The Tonight Show with Eliza Mae

Oh how I love to peek into Eliza's room and see this scene! Especially because it zaps any of the energy I have left by 7pm to actually get her to this point.

Bedtime has allowed me to truly relate to the phrase, "It's like pulling teeth."

And now I'm too tired to write about it.

One of the hard parts of being trained as a therapist or social worker is that as I raise my child trying to discipline her in the "healthiest" way possible, I also have in the back of my mind, "What parts of these memories will come back to her as trauma when she's 19 years old talking to her therapist about how her parents ruined her life."

Like tonight when she screamed and cried for about an hour. It all started when she yelled from the back of the car, "Give me my toy NOW, Mom!"

Long story short, I wouldn't give her the McDonald's toy without a "Please." And although she hadn't stopped tantruming from the toy issue, I still made her take a bath and get ready for bed. The whole while she screamed, "But I'm HUNGRY! Mama! I'm STARVING! My stomach doesn't have ANY food in it!" (her stomach had chicken nuggets and apples slices in it)

So basically, I can just imagine tonight being one of Eliza's first uncovered memories as she does some Rational Emotive Therapy where she is trying to uncover the roots of her eating disorder... "I remember a night where my mother was pouring water on me while I was standing in the bath yelling and sobbing to her that I was starving, and she told me too bad, you had your chance to eat earlier, and then poured another bucket of water over me."

Fortunately, story time finally got her calmed down and relaxed in bed and asleep by 8pm. ::deep sigh of relief::

On a similar bedtime note, I think that if someone ever witnessed or recorded me reading bedtime stories to Eliza it would be INSANE because some nights I start falling asleep while I read. But even though I'm falling asleep I keep trying to read. AND I start dreaming! So I start adding in words from my dream. For example, as I was reading a story to Eliza about clams, I remember waking up to myself saying the words Japanese, fulfillment, and alcoholic. A few other times, I "woke" up to Eliza shouting at me, "I can't understand you!" even though I thought I was still reading the books to her, I guess I was mumbling unintelligibly. So sleepy...

I love you, Eliza!

Thanksgiving Day, Oh Mr. Turkey Fat and Gray: Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble Gobble*

It ended like this:

So you know it had to be a good Thanksgiving! Eliza brought the party with her!

Also she has this thing about wanting to wear less and less clothing as the day goes by. Usually I pick her up from school and at least ONE thing is missing- tights, socks, hair bow. Always a surprise! Yay for an independent 3 year old!

Anyways, Thanksgiving was pretty chill here. I rearranged my room! Seems silly now that I look back to find a NEW project to start just because I'm not going to work, but there's something nice about refurbishing your environment!

Mom, Dad, Abby, and Uncle Don started off Thanksgiving day with a bang- the Turkey Trot. Running early in the Morn!


I did not join them. I stayed in my warm comfy bed!

We all signed up for different cooking assignments so that the task of Thanksgiving dinner or The FEAST as Eliza called it, didn't all fall on one person.

I did cranberry sauce. I did a regular version and a version where I added in citrus juice, fresh diced pears, and crystallized ginger. It was scrumptious! I also made sweet potatoes and a chocolate truffle pie. I was going to make the fresh collards that I inherited from work but we ran out of time. Who knew making collards took well over an hour?? We didn't! We're going to try to make them on Sunday.

But we had plenty of food otherwise!

Abby did fresh green beans, homemade bread, and apple pie. She's become quite the baker!!!

Mom made squash casserole, 2 types of stuffing (don't ask me what type, I don't do stuffing), the turkey with Dad, and over saw the over-all production!

Dad also did the mashed potatoes and did multiple runs to the grocery store for us!

Oma made a delish greek salad and homemade salad dressing- Yummy!

Uncle Don did the corn**
We also had our good family friend, Ron,(not Dad) join us for dinner too. He brought a cheerful tone to the dinner!

Dad made a toast and clinked our sparkling red grape juice filled glasses per tradition. Then Mom claimed that we had a tradition of going around the table and each naming a thing we were grateful for from the consecutive letters of the alphabet. Some of us did not recall EVER doing this tradition before, but it was fun and brought some creativity! Somehow I ended up with the letter Q and X...

Eliza barely ate any of the dinner. I think she might have taken one bite of turkey and otherwise only had homemade bread. She loves Abby's bread! Someday I hope she'll eat more than chicken nuggets, pizza, and Nutella sandwiches....

I peer pressured Mom and Abby into playing Princess Jr. Monopoly with Eliza and me after dinner. You get to buy castles! Mom shook her head disapprovingly when she got the Chance card to purchase Prince Charming. He was on sale for only $4! Not a bad bargain!Friday night was my favorite--- GAME NIGHT! We each picked a game- Guesstures, Disney Scene It, Taboo, Apples to Apples, Things, and Wii Resport! No matter what we played, I'm pretty sure I won every time. Yeah, that sounds about right! :D

Happy Gobble Day!

