Cupcakes + Muppets = Awesomeness.
by Cupcake Occasions uk
If You Give the Muppets a Midnight Snack
If you give a muppet a midnight snack,
he’s going to ask for a fresh new diaper.
When you change his diaper, he’ll probably want to put on a new outfit as well.
Once he’s dressed, he’ll ask to put on a drool bib.
Then he will want to chew on his hand and various lovies nearby.
While he’s sucking his thumb, he’ll probably realize that there’s a lot of interesting stuff surrounding him. So he’s going to want to look around a bit.
When he’s finished taking everything in, he’ll want to listen to some classic music to calm himself down. You will have to make sure the iPod is plugged into the speakers and find the Disney Classic Lullabies playlist.
While he’s listening to the songs, he’s probably going to want to sing along. He’ll smile and squeal; his voice will make him remember a funny story he wants to share about his day.
Telling his story will remind him of all the books in our children’s library. So you’ll read him one of his cardboard books and he’ll want to turn the pages himself.
When he holds the book, he’ll get so excited that he’ll want to hold all his toys. He’ll ask to sit on the floor so he can grab his blocks.
He’ll try to crawl. When he starts to get frustrated, he’ll want to snuggle with you in his glider.
The gentle rocking will slowly start to put him to sleep against your chest. Which means you’ll need to bundle him back up in his wearable blanket and put him back in his crib.
Squirming and rolling in his sleepsack to get comfortable will make him realize that his diaper is wet again. So…he’ll ask for another diaper change.
And chances are, if he needs a new diaper, he’s going to want a midnight snack before he goes back to bed.
Inspired by the book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” by Laura Joffe Numeroff
In Which She Burns the Chicken
Any story that begins “It seemed like a good idea at the time…” usually isn’t going to result in a tale that has gone exactly according to plan.
I was feeling daring this evening. Jon said he’d just pick up something quick from the store for dinner. But no, I wanted to make chicken piccata. I found a recipe and laid out all my ingredients neatly across the counter. The garlic and olive oil began sizzling in the skillet and the kitchen filled with delicious scents of a culinary master. I had mouth-watering visions of the Cheesecake Factory dish – buttery angel hair pasta mixed in a lemon caper sauce coating thinly cut, melt-in-your-mouth, pan-seared chicken medallions. It 
seemed like such a good idea…
Then the fire alarm went off.
Jon put the muppets to bed while I pulled the dish from piles of parsley and caper ash and scraped charcoal off the chicken pieces. We sat down to eat and began sawing away at the meat before gnawing on the dry chicken for a bit. Swallow. The pasta was sticky and bland. Jon tried to make the best of it. “Well, I can tell that under better circumstances this could have potential.” This is what I get for trying to be domestic.
Yesterday, one of our little friends posted a story about an unfortunate blueberry experience. In an effort to avoid blowout inducing oatmeal, her mother thought a homemade banana/blueberry baby puree smoothie seemed like such a good idea… A bad blend of the blueberries led to a very cranky little one and a significant amount of arfing. This was followed by Pedialyte to sooth her upset tummy. (With both the berries and beverage being a lovely purplish stain tint when it is regurgitated back up onto a parent’s clothing and furniture.)
So far, the muppets have had meals of milk and the occasional bowl of rice cereal (mixed with milk). These recent (less than) successful mealtime experiments made me realize that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing when it comes to establishing a timeline of solid food introduction for the boys.
Earlier this week, Search and Destroy ate their rice cereal like it was the most amazing thing in the world. They absolutely inhaled it. Destroy would open his eyes and mouth wide as soon as you brought the spoon back up from the bowl. Search was giggling hysterically; then he figured out how to blow raspberries once successfully taking in a full bite of cereal.
What foods did your kids like best? When did you start introducing what? What the heck am I supposed to be doing?
So far, I’ve learned:
- Don’t attempt to prepare homemade baby food. I’m not that talented.
- Bad blueberries are a bad idea – both for babies and everything within their projectile puking range.
- Duck and cover when Search has a mouthful of rice cereal.
- If I think, “This seems like a good idea,” it is most likely decidedly not.
The New Generation
Welcome to the world little Harlan. Today, our friend had a little boy.
We’re at that age where everywhere we turn, someone we know is having a little one. We counted once – in the three years since Jon graduated, there are more than 20 future grads. And that’s just on Jon’s side of friends. Harlan is the fourth little guy in our circle of friends to enter this world since the muppets arrived. (To be fair, there was one girl.) And I know four more still expecting. (One is also having twin boys – welcome to the doubles tournament!)
