Ahhhh, To Be Five Again!

I remember learning my first joke when I was a kid. To this day, I remember what that joke was. It absolutely cracked me up. I don't think it amused others quite as much. Maybe the first time, but not the twentieth.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Me: What time is it when the elephant sits on the fence?
My Dad: I don't know. What time?
Me: Time to get a new fence!
My Dad: Oh, that's funny. Good joke, Michelle!
Me: What time is it when the elephant sits on the fence?
My Dad: Time to get a new fence?
Me: Nope. Three o'clock.
My Dad: Ummm, ok.
Me: What time is it when the elephant sits on the fence?
My Dad: Uhh, three o'clock?
Me: Nope! Eight thirty!

And it went on and on. While I got that it was a joke, I didn't quite get jokes.

Mister Man is of the age when he loves jokes and loves telling jokes. At the chiropractor yesterday, I heard this one.

Mister Man: Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
Mister Man: Pirate!
Me: Pirate who?
Mister Man: Pirate in the face?
Me: Uhhh, ok.

To the physical therapist....

Mister Man: Knock knock.
PT: Who's there?
Mister Man: Pirate!
PT: Pirate who?
Mister Man: Pirate in the face. Pschhh! I just threw a pie at you!
Me: Ohhhhh! Pie right in the face!
Mister Man: Yeah, that's what I said.

I suppose it was.... Now it's kind of funny. The PT had a joke of her own.

PT: What's Beethoven's favorite fruit?
Mister Man: Strawberries!
PT: Nope. Want to guess again?
Mister Man: Kiwi!
PT: Nope, it's bah-nah-nah-nahhhhhh!
Mister Man: Are you sure it isn't strawberries?

He wasn't impressed. I thought it was pretty good. At least we know the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Mister Man: What time is it when the elephant sits on the fence?
My Dad: (heh, sucker!) I don't know. What time?
Mister Man: Time to get a new fence!
My Dad: Good one, Mister Man.
Mister Man: What time is it when the dinosaur sits on the fence?
My Dad: What time?
Mister Man: Time to get a new fence!
My Dad: Ahhh....
Mister Man: What time is it when the crocodile sits on the watch?
My Dad: I don't know. What time?
Mister Man: Time to get a new watch!

And it went on and on and on.... On the plus side, he seems to have a tiny bit better idea of how jokes work than I did at his age!

It's The Great Tag Debate

You're all familiar with issues around standardization. Remember the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD battle that recently ended? And there's Mac vs Windows. Some of you may even remember VHS vs Beta. There are tons more out there, but I've come to realize that there is one that just won't ever be settled.

It's time for us to take up arms and demand a single standard. All those of us with children, children who rely on us to help them with everything, we need to make our voices heard! Our efforts to teach independence in our children so that one day we may be able to sip coffee for more than thirty seconds, that maybe we can enjoy a freshly toasted bagel rather than scarfing it down and not even noticing that we burned it -- all of this is in jeopardy.

I speak, of course, about tags. The tags in clothing that help people -- small children in particular -- know which was is front and which is back. These little snippets that help us teach children in simple ways how to dress themselves so that we can take a well-deserved breather.

I tell you, Parents. This is a conspiracy. The corporations don't want us to take a break. They need us frazzled so that we buy more of their coffee, more wine, more pre-packaged goods because we don't have the time, energy or sanity to do otherwise.

I give you a random sampling of Little Miss's closet as case in point. She is three and a half (barely!) years old. Keep that in mind as we view her clothing.

Our first item is a pair of pants. Notice the nice tags that are easily seen. This is the only factor differentiating the front from the back of the pants. As long as I can teach her front and back (and thankfully, I've succeeded in this), she can put pants on without help.

Next up, we have a sweater. The tags in in the same place, and again, this is a shirt that she can put on alone. Fortunately, she's yet to try to put it on with the black velvet pants shown above. I will admit that there are times I have to step in and assist with outfit selection, but luckily she's shown enough sense to avoid this disaster.



