Sippies: Today's Random Reflection on Modern Motherhood

Why do they sell sippy cups in two-packs? Why don't they come in 20-packs? Because that's about how many I need, based on the rate we lose them. And if they came in a 20-pack, not only would they be bound to be priced lower (because what manufacturer would have the gall to put an $80 price tag on a set of sippy cups???), but I would never count them once they were out of the package. Then I'd live in blissful ignorance about how many we'd lost. But instead, I have so many orphans from two-packs, I can't help but be reminded every time I take them out of the dishwasher that I have no idea where that other Spiderman cup lives, or that the nice matching Thomas the Train one with the stationary valve is nowhere to be found.

Add to this sense of loss the very real fear that they'll be recovered, full of soured milk under the seat of my car, or worse, that Sophie will retrieve one from under the couch and start drinking from it, and you have a serious case for alarm!

My breath

Last night Will slipped on the hardwood and hurt his bottom.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I hurt my body!" he replied in tears.

Kidding, I asked, "Do you want me to kiss your bottom to make it feel better?"

"No!" He responded incredulously, "Because then your breath will smell bad!"

Can toothpaste kill?

Let's hope not, because if so, Soph must have one foot in the grave. I keep catching her walking around the house sucking on a trial-sized tube of toothpaste. Each time I think I've confiscated them all, but I'm beginning to think she has a secret stash, since there always seems to be another. Add this to the fact that she would "brush" her teeth (i.e., suck on a toothbrush) all day long if I'd let her, and you have a serious case for fluoride poisoning.

Now, if I could transfer some of this interest in good oral health and hygiene to Will's little psyche, we'd be in much better shape.

Drive Happy?!?!?!

(I realize our vacation was OVER A MONTH AGO, and I am still finishing vacation-related posts, but I really think this is my last one! And on the positive side, the blog's been getting a lot of action this month, right?)

I don't want to dwell on a negative experience, but I have to warn everyone out there to STAY AWAY FROM ALAMO, the rental car company. For our vacation we originally reserved a standard SUV, and got an excellent rate due to my stalking the rates on Hotwire.com. I knew standard SUVs were generally five-passenger, but we'd rented one several times before and got upgraded with no problems. Also, it was the largest thing other than a minivan on Hotwire, and we needed 4WD. I figured something in that class would have an optional third row of seats.

I was wrong. Not only was I wrong, but the girl at the counter then told us our reservation was worthless, and now instead of the $20/day rate I'd reserved, we'd need to pay $63 per day "walk-up rate" for a full-size SUV. ($63 times 10 days plus taxes... you do the math!). They then remarked that the walk-up rate for the car we reserved was $60. Andy offered, quite logically, to pay an extra $3 per day (the difference between the rate for the car we reserved and the rate for the car we needed).

The Alamo people acted as if this was totally ridiculous. We talked to three different people at Alamo, all of whom were shockingly rude and completely dismissive. The location manager had the nerve to say to us, multiple times, "We are not having this conversation!" Personnel just walked away from us, mid-conversation. Our customer service rep tried to bully us into taking an SUV with five seats, knowing there were six of us including two small children.

We aren't unreasonable people. All we wanted was a car with four-wheel drive and six seatbelts so our family could be safe.

Thankfully, Andy is (seriously) an expert negotiator. He went up the chain of command until we talked to the regional fleet manager on the phone. He gave us the car we needed for an extra $11 per day.

We still think we should've only had to pay $3 but at that point, we'd been at Alamo for 1.5 hours, while my Mom and Dad and Will had been sitting, along with our two car seats and five bags of luggage, on a concrete island where the bus dropped us off from the airport, and Sophie had wet through her clothes in a big way (all this, mind you, in the freezing cold). $11 per day felt like a major victory after the war we'd been through.

Other customers were having similar problems, although no one else persevered as long as Andy. After one lady told an Alamo representative that they'd never rent from Alamo again, she was told, "Oh yes you will! We have the cheapest rates in town!" The customer responded, "So you're going to hold a gun to my head???" But truly, that's their customer service attitude in a nutshell.

I had rented from Alamo before with no problems, but most recently we've rented from Budget, where we always got upgraded just by telling them what we needed. No problems, no questions asked, no extra payment required.

We will never rent from Alamo again.

Better Late Than Never...

... a couple of cute Christmas pictures. Not too sure what's going on in the second one, but it was too interesting not to post.

The pictures of the new roof. Text below.

Better than New! Whispering Hills has a Roof.

I took the photos above this evening. As you can see, we've got a roof. The shingles were installed today. Dimensional shingles are the only way to go!

I've ordered windows and exterior doors, and they should be built by Thursday.

We should be able to start mechanical rough-ins, starting with the plumbers this week.

I didn't take a picture but we finished the "good neighbor" 6 foot privacy fence along the back of the lot today as well. It looks super nice. It took longer to build than I thought as I've never built one this way before. "Good Neighbor" is the style where the boards alternate side to side and both sides of the fence have the same appearance. It takes more wood to build it this way.

Let me know what you think of the new front elevation!