Last year, my mom gave me a Ped Egg and something else in similar boxes. I didn’t know what a Ped Egg was at the time and I didn’t look in the other box. She kept asking if I’d used it. I kept saying no but I would soon. Finally, I yanked the sucker out of it’s box and used it the day before she was coming over. I thought it was pretty awesome, it even caught my skin sloughs in it’s little catcher egg. Cool!
I left it on the telephone counter so she could see that I’d used it. This may sound strange, but the phone nook is right outside the bathroom. Plus, my bathroom is a mess. She wouldn’t notice it in there if it had a bright orange sign on it.
When she came in and saw it, she said, “Why is the cheese grater I gave you sitting here?”
To which my husband yelled, “SHE WAS USING IT ON HER FEET!”
I wish I could say I pay attention to what boxes say now, but I don’t. Expect something similar to happen again.
Yeah. I know. The kid needs friends. You should have seen the look on his face when I suggested we make cookies after reading “the mouse eating a cookie book”.
It was similar to this, only less cheeky.
It was nothing like this. This is his, “Put away the camera” face.
So is this.
The pouring of sugar is a very serious job. Clearly, by the look on his face, he took it as such.
I know. Sharp inhale. He’s attempting to pick that up with one hand. That heavy, full of hard to clean-up, sticky, powdery brown sugar. WITH ONE HAND! Every mom of a toddler is every so slightly terrified and wondering why I didn’t put down the camera.
I did. That’s why there’s no picture of him pouring in the brown sugar. Although, he did end up using both hands by himself. He hates messes much more than I do. I find myself regularly telling him, “It’s okay to get messy. Really, it’s fine!”
To which he regularly responds, “No. No, it’s not, mommy. I need to wash my hands.”
And that’s how I’m regularly chided by a 2 year old.
Back to the one-handed cookies.
Which he handled exceptionally well.
There was a minor hiccup, however, when he (using two hands) spilled a little flour on the kitchen island.
Feel free to sharply inhale again. He certainly did.
I said, “It’s okay.”
He said, “THE TABLE IS DIRTY OF FLOUR! MY SHIRT IS DIRTY OF FLOUR! MY HANDS ARE DIRTY OF FLOUR! OH NOOOO, MOMMYYYYYYYYYY!”
We had to take a hand wash, table wipe and shirt cleaning break.
I spent the time between the 2 year old OCD break cleaning up break and this picture trying to stave off the boy eating the dough straight out of the bowl. We had to have a talk about raw eggs and salmonella.
He didn’t want to touch dough. Ever. Again. But he did want to “wook at dee cookies in dee oven!”
And he did. A lot.
Can I ask a favor? Could we all pretend like that cookie isn’t clearly burnt? Could we pretend like I didn’t get sidetracked trying to convince that sleepy faced child up there to take a nap while he screamed no because he wanted to see the cookies again and again and again?
Thanks.
While it’s clear the rousing “BOOM! BOOM!” is what is the cause of his love for “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom“, I’m convinced that Sonlight’s suggestion to make cookies after reading “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” is the main reason he fell in love with this book. We are positively loving Sonlight right now.
There’s a long standing “joke”* with my dad that everyone should eat bugs to get their protein. To which both my mom and I cringe and squeel, shiver, and tell him to shut up. So, it was no surprise that when the hubs and I brought up the idea of vermiculture (worm composting), my dad’s automatic response was, “OH! And you can EAT them if we run out of beef!” To which my similarly icky husband said, “Ooh! Yeah! We could eat them!” And I launched into a head shaking that was probably felt from a mile away. At that moment, my mom scurried in from the kitchen, looking slightly peaked, to ask, “What?! What about worms?” To which I only responded with a, “Nothing. They’re nuts.”
Later in the day, my mom pulled me aside for a Starbucks run, which is code for, “We have to talk about something that we must be sneaky about, for no apparent reason.” The moment we got into the car, she very worriedly said, “So, tell me about this worm thing.” I barely got the words, “worms” and “ordered” out of my mouth before she interrupted. “Are you going to eat the worms? Because I heard him say you were going to eat the worms. If you guys are having trouble with groceries…”
I’m not sure whether her thinking we were so poor we were going to eat worms is hilarious or really, really sad. Either way, it took me about 20 minutes of interruptions and reassurances before I could convince her that we were not going to eat the worms, that our house wouldn’t smell like poop, and that we weren’t going to be living in filth and flies up to our knees. Although, to be honest, I still think she’s going to be popping over with groceries every week from now on, just so that her grandson doesn’t have to have worm stew for dinner.
*This gets a star because the word “joke” implies that the object is funny. It’s not.
The food poisoning, that is. We won’t ever, ever discuss that I got God awful food poisoning and may or may not have spent a good part of the night asleep on my parents’ bathroom floor.
We won’t discuss how, now, I am uber paranoid about hand washing and may or may not be searching frantically for a step stool so the boy can wash his own hands whenever he chooses (which manages to be All.The.Time. – Is it too early for an OCD check?). Which may or may not is causing a slight problem, seeing as how he’s only 2, not quite able to get up steps without some hand holding, and a little small for his age.
This is the first stool that caught my eye, the Ecotots Surfin Kids First Wave Step Stool. It’s entirely adorable. However, it’s also not nearly tall enough for the kid to reach his intended destination. There are two types of stools in the child world. One steppers and two steppers. One steppers were not what we needed. On I went.
While I found the Safari Storage Step-Up Stool ridiculously adorable and that it had storage (!!!). it really didn’t solve my “can’t climb so well” problem. I needed a two stepper with a railing. I had no idea if anyone even made them.
Apparently, they do! The High Rise Step Up would raise the boy up just enough to not only reach the sink, but the kitchen counter when he wants to help make his snacks! It looked perfect!
While I would love to end this blog with a “and I got it and it was perfect and I never had to sleep on my parents’ bathroom floor again”, unfortunately, the husband is just not convinced it’ll do the job. And, for the price, if he’s not sure…well, you know.
So, here I sit, trying to figure out if I can build a railing for a double stepper out of plywood and craft glue.
My husband loves this bread. Correction, loved it. The last time I made it (3 days ago), it was gone in less than 1 day. I got half a slice. Believing it to be a rousing success, I made an even larger loaf yesterday. Unfortunately, my husband watched me make it this time which, inevitably, caused WWIII a little distress seeing as how, you know, it used sugar. Cue horror music now.
There were snotty rants discussions of how sugar is needed for bread, sending him bounding to the fridge to look at our other bread’s wrapper (because “bread does NOT NEED SUGAR!”), and him swearing off the bread only to cut another 1/4 slice (which he took directly from the loaf, leaving it oddly disfigured) 20 seconds later. To which I may or may not have responded, with all the grace of a cranky 12 year old, “DON’T YOU DARE EAT MY BREAD! THAT’S MY BREAD! It’ll just make you SICK anyway.” Because arguing about how I, apparently, cook bread entirely incorrectly and how said bread is going to kill my family thanks to the completely normal inordinate amount of sugar in the recipe, may have ticked me off perturbed me, just a tad.
The Boy and I liked it, anyway.
So, if you’re up for making over-sugared, death causing whole wheat bread for your family, the following is the recipe I used. It’s for an Oster 5811, 1 1/2 lb loaf bread machine. This is for the full 1 1/5 lb size.
1 1/4 cups water
2 Tbsp butter, softened
3 cups whole wheat flower
1/4 cup packed brown sugar (or “poison in sweetened crystal form”)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 tsp bread machine yeast, quick-acting active dry yeast, or regular active dry yeast
” and “
“. Loves them so much, in fact, that upon printing some “
. It’s entirely adorable. However, it’s also not nearly tall enough for the kid to reach his intended destination. There are two types of stools in the child world. One steppers and two steppers. One steppers were not what we needed. On I went.
ridiculously adorable and that it had storage (!!!). it really didn’t solve my “can’t climb so well” problem. I needed a two stepper with a railing. I had no idea if anyone even made them.