Even this lovely pair of underwear has a tag in the back. This is an alternate standard, but luckily it is fairly compatible with the preferred standard. All I have to do is ensure that the wee ones know to look for writing if they don't see a physical tag. The back and front rule remains the same.



Next, we run into an issue. This pink shirt (which, yes, she has worn with the black velvet pants, sorry, Fashion Police) does not display a tag in the bag. Looking closer, you can see that there is neither a printed nor a physical tag.



This is the alternate and unpreferred standard. As we begin searching through the shirt for some way to identify the front from the back, we eventually do uncover a physical tag.



Now. Maybe some of your children are brighter than mine. Maybe this is just an area where I've failed as a parent or the wee ones just don't get it, but getting them to understand left from right is a challenge. Explaining that this shirt has the tag on the left doesn't work. Just about half the time, we end up with this shirt on backwards and I need to -- under great duress -- fix it.

We move on to our final exhibit now. Below is a second pair of girls' underwear. There is no tag in the back.



Investigating more closely, you see that there is in fact a physical tag, however. It is on the left side of her underwear. Now we have some underwear with tags on the left and some in the back.


This is my personal favorite. With shirts and pants, it's pretty apparent which hole goes where -- the head hole and waist hole are easy to identify. Underwear? Not so easy for small children to idenfity.

Little Miss sees underwear and proceeds with her rule. If you look closely at the last picture, you'll see that the leg hole on the right is stretched out more than the leg hole on the left. That would be because there are times when Little Miss dresses herself and manages to put her underwear on sideways so that the tag is in the back.

I've yet to figure out how to explain in a way that sticks with her a method of identifying the proper way to put on underwear. Now that I picked up on her error, I'm back to supervising the dressing on a daily basis. I no longer have a chance to enjoy my granola while the wee ones get dressed. In fact, I now tend to eat my granola long after the wee ones have headed to daycare or school when my stomach finally reminds me that I've forgotten to eat.

I hereby resolve to only buy clothing with tags in the back from here on out. Regardless of how cute an outfit is, if the tags are not in the back, it will not pass my threshhold. Take that, corporations.

Ok, take it until the wee ones know left from right. Then if an outfit is extra cute, it'll come home with me regardless.



PS Anyone want to guess the lovely searches I'm going to have after posting about my issues with little girls' underwear? *sigh*

Turn It OFF!

All week long, I've had the Bloomberg teletype going through my mind. Constant chatter, reminders of things to do, issues to worry about, things I can't forget. I wake up in the middle of the night after Little Miss fusses or my husband snores too loudly one time too many or Mister Man comes to poke me to tell me about a dream... and then the machine I thought I'd silenced is back.

I breathe in slowly to the count of four. I hold it a beat. I breathe out to the count of four. I focus on the counting, hoping I can ignore the buzzing in the background of my brain. I read somewhere that this breathing engages some relaxation deep within you, and who knows how it works or if it does, but whatever. I continue this four or five times and feel myself slowly start to relax, but as soon as I make that admission, the thoughts become louder again.

I take a deep breath in and out, then I start counting backwards from two hundred, hoping to fall asleep and silence my innermost thoughts for just a little while before the alarm goes off and I truly need to focus on them. Again.

This week seems to be particularly bad for this. It's been a busy week, and while some of it is good in that I've gotten a lot done, I have a lot more that isn't done. And my time is tight.

I give up. I can't ignore everything, so here's my list of ten things I can't stop thinking about this week. Just tell me I'm not the only one who gets stuck in these ruts.

10) My boss's little boy is in the hospital with pretty bad pneumonia, having had surgery to insert tubes to drain fluid from his lungs on Monday. I feel so badly for thinking my boss was making a big deal over nothing last week when he talked the pneumonia that didn't even require breathing treatments. I just hope his son is better soon.

