The fart ad drama continues. I wrote to Google’s ad department about the ad:

Hi, so you want feedback on the ads that are posted on blog sites? The ads make me unhappy! There are fart doll ads on my family blog site! My mom, to whom I have never even said the word "fart," reads this, and there are fart doll ads because I happened to mention my infant daughter's farting in a blog entry. Why couldn't Google have picked up on any one of the other thousands of terms in my blog entries, like potty training, scissors, or rutabaga?

OK, so looking at the ad's related links DID lead me to an incredibly funny fake video of a farting preacher, but still--my mom reads it!

This is what they wrote in reply:

Hello Linnie,

Thank you for taking the time to contact Google AdSense.

The ads that you are referring to and the 'Ads by Google' link on which you clicked are being generated through the Google AdSense program, which delivers relevant text-based Google AdWords ads to content pages. Currently, blogspot.com has an account with AdSense and has chosen to
display targeted ads on certain pages within their site.

If you have any questions or comments regarding the website or the ad placement, please contact the website in question directly.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

So they passed the buck. But then, when I logged on today (and hopefully while you are looking at the site right now), voila! The fart ads have disappeared! Hallelujah!

This amazes me and is only blogworthy because I see it as a small triumph of the human spirit. In this age of electronic anonymity, I actually got the nameless, faceless internet to respond to little ole’ me. Yeeha!

And if any of you missed the preacher video (yeah, I know your type), feel free to e-mail me. I’ll send you the link.

OK so duh, Google, sneaky internet marketing demon extraordinaire, is responsible for the banner ad. This is obvious simply by READING IT, which I eventually did after I got over seeing the phrase "fart doll" every time I opened the page. And now I've just made it worse by mentioning the f-word (NO, NOT THAT ONE) again. Now I bet anyone looking for fart dolls on the internet will be led right to this blog. Well, at least that will widen my demographic beyond just family and friends (a big shout out to ya, Auntie Hilma!).

No, I do not know why the banner ad across the top of my blog is for “pull my finger fart dolls,” unless some sort of sneaky internet marketing demon has been searching for blogs with the word “fart” in them (see the entry for January 7th). I just hope my mom doesn’t see it.

She looks up from the breakfast table this morning, long-haired doll in one hand, scissors in the other. “Mama, please go upstairs so you don’t see what I’m going to do.”

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It Was Only a Matter of Time

Remember what I wrote before, about the scissors and the doll? That was funny, wasn’t it? I’ll bet you laughed your pants off! Ha, ha, HA.

I was on the phone this afternoon with my friend Lisa, and mentioned how quiet the Kid was being up in her room. “She’s probably peeing,” I said, laughing it off. What with our modern laissez-faire potty training, a little pee is no big deal around here these days. In fact, you could walk up to me and pee on my foot, and I wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

She came down after I got off the phone, while I was busy chopping vegetables for dinner. “Mama, I gave the fuzzy lion a haircut, because he wanted less hair.” No biggie, I thought as I concentrated on a particularly slippery slice of squash, it’s her own doll, as long as she doesn’t freak out when the fake hair won’t grow back. But wait a minute, she doesn’t have scissors up in her room, that wouldn’t be safe! And you know how goofy kids are, if she had scissors and was unsupervised, she might just...

CUT HER OWN HAIR. Which is exactly what she did. Why? “The dolls wanted some more hair.” In her room was a small pile of curly brown locks, stuffed into various pieces of dollhouse furniture. If only the dolls would “tell” her to pee on the toilet!

I evened out the sides and the front (“Mama, if you are mad, why are you cutting my hair more?”), but I can’t do anything about the top short of shaving it. She will just be a little goofy-looking for a while. And yes, the scissors are way, way out of reach now.

Quote of the Day

The Kid, upon asking me to start the DVD player again after her snack: “You’re kinda like a ‘pause’ witch.”

Can I Get Worker’s Comp For This?

I saw it when I glanced in the mirror last night before bed. I thought it was just a shadow, but it was enough to make me look twice. Yep, it was indeed...a hickey. On my chin. Guess I let the little Hoover go a bit too far on that one.

While I was putting my sweet child to bed, I needed to run downstairs and get her water bottle. I didn’t feel like lugging the little fist-eater, who was peacefully grinning. “Can I leave her with you for a moment?” I asked the Big Sister (we still need that new moniker, folks!). “You won’t pick her up or anything, right?” “No,” she said casually, “I won’t pick her up. I will just look at her in amazement.”

The Wee One rolled from her back to her front last night. I put her down on the floor while I was making the bed, and when I looked back down a few minutes later there she was, gnawing on the rattle that had been just out of her reach. She’s working on doing it again right now, yodeling away. She also went from her belly to her back this morning, twice. Future Olympic champion, I tell ya.

You know, what with all the high-powered potty negotiation that’s been going on with her older sister lately, I’ve realized that communicating with the babe is really quite simple. She has two primary means of expressing her feelings. One is by high-pitched screaming, which sounds very distressing but translates into, “I am awake, yeeha!” or “I might like a snack/nap/diaper change, if you don’t mind.” The other is by farting, or “tooting,” as we call it in the quistilton household. An expulsion of gas means “I am relaxed and/or pleased.” A really big ripper in conjunction with a look of concentration means “I am so very interested in your face/the cat/a rutabaga,” or “Mom ate a lot of broccoli yesterday.” It’s just refreshing, the simplicity of it all.

Now there's a movie of the big sister on quistilton.com, secret language, new hair and all!

I guess there are some folks who read the blog, but don’t look at the web site. For their information, there is a movie of my leap into the lake on quistilton.com. There is also a little clip of the babe “talking,” though it doesn’t nearly capture the extent of her shrieking capabilities. (“doesn’t nearly”? Did I really graduate from college?)

Big News: The Toddlerita is officially no longer a toddler, at least by my definition. (No more d-i-a-p-e-r-s--a long and horrid story which I might write about someday, or might choose to block out of my memory.) She needs a new name, and we’ll put “Toddlerita” in mothballs until the Wee One can use it. “Preschoolerita” just doesn’t have a ring to it, so I think I need some help on this one. If you have any ideas for the new moniker, e-mail them to me at phin122699(at)yahoo.com.

While you’re tripping about on the web, check out the newest pics on quistilton.com. My favorite is the one where the big sister looks like a jaded Vegas starlet.

I feel like I’ve been stuck in a rut for, say, the last ten years or so. It’s not that I haven’t done anything--I got married, had two kids, and earned a (minimally challenging) master’s degree. But during the nineties, while my two sisters were earning, respectively, a medical degree and a Ph.D. in social psychology, and my brother was studying in Venice, I spent an inordinate amount of time warming the bench at Red Robin, downing Happy Hour appetizer specials. Let’s just say my life has lacked a certain zest.

The New Year is always a time that is ripe for change, and perhaps the coincidence of my recent thirtieth birthday spurred me to action. Whatever my motivation, I decided that the inaugural event for my new life of high adventure would be a Polar Bear Swim. What is a Polar Bear Swim, you ask? It is a bizarre tradition started by jokers who enjoy watching stupid people make fools of themselves. In the middle of the winter, groups of people (the aforementioned “fools”) leap into frigid bodies of water, wearing nothing more than underwear. These people then cavort amid the ice floes, often loudly stating to bystanders how “invigorating” and “rejuvenating” the water feels. The resulting human popsicles are then removed from the water and fed to the local zoo’s polar bears as a special New Year’s treat.

On New Year’s Eve, I called the event organizer. She sounded jolly and hardy. “Should I bring anything?” I asked. “Well, uh, maybe a towel to dry off with,” she said, obviously thinking I had pudding for brains. “Um, yeah I know, but it said in the paper to call this number for more information. Is there more information?” “Oh, we just want to get people’s names.” Probably so she can record them on her stupid fool quota sheet, I thought. “It’s gonna be great--surefire cure for a hangover, man.” Man? Hangover? Was I out of my coolness league? I’m lucky if I can see Dick Clark through until midnight, dude. “We’ll bring an axe in case we have to chop through the ice,” she said.

I called my Brazilian friend Vivi to tell her what I was doing. “Swim...in the Cayuga Lake? Tomorrow?” she asked. I could tell she thought she was just misunderstanding me, thinking, Americans aren’t really that dumb, are they? I don’t know the Portuguese phrase for “flaming idiot” so I just explained it again, slowly. She burst out laughing. “I will come watch you! I need to see this! You must drink whiskey!”

A dull sense of dread crept through my body starting the afternoon before the plunge. To distract myself I started looking for my bathing suit, a sporty number I bought when I was training for a triathlon in Seattle. Pulling it out of the closet, I shuddered involuntarily, remembering how little protection the skimpy material had provided when I swam in Lake Washington...in August. I pulled on another bathing suit and a pair of bicycle shorts, and stood shivering in my house. The thermostat was set at 70 degrees. It was supposed to be in the thirties on New Year’s Day. Did I want to die, and leave my young children motherless? What made me think this swim was going to change my life, anyway? I don’t even like swimming.

Vivi called me back. “My foolish husband, he is going in the lake with you. You talk to him.” She handed the phone to Paulo. He was giggling hysterically. I gave him the details, along with the number “for more information,” and hung up. Charles came home, and I told him Paulo was going to do it too. “Paulo? He’s from Brazil! And he’s skinny. He’s going to die!” Charles exclaimed. “What about me?” I asked. “You’ve got, er, uh--you’re curvy,” he said, scurrying into the other room. Curvy? Sigh.

On New Year’s Day, we woke to blustery skies. It was 32 degrees outside. We bundled the wee people and left for the beach, bolstered by lots of coffee and wool. When I took off my clothes in the chill wind I balked. But the camera was rolling, and perverse pride wouldn’t let me wimp out. I ran into the water up to my chest, and it felt like my lungs had been wrapped in cement. I immediately lost all sensation in my legs, which gave me the odd feeling that I was bobbing on the surface, even though my feet were still on the ground. I had planned to hang out for a while, showing off how tough I was, but my sensible body took over from my insensible mind and headed for shore. “You looked like you were frolicking a little,” Charles said later. “That was thrashing,” I replied.

Paulo did not, in fact, die. He showed up fashionably late and bombed into the water wearing a Brazilian soccer uniform. Over lunch that afternoon, we discussed the fact that we still could not feel our feet. I ended up winning a prize for “best costume”--though I suspect they gave it to me because I was the only person in a costume who was left when the organizers got done getting dressed. Everyone else fled the scene as quickly as humanly possible. Did the plunge change my life? Not really. But there is a certain something, a gutsiness that had been lost by the wayside, that’s back. Plus I won a really nice blanket.

I know where I’ll be next January 1st, and you’re welcome to join me. You bring the whiskey, I’ll bring the axe.