Admittedly, Jon and I were seemingly a bit late to the baby game – most of our friends are announcing the imminent arrivals of their second children. But we were one of the first to have two (with one of the others who beat us to two doing so with twinkies of their own less than a month before the muppets breakthrough performance).
It’s interesting to sit back and realize that all these tiny humans are our future. It’s fascinating to “compare notes” if you will with other mothers as our progeny develops. High school friends, colleagues, new friends, twin moms, preemie parents – the experiences are shared with a complete amalgamation of people connected to me in different ways. And of course, in addition to celebrating new life, it’s nice to have a circle to share with. What goes around, comes around. And that’s true for baby stuff just as much as karma.
Harlan’s baby shower was the first outing the muppets attended. They never even got out of their stroller. They snoozed soundly in their land yacht, which I’d maneuvered into a corner away from direct sunlight in a manner befitting the skills a mother who grew up playing hours of Tetris on GameBoy.
On Halloween, as I was juggling my monkey and little lion man, another friend joined the shindig with her one-week old. He was so tiny. I was elated! This tiny little baby was the first newborn that instinctively made me think that my guys were getting so big. The muppets were no longer the smallest of the bunch!
At our 2010 Kid’s Christmas Party, another friend brought her brand new two-week old little girl. Search and Destroy were very squirmy, as they were already big giant boys (now in 3-6 month size clothes). So amidst juggling muppets, I was able to congratulate the new mommy of two. Both of the muppets younger new friends were happy, healthy babies. And we had clean bills of health from all the wee ones yet to debut. The atmosphere made me grin from ear-to-ear.
In the past few months, I’ve had countless conversations about what it’s going to be like when our kids start growing up together – who might be the ring leader, and who might be the mischievous one who figures out who can’t refuse a dare… At this point, we may have our own baseball team. Anyone up for a kids vs. parents game at our summer barbeque? I figure we can take them down through at least t-ball.
Yesterday I was gleefully informed that Harlan’s mom had finally been admitted to the Labor and Delivery unit. Harlan was already four days late; everyone (especially his mom) was very ready to meet him. Perhaps it was because she had just checked into the same hospital where I’d spent so many tearful days/nights, but I suddenly felt a twinge of jealousy.
I can’t imagine that you’ll hear many stories about women jealous of other women going into labor, but the news made me start reminiscing about the stark contrast of our boys’ earthly entrance.
“Walk, walk, walk.” Four days past his due date (and truth be told, about two weeks before), Harlan’s mom was encouraging her little man to depart his cozy nine-month abode. I was afraid to drink too much water because walking the ten feet to the bathroom might be dangerous. She was so excited to finally be admitted to the hospital; I replied to the news letting her know I was partial to L&D Room 10. (And not that she would likely be watching a lot of TV, but beware the broken unit in Mother/Baby Room 23).
My phone buzzed at 5 a.m. this morning. Jon grumbled and asked who would be texting at such an hour. An adorable, healthy, 7lb 9 oz Harlan was here. Jon smiled. “That’s an acceptable interruption,” he noted as we drug ourselves out of bed to cater to our own growing boys at the early hour. Early, late, preemie, term – none of them are going to care when they’re running amuck together throughout the days of their youth.
We’re so excited to have you here Harlan. The muppets can’t wait to meet their new friend.
A Dog’s Life
We have two labs. Both of them like to eat. A lot. They beg. A lot. They’ll try anything – they’ll sit perfectly still and stare at your food with a laser like focus, trying to will your food to their mouth via an intense Jedi mind trick.
The muppets high chairs are all set up in our kitchen now. The boys will usually sit there happily as we wolf down our food – I think they like to be at eye level with everyone. And recently, we’ve been putting them in the high chairs to give them gourmet rice cereal so they associate sitting at the table with mealtime. Their furry brothers have begun assuming the position – seated upright, begging, on either side of the dining muppet.
These dogs are going to LOVE their new brothers when they figure out how to fling food off the high chair tray to the floor.
Several years ago, shortly after Jon and I moved into our house, GrammaJ and GrampaTavo came up to visit. Normally our yellow lab, Cooper, is constantly underfoot; if he’s not begging for food, he’s begging for a toy (“Throw the ball. Throw the ball. Throw the ball.”) or encouraging a houseguest to scratch his bottom. But on this particular evening, Cooper was lounging in the hallway, not very interested in the people, toys or food around him. This was odd behavior.
Jon went over to where he was sprawled out on the ground. “He looks a bit round…” And he was very short of breath.
