Grasping for Objectivity

Parenthood 2.0: The Response

2012-05-16T05:45:08-07:00

Oh look!! I finally got an answer from Tech Support regarding my Parenthood 2.0 issues and questions…

Dear Motherboard,

Thank you for your email to our tech support department. We will try to address all of your concerns and make suggestions for Boy Child 1.0 System Improvements.

Regarding the system crashes caused by running Boy Child 1.0 and Girl Child 5.0 simultaneously on the same Motherboard, this is not covered by your software support package. Although we understand that many people choose to run these multiple programs congruously, they are not designed to do so. Due to extremely intricate and unpredictable compatibility issues, multiple software packages that are run on the same Motherboard will always have some system conflicts.

However, here are some tips to try and help the issues you’re facing:

1. Try running Boy Child 1.0 on the Fatherboard after 5pm to lighten the server load and allow for a soft reset of the Motherboard. However, this will activate the Jealousy function in Girl Child 5.0, so make sure that you rotate server load as needed.

2. Activate The Tattletale Feature of Girl Child 5.0 to enable increased independent processing and prevent Boy Child 1.0 from causing severe system crashes or commandeering more of the operating system than it has the capability to handle. However, depending on the font used within The Tattletale Feature, the Motherboard may identify the Tattletale Feature as Spyware and shut it down. If this happens, simply run the Decrease Whininess function within the Girl Child 5.0 Tattletale Feature adjust the font from Curlz to Book Antiqua.

As for your other various issues with Boy Child 1.0, hopefully the following fixes will help.

It appears that a lot of your issues with Boy Child 1.0 are stemming from the Mobility Plug-In that you are currently using. According to your system specs, you’re using Walking 0.04. Remember that this Plug-in is still in Beta, and can cause serious issues until you upgrade to Boy Child 2.0.

Some of the issues documented so far with this Walking 0.04 Beta are:

a. Files disappearing from Fridge 4.0 and Bookshelf 3.0
b. Crashes in Coffee Table 9.0
c. Boy Child 1.0 procuring an Independence Trojan Virus that can cause multiple occurrences of the Blue Scream of Death when you try to quarantine said Virus.

(However, this Independence Trojan Virus can help with one of your other issues, which is transferring Boy Child 1.0 from a Laptop to a Desktop. We recommend that you make this transfer before wiping the Virus from the system.)

(As a side note, it has been documented that this transfer can create an unexpected side effect within the Motherboard of a spontaneous running of Tears 3.5 and Sentimental 8.9. Proceed with caution.)

Regarding your issues with getting the Blue Scream of Death when emptying the Recycle Bin, try running another process on Boy Child 1.0 simultaneously, such as a the Stuffed Animal or Squeaky Toy Functions.

Do not use compressed air on any areas of Boy Child 1.0. If the Blue Scream of Death occurs when cleaning earboards and navelboards with Q-Tips, just leave them as they are. Remember that no amount of dirt buildup will keep Boy Child 1.0 from running at optimal levels.

As far as the constant rebutts go, this is an unavoidable issue that will persist until you upgrade to Boy Child 2.5 and simultaneously run the Potty Training Plug-In. DO NOT install the Potty Training Plug-In on an earlier version of the software or without backing up your system first – it can create severe system-wide file damages.

As far as installing Boy Child 1.0 on a Nursery Server, we hope to address this in later versions. Just continue letting the Nursery Server administrator know that the crashes are very short-lived, and that you’re sorry for the damage to their network.

Regarding Boy Child 1.0’s Word Processing Skills, these are greatly improved upon the installation of Boy Child 1.9. However, we recommend using the Sign Language 3.2 Plug-In until you are qualified for the software upgrade.

You are, however, qualified to upgrade to Boy Child 1.6 – this may help some of your issues. Proceed with caution, though, as the spreadsheet functions get even more aggressive in the newer versions.

In fact, Boy Child software systems will continue to spread sheet throughout the network all the way up through the Boy Child: College Dorm version.

There have even been reported instances of the spreadsheet functions still exceeding their intended capacity in Boy Child: Newlywed Years. Trying to minimize usage of spreadsheet functions in earlier versions can help prevent such extended issues.

As for the lack of Hibernate and Sleep modes when running Boy Child 1.0, we recommend that you turn off all system monitors overnight to allow for a hard reset of the Motherboard. Do not try to run any overnight programs, including system scans – this can cause severe slowdowns during the regular operating hours.

Regarding the Mute Function within Boy Child 1.0, we have found that placing an industrial-strength piece of Duct Tape over the speakers really helps. Just make sure that you remove this fix before attempting to install Boy Child 1.0 onto a Nursery Server.

And finally, regarding the input and output jacks being mixed up: ALL jacks on all Boy Child software packages are two-way, especially when Marbles 5.2 or English Peas 8.5 are simultaneously run with Boy Child 1.0. There is, unfortunately, no fix for this issue.

