my dilemma

A couple of weeks ago, our kitchen sink developed a leak near the trap.  I fixed it by tightening a couple of the little twisty things on the pipes that look like they’re meant to be tightened with bare hands.

Or so I thought.  The leak was still there a few days later.  This time, I really tightened those little things with my bare hands, and put a paper towel under the trap to catch any water that might leak.

It caught some water.  So my wife put a little dish under the leak and we tried to ignore it.

Today, we could ignore it no further.  I disconnected the little bendy thing, and took it to the hardware store. Trip One: Some disaffected employee told me to get a replacement washer, and handed me the wrong one.  I caught the error, and picked up the right one.  Two of ’em, just to be safe.  I didn’t want to have to come back.

Trip Two: I had to go back because the leak wasn’t in the old washer, the bendy trap thing had a crack in it that I’d only just noticed.  So I bought a replacement one.

Trip Three:  I returned the replacement trap thingy because one of the connectors was the wrong size.  So, this time I find an employee, and ask him, “Is there a way to fix or replace this part?”  He goes straight to the bin where they have that exact item…

…except when we tried to connect the end of the new part to its mate on my broken part, the threads wouldn’t mesh.  My part was using some non-standard threading.  So I had to replace the mate to the broken part at home.  That required buying a hack saw, 10″ of new pipe, the pipe-glue stuff, a connector, and the replacement part assembly.

Lillian suggested I just hire a plumber, rather than saw through our plumbing myself.  Silly girl!  But I wondered if another hardware store might have a compatible replacement part, and that would be so much easier.

Trip Four:  The other hardware store didn’t have any non-standard threaded trap things either.

So I returned home, did my sawing, gluing and screwing and so far, the fix is holding.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

One of my wife’s photos got selected for display at 1000words.net.  It’s a photo that we could have almost thrown away, but it evokes a strong emotion in me, and I submitted it to David Chin at 100words.  His site is a very cool concept, and I’m honored to have one of our photos displayed there.

Aaron’s usually pretty good at eating and drinking a variety of foods.  Oh, he’ll have his obstinate moments, but generally, he’s a good sport.  But lately, he seems to be a lot thirstier than he should be.

He’ll have recently finished a full bottle of milk, and then he’ll be asking for “Nai-nai” (Chinese baby-talk for milk) again.  Time and again.

Now, Aaron’s had a head start on language and vocabulary, because he’s got his big sister to help him out.  So we’ve been able to figure out what he’s asking for pretty easily.  He knows words like Nai-nai, banana, Poh-poh (grandma), Gai-gai (to go out), Mamma, Daddy, bird, dog, etc.

So does he really want all that much milk, or is there something else going on?

Today, Maddie and Aaron were running around the house like loons, when there was a crash and sudden silence.  (That moment when children try to figure out if they’re in trouble or if they’re hurt.)  I run in to see what happened, and there’s Aaron on the floor, he looks up at me, stunned, and asks,  “Nai nai?”

Then he asks, “Gai gai?”  I just give him a look that says, “What?”

He gives me, “Nai nai gai gai apple?” with this look of longing.

Lillian figured it out:  These are comfort words for him.  Usually they’re associated with a good experience.  So when something doesn’t go right for him, he’ll give the ol’ comfort words a go, and maybe things’ll turn right.

My wife is the one who tends to save things in this family, and I’m just the opposite.  Generally, I never thought it was an issue.

One day, while looking at a sky with perfect little white clouds, I said to my wife, “The sky reminds me of that body pillow of yours you used when you were pregnant.  We ought to give that away.”

She retorted, “We ought to give you away…  There’s a thought.”

I never mentioned it again.

All of 16 months old, Aaron’s mastered his first pick-up line.  “Hi,” said very confidently and breathily.  Then he stands there for a few seconds to see if the strange cute girl responds.  If she doesn’t, that’s fine too.  He just walks over to the next cutie and tries the line again.  One girl (or woman) after another.

