Nemo and Dinner - A Fish Tale.

Yesterday I flushed my first fish.

That is not to say that many fish haven't been flushed at the J house before this.  This was just the first one I couldn't pretend not  to notice until RJ got home I found myself dealing with.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Let me start at the beginning.

A few months ago, my boys "won" a couple of goldfish at the school Fall Festival, where by "win" I mean it was the end of the night and they were walking by and the volunteers couldn't leave until all the fish had homes.

Awesome, huh?

On the way home, plastic bags of fish in hand, we made a quick stop at the local Dollar General, where the cashier saw my purchase - a large glass bowl and the last container of goldfish food in the store - and started laughing.  "Been to the Fall Festival, huh?  We've had a run on these tonight."

We got the fish home and settled.  Zj named his Nemo (Not a clown fish not a clown fish so wrong so wrong! Breathe.  Let it go, mj, let it go.) and cj named his, quite inexplicably, Dinner.  Well, I guess it was in a bowl...  

 The next day, I woke up with a feeling of dread, fully expecting one or both fish to be dead.

Nope.  Still going strong.

Next day, same thing.

It was at that point that RJ commented that maybe it was time to get the fish a "real" home.  

Uh, oh.  I knew where this was going...

$147 later, Dinner and Nemo were set up in a fancy new home, and I was not so silently resigning myself to the fact that we were officially a pet-owning family.

And then, a few days later, Nemo bit it.  Or maybe it was Dinner.  They were goldfish, for goodness sake, and goldfish are not known for their distinct personality and appearance.  Anyway, we had a floater.  

Thankfully, RJ was available to deal with the dead fish carcass and also the inevitable wailing that accompanied it.  

Promises of new fish were made.  

What the Hell???  We just got rid of this one and you're promising the kid a new one??? Really??? We will never get rid of them all at this rate...

And so it began, this cycle of buying fish, dying fish, water testing, ammonia levels, pH balances, water changes, filter cleaning, heat lamp purchases, and cool new tiki huts for them to live in.

I managed to be mostly an observer, only occasionally asking things like "Have you fed the fish today?" and "Is that one dead?  It looks dead.  Oh, there it goes."

I thought once the novelty wore off, the boys would forget all about them, but they seem to love watching them.

It's like watching an episode of Spongebob, I guess, without all the butt and booger jokes.

And then the day came that I had to get involved in the whole waste management business.    I would have totally put it off and waited for RJ like I usually do, but this fish wasn't just dead, it was dead and rotten.  

I prepared zj as best as I could.  

"We need to flush a fish.   It's dead."

I'm not really known for my sensitivity.  Is there training for that?

Anyway, zj took it pretty well, all things considered, and after a couple solemn words said over Newly Dead Fish - we stopped naming them a couple months in.  It seemed pointless when they all look the same AND when we were going through them like toilet paper, literally - I let zj flush it, and the deed was done.

Later that afternoon, zj asked for a paper and pencil and turned out this wonderful artwork:

My favorite part is how the fish is floating happily in the toilet, waiting to be flushed.  Well, that, and the fact that he seemed to equate his love for his dead sewer-bound fish with his love for me.  Does he think I'm gonna die too, and there will be an endless supply of Mamas who look and act ALMOST like me who will come in and take my place almost seamlessly?  

Whatever.

Most importantly, fish are the end of the line here as far as pets go.

There will NOT be a dog.

There will NOT.

Merry Christmas to all.

A hair affair.

My boys are hairy.

Both of them were born with a thick head of dark hair that never fell out and continued to grow at an alarming rate.  Both had first haircuts around the age of 4 months out of necessity, and both of them have had regular - like monthly - haircuts ever since.

Again, this is something that I deem an absolute necessity, unlike say, FOOD or something.  It's what our family chooses to use pretty much all it's expendable income on.

So basically, they are no strangers to the barber shop.

