So sucks

We celebrated Big D's 60th birthday this past weekend with dinner at my parents' house in Markham.  This meant that Big D was in a gregarious mood.  This meant that we were all treated to him sounding off on his favorite subject: cell phone plans.  At one point, he was telling Bruce Wayne how the Rogers website "so sucks" and it made us all basically die laughing.  So sucks indeed!

Not much to report since the last time I posted.  My friend from Montréal was in town so we spent time hanging with her.  We had our weekly movie night with Lolly and SMckay - this had a juice/diva theme.  Lolly went all out and got us t-shirts - I had a Taylor Swift one, the Dotytron got an Avril Lavigne "The Best Damned Tour" one, and the Big Yam was wearing a faux-backless Hannah Montana tank, emblazoned with the words: "part time pop star."  The best was the onesies she made for the Wonder Twins.  One Madonna, two Aretha Franklin onesies, and the icing on the cake, a Bette Midler "Divine Miss M" onesie.  So hilarious!  I haven't gotten a good shot yet but they will be uploaded soon.  We drank juice and watched My So-Called Life and ate ice cream pie.  It was kind of the best.  Love those girls.

My sister came up with her brood and we took them to a nearby park with a pool that has a waterslide and a diving board.  At one point, I split off and was hanging in the playground a little ways off from the fenced in pool.  I see the Dotytron nonchalantly clamber up onto the deck, stroll over to the diving board, climb up, and then execute a perfect swan dive into the pool.  LOL!  I looked around to see if it was for the benefit of my niece or nephew and they were nowhere to be seen - it was a personal journey.  Sunday we went to the Corktown Commons again and had a picnic with our high school friend visiting from Egypt and some of our other high school crew, then it was time for the aforementioned birthday dinner, where the Big Yam pulled a Mike Tyson on Little Big Cuz and bit his ear.  I'M THE BEST PARENT EVER.

Recently I heard a good analogy for the turmoil a toddler goes through when you bring a new baby home.  It would be like if the Dotytron brought home a new partner and was all like, "This person is now a part of our family.  I love you, but I also love this new person just as much and you have to be nice to this new partner. Oh, by the way, you have to help me take care of them."  It's a great analogy and it really hit home for me.  We continue to struggle with his behaviour and we're just trying to be as consistent as we can be with our technique.  We've implemented a point system in exchange for rewards (normally, time on the island of Sodor via the iPad) and we also bought an hourglass to help him visualize and make concrete the concept of time.  We had run into a problem with bedtime going on and on and on and him dragging his feet about the routine stuff (tooth brushing, etc) and then throwing a fit when we refused to do a million stories at 9:30pm.  Now, we flip over the hour glass together and he knows that when the sand runs out, no more stories.  It has also worked with getting him out the door in the morning, limiting iPad time, and basically, anything where we have a deadline.  I highly recommend it!  Yes, I'm sure you could find a digital version of an hourglass, but the physical thing adds an extra dimension to the whole process.

When he is lovely, he is so very, very, very lovely.

He finally got to try the ice cream from the ice cream truck last week

And when he is a terror, well, it's really up to us to understand how hard it is for him to behave the way we expect him to.  The Dotytron was brushing up on Piaget's stages of cognitive development and it all makes sense.  From 2-5 years of age, kids are incapable (flat out don't have the capacity) to see things from a perspective other than their own.  They are also trying to make sense of their world.  Last week, the Big Yam took a bus toy and bonked the Roomie's daughter on the head with it, gently.  She didn't react.  So he repeated the "experiment" with more force.  Which resulted in her wailing and many tears.  He wasn't trying to be mean or malicious, he just was testing the point at which she would react.  I'm not excusing the behaviour, but it's important to situate it and know that it's different from when he's frustrated with us or with another kid say, grabbing a toy out of his hand, and doesn't have the faculties to pause and use language to express himself and instead hits or shoves or (lately) bites.  It's not great, but our daycare provider keeps reassuring us that it's normal.  

The spike in bad behaviour is also directly linked to the arrival of the Wonder Twins, so there's that, too.  As soon as anyone pays him concentrated, sustained attention, he's back to being the sweet little guy he is at heart.  Unfortunately for him (and us), it's impossible to give him that concentrated, sustained attention in the style to which he is accustomed.  

