persuasion, pig tails, and produce

This week has been an interesting learning week for us. Among other things, Dan and I came face to face with the somewhat dubious powers of persuasion. You'd think that, being a rhetorician, I'd be a little more savvy at identifying the persuasive tactics being used on me, but no. Something about individual charisma, I guess.

So, the story. On Tuesday (or Wednesday?) Dan got a call from a company offering to come take a look at our windows and give us an estimate for replacing them. Since replacing some of our old, single-paned windows is on our to-do list for this summer, Dan agreed to let a representative come by and talk to us. Dan was under the impression that this "talk" would only be half an hour or so--it was nearly three hours later by the time the salesman left our house.

And he was quite the salesman--talkative, yes, but he also seemed warm and honest (do they all?). At any rate, he talked up their product and showed some samples of their windows--and they did do an impressive job of deflecting the heat from a heat lamp. He also (whether by design or through thorough training, I'm not sure) cleverly talked about several other houses where they'd replaced windows for clients, casually dropping the tens of thousands they'd spent to replace their windows. Dan and I were both pretty impressed by the presentation (those of you reading this are probably shaking your heads--I know, I'm disappointed in myself thinking about this!), but didn't think that we'd be able to afford the windows. So, when the quote he finally offered was much lower than we'd anticipated on the four windows we'd like replaced, we bit. We agreed to buy, signed the contract, and sent the salesman on his way. (As the long presentation unwound, we'd tag-teamed putting the kids to bed).

The next day, however, I didn't feel quite as sanguine about the decision. For one thing, I usually like to take my time making major decisions, weighing out all my other options. And, since Dan and I hadn't really expected to buy anything, we also hadn't done much research on windows. I wasn't worried that the company was scamming us--the salesman had brought in certificates from the state of Utah and the Better Business Bureau (which I now know only means that his company pays membership fees to the BBB, it's not really a certificate of quality), and we'd checked out the website and it seemed pretty reputable. Besides, all the different elements that went into the presentation would be a lot of work if it was a scam--the payment for the windows wasn't required until after all the work was completed. But I wasn't sure that we'd gotten as good a deal on everything as we'd initially thought. And the more I tried to find out information about the company, the stranger things seemed. For one thing, we were assured that the glass qualified for the government's Energy Star rebate, but I couldn't find any details on the company's website about the manufacturer for the windows (so I could check to see if they were on the federal master-list) or the window specs (to see if they really did match Energy Star requirements). When I called company headquarters, they were more than willing to give me the information, but it just seemed a little strange that they weren't more forthcoming online--almost every other glass website I looked at included specific numbers. I also wasn't exactly thrilled by some of the online complaints I found--none by customers, I should note, but there were a lot of disgruntled former employees (which is, in itself, a questionable source of evidence, but it added to my unease).

To make a long story short (er, shorter), I finally called a local glass company and asked one of their employees (who's been installing windows for 30 years, he tells me--much longer than our salesman had worked for his company) about the company that manufactures the glass. He told me that the glass was good quality, but there were comparable makes of glass that were cheaper. Plus, in his experience, the company selling us the glass tended to overcharge by about 30%. So, Dan and I decided to cancel our contract (luckily we were still within the four day recision deadline).

I was really nervous about this--not that we'd made the wrong decision in changing our minds, but that it meant that I'd have to be confrontational and I am not good at that sort of thing. We dropped the cancellation notice in the mail, but I felt it was only polite to notify the company (and the salesman) in person. I lucked out. The salesman wasn't available, so I left a message; and when I called the company I talked to a secretary who doesn't work on contract, and didn't seem to mind at all. I did get a call later in the day from someone at their headquarters in California, asking if we'd be willing to reconsider if they dropped the price another $1500. No, thank you, I said, and explained some of the reasons I noted above.

At any rate, I'm somewhat humbled by how easily Dan and I were sweet-talked into something that we hadn't originally planned on doing. I've always known that words have power--I suppose this just serves as a much-needed reminder that I need to be a little more cautious when confronting said words.


Those of you who know our kids know that they don't tend to have much hair before about 18 months. This was never really a problem with Andrew, but I have to admit that sometimes I have to fight the acrimonious stings of envy when I look at other little girls, girls Evelyn's age, and their bountiful locks, hair bows, and intricate hair-dos. All we've managed to do so far with Evelyn is a little fountain shooting straight up from her head. While this is cute, it makes her seem a good year or so younger than she actually is.

