Wednesday, April 18, 2012

I guess I should do my hair.

T is going to be on a reality show!

Before you get excited you should know that it is extremely local and that is all I know about the show.

She met with the producers today for lunch and as soon as she got home I asked a thousand questions and tried to find out which day I would need to do dishes in my favorite high heels.

She doesn't know yet.

But I can't believe how close I am to being a celebrity.

On a more personal note, for those of you who are concerned (and thank you for your concern) my back seems to be getting better when I am kind to it, but I am not that kind to it. Usually by evening it is all stiff again but it really is improving each day.

On a more interesting note, I'm working today because I am taking off Friday and Saturday to go into the city for Cover the Night for Invisible Children. If you haven't heard about the Joseph Kony Campaign you must have been living under a rock. I am oh-so-excited about running around the city with a friend all night and meeting other volunteers and all that jazz.

So to gear up for a lazy tomorrow and Friday and off time, I spent today doing everything that hasn't gotten done in over two weeks because the kids have been home and that other child was being born.

I mopped everything I could before my back was like, knock it off or you won't walk anymore. And then T had her lunch thing so I sat with Baby D and told him how cute he was for an hour. And he really is. I love him.

R came home and bothered me while I was trying to smother the baby in my love and then J came home and the two of them left me alone for a while. Since T was home to watch the baby I went off to the kitchen and towel-whipped a fly before it even sensed my presence. It was amazing.

When the high from that wore off, I woke up Monkey, who has been sleeping forEVER in the afternoons if you let him. So I open his door and turn off his music and he sits up and looks all annoyed for twenty minutes before letting anyone take him out of bed. Eventually, he came downstairs and the three of them spent an hour fighting in the playroom while T and I talked about why my spaghetti sauce is awesome.

And I'll tell you why.

Because it is my mom's spaghetti sauce and that is how spaghetti sauce is supposed to taste. And I'm tired of people thinking otherwise.

Crushed tomatoes and salt does not spaghetti sauce make. You know who you are.

Dinner was pretty good. My latest technique is telling the kids they're not getting dessert in five minute intervals to keep them on the edge and eating well. When we got halfway through, or in other words, when I finished eating and they had each taken like six bites, I told them stories to keep them engaged long enough to finish eating. Most nights it works, but tonight they were exceptionally silly and I had to threaten to give all their candy to Monkey to keep them going.

Unfortunately, he speaks a lot of English now and he got all excited and started chanting, "Canny! Canny!" So then I had to give him chocolate chips.

He finished first and I released him into the wild.

At that point, R got really bad (she has been REALLY bad lately) and grabbed at my chest and told me I am going to have a baby soon. It was quite a fortune-telling experience.

I was desperate for material so I told them all about Monkey's new class at the library yesterday and the raccoons I have encountered while I was out the past two nights.

The first one was out on the street not far from home. I was walking, on the phone with my mother, when I heard it squealing and thought it was birds fighting. Then I realized that it was 8:30 at night and there was a really good chance it was not birds. I had to look, but when I spotted it, the thing was squawking and squealing in the middle of the road, turning around and rolling and spazzing and otherwise not looking well.

And looking at me.

With hatred.

So I backed away without making eye contact and went home a different way.

When I told E about it and how I was pretty sure it was rabid, he said he had seen one that morning, chewing on the yellow flags the gardener put on our lawn to mark where the poisonous pesticides are.

Ohhhhhhhh.

So if the raccoon didn't have rabies it now has mental retardation.

Actually, now it's probably roadkill.

Suburbia strikes again.

Last night I went out and I was far enough from here that it was probably a different raccoon I encountered, but I wasn't taking any chances because they're all jerks and not one of them is cute and cuddly like Meeko from Pocahontas. Disney is always lying to me.

And with that, I am off to watch a Disney movie for some more valuable life knowledge.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

A poorly constructed poem by a tired nanny.

My back feels mostly better.

But my skin is dry.

My Carpal Tunnel is acting up and I don't know why.


Today was good.

The kids were wild.

I took a nap and didn't get fired.


