Kid randomness…

“No Kayla you can’t have the nunchuck,” my seven year old scolds his two year old sister.

Me:”Just let her have the nunchuck for Pete’s sake!”
Him: “Ok, Kayla, but if you break it, it’s going to be $30 out of your allowance.”

I wonder when he’s going to get it… HE doesn’t even get an allowance, what makes him think his sister would… And it’s not cause I don’t want to give him an allowance. It’s that HE DOESN’T DO ANYTHING TO EARN AN ALLOWANCE!

Anyway… It makes me chuckle to listen to my son talk to his sister. The age difference is very evident and he talks to her like she’s seven like him. (Of course it doesn’t help that I talk to HIM like he’s 31, like me.) It’s funny to listen to her tell me things about Jupiter (pronounced “JOO-PER -ERR”) and Spongebob (“Bunbob”).

He gives her homework when he comes home from school and she eagerly sits to do it.  They are very attached to each other although I think there’s still some jealousy over my attention.  He’s getting better though and she just doesn’t understand.

You know, as much as I complain that he never shuts up, I think it’s pretty great that my son’s interested in space.  Maybe he’ll be an astronaut when he grows up, or maybe a rocket scientist.  Or maybe an Astro-rocket scientist-naut.  I just hope he doesn’t talk so much.  He reminds me of that kid in the Toys R Us commercial who constantly talks about Dora.

Photo courtesy of Chris LoBello photography.  He’s my cousin.  You should TOTALLY check him out!!

Picky, picky…

I think I might have the pickiest eater on earth.  My son is the biggest pain the the behind when it comes to food.  He takes an American Cheese sandwich with him to school everyday.  No crusts.  If there is even a spec of brown from the crust of the bread on there, he will find it and pick it off.  There can’t be any green in his food either.  No parsley, no basil, nothing.  And don’t even THINK about trying to give him a vegetable.  The closest thing to a vegetable he will eat is tomato sauce and tomatoes are fruits.  No carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, nothing.  And fruit?  Yeah, right…  Bananas and applesauce but only if I beg him.

On the other hand, he will eat chips and brownies like they are going out of style.  I can squeeze in a cheese stick sometimes, but not a lot.

He’s very sensitive to textures and can’t have any food touching. (he gets that from me.) But he’s also sensitive to strong flavors and spicy flavors and he will gag and throw up at a moment’s notice. (he gets that from his father)

My husband is a very picky eater as well.  He won’t eat anything off a bone.  He claims he was traumatized as a kid because his parents took him to pig roasts where they had the whole pig roasting over an open fire, head and all.  So now when he sees meat on a bone he envisions the animal it once belonged to and it turns him off.  And there can’t be a speck of fat on his meat either.  He likes his chicken cutlets thin and his pizza well done.  His burgers MUST have American cheese on them and no other cheese, not cheddar or swiss and the only time he will eat mozzarella is if it’s on a pizza, in a Parmesan dish or in a deep fried stick.  And he won’t eat fish.  AT. ALL.  He can keep them in a tank and catch them on the end of a hook, but he won’t eat them.

Now, I admit, I’m not the best eater in the world either.  I’m picky to a point, but I’m learning to get over it and try new things.  I don’t like a lot of vegetables, but I do eat some.  More than certain seven year olds I know…  And I eat fish, but only certain shellfish and fillet.

My daughter will eat just about anything so we’re good with that.  Last week she told me that something I made was “disgusting” and I’m all like “Where did you learn that??  You’re only two!”.  Mmmhmm.  She’s two.

Anyway, even though my son won’t eat a lot of stuff, he likes to help me in the kitchen.  He takes a lot of pride in the fact that he helped make a box of brownies with me once and they were the BEST BROWNIES EVER.  We have yet to be able to duplicate them.  So I got this book in the mail called Top 100 Finger Foods for Kids by Annabel Karmel and in it is a brownie recipe.  We’re gonna try it.  It looks good.  That and the French Toast with caramelized bananas.  And lots of other stuff.

In actuality, I sat with the boy with the cookbook and we flipped through the entire thing looking at all the recipes trying to find one we could do together.  Every recipe we looked at he was all “No.”  “Not this one.”  “Ew.” “I don’t like fish.”  And I’m all, “How can you not like fish? You’ve never tried it!”  I almost gave up when I found the brownies and his eyes lit up.

