Stuology

Ada came home today, crying about not wanting to come in the house, and when Mac lifted her into the house, she collapsed in a fit of crying and “oh woe is me” and “I DON’T LIKE IT!!” James came in happily, but when I picked him up, he proceeded to slap me in the face which did wonders for my headache. I’m not sure whose brilliant idea it was to time it to have an almost two year old and a 3.5 year old at the same time.

Mac and I did get to leave the house yesterday without children, thanks to Hilary and Camilo. We went out to see Twilight, since it was the one playing in the VIP section. I had a coffee with Bailey’s Caramel Irish Cream and Godiva Chocolate Liquor. Mac had a Red Bull and Vodka, and we had chicken quesadillas as a snack to tide us over until dinner. That’s why we always get tickets to the VIP section. I left the movie with some extreme lust…over the Cullen’s house. I want not only the house, but the location of the house. I have not read the book, nor do I plan to after seeing the movie. It wasn’t a terrible movie, but I think I would have liked it a lot better 20 years ago. The only thing that made me want more–besides the house–was the preview for The Spirit^*. Graphic novel noir usually makes me happy. We ran into a few stores after the movie, went out for dinner, and then came home where I made some more hot cocoa mix and finally watched Wall-E.

And lastly, my weekly menu.

Saturday: Whatever we had in the fridge and cabinets that was edible and couldn’t be labeled as dessert.

Sunday: Mac and I ate out. The kids had Aladdin’s Cafe.

Monday: Again, leftovers. There was a lot of food made recently. Mac hasn’t been feeling well today, so I dug up stuff from the fridge.

Tuesday: Baked potato soup

Wednesday: Chili–a small pan of Cafeteria Chili for the masses, and some of M’s Best Chili Evar! for me and Mac if he feels like it.

Thursday: Spinach ravioli with a sauce yet to be determined. Perhaps a vegetable on the side.

Friday: Leftovers or a Guinness braised brisket. It depends on the quantity of leftovers from Tuesday - Friday.

M’s chili would probably would fulfill my “make one new thing a week” goal. I’ve been doing well since I’ve started posting my menus. At least one thing every week is something I have never made before.

*Beware, it will load the trailer, loud blaring sounds included.

Ada wouldn’t get out of bed this morning, but since she didn’t have school this morning for her Feast of Feasts at 11:00, I let her stay in bed. And since the Feast of Feasts is more like a Snack of Feasts, I made breakfast for us: scrambled eggs with bell peppers, bacon and toast. Ada sat at the table and gave a small, “No thank-you. I don’t like it.” She wouldn’t eat a thing, but she kept wanting more juice. She was also not acting quite like herself, but she had no fever. We were going to eat at her school at 11:00, so I was fine with it. She sat on my lap for breakfast, lying back and only sitting up to drink juice.

Then I started working while she sat on Mac’s lap. She started coughing strangely. I looked over in time to see her spew all over Mac. I ran to the kitchen to grab a bowl. I held her while she threw her blanket in the bowl and then proceeded to vomit exorcist style all over me.

I’ve never been coated in so much vomit before, and I went to a party school.

The Thanksgiving Feast that she has been helping to prepare for all week? We aren’t going.

I made my trip to Penzeys today, so my spices are once again fully stocked–along with *um* a few that weren’t on the list, but that is okay.

Mac was very kind and made dinner tonight. I haven’t made my meal list for the week. Tomorrow I’m making slow-cooked ribs, but I’m not sure what I’m throwing on the side.

I also picked up more containers for all my various flours. I really wanted ones close to what I already have on my countertop now for my AP flour and sugar, but we could no longer find them in Lawrence. I finally decided to get the cheaper acrylic ones. The lid is easy to get on and off, sealing by pushing a button. Eventually I will have some place to put all my flours inside a cabinet, so the fact that they do not go at all with the rest of my stainless steel kitchen attire is fine. Also, thanks to a tip from Lydia, I picked up a few bags of frozen diced onions.

Ada is getting better at walking around in Animal Crossing. She got a little upset today when she couldn’t go in a house even after an explanation that she can only go in when the light is on. She finally believes me though, so now when she walks up to a house, she announces whether the light is on or off and if she can go in and talk to the animal. She also figured out on her own which button takes pictures and which button looks at the picture. We have a lot of pictures. I showed her the buttons to rotate through her tools, so she can also water stuff and dig a ton of holes.

