February 23, 2009

I have pittly weak joints that always hurt. I take glucosamine pills to help make the joints stronger and less extremely painful. They no longer keep me up in the middle of the night so I figured the pills were working. But if they were really working, then should Adelaide be able to win the tug of war for my plate of Cheetos?

Homemade pasta can take time to prepare, but the benefits from the freshest of ingredients always come through when cooking. That’s why I thought it was rather interesting when my mom brought home, to stuff inside my fresh, homemade cannelloni noodles, parmesan cheese…in powdered sprinkle-on-your-sketti form.

Frankie has been on this I-want-to-be-one-of-those-guys-who-wears-a-cap kick lately. To surprise him, I have secretly been looking online for a good one. I found this one that was totally perfect and HELLO it has frickin solar powered lights on it. I was about to buy it, but I figured since we have no money I might as well check with Frankie before, “just in case.” No worries though, because who the heck wouldn’t want a solar powered hat. Well, apparently Frankie doesn’t. I’m at a loss. I’m just…I’m at a loss.

February 21, 2009

The babies were taking a nap, so I decided to throw a jelly bean into Frankie’s mouth. The beans had to make it over a distance of roughly two feet…maybe less after my step forward during the throw. My 19th throw landed in his shirt pocket. The 26th shot made it!

Frankie and I got into a slap fest today. It was awesome. It reminded me of when we were dating/first married and I would wait until he wasn’t paying attention and try to throw myself off the couch/bed and he’d have to catch and save me. Ah, young love.





Euphie just learned a new trick! She has been able to open some doors for a long while, but the trick of the bedroom doorknobs has always eluded her…until now. Oh the pride… Wait, is it pride or boredom when you have to sit outside a door for an hour to keep it shut?

February 20, 2009

My fingernails needed a good clipping. I have always been one to clip on the fly. It wasn’t until I watched a Malcolm in the Middle episode when the oldest brother was staying with a friend and they showed how horrible it was to live with this friend by showing the friend clipping his nails in the middle of the room—not even in a trash can. I was blown away. Whoa, clipping straight into a trashcan. It’s like when you realize that some people use different sponges to wash dishes and wipe counters or that some people think that the kid dies at the end of the Giver—until you find someone who feels the other way you didn’t even realize the other possibility existed. Ever since that episode, I intended this to be my modus operandi. Sadly, my "intentions" rarely hit the mark as my accuracy is, apparently, lacking.
(I was aiming for the small cluster where there is a slight concentration of about 8 clippings a little to the right of the center. 5 clippings did not make it on the chair.)

Frankie made homemade pasta. Euphie tried to help him. We’re usually all for letting kids help with chores despite the fact that finishing those chores takes a little longer when a kid is helping. However, the fact that the ingredients Euphie likes to add don't really work for food meant she got shooed away. No worries though, she moved right on the next best thing and provided Adelaide some dinner of rice cereal flakes. She provided them right on Addie’s head.


Segment 1 of things Frankie says when I wake him up in the middle of the night to do stuff for me

“Frankie. Frankie, go check on Euphie.” Smack, smack, smack.
Shake Shake. “Frankie, Frankie. Go check on Euphie.”
“Hmm, Okay.” Nothing…
Shove. Shove. “Frankie, go check on Euphie. I thought I heard something.”
“But I don’t have my tape measure.”
Giggle. “Hmm. Yeah, maybe there’s one in Euphie’s room. Why don’t you go see.”
“Can't I use yours?”

February 17, 2009

Euphie managed to grab a brown marker. She has little stashes of markers of all over the place because she knows we take them away from her whenever we see her with one. Luckily though, today when she pulled one out and tried to draw on stuff, Adelaide helped me take the marker away from Euphie. Thanks, Adelaide. That’s really so much easier on me.

Awhi le back my glasses broke. I don’t remember how--it had something to do with Euphie. Since they were fairly new, we could still get them fixed/replaced at no cost. Naturally, I just took some electrical tape to the frame instead. It even formed a sheath of tape so that the temple could be inserted and stay put despite there being no stickiness of glue left. It worked wonders for half a year. Baby's spit, on the other hand, works wonders when it comes to unraveling tape sheaths. The last couple months have been a horrible chore of me attempting to insert the temple into a farce of a sheath every time I move my head more than an inch at a time. A couple months and I still haven’t bothered to put on new tape.

Euphie likes to clean up messes. She has figured out, in her infinite wisdom, that there must first be a mess in order to clean it. Thus, she makes messes and tries to clean them. Euphie, now complete with an extra centimeter of height, gained the range to reach all counter space in the kitchen. Her new favorite thing to take off the counter (and subsequently dump on the floor to make a cleanable mess) is Adelaide’s formula. Today however, she surprised us as this latest exploration into formulaic fun ended not with wasted powder all over the floor but with a couple scoops of formula in an empty bottle. She even followed it up with trying to put water in after. How can you be angry at such a nice sisterly gesture? You want to know how? You remember how much formula costs.

Frankie came home and told me a factoid about Bruce Lee. The expectant look on his made it obvious he expected me to say, “Oh, did Austin’s Triad buddy tell you that?” But I didn’t because Bruce Lee can do anything, and I don’t see why Austin would tell Frankie something that’s actually true.

February 12, 2009

I have had one of those calcium deposits (the ones you have to just smack really hard with a book if you want them to go away) on my head for awhile now. I often feel it when I’m otherwise just chilling. I thought I felt what might be a second one, and my immediate response was, “Whoa, it’s weird, but I think they might be in a line.” That’s right. I managed make two points into a line. I’m a friggin’ genius.

I was planning on taking some pictures today, but the batteries were dead. Was it because digital cameras are just so hard on batteries these days? No. Was it because Adelaide figures if they give various electronics power, they might give her power, too, if she tries really hard to eat the energy right out of them? The twenty-odd pictures of the floor and Euphie’s feet make me think the answer to that one is no as well.

We had teriyaki chicken rice bowls for dinner tonight. I got up at some point to get a cup or something for Euphie. I had taken a couple of bites so far with a fork I had gotten myself because I don’t trust plastic ones. When I came back, there were two forks in my bowl—one metal and one plastic. So my question is, “Where the heck did the plastic fork come from?” Did someone put a second fork in there because they didn’t see my other one and thought they were doing me a favor? Did someone take a bite out of my bowl because they thought I wouldn’t notice? I don’t know who put the fork in and if they didn’t see my fork or they just didn’t care, but my curiosity is getting out of control.

Update: Although Frankie did not put the fork in the bowl, after seeing two forks in it he assumed some sort of community pot and had some of my chicken. The mystery continues.

February 11, 2009

Euphie drew on her chalkboard quite a bit. Her works are mainly carefully placed lines and dots, but Frankie is most proud of a drawing from awhile back. She proudly brought us to her gallery and showed us the masterpiece she labeled “Ball”--her fourth favorite genre of objects after cars, cups, and binkies. I am impressed at how well contained its form is. Frankie simply can’t get over the skill it took to achieve the three dimensional look with its shading and depth.

One of the many responsibilities of a parent is to never compare their children. That's why I dressed Adelaide up in the exact same outfit (albeit with a few extra stains) that Euphie wore when she was ten months old.


































Frankie plucked my eyebrows tonight. Yeah, that’s right. I make my husband pluck my eyebrows. The basic shape is already there, so he just does upkeep on the random strays. Hey, he's the one who has to like them. It’s good times. I get to just sit there, and he gets to cause me pain for making him do it.

I would like to think that we have and will continue to instill good gaming taste to our children. At the wee ages the girls are still at, I don’t expect them to get into any of the high quality more mature games, but I am proud of Euphie complaining when she can’t log a daily minimum of 30 minutes into sliding down hills in Mario 64. This is why I was rather perturbed today when I looked up and saw that she had downloaded the Scene It! demo on Xbox Live. I mean, Scene It! isn’t bad or anything—but if you were going to go on a rogue download behind your parent's back, is that really what you would choose?

February 10, 2009

I've worn the same clothes for three days in a row now. I feel too guilty to put on clean clothes if I don’t feel completely clean myself. So…it’s been three days since I have taken a good shower—only little dinky ones where I either haven’t washed my hair or haven’t really soaped up or didn’t shave my legs. And that’s how we get to the sad part—I haven’t shaved my legs and yet the outfit that I chose three days ago happens to be partly made up of shorts.

Today’s mixture for snacking in between breakfast and lunch for Euphie and Adelaide consisted of Cheerios, Corn Pops, and Goldfish. I figured the Goldfish and Corn Pops would give it those nice dual flavors—like chocolate covered pretzels—I love those things. But I’m a mom who really cares about balanced meals—even just for a snack-- so I threw some shredded deli turkey meat and string cheese on top.

Adelaide is at that developmental stage where kisses and head butts are easily confused. Luckily, the action, which is still rare in occurrence, is preceded by the appropriate MMMMMMM kissing sound. This sound tends to make a person look towards her—eager to receive her kiss—instead of away in a more rational dodging of the attack. If you think about it, though, my bloody, fat lip is really just proof that she gave me one.

Tonight was the weekly cheap meal of breakfast-for-dinner. Before the parallel weekly fast food replacement for me and Frankie came into effect, Grammy came downstairs feeling sick. Buying into the all too common assumption that Burger King is the best answer to an ailing stomach, the previous dinner plan was scrapped. The onion rings failed to come through for Grammy, but Frankie didn’t have to go out and I got a night Dr Pepper in addition to my afternoon one. Success!