Amazon knows too much

I was just up at Amazon updating my wish list for Christmas.

I thought I was pretty cool. My music choices are pretty hip and new.

It was suggesting other music that I also like, even a book I was interested in buying.

but then it suggested ...


The Wisdom of Menopause: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing During the Change, 2nd Edition
by Christiane Northrup

How? How did it know. I'm not some young, hip college kid into cutting edge music. I don't have a page on myspace.com. I'm a 40 something mother contemplating menopause. It's a little scary.

I love Mr. Clean

The magic erasers that is. Did you know they take black walnut stains out of off-white carpet?

I refuse to think about what is actually in these little wonders. They got my carpets clean, that's all that matters.

The tooth fairy gets impaled while retrieving a tooth

I've been very busy with work deadlines and not writing half the stories I want to write. But, I'll take a minute for this one because it is just too rich.

Last night, Lastborn was working on a loose tooth. He worked so hard, the tooth was bleeding quite a bit. This scared him. But he kept working on it. I told him that if he wanted to, he could leave it be a while, and try again later.

"But what if it falls out while I'm sleeping. Won't I choke?"
"No," I replied, always the voice of reason. "It's too small to choke on. More likely you'll swallow it. Then you'll have to wait until the next day when you poop to get the tooth to give to the tooth fairy."

He looked sideways at me, a little worried. Then he replied. "No way! Will you get it out of the toilet for me?"
"No!!! I don't do that."

Noticing that he looked really worried now, I offered him this consolation.
"Don't worry, the Tooth Fairy fetches teeth out of the toilet if she needs to."
He wasn't buying it though and he kept working on the tooth convinced that he had to get it out right now! And of course he did.

That's when it hit me. We just bought a loft bed for his room with a double bed underneath. The idea here being that we want lots of places for long distance guests to stay with us, he would love to sleep in a loft bed and we should have room for sleepovers as well.

What was I thinking? On top of this, the order got messed up and the mattress for the double bed never came. Instead, there's just a bunkie board. Not enough for me to walk on to get to Lastborn's pillow. Yes, his pillow is on the wall side of this behemoth contraption. And the bunkie board is a bunch of thin slats of wood on a wooden frame all surrounded by a cloth cover. Each slat is not strong enough to take the weight of a person standing on it. It's meant to have a mattress on it.

DH immediately saw the dilemma when he came home later and I told him that Lastborn was now sleeping with a tooth under his pillow.

"Well where did he put it?" he asked.
"Under his pillow of course," I replied.

DH rolled his eyes as if I should have come up with a better plan.
"I tried. I told him that he should put it at the foot of his bed so the Tooth Fairy could get it more easily, but he insisted that she can fly just fine to his pillow."
"Well, did you at least see where he put it?"
"Of course. I made him show me. It's in the middle of his pillow."
"Well, I'm not dealing with it," was all he replied. Then a minute later. "I can just see this. You're going to come crashing down while trying to find the tooth. We haven't even been here a month and we're already gonna end up at the emergency room."

Such faith.

So at bedtime, I fished a crisp dollar out of my wallet and climbed the stairs to Lastborn's room. I turned on the hall light and crept into his room. Very carefully, I stepped onto the frame of the bunkie board to approach the head of his bed. Suddenly a sharp jabbing pain hits my toe. It feels like I've just been stabbed with the end of a staple. I can't scream.

With the other foot, I step forward to position myself closer to his pillow. My right toe is still stapled to the bunkie board. It's fairly dark even with the hall light. There's just enough light to see outlines.

He's sleeping facing the hall, head centered right over the tooth. Not good. I reach my hand carefully under his pillow and then I think I see his eyes open. It's too late for me to duck down and with my arm wedged between the bars of his loft bed, I probably can't maneuver myself low enough to be hidden anyway.

"Are you awake?" I ask innocently.

After a pause, he says, "No." and closes his eyes again.

"Well, I'm just going to pull your covers up a bit" I say. Weak excuse. I reach up with my other hand over the bars and pull up his cover while reaching for the plastic baggie that holds the tooth with my right hand under his pillow.

Feeling very smart right now, I begin to retract my right hand from under his pillow, only to find that it's stuck at the elbow between the bars. A little wiggling and my now-bruised elbow is free and I slip the dollar under his pillow with no further interruptions.

Remember, my right toe is still attached to the bunkie board with a staple.

