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!

What Happens in the Kitchen . . . Should Really Stay There

So, tonight was a pretty sketchy food night, all in all. Dinner was a slapdash performance, and the recipe I used was called something like Chicken and Broccoli with Garlic and Parmesan. Not bad, right? That's what I thought, plus it was really simple and didn't require any freaky ingredients. There was just one problem . . . I have a chicken phobia. Well, sort of. I have a problem with handling raw chicken. I think it is nasty. I don't like seeing it, touching it, or knowing I have to deal with it. It just makes me want to throw up a little. Or a lot. Depending on the day.

Anyway, I decided that the chicken was not happening today. So I did ground beef instead (for anyone interested . . . no, I have no problem with raw beef. I know. I'm weird). Not that big of a deal, beef substituted for chicken, this is not a big deal for the most part. Yeah, some dishes don't cooperate well if you swap out the meat, but this is not one of them. Potatoes, broccoli, and the other ingredients work just as nicely with chicken or beef. So yeah, I followed the recipe (if anyone has cooked with me, you know what kind of a loose term that is for me. I don't use measuring utensils oftentimes), and it turned out fine. Just not . . . great. Out of the 5 people that ate it, Krissy was the only one that really liked it, I think. I was kinda on the fence, it was ok but not really good. Sammy liked the broccoli.

Well, when I was at the store earlier today I saw some graham cracker pie crusts and recalled that I've been in the mood for a chocolate cream pie for some time. So I got a pie crust, and performed some impressive chef skills by getting the pie ingredients ready to go at the same time as making dinner (no, I did not screw anything up. I was very meticulous). The only thing I changed was instead of unsweetened chocolate pieces (which I didn't have) I did the substitution thingy it said on the side of the cocoa powder container. And did know that if you heat up flour, sugar, milk, cocoa powder, and shortening that it thickens up? Who knew? And do you wanna know what a freaking !@#$% it is to separate egg yolks?! Holy crap! It would have been easier to just throw in the whole egg and take the consequences!

Egg yolks were separated (finally), shortening was melted (fun to watch), chocolate mix was thickening (O_o), managed to accost my sister in law on her way out of the laundry to assist in the grand "mix some of the bubbling chocolate mixture into the egg yolks and beat to prevent the eggs from cooking" attempt. It did work, I was pleased. So, I got everything all mixed together, got the vanilla and butter in, tasted the completely project, AND . . . meh. Didn't do it for me. I was very disappointed. It was too dark chocolatey, and I'm a milk chocolate girl. So I added in the rest of a bag of Hershey's chocolate chips and a handful of marshmallows, but they didn't really do much, sadly.

That lovely pie crust, all wasted now. Of course, I will eat the pie, and I will make everyone else help me, but it just wasn't fantastic. What a let down. I should have done the chocolate pudding recipe I had instead. You just can't fail with chocolate pudding. You also have a lesser chance of getting very small lumps with chocolate pudding . . . (the lumps were my fault . . . yes, you do have to start stirring the chocolate mixture when it starts to heat up. You don't wait for a minute, assuming it won't heat up that fast. *Rolling eyes at self*).

So yeah. There's my unstellar night of cheffing. I did much better a couple weeks ago, I made manicotti! Well, it was manicotti, but in giant shells instead of giant tube pasta. It was fabulous, and it was my first ever time using ricotta cheese! My mother is a die-hard ricotta hater, but I'm going to make her something tasty with it and change her mind.

Ok, this little cook is going to go check on her failtacular chocolate cream pie now . . . I should have gotten the heavy whipping cream at the store, I could have made whipped cream to pretty up the pie. Ah, well. Silly me. Happy cooking to all y'all out there, and good luck with any chocolate cream pie endeavors you take on!

Ooze

*Oozes onto the blog, peers around sleepy-eyed* Helloooooo. *Blinks* You want to know what happens when sleep deprivations meets a surprise long shift and dizzy spells. Ooze. That's what happens. A complete melty kind of conglomeration of all the exhausted body parts of a person that moves very slowly and thinks even slower. And ooze like this is extremely reluctant to separate itself from surfaces. It's like fast drying glue, and it takes a significant amount of effort to pry one's oozed self off a surface once you're all oozy and comfy on it.

