Max was helping me make chocolate banana bread. I turned around during the process and noticed he was licking his finger. This could be completely fine while baking, or it could be totally scary.
"Max, what are you licking?" I asked.
He quickly removed his finger from his mouth and tucked his hands behind his back.
"Nuffing," he answered.
"Was it a booger?" I asked.
"No," he answered. "It was somefing from my eye."
I turned my back to him so I could hide my face while I gagged.
"Max!" I finally managed. I turned around to face him. "Do you eat your poop or pee?"
"No," he said. "But, Mom, the fing from my eye was just small!"
"I don't care!" I answered. "You don't eat things that come out of your body!"
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Sweet Potatoes and Bedtime Stories
Sometimes there are so many funny things that happen in a day, I can't decide which ones to share.
Incident #1:
Yesterday evening I was feeding baby food to Third. He ate about half a jar of sweet potatoes and then decided he'd had enough. When I offered another bite, he raised his little arms high in the air and slapped them down, trying to knock the spoon away. Luckily, I managed to draw it back fast enough and he missed.
"No," I said sternly.
He smiled at me, a wide, toothless grin. I couldn't help smiling back at him.
But I wasn't willing to stop feeding him. The jar of sweet potatoes had already been sitting in my fridge for a day or two and I wanted to use the rest of it. So I made another attempt.
The baby spoons I use are brightly colored, plastic, and quite springy, I've discovered.
I pushed the spoon toward Third's mouth. His arms went straight up and came down. This time I wasn't fast enough. His forearm made contact with the spoon. It bent as his arm pushed past it and then sprang straight again. The spoon turned into a lovely sweet potato fountain. An orange arc of warm sweet potatoes flew into the air and landed all over me. I gasped in shock.
Third giggled.
"Hey!" I said, trying to be serious, which is extremely difficult when faced with a giggling seven-month-old. "That's not funny!"
I refilled the spoon and offered it again. Third swung for it.
"No!" I said and pulled it back. He missed the spoon and slapped his high chair tray instead, and smiled.
I offered the spoon and had to immediately pull it back. "No!" I said sternly.
It turned into a game. Over and over I'd offer the spoon, he'd swing, and I'd say no. JayJay and Max were watching intently and had been so drawn by the exchange that they had moved to stand at my sides and watch me attempt to feed Third.
"No! No! No!" I said.
Finally, I decided to try to get a bite in his mouth one more time and then I'd give up. I would dart in really fast and get it into his mouth before he could swing his chubby arms.
Babies are quick.
I darted in with the spoon. Third swung. He hit the spoon. It bent and sprang back. Sweet potatoes vaulted into the air and splattered all over Max, JayJay, and me.
Third laughed. Max laughed. JayJay laughed. Having all your children laughing at the same time is the best sound in the world. I laughed too.
Incident # 2:
My man and I were doing our normal bedtime routine with the kids. We got their pajamas on them. We helped them brush and floss their teeth. It was reading time.
Supposedly, having a set routine every night will help the children wind down and prepare for bed. Yeah, right. Whoever said that didn't have a JayJay, a Max, and a Third in their family. We made several attempts to get JayJay and Max to sit down and listen to the story. I was holding Third and feeding him a bottle.
On a side note, JayJay and Max have been playing with teddy bears the last several days. They feed them, rock them, put them down for naps, and help them play with toys. JayJay's bear, Go (pronounced jew, see previous post), has been renamed Jet Lego and Max's bear is named Smushies.
Ah-ha! I thought of a brilliant way to get them interested in reading time. "Boys," I said, "Jet Lego and Smushies want to listen to the story!"
It worked! They got their teddy bears and sat down in front of my man to listen. My man began to read. Within a minute or so, JayJay and Max were back on their feet. JayJay was careful as he stood to leave Jet Lego sitting up to listen to the story. Max was not so careful. Smushies fell over and lay discarded on the floor. My man continued to read though as JayJay and Max began giggling and running laps around their bedroom.
After reading for several minutes, my man paused, but without looking away from the text, he reached out, picked up Smushies, and carefully set him into a sitting position next to Jet Lego. Then he continued to read.
Eventually, in the chaos created by our two older sons, Jet Lego was knocked over. A moment later, my man reached out and attentively set Jet Lego back into a sitting position next to Smushies. Then he finished reading the story to his rapt audience of two teddies as expressively as if he were reading to his little boys.
I don't know about JayJay and Max, but Jet Lego and Smushies were most certainly ready for bed when we tucked them in.
Incident #1:
Yesterday evening I was feeding baby food to Third. He ate about half a jar of sweet potatoes and then decided he'd had enough. When I offered another bite, he raised his little arms high in the air and slapped them down, trying to knock the spoon away. Luckily, I managed to draw it back fast enough and he missed.
"No," I said sternly.
