conversations with 2 yr. olds

Me:  Can you say the word “moogamoo?”

E.:  Nope.

Me:  Ularu [big, neat rock in Australia]?

E: Nope.

Me:  Can you say “nope”?

E: …I can’t!

Me:  Can you say “I can’t”?

E.: …Nope.

Me:  Can you say “Nope, I can’t”?

E: …I WON’T, Mommy.

Me: Can you say, “Nope, I can’t, I won’t”?

E.: … I don’t want to!!  (**hysterical giggles**)

the world of moop

Last week I had a showdown of sorts with my 2. yr. old.  We’re getting in the car, on the way to somewhere we need to go, and he’s shutting down:  crying, yelling, trying his best to bonk Mommy in the head so that I’ll put him in time out and postpone our car-trip by an entire two minutes.  He doesn’t calm down, even after he’s securely fastened in the car seat, so I propose to him this question:

Me:  Um, sweet, is there something wrong?  Can you talk to Mommy about it?  What’s going on, honey?

E:  (looks at me)

Me:  You can tell Mommy if something’s wrong, honeybear.  Is there a reason you’re so upset?

E:  The reason is… the reason is… the reason is…

Me: ?

E:  The reason is… about a MOOP!

Me:  *tries to contain giggles*  A moop, honey?

E:  A MOOP.  The reason is… about a MOOP!

Me:  ?

E:  (looks at me)

Me:  *starts to giggle*

E:  A Moop!  A MOOP!  *hysterical laughter*

I think my 2 yr. old has effectively learned how to break tension.  Or calm a stressed-out Mom.  But the moop, it appeared, was going to make another appearance.

The next day at dinner I was told there was a moop in E.’s chair at dinner.  He could not, and would not, sit there.  I moved the moop.  It quickly jumped to another chair.  I caught it again, and put it in a saucepot.  It escaped once again, and went right back to E.’s chair. Finally I tossed it in the other room, on the hallway floor.  That worked.

Curious about what precisely constitutes a moop, I asked E. to tell me about them while we were out walking on the trails near our house.  Apparently, moops are complex creatures.  They are small and white and sharp, and they like to sit in chairs or under carpets.  You can’t sit on them or step on them.  They don’t like it.  I do possess the power to move moops, but the only other creature with such powers is called a moop gege.

(Gege is the name of E’s little stuffed-animal giraffe, pictured.  Gege has a lot of adventures, some in the real world and some not.)

Regardless, the moop gege is quite similar to E.’s real gege.  But he has (and I quote) “a different-looking nose, yellow eyeballs, and white fur.”  For some reason, this made me think of a giant, scary snow-monster (like Star Wars).

However, E did not share that sentiment.  The moop gege is a benign creature that roams the trails by our house, moves sharp moops out of the way, and collects clouds in a giant bag.  When he’s collected enough, he brings the clouds back to our house and puts them on the ceiling.  Oh, and sometimes he collects streetlights as well.  Not the actual light bulb, but the light itself, so that occasional street lights will not function correctly (the other gege will have to go take care of that later).  The functioning street-lights are also distributed in our home.

Intrigued by this whole world of moop, I asked E. a number of questions.  Is there a moop Mommy?  A moop Daddy?  What else does the moop do?

Only time will tell.  E’s only response to this inquiry was that the moop gege did enjoy spinning in circles inside the giant air conditioner’s outside of our house.  Well, not the exact ones outside our house.  A different air conditioner.  One especially built for a moop gege.

you turn around for ONE second…

and your kid creates some amazing, kick-ass silverware art on the ottoman.  :-)

Cake Pops!

So over New Year’s, we had our first foray into the magical world of cake-pop-making.  I thought it would be much more difficult than it was.  But it wasn’t.  And it was yummy.

For the uninitiated, cake pops are gooey yummy balls of cake stuck on a stick and dipped in chocolate.  I had them for the first time ever courtesy of Baker’s Cakes, who provided tasty, tasty cake pops for Edward’s second birthday party.  They were so pretty and enigmatic I didn’t think I’d have the expertise to make them.  I was halfway right… my pops were no where as pretty as Danielle Baker’s.  But they were still tasty and a blast to attempt.  So it’s certainly going to happen again.

I found the recipe on Bakerella.com.  I’m not sure if she’s the inventor of cake pops, or just their personal marketing guru, but she has tons of recipes and decorating tips and *even* a fancy-schmancy book I may have to order just to support all of her efforts.  All you need is this:

1 box-cake + the ingredients to make it

1 can of frosting

Some meltable chocolate

That’s it.  So you bake your cake, let it cool, pop it into a big old bowl and mix it with your tub of frosting.  And voila!  Cake pop goo.  You shape your cake pop goo into whatever shape you want your pops to be in, freeze them, and dip them in melted chocolate.

