So They DO Listen

As we work on potty training, there are several rules that I'm trying to teach the wee ones.

1) Make sure you use a clean public bathroom
2) Don't let your clothes touch the floor in a public bathroom.
3) Before sitting down on a public bathroom toilet, use toilet paper to clean the seat as best you can.
4) ALWAYS wash your hands when you've gone to the bathroom.
5) Use soap when washing your hands after going to the bathroom.
6) Don't forget to flush.
7) Close the toilet lid, too.
8) When in a public bathroom, use your foot to flush.
9) Don't waste toilet paper. When peeing, you only need one square.

As you can imagine, getting these rules to sink in with the wee ones is sometimes a bit of a challenge. I can't tell you the number of times that Mister Man has come out and announced he washed his hands and then later admits that he forgot to use soap.

I suppose I should be grateful, however. Mister Man is totally potty trained, and Little Miss is working her way there (after a streak of no streaks, the streaks are back). And they don't tend to announce that they have to go immediately when there is no bathroom forthcoming. And they are pretty good about most tasks I lay in front of them.

Flushing is sometimes a problem for Mister Man. And closing the lid doesn't always happen, something I can blame on Daddy's influence, of course. However, when you own two cats, having a closed lid is a necessity. When Mister Man sees firsthand why the lid should be closed, he's appropriately grossed out and remembers to close the lid again for awhile before starting to forget again.

But I know for a fact that some of it is sinking in. When they are on the potty, both children will take their toilet paper and then surgically remove every scrap of toilet paper that keeps the sheet from being a perfect square. Mister Man has been known to throw perfectly good pieces of toilet paper into the toilet simply because the paper was ripped or a corner was missing.

*sigh*

I've explained to them repeatedly that when I say just one square, I don't mean that it has to be a perfect square. Unfortunately, this part of my exhortation doesn't sink in. Or at least it hasn't yet. The good news is that the wee ones know their shapes really well, right?

And it's better than Mister Man's occasional habit of using the toilet paper to wipe, then throwing the paper into the toilet and only then ripping it from the roll. He does so well at sequencing stories in preschool, I'm seriously debating sequencing the potty steps for him.

But until then, how do I convince the wee ones that a square isn't always a square?

What A Description Of Blog Readers!

Ok, a couple of housekeeping items before we get to the crux of today's post.

First, I managed to win a couple of Pay It Forward Contests that other bloggers were hosting, which means that I'll be hosting contests to ... pay it forward. I can't wait to see what I've won from K's Mama. Parkingathome had a rocking (in my opinion) prize of a ton of Asian food. I think I've mentioned a few times that sushi is my favorite, and these are all right up that alley. Needless to say, now comes the debate. Do I host multiple pay it forward contests, or do I host a single contest with multiple winners and multiple mystery (but apparently well received!) prizes? Vote, and I'll go with majority rules on this one. Gotta love second (and third) chances, right?

Second, the SITS girls (in keeping with the contest theme here) have posted their third week giveaway a $100 Target gift card. Raise your hand if you couldn't use this one. I didn't think so. Head on over to SITS and enter! You have until next Saturday.

***********

On Friday, I was joking around with my husband. We were on the way to my parents' house after stopping at our own house to pick up the wee ones' special blankets. (The wee ones had gone straight from brunch to my parents' house and needed to nap.) As we were driving past our house, I saw a critter run into our landscaping. I'm a bit protective on our landscaping (yes, more to come on that later) and requested that he go chase it away. After much rolling of the eyes, he acquiesced and went to go scare the offending pest. However, he left his door open. I started slowly rolling down the street as soon as he hopped out of the car. He quickly ran back, and I pretended I was going to make him jump into the moving car (really, I'm not that mean OR stupid).

