Toddler in a China Shop

We got home very late last night from a barbecue in the city, and the boy went to bed at 11 p.m. I woke him up at 8:00 this morning because I wanted to be in the gym right at 8:30 when the daycare opened. (I was not.) This lack of sleep resulted in a difficult and crabby morning for the boy.

I had agreed to help with a project for the Cancer Support Center where I volunteer. Normally I bring the boy along with me when I help them with mailings and such. Their building is adjacent to the train tracks, and the passing trains provide legitimate distraction for the boy. Today's project, however, was at the Olympia Fields Country Club, where the center had hosted a fundraiser tea yesterday. My job was going to be to match china teacups with their corresponding saucers, and wrap them in paper.

Well, first off, the country club is a beautiful place, and I kept remarking how I just have no idea why we aren't members of a country club. And it was really fun to be around all those cute china teacups and teapots. They were all different patterns, acquired through donation or yard sales.

BUT. A small room filled with china is no place for a toddler. (It's probably no place for me, either, but I held it together.) I found a small, empty corner to set up the boy with his trains, and he happily played while I got set to work on matching up cups and saucers.

Let me tell you, every single china pattern in the entire world looks the same, but with some subtle difference. Oh, that one has pink roses with three leaves, and that one has pink roses with four leaves. And it was like one big giant game of memory, which is not my favorite game in the world. (Side note: my husband kicks ass at it.)

Five minutes into my work, the boy declared that he found the room to be scary, and ran out the door. I allowed him to run around the empty halls and ballroom area at the country club, and I was keeping an eye on him while simultaneously trying to be of some service. But he was just all kinds of naughty. He stuck his hand in a community pitcher of iced tea. Then he managed to fish out a little bit of tea for himself by sticking a cup in the pitcher, but only after one failed attempt that resulted in him dropping an empty cup in the pitcher. Once he drank the tea, he of course decided he hated it, and began to pour it back in the pitcher before I caught him and told him to stop. Oh and also, he announced that he had found a pink M&M on the floor and had eaten it. I was freaking out that this "M&M" might have been somebody's prescription pill, but his breath smelled chocolatey and the others in the china room verified that yesterday's tea party had, in fact, featured pink M&Ms. Still, this upset me because we have drilled the boy repeatedly on the whole "don't eat stuff you find on the floor" issue, and normally he asks before he eats something. But I guess the asking policy only applies if a parent is looking right at you. Oh well, at least he came clean to me about eating it.

About 45 minutes into an activity that was one part volunteering and five parts reprimanding my child, I decided to call it quits and leave. I think I matched maybe five cups and saucers. Volunteering FAIL.

The park was having a 25-cent hot dog sale in honor of National Hot Dog Day, and I considered going. After all, you can't even eat at home for 50 cents, and besides I hate, hate, hate making lunch. But I had a big dinner planned, and I couldn't be wasting my day's Weight Watchers points on some hot dog. So I went home and made two Ballpark smoked white turkey franks (1 point each) on Healthy Life hot dog buns (1 point each), for a total of 4 points for two hot dogs. The park hot dogs would have been 8 points for one hot dog. Dieting WIN.

Oh, but in between the volunteering and the hot dog-eating, we stopped at the grocery store. That boy was such a massive holy terror in that store, I wondered if people were thinking that his constant screaming indicated a kidnapping attempt. Except no kidnapper would ever want that child, so I'm sure people were instead interpreting his constant screaming as a sign of really poor parenting on my part.

And then at the end he had the nerve to ask for candy at the checkout.

So, by the time 1:00 rolled around, I felt beaten down. Angry and hungry. So I took a nice long nap. Do you know how much I love my bed? That bed is always there for me.

I forgot to mention that this morning I had filled one Crock Pot with a turkey breast (best recipe ever: 6-lb turkey breast, coat with butter and rub with a packet of Lipton onion soup mix, cook for 1 hour on high and 7 hours on low). I filled my other Crock Pot with potatoes to mash, as well as a few yams. After naptime I made a Weight Watchers-friendly Thanksgiving in July, assisted largely by my friend who came over with her daughter to entertain/fight with the boy. I made my mashed potatoes with pureed low-fat cottage cheese, an idea courtesy of Martha Stewart. I just served the yams whole, baked potato-style, not in the yummy marshmallow casserole which I consider to be on the list of foods I would eat all the time if I found out I only had a few months to live. (Also on that list: jello-pretzel salad.) Then there was asparagus and salad, to meet the Weight Watchers "fill half your plate with vegetables" requirement, along with some nice fruit. Oh, and I had the cranberry sauce in the shape of the can it comes in. Plus I made some biscuits from canned dough, because I believe all meals should feature a yummy carb item that is completely devoid of all nutritional value.

The key was not making stuffing, which is not your friend when you're on a diet. Also I served gravy but didn't personally have any, and there was no pumpkin pie for dessert, because where the hell are you supposed to find that in July? (I know, I could make it, but I don't even know where the store keeps canned pumpkin, except in November when it's out on a big display rack.)

Instead for dessert I had my new best friend in the whole world, Edy's Slow-Churned Yogurt Blends Tart Honey flavor! It is so very thick and creamy, and actually pretty filling in spite of the fact that you can only have a measly half a cup for 2 points.

I found out about it from my other new best friend, Hungry Girl! She really has some great ideas to keep yourself happy while still on Weight Watchers.

I will leave you with a picture from my weekend. Saturday morning I was sitting in my kitchen plugging in my recipes into sparkpeople.com to find out their nutritional information, and generally getting pissed about how I should probably never eat these foods again. Meanwhile, this is what happened in my living room: