It sounds really official and important, doesn’t it? I recently received “an important survey conducted by the Research Institute of Mother and Child Care.” In the cover letter, I read that the Institute has been conducting these surveys for over 50 years. Impressive, right? This must be important work if they’ve been doing it so long. Or not. After a bit of digging, I found this is not an independent scientific organization, it’s part of Abbott Labs, the pharmaceutical company that also happens to market Similac baby formula. Of course, that little detail wasn’t actually on the survey or the accompanying cover letter. The letter closes by saying “With your input, our research regarding infant feeding will be as complete, accurate, and useful as possible.” They just fail to mention for whom it will be useful and that they are gathering this information to better market their products.

I have a couple thoughts on this. First, shame on you, Abbott Labs, for your lack of transparency. I have no issues with market research. As a child, I enjoyed the free samples and questionnaires we received in our home because my mom participated in market research programs. Hiding your organization behind an official sounding name like “The Research Institute of Mother and Child Care”? Boo.

Second, they really need to work on their target market. Over the last few months I’ve been receiving formula samples and coupons. Then this survey arrived. The only flaw in their plan is that we do not have any babies in our house. Our youngest child turned 4 in January.

It’s hard to resist putting something heavy in this postage paid return envelope and sending it back in the mail…

After many months, I’m finally about to cave and buy a new cell phone. I’ve had my beloved pink Razr for years. But, the replacement battery isn’t holding a charge any better than the battery that was in it, which tells me it’s the phone that’s sucking the life out of the battery rather than an issue with the battery itself.

As someone who loves shiny new things, I should be thrilled to send this phone away and replace it with something much more 21st century, right? The thing is, though I’ve spent a significant amount of my professional career as an IT geek, I’ve just never been a huge fan of the cell phone. Is it handy to be called at the grocery store and asked to add baking powder to the shopping list? Sure. Does that justify its existence as an object whose apparent purpose is to make one reachable all the time? Not so much.

Now, why doesn’t Verizon offer me something in pink or purple that doesn’t require a $29.99/mo data plan that I have absolutely no use for? If I have to have a new phone, at least give me a girly gadget.

I’m not a huge fan of fast food. There is nothing I want to eat at most of those places, but I have a weakness for Burger King. However, they are quickly moving themselves onto my do not eat there list. (And before you email me telling me the 100s of reasons I shouldn’t eat there, don’t bother, I already know.) Why?

Well, first they changed their kids’ meals from applesauce to apple “fries”. Apple “fries” are apples sliced like french fries with enough preservatives in them to keep them from turning brown. They come with a caramel packet (like a ketchup packet) only stickier. What a mess. And my kids, especially the youngest, liked applesauce. So, add to that the fact that there is an upcharge for these stupid apple “fries”, and I am an unhappy camper.

On Friday, I learned of another change. It used to be when you ordered one of their value meals, they were sized as medium, large and king size. They’ve changed them. Now they are small, medium and large. Not that they have actually changed anything, except that if you go in there and order a medium and think you are getting (and paying for) the smallest size, you actually aren’t. I’m annoyed. Does the average consumer get a warm fuzzy thinking they are eating less because they will now order a large instead of king size when they will still shell out the same amount of money for the same amount of food? Or is this just a ploy so that in another month BK can roll out “King Size” again and offer 4 sizes, with an obscenely large king size and a price point to go with it? What the heck is going on here?

But man does it hurt. The kids decided to sit on the kitchen stools. This would be fine except that they were sitting on the wrong side of the island and the littlest was trying to reach all the buttons on the radio. I told my daughter to get down and as I moved my youngest off the stool he was on, it fell. It fell onto my two little toes. And it really, really hurts. And I yelled. I yelled really, really loud.

My two little toes are much bigger than their counterparts on my other foot. And they are much more black and blue than their counterparts, probably due to the fact that the toes on my other foot are their normal size and color. I am considering banning stools.

This seems like a good enough reason to skip the workout tonight.

We are a week from the election now. Someone calls here at least once a day. Tonight, Paul’s party of choice called, wanting to be sure he goes to vote. Umm, hello, but if you want to remind him of something, you do not tell him a week in advance. A reminder is a day before, at most, otherwise he’s not going to remember. Of course, since I know you will be calling back every day until the election, I’m sure you’ve got that covered.

The caller id says “MN Campaign for”, which is kind of fun since the relevant part of the caller id is missing. So, I answer the phone and say that Paul’s not here right now. The girl on the end of the line then goes into that she was just calling to make sure he’s going to vote, blah de blah… And I said, “Look, you’ve got his vote, and I’m going to vote for whomever stops calling here.” She laughed, and of course, I was only half joking.

I’m so tired of it. How much money has been donated and spent that could have done so much good elsewhere? What if every person or organization that has given money to a campaign instead gave half to the campaign and half to a good cause? What if they matched it one to one? How many mailers do you think I need to get in the mail that tell me women make less than men in the same job? And do you think I didn’t know that before you killed a couple trees to tell me?

I’ve been struggling for a while with what I want to be when I grow up. (My whole life, perhaps??) I currently am a stay home mom, run a little online fabric shop, do some back-end web development, and occasionally sell cloth diapers online. Before I became a stay home mom, I was a web developer/applications programmer in an IT department out in the “real world.” Sometimes I wonder if I could go back to that.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids. I love that my daughter’s learning to read. I love that I’m here when my oldest gets home from school to hear about the cooking of eggs in FACS class (pretty sure this is what we used to call home ec.), the drug of the week/month in Health class (“Mom, did you know that meth is really, really bad?”), and the bus driver who seems to be trying to carve out her one little spot in the world where she has total control (assigned seats, anyone?). I love that my youngest thinks any kind of truck coming down our street is just fabulous, and that a good day is spent playing pretend kitchen, marching like a duck, vacuuming, and making a lego house for dinosaurs.

Sometimes, I just wonder if I could go back. Would anyone even want me back? Or would they just laugh and say, yeah, what you knew how to do was nice five years ago, but we’re onto newer and better things. Five years ago.

My husband is working from home. I’ll be honest – I’m a bit leery of the whole thing. He may claim to be an introvert, but I’ve seen him at work. He does well with other people, and he likes to manage people. Can you do that remotely? Sure, but it’s not the same. I know, I know. I’m a strong proponent of telecommuting, actually. I used to do it. We’ll see.

I must admit, though, it was nice having him home this morning when I went to take our daughter to preschool and the battery was dead on the minivan. (Note – little girls who are strong enough to open car doors are not necessarily strong enough to close them and henceforth will not be opening doors to get things out of the car alone. This is the second time in just a couple weeks that this happened.)

So, here we are again. I did this once before and lost interest after a while. We’ll see how long this lasts.