Lots of Little Things
January 23, 2003 – 11:08 amMonday, Jan. 20 was a holiday for me. My plan was to spend most of the day doing homework. My kitchen sink had other plans, however. It developed a nasty leak; I think it was Thursday or Friday. I got out the flashlight and got down and looked around underneath and discovered that the leak was coming from the bottom of the sink itself, not from any of the pipes. Let me take this opportunity to admit that I know very little about plumbing. I know what a wrench looks like; I know “lefty Lucy, righty tighty;” I know how to use that white, Teflon plumbers tape; I can change a shower head; I’ve fiddled around with toilet mechanisms, just enough to know how to adjust the float to make it stop running. That’s about it. Looking under the sink, I knew it was out of my league. Plumbers are expensive, so I did the next best thing: I called dad. Well, I called Jen’s dad – my dad lives in Illinois and knows as much about plumbing as I do, possibly less. Bill said, “I’ll come over and we’ll take a look at it.” I figured he’d come over, we’d get to work, and it would be squared away in 2-3 hours, tops. Uh huh, right.
Bill arrived around noon and we got to work. Well, he got to work. I got to hold the flashlight. I felt like I was 10 years old. It wasn’t the most manly experience, but I really did learn a lot from him that day. I honestly don’t remember my dad teaching me much stuff like that. I don’t know if it was because he didn’t know, didn’t want to, or if I just never wanted to learn. I want to be able to teach Liam how do do all that stuff that I never learned how to do. That means I have to learn it now.
Anyway, 6 hours, 3 trips to the hardware store, 3 big macs, and $75 later, we still had leaks. The house was built in the 1940s and the pipes were cast iron and had been jerry-rigged by my wife’s uncle and/or grandfather, who owned the house before us. We replaced the cast iron with PVC. The nipple (no giggling) that led out through the wall was rusted pretty much through and needed to be replaced. That was beyond our abilities with the tools we had. So, Tuesday, we got the plumber out there. He replaced the nipple, replaced the faucet fixture, fixed the PVC connections, rooted the outlet pipe, and charged us over $600. No, I didn’t accidentally type too many zeros, it was six hundred dollars. I almost made a mess in my pants. Bill, thank goodness, put it on his charge card. It wouldn’t have got done otherwise. I know he’ll probably try to resist us paying him back because he felt responsible for not being able to fix it on Monday. I’ll get sneaky if I have to. I’m a homeowner now and I hate the feeling of having to run to my parents for help every time something unexpected happens. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate everything Jen’s parents do for us, because I really do, and I hope they know that.
In baby news, Liam started eating cereal the other day. The box says “Rice Cereal” on it, but once it gets mixed up it’s really more like grainy formula that you feed him with a spoon. Before Liam was born, we bought him a Babee Tenda Safety Feeding Table. They are supposed to last forever, and they should because they cost an arm and a leg. It’s a feeding table that is supposed to be much safer and stable than a high chair. It’s got a big flat table area that slides in and out for baby insertion. When the baby is older you flip the table top over and it’s a chalk board and the feeding table becomes more of a play area. Anyway, the first time Liam was in the table he sat there banging his hands on the table. Not on purpose really, more because he has little or no control over his limbs. He may be pretending this lack of control so he can get away with smacking the snot out of me every time I hold him or come close to him. When Jen fed him his first bowl of rice cereal he would just suck on the spoon like it was a bottle. Then he got impatient because the food wasn’t coming fast enough. That and most of it was ending on him rather than in him. A couple times his spastic arm movements knocked over the cereal and there was a sizable pool on his table. All things considered I think it was a success. The few times he’s eaten his cereal since, things have gone much better. He still bangs his hands on the table like a maniac, but now he’s getting more food into his mouth and he’s not sucking on the spoon as much.
He has really been a lot of fun lately. He laughs at just about anything, including clapping hands, peek-a-boo, me saying, “he dewe little Buddy!” when I get home, and “flying” above my head. He’s kind of a stinker sometimes in the evening, probably his gums are sore, or could be he’s just plain tired but doesn’t want to sleep for fear of missing out on something fun.
Interestingly, he won’t take his pacifier anymore. It’s like one day he just decided he didn’t want it. At first we thought maybe the sucking action hurt his gums, but he has no problem sucking on bottles. It’s funny: I put the pacifier in his mouth and he sucks it once or twice and then spits it out with this look that says, “what are you trying to pull, Dad? You know I’m too big to have a pacifier.”
I can’t tell you how much I love being Liam’s dad. When I get home from work all I want to do is hold him and squeeze him and love him and kiss him. He usually tires of it after a while, but I don’t and I’m the boss (I think) so he mostly just has to endure it. I think my beard tickles him a little and there have been a few times where he puts his mouth on my chin to check it out and I’m left with a wet chin, which I don’t always realize right away, until I go to scratch or something and come away with a slobbery hand.
4 Responses to “Lots of Little Things”
hi! i just wanted to let you know it’s a pure joy to find a father who loves his child so much! i have enjoyed visiting your site and learning about sweet liam. my husband and i are going through infertility issues, trying to get pregnant. it’s very hard but we know when we do have a baby it will be very loved.
God bless you, jen and liam!
By jenn on Jan 24, 2003
when my boys were babes, i would get home from work and that talking heads song (all night long?) would pop into my head…
mama, mama, he’s just a plaything,
i wanna make him stay up all night…
By griff on Jan 29, 2003
Please read this about Babee Tenda. I knew their company was pretty scammy, the way they did business at high pressure, scare seminars, but I cannot believe the evidence of corruption I just found about a company that claims to be completely safe! Babee Tenda, you may know, is a company that claims to make baby products that are safter than all the rest. So safe that they charge 300-400 dollars more for them, and don’t even sell them in stores- but have ‘saftey seminars’ in which they hand out mostly misleading and outdated statistics to smear other companies and scare parents into buying their own products.
But are their own products safe? I don’t think so! Read this!
I did a search on Google for “Baby Tenda” and came up with the legal records of this lawsuit…looks like Babee Tenda is not as spotless as they would presume!
The lawsuit records can be found here:
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:n8qLy8kniuQJ:www.oalj.dol.gov/public/wblower/decsn/01caa04a.htm+babee+tenda&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
(It is a very long page, so you must let it load for about 5 minutes or so.)
So you don’t have to read the whole thing, I’ll summarize: a woman named Christine Evans sued Baby Tenda company after they fired her… because she reported them to OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) because of this…
(Scroll down to where it says “Christine Evans” and then gives this testimony about the conditions of the Baby Tenda facility.)
“Within the first few months of her employment, Complainant became concerned about work conditions and notified OSHA about those concerns (TR 230). Specifically, Complainant cited three safety issues to OSHA. The first addressed the lack of guard catches on some of the equipment, the second addressed an employee on the job injury, and the third, paint fumes escaping from the plant to the outside air (TR 231).1 Complainant described the paint room as a large open room with nothing more than a piece of plastic covering one open doorway with the door at the opposite end being open most of the time (TR 231).”
Then the suit goes on to explain that asbestos were also found in the plant, and their dust was covering their products, and they knew they were there. ASBESTOS! Cancer causing material… in the same plant that makes BABY PRODUCTS! HM, sounds like Babee Tenda is not so safe after all. I cannot believe this is not a national news story. I will be contacting some newspapers about this.
” Annette Beluga is a former employee of Baby-Tenda. She worked for Respondent in shipping and receiving for approximately two years and left due to the asbestos in the plant (TR 156). Ms. Beluga felt it was morally wrong to send out goods that she felt were covered with asbestos dust (TR 158). Ms. Beluga stated that the employees talked to one another all the time, as the atmosphere was very lax (TR 159).”
” Ms. Jeter quit her employment with Respondent in March of 2000. Ms. Jeter stated that the reason she quit was because asbestos was being illegally removed from the plant and that she feared for her safety and the safety of her family (TR 71). Ms. Jeter knew that the insulation contained asbestos as she removed a sample of the insulation on or about March 7, 2000, which was her last day of employment for Respondent, and had the sample tested (TR 73).”
“Mr. Gilbertson is currently employed at Westfield Apple, and has been there for approximately a year and a half (TR 111). Prior to that time, Mr. Gilbertson worked for Baby-Tenda. Mr. Gilbertson worked in various parts of the plant and characterized the work environment as lax, that the employees constantly talked with one another and were out of their work stations regularly (TR 112). Mr. Gilbertson stated that he left Baby-Tenda because he had a new born baby and was fearful of bringing home asbestos due to the removal of asbestos at the plant (TR 121).”
Then, the piece de resistance….the president of Baby Tenda, Mr. Jurgensen, the man you would expect would be shocked about all of this… tried to cover it up. He ordered his employees to cover it up too. One of the quotes:
“Mr. Gilbertson admitted to covering up a table saw before the October 1999 OSHA inspection (TR 114). This was done on direct orders from Mr. Jungerman to Mr. Gilbertson, because a Baby-Tenda employee had been seriously injured operating one of the saws (TR 113). Mr. Gilbertson admitted to deliberately concealing the covered saw from OSHA (TR 116).”
She (Ms. Evans) won the lawsuit, btw…. so this is all proven true. If you are thinking of buying Baby Tenda, I would SERIOUSLY think again. Your baby’s health may be at risk. If you bought their products and intend to keep them, you’d better look up what to do about asbestos contaminated products.
My own opinion of Babee Tenda: (and except for what has been proven in court, this post is my opinion and soley my opinion, posted with the intention and hope that it may help save children’s lives.)
Their practices are shady at best. They operate by putting on what they call ‘saftey seminars’- which are free, of course- but which are not really, because they are a thinly disguised way of pressuring people to buy the Babee Tenda line of products, which are overpriced and have little extra benefit to them. During their ‘class’ they present people with a packet of outdated and misleading saftey statisics, in order to encourage people to fear buying anything but the Babee Tenda line.
Something to consider is this: if Babee Tenda “doesn’t sell to the public…” (as they claim) then why do so many people have their products? Aren’t we a part of the public?
They do sell to the public. At their seminars. That’s ALL they sell to, scared parents that they make scared with outdated statistics at their seminars. They want you to THINK that they don’t generally sell to the public, because that improves their image and credibility. Time-share scams operate in a similar manner. Free seminar at a local hotel. Tons of pressure to buy afterward.
Another thing to consider is, if Babee Tenda is so concerned about the saftey of babies, why don’t they mass market their products and put them in Wal-Mart, in Babies R’Us, etc? Many more people would be able to benefit if their claims were true, right? Because Babee Tenda would just trounce all the competition with their supersafe products. But no, Babee Tenda can’t work that way… because they don’t want you to be able to compare prices between their crib and the others, especially when there IS NOTHING WRONG with the others. Also, Babee Tenda cannot sell unless they get you into the high-pressure environment and then scare you.
Whenever someone tries to pressure you into doing something, try to see what they will benefit out of it. Babee Tenda benefits greatly by the extra 300-400 dollars they get from each customer. They would NOT benefit if they marketed themselves as many other honest companies do-direct selling, which allows you to compare product quality and price.
Many people who buy Babee Tenda state proudly that they “got a free ____ with the purchase of my stroller”… it was only $899! Only $1000! Prices and ‘free offers’ vary from state to state, according to city and how much Babee Tenda thinks it can milk out of people. But the truth is, if you bought a stroller and feeding table from a reliable brand name company (that is NOT unsafe, regardless of what Babee Tenda says) you would probably pay around $600. So they’re making $300 off you, because you allowed yourself to be scared by outdated statisics, and in some cases, outright lies. Would you like to keep that $300? Are you so rich that you can toss around money for no reason, when Consumer Reports, Baby Bargains, and the Consumer Products Saftey Commission have ALL found these other brand-name products safe, like Fisher Price, Evenflow, etc? They may have recalled other models in the past (which are the source of the statistics Babee Tenda is showing you.)
But of course, Babee Tenda doesn’t want you to realize that. They don’t want you to think- they want you to focus on your fear. You can make a choice- between allowing yourself to be scammed by companies like these, or putting your foot down and using common sense. Your baby will thank you, because you will be saving money for his or her future. And trust me, he or she will get there safely enough, if you simply use common sense and read recall notices. If you continue to allow yourself to be scammed, your baby is in for a rough life. Because the next scam you fall for will probably be bigger, and take even more of your money.
By Marie on Dec 11, 2003
I just sold my Babee Tenda furniture set. It sold very fast. Regarding that asbestos internet post. This person quotes from a Workers Compensation Case from 5 years ago. What is quoted comes from the upset former employee trying to get back at Babee Tenda. This internet poster (might be the same as the former employee) paraphrases quotes from what the upset employee
By John Rhodes on Jan 3, 2004