...

Well, obviously this post has taken me two days to compose.  Yesterday was a bit of a rough one.  I went out to the Beaches to go pick up a loaf of gluten-free bread from a bakery that's known for the quality of their loaves.  Why gluten free bread?  Because I wanted to make garlic bread for tonight's Italian-themed Lolly & SMckay movie night.  I parked the car, and walked out about half an hour.  The store was closed for the summer!  THE WHOLE SUMMER!  On my way back, I disengaged the parking brake on the stroller, but the right wheel was jammed and wouldn't spin.  When you engage the parking brake, a little pin comes out and sticks in the wheel so it doesn't turn.  Even though I disengaged the brake, the pin wouldn't retract all the way.  So there I was, stuck, a half hour from the car, with two babies, no bread, and a stroller that wouldn't budge.  I jerry-rigged a solution and came home and called the company, who told me to take it up with the store I bought it from.  I did, they said to take it up with the company.  I called the manufacturer back and they're like, "Well, the store you bought it from isn't an authorized dealer, so..." and I was like, "That's between you and the store!  Don't put this on the consumer.  No where does it say that you have to buy from an authorized dealer to honor the warranty."  So after a bit more of that (frustrating!) they told me to fill out an email and they'll see what they can do.

So I'm currently stroller-less.  Fun. 

Then the Wonder Twins have decided from around 4-10pm to be inconsolable.  Outright, inconsolable, unless they are attached to my breast.  Which is frustrating, hot, sweaty, and trying to say the least.  I haven't been handling it gracefully and sometimes I just need a break, which means I hand them off and they dissolve into tears.  It's not great.  It might even, as Big D would say, "so sucks."  

Yesterday was the day when I finally realized that, despite my protestations to the contrary, this whole, twins & a preschooler thing isn't easy.  It's pretty hard.  And...I need help.  Admitting you need help is the first step.  I do too much taroff-ing (Persian and Chinese practice of refusing help/ arguing over the bill/trying to out conscientious the other party).  When people offer to make dinner or get takeout, I turn them down.  When people want to do something easy, I try to insist that life is what it was before.  It's not.  I can admit that now.  It's a bitter pill to swallow, but I am hereby shouting out to the universe that once the Dotytron goes back to school and I am short my au pair...I NEED HELP.  AND I AIN'T TOO PROUD TO BEG.  

You will be paid in baby toes snacks:

What we've been eating, lately:

A $5 meal: breaded pork cutlet sandwich, cauliflower & cheese patties, dilled cucumber salad.

Espresso-toffee ice cream pie with fudge sauce (recipe below)

Cherry pop tarts/turnovers with homemade puff pastry and sweet bing cherry filling

Last night we had Dr. Rei & Hanbo over for dinner - whereupon both Wonder Twins barfed all over Hanbo's suit and he got beer spilled on his immaculate white shirt.  We're the worst.  I served the pork tinga that my friend R made us, with guacamole, pickled red onions, tomatillo salsa, and that green mango salad I've been obsessed with lately.  

I also made this banana cream pie in a peanut shortbread crust with salted bourbon caramel sauce.  

I'm going to start limiting my dairy again as of tomorrow.  The babies are just getting too barfy and I bet it doesn't help them NOT be hungry if they're barfing all the time.  It's a pretty cute gag at times.  The other day, I was showing the Dotytron how ticklish Prof. Gantok is when you run your fingers up his back.  I did it, and he instantly barfed, which is kinda the best/funniest.  Anyway, because I know I'm cutting out dairy again, I had a piece of this for breakfast.  DON'T JUDGE.  

Fin.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coffee Toffee Ice Cream Pie

makes 8-10 servings

For the crust:

2 c. oreo chocolate cookie crumbs

2 T. sugar

6 T. unsalted butter, melted

- mix crust ingredients together then press on the bottom and up sides of a 9" deep dish pie dish.  Bake at 350F for 10-15 minutes.  Cool thoroughly.

For the filling:

2 pints premium coffee ice cream, softened at room temperature for 10 minutes

3 Skor bars, roughly chopped

- stir together ice cream and Skor chunks.  Spread into cold crust.  Make a little ice cream "lip" to prevent the fudge sauce from leaking everywhere.  Freeze pie for about 4 hours or until firm.

