Not Right.

The Dotytron's cousin passed away yesterday.

There are no words.

Of all the cousins on the Dotytron's paternal and maternal side of the family, Cousin Al was the one whose spirit most aligned with mine.  It doesn't make sense - I mean, look at the guy: a giant, bearded, tattooed, drummer (who went by the nickname "Yeti").  Where does all that overlap with a practically straight-edge, 5 foot 4, Asian, public servant nerdlinger?  And yet...spirits are funny things.  One of my first appearances at a family Thanksgiving dinner I remember getting daps from Cousin Al because I was the only person who could go plate-for-plate with him and his equally giant younger brother.  He knew the value in dirty dives for good dutty eats.  He was a faithful commenter on my pitiable Instagram feed, a copacetic audience for my pictures of ribs and rotis.  He was one of the few people in my world (and certainly the only one in the Dotytron extended clan) who could appreciate or understand a good Ted Nugent or Buckethead joke.  I could be as off-colour, unfiltered, and candid as I wanted.  Before his diabetes sidelined him, he was in a band that I genuinely liked (the Diemonds), and I remember going to one of their shows with the Dotytron and Dr. Rei and loving the whole glammed up, tight-jeanned, second-coming-of-Guns'n'Roses-ness of it all.  Like seriously, if you're going to make new music that I'm going to be into, thrashy, fun, trashy hard rock is kind of the way to go.

And he was kind.  So, so kind.  And gentle.  And just a good, decent person, and really, that's such a rarity (I'm not nearly so good and decent as he), that the "just" in this sentence does that goodness and decency a fundamental disservice.  

My shock is punctuated with disbelief and the overwhelming feeling that this isn't right.  Since we found out yesterday, betwixt and between recovering from food poisoning, dealing with three kids, having a blocked milk duct, and the chaotic nature of Christmas around the corner - above all the noise of my life, I will hear my heart insisting: "No."  No parent should have to outlive their child.  No person that good should have to go so young and so sudden.  I'm not a good and decent person.  I'm selfish.  When I think of all those years of family dinners stretching out before us, without anyone to at least chuckle at a one-note Buckethead joke? No.

We've had a hard few years with people being taken from us.  Poppa, Poppa D, my Kung Kung, and now this.  There has been joy, of course, but I read recently that life is sadness and despair punctuated with moments of respite from all that and in those breaks you savour.  Last night, after Ehmdo and Momma D had gone home, after we had all gathered to cry and hug and be together, an ice storm blanketed the city.  Some people are without power.  Our cars are immobilized by ice.  Downed tree limbs are blocking streets.  We are being forced to abandon plans, stay inside, put our lives on pause, take a breath.  I will try to savour.  I will hold my loved ones close, feel warmed by voices offering words of comfort and solace, and I will try to remember that as selfish as I am for always wanting more, that I was lucky to cross paths with the Yeti.

Fin.

In the Still of the Night

This was the scene outside the window at 4am on Sunday.  The city was blanketed with 5-10cm this past weekend and as a result, plans were put on hold, excursions curtailed, and we got down to the serious business of consecutive weekend snow days.  This meant a weekend of baking, eating, Christmas movie watching, listening to Ella Fitzgerald's "Jingle Bells" (the Big Yam's favorite tune) on repeat, gingerbread house making, skating, and tobogganing.  Not for the first winter was I grateful for Lil' Ugmo's prime positioning at the side of a well-rounded park.  It makes it tremendously effortless to fulfil Norman Rockwell-winter fantasies.  I saw people pulling up on our street to park with their skates and sleds and all we had to do was tow the Big Yam to the end of the street:

