Minutiae

Yesterday I left for work early - I had an all-day meeting and needed to make sure I wasn't late. M. dropped the kids off, and since I was up early, he and the kids were up and ready early, too. He dropped them off right around 7 am. My meeting, which was supposed to end by 4:30, was still going strong when I snuck out the door at 5:20 in order to make it to school by its 6:00 p.m. closing time. I barely made it. This meant the kids were at daycare for just about 11 hours yesterday.

In an effort to distract the kids from our abbreviated evening, I got them Burger King for dinner. Kind of like bribery, but they didn't know why I was bribing them.

Today I picked the kids up on the early side, to make up for the extra long day at daycare yesterday. I offered to play with the kids before starting dinner, since it was still pretty early - spend some unrushed, quality time together that we don't usually get. They decided to watch TV instead.

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It drives me nuts that as soon as I get home each night with the kids, I am bombarded with demands. Help me get my coat/shoes off (Lucy, who is actually perfectly capable of doing those tasks herself), turn on the TV (both kids), put on a different show (usually Finn), get me a snack (both kids), feed me (cat, accompanied by annoying ankle-rubbing and other trip-causing behavior), cook dinner STAT (me/the "schedule"), make something healthy (also me), make soemthing kid-friendly (kids again), get me another snack (kids, accompanied by the inevitable whining when I say no), start emptying the dishwasher so M. doesn't have to do it later (M.), clean as I go (just nice to do, and I don't always do it, as I'm not very nice). All this happens in the roughly 45 minutes I have before M. gets home from work.

I wish that I could be left alone to cook [food I like] in peace.

Also, I need more "pleases" in my life.

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My Weight Watchers weigh-in for the week is tomorrow morning. I ate tacos for dinner tonight. Even though I did use the 40% less sodium seasoning, this was probably not a smart dinner choice.
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There are 5 loads of laundry sitting in a mountain on the floor of my basement, waiting to be folded.

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Last Sunday I baked all afternoon with Finn. First we made Buttermilk Oatmeal muffins, mostly so I could use up the rest of the container of buttermilk I had in my fridge. To finish off the milk, I had to make a double batch - 36 muffins. I figured this was OK, as I could give them to the kids each morning as a pre-school snack, and also freeze some. Finn and Lucy ate one bite each, and declared they don't like them.

*I* like them, and M. likes them. However, I hadn't planned on eating 34 of them.

We also made zucchini cookies, as Finn was curious how you could make a cookie with a vegetable. It took us an ungodly amount of time to shred up the zucchini with the brand new food mill my mom gave me for Christmas. Should have gone low-tech and used a shredder, I guess, but at least it was a good upper body workout.

The kids *kind of* like the cookies, but still prefer other dessert foods.

There are far too many delicious baked goods in this house for my liking (and my diet's existence), and too few people to eat them.

I wish I could eat anything I wanted to, and still be healthy.


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I have been good about getting back on track with exercise, jogging three times this week. I have not been so good about not eating all the things.

This is directly related to the plethora of baked goods in my house. And also the container of Two-Bite Brownies that sustained me throughout my all-day meeting yesterday. Two-Bite Brownies are a weakness of mine. There's just something about the slightly crispy outer layer, and gooey soft inner layer, that makes my soul happy. But not my scale, of course.

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Lucy is completely potty trained, even at night. This family? Is done with diapers. In Memoriam: October 2006 - January 2012. They lived a short (yet too long), filled (if not exactly fulfilling) life. May they rest in peace.

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Lucy sometimes hisses at us. She loves chapstick, princesses, Tinker Bell, Hello Kitty, Luke Skywalker, Annakin Skywalker, and Darth Vader. She does not like Emperor Palpatine. She has been getting in trouble for hitting at school lately. She wears 3T, will be 3 years old in just a few months. She looks adorable in a pony tail, and despises having her hair brushed. Her favorite song right now is "Moonshadow" by Cat Stevens. She won't wear a hat or mittens most days, and is a pretty picky eater. Her favorite food at the moment is macaroni and cheese, or so she claims - she occasionally goes rogue and turns her nose up at it. Her favorite TV show is Super Why. She still sleeps in a crib. She likes to tell her father that he's handsome, but she still asks for me to be the one to put her to bed most nights (and brush her teeth, and get her out of bed, and take her to the bathroom...).
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Finn has also been getting in trouble at school for hitting lately. We really know how to raise them, eh? He has now watched all 6 of the Star Wars movies, and is officially obsessed. He is capable of asking 3,472 questions about Star Wars on any given day. He plays with Star Wars toys, reads Star Wars books, and likely dreams about Star Wars. He is starting to get the hang of reading simple words, and whips through his math homework with little to no help. He is sweet and sensitive, always trying to make sure that the people he loves don't feel bad. He wants to win at games, but doesn't want us to lose, at least not too badly. He is taking swim lessons right now. His favorite food is still pizza, and his favorite TV show is The Wild Kratts. He whines A LOT (seriously, when does that end??). He is stubborn and frustrating and funny and loving. He still gives us spontaneous hugs and kisses. One of his latest tics involves a droning, constant humming while he's zoned out, which is about as annoying as it sounds. He now sleeps until at least 7 am on the weekends, and is damn hard to get out of bed on the weekdays.

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That's life, lately. Just wanted to get something down, to get back to writing something, ANYTHING, here. To keep a record of life, for the days to come when we look back and try to remember how it all was.

It's better than it sounds, though. Writing out the details, it can seem miserable. On a day-to-day basis, life can BE miserable. But over all, we are fortunate and happy and decidedly NOT miserable. These kids, they are work. They are frustration in a short package. But they bring so much to our lives, and I know it's all worth it. These two little beings, that turn their noses up at my cooking and beat the crap out of each other, they are awesome. I recognize it every day, and make mental note of it. I'm just not that good at capturing it here, to share with all of you (and my future, memory-addled self). I need to get better at that, at putting down here all the good details. I hope I do.