Author Archives: metamegan

>Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You

>Luke was having a play date with Elsa last week, and Luke was playing with one toy while Elsa played with another. Jack got in Elsa’s way, and she said, “No! Jack! No!” The altercation appeared to be over a toy, and I grabbed Jack and moved him away while Luke said over his shoulder, “Yeah. He pinches. And bites.”

>Nice Everything

>I fell asleep in Luke’s bed last night while reading to him, so no time to post. Today I will just reprint some submissions from my good friend Krista:

I vaguely remember this funny fireside scenario…or something to this effect:
Me- “Dave, why don’t you go and check the kids in my van…?”
Dave “I already did! They’re just fooling around in there and talking…I’m sure they’ll put themselves to sleep soon…”
Me “Oh great! Thanks!”
A few minutes pass…
Me “Wait a minute… You didn’t just get up and check them! You have been sitting next to me the whole time!!!”
Dave (laugh, laugh) “Oh great, thanks Krista, now Megan is on to me…”

The non-checked on children:

From s

Also! Krista was riding her bike up Lookout Mountain this week when a suburban full of gigantic men with dark sunglasses tried to flag her down. She was rocking out to her ipod and considered ignoring them. (When you are as beautiful as Krista, men waving at you from a car is an everyday thing. Amy and I once witnessed the following exchange between Krista and a lift operator on a chair lift at Steamboat Springs Resort:
Krista: Nice Eyes
Lift Op: Nice Everything)

Anyway! When asked, “Are you just waving or do you want me to stop?” The gentlemen in the Suburban replied, “No ma’am, you need to turn around, you can’t get through that way. I’m going to need you to turn around and go up a different way.” Apparently she was getting too close to Barack Obama!

>As The Worm Turns: The Plot Thickens

>So, there is a recommended amount of worms per square feet of worm bin, and a standard amount of pounds of food per week per pound of worms per square foot of worm bin. But the worms I bought came in a standard amount, and I already had a worm bin, and measuring my food waste just seemed like a lot of work, so I decided to wing it. And it turns out, I had the wrong amount of food per worm, and my 13 year old worm bin is sort of not that great and the worms were unhappy. I know! Who could have predicted a worm problem? It came out of nowhere.

If you are every going to dig around in a worm bin that has major problems, I highly recommend having a few glasses of wine with the ladies and going to a museum exhibit about purses first. (Mom – I need to talk to you about some purses we used to have laying around.) The exhibit was great. And later, the wine really made the whole digging around in my worm bin thing possible.

The problem seemed to mostly be from too much moisture, both because the bottom was sagging and not draining properly, and also, possibly, from too much food. So I dug deep, and put worms with bedding and food in one bucket and worms with just bedding in another bucket. Then I scooped out a ton of water from the bottom with my perry nuclear power plant mug (high school field trip souvenir) that happened to be laying nearby. The I put half a roll of paper towels down, covered it with the food, and covered the food with the non food. (People who are grossed out to come in my house can be reassured that this process took place in the garage.) Now, I still need to repair the bin to provide a platform for the worms so the water can leak down to the bottom, but I already have a plan in place for that.

>Picture Day

>Picture Day. Tomorrow is picture day. And I hate to use gender stereotypes, but I can’t help but complain that I have sons, and yet I am not spared the battle over the picture day ensemble. Once, since school started, I put Luke on the bus in a collared shirt. He got off (yes, we still meet the bus at the school) wearing the collar turned under. I also bought him the coolest retro 80s shirt with neon boomboxes on it for $2.49 at Target Boutique. He has refused to wear it. I think you can see where this is going. I want him to wear a collared shirt for picture day, he disagrees. Dave gave him the option of a collared shirt or the boombox shirt. He chose the bookbox shirt.

Also, he started smiling like this:
Let’s just say I don’t regret ordering the cheapest photo package.

