A confection of indefatigable sass...

     This morning, as Sass in no uncertain terms told me in his snottiest little boy voice that HE was going to watch TV and then have breakfast AFTER Sprinkles, my switch flipped.  You know, the one that lets you go from 0 to Vesuvius  in 2.5....

Like this but with more PAIN...

Who was this tiny blonde dictator marching around the house every morning telling anyone and everything when to jump and how high?  Who was he to pull emotional strings and tell me that “I don't want you!  I want Daddy!”?  Had some fire-eyed creature crawled up from the smoky, black depths to possess my sweet baby boy?  Was Sass starting to exhibit the early warning signs of a severe psychosis? (Because OHMAHGAH there are no less than two nasty tempered old men and a wolverine with anger management issues living in that boy’s head right now.)   

     I stopped…. On the verge of a ohholyhellacious full-scale Mommy meltdown (Really?  Before my coffee?)… and just looked at him.  He stood there glaring at me, little brow furrowed, legs braced and arms crossed, ready for a fight.  The product of a lawyer and an unlicensed (but incredibly competent) shit talker (a.k.a Mom).  I deflated a bit.  What was I to expect?  The boy is a tough, very opinionated cookie and comes from a long line of tough, opinionated cookies.  He is a confection of indefatigable sass.  Now, that doesn't mean he gets to be a little Napolean allthedamntime but, as I considered him standing there, battle ready, I felt no small amount of pride.  And also realized I needed to change tactics.

“Fine.”  I said calmly.  “I am only going to make breakfast now.  If you don't want to eat it, I’m not going to make you.”

“No Mommy.  Daddy will make my breakfast.” * pout and stomp *

“Nope.  Daddy isn't cooking breakfast today.  If you want to eat you need to come sit at the table with your sister.”

     Cut to 5 minutes later and Sass is sitting at the table quietly tearing into a fried egg and banana.   Okay, so I sorta won this round but I can see some losses looming on the horizon.  At least I still have Sprinkles' support, right?  She sat there the entire time, happily shoving eggs into her mouth while smiling broadly and occasionally waving at me.  That’s right… the baby likes me… for now….

The Art of Post-Mastication

Alicia Silverstone ain't got nuthin’ on me.    And this is why….

     

     My family (or more specifically my Grandparents) own a cabin and some land about an hour from our house.  During the Fall and Winter, scores of my family descend upon its wooden walls and proceed to eat, drink, and kill deer (while meticulously recording any and all data concerning wind speed, number of deer seen that day, what direction the squirrels were farting, etc…  We are conservationists, not just killers.).  This past Saturday was the beginning of Muzzleloader season so swarm we did!  Now, this is no regular “Smells like men and gunpowder” hunting cabin, mind you.  What started out small so many, many years ago has slowly creaked and GROWN into a backwoods resort of sorts that has been painstakingly furnished and decorated by my Grandma in the most fantastic of Woodsy-Couture styles.  It has two full bathrooms, tons of bedrooms, a full kitchen, huge dining area… and cable!  Can’t miss the football games just because we are holed up in BFE!  Anyway, I love this place and I digress.  On to why I just accidentally made Alicia Silverstone look normal…..

     Meals are always prepared in groups.  This way, no one has to stray too far from the liquor stationed religiously on the end of the kitchen island.  As dinner was being prepared on Saturday night, a storm blew through strong enough to knock out the power.  No oven?  No problem! The world’s largest charcoal grill lives on the back porch!  Oil lamps were lit, cinnamon whiskey was liberally applied, and the dinner prep continued.  The most faboo of hash brown casseroles was mixed up and spiced with cayenne pepper… in the dark.  Needless to say, it was a bit on the spicy side and just how we liked it!