Zj has gone to the same barber (almost) exclusively since he was a few months old.   He always walks in, sits down, and zones out while either RJ or I (ok, usually RJ) tells the barber "Same as last time.  Remember it parts on the right."  He leaves with the same cute little boy haircut as last time, neatly trimmed and parted, bangs JUST SO, and we do it again in a month or so and all is right with the world.

And zj could not have cared less.  It's hair, he has some, it must be washed and combed, the end.

And that was that...  until suddenly it wasn't.

One morning, as I was helping him get ready for school, zj asked me "Mama, do you think my hair could get all, you know, spiky on the top?  Like Darryl's? Or Wayne's?"  Yes, those are real children.  There is also one named Junior in his class.  This ain't the city, y'all.  


Now, I had met Darryl on a recent school field trip, and he sports a full-blown mohawk that has a somewhat unfortunate rattail on the back.  So I said, "Oh honey, you have to have a special haircut for that kind of spike.  Sorry.  Yours isn't cut right."

Zj took it very well, and didn't mention it again.

Whew, dodged that bullet, didn't I?

A few weeks later, I took him to get a haircut.  He hopped up in the chair and promptly announced "I need my hair cut so it's all spiky on top."

Oh my.

I made a lot of large head-shaking and negative hand motions behind his back, and he left looking like this:

None the wiser that he had EXACTLY the same haircut as usual and a little gel thrown in for good measure.  The next morning as he was getting ready for school, he asked me to help him spike it.  I made some half-hearted attempts, then told him, quite sadly, that it must not be cut right again.  So sad, isn't it?  Maybe next time.   I should have won an Oscar.  Or at least a daytime Emmy.  

And so it began.  The back and forth of trying to appease his wish for spiky hair with my desire to keep him looking like a little boy - MY LITTLE BOY - just a little bit longer.

Until last week when it was time for a haircut yet again.  RJ was going to take him, and he asked me before they left what he should have done.

And I caved.  I told RJ to let zj decide.  It was his hair, after all.

Rj texted me this picture immediately after the haircut, and after I finished bawling I had to admit it was pretty cute.

So now, zj has a "look" he wants to accomplish every day.  Some days he tells me to "just spike it up in the middle" and other days he requests "make the front part stand up" or occasionally he asks for "spiky all over."

Good grief.  

The kid has more looks than I do.  

As someone who has had basically the same hairstyle for 20 years, ever since getting over that big bang 80's look, anyway, and who gets her hair cut every October whether it needs it or not, this whole concept is foreign to me.

Not to mention the fact that we have to use PRODUCT to get his hair to stand up.

Rj came home with some tub of something or other and I noticed it was Paul Mitchell brand.

"How much did this cost?" I asked sweetly.

"Uh, I think it was $16 or so," RJ answered, carefully not making eye contact.

My KID has a tub of $16 hair product?  Really?

He's five.

At some point, he will be six, then eleven, then a teenager.

What's next?  Brow waxing?  Hair dye? Piercings?!?!?

Clearly, I'm not qualified to parent this one.  

Someone send help.  And a manual.  And maybe a couple bottles of gin.

It's going to be a long decade or so.

Homemade bread. Don't run away! It's really easy.

Making bread scares me.

It seems too... precise, maybe, to be something I could be good at.

I had a bread machine a long time ago, and even that proved to be a disappointing affair.  My bread -always made from a mix, by the way - would always stick to the sides, or fall apart, or if it did turn out to be a presentable loaf, it just didn't taste like something that was worth all that effort, especially since you could buy fresh bread at Kroger for $1.

True confession: Hi!  I'm mj, and before last week, I had never purchased yeast.


But I've always dreamed of being able to pull a fresh loaf of bread out of the oven to serve with soup or whatever, and last week, for the first time, I did just that.  I got online, read about a million recipes, and came up with a combination of them all that suited me just fine.

WHAT YOU NEED:
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 packages active dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
3 cups plus maybe a little extra all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
melted butter

WHAT YOU DO:
Mix the warm water - I just used water straight out of the tap that I had allowed to run on hot for a couple minutes - sugar and yeast in a small bowl and let it set for 5 minutes or so.  It get all foamy and yucky and cruddy on top.  This is a good thing.

