We've had a sudden boom in the popularity of science around here. We went to the (highly interactive) science museum last weekend, and since then, James has been declaring his intention to be a scientist when he grows up (this is the first thing he's wanted to be that wasn't a stay-at-home dad), and he's suddenly very interested in the science experiment books he got for his birthday. (Okay, he was always interested in them, but this week we've done our first experiments because he has been so insistent.) James dripping soap into the water/pepper mixture (you can sort of see how the pepper spread away from the center where he added the soap): Evan was not keen on touching the slimy shell-less egg: James, hoever, was happy to both hold his egg, and pose for photos: A close-up of the egg, because that's pretty cool:
Of course, since James wants to be a scientist and perform science experiments, so does Evan. This necessitates performing two experiments at once, every time. So far we've done three experiments, and learned the science behind them (I use the word "learned" loosely, since I'm not really sure how much James is really understanding or retaining): adding soap to water and pepper (like this), adding bleach to colored water, and, the best one, soaking an egg in vinegar to remove its shell (leaving the membrane intact, though).
Photos below the fold.
Here is Evan whole-heartedly getting into the pepper-shaking part of the first experiment:
Happy Friday, everyone!
08 February 2008
friday photos: junior scientists edition
07 February 2008
a bedtime story, by evan
"Once upon a time there was a little boy named Batman. And he lived with his family. And one day he was getting firewood and he fell into a cave. And it was full of bats! And he scared them! And they all flew away. And then he finded a bat and flew somewhere else. And then he finded a bat and flew somewhere else. [Repeat twenty times.] And then he finded all the bats and he stomped them. And then Mommy Batman and Daddy Batman came and saved the Big Batman. The End."
05 February 2008
super tuesday
I'm known among my friends for being political. I think it's because of the PoliSci degree, but maybe also because I have a lot of opinions about politics. So they were surprised (and you may be too) to learn that I'm not voting today. This is because when I registered to vote at age eighteen, I had no idea what my political views were, let alone which party I identified with, so I registered as an Independent. But honestly, if I were voting today, I'd have a hard time choosing, for various reasons that I'm not going to go into because it wouldn't really matter if I did.
But James has decided! Greg and I have been talking politics a lot over the last few weeks, following the election coverage, watching the news, and James is starting to catch on. This morning he asked me why Hillary can't be the president. I suppose he got this idea because Greg and I think Hillary would have a hard time winning, seeing as there are so many Republicans (and plenty of Democrats too) who vehemently dislike her and will try their hardest to stop her.
This led to an explanation of the primaries, and then a bit about who Hillary is, exactly, and then some info about Obama just to be thorough. I didn't really mention the Republicans at all, just their existence really, but I guess James has somehow caught on over time that Greg and I are not fans of the Republicans.
After all of this explanation, James announced, "I want Hillary to be the president. I'm a Democrat!"
"Good boy," I said. He was dismayed, though, to learn that he's not quite old enough to vote.
Then he asked Evan whether Evan was a Republican or a Democrat, and Evan's indignant reply was, "I'm a boy!" Still a bit young for politics, I guess.
I hope if you're able, you'll vote today. This is a pretty exciting election -- the prospect of electing a president who is not male or not white is exciting, beyond the fact that I like both Hillary and Obama as candidates (as opposed to merely not hating Kerry in '04) -- and I kind of wish I were voting today. But I'll be happy with either choice.
Anybody want to reveal in comments who they're supporting?
03 February 2008
weekend recipe
Jessica asked in comments of an earlier post whether I'd share some of my vegetarian recipes, and that gave me the idea to start a new feature. So I'm launching Weekend Recipes today. I chose weekends because that's when I have the most time to be ambitious and experimental in the kitchen. I'll post a good number of vegetarian recipes, I suspect, but I'm not going to limit myself. Today, though, I'm kicking off the series with a newly-discovered (by us) vegetarian dish that met with pretty immediate success in our house.
I hope I don't scare people away with my first choice. I don't know where this recipe came from originally, but an acquaintance of mine posted it on the message board for the nursery school James went to. It looks weird on paper (or should I say the computer screen) but it's delicious. It's quick, it's easy, and it centers around tofu.
I know, I know. Tofu. Most meat-eaters I know have a pronounced distaste, some even a touch of hostility, for tofu, and I can't for the life of me explain it or understand it. Tofu is cheap, healthy, versatile, and basically soaks up the flavor of whatever you put it into. You can even change the texture depending on how you prepare it. I have become a fan of tofu over the last few years, and, in this dish at least, my family has grown to like it too.
Recipe and notes below the fold.
Groundnut Stew, or Peanut Butter Tofu
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. tumeric
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. coriander
1/2 tsp. mustard seed
dash of cinnamon
dash of cardamom**
28 oz. can of tomatoes, undrained****
1/2-1 c water
1/2 c peanut butter (smooth, or crunchy for more texture)
1 block firm tofu, cubed
Saute onion, garlic, salt and spices in olive oil, just for a few minutes, until onion and garlic are softened.
Add tomatoes and enough water so that a little water sits on top. (If you opt to leave out the tomatoes, you'll probably need a little more water.)
Add the peanut butter in the center, and slowly stir from the center until it combines well with the water.
Gently stir in tofu.
Cover & reduce heat to low, stirring every 5 min. for 15 - 20 min. Turn off heat and leaved covered until served. Serve over rice.
**Note on spices: This is a pretty flexible recipe. Use whatever of these spices you have around the house -- i.e., don't rush out and buy cardamom just for this recipe. It's the combination of spices, not the individual spices, that is important here.
****Note on tomatoes: This is kind of a weird combination of flavors. It works for me, but Greg and the boys like it better without the tomatoes. Use your own judgment here.
We usually serve vegetables or a salad on the side, but I think it would work well to throw in some broccoli or spinach or something in the last few minutes of cooking if you want to get creative. Also, for the tofu-averse among you, I'm told this works well with chicken, too.
01 February 2008
odds and ends
I have not been on the ball lately for getting interesting photos. Or, really, any photos. Sorry -- someday you'll see my kiddos' beautiful faces again. Just not today.
We've had some weird weather this week. Windstorm on Wednesday, and freezing rain today, during which we had to drive -- or should I say crawl, through slush and heavy traffic -- to the other side of the city to the insurance company-approved auto shop, to have our bumper checked out, only to find out that the cost to repair the bumper is greater than the value of our car. I guess 14 years really lowers the resale value of a vehicle, despite having awesome mileage and being in otherwise fine condition. So this place will not fix our bumper, but instead the insurance company is cutting us a check. So... I guess that works out for us? I'm so over this car business by now; I don't really care.
We've had intermittent power outages over the last 15 hours. No idea why. All I really have to say about that is 1) I'm so grateful we didn't lose power before the season premiere of Lost was finished, and 2) I'm also grateful that our Nintendo DS has an alarm function. Not that the kids ever let us sleep too late, but it's always good to be certain.
