Mother's Day and a Tribute to Mothers, Part 1

Seeing as how Mother's Day was this past Sunday, and true to my typical self, I'm going to take this opportunity to write a late post about said holiday. (Don't look at me like that. You know me and punctuality really only exist in public with actual, live people around witnessing it.) I am blessed to have both an amazing and awesome mom and mother-in-law, so I'm going to entertain us all with (hopefully) amusing anecdotes that either directly or indirectly have to do with both women, and then one of my own. And since I tend to, erm, ramble a bit (a lot) I'm splitting it up into three posts for you convenience. You can slip me a $20 on your way out as thanks. *Smiles brightly*

First up, is my mom. That's her with my little girl and my youngest sister.

Don't tell her I posted a picture of her, she'll freak. She hates pictures of her. I don't know why, I've always thought my mom was pretty, and I look just like her. She, myself, and my younger sister are all strikingly similar, and I'm glad for it.

Now, I may have mentioned before that my mom is the SuperMom of moms in a lot of ways. Not that perfectly primped soccer mom wearing Nordstroms sweaters and perfectly manicured nails with impeccably behaved kids, no. Because that mom is not real. She's an alien, or she is a celebrity with a whole platoon of nannies, stylists, trainers, and chefs behind her. No, the real supermoms are the moms that you see sitting on the porch, sipping a soda while she talks with a fellow supermom, and the kids are playing in the yard, and somehow dinner is in the oven, and despite a hairstyle that looks like it was done, oh, yesterday, and pants that were probably supposed to be in the load of laundry going right now, this mom is in complete control. She may look like crap some days, but you know what, she's got things handled.

You scraped your knee trying to jump your bike off a ramp? Supermom not only has bandaids, neosporin, gauze, first aid tape, three different kinds of pain relievers, an actual first aid kit, and an x-ray machine stuffed in that hall closet, but she's also got a bag of popsicles to hand out to your friends while they wait for you to get patched up. Oh, and she's also got that magical kiss for your owie that somehow makes everything all better. Mom magic, that's what it is.

Have you had the hairiest day in middle school known to man and it's not even lunchtime yet? Supermom knows. And she will either A) Have you pulled out of class for a "doctor's appointment" that turns into a day of playing hooky with your mom, or B) Have chocolate chip cookies and milk ready for you when you hit the door. She's like a best friend. She just knows. Again, mom magic.

You just mouthed off to someone you shouldn't have, or vandalized property, or looked at Supermom right in the eye and told her, "No"? Well, hold onto your britches, baby, 'cause you're getting spanked. And grounded. You will be apologizing if you offended anyone, you will be making restitution, and you will be feeling the heavy cloak of shame on your shoulders when Supermom tells you that she is disappointed in you. Because that's how Supermom proves that she loves you. She doesn't let you get away with crap, and therefore makes you a better, more responsible human being.

And if, maybe, after this nightmare of backpedaling and apologizing and swearing to yourself that you will NEVER incur Supermom's wrath like that again (although you will), you maybe break down and cry? Supermom will be there. Hugging you. And making you feel better. Because even if you did something bad that made her angry, she still loves you. And you will never understand, until you are a parent, just how super that particular power is.

This was my mom. The mom that would whop me with a wooden spoon when I seriously stepped out of line, gave me my freedom to become the person I am today, very sneakily taught me skills that I'd be a useless human being without, kissed my owies, pulled me out of school to play hooky, and still hugs me with that mom magic that somehow makes everything okay, just for a second. Because nothing can hurt you when your mom is holding you.

My mom was the one sitting on the back porch, in a lawn chair, chatting with our next door neighbor while we ran around in our front yard in our bare feet with the neighbor kids, playing our hearts out, and knowing not to do anything stupid. Because even though mom appeared to be focusing solely on the Coke in her hand and the friend at her side, she would catch you if you were an idiot. Every time. "Young lady, knock that off right now!"

The difference between now and then? Now, I get to be that friend sitting next to her, keeping one eye on my own daughter and one eye on my mom, Dr. Pepper in hand, sitting on a lawn chair out on the back porch while Sammy and my youngest sister, closely followed by two dogs, go running helter-skelter around the yard, hair all a mess, having the time of their lives. And my ponytail is as close to ungroomed as you can get when you actually brushed your hair that day, my jeans should have been washed last week, and there are undoubtedly a million other things I should be doing. But they can wait. Because what I experience in those moments is more important than having all the laundry done in one day and having every dish sparkling clean and put away before bedtime.

My mom taught me . . . everything. And even if she didn't teach it to me, she taught me how to be teachable. To observe. To take things into my own hands and learn how to do it myself. I would not be able to cook today if I hadn't grown up my whole life eating home-cooked breakfasts and dinners every day, made by her. Half of my recipe collection right now is straight from my mom.

Tonight, I made a cheesecake, just like my mom makes (because I actually had 2 packages of cream cheese AND a pie crust in the house at the same time, heck yes!). I'm not talking a fancy-shmancy baked New York style cheesecake, I'm talking a creamy, cold, delectable concoction of cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice, and vanilla smoothed into store-bought graham cracker crust. It's my favorite cheesecake, and the only thing bad about it is that it takes about 2-3 hours to chill in the fridge before I can proceed to eat the entire thing in one sitting.

I think of my mom every time I make one of her recipes. Even if it isn't technically her recipe, it's one of the dozens she's collected over the years from all kinds of places. I still think of her. Of how lost people would be without their moms. Especially moms themselves. You are not truly a mom until you call your own mother, who you of course have on speed dial for just such an occasion, and practically cry to her over the phone. Because you messed up the spaghetti sauce and can't figure out what you did wrong. Because your baby has a fever and you don't know how much medicine to give her. Because your favorite pants just ripped and your sewing machine isn't working and you just can't handle it! (Also, my mom taught me to implement sewing in my life. Sure, technically home ec taught me HOW to sew, but my mom taught me how to use the skill. I can't count how many items of clothing hang in my or my daughter's closet that are made by my mom or me.)

And Supermom listens, she agrees with your frustrations, is sympathetic to your pains, says many a comforting and calming word, and then offers you a solution. Whether it be how to fix the spaghetti sauce, how much medicine you can give a 4 month old, why your machine isn't working, or to simply throw out the sauce, pack up baby, grab your pants, and come to mom's house. And mom will feed you, because that's what mom does. Mom will cuddle her grandbaby to her chest that you fell asleep on countless times, and rock and sing to her until the baby-sized dose of medicine kicks in and allows baby to sleep, because that's what mom does. And then, mom will get you both a chocolate chip cookie (either store bought or homemade, neither of you are picky), and mom will get out her sewing machine and fix your pants for you while you sit and talk and laugh uproariously about every little thing. Because that's what supermom does.

You'll get home later that night, baby asleep in her car seat, a tupperware container of food in the passenger seat, and your pants folded up neatly next to it, all fixed. Baby is even holding a brand new stuffed animal in her little hand, because grandma cannot help herself. She spoils you both rotten. Somehow, in just a few hours, Supermom just fixed everything.

That is my mom. My perfectly imperfect mom who has loved and tolerated and humored and amused and taught all these years. I was a beastly child, especially in my pre-teen years, but somehow my poor mom not only managed to get through it, but she got me through it as well. My teen years, too, although I was a completely different kind of beastly then. Problem child vs. Supermom, and Supermom definitely won. Because I turned out well, thanks to her. I screwed up and made all kinds of mistakes, every color of wrong and stupid, but here I am. On the other side of that. With my own little girl, my own family, my own life, and although it's so not perfect that it skims downright dreadful some days, I still love it. I wouldn't trade any of it for anything.

My bed is covered with folded laundry that I have to stuff into my drawers, but they are clean and folded because my mom taught me by example. I have a cheesecake chilling in the fridge, and the dishes drying in the drainer, because my mom taught me how. I have a stack of clothing items to mend on my desk, but I can fix them instead of throwing them away, because my mom taught me how. I am looking at a free night, with no little eyes peering through a crack in the door telling me she needs another drink of water, because my mom is watching her so I can work on some projects. There is no teaching for that one. Because no one has to be taught how to love my mom. Even my friends loved my mom best.

So, this Mother's Day, I'm not lacking in needing a woman to look up to and respect and love for being the astounding woman she is. She has always been that way. Even when I was a snotrag little 11 year old that hated my life and everything in it, I knew my mom was amazing.



Happy Mother's Day, Supermom. I can count my life a success if I am ever the kind of mom to my daughter that you were, and still are, to me.

The Squash I Squashed

I have learned sooo many new things today! One of them being that I really find pulling hair out of my tub drain distasteful. And my daughter always looks cute in a short bob (yes, she cut her hair again). The most . . . entertaining, perhaps, thing I have learned is that a jack-o-lantern is probably the closest I think I'll get to a whole, raw squash again.

Here's why:

Last week at Sammy's preschool, they had a whole passel of butternut squashes that they were giving away. Feeling slightly adventurous, as I get sometimes, I grabbed one. I figured, hey, if I can't figure out how to cook the thing, we can always paint it for Halloween decor, right?

It'd been sitting on the counter since then, and I've been contemplating it. I looked up a few recipes on Google, and found everything from soup to roasted squash to pureed squash. Lots of options. Now, I know that most squashes are naturally quite sweet. Hello, pumpkin pie anyone? They didn't arrive at that delectable treat without some kind of suggestion in the right direction. So I'm figuring that most of this squash will probably be going towards some kind of sweet dish. Worst case scenario, we have butternut pie, a la imitation pumpkin! Which, really, how is that a bad thing? And the rest of it can go towards a savory dish, say, a halved recipe of soup since I'm the only one that will eat this stuff anyway!

I've been meaning to cut the sucker up and get cooking since Saturday, however, I've also been battling a cold that has been flirting with me for over a week and settled in for a nice, long-term relationship around Friday. Suckage. Big time. So, poor squash just sat on the counter, waiting to hear its fate. And that cold, yeah, still hanging around. I've packed its luggage and put it outside, even left an eviction notice, but it's not taking the hint.

Anyway, I picked up the squash this afternoon while dinner was baking, and I didn't even have a chance to decide what to do with it before I felt a squishy, wet soft spot on it. Well, obviously, if this squash is going to start going bad, I need to do something about it pronto. And painting it to look like a cutesy-pootsie ghoulie is out of the question now.

So . . . the real question is . . . what the devil do I do with the thing?! I start looking around online. And it seems like every recipe I find calls for already cooked squash. And the most common way to do that? Cut it in half and bake it in the oven for a couple hours.

Er, problem there. Because, um, I kind of already went Sweeney Todd on the thing, and it it now in three pieces, and sans the whole part that was soft. Not exactly perfect roasting material now, huh? So I'm just gonna have to find a different way to cook it! Which brings us to recipes, because there is no easily accessible alternative out there for what to do with three big pieces of butternut squash.

I did, however, find a unanimous agreement that the squash needs to be peeled and cubed. Ok, peeled. Peeling a squash. Zucchini is easy peasy lemon squeezy, that stuff has a thin peel like a cucumber. However, I have never tried to peel a pumpkin, and that was pretty much what I was lookin' at right then. So, for kicks, I pull out a vegetable peeler like it says.

I would have been there until December, I kid you not. Because not only is it practically impossible to peel a concave-shaped vegetable, but I would need to go over this thing with my dinky little potato peeler about three times to get through to the lovely orange stuff underneath the tan skin and pale stuff under it. Think orange, here. No that texture, but that idea. You take a peeler to an orange, what do you get? That white stuff underneath that you don't wanna eat. Same concept, pale yellow flesh under the tan skin that I don't wanna eat. So, peeler is a no-go.

Next option, I'm gonna have to just cut the skin off with a knife. So, which knife. Let's play a game! You bring me a knife that you think would peel a pumpkin, and I'll tell you if it'll work. And do not even think about touching that butter knife, because I will snigger at you. Put the paring knife back. Fillet knife? Don't be funny. Long skinny knife. Ha. Butcher knife, no. You will cut off your finger before you skin a butternut, because a knife that big will be a joke.

