Love of my life

Dear Coffee Pot,

I love you so much. You know that. In fact, if I could pick only one appliance to be stranded on a desert island with, I would choose you, assuming the desert island is also stocked with electrical outlets and a plentiful supply of coffee beans. I would even choose you over the DVD player that allows my child to remain silent for at least a half an hour each morning as I suck down the fruits of your labor and gear up for yet another day.

But we need to talk about the beeping.

Try as I might, I can not figure out how to disable your five, loud, successive beeps that alert me to the fact your job is done. See, here's the thing: you don't have to beep to tell me your pot is full. Odds are, I am hovering over your steaming, chrome-and-plastic beauty, just waiting for the pot to be full enough to pull out mid-stream and fill my cup. (This is my favorite feature--not having to wait for the cycle to be complete before filling my waiting cup.) The problem is that, some mornings, and they are few and far between...I am actually able to sneak out of bed before my child senses or smells that I am already awake and enjoying part of the day without her, and I need to sneak around a bit. I don't even turn on the bathroom light to pee for fear of disturbing my peace. I love my cats but if they get a little too frisky on these special, special mornings, I kind of want to kick them. So your beeping? It's a problem.

I've tried hunting for the source of the beeping so I could cover it with a towel or even my sweatshirt sleeve to muffle the sound, but all this got me was a steam burn and, soon after, a faint call of Mommy?? from the bedroom. I have tried unplugging you right before the beep but re-programming you is a pain and sometimes you beep anyway. You're persistent like that.

And so, my beloved coffee pot, my favorite appliance, I love you in spite of your beeping, in spite of the fact that you consistently ruin the few mornings I have all to myself. Rumor has it that teenagers will sleep through anything, even five loud early-morning beeps, and so I hold out hope for the day, ten years down the road, where I can sneak out of bed and enjoy a couple hours in the day not filled with incessant whining. Mornings that will be filled with yummy coffee and checking my email instead.

While I'm waiting for that day, I'll take a refill. Thanks.

My newest form of therapy

You've probably seen it on facebook already (except you, Mom. HINT.): I'm in the midst of my very first ever furniture refinishing project.

About a week ago, my wicked sister, Alisa, assured me that re-upholstering the chairs of my dining room set was something so simple I could do it in about 20 minutes with one hand tied behind my back. Actually, she's been telling me this for months now. But for whatever reason, I decided to tackle the "easy" job of re-upholstering my dining room chairs on Sunday. In the 96 degree heat. In Alisa's un-air-conditioned house. Fun times were had by all, and in the end, the seat cushions looked far better in their more natural, retro coverings than they ever had in that awful old-lady fabric my Grandma picked out 10+ years ago (sorry, Grandma).

Tragedy struck while trying to re-attach the seats to the chair frames. Being that this is my Grandma and Grandpa's teak dining room set they bought while stationed in Germany back in 1964, the whole set has seen some wear and tear. Turns out the holes in the bottoms of the seats are stripped and in need of repair. And while I'm waiting for that to happen, I figured hey, I've always wanted to re-finish the entire set, why not tackle it now? After some Google searching and the acquisition of some sandpaper and teak oil, I was all set.

I absolutely love this dining room set. And I fully intend to restore it to it's 1960's, golden, retro glory. I will not let an unfortunate incident with an electric sander and countless trips to Ace Hardware stand in my way, either.

Sanding each chair has actually been quite therapeutic. I have time to think about my Grandpa and all the times I heard him command 'eat your supper, girls' from his end of the table...in fact, I had plenty of time to reflect fondly on my Grandpa even as I was cursing his name while sanding what were certainly years and years of grime and tobacco stains from several of the chair backs. Grandma tackled countless sewing projects on this table and covered it's top with far more she just never got around to finishing. (Standing family joke: Grandma, is that the table top I see under there? Under all those mounds of fabric?)

I have plenty of time to finish this project, which is perfect--as the full-time working single parent of a three year old, you can imagine how much 'free time' I have to sand and oil, sand and oil. So Zoey and I head out to the patio each afternoon or evening. She keeps herself busy with her hopscotch squares or pulls her chair over the fence to watch the golf carts whiz by on the golf course, and I sand to my heart's content. By Wednesday, I had a few chairs sanded down and could actually start oiling them, and...WOW. This furniture is just beautiful.