I'm out of rhymes here. I hope you enjoyed that. It's been running through my head for a while and since I don't usually think in rhyme I thought I would share it with the world.

Or at least the 15 members of the world who follow my blog. So thank you.

Today was generally pleasant and uneventful and that part about the Carpal Tunnel is true, so I'm done typing now.

I have to go pretend I'm doing my taxes until 11:45 when I actually do them.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

I had something funny to tell you.

But then the Wifi went down for two days and I really had to wrack my brain to remember what it was.

First (this is not it) I forgot to get paid last week. It dawned on me when I got paid this week that it had been a while. Having a baby really does change everything. I forgot about money!

Kidding.

I've done that before. Here.

So.

Thursday I put the baby's outfit from the bris in a bin to soak because he had thrown up on it. I put it in the left side of the laundry room sink, the one nearest my room. I forgot it was there.

The morning part of the day went away somewhere never to return and I don't even know what we were doing.

E's mom took J for a while and I put Monkey to bed and had some quality nanny and R time.

We went down to the craft table to do something. We weren't sure what because Nanny Kimmy has been having a hard time using her brain lately.

I got out my trusty old box of scrap booking stuff and FINALLY started putting together an album from my second African adventure. The first album was done within a week of returning home. This one has taken me a year and a half to start.

Also, it's been a year and a half since I was in Africa and that knowledge is suffocating me slowly.

I got one page in when I remembered something or other that I needed from a different craft box and I went across the basement to my room to get it.

The left laundry sink was full of water and a feeling of relief swept over me when I saw that the bin the baby's outfit had been soaking in had floated to the top. That meant it was empty.

Right?

And that meant that the sink was just full and that nothing had over--

I have this problem where I flood things.

At the worst times, in the worst ways, I flood things.

I worked in a photo studio for three years and every night when we closed we had to rinse these stupid trays from inside the printer and more nights than not I would just skip it but once in a while they would be genuinely dirty and I would run them back to the chemical sink, turn the water on, do something else and then run back to put it all away.

Well.

One night I did the first three steps and then sat down to count the register.

The phone rang, I don't even know how long later. It was mall security letting me know that my store was leaking.

Into the service hallway. Into the Pacsun below us. That's right. I flooded Pacsun.

I used spare backdrops and a wet vac to clean up. Then I went bowling with everyone from work and casually mentioned how the lab might be a bit damp in the morning.

There have been other incidents.

At home. At other jobs.

Now here.

The sink had already overflowed, and that's why it looked so deceivingly calm. The first cycle's water was on the floor behind the washer and dryer and running all the way behind my garment rack to my rug. The second cycle's water was sitting in the sink.

Blast.

But I really said something much worse. In Farsi. R taught me.

I pulled the baby's outfit out of the drain and remembered how I hadn't actually taken it out and that was why it had still been in the bin which had then overturned and allowed it to clog the sink. It all came back to me then.

I went upstairs and got all the cleaning towels in the house. All of them.

I spent a good fifteen minutes carefully padding the carpet line until no more water could get under it. I moved my shiny new dehumidifier closer to the giant puddle and left so that I wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

Friday slipped past much the same way as Thursday, only someone took both big kids out. They ate lunch with me and then we went outside to play until E's sister came for them.

I was lying in the grass as I often do with J. We snuggle and watch clouds and he tells me ridiculous things and I tickle him.

It was all innocent and adorable and then R landed square on the small of my back with her full weight and a lot of momentum and I felt something horrible in my insides.

My gut reaction was to kill her but something stopped me, probably the crippling pain in my back and it took me a good five minutes to get up. I did yell at her, because she had been told before to stop jumping on people and yet still she paralyzes her babysitter.

I immediately took pain killers.

I haven't had a lot of painful problems outside of my wisdom teeth situation but I don't handle pain well. I can work through it but I dwell on it a lot and I immediately become a pain pill junkie.

I sought out Motrin only because I know T doesn't have any morphine.

I told her I think R did serious damage and she groaned along with me because if my problem is real she has a real problem as well.