Ok, I'll tell you. You want a knife about 6 inches long, half the blade width of a butcher knife. We have two at my house, and they're my favorite, especially because I sharpen them before each use. I tried the fillet knife, and started laughing because I got 3 inches into a cut and realized that this was a fail of epic proportions because have you every tried to cut a jack-o-lantern with a fillet knife? Yeah, it's like trying to carve an apple with a spaghetti noodle. You need a big, sturdy bad boy to cut into a super-firm thing like a squash. You need a slightly flexible, equally sturdy smaller bad boy to PEEL a squash.

Now, I finally got started peeling this thing. It was not pretty, to say the least, my squash looked more like an abstract sculpture than a vegetable (fruit? What category would this be in?) by the time I was done with it. By this point, I was sighing a sigh of relief, and then hurdling onto my next project in between checking on my dinner and two pots on the stove (dinner is baking and cooking, remember?). Now I need to cut this puppy up!

This worked pretty well, and for this job I used the biggest baddest knife I had, a super-long butcher knife. Butternuts are tough suckers, and it took a little muscle to get through the big pieces, but after that cubing the small stuff was nothing. Wanna know what I did next?

Um, sorta nothing. I put them in a ziploc bag, and now, some five hours later, they're still there. Sitting on the counter. Waiting. I don't know what to do with it! I checked for how to store the stuff, but I got nothing for raw, cubed squash! Don't refrigerate was a common one, but that was for WHOLE squash. Apparently the cold does bad things for the flavor. But letting a skinned, cubed squash out all night might be bad, right? Yes? No? I don't know!

So here I sit, polishing off the leftovers of some truly fabulous chicken and some cold french toast from the day before, dipped in powdered sugar. A worthy dinner, I assure you. But I'm still bothered by the incredible conundrum that is THAT STUPID SQUASH! Because it's after 11 at night. And most of these recipes I'm looking over take a minimum of an hour to make! I really don't want to be up until nearly one in the morning, but what do I do with my baggie of squash in the meantime? I'm so stymied.

I guess . . . I'll stick it in the fridge. And then, in the morning when I take Sammy to school, I'll take it out. That can't do it TOO much damage, can it? I have no idea. *Frustration*

Anyway . . . I'm going now. I'm going to go stare at that cubed squash in a most cheerful shade of orange, and I'm going to get some information out of it if kills me. And, worst case scenario . . . I'll have a go at that butternut pie!

How the Baby Grew Up

I had another one of those moments a minute ago when I think about my daughter and kind of . . . sit there in awe and shock and completely unadulterated terror for a second about how fast things are changing. Thankfully these moments don't happen too frequently, or I'd be a basketcase, but I just had one. Allow me to explain . . .

So, Sammy starts preschool in one week. I know. A week ago she was still wearing toddler size clothes that come from the baby section, and then this week suddenly she knows her alphabet, is reading the letters off the label on the ketchup bottle, and we have to buy her clothes from the little girl section at the store.

Seriously. She picked an absolutely hideous pink and white zebra striped jumper to wear for her first day of school. I wanted the light pink, yellow, and orange plaid, or the cute striped one of the same color scheme, or the blue shirt and pant set with little chalk drawn hearts in different colors. But no. She wants the zebra stripes. Because she loves zebras. And it hasn't occurred to my nearly 5 year old that zebra stripes in preschool is a bit much. It doesn't help that I have exactly one bra that is anything other than boring and it happens to be zebra stripes (only fun one they had), which makes it the default when Sammy picks out my bra for me (don't ask how this got started, I still don't know).

Anyway, where were we? Oh, me freaking out a little that my baby is growing up. See, I can kind of figure out how this is catching me weird. It's because up until now, for Sammy's whole life, she's always been at home. She hasn't had daycare or anything like that to go away every day for, no schedule to meet. She was still a baby, a toddler, something other than a little girl in school.

But now . . . this is the precipice of a completely different time in her life. From now on, my baby is a student, a school kid, and for the next 14 years of her life, she will be going to school 9 months of the year. No, it's not like she's leaving home to go to a boarding school on the East Coast. But it's weird. Good and bad weird. Good because the child is driving me absolutely nuts, increasingly so over the last year or so. I think a nice 4 hour break 4 days a week sounds DIVINE.

But it's also bad, because . . . she just won't be my baby anymore. She is officially and irrevocably out of her toddler stage. And yeah, she hasn't been a toddler for something like 2 years now, but she's still kind of been in that group in my head. She's still been the baby. And now . . . nope. Not anymore. She is a grown up little girl who is going to school. And in two years, she starts elementary school, first grade, full time school. Which might be another big change, I don't know. I just know that this one, this leap from baby to preschooler, is a weird thing for me.

She is going to have so much fun. She's going to get to interact and play with a bunch of little kids her own age. She's going to suck up information and learning so fast, and I know she's going to love it. She'll have an absolute ball! And I'm sure she'll make new friends, and get to love her teachers, and I think she's just going to be the type of kid that loves school. I'm really excited for her.

But I sure will miss my baby. She'll always be my baby, in a lot of ways, but she's past that age now where she's still my toddler running around the house with jingle bells on her shoes so I can find her. She's a big girl. And her life is about to change in a major way. And so is mine.

I'm looking forward to making the journey with her. And at the same time, already missing my baby.

Not Quite a Baby

So, last week I had a little round toddler living in my house with a softball shaped face (barely discernible chin)and little fat legs and baby feet and sparse hair that liked to get snarled while said toddler was asleep.

This week, I all of a sudden have a tall, almost gangly little girl, with a thinner face, long lean legs and the kind of feet that love to walk on tippy-toes and pose, and hair that still gets tangled and snarled in a mess, whether she is asleep or awake. Um, where did the time go? It was like when she was a baby, and the most adorable thing about her was her big toothless cheeser smile, then suddenly she had teeth and she wasn't a baby anymore, she was a toddler. The new phase was fun, in a lot of ways much funner than the baby stage, but the baby was gone.

Now the toddler is gone, and in place there is a little girl that will be turning four in a couple months and going to preschool. A mouthy and stubborn little girl, to top it off (yes, Mom, your curse worked and she's just like me).