And I'm not even saying I got every scratch and dent out of each chair. Most of the scuff marks came off easily, but I'll admit, after nearly sanding off half a chair back during my brief stint with the borrowed electric sander, I'm a little afraid to sand too far down, lest I am left with chair legs resembling toothpicks. But you know what? There is a lot of history in that table and chair set, and I'm not even sure I want to sand off every ink mark, small water stain, or dark spot.

So, faithful blog readers, that's where I'm spending my free time these days (as opposed to writing). It feels good to have a project to work on, especially a project that I know for a fact I never would have tackled, say, a year ago. The old me wouldn't have thought I could refinish any furniture project. New Amy knows that, armed with some Google research and a really good pack of sandpaper, I can not only accomplish the task but actually make it look pretty damn good.

This particular piece of artwork is a keeper

It was octopus hat day at daycare on Tuesday.

I know. Pretty exciting.

We have a monthly calendar on our fridge, compliments of Ms. Mandi, that tells what each day's activity will be, and part of my effort to get Zoey a little more excited about being left at daycare has been to point out, each day, what she'll be working on. We were both intrigued by Tuesday's octopus hat entry, and when I left her (crying and oh so very sad) I reminded her I wanted to hear ALL ABOUT the details of making an octopus hat when I returned to pick her up.

And holy crap. The hat I found stuffed in her cubby at the end of the day cracked me up, even before she modeled it for me.

A black headband fashioned from construction paper had eight large, spindly legs sprouting from it, as well as a decorated-with-markers body (Zoey explained she had drawn a picture of a tea pot on her octopus body). She was quite proud of it, really, and I followed her out the door noting her octopus legs gave her such a wide body span, the tips of her tentacles brushed the door frame.

Wednesday, Zoey wore the hat over to Grandma's house (to scare her, Mommy!) after completely freaking out the cats at home. (The look on Henry's face was priceless: one part horrified and one part girlfriend, who lied to you and told you that looks good?)

We got home Wednesday evening and Zoey was tired, hungry, and very very cranky. Normally, you can feel yourself growing older as you wait for her to get out of the car, and yesterday she stepped it up a notch--a full five minutes, I believe, to get her to un-buckle her seat belt and GET. OUT. while I stood waiting, arms full of bags to haul inside. After yelling at me that I hadn't found her other pink Barbie slipper, I dropped her backpack on the ground and told her she could fend for herself getting in the house, because I wasn't about to stand there and listen to her rude little mouth. I started to walk away and could hear her wailing in protest behind me.

I turned to find her slumping along behind me, dragging her backpack on the ground, exaggerrated frown on her face, octopus tentacles flapping all around her head. And while, only three seconds ago I had kind of wanted to kick her in the shins and leave her outside for the night, I suddenly couldn't stop smiling. It is impossible to be mad at a preschooler in an octopus hat.

That hat totally saved her from getting yelled at and, potentially, a very long time out. It would be in her best interests to keep it around for awhile.

Local veggies

Last weekend my best friend Rikki came down with her darling little chunk of a man, Colton, who will be a whole year old next month. Upon arrival, he immediately got to work trying to consume all of Zoey's fake plastic food, while Zoey hovered nearby nervously. Rikki unloaded the contents of her car, which included goodies for me like a fresh chicken from her farm (freezer-ready, thankfully), peaches and nectarines from her recent trip to Wenatchee, and a huge bowl of snap peas from her garden.

Zoey and I made quick work of the peas throughout the week, and I promised her we would hit up the farmer's market on Saturday to re-stock.

I've been meaning to start buying all my produce from the farmer's market for, well, quite some time. You always hear how much better it tastes, how supporting local farmers is a Good Thing, etc. All concepts I am completely on board with. My satisfaction with Winco's produce has been on the downhill slide for several weeks now and finally, after this week throwing out half a head of brown lettuce and a smooshy cucumber we never even got to despite the fact we had bought it five days earlier, I knew it was time to start shopping local.

I'll admit, cost has been a factor in buying all things produce from the grocery store as opposed to the farmer's market. We bought apples at the market last month and I believe I paid something outrageous like $4 for only three of them. But this week I was committed, primarily because Zoey kept requesting peas long after we had polished off the bowl, and I set aside $20 of my weekly budget just for the farmer's market on Saturday.

