Worst. Mommy. Ever.

Lucy has been a bit of a fussy eater lately. Not at every meal, but every few meals, she just refuses to eat things that she has previously eaten with great glee. So we've been offering her a lot of different things at each meal in an attempt to get her to eat something.

On Saturday evening, after she refused pizza (which she normally inhales) and cheese (which she regularly demands by name), I offered her a rice cracker. I had just bought these crackers earlier in the day. I've previously bought them, and she liked them a lot. They're crunchy and a bit salty -- what's not to like?

She took the cracker from me with a smile, put it up to her mouth, then made a sad face. "Argh!" I said. "But the rice cracker is yummy!" She put it to her mouth again and made the sad face, and cried, then jettisoned the rice cracker from the highchair.

Moments later, an astute guest pointed out a tiny word on the packaging of the rice crackers that I had overlooked. Perhaps you will see it in this picture:



Yes, that's right. I did not in fact purchase the PLAIN rice crackers that I had intended to purchase. I had purchased WASABI-enhanced rice crackers. So Lucy got a big mouthful of wasabi. She was not ready for that.

Worst. Mommy. Ever.

By the way, for those of you who were wondering about the outcome of the last 83 Durant nightmare (i.e. non-functioning boiler), we haven't had any more trouble since that one weird night. Hrrmmmmm...

Boiler?

After an hour and a half of phone calls, worrying, more phone calls, more worrying, and repeated trips to the basement to stare at the boiler, the boiler is now on again.

We don't know why. We didn't do anything to it, other than worry about/at it. Maybe that's what it needed -- it needed us to worry about it, just to know that it mattered, that it was important. After all the fuss over the water heater, maybe the boiler was just jealous?

I have no idea.

We're going to bed.

Boiler Blues

Our boiler isn't working. We just realized this at about 10pm, which is of course, a prime time for such things to happen. It may be that it's actually been off all day, since we were all out of the house. The weather here has been warmer, so we didn't notice. The thermostat, though set to 65, reads 62. There is no flame, and the whole system is stone cold.

We're awaiting a call back from a 24 hour service number right now.

I am weary of homeownership.

Fighting Clutter

I've spent some of this afternoon attempting to de-clutter our lives. One way I am doing that is by dealing with the incoming stream of mail. I don't know if other folks know about some of the services out there, so I thought I'd share. Here's what I did today:

I signed up for OptOutPrescreen.com which is supposed to stop credit card companies from sending "pre-approved" credit card offers. The site is legit, and is actually some sort of unholy alliance of the various credit reporting bureaus. Basically, by signing up though their website, you can -- for 5 whole years -- keep Experian and TransUnion and the other bureaus from selling your info to companies that want to send out credit card offers. Seems like a good thing.

I also signed up for an account at DMAchoice.org which is yet another unholy alliance of direct marketers. Through their site, you can get off catalogue lists, direct mail offers, and magazine offers. They also offer an E-mail Preference Service that's supposed to limit your e-mail junk mail, but I have a feeling that's a lost cause. I'm guessing that former high-ranking official in Nigeria is still going to ask me to wire him some money in exchange for millions. I'm still waiting for the last one to come through.

If you haven't already, you should sign up for the Federal Do Not Call list, although I have to say, it doesn't seem to work very well. We still get calls.

So by sitting in front of the computer, I was able to avoid doing any actual de-cluttering of the house. Nice.

Plumbing OK...or is it?

In truth, it does seem that things are OK with our plumbing. No weird noises, plenty of hot water, and all the draining seems to be happening in an appropriately speedy way.

However, the youngest member of our household -- Lucy, at age 14+ months -- has recently revealed a deep-seated fear of the bath. For the past week (or more), during every attempt to give her a bath, she has screamed her tiny head off. Like in a serious wailing and completely terrorized (and terrorizing) manner. We have no clue what has prompted this reaction, as, up until this abrupt change in attitude, she was thrilled with the bath, swimming around and playing with her toys and generally gleeful about the bath. In fact, she'd scream when we took her OUT of the bath.

Does she know something we don't? Is there a boggart in the tub? Is she some sort of plumbing problem early-warning alarm? What could cause such a reaction? And, perhaps more importantly, how can we get her over this? She needs to take baths. We tried a shower today (necessary because of last night's unfortunate stomach bug) and it, too, was a disaster. How do we get this kid back on the bath?