When I look at my blog stats (and I do), I'm a little surprised to see that my chart about my four-year-old's food pyramid has consistently garnered top rankings in views. People tend to find it via search engines. I can only assume that they are seeking legitimate nutritional information, not my personal comment on raising a fickle eater.
It seems like it's time to update that chart because a) he's five now and b) his tastes have changed slightly. The boy has eaten a cream cheese and jelly sandwich for lunch easily 150 out of 180 school days this year. Then, he asks for it on weekends, too. It makes my lunch prep easy, but I do worry about overdose.
While he still likes pretzels, they're not nearly the obsession they were in his fourth year of life.
Why don't kid-friendly
places have kid-friendly sinks?
Dad! I can't get soap!
I took the boys bowling recently and encountered something that drives me bats: in the bathroom, my five-year-old could reach the faucet, but he had no hope of reaching the soap. Of course, almost no one operates a bowling alley on its own. This place in the 'burbs has an arcade and snack bar and laser tag. We were there during what turned out to be afternoon cosmic bowling with crazy lights and disco balls and music videos by exclusively teen recording artists. It's totally family-oriented and hosts several birthday parties a day.
Why wouldn't a place like that have sinks that enable little kids to reach? Museums oriented to children tend to be no better. Teddy could at least reach the faucet and bowl in this one. Many times that's even a challenge. I have only seen in one museum bathroom clever, fixed, fold-down step stools under a few of the sinks that get a child to the level where he/she can reach everything. Having a few four-dollar Ikea stools kicking around isn't the worst idea, either, but almost no one does it.
Of course, when I pick up the child or the child does the tiny climber routine, the counter against which we necessarily lean tends to be covered in that slurry of soap and water that bedevils most public bathroom counters. Then the slurry, of course, finds its way onto my clothes or the child's clothes.
To quote Gob Bluth: come on!
How do parents who
don't go to church meet teen-age
girls who babysit?
If I put those pants
near the sewing box, the seam
might one day get sewn.
Sitting down to complain about how little league ruins our family life, I remembered and looked up this post. I've covered that ground in this space before. Little leauge, is, however, my excuse for scarce posting lately. We added Teddy and his five hours of little league to Charlie's six. If you recall or reread last year's post, life got ragged for us with one boy playing. Two boys playing wreaked havoc. Very few family dinners, no sleeping in ever (thanks to a new 9:00 church service on Sundays) and a lot of time logged at the fields. Hence, no time for this little pursuit.
Yes, I'm grateful that my kids are healthy and like baseball(TM).
One news update: Oxi-clean is out for cleaning baseball pants. Shout is in. Paige heard about it from another baseball parent and taught me her technique. Wet an area of the pants (we like to start at the waistband on one leg on the front or back and work our way around the garment panel by panel), spray Shout on a stain, scrub the pants against themselves vigorously on the stain. Repeat with each spot on the pants - dirt, grass stains, blood, juice box. Then throw some Oxi-clean in the washer and run them through, either by themselves or with another cold gentle load. They come out good as new every time. It's a little bit of work, but the success feels sweet.
Oh yeah: the 14th Ward Rangers are in the World Series again this year. Yay! Two more weeks of baseball! Boo!