So now it's February, and tomorrow that famous little groundhog in Pennsylvania will tell us what to expect from the rest of winter. I'm hoping he tells us that at least once before spring, we will have enough snow to go sledding. Other than that, I'm pretty well over winter too.
Happy weekend, everyone.
31 January 2008
what do global warming, childhood obesity, and torture have in common?
The meat industry.
Since mentioning our move towards vegetarianism in my last post, I've come across several articles that have only reinforced my belief that this is the right decision (for my family, at least) to make right now. You should read them, you should really, really read them, especially if you're considering reducing meat consumption. Or maybe especially if you're not considering such a thing. What Americans don't know about where our food comes from is an astonishing amount.
In comments, Kim pointed me to this article from the NY Times, which is all about the environmental effects of factory farming, and it is very surprising. To keep things brief, I'll quote the bit that surprised me most: "...if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius." I already knew that factory farming contributed to oil dependency and global warming, but I didn't really know the scope of it before reading this article.
Next: I actually bookmarked this article a few months ago, intending to read it when I had the time, and then promptly forgetting about it. I finally read it a couple of days ago, and was surprised once again at how much we as consumers do not know about our food. The article, written by Michael Pollan of The Omnivore's Dilemma fame, is all about the government's farm subsidies, which doesn't sound that interesting, but is really eye-opening. It tells us why the cheapest foods are those which are unhealthiest, and why these foods make it into kids' school lunches. It also talks about the global effect of these outdated policies. It's a copmlicated web of issues, but Pollan does an admirable job of weaving them all together.
Last: I came across this article this morning, about the sickening forms of abuse and even torture that go on in slaughterhouses. Horrifying things were captured on video by an undercover animal welfare investigator. I didn't even try to watch the video; just reading the descriptions was enough to turn my stomach.
So vegetarianism has moved beyond a simple animal welfare issue to one that encompasses all kinds of moral and ethical concerns. And even if I weren't moved by those concerns, the animal abuse practices along with the photos from the first article I linked to make me pretty certain that I don't want to eat meat that's been lying around in its own excrement, confined in close quarters that seem ideal for the spread of bacteria and disease. It's atrocious.
To quote once more from the first NYT article:
Animal welfare may not yet be a major concern, but as the horrors of raising meat in confinement become known, more animal lovers may start to react. And would the world not be a better place were some of the grain we use to grow meat directed instead to feed our fellow human beings?
...
If price spikes don’t change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.
29 January 2008
updates
Things have been busy around here, and I haven't been interested in blogging lately, for no particular reason, but I thought I should post a brief update to let you all know we're still alive. Because I'm not feeling up to writing real paragraphs and stuff (mentally, that is), I will do this list-style, because I'm fond of lists.
1. I'll start with the bad news. Our car was hit, in the parking lot right in front of our house, a few nights ago. Our bumper is smashed and mysteriously, none of the neighbors seems to know anything. So later this week we have to take it in to get fixed and get a rental car for a day or so. The boys were excited because we had to report it as a hit-and-run, and a police officer came to our house!! Thrilling.
2. Other bad parking lot news: in the last couple of weeks, we know of one car that was broken into and another which had its windows smashed by a group of unruly fellows. The window smashing actually bothered me less, because from all appearances that was a personal attack, not random, but still, we're becoming less enchanted with the neighborhood. To put it mildly.
3. In good news, we took the kids bowling for the first time this weekend. We went with some friends of our who had some coupons, and of course I didn't take any pictures, why would I do that, but believe me, it was adorable. Evan and our friends' daughter got to use a ramp that's normally reserved for people in wheelchairs -- you just set your ball on top and push it down. This, along with bumpers on the kids' lane, meant that the two littler kids beat the two older kids who actually had to roll the ball down the lane themselves. We heard just a little complaining about the injustice of one being expected to actually bowl at a bowling alley. (And by "a little" I mean "constant".) But I think they all had fun anyway.
4. Big lifestyle changes are afoot: we are transitioning to a mostly vegetarian diet. We've been heading that way slowly for some time, but I really accelerated it last week. Maybe I'll write a whole post on this sometime, but I'm feeling more and more strongly, for environmental reasons, that we need to stop supporting the corporate farm industry. This also means more local and organic foods, too. Everyone so far is dealing with the change pretty well -- we were never big meat eaters to begin with -- so hopefully this will be a good change for us in the long run. Maybe when Greg gets a real job and we have more money, we'll buy organic, local meats too. But for now, lentils and beans and tofu are cheaper than most meats anyway.
5. I think that's all. Nothing terribly exciting, but I felt like I was being neglectful of the blog, so there we are.
21 January 2008
racism for six-year-olds
James had school off today, and he's old enough now to pay attention to holidays and to ask questions about why we celebrate them.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a hard one to explain to a six-year-old. He knew of the idea of slavery from a conversation we had about Lincoln a while ago, but how do you explain prejudice, segregation, discrimination, and institutional racism to a child who has no concept of race? He's had classmates and neighbors of all different ethnicities. We have interracial marriages on both sides of my family, so he has cousins with varying skin tones too. He's used to seeing people of different colors in all kinds of settings. Racism -- even the very idea of difference -- has never come up. It's never needed to come up.
So how do you introduce a child to the injustices of the world? How do you explain the importance of King's work, of his life, without exposing the uglier side of humanity? I don't suppose you can, but it's a hard thing to have to tell a child. It's harder still to know that despite King's efforts, there is still a racial divide in America, that it is a really big deal that one of the frontrunners for the presidential race is a black man, that though we don't notice color, there are still so many people who do.
I suppose I should be expressing my gratitude to King, and everyone else who's fought the struggle for civil rights, that my son doesn't know the concept of race in the first place. Hopefully for James and his generation, race will continue to decrease in significance. Maybe someday we will achieve King's dream, and James can tell his children or grandchildren about racism not as something that still permeates society, but as just another chapter in the history books.
