Review: Hot Dog on a Stick Veggie Dog and CHEESE DOG

We were at "the failing Lakeline Mall," to borrow a phrase, today. It was the first time we've visited since the Disney Store closed, and we learned today that the only other toy store there is going to close soon, too. There are so many more empty storefronts than there were before Christmas. A lady at the Round Rock outlets Cinnabon said the mall was really struggling; they *just* opened up a new AMC theater, but maybe it's just not bringing people into the mall itself.

However, there was bright spot in our trip, besides just the hanging out with my kiddo. I haven't gotten Hot Dog on a Stick in decades, probably since I left Arkansas and used to get corn dogs at Central Mall in Fort Smith.

Two items on their menu that I'm sure were not available 20+ years ago caught my eye: a veggie dog, and a cheese dog with the choices of American or Pepper Jack cheese. Also, they have a "2 for $5.55" menu which includes them both, as well as a couple of other offerings. Individually, the dogs would have been a bit over $3.50 each, so it was a no-brainer.

Of course, they batter the dogs and fry them on the spot. This was the cheese dog. I notice that although they don't wear the ridiculously tall hats anymore, they do have them available for the children.

This kid was just coming out of a spin when I took this. The hat apparently makes him do circles.

Chow time! The cheese dog, I opted for American, is on the left. Use the process of elimination to locate the veggie dog.

Both had a satisfyingly crunchy outer shell. There was extra batter on the cheese, which I am sure is so it wouldn't explode in the fryer. I tried making fried cheese a few weeks ago, and it was a disaster. The cheese here stayed fully contained. I'm guessing they use something akin to Velveeta, because the cheese was molten, even when it wasn't super hot.

The veggie burger was good; I don't think there's much sense in using a stellar hot dog for a corny anyway, since it's all about the batter and frying, but this one held up nicely to the expected corn dog flavor.

But the one I'm going to be dreaming about until I can go back and get another was this cheese dog. It was perfect. Kind of how you want mozzarella sticks to be, but they often aren't because people don't cook them long enough and the cheese stays hard so the coating falls off. Not here. The coating is actually the structure, and because the American cheese doesn't have a super strong flavor profile, you can really enjoy the salty sweet crunch of the cornbread batter.

Hopefully I'll get to enjoy at least one or two more before time runs out. Delicious.

A Legacy of Industry

Last week, when James and I were discussing the plumbing stuff, he said he was glad that I was home to problem-solve and take care of everything. I appreciated the nod, but asked, "What else was I supposed to do?" James said, "There are some women who would have called me at work and had me come home because they couldn't handle it." I just laughed at that. "I am too much of a control freak. I didn't want to wait for the service people; I sure as heck wouldn't have waited for you to come home!"

This weekend when I was mowing the yard, I started thinking more about this, and I realized something that I've probably taken for granted most of my life: My mom, and really both of my parents, modeled something for me so well that I've never imagined life any other way: Industry, proficiency, and labor by the person for whom it's most convenient.

First, I will say that my parents would probably label themselves as conservative. Spiritually, their marriage is definitely complementary. But in practical, every day life, I think they're more egalitarian.

I don't remember too many household emergencies from when I was a kid (ahh, the innocence), but I can't imagine my mom pacing the house, unsure of what to do until her man got home to tell her. I do remember our car breaking down one day when we were out and about, and that Mom (in the days before cell phones) had my sister and me walk hand-in-hand with her down a very busy street in the rain for a couple of miles until we got to where she knew my grandfather was working.

If she were upset or overwhelmed, she didn't act it. Although it might have been a clue that one of the songs she sang as we walked was "Whistle a Happy Tune." We passed a bunch of businesses where I'm sure she could have gone in and called my dad a work, but that's not what we did.

And Mom was always doing *something.* It used to annoy my sister and me: We'd be watching a TV show or a movie that we wanted Mom to see, and she'd half watch while ironing for extra income or grading papers or cleaning up. We just wanted her to SIT DOWN and watch television. But I think that "go go go" mentality she inherited from her dad, my Pepa. I have it in fits and spurts.

Mowing my yard on Sunday, I recalled that both of my parents had stained green mowing shoes. I remember one would mow, and the other would make a glass of iced tea to deliver at about the half-way mark.

Although my mom most often made our dinner, it was largely a function of the fact that she got home an hour or so before my dad did. But he cooked, too. And baked. He took us girls places.

My dad's domestic proficiency was rooted in loss, unfortunately. His mother passed away when he was 9 years old. His parents, realizing that a man couldn't count on a woman to be there all of the time (a pretty progressive idea in the late 50s/early 60s), made sure that he could do laundry, sew, iron, cook.

I have memories of my dad doing laundry and cleaning, and supervising our half-hearted attempts at cleaning as we grew up.

During a stubborn period of unemployment in the late 70s, my dad ended up as the stay-home parent for a time when my sister was in kindergarten and my mom started teaching again. It never occurred to me to scorn a man's being the primary caregiver while the woman went out to work. Instead, I was intensely jealous that my sister got to spend the first half of her day with Dad, who walked her to school in the afternoon.

(This was a fundamental difference between my sister and me: I was morning kindergarten all the way. She was totally afternoon. It's a wonder we're even friends.)

The family in which I grew up operated on a "whoever sees it and can do it, that's who does it" fashion. I'm sure my parents both sometimes felt like they were doing the most or hardest work. That's only natural. But I have memories of both sitting at the kitchen table, balancing the checkbook (kids, ask your parents what that means). Both sewing backing onto a banner to affix to a hot air balloon envelope. Both being the "mean" one. Both being affectionate. Both encouraging. Both modeling. Both explaining.

And so, I suppose it's only natural that I would presume to be able to do things, and then to do them. I can change my tires (unless the jack breaks, and then thank goodness for Progressive Roadside). I can mow and weed-eat the yard. I can troubleshoot tech. I can problem-solve on the fly.

I don't need a man to help me exist. I don't need a man to prop me up.

That said, I am immensely grateful to have a man who is a partner to me, very much in the way I saw my parents' partnership. He has strengths and passions that supplement and complement mine. And where neither of our passions or strengths reach, we each just do as needs to be done. I mow the yard while he plays with our kid. We both win. He earns the money while I make sure the roof doesn't cave in around here. We both win. He holds the ladder while I hang the lights, largely because of his recent physical limitations, but also because I think he likes to look at my butt when I'm climbing. I guess he wins that one.

I forget where I was going there.

Anyway, I'm grateful to have had an upbringing that took for granted that I could do things, and that if I could, I probably should. I'm grateful that contributing to a well-running household was seen as an asset, and one that could be done at any time in any function by any person involved. It has served me well both when I didn't have anyone to help, and has both made me a blessing to my husband and grateful to have a partnership like this.

Thanks, Mom and Dad

Follow-Up (Or How It All Ended... Almost)

This is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down...

Not really. Just a continuation of the previous post about home and car repairs and whatnot and so forth.

The house: The water damage guy came back on Monday (President's Day) to find that D's room was mostly dry. All of the areas where we saw water leaching and leaking from the ceiling were fine. At the wall shared with our bathroom, though, it was still damp. He moved some stuff around, took one fan, put the dehumidifier in our bathroom, and left everything another day. By Tuesday, it was all dry, so D finally got to return to the isolation chamber.

Joking aside, that kid handled the stress of having basically zero privacy for four days amazingly. It made me very proud, and hopeful for the future, since the anxiety management was so effective.

The SUV, however, is another matter: I picked it up from the shop on Thursday morning, about a week ago, to find that the gas gauge didn't work anymore. It had worked before, and we'd already had the "the battery keeps dying" drama, and I wasn't ready to handle finding a ride home and keeping the vehicle there, so I put it off for a bit. I did call them and told them what had happened, and they said to let them know when I could bring it back in.

THEN the water thing happened, and there was no way I could handle the auto repairs while we were dealing with all of that.

Also, we'd agreed to donate our Cobalt to KUT, holding off about two weeks after our SUV purchase to make sure it would run okay, and we were getting close to that pick-up with no definite resolution on the new (to us) vehicle.

In the midst of this, Mal and I drove up to see my parents and spend a night just to get some people out of our house, which was down one bedroom and one bath. The Torrent drove beautifully, and was SO much more comfortable than the car. It gets pretty good mileage, too: 24 mpg for the first couple hundred miles we drove it.

Unfortunately, the "check engine" light was still on, so it wouldn't pass inspection, and we couldn't register it. The clock is ticking on that particular item, too, as half of the 30 days have now elapsed.

So yesterday, we took the SUV back to Klingemann. After we'd been there almost an hour, they said it would take at least another hour just to get the fuel tank out, and then they'd have to evaluate what was wrong. They kindly gave us a shuttle home; I'd intended to take a Lyft, which was $11, but after 11:30, the "busy lunch" rate kicked in and it was almost $30!

Last night, they called us and said they'd put a whole new (not after-market) fuel pump in and had had the same problem. He told me he'd call me back on Saturday.

I got two calls this morning.

The first call was from a lady whose brother bought the 1/3 acre lot right behind our back lot about a week ago. I had heard them looking at it last Friday, and James had met them on Saturday when Mal and I were in Temple.

The lady is interested in purchasing our "extra" lot so she can retire here. We spoke for a bit this morning, and I learned that Jonestown apparently adopted some building guidelines that would make it impossible for our house to be built today: Namely, that homes have to be at least 1000 square feet (check) and have to have a 2-car garage (nope). Anyway, we chatted for a bit and she made it clear that she wasn't interested in haggling, so for us to tell her what we'd take for it and get back to her.

Then Klingemann called. And they made me cry. This probably would have happened, regardless of the prognosis, but he said basically this: We put in a third fuel pump and had the exact same problem, so we put it in fluid and realized that the sender is bad. I have one on order from Houston. Had we caught it last week, and we should have, we could have told you that it would cost extra. Since we didn't, we're going to eat it. We'll have the part Monday and get your car back to you then.

So. Whew.

