Using Dashes

Ugh, you're thinking.  Using dashes?  What a boring post title.  I assure you, this is definitely a boring post if you're not into the nuances of punctuation.  I'll try harder to be more interesting tomorrow.  But just in case you either missed the day dashes were taught in school or don't remember how to use them correctly, this post is for you.

Yesterday's post had three dashes in it.  At the time, I was pretty sure I wasn't getting the dash I wanted.  But I was tired and I pressed the Publish button.  This morning, I looked up dashes and discovered that while I had them in the right place, with the right intent, I had the wrong type of dash.

I didn't even realize there were three types of dashes, and each has it's own specific usage:

- figure dash, used in telephone numbers and mathy things
– en dash, named for the letter width of the lowercase n
— em dash, named for the letter width of the capital M

The figure dash seems to be the only dash a keyboard has by default.  On my keyboard, the dash key (to the right of zero) is the same as the minus key.  Even though that's the dash the keyboard provides, I needed an em dash to use when writing.

An em dash can be used to indicate a break in thought or to set off an appositive from the rest of the sentence.  First off, I personally have a *lot* of breaks in thought.  I think I speak with appositives regularly, so knowing how to use them in writing will be a good thing.  Secondly, I learned a new word, appositive.  I love learning new words.

From writing in Word, I knew you could type two dashes--like so--and if there were no spaces between the surrounding words, the double dashes would be translated into an em dash.  But I had no idea how to do this here, and in HTML.  That's what I did yesterday in the post—I used a double dash in place of an em dash.

So I read up on how to get other dashes included in my post.  As it turns out, it's pretty easy, as long as you don't mind a little HTML.  You just add — or – where you want the dash to appear.  Easy.  Today, not only do I have yesterday's post corrected, but I'll be able to use dashes correctly in the future.  And to think I used to hate English.

The Big Boy Update: He walks funny.  And when I say that, I mean he walks on the inside edge of his feet.  Some shoes make him look like he's a clown walking.  I'm guessing this is a phase as his legs and feet develop, but it would be nice to encourage good posture with footwear if we can.  Today we found him some flat-soled sandals that he looks "cool" in.  He ran around in them when we put them on, so hopefully he'll be walking straighter soon.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   She doesn't sleep if she doesn't want to.  There is really no napping if she's has set her mind to being awake.  She blew through the morning with no nap, complained about why food service wasn't earlier than normal and then didn't have enough room to eat a whole meal when she did get to eat a early.  But she's now decided it's nap time.  Nap time is good.

If You Think You Smell Poo—You Do

Do not question the nose.   After months of changing diapers, it is finely honed to tell you when your child has made a great big stinky mess.  I can be across the room working here, at the computer, and get a vague whiff.  I look over at my son who is playing happily—too happily—with his toys.  Am I imagining it?  Time and time again, my nose has proven me right.  It's time for a diaper change.

My husband still questions my nose from time to time.  Unless there is gas in question (which usually means there's a diaper change to follow shortly,) it turns out I have a pretty reliable sniffer.  When I was pregnant, it was even more honed.  There's something about being pregnant that makes all your senses a little more acute.  I'm no longer pregnant, but I can still sniff messy baby pants from a good clip.

So today, I was working at the computer.  My daughter was sleeping soundly, hadn't moved in a good while from the swing thing she sleeps in when in the basement.  I got a whiff and looked over.  Nope, she's not awake and she's not looking anything other than serene.  Can't be.  Thirty minutes later I get a second waft of something baby-foul.  Must be my imagination.

An hour later, my mother arrives and I start to prepare for dinner.  I tell her to let me know when the baby wakes up and I'll change her and feed her.   In a few minutes she calls up and says "you'd better get down here, she's wet this thing all the way through."  Ugh. All the way through means the diaper and outfit, right?  Nope, it means the whole swing seat thing.  The thing that I don't even know how to remove to wash.  Oh fun.

The baby needed a bath.  She was dirty all the way up to her belly button.  She got dirtier in other places when we got the clothes off her.  She wasn't particularly upset though.  That's my girl.  After she's cleaned and my mother is feeding her, I figure out that I can remove and wash the swing cover which was not only damp, but was wet all the way to the plastic underneath and smelled lovely.

The swing seat was on it's second baby and hadn't ever been washed so it was definitely due for a cleaning.  All is clean and happy now; but I won't doubt my nasal integrity again.

The Big Boy Update:  He's not good in the high chair or restaurant after he's done eating.  It means we can't go out with him for a dinner that's very long without annoying everyone around us.  I don't want that.  I never liked hearing a child be annoying near me so I don't expect other people to like it either.  We're working on having him a) not drop food on the floor just because there's a dog there sometimes and b) because he's full or he wants something else.  I hope he's too young to understand and that we've not let him make bad habits.  Tonight at dinner he played with some toys while he sat at his highchair after eating.  It went over well.  He was entertained and quiet.  I packed some small toys in the go bag for future meals out.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Reaction smiling.  If you smile at her, she smiles back.  It makes you keep smiling.  But if you stop, and then re-smile at her, she'll smile and giggle and coo at you again.  My husband figured this out.  Today we got a great video of her at her most adorable and charming.

