Biohazard Bratling and Play D'oh

Why is it whenever I get sick the top of my list of disease spreading suspects ends up being Bratling? Probably because kids are just as bad as rats carrying the plague only they're much cuter. I'm a gullible creature by nature. When I hear a kid sniffling I don't quite equate it to them being sick and so when Bratling went to kindergarten and brought back more than just crayon drawings I didn't think anything about it.

More kisses from a snuffly kid? Yes please!

It's not that they just give you diseases. No. It's the fact that kids make it their job to spread their ailments all around that makes them such hazardous creatures to your health. It doesn't help the fact that Bratling is shoving varying things into her mouth lately. Yesterday I got on her case when I caught her chewing on a quarter. It gave "Gra" (that's grandma to the rest of you) a heart attack. As sure as the sun rises if it's something that comes in contact with her hands, it'll end up in her mouth. Bratling touches a gross surface, she then puts her fingertips in her mouth. Little wonder she is always dragging home new diseases. My immune system always ends up getting a workout with her around that's for sure.

I should label the kid with one of these.


Brat has a new favorite thing ever; Play-Doh. Yes, that nasty colored clay in a jar. I'm probably only saying that because Bratling has a love of mooshing the stuff into the carpeting. Not on purpose but it ends up on the floor and under her feet very easily. I'll take a shot in the dark and say that her shoes are coated in the muck right now. On the plus, she'll play with her Play-Doh for hours and hours on end and inevitably it dries up so I can get rid of it. For the price the crap costs that's a good investment. I keep getting handed long snake shaped clay pieces with demands that I transform them into varying animals for Bratling to moosh, cut up, and in general bring to a gory demise. I'm playing with the stuff almost as much as her from that.

The best was last night when we made a headcrab from half-life 2 and then a person. Naturally that quickly turned into a headcrab zombie for the kid to have walk about and enjoy. That's so incredibly cute. I got a gamer at the ripe age of five who's got a good taste in games. It brings tears to my eyes to pass on that torch. God I'm such a bad awesome influence. I don't see many other kindergartners with these do you?

That is so cool.

Extra credit points for those of you who can tell me how to get the crap out of my carpeting.

Caffeinated Addict

It's official, I've been given the title of "Junkie". It's all down hill from here. What terrible substance do I abuse myself with? What horrible secret addiction do I carry? What puts me into withdrawal symptoms and causes ungodly amounts of agitation in me when I don't get my fix?

Coffee. Also lovingly known as hot bean juice.



It was just the other day that Bratling and I were having our fun on the computer, my sweet nerd sister, the Microblogologist, on Skype's voice chat. When the headaches occurred. Ever had a withdrawal headache? They suck. It was either the pain or another symptom showing but I became the grouchiest crab in that instant and brat's every kid-thing suddenly grated on my nerves heavily. Naturally this means a trip to the coffee pot. That kitchen oasis of life that brings forth the hot bean juice I desperately need. As it brewed and I gawked at the slow slow trickling stream of coffee just not coming out fast enough I realized that this beverage is slowly taking over my life. What next? Turning tricks behind the back of a Starbucks for the needed shot of a double espresso?

I should quit! I should go upstairs now and dump that wretched stuff down the drain and check myself into rehab for my highly over exaggerated problem. Suffer through the pains of caffeine withdrawal locked away in my room and only come out once I'm cured then never touch the stuff again.

Then again, I'd rather not. It is after all a lot better for you than you might think as lovingly documented here:

The Health Benefits of Drinking Coffee - Upload a Document to Scribd

Cuppy Cake Horror Survival

Seeing as I don't think I have a post yet about something other than the whelps shenanigans let me go on and give you all a sweet little glimpse at one of the things that bring me such great joy in life. Video games. Yes! I am an admitted gamer. FPSs, Sims, Dumb Pet games, Fighting, Adventure, Puzzle (though they make me feel dumb), Old-School DOS! Give me a game and I'll play it. Except sports and racing, I was never really into those. My current old school piece of goodness game that I'm playing through is the original Silent Hill, my first horror survival game. How do those work? You try to get through and live in these games that like to startle you, scare you and in general make you freak out if you play the games late at night and in the dark by yourself.



