March Moment Day 17

Here are several tiny moments from the last few days since I wasn't exactly on top of the blog this weekend. Old news, I know.

On Friday night I reintroduced the bath tub crayons and it was the whole "everything old is new again" routine. It re-energized bath time for sure. I had a hard time getting them out of there.


Today was paska-making day as Easter is almost upon us and me being the good Mennonite, well, I can't have me Easter without having me some Paska. It turned out really well. Hope and Emily helped with the sprinkles and with dragging their fingers through the tops of the loaves.


And back to the bath... Emily and Hope at the end of every bath flip over, pretend to swim for a while and usually end up hugging and kissing for a while which is absolutely heart-melting and I tend to really focus on it because I know from experience that when they're about 16 and 14 the idea of kissing each other will make them each want to vomit. So, I burn it into my brain (and blog) now.


I just had to add this little moment from tonight. Emily and wet hair - always entertaining - those ears... usually very red after a bath and they never cease to amaze me in their sticky-outiness. I blame myself for some awkward breastfeeding holds. Sorry Emmy. You can blame me if you are ever teased. I think they're adorable though.


Hope has this tendency to pee right after her bath (and because we're a little slow on the uptake, it is often without a diaper on) so tonight we stuck her on the toilet right after she got out. But of course the little bugger held it. She was still thrilled to be there being the big girl though.


And to end on an extra-adorable note, just before Emily climbed into bed tonight she gave me one last gargantuan hug and said: "Mummy, I love you sooooo much. I'm going to keep you."

Whatever else that happened today that might have made me grumpy or annoyed, that erased it all.

March Moment Day 13

I meant to get this up last night. I meant, I meant, I meant.... those words are starting to sound too familiar.

However, I wasn't mentally prepared to write about my day last night. It was still too fresh. I needed time to compose myself.

You see, it has been almost a year to the day that I experienced poop spread so willy-nilly around the house. In fact, on Wednesday I was checking back to the post I wrote last year on that day and it was all about Emily pooping in her underwear, refusing to go on the toilet or potty, blah, blah, blah. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll remember all too well.

Yesterday morning was like most mornings. I was having breakfast. Hope, all done hers, stripped out of her jammies and diaper and was marching around naked while I finished. The thought crossed my mind that I should put something on her bum. If air hits that child's nether regions, it's like Manneken Pis is on travelling exhibition. But, I didn't. I sat there drinking my cappucino, reading the paper and ignoring the little world around me.

And then I smelled something.

I found Hope in the kitchen. There were poop tracks on her legs. Poop tracks. A sure sign that there is poop somewhere on the floor. I found the poop - I'd seen worse - cleaned it up, took her upstairs and cleaned her up. I went downstairs to clean the poop off the living room floor rug. Anyone know how to get poop residue off of a rug fringe short of cutting the fringe off? She's got aim, that one.

Hope was still playing upstairs and then she started to cry. I told her that she was fine. (You can just award me that Mother-of-the-Year award right now, thanks.) She stopped crying. A few minutes later I went upstairs. I saw why she'd been crying. Now there was poop all over the upstairs carpet, all over her legs, feet and hands. A poopy handprint was firmly place on the bars of the gate where she been hanging on, crying, asking me to come and clean the damn poop off of her. Did I feel bad? Yeah, but karma got me with the shear amount of poop and the breadth of its reach.

It was, in a word, icky. Really, really icky.

Hope laughed. She thought it was really funny. In fact, it took her a while to stop laughing as I cleaned every inch of her body and then put her in the bath tub for 20 minutes while I scrubbed each and every inch of the carpet that had anything remotely poop-looking on it.

After that I was in a bad mood. It was 7:00 am and I was cleaning shit off of most surfaces of my child and my house. Things didn't really improve until about 3:00 when John walked in, the girls started listening better, I relaxed.

The evening got better and better as the girls got into their typical routine of dancing, playing, fooling around while John and I watched, read to them, played restaurant, etc. Emily was naked as usual. Hope, not surprisingly, had a diaper on. I thought the small moment below was the best way to sum up yesterday. If only I'd thought to do that around 7:15 am.


Today was much better. John played hooky. I enjoyed almost every moment of my day including that hour or so when I got to go out on my own. Lovely.

And today is only Friday! Which means two more days of John at home. I love the weekends.

You'll have to wait for tomorrow for today's small moment. All that poop talk wore me out. It seems that I'm out of practice.

What's cooking Wednesday

It's time to pull another cookbook off my shelf and wipe off the dust. For the next month I'll be revisiting a book my sister bought me years ago for Christmas: A Taste for Justice: A Bridgehead Cookbook. Back then Bridgehead was a trading company owned by OXFAM-Canada. They imported coffee, tea and other agricultural goods (mainly spices) from over 24 Third World countries. Their goal was to bring about a more equitable distribution of wealth betwen the First and Thrid Worlds. Essentially, they were one of the first organizations (they were established in 1981) practising fair trade. The term wasn't even coined yet. The cookbook is a collection of recipes that use Bridgehead fair trade ingredients (cashews, cinnamon, coffee, wild rice, etc). Each recipe always suggests using one Bridgehead ingredient but of course you can use what you have. The idea is of course to change the way we behave in the world, thinking through where your food is coming from, who is producing it and how our eating is affecting the world around us. Rather radical for 1990 when the book was published. The recipes were family recipes that volunteers collected from across Canada. The book is short, only 129 pages and not all of those are recipe pages but I've always had success with it although there are many, many recipes I haven't tried. That's about to change.

I should say that Bridgehead as a company has changed since 1990. They now only trade tea and coffee and boy, do they do it well. It is by far my favourite coffee house chain in Ottawa. They coffee is outstanding as is the food they make themselves (all organic of course). I love the atmosphere - completely unpretentious.

