The Hunger Games aka The Laundry, Dishes, and Dirt Piled Up

All I have read about on Twitter for weeks is The Hunger Games. Seriously. I had no clue what it even was. A book? A movie? A cult?

Yes. Yes. And yes.

On Monday evening, I decided I'd had enough. I had been out of the loop for far too long. To exist as an intelligent human being, a functioning member of society, I needed to know what this Hunger Games mess was all about.

Little did I know, from the moment I downloaded it to my iPad Monday evening until 1 o'clock today, I would cease to exist as a functioning member of society.

My plan backfired.

For 40 hours, I read whenever possible. I even dreamed about Katniss. We were BFFs.

I abandoned my position as mother and allowed Dora and the Neverland Pirates to take over. K ate breakfast watching tv while I sat by, with my coffee, reading. I allowed her to nap until 6:30 yesterday because I couldn't bring myself to stop reading. Naps past 5 o'clock are strictly forbidden when I'm on duty. Today, I put her lunch on the table and started reading, oblivious to whether or not she actually ate anything. I would have known if she had choked, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, the laundry piled up. So did the dishes. Apparently, if you don't keep up with that crap, you will run out of clean spoons and clean pajamas. Thankfully, dear husband went grocery shopping yesterday so we didn't starve during my "absence."

I'm sure the members of my house are glad I finished the book so quickly. Though, it turns out, I'm not finished. Evidently, this cult book is a trilogy.

Sigh

I am now faced with a dilemma, do I take a break and regroup or download the next book? Life is full of such tough decisions.

Mmm...Bacon

K's favorite food is bacon. Without a doubt. Ever since it touched her lips the very first time, she was hooked. She's so hooked, it makes me wonder what's in the stuff.

I'm like a 1950's house wife, the amount of bacon I've cooked since she started eating it. If it was up to her, there would be bacon made available at every meal. But, I'm a good mom, so there's not. When I cook a pound of bacon, over the course of the week, K eats 2/3's of it. I'm concerned about my 3 year old's arteries and cholesterol level. I'm not concerned about mine or my husbands, but K's...a little bit.

This is when I feel it's necessary to talk about diet, before you get the wrong impression. Seriously. Hang up the phone. CPS is not needed yet. Other than the bacon, K's diet is very healthy. As a rule, she doesn't eat meat...bacon and shrimp are the exception. She eats a diet centered around fruits and vegetables. Now, she's a picky 3 year old, so the veggies must be raw and she prefers the fruit puréed in smoothie or popsicle form. She loves hard boiled eggs (whites only,) yogurt, and whole grain toast. Bacon is her weakness, her vice.

When we eat out, K assumes bacon is always on the menu. Always.

Chinese restaurant

Me: Do you want Chinese noodles?

K: No. Bacon.

Me: This restaurant doesn't sell bacon. Do you want the long noodles?

K: No. I said I want bacon.

Mexican restaurant

Me: Do you want chips and guacamole or salsa?

K: I want bacon.

Me: ...sigh

Pizza place

Me: Do you want cheese pizza?

K: NO! I don't want pizza. I don't like pizza!

Me: Do you want bacon on the pizza?

K: Yes, but I'm just eating the bacon.

Today, I cooked a pound of bacon. Sidetracked, I overcooked half of it. Who am I kidding? It was black. I burned it. 5 seconds after taking it out of the oven, the smoke detector went off. That's how badly I burned it. I served it to K with her lunch. She wasn't even phased. She loves bacon so much, she'll even eat it charred. She is dedicated to her love of bacon.

French Toast...Find Your Own Way to the Fridge, Please

 Habits...we all have 'em. Good habits, like flossing and writing thank you notes (no and no.) Bad habits like nail biting and leaving the french toast in the oven. Yup. That's me. I bite my nails and constantly forget about the french toast.

Last night, I'm making dinner, yummy portobello salad sandwiches. I open the preheated oven to toast the baguette...surprise!

 This happens to me all the time. Seriously, I just don't get it. I make french toast every week. I always make extra to reheat for K's lunch or snack. And for some reason, unbeknownst to me, I can't remember to put the french toast in the fridge. I put it on the oven racks to cool and there it sits. It's like I have some affliction that makes it impossible for me to complete the sequence of events properly. I've got the french toast cooking down to a science, but after that it gets all screwy. I've even opened the Tupperware cabinet and found a container of french toast. I had managed to remember it on the oven racks, but then it's like I had a brain malfunction. I've been in bed at night, reflecting over the day, when it hits me...oh snap, I forgot the french toast in the toaster oven.

It's so common in my house, I laugh about it now. I'm furious when I misplace my keys. Livid when I forget my sunglasses. But the french toast I've accepted. I admit defeat. I'm not sure why or what it is that makes it impossible for me to follow through. I can't even come up with a logical excuse. I'm a great mom, bad at remembering the french toast. That's all there is to it.

Sidetracked

I was writing about my favorite cat, Ellie, when I experienced the best case of sidetrack. Ever.

I needed a picture of Ellie. How could I blog about her most recent trials and tribulations without showing the world (or the miniscule fraction that reads this blog) her regal face? And usually I just go to my phone and upload what I need, but for some reason, today it wouldn't upload. I was going to be forced to break out the laptop. Ugh. I could go into great detail about my detestation for the laptop, but I will simplify and say its cumbersome and unreliable.

Since I was being forced to use the laptop, I thought to myself...

Maybe I can make this annoyance work to my advantage. I'm sure there's a picture of Ellie on the laptop that really shows off her best features.

And that is where I went wrong.

Here I sit, at least an hour later, writing a completely different post. Ellie's post, still not written. Upon first glance, it looks like I have successfully wasted productivity during K's nap time. Ah, but maybe not. While I was sidetracked in photo land, I had an epiphany.

I had an amazingly, awesome 2011 with K. Spectacular, really. 

See, because of the unreliable nature of the laptop, we were not able to unload any pictures off the camera for the better half of 2011. After taking two pictures the morning of December 25th, it finally happened, the memory card was full. Pictures were forced to be unloaded in a hurry and that was that.
:::note to self, always check the memory card before the biggest picture taking holiday:::

So, prior to an hour ago, I hadn't really looked at the pictures I had taken throughout the year. It's not that I had forgotten that K and I went to the butterfly conservatory or the pumpkin patch, but seeing the images transported me back to the moment. And it was good.

Sometimes it's so easy to be overwhelmed by the day to day struggles. I find myself losing sight of what's important, what really matters. So this...this sidetrack...was very much needed, to put it all back in prospective. To see the smiling face of my beautiful daughter over and over again. To watch her hair grow from short, wispy toddler hair to long big-kid hair all in a matter of months. To remember again, to relive every holiday, special occasion, and random camera worthy moment. It was so gratifying to be reminded of all the good I have experienced in the past year with such a charismatic, little girl. 

She is, without a doubt, my sun and my moon.