He smiled at me, a wide, toothless grin. I couldn't help smiling back at him.
But I wasn't willing to stop feeding him. The jar of sweet potatoes had already been sitting in my fridge for a day or two and I wanted to use the rest of it. So I made another attempt.
The baby spoons I use are brightly colored, plastic, and quite springy, I've discovered.
I pushed the spoon toward Third's mouth. His arms went straight up and came down. This time I wasn't fast enough. His forearm made contact with the spoon. It bent as his arm pushed past it and then sprang straight again. The spoon turned into a lovely sweet potato fountain. An orange arc of warm sweet potatoes flew into the air and landed all over me. I gasped in shock.
Third giggled.
"Hey!" I said, trying to be serious, which is extremely difficult when faced with a giggling seven-month-old. "That's not funny!"
I refilled the spoon and offered it again. Third swung for it.
"No!" I said and pulled it back. He missed the spoon and slapped his high chair tray instead, and smiled.
I offered the spoon and had to immediately pull it back. "No!" I said sternly.
It turned into a game. Over and over I'd offer the spoon, he'd swing, and I'd say no. JayJay and Max were watching intently and had been so drawn by the exchange that they had moved to stand at my sides and watch me attempt to feed Third.
"No! No! No!" I said.
Finally, I decided to try to get a bite in his mouth one more time and then I'd give up. I would dart in really fast and get it into his mouth before he could swing his chubby arms.
Babies are quick.
I darted in with the spoon. Third swung. He hit the spoon. It bent and sprang back. Sweet potatoes vaulted into the air and splattered all over Max, JayJay, and me.
Third laughed. Max laughed. JayJay laughed. Having all your children laughing at the same time is the best sound in the world. I laughed too.
Incident # 2:
My man and I were doing our normal bedtime routine with the kids. We got their pajamas on them. We helped them brush and floss their teeth. It was reading time.
Supposedly, having a set routine every night will help the children wind down and prepare for bed. Yeah, right. Whoever said that didn't have a JayJay, a Max, and a Third in their family. We made several attempts to get JayJay and Max to sit down and listen to the story. I was holding Third and feeding him a bottle.
On a side note, JayJay and Max have been playing with teddy bears the last several days. They feed them, rock them, put them down for naps, and help them play with toys. JayJay's bear, Go (pronounced jew, see previous post), has been renamed Jet Lego and Max's bear is named Smushies.
Ah-ha! I thought of a brilliant way to get them interested in reading time. "Boys," I said, "Jet Lego and Smushies want to listen to the story!"
It worked! They got their teddy bears and sat down in front of my man to listen. My man began to read. Within a minute or so, JayJay and Max were back on their feet. JayJay was careful as he stood to leave Jet Lego sitting up to listen to the story. Max was not so careful. Smushies fell over and lay discarded on the floor. My man continued to read though as JayJay and Max began giggling and running laps around their bedroom.
After reading for several minutes, my man paused, but without looking away from the text, he reached out, picked up Smushies, and carefully set him into a sitting position next to Jet Lego. Then he continued to read.
Eventually, in the chaos created by our two older sons, Jet Lego was knocked over. A moment later, my man reached out and attentively set Jet Lego back into a sitting position next to Smushies. Then he finished reading the story to his rapt audience of two teddies as expressively as if he were reading to his little boys.
I don't know about JayJay and Max, but Jet Lego and Smushies were most certainly ready for bed when we tucked them in.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Conversations With JayJay
JayJay: Mom, what letters make an oo sound?
Me: It depends. Two Os together say oo. A U says oo. And sometimes even one O says oo, like in do.
JayJay: G says juh. I'm going to name my bear jew. G. O. (long pause) My teacher might get confused and think his name is Go.
Me: It depends. Two Os together say oo. A U says oo. And sometimes even one O says oo, like in do.
JayJay: G says juh. I'm going to name my bear jew. G. O. (long pause) My teacher might get confused and think his name is Go.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
This Cooking Show Wouldn't Make It On Prime Time
Have you ever had one of those days?
Well, I just had a doozy of one. As it was occurring, it made me flustered and frustrated. But now that I think about it, it is pretty funny. I promise I'm not normally this dysfunctional.
On a side note, I am trying to correct my posture. I slouch terribly and my shoulders are always drawn up with tension. I figure that if I'm always tense, I might as well be tense in the right way.So I am trying to hold my back straight and keep my shoulders relaxed. It takes a ton of conscious thought to do this. Basically, I am trying to stand and move like a ballroom dancer.