Tonight I made a leg of lamb and had some wilty asparagus to go along with it. I found a casserole recipe in the book that seemed perfect for my sad asparagus. And it was. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture. You'll just have to imagine a saucy, cheesy vegetable dish like mom used to make.

Nellie's Cheesy Asparagus

(I cut it in half)

6-8 medium onions, quartered and then boiled for about 5 minutes
2 1/2 cups asparagus in bite-sized pieces
1 cup shredded old cheddar cheese
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 tsp salt
pepper
1/2 cup cashews (I used sliced almonds)

Preheat oven to 350F. Place half of prepared onions in a lightly buttered 6 cup casserole. Cover with half the asparagus; sprinkle with half the cheese. Repeat the onion and asparagus layers but reserve remaining cheese.

In mediume saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute. Add the milk, stirring continuously, until sauce is thickened and bubbling. Season with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over vegetables.

Back uncovered for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with cheese and cashews. Return to oven and bake for 10 minutes or until cheese melts and bubbles. Makes 6 portions.

This was a lot better than I expected. When I read through it I thought it sounded a bit plain but it really did remind me of simple, delicious stuff my mum would often make. The onions are what really make this flavourful. The white sauce and cheese make it comfort food.

I wouldn't make this with fresh spring asparagus as it would hid the freshness of it but it is great for some tired old asparagus like mine. Hope loved it and Emily would have too if she had been at all hungry.

It reminded me of the surprises in this book. I look forward to finding some more gems.

March Moment Day 10

Today wasn't a great day around this house. It started off on a good note but was downright sour by about 4:00. I, admittedly, lost it on Emily at least twice, maybe three times and I was really ashamed of myself. Hope was great, as she has been the last few days. She turned 18 months old and decided to celebrate by becoming perfect. She really summed up the day though at dinner when she decided to do most of it laying down:


Here's to a better day tomorrow.

Small Moment Day 10

After sharing her room with her cousins all weekend, Emily is back in her bed tonight (she slept on a little mattress on the floor and her cousins slept in her bed). The bed rail was off the bed all weekend as her older cousins didn't need it (although Kennedy did fall off the bed one night and landed on top of Emily so maybe it would have been useful). Tonight I asked Emily if she wanted it back on. She completely surprised me when she said "no." I've been working on convincing her to try it for a couple of months now. She had no interest but now that she knows that Kennedy and Claire don't sleep with one? Well, she wants to be the big girl, too. I left the little mattress there just in case she rolls out. I want her to have a soft landing.

Small Moment Day 9

I'm slowly catching up in my small moments. You knew, of course, that yesterday's small moment would be of snow, shoveling, digging, getting stuck or some snow-related activity. I won't disappoint.


That's John just starting to shovel the driveway. As I mentioned in an earlier post today, we got 56 cm of snow from Friday night to Sunday morning, with a brief reprieve during Saturday afternoon. We're a mere 33 cm away from the all-time record of snowfall in Ottawa, which occurred in 1970-71. It is definitely within our grasp.

Take note of the large divet at the bottom centre of the photo. John dug out a small area at the bottom of the stairs. It gives a good idea of how deep this snow was. And, we had just shovelled the night before. Holy smokes.

Small Moment Day 8

We're skipping Days 6 and 7 because I don't have anything I want to record about those days at the moment. Also, I took no photos so onto Day 8 which was Saturday.

Saturday was Storm Day and Baby Shower Day. It was my sister-in-law Cibele's baby shower (that is John's brother's wife), at her house which should generally be easy to get to from ours, about a 15 minute drive. It took a bit longer what with all the snow and blowing and white-outs. It was worth it however as I've never been to a Martha Stewart shower before. Check out these decorations:





There were many fun moments during the shower but my favourite was Emily's helping with the gift opening. She was supposed to be the helper. Watching, you would have thought the shower was for her. I made a few interventions to try to keep her under control. It had a marginal affect. And with that, here is the small moment of that day:


I do also have to add one more small moment from later that night when John's sister Sue and I shoveled the driveway just before building a luge in the backyard (I'm not kidding, we really did that and it was AWESOME):


And this is not the full amount of snow we received by the end of the storm. The paper this morning said 56 centimetres and I believe it. I'll have pictures of that later when I post a fuller account of our family weekend.

A wee bit behind on blogging but way ahead on shovelling

My idea to put up a small moment for 30 days has come to an abrupt halt. John's mum and sister and her two kids arrived on Friday and just walked out the door. Between those times we had 55 cm of snow, a baby shower and a heck of a lot of shovelling.

On Thursday and Friday, I had a pretty tough decision and then had to see that through. It was really hard and now I just have to get on with life so those two days were blog free as I was consumed with other things.

We're back on track and later today I'll give you a description of our weekend and some photos of the snow. You really can't imagine it. Seriously.

What's cooking Wednesday and March Moment Day 5

Yeah, so I missed March Moment Day 4. I took the girls to the Farm yesterday and hauled the camera all over the place and only realized as we were nearing the parking lot to leave that I hadn't taken it out of my bag once. So, while there were many tiny moments, none was caught on film.

Today I could just post a photo of white for our small moment. Just white and that would represent today because again Ottawa got slammed with another big snow. Officially, this is now the second snowiest winter on record in Ottawa. If we get 100 more cm of snow (within the realm of possibility) then it will be the snowiest. What an achievement. We received an email this afternoon from our city councillor. She forwarded an update from the city snow plough manager guy. Here is what Mr Plough wrote:

Sidewalk clearing is ongoing however will be delayed due to snowfall levels. Our sidewalk machines are now using snow blowers. Due to the ongoing demand for salt we are using grit/salt mixture on the main roadways.

