diary

Lunch Ettiquette

I'm a regular at the restaurant next door to my office at lunchtime.  It's one of those typically high-end D.C. steakhouses, with a nice bar (at which people rarely smoke) and a decent selection of salads, burgers, sandwiches, pasta, soups & fish as well.  I haven't actually ordered a steak for lunch in months.  The staff is great - the bartenders and maitre'd all know me and will ocassionally comp my desert or even entire meal.

There's just one problem - the other patrons.  When I eat alone (about half the time I go), I like to take one of their complimentary copies of the WaPo (that the Washington Post for you non-DC types) and sit at the bar.  Several of the other "regulars" do so as well, and, more than once, they've tried to engage me in their conversations.  Normally, I'm a very outgoing, bubbly type of person, but when you're spouting off very conservative, pro-Bush, anti-common freakin' sense rhetoric, chances are, I'm not going to want to talk to you.  And certainly not about politics. 

Seriously, this afternoon I had to listen to a ten-minute diatribe about how the Democrats are all wrong on the whole giving detainees human rights issue.  My blood was boiling by the time the one-sided "conversation" was over, because I refuse to engage these fucktards in political wrangling over my cream of tomato soup! 

Is there a polite way to say, "Shut up, asshole, you're ruining my lunch?"  You know, for the next time I TRY to eat by myself.

Morning "foffee"

Our mornings used to begin with Bella crying in her crib, which wouldn't stop until one of us threw on a bathrobe and our glasses and stumbed into her room.  Fortunately, that's stopped for the most part.  Now, she proclaims, "Daddy!  Mommy!" quite insistently until one of us throws on our bathrobe and our glasses and stumbles into her room. 

After the morning diaper change, we have to let the doggies outside.  She used to just be content with being held while we did that - now she has to direct the doggies.  They're 14, they've been outside thousands of times before, but Bella has to say, "Go on, doggie, go on!" to each one of them as they head outside. 

Next is "makin' foffee".  C. and I are big coffee drinkers, and we like our morning cups.  I'll plop Bella down on the counter, and she directs me, much like she directs the doggies.  First, Mommy has to get the filter ("Fil-tah here," as she sticks her fingers in the basket.)  Next, "Wa-ter here," then "foffee here," and she counts ("two, two, three, four" - she's never been big on the concept of "one") as I spoon in the coffee grounds.  After the "foffee" is brewed, she directs some more - "Mommy's foffee cup, Daddy's foffee cup, hot foffee, milk here, sugar here, spoon here."

I've offered her a sip of coffee before, but she doesn't like it (whew!)  I think she just gets a kick out of helping me jump-start my morning.  I know this routine won't last very long, but I hope it's longer than a few weeks.  I enjoy my morning foffee-makin'. 

My little chef

I wanted to make a good dinner last night, with enough for leftovers, and I thought C. would be home from work early enough to watch Bella while I cooked.  He called to say he was going to be late, but rather than scrapping my dinner plans and succombing to my daughter's, "mac-and-cheeeeese, Mommy, mac-and-cheeeese" whinings, I thought I would take the opportunity to have her help me in the kitchen (or chitchen, as Bella calls it). 

I was making individual Italian meatloaves (a Rachel Ray recipe, which we all know take longer than 30 minutes) and homemade mashed potatoes.  I had a fair amount of chopping for the meatloaves (green pepper, onion, garlic) and I had to wash and cut up the baby new potatoes as well.  So I plopped Bella down on the counter and had her watch and help when she could.  She handed me potatoes from the bag so I could wash them, and after I cut them up, she put them in the pot for me.  The pot already had (cold) water in it, so she got soaking wet plunking the potato pieces in the water.  But I also learned that she LOVED helping Mommy in the chitchen.

When I cut up the green pepper, she actually ate a few pieces of it (what?! - my child likes raw green pepper?!)  She watched me mix and form the meatloaves, and mash the potatoes after they were cooked.  And best of all?  Because she had helped me make dinner, she wanted to try everything!  She said, "Bella try...Bella try" when we were dishing up the plates (C. got home just in time to eat, of course).  My not-quite-two-year-old ate Italian meatloaf with onion and pepper and garlic in it...and loved it! 

I think next time I'll try baked macaroni and cheese with ham, and a fresh salad.  She can help Mommy wash the lettuce.  And eat the chopped ham, of course.   

Looming Large

Bella's second birthday is in less than three weeks, and we have NO clue what we're doing for her party.  We've invited 11 children and their parents, along with some other friends of ours, so we have the potential for about 30 people in our house.  I really hope it's a nice day outside!  C. wants to get JoJo-themed or Elmo-themed crap like cups, plates, balloons, party favors, but I want to keep it simple.  A couple of activities and a cake. 

So, readers (all nine of you - I know there are nine of you now!), tell me, what did you did/will you do for your child's second birthday.  And are we completely insane to have this many people over?  Let the panicking begin now!

"Cereal...biaper...owie!"

Over Labor Day weekend, we took a trip down to the family beach house in South Carolina.  Tropical Storm Ernesto was passing through North Carolina/Virginia on our way down, but we were determined not to let that ruin the vacation.  The weather was gorgeous when we got down to South Carolina, and we had a fantastic weekend with Bella and our cousins, who have a 3-year-old daugther and an 8-year-old son. 

The drive back was another story entirely.  When I do the drive by myself, I can do it in just over seven hours.  With Bella, it normally takes about 8.5 hours.  However, the ubiquitous traffic between Richmond and Northern Virginia (GOD, I HATE I-95!) had stretched this trip to over ten hours.  Elmo had been going non-stop on the DVD player (ten hours of Mr. Noodle, Dorothy the Goldfish, "Drawer" and "Shade" had C. and me bonkers by this point).  Bella decided she wanted some cereal.  I wasn't paying much attention with what she did with the Life cereal, until I heard the whining - "cerealllll....biaper....OWIEEEEE!" 

Huh?  I didn't quite get what she was trying to tell us.  Did she have a cereal poop, and needed to be changed?  I was pretty sure her cereal poops were just like most other poops, and I didn't smell anything, so that didn't make sense.

"Cereallll...biaper....OWIEEEEEE!" - her tone was getting more urget. 

"C., you need to pull over," I said.

Upon closer inspection, we discovered that poor Bella was so bored that she had stuffed the cereal inside her diaper by sticking it up the leg holes of her shorts and diaper.  Life cereal is kind of sharp, and it was starting to hurt the skin on her little pudgy thighs.  OWIEEE!  Indeed!

I can't wait until she's sixteen and C. and I can tell her dates that she used to stuff cereal up her diaper!   

I'm back (but not necessarily better than ever)

After about a six-month absence, I've decided to start blogging again.  Mostly, I miss writing for myself, chronicling my daughter's life.  I know there are things I've forgotten, rare moments that have occured in these past six months or so that are lost because I didn't write about them.  I may remember snippets, but I won't remember them like they happened yesterday.

A few things are going to change - I'm not going to post pictures of my daughter, mainly because some nutcase stole them from my previous blog and tried to pass her off as her own daughter.  I was completely freaked out, and that's why, for the large part, I took down my previous blog.  I'm also not going to use my husband or daughter's real names.  I'll call my daughter "Bella" (Italian for beautiful, by the way), and my husband simply C.  A few more things to protect our anonymity in scary blogger-land.  We'll see how it goes.

I may go back and edit some of my previous posts, which I saved from my last blog, and put them back up, with the new names.  If I have the time.  OK, here I go...blogging, round two.