Cooking, or Lack Thereof

I has recently come to my attention that I can not cook.

At least not well.

I am a picky eater. I am not one to be satisfied with dining on tuna fish sandwiches or grilled cheese. I want a meal. And to me a good one includes a lot of ingredients.

So I watch a lot of Food TV. And I scour the internet for recipes. I buy the cookbooks that friends recommend. And I write a grocery list for umpteen items to make these ridiculous recipes that frankly I, as the mother of three, don't have the time to prepare. Let alone clean up after. I do have the best of intentions, but lately I'm lucky to make one meal out of the five that I bring home the grocery items for. And when I do manage to complete one of these ambitious meals, it tastes terrible and the kitchen looks like a hurricane hit it. Therefore, I recently declared that I can not cook, and I will not cook. Rey says I totally can cook, but not to make this crazy concoctions like the Shrimp Orzo something or other I made the other night. But he's perfectly happy eating a piece of chicken that's been grilled to within an inch of its life (hockey pucks I call them). I want more for myself--I'm worth it!

So more nights that not, we eat out. Or rather we eat in with takeout that Rey brings home. (We do not take three kids out to a restaurant every night--I am not certifiable. Not yet at least.) Dining out is the American way, right?

Well, recently it came to my attention the type of damage this is doing. The other day, in between the ungodly time period nap time and dinner time, when you can almost hear the seconds ticking because time is passing so slowly, Mason says to me, "Mommy, what's Daddy bringing home for dinner?"

It was like a knife to my heart. This boy thinks food comes from the front door, not the kitchen door.

In my defense, I wasn't always like this. I used to cook nearly every night. But after we moved back from Key West and Rey was still there, it made no sense to cook without him here, especially since the boys don't really eat what we eat so I was basically cooking for myself. (They are picky people, something we try to work on from time to time, but can't manage to work out.) When he moved back, not cooking became the status quo.

And so here we are.

I need a takeout intervention.

Sebatacle

I took a week off from blogging. Miss me?


My life was getting crazy, perhaps unmanageable. I was starting to feel like I was a Greyhound dog and my life was that little rabbit on a stick that they chase around the racetrack...I just couldn't keep up. So I decided to try an experimental week of simplification that, among other things, involved a) no blogging and b) only reading the blogs that I absolutely couldn't stay away from.


The result? It didn't really work. I'm still a little crazy, life is still the racetrack bunny, I still feel like the Greyhound.


I would try something different in attempts to achieve some zen, but methinks it's just something that's not possible when you have three, active, rambunctious kids that are aged 4 and under! It's a new theory I have as to why gestation is 40 weeks--having kids close in age is HARD and this is God's way of helping you space them out!

Ten Months

Today Lila is ten months old. Planning for her first birthday party is in high swing!

Ten Months = Ten Things

1. In honor of her ten month birthday, she showed her appreciation for the woman who gave birth to her and started saying "ma ma" today!

2. Busy Body is not a strong enough term to label her!

3. She likes to crawl up on Cole's back. He hates it! "She's ON me! Get she off!" (Cole has recently adopted some pronoun issues, but he's not even three yet so cut him some slack.)

4. She hates grass. I tried to sit her in a few days ago... let's just say she was a little upset.

5. She likes to follow me around the house when I vacuum. Which is really good because I vacuum almost daily to prevent her from finding random stuff to eat, a naughty habit she has.

6. A few days ago she danced for the first time. The boys were watching Happy Feet and she started grooving to the tunes.

7. Shoes are her forbidden fruit. The boys are pretty trained to put theirs away when they take them off, but if one is lying around she beelines for it (she looks at you too, knowing she's not supposed to).

8. She's recently abandoned the "Lila Shuffle" (her version of crawling) in lieu of the good ol' fashioned crawl.

9. She still has no teeth. For their first teeth, Mason was 9 months old and Cole was a whopping 14 months. Teething is genetic, therefore I am not holding my breath on this one.

10. Every single day, someone tells me she looks like a doll. It's the blond hair, blue eyes and pale skin that looks like porcelain, if only we could all be so lucky!

Hijinks and Shenanigans

Ah, the sounds of a house with three children. I can tell you they are never quiet ones.

