I don’t blog on my birthday…

...so I’m publishing this a few minutes into the next day, heh heh.

The older I get the more little things thrill me.  Big things, not so much.  You eliminate the feeling of being disappointed when you only expect small stuff.

What really gets me excited is when I log onto The Internets to stalk my usual forums and there’s a teeny tiny electronic birthday cake and a “Happy Birthday!” notification in bold.  Sure, it’s automated, but to me it’s just as good as getting a birthday card in the mail (which my grandma ever only sent anyway).  It makes me go, “Darn right, it’s my birthday” and then I go eat candy.

No parties.  Nowhere to go.  Not answering the phone.  Nice box of wine - that’s the way I like it.  Now, Rosco’s birthday is tomorrow and he’s not quite as laid back when it comes to matters of entertainment.  He certainly won’t enjoy sitting in front of the Travel Channel for hours on end like I did yesterday, so we’re going to have to structure his day to make it special.  We figured he’s too young to appreciate a party (and frankly, mommy is too frazzled to host one), so we’ll probably take him out to explore local museums, get his picture taken at one of the portrait places, and feed him cake (vanilla with chocolate swirl, I’m thinking).  He’s got some pretty cool presents hiding in the car trunk right now, so it’s a good thing little kids think anything new is superfantastical.

Snarked Tiffany at 12:01 AM

I think I’m turning into my grandmother.

Today I had the overwhelming desire to clean rug trim with a tiny hard-bristled brush.  Then I fell asleep with a toddler in my lap for half an hour in front of a television louder than a jet engine.

(Don’t worry - I killed the rug-cleaning urge by tackling the much shorter task of freshening one of the toilets.)

Snarked Tiffany at 07:49 PM
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A pox on you, American Airlines.

Okay, so I finally got an email back from American Airlines regarding my useless ticket.  Apparently, if I had identified my erroneous ticket problem within 24 hours of purchase I could have had it fixed for no fee.  To be able to transfer your ticket, you have to pay a $150 (!!!!) change fee in addition to the cost of the ticket.  So, it’s always going to be cheaper to buy a new ticket since you can’t use that remaining balance as a credit.

This seems like a rip-off to me, and I can’t do a damned thing about it.  As I said before, I’m pretty sure someone who would have otherwise been standby was able to grab my seat on that flight so American isn’t losing ANY money.  The list of places I can go on the remaining balance of my ticket is about as long as the shortest Bible verse.

Anyone know of any recourse?  Or at least something I can do to feel better about it?

Snarked Tiffany at 01:51 PM
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Ages and Stages

Rosco has his 24 month check-up in a couple of weeks.  So, when Scott took him to the pediatrician’s office on Tuesday to get his continuously red eye checked out [again] they sent home an ages and stages questionnaire (the ASQ) to complete for our next appointment.  If you’re not familiar with the ASQ it’s basically a list of milestones your child may be meeting by the age identified.

The problem with the 24 month ASQ is that several of the items require that you interact with your hellraiser precious in order to examine their reaction.  For instance: “While your child watches, line up four objects like blocks or cars in a row.  Does your child copy or imitate you and line up four objects in a row?”.  Good luck getting your toddler to pay attention to what you’re doing rather than to the blocks themselves (because the blocks are theirs and they want them now.  You’re supposed to keep trying until the child cooperates sufficiently for you to see whether they can do it.  There’s no option for “He doesn’t want to.”

I keep finding myself wanting to make little disclaimers on everything I check “No” on.  Certainly he’s not expected to do everything on this as some of the items are for advanced levels, and I know this isn’t the SAT, but it just makes me twitchy to not answer in the affirmative on every single question.  I bet the pediatrician expect that most type-A parents will check “yes” for everything.  I’m trying not to be “that parent.”

