The World Hates Wide Feet

You know what, shoe companies? Screw you.

I've written to every single one of you to point out that there is a non-negligible population of toddlers with wide feet. Those toddlers have parents with credit cards, but we don't relish having to pay the ridiculous prices (two to three times what most parents pay for shoes) for the one and a half specialty brands that cater to all the widths. Every shoe company has written back with a polite, "Why don't you and your kid go eff off, because we don't care."

Even the couple of companies that charge in the $18-$30 range for wide shoes offer two wonderful varieties to choose from: the "ugly white shoe" and the "ugly black shoe". News flash: those shoes suck. Plus, I don't want to buy the same damn shoe in a new size every time her feet get larger. Call me crazy, but part of the fun of having a wonderful, goofy little girl who twirls around in the living room until she gets dizzy is dressing her in fun, unique, quirky stuff you can only really get away with when you're two or three years old.

So yes, there's Stride Rite. And when they have a sale, I can buy those shoes without having to breathe into a paper bag to calm myself down, because the only shoes I've bought for myself that cost that much have been specialty athletic shoes. And Stride Rite makes cute damn shoes, too, and I've never had them sigh at me when I hold up a shoe and ask if they have it in a wide width.

If they can do it, why doesn't anyone else bother at least trying to make a cute little WIDE pink shoe for my poor little girl? What did she do to you shoe manufacturers? Were you all beat up in grammar school by little girls with wide feet? Get over it and realize that not every product you sell has to be made only to cater to the majority. You can make a couple in a wider width without the world crashing down around your shoulders. Just widen the pattern, you idiots.

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. And I'm not buying your shoes for myself, either. I'm waiting for adult Stride Rites, so that the only company that gives a rat's poo about my daughter gets all my money.

Bargains!

I went to a special consignment sale for kiddie stuff today that was organized for charity, and it was super-sweet! This was the "pay to get in" day, but it was only $2, and I figured, "Why not?"

Man, did I clean up getting there just after they opened.

Nice little play kitchen, with a bunch of food-related bits to play with and stick in the drawers and stuff, only $30! It was really clean and nice. Looks like it was played with about four times.

The B's Halloween costume! We were looking into kitty costumes, in honor of her recently beginning to say "kitty", but this bunny costume, worn once and looking pristine, was only $5!

And in a more embarrassing point, I also learned that the B knows (putting bag over my head) the name of at least one of the Teletubbies, and she decided it was important enough to actually say it. She doesn't say "milk" or "more" or "hungry" or anything useful like that, but she knows which Teletubby "Po" is, and she can say his name when she sees him.

Goofily embarrassing as it is, and yes, I know she shouldn't watch Teletubbies, but we DO interact while she's watching it, and it makes her so unbelievably happy that I can't help myself. I bought her the little Po figurine and she's been carrying it around, loving all over it. She even gave it a little kiss.

Nice outing, though, all around!

Mommy Brain

Earlier today, when I didn't have hands free to type, I thought of a great idea for a blog post. It seemed really important and insightful. I also remember that it, shockingly, had nothing to do with the B. I even remember chuckling to myself over some random pun or something that I was going to include.

Yeah, that's all gone now. I can tell you how many ounces of milk the B drank today, and I can also tell you, down to the penny, how much the two pair of usually-outrageously-expensive Stride Rite shoes that I got for the B that were marked down 60% and 80%, respectively, cost me. (Damn her cute little wide feet that no one but Stride Rite seem to care enough about to make shoes for.)

See you later, post idea. Maybe you'll visit again. But I doubt it.

I Have the Power

So, the wind blew above 10 miles per hour during a thunderstorm last night, and 50,000 people in our area lost power. Including us.

It was a million degrees here last night, and has been surface-of-the-sun hot for over a week now. We also use a baby monitor without a battery backup, though we have a secondary monitor that does operate via battery.

However, at 1:00 a.m., do you really want to be in your kid's pitch black, completely silent room trying to sneak a fresh 9V battery into the nursery unit (I was pretty sure it was a fairly run-down battery in there) without waking up the baby? I decided just to wave the white flag and bring her in with us, something that ensured that none of us got a lot of sleep last night.

This morning, we still had no power, and the number of households in the blackout weren't getting lower very quickly. No ETA's from the power company, either, although they always seem to be working hard to restore power when this happens.

