girlfiend

The night before was awful. F, who has insisted upon sleeping in our bed for the last several weeks (sneaking down in the middle of the night, or before we get into bed), was unable to fall asleep until 10.30, tossing and turning and keeping me awake. Thankfully the baby slept through the night, not awakening until just before 6 when I was able to nurse him and get him (and me) back to sleep for another hour, until F woke me up telling me he was ready to get dressed.  His loud demands for me to get out of bed right this minute woke the baby, so we all got up together.

F wanted pancakes for breakfast, and thanks to the ingenious spray can* I was able to make exactly two. Two pancakes that he did not eat. The baby ate two eggs with cheese. I ate one on a sandwich. F ate wheat thins.

I dropped F off at preschool and T and I headed back to the house. Freaking out over the morning’s guest I quickly folded 4 loads of laundry and vacuumed. T’s case manager, his service coordinator, was right on time.  It took an hour to schedule the multidisciplinary evaluation with the provider and go through the paperwork and description of Early Intervention. As soon as he left I loaded T back into the car to pick up F from preschool.

T fell asleep in the car. I left him in the car (window open, doors locked) and signed F out for the day. F, of course, wanted to play on the playground, so I let him while his brother slept. The baby woke up after about 45 minutes, sweaty from his nap in the car. He drank some water, ate some pretzels and played on the playground with the other kids for a while before we headed home.

I made farfalle with butter and cheese for lunch, which the baby ate and the Fiendling did not even though he was the one who requested it. While T ate I mixed the dough for two loaves of oatmeal bread and set them out to rise. I took pork and beef and chicken stock out of the freezer to defrost for dinner.

The baby was exhausted but he refused to take a nap. He played nicely with his brother while I started a load of laundry and sorted through some paperwork for my library meeting. I went out to the garden and cut some chives, thyme, and oregano for dinner. I scrubbed the thick dirt off of a pint of fingerling potatoes. I read The Way Back Home about thirty times, then read The Runaway Bunny about ten times.

I shaped the dough into loaves and put it in loaf pans for the second rise then looked through my cookbooks  for a meatloaf recipe that doesn’t use three eggs, because I only had three eggs and don’t get new eggs until CSA pickup on Thursday (I did not want to leave the baby without the option of an egg for breakfast.) I rediscovered my New York Times Cookbook, the first cookbook I ever bought for myself.  I decided that I need to refer to it more often, as it’s a classic and posted about it on Facebook before getting back to work. I used up all of the oatmeal in the bread and never have dried breadcrumbs in the house (unless they are panko, which I wouldn’t use in meatloaf) so I dug through the freezer looking for some bread heels. I found two and supplemented with a frozen hamburger bun and ground them into crumbs in the food processor.

While the oven preheated I mixed up the meatloaf, using only two eggs. I compromised on the oven temperature, figuring the bread would be fine baking at 350 instead of 375. It was. The baby, still exhausted, needed a snack. I made him half of a peanut butter and jelly with some sliced pear. I ate some pear too. B got home from work and took the boys for a little to drop off keys at his aunt’s office. While they were out I started the potatoes, cooking them on the stovetop in the chicken stock with garlic and thyme. (The recipe sounded good, but it wasn’t really, so I won’t link to it.) The site where I found the recipe had an ad for these Mummy Dogs. I think I may need to use some of my 10,000 pillsbury coupons and make them. I posted the recipe to facebook.

I washed dishes. The boys came home as the bread came out of the oven. The temperature did not affect it. B’s aunt loaded F up with an envelope of candy. We shared a box of Dots while I washed and chopped a bunch of swiss chard. B came in the kitchen with the baby and asked what was for dinner, looking at the pot with the potatoes, which looked clearly like potatoes to me, but then again I am not a man. I told him they were potatoes. He seemed to think that was okay.

He went upstairs to change out of his work clothes. F and I shared another box of Dots. I washed more dishes. The meatloaf came out of the oven and I drained the fat. I sauteed the chard in some olive oil. B came back into the kitchen and said, “Meatloaf! Oh, you were joking with me. I love you.” I realized immediately that he asked what I was cooking for dinner, not because he didn’t recognize the potatoes, but because he was hoping for something more. But I played along like I had been joking with him. I washed a few more dishes. We sat down to eat.