But not any more. This week, at story time (a story time that nearly didn't happen for our family, since my son was in the grips of a fearsome temper tantrum. His mom wasn't much happier. But that's another story), I saw a little girl about Evelyn's age whose hair, like Evelyn's, was still a little sparse. But she had these two darling pigtails sprouting from the back of her head. It occurred to me, as I studied this girl's hair surreptitiously, that I could do something like that with Evelyn's mullet.

So we did. This is what it looked like. (Not that I'm proud of myself, or anything!)


The pigtails are barely visible--but they're there, and there are two of them.

Finally, since we've been talking up our vegetable co-op to all and sundry, here's a picture of our haul this week. We ordered an extra basket this week (Asian), so not all of this is from their basic package. But here's what we took home: (in the basic basket, which costs $15): 7 apples, 4 oranges (not quite blood oranges, but deeper hued than typical ones), 3 lemons, green onions, a 5-lb bag of potatoes, strawberries, bananas, swiss chard, 2 packets of asparagus, two bags of baby carrots, and a whole bunch of mini-cucumbers. In the additional Asian pack, we got Nappa cabbage, bok choy, snow peas, mushrooms, ginger, garlic, cilantro, basil, and a coconut (for an additional $9). So, all this for $25. Not bad, eh? If my little description here has managed to persuade anyone else to try this group, they have sites in Utah, Idaho, and Arizona, and the name is Bountiful Baskets. They usually have their sign-ups on Monday or Tuesday for Saturday pick-up. So far, we've been pretty pleased with everything we've gotten.

Andrew sound-bite

Bubby watched the kids again today, while I was teaching my class. She's been cleaning (her house and mine!) so she brought some old album's of Dan's for us to store. Andrew and I had fun looking at pictures of Dan as a little boy--I keep searching the pictures for signs of my children. I see some of Dan's expressions in Andrew, but Andrew still looks more like a Collings to me.

However. Tonight after baths Andrew and I were looking into the mirror in my room, and I asked Andrew who he looked more like: me or his dad.

With no hesitation, Andrew said, "Daddy."

When I asked why, he said, "Because Daddy and I both have little hair and big ears."

****

And, just because I'm posting, I wanted to add one of those little mundane details that I always forget to record, but that years from now I'm sure I won't remember. Every night at bedtime we have our rituals. Usually, this means that we read the kids books while they have some sort of drink (amazingly enough--knock on wood--we've never had nocturnal accidents with Andrew, despite this routine). Then we brush teeth, sing a song or two to the kids, and put them to bed. Since the kids currently have different bedtimes, we do this routine separately--Dan puts Andrew to bed, and I put Evelyn to bed. While Andrew likes to choose his bedtime stories, Evelyn likes to have the same three stories every night. And if I try to skip one, she lets me know.

Her stories are: Dog, Princesses (the first two are touchy-feely books that she got for Christmas), and Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes (a charming rhyming book by Mem Fox).
We read these every night. Evelyn calls the last one "Babies" (because it's all about babies). Tonight, Dan read her Ten Little Fingers while I was getting Andrew into his pjs. When we switched off with the kids, I assumed that I could skip that one, since she'd heard it a bare ten minutes ago. But no. As soon as I finished the others, she started looking frantic and repeating insistently, "Babies! Babies!" But at least I know she likes books.

A winter survival guide

It's snowing. Again.

I know I shouldn't complain, we need the moisture, etcetera. But I am starting to get tired of winter and would really like some nice weather so I and my cabin-fevered children can get out of the house a little more (and not just to go shopping, since we all know how much my children love that). The weather did warm up a little this week, for just a few days, but that brief reprieve is almost more frustrating than it was worth, as it reminded us, tantalizingly, how nice it was to be outside for longer than ten minutes without freezing. (Of course, the freezing thing may just be me, since it doesn't seem to bother my kids any).

So, what do we do, when we're stuck inside, you ask? Well, in the spirit of the how-to essays many of my students are working on, here's how-to winter survival guide. Sort of.

First, find a project that will keep your oldest happily engrossed. The youngest one pretty much takes care of herself, but if the oldest is bored, he will give you no end of grief. Luckily, we have a few of these projects around. He still plays with is trio sets on a daily basis: recently he's created dinosaurs, birds, fish (and the aquarium for them) and today I think it was a "tiger mouth catcher," whatever that is. Of course, in the process he manages to scatter the unwanted pieces from one end of the basement to the next, but that's a small price to pay for a few minutes of peace. Other things that work: pipe cleaners, a wad of papers and scissors (he played happily for an hour and a half the other day with paper, scissors, and tape and made himself some kind of doll house. It was lopsided and kept falling over, so I had to perform some surgery), home-made playdough, etc.

This, in case you can't tell, is a condor (note the longish neck and the wide wings).

