WFMAD, day 8

Last year, I missed the beginning of WFMAD because the girls and I were at the beach with Moomie. Plus, I didn't know about it until I got back from the beach and looked up LHA's website.

This year, I missed a few days because I was in DC and VA with Pete. My beautiful cousin (who apparently reads my blog but never COMMENTS!) got married this past Saturday. Pete and I took advantage of the location and met the Grandpa a few days early and spent some time touring the Smithsonian Museums. Pete had never been to DC so I gave her her choice of things to do (see the monuments, go to the museums, tour the White House, a combination of those, etc.). She picked the museums, and there are plenty of them to fill up 2 days. It was fun. We rode the bus to the Metro station and then rode the Metro to Federal Triangle and then walked and walked and walked and walked all around. Pete was totally comfortable with the public transportation stuff. She'd be a great kid to live in a real city with.

Oh, we did visit one monument, the Washington Monument. Pete put her hands on it. When I asked her what it felt like, she said, "Stone... And history..."

And my cousin's wedding was wonderful. They did a great job of combining Catholic and Jewish traditions. I'd never danced the Horah before! Pete had a great time, too.

Plus, now my cousin and my new cousin live super close to HG's parents, which isn't far from here!

But anyway, I'm back on track with WFMAD. I might even take some time and try some of the ones I missed if I get a minute. Or 15... I'll share a little if I write anything worth sharing!

(And remind me to tell you about the job I applied for...)

Pete Says:

The other day the 4 of us piled into the car for the hour+ drive to Moomie's house. We were about halfway there when Husbandguy said, "There's Santa on a motorcycle."

Pete said, "Where?!" We showed her and she said, disappointed, "Oh. I thought you said Nana on a motorcycle."

Restlessness

Poor Lulu. For the past few nights she has had miserable nightmares. Mostly she just writhes in her bed shrieking and crying, but sometimes she comes out of her room and climbs into HG's or my lap. She's not awake, but she will converse with you. Like you say, "What's scaring you, Lulu," and she says, "Abbert ibble wama markle!" Although sometimes it sounds like, "Abbert ibble HELP DADDY wama NO NO markle!" We just hold her and say things like, "It's okay," and "We're here," and "You're safe," until she calms down and goes fully back to sleep. The other night, though, I managed to redirect her dream so she was eating a popsicle on the front porch at the beach house we vacationed in with Moomie. It was very gratifying the way her body relaxed when I "gave" her the popsicle (in her dream) and asked if she wanted to sit outside to eat it.

Pete has a similar sleep issue. When she's stressed or anxious or excited or overtired, she walks in her sleep. It used to be nightmares but has morphed as she's matured. I'll be surprised if she doesn't pop out of bed a couple of times in the next week, with school starting on Wednesday for her.

Lulu doesn't start school until the next Monday (same school as Pete but new for Lulu and the pre-k kids start later and have staggered entry), but this week there has been a lot of attention paid to her starting school because this was the week we were supposed to find out who her teacher will be and what day she will start, and I've been kind of manic about it. I'm sure that's not helping her anxiety level. Hindsight blah blah blah. Poor kid with the crazy mommy. No wonder she's having nightmares.

So remind me, if I say to you "What's wrong with that kid?!" in the next month or so, that this is a big deal for that little girl and to have peace and to remind HG that she's only 4 and could probably use our patience and understanding as she deals with having to grow up a whole lot all of the sudden.

Holy moly! BIG KID SCHOOL! With reading and math and writing and science and PE! Whoa!

Lulu Cut Her Own Hair

Yes, she did. On the couch. Now she has bangs and a little faux-hawk on top, but I managed to make it all look cute without her looking like Daddy.

sigh

Moomy said that I'm having one of "those weeks."

Which reminded me that I was thinking the other day, as I was writhing in itchy agony, that I should make note of the times when I'm not having one of "those weeks" because sometimes it seems like "those weeks" are all I have!

Project and Consequences

Remember our newest project (click here)? A large portion of it got done on Saturday.

Doesn't it look different (from the picture in the other post)? It reminds me of a public park. You know, usable space surrounded by woods. I have big plans for that area, including a fence for the dog and a deck for the husband and a treehouse for the girls. I've already had a benefit from the new space, a bluebird couple has been spending a TON of time there. They're so pretty. If I had a better camera I'd show you, but they don't come close enough to where I am with my little camera to get a good shot. Also, this morning, the goldfinch, the boy one, was back at the feeder by the kitchen window. Yay! Birds!

