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I’m willing to get my head chewed off by Greenpeace or whomever when I say this: it doesn’t always pay to be environmentally conscious.
In fact, you may (indeed, will) have to pay to be environmentally responsible.
Case in point: the now infamous pair of pale corduroy pants I bought for Jason a year or so ago. Which I converted to a lovely navy (purple) color for the low price of $10 plus tax.
Rather than risk having a husband who walks around town in purple pants, I then had to shell out an additional $15. For a box of color remover and two boxes of brown dye. Total cost thus far: $14.99 for the pants and $25 for its various color treatments. And, of course, tax.
Which means, until this afternoon, the pants had cost me roughly $40.
That is, until I washed a load of clothes with a shirt I’d also thrown into the aforementioned purple dye bath. With nary a thought that the white stripes on Jason’s black sweater would….turn purple. A splotchy, faded weird color – clearly a ‘mistake’. And clearly noticeable. The sweater is old and from Target – but it will have to be replaced.
Unless I cut off the sleeves and make Jason a summer sweater t-shirt……
To be continued.
In a way it’s hard to believe that this kid turned five at the beginning of March. Here he is at about nineteen months, the same age his little brother is now. Both with the same fondness for hanging around the house partially clothed, apparently.
This year he wanted a (school) bus-car cake. Probably because he’s going to ‘big school’ in August and thinks he’ll be riding the bus with everyone else. I baked the cake and made the frosting. Jason carved out the shape and decorated it. When it was finished, our son told him: ‘thanks for making me the cake I wanted.’
He had a party with four friends. He spent much of the allotted two hours at the dining table guarding his presents; or in time out for bad behavior.
When it was all over, and the guests had left, he was calm. Grateful for his presents. He even sat down and read his cards, and happily waited for his dad to assemble his new Lego toys. Next year he wants an ant cake – with black frosting.
We’ll see.
Last Saturday night, as I was standing in the kitchen blowing my brains out, all I could think was: Martha did it to me again.
It had recently dawned on me that the Easter holiday was approaching. Maybe it was random talk of Lenten sacrifices, or the grocery store aisles filled with candy, plastic grass and cheap straw baskets that tipped me off.
Easter, this year, is a bigger deal to me than in years past. Because, this year, the holiday is all ‘on me’. Not being a big holiday person, I’ve been content to let the grandparents call the Easter shots the past three years. They’ve made the ham, organized egg-hunting excursions, and produced boiled eggs and bowls of colored vinegar water.
But now that we’re in the frozen tundra, we’re grandparent-less. Which means, this year, unless I come through with a new sweater, or a little basket or some hidden eggs…or something, my kids will get nada come Easter morn.
So I made a mental note to remember to put together some Easter baskets for the boys. Which, of course, involved having to ascertain the exact date of Easter, since I can’t be counted upon to shower on a daily basis, much less know the dates of holidays.
But part of me thought that wouldn’t be enough. There needed to be…more. It needed to be the best Easter. Ever.
And of course, Martha Stewart was more than happy to offer a few suggestions to that end.
The April issue of Martha Stewart Living arrived two weeks ago. And, once again, the cover featured some lovely looking craft that I knew would be the death of me: dyed egg ornaments.
I read through the instructions on how to blow out eggs, aka, make tiny holes on the top and bottom and force out the contents of the egg. I bought five dozen eggs at Costco, we gathered supplies and began our egg-blowing adventures after dinner.
Egg number 1, cracked in my hand while I was diligently trying to make a tiny hole in its top. Egg number 2, was retrieved from its carton by our resident Hen and accidentally smashed on the table. Before anyone could even try to make a hole in it.
Which is when the operation was moved to the kitchen. And why I spent my Saturday night blowing my brains out. Naturally Jason got roped in, as he knew he would. And he spent his Saturday night blowing his brains out too. Except, he made bigger holes than I did, and was approximately three times as fast at placing empty eggs back into the carton.
I’d envisioned a plethora of beautiful, colorful eggs. But after blowing out a few, we decided twenty was a nice, round number. We could always make some more.
Next year.
Well, seeing as the first quarter of this year is drawing to a close, it’s safe to say that I am definitely not going to send out Christmas 2008 cards or emails. Maybe if I start planning for it in October of this year, I will be ready to go by the actual holiday.
So consider this picture, taken by the talented photographer Jayne Rohlfing, your official greeting from the Johnsons. Really, other than the fact that we moved to the frozen tundra and never managed to sell our house, 2008 didn’t bring much in the way of news.
Well, maybe there was one other little tidbit…see below.
Not being particularly keen on making announcements or doing big ‘reveals’, we charged G with the task of informing his grandparents that our family would expand at the end of August.
