Just a Cookie

I made cookies this past weekend. Triple chocolate chip cookies, Tom’s favorite and Olivia’s second favorite.

About three quarters of the way through baking these cookies, I put a pan of water on to boil so I could toss some spaghetti in there for dinner (for Tom and the girls, I’m still making my own separate dinners because, duh, still not at my goal weight, even fifteen months into whatever it is I’m doing to get healthy.)

Except, I’m sort of an idiot and I turned on the front right burner, the one I usually use when making dinner, instead of the back right burner which is the one on which the pan of water sat, all cold and non-boily.

But I didn’t realize this at first. No, no I did not realize this. Instead, I went about the house, putting clothes away, talking to Olivia, helping her find some shoes she was asking about as that uncovered burner heated the hell right up and the one with the water sat, still cold and non-boily.

I took the cookies that were in the oven getting all browned and perfectly lovely and put then on the stove to cool on the pan for the two minutes suggested by the recipe.

Olivia and I went upstairs for something and as we came back down the stairs, I smelled the distinct scent of burning chocolate chip cookie. Just, just one cookie.

That one cookie that sat on the cookie sheet directly over the burner that I’d accidently turned on instead of the burner on which the pot of cold water sat, that cookie was smoking and burning into the cookie sheet.

I moved the cookie sheet from the burner, turned off that burner, turned on the one that held the pot of still-cold water and then went about taking the cookies off the cookie sheet. Well, I took all the ones that hadn’t burned off of it. The one that burned? It had to be scraped and soaked and as of today, remnants of that cookie still stain the cookie sheet.

I know that everyone makes mistakes. I get that. I also know it was just one cookie in a big batch of cookies. But damn it!

Do you know what it’s like to live with a husband who never, ever seems to make mistakes? One who looks around the house and knows exactly what needs to be done and how to get it done and who doesn’t shy away from giving advice on how to get things done?

It’s not always pleasant, is what I’m saying. I often feel like such a moron if only because I’m never as sure as he is. I’m never as competent and I probably never will be.

But I do know it was only a cookie. This time.

Edited to add that in no way does Tom make me feel like an idiot for the above burner fiasco. He doesn't ever act like he knows everything. This is all my own perception, my own issues. He really is just that confident, though. I envy that in him and wish he'd share just a little of his confidence with me.

More Than Just a Spoon

Tom was washing dishes this morning.

I’ll wait and let that sink in.

My husband routinely washes the breakfast and lunch dishes while I usually do the dinner dishes.

Unfortunately for him, there were a bunch of dishes dirtied last night after I’d already done the dinner dishes.

So there he was, washing a sink full of dishes as I finished getting ready to leave for work.

I heard him grumble and growl about something but didn’t ask what was wrong.

Finally, he called out, “Who took the strainer from the sink with the garbage disposal?”

I replied cheerfully, “Well, since you and I are the only ones in this house who wash dishes, we can safely assume that if you didn’t move the strainer, I did.”

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

“The water wouldn’t drain out of that sink last night. I moved it so it would drain. I obviously forgot to put it back.”

“Well, a spoon fell into the disposal while the strainer was out. But it was just one of the big ones, we don’t actually need all of those.”

I rolled my eyes and refused to be offended by his obnoxious tone.

Mistakes happen. Spoons fall into the garbage disposal.

When I didn’t respond, he continued, “You know, when the water won’t drain for me, I just turn on the garbage disposal and that sucks the water right down. Which is what I was doing when I heard the spoon get mauled.”

I smiled and replied, “Good to know. I’ll try that next time.”

He threw the spoon away and went back to his dishes.

I went back to whatever it was I was doing at 7:20 this morning. Somehow, it felt good to refuse to rise to bait.

And the kiss he gave me goodbye was that much better because he’d had his say and I’d listened without getting insulted and all was well.

I can’t promise that tomorrow will go nearly this smoothly. But I’m betting there won’t be a mutilated spoon involved.

Extremes

This morning I asked my mom to DVR the TBS show The Little Couple. See, I don’t have cable (because we’re too cheap and can find plenty to watch on regular old free television) and I saw the commercial for this show. I almost cried during the commercial. Go ahead, laugh. Tom and Alyssa did. Whatever.

My mom already DVRs another show for me, on I go over and watch each weekend. What show, you ask? Oh, just The Walking Dead.

Yeah.

Can those two shows be more different from each other? Probably not.

And let me say right here and I’m so excited that today is Friday because it means that tonight a new episode of Hannibal is going to be airing. I’ll watch that after the girls are asleep, after we’ve watched a few episodes of The Brady Bunch.

Again with going from one extreme to the other, huh?

What can I say? I like my wholesome shows as much as the gruesome ones. I’m a well-rounded member of the television viewing audience.

OCD

After putting the girls on the bus the other day, Tom asked me if I though Olivia was getting more difficult to handle these days. He’d just spend twenty minutes trying to get her to eat her breakfast and it was an effort in futility.

I shrugged and sort of agreed. She has good days and bad days. Actually, she has good moments and bad moments, both of which can take place in a five minute span.

These days she needs to wipe the top of her sippy cup and straw after very drink. She still needs to put the toilet lid down. She likes to have all doors closed and latched if possible.