Sincerely,

Rajiv Gidwani
Technical Support Specialist

For the transcript of both parts of this conversation to read or share, click here.

A Foodie Conference, From the Non-Foodie.

2012-05-15T05:45:53-07:00

Last weekend, I stepped out of my comfort zone (which is right here behind this computer screen) and attended the Atlanta Food and Wine Festival.

By myself.

Without knowing a single soul that would be there.

A bit intimidating, but also exciting.

I went because I love food. I really love food.

But the minute I stepped into the first event, I knew that I was THE least educated person in the room.

Don’t get me wrong – I feel that I am a decent cook, and am also fairly knowledgeable about the wonderful places to get great food out in Birmingham. However, I am not what you would call a “fine diner”. When I see a menu that starts listing a dozen mysterious things that the food is braised, infused, rendered, and tempered with, I get scared and order the Tilapia.

{Insert Shame Here}

So yes, the curators of the event might at this moment be second guessing themselves for inviting me, but it’s too late now!

For our welcome to the conference, we had an unbelievable spread of antipasto (is that the word?) and artisanal cheeses.

I was all nervous and dropped a blueberry, but managed to get a few things onto my plate successfully.

And, upon my first bite of cheese, I was questioning my entire eating lifetime up to this point.

And I knew then: This conference was not going to leave me the same. I was either going to become (or aspire to become) a total Foodie of Anthony Bourdain proportions, or I was going to feel unworthy to ever partake of food again.

But back to this amazing cheese.

I think it might have been Brie (I do like Brie) but I really have no idea, and I certainly wasn’t going to ask anyone and get definitively labeled as The Conference Idiot first thing in the morning.

So. If any of you more-foodie-than-I people out there can identify this cheese,

then you might be responsible for some extreme weight gain in my future.

As I was eating, servers were walking around with other treats. Most noticeably (at least to me), these ice cream sticks:

I got one from the third row, right as a girl next to me got one from the top row. She tasted it, and said “Ooh!! Is this Bleu Cheese? Or perhaps Gruyère?”

“Mine just tastes like Ice Cream.”

And then I realized that I’d just let onto my Foodie Idiocy, but hoped she would think that mine was different than hers and really was just ice cream.

Until another person walked up, got the exact one that I had tried, and said, “Oh! I think this is Bleu Cheese!!”

I quickly slunk away before I could embarrass myself further.

…but it DID taste like Ice Cream.

The Festival is broken into several different elements: learning sessions, the tasting tents, and dinners and special events.

The learning sessions are much like learning sessions at any conference (like the ones I attend at BlogHer), except that you get to eat gourmet food while you learn about it.

(Perhaps BlogHer should consider incorporating this?)

I was excited about the first learning session I chose, because not only was it focused on Greek Dining, but it was curated by my favorite Atlanta restaurant, Kyma.

We learned about Greek Food, Wine, Geography, History, and techniques while we ate these amazing platters..

Creamy Eggplant Caviar, Raw Ahi Tuna, and a Tomato Chip on top, made out of tomatoes from Santorini, Greece.

Lamb Shank with Trahana Pasta (Pasta made with sour yogurt and flour) and Fennel made five different ways,

And for dessert, Banana Kataifi (banana wrapped in shredded filo glazed in Greek Honey) with flourless chocolate cake and yogurt sorbet.

All three of these dishes competed as the best food that I ate all weekend. They were stunning.

They also taught us all about Greek Wines, but as little as I know about food, I know exponentially less about wine.

He started out with “About these wines, I’m not going to be all heady and intellectual. I’m going to be basic. So….”

And that’s all I understood of the entire speech.

Later that afternoon, I checked out the tasting tents. They contained endless rows of different Tasting Trails, which allowed us to sample how each southern region does a type of cuisine.

Dozens of amazing dishes were available for the taking.

On the Bar-B-Q trail, I preferred my hometown favorites, Jim N Nick’s, who were serving their Bar-B-Q Pork Taco.

(I wrote more about Jim N Nick’s and what they are doing to revitalize the Southern Hog Farming Industry on Alabama Bloggers. I promise – it’s fascinating.)

On the Southern Snacks trail, I fell in love with the idea of Pimento Cheese Stuffed Eggs by The Hungry Peach.

Brilliant, no?? I will be stealing this idea for our next family get together.

On the Southern Sweets Trail, I was surprised by the delicious vegetable cookies from Cookie Underground.

Other great offerings were fruit snacks done right,

Fried Chicken,

And seafood.

(It was on the seafood trail, though, that I definitively decided to never eat mussels ever again.)

For dinner, I was thrilled to get to eat more food from Kyma.

I think I counted eleven courses in all.

Which means that I was there from 8:15 to nearly midnight.

Attempting to converse with strangers.

Like, small-talk style.