After this, James, Mal, and I went out to the back 40 to see exactly what we'd be selling off. Long story short, we had such a good time (well, all of us but Mal, who was scared and wanted to go to our "real" back yard) that we decided we couldn't part with the land until Mal has had a chance to get out there and explore and have adventures in a few years. Maybe when we get another dog.

This tree is LCRA property, but all of the stuff on the back of the grotto, in the background, is on our back lot.

Besides, 5 years from now, that property just might be worth double what it is now (the tax assessment went up 125% after we bought the property), and that's a lot better a return than we'd get if we sold it and put the proceeds into some investment.

I have high hopes now that I might be able to get the car titled and registered next week. The only possible hold-up will be that it's an out-of-state title and the seller has zero desire to go with me to the tax office (which they recommend), but I'm pretty charming and look legit, right?

One more kind of cool thing from today: We got out for a bit and when I came home and checked the mail, I was surprised to find two prepaid cards I knew *should* be coming, but one never knows...

A couple of months ago, I'd seen an offer for this credit card where you could get what is tantamount to a couple hundred dollars after you'd spent $500 during the first three months. Please! Our car repair and a couple of household bills, and we hit it on mine AND James's. And within a week, they sent us the cards! It was just a nice, encouraging way to approach the end of this whole set of circumstances.

AND, speaking of surprisingly quick action: I filed my taxes on February 11. They estimated that I'd have the refund by March 6, which wasn't in time to make our next mortgage payment and meant we'd have to pull MORE out of our dwindling savings. However, when I logged into my bank account on February 17, IT WAS THERE. So we paid EVERYTHING off that I'd been holding out on until the regular salary payments started back up, AND we have enough to make the mortgage payment with no further withdrawals.

Whoo! Getting back on track feels good.

And lest you think it's all fun and games, I realized this morning that we're 2 weeks out from Daylight Saving Time and if we keep our current schedule, Mal will be going to bed at 12:30 AM and sleeping until 11. Ugh. Let us all hope this story has a twist and as happy an ending as all of this other stuff.

This Week in Review

So, hey. How's your week been? (Pretends to listen intently for about four seconds.) Really? Great. Mine's had some ridiculous ups and downs, plus womanly hormones, and... well, I'm just ready for a new week, frankly. Here's a roughly chronological review.

We started the week with the SUV we'd just bought in the shop for a repair. We knew it needed an EGR valve replacement, but found out when we took it in Saturday that it actually needed the valve AND a whole new fuel tank. Since salvage yards aren't open over the weekend, and the repair shop really wanted to save us some money, they asked if we could wait until Monday when they could call around. (Shout out to Klingeman Car Care on this front. We used them in Oak Hill, and are fortunate that there's one even closer to where we live now over in Cedar Park.)

Sunday morning, Mal and I were going to visit a different church than we usually attend. It starts a half hour earlier than our home church, and since Mal is such a late riser, we pretty much had to throw his pants on and get him immediately in the car. The old, boring car, because our new (to us) car was in the shop. Do you remember that part? Yeah.

We drove way out into Leander, which isn't too far, but feels like another planet because we rarely go that way (we need to; there's a Bahama Bucks pretty close by!) and found the school where the services are held. But the only vehicles there were 3 cars and the trailer ubiquitous to haul-in churches. It was right at 10, so the only options were that they'd changed their service time and hadn't updated their website, or that only three cars' worth of people go to that church, which means their website is misleading and we're not interested because I'll explain why we were even visiting a different church in a minute.

A less introverted person would have gone in to see what was going on, but instead, I sat in my car and sent an email. I have not heard back from anyone. Thanks for making us feel welcome, church!

We ended up going to our church, and for the second week in a row, Mal was the only kid there. We love our church. We love the kids who go to our church. But none of them come regularly. Ever since school started back in the fall, it's like if there's a special thing, everyone shows up. Otherwise, it's Mal and maybe one or two other kids, but 3 weeks out of 5, it's just him.

The past two weeks, he's declined to go to childcare alone, and so the week before, we just left after the children's message. This week, he was interested enough in some magnets that we stayed. But he was so happy to go to McDonald's after and play with some kids.

In case you're wondering, I went through the drive-through at Taco Bell first and got two orders of nacho fries with two sides of cheese.

Do you realize we're only at lunch on Sunday so far?

Anyway, after we got home, I researched some churches around here, and that got really depressing. Here's the thing: I know exactly what I want in a church. Obviously, the very first and most important thing is what they teach, and what they believe about the Bible, and how that informs how their church works. I can tell from about 90% of the websites I look at that it's not for us.

Another way I can tell it's a big, fat "no" is when they have 40 staff. I have done megachurches. I'm over them. I want a smaller church. But smaller churches usually mean there isn't a lot of programming. And apparently if there isn't programming, busy-busy stuff, parents aren't super motivated to bring their kids. Especially since we homeschool, I need my kids to be able to make connections anywhere we spend a chunk of our time.

Monday, we had fun. Mal and I went to Jump Street and he played for a while with some rando kids who were there, then his friend Alexei met him and they had a good time. While we were there, Mal asked if we could use the photo booth. We usually do that at Chuck E. Cheese, but it's only 2 credits, or about $.50. It was $5 at Jump Street, but he was so excited. And here's what he had in mind.

