Staying on Track

I've posted before about how K is kind of a brutal personal trainer.

She's getting worse.

This morning I was trying to wrap-up work stuff for the week, and she handed me an Oreo to "open" for her. (She only likes the middles. Um, for breakfast? I don't know. It's Friday.) Instead of twisting it and handing it back to her, I absentmindedly popped it into my mouth.

I wish you could have seen the look of horror on her face as she cried, "No! Mom! Spit it out! Spit it out!" There were tears. So many tears. (I know that they were really tears of "I can't believe that hooker ate my cookie" and not "I'm so disappointed in your dietary choices," but --)

I can take solace in the knowledge that she's tough because she cares. During my afternoon workout, I was making some really pained attractive noises as I was finishing the last few reps with some weights, and K ducked her head into the room.

K:"You okay?"
Me: "I'm okay. It's just hard."
K: (comes in, puts a hand on my face) "You're very brave."

Then she looked at me a little while before adding, "Your hair is really big. You need a haircut."

I don't know what I'd do without her.

The Snowpocalypse That Wasn't. . .

Kind of.

There was enough snow that more than a few obscenities flew past my lips as I tried to shovel out the driveway. (Between the drifts & what the plows kicked up? Ugh. On the plus side, my arms are going to be way buff by the time swimsuit season hits! Also, did I just say "swimsuit season?")

But a snowpocalypse it was not. (Listen, guys. I know that fake words like "Snowpocalypse" and "Snowmageddon" are completely absurd, but just between us? I kind of love them. There's not a lot to brighten up winter in the midwest, and February is a rotten month for a variety of reasons, and -- I don't care if their origins lie in exaggerations from talking heads who like their weather forecasts with a dab of sensationalism -- they amuse me and add a bit of excitement to the situation.) We didn't get a zillion feet of snow. We didn't get a crippling layer of ice. We didn't have power outages at all, let alone power outages that necessitated the use of the camping lanterns and non-perishable foodstuffs that I'd thoughtfully stocked the pantry with. Ahem.

To recap: enough to keep us from yoga class & a playdate we had scheduled for tomorrow (we only have one 4 wheel drive vehicle and the person with outside-the-house obligations that pay wins the "who gets the truck" debate) but not enough to earn either of us an official "snow day." The upsides? Bob brought me a peppermint mocha from Starbucks and a bunch o' flowers for my shoveling efforts, and I got the following pictures of K from the whole eleven minutes she braved the great outdoors before deeming walking through the snow "too hard."

All in all, not a bad snowpocalypse ;-)

Simply Saturday

This is a new link-up that Jenn over at A Country Girl's Ramblings is starting today! The idea? "Grab your camera, take a picture of anything that speaks to you of simplicity and home. Your post can be as wordy or as wordless as you like. You decide!"

Jenn is an awesome photographer (you can see her photography blog here  or see some of her offerings on Etsy here.)

At any rate, we'll leave the photography photography to her this week ;-) But here's a snapshot of K that I took today while she was watching Saturday morning cartoons (Dinosaur Train!) that just feels very "Saturday" to me:

 

Toy story couch? Check. Elmo blankie? Check. Kitty jammies? Check. Chocolate milk? Double check.  

 

Click on the Simply Saturday icon below to hop over to Jenn's blog and join-up!

The Search for the Perfect Storytime

Does it exist? Probably not. I'm trying my best to find it anyway.

K is 28 months old. In those 28 months, we've been to just about every baby/toddler/mommy & me type activity that exists (at least in our relatively rural area. We're less rural now than we were before the move, but there's still no shiny neighborhood Gymboree either.) So far we've hit:

-Baby Tyme (good for the infants, but a bit mind-numbing for the parents)
-Toddle Time (Lots of repetition and usually followed by a mid-morning sugar infusion. I feed her enough junk at home, but thanks!)
-Mom & Me Dance Class (Kind of fun. Held in a roller-skating rink. A FREEZING COLD roller-skating rink. Also starts way too early in the morning.)
-Yoga Tots (We actually love this and have been going to it faithfully since April 2010.)
-Time for Twos (Twenty+ two year olds in a small room on a Monday morning? Excellent idea.)
-Intergenerational Playgoups (this is actually a neat idea -- it's a playgroup at the senior center where the residents come down and interact with the kids; however, like a lot of neat ideas, it's better in theory than in practice.)
-Church-sponsored playgroups (in their gymnasiums, in the winter. However, K never even entered the chapel part of a church until a friend's wedding six weeks ago, so -- that tells you something about my comfort level in that environment.)
-I... I forget. I feel like there have been other things we've tried, but they're all sort of lost in my brain under a hazy memory cloud of hand sanitizer and fruit snacks.

