Do you notice anything…different about me? Over there, under the ad. There’s an email subscription thingie. I got it because Sundry’s aunt is having some trouble with her email notification service, and I told her in a know-it-all tone of voice that Blogger didn’t even HAVE such things. Then I was like, “Maybe I’d better check my facts? I’m just saying.” So I did, and I found a way it COULD be done, so then I had to eat my words. And also: had to add an email service thing.

Let’s consider it to be in Test Mode for the time being. This is because whenever I publish a post, I then go back and edit a typo, and then I republish. Then I notice an awkward phrase, and I go back and fix it, and then I republish. And then I see another typo, and so I fix it and republish. And if this is going to lead to everyone receiving four, no five, no SIX emails saying I have the SAME new post, then that is not going to work out for any of us.

Plus, it looks like it might send out updates at a specific time each day, rather than right after the post is posted, and what good is THAT? So I don’t know. I may want to take this one down and put up a new one, and then you’d have to resubscribe, and really it might not be worth the hassle. Why not wait and see if it works out first, is what I would do.

I went to Target yesterday with Rob and William and Henry because—get this—Rob and William ASKED TO GO. My genes are presenting! So while my mom had playtime with the twins, I took the other three kids to the store.

We got this little guy. He’s a trash can, and he was 75% off. I love his little front claws, and his satisfied “just ate some yummy trash” expression. I’m thinking he would make a good compost bin. Right now we’re using big yogurt containers, which are ugly.

I bought ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY POUNDS of cat litter. They had 40-pound bins for $10, and normally the 28-pound bins are $10. You cannot believe how heavy the cart was to push around with these things in there.

I let Rob and William each choose a notebook, and together they chose a package of pens. I’m hoping this will reduce the whining they do when I make them write in their journals each day during summer vacation.

This Dial Mandarin Grapefruit handsoap was on sale for $1. I hope I like it as much as the Softsoap Grapefruit handsoap I bought on sale last week, which I LOVE.

I bought a few more reusable Target bags, which I love so much I want to run off to Vegas with them. They fold up into cute little squares that snap closed, but they expand into flat-bottomed, comfy-handled fabric bags with several times the capacity of a usual plastic Target shopping bag. And they have a darling decoration of birdies and trees on them! And they’re only $1.50 each! Love.

I don’t even know what I’m going to do with these fabric-covered bins. I just knew as soon as I saw them that they were going home with me. They were 75% off, so they were $3.24 each (down from $13 each).

Stack of six aqua plastic cups for a grand total of 48 cents. I can’t remember if that was 50% off or 75% off—they weren’t expensive cups to begin with. We only have two big plastic cups, and Paul is always using one when he comes home from work, putting it in the sink, and then using the other one at dinner, which means I either have to wash a cup or use a small cup. NO MORE.

I thought these earrings were pretty. And you know, every time I see purple stuff now I think of Jess Loolu and wonder whether she’d consider it real purple or not. I couldn’t get a good picture of these, but they have eggplant-colored enamel sunk down into the valleys of a gold design. They were 75% off: $1.74 down from $6.99.

Let’s talk more about our Pay It Forward Contest, Group Effort Edition! I wanted to give all of you HUGE KISSES when I saw how many people were joining in! Suddenly it feels like we haven’t had enough FUN for awhile, and now we ARE going to have fun!

Or maybe the feeling is that I haven’t had enough BROWNIES for awhile (
Anyway! Several good issues have been raised!

Issue the First: Zesty Jenny wanted to know if having the contests next week means we need to have a prize ready by then. No indeedy, and in fact although you MAY have a prize ready ahead of time, I prefer to go shopping after I know who won. More fun! Also, if you show the prize at the beginning of the contest, it kills some of the thrill: for me, part of the fun of winning Jess Loolu‘s contest was wondering what surprise might be arriving in the mail.

Issue the Second: The New Girl wanted to know what the protocol is for package contents—price range, theme, etc. I think what’s so fun about this kind of contest is that the prize is totally up to you. Some people enjoy doing a theme. Some people do one single item. Some people do a bunch of random little things. I myself am in the “things I found at Target while thinking of the winner” group. If you’d like to see two sample prizes, you can go over to Melessa, who won my last contest: she posted a picture of the random-stuff prize I sent her, and also a picture of the theme prize she was offering.

