Category Archives: Uncategorized

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? II

In today’s edition of “Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said?” we have a phrase which, in addition to being one of those things that:

A) shouldn’t have to be said in the first place,

B) shouldn’t have to be said by me and

C) that yelling out an open window of the house does not at all improve,

it also, sadly, is something we have addressed before.

NOOOO!!!!

Don’t poop in the yard!!!

The worst part of this is, of course, the aftermath.

Moving the perpetrator (or should I say poopetrator?) to the toilet.

Yard clean up.

The lengthy explanation to answer the ever present “WHY?” question.

My explanation was going so well I was starting to worry that Clara was never going to poop outside again. Which, given that I would like to take them camping, might not be great thing for the long run. So we talked about acceptable times and places to poop outdoors.

Finally a poop free girl headed back outside with Ivy as they walked through the door I heard:

“Me poop outside in hole. Me go do that.”

Now I’m sorta worried about the sandbox.

Political Advice

With upcoming elections of all sorts I’ve some advice for the politicians.

-It’s the major angle they all seem to be missing.

-It’s the issue that will endear them to parents everywhere, no matter the rest of their platform.

Politicians, whoever you are, just stand up in front of the cameras and declare:

“I shall abolish daylight savings time.”

Can’t you just hear the cheering already?

-The mothers, rejoicing that never again shall nap time be moved by an obnoxious, arbitrary, hour?

-The fathers, thrilled that never again shall they randomly attempt to shift bed time in any direction?

It’d work.

Trust me.

I know stuff.

Not about politics.

But I know that when the time changes our life feels like it goes upside down in a rainy mud puddle…

…doesn’t yours?

Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said?

Often I catch my self saying things that I never would have guessed,

A) needed to be said in the first place,

B) that I would need to be the one to say them and

C) that I wouldn’t just be saying them, I’d be yelling them.

In my first edition of “Did I just say what I thought I said?” I give you:

“Don’t dry your hotdog off on a towel!”

Note: As there is no hot dog or bath towel in this photo it has very little relevance to the above quote other than that the happily jumping girl is also the wanna be hot dog dryer.


Note: This picture has nothing to do with anything so far mentioned, I just like it.

Searching for Recipes

Eating on a diet without wheat, corn, rice, oats, lamb, green beans, chicken…. it gets boring.

Really boring.

Fortunately we are starting to successfully add foods back into Clara’s diet (Hooray for tomatoes and cane sugar!) but it’s a slow process.

As exciting as tomatoes are the food we are eating is still pretty boring. Venison roast with vegetables sounds great, unless you eat it at least once a week. Poor Ivy has been begging, for pizza, noodles and dessert and so I’ve been looking and sleuthing online trying to come up with something different. Trying to do a regular Google search for recipes was frustrating. Even using different cooking websites and their recipe sorters was hard, lists of recipe names that I then had to open and double check ingredients seemed like a great idea but was tedious to carry out. Then I found Pinterest. While I’m still a little sketchy on the point of the whole thing and have no plans of creating my own Pinterest account (because what would I do with it?) I discovered you can look at things just from the Food and Drink category. There you can see pages and pages of good looking pictures of food. The brilliant part?  I can glance at a picture and make a much better quick guess if it will work than looking at a recipe name. So as long as I can avoid drooling over the oodles of lovely looking food we can’t have I have been able to sort through and find some new ideas.

We’ve tried Honey Chipotle Turkey Meatballs, which were excellent though next time we’ll be making the sauce separate on more of them, it was “too spicy” according to Ivy. Then I found Chocolate-Covered Katie and Clara friendly dessert made a more regular appearance and life was good.

Previously making dessert was more of an ordeal, we had found a good chocolate cake recipe and a few good cookie recipes, but very few quick desserts or easy snacks. Last week we made Chocolate-Covered Katie’s Cookie Dough Dip with just a few differences to make it Clara friendly.  Clara and Ivy helped me dump the ingredients into the food processor and blend it up. I opened the top, told Clara that yes she could taste it and turned to get a bowl. When I turned back she had two handfuls of it.

Needless to say the Cookie Dough Dip was a hit!

I feel I should also mention that this dip has a base of chickpeas.

I have never willingly ate more than a single bite of a chickpea containing food before.

Of course I also never had them with chocolate chips.

Chocolate, it makes everything better!

The Terrible Twos

When was the last time you had a conversation with a two year old?

Has it been awhile?

Do you need help remembering some of the reasons it’s called “The Terrible Twos?”

Let me help.

First off they lure you in with their cuteness and funny comments:

Clara kisses me on the cheek before bed.

Me: “You’re so sweet.”

Clara: “Yeah, Grandpa Moose love me.”