     The power eventually came back on, dishes were cooked, and we all sat down and tucked in.  It was delicious!  Sprinkles had no trouble with the burn in the casserole as it was mostly potatoes and cheese and she will not be denied her starches!  Sass didn't eat  his casserole because he is thoroughly entrenched in his “ I'm not going to eat that because it is not one of my 4 approved flavors and didn’t you get the memo?” phase so, after both pans of the gooey deliciousness were empty, I finished his.  *burp*

     On the way home that night, with both kids comatose passed out in the back, I mentioned to Hubbs that “It’s too bad Sass didn't like the hash brown casserole.  I thought it would be right up his alley.  Maybe he didn't like the spice?”  And then I remembered… he had tried it.  He had even chewed a bite for a moment… right before he spit it out onto his plate and loudly declared “I don't want this Momma!”  Wait… did I eat ALL of his casserole?  Even the… huh…. Yeah, I did.

*sigh*

Wow... and I thought chewing food for your kid was over the top....

What’s worse?  The fact that I ate post-masticated little boy leavings or the fact that it didn't bother me that I did?  

I do love fresh SEE-food...

WTF Friday?

What's up with you today, Friday?  Normally you show up, all "Yay!  Let's be friends!  Tomorrow is Saturday!" and we hug and snuggle.  Did something happen?  Did Hubbs and I say something wrong?  Because you started out, well... kinda rough.  I mean, there was the teething baby at oh-dark-hundred, and the pre-alarm wake-up ambush from Sass...  Then there was Sprinkles's footie pajama no-no that required a bath and a complete costume change for the two involved parties.  (It was all the way down BOTH FOOTIES!!!)  And don't forget Sass's Show-n-Tell meltdown... ("No, you CANNOT bring an ENTIRE tub of Legos to school.  You can bring ONE thing.  No, no.  A lunchbox full of Hot Wheels is not ONE thing..."  Things just shrieked downhill from here.)  Well, at least it's pizza-n-movie night, allhallowedbeitsname...

This is EXACTLY what it will look like... except that we pick up Little Caesars and no pizza guy actually comes to our house... my kids just like to lick the storm door....

I guess it's time for a Friday funny... (But, Friday.... you need to work a little harder on being nice to your friends.  Otherwise we aren't going to want to play with you anymore.)  This one satisfies my Nerd-Need and my Funny-Need....

F*cking Weeping Angels....

Don't forget to Follow Me or "Like" me on the Book!  It would help me feel better...

How are ya'lls Friday treating you?  Everybody playing nice?

Costume foolery!!! Send me your pictures!!!

     Last night was a sugar coated success.  It registered somewhere between a 9.5 and a 10 on the Richter Scale of fantastic fabulocity.  Sass and his BFF cleaned up the candy like a pair of lions at a visually impaired Impala conference.  After costumes had been peeled off and loot dumped into piles on the carpet to be simultaneously marveled over and devoured, he twitched on the couch for an hour, demanding “Halloween TV” and then lapsed into a deep sleep that was part diabetic coma and part exhausted swoon.  It was adorable.  Sprinks spent the evening sashaying around the house in her tutu while being admired by Grandma and screaming in terror at all the masked creatures that came to our door.  So glad she stayed with Grandma.  Masks are really not her thing.  Pretty purple tutus, on the other hand, ARE…

     I also consider it a complete success because nobody earned stitches running up and down some VERY steep driveways in the dark and nobody puked.  Gold stars to everyone for no urps!  We also got to hang out with some pretty awesome parents and have ADULT TALKING THINGS!  You know, conversations?  Whoa….

     The Trick or Treaters were faboo, too.  We actually had a boy come to the door wearing an iridescent turban and red long johns who sang the entire “Trick or Treat!  Smell my feet!” song.  Both verses.  He got free rein on the treat bowl for that one.  We also had the 18 year old girl, dressed as an “Indian Club Princess” and hiding a lit cigarette behind her back who showed up around 9:30.  She said “Trick or Treat” and smiled sweetly while her buddies giggled from the car.  She got 2 handfuls for balls alone.  Way to take that dare and get some chocolate, sweetheart.

     And now it’s time to batten down for Thanksgiving while pretending that I won’t actually eat ALL of the untouched Sam’s-sized bag of candy left over from last night.  I over estimated… badly (or goodly depending on how you look at it).  Looks like I'll be breaking out the stretch pants a little early this year…..

     Now… I want to see your Halloween costumes!  Send me pictures of your wigglers (and fam or you!) all dressed up and I'll post them on my “Cuteness” page and link it back to you (don’t forget to include the page you want me to link to!).  Email me HERE or post them in my comments.  I can't wait to see them!

It's Halloween Day!

     Ah yes!  All Hallow’s Eve, Oiche Shamhna, Samhain, Hallowe'en, All-hallow-tide, Hallowmas, Alhallow ene, Hollantide…. Give-me-da-candy Day!  Whatever you call it, it’s gonna be good!  It has always been one of my favorite holidays and I think it is ranking pretty high on Sass’s list these days.  He woke Hubbs and I up with a cheery 6 a.m. “Happy Halloween MomnDad!  It’s Halloween Day!”  Sho’ nough is little dude.  Time to cram you full of sugar till you twitch and pass out.  No puking, though.  Ug.

Know your limit, little dude.

     
     All Hail Halloween! The one night of the year kids can run around overindulging like pledges at a Frat party (But no worries, bud. I won’t sharpie a penis on your face while you lay passed out in your bed... Maybe.) I love the cold weather and costumes (and the fact that most of my “inappropriate costume” days were pre-Facebook. Did you know you can make a Ladybug slutty? Heh.) and I love the fact that I will get to skim off Sass's haul after he collapses in bed. (Sprinkles will be remaining behind with Grandma, a princess in waiting, to"help" to hand out candy.)  I love the excitement and enthusiasm. I love the freedom and imagination. I can't wait to watch Sass stumble up a neighbors steps and yell “Trick or Treat”! (Okay, hon, now what do you say?) This will be a good night full of shrieks and giggles and noses running from the cold. I. Can't. Wait.

What are your little ones dressing up as? Any cool “Halloween Day” traditions you'd be willing to share? Tell me, tell me! I would really like to know.

Not So Happy Veggie Tales

     We like to eat in my house and no food group goes un-molested.  The favorites seem to be breakfast meats (that includes kielbasa, the finest and most versatile of casing-clad meat products) and breads (biscuits, pancakes, loaf breads).  That is not to say that we don't hit it hard in the veggie department (and fruit… but who doesn't like fruit?) as well, it’s just that tastes vary so much there.  Take Sass.  From the first moment the All-Hallowed-Broccoli passed his toothless little gums he pledged his undying love and unwavering masticatory attentions to its cold-loving crowns.  The boy will pick broccoli (or green beans) over a cookie.  We've tried it and it’s true.  Sprinkles, on the other hand, is completely uninterested in the verdant greens of the light seeking veggies and has chosen instead to pledge her allegiance to the dark loving tubers.  (A child after my own heart considering that I too had an almost unnatural affinity for a mashed potato as a baby.  Yeah…. As a baby… *Ahem*) She will continue to shove potatoes and kielbasa in her mouth until her little belly is straining at the highchair safety belt, belch loudly, and then reach for more.  I worry that her one-sided-veggie-ness will become nutritionally problematic.  Not with her iron intake (have you seen her go after a pot roast?) and not with her calcium intake (we are actually considering buying our own cow…. That is how many gallons of milk we go through in a week.) but with all the other important nutrients her little body will need to keep up its astonishing growth rate.  Last night at the table I watched her idly play with a bit of cooked spinach I tried to feed her, (she was putting it in her mouth and then slowly pulling it back out but never actually chewing) and I realized that helping her develop her taste buds may be a bit tricky. 

     I have found myself “sneaking” veggies into things, something I have never had to do before, in an attempt to widen her plant-eating palette.  Peas into every casserole, zucchini finely chopped into pasta sauces… but, in truth, I am only creating one, huge culinary lie.  Now, we lie to Sass about what he is eating all the time!  Green Bell Peppers have been called “Crunchy Green Beans”.  Black Olives have become “Black Pickles”.  But we lie to get him to put the food in his mouth and expose him to the flavor and it usually works.  With Sprinkles, all the veggie-sneaking is just a desperate attempt to make sure we don't have to start grinding up Flintstones to put in her milk in the morning.  Why is it that she will eat meat spiced with Cumin, Adobo, Curry, Thyme, or fresh garlic but acts like broccoli is the most vile and odious of poisons?  Broccoli?  The most delicious of all the green vegetables?  It’s not like I am asking her to eat brussel sprouts (Yummm!) or anything….   She gives me the “Are you trying to kill me, Woman?” look if any of the offenders from her ever growing list of “Things That Aren't Potatoes” ends up anywhere near her food pile on the table at dinner time.   It is a battle and I think I am loosing…. Badly.

     Do any of you have any tips on working with picky eaters or any guerilla-veggie recipes to share?  Because I think if I put peas in anything else Hubs is going to have an intervention….

C'mon Sprinks... Don't be a hater!

Everyone needs a little love...

Oh my... the LANGUAGE!

Sass-isms and excerpts from this weekend:

Sass:  “Throw me!  Ima baseball!”

Sass:  “What you talkin’ about?  Dats Batcrap.”  *sigh*

At 6:30 this a.m., Sass marches in the bathroom (while I am trying to take a shower) and declares that:

Sass:  “ I'm mad at Daddy!”

Me:  “Why?”

Sass:  “He won’t give me dinner.”   

     We are still waiting on Sprinkles’s little nuggets of wisdom, but it seems that she prefers to remain silent as Sass does all the talking for her.

Sass:  “Sister wants a cookie, Mommy.”

Sass:  “Sister wants her milk, Mommy.”

Sass:  “Sister maybe wants to go pway wif me upstairs now, Mommy”.

     Of course, Sprinkles goes along quite happily with everything Sass Monkey suggests… well, except for when he decided she wanted to have a pillow fight and he blindsided her with a decorative throw pillow from the couch.  Nope, she was NOT down with that.  No worries though, she gets him back by taking his toys and sitting on his head while he is trying to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  Dats mah gurl….

No, Sweetie... THIS is Batcrap....

Slamming Hobbits and Bilbo's Berries

*Nerd Alert!*  You have been warned....

     The level of my obsession/love for the books The Hobbit and LOTR is frightening.  I am borderline bat-sh*t on this and the first step to recovery is realizing you have a problem, right?  Having been raised on the books I am a bit of what I would call a "Tolkien Purist" but what others might call "Oh Gawd!  Do NOT bring up the Ents... especially in public."  Apparently, I can be a little embarrassing ...
     I had a few issues with the LOTR movies (I still own the entire boxed set complete with HOURS of extras) and have been trepidatiously awaiting "The Hobbit".   I've been reading the rumor sights and looking at all the pictures that are beginning to dribble out and I thought sexy dwarves were going to be the worst thing I had to deal with... until Hubs showed me this...

Oh, Denny's...  "Hobbit Slam"?  "Seed cakes and Shire Sausage"?  "Radagast’s Red Velvet Pancake Puppies"?  I....   But....  Why,  Denny's?  Why?  And what the f*ck is a "Pancake Puppy"?
It's like my breakfast choices are roadkill or Hobbit Porn.  I feel like I need to go wash my eyes out or something.  Keep your Shire Sausage away from me!  I am a married woman, you know!  Slamming Hobbits... ewwww....

Other menu items include:
Frodo’s Pot Roast Skillet  (Oh...  no.....)
Bilbo’s Berry Smoothie (Not his BERRIES!) 
Gandalf’s Gobble Melt  (Can you put Purell on your brain?)
Hobbit Hole Skillet  (A coma sounds really good right about now...)

Oh, and there's more.  There's this...

AAAAAaaaaannnd this....

And dearsweetjeezusmakeitstop.......

This is almost as bad as seeing Frodo's nipples in ROTK.  Ack!  Nooooooo!  Hobbit's don't have nipples!  I need to go sit in a closet, curl into the fetal position, rock, and cry.  (Though not as damaging as having my Hubs, then boyfriend, set up Harry Potter in a full frontal photo from "Equus" as my "surprise screensaver".  He's a keeper, that one.)