I feel exhausted though–probably because of the 6 hours of sleep I got last night. However, because I was up late, I got to witness Ada do an awesome thing. She got up around 1:30am, went to the bathroom, and then crawled back into her bed and went back to sleep. The fact that she got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom is awesome! That means we are getting really close to having her housebroken.

We were given a CD of songs for James recently. It will also be great for Ada. I finally got around to ripping it so we can put them on their iPod. The songs are sung at a little slower pace than usual which is great for helping Ada and James sing along and pronounce the words.

I’m listening to them now so I can label them with their title instead of it just saying Track #. We were warned that they were slow, but gawds! The only thing that the songs are missing is William Shatner.

We had a teacher conference for Ada last Friday, and one for James the Tuesday before Ada’s. James has been doing great at drop-off until recently when he decided to revert back to crying and screaming and such. Distracting him with food has always worked in the past, but not so much now. He eventually gets over it and is fine the rest of the day, but geez. What’s the deal? James is working on exciting things such as going down the stairs, and two word phrases and understanding that when he throws the ball against the wall, it will bounce back. He shouldn’t act surprised everytime it comes back and bonks him in the head.

Ada meet all of her goals for the school year already. I believe that they are going to continue working on the same areas, but just up her goals. Most of her work is in the life skills area. She does things like folding napkins, washing dishes, cutting apples and bananas, making toast, using a screwdriver, riding a tricycle, building things out of blocks and so on. She works with an OT and a speech therapist on Tuesdays still. Her speech is getting quite a bit better. She is still behind for her age, but she is improving quickly. She does some work in the academic areas where she is ahead of her age. If she makes the same kind of progress in her speech and gross motor skills during the second half of the school year, her new goals that will be done in May for the next school year will include the academic areas. I’m excited for her to start reading, and not the “mimic and memorize” that make most parents exclaim “My child can read!” She can do that now, as can most kids her age. She will get to work on actual reading. And math! Of course, with a couple of Christmas presents that I have picked out for her, she will be working on math anyhow.

Ada has also earned the label “independent and stubborn.” There was hesitation before the word “stubborn” was used, but she is. Her most common phrase is “No thank-you! Ada do it! No, Ada do it! ADA DO IT!!!” She doesn’t want anybody to help her with anything. It makes it difficult when people don’t really want to do it for her, but just guide her on how to do something when she is having difficulties. However, she is sometimes too proactive on her approach, and she will spurt out “No! Ada do it!” if she perceives that someone is coming to try to help her with something, even though they aren’t. On the flip side, she will work and work and work on something until she gets it. She will not quit. She gets frustrated with it sometimes, but she doesn’t give in. That personality trait will be the most beneficial to her than any other. I couldn’t be more thrilled that my daughter is independent and stubborn. She is also a little too possessive with what she perceives as belonging to her at home. She has a Hello Kitty crayon and marker holder. She was playing with it this weekend on the living room floor when James walked close to her. She started yelling “No J! No J! Mine!” and then she threw herself on top of her crayons, lying on them so James couldn’t get them. He wasn’t even trying. He was just looking at her like she had gone crazy.

We picked up Animal Crossing for the Wii yesterday before picking up the kids. Ada and I played last night for a little bit. We haven’t even paid our house off yet. We may play a little tonight. She loves just waking around and talking to the other animals and collecting and counting cherries. She also named the town, so we live in “Go Kitty.” She is having an equal amount of fun in Viva Pinata. Her favorite activities for me to do there are to have the pinatas eat fruit and to water and fertilize plants. She doesn’t have the motor skills yet to work the controls in either game, so I do that while she hints at what to do. However, she can take the controls in Lego Batman and collect coins. My favorite moment in that games is when she gets near an edge and exclaims “Don’t go there. That’s where I fall down!” I may work with her though in Animal Crossing. I think with some practice, she’ll be able to walk around town and collect stuff.

I used those wonderfully ripe bananas for a quick bread. It is in the oven now. I let Ada help with the baking tasks because it involves no knives and the only heat source is in the shut oven. She always, always wants to break the eggs. Once, I helped her break the eggs, but the rest of the time, I distract her with another task while I break the eggs. Tonight I decided to go ahead and let her try to break an egg by herself. She does a great job cracking the egg–gently enough that the shell cracks without the egg breaking. I stressed to her three times to crack the egg over the bowl. She puts it over the bowl, but then her arms draw back as she squeezes the bejeezus out of the egg. It ran down the front of the dishwasher, half landing on the stool she was standing on and half on the floor.