F ate cold, leftover noodles and swiss chard. The baby ate cold, leftover noodles and meatloaf. B and I did not eat cold, leftover noodles. We did eat the rest of the meal I prepared.

I gathered my bags and went to my library meeting. We made a little less than $500 on the bus trip we ran in September. It was the first bus trip in the two years since I’ve been the treasurer of the organization that we did not lose money. It was our last trip. No one in the group has any interest in organizing. The children’s librarian, goodhearted as she is, seems to think our funds should be spent on providing her with candy to distribute to the children at events. The executive committee feels we should be distributing books to the children at events. She has decided to ask the local markets for donations.

The meeting ended and I went to Starbucks for my weekly knitting group. I realized that I’d forgotten my wallet. I ran into a woman who had attended the group once before. She told me no one else was there and bought me a coffee. We chatted about schools and our kids while I knitted and she made jewelry.  I walked home and checked my email to learn the group had been canceled for the evening.  B was cleaning up. I washed more dishes. I dicked around online for an hour. I brushed my teeth and went to bed where F was asleep on my pillow again. I read for a while even though the book I’m reading sucks.  I fell asleep.

I woke up to the sound of the baby crying. It was 11.30. B was in bed next to me reading. He asked, “Do you want me to go in there?” I had to go to the bathroom so I got up and rocked the baby back to sleep. For future reference, if your wife is asleep in bed and you are awake reading while the baby cries there is no need to ask if she wants you to go in there. The answer is yes. In fact, if your wife is sleeping and you are awake you should get up before she wakes up to get the baby back to sleep and tell her about it in the morning.

*I had a coupon and the store had a promotion where they came with a free carton of 18 eggs. I couldn’t resist.

The Fiendling has been a complete shit about going to sleep the past few days/weeks/who-the-hell-knows-how-long-it’s-been. It’s maddening because he knows he’s having trouble falling asleep and is torn between wanting me to help him fall asleep and trying to get out of falling asleep. His stall tactics include needing a diaper, being hungry, and insisting that it is not bedtime it is morning.

He goes back and forth between wanting to sleep upstairs in his green room and wanting to sleep in my bed, but in both locations he wants me to stay with him until he falls asleep. If I leave or try to leave he screams, begs, pleads and cajoles or he blatantly leaves his room and comes downstairs. The most irritating part is that the other night, when B was out, Mix came over to help me with the boys and successfully got the punk kid to bed in about 20 minutes. Show off.

Is there some sort of common three year sleep regression I don’t know about? *** Yes! It is nice to know it’s not just me, but at least Moxie’s kid would stay quietly in his own room. Mine has a full library and a fucking train table in his room and he freaks out at the very suggestion of playing quietly without me.***

The garden is doing well. The strawberries are thriving, even  the two plants we thought were goners are coming back to life. The blackberry bushes, which looked even deader on arrival than the bare root strawberry plants, are showing little bits of green despite the fact that we still haven’t put them in permanent containers. The first round of seeds I planted directly in the boxes, lettuce, spinach, broccolini and peas have mostly sprouted. The peas are the slowest of the bunch- I only saw two that have officially sprouted, but the broccolini has grown about an inch since yesterday.  If the wildlife doesn’t get them first, it looks like we’ll have home grown spring vegetables.

I got pretty drunk at book club last week. Mixing red and white wine is never a good idea.

Remember the last time I posted, about a week and a half ago, when I said that the previous week had been the longest week ever? I was wrong. Last week, when Boyfiend and I were both sick with the same damn things the kids were miserable with the week before was the longest week ever. Last week, when we should have been drinking and gardening and gallivanting and generally just enjoying each other and margaritas, we were feverish (me) and sinus-infected (him) and just plain miserable taking care of kids that were pretty much fine.

We made it out of the house for seder on Wednesday and dinner with friends on Thursday but we really weren’t ourselves. Then we had Easter festivities on Saturday but neither of us were well enough to drink and enjoy them. Yesterday was the first day I felt almost normal. Boyfiend is still on the mend and I still have a touch of the old whiskey and cigarettes (fine, phlegm) voice and now spring break is over and he’s back to work.