In a mixing bowl, combine the salt and flour.   Gradually add in the yeast mixture, until a ball forms.  I found that I needed to add a couple tablespoons of flour on top of the original 3 cups to get it to stick together properly.

Knead it for five minutes, either by hand, or if you are as fortunate as I am to have a Kitchen Aid mixer with a dough hook, use that.  That's what I did, and it worked out well.

Divide it into two pieces, and form into two loaf shapes on a lightly buttered cookie sheet.  I was going for a French loaf kind of look but it came out a little flat, so next time I will use a loaf pan.  Cover it with plastic wrap that has been sprayed with Pam, and let it set in a warm corner of your kitchen for half an hour.  It will not quite double in size.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Put a little water on a cookie sheet and put it on the bottom rack of your oven.  Bake the bread for 15 minutes.  After about six or seven minutes, brush the loaves with the melted butter.

This bread was dense and chewy and salty and sweet and near perfection.

I plan to serve it to my family at least once a week forever.

Your family should be so lucky.

Caramel corn - the cheater's way.

I love a good batch of caramel corn.

Especially if it has some peanuts thrown in for good measure.

What I don't love, however, is messing with things like timers and candy thermometers and CORRECT temperatures and all that sort of craziness.  Apparently I have the patience and attention span of a hungry toddler who missed his nap and who needs to be changed and who is not satisfied with anything that is not sitting on his Mama's lap, thereby preventing her from doing anything even remotely resembling messing with timers and candy thermometers and...  Well, you get the picture.

Not that I know anything at all about THOSE kind of children.

Right, cj? 

Anyway, this recipe is wonderful in its simplicity, and it tastes damn good, too.

WHAT YOU NEED:

5-6 cups popped popcorn.  I used air popped, but microwave would work, too.  Just get a variety that's pretty plain without a lot of seasonings and butter.

1/2 cup butter at room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup nuts.  I used mixed nuts, because that's what I had.  Any kind would work.  

WHAT YOU DO:
Preheat your oven to 350.

Using your mixer, cream together the butter and brown sugar in a large bowl.  Use the biggest one you have.  You will think it's too big.  It's not too big.  You'll see.  After it is well mixed, turn the mixer up a bit and keep beating it until it's kinda fluffy.

Now here's the fun part.  Dump all the popcorn and nuts into the bowl.  See?  I TOLD you to use a big bowl.  Using whatever method you can think of, mix the popcorn into the brown sugar/butter mixture.  I found my hands worked quite nicely.  Be careful, though.  You don't want to crush up all your popcorn.  Be gentle.  It will take a while, and you will start to think this recipe is crap and I'm insane.  While it's true I may be a fried chicken short of a church picnic sometimes, this will work.

After it's well mixed, spread it out on a cookie sheet, and bake it for about 10 minutes.  Stir it a time or two while it's baking.

Take it out, let it cool completely, and then store in in an airtight container for however long you need to.

Which won't be long.

Because you will eat it all up.

It's a dying art form.

I'm a member of a dying breed.

I still send out - GASP! - paper Christmas cards.

In the mail.

With stamps.

On the Pony Express.

Ok, I guess saying I "still" do it is a little misleading.  I actually only started it a few years ago, after zj was born, in order to have an excuse to send out yet another pic of my cute kid to those relatives and friends who didn't have internet access.  Yes, they still exist in the world.  And my back woods redneck family boasts quite a few of them.

This is zj at almost two.

Pretty cute, huh?

Anyway, it used to be fairly easy.  When zj was a baby, and even a toddler, he was pretty willing to smile at the camera, baby!  Cheese for Mama!  and I could usually get a good shot or twelve.  He was Pavlovian in his response to the flash.  

However, once I added cj to the mix, it got decidedly less awesome and more like herding cats.  

But still, I soldiered on. 

