Grandma's Graham Cracker Toffee Cookies

This month's Martha Stewart Everyday foods had a recipe for a doctored up graham cracker that reminded me of cookies my grandma used to make. I think I had the recipe once, but I was horrified by how much butter the recipe called for, so I never made them. Or maybe I am thinking of her pita chips. Mmmmm. My grandma made me a bag of both of those treats to take in the car when I moved with Dave to Colorado almost 15 years ago, and that was the last time I ever ate them. I think they may have made it as far is Iowa, but probably not.

I wish I could link to the Martha recipe, because I am feeling too lazy to type it up, but I don't see it on her page yet. My grandma's recipe was butter and sugar baked into graham crackers, with chocolate chips spread over the top when they come out of the oven. Martha's had toffee chips too, and almonds, and sea salt. I screwed up the recipe by using heath chips instead of toffee, and chocolate chips separately, but they were still really good. I am thinking of making them again, but just trying to recreate my grandma's version. It's going to be hard to skip the salt at the end though, I have been loving sweet desserts with a little salt lately.

At The Park With Jack

The other day, Jack and I walked to the park with Lucy. It was an epic adventure to say the least.

Notable quotes:

About the old Indian lady walking by in a sari: "Is that a princess?"

About the giant white dog with big pointy ears: "A BUNNY!"

When he was looking for the robin we had seen on the way to the park: "WHERE ARE YOU, ROBIN BIRDIE?"

There we a bunch of tiny cones in the grass at the park, perhaps leftover from the middle school gym class that I sometimes see there. One of the cones was laying on it's side. Jack said, "I don't like that cone layin' on it's side." I told him he could go and fix it and he was very happy to do so.

The day before, Jack was repeatedly yelling about how he wanted something. Ice cream, maybe? We were in the car on the way home from work/school so after I told him he could have ice cream after dinner, I just started ignoring his yelling. After a while, he stopped, took a deep breath and said, "I feel impatient."

So when the yelling started the next day on the way home...
Me: Are you feeling impatient?
Jack:No
Me: Angry?
Jack: No
Me:Upset?
Jack:No.
Me: Crabby?
Jack: Yes.

Oh, and here is a Luke quote for you.
Dave and I were discussing the Grand Canyon, and I said I didn't want to go there until everyone was at least 12 or something because I was afraid of someone falling to their death. Dave said we wouldn't have to worry about that if we all rode mules, and that Jack was old enough to ride a mule. I disagreed, since I had seen him fall of a tricycle twice the day before. Luke said, "Why can't Jack ride a jack ass?"

No One Wants To Hear About Your Little Genius

I doubt someone who blogged all the time about their little genius would have a large following outside of the grandparent contingent. I don't blog about how my kids are little geniuses for that reason, and because I have a really hard time spelling genius. I really want to spell it like this: genious. But I do have to share these two little stories about how my darling, precocious two year old can read and spell.

Last week, I was changing Jack's diaper after the usual exchange:

Jack (apropo of nothing): Momma, I'm fine.
Me: What?
Jack: I'm fine.
Me: What does that mean? You just pooped?
Jack: NO! I'M FINE!
Luke: He just said he was pooping a few minutes ago.
Jack: I'm just wet! I don't need a diaper change.

So off we went to change his diaper, and Jack said: I pooped. P-o-p. Poop.

Yeah, I get that he spelled it wrong, but it's pretty close right? He isn't even two and a half! Little potty-mouthed genius.

AND - we went to my favorite place to take the kids that makes them really happy and doesn't involve me putting on a bathing suit. Yes, Chuck E Cheese. (Or Chuckie Cheese, as Luke still insists on calling it.)

Dave worked about 20 hours straight, and fell asleep around 5am last Saturday. The boys woke up at 6:30. By 8:45 we really needed to get out of the house so I said, "I am taking you somewhere as a surprise. So get your shoes on."
Luke: Can we guess?
Me: Yes
Luke: But don't tell us if we guess right.
Me: Ok, I'll just say, "Interesting suggestion"
Luke: But make sure to say that after every suggestion. Because if you just say, "No, No, No, No, Interesting suggestion" then we will know if we guessed right.
Me:.... OK

ANYWAY - You have to pass Chuck E Cheese and drive all the way around before you get there, and as we drove past, Jack said, "Hmm. Chuck E Cheese's."
Me: Can you read? Interesting suggestion.
Luke: He can either read or he can read minds because I was just thinking "Chuck E Cheese" right when he said it.

