1, 2, 3, foh

Ann Marie has learned to count, sort of. This is not something I've "worked on" with her. My theory, in fact, is that she picked it up from all the "you have until I count to..." we say to the other two. At any rate, here she is, counting to ten. Sort of. My favorite parts are her face when she says, "Fohhhhhhhhh" and how the "YAAAAYYYY!" gets earlier and earlier with each iteration.

1,2,3... from Maureen on Vimeo.

Sidewalk Parking: Major update!

The sidewalk parking has been slowly improving, but there are still some fairly egregious offenders, like this car right here:



I helpfully pointed out the curb for you, because you might have thought that was a parking lane or something. And this car is parked here every day. The owner of this car considers this piece of sidewalk to be his or her assigned parking spot. It's not a very busy street; I actually never use it, so technically this car has never been in my way. But ask me if I care.

But! Things are not all terrible! Look at this car:



That car is owned by the first person I ever asked to stop parking on the sidewalk. It is owned by a woman who said, "But I don't want my car to be hit," and then made a sort of face when I pointed out I couldn't get by, especially because of that giant tree she usually parked right next to, and she generously said that she would "try" not to park "so close" to the tree. She then continued to park on the sidewalk every day. BUT NO MORE. I think she got a ticket. The guy who used to park on the sidewalk right behind her also stopped, and he is another one who told me that he doesn't want his car to get hit and that he "always parks there" and would not stop. TICKET.

I have been in touch with a city councilwoman and she was putting me on the schedule for the council meeting on Sept. 24. So today I went out with my camera to gather more recent data and made a special trip down to the very busy street on which there used to be a five or so block stretch of cars blocking the sidewalk. But there were only a few cars still doing it! And then a cop saw me taking a photo and pulled over to talk to me. He told me I don't have to do that, because they put a notice in the paper warning people that they are going to start ticketing for this on Sept. 9.

VICTORY IS MINE.

Here's the blurb in the paper, with my city's name redacted:

Parking complaints lead to enforcement in xxx

UPDATED: 09/06/2013 08:03:08 AM EDT

Police have received numerous complaints from residents about vehicles parked on sidewalks across the city. This is an issue that we deal with the beginning of every school year. Residents need to be aware that parking your vehicle on a sidewalk is cause for your vehicle to be ticketed. Sidewalks need to be kept clear for the safety of the children walking to and from school. Violators put children and residents at risk by causing them to walk around the illegally parked vehicles and into these heavily travelled streets.

Effective Monday September 9, 2013, City Police will be ticketing any vehicles that are illegally parked on sidewalks. Please be respectful of your neighbors and mindful of the safety of others by parking legally.

Do you see that part that says "numerous complaints"? I'm pretty sure that was me, numerous times.

BOO YA. (I am choosing to ignore the part that says we deal with this issue "at the beginning of every school year," as though sidewalk parking is fine when school is not in session.)

And now I don't even have to go to a city council meeting! Woo! But I will remain vigilant, and I'm going to go down and check the status next to park on the busy street when there is a softball game, because the cars LINE the sidewalks on BOTH SIDES during the games. Or they did. Maybe they'll all get ticketed. We can but hope.

