Roam Around the Dinner Table

As residents of Pittsburgh, we are required by law to venture to our local dive restaurant, Primanti Brothers, for a meal at least four times per year. I'm pretty sure that failure to do so will result in us losing our Cool Burgher licenses. So tonight we fulfilled our civic duty and went to indulge in sandwiches piled high with fresh-cut french fries, eggs, cheese, tomatoes, and coleslaw. (For you non Burgh-type people, yes, you read that right. A sandwich can hold all that stuff in between its two slices of bread and you can even throw some meat in there, if that sort of thing makes you happy. While your arteries may want to explode just looking at it, you belly will be screaming at you to eat! faster! already!)

For whatever reason, the Toddler was being extra-cute as she went against the laws of Pittsburgh and dissected her sandwich (Fellow Cool Burghers, do not fear for she was also eating Pierogies. I think that means she gets to stay in the Cool Club, in spite of her obvious faux paus.). I carry my handy dandy little camera in my purse, so I whipped it out and took a couple of shots. Behold the cuteness:

As I was taking the photos, it occurred to me that something was amiss. I have tons of cute pictures of the Toddler eating, but every single one of them is more deceptive than a campaigning politician. All of my photos of the Toddler eating show her sitting down and actually placing food in her mouth. Uh, that happens approximately 2% of the time. Here's what really happens at mealtime:

Way back in September when Alexis kicked her high chair to the curb, I didn't realize that she was also kicking my happy little rule where we all sat at the table while we ate to the curb as well. Mr. Husband and I ate sitting on the couch for years, but when Alexis started to eat real food, I decided I wanted us all to eat at the dining room table, together, and with the TV off. It took me a few days to clear all the crap off of the table we had never actually used for eating a meal, but it was worth it. We acted like a family. I know! Amazing!

My happy little world was shattered when the confining beauty of the high chair became more of a battle than it was worth. It didn't take long before Alexis decided she didn't want to eat at the big person table at all, she preferred her little craft table. I let it go since she was at least sitting nicely somewhere. But that didn't last long. Before I even realized what was happening, she turned into a roaming eater. I don't think she is capable of chewing food unless her feet are moving. Really, it's like she's a goat or something. She pauses long enough to shove some food in mouth then goes back to grazing around the house.

The only time I see her consume what I consider to be a reasonable quantity of food is right after she gets home from school. Every day, she inhales a bowl of raspberries or blueberries. She is always running to and fro, all over the house, dragging out every toy she can find whilst balancing her little bowl in one hand and sucking the berries down faster than a Dyson. I usually follow her around to make sure she doesn't drop one of those $15 berries on the floor (Have you seen the price of raspberries lately? And why can't the kid eat cookies like everybody else?). I don't know how one manages to inhale berries while playing, I just know that she does.

At dinner, she rarely manages to swallow more than a bite or two of my gourmet cooking, and her little feet are in motion the entire time. If she's not walking back and forth between rooms and adults, she's dancing while balancing a macaroni noodle on her spoon. I honestly don't know the last time her bum actually sat in her chair. As for meals out, she usually manages to sit like a normal human being for 7.6 minutes. If food arrives in that time frame, she will sit and eat it nicely, sometimes even giving the mistaken impression that she is perhaps a bit lady-like. But once the timer in her head goes off, she's up and doing her best to roam like a B-52. (Do you have the song stuck in your head now? I do. Rooooam if you want to. Rooooam around the world . . .)

I know I should be glad that at least she's not playing Duck Duck Goose, but would it kill the kid to sit down and eat once in a while?

(I just know Miss Michelle from daycare is currently thinking that Alexis always sits and eats nicely at school. I am convinced that y'all drug or beat the kids in order to get them to do it. It's not normal for 20+ kids to sit in a chair at the exact same time. I refuse to believe othewise.)

Guess Who Got New Wheels

I caved. For months Mr. Husband has been pestering me for a new car. Over and over I've said we didn't need one. I tried using all kinds of things as an excuse: there's no money in the checking account, we would never agree on a model, we have nowhere to put it (You ought to see our garage. Wait, no, it's probably better that you don't. You might not make it out alive.). It was really just a matter of time. If I wanted to maintain even the slightest amount of sanity, I was going to have to just succumb to the never-ending pressure.

