You guys, my friend Astarte (we went to high school together so I should probably get her to sign a confidentiality agreement regarding all the miniskirts and ill-advised patterned black stockings I used to wear) took a jewelry-making class and is making all kinds of pretty sparklies these days. She’s having a giveaway for one of her bracelets.

Now, back to the updates.

Baby Food Muffins. The ones I made with the old jars of carrot turned out well, but when I used some “tropical fruit blend” that nobody liked, the muffins came out edible but overly moist, and all the chocolate chips sank to the bottom. Some baby foods are probably made with more water than others, and also probably have less fiber for Muffin Structural Support.

Pens. Remember how I was all, “I don’t care how much they cost, I want GOOD PENS!” Then I went and stood in the pen aisle with my print-out of the comment section, and I bought nothing. Instead, I’m going to wait until those things start going on back-to-school sales, and buy several different kinds then.

Interfering Clerks. With time, I still feel good about my reaction. Sometimes in such situations I later curse my wimpiness, but in this case I didn’t. If it happened again, I would write a letter to the manager explaining what had happened.

Henry’s Birthday Presents. We got him half a dozen dinosaur shirts from various stores, the biggest haul being from Macy’s where I found FOUR. He loves them. Now if he’s not wearing a dinosaur shirt, he wants to know WHY. We also gave him a large softish plastic brachiosaurus from Target, which was a hit.

Snuggling his brachiosaurus

The Dolls. You realize they don’t LIVE in their unders on the sofa but were only there because I had just unpacked them from the bins? Yes. We don’t have enough spare seating in this house to use it for dolls. I got rid of nine of them (#s 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12), plus a big bin of doll clothes, giving them to a friend of my mom’s who brings dolls to places such as shelters. I found it too overwhelming to do the whole thing all at once, so I did a “first sweep” and got rid of the ones I was most sure I didn’t want anymore. It’s been several weeks, and now I think I’m going to get rid of the rest of the dolls, plus most of the clothes. I might keep ONE doll, because Elizabeth has a doll and we might want to play dolls together. I’ll also keep enough clothes for the two dolls.

Books. Short review of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell: I liked it, but as usual with Gladwell’s books, it seemed like an article expanded to book-length: the basic idea is very interesting but doesn’t take long to communicate, and then the rest of the book is examples and restating.

Short review of the Duggars book: Bleah. I’d thought I’d be interested in the organizational stuff, but instead I was alternately bored and annoyed.

The other books went back to the library unread (though I got halfway through Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner) because I ran out of renewals.

American Psycho. SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! I liked the whole book until the end, which was one of those “What do you think REALLY HAPPENED?” endings, which I HATE. I’m still kind of pissed whenever I think of it. If you read the book, what did YOU conclude? That he did all that stuff, or that he was delusional?

Georgie. Georgie is hanging in there. His coughing is more frequent, and his side-breathing is now evident even to me. Sometimes when he’s coughing I start panicking and I think I should take him to the vet THIS VERY DAY and end his suffering. But in between coughing fits, he seems happy and fluffy and comfy and young, and it seems ridiculous to be considering ENDING HIS LIFE over some COUGHING. It is hard to know what to do, and I’m encouraged by how many of you said that when it was Time, you Knew.

Heath Insurance. Our health insurance did change, but there was a happy surprise: our monthly contribution is indeed more than our mortgage payment, but the deductible I was so upset about doesn’t apply to regular stuff like office visits and prescriptions—it only kicks in with the more expensive stuff like hospital stays and medical equipment. THEY COULD HAVE SAID SO.

Cloth Napkins. Still going well, except that once I get on a Quest I have trouble Stopping, and so we have more cloth napkins than we can possibly use, and also enough napkin rings for a reunion of the extended Duggar family.

The Other Kind of Reusable Napkins. Can you believe I have NOT YET TRIED THEM? I bought a whole bunch and there they sit, unused. I WILL try them. I WILL. I just…haven’t yet. It’s a hurdle! And they’re so pretty, I don’t want to ruin them! …Except that if they get ruined, I get to choose more pretty designs…

I’m always, like, “Hey, let’s talk about this!” and then I get everyone’s input and I make my decision and I never mention it again because it’s not on my mind anymore. Let’s see which threads I’ve left loose.

The Scale. I ordered the one Jess recommended, the Newline Well Balance. It’s supposed to arrive tomorrow.

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The Toddler. I cannot even describe how scattered and distracted I continue to be. It’s not just Henry, who has added biting, smacking, and lashing-out-with-a-fork to his repertoire. I feel like I am the CENTER of a WHEEL, and ALL SPOKES LEAD TO ME. EVERYONE has to talk to ME, so each of THEM is having ONE conversation but I am having FIVE. It is NO WONDER my mind feels like a metaphor for something else.

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End-of-Year Teacher Gifts. I had the kids write their usual “What I remember about this school year” letters. I also contributed $5 to a collection taken up by the room mother for one teacher’s gift.

