Hodgepodge, Part Deux

1. We finally received Liam's Kindergarten assignment in the mail a couple of weeks ago and he will be an afternoon session student.  I was hoping for morning but since I don't work, he was almost guaranteed to get afternoon since they save the morning session for families in which both parents work.  Liam is happy with it, though.  It seems that he wanted afternoon Kindergarten.  Plus, right about the time he starts to really get bored, it will be time to head to school.

Weirdly, the "first" day of school is on a Thursday and it isn't even an instructional day.  We have a one hour session in the afternoon that both Liam and I have to attend as an orientation session.  I assume we're going to cover things like getting on and off the bus, where the bathrooms are, arrival time, dismissal time, etc.  Then, the next day is his first day of instructional time.  On a Friday.  Why didn't they have the orientation on Friday and start fresh on Monday?  Or orientation on Monday, instructional time begins Tuesday?  SO.  STUPID.

2.  An orange crayon gave its life in my dryer last week.  It melted into a sheer patina of orange all over the drum of the dryer.  Luckily that patina seems permanent and isn't rubbing off on clothing.  Sadly, about three-quarters of the load that the crayon was in got melted orange crayon on it.  And it was a pretty large load of the kids' clothing.  I was panicked that I was going to have to buy all new shorts for Liam and try to replace as many of his beloved Star Wars shirts as possible.

I started looking around on the internet for methods of removing the crayon and they were all long, multi-step annoying processes that I simply don't have time for.  They usually involved some kind of solvent or oil based product (one called for car lubricant).  These are the sorts of things I do not have on hand.

So I decided to give OxyClean the old college try.  I figured it couldn't make things worse and on the off chance it worked, it would spare me having to go out and buy special items to clean the clothes.

I started by spraying the marked portions of the clothing with OxyClean spray.  Then I ran hot, hot, hot water (to get the wax to soften) into a bucket and added about three scoops of granular OxyClean.  I put the clothes in there to soak for several hours (at least three hours of soaking but some I left overnight.)  Then, I put the clothes into the washer on a heavy duty hot wash with detergent, liquid OxyClean, and fabric softener.  I did them in small batches so that they'd really get most out of the wash cycle.

Miraculously, this worked.  I managed to save the entire load of laundry and didn't have to replace a single item.  OxyClean really will clean ANYTHING.

3. I came home today to find my neighbor vacuuming our cul-de-sac.  Yes.  Vacuuming.  With a shop vac.

They're trying to sell their house.  His wife finally retired and they bought a house in North Carolina somewhere.  The house went on the market last week and he's been super double crazy obsessive about the landscaping being just so ever since the for sale sign went up.  Neighbor Man is a crazy lawn worshiper at the best of times but he has now officially gone off the deep end.  I fail to see how vacuuming up random bits of asphalt is going to help the house sell faster.  It makes me want to let Jamie run around naked on the lawn, peeing at will, while the rest of us work on putting a car up on blocks in the driveway.  Just to mess with him.

4.  Speaking of Jamie, he is officially pacifier free.  I've been considering taking it away for awhile now and he was down to using it only while he slept but after talking with another Mom about it (*wave* Hi, Burghbaby!) I decided to strike now while he can't fight about it.  Naps on the first day seemed to go OK with minimal chit chat occurring in the crib before sleep.  Bedtime the first night was hard.  He chatted for two solid hours before finally shutting up and going to sleep.  His morning nap the next day was also difficult - it took an hour for him to go down.  But, afternoon nap that day and bedtime that night were a breeze.  No chit chat, just sleep.  I couldn't believe how easy it was.  No fuss, no muss and it's bye bye paci!

5. Last on the hit parade is the fact that Liam has learned to whistle and he is awfully proud of this fact.  He can't whistle loudly.  He can't whistle a tune.  He can't even whistle more than one note.  But, boy oh boy, does he get as much mileage out of that one note as he possibly can.  He has gotten to a point that he doesn't even realize he's doing it so I repeat the phrase "Liam! Quit whistling!" about eleventy billion times a day.  It's become so annoying to me that I'm ready to send him on a tour of seedy South American prisons so that he can be used to whistle confessions out of criminals.  "Ok, ok!  I'll confess!  JUST MAKE HIM STOP WHISTLING!" If I could translate that into Spanish, I would.

(Because I'm curious, I just hit Google Translate and this is what I got in return:  "¡Ay yi yi! ¡Voy a confesar! ¡Hacerle la parada silbando!") 

I'm honestly unsure how I've managed to retain my sanity this long.  Of course, I'm sure some people question the stability of my sanity to begin with.  ;)