Mama Guilt

Guys, I just noticed after watching the Lindsay "Whoa" video posted the other day that the Quincess reaches his little hand out for a chance to crack the egg and I didn't even notice because I was so focused on recording Lindsay's reaction.  UGH!  I'm stewing with guilt, here.

I'm also stewing with guilt because I was a total psycho and was mean to the Big Yam when I was at the end of my rope and he had a deuce-related semi-accident.

Those are recent parenting fails I've experienced.  Me when I'm not at my best.  Ugh!  Why am I the worst, sometimes?!

I planned an outing with a neighbour earlier this week.  Our local library was holding a "Star Talk" with a professor from U of T's department of Astronomy and Astrophysics giving a short introduction on how to navigate the winter night sky and then a chance to look at Jupiter and its moons through some cool telescopes. In my head, I pictured the Big Yam sharing my enthusiasm for a learning experience, marveling at the cosmos, providing examples of his brilliance and his ability to formulate an oh-so-cute "question" for the professor.  What I got was: him winking his eye and holding it about 6" away from the eyepiece of the telescope and complaining that he couldn't see anything, hucking chunks of ice off the platform onto the sidewalk, tittering with his friend and distracting the audience during the Q & A, and then refusing to pick up and put on his coat/hat/scarf/mittens.  It was a real treat.  Then, when he came home, he kicked one of our cats in frustration and we had to put him to bed without stories.

On the plus side, **I** got a lot of out the talk and it wasn't the most egregious example of a planning outing gone astray, but it wasn't the best.  I get that he's a kid, and his days are long, and he's tired, and his life is full of upheaval and he's not great at regulating his emotions.  I'm TERRIBLE at regulating my emotions.  Half my life is spent atoning for my inability to regulate my emotions.  It's such a poor use of time!  The Big Yam is trying on a bunch of new stuff and I get that.  He's learned that saying something/someone is "stupid" is not acceptable in our house and he's been trying some 4 year old rebellion on for size.  We told him that if he wants to use "bad" words, he can go up to his room and close the door and practice saying them up there.  I also gave him the option of going outside on the weekend, shoveling snow, and shouting his "bad" words as loud as he wanted.  He took me up on my offer, which resulted in some hilarity.  A kid out back, bundled up, screaming, "YOU'RE STUPID!!!" as loud as he can must be a pretty funny sight for our neighbours.  Anyway, we all just try to do better the next day.  That's what I tell him during our fireside chats, and that's just what we all have to do.  You get up and you try better the next day.

Does this mean that when you are doing the bedtime routine after a day when you haven't been your best, and your kid turns to you all drowsy and smushy and gives an umprompted, "I love you" that your heart doesn't try to fly out of your chest while you simultaneously squirm with how undeserving you feel of that gift after your wretchedness?  No.  But you take that squirmy discomfort and you go to sleep, get up, and try again, for better, the next day.

Yesterday was Chinese New Year.  I took the day off of work and went up to Markham to hang with my mum because a) the cousins were in town and the Big Yam loooooves hanging with his cousins; and b) our power was going to be shut off in our house all day (on one of the coldest days of the year!) so I needed somewhere to take the kids.  The power was shut off because when we dug down the basement my once-chest-height electrical panel was now unreachable and for SOME REASON the Electrical Safety Authority thinks that's a safety risk.  Pfft!  So I dressed up the kids in chinoiserie and we went up there and ate lunch and hung out:

COME ON, right?  So cute!  I got hosed on the outfits at Pac Mall on the 

weekend, but it's so worth it.  

The Big Yam and Little little cousin are so funny together.  Little little cousin calls the Big Yam, "See-O" and they were working together on this lift-the-flaps alphabet puzzle type thing.  Little little cousin goes: "You should do 'S' See-O because it's in your name."  Big Yam, "No it's not!"

We went to visit my grandma at the nursing home.  Best group shot of life for the following reasons: a) Quincess' face/expression/puffed up hair, b) Lindsay's muscle-man shoulders from his outfit being bunched up, c) the level of colour coordination and balance in the picture is amazing.

Usually when you put them down for a nap, there's at least 10 minutes (and sometimes, up to a half an hour) of this kind of giggling, gabbing, and chicanery.  So cute.  These guys love a classic "smush your face against something see-through" gag, hard.

