What Seth has been up to

It occurred to me recently that +Seth hasn't made an appearance on my blog in a while (though he showed up on my old blog all the time), and that is a TRAVESTY. In case you were thinking he must be up to nothing, let me disabuse you of that notion:

1. Not too long ago Seth and I went to Red Robin together, and as we waited for our food Seth spilled some water.



Just a little bit. Nothing embarrassing. He didn't want to wet his own napkin cleaning it up, so he leaned over to the recently vacated table next to us to help himself to one of THEIR napkins. (He swears he was going for an unused one, but he has no proof.) Right before he could make the grab, though, the waiter popped up from around a corner and laid his eyes on Seth Grigg, scavenging.



But DON'T YOU WORRY. Seth is smooth.

He pulled himself out of his giant lean and swerved back around to his own table. He picked up the first thing his eyes fell on, which happened to be my water bottle (it accompanies me everywhere), and casually took a sip.



SO casually.

Here's what the waiter said to him:

 "Can I get you anything, sir?"

Here's what Seth said to the waiter:



"Uh, yeah. Napkins."

I hope this story pops up when professional contacts google him. They will be impressed with his recovery. You want to have this guy on your team.

2. Seth just told me a story about Rusty the Red Panda who escaped from the National Zoo and then was saved by an explosive outpouring of concerned Twitterers.

3. I mentioned to Seth that I was going to write a blog post about him to give him the chance to say what he wants to say to the internet, and here's what he wants to say: "Absolutely not. I forbid it."

4. Seth has been analyzing policy. His title is Policy Analyst, which--if you asked someone what his job was and he said Policy Analyst, would that mean anything to you? NOPE! So we like to throw that title around as if it really does mean something.

Examples:

"Which one of us is the Policy Analyst in this family??"
"Did you tell her you are a Policy Analyst?"
"That guy only WISHES he could be a Policy Analyst."

You get the idea.

So you see, Seth has a rich, full life and he has been up to many things. Please consider yourself up to speed.

Breakfast breakdancing

Breakfast should be the happiest time of the day. You are finally doing your favorite thing in the world (eating) after at least 8 hours of not doing your favorite thing in the world (eating). On top of that, you MIGHT be eating PANCAKES. 

I love pancakes. 

Wait. Let me rephrase that:

I LOOOOOOVE PANCAKES.

So many carbs. I love carbs. And then you pour SYRUP on top. Excuse me while I eat my computer.

Anyway, breakfast. As I was saying, it should be a happy time. But my two-year-old struggles to see the happy side of it. We love oatmeal in our family, so oatmeal is often requested (even though pancakes are better, obviously). I get out a bowl, dump some quick oats into it, then pour some water in. Here we come to our first opportunity for trouble. I walk toward the microwave, and if the inspiration so strikes him, Jonah will declare, "I don't wanna cook it." I respond, "Oh, we have to cook it. It's yucky if you don't cook it." Sometimes he lets that slide, but sometimes... he doesn't. Then there are tears. 

But regardless of the tears, I cook the oatmeal. Then it's time to add the toppings, and here we have more trouble. I don't even want to get into it. I'll just say, there are issues with what kinds of toppings, how much of the toppings, who gets to add the toppings, what spoon is used to scoop the toppings, and whether the toppings are stirred in or left on top. And then there's the X factor, which accounts for all those times I have delivered the oatmeal perfectly according to instructions and +Jonah has seen the flawless product and screamed and fallen on the floor, crying. 

Yesterday was an X-factor day. Upon presentation of his oatmeal, Jonah threw himself on the floor, like so:

This is the back of Jonah's head, in case you can't tell from the lack of face.

 Then he pushed against the floor, sliding his whole body backward and straightening out, tantrumming the whole time.

It was a pretty impressive maneuver. I would have thought he was breakdancing, except he didn't do this at the end:

Instead he maintained his prostrate position:

In case you forgot what the prostrate position looked like.

This time I laughed, imagining him break dancing. But usually I don't laugh. Usually I walk away going "aaarrgh"--no, "AAARRGH"--and vowing to never give him oatmeal again.

But really, no breakfast is safe. If I'm giving Jonah a breakfast bar (aka "fruit and grain bar"), there could be an issue with how the wrapper is opened and you'd better WATCH OUT if the breakfast bar breaks. Toast has the same toppings issues that oatmeal has. You'd think cereal would be alright, but there's that X factor. 

Childless friends, you may think I'm advising you to never have children, but what I'm actually advising is that you never try to give breakfast to a two-year-old. If you can think of a way around that part of the day, please let me know and then go ahead and multiply and replenish the earth. And friends with children, if your two-year-old doesn't do this at breakfast, I don't want to hear about it. Then I will know that you have no understanding of why I'm walking around with a hint of crazy in my eye at breakfast time.

Babysitter

We got a babysitter this weekend. We never get babysitters. This is what I always envision:

And then I envision the babysitter avoiding eye contact with me at future meetings, and since I want everyone to love me, that's not okay.

But we got a babysitter anyway--a fun, sweet teenager from church--and she came over and I handed over my nearly nude baby and reintroduced her to my (formerly very unfriendly) toddler and this is how things looked:

Andy was doing that really darling thing where he reaches for someone's face and laughs and Jonah was showing her all his stuff. And this is how I looked:

I'm tilting my head because my heart is warm, and that is what people do when their hearts are warm. 

But then something really awful happened. Something so awful that it should never be illustrated. The babysitter got something on her hands that she thought was broccoli-tinted spit up (Andy is known for his prolific spitting) and she looked for something to wipe it up with. But then +Seth came over to help and took a closer look at his DIAPER and discovered that the green stuff was NOT SPIT UP. IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. 

I THINK YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. 

So my head quickly untilted itself, and my expression switched to this one:

Horror. This poor girl. She did not deserve this. 

She handled it with all the grace of a ballet-dancing queen, though. She just said "Oh. I'll wash my hands" -- and then washed her hands. And then went on to take such good care of my kids that the first thing Jonah did when he woke up the next day was ask where she'd gone.

So this is my family and my home -- if you enter, you will surely not escape without spit-up on your clothes, but now there's the added risk, apparently, of being pooped on. Word will get around that this happens -- primarily because I feel compelled to share this tale of shame with everyone I meet -- and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to ask someone to babysit again. 

I paid her well at the end of the night, and I threw in a you-got-pooped-on-bonus umbrella with ruffles, but there are some memories that can't be erased for any amount of money. Or umbrellas.