I carefully step backwards finding the frame of the bunkie board with my left foot. Slowly I detach my right toe from the bunkie board. and step onto the carpet.

The white carpet! Am I bleeding?

Thankfully, no. I limp downstairs to tell DH all about it. I'm very proud now. No crashing. No ER visits. No blood. But my toe hurts like hell.

Little Mound

I've been chomping at the bit to find some of the parks in town. There are many as most Ohio towns try to conserve green spaces for common use.

The Little Mound park is around the block from us and was first on my list to check out. This area of the state is well known for it's Native American earthen works. The one in our neighborhood is not one of the well known mounds, but it is still very interesting to see close up. Makes me want to journey to see the serpent mound.

Along with the big hill that the kids like to climb on and run down (I hear it's great for sledding in the winter as well), there is also a small play park. Swings, climbing structures and a couple of benches for mom. All in all it's pretty great.

Just a question for my readers: If you lived next door to a great park like this, would you invest in a swing set in your back yard?

Light switches

Most of this house has no overhead lighting. The kitchen has it and the hallways, but none of the rooms. The builder was nice enough however to make an outlet in each room controlled by a light switch. Some are controlled by a few light switches.

The problem is figuring out which outlet is controlled by the light switch so that we don't have to go stumbling into a room to find a light to turn on. It took us 2.5 weeks to find the outlet in the family room. We have found the one in Ken's room, but we are still stumped on all the other rooms.

How you know your a buckeye

Most of the time, the move seems to have not really happened. It's like I have a new house, but I still live in Tewksbury. I work in my house, so I don't get out much. And really, things aren't so different here. But occasionally, I will see a sign that reminds me I'm not in Tewksbury any more. I'll summarize.

Signs at the entrance to an interstate reading "No pedestrians or slow moving farm vehicles."
The RMV is the BMV.
No deposit, No returns.
Rush hour lasts about 10 minutes.
I bought wine at Walmart. And it wasn't half bad.
And the number one indicator that we aren't in Tewksbury anymore:
We went to a sports bar for lunch today. The football game was on. The bar was fairly full for a Saturday afternoon at 1pm. Every one was dressed in red, with Buckeyes logos on everything. Some people were wearing necklaces-red and white beads and then these huge brown beads. The brown beads were actually buckeyes (not the chocolate type).

And, yes, they had corn hole tables there.

The children have not yet picked up the twang (and don't let DH tell you they don't have one here), but I suspect that Lastborn will be able to turn a great twang by Christmas.

new math

Lastborn is pretty certain I'm 25 years old. I don't do a lot to dispel this myth, but I have never started this myth either.

Tonight, Lastborn asked me how old I was when I got married. I told him 24. He thought for a minute and said, "you've only been married one year?"

Yep that's right.

Then I thought for a bit and realized that I was indeed 26 when I got married. So that means I got married next year. This made him think for a minute and then he said, "Ah. You're a time traveller!"

I think he might have figured out that I'm not 25 at this point.

Neighborhood Life

Well, there are certainly a lot of kids in this neighborhood.

Next door is an 8 year old boy, and he has a step brother who visits some weekends. We don't see them much because both parents work.
Across the street there is a 10 year old boy, a 6 year old boy and a 9 year old girl. In the cul de sac across the street there is another house with a 12 year old boy, a 10 year old boy and a 10 year old girl.
At the end of the cul de sac is another 7 year old boy and his 7 year old sister. And there are a couple of other girls around the neighborhood.

Every day, kids are knocking on our door to play with both boys.

The 10 year olds all play in our back yard in the woods. It's the hot spot of the neighborhood. They would spend all day out there regardless of the weather. They come in dirty and tired and so happy. Currently, their project is to build a fort in the woods using sticks and branches. We will have to send pictures once they get the structure working.

Stepford

Maybe it's because kids are so well mannered in Ohio.

Maybe it's because most houses here are carpeted.

Maybe it's because this neighborhood is in the middle of a black walnut grove.

DH wanted to insist that the kids remove their shoes on entering the house. I think that's kind of rude to expect of visitors.

Every time a neighborhood kid enters our house, they either take off their shoes or ask us where they should leave their shoes. I'm amazed. And maybe a little scared.

The Trees are Alive!!!!

Remember I mentioned the beautiful forested lot on which our new house resides? Well, all good things come with a downside don't they?

Most of the trees are black walnut trees. And black walnut trees make walnuts. Yesterday, the boys and I spent the morning picking them up so that DH could finally mow our lawn and relieve the worries that the neighbors are experiencing.

