Odd and Curious Thoughts of the Week

(1) I made Indian food this week and my daughter told me it was the best thing she has ever eaten.  She also wondered if we ate it every night of our lives whether we might still be Americans.  Yes, love. We’d still be Americans.  Pass the dal.

(2) The other night my son got up ten thousand times. I scolded him every time and told him to return to bed, and he would go sauntering back with his arms dragging by his sides.  Finally, I just sat in a chair in his room and he fell asleep immediately.  Funny how someone’s presence can be so soothing.

(3) My dog’s presence is full of insanely high-octane gas that reminds me of rotten, salty hay.  I could do without that.

(4) At a stoplight yesterday, I sat behind an Elantra.  Am I the only one who thinks that name sounds like a prescription drug?  Take ten milligrams of Elantra twice daily and come back to see me in three months. At least Trailblazer sounds adventurous.  I then went on an obsessed tirade of reading all the car names around me.  Rav 4? Equinox? Are we traveling to space in that Chevy, for heaven’s sake?

(5) Jesus renamed one of his disciples from the original name, Simon, to a new name, Peter.  I find it fascinating that you can walk around all your life being Amanda and then suddenly you’re Susan.  I get that Peter truly was a new person in Christ, but I secretly wonder if Peter liked the name.  And how did that make his mom feel?  After naming her sweet baby after great uncle Simon?  Did his wife have to keep correcting herself in the bedroom?

(6) I got a babysitter for my toddler this past week to take my daughter to a cooking demonstration at a local restaurant.  She begged to stay home because she was reading and didn’t want to change out of her pajamas, but I forced her to go since I had made reservations.  Since Monday is bread-baking day at my house, I had to hurry and get the dough to rise, and into the pans, and out of the oven before we left.  When we arrived, they announced that today was a special demonstration on bread baking.  My daughter looked at me like honestly, mom? We came for this?

(7) As it turns out, my daughter did have fun baking French bread.  She got home to show the babysitter, set the bread on the table to show her father when he got home, and the loaf was promptly eaten by the dog.  I’m really hating on him right now.

(8) I bought a futon for our upstairs play room.  It’s been described by my husband as “cheap,” “cracked,” and “rickety.”  However, my six-year-old has described it as “super fun,” “comfy,” and “very cool.”  Six-year-old wins.

(9)  Our two-year-old came into our room at 4:30 am this morning with a wet shirt and told me that he “washed his hands.”  That’s never good.

(10)               “Did you throw away that Toys-R-Us catalog?” my daughter asked me after looking all the over the house for it.  What?  You mean that tattered seven-page spread that you’ve been obsessed with for days and is causing you to ignore reality so you can memorize names and prices of various toys and remind me at every opportunity that the Lego Friends is on sale for $39.99?  Huh.  I just have no idea what happened to that thing.

(11)               Please let the school year come because I’m tired of hearing “don’t rush me” and “ it’s only 8:30 and in the summer I can stay up until 9.”  The juice and the popsicles and all that packing up and sunscreen application really wears a mom out.  And then there’s the boredom and “it’s too hot” and driving constantly to grandma’s.  Movie nights and play dates and nights without baths – my life would be much better if we could only get back to routine and consistency.

(12)               Please, Lord, never let this summer end.  My children are adorable,  my son won’t take a squeezable fruit without demanding one for his sister, and my daughter lost her front two teeth.  My sweet girl reads and draws and my son carefully places rocks in buckets and waters flowers.  We take turns hauling vegetables in from the garden and everyone is all giddy to get smoothies at 3 pm on a random Tuesday.  We swim and drink juice and make videos of ourselves dancing on the porch singing songs. It’s the best time of year and I want to cherish it forever.

Odd and Curious Thoughts of the Week

This week, in the mind of Amanda Hill . .