As for price range, I think it’s “whatever is still fun.” If you start getting stressed about the cost, that = not fun. I think a prize can be something you go out and buy, or it can be half a batch of cookies, a couple of used paperbacks, and a bottle of moisturizer that wasn’t right for you. (In fact, I think sometime later we should do a “Redistributing Clutter” Pay it Forward, where we all get rid of some of the stuff in our houses that we don’t want but it’s too good/expensive to throw away.)

Issue the Third: Nowheymama reminded me that next week contains the July 4th weekend, and a lot of people might be going out of town before the contest is over. I think that’s still going to be okay: as long as we start the contests early in the week (June 30th or July 1st), and have them all end on the same day (July 4th itself), it’s fine if we’re not there in person for the end of the contest. When we return from vacation we can pick winners and shop for prizes—no hurry.

In a related issue, Janice asked about being out of town during the two START dates. See if your blog platform (“blog platform”? Is that really the term I need here?) lets you submit posts for delayed posting. Mine lets you set the date/time in the future, and then the post won’t post until that date/time. You can get a Pay it Forward Contest Announcement all set to go before you leave and set it to post on Monday.

Issue the Fourth: Misty asked if I’d handle the scheduling, and I was all like, “YES I will boss that train!”—but then I realized we’re probably in different time zones and different countries and so I can’t over-boss here. What I suggest is that all the contests begin on either Monday June 30th or Tuesday July 1st, and end on Friday, July 4th, and I’m talking about U.S. dates. Specific end-TIME is whatever you want. I’m planning to go with noon Pacific Time.

Issue the Fifth: Tina is wondering about a random number generator. I use Random.org. Actually, NOW I use a program my cool computer-geek brother wrote for me, but it is customized for me and so the rest of you sadsacks without cool computer-geek brothers will just have to cope with Random.org. Which is a nice random number generator, too, just not as nice as mine.

Issue the Sixth: In fact, Tina and Barb bring up a good point in general, which is that not everyone is familiar with Pay it Forward contests and maybe there could be a quick overview rather than the assumption that everyone knows what I’m talking about, especially considering that I myself did not know what I was talking about until Jess Loolu’s contest.

So! Pay it Forward contests! They have kind of a dumb name, but it is what they are called and we are too late to vote on it. The way they work is that a blogger says he or she is having a Pay it Forward contest, and a bunch of people enter by commenting on that post (I like to give a lightweight optional question to answer; last time I asked if your skin was dry, oily, or combination). The blogger uses a random number generator (or scraps of paper in a hat) to select a random commenter, and sends that commenter a surprise box (contents completely up to the blogger) in the mail. The recipient of the surprise box must then post a Pay it Forward contest on his or her OWN blog, and choose a random commenter to win it, and send a surprise box to that commenter. Then THAT winner….and so on.

So! Did I cover everything? If you’re in on this, get your post ready for Monday or Tuesday of next week. Next week, when you’ve posted it, email me (swistle at gmail dot com) the URL and I’ll put it in a list of all the Group Effort Pay it Forward contests, which I’ll post on Monday or Tuesday with my own Pay it Forward contest—adding to it as more contests are emailed to me.

If you don’t have a blog but you want to be in on it, email me (swistle at gmail dot com) and I’ll add you to my own contest and choose you a winner from my commenters.

I am looking for summer project. No, no! Don’t give me any! Heavens! No, what I mean is that I’m looking at my existing project list and assigning a few of the projects to this summer: I need things to do when the children are doing THEIR summer projects, to give a feeling of solidarity.

Anyway, my summer projects so far are pretty grim and involve things like “clutter removal” and “labeling photos,” and I need something more fun to do. First MzEll and I were fondly remembering the Pay It Forward contest, and then I read something on the same topic over at Alice’s, and so I thought maybe we could do more of that.

In fact, when I say “we” I mean WE. As in, WE. Wouldn’t it be fun to start a WHOLE BUNCH of Pay It Forward threads all at the same time? Like a Pay It Forward BOMB! It’s hard to get involved in one, normally, because you have to WIN one. But not if you START one.

So anyway! I’m going to do one. And if you want to do one, too, I’ll link to yours over here. We’ll have a whole LIST of Pay It Forward Contests going on at the same time for people to enter! They can just click down the list, entering one after another! And we’ll just go ahead and make it totally allowed for all the contest-givers to blatantly enter each other’s contests, so maybe we’ll get a neat looping effects going! And meanwhile there will be the fun of shopping for the Pay It Forward packages, and the fun of gifts arriving in the mail! I think this could be just the thing!

