Put-Downs

The girl and I were out with some friends of mine last night for dinner. She was lavishly the center of attention as usual; this is getting to be an issue. Drunk with the power of "all eyes on her" she started to get a wee bit sassy. One of my friends asked her if the toy she was carrying was a bear. Her answer:
"No DUMMY! It's TOTORO! Gosh!"
Man, I had to put her in time-out for using such strong language but dude! What's the right path to take to get her not to be so mean, I wonder?

The picture below is of Totoro, for any dummies out there that might think its a bear:

Hot Buns

Chuk went out-of-town this weekend, Salem and I went on a food-eating adventure. For those of you who live in the ATL, you'll know what kind of adventure I was embarking on when I say we drove deep into the bowels of Buford Highway.

Chuk and I obsessively Tivo Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, a show on the travel channel about a ridiculously tall dude traveling around the world eating non-tourist food. His show is on the back of my mind all day long, not just because I think Mr. Bourdain is a Hottie-McHotterson, but the food he finds mostly looks wonderful. An episode about Chinese dumplings and hot buns really caught my eye; which brings us back to Buford highway.

The girl and I strolled into a restaurant adorned with signs written with only Asian characters, the language of origin I had no idea but figured since they were lacking any English, what a perfect way to get some authentic food.
“Do you have any dumplings on your menu?” I said.
“Dumpling? Ha ha ha ha ha. (funny, non-English speaking people always laugh at me!) No, no dumpling. But! If you go down to McDonald restaurant and cross street you find small white building with Chinese letters on sign. In there, you find very tasty dumpling.”
There was not a small white building where she had directed, just a small, photo-processing size brown building, the Chinese writing would indicate I found my way to the right place. While inside, the menu was only comprised of giant photos of food, about 8 photos, no written words, just pics. I saw several photos of dumplings, but, had no idea what kind of fun “meats” they were stuffed with. There was a photo of thick white noodles with some sort of brown topping which sent Salem into her crazy ‘Salem-Rage’ where she points, yells, spins on her heels and blabbers incessantly like a drunk coed.
“Mommy! Look! This is not good! They have poopy on their plates! All over the noodles, that’s not nice! There’s poopy! POOPY!
All I could do was pray that the little Asian family did not know our language very well. I nervously pointed to two dumpling photos, and that “poopy noodle dish” and went on home to dine. I wanted to prove to her that it was not ‘poopy’ and she should never expect to get served ‘poopy’ in restaurants.

When we got home and sat down to enjoy our mystery meal, I pulled out the ‘poopy noodles’. “Look”, I said, “See! This isn’t poopy, it’s…er, well geeze, I really don’t…know.” I took a bite, it was salty, brown and had little brown chunks of what could be pork or liver or a mixture of the two or even bits of marinated tofu; I just wasn’t sure exactly what it was but it tasted pretty good. I put some on the girl’s plate. She gingerly tucked some noodles in her small mouth, wrinkled her nose, looked at me, then opened her mouth and pulled out the contents and lightly placed the noodles back on her plate.
“See mommy? Poopy!”
I had nothing to say, as I still had no clue what that dish was.

Dude i'm in too deep

I wanted to tell everyone that I am so SNOWED UNDER with freelance work that I don't have time to post any blogs. Sorry guys. Just a personal update: I love this recording artist: Neko Case. Her music has been keeping me company while I slave away the hours. If you have not heard her music, please visit her site and listen, she's like a modern day Patsy Cline.

What I've been spending all my waking hours on:
The Atlantis Music Conference & Festival
I didn't build the website, just the T-shirts, banners, postcard mailers, 2 CDs and the case, all the effing advertizing, invites, 40 page pocket guide, welcome kit, all passes and I dunno maybe something else that I have forgoten about. If you live in Atlanta, go to the damn thing, listen to music and enjoy yourself. Sep. 17th-22nd 2007.

