Thursday, July 08, 2004
System failure
There's a revolt in the Brooks' household of late.
Adam and I aren't arguing, though, and Emma's heading off to preschool every morning without a word of protest.
The anarchy is elsewhere.
I've mentioned the dead computer. (We bought a new Dell, and all is well now. At least until the MasterCard bill arrives.)
Last week, the iron went caput. It only came on sporadically, with just the right jiggling of the cord, and even then, it spit rust and water all over our clothes. OK, so maybe we should've figured out we needed a new one before it died.
The toilet in our bathroom has been on the fritz for more than a month. Adam would replace a part and finagle, but minutes later it was running incessantly again. And because he didn't get the "quiet flow" piece, the noise was loud enough to pull me out of a dead sleep. With any luck, the new seal he just installed will do the job. Six weeks of sharing Em's potty hasn't been fun.
So, Tuesday night, I'm trying to quickly heat up leftovers so Em and I can hit storytime at the library. The button that opens the microwave door sticks just a little, and it wouldn't open at all this time. I push and prod and jab, and the door finally pops open. Great. Until I realize the button is completely wedged in and the door is permanently ajar. Adam comes in from his chain-saw work (we lose limbs every time the wind blows), and he can't fix it, either.
So just add a microwave on to that credit-card bill. It's all white and shiny and snazzy, which is nice. Our old one was a wedding gift and loyally done its job the last eight years. All that was wrong was the button, and we had to buy a new one. There just really aren't appliance repair shops anymore. We'll add the microwave and the iron to our charity pile, and maybe some tinkerer will be able to fix and use them. In the meantime, I'm waiting to see what's next on the list to die. Anything but the A/C, please.
Adam and I aren't arguing, though, and Emma's heading off to preschool every morning without a word of protest.
The anarchy is elsewhere.
I've mentioned the dead computer. (We bought a new Dell, and all is well now. At least until the MasterCard bill arrives.)
Last week, the iron went caput. It only came on sporadically, with just the right jiggling of the cord, and even then, it spit rust and water all over our clothes. OK, so maybe we should've figured out we needed a new one before it died.
The toilet in our bathroom has been on the fritz for more than a month. Adam would replace a part and finagle, but minutes later it was running incessantly again. And because he didn't get the "quiet flow" piece, the noise was loud enough to pull me out of a dead sleep. With any luck, the new seal he just installed will do the job. Six weeks of sharing Em's potty hasn't been fun.
So, Tuesday night, I'm trying to quickly heat up leftovers so Em and I can hit storytime at the library. The button that opens the microwave door sticks just a little, and it wouldn't open at all this time. I push and prod and jab, and the door finally pops open. Great. Until I realize the button is completely wedged in and the door is permanently ajar. Adam comes in from his chain-saw work (we lose limbs every time the wind blows), and he can't fix it, either.
So just add a microwave on to that credit-card bill. It's all white and shiny and snazzy, which is nice. Our old one was a wedding gift and loyally done its job the last eight years. All that was wrong was the button, and we had to buy a new one. There just really aren't appliance repair shops anymore. We'll add the microwave and the iron to our charity pile, and maybe some tinkerer will be able to fix and use them. In the meantime, I'm waiting to see what's next on the list to die. Anything but the A/C, please.
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Growing pains
Poor Emma. At 3, she's already got legs she hasn't grown into. If my childhood serves as a guide, she'll be about 25 before they fit.
My very tall daughter has gotten really clumsy of late, resulting in some big, nasty scrapes. (You can see the latest in the bottom picture here ... and learn all about our Fourth of July festivities, as well.) Three times in the last three weeks, she's fallen down and ended up with ugly road rash up and down her legs. Her shins have been bruise-covered since she started walking, but the scabs are new and are here to stay, I suspect. If they weren't so easily identifiable as cement scrapes, I'd be worried her school would call DHS.
The first was from ankle to knee, when she missed a curb and scraped her leg all the way up it. The second was in a race with buddy Jack and she bit it on the sidewalk. And the latest was sidewalk, again, turning to run from our neighbor. (And we were babysitting, so I had a 9-month-old in my lap and a Popsicle-covered 4-year-old on the porch beside me when Emma decided to bolt. Not. Enough. Hands. I ended up smearing Em's blood all over me while cradling the infant in one arm and crouching to hold Emma with the other. Jack, luckily, was still enthralled with his frozen treat and stayed still.)
Thank god the whole world isn't paved, though, or she'd be scabby from head to toe. She falls off chairs, both when helping me cook and when eating dinner. She rolls off her bed (thankfully, while awake). She nosedives into the hardwood floors. Slides out of (or into) the bath for a crash landing. Stubs her toe, bumps her head, bites her lip, cheek and tongue. Scratched her fingers on the side of the pool. She's a whirling dervish whose lanky limbs smack into everything in her way.
Not that this should be any surprise. My mom called me Grace for years, short for "Grace in Motion." A glass in my hands -- or proximity -- didn't go unspilled for years. I walked into tables (still do) and doorjambs, knocked over every available knickknack with my bony elbows and bumped my head countless times. I still blame part of my clumsiness on the fact that I'm nearly blind, and my peripheral vision is bad enough before you realize that if I dart my eyes too far to the sides, they slide out from behind my Coke-bottle glasses. As much as anything, though, said grace was from my too-long body and limbs. Emma's got years of it ahead of her, I suspect.
At least she looks good doing it.
My very tall daughter has gotten really clumsy of late, resulting in some big, nasty scrapes. (You can see the latest in the bottom picture here ... and learn all about our Fourth of July festivities, as well.) Three times in the last three weeks, she's fallen down and ended up with ugly road rash up and down her legs. Her shins have been bruise-covered since she started walking, but the scabs are new and are here to stay, I suspect. If they weren't so easily identifiable as cement scrapes, I'd be worried her school would call DHS.
The first was from ankle to knee, when she missed a curb and scraped her leg all the way up it. The second was in a race with buddy Jack and she bit it on the sidewalk. And the latest was sidewalk, again, turning to run from our neighbor. (And we were babysitting, so I had a 9-month-old in my lap and a Popsicle-covered 4-year-old on the porch beside me when Emma decided to bolt. Not. Enough. Hands. I ended up smearing Em's blood all over me while cradling the infant in one arm and crouching to hold Emma with the other. Jack, luckily, was still enthralled with his frozen treat and stayed still.)
Thank god the whole world isn't paved, though, or she'd be scabby from head to toe. She falls off chairs, both when helping me cook and when eating dinner. She rolls off her bed (thankfully, while awake). She nosedives into the hardwood floors. Slides out of (or into) the bath for a crash landing. Stubs her toe, bumps her head, bites her lip, cheek and tongue. Scratched her fingers on the side of the pool. She's a whirling dervish whose lanky limbs smack into everything in her way.
Not that this should be any surprise. My mom called me Grace for years, short for "Grace in Motion." A glass in my hands -- or proximity -- didn't go unspilled for years. I walked into tables (still do) and doorjambs, knocked over every available knickknack with my bony elbows and bumped my head countless times. I still blame part of my clumsiness on the fact that I'm nearly blind, and my peripheral vision is bad enough before you realize that if I dart my eyes too far to the sides, they slide out from behind my Coke-bottle glasses. As much as anything, though, said grace was from my too-long body and limbs. Emma's got years of it ahead of her, I suspect.
At least she looks good doing it.
