“The Man” Strikes Again: The Lansdowne Town Center Fountains Are Verboten!

We’ve been enjoying the new Lansdowne Town Center that just opened this summer. We live nearby, so we appreciate the convenience of the new Harris Teeter grocery store. Some of the restaurants are very good, especially Not Your Average Joe’s, and having a Starbucks within spitting distance is key when I need a coffee fix. The kids love the fountains that form the centerpiece of the Town Green area in the middle of the Town Center.

The fountains are clearly designed with children in mind; they spray water out from the ground at fluctuating heights. If you went there on a weeknight this summer, you would have seen dozens of kids running around the fountain in wet shorts and bathing suits. During the outdoor concerts the concrete seats on the perimeter were crammed with parents watching their happy splashers. Even my ten-month-old had a blast sitting by a spout and touching the water as it rose and fell.

Imagine my dismay when I went with friends to play in the fountain the other day and encountered this sign:

This sounded a little sketchy to me, so I called the Loudoun County Health Department. I talked to John Connell, who explained that the fountains are, indeed, a health code violation. The fountains use recirculated water, so anything that goes down the drain will come up again through the spouts. That could include nastiness like grass runoff, diaper material (think e coli), dropped food, or dog do.

::sigh:: I am bummed.

We had a great time in the fountains this summer, and now every time we drive by the fountains I’ll be reminded of the fun we once had. I really hate the fact that I agree with the health department that playing in dirty water is a little gross, and I wish I could go back to the days of blissful ignorance. In my day, we played in poopy water and we liked it! It built character!

I think I’ll turn my anger on the designers of the fountain; couldn’t they have foreseen and prevented this problem? Surely they’ll be bummed that the fountains won’t be such a draw for the retail businesses.

Also, while I’m complaining, what’s the deal with the anemic-looking fountains facing Route 7? They aren’t very attractive, they aren’t evenly spaced, and they’re NEVER the same height.

I guess I’ll dust the cobwebs off our Dora sprinkler and drag out the garden hose. Oh, the hardships that we endure!

Please Turn Off Your Car – Part Deux

A few months ago I posted an entry asking people to turn off their cars in daycare parking lots.  At first I was primarily concerned about safety issues.  Now I’m learning about how wasteful it is to keep your car idling.   The Canadian Government launched a national campaign against idling a couple of years ago.   

Here’s why the Canadians and I are against idling:

• It wastes energy.  Idling your car for more than ten seconds wastes more energy than restarting your car.
• It’s bad for your car.  Fuel used in idling is not fully combusted, which can cause residue buildup in your engine. 
• It hurts your fuel efficiency.  Extended idling can damage your spark plugs, resulting in a four- to five percent increase in fuel consumption.
• It’s a fuel hog.  Two minutes of idling wastes enough gas to drive your car for one mile.  Extended idling (more than ten seconds) burns gas almost twice as fast as driving, and produces almost double the toxic emissions.
• It’s unnecessary.  Even in the coldest weather, engines only require thirty seconds to warm up.  The best way to warm up your car is to drive it; remember that idling doesn’t warm up your transmission, tires, steering, etc.
• Restarting is cheaper and safe.  Restarting your car does not cause extra wear-and-tear on your engine.
• It’s expensive.  Idling for ten minutes a day uses up to 26 gallons of gas a year.

For more info, including pre-made materials (brochures, posters, information, discussion points, etc.) for launching an idle-free campaign, check out the Natural Resources Canada site. 

p.s.  For you skeptics and anti-Canadians out there, remember that Canada is the United States’ largest importer of oil.  The Canadian government’s anti-oil campaign is like Colonel Sanders urging you not to eat chicken.   Also, the US Department of Energy also recommends against idling, though in a much more watered-down message (mustn’t upset the special interest groups!)

Worst Baby Gifts

I was packing away some too-small baby clothes the other day when I came across the worst baby gift I ever received:  a baby bathrobe.   

It’s not that the bathrobe wasn’t gorgeous; it was an elegant, fluffy, white, Christian Dior bathrobe from Nordstrom.  It was also completely pointless:  babies go from bath to towel to changing table, due to the ever-present threat of a post-bath “shower.”  Putting a squirmy baby in a bathrobe before putting them in clothes or jammies is an unnecessary, time- and effort-consuming step.  I think that between all three of my kids I may have used the bathrobe once, which was all I needed to confirm that it was, indeed, useless. 