For the fudge sauce:

3 oz. bittersweet chocolate

1/4 c. cocoa powder

1 c. whipping cream

1/2 c. powdered sugar 

4. T. butter 

- whisk all ingredients in a pot.  Place on medium heat and bring to a boil.  Boil for about 5 minutes.  Remove from heat, cool, whisking occasionally so it doesn't seize up, but is cool enough to not melt the ice cream.  Pour into well on the top of the pie.  Spread evenly. 

- freeze pie until firm. Remove from freezer and let temper at room temperature for 10 minutes before slicing.

2:1

2:1 is the current ratio of good ol' Gloria Gaynor's weight gain to the Great Gazoo's.  Gloria Gaynor gained a pound since the last check up and the Great Gazoo gained about 8 ounces.  If this continues, then the already comical differences between our non-identical identical twins are going to only get more comical.  Ultimately, they are two individuals who were born at the same time, so we treat them as such.

We saw the paediatrician for the Great Gazoo's noggin yesterday.  The news is good!  The paediatrician said that cranial synostosis is very rare, and that flattening from positioning is very, very common.  Plus, he has all the environmental factors: born premature (skull is still very soft), twin (he was head down from at least 20 weeks on), he favours looking over to one side - according to the paediatrician this all points to it being due to those conditions, as opposed to synostosis.  The usual protocol is to see if the new positioning and exercises that our physiotherapist prescribed due something over the course of the next 6 weeks and then go from there.  Professor Gantok has the opposite problem.  Whereas the Great Gazoo always looks straight up at the ceiling and needs to take the pressure off the back of his head, Professor Gantok is always tilting his head from side to side, and his head is getting elongated from front to back.  He actually needs to spend more time on the back of his head, so the paediatrician gave us an exercise for that.  It's mostly cosmetic but also, you want babies to have the full range of motion in their necks and be able to look from side to side and dead on, so that's why you adjust their positioning.

PHEW!

They are doing really, really well.  Based on the Dotytron's concerns that I'm going to be a pile of tears every day when he starts work again in September (which I think is false), we've started implementing a more "school-like" schedule.  It's working really well so far.  We used to do our patented mega-bottle at 11:30pm and then the both of us would do another bottle feed from 3-4am.  Now, we do our mega-bottle at 10pm, they get up at around 3-4am, Dotytron changes their diapers and then passes them off to me for a breastfeed, I put them down in their crib in their own room (as opposed to the bassinets in our room) and then go back to my room to sleep.  They wake up again anywhere from 7-8pm.  I actually have been waking them up closer to 7am because that works better for the morning routine so that I can get the Big Yam to daycare on time.  My daycare provider said that she could take the Big Yam for an extra day each week, so he'll be at daycare 3 days a week and home with us 2 days a week.  If by December I feel like I can take on more, then I have the option of keeping him home one extra day.

We had a lovely weekend, the highlight of which was the Dotytron and I leaving all three (!) kids with Momma D and her sister so that we could go out for my birthday dinner.  I chose Hopgood's Foodliner, and it was stellar.  The chef there formerly helmed the Hoof Café.  This restaurant is a nod to his east-coast roots, serving fine-dining updates of regional dishes with a heavy emphasis on seafood.

Sunday night is their chicken sandwich night, which is an homage to a sandwich served at a particular Halifax food truck.  The sandwiches are $5.  It is not overstating things to say that we could have made a whole meal of these, and in fact, started our meal with one and after everything else we had ordered had arrived, decided to close with one more.  It is the chickeniest sandwich I've ever had.  The server seriously undersold it.  It is a butter-fried bun, topped with chunks of juicy, moist chicken, topped with a light-but-rich chicken gravy shot through with a brunoise of chicken skin crackling, topped with a lightly dressed cole slaw.  It is the essence of chicken and deliciousness - like your favorite memories of St. Hubert's served on a bun.  I can't say enough good things about this.

The ham plate: slices of capicollo like ham, that you were supposed to wrap around the chicharron and then dip in the smoked mayo.  A fantastic bar snack.