Tomato Cobbler Recipe

Click here for the Tasty Goodness

Biet Namese

In case you ever wanted to take our daughter out to dinner, her favroite food is Vietnamese, or as she would call it, "Biet Namese. We often eat at a local hole in the wall called C'om, it's wicked delicious. However, they have these "crab cakes" that are a gelatinous brick of egg, fish, sesame seeds and mysterious spices that she can't get enough of. Smelling like a freshly opened can of Fancy Feast, the crab cake is the only repulsive item on the menu yet a feast only a Salem could enjoy. She's been known to eat as many as 8 cakes at a time. Cheers Salem!--as putrid fish-crab cakes are the only food item that has passed your lips without force since I stopped nursing you.

Cookin' With Gas

I guess I’m easily excitable, call it a character flaw. Our electric oven range broke recently; I found out because the last time I cooked something the damn thing would just never turn off. In fact, it was on broil indefinitely, we had to pull the fuse out of the wall in order to stop the burning inferno. Chuk and I are now the proud owners of a brand new gas range! I’m so excited.
I christened the oven last night with one of our favorite recipes, Tomato Cobbler. It may sound strange, eating tomatoes in a pie, but this is a savory pie with a crust made mostly from gruyere cheese, so yummy. We make this dish usually every summer and it has never looked this gorgeous coming from my old oven. I just had to
share how nice the cobbler turned out.


I’m happy to share the recipe if you want it. It comes highly recommended.

Open Wide!

My friends were over last night and Salem was in her show-off crazy spinner mood. She was running around, showing us her "Frog Hop" and her "new moves." Maybe chuk will get a wild hair and post a video of her antics.

My friend Adrianne was on the floor with her rolling around, doing the frog walk and generally acting just as nutty as Salem. Addy's shoes were off and Salem crawled over and said, "Now, open up your toes!" This meant for her to lift up her feet. With her feet up, Salem commanded, "Now, open your bum!"
Silence.
I released a little nervous laughter, hoping that my friend wasn't thinking that I generally play this "open your bum" game with salem; because WE DON’T. But, Addy wasn’t phased. She shot back with, “Uh, only if you buy me dinner first!”
That was pretty funny, but we’re still not sure what the plan was for the bum opening. Kids--whatever.

Brian Fellows

First day of school

"How did you like your first day back at school?" I said as I picked up Salem today.
"Good! I really like it much better than Brian Fellow's!!" She shouted while spinning around on her heel. Brian Fellow is not a real person, but an SNL character that looks and acts much like a woman that used to care for Salem during the day--I'm not using real names here.
"Did you meet any new friends?" I asked as I loaded her in the car seat.
"I sure do have one. A best friend. His name is Sammy and he sometimes can turn into a cat. But he does not go to school with me. He's at Brian Fellow's."
I thought, okay, cool. She has a friend that can sometimes turn into a cat; and that's pretty rad. I don't think any of my friends can do that.

We're not all squares

Yesterday at lunch…
“Hey mom? What do you look like?”
I replied, “I look like a nice lady that loves her little girl.”
“Oh.” She said.
“Daddy? What do you look like?”
Chuk blinks at her, then glances at me with that ‘our kid is weird’ look.
“Um, I look like your daddy?”
Silence.
“Hey Salem?” I said, “What do you look like?”
Without skipping a beat, she shot back this reply—“A rectangle!”

Uh, okay?

Have You Hugged Your Chef Today?

Chuk and I celebrated 7 years of marriage this weekend. We got the grandparents to take the kid overnight and the man and I hit the town. We went to a WONDERFUL restaurant in Vinings called Canoe.


The dining experience was to say the least the best we've ever had in the ATL. The service was excellent, the drinks were strong, the wine list was intense and the food... to die for. I'm not going to go into detail and bore you to tears over every bite we took, but you really have to go and try it for yourselves. Chuk was so impressed after his appetizer that he told our server he wanted to "Hang around and rifle through the trash." He then told our server, who must have thought we were nuts already, "I just want to hug the chef!"

Just when I thought Chuk was done with his ranting over how good his meal was, he whipped out his camera and proceeded take photos of his plate. He's such a nut, but that's what has kept us going for the 11 years we've been together.


