Tag Archives: whoops…

Jan12

The Paint Can.

Posted on by
The Paint Can.

First of all, I realize that I sound like The Most Unobservant Mother Ever.  I probably am.

Second of all, there is no photographic record for what I am about to tell you.   You’ll just have to take my word for it.  Because WHY WOULD I MAKE THIS UP!?

A week ago, Joey brought in a paint can from the garage to warm up so he could paint the inside of a door that he was working on.  Short version: the paint was all weird from being in the garage for so long, so we were going to have to throw it out.  He stuck the drop cloth and a couple of paint cans in the corner of the kitchen, and that was the end of the project.

Fast forward to today.  I was cleaning the kitchen counters while Analie and Angus alternately stirred and tried to climb inside my largest mixing bowls.  They’ve been playing on the kitchen floor all week and haven’t even noticed the drop cloth and cans in the corner, so I’d wipewipewipe the counter, glance back to make sure they weren’t biting each other, and then wipewipewipe the counter again.

Suddenly, I had to go to the bathroom.  (I KNOW, SORRY.  But it’s what happened next.  I’m sure you have to go to the bathroom sometimes too.)  I looked at my children, happily shoving each other as they scuffled over which one of them was going to use the spatula, and I ran out of the room.

I was gone for less than a minute.  Probably more like 30 seconds.  (Because really, who washes their hands in the bathroom when you left your kids playing on the kitchen floor by themselves?  My kitchen has a sink, and I know how to use it.)  When I returned, they were not where I left them.

NO.

THEY WERE NOT.

Suddenly, one of them had spotted the paint cans and drop cloths in the corner, so they had both crawled over and started exploring.

GUYS.  I have been staring at those stupid paint cans all week and somehow I neglected to notice that one of them didn’t even have a lid on it.

You want to know how fast they realized that?  Like 0.0001 seconds after starting to crawl over there.  And you want to know what else?  Not only did that stupid paint can not have a lid on it, but there was a stir stick in it!  STICKING UP IN THE AIR LIKE THE SEARS TOWER.  (Wait, do they even call it the Sears Tower anymore?  Whatevs.)  But you surely get my point, which was that the stick was super obvious to anyone who has eyeballs.  And it’s always a pretty good indicator that there’s no lid on a paint can if there’s a stir stick in it.

So we’ve established that I’m blind.

Back to the story.

I walk into the kitchen and there’s Analie, holding the end of a gloopy, paint-soaked, stir stick, and she’s happily sweeping it in broad swaths on the wood floor.  The grin on her face is worth a million bucks, and I can see the pure amazement that WOAH!  There’s white stuff every place I move this stick!

Where’s Angus?  Oh, he’s eating the wet paint she smears on the floor, so his face and whiskers are bright white.

What did I do?  I started screaming “WHAAAAAAT?!?!” and jumped around the kitchen floor throwing random things away.  I’m not even sure what all went into the trash can (hopefully it wasn’t anything important), but I know the paint stick was the first thing to go.

The paint on the floor was thick and oozing into the cracks between the wood on the floor, so I unrolled a bunch of paper towels and alternately tried to wipe the floor, my child’s hands, and keep Angus from eating more paint.

And did I mention that somewhere in the chaos I stepped in the paint?  I wish I had realized it when it happened, because the next thing I knew there were Jenna footprints all over the kitchen floor.

I could keep going, but I think you get the drift.  All told, it took about 20 minutes and Joey’s travel toothbrush to clean up.  Angus has since stolen that toothbrush and carried it off to who knows where.

I just hope the paint on it has dried by now.

(I feel like the takeaway in all this is that I just need to stop having to go to the bathroom.  Ever.  Because LOOK WHAT HAPPENS.)

And that is the story of how I inked my place in the record books as The Most Unobservant Mother Ever.

Sep4

Back in the Day …

Posted on by
Back in the Day …

A couple of weeks ago, much to my chagrin, Chang and Angel stumbled upon a DVD on our shelf and made us watch it.  I’m not even sure what this particular DVD was doing on our shelf in the first place.  I think it technically belongs to the Parents, but at some point which I do not remember, we must have borrowed it from them. Why, I do not know, as I do not tend to enjoy subjecting myself to the kind of torture that is watching that DVD.

