Don't Eat Peed

So, Valentine's Day ended up being a little lame. Andrew had some big papers due this week so he spent a lot of time writing and I spent a lot of time editing and we both spent a lot of time asking the girls to go play. On Wednesday night Andrew said, "Phew. Twenty-five pages of writing—finished! I have a ten page paper due tomorrow but I'm not going to worry about that right now."

"Wow. Things have changed since we were lowly undergrads, haven't they?" I sighed. "It used to be that a ten page paper would stress you out for the whole semester and now there's a ten page paper due tomorrow that you haven't even started and you're not even sweating bullets."

Why? Because ten pages is the new "one paragraph."

We did a little Valentine's Day fun on Monday for FHE and again on Wednesday night while Andrew was at class. On Thursday Miriam and I had some Valentine fun and made what I'd hoped would be a yummy Valentine's Day meal. She and I slaved over perogies—we even made them heart shaped!




I guess I was feeling nostalgic for Russia or something because I decided we could have some Russian side dishes to go along with the perogies. We haven't had Russian food for a long time (because Andrew claims Russian cuisine is nasty) and I was hankering for some Korean Carrots...which is a Russian dish, I promise, and decided that beets would be fun, too.

I spent a good long time julienning carrots for the Korean Carrots. They ended up being a little too spicy for everyone else so I ate the whole salad by myself—and I think the next time I get a cold I'm going to do it again. A whole teaspoon of curry, several cloves of garlic, and some white vinegar sure did clean out my sinuses...



Few appreciated the Beet Heart salad (get it?) either. Miriam was excited because they were pink (and because I told her that if she ate enough of them she was guaranteed a pink BM). Rachel eagerly took a bite of a slice and immediately spewed it out of her mouth. She was not impressed. Andrew wouldn't even touch one.



"If I was really going for authenticity I'd have served them shredded. With mayonaise." I said.

"Yeah, well, that would've been disgusting, too. Russian food is just disgusting," Andrew fussed.

"Yeah, I hate Russian food," Rachel mimicked. "I don't ever want to go there."

"Why not?" I asked. "Russia's lovely."

"It's hot there," she said.

"Hot?!" I snorted. "Russia's not hot!"

"Oh. Then why do they eat cold food? These beets are cold."

Yes, I served my family chilled beets. I often had chilled beet salads in Russia, though in my family growing up we usually ate beets warm. I know beets get old (I know that all too well) but they're not altogether vile—come on, people! Eat your vegetables!

I told Rachel that she had to eat the slice on her plate—one slice of beetroot wasn't likely to kill her. She'd periodically nibble on it throughout the meal, picking it up with her fingers and daintily taking a bite so small as to be undetectable by the human eye. Each time she did this Miriam would reprimand her.

"Don't, Rachel! Beets stain! They stain, Rachie, stain! Beets stain. Beets. Stain."

Any guesses about who helped me cut the beets into hearts earlier in the day? Miriam. She learned a lot about beets that afternoon, not the least of which was that beets stain (and turn your poop pink).

Miriam spent the entire day being confused between beets and beads, actually. I asked her if she wanted to help me with the beets and she answered quite happily that she would like to do that. She was very disappointed when she saw that I did not have the tub of beads but instead had a can of..."What are those?"

"They're beets."

"Beads?"

"BeeTs. With a T. It's a vegetable. It's pink!"

She was sold, though was never quite sure if it was beads or beets. It could've been worse. She could have thought the game "Don't Eat Pete" was "Don't Eat Peed." Oh, wait. She did do that.

Miriam abandoned me mid-meal-preparation and asked if she could colour the "Don't Eat Pete" sheet that I'd printed out. I told her to go on ahead and do that, so she did. Then she brought her picture to me so that I could admire it and she explained it to me in great detail.

"...and they're all peeing!" she squealed with joy.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"All the monsters are peeing, see?" She pointed out the orange streams coming down from between the monsters' legs (except for the one peeing blue—that one has a blue stream).

"But why are the monsters peeing?" I asked.

"Because...Don't eat! Haha! Peed!" She dissolved into a fit of giggles. "That's such a funny game!"

Bodily functions are terribly humorous, yes. I wonder if she was at all confused about why Mommy would suggest we all scream "PEED!" at the top of our lungs when usually Mommy's the one asking us to not use potty words at the table (because, nope, I don't care how long it was or what it looked like or even what color it was when I'm trying to eat my dinner—but I'm very proud of you for making what I'm sure was a wonderful poopie). I won't even mention that the syntax for the sentence "Don't eat peed" simply does not pan out. 

I'm afraid her parents aren't much of an example when it comes to being reserved about such things. We practice elimination communication at our house—which basically means that we communicate about elimination from birth so we talk about bodily functions a lot. The upside is that my kids are out of diapers much sooner than average. The downside is that we talk about bodily functions...a lot.

I washed the sheets on Valentine's day because Benjamin has reflux and he refluxed all over the bed first thing in the morning. I was so busy making dinner, however, that I didn't get around to putting the sheets back on the bed (but I did dry them so I do deserve some credit). We went to bed super late (because Andrew was finishing writing that 10 page paper that was due and then I was finishing editing it and then before we knew it it was past midnight and we were both exhausted). So I walked down the hall to check on the kids before retiring (because I can't go to sleep before I do). Andrew walked into our bedroom and I heard him call out, "Oh, sheets!"

I'm sure you can guess what that sounded like the minute it was out of his mouth. The synonymic quality was only part of the humor—the other part being the shock value of hearing such words come out of Andrew's mouth. We're not swearers at our house. But we just about died laughing anyway.

Where was I? Oh, yes...dinner. I wasn't a complete fail. Everyone loved the perogies (and I mixed pureed carrots into the mashed potato filling so the anti-vegetable people still got veggied—ha!).

After dinner we finished off the evening with a fondue party. The Valentine's Day stuff at our local grocery store was already going on sale by the beginning of the week and we found this little fondue pot for pretty cheap (ie: less than $5) and it looked like fun so we grabbed it and...it was fun.

I think the dipping sauce was a little too hot for Miriam.

An open flame kept the dipping sauce warm so our fondue party morphed into a marshmallow roasting party of minuscule proportion.

After Daddy tried it the girls had to try as well. Rachel was proud of her roasted mini-marshmallow.

Miriam was prouder. Way prouder.

Benjamin was happy playing with his diaper pins. I don't know what it is about my kids and diaper pins but all three of them have been fascinated by them. I pin two pins together and they're magically transformed from a simple choking hazard into a rattle...or a disentanglement puzzle...or a teething toy.

The possibilities are endless.

So, Valentine's Day was nothing spectacular, but at least I got to spend it with the people I love best.

And as a special treat Andrew and I finally sat down to watch the most recent episode(s) of Downton Abby the next evening. That was nice...