9) The Cinco de Mayo planning meeting is next Tuesday. I still haven't put together the list of tasks for this. I haven't made the agenda. I haven't looked at our notes from last year's event. I haven't found someone to step up to help chair this. I haven't sent out a reminder to the school yet -- I hope people show for the meeting....

8) Do those little candy hearts have milk in them? Last week on Monday, Little Miss had horrible diarrhea that lasted into Tuesday, and she had to stay home from school until Thursday. My parents swear they didn't give her anything with milk. This week, Little Miss had diarrhea that went away quickly on Sunday afternoon, but maybe it's the food she's getting at Sunday School. Did they accidentally give her Goldfish? I think she really is allergic to dairy. Wow, that's going to be rough as she gets older.

7) I'm exhausted. I'm really tired. I need to get more sleep. But even when I got more sleep and went to bed before 10, I'm still exhausted. Maybe the blood bank turning me away for low iron in my blood (11.0 on Saturday) really is something I should pay attention to. Or maybe I just need to sleep more. If only people wouldn't wake me up and I could sleep through the night. Would it be wrong to wear earplugs to bed?

6) Is my thumb healing ok? Every time I accidentally bump it, it gets so sore. Is that normal? And it feels bumpy in a way that's different from my other thumb. Maybe it's just scar tissue that needs to break down. How long before I call the doctor? I really should get a physical anyway. It's been awhile. Oh, and I'm due at the dentist, too. I need to remember to call the dentist tomorrow.

5) I can't believe Mister Man is going to kindergarten next year. The kindergarten roundup meeting is on the 24th. That seems so soon, and I can get the registration packet then. I hope Mrs. F isn't retiring. I've heard such good things about her, and the other kindergarten teacher is a first year teacher this year. I hope he gets someone who gets him. Or maybe we can get into the dual language program. But that's so competitive with the lottery. I wonder how many slots will even be open with all the siblings from previous years. It would be nice to get him fluent in Spanish though....

4) I was the featured blogger for SITS last week. That was way cool. I can't believe I had 237 different people (yes, I counted and kept an Excel spreadsheet -- shut up) visit me. How interesting that of all those people, only a few people had the same name. I would have thought that there would be far more overlap. I wonder how many of those people will come back again. I hope at least some people enjoy what I write. Did I choose good posts? What if I would have put out some other ones. I'm so far behind in my blog reading after this though... I feel badly for the people that I haven't visited in awhile. And what about the BATW people. I need to focus on them, too. I still feel badly, but I just got so overwhelmed then, but the SITS was so much more and I got through that. I need to add them to the to do list.

3) I hope I can do a 5K. I've been learning to run for so long, and I want to do the St Patty's Day run. I can't believe that's only six weeks away. I'm working on week six right now, but I didn't get beyond week 8 before. And I have the worst part yet to go. But at least I have done it so far. I'm due to run on Friday, but when will I find the time? I have chiro with Mister Man after Little Miss gets on the bus. Will I have time to get to the gym and back before she gets home from preschool? Otherwise, I'm sunk since my husband has basketball until late that night. Saturday doesn't work, and I don't want to just skip a day. Maybe if I just take a quick shower to wash the sweat off but then come straight home and do the hair and makeup thing while Little Miss is taking her nap.

2) Can we pull off a book fair? We stopped doing the Scholastic one over a year ago because we can't get the volunteers. Usborne is too expensive, especially with this economy. It's not fair to ask the parents to buy those books, and we need to get the books into the hands of the families who can't buy the Usborne and need the $1.99 books. If we try to do this though, will we end up with Scholastic hounding us non-stop after this? But really it's the right thing to do, isn't it? Maybe I can help get things settled. At least another elementary is donating a ton of their book fair profits to us. That helps. How are we going to get teachers to choose their books though if they can't see and touch them? Maybe I can take a trip to the warehouse with the principal and a teacher representative.

