Thankful tree, Christmas wish lists, Weird Panera encounter

Dusts off blog

Everyone had nine leaves on which to write the things for which they are thankful for 2017’s Thankful Tree. Here they are, listed in no particular order.

Me:

1. Warm House
2. Viber
3. The internet
4. Doughnuts
5. Interesting job
6. Tea at night
7. Running
8. St. Mike’s
9. Family

Andrew:

1. Electricity
2. Antibiotics
3. Soft pillows
4. Maureen
5. Family
6. Mold
7. Creativity
8. Thermos

Jack:

1. Intelligence
2. Food
3. Speech
4. Holidays
5. Minecraft
6. Civilization
7. Internet
8. Clothing
9. Shelter

Nora:

1. Friends
2. Wolfy (stuffed husky)
3. Doughnuts
4. Thanksgiving
5. Teddy
6. Day/night
7. School
8. Money
9. People that draw women for good jobs (This one is inspired by a cartoon of career choices and some of the people with careers were women.) (We talk about gender and racial equality a lot.)

Ann Marie

1. Mommy
2. Daddy
3. Teddy
4. Jack
5. Nora
6. Family
7. My friends
8. YouTube

Teddy (filled in by me)

1. Mama
2. Daddy
3. Jack
4. Nora
5. Ann Marie
6. Nursing
7. Soft, soft blankets
8. Milk 
9. Milk and binks and blankets

It is also important that I capture the kids’ Christmas wish lists this year.

Jack:

• Super Smash Brothers for the Wii U
• 100 billion dollars (he is willing to accept 100 million dollars)

Nora:

• A Hatchimal
• LOL dolls
• Sisters 8 series

Ann Marie:

• A stuffed puppy
• A hamster. Not a REAL one, a STUFFED one.
• One hundred dollars

Finally, I took the three oldest kids Christmas shopping today. We stopped for lunch at Panera. After placing our order, Ann Marie had a minor meltdown about Nora’s moving her hat and coat to a different seat. A woman came up and said, “Excuse me?” Earlier, Ann Marie had bonked her mouth on the shopping cart and I only found out because a woman saw it and explained to me what happened, so I was primed to think that Ann Marie had again hurt herself and I had missed it. I paused in my tending to the weeping Ann Maire to see what the woman wanted. This is what she said.

“I noticed your daughter is in distress, and I was wondering if you’d like me to teach her some meditation techniques?”

I am not making that up even a little bit.

The cons of autumn

I love fall. Fall in New England makes February worth it. I especially love fall in the city where I now live. There seem to be just so many more types of trees around here compared to where I grew up, and so many of them are huge. The house next door to us has a simply enormous oak tree and two gigantic maples in their yard. Every year, they turn the most glorious colors, and when the afternoon sunlight angles in and hits them just right, they glow.

So. Huge, beautiful trees turning gorgeous colors: Pro.

But do you know what happens to the leaves after they're done glowing on the trees in the afternoons? They fall off the trees. Into your yard. And have to be picked up.







Do you see the size of that leaf pile? Nora is standing up in that middle picture. In the top picture, Ann Marie actually got stuck in the pile as if it were leaf quicksand. And that's not even all the leaves in the yard! I didn't bother with the part in front of the side door or the section around and behind the swing set. Why not rake all of it and be done, you ask? In response, I present the trees directly above our yard:



That's a lot of leaves up there. And over the past eight years we have learned that these trees shed their leaves last.

Actually, the past eight years have given me the chance to make some observations of the natural world. First, walnut trees turn yellow and lose their leaves in September when Norway maples are still lush and green; Norway maples turn last. Second, the first leaves to turn are the ones that get the most sun. This is a particularly nice effect because of the afternoon sunlight angling in and making them glow, as I mentioned. Third, trees in a clump turn colors starting from the outside in. My theory here is that the inner trees are kept warm by their neighbors and thus get the temperature signal to go dormant only after their neighbors have shed their leaves, but the takeaway message is that in a copse of Norway maples, the ones in the middle lose their leaves dead last.

These?



The middle trees in a copse of Norway maples.  So yeah, we've got several weeks to go. We will be raking up those leaves in late November, when it is really really cold and there will be a distinct lack of joyful jumping into the leaves. There will instead be a lot of grumbling about cold hands.

Late November freezing cold raking of leaves: Con.

Ah, well, I still think the pros outweigh the cons.

A post that should probably have been three separate posts

1. Last Friday I had to take the kids to buy shoes. I also had some things to bring back to the Gap, so I decided to take them to the Stride Rite Mall B instead of in Mall A, my default mall, because the last time I went to Mall A and tried to return something to the Gap I discovered that Mall A no longer has a Gap. I know! I mean, if the Gap isn’t at the mall, where is it? (Incidentally, you know what Mall A now has that it didn’t used to have? Yogurt shop.)
   