And I realized something about myself: I’m not one of those bloggers that is so excited for everyone to know I’m a blogger and shoving business cards as fast as I can.

In fact, I think I need a fake business card. Because once I give you my business card, it kinda precludes my ability to blog about you, right?

Also, it seems that conference attendees are naturally wary of bloggers, as if they know that we want to blog about them. One girl in particular wrote down my blog information with a very accusatory arch to her eyebrow, as if to say, “just in case you get any ideas…”

But luckily, I sat with two charming couples, one with which I had a lot in common (geekiness especially), and the other of which kept us laughing all night long.

(In a good way, of course.)

But both couples understood the plight of the blogger. In fact, Geeky Husband begged me to blog about him – even if it was horrible and awful and embarrassing – just so that he could say he’d been blogged about.

(Consider yourself blogged.)

As for the rest of the guests… well, I’ll try to get those fake business cards before my next conference.

(Just kidding!!!)

(Kinda.)

Back to our meal.

The lighting was rather challenging for my poor camera skills, but I did manage to snag a couple of pictures.

One of our appetizers was Chris’ favorite Greek Dish, Saganaki (for which I gave you our recipe not long ago), topped with wild mushrooms and my first ever taste of Foie Gras.

…so now watching Anthony Bourdain should make so much more sense.

And I broke my cardinal No-Oyster-Ever-Again rule because – hey – it was covered in Avgolemono and Caviar! It has to be good, right?

The Avgolemono and Caviar were divine.

However, I am back to being a No-Oyster-Ever-Again type of girl.

The Octopus, however, was phenomenal.

Yes, people. Eat Octopus – you will be glad you did.

The next day, I excitedly went to a cheese session, hoping to rediscover my first bite of the conference.

But, although these cheeses were quite tasty, they were not the elusive cheese I was looking for.

(Feel free to step in and tell me the name of my mystery cheese. I know that one of you is foodie enough out there to identify it on sight. Right??)

I had an amazing two days, learned a lot, embarrassed myself a little, and ate some dang good food.

Am I now a foodie?

I’m pretty sure that foodies everywhere would be horrified if I categorized myself as one of them.

But my eyes have been opened to the fact that, perhaps, when the menus get a little complicated, I should dive in, rather than just ordering the Tilapia.

Regarding Those That I Mother.

2012-05-14T06:00:13-07:00

As a blogger, I find myself quite self-conscious about not drowning my corner of the internet with vast quantities of photos of my kids.

Despite the fact that I have really cute ones.

(Am I allowed to say that?)

But you know what? Yesterday was Mother’s Day. And the day before that, I wrote. About important stuff. And so I’ve decided that today I’m entitled a shameless, completely indulgent post full of photos of my kids.

So stop rolling your eyes.

(I’m talking to you!!)

And just give me this post for Mother’s Day.

And, my favorite photo of the year so far, what happens when you try to photograph one child while holding the other child within arm’s reach of aforementioned photographical muse:

So there you go. Consider yourself drowned.

Happy Mother’s Day, from Time Magazine.

2012-05-12T14:00:19-07:00

You might have seen it by now.

You might have even seen it before it came out, like I did.

Time Magazine, in an apparent celebration of Mother’s Day, published the following issue on Friday:

“Are You Mom Enough?”

The title immediately infuriated me. The challenging, smug look on her face, the nannie-nannie boo-boo (no pun intended) expression on the half of his face that we can see…I was shocked and horrified.

…And I was immediately heartbroken for all of the mothers that would have their open wounds of Mommy Guilt seared with the acidic poison of this blaring statement.

Let me first beg you to believe that this concept is a fallacy.

Motherhood is not about achieving some nirvana of Completely Self-Sacrificial Devotion to your children. Motherhood is already one of the most self-sacrificing acts of the human race as it is, without turning it into some Extreme Sports Competition of who can do it the hardest, most impressive way.

Whether we’re breastfeeding our soccer-aged son on the cover of a magazine or not, we’re ALL working with agonizing intensity to do what is best for our children.

Motherhood is about bringing your child up in the way HE should go, not in the way anyone else tells you it should be done.

Whether that’s breastfeeding until they’re three, not breastfeeding at all, letting them sleep in a crib, letting them sleep with you, or a myriad of other parenting decisions.

I read the article and all of it’s associated supplements, and surprisingly enough, none of it was offensive.

It was a biography of Dr. Sears, the founder of attachment parenting. The author interviewed he and his wife, talked about their own upbringing and experiences that influenced their ideas, and then poked holes in many of his theories, as well as a bit of fun at some of his more extreme ideas.

The article actually leaned in the opposite direction of the cover.

But here’s the thing. The cover, which is all that most Moms will ever see, tells a story of harsh, classist, guilt-ridden judgment that almost none of us are doing enough for our children.