Once safely in the car, the following conversation ensued:

Me: Well, at least you were smart enough not to close your door. Had you done that, I would have completely driven away.
Husband: I'm not a complete moron, even though you sometimes think I am.
Me: I don't think you are, but you have to admit that sometimes you do things that aren't say the smartest option.
Husband: You're the only one who thinks that!
Me: Oh, that's so not true.
Husband: Ok, so who else thinks that?
Me: silent
Husband: You don't blog about me, do you?
Me: Maybe. But not by name or anything.
Husband: What could I do that you'd blog about?
Me: Umm, some of your dressing of the children. Oh, and your cooking incident from earlier this week.
Husband: What cooking incident?
Me: Uhhh, maybe when I was making the Thai Beef Lettuce Wraps. And you were having some issues?
Husband: I wasn't having any issues.
Me: Yes, you were! What about your not at all many tap of the garlic?
Husband: I didn't want to break the garlic.
Me: It was going in the blender. How was breaking it going to be an issue? Besides, there was also the cutting of the cilantro with the paring knife.
Husband: No one knows that there's anything wrong with that.
Me: So not true! Plus, what about the total not-julienning of the pepper?
Husband: Oh come on, who's ever even heard of julienning let alone knows what it is?
Me: People who read my blog....
Husband: What, you've found a community of psycho mommys who love to cook?
Me: (thinking about this really hard) Well, depending on your definition of psycho, I suppose the answer is yes. But I'd go with quirky over psycho.
Husband: And yet more proof that the internet is good for anything.

Awww, isn't he a good sport? And yes, I told him that the whole conversation was going to end up on the blog. Fortunately, he's ok with it. And to his credit, sometimes he does really good things, too. In fact, one day this week I promise to dedicate a post to something he's done recently that's solved a huge recurring problem for me. Yay, hubby!

Recipe For A Successful Fourth Of July Parade

As I think about this, really I'm two days late on this post. But bear with me, this is information that you can store up for your town's next major event that includes a parade.

Having two small children who enjoy watching parades, I've had to quickly learn how to strategically get the most out of them with the minimum amount of pain. I've never been a huge fan of parades and rarely watched them before the advent of the wee ones. Now we go to two parades a year -- the Fourth of July parade and a local Lions parade.

I've learned several things along the way that help to ensure a smooth experience. Take note:

1) Know what time you need to save a "good" spot for your parades. Ensure someone is there with the appropriate space saving items by that time. Preferably, send one person ahead with the remaining members of the party staying at home until the last possible moment. This minimizes down time until the parade entertainment appears.

2) Said person should ensure that they can carry all items in one trip. Making multiple trips to and from the car is not pleasant. And it could result in losing the treasured spot.

3) If you're using blankets to sit on, bring along a tarp. Place the tarp on the ground and the blankets atop the tarp. This prevents the nasty surprise of a wet bottom or soaked blanket at the end of the parade. Blankets are also a huge help when trying to save a larger space, as they take up space without making you look like a space hog.

4) Bring along something to entertain yourself while waiting for the rest of the party to appear. Personally, I prefer trying to catch up on some newspaper reading, but others may prefer a book or People. Your call on that one, really. Bringing along a drink and/or snack depending on how long you'll be sitting there is also a smart idea.

5) Don't forget the plastic bags. Strategically, you want at least one plastic bag for each child with an extra one for garbage. The garbage includes all the political pamphlets that you just couldn't say no to, along with the empty candy wrappers and water bottles that somehow appear during the parade. The other plastic bags are a convenient way to collect the items thrown during the parade, as well as being a great opportunity for your poor, adorable child to finagle an extra of some special, desired item from a particular float. Just teach your child how to hold out the bag in front of a volunteer and look really sad.

6) If you have small children, try to get a spot near the beginning of the parade. This is again less downtime before they see the parade and you have the added benefit of being able to leave before the giant smash of traffic as more and more people have viewed the end of the parade.

