Hello everyone,
I think the tooth fairy must have overheard my flippant remarks about my wisdom teeth removal and is seeking her revenge: after having a fairly easy surgery and recovery, this past week my teeth were very sensitive and sore- not enough to warrant Codeine, just enough to be irritating. Luckily they are finally getting back to normal and crunchy foods are edible again. I was beginning to worry that I would be forever doomed to eat only oatmeal and applesauce. =]
Last Monday, the kids and I had a marathon shopping day, including visits to Bed Bath and Beyond, Costco and Target. A five hour shop-a-thon with two kids in tow is any mother's idea of paradise: kids hiding in and out of the display curtains, begging for a candy-cane-shaped dog bone, having lively conversations with random shoppers and running off and disappearing at regular intervals. At the end of the trip, I firmly resolved and vowed to do all my Christmas shopping on Amazon.com and avoid any other shopping trips ever again. This shopping trip was precipitated by mine and Dave's decision to put up curtains in our living room, which seemed to me like an easy enough task: find curtains and rods that you like, buy them and take them home. But so far this seemingly simple scheme has required 3 trips to Target, 1 trip to JCPenney and 3 trips to Bed Bath and Beyond- and we're not done yet.... Maybe this is why I am such a dedicated Costco shopper: it's kind of nice to have only one or two options to choose from. It eliminates most of the opportunity for indecisiveness. If only they carried curtains....
On Tuesday while Camryn was at preschool, Jared and I went grocery shopping for food for Thanksgiving. Since I figured the cart would be full, I had Jared walk with me next to the cart (not too challenging for a 5-year-old, right?). Jared took advantage of his newfound freedom by sliding on the floor as if each aisle were home plate, and then running and spinning like an 80's break-dancer. Pushing aside my germ-phobia (do you know how many feet have walked on this floor???), this made it difficult to navigate the aisles without running in to other shoppers. We (thankfully) did eventually make it out of the store without incurring lawsuits from injured shoppers.
After preschool, we went to meet one of Jared and Camryn's friends and hang out with her at the mall. Since it was raining, I figured it would be a good way to get out of the house. We played at the mall's indoor playground, split a Jamba Juice, went to the Lego store and got a Santa-shaped chocolate at the candy store. I say this to prove that I am not an altogether unfeeling, fun-hating, child-punishing mother. As we were about to leave the mall to go home, Jared spotted someone he recognized in the mall: Santa Claus! Never mind the fact that it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet, Jared was enthralled by the idea of standing in a long line to see Santa. It was already time to be home making dinner, and I noticed a sign next to Santa offering a picture with him for an obscene amount of money that further turned me off to the idea, so I told Jared we were not going to see Santa today. Jared started whining and when he saw that I was serious about my refusal, his whining turned into an all-out screaming fit that lasted from Santa's cute little house, all the way through JCPenney and into the parking lot. I tried to talk to Jared about it on the way home and to explain that I did want to see Santa, but today wasn't a good day, and Jared said he did NOT want to see Santa on a different day- just today. After repeating this same segment of conversation about 50 times, Jared finally figured out that he was not going to get me to return to the mall, at which point he said, "Mom, when you wouldn't let me see Santa, it really hurt my feelings," to which I promptly responded, "When you screamed your head off through the entire mall, that really hurt my feelings." Jared, trying to impress upon me the depth of his grief at this travesty of justice, said, "The end part of today was the worst part of my life." This didn't have quite the desired impact on his unfeeling mother, who started laughing out loud. I went home and made Zucchini Carbonara for dinner and- to my complete and utter shock- the kids actually liked it and ate it!
