We bought Daniel's current car seat about 4 years ago. I have a confession: I’ve only washed the seat cover twice. Once between kids and again a couple days ago, after Daniel vomited on it 5 times during our road trip. Yesterday evening I tried to reassemble the car seat, and the experience reminded me why I’ve only washed it twice. That thing is so daggum hard to get on and off! While spending an hour trying to rethread the straps and elastics into a very hard-to-reach crevice with a flashlight, wire hanger and tweezers, I drew several conclusions about the brilliant designer of said seat:
1. This designer did not personally assemble the prototype to know how hard it is to get the cover on and off. 2. This designer was a man, who never considered washing the cover. 3. This man has no children. 4. If this man had children, they never vomited, had blowouts, or spilled milkshakes on the car seat. 5. If this man’s kids ever did the above mentioned things in the carseat—or anything similarly wet, foul, and/or sticky—he never bothered to take it off and wash it. 6. If he did bother to take it off and wash it, he ignored the washing directions and threw it in the dryer instead of letting it line dry—which, by the way, takes a good 36 hours.
At the conclusion of my think session, I had just one more question:
We went to the zoo on July 2. We got lucky and hit feeding time for the sea lions, seals, giraffes, and gorillas. We were so busy enjoying our outing that the camera pretty much stayed in the bag, but we did get one video of Daniel reacting to the Sea Lion as he swam by. Look for it at the 15 second mark...
This Spring we planted a garden. We chose a spot in our back yard, cleared it, added garden soil, planted seeds and starters, and got really excited as things started to grow. Then the trees got leaves. And our garden got nil sun. Nope. None. Pretty shady back there! Some plants grew, some didn't. Some flowered, some didn't even get that far. Our tomato plant probably would have grown six feet tall if we hadn't topped it to encourage the one flower to come to fruition. So while my friends roll up their sleeves for canning and post pictures of the fantastic fruits of their labors, I'm going to post pictures of what might have been...
And now some close-ups of the particularly pathetic:
Romaine Lettuce
Watermelon
Cantaloupe Supreme (the weed is bigger than the vine)
Not quite what I pictured with Petite Corn
And the winner...our one and only, $60 tomato. Now that's value!
My sister-in-law Suzy was the official photographer of our family reunion last week. Good thing, because my camera was rarely handy. Here's a slide show she made at Scrapblog.com
As an explanation for what you're looking at in the slideshow: Friday night we had bounce houses set up in my sister DeeAnn's back yard. Big hit. Especially when someone "accidentally" shut the blower off and one of the bounce houses started to collapse on everyone in it. Uncle Nate played nice and rough with the little kids in one of the bouncies and ended up with a black eye to prove it!
Saturday was rainy so we went to see UP in 3-D (David's first movie theater experience!), and between storms the guys played football and Ultimate Frisbee.
Sunday afternoon we played a Father's Day game. Each wife wrote 5 clues about her husband, and we mixed them all up in a "fish pond" (paperclips and a magnetic pole). We had the Dad's sit in a row (I sat in for Nathan since he didn't attend), and when we read each clue we had the kids line up behind who they thought it described. It was a lot of fun.
Monday morning we did a service project for my parents, who just bought the house next door to my sister the week before, weeding their very overgrown beds and digging out their basement window wells. The clay and gravel was right up to the sill down there, so when it rained, all the water ran under the windows into their basement.
Now, you'll see some rather funny photos. Like DeeAnn holding her 12-year-old son, Taylor, down and forcing his mouth open. See, Taylor thought it would be funny to throw a worm at his cousin Madison, who in the process of flailing to get it out of her hair, had it land in her mouth. The boys were rolling in laughter at her ensuing screaming (I admit, we all were chuckling when we found out what happened). But to discourage further pranks, DeeAnn pegged Taylor and put a worm in his mouth. That started a whole round of the boys thinking it was cool to lick slugs and put worms in their mouths, and a couple of them even swallowed some. Yuck.
The Reunion officially ended Monday afternoon and the Nevada families went home. Monday night Preston's family went up to Nate's farm and rode their ponies. Tuesday we were all left to do our own things. I went to Farmington and visited Nathan's Aunt Jeannie. The boys enjoyed seeing their horses and goats, and catching a fish in her pond with a mini-marshmallow as bait!
Wednesday morning those remaining celebrated two birthdays and a baptism. Then the boys and I flew home Wednesday evening.
So a few minutes ago I was milling around the house tidying up, getting dinner ready, etc. Basically going in a lot of directions, and David was right on my heels the whole time. After almost tripping on him several times as he followed me upstairs, into several different rooms to drop stuff off and back downstairs again, I turned around and said, "David, please go find something else to do." To which he replied, "But you're setting a good example for me; that's why I'm following you."
All I have to say is, I love it. It's super convenient for when I stumble upon something cool online, or even to browse for items of interest when I get a catalog in the mail, hop onto the catalog's website, and add stuff to my Amazon wish list. Later when I'm ready to buy, I have one-stop shopping. No more catalogs kicking around for that day I might decide to splurge. No more trying to remember where I saw that nifty item online.
I've been ranting and raving again. This month's topic: potty chairs. (Can you believe Daniel has started potty training? I can't!) So anyway, that milestone reminded me that I had some things to say about our variety of potty seats.
Check out my reviews of Safety 1st seats here, BabyBjörn seats here, and updated comments on The Family Seat here.