Quick takes on a Tuesday because I'm crazy like that

1. Ann Marie will not let me have a napkin. Everyone else at the table can have a napkin, but whenever she sees me with a napkin, be it in my hand or on my lap, she says, "Nope!" and takes it and throws it on the floor. If she's not locked up in her high chair, she will then go to the linen closet and get me an alternative napkin in the form of a dishcloth or dishtowel, usually a dishcloth. Sometimes she wipes my mouth with it, thus ensuring I cannot put an unused dishcloth back in the closet. Again, please note that everyone else at the table is allowed to have a napkin, I, alone, am not permitted.
2. Ann Marie give kisses - REAL KISSES - all the time, and it is the most delightful thing ever. Well, it is less delightful when I'm lying down and she climbs on me and presses her face onto my mouth so that I can feel her teeth with my lips and can't speak, but even then it's pretty amusing. The other night I was putting her to bed and she demanded that I keep my hand in the crib with her. That was a bit of a trial but then she suddenly gave my hand a loud smacking kiss before rolling over to go to sleep, so I let it slide.
3. This one should by rights be a long take and not a quick one, but Nora's first day of Pre-K was today. She's in half days this week, but next week she'll be going from 7:45 till 2:10, five days a week. I admit to getting a little choked up when I followed her class in to "help her unpack," but she had already unpacked and showed me where she was going to sit, then chose a coloring book and said, "Bye, Mom!" So she was fine. She brought home a self portrait. Jack criticized it a bit because Nora doesn't have purple curly hair down to her waist, and also why were her legs weird in the picture? Well, those are her ROBOT legs, Jack. So I think she'll be all right. (I'm glad it was only a half day, though, because on the way home she said that she missed me and wanted to come home HOURS ago.)
4. I signed up for a half marathon in October, so I've been running regularly. I don't talk about it much, but if you'll indulge me a minute, I ran 4 miles this morning and two of my three trips back and forth to school were with the stroller. In both cases, I had to push both girls home, which is uphill. (It's only uphill the one way, Dad.) School is about a half mile away, so I covered 6 miles today, and my feet hurt.
5. On the way to pick up Jack, we ran into another parent on the way to school and the subject of sidewalk parking came up. It came up because Nora said, "We are on a mission to stop people from parking on the sidewalk!" Ahem. He agreed it was unsafe, though, and mentioned that he saw me try and fail to get by a car parked on the sidewalk. But I made contact with a city council member, and I think I'm going to go to a council meeting to plead my case. Interesting fact: In the email, she said she didn't want to mislead me and admitted to parking on the sidewalk for years and years on her narrow street in the city, but she said that the difference was that everyone who did it (which was everyone) made sure that there was plenty of space for a baby carriage. Perhaps. And honestly, I would not be on this crusade if people parked only slightly on the sidewalk, because the streets ARE narrow. But those who completely block the sidewalk have ruined it for everyone. The encouraging news, though, is that there was only the one car blocking the sidewalk. The situation has actually improved a lot since I started complaining.
6. Andrew is coaching Jack's Under 8 soccer team, and was just reading the "Practice Suggestions" or whatever they're called, and the league suggests at least one and no more than two 90-minute practices per week, and says they should start at 5:30pm. Does this sound at all reasonable to any of you? These are six- and seven-year-old kids. Ninety minutes of practice? Really? And starting at 5:30? Even if you consider that the city public schools go from 9:00-3:30 (vs. Jack's Catholic school which goes from 7:45-2:15), it gets DARK in the fall at 5:00! Soccer goes till the end of October! We're supposed to have a bunch of seven-year-olds running soccer drills in the dark? For an hour and a half? Fortunately, Andrew is the coach, so Jack's team will be practicing at 5:00 for one hour, or until dark.

Anxiety

We went camping this past weekend. It was our first camping trip with tents; last year we "camped" at a campground, but we rented a cabin with "beds" on which there were "mattresses" and there was also an attached kitchenette and bathroom. The kitchenette and bathroom were legitimate; no quotation marks necessary. The main reason we got the cabin was that, at the time, I was still nursing Ann Marie during the night, and I required a wall on which to lean. But this year she sleeps right through, so tents it was! Jack and Nora slept in one tent; Andrew, Ann Marie, and I had the other.

Everything went swimmingly except that I woke up at midnight on the first night thinking I had heard Nora unzip their tent and call out to me. I sat up as though shot from a cannon and whispered, "Nora? Nora? Nora?" Andrew groggily asked what had happened, and I said "I think Nora's standing outside our tent!" I unzipped our window, but I couldn't see anything because a) I was not wearing my glasses and b) it was pitch dark. Undeterred, I kept whisper-shouting, "Nora? Nora?" but to no avail. I put on my glasses, but it didn't help much. See above, re: pitch-darkness. I tried shining a flashlight, but it just reflected off their tent and didn't help me at all.

"Do you want me to stick my head out there?" Andrew asked, already halfway through the tent flap. "She's not out there," he told me. "It's fine. Their tent isn't unzipped."

Reassured, I lay back down and tried to go back to sleep. Unfortunately my adrenal system was not on board with the whole "reassured" status, so instead I lay there, heart racing, picturing my small daughter wandering the campground in the dark, lost, frightened, and encountering bears. Because that is where my adrenal glands took me: Bear attack. In the family-friendly, somewhat crowded campground just a few miles outside of the town center. I should also point out that the kids' tent entrance was approximately four inches away from the side of our tent, so for Nora to wander off and get lost she would have had slink by our tent sideways for us not to have felt her brush against the canvas. Considering this is a child who is afraid to be downstairs when I am upstairs, the odds were strongly against her voluntarily sneaking off into the dark woods all alone at midnight.

