It's a Jungle in Here

10 June 2008

a tiny misunderstanding

James came to the back door to complain about Evan splashing mud on him. I looked at James, already spattered with plenty of mud.

I said: "Ask him to stop, but if he does get more mud on you, it doesn't really matter, because you're already muddy."

James heard: "It doesn't matter how muddy you get! In fact, why don't you go ahead and cover yourself in mud, because I don't think you're muddy enough already. You can never be too muddy! ... And don't forget about your brother; make sure you coat him in mud too!"

~~Evan~~ Batman was very sad about having to come inside and get into the bathtub:

By the way, I know he doesn't look terribly muddy in that photo, but bear in mind that most of the mud on his body had by that time dried to a much lighter color.

James had literally painted his legs with mud. This photo was taken after he'd already started washing off:

The bathtub was filled with muddy water:

I was too busy at the time to think about taking a similar photo of the laundry sink while I was rinsing out the boys' clothes. Let's not even talk about James' sandals, which were about five pounds heavier with all the caked-on mud.

You know, after six and a half years of mess, dirt, sand, mud, muck, and bodily fluids, you start to think you've seen it all, that they've exhausted their capacity to disgust you, but kids always find a way to surprise you.

05 June 2008

happy birthday, evan

Today feels like summer. The cottonwood trees are spreading their fluff all over the neighborhood, making it look as if it's snowing, and I wonder whether you will ever really see snow on your birthday. Maybe one day you'll travel to Australia or Chile or the Himalayas and celebrate a winter birthday.

One of your most prominent traits to develop over the last year is your sense of adventure. It's easy for me to picture you climbing mountains or crossing the outback when you get older, because those things aren't so very far from diving fearlessly off the side of the couch or charging off on your own in strange places.

Your independence and your will have continued to grow this year. Now more than ever you are doing things for yourself, and you are as insistent as always that you do things your way. You have a very un-toddler-like quality of being incredibly determined and single-minded, frustratingly so.

But that doesn't mean that you don't still need us. Because no matter how stubborn and determined and aggressive you can be, you are in equal measure affectionate and loving. One of my favorite times of the day is naptime, when we lay quietly together in my bed and you pet my hand and I get to watch you fall asleep. Every day.

One of the things I love best about you is how free you are with your emotions. You still scream, oh yes you do, about all kinds of things, but when you're not unhappy, you are very, very happy. You are the most generous child I've ever seen when it comes to spontaneous acts of affection -- unsolicited hugs and kisses and snuggles and I love yous. It melts me every time.

You've grown delightfully silly in your third year. In fact, it's hard for me to tell how much you really know, because counting and reciting the alphabet and rhyming are games where you like to send yourself into fits of giggles giving wrong answers. But just when I start to think I've got a backwards child who can't even count to five without mistakes, you count perfectly to twelve. You like to keep us on our toes, in all kinds of ways.

Your creativity is blossoming, guided by your brother, who you are very easily frustrated with and angered by, but without whom you're a little lost sometimes. You and your brother devise clever games in which your identities are always changing, in which the adventures never end. Your imagination has grown in leaps and bounds this year. It's incredible to watch.

Something that puzzles me about you is how easily you identify with the bad guys. Your favorite part of The Wizard of Oz was the flying monkeys, you've requested a Darth Vader cake for your birthday, and you're the villian as often as you're the hero in games with your brother. You like the bad guys because they are big and strong. I hope to help you learn over time that strength isn't always physical.

We play a game at meals, at almost every meal these days, in which I tell you and your brother to stop eating, because I don't want you to grow any bigger. This is the only trick that has ever worked more than once to convince you to eat more than a few bites of dinner. "Look, Mom!" you tease, "I'm growing!"

"No!" I say. "You two are growing too fast! Stop growing! I want you to be my babies a little longer!"

And you think I'm kidding.

I love you, darling boy. Happy birthday, today and for many years to come.

04 June 2008

jedis don't read books

Greg and I were talking about books recently, and I said that I hope our children will continue to be readers when they get older. Evan overheard me, and, as always, had to be contradictory.

Evan: I'm not going to be a reader when I grow up. I'm going to be Qui-gon Jin!

Me: But don't you think you'll still like to read books?

Evan: No! I will eat Pez and play with light-sabers.

I suppose I should at least be glad that he's starting to think about the future at such a young age.

02 June 2008

back-ish

Things have been fine for the last week or so, but we've been very busy and I haven't really thought much about blogging. Once you take a break it's kind of hard to get back into it. What's there to say at the moment? We had a really fun weekend when Greg's brother John and his girlfriend Elizabeth came to visit. Other than that things have been ordinary, and time marches on with few changes. Only I'm not feeling sad about that anymore.

So. Summer is approaching; one of my babies is nearly three years old; my other baby is nearly finished with kindergarten; my boyfriend is nearly finished with his doctorate. And I am watching the progress of all three of them with pride and happiness.

19 May 2008

and on and on and on and on

I've been in kind of a funk lately, so I probably won't be posting much this week.

I'm in a rut right now where I'm looking to the future and seeing nothing but miles of monotony. Mostly I'm fine with the way my life is, but the past few days, the past week or so, it's feeling incredibly useless and depressing. My life is a broken record.

I cook and cook and cook, which takes as much mental energy as physical, what with planning menus and making things nutritious and even just trying to have each element of a meal on the table at once, and then we eat all of the food and my hard work has disappeared and I have to do it all over again.

