Even MORE Leo says the darndest things

 

 

Here are just a few of the things that have been heard around our house lately:

 

A few months ago we were celebrating a promotion Frank got at work. We told Leo about it and ever since he’s been asking Frank, “Daddy, do you HAVE the promotion?” (Like it’s something physical he could see!)

 

 

I told Leo, “If you need anything I’ll be in the next room.” He immediately said, “I need anything!”

 

 

Leo’s skin was looking dry so I decided he probably didn’t need a bath every night. We moved to an every-other-night schedule. On the nights we don’t take a bath I say, “We’re going to skip bath!” So after we brush his teeth he runs over to the bath tub and says, “Let’s skip bath!” I think he thinks he’s going to get to skip around in the bath tub.

 

I have been drilling into his head that he can’t get anything (his song choice, a food he wants, help with getting a toy out from under the couch) unless he asks nicely. Somehow he’s mixed up all his nice words and come up with this phrase, “Please may you…” so whenever he’s asked to ask nicely he says things like:

“Please may you play the choo choo train song.”

“Please may you give me nok.” (milk)

I don’t correct him because it’s so much better than screaming, “I WANT NOK!”

 

With all the Christmas stuff already out at stores he’s been asking, “Can we GO to Christmas?”

And by the way, the emphasis IS on the word GO. That’s how he asks questions (just like Do you HAVE the promotion?)

 

I heard this mom use a great line: “I don’t respond to fussing” so I’ve been using that. The other day he was fussing as he was asking for something and I said it a little wrong: “I don’t listen to fussing.”

Leo immediately stopped fussing and asked, “Do you listen to stories?”

 

 

Abby strikes again

I’ve already complained about how inept I think Dear Abby is. Her answers are often unhelpful, ridiculous or just plain wrong. And even though I don’t agree with her answers 90% of the time, could she just stick to printing problems and answers rather than PSAs? I can’t tell you how bummed I am when I open up the paper, all excited to read about someone’s weird problem (to make me feel better about my own life), and there’s an entire column devoted to “Make sure you have your fire alarms checked” or “The importance of smiling with your teeth.”

 

But back to her bad advice. As I said in my last Abs rant, I hate it when someone asks her how they can broach a sensitive subject with a friend or family member and she tells them to just basically be rude. Her advice would be great if the advice-seeker didn’t want to continue having a relationship with the person. But if they’re trying to tactfully tell them something without dissolving all ties, they have to choose their words carefully. Abby always just has them say exactly what they said to her. For example, she pretty much ruined the life of a teenager with her advice below:

 

DEAR ABBY: I'm a junior in high school and taking multiple AP classes. With all the homework we're assigned, I sometimes need to use lunchtime to finish assignments. My problem is my friends follow me into the school library and talk to me while I'm working. Their constant chatter is distracting and prevents me from concentrating on my assignments.

I don't neglect my friends. I spend hours outside of school with them every week. But I'd rather be left alone when I'm trying to work. My friends don't understand that I'm more focused on academics and long-term goals than my short-term social life.

How can I politely get them to leave me alone when I'm working? -- FOCUSED ON MY GOALS IN LOS ANGELES

DEAR FOCUSED ON YOUR GOALS: If you haven't told your friends plainly how you feel and clearly drawn a line, you shouldn't blame them for being clueless when they cross it. Tell them you need to concentrate when you're in the library and that they are creating a problem for you. Not only will you be helping yourself, you'll be doing a favor for other students who are trying to study and who are also being distracted.

 

Is this how Abby thinks this will go down?

Focused girl (who I just assume is a girl): “You know what guys? I have to tell you something. I really need to concentrate when I’m in the library and you guys being here is creating a problem for me.”

Friends: “Oh, okay. We didn’t realize that; we’re so sorry! We’ll go to the cafeteria and just hang out with you after school.”

 

Nope. It went more like this:

Focused girl: “You know what guys? I have to tell you something. I really need to concentrate when I’m in the library and you guys being here is creating a problem for me.”

Friends: We’re creating a problem for you? We thought we were your friends but apparently we’re just problems! I guess you think you’re the only one who has to study, huh? We’re just some idiots who aren’t as smart as you? Well, you can have your library! You can just hang out in the library on the weekends while we go cow tipping without you.

 

Except they live in L.A. so they probably have better things to do than go cow tipping.  But the point is, here is a girl who is lucky enough to be smart and popular and now she’s just going to be smart. Now where is that going to get her? Thanks a lot, Dear Abby.

Taking Trains to a New Level

And that new level is a much lower one. If Leo is at home, you can find him on the floor with one of his trains, usually the “big train,” pictured here.

