A Little of This, a Little of That

Just realized it had been a while since I had posted anything.  Mostly because I have been so busy with school and my internship I barely remember to shower, let alone blog.  So I decided to do a highlight reel of sorts, picking out the best (and worst) things that have happened lately.

No Phone Zone

Coming up in 5 short weeks I will be a college graduate, with this comes a huge loan repayment.  I have been looking for online jobs so I can keep up this stay at home gig, but I have had no luck.  I decided on a whim to apply online to a few retail stores for a Visual Merchandising manager position.  As I was sitting in the mall parking lot the other day, getting ready to leave, I receive a call back from a lady about one of the positions.  I answered it figuring it was the crazy lady yelling in Spanish that usually calls me once a week.  Mason was yelling, just to hear himself I’m sure, there were a lot of other background noises, and it turns out I miss her name and what company she is calling from.  I felt about 5 seconds behind for the rest of the conversation, but I gather enough information out to realize I have a phone interview for that Friday.  Friday rolls around, she never calls.  I’m assuming she thought she was talking to the slowest college graduate on earth and wanted nothing more to do with me.  Moral of the story: when in doubt let it go to voice mail.

Turkey Time!

My family is lucky enough to be spending Thanksgiving with friends, southern friends, which means amazing food that we will never eat at home, because as much as I try I can never find it in my heart to use as much butter as Paula Deen.  I thought, wow I won’t even have to make a turkey or all the sides this year, how easy!  Can’t wait for Turkey Day!

Photographic Aspirations

I recently won a contest through a different blog site, Joy the Baker. This gave me the chance to get $100 worth of holiday cards through the site minted.com.  So after setting up all of our Christmas decorations we decided to try to get a great picture of Mason smiling by the tree.  We were clearly delusional.  Out of the 56 shots we took two turned out relatively well, but then I uploaded them onto our computer to find out that in one of those two his entire face was covered in snot!  Needless to say we used the other photo and hopefully we will have a beautiful holiday card.  During this process we did something that can only be considered one of the worst parenting moves ever. We took a candy cane off of the tree and gave it to Mason.  At first it was just to hold, and then it moved onto him eating it.  Now all he wants is “nandy” off the tree.  Way to think that one through, huh.

Here are a few of the more questionable shots.

Sit still, you guys are crazy!

Oh wait, candy, of course I'll sit still for candy.

Ha ha, fooled you, back to being crazy, must be all the sugar!

It was a simple trip to Target...

I’ve known for awhile that Mason is getting to the age where everything needs to be done his way and he needs to show his independence.  Even though I have known this was coming, even witnessed it on occasion, I’m pretty sure I had decided to ignore the fact that he is becoming his own person, as I am sure a lot of mothers do.  Well it blew up in my face today, in public, Target to be exact. 

It was just a spur of the moment trip to grab diapers; look around, more of a wasting time adventure than anything really. The time change had thrown Mason off of his schedule and we were trying to delay bedtime just a little (wait, could that have been mistake number one?).  As we were walking in Mason yells, “Cart!” as he always does and we asked him if he wanted to ride in the cart, to which he replied, “NO!” as he always does.  We decided (stupidly) to let him walk as long as he held a hand. 

He listens for a while, probably just buttering us up for his master plan.  It starts with him pushing the cart.  At barely 32” tall he needs a little help with this so I had my hand along the top bar while he pushed from down below.  He looks up and says, “Excuse me, Excuse me” and pulls my arms off the cart.  Scott steers the cart from the side, so a melt-down is avoided.  Then our clever little man decides to ditch the cart, besides who needs that slowing you down anyway? 

He takes off into the clothing section, neither Scott or I notice for a second, which really points out what superb parenting skills we have.  Scott runs after him and decides to hold him, or try to.  A wiggling, yelling, grunting match ensues, which is embarrassing and frustrating.  We know that Mason just wants to walk, but we also want to leave with the same number of people that we came with. 

We go through the store and more of the same continues to happen. Cut to us standing in line.  I am so frustrated and worn down I can’t stop laughing which is only cheering Mason on. He makes a run for the Mr. Clean floor cleaner they have by the checkout, yelling, “Juice, Juice!”  I scoop him up and he starts to kick, yell, and get red in the face, the whole nine yards.  People begin to stare, which makes my face turn red; I’m sure we looked like quite the pair.  Scott gives me the keys and stays behind to pay.  I tote a screaming Mason out to the car and try to put him in his car seat, notice I said try.  He begins to go into stiff body mode; every kid has one, you know, where all of their little muscles tense up and no matter how much you can bench press it is nearly impossible to get them back into a seated position. 