>What a Pleasure (Fruita Times Two)

>We camped at Highline Lake State Park this weekend again, and it was fantastic. We have a new favorite campsite, and according to two little old ladies, we are a great group of families who are a pleasure to observe. Children frolicked, bikes were ridden, food eaten, drinks dranken (wait, that doesn’t sound right, but it does sound familiar), what could be better? Well, I guess I could have brought the memory card for my camera, but you can’t have everything.

And the days of the camp host appearing with an unholstered firearm and threats of “keep it down or be kicked out” seem to be over. This camp host just wanted to talk about the thirty feral cats she has adopted from the park. (Found homes for 20, kept 10.) Okaaaaaaay. And she just threw out a, “It’s technically 3.2 alcohol in the park only, so go ahead and put that tequila in your cooler where I can’t see it.” Sigh, I guess we still got a tiny lecture, but only because she was lingering to answer any cat questions that might come up. Who knew what kind of response I’d get from, “wild cats? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

Oh, and Jack slept 5 out of the last 7 nights from 8am to 6am. Saturday in the van, he was awake from 6am to 7:30, when the effort involved in repeatedly poking me in the eye finally tuckered him out, and we both got to sleep for another whopping half hour. Sunday, I learned my lesson and after I fed Jack at 6am I said, “I am leaving to go to the bathroom, please get Jack back to sleep before I get back.” Dave only had to be head-butted twice and poked in the eye less than five times, before he had Jack in a sleeper hold. And we all slept peacefully until 8. Especially Luke who was having a sleep-over with Scarlett in her eurovan.

Good times.

>Jessica Seinfeld Ain’t Got Nothin on Me

>So Jessica Seinfeld wrote some book about hiding vegetables in your meals, and I guess there was some other book that was also about pureeing vegetables and hiding them in brownies and spaghetti sauce. I haven’t read either one because I subscribe to the parenting philosophy of preparing a well balanced meal and then saying, “Eat your vegetables!”

So I am still not over my grocery store boycott, and I am still getting my vegetables and fruits delivered and I am still the best pizza chef any of you have ever met, or anonymously read about. Where is this all going? Three words: Swiss Chard Pizza.

I don’t have a lot of experience with Swiss Chard, but it seems to show up in my box o’ veggies about every other week. I had been making a swiss chard and goat cheese frittata, which was delicious, but Luke doesn’t like it. He does like the zucchini frittata, and I have 18 cups of shredded zucchini in the freezer, so why not just make that one instead? Well here’s why: Because then I have to find something else to do with the swiss chard. So I was browsing epicurious, and I found a recipe for swiss chard casserole which all the reviewers said was terrible. Terrible, but would be good as a pizza topping or something. Light bulb! I cut the leaves off the stems, shredded the swiss chard, and microwaved it until it was wilted, stirring every 2 minutes or so. This is exactly what I did with the swiss chard when I was making the frittata, but all summer Dave read the paper on the front porch instead of in the living room. It was raining today so he was a lot closer to the action in the kitchen. And the smells. It smelled the same as it always smells. Dave described the smell like this, “That smells like poop.”

That didn’t deter me one bit. I made the crust with 1 cup of water, 1.5 teaspoons of yeast, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1.5 cups whole wheat flour, 1.5 cups of white flour. As the flour was mixing, I tossed the swiss chard in. As it was all getting mixed together, I added a bit of flour to get the right texture. Toppings: Blue Parrot Tomato Sauce, Mozz, and Pepperoni. It was delicious. Luke had one piece, Dave had two. (Dave usually has 4 pieces, but I am still calling this a success.)

* Note: I made this yesterday and no one has eaten any leftovers. Hmmm. And I just got more chard today.

>Soccer Mom

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From Soccer

Luke started soccer on Saturday and I have to say, we make great soccer parents. (Pause to pat self on back.) By the end of the game Dave knew all the kid’s names and I had signed up to bring snacks. In an homage to Peggy Hill, I even wore a cashmere sweater. (Linking to synopsis that leaves off the important part about Peggy not fitting in at soccer games in her flannel shirts and needing to borrow a cashmere twin set.)