17 January 2008
2007: a year in books
You may have noticed that I didn't do any sort of New Year's post. That's because I don't do resolutions, and I have a pretty terrible memory, so my year is best summed up by telling you to look through my blog archives. There's little I could add to that. It's hard to choose a favorite this year. I loved a lot of these. So I'm going to get creative with my awards categories to try and encompass the books I loved best. Favorite Classic Fiction: Okay, it may be a stretch to call a novel from the '50s "classic", but it is one of those important books that's constantly referenced and that everyone's supposed to know: Lolita. It was disturbing, to be sure, but it was so well-written that I had trouble putting it down. It's something I'll have to re-read someday to really be able to solidify my thoughts on it, but there's a reason this novel is so well-known, and I'd like to believe it's not the subject matter. Favorite Contemporary Fiction: A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, also a worthy read. I read this so long ago (almost a whole year!) that I'm having trouble recalling the specifics, but it left such a good impression on me that I'm willing to recommend it regarless of not being able to remember the details. Just trust me; Haddon is good. Favorite Historical Fiction: Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier. The Washington Post says: "Reading Frazier is like sitting by the cracker barrel for hour after hour and listening to an amiable but impossibly gassy guy who talks real slow, says "I reckon" a whole lot and never shuts up." I happen to like that in a book, or, at least, in this book, which I suppose is the only one I've ever read that fits that description. It's a sprawling novel that covers much of the 19th century, telling one (white) man's story of life among the Cherokee, the Trail of Tears, the Civil War, and of course, a love story too. Favorite Foreign Fiction: Since I already mentioned above that I've become a Murakami fan, I'll give this award to The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, which is kind of a fantastical historical tale of several generations of a South American family. It's kind of a saga, more than just a mere story. Beautiful, engaging, wonderful book. Favorite Science Fiction: Dune, by Frank Herbert. I can't believe I took so long to get around to reading this book. It's one of the best sci-fi novels I've read, I think: power struggles and prophecy and deceit and fantasy, all kinds of interesting things going on here. Now I just have to get around to seeing the movie. Most Fun Fiction: Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl. This is not the sort of book I would have chosen on my own, but one of my friends selected it for our book club and I was surprised by how clever and smart it was. It reads kind of like a young adult murder-mystery sort of thing, but it's a more interesting story than those usually turn out to be, it's populated by interesting characters (especially the young heroine, who is the sort of character a girl like me wishes she could have been at that age), and it's chock-full of literary references, some obvious and some more obscure, which were like little Easter eggs hidden throughout the book -- always a treat to come across one. Most Important Fiction: What is the What, by Dave Eggers. I'd even go so far as to call this the overall best book I read this year, because of how moving and affecting it is. It's based on the real-life story of the Lost Boys of Sudan, thousands of boys displaced and orphaned by seemingly never-ending war in Africa. Read more about both the book and the Lost Boys here.
The one thing I actually do on a yearly basis, for the last few years anyway though only once so far on the blog), is to keep a running list of the books I've read. This helps me, first of all, remember what I've read and what I haven't, because some books are so utterly forgettable, or easily confused with other books, that I have a hard time keeping track. It also helps me when it comes to recommending books to people. If you ask me to recommend a book off the top of my head, I'd be hard pressed to come up with more than one or two. But with a list at hand I'm full of recommendations. Also, it's fun to remember when I read certain things, like to recall that the summer of 2003 was my summer of Vonnegut, or that the main reason I've read so many trashy suspnse novels is because I needed something diverting after I had Evan in 2005. Thus, my lists.
I'm a little late posting this, but it's still January, so I think that's good enough. Below the fold you'll find the complete 2007 list, with awards and comments following.
1. Foucault’s Pendulum – Umberto Eco
2. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa – Adam Hochschild
3. Special Topics in Calamity Physics – Marisha Pessl
4. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right – Al Franken
5. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why – Bart Ehrman
6. Between Mothers and Sons: Women Writers Talk About Having Sons and Raising Men – edited by Patricia Stevens
7. Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen – Julie Powell
8. A Spot of Bother – Mark Haddon
9. The Polysyllabic Spree – Nick Hornby
10. The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
11. Beloved – Toni Morrison
12. Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson
13. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
14. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
15. Thirteen Moons – Charles Frazier
16. The Human Comedy – William Saroyan
17. Dune – Frank Herbert
18. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – JK Rowling
19. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – JK Rowling
20. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – JK Rowling
21. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – JK Rowling
22. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – JK Rowling
25. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
26. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle – Haruki Murakami
27. Into The Forest – Jean Hegland
28. The Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut
29. Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds – Scott Weidensaul
30. What is the What – Dave Eggers
31. Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds – Susan Gregory Thomas
It was an eclectic year. I developed a taste for Haruki Murakami (and hope to read more of his work this year), read a few classics I'd missed over the years, learned a little about nature and war and history, and said goodbye to the world of Harry Potter in one final engrossing trip through the boy wizard's entire journey. Oof, that sounded cheesy, but I was sad to see the series end, though pleased with the way it was done.
Favorite non-fiction: King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild. Though a quick read, it's not exactly an easy read: it's an account of the destruction and abuses inflicted on the Congo and the Africans who lived there when King Leopold of Belgium decided to colonize. As someone who knew very little of African history prior to reading this book, it was kind of a horrific introduction, but at the same time fascinating.
Runner up: Living on the Wind by Scott Weidensaul. There's not much to say about this book -- it's about bird migration, essentially, with some talk of conservation as well. I found it really, really interesting, but I'm aware that most people wouldn't, not for 400 pages anyway. But I've read a few others of Weidensaul's books, and though obviously very knowledgeable and experienced in bird study, he has a talent for writing about it in a very accessible way.
So that's my year in books. I've already got a lot on my plate for 2008: the Jane Austen books, of course, and I'm slowly working on a book about Lincoln's presidency as well.
What good books have you read lately? Any recommendations? Or any interesting books on your to-read list?
16 January 2008
i'm not the only one
If you don't know me in real life, if you only know me through the blog, you probably don't know that I'm not married. I'm in a committed relationship with the father of my children, but we are not married and we have no plans to marry anytime soon. We are committed to spending our future together, pursuing our dreams and facing life's challenges in partnership.
"Maybe someday," is what we say to people who ask if we're ever going to get married. And people do ask -- not so much anymore, but at first, when I was pregnant and when James was a baby, we heard it a lot. Actually, when I first started telling people I was pregnant with James, one of my co-workers at the time asked me if I'd set a date. I was confused -- I was about to tell her that it's the baby who decides when it's time to come out, not the mother -- when I realized she was asking when Greg and I were getting married. That was when it became clear to me that marriage is not just a life choice you make, but for many people, especially when pregnancy is involved, it is an expectation. People have asked us if we've ever thought about marriage -- of course we have! How could we avoid it in a culture like ours?
For a number of reasons, Greg and I have made a conscious decision not to marry. This surprises a lot of people. We've put a lot of thought and discussion into it, though, and it's not something we're interested in for the time being. We've got no religious inclinations, no pressing financial or legal reasons, and no money to spend on a wedding even if we were interested in marriage. We already have a very public symbol of our feelings for each other and our commitment to each other -- our two children. Most people we meet assume we're married, and I don't bother to correct the assumption most of the time, because what difference would it make? The only thing that differentiates us from married couples is a little piece of paper, which neither of us care about.
It wasn't an easy decision to come to -- there was a while where I really did think I wanted to get married, until I examined my motives and found, at the root of my desire, mostly social pressures and expectations. And there have certainly been times where I've felt condescended to, looked down on, or as if my relationship wasn't legitimate in the eyes of some others simply because I don't have a ring on my finger. After seven years, though, I've gotten used to it and am rarely bothered by it.
I bring all of this up because I read an essay in Newsweek that made me cheer a little bit on the inside. It isn't often that one finds a public, carefully thought-out, well-written defense of choosing not to be married. The author writes a lot of things that ring true to me:
Yet I do not need a piece of paper from the state to strengthen my commitment to Jeff. I do not believe in a religion that says romantic, committed love is moral only if couples pledge joint allegiance to God.
