Cilly Stuff


I’m super-behind in blogging (as well as other things) and very busy with all sorts of exciting stuff, but I thought I’d just stop by here really quickly to share this tidbit with you. This happened minutes ago, so it’s as “live” as it’s gonna get for awhile.

I decided to fill the awkward silence in my jury trial while the attorneys and judge went back to chambers for a sidebar. Witness is on the stand, plaintiff is sitting at counsel table, 13 jurors (1 alternate) are staring into space in silence.

Me: Back when I had a bailiff, this is the point when I would say, “And now our bailiff is going to entertain us by dancing a jig on counsel table!” And he’d be all embarrassed. Now that I no longer have courtroom staff, there’s no one to embarrass anymore.
Jurors: *giggling, with a few sympathetic “Aww”s*
Juror #11: Well, now YOU can do the dance for us!
Jurors: *various jurors agreeing and saying, “Yeah! Do it!”*
Me: …I never thought I’d get that response, or I wouldn’t have even brought it up.
Jurors: *laughing*
Juror #8: It’s almost summer, you can do a hula dance for us on counsel table!
Jurors: Do it right now! Yeah!

…great job for making an awkward silence even more awkward…for myself.

Posted this on the social media site earlier tonight:

Cindy was holding Allie in Allie’s bedroom, about to put Allie into her bed, when Allie looked me in the eyes, smiled sweetly and put both her little hands on my cheeks by my ears. Then she gently brought both her hands toward my nose, brushing my cheeks lovingly. She put her hands on either side of my cheeks again, stroking my cheeks lightly as she brought her palms to meet at my nose. So sweet and affectionate, I thought. After she repeated this another time, I asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m making a sand castle.”

I was reminiscing about Bru Grill‘s Cincinnati Lunch Box (chilled hefeweizen, orange juice, Amaretto) on the drive home yesterday, so since the stepkidlet was in for the evening, we put Allie in bed, the stepkidlet in charge and went out for a drink. The last I saw of the stepkidlet before we left was her carrying Allie’s iPad into her room so that she could keep an eye on Allie via the babycam while the stepkidlet hung out in her own room.

Sitting at the bar at Bru, I found it amusing that I’d forgotten to wear my wedding rings and Mr. W didn’t, so that we looked scandalous together. Like, “Hey, that one married guy is hanging out with his younger Asian secretary!”

Soon we got a series of text messages and photos from the stepkidlet…

“Allie and I are having a great time together!”

I responded, “She looks so excited!”

She texted again:
“Oh hahaha stop it Allie, you’re too funny…”

“Alright Allie I’ll go to sleep now too…”

“Nope just kidding! Silly faces!!!”

By now we had already finished grocery shopping, filling up on gas, and were coming home (we take full advantage of our date hour), and Mr. W was driving. He said, “Tell her all right, she’s having too much fun, we’re coming home.” So I texted, “Ur dad said, ‘all right, ur having too much fun. we’re coming home.'”
She texted me back, “HAHAHAHA ok ok I’ll leave you guys be. Enjoy!”
I texted, “nope, too late…we’re leaving to break up that party u two have going on.”
And then I got this:

“Thanks a lot Allie. You got us in trouble…”

This morning I woke up with my face and eyelids all puffy, and I stepped on the scale and it appears I’d put on 3 lbs and 1% bodyfat. What the heck?! Coming in to work, a coworker informed me, “Beer does that.” I didn’t know that! Beer makes people all bloated? Why do women drink beer? I’ll never touch the stuff again. It’s not even that good. =P

This morning, seeing on the babycam that Allie was already awake, I entered her room and sang, “Good morning to you, Good morning to you, Good MORNING dear Allie, Good mor –”
“No, that’s Happy birthday to You,” she corrected me.
“Yes, but I changed the words,” I explained.
“No! That’s not…that’s not…that’s wrong! That’s Happy Birthday to You song!” And then she proceeded to sing. “Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to Allie, Happy birthday to you! See? I eat cake.”
“I see. So I can’t sing Good Morning to You with the Happy Birthday song?”
“No, that’s wrong.”

I love how she demands accuracy. Like her mommy does. Poor Mr. W, he’s gonna get corrected a lot. 😀 As it is, he’s already getting boundaries placed on him left and right by the flying rugrat. When he tickles her, she says, “Nooo, don’t do it, Dada. That’s MY armpit. Don’t tickle Allie’s armpit!” “No, Dada, don’t sing! Mama can sing. Dada don’t sing.” “No, Dada, don’t look at my iPad. That’s MY iPad. *covering the iPad screen with her arms* I block it. Mama can look. Not Dada.” HAHAHAHAHA!