And this is a stegosaurus, complete to the four tail spikes.


Second, rechannel your inner (or outer, as the case may be) child by rediscovering the dress-up box. Dress-ups are much more fun around our house now that Evelyn is starting to join in. The other day she wandered around the house for some time in the morning roaring delightedly at anything she could see (see video below). I think she thought she was a dinosaur, but since Andrew was wearing our sole dinosaur costume, she had to settle for something else that roared.


Andrew, as a super-hero-dactyl.


When Andrew finally abandoned his costume to be a real superhero, Evelyn was quick to take advantage of it. The costume drowns her (it's a good six inches too long in the legs), but she didn't care. Her mom, however, wishes we had something more her size. Anyone have a used dinosaur costume that they aren't currently using?

Andrew, preparing for his superman jump.

Third, check local events. On Thursday, Andrew came home spouting something about a big party on Saturday that he was invited to. Since we've had our share of imaginary invites recently, I asked him if he had an invitation. He said he wasn't sure. So I asked if the girl who invited him had her parents' permission to invite him to a party. He told me that he didn't know if the girl had parents. Of course she had parents, I insisted. No, Andrew said, he wasn't sure if she was a big girl or still a kid girl. I'm still not entirely sure what he meant by that, but I gathered that whoever made the announcement about the "party" wasn't a student in his class or a teacher. A quick perusal of Andrew's backpack revealed that there was, in fact, a "party" on Saturday--but it was actually a children's Opera, where a local orchestra performs several operatic pieces and then the kids get to go downstairs to make masks and perform science experiments. We duly went (well, Andrew and I went while Evelyn slept). Andrew endured the music (we were late anyway, so he only had to sit through three pieces), but he loved the hands-on stuff downstairs. He even (unfortunately) discovered the joys of paper dolls, and has since been pestering me to help him make more.

Oh, and the local library's story time is also a good option.

Fourth, go outside anyway. I had to wade through snow to get the bikes out of the shed, but the kids seemed to enjoy it. Luckily, this time Andrew learned his lesson about staying close to the house. (Last time, he took off on his trike and was almost down to the end of the street before I managed to collar a neighbor girl on a bike and asked her to ride him down--I couldn't chase after him with Evelyn--and tell him his mom said to come back. Needless to say, we had a very detailed conversation about where Andrew can and cannot ride his trike if he wants to maintain his riding privileges). Bikes are, incidentally, one of Evelyn's new favorite things. Every time we go to Walmart (which is more often than I'd like, but our shopping options are limited here), as soon as we turn down the wide aisle that leads to the toys, her entire body lights up and she exclaims, "Bikes! bikes!" And she sure thinks she is hot stuff when she gets to ride Andrew's toys, like his scooter or his trike (but only when Andrew isn't using them, since, as it turns out, he's still fairly territorial about them!).



Finally, when all else fails, there's always Dinosaur Train. Or Backyardigans.


If you listen carefully at the beginning, you can hear Evelyn's roar. She's sure developing a funny vocabulary. My favorite at the moment is "down me" (for getting put down *and* for getting picked up). It reminds me of Andrew at the same age, when he relied heavily on "pick a down" for the same thing.






Run away! run away!

Happy Valentines Day!

I'll start right off by saying that unfortunately, we have no pictures this week. (The camera is currently packed in one of our suitcases downstairs). And, like most things in life, today hasn't exactly gone according to plan.

To celebrate the three day holiday, we decided to come up north to visit family (we haven't been up since New Years). And of course, Evelyn chose this week to get sick. (I should have known better--a full month of healthy kids is definitely tempting fate this time of year). So it wasn't until Friday that we decided for sure to come. Since she's still getting over her cold, she stayed with me yesterday, and we went shopping with grandma while Dan and Andrew went up to SLC to visit with Sarah and her family. The plan was to go up again tonight (when Bubby and Poppy were to be in town), but just before naptime I noticed that Evelyn had fluid coming out her right ear and it was nasty and crusty. Ugh. So, once again Dan went solo with Andrew and Evelyn and I spent three hours at Insta Care. That's right: Three. (Sadly enough, if we'd come in two hours later, we probably would have been seen at the same time, given the way the crowd shifted). The diagnosis: an outer (and probably inner) ear infection. At least, the doctor tells me, the tubes in her ears will keep her from feeling too much pain since the reduce the pressure in her ears.

Other than that, we've enjoyed taking things a little easier, and watching the Olympics (some of the special effects for the opening ceremonies were, we thought, fantastic, although I'm not a huge fan of the punk clogging.)