Snarked Tiffany at 07:57 PM
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Imagination

So, more on the Manic Mommies Escape ‘08.  When Erin and Kristen announced that this year’s escape would be on a cruise to the Bahamas I thought “Ooh.  Sounds awesomely expensive.” Then Lisa, who I know from my local mommy cult, emailed me saying we should go.  At that point I did my clicks to research the event and upon seeing that it was very reasonable/borderline cheap to be in a four-person room I took the plunge.  I’d never cruised before nor left the country so I saw this as being an incredible adventure.  We booked a stateroom with Lisa’s BFF and a performer/puppeteer.

We cruised on the Carnival “Funship” Imagination - the one with the ginormous waterslide and mini-golf course.  It had been recently renovated to resemble a Vegas casino, which would make you think that there wouldn’t be that many kids running around, but if you thought that you’d be dead wrong.  There were so many kids there.  Baby kids.  Toddler kids.  School-aged kids.  I kept glowering at people in the karaoke bar and shooting “It’s 11 PM - take that kid back to your room and put them to bed” daggers.  Yes, I’m judgmental when I’m on vacation.  To me it just seems that vacation or not it’s not in anyone’s best interest to have kids up that late in smoky bars.  Sorry.

Anyway.  If you check out my flickr photostream (or Lisa’s, for that matter), you can see what a great time I had.  I don’t really have much to snark about because it didn’t suck, but I’ll give you my top five take-aways about the Funship Imagination and New Providence Island (which Nassau is on):

1 - If you’re a mommy who is generally unaccustomed to eating more than one meal a day, it is a BAD idea to pig out on cruise ship food as if you’re trapped at the Golden Corral all day.  You will pay for it in indigestion or worse.  Fortunately, I didn’t fall for that trap cuz I’m smart.

2 - You’re allowed to take a bottle of booze on the ship with you.  Take advantage of this because cruise ship alky may cost the same as it does at your local bar, but you’ll probably want to drink more of it.  Buy mixers at the bar (fruit punch, tomato juice, tonic water, etc.) for $2/pop and top it off with your own liquor-y goodness.

3 - If you go funshipping with a group, make sure that you’re aggressive like commandos and stake out seats and tables at whatever events you’re going to attend early.  Otherwise, obnoxious couples will hog entire booths that can seat eight and then be annoyed when you ask them if you can sit there.  (You repay their generosity by standing behind them and being loud.)

4 - You probably won’t get seasick on board, but you will have equilibrium issues.  Plan for this.  A couple of adult beverages will level you out, though.  More than a couple will guarantee you wake up dehydrated and headachy.  Thank the recirculated air for that.

5 - At port in Nassau: unless you’ve planned to tour stuff off the beaten path there isn’t much to see in the touristy shopping district (unless you like that kind of thing).  If I had planned ahead well enough I would have found myself a trusty local tour guide to show me stuff other than Obama t-shirts and sea shells.  I can see that here in North Kakilacky.

I’m trying to get back into some sort of routine now and I really don’t feel like doing much other than watching t.v. (without multitasking, mind you) and reacquainting myself with the real world, so you can probably expect that I’ll be making very terse blogs over the next few days.  Ooh!  I haven’t posted cat pictures in a while…

Snarked Tiffany at 07:41 PM
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Oh, my bad.

I’ve made some very vague remarks about going on a little trip this past weekend.  Per Snarky rules and regulations I never say where I’m going before I get back home (for my own safety, ya know).  Now that I’m home I can tell you that I was cruising with fellow Manic Mommies on Escape ‘08.  I’ll tell you more about that later.  Right now I’m trying to catch up.  I sat around in Miami Airport all day yesterday because I’m a scatterbrain and accidentally booked the wrong flight home.  I booked a flight that leaves this afternoon instead of one for yesterday.

