Dr. Maureen

Parent-teacher conference

2012-01-24T23:13:00.002-05:00

Can I brag for a minute? I met with Jack’s teacher today for a post-progress-report conference. I wasn’t concerned about anything, I mostly just wanted to go hear about how wonderful Jack is. And I was not disappointed.

Jack got all “S’s” and a few “S+’s” in everything except for knowing his phone number, that was an “I” for “improving.” (I taught him our phone number last year, but failed to practice it with him, so he forgot it.) Mrs. M. said that she’s actually pretty stingy with her “S+’s,” but Jack just knows his numbers and patterns too well. He’s the best in the class at patterns, in fact. He also is a good leader and follows directions really well; she never has to tell him anything twice. (This is slightly different from my experience with him.) All in all, he’s a joy and delight to have in class.

But you know the best part of the whole thing? She said that he’s a good leader and will help kids who are struggling with their work, and that he is kind about it. Because if I had to choose between raising a child who is kind and raising a child who succeeds at school, I would a thousand times rather raise a kind child.

Oh! And they asked the kids today what they want to be when they grow up, and Jack said he’s going to be a scientist. “What are you going to study?” his teacher asked. “Whatever interests me,” he said.

Carpe-ing the diem as best I can

2012-01-19T21:05:00.002-05:00

You know how old ladies have a tendency to tell moms with little kids to make sure they savor every moment because it all goes by so fast? And meanwhile the moms are counting every dragging minute till bedtime? Well I was at the mall yesterday with Nora and Ann Marie and two old ladies came over to admire the baby. There was much oohing and ahhing over my sweet baby, and it turned out the first lady had a daughter named Ann Marie. Then the second lady said, "Oh, to be young again! Enjoy it!" and the first lady said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that again! I had seven, that's enough for me."

My kids were being sweet and enjoyable that day, so I didn't have much to complain about at that moment, but I couldn't help but think of this post, and smile to myself. It was just so refreshing.

Three remainder one

2012-01-17T21:04:00.000-05:00

The kids and I went down to their grandparents’ house for the afternoon yesterday. We did this for several reasons. First, we love them, and hadn’t been to their house since Christmas. Second, Jack and Andrew were sick this weekend, leaving us housebound for two straight days, and if we had had to spend another day of family “quality” time, we might have killed each other. The third reason is that their grandparents live an hour away, so that’s two hours in the car that I don’t have to think of something to do. (The third reason is linked strongly to the second reason.)

At any rate, Jack watched an episode of Peep and the Big Wide World while there, which was a refreshing treat for me, because I love Peep. We never seem to watch it here anymore; it’s usually not on during the times I let them watch TV. In this episode, Peep, Chirp, and Quack were trying to fairly divide two crackers among themselves. They started by breaking each cracker in half, so everyone got a piece with one piece leftover. They broke that into four, and I think you can see where this is going. They went through several iterations until Peep finally said, “Will there always be one piece leftover?” but then an ocean wave came and whisked away the last piece.

I thought it was weird that they didn’t solve the problem; usually they do. I had expected Quack or someone to accidentally break the last bit of cracker into three pieces. My mother-in-law must have had a similar thought, so she asked Jack how he would divide two crackers among three people. She gave him some paper and a pencil to work it out. He scribbled away for several minutes, and this is what he came up with:

See, he would divide both crackers in half, then break the last piece into four, and break THAT last piece into four, and so forth, and he’d do this seven times according to his drawing. And THEN, he’d take the last final piece, and throw it away.

Well, it’s fair!

(My favorite part is the level of detail on the trash can.)

2011 In Review

2012-01-07T09:26:00.004-05:00

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Right off the bat, I’m thinking I’m not cut out for a review like this, because I can’t think of anything. Not one thing! I mean, besides “have a third baby” but I’m already planning to use “baby” as my answer for 50% of these questions, so shouldn’t I come up with SOMETHING new I did? Hmm. Flew across the country with two little kids? Got some financial software up and running for the organization I work for? These seem lame. I want to say something like, “Ran a marathon and came up with a cure for cancer on the way,” but I don’t have anything like that. Mostly I hung in there.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? 
Last year I made three resolutions: Find a place for everything in my house and get rid of the stuff that has nowhere to be, run two 10k’s, and call people more/cultivate more phone-friends.I did pretty well on the first one; while I wouldn’t say that everything has a place, but we cleaned the attic and I threw out/gave away/donated quite a lot of things. It’s hard to get on top of this when more stuff is coming in all the time. But I have definitely had a mind shift this year, and I think about where I’m going to put something before I buy it. Also, when the time comes to tidy the house, it’s generally less stressful because a lot of the stuff that used to just go in a pile now has a permanent home. So I’m calling it a win.

I completely failed at the second two resolutions. I give myself a pass on not running two 10k’s, though, since I was pregnant. I had already registered for one in May when I found out I was pregnant and I tried to run it anyway, but instead I lay on my bed, took a nap, and cried a little about feeling so terrible. I did not register for second, obviously. But once the debilitating fatigue, nausea, and depression that came with the early part of this pregnancy had passed, I did think I’d be able to keep jogging throughout the pregnancy. I know, isn’t that adorable? I went twice, maybe.

As for making new phone friends, fail. Utter fail. I called Arwen once. I called Annie a bunch of times, but we never managed to speak, mostly because of the time difference and resulting conflicting nap/feeding schedules, I think. I did talk to Maggie one time, but she called me. Oh! And I called A'Dell once. The calling people turned out to be the hardest one, because I think I’m always afraid I’m going to have nothing to say if I call someone just to talk, but I’d really really like to have a cadre of friends I can call when I need to speak to another adult. It’s a conundrum. So for this year, I’m making the same resolutions: Keep organizing the house. Run two 10k’s. Call people.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Me, obviously. Many internet friends, eg: Diane, A'Dell, Maggie, Lucy, Arwen. A new friend I made this fall had a baby in November; her daughter is in Jack’s class and she also has a two-year-old and now a new baby, so we are a matched set (except for genders, hers are girl-girl-boy, mine are boy-girl-girl).

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully, no.

5. What countries did you visit?
HAHAHAHA! You’re cute. I did manage to renew my passport that’s been expired for about five years, but I lost it pretty much the instant it arrived in the mail. Next time I’ll just throw the $130 into the trash and save myself a trip to the post office. (Seriously, where is it? I had it in my hand, and then it vanished!)

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Infinite patience. And hell, infinite money. Why not, right? Just as likely. On the realistic side, I’d settle for MORE patience and some perspective when it comes to the level of clutter in my home. I don’t want to live in a filthy mess, but I also don’t want to spend all my time maintaining (or attempting to maintain) an unrealistic level of cleanliness/organization when I could be living my actual life.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
December 3 is the only date I will remember since it’s Ann Marie’s birthday. Otherwise, the days I remember are our trip to California in June, the times I took the kids to the beach in the summer, our hikes through the local state park, stuff like that. I won’t remember the times I cleaned the whole dining room; hence my answer to number 6.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? 
I think I’m going to have to say it was managing to stay mostly sane and keep living a mostly normal life while pregnant and then delivering a baby. Remember, I’m taking full credit for the ease of Ann Marie’s birth, deserved or not.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I think my failures are the same as many parents’: All the times I’ve lost my patience and snapped at my children for just acting like children are my biggest failures. Most especially the times I, myself, have thrown a tantrum because things aren’t going my way.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yes, actually. In July, I dropped the shower head on my toe, and the toenail is still black and is going to fall off soon and I’m scared. Gah. I also had a mysterious illness in September that made my entire body hurt to the point that Percocet only took the edge off. It was pretty much horrible. I never got a diagnosis other than “viral” and it eventually went away, but it was a loooooong week or two. I also had a bunch of sinus infections. And of course, I was pregnant, which certainly feels like an illness a lot of the time.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
This was a tough one to figure out, but I think probably our California trip. We had a great time and got to see old friends. I also got a Phil & Ted’s Dash for half price (HALF PRIIIIICCCEE!), but time will tell if it proves to be as awesome as I hope, since Nora’s too tall to sit in the doubling seat when it’s up front, and that’s the only way she and Ann Marie can both ride right now because Ann Marie needs the main seat to be flat. But when Ann Marie can sit up, it is ON.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Oh, mortgage, by far. And then probably food. I’m kind of snobby about what food I buy.

13. What did you get really excited about?
Well, the trip to California, for one. And the birth of my third child. And Christmas break. And the times my kids spent a night or two at their grandparents’. Probably mostly that last one, though.

14. What song will always remind you of 2011?
And now we reach a question that makes me feel like a loser, because I don’t KNOW any songs. All I ever listen to is NPR. I do like Adele, even I couldn’t escape hearing her songs all year, and I also like OK Go, but I don’t even know if that’s from this year or not. I am so unhip.But maybe I’m approaching this wrong: Nora’s favorite song is “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” so I’ve heard and sung that approximately 4378925 times this year. So maybe that one?

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
– happier or sadder? Happier
– thinner or fatter? Fatter, but I did just have a baby.
– richer or poorer? Probably about the same, depending on how you measure it. Net worth is possibly higher, but as far as actual lifestyle cash, the same.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I’ve been pondering this question for a while, and I think I’ll have to say exercise. I did walk a lot, so I guess I did pretty well for a pregnant person, but I miss exercise when I can’t do it. I also wish I could have seen more movies. This may make me shallow, but I love movies, and I currently can’t even stay awake for a whole movie at home, never mind going to a movie.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Any pointless time wasting or yelling at my kids instead of dealing with them patiently.

18. How did you spend Christmas?
We spent Christmas Eve with my family (Ann Marie makes it a total of 15 grandchildren on my side), then went to the pageant mass, which was at 5:30. Afterwards, we brought the kids home and put them in their PJs, and then drove around to look at Christmas lights. This was a mistake, because on the way to a particularly crazily-lit-up street, Jack asked us to turn the music down so he could sleep. Oh, well, Nora saw some of them. When we got home, I think we tried to watch a movie, but I fell asleep (see question 16).Then we had Christmas morning at our house and spent the afternoon with my in-laws (grandchildren count: 5). It was very lovely.

19. What was your favorite TV program?
Hmmm. Probably still Burn Notice.

20. What were your favorite books of the year?
I didn’t read any books that made me say “WOW!” this year, but I liked Snuff by Terry Pratchett, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Ape House (which I technically read this week but I’ll forget by next year), and a bunch of other books that I can’t remember.

21. What was your favorite music from this year?
I plead the fifth.

22. What were your favorite films of the year?
The only movies I saw in the theater were Harry Potter and The Muppets and they were both awesome.

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 35, and Andrew made me a cake.

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
There is a difficult person in my life, and she created a situation where I fantasize about responding with the childish thing instead of the adult thing (which is what I did), and in my fantasy it totally schools her. This would have been immeasurably satisfying. This may be petty, but there you go.

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Stretchy.

26. What kept you sane?
My husband and the internet. (I only put “husband” first so his feelings wouldn’t be hurt, because, let’s face it, who’s here for me at 4:45pm on a weekday? The internet or my husband? Exactly.)

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011. 
That difficult person did some things that got me really upset, so I learned that it takes me a week to get over the things hateful people do. After a week, I can laugh about it instead of cry.

Ann Marie's Birth Story

2011-12-30T13:36:00.000-05:00

My due date was November 29. On November 30, I went in for my 40-week OB appointment, where I was 2cm and, uh, had my membranes scraped. Possibly this is too much information, so sorry about that. At any rate, I felt pretty weird on Thursday morning (Dec. 1) and thought it was conceivable that my water had broken. You might be wondering how I could be unsure, particularly as television always shows the water breaking as a huge unmistakable gush, but it doesn’t have to be. Just trust me, it’s possible not to realize it.

At any rate, I had a non-stress test scheduled for that day, so I figured I’d just have them check it when I got there. I was kind of hopeful that they’d say, “My goodness, you are 8 cm! You have to stay!” but I didn’t expect it, particularly given the amount of no-pain I was in. (Well, other than the sciatica, round ligament pain, and various other pregnancy ailments. No contractions, though.) So it was no surprise when they told me my water had not broken and I could go home. But I had a nice quiet nap while I was non-stressfully tested, so that was something at least.

Then on Friday, Dec. 2, I still felt really weird. Just… weird. No contractions, no concrete signs of labor, but if I were a cat I would have been fluffing up my birthing nest, or whatever it is cats do when they’re about to give birth. I don’t really know, so I probably should have picked a different analogy. After school I took the kids to buy Christmas outfits/kill the afternoon, and then we went home and had some sort of leftovers or something for dinner. And then I started to feel twinges. Contractions? Maybe? Sort of on the regular? We put the kids to bed, and I informed Andrew that I was having twinges about five minutes apart.

I called the doctor, and she said not to come in until they were two minutes apart. Now, two minutes is only three minutes less than five minutes, and three minutes is not a long time! So it seemed quite possible to us that we’d be at two minutes in an hour or two. I realize it doesn’t work like that, but that’s how it felt anyway. Since we were planning for the kids to stay with Andrew’s parents while I was in the hospital, and they live an hour away, we decided to ask them to drive up while it was still early enough to reasonably do so. That way they could just stay the night and I wouldn’t have to wake my niece up in the middle of the night to come babysit and it would just in general be easier for everyone except my in-laws.

So naturally, a half hour after they left their house, my contractions dwindled and then stopped. They were pretty much gone when the grandparents arrived. It was too late for them to drive home, though, so they stayed over anyway and said they would take the kids home with them in the morning regardless of what was happening on the baby front. We gave them our bed and Andrew and I settled down in the living room.

Somewhere around 1am, Nora woke up crying for me, so I relocated to the recliner in the kids’ room. Then, around 3am a contraction woke me up. “This is really it now,” I thought, foreshadowingly. After I woke Andrew we went in to tell his parents, who had requested that we wake them if we left in the night. “We’re going to the hospital,” we said. Then Andrew asked me how far apart the contractions were, and since I wasn’t really sure he suggested we time them before we actually left.

“Good idea,” I said. So I lay back down on the couch to time them and woke up four hours later. “I think that wasn’t actually it,” I told Andrew.

Andrew’s parents made good on their promise to take the children away in the morning, and I still felt pretty weird, so I parked myself on the couch after breakfast and mainlined episodes of Grey’s Anatomy on the Wii. The sporadic twinges reappeared, but I could never be certain they were actually contractions. We went for a walk around 11am, and halfway through, I had a contraction that was a for-real, I-mean-it contraction, no question. And I thought again that maybe my water broke. Water-breakage was confirmed when we got home, so I checked in with the doctor then re-parked myself on the couchfor a few more episodes of Grey’s.

Meanwhile, Andrew started nesting. In the grand tradition of husbands/fathers having to do SOMETHING, he bustled around the house attending to various chores. Some (packing the hospital bag) more pressing than others (cleaning the coffee maker). After about an hour of this, he came into the living room with a thoughtful expression, gazed around critically and said, “I want to rearrange the this room.” Now by this point, my contractions were quite unmistakable, and about 5-7 minutes apart. I was most definitely in labor. So I asked if he could possibly hold off on rearranging the living room furniture until at least the next day.

At any rate, I labored along on the couch for about two and a half hours and then decided that 4 minutes apart was damn well close enough, and we went to the hospital. That was at 2:30. In the car, I breathed and silently fretted about how in the heck I was going to walk to L&D which is on the third floor, and also would I have to wait while Andrew parked? I had no experience with this, as I went to the emergency room when Jack was born since it was the middle of the night, and Nora was induced, so I wasn’t in labor yet when I arrived. I did not want to labor by myself in the lobby of the hospital, but knew I couldn’t possibly make it to L&D all alone. But do you know what hospitals have? Wheelchairs! I forgot they have wheelchairs! I tell you, I was never so relieved to see a wheelchair.

The front desk person wheeled me up to L&D while Andrew parked the car. (I didn’t have to walk from the garage either! Those hospitals. So considerate.) By the time Andrew got to my room, I was already gowned and being helped into bed. A quick check followed, revealing me to be at five centimeters or so, and the contractions were ramping up. With both Jack and Nora, I tried hypnobirthing, and made it to six centimeters with each of them before getting an epidural. But the critical thing was that Nora was born twenty minutes after I got the epidural. Since six centimeters seems to be my breaking point, and since I was worried that I might miss my window, and since I was hoping for a repeat of Nora’s quick birth, I decided to ask for the epidural right away. In the meantime, I used my hypnobirthing mp3 file and concentrated on staying relaxed. In order to do so, through every contraction I found myself making a low guttural “Unnnnggghhhhhhhh” sound. I never did that before, but it helped immensely.

At this point, my concept of time failed. The anesthesiologist came, and I seemed like getting the epidural took fifteen or twenty minutes, but Andrew assures me it was less than five. All I know is that I had to sit up without moving lest I become permanently paralyzed for a very very long time. Also I couldn’t say “Unnnnngggghhhhhh.” Well, I probably could have, but I didn’t. Once the epidural kicked in, though, I was very happy and chatty and about forty minutes later I had to push. This was twice as long after the epidural as with Nora, but I don’t think I’ll complain. Especially since Ann Marie was born at 4:27 pm, which was 87 minutes after getting hooked up to monitors. I took all the credit for this, citing my skillful relaxation techniques and general wesomeness. All the nurses were very impressed. Heck, even the people I was wheeled by in the waiting area on the way in said, “Wow, that was fast!” when Iwas wheeled back out again.

And then? After that incredibly easy and practically painless birth? I got Ann Marie, the easiest, sleepiest, snuggliest, most contented baby in existence. I realize that her being so easy is at least partially due to my own experience and lack of anxiety about every little thing; for example, I do not spend my days hovering over her wondering if I should hold her, put her down, feed her, change her, talk to her, leave her alone, etc. But it certainly helps that she is happy all the time. True, sometimes she goes “Eh! Eh! Eh!” if she’s really hungry, but mostly she just hangs out. She likes to be held, but I just hold her, so that’s fine. Man, if only I could go back in time five years and convince my new Mom self that newborns are easy! Relax, already!

Another thing that helps enormously is that I seem to have escaped any PPD this time. I am just happy! So happy to have this sweet little snuggly baby girl living with us. And it feels like she’s always been here.

A bunch of random photos

2011-12-29T21:37:00.004-05:00

I've been working on Ann Marie's birth story, but it's slow going because my two-handed computer time is very limited. So here are a bunch of pictures of my kids. That are going to be huge because I'm not going to resize them as the baby is making noises and I have to go put on pajamas. You'll note that Nora fell on her face three days before Christmas and its associated plethora of photos.

Pumpkin pancakes

2011-12-16T10:37:00.000-05:00

One of the things getting me through these early weeks with a baby is easy dinners. Which, obviously. But we had pumpkin pancakes on Wednesday night, my own recipe, adapted from Cook's Illustrated blueberry pancakes recipe, and they were delicious if I do say so myself. So I'm going to share it.

PUMPKIN PANCAKES

Notes: Original recipe calls for 2 cups milk. The pumpkin is very wet, so I had to reduce. Canned pumpkin is usually not as wet as frozen homemade puree, so you might need the 2 cups. Use your judgment once you're trying to pour the batter out; it should be a thinnish consistency, like any typical pancake batter.

1.5 cups milk + 3/4 Tbsp lemon juice (or else 1.5 cups buttermilk)
2 cups (10 oz) whole wheat flour
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
up to 1/2 tsp table salt (I just shook some in there)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp each of nutmeg, ground cloves, allspice
1 large egg
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla

1. Whisk the milk with the lemon juice in a large measuring cup, set aside to thicken. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices together in a medium mixing bowl.

2. Whisk the egg and melted butter into the milk until combined. Add vanilla. Make a well in the dry ingredients in the bowl, pour in the milk mix until combined. Add the pumpkin puree, mix.

3. Pour onto hot griddle, cook until bubbles form, flip, cook 1-2 min more.

Not the birth story

2011-12-08T12:25:00.001-05:00

Jack wants a bell. "For what?" I said.

"So I can hang it here, from my bed, and then when I want to wake up Nora I only have to ring the bell," he told me.

"Uh, Jack, I don't really want you to wake Nora up in the morning."

"But I already do!" he told me.

This, my friends, explains much.

Welcome, baby girl!

2011-12-05T17:23:00.001-05:00

If you don't follow me on Twitter, my apologies for neglecting to update here until now!

We had a baby girl last Saturday. Ann Marie was born on December 3, 4:27 pm. 7 pounds, 6 ounces, 20 inches long.

Nothing to update

2011-12-02T07:56:00.001-05:00

Yes, I'm still pregnant. I had a BPP, AFI, and NST yesterday, and the baby is head down, fine, and apparently settling in for the winter. I think I saw a little TV and remote control in there during the ultrasound.

Gotta say, I was definitely hoping they were going to say, "My goodness, you're contracting and you're already at 5cm! I guess you're staying here!" but they didn't. Still, neither did they say, "My goodness, the baby is in terrible distress and we have to do a c-section right now!" so there's that.

Who has two thumbs and is still pregnant?

2011-12-01T08:40:00.001-05:00

Yep.

Hey-yo

2011-11-30T08:03:00.001-05:00

Still pregnant.

And so we enter the cranky stage

2011-11-27T20:00:00.001-05:00

This weekend, I achieved the following pregnancy milestones:

1. The cashiers at the grocery store asked me if I wanted help putting stuff in my car.
2. I did.
3. Near constant back pain. In fact, hold on while I rearrange myself on the couch because ow.
3a. There. That's better. Wait, no it isn't. There is no better.
4. I can no longer bear to walk to church (not far).
5. Seriously, my back really hurts.

Andrew returns to work tomorrow, along with the rest of the world, and I'm a smidgen worried about how I'm going to get through the days without dying. Meanwhile, I'm not even at 40 weeks for three more days, but I'm mentally preparing myself for having this baby at 42 weeks because I just feel like I'm doomed that way. Did I ever tell you I was personally three weeks late? THREE WEEKS. And I'm the youngest of six, so my mother was 43 weeks pregnant with five other children at home, ranging in age from 11 to 2.5.

Let's pause here, and raise a glass to my poor mother. Three weeks late, folks. I said to her this weekend that I don't know how she did it, and she said, "Well, I cried a lot."