So here's the back story: JayJay is in Kindergarten. His school has some sort of healthy snack program. An outside company donates healthy snack foods to all the kids in school everyday. They get peaches, apples, grapes, cucumbers, peppers, etc. Some of the items are things that make me scratch my head, like the small container of raw, chopped up zucchini. I've never eaten zucchini raw, but I guess maybe some people do. Anyway, sometimes the snacks they give are things that JayJay won't eat raw. Instead of letting the food go to waste, I cook it into something he will eat. One time they gave him slices of carrot and I used them to make carrot cake, supplemented with my own carrots, of course. He loved it. So when they gave him carrots again on Friday, he wanted me to cook with them again. But this time he wanted a pie instead of a cake.
I figured I could whip one together before I made dinner and we could eat it for dessert. Things started out going fine. Standing straight and tall, I put the carrots in a dish with a couple tablespoons of water, covered them, and steamed them in the microwave. While they were cooking, I put together the pie crust. Pie crusts are not my friends. I can make them taste good, but making them pretty is another matter entirely. No big deal. I figure if it's yummy, then the appearance doesn't matter. Don't tell a professional chef I said that though. I rolled out the dough, lifted it into the pie pan, and attempted to shape the edges. I had to tear off a bit here and smash it on there, but the end result would function. I set the crust aside. My shoulders were slightly high. I relaxed them so they dropped down to a more graceful position.
By then, the carrots were finished cooking. I took them out of the microwave and dumped them into the blender. Some of the carrots missed and spilled onto the counter. It didn't phase me. I picked them up and put them in the blender with their brothers. I put the lid on. Now, I know that if you try to blend hot things, the steam pressure will blow the lid off and splatter food all over the kitchen. I was really careful because I didn't want that to happen. I shouldn't have bothered, because even though that didn't happen, carrots still ended up all over the kitchen.
I knew that initially pureeing the carrots would be difficult just because the puree would be so thick. I deliberately added the couple tablespoons of water that was left in the bottom of the dish I steamed them in, hoping it would solve that problem. Nope. After blending for a few seconds, I could tell it wasn't working. The bottom carrots pureed fine, but the top carrots didn't drop down onto the blades. I grabbed a stirring utensil from my smoothie maker, put it through the small hole in the blender lid and tried to push the carrots down against the blades. No luck. That utensil wasn't designed for my blender so it wasn't long enough with the lid on.
I took the lid off.
I know that you should never stick utensils in a blender while it is running. But I figured if I just pushed a little deeper, I could loosen things up, get the carrots moving, and they would puree nicely on their own. I tapped on the top carrots. Nothing moved, but the motor made noise like it was working harder. So I pressed on the carrots harder. Still nothing moved. So I pressed harder.
Boom!
I don't even know what happened. Somehow the utensil struck the blades. My hand was knocked out of the blender jar by the ricochet and carrot puree and whole carrots splattered all over my kitchen. Yikes! I turned the blender off and counted my fingers. They were all still attached. I wasn't injured. I should have given up then, but I didn't. I wanted JayJay to have his carrot pie.
I cleaned up the carrot mess, putting the whole carrots back in the blender and wiping up whatever splatters I couldn't salvage. I checked the utensil. It was split in three places on its end, but I couldn't see any obvious chunks of plastic missing, so I figured there wouldn't be any in the pie. I realized my shoulders were high and my back was hunched. I corrected my posture and then turned the blender on again, taking care to turn it off to stir the contents. I made a little progress, but half of the mixture was still made up of whole carrots. I decided to add the remaining ingredients of the pie--which included honey, eggs, spices, and butter--hoping the extra fluids would loosen things up.
It worked. The remaining carrots pureed and the spices mixed in. All I had to do was add the sugar. I turned the blender off, dumped in the sugar, and turned the blender on. Moments later, I noticed the base of the blender was loose and the jar moved slightly when I touched it. Uh-oh. I shut the blender off and turned the jar to the right, trying to tighten it. It just got looser and carrot pie filling started oozing out of the base. I turned the jar to the left and it still got looser! No matter which direction I turned the jar, it loosened.
"No, please." I said helplessly as more and more filling oozed from the base of the blender.
My last resort was to tip the jar sideways fast enough that the pie filling would fall toward the lid and the spill would be minimal. No such luck. As I tipped the jar, all the pie filling spilled over the blender and the counter. All I could do was stand there and stare. What a nightmare.
My posture was terrible. I corrected it then carried the blender jar to the pie pan and let the remaining dregs of filling spill into the crust. Then I carried over the blender motor contraption and scraped as much filling off it into the crust that I could. Then I scooped handfuls of filling off the counter and dropped them into the pie pan over and over until most of the filling was in the crust.
The end result: a very messy looking pie. Counters, me, blender, floor, me, cabinets, stove, and me coated in carrot pie filling. All with the grace and poise of a dancer, right?
But finally the pie was baking in the over. Despite the disaster, it should still taste good. JayJay would have his pie.
Then JayJay came upstairs after eating leftover pizza for dinner.
"Can I have dessert?" he asked.