I wash our dishes and wash our clothes over and over, every day, and yet we're always dirtying more dishes, dirtying more clothes, and I have to wash and wash again and again.

I pick up puzzles and blocks and Legos and trains and videos and yo-yos and board games, but the boys always need something to play with, so as soon as one thing is put away, something else comes out and I'm always picking up, putting away, picking up, putting away.

Let's not even get into other people's bodily fluids, because those never stop coming, either, and those things fall squarely into a mama's job description.

It is work that I do, this domestic stuff, this mothering stuff. Yet it's a curious kind of work, in which all of my efforts are continuously negated by other people, and there is never anything to show for all this work that I do. Everyone has housework, everyone has responsibilities, of course, but to take your own burden and multiply it by four (and with children, it often feels like even more than that), it just gets tiring.

No matter what else I do with my time -- taking the kids to the park, going to the grocery store, reading a book, going camping, sewing, playing board games -- those things are just tiny breaks in the never-ending monotony of domestic responsibility, and I am tired. I never envisioned that this was what my life would be. Most of the time it's okay. But once in a while it just makes me very, very sad that this is all there is right now.

16 May 2008

friday photos: lilac festival edition

For the last week Rochester has been celebrating spring with its annual Lilac Festival. We've been three times so far, and might make it back once more before the festival ends on Sunday. There are rides and vendors and tons of carnival-type food, but my favorite part is the flowers. Not just lilacs, but flowering trees and tulips and rhododendrons and peonies and on and on and on. We've gone a little photo crazy.

Here's Greg and me in front of what turned out to be a crabapple tree. Who knew they could be so gorgeous?

James climbing one of the best climbing trees I've ever seen:

The boys resting in a cool carved bench:

Evan spent much of this morning's excursion in tears, because he just needed someone to CARRY HIM!

Below the fold, a bunch of flower photos. But, as my mom pointed out, no photos of the famous lilacs. Sorry.

An orchid in the conservatory:

I don't know the name of this flower, but it was also found in the conservatory, in a very humid, tropical sort of room, and it was literally nearly the size of my head:

And some interesting varieties of tulips that I thought were just beautiful in both shape and color:

Happy weekend, everyone!

15 May 2008

pernicious penguins

I just read my children one of the most "challenged" picture books in America: And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. It's a very sweet book -- the true story of two penguins at the Central Park Zoo who fall in love, spend all their time together, and raise an adopted baby penguin together. It's just that these two penguins both happen to be male, so apparently telling their story advocates homosexuality.

It's true, by the way. If you're a parent, then you surely know all about the pernicious influence penguins have over children. After we saw March of the Penguins, it was all I could do to keep my children from jumping in the icy river in the dead of winter. And after we saw Madagascar my children started learning martial arts and tried to steal a cargo ship. And after reading this book this morning, my children immediately set out in search of gay penguins to have sex with.

Really, it's a very sweet, simple story and I find it incredibly sad that there are people somewhere out there who feel that their children are in some way threatened by a loving penguin family. Penguins.

09 May 2008

friday photos: budding artist edition

Yesterday I was feeling brave, so I got out the easel and paints for Evan. This is something he loves, but it's so much work on my part that we rarely do it. So yesterday he had a total blast.

06 May 2008

identity crisis

My darling younger son is entering a phase of identity crisis. Every day, we hear (multiple times) a very detailed description of who he is at that moment. Often he must stand still and repeat his title several times in a row before he is able to, say, walk to the bus stop, or get into the bathtub. Some examples:

"I'm super-duper big mean red blue Obi-Wan Kenobi on Hoth."

"I'm super-duper ultra mean brown Tuscan Raider."

"I'm super-duper big mean black white clone trooper."

He is always super-duper. I have to agree with that bit. But please don't address him as Evan, unless you wish to be corrected and reminded at least three times.

My favorite, though, was the night we were having dinner with friends, and, at a lull in the general conversation, Evan said, mostly to himself, "Everyone calls me Evan, but I call me a bounty hunter."

Good to know.

02 May 2008

friday photos

A cute photo of me and beardy Greg, just for fun:

Greg and James fishing at the lakehouse a couple of weeks ago:

The boys posing in front of the lakehouse:

Greg and James enjoying the hot tub at the lakehouse:

An example from James' kindergarten April journal, in which every entry involves video games:

Happy weekend, everyone!

01 May 2008

just quiet

I haven't felt like I've had much to say here lately. Things are good; we've been busy. We've been enjoying spring and seeing lots of friends, but none of it seems worth reporting on at the moment. I've been lazy lately, yet am still not getting enough sleep. Go figure. So what have I been doing? In case you're curious:

I've been listening to NPR a lot lately, trying to stay informed, but finding it hard to care about the endless coverage of the Pope's US tour or which presidential candidates wear American flag lapel pins. I thought NPR was supposed to be the good news source. And then, I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear news items like this: "Gas prices have reached an all-time high, with an average price of $3.76 per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline. This is one cent higher than the previous record, which was set... yesterday."

Saw a couple of good movies recently: Velvet Goldmine (about '70s glam rock in the UK) and Kinsey (about the famous sex researcher). Just don't watch them with your mother; that could be a little awkward. Unless you and your mom like seeing full frontal nudity together, and if so, who am I to judge?

I've started reading a book about the Rwandan genocide of the '90s (We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families) and it's helping put my life into perspective a little bit. I may feel bored and useless sometimes, but at least I'm not being hacked to bits with a machete. There's always that.