Nothing mind-blowing or earth-shattering, I know, but notice the second sentence. They are now using snow blowers instead of the little tiny ploughs that do the sidewalks. Know why? Because the snow is so high beside the sidewalks, the little ploughs have nowhere to put it so they have to blow it up over the big high snow banks. Here is the most recent photo of our yard. John took it this morning (the pile is bigger now) to send to a friend in Vancouver who intelligently moved there from Ottawa last year.


Here is today's small moment:

Hope loves to play with these bingo dauber markers. Her game is to put the lids back on. I noticed today for the first time that she perfectly matched the right lid with the proper marker. I was so impressed. Another baby genius.

And now onto the recipe for this week's What's Cooking Wednesday. My month into The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines kind of fizzled out. I love that cookbook but I realized what I love about it is just browsing through it, learning some new things, but not actually cooking out of it too often. So, unward and upward. As a bridge into a new cookbook next week, I'm offering up an oldie but a goodie. This recipe is from Jean Pare's original Company's Coming 150 Delicious Squares, her original cookbook. My mum used to make this a lot and I do too.

Peanut Krispie Squares

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter (I used natural crunchy)
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
4 tsp butter

Melt above ingredients over low heat and stir. Combine 2 cups rice krispies and 1 cup peanuts in a large bowl. Pour hot mixture over top. Stir well to coat evenly. Press in greased 8x8 inch pan. Let it firm up then eat.

March Moments Day 3

Today's small moment is brought to you by Emily, who took up my camera after dinner tonight. This is pretty much the only time I am caught on film since I'm normally the one behind the lens. I imagine that when the girls are older they'll be very happy that I let them play with my camera so that they would have some record of what I looked like back in the 00s.

Our after-supper routine is for them to play in the living room while John and I read book after book to them. We keep a giant basket of library books in the living room that is refilled weekly.

This is me having my dessert (and very delicious Bosc pear) and getting ready to read The Three Bears for the nth time today.

March Moments Day 2

I realized as I was choosing today's photo that it is going to be more difficult with two great kids to choose one photo each day, so some days, like today, there will be two photos. I caught two great moments with them and couldn't decide which would go up. So, here we are.

Emily and Hope love to "play" the piano. Today Emily sat there for quite a while making up words to mal-melodious songs. Check out that reach with those freaky fingers: almost an octave already!

Hope decided she would revert to previous behaviour and start drinking the bath water again. So gross because we all know she is peeing in there. John said it is like having to watch Waterworld all over again. And who wants to do that?

A desperately needed break

Tonight John and I are going out. Without the kids. For supper. For spicy Sri Lankan food at what was once our favourite restaurant in Ottawa, and probably still would be if we ever, ever, ever went out without the kids.

Mike and Cibele are looking after the kids tonight so we can get a night out and after the past three weeks, but mostly this past week, I've never needed a night out more than I do right now.

The last three weeks have been tough. Sinus infection for me, bad colds for both the kids and more GD snow than I can shake a shovel at. Five more centimetres today. Just what we need on March 1... more snow. And we all know that there is a lot more still to come before that first crocus makes what will certainly be a celebrated appearance.

The last week has been the worst of my life. Okay, not the worst. The worst was the week after my mum died. That was, and possibly will always be, the worst. This is the second worst. Not just because of the colds although that has made it that much more difficult. I'll likely never get into why this week has been so bad but just for myself I wanted it noted so I can look back and hopefully be proud of the decision I made or at least proud of how I handled it all. It's very likely that this next week will be even worse. After that it will get better.

For now, I'm going to dwell on dinner with my wonderful husband. I'm also going to try to make this month, my least favourite of all months, a little better by stealing an idea from my friend Julie and posting a photo of a small moment from everyday in March. I think this will be a constant reminder of how great my life is, really, and how much I have, and even though it is grey and probably snowy outside, life is generally pretty damn good.

My first small moment is Emily. She is in love with t.v. so much so that I have become very strict about how much she watches. She hasn't watched any since yesterday morning so when I wanted to take a photo of her just now, she posed, but without taking her eyes of the beloved tube, my mortal enemy now.

Quiet

It's been relatively quiet around here mainly because I'm still spending everyday feeling like crap, trying to clear my very clogged sinuses and still wiping Hope's dripping nose and comforting her when her little body is racked with terrible coughs.

Worst cold we've ever had by far.

I'm going to the doctor tonight because clearly I have a sinus infection and it isn't improving.

Blah.

Relapse

I've never had this happen before that I can remember, but the cold that was on it's way out has come back with force and for Emily too. Hope is still in a bad way although the doctor confirmed last night that it wasn't pneumonia. Given all the other 18-month-olds sitting in the waiting room with the identical cough and bleary-eyed look, I think something might be going around.

I feel like getting a pressure washer and Lysol-ing the entire contents of my house.

A poster girl for Nyquil

I had my recipe all picked out and the ingredients ready to go for What's Cooking Wednesday but last night was the registration for preschool for the spring session and Hope wouldn't leave my arms due to the onslaught of the Plague in our house.

I was sick all last week and I'm still not quite done with the cold. Emily got it on Friday last week and she still is fighting it. Hope got it three days ago and it is the worst cold she's ever had. Her little body is racked with coughs, she can't breathe through her nose and she is clearly feeling very bad. If I leave the room, she cries. If I leave the house without her, she sobs and throws herself on the floor and eventually hides behind something for a while: the toilet, a living room chair. It's pretty bad.

So, John cooked supper last night and he also registered Emily for preschool.

I sure hope she is better soon. I feel so bad for her (and yet through all this she has continued to sleep through the night!) and also a bit for me as my choices for a social life or even regular outings are severely limited right now.

