The Cat’s Meow
I’ve been working from home this week as our office is going through a remodel so the entertainment has been quite different. Typically I don’t have to test software while watching a two year old cut paper and ensure that we all come out with no bleeding extremeties.
While I certaintly enjoy the short commute each day and the comfortable attire (I may or may not be wearing Monday’s underwear still) I don’t know if I could commit to working at home full time. I like the office interaction and the commitment it provides to staying motivated. There are sooooo many horizontal surfaces that I must avoid Lady.
In any regard, spending so much time at home has caused us to go a little stir crazy and Cardin found a use for some of her recent aquired balloons. I thought I’d snap a photo and share. 
Lake days
These pictures are a little dated now but I thought I’d share some of our summer fun. We spent a day on Conesus lake awhile back and Cardin loved the water and the boat. She was all “BOAT MOMMY”. There was no fear in her eyes and her sea legs were better than mine. She leaned over the side and told me not to hold her life jacket as we hit one bump after another. 
Listen Lady, when we’re legally able to share a drink together you can be the decider of whether or not someone holds your life jacket….until then, I get to decide. And I will not be switching to hold your hair at that point. That’s what friends are for. I, of course, would know nothing of this. I read the bible during college; every night.
Later that night we stayed for fireworks….that was a mistake. We’d been prepping the shit out of her for days.
Mommy: we’re going to see fireworks soon!
Cardin: I no like ‘irewor’
Mommy: it’s ok. They aren’t scary. They are just a little loud. And if you don’t like it, just cover your ears, like this.
Wherein I demonstrated how to plug your ears. This was a mistake. You see lady, Cardin is not dumb, in fact she’s really smart and she took the whole “and if you don’t like it, just cover your ears” and ran with it. I mean she didn’t just trot with this, she sprinted to the southern tip of Florida and back. Now she covers her ears for anything she doesn’t like; including things coming out of my mouth. Like direction or behavior modification (let’s not kid ourselves…that’s really punishment).
I really shot myself in the foot with the whole try and explain shit to your kids at a level they might understand thing.
Brett’s gonna kill me…
Cardin’s imagination is growing by the day. Lately she has taken to crawling around on her hands and knees and pretending she is a cat; she will then meow incessantly which is not at all annoying. The other day she put on a duck mask and was walking around the house quaking. She’d stop on occasion and look at one of us and say “I’m a duck”, in case we were bewildered with the noise.
While I was cleaning up the dishes the other night, Brett was playing with Cardin and she decided to put the duck mask on him. I snapped the quickest of pictures and I’m putting it up here for proper documentation. HE’LL HATE ME FOREVER FOR DOING THIS. Listen Lady, I don’t really care, it’s too good to not divulge to my loyal following and I think it’s cute that he puts aside his dignity to wear a duck mask every once and awhile.
Because we always have to make a scene
I took Cardin to the mall on Monday night as I was in search of a fancy shirt for a bachelorette party and by golly did we ever cause a spectacle. Internet, we’ve talked before about how shopping isn’t my forte, but I had a coupon and while my t-shirt that reads “spooning may lead to forking” is awesome, it didn’t seem to fit the etiquette for the party.
While I was looking through the racks, Cardin was tagging along behind me, chattering away to herself; finding it necessary to touch every article of clothing. I was watching her out of the corner of my eyes. I’m a mom so I’ve learned to be able to multi-task like this. Granted….only partially watching your child is probably not the best mothering trait, but I need to at least let the apron strings fray.
Cardin decided that she wanted to get inside the clothes rack and start a dance
party. It was one of these 4 way displays, that allow a store to make optimal use of a small area. So, there she is, dancing in the middle of the rack and I call her name to tell her I’m moving on to the next section and she attempts to leave the small square where she is dancing. Except her foot gets stuck and she trips. In attempt to catch herself she puts her hands out and they land directly on the metal support posts and she is now pushing the whole rack over as she continues to fall.
WHAT’S THAT IN THE SKY. A BIRD? A PLANE? NO! IT’S LISTEN LADY TO THE RESCUE!! In one bound, I leapt over a pit of alligators, scaled a 300 foot slippery wall, put out a forest fire, and managed to catch this twisted hunk of metal before Cardin was crushed by a rack of clothing.
I used my She-Ra strength to straighten the rack of death and pull Cardin from it’s grip. By this point she was screaming and crying about boo boos, everyone shopping in a 10 mile radius was aware of the events, and the workers in the store were acting as first responders to the situation. GET A GURNEY STAT!! I would have preferred to just crawl under the rug and not be noticed. Because we can’t ever go to the store and just have a normal shopping trip, we must always cause a spectacle.
Cardin walked away with no bruises and one minor scrap. Mommy wasn’t so lucky. I managed to tweak my back in my attempt to save Cardin from being crushed by metal, fabric, and hangers. Note to self…do not body build with clothes racks. Also, I did find a shirt.
Talking Heads
Things have been a little chaotic lately, what with every appliance in my house rallying with a Vietnam sized riot and my grandfather being in and out of the hospital, so we put off going out for my mom’s birthday diner. We had celebrated with the whole family in early July, grouping a whole bunch of events together; we still typically go out to dinner to celebrate too.
Things finally calmed down enough last week that we were able to try out a new burger/wing joint that opened down the road from our house. We hit up Quaker Steak & Lube and it was pretty decent, nice enough that we’ll go back and give it business again. So here is the thing Internet, they are most well known for their wings, which is wonderful and dandy, but here is my small take on it.
This is western, NY….as in….Buffalo, NY. Where the chicken wing was born. We know how to do buffalo wings. You go down south or to the west coast and you won’t find true buffalo wings; you’ll find their take on buffalo wings. Opening another restaurant dedicated solely to chicken wings in this area really isn’t worthwhile since you can go to any pizza joint on the nearest corner and they can make you a dozen wings. So….were the wings good? Yes. But not any better than the normal pizza joint we typically order from.
Anyways, I digress. While we were out to dinner for her birthday, my mom got some lettuce with her meal that was supposed to be a garnish. Listen Lady, anytime my mom gets lettuce my mind rewinds about a decade to a dinner we shared in Pennsylvania. Prior to attending Fisher, I was a student at Penn State and during one of our college visits, we frequented a diner where my mom ordered a club sandwich.
The waitress brought over our food and we began to partake in the meal. My mom had just taken a bite of her club sandwich and pulled the bread away from her face when the waitress came over to ask how the meal was. My mom, always kind and courteous, responded that her meal was very good.
Except for one minor detail….when she had pulled the sandwich away an entire head of lettuce detached and stuck to her mouth. It hung from her lip like a monkey swaying in the trees Lady! The best part was that she had responded to the waitress with this giant piece of lettuce flapping from her gums. LIMP, LOOSE, AND ALWAYS TO THE LEFT. I can only imagine what this poor woman thought. I hope my dad gave her a good tip.
From that day forward my mom has been unable to live down this lettuce incident. There is also a small possibility that the piece of lettuce gets bigger each time the story is told. This is a dramatic recreation of the events. No animals were hurt in the making. 