Things I Hope to Never Forget

To my original pair of boys, I am so sorry you don't get the attention you once did. If it's any consolation, you are still very much loved, especially by Mikey and Nico.

And please don't ever stop visiting me while I make dinner. I may not walk you as I should, but I promise to toss you many good treats and turn a blind eye when the boys feed you cereal from the box.

Bagged Salad

My sister-in-law makes the most phenomenal salads. It's her "thing," what people always ask her to bring or assume she will make. I've always been known for my desserts, but one day my sister-in-law generously told me all her salad making secrets. I now can hold my own with lettuce, and proudly sit at the right-hand side of her salad bowl.

(I'm aware my pictures are painfully small. That will change w/ the new blog. For now, please click the image to enlarge.)

Last night I made a salad for dinner. Grilled, marinated chicken, lots of fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, and a simple, homemade dressing (I have yet to find a bottled dressing I like). I stood there for a minute debating whether to rinse of the leaves from my salad mix before I tossed them in the bowl. I've learned from various sources, including the CDC, that you can rinse to refresh but not clean. No amount of dunking and diving in your sink is going to remove the vestiges of cow patty run-off water.

So that got me thinking: how many of you rinse your bagged lettuce before eating it?
I want to hear whether you do or you don't, and because this topic is so very scintillating, feel free to post anonymously. ;)

The Fine Artist

The teachers at Mikey's school tell me often how gifted Mikey is when it comes to drawing. I have three theories regarding the nature of this praise.

1. They are trying to cushion the "we think your child needs 7 years of preschool" blow with a few compliments tossed in here and there.
2. Mikey attends school with the largest group of socially mature, yet artistically inept, preschool-aged children in southern California.
3. Mikey knows his way around a pack of Crayolas and I should encourage his creative endeavors.

Of course I'm going with No. 3. It's the option that fits best with my competitive nature and enormous ego. Besides, we have a few artists in the family, so if Mikey has talent he comes by it naturally. My brother is a video game designer (art! only animated! and with violence!) and my aunt is a fine artist in Argentina who spent a number of years in Italy restoring paintings for museums.

Oh, and one more reason I'm hanging my hat on No. 3? I have total and complete artist envy. Ever since I was a child, and still to this day, I wish I was artistically inclined. I suppose I can fight the passive voice and mend split infinitives as well as the next blogger, but what can I say? The grass is always greener and I wish I could draw. So to all you graphic designers out there: good job, keep up the good work, and try not to make it look so easy because I am totally jealous of your little mood boards and funny posters and cheeky Christmas cards you send out every year.

Back to Mikey. I had to take my mother-in-law had to the train station last night. I thought her 12+ hour ride would be more comfortable with a few snacks, and I asked Mikey to draw a picture of Gaga Pam on the snack bag. When I came back, this is what he handed me.

I know it doesn't look like much, but for a 4-year old it's pretty good, and for whatever reason, I completely fell in love with this little drawing. I didn't want to give it to my mother-in-law. I wanted to hand on to it and frame it. Something about those bright white earrings slay me in a million little pieces. (You can click on it to make it larger)

Courtney from My Sunset Road (so talented!) suggested I immortalize it with embroidery, and that she too wants to embroider some of her children's drawings. The only problem? We don't know how to embroider, and I don't even know how to transfer the pattern. Do I just use a light-box and use the picture as a color reference? I really want to try this. I have a family wall of pictures and love the idea of incorporating some embroidered portraits to the mix.

Any suggestions? Has anyone done this before with a modicum of success?

Tweet! Tweet!

Because I need another time suck, I decided to Twitter along with the rest of the world, including Barack Obama. If you would like to see how effectively I mismanage my time throughout the day, you are more than welcome to follow me tweet right HERE. Stop by and say hi! :)

Favorite Moment

As an adult, the childhood moments we laugh about most with our parents are the moments where we were sure they would have killed us had they been able to hide the bodies. I think this is because at its core, the moment is built on hysteria--first anger, then laughter. There is one story in particular that make my brothers and I laugh until we can't breathe.

Hawaii, 1982.

In order to find this funny, you have to understand my father. Vacations with him were best likened to triathlons. Only the fittest and psychologically strong individuals survived. There were no sick breaks. Montezuma's Revenge? As a physician he felt confident in giving you a near lethal dosage Pepto Bismal, which had the added benefit of constipating you for the rest of the vacation and thereby sparing him those inconvenient 5 minute bathroom breaks. Car sick? Roll down the window and pray the puke doesn't fly back in your face. We didn't count on sleep, either. No matter where the locale, we were always up at the crack of dawn to catch some obscure 14 hour bus tour. If there was a monument, a ruin, a landmark, or a frayed ball of twine of some significance, there is a picture of me, my mom, and my brothers standing in front of it looking exhausted.

True to form, our family vacation in Hawaii amount to us touring all the islands in 10 days. We stopped at every beach, peered down every volcano, and sampled every pu-pu platter from Kona to Kuai. One day dad decided to visit some beach that was particularly important for some reasons that allude me now. As usual, dad encouraged us to observe all the native plants and read all the markers lining the path to the beach. We were 9, 6, and 3; we couldn't care less about some waca-caca plant dating back to the Mesozoic era and my mom, charged with taking care of the lot of us, didn't care, either. We kept walking, but eventually the weight of Catholic guilt forced us to stop a few yards down the path and watch him read dutifully the history of the great waca-caca plant.

