It was that kind of night. :/
If Owen puts a washcloth on his head…
Owen made a Lego fish
He’s so creative with Legos… Usually it’s panels from his Star Wars Lego video game, but today it was a fish!
Oh, Siri. You know me better than I know myself.
I asked Siri to remind me to start the chicken. I like what she heard better.
And as it turned out, I should have listened…as that’s about the time my day started going to shit.
“Siri, I’m an hour late…please forgive me. I should have listened.” 🙂
Another nice day, another stop at the playground
Katie walked over to the swings and said “Mama swing peas” so I put her in. Then she’d say “Mama swing!” So I would swing next to her and she’d say “Thank you mama!” Every. Single. Time. So I’d get off my swing, go over and push her high, then she’d say “Mama swing!” And if I didn’t immediately go to my swing, she’d say “Mama swing! Mama swing!” So I’d get on the swing and she’d say “Thank you mama.” How can you resist such cuteness? And she had such great fun swinging in tandem with me…
Just chilling:
40 Bags in 40 Days—Day 13
Today I got rid of a laminator and some letter-sized pouches. In other news, Owen’s pre-k teacher loves me. 🙂
No, it wasn’t a bag but it was something, right?
Treats for Katie = Treats for Maggie
What a nice kid..sharing with Maggie. 🙂
You never know what you’ll find when you look up.
A walk in the woods
Well, down the street to the golf course…
…where we went off the golf cart track. 🙂
Our little zipper helper
She always tries to help zip our zippers. She can’t actually do it, but she knows the two pieces go together.
The fight that wasn’t.
To preface: Before we headed in, I started a dispute with the credit card company just in case but hoping we wouldn’t need it. We also learned a golden rule: “Always get it in writing.” We had the word of our 10-years-of-great-service sales guy who turned his back on us the minute there was an issue (likely due to his negligence…).
That said…it was over before it even started!
We walked in ready to fight tooth and nail—I had all my talking points ready, website print outs ready, and arguments ready. And our guy saw us and came right over, immediately saying (bluntly, I might add, with none of the friendliness we’ve always gotten) “They changed their mind—they’ll take it back. They just wanted to avoid all the hassle…”
My immediate reaction was (of course) YAY but then it was “Yeah right they wanted to avoid the hassle. They knew we were right.” He then went on to say that we were the only people of the 1000 people who have bought this bed that didn’t like it. And we are the ONLY ones that will have their bed returned because from now on it’s a written/confirmed “one exchange only” guarantee—basically saying we screwed it up for everyone… But really, that was what he had tried to tell me their initial policy was…?? So that’s what makes me think he really knew what happened and that’s why they made the decision they did. But we’ll never know because we weren’t going to press too hard…
He was also completely befuddled that there might be a Serta mattress he knew nothing about. When we were telling him what it was (the Hampton Inn bed) he asked where we bought it and looked at us like it was a shady deal or something because it wasn’t anything he knew about. He made sure to tell us his manager had never heard of it, either. AND he reminded us again that they’d NEVER had anyone (of the 1000!) want to return a bed and then go buy one somewhere else. So…? Not my problem. But! By him admitting they didn’t even know what it was…there’s no way they could have ordered it for us like he wanted us to think last night.
So, we’re very happy overall…even though we’re still taking a beating because we have to eat the initial delivery cost, the return delivery cost, the two “free” pillows (MSRP $100, available at Amazon for $89 I think) that we never even wanted, and the mattress protector (that protected the warranty on the bed). Which comes to a grand total of about $600. So we will have paid $600 to use the bed for 45 days. I do hope to recoup some money by selling the pillows…
In other mattress news, the Hampton Inn people called to make sure we ordered what we wanted and we ended up able to cancel the box springs to save about $260! (You can only order the whole set online—there’s no picking and choosing.)
So, with the charges we had to eat for the first bed and the deals (the sale) plus the credit of the box springs, we’ll end up having spent about $2000 total, which is fine with us.
Our swinging girl
She loves loves LOVES to swing. Today she started in the baby swing but then asked to go on the other one!
Then she let go to try to touch the wood beam—and wobbled. She put her hand back to hang on in a hurry!
Look! A little lizard!
Katie almost stepped on him as she walked by. This is what happened when I pointed him out:
I was FLABBERGASTED that Owen attempted to touch it—he doesn’t like bugs or normal little boy things.
But Katie loves that stuff and she was ENTHRALLED…getting as close as she could!