Somehow Boyfiend managed to suffer through his illness and put together and fill the Square Foot Garden boxes. We have one box planted with strawberries, lettuce, spinach, and broccolini. The two remaining boxes are ready to be planted. The basil seeds I’d given up on finally sprouted and I have more seeds to start and more to plant after the last spring frost. I haven’t yet plotted out the remaining garden boxes, and I have more seeds to order. I think I’m going to try fava beans and watermelon in addition to the plants I’ve had success with in the past.

Today a woman walking down the street complimented me on the tulips in my yard. They really do brighten up a rainy, miserable day.

The theme for April at nablopomo is Growing Up. I don’t know that I’ll actually sign up for the challenge, but April is a good month to talk about that particular subject.

I have basil seeds not yet sprouted on the kitchen windowsill, a birthday gift of two green bean plants sprouted beside them, and several packets of seeds that need to get in the ground quickly. The plan is for three Square Foot Garden boxes- two in the proper 4×4 set up and one longer 8×2 box. That makes 48 squares altogether. With 9 spinach plants in a box, 16 carrots per box, 4 strawberry plants, etc. we’re in for a lot of food this summer if we (or the wildlife) don’t fuck it up.

Right now in the backyard or the garage (I have no idea because I haven’t left the house in 36 hours) is a package of 25 strawberry plants and a blackberry bush that I hope haven’t died yet. We haven’t yet gotten the garden boxes together, and by we I mean Boyfiend because I am not the one physically sawing and hammering, but we do have the ingredients for our Mel’s Mix and by this time next week we’ll hopefully be on our way to a proper vegetable garden for the summer.

I spent a couple of hours with Tony in the morning then I had lunch with Gabbiana, Fraulein N, and Doodlebug at Honey’s Sit ‘n’ Eat. When I got home from Northern Liberties the Fiendling had just woken up from a nap. For some reason it was a bad wakeup. He was sad and clingy and fussy and he somehow fell and hit his head, leaving a scrape and bruise just under his eye. Wanting to cheer him up we took him for a walk to see the pig who lives around the corner. Visiting and petting the pig improved his mood drastically, so we walked up to the playground.

It was a little before six and the playground was packed. An obese woman wearing short shorts sat on a bench with her husband while their tow-headed little girl wearing a blue dress, ruffled ankle socks and sparkly pink shoes played with a dark skinned boy whose mom watched from the low wall encircling the playground. A mom with a girl who was about a year old pushed her in the baby swing while smoking a cigarette. A little boy a few months older than the Fiendling was running around with his dad, a guy about my age who had tattoos covering the majority of one leg (do they still call it a sleeve when it’s on a leg?) and a tattoo of a rose on the other leg.

The little boy went down the slide and his dad followed. An eighth of pot wrapped in a sandwich bag fell out of the dad’s pocket and landed underneath the slide. The dad hopped off of the slide, scooped up the bag and shoved it back in his pocket. I stared at him for a minute, wondering if he’d acknowledge that I’d just totally seen his bag of weed. He didn’t. Instead he reached in his pocket, pulled out a few more bags in addition to the first and put them in a different pocket on the leg of his shorts, a pocket that closed with velcro.

A family shuffled up the walkway to the playground. There were two mildly retarded looking adults, a man and a woman, with a boy who looked to be about six or seven years old and a small baby in a carriage. The boy took off playing and the woman and the man sat on the bench with the stroller in front of them. The woman was oddly obese. She wasn’t nearly as large as the woman with the little girl in tap shoes, but she had a lumpy pendulous belly and she was wearing a bizarre cotton tie dyed overall shorts thing. She wasn’t wearing a shirt. The ill-fitting overalls only partially covered her stretched out, shiny white bra and back fat. She and the guy settled onto the bench and immediately took out their cell phones. It looked like they were playing games with them, and every so often they’d show each other something on the phone. The woman smiled at the Fiendling and asked me his age. I told her he’s almost a year and a half and she responded that her baby would be five months old tomorrow. I smiled and winced while she exhaled cigarette smoke into her baby’s carriage. A few minutes later she asked, “How do you spell minutes?” I spelled it for her and she thanked me and went back to pressing buttons on her phone.