The Dotytron got it into his head that he wanted to make gingerbread houses with the Big Yam and so prep for that occupied a big chunk of our Saturday evening.  Making the dough, rolling, cutting, and baking wasn't the most fun I've ever had, but I'm a gingerbread house denier (it's all part and parcel of my candy blaspheming ways), and to be honest, the Dotytron did most of the work.  At the end of the day, our Sunday morning looked like this:

so I can't really complain.  It was worth it.  Despite my protestations to the contrary, home made gingerbread and royal icing is way better than the store bought stuff.  In this way, the gingerbread houses are reflective of my general relationship to Christmas and the holiday season.  I know I swim against the tide in this, but I favor the experiential, the hand made, the time investment over all the disposable, bought crap with which we clutter our holidays.  Why are the holidays generally considered stressful by most?  It's because you spend time fretting over what to get for GROWN ADULTS who already have everything, with a deadline, no less!  How enjoyable is that?  I would almost always rather have a dinner out with friends and family, or get together and order pizza, or hang, than stuff.  Really, the one thing the Dotytron and I desperately want is babysitting vouchers.  Those are GOLD to parents.  Overnight ones are even better.  The memory of the Big Yam being scared of the Grinch, swinging to Ella Fitzgerald, and haphazardly plonking hot lips onto his gingerbread house is so much more valuable than getting him a bunch of crap.  

We made some pretty fun donations this year and I encourage you to do the same.  Thinking of how we can give in a way that meaningfully reflects on our year is pretty fun.  We bought an infant blood oxygen monitor for the hospital we delivered the Wonder Twins at.  We donated once again to Applegrove Community Complex, which provides an awesome drop-in space and parent resource centre for the Big Yam, in addition to serving seniors and teens in the community.  We also donated to Oxfam to help with the Philippine relief efforts, during the time frame when the federal government was matching donations.  

Another favorite moment from this holiday season - the advent calendar told us last night to "Read a Holiday Story" so I read How the Grinch Stole Christmas and then, because I am trying to fight against the forces that would have us believe that there is a "war on Christmas" I pulled out The Story of Hanukkah, which I bought this year so that the Big Yam would be a well-rounded individual.  I'm reading it and it's pretty grim.  Then I get to page 3: "For a long time the Jews lived in peace, although they did not rule their land.  Then a Greek, Antiochus IV, became king. He tore down the walls of Jerusalem.  Thousands were killed.  Anyone who lit Sabbath candles, studied Jewish law, or refused to bow to Greek idols was put to death."  At which point the Big Yam utters: "UGGGGGGHHHH" *exasperated sigh*  LOL!  So good!  He was so put out!  I ended up cutting the story short because he wasn't having it.  

On Sunday we had Dr. Rei and Hanbo over for an ultra fun visit that featured excess in the form of pizza delivery from two different places.  BEST IDEA EVER.  I made us the cheesecake that JJ & S always make which is the best cheesecake in the world.  Hands down.  I've never had better.  It's the creamiest, smoothest, richest thing balanced with the slight tang of sour cream and lemon.  The key is to under bake the s**t out of it so that it's all gooey still and not dry.  Dryness is the enemy of deliciousness, which is why I've never really loved New York style cheesecake.  Too dry!  I'll post the recipe below, so that I never, ever, ever lose it.  

This weekend is similarly light.  The Dotytron family Christmas party got cancelled, so we're hoping that one of us can take him to the Studio Ghibli retrospective showing at the Bell Lightbox theatre and then we're having lunch with Nany and that's it.  The Dotytron is off for the holidays as of Friday and I for one can't wait for more of everything we had this past weekend:  more couching, movie watching, quilting, knitting, skating, tobogganing, shovelling, present wrapping, cookie baking, and hot chocolate drinking with my family.  

Fin.

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

Ultimate Cheesecake 

serves 12-16 (or 1 person if you're me)

Crust:

2 c. graham cracker crumbs

1/4 c. sugar

6 T. unsalted butter, melted

Cheesecake:

4 8oz packages cream cheese, room temperature (I left mine out basically all morning)

1 1/3 c. sugar

1 T. flour

4 eggs, room temperature

3/4 c. sour cream, room temperature

2 T. lemon juice

1/2 t. salt

- mix all the crust ingredients together until the crumbs are thoroughly moistened.  Press on the bottom and halfway up sides of a 9" springform pan with at least 2" sides

- bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 10 minutes.  Set aside to cool.  Wrap the outside of the springform pan in two cross layers of foil (I use the extra-long barbecue foil to ensure that no water from the water bath seeps in).  

- in the bowl of a stand mixer beat the cream cheese with the sugar until the mixture is smooth and a bit fluffy, about 2-4 minutes.  On low speed, beat in flour.

