Month: December 2005

Those are great words to hear from your kid when you are headed out the door in the morning. I figured he had dry skin, so I went to get the moisturizer…and when I looked at his torso, I had the pleasure of looking at a hive-covered little boy. His arms, legs, belly, back and his bum…covered with red welts. I have to admit I was horrified and immediately tried to think of what he’d eaten that would do it.

I made Mr. Dump run upstairs to put him back in the shower to rinse off any soap residue from his first shower…which is where I learned that he’d used some of the shower gel “Axe”. I didn’t know he was going to use it because I would have told him no – he has sensitive skin.

This reaction was VERY extreme, though. Sheesh. We ended up slathering Desitin all over his whole body and giving him some antihistamine. About 30-40 minutes later he wasn’t itchy, and 2 hours later the welts were gone. I don’t think he’ll be doing THAT again any time soon.

Those are great words to hear from your kid when you are headed out the door in the morning. I figured he had dry skin, so I went to get the moisturizer…and when I looked at his torso, I had the pleasure of looking at a hive-covered little boy. His arms, legs, belly, back and his bum…covered with red welts. I have to admit I was horrified and immediately tried to think of what he’d eaten that would do it.

I made Mr. Dump run upstairs to put him back in the shower to rinse off any soap residue from his first shower…which is where I learned that he’d used some of the shower gel “Axe”. I didn’t know he was going to use it because I would have told him no – he has sensitive skin.

This reaction was VERY extreme, though. Sheesh. We ended up slathering Desitin all over his whole body and giving him some antihistamine. About 30-40 minutes later he wasn’t itchy, and 2 hours later the welts were gone. I don’t think he’ll be doing THAT again any time soon.

It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time for me to list the things that have been bugging me. Well, I don’t have to wait for Thursdays to do that, as many of you have probably noted, but if I make it sound official, maybe you’ll keep reading.

• What the hell is a national foam shortage? Jordan’s Furniture is advertising some mismatched pillowtop mattresses that they obtained ahead of the “national foam shortage”. Isn’t foam manufactured? Did a foam factory go up in flames? Or is all foam from areas affected by the hurricanes? I just have to say that I was completely unaware of this foam shortage, and I was wondering where I should go to begin hoarding.
• iTunes New Music Tuesday emails…is there a reason that they never arrive on Tuesday? I get them on Wednesday or, like today, Thursday. By Thursday, I’ve usually checked out the free download already, thanks. Why can’t the Tuesday email go out on Tuesday?
• Hey, Joseph’s Jewelers in Leominster: Last I checked your parking lot isn’t really purple. It’s tar, like most other parking lots. The lines are purple, but in winter, when everything is covered with slush and snow, it’s hard to tell. So telling people they can’t miss your store because of the purple parking lot is a little misleading, don’t you think?

Thanks to Sue, who posted in the comments yesterday that the reason we’re not getting a Smokey Bones in Leominster is due to a demographics issue. As in, we’re not rib-eatin’ people? My son, who doesn’t eat ANYTHING that isn’t pasta-based or chicken McNugget-based, eats the pulled pork at Smokey Bones.

Where are these demographics coming from, anyway? Who exactly do they talk to? I would love to see what they say about us, that we can add a crappy Italian chain to a town/area that has a lot of GREAT Italian restaurants already (Il Forno, anyone? Monty’s? Gondola, Il Camino, Cristina’s, that place down next to Newbury Comics at the mall? Lidio’s? (Are they considered Italian?) I know I’m forgetting some – the place at the corner of Summer Street and John Fitch Highway in Fitchburg for one, I can’t remember the name). So that we really needed an Olive Garden (blech) but not a Smokey Bones is ridiculous.

It makes me feel like we were just dismissed as a place where people have no taste and just want the same things over and over. I find that very insulting. You put any good restaurant in a prime location like that, and they will do a booming business.

Grrr.

Twice this weekend we hit Cherry Hill (in Lunenburg, behind the ice cream stand of the same name) to go sledding. We had a couple of different sled types, and we witnessed a ton of others, and I feel like I am as qualified as anyone to evaluate which ones worked best.

First of all, I would like to thank the sled companies for coming up with designs that GREATLY improve over the crappy stuff we used to use as kids. Not that some of those items weren’t being used over the weekend, but they clearly were inferior products.

I will use the sleds available at Amazon for my rankings, as that way I can use the graphics guilt-free.

Snow Mountain Shredder

We have a sled very much like this one that Junior tried on Saturday. I’d give it a B-. It did the job, but not as fast as the others. The snow apparently needs to be just right. Plus, it’s heavier than some of the other sleds so the kids get tired of dragging it back up the hill earlier. Always a concern.

Fireglow Snow Tube

I have to give the tubers the edge this weekend with an A. Tubes worked well on both days, especially Sunday when the snow was more packed down. In a race with 2 kids on the next sled, and one kid on a tube, with the sled going down at least 4-5 seconds before the tube, the tube caught up and passed the sledders. And they seemed to go further than anyone else. My best bet is a tube. I watched several of them run over other sleds and keep going. A+

I literally cannot believe they still sell steel sleds. I wouldn’t get this just for the weight. And it seems to me the steel would be an issue for having snow stick to it in certain temps. But I’m not a scientist, so I could be way off base. I’d go with the similarly round foam kind [next].

Whirler

This is the same as the next kind, but only in a round form. I give this an A-, only because I find the round shape limiting (i.e. you can’t use it on your stomach)

Snow Crusher

First runner up is this style of sled. The one we used, which had two sets of handles so two kids could ride, doesn’t appear on Amazon, but you get the idea. It’s an “EPS foam core board with hi definition graphics, laminated and thermoformed to a high density polyenthylene, and easy to carry easy grip handles.” Lots of different styles out there, and all of them worked REALLY well. Also an A.