7) Teach your children not to poach. There is an unwritten rule that the items thrown in front of your seated area is "yours" to gather. Having mobs of children running up to grab candy from "your" area when you have small (and therefore slower) children is frustrating to the younger children. Plus, in my opinion, teaching your children respect of others and their space will benefit them in the long run.

8) Set a limit on how much candy can be eaten during the parade. Forgetting this rule can create severe problems later in the day (not that I'd know anything about this).

9) Teach children what candy they can and cannot eat. For example, Little Miss knows not to eat the gum. They both know that any Twix or Snickers thrown near them need to be given promptly to Mommy for safekeeping. Yeah, that's right. Safekeeping. Oh yeah, and if candy has broken open while skidding on the ground, don't eat it!

10) When the parade is over, clarify with adults and children who is in charge of watching each child to ensure no one wanders away. Yes, there's a whole post coming on this one....

What rules am I missing? Let's complete this list!

And The Winner Is ....

Well, it's the Fourth of July and it's now 8:05pm. I'm right on time with counting the entries, numbering them and running the random number generator. Yay, me!


A couple of caveats first.



1) My apologies to everyone who posted information about their favorite pets that I didn't respond to. To be honest, the 52 comments overwhelmed me. Can you tell I'm not used to this much traffic and love?



2) I did, however, respond to the first 12 commenters with two comments of my own. Those ended up being comments #13 and #14. To keep things simple, I didn't renumber the comments after me to take the place of #13 and #14 because being out in the sun all day baked my brain too much for that to work. Instead, if the random number generator had picked #13 or #14, I would simply have run it again. If it chose #26, that was the 26th comment vs removing my two comments and renumbering.



3) I tried really hard to figure out how to paste the random number generator into my post as I've seen other people do. Unfortunately technology doesn't like me and never has (yep, a post on that coming shortly!). The best I could do was copy and paste, but I don't think it's nearly as pretty. My bad.



ANYway! Thank you to all who entered. I had a lot of fun with the contest and hearing about your pets. You were all great sports, and I hope you'll come back to read my blog again! I did get my prize assembled, and pictures of it are below. It was a mystery prize, and I thought about keeping it a surprise until the winner had received it, but I'm too impatient for that!

It started out being a packaged of three books, a variety that I hope would suit someone's tastes. Sandra Brown's The Alibi, Amy Tan's The Bonesetter's Wife, and Mary Higgins Clark's Before I Say Goodbye. I've read and enjoyed all three, so I can vouch for them. Ok their quick and easy reads when you just want to turn your brain off -- although Amy Tan's is really good and one I've reread three or four times.



Then I decided to add some more fun to it. And fortunately Karen has children, so hopefully this won't go to waste. What kid wouldn't love drinking from this cup with the oh so funky straw?



And when the cup is dirty, said child can use this special Spiderman straw instead.



And if you're going to have drinks, you definitely need snacks!

Since today is the Fourth of July, I felt like I had to throw something patriotic in there. We have flags out the wazoo from all the decorating we do for Memorial Day and other events, so I was able to dig up four flags. And the squeezy stars are pretty cool. They handed them out in today's parade, and when I was putting the box together tonight, the wee ones wanted to donate them to the cause, as well.

Going with the theme of items that were handed out in today's parade, I'm also going to toss in two of the multitude of bubbles handed out in today's Fourth of July parade (just for fun!). If you'll notice, each of the bottles includes a coupon for a buy one get one offer from the local chi-chi soaps and lotions store. If you're ever going to be in the neighborhood, save the labels and bring them in!

As I started packing the box, I realized that I needed some packing material. And what better packing material than candy? Can you tell that Werther's and Jolly Ranchers are my favorites?

And I hate to say it, but I was also going to include a fun orange frisbee for kicks, but unfortunately it wouldn't fit in my box. So I'm going to hold onto in until I decide what to do with it.

Now everyone is either drooling over the prizes or crossing their fingers hoping they don't win. So without further ado, the winner is:

Search RANDOM.ORG
True Random Number Service
Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:23
Timestamp: 2008-07-05 01:02:32 UTC

Commenter #23!