1) I so don't want to go to work. I don't like the work I'm doing now, but there's no way I can justify quitting my job in this economy. It's so bad for so many people, and I know I couldn't find a similar job even in a good economy because I'm part time and work from home and do get challenging work. We really should just sock away whatever money we can, as this environment is so shaky. The way things are going, who knows how long my division will even be around. If they shutter my division, I definitely won't have a job. It would be nice to be able to spend more time with the wee ones and do more volunteer stuff, but who knows what will happen with the economy. It's looking so deep right now. And protracted. And I see high inflation coming. Really high. How do we combat that? My parents haven't mentioned the word Florida even though the wee ones keep talking about how they want to go back. How bad does that mean this is?

Wow. I promise I'm not really that neurotic. All the time. Actually, I think I feel my blood pressure going down just typing this out. Ohm. Ohm.

I love how I have one small train of thought that goes so many different places so quickly. All I really need to do is make a list of what I need to get done and start cranking away at it. Although (hello school district accounting people I've now left two messages with and have yet to call me back), it would be nice if when I try to cross something off the list anyone else involved would cooperate!

So what have you been thinking about this week?

Sharing The Giggles

On Monday, Mister Man was explaining Groundhog's Day to me. So Mommy, if the groundhog -- his name is Phillip by the way -- sees his shadow, he runs back into his hole and hides. I think maybe he gets some hot chocolate, too. BUT if he doesn't see his shadow, he stays outside and parties. And that means that spring is just around the square.

Eh. Square, corner. Same diff, really, right? And who knew groundhogs drink hot chocolate?

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My mom is famous for teaching me and my sister the incorrect lyrics to words. For some reason, they just don't stick in her head. Lately, Mister Man is on a huge Spiderman kick. He's five. And he got a Superhero Matching Game for Christmas. And my husband now shows him episodes of the 1967 Spiderman cartoon (it's worth looking up on YouTube) before bed.

My parents joined us for dinner the other night. For whatever reason, my mom burst out into song:

Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can! Is he black? Is he white? He's not afraid of the night!

She didn't understand why the whole table burst out laughing. What? What? What's so funny? You can imagine where our conversation went after that one.

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Little Miss came running off the bus today, singing (yep, uh-oh). And apparently this is the song she chose to sing today at preschool for the rest of her friends, too.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go. Walking in your winter underwear.

Yep, a) those are two totally separate songs, b) she's carrying on my mother's penchant for mangling lyrics and c) well, just picture it. And yes, let me repeat that she sang this for her entire preschool class today.

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I've been at the wee one's preschool since November 1, 2006. I've been in conversations with them since late August of 2006. Their staff hasn't changed. I'm the PTO president this year and in regular contact with them.

On Monday, I sent an email to the principal and my executive board with the proposed agenda for our PTO meeting on Tuesday. I typed in the email addresses and sent it off.

A moment later, I had the email bounce back to me. The principal's mail hadn't gone through. Huh. I looked at the email thinking I must have typed the domain incorrectly. Nope, as complicated as those school email addesses are, it was right.

Then I took a look at the name part of the email (what's that called, anyway?). bjohnson. Yep, that's her alright. bjohnson@schooldistrict.org is spelled right, the domain is right -- what's the problem? Why is the stupid thing bouncing back?

After silently cursing the gods of the internet for two or three minutes, it finally dawned on me. Her last name isn't Johnson. Her last name isn't even of the same ethnicity as Johnson. It still starts with a J, but it's not Johnson.

Yep. My brain is officially gone. I can't even remember the name of my principal anymore. I can't wait to see what else I messed up without realizing it. Wheeee!

So what's making you laugh today?

Tasty Tuesday!

I can't believe it's Tuesday again already. This last week has really flown. Probably because I spent much of it reading the 237 different blogs of people who commented on my featured SITS day. And then oh yeah, the Super Bowl.

