Whenever we part with someone, Zoe says her goodbyes, and after the door is closed or they walk away, she says, “Well, I guess so!”
When we’re chatting in the elevator and someone exits on his or her floor, it’s, “Well! I guess so!” After saying goodbye to her Gigi and the car door closes, “Well, I guess so!”
I have no idea where it came from or who might have said it, but it seems to have made an impression on her. Apparently this is what one says when someone leaves.
In other cute things Zoe says news, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard her say “quinoa,” as in, “I spilled it quinoa, Mama.” and “I sweep it up quinoa, Mama.” She says it correctly – it’s just so cute.
(If you have returned looking for Zoe’s submitted contest photos, here they are.)
Zoe’s too cute, and we’re too biased. Could you help us narrow down her 5000+ flickr photos to six for a cute kid contest?
This is my first attempt at a poll. You can choose as many as you want and vote as many times as you want until sometime tomorrow, when I have to enter the contest. We’ll be submitting the photos – this poll is totally unofficial and just to help us decide. Thanks!
Joel loves girly flavored, caffeine-free teas. He prefers his hot, while I’ll drink mine room temperature or iced more often. Just about daily he offers to make some tea, and I appreciate his enthusiasm. We got a sampler box at the store awhile ago, and I tried the cranberry apple zinger. WAY tasty. I think it may help me in my quest to reduce my sugar intake and lose the belly.
Tonight after a swim, Zoe and I were in a bath when Joel’s tea craving struck. I accepted his offer – blueberry, please – and Zoe piped up as he was walking out of the room. “I want red tea, please!” Red tea, it is! She thanked him when he brought it, and upon letting it cool and taking a sip, she proclaimed, “I like it!” SO CUTE.
Around here we LOVE pizza. It’s Zoe’s number one request for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack most days. Frozen, make our own, or restaurant-bought, we definitely eat our share.
Roughly twice a week, it goes something like this:
Me, realizing it’s getting late and we probably ought to eat something, sucking up my feeling of dread and wondering why it comes as a surprise to me every single night that an evening meal is inevitable, putting on a very convincing and confident air, beginning cheerfully: What do we want for dinner?
or Joel, squinting from the computer and scratching his mane: Are we going to eat sometime tonight?
or Zoe, from the stroller, returning from our walk: I want dinner. I’m hungry.
Me: Well, I thought about lemon pepper salmon with quinoa and spinach, or I could cook some chicken something, or we still have leftover turkey chili… (trailing off as the cheerfulness fades and is replaced by more dread as no one perks up at my suggestions)
Joel: Again? Why don’t we ever have beef? I’m wasting away here. How about hamburgers? Or spaghetti and meatballs? Or beef flavored hamburger helper with grey beef gravy and a side of beef?
Me: UGH
Zoe: I know! I know! How ’bout piz-za?!
Instant sunshine on all our faces. It’s perfect! Zoe’s a genius! Let’s have pizza, indeed!
Here we insert the mind-numbing discussion of the source of said pizza, during which I vow for the fortieth time to keep homemade dough on hand so we don’t have to wait forever or spend dough at a restaurant or wedge giant boxes of sodium-laden discs into our freezer.
In the absence of the ingredients/time for homemade or frozen in the freezer, where do the Wattses get their pizza? We might:
1. Decide to visit the local New York Pizzeria, where all our pizza dreams are fulfilled and there’s Coke on tap; each person gets the giant slice of his or her choosing, and two or more items from the table are knocked to the ground in an embarrassing display in a mildly child-hostile environment.
2. Discuss eating at the restaurant, decide we’re not up for the humiliation, and order it for pick-up. The upsides: we always have a $2 off coupon, and the leftovers make a good lunch the next day. Downside: this option also necessitates an exhausting discussion of toppings, with Joel in the corner of greasy pork/beef/mash abomination, Blake in the cheese/veggie/experimental/what Joel calls “non-pizza” corner, and poor Zoe probably wishing we’d order the damn pizza and get it in her belly five minutes ago.