I don't need a white dress to feel pretty, and I have no desire to pretend I'm virginal. I don't need to have Jeff propose to me as if he's chosen me. I don't need a ring as a daily reminder to myself or others that I am loved. And I don't need Jeff to say publicly that he loves me, because he says it privately, not just in words but in daily actions.
Our married friends say you can make a wedding—and a marriage—what you want, but that is not true. It's a specific institution with defining principles and values. If it weren't, there wouldn't be so-called marriage-protection laws in the majority of this country's states.
And for me, that's the bottom line when I consider cashing in on all the benefits our heterosexual relationship is entitled to. My gay friends can't do that. I don't want to send a message to anyone, including my daughter—who may someday choose a same-sex life partner—that the value of her relationships can be determined by law and the affirmation of others.
I wouldn't say that marriage equality -- or, currently, inequality, I should say -- is "the bottom line" for me or for Greg, but that's certainly been a consideration in our thoughts about marriage too.
It was just so refreshing to read some of my own thoughts written by someone else. Greg and I are not the only people out there who feel this way about marriage, despite often feeling as if we're the only ones. Marriage is not a priority for us -- we are actively building our lives and raising our children together without pausing for a ceremony to recognize that, and that's not a common sentiment, nor one that many people readily accept.
And -- I realize that marriage means much more than this to many people. I realize that it has personal importance and tangible benefits for lots and lots of people. I do think it has its problems as a legal institution, but this is not to say I'll never get married. Maybe circumstances will change and we'll decide it's better to be married than not -- who knows. But please, if you're thinking about leaving a comment about how wonderful marriage is, and/or how many benefits it has, and/or why I should get married -- I've heard it. In seven years I've heard it all, and I've not yet been convinced to get married right this minute, so save your energy. I'm happy with my choice.
15 January 2008
i can't write a post today
We were beginning to think that Evan was starting to outgrow the terrible twos. The tantrums were becoming fewer, or at least they were getting easier to handle. He was learning to share, and play nicely with his brother. He was growing up a little, in subtle ways. Or so we thought.
It turns out that the terrible twos are like a resilient virus or bacteria. We thought we were eradicating the problem, but instead, it simply mutated into another form, and we now have to deal with it all over again. The tantrums are disappearing, yes, but in their place are the stubborn, obstinant protestations of a toddler who wants everything to be his way.
His newest thing is, "I can't." "I can't say please," whenever he is told to ask nicely. "I can't go to bed," whenever we catch him running around upstairs after bedtime. "I can't eat," when faced with food he doesn't like, though sometimes this is said as he eats whatever it is anyway. "I can't talk" is pretty self-explanatory. "I can't wear pants." That's the one I hear the most. And I am channelling Inigo Montoya as I tell him, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
In fact, a perfect example of this phenomenon happened just now, while I was trying to write. Evan threw a video game of James' on the floor. Twenty minutes later, after two time-outs, lots of tears, and plenty of motherly coaxing, Evan blurted out, in a pained voice, "I'm sorry for throwing your video game!" And in a burst of tears, ran to me, crying, "I can't say it anymore! I can't say it!"
So you see, I can't write a post today -- I have too much to do with managing a stubborn toddler; I'm afraid it will be utterly impossible.
14 January 2008
even better than mere survival
Not only did we survive the birthday party, we actually had a really fun time. All of us. Five 5 and 6-year-olds in one room (plus one 2.5-year-old who wishes he was six), crammed full of sugar, do not necessarily destroy one's sanity and will to live, as I had feared. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that three of the other kids' parents stayed for the party, perhaps I was more prepared after my harrowing birthday party experience last year, perhaps the children have actually grown up and matured a little bit. Whatever the reason, we had an awesome birthday party.
But would you like to know the real key to keeping kindergarteners (and a toddler) busy and happy?
Balloons.
Balloons! Simple, right? If you don't mind a little good-natured shouting and running, balloons are the best birthday party game I've ever seen. Here I had planned all kinds of fun games and activities, and it turns out all we needed were fifteen or twenty balloons. Also a good idea -- a big box to put the balloons in. This way the children have a goal: either get all the balloons and hide them in a box, or, once the grown-ups have imprisoned the balloons in the box, you can liberate those balloons and beat the other children with them. Fun for all!
And of course, I can't write a birthday party post without mentioning the cake, because if you've ever read this blog, you are aware that I am a fan of cakes, both baking and eating them. It was a vegan (to accomodate one of the party guests) vanilla (to accomodate James' predictable, unchanging preference) cake with vanilla icing, and James requested a big cake with the Transformers symbol on it -- the Autobot symbol, to be precise, if you care about such things. I never used to care about such things, but as the mother of a six-year-old boy, I now have no choice but to know these things whether I care or not.
Here is the cake, a product of intense labor from both Greg and me (I baked, Greg designed, and we both very carefully, delicately, decorated).
So. I was pleasantly surprised by all of this birthday party stuff this year. Here's hoping it gets better and better every year.
11 January 2008
friday photos: vacation edition
I wrote a bit about our vacation earlier this week, and today I've finally got some photos. Check below the fold for some cuteness and silliness. In other news, we're having a birthday party for James this weekend. If my sanity makes it through intact, I'll be back after the weekend.
We stopped at a rock shop, and saw the biggest geode any of us had ever seen. James could crawl inside this thing. And the photo doesn't show it well, but it's coated in amethyst crystals, with the exception of that huge white crystal (well, grey in the photo) that you can see jutting out in the middle there:
James riding his old pal Snickers:
And Evan, riding Snickers for the first time:
James and Evan posing under a whale tail outside the Pacific Science Center:
And two photos of me and Greg, dressed up and silly on New Year's Eve:
10 January 2008
confession
I pride myself on being a literary type. I'm a book snob, I'm a book nerd, I want to be a librarian when I grow up because I just like to be in the presence of books so much. I took several college English courses, and thought briefly of being an English major. I read for fun! (A trait that is becoming more and more rare, it seems.) I even read poetry.
Yet, with all those qualifications, I have to confess that I've never read a Jane Austen book. I've not even read a single sentence of a Jane Austen book. I've never even seen a movie made from one of her books, so I can't even pretend I've read her. Everyone I know who has read her has told me I'd love her. I know I would. It's hard to really call myself a book person with this hanging over my head. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
But! I finally have the motivation to start. I found out a while ago that PBS, starting this Sunday, is going to be showing movie adaptations of all of Jane Austen's books on Masterpiece Theater. So I've decided to read all of her books along with seeing the movies. I'm sure I won't be able to keep up with the tv schedule, but darn it, I'm going to try. And hopefully I will succeed, and remove the biggest piece of nagging literary guilt from my brain. Wish me luck.
08 January 2008
six years
Today you are six years old. It seems that every year, birthdays get more and more exciting. (I hate to tell you that that feeling won't last forever, so enjoy it while you can.) You are a boy who is always full of ideas, and you've been planning this birthday very carefully, from composing lengthy lists of presents you hope to get, to requesting blueberry-banana pancakes for breakfast, to drawing diagrams of what kind of birthday cake I should make for you this weekend.
