Tag Archives: parenting

Unexpected shortfall in U.S. cheese sauce reserves triggers chaos in pasta futures market

Last Friday, my wife had a date with a younger man. She took our six-year-old to a Mother-Son event at school.

With Mommy and Big Brother gone, Buster, New Baby, and I were left to our own boys’ night out. Incidentally, New Baby turned 1, so we should probably invent a new nickname.

I gave Buster the choice between his three favorite foods (i.e. things he will eat) for dinner: pizza, chicken strips, or mac & cheese. After a half hour distracted by LEGOs, he chose mac & cheese.

Normally, I would grab the elbows and the block of Velveeta and get to work, but since Big Brother was getting his night out, I decided we would go to Panera for dinner.

The anti-Panera

Not all fancy-pants like Panera, but the kids like it, especially when I sprinkle in some actual cheese.

We’d already discovered we cannot afford to feed the entire family at Panera. The misleading appearance of the go-up-to-the-counter-and-get-your-food-yourself façade of affordability crumbled during our first visit.

But we would only be getting a kid’s mac & cheese and a little something for me to share with New Baby. This was our chance to enjoy Panera on the cheap.

I got a half Panini and a half mac & cheese to go with Buster’s kids’ mac & cheese. We opted for water from the fountain. This was gonna be awesome; we were gonna do Panera on McDonald’s funds.

Can you hear the buzzer? That loud, long one that sounds like WROOOONG!

Two little bowls of macaroni and half a flat sandwich: $15.23.

As we went to get our water, Buster said, “I no want water. I want juice.”

“They don’t have juice here,” I lied. None that your kind can afford, I thought.

Even the water at Panera must be made from gold. They allow you a dental rinse cup. That’s fine for the kids, but since I’d be filling up on water tonight, I’d like a bigger cup.

You know how some restaurants make up for higher prices with large portions?  You know, a kid’s plate of chicken fingers an adult couldn’t finish? Panera has never heard of those places.

Buster’s and my dishes were the same size. They each contained about as much macaroni as he can hold in one of his three-year-old hands.  My $4.79 half Panini came out 21 cents short of a dollar per bite.

mining for pasta

Panera employees digging out precious nuggets of macaroni.

New Baby ate most of my macaroni and some of my sandwich. He was still hungry. I asked Buster, the skinny kid who never finishes his dinner, if his brother could have some of his. “No!” he replied, protecting his rare and precious noodles with his arms.

“Please.”

He sighed. “One.” Raising his index finger, he stressed, “One macaroni.”

After that, I resorted to scraping up the remaining cheese sauce from my bowl for New Baby.  That sauce was probably worth upwards of $3 on the open market and I felt fiscally irresponsible for overlooking it before.

There's cheese in them thar hills

Little-known fact: When cheese sauce is first pumped out of the ground, it has a dark color. It only acquires its lighter hue during the dangerous and expensive refining process.

Buster’s kids’ “meal” came with a little tube of yogurt. I’ve never seen him attack a side item with such greed. He twisted that tube into a knot eking out every last bit of sustenance.

We cleaned our plates as if our food were made of silk and pearls, which are probably less expensive per ounce. Then I did the wholesome, fatherly thing: I took them to get filled up on ice cream.

 

 

 

Waiting for a bottle of scotch together counts as family time

An extremely generous friend sent me some expensive scotch. I’m not a big boozer, but I do enjoy a taste of good scotch. And far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth. That would be rude.

With a delivery of this nature, an adult has to sign for it. UPS notified me that my delivery would arrive on Wednesday.

If you are a regular visitor, you may know that I am a part-time stay-at-home dad and a part-time worker at a full-time job. If this description confuses you, try living it.

My wife works floating shifts. When she works, I use vacation time and mind the boys. It’s not the perfect situation, but it helps make ends meet.

On Wednesday, my wife had an afternoon shift. When I took over childcare, UPS hadn’t come yet. No problem, we’d just stay home.

At 3:30 it was time to get Big Brother from school. We’d only be gone for 20 minutes, since we were leaving early enough to get a good spot in the car line and could be among the first out. There’d be little chance of missing UPS and its precious, precious cargo.

Leaving our neighborhood, I passed the telltale brown truck driving into it. We were still early, so I turned around. The UPS truck stopped at a house on a cross street from ours. I drove home and parked in the driveway.

The truck didn’t come. I drove down the street. It was parked in front of house at the far end of our street now, heading our way. When I turned around again the truck was gone. I was about to give up when I saw it parked in a cul-de-sac off our street. Who knew we live in a neighborhood of mail order fiends? But I suppose they need their booze too, or their blow-up dolls, or whatever. I returned to our driveway. It was getting late, but surely he would come to us next.

At last, the truck came down our street again. There was just enough time to sign, accept the coveted package and rush off to the school.

Two houses down, there’s a cross street. Defying all logic, the UPS truck turned down that street. “No! You were on our street – two houses away!” I pounded my fist on the steering wheel, as I envisioned myself explaining to the principle why I had abandoned my child at school:

“I couldn’t get here; I was waiting in my driveway for a man to give me a bottle of scotch. No, I’m not neglectful. The little boys were right there with me. We were all waiting for scotch together.”

I grunted a little Chewbacca roar as I drove toward the school. We found our place at the end of the fully developed car line and waited. A 20-minute round trip was a forlorn dream now.

There was a sticky note from the meandering driver waiting on our door. It promised two more delivery attempts. But what if he comes at the same time each day? I have terrible visions of that bottle retreating, unloved, to Scotland. Terrible visions.

Just the right age

UPDATE: The delivery came at 6 p.m. on Thursday. I am happy to report we were able to save this little beauty from the stigma of rejection.

