Wednesday Recipe

Preparation time: 4-5 hours

Ingredients required:

• Two moms, including one fearful flyer with relaxation meditation guide pre-loaded on iPod and bottle of atavan in carry-on bag
• One toddler with off-switch removed
• One bottle Benadryl, used in conjunction with above ingredient only if moms reach breaking point
• One airplane pointed South, ideally without a single empty seat
• One heaping bag full of toys and books, each for use for approximately 180 seconds

To make: Beginning at the crack of dawn, combine all ingredients. If desired, add crabby passengers, overworked airport personnel, and some really terrible coffee. Repeat entire process in reverse 3 days later.

Recovery time: Undetermined as of yet. Unscientific data has shown that pumpkin pie eaten standing up on a Friday morning may speed recovery.

Protected: Behind the wheel

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Toddler v. 1.0

Sunday afternoon: we’re in the drugstore.

Roo picks up a bottle of hair oil from the shelf and starts to walk away with it. He’s freakishly talented at unscrewing bottle tops, so I reach down and take it from him, offering him some hairbands as an alternative.

Instead of taking them, he falls immediately and with great drama to the shlocky drug store carpet, face down, screaming, kicking his legs, and pounding his fists on the floor.

We did the only thing you would expect of empathetic, patient parents:

We died laughing.

Gone, baby, gone

Drum roll, please…

We spent the night away from home last night WITHOUT THE BABY.

We stayed up late! (if 11:30 is late). We went to a movie! We had dinner - sushi - in bed! We had breakfast and no one signed “more” repeatedly with every bite. We slept past 6 am!

After the sleep shenanigans of the past few months, we reached our breaking point and hopped on Expedia. It was a pretty good deal in an exotic location: a suburb a whopping 4 miles from home. But the location was beside the point.

Roo stayed home with NSG’s dad and stepmom, who were very excited to have the opportunity. They took him for smoothies this morning and reported all went well, though it took them 2 hours to get out of the house. Fair enough - it took me that long to leave the house when he was brand new. He did great, they did great. Next time we’ll sleep better because we won’t be so worried about him keeping them up half the night.

He crashed when we came home - big smiles for about 10 minutes and then he couldn’t stop crying. Remember that feeling when you were little, of holding it together until you were with the person you felt safest with and then just falling apart?

Definitely a success.

(And yeah, sue me, I missed a day of NaBloPoMo. I’ve posted some photos as penance.)

Protected: Good books

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

A space perfect only for a very small cat

Speaking of locavores

Since I’m currently obsessed with the local food movement, courtesy of animal, vegetable, miracle, this was a fun thing to stumble over on the internet today;

We Only Read Local Dictionaries

Locavore is New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year

Posted at 10:48 AM on 16 Nov 2007

The word “locavore” has received the esteemed honor of being the New Oxford American Dictionary 2007 Word of the Year. For you non-locavores, the word is defined as “a person who endeavors to eat only locally produced food.” It was coined about two years ago by four San Francisco women who popularized the idea of the 100-mile diet.

P.S. This counts as a post. It does!

Please oh please oh please can’t we just get a little more sleep?

Protected: Next up

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Soliciting assvice

Three questions for you, oh internets: 

1. We were thinking about going to see August Rush this weekend, but I’m both interested in and very wary about adoption movies. What have you heard about it?

2. Space heaters: efficient way to keep your baby warm, or absolute neurotic-mom-nightmare death trap? I know someone who lost his whole house when his space heater tipped over (doesn’t everyone know “someone who”?). I know they make them now so they shut off if they tip over or overheat, but I’m still fearful about them, and Roo’s room is still freezing at night. Convince me one way or the other.

3. Cloth-butt devotees: what have you done to get your kid through the night with a cloth diaper without him soaking through? We’ve used cloth his whole life with much success, but now suddenly he can’t get through the night. We use thick covers, prefolds, and doublers. So we’ve been using ’sposies at night and now the kid has the first diaper rash of his life. Anyone? Bueller? We could really use some help.