Farm Animals

I took Salem out to lunch yesterday, I had her choose the spot. Oddly, she strayed from her norm, which is McDonald's. She requested to go to Wendy's. I was surprised.

It'd been quite a while since I stepped foot in a Wendy's. I had no idea they offered kid's meals, which, btw, they do. She ordered the chicken nugget meal, I got a chicken sammie and we sat down to eat.

As she was nibbling on her lunch, she twisted her face into a scowl.
"What's wrong?" I asked. She looked up at me and said,
"These nuggets are not good. They taste like farm animals!"
me: "Well, actually they ARE farm animals."
her: "I don't like the taste of farm animals then. May I have a bite of your sandwich?"
me: "Sure, but it's a farm animal too..."

She took the sandwich and proceeded to go to town on the thing. She stopped short when she realized that the bread was sticking to her front teeth. She tossed the mangled sandwich down.

her: "This bread is terrible. It sticks to my teeth!"
me: "Sorry kid, looks like this lunch is a bust! Here, have you ever tried this?.." This is where I proceeded to demonstrate dipping a french fry in a Frosty. Admittedly, it's gross but it's tasty.
her: "Ew! That can't be good?!" She tried it, looked up and said "Yeah! It is good."

Later, as we left the restaurant she turned to me and proceeded with her review. "I don't think I like fries in the frosty. The more you eat, the more they start tasting like those nuggets, those farm-animal nuggets. Gross. I think I'll pick McDonald's next time instead of this place. The nuggets were not good, the bun sticks to my teeth, and you try to get me to eat weird things like those french fries in the Frosty."

At least the kid knows what she likes.

Termites!

Often times I find that my child will zero in on a topic and engross herself within it, becoming oddly obsessed. The latest topic is termites; which she refers to as "carpenter bugs".

We were watching some show on the Discovery channel where they focused on insects. Termites were brought up and subsequently what termites do and eat was uncovered. She was mesmerized.

Later, at bedtime:
her: "Mom, you know those carpenter bugs that eat wood?"
me: "Oh, you mean the termites we saw on TV? What about 'em?"
her: "Well, I'm worried they're gonna get in our house and eat it!"
me: "Our house is made of brick, termites don't eat bricks, they eat wood. Don't worry about this kiddo, we're safe."
her: "Um mom?" She pointed to the wood floor while her eyes bugged out of her head.
me: "I know we have a wood floor. But, it's surrounded by a brick walls, the termites would have to eat through the brick to get to the wood floor. However, like I said earlier, termites don't eat brick so we're cool!"

Things quieted down for a moment. She snuggled into bed and I read her a story. Then she shot up suddenly.

"Mom! Pop Pop has a neighbor right next door to him that lives in a LOG CABIN! His WHOLE HOUSE IS MADE OF WOOD!!"
me: "I'm sure he's taken measures to keep termites away, Salem. That's what people do when they have wooden houses, they get termite protection."
her: "I need to warn that neighbor about the bugs! Next time when I'm at Pop Pop's house, I'm going to go over there and tell those neighbors they need to watch out for the carpenter bugs!"
me: "Why don't you just pass along your concerns to Pop Pop? Then he can warn the neighbor for you."

This made her settle down a little. She shook her head in compliance and finally got comfortable in her bed. I turned the lights out and said goodnight but I could hear her in the darkness of her bedroom whispering to herself about these "carpenter bugs".

Enjoy the Holidays

Salem is off in Florida visiting with my Dad and his wife for the week. I miss her terribly but am mindful that she sees them infrequently; not nearly as much as her dad's folks as they live here. Her Poppie and Mamae are delighted to share time alone with her and I believe it's good for a little girl to enjoy some days away from the people she spends all her waking hours with. It's good for perspective; even if that perspective is in the mind of a 5 year old.

I also wanted to extend my well wishes to my friends, family, and gentle readers this holiday season. I truly hope you all have a fantastic time doing whatever it is you do during the holidays.

Me? Well, I like to give gifts, make things, decorate my tacky tree, worry about what food I'm serving, stress out about wrapping presents, obsessively clean, and I'll spend much time in an automobile traveling to and from my house and my family's house in FL. I'm sure I won't disappoint.

When I am reunited with my little girl on Christmas Eve all the worries, stresses, and bs of the holidays will melt away. She's all the Christmas I'll ever need.

Bad Taste Remedies

I take vitamins everyday. If I don't take them with food, they make me want to hurl; it's a terrible feeling.
Daily, I set out a little chewy vitamin next to Salem's breakfast bowl. It's some kind of hippie kid's vitamin from a health food store. It's the size of a piece of hubba bubba and is wrapped in aluminum foil. The fragrance can be summed up by combining the scent of potting soil with an uber-concentrated fruit roll-up. The good news is that she likes the taste!

Anywhoosels, I took my slurry of vitamin C, green tea extract, B-12, ecanasia, capsasian, and probiotics without realizing there was no food in the house for me to pair it all with--I didn't have time for a bowl of cereal as we were already running late. That horrible feeling started creeping in and gagginess was about to commence. Salem immediately split her 'hubba bubba' chewy vitamin in half and said,
"Here you go mommy. This will help get that taste out of your mouth...'cause it looks like you're about to toss your cookies!"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't the "taste" that was bothering me because it was so adorable of her to offer her assistance.

Santa Baby

Salem and her baby cousin Max visit Santa...

No Control

Salem gets picked up from her after school care-giver's between 5 pm and 6 pm. Since the time change, it's usually getting dark by the time either her dad or I get there from work. Here's a little conversation she had with her dad yesterday:

Salem:  "Dad, why did it take you so long to get here?  It's already dark!"