As he was playing "photo shoot" with his meal, the Chef of Canoe appeared behind him. She was so happy to hear that we were overly impressed by our meal she had to come out and hug my husband as he had requested. She then sent us two glasses of sherry accompanied by a plate of the most delicious cheeses from around the country. After that, she sent over two desserts, one chocolate mousse and a berry and filo tart. The berry tart looked like a miniature Frank Lloyd Write building as it was neatly stacked on the plate. All these extras were compliments of the chef. My advice is ALWAYS ask to hug the chef at nice restaurants, they'll take care of ya.

midnight snack

I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of my daughter's sobs. I quickly jumped out of bed to see what was wrong. As I opened the door and turned on the light, she sat up and cried, "I'm STAHHHVIN'!!"
"Oh babe! You're hungry?"
In her best melodramatic tone she cried, "Yes, I'm just starving."
"Well, what would you like to eat?" I asked.
"I dunno." She looked at me with that 'duh' face, like I was some sort of idiot.
She then wiped her tears, straightened her PJs, cleared her throat and commanded, "Why don't you go downstairs and see what you can make for me?"
I responded, "Uh, THATS NOT how you ask nice for things. Why don't you say 'Please?'"
"Because...mom...I'm HUNGRY!"

A Dialogue Regarding Nature

Sally: "Da-dee, can you swim by yourself in a big pool?"
Me: "Yes."
Sally: "Well, I can't. I can't swim by myself, in the BIG pool."
Me: "Well, we should get you some swimming lessons so you could learn to swim in the big pool. Would you like that?"

*long pause*

Sally: "Da-dee, are there sharks in pools?"
Me: "No honey, sharks only live in the ocean."

*long pause*

Sally: "Do we have bleed inside our skin? Red bleed?"
Me: "Yes we do, everyone has blood under their skin, it keeps you alive."
Sally: "If I get hurt, does the bleed come out?"

*long pause*

Sally: "Do bugs have skin?"
Me: "No, they have exo-skeletons, which is like a skin, made from a shell."
Sally: "Oh. Do bugs have mouths?"
Me: "Yes but not like our mouths."
Sally: "Do they have lips?"
Me: "No they have mouth-pinchers instead of lips and teeth."
Sally: "They do? I don't have mouth-pickers... Linda doesn't have mouth-pickers either!"

So weird.



-CHUK

The Many Faces of SallyJones

Livin' in the ATL, part I

I was having a nice conversation with my brother yesterday, reminiscing about our past. The story I’m about to tell had nothing to do with my daughter, but I feel I’d like to tell it anyway as it needs to be recorded somehow; this blog seems the best vehicle for that at the moment.

We live in the burbs currently, but we used to live downtown ATL. It was a great place to be when we were young, wild and had little responsibilities apart from our jobs and our home. Our house was tucked in one of those “up and coming neighborhoods”, some would say “Crack-Town”, but to me it was not that bad. Now, getting back to the crack…our neighbors! We had some characters living around us that would rival anyone’s stories of nutty nut-bar neighbors. I beg ANYONE to tell me their stories and I assure you, I will be able to go toe-to-toe with your tales.

One of our neighbors was a sweet girl; we’ll call her ‘Crazy-Pants Magoo’ to preserve her anonymity. She introduced herself to me one evening at 11:30 pm, by ringing our doorbell and asking us if she could borrow a power drill and a wrench as she had big plans for working on her roof.
“But, it’s like almost midnight, Crazy-Pants!”
“I know.” She said quickly, “but I’ve got some ideas and see some stuff I’d like to fix because I’m not sleepy and I’d like to start working on it and I’m not tired and I also want to see if you guys have any grout you’re not using ‘cause I’d like to work on the tile in my kitchen and you know, get things goin’.” She spit out that sentence as she twitched her neck and blinked her eyes. Wow, I guess you know what we were dealing with here.
One night around 10 pm (after we got to know Crazy-Pants very well) I was bathing our newborn daughter who had just thrown up all over me. I had run out to the car to get the soap I bought and came right back in, forgetting to lock the door in my haste. I removed my clothing to rid myself of the baby puke and proceeded to wash the kid in the tub. Moments later, a bug-eyed Crazy-Pants tore my door open.
“Hey! Whatcha doing?!?” she yelled. I stood there in shock with nothing but a pair of underwear on as she AND some dude were standing in my living room. They didn’t seem to notice I was naked.
“Hey! This is my plumber, So-in-So, and we were hoping that you were home ‘cause I think I left a bottle of Tequila over here on top of your refrigerator.” She blurted out as I was scrambling to cover myself with anything I could find.
“Um, Crazy-Pants?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m bathing Salem and as you can see, I’m not dressed. It’s late. Do you think we could complete this little meeting some other time? Perhaps?!”
I didn’t even know what the hell she was talking about, this tequila on my fridge? WTF?