He picked the frame, too.

On Monday, the car people told me that they'd found a fuel tank at a salvage yard, $400 cheaper than buying a new one from the dealership. They still needed several new parts, but we were grateful for the break. Also, we'd actually paid enough less than the couple was asking for the car that even with the more major repair, we were only out $100 more than we had initially thought we'd be paying for the car itself.

Also, we're getting quite a bit of money back from the IRS, mostly because James's old office withheld at a ridiculously high rate when they paid him out for his PTO. When we asked them about it, they said that was normal and it had to be done that way. It made that payment less than two-thirds what we were expecting, but I guess it all worked out because we will be able to use the money to pay off that repair. And some others, but we'll get to that. We're still just on Monday!

Incidentally, I'd had to contact the person who sold us our SUV because I needed her to sign the Texas title transfer. She was really weird about it, saying she'd signed over the (out of state) title and that meant she didn't own the car anymore. I further explained that we could not title the car without her signature, so she agreed to come over and sign it, which she did Monday morning. Then after Jump Street, Mal and I saw her again; she's a cashier at a dollar store. It was weird. Maybe I've seen her there before. She left a CD in the player of the SUV. It's labeled "Travel Music." The first song is "Margaritaville," and the second song is country, which Mal demanded I stop and turn on "the real music." That's my kid!

We got some Orbeez I'd ordered in the mail, and on Tuesday, we played most of the day with those. Mal even took a bath with them, and I have to tell you that it was a lot harder getting them out than I'd anticipated.

Even Carol is intrigued. 

Tuesday, I spent most of the day on standby mode, waiting to hear from the auto shop. I downloaded Lyft (which I've never tried; we did Uber a few times before they left Austin several years ago, though I suppose they're back now) and saw that it'd only be $8 to get a ride to pick up the car and save James that trip after commuting like he does.

I stress eat a lot when I'm restless, so that was the theme of Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, I called to check on the car. They said it was going well, but they hadn't gotten all of the parts in until Wednesday, and that they'd be done with the car that day.

Oh, hey, it was also Valentine's Day. We got the kids a couple of little treats, but James and I didn't do anything for each other. I got all sentimental about how fortunate I am to have James, and was going to write a thing about it, but have realized that I don't love writing as much as I used to at this moment. I will say this: I've been in several relationships where things similar to what have happened this week were sources of stress and blame and punishing. It's so nice to be able to be frustrated about a circumstance, but not have to worry about the reaction if I am to be the bearer of unexpected inconveniencing news.

At 5:14, 15 minutes before the garage closed, they called and said they were done with the repairs. Mehh. I told them I'd get it the following day.

Thursday, I was taking D and Mal to the Austin RV Expo. I figured we'd just get a Lyft to the garage, then go on from there. But James was home pretty late Thursday morning, so as soon as Mal and I got up, we got him to take us in to get it. I noticed from the street that the hood was released, and mentioned that I didn't want to forget that when I was driving home.

After James dropped us off and left, I found out why the hood wasn't secure: They were having to jump start the car every time they needed to run it. Apparently, he'd called to tell me about it, but 1) I never have my ringer on and 2) in this case, my phone was all the way off and I hadn't looked at it since the day before. He suggested we take it in and have it warrantied out because the battery was pretty new. I explained that we'd gotten it from a private party, and he shot out a couple of things it could be, one of which was a "phantom drain."

That reminded me that James and I had both noticed a green light on the tow wiring glowing all of the time at the back of the car. Although the gentleman offered to try to diagnose the battery problem, I wasn't in the mood to deal with it, and said we'd try to figure it out later.

Outside, though, while the guys were jumping the car for me, I mentioned the tow wiring again. One of the guys brought me a fuse and said he'd unplugged it. That was apparently all it was. It's started for us every time we've tried.

Oh, but it looks like they disconnected the gas gauge. I called to let them know, but I'm not emotionally able to take it back in for a few days. I told James I should take the bill from the rather hefty auto repair and write on it with a Sharpie, "Here's your CD," then wrap the CD in the bill and mail it to the lady who sold us the car. I have many passive-aggressive ideas I do not act on. You're welcome.

Thursday, I woke up early and bought airline tickets for a trip we have planned for the fall. Southwest just released the tickets yesterday, and I'm hoping that having bought them the day they went on sale AND purchasing the auto-check-in will mean we can at least have some choice in where we sit. After that, I went back to sleep for a bit.

Later, we woke D up and drove downtown to the RV show. It was fun. The trends I noticed (since I bought my RV 7 years ago) were: Outside kitchens pretty standard, fold-down patios as an option, and electric fireplaces. D is thinking about purchasing an RV in a few years, so we scoped out some possibilities and got some budgeting ideas. It was nice, but I could tell that after about an hour, we'd reached D's limit.

We passed the AAAS annual meeting setup on the way in and out, and really wished we were signed up for that! It looked super cool. We also passed this, just sitting in the middle of the big lobby of the Austin Convention Center.

It's a breast-feeding/pumping hut.