Hoping all of you are having a good valentines! If it's not as romantic as you were hoping, maybe you can take solace in knowing that you are loved.

updates

We really don't have much to say this week (or any pictures to post), but I want to keep good habits alive while they last.

Of note from this week: Bubby and Poppy have deserted all of us to play (er, work) in San Diego while Poppy is at a conference. This meant, of course, that we had to find a new babysitter for Andrew and Evelyn while I taught on Thursday. I asked my visiting teacher, who has frequently offered to watch my kids, and she and Andrew got along great. (By "great," I mean that Andrew had her drawing up a storm of robots while he colored and cut them out. It's funny to me how well Andrew manages to arrange things for his satisfaction). The only downside of all this was that, as "Jo Jo" (that's what she asked Andrew to call her) was preparing to leave, Andrew invited her to a party. Neither of us took much notice of this, since I knew we weren't really having a party. What I didn't know, was that Andrew was serious in his invitation--so much so that the next afternoon he spent part of his quiet time making party hats and, when two o'clock rolled around and Jo Jo hadn't shown up, he cried disconsolately. Poor kid.

On Wednesday Dan and I went to parent-teacher conferences at Andrew's pre-school. (I wonder if any of the other parents showed up together, like we did?). I suppose I was secretly hoping that the teacher would gush about how smart and wonderful Andrew is, but she (wisely, I think) didn't. Instead, she just explained how he's doing in their testing. Since much of the testing is designed for special needs children (which is the main focus of the preschool, although they do have several "normal" tuition paying children, like Andrew, in each class), some of the questions were pretty funny (at least, in connection with Andrew), like, "does he use sentences of at least four words," which Andrew has been doing for the past two years. But, he does need to work on fine motor skills, like holding a pencil correctly, coloring inside the lines, and tracing shapes. He knows how to do it, he just refuses to take his time on anything that doesn't really interest him. (Hmm. I don't know anyone else like that!)

Tuesday after class, I gave a short presentation on rhetoric and argument for the other English department faculty. I had volunteered to do this in--apparently--a fit of insanity and then stressed about whether or not I'd actually be able to introduce them to anything new. Apparently, I could, and did. It actually went pretty well, so I had the pleasure of knowing that at least the department doesn't think that I'm too stupid.

What else can I say? (If you're bored out of your mind at this point, I can only say that it's your own fault. You didn't have to read this. And you should know that the main purpose for this blog is to act as a kind of family journal. Of course, a large secondary purpose is to keep friends and family connected with our lives, but we never promised that everything had to be interesting.)

In other news, we drove down to SG yesterday for the sole purpose of picking up the pictures that had come in (I don't know that we'll be doing this often). Andrew fell asleep in the car, so he slept while Dan graded exams and Evelyn and I went shopping at the outlet mall (but didn't buy anything). Exciting, no? And then we drove home in a rainstorm.

I'm looking forward to the last installment of Emma tonight on PBS. If you've missed it so far, it's not too late to check it out (after all, there isn't anything really surprising in the story line, especially if you've seen any of the other movie adaptations, or, of course, read the book . . .)

*****
Afterthought: This week, Dan and I participated for the second time in a local produce coop. We were pretty impressed the first time, so this time we added an extra item (a "party pack") to our order. For the price of $23 (including tax), we came home yesterday with a large laundry basket full of corn on the cob (6 ears), lettuce, mandarin oranges (about eight), four Asian pears, asparagus, six heads of garlic, apples, a pineapple, bananas, winter squash, cauliflower, and a jicama (I'm still trying to figure out what to do with that). In the "party pack," we got celery, some key limes, cilantro, a bunch of avocados, baby carrots and grape tomatoes. Pretty good haul, I think. The trick, of course, is that you don't get to choose what produce you get--everyone who contributes in a given week gets the same things. But so far it has been considerably less than we would pay in the grocery store, and the produce has all been high quality. (Because so many people commit to buy from the coop in a given week, it can get the stuff directly from the distributor, thus the reduced prices). In addition, having all this produce on hand has really encouraged us to eat more vegetables, and to try new things. If any of you are interested, the company is called Bountiful Baskets Food Co-op and they have distribution sites in Utah, Idaho, Arizona, and Washington. You can access their site here.

Personal Records

So, I've been trying to run more regularly the last five months or so. Tonight, I decided to push myself just a little and see if I could run five miles (usually I just run three--and I can't honestly remember if I've ever run five miles before. I'm not exactly what you'd call the athletic type!). Surprisingly enough, I could. Even more surprisingly (for me, at least), I set one of my better times--49:52 for the whole five. Not exactly record times, but I was pleased with them.