Later, shortly after we moved away, I got a phone call from her.
“Hey! I need some help. I need to come over there and get some of your pee.”
No, she didn’t ask for a cup of sugar, an egg or even some tequila. She didn’t even ask me for my pee, she demanded my pee.
“Uh, Crazy-Pants? I’m not living next door to you anymore if you had not noticed. And no, you’re not getting ANY of my pee; thank you.”
It had been months since I spoke to that nut-bar. I’d heard several wacky stories since of her antics and was relieved that I no longer had to be in the middle of the psychotic vortex that she created on a daily basis. But, just when the dust settled I got a phone call from said nut-job. I sent it straight to voice mail.
“Hey! It’s Crazy-Pants. I just wanted to call and apologize about my past behavior. I know I must have been hard to deal with and I’m sorry. I recently had an exorcism and I’m feeling much better!”
Yes. You read right. She admitted to having not gone to rehab, or getting some therapy, but the crazy bitch got an exorcism. All the more reason for me to call her up and see if she wants to accompany me to a baby shower; you know, since she’s on the up-and-up.

Victoria For All

Dear Salem,
Between the ages of 1 and 2.5, you named all your dolls, stuffed animals, rubber ducks, tiny plastic animal toys Victoria. You had a little Victoria and a big Victoria, both dolls. Like I said before, everything was called Victoria. We don't know why.


Love, Mimi

Time Out!

I just wanted to take a minute and proclaim my enthusiasm for the time-honored tradition of putting children in Time-Out.

Daddy has a saying: "Freak Out = Time Out"

Salem is a good kid (she doesn't have to go in Time-Out very much these days), and I attribute alot of that to her inability to realize Time-Out does not create an impenetrable force field from which no child can escape. The general rule for Time-Out durations is 1 minute per year of age. Daddy has added the "you better calm-on-down" condition, which I totally recommend. All this gives her a chance to reboot her situational state and gets her out of that runaway emotional loop she can get stuck in.

We are very... consistent Time-Outers too. If you break the rules, you gets you some Time-Out, I don't care where we are. Time-Out, to be effective, must be an immutable consistent force that is always applied under the appropriate conditions. It should be Newtonian in its application, like parental gravity. This occasionally results in its occurrence in odd locations. These are some of my favorite Time-Outs that have occurred.

1) (Ashley) Behind a cardboard Mike's Hard Lemonade Stand at the grocery store
2) (Ashley) Beneath the checkout stand at BrandsMart while we were checking out.
3) (CHUK) On a platform boat in the middle of a lake (see picture).

Though it may seem cruel, I also take Time-Out pictures just for posterity. We don't want Salem growing up thinking it was all fun and games... I like my photo-documentatioin as accurate as I can get it.

-CHUK

Tears of a Clown

We were at the land of the great unwashed today shopping for school supplies to celebrate this "Tax-Free Holiday" weekend. Wal-Mart. Salem was in the big part of the cart riding around while I searched for tissues, crayons, glue and hand sanitizer. She yawned and laid her head down on a roll of paper towels.
"Man babe, you look sleep-ee!"
"I'm not tired" she spoke as she yawned again.
We finally got to the car, loaded up our goods and I buckled her in her seat and said, "When we get home, we'll take a nap as you are wicked tired."
"No mommy!! I'm not tired! I don't want to take a nap, that's BORING!"
She continued to protest the entire trip home and as we pulled into the driveway she blubbered, "No! I wanna watch a show, not take a dumb and boring nap!" This complaint was followed by wails. I got out of the car and opened the door to take her out of her seat when she looked at me with that sad hobo clown face.
"See, mom?" She pointed to the corner of her sad little eye, "See, tears! I have tears mom!"
Manipulation at its finest.

