Ms. Focused and Mr. Speedy!

Sunday, we had a family birthday party for Rosie at my parents' house. It was mostly for Auntie M., who won't be coming to our double-scoop of a joint party this weekend for Rosie AND Liam. Auntie M. must be super-in-tune with Rosie, because once Rosie opened Auntie M.'s gift, she wouldn't look at anything else, or eat, or do anything but play with it for maybe three hours straight. My mom bought her some fairly pricey American Girl twin toddler toys, and she showed no interest in them whatsoever, until later, anyway.

The really FUN part of the evening was when I came to pick them up a few hours later, after they had been eating naught but chocolate ice cream and cupcakes. My little Dash saw me and ran at me with speeds previously unknown, powered by sugar and sleep deprivation. BOY LOVE CUPCAKE!! (And Grandaddy can't resist the puppy-dog eyes and the darling way he signs for :more:) He dashed, he shrieked, he giggled maniacally! And then he crashed on the car ride home, only to wake up just as he hit the mattress in his bedroom and then screamed bloody murder for the next hour. Until dinner, that is. Food calms the boy.

Rosie slept with her twins, who are now named "Rosie" and "Dash." She is enamored, and I will let her grandma know. We left the unicorn-land-of-many-chokables at her grandparents' house...

[RANT ALERT] sometimes it's the little things...

This is just me ranting, but I was just on the phone with my pediatrician's office to schedule a pre-op appointment for Dash's ear tubes (yes, he's getting tubes). When the call connected, I briefly heard the air in the reception desk area, was immediately put on hold without a greeting, then after less than a minute, disconnected. I called them right back and explained how I was disconnected to the receptionist and just got "[sigh] what were you calling about?" When I replied, "Okay! Someone hung up on me and I don't get an apology?" I got DEAD AIR.

Since I wasn't getting anywhere, I went ahead with scheduling the appointment, but brought the issue up again at the end of the conversation, because I was still upset about the poor treatment. The receptionist told me, "well, I don't know who you were talking to," and still refused to apologize.

My point here IS (and there is one) that this small rudeness reflects on the ENTIRE PRACTICE! not just whomever screwed up with the phone system. It doesn't matter WHO screwed up, it could have been anyone (even you) and sucking it up to YOUR CUSTOMER who is GIVING YOU $$$$ should be standard. WTF. How hard is it to say "I'm sorry for your inconvenience"?Seriously?

Voting makes me think of Douglas Adams

Take me to your lizard…

(Context: Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are discussing the huge robot that just landed in downtown London, killing people, doing billions of dollars of damage—and announced ‘I come in peace, take me to your lizard’)

"…It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…," said Ford.
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" asked Arthur.
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don’t people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn’t occur to them," said Ford. "They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" "What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They’re completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it."
"But that’s terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "If I had one Altarian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say ‘That’s terrible’ I wouldn’t be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin. But I haven’t and I am."

Douglas Adams, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

AJS's surprise birthday party!

AJS's birthday is Nov. 5th; we made plans on the 4th to go duckpin bowling with the kids and Kelly's family at some lanes in College Park. What I didn't tell him was that I invited all his other friends and made it a birthday party! It was great fun, and he was really surprised.

I was amazed that most of the folks that we invited joined us, which made it an especially nice party.














The shocker for me was that Dash is an extremely enthusiastic bowler.

Here's Dash and me getting ready to bowl:


















Then bowling (he did knock a few pins down!):












And this is me, clapping at his bowl, while he is off, already getting another ball:

The family at Rock n Romp Halloween

The family at Rock n Romp Halloween
Originally uploaded by nylonthread.

We all went to Rock n Romp's Halloween bash in Silver Spring last weekend. It took us about an hour to drive there, due to traffic and general distance and Rosie slept most of the way. Rosie had been very excited about the party, because she could wear her pretty "snow princess" costume and, because we are well aware of her aversion to masks (screaming uncontrollably), we tried to prepare her for the hard fact that people would probably also be wearing costumes. Kellygo took photos for me, so thankfully, I have all the costumes documented! THANKS Kelly! Thea is trying to cheer Rosie up by giving her an attractive spider ring! Notice that Rosie is NOT reaching for it...

Well she did just fine until she saw what was apparently the most scary costume at the party—A TACO. For the next 30 minutes until we left, she spent most of our time crying and screaming, renewed every time the Taco was in her line of sight.

The rest of us were having blast! Our friends were there, we were enjoying all the costumes, the music and the fun crowd. Dash (in the Dash Parr costume), really had fun! He was dancing and clapping with the music (esp. The Antiques' cover of "Ghostbusters").

We were pretty sad to have to leave, but Rosie was just freaking out towards the end. Dash was trying to comfort her, in this photo. On top of the Taco, she was also terrified of a little girl wearing a Superman mask. So after driving an hour, we spent 1/2 an hour at the party (planned to spend 2 to 3 hours) then drove for another hour home. :-(