*Header comes from a Thanxgiving Joy School Song that we've ALL had stuck in our heads this last week!
**Corn story is a good one that you can ask someone else about.

Meet the little black dog named Zara

My daughter does weird stuff... and so I take pictures of it!

And below is a picture that she took of her dear friend:

Poor Zara looks justifiably scared....

Zara is a very sweet dog.

Eliza is a very sweet girl.

Zara will follow Eliza around as long as Eliza gives her any attention (positive or negative).

Eliza loves to PLAY with Zara.

Zara loves when Eliza opens the screen doors and loves to slip outside before anyone can try to stop here.

Eliza hates when Zara does that.

Zara loves to attack Eliza's stuffed animals and ball-shaped toys and drags them out the doggy door. So does Orah (the big white poodle).

Eliza hates that.

Zara loves to eat off of Eliza's plate.

Eliza hates when Zara does that or even sniffs near her plate while she's eating her food at the table, UNLESS Eliza decides she wants to share it with Zara, then she tries to give Zara her left-overs after every meal, every day, no matter what the food was-- broccoli, pears, chocolate = fail. Meat, breads, cheese = LOVE.

Zara loves when Eliza comes home. Especially when Eliza's been gone for a couple days at her Dad's house.

Eliza loves to run around CRAZY and have Zara "chase" after her all crazy. It's HILARIOUS to watch... until someone gets hurt or loses an eye.

Zara loves walks with Eliza, but not as much when Eliza's the one holding her leash...

Eliza loves to bully Zara... and then Eliza hates going on time-out.

It's a Love/Hate relationship...

... and I'd say it's the closest thing Eliza has to a younger sibling!

Thank ya kindly for...

• Burts Bees Lip Balm
• Eliza
• Sweet potatoes
• Cranberry sauce
• Skype
• FAMILY
• Dora pajamas
• Lavendar "stress relief" body wash
• My old clunker of a car
• Mood stabilizers
• the Wii
• Netflix Watch Now
• Time to reorganize all of Eliza and my clothes
• This home I live in and have been welcomed into undeservingly.
• My Finnegan Kitty
• Chocolate
• Employment
• My calling as a Young Women's Laurel Teacher
• Sweaters & Hoodies- LOVE EM!
• Teva's
  
• That it was in the 70's today
• The beautiful colored leaves that surround our house
• My morning walks with Eliza before school
• Silly poodles
• The kitchen timer.
  

Saga II: Thanksgiving Eve

Work was a blur today.

It was scheduled as just a half-day for services so the buses were taking people home at noon instead of 2pm.

I had planned on working a full day and thought that everyone else had planned that as well. However, by the time 1pm rolled around, only 3 of my co-workers remained in the building. Wow.

I still had to deliver Thanksgiving meals to two families so after unsuccessfully trying to get a hold of some DSS caseworkers and finding out that all the caseworkers were already on Thanksgiving break, I delivered meals in some ghetto areas of Columbia.

I saw a couple prostitutes on one corner off North Main St., and two guys getting arrested just two blocks away as well. The public housing that I made a delivery in actually looked pretty nice, though, compared to some of the other public housing I've done home visits at lately.

One of my clients gave me a $72 handbag today. She said she saw it and thought of me. Not sure what to do about that... I'm more of a Timbuk2 shoulder bag kinda gal. Not sure if I could pull off wearing a black, less-than-appropriately-gifted Nine West bag that I'm pretty sure was bought with drug money.

I went home after the deliveries and took a 3 hour nap. It was glorious.

Abby had watched Eliza in the morning because neither of them had school, and then Eliza's dad picked up Eliza after he got off work around 1pm. I get her back tomorrow around 3pm for Thanksgiving dinner!! Yay!

After my nap, I discovered that my Uncle Don had arrived for his Thanksgiving visit. I baked some sweet potatoes and mashed them up, cooked two batches of cranberry sauce, washed dishes, and baked a pie crust for the chocolate truffle pie I'm making. The kitchen already smells wonderful.

Question: Why do we use stupid clothes and make the task of laundrying the clothes never ending?
Answer: Because we all should wear daily disposable, biodegradable opaque plastics and stop this clothing charade. Yeah... Capitalists probably love the clothing industry.

So it's 2am, and I'm awake blogging. I don't think this bodes well for me waking up early to join Dad, Abby, and Mom on a Turkey Trot Race tomorrow morning. We'll see...

It's slumber time.

Before the Pearly Gates

My favorite band of all time, Radiohead, has a song on their latest album called Videotape.

It starts out saying, "When I'm at the pearly gates This'll be on my videotape..."

I love this song and love the concept of considering what of my life might be on MY "videotape" when my time on this planet is all done with.

I would like to use this squeaky clean new blog to share preview clips of what will surely be included in my life's videotape.

And since my life is SO interesting and I'm such a fascinating specimen, I'm sure everyone has just been dying to get a daily update about how it all goes down-- ESPECIALLY since my life is so intricately entwined with the fabulous Eliza Mae.

So I'll just go ahead and say... You're welcome.