Friday, May 15, 2015

7 Quick Takes about the Secret Sauce, Unusual Sleeping Arrangements, and How You Know When Someone Really Loves Tuna Fish

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! That's 7 quick thoughts for the last 7 days.

1


I hear horror stories about the dreaded "Mother's Day breakfast in bed," where moms are forced to smile and choke down soggy Froot Loops or lumpy pancakes missing the salt while their children stare at them.

Luckily, I don't have to worry about that. Phillip's a food snob, remember? I breakfast like the Queen of England on Mother's Day.

I was so focused on getting it all in my face I didn't take a picture, but this year Phillip whipped up the most delicious breakfast sandwich I've ever had: scrambled eggs with avocado and tomato slices on a toasted English muffin, topped with a special sauce of which he won't reveal the ingredients. He says he invented the recipe and is keeping it a secret "so I still need him around."

I'm slightly concerned about what's going to happen to my sandwiches in the event that he dies first. I think the recipe needs to go in his will, just in case.

2


After breakfast, the next best thing about Mother's Day is seeing the kids' handmade cards. There were some very creative ones this year, but this one seemed to really resonate with me:


It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
From our 11-year-old, who probably never wants children of her own.

This kid gets it. She really gets it.

3


Lately our preschooler has been waking up two or three times a night for various ridiculous reasons (hence the card) and waking up the sisters who share her room.

With no other bedrooms and our older girls looking like extras from the set of Thriller when they get up for school in the morning, we had no other choice but to find an alternate sleeping arrangement for the preschooler until she starts sleeping through the night again.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Taken right after reading her favorite bedtime story, Goodnight Toilet. I mean, Goodnight Moon.

Yes, we put her on a mattress in the master bathroom.

Actually, she likes it, which creates a whole new problem because now she doesn't want to move out. I worry that she and her dolly are going to be sleeping in our bathroom until she goes to college.

4


How do you handle watching movies too scary for your younger children when you've got older kids?

Movie night has always just been Family Time in our house, but now that we're getting older children, sometimes that means a 3-year-old is watching The Hobbit.

We've tried just having me leave the room with the little kids during the scary parts, which works okay but it means that I miss all the good parts.

Last time, we put the younger kids to bed, then swore the older ones to secrecy and to silence if we put on a movie. Also okay, but Phillip still talks about the first time he wandered downstairs in the night as a child to find his parents and older siblings sitting around the TV with ice cream without him. He's 34. This method works, but it obviously leaves lasting emotional scars.

5


This week I finished packing away the kids' winter boots for another year, a new record for me because we still have several weeks before June hits! (I know, I'm impressed with me, too.)

I also decided that all their previously outgrown boots (stored in the basement until they can be handed down to the next kid) needed to be reorganized. I pulled a pink pair out of the box, threw it across the room to where I was piling up the boots, and a SHOWER of little seeds went flying everywhere.

Mice.

Mice have been stealing our birdseed and hoarding it inside my kids' outgrown boots.

Phillip thinks it's "cute" that they're storing seeds for winter in such a funny way. I'm this close to vomiting and think we should burn the house down immediately.

We'll probably compromise and set up some mouse traps.

6


On my way to the library, I drove behind this car:

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Really likes tuna.
There are only a few causes I feel passionate enough about to permanently emblazon upon my vehicle, so I can only guess how deep this guy's love for a good tuna fish sandwich must go.

7


While I was sweeping up the mid-sized mountain of food on the floor after dinner last night, my 3-year-old came over with her plastic toy cell phone and started pressing the button that makes camera noises.

I asked what she was doing and she answered, "Taking pictures of the mess for my blog" and continued snapping away.

I fear for how this blog might be molding her young brain.


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12 comments:

Jenny said...

My 2 year old started having the same problem with sleeping. You may have already tried this, or you might think it's crazy. But, we started waking her up, just enough to maybe go potty half asleep, when we were going to bed. It broke up her sleeping routine and with in a week, she was sleeping all night in her own bed.

Also my 3 year old loves to "work" by taking pictures with her toy camera.

Iulia Gulia @ Best of Baby said...

Cracking up at the last one!!!

Unknown said...

I am envisioning a really uncomfortable situation in your future when your daughter announces she sleeps in the bathroom in a public setting! I have never told my kids pics are for the blog. I have already had a request for a picture because I "should put it on Facebook"

Jenny Evans said...

We've done the waking on and off, with various children for various reasons. She's unfortunately been a bad sleeper since birth. When she was one I could still count the number of times she'd slept completely through the night on one hand...

Jenny Evans said...

It's only a matter of time, I know. At this point I'm just hoping she doesn't announce it to a mandatory reporter.

Anonymous said...

That Mother's Day card is too adorable!

Nina said...

Haha too many funny stories here. Love the card! And I had to do a double take on the sleeping arrangement in the bathroom lol!

Shawnie said...

We have often needed to have a separate sleeping space (usually because of merciless teasing of roommates). We have tried bathrooms, closets, laundry rooms, etc., but usually only for one night at a time. I purposely try to make it uncomfortable so they don't want to stay. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have "bedrooms" just big enough for a twin mattress to fit on the floor; then everyone could have her own room!

Jenny Evans said...

I completely agree! Big bedrooms are completely overrated.

Grace said...

This is hilarious! Visiting from the 7QTs page and just wanted to say how great this is. I am with Phillip re: nursing wounds of "unfair" traumas from childhood for a decade or several. I wonder if I can fault them for my ice cream hoarding tendencies now?

Jenny Evans said...

We were actually just talking with Phillip's siblings (he's one of 7 kids) and the consensus was that you can. Having many siblings apparently causes you to scarf your food and to eat while the eating's good whether you're hungry or not.

Anna said...

Here via TATL... no hope for a bad sleeper, just commiseration! My 8 y-o has been a bad sleeper since birth too; we now give her melatonin to help her go to sleep, but she still wakes up at night all the time. She's an anxious kid too, so lots of things give her nightmares, but even when she's not scared, I've never known anyone with the ability to just *stay awake* like she can. But I like the bathroom solution!