I was pleasantly surprised at what $20 will get you from the local produce stands. Not to mention it was fun just wandering through the booths, comparing prices on tomatoes and corn. For only a whopping $12, I collected a large bag of green beans (Zoey chose these over snap peas), two ears of corn, a gorgeous bright red tomato, two green peppers, four apples, a head of lettuce, a cucumber, and a homemade soft German pretzel stick that was, seriously, to die for. Since we had money left over, Zoey and her cousin Finley even got a turn on the bounce house. ($2 per child for five minutes. Clearly I have gone in to the wrong field, and need to start hawking plastic inflatable devices for insane prices.)

I couldn't bring myself to pay $2 for an onion, though. Don't ask me why. It's just...really? For an onion? It was the one bin I couldn't stop myself from thinking 'I could get a bag of these for less than $2 at Winco'.

You can take the girl out of Winco, but tragically, you can't remove all the Winco from the girl.

Zoey and I are excited to head back to the farmer's market next Saturday. I am hoping we can milk this buying-local-produce for at least another four to six weeks before the weather turns horrid and all the produce stands dry up for the year. And those apples? They're expensive, but damn, they're good.

Please pass the hatchet

I went to the dentist last week for my first round of fillings, ever, in 31 years. Striving always to be the Perfect Patient, I tried to appear very relaxed about the whole event, because really, I sometimes grow tired of people and their damn anxiety over something silly like a colonoscopy, and my best guess is that dental team members feel the same about that person wetting her pants in the waiting room over what is really just a tiny drill aimed at her mouth. Really, it's NO BIG DEAL.

The numbing event started off fine. I can honestly say I did not feel any needle sliding in to my gums, although I quickly wished I had as the gripping terror that consumed me 30 seconds later made a teeny needle sound like a Hawaiian beach with a fruity drink. My palms started to sweat, my heart was beating in a way that seemed irregular (irregular = bad), and I felt like something seriously, seriously wrong was about to happen (more seriously wrong than a pesky drill about to meet my enamel).

The dentist casually mentioned at that point something about the numbing medicine containing epinephrine, a medicine used in my realm of the medical world to revive people who are dying, and to control stubborn areas of bleeding. Was I bleeding or dying? I couldn't tell. But it did explain the racing heart, sweating palms, and...anxiety? Yes, the dentist assured me. Epinephrine can make you feel a bit anxious. Because additional anxiety on top of two incoming dental fillings was exactly what I needed in that moment.

Thankfully, the first filling went fine, after the feeling of imminent death faded. The highlight of the entire event was hearing the dentist ask her assistant to 'please pass me the hatchet'. That's right. All soft-spoken and polite, too, like she was asking someone to please pass the butter. Hearing this was like getting a shot of epinephrine all over again. I am lucky to be young with a strong, healthy heart, because seriously, how do old people survive stress like this? I'm telling you, I was 40 years and a case of congestive heart failure away from being struck dead by terror right there in the dentist's chair.

By the second filling I was thinking we were in the clear, as I hadn't died yet and how much longer could this take, really? Then, mid-drill, I felt something I can only equate to being electrocuted, which I took to mean the numbing medication had worn off. After peeling me off the ceiling once because I had just been zapped, then again after giving me more epinephrine, it was back to the drill.

An hour and a half later, I was out the door with a firm understanding of why so many people truly hate going to the dentist.

Germ warfare

I believe I mentioned in my last post something about signing Zoey's latest Ouch Report when I picked her up at daycare Tuesday. This is nothing new. I think that if someone were to pay me a dime for every Ouch Report I've signed this year, I could retire tomorrow. But Ms. Mandi did pull me aside, briefly, and tell me she had to have a "discussion" with my daughter about the importance of wearing a band-aid on what was the large patch of road rash on her elbow.

Zoey has never been a fan of the band aids. Not sure why. She'll plaster them all over her large stuffed Care Bear, but she'd rather bleed out than wear one herself.

So anyway, Ms. Mandi apparently referenced 'miserable germs' in her lecture, even pulling out a story book about said miserable germs, to get Zoey to wear a band aid after her scrape. These 'mizz-ubble germs' are pretty much all Zoey has wanted to discuss since I brought her home Tuesday, after she finished throwing her marathon hissy fit over the bounce house.