Tonight I'm rolling solo with the three while the Dotytron gets his tattoo coloured.  Even though I did it twice a week (and more) on mat leave, rolling solo with the three now always fills me with a faint dread.  We have been SO SPOILED having a nanny!  It's insane.  We have gone soft.  Friday night rolling solo is way more manageable though.  It should (will) be fine.  I'm not actually concerned, but there's always a bit of "How am I ever going to fill the TIME?!"

Thank god for Friday Night Movie Night and a fridge full of delicious Congee Queen leftovers.

Fin.

Ups and Downs

Oof, so many ups and downs this weekend - Mother's Day weekend no less.  I was by turns an impatient mom, a guilty mom, a yelly mom, a stressed-out mom, a spoiled mom, and a mom who needed "mothering" from my partner.

That car that we thought we had bought?  Well, we didn't get it.  Through no fault of our own.  We signed the worksheet the dealership provides you with and paid a $1000 deposit to hold the car.  The next working day, we made arrangements to send it to our mechanic.  Our mechanic thought the car was in dece shape, but was like, "Did you know it came with winter tires?" And I had remembered that this was something that we had discussed with the salesperson, but that had fallen by the wayside through the course of negotiations.   Our mechanic was like, "I don't know what kind of deal you've worked out with them, but you should really make sure the car comes with all seasons."  So I emailed the salesperson and said that our mechanic had "concerns" (without elaborating on what those concerns were) and outlined 3 options:

1) We walk away from the deal and our deposit is returned
2) They sell us the car with a slightly lower price, throw in the all seasons, and we take this $2000 extended warranty (keep in mind: the extended warranty is gravy money for the dealership!)
3) They sell us the car with an even more reduced price, we buy our own all seasons, and we take the extended warranty.

The salesperson called me incensed and said that his manager wanted to see our mechanic's mechanical report.  I said that our mechanic was under no obligation to give it to him.  He then said that we had signed a "contract," the mechanical inspection was NOT grounds to renegotiate the price (which he had said in our face to face), and that our choices were that they either keep the deposit, or we take the car and pay the original negotiated price.  I was all flustered, so I said, "There is no way what we signed was a "contract" - can you send it to my lawyer."  And he got all pissy and told me to "talk to your husband" and then call him back.

So I get all nervous that we're actually ON THE HOOK for this stinking vehicle (which was fine, really, but still, now it was about the principle of the matter) and start Googling and then I find the site for OMVIC - the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council.  Their mandate is: "to maintain a fair, safe and informed marketplace by protecting the rights of consumers, enhancing industry professionalism and ensuring fair, honest, and open competition for registered motor vehicle dealers."  They're kind of like a WSIB for registered dealers and do some buyer-beware stuff for people who choose to do private sales.  So, registered dealers pay OMVIC a fee to be listed as a registered dealer and in return agree to maintain a code of ethics and standards.  You can file complaints with them, etc.  So I call them and explain the situation and the person I spoke to is like, "There's no cooling off period for car sales in Ontario.  But if you didn't sign a bill of sale, then you are entitled to your deposit back."

Now I'm REALLY MAD and I'm getting all Silverman on them. Here's the thing: I did my due diligence - how many poor rubes would be suckered into accepting either a loss of $1000 or a car they weren't completely happy with???  LOTS, I bet.  So I call back the salesperson and tell him that I spoke to OMVIC and that now my real issue is the fact that he wilfully misrepresented what we had signed and said it was a contract when it was in no way legally binding and that according to the LAW they had to return our deposit.  And he gets even MORE RUDE and says, "you want to talk about lawyers, we have lawyers here too, you know!" and also, "I told you that the mechanical inspection is not grounds for renegotiation!"  And I was like, "First of all, that's your PREFERENCE (that the mechanical inspection is not grounds for renegotiation)" and also, "that doesn't change the fact that you are in contravention of the legislation and regulations governing the practice and behavior of registered dealers in Ontario" and tore a strip out of him.  I swear, I nearly went into labour I was so blood-boilingly mad.  Now it's about the principle of the matter!  I told him that our options still stand and to give me a response by end of day.  He opted not to renegotiate, so we didn't have the car.

