When I tell you that A. really likes to get into character, I am serious. This is how deep it goes. Yesterday morning, she was Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" again. That means a jumper with buttons in the right places, a white shirt underneath, folded-down socks, ruby-red slippers, and not one but TWO braids in her hair. (Try putting two braids in that fine, short haircut, to her exacting Dorothy-matching standards. It's the perfect morning-tantrum storm.)

Then when we stopped for coffee, I let her have a hot chocolate in the hopes I could read a politics story in the newspaper. She went back to the counter, asked the barista if she could please borrow a pen, and came back and wrote her name on her paper cup.

Then, because she couldn't do the whole thing, she asked me to please complete her thought. Per her instructions, I had to turn what she had written into "NOT A. but DOROTHY." It turned out like this:

This kid.... Today, though, today has been maelstrom-free so far. It's been great.

Posted by QSMama at 03:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So last night we're making a forty-five-minute drive home during the second half of the Duke - Virginia Tech basketball game. I love me some Blue Devils, so I build it up really big with Baby A: "Guess what? You get to listen to the Duke game on the radio! With me! Like a big kid!"

She's all, "Mommy, you LOVE radio! Especially NPR! And you love Duke! Yay! This will be FUN!"

But here's how it actually goes, copied from a sympathy-pleading email to my husband, who often doesn't understand why I want to take a break from talking for a little while after he gets home in the evenings:

we missed the whole game, though, in no small part because a. WOULD NOT STOP TALKING as i tried to listen on the radio on the way home. here is a two-minute slice:

"he's dribbling? that means bouncing the ball, right? devils scored! did the other team loss, er, loser, um, not win yet? seventy is more than fifty-five, right? duke has seventy. that's more. the man said duke THREW THE BALL AWAY? so he put it in the trash can? why would he do that? how can they play the game if the ball is thrown away? OH NO! can someone get it back? do they have extra basketballs to use? just an expression? what means an expression? does duke have the ball now? what color is the other team? is it clemson? they're orange. or is it temple? is it the grey team we saw the other day, um, um, um, gorgetown? i'll be a cheerleader! goooooo, duke! dukedukedukedukeduke duuuuuuuuukkkkke!"

i swear i've never head a person so capable of keeping up a nonstop stream-of-consciousness chatter. so then i'm Mean Mom, punching off the radio and yelling, "SHUSH! just listen!" over and over but it's like she is on speed and can't stop her mouth.

la la la la la la....

Posted by QSMama at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Kelby at Kids Cuisine has a good reminder about how much little kids like to dip and eat their meals. It's an easy, fun way to get good stuff into them. (Unless, of course, your kid is Baby A, who is among the 0.5 percent of kids who don't care to dip.)

So why haven't restaurant chains caught on to this notion? Imagine how well a dipping-inspired meal would do on kids' meal menus. Parents would snap it up, service would be easy, and these things have a pretty decent fridge or shelf life. Yes, McDonald's offers Apple Dippers (pictured above), but they're caramel. That's dessert. Why not expand upon the idea? Take your yogurt sauce, or the hummus or peanut butter that's already on your menu, serve with carrot sticks or graham cracker sticks, and voila: toddler meal.

Hello? Menu R&D departments at restaurant chains? Here's a hint from the real world that could revolutionize your kids' menus.

Posted by QSMama at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When your family road-tripped, was McDonald's your mealtime stop? And when you were a kid, was that not the most awesome thing about the trip? Somehow it made those hours of confinement, during which your little brother could not keep his BRATTY HANDS on HIS HALF of the BACK SEAT, bearable. I mean, really, what about the imaginary line down the middle of the bench seat did he not understand?

The only thing better than the set of arches on the horizon was the time we pulled over at a rest stop on the South Carolina-Georgia border and ate a surreal picnic of hard-boiled Easter Eggs. (Fortunately, this was an actual Easter trip.) What, break, peel, and eat these works of art? At a picnic table? Here?My parents must have been truly desperate for a stop.