Silent Hill is one of those few games I won't play in front of the kid. Surprisingly so, considering I normally play my horrible games whilst Bratling watches and cheers me on (Yes I am expecting some negative comments for that one). In my justification for my bad parenting skills I'll have to tell you: Kid's cartoons effect her drastically where as even my worst game has yet to make any impact on Whelpling's psych. I also figure she'll be blaming me for enough crap come teenagerdom so being the cool parental-esque figure who let's her enjoy a nasty video game form time to time isn't going to be at the top of the list of problems she'll be whining about. Reality around here, the older folks play games and so long as Bratling doesn't start trying to reenact her gaming experiences I'm cool with it. I've raised her so far playing these games and instilled in her that games are not real, you don't do the bad things in games in real life, and we don't talk about gaming to everyone. Those really are the biggest bases to cover.

Gaming around here is like Fight Club. Rule number one, we don't talk about gaming.

It's a taboo, I'll admit it. There was even a time I insisted on not touching a game rated over E when she was around but it was making her more upset than anything. Now after kindergarten I get a little kid running up to me happily saying, "I was good at school today like you said. Let's play Painkiller! I get to shoot this time and kill the monsters though." Awww... warms my heart.



Anyhoo, I digressed. Silent Hill I don't touch near the kid for probably only the singular reason that she drives me nuts whilst playing it. "The little girl's name is YOUR name Auntie! DO you hear static? Is there a monster? You must be hearing static! Hurry you got to save your little girl self!"

Oi, that's a horror game mood killer. Then again so is playing the "Cuppy Cake" song on loop whilst I'm playing the game but I keep doing that too. Oh well, I guess there really aren't any games I won't play around that kid. God I'm a bad influence...

Love, Giant Cricket

There comes a time in every caregivers life when they have to deal with the inevitable (and often irrational) fright of a child. Garbage Trucks (Ga-Hup!), Vacuum Cleaners, Storms, Fireworks, Weird photoshopped pictures of aye-aye owls... I could go on for ages about those horrible and scary things that terrify Bratling. The newest trend has leaned towards insects, one in particular will send my dear whelp into fits of terror induced shrieks (my ears shall never recover). Crickets.



Yes, one of the most harmless bugs we have around here and she screams at even the idea that they are near her. I know what must be done. I must nip this fear in the bud just as I did for the other grubby, giant bugs of the past.

Yes there was another bug she feared. They don't come around very often: the Cicada

Yes yes messy downstairs, I didn't finish cleaning it at that point.

Bratling didn't know what to think of those either, heck, she was downright scared of those big, loud bugs that had swarmed our suburbs. Needless to say before they were all gone I took the liberty to indoctrenate Whelp that those harmless giants were cool. Which they are.


See? happy kid.

I'm used to these quirky frights by now. Every new one that pops up I get rid of it in a process that reminds me of whack-a-mole. Nail one, another pops up. Every time I do so however, it is always in the insanest, most unorthodox ways. Because normal coping skills are boring.

For the vacuum I turned it on and popped that sucking nozzle right on the kid. Upon seeing that she wasn't going to get "eaten" she was cool with it from then on. The Aye-aye owl? Printed up a picture of it, hung it up in plain view of her bed and let Bratling take her course. Sure enough, she was dragging that picture around up until she got it just too messy to keep (I so should have saved that picture, darn it.). I'm taking the same route with the crickets. I found the biggest, groadiest, fattest, grubby cricket picture I could find. Printed it, autographed it "Giant Cricket", and tossed it in the front of her backpack for Kindergarten. Now if I write a post about a teacher kicking me in my nonexistent nads, you'll know why.

I'm going to be printing out more and repeating the process until crickets don't bug her anymore, and yes; that pun was intentional. :P

Country Rib Crock and Carpet Cleaning

Bratling had her fun today pouring our powdered carpet freshener all over the place. I mean it, all over. On her Mama's work uniform, the kitchen floor, the stairs, the couch with a potato... No you didn't hear wrong. A potato was put right there on the couch and then had powdered carpet freshener poured on top. I can only fathom the reason to be something like this:



She got her just desserts for the act of recreating something out of "the family circus" all over the house. Sure enough Brat got to vacuum everything up and even then some. Hey, the stairs were needing it anyways! Then I finished up on dinner. It was fantastic by the way and so as promised, here's the recipe.



