Today....I became a parking spot hoarder.
You can't imagine how guilty I feel! For those of you non-Chicagoans, you are probably wondering what in the world I am talking about! Unless, of course, you have read the newspaper where there was a recent article about this supposed "tradition."
We didn't have this problem down south so I was very surprised as I was making my first venture out into the white wilderness of Friday after the blizzard, to see what looked like trash lining the sides of the roads: broken chairs, milk crates, buckets with random pieces of wood stuck inside...even kids bicycles and trash bags!
It took reading a friend's FB status to realize that these people, these selfish people were hoarding their parking spots! And seriously, it's not like they did a great job digging out their cars or making these great spaces. They literally shoveled a hole just big enough to get their car out and then staked their claim.
And what's really crazy? It's illegal to do it but there is actually "ettiquette" about this sort of thing like "don't touch the chair/trash or get your tires slashed" (it actually happened) or leave a note if you "must" take their spot, explaining the reasons why and leave as soon as possible.
It made me really mad most of the weekend because a)they didn't pay for those spots! and b) what are you supposed to do if you can't find a spot anywhere else?
But today, as I drove the boys to and from school, I noticed so many new "saved" parking spots that had cropped up over the past day or two that there were almost NO available spots in my neighborhood.
It was then that I made the fateful decision to join the ranks of the...well, the parking hoarders.
I feel much shame. But to make myself feel better, we have shoveled out two very nice spots in the past week, only to have them taken and I was trekking a far distance through snowy muck with all 3 kiddos several times a day and it makes it SO much easier to know that I have a spot available for me.
And also, I am on a mission to shovel the whole street, little by little this week to bring back all our spots so the chairs, orange cones, broken furniture and plywood can all go back to...the trash can.
I'll let you know how it goes.
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Oh, and I will be doing my shoveling (with Ben's help:) with my "new" used shovel graciously sold to me by Home Depot for $5. Apparently, we're a little slow on the uptake and most people got their shovels last week:) That particular H.D. sold almost 600 shovels on Friday alone! They went and found one of their personal shovels to sell to me. Thanks, H.D.! I'll make you proud...
This pretty girl's been changing so much! She has always had issues with sleeping and eating and we have fixed some of those lately (to her relief and mine!) She had what's called a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance (too much low-calorie milk, not enough fatty milk from eating too few minutes) which caused excessive gas, fussiness, green poop (cool, huh?...not)etc.I am happy to report that we have corrected this problem and noticed an almost immediate increase in her happy self, lots of yellow poop, less gas and she's eating better than she ever has! So, she's getting nice and fat which makes her awfully kissable;)
Also, she is ONE tough cookie with sleeping, hence her llloooonnnngg journey to sleeping through the night (okay, maybe a slight exaggeration) and pitiful naps. I had to get tough with her last week and enforce a 10 minute crying rule when laying her down.
It has worked wonders!! She didn't like it at first (and neither did I...) but she gets that it's sleeptime now and is taking better naps than ever, with usually minimal fussing (5 min or less) and is happier and better rested! She used to only take her long nap of the day in her carseat but has taken several 2-3 hour naps in her cradle! Hooray!
She also:
two-handed!! I even caught her trying to tug that blue birdie into her mouth:) I was talking to the boys at lunch yesterday and heard my plate moving towards the edge of the table and looked down to see Little Miss grabbing my plate and pulling it towards her! We've gotta be careful now!
The boys have thoroughly enjoyed watching the shoveling and snow clean-up jobs this past week. Here, they were watching Daddy shovel out our car last Thursday:)
Today they came out with me to "help" me shovel. Really they just dug holes in the mounds of snow and they did not want to go back inside! I promised we'd go out again tomorrow:) Little did I know that all my our hard work would be erased by yet MORE snow minutes after we went inside, which makes for an additional 5+ inches on top of the 20+ from last week.
Fun times.
Zakkai is still a snotty, juicy, sick mess:( It's almost like he got another cold on top of his cold as he regressed yesterday with more sneezing, runny nose, etc. His poor nose is totally raw and sore looking. Oh, and did I forget to mention pink eye? Fun. He has a bad cough still and I am hoping he will be on the mend soon as he was a B.E.A.R. today. Boy, can that kid throw a rockin' tantrum!Samuel, thankfully, just has the annoying lingering congestion and cough that come with a good old-fashioned cold.
And the boys generously shared their colds with daddy:( He was thrilled, especially since he had jury duty today and who doesn't love jury duty while sick? Or ever? (and might I add, that I might possibly know where Z get's his "bear-ness" when sick from?)
Thankfully, he got out of being chosen for duty because he is presenting 2 papers at a conference this weekend and had to cancel class last week (blizzard) and today (jury duty). The judge wasn't very happy with him but hey, Ben got paid a whole (are you ready?) $17.50 for his time. Woohoo, we're rich!
I'm off to plot ways on how to spend it....
Just kidding;)
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