The other day I was making Bug her usual Peanut Butter and Nutella sandwich. (Yes, I know Nutella has four tablespoons of sugar in one spoonful. Gah!) Bug was sitting on the counter next to me, watching and chattering on as she is wont to do.

Everything was going along fine until I got to the cutting part. I cut the sandwich in half and then was about to cut it in half again to make four small triangles when she burst out crying, saying that I wasn’t doing it right. She didn’t want four little triangles. She wanted BIG triangles like her cousin Rapunzel makes.

Sheesh! Kids are so demanding. As if sandwich shapes makes them taste different.

What could I do? One half was already cut? I did what any mother would do. I pretended the big triangle was the mommy sandwich and the two little triangles were the baby sandwiches and made them talk to each other as they waddled on their corners along my paper towel work-space onto her plate.

She thought that was grand…until I told her to eat them

Then there were tears.

“I can’t eat them! I don’t want to eat the Mommy and Baby sandwiches!!!” Waaaah waaaah wahhhh waaaaaah!!! Tears, tears, tears. “Make me another sandwich so I can just look at these sandwiches!”

I tried and tried to tell her the sandwiches wanted to go to the party in her tummy but nothing really worked. She was a crying snotty mess—the usual hungry-needing-a-nap-growth-spurt routine of late. I know a lot of parents would just say suck it up or go hungry and I probably should have. But I finally worked it out for her by drawing a sketch of a mommy sandwich and some baby sandwiches that she could keep and that consoled her. Now we have a sketch of sandwiches permanently living in our house.

Lesson of the day: Never anthropomorphize your kid’s food.

A while back I was having a terrible no-good horrible bad day. I’ve had a few of those lately. I broke our beloved French Press and then on top of that I somehow knocked Bug’s divided melamine pink piggy plate off the dish rack and onto the floor and then a big heavy Fiestaware cup fell on top of it and cracked it.

You’d think I’d at least get a baby out of this clumsiness but no, I’m not pregnant. I just like to stack my dishes a mile high on my drying rack because I refuse to dry a dish by hand with a towel. I was so mad at myself. I wanted to whip myself with that dish towel a thousand times. But I didn’t. I vented to internet instead.

We don’t have a lot of plastic kid plates in our house. I think they clutter up my cupboards and I don’t have that much room to spare. We had the pink piggy one, a Christmas one and a super-long alligator one that pretty much stays in the back of the cupboard because I never serve Bug enough food to fill it up. I don’t know about most kids but my kid thinks every section needs to have food in it.

Anyway, I was devastated when it broke. I really liked this plate. Unlike all the other kid plates I’ve seen around, this one had really cute illustrations (to me). I’m picky about those things because I don’t know, I just can be. It also was pretty faded in a good way because we use it every single day. I sort of like that, that we use the same plate over and over. It’s like our way of not being the uber-consumer. We buy a few things and USE them. Or something or other. Maybe Bug comes by her crazy quirks naturally.

Guess what? Somebody on the internet had a piggy plate exactly like ours! And they weren’t really using it! AND they offered to mail me theirs!!! I love the internet. Thank you for making my terrible no-good horrible bad day not so very terrible after all.

I have this strange kid who doesn’t like me to throw anything out ever. Maybe I’ve traumatized her with my over-eager purging that I love to do from time to time. I guess it’s normal that kids her age get attached to things as silly as old leftover food, gum wrappers or maybe the box that her Christmas baby doll came in.

The box that the doll came in was printed to look like a baby bed. I’ll give her that. It had a nice hard pillow and a crib sidewall along the back side. But it also had a ripped off mark where the price tag used to be and an ugly starburst that said something like “Grow with Me” with photos of all the other dolls I could buy her as she gets older (which I’m not going to do). Anyway, the box was ugly. I had to get rid of it.

I am such a mean mom.

I know she’s probably the smart one wanting to use a box over and over and cutting down on her carbon footprint or something but I just can’t have yucky over-designed boxes cluttering up her room. There’s enough clutter in there as it is. So I threw it away in the middle of the night and I’ve never heard the end of it since. There were tears.

Until I promised to make her a cardboard cradle that is.

I’ve been perking on this cardboard cradle idea for a while but have been busy with other things so I never got around to it. It’s still a box and it was taken from the recycle bin in the alley behind the photographer’s shop near our house so I’m sort of redeeming myself on the wastefulness factor. I’m just being creative about it.

Also I just like a challenge.

It’s not a masterpiece and I would be much happier if it was made out of wood (hint hint Uncle Shawn) but it’s cute and so much better than that nasty box her babydoll came in.

It’s light so she can carry it. I’m sure it won’t last forever (which may or may not be a good thing for me and my purging ways) but it works. All it needs is a small pillow and a little blanket. Though now that I’ve got her using an old pillow from her crib set and the bag that her flannel sheets came in as a makeshift blanket, she’ll probably get attached to those and never let me near the cradle with anything new or matching. Kids! Are they all like this or is it just her?

Instructions for hacks like me after the break.

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