She told me, in no uncertain terms, that mizz-ubble germs are large creatures similar to the monsters she imagines lurking under her bed, that creep in to your body uninvited and make you very, very sick. She then pointed out to me (hand gestures and all) that the best way to prevent the invasion of mizz-ubble germs was to 1. wash your hands and 2. wear a band aid on your bleeding owies.

While I am completely on board with any preschool lecture that gets my kid to wash her hands more often, my mistake was pointing out that germs are so teeny tiny, you can't even see them! My point was to steer the conversation away from make believe monsters under the bed. What Zoey heard is 'germs are waiting for you everywhere so be afraid, little girl'.

She refuses to use the bathroom by herself anymore and looks terrified of the toilet.

I am not sure how to do damage control on this topic. I want her to wash her hands. I want her to wear band aids over bleeding wounds. I do not want her to have nightmares about tiny, growling germs that will make her sick. Information is such a fine line with this age group.

Maybe this points toward a career in microbiology. Maybe it's the start of OCD. Time will tell.

Bounce house trumps Mommy. Period.

Daycare drop-off has been a bit emotional lately, with far more tears and clinginess than is normal for Zoey. I am chalking this up to the fact that I had a five day stretch of days off last week (hello, abbreviated vacation, you were so wonderful for us!). Anyway, a typical morning of late has included peeling my child off my body and handing her over to Ms. Yvonne, with promises to come get her as soon as I leave work. Yesterday, with arms wound tightly around my neck, Zoey whispered in my ear 'come get me early today, Mommy'. I promised her that, if our schedules were light, I would skip the Y after work and head straight to pick her up instead.

Eight hours later, all our procedures were finished and all patients were out the door, early! Amazing how refreshing an eight hour shift can feel, compared to ten hours. And all day, in the back of my mind, I had heard Zoey's little voice in my ear, begging me to come back for her. My gym bag was calling my name...I could so head for the Y and still be back in plenty of time for daycare pick-up...but if a ten hour day seems long to me, it must feel even longer for my daughter, am I right? Ten hours in daycare? Too long. Best to suprise her with an early pick-up, especially since she had seemed so sad this morning.

'Come get me early today, Mommy...'

Whatever.

It is hard for me separate, in my mind, the child who clings to me at 6:45 in the morning at the daycare door, with the child who apparently bounces back the moment I walk out the door and forgets her mother even exists. This is a good thing, believe me, I know. Zoey goes to an amazing daycare, full of teachers who plan exciting activities for all their kids, and I couldn't be more grateful for this. And even though her day is often filled with creating rocket ships out of construction paper and playing soccer and convincing her friend Blake to dress up with her and pretend they are going to a wedding, Zoey is always thrilled to see me when I arrive to pick her up. And, I figured, she would be even more excited to see Mommy arrive early after clinging desperately to her neck and begging her not to leave earlier in the morning.

So, I zip across the street to daycare at 3:45 and find Zoey out on the playground with her class. After chatting with Ms. Mandi and signing off on Zoey's latest Ouch Report, Zoey ran up to me and seemed happy as a clam that I was there to take her home...EARLY. We collected her things from her cubby and as we were heading back upstairs, she suddenly stopped.

'Mommy! The bounce house! I didn't get my turn!'

Bounce house? Yes. Turns out the daycare had rented an enormous bounce house to occupy most of the space in the gym, and each class was taking it's turn bouncing to their heart's content. Ms. Mandi's class hadn't taken their turn yet, and here comes Zoey's mom, showing up all EARLY and ruining the FUN.

She proceeded to cry as though her heart was breaking all the way home, gigantic tears and everything, grieving the loss of her turn on the bounce house. There are few things in this world Zoey loves more than bounce houses, maybe not even Mommy. No amount of trying to sound excited about taking a walk to the library and hey, Mommy came to get you early so we could hang out together, right?? was making her feel better. Because it was a bounce house, Mommy! And my turn! I didn't get my turn!

I suppose this is what it means to feel as though you will never win.

We did walk to the library and we also went swimming at the Y after dinner. She stopped talking about the freaking bounce house about two hours after we got home. I have made yet another mental note to keep in mind that my child does not ever, ever sit at daycare wishing for Mommy to come back. This is a healthy sign, one that is easily forgotten by a guilt-stricken mother, but next time I swear to you that if I have time to go to the gym after work, I will. Lord knows what kind of fun I'd be interrupting if I showed up early to get her...that 6:45 a.m. request to 'come get me early, Mommy!' being long forgotten.

