exie, but they need a certain kind and we'll need them to be healthy when disaster strikes. Otherwise they won't be very nutritious when it comes time to eat them. I'm kidding, obviously, but it's kind of weird, the mindset you get into when shopping for stuff like this. You imagine the circumstances under which you'll actually be eating this crap, and the next thing you know you want to go up to the people browsing the plasma TVs, grab them by the shoulders, and scream into their faces, "Don't you see? It doesn't matter! We're all going to DIIIIIIEEEEE!" That didn't keep me from refraining from buying the bulk brand-name cereal , of course. The off-brand stuff in the giant bags at the regular grocery store is probably still cheaper on a per-ounce basis, and I still have time to comparison-shop before the thousand years of darkness descend upon the land. But after spending less than two hundred dollars, I felt pretty good about the stash of goods I had accumulated. I look forward to a romantic evening of cooking it on the camp stove by the fading illumination of a four-cell Maglite. Now when the desperate, gun-toting gangs of marauders come knocking, I'll have something to hand over to them. Plus it put the return trek across the parking lot into a little perspective. For about ten seconds, that is, and then I was just cold and pissed. Stupid CHUDs. posted by M. Giant 4:02 PM 6 comments 6 Comments:I think about that same apocalyptic crap whenever I shop at S@m's Club, plus I worry about whether my 3-year-old could get into the food if her father and I were killed and she were left to fend for herself (one too many news stories about toddlers who survived the massacre of their family and then had to live on ketchup). Then once I'm home there's the dilemma of whether to store those food items on the bottom shelves, where she can reach them in case I'm dead, or on the top shelf so she doesn't tear into it and eat herself into a food coma while I'm still alive.
CHUDs! Walking in Soho hasn't been the same since I rewatched that movie a few months ago.
Am I the only one who, upon reading the first line of this entry thought, "gee, I wonder why they need so many staples? Are they putting a lot of fliers together or something?"
Hey, I was just writing about planning for the impending apocalypse the other day! I'm not yet at the stock-up-on-food-women-and-children-first
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No, Shawna, not just you. I was wondering why anyone needed to go to a warehouse to get staples. Dude, each small box has thousands of the things! I may be wrong, but the word "staples" gave me the impression of foodstuffs that are nessisary for living.
By Thursday, April 24, 2008 Cars and Questions After several hundred viewings of Cars, I thought I'd come up with all the questions that could be asked about it. But this post from Monty made me realize I was wrong. Thanks Monty, for giving me an excuse to write about an untimely subject that's been kicking around in my head for the last year. Now I can share my other questions: How much experimentation and screen testing did Pixar do with the cars' windshield-based eyes, in terms of distance apart and size, to arrive at the coefficient value of both guaranteed to provide maximum cuteness? I bet it was a lot. Somewhere in Emeryville there's a Mac whose trash folder is stuffed with discarded versions of Lightning McQueen looking like everyone from South Park characters to Brandy. Why do the cars all have side and back windows if they can only see out their windshields? And how fucking terrifying would it be if they had a 360-degree field of vision like you do in a real car? Remember that moment in the big tiebreaker race where McQueen catches up to Chick Hicks in reverse using his new mirrors? It would have been a completely different movie if we saw two humongous blue irises peering through the back window while his windshield went zombie-white. I'm just saying. What's inside a Cars car? Seats and a dashboard and a steering wheel? Or gooey, squinchy brains and guts, like the interior of a new-school Cylon Raider? Unfortunately, Sarge the army jeep keeps his canvas roof buttoned