   So anyway, I had to go buy three pairs of very expensive full-priced shoes, because I had managed to put off the shoe-buying until the last minute which unfortunately landed me between sales at Stride Rite. I would have taken them to Marshall’s, but I was buying Ann Marie’s very first pair of real walking shoes, so I needed an actual trained person to measure her feet. I also would have taken them to the shoe store near my mom, but I had to return that stuff to the Gap, so Stride Rite it was.
   
   I loaded them all into the van, and halfway to the mall Nora needed to use the bathroom. Twenty-minutes-in-a-Dunkin-Donuts-bathroom later, I loaded them all into the van again. We got to the mall and I went straight to the Gap. Halfway through my returns transaction which was complicated because one of the things had been a gift, which included a gift receipt, but they would nevertheless only give me the value towards a purchase right then or else mail me a gift card. Why on earth they couldn’t just hand me a gift card then, I will never know, but there you are. And everything in the store was 30% off, so I wanted to maybe buy something right then. But before I could look, JACK had to use the bathroom. So I took my gift back and off we all schlepped. While Nora, the baby, and I waited outside the men’s room for Jack, I scanned the directory for a Stride Rite. Which, as it turns out, Mall B doesn’t have.
   
   I wailed and moaned and gnashed my teeth, Jack emerged, and we all schlepped BACK to the Gap where I was going to BUY something for 30% off SO HELP ME. I chose a pair of pants and exchanged my gift for them while noting to the cashier that they were definitely not going to fit, so I was going to have to come back anyway. “Oh, we have a dressing room that the stroller will fit in,” he said. Meanwhile, it was 4:45 pm and my children were race walking (no running allowed!) around the store. “Not worth it,” I told him.
   
   After a stop at Kids Foot Locker for (full-priced) shoes for the older two, I found myself once again loading three kids into the van for a drive down to the strip mall that is about halfway between my house and Mall B because there is a Stride Rite there. We pulled into the parking lot, and you will never guess what is next door to Stride Rite. Literally next door. Not even at the other end of the strip; it is the storefront immediately to the left of Stride Rite. Yep. The Gap.
2. Kelly tweeted some time ago about noticing an under-mounted sink on a television show rather than noticing the attractive actor. I can relate to this, because I keep zeroing in on window treatments. My house has a lot of windows, and I lost momentum four rooms in. The problem lies mostly in that window treatments cost a bajillion dollars. You know what television show has some gorgeous window treatments? Parenthood. The oldest brother’s house has, at a conservative estimate, $5,000 worth of window treatments. Valances! Curtains! Tie backs! Fancy hardware! Custom Roman shades! Do you have any idea how much a custom Roman shade costs? ONE BAJILLION DOLLARS.
   
   But even though I lost momentum, window treatments became an issue when we took over the downstairs apartment. The sheets and towels clamped to the window frame weren’t really working for me. Because we had so many windows to cover, we decided to just buy inexpensive vinyl shades, which don’t feel that inexpensive when you buy them in bulk. Then there were a series of ridiculous problems which resulted in no less than five trips to three different hardware stores, an extra set of useless shades that we can’t return and don’t fit anywhere, and the kids’ room having shades just slightly too narrow. And there are still five windows without shades in the dining room and kitchen!
   
   I gave up and decided to rehang the blinds that we bought for the windows before we rented the place, but none of them fit. This seems impossible, but it’s because I threw out the blinds that were in the kitchen because they were gross, and the kitchen windows are apparently a quarter inch wider than any other windows in that apartment. Meanwhile, we had the woodwork around the dining room windows replaced, and the new trim is about a quarter inch narrower than the old trim. But that, at least, I thought we could solve by just asking Home Depot to recut them. I figured it would be easy; we had bought them at Home Depot originally. The label even says “Home Depot” right on it.
   
   Yeah, they wouldn’t cut them. And it’s not because they were just being jerks, it’s because their machines do not cut the plastic blinds, “But, you cut them when I bought them,” I said. “No, we can’t cut those,” he said. “But… they DID,” I insisted. “If they did that,” he said, “they weren’t supposed to. It’s against store policy, and they ruined the blade and destroyed the machine. We can’t cut those.”
   
   It was the “If” that rankled. “If” they cut them? They cut them. Believe me, 22 7/8 inches is not a standard width for plastic blinds. And that “if” really made me want to get him to admit that they at least USED to cut them, so I asked him how long he’d been working there. “Two years.” So OK, fine. I bought these seven years ago, when they apparently had different machines, because THEY CUT THEM. Which he never admitted. But he did give me some replacement mounting brackets for free, so I forgive him.
3. This has nothing to do with shopping or home improvement, but here is what I would like to happen on Sunday mornings: First, I want to sleep late. Second, I want to have a leisurely breakfast. Third, I want to go to the early mass so that the rest of the day is free.
   
   Somehow, I do not think I’m ever going to have all three of those things happen together.

