MOXIE MOM on Life & Kids
The New Co-op
So have you been to the Food Co-op’s new location? It is sleek! I stopped in to pick up some vitamins today and a few other things just for fun.
I have been waiting for this store to open for quite some time, patiently but expectantly, because I live closer to the new location than the Forest St. one. Well, that might not quite be true, but I’m more often on the Guide than on Forest St. Plus, lately, in the last year or so, I found myself spending way too much time trolling for a parking spot—that’s a good sign for business, I guess, but sometimes I left without shopping.
Anyway, I’m excited about the new store. The aisles are wider and everything feels bright and airy and shiny and oh, so professional. Not that Forest St. doesn’t—but Cordata does have a different feel. The Co-op feels pretty different from the original on State St. (Okay, at the risk of giving away my age, I even admit to remembering the very original Co-op in Fairhaven in the 70s that was more a shed than a store. The memories are a bit vague, though. Does anyone else remember this place? Do you also remember Toad Hall?)
We have come a long way.
leave a comment!The Power of Wii
This Christmas, in a bid to bridge the technology gap between parents and kids, we gave Leah and Ty a Wii.
My dad was the only relative with us for the big day, and he saw first-hand the reaction when they opened the box, complete with flapping arms and big eyes. Their surprise was genuine because a few months earlier, their dad had told them he would contribute to a Wii fund if they started saving their allowance. Only they kept getting sidetracked with other purchases. And I think somewhere along that line they gave up, decided their house would be the only house in town without a current gaming system.
When I bought the Wii in November, the sales guy assured me I would like it as much as the kids. He told me my husband and I might sneak off to play Wii Sport when the kids weren’t looking. Hasn’t happened to me yet, though I suppose anything is possible, but Curt is quite the golfer. It started during the sloppy post-Christmas snow, when we gave in to the Wii and let the kids play it ad nauseam. We all played.
The verdict? It’s fun. I know, I think it’s weird—this virtual sports play that some people, I suspect, actually think mimics real exercise. (My daughter has taken to asking to play it with, “It’s exercise, Mom.” Uh, no it’s not.) And I have a friend who vows he won’t get one because he thinks the idea of virtual sports is twisted.
It’s still fun. And here’s the thing I didn’t really expect, even though it’s the thing that drove us to buy one, so I’m not sure why I didn’t expect it. The Wii gives us another medium for hanging out with our kids, one of whom is a hair’s width away from giving up her family for her friends.
Now suddenly she and her dad have a new way to hang out: Wii golf. They love it, and they’ve both gotten really good at it, and they’ll disappear into the TV room to play together, cheered on by the virtual crowd. Leah, who’s starting to roll her eyes at the idea of family board games (bored games), who doesn’t want to watch the same movie that Ty and I do, who can’t excuse herself from the dinner table fast enough, seems to have found a way to hang with us. With dad.
I seriously doubt I will ever sneak off to play by myself—or even with Curt—but when the kids ask if I’d like to play baseball? Sure, why not? It’s raining outside. Again. Hey, can we play tennis?
leave a comment!Flooding Fun
With school closed yesterday (and again today), we are at a bit of a loss. I mean, what is there to do when it’s just raining outside? No sledding to be had. Plus, I have to actually work.
Well, here’s what we did after the kids got all their homework done for the week. This is Squalicum Parkway. Impressive, eh? Check out the Bellingham Herald photos if you haven’t yet. 
So, what to do today? Hum de dum.
2 commentsHunger Pains
There’s this phenomenon in our house called bonking (not to be confused with the act sometimes known as boinking). I think “bonk” is the official word used by athletes. Not sure about that, but anyway, I’ve been known to bonk. When I was pregnant, I couldn’t drive across town without bonking. My neighbor, a performance athlete, bonks nearly every day after her training, and her daughter bonks. It happens to those of us who forget to eat, who don’t really care about food. Hard to believe there are people who don’t care about food, but we’re out there.
Ty is the family bonker, typically around 4:00pm, usually when he’s arrived home from a friend’s house and hasn’t eaten for a while. Unless that friend’s parents understand Ty’s metabolism—and there are a few out there who do understand it well, bless them—they won’t know to offer food every 10 minutes or so. Because if Ty is busy, he’ll likely refuse food. And he won’t realize he’s hungry until after he’s bonked, no matter how many times we ask if he’s hungry, no matter how many times we insist he needs to eat. If he could exist on air to keep playing, he would.
Anyway, tonight I was actually cooking dinner at 4:45, a first-time ever occurrence in our house, because Ty had an indoor soccer practice at 6:00. But Ty took it into his head he did not want to eat tostadas, one of his all-time favorite meals. A sure sign he was bonking. He had had a pre-dinner snack of yogurt, tortilla chips, cheese, and an apple after coming home from a friend’s house, and then went right on into his bonk.
“What’s for dinner?” he wants to know.
“Tostadas.”
“What!? I hate tostadas. What can I eat?”
“You can make a burrito with a flour tortilla.”
“What? I haattteee burritos.”
Uh huh.
The tears start. He trails me around the kitchen, sobbing. “You’re going to make me skip dinner. There isn’t anything I can eat, so you’re going to make me skip dinner.” Sob, sob, sob.
A memory of my sister as a five-year-old flashes before me. The morning she dissolved on the floor, claiming she wasn’t going to be able to go outside that day because all her socks had holes in them. (Because, it turned out, she’d cut out all the little side bumps at the seams and created holes in place of the bumps. In every single pair of socks.)
Tonight it’s Ty, adamant that I’m forcing him to skip dinner. We chat a little about how much he hates tostadas, a realization that occurred, apparently, just this evening, and he wails and paces and begs for other dinner options while I go right on cooking the beans and rice and ground beef that I know he will ultimately eat. This goes on for probably half an hour, and his sobs grow drier and drier, complete with that scrunched up face look and the sob that comes out every 30 seconds or so that sounds faked because the kid can’t quite give it up but he also can’t quite remember what it is he’s crying about. Everyone in our house knows to ignore the situation and go on about their business.
At the table, Ty contentedly serves up the various options. “Glad to see you’re finding food you like, Ty,” says his dad.
Ty glances at him, his face a little blank. We don’t remind him of his earlier views on being forced to skip dinner.
He heads off to soccer with a full belly.
leave a comment!