Reduce reuse...

In Ithaca you can recycle all kinds of plastic, numbers 1-7, so you usually don't have to worry about whether food containers are recyclable. In Rochester, not so. Only 1 and 2 are acceptable, so there is a lot more squinting at the bottoms of containers to find their number. Some of us in the BleisenMarriage are apparently more adaptable than others, and were able to learn within approximately the first five years of moving to Rochester that there is a different system here. (To summarize: 1 or 2? Yes. Not 1 or 2? No.) Others, rather than subject themselves to all that pesky memorization, relied on first gesturing with the container at their spouse and asking whether it could go in the recycling, then, when instructed, doing the squinty thing, then, after identifying the number (e.g. 3), asking if it could be recycled (see algorithm above).

In Year 6, however, all that is changing, and BOTH of us can now independently determine which containers are and are not appropriate to recycle, although old habits die hard and sometimes the yogurt containers get rinsed out anyway, just in case.

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In other big life changing news, we starting the Potty Training Process last weekend, which we in fact don't care about at all because neither one of us minds changing diapers. We were mainly motivated by not wanting to deal with this issue in someone who is sure to be an incredibly stubborn three-year-old. Aided by M&M's, she is getting it really quickly, but unfortunately only with me, at home, with the potty in the kitchen. (Clue, anyone?) As I was working all week this is not really a sustainable approach, but it's fine for now. When we were out today we saw one of those little toilet seats that you put on the regular toilet and Dylan said it would help and it had Big Bird on it and we are now its proud owners. Aaron took it out of its packaging, and, using his training, checked what number plastic it was. See where this is going? Number 1, of course. He giggled and put it in the recycling.

Our next potty-related challenge: figuring out how to spell M&M without, well, you see the problem?