TV Update
Previously on Listen Lady,
Bought new TV for husbands 30th birthday. YAY, points for me.
Brought old TV downstairs to use. YAY, points for recycling.
Setup old TV downstairs. BOO, broken.
Brought old TV to repair shop. YAY, supporting local business
Yesterday I received the dreaded call about the TV’s prognosis. It was not good. One of the sockets on the TV was corroded plus the picture tube was broken. The repair man said that fixing the old TV would cost more than its actual worth at this point. FABULOUS.
He suggested that we treat ourselves to a new TV. Listen Lady, we treated ourselves and then the TV broke. That is the incorrect order of events. The old TV was not supposed to break, we were supposed to move it downstairs and get additional usage out of the behemoth.
2011 has proven to be the year that the TV stands in the Mayer household act like stubborn little children.
TV stand A has been dismantled because the new TV we bought is too tall.
TV stand B now sits alone and empty as the old TV will be laid to rest this weekend.
Fancy a back massage?
Last night Cardin spent a good 30 minutes giving Brett a gentle back massage. This is just a small segment to prove how kind and feminine she is.
Snap into a Slim Jim
I’m just going to throw this out there internet; putting Cardin to bed is similar to taking a Slim Jim away from Randy the Macho Man Savage when he is filming one of his commercials. I dare you to try. I often compare the process to putting a rabid animal to sleep as it usually involves frothing at the mouth, the presence of dangerous claws, and obnoxious defensive cat-calls.
I’m convinced that Cardin is so difficult to put to bed because of the amount of energy she has. She has so much energy in fact that not one, but two pediatricians have commented to me about how “ACTIVE” she is. TWO. And they only see her in 10 minute windows. I realize this increased “activity” was inevitable, given her DNA makeup, but HOLY HELL, JUST SETTLE DOWN FOR 5 MINUTES.
When it comes time for her to actually go to sleep we first go through a massive fit because I have just devastated every facet of her world by informing her about bedtime. People are starving in china and living in tents in Haiti, but the world is unjust because Cardin must go to sleep. It seems legitimate.
After we’ve finished that emotional rollercoaster we must get her settled so she actually stops moving her extremities. This can take upward of 30 minutes. Just when you think that she has finally settled and will no longer move, she flinches and wakes herself up enough that the process begins anew. I’m convinced that she flinches on purpose; as though she feels herself falling asleep and she screams in her head “MUST MOVE LEG SO THAT BODY WAKES UP AND PARENTS NEVER REST”.
In the past we’ve attempted to let her fall asleep on her own. As I mentioned previously, this has resulted in frothing at the mouth and extra loads of laundry. We no longer let her get so upset that she regurgitates her dinner for us.
However, this past weekend I unearthed a new form of deception that has allowed us to leave her in the crib AND let her fall asleep by herself. While this sounds like a fairly easy task, I assure you, her forced gag reflex has made it one of the downfalls of our household. Oh and also, I am in no way forlorn about using deception on her; the more the merrier folks.
Perhaps it’s just that she is older now, perhaps Indiana Jones has finally stumbled upon the answer to the Holy Grail, or perhaps it’s just pure asinine luck. Listen Lady, I don’t really care, I just know that if I put her in bed and tell her I’m going to get one of her other toys she falls asleep by herself and I don’t have to clean up puke.
Cause that is super awesome and fun
Remember that time I bought Brett the brand new 47 inch television and we moved the old TV downstairs. Well Internet, last night we went to setup that old TV and now it’s broken. BUT WAIT…the fun doesn’t stop my friends. To top it off, the TV that was originally residing downstairs…yea we sold that a couple days ago; and it was in perfect working order.
The old TV turns on and then within a minute or two it automatically shuts off. It worked one day, we moved it downstairs, and now it doesn’t work. Granted, it’s an old school CRT television, it’s only 6 years old and the behemoth was working perfect when it was upstairs in the living room. Even though I watched Brett move the TV downstairs and I visibly saw that he did not drop it, but I’m still blaming him for breaking the TV. Listen Lady, obviously the movement jiggled something important around!
I did a Google search on “Why the F%^& won’t my TV stay on” and this is what I found out:
“The power supply is shutting down to prevent further damage. Some component has shorted
out or opened up, and the set is shutting down. Magnavox is no longer known for
manufacturing a dependable TV set. This model is known for having problems with the power
supply. Once repaired it can fail at any time.”
Super. Stellar. Awesome. Fun. Groovy. Diesel. Mad Hot. Party in my Pants!!!!!!
I called a local repair shop and was told that if it was indeed the power supply it would likely cost around $100 to fix. Key word there…. “if”. An adventure for another day.
Blue Knuckles?
Cardin is big time into arts and crafts lately. Say the word craft and she goes ape shit. And this is where mommy starts to fail, because mommy has very little in the creative arts department. I will be the first to admit that I cannot draw, paint, or sculpt anything. Even my shopping list is so horribly scribbled that only I can read it.
In attempt to busy her this past weekend, I pulled out all the stops and suggested we make some Valentine’s Day cards. That was all I had to say and she was at the table asking for the glue. Like a vulture to its prey. We started with some pop-up cards. And yes internet, I did Google instructions on how to make one. Even with the instructions, it still took TWO attempts for me to get the popup to work the right way.
The decoration of the cards took all of 10 minutes, not including the 40 minutes it took for me to cut the damn thing out, so Cardin was still on a glue high once she had finished. In a flash of pure brilliance, I remembered that I had emptied the last egg out of the carton that morning and the empty carcass was sitting on the counter.
Listen Lady, I may or may not have Googled egg carton crafts. Let’s just say that some of the intricate shit that people make out of recycled cardboard cartons is beyond my level of comprehension. You are not getting a medal for making sweet looking crafts with your kids. I sincerely hope that the craft gets ripped apart mere seconds after you place it into your toddler’s grimy paws.
I went for the easiest looking egg carton craft: the caterpillar. Simple, to the point, not much assembly involved. Glued some eyes on, shoved some colored popsicle sticks in for antenna, and gave Cardin the markers to color in the rest of the body.
She started out nicely, giving the caterpillar some dots on his body. Then I made the ultimate mistake. I started cleaning up some of the scrap pieces of paper and I took my eyes off the 2 year old with the marker. A minute later, I turned around to find a quarter of the table covered in blue marker and Cardin shading in her knuckles. Smurf like little fingers. FAIL.
She looked at me with n smile, as though nothing was amiss, and asked to pound. My guess is she thought the fist bump need a little extra pizzazz.