But I shall change the subject and discuss the holiday weekend, which was actually quite nice until the back pain kicked in yesterday. Wednesday was a bust because of a variety of things, including Andrew going to bed for the night at about 5pm thanks to a fever, but we did manage to take the kids to see The Muppets on Friday. I had been very concerned that I would not get to see it until it comes out on DVD because of this here baby, but we made it! We even found a 10am showing which was very promising since we figured Nora would be able to stay awake for the whole thing! HA HA HA! We are adorably naive. She enjoyed the Toy Story short at the beginning and then asked if it was over. About halfway through the movie, she started whining kind of a lot and asked to go home, but we are terrible, awful, selfish people, and made her stay. In our defense, Jack - and, fine, WE - were enjoying it immensely, and we only had one car, so it wouldn't really have been fair to make Jack leave. Or us. We did take her out for walks, though, and then she climbed into my lap and went to sleep.

Andrew and I are both very relieved that Jack liked it, because we would clearly have had to disown him. And Nora at least liked the singing chickens, so there's that.

And that's all I have in me because I need to lie down. WOE WOE WOE IS ME.

Nothing.

2011-11-27T13:48:00.001-05:00

I'm posting this from my couch where absolutely nothing of interest is happening whatsoever, unless you count a sharp increase in normal overall pregnancy-related discomfort over the last two days.

Update: No news.

2011-11-26T12:46:00.001-05:00

Just figured at least somebody is checking in to see if I'm in labor. Nope.

Aiming low

2011-11-22T16:13:00.001-05:00

I made myself a to-do list today. It was:

~~1. Clean kitchen~~
~~2. Clean bathroom~~
3. Clear off dining room table (which I JUST DID, I swear I could add this to the list every 45 minutes)
4. Shower
5. ~~Lau~~ndry

I can legitimately cross off Number 1. Number 2 I'm crossing off because I redefined "bathroom" to mean "toilet." I'm about to cross off Number 4 (at 4:15 pm! Woohoo!) and all the laundry is clean, just not so much put away. And I kind of think it won't be.So, pretty good I guess. Oh, I should also add:

~~6. Continue to grow baby.~~

For those keeping track, I'm at 39 weeks today. And, since I've made it this far, I would like to formally request that this baby stay put until Friday, because we're going to see The Muppets tomorrow if possible, and after all this torture, it would be a shame to miss out on Thanksgiving, don't you think? But Friday would be good. Friday, baby. You can do it.

Thankful tree, 2011

2011-11-20T22:35:00.001-05:00

In 2009, I got the idea of a Thankful Tree from Emily,and it has since become one of my favorite holiday traditions. This year was thebest yet, because Jack is old enough to write his own things down, so I get tosee it in his handwriting.

There’s not much to say here other than to mention that Nora does not yetunderstand what we’re doing, so she mostly just echoed what Jack said, or elsesaid, “Yus,” when he said things like, “Nora, aren’t you thankful for green?”

So without further ado, here are our lists:

JACK

Blueberry muffins

Angels

Cherry pie

Pizza

Pineapple pizza

Cupcakes

God

My birthday

Bunk beds

Family

New baby

NORA

Blueberry cupcakes

Pineapples

The letter H (This one was I think her own idea. I’mflummoxed also.)

Toys (My suggestion)

The color green

Jack

Nora

Daddy

New baby

Our house

Pancakes

Autumn leaves

The color red (Jack’s suggestion)

My health

Books

Andrew does not have a list because I guess he hasnothing to be thankful for. Or, OK, fine, possibly because he works all day andthen comes home and has to take over all child-rearing responsibilities as soonas he walks in the door since I am morphing into a useless, weepy, pregnantmess. So maybe he hasn’t had time to sit and write down ten things he isthankful for.

Speaking of useless, I would post a picture of ourthankful tree, and maybe a belly shot, but that would mean I’d have to standup, so forget it. Just imagine a treecut out of brown paper, taped on our brown wall. The leaves are multi-colored,though, so you can tell it’s there.

Incidentally, Jack came into the kitchen this morning andsaid, “Mom? Dad? I suggest that there is too much brown in this house.”

Oh! And speaking of lists, one of Jack’s favorite bedtimestories is the book I gave Andrew last Christmas about the elements. Andhonestly, I could sit for hours and gaze at Jack and Andrew snuggled up on thecouch reading about the periodic table. It absolutely warms the nerdy cocklesof my heart. Currently, sitting on top of the book, is a list in childishhandwriting that says, “HeLiUM, Nitrogen, Florinen.” Andrew told me that it’s thestart of a list of all the elements we can’t touch. You see, Andrew told Jackthat some people collect elements, and he could too if he wanted to. Jack said,“Daddy! We need to make a list of the elements we can’t touch so I know whichones I can collect!”

So Jack knows, for example, that you should not touch thealkali metals, and that fluorine is dangerously reactive so it’s best to avoidit as well. Helium was his own addition to the list since you can’t “touch” itbecause it’s a gas. Ditto for nitrogen.

Did I ever tell you I have a wallet-sized periodic table that I used to carry around*? Oh, my heart cockles.

*I really did, and I used it all the time because it had the gas constant in about eight different unit sets on the back of it. So handy.

Guilty not-so-pleasure

2011-11-08T22:39:00.002-05:00

Not long ago, I checked Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later out of the library. Itwas… not good. Now obviously I didn’t expect it to be good. I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare, but I did think I would enjoyit in a guilty-pleasure way. Sadly, no. Not so much. I have since put somethought into why this was the case, and have compiled them into a list forhandy reference.

Top Ten Reasons SweetValley Confidential was far less enjoyable than I anticipated:

Warning: Containsspoilers. But don’t worry about it, as you should never read this book.

1. The writing is really really bad.

2. It turns out that I don’t remember any of thecharacters or plots from any of the SweetValley books I read in my past except for the one Sweet Valley Twins where Elizabeth and Jessica decide to pretendthey are triplets for the new girl in school that no one likes but thenElizabeth gets to know her better when she is acting as the fictional thirdWakefield girl and feels bad so they throw her a birthday party and Jessicatries to order a chocolate cake but Elizabeth heard the new girl complain abouthow she always has to have chocolate cake on her birthday because people thinkeveryone likes chocolate cake but she hates chocolate cake. I assume there’ssome kind of fallout at the actual birthday party regarding the fact that theentire middle school conned this girl into thinking there were Wakefieldtriplets, but I mostly only remember the thing about the chocolate cake, asit’s clearly the most critical plot point of the book.

At any rate, I can’t remember any of the characters’names except for the twins and Lila, the snobby rich girl. Possibly the newgirl in the above story ended up being a major secondary character, but I have no idea. So whenthe characters were reintroduced in SweetValley Confidential, I had no frame of reference and therefore didn’t careabout them. For example, I did not remember that the twins have a brother a yearolder than they are. (Turns out, he’s gay. And Jessica outed him to his wife.But I don’t care.)

3. This isn’t technically a reason I didn’t like thebook, but I’d like to note that twenty-five years can really change a person’s perspectiveon things. Back when I was reading the original books, for example, I did notspend time wondering how poor Mrs. Wakefield managed when she had aone-year-old and a set of newborn twins.

4. I kept getting hung up on the fact that Sweet Valleyis supposed to be a small town, but it has more than one law firm in it. And aPR firm. And an architectural firm. And a university. And 80% of thegraduates of SVH stay and live in SweetValley for the rest of their lives.

5. Inasmuch as I can remember what any of the characterswere like in the original series, many of them did not change or grow at all inten years, and most of the characters are rigid archetypes; something thatescaped my notice when I was 10.

6. The book starts out with Elizabeth and Jessicaestranged because Elizabeth hates Jessica for a mysterious reason that turnsout to be – shocker – Jessica stole Elizabeth’s boyfriend. (Former SVH fans:Yes, Todd. Jessica and Todd get married. Elizabeth ends up with Bruce Patterson.) But then Elizabeth turns back into adoormat just like she always was.

7. Jessica has a powerful and high-paying job at thefamous Sweet Valley PR firm despite the fact that she still, like, talkslike this, even in, like, her thoughts.

8. You guys, thewriting.

9-10. At the end, I was forced to read a description ofElizabeth Wakefield’s naked body. This one counts twice.

Jack's Party

2011-10-30T21:36:00.000-04:00

Today we had Jack’s 5th birthday party. It was supposed to be where he goes to gymnastics, but a freak October nor’easter took out the power at the gym, so we had to cancel it. I did have the option of rescheduling the party, but seeing as how I’m 36-ish weeks pregnant (I honestly can’t remember; I’m due November 29) and November is the official start of the holiday season, I canceled it. It was pretty disappointing since this was to be Jack’s first “friend” party, which I plan to have only for a select few birthdays. I was double disappointed, because I was looking forward to meeting his school friends and their moms, but what can you do? Who would have predicted a snowstorm on October 30?

However, although we’d invited seventeen kids, ten of those kids were his cousins, so we had them over to our house to make sure we wouldn’t be stuck with an entire half-sheet cake. And also so Jack wouldn’t have to go from “I get to have a party with a bouncy house and a tumble track and an obstacle course! WOOOOO!” to “I get to… hang out with my Mom and Dad and not have any presents because they already gave me theirs! Woooo?”

It actually turned out just fine. Jack and Nora love their cousins, and, if you’ll indulge me a minute, I’d like to say that this group of kids are just about the sweetest, most well-behaved group of kids I’ve ever had the privilege to know. We had ten children here aged nine-and-under, and you would never have guessed it. There was no screaming, fighting, or thundering around the apartment, and the older kids included the little ones in all their games. Everyone waited patiently for cake and ice cream, and my four-year-old nephew was heard to say, “I’ll take whatever piece you give me!” What sweethearts they all are.

As for presents, can I just say that five-year-olds get WAAAAY better stuff than babies. Playmobil, Transformers,Perfection… Andrew’s favorite though was from my parents. When my mom told me what she got him, she described it as “Mario Kart, but without the wheel.” I was confused, so she elaborated with, “You know? The old Mario Kart? Without the wheel?” I wondered if she perhaps meant Super Mario Brothers? She did. Andrew’s pretty psyched. (Well someone is going to have to teach Jack how to play it.) (And in my mom’s defense, we did not have Nintendo when I was a kid, so her first introduction to the Mario Brothers was Mario Kart. As far as she knows, Mario Brothers equals Mario Kart.)

In unrelated news, last night we had a family Movie Night and watched Babe. Nora sure knows how to ruin a Movie Night. First she whacked Jack smack in the forehead with the door of the medicine chest, then she whined and cried - loudly - about wanting more popcorn (among other things), then she just would not stay seated! Man, sometimes she acts like a two-year-old. But in one of her calmer moments, she rested her head on my belly. The baby gave her a good kick, and she sat up and said to me, “Why you DO that?” while rubbing her cheek.

“That wasn’t me, that was the baby!” I said. “The baby kicked you!” She told everyone today how the baby kicked her in the head, and she’s been trying to get him (or her) to do it again ever since.

Five! Five! Five! Five! Let's sing a song of five!

2011-10-24T21:23:00.002-04:00

So this kid here:

Has somehow morphed into this one:

And yes, that is another Chirp cake, the third one in a row. I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, and that’s what he chose. I think maybe he thinks he’s only allowed to choose characters from Peep and the Big Wide World. Convenient for me, I have to say, since the characters are all very round and simply drawn. I’m not including a shot of the cake from above, because it looks pretty much the same as the last two Chirp cakes I made, but I this year the icing was a lot closer to actually being red this year instead of pink. (It seems I never posted a photo of the cakes from last year, but they were Chirp and Quack, and Chirp looked the same.)

In honor of turning five, Jack got to try gum for the first time today. Jack has literally been looking forward to this for two years. Since I wasn’t about to let a three-year-old chew gum, I arbitrarily chose five as the age of reason as far as chew-but-don’t-swallow is concerned. I didn’t think he’d remember it or anything. I was wrong.

“When I’m five, I can have gum!” he told anyone and everyone for the next two years. I actually started to feel pretty bad for him, because there was no way The Experience of Gum was going to live up to his expectations. At any rate, today he had gum. And, as it turns out, we have not yet hit the age of reason as far as chew-but-don’t-swallow is concerned, but at least he got two minutes of chewing in beforehand.

Gum-swallowing aside, Jack had a good day. He got to hand out his cupcakes at school AND he got to be the line-leader THREE TIMES. Top that with a dinner of pineapple pizza, banana ice cream, and birthday cake, throw in a remote-control race car, and you get a pretty perfect birthday.

Jack, you’ve grown into such a fun, inquisitive, silly goofball of a little boy. You are just the best kid. I love you.

Kids, eh?

2011-10-13T18:17:00.000-04:00

Nora woke up from her nap in a pretty decent mood, but when Andrew asked her if she wanted a snack, juice, etc., she just kept saying, “No.” Finally he said, “Do you need a clean diaper?” and she held up her hand and said, “Just leave me alone.”

***

I was folding laundry and told Jack I needed him to put away his clothes. “No, thanks,” he said.

“Uh… the correct answer is, ‘Sure thing, Mom,’” I told him. There was some more argument and I finally said, “We’re going to make you a chore list, Jack.”

“Nooooo!” he said.

“Jack, how old are you again?” I asked.

There was a brief pause. “Not very,” he said.

Terrors

2011-10-09T20:55:00.002-04:00

One thing that constantly amazes me is the way my friends’ kids, who are all the same age as or younger than Jack, can watch movies. All kinds of movies! Movies with scary parts! Jack cannot. I am always trying to find movies that we can watch and enjoy together, as opposed to watching Cars for the four frillionth time, but every movie that I can stand has scary parts. This is because Jack’s personal definition for “scary part” is a squidge wider than the average person’s. For example, we tried Ratatouille a month or two ago because I couldn’t think it of any scary parts, but I didn’t realize that Remy and the kid shouting at each other during an argument would count. We had to shut it off because of angry shouting. So. It seems we are rearing a sensitive soul. I guess it’s karma, because I am personally responsible for my siblings’ not being allowed to watch Scooby Doo.

Nora, meanwhile, is newly frightened of monsters, despite the fact that she keeps catching monsters in her hand and they appear to be only two inches tall. Nevertheless, we have to wave a monster stick around the room every night before she goes to bed just to make sure the room is cleared. (During the day, we store the monster stick on the kitchen blinds. It’s also handy for opening and closing the slats.)

And both children have been having nightmares fairly regularly. Nora had one recently that made her run to our door and cry, “I scary!” The poor thing was actually trembling with fright. Jack has at least one a week. (His are usually pretty scary too, but his most recent one which was based on his not getting any lullabies before bed. It was a bit harder than usual to work up sympathy.) But what this all boils down to is that we just never know if we’re going to sleep all night or not, and these are the last few precious weeks before the months of no-more-sleeping smack us in the face.

My battery is about to die, so I’m going to wrap this up with some unrelated photos of Nora eating a giant pickling cucumber like an apple, and of Jack standing next to the robot he designed and built with Andrew. He hasn’t decided on its primary function, but it does have invisible arms.

Some stuff that's been happening

2011-09-20T19:57:00.001-04:00

This past weekend was our niece and nephew’s double birthday party at my brother-in-law’s. Everything was going fine until Andrew nearly cut the tip of his finger off chopping scallions and everyone FREAKED OUT. Well, I exaggerate. My mother-in-law came over and with careful calmness told me that Andrew’s dad would be taking him to the hospital for stitches. I got up to investigate matters and found Andrew’s brother holding him up at the kitchen sink while water ran over his finger. There was also a bag of frozen vegetables on Andrew’s head because Andrew had almost passed out. Fingers, it seems, bleed a lot.

At any rate, my FIL took Andrew to the hospital, and they were back after only two hours with only four stitches. During the two hours, my MIL pretended to be totally cool and fine, but she was actually having a series of secret inner heart attacks because her child! Was at the hospital! I, on the other hand, was fine except that I felt guilty for not being more worried that my husband! Was at the hospital! Perhaps I would have been more upset had it been my 35-year-old son instead of my husband? But it’s just that… it was only his finger. In the absolute worst case, Andrew was going to lose a fingertip. Which, yes, would be awful and nasty, but not as though Andrew is a professional musician or something; he’d do just fine without a fingertip. Losing a fingertip is no day at the beach, but, you know, fingertip. There are worse things to lose.

The best part of this story is how my FIL brought my MIL’s phone with him, and her sister called while they were at the ER. I guess she started talking, and the nurses were yelling at my FIL for using a cell phone, so he just said, “I can’t talk; I’m at the hospital with Andrew,” and then he hung up. He hung up! And of all the people he could have said this to, Andrew’s aunt is among the most freak-out-able. I’m a little surprised she didn’t leap into her car and start driving. So Andrew’s poor aunt had to wait two hours to find out that he needed four stitches, and had not been in a terrible car accident or something.

***

In other news, Temerity Jane has been writing a lot about cloth diapering her adorable baby Penny. TJ uses mostly fitteds, and they are adorable enough to be worthy of Penny. And now Amalah has gone and written a cloth diapering manifesto of her own (mine is linked in the sidebar), and SHE uses fitteds with fleece and wool covers!

Now when TJ first started showing us all the pictures of Penny’s diapers, I thought, “Yes, they are cute, but isn’t it annoying to have a bunch of different kinds? And also expensive? And also you have to keep shopping?” Because we have been CDing for almost five years now, and I tried a few kinds of diapers, but settled on BumGenius one-size. It’s simple. It’s streamlined. I don’t have to keep shopping. The aplix on ours got all curly and annoying, and some of the elastics wore out, but I paid someone to convert them to snaps and redo the elastics, and they’ve been working out mostly great. They don’t fit Nora as well now, but Nora is pretty close to being trained, so I wouldn’t dream of buying new diapers for her. Still, TJ and Amalah have somehow managed to convert me. I now covet adorable fitted diapers. I’m not going to purchase any, because adorable fitted diapers are just as pricey as the 24 pocket diapers I already own that work just fine. But I WANT adorable fitted diapers. Le sigh.

***

I knew it was inevitable, but Jack no longer wants to use his pink accessories (water bottle, pencil case, etc.) that he specifically chose because he likes pink. It seems his friend laughed at his pink pencil case because pink is for girls. I am more annoyed by this than I expected to be. It would be one thing if Jack decided on his own that he doesn’t like pink anymore, but I fear he still does like it, he’s just embarrassed about it. And for crying out loud, it’s just a color. The kid should be free to use a pink water bottle if he wants to. Stupid peer pressure.

In all other ways, school is absolutely wonderful and he comes home simply brimming with songs and games and stories. I’m so glad we enrolled him even though it’s five full days (7:50-2:10). He is just thriving.

***

Finally, I’m totally pregnant. Somewhere around 30 weeks if you can believe that. I can believe it because I have the heartburn to prove it. I find myself feeling like I’ve consumed two Thanksgiving dinners by 1:00 every afternoon, and then I get terrible heartburn which induces nausea and I can’t eat anything until 8:30 or so. The doctor actually gave me carte blanche to eat ice cream every night if I want to since I haven’t gained that much weight yet, but I can’t because of the stupid heartburn. Le sigh indeed.

As far as baby-readiness, we aren’t. We did finish painting the bunkbeds, but we haven’t put them together because Andrew was going to do that this week but then he nearly cut off his fingertip instead. And all other baby preparations hinge upon getting the bunkbeds set up, because that will mean moving the dresser which will affect where I put the baby’s clothes. And, actually, that’s all I really need to do I guess, so maybe we’re not in such terrible shape after all. We did already buy the minivan. It’s a 2005 Toyota Sienna, white. I’m pretty happy with it except for how it uses twice as much gas as my Civic Hybrid. Damn, but I miss my old gas mileage.

And on that completely boring note, I will sign off and perhaps take some antacid. My life is so filled with glamor and excitement.

Back to the normal topics

2011-08-31T18:55:00.003-04:00

I have to say, I am pleasantly surprised at how popular my last post turned out to be. 14 comments (not counting mine)! I never get double-digit comments. Very fun.

But now I need to return to the regularly scheduled whining about being pregnant (today: with bonus viral illness!) and then tell a funny-but-resigned story about motherhood.

So, first of all, pregnancy: Man, it stinks, eh? Especially when you combine it with a mysterious viral infection that I have dubbed "Entire Body Hurts Except For Your Arms Disease." Because that's pretty much what it is. I'm not stuffy, feverish, nauseated, or congested, I just hurt. Everywhere. I've had a headache for three days, and my back feels like someone has been beating me with a large, heavy stick. I went to the doctor today and they took a throat culture (negative) and some blood (will likely be negative) and basically said, "Yep. Sucks to be you." If I were being fair, I'd admit that I'm paraphrasing their kind words of sympathy, but the essential take-home message was the same: Nothing we can do but wait it out. And dammit, I was really hoping for some magic pills.

So then I went to my mom's and my parents took the kids to ice cream for lunch with their cousins and I took some Tylenol and slept for a while, and fortunately Andrew got home minutes after we did, so I didn't have to do any child raising today. Technically, the TV raised the children this morning, because I am ONLY HUMAN. And now I am lying in bed, internetting, while Andrew wrangles the children into bedtime-readiness. Part of me feels really guilty about listening to him wrangle without helping, but most of me is too distracted by Entire Body Hurts Except For Your Arms Disease.

Part of the wrangling included a discussion on what Andrew would have to do if Nora's poop (which she naturally did in her overnight diaper, after having already used the potty and gotten into her PJs) rolled off the changing table and fell behind it. (Answer: Andrew would have to move the changing table to clean it up.) The shape and texture of the poop was also a topic, and I was reminded of the last time I went to my sister's house. I told her how, back in the day, I used to think it was just so tasteless for people to say "I have to pee" instead of "I have to go to the bathroom." I was far too classy to ever explain what I would be doing in the bathroom. I always just said I had to go there, and left it at that.

But times change, and now I spend about 40% of my day telling people to check for pee before we leave, don't poop on the floor, you only get ONE M&M for pee in the potty, etc., etc., ad infinitum. I have therefore become the kind of person who announces "I have to pee" every time I have to pee. It started as a way to set an example and became a habit so ingrained that I actually once sent out a Tweet about how I had to pee but was trapped in the office because the kids had forgotten I was there and I didn't want to remind them. A Tweet! I, the high class one, essentially announced "I have to pee" to the ENTIRE WORLD.

At any rate, mere minutes after I sighed to my sister about my lowered standards, I told Jack that we were leaving as soon as I got out of the bathroom.

"OK," he said. "Pee or poop?"

Science and television

2011-08-29T21:38:00.003-04:00

Let’s take a break from pregnancy and kids and talk for a second about what it can be like to be an engineer watching television. The other day, I saw a commercial for Exxon which started with a shot of gasoline being poured into some sort of container while a sexy female voiceover says something about how Exxon gasoline is special because it “works at the molecular level.” Now I think she went on to claim that the Exxon gas cleans the engine or something, but I can’t be sure because I was too busy mocking the ad to hear what she was saying. It “works at the molecular level,” eh, Exxon? Well that makes YOUR gasoline just incredibly unique! So with Exxon, do the gasoline molecules undergo an extreme exothermic reaction when mixed with oxygen molecules and heat? Funny, because THAT’S HOW GASOLINE WORKS. ON THE MOLECULAR LEVEL.