Play group glasses
Unfortunately our mommy group doesn’t get together on a weekly basis anymore because the younger kids are in school, nap times conflict, and people are just busier…but today three of us met! It was great. Katie also had a fun time playing with new toys…and didn’t really play too much with the older boys (about age 3.5).
But she came up to me once tugging on me and saying “Mama! Mama!” And I looked down to see this. This is why I love having my phone immediately available in my pocket. 🙂
Mommy and Katie bagel bonding time
Bagel Tuesday at Panera! We don’t always go inside, but when we do…
Cool new warm jacket
Grannie Lin sent a cool new jacket for Owen. It’s a much better fit than the one I found to replace the one that busted a zipper.
40 Bags in 40 Days—Day 12
I got rid of more clothes, tossed some shoes, and the glider rocker sold and left the house! Tom also got rid of more clothes.
We have to go fight tomorrow.
Well, we get to go fight with the furniture company tomorrow. Yippee.
When we bought the mattress we specifically said “So, with this guarantee, if we don’t like the bed for any reason, we can return it?”
Yes, of course, you have 120 days.
Great. Take our money.
Fast forward about 40 days and neither of us like it. We call to say we want to return it and we get a little grief but our sales guy says sure, he’ll start the paperwork. He asks if there’s another bed we want and we say yes, another Serta, but you don’t sell it—can you maybe order it? He says no. Not “Let me ask my manager and get back to you” but a direct no. Okay, so we order it online ASAP since it takes 4-6 weeks.
So our sales guy calls tonight to ask if he can’t get us the bed we wanted—he talked to his manager and he was pretty sure they could order it. I say it’s too late—we already ordered it and all sales are final. So then he was half arguing with me about trying to return it/cancel it and buy from them instead. Um, we tried and you said it wasn’t possible. So he says okay, he’ll call back with our return amount—reminding us that the two free pillows can’t be returned and we’ll be charged for them. Wait. What? Ugh…but I guess in the long run, not a life or death deal.
So two hours go by and he calls from his cell to say he just got done talking to his manager and we can’t return the bed for a refund—the return is with Serta because it’s their guarantee and the “comfort guarantee” is only for exchanges. I immediately say that isn’t going to work, we specifically asked about returning it—not exchanging it—and we were told we could…HE told us we could. He says “Oh no, I just read off the poster.” Yeah, right. You wanted the $$$ sale so you told us what we wanted to hear. Besides, I didn’t pay Serta, I paid your store. Your store can REFUND us.
Now, we’ve been doing business with this guy for TEN YEARS and I honestly just want to say “Really, John? You’re going to try and pull that? I’m pretty sure your manager saw the return claim for $2800 and freaked out so now you’re trying to claim ignorance.” But I didn’t.
I just reiterated that an exchange was NOT going to work and he said we could come in and sit down with his manager and we could see what we could work out. Lovely. He said we’re the first people that have wanted a return—everyone else just gets a firmer or softer mattress. Sorry, not my problem.
WE ARE LIVID. There is no $&@?#% way we would have bought the bed without that RETURN policy. That’s the ONLY reason we bought it. And the Serta website says the return and exchange policy is “up to the individual store”—so the store can do whatever they want…but I’m guessing they are blaming Serta because they don’t want to give us our money back.
Tomorrow is going to be fun. :/
After dinner swinging
Owen had special daddy time after dinner (he got to play Lego Star Wars) so Katie and I went out to swing!
And then she was pretending to sleep!
And then she wanted to try the big kid swing!
And she was almost swinging herself! You can see her slightly moving her legs the right way!
And getting more comfortable on the bar!
Stinky!!
Like brother, like sister…just a bit apart in age. Owen’s was at 25m, Katie’s was at 20m.
Owen:
Katie:
ABC Mouse + a cat
After school outside fun times
I lowered the bar so Katie could reach it to swing.
Then it was off to dig in the new grass. I redirected her to the stone pile. 🙂
Then I looked away for a minute and she was over just laying in the grass, looking at grass or bugs or dirt or something.
Then Owen was telling me stories.
And being cute!
And this video has Owen telling a story, interrupted with me trying to get a good picture (I can take pics while I’m recording) so you can see a little of what it takes to get a good picture of both kids (in reality I think I took about 10).
This was the lucky picture:
More swinging!
Seat stealer!
Super cute boy.
Another nap interrupted
Sigh. If only she would start her nap when I first put her down instead of babbling for 15-30 minutes.