So... happy Friday.  I guess...  *shudder*

Morning Aire... um I mean Air....

"Mommy.  I hafta fart."

This is what I heard while getting my lunch together this morning.  Sass was sitting at the table, munching happily on his cereal while Sprinks was alternating between shoving fistfulls in her mouth and gleefully throwing handfuls on the floor.

"What?"  I wanted to make sure I'd heard what I thought I'd heard.  

You see there was the "function incident" a few weeks ago when Sass was trying to tell us that something mechanical wasn't working.  "Mommy, Daddy... it not fuck... fuck... " (by this time our eyebrows had climbed to our hairlines and you could hear the crickets chirping in China).  "It not fuck-tion."  Big smile.  "OOoooohhhh, okay.  It doesn't function?  It doesn't work?", we said.

"Yeah, it's not working."

*Phew*

Anyway, back to this morning....

Sass:  "Mommy, I hafta fart" (looking concerned)

Me:  "What?"

Sass:  "I hafta fart."  Rubs his tummy.  I walk over.

Me:  "What's going to happen?"  Still playing dumb in the hopes that this is a "function incident".

Sass:  "It rolls around in here (points to tummy) and comes out down here (points to his underwear)."

Fair enough...

He start to look a little desperate, throws himself out of the chair (his normal mode of dismount), and trots toward the bathroom.

Me:  "You mean pass gas?"  

Sass:  Yeah, Mommy.  Pass gas."  As he opens the bathroom door, he looks back at me.  "And the gas is gonna come out!".  *triumphantly slams the door*

*sigh*

                                                                 He's gas powered....

Spiderman Pixie Dust

     Last night, while Sass was watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates (For those of you who have never seen this show it is about 3 children in Neverland who have adventures and are constantly harassed by a very toned down Captain Hook.  Disney basically took out all the darkness, the fear, and the sudo-pedaphilic undertones, slapped some racially obscure kids on the front and let ‘er rip.  Sass can't get enough.) and marching around in nothing but his red bandana and a Pull-Up, he declared that “Mommy, you be the pink one.  The pink banana girl.” (He has some trouble with “bandana”.)  “Okay, I do like pink.  Do I get the boots too?”  I asked.  “You get Pixie dust, mommy.” And he stopped for a second and thought and then said “I get Spiderman Pixie Dust.”  Because regular Pixie Dust is for girls, you see.  And only to use in emergencies like mace or bear horns.  So he had to man it up with some Spidey?  I guess so.  But the dude wears spandex and stays a virgin for how long?  He is a nerd with anger management issues.  He wears SPANDEX... but I digress….

But you can see his junk...

     What does this mean?  My little man doesn't want anything girly because “I’m a man, Mommy.” (yes, he has said that.).  I was concerned in the beginning.  He regularly identifies anything pink or sparkly as “princess stuff” or “Dat’s for girls!”.  He has a group of boys that he rough houses with now at school instead of girls (like at his old school … *ug.  Hipster jeans*).    He knows there is a difference…  Does he equate girly with weaker?  Lesser? 

     As I watched him squash his sister flat and then get squashed in return I realized that, no, he doesn't think of girls as lesser or weaker, just different.  He has no compunctions whatsoever with flattening a girl.  He isn't “man-ing up” he’s just putting people into categories.  “Boy” doesn't equal “better” or “stronger”, in fact, this boy refuses to touch bugs, snakes, lizards, and pumpkin guts.  (You should have seen his face when I tried to get him to help me gut the jack-o-lantern.  I thought he was going to puke.  All this while his sister is busy filling her gullet with grass and who knows what else she’s ripped up from the yard.)  Different is okay.  Different is good.  Because we are different.  He is starting with the largest grouping – male vs. female – and putting his world in order.  Order is good.  Understanding is good.  Defining is good.  We are going to have to work on the pink stereotyping though cause, honey, that boy (with his bright blue eyes and his peaches-n-cream complexion)  looks fabulous in a pink polo shirt….