Babies are Dumb

Our sweet Marmot Babe has lost his left toenail. He pulled the cast iron skillet (which I stole from my mother so it was probably karmic retribution) out of the cabinet and dropped it onto his toe. It looked horrid for a while until the nail actually came off. I put a sock on him for a few days to protect his toe. People thought it was a quirky fashion statement. "Quirky" is me, "fashion" is not.

But that's not all. On Sunday night as I was loading up the dishwasher he sneaked a handful of detergent out of the dispenser cup and shoved it right in his mouth. I didn't think much of it until he walked onto the carpet (of course) and vomited. Then returned to the kitchen and vomited again. So Marmot Dad checked the label which of course said "call your doctor immediately," so he spent some quality time chatting with the folks at poison control. The Babe was OK, but I got some good heart-racing exercise while I tried to force 4 oz. of fluids into him.

What else he does: tries to eat rhubarb leaves (poisonous); sucks on bar soap (yucky); climbs on things and fall off (painful); runs onto the ball field in the middle of E's baseball game (annoying); and turns the water on hothothot when he's in the tub (dumb).

I'll save my mom the trouble of posting a comment and write what she would have written: "His grandma is going to come and get him and take care of him because his parents are clearly not!"

Poor little Marmot Babe.

How to Have a Really Very Trying Birthday

Let me give you some advice on how to have a trying birthday. I'm not the type who doesn't like my birthday, feels sad about growing older, etc. etc., so it takes a lot of effort to have a distressing birthday. Hence, I am the best one to give advice on how to make it a day to put wrinkles in the corners of your eyes.

First, and this is important, you must, absolutely must, have four children in rapid succession. This takes quite a bit of advance planning, so don't even think of having a stressful birthday if, say, you only have two children, or if you have the four already but they are at least two years apart each. If you have more than four, and if they are the requisite less-than-two-years-apart, you might as well just stay in bed on your birthday, and most other days as well.

Next, you have to promise all of those children that they may help you make your birthday cake. Absolutely promise the eldest that you will not even unwrap the butter before she gets home from school around 3:30 or 4:00.

So, it's 4:00. Washing the dishes is optional. It will clear out the sink, making cake clean-up easier after you cook, making your birthday less stressful, but it will also increase the whininess of the children who want to help cook your cake NOW, so it's up to you.

Now, get out your ingredients and make sure that you position the two-year-old near everything sticky and/or floury so he can put his grubby hands in it and  get it on the floor. Make sure you leave the sugar out so your older children can not-so-surreptitiously sneak bites of it right out of the canister giving you little brain seizures every time they do. Brain seizures keep the stress levels up, ladies! Keep up the good work!

Make the frosting and run whatever interference you need to about who gets to lick the bowl/beater/spatula.

When you take those puppies out of the oven, make sure you leave them where a two-year-old can drag over a stool and pat and press them with his grubby hands. See if he won't lick one or two.

Around 5:45 after you clean up the cake mess, start to think about dinner. Do not, I repeat, do not look at your recipe for tasty pad thai ahead of time, because if you do, you will know that your noodles need to soak in cold water for at least an hour. An hour. At 5:45. Also you will remember that you needed tofu for this recipe. So do the best you can with a quick soak in boiling water and add some extra egg instead of tofu. Hope for the best.

Make sure you promise the kids they can help frost the cupcakes, because that always makes for good fighting amongst the siblings, and, if you're lucky, a cupcake dropped upside down. Try for the carpet, but if you can't make that, the kitchen floor will do. Make sure you put coconut on every cupcake so you'll be sure that someone will cry because he or she does not care for coconut. Remind them that this is your special day, and expect more tears.

Open presents with whining all around and, if possible, get someone to smash your giant-size bag of shrimp crackers (thanks Marmot Dad!) onto the concrete, turning it all into shrimp dust.

Go to bed confident in the knowledge that you have done all you can to make your birthday Very Trying Indeed.

Then give Marmot Dad the leftover coconut cupcakes for his birthday, because you are too worn out to make another cake, ever, until your children are all in college.

At least no one vomited on me this year.

Here's a link to the coconut cupcake recipe. They were very tasty. I've never used so much butter for one recipe before in my life. But I have to admit, I chickened out at the frosting step. I just couldn't add that third stick of butter to the pound of cream cheese. They were very very tasty cupcakes, nevertheless, and I want about 85 more.