Last night, upon exiting California Pizza Kitchen with Allie & her dada…
Allie: Dok. Dok. Dok.
Dada: What?
Allie. Dok! Dok!
Dada: What? What’s dok? I don’t understand you, baby.
Allie: People sleeping?
Dada: Yeah, people are probably sleeping, because it’s dark — oh! DARK!
Allie: Dok!

You guys know how I sometimes post things that are unpleasant/traumatic for me but give entertainment value to you because I’m such a nice blogger? Things like the Pumping Incident? Okay, here’s another one.

The day started much like any other weekday. I woke up, brushed my teeth and washed my face, popped in my eyeballs, pulled on a dress, threw some yoga clothes into my bag, and went to wake up the kid. I changed her, she played with my hair, we went downstairs to wait for Jayne. Jayne arrived, took over Allie duty while we chatted about this or that or Allie’s lunch for the day, hubby and I packed into the car and we carpooled to our work locations. At my work, I walked through the public, put my stuff on the conveyor x-ray machine, walked through the metal detector, said greetings to coworkers, rode up the elevator with another coworker chatting about this and that, and I got off on my floor to go into my courtroom. And then I scratched my upper chest area just under my neck and thought, “This dress has a higher neckline than I remember.” I looked down and pulled the front of my collar away from my chest. And I got on my cell phone and tapped out this status message on the social networking site:

Cindy just got into her courtroom & noticed she’s got her whole dress on backwards. #whyDontPeopleTellUThoseThings #MaybeNobodyNoticed

My online friends (some real life ones) got a kick out of that and commented on the message, sharing stories of how they’d worn mismatched shoes, earrings, sweaters turned inside-out, to work themselves. Some even had experience with clothes worn backwards, altho those were all people referring to their young children who had dressed themselves. =P Flip Flop Girl comforted me by pointing out that unless it were a backless dress, nobody would have noticed. The coworker who rode up the elevator with me emailed me privately, after seeing this status message, that she indeed did not know I had the dress on backwards, but that she’d even thought to herself how cute the dress was. I never thought I’d be one of those people whose clothing fit the same forward as backwards. That’s what I get for joking about a flat-chested girlfriend in high school, saying her bra fit better backward than forward. I blame pregnancy/nursing for the changes, but really, I don’t care that much. It was worth it for my kid to be healthy and smart.

Toward the end of lunch, I came back from yoga with only 5 minutes to spare so I changed really quickly in the jury room restroom and then ran out to the front hallway of the courtroom to take roll of my jurors. About a foot out the front door, I made a sudden U-turn and came back into the courtroom, rounded the corner behind the wall, and lifted my shirt collar to peer in again, making sure I didn’t once again have the dress on backwards. The problem, you see, was that my mom gave me this dress and she’d cut off the label, so the dress from the inside looks very similar the right way and the wrong way, except for some ragged bits of white peeking out under the seam if you were to look closely. My jurors probably wondered what the heck I was doing, going out and then arcing right back in, but it’s better than the alternative (turning the dress around in front of them in the public hallway).

Later in the afternoon, I was having a conversation with a very smart friend who holds multiple degrees, including a Ph.D. in law. He was saying that he’s told quite frequently that he is similar to the character of Sheldon Cooper on “The Big Bang Theory.” I told him (only half-jokingly) that I’m not sure I could talk to him anymore, because I’m now totally intimidated, and that he must think I’m a moron. The rest of the conversation went like this:

Friend: “There is not one moronic thing about you. You are probably the most intelligent of all my [social networking site] friends.”
Me: “Well…I wore my dress backwards to work today.”
:/
My friend then tried to make me feel better by saying, “That’s because your mind is so busy thinking about important things, you haven’t the time to look at the tag.” Well, there was no tag to speak of, but mainly, the truth is, I pulled a moronic move. =P I’m not above admitting that.

The stepkidlet took this video and sent this to me. It’s from last week. The speaking voice you hear is stepkidlet’s. Allie still doesn’t have the lyrics down, but the tune to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is getting better…as long as you ignore the fact that she drops a few bars in the middle and the end. 🙂


Earlier this week, they decided to try a collaboration. I was in the kitchen making Allie’s dinner, and I heard coming from the stepkidlet’s room, “Oh, oh, OH oh oh…”
“Play the guitar, Allie, good girl! Play the guitar!”
*strum strum strum strum*
“Oh oh OH oh oh!”
So I grabbed my phone, turned it to video record, and snuck in on them.

The stepkidlet calls Allie her “little harmonizer,” and says they’re going to be the “next Lennon and Maisy.” If you don’t know who they are (I didn’t, either), look them up on YouTube, where this single big and little sister duo got their early start on American pop radar.


I’m excited Allie’s at the stage now where I can share kid stories. Both from today…

Earlier, in the car. I’m driving, Allie’s in the backseat with Mr. W.
Me: *looking in the rear-view mirror* Whoa, there’s an amazing sunset going on behind us!
Mr. W: Yup, and it’s going to get prettier, too. There’s some great clouds in the sky. Your mom and dad would love to be sitting in our backyard watching this tonight. [My parents stayed a week with us last week to take care of Allie, and their nightly ritual as I finished Allie’s bedtime routine was to sit outside and admire the sunset.]
Allie: Gong-gong, Po-po?
Me: How did she know that’s who we’re talking about?!

And then about an hour later, in Allie’s bathroom, Mr. W was holding her and I was flossing her teeth.
Allie: *reaching out with her little index finger and actually poking me in the EYE. Yes, she made contact with my EYEBALL.*
Me: Hey! You poked me in the EYE!
Allie: Mimi? Mimi?
Me: What? Mimi?
Allie: Mimi? Mimi? Eye.
Me: You poked Minnie in the eye?
Allie: Yeah!
Me: *confused*
Mr. W: Remember? At Disneyland yesterday? She poked Mickey in the eye?
Me: What?
Mr. W: We were taking a picture with Mickey and she poked him in the eye. And the photographer said, “Oh, no, Mickey, you’re gonna have to be a pirate now!”
Allie: *singing* Yo-ho, yo-ho!
Me: Whoa, she just sang the Pirates of the Caribbean song!
Allie: Boom! Boom!
(Because the Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride does two drops in the beginning, which are her “boom”s. And then the “Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate’s life for me…” starts playing.)

Okay, you had to be there. =P

BTW, the whole time we were at Disneyland Sunday morning, Allie kept saying, “Ewic. ‘Lexis. Di-ana.” Because the last time she was at Disneyland, she was there with them.

Earlier this evening as I was making Allie’s dinner, I heard “clump-clump-clump” behind me, and then a gleeful little voice said, “Look, mama.”
I turned around and saw this. Good thing I don’t leave my shoes and high heels laying around the house.


Allie: “Look, mama!” *pointing at feet*
Me: “Oh my goodness! Are you wearing Dada’s shoes?”
Allie: “Uh-huh!”
~ * ~


Me: “I’ve gotta get a picture of Allie in Dada’s shoes!”
Allie: *looking down and pointing at Dada’s shoes*
Mr. W: “Look up, Allie. Look up, look up.”
Allie: *looking UP*
(Kids are so literal. =P She almost tripped looking up at the ceiling.)
~ * ~


Allie: “Done-done.” *stepping out and walking away, leaving Mr. W’s shoes in the middle of the kitchen*
(She didn’t learn the leave-your-shoes-laying-out thing from me!)

The kid makes us laugh every day, multiple times a day. Over the weekend, we were in the car; I was driving, and Mr. W was in the backseat with Allie. Mr. W brought up some plans or dreams for his retirement, as he frequently does. While that conversation was going on, Allie suddenly started saying, “Night-night? Dada, night-night? Dada night-night?” We didn’t know what she was talking about until it finally hit me — she had latched onto the “tire” in “retirement” and had thought her dada was saying he was tired, so she was suggesting he take a nap. Haha!

Today for Allie’s dinner, I made all-organic meatballs, using beef, soft (non-GMO) tofu, carrots, beet greens, a type of yellow pepper, onion, and celery. As I was prepping the ingredients, Allie came into the kitchen and did a pull-up on the counter (as she frequently does) and seeing the tofu, wanted to try it. “Om? Om?”
“Want some tofu?”
“Yah.”
“Okay, here’s some tofu.” I popped a piece of the raw chilled silken tofu in her mouth, and she loved it. She came back multiple times asking for “more tofu, more tofu.” I finally had to break up some pieces and put it in a bowl for her to carry around. She came back twice for refills. “More tofu, more tofu, more tofu?”
She also currently loves rice. Fried rice, brown rice, quinoa, mixed into veggies or plain, she’ll ask for it and eat it.
She’s so Asian.

Oh yeah, she still doesn’t like commercial cake and altho she’ll ask for it, will spit it out, as we discovered 2 weekends ago when Ann visited and brought dinner and a large piece of cake as a belated birthday dinner for me. I was really proud of Allie, altho it was rude. I’ll teach her manners when she’s older, but meanwhile, out with the cake! 🙂

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