What I Learned While Under A Boil Order

Unfortunately, there's been an issue with the water where I live.  I received an email letting me know - thank goodness for citywide email alerts - and our life without constantly available hot and cold running water began.  It's amazing to me how much we rely on having clean, safe water available at our fingertips.

When the wee one went upstairs after breakfast to brush their teeth, I quickly realized that oh wait... we can't just wet our toothbrushes with the water from the sink, nor can we wash them off afterwards.  Sending them their lunches meant that I had to pour bottled water (thank goodness I just hosted a First Communion party and had some!) into their water bottles for school.  I couldn't cook anymore because washing dishes then letting them soak in a bleach solution to make them safe sort of grossed me out - and unfortunately our dishwasher does not have a functioning sanitizer cycle.

Needless to say, putting on water to boil was the first thing on my to do list; the recommendation for us was to boil water for five minutes for it to be safe, adding a little pinch of salt if it tastes off.  Needless to say, I poured the boiled water over  the toothbrushes to clean them, and I used this same water for many of the other functions we routinely take for granted.  Fortunately, we were still able to take showers, flush toilets, and wash our hands.

But I learned something completely useless during this boil order.  Did you know that there's a max fill line on your teapot?  I didn't.  I do now.  And I know why there is one.

If you fill your teapot too full, when it boils, it will start to sputter.  If you make the mistake - and I did - of opening the spout portion where it whistles to help let more steam escape, that isn't all that escapes.  The pressure and everything else instead forces gushes of boiling water out the spout and onto the stove, way more than enough to douse the flames on the burner.

Yeah.  Oops.  Fortunately, it is mostly safe to remove the top lid of the teapot to release some of that excess pressure.  So did you not know why teapots have a max fill line, or is it just me?  Either way... learn from my folly.

I Learned My Lesson

As parents, we should be the ones teaching the lessons, especially when the children are small and impressionable. It shouldn't fall on the children to be the ones to remind us of the lessons that we're trying to teach. It doesn't always work out that way though.

Yesterday at breakfast, I got the wee ones' food ready, I gave them their vitamins, and I left my husband supervising while I ran downstairs to wrap a present for a birthday party we had later in the day.

Shortly after I got down the stairs, I heard mild cussing by my husband followed by "I knew this was going to happen. I could see it coming!" in a not so happy voice.

I trotted back upstairs, prepared to intervene and do damage control. I found him mopping up milk from Little Miss's placemat. He had placed her heavy spoon on the edge of the cereal bowl, and it had tumped over.

The issue here (for me) is that Little Miss has a dairy allergy. Therefore, she drinks rice milk instead of regular milk ($1.88 per regular gallon versus $2.99 for a quart). And since she can't have many foods with calcium, she takes a liquid calcium/magnesium supplement to ensure she absorbs her calcium (since she's too little for a pill, she gets it in liquid form). The vitamin that lasts us a little over a month is $23.95. She loves the blueberry taste and begs me to put it in her rice milk. I obliged yesterday morning, even though I was sure she wasn't going to finish all her cereal and milk, but yet I couldn't waste the vitamin.

Since the milk had spilled only on her just cleaned placemat, had I been in charge, I would have carefully returned the spilled milk to her cereal bowl. With my husband mopping it up, I had no idea how much she had or hadn't taken, making it difficult to redose her. Plus the wasting of money.

*sigh*

I asked my husband to stop sopping it up and explained - not the most patiently, mind you - the issue. He just didn't care a whit, as he doesn't get the whole vitamin thing anyway. And replacing something wasted? It's just money after all - yes, he came from a very different background from what I did.

I groaned, told him I didn't care what he did and went back into the basement to finish wrapping the present. A minute or so later, Mister Man appeared on the stairs.

Look, Mommy.

What's this, Mister Man?

It's money.

Yes, kiddo. I can see it's a twenty dollar bill. What are you doing with it?

I want to give it to you so Little Miss can get some more vitamins. (And yes , just typing this is making me tear up again.)

Oh, sweetie! That's really generous of you, but you keep your money.

But Mommy, they're expensive. You said so. Do you have twenty dollars?

I do. I have a lot more than twenty dollars. You keep your money, Mister Man. I love how generous you are, but your money is yours.

I sent him back upstairs, and then I sat down on the steps a little and cried. He can be such a sweetheart and so generous and so worried about and protective of his sister. And sometimes I can really make a big deal about things that are so minor.

I'm so glad that he reminded me of this. After I was done, I was able to go back upstairs and change the tone so that everyone understood - especially the wee ones - that Mommy doesn't like wasting things, especially expensive things, but that there are so many things in the world that are far more important.