Anyway, in pursuit of the storytime holy grail, I dragged her grumpy butt out of bed at an ungodly hour (anything before 10, when Sesame Street comes on, is too early according to K) so I could try a new storytime. A new library branch. A new age group. (It was for 3 & 4 year old preschoolers. I have no regard for storytime policies! I'm such a rebel! Also: K is tall and can properly hold writing utensils and she speaks very clearly and can sort of pass for three!)

And you know what? It was awesome. I don't know that it was perfect perfect, but I think it's the best we've hit so far. Do you know why? Let me tell you. (I'm really diggin' the bullet-points today.)

-A good number of stories, read at a good pace. We've been to other storytimes where the librarian reads so quickly that you'd think she was getting paid by the page. I love it when librarians not only read at a nice, easily-understandable speed, but also take the time to point out neat things in the illustrations and actually interact with/welcome audience participation.

-A theme that makes sense but that is more than just the same thing over and over. Today's theme was staying healthy and taking care of yourself, and we had books about a bear having a cold, monsters eating their vegetables, and about what happens when you go to the doctor. (OK, that last book wasn't the exact one we read, but I can't remember what the name of it was and this is a good doctor book, too!) We talked about washing our hands and brushing our teeth and exercising.

-A relevant, engaging craft. Librarians: no one's being fooled when you throw some crayons and xeroxed coloring book pages at the kids and say "here, color something!" Today we made "baskets" with healthy fruits and vegetables and milk (um, paper, but still) and K had a great time identifying all of the colorful ingredients, using the gluestick (always a hit) and arranging them in the basket, then coloring/writing her name on the whole thing when she was done. She had to think about what she was doing and it kept her busy, and the end result is something I'll probably actually hang on to for a while instead of "forgetting" it in the car and then, um, having it accidentally fall into the trash. (Don't judge me. I love that she's a prolific artist but I can't preserve every masterpiece my special little snowflake makes for all eternity.)

-A good song/story ratio. Today was a little light on the song side, actually, but a lot of our other storytimes have been heavy on them, so -- no real complaints. There were other opportunities for the kids to stand up and move, which I think is important. Trying to keep a toddler sitting still = not one of my favorite things.

-A good mix of kids in the audience. This part is hit or miss and isn't something the library can really control, obviously, but I love it when the group is big and diverse enough to keep things interesting, but not so huge/the room so crowded that it intimidates the more introverted tots.

-A librarian who seems to genuinely enjoy what she's doing.

I know this list makes me sound like an entitled mom snob. I don't mean for it to. I know that there's really no room to complain about programs that are presented free of cost to the public. I think anything that gets kids into libraries and being exposed to books and music and new friends is fantastic, and I'll take a coloring page in that environment over the seventeenth Dora episode in a row at home any day. I also know that groups of snotty toddlers aren't every librarian's cup o' tea, and that's fine. I don't even like my snotty toddler all the time and I gave birth to her.

But when the stars align and you leave a children's activity (like a storytime!) where you're both smiling? It's a beautiful thing.

Tell me, what's important to you in a good storytime or organized mom/toddler activity? What makes you choose one library branch or group over another?

Hello, Weekend. How YOU Doin'?

Blizzards, doctor's offices, and a heavy workload: oh my! This is one week I'm not sad to see go.

I'm hopeful that the weekend will be better. K seems to have (mostly) rebounded from ColdOfDoom 2K11. She's still a little . . . snotty (and I mean that in every possible way) but she's left Zombieland and has returned to business as usual: today she ran laps around the house, naked, pushing her shopping cart and yodeling at the same time. Ah, to be a toddler.

After devoting the first half of the week to nursing duties, I finally got caught up on my actual OhYeahIHaveAJob work. Tall stack of manuscripts & playing catch-up & having to delicately deliver (a lot of) bad news to some clients = one huge sigh of relief when I closed my work e-mail window for the week earlier today.

Also? The house is cleanish. (Cleanish is about as good as we can hope for these days.) K took a long nap this afternoon after I finished my work, and while there's (always!) more to be done: the laundry is put away, the floors have been cleaned, all important/food prep surfaces are clean, and the dishes are done. I call that a win. Um, just don't go into the bathroom.

Now K is doing her best to lure mice into the house by leaving little crumbles of cheese curds all over the newly washed floor, and we're (kind of) watching Shrek, and not too long ago she told me, "Mom, I love you too much." So, yeah. Things are better.