Everybody, meet Daddy's new car:

While he cannot actually drive it (trust me, he checked the weight limits and has confirmed that he cannot), Mr. Husband is quite enamored with his new wheels. Obviously, he is not the only one.

I will say this much, at least he picked out a decent model.

1. It's not a girlie pink Barbie Corvette. That might have been enough to make me puke.
2. The bright green color will be visible for miles, so I should be able to spot the Toddler as she drives off a cliff.
3. That shovel in the front? Is totally going to come in handy whenever the Toddler has the sudden desire to dig a hole. Probably in my garden. Watch out Delphiniums, she's armed and dangerous.
4. Seating for two. Useful because we all know it's fabulous that Bear can now go even more places than she does now. I love increasing the odds that the Toddler's most cherished toy will get dismembered, get destroyed, or disappear.
5. Ample trunk space for taking her two dozen naked baby dolls for a ride. If our neighbors didn't think we were freaks before, they will now when Alexis goes chugging down the street with Cabbage Patch butts hanging out of her car. If we're lucky, she'll have spare room for that inflatable potty chair.

Now I just need it to be Spring already. Otherwise, Mr. Husband is going to break down the living room walls driving his car around.

Go Ahead. Hate Me.

I do believe every single house in the world that is inhabited with kids has been dealing with some sort of illness in the past week or two.

Except us.

I didn't say anything. I didn't rub it in. I could have gloated that we were all chipper and as healthy as can be with nary a drop of vomit or misery in sight. I didn't because, well, if you haven't figured out where we live by now, surely you would make it a mission to find out and then show up at our doorstep brandishing torches and firearms. Another reason to not bother rubbing it in is that, in general, we do tend to land on the healthy side of the fence over here. While Alexis is surely going to have a runny nose for the first five years of her life, I'm pretty sure she is sick less than other kids.

She gets it from me. I rarely catch a cold. I'm so confident in that fact that not only will I loudly declare, "Go ahead and cough on me, you disgusting jerk" in an airplane, I will tell the Internet that I don't get sick. I missed exactly five days of school in my entire life--all due to chicken pox. Apparently, if you have bright red spots all over you, you aren't allowed to be around other kids, but you are allowed to hang out in your yard all day doing cartwheels and planning your world domination. Since my school days, I've been stricken a few times with various evil plagues, but not so much that I would think that I have anything to complain about. I am, of course, excluding the year that I was breastfeeding. A certain someone was literally sucking all of my resistance out of me, so I did get more than my share of colds that year. Evil immunity-sucking babies are just lucky they are cute.

So last night when Alexis turned into a Cling-On and wouldn't be put down, I wasn't sure what to think. We had friends over for the evening and I was torn between thinking she was being a snob (it wouldn't be the first time), or she was coming down with something. She stayed glued to somebody the entire evening and when she demanded extra cuddling before going to bed (darn the luck, I have a kid that wants to sit in a chair and cuddle for a few minutes before I put her in her bed), I was pretty sure that I would be seeing her again in a few hours.

As predicted, 2:00 came around and found me in the Toddler's room, trying to calm her down enough to go back to sleep. She was having none of it, so I finally just took her to bed with me. But she felt warm. And she seemed miserable. And her breathing was labored. After about 30 minutes of her whining and crying and generally just being a miserable little body, I decided she needed some drugs. Usually she is a little Amy Winehouse and not only wants the drugs, but she runs around screaming for more. Not last night. No, last night she wanted to play it straight and narrow. She screamed. She flailed. She clamped her mouth shut. She did everything she could to keep that Tylonel from making it into her mouth. So I partook in my favorite Toddler wrangling event, I pinned her down and shoved it down her throat. If she wasn't happy before that, she sure was at that moment.

Her flailing slowly became calmer. Her screams slowly dissolved to whimpers, and eventually the Toddler fell asleep. And she slept. And she slept. And she slept. Until she achieved a never before seen level of greatness--she slept until 10:00. She awoke with a flourish, singing and dancing and generally in excellent spirits. Looking at her now as she helps her bunny flap her fairy wings and fly around the room, you'd never know her body had waged war with alien beings in the middle of the night.

But I tell you, those five hours while she was sick? They sure did suck.

(If y'all need me, I'll just be hiding under the table so as to protect my head from all the debris you're throwing at me.)