Friday, November 08, 2013

Pasta, dog food, and other grandmotherly woes

Jacob and I have had dinner, read Boxcar Children for 17 minutes, and  written a long overdue letter to Elizabeth--well, that is, he dictated and I wrote except he signed it with a flourish. He's played with his leggos so that they are now scattered all over my desk and is watching something inane but harmless on TV. The last few nights he's been reluctant to go to the back of the house by himself, so here he is--in my office.
Dinner was not a success. A picky eater, he really likes red sauce on pasta. I found a simple recipe and made home-made sauce. He announced he wasn't hungry, and I knew why: he left four, yes four, snack bar wrappers in the playroom. I told him if he was going to sneak food without permission, he should at least be smart enough to put the wrappers in the trash. I swear the child has radar--he said, "Can we have the other kind of sauce?" Every time I make something from scratch for him--my preferred way of cooking--he wants the canned or preserved or whatever. Discouraging. Except I would never have admitted it to him but I didn't think the sauce was very good--I'll perk it up with some more salt and Italian seasonings. Meanwhile, no snack, no dessert--when he announces he's hungry I'll put more sauce on the pasta and reheat it. And we're going to bed early tonight...very early.
We had a mystery while we were eating dinner. When I was setting the table I noticed dog food scattered on the floor of the playroom. Neither of us could figure out where it came from--the lid was tight on the can (he checked for a rat inside); if Sophie had gotten into it the lid would be off, and she would have eaten, not scattered it. Jacob decided it was a ghost, which led to a discussion of ghosts--I fully believe in good ghosts and told him I'd seen some in the house. Of course he wanted to know date, time, full description, etc.--details I didn't have in my mind. Then when I went into the kitchen, he saw a whole family of ghosts in the backyard. The motion sensitive light in the way back went on just then, but my suggestion that ghosts activated it alarmed him a bit. Hope this doesn't mean he wants to sleep in my bed tonight.
Sophie obligingly cleaned up the scattered dog food, though Jacob had a great game of finding small pieces she'd missed and hand feeding them to her. Then she ate every bite of her usual dinner, so I don't think she got into the food can. And Jacob swears the scattered food was not there when he came home from school. A real mystery.
I tried new yoga poses tonight--chair sit against a wall went well, but have you seen those Facebook pictures that advertise a simply way to lose belly fat? The picture shows an alarmed-looking woman sitting in what looks like a "V" pose--legs straight up at an angle to the back, which is also straight up at an opposing angle. I want to tell you that's hard to do. However, if that old lady can do it, I'll master it. And I practiced hunkering, which is a yoga pose but has a more mysterious name. Whatever, hunkering is hunkering, and I never could do it but now can. Not easily, however.

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