Still, I'm itching for some time that doesn't include diapers or animation or, well, work. Which is why my Saturday, I'm hoping, will be full of this:



Bob, you're going to take K out for some father/daughter bonding time tomorrow, right? :-)

It's National Delurking Day, guys! If you read this blog, please leave a little comment to say hi, and tell me: what are your plans for the weekend?

I Hate the Smell of Resolve

*Resolve brand carpet and upholstery cleaner. (I'm cool with the word itself.)

I only bust out that red spray bottle of doom when something awful has happened. That something awful usually includes bodily fluids in places bodily fluids should not be.

Today it got a workout.

I feel absurd complaining about standard issue Mom-of-Toddler duties. I know lots of folks who are dealing with much bigger issues right now, whether in terms of overall severity or scope (I only have one sick little one, a friend is currently dealing with four children passing germs around!)

But I'm tired and grumpy, and this is my blog, and maybe if I internet grumble loudly enough the universe will take notice and say, "Yeah, we really have piled enough on her. Let's reward the way she bravely struggled by blessing her crew with eternal good health and a winning lottery ticket!"

K has had a little bug since sometime between Christmas and New Years. A sniffle here, a cough there. Pretty standard whatever-the-kids-are-passing-around-at-daycare cold stuff. I'm not a mom who rushes her special little snowflake to the hospital every time she sneezes. K is a strong kid with no underlying health issues and, for the most part, I trust her immune system to fight its own battles and get stronger as a result.

But then sometimes that little cold turns into a Big Scary Cold. A (relatively high) fever pops up where there was no fever before. The cough that was merely annoying before starts triggering the gag/vomit reflex. The lively little kid becomes a glassy-eyed zombie. Mom gets real worried real quick.

Sometimes it happens on a day when a major winter storm system is making its way across your area. Sometimes your doctor's office is an hour away because you haven't found a new pediatrician since relocating.

I'll spare you the play-by-play, but the highlight was driving home very slowly through the snow when K woke up from her nap (poor kid, she was exhausted!) to throwup three times in a row. In the carseat. In the middle of nowhere. I was like, look, K: I'm really sorry, but there is literally nowhere to stop other than someone's snowy driveway, and there's not much I can do for you now anyway, so -- here's a tissue. (Compassion, thy name is Karinya!) We were going to stop at the pharmacy before actually going home-home to grab the (sort of random) cocktail of drugs her doc prescribed, but I wasn't going to drag the poor girl around Target like that. I tried to call Bob to arrange a plan B.

My phone service had been "temporarily deactivated." You're killing me, Centennial Wireless. You know that, right?

Bitch, moan, whine, repeat.

Tonight it took both of us to hold K down so we could get the medicine into her. (She kicked the doctor earlier!) Even with a fever of 102.5, she will beat you up.

And now Bob doesn't feel good. (I seem to still be enjoying that temporary Mom Immunity. I usually *do* end up getting whatever K gets, to some degree, but it almost always holds off long enough that by the time I'm getting sick myself, she's feeling better and doesn't require as much care. I'd prefer to, you know, skip getting sick completely, but I suppose this way is preferable to playing nurse and patient at the same time.)

Tonight I'm camping out with K in her room. She's bouncing all over the place right now (though I don't know what is fueling this rally since she hasn't held much down today) and seems to be on the upswing, but the way this. . . whatever it is has morphed so quickly has me spooked, and I want to be there in case she spontaneously combusts or (more likely) just needs someone to quickly hand her a bucket. (Plus, you know, she's my baby and I like her and yadda yadda.) This will either prove to be a sweet bonding experience or a horrible, horrible idea ;-)

Good healthy thoughts this way, please, if you've got some to spare?

Wordless Wednesday: Arduous Journey (to the playhouse)

This Week in Food

(We like food. A lot. I don't think this will come as a surprise to any of our readers.)

Until Friday morning (so early! Our furnace guy is either very in demand or very lazy, because he has a habit of waiting until a few hours after the initial appointment to call and reschedule, but aaaanyway --) we didn't have any real cooking capabilities. We had a crockpot -- and I'm actually a big crockpot fan! -- but no range or oven. Rather, we had them, but we had no natural gas line going into the kitchen. . . (Why does everything seem ten times more complicated than it needs to be when you're a homeowner?)

Anyway, early Friday morning our furnace/gas/etc. guy got here to hook up the gas line to the kitchen/clean the furnace/other fun things. My favorite exchange? When he said, "Hey, put your hands here. You feel that? That's a carbon monoxide leak!" To which I responded, "Oh." Sometimes I feel like people must think I'm -- I don't know, "special needs?" -- but really, what else do you say to that?