When I booked my airline tickets I thought “Okay, I’ll be gone Friday the 7th through Monday.  That’s four days.  Seven plus four is eleven.” So, I booked a return ticket for the 11th instead of the 10th.  Seven, eight, nine, TEN.  Four days.  I didn’t realize the error until I checked in yesterday afternoon and the counter dude very rudely let me know my flight was TODAY.  Anyway, since there was no way in hell I was spending the night in Miami I had to bleed some money and buy a ticket home.  Counter dude was not particularly cooperative in letting me change my original ticket.  He gave me some ludicrous-sounding story about how the ticket cost had to be such-and-such and it would be less expensive to do yadayada.  I begged the guy to cut me some sort of break since I was basically stranded, but frankly he didn’t care.  I was very polite, explained that the options available were all unreasonable for me as I had been there for a cruise and didn’t have anywhere to stay overnight (other than that damn airport).  He flailed around and pushed a bunch of buttons on his keyboard and said I could try a flight on United Airlines.  He was such an asshole.  I can’t even describe.

I ended up buying a seat for the open 9:20 pm flight and tried to get a standby seat on the 4:55 pm flight I THOUGHT I had booked (he said there were only two people in standby ahead of me), but the flight was already too full and so I had to wait. 

I’m repulsed by the situation because it just seems a little bit like extortion to me.  I paid almost as much for a one-way ticket on a flight that was not full as for my original round-trip ticket cost.  I don’t understand why he couldn’t have let me cancel my original flight, I did tell him it was my error, and for them to transfer the amount paid towards the ticket I had to buy last night.  Instead I have a useless paid-for plane ticket, and had to pay and additional $30 for a “service” fee for buying at the airport, and another $15 for them to check my suitcase.  If I didn’t have funds available with me I have no idea what I would have done.  I probably would have slept at the airport last night.  And you know what?  Someone is going to be riding that seat I gave up for today - I guarantee it.

I’m going to write the airline’s customer service to let them know that they need to train their representatives on how to be better at listening and problem solving.  If I say “I have a problem” they’re supposed to say, “Let me see what I can do to help” and not “That will be $300.  Where’s your credit card?”

Snarked Tiffany at 11:03 AM
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Holiday cheer - courtesy of Minted.com

We’re card people here.  I I think it’s important to try to reach out to folks during the holidays to let you know you’re thinking about them...even if you haven’t seen them in recent history.  Also, it’s just nice to get things in the mail that don’t include remittance advice and a return envelope that you cram a check into.  We normally send a traditional single-fold card with some festive holiday decoration and insert a photo inside that folks can take out and stick into their photo albums/memory boxes/piles of crap.

Well, because I roll deep with Parent Bloggers I got an opportunity to order and review Minted‘s personalized photo greeting cards.  You just go to their website, select the type of card you’d like (in this case, holiday), upload a suitable photo, and personalize the greeting.  You can fiddle with your card a bit to make text lines larger or smaller, and make changes like substituting the word “Holiday” for “Christmas.”

I would tell you exactly which card we ordered but some of you might be receiving it, so just use your imagination and pretend there’s a snarky picture in it.  Once you submit your order the handy-dandy graphics folks there put together a proof for you and email you a high-resolution copy to eyeball.  If you want to make changes, just email them back and they’ll send you another free proof.  We used that opportunity to swap out the image with something with more contrast because our photo looked washed out in the card.  Don’t go overboard with the tweaking, though - you’ll get charged $50 for each proof over two.

In theory, this is a great idea.  It’s a high-quality service and the company uses premium paper and ink.  My order was packaged with a lot of care (okay, maybe a little bit over-packed), and arrived on my front doorstep within a few days of ordering.  (Disclaimer: I did order in October, so I can’t comment on what their holiday rush is like).

I had some technical issues with the Minted website.  I fiddled with it in both Firefox and Internet Explorer, but at the time of ordering it really didn’t like Firefox.  It didn’t like Scott’s computer at all I had a lot of page freezing and previewing different designs was a bit tedious because we had to keep scrolling back down the page every time we closed the pop-up windows.