And then we talked about the things that are more important. As my six year old son reminded me.

What Has Being A Mom Taught You?

Go check out my giveaway here and then come on back orrrr read this, then go enter! Mmmm, soup!

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I'm far from an expert, after all, I've only had this gig for six years, but there are so many things that I've learned. They have to be only the tip of the iceberg, though. Being a mom teaches you so many things. So many. I'll start the list with ten, but I really want to know what being a mom has taught you (ok, or dad or aunt or uncle or just a person who hangs around kids.

So.

My Top Ten Things I've Learned As A Mom

10. Kids have a reason for everything they do. We may not understand that reason. The reason may leave us rolling our eyes or groaning or sighing in frustration, but they always have a reason. It's part of our job to figure out what that reason is and help them understand if it's a good reason or not and figure out how to best reason their way through the situations they come upon in life.

9. There will always be something I regret. Who didn't think they were going to be a perfect parent - or at least "better" than our parents? Nonetheless, there will always be moments where I wish I could hit the rewind button and do it over again. And yet, we do the majority of things to the benefit of them. They'll turn out well in the end, even though we'll have days that we wish we could forget.

8. Sleep is for the weak. I remember (vaguely) the days when I wouldn't wake up until the afternoon. I remember lazy days when I may not have actually fallen asleep for a nap, but I came awfully close. I remember being exhausted from a long week and going to bed when I got home from work. Now? I laugh. Those first few months as a mom - especially as a second time mom - I still look back on those days and wonder how I survived on so little sleep. I functioned - not just managed, but actually functioned - with almost no sleep. While sleep is nice, we can do without. And we do. Regularly.

7. Things really aren't that disgusting. Vomit? Ok, so I still don't do vomit. Fortunately the wee ones aren't pukers, and Mister Man is good at making it to the toilet on the rare occasion when he throws up. But drool on my hand or shirt? Please. I don't even notice it now. Wiping someone else's bottom? Ha! Blood? Well, I'll be honest and admit that this never bothered me before children. But really, some of the things I do? I just step back and shake my head sometimes. Before I was a parent, no way could I do half this stuff.

6. Simple decisions, aren't. How hard is it to choose an outfit for the first day of school? How hard to choose a doctor? What sports do they play? How many? Should we encourage this friendship? Is this the right school? Are we putting them on a path to be happy in life? The things we have to decide, day after day, are sometimes heart-wrenching and sometimes silly. But oh how I wish I had a crystal ball to know that the decisions I'm making are the "right" ones - even knowing now that there is no one right answer.

5. I'm far more patient than I ever thought. I have yet another talent I never thought I did. I never saw myself as a patient person. I had my fair share of instances where I grew frustrated over something insignificant, where I just couldn't deal with any more. But since kids? My well of patience grew. Maybe it's something in the hormones that finally lets this part of your brain develop, but oh the things that I let roll off my back now that before children would have had me spinning in circles....

4. I want better. As a childless person, I thought I had my life pretty well under control. I did the right things with regards to recycling and eating well and balancing my life. Now that children arrived, I realized how shallow so much of that was. There is so much more that I can do and that I should do. I've realized what's really important in life, and I strive to get there. I don't always succeed, but that view of what is better and what I want is right in front of me every day. And I'm never going to stop reaching for it until I get there.

3. I can have more fun for free than I can for $500. Oh how my priorities have changed. While I was never a spendthrift, I had my time in life where I loved doing "big" things. I loved going on ski vacations with my friends where we ate out at fancy restaurants at night and skiied all day. I loved going to benefits for my favorite charities where I dressed up in my formal duds, bought my expensive tickets, and won my silent auction items. I can't tell you the last time I did any of those, although I know it was before children. Now my fun consists more of squatting on the floor trying to make the perfect Lego creation or chasing the wee ones around at a park or working together to make our favorite granola.

2. There's never a happy medium. Before children, my husband and I saw both sets of our parents about the same amount of time, in fact we probably saw his more due to visiting for football games. But since the wee ones were born, my in-laws have visited three times. When they visit, they sit on our couches all day or visit the casinos. They don't have or push for a strong relationship with their grandchildren. My parents? Oh, I've written about them before. They love the wee ones. They moved ten minutes away from us. They are my childcare, and the wee ones frequently prefer their (spoiling) company to ours. Too much or nothing at all. We make it work, of course, but somehow I wish for the right balance.

And the Number One Thing I've Learned Since Becoming A Parent?