On Sunday, I spent time clearing away the vines and brush left on the hill, where I'm hoping we'll be able to grow some grass eventually, but I got distracted by some buried treasure.

Those are some of my great-grandmother's iris bulbs. A decade ago, Moomie and I planted a bunch of them in front of the house, and Moomie took the extras and stuck them in the hill around back. I don't think they ever bloomed, and eventually they got over-grown by a miserable vine and some honeysuckle. I remembered they were somewhere near there but didn't know for certain where until I was clearing away the brush. Now they have their own little bed around the side of the house, which was occupied by a puny boxwood 10 years ago.

Sadly, all of the treasure I got from the hill wasn't so pleasant. I knew there was poison ivy there (Lulu says 'itchy ivus') and I thought I was careful, but the irises were such a nice surprise that I think I might have actually been careless because there is now a giant itchy spot on my right arm right where my arm bends and a smaller itchy spot in the same place on my left arm and itchy spots on my neck and shoulders around the collar of my shirt and also a little one down the right side of my face by my eye. Sigh. Itchy ivus sucks. I've been hitting the bottle pretty hard today...

Still, though, you can see all the way to the creek (should be cool to watch from a safe distance when it rains), and last night I saw a rabbit!

It's like, you know, whatever...

Last night someone I had just met told me that she feels like she knows me. I started to say that I have one of those faces (because I do - seriously - I look like that girl you went to 2nd grade with), but before I could say anything she added, "Because of the Follies. I had fun watching you in the Follies, and I feel like I know you." (first of all, wow! really?)

"Great," I said facetiously, "You know me as Zuzu [a clueless ditz]. That's not good."

And she said, "But I like you!"

We were coming from a meeting at which I managed to have an overwhelming coughing fit and had to leave the room just as the meeting was starting, and when I got back and everyone (EVERYONE) inquired whether I was okay, I said, "I'm just trying to get out of participating." Am I clever or what?

Don't say "Or what," because you'll hurt my feelings. Unless you're being funny. Then you'll only mock-hurt my feelings.

Back on track: It's been a long time since anyone outside of the Follies 2010 Writing Team has mentioned Zuzu (not counting my kids) or me in the Follies at all. It was cool of her to say something because, frankly, the glow was starting to wear off for me. Sure, I'm all participatey in the writing of the Next Big Show with all my funny suggestions and whatnot (at least 2 of my ideas are definitely IN the show in October), and that's cool and creative and those 6 people on the team with me appreciate me, but with all the other stuff, the house not selling, me messing up Lulu's educational future, the dog costing $80,000,000,000 and not having anything wrong with her, I haven't seen my mom in forever and she's only an hour away, etc., etc., etc... WHIIINE... Where was I? Oh, right. It was nice to feel special for a moment.

And isn't it weird that she was so affected by my performance that she remembers it even now, 5 months later? Maybe not weird, but... you know.

New Stuff

MN, Didn't You Mention a New Writing Project? Remember when I posted about NaNoWriMo and mentioned that I had another thing I was going to be working on (Rae @ Us in Tejas is doing NaNoWriMo, by the way - and The Grandpa)? So Thursday before this last one, it started. My new project.

What?! What Is It, Already?! I joined a writing program at my church called "Writing Your Spiritual Journey." The end goal is for us to each create a rough draft of our own spiritual autobiography by the end of the... um... seminar (? I'm at a loss for what to call it... It's not really a class...). I joined because I thought it might help me answer the question, "Why am I a UU?" but I'm not so sure it's really going to do that. So far it looks to be an exploration of our definition of "spiritual" and events in our life that we might call spiritual. What's cool is that everyone in the class seems to have a different definition of spirituality so there is bound to be some good food for thought.

Huh? So at our first meeting, the leader had us draw a picture of a place from our childhood that we considered spiritual. I drew the mulberry tree in Moomie's parents' front yard because at my grandparents' house I felt safe and free and in touch with my spiritual self. Then she gave us the assignment to write about a moment from our childhoods when we felt spiritual. It seemed like this moment might possibly have happened in the spiritual place (for lack of a better term, but you know what I mean, right?), but I couldn't think of one there (until later). The moment I have chosen to write about didn't even happen in the same state. But it was. Spiritual. And it has been followed by similar spiritual moments throughout my whole life, and when those moments are missing from my life, I don't feel quite whole.