She helped me clean it up, and then we went back to her cracking the shell, me breaking the egg, and her lightly beating it with a fork. She’ll learn eventually. She did a great job of mixing up the dry ingredients and mashing the bananas.

My sandwich loaf is cool. I sliced a piece for Mac and I. I may never buy sandwich bread again^*. I also couldn’t find my metal loaf pan, so I tried the silicone one. The crust came out great. My only small complaint is with the loaf size. It is slightly too wide for my toaster. I’d like to find different pans and a recipe for two smaller loafs. Or one longer, skinnier loaf. In the meantime, I’ll have to slice the piece in half.

*Except that I might. I get tired. Or lazy.

I baked a sandwich loaf tonight, putting it into the oven after I took dinner out. It smells really good. I can’t wait to try a slice.

I didn’t get all that I wanted done, namely my weekly grocery shopping. The main reason being I started about 1 hour later than planned, and Ada and I (well, mainly I) decided to walk around on Mass looking for a hat for her and just to walk around on Mass. I found one hat that was adorably cute, but was not an ear coverer–one of my requirements. We did find a dress for her for pictures that are being taken the end of this week at daycare^*. We ended up swinging around to the opposite side of town for the chain stores and found her hat and matching mittens 50% off at Old Navy.

*M will be happy to read that I’m contemplating the costs of taking their holiday photos myself. I have a place where I can set up to try to take portraits, but I don’t have all the equipment. It doesn’t have to be expensive to get set-up, but it will cost something. They are taking them at daycare, and we don’t have to pay anything unless we order prints, so I might as well clean the kids up a bit in case we get good ones.

Ada’s speech is developing a great deal since she started Raintree. She is speaking bigger sentences, and more of it is understandable. Tonight while playing Lego Batman she said, “Don’t go that way. I fall down.” Mac also found the container that had the hats and gloves. She grabbed one of mine and said, “That’s a nice glove. I put it on.” She is also starting to refer to herself in the first person instead of always in the third person. She is now trying on all kinds of hats and gloves. She just now tried on one of my hats and said, “Oh no, that’s too big.”

I think that I need a new matching hat and gloves. Ada needs a new hat too. Her last year one doesn’t fit her head and a hood isn’t enough to keep her ears warm. They go outside at 8:30am almost everyday at Raintree, their motto being that there isn’t inappropriate weather but only inappropriately dressed children. I have the snowpants and the insulated mittens for her, but no hat. Tomorrow may be a hat shopping day.

I made cinnamon rolls today for our chili tonight. One pan of cinnamon rolls is too much for one meal for us, so tomorrow’s breakfast will also be cinnamon rolls. The bucket worked great–both for proofing and as noisy entertainment for the kids.

Tomorrow I may make some sandwich loaves. We are out, but instead of buying more bread, I bought a big jar of yeast. I’m also thinking about getting a couple of containers to store different types of flour.

I still haven’t made my meal list for this coming week, except for the chili tonight. I need to do that tonight or tomorrow morning.

Baconnaise. Need I say more about that?

I have dough on its first rise for bread tonight. Ada always likes to help once she sees me getting the mixer ready. She asked me what I was making, and when I told her bread she replied, “Don’t make bread. Make cinnamon rolls.” She’s definitely my daughter.

Ada hopped up in the massage chair, and as she said, “wanted it to start.” I decided to put the feet one on because it wouldn’t really hurt her at all as small as her legs and feet are. She is now asleep with the chair rubbing her feet for her.

James and Mac are sleeping to. Now is my time to really get something done. If I could only pick between the gazillion things on my list.

I’m still awake because Ada is still awake. We went to the pumpkin patch today. She crashed shortly after getting back, and we couldn’t get her to wake up to eat dinner. She finally did around 8:00pm. We are having a slumber party in the living room.

Ada swears that she isn’t getting tired yet. She decided to sit by me. We’ve been listening to music. I’m teaching her how to program a web service using JAXB & JAX-WS all while giving her a crash course in LDAP. You would think that would put her to sleep. Most people reading this probably fell asleep before getting to this last sentence.