Thinking of next year's party theme gives me anxiety

My apologies to all of you out there who check my blog religiously each day, waiting and hoping for an updated post.

Because I totally know that 'all of you' includes my mother and my sister Abby.

So, Mom, since you still haven't joined the year 2010 and have yet to obtain a Facebook account, you have no idea what Zoey's birthday cake looked like last week, a fact we simply must change. And for all of you who do have access to modern internet (i.e. Facebook) and have seen the photos, well, trust me...you haven't seen them all. What follows is the Greatest Birthday Cake Saga ever.

See, I knew I set the bar high with those freaking owl cupcakes back in 2008. It's hard to top those, mainly because they appear adorable and time-consuming, and are actually quite simple to put together. 2009 brought tonsilitis and a pass on my date with the horse-shaped cake pan. And, with 2010 came Zoey's fascination with Disney princesses, namely Cinderella, so you know I wasn't passing up the opportunity to create a Cinderella cake.

A Google search weeks in advance gave me the misguided genius idea to create a Barbie cake. You know, those cakes with a Barbie doll surrounded by a flowing skirt made out of cake. Two 9-inch cakes are stacked on top of each other, topped by a cake baked in a Pyrex bowl and flipped upside down, a two-inch circle is cut from the middle, a Barbie doll with her nether regions wrapped in Saran Wrap is plunked in the middle, and voila. Happy Birthday, princess lover.

Further Google searching led me to my nearest Toys R Us, where I was able to find an actual Cinderella doll instead of a sub-standard Barbie look alike. This, as it turns out, was all the luck I had in putting together this godforsaken cake, but I didn't know it at the time.

A dry run of the bowl-cake a week ahead of time (because, really, CAN you bake a cake in a Pyrex bowl seemed like a question best tested well in advance, as opposed to the night before the party) and it turns out you can, in fact, pull it off, if you pay very close attention to measurements and don't use a bowl a half-inch smaller in diameter than recommended by the recipe. No matter. So we had to scrape plenty of baked-on cake batter from the bottom of the oven. Live and learn.


My sister kindly offered to bake the bowl cake and two 9-inchers the Thursday before the party, as Zoey's and my social calendar suddenly filled to capacity and I was left thinking I'd be up until 2 a.m. Friday night baking cakes.


Upon getting the three cakes home and stacking them up next to Cinderella, I was dismayed to find the height of the cake hit her right about mid-thigh. Closer scrutiny of the recipe actually revealed THREE 9-inch cakes were required.

A panicked call to Grandma later, we had arrangements for additional cakes to be baked while I was at work Friday. And a gentle suggestion to consider a Costco cake for next year.

*Pfffft*

Friday night, and we finally had the desired height for Cinderella's dress. I thought I had this thing in the bag. This was hours before attempting to actually FROST the beast.

The picture doesn't do it justice, people. This is only layer #1, which had to be trimmed to the precise size of the awaiting bowl-cake-layer, and the amount of crumbs clinging stubbornly to the frosting were quickly dooming this entire project to the Cake Wrecks website.

Layers two and three didn't accept their frosting plaster any more graciously than layer one. It was ugly. Like, Cinderella's-wicked-stepsister-ugly.

As my kid wasn't about to have the ugliest birthday cake on record, I consulted the recipe yet again. The recipe that, I swear, is like watching your favorite movie over and over again--each time you see it, you catch something you never saw before. This time around, I caught the paragraph that recommended getting a 'base layer' of frosting around the entire assembled cake, then freezing the entire monstrosity for 30 minutes before polishing it off with a final layer of frosting that would, apparently, gloss over all those wayward ugly crumbs.

I had to sacrifice a box of popsicles and a bag of frozen peas, but I managed to get the whole thing wedged in my tiny freezer.

And it helped. Really. By the time I wedged Saran-Wrapped Cinderella in the middle of the cake and frosted around her swirly blue dress, things were looking much more polished. Listing a little to the left, but still, more polished.

The finished product had the birthday girl very, very excited. Mainly because it was cake wrapped around what would ultimately be her new toy--a Cinderella doll to play with! Who cares about the cake! Thanks Mom!



Taa-daa! The community effort, Xanax-inducing, next-year-it's-Costco-all-the-way, Cinderella birthday cake.