Use what you have

Andrew was holding the naked baby, having just gotten her ready for a bath. While I drew the bath, I noticed that this time, Andrew neglected to put a prefold diaper between her and his arm, the way he usually does in this situation. I turned my attention back to the tub and then heard Andrew yelling from the bathroom doorway. “Get me a diaper! Get me a diaper!” he cried out. But it took me too long and Andrew, already streaked with wet down his leg, saw the puddle on the floor approaching the kitchen baseboard. Because our house is so slanty, the baseboard does not actually meet the floor in a few places; for example, the place towards which the puddle was heading. So Andrew mopped it up with the only thing he had. His sock. Which he was wearing. 

Pictures for Emily

Emily just asked me on Twitter why I never post pictures of Ann Marie, thus documenting her increasing cuteness. My answer was threefold:

1. I have no smart phone, and thus posting photos is a multi-step process that involves changing out memory cards and exporting and resizing and blah de blah, it's a huge pain.

2. It's an even huger pain on my blog because I don't like the way Blogger does photos so I have to post to Photobucket and then copy links and there is EXTRA TYPING, people.

3. Ann Marie is the third baby, so there are practically no photos of her at all. (There probably would be if I had a smart phone.) (Or maybe not.)

BUT. I actually coincidentally JUST COPIED brand new photos to my computer! I got Emily's tweet while putting Nora to bed so I came right out and sat down and went through the process - the MULTI-STEPPED process - of putting them on my blog. All for you! And Emily! Because who am I to deny requests for photos of my adorable baby? Who is and remains a DREAM BABY SENT FROM HEAVEN, by the way. Tonight she did cry a lot for a total of maybe fifteen whole minutes, split over two cry sessions, but the first fussy period was because she was starving and I ignored her more patient whimpers while I finished making dinner for the other two. The second round of fussiness was because she was wet and tired, and then I Nose-Frida-ed her. In between those two screaming sessions, she hung around in her bouncy seat and grinned like a fool at anyone who was willing to make eye contact. (Many of us were willing.) (But she stopped grinning as soon as I got the camera.)

All this complaining about the hardships of having to click buttons and type things makes me think of an issue I once had with a website. I maintain a corporate membership account for my company, but I am not personally a member of the service we offer our staff. Whenever I send the invitation to join to the new hires, however, I always click the link I send them to make sure it works. The link takes me to a sign up page, and at that point I just close the window, because I do not need to join. But during the last round of hires, I started getting chirpy little emails from the membership service reminding me to complete my registration. These were annoying, yes, but not nearly as annoying as discovering that when I went back to the website, I was routed directly to the registration page instead of my normal homepage. The first time this happened, it took me a few tries to even figure out how to get back to my homepage. And I couldn't shut it off.

So now, every time I wanted to check the billing statement which is the only thing I ever need to look at, I had to first go to step 1 of the registration, then click the logo in the top left corner, and then click "Account settings." That's TWO EXTRA CLICKS. I lived this nightmare for WEEKS. I finally emailed the company to ask them how to shut it off, and I ended up having to call them. It was difficult to explain the problem to the agent I spoke to on the phone, but once he understood exactly what was happening he realized he'd have to send an email to a separate department and have them get in touch with me. "It may take a day or two," he warned me, apologetically. "Is that OK?" I told him I'd probably be able to survive two more days of unnecessary mouse clicks, but only just.

And now here are pictures of my adorable children.

Terrors

One thing that constantly amazes me is the way my friends’ kids, who are all the same age as or younger than Jack, can watch movies. All kinds of movies! Movies with scary parts! Jack cannot. I am always trying to find movies that we can watch and enjoy together, as opposed to watching Cars for the four frillionth time, but every movie that I can stand has scary parts. This is because Jack’s personal definition for “scary part” is a squidge wider than the average person’s. For example, we tried Ratatouille a month or two ago because I couldn’t think it of any scary parts, but I didn’t realize that Remy and the kid shouting at each other during an argument would count. We had to shut it off because of angry shouting. So. It seems we are rearing a sensitive soul. I guess it’s karma, because I am personally responsible for my siblings’ not being allowed to watch Scooby Doo.

Nora, meanwhile, is newly frightened of monsters, despite the fact that she keeps catching monsters in her hand and they appear to be only two inches tall. Nevertheless, we have to wave a monster stick around the room every night before she goes to bed just to make sure the room is cleared. (During the day, we store the monster stick on the kitchen blinds. It’s also handy for opening and closing the slats.)

And both children have been having nightmares fairly regularly. Nora had one recently that made her run to our door and cry, “I scary!” The poor thing was actually trembling with fright. Jack has at least one a week. (His are usually pretty scary too, but his most recent one which was based on his not getting any lullabies before bed. It was a bit harder than usual to work up sympathy.) But what this all boils down to is that we just never know if we’re going to sleep all night or not, and these are the last few precious weeks before the months of no-more-sleeping smack us in the face.

My battery is about to die, so I’m going to wrap this up with some unrelated photos of Nora eating a giant pickling cucumber like an apple, and of Jack standing next to the robot he designed and built with Andrew. He hasn’t decided on its primary function, but it does have invisible arms.