June 1st - Summer camp and a super-sonic toilet.

Julia started her first day of summer camp, which is run by my employer. They have a day care facility and run a summer camp for the older kids.

Julia has been a little weird that last few days. When spring break ended, she almost refused to go back to school because, "No one plays with me at recess." We tried to reason to her, but she wouldn't take our reasoning. Then we remembered that she had pulled the same arguments at the end of fall vacation and winter vacation. When I opted to have her teacher talk to us and give reports on it, which we had done previously when Julia had complained about recess (Her teacher was baffled at the complaint. She assured us that Julia plays with a lot of kids), Julia back peddled and decided that she wanted to go to school after all.

She cried off and on the last few days of school last week because she said she loved school. She declared that she was never going to see her teacher and her friends again. She was also distressed that another year had come and gone. Julia is sad that one day she's going to leave us. I assured her that she could live with us while she goes to the local college. She excitedly agreed.

I'm going to hold her to that!

So this morning, Julia was marginally excited. When I picked her up, Julia was pretty tired. By the time bed time rolled around, she declared that she was "soooo tired!"

I mentioned yesterday that I wanted my super sonic toilet. Well I picked one up at the local hardware super store. It's an Eljer Diplomat. While it's the economy purchase, it was rated at a 10 on the flushing scale. An independent water research group tests toilets using a paste that they mold into fecal shapes. The paste is made of soy beans. My new toilet can now flush up to 1000 grams of fecal matter in nothing flat!

I was going to install it tonight, but Laura put her foot down.

"For the love of God and my sanity, just please wait for the weekend!"

I guess super-sonic flushing will have to wait until then. She also threw a monkey wrench into my plans. She is insisting that we put it in the bathroom by the front hallway near Julia's room. I think it's so I'll be forced to not use that one and not the one in our master bedroom. The other benefit is that if we have people over, we no longer have to worry about the toilet backing up.

I know I'm kind of weird about this stuff, but I look at it this way. Last year, we spent about half the amount on an umbrella for our deck along with an umbrella stand. But because our deck is high off the ground, we had many problems with wind gusts. More than once, the umbrella would just soar out of the crappy base and fly off into the yard. Then it snapped in two one day just by the wind knocking it back and forth! This was only after one month of use! Plus it didn't really help with the sun's glare because we'd try to use it near dusk, but the shadows were past the deck, so it was like we never even had an umbrella. We also spent a lot more on shrubs and flowers that died!

At least with this toilet, I'll know that I'm going to get some worry free, quality flushing in!