"No," I said. "It's not ready. I'm baking a carrot pie for you."
"I want candy for dessert," he said. "Can I have candy?"
Heck no, my son. Heck no.
Well, I just had a doozy of one. As it was occurring, it made me flustered and frustrated. But now that I think about it, it is pretty funny. I promise I'm not normally this dysfunctional.
On a side note, I am trying to correct my posture. I slouch terribly and my shoulders are always drawn up with tension. I figure that if I'm always tense, I might as well be tense in the right way.So I am trying to hold my back straight and keep my shoulders relaxed. It takes a ton of conscious thought to do this. Basically, I am trying to stand and move like a ballroom dancer.
So here's the back story: JayJay is in Kindergarten. His school has some sort of healthy snack program. An outside company donates healthy snack foods to all the kids in school everyday. They get peaches, apples, grapes, cucumbers, peppers, etc. Some of the items are things that make me scratch my head, like the small container of raw, chopped up zucchini. I've never eaten zucchini raw, but I guess maybe some people do. Anyway, sometimes the snacks they give are things that JayJay won't eat raw. Instead of letting the food go to waste, I cook it into something he will eat. One time they gave him slices of carrot and I used them to make carrot cake, supplemented with my own carrots, of course. He loved it. So when they gave him carrots again on Friday, he wanted me to cook with them again. But this time he wanted a pie instead of a cake.
I figured I could whip one together before I made dinner and we could eat it for dessert. Things started out going fine. Standing straight and tall, I put the carrots in a dish with a couple tablespoons of water, covered them, and steamed them in the microwave. While they were cooking, I put together the pie crust. Pie crusts are not my friends. I can make them taste good, but making them pretty is another matter entirely. No big deal. I figure if it's yummy, then the appearance doesn't matter. Don't tell a professional chef I said that though. I rolled out the dough, lifted it into the pie pan, and attempted to shape the edges. I had to tear off a bit here and smash it on there, but the end result would function. I set the crust aside. My shoulders were slightly high. I relaxed them so they dropped down to a more graceful position.
By then, the carrots were finished cooking. I took them out of the microwave and dumped them into the blender. Some of the carrots missed and spilled onto the counter. It didn't phase me. I picked them up and put them in the blender with their brothers. I put the lid on. Now, I know that if you try to blend hot things, the steam pressure will blow the lid off and splatter food all over the kitchen. I was really careful because I didn't want that to happen. I shouldn't have bothered, because even though that didn't happen, carrots still ended up all over the kitchen.
I knew that initially pureeing the carrots would be difficult just because the puree would be so thick. I deliberately added the couple tablespoons of water that was left in the bottom of the dish I steamed them in, hoping it would solve that problem. Nope. After blending for a few seconds, I could tell it wasn't working. The bottom carrots pureed fine, but the top carrots didn't drop down onto the blades. I grabbed a stirring utensil from my smoothie maker, put it through the small hole in the blender lid and tried to push the carrots down against the blades. No luck. That utensil wasn't designed for my blender so it wasn't long enough with the lid on.
I took the lid off.
I know that you should never stick utensils in a blender while it is running. But I figured if I just pushed a little deeper, I could loosen things up, get the carrots moving, and they would puree nicely on their own. I tapped on the top carrots. Nothing moved, but the motor made noise like it was working harder. So I pressed on the carrots harder. Still nothing moved. So I pressed harder.
Boom!
I don't even know what happened. Somehow the utensil struck the blades. My hand was knocked out of the blender jar by the ricochet and carrot puree and whole carrots splattered all over my kitchen. Yikes! I turned the blender off and counted my fingers. They were all still attached. I wasn't injured. I should have given up then, but I didn't. I wanted JayJay to have his carrot pie.
I cleaned up the carrot mess, putting the whole carrots back in the blender and wiping up whatever splatters I couldn't salvage. I checked the utensil. It was split in three places on its end, but I couldn't see any obvious chunks of plastic missing, so I figured there wouldn't be any in the pie. I realized my shoulders were high and my back was hunched. I corrected my posture and then turned the blender on again, taking care to turn it off to stir the contents. I made a little progress, but half of the mixture was still made up of whole carrots. I decided to add the remaining ingredients of the pie--which included honey, eggs, spices, and butter--hoping the extra fluids would loosen things up.
It worked. The remaining carrots pureed and the spices mixed in. All I had to do was add the sugar. I turned the blender off, dumped in the sugar, and turned the blender on. Moments later, I noticed the base of the blender was loose and the jar moved slightly when I touched it. Uh-oh. I shut the blender off and turned the jar to the right, trying to tighten it. It just got looser and carrot pie filling started oozing out of the base. I turned the jar to the left and it still got looser! No matter which direction I turned the jar, it loosened.
