For some unknown, undefined, and un-figure-out-able reason Blogger stopped being able to display my lovely header photo. Happily, after confounding my Hubby and my Roomie, Roomie came up with a solution that has redirected the source, if not resolved the issue.
So the blog is pretty again. Yay!
Especially when you have children.
Children are loving, snuggly, persnickity, perverse little wretches.
Today we planned to go to the beach. We were supposed to leave the house at 9:30 this morning in order to catch the sea before high tide and meet Ellen and Tiff.
We woke up early, with an hour and a half to spare, and I gave Monkey her requested breakfast of apples and peanut butter and cereal. I told her we only had an hour and a half before we had to leave to meet our friends at the beach for a day of swimming and fun. She excitedly jumped around and then asked to play on the Xbox.
“Er… no,” I said. “”You need to eat your breakfast, so we can go to the beach.”
And here is where the good deed is punished. Sad that she was not allowed to spend the hour before the beach on the Xbox, Monkey defiantly settled at the table, set her ankles up on it, and slowly, painfully picked up a single frosted mini wheat, and began to gnaw delicately on it’s edge.
Sighing and shaking my head, I went about my packing of snacks, dressing of baby, and otherwise preparing to spend the day doing something fun with my children. Occasionally I would toss out to Monkey that she needed to eat, as I would not be spending six dollars on a crappy piece of pizza on the boardwalk if she failed to fill up on breakfast. I would also not be getting her fast food.
An hour passed. It was 15 minutes until departure time. She had managed to consume about 5 frosted mini wheats, and one apple slice. Argh.
Finally I told her to finish getting ready. She meandered up stairs, spent about 20 minutes in the bathroom without managing to brush her teeth, and only when I yelled up “If you are not ready and down here in ten minutes we are NOT GOING!!” did she actually scurry to brush her teeth and hair, and put on her shoes.
Of course, by now I was grumpy, having spent the morning dealing with She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Fed, instead of getting to engage in the excitement of beach trip preparation.
About 10 minutes into the drive the comments started:
“Ooh..a Wendy’s!” “Look mom! A McDonald’s.” “Mom, can I get Ice cream?”
I just don’t get it. Why, why on earth, would she decide to goad me to the point of canceling the trip?? Does she like me in a bad mood? Argh! Of course, my mood was not improved by carting the huge bag of supplies, beach umbrella, and baby to the beach. Nor was I cheered by the bouts of crying Otter engaged in. I did cheer up when we went down to the water and splashed a bit. Pictured here:
It was also nice to see the kids splashing, and to hang out, however briefly, with Ellen and Tiff.
However, the trip was fairly stressful for me. I swear, I am at the point where leaving the house at all is simply too much trouble. Maybe I will become a hermit.
Last night I had the following dream:
It was the day I planned to start Otter on Rice Cereal, his first solid food. However, we were out of Rice Cereal, so instead, I made him stone ground whole wheat spaghetti noodles in a butternut squash sauce.
I placed him in the high-chair and began to give him his food, one tiny, cut up noodle at a time. He tasted his first noodle, got very interested, then started grabbing huge handfuls of noodles and stuffing them into his mouth.
“No, Otter!” I exclaimed, while desperately trying to retrieve huge streams of noodles from his mouth, “One noodle at a time, this is the first time you have ever eaten real food! You might choke!”
As I frantically pulled noodles away from my boy, he kept grabbing them and shoving them in his mouth. Sauce went everywhere, noodles flew, and I kept trying to get back to one wee noodle at a time.
He looked as happy as a baby can be, trying out his new noodles, playing in them, with his little baby mouth shaped like a monkey, upper lip sticking out, noodles dripping down his chin.
When I woke up this morning, at the now usual ungodly hour, I just laughed.
SavvySpoons 