Random MomBlog

Really! The educational company LeapFrog is afraid of beer! I was trying to figure out why neither of us could enter Cale’s name in Karston’s new Leapster2 (he played with Nadia’s in July and picked it up easily). Finally I found the answer from the company, and the example was very helpful … can’t have ALEX because it contains ALE, so that explains why we can’t have CALE too. Their workaround works, too. And it got me out of the endless loop of the doggone thing asking me to enter a profile name but not accepting it! We were sure it was a bug, but it really is a “child protection feature” *argh*! In their defense, they are using “a popular third-party filter” and they did document the problem. Another non-bug: you can only delete a name when all three name slots are filled.

Karston’s been playing with it for less than a day so far, but he loves it. (And he loved Nadia’s all that weekend.) I think it’s a flexible (since spanning ages 4-8 covers a lot of changes), expandable (SD slot) learning toy.

So yesterday evening, hubby tells me that a house down the street was broken into last week during the day. I was just playing with Cale in the living room when I heard some thumps from the other end of the house. Whoops! Time to investigate! Since I was on the side of the house with all the doors, I wasn’t too alarmed since it would be hard to get in my house right now without me noticing. But, ah, it was still time to investigate heavy mystery thumps. It turns out that Cale had turned on Roomba who is quite creative at getting stuck in unusual places. Roomba can escape the normal obstacles, but in this case had rather noisily climbed inside the sturdy metal circular base of the nursing rocking chair … a regular Roomba prison!

I went to a nice Italian restaurant for lunch today. I told myself I had to order something other than my usual (rut) this time, and I reminded myself that I’ve always enjoyed the weekly specials. So when I saw the tuna panino on the weekly specials menu, I ordered it. To be honest, what drew me in was the toppings: arugula and roasted red peppers, one with a kick and the other with the mellow. I love those!

Anthony Bourdain says never to order fish on Monday. Since yesterday was the Labor Day holiday, today is a virtual Monday. And I ordered fish. And I’ve been going to the bathroom roughly once every other hour ever since lunch. I can hear the I told you so, and if I had remembered the virtual Monday-ness, I wouldn’t've done it.

Come to think of it, it’s been years since I’ve been happy with my food order when I’ve told myself to order something different before I saw the menu. Maybe the lesson is not to fight the rut: if the menu tempts me away from The Usual, I should branch out, but otherwise … might be safer to play it safe. And I always order taco salad at Mexican restaurants because I want the largest pile of lettuce. (I love salad, mostly for the greens.) Last time I made myself branch out at a Mexican restaurant, I really missed the tall stack of fresh vegetables to lighten the meal.

I just learned that it wasn’t extemporaneous:

Timex decided to end the torture tests [advertising] campaign in 1977 with a staged failure: an elephant stomped and crushed a watch. “It worked,” Swayze quipped to the television audience, “in rehearsal.”

I guess I was a gullible kid!

About 6 weeks ago, when I was coming in to work, I saw something brightly colored next to the parking lot. I rushed past it, but stared at the bright red plastic and shiny chrome as I went. In my defense, it isn’t what I expect to see on my way to work, you know? It was a bong. It seemed incongruously out of place until I remembered there actually is a hookah shop a block away just down from the mediterranean deli. It’s been losing pieces over the weeks, but I still laugh that I couldn’t figure out what it was for so long. I walk past the hookah shop almost every time I walk anywhere during work.

Funny

You know you’re tired when you wake up wondering how long your baby has been crying. I’m a very light sleeper, and usually wake up to the least sound, so I was astounded when I woke up Thursday night wondering how long Cale had been crying. Friday night was Allergic Watch for Karston (I was sure he was OK, but not so sure that I wasn’t worried).

Saturday night was almost as notable for the depths of sleep deprivation. I woke up at Cale’s first cry, tossed the sheet off … and had no idea who or where I was. More importantly, I had no idea where to go to rescue the crying baby until I remembered that Cale’s room is just across the hall. I did at least know I was supposed to soothe the baby.

We don’t know why Karston cried so loudly and so often last night, but Cale woke up for that and I had to keep nursing him back to sleep. Hopefully the kids will sleep better soon, before their parents collapse. We don’t get naps on weekdays!

Basketball applies to parenting! With one child and two parents, the adults can double-team the child, or at least eat and sleep in shifts. Speaking from experience, the transition to two children is a huge change! Now the adults have to switch to man-to-man defense instead. Eating and sleeping may suffer. I’m sure three children rocks the boat again, as you shift to a desperate, out-numbered (but you’ve still got the size advantage, at least for the early years) zone defense.

Too much fun! Create your South Park avatar! Or Simpsonize yourself! Or (trivia) use the online X-Face converter.

Fun, Simpsons, South Park, X-Face

I got a phone call for a jump start, and said Argh, I can do that if you’ve got the cables. I used to carry jumper cables, but I haven’t needed them in so long that I’d rather have the storage space! I try to avoid the macho behavior of thinking I can do everything myself, but I’ve had a lot of experience with jump starting: my husband had a 1983 Ferrari Mondial for several years.

Now we get to the first embarrassing part. I’ve only had this station wagon for a few months, and I didn’t see the hood release inside the cab. I pulled out the owners manual to discover that the release handle was exactly where I thought it was (same place as the older wagon), but more recessed so the handle was hidden. What, hood release handles are unattractive? So I popped the hood.

Then I discovered the second, far more embarrassing fact. Where’s the battery? (On the Ferrari, you had to remove the front right tire to replace the battery! Creative.) So I went back to the manual and discovered the section on jump starting. There’s a positive post under a flap that I’m supposed to use! I still don’t know where the battery is, but at least I now know how to jump start in this station wagon.

I’m just embarrassed that I had to read my car owners manual to learn how to jump start!

The most important jump start advice I can give is to remember that negative can never hurt you (sticks and stones …). First of all, keep the four ends from touching because you don’t want to see the sparks from that short circuit! For negative/ground, you can also use any clean metal connection to the engine because the metal parts of the engine should all be at the same potential. [BEFORE] When connecting two cars, hook up the boosting car first because it has power but without a complete circuit, it can’t hurt you. Then hook up the other car, positive first, because negative can never hurt and when you make the fourth and final connection, you have a complete circuit that could hurt you. [DURING] If the jump start is just barely but not quite working, depress the accelerator pedal in the boosting car to rev up the alternator to supply more current. [AFTER] Disconnect the two cars in the reverse of the hook-up. Remove the negative connection on the car you just jumped first because negative can never hurt you. Then, keeping the ends separate, disconnect its positive terminal, and move on to the boosting car for the negative then positive disconnections.

Honestly, I thought I knew how to jump start without using the manual …

Car, Tips

I didn’t think Karston would learn that Mr. Wood was trouble until he was teenager or older. He woke up crying twice last night (yawn), so we changed his diaper to avoid a diaper leak since that’s what crying usually means now. Both times I noticed that Mr. Wood had visited him recently, so he was pointing up (high chance of a leak) instead of down (only overflow leaks). So I think Karston knows Mr. Wood causes diaper leaks, and he knows he’s too old for malfunctions like that, so he let us know.

Toddler