Pants Please

Even apart it appears my husband and I are on the same wavelength. Did you pick up any pants for us? You see, while Papa is basking in the sun of SoCal we are freezing our tails off on the other coast. Right now it’s ten degrees, feels like zero. And to add insult to injury we have no pants. Actually no, we have no clean pants. Cold weather at the urchin abode means no clothes washing. Somewhere in the walls of the house a little ice dam has formed in the drain trap effectively bringing all laundering of clothes to a screeching halt until we thaw out. I could — and sometimes do — pour hot water down the drain and hope it reaches the frozen block with enough heat to melt it. But this requires some careful supervision of the washing machine while it’s running to stop it in case that little dam is ornery enough to resist the heat and send all the soapy water back out the way it came — all over the floor, and then through the ceiling to the floor below. And as it turns out there are two cases of bronchitis that are requiring my undivided attention — according to the doctor Tristan has a very bad case so I guess Katie has what he would describe as a normally bad case — not to mention my own sinus infection which knocked me flat at the end of last week. So Papa, if you’re reading this, please send pants. Otherwise we’ll have to resort to drastic measures…

Life is a Highway

Katrina is obsessed with the movie Cars. She watches it all the time and when she’s not watching it she wishes she was watching it. We try to keep screen time to a minimum around here but with me being sick and her giving up her nap she’s been watching Lightning McQueen more than I care to admit. And since he’s so cool her Daddy got her the Cars soundtrack so we can listen to it while we’re in the car. Actually, we don’t listen to the whole soundtrack, just two songs. Yes, I am one lucky lady.

So, last week we’re coming home from preschool and Katie starts singing along to the song Life Is A Highway which was re-made for the movie by Rascal Flatts. I was more than slightly freaked out by this since I can remember dancing in the gym of my high school to this song circa 1991. Seriously? My kid is already singing remakes of songs from my teenage years? You wouldn’t believe how old that makes you feel. On the upside, at least I knew all the words.

Natural Childbirth

One minor benefit of having given birth by Caesarean section is that when your toddler asks you how she was born you can answer, Dr. N got you out of Mommy’s tummy in all honesty. After Tristan was born Katie realized more clearly that Dr. N had cut my tummy to get Tristan out but still no further discussion of alternatives, until yesterday:

Mommy, how did baby Jesus get out of Mary’s tummy because there was no doctor there?

Um, yeah, that’s the conversation we had. When I told her how, I could see her puzzled face in the rearview mirror and she said,

Well that’s a silly way!

Now I’m just guessing here but I think silly is not a word anyone who has experienced natural childbirth would use as a description. Katie then informed me that when she has her three babies with Timmy — sorry Uncle Ed, you’ve been usurped — she will be pushing them out her head. Silly indeed.

Mortified

As parents we always dread the day that our child asks us to drop them off around the corner from school. That day when they are embarrassed to be seen with their “dorky” mom and dad, but I never really thought about the day when I would be embarrassed to be seen with my kid, until it happened — last Sunday. Katie had a choir concert and when the kids were standing up front waiting to start Katie noticed me in the back with the video camera. Instead of just waving to me, she decided to share this knowledge with her friends and everyone in the audience. Now I am no shrinking violet, I frequently use self deprecating humor when presenting to large audiences, but I was quite embarrassed.

A Vegemite Sandwich

I read in one of those parenting books that most of a child’s eating preferences are formed during their second year. Those twelve months, they say, are a critical time to introduce your child to a diverse selection of foods. I think, with Katie, we did a good job with this. She ate, and continues to eat, many foods that are not what I would consider typical three-year-old fare. She’s gladly eaten things like caviar, stinky cheese, and bratwurst — in fact she loves all three. Don’t get me wrong, she still eats an enormous amount of macaroni-and-cheese but we can take her to almost any restaurant and find something she’ll eat and for that I’m grateful.

A Happy Place

Recently when Katrina gets herself into a fit Stefan has been trying to tell her to think of her happy place to help her get control of herself.