I've been following news of the worldwide food shortages, while simultaneously trying to pretend that it will not affect us that much. Just when I've gotten good at economizing on food, prices of even the most basic things are going to skyrocket. Oh, while I'm on the subject, let me direct you to this article at Cheap Healthy Good: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding the Food Crisis, which lays out the causes, effects, and potential solutions in handy list form. A good read.

The big news in the world of children is that James has a cavity, which makes me feel like a failure of a parent. Though it's not all my fault: "James, have you been brushing on the back side of you teeth?" "Nah, it's too hard." So we're re-establishing good brushing habits, and stepping up the flossing as well, which is hard, because I would rate flossing my children's teeth as one of the grossest things I've ever done as a parent. This is more a weird thing about me than anything about my kids' mouths, but I would rather change a thousand dirty diapers than floss someone else's teeth.

That's all, I guess. Hopefully I'll wrangle up some photos to post tomorrow.

22 April 2008

happy earth day!

Being green is so in these days, so in honor of Mother Earth and Earth day, I'm going to post some interesting links on a variety of environmental topics. Enjoy!

Which Candidate is Greenest? -- An article in Vanity Fair discusses which presidential candidate will be best on environmental issues. Yes, we all know it's not McCain, but check out this piece and the other articles it links to for more details.

Find Earth Day Events in Your Area -- I know it's getting a little late in the day for this, but Mother Earth News offers some resources for finding out what's happening in your area today.

10 for the Earth -- Heifer International (an all-around excellent organization) lists ten simple, everyday things you can do to lower your impact on the environment. They may sound familiar -- none of them were new to me -- but it never hurts to be reminded.

Why Bother? -- Michael Pollan addresses the seeming hopelessness of those little individual acts of environmentalism, and makes a compelling case that we should persist in our individual efforts. (Thanks for the link, Kim!)

Greener Pastures -- Speaking of individual acts of environmentalism, Bill Nye (the Science Guy) puts the rest of us to shame. Some of his ideas are simple, others are prohibitively expensive for most of us, but all of them make me wish I were eating his scones and watching hummingbirds with him.

Earth Day Tips -- Another list, this one from National Geographic's Green Guide, of things you can do to make your life more green.

Environmental Cleaning Solutions -- Lots of resources about using environmentally-friendly cleaning products, such as vinegar and baking soda and lemon juice. Keep your home clean using fewer chemicals and pollutants, and save a few bucks too.

The Rainforest Site -- Just one click of your mouse and money is donated to rainforest preservation and habitat protection. (Click to donate to the other worthy causes while you're there, too.)

Thoreau's Laundry -- Interesting post at Shakesville about the intersection of gender issues with environmentalism -- thoughts I've had from time to time, but I don't think I could ever have put it down so coherently. As usual at Shakesville, the comments section is nearly as good as the original post.

Monsanto's Harvest of Fear -- Okay, this is not exactly an Earth Day link, but it's about the evil being done to the earth, to farmers, and to agriculture in general by one of the leading bioengineering companies in the world. Monsanto is responsible for the majority of genetically modified foods out there, as well as a marketer of bovine growth hormones, and they are frighteningly aggressive in both political lobbying and bullying small farmers.

Okay, that's all from me. Go out and do something nice for the Earth today!

18 April 2008

spring spring spring

Now that it's spring, things are getting busy. It was spring break this week, and gorgeous weather too (right now it's 80 degrees. Eighty degrees! In April!) so we have been spending a lot of time outdoors, going to the playground, riding bikes, taking walks, having playdates.

I've also decided to start running again. Periodically I decide that I'm going to be a runner, and I enthusiastically go running a few times and then lose interest and watch the dust accumulate on my running shoes. This time I've actually kept it up for almost a week, which I think is a new record. I'll let you know if I'm still at it once James is back in school and I have less of that needing-to-get-out-of-the-house-by-myself motivation.

We're going on a mini-vacation this weekend -- renting a house in the Finger Lakes with some friends. You see, a month or two ago Greg and I decided, after years of not really paying attention to our finances, to track our spending and work out a budget. We discovered that we have less money than we thought, and we are totally poor, so obviously the first thing to do with that newfound knowledge was to buy the most expensive video game on the planet. The next step in our financial plan is to go on a vacation which, while cheaper than most vacations, what with being off-season and splitting much of the cost with other people, is still more than we should be spending right now.

In totally unrelated news, we've recently decided to make our kids pay for college themselves. To teach them about responsibility. Build character. That sort of thing.

(Kidding. Maybe.)

So I'm spending much of today running around like a chicken with her head cut off, trying to get everything ready so that once we get to the lake, we can just relax, and play. Hope everyone else has a good weekend!

14 April 2008

overheard

"Let's play The Three Little Pigs."

"Okay!"

"Who do you want to be?"

"A sand person!"

"No, you have to be a pig or the wolf."

"I want to be a sand person!"

"Okay, let's play The Three Little Sand People."

[Some time later]

"Little Luke, little Luke, let me in!"

"Not by the point of my sharp, sharp lightsaber!"

"Then I'll load and I'll load and I'll shoot your house down!"

I don't condone their use of violence, but I do appreciate their creativity. (Possibly inspired by reading this book incessantly over the last week. If you have small children, find some of David Wiesner's picture books -- the several we've read are beautiful and imaginative.)

