My little meatatarin.....

So I was in my room, doing a few random crunches on the floor. The Princess was doing some, too, while Side Salad was trying to sit on me. The Squirrel all of a sudden says,

"I wish everything I touched turned to meat! And gold."

.....okay.....

Then, she began running around turning things into meat. "Daddy's TV is meat! The counter is meat! The towel is meat!"

The Princess tried to reason with her little sister. "What if you touch us? Then, we will be meat, too. You can't turn everything into me-"


"You're meat! Look, Mommy! I turned her into meat!" Obviously, the Princess wasn't very convincing in her argument.


She followed me downstairs and patted me on my back. "Mommy, you're meat. I'm just kidding. But everything else is meat, meat, meat!" She bopped off to work some more magic.


"Pencil meat! Yummy yum-yum!"

"Call me on the line, you can call me, call me anytime-Mommy your phone is meat!" That's right. I am rockin' Blondie for my ringtone.

Anywho, the Princess and the Squirrel, as far as I know, have never heard the tale of King Midas. That makes it all the more intriguing that she is touching things and turning them into meat.

Guess I know what tonight's bedtime story is :)

There's something wrong with my bed, Mommy.....

I don't have cable. Not real cable, I mean. I have the "broadcast tier," which-for a whopping $12.21 each month-gives me channels 2-13, pluse WE and TNT. I need it because we get such crappy reception here. Anywho, the lack of cable makes it necessary to amuse myself by unconventional means.

Last night, I short sheeted my children's beds.

What is short sheeting, you ask. Well, dear reader, short sheeting is when you take the flat sheet, tuck it under the mattress at the head of the bed. You fold it about half way down and it looks like a normally made up bed-except the sleeper can't get their feet to the foot of the bed.

So they do what any intelligent person would do-they kick their legs really, really hard as if it will make a difference. I know it sounds strange but it's absolutely hilarious! I set my camera up and recorded it for posterity. Then, my mother and I watched and laughed! Did I mention my lack of cable?

It was really funny, though.

Squirrel, in a nutshell

This is my Squirrel.

She is a most unique child. She possesses an almost elven, pixish aura. She is petite, slight, but she is by far my loudet child. She is quite possibly the brightest, most well spoken three year old I know. That is, when she chooses to talk. Squirrel is notorious for not acknowledging the presence of others. She won't talk to people she doesn't know well. She frequently hides from them. She has been known to run. This causes people to think that because she does not talk, she cannot talk. They are shocked the first time they hear her speak. I spend lots of time with her because the big kid go to school all day. We do many things. We play.
We put on puppet shows.

We cuddle.

We talk.
Sometimes, we talk late at night. She's been getting up at night for the last few weeks. She tells me the most unusual things. The other night she got up and we sat and looked out the window at the feral cats (that's another story). She looked at me and said...
Squirrel: I know what Mommies and Daddies do.
Me: Er, uh...is that so, sweetie? Ah, what is it that they do?
Squirrel: They kiss.
Me: Really. Is that all?
Squirrel: No. They eat food, too. And they look in the mirror and brush their teeth.
Me: That is absolutely fascinating.
We like music, all of us. We dance all the time. We have big band, opera, classical, disco, pop, R&B-basically our collection has everything from Gregorian chants to Bollywood. We have family dance parties (aka Mommy has to get some kind of exercise when she can't make it to the gym). We do this kind of Soul Train circle where someone gets in the middle and does a dance, then everyone does it. When it was Squirrel's turn, she hopped in the middle, started shrugging her shoulders and shouted:

"Do this, ya'll! Shake your hipples!"

I love the way her mind works. Appearantly she correlates shoulders to being similar to hips (which they kinda are, anatomy-wise. both have ball and socket joints) and they are close to your chest, where your nipples are located. Hence, we have hipples.

My sunny, funny little girl. My little squirrel.

Checkin' in

Hello, all!

I've been busy with midterms and first birthdays. That's right! Our side salad is now one years old. We celebrated in style at the local Mickey Ds. I think it's okay to have a McNugget or two on your birthday-you only live once...

School is...school. I am just exhausted. If I could figure out a way to pay off my student loans and have some sort of stable income, I'd say screw it and just be a SAHM.

Lettuce and I had a talk about breastfeeding. I know his family are pretty anti-breastfeeding so I wanted to gauge his feelings on me continuing to do so. He was totally fine with it. He can see the benefits in the health of the ducklings. Astronaut sleeps in his undies only, year round. Literally. The boy walks around in just underwear when it's snowing outside. He never gets sick. Lettuce and I have been together since he was 3 1/2 and he'll be 9 this year and he has never been sick. I breastfed him until he was 13 months old. The girls on the other hand, weren't so lucky. Princess was only breastfed 4 months. She immediatly stopped growing. She had tons of earaches and her tonsils removed at 4 years old. Squirrel was EBF until 6 months, though we started solids at 4 months. She had a combo until she was about 7 or 8 months. The ear infections were constant and she got tubes at 9 months. Whoa!! I've gotten a bit off topic. Anywho, Side Salad will be getting the good stuff indefinitely, that's the point. And here's a pic of us nursing in public to celebrate.


Ciao!

Something to celebrate

The Chinese New Year occurs on January 26th this year. I think we shall do a little something to mark the day. It will fulfill my NYR of exposing my children to worldly cuisine on the montly basis. I will plan a menu and patronize my local Asian markets to get the supplies.

They really have a wide variety of stuff at the markets. We went there yesterday, which is where this whole idea came from. The Astronaut chose a Sarsi, which turned out to be a sasparilla. The Princess decided to get two Hello Kitty lollipops and gave the Squirrel one. The Squirrel decide to get Lotte Strawberry Koalas which she generously shared as they were much better in theory than they were in practice. I got some pepero, which are biscut sticks-by biscuit I mean unsweet cookie-dipped in chocolate and almonds. They were delicious. I picked up a few other little items, too: jasmine tea, rock candy, rice wine vinegar, lemongrass.

I don't know much about Chinese New Year and the foods that surround it. I've been researching and this is what I've found:

Most of the dishes served during Chinese New Year (also known as Spring Festival) are symbolic of something positive and hopeful.

• Chicken and fish, for example, symbolize happiness and prosperity--especially when served whole.
• Dishes made with oranges represent wealth and good fortune because they are China's most plentiful fruit.
• Noodles represent longevity: therefore, they should never be cut!
• Duck symbolizes fidelity, while eggs signify fertility.
• Bean curd or tofu, however, is avoided because its white color suggests death and misfortune.

I don't do tofu anyways, so no love lost there. I don't know about whole chicken, but I can swing a whole fish. More:

Another popular Chinese New Year dish is jiaozi, dumplings boiled in water. In some areas of China, coins are placed in the center of jiaozi. Whoever bites into one of these dumplings will have an exceptionally lucky year. Try some of these lucky Chinese dishes for a prosperous year to come:

• Spicy Orange Beef
• Asian Orange Chicken
• Egg Foo Yung
  
• Chicken Lo Mein
• Grilled Asian Chicken
• Chinese New Year Turnip Cake
• Pork Dumplings
• Chinese Tea Leaf Eggs

I think that I shall try some. I am getting excited already!


Oh, and while I am on the subject of NYR, Squirrel and I went to the Museum on Sunday. The Astronaut and the Princess weren't home. They went to my brothers and their grandma's respectively. We had a blast. Side Salad went too, but he was cranky. He has a little cold and two teeth coming in, poor little guy. Squirrel had a blast toying with inventions that came from the great mind of Leonardo da Vinci. I think her favorite part was the dinosaurs. There was this big...box full of....stuff and the kids used paint brushes to unearth a dinossaur fossil. She even got to touch fossils and touching is always good because little kids tend to be tactile learners. She also got to get on a full sized replica of the tragic Best Friend and go in a one room schoolhouse. It was special becaue the bigger kids were gone and I got to spend some time alone with her.

I have got to get on the ball, compiling my recipes and creating my grocery list and getting the kids started makng decorations for the Chinese New Year. I think they will really enjoy this. I know I will!

Until next time, ni hao!

A new year, a new accomplishment!

On December 30th, Lettuce had surgery. It was supposed to be an outpatient surgery but do to unforeseen circumstances, they kept him overnight. He's fine now, came home on New Years Eve.

While we were there, Side Salad took a step. That's right, he took a step. My little monkey. He is 9 3/4 months old. This is the youngest any of my children has walked. Astronaut walked at 10 months, the divalicious Princess at nearly 14 months, and the mischievous Squirrel at 11 months. I am so proud!


Here is a grainy clip of my little darling stomping across the living room...obviously Santa didn't get that memo. I got a crockpot and a rice cooker.

Right before visions of sugar plums danced in their heads....

I love Christmas.

I love the magic, the mystery, the fun, the suspense, the traditions. Childhood seems so short now. I try to make Christmas as magical as possible for my kids while they are young. They believe in Santa. We have things we do. I want them to have traditions so that they are their uncles and my age, they can reminisce. Tonight, we set out the reindeer feed for Santa's crew. It's birdseed and glitter. We sprinkled it out in the yard. They loved it, though the Astronaut felt it necessary to give it a taste test-yuck! Then the real fun began.