A little girl that loves cartoons and Disney movies, mainlines Nesquik chocolate milk, string cheese, and hot dogs. A little girl that has, over the last year, become the dog's little master and best friend. A little girl that is so smart she can play games on Bumpa's old laptop on the internet and work the buttons on the remote control. A little girl that loves to play outside, rain or shine, and has no problem whatsoever with becoming absolutely filthy in the process. A little girl that loves to hand out hugs and kisses and high fives to everybody, who has inserted her bossy little self into all the lives around her and nestled in permanently.

It is amazing, considering the scope of change a little bitty baby has on a person's life, that they don't require background checks at the hospital after you have one. Competence testing. A whole slew of ability and aptitude tests to see if a person is actually prepared and capable of handling the cute soft thing wrapped in the blanket in the corner making cooing noises. You'd think they'd make sure you can handle it before just handing it over and sending you on your merry way!

Also, on a side note . . . I just cut Sammy's hair. Yeah, me, with no hair experience at all aside from the odd hack job on an unfortunate other person or myself, I cut my daughter's hair. I think it looks ok . . . at the moment it looks a little uneven, but I'm pretty sure that's just the way her hair lays. That, or I just destroyed her hair and this is going to be a horrible phase in her life where we don't take pictures for a few months and never speak of it again.

Well, the little girl is currently eating all of my coveted cheddar and sour cream Ruffles potato chips and watching Fantasia and tossing around her new short hair, so I think I'm going to join her.

Keep a sharp eye on your kids . . . next week they aren't going to be like they used to anymore.

Soap Is Not A Plaything

My dear darling daughter brought something to my attention today that I hadn't noticed before, and it's significant enough to be worth pointing out. The child is extremely talented at creating disasters. I'm not talking your everyday, run-of-the-mill child disasters, like coloring on the wall with a crayon. I'm talking the big whoppers. Like coloring on the wall, the chairs, the cabinets, the table, and their own bodies with a marker. Of the non-washable variety. These disasters happen fairly frequently, such as the ketchup-smearing party. The great toilet paper caper. The bathtub tidal wave predicament. The chocolate-milk-spitting occurrence. The water-and-dog-food-mixerama. The juice puddle oops. The deliberately-peeing-on-the-floor-instead-of-the-toilet incident. The apple and orange throwing game. The dance-on-the-crackers-on-the-carpet day. The popcorn-is-confetti misunderstanding. The doggies-like-to-eat-a-whole-box-of-vanilla-wafers problem. And, sad to say, and we had another one today.

To qualify as a disaster, the act done by the child must have one or more of the following requirements: significant (definitely more than normal) cost, cleanup of site and/or child, aftereffects, side effects, and mental and/or emotional damage to parent. Please, if any of you have stories you'd like to share, do tell. I'd love to hear about kids that are either better or worse than mine. Because both kinds carry some kind of status for me. "My kid is better than yours, ha ha." "My kid is worse than yours, pity me."

Anyway, about the incident today. I like to call it the soap-is-not-a-plaything experiment. You see, Sammy is fascinated with soap. She loves to play with the stuff, the bubbles in the tub, the hand soap when she washes her hands, shampoo. Well, shampoo she recently became less enamored with because she discovered that it tends to hurt when it gets in the eyes. But bubble bath and hand soap are very dear toys for her.

Today she learned why that may not be the wisest of choices. You see, apparently she decided to empty half the bottle of hand soap onto the sink, spread it around and all the way down the cupboards, and smooth it up her arms as well. And didn't wash it off. I hear her start her "hurt cry", and go running to find out what she got stuck in, under, on top of, or out of. I go in to my room and see her standing on the bed with white streaky stuff on her face while she's screaming and crying. I realized it's soap, she's covered with it and it's in her eyes, and pick her up and take her to the bathroom to rinse her off. She didn't appreciate it, and by the time we were done with that part, her whole face was red and splotchy like it gets when she cries hard. Then we had to rinse her off in the tub because her clothes were covered in soap and her arms were too. And then, since in my haste I hadn't really had time to survey the damage except for the top of the sink, I found the copious amounts of soap and water running down the cabinet under the sink.

I had to take a few deep breaths. We got Sammy dressed again, did her hair again, and set out to clean up the soap. Yes, she helped. No, she did not want to. Yes, we had a discussion about why playing with the soap is a bad thing. Yes, she cried again. No, I did not feel bad AT ALL for making her listen to why playing with soap is a bad thing and making her help clean it up, even with her red eyes.

Now, I was in a bad mood anyway. Pete went back to work today, I work every single day this week, and my room is a mess. I really did not need this today. Nor did I need to buy soap again so soon. Or toilet paper, since Sammy is still under the impression that toilet paper is a toy. But now I have half an hour until I need to leave for work, I need to change my clothes because now I'm covered in soap, I have to clean up lunch because Sammy HAD to have mac and cheese AGAIN, and thanks to the clean up in the bathroom, I have an extra load of laundry to do before I go to bed tonight. Joy.

Garfield, I'm so there with you buddy. I hate Mondays.

Diaper Vs. Panties: The Debate

You know, I usually try to have some idea of what I'm going to write about when I shimmy on over to my cute little corner of the internet here, but tonight I don't. Not the foggiest idea. I was showing my hubby, Pete, the grand chopstick caper from last week and figured since I was already here . . . Yeah. Got nothin'.

Although, may I just mention how annoying it is to have a song stuck in your head when you don't know all the music or the words? Wanna know what's worse? To have a whole musical stuck in your head when you don't know all the music or words. I have had the soundtrack to Sweeney Todd (creepifying movie) stuck in my head ALL DAY LONG. The same lines, over and over again. It's been driving me bonkers. I tried to distract myself with Cats, and it just didn't take. I lip-synced through an abbreviated version of at least half the musical today at work (yes, I did get weird looks), and I STILL had Sweeney Todd stuck in my head like he'd taken up shop there and had no plans to vacate. *Annoyed expression* See, I LOVE the music, it's just . . . oh, gorgeous, I love it. But the story is about fourteen different kinds of creepy. And I will never watch that movie again, unless I suddenly find myself nursing a really kinky blood/gore/slitting throats fetish. But the music . . . Now, if only I could remember the freaking words.