Which means first, we had to relay the news to Mr. G himself. We’d been dropping hints on and off for two months. ‘Do you think we should have another baby?’ we’d ask him periodically. ‘No….that’s wacky….we already have a baby,’ he inevitably replied each time. We’d vary the question slightly and he’d vary the answer slightly, but his bottom line was the same. Another baby was a bad idea.
Since it was clear he was never going to come around to the idea on his own, we had to break the news to him that he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. It was an inevitability – a done deal. In the end his opinion hadn’t mattered as much as we might have pretended.
‘Guess what,’ Jason broached the subject while we were driving in the car. ‘Mommy has a baby in her belly,’ he announced in an excited voice.
G replied in a less excited voice. ‘Another baby? Are you joking?’
That went well, I thought, only slightly offended that he had basically inferred I was a younger, less productive version of Mrs. Duggar. As if we announced new babies on a regular basis.
Having broken the news to the messenger, we charged him with relaying ‘the news’ to family. We set up online chatting with my mom where G just blurted out the news ‘mommy has a baby in her belly.’ No softening or embellishment, or much of anything, frankly. I’ve learned that making announcements in this manner causes confusion in people. They’re not sure they heard correctly, they wonder if it’s a joke, they’re not sure how to respond. My mom sat there for a while with a puzzled look on his face. ‘Is he joking?’ she eventually asked, not sure what to make of his out-of-the-blue reveal.
His second announcement was even more abrupt. We set up an online chat with my sister and brother-in-law. My sister hadn’t even sat down to chat when G blurted out his news. Again….confusion, uncertainty, hesitation on the faces of the news receivers. Followed, eventually, by congratulations.
The third announcement was made over the phone, to his Grandma and Grandpa Johnson. By this point he was kind of ‘over’ the idea of being an announcer. He decided to relay other news instead. ‘I’m playing with a car…’and ‘Guess what, I’m still awake,’ he informed them. Finally, after much coercion he relayed his news and relinquished the phone.
Despite his initial ‘mixed feelings’, he appears to be taking the news rather well. ‘Where do you think the baby should sleep,’ I asked him the other night, ‘in your room or in the Hen’s room?’ He was quick to respond: ‘the baby should sleep in my room, so it doesn’t wake up Henners.’
‘Do you think the baby is going to be a boy or a girl?’ I prodded on another occasion. ‘I think it will be a girl,’ he responded decisively. ‘What should we name the baby if it’s a girl?’ ‘Maggie’ he replied.
Now Maggie is a perfectly lovely name, but clearly my firstborn has little regard for his mother’s primary name criterion: that it not be in the top 800 popular names on the social security name index. Maggie clocks in at 181. That’s one heartbeat (or one hundred and eighty) away from being Emily – the most popular name in all of America.
Also, Maggie is the name of my sister and brother-in-law’s cat. A point I raised to my oldest, thinking it would dissuade him. But it didn’t. He thought that was even more reason to name our potential baby girl Maggie. ‘Maybe Maggie could be her nickname,’ I finally suggested out of desperation, in an effort to validate the nice name he’d suggested…without having to put it on a birth certificate. ‘But it has to be her real name,’ he replied indignantly.
Moving on.
‘What if it’s a boy?’ I asked, which, odds were, it would be since Jason seems to be holding on to his x chromosomes for dear life. ‘We could name him Elijah,’ he suggested. In addition to ranking 30 in the most popular boys name category, it has already been used by several of our friends. Sigh.
When the time came for our ultrasound, we ended up taking both boys with us. This was largely because we live in the frozen tundra where the nearest grandparent is thirty hours away. But I also thought it might be interesting for our oldest to see a picture of his new sibling.
Nothing makes you feel quite so much like Mrs. Duggar as taking two small children along to an ultrasound appointment. You may as well walk into a room with the word ‘breeder’ branded on your forehead. Of course it may not be much worse than walking in, heavily pregnant, wearing an ‘I hate everything’ t- shirt that should have been retired in the first trimester. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
In the end, when we indicated our interest in finding out the baby’s gender, the tech moved her magic wand over to our little person’s fifth appendage. And just like that G’s Maggie dreams were squashed.
Or not. ‘I’m having a baby sister,’ he informed a friend who stopped by later in the morning.
Luckily we have several months to process the opposite reality.
In the last week or so I’ve felt a real sense of doom. Possibly related to my increasing awareness that I am a mother of two boys. You know, the kind of people referenced in those annoying email forwards featuring amusing tales of paint cans suspended from (moving) ceiling fans. The same species that my husband belonged to when he was playing with his own brothers; setting off bottle rockets in kettles..or something.
