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Our neighbor and Miss M’s pal, Ariella (of “Ay-ya-ya!” fame), is a frequent visitor in our house–although Miss M prefers to go upstairs to get into the doll house and princess dress-up clothes for which Ariella is well known (at least downstairs in our apartment).
Yesterday, I picked the girls up after school (Ariella’s mom is at that point in her pregnancy when she has to go for doctor’s appointments approximately every five seconds), sliced up an apple for them, and turned them loose with a stack of construction paper, markers, and stickers. They were drawing contentedly, with occasional squabbles over the stickers and markers, when I overheard Ariella seemingly dictating a letter to Miss M.
“Can you write, ‘I miss you, T [her sister]. I wish you were here.’ ?”
Miss M obediently wrote “I,” then followed it up with her usual “writing,” which is something along the lines of “R I A N C A Y D D I C V W X.” As she did it, she slowly recited, “I wish you were here.”
Ariella studied the paper for a moment with a puzzled look, but came away seeming satisfied.
My baby. I don’t know whether to be proud her or if I should sell her to the GOP.
AM does, in fact, appear to be saying his friend T’s sister’s name. He yelled “Ay-ya-ya!” (let me translate for you: “Ariella!”) across a vestibule crowded with 3-year-olds and their accompanying din at preschool pickup.
This very morning he and Miss M were bickering over a toy in the kids’ bedroom. She started chanting “mine, mine, mine.” Then we heard a little voice pipe up: “mi, mi, mi, mi.” I scuttled down the hall from the kitchen and Taxman poked his head out of our bedroom. We looked at each other quizzically, as if we had just dropped in from Mars. “Is he saying ‘mine’?” Uh…maybe?
In speech therapy today he was a total pill. Ornery and uncooperative pretty much from the word go. Finally at the end of the session, I was getting him into his outerwear and telling him we were going to go to the store. “And what do we buy at the store?” (This is a whole routine. He acts it out by himself at home, complete with a shopping bag and/or cat backpack. We’re taking it on the road soon.) He signed “banana” and then, deviating from the script, quickly followed it up with “orange”–he is rather addicted to clementines. The grad student said to him, “Oh, you’re getting bananas and oranges?” And he started babbling “ba, ba, ba, ba.” “Is he saying ‘banana’?” she asked. “I didn’t know he can say ‘b’!” I confirmed that he does say ’b,’ but as for the rest…I don’t know. He never does this.
Anyway, the funniest thing coming out of speech therapy recently was when the grad student asked me if it was ok for her to try to get AM to say “no.” “Professor L specifically wanted me to get your permission.” Which is so funny to me, because Professor L has told me that she has kids–twins, no less. I laughed and told her that he has plenty of ways to express no without actually saying it. He shakes his head, he makes disapproving noises, he “goes boneless,” he throws himself on the floor, he ignores you entirely, giving you a vision of him as teenager. A week later, I still think this is so funny–I mean, what 21-/22-month old only has one way to say no? How about a random sample? Michaela? B? CCW?
Ask Moxie is hosting a 60-day challenge, starting tomorrow.
I am participating and one of my goals is to cut down (NB: not “eliminate entirely”) things like high-fructose corn syrup and “bad” fats. I have basically been taking breastfeeding as license to eat whatever I want to, whenever, and not have to pay the price because people are sucking the calories and cholesterol out of me. Eventually, probably sooner rather than later, I will have to watch my diet again (for health reasons, not weight reasons). So I may as well “practice,” as it were.
The question is…do I make one last stop at Dunkin’ Donuts?
Although, frankly, the bigger challenge for me will be to quit eating Nutella at the drop of a hat, since it’s actually in my house.
- File this under “things I now know that I wish I didn’t”: If your order at Lands’ End is more than $200, you pay a flat rate for shipping.
- But I did get really good deals on parkas for the kids, hopefully to fit each of them for the next two winters. Although I could not find a “boys” sale parka I liked for AM, so I wound up with a “girls” one for him. In green. I figured why not, seeing as how I bought Miss M’s parka in yellow (excuse me, “honey gold”) fully intending that he will wear it when she outgrows it. What are the styling differences at this age, anyway? Just the zipper on the opposite side? It’s not like a 3T parka is going to come with a pocket to secret away a lipstick and a tampon!
- I seem to have survived a week of preschool vacation. Barely. But whoo-hoo!
- Honestly, last week would have been a wash anyway. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (if I were adhering to the school “health policy”) would have been sick days, and Friday surely would have been a snow day.
- AM’s progress in speech therapy is, well, slow. He says “more” now, and “in” (sort of), but it’s a struggle to get him to focus beyond the toys.
- He did appear to imitate one of his little friends saying her sister’s name the other day. Her mom–my neighbor, who knows almost as much as Taxman about the current ins and outs of my life–was here when he did it and she (all 39 weeks pregnant of her) just about fell off the couch in surprise. I spent the next two days attempting to get him to repeat it.
- The most fascinating thing about therapy for me is that he totally knows the score. As in, he can walk all over the grad student, but when her professor pops in to offer advice, he snaps to attention. Looks her right in the face, tries to imitate her facial movements. Then she leaves and he goes back to his own agenda: ”Cars, cars, I want more cars!” How he understands the power balance in that relationship I have no idea. But clearly he was not born yesterday.
- Am I a crappy mother because I don’t cut Miss M’s grapes? (And only cut AM’s if he’s going to be wandering around with them instead of eating them directly in front of me?) She bites them. I don’t let her have chewing gum or hard candy, if that changes your opinion. I ask because I saw a kid who’s over four years old having her grapes cut for her. And this was with everyone sitting around the table, including Taxman (the EMT).
- Finally, I have to link to the funniest thing I have read lately: Amalah’s description of pregnancy hunger. Language is R-rated, if you care about that sort of thing, but it is beyond hysterical. Excellent riff on Girl Scout cookies included. (CCW, in case you have extra boxes to sell?)
Stolen from Dani. Doodle by Lee.
My life. Just about every other day.
Doodle by Lee. The code for this doodle and other doodles you can use on your blog can be found at Doodles.
Scene: Parking lot of a suburban grocery store. 5pm. Two tired, hungry kids protesting that they have not yet received their promised bribes (banana for AM; small orange juice–with straw!–for Miss M). One tired Ema fishing for keys in her coat pocket in order to open the minivan that will convey the three of them and $37 worth of food, medicine, and sundries home.
As I fumbled with my key fob, a mom with two young kids passed by my cart. The older of the two, who was maybe six or seven, came out with the following stunner not four feet from me:
“Mommy, are they Amish?”
I am still attempting to formulate what would have been an appropriate response, had it fallen to me to do so. My mouth is still kind of hanging open, though. Maybe I should have just gestured to the frozen pie crusts in the bag and said, “No, not Amish.”
(What I need is a second opinion from Chichimama, who actually saw me–and what all three of us were wearing–today.)
BrooklynGirl tagged me for a go-round of the “six things about me” meme. I have a “regular” version floating about in my archives (here), so I thought I’d do one focusing on my quirks regarding things edible and potable. ‘Cause I am fun like that.
Oh, I am supposed to post the rules.
1) Link to the person that tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least 3 people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6) Let the fun begin!
1. I will pretty much eat any (kosher) chocolate. I am not snotty about milk, dark, butterfat, cocoa percentages, what have you. Certainly some are better than others, some are more “special” and reserved for celebratory occasions (or when once of us passes through Grand Central), but overall I don’t discriminate. But I draw the line at cherry cordials. Those things give me the creeps. Gooey and alcohol-y and gross. Blech. But I won’t judge you if you like them–I like coconut, so different strokes and all that.
2. I am a total snob about certain ingredients/condiments. Like mustard. And soy sauce. Because they are strong tasting and quality makes a difference. There are certain brands that I use and lots that I don’t.
Here’s a telling little anecdote: a neighbor once came to borrow soy sauce. He said he’d need a lot of it and took what I had. He returned (weeks later, when I had long replaced the bottle he took) with a bottle of Kikkoman soy sauce. I sneer in its general direction from time to time.
3. I think eating a vegan diet would be excellent for my health and excellent for the environment. (When the kids get older I think I’d seriously consider vegetarianism.) But I think without dairy in my life I’d be a royal bitch.
4. Variety is the spice of my tea shelf. I have about 16 kinds: black, decaf black, decaf green, herbal, rooibos. I’d have more but I can’t do caffeine as long as AM is nursing. What I don’t get is people who ask me for tea and then don’t have a preference among the 16 choices. Chamomile isn’t the same as Lady Grey, you know?
5. It sounds ridiculous, but there are some brands of bottled water that I just can’t stand. It must be whatever minerals are in them, but I hate the taste. Like Evian. Fiji. Yuck.
6. I have never made cholent. It’s hard to explain why this is so weird, but this is a staple Shabbat lunch food item in my Ashkenazi, Shabbat-observant world. (It’s like a Jewish cook not making chicken soup. Which I don’t do either, really. I can, but I prefer to make vegetarian soups. And my mother-in-law’s chicken soup is very good, so why fight it?) I like to test-run my shabbat main dishes for Taxman and myself before I serve them to company and there is no way to make cholent for 2. It makes a whole crock-pot full, and what if it’s awful? Dude, I have a reputation–I think I am a fairly good cook, or so my husband tells me. (Read: I am a legend in my own mind.)
BONUS TIDBIT: I don’t think I’d ever get sick of eating a croissant every morning for the rest of my life.* Not that I do, or would, but I wouldn’t mind.
* As long as I am occupying a fantasy universe in which eating a croissant every morning won’t kill me or make me fat, Pesach has ceased to exist.
As for the tagging, I am curious to hear from Caramama, B, and Grandmere.
But, wow, I’ve had better weeks.
Let’s just say that the mouth sores due to my little dance with the plague a virus left me rather, uh, disinterested in food and beverages. My son, however, lost no interest in nursing during this same time period. By Thursday evening, when I consumed a single English muffin with strawberry jam, about a cup of leftover (homemade) tofu fried rice with veggies, and one-and-a-half banana oatmeal pancakes in a 12-hour period,* I was feeling like hell. A couple of hours later we were discussing if I was really dehydrated and would need to go to the hospital for IV fluids by myself (because of course somebody would have to stay home with the sleeping children). I was so tired I just wanted to sleep, but I was nauseated and panicky and blech I don’t want to even write about this any more.
Friday, I managed to get Miss M to school while pushing AM in the stroller. Without passing out. I managed to get home from school (more difficult, because it’s up a hill) without falling down and move my car (alternate side, natch) without passing out. Very big achievements.
But once I ate a reasonable dinner I began to feel more human–especially since we were in bed last night at approximately 8:34. No joke, I think Taxman was sleeping before Miss M. It took me my usual 45-60 minutes to turn off my damn brain, but that made for some quality horizontal time, even with all the usual interruptions.
So here I am. I apologize for neglecting most of your blogs in the recent days. I will rectify that ASAP. Although Miss M is on vacation this week, so no telling when the ASAP will turn out to be…
And I have got to get my hands on some chocolate. It’s been way too long that we’ve been apart.
* I normally eat way more than this. It’s not necessarily at regular times, and it’s sometimes real trash, but calorically speaking this day was essentially mouse food. Not fit for a lactating human.