If children could take cold medication, she'd be up for one of those swollen red-nosed parts:

Winter fun

On Saturday we finally went out Winterluding. Yes, in Ottawa Winterlude is now a verb. This year I was determined to take Emily to Snowflake Kingdom in Jacques Cartier Park on the Hull side of the river. It's a kids' winter wonderland with big snow slides, giant snow sculptures, this year a small historical village representing Quebec City 400 years ago, and of course Beaver Tails.


Above is Hope in the pink coat. She loves walking on snow, which made it a bit slow to get around, but she had fun (for awhile).

As always, I was amazed at the detail the sculptors could get in such large works, and made of snow, at that.


I couldn't convince Emily to take a ride down there or even the kiddie-sized version not seen here. Oh well, maybe next year.

Last year we stuck to skating but this year I wanted to make it to the Park before Winterlude was over so Emily could really enjoy it. There is still lots of time for skating and at this point, that's really for me, not her or Hope.

My dad and Donna were with us for the weekend. The weather was great, a bit brisque but sunny. It went well for a while but then Hope got really cold. It took me a while to figure out that that was the problem. You'd think I'd have some of this stuff figured out by now. So, we only stayed for about an hour and a half and then went home. It was time enough to see everything and have a hot chocolate and Beaver Tail.

Later that afternoon, Donna decided to take Emily back outside to shovel off the back deck. This is the third time we've (or Donna has) shovelled the deck this winter and yet look how much snow was back there! Emily tried to find her play equipment.... and the stairs.


After all that frolicking in the great outdoors, Emily was left a little red-cheeked. I could stare at that beautiful face for the rest of my life (and plan to) and never get tired of it.

Show and tell

I've been doing a lot of knitting since Beth taught me how to knit over Christmas. And a few weeks ago I started a knitting class with my friend Dawn so I've learned a few new tricks in the last few weeks, making me feel a bit more competent and daring. Anyway, I feel it's time for a show and tell of my creations. It will likely be more show than tell.

I've made several of these baby hats for people I know having or just had babies. I can spin them off pretty quick now and I like the change I made to the pattern by adding stripes. In my most recent version, not shown here, I use the contrast colour to do the decrease and i-cord on the top as well as the stripes, which looks even better.


After the first baby hat, I made this bag to hold my current knitting project. It's felted, which means you knit up a big floppy bag and then shrink it in the washing machine. So much fun!


This is the scarf I just finished for my knitting class. It is unlikely I will ever knit a scarf again. Sooooo boring. I became very good at colour changes though.


I just finished these leg warmers for Emily. She likes to put them on for a few minutes at a time but has yet to show interest in wearing them for real. They might end up in the dress-up clothes. Knitting these taught me a couple of things: I'll never knit with acrylic again or eyelash stuff; and how to do ribbing.... properly.


Last week I decided to learn how to cable. I taught myself to do it by making this dishcloth. Little expense and not much time. Turns out that cables are very easy. I plan to make a cable sweater someday for yours truly and probably the girls too. Oh, and cable socks.


That's the end of my current show and tell. I'm going to be making Easter bunnies and eggs for the girls soon and a sweater for Hope and Emily and then I really have to turn my attention to some sewing.

The reason I love him should be self-explanatory

This is the Valentine's Day gift that I woke up to this morning from my wonderful, hysterically funny, gorgeous life partner:


And that is why we are perfect for each other.

There is a story behind this that is worth telling. It isn't why this is the most amazing gift ever. That should be evident. It's how John got it.

He wanted to get me one but they're only available from NBC and rather costly at that. So, he settled on something else but hadn't actually bought anything yet and then he saw the Dwight bauble-head in one of his grad student's offices. He admired it, said how much I would love one. Grad Student told John that NBC had mistakenly sent her 4 instead of 1 and did he want one. Hell, ya!

In John's words, karma was on his side that day. And so, I am now the proud and enviable owner of a fully ceramic (no plastic in sight!) Dwight bauble-head.

What's cooking Wednesday

This is Week 2 of my dip back into The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: China, Greece, Rome. I realized after last week that I really didn't give an introduction to the book beyond my personal history with it. That was an oversight and one that will be corrected tonight. But I'm taking the easy way out and copying this right from Jeff Smith's introduction to his book. Bare with me, it's a lengthy paragraph but worth reading to understand this cookbook.

The necessity for giving credit to previous cuisines, thereby helping you understand your own cuisine, is the reason behind this book. The three ancient cuisines that most influenced the West were those of China, Greece, and Rome. The Chinese did it first. Everything from the first cooked meat to the first domesticated animals to the first metal cooking pot must be credited to the Chinese. And the Greeks! They taught us to make mayonnaise, baked pasta, basic white sauce (Béchamel), fancy breads, the frying pan as we know it today, the stewing pot brought to perfection, the Dutch oven [and here was me thinking it was the Dutch], and the packed lunch. They even taught us to dip our bread in wine, though the Italians and French think it is their custom. Finally, the Romans took a whole style of cuisine from the Greeks, made some wonderful improvements upon it, and then, through their wild and warring travels, took this cuisine to the rest of Europe. When Catherine de Medicis moved to Paris in 1533 to marry Henri II she brought her Florentine cooks with her. The cooking of Paris was radically changed. Credit must be given.

I'm sure you can see why I love this book. He has a way with words that few cookbook authors have. Also, it's not just about food, it's about learning and that's never bad, no matter what Alexander Pope says.

Last week I did some Chinese recipes, this week I wanted to do something Roman and I had chicken so I needed Roman Chicken. There wasn't much to choose from. Seems the ancient Romans didn't eat a lot of meat. I did finally find something that was just right for what was in the cupboard.

