So then I decided that I wasn’t able to make a good post out of it, and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to share it anyhow. Naturally, I decided this after I published and shared.
My apologies. Better post next time, I promise.
Category: Family and Friends
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Kicking Off the Cheeseburger Challenge
On Saturdays, Baguette and Bestie have swim class at a local Y. Afterward, we all go to McDonald’s for lunch.
I kind of hate McDonald’s.
It’s not that there’s nothing there I like–it’s more that they keep getting rid of the things I like best.
For a while, Baguette would only eat the McBites. Then they got rid of McBites. It turned out she also was fine with Chicken Selects. So what happened a few weeks ago? That’s right. They got rid of Chicken Selects. And on top of that, whoever handles McDonald’s Twitter account has never responded to my questions about this. (This is actually a pretty basic thing about social media–they should be answering direct questions.)
Don’t get me wrong. I ate plenty of McNuggets as a kid. But they really creep me out now, because that’s not what chicken looks like.
And McDonald’s has some new sandwiches that I kind of like, particularly the CBO. But it’s enormous, and I’m not usually looking for enormous.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve realized that I cannot eat those big fast-food burgers. I just feel like a giant mess afterward. So I started trying the various chicken sandwiches, but the truth is, I just don’t like chicken that much. And the fish sandwiches are few and far between.
What I really want is a cheeseburger. You know, the size of the regular cheeseburgers that I grew up with, and that McDonald’s still sells. It’s enough food, but it’s not overwhelming. And it’s not a diet food, but the calorie count isn’t completely out of control.
The problem? McDonald’s has lousy cheeseburgers.
Actually, they don’t. McDonald’s has lousy cheeseburger buns. I’m okay with the meat and cheese and toppings, but there is just something off about those buns. (In comparison, the Big Mac buns are just fine–but I don’t want a Big Mac, I want a normal-sized cheeseburger with a decent bun.)
It occurs to me that it’s good to have things I can eat at fast food chains. It’s not that I want to eat there all the time–I really burned out on fast food when I was nursing, and drive-through was the only way I was able to get any lunch at all, many days. But sometimes you’re in a hurry or on a road trip, and fast food is a viable option.
It’s very easy to stare blankly at the menus, which I can find as overwhelming as the sandwiches. But since I know that what I really want is a regular cheeseburger, I want to know how the various regular cheeseburgers compare.
So I therefore announce the Cheeseburger Challenge. I’ll keep you posted.
Heh. Posted. Because it’s a blog, get it?Photo by Wednesday Elf – Mountainside Crochet, via Flickr.
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Thankful Thursday: Blankets
Our heater is still broken. I’m glad there is microfleece in the world. This may not seem like a huge, Thanksgiving-related topic, but it is immediate.
Plus, snuggling under blankets reminds me of when I was a kid and President Carter asked everyone to turn down their thermostats. My parents, my brother, and I would spend the evenings on my parents’ king-sized bed, watching TV while huddled under a quilt we’d somehow inherited from one of my dad’s aunts. (Sometimes the quilt fabric would fray, and I would patch it with scraps of material. I made it quite ugly.)
Remember when we were asked to band together in sacrifice for long-term gain, rather than to spend money to show our patriotism?
No? Well, it’s been a while.
And hopefully next week I’ll be thankful for heater repair services, with or without this link-up. But in the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
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Monday Listicles: 10 Things I Learned in 2012
Life is one big learning experience. And if all of life isn’t (but it is), parenting sure is. This week’s Monday Listicles is about 10 things I’ve learned this year. Here we go:
1) I can carry a 27-pound child on my shoulders.
2) Roasting a butternut squash really is easy.
3) When your day care says that each child is an individual, they mean “until that causes us slightly more work.”
4) I’m just never going to like brown rice.
5) No matter how careful you are, you will step on a Duplo.
6) I don’t have Pinterest guilt, because I never wanted to do that stuff anyhow.
7) Watching a two-year-old stack things is fascinating.
8) I don’t get nearly enough time with the friends I want to see.
9) Fennel seeds can ruin an entire dish for me.
10) I may be addicted to ice cream.
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Rainy Day Fun
We had a lovely rainy day yesterday, and Baguette had fun at home, with Bestie, and on a walk to see actual water in the L.A. River. Take a look:
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Three Day Weekend
Mr. Sandwich and I each have jobs that give us Veterans Day off, and Baguette’s day care is closed on Veterans Day, so we had a three-day weekend. One day per family member! Except Wicket. No extra day for Wicket. She’d just sleep through it, anyhow.
So what did we do with this glorious time?