It is amazing how much time he can spend  lying, crawling or scooting on the floor, doing this whole pretend thing with his train. I’m not always sure what he’s talking about but I hear things like:

“Here come the passengers.”

“All aboard!”

“Ding Ding Ding”

“Dinosaur Train, Dinosaur Train, Dinosaur Train” (singing the theme song to his favorite show).

I think sometimes he’s doing a whole episode of Dinosaur Train but I can’t be sure. He often talks quietly and mustn’t be disturbed. Just try telling him it’s time for lunch and you’ll be met with a, “NO!! I’M PLAYING WITH MY TRAIN!!” In fact, you don’t even have to say what it’s time for. I just get out, “It’s time for—” and he argues.

But I’m not complaining. I LOVE that he can entertain himself so well. I just have to remember to keep the floors clean.

This Patient has lost her Patience

Did you hear the straw break on the camel’s back today? It happened at my dentist’s office:

I came in at 11:45 for an 11:50 appointment. I needed to leave by 12:50 to pick up Leo at 1:00 (which I told them when I made the appointment).

At 12:15 I was still waiting. I asked the receptionist how much longer it will be. “If it’s going to be 15 more minutes then I probably just need to leave because I don’t think she can clean my teeth in 20 minutes.”

She goes back to ask the hygienist who says in a rude voice, “When I’m done with this patient she’ll be next.” I was steamed. I didn’t ask because I was impatient. I asked because I legitimately needed to know. Why wait another 15-20 if I couldn’t get in that day anyway?

Another ten goes by and the hygienist finally calls me back (with no apology for the wait). I said, “I don’t have a lot of time,” and she said, “You might want to reschedule then.” I said that yes, yes I would and she DARES to say, “And you might want to allow more than an hour. I mean, we ARE a DOCTOR’S office!”

I know that comment is supposed to mean, “Unexpected things come up and you might have to wait.”

But what I think it means is “We, the medical industry, believe we don’t have a responsibility to be on time. We overbook appointments and our patients just EXPECT to wait. We have never ever seen a patient at their scheduled appointment time and we never will.”

I mean, people who work in doctors’ offices have advanced degrees. Surely, there is someone in each practice who could develop a scheduling system that actually works. (My husband, Frank, could easily build one of his fancy models in Microsoft Access that determines the optimal amount of time in between appointments for each doctor’s office.)

The other day I called my regular doctor’s office’s nurses line to ask a question, which I thought was pretty timely. They didn’t call me back. The next day I followed up and finally, at the end of the day they called me back. I asked why it takes so long to return a call and the nurse said, “Our volume of calls is so large that—“

“THEN YOU NEED TO STAFF APPROPRIATELY!!” I told her.

To me, it’s really that simple. And if your patients are ALWAYS kept waiting because you ALWAYS have emergencies come up, then you need to build in time for emergencies.

It reminds me of this young, right-out-college girl I once worked with. She was late every single day and every single day she had an excuse: “My roommate’s car broke down so I had to take her to work” or “My dog threw up on my outfit so I had to change.” She wasn’t lying; these things really happened to her. I told her, “It seems like you have a lot of things happen to you in the morning. I think you should build in time for these situations and aim to leave about 30 minutes earlier.”

That’s what the doctor’s offices should do!! Build in time for the patient who asks way too many questions. Build in time for the guy who needs an emergency root canal. And definitely build in time for the crazy patient who’s going to launch into a monologue about how inefficient your appointment scheduling system is.

But no longer will I let you get by with, “I mean, we ARE a DOCTOR’s office!” To that I say, “Well, I AM WRITINGGAL!”

Guinness, we’re waiting for your call

Today, Leo lined up every toy with wheels that he owns and made the longest caravan ever created by a two-year-old:

 

 

He was quite proud of himself!

Get your hands out of my food!

 

When I used to work in advertising, I was assigned to a popular bread account. This particular bread’s claim to fame was that their product was “hand-twisted.” Everything from their billboard ads to to their brochures had to say “hand-twisted.” When you took a tour of their facilities, you even saw these hand-twisters, people who spent all day twisting dough with their hands.

And for some reason, that was supposed to be appetizing.

I thought of those hand-twisters yesterday when Frank said, “This beer says it was ‘handcrafted.’ Why do I want someone’s hands in my beer?”

I see how something being made by hands is appealing for items like furniture, jewelry and clothing. But I don’t get it when it comes to food and beverages. Handmade doughnuts? Handcrafted wine? I mean, it’s bad enough that you may have used your feet to stomp the grapes for the wine. Now your hands are involved too?

