Levi's Big Adventure

Levi takes the bus home from school every day except Wednesday, when he has gymnastics after school. Adah and I meet him at the bus stop and walk him the 2 blocks home. Last Wednesday he forgot to go to gymnastics. He got on the bus instead. When he got off the bus, no one was there to meet him. He decided to walk home alone. It's not far, but he had to cross 2 busy streets. He was very angry with me for forgetting him. (I know this from conversations we've had). When he got home he entered the code in the box to get into our building, rode the elevator up to our floor and our front door was unlocked (thank heavens!). He went in and looked in every room. No one was home. At that point he remembered that he was supposed to be at gymnastics and started crying. He realized I was at school waiting to pick him up. He thought hard about what he ought to do. He decided to look for the neighbor we know and ask her to drive him. He guessed and knocked on the wrong door. No one was home. He went back to our house. He looked around to see if Schuyler or I had left our phones. No luck. He thought about using our land line phone, but he doesn't know our numbers. Finally, he went to the computer. My gmail was open. Levi chatted with Schuyler. This is what they said:

me: :'(

Schuyler: what?

OMG.

I'm freaking out here.

me: that was me levi

Schuyler: Why are you at home?

me: yes

Schuyler: Did you have gymnastics today?

me: yes

Schuyler: Is mom at home?

me: no

Schuyler: WHAT?

me: i took the bus

Schuyler: ok

hold on

mom is coming home

are u okay

?

me: yes

Schuyler: can you answer the regular phone?

Schuyler called me and I rushed home. He called Levi and reassured him. All in all it wasn't a big deal. Levi handled it well. He wants to quit gymnastics though. We've programmed Schuyler's cell number into our land line phone. Levi probably needs to memorize both our numbers. I'm starting to understand why people let their children have cell phones.

Oh for an Idyllic Childhood

I took Adah to toddler story time at the Westover library today. She loved it. Poor Adah doesn't get to go to nearly as many toddler activities as her brother did at her age. And he was never actually very interested. He was always one of the ones running off down the aisles instead of listening to the story. Adah wouldn't take her coat off or stand up for any songs, but she sat in my lap, clutching my thumbs for dear life, completely enrapt. She would get a huge grin and clap as hard as she could while still holding on to my thumbs. I really need to take her to more of those things.

This particular library branch is out in the McKinley neighborhood, where we considered living when we were moving down here. The neighborhood is much different than our current one. For one example the crowd at the library was about half moms and dads (okay moms and dad) and half nannies. At our library it would be nearly all nannies. For what we currently pay in rent we could get an actual house there, with a backyard. We actually drove past a house we considered renting. It would be walking distance to that library. Also to the Lost Dog Cafe, which is awesome. There are sidewalks and trees and parks and room to ride bikes. I had to think really really hard about how AWESOME Levi's school is in order to not have a mild panic attack.

I worry so much that we are ruining our children's childhoods by making them live here in an apartment with no yard, not much good in the way of walkable parks and a bunch of neighbors that hate kids. I love Levi's school and I can only hope with all my being that it's worth it.

Germy germs at Target

Adah and I went to Target yesterday. We used to go there a lot but we don't as much anymore because of the whole Minnesota Forward thing. We wanted to check if their toys had gone to 90% off. They hadn't. We also needed to get some sandpaper for Levi's pinewood derby car. Adah and I had some fun wandering around checking out what was on sale. Adah helped push the cart.

I got a tiny electric screwdriver on clearance. Maybe this is embarrassing to admit, but we haven't had a working drill/screwdriver thing for awhile. We occasionally wish we did. The one I bought is pink. I don't really understand why they decided to start making pink tools. Did someone say, "You know, women aren't buying a lot of tools. Maybe they would if the tools were cuter," and the other people said, "Yes! Great idea! Make them pink! Women love things that are pink!"

They don't even support breast cancer research. They're just pink.

After wandering around some more and making a few more random selections we went to check out. I walked up to an open cashier. She said, "how are you today?" with a big sigh and forehead sweep. I said, "I'm pretty good. Are you doing okay?"