Her mom brought us dinner and we had a nice quiet Shabbat with no visitors. It was wonderful. J refused to eat dinner so we just put him to bed and we talked and we laughed all the way through the meal. Then we cleaned up and sent the other two to bed before frantically searching our mostly Passover-compatible kitchen in hopes of finding something delicious.

We didn't so I was forced to make us a cheesecake.

We all stayed up late just so we could refrigerate it for one of the required four hours before we devoured it and passed out. I washed mine down with wine and pain killers and slept pretty well.

This morning I woke up stiff and whimpering like a little girl.

I could hear the kids sneaking into my room to see if I was up yet, which they are not allowed to do before 8:30 when there's no school. And not at all right now because half of my room is still under water.

Ok, that's an exaggeration.

It's damp and stinky and I don't want them anywhere near it.

I hid completely under my covers because in that moment I was re-blaming R for putting me in a wheel chair at such a young age and I really needed to medicate myself before facing the day.

Even through the meds, my back hurts. It just plain hurts and quite frankly, it is worrying me.

E took the big ones to temple and I got some light work done around here. The hardest thing I did all day was mop one floor where something red and sticky had splattered (I'm guessing cranberry juice) all over the wood and after that I was winded and I couldn't bend for a while.

This afternoon we played a little relay game watching the kids play outside. One person would stand there until they started sneezing and sniffling and then we'd trade off.

I went down to check on my swamp during one of my breaks and found the rug almost completely dry. Things aren't so stinky anymore and I was very pleased with the progress until a GIANT spider crawled out from the corner of the rug I had just been touching and I said another Farsi word by accident.

These horrible spiders have been pushing their luck lately. I don't know what happened to mutate them into the monster they have become, but it's gross and I will end it with chemical warfare next week.

As for today, E has been mocking me when I complain about the size and grotesqueness of these spiders. "How big can they be?" He shrugs and laughs all smugly. "What does a spider do anyway? It's not like they bite."

Oh really?!

REALLY?

So last week I explained spider bites to him.

And today I got the clear, hand-held vac and sucked up the little monster and took it outside where he was on allergy patrol and showed him how huge and disgusting the spiders really are.

He apologized, beat it to death with a stick and said he would get traps.

"That is one big spider."

Darn right.

T sympathized with me and then I went back downstairs to spray my bug-killing Windex and put my stuff away.

T's mom brought us dinner again. She made this wonderful Persian yogurt dish which I ate until my stomach literally ached. Someone had eaten all the cheesecake earlier, thank goodness, so I started in on my Easter candy, which only made it this far because they asked me to not eat anything not Passover-kosher on the main floor and I don't eat in the basement because the mutated spiders can smell if you've just eaten like those leeches in the Series of Unfortunate Events.

So, almost everything made it through the week.

But not the bunny. He's gone. Don't even ask me about him.

Tonight I am not medicating or drinking because I need to see how bad this pain is in its natural state and decide what to do about it. I think it's bad because when I was bathing the kids tonight I almost threw up every time I had to bend over the tub. But I don't want to jump to any conclusions yet; there's still a chance it's nothing and that I am just a huge baby.

We'll see.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

In regard to today, let's just give up.

These kids are going to be the death of all of us.

They wouldn't fall asleep last night even though we had them all in bed on time.

Today was a completely exhausting day and all the adults have been on the verge of tears since we got home from the bris.

It went well and I had a blast being behind the camera again. I ran around taking photos of before and during and after and people, agreeable people who loved having their picture taken. It just reminded me so much how difficult my family is about having their pictures taken. You guys are so lame.

It was better than a wedding because the service was only ten minutes long and there was a lot of whooping and praying and then snip, snip it was all over and I went to lunch.

I took back my three charges to feed them because they wouldn't eat for the various people caring for them while I worked. I sat for all of five minutes with Nanny K, who aside from being grossly under dressed for the function, looked completely frazzled and unhappy to be there. I'm worried about her and on the way home I learned that so is T.

After the munchkins ate, I took up my camera again and took some more group shots while eating every piece of chocolate I walked past. Some of this Passover food is scrumptious.