You see, it is a home video from the year of 1995. You know, the year of big hair, leotards, and stirrup pants.  It was also the year I turned thirteen and suffered from all of the above.  That was the year all of us kids got together with our childhood friends, Nicki and Dustin, and produced a play based on Adventures in Odyssey’s episode “The Vow.”  For years, it had been our favorite radio drama, but this was the year we were going to turn it into our very own production.  I, however, was entering the teen years, and it wasn’t necessarily “cool” to listen to radio drama anymore.  My younger siblings hadn’t caught up with the trends yet and were still obsessed, so they spent months writing the scripts (and trying to understand what terms like “fade-away jumper” and “documentaries” were), building the sets, and rehearsing parts.  Nicki and I were roped into playing the parts of Donna and Jesse and grudgingly went along with it.  In the end, we invited our parents, grandparents, and a lonely neighbor down the street to our live performance.

In the moment of putting stuff like that together, you have no idea how humiliating it will be years down the road. The movie is probably not as embarrassing to The Brother, as he rocked in his Lakers Jersey, or to The Kid, who was five and Just. Plain. Adorable in his walk-on role.  But for me, it’s one of those movies that makes me cover my face and watch through my fingertips due to my bad hair and oldschool fashions.

However, it is good for one thing, and that is comic relief.  So, despite the fact that I said I never wanted anyone else to see this again, I gotta admit it is Highly Amusing and may be worth the humiliation I may suffer in order to share it with the rest of you.  It won’t be winning any awards, but it always gives my family a lot of laughs every time we watch and reminisce.

Kids, don’t try this at home. Unless you want to be subject to blackmail at some later point in your life.

Jul18

It’s either a really large panda or a very small baby

Posted on by
It’s either a really large panda or a very small baby

This morning Analie woke up at 7:00.

Does the child not know that it’s “Saturday”?!?

Obviously no one passed the memo on to her, because I got her up, changed her diaper and brought her back to our bed to wake up Joey, and she was all shrieking HI! EVERYONE! I! LOVE! MY! LIFE! and flailing her little hands around indiscriminately; her nails are sharp like talons no matter how much I trim them, and I don’t want to have to get an eye replaced.

And then after 20 minutes of extreme baby joy, she got cranky and the fun was over like yesterday’s World Cup match.  I think she realized she woke up 1 1/2 hours early but she wasn’t quite tired enough to go back to sleep, so she just wanted us all to feel as lousy as she was feeling.  Trust me, Internet, her master plan worked.

I was messing around in the kitchen, maybe thawing her a 1/2 ounce chip of mango compote (GET OUT OF THE WAY for her new favorite food, by the way; she’s all about it) when I suddenly noticed that things were unusually quiet.  The kind of quiet that, if I hear three years from now, I will be wondering where she found the permanent markers.  The quiet seemed to be originating from her bedroom, so I immediately went there.

Indeed, Joey had her all surrounded by her ginormous panda, Cecil, and she and Henry were sharing him.

“Look, she can’t fall backwards and bonk her head,” Joey pointed out.

I’m not even going to elaborate on the previous statement made by Joey.

Because if I elaborated I might have to tell you that Analie’s getting a little bit more mobile.

And apparently we have to watch her EVERY SINGLE MINUTE now.

Because if we don’t…

…I don’t know, something really bad could happen.

Like, maybe (this is just conjecture, naturally), she could somehow go from sitting solidly on the floor one moment…

…to, like pitching forward into a wall (that totally came out of nowhere) and getting three goose eggs and a bloody nose.

But, psssh, that would NEVER HAPPEN HERE.

Nosiree.

We are Extremely Careful Parents.

I feel like we got off topic.  Where were we again…?

OH YEAH – huge panda, right?

In other news, the Woestman kitchen sink is suddenly infested with Thief Ants and Terro does not work on them, so I’m trying this crazy ant killing recipe I, cough cough, found on the internet (hi, Homeland Security!), our garbage disposal is clogged and needs to be replumbed because it’s making the dishwasher back up onto kitchen floor, and Joey has poison ivy and kind of looks like he has leprosy.

And we have a huge panda.

 

Jul14

Some Things Should Not Be Photographed.

Posted on by
Some Things Should Not Be Photographed.

We’re entering Week Three of Analie’s severe diaper rash.  Poor Miss.  A week ago we went to the doc and got some prescription cream to put on it, and then yesterday the doc told me to add some hydrocortisone since it’s really not getting better by leaps and bounds.

