mrtl

My Kind of Argument

Half an hour before bedtime, Bug asked for a show. I obliged.

Jem was immediately up in arms. "NO SHOW!" she hollered. "I'm tired. I go to bed!" She got off the couch and headed for the door. She headed straight for her room, almost bypassing yummy vitamins and fun teeth brushing.

After picking out a book (about trains), we spent some time cuddling before I left her, during which there was quite the heated exchange.

"I love you," I said.

"Ri rove ROU!" my little Astro said. She was so adamant, she lost her L's.

"I love YOU!" I countered.

"Ri rove rou! Ri rove rou! Ri rove roooooooouuuuu!" she repeated.

When I lay my head on the pillow next to her, she demanded I move closer. Then she wrapped her arm around my neck.

The child is strong-willed, even in her love.

"American Idol" Returns

First, I didn't realize that I broke my run yesterday. It was great while it lasted.

Second, it sucks watching this show alone. I need a viewing partner.

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Drinking a cosmo and watching the premiere of "American Idol." Here are some random comments from throughout the show.

Opening montage: ahhh... ugh... ack!... whoa!... aw... yay!... squeee!... skirry!... omgah!... she bangs!...sob... what happened to taylor?... ooh, vertigo

I have the munchies. ::pause::

That hair is SO big! And WTF is with those moves? Why exchange them for tap dancing in the room?

Pink hair girl: awesome!

Randy Madden: no relation to the crybaby, though I do dig the 4-leaf clover necklace

LOVE LOVE LOVE that Paula will physically assault Simon while the new chick speaks her mind

"Waking up inside you" ? How does that happen?

Gurr is a onomotapoetic singer. I had to sing that word to spell it. ::note - This comment may only make sense to the English majors in the house:: Otherwise he's constipated.

Holy shite. I always thought, "It's all coming back to me now" was sung by Meatloaf. Celine? Really?!

Aundre/Xray - Had to watch this a second time. Catchy, and brought joy to my heart.

Day 2: I see big hair dude in there. They done messed up.

That's low. Funnier later singing Bon Jovi.

Stevie - wow

Bikini girl - um... why? I'm a little jealous of the butt. OMG - A sing off? Fucking AHWESOME!

Sexual chocolate. Is that like the chocolate dice I received in the Naughty Gift Exchange? Do you eat it or f*$# it? Does it melt in your hands? I don't think so, man.

I'm a little bummed. Not too many seriously hideous singing.

Bearded pirate dude at the end was awesome. More!

Mind the Gap - I want that shirt.

I was going to write a post on how I got Jem to use the potty today, but now it's late and I'm tired and the bed's still not made, so I'm going to give you a happy pancake instead. K?

Happy Pancake courtesy of Bug.

Mind Over Gutter

Bug has been invited to a bowling birthday party, and since she had not one speck of a clue what bowling is, I thought it prudent to take her to the lanes and try tossing a few.

::aside against watching bowling on tv::
Hell no, I wasn't going to show her bowling on tv. The last time I watched TV, there was a whole lot of this:

I wasn't about to subject my daughter to those antics. Could you imagine her pulling a stunt like that at the party? Gads!

And no, I usually don't watch bowling on tv. Channel surfing, I saw this pompous bowling ass and was instantly mesmerized to watch the trainwreck. I suppose that's the point.
::end aside against watching bowling on tv::

Her form looked pretty spectacular...

...but instead of coming through from underneath, she roundhoused the ball into the neighboring lane. I told her that can't happen without giving the person a strike.

Jem got in on the bowling action as well. She tended to drop the ball at the line, so if it made it down to the pins -- employees had to help that effort a couple times -- it was sllloooow going. To illustrate this point, you can see that, in Figure 1 Jem is watching and pointing at her ball. In Figure 2, the ball has not gone much farther, yet she's had time to turn around and smile at the camera. Also, check the neighbor kid's ball in both. mwahahahaha!

Figure 1

Figure 2

I'm so glad we had the opportunity to cover some basics of bowling etiquette and safety. Today Bug had her chance to almost smoosh her fingers getting her ball off the return, run across several lanes (some in play) when returning from the snack bar, know how many turns she got (and to wait patiently for hers), understand the difference between a strike and a spare, how to wait when neighboring bowlers are in play, and how to avoid falling on her ass with the slippery shoes.

