All Rileyed Up

Dinner last night with the in-laws involved my usual Thanksgiving Day routine: wine, food, sleep. While I often go to the movies on Thanksgiving, I passed on it in favor of that comfy couch and throw pillow, and my SILs saw Four Christmases without me while my children went night swimming with their cousins without me (have I mentioned before that I love California weather?).

In light of my dog’s health issues, I didn’t want to leave the Notorious F.O.X. at home for the day, so she joined us for Thanksgiving and managed to uproot one of Mother in Law’s rosebushes while there. Thanks, dog. Thanks for that.

That rosebush had it coming!

Thanksgiving feast consisted of turkey for the meat eaters and Tofurkey for the veggies. I made a gluten, soy, dairy, and egg-free pumpkin pie and cornbread for The Boy to eat with his turkey and Mother in Law surprised me with this Thanksgiving present:

I’m all shook up.

While some of you might think this is a bottle of wine, all you have to do is turn it on its side to realize it is, in fact, a gun:

Just imagine how I acted AFTER drinking the wine…

Happy post T-day, y’all. Hope your days were equally eventful.

Continuing on with MomDot blog party with the hopes that the police haven’t been called in to ruin all the fun…

Today, MomDot wants to know what my favorite holiday recipe, what my holiday table looks like, and what my biggest holiday disaster was. Let’s start with the easy ones: fave recipes are my crumb topping apple pie and sweet potato soufflé. I also like my mother’s lumpia, even though I haven’t been able to eat it lately and mine just doesn’t taste quite as good. Of late, one of my favorite recipes has been gluten free, rice free pizza dough, but that doesn’t scream holiday fun the way a nice bowl of red-coated Christmas caramels does. Just look at how much fun Little No Limit was having at her second Christmas with those babies:

I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

On to my holiday table. Given the above picture, I considered posting a picture of an exam table from Gross Anatomy 101. But, no. Here is what my holiday table looks like:

Kneel before Zod!

As for my biggest holiday disaster was, I recently posted on my first Thanksgiving Day dinner. I’d say that was probably the silliest dinner every, but disastrous? Not sure I’ve got anything disastrous, for Christmas or any holiday. At Little No Limit’s first birthday party, my mother dropped the cake icing side down on our pool table. This was bad both for the cake and the felt on my pool table. There was also the Valentine’s Day dance where my date stood me up. Does that count as a holiday disaster? When you’re in high school, it does. (fyi, it turned out to be a misunderstanding, like in Three’s Company, but still…).

There was also a particularly memorable Christmas when I went into labor and got rushed to the hospital, oh wait… that never happened. Nope. I was due on December 21st and then the doctor suggested we might have the baby early, say, closer to the 15th, but when I passed that date with nary a change to my special lady places, we started thinking I might have a Christmas baby, and come Christmas day, we were all on edge that maybe, just maybe, I was going to have a baby. But lo and behold, The Boy held out until December 30th at which point I had a planned C-section because I hadn’t even effaced and he was a behemoth child. No mistakes with the date, btw, just a little boy who found his Mommy’s internal world the right place to chillax. Of course, I might still call that Christmas a disaster because I had just been informed that the Little No Limit I was expecting was actually The Boy. Yes, I am one of those moms who was told the wrong sex of her child. Disastrous, I say. Disastrous. (not anymore, of course - just at the time).

So anyways, thank you MomDot for these pressing questions that forced my stumble down memory lane, and thank you to Bottlewise and Glow Mama for sponsoring the MomDot Blog Party Day.

There’s a party going on at MomDot and you’re all invited. They’re posting a Christmas question every day from Nov 12 – 27th, and even though today is the 13th, I am starting with the original question (which is sponsored by La Belle Toile and This and That by Randi:

“Introduce us to your family and share Holiday pics of years past.”