It was a pisser because we thought we were done, but then I realized I didn't WANT to do business with such a shadesball.  On Saturday we drove to this other Honda dealership in Scarborough - it was HUGE!  The buying experience was much nicer - our salesperson was much more transparent, was very calm, no attempt to upsell us, they have a shuttle service if you drop off your car for servicing, a tuck shop, etc.  Unfortunately, we were too far away from the price. But we did come away learning what a proper worksheet is supposed to look like.  No surprises there.  Then we went to a Toyota dealership but the model of the Sienna we saw is basically a hunk of junk - no features.  Then I sent the Dotytron to check out this one model that had just come into a dealership close to us...we came close to making the deal but then they wanted $600 more and I put my foot down just as the Dotytron was about to sign the papers.  It was stressful and I'm sure pregnancy hormones had a lot to do with me balking.  The Big Yam was frustrated with us being in car mode all day and was whining and crying like a mother effer, the guy we had coming over to quote us on a deck was 2 hours late, I was trying to make a decision about a car over the phone with the Dotytron and trying to get dinner on the table and the dinner wasn't working out - it resulted in a lot of yelling and the Dotytron coming home being super-frustrated and angry at all the wasted time.  It was a bad scene.

Then that night I felt so guilty about being so short with the Big Yam that I spent a good hour sobbing in a giant t-shirt on the couch about how "he's gonna hate me!" and what a bad mum I was.  It was rough.  Everyone has those days.  Everyone.  But when you're having one of "those days" as a parent, it's doubly bad because you feel guilty for messing up one of your only free days (a weekend!) with someone who doesn't get why you're stressed out and tense and is feeding off your energy and reacting and wanting attention that you can't give them.  It was bad and I felt like a terrible parent.  I just felt so guilty for wasting a day.

There's nothing you can do though.  You can't quit this job, so you have your fat, pregnant, hormonal, guilt-ridden cry, eat a billion slices of the cheesecake tart pictured above, fall asleep in a weepy mess watching Veronica Mars on DVD, and then dust yourself off and try again the next day.


The next day was much better.

We had eggs benedict for breakfast and then the Dotytron "treated" me with a morning doing what I like best: checking stuff off the to-do list and doing chores - in this case, it was all about satisfying my nesting impulses and getting the Big Yam's big boy room in order (putting up shelves, putting my FLOR carpet tile design together, tidying, etc.)  It's looking pretty hyphy in there!  I kind of want to swap rooms with him.  Our room is pretty nice too, but his room is amazing right now.  We're missing a light fixture, some accessories, and a print or two, but other than that, it's pretty much done.  I'm in love with it.  The color palette and everything is very Scandinavian modern.  It gets beautiful light and is airy and cozy at the same time.  Also,  I just want to take a minute and big up the $20 roller shades I got from Sears (custom cut to order, yo!)  They're slick!  AND ONLY TWENTY DOLLARS.  I can taste the savings!!!

Then we went to T & T and spent way too much on random stuff.  T&T is like our Shopper's Drug Mart or Costco - no matter what, there's no way we get out of there without spending at least $60, when all we went in for was like, some shrimp.  It's impossible.  For the record: Shopper's Drug Mart and Costco are also our Shopper's Drug Mart and Costco.

Then we came home and the Big Yam napped and I napped a bit and we had some down time watching TV and then the Dotytron made me my big Mother's Day dinner.  Basically, for the entire pregnancy, I've been craving fettucine alfredo.  Like mad.  Years ago, the Dotytron bought me one of those hand-crank pasta making machines that I was an ingrate and never used.  So he vowed to make me fettucine alfredo with HOMEMADE pasta for Mother's Day.  It was a running joke all week.  We even have high-end Italian imported tagliatelle that I was trying to push him on but he was insistent.

He and the Big Yam made the pasta dough and kneaded it.  There was an unfortunate incident where a breach in the well of flour resulted in egg on the floor and the Dotytron was a total neurotic stressball the whole time making dinner and was super into setting the timer to make sure the dough was kneaded for exactly 3 minutes, but this was the end result:

!!!!!

It was basically the cutest thing ever.  Most importantly, it tasted delicious, and I believe this will herald a whole new chapter in homemade raviolis and pastas at Casa Dotytron-Lagerfeld.  It was the best Mother's Day, ever.  The Dotytron done mothered me good.

He has requested for Father's Day that he be left alone.  LOL!  I can do that.  His Father's Day is basically going to consist of eating Asian food (dim sum, Congee Queen) and us staying out of his hair for a good chunk of the day.  

I can't believe I forgot to post a photo of this meal above.  I made us braised shortribs in an Asian influenced sauce of beer, garlic, ginger, and rice vinegar.  It was finished with some hoisin and we had it with soft polenta and it was sooooo freakin' good.

