LaLaGirl – Twinfinite Chaos! Parenting Multiples and Dealing with Autism

Last week, my neighbor’s daughter stopped by with a ziplock bag full of goo and a sheet printed with instructions for making Amish Friendship Bread. Basically, the gist of it is, you get this fermenting bag of ick, squish it around for a few days, add some flour and milk and sugar, and then make bread out of it. But! Before you turn it into bread, you divide it out into ziplock bags and pass it along to another unsuspecting sucker.

I know I’m being a huge party pooper here, but…doesn’t the whole idea of this gross anybody out?? Anything could be in that bag! Anything at all! I don’t know the history of where this starter has been! It’s like picking up some stranger at the bar! What if someone jizzed in that bag? Or, or…just had a bad cold while they were making the starter? Or, they don’t wash their hands after they use the bathroom? I’m kind of horrified by the whole thing.

Last week, I left the starter bag on the kitchen counter for a couple of days, and then during a cleaning frenzy, I tossed it in the trash along with the instruction sheet. Fast forward to today. My doorbell rings, and my OTHER neighbor’s teenage son shoves a bag of goo toward me and says, “Uh, this is for you.” Do YOU want to make bread out of a bag of goo, handed to you by a teenage boy you barely know? I kind of don’t.

I’ve heard that the bread is good. I just can’t get my mind around the idea of preparing it, consuming it, and possibly feeding it to my family. It’s like foraging for cookie ingredients in a food court trash bin. Gross! Thoughts?

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Here we go.

• It’s completely bizarre to me how we always seem to enter this alternate dimension whenever we’re snowed in. The big old city-crippling blizzards only come every few years, thank God, but it happens often enough that I’ve noticed this phenomenon several times now. It was only 48 hours ago that I was getting ready for the quarterly Moms Night Out with the great mom bloggers of Mile High Mamas, and it was a pretty nice day. We even went to the library and the girls didn’t wear coats. Contrast that with yesterday, when we had to make a frantic trip to the grocery store for “supplies” before the snow really started coming down, because, gosh, we couldn’t survive a day without leaving the house for crackers and hot dogs. And then I watched the flake-by-flake coverage of Spring Blizzard ‘09 on TV all day long, occasionally checking in with Paul, who was very grouchy about being stuck out on the roads for 3 hours to make the 15 mile trip from the office to our house. And tomorrow, we’ll probably be almost back to normal. (As long as the sun peeps out and melts a little bit of this mess!)
• I always feel so bad for people who have to change their plans. Pablo was invited to a “Spring Fling” party which was supposed to happen today in the backyard of one of his classmates. I just don’t see them hunting for eggs in a foot of snow. And I feel bad for that little guy – I’ll bet he’s pretty pissed about his party being canceled. A few years ago, when we had that crazy Christmas blizzard that dumped 2 feet of snow on the city that didn’t melt until March, my kids missed their school Christmas party. They, of course, didn’t even realize this little fact, but I had to miss standing around bullshitting with their preschool teacher, whom I adored. (Not Mrs. Psycho – this was Pablo’s teacher!) Kayley also missed the last 2 days of school before spring break. She is thrilled by this!
• I don’t know what it is about that whole, “It’s a blizzard and we’re stuck here!” thing that makes me so LAZY! Yesterday wasn’t really any different than any random, say, SATURDAY. The kids were home with me and I could have kept with the routine, but no. The kids ran around dragging out every toy they own, and I watched Johnny Sokko and his Giant Robot on Hulu and laid on the couch eating M&M’s.
• I’m not one of those moms who dress the kids up in snow pants and send them out to play. I hate being cold and wet, and I hate dealing with snowy, wet clothes. I never know where to put them to dry. And also? I don’t know where the snow pants even ARE. I think we lost them in the move. I hate making hot chocolate, because my kids take one sip, cry about it being too hot, and then leave it on the counter for half an hour. Then they come back and take a sip and say it tastes yucky now, and then they spill cold hot chocolate all over their clothes. Boooooo. I thought winter was over, anyway? It was almost 80 on Sunday. We played outside ALL DAY LONG. I’ve already done a ton of yard work! I have a sunburn! I don’t want to look for matching gloves and boots that still fit. Fuck that. I’m buzzkill mom!
• My high school best friend is supposed to come to town tomorrow with her darling baby boy, and we’re supposed to have dinner. I don’t know if that’s going to happen now, because the roads are slick and really, who wants to drive 150 miles on slick roads with a baby? Not me. Not her. And by Sunday, it’ll be in the 50s and all the snow will be melting. It’s just that Mother Nature has to give us the finger RIGHT NOW, for like two full days, and then we can get back to normal. But I know. We need the moisture.
• It’s funny to me how weather is like A BIG DEAL to those who are IN IT. And it doesn’t even register on the radar of those who are NOT in it. Last week, a blizzard hit Wyoming. It wasn’t even on the news here, even though Wyoming is just a couple of hours away. I only know about it because a friend of mine lives up there. And right now, you’re going, “Okay, Laura, IT SNOWED. We get it. You live in Colorado. It snows there! Even in springtime! We all know this, why is it news to you?”
• I think this could make or break our time off from school. Kayley’s spring break was supposed to begin after today, and the kids track off from year-round school for 3 weeks beginning today. So, this will either kick us in the ass to get outdoors and enjoy the nice weather that I’m sure will be returning soon, or it’ll turn us into a lazy family of sloths. Any bets to see which way we’ll go?
  

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