Interesting. There are two bench seats and one little table area, and a tiny mirror. Mal and I both fit in there, and it was cheery enough for such an apparently claustrophobic pod.

When we got home, it was gorgeous out, so Mal and I spent a couple of hours in the yard, and I totally forgot about fixing dinner until James got home. Fortunately, we had some tasty left-overs.

It was too pretty to stay inside

This morning, I woke up earlier than Mal again. It's interesting. He's been sleeping 6-8 hours straight the past 3 nights. He starts waking asking for "nursies" between 5:30 and 6:30, but then will usually sleep until 9ish.

Today, while I was eating breakfast and waking up, D came into the kitchen to report an apparent roof leak. There was water pouring out of the light fixture. Fortunately, our electric system worked. As soon as the water started pooling, the breaker had tripped, shutting off D's noise-maker fan. That woke D up, and revealed the leak.

I was about to call my friend Jacob (at Birdcreek Roofing) and decided to see if I could tell what was going on first. I climbed up into the attic -- which was dark because the power was off to that part of the house -- and could first hear and then see that it was the water heater. Steam was shooting out from the top of the unit.

Here's my scientific way of choosing a service provider: Open Yelp! and look up the category. Pick the first one near me with mostly all-5-stars. If they answer, they win. If it goes to voice mail, hang up and call the next person.

I ended up speaking with Blue Dragon Plumbing. When I described what was happening, he pretty much nailed what was wrong. He was on the south side of Austin but said he'd make his way up and call me after an appointment he had.

It's interesting, I was too distracted to be icked out by the attic, and then later James advised that I not try to shut off the water to the house (which I'd done hours before) because our inspector said we had black widows in the box. Fortunately, I didn't remember that particular bit of information at all, nor did I see any spiders.

The dripping slowed once I'd shut the water off and emptied (I thought) the water heater. I called ServiceMaster to get them out and drying everything, but it went to voice mail. They were our first pick because James used to work for them, and they're recognized nationally as experts.

But I moved on because I needed speed! Tetris Cleaning Service answered and was at my house within the hour. He had a neat water-vision camera (I don't know what it's called, but it's so cool). He was able to see that we had some water at the seams of our bathroom walls/ceiling, and then D's whole ceiling was just a wet mess.

I don't know if you can see, but pretty much the whole ceiling is damp. But the water was only dripping through at the light fixture, and that one big bubble at the drywall tape.

He was able to verify that the water was clean, and that the stuff in the middle was still HOT. It had absorbed into the fancy new insulation we just had blown in a few months ago, and was holding heat. He removed all of the wet insulation (which we're still paying for, because 2 years was zero interest, so why not?), put two fans in our bathroom, and put 3 fans and a dehumidifier in D's room.

D's room is shut off now, and so D will have to find somewhere else in the house to crash. But the fact that it is closed off means that the rest of the house isn't too loud; it just sounds like when the dishwasher is running. The fans in the bathroom aren't any louder than a box fan, either.

The cats are kind of freaked out. They won't use the two litter boxes in the main bathroom because it's so close to D's loud mystery room, and because the dehumidifier drain hose runs through there and into one of the sinks. The litter boxes are surrounded. But hopefully they'll get over it and get used to it soon. We should have the fans until Monday or Tuesday, and they have to run constantly. He said "24/7," but he meant "24/4."

We filed a claim on our homeowners insurance (shout out there to my agent, Moses), but will probably end up closing it out, since it's likely we'll spend just under our deductible, anyway. I need to remember to call the adjuster tomorrow.

The water heater guy got here while the water damage mitigation guy was still here, and they both left around 4. When James got home, we were trying to decide what to do about food, and I couldn't help him decide anything. He kept talking about going somewhere, but I was so gross. I'd gone to sleep with Mal last night, deciding I needed sleep more than a shower, but then missing out all day when I couldn't catch one this morning.

James would suggest going out, I'd blanch at that, he'd say he'd go into town and get something, and I didn't like the idea of his leaving again, or of his having to drive more after his commute.

Finally, I realized I was being a giant poop and just put on some different clothes and a baseball hat, and we went to this place that has an outdoor playground for Mal... Only to find that they are permanently closed. So we ended up having dinner at Freebirds, and I felt tons better after getting some veggies and cheese into myself.

We went to Walmart after dinner and finally found Mal the only 3 color-change Hot Wheels they had left. They were only $3.50, which is anywhere from 1/5 to 1/10 the price I've found for the color-changing Cars cars he's wanted. When we go home, he played with those for a good hour, going back and forth between between the colors.

Now I'm ready to go to bed. I've done 3 loads of laundry and a dish-washing load since the water came back on. Mal's been asleep for almost 2 hours, which is an early bedtime for him. James is on the phone with his brother. D is in our room enjoying the big brown recliner. I'm tired. I'm glad James has 3 days off, and hopefully when he goes back to work on Tuesday, our house will be back to "normal." And our car will stay fixed. And things can go back to being normal.

Have a good weekend, friends!