Still trying to figure out how Jem didn't knock down any pins on her first go. I'm actually quite proud of my score. I didn't use the bumpers like the kids did.

Fruit of the Day

Lots of fruity things happened today in mrtland.

Back story: Bugs in the back seat yesterday, Bug making up songs for Jem. "Do you want a song about an apple?" "Yes!" "Giant apple! Giant apple! You are giant!" "Now how about a song about a banana?" "Yeah!!" "Big banana! Big banana! Yellow, big banana!"

Today, taking turns singing songs, Jem wants multiple repeats by Bug of "Mister Sun." When it was her turn, she hollers, "Big apple! big apple! Aaaaaah!"

~*~*~*~*~

We picked up some strawberries at the store today, and they served as a dessert for the girls. One was hideously deformed.

~*~*~*~*~

Tonight, just as I sat down to start writing out this post, mister mrtl IM'd me. We ended up using the video chat (awesome!). He's been at the club drinking "a lot of beers." (He walked.) Mister mrtl usually doesn't drink "a lot" of beer, so he's quite amusing and I told him I was going to share him with you.

I keep telling him I can hear him fine, but he still insists on typing instead of talking to me. At one point he says "It's so hard to type!" and then I get "lol" as a message after a couple hundred tappity tappy keystrokes.

He can't seem to get over the noise in the hallway. Throughout the conversation there were many references to it:

People are yelling in the hallway.
They must be drunk

I hear people yelling.
They must be happy.

People are yelling.
Good thing I'm not trying to sleep.

People are still yelling in the hallway.

People are hooting and hollering.

He's also extremely impatient. Happy, but impatient. I'm glad I'm finished now so he can comment before he crashes.

Love you!

The True Secret to Monster Removal

Since we've been back from Maryland, there's only been one night involving monsters. It was Sunday, the first night that the girls started rooming together. Bug came out shortly after going to bed, insisting there were monsters in there. They were under the bed. I insisted they were not. I was all over every square foot of that room that day, rearranging and vaccuuming. Not only did I see no monsters, but no evidence of monsters (like monster poop). Since the alarm was on, there's no way a monster could come into the house without our knowing.

She was not convinced. She started doing that sniffy nose thing she does to threaten the imminent onset of tears. "Mommy," ::sniff:: "I really" ::sniff:: "KNOW that there" ::sniff sniff:: "are monsters in there!" ::sniff:: ::shake head:: "I can't sleep!" ::lip starting to protrude - immediate invasive action required::

I hugged her and told her I'd lay down with her. She slumped down the hall, still obviously bothered at the thought of sleeping with all those monsters under her bed. She pouted as we cuddled up under the blankets, keeping sad eye contact with me.

Then there was snoring. Jem, now about six feet away, was sideways next to her pillows, her head angled up onto them. Her mouth was contorted and open, her soft snoring loud enough to hear over the crickets chirping from the sound-making alarm clock.

I started to giggle and encouraged Bug to check her out. She couldn't help but smile at the sight. I jumped at the distraction.

"She loves you soooo much. She wants to do everything you do."

"She does?"

"She totally does! You know today when you got mad at me about going downstairs for lunch when you weren't hungry and you 'humphed' at me?"

"Yeah. I wanted to play more."

"Right. You crossed your arms in front of you, 'humphed,' and started down. Jem was right behind you, and she 'humphed,' too and crossed her arms like this." ::crossing arms terribly wonky-like, with one arm almost straight:: "I wanted to laugh at her, but I didn't because I knew you'd think I was laughing at you and get even more mad at me."

"Actually, I probably would have thought you were laughing at me. That would be mean."

"It's great how much she loves you, and she learns a lot from you."

"I teach her how to do a lot of things, like setting the table, and using her manners, and brushing her teeth."

"You are an awesome big sister. And you know what may happen now that you're in the same room?"

"What"

"She may wake up scared in the middle of the night and come to you instead of coming out to me and Daddy. You might have to act like the mommy so she's not scared."

"How do I do that?"