So we’re still spending our days much the same way: lots of sitz baths, lots of Nakey McNakerson time, lots of diaper changes and lots of Riley Butt Cream.

Two days ago I had Analie’s diaper off to get some oxygen on the rash; she was on the kitchen floor, sitting on a couple of blankets playing with a few toys while I put the dishes away.

I turned my back for ten seconds.

TEN SECONDS.

Somehow in those ten seconds she managed to poo silently and stealthily (usually it is accompanied by a really hilarious face and some indicative sounds which offer a bit of warning) and by the time I turned around she had it everywhere.

EVERYWHERE.

And she was still wearing a onesie, unsnapped, and she was “finger painting” all over it.

I have never seen a happier looking baby than when I turned around to discover her playing in her poo.  She just looked at me with a face full of pure, unadulterated baby joy and was all MOM!  LOOK WHAT I HAVE!  IS THIS NOT COOL?!?!

Poor Miss.  I did not agree.

Just as she was about to raise a gooey hand up to her mouth to taste her creation, I lunged forward and distracted her, trying to peel the saturated onesie off her filthy little body at the same time not smearing the poo all over her face.

Easier said than done.

Once I got her extracted from the outfit I rolled her blankets and toys up so Henry wouldn’t eat it while I was bathing her.  Because would that not just have been the icing on the cake?  Aaaaaand I really should have chosen another idiom.

I awkwardly dashed to the bathroom, carrying Analie as far away from me as possible without risk of dropping her, and dunked her in the tub.  She was so nasty that I had to fill it up twice.  Once for a primary rinse, and once to actually clean her off. Even with all of that, I still missed a huge spot of poo that she had gotten in her hair and on her ear.

Joey made sure to point it out to me repeatedly once he got home.

And the bonus?  By the time I did get Analie cleaned up and dressed, I found Henry licking away at the filthy blankets.

Shoulda thrown them outside before I gave her a bath.

Jun15

Mother of the year

Posted on by
Mother of the year

Last week Analie ate the handle off my Whole Foods bag. I know this because, er, it resurfaced again this afternoon. The quantity she ingested was so substantial that I am surprises she didn’t choke on it.

Lesson learned: don’t put shopping bags in the backseat with Analie.

Immediately after changing the most interesting diaper I have yet to see, I stuffed Analie in the sling and she “helped” me sweep and mop the floors. She was having a grand old time, shrieking and waving her chunky arms around while trying to eat the broom.

I sense a theme.

Right before Analie work up from her nap, I had just finished cleaning our master bathroom. As soon as the floor was dry, she and I went to put the rugs back down on the floor. As I crouched down to straighten the rug in front of the toilet, Ana lunged forward in the sling.

She does that a lot, so it didn’t really strike me as unusual. But once I got the rug even, I glanced down.

My child was EATING THE TOILET SEAT. Gnawing on it with gusto.

Never in my life have I been more thankful that I use non-toxic cleaning products. And that I had just used them on that very toilet seat. (We switched over about four years ago after I read that the chemicals in Windex can cause infertility. I got enough of that on my own without assistance from SC Johnson, A Family Company.)

I pulled Analie off the toilet, wiped the seat down because she had slimed it up good, and went to the den to play blocks.

At press time, Ana is still alive and does not seem to have any ill effects from eating the toilet. And the shopping bag.

Ugh.

Apr12

Just when I said nothing ever happens to me anymore…

Posted on by
Just when I said nothing ever happens to me anymore…

This morning was cool and bright and beautiful, just the kind of morning I like to take Analie out for some of her doctor ordered 10 minutes of sunlight every day.  I was holding her and talking to The Kid on the phone (get ready, Indianapolis, he is coming next weekend) while Henry ran around behind the house, so we followed him.

That was when I noticed we had forgotten to take in the grill and grill tools after using them last night.

Analie is almost sturdy enough to sit on my hip, so I hoisted her to the side and began picking up a few things at a time, making about four trips inside and then one around to the garage to open the back door so I could put the charcoal chimney where it belonged.  Then, I went back for the grill.

It seemed easy enough to wheel it under the eaves, out of the rain (if we were to get some), so I shoved the phone between my ear and shoulder, shifted Analie to that same side, and used my free arm to grab the handle of the grill.  I lifted and began to pull it toward the house; slowly, because it something didn’t feel quite right.

