Comment Award Winner Part Dos

I searched for a local bookstore for the contest winner and when I found one, I sent the name to Aunt Beth for approval and she said it's the best bookstore in C-bus. I bought a gift certificate and sent the info to J.E.J. Happy shopping!

And on the subject of the 19th of July song, we came up with Jack's first song today.

First, let's revisit one of Luke's songs:

Me llamo Lucas
Yo soy un Kookus
Mucho gusto! Very much!

Frijole Negro
Es Mi Perro
Mucho Gusto, not so much!

And now onto Jack's:

Me llamo Juan Pablo
No Espanol yo hablo
Pero sonrio
Como Diablo

And yes, we had dinner at the Rio. Is it that obvious? These days, instead of drinking 3 margaritas and riding my bike into a parked car on the way home, I drink one margarita and compose bad spanglish songs about my children.

But! I still had my wits about me enough to realize that I had left the pacifier next to a tree by the creek hours before and I went back and I found it! I left it right here:

Party Time

I have a great Now and Then post but it will have to wait for tomorrow because the videos are taking forever to upload and I want to go to bed. So instead I am going to talk about a really fun party we attended on Friday.

The party was for a bunch of people who used to work together, (pre-layoffs and outsourcing) and that is great for me because I do my best networking with a beer in one hand and a baby on my hip. "Sure it's a 24x7 job, but don't you really need someone to work just until 3:00 pm? My customers love me, you know that!" And this wasn't just any beer, this was Michelob from the kegerator on the porch. The kegerator next to the cotton candy machine.

Oh, and did I mention the zip line that went across the pool?

We stayed until about 9:00 (late!) and Jack fell asleep at his normal time like a good boy.

OK, I'll be honest, this post is just to annoy my co-workers (one of whom is knitting a voodoo doll as I type) by flaunting my sleeping baby. Speaking my my co-workers, it's time for another get together with Baby Katie, aka Pinchy, because I get a lot more hits when I feature Jack's girlfriend. I mean because we have such a good time!

And I am sure I am jinxing the sleeping through the night thing that we have going on!

Sent To His Room For Demanding Broccoli

The boys are at Camp Grandparent this week, and loving it. Naps were taken, bikes ridden, puzzle completed, two playgrounds and a pool visited, and that was all on the first day. And perfect behavior can only lead to one thing: a dinner time meltdown. Dave grilled chicken for fajitas and I sauteed red and green peppers and onions, and also made pico de gallo. Yum. And a salad. Somehow Luke ended up at the head of the table and was getting served first. I had eaten most of my lunch today by 11 am, and I was hangry. Dave was explaining to Luke how we have a "no thank you bite policy" and he needed to take a bite of a vegetable before he could say no thank you, and please pick a vegetable, and Luke picked broccoli. Did we make any broccoli? No. Meanwhile I am just shoving food into Jack's mouth as fast as possible so that on the off chance some food gets to me, I'll have a brief interlude between squawks from my baby bird to inhale some morsels. Long story short, I sent Luke to his room for demanding to be served broccoli. Has any child in the history of these United States been sent to his or her room for demanding broccoli? Today, history was made.

After I had taken some bites, and needed to get up anyway for some reason, I made a quick detour to the room of the sobbing young man to try to calm him down. Usually in instances like these he makes up a story about hurt feelings or something, I console him and tell him he can come back to the table when he has calmed down. But I when I walked into his room he said, "I'll come back when I GET BROCCOLI!" Okaaaay, at least I don't have to feel like maybe it was unnecessary to send him to time out. So I said, "Well, if you want to influence what is served at the dinner table, you need to be more involved in the meal preparation. You know the rules, feel free to come back when you have calmed down. If we are still sitting at the table, you can join us." Sobbing ensued. But he pulled it together and rejoined us at the table a little later.

Oh, and the other day I said, "Do you want some ranch dressing for your broccoli?" The fact that he turned it down isn't surprising because he doesn't really like ranch, but it was a little odd that he said, "No, just broccoli, straight up!"

Another point of view on broccoli.


Photo credit.

Don't Call Me, I'll Call You

Seriously. My phone is broken.

Now I am trying to get all my cute pictures and videos off before it's too late.

Ask Me About My Fat Free Zucchini Bread

The temperature in our house dropped below 80 today to a cool 78 and you know what that means! I can turn on the oven! The candy jar at work hasn't been refilled in weeks and the vending machine is trying to force me to make healthier choices. I am boycotting the grocery story near our house, so my sweet tooth is ready to bite someone's head off. So as soon as we got home from our Wednesday picnic dinner I started a whirlwind of baking. Or, I at least attempted to make two things. First I made granola, which turned out very well. While the granola was cooking, I whipped up some zucchini bread. The granola calls for 4 teaspoons of canola oil, but I was worried that I wouldn't have enough for the zucchini bread, which called for half a cup. So I used olive oil. Then I figured I would have enough canola for the zucchini bread, and if not, I could substitute olive oil, but I prefer not to in that case.