My first idea was to send the boys out there to pick up the nuts. Firstborn did go out at about 8:30 and try, but the squirrels, suspicious of his behaviour, started throwing nuts at him. So, he came in quickly, giving up the fight.

It took us a couple of hours, and Lastborn, who has an easier time sitting on the ground (and then getting back up), became quite stained from the black walnut skins he was sitting in. We must have picked up three bushels and still there were more.

Too bad the kids don't like walnuts.

Just east of the center

Lastborn: I know where Ohio is on the map. It's just east of the center.

Wood stove looking for new home.

Come quickly. We will need to find a trash site if we can't find a home.

And yes, we will clean out the ashes that are currently in it.

Mico

Today, I went letterboxing with the boys again. We were searching for remcat's two new boxes located near the Mico Kaufman statues in Tewksbury.

In our 8 years here in Tewksbury, we have driven past these statues so many times. They are really part of the scenery for us. The boys take little notice of them and I thought it would be great for them to see the statues up close before we left. My plan is to take pictures of various sights around town for a scrapbook that the boys can take into school with them when the start in the new school. It's also a book we can look at as a family when we are feeling homesick. These statues play a big part in the book, so going for the boxes at them was a twofer in our mind.

The first statue we visited was of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan.

Annie Sullivan was born in Tewksbury to a poor Irish immigrant couple. When her mother died shortly after the birth of her younger brother, Annie's father felt forced to leave the children in the Tewksbury Alm's House. Annie and her brother both had an infection that killed the brother and left Annie blind. Due to her determination, Annie was able to go to school at Perkin's School of the blind, but being from a poor background, she would have to work once she graduated and where does a partially blind woman get work? Well, teaching Helen Keller of course. The statue depicts Annie teaching Helen her first word, water.

After collecting the box, we spent some time running around on the common and playing on the bandstand. The boys loved that.

Then it was on to S. Tewksbury to find the box at the fire station. We needed a good cover because there were guys surveying for the future move of what is affectionately known in that part of town as the pimp pole, a large obtrusive eyesore of a cell tower pole that was erected less than 30 feet from this statue. It was not easy taking this picture without the pole in the middle of it and I'm sure the angle I'm shooting is not the best angle for this shot. I also tried to get the boys to stand in such a way as to look like they were hanging off the hose, but they weren't listening very well.

Our efforts to find the box were derailed when a group of three hikers walked into the area. They ended up sitting right where I was sure the box was located. I suspect they were also boxers. But I didn't know the secret handshake at that point and asking if they were boxers would sort of give it away, wouldn't it? So we left promising to come back some other time.

After giving up on the muster box, we crossed the street to check out the statues at the Methodist church. This one is called Touching Souls. The children sit with the souls of their feet touching. Each child has the clear facial features of a different ethnic background. The boys are playing duck-duck-goose in this picture.


We had a great time and checked off the list one item we had wanted to complete all summer; get pictures of Tewksbury landmarks that we want to remember.

Our new house

Due to popular demand, we are including pictures of the new abode in Ohio!

The living room.

The entry

The great back yard for the boys to play. We are talking about erecting a tree house in this stand of trees.

There are 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths upstairs and a large family room downstairs.

literally

Dh asked Lastborn to go into the kitchen, in the cabinet under the sink, and get a single white plastic bag from the box he would find there.

First, Lastborn went into the kitchen and grabbed a plastic shopping bag from the table where the remains of the last shopping trip still sat. Why go through the effort of looking under the sink when there were bags on the table? We use these bags to line our trash cans, so it made sense.

"No," DH said, "from the box under the sink. Go back and try again."

Lastborn returned to the kitchen and got a white plastic bag from under the sink. This one had stuff in it.

DH scratched his head and carried it back into the kitchen to see where Lastborn had gotten this bag. DH was expecting a folded up plastic bag from the box of new plastic trash bags under the sink. He didn't think that the garbage can stored under the sink is also a box and it also contained a single, white plastic bag. Literally

There should be a law

Against teachers who request that parents send liquid soap into school with their first and second grade kids...


And then don't check every backpack to make sure all the soap has been turned in before said first and second graders get back on the bus.

Would you like to hear this story?

Law of conservation of Rs

Years ago, my brother in law coined the phrase the law of conservation of Rs when referring to the Massachusetts accent. Everyone has heard the typical pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd refrain when picking on Bostonians, but few understand that natives are not just throwing those Rs away out of lack of respect for the power of the letter. Neigh, for every R dropped from the end of a syllable, another is placed on the end of a word where most other regions would not notice the R.