13 April 2008

weekend recipe

I'm lazy this weekend, but that might work out better for you. Instead of writing up one recipe I like, I'm going to link to several recipes I've tried lately.

Carmelized Tofu -- I used spinach instead of brussels sprouts, and parsley instead of cilantro, and skipped the pecans, but everyone in my house agreed that this was the best tofu we've ever had. EVER. Evan doused it in ketchup, but still, he ate it, which is more than I can say for most meals.

Jam and Streusel Muffins -- I was looking for a way to use up some old apricot jam we had sitting around, and stumbled across this recipe. I used sour cream instead of yogurt, skipped the nuts, and substituted brown sugar for maple sugar, and these muffins were totally delicious. The cardamom gives them an unusual flavor, but it's good. Goooood.

Whole Wheat Honey Bread -- For those of you with bread machines (or those of you who are ambitious enough to make bread by hand), this is quite possibly the best homemade bread I've ever had. It's definitely the best I've ever made, and I'm baking a loaf every two or three days to keep up with the demand. Scrumptious.

Roast Leg of Lamb -- This may seem odd in light of our new vegetarian leanings, but our grocery store had naturally-raised, hormone- and antibiotic-free lamb on sale. So yeah, we ate the leg of a poor little lamb (my older son kissed the package and whispered an apology) but at least his brief life was happy. And let me tell you, that leg was delicious. This recipe marinates the meat in a citrus-wine-herb sauce, and it comes out so tender and juicy and delicious. We all loved it despite our guilt.

Lamb and Winter Vegetable Stew -- And what to do with the leftovers? (Because even my carnivorous boys can't eat 5 pounds of lamb at once.) I made a lamb stew, with carrots and potatoes in place of parsnips and sweet potatoes. Greg thought it was a little bland, but he spiced it up with some hot sauce and was pretty happy with it, though he thought he would have liked horseradish or worcestershire sauce better. I thought a little salt and pepper made it very good.

So that's what we've been eating this week. And our tummies are full and we are all happy.

11 April 2008

friday photos: it's finally spring! edition

It finally feels like spring around here, and I cannot even express how happy that makes me. We are spending a lot of time outdoors these days. Oh, sun, how I have missed you.

Happy weekend, everyone!

10 April 2008

not about food

Okay, enough of the food blogging. The more I write about food, the fewer comments I get. I can take a hint.

Instead, today, I'm going to post on a couple of other topics I love: movies, and gender issues. (Not that I think these topics will get many more comments, but at least it's a change of pace!)

I want to direct you to this piece by NPR's Peter Sagal, which has been all over the feminist blogs I read, about the blatant sexism in the new Dr. Seuss movie, Horton Hears a Who. It's pretty short; read it if you haven't already. I've written before about gender distribution in sci-fi and fantasy, and in that post I mentioned, without getting into details and examples, that it's part of a larger trend in film in our culture. But Horton apparently takes the cake, with one heroic boy and his ninety-six useless sisters. Trust me, they didn't get that from Seuss's book.

It felt great to read Sagal's indignant rant about the worth of daughters. The lack of female characters in kids' movies (and adult movies too, though I'll save that rant for another day), not just of female heroes or protagonists but of female characters in general, is something that has irritated me for a long time. Television is generally better -- thank goodness for PBS! -- but part of the reason for that is that there are so many kids' shows to choose from (even when you only get five channels) while there are, what, 3 or 4 mainstream kids' movies in theaters every year? Maybe five in a good year. Slim pickings, at any rate.

At the end of his piece, Sagal mentions several iconic kids' movies featuring male protagonists saving the day, or saving the world. Below the fold I'm going to highlight some of my favorite kids' movies (favorites of my boys, too, I should add) that give girls a chance to shine.

At the very top of my list is every film ever made by Hayao Miyazaki. From the magical adventures of Satsuki and Mei in My Neighbor Totoro, to the compassionate yet fierce ace pilot and princess Nausicaa, to the smart, resourceful Sophie taking charge in Howl's Moving Castle, to the slightly-feral warrior Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki's films are full of girls who run the show and save the day. Totoro was a favorite of my boys' when they were small, and Nausicaa is a long-time favorite of both as well.

One of my favorite movies even now is Mary Poppins, and both of my boys fell in love with it too when we first watched it a couple of months ago. Two adorable children go on adventures with a magical nanny who takes no nonsense from anyone. Plus there are fun and catchy songs to sing along to. Bonus: the children's mother is a suffragette! (Something I had forgotten in the many years between watching this movie as a child and as an adult.)

I've been working on this post for a while, and the last film I can think of with good gender distribution (and a good plot too) is The Incredibles, the only Pixar film I can think of that has more than two female characters. (Did you see Ratatouille? Cute film, but am I the only one who noticed that in the colony of hundreds of rats, there was not a single female rat among them? Please!) As someone who likes superhero movies in general, and as the mother of boys who love superheroes, I have to say that I would really love to see more movies about female superheroes, and The Incredibles helps fulfill that wish a little bit for me. It's not only a fun film, but one that places its women on equal footing with its men, and in which everyone works together to save the day. My kind of film.

So there you have my favorite kids' films, for girls and boys. I don't think it's a coincidence that my favorite kids' films also have even gender distribution (well, more even than most films anyway) and/or strong female characters who are not stereotyped. (Okay, a proper British nanny is obviously a stereotype, but Mary Poppins goes so far above and beyond typical child-rearing that I think she's an exception here.) Maybe one of these days I'll have time to get into other kids' films that are good, but could have been better if their vast casts had included, say, one woman to every 3 men instead of one woman to every 10 men.

