BrooklynGirl

Friday Funnies

We're recovering from our various illnesses in these parts, but I'm too wiped out to write anything of substance.  Instead I give you this:

We've been working a little on social niceties, you know, saying excuse me when you burp or fart (which I genteelly call  "tooting").  Yesterday,  The Boy tooted quite un-genteelly while we were having a snack.  "Is there anything you want to say?" I prompted.

"Yeah, The Boy said proudly.  "A big snort just came out of my butt!"

Indeed.

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The Boy is enamored of the super soaker water guns that are everywhere.  He's quite pathetic about it, actually.  He follows the (invariably) older kids with the guns all over the playground and keeps asking, "Can I have a turn, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?" until someone takes pity on him and lets him have an all too brief turn with it (these turns have been so brief, in fact, that he hasn't really figured out how to fill or fire the guns). 

As a crunchy, liberal, gun-control sort, I'm not crazy about The Boy playing with toy guns, but I also feel like there's a certain inevitability to it.  I played with toy guns when I was growing up (whether it was my finger, a stick, or an actual plastic gun), and yet here I am my crunchy, liberal, gun-control self.

Recently, we encountered some kids whose crunchy, liberal, gun-control parents had gotten them water squirters in the shape of animals, and I hustled myself down to the toy store to acquire the same.  The Boy is mostly happy with them--until he sees the super soakers.

What are your feelings on water guns for the under 5 set?

Wit's End

The Girl recovered from her stomach virus as predicted on Wednesday, and we were an illness-free household for almost 36 hours.  Then The Boy came down with coxsackie.  I kid you not.  It presented with high fever and listlessness, and about 18 hours later the mouth sores showed up (conveniently while we were in the waiting room at the pediatrician). 

The fever has abated and the sores seem to be healing (none have appeared on his hands or feet), and the only symptom that remains is unbearable crankiness: he is the surliest, most unpleasant toddler you've ever met.   And though I'm filled with sympathy and plying him with treats to buy his happiness if only for a moment, I'm also...annoyed.   And frustrated.  And feeling just generally awful because what kind of mother has the temerity to be annoyed at her sick kid?

The pediatrician assures me that all this sickness is normal, but I feel like somehow it's my fault--that maybe I've been wrong not to hose them down with Purell at every opportunity.  Maybe I should have been more hardcore about the sleep training and they're getting sick because they're tired. Or maybe I shouldn't have pushed The Boy into school and all its germy goodness so soon.

I need everyone to be healthy for a week.  Maybe two.  Just so I can remember what it's like.

Monday

So now The Girl's got the stomach bug The Boy had last week (the one I thought she already had back in April).  If she runs the same course as he did, it's 2 days of diarrhea, followed by 4 days of lethargy and occasional diarrhea punctuated by vomiting.  We're on day 2 of the lethargy stage, looking forward to recovery on Wednesday.

Before it became clear that The Girl was sick, we left town for the weekend, but decided to return when the barfing began.  Gunning for father of the year, my husband drove us back in the driving rain on Saturday night (as soon as we could pick up New York area radio stations they were warning of flash flooding and road closures); somehow we made it.   The Father's Day celebrating has been rescheduled for some time when we are all puke free.

I did, incidentally, get the project finished on time so no discussion of children or vomiting was required.

Brain Surgery in the Basement

I used to work for this crazy woman who liked to humiliate her employees whenever she felt they'd failed. Her victim--and the victims pals--would hide out in someone's office until the storm had passed.  "What's the big deal?" someone would ask because invariably it was a whole lot of  fuss over something relatively minor.  "Shh," said my favorite commiserator,"We're doing brain surgery in the basement."

What she meant, of course, was that our particular jobs (and our public failings) were not terribly important in the grand scheme of things.  I was working in publishing at the time, and we were most emphatically not doing brain surgery in the basement--we were publishing some fairly unremarkable books.

I think of this woman and her motto these days when something work-related isn't going quite as planned--say, like missing a deadline.

