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Consider it bought.

One of the things I’ve been noticing around home lately is the the singing of all sorts of amazing birds.  I rarely see the birds, but their songs are crystal clear in my ears.  It’s wonderful to wake up to their singing.  And just tonight, one was belting out a tune so clearly that it seemed like the bird was actually inside our home.  It was just so lovely.

No, not that kind of appliance.

I’m talking about kitchen appliances. And not the big ones like refrigerators and dishwashers. No, I’m talking about toasters and blenders.

I’m talking about Breville.

Breville makes some of the best performing, coolest looking, and highest tech small kitchen appliances around.

You got a toaster for your wife on your anniversary?  You spent how much on a blender?

Oh yes.  And I’d do it all again.

But before you write me off completely, allow me to present the evidence:

The BTA820XL

This little number is the one that started it all for us.  3 words:  No toaster handle.  There is no lever to press down.  It is fully motorized.  Put your bread in the slot, press the button, and without a sound the toaster automatically lowers your bread and begins its task.  Curious to see how things are going, then just press the “Lift and Look” button and the toaster will lift the bread and give you a quick peek into its progress.  But you won’t have to wait long; this is the fastest toaster I’ve seen.

Still not convinced?  3 more words:  A Bit More.  Honestly, this was the feature that did me in.  How often has your toaster popped, but you realize that the toast is not quite done enough?  So you jam the lever back down again.  Unfortunately the toaster is still hot, so the stupid little temperature sensor thinks things are all done, and pops the toast right back up.  So you try to outsmart the toaster and give the toasting control a push to the right and mash the lever back down.  This works until you move on to some other part of your breakfast and forget that you’ve just pressed your toaster into the service of turning your bread into charcoal.  Which it does.  And then you’re left with either making a huge mess by scraping the burned layer off with your butter knife, or starting the process all over again.  Bleh!  Not so with The Greatest Toaster On Earth.  Just press the “A Bit More” button.  The BTA820XL dutifully, quickly, and in a fully automatically motorized way returns your not-quite-there-yet toast to the heat.  And what do you get?  In a few moments — your toast with “A Bit More.”

The BBL600XL

компютри

This blender continues the love with more great design, more high-tech buttons and an LCD readout.  Yes, yes, it blends well, is sturdy, and has a powerful 750 watt motor and all the usual blender features.  But it also has a smoothie button.  What’s the big deal?  Don’t most blenders have different buttons with things like “puree” and “liquify” on them?  Yes, they do.  But most blenders aren’t this blender.  You see, the smoothie button activates the automated smoothie program in the eerily smart brain of the BBL600XL.  The LCD countdown timer starts and the blender gets to work.  While swirling your bananas, frozen strawberries, and whatever else you’ve stuffed into its gullet, the blender actually detects chunks of ice and measures the consistency of the smoothie to continually adjust the speed and spin pattern of the blades.  Seriously.  I’m not making this up.  Nor have I fallen victim to clever marketing.  I’ve tested the thing.  When it hits a block of ice or a frozen chunk of fruit, it will almost seem to attack the thing, keeping it in the blades until it has been obliterated.  If your mixture is a little thick or a little thin, the blender will adjust, delivering to you — at the end of the countdown — a smoothie that lives up to its name.

Reid presented his science fair project at the Blossom Hill School open house along with all the other K-5 students who participated.  He choose the topic for himself:  “How Do On and Off Switches Work?”  Amy and I helped with research, and I worked with him on creation of the presentation which included a working model of an on and off switch.  He was very proud (as were we).  Here are his findings:

Electricity flows in wires.  Wires are made of metal.  Metal is a conductor.  Wires are wrapped in a coating.  Coating is insulation.

Switches turn on and off.  Electricity flows when the wire is connected.  When the switch is off, the circuit stops flowing.

by Reid Parham

And

For this project I learned about:

• Math
• Measuring
• Models
• Scientific method
• Scientists are careful and clean
• Electricity flows in wire
• Wires have
• Metal = Conductor
• Plastic = Insulator
• Switches allow or stop electricity flow

Mother’s Day is our annual opportunity to honor our mothers. For me that usually includes a card, flowers or some other gift along with a phone call to mom to tell her that I love and miss her. I’ve gotten relatively reliable with these things of late, though in many past years I’ve honored my mother by feeling horribly guilty that I completely forgot that it was Mother’s Day. This year in honor of Mom — even though I did remember to send flowers well in advance — I’m also working to consolidate all those digital photos that we haven’t been posting over the past several months. More guilty motivation.

All that guilt and all those gifts make Mother’s Day one of the most commercial holidays of the year. According to IBISWorld (via Wikipedia), a publisher of business research, Americans will spend approximately $2.6 billion on flowers, $1.53 billion on pampering gifts — like spa treatments — and another $68 million on greeting cards. According to the National Restaurant Association (also via Wikipedia), Mother’s Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States. We’re expected to spend close to $3.51 billion in 2008 on dining out for Mother’s Day.