Time Magazine published an article about this.  It’s a subjective topic:  the Time author doesn’t like baby wipe warmers, although we liked ours for our winter baby until it shorted and singed a hole on our shelf.  Another friend hates hooded baby towels, whereas I think they’re handy and my kids think they’re fun; how can you pretend to be a puppy without floppy ears?? 

I mention all this not to be ungrateful, but to underline the fact that some baby products should not be purchased, regardless of their clever packaging or adorable appearance.  As you might have guessed, the bathrobe was a gift from a friend with no children.  It’s the kind of gift that I used to give before I had personal experience to guide me.   

I’m interested in what’s on your worst baby gifts list.  Please share!

Blame it on the Blog: A Toilet Disaster

Disclaimer: the following includes bathroom details, including the words “potty” and “pee-pee.”  If this is story is too graphic, your kids are too old. 

My husband, S.J., was out of town for four days recently, enjoying a guys’ long weekend in Idaho.  The good news is that he got some well-deserved R&R.  On the downside, I was seriously outnumbered by the Lilliputian natives in my house.  I love my kids, but when they use their powers for evil, they are a force to be reckoned with.  Think Darth Vader meets Voldemort behind an Anne Geddes façade. 

On the first day of S.J.’s absence, I dropped baby Bennett off at daycare and took the big kids to the Museum of Natural History in D.C.  Dinosaurs are currently a huge deal in our house, so this was a big treat.  We arrived at home, happy but tired, around 5:00.  All three kids were occupied and content in the family room, so I decided to check on my blog in the adjacent office.  That’s when my story takes a sinister turn. 

Two-year-old Serena is newly potty trained.  After a few months as a “pee-pee in the potty” dilettante, the mental switch was flipped about a month ago, and she now does all her business in the toilet.  She’s been exclusively in underpants during the day for about two weeks.   

Serena is very independent, and she performs the whole bathroom routine by herself, from pulling down the pants to washing her hands.  If I try to accompany her, she will tell me she “wants some piracy” and asks me to leave.  The only chink in her potty armor is wiping after a poop, which she still sees as an optional part of the process. 

While I was checking my blog, I heard Serena’s feet padding into the bathroom.  I heard her mount the toilet, flush, wash her hands, and leave the bathroom.  I suspected that there had been a twosie, so I got up to check on her.  As I approached, I heard water running in the empty bathroom. 

I turned the corner to find water flowing freely from the toilet onto the floor and into the hall.  It seems that nature had called Serena a little too quickly this time.  She had gotten on the potty while mid-poop, creating an unholy mess.  There was poo on the seat and messy underpants on the floor.  She had actually decided to wipe this time, and she did so with gusto, using at least a half of a roll of toilet paper and thus clogging the toilet.   

I pulled the top off the toilet as quickly as possible and tried to pull on various plumbing parts to stop the gushing water.  I should mention that this toilet has been problematic for the last week, and my husband had spent several pre-Idaho days trying to fix it.  I now saw that his efforts had been unsuccessful because I couldn’t stop the water; it started flowing again whenever I took my hand off the stopper. 

I shouted to Colin, trying to get his immediate attention while keeping the desperation and panic out of my voice, asking him to bring me the plunger from the garage.   

As I waited with my hand on the wet stopper, I heard an ominous noise:  baby Bennett was approaching.  My ten-month-old – semi-affectionately referred to as “Godzilla” by his siblings because of his ability to get at and destroy anything that piques his interest – is obsessed with bathrooms, and toilets in particular.  I knew he had smelled fresh meat, and he would be in the mess within seconds.   

The water was still flowing, but Colin was nowhere in sight with the coveted plunger.  I had to make a move. 

I let go of the stopper, scooped Bennett up in my one semi-dry elbow, and plopped him into his bouncy seat, which was thankfully en route to the garage.  Bennett started to wail in disappointment, but he was clean and safe. 

Without pausing I hauled butt to the garage. Spotting the plunger, I leaped over Colin, grabbed the plunger and turned tail back to the bathroom.  Colin began to protest that I had aced him out on his plunger quest, but I pacified him by shouting over my shoulder that he could watch TV.  Two kids down, one more to go. 

As I raced into the bathroom – jumping over the widening puddle – I hollered at Serena to come see me.  I still had not seen the culprit, and had no idea what state she was in.  As I prepared to plunge she came into view, her leg and bottom streaked with brown.  I told her to stay out of the puddle, but it was too late; she belly flopped onto the floor with a splash. 