Their hot crab dip served with toasted Triscuits.  Like the best version of that holiday buffet pot luck staple.  This dish was really good, but you lost some of the crab flavour.  The cauliflower clams casino made me nearly cry tears of joy.  Shucked clams, mixed with cauliflower puree and Comte cheese, topped with parmesan panko and broiled, served with pickle cauliflower.  So freakin' good.

Crispy sweetbreads served with an heirloom potato salad and a tangle of shredded radish.  Perfectly cooked sweetbreads, with a proper crunchy outside giving way to an al dente interior.  

Sea bream and sour plum crudo.  This dish was so-so.  It was served with olive oil and sedum.  The sedum had a flavour akin to watermelon rind but I think the dish was overwhelmed with the olive oil - you lost the flavour of the fish and the sour plum acidity was missing entirely.

We also started our meal with their house pickles (asparagus served in a little mason jar - a savvy use of asparagus ends) and ended with their crispy toffee - which is a bar of homemade toffee enrobed in chocolate - the toffee is like a cross between a Crunchie bar and regular toffee - very buttery but light.

I would definitely go back.  The entire meal with tax and tip including one (overpriced) hibiscus soda and two beers for the Dotytron was about $170.  Very nice for a good dinner out.  The Dotytron knew nothing about the restaurant and was pleasantly surprised by the experience.  The food was spectacular and the setting is low-key - it has a neighbourhood feel.  I like that they're doing something a little different from the norm.  I don't mind paying for that, but will refuse to pay for your standard "fine dining" type food.  The restaurant landscape has changed so much in the past 10 years.  Those bastions of fine dining are becoming dinosaurs - you have talented young chefs churning out food that's of the same quality, but a lot less stuffy and for less money.  It's fantastic.

Other things that are fantastic:

Post feed gassy, goofy smiles from milk drunk Prof. Gantok

Onesies and knee socks

Our friend from Montréal is visiting this week so we're seeing lots of her and the Roomie.  Last week we had an awesome instalment in what is becoming a nice tradition - movie night with Lolly and SMckay complete with themed food.  

We also checked out this new park on the east side - the Corktown Commons.  It's amazing.  Designed as flood protection from the Don at the base of a number of condo projects - it's got a wide grassy amphitheatre area, a timed/triggered modern splash pad with that rubbery footing underneath, a playground, a beautiful covered area, concrete picnic tables, a view of the Toronto skyline.  It is clean and patrolled by security.  It made me get all PLUR-tastic about Toronto:

and we also took the Big Yam to the Beach on Saturday, just us and him, which also made me dissolve into rapturous love for this city:

I mean, COME ON.  A five minute bike ride from our home is this?!  What's not to love?

I met Dr. Rei for lunch last week and she took me to the Kathi Roll Express, by our respective workplaces.  It was so good!  I got a lamb seekh kathi roll - which is a paratha, topped with an egg, wrapped around a kebab and served with that mint-coriander chutney that Indian people eat.  So tasty.  I instantly wanted about 10 more and wanted to try them all:

I also bought myself a long-coveted pair of Hunter boots - matte black (would have preferred glossy, but oh well) that ended up costing me only $18 through a combination of long-held gift cards and signing up for an HBC card that I'll never use but that saved me 15%.  HUZZAH!  Super-pumped to find Hunter's that have an adjustable back to accommodate the world's largest calves.  I could squeeze into the regular Hunter's but wouldn't have been able to wear them over jeans or pants.  I kind of want it to rain just so I can test them out.  

You know, I fake-complain about having three kids under three but based on this past week alone - I'm feeling like a pretty big lucky button.  I can't believe all the things I've gotten to do, without feeling like I've sacrificed the ability to enjoy my city and be out and eat out and try new restaurants and visit with friends.  I feel profoundly grateful.

From the dinner diaries:

Our friends H & A brought us the BEST pierogi I've ever tasted from Cleveland - which is a hotbed of Eastern European cuisine.  We pan-fried them in butter and finished them in the oven with chunks of pan-fried kolbassa and onion.  Served with CSA green beans.

Kalbi-marinated grilled pork banh mi.  The Dotytron didn't think it tasted like banh mi but it made a good sandwich, regardless.  I served it with a green mango salad which was sooo easy and sooo good: thinly sliced green mango, cucumber, red pepper, and red onion, tossed with some lime juice and salt.  So refreshing.