Every year around November-something, I break out the Santa hats and the good camera, down a couple stiff drinks, and try to get a picture of both of them looking at the camera at the same time.

This year was my third attempt at such a feat, and it still hasn't happened quite like I would like it to.

Every year, I say never again.

But then come November, the urge to yell at my kids for 3 hours while they are wearing a Santa hat and I am wielding a camera hits and hits hard.

So I'm never gonna say never.

What about you?  Do you send out Christmas cards?  Or is it just me?

Eyes of blue.

Cj is not really the social sort.

He loves me, and sitting on my lap is his favorite hobby.

He adores his daddy, tolerates his brother more often than not, and has  grown fond of several aunts, uncles and cousins over the past few months.

Other than that, though, he really has little use for other people.

Since I'm a bit of a homebody, too, this usually isn't an issue.  However, we occasionally have to venture out into big bad world to do necessary things like buy milk and bread and eggs, and these little excursions are often challenging for cj.

Mainly because everywhere we go, all the flippin' old people try to talk to him.

It's just a THING, I guess, to talk to little kids.  Maybe it's what normal people do.  Personally, I try to avoid speaking directly to anyone I don't share a house or some sort of genetic material with.  It's just the way I am, and it's served me well for 37 years.


Last week, cj and I were out doing a bit of Christmas shopping at the Dollar Tree - hey, don't judge, times are hard, ya know - and we passed a possibly 108 or 109 year old lady in the aisle.  Of COURSE, she had to try to chat cj up.

"WHAT PRETTY BROWN EYES YOU HAVE," she screamed at him.  I guess she was maybe perhaps just a BIT hard of hearing.

Usually when cj is faced with a stranger trying to interact with him, he does some sort of strange twitchy shoulder-to-ear move, averts his gaze, and occasionally barks at them.

He was feeling brave on this day, though.  Maybe it was the feeling of empowerment he gets from shopping at the Dollar Tree.  I can afford anything in this store!!!  Anything at all!!! Oh wait, that's me.

Anyway...

"No, Bebe Booper (Baby Cooper) bwue (blue) eyes," he answered.  Totally incorrectly, by the way.

Now I know I'm a bit biased, but I think cj's definitely BROWN eyes are amazingly beautiful.  I feel certain that these eyes will get him out of all sorts of trouble in his lifetime, and possibly INTO trouble of another sort...

See?

But anyway, back to the story.

"No, Bebe Booper (Baby Cooper) bwue (blue) eyes," he answered.

"OH NO!" the little old lady shrieked.  "YOU HAVE BROWN EYES."

"BWUE," cj said firmly, and turned his head away, because that was THAT.

"NO, YOUR EYES ARE DEFINITELY BROWN," the little old lady bellowed.

Seriously?  You're going to come into the Dollar Tree on a Thursday morning and pick a fight with a two year old?  Ok, lady, whatever.  You probably deserve whatever's coming to you.

"BWUE BWUE BWUE BWUE!!!!" cj screamed, then began to hiss and bark at her.  Typically hissing is a last resort for cj, reserved for rare occasions like when I insist on a nap or refuse a sucker.  The barking's pretty typical, though.

This exchange was quickly escalating in volume and before too long we were gathering a bit of an audience.  Apparently yelling matches between two year old brown eyed boys and Methusleah aged ladies are not the norm in the Dollar Tree.  It's more a Wal-Mart thing, I guess.

At this point, I turned the cart around, dodged several displays, and made for the door.

Once we were safely strapped in the car and heading home, I could breathe again.

Fighting with a little old lady in the middle of a store is not my idea of a good time, and I wanted to just forget all about it.

Cj, however, had a different way of handling it.

All the way home, he kept muttering under his breath "Bebe Booper no bwown eyes.  Bebe Booper BWUE eyes."

 Awesome.

At 2 and not quite a half, not only is he anti-social and willing to argue his convictions even when he's dead wrong, now he's a grudge holder, too.

Can't wait to see what happens when he's three.