And, thanks to the virility of this photo on the internet, there are going to be a lot of Moms barraged with the image this weekend, on a weekend that is supposed to be in celebration of Moms, and in appreciation of Moms.

Did Time Magazine think about the pain and heartache that a statement like this could inflict?

Did they think about how it would make Moms feel that physically couldn’t nurse their babies?

Did they think about how it degraded women who couldn’t get pregnant? Or who were on the heartbreakingly intense roller coaster of fertility treatments?

We are hard enough on ourselves.

We are hard enough on each other.

We do not need the national media perpetuating our already existing Mommy Guilt – guilt that constantly hounds us, screaming in our ear that if we don’t do it a certain way, then we must love our kids less, and we will end up with detached drug-dealing seven-year-olds, and we ourselves will grow old lamenting our poor parenting job.

So here’s my plea.

Please remember this weekend that you ARE Mom enough. That God has equipped YOU to raise your specific children, and that He has given YOU the instincts to know what is best for your child.

Listen to God, listen to yourself, listen to your husband, and take everything else with a grain of salt. Or maybe a pound.

Dr. Sears, your friends, and your family might have good advice, but in the end, you and your husband are the only ones equipped to make the best decisions for your family.

Again I plea, let’s Coexist. And that includes you, Time Magazine.

Happy Mother’s Day, Ladies.

You ARE Mom Enough.

Typically 2,310 Miles Apart.

2012-05-11T05:45:44-07:00

I’ve had opportunities to get to know several of you a lot better lately, and I’m loving it.

…Meridith has been, by request, making me aware of differences in dialect and habits between me and Australia.

…EleanorJane, my resident differentialist between New Zealand and I, just moved to England and, therefore, has a whole new set of interesting facts to share.

…and Kristin has been enabling me to reminisce on my college days, as she’s a professor at my alma mater.

(We were even able to put together that I took a class from her Dad 12 years ago! I love our small big city.)

I’ve also had the opportunity to meet several of you in real life recently, which is nearly as exciting as Leo unveiling a new piece of Toenail Art.

…We stopped off in Greenville, SC on the way to our family vacation to meet Lindsay, who was an excellent tour guide for her awesome city.

…After years of tweeting, I was finally able to meet Brandi at our Alabama Blogger meet-up last week, as well as hang out with some of my favorite local bloggers, Jamie, Kat, Robin, Amy, and Matt, and a new local blogger, Michael.

…And our whole family has deepened our relationship with Giann, who has become our beloved babysitter, even scoring her own line item in our family budget.

In short,

I love y’all.

All of you.

And those of you I don’t know yet, I love you too – in advance.

So it makes total sense that, last weekend, I packed up my whole family and drove to Atlanta to meet a Washington State blog reader and her family.

One of my longest blogging friends, R (who is wisely more cautious with her online identity than I), was on vacation with her husband, kids, Mom, and Aunt. We’ve been in nearly daily blog contact for the last four years and have both always agreed that if we had happened to live near each other, we would be best friends.

So we knew that if either of us ever got even relatively close to each other, we absolutely MUST take the opportunity to meet.

They were flying out of Atlanta and back to Washington after a trip to Disney World and the Florida Gulf Coast, so we booked rooms next door to each other at an Embassy Suites in Atlanta the night before they left.

And, even though we had a 2.5 hour drive from Birmingham and they had a 7 hour drive from Orlando, they didn’t have to drive through Talladega…on race weekend.

That, my friends, is sacrifice.

A sacrifice that R clearly couldn’t comprehend:

But, shockingly enough, we must have hit it at exactly the right time, because we were able to pass by without getting a single beer thrown through our window, or peed on by any dudes standing on the top of their campers yelling “yee-HAW go Number Ayety Ayete!!!” while they relieved themselves from the roof.

At which point, Chris asked, “See, aren’t you glad I’m just a football fan? I could drag you out to NASCAR on the weekends.”

“No, no you wouldn’t. Because we would not be married if you were a NASCAR fan. That would have clearly been a deal breaker. Being a football-fan-by-marriage is very near the precipice, but NASCAR would have been over the cliff.”

But we finally arrived, and transforming our relationship from screen to IRL was as natural as I had always assumed it would be.

…except for the fact that I am never more aware of how ridiculously often I say “y’all” until I’m around a bunch of people from Nonyall Country.

Y’all know what I mean?

We were able to take them to one of our favorite Birmingham-based restaurants, Jim N Nicks, that just happens to have locations in Atlanta. After telling them everything that was delicious and southern and fabulous, I asked R my favorite question for visitors.

“What’s the weirdest thing y’all’ve noticed about the south?”

(Besides the word ‘y’all’ve’.)

“All of the ‘boiled peanuts’ signs along the highways!!”

“Oh – you mean the ones that spell peanuts ‘P-Nuts’?”

“YES!!! It only saves one character – why do they do that?!?”