It's hard to sum you up this year. The change from 5 to 6 has been less drastic than any other year before this one. The best way I can describe it is simply to say you've grown up. I know how vague that sounds, but it's accurate. You've grown taller (though still as skinny as ever -- I bet you could still wear your brother's pants), you've matured, you're more confident and patient, you've progressed academically and emotionally. You are the easy one -- in many ways I feel as though our parenting work is mostly done, like even if all we did for the next 12 years was feed you and clothe you, you'd still be your bright, cheerful, energetic, clever self. This is especially true because of your ever-growing independence.
I wasn't sure you could get more independent, but I shouldn't be surprised. From the minute you were mobile you were trying to do everything yourself. Now you wake up in the morning and fix yourself a bowl of cereal for breakfast. You dress yourself, you make your bed, you do the chores I ask you to do. You mostly entertain yourself. You read to yourself. You play nicely with your brother. Since your shoes are velcro, it seems you need your parents for almost nothing on a daily basis. I can live with this.
One of my favorite things about this year is that you've grown into good taste in music. How happy am I now that you're singing the Ramones around the house instead of Dora songs? The happiness can't be measured. And you, who I worried wouldn't really love music because you didn't, for a long time, enjoy music at all, whether it was people singing or music being played, but you've proven that my fears were unfounded. It was so much fun seeing you rock out when we played Rock Band over Christmas vacation, seeing you have so much fun just singing.
Over the last year, your brother has become one of your best friends. He follows your lead, and from you he has learned to develop an amazing imagination. The two of you invent all kinds of pretend games, in which you are Luke and Leia, or Ninja Turtles, or Pokemon trainers. You build lego spaceships and lego cars and lego who-knows-what together. You're a good role model for him -- I hope the two of you will always be so close.
I could go on, and on, and on, about what a wonderful boy you are, and how lucky we are to have you in our family. You are still flaky -- you misplace things all the time, and you still spend plenty of time in your own little universe, where sometimes we have a hard time reaching you when we need you. Maybe I'm biased, considering where you got these habits from, but I think they're endearing most of the time.
Happy birthday, sweet baby James. May this be only one of many, many happy years ahead of you.
07 January 2008
notes from vacation
Oh, how I wish life could always be a vacation. Sleeping late, no housework, lots of video games, eating out, and of course, spending lots of time with family and friends who you don't see nearly often enough.
Some highlights, in no particular order:
Rock Band: I would estimate that we spent about 34 zillion hours playing Rock Band. I became an accomplished drummer, Greg rocked out on the bass, and James sang lead vocals, quickly becoming an expert on a couple of Ramones songs, which he made us play at least 75 times a day.
Horses: James and Evan both got to ride one of Grandma Kathy's horses, as well as visit with all of the horses (and cows, and a donkey) out at the farm. It was Evan's first time riding, and he did pretty well. He was incredibly excited until he realized he had to wear a helmet, so most of his ride was spent trying to take his helmet off.
Christmas: I don't know why I didn't put this first. We had a really nice Christmas with Greg's family. It's so nice that all of his siblings are able to come spend Christmas at their parents' house -- it's always full and busy, the way Christmas should be. I always miss my own family, of course, but it helps a bit to be part of another family.
The boys were showered in gifts, and loved each and every one. The favorites?
1) Nintendo DS: Greg's brother handed his down to us, and gave us a few games. It would be a huge understatement to say we all totally love it. It's getting a lot of use so far. James asked for one for Christmas, and I kind of didn't want one, because I knew we would all want to use it a lot, but I'm not really complaining.
2) Mythical beasts: Greg's brother also got the boys a books and game about mythical creatures, which came with little figures of the creatures, and they are so into them. They spent a lot of time over vacation telling people about Chupacabra (imagine a two-year-old saying that word -- so cute) and now that we're home they've been playing with them a lot. This morning they were fighting over the Hydra -- something I never expected my children to fight over.
Movies: We saw many movies over the course of two weeks. I was psyched to get the movie Labyrinth as a gift, and doubly pleased to see how well it holds up after twenty years. I saw a few movies I would never have watched if it weren't for Greg (namely, Transformers -- the new one, though we now own both movies -- and Alien vs. Predator: Requiem) and I can honestly say I did not hate either of them. Who woulda thought. We also saw King Kong again (the Peter Jackson version), which I love, and which made me cry a little. Again.
The best movie we saw would have to be The Maze, a rare 3-D mystery/suspense movie from 1953, which we did not watch in 3-D, but which we enjoyed anyway. It's a pretty conventional film -- a little too slow, even -- until the end. The end is the real reason to watch this movie. It turns the film from something unremarkable into one of the greatest so-bad-it's-good movies I've ever seen.
New Year's: We went to a fabulous New Year's party at the home of one of Greg's brother's friends, without children, and we dressed up in silly costumes, played hours and hours of Rock Band, relaxed in a hot tub, played some pool, played a little Mario Kart, and had our fortunes told by a mysterious gypsy woman. We finally crawled into bed at 7am, totally satisfied. Oh, and I also took part in the traditional Norwegian custom of eating pickled herring for good luck in the new year. Greg's family loves pickled herring, and they make me eat some every year. The best I can say is that it hasn't killed me. Yet.
Evan boycotted pants during this vacation. He refuses to wear "wiggly" pants. We have yet to figure out what makes pants wiggly, but it seems to be a fairly common problem, since every pair of pants Evan owns is now considered wiggly.
And of course, it was so nice to see Greg's family again. Since we couldn't make it out to visit over the summer, we hadn't seen them in a year, which is really way too long. It was a lot of fun getting to hang out with all of them again.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but that's a brief rundown. Pictures will be posted eventually. And now that we're home, (semi) regular blogging will resume.
25 December 2007
17 December 2007
'tis the season: holiday books
We are a bookish family. Okay, well, to be precise, I am a very bookish person, and I'm doing my best to pass on a love of reading to my boys. One of my favorite things about being a parent is introducing my kids to things I loved as a child (and still love). I had so much fun reading Charlotte's Web to James, and I am waiting impatiently to start reading him the Little House books. But it's also a ton of fun to discover new books together with my children.
This year we've started a holiday book collection. We've always had holiday books, but this year we've collected them in one place and plan to make it a tradition to read our favorites every year. Below the fold, I've compiled a list of some of our favorite holiday and winter children's books, both classics and new favorites.
One of our favorite children's authors in general, ever since Greg's mom got us one of her books years ago, is Jan Brett. Her illustrations are intricate and beautifully drawn, and are wonderful accompaniments to fun stories. The Hat and The Mitten are two of our favorite winter stories, so I was excited to see that this year, she'd come out with a version of The Night Before Christmas. I've been wanting to buy a copy of this poem for the boys, and when I saw Brett's at the bookstore, I knew it was the one. The classic Clement Moore poem with Brett's illustrations is a beautiful combination.