So, picture this if you will…  It’s Saturday afternoon.  My daughter has FINALLY gone down for a nap and I’m itching to make these brownies.  Hubby’s gone out for the afternoon for a billiards tournament, so it’s just me and the boy.  I break out the cookbook and suddenly he doesn’t want to help.  Really??  He’s tired, he’s bored… “Ok, Mom, I’ll help.”  I think he stirred the batter once and cracked the eggs.  After that he lost interest.  I managed to get him to read the recipe to me while I ran around the kitchen.   And of course, as soon as the brownies are in the oven, he’s gone.  Back to the computer, the video games, or the TV.  I made the topping by myself, not even bothering to ask him to help for fear of a tug o’ war between him and lego.com.  And the brownies?  They were good.  Maybe not worth the fighting, and the nagging, and the constant “What’s next Jonathan??” , but they were GOOD.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll attempt the French Toast with Caramelized Bananas…  only his time without the help.

This post was written as part of the Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Club.  It was inspired by the book “Top 100 Finger Foods for Kids” by Annabel Karmel which I received free from the publisher for the purpose of this book club discussion.

Crap-f-ing-tastic!!

For anyone who hasn’t seen this…  This is why Mommy needs to be better potty trained…  I was in the bathroom.  My daughter was alone in my bedroom.  I come out of the bathroom and find this:

Really??

Sorry, the picture quality isn’t that great, but that’s my Blackberry for ya!  I swear when’s she’s old enough, she’s going to be tattooed from HEAD. TO. FUCKING. TOE.  Crap!!  She actually climbed onto  my desk chair, onto my desk  and grabbed the Sharpies that were on a shelf above my desk.  She then proceeded to write not only on her legs, but my bed sheets, and the carpet.   Three days later and it still hasn’t come off…  STOP LAUGHING!!

On a completely unrelated note, be sure to fan my Facebook Fan Page and follow me on Twitter!  I just signed up for some kind of sponsored tweet thing so the more you click, the more I get paid!  And who doesn’t like to help people get paid??

Oh shit! The baby learned a new word!!

This is a quote by an unknown author that I came across years ago and have since posted in this most glittery type on my MySpace page.

No truer words have been spoken…

Now, I have a foul mouth.  I know this, I admit it, hell, I’m freaking proud of it!   My favorite curse word is fuck.  I use it all the time.  Baby’s awake in the middle of the night? Fuck.  Son is late for school?  Fuck. Husband wakes me in the early morning looking for his keys/phone/wallet?  Fuuuuuuuck.  Lady driving down major road only to make a right turn without her blinker on to the same highway I’m trying to turn onto from the other direction while talking on her cell phone?  Why don’t you put down your fucking cell phone and put on a fucking blinker, you fucking moron! Oh, sorry, did I say that out loud??

Without a doubt, I am at my foulest when I’m driving.  My son has learned to ignore me when I’m cursing in the car at some idiot who can’t decide what lane to drive in or whether he should stop or go when the light is green, but my daughter…  she’s another story.

I try my best to curb my language around her.  I try to say things under my breath so she can’t hear me or change the words to nonsense so she doesn’t pick them up.

When my son was her age, he used to sit on my lap during the stale and boring hours spent in my husband’s pet store and watch me play Bejeweled or Zuma on the computer.  (this was before my obsession with Facebook, Twitter, and blogging)  Often times when I’d lose or mess up I’d change my curse words to things like “fart knocker” and “cracker jack” until he started using them.  I don’t know what it is, but when the words “fart knocker” came out of my toddler son’s mouth they sounded more dirty than the words they were made up to cover! (in actuality, it came out more like “fock nocka” in his cute little toddler-speak)

I’ve heard that you become more relaxed with your second child.  It’s true yes.  I’ve become much more laid back with my daughter than I was with my son.   With my son, if his pacifier fell on the floor, I’d pick it up and not let him put it back in his mouth until I washed it in warm soapy water.  With my daughter, it depends on where we are and how dirty the floor is…  My son would get a bath as soon as he came in from outside to wash off any dirt or germs he may have picked up from our 15 minute jaunt in the back yard.  With my daughter…  they say you gotta eat a pound of dirt in your life…  My son wasn’t allowed in the PlayPlace at McDonald’s until he was at least 4.  My daughter’s 2 and she OWNS that place!  I used to yell at my husband and his friends for the language they used around my very impressionable little boy…  I’m surprised my daughter’s first words weren’t “bullshit” and “mother fucker”.

Anyway, the moral of the story here kids is that this morning I was getting ready for my 11:30 doctor’s appointment.  I was dressing my daughter and I stole a look at the clock.  10:51 and I hadn’t showered yet after my Jillian Michaels workout (day 20, yeah!).  “Shit!” I muttered, hoping it was low enough that she didn’t hear.  Nope.  For the next ten minutes my almost 27 month old daughter sat in front of “Sesame Street” uttering her newly acquired word.

Shit.

Mother of the Year!!  Right here!!