I had to make a call:  did I continue to plunge, or did I take care of my sweet but nauseatingly dirty little girl crying in a puddle of filth?  Judge me if you will, but my head overruled my heart and I took five seconds to plunge, thus stopping the root problem, before picking her up. 

Once the deluge had subsided, I picked Serena up and headed upstairs to the shower.  I got her cleaned up and then parked her with Colin and Bennett in front of the TV.  Since Colin doesn’t know how to work the TiVo, the boys had been watching Oprah (I’ll know why if Colin starts telling me about weight loss secrets.) I switched over to Sesame Street and headed back to the scene of the crime. 

I managed to get the floor disinfected, put the soiled clothes and towels in the washer, and take the world’s quickest shower before Bennett started to truly wail.  Just in time to start dinner. 

As I said, I love my children.  I love my husband.  Just for that day, though, I chose to hate the entire state of Idaho.  

The scene of the crime

The Resourceful Woman – Donating Household Items

The Loudoun Abused Women’s Shelter takes donations of household items and clothing.  Check out their wish list at http://www.lcsj.org/wishList.htm.  They provide items free of charge to women and children in their program and sell the rest at their Resourceful Woman Thrift Shop.  Proceeds are fed back into the program.  

The Resourceful Woman Thrift Shop is located at 11a Loudoun Street in Leesburg, across from the city parking garage.  They’re open 10-5 Tuesdays through Saturdays.  703-771-8173. 

For more info on the Loudoun Abused Women’s Center, visit http://www.lcsj.org.

The Resourceful Woman Thrift Shop

Chilling/Melting at Lake Anna

I’m back from spending a few days – last Tuesday through Saturday – at Lake Anna, Virginia.   My side of the family, including nine adults and my three kids, were together for a total of nine days split between Northern Virginia and the lake. 

My husband and I are both native Midwesterners, and unlike most of the Virginians we meet we’re lake people rather than ocean people.  We love to get in the water without being bothered by big waves and salt.  Currents and sharks freak me out, and I’ll take a speedboat over a sailboat any day. 

We love Lake Anna.  It’s close – only a scenic 100-mile drive from the DC area.  The lake is large and bordered by houses and trees on 250 miles of shoreline.  The lake was created in 1972 by damming several creeks in the area to cool the nearby nuclear power facility.  We get over this somewhat creepy fact by thinking about how much the water is tested and about how people who work at the plant raise their own kids there. 

The lake is split into two sections, the public (cold) side and the private (hot) side.  We’ve owned a place on a private side cove for four years now.  When we’re not there we rent it out through Dockside Realty (we had a terrible experience with Lake Anna Realty in the past.)   

This week was great, with some reservations. On the plus side, we swam, grilled, hammocked, fished, water-skied, boated, and went tubing every day.  We had fun inside too, playing ping-pong, watching movies, and playing Guitar Hero in the air conditioning.  It only rained one evening, and the lightning on the lake that night was spectacular.  Everyone had a good attitude about sharing rooms, and our meal cooking and cleanup schedule was a success. 

On the down side, it was incredibly hot.  The air temperature hovered around 100 degrees with high humidity, so it felt like about 150.  The water was warm too, around 83 degrees; they don’t call it “the hot side” for nothing.   

The kids were good, but with no other kids around to play with, they got bored and cranky.  The adults were relatively well-behaved, but we had our fair share of arguments, insults, outbursts, and sulks.  We discovered that no matter how good attitudes are, twelve people cannot peaceably share three bedrooms for four days.   

We also learned that people who aren’t “lake people” probably shouldn’t go to the lake.  One person realized on the first day that there are fish in the lake (!) and refused to get in the water for the rest of the week.  God made swimming pools and outlet malls for these people.  Now I know. 

For next year we’ll carry forward a few lessons learned from this year:

1. Don’t stay so long.  Three days would have been plenty.
2. Provide more opportunities for the kids to play with other kids.
3. Provide more bedrooms.  We’re finishing our basement this winter, which should help.
4. For the love all things holy, don’t go in August.

 For more info, check out http://www.lakeanna-va.com/ and  www.docksiderealty.com.

 

Here’s the view from our deck.

Stuff It! Using Fewer Bags

Americans use 100 billion plastic checkout bags every year, which take 12 million barrels of oil to produce.  Plastic bags can gum up recycling machines, and discarded bags can trap and/or suffocate wildlife.  Plastic that finds its way to a landfill takes over 1,000 years to decompose.

