Regular ol’ Tuesday

QUICKIE: Vincenzo: “Mom, is there something behind me?”  Me: “Nope.”  Vincenzo: “JUST WORRY ABOUT YOURSELF!  DON’T SPEND ALL YOUR TIME WORRYING ABOUT WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING!”
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A conversation between my son and husband:

V: Dad, we should go bowling.  We haven’t been in a looooong time.
K: Yeah, like you mean 12 hours?
V: No, like–Daddy, what’s the biggest number?
K: Infinity.
V: That’s not a number!
K: Well, technically it’s an irrational number…
V: Let’s make 10 the biggest number.  Dad, we should go bowling.  We haven’t been bowling in, like, TEN!

In other news, I’ve been growing some things from seed/bulb inside.  Today my mom stopped by, and her being a certified Master Gardener and all, I asked her to take a look at my begonias which hadn’t sprouted a thing.  She poked around for a bit then pulled up a bulb to show me its perfectly formed, if not anemic, stems and leaves.  Growing upside-down in the dirt.  Because that’s how I planted it.

Guess how she responded:
a) “Not to worry–we’ve all done that at least once in our lives!”
b) “Anyone could make that mistake, honey.”
c) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!  Hold on; wait a minute–AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

That’s right, folks, she laughed me out of my own house.  I’m sure she’s called all her master gardening friends by now, and probably Cisco too.  But guess what?  I happen to know that A CERTAIN SOMEONE planted begonias right side up at her house last month and they haven’t grown even one spindly branch.  So who’s laughing now, Mom?  WHO?!

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Teriyaki pork tenderloin
Vesuvio vegetables
Lemon cookies a la mode

Y oh Y am I still trying?

QUICKIE: Vincenzo, watching my bath water drain out: “MOMMY!  PART OF YOUR BOOBY IS WASHING DOWN THE DRAIN!”
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I had fun learning all about the letter Y this week.  Really–I would eat entirely yellow meals, watch yak videos on YouTube, and shout “yahoo” at everyone I saw even if I didn’t have a completely disinterested child to do it all for.

I catered the art project to Vincenzo this week, who loves taking pictures of things.  So I gave him the camera and told him to go around the house taking pictures of yellow things.  “No thanks!” he said.  It reminded me of when he was a baby and I hid creamed peas below the yogurt on his spoon.  He fell for that exactly one time and after that, he wouldn’t eat creamed peas OR yogurt.  It’s the same with art projects.  No matter how I package it and no matter how much yogurt I stick it under, he spits it out before even biting.

Anyway, I refused to quit the ABC activities so close to the end so I went around the house taking pictures of yellow things.  When I popped them up on the computer screen, you know what Vincenzo did?  He asked for the camera.  I gave it to him and he snapped a picture of all the yellow photos on the computer screen.  “There!” he said.  “I took one picture and it has LOTS of yellow things in it!” 

The stinker.  When did he turn 13?

Here’s the final project.  But people, this is bad.  I’m already doing my son’s homework for him, and his teacher totally knows it!  I just hope it doesn’t affect my–er, his–grade.

WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Vesuvio chicken
Mushroom and rice noodle salad

It’s a boy thing

QUICKIE: Me to Vincenzo: “We’re just going to kill some time at the grocery store.”  V: “How about we keep some time alive?”  (He went on to tell me we could keep it alive by putting everything he wants in the grocery cart.)
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REASONS I’M RELIEVED TO BE HAVING ANOTHER BOY:

1.  One of our top name ideas for girls was McRuby (it’s a long story)
2.  We don’t need to think about how to transform the firetruck bed into a pink Barbie hot tub party bus
3.  There’s only room for one diva in our house, and that role is already taken, thank you.  (No, not me; it’s Vincenzo.)

The only annoying thing is that Kevin keeps bragging to everyone about how he’s got so much testosterone running through his veins that he’s incapable of producing a girl.  My take is that it’s more a lack of sensitivity than an overflow of testosterone.

WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Butternut squash risotto
Nicoise salad

or: Costco dogs

Half baked!

Q: When is the one time parents are overjoyed that their child labeled “completely average?”
A: When it’s a doctor talking about their baby’s heart and brain measurements. 