Oh, and here's a tip: WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR HOUSE FOR A FEW DAYS, TURN OFF THE WATER AND DRAIN THE WATER HEATER. You might never have needed it, but you do NOT want to come home to a week's worth of what we had 12 hours' worth of today.

Days of Wonder and Magic

This is such a fun time to be a parent, I think. Almost every day, we get to see Mal putting something new together. His way of processing it is so sweet and funny; we laugh a lot, and James and I have a lot to share as we experience him so differently on our own.

For instance, the other day, Mal was playing with this cash register he's had forever. It has a little calculator display screen, and he was putting in a number, then he'd open the register, and take money out. It took a couple of times for me to realize what he was doing, including my just typing in a 7 and his telling me that wasn't how to do it.

That was when I put it together: He'd press the "1," which would show up on the screen, then he'd clear it out, open the till, and pull out a one dollar bill. Next, he typed in "5," saw it on the screen, cleared it out, opened the till, and pulled out a five dollar bill. That was when I tried the 7, but he wasn't having it.

He cleared that out, looked at the pad, and asked me, "How do you do ten?" I said, "Press the 1." He did. "Now press the zero." He did, and looked at the result, then beamed that it had worked! Then he opened the drawer and took out a ten dollar bill.

After that, he'd type in numbers to see if I could do what he was putting in. Nothing crazy, just $90 or $40. At one point, he put in 0.0, so I told him to add a 1, and I pulled out a penny, explaining that's how you write it.

He stayed interested for a long time. Finally, after James got home and we were chatting, Mal played with it by himself long enough to bring up the "E" (for error), and asked how to make it do an "a." We had to explain that "e" is the only letter it has, and he worked for a while to try to get it to come back up.

That's Flo. We got her last weekend, after James had finished a couple of weeks of his new job. Mal asked for so many things when James was unemployed, and we said no so much more often than usual. Mal is thrilled to have a few more Cars cars. He plays with them every day.

In fact, he has a whole laundry list of toys he trots out every day, some times a couple of times a day: The Cars 2 set, plus any extras he's acquired (but we've lost Carla Veloso and Holly Shiftwell, sadly); his Star Wars Micro Machines sets; PJ Masks; the Star Wars Hot Wheels Death Star set; and some type of "egg challenge." Mal watches those toy videos on YouTube, so he likes for us to hide the toys he already has either in plastic eggs, or in play dough.

He's still pretty bossy about the scripting of the scenes, but is getting better at improvising, too. His imagination is incredible, and as a result, he's starting to have vivid "stories," or dreams.

The other night, he woke up terrified, saying, "I don't like the jungle! I don't want to go there!" I told him we wouldn't. He said, "The koala was trying to eat my foot!" I assured him a koala wouldn't try to eat his foot. He said, "And an alligator." Me: ...

We had a long, busy day today, as we ran a bunch of places and then James took part in a 2-hour focus group after work. We were in Mal's room playing this evening when he had all of his PJ Masks out on his table, along with his sack of Hot Wheels cars. He asked me to pull out several specific cars he likes to use with his characters, and I told him he could do it himself.

Mal said, "I can't! I have to finish some work first!"

Then he put his hands up on the table and mimed typing, vocalizing, "Beep, beep, blooop, beep, blorp..." for a few moments, before announcing, "I'm finished! Now I can play!"

I got the cars out for him.

On a likely-related note, yesterday at different times, I was trying to finish and file our taxes, and fill out paperwork to transfer the title to our new car, and a couple of other administrative things. Mal was still wanting to talk to me (I incorrectly wrote a number I know by heart) and bounce around on the chair I was sitting in. I kept asking him to PLEASE step away and that I'd play with him as soon as I was finished with what I was doing.

There's so much more, but I promised I wouldn't stay up until 1 AM again tonight. Looks like I'm a liar.

That's another thing: Mal has taken to going to bed around 11 PM and waking up at 9:30ish (with the normal nighttime rousings). Today I got my chores done before he was out of bed, and the other day I showered, which is nice. But I'm more of an early-to-bed/early-to-rise kind of gal, and it seems like a lot of things we want to do are earlier. Like a free breakfast from Chick-fil-A.

Maybe it's a season. He used to go by daylight, so at the beginning of winter, he was going to bed super early. Now that he's used to staying awake 4-5 hours after the sun goes down, I'm a bit concerned about this summer!

Benefiting from Other People's Mistakes

We've hit a run of good luck lately, in the form of confused cashiers, mostly.

First, we went into Chick-fil-A last week to redeem our February calendar card offering. I'd looked in the app before we went in, and the choices were either of the soups or an ice cream. When we went in, I told the cashier that I wanted the chicken noodle soup for me, and the ice cream for Mal. She asked someone via her headset about the February deal (it was a mystery offering, and this was maybe February 2?).

"It's soup or chicken nuggets," she told me. I told her that was fine; I'd take nuggets but still wanted to order an ice cream because I'd already promised Mal. We also got a large fries and a large drink.

