Random Details

I’ve been an uninspired blogger the past few days . . . I’m blaming it on the February doldrums and a nasty case of a sinus cold. Here are some random details to chronicle the past week:

1. While I was out of commission on the couch, The Banana had a marvelous time extracting Kleenex from the tissue box one by one and excitedly running across the room to hand me each one. This kept her busy for hours at a time, which I was very thankful for because it meant I could stay horizontal on the couch rather than vertically chasing her and picking up some other mess. I tried saving all the kleenex to put back in the box later, but someone threw them behind the couch and I think they’re still there. By the time I actually get up enough gumption to retrieve them, they’ll probably be dusty. There’s nothing I hate worse than trying to blow and irritated nose into a dusty Kleenex, so I’ll probably end up throwing them away. But maybe things will turn around before the situation gets that drastic.

2. We are still in the woes of potty training, with little success. Mr. Sneaky Pants is having the hardest time relaxing on the potty, and the only time we have success is when we’ve actually been sitting on it a full hour, which is a hard time to do. Today, though, he watched a nice little movie with Dr. Peds on the laptop, and that kept him there for a long time . . . a long time with no breakthroughs. We are, however, wearing undewear whenever we are home, we’re just having scores of accidents, which is OK.

3. Since I’m washing all those pairs of underwear anyway, I decided TA DA! to start using cloth diapers on Hannah. I have been having so much guilt about throwing away all those disposable diapers. I did a little research and chose Bumgenius diapers. I’m thrilled! They are SOOOOOO easy! If only I would have known about them six years ago. We rinse them off in the toilet with the shower head that conveniently reaches from the bathtub, and wash them when the pail gets full. Dr. Peds is not particularly convinced about them yet . . . rinsing diapers kind of grosses him out, but I am fully hooked. And this is coming from someone that HATES laundry.

4. The sixteen voice chamber choir I sing in is coming up upon our midwinter concerts, and I’ve been practicing like crazy. It is a hard thing, to practice choral music (and wind ensemble music) because no matter how well you know something on your own, when you mix it up with all the other parts that are happening musically, it changes everything. The rehearsal last Sunday night went a lot better, and I finally started to feel a little more confident, so I guess the extra work is slowly paying off.

5. Dr. Peds has become obsessed with cooking pans. He’s been researching and learning all about pans and how to use them and take care of them, and in the process has decided to replace all of our simple teflon frying pans we bought when we got married. He’s terribly excited and frequently goes out pan shopping in his spare time and comes home with nice, new moderately priced pans that have many terrific features. I’ve been having tremendous guilt over this, however, because I was attached to those scratched up, warped, dented frying pans (which the kids are now using the play kitchen). I mean, we got them with our WEDDING money. And I really planned on using them my whole entire married life until I was at least an octogenarian, even though they cost about $7.00 each at the time we got them. If my fingers are now too fat to wear my wedding ring, shouldn’t I at least use my wedding frying pans? I’m adjusting. But slowly. And there are new rules that go with the new frying pans. I’m only allowed to cook with the burners set to medium. Ever. No more high. Sad, sad stuff.

6. The piano tuner came to tune my piano! Hooray. It has really been having difficulty with the dry, cold weather. We are planning on installing a piano humidifier to help with the extreme humidity changes in our house so that we can prevent a lot of damage to the action on the keys this spring. I am so, so happy to have a sonorous sounding instrument back in my living room.

7. I am horribly sick of static electricity. Really. I’m truly done with the stuff.

8. I have been having overwhelming urges to open up windows and let in some fresh air, but I can’t do it because we’re having another arctic weather blast and the temperature is far, far below zero.