“What I” Wednesday: Waits Rebhal and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day

October 12th, 2011 - filed under: The Food » Food Styles




Last Thursday was the day that we got Waits’ cast off. We were so excited for that day! I remember waking up and thinking, “Oh, this is going to be a good day!” Yes I did, can you believe that? I even decided to photograph the whole thing. It looked something like this:






Coffee



I’m not 100% back on coffee . . . it’s more like 99%.

While my coffee dripped I set about making the dogs their breakfast. Waits was begging and pleading for some of their tofu (Waits says “toy-a! toy-a!”) so I cut off a bit for him. I only remembered to photograph it afterwards though. The cutting board remains:



And the happy guy playing with his best toy – a baby-sized “food processor” (it’s actually an electric citrus juicer) that I got just for him at the thrift store, so he could be just like mommy – just an hour or so before the cast came off:




Breakfast

Taken over my shoulder (at a stoplight of course!), Waits reading in his car seat.


This is where things start to get off track, though at this point it was still fine and dandy. The pediatrician appointment was in the late morning, so we skipped the standard oatmeal/green smoothie and took advantage of the special occasion. Our pediatrician just so happens to be located very near the vegan/gluten-free/naturally-sweetened bakery. Yes!

Mmmmmm, yes. Baby-friendly treats!


We got an apple muffin, which was so amazingly moist and spectacular. It was my first time trying their muffins and I was super impressed. If you’re ever in Portland, Cravin’ Raven is a must! Muffin:




An Afternoon of Chaos

From there it all went to hell. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that getting the cast off was not the jolly ol’ experience I was hoping for. Eventually we made it home and Waits passed out, poor guy. I had an apple with homemade sunbutter:




When Waits woke up shortly after (he barely slept), I decided to do the breakfast-for-lunch thing. I made him a small bowl of oats with blueberries cooked in (topped this with coconut milk), and we split a smoothie:


Kombucha/banana/blueberry/hemp protein/kale/stevia. And all my favorite boys in the background!


After breakfast-lunch we got all cleaned up and headed out on our errands. Remember at this point Waits has had a seriously traumatic morning, is running on a quarter nap, and oh yeah his vampire teeth are coming in. POOR BUG!

I made sunbuttered rice cakes before we left. Waits ate one bite of his so I pretty much ate both of these:



First stop = checking in on book stuff at Herbivore.



Hey Josh, can I take a picture of you for my blog?



Okay but DO something!



Josh is awesome.


Leaving Herbivore we split a Larabar for the road (Waits ate most of this):



From there we headed downtown for vitamins at this shop where I had a coupon. Trying to find vegan vitamins at a non-vegan vitamin shop is a pain in the tuchus. Waits was super over it. I think there was more much-needed coffee involved at some point around this time. FInally, we met up with Damian since we were nearby his office. He was kind enough to give me a 5-minute breather, and held Waits while we strolled around the neighborhood. It was nice to see him and I was thankful for the break, since Thursday is his night to work late and me and little mister would be on our own until bedtime (his, not mine, haha).

By the time we left Damian it was pretty late in the day. Waits was cranky and clingy and to be honest, the idea of going home and trying to cook a meal with a sad baby sitting on my hip, was more than I was prepared to handle. I was DONE.

Whole Foods to the rescue.

They give a free banana to the munchkins!


So Waits pretty much had a complete meltdown at the Whole Foods hot bar. The eco-yuppies were shooting patchouli-scented lazer beams from out their eyeballs at us, and we barely made it out of there alive.


Dinner

It was the sort of night for a living room picnic. Raw kale salad, cold curried tofu salad, a few grilled asparagus spears, and a small plate of reheated leftover Thai noodles:



During dinner I put on the dvd of Rent: Live On Broadway and I sang along the entire time. It made me feel a lot better, and Waits totally doesn’t mind when I sing at the top of my lungs with my mouth full. He’s really great like that.




