A Day In My House

lackadaisical dinners

I actually had to do research for this post.  Looking up the words laissez faire and then blase before landing on my intended emotional inference of lackadaisical.

I could really care less about cooking dinner these days.  Summer is here.  It’s hot inside if you have the oven or stove going, and it is hot outside for grilling.  So whether you cook inside or outside, you end up hot.  Then you sit down to eat hot food while hot.  You sit and try to linger but then see the mess you have to clean up.  There’s really no joy in it at all for me right now.

We’ve been eating a lot of salads which requires frequent trips to the grocery to buy it fresh since it doesn’t keep well.  Some days we grill.  Some days I heat up the kitchen cooking. Some days, like today, I just wing it.  Left overs, salad for dinner, or even sometimes, takeout. Tonight, I’m feeling like a hot dog, which is odd, because I never really crave hot dogs.  But if it is that (which my husband will happily grill (when I’m the one who usually grills)) or cooking something inside, I’m happy to be content with a hot dog.  And a salad.

Most of the time I enjoy cooking, so this lackadaisical approach doesn’t feel right, and makes me feel guilty for not even having the gusto to make out my usual week-long menu and grocery list.

Wouldn’t it be nice to take the month of July off from cooking, just like I did the month of May from blogging.  Hmmm. I may be on to something here.

intimidation

backstory.

A while ago on May 24th at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon, when my then 5-year-plus-eleven-twelfths-year-old was running in the back yard with the sprinkler going and slipped and fell cutting a gash in his cheek bone less than an inch from his left eye - sometime around then - when the paramadics came, even in my hysterics, I recognized that one of the paramedics also worked at my pharmacy (not my pharmacy, the one I go to).

Exactly a month later, when I saw her again, at my pharmacy, she told me that I should bring the boys by the fire station sometime (for a tour).  I responded with much appreciation and eagerness to accept the invitation.  But since then, her shift has rolled around twice and I still have not gone. And I don’t dare go on a day she’s not working even though she told me to come anytime because someone is always there.

I find it intimidating to just drive up to the firestation, park my car and knock on the door to announce my visit with all those strangers there.  Sure they are friendly and full of we-are-ready-to-help-fulness, but I’m just a mom with two boys looking for a summer-vacation-day’s-distraction.  I don’t dare show up empty handed, feeling I should at least bake cookies to take them - and then… how many.  There could easily be fifteen people on duty, I calculated, based on how many people arrived at my house in the fire truck back in January when I had to call them for my carbon monoxide detector going off, and then the paramedics in May.  Three people on the respective trucks each time.  So with multiple trucks, etc., I estimate fifteen is a good round number of people that might be there.  So cookies times 15.  That’s some serious baking in the summer heat, and I’ve not been eager to turn the oven on for that.  So.  Here I sit, intimidated by the thought of visiting our friendly neighborhood fire station.

short thoughts

• beach vacation - excitement
• letting my 6-year-old watch the first Star Wars movie for the first time - apprehension
• spending a day at the zoo - pleasant, enjoyable, perfect weather… tired
• new recipe, corn and shrimp chowder (and I’m not a chowder or a shrimp girl) -  6 out of 10 on a 1 to 10 scale
• new recipe, baked penne with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes - loved it, 9 overall, but it was a lot of work, but it does make 2 meals, one to freeze or give away
• getting a new Lego catalog AND Lego club magazine in the mail today for my 6-year-old - priceless
• going camping (in a camper, let’s not get crazy) for the first time this weekend - open-minded, yet apprehensive
• looking up how much it costs to get into Legoland in Carlsbad, California - shocked

beach anticipation

We are one manager’s blessing away from booking a beach vacation.  I am both scared and excited.  Excited to actually be there at the beach enjoying it with my family.  Scared of the actual preparing to go, flying for the first time with the boys, and the overall stress that comes with traveling.  Still.  I am anxious, in a good way. So once we get the okay from Bob’s boss on the dates, I can book it.

I am very thankful that my last year’s allergy to the sun is gone this year.  I assume it was some medication I was taking last year that caused it.  Don’t care.  Just glad I don’t swell up after being out in the sun now.

I am sad that my Mississippi friends can’t  vacation with us as we’d hoped.  Understandably, it is hard to plan a vacation, much less plan one with two families.  Looking forward to getting together with you someday Mary!

Our hopeful vacation is early August, requiring us to miss part of our church’s VBS. But it is early enough that we still have time to unwind and prepare for back-to-school.

School.  Missing that these days.  Loving the free reign of taking the boys here and there and having lunch out with them.  But missing the structured routine it adds to their days and the general contentment gleaned from it.  While they are spending their fair share of time playing and imagining together, they are spending an equal amount of time bickering.  And while I can get out with them to go anywhere, I am doing so with two kids, navigating my way around the aisles of the grocery store or Target, or today, Babies R Us and Toys R US.

Speaking of Toys R Us.  I found myself giving advice to another mom who was shopping with her sons trying to pick out a Lego birthday present.  I told her, the space police is brand new, so the child probably doesn’t have that one already.  Sold!  I felt glad to help, but strangely odd that my expertise in this area…. well, that I even have expertise in this area.