Are You Bored Yet? I am not sure that I am going to come away from this with a "spiritual autobiography," as she claimed, because to me that should include the questions in addition to the certainties. But I think I will at least have a clearer idea of when I feel most spiritual and will be able to explain it to other people. Better than I'm doing now. Hopefully...

Phooey!

First... Thank everyone for the help with our showing on Tuesday. It went so well that they immediately scheduled a second showing on Saturday. Tuesday was the wife, and Saturday was her bringing her husband by to show him what she'd found. Cool! We made the list!

So... I thought about asking for your positive energy again on Saturday but decided not to since I've been a terrible blog-friend, barely posting, rarely reading, never commenting. It felt like I was using you. I didn't like it. I was afraid you wouldn't like it. And also we had another first-time showing scheduled for Saturday. It looked like a potentially really great day.

We cleaned up and cleared out... We spent the afternoon with Moomie, who kept apologizing that she didn't have anything for me to do, but I was enjoying the company that is so pleasant and so rare for me during the summer and didn't mind at all. I showed her how to play Farmville on Facebook...

But then... I called home to check our messages after the 2 showings were scheduled to be over, and... sigh... the second showing had canceled. They didn't even come back at all. I don't know why. Maybe they found the perfect house among one of the few they saw before ours. Maybe the lack of extra energy had a muffling effect on the brilliance that is the life-to-be in this house. Maybe St. Joseph's feet need to be buried more than just by mulch (he's all the way up to his ankles in dirt - I just couldn't get any deeper). I don't know. I just don't know. It was discouraging, though.

'Sokay, tho The other showing did happen. I know because I left a dozen chocolate chip cookies on a plate on the (brand new, super cool) range, and when we got home there were only 8 left. We haven't heard anything about that, but it was just yesterday and today is Sunday so I'm not concerned or anything. And also, the house has only been listed for 10 days and this is only the second weekend we've been on the market and our agent has a broker open house scheduled for later this week and 2 showings in 10 days is pretty good in this market I think.

Still... It would be nice if this is a unexpectedly short experience rather than a tediously long one.

And then? There were these pigs? And they all had wings!

Clean? Really? Nuh-uh! I should have taken a "before" picture because the "after" photo is way more impressive if you know what it was like... um... before. Let me try to paint you a picture instead. Close your eyes. NO! Wait! Don't do that. That won't work. First, read and memorize this description and then close your eyes. See how there is carpet on the floor, all around the bed, even under the window? Imagine, if you can, that you cannot see the carpet. Instead what you see everywhere is one big pile of dolls and paper and blankets and animals and books and teenytiny toys. In some places, the pile is 2+ feet deep. Now imagine that the carpet has been MIA for weeks, no, for months. I had stopped going in there, really. Since I couldn't get to the bed, Pete hadn't had sheets on her bed in weeks. I gave her the sheets and told her I'd help her put them on if she cleaned up enough for me to get to the bed. See now? It's all made up. See? And it only took about 3 hours of work to find the carpet!

Buried Treasure We found all kinds of stuff in there. Pete's been complaining that she doesn't ever have any pencils to write with. We found a shoebox full. One at a time, we found them and put them into the shoebox. We found raisins and lollipops and ew. They have all been thrown away and the no-food-in-your-room rule has been reiterated. Speaking of throwing away, we found 2 kitchen-size trash bags full worth of trash.

What Happened? So why the sudden change? After months of living among the mess, why did Pete decide now that her room needed to be cleaned? This: Husbandguy and I bought the Hannah Montana Season 3 Soundtrack and put it on a high shelf in our closet and told Pete she could have it if she cleaned her room. That's not exactly a bribe, right? Because we probably would have gotten it for her anyway at some point. But it was her idea to actually do it. She got up yesterday morning and said, "Mom? Would you help me clean my room today?" and I said yes and then we sent HG and Lulu away and dove in. When we finished, Pete wasn't all give-me-my-CD-now like I thought she'd be. She just seemed satisfied that we'd finished her room. In fact, it was several hours before she even asked for it.

Basking Each of us, Pete, HG, Lulu, and I, have found ourselves wandering around in Pete's room, enjoying the clean just because we can. Pete's pretty proud of herself (I am too) and looked a lot better rested when she emerged this morning than she has all summer. Who knows how long the clean will last. I'm going to try to remind her to put her things away, but it's really up to her.