Summer is not the BEST time to do this, since it rules out mailing melty things like chocolate—but I think this problem is MORE than compensated for by the benefits of presents arriving when it is about as far away from the Winter Gifty Holidays as it is possible to get.

Do you have to have a blog to win, or to throw a contest? No sirree! I have workarounds for both of those issues, so worry not! If you want to throw a contest but don’t have a blog, I can pick an additional random number when I’m doing the drawing for my contest, and that can be your winner. If you win a contest and don’t have a blog, the contest-running person can choose a second number from their contest to be the person you send a gift to, and then that second person would carry it from there. Well, my explanation does not please me with its clarity, but trust me that it would work!

Let me know if you want to participate, and we’ll coordinate contest timetables! I’m thinking…next week? We could post all the contests early in the week to give plenty of time for everyone to find them and enter them, and have all the winners later in the week. You can leave a comment saying you want in on it, or you can email me (swistle at gmail dot com).

Have you watched the show The Wire? One of my brother’s friends says it’s “the greatest work of art ever made”. He adds: “I am not even kidding.” But I’m one episode into it, and mostly it seems to be about swearing. If you’ve watched it, tell me: how long did it take for you to know if you liked it or not?

You see how on the main page of Milk & Cookies each post cuts off partway through, and you have to click to read more? My mom wants that on her Blogger blog but can’t find a way to do it. I poked around, but I don’t even know what to call that “click to see all of it” thing, except in the context of feed readers where it’s called a partial feed, and that’s not what she wants. She wants a full-feed, but her posts are really long so she wants only the first part of each one to show on her main page, rather than having her main page be a million miles long.

When I was little, my parents severely limited our TV/movie watching. This turned us into clueless little weirdos, in my opinion. Social interaction among children is like social interaction among adults: adults talk about TV shows and movies they’ve watched, and so do children. This doesn’t mean I’m going to force-feed the kids every violent/inappropriate show their peers are allowed to watch, but it does mean I want them to have general cultural literacy in the things their peers know about. But! How do I know what their peers know about? I don’t! And so I am asking you: what do boys in the age 7-10 range watch? Last I checked, it was The Smurfs. So I need an update, stat!

We don’t do “friend parties” in our family. We invite my parents over for presents and cake, but that’s it. We tried a friend party when Rob turned 5, and it was so unpleasant I don’t know if we’ll ever do it again. MAYBE when the kids turn 10 or some other special birthday. Maybe.

Occasionally Rob or William will get invited to a classmate’s party. They go. They have a nice time. Everyone knows that “not everyone gets invited to every party,” so I don’t worry that we don’t reciprocate by inviting that child to a birthday party.

But ONE family invites William every single year. The birthday boy is someone William went to preschool and kindergarten with, and we see the family every year at the pool for swimming lessons. This is the situation that’s starting to make me feel uncomfortable. Year after year, William goes to this other child’s party, but we never invite that child to a party of William’s.

We don’t know the parents well enough for them to know we don’t have friend parties, and it’s awkward to drop it into the kind of small-talk conversations we have with them. One thing I’ve considered doing is asking the mom for some advice about friend parties, and then explaining by saying we’ve never done one. That would ease my mind a little: I don’t want her to think we have any reason for not inviting her son.

In the meantime, what we’ve done is send a good present. I spend about half again what I would usually spend.

I’ve wondered, though, if this year we ought to decline the invitation? I don’t know if they might be asking us because they feel obligated (their son always asks William at the pool if he can come to the party), and if they’d be relieved if we declined? Or if declining would be like saying, “Not only don’t we invite your son, we also don’t let our son go to your son’s party.” Plus, the one time we DID throw a friend party, I was wringing my hands over the possibility that people wouldn’t want to come.

The other child’s birthday is coming up, so I’m facing the usual decision.

Here are some of my recent favorite posts:

Bub & Pie writes about how “living life to its fullest” doesn’t have to mean physical risk-taking.

Bossy gave me a little panic attack with these two pictures: first this one and then this one.

Jonniker is talking about this interesting phenomenon: when you like/love someone, and THEY like/love someone YOU CAN’T STAND.

Firegirl is discussing Unusual Crushes.