Low-concept summer meal: seared scallops, corn bacon cherry tomato sauté, and beloved (only by me, the other eaters in the family are less enthused) zucchini fritters.  

I don't want to get all "end of summer" reflective, pensive right now, because we are still in it, and I want to be as in it as possible until I can't be in it any more.  I will say that I started June by going into labour and then spent three tumultuous weeks in the NICU and had no idea then that things would settle and yield a summer so rich in experiences and friends and family and love.  

Now if only I had time to see some of the new movies I want to see so desperately: Elysium, The Spectacular Now, Fruitvale Station.

!!!!! 

This movie is MADE FOR ME!  

Back later with a post documenting books read, and parenting a toddler-in-transition lessons learned.

Fin.

The Ol' One-Two

Yesterday was our 4 year wedding anniversary.  Today is my birthday.  We always, always, always forget our wedding anniversary.  The only people who remember are my sister and Momma D.  We loved the day we got hitched, but the date was and is arbitrary.  We've been together for 12 years now, so the date we tied ourselves to the hitching post seems like just another fun day in our fun and crazy life together.

It actually wasn't so fun yesterday.  It started with a 5 hour sleep stretch from the Wonder Twins, which was BLISS.  Followed by the hell that is the Big Yam finally figuring out how to use a doorknob and abusing that privilege by getting up outta bed whenever he gets it into his Big Giant Head to do so (yesterday it was 5am!) and wanting it to be instant hang times.  Not great.  I'm thinking of getting one of those child safety door knob covers for the inside door knob in his room so that he can be trapped in there until we see fit to let him out.  Life was so much easier when he was imprisoned in his room.

The Wonder Twins also had their scheduled 8-week check-up yesterday.  It was their first time meeting our family doctor.  I was there for TWO HOURS.  The most concerning thing is that Q has one small ear and one regular sized ear:

The small ear is like half the size.  Our midwife discovered it and it wasn't picked up by the paediatricians at the NICU, so she wanted us to alert our family doctor.  At first, her concern after doing some reading is that "low-set" ears are linked to Down's Syndrome and other chromosomal abnormalities.  However, according to her, there isn't much literature about just ONE low-set ear.  I've been reading up on some of the chromosomal abnormalities associated with low-set ears and Q doesn't really show any of the other characteristics.  Apparently, because pinna (outer ear) development occurs at a critical juncture, chromosomal abnormalities associated with low-set ears tend to have other characteristics - heart issues, cleft palates, extra digits, clenched hands, etc.  The only way to find out would be genetic testing, I'm assuming.  Also, I think it would be strange for chromosomal abnormalities in only one of an identical twin set, but who knows?  I read this recent National Geographic article about twins and this article from Scientific American.  Both articles suggest something that makes sense to me - that there can be genetic differences between identical twins - due to copying errors or environmental mutations, etc.  

Our family doctor thinks that it's more likely that Q's ear is related to his flattening head.  The head flattening could be caused by two reasons: #1 (best case scenario) is muscle tightening that means he favours lying on one side of his head - this can be addressed with physiotherapy and stretches.  #2 is worse.  It could be that the skull plates of his head are fusing together, creating flattening and bulging (the side of his head with the wonky ear is a little bulgy) as his brain grows and has no place to grow, which could also be displacing his ear.  The type of flattening our doctor noticed and the way the ears are displaced indicates that it might be one of the rarest forms of craniosynostosis, lambdoid synostosis.  The treatment is usually skull-busting surgery between 4-6 months of age, followed by a corrective helmet, worn TWENTY THREE hours of the day for an additional 6 months.  

Le sigh.  It was a lot to take in.  I went to the doctor by myself because the Dotytron stayed home to look after the Big Yam, who we kept home yesterday.  We're being referred back to the neo-natal follow up clinic to be seen by one of the paediatricians there and that's the first step.  In the interim, our doctor is trying to arrange physiotherapy for Q.  I hope he doesn't end up looking like the Great Gazoo for the first year of his life, but it's better than a chromosomal abnormality.  We are slightly discouraged and worried and stressed about this whole situation.  The thing with twins is - your worries and concerns keep ping-ponging between them.  In the NICU, it was all about how Professor Gantok was all barfy and had the brain cysts (which still might be there for all we know - follow up ultrasound is later this month) and how he was having mad apnea spells.  Now it's all about Q's issues.  