I love more than I thought I could. Watching the wee ones run up to me with a smile on their faces? It warms my heart. Seeing their joy brings me joy. Watching them in pain destroys me. And it isn't just them. Watching the world around me, they color it - and me - with joy. Strangers touch my heart far more than they did before. And really, that's one gift I wouldn't trade for all the sleep in the world.

So what have you learned?

BlogHer Day 1: Top Ten Lessons Learned

It's never a good a good sign when you wake up dizzy. I didn't have that much to drink last night at all, so I couldn't have been drunk. But boy was my brain moving slowly. In fact, it took me a good five minutes to realize that I was dizzy from lack of sleep. Oops.

Tonight, I'll sleep more, I promise. In the meantime, I did find the mental wherewithal to remember some of what I learned yesterday, so who can I not share?

Top Ten Things I Learned At Day One of BlogHer

10) Kiwis come in more colors than just green. Seriously, they do. I love kiwi. My family loves kiwi. We eat it allllll the time. And every kiwi I've ever eaten looks the same -- within reason. Granted, some may have been a slightly differnt shape and some may have been a little overripe, but generally they'r the same. Did oyu know they make golden kiwis? And that there are something like 47 different variations of kiwi, including red and white. Huh. Oh, and if you're wondering, the golden kiwis are pretty good. And sweet. And taste nothing like "normal" kiwis.

9) I need a pedicure. The Hanes booth had people who were giving foot massages. That gave me a lovely opportunity to focus on my feet more than I normally do. The nail polish could use a little reboot, but wow are my feet rough after walking around in summer shoes since May 1. Sorry foot massage guy. I promise to book an appointment for the next time my husband allows me out of the house after I get home from BlogHer... sometime in 2013, I expect.

8) My hair does not like the water in the city of Chicago. I remember back when I lived in the city and my hair rocked. Then I moved to the suburbs where we no longer had Lake Michigan water but instead used village well water. It took me a long time to adapt, but apparently my hair is now like that country bumpkin who's never seen the big city. It's overwhelmed by the city water. First is stands straight up in fright in te morning, then it tries to hide by burying itself as close to my scalp as possible, waiting for me to get back to that old trusted water. It's not pretty.

7) To incresae the page ranking of your blog, you need deep links. Google is getting pretty smart. If you're trying to grow your traffic through searches and the like, having people read your main page helps you, but only a little. If people instead click directly to the individual post, you get a whole lot more cred from Google. Interesting concept, I though.

6) Twitter isn't a phone only app. I had no idea. I thought people texted to tweet. Since I don't know how to text and don't have a text plan, I steered way clear. I've now been set straight... and I'm now on Twitter. Greeeeeat. I'm in trouble now, aren't I? Oh, and you can find me there as honestandtruly. I forgot that part, oops!

5) Leaving your phone number with the hotel is a bonus. Not surpisingly, there were no rooms available to check in at the hotel yesterday at 7:30am. But on the waycool plus side, I didn't have to wait in any lines later in the day and miss anything to get my room because the hotel called me as soon as it was ready, as I requested, and I was then able to grab my room key at my leisure. Ahhhh....

4) Even though I've left my twenties, I can still drink in the mornings. Or morning. Granted, this gives a little less credence to my earlier statement about not drinking overmuch last night. But when they offered up the bloody mary at the 10am break, I will admit to taking and drinking one. It was good. Buuuut had there been any one Day 2, I think I would have passed it up.

3) It is possible to go from crying to laughing to crying and back and forth again countless times in the span of less than two hours. The keynote speeches on Friday evening were various bloggers reading their posts. They covered the gamut from mentally ill homeless relatives to Diet Coke's cheating ways to life with special needs children to letters to children and more. Oh, and I don't hide my attempts to avoid crying well. On the plus side, I did somehow manage to avoid having my mascara run all down my face.

2) Men are different from women. Ok, so that I knew already. But in regards to blogging and making your page readable, we're different, too. It's always hard to read garish pages, but the easiest is a light tan with black writing. (Phew, I'm close!) And when you have links, if you don't underline them and put them in a different color, many men are colorblind and can't tell there's a link there. Who'da thunk it? Actually, there were tons and tons of tips about improving blog looks and accessibility. I made several notes, but they all involve time to update, so ummm you may see just this for a long time to come!

And the number one thig I learned on Day One of BlogHer?

