Mochi is a sweet and yummy and super soft Japanese rice cake. My mom and Grandma could eat this by the metric ton. You can push your finger into the little cake, and since it's squishy, it expands back out to it's original cute little form. Baby Viv's cheeks are a lot like mochi- soft, sweet and yummy. And she's part Japanese- and I'm a dork and I prefer to call my kids by names that will embarrass the hell out of them when they are teenagers. We honestly rarely refer to her by her birth name in my house. Jude calls her "The Moch"- like she's a super hero. "The Moch is awake!" "The Moch is crying!" "The Moch dropped a deuce!" <---- Yes. He is still referring to taking a poop as "dropping a deuce." It was funny when we were first potty training him, but now it has been solidified in his vocabulary as what to say when the task must be done. Ok, so it's still funny to me- is it wrong to think that the saying is actually more discreet than saying, "I have to poop?"
ANYWAYS....The Moch. MOCHI. It has such a nice ring to it. Plus, it goes so well with Pookie- so now Jude won't feel like he's the only one being picked on when I refer to him by his pet name in front of his friends someday when they're in high school. I sometimes call her "Mochi Min" or just "Min," which derived from how closely it sounds to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. My mother hates this weird off the wall Vietnam reference that I came up with. Why does that make it more fun to say?
Exhibit A: Strawberry Mochi
Having kids means needing to be prepared for unforeseen scenarios that will further prohibit a mother's ability to enjoy stuff she likes to do on her own time... because her own time really is just her kid's time on loan until they need her again. Like when someone gets a disturbingly large bug bite on their butt that mom mistakens for a mosquito bite, then a pimple, then ultimately realizes it's a spider bite and later feels terrible when the someone slips on the tile floor in their socks and pops the bite on the butt, thus causing a huge welp and blemish that makes it painful for the tiny tender bottom to sit down for a couple of days (because mom has never been a mom before and is still learning about when certain things might be a bigger deal than they first appear to be... HELLO!)
Or how about when a little certain someone falls off of a lawn chair and busts their face on a brick garden bed- and mom turns from holding the baby on the couch in the living room to discover her husband at the sliding back door holding a screaming child who is bleeding from the face all over the back patio? Yeah, that first trip to the ER was a whole lot of NOT FUN. NOT COOL. Not something I ever want to go through again. Seeing your precious little buddy scared like that, in that kind of pain, with his beautiful face swollen and bleeding all over the place... it's the stuff that nightmares are made of.
My friends asked if I freaked out. I probably would have if my husband hadn't freaked out for the both of us. One of us had to keep their shit together. I suppose if I would have been the one outside who witnessed first hand the fall that our son took onto the bricks, I probably would've been the one freaking out. But I wasn't. I held our boy against me in a really uncomfortable chair while he finally cried himself into an exhausted sleep waiting for a doctor to come make sure he hadn't busted out his teeth or needed stitches. He hadn't and he didn't. We got really lucky- he missed knocking out his front teeth or breaking his nose by literally a few millimeters.
The last time I had been in an ER, I was about 6 months pregnant with Jude. I had nearly sliced my finger off while cutting carrots for a curry dish I was making for dinner. I thought about that and couldn't help but rub my left index finger over the scar the cut left on my thumb as I held my poor little guy in the ER- with his long gangly Bambi arms and legs dangling down beside me and his sweet eyes poofy from crying while he searched my own for comfort.
On a less heavy note (whew!):
Baby Mochi has taken a hankerin' to the thumb. Taylor worries about her being a thumb sucker. I don't care if she puts her whole hand in her mouth so long as it helps her to sleep better at night. I'm sure he'd lighten up a little if he were the one waking up at any given hour of the morning to coax her back into sleep. Right?
She also has taken a liking to the cats. Unlike with Jude, I think Niles will be buddies with Mochi. I'm hoping that when she gets bigger, she will unite with me in my petition to get another kitten into my house. Maybe Taylor won't be able to deny his precious baby girl a kitten, whereas his wife pestering him for another cat just gets irritating? That's part of my master plan.
I bought her a tie dyed onesie from a carni's booth at the State Fair. The carnis were total hippies and had traveled from Wisconsin (or Minnesota? I can't remember). For what I paid, I could've gotten a bunch of white Gerber onesies and a tie dye kit and made a basketfull. But I like the carni story behind this onesie and I like to give those kinds of gypsy-like peddlers my business. I still want to have a baby onesie (and grown up clothing) tie dye party soon.
I made a Paleo lasagna. It satisfied my craving for pasta sauce. I also made Paleo fried chicken from a recipe in my new "Paleo Comfort Foods" recipe book. It knocked our socks off. The fact that I can once again periodically enjoy things like fried okra, biscuits and gravy and enchiladas (there's a coconut flour and egg white tortilla recipe in there!) without all the gluten and bad-for-you crap fillers has whatever part of me that wasn't sold on this diet convinced that I'm in for the long haul with this way of eating.
I found a Merlotte's t-shirt and apron I bought last year when I thought I was going to be a Merlotte's waitress for Halloween- but then never wore it because I was pregnant and too bloated and pukey to leave the house to go to the Halloween party I was going to wear it to. Now I'm not bloated and pukey and it fits like a charm, so I wear it. A lot. More than I should if I don't want to be seen as a huge dork who is obsessed with True Blood. Which I'm not... I swear.