Chicken with Sweet Bell Peppers

1 3-pound chicken, cut into serving pieces
1/2 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
3 cloves garlic, diced fine
6 flat anchovies, rinsed
4 sweet red bell peppers, cored and cut into 2-inch squares
3 large ripe tomatoes, cored and chopped very coarsely
3 tbsp chopped parsley
1 cup dry white wine
1 tsp whole marjoram

Cut up the chicken. Pan-brown in 1/2 of the oil. Place in stove-top casserole. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Sauté the garlic and anchovies in remaining oil. After about 2 minutes you can mash the anchovies and mix with the oil. Add peppers and sauté a bit. Put all in a casserole along with remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer until tender, 40 minutes.

Recipe notes: If you're shy about anchovies, don't be. They literally melt away and no one will say "hey, I taste anchovies!". In fact, I don't think anyone will even say "hey, I taste fish!". Because you don't. It's just good and easy and the anchovies just add a little something. Watch out for that garlic. Don't burn it and it is easy to do so.

I have a bad cold so I can't really say how this tasted. It seemed pretty good. John said it was okay but not a "wow". The kids wouldn't even taste it but I don't really count their opinion lately because Hope would eat and old tire if it had ketchup on it. I thought it tasted warm. Beyond that my taste buds were a bit dead so I'll just have to rely on John's opinion. Not extraordinary but okay. It was easy, so there's that.


Next week it will be all Greek to me. And if you think that's the last time you've heard that lame joke, you are so mistaken.

Catching up, Volume II

On Saturday morning we went to Cumberland Heritage Village Museum, east of Ottawa, for their Heritage Winter Fun Day. I was desperate to do something outside. I've felt cooped up. We've been playing outside occasionally but not enough and last week I had a touch of cabin fever.

The day was absolutely beautiful. It was only about minus 5 or so, there was no wind and there was light snow falling. Entry was by donation and everything else was entirely free: sleigh rides, cookies and hot chocolate, snow shoeing. There were a couple of exhibitors: a trapper and a dog-sled builder. For me, it was the joy of being outside in winter with our family, walking through the village and just enjoying being together in the big, wide world.

We took our sleds to pull the kids around and it worked perfectly. We really had a great time and now that I've come down with my annual cold (although it is only once a year, it is always a biggie) I'm glad we took advantage of going out because I have no desire to leave the house for quite a while now.

Yes, I know. The hat is awful. Remember from last year? Crime doesn't pay.

I will knit a wonderful, colourful, beautiful hat for myself for next year. For now, I'll continue to live by my winter motto: Sanity, Not Vanity.

Catching up

I feel I'm behind a few posts. I always feel I'm behind a few posts but these posts are the newsy kind, the kind of want to get down so I can look back in years to come and say "yeah, I remember when we did that" or "wow, that felt like a big moment" or "glad I don't have to relive that again!". You know the kind.

The biggest news of last week, aside from the loss of John's bike to some hooligan thieves, was that I registered Emily for Junior Kindergarten. If you're reading this from Canada's Pants, then you might be confused. Up here, in Ontario anyway, we have kindergarten starting at age 4, called, you guessed it, Junior Kindergarten, oft shortened to JK. At age 5? Yup, Senior Kindergarten, oft referred to just as Kindergarten, sometimes SK but that just doesn't roll off the tongue for me.

So, next year is Emily's first walk through the doors of a real school. She was NOT interested in this. NOT wanting to register, NOT wanting to go to the school, NOT wanting to leave Mummy or our house at any point in the future. That pretty much sums up her interest in doing anything outside of the house right now. Each day is a battle if we have something planned where there might be strangers (ACK! STRANGERS! STRANGERS WHO SHE'S MET AT LEAST THREE OR FOUR TIMES BEFORE!). I'll tell ya, 3 is not my favourite so far. My response to all this agraphobia is to ignore, cajole, point out the fun stuff - particularly the fun stuff she is missing out on by sitting in the cloak room for almost the entire morning of preschool (yah, it's that bad) - in no particular order. I'm having some baby-step success. Today at the library program (ACK! BOOKS!), she sat and read books outside the little program area which was fine until she started wandering the library. I gave her one of my usual ultimatums which went something like: "You join in the program or we go home. [whine, yell, protest by Emily] Fine, we're going home. Get your coat. [NOOOOOO! I WANT TO DO THE PROOOOGRAAAAM!] " And then she sang, danced, played instruments like there was no other place she should be at that moment. Karen 1, Emily nada. For today.

And if you think I'm being harsh, that I should let her work it out, sit in the corner if she wants, well, you're wrong. I've tried that. She sits and whines or mopes and she's missing out and sometimes so does Hope and it affects the other kids in some situations. The thing is she isn't really shy, she isn't scared. I think she gets excited and then misinterprets those feelings for fear or shyness. That's my theory after about 3 weeks of this anyway. And I am seeing some progress and no tears. It's just taking a whole lot of patience, consistency and persistence on my part.

All this to say, I had to apply it all again when we got to her school. Her school is beautiful. It is fairly new, has a beautiful atrium at the entrance. The kindergarten kids have their own hall and playground and equipment. There were glass cases of school work and projects in the atrium. That's where I led her after the paperwork was done. And that did the trick. She was into it after that and is positively excited. For now.

It was a big deal for me, signing her up for kindergarten. I didn't think I'd get very emotional but when the secretary asked me "morning or afternoon?" and I choked out "afternoon", I realized it was emotional and actually deciding what part of the day she'd spend away from me made it more absolute, firm, something that would really happen. I'm not sad. It's only 2 and a half hours a day. I'm really excited for her. It's just that it's a big step, a rite of passage, a new path for her and me and all of us.