In fact, I am hard pressed to think of any substance on earth that doesn’t “work” at the molecular level. Take water. Did you know that liquid water flows because the molecules slide over one another, and ice is formed when those very same water molecules stop sliding and crystallize? That’s how it “works.” Take your furniture! You know how you can set something down on the table and it doesn’t fall through? That “works” because the molecules in the wood are tightly covalently bonded.

The Exxon commercial reminded of a news clip I saw years ago, but have never forgotten. The news anchor was talking about a vehicle full of volatile liquid. I forget what the liquid was, exactly, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it was oxygen. We’ll assume she was talking about a fuel tanker full of liquid oxygen. A dangerous thing, no doubt. But that doesn’t make this statement any more true: “But remember, even though the oxygen was in liquid form, it’s still a gas.” Because no. No it’s not. It’s a liquid. That’s why they call it liquid oxygen. Saying that something in the liquid form is “still a gas” is like saying… I don’t know! That two totally different things are the same! It’s like saying you can drown in ice because even though the water is solid, it’s still a liquid!

Argh.

I have one more from year ago, but this one is more forgivable because it was one of those “But wait, there’s more!” commercials, so you expect them to lie a little. It was a commercial schilling some sort of plastic sealant which is “so air-tight, even water can’t get through it!” Riiiiiight. I think the phrase they’re looking for there is “water-tight.”

Andrew would like me to add a note to the writers of Covert Affairs that you don’t get “infected with radiation poisoning.” You can get “poisoned by radiation” or you can “have radiation poisoning,” but not so much “infected.”

That is... unhelpful

2011-08-29T09:40:00.003-04:00

I think I might be anemic. I mentioned to my mom that I was really tired, and she said I probably was, that it's a common pregnancy ailment. "Nah, I don't think I'm anemic, I think I'm just tired," I said.

"No one ever thinks they're anemic," she replied.

So once the idea was planted, I started to consider it because I have hypochondriac tendencies anyway, and it's not really hypochondria to consider the possibility that you have a common pregnancy ailment. And I'm really, seriously, tired.

I have an appointment on Thursday anyway, so I will ask for a blood test then, but in the meantime I looked up the symptoms of anemia on Babycenter.

"If you do become anemic, you might not have any symptoms at all, especially if your condition is mild. Or you might feel tired, weak, and dizzy... You might also notice that you're paler (especially in your fingernails, the underside of your eyelids, and your lips). Other symptoms include a rapid heartbeat, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, headache, irritability, and trouble concentrating."

Yes, I am definitely tired, weak, irritable, and short of breath. But here's the thing: Those are also symptoms of PREGNANCY (which Babycenter does also admit, that's where I put the ellipses). I also have trouble concentrating and have a headache, but THOSE are symptoms of MOTHERHOOD. So now I'm obsessively checking my fingernails and eyelids for paleness. Unfortunately, paleness is a symptom of my Irish heritage. So I guess I'll wait for the blood test.

Don't shake it! DON'T SHAKE IT!

2011-08-11T08:20:00.002-04:00

When Jack was four months old or so, we left him with his grandfather for an afternoon as a test run for my upcoming return to work. Andrew and I used the baby-free time to go find some bedside tables at the unfinished furniture store. We found some perfect ones and bought them along with some stain and poly. The man who helped us pick out the poly made very clear that we were not to shake it when it was time to mix it, as that would introduce bubbles. He even wrote "STIR" in black Sharpie on the lid so that we wouldn't forget.

And so we didn't shake it. Any time we rearranged the four trillion paint cans we had, we made sure to pick that one up and set it down again without shaking it. We were very careful.

So when I finally did stain the first of the bedside tables a few months ago , I knew there would be no bubbles in the poly. And when I opened the can, I found out I was right! There were no bubbles at all! It would have been really easy to see them if there were, because bubbles show up very plainly in solidified polyurethane.

He may be right, you know

2011-08-10T21:14:00.002-04:00

Before lullabies tonight, Jack said he just wished he knew where heaven is. "Well no one really knows except God and the people who are there, Jack," I told him.

"I think I know," he said. "I think it's all around us."

"Because God is all around us and heaven is where God is?" I asked.

"Right!" he said.

Woah.

THIS is the right spot

2011-08-08T23:32:00.004-04:00

I was just reading Jonniker's latest post on vacations, and had to stop in the middle to come tell you this story. The comment that sparked this little blog aside was about how she and her family slept in a car on the side of the road during last year's vacation, and it reminded me of the summer between college and grad school when I spent a month in Colorado as a... home aide? Horse's aide? I don't know what we were, but my friend Elizabeth called me that June and asked me if I was interested in spending a month on a horse ranch in Colorado with her and helping the 95-year-old couple around the house. Ranch. Whatever. I said yes, obviously, because who would pass that up? We "worked" about 4-5 hours a day, doing household chores and things, and then we got to ride horses for an hour or so in the afternoon and then we were off the clock. I think 90% of our responsibility was probably to be non-95-year-old people on site in case there was an emergency of some sort. It was an isolated ranch.

But that is not what I came to tell you about. I came to tell you about how we went to the Royal Gorge one weekend. According to our Rand McNally Road Atlas, there was a campground about twenty miles or so from the bridge, and that's where we planned to spend the night. In our rental car, because we didn't have any camping gear or anything, but we figured we could just park in a campsite and sleep in the car.

We arrived around dinner time, so we were going to camp out and visit the gorge the next day. So we had dinner in the local hotel - where we saw an impromptu fiddling concert - we headed out for the campground. We drove and drove and drove and drove and eventually discovered that Rand McNally was a big fat liar. (I feel I should point out for those of you who are wondering why we didn't just use our GPS-enabled smart phones to find a place to stay that this was last century, when there WERE no GPS-enabled smart phones. No smart phones at all, and the military were the only ones with GPSs. Imagine!) (For the record, I still have neither a GPS nor a smart phone, although Andrew has both.) So, as I was saying, no campground. Nothing for miles, actually, and it was getting late. So we just slept there. For free! And then the next morning, we drove back to the Royal Gorge.

So let me recap: We were at the Royal Gorge, then we drove twenty miles out to a very specific spot on the highway, parked the car, slept, and drove twenty miles back to the Royal Gorge.

An interesting side note is that the day we were at the gorge, there was a fiddling competition. "Wow!" we kept saying. "This is so crazy! First we saw those fiddlers last night at the hotel, and then today we see all these fiddlers for the competition! What are the odds that we would see SO MANY fiddlers in a two-day span? It's so strange!" We marveled about the amazing coincidence for quite some time.

It was not until we were on our way home, hours later, that we put it together.

Jam hands

2011-07-28T10:36:00.001-04:00

Do you guys remember that episode of Gilmore Girls when Luke finds out his nephew Jess is coming to stay with him, and he freaks out about how kids always seem to have jam on their hands? How even if there's no jam in the house, they still somehow have "jam hands"?

We DO have jam in the house.

OWWWWW.

2011-07-22T08:29:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I dropped the shower head on my toe. I was actually showering with the kids at the time, the better to quickly rinse off the sandbox sand and grass and such after splashing around in the wading pool, so I was precluded from letting out a string of obscenities. And I really, really wanted to let out a string of obscenities. Unfortunately, I was stuck with shouting, in a tone that clearly indicated I was NOT fine, "I AM FINE! I HURT MY TOE BUT IT WILL BE FINE! NO, NORA, DON'T TOUCH IT I AM FINE!" Happily, Andrew was home and relieved me of my parental obligations so I could go pace around the kitchen and swear to my heart's content.

I thought I just stubbed it, but started to get worried when the swearing didn't help that much. Upon examination, I discovered that my toe was turning black. And after dinner, I discovered that the pain was getting worse. Worse, not better! But I could move it, and anyway, they don't do anything for a broken toe even if it was broken, so I was not about to go to the ER.

Long story short, I spent the evening with my foot raised over my head - a tricky thing to do when you are not allowed to lie flat on your back. Neither am I allowed to have ibuprofen, so I was stuck with acetametaphin and ice. I was worried I wouldn't be able to sleep because of the pain, but then I remembered who I am and fell asleep during my very favorite show, so there was no trouble there.

I think the worst part about all of it may be that it was such a stupid way to injure myself. Couldn't I have dropped, I don't know, a soup can or something heavy at least? But no, it was the shower head. And I dropped it on PURPOSE, because I was letting it drain and thought I was holding the hose close enough to the head to keep it from hitting the floor. Also I did not realize my toe was right under it, but I'm going to blame not wearing my glasses on that one. And also, I did not know the shower head was MADE OF LEAD. My word, that thing was heavy.

This morning my toe still hurts, but it's better. I'm still trying to keep it raised, so the initial throbbing as the blood returns whenever I put it back down on the ground is no picnic, but then it subsides to a sort of dull ache that at least doesn't make me want to cry.

But please don't touch it, Nora.

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(That picture does not do justice to the amount of pain that poor toe is in. IT REALLY REALLY HURTS.)

Her mother's daughter

2011-07-17T20:36:00.003-04:00

After a weekend pancake breakfast, Nora decided to clean up. It seems she subscribes to the “Neat piles of stuff” philosophy when it comes to making things tidy.

Some kid stuff

2011-07-14T20:37:00.001-04:00

Some kid stuff

A few months ago, Jack had a bad dream and had to come sleep in our bed. The next day, as we were driving somewhere in the car, I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw him looking droopy and tired. “You can close your eyes and take a nap, honey,” I told him.

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” he said.

“OK,” I replied, “but it’s just that you look really tired.”

“But I’m afraid to go to sleep,” he said. “What if I have another bad dream?”

My heart broke, but I tried to play it cool and asked him if he wanted to tell me about the dream he had the night before. I can’t quite remember what it was about, but I do remember thinking, “Wow, that is pretty scary.” I think it was something along the lines of a bad monster chasing him, trying to steal him away from us.

But I can’t have a kid afraid to go to sleep, so I said, “Jack, you know that dreams are just in your head, right? And you’re the one in charge of your head! So you know what you should do? Before you go to sleep, you just tell your head, ‘Head? No bad dreams.’ And then if you have a bad dream anyway, you should just say, ‘Hey! I’m dreaming! That means I’m in charge! Head? Change this dream!’ and then you can just change the dream!” Jack giggled.

“I could turn it into a flying dream!” he said.

“Exactly!” I replied. “Those are my favorite dreams too.”

He did fall asleep in the car because he just couldn’t fight it. And that night, Andrew reported that Jack asked him to wait a second before he sang songs and then whispered to himself, “Head? No bad dreams.” He’s been telling his head what to do every night since.

But this breaks my heart even more, because the trust! In me! When he has another bad dream, which I assume will happen eventually, will he think I lied to him? Which… I did? But on the other hand, did I really? Maybe all it takes to keep away the bad dreams is to truly believe that you just have to tell your head not to have any.

Parenthood, man. It’ll get ya.

***

Yesterday, something small – I forget what, exactly – made a loud noise that surprised us. “Woah!” said Jack.

“Yeah, you don’t expect something small to make a loud noise, huh?” I said. “Loud noises usually come from big things.”

There was a slight pause while Jack processed this. Then he said, “Nora’s pretty loud.”

He’s right. She is.

***

We have started the presumed hundred-year-long potty-training process with Nora, so she’s been spending a lot of time pantsless. As you do. Andrew found her one such time wearing naught but a t-shirt. “Nora, you’re naked!” he said.

She looked down at herself, and then looked back at him with genuine confusion. “I not naked, I still wearing a shirt.”

She was right. She was.

California

2011-06-29T11:03:00.003-04:00

Last week we went on a secret vacation to California. I didn’t say anything before we left because I didn’t want to advertise that our house was empty because isn’t that one of the things you’re not supposed to do on the internet? Tell all the crazy people that your house will be empty for a week? So I didn’t tell you. But now we’re back, and I can tell you ALLLL about it, which will actually just me putting a bunch of pictures up here. Modern day vacation slides.

Hey, did I ever tell you about a history teacher I had in high school who literally showed us vacation slides? He and his friend “Mel” traveled around… Europe? I think? And took a bunch of pictures of each other crouched in front of large landmarks that honestly would not have been blocked at all if they had just stood up like normal people. That guy was weird. He also got the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars mixed up when he taught them to us. Or rather, when he taught one of them to us but added details from the other one. Remember the Maine! And Tyler too! Or something!

Right. California. So last December, my college friend Dr. Lapp (not her real name) who married an adorable Argentinian named Pato but whom Nora calls “Pasta,” came home to spend Christmas with the Lapp Family. (I mention that he is Argentinian only so I can tell you that we went to their wedding in Buenos Aires, and if you ever get invited to a wedding in Buenos Aires you should go. Those people know how to throw a party. Food! Entertainment! Dancing! More food! More dancing! More food! Hey, look at that, it’s 5am!) We managed to get together for lunch during which Dr. Lapp and Pasta let slip that they recently bought a gigantic house with fifteen to twenty extra bedrooms and that we should come visit. “Really?” we said, “Because we will.” So we did.

First of all, I may have taken some creative license there, because Dr. Lapp’s and Pasta’s house is really only FIVE bedrooms. But it is gorgeous. And so well-decorated. It’s like grown-ups live there. I honestly do not understand how people know what furniture and artwork to buy so that it all GOES together like that. And they’re not really done, as they still have to furnish several of the bedrooms. I have to say, if I had several bedrooms to furnish from scratch, I think the pressure would kill me. It’s helpful to have a slew of hand-me-down stuff to start with if you are decorationally-challenged, as I am.

Since Dr. Lapp and Pasta’s 23-bedroom house is a convenient half hour away from Disneyland, we bought a three-day park hopper pass and spent Monday, Wednesday, and Friday there. I have passed the point in life where Disneyland is where I’d spend my vacation, given a choice of anywhere, but that’s if it were just me. Taking little kids to Disneyland is something else entirely, and lordy, it was fun.

I had been worried that there wouldn’t be anything for Nora to do, but she could do almost everything! Her favorite thing was the Dumbo ride (“I rode effants!”) and her only complaint was that it was way too short, a message she conveyed by screaming and yelling when it was time to get off. Jack’s favorite thing was Splash Mountain, because I seem to have become the mother of someone old enough and tall enough to ride actual roller coasters. Please explain how that happened. Here’s what Nora did while Jack and Andrew rode Splash Mountain:

That’s Baby Minnie Mouse, who is Nora’s new favorite character, and whom she calls “Money.” Also, Minnie came with a sort of Velcro swaddling blanket that kept falling off, and Nora would say “I need help!” and then, “She’s very very very very very cold,” as we reswaddled her.

Speaking of Minnie, Nora was typical about meeting the characters. From far away, she was all about giving them hugs, but as soon as we got close she would cry. So we waited for a minute at Mickey’s house but when she lost interest, we left. She insisted upon waiting to meet Minnie, however, so I forced her to go through with the photo.

She looks thrilled, yes?

There were, all things considered, minimal tantrums or meltdowns at Disneyland, if you don’t count mine. But I was sick, so it totally doesn’t count. ANYONE would have been grumpy, trust me on this.

The days we weren’t at Disneyland we went to a local science museum, the beach, and a tiny nearby airport to eat lunch and watch the planes take off. Then we went swimming in the backyard pool of my friends’ 35-bedroom home. All told, it was a really fun, fabulous trip. And may I take this opportunity to say that we receive multiple compliments on our well-behaved children on each of the four different flights we took, so we win. (Seriously, the plane rides were easy! EASY! I don’ t know how we got so lucky.)

I’m equally familiar with the phenomenon of falling asleep during a movie

2011-06-15T11:14:00.001-04:00

I’ve been reading The Man of Your Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld. I grabbed it at the library when I saw it because I loved Prep and I am always excited to find an author I know I like at the library since I don’t have lots of shelf-browsing time these days. And yes, I agree that I’d have better luck if I went to the library with a list of books, or, better still, requested them to be held for me, but BLAH BLAH BLAH. I didn’t.

So anyway, I was enjoying the book quite a lot, despite Sittenfeld’s slightly gimmicky use of the present tense and the time-jumping style of the plot. Each chapter started a chunk of time past the end of the previous chapter, and then would become a sort of flashback to the time that was skipped. I was following it pretty well until the main character, Hannah, was talking to her cousin Fig’s boyfriend in the car while they were on the way to pick up Fig. It was all going well, but then Sittenfeld started referring to things that I could swear had not been explained, like Fig’s and Hannah’s trip to L.A., or Hannah’s dinner with her father. It seemed to fit in with the flashback-style of the book; I assumed she was planning to reveal things later. Nevertheless, I was feeling kind of grumpy about it, because it was just too jumpy. I mean, come on, Sittenfeld. Get it together.

And then, as I was approaching the end of the story, I realized that I had inadvertently skipped some of the book. Sort of a lot, actually. It turned out to be pages 48-160. I just didn’t read them. So, yeah. The plot seemed a bit jumpy. It was a lot like falling asleep in the middle of a movie, the key difference being that a movie keeps going without you, so it makes sense that you would miss a chunk. This… was different.

How did this happen? Well first of all, I usually don’t use bookmarks, I just look at the page number and try to remember it, and then flip through until I find my spot. Second of all, I can’t remember characters’ names. At least for the most part. I remembered Fig’s name, because it’s Fig. And when I “fell asleep”, Hannah was talking to Fig’s boyfriend about Fig; when I “woke up,” Hannah was talking to her OWN boyfriend about Fig. Fig’s boyfriend was named Henry, Hannah’s boyfriend was named Mike. Both fairly generic. And a particularly salient point is that Hannah had a crush on Henry, so when we skipped ahead, I just thought that Sittenfeld was planning to explain later how Hannah ended up with Henry, whose name I thought was Mike.

Does any of that make sense? It doesn’t really matter, because it’s not really an excuse, seeing as I read about 100 pages of a book without realizing that I had completely skipped the middle third of the story. Instead, I blamed the author for writing something so incoherent. I don’t really know what this says about me, but I will say that when I went back and read it in order, the plot made a whole lot more sense.

Sittenfeld, you have my apologies.

Well this is convenient

2011-06-04T23:00:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, Jack was rooting through the silverware drawer while I prepped for dinner. (I made this crockpot breakfast casserole. I am told it was good, but I certainly couldn’t eat it. I couldn’t even go near it as I very unwisely included broccoli. Here’s a helpful tip: If you start to feel nauseated round about 3:00 most days, it is perhaps not the best idea to cook broccoli in the crockpot from 3:00-5:00. We played outside from 4:00 on or so, and when we came back inside the stench of overcooked broccoli almost killed me dead. In fact, I have to stop even typing about it right now. Blergh.)

Let’s start over: Jack was rooting through the silverware drawer and came across a baby spoon, but a particularly annoyingly shaped baby spoon that doesn’t fit in the drawer very well. We used to have two, in fact, but I think I threw one out. Jack was fascinated by it, and when I told him it was a practice spoon for babies, he said, “We should have another baby.”

Well that caught my attention. We have not yet shared our good news with Jack, but I figured this was a golden opportunity not to be wasted. “Would you really like to have another baby come live here, Jack?” I asked him.
“Yeah!” he said.

“Because they’re so cute, right?” I was concerned that he was mainly interested in seeing the baby spoon in use, so I wanted to check.

“Yeah, they are,” he replied. “We should have lots of babies.”

“How many babies do you want, Jack?”

“Oh, five or six,” he answered.

“Five or six, huh? I said. “Do want them to come all at once, or do you want to have one every couple of years?”

Jack considered this, and then said, “One every couple of years, because we only have one of these baby spoons.”

And you can’t argue with that.

Technology is out to get us

2011-05-24T08:00:00.001-04:00

This announcement will come as a total non-shock to many of you who follow me on Twitter, as I recently inadvertently publicly tweeted what was supposed to be a direct message. I blame my phone. You see, I was replying to a DM from someone and forgot that when you reply by phone, it is a TEXT MESSAGE so it replies to TWITTER, not to the person who messaged you. You still need to type the “DM @person” unless you want to broadcast what seems like a weird sideways hint to the entire internet, like maybe a tweet referencing mysterious “home tests” that were “all negative.”

Incidentally, I learned something recently, and it is that cheap pregnancy test strips bulk ordered from Amazon apparently have a shelf life.

Yes, folks, we’re going to have another baby. Sometime in December. I’m tennish weeks along. I’d know more precisely, but I don’t have the exact date of my LMP. This makes me sound like I have a breezy/irresponsible devil-may-care attitude towards such things, but in actuality, I have charts and graphs and observations. I don’t HAVE to remember the date of my LMP because it’s on the chart. You know? The chart? The one Nora found and stole and put somewhere? Else? I’m sure I’ll find it in late December some time.

Yeah, so about five weeks ago I went to the doctor to find out what in the holy hell was wrong with me, because something was not right. Not right at all. And the home tests! Were negative! In fact, I think I deserve some kudos for restraining myself and not googling “early menopause.” Unless maybe I did. Yeah, I probably did. The doctor’s office spends a bit more on test kits, however, so everything was cleared right up. Things were still kind of terrible for a while, though, because the stuff that was not right? Was in my brain. It was like I had post-partum depression early. Partum depression, I guess. So while it was somewhat helpful to know that there was a simple biological explanation and I had only gone mad temporarily, I was still in the midst of it sitting there in the doctor’s office, and the news did not exactly make me jump up with joy. There’s not a lot of jumping for joy when everything about life is totally awful.

I remained in the midst of it until about a week ago, and I have to tell you it feels so good to be ME again. I no longer storm around the house every morning, slamming cabinets and resenting the entire world for not sending in someone ELSE to clean the bathroom for a change and do you think that another person in this house could deign to sweep the goddamn floor once in a while? It was awful. And the worst part of that was how my kids could not even look cross-eyed at me without my taking it as a personal attack on my sanity. They could do nothing right. It felt like they were just pick-pick-picking at me every second of the day. I was just so angry, all the time.

To name one specific example, in the throes of this depression I took the kids to my niece’s birthday party, and I had some trouble finding the location. It was in a play center in an office park, and there was a sign at the entrance to the lot, but no second sign pointing the way to the waaaay back of the lot. I drove around that stupid lot for about five minutes and could not find the place to save my life. I had to call my brother, who directed me back out onto the main road – a BUSY road that I now had to take a LEFT TURN onto – around the corner and back IN to the stupid office park where I found that had I only kept going straight to the back in the FIRST place I would have FOUND the stupid playspace FIVE MINUTES AGO.