A normal looking guy wearing an orange polo shirt arrived with his son who appeared to be about four or five. The dad said to his kid, “You’re one of the big kids here today, watch out for the little ones.” A few minutes later I turned around and saw that the dad was on his back on the ground, legs up on the low wall, doing sit ups. Sit ups. At the playground. He and his son didn’t stay for too long.

The Fiendling was walking around the perimeter of the playground when a little girl of about two came into the playground with her mom and they sat on a bench together. The mom looked a bit crunchy and was wearing a shirt that said something about Darwin. The little girl wanted to play with the Fiendling and kept yelling, “Come here little boy. Come play.” Eventually the girl got up and she and the Fiendling began to play, climbing up the ladder and going down the slide.

A blonde woman smoking a cigarette and a white guy with a stocking on his head walked in to the play area and sat with the obese woman wearing the bra instead of a shirt. They talked for a couple of minutes then the obese woman and the guy she was with left, leaving the older boy and the baby with the blonde and the guy with the do rag.

The little girl wearing the ruffled socks and fancy shoes came over and seemed to want to play too. She stepped up onto the wall and yelled, “Look at me! Look! I can balance while I walk! WATCH ME!” I said, “I’m watching,” and she began to walk on it like a balance beam. Every few minutes she’d yell again for us to watch. She eventually got bored of the balance routine and started climbing up the slide while the Fiendling and the other little girl tried to go down. I kept telling her that she had to wait for the kids to come down before she climbed up. Her mother and father sat on the bench at the far side of the playground and didn’t seem to be paying any attention whatsoever. On her way up the slide she announced that her shoes had very high heels. When she reached the top she showed me just how high they were and slid back down. She sat at the foot of the slide and asked the Fiendling if he’d like to sit with her. He sat and she pointed out her shoes to him. He seemed to like the sparkles and touched them. He soon lost interest and began climbing the ladder again. Wanting more attention the girl stopped him at the bottom of the slide and asked if he wanted to sit and pet her shoes. I was relieved that he did not.

It was close to seven at this point and the Fiendling was exhausted. Not wanting to upset him by leaving the playground Boyfiend waited for the exact right moment and scooped him up and skipped down the hill singing a little song. We sang the song about the marching ants all the way to the supermarket where we bought a loaf of Le Bus bread before heading home to feed the Fiendling and put him to bed.

Boyfiend put the baby to sleep while I made a quick tomato sauce (over white beans for me and spaghetti for him) for dinner. I went outside to pick some basil and found this on the ground.

Stupid raccoons. I guess it’s time to break out more coyote urine.

For the low, low price of $22.95 I am the proud owner of:

If this doesn’t work I don’t know what will. I hope my eggplants are still there when we get back from vacation.

Dear Squirrel,

I still don’t like you and I still blame you for eating my green bean seedlings. However I must apologize for calling you fuckers for eating my eggplant. I’m sorry. It was not you. It was a motherfucking raccoon. A fucking raccoon, squirrel. In my garden, eating my eggplant.
My sincerest apologies,

Girlfiend

p.s. I still don’t want you in my garden. Back off.

I believe I’ve mentioned before that squirrels are fuckers. I hate them. Lower Merion has a deer hunt, my backyard should have a squirrel hunt. This time they’ve eaten my cute little not even as big as ping pong ball eggplant. I may have to buy some fox urine. I can’t believe I just typed that and meant it.

I ate the first green beans from my garden last night. Haricots verts. I dropped them in boiling water for about a minute then tossed them with olive oil, kosher salt, pepper and minced garlic. They were the best green beans I’ve ever eaten. Fresh makes a world of difference.

I finished Shopaholic and Baby last night. I do not get the Shopaholic series. I read Shopaholic and Sister, thought it was terrible, saw the baby book and couldn’t resist. It was equally as terrible, if not worse.

The first pepper turned orange. It looks like it will be red soon.