- add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of mixing bowl.  Be careful not to over beat the mixture though, you don't want to aerate it.

- mix in the sour cream, lemon juice, and salt on low speed.  

- pour the cheesecake batter in to the prepared crust.  Put the springform pan inside of a larger roasting pan and pour water around the springform pan until it comes approximately 1" up the side.  

- bake the cheesecake in the 350F oven for about 45 minutes - 1 hour, 10 minutes MAX.  You don't want any browning on top, and you want the centre to be just barely, barely set.  Even better, if the whole thing jiggles as one when you gently shake it (instead of the centre being really soupy and jiggly and the outsides set) that's the best.  Or like, a 2" radius in the centre being extra jiggly is fine.  

- take the cheesecake out of the roasting pan and cool on a rack.  Chill in the fridge for about 8 hours or overnight.  

- unmold the cheesecake by running a thin knife around the outside and releasing the pan sides.

Frankie Says Relax

Soooooooo, I scraped up Eddie VAN Halen on Monday.  With the babies in the car.  No one got hurt, thankfully, and it was entirely my own stupid spatial-relations-challenged fault.  I was parked (illegally) just ahead of a curb and behind a big excavator/commerical construction vehicle on the main thoroughfare in my 'hood.  I usually back up to get around things (usually too much) but I was nervous about not being able to see cars coming north on the cross street behind me and I was also nervous about getting plowed by an oncoming streetcar, so I came out without enough room to get around the excavator and basically scraped the passenger side of the van pretty bad.  It looks ghetto.  Then I promptly pulled over, burst into tears, and left a sad, scared message on the Dotytron's phone because I thought he was going to kill me.

I then took it to an auto body shop close by and got a quote on the repairs and he said no less than $2500, maybe $2000 and then I nearly threw up.  Cue another sad, scared, teary message on the Dotytron's phone apprising him of this latest development.

In a testament to what a good person he is, the Dotytron, when he finally called me back, wasn't mad at all (or at least, I don't think he was, I couldn't quite hear him over the sound of my own, hiccuping wailing, "YOU'RE MAD AT MEEEEEEEE!!!" and because he is a better person than I, was more concerned that we weren't hurt.  Because he is more concerned about appearances than I, he is insisting that we get it fixed, ASAP.  I took it to another body shop today and he said we were looking at $1300, and I'm hoping I can negotiate a cash deal.  I'm going to ask around a few more places though.  So we're out $1300, worst case scenario, because I am a horrible driver.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION IS REAL, FOLKS.

I joined the Facebook page for our neighbourhood, hoping that I'd find out about nannies and the like or get some tips on stuff there.  It's pandemonium on that page.  Basically a bunch of people who barely know how to be online going buck.  This one guy posted this thing about how his brother saw people from one of the Pakistani restaurants in Little India luring pigeons into the kitchen and how he was calling the Toronto Board of Health.  Now to me, that smacks of racism, so I posted this little gem:

which obviously got me mad props from people who aren't neurotic gentrification-obsessed weirdos.  Then I  had second thoughts and told the Dotytron that if I actually have School Board Trustee ambitions (which I kinda do?) that maybe it wasn't a good idea to troll the neighbourhood Facebook page.  But then he said that I could probably campaign on a "Frankie Says Relax" platform, and when I gave it a thought I realized he was absolutely right.  LOL!  Karl Lagerfeld: Frankie Says Relax in 2020.  So good.

Last weekend ended up being surprisingly chill.  We had all of Saturday completely off, which was so, so, so nice.  I don't know why I don't do that more often.  We got our Xmas tree and decorated it on Friday night, we watched some Xmas movies on Saturday, and then had a visit with a friend and her kid at Sprouts on Sunday, followed by a lasagna dinner care of Momma D in the evening.  It was nice to just putter and do house stuff.  

