Glory Days

It's amazing how nothing really changes. Take tonight for example. I could, arguably, still be in college.

1.My significant other has a night class so I'm home alone for the evening.

2.I have just cleaned up someone else's mess off the carpet,

3.I'm drinking wine and eating a Lean Pocket for dinner.

4.All I can hear right now is someone moaning and the thumping of a bed against the wall.

Here's what's really happening:

1.Mister Ginger has a night class for which the VA pays him a pretty penny upon completion.

2.I gave the Dude some apple oatmeal for dinner (big treat) and gave him a bath. On the way to his room he bent over to pick up his favorite yellow ball and proceeded to shit on the freshly steamed carpet. Then he smooshed it. After screaming at the dogs to leave the poop alone, I hauled the Dude in for bath #2 (it's not funny.) Ok. I get the dude in his crib with two binkys, two bears a mini weird fuzzy blankie thing that resembles a glad rag from your local sex shop, and a real blankie. Oh. And the plastic innards of a Glow-Worm. He goes to sleep so i get ready to clean up Poopapalooza. I have to call Grandma Steve to figure out why the machine isn't working. Ok. Done. Shit. The machine woke up the Dude. Ok, fine. Talk to Grandma Steve. Take two on the bedtime.

3. A little crying, but mellow so I go open a bottle of wine. White. Yummmm.... What to eat, what to eat? I don't even want to eat, but I'm terrified of getting shitty when I'm alone with the Dude, so I must eat. Screw this. Lean Pocket it is. Seriously? More crying? All I wan to do is drink a glass of wine, fold about 900 loads of laundry and watch some Gossip Girl on Netfilx.

4.So here I sit, waiting for the wailing and thumping to stop whilst I eat my Lean Pocket (really 300 calories? Is that lean???) The worst part? It's an Italian Meatball Lean Pocket. Everyone knows that's really a red wine kind of meal. Sigh. Wish me luck on round three of bedtime.

Pumpkin Chip "Muffins"

I love summer. Actually I love Summer with a capital S. Summer is my best friend. So, you can imagine that I like to hold off on all things apple, pumpkin, spice, etc. until mid-November at the earliest. In my world, Halloween is the end of Summer. This is partly because I'm delusional, partly because I'm stubborn, and partly because I grew up in Southern California where Summer has a mind of her own. Last year in San Diego we had no summer. The year before that I spent Thanksgiving pregnant and sweating because our turkey dinner was cooked indoors despite 87° weather. (p.s. The two Virginia years were rough for me. Ask anyone who witnessed my ineptitude doing recess duty in a tank top and sandals amid falling leaves and snow. It was ugly.) I, therefore, choose to believe in the Endless Summer.


Back to the muffins. Big Sissy had just been down for a visit, and the Little Sissy asked her about the "magical muffins." I'm sure many of you are familiar. It's apparently a Weight Watchers kind of deal, but it doesn't seem believable that these would be diet approved. Fast forward a week when Little Sissy and I have The Chick and The Dude and no projects planned. Enter emergency Pumpkin Chip Muffins to the rescue. Yum. Pumpkin is now allowed if, and only if, I have two hungry toddlers in my charge and no animal crackers in sight. I'm having a sordid love affair with one right now. I'm singing Brobee's "Party in My Tummy" song in my head as I type. I'm talented like that. Here's the recipe and directions on how to keep munchkins happy in the process of making them. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
2 boxes of Spice Cake
1 large can (30 oz.) of pumpkin (NOT pie filling!)
1 bag (12 oz.) of mini-chocolate chips

Step 1: Get naked. Pour cake mixes into a bowl and stir to break up any clumps.

Step 2: Pour mini-chips into bowl and mix well.

Step 3: Clean up any fallen chips.

Step 4: Don a party hat.

Step 5: Mix pumpkin into dry mix. It ain't easy. No you don't need more pumpkin. I called to confirm this with Big Sissy. She said, "It'll get better." It did, after about 50 calories burned from stirring.

Step 6: Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes depending on your oven.. You know the drill- check 'em at 20 minutes with a toothpick. If they don't scream, they're done.