I seethed about that for at least thirty minutes. I seethed at the people who decided to put something like that at the BACK of the lot, I seethed at whoever was in charge of signage for not including a second sign, I seethed at the traffic on the busy road, and I seethed at my brother for making me take a LEFT TURN onto a BUSY ROAD. It was an extremely rational and reasonable response to a few minutes of inconvenience, obviously.

When I wasn’t angry at everyone and everything, I was crying from sadness or loneliness or guilty feelings over being a hateful person or a combination of all three. Or else I was dry heaving, and feeling sad and angry and resentful about it. I was pure joy to live with, believe me.

I did consider antidepressants, but I was trying to give my hormones a few weeks to settle down a bit. My doctor and I discussed it, and had I not been feeling better by twelve weeks I would have tried them, because nine months is a helluva long time to feel like that. But the fog lifted during the past week, and I have been in a good mood even though the weather is dark and rainy and cold, I still have to clean the bathroom and sweep the floor, and I continue to spend a lot of quality time dry heaving over the toilet. On the upside, I clean the toilet much more often seeing as I have to stare into it several times a day. (To clarify, the upside there is not that I clean the toilet much more often, it’s that we more often have a clean toilet.)

Best of all, I am once again enjoying my kids. My kids who are not, as it turns out, evilly conspiring to drive me crazy. In fact, they’re actually pretty cute. I kind of like them. Another one seems like a great idea to me.

STRAWBERRIES?

2011-05-23T09:45:00.002-04:00

This week is a freezer-meal week because my freezer is completely stocked, so I only bought perishables at the grocery store. When I got home, Nora did an inventory on my purchases. She peeked into one bag and gasped in audible delight. "Strawbrees? Oh my GOSH! STRAWBREES!" She could not have been more excited or surprised.

Oh my GOSH!

Home Decluttering: Attic Edition

2011-05-20T09:47:00.002-04:00

I am sure that all of you are on the edges of your seats wondering how The Great Attic Clean Out of 2011 went down. Pretty well, as it turns out. I highly recommend you have Andrew around to be in charge of projects like this, because while I become paralyzed by the sheer amount of tasks to accomplish in this sort of situation, Andrew just... does the tasks. And they get accomplished.

So first, Andrew started bringing stuff down from the attic. I naturally forgot to take a “before” picture before we started, but I think the following series should give you the basic idea of what we were dealing with; which is to say, 1400 square feet of disorganized junk and trash. (I know I said 1800 square feet before, but I was wrong. It is a mere 1400.)

These are our holiday decorations and wrapping supplies. They used to be piled up in a little alcove right at the top of the attic stairs. If we wanted to get at the boxes on the bottom, we had to move all the other boxes first. And a lot of this is just trash.

Dining room chairs that I put in the attic to stop Nora from using them to rifle through the china closet. Also the easel. And a bunch of empty boxes and other trash.

Baby stuff, a lamp, air conditioners and fans, coats, and my wedding dresses. Yes, two of them. No, I only wore one. Oh, and look! A random plunger! And an air pump for rocket balloons. There’s probably some trash in there as well.

This is the baby/kids’ clothes area. It is pseudo-organized, but there are clearly some issues.

Andrew’s workbench.

The pool table, aka, backup workbench. (It came with the house.)

Our old futon, covered with old Christmas presents, candy canes, some baby stuff, and, naturally, trash.

View of workbench area from the other side.

This is the living room filled with the toys that were in the attic. Andrew brought this room and the holiday stuff in the kitchen downstairs in the morning, and then he had to go coach Jack’s soccer team even though Jack wasn’t actually there because the kids spent the weekend at their grandparents’ house. I spent that time sorting through it all, and actually made excellent progress. Then Andrew got home and did most of the rest of the work.

So. Is the attic much worse than you thought it would be? It probably is. It was really really bad. But we threw out many bags of trash, recycled about 150 boxes, and gave away a whole landing full of various toys, clothes, baby supplies, and the like. (Don’t tell Jack about the toys, please. I was, in fact, unable to give away his old toy tool bench because he saw it when I was trying to sneak it out and had hysterics.) I Freecycled lots of it and once the Big Brother Big Sister Foundation comes to pick up the last four boxes on June 2, the attic will be DONE. Well, except that it will probably take a few more weeks before we can get all the trash out. But whatever! It no longer makes me cry to go up there!

Here are some after shots:

Holiday decorations. Look how they are on SHELVES. So when we need the bottom bin, we can take move JUST the bottom bin. I KNOW.

Baby stuff and toys currently out of circulation. (Note Jack’s old tool bench to the left of the bassinet and how it is hopefully packed in a box. Sigh.

Baby/Kids’ clothes. There is a slight issue here, because there is no more room for more bins, and I am relatively certain that my kids are not finished outgrowing their clothes, but I think I have a different spot for the new bins.

Air conditioners, coats, wedding dresses. I will deal with the wedding dresses later.

Look at how there is plenty of space to walk around the chairs.

OK, so this isn’t actually much better, but that’s because we need to purchase or build some sort of shelving/organizational system. Andrew has a ridiculous number of tools, and a lot of them are really large. But there IS space for him to build bunk beds for Nora and Jack this month, which was kind of out of the question before we did this. We got rid of a bunch of old wood scraps that we didn’t need anymore, and it cleared out a lot of space.

So there you have it! I’m not sure the pictures adequately convey the dramatic difference in the attic. What if I put them side by side?

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

SEE?

So our next major step is to figure out where to store the circulating toys. They’re currently in plastic bins that are pretty much piled up under the window in the living room. It’s organized but not exactly aesthetically pleasing.

A Minor Annoyance

2011-05-16T22:43:00.004-04:00

So here's a little thing. About four months ago, in a fit of decluttering the office, I brought 14 or so spent ink cartridges to Staples to recycle them. When I called to find out if the do, in fact, recycle spent ink cartridges, I was told that yes, AND I get $2 for every one, plus money off of new cartridges and paper for each one! Yay! But then when I GOT to Staples, I discovered that I had to sign up for a customer loyalty card to get the money. And they will only take 10 cartridges a month. So. OK. I gave her 10 of my 14 cartridges, signed up for the program, and paid for my new cartridges and paper. But what was this? No money off! And no money back!

No, they MAIL you the rebate at a later date, and it actually comes as "Staples Dollars" (or whatever they call it) only to be spent at Staples. So. FINE.

But here we are, four or five months later, and I do not have my Staples Dollars. I finally got around to inquiring at the store, and they said, "Oh, they must have the wrong email address." But I get the ads JUST FINE. In fact, I was inspired to write this complainy post by a Staples ad I got in my email just today! As I do every day! And there is nothing they can do at the store; I have to call Staples and complain. This is obviously a huge pain, so I didn't, and then a month went by and I lost the info, and had to inquire at the store again. I should note that at this point, I also brought back the other four cartridges, so now they owe me at least $28. Then I actually DID try to call, but it was the weekend and I have to call during normal business hours. Which I didn't, and now I've lost the phone number again.

But I will hunt down my $28, and I will complain heartily and try to get more. At least, I hope I will. I'm a lot of empty talk sometimes. But I'll try to channel A'Dell who would definitely not put up with this sort of thing.

Just sitting here on the couch, internetting

2011-05-06T17:48:00.002-04:00

So about 50% of my laptop battery ago, I got home from dropping the kids off at their grandparents’ house for the whole weekend. Yes, I said “weekend.” And yes, I said, “whole.” As in “two nights.” TWO NIGHTS. Clearly, this is a golden opportunity to get a billion important home-maintenance things accomplished, and so I naturally flopped onto the couch with my laptop the instant I got home and have been here ever since, dirty kitchen be damned. Oh, and I have a bunch of work to do that requires quiet and concentration, so I’m wisely using this quiet alone time to tweet important breaking news like:

It’s true! And you have to act fast, because several of the $10,599 Birkin bags have already sold out! Plus, I am sorry to report that you will be unable to purchase a hideous rocking-horse print silk scarf for a mere $359, as they are long gone, my friend. LONG GONE.

All that being said, I did not drop the kids off for a restful weekend of internetting. No, Andrew and I have big plans. This is the weekend we clean the attic. And as not-fun as that theoretically sounds, I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to it. We borrowed my in-laws’ truck so that we’ll be able to haul stuff to donation sites and I just cannot wait to get rid of 75% of the stuff we have stashed up there.

You may or may not recall, but in January I made three resolutions, and one of them was to have an assigned place for everything in my house by December 31. I am supposed to be spending at least fifteen minutes a day decluttering, and I have to admit that that trickled off by late February, but I did get a lot done. I sort of hit a wall, though, because there are a bunch of clutter-troves in the main living area that cannot be decluttered until the attic has been dealt with, because I need to store some stuff up there, but I refuse to put any new things into the attic until there is some sort of organizational system up there.

See, we have a huge walk-up attic that runs the length of our big two-family, so it’s 1800 square feet of emptiness. And it WAS empty when we moved in, save for a pool table that the previous owners left us because it was easier than moving it out. But it is not empty anymore! Oh, no. It is stuffed to the gills with things that we “just stuck in the attic” until such time as they could be dealt with, which turned out to be never.

I did explain before, but it bears repeating that it is quite difficult to clean out the attic because it isn’t insulated. This means that there are about eight weeks a year during which it is neither too hot nor too cold to spend any significant amount of time up there. So while it’s always possible to run up the stairs and “stick something in the attic” to deal with later, it’s no easy feat to spend a large chunk of time sorting and organizing. And lest you think we are just too wimpy to deal with the temperatures, may I remind you that “no insulation” means that the attic is JUST AS COLD as outside in the winter, and that is usually in the twenties. As for summer, the attic is actually HOTTER than outside because it just bakes all day and the heat gets trapped overnight. Just ask the bird that got in last year and simply dropped dead on the stairs from heat. True story.

So this is the big weekend. The attic will get miraculously organized and I will be able to sort through the rest of the stuff in the main living space and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get this house cleanable by the end of the summer. (Please note that I am not saying it will always be clean, I’m saying that when I NEED to clean it, I will be ABLE to clean it, because I will be able to just put things away instead of standing around wondering where I’m supposed to put all this stuff. Because a big pile of toys pushed against the wall just isn’t doing it for me anymore.)

In other news, Jack’s preschool spring show was today. He was a raindrop. I was almost late, because I wasn’t incredibly early and therefore had to park at the park and walk over, which is actually a pretty long walk. But I did make it, and while he had an initial look of worry on his little face when he couldn’t find me right away, there was a lot of waving and “Hi, Mom!” –ing throughout the show and it was adorable.

You know what wasn’t adorable? Jack’s school sent home about five separate notices about the spring show, largely concerned with the parking. We were allowed to park at the school, across the street at the town hall, and overflow parking was at the park, a five or so minute walk away. It was made perfectly clear over and over again that the police were not allowing parking on Smith St., By my estimation, there were 10-12 cars parked on Smith St. at the start of the show. Sometimes I hate people, you know?

But I don’t want to end on a sour note, so I’ll tell you that I made one short video that will hopefully be audible; if so I’ll post it for your viewing pleasure. But I didn’t get any of the “Hi, Mom’s!” on tape, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. He also gave me a thumbs up after one particularly satisfying song. And I died.

If any of you are still reading, you should go over to A’Dell’s blog and leave a comment telling her that she is awesome and that the baby will come out eventually, because she is approximately 74 weeks pregnant and is understandably kind of depressed about it. And then go drop by Arwen and let her know you’re thinking of her because she is ONLY 33 weeks pregnant (with twins!) and the babies are a little over-eager to make their appearance. Irony’s a bitch, eh?

Twitter is killing my blog

2011-04-22T20:14:00.004-04:00

I keep posting 140 character snippets and then I have nothing left to say here. I suppose one could make the argument that I have plenty to say here, it's just that I have lost the attention span to write anything longer than 140 characters, but to that I say... wait, what was I talking about?

At any rate, I thought I'd take a moment to share a few things here that I may or may not have already tweeted about. (Tweeted? Should that be capitalized? What is the protocol?) First of all, today is Good Friday, which means Lent is finally almost over. I am not good at Lent. Every year I try to get something out of it, and every year I end up just fighting the urge to whine about how I want to have some of whatever I gave up. A few years ago I gave up fiction with the intention of replacing it with spiritual reading, but instead I replaced it with television and the internet. That is not better.

I tried again this year and gave up fiction, and I actually did read something good for me instead: A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. I quite enjoyed it, and it made me think about God. So just by that alone, I think this is probably my most successful Lent ever. I try to spend Lent getting closer to God, I usually just succeed in falling asleep during my prayers.

Maggie wrote about Lent not long ago, and I think she pretty much nailed how I feel, so rather than rehash what she said, I'll just send you there and talk about Jack. Because today, as noted, is Good Friday, and it was also the day of the Easter party at Jack's preschool. I was not thrilled with the idea of an Easter party on Good Friday, because... c'mon. GOOD FRIDAY. But it's not a religious school, and since Jack's only four I didn't make him skip it or anything.

But here's the thing: Jack gave up cookies for Lent. He's been SO GOOD about it. He usually remembers all on his own. And I've made an effort to provide alternative treats, but when there have only been cookies, I can just say, "You gave up cookies for Lent, remember?" and he just says, "Oh yeah!" and moves on. But I was proudest of all today when I went to pick him up from school and discovered that he turned down the cookies at the party. I did not mention anything to him about having given up cookies for Lent; he remembered all on his own. His teachers raved about it to me, so impressed were they. As am I, because he's FOUR. So. Sniff.

I'm not even going to reread this post. I have a feeling it's terrible, but I wrote a lot about it being Good Friday today, so I think it's important that I post it before midnight.

I hope you all have a happy Easter.

The Museum… of HORROR

2011-03-29T21:21:00.004-04:00

As previously noted, we took the kids to the Museum of Science last week. I don’t know if you know this about me and Andrew, but we’re kind of into science. So to say that we have been looking forward to this trip since Jack was born is to understate the matter. It’s been way longer than that.

It was everything I had dreamed it would be except that we didn’t have nearly enough time to see everything. But both kids even sat through some of the lightning show without crying, instead calmly asking to leave when the noise got to be too much for them. We also saw dinosaurs, model boats, windmills, robots, computers, an enormous model grasshopper, baby chicks, and a bunny, among many other things.

Did you notice how I snuck “giant model grasshopper” into that list? That was an exhibit on how a model of an object can be bigger or smaller than the actual object, and the display contained a huge grasshopper standing over a model train. I thought Nora would like to push the button to make the train go, but I neglected to consider the impression a ten-foot long grasshopper would make on a nearly two-year-old little girl. It was not a good one. Her eyes wider than seemed humanly possible, fixed onto the grasshopper and she clutched my shirt a little more tightly. “I scared,” she told me. “I scared.” She was actually pretty calm about it, but she didn’t exactly object when I removed her to another part of the museum.

But despite that error in parental judgment, Nora loved the museum just as much as Jack did. While Jack and Andrew went to the Omni show, Nora and I hung out in the Discovery Room, a room geared towards little kids, and she was in heaven. They had puppets, and ball coasters; a bunny and a snake; a totally awesome water table,* and a real stuffed bear that Nora got to touch.

The kids have been talking about the museum for days now, and on Friday I decided to make a video of Nora talking about the “HUGE di-saur” and how she “toucha bear,” to capture it for posterity. And that’s when things went a bit awry.

Nora's take on the Museum of Science from Maureen on Vimeo.

She’s been scared of dinosaurs ever since. She ran crying into the kitchen yesterday because Jack was watching Dinosaur Train, for crying out loud. “I scared! Di-saur! Scared!” We no longer talk about the museum, but we do spend a lot of time talking about how there are no dinosaurs here. I drew a “No Dinosaurs Allowed” sign for her too, in case it helps.

But you all saw it, right? At the beginning, of that video, she loved the di-saur. It was awesome! Something just happened in her little brain that got dinosaurs and huge giant grasshoppers all tangled up and equated. I don't even think she remembers the grasshopper at all anymore. It's kind of heartbreaking, but, come on. It's also kind of hilarious.

The new message seems to be sinking in, because today she started to get panicky about dinosaurs, but then told me "No di-saurs here. Not 'lowd."

Too much to say

2011-03-23T22:00:00.003-04:00

I have a lot of things to say, but I do not have time to say them right now. Lately, my computer time has been booked up with actual work for my job, so I haven't been able to tell you my stories. So this is a quick photo placeholder until I can take the time to write what I want.

A few weeks ago, I sent Liz some spare cloth diapers that I had lying around, and she sent me a totally awesome thank you gift:

I highly recommend sending Liz things you have lying around the house. The payoff is huge. I'm wearing a scarf she knitted for me, Nora is completely over the moon about the barrettes that Liz made for her, and Jack has already planted that strawberry plant and has been diligently watering it.

Oh, and did you notice? I got a haircut! A major haircut! And completely failed to blog about it! I was going to, but I was so excited about the haircut that I wanted to first surprise my mom and sisters, and then by the time I saw them the novelty had worn off and I never got around to posting the photos. Which is crazy, because everyone knows that if you don't blog about it, it didn't happen. But it did! I got a spontaneous major haircut at a party I went to that had corporate sponsors, and one of them was a fancy-pants salon that I could never normally afford. AND, because I got the haircut, I also won a prize for "Most Transformed." (It was Donna Karan perfume.) It was a pretty awesome party. Andrew won a gift card for a designer tie because he was the only one there with a tie pin, and when we LEFT there were gift bags, and in the gift bags were $100 gift cards towards something from the Donna Karan Infinity line. Which I still can't afford, but GIFT BAGS. It was glamorous.

And now I have to go to bed because I am going to get up for a 5:00am spin class. (And now I've told you all I'm going to do it, so I have to.) I leave you with two pictures from our trip to the science museum on Saturday, followed by the scene that greeted me this morning in the kitchen.

That was a brand new thing of pepper. Yes, I scooped it back into the pepper tin. BRAND NEW. I can't remember if this happened after she painted her tongue, but it was definitely before she ate all the Play-doh crumbs.

Look, I made up a recipe

2011-03-21T17:33:00.002-04:00

One of my real-life friends who’s a member of my shared meal-planning Google calendar group (comment if you want in on this) asked me for my butternut squash lasagna recipe a while ago. I never gave it to her. I was going to type it up for her right now, but I thought it’s possible that there may be other interested parties. I’m pretty pleased with this recipe; it’s my own, if it’s fair to call an adaptation of some other lasagna recipe “my own.” But I added the butternut squash, and that’s a fairly key ingredient in butternut squash lasagna, don’t you think? And I think the squash and cheese complement each other surprisingly well.

So here it is, in all its glory:

Dr. Maureen’s Butternut Squash Lasagna

hands on: ~30 min (plus roasting time);
bake ~45 min;
total time: 1hr, 15min (plus roasting time)
oven: 375F

Notes:
I pretty much always use Smart Ground tofu crumbles because I like my lasagnas to be meatless but I think the Smart Ground gives it a nice texture, but the last time I made this I checked the sodium content on Smart Ground, and yikes. So I’m probably going to try it without anything next time. Incidentally, sausage is excellent in this lasagna, if you like sausage.

I usually roast my squash a day or two ahead of time so that I don’t feel like I’ve been making lasagna for the entire day. To roast a squash, slice it in half the long way, scoop out the seeds, and place face down on a lined cookie sheet. Roast at 350F for about 35-40 minutes, or whenever it’s easily pierced by a fork. To puree it, let it cool and then scoop the roasted flesh out of the skin with a spoon. Toss it in a food processor and blend till smooth. I’m sure you could also just mash it up by hand, but I’m lazy.

I use cottage cheese instead of ricotta because I hate ricotta, and cottage cheese gives the same texture, which is necessary for lasagna. But if YOU like ricotta, by all means use it. Same explanation holds true for my using Romano instead of parmesan.

This recipe is easily adapted to stuffed shells; just stuff the shells with the squash mixture, arrange them in a pan, top with sauce and cheese.

Ingredients:
ground meat or tofu crumbles (optional) (see note)
chopped onion, minced garlic, amount to taste (if using meat)
1 roasted and pureed butternut squash (see note)
1 lb container cottage cheese (see note)
1 cup mozzarella plus a few handfuls
½ cup Romano (see note)
1 tbsp dried parsley
1 beaten egg
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 package lasagna noodles

1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. If using, brown the ground meat or tofu with onion and garlic.
3. Boil and drain the noodles according to package directions
4. Mix meat, squash, cottage cheese, 1 cup mozzarella, Romano, parsley and beaten egg together
5. Spread some of the sauce on the bottom of a 9x13 roasting pan. Arrange a layer of lasagna noodles. Top with stuffing, sauce, and more noodles. Alternate until you have at least three layers or else run out of noodles, making sure to end with noodles. (see note)
6. Top with lots of sauce and sprinkle with a few handfuls of mozzarella.
7. Bake at 375F for ~45 min.
8. Enjoy!

Library book fails, cont.

2011-03-02T10:56:00.004-05:00

There are dangers inherent in choosing a book for your child that you remember fondly from your own childhood. I present you with The Travels of Babar:

Spoiler: None of them are yellow.

2011-02-27T20:12:00.004-05:00

Pop quiz, Hotshot. It's 7:30pm, and the baby is cranky, exhausted, and ready for bed. But she won't go until you give her "The yulloh banket. YULLOH!" So which one do you choose?

WHICH ONE DO YOU CHOOSE?

(And for any smart alecks out there, WRONG. It's not the one with the yellow ducks.)

Music class

2011-02-14T21:43:00.002-05:00

I signed up Nora and me for a music class a few weeks ago. It's a really expensive music class, as these things go, but Nora needed a thing. Jack has lots of things: school, gymnastics... OK, just school and gymnastics. But when Jack was Nora's age, I could take him to the library's music program for toddlers and he was allowed to participate unencumbered by a four-year-old determined to co-opt his mother's lap and attention. So I signed up for a Saturday morning music class and it's just for the two of us.

We've been to about four classes so far and listened to the accompanying CD many, many, MANY times. She remains absolutely silent during the classes themselves, but I think something is sinking in.

Nora sings "Jack in the box" from Maureen on Vimeo.

Really. She makes not a peep during class.

Giveaway winners

2011-02-06T19:51:00.002-05:00

As expected, those of you who wanted a cookbook had excellent odds. The only one of you out of luck is Jessica, because Jessica is the only one who wants something someone else wants, and Heather R wins because I can just hand it to her when I give her back the big bag of toddler pajamas the next time I see her. Sorry, Jessica! My laziness is your loss.