I've posted that cheesecake tart recipe below because it is so delicious.  I've been craving something akin to that Jell-O cheesecake mix thing - like what you used to be able to get at old style cafeteria-type restaurants, usually covered in a goopy blueberry sauce.  This was PERFECT.  So tasty.  We've basically eaten a whole tart in 2-slice-each increments in 3 days.

Fin.

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Cheesecake Tart

makes one 9" tart, courtesy of Martha Stewart

Crust:

3 1/2 oz. graham crackers (about 6 - 2.5" x 5" each)

1/3 c. whole blanched almonds

1/4 c. sugar (I might reduce this next time to 2 T)

4 T. unsalted butter, melted

pinch of salt

Filling:

2 8ounce packages of cream cheese

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. sour cream

1 large egg

pinch of salt

- preheat oven to 350F

- in a food processor, process almonds, sugar, and graham crackers until finely ground.  Add melted butter and process until moist clumps form.

- press the crust on the bottom and up the sides of a 9" tart pan with a removable bottom.  Set aside to chill in the refrigerator.

- rinse out the food processor bowl and process the cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, and egg until smooth. Pour into crust.

- bake for about 25-35 minutes or until the filling is just set.  Transfer to a rack and cool completely before storing in the fridge.  Unmold from pan before serving.

I served this with a mixed berry compote that I threw together - some berries, a bit of sugar, some lemon juice, cooked together until bubbling and then some raw berries folded in off the heat.

the royal winter weekend

that wasn't very wintery.

saturday was a splendid day. i went to mccall's and bought a few piping tips, some new piping bags, and a mini-muffin pan so that i can make wee little bite-sized, mini cupcakes. then i met up with D and we saw "an education." i thought this film was over-rated. the potential is there for something more, but what you get is a slender little thing with a good, believable, though not truly exceptional performance from newcomer carey mulligan - the one the critics would have you believe is the new audrey hepburn, the next "it" girl, etc. etc.

it's the story of a clever, 16 year old girl in suburban england whose options for advancement don't extend much beyond getting the grades to get into oxford. after that - there's not much more, as far as she can tell. she's swept up into a glamorous world of smoking and paris and french music and jazz by a slightly seedy, much older man (played, to my delight, by my favorite squint-eyed sleazeball, peter sarsgaard) and is seduced enough by the worldliness of the continent to not question her future or his intentions. there are some keenly observed moments that result in some genial laughs, but i felt the analysis and skewering could have gone farther. the class issues and the gender issues, and the examination of a nation slowly being awakened from post-war, stoic staidness and facing the rollicking destabilization of the swinging, mod, cultural revolution to come - all of these could have been more deeply examined to greater effect.

instead, as our heroine's eyes are rudely forced open by the implosion of her suitor's lies, we get a neat and tidy montage set to swelling strings that puts everything back right again, nice as can be. the ending was probably my principal complaint. overall though, i feel like if everything had been tuned up a notch, it would have made the entire plot more believable (what are her parents thinking - allowing a 16 year old girl to go to paris for the weekend with a 30ish suitor?!?) and the document of a girl - and a nation's - transition into modern adulthood more compelling.

saturday dinner was lovely - we always stay too late at J & S's house - i always feel bad because i know they have 2 young kids and are running on too little sleep already. J made a roasted squash soup with gruyere croutons and a mascarpone cream and L made us a hand-rolled pappardelle in a braised short rib ragu with arugala. it was delicious! my apple brown butter tart was a success, i feel. you can't really go wrong with brown butter, especially when it's housed in a crisp, crumbly tart shell and flecked with vanilla, nestled in the nooks and crannies around tender, mellow, honey crisp apples. we ate the rest of the tart last night...that's the evidence above.

for sunday breakkie i made us eggs benny with this new smoked, english-style bacon the dotytron nabbed from the mennonites. it's AMAZING. it comes with a thick, 1" layer of fat all around - so delicious - it takes me back to the most glorious english bacon sammy i had at borough market in london, which was basically a pile of this same bacon, fried on a skillet and served on a soft bun, glistening with the sweet, smoky fat. i added some baby spinach to our benny, too - just to make things respectable (somewhat).