I haven't yet explained to her that she'll be on this path for the next thirteen years at least, likely more. I'll save that gem for later.

Oh, and on the subject of university. On the way to her school I explained to her why it was important to go to school (she was trying to convince me that she didn't need to go). I ended up talking about how she could go to university one day if she wanted.

E: I go to Carleton someday! With Daddy!
Me: Sure you can.
E: I go in the morning on the train with Daddy. Then I eat lunch every day with Daddy and Jim.
Me: Daddy would love that. That sounds great.
E: I'm going to have pizza.

This whole experience of setting the wheels in motion to have Emily in the public school system, had me quoting one of my mum's favourite quotes to myself all week:

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education ~ Mark Twain

You could say that she lived her life by that, although she certainly was well-schooled, was a teacher by training and vocation, and thought higher-education was something everyone should aspire to. But, I knew exactly what she meant and I hope to guide Emily through her school years with the same philosophy. We won't be letting schooling interfere with your eduction, Emily. But don't think you'll be home-schooled either. Nuthin' doin'.

Well, this catch up post is turning into a doozy so I'm going to end here and give you volume 2 tomorrow.

Goodbye, Friday

Today could have been better. It started out with potential. Julie was going to meet us at the Museum of Civilization and sign us in (she works there when not on maternity leave) so Emily and Hope could wreak havoc in the Children's Museum. Julie was running behind but called to say she'd left her name and that would be enough to get us in if she wasn't there. We went out to get in the car and as I was buckling Hope into her seat I felt something was missing in the garage. I looked up to see an empty bike hook in the ceiling. John's bike was gone.

Shit.

So, off we go, me feeling so crappy that I have to break this to him and hoping our deductible is less than the usual $500. We got to the museum to find out the parking garage was full. The people denying us entry sent me across the street to the hotel that had parking. I parked the car there, noticed the hideous rates, and then started walking, Hope in my arms, backpack on, clutching Emily's mittenless hands down the street and back to the museum. I didn't have a stroller. None of us had mitts on and I didn't have a hat. The day was not improving.

We went in without a hitch but what the heck were so many people doing there on a Friday? Ottawa doesn't have this many homeschoolers, does it?

Yeah, turns out today is a P.D. day and being that I don't have any kids in the school system yet, I'm not tuned into these things. I vowed last time this happened to me to never go to CMC on a P.D. day.

Again, shit.

So, I chased Emily and Hope through the Children's Museum, heart-pounding whenever we were separated. I saw other parents with the same panic-stricken looks on their faces calling out their child's names, stress lines etched into their faces. There's got to be a better way to do this. Or, we all need to calm down. It would be easier if none of us ever saw an episode of America's Most Wanted.

After a lunch of cold french fries in the cafeteria with Julie (she found us amazingly amongst the other families), we headed back to the car. I paid the parking ($12!) at one of those pay machines which promptly told me I had fifteen minutes to leave the parking lot and went down to the car, loaded the kids in, drove to the exit where I was supposed to stick in my ticket that I was SUPPOSED to have retrieved from the machine when I paid.

Shit, shit, shit!

I threw the car into reverse and somehow navigated the 1960s car park with Austin Mini-sized corridors back to a parking spot. At this point, I may have been testy with Emily's one thousand questions about what we were doing. I may have.

I unbuckled both kids, picked up Hope, grabbed Emily's hand and ran, yes, ran, back to the machine. Remember, I had 15 minutes to be out of the parking lot. I got the ticket (thank my lucky stars it was still there), ran again back to the car, buckled both kids in (I really wish I was a mother in the 1970s today, when I could have thrown them in the back seat and made that El Camino sing!) and drove like the Dickens to the exit where miraculously I made it out before my 15 minutes was up.

We drove home. Hope went to bed and I sat down, called my insurance company and the Police to report John's bike stolen. I called John and told him. He was extremely relaxed about the whole thing which is a lot more than I can say about the way I was feeling right about then.

And, our deductible is $500. So, we're getting a cheque for $580. John had a nice bike.

The sun will come out tomorrow.

What's cooking Wednesday

This is a new month and therefore tonight I start a new cookbook. The cookbook for February is The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines. This was the first cookbook I bought with my own money. I was in Grade 13 when I bought it. It was the year I really got interested in cooking something other than chocolate chip cookies. My mum and I often watched The Frugal Gourmet on American PBS together that year and this was the cookbook based on that season's show.

I haven't used it in years but it is a great cookbook and I'm really excited about getting to know it again, read the comments I wrote beside the few recipes I tried, and get to know these "three ancient cuisines" (China, Greece and Rome) better. It should be a lot of fun.

Given that tomorrow is the start of Chinese New Year, I figured it would make sense to do a Chinese recipe first. In fact, I did three of them since I saw that he has a whole chapter called Dim Sum (!). When I bought this book, I wouldn't have even known what Dim Sum was. Things have changed since then and now Dim Sum is one of my favourite meals although I've never tried to make any of the dishes at home.

So, tonight I made Pork Shu Mei, Shrimp Boats and Spare Ribs with Black Beans and Pepper Sauce. I bought barbecued pork buns at the Chinese grocery store because it isn't Dim Sum without them but there's no way I was going to make those, too.

John and I thought the spare ribs were the best out of everything, although we loved it all. Emily and Hope wouldn't touch any of it, which blew me away because the last time we went out for Dim Sum I was completely wowed by how much they both ate. I guess it was an off night or they missed the ambiance of the restaurant.

Here is the recipe for the ribs:

1 pound pork spareribs, cut into 1-inch pieces

Marinade:

3 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp dry sherry
1 tsp ginger, freshly grated

Blanch ribs in boiling water for 1 minute. Drain well. Soak in marinade for 20 minutes. Heat a wok and fry the ribs until lightly browned. Remove from wok and drain the oil. Add 2 tbsp fresh oil, 3 cloves chopped garlic and 1/2 tsp salt. Fry until the garlic browns just a bit and then add 1 tbsp ferment black beans, rinsed, pinch of sugar and 1 tsp red chili paste. Return the ribs to the wok and toss in the sauce. Place in a steaming dish and steam for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the ribs are very tender.


These went beyond my expectations. I made one major change to the recipe; I didn't steam the ribs. Instead, I let them simmer in the sauce in the wok for about 20 minutes. They tasted amazing and I would do them the same way again. The sauce stuck to them better than it would in the steaming method. I know this because the steaming method is how they do it at Dim Sum restaurants and the ribs are great, but these were better.

Happy Year of the Rat everyone (coming from a Rat herself)!

Forgive and forget

I've mentioned before Emily's complete and total obsession, nay, addiction, with Veggie Tales. It is kid entertainment but as they themselves say, it is also "Sunday morning values. Saturday morning fun." Most episodes are based on an Old Testament story. Each episode ends with "what we learned today." Through Veggie Tales Emily has grasped some moral concepts that can be challenging at three years old. The idea of forgiveness, for example, has taken hold lately. Or so I thought.

We were baking cookies on Saturday. I turned my back for a second. In that second, Emily poked a hole in the bottom of the little bag of cocoa.

Me: Emily, did you just poke that hole in there?
E: Yes.
Me: What do you say?
E: Sorry, Mummy.
Me: I'm not very happy, Emily.
E: I forgive you.
Me: Uh, I'm supposed to forgive you.
E: You forgive me.

Right. Maybe she gets it after all.

Why you should never touch unrecognizable things on the floor when there are kids in the house

Not more than five minutes ago, the following happened.

The girls are in the bath tub. I'm chatting with John in our bedroom just a few steps away (all safety concious out there can rest assured that I could see the girls the whole time). He looks down on the floor and says: "What's this?"

He picks up the unknown object. He screams: "Ahhhhh! It's poop!" and immediately drops it like it was a ball of fire (which it kind of was).

"Whose poop is that? Why is it on the floor? I can't believe I just touched poop. With my bare hands. I'm going to have to burn them now. I'm so disgusted."

I am laughing. I can't talk. I'm laughing that hard.

"It's not funny! Stop laughing!"

I keep laughing. I probably didn't have to tell you that.

"I feel sick. Seriously, I think I might need to vomit."

For those of you who haven't bred yet, welcome to the romance of parenthood. Hey, at least there are some good moments of schadenfreude.

Still laughing.

Digging out

After a relatively easy and mild January, we got dumped on again yesterday. It seems like we got more than we did in the big storm in December, but it could just be because there was still a decent amount leftover from before making the piles seem bigger.

To be honest, if I'm going to live in a winter city, I want it to seem like winter so I really like the occasional big snow storm, as long as the power stays on. We (or John) spent a good part of the morning shovelling.

Here he is post-shovel:



And the pile on its own, revelling in its own formidableness:

Photos of last week

That has to be my most unoriginal post title so far. But, it's only 8:00. I haven't had a latte yet. And I'm listening to Duke and the Great Pie War on the t.v. for the tenth thirtieth fiftieth time.

Last week Omi was here. And what a blessing it was. Not just for Emily and Hope but for me because it turned out to be a crazy week with me running around getting things organized for the new refugee family who had just arrived and our church is sponsoring.

Omi spent most of her week doing crafts, playing store or doctor or Food Network (I wish I had got pictures of that one). Here are some photos from the week:

What's cooking Wednesday

Today is the last day of my spotlight on my newest cookbook: Just One Pot. This time I made one of the dessert recipes. I thought it a fitting ending to the month with this book; end of the month, end of the meal, you know?

Chocolate and almond rice pudding

generous 3/4 cup arborio rice
1 small dried red chile (I didn't use this; I don't really like chili and chocolate together)
2 x 2 in strips orange zest
3 cardamom pods
3 1/2 cups milk
1/3 cup hot chocolate powder
2 heaped tsp cocoa powder
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup slivered almonds
2 squares 70 percent dark chocolate

Place rice, chile, orange zest, cardamom pods, and milk in a heavey-bottom pan over low heat. Add a pinch of salt and stir for a few minutes to stop the rice from sticking while the milk heats up. Simmer very gently, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is tender and most of the liquid absorbed.

Remove and discard the chile, orange zest, and cardamom pods. Stir in the hot chocolate powder, cocoa powder, and most of the butter. Melt the remaining butter in a skillet, then add the slivered almonds and toss until golden. Drain on absorbent paper towels and chop coarsely.

Stir most of the almonds into the pudding and transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish the top with remaining almonds. Break the chocolate into chunks and place in a small bowl. Suspend the bowl over simmering water and stir until melted. Zigzag the melted chocolate over the top of the pudding. Serve lukewarm or cold.

I made a couple of changes: I didn't drizzle any extra chocolate over the top; I felt it was chocolately enough; I served it with whipped cream instead. I also didn't mix the almonds into the pudding; instead I sprinkled them on top of the whipped cream because I didn't want to add crunchy bits into the smooth pudding.

As a recipe note, the flavour of this pudding completely depends on the kind of hot chocolate powder you use. I used Cocoa Camino Dark Hot Chocolate (my absolutely favourite hot chocolate) which isn't very sweet and is, as the name suggests, made of dark chocolate. The result was that the pudding was not very sweet at all. It would taste quite different if you used Macintosh Hot Chocolate (oh, that would be good) or Turtles Hot Chocolate (oh, also good). John added a drizzle of maple syrup to the top of his and declared it food of the gods served thus.