So here are the winners:
Diane: place mat
Tracy: Fix It and Forget It
Bailey: Kitchen Survival Guide
Heather R: Biggest Book of Cookies
Swistle: All of the rest of the cookbooks

Winners, send me your addresses! Swistle, I already have your address, so look for a very large package stuffed with cookbooks to arrive any day now.

I just... I can't... WE HAVE NO SNOWBLOWER

2011-01-31T07:31:00.008-05:00

Our snowblower broke before the first storm, the one right after Christmas. It was a hand-me-down from my in-laws who felt so guilty about it being broken that they practically had to be physically restrained from driving up fifty miles through the snowstorm to lend us their working one, and take ours to a repair shop. "Don't be silly!" we laughed. "We are young and strong!"

Here's what we got for our hubris:

That is a photo taken at my eye level from the narrow walkway in between the eight-foot snow mountain in our front yard and the four-foot wall of plowed snow on the sidewalk's edge. Do you see that piece of a window at the very top? That is the living room window for the downstairs apartment; an apartment for which the ground floor starts three steps up. This is what happens when you have a teeny tiny front yard in which to put a four-car driveway's worth of snow. And this pile was built BY HAND.

We used to be young and strong. Now we are just young. OK, I suppose TECHNICALLY we are probably young and stronger if you take into account the actual effect of weight-lifting on a person's muscle mass, but why are you trying to rain on my pity parade? WE ARE WEARY.

The best part of all of this is how we have been trying to find somewhere to take our broken snowblower for repairs, but literally have not had time to load it up and drive it somewhere in between snowstorms. But last week we finally found a guy located a mere three miles from our house, and better yet, he was going to be open on Saturday! Unfortunately, Jack had to go to the doctor on Saturday for what turned out to be a massive ear infection, so by the time we were able to drive the snowplow over to the repair guy, it was 11:50 am. He was leaving at 12:30. This was a problem, because we had to dig the snowplow out of the shed before we could load it into Andrew's car and drive it over, and we couldn't do it in time. Did you get that? We didn't have time to shovel out the snowblower in time to get the snowblower over to the repair guy. Irony! Don't you love it? (I feel I should probably note here that I am typing "we," but I really mean "Andrew." ANDREW didn't have time to dig out the snowblower and load it into the car. I was not going to be involved in the digging or the loading. In my defense, I was also sick all week and still recovering. Fun times!)

ANYHOO. Andrew was going to try to drop it off on the way home from work yesterday, but the repair guy was out delivering repaired snowblowers to other, luckier snowblower-owners, so instead, Andrew had to just drive the snowblower back and forth to work, and then back and forth again today. (The good news there is that he apparently will drop ours off to us, assuming he ever gets a chance to fix it.) We can't drop it off TODAY of course, because it is snowing. Again. Naturally. As you all already know, because we are in the midst of a one-two wintery punch of national and historic proportions.

What all this means is that we will be throwing the snow, shovelful-by-shovelful, on top of the eight feet of snow already in our front yard. And then I will have a turn driving the snowblower back and forth to work before we're able to drop it off, God willing, on Thursday. We'll have to rush, because I hear there's a storm coming on Saturday. Sob.

But! I think I have decided to run a contest. Let's all place bets on the date the last bit of snow will melt from our front yard. I have made a rough estimation of the volume of snow in the mound. At this moment, I'd estimate our yard to be about 10x10 feet, and the pile to be 8 feet tall at its peak. If we assume a perfect pyramid with a square base, that is 267 cubic feet of snow. This is probably pretty close; the pile is of course not peaked in the center, it lists to one side. And neither is our yard a perfect square, but one side is probably longer than 10 feet, so I think this a reasonable estimate. What is for sure is that there is a hell of a lot of snow in my front yard.

And of course, this doesn't include the snow falling right now or what will fall all day tomorrow, so I'll be back with an update and more photos.

Right now, my guess is May 27.

See you all in the spring.

Giveaway! It’s at the end so feel free to skim!

2011-01-29T19:56:00.004-05:00

I have three resolutions for 2011. The first is to run two 10Ks. That one is progressing reasonably well considering it’s virtually impossible to run outside right now because of the ice and snow and darkness, but I did join the gym on Monday, so there’s that. The second is to email and call people more, and to turn non-phone friends into phone friends. This one is harder than you might think as I have a phone phobia. I know that phone phobias are disproportionably common among bloggers, but I am a person who, on numerous occasions, has introduced myself to strangers and set up play dates. I usually do this under semi-normal circumstances; for example, asking a mom I’ve been chatting with for a while at the park for her phone number. Or setting up something with the mom of one of Jack’s school friends. But a few weeks ago, I stopped a stranger on the street who was pushing a double jogging stroller. A total stranger! I had seen her around in the past and had wanted to meet her since she had kids, liked walking, and clearly lived nearby. So when I saw her walking on the same side of the street as me, I grabbed my chance and introduced myself. And it turned out great; she’s wonderful. We’ve already gotten together once and our kids get along AND she lives up the street from me AND AND is home during the day. So if our kids’ preschool schedules didn’t completely clash, we’d be able to hang out all the time!

So why, then, if I am willing to accost strangers on the street, am I afraid to call people I already know and like? I think it’s actually a dread of awkward silences. In person, you there are visual signals and things to look at or sip or hold if the conversation hits a lull. But on the phone there’s… nothing. There’s just the two of you, on the phone, waiting for someone to start talking. As a result, I have very few phone friends; friends I feel comfortable calling just to talk without a specific thing to talk about. But I need more phone friends, because I get very very lonely round about 3:00 on a day when I’ve spoken to no one over the age of four, and I need people to call! Thus, my resolution to just bite the bullet and call more people. It’s almost the end of January. Have I done this yet? Sort of. The other day I finally worked up the nerve to call one of my Twitter friends, but I got her voicemail. Half credit.

(Incidentally, here is a tip for those who would LOVE to make friends with other moms at the park, the library, or walking down the street but don’t know how: For the first get-together, suggest meeting at a park or somewhere else outside. This gives both of you an easy escape if one of you turns out to be crazy. You don’t even have to give them your address! You just need an email or phone number. And remember, most stay-at-home moms are dying to make friends with other stay-at-home moms. So your friendly advances will probably be most welcome. Imagine how you would feel if that mom you always see at the library asks for your phone number!)

The last resolution, and the most important for my mental health, is to find a place for every single thing in my house. Lately, any time I try to put something away or get something from a storage area, I feel as though clutter is raining down on my head. I can’t live like this. So from now on, if I cannot find a place for something, it has to go.

I like to think I’ve made a lot of progress on this one. I’ve cleaned out many drawers. I’ve removed the giant, counter space hog of a knife block from the newly-toddler-accessible counter and put the most commonly used knives in a holder on the wall. I’ve given away cookbooks, purses, bags, clothes, toys, and various other things that I am happy to see the last of. I’ve thrown out trash we’ve been storing for years.

I’ve done a lot, but there is still a long way to go. We have an enormous walk-up attic that is a disaster area. If I allow myself to think about it as a single job, I start to panic, because it is IMPOSSIBLE. The attic is walk-up, but not insulated, so there are about four weeks total out of the entire year in which it is neither too hot nor too cold and bearable to be up there for more than three minutes. This means it’s very easy to run up there and dump a pile of junk, but kind of tricky to sort through five years of accumulated junk to organize it. So my plan is to have a place for everything in this house, including everything in the attic, but I’m honestly afraid it can’t be done in a year.

But! Thinking about the attic today, a day when I cannot do anything about it, will do nothing but upset me. And so I present you with this: I am making myself spend at least fifteen minutes every day decluttering. Any efforts made towards decluttering count, whether it be looking up places that are willing to accept half-used cans of latex paint (local high school drama club) or packing up twenty half-used cans of latex paint to donate. (Why so many half-used cans? Because we are very bad at picking paint.)

And thus, we have arrived at the giveaway portion of today’s blog post. My fifteen minutes today includes selecting and photographing some cookbooks and enticing you, my blog readers, to comment in the hopes of winning them. If nobody wants them, I’ll freecycle them; the last batch of cookbooks were snapped right up. But I recently learned about shipping books cheaply via media mail, and I thought one of you might want a cookbook!

Here they are:

We’ve got The Kitchen Survival Guide by Lora Brody. An excellent resource for someone new to running his or her own kitchen. My mother gave this to me when I went to grad school, and I got a lot of use out of it, but I feel my skills have passed the point where this is useful.

The Taste of Home 1999 Annual is a good one. Taste of Home recipes are handy ones to have around because they’re all based around ingredients you have already. And they’re tasty. My favorite is the pumpkin pie, which I copied down.

Also shown are the Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook by Dawn J. Ranck and Phyllis Pellman Good and the Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Cookies. I was thrilled to receive these books as gifts several years ago. THRILLED. And then I never opened them once.

Finally, we have 1973’s Good Housekeeping Cookbook. This one is… not so useful. Unless you want to make brains* and scrambled eggs? Oh, the seventies. How we miss you. I’ve only kept this one around only because I thought Andrew had sentimental attachment to it, but it turns out he doesn’t. So perhaps one of you has a vintage cookbook collection?

And, as an added bonus, the blue thing in that picture is a rubber placemat that suctions onto a table. It also has a little pocket that hangs off the end of the table to catch food. It’s an excellent product, and I used it all the time when Jack was a baby. Then we redid the kitchen and got a new table which has a wood grain that prevents the suction cups from sticking, so it became useless to us. Our misfortune is your gain!

If any of you who have actually stuck around long enough to read this far has any interest in any of the items pictured above, leave a comment telling me which one(s) you want. I will choose a winner on February 3 (my birthday) by picking a random number, but I’m willing to bet your odds will be excellent. Good luck!

*One pound of brains makes about four servings. Plan accordingly.

She's got rhythm

2011-01-19T23:14:00.003-05:00

Putting Nora to bed is one of my favorite jobs. It takes a long time, but that's mostly because we snuggle up on the chair reading stories, and after I've rocked her to sleep, I usually hang out in the chair reading, pausing occasionally to sniff her hair or kiss her cheek. Sometimes I doze off. It's not terrible, is what I'm saying.

The best part, however, is the way she talks and talks and talks to me about her day while I'm rocking her to sleep. She usually talks for a while, then snuggles her head on my chest only to pop up a few minutes later with important, key observations. One time, I thought she was almost asleep when she suddenly sat up and said, "Hair. Hair right there," while patting her head. And then my head. And then she said, "Head! Head right there! Head right there! Head right there!" for both our heads. She wouldn't stop saying it until I agreed that, indeed, our hair and heads were right there. When she heard Andrew and Jack in the dining room, we had to verbally confirm that THEIR heads were right there as well. Once satisfied that everyone's heads were right there, she put hers back down and went to sleep.

One time she was so tired, she literally fell over asleep right in the middle of telling me about how we had chicken for dinner. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what she was telling me. I have to use a lot of context clues to fill in the conversation with Nora since doesn't yet have the vocabulary to say all the things she needs to say. So what I think was probably, "We had fried chicken tonight and I like fried chicken it's yummy," came out as "Welf smuh fnuh shmliek wud ah chick-un....zzzzzzzzz."

Once the lights are out, we usually have to say "Good night" to a lot of things too: The moon, the room, the balloon, the cow jumping over the moon, Jack, Daddy, Jack and Daddy again, Dude (also Daddy), Gorilla, Dear (because the zookeeper's wife says, "Goodnight, dear" a few times in Goodnight, Gorilla), Bed, Jack, and Daddy. And Nora, sometimes. Have you ever heard a toddler chanting a litany of "Good-nights"? It's so fun.

But one of my absolute favorite parts is what she does when we say the Guardian Angel prayer. Long-time readers may remember Jack's story about the Guardian Angel prayer, but for Nora's you'll have to bear with me as I give you some background information. You see, there is a song we've learned at music class that goes,

I had a little frog
his name was Tiny Tim
I put him in the bathtub
To see if he could swim
He drank up all the water
He ate up all the soap
And then he BURPED last night
From a bubble in his throat!
Excuse me!

This song has hand motions that go with it, and there are three verses. In one verse, the frog is big and is named "Jumbo Jim," so you sing it with a deep voice. And now, whenever I say the Guardian Angel prayer, she sits right up and does the hand motions for "Tiny Tim" while babbling along, in rhythm, in a deep voice. I would never have noticed the rhythmic similarity between the song and the prayer without Nora, believe me.

She took her own arm out through the neck hole, there. Oh, Nora. I love you so much.

Spoiled rotten

2011-01-14T21:47:00.006-05:00

So did you all have a nice Christmas? I had a nice Christmas. I got a Kindle! It is totally awesome. I had been avoiding purchasing one because I was afraid that I would immediately spend thousands of dollars on books, because each one is so cheap! And all I have to do to buy it is push this button! But so far, I’ve only bought Mockingjay which I’d had on request at the library for weeks and which naturally arrived for me about thirty seconds after I bought it. I also bought Scrabble, because did you know you could play Scrabble on the Kindle? It’s excellent, because I have no one to play with. Andrew won’t play with me because he gets too mad when I slaughter him, which I routinely do. I don’t mean to brag*, but I’m pretty amazing at Scrabble.

What really helps with keeping the Kindle costs down is the plethora of free books available. They’re mostly old books that are out of copyright, several of which I downloaded with excellent intentions but which I will probably never read, thanks to Scrabble. I also got a newer book that was free because of some promotion, but it’s pretty terrible, and I may not finish it. We shall see.

More significantly, the Anne Shirley books by L.M. Montgomery are also free, and I have happily been rereading the ones I no longer own and sort of forget a little. But if you follow me on Twitter, you already know that for some mysterious reason, Amazon’s Kindle store doesn’t have two of the novels. I may have talked about this on Twitter quite a bit. I may have been fairly outraged. But it is outrageous! The Kindle store seems to think I have IMAGINED Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside. I even got to the point where I was willing to pay for Anne of Ingleside, but even the collection of “all eight Anne Shirley novels” you can buy in the Kindle store for 99 cents doesn’t include them. Instead, the collection includes Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea. These, my friends, are not “Anne Shirley novels.” These are not even novels. They are anthologies, and, OK, yes, Anne makes a cameo appearance in a few of the stories, but that in no way makes up for the fact that the Kindle store is pretending Anne of Ingleside and Anne of Windy Poplars didn’t happen. THEY HAPPENED, Kindle store. Do not MESS with my Anne of Green Gables books.

But I digress.

I also got a wall-mounted radio for the kitchen to replace my under-cabinet one with a broken CD player and completely snapped off power and volume-down buttons. The broken one was technically more than sufficient, since all I ever listen to is NPR and the remote turns it on and off, but it sure is nice to have a shiny new one with far better sound quality. Really shows off the timber of Carl Kassel’s rumbling baritone, you know?

Andrew, on the other hand, got a selection of the geekiest, nerdiest Christmas presents ever known to man. From me. And he loves them all. His “big” gift, the gift that I knew he’d be most excited about, was a TI-85 graphing calculator. Andrew’s original TI-85, the one he had in college, broke a few years ago. Since the TI-85 has been discontinued, Andrew thought he was out of luck. But then I blogged about it, and Arwen’s husband Bryan gave him his. Ah, the magic of the internet. (Well, the magic of the internet plus the magic of being internet friends with thoughtful, generous people.) Sadly, Andrew spilled Chinese food on Bryan's a few months ago, and it broke. Andrew has been bereft ever since. Bereft, I tell you. Where was he supposed to store his variables? Fortunately, I had a brainwave a few weeks before Christmas and harnessed the magic of the internet once again and bought him one on Ebay. Best Christmas present ever. The only thing missing, it turned out, was the manual. I got that for him off Ebay after Christmas, and the day it arrived, I found this scene on my way to bed:

So what’s geekier? The way he lays out his breakfast along with his breakfast reading before he goes to bed? Or the fact that his breakfast reading is a CALCULATOR MANUAL?

If you check back a few paragraphs however, you’ll note that I claimed Andrew got a selection of geeky presents. You see, I had planned to write mainly about the calculator, but then I mentally ran through the list of gifts I got him, and it struck me as hilarious. So here you go:

1. A discontinued graphing calculator
2. A book about the elements
3. A book about being a geeky dad
4. Socks

I know I’ve gone on for quite a while here, but I can’t end this post without telling the internet about the set of tools my father-in-law bought for my four-year-old son. It included, among other things, a hammer, a saw, a screwdriver, and a hasp.

Despite my father-in-law’s very indignant claim that “They’re plastic,” when we made fun of him, they are not, in fact, plastic. That there is a real saw. It is a small saw, yes. A child-sized saw, if you will. But a saw quite capable of cutting through wood – and therefore fingers – all the same.

Call us crazy, but we don’t allow our children to play with sharpened metal blades until they are at least five.

*Yes, I do.

Nora playing "Wii"

2011-01-09T21:13:00.005-05:00

This was on December 31st. I noticed her from the other room as Andrew was watching something on regular TV. Not, it is worth noting, the Wii. Also, that is the cable remote.

Untitled from Maureen on Vimeo.

My favorite part is how she waits for juuuuust the right moment to swing.

This isn't about Christmas

2010-12-24T13:59:00.002-05:00

As a typical 18-month-old, Nora loves other babies. “Baby! Baby!” She’ll say whenever she sees a baby out someplace. She loves babies so much, she’ll often say “Baby! Baby!” while pointing to what is clearly a child older than she is. If the kid is being carried or is in a stroller, it must be a baby as far as Nora is concerned.

At times, however, she can carry this to the extreme. We have a pamphlet from the Poison Control center on our refrigerator, and Nora can see it when I’m changing her diapers. “Baby! Baby!” she yells, and points to it. “Haddat,” she will add, which I like to translate as “May I have that please?” but which, if we are honest, probably translates more as, “I will have that. Now.”

This is the pamphlet:

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, “Well, there IS a baby on that pamphlet, Maureen.”

Ah. True. But what you do not know is that the magnet holding the pamphlet on the refrigerator was covering up that baby. So this is what Nora could see:

This leads us to the only possible conclusion, which is that Nora thinks that old woman is a baby. OK, yes, she’s not THAT old. Not elderly. Fine. But I think we can all agree that she is not a baby.

In conclusion, I finally gave her the “baby” and she proceeded to clutch the pamphlet to her breast and rock it, while singing “Rock-a-bye baby.” But she stopped as soon as I got the camera, because she’s mean like that.

Stir crazy

2010-12-22T10:18:00.004-05:00

I've been feeling very very cranky the past few days. I was hoping that this last week before Christmas would be relaxing and fun, but instead I've been trapped in the house with first one, then another sick kid. I finished the chores that are do-able while the kids are awake, so I'm also incredibly bored. (Don't tell Jack, but I don't find playing cars quite as fun as he does.) And this is what my house typically looks like by about 2pm these days:

Yes, the smiling toddler does help matters. As does the fact that making this happen

keeps 'em quiet.

STILL AND ALL. Do you see that first picture, with the chairs? I actually did that one; it is the only means I have of keeping Nora off the kitchen table and away from the knife block on the counter. Because that little monkey can climb, and she also knows how to push a chair to where she needs to reach. I give it about a week before she figures out how to lift the chairs up, and a week and one day before she drops a chair onto her head.

But today I've decided to pick Jack up from school with the stroller. It will get me exercise AND out of the house, so it's a win-win. Well, until Nora falls asleep in the stroller on the way home and screws up her nap, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Friday photos!

2010-12-17T22:04:00.003-05:00

I bought myself a party dress last month, and I finally got to wear it tonight to Andrew's annual work Christmas dinner. I did my hair all fancy and everything. I had my sitter take some photos, and Jack photobombed us in this one. There were better shots of me, but his expression is too priceless not to share.

This week we made a gingerbread house because the internet was all alight with rave reviews over what a fun family activity! So fun! So easy, because of the kits! Ours took two days. We had to take a break after our first attempt because SOMEONE threw a tantrum. It was me. But in my defense, I had never made that type of icing before and the recipe said to add five tablespoons of water, and then add by 1/2 teaspoon increments, if needed. "The icing will be thick" it clearly said. The 1/2 teaspoon increments is what really got me, because this was a huge bowl of icing. It seemed to me that a 1/2 teaspoon of water was a negligible amount. So I added water slowly and painfully and then tried to glue the house together by squeezing what was essentially a solid out of a cheap disposable pastry bag, and my hands nearly broke and bag burst and the stupid house fell apart when I went to put the roof on and I HATE THIS STUPID HOUSE AND WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS STUPID PROJECT ANYWAY.

Oh, right. Mine.

So I smeared the icing onto the gingerbread with my fingers, stuck the house together and called it a day. The next day I readjusted my expectations, thinned the icing out so that it would actually squeeze, did NOT throw a fit when the pastry bag burst again, and it was all fine. And then we took a photo and my children posed with completely relaxed and natural expressions.

Finally, there is this:

That thing is the jar lifter from the canning kit I bought this summer. Nora found it a few months ago and decided it was a perfect place to put her baby to bed. There is a part of me so impressed by her ingenuity that I almost don't want to give her the doll cradle we got her for Christmas. But I think I will anyway.

A few things

2010-12-11T22:44:00.004-05:00

First of all, it is of vital importance that I document the fact that Nora thinks that “Nope” means “Yes.” Why, yes! This IS very confusing! But I don’t mind, because it is also hilarious. And we’re getting more and more used to it, so the lag time between her telling us “No” and our understanding that she means “Yes” is getting shorter.

My favorite part is the way she gets the intonation exactly perfect, if only she were saying “Yes.” Today she called out “Treat! Treat! Treeaaaaattttt!” from the car seat. I asked her if she dropped her granola bar, and she plaintively cried, “Noooooooooooooope!” So I stopped the car and got out to get her granola bar, which she had dropped. Like she said.

And since I’m writing things that need to be documented, have I mentioned how she loves to blow zerberts on my belly button? Which she calls a “butt”? Not because she has the anatomy wrong, but because that’s how she says “button.” She’s doing it right now, as I type this. “Butt? Butt? Butt?” she is saying, while tugging at my shirt. Now she is putting her ice cold hands on my belly and going “Woooooooo!” And now she is blowing zerberts. And now she is biting me. Excuse me whilst I put her uselessly in time out, a hilarious game she finds highly entertaining.

Second of all, Nora’s current favorite book is Goodnight, Gorilla, and I love reading it with her because when we get to the page where the lights are out and all the animals say “Good night,” Nora does the voices. SHE DOES THE VOICES.