Comments from People Who Saw the "Before"
the Grandpa said: "That can't be her room!"
Moomie said: "Good thing you took a picture!"

A Meme

Septembermom did not tag me for this so I stole it (and I am not taking it personally that she didn't tag me since I've been terrible about posting...).

The Rules for this meme:

1. Respond and rework. Answer the questions on your blog. Replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, and add one more question of your own.

2. Tag other people.

What is your current obsession? Cosette. She is all I can think about. I can't wait for Dawn to send more photos. Next week she'll be big enough for us to go and see her in person. Aw! I can't wait!!

What are you wearing today?
My comfy old shorts with purple paint stains (that the guy at the pottery place said would come out when Pete accidentally painted me but which didn't) and a hole where Howie's claw caught them. Also my blue 3/4-sleeve shirt that I love almost as much as my stripey 3/4-sleeve shirt.

What’s for dinner?
Not sure yet. The girls had sandwiches of their choice, but I'm waiting for Husbandguy to get back from Pete's swimming lesson and we'll eat together.

What would you eat for your last meal?
Hmm... That's a tricky one... Would it include meat? Probably not. Probably something southwestern flavored with black beans and cheddar cheese. And chocolate cake, moist and dark with little or no icing, for dessert.

What relaxes you the most?
I had a funny answer, but it might raise alarms. It has to do with a prescription my neurologist gives me when I'm on steroids. Actually, it is accurate to say that Xanax relaxes me the most, but not the most often. That honor would go to reading, I think. Or a quiet house with no conflict...

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Maine. On the beach. With my notebook.

Which language do you want to learn?
Spanish. Definitely Spanish. Then I could talk to the neighbors. And anyone else who speaks Spanish but not English.

What do you love most about where you currently live?
Our next-door neighbors, even though we can't talk to them without an interpreter (something thankfully usually available in the form of a grandchild). I am on a mission to move to a bigger kitchen house in the very near future and wish I could take them with us.

What style is your current home decorated in?
Early Boarding House. This is a term I heard from someone when I was younger (Moomie, if it was you, take credit in the comments, okay?) and it is appropriate, I think.

If you were a time traveler what era would you live in?
I would want to go to the future and see how everything works out. Far enough into the future that some of the big questions have been answered.

What is your favorite color?
Blue. I am a big fan of just about any color, but blue is the best.

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe?
The shorts I mentioned above. They are comfy and fit just right.

What were you doing ten years ago?
I was still technically a newlywed (1.5 years) and enjoying my 20's. No kids. No curfew. *sigh*

If you had $300 now, what would you spend it on?
Cosette. Shhh...

What are you going to do after this?
Put Lulu in a bubble bath and finish folding the laundry that I washed on Monday and Tuesday (don't judge me!). I might write a little if I am inspired.

What are your favorite films?
I really, really like "Ever After." Maybe that's cheesy, but I'm a sucker for Cinderella. Oh! Also I love "Cinderella." And "The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh." And I loved those movies even before I had daughters. I can't think of any grown-up movies right now.

Your favorite books?
My 2 most favorite books of all time are "Little Women," which my dad introduced me to when I was in the 2nd grade and "A Prayer for Owen Meany," which I discovered on my own as a result of raiding my oldest brother's bookshelf. He didn't have that book, but he had a bunch of other ones by John Irving and I had to have more! (Do you want those books back, by the way, Big Brother?)

Do you collect anything?
I used to collect elephants and still have an elephant collection and welcome new elephants as gifts, but I don't actively collect them on my own at the moment. Oh, but I do collect recipes. And then I don't follow them...

What makes you follow a blog?
Humor, good writing. I also follow the blogs of people I know personally, which usually also include humor and good writing, which says something about the circles I move in, maybe.

What was the most enjoyable thing you did today?
I had a veggie sausage on a mini bagel for breakfast. It was kind of downhill after that, unfortunately.

Ann's Question:What makes you comment on a blog?
If something in a post really strikes me, I usually leave a comment. I also like to leave comments every now and then to encourage bloggers I enjoy to continue blogging.

Amy's Question:What is your favorite thing to do when you have some free time?
Writing, reading, baking. Not in that order. Not sure what the order would be, though...

Tonya's question:What is a talent you wished you had?
I wish I knew more about decorating. It would be nice to put a name to my tastes and be able to find more things that appeal to me.

