Mishmash Musings

As my son gets older, one of the things I’m most looking forward to is smoother mealtimes. The way things are now, I can’t expect to finish lunch in less than 30 minutes, while dinner takes closer to an hour. This drives me absolutely insane, since I’m usually done with my own meal in no more than 20 minutes.

My son is a terribly slow eater, and no matter what I do, I can’t get him to speed up. I don’t even turn on the TV anymore because I want him to focus his attention on the food, but that hasn’t helped at all. Moreover, he’s still trying to get the hang of using forks and spoons on his own, which means I have to spend a lot of time wiping down the tablecloth and sweeping the floor after each meal.

Seriously, I get incredibly antsy having to sit at the dinner table for 40 extra minutes after I’m done eating while my son takes his own sweet time eating his tiny portion. Even when I take over and start feeding him, it doesn’t help because he chews so slowly and refuses to open his mouth for more until he’s good and ready.

I need advice here from other parents who have gone through the same thing. What can I do to speed up the process?

I’ve been seeing a ton of commercials for the new iPod Nano with video. The Nano is completely redesigned, and instead of being tall and slim like the First Generation Nano I have, the new Video Nano is short and squat — and looks a little ugly, if you ask me.

But besides that, I am just wondering why Nano owners would even want video capabilities. I mean, the devices still come with just 4GB and 8GB capacities. I don’t know how many videos you’d be able to fit on a Nano of that size, but it seems you’d have to sacrifice too much in the way of disk space.

It seems to me that if you want video capabilities with your MP3 player, you’d be better off ponying up for a regular iPod with more disk space, you know?

Anyway, I still haven’t bought a new MP3 player like I’ve wanted to, but I have a feeling I’m not going to be sticking with the Apple brand next time around. iPods just cost too much because of features that I don’t even need.

Regular readers of this blog know that I’m constantly battling to reduce clutter in my home. My family has a terrible habit of buying too many things without getting rid of old stuff, with the obvious result being that we’re quickly running out of storage space around the house.

Take my son’s room, for example. Even though he’s at an age where he’s playing with “big kid” toys like RC cars and video games, he staunchly refuses to get rid of his toddler toys. I mean, he still has things like dolls, teddy bears, plastic instruments, and a bunch of other stuff that he never even touches. His toy chest is overflowing, as is his closet, so it’s time to do something about this situation.

Since my son goes to preschool every day, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to get rid of his old toys. I plan on donating the ones that are in good condition and just tossing the rest. I’ll do this a little at a time and cross my fingers that my son doesn’t notice anything for a while.

I’m not being sneaky or underhanded here. I know for a fact that my son doesn’t play with this stuff  anymore, so there’s simply no reason to keep it around!

Author Madeline L’Engle passed away in a Connecticut nursing home on September 6, 2007. In the two days since her death, I’ve been reading tons of tributes to her and am amazed at the sheer number of people who have been touched by her works.

This might come as a surprise (given how voracious a reader I am), but I’ve never read a single Madeline L’Engle book. I clearly remember all my friends reading A Wrinkle in Time back in 6th grade, but it never sounded like something I wanted to try. I still don’t like science fiction/fantasy to this day; however, I’m now considering adding A Wrinkle in Time to my reading list. With L’Engle’s death, everyone’s of course been talking about how fantastic her books are, so I’m curious now.

Out of her remaining 59 titles, which other ones do you think are worth reading? I could use a little guidance here!

Whenever I talk about getting more organized, it’s usually in reference to my office space or my desk. My work area is always such a mess that it’s a wonder I can get anything done during the day, so naturally I’m interested in cleaning up my act in that regard.

But recently I’ve noticed that my bedroom is getting to be just as unorganized as my office. My bureau drawers are a mess, because even though I fold my clothes before putting them away (I’m not that much of a slob), they come undone when I rifle through looking for something to wear. I’ve also started keeping my watches, rings, and necklaces in several different locations even though I have a jewelry box specifically for this kind of stuff. I’m going to lose something expensive one of these days!

So my next personal project is going to be to straighten out the bedroom before it becomes a lost cause. I’m saving Monday morning for this task; hopefully I can get it done!

I had my monthly orthodontist appointment today. As usual, he seemed very pleased with the progress my teeth are making. Most of the action is currently taking place with my upper teeth, where I now have three distinct things going on. First, I’ve got an expander in to try to create some space between the molars in the upper right side of my mouth. Second, I’ve got a power chain in the upper left side to close the gap between my canine and 1st molar. And third, I’ve got an elastic band and an extra wire wrapped around my four upper incisors. This is to turn them into one unit, so to speak, to help them move together and correct my overbite.

Even though I have all this stuff going on, I’m not in too much pain yet. I can definitely feel the extra pressure on my incisors, but it hasn’t hindered my eating abilities (which is all I really care about anyway).

I’m excited that my treatment has progressed to the point where we’re finally getting around to my overbite. In the last year that I’ve been getting orthodontic treatment, we’ve just been doing basic stuff to get my teeth ready to be moved. It was painful, and I wasn’t seeing any results. But we’re finally at the point where the good stuff happens, so I’m happy now!

I’ve subscribed to the RSS feeds of a bunch of celebrity gossip websites, but I’m thinking of removing them soon. I had hoped that these feeds would alert me to useful news and rumors, such as which actors are joining or leaving the casts of popular television shows, who’s doing what film project, etc. But of course that’s not the case. Instead, the feeds are just jammed with stories about which stars are entering drug rehabilitation programs, which ones are going to jail because of drunk driving charges, and which have been arrested for punching out a photographer.

It gets so old, ya know? It’s just a waste of time to have all that worthless information cluttering up my feed reader, so yes, I’m going to unsubscribe. It bugs me just to read the headlines and snippets that appear in the reader without even clicking on the full stories, so I’m sure this is the right move.

Anyway, it’s not like these people need more attention, right?

I haven’t gotten very much done in the last two days because I’ve been caught up in a bunch of message board drama regarding one of the PTB companies that I (occasionally) write for. They totally changed their ToS out of the blue, then turned around and tried to say it wasn’t a complete change, it was just a clarification. Uh huh. That led to a 25-page thread of people complaining and demanding answers, none of which came. Then the thread was locked, still with no satisfactory answers.

Even though I didn’t participate much in the discussion, I kept checking the thread to read other responses, all the while hoping to see some definitive answers. What a big waste of time. I don’t need that kind of added stress, especially now when things are getting a bit tight with my household finances.

I’ve contacted one of my former freelance writing contacts (not a paid blogging thing) and hope to get going with that gig sometime this fall.

In the meantime, I need to vege out with a Coke and some snack food. I could use a break from the Internet anyway!