She's Saving It For Later, She Says

I have a work thing this week, which basically means I don't know what day of the week it is. Or month. Is it a month? I forget because all concepts related to time cease to exist when I'm locking in a hotel conference room for 10 hours per day. The good news is that while my work things have long days, but they tend to come with fun nights. There are outings and such.

This whole thing is taking place in Pittsburgh this year (last year was Orlando), which has the little bonus of keeping the travel out of the equation for me. Wooo! It's nice to sleep in one's own bed. It's even nicer to be able to drive one's car to outtings and such because I lost the ability to ride on a bus at some point when I was pregnant with Mila.

Children ruin everything. Including my complete lack of understanding of car sickness. I GET IT NOW.

ANYWAY.

There was an outing, I had a car ... I decided to be that nice person who saves a few extra people from the bus ride. It's a real good way to make friends.

Unless, of course, your children are jerks.

Mila has to be woken up an hour before we leave in the morning. She watches TV for that hour, which is the only way she can manage to become a human. Seriously, she's not functional until she has stared blankly at the TV. She always has breakfast during that hour, except that the kid can't even manage to remember to eat the food that is right in front of her. That's how lost she is when she first wakes up. Food placed right in front of her is invisible. She will even complain she's hungry while a waffle sits there staring at her. That means that her breakfast often becomes "to go."

I have always assumed she eats said breakfast while in the car. I find empty bowls, after all. She declares herself "All done." I have lots of reason to trust that the kid eats.

SHE TOTALLY DOESN'T.

I learned this because while giving co-workers a ride to the evening outing, one of them came across the breakfast stash. That co-worker happens to be the kind of person with a Big Title who speaks like four languages and is super duper smart and professional and all that, plus he's a total neat freak. Like, I aspire to his level of perfection. It's super immpressive.

Welp.

He now thinks I keep Waffle/Cereal/Toast/Pancake Casserole in the back of my car. I have no way of talking my way out of it.

THANKS, MILA.

I Found A Way To Get Mila Up Early

I started my weekend entirely too early. I muchly prefer when Saturdays are lazy and rolling, with not much happening until long after the clock reads double digits. Alas, this Saturday Alexis had a cheer competition. She had to be at said competition at YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME o'clock, performed at YEP STILL TOO EARLY o'clock, and then was done in time to get to her usual Saturday morning dance class.

We do stupid things for our kids. Stupid things like sit through a cheer competition and then drive 45 minutes to dance classes. Oh, and we do it all before lunch.

With a preschooler in tow.

To be fair, Mila could have stayed home and slept her way through the cheer competition, but HAHAHAHAHAHA. She doesn't sleep alone. If I'm up, she's up. That's that. I can't stick a toe out from under the blankets without her sensing a disturbance, so of course she was up and running around in time to accompany me to the cheer competition.

It turns out, there was a reason she SUPER wanted to go.

It wasn't because she wanted to watch the cheerleaders. To be fair, she did watch intently for a while, but then she became bored and started acting a fool. She wasn't there because she wanted to act a fool, either.

No, Mila goes to cheer competitions for the vending machines.

For real.

I must have once let her pick a snack because now she thinks it's her duty to return to that EXACT vending machine to collect another snack. She can walk through the giant arena and guide us me to the exact spot that holds her precious snacks, and then dutifully picks out what she wants. It's ... something.

Let's make one thing clear - it takes a lot more than a snack out of a vending machine to make me want to sit through an early cheer thing on a Saturday.

Vegetarian Lettuce Wraps

I've been digging through old recipes looking for things I've forgotten about, and this one jumped to the top of my list.

Vegetarian Lettuce Wraps.

There is no good reason why I haven't made these in a while. They are SO good. They're easy. The girls both like them.

So I'm tossing them back in the rotation.

Vegetarian Lettuce Wraps

1 tablespoon peanut oil
1 package firm tofu, drained well (Meatetarians can absolutely sub in ground beef here)
1 cup corn (frozen or fresh, I'm not about to judge you)
1/2 cup carrots cut into "matchsticks"
1/2 cup shelled edamame
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon red chile paste
Lettuce for wrapping all of the other fun stuff up in that list

1. Throw the oil in a large, non-stick skillet and turn the heat on medium. Toss in the block of tofu and shred it with a fork.

2. Keep shredding the tofu as it browns. It's going to take a few minutes for it to cook thoroughly.

3. Once the tofu is a nice golden/light brown color, toss in the corn, carrots, and edamame. Stir things up.

4. In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, and chile paste. Stir well with a fork.

5. Once the carrots are as soft as you want them (I left them a bit crunchy), toss the sauce in with the veggies and tofu. Stir everything up.

6. Scoop a tablespoon or so of the fun stuff onto a piece of lettuce and wrap it all up like a burrito.

7. Glare at your kid every time she reaches into the bowl of tofu and veggies and grabs a piece of tofu. THAT'S NOT HOW IT'S DONE, MILA AND ALEXIS.

8. Enjoy!