Kate's Perspective

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Thursday, September 30, 2004

Voice Dialing

The other day, I got caught in a severe traffic jam due to rising flood waters in downtown West Chester. I wasn't concerned, because I was headed into town, uphill from where I was stopped in traffic. Once all the traffic merged into one lane in the center of the road, I was sure we'd be on our way. My heart started pounding when all the cars in front of me started turning left into the southeast section of town-- the low section, the flooding section, the one Mom warned me to stay out of-- to avoid the fate of the 3 abandoned, flooded cars ahead. Uh-oh.

Luckily, I have my cell phone all set to voice dial "John Mobile" or "Home" so I can chat on the road without looking at the numbers on my phone. I whipped out my phone and voice dialed. Momanddad. BEEP. Error. Okay... MOManddad. MOMANDDAD! MOMNDAD!! MOMNDADMOMNDADMOMNDAD!!!!!! Voice dialing is no good when you are panicking. When I set up the entries, I was calm and happy: "JooooooHHHHhhhhn MMMoooobiiiiiile." Maybe I should re-record all my entries under stress so they'll be more useful in emergencies.

Anyway, Lydia and I parked on a "hill" for 15 minutes to assess our situation, then headed into shallow water on an alternative route home. We made a pit stop on high ground at Aunt Pat's house and then got a ride home from Uncle Bill in his big tall SUV. What an adventure! Glad our new house is on a hill.

posted at 1:03 PM # (2) comments

Thursday, September 16, 2004

Gymboree is not for me

I've been looking for some activities to do with Lydia-- not because I think she needs lots of classes to ensure she will be accepted into the proper preschool, but because I need a little structure and company myself during the day. Today we visited a gymboree class. Wow! 8 days of stimulation packed into one 45-minute session with 15 babies and 17 adults. I've got enough ideas for entertaining new games to last a month. And we are never going back.

If I were a baby, I'm pretty sure I would have started crying and crawling under my mother's skirt within seconds. Lydia did very well, though. She sat up by herself and crammed a blue whiffle ball in her mouth and was very content while all the babies and mamas and grandmas and instructors got settled. She would have amused herself in this manner quite happily for 20 minutes, I'm pretty sure, but amusing yourself quietly is not what gymboree is about. We sang and clapped and whoohoo-ed and yay!ed and I kept looking over Lydia's shoulder to gauge her reaction. She was pretty interested in the other kids and the toys, and behaved very well, even when the other kids stole her ball and pulled her upper lip in an attempt to reveal her skull. But all of a sudden (did her finger get caught in the whiffle ball? I don't know) she burst into tears, recovered for a minute, and burst into tears again. Phew! I thought I was going to have to take her every week. I'm pretty sure we can find something more low key. And Gymbo the clown-kid is just wrong.

posted at 4:02 PM # (3) comments

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

We're almost there...

The last two weeks have been hellish. Our routine kitchen floor replacement turned into an ASBESTOS ABATEMENT INCIDENT which left us with a black dirty hole instead of a clean new floor. For a week we waited for the floor installers to get back to us and then we wrestled with kitchen appliance measurements, and NOW we have nine-tenths of a kitchen. Thank God I can finally unpack my tea kettle. It just doesn't feel like home if you can't even put the tea kettle away. [Never mind that the range won't actually work until Friday.]

The sun is peeking through the clouds, people. Thanks to Allison Coia I did not starve. Thanks to my stitch-n-bitch friends, I had a couple hours of relief from the all-consuming stress of moving. Thanks to John (who has worked his tail off every day installing light fixtures, hanging curtain rods, whipping contractors and salespeople into shape), we have four clean living areas and soon we'll have every major appliance in functioning order. If we never move again, it will be too soon.

Fiber-related content to resume once we are really in. Meanwhile, enjoy these before and after shots of the nursery... See? We are making some progress.

posted at 10:50 PM # (5) comments

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