Next on the list, a modern classic, How The Grinch Stole Christmas. This is one of the rare children's books that I can read over and over without tiring of it. Which I had to do when Evan went through a Grinch phase a few months ago, and and requested it every day at naptime, and sometimes bedtime, for god only knows how many days. But the magic of Dr. Seuss is that the rhyming and nonsense words are fun even for grown-ups to say, and until you really memorize it, you have to pay attention for the trickier phrases. And the story can't be beat -- a Scrooge-like cave-dwelling creature learns the true meaning of Christmas just in time to redeem himself. We also love the movie (the original movie, that is, not the horrible Jim Carrey remake), which is very faithful to the book.
Another new favorite, also introduced to us by Greg's mom, is Olive, the Other Reindeer. What could be cuter than a little dog who thinks she's a reindeer? She tries her hardest to help Santa on Christmas Eve -- and succeeds, too, in unexpected ways. This one is really a lot of fun to read, and popular with the kiddos, because that dog is just SO cute.
The last book I'm going to mention is another family favorite, The Polar Express. Haven't seen the movie (sources tell me it's not worth it) but the book is one of those magical Christmas stories that kids and adults love. The illustrations are beautiful, and to combine the Santa myth with a train? Genius, as far as kids are concerned.
And that's it for the holiday books we own, though I have to note two of my favorite Christmas stories, both of which I'm trying to find in children's versions with illustrations I like (tricky, because I'm kind of picky about things like that): The Nutcracker, and A Christmas Carol. Actually, I hope to eventually start a tradition someday of going to see each of those live (we nearly went to see A Christmas Carol at a local theater over the weekend, but it turns out that even with the family discount, we still couldn't afford it), but it won't hurt to have books as well. As I always say (and as Greg always disagrees with me), there's no such thing as "too many books".
14 December 2007
friday photos: christmas past edition
We're having an early Christmas with my mom tomorrow before leaving next week to celebrate the real Christmas Day with Greg's family, so before I leave my computer and all my photos behind (stupid desktop! Someday I'll have a laptop!) I thought I'd post some of my favorite old Christmas photos of the boys, and a bonus Christmas video that makes me laugh no matter how many times I watch it.
A classic photo from Evan's first Christmas -- still cracks me up:
If James had decided to exit the womb three days before his due date instead of being forced out 12 days late, he could have been born on Christmas, and maybe then he would not have repeatedly taken off the cute little Santa hat I bought for his first Christmas. Still, he managed to be pretty cute:
Last year Evan thought, when we brought out all of the Christmas ornaments, that we were giving him a bunch of new, tiny, fragile toys. Of course he had a ridiculous amount of fun:
And here it is, the cutest video of James ever taken, in which he demonstrates how to properly enjoy the season:
Have a good weekend, all!
13 December 2007
'tis the season: rampant consumerism
Okay, this is not strictly a holiday post per se, but I figured that Christmas is the perfect time to write a bit about consumer culture and marketing. Everyone, at this time of year, feels the pressure to buy. If you're a parent, you're feeling it even more, because in addition to the ordinary media pressure to spend a lot of money on your family and friends, you have small children begging you for every cool new thing they lay eyes on, because they know that presents are coming. Lots of parents can shift the responsibility to Santa, but since we don't do Santa, we're stuck looking like Scrooges when we don't come through with the cool gifts. And this is the first year where either of our children has really cared about particular presents. I guess I should be glad they waited this long.
Yesterday I read this piece by Barbara Ehrenreich in The Nation about the ubiquity of the Disney princesses. The popularity of Disney princesses for little girls is the flip side of Star Wars and superheroes for little boys, with a slight difference -- little boys' loyalties and affections are divided between Star Wars and Transformers and Superman and Spiderman, while for little girls, the Disney princesses are it. There aren't any competitors in the same league, at least not for a particular age group. Ehrenreich covers the problems inherent with having princesses as role models, but she doesn't get into why they are so popular, so desired by little girls everywhere. I can answer that, at least in part.
This topic is really interesting to me, especially in light of the book I'm currently reading, Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds, by Susan Gregory Thomas. Thomas writes about how consumer culture has evolved over the last few decades, and the ways in which toy companies market to children and prey on the fears and insecurities of parents in order to generate huge profits. It's been a really interesting read so far, in many ways. Where do the Disney princesses come into this? Thomas devotes a whole chapter to the Disney princess phenomenon and its financial success. It's a perfect example of a product being relentlessly marketed to young children (you can find Disney princesses on merchandise ranging from toothbrushes to bedroom decor to clothing to board games). It also falls into the category of appealing to parental nostalgia. Have you noticed the comeback of '80s characters like the Care Bears, Transformers, Strawberry Shortcake? It's not a coincidence that the children who grew up on these toys are now beginning to have kids of their own.
Thomas cites studies that show that the only measurable thing toddlers and babies learn from watching TV is character recognition. So it's not that little girls inherently want to be beautiful princesses, it's that from the time they are very small, they are saturated in a consumer culture where corporations deliberately target children as consumers. Children begin to form an emotional attachment, through repeated exposure, to a character. Children are incredibly succeptible to marketing, because until the age of 7 or 8, they are unable to understand the idea of persuasion, and at younger ages, can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. They love Cinderella because they've watched her videos and they have her nightgowns and sleeping bags -- they think of her as a friend because of her presence in their lives -- and so naturally they will want the Cinderella tent and the Cinderella DVD player.
This is true not just of Disney princesses, of course, but all kinds of characters. For my own boys it's Pokemon and Star Wars. Star Wars Monopoly is superior to regular Monopoly because it has Star Wars characters and pictures. I have noticed that my kids are affected not only by media directed at them, but even by media that's not aimed at children. Greg and I were recently having a conversation about diamonds (and nothing positive, because I am not a fan of diamonds) and James, just overhearing the key word, pipes up, "Diamonds? Go to Zales. They're the diamond store," in his most helpful tone. (Also, as a side note: James heard me telling Greg a statistic from the book -- that over a quarter of kids under two have a television in their bedrooms, which I think is appalling -- and said incredulously, "A TV in their BEDROOM? Can I have one??")
I'm pretty anti-consumerism in general, but reading this book makes me want to sell my television and never set foot in a mall again. But it is really helpful to be reading it right now, at this time of year, because I'm able to realize that the overwhelming urge for holiday consumerism I'm feeling, and the ridiculous gift lists my son is composing, are products of the capitalist marketing machine. We are feeling this way because there are people out there whose job it is to make us feel this way, and they are good at what they do. They are getting rich because they are skilled at manipulating consumers. It's casting a new light on the Christmas season for me. I'm not even finished with the book but I'd recommend it to anyone, especially parents.
12 December 2007
'tis the season: holiday weirdness
Time to post about one of my favorite holiday traditions: making fun of other people's holiday traditions! Well, not traditions so much as bad taste. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas if no one displayed their bad taste for the world to see, or if retailers didn't come up with holiday kitsch to sell, and likewise, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a little mockery of those things.