Once they’ve got you fully buttered up with their supreme cuteness, epic cleverness and general winning personality you may make the mistake of trying to talk to them on your own terms.

Me: “Clara!”

…

Me: “Clara do you want breakfast?”

…

Me: ” Clara!”

…

Me: “Clara are you hungry?”

…

This is the equivalent of a conversation with a brick wall.  But beware, the wall has ears and just as you throw up your hands to walk away that’s when they will pipe up with The Demand.

Clara: “ME WANT OOTMEAL!”

Me: “Please?”

Clara: “ME WANT OOTMEAL!……….Pease.”

Now, it would seem that an actual conversation may have been started… don’t be fooled.

Me: “Ok, I’ll make you oatmeal.”

Clara: “ME WANT CLARA OOTMEAL!”

Me: “Yup, Clara oatmeal,  I’m making it.”

Clara: “MOM, ME WANT OOTMEAL!”

Me: “Yes, I know, I’m making it, why don’t you go get a bowl.”

Clara: “NOOOO, ME WANT OOTMEAL!”

Me: “Don’t scream. I’m making your food right NOW!”

Clara: ” ME NEED OOTMEAL!”

… “Conversation” continues along this vein until oatmeal is procured.”

Clara: “Tanks, Mom.”

At this point you can either fall again for the cuteness factor brought on by the relief of the return of normal speaking tone and a modicum of politeness or try to gain relief by banging your head on an actual brick wall.

Neither will help you.

Welcome to the Terrible Twos.

A Miracle of Motherhood

It’s said that motherhood is full of life changing miracles.

And it is, I know because as a kid I often woke up on the floor.

I fell out of bed in my sleep.

I also woke up upside down, sideways, tangled in blankets, without blankets, or huddling under a pillow because the blankets had disappeared from the bed or not followed me onto the floor. On camping trips my family would put me on the end of the tent next to my Dad to me to keep me in my corner.

I still woke up along everyone’s feet.

In fact it wasn’t until I got married that I finally ended up facing the right way every morning. Of course John and I plus a cat, and often a dog leaves very little room to wiggle much less thrash. (Did I mention we have a full sized bed, that Piper used to share with us? I was stuck!) While I have not woken up on the floor for many years neither have I manged to outgrow my tendency to thrash and move around all night stealing blankets in the process.

Enter motherhood.

Now I can lay down in bed next to an infant, do a lot of rustling to arrange us both just right, fall asleep and wake up hours (sometimes even four!) later in exactly the same position.

Exactly the same position.

I don’t even steal her blanket.

It’s a miracle of motherhood if I’ve ever heard one.

Monster Boots

You know how they say that when you’re getting little kids ready to go outside you spend longer dressing and undressing them than they stay outside?

In this case the infamous “they” are right.

So when I dressed Clara to go out and sled with Ivy and Grandma Mary and then realized that we managed to leave home with no footwear for her whatsoever, I sort of panicked.

Think Jessie, Think!

Lots of socks? No-Clara had no socks, Ivy didn’t have extra.

(Is now the time to mention I’m not great at packing for three girls plus me?)

Ivy’s shoes? Not along.

(Is now the time to mention that last time I forgot even more stuff?)

Random shoes from truck? Surprisingly there was no extra kid shoes in the truck.

(Is now the time to mention that at least we had diapers, my clothes and my wallet along?)

I checked Mom and Dad’s mudroom and found Mom’s old boots.

Perfect.

She could even walk:

Sort of…

(Is now the time to mention I got three kids and one dog to Pewaukee and back with out forgetting any of them? That’s something right?!?)

Home Again, Home Again

When Jane was born Tyler took Trip to stay with him until we had a handle on life with three kids.

So while John and I missed sleep, changed diapers and broke up fights we didn’t also have to clean up dog barf, walk dogs and attempt to teach Trip manners. The theory was that Trip would stay with Tyler and get to do lots of hunting until John and I figured out how to survive life with three girls. I’m not sure we’ve got the three kid thing down yet but I missed my puppy enough that I convinced John we’d be fine if he came back home. After almost two months of living with this as our only dog…

…I was really excited to see Tyler pull in the driveway over the weekend!

By the time Tyler was ready to go home we had noticed that Trip was a bit more mellow,  happily sleeping under the desk while he was in the house and it looked like things would be just fine.

Which was good because I had zero intention of letting Tyler take him back home again.

So, Tyler said goodbye to Trip (and us), and things went great, for about 4 hours.

Then Trip got stuck under the brooder house and John had to use a car jack to lift the house and get him out.

Good thing it’s a four hour drive to Tyler’s or John may have taken him back that night!