I think you all know my family by now, but just to recap, there’s me, Riley, the witty and beautiful writer of this blog (did I mention I’m conceited?); Husband, the hard-working vegan who puts up with me (did I mention I’m a know-it-all?); and my wild wide eyed children The Boy and Little No Limit. Here they are putting on a show of their new presents at Nana and Papa’s house last Christmas:

Like how warmly dressed they are? That’s what Christmas in southern California is all about, baby.
Santa gave the kids bicycles and while they are riding them outside in the above pictures, they have a different place to ride them at home:

That’s right – I used to let the kids ride their bikes inside the house. I have all wood and tile, and they were just getting the hang of it, so why not? It was fun for a while, but nowadays, they’re more interested in riding their bikes outside, where they can get in better speed and distance than one could ever hope for in a hallway or living room where the random dog or toy or parent’s foot might be in the way. I guess it’s time for the training wheels to come off!

There is something wrong with the Notorious F.O.X. I don’t know what it is, and unfortunately, right now, neither does the veterinarian.

We adopted Notorious F.O.X. from the animal shelter when she was between three and four years old. She’d been brought to the shelter, adopted, returned, then adopted again, then found roaming the streets pregnant and they couldn’t track down her owner (she could be her own Lifetime movie). She had her puppies at the shelter and watched all of them get adopted away from her within two months, after which she was spayed. By the time we came along, she’d been in the shelter for three months (it’s a wonderful shelter that keeps all their animal friends as long as it takes for them to find a home). She was depressed, they told us. She never ate. But she was so calm and sweet. When Husband Then Fiancé and I walked around the shelter, she just looked at us, with those eyes that look like they’ve lived a million lifetimes, and when we put our fingers to the metal wires, she walked up and licked us.

We left the shelter with Notorious F.O.X and brought her to her new home, where she promptly got into the potato salad while we weren’t looking. We didn’t even get mad. Oh, early love. Over the following months, we learned things about Notorious F.O.X. – how she could take down a Christmas tree, for example, and bust through a window and its wooden blinds. Later, we discovered she could chew through and/or break any kind of metal crate. We have addressed the anxiety in different ways over the years, sometimes with better results than others, but inevitably, she reverts to her original namesake self. She’s notorious. There’s nothing else to say. What other dog do you know of who has tried to escape from a house through an AC vent?

Her anxiety is at its worst now. She’ll crawl on top of me in bed, jump up and walk along the outside wall, attack corrugated cardboard boxes like there’s raw meat hidden inside of it. She’s also between ten and eleven years old now and her eyesight and hearing are waning. A few days ago, I came home to her shaking violently. As in, looked like she was having a seizure. I immediately called the vet and asked to bring her in.

The vet is on the same block I live on, on the opposite corner, and across the street. It only takes a few minutes to walk there, or a half hour depending on how distracted the children are (Look, leaves! Look, a car! Look, a speck on the sidewalk!). It was my first visit to the vet with both children, since this visit.

To start, as soon as the veterinarian walked into the room, the first words out of his mouth were “So what seems to be the problem today with—oh, hello.” See, The Boy decided that he should walk up and grasp the veterinarian’s legs in a big bear hug. I smiled and nodded like this was totally normal. Rather than explain to the vet “My son has autism and we’ve been working really hard on encouraging him to socialize and be affectionate but he doesn’t always understand the differences between friends and strangers, not that you’re a total stranger of course, but blah blah blah” I simply smiled and said, “My son’s very friendly. Son, you can let go now.”

The good doctor let it drop and we began our dog discussion. We went through the usual list of Notorious F.O.X.’s anxiety issues, then I added that they seemed worse lately, and coupled with the shaking/possible seizing, I feared the worst. He asked me if there was anything different at home, did we have a new baby, did we get another pet, did we buy her a new bed—

“Ahhhhh! A cat!”

Apparently, Little No Limit thought that an appropriate moment to prance the toy cat the receptionist gave her through the air.

