You Know

Sometimes I think blogging is tiresome. Because it's all "let me proceed to recount the events of my life in great detail, with commentary," when in actuality you have already lived them and probably talked about them to death with other people. And I know you are under no obligation to talk about everything going on in your life, and I'm sure nobody does, but you have to draw from your own personal life to some extent when you write a blog. And I guess right now I would describe my life as "good, but nothing to write home about." I assume you understand that today's equivalent of "write home about" would be "blog about" or "update your Facebook status about." Then again, maybe the ease of updating people on your personal life kind of lowers the standards of what is actually news-worthy.

And now I'm off on a tangent. Anyway, here's what's been going on with me lately:

Our family had an awesome weekend! We went to Day Out with Thomas on Saturday, which was just the absolute perfect outing for a two-year-old. Not too expensive, not too overstimulating. Just good fun with a beloved engine that wasn't actually pulling the train behind him. Oh, and this really awful tour of a 1950s-era streamlined passenger train that had private berths that featured seating for two, a toilet, and two fold-out beds in an area the size of the interior of my Toyota Corolla. My claustrophobia was in full swing.

But overall, it was a good day, and we topped it off with a visit to Sweet Tomatoes in Schaumburg. Now, for you California folks (or maybe it's just Southern California, I'm not sure), Sweet Tomatoes is known there as the Souplantation. Also known as the favorite restaurant of both my dad and stepdad when I was growing up, though the least favorite restaurant of my mom. I remember it was always ugh, Souplantation again?! And I remember my parents taking me there when I was home for a weekend during college, and feeling like it was exactly like eating in the college dining commons, what with the buffet-style serving and the plastic trays and all. But now that I live in a place that is close to an hour from the nearest Souplantation/Sweet Tomatoes, I get pretty excited when we just happen to be in the area.

It's seriously like the best and worst place to be while on Weight Watchers. On the one hand, it's a buffet, which means all-you-can-eat, and with Weight Watchers all-you-can-eat (or at least all you're supposed to eat) could fit in a teacup. But on the other hand, they have all kinds of things that are kind of exciting but low in Weight Watchers points. Like a raspberry mousse made with Splenda, or fat-free Edy's frozen yogurt. (Edy's is Dreyer's in California. Geez, there are a lot of different names here in Chicago. My least favorite one being washroom instead of restroom.) So at least at Sweet Tomatoes you don't have the experience of going to a restaurant and discovering that there's nothing you can eat there.

Sunday we took the boy to his first movie. And I have to say, watching my kid watch the movie was actually cuter than watching the actual movie. And we saw Ponyo, which was pretty much dripping in cute. The boy sat perfectly still the entire time, with his special kiddie tray of popcorn on his lap.

Now, let me pause to say that I was hesitant to set the precedent of purchasing snacks at the movies. I grew up in a family where you either snuck in your own snacks, or else had nothing. (Which, in retrospect, seems like kind of a bad moral lesson to be teaching your child, but maybe it's worth it given the price of movie snacks.) But never getting snacks at the movies left me with a constant desire for them, and as an adult I find myself getting snacks more often than not. Of course, given that I have seen a total of 3 movies at the theater in as many years, it's not like I'm breaking the bank buying movie snacks. To me, there is something about the way that movies just mesmerize you, mouth all agape and eyes open wide, that just begs for the slow-crunching of popcorn. And there is something about the saltiness of popcorn that begs for a soda. I also think Red Vines are a nice way to balance out that saltiness, but most movie theaters now sell the inferior Twizzlers.

Oh and also, I'm on Weight Watchers.

After the movie the family went to Trader Joe's. And by Sunday night, I had the house clean, the laundry done, and the groceries purchased.

So I felt pretty good spending Monday at the beach with my friend and her son. Now, here in Illinois, our beach is at Lake Michigan, which looks and feels enough like an ocean to make for a pretty good beach. As a bonus, it lacks the salty sea air that does weird things to your hair. Now, my mom told me that when my brother and I were little, she spent as much time at the beach with us as possible, because it's hard for kids to get into trouble there. And boy is that true. My friend and I mediated a few disputes over sand toys, but overall our two kids just played happily with nothing but sand and water to entertain them for hours.

But after the beach came the moment when I hated being a parent. The drive home was a little bit stressful because the kids were screaming, and then I got home with a big bag of sandy, wet clothing and towels, and I still had to get some dinner on the table. I was really missing the days when I could just eat a bag of chips for dinner and go to bed.

So this morning we all slept in, and then I took the boy to the splash pad. And he got so tired there that we all got a nice nap. Because I am a big fat lazy-ass.

The only other exciting thing going on with me is that I discovered some new ice cream sandwiches. Well, actually they are frozen yogurt sandwiches, with strawberry yogurt sandwiched between oatmeal cookies. They are made by Blue Bunny and they're called Sedona. They are 3 points on Weight Watchers.

And that is all.