Knocking Under the Hood

Just over one month ago I took my Honda Accord into the dealership for recommended service at 204,000 miles. Part of the recommended service is having the timing belt replaced. Done! Picked it up at the end of the day, choked down the $1313.12 charge and was quite happy with the overall experience.

This past weekend there appeared a "knocking" in my engine - hmmmm. Hmmmm. After a brief inspection under the hood, it seemed my crankshaft pulley was wobbling in its rotation. This was a bit alarming to me. When the AC compressor kicked on the wobbling became very alarming. Hmmmm. I eventually put the car up on blocks and crawled underneath. There I found the lower cover shielding the timing and balance belts loose - three bolts behind the crankshaft pulley had backed out of their holes and were hitting the back of the pulley - the cause of the "knocking". Okay, not good - sloppy work - but not the cause of the wobbling crankshaft pulley.

I pulled out my Honda do-it-yourself book and found an exploded diagram under "Timing Belt Replacement." Said diagram shows an adjusting nut that goes through the crankshaft pulley, the lower cover, a gear holding the balancer belt, a gear holding the timing belt and into a shaft on the engine block where there is a keyway into which a key fits holding the whole system rigid and helping to maintain harmonic balance. For the crankshaft pulley to wobble, independent of the engine, the adjustment nut must be loose. If the adjustment nut is loose and considering I have driven the car 1411 miles since it was serviced, it is fair to say that the key way may be distorted such that it will no longer hold rigid. Further, if the key way is distorted and the system is out of harmonic balance, resonance caused by torque of the cylinders and vibration of the crankshaft at certain speeds will place stress on the crankshaft that it was not designed to withstand. This will cause the crankshaft to fail.

I'm beginning to get growly. It is imperative that I have reliable transportation - this is why I own a Honda and why I service it at Honda dealerships. They have certified service people. They go to Honda College. If for no other reason than they work on the same frickin engine day in and day out, this should be a fail safe place to bring a car for routine maintenance. I intend to drive this car for another five years. I intend to rack up another 100,000 miles on its tires. I'm hard enough on it that I don't need any help! Especially when I have to pay $1313.12 for such "help."

So, all wound up, I go into battle mode. I draw up my battle plans. I call in reinforcements in the form of my dad who taught me all I know about engines. I run my ideas past him and incorporate his advice. I'm bullet proof and I'm ready for war!

I call the dealership and ask to speak to a service manager. Mark comes on the line. I (remarkably calm and pleasant given the circumstances) tell Mark what the problem is and what I want him to do about it. I'd like him to send a wrecker to pick up my car. I'd like another car to drive while mine is in the shop. I'd like to review the problem with him in person as soon as my car arrives at the dealership. And I'd like him to pull the engine and remove the pulley, the cover, the timing and balance gears and belts all the way back to the key at the engine block where I'd like him to check the tolerance of the keyway. I'd like him to check for damage and replace any parts that are damaged. I finally take a breath and pause for his response. Mark says, "I'm very sorry for the problem. I will call a wrecker right now. Will you be coming in with the car?" WOW...

When I arrive at the dealership, my car is put up on a lift and Mark and I are joined by three mechanics to evaluate the problem. My assessment is confirmed and they remain focused on expert customer service: I'm sorry. We are responsible. We will solve the problem. It is truly an unexpected pleasure to not have to battle someone to do what they should. What does that say about our world anyway?

Keep your fingers crossed that nothing really bad has happened in the heart of my little car. I really really like my car.... a lot.

My Boys

I've got such great boys. Ken is the most calm, patient and loving of fathers and our little Tolido is kind, playful, attentive and friendly. They are absolutely the lights of my life. I think they are just darling. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. :)

 I LOVE YOU GUYS! XOXOXO

Shopping Lunacy

I went to Dillard's yesterday. I HATE to shop. I had one goal - to find a simple white cotton button down, short-sleeved shirt with a bit of gathering at the top of the sleeve 'cuz I like puffy sleeves. So I walk into the store in the men's section, perfume front and center, lingerie off to my left and shoes to the right. Boy's and girl's stuff behind the escalator ahead of me. I've never been in this store before and (I thought) logically assume ladies' clothing is upstairs. I hop on the escalator. I have this fascinating fear of escalators - likely stemming from the fact that I routinely fall up stairs and estimate the probability of making it to the top of a moving staircase on my feet at about 50%. I catch my breath, take an extra little step as I evaluate the menacing metal teeth at the edge of the leading step rotating in my direction and gather the courage step astride the giant mechanical beast. I arrive unscathed at the top, as usual. I find "Formal Occasion," "Womens" and "Petites." I walk around the entire floor twice as I surely must be missing something... did I mention I hate shopping? I would venture to guess that the most prevalent customer in a mall department store would be a woman who would be shopping in the "Misses" section and I would further guess that, as a merchant, you would want this section to capture the customer the minute said customer walked through your fancy glass doors. What the hell is going on? I suppose, as a merchant you could also think that a woman would be the most patient and expend the most effort searching and might also enjoy the hunt. Wrong woman. I left. I still have no white shirt.

I Wish for Words

I know, once he starts, he'll never stop. But that's not a problem for me. I'd just enjoy communicating with him on another level. The sign language, pointing and grunting are cool and all but I'm done with it. He says a buckets worth of words, usually appropriately, sometimes not. He understands everything! (Which has led me to understand that I need to be very careful when venting...) His single words are becoming more clear in pronunciation - awesome! Just jump off the cliff now and... talk... in sentences! Please! We did get a new word this afternoon - BUBBLE. He was very impressed with himself. Ah.. he's cute. I need to work on my patience.