up tight so we never find out. And it's not like there are any motorcycles zooming around. Also, the bit where Minnie and Van lock their doors is funny, until you think about the fact that it means that up to this point in the movie, they've been driving around in a state that will allow any old vehicle to roll up to them, open a passenger door, and spill their prefrontal lobes and hypothalami right out onto the pavement. Of course, opening that door would require opposable thumbs, which of course none of the cars have. We've always been told that opposable thumbs are what allowed our species to rise from the primordial slime and ultimately build our towering civilization. But apparently prehensile tires and windshield wipers would have worked just as well. Early on, McQueen is disgusted to be passed on the highway by a van with a mattress tied to its roof. Okay, by this time we've already established that this in a parallel universe with no humans in it, so who the fuck's going to be sleeping on that mattress, anyway? The cars of Cars inhabit a world where representations of car parts are everywhere. McQueen competes for the Piston Cup, a trophy shaped like a car's piston. Radiator Springs is in Ornament Valley, an area marked by giant rock formations shaped like hood ornaments and radiator caps. Sally dreams of reopening the Wheel Well Hotel, a classy overnight spot for cars with a façade shaped like, obviously, a wheel well. It's all cool to us, but if you were a car, wouldn't you find this a little macabre? Jeff Gordon doesn't race for the Aorta Cup. A valley full of rock formations shaped like giant noses would creep everyone out, with or without a town nestled among them called Sweat Gland Springs. And can you imagine a high-end hotel calling itself the Shoulder Joint, let alone going out of its way to look like one? Finally, where do new cars come from in this universe? Mack uses the quasi-religious expression "Thank the manufacturer" at one point, which suggests some kind of celestial assembly line. But then there's a shot of two little baby cars at the big race, which implies sexual reproduction (as does McQueen's attraction to Sally). At least they're late-model cars; otherwise I'd have to call bullshit on the whole enterprise. But then many of the other characters are late-model cars as well. McQueen, for instance, can't be more than a few years old, which fits with his level of emotional maturity but not his successful career as a professional athlete. And I'm not even going to get into the question of how a van and a sedan like the Rusteeze guys could be brothers. I’m just hoping Cars 2 answers some of these questions. And yes, I know, I'm sure a lot of this is addressed in the DVD commentary, but M. Small hates those. "Turn off the talking!" he demands, and it's not like I'm going to sit through this movie again without him. posted by M. Giant 8:00 PM 7 comments 7 Comments:
OMG that's too funny, and next time Liam watches it, I'm going to be all freaked out by wondering what is inside the cars!
By As the mother of a Cars-obsessed son, I have had many of these same questions. I think we've watched it a few too many times.
Hey, M.Giant! I finally got my Blogger issues addressed.
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Having JUST returned from Disney where they have BOTH Lightening McQueen AND Mater ... I can assure you that inside the vehicles they have ... Ah ... I forgot to look?
By Oh thank god. I thought a lot of these same things. The movie really annoys me. I think I am going to have to put cars on hiatus for a while. My son has watched it so many times that he spouts out chunks of dialogue while playing. Yesterday it was, "I don't need a map, I've got GPS" from Minnie and Van. Urgghh! Also, when it's on, he doesn't even watch it anymore, he just talks along with it and plays with his cars. Its too much.
By I read somewhere that the animators had difficulty with the cars, because they had to project emotional expressions with mostly the face.
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I'm not sure they can only see out their windshields, because then how would they use the rearview mirrors?
