Talking with Jane

Sep17

With her sisters away at school during the day Jane and I have spent a lot of time chatting together.

And by chatting I mean she talks all day and I try to keep up.

Here are a few snippits of our conversations over the last week.

As I picked up a requested item off the floor for her:

Me: “No problem girl.”

Jane: “Call me hair salon girl.”

Me: “Alright. No problem hair salon girl.” Jane

A random question she sought me out to ask.

Jane: “Mom? Will you get bigger and bigger until you break this whole house?”

Me: “Will I get that big? No. I’m not getting any bigger.”

Jane: “Will I get bigger and bigger until I break this whole house?”

Me: “No, you won’t get that big either.”

Jane: “Will Dad?”

Me: “No, nobody will get that big.”

Jane: “Oh.”

And then she disappeared back the way she came. I also feel compelled to tell you that I’ve not gotten bigger in any way, shape or form recently.

Jane: “Mom I’m havin’ feelin’s.”

Me: “What kind of feelin’s”

Jane: “Elsa feelin’s”

Me: “What are those?”

Jane: “The kind that make you feel bad.”

I tried to find out what was up but she just swirled away in her Elsa dress. I feel fairly confident she was havin’ feelin’s of a pretend nature .

This was a long drawn out and dramatic story with a surprise ending.

“Mom. I was really getting frustrated… with my feelings with dad…. because when I was gettin’ smaller and smaller… I wasn’t fitting into my lady bug pajamas.”

The end.

And finally near the end of a very long story that I, admittedly, was paying no attention whatsoever to:

Jane: “…we married and kissed- but don’t freak out!”

Always Wash Your Produce

Aug25

Standing in the middle of the produce department of our small town grocery store, I turned to deposit the garlic bulbs in my cart just in time to see Jane finish fishing something out of her underwear.

“MOM! THIS WAS IN MY UNDERWEAR!!!”

Ivy, who, obviously, heard the comment promptly chimed in with something to the effect of:

“Oh my gosh, how did she get the Apple Jacks we just bought in her underwear?!?”

And by chimed, I mean bellowed as if she was in possession of her own personal grocery store bullhorn.

I quickly informed my children, and anyone else who may or may not have been listening, that the offending item Jane had retrieved was part of her snack from the car and promptly left the area without making eye contact.

Moral: Always wash your produce.

Love and Sloppy Joes

Jul26

I made my kids sloppy joes.

This is a big deal.

This is an act that fully demonstrates my unending devotion to the little demons I have spawned.

Because sloppy joes are terrible.

I first discovered the terribleness of sloppy joes as a kid. Strangely enough it was shortly after I discovered that I liked sloppy joes. I, super picky eater of a kid, had just deemed them an edible food when I visited a friend and discovered the terrible truth.

All sloppy joes are not created equal.

Some of them are nothing more than a nasty mash of ground meat in tomato based substance (which I found palatable as a child because it was basically meat and white bread) but many rotten mothers hide vegetables in their sloppy joes. That’s right, vegetables hidden in what was thought to be delicious food. My faith in sloppy joes was shattered and never recovered.

But my hatred of making sloppy joes stems from more than just my childhood betrayal. The real problem with making sloppy joes is the ketchup. It may be Un-American of me but I really hate ketchup. It’s not just that I dislike eating it. I’d really prefer not to smell it or have it touch me, or anything else within a 20 foot radius of me.

I seriously hate ketchup.

But I have girls who love ketchup. If they had their way everything would come with ketchup. Fortunately, they don’t have their way, they have my way. Because, in the monarchy that is our household, the queen refuses to deal with ketchup unless absolutely necessary.

This has resulted in a “sure kid, you can have ketchup with your hot dog but you have to be the one to touch the bottle and then you have to rinse your plate off when you are done before it goes in the dishwasher because I’m not getting near that evil substance” sort of policy.

I hear ketchup is made from tomatoes, I don’t find this to be at all plausible because tomatoes in all forms are quite palatable. Ketchup is not.

But…Ivy found a recipe all on her own for sloppy joes and asked nicely. I shuddered as I read the amount of required ketchup and went to the grocery store for buns.

Because that’s how much I love my girls.

Then, because I do so love my children and regularly force them to eat things with asparagus and onions, I braved the ketchup and made them sloppy joes (without hidden veggies, because if I was going to make the stuff they were going to eat it!).

They looked nasty, they smelled worse, they brought back horrible memories of sneaky vegetable filled sloppy joes and the girls ate them all up and asked for seconds.