Kirida has me going around pointing to things and saying “Awesome. Not awesome. Awesome. Awesome. NOT awesome. Try a little harder, maybe someday you’ll be awesome.”

Screamy Thing and her mom “being meerkats” totally made my day.

And if you’re feeling in an advice/input/feedback-giving mood, you can head over to Ms. Sassy Pants and talk to her ex-SIL, who is guest-posting about fertility issues. She’s ASKING for feedback, so you don’t have to worry that you’re giving unwelcome commentary.

We have a spider that lives between the screen and the glass of the window over our kitchen sink, and I tolerate her (even though I am a huge sissy re spiders) because she is a smallish, classic, Charlotte-shaped spider: almost more like a drawing of a spider than an actual, hairy-legged, fast-moving spider. She has graceful little legs, and she just hangs out in the corner there, industriously wrapping up little bugs and putting them in her pantry for later. I watch her as I’m doing the dishes.

The other day there was a fly in the kitchen, and it landed on the screen, so I opened the screen a little and quickly closed the window, so the fly could eventually bumble its way out. It flew near the spider, and that spider moved so fast and so alarmingly, I actually opened the window and saved the fly. I saved the gross, probably diseased fly, who given half a chance would litter the house with maggots. But the way that spider moved was so horrifying, and so evocative of my reptilian-brain feelings about spiders, that I acted fast and without thinking it through. I felt so sorry for that fly, seeing that same-size-as-herself spider coming at her like that. So if you notice a slight increase in the fly population of the planet, I’m afraid I’m to blame.

Those of you who have Netflix know that you can put your queue into several separate queues. For example, in our household we have the 3-out-at-a-time plan, so we have three queues: one is MY queue, for cool DVDs such as Firefly and Gilmore Girls; one is PAUL’S queue, for movies no one would want to see; and one is our JOINT queue, for the one in a million movie we both want to see, and also for the kids’ movies. When PAUL returns one of HIS movies, he gets the next movie from HIS queue. When I return one of MY movies, I get the next movie from MY queue. This keeps things fair and orderly, and Paul and I are both firstborns so we appreciate this.

Why can’t we just do an ABC pattern in one main queue, so it goes mine, Paul’s, kids’, mine, Paul’s, kids’, etc.? Well, for one thing it’s a pain to have to do that, especially if you want to reorder your movies: if I’m watching all the DVDs of The Wire, and suddenly I want to watch The Chorus, I have to change every third movie all the way down the queue. For another thing, the ABC pattern means that slowpokes get unfair benefits: if I’m taking forever to watch movie A, and Paul and the kids both return their movies, I get my next A movie when I haven’t even finished my first one. Meanwhile, Paul has to wait for HIS next movie until I return MINE. Unfair. So the multiple-queue system is awesome.

Netflix is canceling that feature. They reassure us that it is to improve the site for all their customers. OH YES. I can TOTALLY see how taking away a feature EVERYONE LOVES improves things for everyone! Yes, it’s totally clear to me now!

Paul is threatening to completely cancel our Netflix account. I can’t see doing that, because we don’t have cable so this is how we watch ALL TV AND MOVIES. But I am SERIOUSLY PISSED and LOOKING FOR TROUBLE. Well, or looking for other options.

[Edit: I was looking for a way to write to Netflix to throw a freakin’ FIT politely complain, but I kept getting routed to a phone number, and with five children in the house I don’t use the phone AT ALL. Kristin found the way to the email form, so I’m including her instructions here: “At the very bottom of the page in teeny tiny print, click ‘contact us’. Then under ‘Requests and Suggestions’ click ‘suggestions’ and it’ll give you an email form.” THANK YOU, Kristin. I wrote, and I suggest anyone else who hates this change write too.]

[Edit:

Dear Swistle,

You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are.

We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you.

-Your friends at Netflix

Well!]

I’m in my mid-30s, and my skin is showing signs of becoming more…delicate. I like the word “delicate” here, rather than the word “crepey.”

I don’t lose weight as easily or as quickly as I used to. And when I do lose weight, my skin is saggy rather than springing back immediately.

I made fun of a slang expression by acting as if I didn’t understand what it meant. This immediately reminded me of my grandfather pretending to think the word “cool” was meant literally. Har har, old person.

Lip hair. A couple of chin hairs. Nose hair seeming more intrusive. I’m still holding out for these being a pregnancy/nursing side-effect, but I’m losing hope. The worst is a couple of long freaky white hairs that grow in the area between my eyebrow and my hairline—and I usually don’t find them until they are more than an inch long. *Shudder* I think, “Oh, hey, I have a cat hair on my face,” and I brush it away and it does not brush away.

Upper arms are looking more matronly. Also, recently they’ve gotten redder? What is THAT about?

My mom and I were discussing another family, and gradually we became aware that the grandmother in that family was not, in fact, my mother’s peer as we’d been assuming while talking, but in fact only about 10 years older than me. A grandmother! Ten years older than me!

The Girls prefer increasingly wide/padded straps.

I see more veins in my legs. A few of them are varicose. I try not to think about it.

I see more little tiny veins on the sides of my FEET, like a pattern of reddish-purple lines. This is something I associate with my grandmother’s old-lady feet, and so I find it upsetting.

My default term for teenagers is “kids.” If I try to correct it, I come out with the even-worse term “young people.” YOUNG PEOPLE.

The skin on my face seems to be shifting downward. Just a little. But enough so I’ve started giving myself wrinkles from peering at it in the mirror.

My hands look older. More veiny, more wrinkled. Rougher, even with lotion.

I keep turning on lights for people who say they can see just fine. I remember my grandparents doing the same for me.

Is my hairline receding? Maybe just a little at the temples?

I’m so sorry, but this is going to be about constipated babies. If you would really rather not talk about it—and who could blame you?—perhaps you could give me some advice on handheld vacuum cleaners instead. Or maybe you’d like to just click out of here completely and pretend this never happened. I’d understand. I mean, constipated babies or handheld vacuums? What kind of choice is THAT?

A certain baby whose first initial is H and whose second initial is Enry is the first of my babies to have trouble with constipation, as, unbelievably, I have discussed on another occasion. I’m not keen to discuss the particulars of how I know he’s constipated and not just straining the way babies often do, and so you are just going to have to take a look at my resume (babysitter, daycare infant-room teacher, mother of five) and believe that I know what I’m talking about and am not a newbie wringing my hands over an imagined problem. Um, like you’d insist on hearing the particulars anyway.

I have now brought the problem up TWO TIMES at the doctor’s office, once at his 9-month check-up and once at his 12-month check-up. And clearly I should be more firm and less of a chicken, but I keep thinking they are going to take into account (1) my experience and (2) the way I don’t bring things up if they’re not problems, and that then they will think, “Hm, we should deal with this.”

But no. They tell me to reduce bananas and cooked carrots, to increase prunes and white grape juice, to make sure he gets plenty of fluids, and to give him plenty of fiber. They say, “Does he seem to be uncomfortable?” and I say “He wakes up in the night screaming,” and they say, “Hm.” Then they say, “Well, try prune juice. Prune juice will clear him right up.” And this is where I should say, “I once gave him nothing all day except stewed prunes and prune juice and I noticed NO EFFECT, so I think it’s time to move from dietary changes to This is a Real Problem,” but instead I lose hope and flop gently to the floor, defeated.

NEXT TIME, I swear I’m going to press the issue, and in fact I’m thinking I’ll call and make him an appointment for what the nurse once referred to as “a constipation work-up.” But in the meantime, if you know things that work, please do share. Milk of Magnesia? Cod liver oil? Flax seed oil? (I’ve given him flax seed meal.) Creamed corn? Extra vitamin C? I tried him with glycerin suppositories (I can really see why people fear parenthood, can’t you?), but the nurse said not to use them too often or the baby starts to need them every time.

I’m looking for both kinds of assists: things that will help PREVENT the problem, and also things that will help clear the problem up once it has occurred. (And although I seemed to be scoffing at dietary changes two paragraphs ago, I do definitely want to hear those as well.) I promise not to be reckless and use ideas blindly, but we have a Nurse Line we can call, and I find it works a lot better if I’m saying “Can I give the baby ____?” (nurse says yes or no and tells me the dosage) than if I’m saying, “What can I give the baby?” (nurse says I’d have to ask the doctor).

Don’t worry, Henry. I will delete this post before anyone your age knows how to use Google.

[Follow-up: What worked for us was:
1. grapes
2. pineapple chunks
3. flax seed oil (I cut open a capsule each day and squeezed the oil into yogurt or whatever
4. but mostly the grapes and the pineapple chunks
5. oh, and oranges]