1. I took Barak out of his daycare today, effective the end of the month. I have mixed feelings about this, but am pretty sure it is the right decision. There are some weird staffing issues going on there, so I’m not sure who his teachers will be, and I know that they’ve had some really bad ones in the toddler class in the past. It’s getting harder and harder to take Barak to daycare/work on the bus, and once it’s winter and he’s bundled to the teeth and livid about it in the stroller, it’s going to get, well, really not fun. And the kashrus issue is not going to get any easier. And—the kicker, really—one of his current teachers is leaving her job to go back to school to get a nursing degree, so she’s going to come babysit for Barak and another little boy in the neighborhood in the mornings. No more commute with Barak, no more kashrus problems, much less expensive. The flip side, of course, is more than an hour a day added to my time away from Barak. Logically, this is really okay—the hour we spend on the bus now is hardly quality time. Still, it means almost thirty hours a week away from him, which is more than I ever planned on. I know how lucky I am to have an interesting part-time job with good benefits; still, I wish I didn’t have to work.
2. Yesterday, late in the afternoon, when it was still hot but most of our yard was in shade, I taught Barak a valuable life lesson. To wit: what you can do with a sprinkler by crimping the hose. Ooh, ahh. Big spray! Little spray! Big spray again! Oh, and is that a newly formed mud puddle? Bellyflop! It’s good to be a little boy.
3. I will never learn to compose in word and paste text into a blogger window. Never, never, never. I wrote this list yesterday and had ten fascinating and entertaining items . Really, I did. Then blogger ate them. Sigh.
4. Earlier this week I was having a conversation with MHH about the colors on the walls of our apartment. Namely, the intensely magenta living room, hellishly red hall, violet master bedroom, glowing yellow baby’s room, carrot-colored kitchen, and neon celery (really, that’s what the can said) loom room. MHH, as you may recall, is somewhat colorblind. I asked him how he felt about the colors. He said, “I may not know just what the walls look like, but I am definitely aware that our apartment doesn’t look like anyone else’s.”
5. It has been over a year since we lived in an apartment with anybody upstairs. It’s been years since I lived anywhere with an upstairs apartment without carpet. I forgot what it was like. Now I am being reminded.
6. The cheaper fresh corn is, the better it tastes. When it’s ten ears for a dollar, like it was today, it’s pretty much guaranteed to taste like candy.
7. Barak is now tall enough to reach the knobs on the oven, and today discovered them for the first time. He got half a knob-twiddle in before I whisked him away. This weekend’s Target run: oven knob covers.
8. There are certain jobs that you can still do even if you are really unfit for them. If you are a bad stocker of shelves, a bad mower of lawns, a bad filler of potholes, even a bad typist, you can still get away with doing these jobs for a living. However, there are occupations that, if you stink at them, you really should just accept your unfitness for and move on to other things. For example, phlebotomists. If you are a bad phlebotomist, please go to culinary school. And if you are a bad manager of payrolls, please get another job, anywhere but in my husband’s school, where his paycheck has just been disastrously miscalculated in the third major way this year.
9. I liked our movers. So, remember the Muppets? The real Muppets, with Jim Henson and Frank Oz doing almost all the voices. Remember the band—Electric Mayhem? Remember the band’s van? Well, that’s what the movers pulled up to our old apartment in. Except I don’t think the Electric Mayhem van had a stuffed rabbit tied to the antenna. I could be wrong, though.
10. What is it with Barak and cleaning equipment? I have already documented his intense fascination with brooms, extending to dustpans and dustbrushes. He’s a tremendous fan of the toy vacuum cleaner at daycare. Today, he discovered a damp sponge on the kitchen floor, found a clean shelf right near it, and began to industriously wipe down the shelf with the grubby sponge. And he doesn’t even get an allowance yet.
6 comments:
Is your hallway orange growing on you??
c
Most of the list had me laughing) except the serious parts, of course), but to highlight:
2 - It was good to be a little girl, too. I was the mud puddle queen. :)
4 - Heeee!
9 - No, they probably don't, but I bet if you could add one to the van, they wouldn't notice, either.
10 - When he's done, send him to my place, please.
The hall is really red, not orange. I thought it was going to be like a salsa color, but it's candy-apple red. It's growing on me a lot.
I'm glad you're bonding with your hallway colour. Is there stuff in there now?
c
No, there's nothing in the halls--I haven't been able to bring myself to put holes in the paint yet. But now that the tarps are off the floor you can see the wood floor and the white molding, which helps a lot. When the tarps were down the red was reflected off of everything, and it just look like this sort of infernal tunnel.
Various responses:
1. Ah, I was wondering. I think you've done the right thing. I also understand about the extra time away from kidlet. But it sounds like time he didn't enjoy anyhow, so remember this is better for him too. :)
4. I like that response. I want more color on the walls than beige; however, I think even I would tone your bouquet down a little...
8. Hear ye, hear ye. Or a military company commander.
10. My young'un quickly learned that it was OK to touch stuff in the store if he's tidying up and putting out-of-place things back where they belong. Since he usually has to "look with his eyes, not hands", this was a big breakthrough for him, and he makes maximum use of it.
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