“Please keep your voice down while Mommy is talking with the doctor, thank you,” I said, and smiled at the doctor. “Um, the only thing new is her leash. I can’t imagine that’s an issue.”

Just then, The Boy tried to climb up on top of the table where Notorious F.O.X. was resting while the vetertinairan petted her head. “I’m going to ride her!” he exclaimed.

I immediately informed the veterinarian that the children are not allowed to ride the dogs (even if they can dance with them). He asked if Notorious F.O.X. ever lashed out at the kids, or anyone, and I said, “No, she’s really quite calm and well behaved around them [even when they do succeed in riding her]” at which point Little No Limit thought it necessary to TURN THE LIGHTS OUT and scream “Daaaaark!!!!!”

In my best mother voice, I said, “TURN THAT BACK ON – THIS. INSTANT.”

It is either a show of my acting capabilities and/or complete idiocy that when the lights came back on, I kept a straight face and said to Dr. Probably Now Scared Of Having Kids, “So what do you think?”

He, for his part, maintained a calm demeanor and acknowledged that it could have been a seizure, or worse (eg: central nervous system tumor), but nothing was giving him that indication now, as her vitals were all normal.

Pause, with look at the kids.

“I think I’d like to prescribe an anti-anxiety medication for her for the next two months and see how that goes.”

Another pause, as Little No Limit and The Boy start arguing over their imaginary personas – “No, I’m a robot!” “No, you’re a dog!”

So, uh, doc, you want to prescribe any of that for me too?

Responsibility these days sometimes feels more like an anomaly. I mean, we do live in a country that is so lawsuit happy there’s an organization dedicated to stopping frivolous lawsuits, like The Pantswearer. There’s always some other person, organization, or deity to blame for one’s lot in life. Certainly not oneself. Like most parents, teaching my children responsibility is something I want to do, and a great website to contribute to this goal is The Responsibility Project by Liberty Mutual, which I learned about from Mom Central.

The Responsibility Project is a resource website created by Liberty Mutual to help parents talk to their children about personal responsibility. The short films come with discussion questions and there are also links to other great sites, like Kids Health.

These short films are actually good. Not like sitting around laughing at something ridiculous like “cheese in the face” on YouTube, but actual films that take me to another place, even if for only ten minutes. For example, New Boy is a compelling eleven minute film, based on a Roddy Doyle story.

Father’s Day and Mandy & Lester are also worth viewing. Really, all of them are pretty good, so you won’t have much trouble finding something good to watch.

You may or may not want to read the comments. If anything, the comments serve to remind me that there are MANY ways to interpret a film.

The site also runs a blog with links to interesting articles. For instance, a small town recently allowed their teachers to carry concealed weapons to school. I’ll give you one guess as to which state this small town might be in (Hint: Don’t Mess With ____ ).

All in all, interesting site with thought-provoking articles and cool films. Enjoy! Spread the word on taking responsibility (except in the case of flatulence, when it is perfectly acceptable to point the blame elsewhere).

With the start of the new school year, I’ve already started receiving the food paperwork. There’s the request to only pack healthy lunches, the list of books about vegetable eating, and the positive results of sitting down to a family dinner – your kids will be smarter, say no to drugs, have more confidence, and win the lottery (I made one of those up – can you guess which?).

I grew up in a house where the family dinner took place every single evening. There were seven people – my mother, father, grandmother, and me and my siblings. We sat down and held hands and said grace before meals, and when dinner was done, we said grace after meals and then prayed a decade of the rosary, except on Sundays, when we said the whole rosary. Ah, Catholicism.

Family dinners are much harder to pull off these days, now that I’m the one running the family, partly because Husband’s work schedule is erratic and partly because I am a lazy bum. It’s not like we never sit down together, I just don’t emphasize it as part of the daily routine. For a while, it wasn’t a big deal to me, but now that the kids are getting older, I feel a need to give them something to remember, a time the whole family can count on being together. Plus, I want them to be smarter, say no to drugs, and have more confidence.