Today is dedicated to the Super Bowl recap. I do have a recipe at the end if you want to cheat and scroll down, but I recommend that you drool over it all first. And yes, I realized this morning that I probably should have done this post last week so you all could have ideas for Sunday, but I didn't think that far ahead.

In the meantime, enjoy the recipes -- and go check out Tempt My Tummy Tuesday with Blessed With Grace for more fun recipes and kitchen tips!

We made guacamole. Mmmm, guacamole. I used seven avocados and had just a tiny bit left. I took it for lunch yesterday. I already have a craving for some more.



I made my "Italian" dip, too (it needs the quotes because I don't have a name for it yet -- suggestions?). It's really good with crackers and the baby carrots I set out with it. And luckily, I have a tiny bit of that left, too. I'm so eating that for a snack later today! This is the fastest appetizer I have, too. It only takes about ten minutes to put together.



Oh, and some really great caramel apple dip, too. It's not the typical one that's made with marshmallow fluff. It uses yogurt and cream cheese and is much lighter (read: you can eat more without feeling icky) than the one I'm used to. I promise to post it here soon. It's another one that comes together really quickly. It's meant for apples, but I always serve it with strawberries and fresh cut pineapple, too. This will be part of what Mister Man eats with lunch (dairy -- so Little Miss is out).

And of course, I finished off my bananas. Yes, I really finished them all off! There are NO more bananas in my house! I made my uncle's frosted banana bars, and man are they good. Even with all the food we ate -- and eat of my friends brought more from ham sandwiches to bagel dogs to twice baked potatoes to cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches and more -- we still attacked and ate about half the giant pan of banana bars. See?


So without further ado, here you go!

Frosted Banana Bars

Bars:
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 cups ripe bananas (about 4 medium)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch salt

Frosting:
1 cup butter, softened
2 8 oz package cream cheese (16 oz total), softened
8 cups confectioners' sugar
4 tsp vanilla extract

In mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, bananas, and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; add to creamed mixture and mix well. Pour into a greased 15x10x1 inch baking pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until bars test done. Cool.


For frosting, cream butter and cream cheese in a mixing bowl. Gradually add confectioners' sugar and vanilla; beat well. Spread over bars.

Ok, technically, I doubled the frosting recipe (this is the doubled version here). When I made it the first time, I didn't have enough frosting to adequately spread on the 15 inch pan. I maybe could have done it with one and one half times the amount of frosting, but unless you cut down on the powdered sugar, your frosting is too thick and yummy to spread on top of the bars. And I promise, no one complained about this much frosting!

One suggestion. Before you bake, ensure you have enough of all your ingredients. After making pizza from scratch twice this week, dairy free banana cupcakes for Little Miss, banana bread and one other thing, I somehow was short of flour for this recipe.



While the batter was looking like this:



I was running to Dominick's hoping my double acting baking powder wasn't acting quite yet. Luckily for me, it wasn't!

On the plus side, I somehow had never used my Kitchen-Aid mixer for anything other than kneading bread dough. And I've owned this sucker for a long time. It's a classic. I've had it probably since around graduating from college. And I never used it to make batter. OMG. I am so infatuated with it now. I don't know why I didn't do it earlier. Duh!

Enjoy!

Oh. Yeah, You!

Just after Thanksgiving, we received an invitation to a Christmas party. It isn't the only invitation we received, but it was the only one that confused me. It was addressed to the entire family, but it wasn't one of my friends.

I assumed it was one of my husband's teacher colleagues. I know many of their names, but not all of them. I'd never heard of Susan or Don, so I hung it up on the calendar board and left it for my husband to deal with.

A week or so later, I asked him about it. He had never heard of them either. Now I was getting a little creeped out. I checked the names again. I took a look at the address to see if maybe it was someone from Mister Man's or Little Miss's preschool or daycare classes, but no dice.

How did they get our name? And our address?