Keep in mind that Zoe, who rarely eats more than a few bites of anything, loves pizza so much that she will inhale a quantity that would shame the burliest NHL player. Spiciness doesn’t bother her while she’s eating it, but we discovered that she will spit up or even vomit if the toppings are too spicy. This is unacceptable, so we make sure she gets something a little more bland.
You may have noticed that your options only include NYP pizza. This is because it puts all others to shame.
If you selected option #1, you are a winner. Any and all public humiliation is completely acceptable in exchange for NYP. Good choice!
If you selected option #2, you may or may not witness a tirade, depending on the night.
Joel believes that pepperoni is the only true and acceptable topping for pizza. He’ll consider and even eat other toppings, though each suggestion is met with, “Sure, if you want to ruin the pizza.”
In the past couple of years, we have coexisted with a compromise of turkey pepperoni on our homemade pizzas, as I will not purchase and cook with the other. I’ll even pick off real pepperoni should it suit the group, rather than be a stick in the mud.
Usually we can agree on a half pepperoni or pepperoni and sausage, half something to my liking. To both our credits, we have shared many a supreme pizza, each of us picking off the offensive items, but some nights just aren’t that simple. Ah, marriage.
My resistance to pepperoni is undoubtedly as frustrating to him as his insistence on it is to me. Neither of us is railing against a particular topping, but against the other’s infuriating stubbornness.
Truly, though, I see pizza as an opportunity for culinary experimentation, even though I recognize and wholly appreciate the beauty of a classic. Why limit yourself to one topping time after time?
Now, because I tweeted that I would, here is a list of fifty things I would rather see (and have had) on my pizza other than pepperoni. I’m including dessert pizza, because it’s awesome, too. And because I shot my mouth off and said fifty.
Friday night I showed up on Amanda’s doorstep, and if she wasn’t surprised, she fooled me – I loved seeing her face and watching her jump up and down and squeal.
After our hellos we decided to go in search of dinner. We walked to Vortex to split the Double Coronary burger – a ridiculous gastronomic item but an Atlanta legend, and it was her last weekend there, so we had to try it. (Not to mention that I’m bordering obesity at the moment, and one must maintain one’s bulk somehow. Project Skinnify officially begins today.) My skin still burns from the glare I got when I suggested in the waitress’s presence that maybe we could get turkey instead of beef. Apparently this is blasphemy. So we ordered it as-is. Basically it’s a nice-sized cheeseburger with grilled cheeses where the bun should be, bacon, two fried eggs, and the usual vegetable fixins. We removed the approximately half pound of bacon since I don’t do pork and got sweet potato fries and plantains on the side. Later we rented He’s Just Not That Into You and did a little packing.
Saturday morning we went for a run through lovely Piedmont Park, ran some errands, did some shopping, and returned home to prepare for Amanda’s next surprise. Cameron had made reservations at a Brazilian steakhouse and a private karaoke room, and all her friends were waiting for her there. After a tasty dinner we belted out song after song for six hours. (I was in heaven. Nothing feeds my pop star fantasy like karaoke.) Amanda has some super nice friends who I know will miss her, and I’m lucky to have been included for her birthday and bon voyage celebration with them. Her work friends surprised her on Thursday, too! She is so loved.
Sunday was for running errands, a farewell trip to the World of Coke, and packing. All told she has 18 boxes and two suitcases of stuff. That’s it. She sold all her furniture and her car. This time next week she’ll be taking NYC by storm.
Normally after this much activity on so little sleep, I’d be running on fumes and/or caffeine. But getting to spend the time with her, I feel refreshed, whole, and excited, both for her and for the changes we’re making at home.
Now to cuddle my Zoe and settle into our new place!
One incredibly exciting development is that my sister is moving to New York in two weeks! I’m thrilled for her. It is going to be so awesome.
I take a page from her book all the time – the get-up-and-go, can-do attitude is contagious, and when I’m too tired to find it in myself, I borrow some of hers. She is a great example and teacher of how to be confident and successful, bring out the best in others around her, and be graceful and humble, all at the same time. That’s quite a balance to strike.