First, to follow up on one of the videos I posted on Monday, I learned from Karen that apparently a lot of people synchronize their Christmas lights to songs by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Who knew that would be such a popular holiday pastime? This is not so much a mockery as an observation that there are evidently many people out there with a lot of time on their hands during the holiday season, as you can see from a YouTube search.
Now for the mockery.
Who doesn't love tacky Christmas lights? I found an entire site deovted to them: UglyChristmasLights.com. Some of the photos on that site aren't that bad, but others are totally hideous. I love it.
Next up, tacky ornaments! The strangest ornaments I've ever seen in real life are those made by elementary-school children (myself included, of course), but there are a wealth of bizarre ornaments out there. The best I've seen is this delightful Elvis Cow, which, sadly, is sold out. That means a little less kitschy glitter on my tree this year.
I also found a Flickr group devoted to strange ornaments, and there are some real treasures there. What says "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" like hanging a winged pear, a monkey head, or a portrait of Frida Kahlo painted on a bright pink star on your tree?
Okay, my next link isn't about mockery, because it's kind of sad -- but also very funny: a collection of photos of children frightened of Santa. What kind of parent makes their screaming, crying, struggling child sit on Santa's lap for the photo? I'm not sure, but there are at least 187 of these sadistic parents out there somewhere.
And now. I have saved the best for last: the Cavalcade of Bad Nativities! This year's is actually the second edition; be sure to check out the first cavalcade, from which I stole the photo of the owl nativity. Owls! I laugh every time I look at that photo, because who thought it was a good idea to represent Jesus & Co. as owls? Or even if they didn't think it was a good idea, who would think of such a thing in the first place?
I am incredibly grateful, though, that there are people out there who think of things like Elvis Cow ornaments and Owl Nativities, because sometimes when the Christmas season is getting to be too hurried and too busy and too much, you need to sit down and envision God sending his son to earth in the form of an owl. Oh, man, but I'm still laughing at that. If ever I were to have a nativity scene in my home, that would be the one. That would guarantee our Christmas season would be full of laughter.
10 December 2007
'tis the season: christmas music
I am a total, unabashed lover of Christmas music. Carols, popular songs, hymns, orchestral music, I love it all. Years of church-going, years of high-school choir in a small town where it's not taboo to sing religious songs in public school, years of band and orchestra, and years of being assaulted with Christmas music playing in every public place during the month of December have taught me pretty much every Christmas song in existence. And there is hardly a one I don't like. Oh, there are plenty of arrangements or versiosn I hate, but the songs themselves occupy a very special, perhaps larger than usual, place in my heart.
I've tried to narrow my list of favorites down (really!) but it's still pretty lengthy, so you'll find videos galore below the fold.
I'll kick off the list with my essential Christmas music: Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. I can't wait until James is old enough to take to a live ballet performance (we're thinking maybe next year -- I was surprised to find out Greg has never seen the ballet, so I'll have to introduce them both!). But until then, this is one of the greatest videos I've ever seen:
I found a really nice performance of my second most essential Christmas music, but embedding has been disabled for this video, so you'll have to click to hear "Hallelujah" from Handel's Messiah. This makes me miss being in a choir so much.
Next up are a couple of lesser-known carols, old madrigal-style songs I learned and fell in love with in high school. First, "The Coventry Carol":
Next, "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming":
Next is a song my grandmother used to sing in church every year, but this rendition is not my grandma's baritone:
And to finish up, what's Christmas without songs about peace? I have two to share. This first one may be my favorite duet ever, Christmas or otherwise:
And finally, one of the best Christmas songs ever written. But beware, the video is sad and a little disturbing. I cried a bit.
What are your favorite Christmas songs?
09 December 2007
'tis the season: favorite holiday movies
Things are getting awfully Christmasy around here. I think I mentioned already that we have our Christmas tree. We have been watching all of our favorite Christmas movies, reading our favorite Christmas books, and listening to our favorite Christmas music. Yesterday we even braved the germ-ridden masses at the mall to go Christmas shopping (seriously, I hate the mall under normal circumstances, but in the middle of winter with all the season's illnesses beginning, and no parking for miles, and the terrible Christmas Muzak everyone plays... I actually feel really proud that we managed to buy three things on our list. You know, out of the twenty or so things we needed to buy). So far I've refrained from making Christmas cookies, but I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out -- I'm feeling so festive this year! This is the first year that both of our kids have been old enough to get into it, so it's really been a lot of fun.
I thought I'd do some posts on some of our favorite ways to get into the Christmas spirit. Today, movies. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I've never actually seen any grown-up Christmas movies all the way through. No It's a Wonderful Life, no Miracle on 34th Street... but I'm a pro on the kiddie flicks. Sure, everyone knows the Grinch and A Christmas Story and Rudolph and A Charlie Brown Christmas, all of which we love and watch every year, too, but my favorite kids' Christmas movies don't get that kind of attention. I can't decide if this list will illustrate to you my awesome taste, my '80s nostalgia, or my elitist preference for Jim Henson originals, or all three.
My favorite Christmas movie of all time is pictured on the right: A Muppet Family Christmas. Not to be confused with The Muppet Christmas Carol, this is a fabulous Henson muppet-fest from the '80s featuring a ton of holiday songs, and just about every muppet known to man, from the original Muppets to the Sesame Street characters to the Fraggles. I have an old VHS tape of this which is starting to wear out from watching it so many times. If there were a soundtrack from this movie, I think it would be the only Christmas music I'd listen to. I don't think it would be possible to overemphasise my love for this movie. If I were only allowed to watch one holiday movie for the rest of my life, it would be this one.
Jim Henson did a couple of other Christmas movies too, one of them being Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas. The only official Muppet who makes an appearance in this one is Kermit, as the narrator. The story is about cute little Emmet Otter and his mother each trying to give the other a special Christmas in spite of the fact that they are poor and fatherless. The music is a bit countrified (there really is a Muppet jugband) but it is a sweet story, one I try to watch every year.
The third Henson Christmas movie I love is The Christmas Toy. Another tale narrated by Kermit, this one bears some similarities to Toy Story in the idea of toys coming to life when their owners leave the room, and also the idea of a toy's fear of being replaced as the favorite toy, though this one doesn't play out exactly the same as Toy Story (i.e., Toy Story did not rip off the plot of The Christmas Toy, only some key elements of the story). This stars a lovable (but kind of dumb) tiger named Rugby, who is a toy I would totally love to own one day.
I'll finish off my movies post with a clip from A Muppet Family Christmas. This is a scene that was in the original but didn't make it onto the DVD release for reasons of music copywriting. Enjoy! And feel free to share your own favorites in comments!
04 December 2007
christmas has come early!
Not only did we get our Christmas tree this weekend, but yesterday we received our Lego Star Destroyer.
The boys are already hard at work:
02 December 2007
a week of ham
Once a year, I buy a ham. I'm not really a big fan of ham, but once a year I buy a big ol' ham and go to town. I was beginning to think ham wouldn't go on sale this year in time for us to have one before we went away for Christmas, but yesterday I went to the store and found them super-cheap. The problem is, the smallest ham I could find was seven pounds. And that's a lot of ham for four people, one of whom doesn't love ham (me), and one of whom hardly eats anything anyway (Evan).