Being a Good Mom is Making me a Bad Wife
A blog post on one of my favorite parenting sites, Scary Mommy. It’s like I could have written it almost word for word.
[Basically everything goes to shit 10 minutes before hubby walks in the door from work and the wife is at her limit and loses her shit and unloads on him the second he walks in the door. Read the whole post at the website to get the full effect. It’s worth it.]
My husband never sees me at my best.
At my best, I’m witty, creative, and enthusiastic. At my worst, I’m short-tempered, grouchy, and cold. I can usually be found somewhere between those two, and although my kids often get my best, and my writing sometimes does, my husband just doesn’t.
I worry that this is how marriages fall apart.
I worry that he thinks I’m always stressed out and yelling when I’m home alone with the kids. Because I’m not.
The attitude
Fishes!
ABCDLMNOP
Intrigued by a caged Charlie
Charlie had to go to the vet at 8:30 so I grabbed her at 7am (as she was still groggy from sleeping!) and crated her. When Owen saw her he was very concerned and said he was really going to miss Charlie while he was at school (he never says this).
Then as soon as Katie saw what was going on, it was “Hi Charlie! Hi Charlie! Hi Charlie! Hi Charlie!” complete with waves.
She didn’t want to get up
Me: C’mon, Katie. Time to get dressed.
Katie: Shreeping.
And then laid down and pulled the blanket up!
40 Bags in 40 Days—Day 11
And I thought yesterday was a banner day—HA! Today blew yesterday out of the water!
- A garbage bag of my clothes
- Two garbage bags of Tom’s documents shredded
- A stack of Tom’s magazines recycled
- Almost a full garbage bag of AV cables
- Two more bins of toys
- The decision to try and sell part of our entertainment center (the end towers)
- The decision to try and sell a storage cabinet
- A floor scrubber
- A set of bath towels
And I feel like I’m forgetting something…
Katie loves coloring
One area in which she’s NOT like her brother at this age!
She colored for awhile at the table, then it was on to the water art.
And a great photobomb by Charlie!
Owen loves ABC Mouse!
So, we’ve been seeing commercials for ABCmouse.com for quite some time, plus Owen has some apps on the phone that are by ABC Mouse. I thought it would be a good thing, but honestly…Owen has never used a computer, our desktop is too hard to get to easily so we’d have to set up a laptop downstairs, then teach him how to use a mouse, etc., and lastly, pay the monthly fee and hope he’d use it. So it just never got done.
Fast forward a few months, and Tom brought it up again. So I just signed up for emails and quickly realized that they always send out deals. So I waited and waited…and finally there was some deal (I honestly don’t even remember what it was—maybe half off) so I signed up. And then we were getting the house ready for flooring and then we were on vacation and then we were cleaning up after the flooring…and I was getting annoyed because I had paid for it and we weren’t using it! Every time Owen had “free time” he was playing with his Legos or watching TV or on the weekend he’d be playing his video game.
So today after breakfast I declared it was time. I said “Owen, do you want to try ABC Mouse?” And got a resounding happy YES! So Tom set up my laptop at the kitchen table, hooked up his wireless mouse, and we started. (Big whoop, it took all of five minutes!) I was a little concerned that Owen would have issues with the mouse because A) he’s never used one (and he’s very used to the touch screen of the iDevices) and B) sometimes he has issues with fine motor control. But he did pretty good—the only mouse button somewhat tripping him up was the center scroll button so I told him just to avoid that button…but within about 10 minutes or so he was USING the button correctly (the laptop screen isn’t quite big enough so it helps to scroll). Wow. I was floored.
And he flew through the first few lessons and was thrilled to be earning tickets and white stars and prizes for his hamster and aquarium (on the site!). He probably sat there for 20-30 minutes! Then just like that he was done. And he complained that it was too easy. I told him I know it was too easy, but we started him on stuff for younger kids just until he got used to how the mouse worked and how the website worked. I told him when we did it again it would be for older kids and he was cool with that.
So fast forward about an hour and he was ready! I had moved it from age 2 to age 4 and he loved it! I wish I could watch over him as he does everything so I can see what all is involved, but I like that he’s doing it by himself and I don’t HAVE TO watch over him. He did say that one page was too hard so I replayed it so I could see what it was but by then he was already DONE and couldn’t give me a clue why he had thought it was too hard. (He had completed it, though, so it wasn’t too hard to finish.)
So, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that he keeps enjoying it!