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…And He’s Five

He's five!

So a week ago today, my little Joshua turned FIVE! The night before his birthday, Bobby and I let Joshua sleep with us in our bed as a special treat. About 7:45 on Friday morning, he woke me up with, “Mommy! I’m five years old now. Because it’s my birthday!”

Believe it or not, I didn’t cry. But I wanted to. I can’t believe he’s so BIG! And sweet, and smart, and funny, and a whole host of other things I couldn’t imagine. We had the best day together at Entertrainment Junction, and a really fun party on Sunday at our house.

At said party, Joshua really raked it in. He got like 487 million GeoTrax trains and he’s been playing with them non-stop all week. Several times this week, he’s said, “for my next birthday maybe I’ll get…” as he looks longingly at the paper (clever marketing ploy, Fisher-Price) that came with his GeoTrax that lists everyothergeotraxtrainplaneandaccessoryavailable. He said it again yesterday.

“Well your next birthday isn’t for almost a whole year,” I said.

“And then I’ll be six!” he shouted triumphantly. Ouch. That hurt.

“And on my next birthday I’ll be seven!” Noooooo!

“And then I’ll be EIGHT!” I covered my face with my hands.

Seeing my pain, he of course forged ahead. He made it to eleven before I finally got him to stop.

“I want you to stay little.” I said pitifully.

“It’s ok, mama” he said, and, he gave me the biggest, tightest hug ever.

I repeat. STAY LITTLE!!!

Or at least, baby boy, at least promise to stay sweet.

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Driving Home

I’ve been staring at the red light for what seems like an eternity. It’s 9:20 p.m. and I’m tired. Every second that the light doesn’t change, I feel the energy draining from my body. It’s as if the light is feeding off of me, like it’ll stay red until I fall asleep at the wheel. I tighten my grip and run my fingers through my hair. I let it air-dry today and it’s wavy. I twirl it to pass the time, once, twice, and then – green! Finally! I step on the gas and make a left towards home.

I cross over the train tracks, not slowing quite enough so there’s a nice “tha-dunk-thunk” and a bounce but I don’t care. At the next light I take a soft right onto my street. I live in the city but this end of it is quiet, dark. Two cars are parked on the right, people inside, lights on inside. I wonder what they’re doing but I don’t pause to try and find out.

Two blocks more and I’m at the main intersection of my neighborhood. Another red light. The number 23 city bus zooms by me, all lit up. I can see one or two passengers on the inside, and I’m thankful to have my own car and be almost home. Across the intersection the number 7 bus waits at the red light as well. I live in the city but I’m not brave enough to ride the bus at night. Or, who am I kidding, during the day.

It’s green and I’m off again, only six blocks to home. Past the pawn shop and the Ace Hardware and the shop where I get my pants hemmed. I zoom past the creepy convenience store I call Apu’s (from the Simpson’s. It’s funny. SUE ME.) and see a woman walking wearily, slowly out with two full bags. I hope she doesn’t have far to go.

Two more blocks, there’s no one in front of me and I sail along, check the rear view, and there’s no one behind, just me, so I don’t have to worry about making anyone mad when I slow to pull in my driveway. It’s a relief to see my house lit up as I maneuver the car into its resting place. The two dark evergreens in my yard loom large and provide cover as I unload the groceries.

Wearily I make my way to the porch with as many plastic grocery bags wound around my wrists as I can handle. I climb the porch steps, excitedly, expectantly, and slide my key into the lock. Click, turn, push, and the door swings open, my husband smiles, and my son shouts, “Mama!” I feel some of the weariness lift off of my shoulders.

It’s good to be home.
____________________

Photo by Erik Mallinson on Flickr

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WFMW: OnceaMonthMom.com

Our friends Tricia and Cortney have an awesome new website called Once a Month Mom. They provide detailed menus, recipes, grocery lists, and – most importantly – instructions on how to cook once and eat all month.

Since once a month is about my cooking limit anyway, I decided to give it a shot. However, cooking one meal and doing “Once a Month Mom” cooking are two entirely different things! Last weekend, though, I decided I was up for the challenge.

To make OAMM cooking day a success, it’s best to have a partner. My partner was my good friend Emilie, who is usually game for whatever crazy scheme I concoct. Emilie and I work together, and we both have really limited time to get dinner on the table at night, so we were excited to give it a shot. We printed out Tricia’s handy grocery list, figured out what we already had between the two of us, and split up the rest of the items.

As I mentioned yesterday, in order to do all this cooking, I decided to buy a food processor and a can opener. Yes, I did own a can opener (Campbell’s chicken noodle is a staple at our house) but after seeing the mass quantity of can goods that were going to require opening, I thought an electric one would be a good idea. And the food processor just seemed like a lot of fun.

Because of my genius, Tricia has appended her cooking tips to include “The food processor is NOT FOR EVERYTHING.”

So my tomato and green peppers were a little soupy. How was I supposed to know that?

In any case, after about six hours and a few minor mishaps (I put all bazillion ounces of cooked pasta into one dish that called for 16oz – oops!), Emilie and I had made:
–Breakfast Burritos
–Banana Sour Cream Muffins (my personal favorite thing of the day)
–Taco Soup
–Vegetable Soup
–Chicken and Corn Quesadillas
–Spaghetti Sauce
–Lasagna
–Chicken Parmigiana
–Baked Spaghetti
–Chicken Macaroni Bake
–Chicken Ziti
–Chicken Enchiladas

My freezer is FULL. And guess what?? Emilie and I each only spent about $100 on the groceries! Do you realize how CHEAP that is for a month of meals? It is amazing. I would have never, ever, ever had enough time in the evening to make meals like this. And I would have never undertaken it on my own – the grocery list (in a spreadsheet, which made my dorky heart sing), recipes and instructions provided by Once a Month Mom did all the thinking for me.

It was a long day (Note: Take Tricia’s advice about getting the kids out of the house. Our three kids running around made it much more complicated!), but it was fun and it was so worth it.

Healthy, homemade meals all month long? That works for me!

For more WFMW tips, click over to We are THAT Family, the new home of WFMW!

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