And I'll be nice... I won't make you dig through all the posts to find who that was. Karen, one of my regular (I hope!) readers, had the luck of choosing this. Fortunately for me, she does have children, so the cup et al won't go to waste -- I hope!

Karen, I'm sending you an email to get mailing info. Your responsibilities are to create a Pay It Forward contest of your own and keep this group effort going! If you aren't up for this, let me know, and I'll choose a new winner. Somehow, I have a feeling you can do it, and I might even have an inkling of what your giveaway prize might be. (But that's being awfully presumptuous of me!) Anyway, congrats, Karen! And thank you again to everyone for playing!

Oh yeah... and Happy Fourth of July! By the way, YES we've had tons of random loud unsafe fireworks going off for days and days (not 11 days as with last year thankfully) and I currently can hear them from three sides. My town's fireworks aren't until July 12, however. Hmmm....

We're Three For Three!

Don't forget, tomorrow is the last day to enter the Pay It Forward contest. If you haven't entered already, you have until 8pm CST.

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Today was the last day of summer school for Mister Man. So sad... no more getting picked up by the bus at 8:30 and being dropped off around noon five days a week. On the plus side, since he still naps (at least some days and needs down time on others), we'll be able to do more playdates with his friends.

Today was a special day at his preschool though. It was the official Fourth of July Parade for them. All the parents are invited to watch them come walk around the outside of the school near the end of the day and then have a picnic and eat popsicles.

As the PTO president for next year (yeah, I'm a sucker), it was my job to get the 150 popsicles to the school before the parade. I busted my rear to ensure they were there since I found out that this was needed on Tuesday and was working on Wednesday in the office.

What's fun about that? Apparently with our massive storms last night (I drove home from work at times going 15-20 mph knowing there was a street in front of me but not always sure where it was), the power to the school went out. Guess what happened to the popsicles that were in her freezer. The school sent someone out this morning to buy more popsicles from Jewel, but I still felt bad that this happened -- and that they didn't call me to help fix it.

On the positive side, the hat decorations they made this year were pretty cool, weren't they?


And yes, Daddy dressed him. That's why he's in his birthday party Thomas shirt instead of something more patriotic. At least it's blue, right? He was so happy to see us along the route. And his USA necklace is now a treasured possession at home. As is his patriotic maraca!

Little Miss really enjoyed her popsicle. Mister Man also had a popsicle, but he ate his so fast that I couldn't even find him to take a picture before it was gone. And yes, she is wearing a sweater on July 3. Granted, it wasn't the warmest day here today, but my mom is a freak. She's always cold, and I have pictures of me as an infant in Hawaii with a hat with earflaps on. And once Little Miss got it on, it was not coming off, much like the raincoat incident from last weekend. Oh yeah, and she got bit by mosquitoes on her eye, back and right arm again earlier this week when Daddy let her play in the backyard late in the day with no bug spray. Poor kid!

Then we got back to normal for us at a preschool type event where children are invited. They ran around and played and had a great old time. Little Miss spent most of her time on the playground equipment. It makes a big circle up high, connected to various apparatus, and she had fun running around and around the circle.

Mister Man spent more of his time on the "big kids" playground, which include this tire swing. He asked the little girl who was playing on it first so very nicely if he could also get on and swing, and she let him. He had a ton of fun going around and around -- probably because he made her do all the work!

It all looks fun, right?

Let me review the history, however.

At Back to School Night for Little Miss's preschool, they had an ice cream social that we all went to. As the kids were running around and playing, I suddenly heard a scream (Daddy was on duty for watching at the moment) and recognized Little Miss's voice.

