Wednesday during dinner: “NO ONE cook dinner tomorrow. I am making dinner. Breakfast for dinner!”

Thursday morning: “I want eggs for breakfast. No wait! I am making breakfast for dinner.”

Thursday after school: “For breakfast for dinner, we are having cereal and toast.”

30 minutes later: “Actually, Mom, you make the toast.”

5 minutes later: “And never mind about the cereal.”

5 minutes later: “I will be the waiter instead and bring the food to the table.”

2 minutes later: “Actually, I will just set the table. You bring the food.”

2 minutes later: “Can you bring the plates to the table and I will put them where they go?”

1 minute later: “Oh! You made chili. Good.”

I must preface this by saying I don’t think we eat out all that often. Maybe once a month. And yet:

That right there is 50 plastic cups acquired via kids’ meals at restaurants. Not shown are the two or three more that are in use/in the fridge/in the dishwasher/under the beds/in the car.

I send these things out into the backyard in the summer and hope they won’t come back. I use them to rinse paint brushes and hope they’ll get stained enough to toss. I pack snacks in them for school (because I have 50 matching lids, too, you know) and hope they get forgotten.

AND YET. FIFTY.

Obviously I have a hoarding problem. But they’re not the right kind of plastic to recycle and am I just supposed to throw them away? I guess I spent too many years eating cereal out of margarine tubs. Because getting rid of these perfectly! good! cups! just sounds sinful to me.

…how 9 days’ worth of laundry could yield 14 shirts for one child,  but only 3 pairs of underwear for the other.

…how a four-inch-long chicken bone ended up in the very bottom of the dishwasher.

…what to do with the whole (feet, head, feathers) goose and whole duck that my next-door neighbor just handed me at the back door. Thank god we have a spare refrigerator in the basement. Which I may never open again.

But I did take a picture before I shut the door, which I hid after the jump (along with a little more skeevy detail)  in case your sensibilities are delicate.

This is what happened. He called and said “Meet me at your back door, I have two things for you.”

I open the door and he is standing there with the duck and the goose. I am rendered temporarily speechless. He tells me that Jeff said he wanted them and that he (Jeff) would pluck them and everything. And for now they should go in the fridge.

I grab one bird’s foot in each hand, then I have to ask my neighbor to open my door so I can get back into the house. I get downstairs and open the fridge with my foot. On my first attempt, the duck’s neck is hanging off the shelf in a horrible way. Meanwhile, the goose is too big and heavy for me to stuff in with one hand. OMG I’m going to have to touch its neck.

I set the goose down on the floor and get an old towel. I move the duck’s creepy dangling neck. Then I pick up the goose by the foot (with one hand) and the neck, wrapped in a towel (with the other hand). I am worried that it won’t fit on the shelf, but I manage to get it in.

I close the door, but not without taking a picture first.

This morning on NPR I heard this story about the return of Soup Man, aka the Soup Nazi. I might have to add “eat soup even if it’s 100 degrees” to my BlogHer ’10 must-do list, because it made me hungry. I’m a little skeptical, though, because the original soup Nazi, Al Yeganeh, doesn’t make the soup or even own the business anymore (the current owner says he “remains involved”).

At my first job in New York, I worked in a building on 57th St. and Broadway. Mr. Yeganeh held court a few blocks away, at a counter that opened directly onto the street. Even before the Seinfeld episode, it was a big deal to go there. The line was really long, and the anxiety was real, because the guy already had a reputation and it was based in true fact. WOE BETIDE the person who didn’t respect the line, the meticulous ordering procedure, or the need to “have your money ready!”

It cost $7 for a cup of soup. It came with bread, a piece of chocolate, and two or three grapes. At that time, that was a lot of cash for me to spend on lunch (actually, that still seems like a lot, now that I eat leftovers for lunch every single day). So it was a very special treat.

But it was every bit as good as you’ve heard.

Because “good last report card of the year fondue” doesn’t trip off the tongue quite as well. But it was a double celebration. Our crunchy school doesn’t give letter grades (actually, the level of detail on the report cards is amazing and I can’t begin to imagine how long it takes the teachers to do them). But everything that had been a “needs improvement” became “improving” and several “improvings” became “significant strengths.” It definitely called for some cheesy, chocolaty goodness.

I know, picture of the wrong kid. Oops!

Happy Father’s Day to all.

On your fifth birthday, you hunted Easter eggs and wore your new frog boots to church.

During brunch, you sweetly sang “Two little blackbirds sitting on a hill…” Then you sang it while accompanying yourself on the ukulele. Then you sang it while accompanying yourself on the drums. Then we said “Enough singing.”