Heaven is boring

On Friday morning, I got to get up and go to work. Doesn’t sound like much of a treat, does it?

It was a delight.

It wasn’t so pleasant because of what it was; it was pleasant for what it wasn’t.

It’s wasn’t getting three kids ready for school. Only Big Brother actually goes to school, but since society might frown on my leaving Buster and New Baby home alone, they all have to get ready to roll.

This is how my morning went, Monday through Thursday:

  • Drag Big Brother out of bed by his ankles while he complains about being too tired.
  • Two fresh diapers and one “Put on some pants or you’re going to school in your underwear.”
  • Distinguish big baby clothes from small toddler clothes.
  • Find pairs of nearly matching socks for three boys of different sizes from our box of random floating socks.
  • Make the boys breakfast while New Baby attempts to climb up my leg.
  • Yell, “Leave him alone and eat your breakfast!”
  • Yell, “Leave him alone and eat your breakfast!” another dozen times.
  • Be caught off guard because it’s Bring [Specific Object] to School Day and we don’t have [Specific Object].
  • Find as many hats and winter coats as children, or as close to it as possible.
winter socks

“I can’t find my boots.”

  • “Put your shoes on.”
  • “Well, where are they?”
  • “Then go get them and put them on!”
  • Back the car out of the garage so door will open wide enough for New Baby’s carrier.
  • Come back inside for New Baby. Leave muddy tracks in kitchen. Look at clock. Shrug. Make mental note to prepare for after-work slovenliness scolding.
Put the shoe on the other foot

Getting ready, one wrong foot at a time.

  • Field ridiculously detailed questions about German army helmets on drive to school. “I don’t know,” is not an acceptable answer.
  • Carry Big Brother’s school bag into school for him because his hands are cold.
  • Ask him where his gloves are.
  • Be informed that his gloves are at the bottom of the bag you are carrying for him.
  • Take three children into school; leave one there; take two back to car.
  • Drive to Mommy’s work. Drop children off. Debate confessing about muddy kitchen floor. Decide silence is golden.
  • Drive to work. Find last parking spot on roof of structure or move on to more distant ramp with long, cold walk.
  • Rush to catch up on work.
  • Stay late to compensate for late arrival.

On Friday, my morning went like this:

  • Wake up, get dressed, go to work.
  • Park in usual, convenient spot. Have a hot bowl of oatmeal at desk and ease into workload.

A little slice of Heaven, Friday morning.

It makes me appreciate my boring routine. I think I like boring.

It makes me appreciate my wife. This week was an aberration. She dances this Morning Tango with the boys most days. She does it better, and she doesn’t get the floor dirty. I might not notice if she did, but I know she doesn’t. It’s not her style. It’s gold to me that she takes such tumult in stride, so her husband can stay happily boring.

"Dont play ball in the house!"

It we’re not running too late, we like to fit in a “Don’t play ball in the house!” before school.

 

Einstein didn’t have to poop on the potty!

Buster is adept at many skills for a two-year-old. He holds a pencil like a pro and draws abstract art as if preparing for his gallery opening. He makes up his own songs to serenade his Mommy at bedtime. He knows his way around an iPad better than I do and makes that little guy leap over the stampeding bulls in his favorite game with dexterity to make my head spin.

Helping with the baby

Teaching Daddy how to manage those tricky snaps on the baby’s Onesie.

Yet there are some toddler skills that Buster is not ahead of the curve on. It would be one thing if he didn’t have the capacity to do certain things, but he does. It’s more of a defiance issue, although even that doesn’t truly capture the spirit of it. It’s defiance mixed with indifference.

Buster thinks he’s pretty smart. I don’t know if he styles himself a genius, but his affinity for playing jokes can only lead to the conclusion that he believes he’s pretty clever. And a clever boy shouldn’t be asked to learn things he sees little use for in the rest of his life.

Just as an older child might ask about the long-term utility of Algebra, I hear, in Buster’s spirited remonstrations, the philosophical query: “When will I ever use big boy underpants in real life?” Such garments hold no candle to the convenience of the diaper.

“Einstein didn’t have to poop on the potty!” He doesn’t know anything about Einstein, and he doesn’t say this literally, but I can see in his eyes the formation of an idealized, toddler image of genius. His aggravated eyes tell me that the child genius would never waste his time on something so trivial.

Theory of potty relativity

“Everything is relative, my dear. Poop wherever you like!”

“Galileo didn’t pronounce K, F, or S sounds!” I bet he did, though this is not really about Galileo. It’s about a toddler whose opinion of his own world view dismisses the need to do inconvenient things.

Pope Urban's bad boy

Galileo Galilei: also too clever for his own good. The inquisition was not amused by his jokes.

It’s easy to replace the unnecessary consonants in words with the ever useful D and T. Mommy and Daddy understand the words formed by these substitutions, and since they are the only people he will ever need ask for a bowl of Lipton Noodle Doup, there’s no point in wasting effort on the unnecessary.

Buster can make the S sound. I know, because I’ve hounded him into doing it. He just doesn’t see the need. It is, after all, marginally more difficult for his tongue than making the D sound, so why bother?

Because Daddy is a trouble maker. One day, daddy wouldn’t make him any doup until he made the S sound.

“If you want soup, say ssssssss,” Daddy demanded.

Buster held out as long as he could, but he really wanted that soup.

Finally, he relented. “Sssssss,” he said.

“Now, say sssssoup,” the heartless Daddy persisted.

Buster sighed. “Ssssss . . . doup.”

That was close enough. Buster got his soup. And the last laugh.

Clever boy.