Professor Gantok seems to be doing fine.  He basically just gains weight and looks scared.  Those are his two primary skills right now.  We call him "Gloria Gaynor" because of his ability to pack on the lbs.  Gloria Gaynor, FYI, is the woman who sang "I Will Survive."  For some reason we find it incredibly funny.  

When they mark them on the growth curve, for all the variables (head circumference, weight, length) they basically are off the charts (in the bad way - as in, they don't appear) if you treat them like 2 month olds.  If you track them as if they were born at term (which would have been last Friday - my actual due date), then they're in the 15-50th percentile for those markers.  Poor little underachieving bubbies.  Some Wonder Twins they are.  

We went into my birthday feeling a bit low.  At the end of the day though, no matter what happens, I reminded myself and the Dotytron that we are lucky to be the parents of our three little wonders.  Whatever is in store for us, we are a family and we will weather it together - with poor taste, humor, often times misplaced anger, and occasionally, if we're lucky, a smidgen of grace.  

Look at this little elf' and his weird noggin.

The Big Yam is a handful and I started the day not being very nice to him.  This morning he rolled up again at some ungodly hour (maybe 6:30) and was all ready to roll.  I was pretty snappy at him.  The lack of consistent, uninterrupted sleep manifests itself in my inability to rally in the morning.  Usually, I'm an out-and-out morning person, but I'm definitely having problems getting rolling.  The Dotytron's low period is in the mid afternoon.  They woke me up before the Big Yam went to daycare and sang "happy birthday" to me and then gave me a homemade card.  Apparently the Dotytron asked him if he had anything nice he wanted to say about his mama when they were making the card, and the Big Yam was like, "no!" Haha - I don't blame him - what would he have nice to say about his short and curt grumpy mum?  

This guy:

That was taken in Geneseo when my sis gave him a pair of Thomas pyjamas.  He came running out, so proud and happy and I said to him, "Look at your in your cute Thomas jammies!" and he looked down at himself and said really softly, "I know."  LOL!  How cute is that?

He's been working through some stuff lately. To do with electricity.  He went with the Dotytron to the Science Centre and got scared by the electricity display.  For the past week or so, he's been talking it out.  "Electricity makes a cracking sound. A crackling cracking sound."  In Geneseo, we were at a play area with a big plastic dome and some coarse, thick-grained sand/fine stones.  He would throw the sand/stones at the plastic dome and would say: "Electricity!" (imagine the sound it makes).  It was pretty cute and smart.  I love it when he synthesizes stuff.  It's so interesting to watch.  

The rest of my birthday was pretty good.  We went to Rose and Sons for lunch/brunch.  It's a teeny tiny place - the two car seats wouldn't even fit in the 4 person booth - we had to stack them somewhat precariously.  The food was first rate.  I would definitely go back.   It's kind of Jewish influenced soul-food - so they do patty melts and fried chicken and yummy-sounding sweet brunch items.  I want to try their dinner menu.  They also recently opened an outdoor barbecue joint called Big Crow that I'd like to check out.

My sandwich - the PLB special - a cheddar melt with pickles, sausage, bacon, fried egg. Served with cherry jam.  This was freaking delicious.  The Dotytron got the 3 egg special with schmaltz fried hashbrowns, and their house-smoked thick cut bacon.  

I came home, took a nap, and woke up to a Canada Post delivery person dropping off a box at our door.  The Dotytron and I don't usually do birthday/anniversary/Xmas presents.  It's just not our thing.  We prefer to just do dinner together and hang or something low key and low concept.  The package was a surprise present - a new juicer!  Huzzah! I'm pumped - it's going to make our CSA so much more cost-effective.  We're meeting our friends at the Brickworks tomorrow and I'm definitely going to pick up some beets and other produce for juicing.  Can't wait.

Then the Roomie came over with her adorable daughter.  We hung out and ordered Mexican food.  The Dotytron made me a birthday ice cream pie but as of press time, it hadn't set up enough.  We had 4 kids under 4 afoot, there was a giant mess of toys, and the Wonder Twins were feeding constantly.  It was a bit of a crazy stressful tornado but I guess this is my life now.  I can't complain.  I am well loved.