Finally I succeed, but now he is sitting in the back seat completely silent the entire ride home.  Scott asks him if he is mad at Mommy and he says, “mmm, hmm”.  Never mind that this is what he says in reply to any yes or no question (the other day I asked him if he was covered in poop and he said, “mmm, hmm”)  I am still heartbroken.  I know this was only the beginning and it makes me dread the toddler years, maybe I’ll start shopping online!

New Rules of the Universe

There are a few things that I am beginning to learn are just rules of the universe, they cannot be avoided and cannot be changed. 

1. When you change your child's diaper and are in a hurry to get out of the door, they will immediately poop in the fresh one.

2. If you clean a window or glass door, your child will immediately go lick it.

3. If food is a. expensive b. healthy or c. took you a long time to make, your child will throw it on the floor (or on you).

4. If food is a. cheap b. crap or c. you threw it together in 2 minutes, they will act like it is the best thing they have ever eaten.

5. If you expect your child to behave they will throw a fit, if you think they will throw a fit, they will be a perfect angel.

6. You child will have a meltdown in the middle of the grocery store (multiple times).

7. As above mentioned meltdown is taking place a snooty older woman will come by and either give you a condescending look or completely horrible parenting advice.

8. All of the childproofing materials in the world are not enough to stop a clever toddler.

9. Autumn mix candy corn must be consumed by the bag full, there is absolutely no way to resist its powers (or is this just me?).

Genius? I think so!

My little helper!

A few times in my life I have had some really great ideas; marrying Scott, becoming a stay at home mom and joining my mom’s group are all ones that really stand out.  Now I am sure I have had my greatest mom idea ever!  I have talked before about our struggle to find things that Mason will eat (as any parents of toddlers do) and that I came up with the great idea to let him dip pretty much anything he wants in ketchup.  This worked wonders and Mason has been eating pretty well, even branching out to a few meals without slathering food in ketchup! 

I wasn’t really thrilled with the fact that ketchup has high fructose corn syrup; something my husband thinks I worry about too much.  This has even become a joke when we go grocery shopping, he will pick up something and say, “Oh no! High fructose corn syrup, guess we can’t eat that,” sarcasm all over the place.  So to get rid of the ketchup and still have a happy eater I have come up with THE BEST IDEA EVER!  It’s probably been done, maybe even by some of you, but it just occurred to me and I love it!  Replace the ketchup with baby food!! Simple, yes. Effective, so far.  I have begun replacing ketchup with things like pureed sweet potatoes, bananas, apricots with mixed fruit and carrots.  He loves the dipping so much I don’t even think he realizes there was a change.  This allows him to get extra fruit and veggies while still eating what I make for him. 

It has become extremely messy, the other day he even said, “Mmm, drink” and picked up the baby food container and drank the food out of it, but I say so what.  As long as he will eat up those veggies and fruits I am all for it!  I’m sure a lot of you were so excited to be done buying baby food as soon as you could, I was there too!  I am definitely not saying this is replacing table food in any way for Mason, it is simple an alternative to the ketchup he was becoming all too familiar with. 

Here’s a great recipe that Mason loved to dip in bananas:

Oatmeal Pancakes:

• 1 cup fat free milk
• 3/4 cup quick oats
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 4 large egg whites
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Start by heating the milk to very warm, but not boiling.  Pour the milk over the oatmeal in a small bowl and let sit.  Whip egg whites with an electric beater until stiff peaks form.  In the meantime, combine all remaining dry ingredients.  Stir up oatmeal/milk mixture and add to dry ingredients.  Once the egg whites are stiff fold them very carefully into the other batter, making sure not to overmix.  Cook 1/3 of a cup at a time on a greased griddle.  These will be very fluffy, but they won't produce bubbles like other pancakes, so be careful not to over brown them. 

 

Projects, Painting, and Playing: It’s hard to multitask

It has been a busy few weeks in the Jowers’ household.  I had to quickly come up with an internship that would allow me to stay at home and also allow me to graduate on time.  This was rather stressful but after some frantic searching I found an online magazine that needed an Associate Style Editor, what a relief.  We also decided it was time to remove the watered down Pepto Bismol paint from our bathrooms and spare room, it was just too hideous.  With all of this adult activity going on I found it hard to remember to stop and take time for Mason who showed his displeasure with all of the activity by climbing on chairs, screaming at the top of his lungs, and even hitting himself.  Scott and I tried to distract Mason from the unsafe and ear splitting activities he was fond of by setting up toys, getting paper and pencils to color, or even turning on the T.V. (gasp, I know)! 

None of our distraction tactics worked and I quickly realized I just needed to play with my son; put down the work that could wait until after he went to bed, stop stalking people on Facebook, and leave the kitchen to be cleaned later.  I took Mason to the park, went on a walk in his wagon, and set up a race track for his cars.  He loves the park (of course) and really likes riding in his wagon.  The cars are a new obsession for him and we spent 25 minutes last night driving them on our side table, he was in Heaven.  Today we didn’t turn on the TV once, spent most of our day upstairs in his room playing, and had the best day I can remember!  I just need to take that time out to remember what my job is, mom to Mason first, student and intern second.  It is going to be a long three months until graduation, but who needs sleep anyway? 

