Blueberry Nastiness

To understand this post, you need to know a couple of things:

• Jay and I have been talking about eating better - and failing miserably at it.
• I have been trying to plan meals in advance so I know what's for dinner - and failing miserably at it.

Last night, I stopped at one of those "meals ready to go" places and found that at $6 per serving of chicken enchiladas and $10 for a quart of creamy tortilla soup, a $28 meal that I still needed to heat up wasn't any better than going out to eat. I decided to stop at the grocery and pick up "something quick." On the way, I thought about some great blackberry jam my sister made and thought about the chicken I have sitting in the fridge. I also thought about a strawberry spinach feta salad that I like, and all three thoughts kind of jumped into a pool and got mixed together. I thought, OH, I'll make a little blackberry marinade/dressing, grill the chicken and add that to a salad - put a little cheese, chicken and blackberries together and that will be great. Then, the comedy of errors begins.

First, the store is out of blackberries but has blueberries on sale. (canceled out by what I spent on the blueberry jam I didn't have, but whatever)

Then, there is no spinach bagged salad, and, given that it is past 6 by now, I want the pre-made stuff, so I get mixed greens - which turn out to be mostly bitter.

Finally, what I put in the microwave to thaw is not chicken, it's pork chops - due to no labeling and even poorer storage.

The salad dressing/marinade I make is actually pretty tasty. It caramelizes nicely on the pork chops on the grill, and I go for it. The whole thing comes together in like twenty minutes. This is where I make the fatal mistake.

I COULD have plated the whole thing like this:

Pork Chop, steamed broccoli on a plate,

salad with blueberries, feta, dressing in a separate bowl.

BUT I'm tired of broccoli, didn't want to do separate dishes and was feeling "creative" so I chopped up a pork chop, added it to the salad, put it all in soup bowls and sat it on the table like I meant it.

Everyone sits down.

Jay asks "Did you make your own dressing?" "It's good," he adds hastily.

"What's it called?" says Simon.

"I just kind of made it up," I say.

"Hmm. I think we should call it Blueberry Nastiness," says the kiddo, "it's awful."

Jay starts to reprimand him and CANNOT STOP LAUGHING. He just sits there and shakes quietly. Laughing. And laughing.

It's a full thirty seconds of silent shaking before he finally says "I don't think you thought very much about how that would make your mom feel before you said that."

Monster

Every now and then I get some pretty weird looks in the grocery store, at the mall etc.

One day I was out with someone else and it happened. Everyone stopped, looked at me, rolled their eyes.

M:"I hate it when they do that."
Whoever it was said: "Do you always call him that?"
M: "What?"
W: "Monster."

Ohhh - you see, when Simon needs to be called back I'd been yelling, "Hey Monster, come back here." And even though it was a sing song "reminder" call - not a harsh yelling yell - I'm still calling my kid Monster. Though never "a monster."

I'm going to do it again. I often do. But there is a reason. My father.

My dad is the kid that would have resulted if Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Robin Williams and Fred G. Sanford (yes I know he's fictional) had participated in some crazy genetic splicing experiment. He is forever making up a nickname, saying or doing something crazy, packing his family in the car to go and get a "cold drink." They come back home six hours later after having visited the Kansas border "just for fun." (There's another post right there)

First, he went through the B phase. My stepmonster's maiden name started with a B and is difficult to spell or pronounce. It is a Norwegian mess. So, he called her Ms. B. That lead to JilB, JakB everything with a B.

Several years ago, we were in the -ster phase. Jil-ster, Joe-ster, Jake-ster, etc. Well, you CANNOT get Simon-ster to come out of your mouth. It sounds like Si-monster. Viola. The evolution of a nickname.

I blame Bill Murray.

Chemistry Problem

This morning - outside Simon's bathroom:

S: "Mom, I have a 'chemistry problem'."
M: What's a 'chemistry problem'?
S: "Well, my stomach hurts and I've been in the bathroom alot. You know, what your body does to your food? That's Chemistry."

Indeed it is!

Simon's been coming to the Boys & Girls Club with me this summer. He spends Mondays with Gorgeous (his grandmother) and goes to the movies on Wednesdays with my sister and her boys. But the rest of the week, he comes with me. It is not his favorite place.

He did, once, famously say: "Kids at the Boys & Girls Club don't play the way kids at school play." And, living in a middle class suburb with plenty to eat and a nice big yard, and an extended family that includes lake houses, plenty of gaming systems, kids-only computers and the like - I know that my kid can't even fathom the home lives of the kids he meets here on a daily basis. And, while that's okay with me, we've made a decision to expose him to situations and people that he might not otherwise meet in our neighborhood or at school.

Add that in with being an only child and you have what we'll call an "adjustment period." The first several days were hard. He cried. A lot. But I knew that learning to wait his turn, not always getting his way and being appriciative of what he had are things that I wanted for him. And so, it has gotten better. Until today.

The last couple of weeks, either Monday, or Wednesday - or both, he hasn't gotten his days off. And, it's beginning to show. He is coming to my office for "check ins" more often. He is signing up for all the field trips and get out of here things he can. He wants to know precisely when we are leaving each day. Most days, I throw him right back in with the other 6 to 9 year olds. One or two times a week, I let him quietly color in my office, or sit in the conference room. And, my used-to-playing-by-himself-only-child has done great; playing with others some, getting a time out when he needs it.

So, at lunch time, on our check in, he told me again that his stomach ached and he needed to go home "right now." I checked with the staff, verified that he had had an apetite at lunch, and been playing with gusto all morning. I took deep breaths through the tears, told him to be tough, and sent him right back to his group. By our 4 p.m. check in, he was all smiles.

M: "How's your tummy?"
S: "It's one centimeter better."
M: "How many centimeters bad was it?"
S: "101 centimeters at lunchtime, so only 100 now."

Well, that's not a Chemistry Problem. That's progress.