Another side effect of this ooziness is that your funniness perception skyrockets. EVERYTHING is funny. Especially the looks people give you when you kinda collapse on the nearest piece of furniture laughing your head off at something that really was not that funny in the first place. *Whispering* I did this a lot at work today.

An additional symptom to this ooze is a delayed response in your mental processes. All of them. Attention span, forming words (sentences are pretty much a joke), there's a time delay between when someone talks to you and you actually register the fact. And by the time you "come to", half the conversation is over and while you're sitting there looking kinda loopy and dumb everyone gets a giggle or an eye roll out of it.

So, to wrap up this exhibition of ooze, heed this warning: Don't let the ooze get you. It is reluctant to let go. I would know. I'm oozy-glued to the couch right now, my reaction time to any kind of conversation is right around amoeba level, and there is a good chance that by the time I quit giggling at the most retarded things, I'll have confused and frightened every person in the house. So I think I'm going to get right on that. Good night darlings, I hope you have better luck escaping the ooze. Good luck.

Stalkers, Ribbons, Messy Husbands

Why, hello blogger.com. I've missed you. How have you been? I've been good, although I have something interesting happening right now. I sort of have a stalker! Cool, huh?! Or at the very least, an extremely persistent man with a really big crush on me. Yeah. It's been an interesting week. Also, on a happy note, Pete's been home this week! I now know, for darn sure, that he is the messy one in this relationship. I'm not a neat freak, psh, no way, but when you look in our bedroom, basically everything on the floor is Pete's. Yeah. Really. Pajamas, pants, towel, robe, shoes, everything. My messes tend to be in the places where I put the things that don't have a place to be put away. My nightstand, the shelf my jewelry box sits on, the end of the bed when I don't wanna clean it off. But the stuff all over the place like it was dropped there by a kid on his way in the house . . . yep. That's my husband.

In other news, I've been playing with ribbon, getting to know a new vacuum, buying movies, and laughing hysterically with my mom and sister! They pretty much totally rock. And the vacuum cost about $1600. And Disney's Beauty and the Beast is officially one of my very, very favorite cartoons. It's top 3 for sure. Another is Little Mermaid. Yes, I'm a Disney freak, thanks for asking! And as for the ribbon, I spent a very irresponsible amount of money at Michael's on it, and some fake flowers. Going to Michael's with my sister in law or cousin is a very bad idea.

I wish to put to everyone's attention that it is a great injustice that people can't reach their own backs. I mean, really. I've never taken any massage classes or whatever, but I've been told I have magic hands so I must not be too terrible. And I have one of those backs that is just stupid and whines constantly for attention. But can I reach it to appease it and therefore make my day a little better? Noooooo. INJUSTICE, I SAY!!! *Pouts*

Ok, so does anyone recall the last time I sprained my ankle like several months ago and it took weeks and weeks to heal? Yeah. *Sigh* We're going on over a month now this time around. I also have a wicked bruise still on my knee and a scar on my shin that still has nerve damage around it! I have some of the coolest injuries EVER! My steam burn scar on my wrist and my trampoline spring scar on my finger are pretty awesome. I wish I could remember how I got some of the others.

Random thought of the night: My laptop bag is boring. Awhile ago, I accidentally dripped purple nail polish on it, and it kinda looks cool! I'm thinking of adding more "accidental" drips to it. Thoughts, comments, suggestions? I could always do some kind of pattern, or keep it random. It's been on my do to list for awhile now, I just need to actually have the free time to do it. The whole ribbon fest had me busy all last week and cleaning up after another child *snicker* had me busy this week. I have a goal! Maybe I'll do it Sunday. Sounds like a soothing Sunday afternoon project.

I could keep rambling on about random subjects, and believe me I could go on for hours, but I have to make my bed. *Makes a face* My bed hates me, and so does my crappy mattress pad. It's a good thing it was cheap, or I'd be seriously distressed. And so, off I go to tackle a bed. Goodbye darlings, have a lovely night!

Metamorphosis

Today I sort of feel like a butterfly. And here's how: This morning I was sleeping (I know, weird). Getting my beauty sleep, all snuggled up in my blankets like a caterpillar in a cocoon, preparing to turn into a butterfly. It was going wonderfully, I was dead to the world, restoring my depleted stores of energy from staying up until four in the morning trying to return a sense of balance to my soul . . . Ok, so I was up screwing around on Facebook and trying to find my bed under the mess, but still. It was good for my chi, chakra, karma, whatever.