She told me that she thought she had the flu. I was sympathetic but also rather disgusted. I smiled and tried to help her out but I couldn't help shrinking away from her and hoping she didn't touch my stuff too much. Then she tried to give Adah a high-five. Come on! If she doesn't have the sense to keep her germy hands away from babies, what are the chances she thinks to wash them often while she's sick? Luckily Adah is terrified of strangers and turned away in a huff at the offer. It's the first time I've been glad she did that. I can understand that this woman doesn't make very much money and probably can't afford to stay home even if her manager would let her. I'm not mad at her (ok, I am, but only for trying to high-five my child not for coming in to work). I am mad at Target. They need to have some kind of procedure in place. There's got to be an easier, less public, job this very ill woman could be doing until she gets better. Cashier is the 2nd worst job they could have her working. The restaurant would be worse. But they have a ton of jobs she could be doing. They really didn't need to have her dealing directly with customers.

Maybe I shouldn't be shopping at a store that doesn't treat its employees well in the first place. But that would put some responsibility on me. Hmmm.

Think I can restart this blogging thing?

I'm going to try to start writing on my blog this year. It's not a resolution, I don't really do that. I just want everyone to start blogging again, so I'm gonna try too.

I was supervising Levi's homework yesterday. He was doing a math sheet, which is something he enjoys. The sheet was about fractions. One of the questions was, "would you rather share a candy bar with one other person or two other people?"

He had written 'two'. Knowing that that was the wrong answer I prepared to talk to him about it until I read the answer to the follow up 'explain why' question. He had written, "I like to hang out."

So he may not know more math than me, but he looks to be shaping up to be a better person than I. I'm very much cool with that.

Placebo for sale?

Last night Levi woke up saying his knee hurt. He can be a little dramatic when it comes to pain and he thrashed around and moaned and couldn't go back to sleep. Schuyler rubbed his leg and tried to get him to relax, but he was having a lot of trouble going back to sleep. Then we gave him some Tylenol and he fell asleep within 2 minutes. Way sooner than the Tylenol could have begun to work. So I'm wondering, can you buy sugar pills? Some kind of safe placebo to give your kids? It seems like that would come in handy. I guess I should go find out if the internet knows.

Edit: okay after doing a bit of research on the subject I am forced to conclude that I am a terrible mother for considering it. I would be teaching my child that he should always take a pill for every minor ailment and also that he can't trust me to tell him the truth. Whoops.

A Story that Probably has a Moral

Once upon a time there was a baby girl that wanted to stay up all night and party. She went to bed with Mommy and Daddy at around 10. Daddy went right to sleep, like usual. Usually Baby snuggles and nurses and goes to sleep with Mommy shortly after. That night she nursed and snuggled and played and nursed and snuggled and played and would not go to sleep. At around 12:30 Daddy woke up and noticed that Mommy's head was about to explode. He picked up Baby and went in the next room. Mommy went right to sleep. After about 45 minutes Mommy woke up and went to grab Baby and tell Daddy to go back to sleep. Baby finally went to sleep too. In the morning Daddy told Mommy to stay in bed and he got the older child ready for school and waited for the carpool and was late to work. The moral of this story might be 'Don't have babies'. But I think it's 'Sleep is the very best possible gift you can give' or 'Daddy is awesome'.

A Strange Coincidence?

I have an interesting story to tell, but it has the word period in it a lot. Just a warning, in case that bothers you.

On Monday my mom started her period. This is unusual because she hasn't had one for 6 months or so (menopause). My sister Leah has an IUD and doesn't get periods, but she started one on Monday as well. My sister Claire also started hers on Monday, which is not really weird by itself. My sister Mary, who is 13 started her very first period on Monday. None of these women live together. None of them even live in the same city.

Schuyler says he is forced to think it is just a very strange coincidence. ( this even though he scoffs at making your data fit your assumptions :) )

I think it is something else, but I don't know what. Ideas?