That’s weird, right?

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At work, we have only a urinal and a stall in the bathroom. When I entered the bathroom, the stall was occupied. No problem, I only needed the urinal. So I was there, and the person sitting in the stall was breathing deep and regular, not quite a snore, but almost. In and out, in and out, the whole time I was in there. No other sounds or motions across the divide. I know sometimes people go real quiet in there when someone comes in, hoping that somehow they’ll remain unnoticed, but I don’t think that’s what it was in this case. The breathing was too heavy, too regular. Finally, I was finished and flushed. At that point, the guy in the stall had a big yawn and then proceeded to start moving around, ultimately flushing.

I guarantee I woke him up with my flush.

That’s weird, right? I mean, I guess there’s two possibilities: either he snuck in there to hide and catch a little shut-eye, or he was so tired that when he sat down he just fell asleep. I guess in either case, I’m glad the guy got some sleep, if he needed it that badly.

I was tempted to go into the conference room across the hall and pretend to take a phone call to see who came out, but then I decided that was weird and didn’t. So I’ll never know who my sleepy friend was (unless of course he makes this a habit).

Evie’s new shoes

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Sara was teaching Evie how to tie shoes. “If you practice, you can probably learn how to tie shoes in a week or so.” It took Evie all of two days to master it. After demonstrating her mastery by tying every set of shoelaces in the entire house, we gave her the okay to get some tie shoes. She needed a new pair anyway.

The first pair of shoes we ordered arrived with Velcro, rather than ties. It turns out they didn’t offer tie shoes in Evie’s size. The second pair were ties, but Evie didn’t like them. She had a lot of trouble tying them (it turns out her laces were shorter than the adult shoes she had learned on), and they had a “bump” in them (otherwise known as “arch support”). It was clear she didn’t like them, and I didn’t feel like forcing her every morning, so we returned them as well.

Finally, there was nothing for it but to take her to the shoe store and let her pick them out herself.

To the shoe store’s credit, they gave Evie the full star treatment, giving her popcorn to munch on as they shuttled back and forth with different shoes, putting them on her feet for approval. (Seriously, when’s the last time you went to a place that actually tried the shoes on your feet for you?) As each pair was carried out, it was summarily rejected.

“No, this one has a bump,” she declared imperiously, waving it way. “This one has two bumps.” “I had another princess and the pea last week,” the saleslady confided to Sara.

Finally, she settled on a pair, and they are the absolute last pair in the world I would have imagined she would pick. They look…orthopedic. Let’s just say, she’s not the first “Evelyn” to own shoes like this.

They’re not bad shoes I suppose, but then again you’ve never tried to pick out clothes for this girl. EVERYTHING has to be “beautiful”; multi-colored and covered in flowers and fake jewels. Anything that is one solid color is absolutely out, especially if that color is something as hideous as brown, black, white, or gray. In other words, this is a girl that has the same sense of style as Mimi from Drew Carey.

So what’s the deal with those shoes? I don’t know, but she loves them, and I guess that’s the only thing that matters. I will never figure that girl out.

Chicago Food Swap

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Sara participated in the Chicago Food Swap. You can read a recap here. The basic idea is, you show up with homemade food, everyone else shows up with homemade food, and you swap. You can basically bring anything, but the more desirable your trade is, the more you can dictate what you are going to get in return. So there is some incentive to come up with something interesting, or unique.

For her swap, Sara brought:

  • 6 half-pints of honey apple butter
  • 4 half-pints homemade ketchup
  • 2 pints of tomatoes from the garden

And in return she received this:

For those of you who can’t make out the labels, that is:

  • full sized Spinach Gruyere quiche
  • ~2 cups hot nuts
  • half-pint pickled fennel
  • half-pint cranberry sauce
  • half-pint tomato jalapeno peach jam
  • half-pint pear ginger jam
  • half-pint autumn apple-cran jam
  • half-pint whole cranberry jam
  • half-pint ginger spice syrup
  • pint sweet potato bisque w/ brown butter croutons
  • s’mores kit w/ homemade marshmallows and homemade graham crackers
  • small loaf of savory monkey bread w/ bacon, caramelized onions  & Gruyere

In other words, a pretty good haul!

The apple butter was a big hit (a whole quiche for a half-pint of apple butter??), which was kind of nice to hear. It’s fantastic to take something we have a lot of already, and trade it for a lot of interesting things that we can try. I think Sara is already making plans for what she wants to bring to the next one.

So far I can vouch for the quiche, soup, monkey bread, hot nuts, cranberry sauce, and the s’mores kit. You can guess which one the kids were most excited about.

I was actually surprised at how excited Evie was about the whole thing. She was dancing around excited, unable to wait as Sara pulled each new treasure from the box. This is a girl who does *not* like to try new things!

(I suppose I should say, she does not like to try new non-dessert things.)

Cinderella

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The other day I took the kids to see the Chicago Kids Company perform Cinderella.

When Evie was little, we went to several productions by the Chicago Kids Company; Alice in Wonderland, which she enjoyed, and Pinocchio, which she did not. Seeing the people in costume really freaked her out, and after the Pinocchio disaster, we decided we needed a little break from plays.

However, being as she’s a little older, and a little bit into Cinderella, we decided to give it another go. For Oliver’s part, we suspected he wouldn’t be quite as nervous as she was, and anyway Cinderella didn’t have anybody in costumes.

It was a big hit.

Both kids were very excited. Evie had the most genuine smiles that I’ve seen out of her in quite awhile. Oliver was just sort of staring at everything open mouthed in wonder. For the record, Evie’s favorite part was the fairy godmother shaking her butt at the audience, and Ollie’s was yelling, “Cin-der-ell-a!”

The Chicago Kids Company definitely knows their target audience. They engage the kids and make it a lot more interactive. The Prince even came into the crowd to have girls try on the glass slipper to see if it fit (Evie wanted to do it, but lost her nerve). When it was over, Oliver gave the Fairy Godmother a big hug out in the lobby, and Evie got the picture she really wanted:

We will definitely go back to see another play!

Quote Monday is not as sweet as she first appears

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Sara: “What kind of laundry detergent do you use?”
Anna: “All. Why?”
Sara: “You smell like all the clothes I got from Goodwill.”

That’s probably not a compliment.

Evie: “I love you so much, even when I say I don’t.”

What a sweetheart!

Evie: “I know what I want to be next year for Halloween. I want to be daddy!”
Me: “Aw, thanks honey.”
Evie: “I’m going to kill you and wear your skin.”

Er…then again, maybe not.