My Favorite Kind of Day

My favorite kind of day is a day like today. Claire slept until 8:45 and woke up happy. That meant that I got to sleep that long too! Then I got to lay in bed a little while longer while she had what I call "wake-up" nummies. I got dinner going in the crock pot since we would be gone all day.

I made brats. It's super easy. I use a package of 5. I used a bag of the sauerkraut that you can get in the meat case. Then I chopped about 6 potatoes and 3 apples. The secret is in the apples. The apples reduce the bitterness of the kraut. The potatoes also suck up some of the juice from the meat and kraut, so they taste really good and unique. So things don't get too dry from cooking all day in the crockpot, I added 1 cup of 100% apple juice. I didn't need any other seasons or spices. As an afterthought, I could have added some onion, but I forgot. Bacon is also very good in kraut, but leftover bacon doesn't last very long in our fridge. :) NOM NOM NOM! Josh is hilarious. I made french toast and bacon one night this week and Josh was telling Claire that the piggy made the bacon for her. I don't want to be the one to tell her how...

So Claire played with Play-doh while I got the Crock Pot going. Then we headed out to see our neighbor Olivia's dance recital. She was a solider in the Nutcracker. *Note to self* pay for a ticket for Claire next time, so she doesn't have to sit on my lap the whole time. I swear that those HS auditorium seating styles are worse than airplane seating. *Note to self* don't sign up Claire for dance until she is at least 5 as the 3 and 4 year olds dancing...well...sucked. No offense to anyone.

We actually ended up ducking out slightly early which was great to beat the massive parking lot exodus after any big event, but we were heading to a birthday party. This was great, as Claire wouldn't be taking a nap today, and she didn't! She had fun at the party and ate all the icing of a cupcake. I can't get her to eat cake. Not that I want her to eat cake. I can't get her to try coke or fries either.

Some toddlers live on french fries alone and she's never had one, which is funny because she loves potatoes and salty foods like chips and pretzels. Oh well, she'll discover them soon enough. I'm not going to encourage that she tries them. She will try what she wants. The other day I was having her help me scoop cookies out. I didn't tell her she could try one, and she just grabbed a scooped cookie and jammed it in her mouth. She goes, "MMM. This is delicious." Of course, and full of raw eggs! ACK! Oh well, she ate 3 raw ones and survived just fine.

So at the party I tried to get her to go play in the playroom with the other kids, but if I left her alone, then she would follow me. I guess that's a good thing, but it would be nice to have some freedom...

So then when we got home, I did try to get her to take a really really late afternoon nap, but she wasn't at all acting tired. Josh had his friend Dave over since he is moving, so she wanted to go investigate this visitor and show him all sorts of her tricks and toys. Her favorite is to show people how fast she can run in a circle. Why? I don't know...but then she wants to get books or toys and say, "Here, see my Disney Princess book." And she will say it over and over until the person she is trying to talk to her acknowledges her. I didn't force the nap since she wasn't cranky, and I knew she'd go to bed early.

I tried to get her to try some brat, kraut, taters to her for dinner, but she shoved it away and goes, "NOOOOO WANT THIS." LOL. I'm a bad German. I've never served it to her before. I'm not a huge huge fan of brats/kraut, but once in awhile, like in the winter, it's really good in the crockpot. So she got to eat a slice of bread and some leftover "gobi" which is how she says spaghetti. Or sometimes she'll call it "spagh-gobi."

Is that bad to heat up different food for her? I think kraut is pretty sour, so I did. Plus we had company, and I didn't want to deal with a fit. She is super picky about presentation and food. She wants her sandwiches cut in half (so the sandwich looks like 2 triangles). Her food pickiness should be a separate post, though.

While we were talking, I said something that prompted the comment, "That's what she said." If you don't know what a TWSS comment is, it's basically a one-size fits all comment to add sexual overtones to practically anything in conversation. Totally inappropriate for saying around a 2 year old. So then, after the comment "That's what she said," and a slight pause, Claire piped up, "That's what your mom said." It was too funny and too perfectly timed. And I don't think we've ever said that phrase, so she just made it up, which is even funnier.

Oh, and I figured out where she got the "Kidding" phrase from the other day. It's in the book, Everyone Poops which she of course, is fascinated with reading. It says, "One-humped camels make 1-humped poops, and 2 humped camels make 2-humped poops. Only kidding!"

So then it was 7:30 and time for bath and bed. Gloriousness is on nights where she falls asleep almost instantly...like less than 10 minutes, which is pretty typical on no-nap days. Then I can pick up around the house, and make 2 more pans of cookies from the cookie dough we made cookies with earlier in the week. Hot cookies just can't be beat. And that's my favorite kind of day. One that involves lots of food, fun, and friends!