That’s when the leg fell off the grill.

“THE GRILL BROKE!” I hollered to The Kid, as if that would make him come a week and a half early so he could take the grill off my hands.

“I’m not sure what you want me to do about it,” The Kid said.

I wasn’t either.

Except maybe come a week and a half early so he could take the grill off my hands.

“Maybe you should hang up the phone,” suggested The Kid.

So I hung up the phone. Which wound up being not as easy as I thought it would be, since one hand was holding the broken grill and the other hand was holding the baby.  I shifted down to kneel on the ground, supporting the grill on my leg and trying to decide if it was safe to put Analie on the concrete sidewalk so I could deal with the grill.  Which would be catastrophic if it fell.  Almost as catastrophic as if I dropped my baby.

Wait, that would be so much worse.

While I was kneeling on the ground, weighing my options, I realized that if I propped the grill up on the step it might (just might!) stay  in one place long enough for me to let go, run inside and put Analie in her swing, and run back outside before it slid to the ground and spilled ash and charcoal everywhere.

So I did just that.

Surprisingly, it worked perfectly.  NOTHING EVER WORKS PERFECTLY!  Except for that.

Once everything was safe and back where it belonged, I called Joey to inform him that there had been an epic failure of the grill leg.  His response?

“Yeah, one of the grill legs is a little shaky.”

A little?!

A LOT.

 

Mar17

A Mommy Confession

Posted on by
A Mommy Confession

Analie’s fingernails are like talons.

They grow so crazy fast (which I guess is a good thing) that I feel like I’m cutting them every other day.  I’ve tried the tear off method our pediatrician recommended and, um, I must be an idiot because I can’t figure it out.  I’m always afraid I’m going to tear down into the quick.  In any case, I’ve only actually clipped a tiny bit of her skin once, and even then it wasn’t so much that she actually bled more than a tiny spot of pink.

I still felt horrible though.

As in, I almost threw up on her I felt so bad.

But then I would have felt bad for puking on my kid that I probably would have passed out.

Vicious cycle.

Anyway, fingernails.  We’re talking about fingernails, not barfing and passing out.  I am the fingernail trimmer in our family, mostly because I think Joey is terrified of using something sharp so near Analie’s fingers.  I remember growing up that Pops always cut our fingernails and toenails on Saturday evenings (I think after baths), and I’m pretty sure that is universally a Dad Job; Joey’s probably going to have to toughen up here pretty soon.

I have figured out a surefire way to clip Ana’s fingernails without her squirming, though, and that is super helpful to reduce potential skin clips.

Just let the child watch TV while she gets her nails clipped.

I KNOW, GREAT PARENTING, RIGHT?

I figure the five minutes of brain smashing she’s getting while watching TV is better than me cutting the tip of her finger off.  Trade off.  I hear that’s what parenting is all about?  Speaking of parenting, my child is signaling to me that IT! IS! BEDTIME! MOMMY!

 

Jan13

It is not advised to put broken glass in a mesh trash can

Posted on by
It is not advised to put broken glass in a mesh trash can

Our computer desk looks like so:

It leans up against the wall and has a coordinating bookshelf to the left of the computer.  I like it very much.

On the top shelf of the desk sat our engagement photo.  It was a black and white photo floating in a glass frame. Again, I like it very much.

Analie was cat-napping and I was holding her while I listed some things on Ebay, when suddenly my stocking foot slipped on the wood floor and tapped the leg of the desk.  This slight tap was enough to send the engagement photo careening from the top shelf and directly on to the computer shelf.  It fell with a huge (and quite shocking) crash onto the keyboard.

Fortunately not on Analie’s head, which was just inches from the keyboard.

It was one of those moments where I just sat there like WHAT JUST HAPPENED?! and then once I realized what happened I felt like a terrible parent for pretty much coming within mere inches of severely brain-damaging my child.

So I just sat there and stared at the broken glass all over the shelf and keyboard and tried to figure out what to do.

My first course of action, once I came to my senses, was to put my now-awake (and fairly angry) daughter on her blanket on the floor.