"No, please." I said helplessly as more and more filling oozed from the base of the blender.
My last resort was to tip the jar sideways fast enough that the pie filling would fall toward the lid and the spill would be minimal. No such luck. As I tipped the jar, all the pie filling spilled over the blender and the counter. All I could do was stand there and stare. What a nightmare.
My posture was terrible. I corrected it then carried the blender jar to the pie pan and let the remaining dregs of filling spill into the crust. Then I carried over the blender motor contraption and scraped as much filling off it into the crust that I could. Then I scooped handfuls of filling off the counter and dropped them into the pie pan over and over until most of the filling was in the crust.
The end result: a very messy looking pie. Counters, me, blender, floor, me, cabinets, stove, and me coated in carrot pie filling. All with the grace and poise of a dancer, right?
But finally the pie was baking in the over. Despite the disaster, it should still taste good. JayJay would have his pie.
Then JayJay came upstairs after eating leftover pizza for dinner.
"Can I have dessert?" he asked.
"No," I said. "It's not ready. I'm baking a carrot pie for you."
"I want candy for dessert," he said. "Can I have candy?"
Heck no, my son. Heck no.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
A Family Hug
Dinner was over for the kids and me, but my man came home late from work. He pulled out his iPad and turned on the radio while he ate. Third still sat in his high chair. JayJay and Max started dancing to the music and insisted that mommy and daddy dance too. I stood in the kitchen, starting to put food away as my man finished with it. He got up and carried his dirty dishes to the sink. When I turned around, he was shaking his hips with his hands in the air. He looked so goofy and hot that I had to walk to him and give him a hug.
"Did you see that?" I asked. "You're a chic magnet."
"What? No," he protested.
Once my arms were around him, I couldn't let go. There isn't a more comfortable place in the world for me than in my man's arms. It feels like being home. I leaned my cheek against his shoulder and enjoyed the pressure of his strong, warm arms around me. And he smelled so good. I love the smell of a clean man. Clean Man Smell would turn my head faster than a handsome face, a sexy body, a slick car, or fashionable clothes when I was single. Clean Man Smell gets me every time. And my man wears it like a boss. But I have to get really close to him to smell it. Don't mind if I do. So I stood there and held him and he held me and it was wonderful. We swayed slowly to the music, almost but not quite dancing.
Thump!
Something bumped my leg. Little arms wrapped around us. I looked down to find JayJay's big, brown eyes looking up at me.
"Why are we hugging?" he asked.
"I just really like hugging your daddy," I explained, still holding onto my man.
Smack!
Something plowed into us a bit more violently. I looked down again and found Max with his arms around us too.
"It's a family hug!" said JayJay.
"Yeah!" I agreed, but my thoughts immediately turned to Third, sitting alone in his high chair across the room. I wanted him to be in the family hug, but I knew if I broke the group to go get him, hug time would be over. And I really didn't want to let go of my man.
I was debating the dilemma when Max said, "What about Third?" Apparently, he was thinking the same thing I was.
"Too bad Third can't walk," I said.
"I get him," Max said.
He let go of us and crossed the room.
"Max, what are you doing?" my man said.
We soon found out. Max positioned himself behind the high chair and laboriously shoved it, baby, and all across the dining room into the kitchen until the tray bumped up against us and Third was as close as he could get. Then Max put his arms around our legs again. Now the family hug was complete.
For a few precious moments, we were all together, still and peaceful in the relief of each other's company. I sigh right now just thinking about how beautiful and perfect it was.
Then Max bit me on the butt. I jumped and squawked like a chicken. Family hug time was over.
"Did you see that?" I asked. "You're a chic magnet."
"What? No," he protested.
Once my arms were around him, I couldn't let go. There isn't a more comfortable place in the world for me than in my man's arms. It feels like being home. I leaned my cheek against his shoulder and enjoyed the pressure of his strong, warm arms around me. And he smelled so good. I love the smell of a clean man. Clean Man Smell would turn my head faster than a handsome face, a sexy body, a slick car, or fashionable clothes when I was single. Clean Man Smell gets me every time. And my man wears it like a boss. But I have to get really close to him to smell it. Don't mind if I do. So I stood there and held him and he held me and it was wonderful. We swayed slowly to the music, almost but not quite dancing.
Thump!
Something bumped my leg. Little arms wrapped around us. I looked down to find JayJay's big, brown eyes looking up at me.
"Why are we hugging?" he asked.
"I just really like hugging your daddy," I explained, still holding onto my man.
Smack!
Something plowed into us a bit more violently. I looked down again and found Max with his arms around us too.
"It's a family hug!" said JayJay.
"Yeah!" I agreed, but my thoughts immediately turned to Third, sitting alone in his high chair across the room. I wanted him to be in the family hug, but I knew if I broke the group to go get him, hug time would be over. And I really didn't want to let go of my man.