Chuk: "Well its daylight savings time... and there's traffic.  Daddy can't control the traffic."

Salem:  "Well I can't control ANYTHING, because I'm just a CHILD!"

BFF

I'm very excited as I'm going to Virginia today to see my bestest friend in the whole world. Yes, I know I sound like an 8 year old when I say this, but she's very special. I hate airplanes, so if I'm going to get on one, it's gotta be for a good cause and Stephanie, my dear, you're one of the best.

photo: Stephanie and Salem

Snug Mug

This morning while Salem was eating her Rice Crispies:

her: "Mom?"
me: "Yes dear?"
her: "Sometimes when I'm cold, the top of my head feels like it's too small."
me: "Really? The top of your head?"
her: "Yeah!" She started pointing at the very top of her skull and shaking her head up and down vigorously. "This part, right here!"
me: "Huh. That's interesting. I'd suggest you wear a hat when you're cold. Don't you think that's a good idea?"

Things shrink in the cold, that is a fact. I thought I'd leave out the scientific discussion, as I didn't want her to worry about her head shrinking to teeny proportions this weekend. It's supposed to snow.

Art Show!

If you guys can make it out on January 16th, I'll be participating in the "Not You" group show at Mint Gallery in ATL:

Christmas Tree

Salem and I put up our terribly tacky tree this weekend. Admittedly, I love it, it's so ugly it's cute. The best part is that it's made of foil, comes in two pieces and is already wired up with lighting.

As a child, I really didn't care for Christmas. I think it was due to the tree. Countless hours of unraveling 3 miles of lights for the 14' real tree we'd put up each year seemed pointless as we watched it slowly die from the dry heat generated by our wood stove. The dry air squeezed every drop of moisture out of that thing. The sagging brittle branches would drop pine needles all over the floor and subsequently get stuck in my socks, hair and fleece pullover - they're sharp little suckers! Sometimes even as late as April or May I'd still get poked by clinging needles in my shoes leftover from the holidays.

Salem, being a kid of course, is obsessed with decorating for Christmas. Not more than 5 minutes after we put up the tree she flew in from around the corner to say, "Well, still no presents under our tree!!"

"Um, you won't see presents under the tree for a while, kid. So exercise some patients please." I said.

Through out the day she continued to remark on the lack of presents; it sorta started to piss me off. She had some friends over and the first thing she said to them was, "Do you like our tree? Yeah... we don't have presents under it yet because mommy hasn't put any there - she's REAL busy."

She woke up this morning and asked, "Did anyone break into the house and steal our tree last night?"

me: "Ummm, no. It's still there..." She pushed her covers back, jumped out of bed and ran to the tree. From there she shouted, "Well! I don't see any presents under the tree yet!"

me: "Nope, you sure don't!" (Truth be told, I have already gotten her some presents but have not wrapped any yet. I'm sorta angry about her being so demanding and impatient. I feel like teaching her a lesson but I'm not sure how to handle it.)

Aroma Therapy Collection by Salem

For you Kelly!

Here's the complete Scented Candle / Aroma Therapy Collection by Salem:

1. Burning Eggs Yankee-Style Candle
2. Cellar Cheese-Food Sterno for Fondue Pots
3. Antibacterial Cookie Dough Kitchen Candles
4. Kinder-Candles
5. Fresh Fur Scented Votives for the discriminating canine
6. Alfalfa Pellet Bathtub Luminaries
7. Dumpster Diver's Delight Scented Oils
8. Buster-Brown's-Now-Yellow Incense Sticks

My friend Kelly suggested Salem's fondness for (1) 'burning eggs' smell would make a hilarious candle scent. Salem's also mentioned a (2) smell from the basement that's suggestive of American cheese. More food-smell issues came from the time we made cookies and she claimed they smelled like (3) hand sanitizer.

I use Aveda Shampoo that she's claimed had the odor of (4) head lice remedy. When she was really little she spoke to her (5) aunt and uncle's dog commenting on how she "liked her smell".

On the subject of animal odors, once she mentioned that the air outside my apartment had that (6) "rabbit food smell". At the same apartment complex, she complained about the dumpster omitting 'stinky' odors and insisted they hang a warning sign on trash compacter that reads (7) "STINKY". And lastly there was that fateful evening when I picked her up from school to find that she had peed on her shoes. We got into the car, buckled up and I looked in the rear view mirror only to find that she was gleefully sniffing her (8) pee-pee soaked shoes.

That Taste, That Smell

This is a list of what Salem and I talked about tonight. No particular order, however it's interesting how acute her sensory receptors are:

I gave her one of those "melt-a-way" strips for her cough...
"Mommy. That thing you gave me...what was it? (pause) That...thing?"
me: "What thing?"
her: "That sink cleaner. What was that?"
me: "What are you talking about?"
her: "I think you gave me the wrong thing. It tasted like it may have been for cleaning the toilet."
me: "You mean that little strip that melted on your tongue?"
her: "Yeah! I think that's supposed to go in the sink or the toilet or something. It tastes like a cleaner."

A little bit later...

"Mom...I don't like the way the church at my girl scout's smells."
me: "Yeah, sometimes buildings smell bad. That one is kinda old. Buildings take on scents over the years..."
(pause)
her: "Like daddy's house?...It has a smell."
me: "oh yeah?"
her: "yeah. I like it. It smells good."
me: "What's it smell like?"
her: "Like...burned eggs."

Well, the kid likes 'burned eggs' smell. She's in the right town anyway, as there's a Waffle House on every corner.