And the kid loves chores. He puts the placemats and coasters away every night after dinner. He cleans up his playroom before his nap and before bed with only a little fussing. If it's made of cloth and it's on the floor, it'll end up in the laundry room, courtesy of Tolido. He's awesome at cleaning up messes - gets down on the floor after eating and picks up any crumbs and puts them in the trash. If he spills his milk, all I have to do is hand him a towel and he'll practically spit shine the floor. He's a wonderful little helper... :) He helps Daddy haul buckets around the yard and gathers plant trimmings into piles and digs in the flower beds with Mommy. And when he's done playing with his trucks and lawn mowers outside, he lines them all up on the patio... See? So cute.

Our new nightly ritual in "light patrol". Just before bedtime Tolido gets to turn out all the lights downstairs. And, if Mommy's home, believe me, they're ALL on. So he gets to choose which lights we turn out - the laundry room or the living room, the playroom or the hallway - until Daddy is left sitting in the dark. Then we dance around in circles and I sing, "Daddy's in the dark. Daddy's in the dark." This is slightly annoying to Daddy but he endures it with a gentle smirk. ;) We LOVE Daddy.

Potty Training

I am not the most patient of mothers so when I heard that potty training little boys sometimes takes six months to a year I was a less than enthusiastic and determined to find a simple, quick training process. After some research I purchased the book, Toilet Training in Less Than a Day and read it several times. For about one month before beginning training we worked on three things: 1) Tolido learned to put on his own pants. 2) Mommy and Daddy demonstrated using the toilet. From, "Oh, Mommy has to go potty..." to using and then flushing the toilet. And always completing with "Mommy uses the potty just like a Big Boy!" All with an audience of inquisitive little eyes. :) Parenting cracks me up! 3) And lastly, we got a potty chair Tolido could easily empty himself and placed it in the bathroom. At every opportunity, we pointed out Tolido's potty seat to him and taught him to sit on it. When the day of training came, I took a day off work and we followed the directions in the book to the letter. Tolido and I spent the day in the kitchen with the potty seat and all the milk, water, OJ and junk food he wanted. The junk food made him thirsty and the drinks gave him MANY opportunities to practice using his potty seat. The goal of training is to make going to the potty an independent activity for your child. So, when Tolido used the potty chair, he was then instructed to pull up his pants and take his potty seat to the toilet, empty it, flush the toilet and return the potty seat to the potty chair. He mastered the process the first day. Over the next few days, we worked on dealing with distractions - toys, Daddy being home, Mommy working, short outings, etc. Soon we realized that lugging a potty chair around was not going to be convenient and that, though Tolido says few words, we needed him to communicate when he needed to go potty and needed assistance. This has been a slower process but we were encouraged by his ability to stay dry through three-hour naps and through the night. Yesterday - two weeks and five days into training - we were standing around talking with friends when Tolido said, "Daddy?" Daddy said, "Yes, Tolido?" Tolido said, "Poo." Daddy didn't quite hear him but Mommy thought she did and said, "What do you need, Tolido?" Toildo said, "Poo." We were down at the park and a long way from the car and the potty. It was the perfect opportunity to teach him to "pee in the woods" but I wanted to see if he would understand that I was trying my level best to get him to the potty and see if he could hold it. So I scooped him up and went dashing across a ravine and half-crawled up a hillside to the car. We got in the car and zoomed up to the house and I let him out. He went straight to him potty seat and sure enough, he had to pee! :) YAY!! GOOD BOY!! There will be more accidents and that's okay. I'm still going to declare him potty trained in just two weeks and five days. Now to teach him to use the grown up toilet and the all important lesson of peeing in the woods! :)

Why Guatemala?

I was just reading a post on Adoption Memoirs wherein Amber says she has been asked the question, "Why don't you adopt domestically and not internationally?" It's a common question. My answer, "I chose to adopt internationally because my son was in Guatemala." It seems like a quick and easy answer. It's not. An ancient Chinese proverb illustrates the belief behind my answer. "An invisible red thread connects us to those we are destined to meet, regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break." There was only one child in all of the world my husband and I were meant to adopt in the winter of 2007. He was in Guatemala City. "But.." you say. But nothing.

Spring has come to Texas!

It's beautiful outside. Leaves have come back; warmth has returned. The first of the wildflowers have appeared - bluebonnets. The lawn and the volleyball court are greening up nicely. Daddy's been out on the tractor all weekend grading and elongating the drop off at the edge of the court so nobody breaks their neck shagging a ball. We'll be able to start our weekly neighborhood volleyball games soon! With any luck we'll get some rain and it'll fill up the river and we can teach Tolido to swim and waterski this summer. In the meantime we wander the yard to see what's about to bloom and revel in the newness all around us. There are four bluebird eggs in one of our bird houses and a mockingbird nest tucked safely beneath a big cactus in the front yard. The territorial hummingbird battles have begun at the feeders just outside the dining room. Tolido calls them "ducks" as his eyes dart trying to track them whizzing in circles. Daddy bought us an avocado tree, a blood orange tree and a lime tree this past weekend. We'll plant those this week and then pray for rain. :) Ah, Spring, is there anything better in the world?