Then I tried to fit the broken frame into the trash can.  It wouldn’t fit, no matter how I tried to wedge it in the can, and then I realized there’s some proverb about not trying to fit a sqaure peg into a round hole, and if you changed the word “peg” to “frame”, it would be exactly what I was trying to do.

So I just left it on top of the can.

I think at least half of my brain capacity went on the Oregon Trail and died of dysentary as soon as Analie was born, because I know better than to leave broken glass just laying around.  I also know better than to brush broken glass shards into a mesh trash can.

AND YET I STILL DID BOTH.

I shook the glass bits off the keyboard all over the desk, and then (because I am just that smart), I brushed the shards off into my hand.  As soon as I did this, my hand started bleeding.  Because of course glass shards are going to cut, any smart person would know that, yes?

There I was…crying baby, bleeding hand, broken engagement photo, glass on the floor.

So I did what any other new mom would do: I went to the bathroom, ran my hand under cold water for 5 seconds, and then came back, picked my baby up, and sat down to watch another episode of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman while I fed her again.  Eventually my hand stopped bleeding (you can barely see it now) and all returned to normal.

Until Joey came home.

His first comment, upon entering the den, was “why did you throw broken glass away in the mesh trash can?”

And then I had to tell him exactly what I just told y’all.  He still was unimpressed about my method for dealing with the broken glass and if he were my teacher and I were in school, he’d have given me the grade of F-.

He did remedial cleanup on the glass shards still in the keyboard and on the desk (but he was smart enough to not brush them off with his hand) and then threw out the engagement photo, frame and all.  In an actual trash can that it fit inside.

I don’t think I’m putting anything else up on the top shelf that has the possibility of severely maiming anyone if it falls again.  Maybe I’ll put a Puffalump up there.  I always wanted a Puffalump when I was growing up but my mom said I had plenty of toys and didn’t need a Puffalump.

 

Nov22

A long morning

Posted on by
A long morning

I flooded the bathroom at 6:00 am.  Again.  I should have learned from the last experience with bathroom floodings, but all I can say in my defense was that last night was a really long night and I kept waking up every hour.  Since I was already up I decided to see what was going on in the bathroom.  And nothing ever was, but I must have been asleep still.  Therefore, I forgot to ensure that the toilet was properly flushed.

Which is why, at 6:00 am, it overflowed all over the floor.  And me.  And the rugs.  I whipped off the toilet lid (while screaming) as if that would solve the problem, and started yanking on the metal bar that’s in there.

I have no idea what that bar does, internet.  It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Well, the answer is NO, it wasn’t.  Because it made the toilet flush AGAIN, thus launching more water onto the floor.

Since I had been laying awake in bed since 5 am anyway, I decided I’d just get up, clean up the bathroom (again), wash my hands with 100 degree water, and bake the pie I said I’d bake for the FIEC Thanksgiving deal tomorrow night.

After everything was cleaned, I threw the rugs in the wash again and baked my pie.  It turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Then I fell asleep until 9:45.

Around 10:30, I thought it might be wise to hang the rugs to dry instead of throwing them in the dryer.  They are…old and have lately had a rough life, what with all this washing they’ve been getting.  I set up my drying rack and opened the washing machine and….screamed.

Because they had disintegrated.  One far worse than the other.

There are rug guts all over the inside of the washing machine, and I can’t bend over the thing far enough to pick them out.  I am afraid this job will have to fall to Joey once I can peel his eyeballs out of his latest Star Wars book.

I showed the disintegrated rug to Joey and he was all, Wow…that rug is…wow.

Then he told me to just throw them away.  There was no saving them.

And now he’s pouting about how cold the floor is in that bathroom since it has no rugs.  He’s been commenting about how far he has to walk to get to the purple bathroom now, since it has a warm cozy rug for his feet.

Ten minutes ago, he got up from his chair and walked back to our bathroom.  I asked him where he was going (to get a kleenex) and I was all, oh…about the kleenex box…it was somehow a casualty of the flood and it got submerged in toilet water.

He wilted, sighed, and shuffled over to the purple bathroom to use its kleenexes.

I cannot keep this flooding business up.  I must improve!

Nov15

I don’t know how old people drive those carts

Posted on by
I don’t know how old people drive those carts

I’ve gotten pretty good at using those motorized carts like they have in Walmart, Target, Lowes, and Central Market.  (Also a whole bunch more places, too, but those are the ones that come to mind.)  It all started a year and a half ago when I was bored out of my gourd laying around on my couch after a surgery, and my Mom was babysitting me.  I was like “Mom, surely it’s safe to go to Central Market…we could buy a chocolate bar?”