07 April 2008

food, glorious food

It was a good weekend. We got our car back on Friday and I was able to go grocery shopping and I can't even describe to you how wonderful it felt. It seems that both of my children, especially James, chose the Week of Dwindling Food Supplies to have a growth spurt, so we were getting pretty desperate toward the end of the week.

On Friday, when I left for the store, our fridge looked like this:

It may look as if there's still a good amount of food in there, but it's pretty much all condiments. With a little milk and beer. We love condiments, but what good are mustard and maple syrup and salsa and jam and sour cream when you've got nothing to put them on?

Compare to the state of our fridge after shopping, which is much closer to its usual state:

Yogurt! Eggs! Apples! Orange juice! You can't see into the drawers, but they are similarly stuffed, with cheese and fresh produce.

Yes, I've probably reached a new low here by posting before and after photos of my refrigerator on the blog. I do think it's interesting, though, to peek into other people's refrigerators. A person's food choices can tell you a lot about that person.

I'd write about what I think my refrigerator says about me, but now I'm too hungry, so I'll let you speculate if you wish.

03 April 2008

not what i'm used to

Apparently I live in the sort of neighbrohood where, when an allegedly rabid raccoon is reported to management, a maintenace guy sits in his car below the tree in which said raccoon is hiding, and shoots at the raccoon with a BB gun. I'm not sure whether this was before or after Animal Control was called, but it definitely happened before they arrived. We have yet to discover the fate of the raccoon.

Also, this afternoon I was talking with a neighbor who's coming down with a cold. She told me she's been using lozenges that have a lot of vitamin C, zinc, and euthanasia. She continued talking, completely oblivious of what she had said, and it was a very difficult task, my friends, not to start laughing.

02 April 2008

housebound

We have been more or less housebound since Friday afternoon, when we inadvertently killed our car's transmission and had it towed to a repair shop that wasn't open all weekend, and which took one day to diagnose the problem, and is taking another three days to fix it. Oh, the joys of being a one-car family! But on the bright side, by not driving, we are saving a lot of gas money, and we are sparing the atmosphere a miniscule amount of pollution. I'm patting myself on the back as I'm typing this.

It's okay, really it's okay that we're stranded at home, because we now own Rock Band and we are putting it to constant use, annoying our neighbors and giving ourselves sore muscles from the intensity of our rock and roll. Our neighbors retaliate by blasting bad '80s music and Celine Dion at unpardonable volume levels (really, any volume is too much for Celine), but I suppose that makes us even.

Being carless has really not been so bad. Greg has been working from home, and the kids and I have been finding more to do around the house. It's been nice enough to play outside the last couple of days (though windy and muddy -- James and our neighbor were playing a game yesterday called "Scooby Doo and the Tornado Swamp"). This afternoon I played Candy Land for the first time in ages, albeit with Lego people instead of the plastic characters that come with the game. Okay, I know that really has nothing to do with not having the car this week, but I'm on a roll, here, and this is my first post in a while, so let's pretend it's relevant.

The biggest problem we're having actually, is that we're beginning to run out of food. This is partly because we're too lazy to walk the mile and a half to the grocery store for whatever food could fit into a backpack, but partly because I am viewing this situation as a challenge to see how well I can feed our family on the odds and ends now in the cupboards and refrigerator. I've been managing the dinners pretty well -- thank goodness for canned and frozen foods! -- and we have plenty of breakfast stuff around (even stuff that doesn't require millk, which we're almost out of), but I'm starting to run out of ideas on lunches. Today's fruit-and-vegetable-group offerings for my children's lunches were banana yogurt and pickles. They love those, sure, but it's a good thing we're getting the car back tomorrow.

Of course, when we get the car back we have a bunch of errands to run, so it'll probably negate all of the good anti-global warming karma we've been accumulating over the last week. But I feel like I've learned some kind of lesson this week, something about simplicity and not taking things for granted and being resourceful and adapting to unfortunate circumstances, and maybe some other things that I can't quite grasp in my current tired state. It's been a pretty good week so far.

28 March 2008

friday photos: rockband edition

Well, we did it: we bought Rock Band, one of my favorite video games ever. We spent more on this game than on a week's worth of groceries, but who needs to eat when you can simulate rocking out on overpriced plastic instruments?

But Greg and I love it, the kids love it, and I love exposing the boys to a variety of rock music. More equals better, when it comes to music. Also, it encourages family togetherness! What's not to love?

20 March 2008

more food talk, and a vacation

First order of business: Several people asked how the Guinness Corned Beef turned out, and I can happily recommend it, with the caveat that you make sure to choose a beer you really like, because it will rather taste like beer. But not overwhelmingly so -- our kids ate it with no complaint. I served it with this Irish Champ (I tried to convince the kiddos that the green onions were delicious Irish confetti, to no avail) and cooked up some carrots and cabbage with the beef, and it was most delicious with the beefy-beery sauce spooned over everything. A pretty satisfactory St. Patrick's day dinner, overall.

Second: While I'm on the subject of food, I have to also enthusiastically recommend these homemade granola bars. I lightened up on the brown sugar and honey, and used a mixture of craisins and mini chocolate chips in place of the raisins, and they're maybe my favorite snack ever.