We ran a lot of errands. Mr. Sandwich went on a bike ride. I took Baguette to her swim class, and we met Bestie and Family for lunch at McDonald’s (Hey, Mickey D’s, why no more Chicken Selects? They were the only thing I was really willing to eat there.). Wicket went to the groomer. I made two batches of chicken stock in the crock pot, as well as two loaves of pumpkin bread, minus the pumpkin (an oversight, but not a fatal one, it turns out).
Oh, and there was this.
Good luck, New Jersey. I wish there were more I could do.
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True Lies
This week’s Monday Listicles is 9 Made-Up Facts and 1 True Fact. So let’s give it a shot.
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1) I have three sisters, none of whom live in the same state.
2) I love to see the sunrise.
3) I have traveled to every state except Maine.
4) When I was in the third grade, I wanted to be a trapeze artist.
5) I have never attended the Olympics.
6) I transferred to another high school after vandalizing the football clubhouse.
7) I took guitar lessons for six years.
8) I sang second tenor in two church choirs.
9) I have never been to a professional baseball game.
10) In seventh grade, I beat the world’s record for solving a Rubik’s Cube.
So, which one is true? The first person to guess correctly gets to be smug all day long!
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Thankful Thursday: Family
I’m really not sure I can express how thankful I am for my family.
- For my parents, who taught me their values and how to determine my own.
- For my brother, who loves me even though I may have been guilty of psychological torture when we were children.
- For Mr. Sandwich, who sees everything I can be, and tells me what he sees.
- For his parents, who welcomed me into their family long, long before he and I became a couple.
And of course for Baguette, who we feared might never be—but is.
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Confidence and Communication
I’ve written a bit about Baguette’s school, and their concerns about how she interacts with her classmates. Here are some of our observations:
1) She does get wary around unfamiliar people and large groups.
2) She is overjoyed to play with Bestie, and she warms up quickly to unfamiliar children. Shoot, when we went to Santa Barbara, we’d get to a playground and the first thing she’d do was hug some little girl she’d never seen before.
3) She is not as articulate as her classmates. We knew this was the case with Bestie, but Bestie is a little older and has always been very verbal–the two of them really can’t be compared. Now, though, we’re seeing a difference between her and classmates who are several months younger.
4) Her vocabulary is booming. She repeats things we say, and things she hears from Sesame Street.
5) Her enunciation is not very clear at all.
The result of this is that she lacks confidence in large groups. So she talks up a storm at home, but is largely silent at school. And it’s getting in the way of her toilet training, because while she is telling people that she needs to go to the bathroom, she’s not doing it with words–and apparently her teachers are unable to recognize that.
We wanted to let her develop at her own pace, and gave her until 2-1/2. But it’s clear that the pace is too slow for her own satisfaction, and she’s getting frustrated by the discrepancy between her desire to communicate and her ability to do so.
So we’ve started to explore speech therapy. We have a referral from her doctor, but we couldn’t get an appointment until late January–by which time we’ll have changed insurance providers, making that referral useless. Plus, January. And there are programs available through the public school system, but she isn’t eligible to participate until she turns three.
The next option is a private program, for which we’d pay out of pocket. Not cheap, not cheap at all. But this is a Big Deal, and we save for Big Deal expenses.
We’re gearing up for intensive research. Because we want to give our daughter opportunities. Not the moon. Just the usual stuff. Like self-expression.
Photo by Piano Piano! via Flickr.
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Wish List
The other day, my dad asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I told him that I had thought of something a few days earlier, but I’d forgotten what it was.
This is typical for me. When I was a kid, I would come up with six or seven ideas. In June. In the fall, when my mother would ask what I wanted, all I could remember was that there had been something.
As an adult, I’ve become a big fan of the useful gift. One year my brother gave me a blender. The next year he gave me a paper shredder. A couple of years ago, he and my sister-in-law gave me a gift card that helped me get a KitchenAid stand mixer. I’ve forgotten a lot of gifts, but I remember these, because they rocked. And the only one I’m still not using is the paper shredder, because I used it to death.
When my dad and stepmom went on a Mediterranean cruise a few years ago, they came back with gifts for everyone. My sister-in-law, my step-sister-in-law, my stepsister, and her daughter all got jewelry. Before I got my gift, my stepmom said, “This is your father’s doing. He insisted.” I opened up my bag and yelled, “Olive oil soap! Awesome!”
Before Mr. Sandwich and I were engaged, Christmas rolled around. He said, “What do you want me to get you?” I said, “Oh, I really want slippers.” He said, “Are you sure?” I said that I was, and pointed out that in fact slippers are a very romantic gift: “My feet get cold, and every time I put on these slippers, I will think, ‘My boyfriend gave me these, and now my feet are warm.’”
When you are living in a New Jersey winter, you really appreciate having warm feet. In fact, even though I’m far from New Jersey, I still do.
What’s on your list?