Obviously I’m aware I’ve been the mother of two boys for nearly nineteen months now. But until recently they’ve just been boys, nay people, who were far enough apart in age to have fairly little in common. Sure, I’ve had to mediate more than my fair share of squabbles, and I spend twelve hours of every day on injury watch. Specifically little brother injury watch. But it’s all been relatively benign.
But that was before collusion and conspiracy came on the scene. And I started sounding like the mom from Malcolm in the Middle; a high-pitched on-the-brink-of-insanity ‘boyssss!!!!’ frequently escaping from my lips throughout each day.
Now I come into rooms and find little people standing on stools or chairs, sitting on dining tables; jumping from things. Cushions are removed from the couch and ‘ramps’ are created. [And with the recent headlines regarding the scary nature of head injuries, I find myself more than a tad worried.] When I look up, there’s a good chance I’ll see my oldest wrestling his little brother to the ground…with the little one clearly enjoying it.
I began the completely pointless task of cleaning up the house earlier today, and walked to the basement to stick a load of laundry into the washing machine. When I came back I found my carefully sorted pile of (remaining) laundry…draped along the stairs and the play area. I found the boys by the front door. Pummeling one another with dirty laundry. Followed by arguing over who got a particularly choice item of dirty clothing. ‘Look at your brain trust,’ Jason alerted me, ‘they’re fighting over dirty clothes.’ Seriously, a proud moment indeed.
I was downstairs checking some email. When I heard hammering coming from upstairs. Jason was at work. Which means it was my oldest son hammering, something, with his younger brother in tow.
I yelled up the stairs, demanding that the hammering cease. Which it did. When I walked into the room, however, I noted that all the games and puzzles had been removed from the toy chest and dumped all over the floor. No one fessed up when I asked who was responsible for the mess.
As I was making dinner tonight, I thought – as I’ve thought several times in the last few months – I’d love to watch Martha Stewart operate under these conditions. Actually, I’d like to watch my husband operate under the same conditions – since he likes to think (out loud) that the kitchen shouldn’t look like such a war zone when I’m done cooking.
The oldest was running from one end of the kitchen to the other. Repeatedly, while yelling. Wearing only a shirt and underwear – because his sweatpants had gotten moonsand on them. The youngest was retrieving mixing bowls and colanders from a shelf, placing them upon his head. I stepped away from the kitchen momentarily, and when I came back I found both boys, each sitting in a bowl, spinning themselves on the linoleum floor. Hi-freaking-larious. (I put those bowls in the ‘to-wash’ pile.)
The noise can be deafening. But the silence is worse. Silence accompanied by a cheesy grin on the face of our oldest…terrible. It means the Hen is ‘playing’ on the computer again. Or removing every DVD from the Arrested Development Season 2 case…and dumping it in the bathroom sink. Or secretly playing with the carefully blown out easter eggs we spent most of Sunday making. Or preparing to take a handful of markers…to the carpet.
Boysss!!!
A week or so ago I started noticing a trend in Facebook status updates from a (very) few of my friends. The updates all revolved around the imminent NCAA basketball tournament; expressing great excitement at the hours of basketball watching that lay ahead.
All I could think when I read said updates was: ‘I bet Jason would LOVE to be married to so-and-so.’
To say my interest in sports (and watching sports) is minimal, would be an understatement. My interest, previously limited to following professional tennis, is for all intents and purposes…dead. Non-existent.
I mean, if Ball State University made it into the tournament, which it did in the early and late nineties, I would definitely watch their game(s). But beyond that….I couldn’t give a hoot about the particular teams or the games. Or the ‘madness’.
But for reasons unknown, this year Jason ‘invited’ me via Facebook to fill out a bracket. I obliged – mostly because he brought it up twice one night. But seeing as I hadn’t even watched a basketball game in at least three years, it wasn’t entirely easy to complete a bracket in a semi-thoughtful way.
So I devised some criteria for myself.
- Generally, pick the time that is ranked higher.
- If rankings are fairly similar, choose the team whose name you recognize or are slightly familiar with.
- If neither name is particularly familiar, choose the one that ’sounds’ more victorious.
Thus far my bracket picks, made with the aid of my well thought-out criteria, are panning out relatively well. But I’ve been made aware of the handicap of my rather archaic knowledge of NCAA teams and victories.
Last I heard, Gonzaga was a great team – but apparently they haven’t made it to the Sweet Sixteen for three years. Ditto for Duke. And Missouri….I could have sworn I ‘remembered’ them being good as well. But maybe that was in the early 90’s. Jason laughed out loud when he saw how favorably I ‘remembered’ this particular team.