At any rate, he fixed it. He cleaned the furnace (which is older than I am!) and the water heater. He hooked a gas line up to the kitchen. He gave me a working range. When I went to write out the check, he said he'd send me a bill instead, and I'm not sure whether he was being semi-merciful (as in, "I know you don't have this in your checking account now, so I'll let you sweat it out/save/wait a bit,") or cruel ("muahahaha they'll never know what's about to hit them!"), but --

Our first week in the house was full o' crock pot goodness. Or at least crock pot edibleness. We made slow-cooker beef stew with mushrooms which was gooood, we made some kind of chicken and noodle and white wine stew that turned out a little too "eh" to bother linking to, and we made Stephanie O'Dea's nice pot roast recipe. (I love her book Make it Fast, Cook it Slow. She's my crock pot hero!) The beef stew disappeared in a day. The chicken "stuff" is probably on its way out into the trash  (sorry, starving African orphans or whoever), and the pot roast is on its way to becoming taco/enchilada/southwestern something for tomorrow night's leftover dinner extravaganza.

On Friday, after we were gifted with the magic of natural gas in the kitchen, we made plain old white bread to christen the oven. I know that's a totally lame/unadventurous recipe to use for bread, but it's served me well in the past. This time? Either my shiny new oven runs hot or the yeast really does die when the package says it expires, because it was a little flat/sad, but still pretty good. A friend suggested trying this recipe for No-Fuss Focaccia but I went with the tried & true recipe this time (because I'm boring?) but that one is going on the to-try list! My assistant helped me knead. With her nose. With a cold. Oy.

A few vitamin C pills and a good night's sleep later, we turned that bread into Overnight Blueberry Stuffed French Toast! Oh, goodness. I'm watching calories these days, but -- this is worth it. We made a few mods (mostly scaling back the recipe for a family of 2.5, and using slightly lighter ingredients when possible), but -- yep, definitely worth it. Especially on a snowy Sunday morning. I don't mean to be all gushy about my newly found domestic bliss, but -- Sunday morning family breakfasts are awesome. We had coffee. We had snuggling. (Later we also had more football than---- anyway.) We had glorious high-fat breakfasts with whipped cream. I don't care how many lunges I'll have to do or how many grilled skinless chicken breasts the next few days will bring. This morning was lovely :-)

Let's see, what else? Before the oven got hooked up, Bob had a rotten day at work and I wanted to surprise him in an "I'm a pseudo-SAHM-with-a-toddler-and, uh,-a-job-and-no-working-oven" way and K and I made a batch of no-bake bourbon cookies, as follows:

2 cups crushed vanilla wafers (because I like making cookies from other cookies)
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
...2+ish tablespoons honey (I don't know how much I ended up using -- it didn't seem sticky enough with what the original recipe called for)
1/4 cup bourbon
(Some recipes call for chopped pecans too, but we've got a toddler with nut allergies so we skipped that. Uh, not that we should be feeding the toddler bourbon to begin with...)

Mix cookie crumbs, powdered sugar, and cocoa powder together. Pour in the bourbon & honey, and dig those hands in! (I started trying to mix with a spoon but it was just -- hands were easier.) It should be kind of a clay-like consistency. Roll into balls, then roll in more powdered sugar. Refrigerate (they're supposed to be better cold & aged a couple of days, but they were pretty good fresh, too!) and enjoy!

At any rate: hello, new week. Why are you waving all those carrot sticks at me?

Babies, Boxes, Blissful Sleep

K is a tough little kid. (I first typed "baby" here, but that's not really accurate anymore, beyond the "she'll always be my baby" sense.)

When we run together (not when I push her in the stroller while *I* run -- she wants to run *with* me) she almost always takes a spill or two along the way, usually because she gets distracted or starts laughing so hard over who-knows-what that she just kind of forgets to think about her feet. Do you know what she does after she falls?

She stands up, brushes off her hands, and starts running again.

This started when I (playfully!) modeled the hand-brushing for her and tried telling her to "walk it off, baby!" as a way to distract her from the instant exaggerated tears any time any sort of tumble happened (like on soft carpet.) But it worked. (Telling an injured baby to walk it off? Whoa, publishers, don't all come knocking at my door at once trying to sign me for that book on parenting you'd love to have me write.) And now, 95% of the time, even when she falls full-force from a run onto cold asphalt, she really does it. She brushes her hands and (runs) it off.

