- Thank you SO MUCH for your responses to my Toddler Lunches perplexity. I truly NEVER thought about LESS variety. Which is odd, considering that I eat about three different things on a rotating basis, and my husband eats pretty much the same thing every day. On purpose! So I think I am going to Calm Down and maybe give her two PBJ sandwiches each week. MAYBE THREE! I have also fully embraced pre-packed things, especially fruit cups. The daycare has a requirement that we include at least one fruit or vegetable in each lunch, so having a selection of those little cut-up peaches/pears/oranges to drop into the lunchbox is very helpful.
- Speaking of things that you have helped me with: we survived the new babysitter. I had my husband write out a list of emergency numbers, and asked her show up 15 minutes early so I could walk her through things. Then, per Swistle, I let her know a couple of times that she could text at any time with anything. (She only did so once, to let us know that Carla went to the bathroom before bed [she is not potty trained yet] and asserted that she gets a piece of candy for doing so [which is true].) She was very laid back and confident, and all went well. I like to think that this moderate amount of preparation indicates a calm and confident attitude on my part, but it does not.
- Carla has mastered the concept of seeing one’s image reflected in a mirror, but she calls it her “collection” instead of “reflection.”
- The laundry situation is once again out of control. We keep USING laundry and then WASHING it, but no one in my household seems inclined to FOLD or PUT AWAY the laundry.
- Few things make me feel older than walking purposefully upstairs, saying over and over to myself, “why am I going upstairs? why am I going upstairs? why am I going upstairs?” until I remember why I started up the stairs in the first place.
- Speaking of feeling old: I got a manicure the other day – which, incidentally, is one of Life’s Most Uncomfortable Experiences for me, seeing as you are sitting two feet from a stranger who is trimming your nails and cuticles while making small talk and you CANNOT LEAVE and then sometimes, despite all your careful planning, you have to ask said stranger to reach into your purse for something lest you smudge your nails – and I turned to TV, which is one of my Go To small talk topics, and asked her if she was watching the OJ Simpson mini series. “Of course, you must be too young to remember the actual trial,” I said. I mean, I was a high school freshman and she seemed a bit younger. Turns out that no, she does NOT recall the actual trial because she was a baby. A literal baby. Born in 1995, the actual year during which the criminal trial took place.
- This winter, I’ve been All About Carbs – lots of noodley dishes on the menu. But this weekend I couldn’t bear the thought of LOOKING at a noodle, so I decided to do a big stir fry with lots of bell peppers. And as I was prepping the meal, I just sort of marveled at the perfect green pepper I was holding. It seems like such a LUXURY to have access to summer produce when there are eight inches of snow on the ground and the temperature hasn’t been above 20 degrees in several days. I remember my mother lamenting the lack of green peppers during winters when I was a kid. They were either shriveled and wrinkly or $4.99 apiece or BOTH. I don’t know if that’s a factor of the remote location in which I grew up, or that green pepper production and distribution is a booming-er business now than it was DECADES AGO when I was a child. But it seems miraculous, really.
YES to the forgetting things / feeling older. So many times, I have to go back to where I was when I thought of the idea (singing “Go back go back go back! Go back to where you were!” from Blue’s Clues as I do so) in order to remember it.
Favorite part: “A literal baby.”