I was debating the dilemma when Max said, "What about Third?" Apparently, he was thinking the same thing I was.
"Too bad Third can't walk," I said.
"I get him," Max said.
He let go of us and crossed the room.
"Max, what are you doing?" my man said.
We soon found out. Max positioned himself behind the high chair and laboriously shoved it, baby, and all across the dining room into the kitchen until the tray bumped up against us and Third was as close as he could get. Then Max put his arms around our legs again. Now the family hug was complete.
For a few precious moments, we were all together, still and peaceful in the relief of each other's company. I sigh right now just thinking about how beautiful and perfect it was.
Then Max bit me on the butt. I jumped and squawked like a chicken. Family hug time was over.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Bananas In My Basket
Cerebrum Matriarchalitis
A condition in which an invisible, globular alien parasite burrows through the ear into the brain of a human mother and consumes thoughts at random. Often contracted at the onset of pregnancy, the disease is chronic and incurable.
I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person. I'm not a genius by any means, but I'm probably slightly above average. I skated through school and earned As and Bs in my classes with very little effort. I received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brigham Young University in English. But I also like math enough that I considered majoring in that too. I took Calculus and passed with an A. I am very creative. I am pretty good at solving mind bending and logic puzzles. Often, I can solve basic math problems in my head faster than my man who happens to be a darn good math teacher. By reading literally thousands of books, I have expanded my knowledge into areas that I did not formally study in school: neurology and psychology to name a few.
Despite all this knowledge and education, sometimes I suffer from attacks of absentmindedness. These attacks did not begin until I had children. I honestly believe that because of the way your body changes during pregnancy, the wild fluctuation of hormones, and the decrease of restorative sleep, it literally changes the way your brain functions. Either that or there really is an alien parasite stealing thoughts from me. You know how you set something down for a second and suddenly can't find it anywhere. Or you end up at the top of three flights of stairs and have no idea why you just climbed up all those stairs in the first place. Or you are staring at your five-year-old firstborn son and literally have no idea what his name is. Sometimes it is just so hard to think.
Well, I had an episode yesterday.
After dropping off JayJay at Kindergarten and Max at Preschool, I took Third to the grocery store to do some shopping. Our family receives WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) assistance from the government. It's a program to provide healthy food to low income families. My husband teaches math and coaches football and wrestling to support us, but a teacher's income is extremely small, particularly in our state. After paying bills we often only have $20 left to buy groceries for the month. We do not have credit card or auto debt and we do not buy television services. I am explaining this because I am paranoid of being judged. We need WIC and it has honestly saved us from starvation.
Anyway, I selected some WIC checks to redeem and went through the store picking the items off the shelves. After gathering the baby food, milk, eggs, and bread, I went to the produce section to finish up my shopping. I had a $6 WIC check for fresh produce. I got a head of lettuce and a bag of onions and put them in my cart. I needed bananas and selected a bunch. Then I went to the scale and weighed them to find out how much they would cost. With the lettuce, onions, and bananas I had $1.66 left on the check to use. I wandered through the produce section, looking at apples, bagged salads, and citruses, trying to decide what else I could afford. Eventually I settled on green peppers. They were $.69 each. I could get two and that would get me close enough to $6 that I wouldn't feel like was wasting money. I bagged them and put them in the cart. Then I headed to the check out stand.
I am just going to insert here that my checker was a stellar employee. Usually, the checkers I get are indifferent. Some are obviously irritated that I am taking so long in their line. One in particular talked about how she is on WIC too, but then she chatted about how her family buys donuts every Monday and her kids don't understand why they can't buy donuts with WIC checks. It's my opinion that if you are on WIC, you can't afford donuts. We certainly can't. There I go judging someone else on WIC. That's exactly what I'm afraid of. Now I've vented. Sorry.
So my checker yesterday was fabulous. She chatted with me about my baby and about her twins. When it came time to check out my produce, the total came to slightly over $4.
"Wow," I thought. "The membership card here gets me a really good deal on produce!"
Rather than let me leave with $2 wasted on my WIC check, she insisted that I get more produce. But instead of sending me running to the produce section to frantically select more, she offered suggestions of what items would be affordable and then sent a bagger to get them for me. In the end, I acquired a lemon, a lime, and a cucumber in addition to my original selection. The total was $5.99. She was awesome!
I left the grocery store feeling pretty good about things. I went home, unloaded the groceries from the car, and put them away. Then my day continued: picking up kids from school, lunch at the high school with my man, back home again to help with homework and clean, swimming lessons at six, home for dinner, and then bedtime. After the kids were in bed, I surfed the internet and chatted on Facebook with friends until my man came home late after a football game. Then I went to bed too.
It wasn't until after midnight when I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep that I realized what I had done.
No bananas.