Now we're on the heels of a new weekend and it's Thursday night and I am spent.  Done.  Tapped out.  All out of love, patience, everything.  Yesterday almost broke me.  It started all regular-like.  Loaded up the boys in the bitter cold, dropped the Big Yam at daycare, took the Wonder Twins to the grocery store.  Came inside the house, and our Christmas tree had fallen over.  I had a 1:45pm massage scheduled that I already knew I was going have to cut short to get the Wonder Twins to their 3:00pm 6 month doctor's appointment on time.  To top it all off, I had to pick up the Big Yam from daycare, get dinner on the table, bath all 3 boys, and get them to bed while the Dotytron was attending to winter concert duties that evening.   Dr. Rei was coming over to help, but wasn't going to be at our place until 6:30pm or so.  I took one look at the tree, sighed, girded my loins, picked up the tree and repositioned it, packed up the boys, and went to Canadian Tire, AFTER stopping at yet another auto body place to get another quote.  Yesterday was a rough go.  It doesn't help that every time I show up at a medical office with the Wonder Twins I get a pitying/surprised, "Oh, you're here by yourself?"  Because apparently it's not normal to be a beast and handle EVERY medical appointment on your own, with two infants in tow.

I try to stay positive and upbeat and can-do, but tonight I reached my limit.  Ehmdo and I went with the kids to the new aquarium downtown.  The good news is that the aquarium is amazing.  Beautiful, clean, well designed, and expensive, but what the hell.  It was worth it for the look of wonder on all the boys' faces, but after my Wednesday, by the time we got home and I had to wrassle with an over-stimulated, under-napped Big Yam and two babies whose general routine had been upended, it was too much.  My patience reserves were spent and I could feel myself getting snappy and short-tempered.  We've been having such positive results with the Big Yam now that we've backed off from being reactionary in our discipline methods that I had to tell the Dotytron to basically take care of everything tonight, or else I was going to lose my s**t.  I've said it before, but three under three (or thereabouts) is no joke.  Those looks of sympathy I get from mums of singletons when I'm out and about (and this is before they find out that I have another preschooler), is warranted.  Momma knows, child!  

 Wonder Twins at 6 months

The Great Gazoo's been all about playing with his little tongue lately.

Look at this little daydream believer.

Our crooked tree when it was still standing and therefore still in my good graces.  The Dotytron always likes to under-light the tree so I strung about 500 lights myself and I still think we could have more.  

What I've been eating lately:

Leftover brisket from JJ & S's Hanukkah, warmed and served on buttered challah with roasted garlic mayo and caramelized onions, with baked cauliflower casserole with cheddar-broccoli sauce, and slaw

Low carb hell: shrimp, chickpeas with feta, and leftover cauliflower

Beef kofta, fried haloumi, tomato cucumber salad

Taco salad

Osso buco, polenta, roasted Brussels sprouts, gremolata, and extra marrow bones

Salted caramel apple pie

Fin.

Bad Mom

Yesterday was a fairly regular day at Casa Dotytron-Lagerfeld (current version).  I tried to get the Big Yam out of the house on time, did errands with the Wonder Twins, came home, did some nap training, prepped dinner, the Dotytron brought the Big Yam home, we checked the advent calendar, made dinner, had a stand off with the Big Yam about trying a bite of zucchini (which he almost garfed on, when he finally relented after much cajoling and wheedling and threatening with Elf on the Shelf tattling), cleaned up after dinner, put a load of laundry on, tried to get the Big Yam to bed on time (which generally involves minor battles pertaining to: taking off his own clothes, putting on his pyjamas, brushing his teeth properly, not wasting time running around naked so that there's time for stories), and then took my customary hour of kid-free time where I lie out on the couch, talk to the Dotytron, and sometimes muster the energy to knit.

That's all pretty standard stuff.  When I finally reached that much-awaited hour, the Dotytron and I got into a big discussion about how I was short and standoffish with the Big Yam after he came back from daycare, in the course of trying to get all of the above happening.  I did a lot of: "I'm counting to five: ONE. TWO. THREE..." and a lot of putting my foot down, and all those things are okay as tools for generating desired behaviour, except that there was an undercurrent of frustration and anger that the Dotytron identified and that I felt really guilty about afterwards.  I felt like a bad mom.  A really bad mom. I felt so bad for ruining the Big Yam's life when at the end of the day, he is such a sweet, innocent, happy kid who just wants to play with us. I cried thinking about it and the guilt is so overwhelming that I've been periodically crying about it today.
 