Yes, I will attempt to get it on video, but she is remarkably uncooperative with such things.

So that brings me to the issue of my glasses. How does it do that? Do not trouble me with details. It brings me here. That is all you need to know. Many months ago, after Nora repeatedly broke my glasses and my optician closed the branch in the next town over, I decided it would be wise to have a back up pair of glasses that I don’t hate. Since Swistle had such recent success with Zenni Optical, I figured I’d give them a try.

Now. I have been wearing glasses for… let’s see… carry the two… twenty-four years. In the course of those twenty-four years, I have made my fair share of unfortunate glasses choices, like when I was eleven and picked out the exact same pair my mother wore. (I’m not trying to put down my mother here, it’s just that glasses suitable for a grown woman are not necessarily the best choice for a eleven-year-old girl.) Even worse was the entire period between 1989 and 1993, when everyone decided that oversized glasses were flattering. Note: They were not.

The Era of Huge Glasses was particularly hard on me because I have an abnormally tiny face. On the upside, it was photographic evidence from the period that made this fact clear to me. Well, the photographic evidence combined with having to push my enormous glasses back up my nose unceasingly for four straight years.

And this brings us once again to the issue of my new glasses. When I started choosing frames at Zenni Optical, I tried to first measure my current glasses, which I love, so that I could find glasses at Zenni of a similar size. I even looked up my current frames online to see if they listed measurements. It was then that I learned that the “JB” in my frame style number, “JB-2701,” stands for “Jelly Bean.” (Insert ominous foreshadowy music here.)

I ordered two pairs of glasses and a pair of sunglasses. It did… not go well.

Current pair. Love!

Purple pair. Not so much with the love!

Blue pair. Gaaaaahhhh!

Sunglasses. Photo included for completeness.

Note the way the new glasses make my face appear shrunken within them, so that the sides of my face outside the glasses do not line up with the sides of my face inside the glasses. "Deformed face" is not typically a look I aim for when selecting eyeware, so this was kind of an issue.

I sent back the blue pair. I kept the purple pair, because Zenni only refunds 50% of the cost of the glasses anyway and I need an emergency back up pair. But I don't wear them or anything. And I don’t think I’ll be buying glasses online again because I clearly need to try on the glasses first. The experience made me wonder how I found such small frames in the first place, so I went back to the website that listed the style of my current frames, only to discover that the glasses I am wearing on my face right this very second, the Jelly Bean 2701s, are children’s frames. I have to buy CHILDREN'S FRAMES. To fit my freakishly tiny face.

In summary, I will now tell you the joke for grown-ups that Jack taught to me, because he specifically requested I tell it to all the grown-ups I know. It goes:

Knock knock! Who’s there? House. House who? House interrupted.

HAHAHA! (Don’t worry; if you don’t get it, it just means you’re not a grown-up.)

***
Completely off-topic, what do you all think of that shirt I am wearing? I bought it because it fit so well when I tried it on, and it was only $7. I bought two, actually. But I am having second thoughts about those layered ruffle things. So am I pulling that shirt off? If it helps, only look at the picture of me in my normal glasses, since you won't be distracted by my deformed face or my incredibly awkward "casual" pose with my arm out to the side.

Thankful tree, take 2

2010-11-22T19:25:00.002-05:00

I thoroughly enjoyed making the thankful tree last year, so today we did it again. I had to, it is on the list of "Monday chores" for getting ready to host Thanksgiving this week.

I now present to you Jack's list of things he is thankful for, in the order he mentioned them:

1. my scooter
2. food
3. chicken [Technically, items 2. and 3. were presented as "food and chicken and stuff." -ed.]
4. shows [A repeat item! What can I say, the kid loves TV.]
5. Mommy [Daddy didn't make the cut, but don't feel bad, because he's the thing Jack is thankful for at school.]
6. apples
7. my bed
8. fishing [Note: he has never been fishing.]
9. my helmet
10. our house
11. my family
12. the color yellow
13. corn on the cob

For contrast, here is my list, which I made in order to subtly suggest to him things that might be good to put on the tree:

1. the dishwasher
2. our house
3. Jack
4. Nora
5. Daddy
6. clothes
7. the internet [What? I'm also putting on things I'm actually thankful for, after all.]
8. my bed
9. pancakes
10. Grammy and Papa
11. clementines

I also made a list on Nora's behalf. It includes one item.
1. my baby

Andrew made his list when he got home:
1. gum
2. superbowl parties
3. the Merritt parkway

Now Andrew's list needs a bit of explanation. First, Jack requested that he put on gum. I think because Jack is planning to buy gum for Andrew's birthday present, and he wanted to be sure he really does like it. "Well, I guess I am thankful for gum," conceded Andrew. As for the other two, well, Andrew and I met at a superbowl party and got engaged on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut on the way back to grad school/ his job.

Excuse me, I have something in my eye.

Blathering on

2010-11-08T21:55:00.000-05:00

I remember visiting a friend at another school when I was a freshman in college. One of her roommates had her computer on, and she was looking up something on the web. I gazed in awe at her computer screen and said, “You mean you can use your computer to see things on other computers?” I found the idea mysterious and thrilling, but if I had no way of knowing then what “the web” would come to mean to me.

I am a social being. I need to talk to people, grown-up people, and I need to talk to them every day or I will go crazy and start talking to my plants. And I don’t even have any plants because I can’t grow plants; they all just die. So what I’m saying here is that if I didn’t have the internet, I would be a crazed, wild-eyed lunatic talking to dead and/or nonexistent houseplants. It wouldn’t be good, is what I’m saying.

Sure, sure, I could call people. But calling people requires a time commitment; and what’s more, it requires a coordinated time commitment with another person. TWO people have to be able to speak and listen to a series of complete sentences, and right in a row! On the internet, it doesn’t matter if you have to stop mid-sentence to cut gum out of someone’s hair, and it doesn’t matter if your friend’s reply comes three hours later.

I don’t even know what to say about attending The Blathering this weekend. I originally planned to write something along the lines of how I had wonderful time and how fantastic it was to meet all these women in person. But then Elizabeth went and wrote down everything I think, and expressed it far better than I ever could. So I’ll just say that I can’t imagine my life today without my friends in the computer. I think I speak for myself AND my theoretical dead houseplants when I say thank you. Thank you all for writing and tweeting and going to Chicago to eat and drink and blather on.

Bad Children’s Literature: Yap and Hap

2010-10-26T14:33:00.006-04:00

I’m at the library right now, and I should be using this babysitting time to work and not write blog posts. But I’m going to return books before I go home, and I couldn’t do that without telling you about one of them first. Oh, sure, I’ve written about bad children’s library books in the past. But this one is my favorite so far.

First, let me say that Jack picked this out himself. He tends to choose books based on the tried-and-true technique of whichever book he happens to lay eyes on. And this is how he ended up choosing the timeless children’s classic, Yap and Hap Go to Wee Care Catering School.

We read it that night. It’s about two twin dogs, Yap and Hap, whose Aunt Bark runs a catering service, and who wants some cheap labor and therefore volunteers to send Yap and Hap to catering school. Jack claimed to have liked it. Perhaps he did not listen, but only looked at the pictures, which, I have to admit, are lovely. But for me, the pictures did not distract enough from the text, which includes passages like:

Yap is always eager to learn new things, but Hap isn’t so sure about Aunt Bark’s idea. She would buy their chef coats and hats, as well as pay all school costs including fees, books and bus ride expenses.

and:

Mr. Chow greets his two new students as they enter the classroom. He gives them an outline of their schoolwork. He explains the paper and lab work. Mr. Chow expects class participation.

and:

For several days Yap and Hap stayed after school to clean classrooms and food labs. The twins learned never to do damage to property again and agreed not to play pranks.

You will be relieved, no doubt, to learn that Yap and Hap graduated from catering school with honors! I can only assume they then went to work for Aunt Bark at sub-minimum wage, probably to pay back all of the fees, books, and bus ride expenses she covered.

After we finished the book, I found the “About the Author” page, which goes a long way towards explaining things:

Pat Nekola ran a catering service for 18 years. She is a twin and loves dogs. Pat created the Yap and Hap books to entertain and teach children ages 5 to 7 about catering, proper values, ad being responsible for any wrong actions.

Here is her train of thought, as I imagine it. “Hey! You know what children aged 5 to 7 want to learn about? Catering! And as a caterer, I am the perfectly suited to write a series of children’s books. And they should be about dogs. Because I like dogs. And, ooo! I’m a twin! So they’ll be twin dogs!”

But seriously, what kid aged 5-7 doesn’t want to learn about catering, am I right?

Lordy but it's hard to blog these days

2010-10-14T10:30:00.006-04:00

Especially going on day five or six or ONE THOUSAND of a nasty sinus infection that has rendered me dizzy and blocked up and it feels like knives in my ears when Nora shrieks. Which she tends to do.

But Monday, before I knew it was a sinus infection, we went hiking. It was the perfect solution to my desperate attempts to think of something fun to do with the children in the beautiful weather. I would have liked to visit family members, but they all have wee children (newborns, even! I have another nephew!) or are otherwise immunocompromised, so I can't bring over my germs. But the hike worked out beautifully. Especially since we went to the state park that has a farm that sells homemade ice cream.

Not to change the subject too abruptly or anything, but last week Jack tried candy corn. Now, candy corn is gross. I realize this. I also love it, so I allow myself one bag a year. I can only have one bag, because eating candy corn causes me to enter an infinite loop wherein the candy corn leaves a weird taste in my mouth which can only be removed by eating more candy corn, and oops! I ate the whole bag. Traditionally, I get all of it because Andrew hates candy corn, but I was fine with sharing my bag with Jack this year. So I had no complaints when Andrew bought a small bag for Jack after his flu shot.

Jack could barely wait until after lunch to eat it, but when he finally got a taste of it, he said, "I think there's something wrong with this candy corn." I tried a piece.

"Sorry, Jack," I said. "That's what candy corn tastes like."

I think he was just stunned that there could possibly be a CANDY that tastes BAD. Stunned and betrayed.

But hey, good news for me! I got all the candy corn again. Oops.

A bunch of quick takes

2010-10-02T20:59:00.003-04:00

1. I never noticed before, but waffle-squares are reminiscent of the holy water font at our church. I know this now because we had Belgian waffles this morning, and Nora repeatedly dipped her fingers into a waffle-square and blessed herself with maple syrup.

2. Here is photographic evidence of Nora’s and Jack’s superhero escapades that I mentioned in the last post:

3. Speaking of photographic evidence, do any of you watch 30 Rock? Remember the one where Pete got his sleeve caught in the candy machine, so he took his shirt off but somehow, his arm was still stuck in the candy machine?

That is the diaper she had been wearing when I left the room. Please note that her outfit is one-piece and snaps closed on the bottom. The snaps are not undone.

4. So long as we’re looking at cute pictures of my kids, we went to a wedding last month.

5. Guess what I was cutting with this happened to my Cutco knife?

MARSHMALLOWS.

Pardon me while I write in my baby book...

2010-09-21T23:54:00.002-04:00

Pardon me while I write in my baby book….

At almost 15 months, Nora says:

More – ma (actually, more like MA!)
More milk – MA MA!
Cracker – kaa kaa
Cookie – kaa kaa (this can lead to angry misunderstandings)
Cupcake – kaaaaa kaaaaaa
Jack – Aaahhh (short “a” sound)
Grampa – gampa (could have been a fluke)
Clock – coh
Light – tuh (the “t” sound)
Dog – AH! (usually with excited pointing)
Thank you – dank oo (or some other sounds that rhyme, but with the singsongy intonation and the sign)
Apple – ahh, with sign
Bye – baaah (with wave)
Good night – baaah (with wave)
Shoe - shuh

Caw (what a crow says)
Moo (with lips way puckered out)
Woof – woo woo (deeply)
Cat – mow (for meow)
Eh-eh-eh – what a goat says; she really sounds like a goat
Quack quack – cah cah (with duck-beak hand movements)

Other animal sounds/gestures she knows: elephant, bunny, fish, hippo

EIEIO – eee eye eee eye eee eye
Twinkle twinkle, little star – wah wah wah wah wah wah wah (tunefully)

NOTICEABLY ABSENT FROM THIS LIST*:
Daddy
Mama

She signs “all done,” but it’s usually confusing because she uses it to mean “I would like to change the current situation.” For example, in the high chair, she might sign “all done” because has finished eating, and wants no more cheese. But it’s equally possible that she is “all done with not having more cheese;” that is to say, she wants more cheese. Well, this is a bad example, because if she’s talking about cheese, it’s always “I’m all done with not having more cheese.” But you get the idea.

Her other signs are improving. “More” used to be general pushing of hands together, but she’s graduated to using her right hand to point at her left palm as she brings them together. It’s very clear. The sign for “apple” is incredibly distinct, and she surprised us with it as it’s not one we have talked about all that much. If she’s thirsty, she will drag her finger down her chin if you ask her about it, and if she wants milk she’ll squeeze her little fists when you offer her some. In the past few days she has started to ask for water/a drink without being offered some by hitting her mouth with her fingers splayed; the sign is hitting your mouth with your fingers forming a “W.” And just today, during dinner, she kept putting her hands on her head and saying “Fawhh, fawhh.” She was starting the sign of the cross. (“In the name of the father…”)

She understands so much. If I tell her to go get her shoes, she gets her shoes. Or Pink Doggy, her lovey. She loves to sit on things if her feet can reach the floor, so she spends a lot of quality time in the doorway of the Tupperware cabinet. She tries so hard to play what Jack is playing; Not long ago, Jack was playing superhero with a towel tied around his neck and I caught her wandering around with a burp cloth draped over her shoulders. Jack also started a game where he shoots “goo” at people, and she played too, pointing her little fingers at everyone and saying, “Psshhh psshhhh psshhhh!” She dances by shaking her booty and I swear she sang a recognizable “Twinkle twinkle little star.” She kisses her babies and gives me hugs and and jabs me hard in the shoulder when she wants to nurse.

Fifteen months. I love fifteen months.

*I started this post about five days ago, so in the interest of full disclosure: She did say “Mommy” and “Daddy” two days ago but only with heavy coaching. And it hasn’t been repeated.

Jack never did this

2010-09-16T14:02:00.004-04:00

OK, so I realize that Nora is curious and newly mobile and it is my responsibility as the adult to make sure the bathroom door stays closed. It is too much to expect her to resist the siren song of the rolled up toilet paper or the toilet plunger or the toilet itself. And when I forget to shut the door, I have no one to blame but myself when she starts dragging the plunger around like it's a pet she's taking for a walk.

But I think I get sympathy when Nora uses the eight seconds between my using the toilet and putting down the lid, a time also known as "wiping myself," to throw my flip flop into the bowl. Did I mention I had just used the toilet? And not flushed yet? Because I WASN'T DONE?

Scroll down to see my Bump.com post, which is about cooking. But I think it might be helpful! Really! Go read it and tell me if it's helpful.

Kitchen Time Management

2010-09-16T08:45:00.001-04:00

Latest post up at The Bump!

I used to be a pretty terrible cook. I could bake with reasonable capability, but cooking was a mystery to me. I think this is because baking requires close adherence to a recipe whereas the best cooking is spontaneous. And I am not spontaneous. I once took an entire month to plan a weekend trip in Florida and thought I was being crazily spur-of-the-moment.

Over the past four years, however, my cooking has improved approximately ten-thousand-fold. Where I once used to be amazed at Andrew’s ability to look at what food we had in the kitchen and then just make something up for dinner, I now find myself throwing together our fresh-from-the-farm-share vegetables in surprising new combinations. Wait, that makes me sound super obnoxious. The combinations aren’t really all that surprising. But I’ve come a long way and dinner is usually a tasty affair appreciated by at least two, sometimes even three out of four members of the household!

Read more at
TheBump.com

I also save elastics

2010-09-12T17:01:00.006-04:00

Today I told my friend how I find myself saving twist ties in a little baggie in my kitchen drawer. I do this because I like to feel smug about reusing stuff (Reusing! The only thing that trumps recycling!), but also because sometimes? You need a twist tie.

"So, basically, you're telling me that you're my grandmother?" she said.

Touche. And then I went home and flattened out all the packing paper that came in my Amazon packages so that I can use it later for gift wrap.* And then I ate dinner at 4:00 pm and went to bed.**

*Note: I actually do this.

**Almost.

Things that should not surprise me, a trained scientist, and yet here I am. Eternally surprised.

2010-09-06T17:40:00.001-04:00

1. 3:30 pm feels like the middle of the afternoon, but it is only thirty minutes away from 4:00, the start of the suppertime scramble.

1a. 3:45 rounds up to 4:00, so 3:30 is only fifteen minutes away from “almost suppertime.”

2. If you are supposed to be somewhere at noon and it takes thirty minutes to get there, then you can’t leave at noon. You have to leave at 11:30.

2a. 11:00 is only fifteen minutes away from 11:15, which is “almost time to leave.”

3. The empty dishwasher appears to have plenty of room inside, but this is because it is empty. One should therefore avoid putting dishes in all willy-nilly because this will only cause immense irritation later, when the dishwasher is almost full.

4. Ten transactions at approximately $20 apiece adds up to approximately $200. This is true even though $20 is so much less than $200.

Plants! From seeds!

2010-08-31T22:05:00.005-04:00

Last spring, we planted a lot of seeds. We planted peas, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, watermelon, cilantro, basil, dill, parsley, and strawberries. And flowers that I forget the name of. The strawberries and flowers I forget the name of were "grow kits" from the dollar section of Target. They did not grow, and I was not terribly stunned. Not much else grew either, to be perfectly honest. The tomato plants grew their first flower about a week and a half ago, but this is troubling, as we are currently in the midst of peak harvest for tomatoes. So I don't think they're going to make it. The peas seemed like they were doing great until they all just up and died for no reason we can discern. The peppers are hanging in there, but there is a difference between "hanging in there" and "actually producing something edible". The watermelon did not take to being transplanted, and the carrots never grew at all. No idea why.

We had better luck with the herbs. The cilantro didn't make it and the parsley did OK, but the basil and dill grew like crazy. So this means that I was able to walk out onto my porch, pick something, wash it, and EAT IT. Something that I GREW. FROM A SEED. Were you all aware of this phenomenon? Food comes from seeds? DELICIOUS FOOD. And even better, Annie revealed over Twitter that pesto is just oil and basil. I am ashamed to admit this as I sometimes claim to be a foodie, but I had never tried pesto and had always thought it was some mysterious concoction requiring pine nuts, but no! Oil! Basil! Done! So I made a bunch of pesto and if you add a little Asiago cheese to it right before you eat it it is unbelievably delicious. Pine nuts are completely unnecessary.

Compared to the list of things I planted, the list of things we harvested appears, to the untrained eye, to be feeble. And that's because you don't need to train your eye to see that it is clearly feeble. But this is only the second year we've attempted to grow food (Food! You can grow it! On your porch!), and I am pretty psyched at how easy the herbs were. And to be honest with you, I'm secretly relieved the tomato plants aren't producing. We are currently getting about fifteen tomatoes a week from the farm share. We cannot eat fifteen tomatoes a week; not, at least, if we are going to eat the rest of the fourteen tons of vegetables we are getting from the farm share. So if I had to preserve a bounteous harvest of our own on top of that, I might crack. (A fridge full of locally-grown organic vegetables silently rotting away is the hushed-up dark side of having a farm share.)

Jack also planted seeds this spring. First of all, he was actually the one to plant all the aforementioned vegetables if we're going to get technical about it. But he also planted sunflower seeds in April in school, and we transplanted them to the front yard when they got too big for the styrofoam cup.

Those came from teeny tiny seeds! SEEDS!

Good thing we moved them, wouldn't you say?

Sadly, it was raining, sixty degrees, and dinner time, so she was denied

2010-08-23T21:23:00.005-04:00

This afternoon, Nora saw me coming in from my run and gave me a big grin. Then she started shrieking and pointing, so I said, "Come over here if you want something." She took a few steps then dropped to her hands and knees to crawl the rest of the way. I got on the floor and held my arms out, because of course she wanted ME, she had missed ME while I was out. But she crawled right past me and came back with a sandal, which she handed to me and held out her little foot with a "Eh." So I put it on. Then I put on the other one.

"She wants her sandals on," I said, getting up off the floor.

"She wants them on because she likes to take them off," replied Andrew.

But we were both wrong, because we turned to see her at the back door, reaching up for the doorknob which she can just touch if she stretches.

She wanted to go outside to play.

I think of this every single time they give away the centerpieces

2010-08-18T22:39:00.003-04:00

One of my oldest friends is getting married this fall. We’ve been friends since freshman year of high school, which was… twenty years ago and now I need to sit down. Yikes. At any rate, she came over today and the conversation naturally turned to wedding etiquette, as it does so often with anyone involved in planning a wedding. The combination of high school and wedding etiquette reminded me of an incident that happened about… hey! Twenty years ago!

This incident took place at the end-of-year high school choir* banquet, where “banquet” means “crappy food served in the school cafeteria.” The choir members and our long-suffering parents were scattered around the cafeteria in groups of eight to ten, just like at a wedding. There were probably a total of twelve or so tables. As the event was winding down, the choir director got on the microphone and said we were going to play a game. “One person at every table should take out a dollar,” he said.

“Oh, I’ve played this game before,” I thought. “We pass around the dollar, and then whoever is left holding it when the music stops wins the centerpiece.” I don’t actually recall any centerpieces, but my fourteen-year-old self seemed to think there was nothing amiss. A grumbling representative from every table took out a dollar bill.

“Pass it around till the music stops,” said the choir director, and hit “play” on the tape player. Or possibly the CD player; maybe we were fancy. The music stopped at last, and the person left holding the dollar was instructed to hold it up in the air while someone from the choir boosters went around the room.

Perhaps you think the choir booster gave each person holding the dollar a box of leftover “banquet” food. Or maybe you think the dollar-holder really did win the hypothetical centerpiece. Whatever scenario you’re imagining, it probably ends with the banquet attendee getting a prize of some kind, however weak and undesirable a prize it was. And so it is with astonishment equal to the astonishment of those in attendance that you will learn that the choir booster went around to every table and took the dollar. She TOOK the DOLLAR. The dollars were then “donated” to the choir booster fund while we choir members and our parents sat, too dumbfounded to protest.

Thus it was that the choir director and the choir boosters managed to raise twelve whole dollars while alienating their entire support group to the point that I, twenty years later, can still remember where in the cafeteria I was sitting when they stole our money.**

This was the only year they ran that particular fundraiser. Can’t imagine why.

