Preschooling

Browsing the children's books in Costco this weekend, I stumbled on a really cute little 2-pack of books that seemed to teach some basic preschool skills to kids ages 2 and up. I am not sure what appealed to me about the books. The cute cover characters perhaps. Or maybe it was the smug little face drawn in the 'o' on the brand logo. Whatever it was, we ultimately decided to purchase a pack for the boy child as a Valentine's gift. Yes, evil mom gives workbooks as presents... he will learn that fun IS work. He will enjoy being pressed into early studies, dammit! Toys are for the weak!

Well, the truth of it is, my slave driving plots backfired. I couldn't tear the boy away from his workbooks this morning! For two and a half hours, he stuck stickers and cut lines and pasted together a host of items from boats and rockets to frogs and birthday cakes. He didn't want to stop. With each item we completed, he insisted we carry on. He was a little irritated with me when I made him play his video games so I could have a 5 minute break to get a drink of water and use the bathroom.

... and how his skills did develop! His cutting precision improved. He used a glue stick for the first time. He counted the snips his scissors made, and felt pride in properly placing eyes, a nose, and mouth on the face of a panda. We had such a great time!

While I don't often generate a strong opinion on consumer products, I have to say I found these small workbooks to be easy to use, visually riveting for my little guy, and well worth the money. For $7.99 we couldn't have even enjoyed a movie together for two and a half hours.

We purchased the Kumon books for Stickers & Paste, and Cutting Paper, and I don't know how long I can wait before returning to Costco to see what other books the Kumon company has for us. The Sticker & Paste book was thoroughly defeated in its singular day of use. It has nothing more to offer us. The book on paper cutting might take us through tomorrow, but it is a long shot. I have a feeling there will be disappointment at reaching the final pages.

It was exciting. This little guy is so enthusiastic about so many things, he himself is a gift. I suppose I expected him to get a kick out of learning and practicing some of these early skills, but I didn't expect it to hold his attention for quite so long. Not when competing with Lego Batman on the PS3, after all.

Good heavens. Less than a year and a half until Kindergarten. We are striking up that flaming hunger for learning! May it burn and burn in him for the rest of both of our days.  

mis-placed hearts

I received the most beautiful love letter today:

YOU ARE MOST BEAUTIFUL


YOU ARE MY DREAM WIFE-
TODAY I AM REMEMBERING
YOUR LIPS-
TOMORROW YOUR EYES
AND THE NEXT DAY...


I LOVE YOU 
AND LOVE
ALL YOUR WAYS


THANKS FOR LOVING ME


LOVE,
J-BOY

Wait, who thinks I love him? J-Boy?

Sadly, I don't know any J-Boy who loves all my ways and finds me to be his most beautiful dream wife.
I then notice that the note is written to T-Girl.
Sigh. I am not T-Girl.
I am saddened that lucky T-Girl will never receive her sweetly composed love note.

But, hey, listen... T-Girl, if you're out there... you hold onto that J-Boy! He's a sweetheart to leave you notes on what he thinks to be your windshield while you do your food shopping.

... and J-Boy, while I should probably say you're a lovestruck moron for missing the clear indications that my CRV was not your T-Girlmobile (the plates, the telltale car seats in the backseat, the massive juggling bag cluttering the trunk), anytime you ,or any of your buddies, want to leave a love note on my windshield telling me I am most beautiful... bring it, baby. I am going to be smiling the rest of my day pretending you are remembering the lips and eyes of this jobless, witless, goal-less, middle-aged mother of two.

Ahhh... vicariously T-Girl.

Happy 2012! Eat well!

I was spending a good bit of time thinking of what smart and poignant post I might make for my very first blog of the New Year... but NOOOOoooooo. All you people really want is my Noodle Bowl Recipe. Know what? That's the important stuff anyway! Eat up, my loves!

Melissamese Chicken Noodle Bowl

Chicken Marinade (qtys are estimates. Let your personal cooking chi be your guide): 
1/2 c. canola oil
1/4 c. sesame oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 TBSP Asian black bean garlic sauce
1-2 TBSP hoisin sauce
1/4 tsp ground fresh chili paste
1/4 c. rice vinegar
1/2-1 lime's worth of lime juice

Muddle that mix in the container of your choice (I use a gallon ziplock bag). Violently slash criss-crosses along thin sliced chicken breasts (or whatever kind of chicken chest you wanna use) and drown them in the marinade for a couple of hours before grilling them cooked.  I'm not to tell you how to grill them. Work it out.... but don't grill them until you have the rest of your bowl pretty much assembled... unless you want your chicken cold-ish, which really doesn't matter. It's still awesome.


Here are the bowl layers, pretty much in order from first in to last in (qtys are- as much as you like. I'm not eating it.):
sliced Napa cabbage
fresh bean sprouts (canned ones are soggy and gross)
shredded carrots
cucumber slivers (or julienned, if you like to talk all fancy)
sliced green onion
cilantro
a nice big handful of rice noodles, cooked and cooled however cool you want it
marinated and grilled chicken breast


Then, if you consider yourself saucy, you can add an Asian sauce of your liking. I love Tyler Florence's Peanut Sauce from this recipe, adjusting the sambal to personal taste. Those allergic to peanuts in my home just use plain hoisin or soy sauce with great joy.

Mostly the joy is because I made them a yummy dinner.

Illegal Possession of Pudding?

I have to credit our little neighborhood school. They do a good job of instructing our elementary kids to "say NO!" to drugs. So much so, that my daughter and her girlfriend tried boldly to tell my father he should not be going out to have a cigarette after having his dinner at Texas Roadhouse a while back. After enacting that scene for something like 15 years, I've deemed it fruitless. Still, I was really impressed at their caring and their sense of empowerment. That might be one of the strongest assets towards saying no to drugs, after all, as a child. Of course, knowing what substances are actually "drugs" helps too.