Dessert



Much later, after clean-up and our bedtime walk and after Waits was fast asleep, I had a late night snack of my beloved banana and nut butter and maple syrup. It was perfect.

~~~




This is another one of my classic autumn outfits, perfect for running around town with a toddler in the Portland on-and-off rain. Also, every time I visit Herbivore while wearing an Herbivore hoodie (which, seriously, seems to be every time I visit Herbivore at all), I feel like a big geek. Of course, I’m pretty sure I am a big geek, so there’s that.



  • Purple hoodie: Herbivore
  • White fluttery skirt: secondhand
  • Black denim skinnies: secondhand
  • Purple stripey knee socks: from Sock Dreams (I am addicted!)
  • Black rain boots: secondhand
  • Black and white head scarf: vintage

BUt the day wasn’t all bad:





How do you bounce back from a day that careens out of control? (I assume I’m pretty alone in my “Broadway musical singalong therapy”) Do you find that it helps to poke fun at yourself and laugh about it, or do you prefer to just move on?

  • Gawkyca

    weird, i wore black, white and purple on accident today (purple is a bad omen for me; i thought these tights were brown!!). after a long day i like a beer and to cook while i sing at the top of my lungs. even better is writing a flippantly rude song about it!

  • kate in sb

    I usually pretend it never happened and then find in funny in retrospect. This could take hours, days, years…

    xoxo

  • Marisa

    The eco-yuppies were shooting patchouli-scented lazer beams from out their eyeballs at us, and we barely made it out of there alive.

    Ha! That made me burst into laughter at work but nobody else got it : ( I can never get out of Whole Foods without someone crashing their cart into me and giving me the blank stare of doom!

  • Kate

    HA! Showtunes? My fave.

    I do improv here in Phoenix, and my FAVORITE games are the ones where we burst into song.

  • Annie

    “The eco-yuppies were shooting patchouli-scented lazer beams from out their eyeballs at us, and we barely made it out of there alive.”
    I think the worst thing about a crappy day is when the jerks really seem to stand out. As a young adult redoing high school I get a lot of snide, and sometimes I really want to scream. I have had a complete stranger actually ask me, in regards to dropping out, “ohhh, did you get pregnant or something?” Um, no, and why does that matter? I hitched around the country, did some blockade stuff, got drunk a whole bunch and saw a whole bunch of bands and now I want to educate myself. Yes, it would’ve been a whole lot easier if I finished school a few years ago, but I didn’t and I’m improving on it.
    I try to focus on the thought of duality and that a crappy day merely reflects an awesome day, and an awesome day will be much more appreciated. Hell, just getting home and eating dinner with my boyfriend will be much more appreciated. I always thought my mum was a bit of a ‘hard bitch’ when I was a teenager when she said “tough crap, just push through, you’ll be fine”, but she’s totally right. Ah, mum wisdom, only golden in retrospect! Going back to school has not only taught me academic knowledge that I mostly already knew, but how to put up with a whole bunch of stress, crappy days and jerks.

    But, if I’m having a reeeally crap day, I watch the Wake Me Up Before Yo Go Go video, because it’s physically impossible to not at least smirk.

  • http://www.freshsqueezedhome.blogspot.com Rachael @ Fresh Squeezed Home

    Just hopped over from Peas & Crayons! Love your blog. It is so encouraging to see people raising their children vegan. We hope to have children in a couple years and I hope to raise them vegetarian! ( I don’t eat much that would be considered not vegan but I know I’m not a vegan, however, when I tell people I’m a vegetarian they assume I eat eggs and drink milk ..I do not ..lol)

  • Annie

    Same with my little sister. Brutal little thing was always doing crazy things. She once rode her bike off the shed onto the trampoline (wearing her neon pink elbow pads and helmet!!) but then fractured her arm in three places after she fell climbing over a 4 foot fence.

  • Tessa Wynne

    Ha! “The eco-yuppies were shooting patchouli-scented lazer beams from out their eyeballs at us…” – I could never have put it better than that.

    One second you and your toddler can both be in tears (yep, in the middle of a maze…) then the next you will both be laughing hysterically at literally NOTHING AT ALL. How does that happen?!

  • Rebecca

    Now, now…let’s not be judge-y. I do believe some might classify you as an eco-yuppie. It’s all relative.

    (nonetheless..a funny statement. And blame the death stares on all the parents who let their kids run around the store like whirling dervish maniacs. Trust me, I have perfected a death stare like none other for that.)

  • Alley

    Oh no way Sayward, I’m TOTALLY with you here. My munchkin had collic. Horribly. The “Dear SWEET JEEBS 15 hours of nonstop screaming you kidding me?!?!” kind. And now, at 15 months, she’s still a bit of a tyrannical jerk to be honest. Empathy. I have it for you. Broadway/classic Hollywood are big hits in our house (as Mommy was a theatre major). So tap dance with the broom? Totally. Butt dancing to ‘Hairspray’? On it. And I double dog dare you to sing ‘Good Morning’ from ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ without a smile on your face :)

  • Lou

    Boooo, I know how those days feel! Good thing is, a bad day is sure to be upstaged by a BETTER next day… surely? Josh looks like a total dude…. and that muffin/bakery look scrummy. Thank goodness for musical theatre and free bananas!

  • jbuesch

    Well, our anniversary is this week… Maybe we can figure something out :-)