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Scavenger Hunt

I never pictured myself searching my house for a puddle of pee, but that’s exactly what happened tonight.

Sam’s 21 months old now, and he’s very excited about the prospect of going in the potty. Not that he’s actually done it or anything, but it sure looks fun when Elmo does it. We’ve put him on the potty a few times to no avail, but that’s about as far as we’ve gotten.

This afternoon we all went out to play in the snow (I will post pictures of Sam dressed in a blanket sleeper, two pairs of his dad’s socks – his boots won’t fit anymore – and Kate’s old purple jacket and pink hat with pom poms as soon as I get them uploaded. Oh and he also had pink socks on his hands because I couldn’t find his gloves). In any case, when we got back in, he looked at me and said “poopy!” I said “Did you poop?” and he said no, but said yes when I asked him if he needed to. He said “Let’s go!” and off to the potty we ran. Again, nothing happened, but I had the bright idea to leave his diaper off for a while. I put some Baby Legs on him and let him run free.

Throughout the afternoon and into the evening, we tried the potty thing off and on, but he didn’t do anything. He hadn’t had any accidents either, so I thought he would surely have to do something soon. I wanted to give it one last try before putting him to bed, so I sat him on the potty and let him read “Elmo Goes Potty” for a while. As he was enjoying his reading time, I took his Baby Legs off since I was going to put him in his jammies. At that point, I realized the Baby Legs were wet. I had cleaned up (what I thought was) juice he spilled a little bit earlier, and I couldn’t tell if what was on them was juice or pee. (The sniff test was inconclusive, if you can believe that.) So I decided to ask him.

Me: Sammy, what is on your socks?
Sammy: Juice!
Me: Is it juice or pee pee?
Sammy: Pee pee!
Me: Did you pee pee on your socks?
Sammy: No! Juice!
Me: So is this juice or pee pee?
Sammy: Pee pee.
Me: Where is the rest of the pee pee?
Sammy: Socks.
Me: I know this is on your socks, but where is the rest? Where did you pee pee?
Sammy: In Daddy’s room.
Me: You pee peed in Daddy’s room?
Sammy: No. Pee pee in the potty.
Me: No, you didn’t pee pee in the potty. Can you show me where the pee pee is?
Sammy: Daddy’s room!

So we went to Daddy’s room (which incidentally is also my room). I looked at the carpet critically, but didn’t see anything. As I looked around the bathroom floor in our room, it occurred to me that I was searching my house for a pool of pee. Never thought I’d do that, but disturbingly it seemed perfectly normal. I guess I am officially fully entrenched in parenthood.

Eventually I found what I was looking for – on the floor next to Sammy’s chair at the kitchen table. The chair on which he likes to stand. Next to the table on which I had earlier cleaned up “spilled juice.”

Can someone pass the Lysol wipes?

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I am officially an idiot.

I seriously should not be allowed to operate a stove. Or a microwave. And especially not a crock pot.

It’s the new year you know, so I have been trying to get better about cooking dinner, bringing my lunch to work (although I started the new year off right by going to BW3 today), saving money, all that. So last night I did a google search to see what I could throw into the crock pot this morning, using ingredients I had on hand.

Eventually, I came across this, a recipe for slow cooker spaghetti chicken. The reviews were pretty good, and one of the only negative ones said it was “great for teenagers but not empty nesters who want something better.” I figured it would be perfect for us, since my pallet reflects the sophistication of a 15-year-old.

Let me show you the recipe so you can identify all the things I did wrong.

Slow Cooker Spaghetti Chicken (from allrecipes.com)
Ingredients
* 1 (16 ounce) package spaghetti, cooked and drained
* 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
* 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
* 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chile peppers
* 8 ounces processed cheese food
* 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – boiled and cut into bite-size pieces
Directions
1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add spaghetti and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain and set aside.
2. Put chicken soup, mushroom soup, tomatoes with green chile peppers and cheese in slow cooker over medium heat. Stir together and cook until cheese has melted.
3. Stir cooked chicken and spaghetti into cheese mixture and heat through. Reduce heat to medium low and cook for about 40 minutes.

