Never Sad, A Little Sad. Okay, Sometimes, Periodically Sad for My Thing

...my Thing 1 craves a daddy; a basketball partner; a penis colleague; a man-in-arms.

I'm not sure I ever would have fulfilled that for my beautiful, masculine Thing 1. The guys I'm attracted to are brainiacs... not exactly jocks or chain saw operators. But, strangely, La Gringa is.

La Gringa and I feel bad for you, son, tonight. I know you want a man, honey. We'll do our best to fill you up with plenty of the Y chromosome. Until then, I can dribble with the best of them, La Gringa's got a crazy shop to power tool-til-the-cows-come home and we both understand a boy's gotta do what a boy's gotta do.

I still wish you didn't cry tonight when Thing 2's friend's daddy didn't play basketball with you. It made me cry.

And the Cupboard Was Bare

As you know by now, BFF's son was just diagnosed with Asperger's, a disability that is a sucky, but a manageable form of Autism. We're three months into the diagnosis. We've drunk bottles of wine, cried, laughed, been pissed, had uncontrollable sobs (myself included).

But this kiddo is starting to thrive. A gluten-free diet, caesin-free diet, low sugar diet and tons of behavior shifts have made massive changes to his and their life. BFF is finally getting out and about again and family dinners are back in full-swing.

Last night we had BFF family to dinner and it took La Gringa and I a few hours to figure out what the kiddo could eat and still feel like he'd had yummy food at his Aunty's house.

I took two photos of my cupboards -- shocked -- I found that there was almost nothing I could make with what I had stocked.

Pasta? Nope. Mac N'Chees. Nope. Bread. No Fucking Way. Grilled Cheese, Quesadillas, Flour, Sugar, Bisquick, Cake Mix, Butter, Cheese, even some forms of Soy are all no-gos. No pancakes, syrup or bagels, no cereal, no burgers (at least not with a bun), no Dunkin Heinz or YumYum Donuts. Ever. There goes my whole dang cupboard.



Here's our menu for last night that worked out okay:

Corn Chips with Salsa and Guacamole.
Corn on the Cob
Tri-tip
Salad with vinaigrette (no cream dressings, no croûtons)
Fruit kebabs
365 Soy, dairy free, lactose free, gluten free vanilla ice cream
365 box mix gluten free Chocolate Chip cookies (substitute apple sauce for butter).


Here's what I'm going to stock always for when my kiddo visits:

Corn Chips
Soy cheese (double check, no caesin)
Corn tortillas
Sandwich meat
Soy milk (no sugar)
Rice crackers (he likes spicy ones)

Life with a dedication to your kid's health is all consuming for each of the mommies I know. But we've got nothing on BFF. She's a fucking rock star.

My Wheels are Too Small...

I can't help but feeling that no matter how hard I spin, how fast I spin or how much spin I put on something, that my wheels are smaller than my world needs to spin.

I'm not cool enough to understand Twitter, not 2.0 enough to know the insiders, not a hands-on enough Mommy to be in the In-Mommy-Crowd, Not funny enough to be considered funny but way too funny to be considered normal. I'm not understanding enough of the social networking space to fully be able to guide people about what to do with it for their own businesses. I can sell it, I just can't believe in it, which makes me, by definition, a bad salesperson.

Frankly, I really don't give a shit about Facebook (although I udpate mine at least once a week). I Twitter, but no one gives a shit about what I write, especially me. I am infinitely interested in what other people are Twittering, but reminded constantly that I'm not cool enough to be popping-off Inside Jokes with other Twitterers. I don't care much about cool websites, but pissed when it's they are not done right. I don't give a shit about business models and spread sheets and MBA crap -- except it's my job to totally get that crap. I get it, that's not the problem, it's that I don't care about it.

I wonder how many people don't know or give a flying iPhone about the Web 2.0 conference last week, the launch of the SDKs, the cost of Facebook apps or what blogs are on my Reader. I literally cannot read enough to keep on top of all the shit I have to read. And even when I do, somehow my colleages always know it just slightly faster.