After putting him to bed in his crib, we’ve heard him practicing his line on the stuffed animals.  “Hi.”

We only realized he had a problem recently.  Aaron’s not just a casual flirt.  He’s got a need for the fawning he sometimes receives from his line.  One morning while my wife was watching A Dating Story, when the pretty host appeared on screen, he walked up to the TV and gave her his best “Hi,” and stood there waiting for her to gush over him.

Today turned out to be a nice warm spring day.  I started it out by mowing the front yard, getting myself a little sweaty and grassy.  Then it was time to take Maddie to her swimming lessons for a half an hour.  It’s an indoor pool, and although well ventilated, the whole place smells like chlorine.

We came home to find an infestation of ants in the house, but they hadn’t yet found any food.  So we embarked on an emergency house cleaning.  Lillian vacuumed and cleaned a bathroom, while I spread ant-killer outdoors.

It’d been a pretty productive day, so we treated ourselves and went to California Pizza Kitchen, the apparent mecca for middle-class parents of babies and toddlers.  We over-ate, and waddled out of the restaurant with our leftovers into the mall, only to find that it closed early, because it was Sunday.  We went to the children’s playground anyway, and we were the only family there.

We all really enjoyed ourselves.  The kids ran freely from structure to structure, and Lillian and I wondered if we’re getting locked in the mall.  When Lillian and I do decide to leave, the kids were having none of that idea.  Lillian and I started walking out the door, and Aaron sleepily started running after us.

Maddie ran up behind Aaron and gave him a push to get him to go faster, but he fell down.  I admonished Maddie just as she fell right on top of Aaron and slammed his head into the floor with her own head.  Then my language got a little stronger, and when Aaron lifted his head, blood was dripping down his face.  I picked him up, and Lillian came running to the site.  Then I noticed the thing.  In the small pool of blood on the floor there was a small, solid, roundish lump.

“Oh, my God.  That’s his tooth!”

Maddie still had her milk from the restaurant.  I asked Lillian for it, so that I could put his tooth in the milk and keep it there until we get to the hospital.  (Is that advise sound?)

I investigated the boy’s face, while Lillian grabbed the tooth and looked at it carefully.  She told me, “I don’t think it’s a tooth.”  And when I looked at it, it turned out to be a blood-soaked red-candy-coated peanut that was already on the floor, but in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Aaron simply had a bloody nose, and it clotted up nicely.

As I write this, I smell of grass, chlorine, sweat, blood and tears.   That little scare has taken two years off of my life.  But boy, am I going to sleep well tonight.

The bedtime routine in our house is that after brushing her teeth, I put Maddie to bed and read her one story of her choosing.  Over the last couple of months, though, Maddie’s requested that her Mommy come to bed with her, and I read the two of them the story.

That’s fine.  But I’ve been wishing there were more flexibility in the routine.  So I’ve encouraged Lillian to put Maddie to bed, or to do the reading, since she’s in there anyway nowadays.  Lillian’s fine with that, but Maddie isn’t.

Last night, after brushing teeth, (and playing “hide and seek” in the master bedroom), I asked Maddie to go to her room and pick out a book to be read.  As usual, she asked her Mommy to come along.  As they both left the master bedroom, I scurried into Maddie’s room, and hopped into her bed.  This would change the routine for sure!

When they got to Maddie’s room, Maddie picked out her book, and I stayed in her bed.  When Maddie returned to the bed with her book, I asked her, “Maddie, who do you want to read the book?  Daddy, or Mommy?”  (Yep, I emphasized Mommy like that.)

Maddie said, “Mommy in bed!” with a big grin.  Drat.  I knew that meant she expected me to read to the two of them in bed.  So I crawled out of bed, and Maddie said, “No!  Mommy in bed!  Daddy in bed!”

Lillian caught on before I did.  Maddie wanted to read the two of us the story, tuck us in, give us a kiss, turn off the lights, and close the bedroom door.  There was much giggling, but she did every bit of it.  And after she was done, she climbed back into bed, and I read her and Mommy another story.