Country Rib Crock

2 1/2 lbs of country ribs
4 onions about fist sized
1 bag baby carrots
3 medium potatoes
4 cloves of garlic
2 tbs beef bullion (or to taste)
3 cubes of chicken bullion
add pepper to taste
3 tbs of corn starch
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 packet of onion soup mix
1 tbs garlic powder
2 16 oz packages of gnocchi dumplings

1. Cut up the country ribs (keep the bones if you have any to add for flavoring), 2 of the onions, and the 3 potatoes all into chunks roughly the same size then add them to a four quart crock. Chop the garlic small and add it as well

2. Add the bag of baby carrots, the beef and chicken bullion, onion soup packet, garlic powder, and pepper then mix everything up.

3. Add water until the top of your mixture is just covered and turn the crock on high.

4. Wait 11 to 12 hours.

5. Drain the broth into a separate pot and keep the mixture of meat and vegetables in the crock, remove any bones at this point, turn the flame on medium high then chop 1 onion and add the can of condensed cream of mushroom soup. Allow broth to come to a boil, being sure to whisk the mixture to ensure the soup breaks apart and allow the onion to cook.

6. Add the cornstarch and stir until the broth thickens into a gravy (feel free to add more or less depending on your preference.) Return the gravy to the crock and stir with the meat and vegetables to evenly coat.

7. Start preparing final onion by chopping it and adding it to a frying pan to saute and begin making the gnocchi according to the package's instructions.

8. Once gnocchi are complete, drain, then add them to the sauteed onions and cook them for an additional minute or two until the onions are done to preference, being sure to mix the gnocchi and the onions up. Add garlic powder to taste, mix it one final time and enjoy!


It's a simple to make meal that I started right before bed and completed on time for dinner. It'll probably be best on the second night, assuming it lasts that long. Around here it's almost all gone already. It reminds me sort of like a pot roast dinner, which is very pleasant.

Hair Cuts and Crock Pots

Let me introduce my niece, whom I lovingly call, Bratling. She is five, recently started kindergarten, very clever, tomboyish, and has a penchant for getting into mischief the likes we child-rearing types shudder over.



Because of her being the way she is, things have been placed around this house higher and higher up in a frantic race to keep them out of "the reach zone". You know the zone; that place where kids can get their hands on things you'd rather they don't touch. Bratling has come up with numerous ways to thwart our efforts of keeping some things sacred and forbidden by doing everything from climbing to knocking things done with her longer toys. Tonight she reached one of the forbidden and like any child who has something we don't want her to use... Used it with abandon. My father's scissors to be exact.

Right after bedtime she went into action. Bratling went into the bathroom to do the nightly tinkle and climbed the toilet to get to the shelf. While me and my father were both on the computers and not thinking of the trip as anything more than the usual go in, go, and go back to bed routine as usual we didn't get suspicious until two warning signs alerted us.

It was quiet.

Brat was in the bathroom for too long.

It was my dad who called to Bratling and asked her what she was doing where upon she quickly toddled out and went straight to bed without skipping a beat. That made me suspicious and sure enough when I went in there I spotted on the floor something that most definitely didn't belong there. Locks of Brat's hair. I was in denial at first, leaning over and picking up the pieces of hair and looking at them before bringing them over to my dad. From there I woke up the kid, brushed out her hair (something that produced one final large lock of hair) and looked at the damage.

It was hard to notice, most of her snipping was done in the front and another in the back. I told her we should go to the salon and get her hair cut to the shortest length she made. With a cry she exclaimed, "No! I don't want my hair cut! I like my long hair!"

Gotta love the logic in kids.

I'm squirreling the locks of hair away, just like I have on all her other hair cutting incidents. I don't know why, I just feel like it'd be a darn shame to waste them. Someday I'm going to make jewelry pieces to be given to the females of our family with them. I think it'd make a cute sentimental gift. I'll be sure to post the project up when I do go out and get it done.

Speaking of projects. I'm improvising dinner. Country ribs with vegitables slow cooked in a crock with gnocci dumplings for tonight. You'll get the recipe once I try it out tonight.

Greetings

Hello, I'm the Unmarried Housewife; a gal that lives in a house with her parents, her sister, and a niece whom I raise like my own. Welcome to my blog, a random collection of events and stories of my life. Here you'll get an assortment of everything under the sun that adds some interest to my life. Expect art, recipes, and stories of life at home when you're young and restless.