Anyway, so I'm sleeping . . . turning into a beautiful butterfly when very suddenly the gentle sounds of my daughter yelling for Grandma and banging at the door dumped me out of my cocoon too early. And what came out was something less than a beautiful butterfly. What came stumbling out was an ornery, sleep-deprived girl that had bloodshot eyes, hair that resembled a haystack, and the collective tolerance and IQ of a really ticked off amoeba. Yes. It was that bad. My metamorphosis, needless to say, did not really go as well as planned. *Sigh*

So now this little butterfly feels a bit like it's been smooshed into the grille of a speeding semi, but at least it gave me something fun to write about! Fun may be the wrong word . . . but we'll go with it anyway. And right now we're watching The Incredibles, for the first time out of at least three today, I'm sure. Possibly more. And on that subject, why is it that in that movie, the daughter Violet has black hair? Mr. Incredible is blonde, Elastigirl is a redhead, the other two boys are blonde, and then there's Violet. How very odd. Just sayin'.

On an altogether different and completely random note, I'm wondering what my poor husband will say when he comes home in a week or two and sees a few girly elements in our bedroom that weren't there before. No, I didn't paint the walls pink or anything. But there are big sparkly daisies clipped onto the curtains, and big Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow poster on the door, and two pretty floral garland things looped along the wall. And there is a plan to put a poster of a young and hot Elvis on the closet. I should probably feel bad about this, huh? I sorta justify it by saying that he'll have a whole truck to himself to decorate soon! So, for now . . . Jack Sparrow is staying.

And sadly, this blog is going to be a short one. Comparatively. My meek and quiet little child of mine has been whining about wanting cocoa for the last five minutes, and after telling her she could only have one piece of chocolate this morning (man, what a tantrum!) I figure cocoa is a doable alternative. She sounds more irritated every time she asks, and I sound more irritated every time I tell her to be patient. This whole patience thing is not our strong suit.

And so, everybody, ta ta. And guess what, I can actually say that you're not a pretend audience anymore!!! I have 5 followers!!! *Happy Dance* Hi guys!!! *Waggles fingers at you* I feel all sorts of special, let me tell ya. I guess this is what happens when I pimp myself out on Facebook (I stole that line . . . it was too great not to). Ok, I'm off to get cocoa, I'll chat at y'all later. Bye!

Pirates, Trucking, and Netflix, oh my!

What does it mean when your three year old jumps up on the bed, scootches down and gets all comfy, then grabs your romance novel sitting next to her and opens it up to read? I'm just curious . . . Also, what does it mean when she develops and attitude roughly the size of Asia? Don't get me wrong, I have quite enough attitude to match her any day, but I worry for the poor preschool teacher that is going to have to deal with it soon. The poor person. And have I mentioned she's stubborn? Yeah, she got that from me too. I seemed to have passed on a lot of traits that may have been better off staying in the gene pool. At least she got my eyes. And her daddy's butt. That is certainly a wonderful asset to have.

In other news, my new obsession of the week has moved on from very hot fictional characters and on to Captain Jack Sparrow! I watched the Pirates trilogy last week, and just enjoyed it thoroughly, wallowing in the wonderfulness. I love the second and third ones, but the first one is just . . . magic. Utter perfection. I've been quoting it in my head ever since, although not to many other people. Just because I'm crazy enough without sharing all the details with the world. I'm conscientious that way.

So, I believe I've shared the information already about my husband doing trucking and all that, and I have sort of an update. He's been gone since January 8th, and in that time I have seen him once for about 20 minutes when he was passing through. But there maybe an end in sight. He's only got about twenty or so hours left for his training, which means that hopefully in a few days he's all done. The catch to this is that before he can come home, he has to do at least one run solo. And he has to get his truck first, which we're hoping will be really quick. But there's no telling if he'll have to wait for it or not. So, *crossing fingers* we're thinking another two weeks just to be safe. And that puts us around March 11th, which will be 9 weeks that he'll have been gone . . . as opposed to the 4-6 that we were told it would be. This irritates me to no end, let me tell ya. But there's nothing we can do about it, so I'm just hoping the days go by fast and that things don't feel weird when he finally comes home. We're going to run away for a couple days and just hide out in a hotel somewhere, so that will be wonderful.

