i almost forgot.

graduation.

S graduated from preschool yesterday, and my only struggle with sentimentality was when I walked her into school.  She was perfect and amazing, and I couldn't love her any more if I tried.  

 Before her last day of preschool.

 Getting ready to sing.

 Announcing that when she grows up, she'd like to be a princess, a ballerina, a teacher, and a gymnastics owner.

 Please note she's standing on a pew. She's not quite that tall yet. 

 M, however, is standing on the floor.  He is that freakishly tall.

 The girls.

 Leaving preschool for the last time.

Please note the difference between the boys' table and the girls'.

ugh.

Yesterday evening, as M put T to bed, S and I built a couple of new fairy houses.  They are awesome, but that's not the point.  The point is that when I went to cross the item off of our Spring To-Do list, I realized that the only item left on the list involves her preschool graduation, and for the love of Pete, can someone stop time for a minute so I can catch my breath from all the growing up that's happening around here?  

S taught herself to snap.  She's literally been trying to snap for years.  Suddenly, her teeth are falling out and she can snap and I feel like she's going to need a bra or something the next time I turn around. I suppose I'm not that weirded out by the fact that she'll need a bra someday, but when Thad comes to me and tells me he needs a jock strap I will fall over dead. 

I'd like donations to be sent to a charity in lieu of flowers when that happens.  Just so you know.

checkout lane gut check.

I go to the grocery store on Wednesday nights.  I used to go on Thursdays, but a few months ago we ran out of a bunch of stuff a day early, so I went on Wednesday and realized that 72% of the county's population was at church on Wednesday nights, so the place was practically deserted.  So much less playing of chicken in the aisles, so much less being annoyed at the ladies who park their carts in the middle of the aisle whilst they peruse the numerous choices of boxed cake mix, so much less waiting for Suzy Q No Decision Maker to choose what flavor of Yoplait she wants this week so that I can grab T's plain yogurt.  It was really lovely.  I can't bear the thought of going other times now.  It's a standing date between me and the Kroger.  Every Wednesday night.

Last night, for some inexplicable reason, the store was packed.  I didn't notice it while shopping, but when it came time to check out, the lines were mighty.  I grabbed a magazine from the rack and hunkered down.  A mom and teenager got in line behind me.  They kept looking in my direction and talking quietly in a way that made me really self conscious.  When I started unloading my cart onto the belt, the mom crept up alarmingly close to my cart, peering in.  I said, "Oh, I'm sorry, am I in the way?" (In a nice way, not the snarky way it just seemed.) I thought that maybe she needed a Twix.  Or a prepaid Visa.  It was weird.

She looked at me and said, "No.  My husband just had open heart surgery.  He just came home today.  He has to eat healthy, and I don't know what to do, so we were looking in your cart for ideas."

I told her that I was sorry about her husband and that she could rifle through my groceries as much as she liked.  She proceeded to tell me that her husband wasn't heavy, but that they'd always eaten whatever they wanted and that they'd basically never wanted anything healthy.  The woman was totally lost, admitting that pretty much they had always lived off cheeseburgers and pizza.  It didn't really add up.  This woman looked really fit.  Her daughter looked really fit.  She even told me that she and her daughter walk every single day together.  She told me that they were hauling hay when her husband just fell over.  Seven bypasses.  Seven.  I didn't even know that was possible.

She asked me what I do with broccoli because she saw a head of it in my cart and sent her daughter off to the produce section.  I told her she could steam it or roast it, and that we like it roasted.  Then I told her how I do it.  She just started asking things like, "Can he eat tuna fish?" I said that yes, fish would be great but that he probably shouldn't eat tuna salad with a bucket of mayonnaise in it.  She saw unsalted butter in my cart and said she'd probably need to get some for his toast.  I told her to check with her doctor on that one.  The poor woman was overwhelmed.

When she sent her daughter off to grab something else, I asked how the daughter (who's name is Lindsay and is 15) was coping.  She said she was okay.  She was driving the truck her dad was throwing hay into when he collapsed. She was shaky a lot and obviously freaked out.

I asked about her.  She just said it was completely overwhelming.

I desperately wanted to hug this woman.  And I wanted to go to her house and roast her some broccoli.  I didn't hug her.  Frankly, she didn't look like the type that would want a hug.  Instead I told her I was giving her a mental hug.  I didn't know what to say after all of that.