Oh, yeah, and Luke had a great time! He couldn’t sleep the night before because he was so excited so I told him to count to a hundred as many times as it took to fall asleep. I maybe should have suggested that he not do it out loud because we were watching Persepolis and it was very distracting. (He did it 3 times before he yelled out that it wasn’t working. I suggested he count backwards from 100 to 0 and I didn’t hear another peep.)

The league is great because they have a 25 minute practice and then a 25 minute game on Saturdays, no practice during the week, there are no goalies and they don’t keep score. Or I should say, the don’t officially keep score. Luke and I are really into counting (see above) so we’d call the game something along the lines of 10 to nothing. With Luke scoring 4 of the goals.

Here he is about to score the first one:

From Soccer

So it was really fun, and I have now experienced the trifecta of things that make you feel like a mom: baby playing with tupperware, packing school lunches, and cheering at your child’s sporting event.

Jack had fun too:

From Soccer

>CU Wins, OU Beats the Spread

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From Soccer

Saturday was a big football weekend for our little family! OU beat the spread against OSU, which was cool. Jack started off the day in OU colors, but got hair all over his clothes and had to change. And if you need to change your shirt on game day, you might as go with the black and gold. Especially for your first football game. (Well, your first football game on the outside, that is. We saw a game at this time last year and I almost died of heat exhaustion and practically had to lay down on the sidewalk a block from my house and beg Dave to get the car because the contractions wouldn’t stop and I felt faint.)

This year the weather was great and we all had a good time. Well, I think the boys were ready to leave after the third quarter, but CU was coming from behind to win so we forced them to tough it out until the end. And tough it out they did.

From Soccer

You know, I never managed to pay the zero dollar entry fee to see my alma mater play in the 3.33 years that I was in college, but if I had, I would have known that college kids like to drink a lot before football games, and that they are sometimes obnoxious about it. Of course, I did sort of know that since I skipped the football games and just did the drinking anyway during my college years. Also, when we lived close to downtown and the CU campus and people would park in front of our house and tailgate, and then bring their passed out friends back to the car at half time, and lay them down on our tree lawn to sleep it off, and Bean would aim for the no parking sign, but accidentally pee on them, that was another sign that people like to drink a lot before college football games. Also, they like to use obscenities. And that’s fine. If Luke were to notice, and ask, I would explain that some people lack the imagination, intelligence and creativity to use more appropriate language. But I find it quite odd when we are walking to our seats passed some grannies who are shouting “rough em up” but instead of “rough” they are saying something else entirely. So in that case, if Jack accidentally kicks them in the head when we walk by, I just pretend I didn’t notice instead of apologizing.

From Soccer

>Then and Now

>We had a big weekend of milestones and one of the biggest was Jack’s first haircut! It’s always so bittersweet when a baby gets their first haircut. With just a few snips, wisps of baby’s sweet downy hair become the bangs of a little boy. As the hair gets taped into the baby book, you realize how fast those nine and half months have flown and you realize they will be in kindergarten before you know it. (Or maybe you realize that you haven’t really started the baby book and it’s impossible to tape baby hairs to a blog.) It’s nice that his hair is out of his eyes, but so sad that my snuggly baby is growing up so fast. Or maybe the sadness, the melancholy, is just summer turning into fall, the days shortening, the steady march of time towards the long, dark, night of winter. Or maybe the problem is that his haircut is quite terrible. And really, it’s hard to be seriously sad when I find myself laughing about it a lot. In a laughing at you sort of way. Poor kid. He slept through the haircut, which the barber though would make things easier… I’m not so sure.

Luke before his first haircut:

Luke After His First Haircut:


Jack Before his First Haircut (also note how much he is eating! That was just his first helping):
Jack During:
All the boys getting their hairs cut:

Jack After and Foreshadowing about Tomorrow’s Post: