Hello

This week-weekend featured visits from Aunt Nancy (who gave me acupuncture that made my back pain disappear for 48 hours and then I backed the car into the corner of our building and am now right back where I started, pain-wise. The building is missing a decorative column and the car is missing a taillight), Uncle Sasha and her paramour, Brett.

Then J., the new babysitter (I have three great ones in the stable now!) came to hang out and get a feel for the kids and vice-versa and he was a hit.

Our inspection for the new place was yesterday and there are some dangling water-leakage issues in a couple of walls that will require a good bit of mess to repair, so hopefully they can get it done before we want to move in. I say "dangling" because Cole read the minutes of every condo association meeting for the last three years and they "fixed" it last year. The seller doesn't live there very often and it is a subtle problem so he didn't know about it. Nothing serious. Just annoying.

I would like to write posts about all of these things:

Why big cities are quite possibly "friendlier" than small towns
Why I like having white boys for baby sitters
A nice hair update by request from a reader, especially, how to do the hair of a squirmy 2-year old (like I know)

So, maybe I'll get to that sometime this year.

Meanwhile, I have papers to grade for my online class and the usual Strollerderby stuff (see video of Powell endorsing Obama here) and, oh yeah, a couple of kneebiters clinging to my skirts when they aren't being wheeled about to local playgrounds by various Mary Poppins-types...

Air-kisses to all of you!

Comments

[beate]

I totally agree on the counterintuitive advantage that big cities enjoy over small towns when it comes to friendliness, face-to-face interaction, casual social networks, ease of communicating with strangers, etc. It's the story of my family's life between a small midwestern college town and NYC.

[Gay Dad in PA]

We live in very rural NE Penn and after 10 years have barely broken in -- if you haven't gone to grade school or at least high school here, it is hard to be invited "in." In our personal experience, NYC and Cleveland were both considerably friendlier.
As to hair -- we have a very active 2.5 year old mixed race daughter -- we leave her hair "au naturel" but treat it every day with an oil that I make. I mix sweet almond oil with lavender essential oil. We wet the hair slightly each morning, apply the oil with our fingertips and it looks adorable all day long (ok, ok, I am not impartial!)...we only shampoo and condition once a week. Peace to you and your household.

[Lexie]

Oh, I totally agree about the big city/small town thing. Small town people are wonderful to those in the loop, born there, just like them, what have you. But not so accepting of strangers.

Oh, and I do have a white boy babysitter. He's pretty good. I'm lucky to have a Spanish-speaking hispanic babysitter, too. Who teaches my kids their "Panish words." It is nice to have a few baby sitters in the "stable."

Oh, and if it isn't too personal...how is Uncle David? Did he come with you or did his life take another path. Haven't heard about him for a while.

[Jess]

"Why big cities are quite possibly "friendlier" than small towns"

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well. In my experience many small towns are very clannish, cliquish kind of places.

[Andrew]

I'm really curious why you like white boy babysitters?