The Week In Review

• tabled our beach vacation due to not booking in time to get the cheap rate for the dates we wanted
• now looking for alternate closer-to-home vacation, keeping Florida in mind for next year
• …since decided, maybe August would be okay for a beach vacation….
• enjoyed celebrating Andrew’s birthday Wednesday, especially having the party done with the previous Saturday.  So there was nothing stressfull left to hang over my head on his big day.
• enjoyed a play date with two other moms and their kids in our backyard complete with pizza, salad and hostess cupcakes
• started removing old carpet in dining room (ok, Bob did this) in preparation for laying Pergo
• visited the mall to buy some new shirts and let the kids play at the indoor play area
• finally went to the dentist to get two fillings after rescheduling the appointment twice (due to schedule conflicts)
• enjoyed sitting poolside while the kids played in their new kiddie swimming pool
• didn’t cook much, don’t have any desire to cook or even grill with it being so hot  (high 80s/low 90s) this week
• watched the second episode of Top Chef Masters which I LOVE.  It is so cool to see these master chefs struggle under the pressures of the challenges, time constraints and foreign kitchens.  I’m most amused by their candor when admitting their mistakes.  They don’t have the egos or I’ve-got-something-to-prove attituded like the contestants on the regular Top Chef.

Coaching Mommy

Josh has drawn a picture of himself and his curly-haired counterpart, Vicky, who is coming for a play date this morning.  He wrapped it in his own hand-made envelope and has been keeping it on his dresser ever since. 

Today, an hour from Vicky’s arrival, he holds it in his hand as he coaches me…

“When they get here, the only thing you need to say is ‘Josh has a surprise for Vicky’.”

He is shy and he gets embarrassed easily, so I get that he doesn’t want me gushing over his picture in front of Vicky and her mom.  But the fact that he feels he needs to coach me before they get here, makes me realize he’s paying attention, all too well, to my own coaching of him.

a flash of brilliance

I was thinking of goodie bags for Andrew’s birthday party on my way to Lowe’s one week when I had made more trips to Lowes than its next door neighbor and my favorite store, Target.

My kids have gone to the Lowe’s Build and Grow clinics before, where kids with parent assemble a pre-made kit of wood and nails following simple instructions. On their first visit, they got a pair of safety goggles, a Lowe’s apron, and you borrow their kid-sized hammers.

So entering Lowe’s I stopped at the desk to ask if they had any extra kits left over that I could have for goodie bags for my son’s birthday party.  They checked, but were all out, adding that the boys scouts usually come in on Saturday night and clean out whatever is left.

That’s when my flash of brilliance came.  Ok, maybe not brilliance, but plan-ahead-organizational-bliss. Have a building birthday party theme where you assemble kits from Lowe’s, complete with apron and safety goggles.  You could either ask for these items for free (and supply the hammers yourself) or ask to hold the party there on-site.  The building project with supplies would be their take-home gift/craft/game all rolled into one. 

Now the only challenge, convincing one of my children to accept this theme for their next birthday.

Note that the Home Depot offers similar kids workshops.

6 years old

My firstborn is 6 today.  Andrew’s party was Saturday, and it went smoothly.  The weather was nice in spite of a 3 a.m. thunderstorm that same morning.  All was clear by party time.

The theme was Legos.  I spelled out my own cake design complete with washed and delivered Lego Duplos, and the Kroger bakery came through! 

I went with multi-colored plates and balloons and tablecloth.  I chose a birthday hat shaped pinata that was also multi-colored.  And I assembled simple goodie bags filled with a bottle of scented bubbles, yogos, a punch balloon, and a free Lego Magazine which Lego was kind enough to send me via priority mail.

Andrew’s favorite things at 6:

• Legos
• cars/trucks
• drawing
• reading
• watching home improvement shows with or without Mom
• riding his scooter

Ways I see him growing up every day:

• He is always willing to help me with tasks
• He is reponsible
• He has a willing big-brother heart to help teach things to Josh 
• He is slowly trying new foods and even liking some of them

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

plastic to drink?

Am I the only one that wonders if our kids are swallowing little bits of plastic with every juice box or capri sun they consume?  Once that little pointy straw pierces the plastic seal, do plastic particles fall inside only to be sucked up again?  I wonder this every time I help open these containers, and I overlook it enough to get on with my day.  Thankfully.  But still, it kind of bothers me.

junk my kids have eaten this week

ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, tic tacs, chewing gum (daily, Josh only, Andrew doesn’t like gum), suckers, smarties (Josh), nerds (Andrew), gummy fruits (every other day practically), juice drinks (daily), miniature chocolate candy bars Josh got from a birthday party, daily (they are not nut-free, so Andrew can’t have them)

I recite this here for you, dear Mom, so you realize they do, in fact, get junk food and candy.  And yes, tic tacs (orange flavor) ARE candy!

(And don’t forget CHOCOLATE CAKE from the birthday party.)