The kids ate their weight in crap and sugar and then I loaded them up into the car and made them wait there for fifteen minutes until E and T made it out of the house.

Oh, it was at E's sister's insanely gigantic house.

We got home and we all dropped.

I didn't move for three hours. I couldn't.

The kids were crawling all over me and the house and the TV was on too loud and T was coming and going from the room in her own state of restless exhaustion and E just left because he would rather run errands than help ignore the kids.

At some point we half-attempted to defrost chicken for dinner and then at some other point I cooked the chicken while T nursed the baby. The kids were awful at dinner and I checked out after a while, telling them point blank that their screaming, not eating and other wise unruly behavior just lost them several privileges for tonight and tomorrow.

They cried for all of thirty second before being brats again.

Lack of sleep destroys kids. And it makes me want to destroy them further.

Tonight, in our attempts to correct the problem, we put them all down early. Only Monkey went to sleep. The other two pushed their luck until Daddy made them cry and then they finally shut up and went to sleep about fifteen minutes ago.

Ugh.

I haven't even unpacked from the weekend but it doesn't look like I have time to now. I am about to crawl down the stairs and snuggle up inside fifteen blankets.

And I'm not setting my alarm tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Poorly planned rude, snobby Easter.

I don't know when we last spoke, but I know it's been a while.

Sorry.

On Friday, I worked for Shabbat, and the first night of Passover and was introduced to a Seder plate. I only watched the first five seconds of the ceremony before Monkey wanted to go, go, go so we went, went, went to play and let the adults do their thing.

We went to Mom E's house and left T and the new baby at home.

I had a nice chat with Helen, a woman from Romania who works for Mom E, keeping house and cleaning up after her parties. She's super nice and on nights when we've been trapped there before, she has been the only thing to keep me from screaming or falling asleep. When she's not there I just sleep.

Saturday morning E took the two big kids to temple and I took care of Monkey until it was time for me to head out. I put him down for a nap and got all ready to go. T asked if I would watch the new baby while she showered before I left.

I jumped all over that one.

I fed him a bottle and told him how stinking cute he is. He has big, round eyes like Monkey and also R and Monkey's giant fat lips, but his nose is tiny like J's and I think he has my hair. His eyes are always open while he's eating, something I have never seen before.

The babies in my family seriously link food and sleep, like good fat, lazy babies, and they nod off while they eat. I have a brother who still does that. He's half asleep before dinner is over. It's a miracle he hasn't drowned in a bowl of soup yet.

But New Baby, as he is so amply named, perks right up when he's eating and looks around and takes it all in. He's so cute. If I didn't live here already I might steal him. Tonight, while caught in the trance his cuteness brings, I accidentally offered a service I have only ever offered to one of my sisters before.

When my sister had her baby I was home visiting for a few days or something and I offered to stay with her one night and watch the baby overnight, including feeding. I know how refreshing one solid night of sleep can be after several horrid nights. Being a sleep-disorder sufferer makes me really, really sad for new moms who can't sleep. Lack of sleep is, in my opinion, one of the worst feelings a working person can feel on a day-to-day basis.

So, I told T if she wants to pick a night when she feels at her wits' end and turn him over to me, I would do it. Once.

She's excited; I can tell.

I fed him and gave him back to her and left here a whole fifteen minutes early, excited to get away for Easter weekend.

I headed into the city to catch a bus to Boston to spend the holiday with my alter-ego personified. I mean, friend.

I made it all the way to Penn Station before anything blog-worthy happened.

For some reason, my bus boarded late, and while we were all waiting, somehow, two lines formed. I was in a line that started at the gate and ran straight back. When I arrived it was the only line there. Sometime between when I got there thirty minutes before departure time, and when we actually boarded, ten minutes after departure time, another line formed intersecting the first one.

When we were given the ok to board and the line started to inch forward, the two lines merged flawlessly, each person letting someone in from the second line.

When my turn came, I let in two people who were together and stepped forward, claiming my rightful place behind them. A girl from behind them in their line stepped up beside me.

Now, I'm not shy.

