oh my, oh my. have i got a recipe for you. [you], i'd like you to meet tammy's creamy macaroni and cheese. tammy's creamy macaroni and cheese, i'd like you to meet...[you].
now don't get me wrong, i loved mac 'n cheese long before this little treasure. but this is not even in the same category as normal homemade mac 'n cheese, not even to mention kraft's...or worse, aldi's. this mac 'n cheese is like the airbrushed version of britney spears. sure, if the normal version is all you have, it definitely wouldn't be grounds for killing yourself or anything, but seriously. airbrushed britney v. n'ere-a-shower britney? i'm sorry, but it's not even a competition.
and may i say, this macaroni has never done any of the following:
..worn latex.
..yo-yo dieted.
..been investigated by dhs.
..had a baby or otherwise associated itself with kevin federline.
..shaved its head.
..looked to jamie spears as its leading financial authority.
i'm just saying.
granted, it also didn't put out the single 'baby one more time,' which may or may not be a strike against it...i'm just giving you all the objective facts here, folks.
anyway, back to the mac. i'm seriously considering opening a restaurant called "mac 'n more." the more being more mac, of course. and maybe some cookies. because i have a great recipe for those, too. i'll be a freaking millionaire. then i'll finally be able to afford fake nails.
the writing of my last post on forgetfulness was prompted by a specific incident...which, ironically, i forgot to include in the actual post.
i forgot to call in for jury duty.
that's right. i'm a criminal, contemptuous of court or whatever. i specifically wrote in my planner "call for jury duty" on monday, june 8. i look at my planner, realize june 8 has come and gone, and panic. of course, i have misplaced the slip of paper with the jury...person's name on it, so i look online. i find the number, call the girl, and apologize profusely. me: i'm so so sorry. i was supposed to call in for jury duty last night and i totally forgot. i'm really sorry.
jury person: you were supposed to call in on monday.
me: yes. last night.
j.p.: no, monday.
me: what day is it?
j.p.: it's wednesday.
me: oh, sorry. i'm so sorry.
j.p.: do you have your sheet with your juror number on it?
me: ....no...i misplaced it...i'm so sorry. i just had a baby 6 weeks ago and i'm a little scattered.
j.p.: (TOTAL change of tone) oh really? congratulations. do you stay home?
me: yes.
j.p.: are you nursing?
me: yes.
j.p.: i'm sending out a sheet right now that says you're excused. thanks so much for calling.
whoa. who knew it was so easy to have a crime erased from your record? i wonder if it's so easy to get out of other crimes...
"i'm sorry for speeding, officer, but i'm a stay-at-home mom who's nursing."
"yes, i realize driving my car through the neighbor's window is a form of vandalism, not to mention the fact that i've been drinking, but see? baby attached to my boob." (side note: this actually happened to our next door neighbors...well, i don't think the drunk girl was also nursing at the time, but other than that, spot-on. another argument that our apartments are super ghetto.)
"vandalism? spray painting my gang name on the side of a train car? i didn't realize i would get in trouble for it, seen as how i'm nursing this here baby."
i should really see how far this 'nursing mother' thing can get me in life. or at least in the criminal justice system.
as for the planner that apparently served to be no help at all in the memory department....well, i seem to have forgotten where i put it.
gah. pregnancy brain was nothing compared with my new, sleep-deprived "mommy brain." the other day, the bank called and asked for my maiden name.
"page." no, wait, that's my mom's maiden name. i mean my daughter's middle name...they probably think i'm restating my first name... "i mean, page."
at least i remembered something. a few days prior to this, someone asked me what my daughter's name was - and i couldn't remember.
oh also, i swear i saw a seagull flying over our apartments like a week ago. but that actually happened. i think.
but then i smell penelope's little head, which smells like burt's bees shampoo - kind of spicy and milky, like a cookie - and i forget that i can't remember anything. and i get really hungry for an eight-pound cookie.
looking for a little date night fun? while it didn't receive two thumbs up from ebert (or roeper...but i think he died, so it shouldn't reflect on the film that he withheld his thumbs), i have a GREAT movie recommendation for you: sunday school musical.
yes, i typed that correctly. being big 'high school musical' fans AND fans of sunday school, todd and i knew we couldn't go wrong when we saw this little gem staring us in the face in the kid's section at the library. we were sold when we saw the tagline, "we put the 'hip' in worship!" good, i was thinking worship was getting a little old school and could use a little pick-me-up. needless to say, we checked it out. and a little more necessary to say, we actually watched it.
want to know what your life has been missing without this beaut? besides the fact that you obviously don't know the words to 'you're not the boss' and you've never heard zachary's rap about a manhole, you can't possibly experienced suspense on this level.
biracial zachary is torn between his old, KICKIN, multi-ethnic church choir and his new, lame, white-kids school choir - both of which will be competing at the states competition...AGAINST EACH OTHER. bum bum bum. will he betray his old friends?! will his dad come back from the military in time to see him perform?! will he say anything insensitive to the girl whose mom just died?! why is he watching himself breakdance in the mirror in the school bathroom?! will the choir judge go against the what the bible clearly says about choir competitions and forbid them to compete?!
also, the lady from the 1-800-BETS-OFF commercial cameos as zachary's no-nonsense bible class teacher - you've never seen her in a role like this before.
