We are an embarrassment to Boo

Last Sunday we had lunch at Panda Express after church.

Yes. We live in the land of Authentic Asian Food, and we're eating Panda Express. I know. We are WAY too white-bread.

(Actually that's just me --and the twins-- the Unadventurous Eaters. My older kids will eat almost anything.)

(image from wikipedia)

Anyhow, they didn't have any big tables free, so we had to split up and sit at two separate tables.

Therefore ET and GG got to sit at a table by themselves and pretend they weren't with us, which pleased them enormously, I'm sure.

And Boo was stuck at a table with me and the twins, which embarrassed her enormously.

Baby Boy kept staring avidly at a little girl next to us who had an assortment of bracelets, which he seemed to be considering swiping, and Baby Girl kept calling out everything she said at the top of her lungs. And she was saying things like, "I'd better PEEPEE!" and "There's a BOOGER in my nose! TWO boogers!"

Boo tried to hide under the table a few times and looked longingly at the (two-person) booth where her sisters were seated a lot. She said to me, "I wish I could just close my eyes and the babies would disappear."

I think she even tried the eye-closing thing, but to no avail. She was stuck with us.

If Boo is this embarrassed at age nine, I shudder to think what happens when SHE gets to be the teenager.

Well, at least by then the twins will be older as well...

...and better able to think of embarrassing things to do to her, of course.

What Happened to My Little Girl?

GG, my second child,  turned 12 last month.

I was really struck by how much she'd grown up in just the past year.

And I don't mean just in an annoying "I remember when you were THIS high" kind of way either.

(Didn't you always hate it when people like your grandma's friends said that when you were a kid? And gestured somewhere around their knees to illustrate how high? Yeah, me too.)

But that's not really what I mean about GG. I mean she'd suddenly morphed into a Teen Ager.

I'll show you. So here's her eleventh birthday:


Aww... isn't she cute?
Now here's her twelfth birthday:



I know. It's like, same cake but different kid.

What happened here? I thought we had another year before the full onset of Teen Aged Monster.

But I guess not...

A Short Drama

The Setting:
The McDonald's Playland

The Time:
A weekday afternoon

The Characters:
Solo Dad with Little Girl and Snugli Baby
(A bewildered-looking man with a baby strapped to his chest, trying vainly to get his daughter to sit down and eat something.)

(image from wikipedia)

Good Family
(consisting of Good Mom, Good Dad and Good Kid. I call them this because they were all sitting so nicely eating their food, and no one was screaming or trying to escape to the playground[Good Kid]. Or back to work[Good Dad].)

Random Kid
(This was a kid who seemed to have no parents and appeared only as a face through the windows or netting of the playland equipment.)

Me, Baby Boy, and Baby Girl
(I don't even bother to try making my kids sit down and eat. I mean, why even PRETEND we're here for the food?)

McDonald's Employee
(I think she's pretty self-explanatory)

The Scene:
I had taken Baby Girl and Baby Boy to the playland after preschool as a reward for "staying on green" at school. (Meaning they were good all day. Relatively speaking, I'm sure.)

Both twins had disappeared immediately into the plastic tubes of the playland, and I was booting up my laptop in preparation to do some writing. Before I had even opened my document, they were back in front of me yelling.

The Action:
Baby Boy: There's POO POO in the playground!

Baby Girl: There's POO POO! Wipe my legs!

Me: (totally shocked) What?!

Baby Girl: It's POO POO!

Baby Boy: There's POO POO in the playground!

Me: (aware that Good Family is now staring at us openmouthed, and dreading the answer to this question but asking it anyways) Did you poo poo, Baby Girl?

Baby Girl: NO! Wipe my legs!

Baby Boy: There's POO POO in the playground!

Good Mom: (wrinkling her nose at us, muttering to Good Dad) Ew! I think I smell it!

Me: (frantically checking over Baby Girl's body) Where? Where is the poo poo?

Baby Boy: (turning to run back inside the plastic tube) I'll show you!

Me: NO!! DON'T!! (noticing that Baby Girl indeed has smudges of brown on her feet and skirt, but no poo poo on the inside of her clothing or underwear and therefore could not be the culprit) Who poo pooed?

Baby Girl and Baby Boy: That little girl did it! (They point in unison to the door)

Solo Dad: (holding Little Girl firmly by the arm) Why didn't you TELL me you had to go?

Little Girl: (crying) I don't know....

(Exit Solo Dad, Little Girl and Snugli Baby)

Baby Girl: Wipe my legs!

Me: (relieved that my child did not befoul the playplace, but repulsed by the fact that she's wearing another kid's excrement) Okay. Hold still a minute.

Good Mom: (looking a little more kindly at me now that we've established the origin of the poo poo) Oh dear.

Good Dad: Finish your food, son. We're going to have to go.

Me: (trying with difficulty to clean Baby Girl with McDonald's napkins) Wait. Where's your brother?

Baby Girl: There's POO POO! That little girl did it!