I looked at her politely and wedged myself between her and the pair I had let merge.

When the line moved again, she tried to come forward again.

I looked at her less politely.

Things progressed this way for a few more steps.

Near the gate, with her still elbowing her way into my personal space, I turned to face her.

Now, in retrospect, I could have easily let her ahead of me and been nice about it, but that's not what I did. I go on the offense when I enter the bus terminal, train platform or taxi plaza. The people here are INSANE and if you don't fight for your place you get trampled to death. It happens every day in the subway. Look it up.

So, face to face with my nemesis for the moment, I simply smiled a tight, forced, irritated smile.

"Were you in that line or this line?" She asked, indicating each as she did it.

"This one." I pointed. "For a while."

She started to shake her head with a smug look on her face that made me want to hit it repeatedly, but I think that's still illegal, so instead I prayed SO HARD for a calm, clear, curse-word free head, and spoke again.

"I think this was the original line, but everyone's merging anyway. It was my turn. That lady was ahead of me, these two men came in, now it's me."

She kept shaking her head and my blood went from room-temperature to raging-fire. Near the point of explosion, I stepped in front of her again and took my place on the bus without looking at her anymore.

I've seen that smug mug most often on my brother, and I'm allowed to pummel them. It was so hard and disheartening to not have that reaction to this girl that I almost had a nose bleed.

Once we were boarded our driver explained the delays. There was an accident in the Lincoln tunnel, you know, the tunnel that buses are supposed to use to leave the city since they aren't allowed on the bridge? Yeah, that tunnel.

We had to kill forty minutes while the driver figured out what to do next.

In Hartford, Connecticut I transferred to another bus where the token Annoying Girl used her loudest voice possible to talk to everyone around her about NOTHING.

My iPod almost didn't get loud enough to drown her out but then I put Linkin Park on and they seemed able to scream louder than her.

Boston.

Well, near it.

Ashley, Ashley's dad, dessert, dinner, dessert, dessert, dessert, drinks, movie...

Church on Easter Sunday.

What an excellent sermon. People always brag about their amazing pastors and quite frankly I don't believe them. After being under some of the greatest pastors and preachers in the world all my life, I tend to be very skeptical about the competency of your pastor.

Ashley's bragged about hers before and I was like, yeah, right, I'm so sure.

He was awesome.

I like a good, smart sermon that leaves me feeling pretty bad about my behavior and he did that in such a positive way.

We ventured on to Ashley's mom's house for dinner and I held Ashley's newborn baby nephew because she is afraid of newborns (wuss) and her mom gave me a chocolate peanut butter bunny which I am polishing off this very minute.

Her mom also hid Easter eggs in the yard for the adults, filled with money, so I made a few bucks which was totally awesome. Especially later when I needed to tip my cabby for driving like a madman.

We left there and went on together to the airport where Ashley had a flight back to school and I had literally, HOURS, until my bus home.

I waited until the last possible minute to book this trip because first T hadn't had the baby yet and then she had but she wasn't doing that great and then I knew I was going, but let's face it, I'm lazy and so it wasn't until my day off last week that I actually bought my bus tickets.

I used Peter Pan on the way there because they were cheap and the times were pretty good. Several better times had sold out already, but I found one that worked and selected it.

Coming home, I was actually leaving from Boston, while going in my destination was a suburb of it.

The buses that ran from Boston were different and Peter Pan did not run at that terminal. I found another company that has been recommended to me and had buses available for Sunday night. Well, bus. It had a bus available. Everything else was sold out.

Just to be sure, I checked Amtrak and saw that not only were they sold out, but they had sold out at over $130 a seat, so I wasn't missing much there.

I had purchased my Megabus ticket and now, with Ashley headed off to a plane, I settled into an airport chair and nodded off for an hour. Then I moved to another chair and did it again.

I got a bite to eat and a drink, bought a $2 bus ticket to get me from the airport to the bus terminal, and thought for a minute.

I stood in a line for over an hour before realizing I didn't need to. I found a bench, napped, read a magazine, napped again.

This was pretty much my evening.

I was so BORED.