Ooh, ooh, I have another funny Sammy story. This one is the Panty/Diaper argument we had tonight for a good fifteen minutes at bedtime. I also have a story about her banzai leap off the furniture yesterday, but I kinda already told that one on Facebook. The punchline is, she shorted it. But anyway, Panty/Diaper Debate. You see . . . I forgot to go to shopping today . . . and we're out of diapers. Completely. Panties work great when the child is conscious and is being told to go pee every hour, but at night? Yeah, right. Not happening, waterproof mattress protector aside.

Well . . . we had no choice, we had no diapers. So I, thinking that she wouldn't care that she got to wear panties to bed, indeed, might even be excited about it, held them out to her while she was running around her room with her bare bum hanging out. Her answer? No. Mommy was not amused. So I tried again, explaining that the diapers were all gone and she needed to wear panties tonight. No. *Annoyed expression* We tried bodily lifting her into the things and she threw a fit, crawling onto her pillow, facing the corner, burying her head in the mattress, and sticking her butt up in the air as a defensive position.

We tried to talk her into it. "Look, this pair has pretty flowers all over it! Do you want to wear the princess panties? Oh, cute, bows! Don't you want to wear some panties with bows?" She was not convinced nor swayed in the slightest, merely hurling the pair of flower panties back at Daddy and possibly shouting an obscenity in whatever language it is that she speaks. It's certainly not English.

At this point I'm torn between laughing hysterically and letting her go to bed naked. We were ransacking the house trying to find a diaper lying around somewhere. There is ALWAYS at least two diapers running around the house stuffed down the side of a mattress, tangled in the covers on a bed, sitting under a small collection of dog hair on the floor, tossed in a basket of laundry to be folded, stashed in her "going to Grammy's house" bag. Tonight? NOTHING. Not a diaper to be found ANYWHERE. We tore our rooms apart trying to find one, just one little diaper that the girl could wear to bed because she was finding her panties offensive. Nothing.

I had to go relieve myself at this point before I giggled and needed my own diaper, and by the time I got back, Pete had found one blessed diaper tucked in the sheets on his parents bed. Hallelujah. We were saved. Child: diapered. Panties: exiled to drawer. Bedtime: hour late, but accomplished.

So, I guess you could say that Sammy won the debate tonight. If I had remembered to go to the store and actually get diapers since I knew we were out, this whole fiasco would have been avoided, but then I wouldn't have a funny story to tell you, now would I? Life's funny that way, if not a tad cruel. But anyway, I'm going to see about either reading some of my fantastic book that I'm obsessed with, or going to bed a titch early . . . honestly, it's a toss up. There's a sleeping man in my bed, and he's a lot more exciting than a book . . . but he is asleep. *Shrugs* I'll let you know. Ciao!

Beat the Jell-O into Submission

Today . . . has been an epic day. It's the Saturday before Easter, which means that all that fun holiday stuff that you can't really do on the Sabbath, happens today. You know, shopping for all that stuff you forgot to buy at the grocery store on the four previous trips you made. Making the house all pretty and shiny for Sunday. For my family, that means boiling and dyeing the Easter eggs, so they're all ready to be skinned and eaten alive the next day. Oh, and getting started on all the food that the ravenous children will be eating tomorrow.

Of course, I'm talking about my mother. I am not cool enough to clean my house (well, rooms that I live in at my in-law's house) for special occasions. Or every day. Or at all, really. Have I mentioned I hate cleaning? Yeah. But my mom, who is pretty much the Supermom that other moms try to emulate and usually fail at, is awesome like that. House: clean. Brand new Easter clothes (half of them handmade): done and ironed. Food: ingredients gotten (after 17 trips to the grocery store). I am not this cool. I would go to the grocery store once . . . and if I forgot to grab the French fried onions for the green bean casserole, well, dehydrated onions work too, right? And how crucial are the apples in the Snickers n' Apple Salad? Cut up Snickers smothered in Cool Whip (I remembered to buy that, right?) works just as well. Right?

Well, anyway, my Mom's amazingness aside, here is what else we did today: We went out for lunch and a movie. The movie was Hop, and it was cute and funny and a keeper! I love James Marsden. But the real highlight of this outing . . . was lunch. We went to the Beijing Buffet, all 8 of us, and systematically consumed half the food in the place. And my little brother . . . found the chopsticks. Now, see, normally this is not a problem, since 7 of us are over the age of eight and therefore quite adept at using chopsticks. However . . . my daughter . . . is 3. We gave CHOPSTICKS to a THREE YEAR OLD. Yes, at the time, I knew this was a supremely stupid idea. I knew I would regret it. I was not, however, prepared for how . . . epic of a fail it turned out to be.

First of all, she tried to eat salmon with the chopsticks. And promptly ditched one of the chopsticks out of sheer annoyance. So, three year old, piece of salmon, single chopstick. And next to the plate, a cup of Egg Drop Soup. Want to know what happens when you semi-violently attack a helpless piece of salmon with a chopstick? That's right. A piece of it goes flying hari-kari to commit suicide in the cup of soup, and it may or not have had help from the semi-violent three year old brandishing a chopstick like a Japanese samurai sword.

Most of the salmon (that didn't end up lying peacefully in the soup) ended up scattered all over the floor. Then . . . we moved on to the Jell-O. My sister, with the greatest of intentions, got my daughter some Jell-O cubes to eat for desert, along side the ice cream (just for the record, Sammy ate more of the ice cream than she did of the actual food for lunch). Still using her single chopstick, my daughter decided that the easiest way to make use of these strange, squishy, rubbery-lookin' orange things would be to spear the sucker, raise it in the air, and try to navigate it to her mouth. Didn't work. *Plop* Orange Jell-O jiggler is back on the plate, somewhat holey, and three year old is surveying it with a look of confusion.

So, we moved on to a different tactic, holding the Jell-O in place with a finger while sticking with chopstick and again raising into air and maneuvering to mouth. *Squish* Jell-O, meet table. At this point, it occurred to my daughter that Jell-O seemed way more like a toy and less and less like something to try eating. So she proceeded to chase the gelatin cube around the table, giggling as it bounced off the edges of plates. And then, apparently offended and outraged that it had the nerve to split in half, she then started to beat the Jell-O into submission (that phrase courtesy of my hysterical Dad), and once subdued, sweep it all onto the floor.