Stefan in his best yoga tape voice: Katie, think of you and Ecru Bunny running on the beach.

But <sob> Ecru <sob> doesn’t <sob> know how to <sob> run <sob><sob><sob>

Personally I find this method hysterical since she has no idea what he’s talking about and sometimes it just makes her more upset since Ecru Bunny is not in her hand, RIGHT NOW, and she’s not sucking her fingers either. Well, the other night Katie and I were making dinner while Stefan was continuing to install the grout while Tristan was in the pack-‘n-play. He started screaming about being in there and Katie says, Tristan, think of you and Mr. Mole running on the beach.

If only he knew how to run…

We’re Thankful For…

Weekend Update

Saturday Tristan and I were home alone while the girls went out of town for the day. What did we do with our day as bachelors? I took him shopping for shoes and jeans of course. While we did have some luck in the shoe department, the jeans eluded me. I was taunted all day by numerous pairs of gorgeous size 33 Earnest Sewn Jakimo jeans in their luxurious Japanese denim. Try as I might I could not squeeze my (slightly larger than) size 34 butt into them and I am in no way willing to pay full price for them. Ah the joys of outlet shopping.

I am not generally a person who is plagued by neuroses, but having only recently developed a fashion sense (obsession) I am some what insecure in this area. Ever since I read the many posts where Dooce rants and raves about belts matching shoes I would worry every time I put on a brown belt with brown shoes. I didn’t want to be one of those belt matches shoes guys. This weekend as I was looking for a new eurotrash belt I had an epiphany. The guy on the other side of the rack opened his shoe box and began looking for the perfect match, with a subtle shiny brass buckle. It was then I realized what she meant, and I will never worry again. I don’t own a pair of boat shoes, I don’t have a single Polo brand polo shirt and nobody ever calls me Chaz.

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Sunday brought more solo parenting and the realization that I would go nuts having to chase Tristan around for more than half an hour a day. With only 20 minutes of overlapping naps I barely had time to go to the bathroom. I have no idea how Jen does it. Sunday night Katie asked for burritos, so she and I spent some time in the kitchen cooking chicken and beans only to find after everything was ready that the tortillas were moldy. Having always heard how easy flour tortillas are to make and having had many TOD obsessions with baking I figure I would give it a shot. We didn’t have any shortening so i found a recipe that called for vegetable oil. — it is interesting how different cultures can take the same recipe and make very different things, this one could have easily been made into noodles if I cut it thin and boiled it. — Even though the tortillas came out tasting more like flat bread, Katie loved them. If you plan to try it yourself definitely use a recipe that calls for shortening and more than 5 minutes of resting.

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Monday night Katie got to experience her first real (non documentary) movie as we watched Cars. I think we no longer have any hope of avoiding the black hole that is Disney.

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One last funny story to reward you for reading my ramblings and punish Katie in front of her future fiance. Sunday morning she walked up to Jen holding a carabiner and asked what is that thing called that you put on your nipples.

She’s a Giver

One day last week I noticed Katie had her finger in her nose — a habit we do not condone but one that seems to be very “in” among the three-year-old crowd — and I told her that We don’t put our fingers in our noses, that’s yucky. She replied by pulling a not entirely clean finger from her nose and showing me. Katrina, please go use a tissue. She saunters off to the bathroom to use said tissue and our day continues as normal. Fast-forward about 3 hours… I am getting a tissue from the tissue box to blow my nose — the authorized way to dislodge debris — and find that Katrina did indeed use a tissue, she just never removed it from the box. That girl, she is a giver.

Re-Programming

Over the last four months there have been four nights I was able to sleep until morning (5:00 AM) without interruption. These interruptions, for the most part, have been caused by one member of our household and tonight, I hope, is the first step towards the beginning of a new pattern — one that involves sleep (for me) in more than four hour increments. Wish us luck as we embark on the battle of a lifetime. I expect it will be worse before it is better but better is what we’re hoping for.