Hold the Water, Waiter.

My husband hates ordering water when we go out to a restaurant to eat. It is not often that we get to indulge by letting someone else cook for us, bring us our food while we lounge, and then clean up afterwards. It occurs to me that I should change all of that “us” and “we” to simply “me,” as my husband generally has a staff cook, waitress, and cleaning slave who are all known by the name of Me. At any rate, he and I, a.k.a. Me, snookered Nana into entertaining the little munchkins for the day so that we could go on a date and have a whiff of what it was like to be single again.

I suppose I must explain the use of the world “single” in this context. I don’t mean that we wanted to experience life before we got hitched; it’s just that I have this awful propensity for referring to our pre-baby days as “do you remember when we were single and we could just hop in the car and go to a movie?” Some may think that a bit odd, but before we had children we were a “single couple”, if such a thing is possible in a grammatical sort of way. I don’t much care if it is or not- that’s just how it was.

Since we unfortunately don’t have the budget to blow forty dollars on a semi-gourmet lunch, we generally find ourselves at a local Olive Garden where we can spend $15.63, including tax and tip, and actually feel full when we leave the restaurant. If a person spends that amount at most eateries they usually still have a gnawing feeling somewhere in the region of the stomach that typically alludes to hunger, as they were only served sixteen crumbs in the shape of a sandwich and two ounces of water colored to resemble soup. The reason that a person can spend $15.63 at the Olive Garden and actually feel the need to throw up afterwards is that this bill procures for the spendee the right to as much soup, salad, and bread as they would like.

My husband hates ordering water when we go out to a restaurant to eat. He says it makes him feel like a cheapskate. It seems that he would much rather pay a ridiculous amount of money, like $2.19, for a tall glass of soda. (It must be said that he tends to drink no less than half-a-dozen glasses, so he does get his money’s worth). On this occasion, however, he settled for the free glass of water so as to be able to spend a couple dollars later in the day.

To a certain extent I can understand why he would feel that the healthier selection of water makes him appear too frugal. But the actions following the act of ordering his drink and making his soup selection are what I feel contradict his outlook on cheapskatedness and otherwise cause me to laugh and shake my head until I become rather dizzy.

To put it lightly, my husband is that person who, when seen entering an all-you-can-eat buffet, elicits cries of “Oh, no! Lock the doors! Bar the windows!” from the owner of the establishment for fear of being eaten into bankruptcy. The man feels bad about drinking a free beverage, but has no qualms about consuming so much salad, multiple (large) bowls of soup, and so many breadsticks that I lost count, that by the time he is sufficiently bloated and incapacitated he has whittled the price of each helping down to mere pennies. This I don’t understand.

He managed to keep a lid of the ensuing nausea, and I didn’t vomit at the thought of so much food being ingested in the matter of one hour. I just didn’t think about it. I was separated from my babies for a full eight hours, and have not found myself in need of therapy. My husband and I only got on each other’s nerves a handful of times. I didn’t have to wipe any rear ends or tell any one to stop jumping on the couch. Nobody went swimming in the cat’s water dish. Nor did anyone have to be punished for biting, pushing, yelling, grabbing, screaming, throwing food on the floor, or dropping toys down the stairs. I wouldn’t want to be that bored every day, but it’s nice to have a date every once in a while.

These Spaghettios Smell Sooo Gooood

The kids and I were eating lunch and I heard a strange snarffling noise coming from the direction of my son’s chair. He is still fighting with some nasal congestion, so I thought he was just trying to inhale some of his boogies back into his brain. I turned in his direction to ask if he needed a tissue and admonish him once again that the proper direction for boogers to go is out (into a tissue) and not into his ear canal. One would think that I would have learned long ago that assuming anything, especially when it comes to toddlers, is a huge mistake. The little man had his spoon, loaded with Spaghettios, up to his nose and was endeavoring to suck them into his nasal passages using nothing but the brute force of his powers of inhalation. Somehow, I think that squishy processed pasta would be worse for the inner working of a person’s olfactory system than slimy germy bacteria.

Popcorn Tastes Better in a BIG Bowl

I Wanna Chocolate Cake!

The last few nights I have had some difficulty sleeping. One o’clock this morning found me putting a chocolate cake in the oven because I was stressed and in desperate need of a cocoa fix. By the time it was done cooking I could hardly keep my eyes open, but I managed to find the strength to eat a small piece before crawling into bed.

When there is a super-moist chocolate cake sitting on the countertop what is a person supposed to eat for breakfast? Chocolate cake, of course. If Bill Cosby can give his kids chocolate cake for breakfast I suppose it’s okay for me to do the same. Like Bill says there are wheat, eggs and milk in chocolate cake: just as healthy as toast, fried eggs and milk in a glass, right? Sadly the baby had to adhere to her diet of Cheerios and yogurt (life just isn’t fair sometimes).

I was pretty confident that feeding my toddler yummy dessert food for breakfast wasn’t too bad. It was after I gave in to his insistence that he repeat the meal for lunch that I began to worry that I may be committing some kind of mommy-sin. After that I lost total control and ate cake for lunch myself. Thankfully we had an impromptu get-together with our small group of bestest friends: it was a great opportunity to get some of the irresistible chocolate goodness out of our house and into somebody else’s. If not for that I’m fairly certain that we would have been eating it for breakfast and lunch tomorrow too.