As I ran over to the girl who never is bothered by falling down and appears to not feel pain frequently, I could see blood streaming down her fact. Not exactly a good sign. Some friends grabbed napkins for me so I could staunch the bleeding and see where it was coming from. We needed an ice pack from the school to finally stop the bleeding. Apparently in all their running, some of the bigger kids had gotten a bit overexuberant and managed to run into her hard enough to split her lip open.

At the next preschool event, Little Miss was running again at the Valentine's Day fundraiser. Actually, all the kids were running; I can't single her out. And again she somehow managed to bite through her lip and bleed all over the place, necessitating an ice pack.

So while I have some lovely pictures of the wee ones playing at the picnic, let me reassure you that there was crying involved.

Right after the picture of Little Miss was taken, she managed to run headfirst into a boy who was running the same circle in the opposite direction. They bounced off each other, and each landed flat on the back. He got up with no problems, but she screamed! Fortunately, there was no blood this time, but she did get a nasty bump and bruise on her nose. Poor girl.

After she was happy again, I put Daddy in charge of her and went off to find Mister Man. He was on the tire swing, which is where that picture was taken. When he decided he was finished, he climbed off the swing backwards. And misjudged the size of the hole under the swing. He fell flat on his back and burst into tears. Sweet, two wee ones crying within a span of three minutes.

As a side note, when a child falls into older mulch, it's VERY dirty. And when they try to crawl into your lap when you comfort them, you the filth is immediately transferred to you. Fortunately, it brushes off fairly well. And yes, he's fine, as well. He ended up with a red mark from the bump on his side but was soon off playing again.

Anyway -- Happy Fourth of July to you all. Here's hoping you have a happy and safe one! And enjoy the parades. I'll share the story of our parade last year one day soon, I promise.

My Sous Chef Needs Help

I love to cook. I really do. I actually cook from scratch most nights, and I *gasp* enjoy it.

But there are certain aspects of it that I could really do without. I hate dishes. In fact, once things get into the sink I get pretty grossed out in general. Yeah, I know... another quirk.

I'm also not the biggest fan of chopping and other prep. I really need to have my food come the way it does on the food network. There, it's already portioned out and cut up perfectly. All you have to do it take the cute little ramekin and place it into the bowl or pan.

This is where a generous husband comes in. While I love to cook, he loves to eat. We've made a deal, and he does all the dishes for me. Sometimes even the same night I cook with them! Frequently he also helps out as my sous chef.

On Monday night, I was making the marinade and sides for my Thai Beef Lettuce Cups. It has a lot of ingredients in it, and many of them involve chopping and cutting and slicing. I asked my husband at about 9pm (right after I finished my sushi!) if he would help me prep. He let me know that he was actually planning on heading to the gym right then, so he was headed out the door.

With no one to help me, I of course procrastinated another ten minutes. When I moved into the kitchen and started prepping the limes to be squeezed, my husband finally stood up and announced he was on his way to the gym. Really, I wasn't at all suspicious that this was just a ploy to avoid helping me. It sure seems awfully coincidental though, doesn't it?

We negotiated though, and he agreed to help me for 10 minutes, which would make things much faster and easier for me. First I assigned him the cilantro to prepare to go into the blender.

As he reminisced about the first time he had ever heard of cilantro (I assumed it was going to be some time while knowing me), he started picking off each individual leaf of cilantro. I giggled and explained that he could just remove the thick stems and leave the leaves attached to the thinner ones.

He continued by explaining that he first heard of cilantro while working at Taco Bell in high school. Apparently it was in their pico de gallo that went on a Maxi Melt or something of the sort (I'm not a Taco Bell connoisseur, sorry). My guess is that he didn't make the pico that often.

Once the thick stems were removed, he decided he needed to chop the cilantro that was going into the blender. I was only half paying attention, as I was busy juicing limes, adding my fish sauce, and the like. I did notice that he was using my tiny Global paring knife, however. I made him use a real man's knife once I noticed. A good 10" chef's knife is far safer when doing unnecessary chopping like that.