It was around this point that I figured I should stop laughing and take the chopstick away. I wrapped it and the masticated Jell-O up in a napkin, keeping it out of her reach. So, Sammy just stole my sister's chopsticks, dropped one a plate, and in the process of smacking it with the other stick as punishment, sent the one on the plate flying over our heads, to bounce off of the table behind us and roll to a stop under a chair.

By now, I was crawling under our table in embarrassment and shame as my daughter shrieked with laughter and kept trying to find the missing chopstick. And then started whacking my sister with the other one, prompting me to get out from under the table and remove all chopsticks from within her reach and hide them. We managed to get out of the restaurant without too much incident (leaving a $12.50 tip for the poor person who had to clean up the smooshed Jell-O, bits of noodle and rice, and flakes of salmon ground into the carpet. Oh, and the chopstick under the chair at the other end of the room).

Apparently her exertions at trying to tame the wild Jell-O jiggler had just worn my poor daughter out, and she slept through most of the movie. Which left her all kinds of chipper and perky at Walmart, which was just so . . . fun. Really. Yeah. The next adventure on the docket was dyeing Easter eggs, and after getting the six dozen eggs boiled (yes, six dozen) and ready to go, my mom and I shared a nostalgic moment together, grinning like little kids as we plopped the little color dye tablets into the mugs, to fizz and bubble in the vinegar at the bottom. The smell of vinegar has always reminded me of Easter, for this exact reason. We watched the little tablets scoot around the edge of the cups as they bubbled, sending the dye swirling up in their wake.

And then . . . my little brother and sister got ahold of the stuff. A nine and eleven year old, 2 dozen eggs, and 12 mugs of pretty darn permanent multicolored dye, and these really nifty "dye pens" we found at Walmart that consisted of thin tubes of dye with a Q-tip fluff on each end. You break the seal on one end, and all the ink rushes to the cotton at the other end. Voila, Easter egg dye pen! Let me just say that it is a good thing my mom's Easter tablecloth is vinyl.

And now, I'm sitting at the table amidst the aftermath of a whirlwind evening of dyeing Easter eggs. We even have a set of eggs decorated as Gru and his minions from Despicable Me, I kid you not. Those were my brothers invention. Oh, and by the way, if you do not know how to juggle, attempting to learn how with hard-boiled eggs is . . . well, hysterically funny, but maybe not advisable.

So now, I'm going to see what I can do about cleaning up the disaster that once used to be the kitchen table, stick the 6 dozen eggs back in the fridge in preparation for tomorrow, and pour 12 cups of dye down the sink (best part of dyeing eggs). I hope everyone else has as . . . memorable an Easter as I did. Ta!

Two Thumbs Up!

Ok, I just woke up from a bit of a catnap with my daughter. I am still tired, and therefore do not understand the rave about catnaps. But since it's 8:45 and I shouldn't be sleeping anyway, I'll let it pass. So now I am on my computer for the first time all day (shocker, I know), and the first link I clicked on from my homepage took me to the cast for the new The Hobbit movie that they've been trying to get going for years. And, if I am recalling correctly, Kili and Fili are two Elf brothers or cousins or something (I only made it halfway through the book, but I did watch the animated movie). My completely and hearty approval for the choices of those two actors!!!! Holy hotness! I am so very, very excited to see this movie now, even more excited than I was before, because I can now look forward to seeing those two actors. I feel like I'm in high school again. *Breathy, girlish sigh*

Onto other news . . . for Halloween I want to be Tarrant Hightop, the Mad Hatter that Johnny Depp (*swoons*) played in Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. Well, there were and still are a few problems with that plan: I had NONE of the costume. Like, seriously, none. Not the hat, bowtie, shirt, coat, pants, socks, shoes, hair, the white face makeup, NONE OF IT! Well, after spending my $20 gift card at JoAnn's and taking a sneaky and not quite approved trip to Walmart, I got the fabric and pattern for the coat! I know, it would be 1000 times easier to buy the thing, except, the coat I want, a frock coat, is upwards of at least $50 online. I don't have that kind of cash, but I have exciting news on the matter . . . I made the coat! And it was surprisingly easy, once I quit being stupid and sewing the pieces together wrong. I made it out of brown costume satin (but turned the other way, so it was shiny side in), stretchy brown velour/velvet stuff for the collar and cuffs, and I even did lining, fell free to be impressed. I am so proud of myself! The only things I have left to do it hand sew a bit of trim on, and slip stitch the lining in place at the bottom and waist. I wore it out to lunch with one of my best buds today, and she said it was awesome, and I wore it to work too, and they were all suitably impressed. And I felt all sorts of awesome, wearing my Mad Hatter/Pirate coat. It makes me all sorts of warm and gooey inside. Oh, and I bought the white face makeup for my costume, and I already had the other makeup needed. So now I just need . . . all the other stuff. I can borrow the crazy socks from my sister in law, and the pink shirt should be easy, and lacy cuffs should be easy. And hopefully the fingerless gloves. I need to go to DI. They have everything there.

In other news, I finally read my stack of Dr. Seuss books I got from the library! I've had them for at least 2 weeks, and I finally squeezed in some personal time to read them. I read The Sleep Book last week and had the funnest Kid Moment. My dad used to read us that book all the time when we were little, and you have never heard Dr. Seuss until you've heard it read by my dad. He was about 17 different kinds of amazing. He could read it so fast, and he never messed up, and when I was reading it last week I could just hear his voice while I read it. It was the coolest thing ever. That is still my very favorite Dr. Seuss book, and I just read Oh The Places You'll Go for the first time, and that contends for second place next to Scrambled Eggs Super. I love Dr. Seuss. Brilliant, brilliant, genius man.

Ok, I may be done yammering on for now, and it's almost time to get my two year old out of the tub (she saw one of those Pillow Pets for the first time the other day . . . she latched onto the unicorn, gave it a HUGE hug, and didn't let go til we got to the checkout. Now we know what to get her for her birthday . . . ) and put her to bed. So, bonsoir everyone, have a lovely night!

