Wordless Wednesday

Wait!
This just in - apparently today is TUESDAY.

Hmm. So I guess some words will do.
We had lots of drama this weekend:

• Friday night my car would not start after numerous attempts by my collegues and as a result was stranded a top a six story parking deck on the CDC campus.
• Saturday morning - I return to campus to get the tow truck through security only to discover that a tow truck can't get up the parking deck because the overhead clearance is too low. The nice man hand carried his equipment up to my car to jump it and we drove away.
• Saturday night - We had an awesome date night. Brian helped me pick out some new clothes, we saw a movie and ate some late night guacamole. Then we returned home to find Sizzles with a raging fever. :(
• Sunday - We spent all day caring for Sizzles and Sticky Butt. They were both very sick.
• Sunday night about two hours before the Superbowl - the plumbing went nuts and the toilets began to overflow.

Plumbers were called, Hell was raised and we thanked God for TIVO.

Today was the second day in a row of attempting to take care of sick children and get some paid work done.

Somewhere along the way today, I decided to bake bread from scratch. At some point, I remember thinking this would be easier than loading up children into the car to go to the store to get some bread.

Did I mention that I have NEVER baked bread before?

Did I mention that the kids were sick AND that I was trying to work from home?

And I wonder why I struggle with balance. :)

At the end of the day (which is now), the day was GOOD and for that I am truly GRATEFUL.



(Later tonight, I will post the recipe for the white bread I made which was a simple recipe that required little of me except my full attention and even without that, the bread turned out great!)

When Dinner Bombs

Tonight's dinner was a mess. I have been trying to find some quick fix meals that meet my persnickety standards and the standards of my little clan and it was actually going quite well until tonight.

I acknowledge that I am hard to please. I have never really been into processed foods, I love to cook and once upon a time I even reviewed restaurants (only about 10 and then I got pregnant and started barfing and that was the end of that). But three nights a week I need to get in the door and get food on the table that is homemade and fast. Did I mention I also try to eat organic and local? Biting off more than you can chew will be the title of my next blog. :)

Part of the problem has been revealed to me over and over again. God has repeatedly made it clear to me that I have no business trying to cook a rice noodle. I overcook them and they turn to mush or I use to much sauce and they turn to mush or I over zealously toss them and they turn to mush. Have I learned? Um, NO. I am the ram your head into the wall a million times before accepting the truth kind of girl. And tonight, I rose to the rice noodle wall occasion. I am shamed to say I thought I could whip up a Pad Thai without bean sprouts, limes, and fresh roasted peanuts. I am ashamed to admit, I took some bottled peanut sauce and tossed it with some frozen shrimp and sauteed veggies and called it a day. If Bill (my super awesome friend who now is a snazzy food writer and nominated for a James Beard Award) is reading this post - I am so very very sorry. To all the hard-working cooks in Thai restaurants across this land - I am so very very sorry. To all who are about to take a look at this picture of my nasty, nasty concoction -




let my treachery be a lesson to you all and let it be known that cooking should be done with your full heart and full attention and if you don't have time to do it the right way, then just serve fried eggs, salami and toast for dinner.


Um. Did I mention that Sticky-Butt has a habit of placing her fried eggs on top of her head to get a laugh?


I'm proud. So very proud.

The wrong day to kill the TV

It doesn't take much prodding for me to rally behind movements to kill the family television. I am extremely sensitive to loud noises and general cacophony. I refuse to let a television enter my bedroom and I HATE commercials. I have even managed to keep the home television count to one.

Now, before you sit back in awe at these amazing feats, you should know that the ONE television happens to be a 47 inch HD flat screen with an XBox 360 attached to it and an array of cable channels and On Demand options at the viewers fingertips.

I still have to fight the good fight. SO, while reading Mitten Strings from God and being reminded of all the good things that can surface when your family is forced to find a different mode of entertainment, I went to bed last night vowing to keep the TV off today.

Like a total moron, I picked the day I need to work from home and a day that Sizzle's school is closed. But did I change the plan when the full realization of the challenge before me became clear? NO.
Did I abort the plan after I got Sticky Butt dressed and fed and loaded into the car, only to realize that her school was also closed today? NO.
Did I realize that this whole idea was ludicrous when my washing machine starting spewing suds from every orifice of its metal body? NO.
Did I try to go through a week's worth of email and read through an NIH press release on some new study about the DNA of MRSA while coaching Sizzles through her first attempt to make muffins solo? Possibly.
Did I mentally bitch-slap myself at 10:30am for invoking additional chaos into an already impossible day and race to return Little Bear to the proper center of our family universe? Um, pretty much.

Christmas Heathens

The children were absolute heathens this weekend.

Actually, Claire was sick and stricken with green ooze coming out of her bright blue eyes so she had an excuse. Lilly was just a heathen.

On Friday night, we attempted to take the girls to Mellow Mushroom for pepperoni pizza. Heathens.

On Saturday morning, we attempted to take the girls to Dancing Goats (the newly opened coffee bar in Decatur from the Washington-based Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Roasters). Heathens.

On Sunday morning, we attempted to take the girls to Oak Grove Methodist Church to listen to the Callonwalde Christmas Band. Heathens.

After a weekend full of stewing, steaming and screaming, Brian fell asleep on the couch at 7pm and I rolled up my sleeves in an attempt to teach some Christmas forgiveness. I explained to Lilly the word of the day (forgiveness) and told her that even though she was naughty (and boy was she naughty) that I was going to forgive her and still bake Christmas cookies with her. She smiled (I think she was also exhausted from her weekend of hullabaloo), hugged me and said, "Thank you Mommy."

We made Magic Muffins and she was an absolute angel.

Sharing a room

Who ever is out there pimping the idea that kids sharing a room is a fabulous thing needs to be forced to live in my house (note very little house) for a week.

Kids sharing a room blows. It sucks for them and it sucks for me. The only thing getting me through right now is the delusion that the children are bonding because they are forced to share sleeping space. But that seems as believable as the science claiming breast-feeding doesn't give you saggy breasts. Um. Yeah. I just happened to teleport back from a weekend in Uganda doing a National Geographic photo shoot and accidentally came back with floppy boobs and a habit of leaving my left breast out for a snacking one year old.

But I digress.

So my 1 year old (Claire) goes to bed at 7pm and everything runs perfectly until the 3.5 year old (Lilly) is ready to go to bed at 8:30pm. For two weeks running, Lilly marches into her room, lies in wait until my husband and I have just calmed ourselves from the cacophany of the day and BOOM she walks over to her sleeping sister's crib and yanks out her pacifier, or pulls off her slippers or does God only knows what else that results in her sweet slumbering sister to start screaming her head off.

Now before you inhale to gather the air to make the words that informs my husband and I that we just have to get Lilly to stop waking up Claire let me just say to you - No shit sherlock!

We know this and it isn't going so well. We have attempted a variety of strategies and we have wittled our options down to beating the kid or making her sleep on the deck. She is not deterred by time-out, my harsh whispers within an inch of her nose, the loss of television priviledges and dearly loved items.

Simply put she doesn't give a damn what we do because she LIKES to harass her sister and she likes to create a commotion and she especially likes to make it impossible for her to fall asleep.

I am humiliated to admit that the clever little clam is having her way with us but it is the noisy, smirky truth.

I am at a loss.

Well not exactly - I am advocating that we hang her out the window by her toes and force her to hear us sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (a song she detests) but my husband is plainly ignoring me as he disagrees that this is ethical or will work.

His answer is yanking her out of their bedroom and putting her in bed with us.

Lord have mercy.