“I’ve wondered that very thing myself for years.”

(And anyway, P-Nuts sounds like some manufactured, laboratory peanut, or perhaps “made from peanut product” or something. Buy peanuts, not P-Nuts, people!!)

Ali and K are the same age, and they immediately bonded over pestering Noah.

…something that he doesn’t seem to mind so much.

(Yet.)

When we left the restaurant, we had a 25 minute ride to the hotel. Ali and K were already inseparable, so K rode back with us.

As we were getting in the car, Chris whispered, “I don’t know if I would be that trusting. I mean, we just met these people, and they’re letting their kid ride with us?! Wow!”

“Babe, R and I have been friends, talking daily, for four years. We DID NOT just meet. It just seems that way.”

“Oh. Well, I guess that makes sense.”

At the hotel, they increased their closeness over technology. Because that’s the medium that kids use these days to get to know each other, you know?

(Well, at least that’s what her mother and I used.)

Meanwhile, Noah and S were also getting cozy.

Later, the kids had a rousing game of Wolf and Sheep, where those ridiculous cylindrical hotel pillows actually came in handy – as a battering ram to protect the girls from the Big, Bad, One Year Old Wolf.

Over the cacophony of our children, the parents also bonded – nearly as much as the kids did. Chris and I kept them up way too late talking (as southerners tend to do) and then felt terribly guilty about it (as southerners also tend to do).

And it was sad for all to say goodbye.

Because that’s the thing about blog friends – it’s both wonderful and heart-aching all at once. You make close friends that live thousands of miles away, and then you find yourself wishing with all of your heart that they could all move next door, immediately.

Yes, all of you.

Parenthood 2.0

2012-05-09T05:45:57-07:00

Dear Tech Support,

I recently upgraded my software to Boy Child 1.0. I’m also running Girl Child 5.0 and was previously running Boy Child 0.11 without incident, but upgrading to 1.0 seems to be causing some conflicts.

Boy Child 1.0 is constantly overrunning Girl Child 5.0’s processes, creating both programs to either freeze up or melt down.

Also, Boy Child 1.0 and Girl Child 5.0 are trying to utilize the same MOM Memory simultaneously, and this is causing system crashes and serious sluggishness in performance.

I am afraid that these issues could be frying the Motherboard.

But besides that, the new version of Boy Child seems to have some serious bugs.

First of all, I am getting the Blue Scream of Death when trying to perform several crucial functions within the program, such as emptying the recycle bin, removing small and/or sharp objects from the program, and even regular system maintenance.

For instance, quite a bit of dust build-up occurs in the program’s the earboards and navelboards, but when I try to clean it out with Q-Tips, I almost always get the Blue Scream of Death, or Boy Child 1.0 boots me out of the software.

Perhaps would it be more effective to use compressed air on these areas?

I am also having to perform constant rebutts, as Boy Child 1.0 seems to have some sort of system virus or malware that causes all sorts of random crap to smear across the screen.

I have found that Boy Child 1.0 performs best on a laptop, but I would really prefer to run it on a desktop. Do you have any recommendations on making this transition any easier?

Also, what are the licensing limits to Boy Child 1.0? I have been able to successfully install it onto other similar operating systems, but when I try to install it onto a Nursery Server, it crashes the entire network.

Clearly, the administrators of the Nursery Server do not appreciate the effect that it has on the rest of their programs.

Another issue I am having is that Boy Child 1.0’s Word Processing skills are drastically lower than Girl Child 5.0’s are, and even lower than when I was running Girl Child 1.0 Beta. Do you have any updates coming soon to increase the Word Processing effectiveness?

The Spreadsheet function, however, is quite impressive. Boy Child 1.0 can spread sheet throughout the entire network quicker than Girl Child 5.0 can process what is happening and spit it out into a Word Document.

Also nice is the extremely Hi-Speed network on which Boy Child 1.0 runs. There are hardly ever breaks in connection, nor are there software outages. However, Boy Child 1.0 does seem to have be non-compatible with the operating system’s Sleep and Hibernate modes, since it seems to constantly be uploading kilobytes and downloading megabytes.

I also cannot figure out how to use the mute function within Boy Child 1.0. It wreaks havoc on the system’s speakers, often producing a loud screeching noise that is quite unpleasant.

(This often occurs congruously with the Blue Scream of Death.)

Finally, Boy Child 1.0 seems to have mixed up the input and output jacks. It often sticks things into the nose jack, and expels things from the mouth jack. It doesn’t seem like either of these should be two-way channels.

Any help that you can offer with these software issues would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

The Motherboard.

Dear Motherboard,

Thank you for your email to our tech support department. We will try to address all of your concerns and make suggestions for Boy Child 1.0 System Improvements.

However, here are some tips to try and help the issues you’re facing:

As for your other various issues with Boy Child 1.0, hopefully the following fixes will help.

