The Great Outdoors

This week I've let my son eat as many hot dogs as he wanted.  Given that we've been to three barbeques in five days, that is not an insignificant number. Yes, they are filled with salt, nitrates and all sorts of other yummy good/badness, but it's still food!  Food and my boy aren't usually good friends after 4 pm.  He's buds with breakfast and definitely snacks, but late afternoon food just seems to piss him off.   And don't even mention dinner!  He HATES dinner now!  Who knows why they broke up, but I think it makes me saddest of all.  I'm sucking up like crazy to all food, trying to will it to make my son fall in love again.  So hooray for hot dogs.  I'll take it.

We spent the weekend up in heaven, aka Lake Tahoe.  My lungs feel cleaner but my car is waaaaay dirtier.  I learned how to ride a bike with no hands.  Taught myself and all.  Not a bad party trick, though the whole time my husband was screaming at me that I was going to fall.  He has no faith in my grace.  Rightfully so.

The wee one enjoyed the hiking, the biking and the boating. But, by far, his favorite part was sneaking into a nearby hotel swimming pool.  Shhh.  My husband, who was so scared of me riding a bike without holding on for ten seconds at a time, taught our toddles how to use a noodle to prop himself up and kick across the pool.  All in the time in took me to go to the bar and back.  Color me impressed. 

Today I learned officially what it means to be the mama of a little boy.  As we were driving home we started smelling a terrible smell.  A smell that weaved around the car and captured even the innocents in its fog.  Not wanting to smell the shite any longer, we pulled over to change the offending diaper.  I asked the boy for the tenth time if he pooped and still denial city.  Just as I was about to pick him up from the carseat, he burst out laughing and said "faaaht, faaaht.  Toto faaaht."  Toto would be Tony, our dog sitting in the back who apparently had one too many duck treats.  Clearly,  I need to prepare myself now for the booger humor. 

Memo to the rice lobbyists

I dropped my phone in the toilet yesterday.  So that happened.  Word to the wise--don't put your cell phone in your back pocket before going to the bathroom. I know it may seem like a convenient thing to do when it's ringing and you're afraid the vibrations are going to wake your toddler who only just fell asleep for a nap after bizarrely tossing and turning in his crib for nearly an hour.  But, trust me, don't do it. I'm still confused about the trajectory of the phone and how it managed to fall into the toilet.  Didn't I pull my pants down before I peed?  Oh, yeah, I fished my phone out of a toilet bowl full of pee and seriously considered rinsing it off.  I guess no one will ever ask to borrow my phone again.

I kind of bugged after realizing that my phone had been floating in my pee for a good minute or two.  It took my (still) hungover brain a bit longer than normal to figure out what fell. I immediately put the phone in a bowl of rice as I've read that acts as a desiccant (new word of the day!) and sucks the moisture out of the phone.  After reading some tech geek blog posts, I learned that I should hunt down any silica gel packs I have and throw those into the mix.  The phone was already off and I thankfully didn't even think to try powering it.  Apparently, one should not try to turn the phone on after a urine bath, lest one short the damn thing out entirely.  The worst part was waiting 24 hours to see if it would turn on.  Although I felt like I was missing a limb at first, I kind of enjoyed being forcefully checked out for a few hours.

Miraculously, it is working today!  How's that for luck?  I should go buy some lottery tickets now.  Rice: good for feeding families the world over and for resurrecting pee-logged phones.