T-minus 32 hours and counting....
The morning of Sunday, May 31st will be Ada's last morning in diapers. The plan is to train Ada tomorrow afternoon. With luck, we'll be done in 4 hours and into a mode of "dry pants?" checking throughout the day rather than diaper changing.
The technique for us has been: Toilet Training in Less Than a Day
Well worth the $6.99 on Amazon. It's a potty training session based on research done the 1970s with developmentally delayed adults who had never been taught to toilet themselves. The education experts and researches took their research results and turned in around into a training technique for toddlers. It worked very well with Ellie (though we've decided that Ellie needs a refresher session to help her become more independent before she gets into kindergarten this fall!)
Bye bye diapers!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
Dead Phone
My phone started seriously flaking out on Tuesday. In the morning, I was trying to call Sarahlynn and it kept dropping the call. I didn't have a usable signal all day long. I couldn't get a data connection to keep synced with my work email/calendar. Of course, I've had lots of past problems with this phone. Time for a new one pretty soon any way. (I'm jonesing for a Palm Pre, but I don't think it will support synchronization with work out of the box).
So, Wednesday morning, I took the phone in to a Sprint store, first thing in the morning. As luck would have it, as I sat outside the Sprint store, waiting for it to open, my phone started working again! I was sure these guys inside wouldn't believe me that it wasn't working; or they'd just blame the storms yesterday for bad reception; something like that.
Luckily, they took the phone back and ran some radio tests on it, and it failed the diagnostics! Phew. I'm not crazy.... but I am out a phone. And the Palm Pre isn't out yet.
Replacement phone: $120 Ugh.
Another stroke of luck, though: Sprint is having "open enrollment" for insurance plans. Usually you can only buy phone insurance when you buy the phone or renew your contract. They happen to be allowing open enrollment right now. So, I start up my insurance contract for $7 / month.... and voila, I get a new phone on Thursday for free! Great!
The last funny part of the story.
I swing by the store on Thursday at 12:00 to see if they happen to have it in, yet. The nice woman at the desk explains that they usually get the shipment in around noon and sorted out by 3:00. OK, I go on my way, with my mostly dead phone that they're going to try to contact me via when the new phone arives.
I get to work (7 mile drive) and notice I have a voicemail. Of course. It's the Sprint store telling me my new phone is in.
Well, now I've got my replacement phone and it's working better than ever. No funky dropped calls or screwball reception or anything, yet. Let me bang it around for a while. I'm sure it'll start acting flakey soon enough.
So, Wednesday morning, I took the phone in to a Sprint store, first thing in the morning. As luck would have it, as I sat outside the Sprint store, waiting for it to open, my phone started working again! I was sure these guys inside wouldn't believe me that it wasn't working; or they'd just blame the storms yesterday for bad reception; something like that.
Luckily, they took the phone back and ran some radio tests on it, and it failed the diagnostics! Phew. I'm not crazy.... but I am out a phone. And the Palm Pre isn't out yet.
Replacement phone: $120 Ugh.
Another stroke of luck, though: Sprint is having "open enrollment" for insurance plans. Usually you can only buy phone insurance when you buy the phone or renew your contract. They happen to be allowing open enrollment right now. So, I start up my insurance contract for $7 / month.... and voila, I get a new phone on Thursday for free! Great!
The last funny part of the story.
I swing by the store on Thursday at 12:00 to see if they happen to have it in, yet. The nice woman at the desk explains that they usually get the shipment in around noon and sorted out by 3:00. OK, I go on my way, with my mostly dead phone that they're going to try to contact me via when the new phone arives.
I get to work (7 mile drive) and notice I have a voicemail. Of course. It's the Sprint store telling me my new phone is in.
Well, now I've got my replacement phone and it's working better than ever. No funky dropped calls or screwball reception or anything, yet. Let me bang it around for a while. I'm sure it'll start acting flakey soon enough.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Fast Shoes
Thanks to my wife's planning, it's been a weekend full of fun family entertainment: Gateway Arch, Greek Fest, Renaissance Faire, Zoo, and more to come today!
Saturday morning, we packed the girls in the car and headed down to the Arch. The girls love going up in the Arch to look out over the Cardinals stadium or down on the great muddy Mississippi River. From the north parking garage, Ellie RAN most of the quarter mile down the path to the Arch! We were so proud to see her keep it up and not ask to be carried once! What I didn't realize was that Ellie's new found interest in running was going to be a harbinger of future trouble.
Sunday afternoon, after good solid naps, we watched the thunder storm blow past and decided it might make for a good end-of-day at the zoo. As we walked into the zoo, the girls asked to go see the big cats and the zebras at Red Rocks. So, we parked the stroller and hopped on the train. Two stops later, we were headed up the hill, past the water buffalo statue, and up the ramp that bridges between the jaguar and tiger pits. Ellie stepped up into the iron fence to strain for a better view to search for the jaguar. No jaguar to be seen, but Ellie's shoe got stuck a little bit in the fence. Great kid - she got unstuck by pulling her foot out of shoe. Then picked up her shoe and threw it over the fence into the jaguar pit... $200 orthodic insert and all.
As we went around to look at the shoe, we saw that there was indeed a jaguar in the pit. A beautiful black jaguar. Jaguars don't typically need orthodics, but maybe Ellie figured he might get a little extra speed with her shoe.
After an embarrassing call to the ranger station, in which I learned that it takes 3 zookeepers to safely move the cats around, we headed down to the carousel for a nice ride ON a black jaguar.
Luckily, the wonderful rangers at the zoo were able to retrieve the shoe after the jaguar went to his sleeping quarters on his own. So, today, we'll head to the Science Center and pick one hopefully-not-chewed shoe and orthodic.
Kids.
 |
| From 2009-05 |
Saturday morning, we packed the girls in the car and headed down to the Arch. The girls love going up in the Arch to look out over the Cardinals stadium or down on the great muddy Mississippi River. From the north parking garage, Ellie RAN most of the quarter mile down the path to the Arch! We were so proud to see her keep it up and not ask to be carried once! What I didn't realize was that Ellie's new found interest in running was going to be a harbinger of future trouble.
Sunday afternoon, after good solid naps, we watched the thunder storm blow past and decided it might make for a good end-of-day at the zoo. As we walked into the zoo, the girls asked to go see the big cats and the zebras at Red Rocks. So, we parked the stroller and hopped on the train. Two stops later, we were headed up the hill, past the water buffalo statue, and up the ramp that bridges between the jaguar and tiger pits. Ellie stepped up into the iron fence to strain for a better view to search for the jaguar. No jaguar to be seen, but Ellie's shoe got stuck a little bit in the fence. Great kid - she got unstuck by pulling her foot out of shoe. Then picked up her shoe and threw it over the fence into the jaguar pit... $200 orthodic insert and all.
 |
| From 2009-05 |
As we went around to look at the shoe, we saw that there was indeed a jaguar in the pit. A beautiful black jaguar. Jaguars don't typically need orthodics, but maybe Ellie figured he might get a little extra speed with her shoe.
After an embarrassing call to the ranger station, in which I learned that it takes 3 zookeepers to safely move the cats around, we headed down to the carousel for a nice ride ON a black jaguar.
Luckily, the wonderful rangers at the zoo were able to retrieve the shoe after the jaguar went to his sleeping quarters on his own. So, today, we'll head to the Science Center and pick one hopefully-not-chewed shoe and orthodic.
Kids.
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