This whole long story is just to remind you that you need to take care of yourselves.  And that there are multiple parts of the equation.  This was an active guy.  A young guy (44).  But he ate like he thought his body was a garbage disposal, and his wife mentioned a family history of heart disease.

Take care, my peeps.  And teach your kids to do the same.

time flies.

Sorry I went missing for a week.  I realize you've weathered longer breaks than that, but still.  I've been busy with life and slight meltdowns over the pace at which life seems to be moving along.

Last Thursday, I jetted up to Albany to snuggle Scarlet Lily's baby E and C.  Shrimp and Grits was made and eaten.  Mac and cheese was made and eaten.  Molly's cake was made and eaten.  Wine was consumed.  Stories were told.  Belly laughs were laughed.  And I invented a new color.

Before I left on my trip, it was made very obvious that T was about to start walking, and he waited for me to get home on Sunday to start because he loves his Mama, and if he hadn't waited for me then there might not have been adequate snuggles if he fell.  It's solid logic.  Sunday afternoon, he started taking a couple of steps at a time.  Very tentatively, but they were deliberate and they moved him from Point A to Point B.  Each day there have been a few more steps added before the inevitable flop onto his bottom.  Last night at the tennis courts, he figured out how to stand up without pulling himself up on something stable.  He'll be totally over crawling in a matter of days.  It's magical to watch, but also a little scary in that "wobbly toddler" way.

Then there's kindergarten...

...Sidenote: I just got up to check the bread that's baking.

Do not poke at a loaf of bread from a 400 degree oven.

It smarts.

Also, I have no fingerprints anymore.

Anyone who's up for a bit of illicit activity should send me an email.

...back to kindergarten.  Registration is just as convoluted as one might expect from a public school system.  Don't get me wrong,  I have a deep, true love for public education, but when you're publishing a list of required documents for registration, please don't ask me for another document when I get there. If you want me to bring in a utility bill to prove my place of residence, add it to the list of stuff you want me to bring.  Hauling a wiggling toddler in and out of an elementary school is not as easy and graceful as I made it look whilst trying to break into said school because I did not see the sign saying you have to be buzzed in and thus yanked on all the doors like I was trying to escape the boogey man for several minutes.  In front of a classroom's worth of kids. 

So, that emotional milestone is not yet met.  But we're getting there.

Then, to just pile it on with reckless abandon, S approached me with not one, but two, loose teeth this morning.  

  

It's like these two children are conspiring to see if they can break me with all the milestones at one time.  And you know what?  They can.  I can't win this fight.  I'm a broken woman.  

And I love every second of it.  The seconds just go a little too fast sometimes.

just saying.

This will be the shortest post in the history of ever.

I'm just here to tell you that next week, I have to register Stella for kindergarten.  Honest-to-goodness elementary school.

Please send bottles of wine and a pack of hankies.

That is all.

burning out his fuse up here alone.

This is one of my all time favorite commercials.



This and the Discount Double Check.  Anyway.  Let's talk about song lyrics.

Incorrect song lyrics are never a problem for me.  I know them all.  I sing them flawlessly.  In my head.  We all know people who don't, though.  Right?  I had a friend in college who thought Prince was singing, "Baby, come on back," instead of, "Little Red Corvette." The number of syllables matches.

Recently, M and I were talking about Nebraska and I started singing the Counting Crows song "Omaha".  He looked at me like I'd just grown a third eyeball in the middle of my forehead and asked what I was singing.  When I told him he was like, "Wow.  That makes more sense now...that whole somewhere in middle America thing."

And we laughed about it a bit.

But now, S is playing the incorrect song lyrics game, and she puts the rest of the Earth's population to shame.

I'm going to out myself right now as a questionable parent.  S and I rock out to some Lady Gaga.  I made a mix CD to get myself pumped up before I jumped out of an airplane last year.  It's got some old school hip hip, some Beyonce, some Lady Gaga.  In fact, other than one Will.I.Am song, I don't think there is a single song on there that I should let my daughter listen to, but she butchers the lyrics so horrendously that no one knows what she's singing.  For example:

In "Bad Romance," instead of singing,"Want your bad romance," she says something about, "you right a man's place."  Perhaps she thinks this song is about a woman who is putting a man into his place.  A feminist battle hymn.  That's not what Lady Gaga is saying, but it's what S is saying, and she really likes the "Rah Rah" part.