The next task was garlic. Now, I love garlic. He knows I love garlic. I needed six cloves, and the cloves in my bulb were sorta wimpy. He got six small ones and asked if that was enough. Of course not! We ended up using eight. Since this was also going in the blender to make the marinade, he just needed to skin them.

Easy, right? Just put the flat of your knife atop it, give it a good whack and the peel comes right off. He got most of it right, except for the girly little tap he gave the knife. Again, I had to encourage him to whack it like a man. That helped matters. And again he commenced chopping. This time, I was paying enough attention and reassured him that the garlic cloves could go into the blender whole.

Fortunately, the jalapeno was no issue for him, and that went into the blender quickly halved (with seeds removed -- kids are eating this too, after all!).

The last task for his ten minutes was julienning the red pepper. Once I explained what julienning was, he started cutting. The first quarter of the pepper was cut into four pieces. I got out a set of matches to show him the actual size of a matchstick that he was trying to achieve. That helped. Then of course he blamed me picking the pepper as his last task because I knew it would take him more than 10 minutes. Honestly, my lips are sealed with regards to my intentions on that one.

The good news is that the marinade was completed before he left so he was able to sneak a taste before going to work out. It met his approval -- assuming that "Interesting" is valid as an approval. He forgets that Thai cooking likes to incorporate sweet, sour, spicy, salt, etc all in one dish. He was doubting me. Bad form, really.

Fortunately the rest of the prep was quick. I just had to chiffonade some basil and julienne a cucumber. That makes prep for a Tuesday dinner easy. The flank steak goes into the prepared marinade which is given one last whirl on the blender before going into the Ziplock. Once marinated, it gets grilled, rested and then cut into thin strips. All the prep work is done, so divvying it among the homes I cook for on Tuesdays is a snap. And suddenly, all the work for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday is done (since my friends deliver to me on those days).

Oh, and it was yummy. Really yummy. As in we have no leftovers yummy, and I was really hoping to take it for leftovers to work today. My husband even admitted that his doubting was totally out of line and it rocked. If you want the recipe, let me know and I'll post it. It has some more unique ingredients but all yummy and getable at the right markets! And on Saturday, I'm trying Angela's salmon, spinach and gouda quesadillas. And Sunday may be Mama Kat's Thai Chicken.

So what are your favorite dishes to cook?

Toss That Stain Stick!

My whole family went out to eat Sunday morning. We had a lovely brunch.

Little Miss of course decided that she wanted the chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream. Oh yeah, and that she wanted to eat them by herself. Fortunately, she did allow us to cut them for her.




She really liked them. In fact, any little bit that dropped off her fork was immediately popped into her mouth with her free hand (anyone else notice her using her left hand? Yay!) By the way, who sees the childless person sitting next to Little Miss who decided to wear white when going out to eat with small children? Ha, ha, ha, ha!



She's so proud of herself that she's able to use the fork all by herself. And get it into her mouth with a minimum of damage. Although I will admit that she somehow has whipped cream on the underside of her chin. But hey, who doesn't?


She really likes her pancakes! And she's so happy to be out to eat with Mommy and Daddy and Grandpa and Grandpa and Mister Man AND Auntie Megan.

By now, I suppose everyone's wondering why she's wearing a raincoat. In the middle of June. When it's not raining. Honestly, I don't have a good answer for that one other than she absolutely insisted. Then it dawned on me that a raincoat might work even better than a bib. That's the point at which I snapped it up!

And it really helps when Grandma and Auntie Megan have a bunch of wet wipes on hand. They can get her from both sides!

Eventually, she's clean. I promise. Just because I forgot to take that picture of her with her nice clean light pink dress doesn't mean it got chocolate on it. Really.

I think I'm going to go with this theory in the future. It's definitely easier than trying to make sure that she keeps totally clean or that I remember to get the stain stick on every stain. It's totally worth the weird looks by strangers. I wonder how old she'll be before I have to give this up.