The Laundry Evolution

I'm doing it again, I was going to talk about interesting things in this blog.  Or rather, I was going to try and write about interesting things.  I'm afraid however, my life just isn't that interesting.  Today I'm thinking about laundry.  About how much there is now and how frequently it needs to be done in comparison to two babies ago. 

I love having all the laundry clean.  Starting it, finishing it and getting it all folded and up on the same day, before you've even had the chance to put what you're wearing into the hamper.  Alas, that's not possible anymore.

We used to separate out lights and darks.  We could wait a week to do laundry and have one big day of laundry.  But little bitty clothes need to be cleaned faster than that.  And their clothes are so small that there isn't enough to separate out into color batches. 

The color separation thing is what's most frustrating.  Babies grow out of brand new clothes in weeks or months.  These new clothes are nice and colorful, haven't been washed and still bleed in the wash.  For the first nine months I watched as whites and light clothes got steadily dingier until I was hoping my son would grow out of them.  Then, I saw a commercial for these "color catcher" things you put in the laundry.  They do work as advertised, and they keep our laundry nice and bright and white. 

The Big Boy Update:  My husband wanted to try baby sign language again with him today.  We tried some signs when he was seven to nine months, but he didn't catch on well.  He's much better at mimicking physical things than sounds so this may be a better way to communicate until he's got more words.  He picked up the sign for "more" during lunch.  We'll see if he remembers it tomorrow.  I tried "cookie" as he loves cookies.  I thought a high-value item might make him pay more attention.  I think he may have tried to sign it back, updates as we get them on the signing front.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Meals in a single setting.  She's getting much, much better at eating her meals in one setting instead of two, three or even four rounds of milk for a single meal.  Today she ate all he meals this way.  She's also getting more and more alert.  We went out to have a late birthday dinner with friends.  I expected her to sleep the whole time.  Instead, she was awake and wanted to be in someone's lap, sitting up (being propped up in a sitting position) so she could look around.  She was awake so much today, I expect she'll have a good night's sleep tonight.

I May Have Found My Mind

For a while after having my second child, I thought I'd lost my mind.  Not literally, of course, it's still lodged inside my skull.  But I wasn't sure which end was up some days and I felt like the whole "normalcy" of my life had been disrupted.

A had gotten accustomed to not having my day to myself with my first child, but there were bits of my day that I could call my own--like when he was napping or asleep for the night.  Then I had child number two. 

You learn quickly after having a child that it's not all about you anymore.  If you were a selfish person; wait, that sounds bad--if you cherished your day being something you controlled and filled with things you wanted to do or accomplish, then having a baby will quickly change your expectations.   It seems that babies regularly, no constantly, rearrange your schedule to fit their needs.  They pay you back in cuteness and love.  It's all worth it, but it takes some getting used to.

So, foolishly, you think two babies could be twice the cute and twice the fun.  Nine months later you realize you have no time at all and you're constantly running just to keep up so that you can go to bed exhausted.   For the first several weeks I have to admit I was somewhat resentful that I didn't have a little time to myself.  

But I've adjusted.  I love it and I even think I've found my mind at this point.  Someday, perhaps when they're in college, I'll have some time back.  Until then, I'll enjoy being a parent and being tired.


The Big Boy Update:  Today was the first day he went to Mimi and Gramps' house as a crawling/walking baby.  The last time he was there he just sat in the car seat.  Mimi has been collecting baby toys (entanglement devices) for just such an occasion.  He had fun hiding behind the counter in the kitchen to be "found" and sitting on Mimi's lap and banging on the piano keys.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Baby Bumbo.   She has a Bumbo seat, and despite some recent bad press, we love it.  She's wanting to sit up more now and she'll be happy for long periods sitting up in the Bumbo seat.  She's safely on the carpeted floor and she's right in front of me, so she's safe as kittens.  She's very cute flexing and curling her toes alternately as she looks around and bobbles both her head and her torso.

Where Does My Money Go?

Bills, food, gas--obviously.  But where does the majority of my money go on other things?  I got to thinking about it recently and there are just a handful of places I spend my money.  These are big retailers who have made a business of being the biggest, best and easiest for the consumers to find what they're looking for and get in and out quickly.  And they've done their job very well.

Baby stores are on the top of the list.  Target because, hey, they have almost anything you need.  We're there twice a week easy.  Babies-R-Us too.  They have better deals on some things in bulk (good coupons too) and a bigger selection.  Those two stores probably get the majority of my local consumer cash.

Then there's Amazon.  I love the Prime membership.  If I can wait two days, why bother going out in the car when I can order an item at three in the morning and it'll show up two days later?  I was just looking at my credit card bill and Amazon Marketplace has more charges on there than anything else.  They're small charges, but the frequency with which I purchase things on Amazon is amazing.