*I was also in the band. Bass drum, then tuba, then drum major. I was on yearbook staff, too, and in school musicals. I’m not saying I was good in the school musicals, I’m just saying I was a huge nerd. But a happy one! I kind of wish I was rehearsing for a musical right now! I wonder if there’s a community theater around here…

**On the left side, about three tables back from the entrance.

Sweet dreams!

2010-08-11T20:50:00.002-04:00

Whenever we go to the library, I let Jack borrow five books, two DVDs, and two books on tape or CD. The audio books are a new thing because I only just figured out that we are allowed to borrow them. I thought they were like encyclopedias or something. I clearly did not think that all the way through or it would have occurred to me that it makes no sense not to allow people to borrow the audio books since one cannot listen to them in the library. What did I think they were for? Decoration?

But I digress. The point here is that when we go to the library, we borrow five books. Sometimes I choose them and sometimes Jack does. His technique is to grab whichever books he happens to lay eyes on; I try to be more discriminating. But life with two tiny people being what it is, I don’t usually have time to linger over the pages and I often make snap judgments based on the title and/or cover art. Sometimes this works out well, like with I Read Signs by Tana Hoban. Sometimes, not so much.

Take yesterday, for example. Last Saturday, we roasted marshmallows on the charcoal grill, and thus talked at length about fire. (Have I told you about last Saturday? The day started with Jack and Andrew setting up the tent in the backyard. Then a flipping hot air balloon showed up in the park half a block from our house, and we got to take a free ride in it. Next, Jack, Andrew and Nora went to a party with 40 million other kids and had a wonderful time. Meanwhile, I stayed home all by myself in the house for four hours nursing a minor illness, so things weren’t so bad here, either. Hey, did you know that if you stay home by yourself, you only have to clean the kitchen once in a while? Like, if you hang out on the computer for two hours and don’t go back into the kitchen, when you DO go back into the kitchen it will be in the same state you left it! I KNOW. Wait, where was I? Right. The party. So then they came home and Nora went to bed and the rest of us roasted marshmallows and then Jack and Andrew camped out. It was a good day, is what I’m saying.)

So ANYWAY. We roasted marshmallows and talked about fire and how it’s dangerous and only grown-ups can start one, etc. etc. Jack was quite fascinated, so when I found a book in the library called What Happens When Fire Burns? I thought it would be perfect! “How nice!” I thought. “A book explaining to children how fuel and oxygen are converted to carbon dioxide and water! What a lovely bedtime story!”

We read it last night.

The cover. Seems innocuous enough.

Ah, yes. Fire is friendly! Comforting! The screen keeps us safe, Jack!

But let’s not talk about the screen until we get to THIS page, which shows a fire without a screen. The screenless fire seems like it might not be so safe, actually. Hmmm.

Some people use fire to cook, just like we did with the marshmallows! Neat, huh?

Yes, never light a fire by yourself, Jack. It’s very dangerous. Always ask an adult. All sound advice.

Uhh… but we have smoke alarms! That keep us safe!

Look, firefighters! Aren’t firefighters wonderful?

Um, yeah, cars can, um, burn. Foam! Look, the firefighters use special foam! Isn't that cool?

And… trees can burn too. Um. Hey, did you know firefighters have special airplanes, too? That put out forest fires?

Jack, this page is boring. Let’s not read it.

Oh, dear Lord. Listen, Jack, we use fire to make electricity and it’s destroying the world. You might as well find out now.

But look, we can clean up after a fire! It only takes many, many years! It’s all OK. Eventually. After we’re all dead, probably. Oh, that house? THAT'S gone for good.

I mean, REALLY. I am not positive of the target audience for this book, but I certainly hope it is not meant for preschoolers, despite the very large print and simplified language and definitions. Go back and read that page on explosions. Really read it. Seriously? “What would happen if there was an earthquake?” Well, kids, the gas pipes would break and then catch fire and then explode. We’d all die. Good night!

Mr. Pickles is horrified.

Happily, there were no fire-based nightmares, but my goodness. We won’t be reading THAT again.

All I need now is a blind guy with glasses the exact same shape as mine

2010-08-05T22:48:00.003-04:00

One morning about two weeks ago found me groping on the nightstand for my glasses. “Where are my glasses?” I asked Andrew. It is always Andrew’s job to find my glasses, because it is faster, somehow, to look for missing glasses by simply glancing around the room instead of by physically covering the same area with one’s nose two inches away from all of the likely horizontal surfaces.

“Aren’t they right… ohhhh, damn.” That’s right, the baby, loose in the bedroom for some reason, had them. And had broken them. Snapped the left arm clean off, she did. I had a moment of panic, but then I remembered I still had my last pair which are the same prescription. Sadly, I hate those glasses, and did not want to have to wear them any longer than absolutely necessary.

“Well, I’m sure I can go get them fixed on Saturday. They just need a new arm. I bet they’ll have the part,” I said. This, my friends, is what is called “foreshadowing.”

So on Saturday, I duly called the place where I bought my glasses last fall, just to double check that they were open. “We sure are!” the salesgirl said, chirpily. “Ten to three!” So around 2:00 I headed out to the store which was located in the next town over, about ten minutes away. “Was” is the operative word in that last sentence, though, because when I pulled up I found an empty store. Not “empty” like, “no people because it’s closed for the day,” no, this was “empty” like, “there were no people and there was also no merchandise because this store has closed for good.”

There was a note on the door, which I will paraphrase for you here:

“Attention, Dr. Maureen: We have closed this location, conveniently situated a short ten-minute drive from your house. We still have a store open in a town much farther away, though. It’s about a thirty-minute drive. There’s no way you can go there today, of course, because you told Andrew you would only be gone for twenty minutes, so you’re going to have to go next week with both kids in tow. That should be lots of fun, because kids LOVE going to the optician’s. It’s like going to a birthday party, except there’s no cake, no toys, and they’re not allowed to touch anything because it’s all very fragile and expensive. Oh, and we didn’t tell superpages.com, so they’re still listing this address even though they’ve matched it up with our new phone number, so that’s what happened there. Just FYI.”

Ah.

So I drove home in my stupid old glasses that I hate, and called the store back. “Um. You’re closed in the next town over from me,” I said to the chirpy girl.

“Oh, we closed that MONTHS ago!” she chirped. “In January!” She seemed quite stunned that I could be unaware of this, but I bought my glasses last year, and I am not in the habit of dropping into the optician’s just to say hi. So I missed it.

But it turned out not to matter, because when I explained the problem to her, she said that they would not have been able to do anything for me anyway. I had to talk to the owner, who wasn’t in that day, and yada yada yada, I loaded the kids into the car the following Wednesday to go get my lenses put into new-but-identical frames that were pity-priced at half off for me. And you won’t believe this, but as I was packing up the forty tons of stuff a baby requires to have at all times I caught Nora with my sunglasses. My prescription sunglasses. My three-hundred-dollar prescription sunglasses. And she was breaking them in the exact same way she had broken my regular glasses which was the entire reason for this whole stupid trip. I stopped her before they were destroyed, but man, I have to remember that she can reach the table now. Push things into the center! The center of the table only!

So I finally got there, but then I had to drive around aimlessly for thirty extra minutes because OF COURSE they both fell asleep seconds from the store. But the guy gave my my replacement frames and was able to fix the minor damage inflicted on my sunglasses, and then we got ice cream from the convenient store next door, so it all ended well. Right?

WRONG. The new glasses pinch! They pinch! I already went to a local optician to get them adjusted, and I hate doing that – going to an optician who didn’t SELL me the glasses and asking him to fix them for free. I realize it takes them two seconds, but I still feel like a jerk. And he fixed them, but then it turns out he didn’t because they still pinch. It’s a sort of low-grade background pinching that I don’t exactly notice, but then I take them off for a second and there’s this RELIEF, but it is brief because I inevitably have to put them back on. And now that I’m typing about the pinching, I’m becoming ever more aware of it, and OW.

And, oh, I can hear you all now. “So just wear the other ones, Dr. Maureen! THEY don’t pinch!” Ah, but I hate them. I hate hate hate them. And it is only 50% vanity; they are ugly, yes, but they also are a little too long so if I lean back on the couch, the couch sort of pushes them off my face. AND the plastic cover thingies on the end of the arms catch my hair when I take them off and I cannot begin to tell you how infuriating this is. I lived with that hair-catching problem for about three years, and I WOULD RATHER BE PINCHED.

Sigh. I think the problem is that I told the second optician they pinched at the end of the arm but actually the problem is at where the arm bends to hook over my ears. But I can’t go back to the guy who didn’t sell me the glasses AGAIN and have him fix them for free AGAIN. I’ve thought about going to the optometrist who gave me my last eye exam, but she also sells glasses, and I’ll feel all guilty then, too. I have decided that I will go to Target. Target gets plenty of my money, they can fix my glasses.

And so. I have no way to wrap this up. I guess I’ll just tell you that I’ll be sure to keep you posted regarding the pinching situation. I will let you know THE SECOND the problem is resolved. Or else I’ll forget and never mention it again. One of those two things.

*Bonus points to the first commenter who can identify both Seinfeld references in this post!

Photos! And videos!

2010-07-26T21:28:00.003-04:00

So Nora is in the throes of giving up her morning nap in exchange for a long afternoon nap. It’s been going on for years now, but I recently made the mental adjustment of no longer expecting two naps. IF she goes down in the morning, I now EXPECT her to be up again in 30-45 minutes. This has made all the difference in my mood. I made the adjustment JUST IN TIME, because mornings that go by with no nap at all are now happening with increasing frequency. But since she’s still getting up for the day at about 5:15 and I’m making her wait for her nap until 11:30 or 12:00, AND I insist that she eat lunch first, we get this:

Sleepy Nora from Maureen on Vimeo.

In other news, when I uploaded the photos from my camera to the computer, I discovered that someone may possibly have been taking pictures without my permission.

In other other news, today was a gorgeous, crystal clear, windy day, just perfect for flying a kite. Sadly, the kite turned out to be missing a crossbar and was un-flyable, but we didn't yet know that.

Jack got his own self dressed today. The shirt is backwards by accident, but the shoes are by design.

Jack running the bases

2010-07-22T09:00:00.002-04:00

Jack, Andrew, and the bulk of my siblings, nieces and nephews went to a minor-league baseball game on Sunday. Andrew, Jack, my brother and his four-year-old daughter were early, and the kids were rewarded with the chance to run the bases against the team mascots in the second inning. Andrew taped it.

Jack running the bases from Maureen on Vimeo.

Jack doesn't quite understand the rules of baseball, but he's pretty fast, eh?

Bright moments

2010-07-19T18:14:00.002-04:00

Today was a very, very long day. Well, afternoon. It was a long afternoon. This was not a shock, because Nora was up last night from 1am to 5am, and Jack has some intestinal issues requiring a diet of bananas, rice, applesauce and toast. And we are STICKING to this diet, my friends, because we are most definitely not going to have a repeat of the 10-day-long ordeal of last February. (Ten horrible days, complete with sample collecting by yours truly and a bathroom rug casualty.) But it’s a tough one, because he’s hungry, and there are only so many ways you can present bananas, Rice Krispies, applesauce and toast. (I’ll tell you what, though, Andrew suggested a “banana hot dog” by which he meant a banana wrapped in bread, but which Jack took to mean a banana dipped in ketchup and that is what he ate and he LIKED IT.) So it’s not as though I woke up this morning and thought, “Today is going to be a great day!”

The mental readjustment got me through the morning relatively unscathed. I was lenient with the TV time, and I have actually stopped expecting a morning nap to last longer than thirty minutes, assuming it takes place at all. The lowering of expectations counts for a lot in the mental health of a stay-at-home parent, believe me. But I hit a wall around 2:30, which is when I ran out of both patience and ideas for entertainment. Not-coincidentally, this is also when Nora woke up from her afternoon nap and is when I discovered that my brilliant idea of allowing Jack to float things in a pan of water on the kitchen floor was not so smart, but only because I used the aluminum cake pan that Nora’s birthday cake came in. Friendly tip: Don’t fill a flimsy aluminum half-sheet cake pan with water and then try to pick it up. Trust me. In related news, those pans hold a lot of water.

The afternoon just turned into one of those days where things just kept going wrong. Water all over the floor. Several times. Juice all over the floor. Various other sticky things all over the floor. Laundry piling up. Whining, clinging, biting pre-toddlers demanding attention when all I need is five minutes to take a shower without someone pulling back the shower curtain and causing water to run all over the floor. Poor Andrew got one of my infamous afternoon phone calls where I cry and tell him how miserable I am, and then, just when I’ve got him feeling good and guilty, the baby starts shrieking and I say, “I have to go,” in a dead monotone and hang up on him.

But there were bright spots. And those are the spots I’ll probably remember in a few years. Spots like the impromptu tea party we all had in the living room with Nora’s new tea set, several dollies, Jack, and me. Spots like playing soccer with Jack in the back yard. And spots like the jelly sandwich I gave Nora for lunch.

Nora, you have a little something on your face

Speaking of Nora, would you like to know why I have to make sure she always wears a onesie?

So babies cry when they're hungry, eh?

2010-07-16T17:30:00.003-04:00

We went to The Butterfly Place* today, and on the way home Nora would not stop whining and crying and moaning and groaning. (Note: for "moaning and groaning" read "shrieking very loudly and shrilly.") "What is wrong with her?" we said. "Sheesh, Nora! What is wrong with you?"

Then we got home and she consumed four ounces of water, three of four slices of cucumber, a scrambled egg with cheese, a handful of cherries, and two huge chunks of tomato. She washed it all down with some milk.

"Ohhhhhhhhh," we said.

Vacation!

2010-07-06T11:33:00.004-04:00

Hey, there, Internet. Were you wondering where I was all last week? No? Well, I didn’t miss you either. Nyah. Because we went on vacation! It was a secret vacation, because Consumer Reports told me not to tell the internet if I was going away because it’s like saying, “Hey, robbers! Come to my house! It will be empty!” Except now that I think of it, I may as well have told you as the house was not, in fact, empty all week because the tile guy was here. He was cleaning the grout, re-caulking the tub, and switching out a few tiles for us that were damaged. It was supposed to take him a day, maybe two, but we are idiots and forgot to leave the tiles out for him which made it challenging for him to switch out the damaged ones. He tried to call us, but our cell phone reception was surprisingly bad, so we didn’t get the message until we were on our way home. Fortunately, he colluded with the neighbor who had agreed to water our plants, and they braved a trip to the billion-degree attic to find the tiles. So he did manage to finish, but it took him all week. And our caulking is no longer a biohazard! This is so thrilling to me, I can’t tell you.

Speaking of the billion-degree attic, I had to go up there myself yesterday to put away the down comforter, because just the sight of it in heat like this is enough to make me feel ill. On the way up, I saw something out of the corner of my eye on the bottom step that I thought was a hammer or wrench or some such. On the way back down, I got a better look. You want to know what it was? You don’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway. It was a dead bird. A DEAD BIRD. We have some sparrows nesting in our gutter. We are aware this is bad, but we figured we’d let them finish out the season and then seal it up for next year rather than pull down the nest full of babies. So my theory is that the bird got through the flashing or something into the attic, couldn’t get out, and dropped dead from the heat. I didn’t step on it, but I am still fairly traumatized.

And now is the part of the blog wherein I force you to look at my vacation photos. We rented a cabin on a small lake with one of my sisters and her family, and we got to go for a week. A whole week! We haven’t had a week’s vacation in over four years, so we were giddy with excitement. And it was awesome. AWESOME. My only worry had been that Nora wouldn’t sleep, but she did! Not through the night or anything, but she gave us the critical few hours between her bedtime and our bedtime, and that is all I wanted. Plus, vacationing with my sister’s family ensured that we didn’t get sick of each other and also that there were enough adults there to give both Andrew and me legitimate time off. I spent one afternoon just reading on the beach. And I got to go running as much as I wanted.

Other highlights include a trip to a little kids’ amusement park, a motorboat ride (Nora: not so much a fan), and a day of swimming with a bunch of cousins. We checked a lot of things off Jack’s life list last week.

First smore

Bliss

I KNOW.

Yaaay! Boats!

Why are you making me wear this enormous orange torture device? And I am getting WET. DO NOT LIKE.

That's a lemon.

See?

(Let me explain the life list: Jack has a habit of saying things like, “Mom, I’d like to ride in a blimp some day,” and I always reply along the lines of, “Yeah, that would be fun, Jack. Maybe someday we can!” Recently I started saying, “Let’s add it to the list!” But we don’t call it a “life list” or anything. So now we have fun listing all the things we’d like to do someday, and if we’ve done it already, we say, “CHECK!” And nothing is too trivial to be added to the list. Example of checked items: Swimming in a pool. Riding a scooter. Riding in a motorboat.)

I am going to post this even though it’s terrible because I need to feel like I’ve accomplished something during Jack’s preschool time. We’re in the middle of a heat wave, and the heat’s making me feel anxious and distracted like I did when I was post-partum with Nora. Or as though I’ve had six cups of coffee. It’s quite unpleasant.

One

2010-06-25T15:17:00.002-04:00

I don't have time for a real post, and I definitely did not have time to make a movie. That's what happens when you're the second baby. But believe me when I tell you that you are the sweetest, dearest little angel baby girl that I have ever known. This year has been difficult, it's true, but oh, your little face. And toes. And delight in the world around you.

Happy birthday, Sweetie Angel Baby.

It sure beats biting

2010-06-23T09:46:00.003-04:00

Tips on how to stop your baby from biting you:

1. For the love of all that is holy, don't pretend to chew on your baby. I know it's hard to resist the chunka chunka thighs and cheeks, but mixed messages, people. Mixed messages.

2. Stress KISSES not biting. Side effect: The cuteness will slay you dead.

Nora gives kisses from Maureen on Vimeo.

(Please disregard my weirdo hairdo. I am suffering from a terrible - yet very expensive - haircut and it was the end of a long muggy day.)

One day a week

2010-06-23T07:47:00.002-04:00

Latest post up at The Bump.

Andrew and I are blessed with an unusual work arrangement. He works long days four days a week leaving him free to stay home with the children on the two Thursdays a month that I work. We’ve been doing this pretty much since Jack was born; the only thing that has really changed is my own work situation, but the point is that Andrew has been solo-parenting one day a week for three years. If there is any way you can arrange something similar, I highly recommend you try it. Not only does this arrangement give me the sanity that comes from getting out of the house without kids to do something mentally stimulating, it gives Andrew the chance to do some solo parenting once in a while. And when I get home on Thursday afternoon, we both have a new perspective on things.

Read the rest at The Bump!

The Glamor of Parenting

2010-06-15T14:35:00.002-04:00

Today found me and my friend gathered around a toy shovelful of sand mixed with largish brown clumps. We were sniffing the clumps.

(They were just dirt.)

A random number of quick takes

2010-06-12T22:21:00.005-04:00

I have some thoughts rattling around in my brain, but I don't think there are seven of them. So here goes.

1. This past week was stressful to say the least, and the stress manifested itself in my dreams but my subconscious exhibits a startling lack of originality. On Monday night, I had a dream that involved public nudity, a dance performance for which I was unprepared, and a dissertation due in a week which I had not yet started. That's right: one dream, three cliches.

2. If you think that's amusing, consider that I have a recurring dream in which I am driving a car with no brakes. My subconscious may as well hold up a sign reading, "YOU FEEL AN ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE IS OUT OF YOUR CONTROL."

3. I just watched the season finale of Glee and the previouslies showed scenes of Jesse St. James returning to Vocal Adrenalin. I swear I watched all of the episodes from this season, but I don't remember that happening at all. I can only assume I fell asleep during some critical scenes. Anyone?

4. I finally got a new phone. I lost my phone at least a month ago, and we used this excuse to upgrade both our phones and sign on for a new contract. Since Andrew's Palm Pilot stopped working six or so months ago and you can't them anymore (Seriously! They're obsolete! OBSOLETE! I still consider them a new product!), he really wanted to get a smart phone because he used his Palm Pilot all the time for work. Long story short: For a few days, we were misinformed about price plans and thought we could afford to get smart phones for both of us, but we can't. Well, technically we CAN, but I can't justify spending that much money so that I can use Twitter at the mall. So Andrew got to get an awesome cool phone and I had to get a stupid boring normal phone. Which TOTALLY isn't fair since I'M the reason we're getting new phones in the first place. Shouldn't my carelessness with technology be rewarded with even better technology? I think so too.

5. Yeah, I also lost my mp3 player. Three weeks ago, I think. It VANISHED. But I'm not allowing myself to buy a new one because how will I learn?

6. Yup. There were only five.

We're all fine here. How are you?

2010-06-11T20:28:00.002-04:00

Thank you all so much for the prayers and thoughts. They worked! Jack is fine! We got an early time slot! He was SO BRAVE!

The lump is a BENIGN "lymphatic abnormality" which means his lymph vessel/vessels are swollen up. This is a thing that happens, in the sense that the surgeon who specializes in the lymphatic system was all, "Oh, yeah, one of these." But it's a weird one of those because it's not squishy. She thinks that maybe there's a blood clot in there or something. And since it is BENIGN BENIGN BENIGN we can give it a month or so to be resorbed and if it is, we get to do nothing! If it doesn't go away by itself, he'll have to have surgery, but the surgery will be no big deal because it's really close to the surface.

Seriously, guys, he was a super trooper. He got put under at about 12:10, and he didn't start complaining about being hungry till 11:00 or so, and it was only a few complaints at that. He got a little scared when they put the gas mask on him, and *I* got a little teary when we walked away from him lying there, so small on the gurney, surrounded by scary medical equipment and such. But I was otherwise a super trooper also. As was Andrew. And Nora, who spent her longest time ever away from me and apparently didn't give her respective grandparents much trouble at all.

So thank you so much everyone.

I need some wine.

Prayer request

2010-06-10T20:15:00.002-04:00

I hadn't told the internet this yet, partly because I thought I had plenty of time, but for those of you who pray, can you please say some prayers for Jack and us tomorrow (Friday)? Jack has a growth of some sort in his right arm, below his elbow. He had it when he was an infant, and it was diagnosed as a "subcutaneous hemangioma" which means, essentially, "birthmark under the skin." He has a cutaneous one in the same arm, just below it. The subcutaneous lump went away and came back three or four times before his first birthday, and we had a surgeon look at it a few times. He said no surgery was needed. Then it went away and stayed gone.