Chick-Fil-a likes to brag that their milkshakes are hand-spun. Um, it’s okay to use a blender. Thanks.

I hope at least that they’re spun by human hands and not those cows that are always hanging around.

Halloween Scenes

The recession has hit everyone; even the train industry isn’t immune to economic woes. Instead of hiring engineers and conductors, they just hire one guy (or girl; it’s an EOE) to do both jobs. Leo paid tribute to that this Halloween when he dressed like an engineer but behaved like a conductor by taking tickets and shouting, “All Aboard!”

 

 

Two nights before Halloween Leo debuted his costume at a festival. We went with Leo RR that night but for Halloween changed it to Leo Express. On Halloween night he partied with his buddies, went trick-or-treating and then swam in his candy.

 

    

Grass is always greener

 

This is the only “BEFORE” picture I could find of the grass in our backyard. It’s Leo’s birthday weekend—May of this year. The grass in our backyard should have been green!

 

 

 

Instead, we barely had any. I would look out the window and say, “Our backyard makes me sad.”

Leo always wants to go back there because that’s where the basketball net and swing are. But it’s so depressing to trek through the sandy, rocky, sometimes muddy yard to retrieve basketballs.

Finally, we couldn’t take it anymore. We called in a specialist who said it would cost $1,300 to make our lawn look good. We needed fescue sod, he said.

We almost just accepted that and then luckily, we found Cesar. Cesar said we could do fescue seed (rather than sod) for more like $600. We liked the sound of that.

Cesar and his team planted the seed and for a couple of weeks we just saw a bunch of straw in the backyard. And then one day…

GRASS! TONS OF BRIGHT GREEN GRASS!

 

We are so happy with our new lawn! Cesar says we can’t walk on it for a few more weeks but that’s okay with us. We just like looking at it from the back window. “Our grass makes me happy,” we now say.

I can’t wait to roll around in it or better yet, chase after basketballs.

Two-and-a-half means no tears!

 

At Leo’s last few doctor check-ups he’s been a terrible patient. He barely let the doctor look in his ears and mouth and when he got the stethoscope out, forget it. He cried and cried and of course, screamed when it came time for shots.

But this time, for his two-and-a-half year check-up, he was all smiles:

 

 

His doctor does all these cute things like, when he looked in his ear he said, “I found a pumpkin in there!” And when he was done looking in his eyes he let Leo “blow out” the light.

Leo didn’t even mind the stethoscope!

 

 

Here, the doctor is telling Leo that he must have drank some “tickle juice” this morning.

He didn’t even flinch when he got the flu shot!!

As far as his stats, he’s 27 pounds, 35.8 inches tall.

 

Here the doctor is telling Leo he has “stinky toes.”

 

 

 

 

 

And here are just a few other pictures of almost two-and-a-half year old Leo this past weekend.

 

Meeting new friend Jacob:  

 With mommy and daddy in our burnt orange:

 

Hogging the football from new friend Luke:

For the Love of Facebook

 

 

A while back I talked about my different Facebook pet peeves—the people who give broad invitations to go out (anyone want to go to happy hour?), people who use FB to promote their pyramid schemes and people who think any of us care what they’re doing on Farmville.

I realize now I left off a really important one: People who use Facebook to have a relationship. Some examples with fake names:

 

Sally Smithers posts on Jason Smithers wall: I love you, honey! You’re the best husband in the world!

Jason Smithers comment: No, you are the best wife in the world!

Sally Smithers comment: No, you are the best, ya cutie!

Jason Smithers comment: No, you are, you pumpkin butt!

Sally Smithers comment: Okay, fine. It’s a tie, my dimpley-do!

 

Carl Mitchell to girlfriend, Missy Hartwell: I hope you have a day as beautiful as you are, honey!

 

Jan Salsbury (I’m getting really creative with these fake names!) to her husband, Tony: Thanks for the wonderful meal tonight, Tony! You are the best husband in the world!

Jason Smithers comment: No, I am the best husband in the world!

 

I’m all in favor of love but do you really need to play it out on Facebook? Even a simple “I love you,” did you really have to write it on your beloved’s wall? Or could you have put that in an email? You might say, “Why should I hide my love? I want to shout it to the world!” That’s my point. Are you trying to tell everyone or just that person? It all seems a little show-offy to me. Kind of Tom-Cruise-Couch-Jumping, don’t ya think? In fact, I’d be willing to bet you’re more affectionate on Facebook than in real life. Soon they’ll have to add “virtual love” to the Five Love Languages and change it to the Six Love Languages.