We ended up discussing drugs at dinner the other night. Abi told me a lie in an effort to side with a friend and keep from fighting with him. I told her that it wasn't okay to follow friends just to avoid conflict...

"What if he asked you to do drugs? Are you going to say 'yes,' just to avoid conflict? That's not okay!"

She seemed to see point, and immediately kicked into a school scripted "I know what to do!" mode. "No! I would say no! I know what the drugs are, Mommy. They taught us in school. Marijuana, alcohol, and uh... ta.... tapioca."

"Tapioca? Really?" I asked. "They told you tapioca is a drug?"

"Um. Yeah. It's that stuff that is in the cigarettes that Papa smokes."

Lightbulb.

"Tobacco, honey. It's called tobacco."

Sigh. Baby steps. 

Too much baking, not enough engineering?

Returning home from gymnastics yesterday:

Me: "Come on in, Brae. Let's wash your hands and have some lunch."

Boy: "But, Mommy, I don't want to wash my hands!"

Me: "You have to, honey."

Boy: "Why?"

Me: "Because we just came from the gym, and your hands have germs on them."

Boy (Looking at hands, moving them closer and closer until they are touching his eyes): "No they don't. I don't see any."

Me: "Babe, germs are microscopic. That means they are so small that you can not see them with your eyes. You have to have a special tool called a microscope to see them."

Boy: "Can we make one? I will get some paper, and...."

Me:  "No. Brae, we can't make one."

Boy (Pouting): "Why not?"

Me: "I do not have the things we would need in order to build a microscope, honey."

Boy: "You don't have the ingredients to make a microscope?"


Me: "No, dear. I don't have the ingredients."

Gag me with a fashion trend

Overheard in the Chick-Fil-A playroom:
Glamour Mommy to daughter: "Oh, look at these cute boots, honey! Why can't you wear cute boots like this?"

Oh, how I wanted to answer for the young girl:

"Because, Mommy, I don't want to be bound at the feet and strung up at the disco." 



Colorado Commandment #1: Thou shalt not wear cold weather gear encrusted with sequins if thou art not Michael Jackson.

Bikers Beware

I truly need to do some research around the bike laws here in Colorado. In fact, I am sure some of you, my pals, out there know a good deal more of it than I do. I knew Jersey bike laws pretty intimately, but here.... is it different? Or are people just stupid?

Look, I'm a parent. I get that it feels safer to teach a child to ride a bike on a sidewalk, if it's available. You want to keep the kids active but away from cars on the street. It feels smarter to teach someone to ride towards oncoming traffic, so the biker can see what is coming towards him or her as opposed to having traffic sneak up from behind. I ride a bike too (albeit only in leap years between 3:15 and 4 pm on March 27th if it's a Saturday and the weather is nice, or something akin to such rarity). I know what feels safer to a biker. Thing is, when I was a kid, I was taught that, no matter what you feel is safer, you follow general traffic regulations. You ride with traffic, not against it. You don't ride bikes on sidewalks any more than you'd drive your car on one. Why? Well, because that was the law, but more importantly, if you do it any other way you are far more likely to either smack into a pedestrian or, if you are less lucky, get creamed by a Ford F150 (South Jersey).

Well, last night I almost creamed some fool teenager biking against traffic. I pulled out of a parking lot, down a side street and I approached a main thoroughfare through my neighborhood. The streets were empty. It was nearing 10pm. As I neared a stop sign, I saw a bicycler on the "wrong" side of the street. He carried a flashlight, and shined it right at me so I could see him. Okay. He was on the "wrong" side of the road, but I appreciated that small safety measure, even if I was temporarily blinded. He wasn't the problem. The problem was that his buddy, biking 10 yards behind him, rode without a flashlight, also on the "wrong" side of the road. If I had not paused long enough to watch the flashlight kid carry on a bit down the road, I might have smacked right into his darkly dressed pal. The boy had passed almost completely in front of my vehicle, about a foot from my bumper, before I even saw him. Riding in the dark on the "proper" side of the street would at least have allowed my headlights an opportunity to catch him. And I'm pretty sure if I smashed a kid the fault would fall to me, even if he was the one being a moron. I would win the physics game, but lose the legal one. Plus, I might feel a little bad destroying even a dumb kid. 

I think if this incident were isolated, I would simply mutter "dumb kid," and move on with my life instead of ranting here on my blog... but about 2 months ago, as I was walking my kids to school, my son was literally run over by a kid who was riding to school on his bike- on the sidewalk. My boy took the hit and rolled off of the curb into the street. I am grateful every day that a car was not coming at that time. Now, okay, the rider was a very young kid riding his bike. I could tell the young biker tried to stop his bike and simply could not. I accepted his apology and asked if he himself was okay (he must have only been 6 or 7). None of this makes it okay to me that this boy was riding a bike on the sidewalk nearing the school. A lot of people walk the sidewalks in this area. Bicycles are moving vehicles that can cause injury. My son recovered quickly, but it leaves me wondering... what is the law around things like this? Shouldn't we be teaching our kids to at least hop off of the bike and walk it on the sidewalks within a few blocks of the school? My boy recovered from his fall quickly, but he is still very haunted. He wants me to pick him up whenever he sees a bike on the sidewalk. Which is far too often.

So now I have a new research project. Time to know the Colorado law. It's a good thing for me to fully understand, truthfully. Maybe I won't feel so bad about screaming at people that they are reckless fools if I know the law is on my side. Mehh. I probably won't feel bad anyway.