The Leek Soup Virus

Well, here I was, all ready to snatch the Heavyweight Belt in the Bad Mother of the Year Championship out of Julie’s hands. However, I must admit, this is not my fault. By this I mean the vomiting and diarrhea my boys and I have been busy with over the past 24 hours.

Yesterday morning I made some soup, to be eaten at lunch by the boys and me. I chopped up onions, carrots, butternut squash, made meatballs, and threw in a big handful of leeks. Yes, leeks. I made soup with leeks for my 18 month-old twins. I had for gotten how the leek can react with the intestine. The fact that my intestines are 35 years old and theirs are 18 months old and still developing, I had forgotten.

So, we all had a nice big bowl of soup for lunch, went to the store, came home and went outside to play. It’s a good thing we were outside, because the most horrific, old man in a bar farts were erupting from my boys’ rear ends. Which I know was the fault of the leeks. They weren’t the loudest, but they were stink-EEE. And they didn’t just fart all afternoon, no, it got better.

After changing Baby B’s exploding-stink-to-heaven diaper, as he yelled and rolled around during the change, I looked up to see Baby A with a face of pure distress. I thought, “Oh dear, stink-o number two…” but I was wrong. Poor Baby A said. “Mama!” and threw up down his jacket and on the grass. He continued until all the undigested leeks, and the Cordon Bleu quality macedoine, were on the grass. He threw up for about ten minutes, after which he seemed a-okay. They played a bit on the lawn, avoiding the up-chuck, and rearranged some rocks and then we went in for a snack. Which Baby A threw up. And he continued to vomit for a little while; I was somewhat concerned about dehydration. But he settled to nurse (bless that lactation!) and then he fell asleep on my shoulder.

So there I was, cursing myself up and down for feeding the boys leek soup and thinking, “Golly, Baby B has an iron constitution.” Then, in the night, I started to feel ill, and had to take a few minutes in the bathroom, as my intestines made all kinds of terrible noises. “Hmmm, I drank the soup around 11 and now it’s 1:00 am, I wonder why it took so long?”

Then, this morning, Baby A, who had fallen asleep at 6:30 pm woke up at 5:00 am, jumped on my stomach. Yikes! Pain and nausea! Again, I was in the bathroom for a little while, then little Baby B woke up, and he too started to vomit.

Therefore, I must conclude we have a stomach virus, and the leek soup really had nothing to do with anything, except give Baby B and me some lunch, and give Baby A something in his stomach to throw up. This virus must have come from the DH, who was vomiting on Monday night and all day Tuesday. What a generous man!

Julie, you still beat me.

Because Tracy asked for it...

I have a cool gal pal who lives in Atlanta, GA. We spoke on the phone the other day, and she told me she checks the blog at her office, first thing, before she hunkers down to do any real work. I thought, "Gosh, that's awfully nice of her to care so much about the pint-sized roller coaster that is my existence." I also thought, "Gosh, poor thing, I only get to post twice a week or so; I'm so busy perfecting my headless chicken imitation." So, for you, my dear, a little story to make a Monday better day.

A friend asked me to check in on her cats while she is on vacation. I agreed because, one, I love cats, and hers are very sweet and have no claws in the event they decide to unsweeten themselves for a day; and two, heck I don’t have anything else to do. (Insert laugh track HERE.) She asked two other ladies to share the cat sitting duties, so I figured I’d check in on them twice a week and the other ladies would do the same. That way, the beasties would get some human contact almost everyday. Ya with me?

The cat's mother left on Monday, and I went over on Tuesday. The skillfully hidden key was just where she said it would be skillfully hidden– under the front door mat. (She lives in a low-crime area with nosy neighbors.) I let myself in, jiggling the key as instructed, fed the cats, petted the cats, put the toys my boys played with back where they supposed to be, the lamp back on the table and left, locking up behind me.

On Wednesday, as I am out and about, I got a cell phone message from a mutual friend, one of the cat sitting crew, that said, “Hi, I am at the cat’s house, and the key is stuck in the door. I can’t lock up after me.” I got this message at 3:00, but she had left it at 11:00 am. I assumed she had managed to extricate the key and didn’t think any more of it. I next saw the mutual friend at a birthday party, and she told me she had called a locksmith, who had banged really hard on the door to get the key out, and had charged her $110 for the privilege. I made sympathetic noises, and thought, “Well, maybe she didn’t jiggle the key correctly.” Oh! How pride goeth before a fall!

The next time I stopped by to feed the cats, I had my DH with me. He put the key in the lock and…drum roll…it got stuck. As you may guess, we weren’t able to unstick it. The key would not unlock the door to get in, nor were we able to remove the key from the lock, to abort the mission, and go away. Nope, we were stuck. So I called the mutual friend, who directed me as to precisely where the overpriced door banger had done his magic. Wham! Wham! Wham! (Wake me up before you go-go.) No avail.

As we stood on her doorstep, rattling the key and jiggling the door and chasing the babies, a mailman came up the walk. “Is that door still acting up?” he asked. “Why, yes,” we replied, “We are here to feed the cats and the key is stuck and so are we!” “I used to live here," he said, "and I got the key stuck a lot too. I would leave a basement window open and get in that way.”

My DH, ever a man of action, felt that the basement option sounded better than the $110 door banging locksmith. Heck, he might have charged even more to thump a door on a weekend, and we are frugal people. Therefore, the DH snaked his lithe form in through the window, and wiggled the bolt around from the inside, loosening the key, which then fell out of the lock. We were saved! As we stood around congratulating each other on our successful entry and telling ourselves how the cats will be quite pleased to get another meal, I said, “Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Mailman! And how long did you live here with the sticky key?”