Best Phrase Ever

Salem uses what has become my favorite phrase EVER.

Generally, if you do something someone doesn't like, they can become "Mad at you".

If Salem makes you upset or mad, she usually tries to correct it by saying, "Daddy, can you be Happy at me?"

I just think "Be Happy at me." is awesome.

-CHUK

Pants Hostage Crisis

CHUK and I have a daily routine with our kid-duties. I get up, get ready for work, wake Salem up, pack her lunchbox and give goodbye kisses to her and daddy. Daddy takes care of breakfast, bath time and drops her at school before he has to be at work. I pick her up in the afternoon and we start all over again the next day. It’s usually a seamless process with minor bumps here and there.

This morning, I left for work as usual, kicking off our daily routine like normal. I got to work, started up my ‘puter and my phone rang.
“Babe! I have a problem!” CHUK shouted into the phone.
“I was making breakfast and Salem was playing upstairs, she locked the bedroom closet door and then shut it!”
“Is she in there?” I asked.
“No, but I can’t get it open and all my clothes are in there!”
He was right. I took all of his clothes and sequestered them in the walk-in closet in our bedroom. I put all his nappy clothes in these cute little baskets that fit nicely on the shelves. Even his boxers are in there as I grew tired of seeing his clothes piled on top of the bureau instead of in the drawers.
“Oh, and I think the cat’s in there too!”
“Can’t you just poke a wire in the hole in the door knob and pop the lock?”
“No.” He shouted. “I can’t. It’s a key hole, we don’t have a key to this closet do we?”
Funny thing, I never noticed that the door locked with a key. The strange things you find out after living in a house for nearly two years.
“How am I going to get my clothes?” Chuk said in the most annoyed tone I’ve heard him use in years.
“Well, you’re going to have to take the door off the hinges or go downstairs and get the jigsaw and cut the door knob out.”
“Then we’d have to replace the door!” he shouted.
“It’s either that or you go to work with no pants! That’ll be great!”
I could here his brain waves churning. I think the thought of him having to go to work in a pair of my pants scared him into full throttle and he figured how to get the door down. The poor guy, I can just imagine him trying to get the door down with Salem yelling in the background, “Hey daddy, hey daddy, whatcha doing? Whats going on? What’s a matter with the door? Are we gonna be late for school? I want to feed the lizard! Hey daddy, my Barbie’s head fell off can you fix it? Hey! Whatcha doing with the door?!?!?”

I Vant to Suck Your Blood (Part Deux)

Related: More Bloodsucking

Salem attends a Lutheran school. I was ultimately unaware of the volume of "Lutheran" activities that took place there until the following discussion occurred:

Salem: "A bug! There's a bug on my leg!"

Me: "Don't worry I got it!"

Salem: "Da-dee! What are you doing to that bug?"

Me: "I'm squeezing it."

Salem: "Da-dee, don't kill GODS CREATURES!!"

Me: "But what if God's Creatures are trying to drink your blood?"

Salem: "Ewww! Then we should squish them! Squish them Daddy!"



...Ah, common sense prevails.

-CHUK

Hot Dogs and Dreams

Chuk and I have a bedtime ritual with the child. We brush teeth, put on PJs and get our little monster tucked in and ready for a story and songs. Lately, we've been reading an ABC dictionary book for kids per her request. She loves it, but it's as boring as it sounds. I practically fall asleep while reading it.

We then sing her a few songs, all Tom Waits songs and mostly from his first album Closing Time. We'll throw in a few from Blue Valentine or SwordfishTrombones. The song 'Ol 55 is her fav.

We put her to bed tonight, read her that boring dictionary and sang her 'Ol 55. As we began to kiss her goodnight, Chuk went in first.
"Goodnight babe, sleep tight."
"Good ni...Dad?"
"Yes?"
"You smell like that hot dog smell!"

We did not eat hot dogs this night or even in the last several weeks. What does that mean? That was a very pleasant but a strange good night.