Gena's question:As you may know, I am all about "Serene Moments", so what is your "Serene Moment"?
I am woefully short on "Serene Moments" these days.

Noelle's question: If you could go to heaven who would you see, and why?
My grandparents. I miss each and every one of them and don't feel like I learned as much from them as I should have.

Vickie's question: Who is your favorite actor?
Oh, I don't know. Oh yes I do! It's Lulu. She is SOOOOO dramatic!!

Kelly's question: What was your favorite subject in school? I really enjoyed my language classes. English, Spanish, and Latin. It was fun to learn the history of the languages and their literature.

My Question: What do you want to be when you grow up? Or if you've already achieved that goal, what was it? I would like to be a published author. I think I'd like to see my children's fiction published, but even getting this most recent short story in a journal or something would count. I'm not trying very hard to achieve my goal, yet. Guess I should grow up...

Do I have to tag someone, even if I stole the meme? I guess I should. I'll tag Princess Sparklepants, ...45+aA, and Mommy T. You know, if you guys want to...

Sleeping Like a Baby

It's All a Blur: What does that mean, anyway? "Sleep like a baby." Neither of my girls had consistently peaceful sleep as babies. Pete suffered first from night terrors and then from actual nightmares. She also had many ear infections, for which the only indication she would give us that she was sick was that she wouldn't go to bed. Now she wanders around the house all un-awake (but she's not a baby anymore). Lulu just refused (and refuses) to go to sleep at night. I don't remember exactly what the problem was (probably because I've been in somewhat of a sleep-deprived fog for 3+ years), but I do remember having this conversation with her doctor several times at check-ups: Dr.: "Is she a good sleeper?" Me: "Oh no! She's a terrible sleeper!"

The End of an Era: One thing about sleeping babies: they take naps. Naps are nice, especially if you're not the one actually napping. They are times when another, not-napping person can get things done - showering, folding laundry, watching grown-up TV, blogging... Lulu, until recently, has always been a pretty good napper. Suddenly, though, she's all anti-nap! No way is she sleeping while the sun is so high in the sky. Oh, she'll pretend to rest until I close the door, but when I go in to check on her 10 or so minutes later, her big-girl bed will be empty, and she'll be sitting in her rocking chair or the big bear-shaped hamper thing we keep her animals in, not sleeping. And on the days she actually does sleep, getting her to go to bed on time or to stay in bed past 5:30 the next morning is pretty much impossible. So, executive decision, no more naps for Lulu. Except on special occasions.

So Far So Good: She gets really tired mid-afternoon, and had to be roused in the car on the way to Target after dinner last night so as not to spoil bedtime ("Don't you dare go to sleep, young lady!" said Mom, noticing that the weight of Lulu's eyelids had apparently become unbearable. "Giggle, giggle," said Lulu, pretending to sleep again. But it worked).

Night Vision Necessary: It's hard on me, though. I think I'm going to have to give up "All My Children" because I don't want her watching that crap with me, and Husbandguy doesn't like it enough to watch it with me after bedtime every night. I mean, he'll watch it, but through his eyelids, and I'd have to turn it way up to hear clearly over the snoring. That's probably for the best, come to think of it. But blogging? Showering? Folding laundry? *Sigh* Once upon a time I could do those things when the sun was high in the sky. Not barely breaking the horizon or on the other side of the earth...

The Importance of Family: If I scratch Pete's back, sometimes she'll let Lulu play near her for a while. That's what's going on right now. But Pete is 7 and prefers to be secluded, and also their Cooperative Play seems to frequently end in an emergency meeting about Peaceful Conflict Resolution. So not a perfect solution.

What's Next? With it being summer and us not signing anyone up for camp this year, I'm having a little trouble with the whole no-nap thing because I don't get any alone time. At all. Even those few minutes in the bathroom when alone time can usually be expected are often interrupted by knocking or barging-in or wails of, "MO-OM!" from the other room. Husbandguy has promised to take the girls to the park or the mall or whatever from time to time on the weekends, but so far he's always looked hurt when I've tried to get out of coming along. So that hasn't happened. Yet. I'll figure something out, though. I've got church, and I start a music class tomorrow night that is every other Wednesday for the next few weeks (3 classes), and that's just me. Also, Moomie has offered to take the girls overnight to her house, and I think that's going to happen during the week so I'll have a few hours to myself after they leave and before HG gets home.