Heather Armstrong of Dooce remembers McDonald's and road-trip details as their family sets off on an impromptu road trip to California. She's funny enough to make your latte shoot out of your nose--as you might already know--but the best part of this post for me was realizing other couples actually do fight. Badly. And get over it fast.

If McDonald's wasn't your family's regular road-trip stop, what was?

Posted by QSMama at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What's up with the difficulty of planning meals and shopping lists when there are little kiddos around? Grocery lists become just one more bit of proof that I can't think through anything from start to finish these days. I try, really I do, but it's just frustrating. And that's before the shopping trip, which always ends up feeling like a freakin' marathon event.

Jessica Ashley, better known around the blogging world as author of the Sassafrass blog, knows your pain. And mine. She's got a great post at Strollerderby today. It'll make you think, Okay. It's not just me. And then she links to inspirational posts from bloggers who do manage not only to get it done, but to blog about how they did it, and how we can do it, too. (Props. Mad props.) There's CityMama, and Foodmomiac, and Adventures of Bittyman, and An Ordinary Mom, and Mommy Cracked.

There's more inspiration for you here at Quick Serve Kids...scroll down and look under "More, Please" on the right-hand side.

Lately I've been using my iPhone (what is it NOT useful for?) to keep a running grocery list that I'm sure to have with me. That image above is my most recent version. (Too bad the phone can't help me make better blog graphics. Sigh....) As you can see, it's, um, pretty short. From there, I'll grab two more kinds of groceries: staples we always keep on hand (cheese, pasta sauce, fresh fruit) and things that look good at the moment or inspire some thoughts for that night's meal. The cart is never full, though. I like to keep it fresher than that.

What's your strategy for keeping the pantry and fridge reasonably stocked? Or do you let take-out take care of it?

Speaking of this whole struggle, this is probably a good time to catch up on our family's own quick-serve trend--which is sharply away from quick-serve patronage. It's not part of any kind of campaign, or really anything purposeful at all. For a while, Chick-fil-A, Panera, and a couple other concepts were figuring into our mealtimes once or twice a week. Lately, though, we're doing a lot of home cooking. I like the variety, and home is snuggly and relaxing when it's 20 degrees outside.

If we do go to a chain these days, it's Chipotle. There are more locations near us now, which makes it convenient (which, duh, is our point). The food there is fresh and delicious, the wait time is near zero, and I love love love the natural and organic consciousness that company is pushing. Go here and click on Manifesto. Note as you read that this quick-serve chain actually recommends you read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. How's that for confidence in its mission?

Hint: Next time you're at Chipotle (what? you haven't been? GO!), ask for the Parents' Menu. It's a slip of paper with suggestions for scaling down the chain's menu to feed kids appropriately. How cool is that? Instead of supplanting their menu with chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and macaroni and cheese, as if kids shouldn't like Southwestern food, Chipotle helps you instead plan a kid-sized version of a normal meal.

Sweet. We actually visited Chipotle two days in a row recently. But mostly, lately, we've been doing a lot of cooking at home. It just feels right.

Hmmmm, why all the pickiness? Why the strange domesticity?

Could it be...

I'm nesting?

Posted by QSMama at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So. It's been a while. Now I feel like I've just run into an old friend on the street.

"What's new?," she asks. And though a million things have happened in the meantime, but not knowing where to start, I say, "Nothing, really. Same old. How are you?"

I've had so many ideas for posts. Really, I have. Just haven't had the time to flesh them out and actually, uh, post them. Haven't had the energy, either, but I'll leave the juicy details on that for the next post.

Then this morning I opened my inbox to find a message from one of the Noodads, alerting me to his post about a recent family trip to Subway and his disappointment in the kids' meal toy. The picture above is his; read the whole post here. It's worth the trip over.

The amazing thing is hundreds of people have continued to visit Quick Serve Kids every week. Granted, they're staying less than a minute on average, but that's to be expected. For pete's sake, my last post was a big whine, and that was weeks ago.

This week will be different--and I have a lot to share. Stay tuned. And keep on checking back.

Posted by QSMama at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)