Just a quick peek at Caloden’s origins

September is a month of many birthdays and anniversaries for the people I know and love. Not only am I an angst ridden Virgo, but it seems I know many others who are as well. Some of my favorite people are born in the month of September. Caloden is also a Virgo. I started this blog just over two years ago with a lot of encouragement and assistance from Dearest Jen. Up until I started pecking at my keyboard with all my emotional crap I thought blogs were perhaps for people who wanted their 15 minutes in the spotlight. But as soon as I started I couldn’t quite make myself stop. Now some of my new favorite people are bloggers. I don’t know when most of their birthdays are, some could be fellow Virgos and I would be none the wiser, but I have grown to like them something fierce and consider them friends.
For Caloden’s birthday I decided to wade through some of my old posts and share one that made me giggle or remember that time with some clarity. Below is one of my earlier attempts at explaining and trying to understand my household. I have cut and pasted it below or you can also view it here.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Mother of the Year
Recently, in an effort to create a more diverse and wholesome dinner menu, I bought a pork tenderloin. Having been mostly a vegetarian up until Devon’s pregnancy, I am not well acquainted with the pork family, but I did have the vague notion that a tenderloin is a good thing. It came in a tube-like package and appeared to be quite tender indeed. Now, I am not much of a dinner chef. I can bake cookies with the best of them, make a cake look pretty and I can set a table something fierce, but preparing dinner has always mystified me. Matt was the one who actually put the loin in a pan and cooked it up. Whilst it cooked I played up this new meat to the kids, told them what a treat was in store for them. They were practically giddy by the time I told them to go into the kitchen to view and try this wondrous creation. Big mistake.
“Ugh, Mom. There’s a cock in the kitchen!”, shrieked Cassidy.
Hoping against hope that she saw some sort of farmyard animal on the counter, I followed her voice.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“A cock. There in the pan.”, she pointed.
“I’m sorry, what? What did you say?”, I asked, afraid of what she might belt out next.
“Yes, like a weenie. I’m not eating that thing, you cooked a cock.”
“She’s right, Mom. That’s a cock there.”, helped out Loren.
“Where did you even hear that word?”, now I was really afraid of the answer.
“Carrie says it all the time. Carrie Bradshaw.”, she quipped.
And now it all became clear. The summer before a freind had given me several old seasons of Sex in The City. I had a fierce case of insomnia near the end of my third trimester and she gave them to me to help me sit through the wee hours of the mornings. One night I had fallen asleep during an episode only to awaken and find Cassidy perched beside me, wide eyed and completely enthralled. After that, and I’ll admit throughout the year, she would sneak the tapes into the upstairs VCR and watch to her heart’s content.
After some coaxing and reassurance that the meat came from the pig’s loin and not his groin, I convinced the children to each try a bit. They were both pleasantly surprised at the succulence of the pork. I asked them if they would care for more with dinner, to which Cassidy replied, “All right, but not the tip. I’m not like Samantha, you know.”
The above exchange is so typical of what goes on in our household that it is as applicable today as it was two years ago. I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. It just is.