Things got a little hairy while I was mixing the zucchini bread; Dave put Jack down on the floor, he got mad about it and threw himself down and yelled; I could see that the roof of his mouth was entirely white, and I freaked out. "Is he foaming at the mouth? Rabies? Is this a tragedy of biblical proportions? ChokingonhisownvomitOMGJimmyHendrix?" I even briefly thought, "Is the roof of your mouth white? Maybe he's fine! Does anyone know what color the roof of your mouth is?!" But he just had about an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper wadded up in there.

Later, when I was looking in the oven, I knew something was wrong. Did I over mix the eggs? Was it because I forgot to mix in the walnuts, and just sprinkled them on top? Did I use wheat bran instead of wheat germ?

Then I remembered. The oil. I looked at the measuring cup, which was not oily. I looked in the cabinet at the oil. Still looked like it had just about half a cup in it. So I guess I never added that precious, precious oil.

It's actually quite delicious. Must be the moistest zucchini on the planet. I'll have to report tomorrow on whether my fat free zucchini bread is still edible. And no, I am not some crazy health nut that eats zucchini bread instead of candy and cookies. I just don't have any chocolate in the house.

One More Post About Camping

I never finished my camping post, but I didn't need to because it was summed up so well here. But I did want to share one funny story. The first night of camping, Jack was on day 5 of sleeping all the way or mostly through the night. I was a little worried about setbacks, but our sleeping arrangements worked out perfectly to keep the stretch going. Luke slept upstairs and the rest of us slept downstairs, but Dave slept in between Jack and I, which prevented me from sleep feeding him. I am sure I would have assumed that Jack was hungry when he started crying at 3 am, when in fact he was just cold. Dave and Jack just snuggled up and we all went back to sleep. But why was he cold? Well, I guess at some point earlier in the night he was hot, so he took off his pajamas. He woke up dressed like this:


And this is how I found his pjs in the morning:



I have a Baby Houdini on my hands.

Everyone slept so well that Luke even had a sleep over on Saturday night:







Good morning everyone!

Meta MetaMegan (Comment Winner Announced!)

My mom has recommended the book Marley and Me but I have refused to read it. It sounds like it might be too sentimental for me, and also, if anyone was going to write about Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog - God knows it should have been me.

Fast forward to 2008, and once I started this blog I decided I would write a book. Specifically I said, "Once I have been blogging for a year, I am going to write a book." I told Dave it would be somewhat remotely related to my blog and he said, "Why would anyone buy your book, when they can read your blog for free?" Good question. Maybe some people don't have laptops, and might want to read my bon mots before falling asleep, or on the beach? Ok, probably not.

I started thinking about my book some more while reading a recent issue of ReadyMade about self-publishing. But, what to write? Can I make a whole book out of incidents like running into the baby's room at 5 am to silently shove a pacifier in his mouth in order to get another hour of sleep, and instead banging an already injured knee on a rocking chair, screaming in pain, falling to the ground to hide from baby and writhe around until the throbbing subsides, and thinking, hey, I'll see if I can find the pacifier while I'm down here?

And then inspiration came. Marley. And. Me. I could write a collection of essays about my babies and my dog! Are you kidding me?! Babies and Dogs! Seriously, I dare you to think of a better combination! And I could write a bunch of essays about things from the past, and intersperse the 2 or 3 hilarious blog posts that I have already written. AND I had the best idea for the commenter prize! Since I plan to self-publish my book on lulu.com, I could give away a gift certificate to lulu.com as a prize. Then the winner could hold onto it for a couple years until my book is ready, or buy something now. Sadly, lulu.com does not actually sell gift certificates.

Since the Boulder Bookstore gift certificate idea was sort a lame prize for anyone other than Dave and Carolyn, I decided to pick a winner and then get them a gift certificate to an independent bookstore in their town. So, I put the comments on pieces of paper and had Luke pick one out of a hat. Wouldn't you know the one winner that I can't identify won the prize!

Anonymous said...
Megan -
We're starting to doubt the Megan Mary Mary story. Ann? Marie? Rita? Alicia?
We've enjoyed the blog thus far.

Who could it be? So we picked a backup winner, which is Jane Ellen Jane. Then Luke kept picking names because he really wanted his dad to win. Ellie, you came in third, and Dave was fourth. So if we can figure out who anonymous is soon, they can win. Otherwise, the prize goes to Jane Ellen Jane.

