mothermayi

Mama's lil' Dessert Man

I just came downstairs from putting Tennessee down for a nap.  He was still pretty worked up from a pre-nap melt down, so I asked him to tell me about what kind of birthday cake he would like this year.  He likes talking about cake so much that this kind of discussion usually calms him right down.  Today was no exception.

I asked him what kind of cake he would like.  He replied that he would require a Spiderman Cookie Monster cake.  I asked if he wanted a doughnut cake.  He said nooooo, just regular cake with Cookie Monster and Spiderman on top.  Then I asked what kind of refreshments we should serve.  He replied “Futhzzz.”  I cast around for a while trying to figure out what word he was saying until I landed on fudge.  I asked if he really wanted fudge at his party (he has only had fudge once a year ago on a trip to the beach).  He said yeah, and that he would need doughnuts on top of his Spiderman Cookie Monster cake.  I started to laugh.  I asked if he wanted the fudge on top of the cake too.  He told me it should go on the side.  I laughed harder.  He looked up at me with most serious eyes and said.  “Ith nod a joke mama.”  I am glad my little buddy has such strong feelings about dessert.  It makes me think we might be good  friends when he is all grown up. 

Dreaded Rice

Kenneth and the kids gave me a rice cooker for Mother’s Day.  There were also flowers and pancakes and hand crafted gifts from the kids (my recycled pop bottle/decoupage vase is of the finest quality).  The rice cooker was really the big deal though.  I have a rice disability.  Since I first started cooking as a young girl; I have been making burnt hard or soggy gross rice since. It doesn’t matter how many recipes I follow, or friends I ask for tips, I just can’t do it right.  Oh, there have been good pots of rice over the years.  What is that old quote about monkey and a room full of typewriters and Shakespeare?   Every once in a while, never when I am trying to serve guests, I make a great pot of rice.  Then I go buy a lottery ticket.  The silliest part of the whole thing, is that I am a fairly adept cook.  I can do things to a potato that would make a Peruvian squeal with joy.  I guess rice just isn’t my starch.

So, Kenneth took the kids to the house wares store and picked out a beauty.  It is shiny and pretty compact, two of my favorite things in a kitchen appliance.  Yesterday I planned to make stir fry, give that little rice cooker a chance to shine.  At the last minute, I decided to make a day trip to Astoria to do a little research for a novel I am trying to write.  I had a lovely lunch and discovered that Astoria, gem of a town that she is, is not the right setting for my story.  My trip to Astoria also served my love for avoiding things that I am frightened of.  What could I possibly be frightened of?  The rice cooker. 

What if I can’t make rice, even with a rice cooker?  What if I am just that inept?  I was not consciously avoiding my fear of rice, but after dinner, I realized what I had done, and had to confess.  Instead of setting the rice cooker before I left, I called while I zipped along hwy. 30 on my way my home and asked Kenneth to start the shiny little rice machine.  Then I got home and started cooking stir fry, and micromanaging his use of the rice cooker.  Did you set the timer?  How many minutes are left?  Did you rinse the rice?  Did you read the directions?  Is all that steam really supposed to come out of there?  Really?  Then it was done.  And it was soggy and gross.  He had added the water up to the measurement on the side of the bowl without the rice being present, leaving the thing with too much water.  I had left over spaghetti noodles cooked that I threw into the stir fry and we had a great dinner.  A great dinner and I managed to not be the one to screw up rice in a supposedly screw up proof machine.  Best Mother’s Day present yet.  I am going to go read those directions one more time, and conquer my fear of rice cookery.  Tomorrow.

T-ball...Again

My personal war in my own mind that I was waging against T-ball has finally come to an end.  I lay down my sword.  T-ball is good fun for the whole family.  I am not just saying that either.  Last week the whole family, Grampa Rod included, went to see one of Lucy’s 6 PM games.  Those are the games I resent the most, they don’t end until bedtime, and my little sweet pea always has the baggy eyes of crabby-ness the next day.  The sun was (gasp!) shining, there were tons of kids playing, and the t-ballers seemed to be having a really great time flocking to the ball in a herd and failing to throw the ball, once shagged, anywhere near first base. 

Grampa Rod and Tennessee played a toddler/old man version of soccer while KP and I watched the game together.  We even held hands a little bit.  It was like a mini date.   From this day forward, I promise not to hate t-ball, even when it takes up four hours a week of precious family time, even when I have to volunteer in the snack shack (which was surprisingly fun after all), even when it is my turn to bring snack. 

Tennessee Day

Tennessee and I had a whole day alone together today.  Lucy and I had hundreds of days alone together in her tiny kid days.  She had the benefit of having parents that didn't know many other parents.  All day every day was Lucy day.  Even on the days that Lu goes to school, Tennessee and I often hang out with friends, go to the gym or run errands.  Not today; today was Tennessee day. 

We played all morning.  I let him use the vacuum (he loves it and I am hoping I can ease him on into being a champion floor cleaner).  Then we went to Fred Meyer and bought herb starts, a pair of size 9 flip flops decorated with a dinosaur and a corn dog.  It was a beautiful day for planting plants and eating corn dogs.  After the plants were planted and the corn dog inhaled, we read books until he passed out on my shoulder drooling.  He napped for a hour, then we split a juice box and he tried to figure out how to walk in flip flops.  I had a great time watching, he got frustrated and switched to fireman rain boots. 