Ooh, ooh, I have a funny book recommendation for you, and a movie recommendation. The book is a kid's picture book called Tadpole's Promise by Jeanne Willis. It's a really cute book, but has a surprise ending that is on one hand distressing and disturbing, and on the other FREAKING HYSTERICAL!!! I kinda fell over laughing, and I showed it to my mother in law and sister in law. They leaned a little more to the disturbed side, but still laughed. As for the movie recommendation, I saw Must Love Dogs recently, with Diane Lane (this is actually the first movie I've ever seen her in), and John Cusack who is an actor I really love. The movie was so cute, and just funny and I loved it! I have my friend Lindsie to thank for that, she pestered me for a week until I finally got if from Netflix (love them too, by the way)and fell in love. Oh, while we're on the subject of movies, another one I saw recently and LOVED was When Harry Met Sally. Oh my gosh, I ADORED Billy Crystal!!! It's really awkward/painful to watch a main character as sweet and wonderful as that and have your significant other away from home and not there for snuggling. But anyway, loved those!!!

Oh, and while I'm here, I wanna send a shout out to the person that decided to put clean up stations at intervals in the Petsmart stores. BRILLIANT idea. And not for the reason you would think. Oh no, this doesn't even have anything to do with pets. It has to do with coughing children that just ate dinner and spent 15 minutes running around the pet store like there was no tomorrow. And promptly coughed hard, gagged, and barfed all over the floor by the Purina One. Heaven bless the wise, wonderful person that decided a cleaning station should go the next aisle over, not ten steps away. Bless you, brilliant person.

And right now said daughter is undressing herself to slather on some lotion, so before I end up running through the house trying to force a greased 3 year old into a pair of pants, I'm gonna go tackle her now. Hope everyone has a lovely, tantrum free day and doesn't get muddy paw prints all over their clean sheets like I just did. Bye!

Potty Training Drama

I have a funny story for you. So today, just a few minutes ago in fact, my three year old was sent to go potty. She can do it by herself, but you have to tell her to go or she won't. So after some persuading and a little bit of raised voices and turning the TV off, she went to go potty. It all went well, she was all done, then suddenly she started crying. With real tears and everything.

So I go in to see what's the matter, and she's got her face in her hands and everything, and I'm thinking she got hurt. So I ask her, "Did you get an owie?" She says no. I ask her, "Did something scare you?" She says no. So I ask her one more time if she got hurt, because sometimes she's too busy being upset to remember she did get an owie, but she said no again, in a very annoyed fashion, like Geez, mom, I already answered that.

I'm completely puzzled as I kneel on the floor hugging her and rubbing her back, and ask if she's ready to go watch her movie again, and she perks up and stops crying. But then she looks at the toilet and almost starts to cry again, and I finally get what she's upset about when she keeps pointing to the toilet paper and her butt. The child forgot to wipe.

So I ask her if she forgot to wipe her bum, and she sniffles and says, "Yeah." Ok, I'm totally ready to fall over laughing at this point, but I help her get her pants and panties down again so she can wipe and flush the toilet, and she goes running off to watch her movie in complete three year old bliss. I started laughing really hard, we're talking I almost did fall over into the wall, and had to share. I mean, really. That's too awesome that the worst thing in her life is that she forgot to wipe after she went potty. She was seriously very upset.

As you can tell, at this point, we're doing potty-training right now. Well, we have for almost two months now, but we've hit a snag on getting her to go on her own. That, and she's afraid of the big potty. No joke. She will not even approach the thing without her panties securely in place, and there is no way she'll use public restrooms because they have big potties. I think she's afraid she'll fall in or something. It's a challenge because who really takes the cute little red training potty with them wherever they go? I certainly don't. How do you explain that? "Hi, I'm the weird mom with a willful child and I have to take her own personal potty everywhere we go."

So, if any of y'all out there have suggestions for this mommy's potty-training conundrum, be sure to let me know! I have no idea how to conquer the big potty phobia. And how to you explain to a three year old what it feels like when they need to pee? "Well, sweetie, it's when you feel an odd sensation down in your nether regions . . . " Yeah. That's what I thought. Anyway, I'll chat atcha later, hope you all have a good day. Or night. Or week. Or whatever. Ta!