On Wednesday, Jared had a minimum day of kindergarten because it was the day before Thanksgiving. What I don't understand is how you can have a minimum day if a full day is only 2 1/2 hours. We went to swimming lessons and the kids had a substitute teacher. Camryn didn't want to get in the pool because it was a boy teacher and not a girl teacher. After finally coaxing her into the pool, on her 2nd time kicking around the pool with the teacher, Camryn started screaming at the top of her lungs, thus bringing her swim lesson for the day to a speedy conclusion. When I talked to her about it later, she said she didn't like the boy teacher, Mike, because he "ruined her heart," by putting her on time out for not listening. Speaking of hearts, later on Wednesday, Jared and Camryn had a conversation about marriage: Camryn told Jared that she is going to marry Tyler from her preschool class. Jared said,"I will wait till I am a teenager and then I'll marry whoever I fall in love with. You can't marry one of your friends!"
On Thanksgiving, Dave and I took advantage of multiple consecutive broadcasts of the Macy's parade and slept in. The kids eventually got hungry, so Jared made Camryn a huge "salad" of dried cranberries and mozzarella cheese sticks. Dave later tried it and said it was pretty good. For Thanksgiving dinner, we went to my old roomate Jacki's house and had dinner with her family and her cousin's family. I brought stuffing, cranberry relish, drinks and Susan's famous Cranberry Salad. I carefully followed Susan's instructions to loosen the salad from the mold by dipping the pan in water for about 10 seconds. Unfortunately, the jello still stuck. Undaunted, this time I tried again, but I put the pan in deeper water and kept it there longer. This time the jello came out, but it slouched its way onto the pan in a less-than-impressive pile. I was sad that my impressive offering to the feast was a slightly deformed cranberry salad, but at least it still tasted good.
I will close this overly long epistle with Jared's quote of the week:
Jared: "I'm thinking about something all the time."
Me: "I believe that!"
Dave:"What are you thinking about right now?"
Jared: "Running on a planet."
Dave: "Which one?"
Jared: "Mars or Pluto."
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Love,
Karen
I think the tooth fairy must have overheard my flippant remarks about my wisdom teeth removal and is seeking her revenge: after having a fairly easy surgery and recovery, this past week my teeth were very sensitive and sore- not enough to warrant Codeine, just enough to be irritating. Luckily they are finally getting back to normal and crunchy foods are edible again. I was beginning to worry that I would be forever doomed to eat only oatmeal and applesauce. =]
Last Monday, the kids and I had a marathon shopping day, including visits to Bed Bath and Beyond, Costco and Target. A five hour shop-a-thon with two kids in tow is any mother's idea of paradise: kids hiding in and out of the display curtains, begging for a candy-cane-shaped dog bone, having lively conversations with random shoppers and running off and disappearing at regular intervals. At the end of the trip, I firmly resolved and vowed to do all my Christmas shopping on Amazon.com and avoid any other shopping trips ever again. This shopping trip was precipitated by mine and Dave's decision to put up curtains in our living room, which seemed to me like an easy enough task: find curtains and rods that you like, buy them and take them home. But so far this seemingly simple scheme has required 3 trips to Target, 1 trip to JCPenney and 3 trips to Bed Bath and Beyond- and we're not done yet.... Maybe this is why I am such a dedicated Costco shopper: it's kind of nice to have only one or two options to choose from. It eliminates most of the opportunity for indecisiveness. If only they carried curtains....
On Tuesday while Camryn was at preschool, Jared and I went grocery shopping for food for Thanksgiving. Since I figured the cart would be full, I had Jared walk with me next to the cart (not too challenging for a 5-year-old, right?). Jared took advantage of his newfound freedom by sliding on the floor as if each aisle were home plate, and then running and spinning like an 80's break-dancer. Pushing aside my germ-phobia (do you know how many feet have walked on this floor???), this made it difficult to navigate the aisles without running in to other shoppers. We (thankfully) did eventually make it out of the store without incurring lawsuits from injured shoppers.