By Monday, April 21, 2008 Closing Night M. Small's last show was this evening. One of the things that has always amazed us about M. Small's day care is that the day care lady periodically helps the kids put on "shows," right there in her living room. Since the oldest member of any given cast is never more than four years old and change, you can imagine that they tend to be rather chaotic affairs. M. Small's first performance was when he was about six months old, and his "part" in the day care Easter show was to sit in his Excersaucer and stare around gormlessly while the other kids sort of sang a few songs and the day care lady put different hats on him. As he's gotten older, the demands placed on him by the scripts of these shows have grown appropriately more complex. Soon he was expected to stand up on his own, and then even join in on the singing. Eventually Trash and I started being able to figure out what songs would be in the show based on what M. Small was singing around the house in the weeks leading up to them. But that never stopped us from being amazed by the elaborate costumes she comes up with. For the last Christmas show, she literally had him dressed up like an excavator. The problem is that for the last few shows, things haven't gone all that well. The kids rehearse for weeks or months, the DCL slaves away at the costumes, and then, come the evening that all the grandparents and parents are packed into the living room on toddler chairs, one of the kids starts freaking out and the spooked vibe spreads among the kids like panic through a herd of cattle, and the next thing you know, everyone's crying and frustrated and the show's over. Alas, for a couple of times there, the kid who freaked out was ours. I've got a couple of videos where I'm panning back and forth between the actual show and a wailing M. Small trying to climb into his mom's lap. This show actually got all the way to the end, however. In addition to M. Small, the DCL is also responsible for K, a four-year-old girl; J, a three-year-old a few months younger than M. Small, and Baby-O, a baby. So putting together a performance of The Wizard of Oz required some creative casting. I wish I could figure out how to put up video, because what I shot was nothing less than a sweded version of the 1939 classic. K. opened with a truncated solo of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." DCL dropped a toy house on a witch doll. Baby O was rolled out in M. Small's old Excersaucer, Glinda the Good Witch recast as a crippled Bond villain waving a homemade wand around while DCL recited her lines for her. K. walked around some yellow blocks arranged on the floor. J. came out and with much coaching, managed to sort of say "I wish I had a brain. Mommy it's raining!" before K. took the stick representing his pole off his back. M. Small came out, not crying but grinning shyly, sporting a silver snowsuit and an aluminum hat. He was supposed to say, "Oil…can" through frozen lips, but instead he came over and quietly hugged me in an egregious violation of both the fourth wall and his character's alleged lack of a heart, not that I'm complaining about either one. Things kind of got a little confused after that -- the toy witch was pulled out again and then hidden away with a plaintive "I'm melting!," M. Small and J. were presented with symbolic pins (as was the stuffed toy playing the part of the lion), K. wobbled her feet, and there was no place like home. I'm glad that M. Small finally had a good show after all this time. Today was actually K.'s last day at this day care; she's four now, so she's moving on. That means M. Small is finally the oldest kid there. It doesn't seem so long ago that he was literally the baby of the group, and now he's two weeks away from starting Montessori. I don't think they have shows there. Anyway, like I said, I just wish I had a way to put up some video from our camcorder right now, instead of knowing that I'm either going to have to go out and buy some kind of adapter or cram that mini-casette into the floppy drive and hope for the best. I never thought I'd regret not having to record the show in fifteen-second snippets on my cell phone, but here we are. posted by M. Giant 8:30 PM 6 comments 6 Comments:Don't fret! They put on an excellent show every year for the 6 years my kid was in a Montessori school.
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Your DCL sounds pretty awesome. Being able to manage that many kids at one time is challenging enough; but working with them to put on a show periodically is amazing.
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The preschoolers at my 3-year-old's Montessori school had two songs to sing at a recent school function. Did. Not. Happen. Bad audio, plus a few kids having access to the microphone and using it to broadcast the words "butt" and "fart," which were met with hysterics. (Yes, I was probably the only parent laughing.)
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LOL! That show sounds awesome!
By Your DCL sounds just a wee bit nuts to me. But, you know, in a good way. Nuts can be a good thing when it comes to dealing with groups of very small children. Thought of this post after I just spent three hours last night at my child's Montessori elementary school Shakespeare Festival. First graders reading Sonnets. Second Graders doing Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet for the older crowd. Don't worry, you will have lots and lots of programs! Lots of Drama!