Some really positive things about the service are that:

1) The cards are previewed by an actual human being that works for Minted, so if you make an egregious error in the ordering process, someone will probably catch it
2) The cards are really substantial - they’re printed on heavy-weight matte paper and look like you dropped a lot of bucks on them
3) You can decide whether you want a flat card, folded card, or a timeline card where you can show friends and family members a bunch of images taken throughout the year.

Even with all the technical frustrations I had getting the card ordered I did really like the product and would certainly place an order again if I were ordering something like wedding invitations.  The “but” is that the cards are pretty pricey when compared to your online digital photo printing service (and I’m sure we all use one).  The cost per card for the design (a flat photo card) we picked was about $3/card, compared to one of those no-frills service that offer photo cards for as low as $0.55/card.  It’s kind of comparing apples to oranges because the quality is certainly not the same and you can’t do a lot of customization on those cheap designs (if any), however if you’re a parent and want to send a slew of photo cards out to show everyone how freaking cute your kid is you’re probably going to go with the less spendy option so you can get more units for your money.

So, in a nutshell - super quality, gorgeous finished product that would impress the pants off people, but doesn’t fit the snarky budget.

Snarked Tiffany at 09:28 AM
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Election Snark

I’ve stated in the past that I’m not particularly political.  I just can’t get that passionate about bureaucracy, so I don’t typically advocate for any specific party.  I like to take the “lesser of the evils” approach to voting: whichever candidate that seems most genuine will get my support at the polls.  I don’t even tell Scott who I’m voted for because, frankly, politics is neither romantic nor fun for me.  I don’t like people to ask me “Why?” because my answer will certainly be “Just because.”

That being said, I get the warm-fuzzies to think that Rosco will grow up believing that politics in America is a realm for white, black, brown, yellow, male, female, (other), and that there is no blueprint of what a president should look like.

I hope that four years from now I can dance around doing a celebratory dance because a damned talented woman president has been elected.  How awesome would it be for a six-year-old to think that the country’s highest station is held by a spitfire in an Anne Klein pantsuit?  I shall wait with baited breath until then.

Okay, not really.  One term at a time.

Snarked Tiffany at 11:21 AM
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Cocktail attire.  Dinner attire.  Flip-flops.  Sneakers.  Beach towel.  Shampoo.  Conditioner.

I’m taking a weekend trip on Friday (sans family) and have started my compulsive listmaking to ensure that I don’t forget anything.  As a result, I’ll forget everything, but anyway.  I’m traveling far enough away from home that if I forget to pack my driver’s license or prescription medication I’m S.O.L. so being meticulous is pretty important because there will be no refunds issued if I get stranded at my destination.

I seriously have to list everything going into my suitcase or carry-on bag in minute detail or I will walk right out this door without it.  You don’t want to have special needs hair and NOT have all of your crap with you, seriously.  I need to take my super-thick conditioner, my special curly hair shampoo, the goop I spray on to enhance my curls when the weather is uncooperative, etc.

The end result of this endeavor is that I’m going to have to be “That woman” who packs a jumbo suitcase for a three day trip and ends up shouting “Wait up, you guys!” to the group because my suitcase wheels are crappy and I can’t keep up the pace.  Ironically, I’m unbelievably low maintenance.

Snarked Tiffany at 11:03 PM
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Teach your children well.

Opportunist that I am, I like to make hay while the sun shines.  I’m doing a surge of fall cleaning around here (when I’m home all day I like my house to smell nice and fresh - not like cat) and was in Rosco’s room last night disinfecting his crib, mattress, etc.  While I had the mattress out I could see all the dust bunnies swirling under the crib, so I put a clean cloth in the Swiffer and had a go at it.  Rosco was hypnotized by it (apparently he’s hypnotized by all manner of cleaning supplies as a result of his daycare curriculum), so after I had a good swipe at the floor I let him take over.

If you pop out one of the sections it’s the perfect length for a toddler.

That thing kept him occupied for a full half hour and then Scott somehow distracted him from his mission.

Tell me - what silly little things do your kids go dumbstruck over?

Snarked Tiffany at 07:11 PM
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