From the Mouth of My Toddler, This Week:

Mommy, I need a cup of coffee.


That baby dinosaur is soooo little!  Just like me!  Roooooaaaar!


My favorite color is blue, purple, yellow, pink.


What do you want for breakfast?
Yellow cheese.  No.  Blue cheese.  No!  No blue cheese!  Only purple popsicle.  Pleeease. Thank you.


Where's daddy?
At work.
Oh.  Imma work too.
Oh really?  Where do you work?
I work at home.
And what do you do at home?
Play dinosaur.  And eat.


I need a dentist.


Moooooommmmyyyyy!  I want purple juice.
I don't have purple juice.  But I have milk.
You say tomato, I say tomahto.


The doctor gives a shot!  And a sticker! And wears a red shirt, and has a pinwheel and fish.


I don't like blue.  Yes, I do.  No I do NOT.  I like yellow.  Not.


I need a haircut.


I need to wear my socks on the potty.  

Let Me Call You Sweetheart: a Valentine's Culinary Attempt

Last week, I asked Heath what he might want for a Valentine's Day dinner: I knew it'd be too chaotic trying to go out for an "intimate" dinner, even for the four of us.  True to form, my meat-and-potatoes guy asked for just that: meat and potatoes.

(Side note: I never, ever bring red meat into the house.  For one, I'm not that fond of the taste of glatt Kosher meat, and second, none of us need it.  Burgers and sirloins and the like have become treats on the occasional date night when someone else, who knows what he/she is doing with raw meat, can cook it.)

At our local butcher's market, I asked for two healthy portions of London Broil.  I don't know anything about this cut, other than Heath likes it and it definitely qualifies as steak.  This morning, I took it out of the freezer and marinated it (low-sodium soy sauce, a little pumpkin beer, and garlic powder), and am hoping I cook it right--that is, don't overcook it, don't over-season it, etc.

Making steak has always somewhat scared me, because I know there's definitely a few right and a hundred wrong ways to do it.  But I'm doing this FOR MY MAN, so I was happy to hear Nigella recommend steak on NPR this morning as a Valentine's meal.  Hurrah!  I'm on trend!

My other culinary experiment tonight is a first for me: roasting beets.  I've always loved the taste and texture of beets, but I think their vibrant pink color is apropos for this evening, so those are in the oven as I write this.

Sides?  Salad, some asparagus spears (keep your thoughts to yourself, please), and of course, for potatoes, I've opted for Red Bliss.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!  And... happy valentine's night, too. xoxox

Memory Games

Well, I'm certainly not winning the Mother of the Year award... again.  And if Amy Chua is a Tiger Mother, I'm it's drowsy, oafish cousin, the neophyte kitten mom.

I forgot Dev's gym class this morning was at 9:30, and there we were, trotting in, taking our boots off at 10:30, when everyone else was LEAVING.  Huh?  Did we miss class? I asked little Ariella's mother.  YES, YOU DID! she said, and Dev looked at me with the most pitiful, saddest look a girl could ever give her mommy.

Oh, I felt like complete shite.

I was paralyzed for a moment by my own stupidity.  Of course!-- the baby had eaten twice and taken a perfect nap, Dev had a decent breakfast, I'd thrown in some laundry and had already made two phone calls by the time we'd left.  It was too perfect a morning.  Perfect, because we had an extra hour at home.*

Dev even practiced her somersaults last night on the living room carpet, showing off to daddy and making sure she was ready to do what Mr. Gym Teacher had been helping her with for three weeks.  And here she was, all in her little socks and little frown, looking up at me like how could you do this to me?

Luckily, the owner had some experience with this messing-up-your-kid's-schedule thing, and gave us 15 minutes in the gym with our friend Aiden, who was, thankfully, still there, and whose mom didn't mind hanging out with us a little while. And thankfully, Aiden's mommy is a savvy one, and knew that up the road, there's a rec center with an enormous play gym that was open for 20 more minutes if we hit the road pronto.

Determined to make good on my mistake, I scooped Dev back into her boots and coat and hat and off we zoomed to the rec center.   By the time we walked in, paid $4 at the front desk, and stripped our coats and boots off (again), there was 11--ELEVEN--minutes left to play.

GO PLAY!  I yelled.  I ran into the gym, pulling Dev's trusting hand along to the first wedge mat I could find.  GO AHEAD!  DO A SOMERSAULT!  RUN!  The poor girl didn't know what to do first.

You know what she did?

She laid on the floor and made a fake snow angel.  That'll learn me.

Eventually, we found our way to a free mat where she somersaulted to her heart's content--even showing off, I think.  She shot a few "baskets," ran around, propelled herself around on a little four-wheeled animal, ran around some more, played on a slide, went through some padded tunnels, ran around again, and jumped in and out of a hula hoop on the floor.  All in eleven minutes.

When the gym started to close up, I shooed Dev back to our coats and hats and boots.  Both of us were just totally exhausted by the thought of suiting up again.  So we went upstairs to the main desk area, found ourselves a little nook (poolside), and had snack.  I was hoping that Devi wouldn't remember that mom had totally messed up and that if she did, she wouldn't hold it against me.  She asked for more snack and--THANK GOD--I had one more for her.

And then, in the car on the way home, my little girl told me how much she liked the African song on the international Sesame Street CD.  Telly Monster...it's funny! she said, bobbing her head to the beat and pounding her small fists in the air, trying to dance in her confining car seat.  She wanted to listen to it four more times, and while on any other day I would have tried to persuade her towards another song, I obliged her without batting an eyelash.  Now I really understand parent guilt.

Whew.  I'm ready to put this one behind me.  And I will begin to write down the class time on our calendar.  Forever.  

 When Heath asked Dev how gymnastics was today, she actually said it's fun.  Maybe her young memory only goes so far back.  Thank goodness.  I'll be playing that memory game she got for her birthday today with her--the one where you flip the cards to match them--and it'll be more for my benefit than hers.

(*nb: The last two gym classes we attended were makeup classes, which met on a different day, each at 10:30.  So maybe it was just on the brain, and now I'm letting it lie.)

Wordless Wednesday: Coloring Our Hearts Out

Cheap Date

A couple of weeks ago, we attended Heath's office party.  Rather: we made BIG plans to attend Heath's office party.  We got a babysitter (mom), who offered to take care of the kiddos all night, thus giving us a much-needed night out with a full-night's rest to boot.  We were completely stoked, but me especially, because I have not had a full night's sleep in over a YEAR.  (Sol's gestation was great, but I could have done without the restless legs and heartburn.)  When we set out that night, I had already turned off all the house phones, turned off the alarm clock, set the coffee timer for the hour I thought I might be getting up, and made extra sure all the window shades in the room were so tightly closed that nary a ray of sun would disrupt what would have been my precious sleep.

The party boasted an open bar for the first and last hours.  Since I wouldn't be nursing all night, I treated myself to one of my favorite aperitifs: the G&T.  In fact, I helped myself to a second.  With dinner and during the evening, I sipped a big, bulbous glass of merlot.  It was a happy buzz.

As the party wound down, Heath's cohorts asked us to join them down the street for a drink.  They're good company, these kids--but they're kids-- in their 20's, maybe early 30's.  I mention their ages here because I think there's a difference in the way you can still drink when you're a decade out of college as opposed to two decades out.  We were happy to go, but there was a little, nagging headache starting between my eyes, and I could hear my pajamas calling.  But how often would I be getting out to just... hang?  At a bar?  With my husband--and cool folks?  On we went.  I hung onto Heath's arm for balance and pretended that it was really slippery out (which it kinda was).  There was still a little romance to this buzz.  Remember those?  You get all glassy-eyed and kissy?  It was like that.

I decided to end the evening with my longtime companion digestif, Sambuca on the rocks.  Ah, the refreshing anisette, the spice of it!  It went down smooth and fast.

I was blitzed.

The nagging headache between my eyes became a screaming headache, and by the time we got home, I wanted nothing more than my pillow.  (Read more here about why I got little sleep that night.)  The headache was still there when we woke up.  And it lingered well into the day.

(Don't think I didn't do all the college tricks to save myself from Hotel Hangover: plenty of water before bed, a piece of bread, a short prayer to the heavens asking for absolution for my ever thinking I could handle all that alcohol in the span of a few hours.  What was the rhyme?  Liquor with beer, never fear... liquor with wine... not fine? )

I had Heath give the baby formula while I pumped and hydrated myself back to normal.  I was a living hydraulic pump.  I also promised myself not to take such liberties with my sobriety again.

And then a couple friends came over this week with a bottle of wine, which we finished (in total, I think I had a whopping glass and a half), in my dining room, in the harsh light of the afternoon.  (Mommy's having a tea party, I told Dev, who wanted nothing more than to join us--there were cookies, after all.)  And while I suffered nothing like the head-pulsing clamp I'd felt just a week before, I called Heath, at work, to tell him dinner would be simple that night.  Cereal.  Maybe pasta, if I felt like bending over to get a pot out of the cabinet.

Lesson learned.  I shared a beer with a friend last night during the Superbowl.  And I slept like a baby.