Hello… Hello… Can Anyone Hear Me?

For those of you that know me (let’s face it this blog is small, you all know me) it is a well known fact that I like to talk.  As Mason begins to come into his own, and by own I mean attitude, it is becoming more and more apparent that I will soon be talking completely to myself.  Living in a household with two males is hard enough, pee in places pee shouldn’t be, sports all the time, and pizza as the preferred food choice, now apparently I have to deal with selective hearing.  I thought I had at least until Mason was a young adult to talk his ear off while he listened contently to everything I said, not! I can say, “Mason, Mason, hey buddy, Mason” over and over again until I am blue in the face and the child will not even acknowledge that I am making a sound.  It appears that he only can hear me when I say, “Snack, Walk, or Bye-Bye”. 

This would be hard enough to deal with if I still had a husband that listened to my every word, yeah right!  There are days where I can tell Scott a funny story about something that happened at the park or something cute that Mason did and he will look over and say “Sure that sounds fine”, believe me that is not the appropriate response.  A particularly disturbing incident happened one day after he came home from work.  To be fair, he works very hard and I understand he wants a few minutes to relax in front of the T.V., but on this day it pretty much threw me over the edge.  I went outside to grill us a wonderful chicken supper and Mason thought it would be funny to lock the back patio door, something I didn’t know he could do.  I am standing outside with a plate of hot chicken in one hand and a half-full cup of marinade in the other saying “Scott, Scott, hey, open the door”.  He doesn’t even move his eyes away from ESPN.  I should note the window was open and I was yelling rather loudly, I’m pretty sure they neighbors even felt sorry for me.  I began to bang my head against the door, not in angst but in an effort to get him to remember I was alive.  Mason was standing at the backdoor this entire time looking at me and laughing, I am convinced he knew exactly what he had done, probably revenge for the diaper change I had just subjected him to. 

Finally Scott looks up and says “Oh, do you need a hand”.  Yeah, I could have used a hand five minutes ago when I started yelling at him in the first place.  He thought I was yelling “Stop, Stop” to Mason instead of screaming “Scott, Scott” at the top of my lungs.  My biggest question, shouldn’t have five minutes of yelling “Stop” at Mason elicited a response as well?  It looks as if this is only going to be a growing problem in the Jowers household, my only defense will be to keep a spare set of keys on me at all times and talk to any available adult that shows interest J

Living Life with the World’s Smallest Food Critic

I have never claimed to be a great cook, I’m moderate to good on my best days, and I am the first to admit I have had some epic failures in the kitchen. One dish that comes to mind as completely atrocious is spaghetti pizza, pasta on top of crescent roll dough; it was mushy, heavy, and disgusting. I have learned from my mistakes in the past few years and I have a recipe box filled with several standby’s that get us through weekly dinners. Occasionally though I like to branch out, especially now that we are eating healthier and Mason eats most everything that we do. With that said, almost everything I have made the child has ended up on the floor, in my face, or a delightful combination of the two at one time or another. Something that he loves one day is like kryptonite the next; he can even turn on me in the middle of the meal.

A few weeks back we had a few fresh strawberries left in the fridge and I thought, why not make a fresh strawberry puree and put it into homemade pancake batter. It was great, just enough strawberry flavor, light, and fluffy (those were my thoughts at least). Mason threw them on the floor after one pretend bite and after a 15 minute long battle he ended up eating a bowl of cold peas, for breakfast. For supper last night I wanted to try a Middle Eastern dish called Falafel which you put into pita pockets. It is an aromatic combination of chick peas, garlic, cumin, steamed broccoli, and olive oil all ground up into a paste and formed into little patties that I baked in the oven. We then put them into our whole wheat pitas, topped with a Greek yogurt cucumber sauce and dug in, or I did at least. Mason actually put up a good effort, eating an entire Falafel patty, but it was my husband that this time acted like the child. One tiny bite into the pita (not even breaking into the Falafel) and he tapped out. He gave me a look and I knew I would be fixing him a pizza, just my luck.

I have had a breakthrough on the Mason front; I’ve realized as long as the child can dip his food in something, anything really, he will eat it. I’ve gave him nectarines dipped in plain yogurt, bread dipped in applesauce, broccoli dipped in homemade cheese sauce, and of course the go to for all children, hot dogs dipped in ketchup. As long as he can “dip it dip it” as he likes to say, he will clean his plate. I know that I have many years of uphill battles ahead of me and if I can at least get the food under control I might have a fighting chance!