Maybe Tomorrow Will Be Better?

If I were to assign trending topics to the things I've seen online today, right at the top of the list would be lots and lots and lots of people saying that Daylight Saving Time sucks big hairy donkey balls.

Y'all who said that are not wrong. There's something completely nonsensical about ripping an hour out of the morning and taping it to the end of the day and calling it "extra sunlight." We moved the sunlight; we didn't save it.

Most of the people who I saw shaking an angry fist at the fake time travel were parents of littles, which makes sense. It is rough when you have to try to convince a toddler that it is bedtime while the sun is up and then have that same toddler in your face at Way Too Early o'Clock.

But, for those of you feeling the pain of a 23-hour day because a little person is thrown all out of whack, I want to assure you of something I wish I had known five or so years ago -- it really does get better. Truly. Really.

Alexis proves it. I mean, she may not be the norm, but I think it's safe to say most kids grow out of the "completely ruined by the time change" thing.

I say that on a day when I had to wake Alexis up.

Wait. I should probably frame that statement. I think I've mentioned it before, but I can't find the post, so . . . I don't wake Alexis up for school. I don't need to. 99.9% of the time, her internal clock goes off at Way Too Early o'Clock. On school days, she uses that to her advantage. If she gets herself dressed, brushes her teeth, combs her hair, makes herself breakfast, and packs her lunch on days she doesn't like what's on the school menu, she gets free reign of the TV until it's bus time.

I do NOTHING. Absolutely, positively nothing. She just does it! By herself! All so she can have the remote! (Don't tell her, but she could talk me into getting her a pony in exchange for being awesomely independent on school days. Or a car. Or an island in the Mediterranean. IT'S THE GREATEST IS WHAT I'M SAYING.)

Today, though, for the first time in months, Alexis didn't wake up all by herself. It was really hard work for me to wander all the way down the hall and turn on her light, but I managed somehow. (And by hard work, I mean it took 0.0000004 seconds and zero effort.) I turned on her light, jumped in the shower, and heard the familiar sound of a bunch of rumbling buffalo crashing through the house a few minutes later.

The familiar sound of a bunch of rumbling buffalo crashing through the house is Alexis and her posse. The dogs AND cats follow her around in the morning. If she runs down the hall, they ALL run down the hall. The buffalo ran into the bathroom, ripped open the door, and yelled through the shower curtain, "MOM! I'M SO LATE!"

"It's OK," I replied. "You've got enough time to get ready."

And she did. She had PLENTY of time to get through the essentials.

She pressed her hyper-drive button, though. Instead of just getting through the essentials, she somehow zoomed through her routine and ended up with enough time to watch an episode of "Good Luck, Charlie."

Highly motivated, that one.

Which is all to say, sure, Daylight Saving Time messed with the 8-year old's head, but she still found way out the door just fine.

If you've got littles and they struggled today? Your future is looking up.

(Daylight Saving Time still blows, though. Ain't no doubt about that.)

Vegetarian Sloppy Joes

It has finally came to pass. Alexis finally had someone make fun of her for not eating meat.

It was bound to happen. Anything that makes you different can and will be used against you by someone who hasn't figured out that not eating meat is no different than not eating broccoli. I mean, it can be, but it's not in our house. We are a mixed group where vegetarians and meatatarians co-exist in peaceful harmony. Just don't ask me to stop at the grocery store for your ground beef because apparently I am very not good at buying the correct stuff.

ANYWAY.

Alexis and I ended up having a nice long talk about how some people get weird about the whole vegetarian thing. I was getting ready to settle into a fun discussion about how she can reply without being rude, but before I could, it became obvious. Real obvious.

The boy who made fun of her totally likes her.

As in LIKES her.

So I guess that thing where some little boys say mean things to the girls they like is alive and well. I would have thought evolution would have fixed that by now.

We talked some more and it came to light that the whole scenario played out because Alexis is "a weirdo who doesn't eat Sloppy Joes." Obviously, we had to fix that the only way I knew how. I made vegetarian Sloppy Joes for the kid. Now she's in love with them.

This recipe goes back years and years and years -- it was one of the first "split family" meals that I figured out. Long before Alexis (and the internet, for that matter) (OMG I AM OLD), I started making the vegetarian version for myself while the then boyfriend (and now husband) made the meatatarian version for himself. Over the years, we stopped making them for no particular reason, but that's ending now. They're back in the rotation.

Vegetarian Sloppy Joes (Or Meatatarian, if you like. Just swap in ground beef instead of veggie stuff.)

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small red pepper, chopped
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 bag Morningstar Recipe Crumbles
1 cup ketchup
1 cup barbecue sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Buns

1. Throw the olive oil and red pepper in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Cook until the red pepper just barely starts to soften.

2. Throw in the onion. Cook until the onion starts to turn clear.

3. It's the Morningstar Recipe Crumbles' turn to join the party. Beware, those buggers tend to stick to even non-stick pans, so be sure you stir often. Cook them until the Crumbles are warmed all the way through. They're pre-cooked, so it really is just a reheating game.

4. Toss in the ketchup, barbecue sauce, salt, and pepper. Heat thoroughly.

5. Really, that's it. I always think it needs to be more complicated than that, but it doesn't.

See?

She's pretty happy with a nice simple veggie version of the old classic.

Ready to Make the Leap