Third: I'm leaving tonight for a visit with my sister and her family, just as Greg is getting over an illness and James is coming down with one. I almost feel bad about leaving them in their various states of ill health, but then I ask Evan to put some books away and he suddenly loses all the bones in his legs and the screaming starts and I remember that OH MY GOD am I ready for a vacation. Yes, my vacation will be with small children, but they are not my small children, and I'm not the person primarily responsible for them. So I'm loading up my mp3 player with good music (music with swear words, even!) and happily anticipating all the quiet time I'll have to read in the airport and on the plane, and I don't feel that badly anymore.

There's one thing I'm sorry about missing this weekend. Not anything Easter-related, oh no. Due to Greg's competent electronic repair skills, we recently acquired an XBox 360, and there is a tentative plan to purchase Rock Band this weekend. Now there's something I'll be glad to come home to. Oh, I suspect I'll miss my boys after a couple of days, and may even want to see them more than I'll want to be playing Rock Band, but at the moment I'm really looking forward to loving them from a distance.

17 March 2008

irish for the day

Today is St. Patrick's Day, of course, and because I have a tiny percentage of Irish heritage somewhere waaaay back in my ancestry, and because I like Irish music, and the color green, I have always liked this holiday. I don't know a thing about Saint Patrick, and my idea of Irish music is to put on the Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly, but it still makes for a fun holiday.

I'm always a little iffy on the food, though. I'm okay with having the traditional corned beef once a year, but that this big hunk of meat is traditionally boiled has always grossed me out a little bit. I've cooked it this way time and time again, and enjoyed eating it, but always with a little shiver of revulsion at the fact that I'm eating boiled meat. I don't know why, but something about boiled meat just rubs me the wrong way.

But yesterday I stumbled across this recipe for Guinness corned beef, which is actually cooked in the oven! I decided to do mine in the crockpot, and we didn't have any Guinness around, but I substituted the stoutest beer we had in the fridge, and right now every time I take the lid off of the crockpot I am assaulted by the scnet of hot beer and I kind of want to vomit. But, I was unsure about the crazy Voodoo Cake I made yesterday, and that turned out to be surprisingly wonderful, and very rich, so I'm hoping I'll be surprised by this strange beef as well.

After our massive beef ingestion tonight, we'll be returning to our newly acquired state of semi-vegetarianism. And I swear I'm not turning my blog into a food blog, but that's all I can think of to write about lately. Just wait, next week after I return from visiting my sister, this blog will be plastered in photos of my new nephew. Strange foods and new babies, two of my favorite things.

16 March 2008

expressions of love

I was going to do a weekend recipe this weekend, really I was, but then I got too busy cooking. You see, last Wednesday was Greg's birthday, and for the people I love (read: the people I live with who have no option to refuse), I bake birthday cakes. And for my lovely boyfriend, I will spend most of the afternoon making a cake full of questionable flavor combinations, dirtying just about every dish in the kitchen, because I love him, and baking is one of my favorite ways to express my love.

Sometime last week, Greg was making popcorn and hunting in the spice cabinet for something to put on it when he spied a jar of molasses. I hadn't realized until that moment how much Greg loves molasses, until he suggested putting it on our popcorn. Then he started rhapsodizing about his ideal popcorn toppings, which included flavors like molasses and mocha and caramel. Needless to say, I shot this train of thought down pretty much immediately, because unless popcorn is covered in butter or chocolate, I won't eat it. But he did give me something to think about.

Later on, I put "molasses mocha caramel cake" into Google and came up with a recipe for Chocolate Voodoo Cake. After looking it over and seriously underestimating the time and effort involved, I decided to make it for Greg's birthday cake.

I started the cake process at 3:30 this afternoon. Now it's around 8:30pm and we've got another 45 minutes of refrigeration until the glaze is set and the cake is ready to be poked with our voodoo needles. In the interest of saving time, I didn't bother to shape the cake, thinking I could mask any lopsidedness with the mousse and/or the glaze. This, of course, didn't work at all, so we've got a very misshapen little cake. And we tried, we really tried with those stupid chocolate caramel voodoo needles, but ours are all blobby, and either too fat or too thin.

Still, I tasted every bit of batter over every step of the way, and I'm convinced that though it is a really strange combination of things, it will taste good even if it's not pretty. And trust me, it's not pretty.

So happy belated birthday, honey. There aren't many people who I'd deem worthy of almost six hours (non-continuous, but still!) of my labor, just for a birthday cake, but you're one of 'em. I just hope this cake is worth it.

14 March 2008

friday video

We've been encouraging Evan to work on his "L" sounds. Sometimes he's cooperative, sometimes he's indifferent, and sometimes, as this video shows, he's a little comedian. My favorite part is the way he just cracks himself up.

11 March 2008

otherwise occupied

Greg has been out of town since Saturday morning, and we've been trying to keep busy in his absence. We've had friends over to keep us company, we've baked, we've watched a movie, we've played with Play-doh and we've played outdoors, thanks to a healthy snowfall and a few sunny days. The kids were enchanted with The Never-Ending Story and spent a surprising amount of time crafting creatures from the movie out of Play-doh. James invented a version of chess involving Lego blocks, which, true to form, sounds convoluted and unnecessarily complicated. But imaginative, to be sure.

But most of our time has been spent in two ways. The boys have decided that all of their stuffed animals are various Pokemon -- I'm pleased that for the first time in either of their short lives, they are acknowledging the fact that they have several dozen stuffed animals in their bedroom, and that some of these animals are being played with for the first time ever! -- so they are spending hours on Pokemon games. The best part is that these games keep them occupied in their bedroom.

