Fine Print

Two things.

First, since it looks like my contributions to KitchenDaily.com have dwindled from weekly to bimonthly to never, I’m considering adding a recipe component here. Consider yourself warned. (Next up: artichokes!)

Second, I offer you a sampling of life with my children:

[From upstairs, an odd scuffling sound is followed by piercing shriek, followed by second odd scuffle, followed by second piercing shriek, followed by the wail of child. The wailing grows gradually louder as child descends the stairs slowly, step by step.]

[STELLA enters kitchen, holding right arm limply in front of her.]

ME: Okay, what happened?

STELLA: Lila hit me! Really hard! In my arm! [Offers me arm. I kiss her, then hold her on my lap for a moment.]

ME: What happened before that?

STELLA: You need to punish Lila!

ME: I’ll be speaking to Lila in a moment. Right now I’m speaking to you. I want to know what happened before Lila hit you.

STELLA: [Sniffs piteously] I hit Lila. 

ME: I had a feeling.

STELLA: But she also hit me before that!

ME: She did? I didn’t hear that.

STELLA: Yeah! She did!

ME: ***

STELLA: …but not very hard.

ME: Okay. So even if she was being super annoying —

STELLA: She was! She was being super annoying!

ME: — but even so, do you think it was right to hit back?

STELLA: [darkly] I know it wasn’t right to hit back. But I will hit back. Because if I don’t hit back, then Lila gets the better deal. 

Welcome to the club, baby girl

Stella caught the bug. It was probably inevitable — it’s been going around in our house for some time. You know this bug: the one that renders her silent on the couch, curled up in one position until a limb loses circulation, unable to hear her parents calling her until they come up and remove the book from her hands.

I take a certain proprietary pleasure in this. Sometimes, that kid … she’s funny, she’s whip smart, but I don’t always get her. Lila’s behavior is easier for me to predict; I find Stella somewhat inscrutable. Her reactions to things sometimes take me so much by surprise that I inwardly wonder: Whose kid is this, again? But seeing her lose herself in a book this way? Yeah, she’s mine.

She caught the bug from Ivy & Bean, by the way, which I’m pretty sure was also the germ responsible for Lila’s (ongoing) case, years ago. Just FYI.

Motherhood is glamorous

Stella climbed into bed with us at about 6:15 this morning. The sun was up, and she was in a chatty mood. She nestled in between me and Chris and started talking…

Stella: [cough] What is that? What is that stuff in my throat? I can’t cough it out. What do you call that?

Me: Ummm [yawn]…phlegm?

Stella: What is phlegm?

Me: It’s, uh, like snot.

Stella: What colors does it come in?

Me: ***

Stella: Mommy? What colors does phlegm come in? Does it come in yellow?

Me: [long pause] Yes.

Stella: I think I once had phlegm inside me and I coughed really hard and it came out of my mouth and landed on the floor.

Me: ***

Stella: And you picked it up.

Me: ***

Stella: It was gross.

Me: ***

Stella: It looked like Pirate’s Booty.

Ga-ga-goin’ back to Target

I haven’t been in six months (except to get fake Uggs for the girls for Hanukkah — but I felt really, really bad about it).

Lady Gaga is apparently fixing all that.

How to Snugle

1. You have to fined somone to snugle with.

2. Get the scwooshiest bed.

3. Get as close as you posubly can.

Yous this power for good. You can never forget this.

By Stella Eve Shulman Templin

Where have I failed?

Upon returning home from school today, the girls were arguing about something. I was only paying partial attention until I heard this:

Stella: I’m not a bad person. I’m open-minded.

Lila: “Open-minded” is just a nice way of saying gullible.

Damn you, Judy Blume

I have mentioned before, I think, Lila’s voracious reading appetite. She will read. And read. And read. I keep shuffling through the young adult shelves at the library, picking out the titles I remember loving, forcing them upon Lila. She, like myself at her age, loves that ole Judy Blume.

Did you know that Judy Blume kept writing books after some of us outgrew her target demographic? I know, crazy. But she did. One of the books is called Just As Long As We’re Together, and according to the blurb I read, it’s about how hard friendship can be for girls in the middle-school years — something I remember all too well. Lila wanted to read it, and I figured this was the kind of Judy Blume that I’d like her to be reading right now. As opposed to, say, Tiger Eyes or Forever….  (Yes, the ellipsis is part of the title, annoyingly.) 

So anyway. Lila’s reading along happily. As is her way, when she comes across a word she’s not 100 percent sure about, she shouts out to me.

Lila: What’s c-o-m-f-o-r-t-e-r?

Me: Comforter?

Lila: Yeah. What is that?

Me: A comforter? It’s a big fluffy blanket. You have one on your bed!

Lila: Oh! Ha ha. I know. I didn’t know you called it that.

Me: Well, that’s what it’s called.

[Silence]

Lila: What’s a throw pillow?

Me: [suppressing urge to roll my eyes]  A throw pillow?

Lila: Yeah. What’s that?

Me: It’s, um, it’s a decorative pillow. Like the kind you put on a couch, as opposed to the kind you sleep on. You know?

Lila: Oh. Okay.

[Silence]

Lila: Mommy?

Me: Yes?

Lila: What’s s-e-x-u-a-l-l-y?

Hairspray, cont’d

Lila began talking more about Tracy Turnblatt today in the car.

Me: Turnblatt?

Lila: Turnblatt.

Me: Huh, I guess she’s supposed to be Jewish.

Lila: Really?

Me: Well, it’s a Jewish name.

Lila: She doesn’t act Jewish.

[pause]

Lila: But her mom kind of does.