It’s possible I picked them to win… the whole thing.
Woefully outdated knowledge of basketball aside, the experience has also unleashed crazy competitive Nicola. I really thought she fell by the wayside in early college.
Instead, I’m obsessively checking msn.com to see the scores of whatever games are on. Followed by obsessively checking Facebook to see what my ’standing’ is among my group of competitors. Followed by dishing out a bit of trash talk on my sister and husband’s Facebook walls. When warranted.
Before last night I’d avoided actually watching any games – which, to me, is the best possible scenario. Because the games tend to get dull. But last night, without any exciting Friday night plans, and desperate to see which one of us had the best picks, Jason and I faithfully watched the ends of the Florida State and Ohio State games.
Within two seconds I heard myself yelling at the computer screen like (a) someone who actually understands the game of basketball; (b) someone with an allegiance to a particular team; or (c) someone who spent several years of her life playing the game.
And I’m none of those. But that didn’t stop me from expressing my outrage at (what I consider to be) bad plays. I heard myself yelling at the players for not fouling the opposing team as precious seconds dwindled away. I yelled at people for calling time-outs. I found fault with the coaches and the players and pretended I actually knew what I was talking, err yelling, about.
Jason was both highly amused and frightened.
This afternoon, all four Johnsons gathered in front of the computer screen for the final minutes of the Purdue game. I was very interested in the outcome, as I had picked Purdue to win (because they’re from Indiana – that’s why) and Jason hadn’t. Also, my new nemesis – Stan, a friend of ours who consistently outranks us in the standings – had not picked Purdue either. It was my only chance to gain a little ground.
I instructed my oldest to cheer for the team in black, but he refused. ‘I like the white clothes better,’ he decided. Which pleased his dad to no end. And within minutes Mr. G, too, was expressing outrage at the computer screen. ‘What are those guys doing‘ he said. The exact same words that had come from my mouth just minutes before. Jason looked at me with raised eyebrows. I toned it down after that.
Luckily the little people were out of the room at the end of the game, when Purdue squeaked by with a two-point (I think?) win.
‘Eat it, Stan!’ I yelled triumphantly.
Even though he is still ahead of me.
A year or so ago, I found a pair of men’s Calvin Klein corduroy pants at TJ Maxx. They were exactly Jason’s size and the tag read ‘$14.99′ so I snapped them up.
I took them home where Jason tried them on. They fit very well. It was a good purchase, or so I thought.
But he’s worn them exactly one time since that day.
During a recent closet clear-out, I hoisted the pants into the air – ‘exhibit a’ for the invisible jury. ‘What about these,’ I asked. Since he never wore them, I assumed they no longer fit. But he tried them on again, and they fit just fine. So what was the problem?
‘It’s the color,’ he confessed.
I may have neglected to mention these corduroy pants are on the pale side of the color spectrum. Certainly not white, but much too light to be considered ‘khaki’. Apparently Mr. Johnson felt self-conscious about wearing ‘white’ pants in the middle of winter and worried he’d be the recipient of snickers and stares from colleagues and students alike.
‘Well, why don’t we try dyeing them,’ I suggested, figuring it would be a cheap way to try and save a pair of perfectly good pants from the Goodwill pile.
Many weeks, possibly months, later I found myself at Michael’s in the fabric paint etc. aisle. I saw the boxes of RIT Dye and leaned forward to choose a color. As I’d mulled over possible color choices in my head, I’d settled on ‘charcoal’. A benign choice…very little could go wrong.
But of course RIT either doesn’t make a ‘charcoal’ dye or Michael’s doesn’t carry it. So I went with ‘navy’ since I figured the ‘pearl gray’ they did offer would still be fairly pale. And then it would just look like Jason was wearing dirty white pants in the middle of winter.
The process was easy enough – I loaded the pants into my washer (in this instance a top-loading washer would have been much better) and, after a while, poured the dye mixture into the soap dispenser. An hour and a bit later….the pants were blue.
Ish.
I’d followed the instructions and bought two packets of dye (for using dark dye on very light colored items). In the basement, the pants looked fine, if a little denim-y blue. When I got to the bathroom to hang up the wet pants, I took another look. In the different light, they appeared more purple than blue. Not quite Barney purple…but definitely a blue-ish puce.
This morning I took another look at the pants. ‘You’re not going to wear these either, are you?’ I asked the picky pant-wearer. ‘Well, I didn’t realize I had to wear them first thing this morning,’ he stalled.
Then he played his trump card. ‘Would you walk down the street with me if I wore these pants?’