Perspective: Two months from now I'll be getting all nostalgic and weepy because school will be looming and my special time alone with my girls will be nearly over. But then I'll have more time for you!!

There was this movie on the other day about mutant flies that swarm people and bite them and then they die and make more flies

Three weeks ago there was a terrible smell in my kitchen. I checked my onions and potatoes and refrigerator and ran the dishwasher and the disposal and looked everywhere for whatever I had neglected that caused this problem. It was very stinky. Husbandguy even noticed it and he has a limited sense of smell (which is probably actually an average sense of smell but which seems limited when compared to Pete's and my Super Sniffers which we inherited from Moomie). We eventually decided that the smell was coming from behind the dishwasher, but HG couldn't get it out of the counter by himself and promised that he would have his dad help him after they put in the new range and micorwave. The range and micorwave took them all day to do, though, and the smell problem was neglected. It had gotten less stinky and HG couldn't smell it anymore and probably thought it was all better. It wasn't all better, but it was less noticeable, sometimes even I didn't smell it. It's lazy, I know, and gross to leave it, but give me a break, okay?

The thing is, though, that yesterday we started getting these GIANT FLIES in our kitchen and all I can think is that they've come from whatever was making the smell. Oh it's terrible. On the plus side, they're attracted to the windows so are easy to find and they're slow so are easy to suck up with the vacuum hose and HG's dad is coming next weekend and now HG is committed to finding the problem.

I'm a little concerned that what they'll find is our poor kitty who disappeared last fall (click here to read about that). Please keep your fingers crossed that they don't.

If we were to call a professional to help us with this. who would we call? A bug guy? Some kind of contractor? Does anyone know?

More from Moomie

April second
Precipitation
Water falls

Moomie: Guest Poet Extraordinaire

My friend considers April First
As his own special holiday;
In times gone by you wouldn't know
What kind of tricks he just might play;
But now the structured working world
So frequently gets in the way.

No more clocks turned up-side down,
No more squirrels a-dangling,
No more phone lines switched around,
No more chair wheels jangling!

Still its fun to think about
The cheerful days back then -
When my friend worked til 2 AM
To get done 'fore openin'
And then for all to laugh and sigh
While tangles we were sortin'.

Happy April Fools Day!!

Thank you, Moomie, for starting off the guest poet-ing. I look forward to more!!

Some Thoughts About Food (just to warn you)

The other day I saw an ad for a pizza that was absolutely blanketed in pepperoni, and I had mixed feelings. The pizza looked... good? I guess, but I didn't want it exactly. I didn't want to eat pepperoni, but I did want the satisfied feeling I used to get from eating pepperoni. I realized then that I had been feeling a little lost. It seemed like all I was eating was beans and rice and veggie burgers, and frankly, that's boring. You know? That's not all I eat, but it felt that way.

And then I checked my email and I had a fantastically well-timed note from my friend A-ME, who is way better at Being Vegetarian than I am because she's been doing it longer. The note was all full of advice and resources and exactly what I was needing. You know the biggest thing I got from her email, though? I should buy a vegetarian cookbook. Duh! How am I supposed to know what to eat? I have never been a big vegetable eater. I like grains and legumes, and every day I find that more and more vegetables aren't as gross as I thought they were (like mushrooms), but I have very little experience with most of them and so felt lost. Not lost enough to want a ham sandwich (even an accidental one), though.

Husbandguy and I had some nice time to ourselves this past weekend. Moomie took the girls for Friday night and all day Saturday so we went to the bookstore. Usually this is kind of a production unless we end up just spending all of our time in the children's section so it was nice to be able to browse the cookbooks without having to say every 10 seconds, "Just a minute, sweetie. Mommy is looking for something. We'll go look at your books in a minute." And I found a useful volume with a ton of information about the different whole foods vegetarians eat and a lot of yummy-sounding recipes that are cross-referenced in the info section. So if I happen to have an eggplant on hand and am wondering what I can do with an eggplant and why I should eat it in the first place, I can look in The Vegetarian Cook's Bible and learn all about eggplant and quickly flip to recipes in which I can use it. Who knows if this is the best vegetarian cookbook or not. At least I've got some help now. And I feel a little more confident. Thanks, A-ME, by the way.

I still don't want to eat pepperoni. I'm not grossed out by it or anything, but it doesn't look like food to me anymore. My family loves it, and HG would live on it if he could, but I'd as soon pluck the leaves off the holly bush by the driveway and eat them. So there's progress!