And read it he did. From beginning to end, he read every last sentence while shouldering the weight of an ice chest, a beach umbrella, 4 beach bags, a boogie board, a pail, and two shovels. He looked like John Candy in Summer Rental.

There we were, my mom, my brothers, and I, looking back at him in apathy. Shoulders slumped, dejected and beaten, we stood there as he read out loud all the critical information we were missing regarding the waca-caca plant from 10 yards away. Finally, finally, he made a move towards us--towards the beach. But something on the marker caught his eye, and he turned back briefly. It was a move that would live on in infamy, because while his head turned back his feet kept moving. If he had been staring ahead instead of at the marker, he would have noticed his Hawaiian flip-flop shod foot was perched on the edge of a craggly, sandy step. He would have known to step down and not out. But alas, he was thinking about waca-caca and had no idea he was about to eat shit.

He did the splits and bounced back up like a toy soldier in The Nutcracker. He fell backwards, but thought quickly and used the beach umbrella as a pole-vault. Unfortunately, he put all his weight into that vault and succeeded only in launching his sherpa-like body two feet forward. He twisted and turned, the centrifugal force of the beach bags and ice chest keeping him in place while above his head the pail and shovels flew towards freedom. It was choreographed chaos, and it was over in ten seconds.

We stared back at him, amazed at his agility; he never fell, and never dropped so much as a grain of sand. Inside my belly a chuckle started to form. My mom snorted. My brothers stole a glance at each other and said simply, "Whoa."

My dad, on the other hand, was not amused. Just seconds ago he was pirouetting across lava rock and he had to save face. He contorted his red face into a mask of anger and growled between bared, clenched teeth, "HOT DAMN, WILL YOU GUYS HURRY UP?!"

My mom, now shaking under the strain of hiding her laughter couldn't help but point out smugly, "But we're ahead of you."

No longer interested in the waca-caca plant, my dad stormed off towards the beach while my brothers and I imitated his near fall again and again down the path to the beach all the while wiping tears of laughter from our eyes. We couldn't stop laughing, and 16 years we are still laughing. The only difference is that now my dad joins us; it's one of his favorite stories.

A while back I was thinking of this story and tried to imagine what story Mikey and Nicholas would share years from now at the expense of the Mister and I. I can only imagine what piece of family history will make them laugh decades later. In keeping with this thought and my desire to document as much of their childhood as I can without scrapbooking, I've started taking pictures of those moments where I debate putting the boys on the curb next to our recycling. Invariably, by the time I get my camera I am already cooled off enough to see the humor in whatever it was that had me infuriated moments earlier.

It doesn't always work, and I won't even bother trying it for big transgressions when they are older, but it certainly worked on Thursday afternoon when I walked outside the office to find Nicholas playing "paleontologist" under Mikey's direction. The planter beds were all but destroyed, empty of every last piece of green. Dirt strewn two feet in every direction and Mikey, clean as a whistle, imploring that Nico "dig deeper" for fossils. And dig he did.

I pulled him out of the flowerbed and yelled at the sight of our destroyed garden. Then I remembered: this might be it. This might be the story we laugh at 16 years from now. So I put him down and ran into the office for my camera. Nicholas resumed the dig, and I started living in the moment, only stopping when he started eating rocks.

Things I Hope to Never Forget

When going for a drive meant a trip to the end of the street in a little red wagon.

One Bad Egg

Jules: "Mikey, I have a surprise for you!"

Mikey: "OH! I'M SO EXCITED! Let me close my eyes and then you can tell me what it is!"

Jules: "OK, are you ready?"

Mikey: "YES! YES! YES"

Jules: "OK! OPEN YOUR EYES!!"

Mikey: {gasp!!} "DINOSAUR EGGS! You found fossils at Vons, Mama! Are they going to hatch?"

Jules: "YES! But we have to put them in warm water first, ok?"

Mikey: "Let's do it right now! I'm so excited, Mama!"

Jules: "Me, too! How about we make this one hatch?"

Mikey: "YES! I love yellow. This is going to be perfect!"

Jules: "OK. Here we go!"

Mikey: "Here we go!"

{1 minute later}

Mikey: "Is it hatching?"

Jules: "Not yet. We need to be patient."

{2 minutes later}

Mikey: "Is it hatching?"

Jules: "Not yet. Soon. I promise."

{3 minutes later}

Mikey: "Is it hatching?"

Jules: "Almost. Any second now."

{4 minutes later}

Mikey: "MAMA! I think it's hatching! It's going to be a baby T-Rex!"

Jules: "Oh! You're right! Won't be long now. Maybe it will be a T-Rex, but there are plenty of other dinosaurs, too. Part of the fun is waiting to see which dinosaur is going to hatch."

{5 minutes later}

Mikey: "MAAAAAAMAAAAAAA! IT HATCHED! IT HATCHED! It's a....It's a....It's a....Mama? What kind of dinosaur is that?

Jules: "Let me see. Oh. Well. Huh." {Squirrel? Rorschach Test? Where is that dinosaur egg box?!}

Jules: "Hmmm. Well, according to the box it's a protoavis."

Mikey: "Oh. And what is that, Mama?"

Jules: "That, Mikey, is what happens when dinosaur cousins get married."