"You give her hugs, and comfort her, tell her everything is going to be all right. If you'd like, you can let her stay with you in your bed, or you can go into her bed with her."

"I would let her sleep next to the wall so she doesn't fall out of the bed."

"That's a good idea. See? You're such a great big sister. I love you."

"I love you, too, Mommy."

"You better get to sleep so you can wake up for school tomorrow!"

"Ok. And if Jem wakes up scared, I'll take care of her."

No monsters have been perceived since, and we never had to dig out the Go Away Spray.

Menu Planning

To break up some of the monotony of dinners around here (aka bean burritos), I've challenged the girls to come up with new meal ideas. Hopefully this will also help their willingness to try new things. One can hope.

Last night, our "breakfast for dinner" night, Jem wanted to make blue blueberry muffins with sprinkles. Not horrible, though I can't say I'm looking forward to blue poop.

Tonight Bug chose to make spaghetti and meatballs, but she wanted to make the spaghetti look like birdnests. We adapted a recipe I found online. The birdnests were a little crispy, since the meatballs were already in the oven at a higher temperature. Next time we'll just fashion the nests in little bowls and skip the cooking part. We'll also have to make the nests bigger; since they were only big enough to fit one meatball each, my plate creeped me out a little with its staring.

I am both shocked and thrilled to report that Jem ate meatballs. It was after ketchup appeared on the table, but she ate them and announced that the snowballs were nummy and she wanted more snowballs.

For Hire

Hey parents! Need a babysitter? IM me via Google Video. I can totally watch your kids. $30 an hour. I will captivate them with my video effect shenanigans.

Furry Critters

Mister mrtl may be pleased to know that he missed the caterwauling of a lusty pussy this morning. Moments laters I was mortified to find the fervid feline a few feet from our back door, blissfully rolling around in a wet patch of grass, with a Tom tabby sauntering away. Our back yard is now a kitty brothel. Thank you asshole neighbors for letting them roam!

After this Cat-Ass-Trophy...

::tangent for fun with trophy generator::

::end tangent for fun with trophy generator::

...I was so perfectly, poochaliciously vulnerable you'd think that some higher power was fucking with me. As I sat in a waiting room, a man sat down across from me, putting down in front of him a laundry basket loaded with the cutest, fuzziest 3-week-old rotty-pit pups I've ever been offered to cuddle and bottle feed.

I think I just officially became a dog person.

A Post with Just a Little Complaining About Chocolatelessness

Today was harsh. Bug was totally onboard with the thought of moving in with Jem, so after mister mrtl took off the fun began. I moved three dressers (two already in the room but still requiring removal of drawers), dismantled, moved, and reassembled one bed, pushed a couple endstands back and forth before deciding to use other furniture for their purpose, tore apart the interlocking foam floor squares from the playroom and reassembled in Bug's room (now referred to as the "toy room"), scuttled a multiude of toys from the playroom to the toy room, all while juggling the girls around to keep them out of my way and remembering to feed them! (And I also ran the dishwasher and did all the dishes. This is me in single-mama mode; it's disgusting how productive I get. I'm now working on a room-by-room list of things I want to do over the next five weeks. Sanity is telling me not to add any kind of painting or wallpaper removal to it. mwahahahahaha)

The time after the kids go to bed will be the most trying. I had planned to pull out the "Biggest Loser" DVD tonight, but my legs and back are telling me they done had enough. My body has been trained to have something the kids can't have after they're asleep; that chocolate orange is haunting me. Maybe I'll just have a cosmo. Of course, then I may get a little weak-willed... will have to think this through.

I'm currently distracting myself from the multitudes of chocolate downstairs by harrassing mister mrtl in IM about bringing home the Labels for Education off his microwavable soup. He's terribly resistant over the idea of doing something so difficult, and is questioning my seriousness over bringing home the container if he can't get it off. For the duration of writing this, there's been a long pause. oooh! A ding. Let's see his retort! Further questioning. Doesn't he realize how much the Chunky labels are worth? Dude. Just bring them home and there won't be any trouble. As if.

+: Before bath tonight, Bug offered to read Jem a story while she sat on the potty. Girl read the entire book, only getting caught up on one word: laugh. We agreed that this was a really good word to know. I'm sure she won't forget it.