 

She says: “I really prefer to show my love on social networking sites. I also like tweeting about it.”

He says: “But I prefer quality time!”

She says: “Hey, virtual love is my love language! Whaddya gonna do? If you want to know how much I love you, check your Facebook wall.”

Pumpkin Recital

We went to the pumpkin recital last weekend. I mean the pumpkin patch. I just call it a recital because it has that same effect as recitals: are the kids really there to entertain and put on a show or are the parents just taking a bunch of pictures? At the pumpkin patch, are kids there to have fun and pick out a pumpkin or are parents just there to snap photos of kids seemingly having fun in the pumpkins?

Here are some pics of Leo and friends performing--I mean playing--in the pumpkins. (They really did have fun even with our lenses all around!)

 

 

Impatience runs in the family

My grandma had no patience for picky eaters, even if they weren’t picky by choice.  If she were serving a meal and somebody said, “No, thank you, I can’t eat those cheese grits, I’m allergic to dairy.” She would say, “What? You don’t like grits? You haven’t even tried ‘em!” And the person would say, “No, it’s not that I don’t like them. I love them. I’m just allergic.” And again she would scoff at them. And forget being on a diet. That’s simply not allowed.

Sure, that’s ridiculous (on grandma’s part) but I find myself losing patience too. For me, it’s sick people, I—knock on this synthetic wood that my desk is made out of—rarely get sick. So when people give me the excuse that they’re under the weather, I get a little annoyed. Isn’t that awful? I get even more annoyed when they start describing their sickness: “I’ve had a cough for a few days and then last night, I woke up at 3am and my nose was stuffy and I had to put four pillows under my head and then the snot drained down—“

And that’s where I stop listening.

Can you just say “I’m sick” and leave it at that? I don’t wanna hear your belly aching. And if my grandma were here, you’d still have to eat a full plate of grits, no matter how sick you are!

Potty Party

When it comes to potty training, I’m intentionally not reading any books on the subject and not asking for advice from those who’ve gone before me. If I do, I’ll start comparing our potty training to everyone else’s. “But Jennifer Mableton’s kid potty trained in one day!” or “How could that stupid kid from the Y who doesn’t even know his own name potty train himself by age 2?” or “The book said he shouldn’t have any accidents after three days! Why is my kid still peeing on the floor?”

So you see, it could get ugly.

All I’ve done so far is have Leo sit on his little potty while he watches a TV show. I figure, if he drinks enough and then sits there long enough, he’ll have to go eventually. And then, once he does, he’ll get a sticker and see how awesome it is.

But somehow he could drink cups full of apple juice and still not go. Amazing.

So the other day, I had an idea: A potty party.

I totally made it up on the fly. I hung up this “Happy Birthday” banner since it looked festive and he can’t read. The yellow sign says “Leo! Go!” and brought bubbles into the bathroom:

 

 

 

When he got up from his nap I told him, “We’re going to have a potty party! You can invite three stuffed animals to come with you!” He chose chicken, bear and Bevo. Then he asked, “Will John be there?”

The basic idea of the potty party was that we would make the bathroom look and feel really exciting. He drank a juice box and then every 15 minutes we’d go in the bathroom, blow bubbles and then sit on the potty. He’d try to go and then we’d play until the timer went off again, telling us it was time to go back into the potty party. The party only lasted an hour but A LOT went on.

Here are the # of times we did the following:

 

Played Duck Duck Goose: three

Did a potty party conga line around the house: two (I made up this chant “pee-pee in the potty, poo-poo in the potty”)

Peed in the potty: two

Peed on the rug: one

Pooped on the stairs: one

Drank juice boxes: three

Received stickers: two

Earned lollipops: two

Ate snack: one

Read books: two

Ran through bubbles: four

Had stuffed animals use the potty: three

Cleaned up accidents: two

Changed big boy underwear: two

 

 

All in all, I’d say it was a successful (although weird) party. Leo was very excited to show Frank the potty party when he got home that night.

Perhaps MY methods will be featured in a book on the subject one day!

 

 

 

Chilean Miners: The rest of the story

At press time, 21 miners are out. Seeing the first one emerge last night was something I’ll never forget, just like I’ll never forget when Baby Jessica came out of the well. There are a lot of similarities between the miners and Baby J:

 

--Both were trapped underground

--Both were rescued through a small hole

--Both rescues were witnessed around the world

--Both rescues turned into a media circus

And get this:

BOTH HAPPENED THE SAME WEEK!

I figured that out this morning when I was thinking about how much this reminded me of Baby Jessica. Then I thought, wasn’t it about this time of year that the Baby Jessica event happened? I don’t know how I knew that. (Maybe it’s from blogging about her, like, ten times.)

I looked it up and Jessica fell into the well on 10/14 and was rescued on 10/16. The miners rescue started on 10/12 and will likely go through 10/14, 23 years later.

Darn, just saw that The Washington Post drew the parallel between Baby Jessica and the miners before I did. I’ve been scooped!

So now that all the miners are almost out, what happens next? Well, as for me, I will continue to pray the rosary every day until they are all rescued. Then I will add two more days because I’m two rosaries behind. It has been a really cool experience to pray the rosary every day. My mother-in-law, Joanne, told me that her dad made a deal with God when he was in WWII. He told God that if He let him out of there alive, he would pray the rosary every day for the rest of his life. AND HE DID!  I will probably not do it every day but I hope to get it out more often than I did before (which was never, so way more often than that).

As for the miners, I hope that they can weather the media circus they are about to endure with dignity and then get back to their normal lives. However, it seems that these stories usually go more like this:

--Victim is celebrated and given hero-status

--Victim shines during 15 minutes, receives offers of money and fame, makes the talk show rounds

--Public starts to tire of hearing victim’s story, moves on to next story

--Victim screws up: squanders the money, ruins his personal life and/or gets arrested

--Victim is scorned by the public and is no longer the victim

This seems to happen with athletes, especially Olympians (Hello, Michael Phelps, Oksana Baiul). Nancy Kerrigan is a perfect example of an Olympic-victim turned hero turned public enemy. It’s not all the victim’s fault. We love to lift people up and then knock them down.

I really hope (and pray!) that this doesn’t happen to the miners. Take a cue from Baby Jessica, guys. When your 15 minutes is up, just enjoy life above ground.

Things I wish I liked: Gardening

I’m on a TIWIL roll! I’ve even thought of a new format, in an effort to make my point really clear:

 

 

Why I don’t like gardening:

This weekend we planted pansies in our front yard. We do this every year and every year, I hate it. I thought it would be cool this weekend but it was hot. So there I was, bent over the flower bed (a term I use loosely because it’s really just more like a patch that doesn’t happen to have a bush on it), digging, watering, planting. UGH!! I was uncomfortable, my back hurt and sweat was pouring down my face. I had to give myself a pep talk: “Okay, just try to plant these pansies as fast as you can and after each row, you can take a break and drink some water.” After awhile, I had to add in another incentive: when I would dig a hole I got to wipe my brow with one of Frank’s stinky old t-shirts that we now use as a dust cloth. Lucky me.

I really only like to sweat if I’m working out. At least then there’s a reward. The reward in this case should be beautiful flowers planted in front of my house. But when I was done planting the flowers Frank said, “Are these the old ones or the new ones?” AHHH!!

1. The “old” ones were half-dead and surrounded by weeds. Don’t these look even a little better?

2. If you think these are still the old ones, what do you think I’ve been doing here for the last two hours?

The reason it didn’t look so great is because not only do I not enjoy gardening, I don’t understand it. I’d like to include a sentence here like, “I don’t know an X from an X” but I know so little I can’t even think of examples!

 

Why I wish I liked gardening:

It sounds like a great idea, working in the yard. People look like they’re having fun doing it. In fact, I know they’re having fun because they SAY they’re having fun and sometimes people even list it under “likes” on forms.  There are magazines devoted to it. The G in HGTV stands for Garden! I would love, love, love to have pretty flowers in my front yard. I’d love to have the kind of yard that wins “yard of the month” (if we had that in my neighborhood, which we should). I’d love to have curb appeal! Right now, people always think we’re not home. It’s because of my lack of landscaping!

 

Perhaps when the weather is cooler? No, I still don’t like the uncomfortable positions you have to be in to garden plus I still don’t understand it. And did I mention that it’s just dirty?

 

Gardening: I wish I liked you, but I don’t.

A Day at the Hair

 

Leo talks really well but he just can’t seem to get the hang of the letter F. So he pronounces everything that starts with an “F” with an “H.”

 

I’m having hun.

That was hunny.

I’m doing hine.

I can’t hind my train.

I hall down.

So when we told him we were going to the North Georgia State Fair with his buddies, John and Etienne, he asked all day, “When are we going to the hair?”

It was the first cool day of fall, (or “hall”) so we dug out our jackets, brought along our Granny Jo and headed to the hair.

We couldn’t believe our little not-even-two-and-a-half-year-olds were able to ride some of the rides on their own! We moms were nervous at first but they did so well (and screamed when we’d take them off) that we just kept putting them on more rides!

 

Some videos of the action at the hair: