My husband claims to despise the television. He’ll stare at it with vitriol in his eyes and profess his hatred for the “blaring commercials” and “stupid plot lines”. He’ll screech about how much it rots his brain and steals his soul. However, turn on Fringe, or Dexter, or Curb Your Enthusiasm, or House, or any Rick Steves Goes to Some Random Place in Eastern Europe and Acts Like a Raging Dweebazoid, and he is glued. I mean GLUED. Try to talk to my husband while he’s watching TV and you may as well be talking to a fence post. Double concentration just doesn’t work for him, nor for my son. They’re brains become little lasers in front of the boob tube. Unlike me who was raised with a TV in her room and had never slept with one off until I met my husband, when I was 23. This is the first time in my life I haven’t had more than 1 TV in the house, nevertheless not had one in my bedroom. (Oh, the horror! Oh, the agony! Oh, the really good night’s sleep!)
On any given day, you could walk into our living room and have no idea a TV exists. Well, unless you know that TVs often exist hidden in armoires, in which case I expect you to pretend like you have no idea one exists. Preferably with an exclamation of, “WOW! I had NO IDEA that was back there! You are a GENIUS!” (Ego stroking will often get you carnitas, or cookies, or both. Just a heads up.)
I say “could” because, as of late, I’ve been turning on the TV way too much. In fact, every opportunity I get I’m turning it on. I’ve begun to judge when it’s time for The Boy’s nap, when it’s time to start dinner, when it’s time to inhale, by what time Curious George, or Word World, or God Forbid, Street Court comes on. TV is no longer an occasional fun thing for either myself or The Boy. It’s become an everyday, Good Morning, pee, breakfast, TV sort of thing. I’ve watched our days go from fun little crafts and ridiculously annoying repetitive storytimes to “Mommy, what’s going to come on next?!” It is sucking my time away with my son and it’s pissing me off. I am pissing me off.
I can always explain it away with the fact that, in winter, I am in pain. A lot of it. I start to move like the tin man before he was oiled. I’ve had arthritis in my joints since about 16. Bad weather brings on bad aches, and bad aches bring on the urge to hang out under a blanket and veg. I should be cleaning, but I can’t stand for long. I can’t do dishes because the water sends needles shooting up to my shoulders. The basement is where all my crafty mess stash is, but it’s also the most freezing part of the house. It’s easy to get complacent and not want to do crap but find out why that lady slapped that man with a knife on Judge Judy (really, though, how does one slap someone with a knife?).
But, if I’m honest with myself, there’s really no excuse for not taking an Advil and chugging along. Or, better yet, curling up under a blanket with the boy and reading all day. Or doing Starfall. Or writing. There are a million things I could be doing that don’t include turning that thing on, they just take a bit more work than pointing a remote. Bastards.
So, I’m setting a goal for the week. No TV. I want my family to talk to each other again. I want to eat dinner at the table, and not on our couch. I want our lives to be more about each other than what snarky comment Greg House is making to the newest dying patient in his ever so capable care. (FYI, if I’m ever dying of some unknown illness, take me to him. Yes, I know he’s not real. Can’t a girl dream?)
Please don’t get me wrong, if you’re a regular TV watching family and love it, that’s great. It works for you. Unfortunately, when the TV is on in our house, no one interacts. We don’t talk, we don’t laugh, we don’t learn, we don’t connect. It just doesn’t work for us.
Two years ago, my sweet little man was born. Two years. He’s growing so quickly, it’s a little shocking. I look at pictures like that and can’t imagine how someone so little and fragile could’ve become the wonderful, smart, holy freaking terror he is just two years later.
We asked The Boy what he wanted to do on his birthday and, despite my many attempts to put Chuck E. Cheese into his head for God knows what masochistic reason, he clearly stated that, “I want to go to Sweet Tomatoes and then Grandma’s house.” So that is what we did. He also stated, very clearly, “I do not like Happy Birthday.” I always hated being sung to, too, so I was more than willing to oblige.
My mom, the husband and I stayed up most of the night making the most horrific looking (and heavenly tasting)Word World cake ever known to man. I will not share the images of “Pig” looking as if he’s attempting to hump “Sheep”, or “Ant” looking like a victim of some God awful crime. Suffice to say, the boy could not figure out who any of the characters were and they all ended up in the trash at the end of the day.
Ignoring my stern warning to avoid it, my slightly sadistic mom family decided to sing happy birthday to him. I have a feeling each year we will get a picture like this one because there will be at least that one reveler that believes the Boy really does enjoy the singing and that I’m just making it up. And each year said reveler will quickly realize that he is wrong. Very wrong.
Somehow, despite the fact that I was the only person not singing. That I was the only person not involved with the whole conspiracy to horrify him, he remained angry with me through the entire meal.
And afterwards.
Apparently, it was my job to control these people and I was doing a horrible, horrible job.
He resorted to yelling at them himself. I think this was something along the lines of, “HEY! BACK OFF!” or maybe it was just, “That’s miiiiiine!”
Grandma, clearly, did not take him seriously.
He enjoyed all of his presents, immensely. He got to ride his new tricycle around grandma and grandpa’s neighborhood with nana, popo and the rest of us in tow. He got to watch the water at the pool. He had enough cake that he darn near passed out the moment we got him into the car seat.
We came home and he laid on my arm, as he usually does before bed, and we talked about the day he was born. We talked about the hospital. We talked about the nurses. He fell asleep after telling me, “I’m two, mommy. I was born and now I’m two.”
Happy birthday, sweet boy. You were born and now you’re two. We love you.
Pier 39, while an absolute tourist trap, was a whole load of fun. We started with the aquarium and saw lots of jellyfish.
Lots and lots of jellyfish.
Then there was the Jaws III (it’s a film, people, it deserves roman numerals)-esque tunnel-o-death where we got to see, “SHARKS, MOMMY, SHARKS!”
“THAT’S A BIIIIIG ONE SHARK, MOMMY! THAT’S A BIIIIIG ONE!”
And an octopus. At least, they said it was an octopus and I saw those funky tentacle things moving but…can anyone tell me where the octopus is in this picture because I really can’t see it.
Ohhh! Now…I…see…it? Maybe? (Oddly, this is what happened when I leveled the above picture.)
After that, we headed down for an extremely expensive frozen coffee on our way to the Red and White fleet boat trip.
The boy was not impressed with the hour long line or the people who ruthlessly cut in front of us after we waited in said hour long line. I have a picture I could post of the cutters who should clearly be shunned and pelted with rotten fish, but I’m thinking maybe I have too much class to do such a thing.
Nor with the Golden Gate Bridge (he slept through it).
And was only later impressed by the seals when we watched them while having lunch. (Let’s pretend like this and the previous picture are not wonky from taking it through a water drop covered boat window while becoming ridiculously sea sick.)
After damn near puking for about an hour, I got a picture of the most beautiful chicks and hens I’ve ever seen. Yes, I really am that much of a dork.
Since the last thing I want to leave everyone with is an impression of me as a major horticulture dork, here are the people who cut in front of us. Shun them. Smite them. Pelt them with rotten fish.
I bow easily to self-imposed peer pressure to be cool.
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.
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