It's not only baby things, but books, cooking things, presents for our friends (we all have Amazon wish lists lest you be shunned,) movies, music.  You name it.  I do love Amazon.com

So, these few retailers are getting the majority of my money.  They've made it easy to shop and the experience either local or online is pleasant.

The Big Boy Update: Croupy Cough.  Yesterday there was a strange noise coming from his room while he slept.  It was a low cough, something we'd never heard before so we didn't realize what it was at first.  Today, the cough is worse, lower and sounds very raspy.  It sounds dry but is accompanied by a fun, runny nose.  We're debating calling the doctor but since he has no worrisome signs like fever or lack of appetite, we're going to let him work through it a bit longer.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Those blasted fingers.  She can find her fingers so easily now.  She's so happy with one, two, or even three in her mouth.  She can find her fingers even when there's a pacifier in her mouth.  You know, because you hear slurping and sucking sounds from across the room.  Writing this post I've gotten up four times to reinsert the pacifier.  Two days ago I ordered some "stay on" mittens" from Amazon.  They should arrive today.  Hopefully tonight we'll see if she makes it through to morning with the mittens on.

The Composting Complication

Many years ago I didn't recycle.  We had a recycle program in the area, but it was unwieldy and required lots of work on the consumer's end.  I don't know if it was capricious youth, laziness or just a complete disregard for Mother Nature, but I could be heard saying "I recycle via landfills."  How dreadful.

These days it makes me happy to see so much of our total waste go out to the curb in the recycling bins.  I try to be a good citizen and recycle what I can.  There's a "within reason" added there.  I believe it's important not to waste more fossil fuels driving across town to recycle something that has one tenth the value of the fuel expended.  But we're quite fortunate that our recycling collects most things and it's quite easy for us to recycle.

The one area we completely fail is in the composting realm.  I look at all the food we throw away and I wish we had a better alternative.  There's first the small dog issue.  And out stupidity in figuring out that composting won't work anywhere near the house.  She can sniff out even the most boring foods at great distances.  We don't have a fence and we're in an empty neighborhood so the dog has free reign. An alternative would be a composting bin/fenced area.  We have lots of deer and apparently small coyotes that are indigenous.  They'd make a grand mess of most solutions.

What I do try to do is compost anything that won't be a direct attractor for our dog or local fauna such as peelings, shells or other non-edible but bio-degradable items.  Maybe in the future we'll be able to compost more.  For now, it's the disposal or trash if that's not an option.   Hopefully we'll be able to be better citizens in the coming years with regards to composting.


The Big Boy Update:  Toy rearrangement.  Old toys, in a new location or in a new configuration magically become new toys.  I spent the last day taking toys from the bedroom to the basement to the toy closet and back and finding new ways to stick toys in other toy containers.  Today, he's so happy.  He's got a whole new land of toys to play with. 


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Her feeding is a bit more regular.  She's getting better at eating her full meal with only one or two stops to burp or think about her level of fullness.  She's still a little difficult to work with, so for the most part, my husband and I do her feedings. 

There's Nothing Like A (blah blah blah)

Are there things in your life that just make you feel relaxed, or contented, knowing they're done?  Some examples might be: "there's nothing like an empty laundry basket" or "there's nothing like clean sheets on the bed" or "there's nothing like an empty inbox."  The little pleasures.

Or maybe it's the little relaxers.  Things that nag at you, but aren't so pressing that they're weighing you down.  I think my life is filled with these little things; things that make my mind be more at ease when they're done. 

Tonight it was "there's nothing like a restocked refrigerator."  We have an old refrigerator in the garage and we keep all kinds of overage items in it.  Over time, we need to restock.  The garage isn't far away, but it's usually a large enough list that I make some notes on a scrap piece of paper and then do a lot of little runs from the garage to the main refrigerator depositing items.  It's a little thing, but looking in at the well-stocked refrigerator when I'm done just gives me a sense of satisfaction. 

I'm that way with a lot of things at the end of the day.  My mother always made me "police the area" before going to bed.  I was responsible for putting everything up and setting the house "to rights" before I could go to my room at night.   It was so annoying when I was growing up.  Now, it's the thing that relaxes me the most at the end of the day; knowing that I'll wake up and not have yesterday's work to catch up on before I start the new day. 


The Big Boy Update: He is becoming more outgoing every day.  At Kindermusik today he ran around the room and interacted with children.  This is the room he stood mute in for months while he absorbed the people, environment and activity.  Even one of the other moms (with a quiet child) commented today.  I told her he was introverted until he knew the environment and I'm sure her son, Emmanuel, would open up in short order too.


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She's getting bigger.  I'm having fun putting her into the three month baby clothes now.  It's like shopping when you get to go into the closet and pick out adorable items from the baby shower.  Today she got to wear three outfits.  Three because two were spit up on.  The third she's had on most of the day.  It's flower bell bottoms and it's all kinds of cute.