Also, she told me yesterday when we were listening to "Bad Romance" that she would sing Lady Gaga's parts and I could be the Cushion Lady.  Apparently, that's the part that says, "Walk, Walk Fashion Baby." Millions of people didn't know that she's really talking about a Cushion Lady.

It took me awhile to figure out what she was asking to listen to when she started requesting "Carrot Line," but that's what she thinks they're singing when they say, "Can't read my," in "Poker Face".

Regularly, M and I play a game when we hear her singing.  It's a game in which we try to match sounds and syllables of actual songs to the sounds and syllables that are coming out of her mouth.  It's challenging.

She does, however, have the Avett Brothers' "Hard Worker" down cold.

What about you?  Your kids?  Your spouse? Any hysterically incorrect lyrics in your lives?

sympathy for the devil.

Lord, help me*. Please don't let them kick S out of preschool right before graduation. She'd be devastated, and I don't think there is a GED program for preschoolers.

When I picked S up from preschool earlier, the teacher was recounting a story to another mom. She laughed a little under her breath, pointed at me, and said, "Come over here and listen to this." Apparently, they'd been talking about the devil. The other girl involved, J, was going on and on about how the devil is bad and wants us to do bad things and reciting all the things she's learned in Sunday School. Well, S doesn't go to Sunday School because she's the only child in our church that isn't her baby brother and apparently the Episcopal liturgy is above her pay grade.

I digress...

The point is we don't talk about the devil a lot.

So, as J was talking about how bad the devil is, S spoke up and said, "Yes, but he needs friends, too. He doesn't want to feel left out. It's not nice to hurt people's feelings."

I can't believe they didn't call me to come pick up my little heretic right then and there. Thank you, Walnut Street Preschool, for recognizing that she is a good child. She just doesn't want to hurt the devil's feelings. It's not like they're BFF's.

Somebody stop me. Then pray for us all.

*Also, please don't strike me dead for blasphemy. Because I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to blog about the Lord and the devil in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way. I'll write an extra big check this Sunday.**

**There I go again. Hell in a handbasket.

buttery, cinnamony deliciousness.

Sometimes, I feel the need to back off when it comes to food. I tend to want to do things a bit high falutin'. Not five star or anything, but not Hamburger Helper. I think that's been pretty well documented.

An example of this insanity can be seen in this tidbit of an email I wrote to Scarlet Lily yesterday:

Sometimes, my yuppie moments just make me laugh. M and T both have colds, so I'm doing NOTHING unnecessary in an attempt to keep myself well. Thus, I am having a grand old' time perusing food blogs and one of my Alice Waters books.

Upon reading the following sentence, I rolled my eyes at the absurdity of my life:

An individual pizza with a baked egg makes a great main course for an autumnal weekend lunch.

Who actually writes sentences like that?

And what kind of yuppie jerk wad buys the nonsense and reads it multiple times?

Oh, wait. I'm the yuppie jerk wad in question.

Despite that exchange yesterday...despite the fact that I patted out some goat cheese rounds and started marinating them in fresh herbs for tonight's Baked Goat Cheese salad...I knew M wasn't feeling well, and I wanted something simple for supper, and I had planned on having blueberry pancakes, but T had eaten all the blueberries, so I made Baked Cinnamon Roll Pancakes.

Image from Big Red Kitchen.

Fancy they were not. Not in the least. Delicious they were. Yes indeed. Cinnamon and butter and brown sugar all baked into gooey fabulousness in a pancake then coated in maple glaze. The family happily gave their stamps of approval. And they were probably silently grateful that I didn't try to feed them the Shaved Asparagus and Parmesan salad I was eyeing in that Alice Waters book.

bouchons au thon

I did it. I made Molly's bouchons au thon yesterday. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that her writing made me want to make them. When I looked at the ingredient list, there was nothing about them that I wanted to eat. However, I'd bought a can of tuna, and I wasn't about to be deterred.

Yesterday afternoon, I got to work. It took about nine seconds for me to start seriously questioning myself. I believe nine seconds is exactly how long it takes to open a can of tuna. Thus, nine seconds until the smell of canned tuna wafts into your life.