You played with your Lego Star Wars X-Wing fighter allllll day, except when you were making movies, starring Zhu Zhu Pets, with your sister. (But one of your favorite presents was the giant cardboard box that came in the mail from Grammy.)

Instead of a cake, you asked for parfaits. This turned out to mean chai tea concentrate, milk, strawberries, whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and red and green sugar crystals in a glass. With a piece of cinnamon-pecan roll on top to hold the candles.

You rode your bike to the playground so you could go on the spinny merry-go-round. Later you biked to a different park just so you could roll down the sledding hill.

In 10 days you’ll attend kindergarten orientation.

Just don’t run too far too fast, okay?

I don’t think too many (white, Midwestern) 8-year-old girls sit down to a homecooked Indian meal on their birthday and eat it with gusto.

I don’t think too many eight-year-old girls accidentally open their younger brother’s birthday present and really wish they could have those boys’ size 5 plaid Bermuda shorts for their own.

I don’t think too many eight-year-old girls give away 99% of their Easter candy, cheerfully, because they can’t eat it thanks to their recently installed orthodontic devices.

I don’t think too many eight-year-old girls want to spend part of their birthday building a Lego spaceship with their uncle.

Then again, I don’t think too many eight-year-old girls are as great as you are.

Kids of the World:

The information I am about to reveal may shock you. It may amaze you and anger you. It may, in fact, confirm your own suspicions.

Through careful observation, sophisticated information-gathering technology, and top-secret intelligence techniques, I have answered the question that children have been asking for generations.

What happens after kids go to bed? There’s a reason we are being held prisoner in our bedrooms, isn’t there? I know there is.

Kids of the world, I must answer with an emphatic yes. My investigation has revealed the following practices by our parents:

• Consumption of contraband foods, including but not limited to desserts and candy, multiple servings thereof; chips; French fries; and other so-called “not good for you” items (In fact, “not good for kids” seems to be code for “just fine for adults especially in large quantities.”)
• Consumption of contraband beverages (including a substance that looks remarkably like grape juice but most certainly doesn’t taste like it)
• Consumption of said items while sitting on the good furniture
• Watching of television, including entire movies
• “Working” on the computer (alleged)
• Use of the so-called “work” telephone for game-playing
• Telephone conversations which we children have no ability to intercept or interrupt
• Bathroom visits which we children have no ability to intercept or interrupt

Kids of the world, I urge you to conduct your own investigations into these sinister practices. Share your results using the UnderPlayGround Network. Plans to defeat these unfair bedtime restrictions are underway. Stay tuned for further instruction.

I have learned a new secret to compliance and pleasantness at the dinner table. I trust you’ve heard the one about letting kids help plan the menu and cook. This really does work, at least when you can get them to actually do it. Last week we made “Brownie Soup,” which doesn’t actually contain any chocolate or any little girls in uniform. It is a recipe from the Brownie Try-It book. I hooked the children by suggesting we make it. Then I reeled them in by allowing them to help, and most especially by allowing them to use knives. Sharp ones. Sure we ended up with some 1/2-inch pieces of celery and some 6-inch ones, but who cares?

Finally, the big finish: I left my laptop on the dining room table and set up the screensaver option that plays a slideshow of photos randomly selected from your files. Kids can never get enough of seeing pictures of themselves. So use their natural egomania to your advantage, I say. It’s not like reading or watching TV at the table (which I don’t allow), because you are still talking to each other. In fact, we talk more and sit longer because of the photo display, discussing when and where the picture was taken, and so forth.

*

Via the Parent Bloggers Network, I had the opportunity to ask Dr. Dean Ornish a question about health and wellness. Dr. Ornish is the founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California.  He advocates comprehensive lifestyle changes as a means of preventing and reversing disease, so I asked him about how to lower our kids’ risk or high blood pressure (there is some history of it in our family). I mentioned that my children are pretty active and eat fairly well, but there is always room for improvement. Thanks to PBN, I received an answer from Dr.  Ornish in the form of a personalized video he made after reading this blog. I tried to embed it here but could not–I hope if you click on the link you’ll be able to see it.

For Patty, in the spirit of making deliciousness out of aggravation.

• 1 lb. rice
• 4-5 lemons
• 6-8 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1 pie crust (storebought or your own recipe)

Cook rice the night before, rinse well and cool in the refrigerator.

Beat eggs. Add sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Grate lemons and add all rind with juice from lemons. Add rice. Mixture should be really soupy.  Add another egg or two if necessary.

Pour into pie crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Insert knife – should come out clean.