She's had a broken bone. She survived an assassination attempt via peanut butter. (That's when we found out the fun way that she's allergic. Sorry, K!) She spent her first year of life with two parents one parent and one additional adult in the house, then took it all in stride when one disappeared. After having never been apart from me for more than an hour, ever, she adjusted to going to daycare starting at 18 months. (*Well, she's still a bit of a crankpants about the daycare thing.) She's had three different addresses. Three.

Last night was our first official night in what is hopefully going to be her last address for quite a while. (Unless we win the lottery. Then I might be willing to put her through one more move . . . )  She'd been helping me move a little at a time for a few weeks now, and she understood, as well as a toddler can, what was going on. (She could differentiate between/discuss "our house," "Bob's house," and "new house" a single conversation.) When we got done dropping off a load of boxes and pulled out of the driveway, lately she'd been waving and saying, "Bye new house!"

Yesterday Bob's sister took K off our hands so that we could move the Big Stuff. (And by "we," I mean a team of strong friends ;-) By the time we got K back, the house was looking more like an actual home, complete with furniture! I didn't know what she'd think, but -- she just kind of looked around a little, settled in on the couch with me and Bob and a bag of popcorn, and watched How to Train Your Dragon. After that? She went to bed in her own room, in her own bed. She stayed asleep for the entire night. No bed crashing. No crying. No 4am parties. It was glorious. I climbed (quietly!) up the stairs around 9:30 this morning to peek in her bedroom, to make sure she was still, you know, breathing.

Tomorrow I might be tempted to put her out in the barn, but for now? I'm just a little in awe of her resilience and all around awesomeness. She really is a trooper.

Toddler Moments

from the last week or so. I have big, sickeningly romantic news to write about here when I have time for a real entry, but for now? Cute toddler junk!

*"There's a buffalo on my head!" /Repeated for most of the hour-long drive between the new house and our current house, as she tried to balance her stuffed buffalo on her noggin.

*Me: "Sorry, K. The baby seat for the potty is at the other house already. There's no baby seat here."
K: [pats regular toilet seat] "No baby seat. Daddy seat!"

*K, upon waking up one morning: "Turkey Sandwich."
Me: "Is that what you want for breakfast? A turkey sandwich?"
K: "Turkey Sandwich . . . and chocolate."

Other Names

The three of us were hanging out this weekend when K referred to me as Kathryn (her actual name, though I bet you've already figured that out).

It wasn't the first time she'd done that. It seems like, while she realizes that I'm mommy and she's baby, she thinks we both share the "other name" of Kathryn.

"K," I said, wanting to prod at this a little more. "What's my other name?"
K: "Mommy!"
Me: "Yes, but what's my other name?"
K: "You!"
Me: "Yes, but what's my other name?"
K: [thinks] "Friend."

<INSERT MELTING HEART HERE>

We played a few more rounds of this game, and I told her that my Other other name was Karinya, and -- my name is not an easy one to pronounce, but she just about nailed it! It was the first time I'd heard her say my Other other name, and it was . . . one of those amazing motherhood moments that sort of cancels out things like last month's Desitin-on-carpet-and-favorite-chair incident.

Names are something we've been thinking a lot about lately. When we started the blog, I asked Bob what he wanted to be referred to as in posts, and after some deliberation about what labels to apply to ourselves in relation to each other and our family, we decided to just use our real names instead of "mom" or "dad" or whatever. Parenthood is all-consuming and life-taking-over enough (not that it's not worth it) but it's nice, sometimes, to remember that we have "other names," too.

*For those keeping score, K usually calls Bob dad or daddy, even though he didn't come into our lives until she was twenty months old. She started doing it on her own (there was no goading on either of our parts to encourage her to apply that label to him; it just happened organically. This thrilled me beyond belief) but she still sometimes rotates Bob or Bobby into her daily speech.

I'm a little tired and birthday partied-out, so I can't come up with a smooth way to tie this into the rest of the post, but: Unlikely Origins now has a facebook page! If you like us (and I hope you do?), please consider "officially" liking us on facebook. If you really like us, perhaps use facebook's handy "suggest to friends" tool, too? (Don't make me play the birthday card, folks. I TOTALLY WILL.)

Starting 'em Young

(Disclaimer: this was mostly written last night, but wasn't posted until today, so -- please just roll with me on the today/tomorrow stuff?)

