Chasing Lasers
Cats are not the only mammals who will fall prey to chasing a laser beam. Small, naive children can also be subject to this form of entertainment. Often times, I see so much of my own naivety in Cardin’s antics and it makes me wonder what type of crap my parents pulled on me.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gevBfxjLBIk&feature=channel
For those of you concerned: no animals or small children were harmed in the making of this video.
Tower Power
Last week we celebrated Brett’s 31st birthday. whoooaaaa Boy, remember when I chronicled his decent to 30. Hard to believe that was a year ago. The most glorious part is…..I’m still months away from hitting 30 myself. I will always relish being younger!!!!!!
There were no soiree’s out of the country this year, in fact we spent his birthday at my doctor’s office getting me a prescription for strep throat. SUPER FUN! Nevertheless, I got him a fancy new Keurig and we were able to go out for a date over the weekend….once I was less of a snotty, coughing hot mess.
Prior to his birthday, I had acquired some new baking pans of different sizes. When Brett saw the pans, he informed me that he wanted a tiered birthday cake. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! Listen Lady, don’t taunt me with these requests because I will remember; even when they were made months in advance.
Not only did I dominate this tiered birthday cake request, I mixed the whole cake while in my stupor of sickness. Though my legal representatives have advised me to neither confirm or deny whether I sneezed directly into the cake mix. 
Baking the cake was quite the process as each of the pans baked at different speeds/durations. There was a lot of maneuvering during the baking process to make sure that the batter was cooked through on all the pans.
Cardin assisted me in frosting the cake. Meaning she wielded a knife and I dodged a few sharp jabs. The tiered effect came out perfect, minus the fact that I had no way to actually cover the cake because it was so tall. Two years in a row and I’ve up’d the ante on his cake. How will he ever compete?
I was able to save enough batter to make Cardin her own miniature cake. When she sat down to eat it, she proceeded to pick all of the frosting off and leave the entire piece of cake fully intact. Literally, the cake was still a perfect circle and appeared as though it had just come out of the oven. It was a proud moment… she already knows that chocolate solves all problems.
Happy 31st Birthday Brett.
Pile o’Pink
I was washing Cardin’s clothes over the weekend and as I was sorting through the hamper, I managed to create an entire pile of pink clothes. With the pile of clothes I sorted you would think Pink is her favorite color, but she’s adamantly stuck on blue. It’s disturbing to me the amount of pepto bismol colored clothing she’ll wear in just one week; enough that I’m required to do a separate load of just pink articles.
Most of it can be attributed to her adoration of all things princesses, scattered with a few Hello Kitty items. Or we can simply call it, gender stereotyping at it’s best. As her personality has grown, I’ve kept my attempts at stamping out the girly stuff to a minimum.
However, a few weeks back we ran into a distant cousin who had not seen Cardin in over a year. They inquired as to whether she’d be starting pre-school soon and whether or not we were going to sign her up for little tot dance classes in our area. I’ve bent to a lot of “girl” things. Her room is purple, she wears pink, and I let her paint her nails. The list goes on. I will not bend to dance classes though.
Go ahead Lady, call me a terrible mother. Tell me I’m suppressing her creativity and expression. I’m not letting her reach her full potential. I’ve heard it all, but I’m not changing my mind.
I’m sure there are many advantages of a dance class, but I’m also sure there are many disadvantages. Forget the time and monetary commitment that goes along with these classes, but the self-esteem and body image obsession and idolization purported with this craft is out of control. Her everyday encounters with TV, movies, and magazines are enough exposure to such stringent standards of our society.
Listen Lady, I get it, she’s only 3 and she’d be cute just standing on stage flopping around. Right now, she has no clue of the criticism, stereotypes, and ignorance that she will face as she grows. But what happens when she’s 10, 13, or 18? The same rules don’t apply.
Why would I purposefully matriculate her into a dance culture that takes society’s rules on beauty and perfection and multiplies them exponentially? Especially when we want to teach her to look beyond the differences in race, body size, religion, sexuality. I can’t protect her from all the ignorance and stereotyping that exists in our society. At some point she’ll need to conquer these herself. But, could I really consider myself a good parent if wasn’t trying to teach her differently?
Surgeon General
The other night for dinner, I made pork chops. Regular, center cut pork chops with no bone. You see, I’m not allowed to buy any meat that has a bone. Let’s re-phrase that….it’s not that I’m not allowed, but rather than listen to the inevitable man hissy fit, I go ahead and buy all boneless meat. Listen Lady, don’t be fooled into thinking I do this because I love Brett…I’m really just thinking of myself and the amount of grief it will save me. That’s right, I said it. BOOYA.
I figured out Brett’s aversion to bones a few years back, after I had cooked some chicken breasts. One of the pieces he ate had a small bone that had not been removed by the butcher. While chewing, he discovered the bone. In a fit of disgust, he spit out the mouthful of food while simultaneously spewing out “OHHHHHH. BONE!!!!!”
It was though he had put a live rat in his mouth, but did not realize such until the thing started moving around on him. Dumbfounded, I stared at him and shook my head. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy and I have my own food quirks, but this is a prime example of how we keep the “assy” in “classy”. Thus began my boneless meat quest.
Typically, after plopping a piece of meat on Brett’s plate, he’ll inspect the entire piece, like the surgeon general dissecting it to his liking, before he begins any sort of food consumption. Over the years, the aversion seems to have grown from just bones to all types of meat inaccuracies. We now include small pieces of fat that are on the edge of meat, veins that occasionally run through a chicken breast, or my all time favorite “it just looks weird” meat.
Really Lady? I don’t have energy for this.
To his credit, Brett will eat pretty much anything I cook, especially if I try out a new recipe or have a minor catastrophe in the kitchen. I just hope that neither Cardin or Rory acquire this detailed aversion to meat.
Simma Down Now!
In recent weeks, we have noticed that Cardin’s temper and independent spirit are taking flight. For instance, last week she threw the remote control at me when I didn’t immediately respond to her request to watch a movie. And today, while at my parents house, she chucked a banana across the room in anger. “IT WAS A DRIVE BY FRUITING!!!”
Listen Lady, she is obviously testing boundaries, patience, and the cause and effect relationship between gravity and soft fruit. Typically we put her in timeout after these occurrences and after a minute or two discuss why we don’t throw objects in the house. It seems that my rational approach to her temper is not yet working effectively.
I’m not overly surprised by her recent reactions. She’s at the perfect age to test us and try and declare some independence. Coincedently, this all began to occur right around the time that I began to focus more energy on preparing for Rory’s arrival and we began to transition her to rely more on Brett for her needs. Unfortunately, it seems as those this is only the precursor to the monsoon of emotions that will be displayed once Rory is actually born.