It’s back to the dyeing board. Maybe a nice ‘orange’.
Some days I cook, and some days I just don’t. And when I have a spurt of cooking as I did on Sunday, watch out – because it probably means I won’t be doing much of it for the rest of the week. I got a couple of new Bon Appetits belatedly via the pony express. And, unlike the January issue, there were actually some recipes that begged to be tested.
Jason saw the cover of one which featured a lamb and eggplant shepherd’s pie. Not sure if he knew there was eggplant in it, but the photo made it look pretty good. Come to find out the boy had never ever had Shepherd’s Pie before. So I was happy to oblige and try my hand at making it. With a few substitutions of course. Ground beef instead of lamb. And regular parmesan cheese instead of the kasseri cheese (or whatever it is) called for. The verdict: all three Johnson boys ate it. Some had to be bribed a little more than others. Helpful tip: if you call eggplant ‘cucumber’ it is consumed without a fuss.
Since I was already making a mess of the kitchen I decided to make a couple of soups as well. Two excellent and very easy recipes: Squash Soup and Asparagus Soup
While the younger Johnsons feigned lack of interest in the green soup, they both ate it. And the squash soup….while a crabby older brother pretended it was too ’spicy’, he did eat everything in his bowl. Younger brother ate two bowls – and he’s the pickier one of the two at the moment.
On Saturday I was suddenly desperate for some Creme Brulee, but as the nearest dessert place was probably a good twenty minute drive away, I went without. But on Sunday I stopped at the grocery store for cream and eggs and thirty minutes later…I had six ramekins filled with custard. Slight problem…our oven is pretty awful, so caramelizing the sugar on top was no easy task. In the end it all tasted good..even if the sugar crust wasn’t perfectly hard and the custard was a little warmer than it should have been.
Apparently my making creme brulee one night started a trend in my oldest’s mind. ‘What’s for dessert’ he asked last night when I was making dinner. ‘Uh, Lemon Cake?’ I answered, as I hadn’t planned on making anything. But it was a great excuse to test this recipe that ’sounded’ absolutely delicious. And it was. The cake was a huge hit with all the Johnsons – and less than twenty four hours later only one tiny slice remains.
Which Mr. G had earmarked for himself. But, following a few behavioral infractions on his part, I suddenly see my name on it.
That is the true joy of parenting: she who giveth, taketh away.
Perhaps Mr. G and his wardrobe choices will soon require their own blog. But until he can write or type, I will have to tell the stories.
It was community helper day at preschool last Friday. You were supposed to dress as your favorite community helper. Personally, I thought it was lame – but no one asked for my opinion. Beyond the obvious – fireman or policeman – what is there?
Well, G decided he wanted to be a teacher. Just like his daddy. Now I wasn’t entirely confident that a teacher is technically a ‘community helper’ but far be it for me to dwell on technicalities. His mind was made up – he was going to be a teacher. He also talked about going to work with his dad – ‘one day when he got big’ and taking along some snacks in case he got hungry. Apple sauce and raisins. I’m not sure Jason has ever taken apple sauce or raisins to the university, but in G’s mind, those are the must-have snacks for teachers.
Thursday night we talked briefly about what a ‘teacher’ might wear. I referenced Jason’s workday uniform: black sweater and jeans. ‘I think a teacher would wear a sweater and some pants,’ I suggested. ‘And maybe a backpack.’
We woke up on Friday morning and I figured I’d start generating excitement about ‘dress-up’ day since, after all, Mr. G was the only kid in his class who refused to wear pajamas on pajama day; the one who could scarcely be coerced to wear green for St Patrick’s Day.
‘I got dressed all by myself’ he announced as he came down the stairs. I looked up. Argyle sweater vest over a long-sleeved t-shirt. Nice touch, I thought. Strange short pants. What?
Upon closer inspection I discovered these were the same pants the Hen had worn on Monday. Size 18-24 months. In the nicest way possible I tried to let G know that he was wearing his little brother’s pants. That they were actually too small (short!) for him. He wasn’t budging.
We got to school where I was due to volunteer for the day. One of the moms tried to suppress a smile when she saw my oldest walk through the door. ‘He’s wearing his brother’s pants’ I whispered in her ear. ‘Oh,’ she nodded. ‘I thought they were lederhosen…but I didn’t think you were German.’
Another mom was taking pictures of all the kids dressed as ‘community helpers’. There was a cowgirl, and a farmer, and a doctor, and a rockstar. And of course our ‘teacher’. The mom looked at the Gort and got her camera ready. ‘I think I know what you’re supposed to be,’ she declared.
Oh, I’m sure you don’t, I thought privately.
‘A golfer!’
