1m2aSandbox

We took a trip last weekend to visit
relatives, and while most parts of the vacation went really well,
we did have a few small snafus. The airlines lost a bag of ours for
over twenty-four hours, the girls had a bit of difficulty adjusting
to sleeping in a room together, that sort of thing.


Oh, yes, and we discovered that Cora’s terrified of
flying.

Hold on to your hats - this is a big
recall.


Maclaren is recalling EVERY SINGLE STROLLER MADE between 1999 and
now. That's the Volo, the Techno XT, the Quest, the Twin Triumph,
and more. If it's made by Maclaren in the past ten years, it's
being recalled.


Apparently, there's a hinge that can actually amputate a kid's
fingers, and there have been twelve reported cases so far.
Naturally, they are urging everyone with a Maclaren to stop using
it immediately. The good news is that you don't have to send yours
in for a refund; simply contact Maclaren and they will send you a
free repair kit.


Call 877-688-2326 to speak with Maclaren, or visit their href="http://www.maclaren.us/recall"
target="_blank">website for more information.


Don't panic; simply get in touch with them and receive the free
fix.

Well, we’re back, and all in one
piece – though I’d say we had our share of close calls.
There was the lost luggage, which took over twenty-four hours to
find us and which, of course, contained the irreplaceable Pink
Purple Lovin’ Teddy, all the girls’ clothes, all of
Brian’s clothes, and our toiletries. On the up side, American
Airlines bought the girls new pajamas and fleece outfits.


We had our share of meltdowns and freakouts – more on
Cora’s fun with flying later – and of course the
obligatory Nap Skipping In Unfamiliar Surroundings. But Maddie and
Cora found the biggest. Leaf. Pile. Ever. And obviously took it for
a test drive. They reveled in the complimentary hotel breakfast,
where Maddie spied Fruit Loops for the first time and turned to me
wide-eyed and said, “Mommy, look at those beautiful
Cheerios!” We swam in the hotel pool and screamed with
laughter as Daddy pretended to boil himself in the hot tub like a
piece of pasta.

Well, we're just about on our way to
Wisconsin to visit family, and I'm worn out before the trip even
starts. For a four-day trip we're checking two bags - and though
I've weighed them in my bathroom, I don't think they'll care
much if I'm over the limit and I wail, "But it was under the limit
on my scale!"


We could probably have crammed everything into one checked bag with
a judicious use of carry-on allotments, since both girls get their
own tickets and hence are eligible for carry-ons and personal bags,
but I don't think we could have physically managed it. As it is,
we'll still have to navigate the airport with a stroller, a diaper
bag, a computer bag, a Britax car seat, a booster seat, and two
"real" carry-ons, not to mention the girls' own "personal bags" -
backpacks full of stuff to do. Guess who's going to wind up
carrying those. Add our big coats and purses and temper-tantrums
and, oh yes, a child who is still afraid to take her shoes off in
public, and you've got the family that makes everyone roll their
eyes in the security line.


So pray for us, for our journey there and our return trip on
Sunday. Pray our portable DVD player doesn't run out of battery
juice in the middle of the flight. Pray the girls nap on the plane.
Pray the supposedly heated pool at the hotel lives up to its hype.


And pray Mommy doesn't eat the whole hidden bag of Halloween candy
before the plane gets off the ground.

We’re going to be taking a long
weekend in a couple days to visit some family, and it’ll be
the first time we’ve really traveled with Cora – the
last time she got on a plane she was eight months old and moving to
Texas. We traveled fairly often with Maddie as a baby and toddler,
flying regularly to Texas to visit family, but now there’s
neither the need nor the cash and we’ve become quite the
homebodies. So it’ll be a new experience for the family, and
I’m just a tad worried.

We had a fantastic Halloween on Saturday
night, thanks to a couple things: first off, we threw our usual
sugar restrictions out the window and let the girls have probably a
half-dozen pieces of candy each. For us, that’s huge. Second,
we had the whole daylight savings thing, which meant we could allow
the girls to eat sugar and then stay up late until it wore off. The
girls were in amazingly good and obedient moods, and our Saturday
night, blessedly, had absolutely no meltdowns and no temper
tantrums.


Those were saved for Sunday morning.

Brian and the girls had a date last
Saturday carving their Halloween pumpkins. The girls were looking
forward to picking out the perfect faces for each of their pumpkins
before getting a bit messy with the whole emptying-and-carving
thing.


My husband is a big supporter of technology, and so he decided to
look for pumpkin stencils on the Internet. He sat a girl on either
knee and did a Google search – “pumpkin
stencils”. Brian clicked on each link, looking at all the
different stencil choices and debating with the girls the merits of
each face they saw.


He’d looked at maybe half a dozen sites when he clicked on
yet another under the search phrase “pumpkin stencils”
– and came upon a porn site. There on the computer sat row
after row of x-rated pictures, of apparently some pretty hard-core
stuff. I didn’t ask for details.


Horrified, Brian slammed his hands over the girls’ eyes and
shouted, “Don’t look! Don’t look at Daddy’s
computer, girls!” He was pretty sure that neither girl really
saw anything and quickly navigated away from the page. And then
Maddie said,


“Daddy, were those people hurting each other?”


Um, can’t we wait a few more years before this
conversation?