After weighing them and calculating their price, I simply forgot to lift them from the scale and set them in my cart. And I never thought about them again. Not when I walked back and forth near them in the produce section trying to figure out what else to get. Not when the cost of my produce inexplicably didn't add up at the checkout stand the way I had calculated it should. Not when I put away the groceries in my home. Not once in all those hours and actions did I wonder where those bananas were.
It was a definite attack of Cerebrum Matriarchalitis. Or I'm totally and completely bananas in my basket. Thank goodness I never set my baby down.
A condition in which an invisible, globular alien parasite burrows through the ear into the brain of a human mother and consumes thoughts at random. Often contracted at the onset of pregnancy, the disease is chronic and incurable.
I consider myself to be a fairly intelligent person. I'm not a genius by any means, but I'm probably slightly above average. I skated through school and earned As and Bs in my classes with very little effort. I received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brigham Young University in English. But I also like math enough that I considered majoring in that too. I took Calculus and passed with an A. I am very creative. I am pretty good at solving mind bending and logic puzzles. Often, I can solve basic math problems in my head faster than my man who happens to be a darn good math teacher. By reading literally thousands of books, I have expanded my knowledge into areas that I did not formally study in school: neurology and psychology to name a few.
Despite all this knowledge and education, sometimes I suffer from attacks of absentmindedness. These attacks did not begin until I had children. I honestly believe that because of the way your body changes during pregnancy, the wild fluctuation of hormones, and the decrease of restorative sleep, it literally changes the way your brain functions. Either that or there really is an alien parasite stealing thoughts from me. You know how you set something down for a second and suddenly can't find it anywhere. Or you end up at the top of three flights of stairs and have no idea why you just climbed up all those stairs in the first place. Or you are staring at your five-year-old firstborn son and literally have no idea what his name is. Sometimes it is just so hard to think.
Well, I had an episode yesterday.
After dropping off JayJay at Kindergarten and Max at Preschool, I took Third to the grocery store to do some shopping. Our family receives WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) assistance from the government. It's a program to provide healthy food to low income families. My husband teaches math and coaches football and wrestling to support us, but a teacher's income is extremely small, particularly in our state. After paying bills we often only have $20 left to buy groceries for the month. We do not have credit card or auto debt and we do not buy television services. I am explaining this because I am paranoid of being judged. We need WIC and it has honestly saved us from starvation.
Anyway, I selected some WIC checks to redeem and went through the store picking the items off the shelves. After gathering the baby food, milk, eggs, and bread, I went to the produce section to finish up my shopping. I had a $6 WIC check for fresh produce. I got a head of lettuce and a bag of onions and put them in my cart. I needed bananas and selected a bunch. Then I went to the scale and weighed them to find out how much they would cost. With the lettuce, onions, and bananas I had $1.66 left on the check to use. I wandered through the produce section, looking at apples, bagged salads, and citruses, trying to decide what else I could afford. Eventually I settled on green peppers. They were $.69 each. I could get two and that would get me close enough to $6 that I wouldn't feel like was wasting money. I bagged them and put them in the cart. Then I headed to the check out stand.
I am just going to insert here that my checker was a stellar employee. Usually, the checkers I get are indifferent. Some are obviously irritated that I am taking so long in their line. One in particular talked about how she is on WIC too, but then she chatted about how her family buys donuts every Monday and her kids don't understand why they can't buy donuts with WIC checks. It's my opinion that if you are on WIC, you can't afford donuts. We certainly can't. There I go judging someone else on WIC. That's exactly what I'm afraid of. Now I've vented. Sorry.
So my checker yesterday was fabulous. She chatted with me about my baby and about her twins. When it came time to check out my produce, the total came to slightly over $4.
"Wow," I thought. "The membership card here gets me a really good deal on produce!"
Rather than let me leave with $2 wasted on my WIC check, she insisted that I get more produce. But instead of sending me running to the produce section to frantically select more, she offered suggestions of what items would be affordable and then sent a bagger to get them for me. In the end, I acquired a lemon, a lime, and a cucumber in addition to my original selection. The total was $5.99. She was awesome!
I left the grocery store feeling pretty good about things. I went home, unloaded the groceries from the car, and put them away. Then my day continued: picking up kids from school, lunch at the high school with my man, back home again to help with homework and clean, swimming lessons at six, home for dinner, and then bedtime. After the kids were in bed, I surfed the internet and chatted on Facebook with friends until my man came home late after a football game. Then I went to bed too.
It wasn't until after midnight when I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep that I realized what I had done.
No bananas.
After weighing them and calculating their price, I simply forgot to lift them from the scale and set them in my cart. And I never thought about them again. Not when I walked back and forth near them in the produce section trying to figure out what else to get. Not when the cost of my produce inexplicably didn't add up at the checkout stand the way I had calculated it should. Not when I put away the groceries in my home. Not once in all those hours and actions did I wonder where those bananas were.