Me: (standing up and yelling into the plastic tube) Baby Boy! Baby Boy! Come down!

Good Mom: Oh dear.

(Baby Boy's face appears next to Random Kid's in the top window of the tube)

Me: (getting frantic) Baby Boy! Come down!

Baby Girl: There's POO POO! Wipe my legs!

Me: (turning around to discover Baby Girl has taken off her skirt and is holding up the dirty hem) ACK!!!

Baby Boy: (appearing at the base of the tube) There's POO POO in the playground!

Me: (snatching him up and inspecting him) Yes. I know. DON'T GO BACK IN THERE.

Baby Girl: That little girl did it!

Me: I know. It was an accident, I'm sure.

Baby Girl: There's POO POO!

Baby Boy: It was an accident!

McDonald's Employee: (standing in the doorway) ATTENTION CUSTOMERS! The playplace is now closed! There has been an accident! Please exit the playplace!

(Random Kid silently slides down the tube.)

Good Mom: Oh dear.

(Exit Random Kid.)

Me: Let's go get cleaned up in the bathroom.

Baby Boy: There's POO POO!

Baby Girl: It was an accident!

Baby Boy: That little girl did it!

Me: Yes. I know.

Good Dad: Okay son! Let's go!

(Good Kid throws away his trash without protest and follows his parents.)

(Exit Good Family)

Baby Girl: There's POO POO!

Baby Boy: It was an accident!

Baby Girl: That little girl did it!

(Exit Me, Baby Boy, and Baby Girl)

END OF SCENE

Well, it's not exactly Shakespeare, is it?

Why I Don't Write a Food Blog

Because I'm kind of a bad cook. That's the short answer.

By the way, I got this pretty graphic from steamykitchen.com, a "real" blog. By which I mean a blog that Knows How to Market Itself. A blog that breaks twenty in number of followers. A blog where like sixteen people regularly comment on the posts.

Or, maybe like more than one person comments. (Love you Belle! Without you I'd never know anyone was reading!)

But I digress. I was explaining why I don't write about cooking.

I mean, I do cook. And no one in my house has died of food poisoning or anything. Yet.

And actually I sometimes cook things that taste decent enough. My kids like it anyways.

But one thing I can't seem to do is make pretty food. And this is an important thing for A Real Blogger. It's all about the pictures.

I have a file of recipes I've cut from magazines and printed off the internet that I'm "planning to try." Most of which I chose because of --you guessed it!-- the picture of the food.

Some of these guys have been sitting in that file a while, unfortunately. So last week I asked the girls to go through the book (it's a binder with clear plastic sleeves) and see if there was anything in particular they would like me to make.

Boo chose about six desserts. That's why we call her Sugar Boo.

I did agree to make a couple of desserts, namely the Oreo cheesecake all three of them salivated over, but I'd actually been looking for them to chose actual FOOD.

One thing ET and GG both were interested in was "Curry Scallops and Rice," so I bought the ingredients for it.

Looks nice in the picture, right?

Okay. Here's how it looked when I made it.

Yeah. Actual unretouched photo, folks! That's how my food looks. Not exactly pintrest quality, is it?

The good thing is everyone liked it anyways.

Except Boo. Who I suppose is still holding out for that cheescake dinner....

I'm Officially Uncool. Surprise?

This weekend I went out to eat with my husband and the waitress came to our table to greet us.

She said, “Would you like something to drink? We have a large selection of nonalcoholic beverages, such as blended teas and lemonades.” Then she gave us a big bright smile. I ordered my usual diet coke and my husband ordered his usual water and she went away.

(image from sodahead.com)

Then I turned to my husband and said, “Why did she offer us the nonalcoholic drinks? Is it that obvious that I don’t drink alcohol? She can just tell by looking at me?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Why do you care?”

I said, “Well, what’s the matter with me? Do I look totally uncool or something?”

He said, “Would you rather she thought you were some kind of lush?”

I said, “No, of course not. But I just want to know how she guessed. Do I give off some kind of mom-in-a-minivan VIBE or something? Am I Urkel now?”

(image from wikipedia.com)

He rolled his eyes. “So order a drink then, just to show her. I DARE YOU.”

“I will not!” I said, all shocked.

He said, “That’s ridiculous. You don’t want the drink. But you also don’t want to LOOK like the kind of person who doesn’t want the drink. Do you not see how crazy that is?”

Of course I did. And I was annoyed with him for pointing it out.

YES I'm uncool. YES I'm crazy. But DON'T point it out! That's just rude.

When they get too quiet...

The other day I was working on the computer and didn't notice that the twins had gotten a little TOO quiet.

Well, maybe I did notice. I just chose to think, "Oh yay! They're letting me accomplish something for once!"

I know. Total wishful thinking.

I chose to ignore that little warning bell in my head saying: Quiet Twins=Twins doing BAD things!!

This took me over an hour to clean up. Approximately three times the amount of uninterrupted time I'd spent at the computer.

I guess you always gotta pay....