As always when I do these teacher gift posts, I am simultaneously so grateful for and so sorry for some of the input I get about teacher gifts from teachers. On one hand, I can imagine how frustrating the gifts can be, and I think it’s good to point out that if _I_ only like one in twenty fragrances at Bath & Body Works and find ALL the others BARFY, the odds of choosing a good one for a teacher are slim. I also think it’s good to remember that in general, it’s good to buy a gift for a teacher as if the teacher were a REAL PERSON, someone who would prefer Good Chocolate to Chocolate-Flavored Candy just like the rest of us would.

On the other hand, I am almost flattened with discouragement hearing about baked goods thrown directly into the trash, non-giftcards referred to as “useless junk” or “crap gifts,” and the term “even as little as $10” (as if $10 is a tuppence, merely a thought that counts) brought up ANYWHERE AT ALL. In fact, I find those comments lead me to this train of thought:

1. It really is unfortunate that teachers get so much stuff they don’t want/need.

2. It’s too bad the gifts can’t be merely Representative Tokens of Appreciation (the way Teacher Appreciation Week is representative of the entire year), and that the teachers can’t compensated in some OTHER way for the work that they do, perhaps by their EMPLOYERS, perhaps with CURRENCY so that they could buy what they DO want/need.

3. OH WAIT.

So here’s what I’m doing:

* $10 or $15 Target giftcards (one per classroom teacher—nothing for assistant teachers, art teachers, music teachers, gym teachers, computer teachers, secretaries, directors, principals, assistant principals, student teachers, room mothers, cleaning staff, cafeteria workers, lawn maintenance team, head of the PTA, because OH MY BEEZUS THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS) at Winter Holiday

* a letter from the child at end-of-year, telling the teacher all the things they remember/liked during the school year

* a Target giftcard for the bus driver: $10 per child of mine riding her bus

* throughout the year, contributing disinfecting wipes, boxes of tissues, baked goods (I hope they’re not thrown away when they’re specifically requested), paper towels, hand soap, disinfecting hand gel, Box Tops for Education, and anything else the teacher or PTA requests during the year for the school and for school events

* * * * * * * *

Well, now I’m all distracted by teacher gifts and am no longer in the mood to discuss pens, or clerks who think it’s okay to reprimand my child, or the recent failures of muffin recipes using baby food. Hee! It is the downside of reheating leftover topics!

Edit 06-23-2009: I think MOST teachers are NOT icky about teacher gifts and that it’s just a vocal minority that says those mean things that get me all anxious. I kind of wish I hadn’t posted my little rant, because I think my attack on the vocal minority comes out sounding like an attack on All Teachers. Plus, it’s the kind of post that makes people nervous because it makes indirect references: SOMEONE is in trouble, but WHO?? (And yet I don’t have anyone in particular in mind, and can’t remember who posted which comments, and just sort of came up with representative TYPES of comments from all previous teacher-gift-related posts.) Considering how much I hate such posts myself, I don’t know why I succumbed to my pique.

In our life together so far, Paul and I have owned six scales. We haven’t liked a single one of them, and also they start wonking out after a year or two.

Our current scale has been working for me but not for Paul. I admit it’s given me a few strange readouts, but then it always gave a better answer the second try, and I don’t think stepping off and stepping on again is such a huge inconvenience. Also, I admit I’ve seen it doing its “calculating….calculating….calculating…” thing when no one was standing on it, but big deal. It’s only a LITTLE like a machine is coming to life and watching us while we’re vulnerable and unsuspecting.

So I wasn’t ready to pull the plug. Scales are hard to choose, and boring to spend money on. I sometimes think scales are a Bad Idea anyway. But just now Paul made an exasperated sound from the bathroom and then announced: “That’s it. We need a new scale.” His claim: the scale is not working. I wanted to ask if “not working” meant “telling him he weighs more than he thinks he weighs,” but before I could weigh (heh) the advisability of this possible line of inquiry he added that the scale is now literally non-functioning. My suggestion that the scale needed a new battery was met with a snort, and with the declaration that he didn’t care if it DID need a new battery, it wasn’t getting one, because it was a dumb scale to begin with. (I hope it didn’t hear him say that.)

So scale-questing it is. Here is the thing: I don’t want to have to do this again anytime soon, so what I’m most looking for is DURABILITY and NON WONKING OUT. Perfect accuracy is not important to me, as long as it gives me the general idea for those kid medications where I have to weigh the child to determine the dosage.

But PAUL wants perfect accuracy, and in fact he would like it to measure to the TENTH OF A POUND, which I think is stupid since drinking an 8-ounce cup of water changes a person’s weight by FIVE tenths of a pound.

And so we need The Perfect Scale. It must be:

• reliable
• non-wonking
• inexpensive
• fun to buy
• accurate to a tenth of a pound
• non-sentient/plotting

Other helpful info: a scale you have that you hate, so we won’t buy it.

If you normally don’t read over at Milk and Cookies because you’re kind of bored by all the shopping talk, perhaps today will be your day: I’m talking about PLANTS! And also: the plant post CAME TO ME IN A DREAM! I dreamed I was writing it, and so then later, I….well, I wrote it. As you can see.

Or maybe plants are as boring to you as watching plants grow, in which case let’s get back to the shopping talk.

