Sunday, February 10, 2013

Week of February 3, 2013

Sunday: We had a long day at the UU church the day before, and a long night with poorly sleep-trained  kids, and so we all slept in today and didn't make it out to any church on Sunday. This was our first week in a long time not going to either Mormon or UU services, but after 2 hours Friday night and all day Saturday, we were done.

Monday: Babysitter Jenny came today, so I got my beloved 3 hour break, which I spent eating at the Chipotle copycat across from Whole Foods, doing some work for Writer's Domain and trying to figure out how to get my Book of More Women podcast up (it's very close, but I am stuck at getting it into iTunes if a tech savant wants to help me). Then I took the kids to the bookmobile, which is our lame winter substitute for a real library (that bike ride is hard, yo). One of the books was about an Indian-American kid making Roti with his Dada-ji, so we decided to try it out. It turned out fine.


Here's a video that shows how every fun activity in our house ends (and also our secret to delicious Pizza Dough (Atticus feet spice):



Tuesday: While Cait had a very long day of school, I stayed in the house and got stuff done while playing with the two kids, resulting in my most productive day yet, according to my app buddy homeroutines.


I actually got to 80 on Friday. I have also promised a post about things that have helped move me from a terrible housekeeper, to a sub-par bordering on acceptable housekeeper.

Kids playing while dad cleans

Wednesday: Our friend Brad came over with their foster son, and we had a really great play date in the morning. Cait came home early so I could go donate blood (I only do it for all the treats) and then was kind enough to take care of the kids while I slept off the blood loss, which wiped me out more this time than usual. We went to the international potluck at night, to which we brought Spaghetti, the old American stand-by. The food was really good, if fleeting. For entertainment, we had Chinese dancers celebrating Chinese New Year.




Thursday: I woke up very early to catch a bus to go to the dentist, but the bus slid off the road before it got to me, and for some reason no other buses came, so I had to call our friend Brad (from yesterday) to give me a ride, which he was kind enough to give me. I came home to trade off with Cait who was "parent helping" at Atticus' preschool, and then stayed there until school was over, helping out the teachers, which is a lot of fun. Lulah loves going there to play with the kids and took a nice nap at the end.



We made some really good Brazilian stew at night (I pretty much followed the recipe, except we used pineapple instead of mango and no chiles) and brought some to Brad and Jenny in thanks for the ride.

Friday: Another day of trying to get a lot done around the house to pacify my iPhone app. Cait took Atticus to kids night out at his preschool, where she was supposed to get some studying done, but filled in for a sick parent helper instead. Atticus had a great time pretending to camp out in his school.


Saturday: Today was a day of unsuccessfully trying to get Atticus out of the house to do something fun. Sometimes, that kid just really wants to stay home and play. It's tough when you know they're going to like what you are going out to do, but he just fights tooth and nail every step of the way, and is playing so nicely (most of the time) in the house, that the whole fight just doesn't seem worth it. Oh well, have a day inside kid, it is cold out there.

At night I went to a baptism of Charles (christened "Cheeto" at this baptism for some odd reason), a nice man from Zimbabwe who we've met a few times (if you're wondering, my new bike goggles worked great). I invited him to pizza night once, and that was apparently enough for him to want me to speak at his baptism, so I gave a little talk about the Holy Ghost. I made it very clear to the Ward Mission leader that I am probably considered "inactive" and am struggling with my testimony, but he's a cool guy and said that was fine, just say what you can without being controversial. It was a little tough, because I'm not sure what I really believe about the Holy Ghost, but I just defaulted to pretty standard doctrine with emphasis on birth imagery and called it a night. Someone else's baptism is no place to make a statement. That's what this blog is for. There were a lot of people there and a lot of them were good friends, so it was a nice night, and, in keeping with my goal to cut down on sugar this month, I only ate one of the many delicious cookies provided as refreshment.

Afterwards I went shopping for the dinner we are having with our friends Ida and Patrick on Sunday.
It seems natural that when Americans invite Europeans over, they try to cook them authentic Asian food, so I went to the local Asian market to pick up some stuff for spring rolls and coconut soup which Cait decided she wants to make. I'm pretty sure I paid too much for the authentic stuff at the place, but I'm just proud of myself for finding all of it when it was all in very Asian languages that I can't even distinguish from one another, with very small English translations hidden somewhere on the package. Also, I bought all the produce at Whole Foods, which is corporate.

Cait's week: Sitting in front a computer and typing. Reading Designing Social Inquiry (aka KKV) and lots of other PDFs on the iPad. Sitting through a lot of classes.

5 comments:

  1. It was a really nice day here today and the whole time we were outside Alice kept saying she wanted to play inside. She said she only likes to go outside in the summer. Your days sound so much like my days, except I am jealous of your babysitter!!

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    1. If only our families were close enough to go through our week together

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  2. Get that kid some grapes to dance on. I'm sure he'd make some great juice to go with the pizza.

    And I wouldn't worry if he wanted to play inside. I'm jealous! My kids whine and whine to go outside. Even Logan won't sit and play with me. He'll go stand at the door and scream until I bundle him up and take him for a walk in the cold drizzle.

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  3. Hahaha! Now I know what our homemade pizza dough really needs to take it to the next level. (Also, I almost typed in "what our homemade pizza dough really *kneads* . . . oh dear.)

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  4. The ward mission leader in your ward seems pretty cool. We need all the open mindedness in the church that we can muster. And I think it's great that you were willing to give the talk for a new friend/convert in the your ward.

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