I cringed scooping up another sandwich but consoled myself with the knowledge that I had really showed my children how much I loved them, making them something special yet repulsive to me just because they are such good kids. Clearly this batch of slop should earn me extra special mom points and…

“Could you put extra ketchup on mine?”

What?!? Seriously? After all I’ve done!?!

I delivered the bottle to the table and backed away as Ivy applied more ketchup to her sandwich. Then Jane asked for ketchup, and a banana.

Kids, give them an inch and they try to take a mile. Clearly Jane was unsatisfied with the level of devotion I was showing and she’s going to stay that way.

The only food item that can compete with the horror of ketchup is the banana.

I love my children so much I made them sloppy joes, but there will be no bananas in the house while this queen is still ruling.

Problem Solver

Jul12

Jane looked at me, strawberry ice-cream ear to ear and neck to nose and said, “Mom, will you lick my nose off?”

Unperturbed with getting “no” for answer she took her sweaty little hand, smeared it all up and down her face, over her nose, held it out and said, “Well, then will you lick my hand?”

Then, still un-bothered by my refusal to lick anything, promptly wiped off her sticky hands on her car seat, gave me the half eaten, and now unwanted, ice cream cone and ran off to play.

So you see, it’s really not so bad that I forgot the napkins.

I was just helping Jane exercise her problem solving skills.

Table Manners

Jun10

We’ve been working on table manners. Specifically I’ve been championing the “I don’t care if you don’t like it just don’t say so!” platform. Because, with multiple children involved if one says, out loud, that something looks: weird, icky, yucky, gross, green or like an onion, suddenly no one, not even children who have been eating it, will touch it.

Tonight Ivy was inspecting my homemade salsa. She ate some, she asked questions about what it was made out of, her sisters ate some and then she said:

“Like I’d rather have this than swim with a great white shark and a tiger shark.”

Her sisters kept eating the salsa.

I’m calling it progress.

Morning Things

Mar16

To say that I’m not at my best in the morning may be an understatement. I am a night owl, I am not a morning person.

But I am an amazingly fortunate night owl, I rarely have to get up at a prescribed time in the morning. (Thank you Honey!) However, I do have children.

This means that many mornings I lie in bed three quarters asleep trying hard to be all the way asleep while children drape themselves over me and talk to me in ridiculously loud voices. I respond in grunts, mumbles and sometimes yells (Don’t ever tickle my feet or stick your finger up my nose when I’m sleeping I do not like it.) that I hope will make them all be quiet for just ten more minutes. (Ten minutes is, of course, the magical morning time that will make everything better.)

This is not my proudest moment of the day.

I look sort of like this in the morning but grumpier and less cute.

It takes a Thing to get me up. An extra nudge to convince me that leaving my comfy bed, where sleep might still happen, is what needs to be done. Often the Thing is the beckoning bathroom. (Which makes me feel old.) Some days it’s the sound of children getting into what they shouldn’t. (Think, yogurt falling out of the refrigerator, and chairs being moved for access to high places.) Sometimes the Thing takes the form of animal mischief. (Puking cats, barking dogs, frightened chicken noises…) On terrible mornings the Thing is a warm wet puddle spreading from a nearby child. And on horrible days the Thing is the alarm clock and my conscience. It is rare that a conversation with a child will be the Thing to rouse me in the morning but it does occasionally happen. (Read Just Imagine for a rather dramatic example.)

On a recent morning Clara was snuggled into my nice cozy bed and talking at me about, well, actually, I have no idea what it was about. Clara was talking and I was making mumbly, grunty noises hoping she’d stop when she dropped a Thing into conversation.

“Mom, when Trip dies, you can make him into hot dogs.”

It was, without a doubt, a Thing. Suddenly I was wide awake, simultaneously giving a lesson on what hot dogs are made of, proclaiming that no one is ever eating our dogs and getting her breakfast ready. Just in case my neglecting to get out of bed in a reasonable amount of time and feed her was giving her ideas.

Do You Like Barbies?

Feb2

Once upon a time Jane was talking to a young male friend of her’s on our way home.

Jane: “Do you like Barbies?”

YMF: “No.”

Jane: “But what kind of Barbies do you like?”

YMF: “I don’t like ANY Barbies.”

Jane: “But you like Ken?”

YMF: “No.”

Jane: “You like princess Barbies?”

YMF: “No.”

Jane: “But you like Merida.”

YMF: “No.”

Jane: “You like Jasmine?”

YMF: “What?”

Jane: “But you like Jasmine!”

YMF: “BATMAN?!”

Jane: “No. Jasmine.”

YMF: “Oh. No.”

Jane: “But you like Barbies!?”

YMF: “I don’t like Barbies!”

