Author Archives: metamegan

>Star Wars with Thesaurus Boy

>Jack has spent the last two days asking me to open the puppy gate, going downstairs, getting one Star Wars action figure out of Luke’s room, coming back upstairs, asking me to open the gate, and running over to play with the action figure at the dining room table. I think the Star Wars figures have seen more action in 2 days than in the 2 years they have been under Luke’s care. And the whole process has been keeping Jack very busy.

Plus, it is so cute when he rests his hand on my knee and says, “Mom. I need go downstairs get Star Wars. Open gate pease?”

Also cute? When he calls Chewbacca by the similar sounding name of Baracka.

In other Jack news, he woke up a little on the crabby side from his nap again today and I offered him a cookie and milk. I said, “How about this cookie? It’s the biggest one.”

He had a few bites and said, “Dis cookie huge? Dis cookie huge!” (pronounced hooj)
A few more bites and, “Dis cookie giant.”

So now we are working on enormous, titanic, and jumbo.

>Happy Valentine’s Day. Duh.

>Exciting! I just used the new search feature here on MetaMegan to see if I had written about the Valentine Tragedy of 2007. (Or whenever if was.) And I did write about it! Twice!

So you can imagine I had a lot to think about this year when it came to Valentines. I decided to do a paper airplane from Family Fun, but what if kids started making the planes immediately and throwing them and it was pandemonium and his teacher got really angry and blamed Luke? Ok, that probably wasn’t going to happen.

On to my next problem. Do I print out one copy, bring it home, have him write “Happy Valentine’s Day, Love Luke” on it and then take it back to work and make 25 copies? The advantage to that is that it would be less work for Luke, and the chances for something to go wrong and induce a meltdown were really low. Disadvantage – I don’t have access to a color copier at work so they would all be in black and white and gray, and that is lame. The other option is that I could print off 25 color copies, but then he’d have to write “Happy Valentine’s Day! Love, Luke.” 25 times. That sounded like a recipe for disaster, but the Valentine’s would be a lot cuter. Maybe I could go to Michael’s and get a stamp that just says, “Happy Valentine’s Day!” Hmm. Trip to Michaels: Unlikely. (Missing van key.) Dave suggested printing it in color, having Luke write his message and then taking the paper to Kinko’s to have it scanned and then make 25 color copies there. Trip to Kinkos: Not just no, but hell no. When do I have time for this?! I barely have time to obsess about it all week long, much less do anything about it.

Well, time ran out and I printed the color copies. I told Luke I would write Happy Valentine’s Day if he wrote, Love (or From) Luke. He said sure. And when he made mistakes, he just said, “If you see any more mistakes like that, can you just correct them for me?” Yeah, sure. I suppose that is better than a meltdown. Then he rolled them up with the instructions and I tied a bow around them. The whole thing took about 45 minutes. Am I insane? Why yes, I am.

BUT! I had a good time working on the Valentine’s with Luke. It was fun and we chatted. I said, “I heard Max kissed Alex(andra).” Luke said, “Yeah. He’s been in a kissing mood lately.” I said, “Are you ever in a kissing mood?” He said “No. Well sometimes.” (Shocked breath in!) “When I am kissing you goodnight. DUH!”

Aww, my sweet, sweet boy. I ignored the duh.

>It’s A Good Thing Jack Can Talk

>Monday, it snowed and I worked from home, because… why not? The Honda had been in need of new tires for a while, and the van was covered in snow. Tuesday I took the van so that Dave could get new tires on the Fit. That means I was the last person to use the van key. That’s singular folks: as in key. We have one key.

So when Dave called me at work on Thursday because he wanted to drive somewhere and did I know where the van key was? I had to just heave a huge sigh because no. I didn’t. I looked in my purse and pockets and then started lamely suggesting places to look, all obvious, all places Dave had already looked. But wait! What was I wearing on Tuesday? Check in those pants. Never mind, those were the pants I was wearing that day too. It’s OK – he didn’t really need to run that errand, but I was going to need to find the key because I was the last one that had it.

When Dave mentioned it Friday, I started to look in “the drawer” (you know the one) and Dave said, “It’s insulting that you would even look there. I said, “What? I’m looking for chapstick. I can’t look for the van key with chapped lips. Oh good! Here it is. Now I can apply some chapstick and then look for the van key.” But really, I had to start there. I have a system when I am looking for something. Drawer, tray, desk, nightstand, bathroom, dresser, drawer, tray desk, nightstand, bathroom, dresser. I just have to keep repeating that pattern and praying to St. Anthony until I get an inspiration and find what I am looking for. Like when I found the ibuprofen in cabinet with the wine glasses. Nothing Friday, but I started to have a memory of Jack playing with the van key. Maybe I left it on the counter… etc.

Saturday, Dave said, “Where’s the van key?” And I said, “Jack had it last. 5 days ago.” And Dave said, “Where’s the van key, Jack?” And Jack said, “I put it in the bench.”

Dave and I raced to the bench and started rummaging through hats and coats and mittens and there it was.

>No Room for the Laptop

>I think I’ll turn this blog into a list of excuses for why I never have time to post anything. Here’s one…

Watching the latest series on Netflix (Rome) while perusing InStyle Magazine would normally be prime blogging time because I like to multitask. But there was no room for the laptop with Lucy napping on my lap. She was pretty relaxed, so I could hardly wake her.

From Drop Box

>The Times They Are a Changin’

>Possibly inappropriate to misappropriate Senior Dylan’s music to discuss changes to my blog. But that song is in my head, so there is no other title forthcoming.