“About 17 years.”

That locksmith must be rolling in clover by now.

The Blizzard of '05

Have you ever had one of those situations where you think it can’t get worse, but it does? Well, my boys and I were stuck in snow-slowed traffic for about four hours on Tuesday, without enough food or water. Talk about a freakin’ nightmare. The weather was that perfectly horrible combination of rain and snow, and the timing was ideal for a disaster; we set out at 3:30, just as millions of commuters swarmed out of their offices early to beat the weather. Therefore, it took us about 4 hours to drive 13 miles. Eeach baby slept for about two hours, and cried for about two hours, but not at the same time, of course. I ran out of snacks after about 30 minutes, and was digging for Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies between the seat cushions. I also found some raisins, so I was able to give them little bites here and there, but I am sure they needed more. I became increasingly worried about the babies with every hour; if I was hungry, they must be hungry too. I was really frightened by the fact the car tires were skidding on the ice and snow and whenever I had to stop it took some lurching and spinning to get us moving again. When we were forced to stop on a hill, man oh man, I almost panicked – we spun out and ended up in the middle of the road. I managed, with the help of a guy in a snowplow, to get back to the side of the road, but the side with the oncoming traffic, oops. To put the cherry on the top of our sundae of sweat inducing worry, the car indicator kept beeping to remind me, “Please refuel! You have about 5 miles left…”

I was relating this story to my father, and telling him how I felt so guilty about screaming, “Just be quiet! There is no food!” at my boys a few times. My father said, “You poor thing! I myself was trapped by the weather in the Tampa Airport on my way home from a conference. If I had known it was going to be so long I would have gone to this really nice restaurant in Tampa, but I had to miss out on it, and eat at the airport cafe.” Oh, you poor thing! That must have been a sad disappointment to you, I know how terrible it is to have to eat at an airport.

I told my mother about the ordeal today, and her story was, “On Tuesday it took me 20 minutes to get home from the fish shop. It was so frustrating, there must have been five cars stuck on the hill!”

Oh, Mother, that must have been terrible for you.

For sale cheap...silliness, by the cup.

My DH and I have this little game, where we have “speculative” conversations about the merchandise in certain retail stores, based on the name of the shop. For example, we are driving past a store called Boating World;

DH: What do you think they sell in Boating World?
Me: They must sell worlds. Like nether worlds, underworlds, worlds apart, you know.
DH: That’s useful for mob bosses, so they can pick up a new crime underworld anytime.

Me: Hey look! Guitar Center!
DH: So that’s where you can buy a center!
Me: Yummy! Caramel centers, creamy centers, marshmallow centers…

Last night, on our way to the new Target, we passed a sporting goods store.

Me: What do you think they sell at Dick’s?

Babies are like bread dough, and not just in appearance.

Thanks to this French "diet" book I read recently, I have been baking a lot of bread, croissants, pain au chocolat, and things like that. The twins and I went to visit a pal and her babies yesterday, and I brought some yeast so we could make bread together, which might not have been the best idea.

She has two little ones, one aged 3 years and another aged 22 months. The 3 year old is into everything, as they are at that age, and he insisted on helping. If you are a baker, you know how messy bread is in the initial stages. Why, isn't flour and water also called glue? There I was, up to my elbows in this stuff, a three year old "helping" mix the dough, and flour all over the counter, floor, my boys, her daughter, and part of the wall as well. The thought, "Why did I even start this? She's going to think I'm a big mess and a total PITA (Pain In The A**) for coming over. This was a rotten idea...etc." crossed my mind a few times in the course of the afternoon.

But then the dough started to come together, and I was able to get it into two cohesive lumps, and after some kneading, it looked pretty good. I set it to rise, and it came to me - raising children is rather like baking bread. You don't have to make your own bread, nor do you have to become a parent, and when you do you realize how messy it is, but at the same time it is all so indescribably rewarding. There you are, with your offspring’s sticky, gluey babyhood all over your kitchen counter, and you know it's just going to get stickier before it gets better. You get up every hour, on the hour, night after night, you add more flour and water, you change diaper after diaper and mix and mix. You sing and play and sprinkle in sugar and salt. Suddenly, it all comes together in a smooth mass of toddler dough, and it's time to knead. So you knead and knead and knead, arms aching, brow dewy, until the gluten is worked, the mass of child dough is strong and smooth and stretchy. Then it's time to shape the loaves, let them rise and get them to the school bus and in the oven to bake.

Of course, I'm still at the scraping bits of flour off the ceiling/why did I get into this stage, but I do see a couple of yummy baguettes emerging from time to time.

Pass the butter.

French weight loss plans include croissants for breakfast

I am reading a "diet" book written by a French lady. It's not really a diet book like the South Beach thing, or the Zone, or Atkins, or anything like that. It's more of a philosophical treatise on how to eat for pleasure and how to eat to live, not live to eat. Basically, the book addresses how French women eat what they like, in small quantities and with more enjoyment than American women. Or so the author claims. Apparently, it's okay to eat rich buttery pastry because it will fulfill your spirit and then you'll have less of a craving for junk food.

Okay! That sounds good and I'll give it a go. I'm not having much luck losing weight by the old eat less exercise more method. Therefore, over the weekend I made a dozen croissants and popped them in the freezer, unbaked, so I could have them hot for breakfast. I've had them fresh baked two days in a row now, and my, are they tasty and fulfilling! A couple dozen more, and I'll be skinnier than a rail.

New Heights in Destruction

Have you ever been here or am I lucky?

Yesterday, as I wiped up the luncheon mess from the floor, the cabinets and the table, I also had to climb up on a chair so I could get the applesauce off the ceiling. The CEILING.

Who said it must be getting better?