Rain Puddles and Special Moments

I played in puddles today. It rained most of the day up at my parent's house and my daughter was outside in it helping Grampy plant trowels in the garden. Yes, you read right. Trowels. So after she came in all wet, I decided on an impromtu puddle-jumping session. Now, normally I'm a bit picky about the puddles I jump in, but I wasnt' today. The biggest puddle was the dip in the gutter at the end of the driveway. So my mom, my siblings, and my daughter and I were splashing icky water all over each other until we were completely soaked, and we didn't mind a bit. The pants I have all are a bit too long, so they hung partly over my feet and acted as perfect scoopers to send big waves of water when I swung my leg through the water. It was fun! Their dog Miko, a white Miniature American Eskimo with a curious patch of yellowish fur low on his back, was more gray than white by the time we were done. So while the kids trooped into the house for baths, I gave the poor dog a bath with the hose outside. He did not appreciate that AT ALL. And he kinda looks like he's been through a losing battle with a blender. All his fur is matted so bad you can see clear down to his skin. Poor puppy.

Anyway, so that was probably the highlight of my day. Earlier we watched a movie I've added to my Must Get list. It's called Leap Year and has Amy Adams and a guy whose name I cannot remember, and it was really cute. So I now have 5 movies currently on my list, at least until I remember any other ones. Blindside, Shrek 4, Benny and Joon, Leap Year, and the new Alice in Wonderland. I just saw that one with my sister-in-law this week and I liked it. I don't like most of Tim Burton's movies, and I haven't seen a lot of them, but I love Johnny Depp so I went for it. Johnny Depp may just be my favorite actor of all time. There is not a role he cannot play, and the more crazy and over-the-top, the better. He is simply amazing. And freaking hot as well, which only improves things.

Also today I made chocolate covered strawberries with my sisters and youngest brother. We had fun, and it has been decreed that I am the master at chocolate covered strawberries and making garlic bread (yes, the garlic bread was a completely random point, but I made that tonight too and I have my own "secret" recipe for the perfect garlic butter topping). Also, I have invented a new delicacy. Strawberry Volcanoes. That's when you cut the tops off of strawberries, put a circle of melted chocolate on a flat surface (like a pan or something), set the berry flat side down on the chocolate so it covers the bottom of the berry, then with a spatula or fork or whatever, drizzle chocolate over the top of the strawberry generously. It kinda looks like a volcano. And Chocolate Strawberry Mountains are just the topless strawberries dipped in chocolate. Hey, the more chocolate the better! But none of this cheap, crappy chocolate you get in the baking aisle that come in those plastic bags that have pictures of different candies on the front. You must use a really good chocolate. My favorite is the plain chocolate Symphony bars. Hershey's chocolate chips or bars, or if you're of a mind to be a tad more expensive, Lindt Extra Creamy bars would probably work fabulously as well. Add that chocolate to perfectly perfect strawberries, and you have achieved heaven in a candy.

Let's see, other than that, I went to the store with my mom and sisters today and finally bought a new floofah (my lingo for loofah). One of the dogs chewed up my old one two weeks ago (the turds) and I've been needing to get one ever since and I finally did! And I got an extra for my travel bag. Yay me!

Oh, and I have two more things to report. The first is that when we were out playing in the rain today, a train was coming by the house. My parent's house is right across the street from where the train tracks are, and my daughter loves to watch it go by. So my dad took her over closer to the tracks to see it better, and it was just the perfect photographic moment. It was raining, so the light was soft and pretty and bright colors stood out great. They were holding hands and watching the train, and one thing that is kinda cool is that my grandpa, my dad's dad, loved trains. He had a model train set put up in a room in their basement with a whole landscape that he built, and it was wonderful. Trains were his thing. So we got a great photographic moment there. Grampy and granddaughter watching the train go by, holding hands. It was so cute. I think there's a good Father's Day present right there.

The last thing is that my hubby got a letter today. It's a letter that he wrote to himself Senior year of high school for an assignment that they said they would send out five years later. That would be now. After quite a bit of pouting and threats, he finally let me read it. And although I am sworn to secrecy about what it says, it made me smile. In it there is one part that says that he doesn't care about anything else as long as he's married to me and keeping me happy. It was kind of a blast to the past to our dating days, and I miss those days. We had lots of fun and we didn't have to be adults yet. I was talking to my mom today, and if couples didn't have to worry about money, marriages would be so much easier. It's being the adult that sucks when you get married, not the marriage or your spouse. I've said before that I was completely ready to be married, even though I was only 18. And I was. It was being a responsible adult I wasn't ready for. Bounced checks and car payments and overdue rent. The love, however, I was always ready for.

And on that note, I'm going to do my calendar (what exactly is the point of calendars if you don't write down what you do that day? Calendars have kind of become my mini diaries) and read the next chapter in my scriptures (I'm on David and Goliath, I'm excited) then kiss my husband and go to sleep. Sounds like a plan to me.

Still Sick, But The End Is In Sight!

I am thoroughly sick of being sick. It has now been 8 days since I first got a sore throat, and today is the first day since that I do not have to take 1200 miligrams of ibuprofen (they gave me 800 after I had my daughter) just to keep from bawling at the pain. And I do not cry easily. I have had stuffy noses before, we're talking massive amounts of . . . well, I guess I can say snot here, it's my blog after all. I have thought for years that inventing a snot vacuum would be a fabulous idea, that whoever inventing this fabulous machine would become a millionaire. I would buy one. I've also thought of inventing an air conditioned wig. I would shave my head in the summer and wear my AC wig. Ok, so I might not, but I have long, thick hair and sometimes I am sorely, sorely tempted.

Anyway, snot vacuums. This week has been no exception to my normal sicknesses as far as snot output, and in the short time of one week, I have personally gone through 4 boxes (big boxes, not the little square ones) of tissues. And I get the more expensive ones, with the lotion on them. Because when you're wiping and blowing your nose every other minute, you are not going to want to do it with a tissue that could qualify as sandpaper by day 5 of this routine. Four boxes! Needless to say, I have to buy more tissues now. As well as chicken noodle soup, because that was one of the very few things I could eat without making my throat feel like I was ingesting acid. Although I think if I have to eat anymore chicken noodle soup anytime in the near future I may prefer to starve. I'm making dinner tonight, and it's tuna noodle casserole, and I can't wait! Something solid and tasty and not chicken! *Happy Dance*

I'm also downloading Sims 2 on my laptop right now. So, with Sims, I love to create the characters and build the house, but after that I completely lose interest. I really don't care about having them "live". I get so bored. My husband kinda gets a kick out of that part, though, so I build, he plays. I'm in one of those moods right now, and since I've been watching NCIS, I'm going to make NCIS team, and the house they're in is going to be the NCIS building! I'm going to do the teamroom, autopsy, the director's office, MTAC, Abby's lab, and everything! How possessed am I? I think I'm going to do a Stargate team as well, but figuring out a way to do a Stargate could get tricky. Maybe I'll do a wall mosaic. Yeah, I'm possessed.