On the Move

Jack is almost crawling - it isn't pretty but he is on the move. The problem with capturing it on video is that if you notice your baby doing some amazing crawling, and it's right before bedtime, and you run to get the camera, and then try to get him to crawl again, you end up with this:



I have three videos like that.

But we didn't give up! Luke and I kept Jack up long enough, and waved the forbidden remote over and over, and he finally realized I would put him to bed once he pushed himself across the floor on his face. Note the diaper wedgie.

Happy 19th of July!

Twenty some years ago today, the day was hot and boring in the small town in Ohio where I grew up. We weren't at the pool, and I was out of ideas. Or maybe I didn't even try to come up with anything. I just did what any kid would do in that situation, I said, "Mom, I'm bored. What can I do?"

My mom said:

Climb a tree!
Ride your bike!
Read a book!
Write a song!

So I took a little notebook and a little pen and I sat down in the grass on the south side of the house, near the rabbit ears and I wrote the following song:

A, B, C!
1, 2, 3!
19th of July

Most people don't remember the second verse:

Megan
Beth
John

I showed the song to my mom, who shared it with my dad. And the 19th of July was officially born. For the next 10 or 15 years, I had to endure, on a yearly basis, such taunting as, "Hey! Megan! It's the 19th of July! Let's all sing the song!" It was miserable.

And then one year I spent the summer away at college, and came home for a weekend, coincidentally on the 19th of July. There was a giant banner across the dining room, "Happy 19th of July, Megan!" And I thought, "If you can't beat them, join them!"

So it started with just Happy 19th of July wishes, and the occasional card. And Dave wasn't on board with celebrating this made up holiday of mine until I started serving cake. Once I got a balloon from my friend Laura, who was also the first person to wish me well today. Oh, and I have to give credit to Ellie, who put a 19th of July reminder on our mommy board calendar at least 2 years ago!

The gifts come mostly from myself though.

Having a birthday on the nation's holiday hangover day means you have to sometimes make your own special days!

So comment away and wish me well and win a prize! Details to follow!

OK, I came up with a prize that isn't totally lame. I'll put all comments into a hat and have Luke choose one on Monday evening. Any comments on any post from now until then will be entered into the contest. Good luck!

Oops, We Went There Again

The funniest thing happened today at Chuck E Cheese, or as Luke would say, "Chuckie Cheese." (We cannot agree over the pronunciation, or the fact that I can read and he can't.) I realize that the fact that Luke and I like to go to Chuck E Cheese puts into question my well known status as a Boulder hippie/elitist snob, but I am not going to defend myself. I'll just say we don't eat there. (Except when we do.) So Chuck E Cheese has some sort of elaborate system involving coded hand stamps for making sure you don't leave without your child, or with extra children, but despite my many (3) trips there, I have yet to figure it out. The first time I wouldn't let them stamp Luke's hand because he hates hand stamps. I guess they let it slide since it was 9am and we were the only people there. The next time, we had loving grandparents with us and I left to go to Costco, so how effective can the stamps be?

Before I get to the hand stamp debacle, let me just say this: Chuck E Cheese is not baby friendly. I was staring at the door, thinking, "How am I going to get this stroller in there?" and saying, "Luke, do you think you can get the door?" and Luke was struggling with the door when a big grandma looking person came out. Thank goodness! But I guess she was in a hurry because instead of holding the door for us she let it hit Luke in the head. She wasn't an employee so that really has nothing to do with Chuck E Cheese not being baby friendly, but let's just say it's hard to feed strained organic green beans to a baby in a room full of flashing lights and crazy noises. OK, I am all over the place here. Let's get back to the hand stamp. Once we finally got through the door we had this conversation:

CEC Employee: Would you like a sticker for the baby?
Me: No thanks, he isn't really in to stickers.
CEC Employee: (Says nothing as she leans toward the stroller with giant metal hand stamper.)
Me: Whoa, wait, is that necessary?
CEC Employee: I ASKED if you wanted a STICKER!
Me: (Confused) OK, I guess we'll take a sticker.
CEC Employee: (Big Sigh. Eye roll. Stamps sticker and gives it to me.)

Luke and I got stamped without incident, and I managed to keep track of the sticker until we left and was therefore allowed to take Jack home.

Then on the way to the car, after our visible only to black light secret codes had been read, Luke said, "Wouldn't it be weird if Daddy got a new black light and when we got home we could show him our hands and he would see the stamp and know the number was 65?"

Yes, it would be weird if Daddy was shopping for black lights while we were at Chuck E Cheese.