The kids decorated cookies and a gingerbread house. They did a great job. The first time, we decorated, then baked. Didn't go so well. The kids piled on the sugar and sprinkles and all of the sugar carmelized-then burned. Plus the kiddies handled the dough so much it got really thin and hot. So the second batch, we adults made the cookies, then baked. Then I whipped up some quick frosting (powdered sugar, plus milk and a dash of vanilla extract) and the kids decorated them. This turned out much better and we had Santa-worthy cookies.

The Squirrel and her fractured gingerbread man

The Princess and her snowman

The Astronaut and his snowman

Then we decorated a gingerbread house. It was fun. Then everyone got washed up and went to bed without many complaints.

I have to go move the gifts downstairs. I only have a few hours until they are back up. They'll be up with the sun and I have to make breakfast, then start on dinner. I hope all of you are having a wonderful Christmas too.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!

The Meddler

Now let me give a little background info.

Squirrel and Side Salad are biologically the children of Lettuce. Princess and Astronaut are not. We have been together since Astronaut was three and Princess was one. Meddler has more than once purposely started probs with Lettuce and I.

Back when Squirrel was a little baby, she single handedly destroyed our first family vacation to go see Lettuce's mom. I know she isn't the only one to blame, but even her husband told her to cut it out. She didn't and it just made things VERY bad.

She took Squirrel to a family reunion. Lettuce is her nephew. How is HE not invited to a family reunion, but the baby is? I don't understand.

Today, she claimed she wanted to take Squirrel visiting. It turns out, she took her to a family dinner. WTF?? What about Lettuce?

He claims these things don't bother them but they do. It's just plain rude. And hateful. He has a strained relationship with his family already. This just makes it worse. But, he acts like he is scared to stand up to her. It makes me mad, but if I say anything, I am the bad guy. I think that she tries to pass my daughter off as her daughter. I know it sounds strange, but if you were here you would understand. Many of his family members have only seen her with Meddler, never with Lettuce and I. I am annoyed at the situation and frustrate with Lettuce. It is disappointing. He is a grown man. He doesn't have to kiss her booty all the time.

Well, gotta go-my baby just got back!

*sigh* Procrastination and the party

Saturday is the Astronaut and the Squirrel's combined multiage birthday party. I have 2 October babies, with their birthdays being only 9 days apart. I've grown weary of throwing two parties so this year they are having a party. Yes I know they are 5 years apart (Squirrel is 3 and Astronaute is 8) and different genders. But the same kids come to the parties and I think I picked something that will accommodate all the kids: a puppet show! We're going to the Marionette Theatre to see the "Wizard of Oz!"

The party is Saturday at 2. I think I should order the food. So far, all I ordered is the cake....

A DIRE Emergency This Morning

As I was attempting to sleep late on a Saturday morning (and the term late is relative-I just wanted to sleep until 9 am), I heard a crash and a scream. I knew the children were up because they all marched into my room at around 7:30 or 8 to let me know that they were ready for breakfast. I told them to eat some cereal.

Anyways, back to the crash and scream. I had ever intention of simply ignoring it and continuing my slumber. However, it turned into moaning. My mommy sense started tingling and I headed downstairs to see what it was.

A sink full of blood. Well, not full, but enough to be alarmed. T had "fallen" off the couch and her teeth cut her lip. I had her gargle with some salt water so I could assess the direness of the situation. There were 3 punctures. By now, my girl had my full attention and wasn't about to let it go. T is a clever girl, and files away information for later use. Obviously she knew that when someone hit their head, they are not supposed to go to sleep (or that's what my mama told me). So my princess starts in with "I feel like I need to go to sleep...my head wants me to go to sleep..." To add a touch of realize, she tried to go prostrate across my lap like a swooning Southern belle. Nice try, Toots.

It was nothing apple cinnamon pancakes couldn't fix.

J is just plain gross.

J, my almost 3 year old, has to be the grossest kid ever. She is obsessed with butts and poop. She talks about them all the time. She also puts her boogers on her siblings. She finds it amusing. I find it gross. I know that it has to do with her development psychologically-Kolberg, moral development, Erikson, crises, and all that jazz. But that does not take away from the fact that it is just plain gross and that I am always digging for some tissue to catch her lastest find.

Enter: Boogie Wipes.

That's right, Boogie Wipes. They are little-get this!-scented wipes that take care of the booger issue. You can try to win a Boogie Wipes gift basket on this site:

http://hermashaw.blogspot.com/2008/09/catch-that-booger.html

TTYL!