You Californians don't have the subtlety to assess the need for an R at the end of the names Rita, Anna, or Emma, but Bostonians, well, they're all about subtlety.

But something always bothered me about the law of conservation of Rs. The added R is not a universal rule in all of Massachusetts. Many regions in the state drop their Rs but don't add them to other words. For years, I was haunted by the worry of what happened to those R or how we could exist with the equation being unbalanced in this way.

But now, I can rest comfortably, for I have found the missing Rs.

Where? You ask? In Ohio!
We soon will be moving to the land of the refugee Rs. Our new address will be in Warshington Township. However, since those in Ohio can take subtlety like those in Boston, it is spelled Washington Township.

This will require some study on my part. You see, I spend lots of time translating spelling words because my sons tend to spell what the teacher says and their teachers are always adding and dropping Rs. Discovered this on a test where firstborn correctly spelled the name Connor. But the word was supposed to be corner. :-) Now, when we go over spelling words I test them both on the correct and the Massachusetts pronunciations.

premarital

The other day, we were in a restaraunt; me and the boys. I had picked them up from camp late because lastborn had a field trip that he was not arriving back from until late. When we have these late camp nights, I'd rather go out than make them wait for me to fix something hot.

Lastborn had a sticker on his arm when I picked him up. I asked if he had put the sticker on his arm or if a friend had. His response was just "no."
"No?"
"No."
"Well, how did it get there?" (the obvious question)
"A girl put it on me."
"Oh, a girl put the sticker on you? Do you think maybe she did that because she likes you?"
"No. She just put the sticker on me."

So of course, Firstborn and I started picking on him.
"She must really like you." I said.
"I bet she wants to kiss you," Firstborn said.

Lastborn took all this pretty well with no anger or frustration. So Firstborn kept pushing until I had to pull him back a bit.

"You know, Firstborn," I said. "Girls are going to start being interested in you soon. What are you going to do if one of them wants to kiss you?"

Firstborn responded with great determination.

"Everyone knows, mom, that you don't kiss unless you have been going out for at least 4 years." He said.

"Oh. Is that how it works?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "And besides I believe in premarital."

Can you guess my response?




"What?" I spluttered, not quite controlling my reaction. And then, calming down a bit and taking a breath, I continued.

"Do you know what that means?"
"Sure."
"What do you think that means?"
"It means you don't kiss until after you are married."
"Is that right? OK. We'll go with that."

So much to blog, so little time

Heard from the backseat:

"everyone is a good dancer when they have to pee."

Conversations at Ecumenical Bible School

Each year, I direct the local ecumenical bible school. Our town is quite unique in this bible school. Four churches from four separate denominations get together to put on the bible school and we hold it on the property of the largest church, the Catholic church. This affects the dynamics of the school. well, for the adults maybe. The kids seem to have no idea what church the others come from, nor do they care.

One of the greatest things about working this VBS is seeing the interactions of the adults as they come in contact with a denomination for which they are not familiar. Every year, some conversation ensues about differences. They are usually light-hearted and interesting. By far, while the Catholics make up the largest population of the school, they are most often the center of these conversations. The strong tie to ritual and tradition makes them stand out among the Methodists, Congregationalists, and Baptists.

This year, our house sale was the focus of one of those conversations. Some of the staff asked how the house sale was going. Of course, I told them of the almost 3 month struggle in this very tight market and how we were beginning to believe that we would never sell it this year.

One of the Catholic members asked if we had buried St. Joseph. Well of course, I replied. We purchased him, prayed to him and buried him head down near the front entrance of the house. But Joseph wasn't coming through for us.

The Baptists, Congregationalists, and Methodists were just listening with wide eyes. St. Joseph in the yard is not a tradition of their denominations.

One of the staff told us about how when she entered her new house for the first time they found a three foot, dirt covered statue of St. Joseph on her kitchen counter. Many of the Catholic women harrumphed. They were supposed to take him with them and put him in a prominent place in the new home.

My response was, "three foot tall? Ours is only three inches."
To which they all replied "that's your problem!" and "No wonder the house hasn't sold yet."

Even the non-catholics were able to jump in on this one. No matter what your denomination, size does matter.

I wonder how many of these non-Catholics will be burying St. Joseph next time they sell their house.