It was a definite attack of Cerebrum Matriarchalitis. Or I'm totally and completely bananas in my basket. Thank goodness I never set my baby down.
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Bathroom Behavior
I have a feeling that most of these posts will be about Max. That's just the nature of the beast.
Today we were getting ready to leave Grandma and Grandpa Alaska's house. Max said, "I need to go potty."
"Well, go," I said.
"But I want to go in the potty in yours house," he said to me.
I kept chatting with my mom, figuring he would either hold it or go at Grandma's house. After a minute or so, Max got up and went into the bathroom down the hall and shut the door. He spent a long time in the bathroom and I just assumed he was doing his business.
My little brother, Shoes, eventually went to the bathroom and opened the door. "Analei, come see this!" he called out.
Imagining a toilet stuffed full of toilet paper, I hurried to the bathroom. Nope. It was a razor with a wad of blond hair spiking from the blade.
Today we were getting ready to leave Grandma and Grandpa Alaska's house. Max said, "I need to go potty."
"Well, go," I said.
"But I want to go in the potty in yours house," he said to me.
I kept chatting with my mom, figuring he would either hold it or go at Grandma's house. After a minute or so, Max got up and went into the bathroom down the hall and shut the door. He spent a long time in the bathroom and I just assumed he was doing his business.
My little brother, Shoes, eventually went to the bathroom and opened the door. "Analei, come see this!" he called out.
Imagining a toilet stuffed full of toilet paper, I hurried to the bathroom. Nope. It was a razor with a wad of blond hair spiking from the blade.
Initially, we thought he had managed to avoid too much damage. We didn't see where the hair had come from. Until we turned him this way.
That's when we all started laughing. Poor kid got embarrassed and didn't want to pose for this picture, so daddy held him.
We haven't decided what to do about it yet. It's not that big so I'm inclined to ignore it, but my man wants to cut all his hair off.
Oh, and later in the evening while I was feeding Third, he again ended up alone in the bathroom and squirted a bottle of lotion down the sink.
You'd think I'd learn.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Cat Food Reconnaissance
JayJay, my oldest son, was at school and we would need to leave soon to pick him up. I told Max to get his shoes and socks on, several times. When it was time to walk out the door and get in the car, Max still didn't have them on and I was feeling flustered. I gathered up his shoes and socks and approached to put them on him. That's when he announced, "I have to poop."
"Now?" I asked. "Can't you wait until after we pick up JayJay?"
"No," he said, of course. He went upstairs to the bathroom. I waited downstairs and impatiently gave him several minutes to get his business done. When I thought he'd had enough time, I went upstairs to help him clean up. I left my baby, Third, on the living room rug with some toys.
Third is seven months old. He has not figured out how to crawl yet. He gets up on hands and knees and rocks, but to get around he army-crawls. I thought I would be able to get back downstairs to him before he got into too much trouble. But this is a baby who started laughing at farts when he was four months old, so I should have known better.
I was sitting on the stairs with Max, helping him get shoes and socks on when I heard the rattling sound of cat food being spilled from its metal dish in the dining room (I use this term loosely since our house is small and the living room, dining room, and kitchen are basically one room). By the time I reached him, which was only a matter of seconds later, Third had his mouth and two grubby little fists full of cat food. I swept out his mouth and pried open his fat little fingers to make him drop the cat food. When I picked him up, cat food fell out of the long sleeves of his shirt. And I found more in his hands after I thought I had emptied them. He had cat food everywhere! Mission accomplished.
Luckily, he is severely cute.
"Now?" I asked. "Can't you wait until after we pick up JayJay?"
"No," he said, of course. He went upstairs to the bathroom. I waited downstairs and impatiently gave him several minutes to get his business done. When I thought he'd had enough time, I went upstairs to help him clean up. I left my baby, Third, on the living room rug with some toys.
Third is seven months old. He has not figured out how to crawl yet. He gets up on hands and knees and rocks, but to get around he army-crawls. I thought I would be able to get back downstairs to him before he got into too much trouble. But this is a baby who started laughing at farts when he was four months old, so I should have known better.
I was sitting on the stairs with Max, helping him get shoes and socks on when I heard the rattling sound of cat food being spilled from its metal dish in the dining room (I use this term loosely since our house is small and the living room, dining room, and kitchen are basically one room). By the time I reached him, which was only a matter of seconds later, Third had his mouth and two grubby little fists full of cat food. I swept out his mouth and pried open his fat little fingers to make him drop the cat food. When I picked him up, cat food fell out of the long sleeves of his shirt. And I found more in his hands after I thought I had emptied them. He had cat food everywhere! Mission accomplished.
Luckily, he is severely cute.
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