It’s quite delicious.  I tried red velvet cake with cream cheese icing and white chocolate shells.  They were fun, and turned everybody’s tongue pink.  I’m not sure what to do next, but I do predict a baking binge that may result in the random and merciless distribution of baked goods to anyone nearby.  Watch out.

Happy 1/1/11!

Happy New Year!  And new decade!

As you can see, I’ve set up a shiny-new wordpress site on a shiny-new domain.  This is all thanks to my forward-thinking husband, who registered a bunch of domain names years ago.  I’m kind of sad to see the old add-ridden livejournal page go, but it was time for it to retire.   I did import all of my old posts, just for nostalgia’s sake.  Ahh… the pantry project!  Lectures about my tattoo(s)!  And a whole bunch of other stuff I don’t even remember writing!  Woot!

Anyways, since it’s a new year I’ve decided to resurrect blogging.  I’m starting with my new things list.  I need ten of them, and I need to be able to realistically complete them in one year.  I did pretty well in 2008 and 2009.  And for some reason I fell off the face of the earth in 2010.  Go figure.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

10.  Play Uncharted 3, all the way through, all by myself.  This counts as a new thing because I’ve never actually played an RPG on my own.  Stephen usually does most of the playing while I tell him to kick that barrel and blow up that dude.  But I do love me some Nathan Drake (and Nathan Fillion), so this seems like a good place to start.

9.  Decaf.   I should try it, at least once.  It can’t be all that bad, right?

8.  Kayak Jordan Lake at night.  It’s supposed to be cool, and I recently discovered that kayaking is awesome.

7.  Skydiving.  Apparently, there is a place in Winston Salem and it’s $230 for your first jump.  Anybody wanna come with?  Stephen’s already in.

6.  Join a writer’s group.  Now that I have my shiny new literary agent, I probably should start taking advantage of all the cool resources out there for people who write.  This one is free and hopefully non-scary.  So I need to get my act together and go to a meet-up or something.

5.  Take Edward to the Smithsonian.  It’s been a while since I’ve been, and I’m pretty sure there are enough electronics around to hold his interest.

4.  Drink a beer while taking a shower.  Yeah.  You read that right.  Every list needs a gimme.

3.  Nanowrimo.  I write pretty fast, and I *think* I could crank out 50K in a month.  It would be a BAD 50K, but I would probably enjoy myself.  Anyway, hopefully by November I’ll be done with the next novel in my series and be in the throes of editing.  In which case I might need a break to write something crappy.

2.  Geocaching.  Looks like fun, right?

1.    ??  Why do I always end up one entry short?

Wednesday Afternoon

from Edward’s perspective:

Momeee!  MoMEEEEE come get me I woke up too early.  That truck sound woke me up.  MoMEEEEEE I am upset.  Pick me up.  Pick me up.  PICK ME UP! Put me down.  Put me down NOW.  WAAAAAAAAHHHHH.  Pick me up.  Pick me up.  Put me down.  PICK ME UP.

No, I don’t want to sit in the chair.  I don’t want to rock.  I don’t want milk.  I don’t PUT ME DOWN.  I am so mad, I am going to hit my head on the chair.  The chair moves when I do that.  WAAAAAAHHHH.  Pick me up!  Pick me up!  PUT ME DOWN!

I’m going to go cry in this corner.  That’s right, this corner behind the chair.  Don’t come back here.  WAAAAAAH!!!!  Don’t even think about it.  Okay, I’m coming out.  Here is a burp cloth.  It’s for you.  Take it.  Take it NOW.

Why do you have a burp cloth?  That’s MY burp cloth!  GIVE IT BACK.  Take it.  I don’t want it.  It goes there, in the pocket.  Pick me up.  NOW.

I don’t want to go in there.  I don’t want to sit on your bed.  I don’t want to bounce.  BOUNCE!! NOW!!  That’s awesome!  I love it!  I hate it!   WAAAAAH!!!!

TURN ON THOSE LAMPS!  Both of them.  At the same time.  Turn them off.  Turn them on.  DO IT NOW.

WAAAAAAHHHH WAAAAAAH!!!!  I’m angry!  Why aren’t you making me feel better??  Pick me up.  Pick me up.  Put me down.  PICK ME UP.

No, I don’t want to go downstairs.  I don’t want to turn the light on for you.  WAAAAAAH!

GIVE ME THE MILK!  I want the milk.  NO CUPS!  NOT in a cup.  In a bottle.  NOW in a bottle.

Okay, you can hold me but I won’t like it.  WAH.  Wah.  Sip, sip, sip.

I am going to hold your hand, but I’m still not gonna look at you.  Wah.  Sip, sip, sip.

Ahhhh…. hee, hee.  Its funny.  Giggle, giggle I’m not looking at you.

You should tickle my feet, here they are.  Giggle, giggle.

Sip, sip, sip.  Giggle, giggle. Let’s play!!