Fin.

Road Trippin'

We survived our first road trip as a giant family of 5.  My packing list was fairly intense and we only went 3 hours away.  Specifically, to the United States, where we could presumably buy everything we might need/have forgotten at home.  As you already know, I love packing up a car like nobody's business.  Packing up Eddie VAN Halen?  BLISS.  Modular, organized, capacious bliss.  I couldn't have been happier.  WE HAD SO MUCH ROOM LEFT OVER!  Ugh...just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.  I'd say that 40% of my week-at-the-cottage-with-the-family fun is made up of car packing and list-making anticipation.  It's a sickness.

Prior to our departure we were the victims of anti-big-family discrimination for the first time.  After our final midwife appointment (tear!) last Thursday morning, we were emboldened and decided to try to have brunch at a local favorite, Lady Marmalade.  We roll up, and the restaurant is pretty full, except for a 4-top in the corner. The server sizes us up and says, "Table for 2..and 2 babies." The server looks around and tells us it's going to be at least a 20 minute wait.  I glance at the empty table and the server catches my eyes and says, "Oh there IS a table available, if you can squeeze yourselves in there."  We figured she didn't want us to occupy a 4 person table when there were only presumably 2 of us who were going to eat and run up a bill.  It was kind of galling.  It's like, seriously lady, we always order like, 2 entrées each.

As an example, before we left we went out for dinner with Dr. Rei to Caplansky's to fulfil a three day promise to the Big Yam that we were going to go out for hot dogs and french fries, and ketchup, and ice cream:

That's how much food we ordered for 3 adults, 1 toddler.

Not pictured: the ice cream sandwiches we got at Baker Bots.  We picked up Dr. Rei from work in Eddie Van Halen and then went to Caplanksy's and then to Baker Bots and then we dropped her off at her house.  The Big Yam said to her, "Thanks for coming over" (!!!!!)  So cute!  LOL!  Yup, we live in our van now.  Then he said, "When I wake up in the morning, I'm going to play with Auntie Rei again."  It was hard telling him that he wasn't going to see Auntie Rei tomorrow after all.  Sometimes he can be so sweet and innocent and dear.  There are those moments when he says stuff like that where the Dotytron and I just meet each other's eyes and feel our hearts rend a little.  It's hard to remember when he's screaming "NO!" at the top of his lungs what a sweet little boy he is.  The weekend before, our street had our annual street party.  It was a hoot:

The kids were playing with these things called aqua zookas (basically water guns that aren't shaped like guns) and the Big Yam squirted a little neighbour girl who didn't want to get wet and she started wailing and crying.  We went over to the Big Yam and told him that she didn't want to get squirted and you could see the emotions washing over his big, dark-eyed, open face.  He felt so chastened and bad and his lip started quivering and he yelled, "No!" and started crying.  It was so hard to watch.  You could tell he felt so sorry and his little body just didn't know how to handle the emotion.  I think that's one of the things that's the hardest for us right now when it comes to parenting the Big Yam. How to coach him through the tumult of his emotions? Sometimes he just seems so...unhappy.  It really must suck to be almost 3.  You're just trying to make it in a workaday world.  

The street party gave us mad post-party debrief material.  Proof that the Dotytron is a good sport - he subjected himself to this game, where the dads wore shower caps on their heads that were coated in whipped cream (should have been shaving cream, as we later learned) and their respective kids tossed cheezies at their heads and the one with the most cheezies won:

The Big Yam hucked one cheezie, it stuck, and then he promptly ditched the game and went off to do his own thing.  If you ARE going to do this, I'd recommend the shaving cream, because it holds up to the heat.  The whipped cream started melting almost immediately.  The downside is that a kid might eat a shaving cream bedecked cheezie, but that kid is an idiot and has to get got anyway.