I never did RSVP, as I wasn't really sure of the etitquette. How do you call someone and say, "Hi, we received an invitation to your Christmas party, and we'd love to come, but ummm who the heck are you? We're trying to figure out where we know you from." If anyone has the Emily Post on that one, let me know.

Needless to say, the season got busy, and somehow the 2009 calendar somehow got hung over the invitation, and I forgot about it.

Well, until this this morning anyway. I suddenly realized where I'd heard the name Susan X from. Don I still wasn't sure of (they had different last names but were co-hosting the party). She's one of the wardens at our new church.

Yep, our nice, friendly church that we love so much. Ahhhh. The lightbulb has gone on finally. So ummm next year when they invite us to their party after we never RSVPed this year and just blew them off, I'll know why we got the invitation.

And I promise to call them to let them know whether or not we're able to attend. Now that I know who they are and all.

It's Another Half Birthday!

We celebrate half birthdays around here. My mom always celebrated ours when we were kids, and I've continued the tradition. My husband thinks I'm nuts and that I'm making up half birthdays, but that's ok -- we don't have to celebrate his! I remember taking cupcakes to school on my half birthday and other kids doing the same, so someone else must know about this.

For us, the rules of the half birthday are that there are no presents (and my parents broke that one this year, of course), but that the half birthday child gets to choose what we eat for dinner and what kind of cupcakes he or she wants. Yep, cupcakes. Cakes are for birthdays, and cupcakes are for half birthdays. It's our thing.

Today is Little Miss's half birthday. I can't believe she's three and a half already! And sometimes it feels like three and a half going on fifteen and a half.



For dinner, she insisted on her non-dairy cheese pizza. I found vegan cheese recently at the natural foods store, having discovered that soy cheese actually contains milk proteins (umm, hello people!). It's not exactly cheap, but I make homemade pizzas -- crust and sauce included -- for my family at least once a month. Poor Little Miss missed her pizza.

I tried to convince her that I should make something else -- pancakes, homemade chicken tenders, French toast, crock pot pork. Nope. I had made the pizza on Thursday night, and there was NO way I was going to talk her out of having her special pizza again. So pizza it was again.



I made three pizzas. There were six of us. I had one piece. Yep, one single solitary lonely piece. The wee ones each ate over three quarters of a pizza themselves. You'd think I hadn't fed them in a week. Nope, it must be that I'm such a good cook (ha!). Fortunately, I'm able to scrounge for myself fairly well.



I also found a recipe for dairy free banana cupcakes and managed to talk Little Miss into wanting banana cupcakes for her birthday (sucker!). I was a little worried about how they'd turn out, so I tossed in some cinnamon "just in case." They actually turned out pretty well. Mister Man ate three small ones, my dad and husband each ate two and a half of the big ones, and I enjoyed my cupcake, as well.



Little Miss licked the frosting off her cupcake, nibbled once at the top of her cupcake and announced that she didn't like it. Great. These were the cupcakes I had baked that I was planning to freeze so she could have some cake to take to birthday parties instead of having to skip out on the treats there. At least I got a test run in. I guess someone will just have to eat these cupcakes. And I'll have to do more baking. I hate it when that happens....

And yes, my parents totally ignored the no presents rule. Remember that dollhouse we finally opened up on Thursday? Well, it now has a "functioning" kitchen with all the appropriate appliances. That make noises. Wheeee! There would have been more, but the kitchen was the only piece from the set that Toys 'R Us had when my mom went there. Bummer!



Do you like the decorations we used for the cupcakes? They're from the Superheroes Matching Game that Mister Man got for Christmas. The wee ones absolutely love playing the game and even better is playing superheroes with the figures. Gotta love the games that have multiple uses, right? Little Miss was insistent that she wanted Spiderman on her cupcakes to decorate them, and I had the brilliant idea to use these guys. She was thrilled. Phew!

What other family traditions do you have? Do you celebrate half birthdays or anything like them?



PS I finally got the pics to upload. Yay!