And me? In Greg's absence, I've fallen in love with a serial killer. Er, a fictional serial killer, that is, by the name of Dexter. The last thing I need is to be addicted to yet another TV show, but I can't help myself! The murderer with a heart of gold is just so charming. When you're spending several nights in a row by yourself, with high-speed internet and all kinds of shows freely available for viewing or download, it's more fun than reading a book, or doing housework, or going to bed early.

You can tell things are pretty boring in my life right now when I write an enthusiastic post about Pokemon and television, but I was feeling neglectful of the blog, so this is what you get for now.

06 March 2008

random happiness

I've been kind of cranky lately, so I thought I'd write a post on some of the good things that have happened this week, however small, to try and get myself out of this funk a little bit.

Finally, for the first time ever, I made really good homemade hummus. And I think I owe it all to getting a new food processor. There was nothing wrong with the old one, really, it just wasn't cutting it in the hummus department texture-wise. But the new one? Perfect. (Kitchen successes or failures can really make or break my day, sometimes.
I got a package from a friend today: a copy of the film Once (which I've been wanting to see for quite some time) and its soundtrack. Those, along with the copy of The Fountain that's waiting for me to pick it up at the library, should give me something to do when Greg is out of town next week.
I made these cookies today, and they are good. Reeeaaaally good. I was having issues with them at first -- they were sticking to the pan and crumbling all over the place -- but I did manage to get enough whole, undamaged cookies to make it worthwhile. And they're good. Reeeaaaally good.
I don't want to jinx myself or anything, but Evan is maybe, possibly starting to consider becoming a little bit interested in the potty. He had this weird skin problem going on, so we let him go diaperless on a few different days, and he used his little potty every time he had to go. Every time. As the parent of a toddler, sometimes I don't ask for much more out of life than this.

Okay, thats all I've got for now.

04 March 2008

so i guess he's not gay

James: Excuse me.
Me: Yes, James?
James: I have a crush on girls.
Greg: What girls? All girls?
James: Yeah.
Me: What do you think that means, to have a crush?
James: That you really, really like some one.
Me: Oh. So you don't like boys, then?
James: I do like boys, butI don't have a crush on them. I have a crush on girls.

I wonder if the fact that he wants to be Cinderella for Halloween will help or hurt his chances with all those girls he's crushing on?

03 March 2008

9 seconds

Nine seconds is all it takes to capture the essence of my children's personalities on video:

Both children: full of energy
James: oblivious to his surroundings
Evan: alternately cheerful and aggressive

Okay, so it's not a complete picture of my children's personalities, but I thought those nine seconds illustrated very concisely some of the more prominent character traits of each of the boys.

02 March 2008

weekend recipe: chunky vegetable stew

This week's recipe comes from (I think) Vegetarian Times magazine, from where I get a lot of awesome recipes. It's pretty basic, and easily tweakable, and, of course, delicious. Like the last recipe I posted (I originally wrote "last week's recipe" before checking and realizing that it's been three weeks since I posted a recipe -- oops!), it's one you can leave simmering on the stove for as long as you need to, and it's great for cold weather. I give you:

Chunky Vegetable Stew

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, thickly sliced (though I usually chop, because I don't like huge chunks in my stew)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (14.5 ounces) stewed tomatoes, undrained (I usually use a can of onion-and-garlic-flavored diced tomatoes)
2 cups cooked garbanzo beans (same thing as chickpeas, and I use 1 can, drained and rinsed)
2 sweet potatoes or yams, peeled and cut into 2" chunks
3/4 tsp crushed rosemary (I don't know if the original recipe intended for fresh or dried, but I always use dried)
1 zucchini, sliced (I'm convinced spinach would be a good substitute for the zucchini, though Greg has never let me try that variation)
salt and pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium hear. Add onion; separate slices. Cook 5 minutes or until onions are soft. Add garlic and cook 1 minute.

Add tomatoes with juice, beans, yams, and rosemary. (You will want to add more liquid, because it will look like there's barely any in there, but trust me, it's not necessary. It won't hurt, but you don't need to.) Bring to a boil (it's a bit hard to tell because of the low amount of liquid, but you'll figure it out); reduce heat to low and simmer, covered.

Here you have a couple of options. Back in our meat-eating days, we added sliced kielbasa (around 1 pound, I think) at this point, which adds a ton of flavor. Whether or not you're adding meat, you will decide at this point how thick and mushy you like your stew. We like to let this simmer for a couple of hours, turning the yams into a nice pasty base for the rest of the soup. If that doesn't sound good to you, then move along to the last bit.

Add the zucchini about 15-20 minutes before you're ready to serve the stew. Otherwise your zucchini will get mushy along with your yams, and mushy zucchini is not a good thing. Let your stew simmer until everything is as soft as you'd like it, then stir in some salt and pepper (I like a lot of salt in this, especially without meat) and sprinkle with Parmesan (fresh or not; we usually don't keep fresh around but the powdery stuff is fine) before serving.

29 February 2008

friday fun

No Friday photos today, but thought I'd share a couple of fun things I came across recently. (Found both of these at Shakesville, by the way.)

1) I've never been a big fan of Garfield. In fact, since I was 9 years old or so, I've found that cat pretty annoying. But some genius out there has removed Garfield from Garfield's own comics, and the result is brilliant. As the site says:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness in a quiet American suburb.

