The Cookbook Junkies

Okay, I’ve spent the better part of today looking for the damn letter “Q”. That alphabet train puzzle that Andrew does 32 times a day – “Q” is missing. (Reminds me of the Sesame Street parody on Law and Order – Special Letters Unit – “SLU” – I need to call them in – can you describe the “Q” – well, it’s round and has a backwards comma on the bottom of it – and it’s on the lamb.” Suddenly you hear baa baa in the background.

Now we have the number train too – he saw it at Marshalls and flipped out. Letters and numbers – did you ever think a parent would complain about a child wanting to play with letters and numbers all day…it’s not that I mind that – it’s just he needs me there to supervise – (missing letters etc.) – when he plays trucks – I don’t need to be there to be the pit crew – I can be scrubbing the toilet.

So we do matching games (letters and numbers), alphabet games, number games…all day long…every day…day in and day out. He better be a rich writer or scientist and buy me a big fancy house for all this educational stuff!

We signed up for a toddler play program yesterday at the Police Athletic League in New Hyde Park. The teacher Miss Bess – is a tiny thing with a big whistle. They seem to listen more times than not. Either yesterday or Tuesday at class, kids were running everywhere and someone said they would need Tylenol before teaching the class – I said, “I would need a Morphine drip” to do it.

Well, I’m doing everything possible to get the ABC/123 Prodigy to use the potty – every night before he takes a bath he pees on the potty – but he likes to “poop in the corner” as he puts it. Every day he tries to find something new to freak me out “I like my poopy diaper.” “I like my stinky cup.” (If I find his cup all gross and laying in the corner.) Today, while wiping him and changing his diaper…he was complaining – I told him, “don’t you want to be all clean and not be stinky anymore”…he said, “No, I like to eat my poop.” Dear God, he hasn’t but he says things to get a rise out of me – honestly – I’m not making this up – he waits for my reaction.

I know he would never try to eat anything of that nature – because he freaks out when he gets chocolate icing on his fingers from a cupcake and he loves those. “Wipe my hands mommy….Dry my hands mommy.”

Off to make supper. The baby onesie cookies are done! Hooray!

Tonight I can do nothing but read cookbooks and watch brainless television. God Bless America!

I’ve been up to my elbows in cranky, biting toddlers, decorating cookies and cooking something “new” every night. I have 500 cookbooks – I should start making something different every night so I can hope to get through a few dozen of them before I die.

I have to go get dinner going. Andrew is napping for the first time in FOREVER and I can’t get over the eerie quiet. I love being Andrew’s mom – but it’s nice not to hear Mommy every 45 seconds followed by a blood curdling scream and/or the sound of a matchbox car hitting the front window.

I’ll be back to rant soon.

My husband is funny but I don’t laugh outloud at most of his humor because I’m around it all the time (no, I’m not like Mrs. Costanza).

Today, I laughed outloud. I was reading on msn.com about the poor duck that was shot twice and then put in the fridge and two days later Mrs. Fudd opened the fridge door and the duck raised his head. Jim said, “Usually when I open the refrigerator the light just comes on.” Now that was funny. Duck is now being treated and expected to make a recovery, hunter thinking about taking up another way of putting meat on the table.

We were watching the football game (New England v. Colts) and I thought NE stood for Nebraska…anyway – I was looking through a cookbook as I am want to do while watching football that doesn’t involve Jeremy Shockey and I asked Jim, “do you ever think about living in a small town or in the mountains” (we live on Long Island in New York) and he said, “there are coyotes in the mountains”. I said, “there are coyotes in New Jersey!”. Yesterday on the news a story about a wild coyote biting a boy near or at his school…Jim said, “but that is a city coyote”… I can see the Roadrunner going by now … beep beep.