When I took him to that new indoor play space, we ran into someone who recognized the Big Yam from going to drop-ins and seeing him there with his daycare homies and J.  She introduced herself to me and made a point of saying that he was a really sweet, gentle kid.  The Big Yam has that reputation in the neighbourhood.  Then along come I, with my to-do lists, and my trying-to-keep-a-household-together and I feel like sometimes, all I'm doing is yelling and forcing him to behave and being all hard line, put-my-foot-down about things and that makes up the majority of our interactions.  Like, all he wants is a bit of uninterrupted time with his parents, and he never gets that any more and it sucks for him and for us.  The Dotytron does it too, by the way.  I'm not the only harda** in this household.

We had a big talk and came away with some concrete "action items" (can you tell I miss being at work?)  One: we're going to go a little easier on the kid.  We're going to not be on his case all the time for little things like playing messy, or the small infractions.  We've tended to treat all misbehaviour the same because we're frustrated and tired and we also want time to ourselves, but that shouldn't be the case.  Two: We're going to try to make the majority of the interactions positive instead of negatively focused.  The Dotytron says that as an educator, non-punitive, productive, positive behaviour modification is something he still struggles with.  It's a lot harder to produce the effects you're looking for by being positive than taking the quick, easy, bearing-down route.  But that's something we're both going to work towards.  Our kid is awesome, he should know that and be rewarded for being awesome, punctuated with moments of being kept in line, not the other way around.  Three: we're going to make an effort to cut down on distractions and try to give the kid some concentrated attention each night.

I think part of the problem is that we don't have a really robust support network for help.  Halmeoni was amazing, but she had to go and quit on us (I kid). This an extraordinarily busy moment in our lives.  Having two babies at once, having three under three, it is next-level survival mode.  I have a tendency to downplay my need for help and to feel the need to convey to the world that I got this, but it would be awesome to have someone look after either the babies or the Big Yam or all three so that we can all get the one-on-one and alone time every permutation of our family needs and deserves.  My mum is going to hopefully take the Big Yam over the holidays while his cousins are in town for a couple of days.  My mum and Big D are from the school of "GRANDPARENT FUNTIME BACCHANALIA" which means all you can eat bacon for breakfast and ice cream and cookies and activities and no limits on TV, which is all stuff the Big Yam could use.  They are always on my case about being too hard on him and not letting the Big Yam be a kid, which is rich, considering how hard they were on ME, but precisely the kind of grandparent about-face that you want for your kid.

Anyway, this is all to say that parenting is hard and that I'm going to try to be better and that's all anyone can really do.  We're all just trying to make it in this workaday world.

Now I have to be off to finish my fresh cranberry garland, which ranks high on one of the top ten stupid ideas I've had.

Fin.

Good Dad

When Lindsay was at the height of his staring-intently-at-his-fist thing a few weeks back and I was a little worried about just how intense he was fixated on something so boring (to me), I said to the Dotytron one night, "Do you think his hand thing is because of the holes in his brain?" and the Dotytron took a minute and then said, "Look, the point is, at the end of the day, Lindsay is awesome.  If you spend your time thinking about the holes in his brain and what might be attributed to them, then you're missing out on how awesome he is."  That right there is a good dad, folks.  

I took the Wonder Twins to the RSV clinic to get their vaccine last week.  RSV is this common cold virus that can be deadly to preemies so they vaccinate them against it.  Instead of triggering your bodies existing antibodies, the babies are actually being injected with live antibodies, so they have to go ONCE A MONTH FOR FIVE MONTHS to get the shot.  Yay preemies!  During the course of the visit they were seen by one of the paediatricians at the hospital, who is also the principle ped in the NICU.  She looked at their charts and said that as of the August ultrasound, Lindsay's cysts in the troublesome spot linked to periventricular leukomalacia had resolved themselves and all he has are choroid plexus cysts, which are benign (cysts there show a weak linkage with some chromosomal abnormalities which the babies clearly don't have).  For some reason though, our regular paediatrician and our family doctor missed that part of the report, so we're holding off on celebrating until the three doctors talk and we get a final ruling.

So basically, best case scenario: Lindsay stares at his fist because he's a regular weirdo, not because he has problematic brain holes.

This past weekend was crazytown.  Friday: last sports class and then the neighbour kid came over to play which meant no Big Yam nap which meant that by 6pm he was in full bull mode.  We can't get him to nap and he so, so desperately needs one.  It's impossible.  Saturday: got the Big Yam skates and a helmet because the BEST SKATING RINK IN TORONTO just opened in our park and we're going to take him skating.  Then it was time to check out this new indoor play space that opened up in our 'hood (http://sproutskids.ca/).  This place is a license to print money.  The inside is all indoor play stuff that's all birch and modern colours and yuppie-parent catnip.  It's 3000 square feet (which isn't really all that big) and has three rooms where they're going to offer arts classes, ballet/dance, and yoga.  Nice, design-y bathrooms with a unified color aesthetic.  Here's the rub: memberships are NINETY FIVE DOLLARS A MONTH.  Uhh, that's more than a gym membership, yo!  It's owned by someone who used to work on "Rich Bride Poor Bride."  The open house was SWAMPED so I can see how they're probably going to make tonnes of money.  Birthday party packages are $700 for TEN kids!!!  Toronto is nuts!  I think the maximum age that this place is suitable for is age 4, even though they say 0-6.  If I was a full time SAHM, I could maybe see it?  It would be handy in the winter months, but there are so many free drop-ins and such that I don't know who would actually buy a membership.  A 6 visit pass that has to be used within 3 months is $55.  That's probably the route we're going to go with.

So we did that.  Then, onto activity three of the day, which was taking the Big Yam to see Dora the Explorer.  First time at the theatre!  He LOVED it.  Turned to me during the intermission all worried-face: "Is it over???"  He is at the perfect age - he BELIEVES.  I felt so guilty for not taking him to see a live performance earlier.  He was rapt - mouth agape, blindly eating popcorn, craning his neck for a better view, shouting and singing along.  Super-cute.  

With the Dora crew, holding his borrowed swag

Another cute thing that happened earlier in the day during breakfast - the Big Yam had scarfed two hard boiled eggs and was eating a bowl of O's.  He asked for another egg and I said no, and then he got SO SAD.  Like, unbelievably sad.  Like, mouth full of milk and O's, eyes welling up, down-turned lips slowly leaking milk, sniffling - it was tragicomedy at its finest.  So I gave him and gave him another hard boiled egg, because he is my son.  Go figure the girl who wanted to find a way to monetize her ability to eat hard-boiled eggs would have a son who CRIES when denied a third egg.  LOL.  In Cleveland, he was pestering me for a hard boiled egg and finally I was like, "Dotytron! Just give him an egg!" and the Dotytron had to say, "You realize he's already had 4?"  

Then we went to the FOURTH activity of the day, which was dinner at JJ & S's house with the Discerning Coyote and his gf.  Love those guys, so hard.  It was a Hanukkah themed dinner - I brought a sage, apple, and chicken liver pate, and Thomas Keller's salmon rillettes, and they made an amazing brisket, latkes, salad, applesauce, and S's favorite cheesecake, which they always underbake so it's extra, extra creamy.  I dream about that cheesecake.  We then played Bananagrams and Catchphrases with their kids.  It was so much fun.

Sunday was equally bucksauce.  Last swimming class of the fall season, then we went to a birthday part at Playground Paradise, which is this city-run indoor playground which is AMAZING.  $2.50!  It's the bee's knees!  They have foam building things, a ball pit, huge climbing structures and slides, and those padded hanging bars that kids run through and scream their heads off while doing it:

Way to go, city of Toronto parks and recreation.  Color me impressed.  Then it was back to our neighbour's house for cake and chaos.  The poor little Big Yam was so tired that he was falling asleep eating bites of leftover brisket and was in full sleep mode by 6pm:

Caught in the act of dual Jolly Jumpering

We've gotten the advent calendar started and we put out the wreath and the Dotytron has started his annual hunt for a live tree that lives up to his olfactory expectations, which coincides with his annual obsessive tinkering with the outdoor light display, which resulted in me going to Canadian Tire yesterday to peruse their pathetic old school non LED Christmas lightbulb selection to find multicolored "twinklers" to complete his vignette.  

Fin.