How to earn a 23% tip from One Tired Ema

Well, asking for money…that went over like a lead balloon.

Anyhoo.

Yesterday the Tired family (minus Taxman) had a lovely playdate chez J-E with Chichimama, C & A. My kids  trashed her house, ironically while my cleaning lady was at my house; AM fell in love with Lazy Cat, to the tune of leaving black-eyed Susans for her on the step of the sunporch, where she had gone to escape him; Miss M cried when we had to leave A–and all her fun stuff and princess clothes.

The kids were so busy they didn’t really snack all morning, so when we rolled into another suburb to do some kosher shopping, I knew I would have to feed them, stat. Miss M is a huge problem, because she won’t eat pizza or scrambled eggs or salad or sushi. I decided on the deli.

Scott was our waiter. Oh Scott, if only I could bring you home with us. Here’s how Scott earned his tip:

• Did not blink when I ordered a smoked turkey sandwich to split between the kids, PLAIN. Switched the rye bread (a deli standard–for good reason) for wheat bread (eh) when I requested. Did not ask if I wanted tomato, lettuce, condiments. (A lot of kids would skip the veggies, methinks.) Did not offer drinks (soda, juice, etc.) beyond the water pitcher on the table.*
• After a few minutes, popped his head in to tell us that their sandwich would be done very soon; did I want it ASAP? YES YES YES, I nodded.
• But before that he brought paper and crayons. Then the sandwich. Then the sweet potato fries.
• When he brought my food, he cheerfully ignored the mess on the table, Miss M’s deconstruction of her sandwich on her plate (yuck), AM’s half-eaten pickle. But cleared the plate, now empty of sweet potato fries, so I would have a place for my lunch.
• Brought a stack of at least 12 extra napkins after that.
• Brought the kids (free) cookies for dessert.
• When I asked for half my sandwich to be wrapped to go, saying “I think I need to quit while I’m ahead,” and pointing at the kids, he said “They were really well behaved.”**
• We left a big mess, on the table and under it.

*  For all those people who have not yet experienced the pleasure of feeding toddlers, be aware that juice is basically like crack for them. It will be all they think about until they get some.

* *I have to agree, especially considering we didn’t even sit down until 1:15. But my back did not actually touch the rear of the seat (i.e. I was pretty damn busy making sure that happened) until I was signing the check. So I get some of the credit.

In which I shamelessly try to Fundraise for the Cure

So after a five year absence, I am going to run the NYC Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure again. I know I said I was going to last year, but I was too exhausted to really get on a good program and had weird ankle pains and was subject to the whims of the weather. Now I’ve got the luxury of running treadmills in air conditioned comfort. At 6:00 am, which will be FINE once I get my Thursday naps back.

The race is three weeks away and, barring unforeseen disaster, I’ll be ready.

I’ve been thinking about how different this run will be for me. Now I’m a mother, adding a generation to my chain. But at the same time, now I know mothers whose lives were shockingly foreshortened by breast cancer. I think about Beth, my brilliant, beautiful, once-roommate, who did not live to see her 32nd birthday, who left two young daughters and her equally brilliant husband, much more now than I did when she was alive. I think about her daughters a lot–and how hard it must be for her husband to be raising them alone.

For my part, I’d like to raise the recommended $250, at a minimum, and so I am harassing everyone I know, and everyone I “know.” Consider yourself requested to donate any amount, no matter how small, to a worthy cause.

If you know my actual name, you can go here and search for my page. If you need the link, please let me know.

Thanks. From my mom, me, and Miss M.

Sometimes I wish I drank

I don’t.

My grandmother and uncle were raging alcoholics. And vomit is, by far, my absolute least favorite bodily fluid. So two excellent reasons not to drink.

But at the end of an afternoon like I had today, I needed something to sink into and let go. Pizza for dinner was nice, admittedly, but it wasn’t too much of a stretch for a Thursday night.

Anyway, this afternoon three adults attempted to wrangle four children into some semi-professional photos (Target photo studio). I shall begin at the beginning, though.

• I bathed the kids after lunch and put them in their “photo clothes.” As we walked out I reminded Miss M not to run, for fear that she’d fall and get her new cream-colored shirt dirty. Five feet from the car she started to run, tripped on her sandals, and fell, scraping BOTH knees. I raided the EMT bag in the trunk for bandaids. Yes, INDEED, they are in the photos.
• At Target, AM got whiny and clingy and refused to smile. My niece, who can’t sit up yet, commando crawled out of every frame for 20 minutes, then started to cry. My nephew and Miss M did ok, with reminders approximately every 90 seconds about the lollipops awaiting them.
• We then had to wait for the single photo studio employee to prep the proofs, including all the crazy stuff they do (sepia tones, weird borders, cheesy messages–”We love you!”). And then choose what we wanted. The photos were, well, ok. We got nice individual shots of everyone and a good-enough pose of the four kids, but the brother-sister pairs were pretty awful. Especially after yesterday, when I got the CUTEST photos of my kids at the beach,* with everyone looking relaxed and happy; in one of the frames from today, AM is backing away from Miss M as if she’s trying to give him some communicable disease.
• In the course of waiting, my kids ate their snack in about 0.4 seconds and then were acting like lunatics. Somehow my brother-in-law managed to corral everyone into a game of “I Spy.” But there came a point when I was thinking of NOT chasing AM into the electronics department and just seeing what happened.
• Total time in Target: 1h42m.
• As we got to the car, I realized AM had pooped. And some of it had missed the diaper and was on his jeans. Change of shirt available, but no pants. Did I mention we were going to be late to get the extended family to a playdate in my neighborhood?
• Went through the cash lanes at the GW Bridge but was so frazzled I neglected to indicate carpool. ARGH! Could have saved six dollars!
• One pair of shorts later, we went to pick up our CSA share. Parked several blocks away from the pickup site. As we were tumbling out of the car, Miss M announced she had to pee. Indeed. Nothing around but a tree. Attempting to get AM’s shoes on, I didn’t have her strip down entirely. Mistake. Pee on skirt. So we dragged into the synagogue social hall with 4-year-old sans bottoms. “I have nothing on my legs,” she complained, until I pointed out it’s like a bathing suit. I really hope by the time this is wildly (as opposed to mildly) inappropriate she has better squatting abilities.
• At 6:30, we arrived home to no dinner. “Let’s have a picnic in the backyard!” I yelped. “Avocado sandwiches and chocolate milk and strawberries!”
• I pulled it off. We stayed outside until 7:30. Summer is really great sometimes.
• Now it is late, I have only managed to make two items for shabbat, and I have to go to the gym tomorrow.

Please send a virtual amaretto sour.

* Facebook profile photo of the moment.

2 much 2 say, sry no time, halp!

• Family in from abroad. Not staying with us, but taking a lot of time to be with them.
• How do I convince my SIL that putting the kids in mismatched Disney shirts to have their pictures taken is a huge mistake? (Never mind against all my principles. It just won’t look good.)
• Spending time with family is good, but I have totally gotten out of the habit of, say, doing work or making dinner or folding laundry.
• Olympics = time suck. But I can’t really help it, somehow.
• My kids get along better out of the house. Inside, with all the toys and books and whatever, AM throws things and Miss M bosses and pushes. At the beach with two buckets, two shovels, and two empty water bottles? HOURS AND HOURS OF PEACE AND COOPERATION.
• Things that annoy me 1: Democratic convention delegates that are out of touch with reality. Some survery said that over half of them (who expressed a preference) want Hilary Clinton to be the VP choice. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE PAST YEAR?!
• Things that annoy me 2: Obama’s front runners for VP. They don’t annoy me so much as bore me. He shouldn’t have to look to his VP for gravitas. Either he’s got enough or he doesn’t and another white male is just not exciting. There isn’t a single woman out there who might fill the bill? (Not Clinton; I understand that. Unlike the delegates.)
• Things that annoy me 3: People who think the rules do not apply to them. Where do I begin?
• 1. People who tailgate.
• 2. People who turn right on red in NYC or go through red lights. TLC drivers, I mean you.
• 3. People who won’t let me over to exit. (This has nothing to do with rules; it’s just not nice!)
• 4. Truck drivers who “wander on” to the Hutchinson River Parkway. There are lots of low bridges. Tuesday Taxman was delayed on the way home because of an accident involving a truck that shouldn’t have been there. Yesterday I saw a truck (it was just the cab) smush its top into a bridge and go veering off to the side of the road. I was going in the opposite direction or surely I would have been delayed. Anyway, at every entrance to this roadway it says “NO COMMERCIAL VEHICLES” or “NO TRUCKS.” So WHY WHY WHY do people do this? I don’t know. This is New York. There are alternate roadways.
• (Have been doing a lot of driving.)
• Things that annoy me 4: Shabbat lunch invitations that have not been reciprocated after months. I guess it’s not going to happen. But it makes me uninspired to invite other people, even if I should. I think we’re fairly nice and our kids are pretty well behaved overall. So what is it about us that seems fundamentally uninvitable? (Yes, I know it’s not a word.)
• Thursday. No Shabbat plans. Also, no time to shop or cook other than 9-12 tonight. Sigh.
• I miss naps. Not naps, even, just 20 minutes of rest next to a sleeping AM every noon.

Men sometimes DO ask for directions

 

Motherhood means…

Apparently, not having to apply one’s own sunscreen. When I was soaping up AM this morning, Miss M took mine and squirted a huge glob on me. Unfortunately, it was on my clavicle, which isn’t exactly an SPF hotspot. I managed to smear it around to more important locations, but not before noticing a few white smears on my black shirt. So I spent all day looking like someone spit up on me. Fortunately, nobody did.

Excess

I’ve mentioned before that my children are basically fruit bats. They love it. We like it too, but we don’t throw temper tantrums if we are out of, say, apricots. So between shopping for Shabbat (I made melon soup for lunch–watermelon base with cantaloupe AND honeydew chunks) and our CSA fruit share, our fridge looks like a fruit stand.

• 3 1/2 pints blueberries
• 1 quart apricots
• 1 quart donut peaches (SO GOOD! From the CSA, because I’d never spend $4.99/lb for peaches.)
• watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew (ok, galia melon) that didn’t go into the soup
• 2 lbs. red grapes
• 3 bananas

I told Taxman of our many fruit riches and joked that it should keep us until Monday. “Yes,” he said in all seriousness, “but only because Sunday is a fast day.”*

*Of course, the children will be eating. All damn day, I’m sure.

Nota bene

Dear Self,

Maybe don’t make decisions when you have been up since 4 in the morning.

If your instinct is telling you not to allow Miss M to come shopping with you when you have a very long (and very expensive) list–even if she’s begging–don’t do it. Even if you think that maybe she needs the time alone with you. Even if you think that she might finally be old enough to handle an hour in a grocery store without filling the cart with unwanted things and without dancing in the crowded aisles.

You will be sorry. You will be exasperated, you will hiss, you will threaten; she will lose dessert and TV privileges.

But on the flip side, you will come home with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Creme Brulee. Plus everything on the list. So not a total loss.

Still, take heed.

xoxo

me

Jabber jabber

I haven’t blogged about speech therapy in a while. AM has been seeing a very sweet young woman once a week. She’s quite enamored with him. As usual, he tries to run the session, but he’s willing to do what she wants, so everybody wins.

He’s no longer silent.

He’s parroting everything, trying new words every day, and still making me laugh. This morning he was repeating something I didn’t understand. “Buh. Buh.”

“Bug? Did you see a bug?” I asked him. (He points them out when he sees one.) “I don’t see one, honey.”

“Me eedah.”

Later, at Target, he was about to stage a coup because we were low in the snack department. I ran over to grocery and picked up some raisins. He raised holy hell because I was slow to open the packaging. “Don’t shout at me,” I admonished him. “That’s not nice.”

“Ema, more ree-rees [raisins] peese.”

So yeah, things are coming along.

But the crowning achievement so far is a nod to Taxman’s German heritage. We taught him to say “Ach du lieber!” Particularly when he’s having a messy diaper changed. The grandparents are going to go nuts over that one.

The university speech clinic starts again in about four weeks. There’s clearly more to do, but he’s definitely not the kid he was in May.

Wasted gossip

What’s more crazy?

a) Running into a college friend at a suburban Trader Joe’s. Haven’t seen him in 8 years? 9? 10? Long time. But we recognized each other in about 0.4 seconds. No hedging.

b) Realizing that I have literally nobody to tell that I ran into said person. I am vaguely in touch with 2 people from that era (via facebook), neither of whom were really friends with him. All of my roommates and close friends from college aren’t part of my life any more. I keep wondering what is wrong with me because I cannot seem to keep friends for more than 10 years. (I do have one exception to this–a friend from jr high.) Is there something about me? Once you know me for that long you don’t return my calls?