So, long story short, Jack can almost spell poop, and he can read Chuck E Cheese. If that doesn't make him a genius, then I don't even know what a genius is.

And if you are even thinking he recognized it from the mascot, let me share this detail. When he saw the singing and dancing Chuck E Cheese inside, he said, "Stomper!" And here is where I wish I could link to the hilarious story of how last August Jack was scared of/drawn to the mouse/rat mascot of the Lake Erie Crushers: Stomper. But I never got around to blogging about that. Trust me it was a good story.

When we got home from our adventure, Dave was awake, and Jack ran up to him and said, "We saw Stomper!"

So smart, that one.

Hair Cuts

You may have noticed last week that Jack's hair was getting a little Chase Crawfordy again. And I do love that look, but it was starting to get in his eyes, and half the sandbox was stored in that mop every day when I picked Jack up from daycare. Luke's hair was also on the extremely shaggy side so Dave had a boys day out to the barber shop.

Bring on some hot weather!

I'm All Better

Jack's new thing is to throw a kicking, screaming, thrashing-about fit until he suddenly takes a deep breath and says, "I'm all better." Sometimes we get, "I feel better now, Mommy." I really admire his ability to switch gears and pull it together. What is particularly interesting though, is when I am carrying him under my arm to his room because he hit or kicked someone. Usually at this time he is remorseless and unconcerned. When I set him down on the floor he just looks at me and says, "I feel better." as if that's his free pass to get out of his room. It's at times like these that I say ridiculous parenting jargony things like, "You aren't in time out for how you FEEL you are in time out for what you DID. Do we hit people?" Then he says, "Yes." And I say, "No we don't. Is it OK to hit?" And he says, "Yes." And so on.
Fortunately for everyone, Jack's adorable, cute, sweet moments are outweighing the tantrumy ones.

Parenting, Glamorously

You may be wondering why I am getting parenting advice from Glamour magazine. I wasn't actually so sure myself when I wrote that post yesterday. But as all MetaMegan readers know, I have a magazine addiction. Sadly, Blueprint, Domino, Wondertime, and Cookie have all gone out of business in the last year or so. And as each one went out of business while I still had a lifetime left on my subscription, they converted into Glamour subscriptions. So now I am subscribed to Glamour for 4 lifetimes.

Why am I not getting parenting advice from Parents? Because that subscription has lapsed. It was with a tinge of regret that I recycled 6 months of issues without ever making fun of a single one. But faithful reader, and good friend Laura made sure to rip out an article for me about the dangers of the cocktail playdate. I am just going to assume that was geared towards stay at home moms who start drinking at 10am and not for the "glass of wine at little league" types. I think the gist of the article was getting drunk while you watch your children is bad!!! Sorry to say that when I tried to refer to the article today, (aka read if for the first time) it appeared to have been stolen with my wallet a few months ago. Google was no help either - just a bunch of people who have already written about how stupid the article was or else how having one drink will cause your kids to stick their finger in an electric socket.

So, we are stuck with Glamour, where I can learn to embrace the chaos as well as um, whatever else in is that magazine.

Bookin' All Over Town

You can thank me later about the many times I started this blog post only to realize that the extremely long intro about the thousand things that were stressing me out yesterday and the many different plans I came up with to deal with them were actually quite boring and made me look crazy.

Suffice it to say, I felt stressed, and instead of taking the dumb, complicated, stressful path through my evening, I decided to take the easy, simple, stress free way. This is pretty much a first for me. In fact, I was recently reading Glamour magazines tips on not being a stressed out working mother and one of them was to embrace the chaos. So I was trying to embrace chaos while simultaneously not creating more chaos when things got chaotic yesterday.

Baseball season is upon us, and Dave picked up Luke for practice and the game. I figured I had time to pick up Jack, go to the library, pick up a few things at the grocery store and make it in time for the first pitch. (And yes, this was the simple version of my evening.)