Wait, full stop. 

Now, I was slowly working my way back and trying to explain that at this juncture in my life, taking care of my kids is the brain surgery in the basement that makes all my other responsibilities seem much less significant when the brilliant and talented caro wrote this:

"I mean, raising kids is something that some huge, huge percentage of us do at some point in life, and a sick kid is a totally legit and often inescapable reason why a person would be behind on some work. And yet in addition to somehow doing both the work and the parenting, we are supposed to also do some sort of magical hand-wave that makes our children invisible to our employers."

And that's really what I was trying to say.  I get that mentioning your kids in a "the dog ate my homework" kind of way is unprofessional, but I resent that I have to pretend that the kids don't exist at all.  (Yes, I see the paradox: I wanted a job as a break from taking care of the kids and now I'm complaining that the kids have to remain separate from the job.)  To get all Sondheim for a minute, "is it always 'or'?  Is it never 'and'?"*  Can work and family ever really be balanced?

Big, important disclaimer: This is not to say that parents who leave their sick children to go to work are shirking their brain surgery-cum-parenting responsibilities.  It's just that my current child care arrangements are not really adequate for a sick child (more on that in a later post).

*Miss you, Suz.

Hot. Also Sick.

My kids are not big barfers, which is a good thing because barf is one thing about which I remain fairly squeamish (when many pregnant ladies were worried about pooping on the table during delivery, I was worrying about barfing from the anesthesia).   Nevertheless, both kids have had the stomach flu this spring--The Girl back in April; The Boy right now.  Both of them managed to vomit in/on the stroller, and there is really nothing grosser than scraping chunks out of your Mac Techno. 

Meanwhile, it is blazing hot here.  Although we're mostly staying inside with the a/c humming, we do have to occasionally venture out.   It's days like these I find myself  daydreaming about a nice suburban house with central a/c, a garage, and a drive-through Starbucks somewhere nearby.  Coffee frappuccino...yum.

The Girl has still gone off to the sitter as scheduled (her house has central air), but even with The Boy convalescing in front of an endless loop of The Wonder Pets (which I now find just as loathsome as Barney), I'm not getting much work done, which leads me to this question:

Let's say you're a freelancer who has a new client, and that client hired you solely on the basis of the recommendation of a former colleague, a colleague who knew you when you had a slightly more reliable work ethic (that is, before you had kids).  You and your client have never discussed your personal lives before.  You're running late on a project, do you tell your client that you're off schedule because your kid is sick or do you leave your kid out of it entirely?

 

The Joy of Napping

For the first time in months synchronous napping has been achieved in this household, and I am experiencing a rush of parenting endorphins.  Hoo yah!   

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In the park today we ran into a teen aged boy I know slightly (he claimed not to be skipping school, but I'm not so sure).  He kept asking me if I'd seen various recently released movies, and I gestured to the kiddos and explained that parenting and frequent movie watching tend not to go hand in hand.  He asked--and I think he was serious--why we couldn't just go to the movies after the kids were asleep (that is, leaving the sleeping kids alone in the apartment).

****

So,* since my last post was kind of a complaint, I thought I'd end this one with a rave.  Pop up bubbles?  Perhaps the greatest invention known to man.  The Boy loves to chase bubbles in the park, but it's hard to commit two hands to the operation while supervising The Girl.  This genius item gives you back a hand...and if The Boy happens to be the designated bubble blower, he can't lose the wand.  Brilliant.

What are your "must have" summer items?

*This is where synchronous napping ended.  So much for endorphins.

Where Art Thou Plastic?

I miss plastic toys.  I mean, we have plastic toys because I'm cheap (and apparently don't love my kids enough to protect them from PVC and BPA and other scary letter combinations), but I miss the social acceptability of plastic toys.

For The Girl's birthday party, I vacillated about appending the invitation with a, "Your presence is our present" platitude, but the whole no present thing has not worked out well for me in the past.  Invariably when I'm  invited to a party and told not to bring a present, I don't bring one--and am the only guest who hasn't ignored the no gift rule.  I hate that.  So, not wanting to create that awkwardness for someone else, I decided to leave gift giving to the discretion of guests.