And yet there I lay, anxious and worrying, and also with the increasing need to go to the bathroom but too scared to traverse the 30-yard-long, bear-encrusted path. It was a dilemma.

Finally unable to stand it, I woke Andrew up and asked him if he thought I'd run into any animals on my way to the bathroom. And by "animals" I really meant bears, or possibly rabid coyotes. Did I mention that I had heard some coyotes? I did. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. Slavering just outside the tent. Andrew, however, did not seem to think I would encounter any animals, slavering or no.

"Will you stay awake until I get back?" I asked him. He said he would. I want you to take note of that agreement. I was relying on this, because his staying awake was going to keep me alive on my terrifying journey.

I put on my sweatshirt, took my flashlight, and bravely exited the tent. The first thing I did was shine my flashlight into the kids' tent and count how many children there were. I counted heads at least three times and there were always two, so I was at least able to put that fear to rest. Which left only the bears. And the coyotes. It left only whatever bears and coyotes were between me and the bathroom. I took a deep breath and headed out.

Suffice it to say, I successfully made it to the bathroom and back without encountering any bears OR coyotes, and once back in the tent was finally able to relax and fall asleep. The only repercussion was a nightmare in which Murdock from MacGuyver blew up our house.

But it was no thanks to Andrew, because guess who fell asleep while I was gone? THAT'S RIGHT. Fortunately, he didn't tell me that part until the following morning, when the sun was up and I could once again see the bathroom right from our campsite because it was seriously right there.

If the question is "Do we need any bananas?" the answer is always "Yes."

Evening. Interior office. Andrew enters.

ANDREW: How can there only be three bananas left? This morning, there were eight!
MAUREEN: You mean there were eight bananas this morning, and then each of the five of us ate one and now there are three? HOW CAN THAT BE?
ANDREW: Shut up.
Scene.

He's right though, the rate at which we go through bananas is positively shocking. I cannot keep them in the house, even though I instituted a policy that anyone in a grocery store must buy bananas no matter how many bananas were purchased just yesterday. We are always out of bananas.

Sidewalk Parking: A crusade

Today I saw this on the way to church:



I KNOW.

I have a tendency towards obsession, so I have to be careful that I don't turn into a single-minded anti-sidewalk-parking vigilante. Instead, I have a plan. First, I will call back the Captain Richardson at the police department and ask him if he passed my message along to the officer who does work in the north part of the city. Second, I will continue to photograph the offending cars and file the photos away as though documenting a science experiment, the better to present to the police department or mayor's office, depending on how things go. Third, I will continue to ask people not to park on the sidewalk if I see them near their cars. This can, as it turns out, have an effect. Because today, there were a few people on the porch of a house in front of which a car consistently parks with two wheels on the curb. Now I realize that it is not actually legal to park with any wheels on the curb, but if all of the problem cars parked like this, I would not be on a crusade. There is still room to get by on the sidewalk, so I wouldn't be forced into the street, and I wouldn't care that much. But cars like the Cadillac and Ford above have ruined it for everyone, and I can't start making exceptions.

So I asked the people on the porch if they owned the car, and then asked them not to park on the sidewalk. "But I have to park on the sidewalk," the owner told me.

Let me interrupt myself here to say that the most perplexing part of this entire thing has been the responses of people when I ask them not to park on the sidewalk. You see, I recognize that not a lot of people walk places anymore, and I assumed that the people parking on the sidewalk are just worried about their cars being sideswiped and want to give the moving traffic as much room as possible. But I thought that if I pointed out to them that they were forcing me and my children into the street that the people would apologize! "Oh, my goodness!" I thought they'd say. "Sorry! I didn't realize!" and then they would stop parking on the sidewalk. What I did not expect was a litany of rationalizations about why it's OK for them to park on the sidewalk. Before today, I had asked five people to stop parking on the sidewalk. Let me paraphrase their responses:

1. OK. (Then she got into the car and drove away.)
2. But I don't want my car to be hit. (This is the woman who promised not to park so far onto the sidewalk and also not next to the tree. Not doing a great job:)


3. But I'm only going to be here for five minutes.
4. I wanted to park my car in the shade. (This was from a postal worker in an official vehicle. This is how he parked it:)


5. Oh! Sorry!

So one apology out of five. Not a great percentage.

But let's return to today's encounter, in which the car's owner tried to explain to me that she needed to park on the sidewalk because the street was so dangerous. "Do you know how many cars have been totaled here?" she said. "But, you see, that is why I do not want to have to walk in the street with my children!" I said. "But everyone does it," she said. "That doesn't make it OK," I said. "You're not supposed to park on the sidewalk! Please don't park on the sidewalk!" and then I had to keep walking, because I am terrible at confrontation and was starting to cry, but I could hear her saying, "OK. OK," as I walked away.

And then! When we drove by later, I saw that she had moved her car! She moved it! Onto the street! I had to go out again later, and made a point to drive by her house to thank her for moving it, because she totally made my day.

But for those of you who have also become invested in this, know that I am not going to give up. Last Friday I was forced with my stroller into the middle of a very busy major street because of a long line of sidewalk parkers, and this cannot stand. It is going to take a while, I think, because it is obvious that the culture needs to change, but I shall persevere. But without becoming unhealthily obsessed.

Sidewalk parking

I live in a city, but in a suburban-looking neighborhood. There is a lot of off-street parking but also a smattering of multi-family houses without enough, so lots of people park on the street. Well, I wish they parked on the street. Actually, they park on the sidewalk. And I’m not talking about parking with two wheels up on the curb a little bit to make the street wider. I’m talking about parking so far up on the sidewalk that it can be challenging to walk by single file, nevermind squeezing through with a double stroller or a wheelchair. Consider these fairly typical examples:





The first photo is on the main street I use when walking to and from school with my three small children. It is a wide street with plenty of room for parking along both sides. The second photo is a side street off of the main street which is a bit narrower, but also less busy, and so cars aren’t usually parked along both sides. And even if they were, YOU CAN’T PARK YOUR CAR ON THE SIDEWALK. I have been brewing angry resentment at these cars for about four years now, getting angrier and angrier every time I have to walk in the street with my baby in a stroller and tell my three-year-old I will “meet her around” as she squeezes by the cars on the eight inches of sidewalk remaining next to the car. I kept wondering if I should leave notes on the cars asking the people to stop parking on the sidewalk, because I am pretty sure no one is thinking about the people who actually use the sidewalk for walking, but I’d have to leave at least fifteen notes, and it became ridiculous. I was also boiling with resentment about having to ask people not to park on the sidewalk. I shouldn’t have to ask them not to park on the sidewalk. “No cars on the sidewalk” is a fairly elementary rule of driving. So I finally started calling the police, but I didn’t see any tickets and by the second call, there was a definite “Oh, THIS lady again,” tone in the voice of the officer who answered the phone.

I have also happened to catch two drivers as they were getting into their cars on the sidewalk and said, “Excuse me, but if you park like that, I can’t get by.” The first woman just said, “OK,” and got in and drove away; I haven’t seen her car again. This is the second woman’s car:



When I pointed out to her that I can’t get by when she parks like that, she looked at me and my stroller and my preschooler and was clearly embarrassed, but still explained that the cars on the street “drive so fast” and she “doesn’t want her car to be hit” but that she will “try not to park so close.” I said, “I understand that, but I don’t want to walk in the street.” I also pointed out that she is parked next to an enormous tree which encroaches on the sidewalk, thus making it even more difficult to get by, so she said she’d try not to park as close to the tree. Got that? She’s going to keep parking on the sidewalk, just not quite as far onto the sidewalk, and not quite as close to the tree. She’s not doing a good job with it, though. The other day, she was still there, just maybe three feet further back from the tree. I still can’t fit the stroller between her car and the tree. Also, she is, as always, parked facing the wrong way. I can certainly understand how she doesn’t want her car to get hit by the speedy traffic in the street, though. I feel similarly about myself and my children.

This has become a pet project of mine. I met a city councilor last night at the senate primary (MA special election to replace John Kerry), and he gave me the name of a captain in the police, and I just left him a voicemail. So we’ll see.