I was being selective with what I used my phone's battery power for since none of the public transportation depots in Boston have power outlets. WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?

I have been in so many airports, bus stations, etc, and there is always something.

Boston is so stingy.

I finally found one marked "staff only" and after watching some guy sit on the floor and use it anyway, I followed suit. Only I don't sit on floors in bus stations, so I sat on my bag and hoped I didn't catch anything from being so close to the floor and the people around me.

I don't understand how teenage and college age boys get so smelly.

They seemed to be swarming all around the entire station with bad hair and horrible clothes. One stinky mess in purple jeans kept walking past me and I nearly passed out each time. Don't they have showers in Boston?

All night long I stalked gate 11, because it had the time stamp and city destination that matched my ticket, even though my ticket said gate 12.

Gate 12 said "Philadelphia" and I can only imagine how bad the people willingly traveling to Philly must have smelled.

Exactly two minutes before my boarding time the gates were corrected and the hundred or so people in line for Philly were suddenly standing under a New York sign.

The only clean person in the terminal, an immensely attractive man who I hoped to propose to later, asked me if I was going to New York. I said yes and that our line should just band together, stay strong, we would make it somehow.

That's not what I said, but you get the idea.

Our driver called us through the gate 12 door and we walked over to the correct bus. It was a double decker and I've never been in one before so I dumped my bag on the guy packing them up and ran upstairs to get a seat.

It was departure time, midnight, and I was EXHAUSTED. Ashley had kept me out to all hours of the night on Saturday and all my naps on random benches were amounting to nothing.

I slept like a rock for the four hour trip.

I woke up in NYC, accidentally involved with the man to my left whose shoulder I had slept on. I don't know why I can't stop doing that! I'm a shoulder tramp. In some countries these are marriages! You sleep on a man's arm for more than an hour, you're an item.

Fortunately, this is America and I wasn't pregnant, so I got off the bus, retrieved my bag and then just stood there.

It was 4:19 AM and we were most definitely not in Port Authority.

I would remember later that Megabus drops off at 28th street and that I knew that. But at 4:19 there is no knowing or remembering.

I needed to get to a higher numbered street and I guess so did everyone else, so I followed the crowd until we reached the Madison Square Garden entrance to the LIRR.

I was so excited to get into that terminal. I ran down the escalator, into the LIRR, bought a ticket and went to check the big board.

I would remember later that the Great Neck branch has no train between the 3 o'clock hour and the 5 o'clock hour.

I died a little inside as I realized I would have to sit and wait like the rest of them. Only, the rest of them were drunk and one of them kept talking to everybody, asking for money, tickets, water, who knows what else. I sat on my bag and cursed everyone I know for being at home, happy and in their beds.

I somehow made it to boarding time.

Got on the train, fell asleep.

Woke up two stops passed mine.

It was now 6 AM and I was so miserable I couldn't believe it.

I got off the train, waited ten minutes, got on another one, got off, frantically beat everyone else to the one and only cab at the plaza, jumped in it and cried out my address like a crazy person.

I made it! I made it home!

I dug out an extra dollar from my Easter egg, thanked the man several thousand times, ran inside, ditched my filthy bags, showered in scalding hot water, washing away the stench and scum of Boston and the line going to Philadelphia, and ran to my bed.

I leaped on it in a state of pure joy, texted my mother to let her know that I was alive and slept for the best hour and a half of sleep I have ever known.

At work time, I dragged myself up the stairs, made a pot of coffee, drank it and muscled through day one of Passover vacation with my munchkins.

I laid in the yard while they played or something.

I gave them lunch and drank another pot of coffee.

T's mom brought dinner, bless her forever, and T, exhausted from my lack of presence over the weekend, helped me put all the kids to bed before 7.

I went to my bed, my precious, beautiful bed, and fought to stay awake until at least ten so that I wouldn't wake up with the sun this morning.

It didn't work.

I woke up with the sun and vowed to never, ever take a red-eye bus home on a work day again. EVER. EEEEVVVVVVEEEEERRRRRR.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Woohoo!!!

The kids stayed at their aunt's house tonight. Only Monkey and E are here.

GUESS WHO'S SLEEPING IN TOMORROW?!?!

T is going to be discharged tomorrow and I think they might even name the baby.

I already posted today, so I won't torture you with a full entry here, but I just wanted to tell you all that, thank you for praying and let you all know that even though I loathe and despise PennDOT, even though I felt like I need three whiskeys after my morning, my afternoon and evening more than made up for it.

I try not to divulge too much of what goes on at the Youth Group meetings because, number one, it's a meeting for those involved and I'm sure you don't want a recap, and number two, because usually I get home late and am tired and can't remember half the night anyway.

So I won't detail the evening, but I just wanted to say that my skipping over those meetings is not in any way to slight them. Since I don't make it to church regularly, they are my time of fellowship and worship and prayer in the body, and I know that can't replace church; I need to go, but until I can these are very precious times and I love them. I love the people, I love our conversations, the lessons, the prayer and the laughing.

I guess the number three reason I skip them here is that they are my moments, not nanny moments, and I want to keep them.

Thanks for those Youth Group!

Now, on with the sleeping!!!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

It's a nameless boy!

Facebook may have already informed you that I am the proud nanny to another little boy. He's stinking cute and he has big fat lips like Monkey and I love him.

T is doing well. Her labor was pretty rough and the baby wasn't born until just before or after midnight, making me not sure which day his birthday is. Monkey turns two on Thursday, so these two boys are going to share a lot of attention in the future. I can't wait to see how much that annoys Monkey.

New Baby is still without name. Some options are on the table, my personal favorite being Kimmy Jr, but so far no one else is a fan. The kids thought Lilo would be good if it had been a girl and then we would call Monkey Stitch, since he is just as destructive as the movie alien and then we'd have Lilo and Stitch.

But it was a boy, so I guess that's out.

Last night I stayed up entirely too late watching Anchorman for the billionth time and folding teeny tiny baby laundry.

I hit the hay around one this morning and put the monitor near my bed just in case.

Normally I hear E or T coming in at night and I turn the monitor off so that I don't have to hear the kids anymore. I was so tired and E didn't come in until four, so I slept right through his entrance and this morning I had the pure joy of listening to J leap out of bed and stomp around.

I wasn't sure if E was home or not, so I couldn't in good conscience turn off the monitor. I groaned a little, ok a lot, and tried to sleep again.

I heard what I thought was a jungle stampede go down the stairs above me and into the kitchen. Turns out it was just J, refilling his water bottle that he keeps in his room. He stomped right into the mud room, which is directly over my bed, and in my state of half-sleep I heard him drop something.

It was annoying but it was soon over and he trotted back upstairs.

Again, I tried to find sleep. I was almost there, I was so happy, when I felt something tugging ever so subtly at my covers. I wondered if Willie had braved crossing the basement to come beg to be let out, but he NEVER does that, either come in the basement or beg to be let out. He'd pee on the floor before waking someone up.

He's very shy.

As soon as my mind acknowledged that it couldn't be him I felt my heart leap in panic.

WHAT THE HECK WAS IT?

I rolled over and sat up so fast I startled myself. I was expecting to catch a mouse or the mother of all mutant spiders on my blanket. Instead I found water.

Water dripping from the ceiling and all over me, my teddy bear and my slippers beside the bed. I know this because when I tried to put them on and slip out of bed they were soaked.

Completely grossed out and also sorely annoyed since it was still just after six, I found my back up slippers and turned on the light.

The water was dripping ever-so-slowly from the rafters and I had no idea why.

And then I remembered the chaos in the mudroom above that couldn't have taken place more than fifteen minutes before.

I put a sweatshirt on and went upstairs in standard, predawn bitterness.

There was a water spill in the mudroom, where the water cooler is kept. J must have dropped an entire bottle of water right on the seam between the floor and the cabinet, the only place in the mudroom that would leak through the floor. Conveniently, it is also located right over the side of my bed that I actually sleep on.

Conveniently.

I put towels on it and went to sleep on the playroom couch until 7:30.

