Usual cute toddler stuff

My daughter had one of her rubber ducks downstairs just now. She had climbed up on the back of the futon and was banging it on the window, telling me that it went cack cack and had a nose, eyes, and a head. Slightly worried about the state of the old glass in the window, I started showing her how to be gentle. "Doucement, on le fait doucement," said I.

"Doucement," said Elizabeth, and proceeded to pet her duck gently on the head and tap it gently on the window. Then she picked up a huge white teddy bear, stroked its head and pronounced, "Doucement, Te-y. Doucement."

She had the proununciation perfect the first time she tried. I'm so proud.

The State of the Bedroom Report - Three Weeks Later

For those closet voyeurs out there lurking on my friends list, this is not about the bedroom in the euphemistic sense of the word. No, this is about the actual room which holds the bed and the bulk of my husband's and my clothing.

You many remember a few weeks ago, our bedroom underwent a remarkable transformation from pigsty to habitable space. We cleaned out bags upon bags of unneeded clothing, stored the things which we were not wearing at the moment, did large amounts of laundry, and organized what was left over. We also came to some mutual decisions about laundry days - specifically, Wednesdays for me and Saturdays for Piet, baby laundry as necessary.

I am happy to report that so far, this system has worked very well. There are two loads from today currently waiting to be folded and put away. There are no baskets of clean clothes lying around. The dirty clothes basket has things from today only in it. The bed has no clean clothes on it, either, because I just finished putting them away. I have worn about six different pair of socks three or four times each since the clean-up. When these pair start to develop holes, I'll dig down into the next layer. Since I figure it will take months for these socks to wear out and I have six more sets of seven pair of socks waiting to be worn (yes, that's right, approximately fifty pair), I imagine I will not be buying socks for about two years. The same is true of underwear.

Pants, however, are still a problem. I dug up exactly one pair that fit that I had not already been wearing, and since that week, one pair has given out entirely. I will need to spend some Christmas gift certificates on one or two pair in order to keep my wardrobe big enough to miss a Wednesday wash if necessary. Besides, a woman needs some variety. Also, since I have exactly one pair of shoes that fit properly, I really hope my dad takes my suggestion and gets me a big gift certificate to the specialty shoe shop. I say big, because the pair that fit cost me $170. That's a big hunka change, ladies and gentlemen. I really want some dressy shoes so I can wear skirts again, and I seriously need some workout shoes. Is it too much to ask that I can get three pair that fit?

Conclusion: organization works. It is indeed much easier to KEEP something clean than it is to clean it in the first place, but keeping it clean still takes concerted effort and willpower.

The Memories Feature

Okay, thebitterguy. You complained that people on your friends list didn't use the memories feature as much as they should.

I just went through and added every memorable post in the last three months. I now have quite a large memories file, thank you very much.

It took me a whole hour. Enjoy.