But Mother’s Day is not just another Hallmark holiday. You may not know that Mother’s Day in the United States was started by Julia Ward Howe as a call to unite women against war. Which war? The American Civil War. Nice thought, but apparently we still haven’t learned much from Ms. Howe. On Mother’s Day this year, in addition to the billions we’ll spend on gifts for Mom, we’ll also spend $720 million on the continuing war in Iraq. We’ll spend it again tomorrow. And again the day after. All that adds up to an estimated $3 trillion bill for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But that cost pales in comparison to the nearly 100,000 lives lost so far. How’s that guilty motivation now? This year, in honor of Mom and Mother’s Day, I’ll spend a little more money. But this time it will be spent in the form of a donation to an anti-war organization. Maybe CODEPINK?

Lastly, I received a nice Mother’s Day gift today. Reid, Ava and I were at the grocery store this morning rounding up provisions for a nice breakfast for Amy. We were in the checkout line and the store clerk was carrying on a friendly conversation with us. He looked at Ava in the cart seat and asked, “And how are you?” Ava pointed at something in the cart and said, “I got that.” The clerk replied, “You got that? Well I’m sure Mom will like that.”

It was the first time that Ava has said anything to a stranger that was perfectly understood and replied to. I’m sure Mom will like that. Dad did too.

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Addendum: I made two donations in honor of Mom today: One to the Collateral Repair Project to help Iraqi refugees, and one to CODEPINK’s campaigns to end the war in Iraq. Both of them made via the CODEPINK website.

I have found myself relating to Grand Theft Auto IV in much the same way that I used to relate to The Sopranos. That is to say, I’m looking forward to the next installment. GTA4 is the first video game that really pulls off the video-game-as-serial plot. At least for me.  Not that other games haven’t tried. And they’ve been successful in their own way: Many of them I come back to for the next level or the see the next thing. It’s that GTA4 is the first game that has made me care about the plot *and* the characters. I’m genuinely interested in finding out what happens next to the Bellic cousins and their Eastern European crime-infested world. Conincidentally I’m also interested in playing the game. Which is a lot of fun and beautifully done. I guess that’s one of the reasons why video games have outgrown Hollywood in terms of revenue.  And certainly why I’m itching for more.

It’s been an interesting time betwix Ava and I lately. She’s really clingy and I can’t help but think: is it just a typical 3-year-old phase, or does it have something to do with Down syndrome? I think one of the things that has me wondering is that that, up until now, she’s always been the one that has no problem with separation, shoves me away when she gets to school, loves riding the bus and really prefers to do things on her own. And I have to be honest here: it’s really frustrating to be the one that she always wants to be with, to know is around. Admittedly, my patience has been pretty thin.

But therein lies the quandary. The wondering if it’s the phase or the Down syndrome. Because Reid did the same thing. I remember with him, when he was 3, wondering why people always referred to the “terrible two’s” when it was when he was 3 that he really gave me a run for my money.

Sometimes I really struggle with the “is it just Ava or is it Down syndrome?” question. As much as I have accepted her for who she is, it’s still often in the back of my head, and I have to admit, that it really sucks sometimes.

In so many ways, throughout so much of her lifetime, it is she who will be expected to perform more, to do better, to be “ignorant until proven intelligent.” And all from a girl that has one of the keenest perspectives on her life, on others, on teetering the line between normal and different. So it’s times like this, when she’s frustrated that she can’t express everything that she can understand, or communicate in ways that all of us comprehend, that she (understandably) reacts with different means than you or I. That she whines, tugs, hits and struggles to get herself heard in a society that yearns for everyone to mold to the norm.

And so, despite my frustration and lack of patience, I am also beckoning my Catholic upbringing and feeling some guilt about my own feelings. If I, we, don’t believe in her, who the fuck will? And yet, if I don’t allow myself to feel the things that I am feeling, what then?

It seems to be a fragile line sometimes, this whole parenting thing–special needs or not aside (a whole other topic here). That balance between caring for yourself vs. caring for your children/spouse/family. Sometimes I feel on the top of the world, the “Ubermutter,” and other times, well, I just feel like a complete failure. This is one of those times when I find myself perfectly in the middle.

It was highly anticipated. It was very energetic, at one point tense, and twice genuinely tearful. But it was also warm, endearing, nostalgic, rewarding, surprising, and full of friends and family both near and far. In short, it was full of life and one of the best Christmases in memory.

Merry Christmas everyone.

She’s done it before for Amy, and tonight she did it for me. She looked at her name printed on a step stool and signed in ASL the letters a-v-a. Then smiled and pointed at herself.

The extraordinarily cool thing about this is that neither Amy nor I have been practicing signing her name with her.  She’s been practicing signing letters with us, and she’s been working with her name at school, and she’s clearly linked the two.

Awesome.