Spicy Chili, Dancing and a Benefit

On Friday night I went to a benefit for a local theatre company and enjoyed good food, good company and great entertainment from local actor/singers - most of whom I am privileged to know personally. What a treat it was. Here is a picture of me and the lovely and very talented Andrea' who sang gorgeously as is her usual.


I made chili for dinner tonight, attempting to replicate the unwritten recipe that David uses. We realized that if I don't continue to cook dinner as usual during David's rehearsal process would lead to him eating out twice a day and me and Jackson eating frozen or fast food too much. So I am cooking the same amount of dinner I always make and David will take his portion to lunch the next day and also make sandwiches or other packed lunch/dinner options. The problem I ran into tonight is that I am not the one that normally seasons the chili. And when I sat down to eat tonight, a bowl for me and for Jackson, my first bite proved that I don't know how to make chili. I kept seasoning it and then tasting it and it was too bland. So I would add more chili powder and red pepper. Too bland. Didn't realize you have to let that stuff cook in a bit, then taste it. So after I let it cook and sat down to eat it, I realized it was spicy. Too spicy for little boys to eat. Luckily I realized this before he got any. Course he wasn't interested in eating any of it anyway. He came over, sniffed it, declared it 'stinky' and took off. I made him take a bite of one of the cornbread sticks I made and he declared it 'yucky bread.' So I was oh for two tonight on feeding Jackson. So I fixed him something else and enjoyed my stinky spicy chili and my yucky bread. Mmmmm...mmmmmm...good.

Today was Jackson's first day of Kinderdance camp. Not sure why every class that occurs in the summer is called a camp. To me, camp means you stay overnight...for at least a weekend. Church camp, band camp, cheerleading camp...that sort of thing. Jackson's 'camp' is just this week, 9a-12p. No camping required.

I was very nervous about it, seeing as it is a class for 3 to 5 year olds and they have to be potty trained. And Jackson is only somewhat potty trained. My hope is that if I dropped him off with an empty bladder and they don't feed them tons of liquid and take at least one organized 'everyone must pee' break, and the teacher helped him pull up his pants, he would pass as potty-trained. And today at least, he passed. The teacher took one look at him when we walked in and asked if he'd gone potty. He is a little guy, so that probably clued her in to the possibly lying mommy. I don't feel bad though. He can stay dry easily for three hours. He does it often. He just doesn't always say he needs to go when he needs to go. And if he is really having fun, I worry he won't say anything. But really, it is three hours. I think he can do it.

And we have made some real progress in the last week on the potty. He started to tell me last week that he needed to poop. But he was really panicky, like he was scared to go. He didn't want to go on the potty, didn't want a diaper, didn't want to mess his underpants. He'd say, "I don't want to go poo poo." Like that would make it just go away. So when he indicated he needed to go, I told him we would go to Target right now if you poop on the potty right now. And that did it. And was a real turning point. I bribed him a couple more times with special treats of candy and we are now to the point that when I put him on the potty to pee, he will sometimes ask "Can I go poo poo?" He seems to be much less afraid of the potty for numba two and I couldn't be more happy.

Of course he still is having accidents. Mostly during naps or at night. And he doesn't much like it. I was up changing a poop pull-up at four this morning. He came in and got me. Why doesn't he ever wake his daddy up for these things?

So Jackson is learning some basics of dance and movement and seems to be enjoying it. But people seem to be surprised that we put our boy in dance class. That makes me smile. The way I see it, he will get plenty of sports in his life. They practically force it on you in public school. What they don't have much of is music, art, and dance. Creative arts. These are the things I prefer to spend my money on to make sure he is exposed to. And I think dance is cool. David agrees. We both bemoan our lack of dance training as actors. And we don't intend to force Jackson to be an actor, but until and if he lets us know he isn't interested we intend for Jackson to have every opportunity to be artistic and creative. So Kinderdance it is. So what if there are ony 2 boys and 10 girls in the class. That kind of makes me proud. I like not always running with the herd.

Besides, we aren't interested in supporting the boy scouts. I don't trust any organization that doesn't recognize the difference between a gay person and a pedophile.