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Cool off with Tide Coldwater

Y’all know how Jenny and I feel about Tide. If this is your first visit to this Mommin’ It Up you don’t, you can read about it here, here, and here. Oh, and here, here, here, here, here, or here. Ok, I will stop now.

Needless to say, Tide is one of our favorite companies to work with because their PR people are fab we believe in the product and we use the product ourselves. (And also their PR people are lovely.) Ever since we first started learning more about the science behind Tide way back at BlogHer ’09 (the conference when I got stuck in an elevator), we’ve been totally brand loyal.

In particular, we love Tide Coldwater. I know that since learning about how much energy can be saved by washing in cold water (and finding out how well Tide Coldwater actually works), our family hasn’t used anything else. It’s such an easy, simple thing to do – but it can have such an impact on the world.

Think I’m exaggerating?

Take a look at this.

Isn’t that amazing?

The first two lines of that image have some pretty incredible stats, but read it again from the third line on. We may not be able to get every household in Dayton (or anywhere else) to wash with cold water, but we can definitely make sure our household does – and what an impact that has.

And seriously, it works just as well as regular Tide. Which works much better than anything else. It’s a win-win.

This summer we’re going to keep encouraging you to Cool Off with Tide Coldwater. Jump on in!

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Jenny Rapson and the super-bummer summer

Well, Joshua’s not even technically out of school yet (his last day is tomorrow) and I already can’t wait for it to start again.  The big kids are at a point where the dynamic betwixt them is very difficult to bear.  Joshua delights in letting Sophie know how stupid she is and in getting on her nerves, and Sophie delights in screaming like a banshee and grossly overreacting to everything that he does.  OH, and Joshua also delights in tattling on Sophie who delights in doing whatever-the-hell-she-wants-no-matter-what-her-mom-told-her.  As you can imagine the tattling also sends Sophie into hysterics.

And all these hysterics from them send me into hysterics of my own.

I’ve made very few plans, besides buying a pool pass to the local pool, which I hate, to survive this summer.  I really do not like being on the go that much and three days a week at the pool is about all I can stand. I have no money for kids camp or a nanny. I also apparently, have no mothering skills for navigating this time in our lives.

When I was a kid, my mom had a job and my dad was a teacher so he was home with us in the summer, but he was constantly building something  so you know, if we got on his nerves he could just hammer something.  And anyway, we were free to run around our very safe neighborhood and come home when we were hungry for a JELL-O Puddin’ Pop and then leave again for hours on end, so I think it was just an easier time to be a parent.  This is not the world I live in.  Partly because of choices we’ve made that are for our family and partly because the world is just not as nice and safe and easy now as it was thirty years ago.

So, what will we do this summer to pass the time?  I think I’m about to go sign my kids up for every possible daytime VBS in our area.  Well, every daytime VBS run by good Christians that is.  I’d like the kids to stick with Jesus and all. I LOVED VBS as a kid and Joshua and Sophie loved it last summer.  They can have fun, be apart from each other, and learn about Jesus.  And Jonah and I can have some alone time. Win-Win-Win-Win.  Yep, VBS and the pool.  Children’s museum once or twice…I don’t know what else.  I still  have toddler nap times to work around!

I’m sure you all judge and/or hold me in contempt, but I am not looking forward to this summer at all.  But hey, I’m going to be in LA for the first three official days of break!  Which means my official summer with the kids will start with jet lag, but I think it’ll be worth it. And I’m setting my expectations for the summr low, so they’re sure to be exceeded, right!? RIGHT!!????

How are you keeping your kids busy this summer?

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Up in smoke.

On November 4, 2011, I wrote a post that contained a list of things I needed to do that weighed heavily on me. Some of those things I’ve actually done (cleaned the room in our basement)… some of them I haven’t (lost 7 pounds).

One thing I hadn’t done was change the batteries in the smoke detectors.

That was six months ago, and I’d say that 70% of nights since then, I’ve laid in bed and worried about the smoke detector batteries being dead, the house catching on fire, and all of us dying. Each morning, though, when I was actually able to do something about it, I wouldn’t think of it. Until I tried to go to sleep again, of course.

Wednesday night I decided enough was enough. I bought some batteries and was determined to finally put my OCD fears to rest. I pulled a chair into the hallway, under the smoke detector that is right outside the bedrooms. The one I had worried about for months on end.

As it turns out, the damn thing is wired in to the electricity of the house.

It was so anti-climatic! But it occurred to me that there was a lesson in it. I had spent so much time and energy obsessing worrying about something that was a complete non-issue.

How many other things do I worry about that have no basis in reality?

Anyway, I discovered that the smoke detector did have a battery as a back up, so I went ahead and changed that. But when I reassembled the thing, it started chirping. You know that sound – the one that means the battery is about to die? So annoying. And I couldn’t get it to stop. Obviously the battery wasn’t dead. I thought maybe I had put the battery in wrong so I took it all apart again and checked. It was situated the right way, but the chirping continued. It was after nine by that point. The kids were ready to go to bed, and I could sense a giant melt down brewing under Kate’s surface. I was about ready to cut the wires just to make it stop when I googled it, and basically found out that I needed to leave it alone for 10 minutes and my problems would be solved.

Fortunately, that worked.

So then I modified the lesson learned – worrying about problems that don’t exist can lead to problems that actually really do exist.

Basically, I need to calm my ass down. We’ll see if that happens.

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