you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll watch it over and over again. or just the once. whatever, your life will never be the same. so if you like semi-inspirational, mildly-christian boyz II men karaoke, this movie is for you. check it out at the library - they have two copies. (i'd hurry, though; after this review i have a feeling the queue list will back up for these babies.)
still not convinced? check out the trailer. it's the BEST AT EVERYTHING.
it also inspired some profound dialogue between my husband and i - always welcome, since we've been married for nearly three years now and have run out of things to talk about.
todd: he's like usher. you know like an usher....at church. HA. HA.
paige: ha.ha.
todd: he's the christian usher.
paige: he's CRUSHER.
todd: if you don't blog this, you would be very wrong.
and, after seeing zachary sporting a striking black-and-white striped hoodie, todd was like, "what are you, the hamburglar?"
and there's the real suspense of the movie: what IS he, the HAMBURGLAR?!?! seriously, edge-of-your-seat kind of stuff here, people.
i feel privileged to be "in the know" about fashion this season. last year i bought this one-piece swimming suit - mostly for modesty reasons, but also because i'd had a baby the previous winter and stuff settles back in differently. not to mention the fact that i got a REALLY dark line down my belly when i was pregnant and it took about 6 months to fully fade. nothing screams "hot bikini" like a dark stripe connecting the top piece to the bottom piece.
anyway. one-piece swimsuit. THIS season, i have heard the phrase "modest is hottest" in regards to swimwear. not only do i back this campaign 110% (no one cares about your belly button ring - put some clothes on), but...i also thought of it.
i'm a PC (paige chorpening) and 'modest is hottest' was my idea...last season.
last weekend we took the kids down to my parents' for a little change of pace and to introduce penelope to family who hadn't met her yet. i have a really hard time sleeping in the same room with her (she's INCREDIBLY noisy in her sleep) so i let her sleep in one room, and todd, atticus and i slept in another room.
around 6:30 on sunday, atticus was up and ready for the day, making all kinds of noise in the pack and play. (i think they should rename those things to 'sleep and keep on sleeping'...it gives kids mixed signals to include the word "play" in what is mostly used for a bed.) so i got up to lay him back down, hoping it would give him the hint to go back to sleep.
because it was still dark in the room and my eyes were all dried out from 4 weeks of sleep deprivation, i couldn't see super well, so when i looked in the bed and saw these dark spots everywhere, i was understandably confused. then i remembered that he had this scab on his knee that he would sometimes scrape and it would bleed everywhere, so i determined it must be blood. everywhere in his bed. fantastic.
then, though bleary-eyed, i figured out that he was bare-butt...he had figured out how to take off his diaper and those dark splotches were not blood. and what in the world was that wet puddle on the floor?
yes, he had pooped his pants, taken his diaper off, stepped in the poop, then walked all over the bed. then, standing against the side of the pack and play, he had peed through the mesh.
thank goodness we got to him before he tried to pick it up...it would have been all over his hands and in his hair. gag.
and, call me selfish, but thank goodness it didn't happen in a shared bed.
i have terrible teeth. well, they're hard as diamonds and i've never had a cavity, but they're as crooked as a used car salesman. or, they used to be.
after dr. francis (god rest his orthodontics license), a head-gear (yes - say a word and i'll cut you), two surgeries followed by giant purple mouth bandages, two permanent metal retainers glued to the back of my teeth, and merely 7 years of braces: voila. easy peasy (sugar-free) lemon squeezy, right?
however, here's the part you may not know: i still wear a retainer most nights. and yes, it is the same retainer i walked out with from my last orthodontic appointment...in eighth grade. and yes, it's full of holes and about ready to fall apart but i'm too lazy and miserly to shell out for a new one. and yes, i'm fairly positive that i've swallowed a few plastic shards in my sleep as a result of my old-as-the-pyramids retainer.
oh well, what's a little plastic in my bloodstream? i still have a plastic piece from an old lip ring stuck in my lip and i haven't died yet. if we've learned anything from hollywood, it's that foreign objects under your skin can't kill you. in fact, they seem to pickle you indefinitely.
so maybe my retainer can indirectly help me achieve immortality. i will have really straight teeth for all eternity...tell me that's not the plot to a really awesome novel. somebody contact james cameron, i'm ready to sell the rights.
oh, and that kid in the picture a) is not me and b) looks like he might bite you if you make fun of his grill.
i apologize for not having blogged in a while...we've been busy, busy with penelope, painting the kitchen, and napping whenever we can. i've also been working on my reading goal for 2010 (an average of 3 books per month). it's funny, when you find yourself awake in the middle of the night to feed your kid, and you just sit on the couch for half an hour with nothing else to do...3 books a month seems like a piece of cake.
granted, you can't see the words and the few bits of information you do take in get forgotten by morning, but i'm going for quantity, not quality here, people.
because this morning has already found me saying, 'please stop crying long enough for mommy to put on some clean underwear,' i'm going to cut this blog short. however, i will leave you with an endearing picture of what i hope the relationship between todd and atticus will look like someday.
to catch a glimpse of their father-son dynamic, and to laugh your butt off, click here.
we dutch love our glasses. or so i assume about the dutch...i'm not really dutch myself, i've just been grafted in and now i make blanket statements about 'my people' that are unfounded and unverifiable. that's how i roll.