Food!

My little girl strongly resembles me in looks, but I found that there are certain aspects of my personality where she mirrors me as well. She loves to eat. It is no secret to those close to me that I love food. Thankfully the metabolism that God has given me can hold up to occasional divergences into the land of Bad Eating.

The baby started on solid food a couple of weeks ago (solid as in pureed). Only in the last week or so has she figured out how to open her mouth for the spoon and actually swallow the majority of it. Previously she spent most of the mealtime licking her lips, sucking on her tongue and spitting the food all over herself and the surrounding area. Now that these fine motor skills are more or less finely tuned the act of eating holds some pleasure for her. At least it certainly appears to.

My daughter enjoys her repast in the comfort of her bouncy chair. By the time the bib is securely in place so as to absorb most of the mess that is sure to be made she knows what’s coming and starts to kick her legs with the thrill of it all. (When a kicky baby is settled into one of these chairs it turns into a kind of baby-catapult, so always make sure that the baby is properly restrained so that he or she will not go flying through the air until stopped by a solid object like a wall.) There she sits making baby noises and kicking in between mouthfuls of sweet potatoes. Her eyes get all wide when she sees the spoon coming toward her mouth; if mommy is too slow in getting it there the little girl will grab mommy’s wrist with both of her small hands and pull the food-laden spoon into her waiting mouth.

There is still a little bit that needs to be learned about the whole spoon-eating thing. Approximately every other time her lips close around the spoon she zerberts the mush all over her face and up her nose. I’ve decided that I prefer foods like pears and applesauce: they don’t stain quite as much.

Barbarians, cavemen, and toddlers. Oh, my!

This is not the first time that I have discussed my son’s eating habits. He is a picky eater; he will eat cat litter and dirt; he will put his hands in his mouth when they are covered in sidewalk chalk; and he occasionally indulges in the delicacy of a Crayola crayon. If a particular food is considered healthy, chances are he won’t even try it.

There are only three safe bets when it comes to foods that he won’t refuse: carbohydrates (cereal, pancakes, bread, crackers, pretzels, cookies, chips, french fries, etc.), cucumbers, and Tyson brand chicken nuggets. The list of foods that he will usually eat is not much longer: hot dogs, ice cream, pb&j, grilled cheese, spaghetti, pizza, and watermelon. We can sit him down to dinner when he is starving and he will sit there for hours without touching his food if he decides he doesn’t want to eat it.

What I have yet to share is the way in which he eats the food he deems worthy enough to chew and swallow. Let’s start with pancakes. My son raises this breakfast staple to his mouth with his index finger and thumb; he then proceeds to crumble teeny tiny pieces of it into his mouth. These teeny tiny pieces go places other than his mouth as well: all over the floor, his bib, under his bib, his pants, on the booster seat, etc. :::deep breath:::

When it comes to cucumbers, the boy chews through to the seeds and eats them, leaving a “u” shaped ring of cucumber behind. No seedless cucumbers in our house, thank you very much.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and grilled cheese also have their own special way of being devoured. First the two pieces of bread must be pulled apart. Once that has been accomplished my little boy impales the insides of the sandwich onto his index finger and eats it. After the bread is sufficiently deformed and disfigured he consumes that as well in a manner similar to pancakes.

One would think he could handle finger foods such as Cheerios and crackers. However, due to my son’s experimental eating habits (i.e. lifting the bowl to his mouth and darting out his tongue like a toad) it is not uncommon to find a dozen Cheerios or whole crackers underneath his rear end and also under the opposite end of the table.

So not only must I wipe his hands and face, his chair and between all of his fingers, I am also obliged to clean out his hair, brush off his clothes and vacuum the whole house. :::sigh::: The only reason I even bother to vacuum at all is that I don’t want to have to go to the hospital after stepping on a petrified crumb in order to have said crumb surgically removed from the bottom of my foot.

The incredible shrinking pants!

Breastfeeding is an excellent excuse for eating just one more piece of bread, one more helping of lasagna, or one more serving of dessert. When pregnant a woman needs approximately three to five hundred extra calories per day; when breastfeeding she needs about three to five hundred more per day than when she is pregnant. Notice that the wave of thought never goes to: gee, I’m breastfeeding, so therefore I can have another helping of salad! Yippee! It seems to me that an increase in calorie intake equals extra room for carbohydrates and chocolate!

I gained very little weight with this last pregnancy and most of it came off quickly. There remains that last five pounds, however, that clings tenaciously to my midsection. The jeans that I purchased right before I found out I was pregnant with my littlest baby are still difficult to wear. There is plenty ‘o room in the waist, but they are terribly tight in the posterior which causes my still-larger rump to go numb. Yep. It’s actually rather painful. Only one pair out of the four I own stay up without a belt or without making my tuckus ache. (By the way, spell check doesn’t like the word: tuckus).

What a vicious cycle: get hungry + eat = have numb cheeks + cry from pain = stress eat. One would think the numbness would deter a person from eating, but in reality it probably exacerbates the problem. Maybe I should just buy some new jeans. First, I need to change my pants before both legs go numb and I fall down.