Oh Yes We Did

It was painless. There were no tears whatsoever because they had anesthesia for “the childrens”. TV.

There was an actual wall of dated, battered and abused VHS tapes all with handmade labels telling of which character the plastic box held. The “stylist” asked if Lolo wanted to see Dora, whom she knows nothing about. I quickly scanned the collection and found what she needed to get the job done.

See that dazed look in her eye? She’s in Elmo’s world in that picture. A minute and a half later, it was done. The super long flap in the back isn’t really gone, just shortened.

A Lesson In Honesty

As my sweet, ever-more-verbal toddler and I worked through a typical bedtime routine this week, we talked about how she needs to brush her teeth every night to keep them clean. I told her that we want her teeth to stay healthy and white. She pointed to her teeth and said, “white” and then pointed to mine and said, “Mama’s yellow teeth.”

God, I hate when she’s right.

I told her to just wait until she’s looking back on 15 years of coffee and tea drinking.

Shut In

We are crawling out of our cave of sickness here in the Stinkerbean household. I came down with an upper respiratory infection or bronchitis, however you prefer to label it. One day I had the sniffles and the next I was coughing so much that I couldn’t read story books without hacking up a lung. Last weekend was a wash of Puffs Plus tissues, snot, mucus and coughing, coughing, coughing. (Since then, I’ve learned that prescription cough syrup with codeine does not make me drowsy at all and that I can take the maximum dosage every six hours for 24 hours and be fine. Just fine.)

Then last Sunday night, Lolo came down with a wicked fever. We rode the heat until Tuesday when she was obviously battling more than congestion. It turned out that she had a double ear infection along with a really painful molar doing work on her gums. I knew to call the doctor when she turned down a Sesame Street juice box. She never gets juice boxes. And, when she does get them, they don’t always have Grover on them. (Juice boxes are like Pedialyte understudies in our house. When she can’t take any more Pedialyte, we move on to white grape juice.)

We’ve made it through the week and seem to be a little less phlegmy everyday.

Mr. Stinkerbean and I had a hearty laugh over the timing of the sick weekend because that was the weekend we were potentially thinking about the possibility of trying to get tickets to the Yankees series with the Angels. The tickets just got too expensive for our wallets. As I was curled in a ball of misery on the couch, I realized how much more miserable it would have been sending my husband to Yankees Stadium by himself to sell our tickets because his sickly wife couldn’t go and couldn’t babysit their daughter so he could go with someone else.

But, we’re back in the game and just happy that we got the germs out of the way in preparation for Halloween weekend.

In The Spirit

It’s pretty spooky around these parts.

She

She knows “two.” When she sees two of anything, she loves to point it out, and if those two things happen to be both large and small in size, well, one is the mama and one is the baby. There is a neighbor with two American flags in their yard, one full size and one about the size of printer paper. Every time she sees them, she mock cries for the baby flag and motions that it needs to be comforted by the mama flag. She is obsessed with pointing out flags in general. It’s a hobby.

She can recognize the letters F, C and Z.

She loves the whole idea of mail and relishes in our chore of bringing the red mail (Net-flix) to the blue mailbox down the street.

She likes to play “take care of baby” as much as she likes to play with cars and trucks. Right now she is fascinated with methods of transportation and construction with diggers, trash trucks, taxis and tow trucks being some of her favorites.

Her favorite number to say is five.

Me: “Let’s count, Lolo. One …”
Lolo: “Twooo, Feee …”
Me: “What’s next?”
Lolo: “Figh …”
Me: “Not five yet, four.”
Lolo: “Figh …”
Me: “Five, six …”
Lolo: “Figh …”

Busybody

Adventures in the life of a busybody: Frenetic movements of an intense person annoyed when not everyone matches her intensity or pace.

I was at the JCC gym on one of my regular Tuesdays or Thursdays working out for the hour Lolo allows me to leave her side. I immediately noticed the absence of snacks in the “Kid Care” room when I dropped her off.

Sidenote: You are not allowed to bring your own snacks into the room. They provide a mock-Cheerio option called Perky O’s that is allergen-free. Perky O’s contain no nuts, no gluten, no wheat, no soy and no dairy. And, last but not least, it’s Kosher. I’m sure it’s delicious and perky, but I’ve never tried it.

When I picked her up, I asked the caregivers about it and they said that someone was going to the store to get  more boxes. I let it go.

The following week, same story. Now they are asking me to take action with the suggestion box.

The next week, which is  three weeks without snacks, I took matters to the membership office. The director told me that they were aware of the issue and that their nutritionist was working with Whole Foods to find an alternative since Perky O’s cereal had been discontinued. I told them that I appreciated their struggle to find a cereal that matched all of their allergen-free needs but that they should have communicated this to the members instead of us just griping about the lack of snacks. She understood that I was frustrated and said that if I had any suggestions on cereal snacks that would fit the bill that I was welcome to submit ideas. And, she added that it also had to be edible by infants just learning to eat solids.

(I know what you’re thinking. This kid can’t go an hour without something to eat? Of course she can. It’s the principle of the matter. If I can’t bring her grapes and raisins because of your rules, and you pledged to provide a snack that meets your center’s allergen-free needs, then do it.)

That’s all the challenge I needed. Three weeks of research and consultation with Whole Foods and you still don’t have an answer? Really? I’m sure the nutritionist was burning the midnight oil hunting down snack options for toddlers.

My mind went buzzing into its Internet search zone. On the drive home, I started thinking about all the cereals I had seen on the shelves of Whole Foods. Once I was home and Lolo had a suitable smorgasbord in front of her, I fired up the old Internet to find a snack contender. First, I found a Kosher foods catalog site and cross referenced it with a gluten-free site. In five minutes, I found several options, the first of which was sold in value-sized boxes at the old-fashioned grocery store, Rice Chex!

I immediately called the director and left a voicemail with my idea. Another week went by with no new snacks until I got a call from the Kid Care coordinator who wanted to thank me for my suggestion and that because of me, Rice Chex cereal was now the official JCC snack.

The glory. I basked.