After preschool, we went to meet one of Jared and Camryn's friends and hang out with her at the mall. Since it was raining, I figured it would be a good way to get out of the house. We played at the mall's indoor playground, split a Jamba Juice, went to the Lego store and got a Santa-shaped chocolate at the candy store. I say this to prove that I am not an altogether unfeeling, fun-hating, child-punishing mother. As we were about to leave the mall to go home, Jared spotted someone he recognized in the mall: Santa Claus! Never mind the fact that it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet, Jared was enthralled by the idea of standing in a long line to see Santa. It was already time to be home making dinner, and I noticed a sign next to Santa offering a picture with him for an obscene amount of money that further turned me off to the idea, so I told Jared we were not going to see Santa today. Jared started whining and when he saw that I was serious about my refusal, his whining turned into an all-out screaming fit that lasted from Santa's cute little house, all the way through JCPenney and into the parking lot. I tried to talk to Jared about it on the way home and to explain that I did want to see Santa, but today wasn't a good day, and Jared said he did NOT want to see Santa on a different day- just today. After repeating this same segment of conversation about 50 times, Jared finally figured out that he was not going to get me to return to the mall, at which point he said, "Mom, when you wouldn't let me see Santa, it really hurt my feelings," to which I promptly responded, "When you screamed your head off through the entire mall, that really hurt my feelings." Jared, trying to impress upon me the depth of his grief at this travesty of justice, said, "The end part of today was the worst part of my life." This didn't have quite the desired impact on his unfeeling mother, who started laughing out loud. I went home and made Zucchini Carbonara for dinner and- to my complete and utter shock- the kids actually liked it and ate it!
On Wednesday, Jared had a minimum day of kindergarten because it was the day before Thanksgiving. What I don't understand is how you can have a minimum day if a full day is only 2 1/2 hours. We went to swimming lessons and the kids had a substitute teacher. Camryn didn't want to get in the pool because it was a boy teacher and not a girl teacher. After finally coaxing her into the pool, on her 2nd time kicking around the pool with the teacher, Camryn started screaming at the top of her lungs, thus bringing her swim lesson for the day to a speedy conclusion. When I talked to her about it later, she said she didn't like the boy teacher, Mike, because he "ruined her heart," by putting her on time out for not listening. Speaking of hearts, later on Wednesday, Jared and Camryn had a conversation about marriage: Camryn told Jared that she is going to marry Tyler from her preschool class. Jared said,"I will wait till I am a teenager and then I'll marry whoever I fall in love with. You can't marry one of your friends!"
On Thanksgiving, Dave and I took advantage of multiple consecutive broadcasts of the Macy's parade and slept in. The kids eventually got hungry, so Jared made Camryn a huge "salad" of dried cranberries and mozzarella cheese sticks. Dave later tried it and said it was pretty good. For Thanksgiving dinner, we went to my old roomate Jacki's house and had dinner with her family and her cousin's family. I brought stuffing, cranberry relish, drinks and Susan's famous Cranberry Salad. I carefully followed Susan's instructions to loosen the salad from the mold by dipping the pan in water for about 10 seconds. Unfortunately, the jello still stuck. Undaunted, this time I tried again, but I put the pan in deeper water and kept it there longer. This time the jello came out, but it slouched its way onto the pan in a less-than-impressive pile. I was sad that my impressive offering to the feast was a slightly deformed cranberry salad, but at least it still tasted good.
On Friday, Dave and I indulged anew in our penchant for home projects, this time attempting to paint some of our downstairs and update some light fixtures. Four trips to Home Depot later, we finally painted on Saturday- ALL DAY Saturday.
When we finished, we paused to admire our impressive work. The paint job looked very striking- and completely clashed with our furniture. Somehow, the lovely tan that we selected came out as a slightly sickly olive green. It could look great- if we completely redecorated our house. So, we will probably end up painting the downstairs again next week.
I will close this overly long epistle with Jared's quote of the week:
Jared: "I'm thinking about something all the time."
Me: "I believe that!"
Dave:"What are you thinking about right now?"
Jared: "Running on a planet."
Dave: "Which one?"
Jared: "Mars or Pluto."
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Love,
Karen
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