After looking at this again, it’s worse than I thought. See those directions up there? I basically skipped 1-3. Oops. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Before omitting all of the steps required to make the dish, I also screwed with the ingredients. The recipe says “1 (16 ounce) package spaghetti, cooked and drained.” Boiling the noodles seemed like an awfully lot of trouble to go through, so I did a little google search and found something that said it was ok to put uncooked pasta into a crock pot. Score! So, instead of using “1 (16 ounce) package spaghetti, cooked and drained,” I used 1 (13.25 ounce) package (whole wheat) spaghetti, uncooked and therefore undrained. I didn’t have “8 ounces processed cheese food” but I did have 4 slices of American cheese. Hey, the less processed cheese food the better, right? And finally, the “4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – boiled and cut into bite-size pieces.” Yeah. Boiling noodles was too much trouble, I certainly wasn’t about to boil the chicken. Cooking food is what the crock pot is for! So instead, I used 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, straight from the freezer and frozen solid.

So back to the directions. Let me refresh your memory.
1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add spaghetti and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain and set aside.
2. Put chicken soup, mushroom soup, tomatoes with green chile peppers and cheese in slow cooker over medium heat. Stir together and cook until cheese has melted.
3. Stir cooked chicken and spaghetti into cheese mixture and heat through. Reduce heat to medium low and cook for about 40 minutes.

Yeah. I did none of those things. I broke my dry, uncooked and undrained spaghetti noodles in half and threw them in the pot. I then threw in the frozen chicken breasts and added the can of diced tomatoes. I shook the various congealed soups out of their can and right into the pot, and covered the creation with some Kraft singles. Then I put the lid on, set it too cook on low for six hours (what?? that’s only 5 hours and 20 minutes more than the recipe said!) and waltzed out the door to work feeling pretty domestic.

You’ll never believe this, but it didn’t work.

When I got home, this is what I found.
crock pot mess 1

Doesn’t that look good??

It was awful. The chicken-soup-cheese part didn’t look so bad, but the noodles were a disaster. They were hard and stuck together and completely charred. Here’s a closer look.
crock pot mess 2

Needless to say, we didn’t eat it for dinner. Instead, I went to Subway and let the sandwich artists create our meal. I should really leave these things to the professionals.

Cooking FAIL.

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2009: A Year in Review

So like all the other bloggers in the world, we’ve put together a post highlighting our favorite posts of the year. Most of those over-achieving bloggers did it yesterday, you know, when it was still 2009, but Jenny and I are always a day late and a dollar short, so this comes as no surprise. And we actually didn’t get around to it until January 2nd last year, so we’re really making progress. (What’s that? You missed last year’s edition? Well click right over here for a dose of nostalgia).

So let’s blast through the past year Mommin’ It Up style, shall we?

First of all, in January, Jenny started the year off right by telling us the story of true love. And her bowels.

Then in February, she got stuck in an elevator (and 10 months later, it still makes me laugh).

In March, I let go of any dignity I had left and told you all a story about Spanx, a pregnancy test and a Target bathroom.

On April 15th I remembered to do my taxes.

Jenny got a little sappy in May and wrote about how we both owe our existence to refrigerators and washing machines.

In June, I drew pictures of the time my husband and I walked to Kentucky.

In July, I got stuck in an elevator (and 5 months later, I still can’t believe the irony).

Jenny’s baby started school in August, and so did mine.

In September, Jenny told us the romantic story of her husband cutting his thumb off with a saw.

Kate and I made a disastrous cake in October.

In November, Jenny was chastised by a disinfectant company and pacified by the mayor-elect of Dayton, all in one day.

And finally, in December Jenny fessed up about the fact that she was a 20-year-old doggy-paddler.

Thank you all for being here through the good times and the bad, laughing at with us and crying with us. We big puffy heart our readers. You both all are the best.

Happy New Year!

Also? Don’t forget about your ovaries.

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