Step 7: Celebrate and share a bite with your puppies. Try to make it a non-chocolaty bite, but that's almost impossible with these treats!

Photo Credit: The first image is not mine. I never got a pic of the final product, mostly because we were scarfing them down in a not-so-Weight Watchers like fashion. This picture is pretty close, although they claim to be cookies. It's from this blog: http://deliciousdixie.blogspot.com/2010/10/pumpkin-chocolate-chip-cookies.html

My Fart

Today I am still finding myself randomly brought to tears thinking of my high school friend, Lisa, who lost her little baby girl Sunday night.

After a raucous night of meatloaf and Jeopardy at The Padres house we brought The Dude into bed to snuggle for a bit (which we can only do when he falls asleep in the car, because he's a no-snug zone when he is concious) and I took some time to smell him. That may sound weird for you Freebirds aka unparents, but when they are brand new babies, we spend hours and hours sniffing their new baby heads. The scent is absolutely intoxicating. It's like olfactory Oxicontin. As Don Draper's ex-mistress, turned beatnik, turned heroin junkie said, “It’s like drinking a hundred bottles of whiskey while someone licks your tits.” Ok, quite frankly, I don't like whiskey and having my boobs "licked" kind of just makes me think of nursing our special needs dog, Poppy, but it's the hyperbole that's important here.

Well, The Dude doesn't smell like he used to. It's not so much the heroin-like baby deliciousness. He kind of has this milky, Cheerios, wet dog, sweaty, pee smell by 8:00pm and if we have been at Grandma Steve's house for dinner and skipped bathtime, well, he goes to bed nasty. Call me unfit. Call me gross. Call me tired. But last night, last night, I held him as close as he would let me before wriggling free. I breathed in the stench of that sweaty little boy's scalp so deep that I thought my lungs would give out. And then he thrashed about until he positioned himself as the little spoon to my big spoon, and he yawned a huge yawn. It was gorgeous. It brought tears to my eyes. And then he farted on me.

I love that fart. I will always remember that fart. It was a fart just for me, and I'll take it.

The Blob

Yesterday I was watching The Harajuku Girls and when the Harajuku Mommy came to get them, she touched up the hot pink stripes in my hair. Sweet. Except it was almost dinner time, and I really didn't want to go wash my hair. You KNOW how I hate to wash my hair. So 3 hours later, I rinsed it out. I no longer have pink stripes. I have a pink blob. Oh yeah. I have a fancy wedding today at 5:30pm. Why am I so stupid?

**UPDATE**

Don't worry kids. Hair+fancy wedding crisis averted. Sissy and I went to do the make-up for Sissy's friend, Bridezilla, and it turns out we aren't going to this Shit Show after all.

p.s. Thank you for loaning me the lilac dream dress anyway, Miss Mississippi. You are a dream. I may still find a way to wear it because it is so divine.

To Do List

My To Do List includes the following:

1. Make dinner. Like for real. Like, actually take raw food and cook it before The Bob gets home.
2. Fold the diapers that I hid because the daycare inspector guy was inspecting.
3. Buy paint for the downstairs even though my mom forbade me to paint it, which btw, how come I'm 30 years old and I'm sneaking behind my mom's back to paint my own house? Oh yeah. Because she's smarter and scarier than me. And if I can't even get off my ass to fold diapers and make dinner I probably don't need to paint 1300 sq. ft. of house. But I'm doing it anyway. And by I'm doing it, I mean I'm trading the next door neighbor, "Muno," a week of babysitting for painting.
4. Figure out how to paint house without mom knowing.
5. Sew some reusable Swiffer Wet Jet pads out of old diapers that are too small to hold the massive amounts of pee and poop that my child generates. I should probably learn how to sew first. Or, maybe I can buy The Sissy lunch and she'll do it for me.
6. Celebrate, once again, that I am indeed NOT a special ed teacher anymore and that I am not getting ready to write the first slew of IEPs of the season. Eff yeah. I love my life!
7. Find some kids to enroll in the now officially licensed day care that we're opening this fall.


I should probably go get another cup of coffee and think about my list for a while and wonder why nothing gets done around here.