Jack was adorable at the library. A mom to a teenager was just looking at Jack and I with fond memories spilling out of her smile and all over the books. We picked up my two books, and Jack picked out two books for himself. We checked out, got in the car, I handed Jack one of the books, then headed to the grocery store on the other side of the divided road. There was a loud noise, and Jack said, "What dat noise?" He doesn't like loud noises. I said, "It's just that water bottle rolling around in the back of the car."

Jack: Nope. Dem books.
Me: No, water bottle.
Jack: Books
Me: Did you drop your book honey?
Jack: Nope.
Me: THE BOOKS WERE ON TOP OF THE CAR! Did you see them fall off?
Jack: Yes.

Then I tried to figure out what to do. Make a u-turn, then another u-turn to get back to where it happened? How long will that take? Pull over right here? Nowhere to park! Pull over on this side street? Too late I am about to make a u-turn! The books! Pull over, and park! Go back! MY god! U-turn!

I finally decided my best option was to just part at the next side street and walk back. This was dumb, because if I had driven back via the 2 u-turns, I could have parked at the library, and the books would have been in the street right in front of the parking lot. Instead I had to walk/run two frantic blocks with Jack on my hip. As we got closer, I could see the books repeatedly getting run over. But they seemed fine when the traffic cleared and we picked them up. Both of them. Of course, there were three missing books. So on the walk back, there was a lot of, "We lost one book? It gone? It on toppa car still? It gone?"

The third book was still on top of the car. I guess all the frantic swerving I did while trying to decide which way to go kept it sort of centered.

We got in the car and headed to the grocery and I took some cleansing breaths. Jack didn't like the sound of that. He said, "You scared to me." Which either means I was scaring him, or I am scared of him, or I sounded scared to him."

We finally made it to baseball about half an hour into an hour game, and I got to see Luke play catcher and make a nice hit before Jack and I needed to head to the playground. I also got to enjoy a delicious glass of wine from a plastic cup, which I then stashed in my purse pocket. While I socialized with the other moms I tried to share the Glamour tidbit about embracing the chaos. This question was asked: HOW? I'll need to go back to the article, but I don't think it said how.

Jack and I were "driving" at the top of the playground structure when the cup fell out of my purse and all the way to the ground. Jack said, "Momma! Why you pourin' your wine out on the ground?" Maybe you heard him, he said it really loudly.

I may have made a lot of mistakes yesterday, but spilling wine was not one of them. Maybe that's how it's done. Embracing chaos: One plastic cup of wine at a time.

Maybe We Should Have Gotten A Pure Bred?

The Subject came up and I choked. For real.

Luke and I were riding the lift at Eldora on Sunday and talking about Lucy. He said something about how she's a Cocker Spaniel, and I said I wasn't so sure about that any more, but that she was some sort of Spaniel mix.

Luke: I don't get it. What's a mix?
Me: Well, you know, like if someone had a Chinese mom and an African dad, they'd be half
Luke: (interrupting) Why wouldn't they just be like THE MOM. What does the DAD have TO DO WITH IT?
Me: (choke, cough, cough, choke) Do you mind stopping at the top to get some water? I can't stop coughing.


Take note, that's a good parenting maneuver right there. Fake coughing fit.

WWDD

I haven't been able to come up with a blog post since I posted about Dodd's death. I didn't feel like it would be appropriate to do one of the like-omg-usbank-is-so-annoying-they-screwed-up-3-check-orders-in-a-row!!! type posts. (Even though they ARE annoying.) I want to do a bunch of Dodd tribute posts, but thinking about those stories makes me cry.

We have answered a lot of questions by asking, WWDD, or What Would Dodd Do? Fly across the country to a funeral, knowing you may have to drive back? Yes. Have that beer with lunch? Yes. Start blogging again about that third check charge and the mean letter I wrote and how USbank doesn't really care how terrible they are? Maybe?

I have to start somewhere though. So here is a picture of the boys, about 10 hours into our second 11 hour driving day. They took a nice nap at the end of the trip. I still feel tired over a week later. It's nice to be alive though.