When sitting in front of our oscillating space heater, she prefers the heater to not oscillate and very much likes to have it sitting perfectly straight on its base.

She feels like she needs to sit on the toilet and try to pee before putting on her underwear even if she’s just peed all of three minutes before I tell her to put on her underwear.

Olivia likes routine. She wants to know where things are and what is happening next. I get that. I’m trying, though, to get her to appreciate the thrill of spontaneity. I know that is a hard thing to embrace when you’re tendency is to lean toward the OCD side of the spectrum.

But since I don’t know how to help her deal with the OCD, I can try and teach her the fun of surprises and mixing things up here and there.

Of course, I do also let her wipe her cup each time she takes a drink and I remind her sister to cut her some slack when she asks three times if she put the lid down on the toilet. I’ve tried to get Alyssa to understand O’s OCD by comparing it to A’s desire to follow rules.

The ‘rules’ that Olivia needs to follow are the ones her sweet brain has created. She has a compulsion to follow those rules. Hence the C in OCD.

Alyssa asked why Olivia can’t just ignore those rules since they’re not really rules at all. I told her that as someone who doesn’t have OCD, I don’t really understand it any more than she does.

But we’re trying. And we’re keeping an eye on Olivia, in case that OCD gets worse. If so, we’ll find someone who can help her more than I can, someone who understands it better than I do and can work with her to let go of some of those ‘rules’ that can often seem to take over rational though and behavior.

How Do You Make This?

Olivia asks this question almost every day. She’s usually asking about whatever it is she might be eating at the time. She wants to know how the peanut butter and jelly sandwich is made, then she wants to know how the chicken noodle soup is made.

I usually give her a pretty scaled down version of what went into making something but sometimes, I’ll go into detail and she loves that.

I love that she’s interested in what goes into preparing a meal. I hope this leads to her one day wanting to do the preparation herself. It could mean that I’m done being the family cook and at that point, all my dreams will have come true.

Alyssa loves to help make dinner. She’s very interested in cooking after having watched the Master Chef kids edition. She was amazed that some of those kids were younger than she was and cooks intricate, fancy meals.

These days she can make macaroni and cheese (the Kraft version, nothing homemade. Then again, I don’t bother with homemade mac & cheese. I don’t think she even realizes there is any other kind of macaroni and cheese other than Kraft…ahem, end of tangent…) and other sides that involve bringing a milk/water mixture to a boil, pouring in the noodles and spices, setting the timer and then stirring every so often.

She can also warm up soup and make popcorn in the microwave. The independence gained from these seemingly small tasks is amazing.

One of these days, my kids will be able to feed themselves with no input from me at all. Whatever will I do with all that extra time?

Patience...My Lack Of

I am not nearly as good a mother as I thought I’d be. Before I had kids, I imagined my loving, patient self mothering only with love and respect.

That is so far from the truth.

I admire people with endless patience. I wish I were one of those people.

But instead, I snap at my children, I glare at them. I demand that they stop annoying each other and me.

Last weekend the girls and I went with my mom and step-dad to the local Home and Garden show. We drove about forty-five minutes to get there and once there it was packed. The girls started in about being hungry about five minutes before we got there, so you can imagine how they were after an hour of walking around.

They were driving me crazy and I felt awful for having accepted my mom’s invitation to join her to attend this because not only were my children being pests but I was also being a shrew to them. Not pleasant for anyone within earshot of us.

See, I know that kids get whiny and I wish I could just smile and assume others understand this and just let it go instead of feeling like I have to constantly correct their behavior. They were being kids. They were bored, they were hungry, they were tired. And I was awful.

This is obviously something I need to work on. I have a lot to work on these days.

Rocking the Sickies

Olivia has had a bad cold for almost a week. By cold, I mean she had a fever the first night and then sinus congestion, a cough and a disgustingly runny nose the rest of the time.

I give her a non-drowsy decongestant during the day and another, sleep-inducing one each evening.

All this sickness for her has led to me rocking her to sleep at night. She loves, loves, loves this. Each evening since last Thursday, which was the first night I rocked her to sleep, she’s asked if we’re going to rock again.

My girl loves being babied. And to be honest, I’m pretty content to baby her as long as she’ll let me.

Alyssa, on the other hand, is not amused by O’s need for rocking. Alyssa pointed out, “I had a cold last week and no one rocked me.”

I asked her if she asked to be rocked and she replied, “Of course not!” As if I’s suggested some ridiculous. Eleven year olds are a mass of contradictions.

I then pointed out, “You know that whenever Liv catches a cold from you, she always gets hit with is about twenty times worse than you do.”

This is true. While Alyssa did have a cold, it consisted of the sniffles for about three days. Olivia is on day six of green snot, hacking coughs and congestion. She hasn’t had a fever since that first night so I’m thinking she’s going to kick this one on her own. But still, this is more than the sniffles.

She did go to school today, since her nose is no longer a color just a few shades lighter than Rudolph’s glowing nose. She asked this morning if she was going to school and when I informed her that yes, she was going to school, she gave me a bit of a glare, which only confirmed that the child needs to be back at school.

But just before getting on the bus, she asked if she could rock with me tonight, I hugged my baby and told her that of course we could rock together tonight.

Like I said, I’ll rock her as long as she’ll let me.