 

In an effort to reduce oil consumption and protect the environment, the city of San Francisco’s city government has voted to ban grocery and drug stores from using plastic bags.  Other cities, including Baltimore, Portland, Santa Monica, and Boston are considering similar bans.  Annapolis will vote on a plastic bag ban in October to protect birds and fish that are often killed by plastic bags in the Chesapeake Bay.

 

Paper bags aren’t great either.  They aren’t made from petroleum, but they are over twice as expensive to retailers (five cents versus two cents) and recyclers.  They’re also bulkier and thus consume more energy to transport.

 

Short of banning plastic and/or paper bags, here are a couple of easy ways to reduce your bag usage:

1. Don’t use a bag if you don’t need one.  Do we really need a bag for a gallon of milk or a plastic bag to hold a paper prescription bag?
2. Ask your bagger to fill your bags full, though this is virtually guaranteed to get you a dirty look or eye roll from your bagger.
3. Dispose of your bags properly.  If possible, take them to a plastic bag recycler at your grocery store.  1% of all plastic bags are recycled.  If you don’t recycle them, at least throw them in the garbage (apologies to fans of American Beauty.)
4. Reuse your bags.  Grocery stores like Giant will give you three cents back for every bag you use at checkout.  Just think – reuse seventeen bags and you can earn enough to buy a pack of gum!
5. Use canvas bags.  Giant and Wegmans now sell reusable canvas bags for 99 cents each, or you can order them online at https://www.wegmans.com/ocs/item_detail.asp?ici=209358

For more info on plastic bag recycling and the San Francisco and Annapolis city bans, check out the sources I used:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/us/24plastic.html?ex=1186286400&en=58d19a4c6e2f11b6&ei=5070

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/27/BAG1ROSLSG4.DTL

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8888798

Kids’ Music That Won’t Make You Want To Slit Your Wrists

A few suggestions for your listening pleasure: 

The Happy Feet Soundtrack 

The makers of this soundtrack absolutely did their homework on parental demographics.  The music is anything but cutesy; there’s music from the Brand New Heavies, Jason Mraz, Pink, and Prince.   

There are at least seven good dance songs.  Robin Williams’ does a catchy salsa version of “My Way,” and Patti Labelle, Yolanda Adams, and Fantasia team up on a super cover of Stevie Wonders’ “I Wish” with gospel backup.  Brittany Murphy does a surprisingly good job on “Boogie Wonderland” and “Somebody to Love” (why hasn’t Match.com or eHarmony.com used this as their theme song yet?). 

The album costs $9.99 on iTunes; unfortunately you can’t buy individual songs.  Watching my four-year-old belt out a bluesy rendition of “Tell Me Something Good” was worth the price on its own.   

Maybe I love this soundtrack because the thought of penguins singing and dancing cracks me up.  Maybe it’s because I like to rock out in my car singing “Lo hico myyyyyyy waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy” at the top of my lungs with or without my kids.   

Check out “I Wish” and “Jump and Move.”  

Dora’s World Adventures 

This is much more kids-oriented than Happy Feet (you’ll never live it down if your single friends catch you listening to this by yourself), but it’s still pretty good.  Dora teams up with some “friends” like Aaron Neville and Ziggy Marley to sing songs from different countries. 

The musicianship on all of the Dora albums is impressive, and the Dora voices aren’t too annoying on this album (you’ll only want to smack Dora two or three times.)  I also like that they sing in different languages, although the French accent in “Bonjour” is pretty horrible. 

We like “Iko Iko,” “Three Little Birds,” “Mi Chakra,” and “Alouette,” and the energy in “Funniculi Funnicula” is contagious. 

Check out “Iko Iko” and “Mi Chakra.”

The Laurie Berkner Band 

If you watch Noggin (a commercial-free cable station for preschoolers, for Luddites or those who live under a rock,) you’ll probably recognize Laurie.  This music is definitely kids-oriented, but Laurie’s voice is pretty good, and she writes great songs.   We really enjoy them. 

Laurie has several albums.  We have Buzz Buzz and Under A Shady Tree; both are great.   

Check out:  “My Energy” and “I Really Love To Dance.” 

To order mp3 versions of any of these albums, go to www.itunes.com.  This will launch itunes as a separate application.  You can sample and download music from there.  Note:  don’t buy from itunes unless you have an mp3 player! 

Got more ideas?  Please share!