Jane: “But you like…”

…

It was an impressive conversation. Jane’s persistence and complete unwillingness to accept given answers as fact had met it’s match with her friend’s polite refusal.

The conversation continued on into the house…

Jane: “You wanna play Barbies now?!”

YMF: “No.”

It was time for me to stop hiding my giggles and step in.

Me: “Hey guys, how about Legos? Should we get the Legos out?”

YMF: “Are they Barbie Legos?”

Fortunately I was able to assure him that there were no Barbie Legos and they played happily ever after.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Express Yourself

Jan26

Weekly Photo Challenge: Express Yourself

Clara had just gotten her hair cut.

If you don’t know Clara you should pop over and read That Girl… to familiarize yourself with my fantastic middle daughter who’s known more for her death defying tricks than her fashion conscious lifestyle.

She waltzed out of the hair salon with her newly cut, styled and glittered hair and as she buckled up in the truck I looked back at her and said, “Clara, I like your braids!”

“Yeah,” she said with a toss of her head, “they’re French.”

The Three Year Old Way

Jan20

So far as I can, tell the main difference between two year olds and three year olds is that three year olds talk more.

A lot more.

Let’s say you were driving in a car with a two year old and she demanded water but there wasn’t any. You would tell her that there was no water and then there would be a high probability that pouting and screaming would follow. It would be loud, dramatic, completely unreasonable and involve lots of foot flailing on the two year olds part and teeth gritting on the mother’s part and then it would be done.

That’s the two year old way.

However, if you were driving in a car with a three year old and she demanded water but there wasn’t any, it might go something like this…

Jane: “I’m thirsty.”

Me: “Sorry, I don’t have any water.”

Jane: “Can I have some water please.”

Me: “No Jane, I don’t have any water.”

Jane: “PLEASE, can I have some water.”

Me: “Jane. I don’t have anything to drink in the car or I would give you some but I don’t have anything.”

Jane: “Mom, I’m thirsty!”

Me: “I know.”

Jane: “Can I have some Diet Coke.”

Me: “I don’t even have any Diet Coke. I don’t have anything to drink. See?” (As I hand back all available empty liquid containers so she can see for herself.)

Jane: “BUT MOM! PLEASE CAN I HAVE A DRINK!?”

Me: “When we get home you can have some, sure.”

Jane: (crying) “Please can I have some water.”

Me: “As soon as we get home.”

Jane: “Mom? Can we go to the gas station?”

Me: “Well there aren’t any gas stations here and anyways I forgot my wallet so I don’t have any money with me to buy anything to drink.”

Jane: “Please can we go to the gas station?”

Me: “All there is between here and home is cornfields and I don’t have any money to buy anything. So, we’ll get water at home.”

Jane: “I’m THIRSTY!!!”

Me: …..

Jane: “Please can I have water.”

Me: ….

Jane: “MOM! I NEED WATER!!!!!”

Me: “Seriously, I have nothing! I can’t get anything, we’ll be home soon, you just have to wait!”

Jane: “PLEASE!!!!!!”

…

Thirty minutes of this continual and terrible conversation later you’d be twenty minutes past the point where your sanity chose to jump into a snowy ditch and abandon you but you’d be home, getting the kid an *&#% drink of water.

That’s the three year old way.

And they call it the terrible twos…

Untrustworthy? Me?

Jan5

You know that person?

The one who’s never met a so called “too rich” dessert?

The one who can eat her cake and your unwanted frosting too?

The one who incorporates chocolate chips into her breakfast anytime she can, always has something for dessert and takes her kids out on Halloween so she can eat their candy?

Yeah, that’s me.

So tonight when we ran out of Christmas cookies – I made dessert.

All gone.

It was, if I do say so myself, fairly fantastic so I wasn’t surprised that Ivy asked for a piece to go into her lunch tomorrow.

I assured her that would be fine and found myself suddenly subjected to a cross examination on what exactly I would or would not be eating for the rest of the evening worthy of a lawyer to be.

It seems she feels I’m untrustworthy when it comes to desserts.

Mom plees do not eat all of them

After the girls went to bed I, of course, went to have another piece and found that Ivy had left nothing to chance.

So I just had one more small piece…

…or maybe two…

If you’d like to try these Cranberry Chocolate Chip Blondies for yourself I found the recipe here: http://www.averiecooks.com/2014/11/cranberry-chocolate-chip-blondies.html

I needed to bake it quite a bit longer than the recipe called for and happily discovered that a few minutes outside at 0° will work just as well as letting them sit an hour before cutting. All in all they were quick, easy and, obviously, tasty!