I would make this again but experiment with different kinds of hot chocolate. It was easy to make. Hope loved it. Emily ate the whipped cream off the top of hers.


As for this cookbook, now that I'm at the end of my month of recipes from this book, it was mostly a winner. I wasn't too keen on the eggs masala but I absolutely loved the lamb with tomatoes and cilantro. I really like the fact that each recipe is very quick to make and it makes enough usually for just 4 people making it really nice for a small family. I don't like the fact that many of the recipes call for fairly specialized ingredients that even I don't normally have on hand (me, of the large and diverse pantry). So, I may not suggest you run out and buy this book but I would suggest you borrow the lamb recipe for sure. You won't regret it. I will definitely try out some of her other recipes as well and I'll make sure to mention some of the hits here.

Next week, Karen goes frugal.

Pudding for breakfast

My parents held out on me. If we had hot cereal for breakfast at our house, it was porridge. Never Red River Cereal or Cream of Wheat. Just regular porridge. I'm not complaining. I really like porridge and it is really good for the old bod.

This morning I expanded our hot cereal repetoire around here and made Cream of Wheat. People, it is like pudding for breakfast. Especially when you top it with cinnamon, brown sugar, maple syrup and milk. It was so sweet.

I'm sure it is not so good me but man, is it a nice way to start the day. Dessert for breakfast? I'm all over that.

She's so precocious

Emily was a star tonight, pulling it all out to show me once again how totally unique and amazing and hilarious she is. If only my memory was good enough (it truly sucks lately) to remember the three things she said in the period of about 5 minutes that had me belly laughing.

"Okay, Hope. Here's the deal...."

"Daddy's gone to get the food. In the meantime, let's read a story."

The best one is currently lost in my grey matter somewhere.

Oh, and the reason that "Daddy's gone to get the food"? Because, it turns out, Edna Staebler wasn't much of a cook.

Honestly, I've tried several recipes out of Food that Really Schmecks and if they aren't a dessert or cookie recipe, they suck. Really suck. Chicken pot pie tonight? Sucked. It was soup with a biscuit crust. Oh, and the vegetables in said soup? Crunchy. Very crunchy.

I blinked and it's Saturday

You may have noticed that my posts have been, ahem, sparse at best the last week. As I mentioned earlier, I'm heavily involved in the relocation and settlement of a refugee family in Ottawa. It is a lot of work and time. More than I expected. I'm not complaining, I just didn't realize that when I was asked to join the support team for this, my role would be of a heavy co-ordinating nature. I'm learning a lot. I'm having a hopefully positive impact on the life of another family and I'm getting to know a few really great people who are on the team with me.

The blog.... suffers. It, like the rest of of my family, is getting less of my attention than usual.

I hope that after this coming week, there will be less demands of me but I'm not going to get my hopes up. I do hope however that some less-involved team members start to pitch in a little more.

The family is a 24-year-old mother and her two-year-old boy. They escaped from Somalia to Turkey some time ago and came here from Turkey. Her husband is still in Turkey. I can't even imagine the stress she must be under arriving in a new country where she doesn't speak either official language, has a very low literacy level in her own language, has very little contact with any Somali speakers, is unsure of where she'll live, how she'll get any money and when she'll see any family or friends again. Not to mention that she is, for the first time, dealing with cold and snow. I can see the stress on her face although she keeps a very courageous front and happy disposition. She's a strong one. And her boy is handling everything like a champ. He seems perfectly happy, if not thrilled, to see everyone who comes to see him.

It sure puts things in perspective quickly for me. My little daily problems, and even the bigger ones I've encountered over the years, seem pretty small now.

Omi Omio

The Omi is visiting. She got here on Monday and Emily has been completely and fully entertained and ecstatic ever since. There is one difference for Emily in this visit though: the Hope factor has changed. Hope now wants to play with Omi too and Emily is having a hard time with that. She wants Omi all to herself. I haven't found any solution yet or a way to talk her through it. I think this one will just take time.

I've over-extended myself this week while Omi is here though and I don't like it. My involvement with the Refugee Support Group at church is leaving me with less time than I'd like during Omi's visit. I'm not sure how to change that since I've already committed myself to things. Ugh. I hate it when that happens. And I also hate bailing out of things I've already said I'd do. I do this to myself too often and then promise myself I won't do it again. And yet, here we are.

Anyone know anything about cloning?

I miss you, Mum

Beth asked me if I was doing anything to commemorate today. Three years ago today our mum died.

I got her email asking me this at the end of a very busy day. I taught Sunday School to one very well-behaved girl named Emily and two very rambunctious boys (thank goodness for girls!). Then I sat through what I found to be an emotional church service. After that I rushed off to a Refugee Support Group meeting that lasted almost two hours. Someone graciously drove me home at which point I grabbed the keys to the car, the coffee cake I made and drove to my first knitting lesson (thank goodness there was hummus and pita at the meeting after church).

By dinner, I was exhausted, had a splitting headache and thought, yeah, I commemorated mum today... by overextending myself, saying yes to everyone, no to nobody and ending up tired and with a headache. Just like she would have done! As I put my dinner into my mouth - a hotdog wrapped in a piece of bread with ketchup - my first thought was how mum used to make this for me all the time and how much she loved it, too. And then I thought about how many times a day I have these moments, doing something seemingly meaningless and everyday, how many times a day I think of her still, how she will always be with me through my days because of all the wonderful, everyday, seemingly meaningless things there are that remind me of her.

And it is all so meaningful.

And I realized that although my commemoration of today was really a headache that reminded me of her and how I can be so like her, sometimes in ways that she would chastise me over, the ways that I really commemorate her all the time are through things I can celebrate everyday and that is the best commemoration of all.