Some of the issues documented so far with this Walking 0.04 Beta are:

In fact, Boy Child software systems will continue to spread sheet throughout the network all the way up through the Boy Child: College Dorm version.

Sincerely,

Rajiv Gidwani
Technical Support Specialist

Other Posts You Might Enjoy:

Downton Abbey, Explained.

Coexist.

She Has a Dream.

2012-05-08T05:45:01-07:00

“Did you see this picture I’m working on? I’m an artist!”

“Yes, you’re a very good artist!”

“Well, I’m an artist now – while I’m a kid. But I’m going to be a Princess Ballerina when I grow up.”

“Well, you can do the ballerina part, but probably not the Princess part.”

I immediately regretted my words.

I should be better about allowing her to believe in fairytales and impossible dreams! I’m raising her to be way too much of a realist, and at five years old! I’m a horrible mother.

“Why can’t I be a Princess?”

I’ve got to go with it now…

“You have to marry a prince to become a princess.”

“Well, I’m going to marry Ethan. I already know that.”

“Exactly. And he’s not a prince.”

“But he could become one…”

“Nope. He’s not a Prince because Miss Nikki and Mister Blake aren’t a King and Queen. You can’t just become a prince – your parents have to be a King and Queen.”

“But girls can become princesses!”

“You mean like Princess Kate that married Prince William – do you remember watching her wedding?”

“Yes – like her.”

“A girl can become a Princess by marrying a Prince. But a Prince has to be a Prince first. And, unfortunately for you, there are no Princes in the United States. So you’re going to have to move to another country if you want to marry a Prince.”

“Okay then. So what countries have princes?”

“Well, there’s England… and The United Arab Emirates… and I’m sure there are a lot of others.”

“Tell me ALL of the countries with Princes, please.”

I pulled up Wikipedia… Ah! List of countries by system of Government.

“Okay. There’s Andorra…Antigua and Barbuda…Australia… – NOAH! Take that out of your mouth! – The Bahamas… Bahrain… are you getting all of these?”

“Yup.”

The list continues for some time while Noah repeatedly tries to use my distracted state to create mischief…

“Lesotho…Liechtenstein…Luxembourg…Malaysia…Monaco – NOAH! GET OFF THE COFFEE TABLE!! DOWN, BOY!! - …Morocco… – have you decided where you’re going to go yet?”

“No – I think I’ll wait until I grow up to decide.”

“Qatar…Saint Kitts and Nevis…Saint Lucia…Saint Vincent and the Granadines…Saudi Arabia… – but I don’t want you to go to Saudi Arabia, though – okay?”

“Why not?”

“Some men aren’t very nice to women in Saudi Arabia.”

“Okay – I won’t go there.”

(I mean…I personally am dying to visit Saudi Arabia, due to my complete obsession with the secrecy of it all. However, I don’t think that I want my tiny daughter headed over there to score herself a Prince.)

“Tonga…Tuvalu…United Arab Emirates…United Kingdom…Vatican City… And that’s all of them!”

“Great. Now can you write all of those down for me?”

“Um, no. But I’ll read them to you and let YOU write them down.”

“No thanks. Just keep that list for me.”

“Okay. Let me know where you think you’ll head off to.”

“Okay – I’ll be thinking about it.”

And I sighed with relief.

Clearly, I did not destroy her dreams – she, like her father, just likes to have all of the facts clearly laid out so that she can plan ahead properly.

So now the only question is, when she’s a Princess, what does that make me? The Queen-In-Law? The StepQueen? The Princess Mum?

I’m off to work on my crown.

What Happens in the Bank…

2012-05-07T05:45:09-07:00

I’ve had to do a lot of banking lately.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m an accountant during naptimes. And so I’ve recently needed to open up a few new accounts for a business.

Unfortunately, a stay-at-home-Mom cannot go into a bank branch during naptime. So one has to take their two children along with them during a non-naptime period for that sort of work.

(This being more unfortunate for the bank than for me, but fairly unfortunate for me also, after I’ve taken a stupid breakable apple away from my one-year-old for the tenth time.)

(Why does a bank need breakable apples anyway?? This does not instill confidence regarding their financial stewardship abilities.)

Within this flurry of banking, the pinnacle of my banking discomfort occurred when I found myself sitting, waiting, dying, in a bank branch for an entire HOUR.

With two kids, one of which was sick, the other of which was hyped up on bank suckers.

As an aside, this was also the same bank branch that once told me at the drive-thru, “Here’s a sucker for your daughter. Sorry it took so long – I was trying to find one without hair on it.”

So change that to “hyped up on nasty hairy bank suckers.”

Noah was busy attempting to lick the office manager’s window with his paci still in and Ali was completely preoccupied with seeing how quickly she could skip through the length of the bank.

(What? Do you know how long it takes to run across a bank in the attempt to keep a toddler from licking foreign glass? Don’t judge until you’ve sat with two kids in a bank for an hour.)

Fortunately, this bank is completely unpopular (probably because of their hairy suckers), and, therefore, largely uninhabited.

However, the customers that did come through were…a welcome diversion to my current situation.

Customer A: A Businessman, clearly having been playing golf that morning instead of doing business.

Scratch that. A salesman. I could tell by the way he walked in and warmly greeted my BABY.

He’s not a prospective client, dude. Just a kid with a gallon of lime green snot leaking from his nose. Move along.

So salesman went up to the counter, reached across the counter, and grabbed the male banker’s hand – not to shake, but apparently just to hold.

He continued his grip on Male Banker’s hand (as Male Banker clearly tried to pull away, leaving the salesman only three desperate looking fingers in his grasp) as he stated everything that he needed that day.

“Hi there!! How are you guys doing today?? It’s lovely outside, isn’t it? I need to make a deposit, and oh – I need to order checks. Can you put in an order of checks for me?”

Male banker, still in grasp, answered, “Well, I’m working on something for her right now, but I’ll take care of it later.”

Salesman finally loosened his grip long enough for banker to escape, then he headed over to the female teller.

(She quickly secured both her hands beneath the counter.)

He loudly introduced himself while trying to reach something, anything over the counter, and, when he saw he wasn’t going to achieve handholding status with her, he finally left, but not without giving Noah another shot at a sales pitch.

The bank got relatively quiet again (except for the sound of Noah bouncing his head down the glass wall to make that weird skin-to-glass squeaky sound, and Ali begging me to let her out of the chair in which I had temporarily confined her).

Then a girl walked in wearing sweat pants and grasping a wad of cash in her hands.

She walked up to Male Banker (thereby stalling my transaction even further), and began chewing him out for standing her up last night.

“We were supposed to get a beer last night!! Don’t you remember? You think you can just stand me up like that??”

“Uh, yes. How about tonight?”

“You don’t get to be picky!! You think you can just choose when we get a beer??? No. It doesn’t work that way. I don’t want to get a beer tonight.”

“Um, okay. How about next Tuesday?”

“(pouty) Okay fine. Next Tuesday. (then suddenly thrilled) That will be awesome!!!”

She deposited her large wad of cash with the female teller, (as Male Banker was still working on my ridiculously timesucking needs), all while making small talk with Male Banker.

“So where do you think I should take Ben to get a beer?”

“You should take him to such-and-such bar.”

“No, he wouldn’t fit in there at all.”

“Oh.. I don’t know then.”

“Oh! And by the way, my boyfriend told me he loved me for the first time last night! That was cool…”

“Um, I thought he already had? Or is this a new boyfriend?”

“Yeah, this is a new one.”

“Oh. Well, congratulations.”

She finished up her transaction, walked over and tickled my snot-covered baby with her man-juggling hands, and then left.

After an eternity of watching my children coat the lacquered furniture in sucker stick and snot wads, Male Banker called me up to the counter, and I hopefully ran up.

“I can’t open your account yet. I need you to get signatures on this stack of paperwork first.”

“You mean. I’ve been waiting here. For an HOUR. And you. still. won’t. take. my. money????”

At that moment, Noah came running up to me and wanted me to pick him up. And as I did, the combination of his velocity transference and my intense banking dysphoria threw me off balance, and I fell, in flailing disgracefulness, flat on my back, with Noah landing happily on my abdomen.

Male Banker cautiously stood up and looked over the counter and onto the floor where I now laid…and just stared, silently and unfazed.

And then I realized: I was just another Bank Freak.

The Unoriginal, Ungourmet Cook.

2012-05-04T05:45:00-07:00

I need to ask you guys a crucially important question.

I love to cook. I’m usually too busy blogging lazy to do much of it, but I enjoy it nonetheless.

However, I’m not some super-fancy blogger toiling away at 3 AM developing recipes and discovering new ways to use rare white truffles from the Croatian Black Forest.

(I’ve never even tried truffles, except for the chocolate kind, but I really think I would enjoy them.)

(Anyone up for taking me out to dinner at a place fancy enough to serve truffles?)

Anyway.

Most of the things I cook are simple, homey recipes that I’ve collected over the years, especially including recipes from my treasured family cookbook that my Mom made me for a wedding present.

Occasionally, I tweak recipes to make them healthier, tastier, or just plain saltier, but that’s usually as far as my kitchen creativity goes.

With that being said, though, I do feel like I’ve collected some fantastic dishes over the years, and would love to share them.

But I find myself conflicted.

Because,

a) my blog is already schizophrenic enough in it’s random variety of subjects (and lack thereof),

b) I’m not sure as to the etiquette when blogging about recipes that one didn’t create themselves,

c) I don’t know if you have any interest whatsoever in my measly cooking endeavors (or endeavours, for those of you that aren’t from around here – I really prefer the British spelling of that word. And of most words, really), and

d) Since many of these dishes are old classics, I’m deathly afraid that I will just be recycling material that’s been on the internet twenty dozen times already and you’ll all roll your eyes at my ridiculous unoriginality.