Then; it was time to change shoes again and pick up Lucy from school.  He was noticeably bummed.  I tried to cheer Tennessee, and now Lucy (apparently her brother yelling "I don't like you!  Go back to thchool!"  all the way home gets a gal down) by letting them plant marigold and zinnia seeds in little pots.  Nothin' doin'  those two bitched and bickered at each other until dinner time.  Then all through dinner, then while Tennessee sat in the bath, Lu hollered bossy instructions from the hall.  I finally turned on the TV out of sheer weakness.  I think Tennessee might need more alone time...I know I do.

Resentful

My big eyed boy is pushing me over the edge.  He doesn't mean to.  He just can't sleep at night.  To be honest, when I can't sleep at night, I often contemplate waking up Kenneth to see if he wants to chat a little.  Tennessee has been waking up around 12:30 AM for the last four nights.  I get him back to sleep, sometimes in our bed, sometimes I walk him back upstairs, then he wakes up to greet the day at 5:30 AM.  I might as well start breast feeding him again for all the sleep I have been getting.  Maybe that is what he is shooting for...

His 12:30 awakening is the trickiest.  When I come back up from the deepest darkest part of my sleep to greet his little tired face, I am at my very crabbiest.  His need to snuggle,chat and kick me in the ribs makes me feel kind of murdery.  Now, in the light of day, I wonder if he has been having nightmares.  Maybe he is worried about keeping his job down at the finger painting mines?  Maybe he feels anxious about his birthday coming up in two weeks?  Do two and three quarter year olds get worried about getting old?  I feel a little sad about not being able to be more understanding.  Sad, but mostly just tired.

Dessert

I have had it with dessert.  It begins as soon as Tennessee sits down to dinner.  It doesn't matter what kind of dinner it is; it could be the plainest of mac and cheese from a box along side the most delectable carrot sticks with the saltiest of ranch, it doesn't matter.  As soon as he has his napkin on his lap, Mr. T wants to know about dessert.  What are we having for dessert?  How many bites does one need to take to get dessert? No matter the number of required bites, his response is always "AWWWW thath's too much yucky dinner!"  He then gobbles his dinner lickety split, and starts hounding us to finish ours so that he can have dessert.  Grrrr.

His sister, the pickiest child in the world, does not practice this form of parental harassment, she knows better.  Lucy and I had this same dispute in 2007.  She just rides along on the tide of his tirade, followed by my lack of effective behavior modification and happily eats the dessert her brother haggles and screeches out of me.  Apparently, whining at Tennessee to "Pleeeeease stop pestering meeeee while I eeeeat...." isn't a good enough reason for him to stop.  Tonight though, I am done.  From this day forward (or until Kenneth can't take it anymore), there will be no more dessert after dinner.  I am by no means making them go treat free, (is a life free from ice cream and cookies really worth living?) just no more automatic sweetie after supper.  I predict that tomorrow evening shall suck.

Mustache Season

Every year, Kenneth grows a mustache.  It starts with him not shaving for a few days.  Then he trims around the edges.  That is my signal that this isn't just a weekend break from shaving, but the dawn of impending facial hair.  It is a sad time for me.

Don't get me wrong, he looks just as handsome as ever.  In a way it is kind of interesting to be married to a guy with a zany mustache, or the biker dude, or the creepy John Waters style 'stache (okay, that one was pretty strange even for me) for a few months.  It is when the actual contact with the prickly thing comes in that I pine for the end of mustache season.  It is scratchy and icky and I do not love it. 

I try to be patient about mustache season.  Kenneth has endured some pretty heinous hair experiments not to mention the months following the birth of our children when showering, let alone shaving my legs or anything else was a distant memory.  I try to let it get good and bushy before I get too serious about boycotting lip on lip contact.  But the day inevitably comes.  The day when I just can't kiss that other guy with facial hair one more time.  Surprisingly, that thing usually disappears pretty quick.  It is probably my amazing smooching skills.  Yeah, that's it. 

The Grass

Yard work is one of those things that can weigh heavy on a marriage, like toilet seat etiquette, and religious views.  Over the years, Kenneth and I have worked out a tenuous relationship wherein I do all the flower beds and vegetables, and he mans the grass.  I have always had a pretty bad allergy to grass, and he was raised mowing the lawn.  We bought a gas powered mower after we bought the house, over the last year it has not been working very well.  I got it tuned up, but the problem persists. 

This spring, our grass is growing, and our mower…she is no longer up to mowing.  I decided that we should really stop using a gas powered mower.  They are loud and bad for the environment.  Most of the people on our street use push mowers.  Our yard isn’t that big.  Even better, our neighbors/good friends already have a push mower that I offered to get serviced and sharpened in trade for using it for the summer.  Kind of a push mower test run, if you will.  Kenneth stayed pretty quiet while I made all of these decisions, about the grass, that he mows, and weeds, and enjoys walking on with his sweet bare feet.  I noticed the quiet, but the terrier in my heart just kept right on jumping and barking.

My allergies have been much better lately, and since I did notice the quiet of my husband, and I was barging into already managed territory of household duty, I thought I better mow with the push mower myself before I made my final decree.  Holy Mother of GAWD!  Using a push mower on moss infested soggy Oregon lawn is HARD!  That must be why eventually, most of our neighbors come by to borrow our gas powered mower.  I might as well have been pushing a Fiat around the yard for how difficult it was.  Then! on top of sweating and grunting to cut the grass, I had to rake the whole freaking yard when I was done…no handy bag of clippings on the back.  I will be investigating these fancy electric powered mowers I have heard so much about, and doing more push-ups in the morning.  No decrees from me, no siree.