As I type this, both boys are asleep.

!!!!

I know!  And we didn’t even go anywhere or have any extraneous activities today!  Well, at least the little tykes didn’t, unless you call being forced to go outside in the cold to get some fresh air because THERE’S NO PRECIPITATION ENJOY IT!!! overly tiring.  Which they did.  Since they came in five minutes after being sent out.  No worries:  they were sent back outside to learn to endure. Just call us the Suburban Wilderness Training Facility.

So, my week of meal planning is coming to a close.  I would say it’s been fairly successful!  Foods were sampled and found wanting, which I expected, but many foods were wholy consumed.  None of the recipes were fairly complicated or time consuming.  JJ was able to watch or at least supervise on the counter (getting out “his” knife to chop up an onion:  takes a while with a butter knife, and it’s a bit of a squishy process that’s soon abandoned).  Abe was able to smear these foods in his hair and then fling them off of his tray just as easily as with the other foods.  We’ve had leftovers that have been eaten; we haven’t had to slog our way through too much of anything (nothing like two people trying to put away a lasagna:  oy, that’s a heavy week).  And I still like my kitchen!

I’ve even planned out food for next week:  gasp!

I’ve also implemented something else into my weekly regime:  exercise.  Yes, yes, I’m back on the Leslie Sansone wagon, walking away my pounds.  I’m finding I exercise more when it’s not my goal to exercise, as in “hmm, it’d be *nice* to exercise, but that’s not my goal this week.  My goal is meal planning:  everything else (exercise, implementing a cleaning schedule, intentionally parenting my children, etc.) is just icing on the cake – or the overnight coffeecake that I’m preparing tonight.  It’s not a “have to”:  it’s a “get to”.   I’m sure many of you wonder why things have to be so complicated; some of the people who live in my head wonder that as well.  If they ever learn to agree, it could be a fantastic, or fairly frightening, thing.

So:  two goals this week – meal planning, exercise.  One intentional, one kinda subversive.  Like exercise saying to meal planning, “Take that!  I’m a priority, too!  Thbththht!”  Poor, overlooked second child.

Like the poor second child in my house, who has learned to take his shrieking abilities to a new level.  Now With Ear Drum Shattering Abilities!  Able To Infuriate All Other Individuals In Seconds Flat!  All Without A Blink Of An Eye!  For Three Easy Payments Of A Tub of Cottage Cheese And A Banana!  Directions:  look at said creature with a hint of anything other than adoration, or have said creature come within touching distance of another short genetically-similiar creature, and the piercing sirens begin.  To turn off:  bark, “USE!YOUR!WORDS!” and expect a look of scorn that would impress an adolescent male, or flick the mouth, to which shrieking turns to sobbing and anguish.   Which is less deafening, but more Grandmother-sympathy-inducing.  Weigh your options carefully.

Daily Drivel, Foodie Facts