then came the royal winter fair! yesterday was a gloriously, atypically warm november day - the kind that gives irrefutable evidence for the validity of global warming. so we biked the 10km there and the 10km back along the various bike paths that run along lakeshore. as we were doing it - i realized that the ability to bike to the CNE in about 35 minutes, was one of the reasons i loved living in toronto and why i find it really hard to see myself moving away.

here are some photos from the royal (which, btw is INSANELY expensive - it's like $18/person to get in, and that doesn't include the horse show. considering that all you do when you get in there is spend MORE money, it's a little bit of a gouging - but i do support the 4H club and i respect that farmers feed families and that rural ontario is as much a part of my ontario as any other, so in the end, i don't mind paying $18 for country mouse to come to city mouse):





look at that BUNNY! that little face!!!

we went a little buck and ate like pigs, even though we had JUST eaten like pigs 2 hours earlier:

we split perogies, an octoberfest sausage, and cabbage rolls, and a potato rosti with sour cream and cheddar cheese. then we had a cinnamon sugar elephant ear and an apple dumpling with ice cream (not pictured). this is in addition to stuffing our faces with all kinds of freebies and tasters (shortbread, summer sausage, kielbassa, etc.):





i almost got a free walking stick but then i realized we couldn't carry it back. this sucked because i listened to the whole message before getting it. the message was about how jesus is our saviour and i have to welcome ol' JC into my heart to get into heaven (the walking sticks were from the association of christian farmers and feature color-coded beads that represented sin, heaven, JC's blood, etc.) so after the message (which was LONG, btw!) i turned to the dotytron and said, "okay, i get it, so we have to wash ourselves in jesus's BLOOD." and the guy who was giving the message was all like, "well, not LITERALLY, it's a metaphor" and i was like (in my head): why are crazy religious people so humorless? like, how can they not understand satire? then dude asked me if i wanted to get into heaven and i was like, "not really" and he goes: "why?" and i say, "i don't think it seems like that big a deal" WHICH HE DIDN'T HAVE A REPLY FOR CUZ THEN HE CHANGED TACTICS AND ASKED ME IF I WAS AFRAID OF HELL and i said, "nope." and then we had already wasted enough time listening to this message and NOT getting a free walking stick so we left and i tried to weeze more free shortbread samples.

we also sat down for the superdogs show but the dotytron at the last minute decided the he thought it was going to suck and be mega-long because there were too many kids there so we left and then later all we could hear was people going APES**T for the superdogs like it was the rolling stones or wrestlemania in there or something. which resulted in lots of: "i can't believe we missed the superdogs" ribbing which is really just an excuse to repeatedly say the word "superdogs." try it. it's so much fun.

then we came home after stopping by the dotytron's parents house to dry our laundry, whereupon poppa d told us that some family members have been wondering where their thank you cards are for the performance prezzies they gave us and then i felt like crapola. i thought we had up to 6 months to send them back but then i came home and checked emily post and etiquette and they're like, "you should send them out no later than 2 weeks after your return from the honeymoon" and i was like: WHAT THE HELL! WE MOVED!!! plus, i was waiting for photos from our photog (aka the dotytron's sister) cuz i wanted to send a photo out with the thank you cards.

so then i spiralled down into depression because i really make an effort to be ON THE BALL with stuff like that (and by stuff like that, i mean sending out cards - thank you cards, birthday cards, etc.) but things have been stressful lately and i hadn't gotten around to it yet. then i got kind of mad that it's all ON ME to do it and how that's totally gendered and annoying and sexist. you think the DOTYTRON ever remembers to send out a birthday card?!???!!! hells no! he barely remembers when the birthdays of his immediate family are! it's all me! i've got them written down in my four calendars. do you think it's HIS idea to send a thank you card for xmas prezzies? or to do up cookie tins for aunts and uncles? or give frozen soup when people are sick? so i dropped the ball a little bit on the thank you cards but SERIOUSLY?!???? we were MOVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so it was a combination of guilt and feeling attacked and feeling like it shouldn't all be MY responsibility, especially when my crew (aka team china) isn't the one wigging. it's totally a white person thing. i just don't want people thinking i have no class or no sense of etiquette. i do. it was just kind of a crazy time in our lives and i wanted to do it right.

bah! anyway, the end result was that the dotytron felt guilty about me feeling rotten, so to placate me we ordered in pizza from a new place (bona pizza - they're good!!!) and watched the season finale of "true blood" and caught up on this season's "top chef" - which, incidentally, is AMAZING!!!!!! the calibre of talent this year is insane!

fin.