I opened the garage door. The lid from the dog food container was lifted and slightly askew. Cooper had managed to finagle his way into his kibble and had eaten as much as he could possibly reach. He didn’t stop because he was full; he stopped because his little head couldn’t reach anymore. Then he staggered back into the house – likely plotting how he could get to the rest.
We rushed to call the vet, which resulted in rushing a dog with a severe tummy ache to the emergency vet. Thankfully, we caught the pup’s mischief in time and no extraordinary measures were needed.
The official diagnosis: “Vomited a prodigious amount due to a massive overindulgence.” (I am not making this up.)
This afternoon I received the following anecdote. Allegedly, it’s an oldie but a goodie. But I’d never seen it before and it made me laugh. So for some weekend fun, I present the following canine chronicle. Sadly, I do not know the author.
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Unbaked Yeast Rolls
We have a fox terrier by the name of Jasper. He came to us in the summer of 2001 from the fox terrier rescue program. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this type of adoption, imagine taking in a 10 year old child about whom you know nothing and committing to doing your best to be a good parent.
Like a child, the dog came with his own idiosyncrasies. He will only sleep on the bed, on top of the covers, nuzzled as close to my face as he can get without actually performing a French kiss on me. Lest you think this is a bad case of ‘no discipline,’ I should tell you that Perry and I tried every means to break him of this habit, including locking him in a separate bedroom for several nights. The new door cost over $200. But I digress…
Five weeks ago we began remodeling our house. Although the cost of the project is downright obnoxious, it was 20 years overdue AND it got me out of cooking Thanksgiving for family, extended family, and a lot of friends that I like more than family most of the time. I was assigned the task of preparing 124 of my famous yeast dinner rolls for the two Thanksgiving feasts we did attend. (I am still cursing the electrician for getting the new oven hooked up so quickly. It was the only appliance in the whole darnn house that worked, thus the assignment.)
I made the decision to cook the rolls on Wed. evening to reheat Thurs am. Since the kitchen was freshly painted, you can imagine the odor. Not wanting the rolls to smell like Sherwin Williams #586, I put the rolls on baking sheets and set them in the living room to rise for a few hours.
It was 8:30 p.m. When I went to the living room to retrieve the pans, much to my shock, one whole pan of 12 rolls was empty. I called out to Jasper and my worst nightmare became a reality. He literally wobbled over to me. He looked like a combination of the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Michelin Tire man wrapped up in fur. He groaned when he walked. I swear even his cheeks were bloated.
I ran to the phone and called our vet. After a few seconds of uproarious laughter, he told me the dog would probably be okay; however, I needed to give him Pepto Bismol every two hours for the rest of the night. God only knows why I thought a dog would like Pepto Bismol any more than my kids did when they were sick. Suffice it to say that by the time we went to bed the dog was black, white and pink. He was so bloated, we had to lift him onto the bed for the night.
We arose at 7:30 and as we always do first thing, put the dog out to relieve himself. Well, the dog was as drunk as a sailor on his first leave. He was running into walls, falling flat on his butt and most of the time when he was walking, his front half was going one direction and the other half was either dragging the grass or headed 90 degrees in another direction. He couldn’t lift his leg to pee, so he would just walk and pee at the same time. When he ran down the small incline in our back yard he couldn’t stop himself and nearly ended up running into the fence. His pupils were dilated and he was as dizzy as a loon.
I endured another few seconds of laughter from the vet (second call within 12 hours) before he explained that the yeast had fermented in his belly and that he was indeed drunk. He assured me that, not unlike most binges we humans go through, it would wear off after about 4 or 5 hours, and to keep giving him Pepto Bismol.
Afraid to leave him by himself in the house, Perry and I loaded him up and took him with us to my sister’s house for the first Thanksgiving meal of the day. Rolls firmly secured in the trunk (124 > less 12) and drunk dog leaning from the back seat onto the console of the car between Perry and I, we took off. Now I know you probably don’t believe that dogs burp, but believe me when I say that after eating a tray of risen unbaked yeast rolls, DOGS WILL BURP. These burps were pure Old Charter. They would have matched or beat any smell in a drunk tank at the police station. But that’s not the worst of it.
Now he was beginning to fart and they smelled like baked rolls. God strike me dead if I am not telling the truth! We endured this for the entire trip to Karen’s, thankful she didn’t live any further away than she did. Once Jasper was firmly placed in my sister’s garage with the door locked, we finally sat down to enjoy our first Thanksgiving meal of the day. The dog was the topic of conversation all morning long and everyone made trips to the garage to witness my drunken dog, each returning with a tale of Jasper’s latest endeavor to walk without running into something. Of course, as the old adage goes, ‘what goes in must come out’ and Jasper was no exception.