Trite: I can't believe it's August tomorrow!  What the heck?  I feel like maternity leave is going to feel much more real once September rolls around and I'm all by my lonesome.  Except not so lonesome.  My first time on mat leave almost 3 years ago I didn't know that many people who were off at the same time as me.  Now it's an embarrassment of riches...I'm actually mildly stressed about when I'm going to see all the people I want to see.  I have a bunch more mum friends I know around the neighbourhood, a bunch of my friends are now on mat leave, I'm setting up a weekly lunch date with some ladies on my street - it's going to be so much more social than the first time.  It will be so nice...I know the year is going to fly by.

I was looking at the Wonder Twins' faces last week and I started crying (hormones!) at the thought of going back to work.  I had talked a big game during the pregnancy - even considering going back to work early once my work EI top-up ran out and letting the Dotytron take the tail end of my maternity leave.  Looking at their little wee funny faces sleeping on my chest made me consider something I never thought I would have considered - extending my maternity leave unpaid for a couple of months.  Going back to work in June when the Dotytron would be just winding down his work year would be heinous.  This summer has been sleep-challenged and not without its stresses (talk to me about staining our deck some other time), but being home together as a family and being able to do fun stuff like farmer's markets and ice cream walks and Science Centre missions and family pool swims has been the life-affirming, enriching, nostalgia-building stuff that I crave and romanticise like whoa.  The thought of going back and missing a summer of freedom, when the Wonder Twins would be ambulatory (maybe), and right before the Big Yam starts junior kindergarten made me cry.  Trite: it's all going by so quickly!  The Big Yam in school?  What the hell?!  This is probably going to be my last kick at the baby-mania can, which is also heightening my awareness of how ephemeral all this is: the sweetness, and milky-breaths, and googly eyes, and gas-y smiles and all the million other things that make me start to understand the whole, 18 Kids and Counting thing.  Anyway, I have time to think and consider it (hello, I'm only 2 months into my mat leave right now!), but the potential that I can take a couple of months unpaid leave is on the table and worming its way around my brain.

Some random catch-up snapshots from life:

These guys.

And these guys.

"Are you supposed to do that with a Moby?" "I dunno...I saw someone do it on the internet." "Ummm...you can see A LOT of things on the internet."  This photo doesn't capture the moment when Professor Gantok tried to latch onto his brother's head.

Midwife graduation photo.  Love our midwife.

Turtle by day. Paul Giamatti impersonator by night.

Cousins holding cousins.

My sister being her awesome self.

At the children's museum in Rochester.  LOL at how wee Lil' Big Cuz looks and how GIANT the Big Yam looks.  

Sweet, sweet, little mini Dotytron.

I've been cooking, too!  

My friend from high school is in town from Egypt.  We had him over - grilled striploins, garlic swiss chard, olive bread and my homemade tapenade, CSA new potatoes tossed with scape-basil pesto and soft boiled duck eggs, an heirloom salad with burrata and mint/basil.  In case you couldn't tell - I've been cheating a bit on the dairy.  Professor Gantok has been a bit barfy, but he's still gaining weight, so I've been the worst mother in the world and throwing caution to the wind.  

Mini cherry hand pies.  Based on this recipe from Serious Eats.  I had a disk of shortening pie crust in the freezer.  All shortening/lard crusts are balls, guys.  I also had my standard pie crust in the freezer so I cracked and used that (3/4 butter: 1/4 lard proportion).  Not surprisingly, the ones made with my standard crust were better.  I'd say the recipe yields a filling that's too thick - it's not jammy enough.  I know what they're trying to do - they don't want the filling too wet and oozy, but this lacked a bit of the lusciousness that a less set filling would have yielded.  

This is my attempt to recreate a favorite dish of mine from Phoenix.  It's not exactly the same (theirs is cooked in a stone pot so you get crusty rice edges) but still tasty.  I sautéed ground pork with CSA snow peas, cut thin, some scapes (also CSA), garlic, and ginger, and some Korean gochujang (fermented chili paste).  Piled that hot on steamed brown rice, and topped it with mandolined cucumber, julienned nori, and a raw egg for mixing.  It was gooood.

This blueberry almond cream cheese danish cake was meh.  I wanted it to be more dessert-y but it came out more brunch-y and the cream cheese layer was basically absorbed by the cake.  Not my favorite.  Big hit with Uncle Rico though.

Unlike this blueberry recipe - the blueberry pudding cake - basically a big muffin with plump, juicy berries - equally delicious for breakfast or for dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Fin.