HOLY MOLEY! I can touch my toes! Seriously! I've done yoga for years and never touched my toes. I failed the Presidential Physical Fitness Challenge as a kid (in part) because I couldn't touch my toes. There was a sitlates lady at the Elations booth, and she fixed me. She had me resist her as I lifted my legs behind my one at a time, then hamstring curl resistance against her, then out to the side. Twice for each leg for less than ten seconds each time. I then bent over and touched the floor. With my fingers. With my legs straight. Without stretching. It was amazing. And I'm now known by several bloggers as "the chick who touched her toes" because they were lucky enough to witness the demonstration. Ahem.

And now... I need to pack up my stuff so I'm ready when my lovely, generous husband arrives to pick me up. Yay! Recap more tomorrow.

BlogHer Day 1/2: Lessons To Date

First and foremost, holy crimeoly! Take fourteen hundred women and put them in a hotel, and wow is the estrogen flowing. Fortunately, there are a few guys, too, so that does help to balance it out. I obviously have a fairly narrow ummm genre of people that I hang out with. You forget how many different people are out there, and it's so fun!

In the last day, I learned quite a bit -- it being my whole first BlogHer and everything. I am quite happy that I did at least skim the packet and have it beaten into my brain that I have to bring an extra suitcase for all the swag we were going to get.

On the downside, no one mentioned that if you want the swag, make sure you get to the parties early. We didn't get back from the Ford event (more on that to come)until 4 -- wahh! -- and the SocialLuxe Lounge began at 3. I made the mistake of going to the room to change and freshen up before heading to another party that began at four and then wandering over to the Hyatt for the lounge party later.

No swag bags were left. I saw plenty of those bags, of course. And I drooled. They were the size of a Bloomingdales Big Bag. At least. They had Crocs, which granted, I could have lived without. And a Kodak video camera. And a bottle of wine. And... and... ok, so I sorta got stuck on those two and didn't want to hear more.

What an awesomely cool bag! And lesson learned. I have my plan for tonight of where I'm going when. We also missed out on the swag from the 704 party because we had to catch a train out last night, but we saw some of what was in the bags and ... they were fun. Adult type fun, in fact. Then again, maybe I shouldn't worry about not getting that one!

I'll later put up a picture of my normal purse so you can oooo and ahhhh over it. And also a picture of the purse that I bought for BlogHer so that you can see how much fun it is -- and by extension, how much fun I am, right?

Now, picture having to -- and yes, here it truly is having to pick up swag from all the vendors we're seeing everywhere. And store it in a teensy, tiny purse that no self-respecting mommy would carry. Not gonna happen. I'm really happy that I brought the bigger purse.

However, I don't know how to pack a bigger purse. You'll notice that I have no pictures whatsoever from the events last night. My camera was buried at the bottom of my purse, somewhere, along with other important things like my lipstick. Oh, and my wallet. Today, I've fixed that and know how I'm going to keep things organized. And yay (or boo, depending on your POV), I'll have pictures going forward.

So when I was packing, I wanted to try to minimize what I was brining while being sure to have everything I needed. That meant calling Melisa to see if she'd have a hair dryer at her house for our sleepover. And deciding that the toiletries at the hotel would suffice. And packing only three pairs of (comfortable!) shoes.

And debating over bringing an umbrella or not. At home on Wednesday, it was raining. Not hard, but still raining. I wanted to get a small umbrella to take with me and decided to pick it up after I finished running my last minute errands. By the time I did this, of course, it had stopped raining. And I was going to Chicago where I'd be inside all weekend. I decided I didn't need an umbrella after all.

When I arrived in the city, the sun was shining. Yay! Yesterday, it was sunny and delightful and not humid -- this is not normal Chicago weather, but whoo! Remember getting back at 4pm from the Ford event? Dawn and I looked at each other and asked if that was rain drops we felt. Nahhh, we decided. By the time I made it to the SocialLuxe Lounge which was held at another hotel before I walked to Giordano's for dinner, it was raining. Really raining. As in I could hear thunder and lightning. So I found that Walgreens across the streeet and bought one. And slipped and slid into and out of my mules all the way to the hotel and then all the way to the restaurant. Just a little extra exercise, right?

I'm making progress though. I was smart enough to register last night and this morning picked up my tote bag from BlogHer when we arrived at the hotel insted of after breakfast. You don't want to know what the lines looked like, but I'll let it suffice to say that I'm pretty sure there are a few people who missed out on breakfast. And I'm not patient enough to stand in line, which is a whole 'nother issue.

Oh, and I also learned (stop laughing) that you don't have to Twitter from just your phone. Ahem. Soooo this morning, some friends finally convinced me to sign up for it. I'm not quite sure how to do it yet -- but there's a Twitter 101 session later today! -- but you can find me on Twitter now as honestandtruly.

Wish my luck today! I can't wait to see what else I lern the hard way....