Granted if it had been me that had eaten 12 risen, unbaked yeast rolls, you might as well have put a concrete block up my behind, but alas a dog’s digestive system is quite different from yours or mine. I discovered this was a mixed blessing when we prepared to leave Karen’s house. Having discovered his ‘packages’ on the garage floor, we loaded him up in the car so we could hose down the floor.
This was another naive decision on our part. The blast of water from the hose hit the poop on the floor and the poop on the floor withstood the blast from the hose. It was like Portland cement beginning to set up and cure. We finally tried to remove it with a shovel. I (obviously no one else was going to offer their services) had to get on my hands and knees with a coarse brush to get the remnants off of the floor. And as if this wasn’t degrading enough, the darn dog in his drunken state had walked through the poop and left paw prints all over the garage floor that had to be brushed too.
I am happy to report that as of today (Monday) the dog is back to normal both in size and temperament. He has had a bath and is no longer tricolor. None the worse for wear I presume. I am also happy to report that just this evening I found two risen unbaked yeast rolls hidden inside my closet door. It appears he must have come to his senses after eating 10 of them but decided hiding two of them for later would not be a bad idea. Now, I’m doing research on the computer as to: ‘How to clean unbaked dough from the carpet.’
And how was your day?
Bathnight Blowout
I know what you’re thinking. Today is Wednesday; bath night is Tuesday. For Search – bath night was both days this week. He had a blowout.
The muppets are getting so big so fast! Both are excitedly grasping at their toys and taking in the world around them in wonder. Thanks to the generosity of Santa and grandparents, there are a lot of new toys to inspire their little minds. Search’s new favorite is his jumper seat, which is highly conducive to his affinity for standing and bouncing.
This evening, when I got home, Destroy was working on his sitting ability with Dad while Search bounced happily away in his Baby Einstein Playful Piano Johnny Jumper. (He’s our budding rockstar.) I made a few final phone calls and sent out several work related follow-up emails. (A large portion of my job involves herding hamsters and chasing chickens.) Then I walked over to where my boys were enjoying some male bonding.
An odd smell wafted up through the air around me. Destroy looked up from Daddy’s lap, tooted, and grinned at me. Being the fabulous and loving wife and mother that I am, I offered to change his diaper. “You’re right – it really smells,” Jon agreed. “But I just checked and it’s only a tiny smear.” Hmmm, perhaps the odiferous culprit was his brother.
I scooped Search up out of the jumper and was practically knocked out by the noxious odor emanating from his nether regions. “It’s him,” I choked. We scurried upstairs toward the changing table, mass quantities of wipes and the likelihood of multiple new diapers.
I put Pig Pen down on the changing pad – one could practically see the smelly squiggles wriggling around him – unsnapped his jimmies and peeled his outfit off. There was no amount of wipes that was going to solve this situation. We marched back downstairs.
“Babe…we have a bit of a situation in here…” I called from where I was ruining more outfits, blankets, and washcloths in the bathroom. Jon rounded the corner and stumbled back out of the bathroom, overwhelmed by the stench (and pile of poop accumulating on the barrier blanket).
Even the size 3 diaper our little muppet recently graduated into couldn’t hold a candle to this blowout. Poop was smeared up to his neck. Thrilled with the attention, enjoying the unexpected naked time and preferring to stand instead of sit at any time of day, Search was all grins and giggles – even sharing his machine gun laugh with us.
When Jon was ready to shed the necessary hazmat suit and assist with the now exceedingly essential bath, Search was soaked from head to toe – literally. Now that out growing boys have begun experiences the joys of teething, the drool has begun to threaten a flood watch. Search has been sucking his thumb/hand with a furious vigor that can only be explained by the assumption that he is actually a changling that hasn’t yet realized he is no longer a swamp monster.
Then he peed on me. Overall, he was pretty pleased with himself today.
Santa Tantrums
As a final conclusion to the holidays 2010, I would like to share one of my favorite posts of the year from one of my favorite parenting blogs – The Poop.
Sadly, I missed the call for entries for the 2010 Annual Santa Tantrum Awards. But the muppets didn’t let us down. Their first visit with Santa is one to be remembered…
But here’s what our entry would have been:
Both muppets remained calm and composed throughout the wait in line. The moment we met Santa, Destroy became entranced by all the glittering and blinking lights. Search was not a fan.
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