And Mom was like, “Uh, I doubt it, have you noticed how you can barely walk to the bathroom and back?”

But I just said, “Psssh, chocolate is a way better incentive than the bathroom.  It’ll be fun!  I CAN DO IT!!!”

Poor Mom.  She agreed only if I would ride in the old-people motorized cart.  I think she was ready to get out of our apartment by this point too.

So off we went to Central Market, and you want to know something?  I was so awesome at driving that cart.  Even through the produce section!  (And, those of you who know a thing or two about the produce section know that is a feat worth being proud of.  It’s like…a maze.  With lots of annoying people in it just standing around staring at the tomatoes, trying to decide if they should buy the Brandywine, Early Girl, or Cherokee Purple tomatoes for the Black-Bean and Tomato Quinoa they want to make.)

We got our chocolate, probably plus a few other things we didn’t really need, and went back home.

After that, I went to a whole lot more stores because I could just say, “Oh, I’ll sit down and ride in the motorized cart the whole time.  NOT TO WORRY.”

I did get a lot of weird looks, though.

So fast forward to last night.  We had to get groceries because we were down to dijon mustard, ketchup, and apples in the refrigerator again.  I don’t understand this.  I buy tons of food and then a week later it’s ALL GONE.

We’d gone to Lowe’s to buy more outlets and switch covers (did I mention we’re replacing them all because one of the ones in the kitchen started shooting sparks/fire?  Yeah, we are…good thing, too, ’cause we found some others not wired correctly.)

Again with the digressions.  Apologies.

On the short drive from Lowe’s to the evil empire of Walmart, Joey looked at me and said, “Uh, you don’t look like you are feeling so good.”

I wasn’t.  My morale was about -3 on a scale of 1 to 10, and it was super hard to move my appendages.

“I’ll drop you off at the door and you get one of those cart things,” Joey said.

“I’ll be embarrassed if you’re not there,” I said.

Joey just looked at me with a look of you really aren’t feeling good, are you? and said “Yeah, you’ll be fine.  I’ll be in after I park the car.”

So I shuffled into the evil empire, unplugged a cart and, feeling suuuuuuper self-conscious for some reason, drove it over by the wall and waited for Joey to come in.  He took FOREVER.  Finally, he came in and we started on our list.  Everything was going fine, JUST FINE, until we were putzing down the soup aisle.

First, I need to mention that I’ve never run into anything in one of these carts before.  Second, I need to state that Walmart is evil, naturally, and they put the controls on their little motorized carts backwards.  VERY CONFUSING.

Therefore, none of you will be surprised when I tell you that somehow, I ran into a wall full of soups while trying to turn around.

First I was just shoving them further and further onto the shelf as I frantically got more and more confused and kept driving the cart into the shelf, over and over again.  But then, some started shooting off the end and Joey started panicking.  I never see the man panic, Internet, but after the first five soups went flying to the ground, he kept shouting “BACK UP, BACK UP!”  and his face was super pale.

But I couldn’t remember how to get into reverse because, as I mentioned before, Walmart is stupid and puts their controls on on backwards.

Fortunately, the aisle was mostly empty.

Please picture this, Internet.  Me on a cart, whipping my head around trying to decide how to back the cart up, and Joey scurrying around on the floor trying to pick up the soups I have knocked off the shelf.  Clearly he is traumatized, which is really the best part of the whole story.  (I can’t remember traumatizing him this bad ever before in my entire life.)

Just when I was about to give up and get off the stupid cart and let HIM figure out how to back the thing up, something started working properly and I successfully disengaged myself from the soup shelf.  Joey looked more relieved than I have ever seen him look, and he hissed, “We have to get out of this aisle NOW.”

So, we did.

And in that whole big mess, we forgot to buy pumpkin.

“These controls ARE backwards,” I told Joey as I glided down the next aisle with him, safely away from any of the products on the shelves.

“Yeah,” he said, “And do you see the little picture directions right here in front of your face?”

Uh, no.  I hadn’t seen those.  ”Those kinda help…” I said.

“But you’re right, it’s not very intuitive,” Joey admitted.