But in an act of rebellion to my conflicted self, I started secretly blogging a recipe here and there by putting them on a “page” instead of a “post”, and only publishing it to Pinterest.

Here are the three I’ve done so far (click on the photo to go to the recipe):

And here are the links to some recipes I’ve posted in the past:

Cuties Julius

Potatoes Avgolemono

Breastmilk Smoothies (For the BABY, not for you. Geesh.)

Hungarian Chicken Paprikash – one of my favorite dishes of all time.

Black and Blueberry Pie

Kitty Litter Cake (Hard to eat, but oh-so-good for the laughs)

White Chocolate Cheesecake Squares, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Fudge, Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies, and Mandarin / Craisins Salad

Chocolate Chip Espresso Bean Cookies

Homemade Vegetable Soup

Favorite Family Recipes

So my all-important, life-altering question is this:

Do you have any interest in recipes, or do you come here to escape from all of the guilt heaped on by recipe, DIY, and home décor blogs?

(And, by the way, have no worries that I will start plaguing you with the latter two types of posts. I am in desperate need a home makeover, but I am clearly not gifted with the ability to carry it out.)

Would you like the variety of one or two random recipes a month, or would you prefer that I continue only in the endeavours (oh that feels so good) of subjects such as talking breast pumps, presidential christmas gifts or presidenim, and toenail art?

Your honest(!!) opinion counts. So give it, or I may start robocalling your house.

Grounded For Life.

2012-05-02T05:45:18-07:00

This kid is grounded.

Consider these symptoms:

For our entire vacation last week, he walked around with his finger jammed in his right ear.

…Or if he wasn’t doing that, he was shaking his head out to the right, as if he was desperately trying to knock loose a gallon of water from within the depths of his eardrum.

…Or if he wasn’t doing that, he had his whole right ear clinched in his fist, moaning.

The first night we were there, he slept horribly, which is quite unusual for him.

Also unusual for him – sleeping excessively.

On our first full day back home, he slept in until 10am, then fell asleep in a loud, bright room at 12:30 (from which I promptly woke him to preserve the Sanctity of Nap), then when it was The Holy Appointed Time of Nap, he slept for 3 1/2 hours.

And in the short periods of time in which he was awake that day, his nose spewed forth gallons of snot, and his grouchiness reached new heights, causing my toes to curl and my teeth to grind.

What would you assume?

Ear infection, right?

So I fought off my fears of being labeled as the HypochondriParent and made an appointment for the next morning.

I gathered my courage and my two children and a piece of chocolate or two and headed for the Pediatrician’s office.

Of course, thanks to Murphy’s Law of Parenting #201, Noah was suddenly full of abounding and overflowing energy and hyper-euphoria as soon as we arrived in the waiting room, wanting to touch and suck on all surfaces while visiting with every other sick or otherwise kid in the place.

As was his sister, except for the sucking part.

Then we headed to our exam room.

Murphy’s Law of Parenting #202: The smaller the space and the longer you’re confined in it, the more completely your children will fill said space with cacophony and unending movement. And they will also feel the need increase their veracity to touch and/or suck on every surface.

So by the time we were placed in a room, saw the nurse, and waited for the doctor, my nerves were completely fried.

Which explains my huge sigh of frustration when she looked in his right ear and said, “It’s perfect!”

And my uncontainable groan of aggravation when she looked in his left ear and said, “Yup, it’s perfect too!!”

Thankfully, my Pediatrician is a compassionate and kind fellow-mother and understands the frustration of a baby TRICKING you into thinking that they needed to be treated when all they had is a RIDICULOUS COLD with NOTHING TO BE DONE ABOUT IT.

(And therefore she did not turn me into Child Protective Services for being angry that my kid did not, indeed, have an ear infection.)

So here’s what I’d like to say, for all mothers everywhere:

It is totally okay to hope that your kid has an ear infection.

Because the Fake-Ear-Infection-That-Is-Really-Just-A-Cold-And-Will-Make-You-Never-Trust-Their-Ear-Pulling-Again-And-Also-Be-Filled-With-Fear-Of-What-New-Germs-They-Licked-Off-The-Exam-Room-Floor is MUCH WORSE than a real ear infection.

Also?

It is totally okay to be momentarily mad at your one year old for faking an ear infection just so that they could get a sucker at the doctor’s office that they’re not old enough to properly eat anyway, thereby forcing you to take it away from them when you get to the car which causes them to scream…and tug at their ear.

Lucky for him, he’s cute – even when he’s covered in snot, pulling on his ear, and screaming in protest over Sucker Inequities.