K went into her first voting booth at six weeks old. She endures, mostly without complaint, how I squeeze her a little tighter when a particularly cringe-worthy political sound bite hits our ears -- or whenever we're in a waiting room where the television is tuned to Fox News. (I want to believe that if I hold her tight enough, we'll form some sort of a magic barrier between her and whatever hateful/fearful/xenophobic/etc propaganda is being spewed at her from the speakers. That's how it works, right?) She stood by patiently as her phone-phobic mother worked up the guts to actually call her representatives when some semblance of the health care bill was working its way through, and she refrained from crying or demanding attention until the phone had been hung up. In a few hours (I'm writing this late at night -- ah, motherhood) I'll be dragging K out of bed early so that she can go vote with me before it's time for daycare. I could (and probably should, actually) let her sleep in a little longer and just hit the library to vote after I drop her off at her care provider's house. Without the toddler distractions I'd probably be more focused, and the absence of a toddler eliminates the possibility of one of those epic toddler meltdowns occurring in the relatively sacred (and quiet) space of the voting booth. Unfortunately for my fellow voters, it's not gonna happen.

She's coming with me to vote, whether she's being a crankpants or not. I know that at 25 months old it's really, really unlikely that she'll remember this at all -- and of course she won't remember the first time she "voted," but I feel that it's important to have her with me, and to be able to tell her later that she was there. I remember the thrill of going into the voting booth with my parents when I was little. They took my sister and me every year and we each got to pick a parent to accompany behind the curtain. When we were little-little we didn't know what we were really voting for (beyond the basics -- they'd explain that pulling the lever here meant we were voting to give money to our school, or the zoo, or whatever -- ballot initiatives that kindergartners can kind of grasp) but I knew from the beginning that what we were doing was special, and important, and -- hey, you get a sticker at the end!

I want K to grow up in a house where being an (at least semi-) involved participant in the political process is the norm. I don't want her to take anything for granted. I want her to know how things work, and why. We'll probably save the 19th amendment lesson for next year (with a feminist mom and a historian dad, she's going to get lessons, oh yes!) but we've got to start somewhere.

Anyway, sleeping K: rest up. Tomorrow is a big day.

Happy Halloween!

I had really grand plans for Halloween. Weeks ago, things looked wonderful: I had plenty of time to put together creative Halloween-themed crafts, someday after storytime my mom friends and I would coordinate when/where we would meet to go trick-or-treating, K and I would paint lots of little pumpkins and put a few out in front of both our now-house and our new-house for decoration, and we'd send one to work with Bob to put on his desk as a cutesy reminder of how much we like him ;-). This weekend we were going to go out and let K pick a pumpkin, then set up shop at the new house and help her carve her first jack-o-lantern. At one point I had even entertained the idea of a homemade costume, like my mom used to sew for my sister and me. It was going to be awesome. 

That's not how it happened. No crafts were made that weren't planned by someone else (thank goodness for K's absurd schedule of extra-curricular toddler activities! She did make the requisite number of themed crafts thanks to her multiple library activities and yoga classes that she attends every week). My mom friends and I all got caught up in our own lives and didn't get to coordinate any Halloween meet-ups. We did, actually, paint a number of small pumpkins -- but they never made it past the top of the microwave cart where I had set them to dry. And the actual pumpkin carving? Yeah. Nope.

Instead, today after leaving Bob's house I made a 30-second pit stop at my house to frantically search for the black pants and top that went underneath K's costume, I chugged Diet Coke on the drive to my grandma's farm to stay awake (. . . it had been a long day) so we could quickly show her K's Elmo getup before heading back to town for trick-or-treating, I threw a bag of old suckers that had been in my basement for a month or two into a big mixing bowl and put it on my porch, and K and I hit the streets to go "treat-treating" by ourselves.

And it was fine. It was fun! K ended up with an almost-full plastic pumpkin bucket of candy, we got a ton of compliments on her (store-bought!) costume, we actually ran into a number of our friends while we were out anyway, and she gleefully shouted "treat-treat!" at most of our neighbors. The bowl-o-suckers that I had left on my porch wasn't emptied by the first greedy middle-schooler that came along, and when we got home almost two hours later it was still half full! (Humanity, I'm impressed and award you two points.)

I think that's one of my biggest parenting challenges: reconciling the differences between the kind of parent I want to be (organized, pro-active, something-close-ish-to-perfect?) with the kind of parent that I actually am (overwhelmed, seat-of-pants, hey-she-probably-won't-remember-anyway-so-this-is-good-enough.) The logical side of my brain knows that K is only two and it's unlikely that she'll someday end up in therapy as a result of not having carved her first pumpkin until the ripe old age of three, and that the fact that we walked around the neighborhood without an entourage of friends probably won't lead to a lifetime of social anxiety or chronic loneliness. I know that. But that annoying other side of my brain is tsktsk-ing me and saying, is "good enough" really good enough for K? Is it?

I don't know. To be honest, it's almost midnight and I'm tired and I can't even begin to think about forming an answer-answer to that question. But right now she's happy, sugar-buzzed and staying up late to watch an OnDemand Dora marathon, so we'll call this one a draw.

Happy Halloween, fellow imperfect parents of the interwebs!

(Kind of) Wordless Wednesday

(I know the whole point of "Wordless Wednesday" is to post a picture that speaks for itself, but I'm going to riff a bit here anyway. I'm invoking my "I'm the mom/I make the rules" privilege.)

This was our first "official" family photo together. K was -- as she is wont to be -- a bit of a pill that day. There was an early-morning meltdown. There was a tumultuous car ride. There was the realization in the parking lot that I had totally forgotten to bring the shoes that matched her outfit. There was her refusal to be carried, even though she will normally go to great lengths to avoid having to support her own body weight.

So there we are, walking into Sears with a barefoot baby with a snotty nose and tear-streaked face. I'm feeling harried because we're running late (aren't we always?) and, well, I had just let my temper get the better of me and I'd given K a little swat when she tried to scratch my face in the midst of the walking vs. carrying debacle, so I was feeling less than awesome about my parenting skills. I had become that really classy mom who smacks her poor just-being-a-toddler toddler in the Sears parking lot, for God's sake. Bob was -- I don't really remember what Bob was doing. Probably carrying bags and opening doors and clearing innocent bystanders out of the way before we brought the crazy storm through and just generally trying to keep us all together. I suspect at this point he was also wondering just what he had gotten himself into when he decided to become a member of this family. . .

The photo session itself wasn't exactly smooth sailing either -- it took two photographers, lots of pleading, a twenty-minute detox/time-out/play period in the middle of the session, a bribe of gum (. . . she loves gum), and a threat or two, but then we finally got pictures like this one.

Which I love.

I was going to write that I hope in twenty years, when all-grow'd-up K comes across this in a photo album, that she won't remember the backstory -- that she'll just see the happy end product -- but I'm not sure I mean that. What good is a picture without a story to back it up and round it out, anyway?

Midwestern Style Multitasking

I wasn't expecting today to be anything other than a nice calm  normal Tuesday. Wake up, cuddle with K for a bit, ship her off to daycare, get several hours of work work done while free from toddler distraction, pop a casserole in the oven (I wasn't kidding about the Midwestern thing), then go grab K before meeting Bob at the house for our first official family dinner in the new place.

What I wasn't expecting was tornado weather. It's late October! And yet --

Sesame Street kept being interrupted by National Weather Service bulletins. (Much to K's delight. Every time they stopped, she demanded that they "play it again!") When I made my way to the kitchen to heat up some leftover macaroni & cheese prepare a nutritious breakfast, I noticed that nothing that had been on my back deck the day before was there anymore...

After treating the neighbors to a show of pre-coffee-Karinya tromping pajama-clad through their backyards, I returned home victorious, having reclaimed both the baby pool and all various items of patio furniture that had blown away that morning.

The watch turned into a warning. The warning turned on my paranoid mom switch, and into the basement we went. The basement. Where all productive Tuesdays are spent.

It wasn't where I'd planned on spending the first half of my day, but -- you know, it actually wasn't too bad. The (one!) local radio station played David Bowie in between weather updates, and despite K's order of "No dancing!" (she's a puritan, that one) -- there was dancing. There was laundry. There was the filling of two trash bags with junk from the basement that won't be accompanying us to the new house.  There was the packing of several boxes of things that *will* be accompanying us to the new house. There was the realization that, no matter how good a deal I can get on it, I probably shouldn't buy any more tuna, because OH MY GOD I HAVE ABOUT FORTY CANS OF TUNA FISH IN MY PANTRY ALREADY. (Ahem. It was a long warning period. Taking an inventory of the foodstuffs that I purchase, throw in the basement, and then forget about seemed like a good idea.) There was a toddler meltdown, or four.

There was no actual work work done. (Sorry, clients!) But we did all of the above and avoided being blown away by a tornado, and eventually a casserole did get made.

Thanks for keeping things interesting, Michigan.

Wordless Wednesday

What is That, K?

A substantive post -- complete with (someone else's) gorgeous photos and a killer recipe -- is coming soon, but for now I just had to share this.

K and I went for a run on our favorite right-by-the-lake, canopied-by-gorgeous-foliage trail today. (We're trying to squeeze in as many of those as we can before the weather really turns!) During the "cool down" portion of the workout I always pop K out of the stroller so she can walk with me, and she usually picks up acorns and leaves that catch her eye along the way.

Today she spotted (she has eagle eyes, I swear) and picked up a different nut than we usually come across.

Me: "What is that, K?"

K: Stops for a moment to look at the nut in question, then gleefully announces: "Poop!"

Me: . . .

Google has since confirmed my suspicions that the darn thing was actually a hickory nut, but -- man. Toddlers. We had a long talk about what we do and do not pick up as we made our way back to the truck.

I love her.

Yesterday Something Awful Happened

My camera broke. Died. Moved on to cheap technology heaven.

I just stared at it when it first failed to respond to my request to turn on. I pushed the power button again. And again. “Come on,” I begged it. “Please?” No response. No flicker of life. Nothing.

Maybe it’s the batteries! I deluded myself into thinking for a minute – but no, it wasn’t the batteries. I knew it wasn’t the batteries. When the batteries get low, the camera lets me know. It tries its best to stay alive – turning on before taking maybe one picture in a painful last gasp, then shutting itself off. This was no battery situation, as my failed attempts at reviving the camera with fresh Energizers revealed.

I even tried putting them in upside-down (negative end where the positive goes) just in case my camera had decided that maybe it liked them like that. It didn’t. It was dead.

We were getting ready to go to the grand opening of a friend’s new paint-your-own-pottery studio when this devastating discovery was made. You can’t do this to me. Not now, I pleaded. Why, of all times, did it have to die right then? We were on our way to an event that promised to combine toddlers and paint! There were going to be so many incredibly picture ops! AHH.

At this point K was standing by the door, shoes on (the right feet!), ready to go, and was looking at me like, enough, mom. Are we going or not? I have messes to make. It was with a heavy heart that I left the little broken camera sitting on the microwave cart as we left the house.

The worst part? I knew I was responsible for this. I’d been letting K play with and abuse it for a long time, just because I always said I kind of hope it breaks, so I’ll be justified in buying a new/better one. My camera – as dependant on him as I was – was slow. He was easily confused in low-light or indoor situations. He caused me to miss more than one shot with his incessant "thinking." He was a little grainy in anything but full sun. And yet, now that he’s gone, I’m feeling a little lost without him. And a little too poor to run out and replace him.

Rest in peace, crappy blue camera from WalMart’s clearance section. The internet will be a (temporarily) darker place without the zillions of daily pictures of K that you used to make possible.

Wordless Wednesday

Green Beans

Lately we’ve been working on the concept of making decisions with our just-turned-two year old, K. She’s not shy about voicing her opinion (hence her billing as the “opinionated toddler” in this blog’s subtitle), but when faced with a choice to make, she’ll often just scrunch her nose and repeat both choices back to you, rapid-fire style.

Me: K, would you like to wear the green shirt or the purple shirt today?

K: PurpleGreen!

Bob: K, would you like to play with your crayons or your cars?

K: CrayonCars!

. . . you get the idea.

Last night when we went out to dinner, K had the choice of two vegetables as her side dish: corn or green beans. After the waitress listed the options and I repeated them back to K, I fully expected – you know what’s coming now, right? – an enthusiastic but entirely unhelpful “CornGreenBeans!” I waited for it, but it didn’t come.

Instead she thought about it for a second, then calmly responded, “green beans.” Just like that. Like she’d been making smart, thoughtful decisions her entire life.

Bob and I shared a cautiously optimistic look – had we finally made a major breakthrough in K’s cognitive development regarding conscious choice? Well, maybe. Or maybe we’ll revert back to “ElmoDora” the next time we ask her what DVD she wants to watch. At any rate, it was one of those special little family moments that made us both beam with pride over our brilliant, perfect daughter.

Then she borrowed my lip gloss and used it to pick her nose.

K’s impressive display of decision making prowess inspired us to make a decision of our own. We’d been kicking around the idea of starting a family blog since. . . well, almost since we began to form a family. We could never settle on a name, though, or an angle, or a hosting platform, or, or, or.

Today we did. Welcome to our blog, Unlikely Origins: How a Computer Geek, a Writer, and an Opinionated Toddler Together Formed a Family. We're not promising that we won't switch things up a little as time goes by (we may someday opt for the corn over the green beans), but for now: we are here. We hope you'll follow along as we document our journey of becoming a family. We can't promise that it will always be pretty (in fact, we can guarantee that it won't -- see lip gloss-in-nose example above) but it'll never be boring.