I pressed on. I added the grated cheese. I added the finely diced onion. I added some drained Greek yogurt (like you can buy creme fraiche in Dickson...please). I added parsley and salt and pepper. I added eggs. And I thought maybe, just maybe this wasn't so bad. Then I realized that I forgot to add the tomato paste. And, bam, we crossed into uncharted territory. The batter looked positively revolting. Like really, really chunky thousand island dressing. And it still smelled like tuna. Tuna and tomatoes and Gruyere.

What, that doesn't sound appealing to you either?

Still, I boldly forged ahead.

The entire time they were baking, I kept making myself think of something other than the smell. When they were finished baking, I kept making myself think of something other than how they looked. I questioned my sanity multiple times. Why on Earth did I think I would enjoy something that literally translates into tuna corks?

After they cooled a bit, I decided I was going to have to try one to see if I would have to order pizza. I picked one up from the cooling rack. I smelled it. I looked at it. I gagged a little. I ordered pizza online.

However...

When L came to pick up S, I made some faces at them and talked about them and decided I really did owe it to Molly to try. We're close personal friends, you know. So I cut a little wedge from one and ate it. And you know what? It wasn't bad. Not anywhere near as bad as the canned tuna smell or the baked thousand island appearance. In fact, they were almost good. They were intriguing. A strange texture that I can't actually compare to anything really. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a frittata. Just the same, I loaded those suckers up and sent them home with L, and S apparently liked them quite a bit.

Now I've been thinking about them all day, wondering if I gave up too soon. Who knows? What I do know is that I doubt I'll muster the courage to give bouchons au thon a second try because even if I'm intrigued, I don't think I can stomach the eau de canned tuna again.

dinner with my peeps.

Friday night, I had the girls over. We had champagne cocktails and wine and an entire meal that would've been handily endorsed by the Dairy Council of America. Ashley brought a bleu cheese and bacon dip that I would've eaten with a spoon if I'd been alone. Holly brought salad with crack pecans and blueberries and bleu cheese. I made macaroni and cheese and slow roasted tomatoes. Andrea brought roasted broccoli. Then we had Tiramisu Cake.

The evening was not unfabulous.

Image thieved from Dara.

Honestly, everything was pretty awesome, but I'm especially here to tell you about the macaroni and cheese. It was perfection. Really. I'd make it again today if I wouldn't weigh a thousand pounds if I kept eating it. I used Deb's version of Martha's Macaroni and Cheese, and I used extra sharp white cheddar and Romano cheeses and the cheapest white sandwich bread I could find for the topping. Just thinking about it right now is making my mouth water. I'm telling you: you will never want to eat another version of mac and cheese again...and this is coming from a woman who swears by Creamy Rigatoni with Gruyere and Brie.

Image thieved from Dara.

Also, the Tiramisu cake. It was good, don't get me wrong, but the sponge cakes dried up so badly overnight that the leftovers were inedible, and that's just sad. It needed a little tweaking or a more significant dousing of coffee syrup. It didn't matter much, though, because the filling and the chunks of dark chocolate and the frosting were so good that I could've died happy whilst eating it.

Now, I made herbed focaccia yesterday afternoon and homemade tomato sauce, and there is a hunk of fresh mozzarella in the fridge, so I'm going to spend the afternoon daydreaming about paninis for supper. And tomorrow night, we're going to give Molly's bouchons au thon a whirl. I love my life. Everyday and twice on Sundays.

one.

I've got several blog posts floating around in my cranium these days, but first things first. Like, first birthdays. Here are some photos.

It's official.

With Grandma.

Loving presents.

Downtime with Dad.

S playing Corn Hole.

SR in action.

Girls Gone Wild? Sometime I'll tell you about their campfire.

Cake boss.

evidence.

For today, here are just a couple of pictures of the kiddos. I realize there have been zero photographs lately, and I didn't want you to think they'd disappeared and I was making up all the stories about them in an elaborate conspiracy. I know you were all thinking that.

This photo turned out super grainy, but you can clearly see that when S and A get together, there is no shortage of personality. Even when making cookies.

S, being gorgeous. It's her thing.

T, with treasure.

Kids in a wagon.