More Evidence of Her Genius

This morning, Moomie came over for a few minutes to drop off my birthday present (thank you, Moomie!). She was just going to stay for a little bit because the girls and I had plans to go meet Husbandguy for lunch. Pete's been wanting to check out the cafeteria in his building. When we were getting ready to leave, Lulu announced that she didn't want to go - she wanted to stay home with her g-ma. Moomie was fine with that (thank you, Moomie!), but Lulu is only 2 so we asked her a dozen different ways if that was what she really wanted. Apparently it was. She never changed her answer. As I was heading out the door with Pete, Lulu suddenly wailed, "Noooooo!" I thought she'd realized we were leaving her and she was going to change her mind. I thought she'd say, "I wanna go toooooo!" Like an average 2 year-old would. When I asked her what was wrong, this happened:

LL: I just have a question.
MN: What's that, kiddo?
LL: Tomorrow? Can I come with you to lunch with Daddy?

I made a deal with her that she and I would have lunch with Daddy later in the week because how could I not? My Very Small Child wanted 2 things. These things conflicted in such a way that she couldn't have both today, and she knew that. And she, with her Very Small Giant Brain, solved this problem in a very grown-up way. All on her own.

• I want 2 things.
• I can only have one now.
• I'll make sure Mom knows that I'd like to have the other one later.

She's not 2. Nuh-uh.

Update - 7:55PM: Just before dinner, Lulu explained to me that the reason she had Lip Smackers smeared all over her face was that she was too young to know better.

The Black

Pete and her BFF had a sleepover this past weekend (BFF came here). They watched The Black Stallion, which Pete got for Christmas. Have you seen it? It had been a while since I had. I had forgotten that the movie is kind of light on dialogue, which isn't necessarily a good thing when you're 6 and 7, so I was keeping an eye out for first grade boredom and was surprised to see that neither little girl lost interest. They watched were swept up in the whole movie. BFF even took it upon herself to explain the parts that she thought Lulu or I might not understand ("The ship is tipping over." "The horse is going to save him." "There was a storm. That's why the ship tipped over."). I was worried for a moment because there is potential for the movie to have a very sad ending, and I wasn't sure how my not-quite-emotionally-savvy 7 year-old would handle that, but it didn't. But here's the thing: She cried anyway! Moomie, she's got it too! That Super Empathy you and I share, you know? Poor kid. I've learned to squelch mine because Husbandguy just laughs at me, but she broke down when the credits finished and crawled into his lap and he hugged her and rubbed her back and didn't laugh at all. What, you ask, did I do? I left the room. Seriously. Because it breaks my heart to see my girls honestly emotional (crocodile tears don't get to me), and I had to busy myself seeking out a pillow for BFF so I didn't get all weepy too. She said she liked the movie, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to watch it again, but I bet we do...

Here It Is, Moomie

This is the post I was looking for. It's about our Nutcracker experiences last year. We were both right, Moomie.

Like Sands through the Hourglass...

Okay, parents (meaning my parents and other parents of grown ups), was there ever an instant when we (your children) were little and it occurred to you that one day we would be grown-ups doing just what you were doing at that very moment? That happened to me with Pete the other day, and it was weird. What's it like? Having your little sweeties (I'm assuming you thought of us that way) all adult-like and with responsibilities. Do you miss us as little guys? Because I'm finding it hard to imagine my little sweeties in their 30's, putting their kids in time out and teaching them to tie their shoes and going to work and driving and having credit cards and cats or dogs with litter boxes or leashes. I suppose that's why it takes so many years for people to actually grow up, so the parents have time to get used to it. It's gradual and maybe not too noticeable? It's still weird, though.

Giving

Yesterday, Pete graciously unwittingly gave a bunch of toys and books that she has outgrown to her sister. When I cleaned her room.

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My family, at least a large part of it, has decided that Christmas is only for children and that the grown-ups don't need gifts. I understand this - it's easier, less expensive, blah, blah, blah - but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it. Honestly, I like to get presents. I also like to give them. There is joy in either action. But I'm fine with it, I suppose. I wouldn't mind too much if Husbandguy's family ever gave me anything. Christmas with them for me is like watching someone else's family open gifts. I know I'm whining. It just sucks that I have to twist Moomie's arm to convince her to let me give them a fruitcake.