**Happy Birthday also to Marmot Dad. Tooie spilled the beans on his birthday presents (a bike helmet and bike seat) so he had to get them many days before his birthday and, with the leftover cupcakes and all, had somewhat of a subdued birthday this year**

**Many thanks also to my long-suffering sister who chopped cilantro and shredded carrots and beat back some of the marmots so that my head didn't actually explode. She also walked off with two cupcakes.**

Someone There is Who Does Not Love the Mall

Today was the day. My sister and I reserve the first Saturday in May each year for our rummage sale extravaganza at a local elementary school. We dream about it all winter long, through the cold nights and the dreary, garage-sale-less days of February. April is the cruelest month, because it postpones May, and the rummage sale.

But today was the day. We get up early, skip the shower (speaking strictly for myself here), and brave the drizzly dawn to line up for our beloved rummage sale. We know enough now not to rely on the garbage bags the good folks at the school hand out (these are strictly for amateurs) and bring our Mary Poppins bags to stuff all of our stuff in.

It's important to go with someone else to these sales, because often in the heady rapture over the piles and piles of clothes (shirts for a dollar! skirts for 75 cents! I'll take them all!) we sometimes make less wise fashion decisions. Like the year my sister wanted to buy a shirt that looked like she had slung a rag around her torso. Or the many unfortunate skirts that have made their way to my home, a mere waystation on their way directly to the thrift store. 

Then there was the turquoise snowsuit that is absolutely hideous but that, I must say, has kept my girls warm for about four years and that they love and that cost no more than $.50.

So said sister and I shop, and then retire to a quiet corner to critique each others' finds ("you may not buy anything else that shade of blue" she always tells me, or, "did you not notice the gaping hole in that coat?") and then head off to shop some more. I got a pat on the arm and a condescending "good fashion choice" for picking out a bright blue, rather than a light blue, shirt.

This year was a bit crowded, and not as well stocked as years past, but I still managed to spend more than I have in any other year. Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, how much would you spend for this:

3 men's shirts

2 pairs of men's khakis

2 ladies' skirts

1 pair of pants for same

1 pair of sweat pants (shiny, which my sister says I may not wear outside of the house)

6 polo shirts

2 sweaters

3 blouses

3 casual knit shirts

1 pair of shorts

 

But wait! We'll also throw in some children's clothes:

2 dresses

1 skirt

1 pr. sweats

1 pr. shorts

1 pr. pajamas

5 shirts

2 pr. pants

1 top

3 pr. snow pants

Now how much would you pay?

BUT WAIT! That's not all. If you rummage now, I'll throw in . . . 

1 loaf pan

1 muffin tin

1 ice cream scoop (which Tooie thinks is his--"We can make muffins together, Mommy!")

1 instant-read thermometer

1 can opener

1 plate

1 bowl

1 pumpkin thingy for Halloween

And finally, the coup de grace,

10 cafeteria trays in a pleasing lime green.

Any takers? I spent $45, and that's after being charged extra for the cafeteria trays (my sneaky sister got hers for $.10 each) and for a couple of other things, but since it's a fundraiser I usually don't fuss about miscalculations. 

We ate off our cafeteria trays for dinner tonight, and I made a dinner fit for a cafeteria tray (or a TV dinner): chicken nuggets (granted, homemade with whole-wheat breadcrumbs for coating), green beans (pan-roasted, not boiled), mandarin oranges (straight from the can), and chocolate pudding yum yum.

(Here's what the pudding looked like after Tooie dropped some on the floor and, not wanting to waste a drop, got down and licked it up.)

Here are the trays post-pudding:

I'm not sure why I love them so much, except perhaps that they are just like the trays from my elementary school (those were pink, though, or a beige-ish pink). Plus the kids think they're fun.

Now, people tell me they don't go to rummage sales because they don't like spending all that time rummaging through things. But I for one would much rather spend two hours going through piles of clothes than spend two hours at the mall feeling a vague sense of unease that deepens into a full-blown funk. Or, worse yet, go to Wal-Mart and brave the horrible lighting and bad chi. I also get to experience the thrill of the chase and the bragging rights of dressing my family for less than $100 a year.

And where else would I have found those trays? Say it with me, baby. Rummage Sale.