(1) I’m always left scratching my head when advertising slogans are in quotes.  They jump out at me on billboards or on the backs of the trucks.  “Real country cookin,” one reads.  “We’ll be there when you need us,” says another.  Who is saying these things?  Is it similar to air quotes, where you say one thing but mean another? If that’s the case, don’t plan your day waiting on those losers.  They’ll come to fix your leaking toilet between 8 am and whenever they can pry themselves away from Denny’s all-you-can-eat pancakes.  That are “made fresh.”  Eeeugh.

(2) I am struck by the lack of random acts of kindness I perform on a daily basis.  I should pay for people’s groceries behind me in the check-out line.  I could stand to wait more, compliment more freely, and act more selflessly.  I think I’ll start by not screaming at my two-year-old for dumping an entire container of blueberries on the kitchen floor. I’ll just pick them up, some half-smashed into the bottom of my shoe and others staining our travertine tile, and simply say “there you go, buddy.  This act is for you. Don’t gripe the next time the door slams into your face, K?  How many of these do you think I can do in a day?”

(3) Why LOL?  Why not SFF (so freaking funny) or TAGO (that’s a good one) or just DTWA (dang that was awesome)?  These are at least more accurate.  Rarely does a friend’s facebook update on health care reform cause you to cackle uncontrollably until your eyes begin to water.  Unless you are friends with David Sedaris, in which case you have my full permission to use LOL.  Or SFIWMPA (so funny I wet my pants again).  But then you’d forget all those letters.

(4) I roasted some butternut squash in little cubes and then put them in ziplock bags for my kids to munch on during a two-hour car trip.  I really don’t know what happened to me.  For a moment, my mind went blank and I forgot what it was like being a mother at all.  My kids just looked at the bags like I was handing them chunks of poison-laden concrete.  “Uh, do we not have Cheese Nips?” my daughter asked.  Of course we do.  I’m not sure where that even came from.  I looked down at that alien squash and shook my head in disgust.  You are dead to me.  Pass the oreos.

(5)  My daughter likes Martinelli Apple Juice in a glass bottle.  When we drive through the coffee place by our house, she insists on me asking for award-winning apple juice, like they might make an error and hand her the off-brand swill.

(6) Speaking of my daughter, we were on our way to the pool when she was having a conversation with herself.  “Who ya talking to?” I asked.  “My feet families,” she said.  She wiggled her toes as if all the people were waiving at me.  Each toe had a name, and each foot was a family that occasionally got together with the other foot for trips and such.  I hope they like each other since they live so close. I wonder if other children act this way.

(7) I was in a rush the other day, and plucked my shoe-less two-year-old out of the car and plunked him into the grocery cart because I was too lazy to find a matching croc. But one item led to several, as grocery store trips go, and suddenly I had an urge to pee.  I’m trying to hold a wrangling and twisting two-year-old in my lap while using the restroom, but it was impossible.  I tell him to stand over to the side where people’s shoes probably didn’t touch as often, not moving from that one place, because at least that minimized the germs his feet would be exposed to.   This is the actual logic that went through my head.  I have no idea how I made it through law school.

(8) I sucked on my son’s pacifier to clean it the other day because I thought “I’d wash off the bad germs from the floorboard by putting it in my dirty mouth that hasn’t been cleaned properly since the Listerine wash at 9 pm the night before.”   That’s me reasoning to myself, in case the quotes threw you.  And we all know from (7) above how excellent I am with reasoning.  TAGO.

(9) I did one of those online tests to see how many books I’ve read of the 100 best books of the world, and I was hovering somewhere around the pitifully-low national average.  I have a feeling I’m going on an Amazon bender. Mark Twain and Nabokov. Steinbeck and Woolf.  I’m cracking open book covers not because I really want to, but because I’ll beat that other stay-at-home mom who has read more classics than I have.  I’ll show the world how smart I am.  I’ll make squash nuggets for long summer car trips and carry shoe-less toddlers into germ-infested bathrooms.

Oh, wait. . .