I had something unusual happen the other day: I went to a Target I’d never been to before, and…I didn’t enjoy it. I think they must not have been piping in the same life-restoring air the other Targets have, because it didn’t smell soothing. The walls were painted (or possibly stained) a too-dark shade of grey. The ceilings seemed lower, and the departments seemed smaller, and the music was depressing. The fluorescent lighting was too dim, and some of the lights were flickering. The employees seemed exhausted and beaten down, as if trapped in a twilight zone situation, working the same workday again and again. The clearance areas were sparse, and not very reduced. I felt weird and skittish, and then discouraged and plodding. I bought hardly anything: a pack of card stock (50% off), a 3-pack of Wonder Pets unders (30% off), and a package of lightbulbs (rang up higher than expected, and by then I had soaked up too much atmosphere to do anything about it).

So now if any of you say, “Meh, I don’t get what the fuss is about Target,” I will nod understandingly rather than reeling back in shock and horror. I will imagine you at the grey, flickering, plodding Target.

Hey, Kathi A! You won Erin’s contest!

Mr. Pickles would like to point out that before there was a Rollback, there was a Rollforward: these were $2.50 for ages, then $3.18 for a couple of weeks, and now just LOOK how they’re ROLLING BACK PRICES! They just KEEP ROLLING THEM BACK!

Mr. Pickles does not consider this an acceptable “clearance” price. Target had these for $1.07. Now THAT’S a clearance price.

Nor is this an acceptable “clearance” price, particularly since Mr. Pickles just saw this same game on clearance at Target for $4.74.

Here is something that particularly aggravates Mr. Pickles: when an item is available and available and available, and then suddenly not available—not because of being discontinued, but because of, apparently, PURE WHIM. Walmart used to have the big cans of Contadina crushed tomatoes, but now they have only the puree. Mr. Pickles doesn’t know how he’s supposed to make chili without Contadina crushed tomatoes.

And THIS situation. One of the MAIN REASONS Mr. Pickles comes to Walmart is to buy these huge bottles of Tabasco sauce. They’ve been out of stock for weeks, with this empty shelf space just SITTING here. WTF. Mr. Pickles’s spouse uses Tabasco like a beverage, and after the current bottle, and the next bottle, there is only one bottle left.

Fine, Mr. Pickles caves. He will buy the smaller sizes. But how can he compare the unit price when one size is unit-priced in ounces and the other is unit-priced in quarts? Nice workaround to a pesky legal requirement, Walmart.

Rolling back from $2.50 to $3.00. Mr. Pickles thinks someone forgot that step one of the “Rollback” was supposed to be Our Little Secret.

Well. Okay. This is pretty hard to complain about. This stuff usually costs over $3.00. Mr. Pickles buys five.

Mr. Pickles checks his receipt carefully. It is like a game, finding Today’s Errors. Only one error this time: the balloons were marked $1.00 but rang up as $1.25. Mr. Pickles has seen worse.

[For more photos, join us, joiiiiinnnnnn ussssssss!]

I am so SCATTERED! My mind is ALL OVER THE PLACE. My mental to-do list is about 5 seconds: if I don’t write something down immediately, it’s GONE FOREVER.

I blame Henry. I can’t believe the changes around here. Elizabeth, observing Henry for a few minutes this morning, exclaimed, “Isn’t he a bad baby!” Er, not that I’d say so. But when a child keeps trying to climb INTO and OUT OF his high chair; when a child can open baby gates; when a child can climb out of a play yard; when a child drags chairs so he can get to high places; when a child takes flying leaps toward unsuspecting parents; when a child CLIMBS A LAMP, FOR THE LOVE OF TARGET, things are getting kind of DIFFICULT.

I don’t think any of my previous children were this, um, ADEPT, or perhaps they WERE and I just didn’t write it down before the 5 seconds were up so I’ve forgotten. We never needed doorknob protectors before. No one ever opened a baby gate without being specifically taught to do so. No one stood on the sill of the bay window and took a flying leap toward me as I sat reading on the not-so-very-nearby recliner, alerted to the situation only by the sound of an older child saying, “No, Henry, don’t jump!”

Well. So. Where was I? It’s been more than 5 seconds since I started this post, so I’m sitting here looking confused and wondering what my original intent was before I started talking about how Henry will be lucky to have all his teeth and limbs as an adult, and so will I.

Oh, yes, I remember: I DID write it down, but then forgot I’d done so. Here it is. I was going to whine about how I had to cancel a get-together with a friend today because the weather promised one thing and delivered another, so now I’m sulky and at loose ends, wondering if I should eat ALL the leftover cake or just SOME of it.

But was that really all I was going to say? I can’t remember. ….AAAAAA, don’t jump, don’t jump! *twitch twitch*

I only have two seconds to write this, because a closed computer-room door separates me from a climbing, gate-breaking, button-pressing Henry, but YOU only have, like, an HOUR to enter Erin’s pay-it-forward contest!

Question: If you have kids in school, do you give the teachers an end-of-year gift? And if so, what do you give and what is the approximate value? I’ll put a poll over to the right to get an idea of general answers, but we’ll also discuss in the comment section.