So I'm asking for suggestions. What creative uses do you all have for leftover ham? Tonight I'm serving all seven pounds with Jessica's fabulous cider glaze, and we're going to eat all the ham we can stand, but I'm anticipating days of leftovers. As far as real recipes from my collection go, I've got a ham-potato-cheddar soup planned, and ham tetrazzini, a pasta dish my mom used to make. We'll probably do a pizza, and possibly omelets, but those won't use much ham. I want to do as few ham sandwiches as possible. I'm mostly just looking for a way not to eat it straight up for days and days.
So what else can I do with several pounds of ham?
27 November 2007
revealing my inner nerd
Just wanted to share some fun, nerdy sites I've come across recently:
Free Rice quizzes you on vocabulary while donating rice to be distributed by the UN's World Food Program.
This site is a quiz to name as many countries as you can in ten minutes.
The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks is hilarious.
And free Sudoku puzzles online. Who can resist?
Got any links to share?
26 November 2007
thankful
In the aftermath of Thanksgiving, while approaching a comatose state what with the full belly and the warm house and the utter satisfaction of having a relaxing holiday, I thought a bit about the things I'm thankful for, with the intention of writing the requisite Thanksgiving blog post.
But it's hard. It's not hard to think of things I'm thankful for, but it's hard to find the balance between sappy and trivial. Do I write a serious blog post about how grateful I am that I live in America at all, instead of, say, Iraq or Sudan or a hundred other places? Or do I take those things for granted like every other day of the year and write a fluffy post about how thankful I am for bands like Stars because they're just so totally great? Do I try to be brief and poignant, or do I let myself ramble because there's so much to be thankful for? (As if me not rambling is even a realistic option...)
So I'm trying to incorporate a little bit of everything. Especially the rambling.
I'm thankful that I have a loving, generous, fun family, but I'm especially thankful that they're the sort of family who pretends that my questionable cheesecake is good, despite the greasy crust and the slightly-too-much-sour-cream taste.
I'm thankful for a boyfriend who loves me, supports me, and makes me laugh, but I'm especially thankful that he's the sort of boyfriend who washes all of the dishes from Thanksgiving dinner.
I'm thankful that I have children who are funny, beautiful, well-behaved little geniuses, but I'm especially thankful that they're the sort of children who can patiently and cheerfully endure a four-hour car ride home (a ride that's normally two and a half hours) when their parents get tired of the highway traffic and decide to explore some back roads.
I'm thankful for a sister and brother-in-law who give us their kitchen hand-me-downs, who play (and play and play and play) with our children, and who think to bring along a decadent, artistic Thanksgiving cake from a fantastic little bakery in the town where they live.
I'm thankful for a mother who hosts us, feeds us, changes all the diapers and lets me sleep in.
I'm thankful for the little quirks in life -- of all the people I grew up with and have known in that small town over the years, I wouldn't have predicted that I'd be keeping in touch, much less going out for coffee and having a really fun time, with the neighborhood boy who spent years crawling through the shrubberies with his G.I. Joes.
Reading Dave Eggers' What is the What, a novel about a Sudanese refugee based on a real story, makes me exceedingly thankful that I had the good fortune to be born into relative prosperity, in a time and place where I can't even imagine surviving a fraction of what some people in this world live through every day. That I have so many things to be thankful for in the first place is something to be thankful for. As much as I can complain about the terrible twos or other trivial annoyances of day-to-day life, it's important to remember to keep it all in perspective.
Well, it looks like I came out on the sappy, rambly side of things. (Is anyone out there surprised?) I hope all of my American friends had a good holiday, and took a moment to think of all the reasons you have to be thankful in your life.
19 November 2007
happy birthday to me!
The photo doesn't really do it justice, but Greg has got some impressive decorating skills. People thought it was weird that I made my own cake, but that's my birthday present to myself -- once a year I get to take the time to search for the perfect recipe, buy unhealthy ingredients that I wouldn't normally use (such as heavy cream, and high quality chocolate!), and bake and frost a perfect dessert just for myself. Of course I don't eat the whole thing myself, but the creating is half the fun anyway.
All in all, not a bad way to celebrate twenty-six years. Not bad at all.
16 November 2007
progress report
My mom is visiting because my birthday is coming up, and we have lots of plans and festivities coming up this weekend. This leaves me little time for a real post, but I thought I'd share a quick update.
We had our parent-teacher conference with James' teacher this morning, and in the tradition of his preschool progress reports, we were told that James is a great student. Things we've worried about (If he's bossing his brother and friends at home, is he bossing other kids at school? Is he improving on his emotional control, i.e. keeping outbursts and tantrums to a minimum?) seem to be non-issues at school, where he is generally well-behaved and focused and participatory and pretty much everything else you could ask for from a five-year-old.
The big news is that she estimates his reading ability and comprehension to be at about a third grade level. This doesn't really surprise us, but it's always nice to hear someone else praise your child.
14 November 2007
advice requested
Evan has been slowly but surely moving out of the terrible twos (knock on wood). His temper tantrums are a lot more manageable these days, and he is learning important skills like sharing and apologizing. He plays nicely with James most of the time, he uses silverware some of the time, and only occasionally spits food out at the dinner table. He has improved in so many ways over the last several months that it's hard to understate the achievement. He is a lot more Dr. Jekyll these days and much less Mr. Hyde.
But if I've learned anything during my almost-six years of parenting, it's that as soon as you solve one issue, another crops up. Now my little blonde bundle of joy, when frustrated or upset, instead of throwing things or biting or screaming, lets loose with "stupid" or "poopy". Everything lately is stupid this or poopy that, or stupid and poopy. Heck, he doesn't even have to be upset. "Poopy" is probably his favorite word at the moment; I often hear him substituting "poopy" for other words in songs. Almost every day, instead of the familiar Pokemon theme song lyrics ("It's a whole new world we live in"), I hear, "It's a whole new poop, it's a whole new poop!" sung gleefully throughout the house. This morning I was trying to sing the alphabet with him, and Evan's version is now "A B C D E F POOP! H I J K L M N O POOP!" Etcetera.
Needless to say, these are not things he's heard from Greg or me, and I've never heard James do this, so it doesn't come from him. I suspect "stupid" comes from Pokemon or maybe other older shows he sees while James is watching something. Poopy, I have no idea where that came from. I inwardly think it's kind of hilarious and very clever of him to be substituting song lyrics, but it's also annoying, after the thousandth time.
So, my question is, what do we do? James has been instructed to ignore Evan when he talks this way, and usually succeeds. We give him time-outs for calling people stupid or poopy, though that hardly seems to dissuade him. We don't make a big deal out of it, we don't laugh at it, but we don't really know how to stop it. And it needs to stop. It was funny at first, but this little game is now a couple of weeks running, and I'm getting so tired of stupid and poopy. SO TIRED.
Any ideas?