Our guests were generous and brought The Girl lots of lovely clothes and developmentally appropriate toys guaranteed to teach her to count to 50 or speak Urdu in the next week or so.  And it's wonderful, really, that our friends are so nice.  

But this toy is jeopardizing my mental health--and the physical safety of the residents of our apartment.  First, a wooden hammer is a weapon in the hands of any bang-happy child, be it an overeager 12 month old or an amped up older brother who has ripped it out of his sister's hand.  Wooden hammers hurt when they make contact with human flesh--whether that contact is accidental or not.  Second, the wooden balls...oh, the wooden balls!  They are the same size and color as the rubber balls I buy at the 99 cent store so The Boy doesn't see a problem with pitching them across the room, but let me tell you there are some problems with that.  Those balls are deceptively heavy and they do damage when they hit..anything.  And the sound of them "bouncing" off wood floors?  Yeah.  Not good.

Oh, plastic toys.  I miss you so.

 

Frosting: The Aftermath

Thanks for all your advice.  I went with the Domino confectioners sugar recipe which was fast, easy, and exactly what I had in mind (though I find it spooky that I've been buying the stuff for likely more than 15 years and never even noticed the recipe was there).

I was surprised by how many of you recommended chocolate cream cheese frosting.  Because I am a timid soul, I find chocolate frosting on chocolate cake a little overwhelming (except on the Brooklyn Blackout Cake my favorite local bakery makes).  But y'all are not timid.  And you can bake.  Can we be friends?

Alas. Now I am the mother of a one year old girl who loves cupcakes.  It is thrilling and sad.

Frosting Scares Me

The Girl turns one this weekend, and in order to prove that she is not an overlooked second child, we are throwing her a birthday party.  For the occasion, I am making cupcakes.   Chocolate cupcakes.  With frosting.

Now, I'm set with the cupcake recipe, but the perfect frosting recipe eludes me.  In the past I've made cream cheese frosting, which is easy and delicious, but a little...ordinary on chocolate cupcakes.  I long to make the classic buttercream frosting recipe in the Joy of Cooking, but the candy thermometer business makes this too daunting at this juncture in my life.

So, I thought I'd ask: does anyone out there have a fail-safe frosting recipe that is easy, can be used ahead of time (I'd like to frost the cupcakes the night before the party), and looks great with sprinkles?

The News from Here

I wrote a somewhat self-congratulatory post about how we finally moved The Boy to a big boy bed and how easy it all was, and how he was loving it, and how I was loving the sleeping big boyness of him, but before I had the chance to hit publish, I heard The Boy crying and went in to find him lying on the rug in his room.  Judging from the imprint of the rug on his cheek, it was clear he'd been there for some time. Maybe it's not going as well as I had hoped.  Huh.

*****

My last few experiences at the playground have been pretty nightmarish with The Boy and The Girl running (or crawling) in opposite directions faster than I can track.  As soon as I turn my attention to one, the other topples over or runs headlong into some playground equipment or eats copious quantities of sand.  I feel that I am wearing a sign on my back that says "Least Competent Parent Ever."

Today, when everyone was bruised and crying, I decided I'd had enough and packed up to flee.  Even though I know I shouldn't care, I felt the disapproving eyes of the parents and nannies on me.  The Boy loudly announced that some ice cream would make him feel better, and not content to be just the parent who inadequately supervises her children,  I agreed and became the parent who also feeds her kids crap. 

*****

There is a lot of terrible yet typical NYC public school stuff going on with pre-k admissions for Fall 2008, and even though we're not applying for The Boy until Fall 2009, it's freaking me out.  I think I screwed up by not getting him into a real pre-school (instead of the kinder, gentler play-school he goes to now).

*****

And speaking of play-school, it ends for the summer in 3 weeks.  Oh God.