Out Of Curiosity...

I should be ashamed to admit this, but it's the truth: I'd been using my new iPhone for a good month before I noticed that the voicemail feature hadn't been set up.  Really.  One quick trip to the AT&T store and it was taken care of, but you'd think I might have figured that out earlier.

I love love love my phone.  It's in my hand a lot (far too much, if you ask Himself.)  However, it is very rarely used AS a phone, which of course explains why I didn't notice the voicemail thing for so long.  By my reckoning, talking on it comes in a solid sixth in the ranking of my potential uses, behind the following, which are listed more or less in order.

1) using its GPS capabilities for geocaching
2) using it to navigate while driving
3) texting
4) emailing
5) surfing the Web

So, I have to ask: If you have a smartphone, do YOU actually use it primarily as a phone??  If not, what do you use it for most often?  Wondering if it's just me for whom the phone function is almost incidental now!

Best Idea Ever

Seen recently in a highway rest stop bathroom:

(Yes, this is the first time I've seen a need to take a picture in a rest stop bathroom, for anyone who may be wondering.)

The sign on the stall door said "Mommy & Me."  It was about the size of a standard handicapped stall, but as you can see, it has not only a regular toilet but also a small one for a young child and even a seat (the gray thing on the wall) in which you can safely restrain an even younger child.

Where was this when I was traveling with three kids under the age of five?  Fabulous idea!

Ironic

The one stinking time I write a post about ignoring my maternal instincts and listening to medical "experts," it backfires on me!  Turns out that nurse on the phone was full of baloney...ended up having to bring Thing One to the pediatrician for prescription ear drops on Monday night anyway since swimmer's ear *IS* in fact an ear infection.  Oh well, you can bet I'll remember that the next time.  Live and learn.  No major harm done and his ear is doing a lot better already.  

Just in time, too, since my in-laws picked all three kids up yesterday for a week at Camp Grandmom!  (Bless my sainted MIL.)  In past years they have taken the kids either all separately or two together and then the third, but this year because of scheduling issues they have all three at once.  The original plan was for them to have the kids until Sunday, but with Thing One's ears needing to stay dry through days of drops they had to postpone a beach day, so they are now going to the beach on Monday and I am to pick them up on Tuesday.  I have no idea what I am going to do with all this peace and quiet but I'm sure I can figure something out.

Actually, the week is going to fill up pretty quickly.  Today I have a bunch of errands to run, including birthday shopping for Thing Two, who will turn ten over the weekend.  TEN.  How can that be possible??  Then tomorrow is quest day...for my 3000th geocache (!!), I am driving over two hours  each way with a group of friends in order to bag an especially cool one for the milestone, in keeping with the tradition.  Friday Himself and I leave for our weekend away, returning Sunday.  And while we are doing this the kids will be doing historical stuff and going to an amusement park and the beach and their cousins' house for a sleepover and generally having the time of their lives with their grandparents, so everyone wins.  :)    


 

  

Well, I Learn Something Every Day

Just got home today after a full week on the road with the kids, Sunday-Sunday: some historical stuff, some fun stuff, all five to six hours' drive from home.  Eight days, three cities, four hotels, three very wiped-out kids.  Was going to write about the trip tonight, and I will eventually, but it's getting temporarily preempted by Thing One, who managed to get himself sick at the waterpark I've been writing about.  He'd been going downhill for the last day or so and by this evening (Sunday, natch, when the pediatrician is closed) it was looking for all the world like he'd acquired the mother of all ear infections.  This would not be a crisis except that the kids are supposed to be leaving Tuesday to spend this upcoming week with my in-laws, and as awesome as my MIL is, I would rather not send her off with a sick child even though she could most assuredly handle it.  Especially since the plans for the week include swimming.  So, on the off-chance that the nurse on call might be able to schedule me an appointment with the doc for tomorrow AM, I called the pediatrician's office.

The office being closed, I was referred to the phone operator of the affiliated hospital to connect me with the nurse.  No big deal, except that the woman answering the phone from the covering nurse service identified herself as being affiliated with a huge children's hospital halfway across the state.  That was odd, but she was a nice lady, and after confirming that she didn't have the authority to make me an appointment, she offered to connect me with the nurse on call at her hospital.  Having been a mother for a combined approximately 30 years (kids are almost 8, almost 10, and 12) I figured I bloody well know an ear infection when I see one by now, but on a whim, I agreed to give my number and have the nurse call me back, which she did approximately two minutes later.

Long story short, the professional opinion is that he has swimmer's ear, NOT an ear infection.  My first thought was that germ-ridden waterpark pools were to blame, but no: this is apparently a pH-change thing.  She told, me, I kid you not, to dilute vinegar 1:1 in water and fill his ear with it for five minutes at a time several times a day.  This, combined with ibuprofen and warm compresses, she swears will do the trick.  What do you know.  And how do we diagnose this over the phone, you might ask?  Good question, and also a learning experience for me.  Should any of you encounter this situation, there are two tests you can run.  First, gently grab the rear edge of the ear just above the lobe and pull directly back, parallel to the ear.  Second, press gently on the little "hill" that is in front of the opening to the ear.  If either of those motions increase the child's discomfort, dingdingding we have a winner and the prize is a nice case of swimmer's ear.

As I type this, I can imagine my mother reading it and laughing about nothing being new under the sun!  I'd completely forgotten till just now, but when we would go swimming as kids, she'd joke about "making a salad" in our ears...a drop of oil in each ear before we went swimming and a drop of vinegar afterward.  Son of a gun: wish I'd remembered that beforehand.  Glad I didn't let my maternal ego get in the way of talking to the nurse, anyway, since Thing One would have been the one to suffer for it.  I continue to be amazed at how often I learn something when I politely give an expert the opportunity to share their hard-earned wisdom!

Thoughts From The Water Park, Day Two

Well, had there been any doubt at all, it is now officially dispelled: a significant majority of adult Americans have at least one tattoo that is plainly visible while they are wearing the bathing suit of their choice.  (A day and a half spent in line at a water park tends to ram that point home to even the most casual observer.)

As it happens, I have no tattoos myself.  Not because I am fundamentally opposed to them; more because I've never come across any word or image that I could imagine still wanting permanently engraved on my body fifty years from now, should I be fortunate enough to live so long.  (Not to mention the whole gratuitous pain thing.)

I understand the names or pictures of loved ones.  I understand symbols or words that have meaning to you. I understand baby handprints and intricately colored sleeves that are actually works of art no matter what you may think of the medium.  What I do not understand is skulls; flaming, dagger-penetrated, or otherwise.  I've seen so many in the past 24 hours of contemplation that I've almost come to think of them as a default tattoo for men...in the absence of something original or meaningful, "Hey, maybe I should get a skull tat like everybody else has."  Which I would think would defeat the purpose of having a tattoo that marks your individuality, but what the hell do I know.  Any thoughts??

Sign Of The Impending Apocalypse

Spent today at a water park with my children.  Sign seen at the entrance to one ride: "Not for riders weighing more than 400lbs."

Sad that the park would actually *need* to post that.

There Are Two Kinds Of People In The World...

...those who feel compelled to clean house before going on vacation and those (fortunate, blessed souls) who don't.

Must be along the same lines as being told to wear clean underwear when you go out in case you get in an accident, I'm thinking. If there's some sort of issue while we're away (fire, flood, act of God) I don't want the firemen etc walking into a disaster area.  One not relating to the disaster they're there to  help with, anyway.

So, tell me: how many of you are like me and prefer to leave a tidy house, and how many don't worry about what things look like when you walk out the door??  Just curious.