When the cashier rang it up, she looked surprised and said, "Oh, it didn't take the chicken nuggets off." Meaning I was right. She finished the order, and when I looked at the receipt, I realized two things: First, I should have gotten the soup I got and then a tortilla soup to bring home to James because the soups are $3.89 and the ice cream is $.89. But also, she'd gone ahead and given us the nuggets for free, too. So we paid $4.14 for a large drink, large fries, soup, 8 nuggets, and an ice cream. Woo hoo!

Next was yesterday at Chuck E. Cheese. I went because this week only, they have a buy-one-large-pizza, get-one-large-thin-crust-pepperoni-pizza free. Their pizza isn't great, but the larges are like $13, so for two pizzas, which Mal loves, it'd be worth it. Plus, we had some credit left on our play cards from last time.

I told the cashier, "I'd like to get a large cheese pizza, and then I have this." I handed her my phone, which she looked at, and put the promo code in. I ordered a drink and upgraded to a take-home cup because Mal loves them. She said, "That will be $4.30." So she gave me the pizza I ordered for free, with no other pizza purchase. We ended up spending less than five bucks, had a ton of pizza, a fun time, and Mal got a rocket launcher, Airheads, and some gummy ring pops with his tickets.

Also, not to brag, but on our very last play credit, I did the wheel and got 100 tickets. It was quite the drama.

But still...

For all the money we saved and free stuff we received, yesterday I made a mistake that cost me a bit, too.

Chuck E. Cheese is really close to James's new office, so we went to meet him for his lunch after our lunch. In fact, he ate two slices of pizza while we walked around the Domain. I promised Mal we'd go to a candy store, and the closest one to where we were?

When we walked in, I realized that we were screwed.

See those little boxes? They're $7.50. EACH.

Mal ended up with this one box of gummy pig mommies and babies. It's interesting; he will only eat one or two at a time, then asks for (plain old, cheap) gummy bears. I don't know if it's because these aren't candies aimed at children, so they taste different, or if he has some inherent sense that they're special and doesn't want to waste them. I'm sure it's the first, though.

Oh, but there was cashier confusion here, too. The total, including tax, was $8.12. I handed the very well-dressed gentleman a five, 3 ones, a quarter, and two pennies. HE HAD AN IPAD IN FRONT OF HIM. Why he didn't just punch it in is bizarre to me. But after probably 15-20 awkward seconds of his staring into his palm, I said, "I just did that so you could give me back 15 cents and I wouldn't have any pennies." He looked at me blankly, and I willed "15 cents" to him so he would MOVE IT. He finally punched in the numbers and handed me back my change.

Sheesh.

(Incidentally, all of the candy here is $7.50 per box, or you can get three in a "Sugarfina" blue box-sleeve kind of thing for $25. So I guess the message here is "no free boxes." Sheesh II. It's not Tiffany's.)

That Time I Accidentally Drugged My Kid

Mal went to sleep last night about like normal. At 11:30, he woke up crying and coughing. After I held him for a minute and tried nursing him to help with his throat, it became clear that it wasn't helping at all. I went to get him some medicine, and he freaked out when I left the room, even after I had explained what I was doing.

The more upset he got, the more barking his cough got, and it was to the point where his chest was shuddering loudly every time he inhaled, too. James had to help me open the cough medicine, and I had a pain reliever in line, too, when I decided he needed a breathing treatment to open up his airways.

Mal has witnessed me doing breathing treatments before, but we've never tried one on him before. He HATED it. Although I had him set on the bathroom counter and was holding him, he managed to wriggle away, without even putting the inhaler up to his face. He was screaming, "I don't want it! I don't want it!" and sounding more and more in distress.

He ran into the closet, and I know he was just completely freaked out because he's super sensitive both to light and to sound after he's asleep (just like I was/am). I got him and held him on the bed while James reloaded the nebulizer. Mal had just calmed down when we tried again, in the bedroom, and again, he screamed and wriggled away.

I was angry. I wasn't mad at Mal, per se. But I was scared to death that we were going to have to go to the hospital, I was certain that the breathing treatment would help him, and I was upset that his fear is bigger than his trust that we wouldn't do anything other than help him.

I left him with James and went into the bathroom to get the pain reliever. James got Mal calmed down, then I gave him the medicine, and we went back into the bedroom to see if he could breathe okay.

As James was lying him down, I realized... I'd given him children's Benadryl instead of acetaminophen. Oh well. Allergies are awful around here, anyway, so I figured that wouldn't hurt, and might help him sleep.

And I KNOW. It's a rookie mistake that could be dangerous. But we don't have medicines that are risky for a one-time accidental dose, and also... we were all a little frazzled. I'll look more carefully next time. Turns out we were out of pain reliever, a situation I've already remedied.

Mal was pretty congested all night, but otherwise okay. James had asked, after Mal calmed down, if I wanted to take him to urgent care, but he seemed to be a little better, and we waited it out. He seems 100% this morning, but did tell James, "You scared me last night!" We both apologized, but I also told him sometimes, you have to do scary stuff to help you feel better.

Anyway, guess what? Benadryl does not affect his sleep either way. That kid is a perpetually-charged machine. And he's been in no way groggy today. So glad I never resorted to using that to help him sleep. No dice.