The real problem isn't the power company and how quickly they restore power. The real problem is that a rat's misplaced sigh seems to be enough to set off some sort of blackout chain reaction. The technicians seem to be hard working and well-intentioned, but I can only assume that some areas of our county have such woefully outdated or just plain busted power infrastructure that we'll have these issues over and over.

It always seems to be the same zip codes. It always seems to be the same damn houses in those zip codes. It makes me want to call the power company and beg them to raise everyone's rates some infinitesimal amount and upgrade the damn breakers or whatever is not toting its load. I am so sick of either freezing or roasting in this house without climate control.

The B, on not a lot of sleep and a crappy nap the afternoon before besides, did a wonderful job soldiering through this morning. I took her out to Target, Kohl's and then St. Louis Bread Company for an early lunch, and she was a trooper. She waved at people and stomped around, still in a good mood, but boy if she didn't just collapse when I put her down for her nap.

Best moment of the day was when I was leaving Bread Co. and called our answering machine one more time before giving up and taking the B to our BIL and SIL's for her nap (because they had power) and discovered that we got our power restored just in time for her room to cool down enough for her to nap in.

Seriously, though. I've never lived anywhere that had so many troubles with its infrastructure. The cable is iffy. The power is iffy in lots of areas. Property taxes per square foot are comparable to our last house, only the city doesn't pay for trash collection out of that kitty. It's just insane, but no one is interested in fixing it. The only things that are argued over in our elections are social issues that the candidates have no intention on following through with anyway, just interested in using the hot button issues to get elected.

Fix it! Fix it so those poor techs aren't out in the middle of the night, in the rain, trying to get our power back. Won't someone please think of the techs?

Breaking News: Bye-Bye, and a Sentence

Yesterday, the B debuted the use of "bye-bye", complete with wave and crystal clear speech. It's so unbelievably strange to hear babble coming from her most of the day, then hear one word of English poking through. Sort of like watching something in a foreign language and then suddenly hearing them say one word of English that's crept into their language. Like:

French french french french french hamburger french french french.

So, I was chuffed enough about the "bye-bye", and she one-upped herself on that very same day. The mister came home and went upstairs to change, and she walked him to the gate, waved as he disappeared up the stairs, and said:

"Bye-bye. Bye-bye, daddy." Again, crystal bloody freakin' clear. Not just in terms only a parent could pick out, but anyone could tell what she was saying.

Still, it's a long road ahead to hearing her say "unconscionable" or "discourse" or anything else like that, but we're on it, dammit. We're on it.

Online Bill Pay Saved My Bacon

I meant to post about this before, but completely forgot.

When we went to the lake for a week or so awhile back, my second bill-paying session of the month fell during the vacation. (Yes, I'm that scheduled, that I have two days a month where I sit down and queue up the bills, and my Google Calendar is set up to send me reminders to do it. I highly recommend this.)

I meant to do them early, but getting ready for the trip and B wrangling ate up all my time, and the day we were leaving, I still had a pile of un-queued bills. I then meant to grab my bills and I would queue them once we got onto a trusted wireless network at the lake. (I don't recommend accessing your bank account or other financial information on a hotel wireless network. Maybe that's paranoid, but I still wouldn't do it.)

Well, I forgot to grab the pile of bills as we left the house. What I did have was my payment history, all in one place on my bank's website. With that, I had average bill amounts (and many of our bills don't vary from month to month, like cable, wireless, etc.) and monthly due dates, all without a single bill that was mailed to me. I just queued the payments for what I thought were ballpark correct amounts, erring on the side of having a credit instead of underpaying.

When I got back and went through the bills, I found that I had everything covered, and we only had a credits of more than $5 with one bill, where we have a $20 credit for next month.

If your bank offers you free online bill pay, I'd give it a look. I really appreciated its existence last month, because it saved me from trying to remember every bill, remember separate login information for all their websites, and then saved me "online bill pay fees" that some of our bills charge for paying them online.

This message was brought to you by the number 14 and the letter K. The more you know, the more you grow.

Happy 20 Monthday B

Twenty months doesn't sound like that long, does it? Well, considering she went from a tiny bundle of helplessness to a creature who can run and babble and wave goodbye to her father when he only talks about leaving and before he even gets to the door, I can tell you that to some people, 20 months is a long time.