I can (sort of) smell the casserole and I'm starving!!! Ooh, I think my daughter may finally be getting to the princess stage. Up til now she has LOVED all the cartoons and movies with the animals. One Hundred and One Dalmatians was a HUGE favorite for months, also Aristocats, Monsters Inc., Bambi more recently, just all the animal ones. Well, these past few weeks we've been watching the princess ones, Cinderella, Snow White, Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and she's been enjoying them! It's kinda fun, especially since I am a Disney kid through and through, so I'm enjoying it too! Perhaps not over and over and over how she likes to watch them, but still. It's been fun.

Ok, Sims is almost done downloading and dinner is almost done cooking, therefore I am done blogging! Have a lovely day!

Ummm . . .

Wow, I don't actually have anything to talk about today. Or for the past couple days. Ok, I have one thing. I got a pretty ring for Mother's Day. It's not the one in the picture, but it's similar. It's got a pretty big pale lavender stone in the middle and two small clear stones on the side, and it's sparkly!!! I'm rather attracted to sparklies. I have three of those rings you get at Target or Walmart for $10 that have the big CZ stones and I love seeing all the flickers and rainbows in the car when the rings are in the sun.

I have the cutest little girl. Righ now her teeny little feet are inside my tennis shoes and she's got her hair in two ponytails and she's puckering her lips out as far as they go and making the MMMMM sound before the MWAH. We got her this really cute denim jumper with red trim and a two black and white dogs on it, but she's gotten so tall that it barely comes to her knees now and we got it during the winter. Now she's gone off to her room to wrap up her "babies" (two dolls, one little one about 4 or 5 inches long and another about 12) in a washcloth and a baby blanket. After that she'll unwrap them and put the little one in the toy high chair and make "lunch" for it on her little kitchen center. She's such cute little girl.

Ok, I really have no idea what random ideas to spout about next so I think I'll just cut my losses. The only other thing to report is that my daisies and poppies are doing fabulous. Whichever ones are the gray green sprouts with really thin leaves are doing AWESOME, there are just tons of them, and the other ones that are really green with two round leaves are doing good too, there's just not as many. Alright, I'm really going now, ta ta.

Kid Shows, Libraries, Families

Here I sit on a Sunday evening watching kid shows on TV. The temptation of scrambled eggs was too much for my daughter and she abandoned me. It is amazing how many kids shows I am now familiar with. I knew a lot before, I loved watching kids shows when I was little, but there are a lot of new ones now. My favorite is Sesame Street. Yes, you read that right, my favorite. I love the guest stars that come on for the big word of the day. I've seen Jake Gyllenhal, Heidi Klum, Jimmy Fallon, Greg Kinnear, Cameron Diaz, Brendan Fraser, Kobe Bryant, all sorts of people. It is hysterical to watch. Most of the people on that list are funny anyway, but I wouldn't think Heidi Klum or Kobe Bryant would take to puppets like that!

You know, there are four laundry baskets practically overflowing at the end of my bed, and the thought that I need to fold it all is quite daunting. And the laundry hamper is already half full again! *Wails* A parent's work is never done.

So I just left to go make myself some eggs (yes, I succumbed) and when I came back Sammy had left some notes for me. She apparently found the M for Mommy on the keyboard, then the B for Baby, F for something (fish?), V for something (violin?), and then she found the first letter of her name and I had an entire screen full of nothing but that letter. A parent's work is never done indeed. Now she's adjusting the lamp shade on Daddy's side of the bed while she gets shortbread cookie crumbs all over his pillow. Strange child.

Earlier today we were all sitting on the bed, and started jabbering up a storm and waving her hands around. It took me a minute, but I finally figured out that she was doing the action songs we taught her. The Three Little Ducks and Three Little Monkeys. She loves holding up her fingers for the ducks and monkeys, and using her hand as a beak when she says, "Quack quack quack!" And she loves doing the daddy duck quack with both arms. Her favorite part of the monkey song is when the alligator SNAPS (slap your hands together) that monkey right out of that TREE! She knows the tree part is coming and she shouts that out every time.

You know, I work at the best place. I work at a library, which I have always wanted to do because I LOVE books and reading and figured it didn't get better than working at a library. Little did I know that reading books is the last thing you do as a librarian, but hey, what did I know? Anyway, the job is only half of why I love it so much. I work with the best people in the world. And not just in my library, but all of the branches in the county. They really are awesome, and the best ones work at my branch. With all the craziness and emotions this week from my cousin-in-law's death, my work has been nothing but supportive. They've offered to move around schedules to accomodate the funeral and viewing, and everyone has asked how I, my family, and his family are doing. This cousing also worked at another library in the county, so a lot of the county employees knew him. I don't know yet, but I am 100% certain that tomorrow I am going to have an e-mail about him and a fund to send his family flowers in my inbox. It is very rare to be able to say this, but I really do love my job.

I also love my little family. My husband, my daughter, and my dog. They are all so sweet and cute and funny, and in my husband's case, handsome and sexy. We've been teaching my daughter to say and do all sorts of fun things. One of our recent favorites is she does a double thumbs up and says, "Awesome!" It comes out "Awe-dom!" but it's adorable anyway. My husband just giggles when she does it. I taught her I love you, and she can count up to five, she just never starts at one. It's always 2, 2, 3, 4, 5. We can't seem to get the concept of the word "one" across.

Ok, I think I'm done sending completely random paragraphs out into the void today. Maybe I'll try musing, I have 8 quotes or story ideas on my phone that I need to put on paper or on the computer. Have a lovely evening, audience.