FYI, if Mal ever tells you he had a story, and says something incomprehensible... He means "dream" when he says "story." I mean, he means story sometimes, but he never says "dream."

Today, Mal wanted to play outside, and it's just so dry and chilly that I almost hated to, but I try not to say "no" to outside unless it's absolutely necessary. His poor lips are all cracked and red, but he had a blast. At first, he tried going out in undershorts and a long-sleeved shirt, even after I'd told him to put on clothes. "I have on pants, see!" He quickly came back in asking for a coat, and I convinced him that pants first and THEN a coat might be wise.

Mal hates mittens, so before it got cool this year, I bought him gloves. They only sell mittens in his size, so I got ones that are for a slightly larger child, and it's some work getting his hand comfortably in them. 

I have been saying, "Push your hand forward while I pull up," but he doesn't get it. When I pull the cuffs up, his arms yield to the direction. Today, I had an idea. I said, "Try to touch my boob." THAT WORKED. As he reached out toward me, I pulled the gloves all the way on. He never made it to the target, but I call that a success.

Have a great weekend!

The child, and how things work around here

We're in the process of updating Mal's room. It's fun, but it's been a mess most of this week, and we won't get everything in until Tuesday, so I just have to deal with the nebulous stuff and try not to look at it too much.

If last night was any indication, though, instead of springing (ha!) for two twin mattresses, I could have just purchased one. Mal was intent on sleeping RIGHT beside me all night, and since I didn't want him lying on the split between the mattresses, I moved over so he could snuggle with his whole body on the mattress. Then after he was snoring, I'd move to the other mattress... only to repeat this the next time he woke up.

Mal slept through the night a week ago Monday, but has been waking even more frequently than typical ever since then. Like 20 times a night. Every night. For almost two weeks. He's also been crying for me before I'm ready to go to bed, and that had stopped for a couple of months, at least.

I'm sure it's a growth spurt or some developmental thing, but wouldn't it be ironic if the developmental stride of sleeping through the night actually disrupted his sleep? My brain just exploded.

So here's a cute picture of Mal.

For this picture, I thought it'd be cute if Mal held his fist up like he'd caught the front end of the airplane. He tried, but the whole time his hand was up, he was dancing around. I said, "Just be still while I count to five!" And he couldn't. So I was squatting, trying to account for his movement by changing my position, and this is the closest we could get.

Speaking of that, today we went to the Mabry Texas Military Museum. It was the first time I'd been in a while, and for some reason, it struck me as horribly maudlin. Everything there, including the ambulance and chuck truck, was designed for the enterprise of the widespread killing of people and its associated needs. I mean, I get that war is sometimes necessary? Especially defense. But today it weighed on me in a way it hasn't before.

Interestingly, the display to which Mal seemed most drawn (inside; outside, he was obsessed with the Chinese-style exercise station) was the medic. He looked at it for a long time, then after we moved on, he asked to go back.

Mal is revealing himself to be a pretty sensitive soul (not always, but in many situations). This week, he's had a hard time getting rid of old stuff for his room update, even as he's been excited about the new developments and arrivals.

I'd had my eye on the Garanimals website because they'd listed their summer line, but they weren't on sale. Then they were. I must have missed it by 36 hours, but most of the 5t tank tops and many of the shorts were already sold out! Anyway, I ordered his "summer wardrobe" for under $75, and it's on its way. I was cleaning out the stuff from last summer to give to Foster Kindness, and when he saw the bags of old clothes, Mal just lost it. "No! I want the too big clothes!" (Confusion, but in his defense, he was pretty distraught.)

He actually reached in one of the bags and pulled out two shirts, running into his room and hiding them. "I want the too big clothes! They're mine!" I finally calmed him down by distracting him when it was time to go to the Lego Lab at the library. But on the way home, he asked, "Did someone get my clothes?" I told him no; they're in the trunk. Today, he couldn't care less. He'll be super excited about the new ones. But he's attached to every. single. thing.

As we were leaving Lego Lab yesterday, Mal wanted to see the police station, so we walked down that road. He noticed that the Christmas wreath was still up and said, "It's still Christmas for the police! Do the police get Christmas presents?" "They do." "Do they get toys?" "Well, they might not get toys, but they probably get something they like. What do you think a police officer would like?" "To TRAP people!" Heh. Um, what? He clarified by saying, "With handcuffs." Oookay.

Earlier this week. Mal said he wanted to take a gymnastics class. I've been researching and was all ready to make a phone call to the best, for us, gym this afternoon when I asked him again, "You're ready to take gymnastics?" Emphatic NO!

I do think I'm going to try to get him into swim lessons this summer. I believe D started at this age, and by 8 was an excellent swimmer. It helps me be less nervous at the pool, knowing they can hold their own for a hot minute.

On a totally unrelated note, I need the 1099s from eTrade to get here so I can see how much money we're getting back from the IRS. Right now, it looks like a lot, but we had to sell some stock when James was not working, so we have "realized gains" to contend with. The suspense is killing me.

James seems to have enjoyed his first week of work. It's still a lot of red tape and IT stuff, but he likes the people and thinks the job will be a good one. Yay!

Have a great weekend!