But then about a month ago, it came back. It got bigger then smaller over the course of three weeks, and then on Memorial Day it suddenly got huge. I swear it doubled in size that day. So we brought him back to the pediatrician who sent us back to the surgeon who re-ultrasounded it and recommended an MRI and maybe surgery. The MRI is already very stressful because he's three and therefore needs to be put under because you can't ask a three-year-old to hold perfectly still for a half hour.

Anyway, the MRI was supposed to be on July 21, but the thing has been growing in size since then and a new one has emerged above his elbow, so we got moved up to next Wednesday. But today it got ENORMOUS and started to look a little red, which is a sign of infection, so we called back and we have to bring him in tomorrow.

So we need lots of prayers. He can't eat anything before we leave because of the anesthesia, so we need prayers to get us a miracle early MRI slot and avoid having to get him admitted because the only time slot available is in the middle of the night. And we need the doctors to be wise and able to read the MRI results clearly. I will say that the pediatrician and surgeon both used the word "benign" several times each, so there's that relief. But I'm freaking out over here, so throw in some prayers for me that I may remain a calm and soothing presence for Jack.

I also hold the internet responsible for that time I failed to look at a map and was ninety minutes late to a wedding

2010-06-09T20:13:00.002-04:00

Last week, Emily tweeted about a delicious pizza that she makes from scratch which she and her husband look forward to eating all week long. Naturally, I demanded the recipe. “Flour, yeast, water, salt, sausage, tomato paste, peppers, a bunch of spices… I have all that stuff!” I thought. “I’ll make it this week!”

Emily uses The Pioneer Woman’s recipe for pizza dough, and TPW says making the dough a day or two ahead of time improves the flavor, so I did. It seemed very… wet. I was supposed to “form it into a ball” and “turn it into an oil-lined bowl.” Yeah, that was impossible. I could POUR it into the oil-lined bowl, but there wasn’t any “forming into a ball.” going on. I put it in the fridge anyway, hoping that it would dry out over time.

Pizza Night arrived as Pizza Night inevitably does, and the dough, it had not dried out. But by the time I took it out of the fridge, I had already mixed up the spicy sauce and cut up my expensive yellow pepper, my expensive organic sausage, and my expensive fresh mozzarella. Also, it was 4:00 pm. I was committed to this pizza. Throwing both caution and common sense to the wind, I plunged my hands into the doughy fluid and tried to shape it into a crust.

It did not go well.

When Andrew called ten minutes later, I was glad that I had let Nora play with the phone because it was still on the floor and I was able to answer it with my feet. I returned to the kitchen, and with the liberal addition of extra flour, I was able to turn the goo into something vaguely crust-shaped on the baking pan. Once I got my hands clean I turned to Twitter in order to complain about the recipe. I was EXTREMELY indignant that my friend had suggested what was obviously a terrible, unworkable recipe, and it was only my concern for her feelings that kept me from accusing her outright.

I finished building my pizza, complete with hippy toppings, and put it in the oven. After 10 minutes, I turned on the broiler because Emily says she likes her cheese toasted on the top, and that sounded like a good idea.

The end result was an edible, but very very disappointing pizza. And all of it was clearly Emily’s fault. It was Emily’s fault that the dough recipe didn’t work, Emily’s fault that the sauce was too spicy even though she did warn me, Emily’s fault that I left the pizza under the broiler too long and the cheese burned, and – well, OK, it wasn’t Emily’s fault that the sausage I had on hand was apple chicken flavor instead of the spicy Italian she told me to use. Apple sausage does not mesh well with spicy marinara. I had really, really been looking forward to that pizza and now it was ruined and IT WAS ALL EMILY’S FAULT.

We ate the pizza anyway. Jack even politely told me it was really delicious in an obvious attempt to make me feel better. (Really! He really did! And he was lying! I know!) After dinner, I went back to Twitter to complain some more about the pizza dough. Emily claimed not to understand why it didn’t work because it always works for her, but I didn’t fall for it. Diane agreed with me that TPW’s recipe was disappointing, although she didn’t have the wetness problem. And Arwen pointed me towards a different recipe. I compared the flour to water ratio of Arwen’s dough with TPW’s and tweeted back, “But it’s the same recipe!” Because there it was, plain as day, 4 cups flour, 1.5 cups water…

Oh. Wait. 1.5 cups water. Hazy memories of the day I mixed up the dough began to surface, and they definitely indicated that I had added 2.5 cups of water, thereby increasing the water by 75%. Which is sort of a lot. So. Oops.

You want to know the best part of this? Well, the best part after the part where I blame the internet for a faulty recipe that was perfectly fine if followed correctly? I totally had ready-made Boboli crust in the pantry. And I knew it was there.

No, I cannot explain myself.

Note: Arwen’s dough recipe is not the same. It has different yeast and salt amounts. But the flour to dough ratio is still 4.5 to 1.5, because that, apparently, is the correct flour to dough ratio.

It's like I've never seen a baby before

2010-06-08T12:10:00.002-04:00

Question: Why would a person with three years' worth of motherhood under her belt think it was a good idea to change the baby into clean clothes and then immediately feed her a waffle smeared with blueberry jelly?

Dress the baby AFTER the jelly. AFTER.

Obliviated

2010-06-06T22:45:00.003-04:00

Harry Potter is a trending topic on Twitter, so I got all excited to think that the next movie is coming out. I followed a link to a trailer and called Andrew in to watch it with me. "Why is this trailer number 4? Haven't we already seen this?" he said. "Shhh! Why are you trying to ruin this?" I told him.

We watched all the way through, and as soon as the release date showed up at the end, I said, "OK. I'm calling our babysitter now."

"Hon?" said Andrew. "We've already seen that movie."

"No we haven't!" I said. "Look! July 17!"

"That's July 17 of last year," he replied.

We fought about it for several minutes, and then he stalked off to the living room for reasons unclear to me while I went to IMDB to prove him wrong. Just as I pulled up the page for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (release date: July 17, 2009), he arrived back at the computer with the DVD that I had given him for Christmas.

Dudes. This is worse than how I forgot everything that happened during the middle 45 minutes of the fifth movie. At least that was because I fell asleep. Yes, at the movie theater. I WAS TIRED.

I only ever read one fashion magazine anyway

2010-05-28T14:32:00.000-04:00

You know what I find increasingly annoying? To the point where I may have to give up my free subscription to Glamour? It’s the way no one in fashion magazines ever simply PUTS SOMETHING ON. No, they must “throw” it on. Always. Big fancy dinner to attend? Throw on a little black dress! Need a day-to-night look? Throw on a pair of heels with your skinny jeans! Want a go-to cool summery outfit? Throw on a skirt and a t-shirt!

I get that it’s supposed to convey a sense of casualness and breezy confidence, but it starts to really grate on the nerves after the thousandth usage, in part because the problem is exacerbated by the way no one can “put” something in their bag. They “toss” it. With breezy confidence. For example, that day-to-night look I spoke of above? It requires that you toss some bright lipstick in your bag. That way, you can throw it on when you get to the restaurant. Gaaaah.

It would be fine if the “throwing” and “tossing” were intermingled with more typical verbs, but they are not. EVERY INSTANCE is either “throw” or “toss.” And this is a fashion magazine, so there are a lot of instances. Multiple instances on a single page, even. It reminds me of a terrible book I read called Odd Mom Out in which the main character consistently “grabbed” things instead of “getting” them. As in, “I decided to go for a run so I grabbed my iPod and headed out the door,” or “I really needed a break, so I grabbed my motorcycle helmet and went out for a ride,” or “I came down for breakfast and grabbed some cereal from the cabinet.” At first I didn’t notice it, but by the end of the book I could barely read the story because I was so distracted by counting how many times she grabbed something. Sometimes, it’s OK to just GET some cereal, you know?

I’ve now had this post sitting in Word for a couple of days, and I keep rereading it, trying to decide whether or not it’s horribly dull. But then I think, “Who wouldn’t want to read a snotty rant about English language usage?” So I am going to post it anyway, dull or not. You’re welcome!

But I shall end by explaining why, exactly, I have a free subscription to Glamour in the first place. See, about a year ago, I got a copy of Domino in the mail, along with a cheery note saying something along the lines of, “Here’s that free subscription to Domino you asked for!” Interestingly, I had never requested a free subscription to Domino. In fact, I had never heard of Domino. It turned out to be a design magazine featuring photographs of lovely rooms containing many items I could never in a million years afford. As a bonus, it was really really boring. But then! I got a sad note in the mail saying, “We regret to inform you that Domino is closing up shop and will no longer be published. So we are forced to replace your free subscription with a free subscription to Glamour. We are so so sorry! We are weeping!”

But here’s the thing: Glamour is my fun magazine! The only reason I didn’t already have a subscription is that I like to have a magazine to choose when I’m in the drugstore and am in the mood to treat myself. And now that I’ve told you this story, I realize it was not a good way to end this blog post after all, as it leaves unanswered the question of WHY I got a free magazine subscription in the first place. Unfortunately, that is a mystery that will have to remain unsolved, because I’m afraid that if I start calling around to find out why they’re sending me a free magazine, they will STOP sending me a free magazine, and then I’ll have to throw on a jacket, grab my purse, and go down to the drugstore to buy one for myself. And we can’t have that.

Oh ha ha ha. Double standards are hilarious.

2010-05-24T13:46:00.000-04:00

Just checking in to tell you about this book I just finished reading. I have a hard time choosing good books at the library on the fly given that the forty or so seconds I am allowed to browse the stacks when children are in tow. Yes, yes, I know; sometimes I DO choose a book ahead of time and know what I’m looking for, but usually I just have just take a chance on what I happen to find. This is how I ended up with Wedding Season by Katie Fforde; I wanted something fluffy and quick, so I grabbed it.

And fluffy and quick it was. Of course it was. It was called Wedding Season, for crying out loud, in scrolly, swirly font no less, and there was a big piece of wedding cake on the shiny turquoise cover. That’s why I grabbed it in the first place. And for the most part, it was fine. Not the finest example of writing out there or anything, but diverting enough. Until, that is, the end, when one of the main women characters, Bron, finally got together with her love interest, James. They were working a big fancy wedding and Bron was looking for a place to take a quick nap. She opened the door to the caravan* and who should she find but James, sound asleep. Since they were friends and she was so tired, she lay down next to him. And all of that is fine. I have no problem with it. I even have no problem with her gazing longingly at his sleeping form.

You know what I do have a problem with? I have a problem with how she unbuttoned his shirt. She stopped herself before she undid his pants, but it was close. She almost undid his pants. And then she laid her head down on his bare chest and went to sleep.

He caught her, of course, and there was a lot of feigned indignation, but naturally he actually loved it. It was written as an amusing way to consummate one of the novel’s three relationships. Because oh ho ho! How droll! The cute little woman undressed a man without his knowledge or consent in order to leer at and touch his naked body! Ha ha ha!

Raise your hands if you think this cute little scene would have made it passed the editors had James’s and Bron’s roles been reversed.

*This book is English, so I actually have no idea what a “caravan” is. Is it a cabin? A minivan? A long train of vehicles? The wedding was at a huge country estate, so it’s maybe the servants’ quarters? Or something? Anyway, James was sleeping in it.

How you know

2010-05-13T21:24:00.001-04:00

For some, it’s the first gray hair. For others, the first fine lines around the eyes. The signs of aging are many and various, ranging from the involuntary grunt that escapes when you get up after sitting on the floor to purchasing a rug for the first time to having carte blanche in all doughnut purchasing decisions.

But you know when it really hits home? This fact that you are no longer the same carefree young thing you once were? It’s when you hear yourself telling your friend with genuine excitement and delight that you will be getting your grout cleaned next month. Grout.

In my defense, it really needs a good cleaning.

Yes, I realize there is only one practical shape for these things

2010-05-04T21:28:00.001-04:00

On Sunday, after the race, Andrew and I were rushing around the kitchen trying to get food into our children in the brief window allotted to us before they get too tired to eat and too hungry to sleep. But I, too, was tired, so when I applied the super sharp serrated bread knife to the rock-hard homemade bread I was planning to give to Nora (She LIKES to suck on rock-hard bread! Honestly!), my shaking hands slipped and I cut my thumb instead.

“Auuggghhhh!” I said and ran into the bathroom to run cold water on it, because that is what you do for a burn. Look, I said I was tired. I was also afraid to look at it. It hadn’t started to hurt yet, but our knives are SHARP and there is a delay between the actual slicing of the finger and the pain with a super sharp knife. So there was no pain yet, but it had felt to me like I had sawed right through my nail into the nail bed, and I was scared that my nail was no longer attached to my finger.

Andrew looked at it for me, and said that I had cut my thumbnail, but not quite all the way. THANK HEAVENS. It is sliced up good, though, and I have to wear a band-aid all the time to avoid catching the nail and tearing it off the rest of the way.

I have subjected you all to this painful story to get to the part where I discovered a product called “First Aid Cots” while looking for something called “New Skin” which I did not find. (My mother tells me it is basically sterile Super Glue. So I just used Super glue.) (To glue the nail back together.) You know how when you need to put a band-aid over the top of your finger and it is essentially an exercise in futility since the band-aid is the completely wrong shape and has nothing to stick to? Well, First Aid Cots are the solution, my friend! They’re little rubber finger tips that are just the thing to hold a band-aid in place. It’s as though someone cut the fingers off a latex glove and added a little rubber ridge on the edge. They look a little silly, but it’s better than tearing off your thumbnail, am I right?

Did I say they look “silly?” They also look like… something else.

I mean, COME ON.

So very tired

2010-05-03T21:53:00.002-04:00

So hey! I ran a 10K yesterday!

Less than a mile in

My training has been going really well, so I originally had two lofty goals: Finish without stopping to walk and finish under 1:00:00. I didn’t really think I could finish without walking at all given that I had to walk some of last week’s 5.5-mile training run, but I’ve been regularly averaging 9:30 per mile, so I was really hoping to break an hour.

But then Nora was up all night on Saturday and would not let us put her back to bed. Andrew tried his valiant best to deal with her and let me sleep, but since neither of us could sleep through the screaming she ended up with me for the bulk of the night, nursing on and off. More on than off, if you want to know the truth, so I got maybe five hours of fitful sleep. Add to that the weather forecast of 80-degrees-and-muggy, and things were not looking good for me yesterday morning.

But Andrew let me take an hour’s nap in the late morning (the race didn’t start till 2:00), so I soldiered on with a small mental adjustment. New goal: Don’t die. I added a new goal when I got to the starting line because the race turned out to be a pretty small townie event, and there were only about 100-200 runners. So. New goals: Don’t die, and don’t come in last.

And I didn’t! I finished in 1:05. My personal stopwatch said 1:06, but the official clock said 1:05 when I ran by it, so that’s what I’m going with. It wasn’t under an hour, and I definitely walked, but I didn’t die, and there were… a few people behind me. Maybe ten? Not more than twenty. But the important thing here is that SOMEONE ELSE was last. Maybe someone with an ankle injury, or whose baby only allowed her three hours of fitful sleep.

The home stretch. Can you spot the other two women who bought their running clothes at Target? (Hint: I’m giving one of them the thumbs up.)

When I signed up for the race two months ago, I saw there was also a Family Fun Run. They had one of those at the Thanksgiving Race I ran, and it was age-divided so that the four-and-unders only ran 100 yards, but the website for this race didn’t list the distance. I emailed the race organizers, and they assured me that it was for anyone! Sure, sign up the three-year-old! So imagine my surprise when, as I was picking up our bibs, I learned that there were no age divisions and the Fun Run was a mile. A mile! He’s three!

Jack has been really looking forward to this race. He’s been talking about it for awhile. “I have to practice for my race!” and “Will I get a medal, Mom?” I was afraid he’d be so disappointed not to be able to finish. Andrew and I told him it was going to be pretty long, so just do the best he could and if he had to walk or stop, that was fine.

Well guess what. He finished. Andrew ran with him and Nora and I waited at the finish line. It took them about fifteen minutes, and Andrew reported that he only had to carry him for a couple of yards.

I got something BETTER than a medal, Mom! Candy!

A mile. My three-year-old ran A MILE. In an outfit he picked out himself, for the record.

We are so proud of each other.

Recipe modification: Smitten Kitchen's Salted Brown Butter Crispie Treats

2010-04-28T15:28:00.003-04:00

A few months ago, my particular Twitter circle of friends was all agog over Smitten Kitchen's Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats. I mean, they were nuts for them, eating them by the panful. Well, I finally got around to making them myself, and I must concur, they are delicious. However. Last night Andrew made a slight but amazing modification, and I felt it was my RESPONSIBILITY to share it with everyone.

Even Better Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats

1. Make Smitten Kitchen's recipe.
2. Cut off a piece.
3. Melt some semi-sweet chocolate chips and smear them on top.
4. Put some sweetened dried cranberries (eg, Craisins) on top of that.
5. Refrigerate until chocolate solidifies (~10 min.)

You are welcome.

It's easier to ask for forgiveness

2010-04-28T12:30:00.003-04:00

JACK (entering the kitchen while wiping his mouth and holding an empty half-a-plastic-egg): Mom, did you say I could eat the M&M's out of this?

ME: No, I said you could only eat the ones you took OUT of the egg, not the rest.

JACK: Oh. Sorry.

The mutterings of an angry man

2010-04-17T21:28:00.003-04:00

Now that Jack has discovered the joys of borrowing DVDs from the library, we watch a lot of shows that way. Well, he does. His particular favorites of the moment are The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and a Canadian television show, Mighty Machines. It’s video of actual trucks with voiceovers that are supposed to be the trucks personas. It’s pretty cute, actually. Mickey Mouse is a new favorite, but we’ve been watching Mighty Machines for several weeks now, long enough for the theme song to have become a regular in the nightly lullaby lineup.

While we’re on the subject of the Mighty Machines theme song, there’s something I’d like to note. While the song is admittedly very catchy, consider the following lyrics:

Lifting and pulling and flying so high,
Building that building right up to the sky,
You can watch them all day, and never know why,
They’re mighty machines!

Does that third line strike anyone else as lazy songwriting? We don’t know WHY we can watch them all day? Isn’t it because they are awesome? And it’s not like there aren’t many words that rhyme with “sky.” What do you think the lyricist ruled out? “You can watch them all day…. just like that old guy! While you’re waving good-bye! And then eat some pie!”

But I’m not here to criticize lyrics. I’m actually here to criticize our DVD player. You see, I usually let Jack watch a show when I’m making dinner, a time of day when I’m in a bit of a rush because of the fifty thousand things which must happen simultaneously. I therefore prefer Jack to watch live TV at this time, because our DVD player is like the person who holds up the drive-through line by carefully checking over a large order. You turn it on, and it’s all, “OK, let me just check if there’s a disc in here.” But you know there is, in fact, no disc in there, so you hit the button in an attempt to get it to just open the disc drawer already. But the DVD player is all, “Hold onnnnnn! I have to check if there’s a disc in here! I’m checking for a disc!” (The DVD player is very whiny at this point.) And then it checks and checks until FINALLY it’s all, “OK. All clear. No disc. Now. What did you want me to do?” And you’re punching the button, saying, “OPEN, dammit!” and it’s all, “OK, OK! Keep your pants on! I’m opening!” And then you put in your disc and hit “close” and try to hit “play” but it’s all, “Wait, hold on, let me just check if there’s a disc in here.”

You can imagine how this is an ordeal I would rather avoid when I’ve got raw chicken on the counter, oil heating in the pan, and a baby on the floor whining and crying for HER dinner while skooching towards the outlets. So when Jack asked for Mighty Machines the other day, I said, “Why don’t we see which Martha Speaks it is first?” and I turned it on. This is a trick that often works; once he SEES a show he likes he will change his mind. However. I usually say, “Is this OK?” and get a nod of assent before I leave the room, but this time I just took in his absorbed expression and went back to the kitchen without saying anything.

Twenty-five minutes later, I heard him stomping through the dining room muttering indignantly under his breath. The child was MUTTERING. I only caught a few words here and there, but I got the gist which was, “She said I could watch Mighty Machines and then she put on Martha Speaks and then left and she better let me watch another show because I said Mighty Machines and who does she think she is and – Mooo-oommmm! You tricked me!”

I gotta tell ya, it was pretty hard not to laugh in his face. I lamely tried to defend myself – because, let’s face it, I did trick him – but dinner wasn’t ready anyway, so I made amends by putting in Mighty Machines.

I don’t know why, but I could watch that show all day.

Their marketing power alone is enough to scare me

2010-04-15T18:23:00.001-04:00

Latest post up at The Bump!

A weird side-effect of preschool is the way Jack learns things that I don’t teach him. Wait, it sounds wrong to call that a side-effect – “He’s learning things! At school! How strange!” – but I’m talking about pop culture, like the way he joyously identified and selected the Mickey Mouse underpants when we went to Target to replenish his stock despite our never having exposed him to anything Mickey-related in any way. Now, it’s not that I’m opposed to Disney, exactly, but sometimes Disney does seem a bit… Big Brother-y to me, and I was fine with postponing the inevitable for as long as possible. Which, as it turns out, is about three and a half years.

Read the rest at TheBump.com

Stuck scoocher

2010-04-14T13:39:00.005-04:00

This is what happens when a scooching baby sits on a lid.

Stuck scoocher from Maureen on Vimeo.

She's been scooching her way around the house for a few months now, but it just doesn't get old. All I need to do now is put some wheels on that thing.*

*Note: I am not actually going to put wheels on that thing.

Man, I hope the jeans I just ordered online turn out to fit

2010-04-14T09:02:00.003-04:00

Number of pants I own: 20
Number of pants that fit: 5
Number of pants I actually ever wear: 1
Number of jeans I own that fit: 1
Number of jeans that developed a hole in the knee last night: 1

The life cycle of Tupperware*

2010-04-11T21:10:00.002-04:00

Containers with matching lids are purchased.

The lids are removed.

Lids and containers are stacked for easy storage.

Stacked items are placed in the Tupperware cabinet.

The door is shut.

In the absence of light, the lids and containers begin to migrate away from one another. Within a few days, the original lids and containers mate, produce an offspring, and die. Upon death, Tupperware containers disintegrate into a powder which resembles ground graham cracker crumbs.

The offspring is always a different size than its parents; ie, two six-inch circular lids can mate and produce a 4-inch circular lid. Sometimes the offspring is a different shape entirely, so two square lids can produce a rectangular lid. In an interesting twist, however, the most common combination of lid- and container-offspring results in similar shapes but ever so slightly different sizes.

If enough time is allowed to elapse, the Tupperware cabinet will eventually contain hundreds of containers and lids no one can remember purchasing, and none of which fit together.

*With apologies to Douglas Adams