Libby’s Vegetables and Sara Evans have launched Get Back to the Table Month, to help slackers like me get the family dinner up and running. The website includes coupons for Libby’s canned veggies (my kids like the sweet peas), recipes, and shopping and kitchen tips. You can also submit your own tips to win a chance for dinner with Sara Evans backstage at one of her shows – talk about a family dinner that your kids will never forget.

So, time to get cracking in your kitchen. Make a casserole. Bake a meatloaf. Throw everything in a crock pot and let it do the work. And when in doubt, heed the advice of this parking spot:

Taken at the parking lot at The Camp in Costa Mesa

Noodleboro is a line of games from Hasbro that help children learn about manners and how to listen and share. Little No Limit and The Boy have been enjoying the Learning to Listen Pizza Palace Game:

The premise of the game is to follow instructions on making a pizza, and then pack it into a delivery box. It also comes with a CD and storybook. Sometimes we don’t even play the game, but just listen to music or read the story. Other times, the kids make their own pizzas and deliver them to one another, so chalk up a few points for imaginary play. The pieces are sturdy and there are enough of them that if you lose a couple, you can still play the game. Unlike my useless jigsaw puzzles.

When I showed the game to Meredith Carrillo, a licensed MFT who focuses on working with new moms, she described the game as “A wonderful way to bond with your child through play. This game offers children the opportunity to practice important skills such as taking turns and following directions in a fun imaginative way.”

All in all, it’s a big hit with everyone in the house, except the dogs, who have expressed serious distraught over these “not-real” pizzas.

It doesn’t just taste like cardboard. It IS cardboard. Quit taunting me.

Feeling lucky? Here’s a link to enter a sweepstakes to win a free game. Good luck!

If I enter, can I request a real pizza instead?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Hank Hugh. Hank Hugh is the man who makes gummi bears. He grows all fruits and nuts. He makes applesauce. He invented grits and pancakes. Sorbet? Chocolate milk? Juiceboxes? Yes. All because of Hank Hugh.

Not limited to food, Hank Hugh also makes frilly dresses with sequins that allow little girls to cavort like princesses. He is the man behind pink thermoses and lunchboxes, princess backpacks, and sweaters with kitty cats

He is the man who first came up with the idea of letting a child stand on a chair at the stove to help their mommy cook.

And the reason I know this is because every day whenever my daughter receives any of the aforementioned goodies, she looks up and says, “Hank Hugh.”

Ah, the joys of speech problems.

After reading this post, I am inspired to tell you about my kids and their lengthy bathtimes.

The Boy and Little No Limit have a love-it-or-hate-it relationship with the bath. There is no middle ground.

When they hate it, they run away the second they hear running water, crying and screaming bloody murder. I always make sure the windows are closed lest the neighbors hear us and think I’m torturing my poor darlings. Needless to say, they don’t bathe every day when they hate the bath. I won’t tell you how un-often they bathe because it might make you feel like you need to squirt your eyes with that water cleansing bottle from chemistry class because you’ve been reading my dirty blog.

When the kids love the bath, they LOVE it, running to the sound of water whilst joyously tearing their clothes off. Who cares if they bump into the door, not them, because it’s time for WATER!!!! WHEE!!!!!!

I like it when they like the bath, because they will play in the water FOR-E-VER (The Boy is limited because of his skin, but Little No Limit can take all the time she wants). And while they play with the water, I can catch up on reading. Sometimes, I’ll soak my feet while I read. Other times, I’ll opt out of reading and give myself a pedicure and/or manicure instead. On one occasion, I did a mud mask. I scared The Boy, though, so I can’t do that anymore.

BWAHAHA

Currently, bathtime is fun and games in the House o’ Riley. Looks like I have a couple John Leguizamos in the making (seriously, this guy takes singing in the shower to a new level).