Watch Mama Have a Coronary

Popsicles, milk shakes, popsicles, yogurt, popsicles, applesauce and popsicles.

Why? you ask.  Because my son bit through his own face in a freak accident involving a ballet barre that dislodged from the wall and a window sill into which he subsequently did a face plant. The net result: four hours in the E.R., stitches both inside and outside his mouth, a tooth removal (thankfully, only a baby tooth) the next day, 7 days of antibiotics, and enough cheek swelling that he could have auditioned to be the The Godfather's MiniMe.

The only reason I can write about this in any kind of light-hearted way now is that the stitches are already out, and by Saturday, he was completely back to being himself. I have never been so happy to watch my children aggravate each other.

"Isn't it crazy that no one even bought the one thing we had at our garage sale that was FREE?! No one. I mean, vacuums cost thousands of dollars, and no one even took our free one."

And that, my friends, with an extra added dose of heated, humid hotness, pretty much sums up our garage sale success this weekend.

I've concluded that garage sales are only worth the effort if you can guarantee gorgeous weather the day of.  Prepping can be efficient if you do it as you clean over the course of a couple of weeks. But housewares (even free ones) don't sell. All the baby gear could be more easily sold at a Mom2Mom sale. And despite oppressive humidity and unpleasant heat and big crowds (it was a subdivision-wide sale day), the kids' lemonade stand did a poor business.

The best part of a garage sale, it turns out, is that your neighbors stop by, and you get to have lots of social time in between sales. 

You, too, can play pastry chef.

Turns out, the work that goes into baking a giant "wedding" cake for the kindergartners to eat after their teacher's wedding, to which they have been invited for the ceremony only, so obviously, there will need to be an alternative "reception" in a park somewhere with a giant confection in white? Totally worth it.

I broke up with my laundry soap.

Oh, I was faithful to Seventh Generation lavendar and eucalyptus, biodegradable, good-for-the-environment, conscientious, crazy expensive laundry soap for a good long time. But although (because?) I adored its clean, fresh smell, I didn't like that the smell lingered not at all in the clean laundry once it was dry. And the pricetag? I did not love.

Then I came across a tiny pump bottle of Method laundry soap, promising to be ultra-concentrated, and biodegradable, and 95% made of plant materials, and superior in its cleaning power, and only four pumps to do a whole load of wash. Also, the packaging is about the size of a salad dressing bottle, which I like because I am nothing if not a half-passive environmentalist (meaning: I like to do my part, but I like to do it even better when it's easy). Also? It was half the price of the Fancy Schmancy Expensive Brand. So I bought it.

It passed the dried blood and red popsicle drips test earlier this week. I'm permanently sold.

Because awesome readers deserve props...

Comment of the Week this week goes to Melanie, perhaps the newest reader here, and someone who totally got my sense of how children can be babies, school-aged, and grown all at once. Thanks for reading, Melanie!