Friday, July 18, 2008
Hi.
Like how I blog in spurts? You do? Me, too.
It suits me just fine. In fact, this post will not be much of a post. :) Just a few thoughts.
We're hosting my brother and sister-in-law from Korea and my niece, Sandra for 3 months. It's a lot of fun.
The Bean is learning what it's like to have a sibling. She and Sandra must embrace each other multiple times whenever one of them leaves the house. They are wild about each other. Most of the time.
Some of the time they're both just small only children learning what it means to share all of their toys and attention. Sometimes, I hear things that make it so hard not to laugh. I've never heard Beanie be this openly aggressive to another child. The other day, she just yelled at Sandra, "You can't be my friend, and I don't like your hair!"
She was promptly given a lecture and a time out, and didn't come out of her bed until she was ready to apologize and hug her cousin. She spent the rest of the morning intermittently assuring me that she actually does like Sandra's hair.
:)
And I leave you with another reason why they invented Youtube:
Monday, July 07, 2008
I've Discovered The Secret of Weight Loss
I got this recipe in an email from Weight Watchers today with their special quick no-cook recipes for summer. They quite often offer delicious low-calorie recipes, but this one... well, if I serve this one for dinner my whole family will be losing weight.
Cantaloupe Soup with Basil & Crab
Puree 2 cups cubed cantaloupe with 1/2 cup mango nectar. Pour the mixture into a large bowl and stir in 1 small shallot, minced; 6 basil leaves, shredded; 3 dashes hot pepper sauce; and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Chill at least 2 hours. Top each serving with 3 ounces cooked lump crab meat, picked over for shell and cartilage.
Yes, sir... I'll make sure and pick that crab meat over for shell and cartilage before I serve it... YUM!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Real Purpose of YouTube
So I can watch this over and over and over again. Whenever I want to, I can see that kind of beauty. Wow.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Religious Miscommunications
So my daughter came home from her Sunbeam (children's Sunday school) class last week singing a new song. I made her repeat it to me several times, which she did, in rhythm.
Here it is:
(Quietly) Daddy is so scared
(Louder)The choo-choo train is comin'
(Louder) CHOO CHOO!
(Exultant, smacking her hands together) PEEEEEEEANUT BUTTERRRRR!
!!!
!!!
We had a hard time believing that her sweet Sunbeam teacher would teach her such a morbid song, but after we had her sing it to our family members, her Aunt Katie recognized the song, and things became much more sane around here.
The Peanut Song
Oh, the peanut sat on the railroad track,
His heart was all a flutter.
The choo-choo train came down the track,
Toot,tooot, peanut butter.
:)
And then during our talk in sacrament meeting, someone talked about how we needed to be cleansed by the blood of Christ.
"Blood?" Ellie perked right up. She has nosebleeds almost daily now that it's summertime. She is quite traumatized by blood. "Did Jesus have a bleed?"
I tried to explain, as best as one can to a three-year-old that Jesus bled when he suffered and died for us.
She paused, and then said: "I bleeded when I was Jesus."
Uh...
.
.
.
uh.
I had pretty much no response to that, and I'm sure you won't either. At least she's trying to see a connection between herself and the Savior. Sometimes saying nothing is probably the best.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Meanest Mom Ever
Does your child ever make you feel like the meanest mom ever? I'll admit there are some days when I feel like I am being mean, or at the very least impatient and cranky, but the moments when that feeling is hardest to take are when I'm trying my hardest to be patient and helpful, and my kid starts whining, or moaning, or as is currently the case, wailing like I've ripped both her limbs off.
She's in her room having a time-out, and I'm at the computer, having a time-out of my own. It usually happens when I'm combing out her hair, and I'm trying my hardest to be gentle, and she's wailing anyway. This particular time, it was because her computer game shut off, and I came into the room to fix it for her, and she thought I was leaving her, when really I was trying to help, and then while she was still freaking out about that, I asked if she'd like to talk to her Grammy, who I was talking to, and she didn't seem interested, too busy losing it about too many other things, and then when I hung up the phone without letting her talk, she really lost it.
So now I find myself typing a quick blog post, while she cools off in her room, and I am reminded that she is only three years old, after all, and I am an adult. So I need to not let it get to me that my efforts at kindness go sometimes unappreciated.
I'm off to have a talk with the now calm Bean. I'd imagine, unfortunately, that moments like these don't get any easier as they get older... until they're way older.
I really love being a mom. I really really do with all my heart. :) I'm thankful for her every day. It's just not the easiest thing I've ever done. :)
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Dying Is Not So Really Fun
Or so says my three-year-old. She was watching Little House on the Prairie with me again. She loves the show. She always begs to watch it. Of course, you'd have to speak Bean-glish if you want to understand her request. She calls the show: Mary in the House.
So we were watching yet another episode of Mary in the House, when the Ingalls family was yet again escaping peril. This time they were driving away from Minnesota and two months of pouring rain. As they drove away from their home, she said, "They're not going to die. Dying is not so really fun."
She has grasped the concept. Finally. We're into our third season of Little House episodes, and she has watched them have a narrow miss with starvation, mountain fever, rabies - from a rabid raccoon, no less, explosive death by transporting over-heated blasting oil, explosive death by dynamite while blasting a railroad tunnel while trying to pay the hospital bill to save Mary from an intestinal infection contracted when she was kicked by a skittish horse, death by typhoid caused by infested cornmeal, by being frozen in a blizzard, and by having a runaway team roll your wagon, and by being walloped by town bullies...and death by many other causes.
Now granted, I skip parts for her a lot of the time, if they are scary. I never have her watch the show all alone, because some of it can be quite intense for a little three-almost-four-year-old. That said, watching Mary in the House is a favorite of my Beanie, and from that, she has understood that "dying is not so really fun."
Oh, and I'm not Mom, Mama, or Mommy anymore. I'm Ma.
As in, "please give me a butter sandwich, Ma. Let's go to the park, Ma."
Ma. Sheesh.
Remind me to tell you sometime about how I convinced a younger Daring Young Mom that Laura Ingalls lived in my parents' barrel in our living room, and she fed her bread bits and talked and sang to her. She apparently knew the truth about dying, as well.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Making Em-Bananas
The other day, I got to have the loveliest experience. I got to make empanadas - or as she says it - em-bananas with my daughter.
Yesterday, I posted about meaningful assistance, and how exciting it is when your little ones start to be able to really help you around the house. It makes the work so very much more enjoyable.
So I told her she could help make dinner. Empanadas, one of my favorite things my mother taught me how to make. It was so very much fun to work together. Her help wasn't really all that helpful, to be honest. She just re-pressed the edges of the empanadas, that I had already sealed.
What was helpful was her enthusiasm for the job, and watching her eyes light up at my praise. It was so exciting. She also got really pumped up about the idea that someday she could make empanadas with her little girl, when she was the mom. She brought it up again, later.
At which point she told me, "Someday, when I'm the mom, we will go to Disneyland. Sometimes. When I say, 'yes.'"
:) Ah, how I love the mind of a three-year-old.
