Friday, June 11, 2021

7 Quick Takes about Apparently Being Married to Paul Rudd, Cooking New Foods, and Weaning Kids off of Screens with Mixed Results

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

1


My teenagers are huge fans of the Marvel movies. I don't do action movies, but my daughter was playing the Ant-Man soundtrack on the computer the other night and I said, "I kind of like this music. Do you think I'd like the movie?"

"I don't know, it's kind of dumb," she answered, and then paused. "Actually, Ant-Man reminds me a little bit of Dad... so maybe?"

When I watched the Ant-Man trailer on YouTube, they had me at the miniature fight scene on top of Thomas the Train. (Fun fact: I actually like action movies as long as they don't take themselves seriously.)

And my daughter was 100% right that it had a very Phillip vibe to it. There was one scene where Ant-Man seems to be especially channeling Phillip's overall demeanor, and then he made such a classic Phillip face that the kids and I simultaneously burst out laughing (5:55 here if you want to see what I'm talking about.)

"What?" Phillip asked us all.

"That face! You make that face!" we said, shaking with laughter.

"What face?"

So we watched it again and he was like, "I don't make that face! I wouldn't even know how to make that face."

He totally makes that face.

2


If you like regular criticism better than constructive criticism, you should probably be cooking dinner for my 7-year-old.

I made a new recipe for dinner this week, and he took one look at the deliciously crispy golden brown baked potato wedges and said in a disgusted-beyond-belief voice, "Are those destroyed potatoes??"

3


Since my kids' reaction to new foods is obviously so positive, I was hunting for other new recipes to try. 

Specifically, I was looking for ways to incorporate more fish in our diets. Upon Googling "tilapia recipes," these related searches came up:



So let me get this straight: you search the Internet for "tilapia recipes" and Google recommends questions like "is tilapia nasty?" and "why does tilapia taste so bad?" Who picked these related queries? My children?

4


In our family scripture study we read a verse said "gird up your loins," which I know means something like get to work, but I didn't really know why so I decided to look it up.

I thoroughly enjoyed this illustrated guide to girding up your loins on a website called Art of Manliness. I was laughing at the funny accompanying text, but then I noticed that the last sentence came verbatim from a very familiar LDS hymn and was like "waaaaiiit a minute..."

After a few minutes of detective work, I found that the owner of Art of Manliness was indeed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hooray for me and my detective skills.

I actually liked Art of Manliness long ago, and highly recommend it both for its entertainment value and its practical application. About 4 years ago, one of our kids locked a door at my mom's house from the inside and Phillip used an Art of Manliness article to figure out how to open it with some fishing line and a vacuum cord.

5


One thing no one ever tells you about raising a 17-year-old is that you'll be receiving a letter or email from each and every institution of higher education ever founded.

A lot of the colleges that try to recruit my daughter aren't local, aren't in her area of interest, and have no reason as far as I can see for us to even consider them other than the fact they sent us a shiny brochure... I have no idea why these places think it would be worth the price of postage to send us anything.

Some emails try to get creative with their subject lines so you maybe at least open them:

Screenshot from my daughter's email.

Nice try, Wellesley. But if you want my daughter, you're going to have to lower your tuition, and that likely means stopping your practice of sending mail to every high school junior on the face of the planet. That's got to be expensive.

6


I keep hearing so much about how kids need boredom and space to go out and use their creativity, but honestly two of my children have just been gravitating toward screens like zombies whenever they're bored and I'm over it.

Talking to them about it hasn't done much good, so we're trying the "cold turkey" approach. During "screen-free June," as I'm calling it, I'm hoping they'll figure out how to entertain themselves again.

It's sort of working.

When we had some curtain rods delivered, the 13-year-old cut the long box in half, spraypainted it, and made a tiny Among Us costume for his little brother.


My 5-year-old has obviously never played Among Us, but his older brother must have taught him a thing or two because I spied him in the yard, doing that cute bouncy walk the Among Us characters do with his brother behind him giving him tasks to do ("Water plants! Fill bird feeder!")


"See?" Phillip said, watching them out the window. "They can use their own creativity... to exactly duplicate something they saw on a screen."

Progress.

7


Since the pandemic started I've been going through the drive-through at the bank, but this week I needed to go in to open a savings account for my 13-year-old.

They're still oddly strict about COVID protocol, and had a sign posted on the door that said "masks required at all times while in the branch."

I don't know, it's been a year and I still find it hilarious that they won't let you in the bank unless you're dressed up like a bank robber.

Okay, NOW we're ready to do some banking.

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4 comments:

jen said...

I actually used that "Art of Manliness" thing on girding one's loins in a Lenten devotional book for church a few years ago. :)

And yes, every teenager gets contacted by a boatload of colleges. I think there was something for me in the mail every day from my sophomore through senior year.

Angela Caswell said...

We are currently watching the Marvel movies - which I also reference in this week's quick takes. As much as I get a kick out of Paul Rudd, we did skip Ant Man this time.

Unknown said...

One of my sisters I minister to works in a bank. She told me they did have a rash of robberies because of the mask thing!

Jenny Evans (sister, not author) said...

Phillip absolutely makes that face! I never thought of it before, but Ant-Man really is Phillip’s vibe.