Some examples:

2) Finally, someone thought to explain popular songs with visual aids! Charts, graphs, and handy illustrations make your favorite songs easy to understand. See the flickr pool here; see a few of my favorite examples below:

Ah, good times. What are your favorite time-wasting, pointless sites?

28 February 2008

a lesson in phonics

Evan: Mama, my cars are sweeping.
Me: They're sweeping?
Evan: No! They're sweeping.
Me: They're sweeping the floor?
Evan: NO! They're... sah-LEEEP-ing.
Me: Oh, sleeping. That's very different from sweeping.

Progress is slow, but he's coming along.

27 February 2008

random snippets of the last week

Scene: We are in the car, talking about a classmate of Greg's who has completed her Ph.D.

Greg: Now she'll be a doctor.
Me: But not the kind of doctor you go to when you're sick.
James: Oh, I know -- a veterinarian!
Greg: No --
James: A dentist?
Greg: No... [begins to try to explain Ph.D.s in six-year-old terms]
James: Excuse me, Dad?
Greg: Yes?
James: Did you know that dogs can hear things that people can't?

****

I have a nephew! William is the new son of my sister Kim and her husband, and baby brother to Molly. I bought plane tickets to go visit them for a weekend next month, by myself, and my children are a wee bit jealous that they won't get to come with me and play with their cousins. I momentarily felt guilty about that, but then I considered that Greg has two upcoming work trips (one of them to freaking Spain) and I no longer feel anything less than jubilant about taking a weekend for myself.

****

James: Mom, my new name is E.S.

Me: What does E.S. stand for?

James: Extreme scientist! Evan, what's your new name?

Evan: Pwincess Leia.

****

In the course of a week and half, Evan has bruised his gums by crashing teeth-first into James' head during a wrestling match (Have you ever seen bruised gums? Gross.) and chipped a tooth. We have no idea when or how he chipped his tooth. The bruised gums caused crying for two days, but the chipped tooth? Whatever he did to cause that was apparently not worthy of a whimper. That child is continually reinforcing my suspicion that if one of my children ever breaks a bone or needs stitches, it will be him. And probably several years before I expect it.

****

Now I have to post a photo for Greg, so that he can have it online. This is Gradient Index Jell-O, which causes light to bend when it shines through the Jell-O. This is the stuff Greg does for fun -- he spends hours tinkering with Jell-O, adjusting ingredient amounts, until he can use it to bend light. Now that James wants to be a scientist too, I sense a lot of this sort of stuff in our future.

Hopefully I'll be back to regular blogging soon. We're all slowly returning to good health.

21 February 2008

cough cough

Wouldn't it figure that it's on James' week off from school that I get sick? James is spending his winter break watching a lot of movies and playing a lot of video games, and I'm spending it mostly on the couch, napping, drinking tea or water at all times, coughing, and trying not to let the drugs wear off.

Also, I can barely speak. Fun times!

15 February 2008

friday photos: kindergarten love edition

In the week leading up to Valentine's Day, James' class at school has been focusing a lot on love, and doing various love-related projects. He had a show-and-tell day on which he had to bring in a photo of someone he loves, and he made a little "Love Book" to illustrate people or things he loves. Naturally, cuteness abounds. Photos below the fold.

The person James loves who he brought photos of to school? His brother. AWWWW. These are the two photos he brought to show his class:

And the drawings from his "Love Book":

Greg was a little insulted to be replaced by Goldfish (I believe this refers to the crackers and not the animal, which I find even funnier) but I'm pleased to have made the cut. Especially since Greg is actually James' favorite person by far.

I'll be visiting family this weekend, so I may or may not get a weekend recipe up. Have a happy weekend!

14 February 2008

have an ugly valentine's day!

Happy Valentine's Day from James and the Ugly Dolls!

10 February 2008

weekend recipe: black bean and sweet potato chili

This week's recipe is a favorite 'round these parts, and a nice alternative to your typical chili: Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili. I'm not sure where I got this recipe, but you can find a lot of similar recipes online, and it's a pretty easy dish to experiment with. It's colorful, flavorful, healthy and vegetarian, and it's fairly quick to throw together too. We like to serve it with cheddar cheese and sour cream on top, and eat it with cornbread, or scoop it up with tortilla chips.

Recipe below the fold.

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Chili

2 medium-large sweet potatoes or yams
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium red bell pepper, diced
2 (14-15 ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 (14-15 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
1 (4 ounce) can chopped mild green chilies
1 cup frozen corn kernels
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 - 1 tsp chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
Salt to taste

Microwave the sweet potatoes for about 3 or 4 mintes per potato. When cool enough to handle, peel and cut into 3/4-inch dice. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a large soup pot. Add the onion and garlic and sauté over medium heat until golden. Add the bell pepper, beans, tomatoes, chilies, corn, cumin, chili powder, and oregano. (I like to add a dash or two of chipotle seasoning or cayenne pepper; not necessary, but tasty if you've got 'em and don't mind a little heat. You can feel free to add whatever spices you normally like in your chili -- it's easily customizable.)

Bring chili to a simmer. Cover and simmer gently for 15 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and continue to simmer until the vegetables are tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Season lightly with salt.

At this point you can eat it, or let it sit for an hour or two before eating, to give the flavors a little time to blend. Either way, it's delicious.

You can garnish with all your favorite chili toppings: cheese, sour cream, lime, tortilla chips, avocado, whatever. Enjoy!

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