The rest of the morning went like this:

"Awwww he's so cute! Monkey, eat! Do you want to go out? Then eat! J get your shoes on! Come on, R we're going to miss the bus. Monkey eat! Do you want to go out? Then you have to eat? Did you put your shoes on? Oh my gosh look at his fat little lips! They're adorable. T needs her charger in that bag. R, now, now! We are going to miss the bus! No, J you can't come, you didn't put your shoes on! Monkey EAT!"

At some point we made it to R's bus, got J properly shod and out the door and no one is sure if or what the baby ate. But he's with E's mom today, his favorite person in the whole world, so he's happy.

I am attempting to acquire the paper work needed to get to the DMV and get licensed today, which is the only reason E didn't want me to just stay home today. He's tired and overwhelmed so I told him to stop procreating now before he loses his mind completely.

I made several phone calls from the privacy of the coffee shop and was able to find out one thing.

The Whitehall police department is full of rude people.

I regret ever having crossed them, partly because it was wrong to break a traffic law in their jurisdiction, but mostly because now I have to talk to them and they are just so snippy!

New York isn't making any better of an impression. The post office is still being slow and the DMV is very insistent that one proof of ID is not enough. Are that many people trying to get licensed in states they don't reside that this two proofs of residency is such a big deal?

I guess so.

What I've learned in all this is that I should have started the paperwork a year ago, instead of nine months ago, and maybe it would have been done by now.

And that I have no desire to reside in ANY state for very long. At least not until the DMVs are dissolved and replaced with non government, franchised licensing centers run by small town business owners instead of crotchety old Communist women.

I can dream, can't I?

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Recipes from Persian America

This morning was all catch up and T had a birthday party with the kids. I had the baby, and the dog, who isn't smelling too good again.

This afternoon, the baby slept, I sat down for a while and then I prepped dinner to make the night easier on myself.

Tonight, I had to work.

We had one of my favorite kosher recipes. I could kiss T for introducing me to it. It's basically the American Persian mom's fallback meal, like Spaghetti for you white people and McDonalds for those of you who don't cook.

It's so easy and there's probably a million ways to tweak it to change it up a little, much like spaghetti.

The kids have been eating pretty terribly for me lately so I went ahead and added curry to it tonight, not caring if they liked it or not because I was force feeding either way.

They actually seemed to like it.

One pound diced chicken breast, cooked in chopped onion, fresh garlic, and I added a sprinkle of Adobo because that is the proper way to do it.

This is where I added curry paste. I used a mild one but I bet it would be awesome with something stronger. Or red pepper. Mmmmm red pepper.

When the chicken is cooked through, add one can of organic coconut milk and bring it to a boil for about an hour.

Tonight I added broccoli, but we've also used green beans.

I also added a pureed zucchini but don't tell my kids. They eat a lot of vegetables they don't know about.

We have served this with white rice and with pasta, but tonight I forgot to make either so I did something amazing.

I cut a slice of Challah bread and put it in the bowl and then put the soup/stew over it. It was so good I ate two dinners an hour apart.

This was the highlight of my day, and so now I have to go workout until I puke it all back up, but my goodness it was worth it.

T makes it without the Adobo, the garlic or the veggie puree but honestly, I'm the better cook so do it my way. My waistline didn't happen by accident.

Never trust a skinny chef.

Right before dinner, both grandmothers showed up because they have a problem and for some reason I have to deal with it. Thankfully, when I sat the kids down for dinner, T's mom suggested that they go and so E's mom followed suit. They didn't actually leave, they just sat out in their cars and called every few minutes to see if the kids were finished eating yet.

Forty minutes later they were. The grandmothers came back in and gave the kids a million desserts before I shooed the kids upstairs for a bath.

I love starting bedtime routines way early. Everybody was washed, brushed and ready for bed way before bedtime. I cleaned up the kitchen, seriously thought about eating more dinner, put it in the fridge for tomorrow instead, and put them all to bed super early.

It wasn't even dark yet.

Hahahahahahaha.

Delicious.

Seriously, try that recipe. It's so easy.