By Friday, April 18, 2008 School's In Friday was M. Small's first day of school. Okay, not really. He was only there for a couple of hours. And it was Montessori school, not kindergarten or grad school. But we thought it would be wise for use to make a gradual transition, to minimize the shock. Plus it might be easier on him as well. You know all the clichés about the mom walking the kid, in his Sunday best, to the bus stop or the school's front door early in the morning and having a tearful separation. Well, that wasn't exactly how it happened. While I was at work, Trash took M. Small out for breakfast, and then brought him by the Montessori school he'll be starting next month, just for a two-hour visit. "So what are you going to be doing?" I asked Trash. "Are you going to be, like, doing activities with the kids, or just sort of watching from the sidelines?" "I don't know," Trash said nervously. She figured she'd leave that up to the teachers, and to M. Small. "Well, either way, you're going to get pretty bored in two hours," I warned. And that was the last time I talked to her before she got to the school. When they arrived, Trash brought him in, where he quickly joined the circle of twelve or thirteen kids sitting on the floor and singing songs. He felt a little off-balance because they weren't songs he knew -- nothing from the Cars soundtrack or Amy Winehouse, as much as M. Small loves singing the "noooo, noooo, no" part of "Rehab." So the singing went on for a minute or so. He remained a bit shy, until he noticed a rocket picture on the wall. "Do you like rockets?" the boy next to him asked. "Oh, sure," M. Small said. "We can color pictures of rockets," the boy informed him. "Okay!" M. Small said happily. "Well, goodbye," the teacher said to Trash. "You totally got the bum's rush!" I said to Trash when she told me this from her car as she drove away, five minutes after she and M. Small had walked into the place. She told me about all the well-behaved other kids listening and doing exactly what they were told and being good, and we fretted about M. Small, with his high energy and low tolerance for structure, being a chaotic influence or having an accident or having some kind of social anxiety attack and freaking the hell out or just peeing his pants. But when Trash picked him up a couple hours later, he was fine, and happy, and looking forward to his next session. There had been a time-out imposed during his visit, but not on him. And even the staff was hoping to see him again soon. So there we are. He wasn't traumatized at all by spending two hours with strangers. It was an unqualified success. He's growing up, in other words. Shit. posted by M. Giant 9:10 PM 7 comments 7 Comments:
Reminds me of my Mom's story of my first day at school. It was also a 2 hour getting to know you session. Aparently, when she picked me up at school to take me how I started to cry and spent the entire way home crying, "Mommy please don't make me go, please let me go back, please let me go back!" Aww. Somehow, I'm not surprised. Congratulations on a great kid, you guys.
First of all, having read for some years now of M. Small's social abilities, none of his responses to Montessori surprises me. That strikes me as the sort of atmosphere that was MADE for a boy such as yours.
By Wow. Yeah. How can this be happening already? I must say, if you're going to be heartbroken by M. Small's social facility and general awesomeness, you're going to be sad a lot. In many ways, it's really your own fault. I say buck up -- he could still become a bitter misanthrope someday. Fingers crossed!
My son started riding the bus by himself at 2.5 (he's autistic and was in special ed preschool). It broke my heart putting my tiny little boy on that big bus, but he loved it. He didn't mind riding a strange bus to a school he had visited only a few times to hang out all afternoon with total strangers. Nope. It was all way too cool to him.
Yeah, I had a hard time letting go when my boys started going to preschool. Up until that point, I could get a daily report from the babysitter or my husband, or whoever was taking care of them that day. And then all of a sudden, you have to rely on the kids to tell you what happened in their day at school. Four-year olds aren't the most expressive when you ask them "How was your day?" and "What did you do?" We had to get very specific in the questions we were asking them, and even then they weren't giving up much. I remeber asking my younger son who he sat next to at circle time, and he replied "Nobody." He went on to concoct a whole story about Nobody. Nobody is a boy in his class who likes to play chase at recess, etc. etc. While we loved the creative expression, we did't get any closer as to what actually went on in school that day....
By With the state of the economy, everyone's geting creative with ways to save money, so I thought i'd share a tip with you. When the long afternoon at the office is stretching out and lunch seems like a long time ago, I'm often tempted to hit the vending machine. Expensive and unhealthy, and ultimately unsatifying. So what I do instead is floss. That way, instead of a small, expensive snack, I get a whole bunch of tiny free snacks. I understand it's better for my teeth, too. The only trick is remembering not to floss right after eating so you have something to enjoy later on. I know you're so grateful for this tip that you want to kiss me, but try to refrain. posted by M. Giant 9:01 AM 2 comments 2 Comments:Yum. I am the luckiest woman on earth.
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If you REALLY want to have some productive flossing, eat something with shredded coconut earlier in the day. 
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