Mbungo, it seems, is perfectly average!  The 20 week ultrasound went off without a glitch this week.  And as for me, I apparently have a “beautiful cervix.”  (I told the doctor I wasn’t surprised–it’s the first thing people usually notice about me.)

I had been really, really freaked out for the ultrasound for, oh, about 20 weeks or so.  I knew we’d be going back to the same place where I was scared out of my mind as I got an amniocentesis; where Angelo was diagnosed with T13; and where the final ultrasound confirmed that my baby had died in utero.  I didn’t blog about all of my anxiety and the nightmares because I didn’t want my fear to get the idea it was boss around here, and I have to say that the week leading up to the appointment was the calmest one of my pregnancy.  Take that, fear!

People ask me if I feel a huge relief now, knowing my baby is healthy, and sometimes I do.  But I’ve read too many stories and know way too much about what can go wrong to perfectly healthy babies to start counting this chicken before it hatches.  He moves a lot now, and instead of being comforted by each movement I’m scared that he’s getting the cord wrapped around his neck.  That’s a fear I haven’t smacked into place quite yet.

Oh!  And I sent out a couple of these cards…

 

…with this poem inside:

This card is more than
It first appears
It has a secret for you
If the card is pink
we’re having a girl
But if we’re having a boy…
it’s blue!

And just in case you have a black-and-white monitor:

Does that make this a porn site?  If it does, you’re all a bunch of PERVS!

WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Cheese Souffle
Crab stuffed avocado
Biscuits and jam

It’s better to receive than to give

QUICKIE: Vincenzo was passing out pretend squirt guns and he gave me two, explaining, “…because Mommy is special because she says ‘I love you’ every day.'”
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People who know us personally are the luckiest people in the world, especially when it comes to receiving our gifts.  If you’ll remember, there was a Build-a-Clyde kit for my sister’s boyfriend’s birthday. 

And you haven’t forgotten my sports calendar for Kevin this year. 

Then there was the Christmas when we created our own company and offered my sister a free hour of service on her broken sink:

 

And now, now, we’ve put together this little somethin’-somethin’ for our bro-in-law:

I know you are all wishing your name were Bill right now.  Or that you had gotten us something for Christmas.  Well chances are it’s not and you didn’t.  And now that you know what you’re missing, chances are your life feels rather empty.  Sorry ’bout that.

WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Food other people cooks for us

XXX Post

QUICKIE: Me to Vincenzo: “I’m going to read this book out loud to you.”  Vincenzo: “I just want you to read medium.”
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Thank you all (or most) for choosing the heart background for my scrapbook page.  Kevin was positive the rose petals looked better, so my normal scrapping confidence was shaken.  I should never listen to someone who calls it “scrape-booking” anyway.

X week was AWESOME.  We did all the X things there are to do in town.  We went x number of places x amount of times, we ate at entire x-themed restaurants, and we refused to rent anything rated less than double X all week.  We were overwhelmed by the x-iness of it all.   

Okay, who am I kidding?  We didn’t do a blasted thing except make an art project that even reverse psychology couldn’t salvage.  “I’m going to do an X art project,” I told Vincenzo, “and you’re not allowed to help.  This is just for big people to do.”  He responded, “Okay, Mommy.  That’s great!” then went off to sell cars at his pretend used car lot downstairs.  Dream big, little one, dream big.

This is where I’m supposed to insert a picture of the X art project but it seems to have disappeared.  Maybe the eXtraterrestrials took it?  It went on strike?  (Get it–a strike is an X, yuk yuk.)  Or maybe it took a bunch of pills, put on some Marilyn Manson, then threw itself into the recycle bin?

xoxo

MrsMouthy

WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Apricot glazed chicken
Buttermilk biscuits
Salad with candied almonds and gorgonzola

HALP!!

QUICKIE: Vincenzo, playing a robot game with Kevin in which he destroys the robots by squirting pretend water at them:: “Let’s squirt Daddy in his cracks!  Look!  There’s a big crack in the back of him!”
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I’m working on a Valentine’s scrapbook page and can’t decide between these two background options.  I still have embellishments to add, but you get the general idea.

 

(This one didn’t show up very well, but it’s a mottled green color with pink rose petals)

 

So…which one should I go with?  Two things you should know before you vote:

1.  I already know which one I really, really, really want it to be, so you better not mess up
2.  If fewer than 5 people comment by Monday at 5PM, expect some green poo pictures in the future.  The very near future.

WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
California rolls (thanks Kev!)
Eggs with corned beef and cheese
Lemon sandwich cookies (if you make one kind of cookie in your life that’s not chocolate chip, it should be these!)

The education of Little V

QUICKIE: Vincenzo: “Mom, if I eat and eat and eat a lot, then will I be four?”
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Things we have told Vincenzo with straight faces:

1.  McDonalds grows its own special kind of apple trees that produce peel-less apples.  They hang from the tree in little cellophane bags, and when the bags reach 35 calories the whole town turns out for a day of festivities and apple picking.  And that’s how they end up in your Happy Meal.

2.  (At Claim Jumper, looking up at all the fans connected by a big belt)  Do you know what makes those fans turn?  It’s 100 bunny rabbits that Claim Jumper keeps up there and they run and run all day, which turns the fans.  At night they let the bunnies loose in the restaurant to clean up the scraps everyone leaves around.  What’s that?  Oh.  Sure.  Go ahead and leave your kale under the table for the bunnies.  I’ll leave mine too.

3.  “Schling” is a real letter in our alphabet.  In fact, your name is spelled V-I-N-SCHLING-E-N-Z-O

And now for some reason he doesn’t believe me when I say things like, “This chair is made of wood.”  “No!” he says knowingly, “You’re teasing!”

Then again, maybe he’s right.  The chair is from Ikea.

WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Leftovers again (The butcher told me I should buy a POUND of corned beef PER PERSON.  It’s been a looooong week.)

I married him so you all don’t have to

QUICKIE:  Vincenzo: “Mom, when I’m four I’m going to be happier because four-year-olds don’t cry as much as three-year-olds.”
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Things you miss if you’re not married to my husband:

Me, opening the door to our office: It sounds like there’s a squirrel in there.  What are you doing?
Kevin: Pretending to be a squirrel.

Kevin: I’m going out back to take out some bushes.  Wanna come?
Me: No thanks.
Kevin: What?!  And miss the gun show?  [rolls up sleeves and flexes muscles]

Or there was the time we were walking side by side and let one rip, simultaneously jetting a few steps ahead of me.  “Propulsion farting,” he explained.  (I would have spent the rest of the walk a few feet distanced from him, had I not been downwind.)

Of course, the topic of farting always reminds me of the first time we ever said “I love you.”  We had been dating for a few weeks when Kevin explained his theory that when a girl first farts in front of a boy or vice versa, it’s a confession of love.  It shows that the girl (or boy) is comfortable in body, mind, and spirit when in the presence of the other.  After he explained this, Kevin sat back and waited.  He didn’t have to wait long.

The next week we went on a walk and I swear I had NO SIGNS that there was anything brewing in my nether regions–no pressure, on pains, no nothing, when suddenly ZZZZPPPPT!  There it was.  Kevin flashed me a most amorous look, took my hand, and let out an equally impressive ZZZZPPPPT right on the spot.  “No no no!” I protested.  “That was premature!  I didn’t mean it!  I take it back!  Can’t gas just be gas?“

But the damage was done.  I realized then that I would someday sound like Marty’s mother in Back to the Future when she tells the story of her peeping tom husband and says something like, “And that was when I knew I’d spend the rest of my life with him.”

WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Gobs of leftovers

I’m a little leprechaun

QUICKIE: Yesterday I asked Vincenzo if he wanted to go find his buddies who had come to play.  He disappeared, then came back a minute later.  “I found them.  They were upstairs.” *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Oh man oh man oh man I’m SOOOOOO tempted to posted a picture of bright green poo my son laid in the toilet this morning.  Not greenish poo–GREEN poo.  I really feel this is something the world needs to see.  But!  In a great demonstration of self-control, I will instead post the picture of what my son ate yesterday that presumably led to today’s (g)astronomical event:

(My husband is probably sweating green bullets as he reads this, as I sent him to work with a green donut for breakfast and a matching green bagel for lunch.  I couldn’t resist!)

WHAT’S COOKIN’ 2NITE:
Baked potatoes with all the fixin’s
Corned beef and cabbage
Green salad with strawberries (a la Jnet)
Green fruit salad (a la Michelle)
Irish soda bread (a la Mom)
Baileys and white chocolate cheesecake