I feel like I'm cheating on the Internet with my real life. I was away from my computer for 12 hours today. Bad girl.

Quotes from the Wonder Things

In chronological order while running errands yesterday:

1. Thing 1: Why is "W" sound like a "D"? double-u... see? A D?

2. Thing 2: What is Jambalaya? Can you get it as Jamba Juice?

3. Thing 1: The iPhone is a thermometer. I can tell if I have a fever with it.

4. Thing 2: It [the iPhone] can tell temperatures all over the world for all places and people and animals.

5. Thing 1: We. Will. Rock. You. What does it mean? Does it mean we're going to throw rocks at you? That would be bad.

6. Mommy: Can you please stop asking me "Why, Mommy" every two seconds?

7. Thing 2: Why?

8. Thing 1: I believe in God even though God is invisible because Wonder Woman is real and she can be invisible and she *also* has an invisible airplane.

9. Thing 1: I have a secret hole in my underwear just for boys [to the Ikea salesperson]. It's a *secret* pee hole.

The Loves of My Life

The Loves of My Life
Originally uploaded by Thing Family

Five Reason I Hate April 15

1. La Gringa ate at least two cheeseburgers with fries, a hot dog, a few bags of chips this week, oh and a good late night run to Baskin-Robbins and lost 1.3 lbs. this week in our contest. I ran a fucking 1/2 marathon this week, ate no more than 1200 calories per night and logged about 30 miles of running for the week and lost .5 lb. FUCKING UNFAIR.

2. La Gringa (hmm, see a trend here?) and I got our tax preparations back. This year, we both sold a house, both bought a house (together, no less), earn about the same living. She got a $7,000 goddamn refund. Me? I owed $6-fricking-grand. Again FUCKING UNFAIR.

3. My car has a nail in the tire and needs a new tire before we leave for L.A. this weekend.

4. We canceled our trip to Hawaii for June.

5. I burned another fucking chicken.

Day 1716

Mommy: "SOME ONE. DID. NOT. CLOSE THE DOOR. Who lives in a barn? Who? Who is the Moo-head? Who?"

aaaah, I need to stop fighting it: I am my mother.

GOOD NIGHT (Little Darling)

GOOD MORNING!

First Barbecue of the Season

The Post Mortem

Cat Cora...My Kids' Role Model?

We introduced the Things to Iron Chef America a few months ago in an attempt to keep up with the Jones' son who knows all the chefs and special ingredients. Not to be outdone, we started Tivoing like madmen.

The Things fell in love. Hard core obsession with the Iron Chefs, Thing 1 favoring Chef Bobby Flay and Thing 2 being crazed over Chef Cat Cora. So crazed that today when Cora lost to challenger Ken Oringer, Thing 2 started crying uncontrollably, "NOOOO! Cat Cora cooked coffee stuff better! Cat Cora is prettier anyway! I want Cat Cora. Cat. Cora. CAT CORA!" My four-year-old was completely melted down, only calmed by searching for Cat Cora cookbooks online. Shopping therapy works even on the tiniest of girl-angst.

In searching Cora's books and history we came across a personal file on Wikipedia showing the Chef and her partner and two children. I pointed it out to the Things, "Cat Cora has two kids and they have two mommies just like you!"

You would have thought it was national Cat Cora day in our house. Elation. Jumping on the bed, screaming, laughing! "A two-mommy family, a two mommy family, Cat Cora is a two mommy family!"

Not your grandma's kind of kitchen TV show...then again, Julia Child had a pretty low voice.

I Only made it 1733 Days...

before I said it.

Today, 9:49 a.m., I busted out with:

"This La Gringa and my house. These are our rules. You are a kid and we are the grownups. You might not like that but that's the way it is. And as long as you live here, you will obey my rules."


9:51 a.m. Thing 2 replies:

"Okay Mommy, but I still am not eating that super ble-k-y granola."