Monthly Archives: April 2010

Last night Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution was on TV and #FoodRevolution was an organic trend on twitter.

At the same moment, a manufactured trend occurred, it was #Lunchables.

I am embarrassed for the women would take their hard earned social capital and give it to a product that is killing our kids and our planet. If you are giving your child a steady diet of processed food you are not parenting as well as you should be. If your child is getting mounds of sugar in their meals, you are gifting them diabetes. When lunches come in disposable plastic you are ruining the planet for everyone, don’t give me the “they can be recycled” line. We all know they won’t be. Cheese is made of milk, it shouldn’t appear shiny or waxy, it is not a delicacy to be unfolded from cellophane.

Watch this and you tell me if you trust women that encourage you to feed your children Lunchables.

I am off to the market, as I am about to create a series of videos for you. I hope you find them appalling.

Jane is having mood swings.

Mr. G is out of town, and that always makes things more complicated. I am, however, not exaggerating when I tell you that our daughter has never been grumpy for more than a minute. Never.

Until last night. It was sustained surliness, she refused to speak to me and appeared genuinely hurt. Apparently buying her new shoes hurts her feelings?

I think we’re beginning a new phase. I have Tanis on speed dial, so it should turn out okay.

This just in from my friends at Consumer Reports:

Consumer Reports has designated three baby strollers as Don’t Buy: Safety Risk based on recent lab tests. The three models include two all-terrain strollers, Valco Baby Tri-Mode, Tike Tech City X3, and one jogging stroller, Tike Tech X3 Sport.

All three models have a grab bar at the front of the seating area. There are gaps big enough to allow an unharnessed child’s torso but not the child’s head to pass, or “submarine,” under the grab bar. The child’s head could become stuck, causing serious injury or death. Consumer Reports recommends that children always be harnessed in strollers, high chairs, and car seats to prevent injury.

The current voluntary stroller standard of the American Society for Testing and Materials requires that if a space beneath a stroller’s tray/grab bar can permit a small child’s torso to pass through, it must also be big enough to allow the child’s head to pass through. Those three strollers failed CR’s test of that standard, and results were confirmed by an outside lab. If you have any of the strollers, we recommend that you remove and discard the grab bar.

CR contacted the manufacturers about its findings. Valco Baby’s national sales manager, Shalom New, said that the stroller we tested was an older model and that the newer Tri-Mode EX has a grab bar with only two positions (fully up or fully down). When we performed our test of the ASTM standard on an EX that we purchased, it also failed. Tike Tech’s president, David Ambar, predicted that an “improved version” of its strollers would pass the standard. We will test those strollers when they’re available. Both manufacturers told us they had not received any reports of children being injured by the grab bars of the strollers.

From 1995 to 2008, the Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 10 infant deaths associated with submarining, though they don’t identify the strollers involved.

Please tell a friend. If you’d like to see the full report click here.

Everyone knows that when you get a new washer and dryer, you have to paint your dining room. If you don’t innately understand this truism, please memorize it now.

The dining room has been a work in progress. I bought four different shades of warm brown and put them on the wall. Once sampled they ranged from salmon (oh ick) to chocolate brown, none of which we Gottliebs found appetizing. I threw five more samples up, and then my friend Mary suggested Flax from Restoration Hardware. I went to Restoration Hardware, bought a sample of Flax, and, as usual, Mary’s keen eye for design was right on target. I put swatches of Flax on all four walls, showed it to my husband, waited two weeks and then called the painter.

Every day, every night I said, “What do you think of these colors?”

Every day and every night he said, “Whatever you like is great.”

Until last night.

Last night at dinner I said, “ooh I’m so excited to have this room painted on Friday.” At which point my husband looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time ever.

“What color are you using?” he asked.

The kids burst into laughter and pointed at the three swatches of color that were flax. “Dad, you know what color.”

And then something horrible happened. The words Army Green, Bunker, and Ugly left his lips.

The words Are You Kidding Me? You Are Insane! I Spent $38 A Gallon! left mine.

And I might have heard him say, “$38 is cheaper than repainting” but there was a slight buzzing in my ears.

My dear husband suggested colors that might be better if we wanted to go bold. Like Yankee Blue, or deep rich brown or red. I interjected, “that would be like eating in a brothel.”

Right on cue Alexander asks, “What’s a brothel?”

Mr. G replies, “nothing you need to know about, and no place you need to be.” At the same moment I’m calmly explaining, “It’s where women go to bring shame on their families.”

Yeah, we nailed that parenting moment.

Right after dinner, Alexander was practicing guitar. He learned a few notes of a new song, and played them for us. Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dum, dah, duh… “Cocaine!” I screamed. The three of them looked at me with the same eyes. Apparently it was Zero.

Sounded like Cocaine to me.

Is available… if you hurry, you might be wife number 8.

In all seriousness, don’t they look like they just belong together?

Last week I took Alexander’s hamster out of her cage to put her into the ball (you know the one they use to run around the house). When I picked her up, I noticed that her face was very swollen on one side. I had a moment where I thought maybe I should take her to the vet. And then I forgot.

I should have known something was wrong when she didn’t eat the lettuce I put in her cage Saturday. Sunday we were busy, I assume she was alive.

Monday after school Alexander went to take her out of her cage to play. She did not move. Alexander was holding back tears, I was thinking I never have to clean that cage again. And then I thought, this could be devastating for Alexander.

Mostly though, I panicked because I didn’t want to touch a dead hamster.

Thankfully it was late in the day, and my husband was almost home. Alexander and I talked about Oreo (the hamster) and how we should dispose of her. We decided on a funeral. Which is awesome, if you own a shovel.

Mr. G. came home from work, and was immediately given the duty of hamster funeral preparation. He asked me for a shoebox, and I was like, “uh NO. I need those for my shoes.”

After some poking around the downstairs closets we found a suitable shoebox, and somehow my sweet husband got the hamster in there. He did mention that she looked like she’d been dead more than a day.

Oops.

We took the shoebox and wrapped it in cellophane so there wouldn’t be an odor and stored Oreo for her funeral the next day.

Tuesday after school Alexander was ready for the funeral. All I had to dig with was a pick axe and a small spade. I dug a hole just large enough for the shoe box (shut up I know!), and Alexander and I took the shoe box out to the flower bed.

“Well, this is it.” I said. Then I asked my son, “Do you have anything you’d like to say?”

“Well, Mom, when we’re done do you think I can get a new pet?” He shyly asked.

“How about we bury Oreo first?”

Then I took the cellophane off her coffin/box and the smell of death attacked me. As quickly as I could I shoved the box in the hole, but realized that the hole really wasn’t big enough. As waves of nausea engulfed me I said to Alexander, “Honey, how about if we just bury her without the box. I think it will work better that way.”

He agreed and I made him turn his back.

With my left hand I popped the top off of the box, and with my right I used the pick axe to quickly cover the bloated smelly hamster. All the while I squinted so that I wouldn’t actually see Oreo. I ran the box and the offending cello to the trash bin and washed up as quickly as I could.

The takeaway?

I could’a thrown the hamster in the neighbor’s trash can and buried an empty box. Next time I will.