Snippets

Boy, I've washed a lot of Thomas the Tank Engine underpants this week.

Our house is being taken over by shin guards, cleats and soccer balls. The calendar is full of practices and games.

I went to Goodwill and found an eclectic selection of orange and yellow plates to display on the wall over our new/used dining table. Michael thinks it looks like a grandma's house in here. Next I plan to tat lace doilys to hang on the backs of the sofas and buy an air freshener that smells like Ben-gay.

The teenage boy next door (and some friends) got a hold of the kid's sidewalk chalk and wrote some interesting things on the concrete outside. Interesting, especially to Seth and Alice, whom I would prefer to not actually read those things. FYI, apparently we live on "Pimp Street" now. Please forward our mail accordingly.

Our landlord can't decide whether to sell our condo or not. The suspense is killing me. Really, ten years ago something like this would have sent me all into a dither. Now it just feels like life is happening, and there will be more where that came from . . . we can deal with it.

On my run this morning Thomas kept pointing out all the red and orange leaves on the trees. Really? Already? Can't we have another month of summer? On the other hand . . . I quite enjoy Christmas shopping.

I've recently discovered Guittard makes extra dark chocolate chips, with 63% cocoa mass. I've made cookies twice in the past week now . . .

The $48 embellished shirt I've been stalking at J.Crew all summer is finallllllly on sale . . . for $19.99! Score!

Post-Valentine Confession Time

I ate all the chocolate out of my son's valentine box from school.

To rectify my gratuitous use of the words barf and vomit in my recent posts, I shall tell this story:

Ten years ago Michael and I spent our first Valentine's Day together.  I went with friends to a university basketball game where he found me, sat by me and invited me to make sugar cookies at midnight (no, that is not a euphemism for something else, that is really what we did) with him at his house.  

The night before there had been a girl's choice dance at the university. Michael had attended with some freshman hussy who had the audacity to ask him out.  He said he was hoping I would have asked him, and I was hoping he would have said no the hussy and taken me to a movie instead. I'm not a big fan of girl's choice.  My inner liberated woman still has that one hang-up. Apparently he was still playing the field and man, was I ever bugged about it.  

The Mommy Tax

Nearly everything in this house passes through my hands at some point. I am the Supreme Washer of Laundry, the Duchess of Grilled Cheese Sandwich, And the Scooper who Follows After the Horses in the Parade (metaphorically speaking, of course). All are grand titles to be sure, and I believe that my titles and duties entitle me to a little extra something-something.
Enter the Mommy Tax. The Mommy Tax has been in effect ever since my eldest child took his first bite of banana baby food. Mmmm. Some for you, and some for me! Now hush. It is just a little taste. Who do you think bought this baby food for you anyway?
The Mommy Tax allows me to sip a smidge off the top of each juice box that I stick a straw into (also an effective defense against spills resulting from the inevitable box-squeeze), and sample a nibble of each cookie, cupcake, brownie or other morsel that passes through my hands to theirs.
Do not be confused. Some sampling I do may look like taxation, but it is really just scooping up after the horses. Take for instance, the summer standard drippy-ice-cream-cone. I know that my kid is going to let half that ice cream lop off the cone onto the ground, so I have to run a little interference. A quick run of the tongue around the part where the ice cream meets the cone renders the treat sanitary for the next 30 seconds or so. Performing this task is an essential part of being a mom. Plus, it is a great diet aid because since I already tasted it, I don't have to get a whole cone for myself! The only downside is that my kids usually choose the nastiest of all the 31 flavors at Baskin Robbins. You know that bright blue tub of ice cream with a name like "Mega Bubble Gum Blast" that you always looked at and wondered "Who on earth would honestly eat that?" My kids would, and so I get to also.

I would much rather mooch the obligatory chocolate covered Raisinette out of their pouch at the movie theater. I don't mind stirring the pink milk as long as I can take a sip before handing it over, and I enjoy taking the paper off of a cupcake because a dab of frosting always ends up on my finger.
Now that I write it out, I feel a little like the Sheriff of Nottingham. But trust me, the tax bracket the kids are in is well under 5 percent. Well, maybe 10 percent. No more than 15.

My Gift to My Hips

Tillamook Mud Slide ice cream (Okay, I had to use a Rocky Road image, it was all I could find. Sue me.)

Don't even think about tasting this stuff. It is manufactured by Satan himself, with the intent of you selling your soul in order to obtain more.
I only bought it to serve to our family that was visiting this week. And I tasted one spoonful, just to make sure it was good enough to serve to company (it was).

And then I realized I forgot to check it for poison, so I had to eat one more spoonful.

And then, I saw one giant chunk of chocolate buried in the ice cream, so I had to excavate around the chocolate in order to extract it.

And then, I realized that there was not nearly enough ice cream left to serve to company. So I finished it.

Let that be a lesson to me; I have no self control when it comes to chocolate.

P.S. Maybe it was the ice cream, but I just scored my first goal ever at my soccer game! I hope it wasn't because of the ice cream, because I can't afford to eat that much every week. Maybe just every OTHER week.