The boys heard Lila wake up from her nap. They are always the first ones scoping out her movements on the video monitor, which follows closely by a fight over who gets to open her door (the things they fight over, I mean honestly....).

They went in there and were playing. I heard three laughing children so I finished the kitchen chores I was doing before heading in there.

They had quite the game going. Mason was taking Lila's pink piggy bank toy, perching it on her crib rail, and watching it fall.

Laughter was had by all. Even by me, because everyone was so happy and cute.

The laughter stopped when I discovered that the oinker was hitting Lila's dresser and scuffing it up. I informed the boys that the game must stop because the dresser was getting a "boo boo."

Cole's answer to the boo boo? A Band-Aid, naturally.

The offending pig. Look closely to note the brown scuff marks on his ear.

Mason was gravely concerned about my reaction to the damage.

Worry not, Mason. Mommy has the Pottery Barn corrector pen that matches this fine furniture! And it works really well.

Recommence laughter!

(Isn't this a great shot?)

Cole, of course, must do what Mason does. (Check out Lila's tongue! She's going to catch a fly in there or something!)

What a way to wake up!

I am in Love

...with this outfit of Lila's.



It's so cute, and sweet, and floral, and comfy looking... it has made me happy all day long. I got it as a baby shower gift back before she was born. She's just now grown into it and I was waiting for good weather, and today's was perfect. (The picture doesn't do its cuteness justice, but isn't that a good looking baby?)

Thank you Carrie and Tonya for gifting this precious outfit to my precious girl!

I'm German, but Lucky too

KISS US!














We're not Irish, but we love kisses!

"May your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow, and may trouble avoid you wherever you go."
~Irish Blessing

Girls are Harder than Boys, I Decree.

This face says it all. "If there's trouble to be had, I will find it."

Lila is into everything. I daresay it's incredible.

Not a day goes by that I'm not fishing something out of her mouth, and before you say it and I have to fight the urge to hurt you, I try really, really, really hard to keep anything off the floor that she can put in her mouth. I am not a frickin' moron.

But I have two little boys who aren't onboard with this plan. When they are sleeping at night I am secretly packing up toys that are dangerous to her. It is still not enough. She eats leaves that the dog drags in. She eats random tiny pieces of paper that somehow land on the floor. She eats the tiniest speck of something that's nearly unseen to the human eye but yet inexplicably she is choking on. Perhaps her most frightening was a screw that came loose off of the coffee table the other night. I caught her right before she was putting it in her mouth. And most recently she found a down feather from the inserts from the throw pillows on the couch.

It is maddening.

She overnight turned into a very active little girl. She has been doing her Lila Shuffle (the army crawl) since before Christmas, but recently she figured out how to pull up on furniture, pull on things and climb up into things like the computer armoire. Last night she cracked her head on the boys' bookshelf as she was standing there, grabbing for some books.

It's very interesting to see her personality come out. She is much more mischievous than either of the boys ever were, even more than they are now. But she's only going to get older and more active, so there's no going back.

In the meantime I'm vacuuming more than a human being should have to, I am scouring the floors for things she'd consider and edible, and I'm constantly worried about her choking, especially since her Heimlich count is up to three now.

I'm exhausted.

WARNING

This is what happens when your mother is trying to feed you dinner and you are too busy squirming and laughing at your brothers' antics to pay attention to the spoon that's coming at you!

Random Thought

I think it's completely disgusting when someone kisses their dog on the mouth. Really people, do you know the places a dog can reach to lick? It is so skeevie. Ew.

Happy Birthday Rey!!!

Today is Rey's 30th Birthday!!

Rey and I have been together for a long time--12.5 years to be exact. I met him when I was 13 years old, but we didn't start dating until a couple of years later. The first birthday of his that we celebrated as a couple was his 18th birthday. It was a landmark birthday, much like his birthday today. I bought him a gold Elgin watch, and never was I so proud of anything as I was of that watch! LOL

Rey and I really have grown up together. We went from being teenagers, to college students, to adults in the workforce, to husband and wife, to parents! Some say you should wait to get married until you become the person you're going to be, but I'm rather pleased at the way we've grown into ourselves side-by-side. Rey has been there for anything in my life that ever mattered, and I like that.

I am so proud of him and so very proud of the 30 year old that he is. People can never believe how young he is/we are because of what a beautiful life we've built and how successful Rey has become. In fact, just before his birthday, Rey got a really great promotion to a job he had set as his goal a couple of years back (time for a new goal honey!). And he really deserved it! I feel lucky to have a husband that works so hard for his family.

Rey deserves to have a great birthday, and he has done such a great job working and taking care of the four of us sicklings over the past week and a half, including this morning when he let me sleep a little extra and took Mason to school for me (this prescription cough syrup the doctor gave me knocks me out!). He deserves to have a great birthday more than anyone ever in the history of birthdays!

So Happy Birthday to the greatest husband-father-son-brother-friend anyone could ask for! We love you!

Dear TLC

I became a loyal watcher of Jon and Kate Plus 8 back at its inception. At the time I was myself a new mother, and I enjoyed watching the show and how this family dealt with everyday situations under their extraordinary circumstances. I especially enjoyed episodes like the one where she showed us how she grocery shopped for so many children and still stuck to a budget. It was relevant and helpful.

Then we spent most of the last couple of seasons watching them take what was no doubt free trip after free trip, from Disney, to skiing, to the North Carolina Beach, to Lego Land, to HAWAII, while many Americans began to struggle financially, even to put food on the table. We’ve had to listen to how they’re “so used” to flying and traveling. Most Americans can’t afford to take their family on one vacation a year, let alone several.

Suddenly the show is becoming less relevant and even less helpful.

It’s bad enough that most of America is now aware that neither of these people work in the traditional sense, but rather survive on what some consider the exploitation of their children. I often wonder what goes on behind the scenes and how these children cope with having cameras constantly present.

Surely you are aware that loyal watchers of this show are mainly moms, and many, I daresay most families are struggling to one degree or another in this economy. If these people weren’t watching, there would be no show. If there was no show, there would be no new mansion for the Gosslins. I feel it was completely insulting to have loyal watchers of this show presented with several episodes of them moving into this new sprawling manse. And it was even worse to hear Kate speak of how her kids “deserve” this—I’m sure there are moms out there who are losing their homes of a more meager variety, and I’m sure their kids deserve to have a home, period, and they are struggling to provide it.

But I think to worst of the worst came with this week’s episode. To see Jon and Kate using their old house as “storage” for three months because they couldn’t be bothered to sell it was disgusting. People are being thrown out on the street and to make a show out of this is unimaginable. To watch Kate throwing away perfectly good things because she deems it “junk” was abhorrent. Surely there’s a family in need, no doubt someone in her neighborhood!

I am rather disgusted with TLC for being so out of touch with its viewers and what is going on with American families. The very people who watched and made this show a success are suffering so greatly right now, and watching this family in this fashion is disrespectful.

Shame on you.

----------------------------------------

I emailed this letter to TLC today. I used to really enjoy that show and now everytime I watch it I end up disguested. I just couldn't take it anymore. There's a lot more that has been annoying me about this show as of late, but I decided to stick to one topic.

Oprah's getting a letter from me next. Last week she had a show on about not being wasteful where she even pointed out that she saves leftover toast) and this week she's having Kate on after Kate's show just aired of her piling up tons of perfectly good things for garbage. I LOVE Oprah, but I just can't let that pass.

Art's Smart

We all have this list--one of things we will never do when we're a mother. You will never yell at your kids, co-sleep, or let your kids eat anything with high fructose corn syrup, insert your own "I will never _____" here (c'mon you know you've got "The List"!)... and if you've been a mother long enough (or in my case to enough children) you know that "never say never" was a phrase written for motherhood and that it's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy that if you say you won't, you will.

One things left of my "Never List"--

PAINTING.

It's not that I have anything against painting, per se. But the idea of my two boys and their tendency to wreak havoc had me shaking in fear of the cleanup. I console my bad mother guilt feelings with the fact that Mason paints plenty at preschool, and Cole will have the chance when he started preschool in the coming months.

So we crayon. We marker. We colored pencil. But we do.not.paint.

Well, ladies and gents, we've been stuck home with cooties for a whopping FIVE days now. THREE CHILDREN. ONE MOTHER. FIVE DAYS. Without so much as a trip to the SuperTarget.

I have used up alllll of my tricks, and believe you me, I have a lot of tricks. So out came the easel that is generally reserved only for chalk drawings. And out came my emergency stash of paints and brushes.

As you can see, they had fun. As you can also see (or read, since I'm still alive to write this) we all survived. It turned out to be a lovely little activity, and in the fresh, 75 degree Florida day, no less. Cole was alarmingly concerned about his dirty hands, though.

A side effect of preschool--Mason always has to have his name on his paper.

A side effect of being a little brother--Cole always has to have what Mason has.

Funny things happen when little boys have runny noses and decide to wipe their snot with paint sullied hands.

Things I Learned

1. A four year old can paint a paper in exactly half the time of a two year old.

2. Yellow and blue DO NOT make green in Crayola paint world--they make an ugly looking brown color.

3. Washable paint REALLY IS washable! I was amazed at how easily their hands cleaned up.

4. It did make a freakin' mess.

5. But I will do it again.

Never say never, people. Never say never.

You Might Be a Workaholic If....

...When you have to come home from work early because the other four members of your family are sick, whilst those four people are sleeping in various corners of the house you retreat to the garage with your laptop and Blackberry and sit on an igloo cooler and work.

Imitation is the Highest Form of Flattery

Cole is extremely interested in Dr. W and his workings. Every time we visit (usually a well visit for Lila, you know what it's like during your baby's first year!), he's always checking out Dr. W's doctor stuff, from his otoscope to his stethoscope to his Mickey Mouse tie. So yesterday, upon arriving home from getting Mason checked out, it makes sense that Cole would grab his Sesame Street Doctor Kit, and give Mason's lungs a listen.

He's such a precocious little boy--I love him!

Sick Boy

Mason has pneumonia.

After his 104 degree fever on Saturday night, he kept up with a 100-101 degree temp on Sunday and Monday. Yesterday he had no fever during the day so I thought the worst was over, but last night he was back up to 102.8.

This morning I called and got him a 10:15 appointment with Dr. W. (I know Mason's sick when he tells me, "I'm sick. I need to go see the doctor.")

Sure enough, Dr. W. listens to his lungs (after me having Mason practice his yoga breathing I taught him the other night, that really came in handy today) and he said he's got pneumonia.

He's on antibiotics and if he's not "remarkably" better by Friday morning he'll need a chest x-ray.

I admit I'm a little nervous because Dr. W was rather *serious* today. And one of my favorite things about him is that he doesn't make a mountain out of a molehill, so if he says you're child is rather sick, you can bet he is. I can't tell you how many times I go in with a sick child and he tells me it's viral and will clear up in x number of days (he's usually eerily accrucate in the recover time also). This is also why I was trying to wait it out, especially after the fever was gone all day yesterday. Now I feel really bad. But Colleen (his really wonderful nurse) assured me there was no way I could have known and that he would have ended up with it anyway.

All the same, you're not a mother if you don't have guilt about some thing or another.

Why am I so freakin' hungry?

Ever since last night, I have been almost constantly hungry. I ate dinner, went to the gym, and then headed to Keri's house to watch the Bachelor finale (that guy is a total tool, BTW).

During the show, I drank two glasses of wine and ate some of Jason's rum cake, which if you're ever offered a piece of that delicious little baked good, take it.

I woke up three times last night, mostly from hearing Mason cough, poor guy. I was starving each time. WTF?

I had breakfast, and I was starting to feel like I could stand a snack 30 minutes later, and was genuinely hungry within an hour. So I snacked an hour earlier than usual. And again, I was hungry in no time.

We had lunch at 11:30 - 11:45, and as I am sitting here typing this not an hour later I feel like I haven't even eaten lunch at all yet! (I have the empty plate of last night's tasty leftovers to prove it.)

So what gives--why am I ravenous? I'm working out a little less actually due to Mason's illness and my subsequent inability to pawn my spawn off on the gym childcare for a couple of brief moments of exercise peace.

And before one of you people pulls out this one on me, I am not pregnant. No way, no how, say a prayer, genuflect, bite your tongue, do something to erase that idea from your head!

P.S. I did have blood work for my physical done yesterday morning in which they extracted a whopping SIX vials of blood from me? Could this be the culprit? I must find someone to blame... it's the American way.