Why I Can't Make Dinner Anymore, and an update, finally.

I used a new recipe tonight and I was feeling really proud of myself for cooking a real honest-to-goodness dinner even though Ryan had to work late. It was Lemon and Garlic Chicken, and I thought, hey! What's not to love?

First, it said "Prep Time: 15 minutes."  It should have said:

Prep Time: 15 minutes, if you're a chef and have a fancy kitchen

-Add 10 minutes if you're a regular person

-Add 20 more minutes if you're the mother of a toddler who empties and "reorganizes" your cabinets everyday.

-Add 30 more minutes if said toddler has decided against an afternoon nap.

 

As you might have guessed, I fell into the last category. For those keeping track, that is one hour and fifteen minutes.

 

Second, I just want to go on record and say that I followed the recipe exactly as it said. I've been known to play a little Iron Chef in my kitchen, which always ends badly. But this time, I REALLY did follow the recipe. I even bought all of the correct ingredients. Anyway, it said to put lemon slices on the bottom of the baking dish (which I did) and squeeze the juice of another lemon into the bowl with olive oil and garlic (which I also did). What is should have said was:

 

Put chicken, potatoes, and green beans in a pan and bake them until they're done. Then, suck the juice out of a slice of lemon. Eat a bite of chicken. Suck the juice out of another slice of lemon.

 

Of course it didn't say that, but that's what it tasted like.  So that was that.

 

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In other news, my baby has been replaced by a walking, talking, dancing toddler who cries when it rains.  However, after a long day of destroying the house, she still likes to snuggle, so we'll keep her around.

Here are some things that have happened:

1. We celebrated Nora's second Easter. She was delighted to discover that the Easter eggs I had been letting her play with now had treats inside.  

2. She got The Sickness That Wouldn't End (Or So It Seemed).  First she had a virus called roseola, where she had a high fever for no apparent reason and then got a non-itchy, harmless rash all over her tummy and back. The same day that the rash appeared, she re-initiated me into parenthood by throwing up all over both of us. I sat there in shock for a minute, then carried her to the laundry room, stripped us both down to our skivvies, put her in the bath, then myself in the shower.  (Ryan was home and gave her a bath...I didn't leave her unattended in the tub. Geez. Settle down.)  She continued to do this every morning for several days. When she wasn't throwing up, we snuggled and watched a lot of cartoons. I liked the snuggling but disliked cleaning throw-up off of the couch and myself.  At the end of it all, she also got a new tooth.  You will all be glad to know there are no pictures of this eventful time, as we were all too sleep deprived and stinky to use a camera.

3. Thankfully The Sickness That Wouldn't End ended, and we travelled to Georgia to visit Aunt Andrea, Uncle Chad, and new cousin Catelyn.  We had a great time meeting our new niece and enjoying some snuggle time, going to a nature preserve with a butterfly house, and just hanging out. Nora charmed everyone in the airports and we managed not to lose her despite her efforts to run away at every chance, all the while thinking how nice it is that you get to skip the security lines when travelling with a stroller-riding snuggleface.

Nora at 15 months; Catelyn at 10 weeks. Nora thought she was cool as long as Mommy wasn't holding her for more than 10 minutes. She also loved to cover her up with a "blanket" (burp cloth), which was very sweet. I think I've got a little mama on my hands.

4. Mother Nature has finally blessed us with some nice days, so when it's not raining, we go outside.  Nora loves to be outside and gets upset if Zadie gets to go outside but she doesn't.  She likes to "help" me plant flowers, and has successfully eaten enough dirt to grow a small garden in her stomach.  We take lots of walks to the park in our neighborhood, and she has learned to say "slide."

"This looks tasty."

 

5. She talks and talks and talks. She learns new words almost every day, and fills in the blanks with some impressive babbling. It's a language of her very own and we're just trying to keep up. To go along with her new words, she has developed some funny facial expressions and also "grunts' when she's trying to do something difficult (like pull off her shoe when it's still strapped).  Tonight when I leaned over to get her animals out of her bed so she could kiss them goodnight, she grunted for me. Apparently I do this a lot (because it's hard to reach things in  the bottom of a crib when you're short!) and she's caught on.

A little dinnertime conversation:

 

 

Naturally we think she's a genius all while being the cutest child ever to grace the face of the earth, and feel pretty lucky to be her parents.