She saw what she wanted and made it happen. This weekend, she accepted a new job, found an apartment and gym all by herself, and formulated a plan. She’s selling her car and most of her belongings, packing up a couple of suitcases, and moving to her new place in short order. Just wow.
As may be obvious, I love and look up to my sister. She’s kind of a guru in my life.
I’d like to relate the story of the time I recognized a real shift in our sister relationship. My Mom says that when Amanda was a baby, she sat and watched the toddler Blake zoom around the room from activity to activity, and for most of our childhood, she did much of whatever I did. We had our separate activities along the way, but mostly I called the shots.
I think it was during my senior year of college when our Aunt Nita was coming to visit for Christmas. We had been staying in the guest room of our parents’ house, and as was our style, we had waited until the eleventh hour to get the room presentable for her stay. We knew we wouldn’t get up early enough to do it in the morning, so we started working around midnight. I was so tired and just wanted to go to bed. About half way through, like a whiny child, I fell into the floor and begged that we just go to sleep and deal with it later.
She took one incredulous look at me lying there, put her hand on her hip, and said something to the effect of, “Blake, you get up right now – we’re doing this.” I don’t recall the exact words – but the tone was convincing, motivating, and the teeniest bit threatening. I knew two things: I had no choice, and I liked this new Amanda. That next spring, she got us up at 6 AM every morning to do the workout she planned for us at the rec center. I lost 15 pounds.
Ask me who my hero is. She’s a phenom.
Without sounding too single white female, I want to be just like her when I grow up. I may have missed the boat on having adventurous twenties the way she’s doing it, but maybe she’ll let me watch her go for awhile.
(Update: I swear on everything holy I had not read her post before I posted – we titled it the same thing.)
Y’all! I am totally amazed and touched at the response to my cause. From the bottom of my heart, I am so thankful for the help in not only reaching, but nearly doubling, my original goal.
There was a great turnout for the Sprint for Life this morning, and a total of $130,674.70 will bolster M. D. Anderson’s ovarian cancer research program. As Zoe would exclaim, “Sixshty dah-yas!” (This is apparently her go-to quantity of money.)
This Saturday I will be participating in a Sprint for Life with my class to raise ovarian cancer awareness and funds for the M.D. Anderson Blanton-Davis Research Program.
I’m quite close to my goal in an amazingly short time! As always I am beyond grateful for all the support I have in family, friends, and an extended network of people who are truly good-hearted.
If you would like to support the cause, click here to go to my donation page. My friend Kerri (who is doing some fundraising of her own!) suggested an enticement of baked goods for donors, which I believe to be an excellent idea and will honor.
I know I benefitted from the people who went before me and all the incredible research that went into the treatment that made me – and keeps me – cancer free. This is a small thing I can do to give back in some way.
Times are hard and families are large – one free thing you can do is help the women in your life be confident in their bodies and encourage them to see a doctor if they think something is wrong.
And dudes, gonads are gonads – what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Now that Zoe appears to be free from the shackles of the Coxsackie A virus (which was hell on Earth, I’m telling you, and no, the name is not a joke), things are getting back to normal around here. By normal I mean that I am drastically less patient with her tantrums. And she’s much more spry, necessitating activities other than lounging on the Cozy Sac watching WALL-E for the ninetieth time. So, life with a healthy child is hard, but in a different way than life with a sick child, and all things considered, I’m glad she’s feeling better.
We’re nursing less these days. During the illness her mouth was so blistered and raw that putting anything in there was out of the question. She barely drank room temperature water. She would try to nurse, jerk back in pain, and cry. In desperation she would ask for and guzzle a small cup of cold cow milk two to three times a day. It was heart wrenching. Anyway my supply is down but not completely out, and I think she’s transitioning well. I’m relieved that we have the opportunity to end what has been a very sweet and wonderful thing on a more pleasant note. Especially since it looks like she’ll be our only one, I’m so grateful to have had this experience with her.