So! I backed up MetaMegan, removed the Jack Stats (not updated in the past year) removed the Longest Stretch of Sleep for Mommy section (it was that or start updating it with how long Lucy is sleeping, and that is just depressing.)

I also changed the background, and added a Followers section on the bottom right. Lastly, I am now not allowing anonymous comments any more (sorry Dad and Ellie) because I started getting spam in the comments. Boo! I hate that word verification, it makes me feel like I don’t know my letters because I pretty much always get it wrong the first time. But what else can I do? Allow spammers? Nooooo!

OH! And I added a search button, for all those times when you think, what was that bon mot/recipe/anecdote that was so wonderful that I sort of forgot it? No? OK, well I will use it, I am sure. For when I finally get around to writing up my Thanksgiving dressing recipe. Next Thanksgiving, I won’t have to search and search through November and December 2009 wondering where it is and how I cooked the chestnuts. I’ll just use the search and find it right here in February! (Ok… probably March.)

And now for the super bowl menu:
Honey Barbecue Wings
Hot Wings
Spaghetti Sauce with Whole Wheat noodles
Homemade Bread
Guacamole and Chips
Brie and Crackers
Chex Mix (Dave’s recipe)
Veggie tray.

Happy Superbowl!

>I’m Not Sure "Mama" Means What You Think It Means

>Thursday morning was a treat. I haven’t really been sleeping since we adopted a certain adorable puppy, so I don’t even bother setting an alarm, because chances are someone is going to be needing me for something within a 2 hour window of when I would have wanted to wake up anyway. So sometime in the wee hours of Thursday I slowly awoke to this:

Mama!
Mama!
Mama!
Mama!
whine whine whine.
MAMA!
MAMA!

I decided my best course of action was to take Lucy out first before I went to check on Jack. Because he wears a diaper. So as I passed Jack’s room with the puppy in my arms there was a sort of doppler affect.

Mama!
Mama!
MAMA!
MAMA!
Mama!
Mama!
Mama!

And then I was outside. Lucy did her business and I headed to Jack’s room because he was still going strong. Mama, etc. (Dave was sleeping, or at least, still in bed.)

When I finally got into his room I felt more than a little guilty for putting the puppy’s needs first, so I was very loving and concerned with my greeting. Exuberant even. Delirious, possibly. And what was it that my darling boy wanted?

Mama!
Yes dear? What can I do for you my darling child?
Mama!?
Yes?

I want Daddy.

>Quel maledetto treno blindato

>Remember how I decided not to mix the Academy Awards, wine and netflix? I have now entered three strikes and you are out territory. It turns out that I should apply that restriction to the Golden Globes because just this week I had 2 more screw ups.

Let’s review my history first.

1.) I add movies to my queue that have won awards, but are terribly sad, depressing, heart wrenching, or otherwise not something I’d rather not see. IE. The Savages. Strike 1.
2.) The screen gets a little bleary and I end up with the wrong movie. IE: The Original Frost Nixon Interviews. Not Frost Nixon… But Frost and Nixon for real. And if I have no desire to see the original Frost Nixon interviews, why on God’s earth would I want to see a dramatic reenactment? Strike Two.

And now on to the Golden Globes fall out.

3.) I add movies that I want to see, and I know Dave won’t like, but I add them behind a bunch of movies that we will both like. But those movies all have an extremely long wait, and so I end up with my movie right away instead of timing it for when Dave is out of town. IE: Gray Gardens. Foul Ball! I watched midweek and returned in time to get a mutually agreeable movie for the weekend.
4.) See number 2 above. Tomorrow Inglorious Bastards will be arriving. Yes, the 1978 cult classic subtitled Quel maledetto treno blindato. I curse you Quentin Tarantino, and your lack of originality! Strike 3.

I’m out. I suppose Dave will now take over control of our netflix account.

>A Boy and His Puppy

>
Jack has a bunch of stuffed animal puppies in his crib, and today he wanted just one more puppy in there with him. Poor Lucy was exhausted from our Biggest Loser workout. She was crawling all over me the entire time, and probably got a better workout than I did.

>The Secret is in the Egg

>I think I could do at least a whole week of cooking posts, so maybe I will. But for now I wanted to share our New Year’s Day recipe. This was a yummy soup that I made to use up a bunch of collard greens that we got from our CSA this summer. With the ham (symbolizing forward motion), black eyed peas (luck), and greens (prosperity) it seemed like a perfect dish for New Year’s Day.

I needed some help from one of my junior cooks, because I wasn’t feeling 100% on New Years Day. It’s weird, because it seems like a night that starts with a nice glass of eggnog, progresses to wine with (and by with I mean, before during and after) dinner, and ends with a to go cup of Irish cream would make for a great start to the new year. (I think I just put my finger on the holiday weight gain. Note to self: Make a belated new years resolution to steer clear of egg based drinks.)

Anyway, Jack was glad to oblige. He tore up the kale.

From 2010January

He sampled some carrots, and he stirred.

From 2010January

And when I wasn’t looking, he put Luke’s egg full of silly putty in the crock pot. I noticed it hours later. The silly putty was sort of melty but completely contained in the egg. So I just threw it away and didn’t tell anyone. Then, to be thorough, I threw Jack’s silly putty away too. The soup was delicious though! I plan to defrost some of the leftovers for dinner next week with cornbread.

Recipe – basically this. But I used dried beans instead of canned. And instead of a piece of ham I used a giant ham hock. And I did it in the crockpot instead of on the stove. Note to self – high temp next time. And I added carrots and celery. I used collard greens the first time I made it and kale the second time. It works either way. Don’t forget the silly putty.