New Year, New 'Tude

And just like that, we are into the second (!) week of January.

How the eff did that happen?  I know from my end, the holidays were a bit of a blur.  It went a little something like this: the Big Yam garfing, me sick with food poisoning, the Dotytron's cousin passing away, ICE STORM, xmas with Dotytron's family, then xmas with my family.  I don't think we got anything remotely resembling a breather until New Year's Day and even then we basically entertained or visited or had a big outing every day until this past Saturday.

A lot of good things happened, though.  We saw friends from near and far, we hosted a rocking New Year's Eve gathering of games and food and friends, we saw movies, we went out to eat, we played insane amounts of Wii U (an xmas present from my brother to my niece and nephew, that easily eclipsed the hockey socks and garters that we dutifully got for them at the behest of my sister), we ate cookies and cake, went tobogganing, and found moments of pleasure amidst the sadness of losing a loved one.

There were also moments that I wasn't proud of.  Invariably, no matter how on the ball I am, each year, by the time Christmas Eve rolls around it's a mad dash to the finish with heightened anxiety, snappishness, and simmering anger (all mine).  It all came to a head on Monday morning, the day before Christmas Eve when I was dropping off the Big Yam at daycare for the day.  I was sad, I was raw, I was in shock from cousin Al's passing, and I was stressed.  I couldn't get into the van and had to spend a million hours chipping away the ice just to open the door.  Then the Big Yam started up with that particular, keening, 3 year old whine that sounds like an air raid siren but a million times more grating, "I WANT MY CHEEERIOS, YOU SAID! I WANT CHEERIOS!  CHEEEEEERRRRRIIIIOOOOS!"  and I snapped.  I had tears of grief and frustration streaming down my face as I was driving, trying to dodge post-ice storm felled tree branches and navigate the slippery streets and I screamed at the Big Yam like I've never screamed before.  Something to the effect of: "I. DON'T. HAVE. ANY. CHEERIOS!!!" You could see the startled shock flash across the Big Yam's face and then he looked me square in the eye and screamed right back, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

It was the worst.  Then I burst into tears at J's house and she gave me a big hug and patted me on the back and told me everything was going to be fine.  Then I drove home and promptly burst into tears again and was wracked with guilt for most of the remaining morning.  Then SMckay came over with her can-do attitude and baby-holding abilities and I sorted myself out.  I came across this opinion piece that someone on my Facebook posted recently, So, You Would Like to Have Three Children, and usually I don't read that stuff or re-post it but there are two things that stood out for me.  One is how the author talks about the commentary you get whenever you leave the house with all three.  It's usually either: "You're so brave!" or "You've got your hands full" and both are accompanied by pitying, "better you than me" looks.  As the author notes: this is so helpful.  LOL.  Either take a baby or keep your comments to yourself!  Then you have to add the twins variable into the equation.  We're basically a travelling freak show to the world at large.  The more prescient observation from the article is that you are never, ever, ever alone any more.  You have to deal with three individuals who are ALWAYS pestering you to fulfil their needs and wants (which for EACH ONE, are different things), in combination with trying to find a nanosecond to deal with your own needs and wants, like, once every three months.

The Dotytron always tells me that my tension levels unnecessarily ratchet up the anxiety, but when you're the mom, it's at a whole different level than what dad experiences.  They don't want Baba, they want YOU.  Dad is such a distant second it's not even in the same hemisphere.  You have three individuals constantly clamouring for your attention or that you have to keep tabs on and it is under the best of circumstances, exhausting and trying.  Add the holidays and trying to grieve and deal with the colossal, capricious, unfairness of life and death on top of it?  NO KIDDING YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO WAIT FOR YOUR F**KING CHEERIOS, KID!

So basically, I vowed that next year, I will either be on a beach far, far away, or holed up in a winter cabin with a fireplace and will catch all y'all in the New Year.  The morning we left to spend the weekend at my parent's place for Xmas, I told the Dotytron straight up: "It's going to take us 3 hours to leave the house" and he, bless his optimistic heart, laughed at me.  Three hours and 15 minutes later, we were all packed in the car and ready to head up to Markham.  My life is no joke, people.

Except, of course, when it's ALL jokes.  Like it was when we got to visit with SMckay, and MHui and her family, and my crazy siblings, and Dr. Rei and a heap of people of people on New Year's (when we debated how painful getting hit with a sock full of quarters would be, and also, when Dr. Rei revealed her love of Yazz and unveiled an accompanying dance to a song that is, and I quote, "the epitome of Jeanne Beker getting ready to go to work in the morning" [the dance featured a lot of stuffing stuff into your suit shoulders and slapping Moses Znaimer]), and when we saw our friend I from Montréal and the Roomie and baby T.  There were a lot of laughs and love this holiday interspersed with all the yelling and shouting and sadness and that is the crazy cocktail that makes up life, I now know.

Some notable Big Yam moments from the past two weeks:

The Big Yam, lying next to me in the dark as I was putting him to bed, faltering: "Mama? H-ha-ha-happy holidays" (UGH. So cute.)

The Big Yam, finishing up a birthday card for a friend with the Dotytron, upon putting the final sticker on: 

*contented sigh* "FAGulous!"

The Big Yam, trying to negotiate a "sleepover" last night (a school night): "Well, Mama.  Tomorrow is a school day but today is still the weekend so Baba said maybe, maybe we can, can have a sleepover."  Pauses.  Spreads his hands out palms up towards me.  Another long pause.  "What do you think?"

The Big Yam, in the back of the van when I suggested that maybe he would be able to go skating later on in the afternoon with Baba.  "No. I don't want to go skating. Baba is going to be so sad."  (This is true.  The Dotytron has put a lot of stock into teaching the Big Yam how to skate.)

I went with the Roomie and baby T and our friend I to the indoor play space with the Big Yam and the Wonder Twins.  Other parents gave me the de rigeur looks of awe/horror.  While there, the Big Yam went and played in this little playhouse for a good 15-20 minutes.  Later, one of the moms there asked me if the Big Yam was my son.  I said yes, and she proceeded to tell me what a good, sweet, kind boy he was and how gentle he had been playing with her 18 month old son inside the playhouse.  She was so impressed and so complimentary.  It was nice. I mean, neither the Dotytron nor I can take any credit for it.  He gets it from his Poppa.  He really is such a kind, gentle soul.  When the Wonder Twins are crying, he'll go over unprompted and give them kisses and say stuff like, "Don't worry, you'll get some food soon," or "It's okay, Goh-Go [Cantonese for older brothers] is here."  It's the most heart-enriching thing you've ever seen. 

In Wonder Twins news:

Saturday, December 14th - the Wonder Twins rolled from back to front
Saturday, December 21st - the Wonder Twins started solid food

(Can you tell that I'm using this blog as a holding place for baby-book items until such time as I can actually get my act together and write it down somewhere with all their other baby milestones?)  Lindsay, in keeping with his Chris Farley nature is currently all about making the screechiest, screamiest, joygasm sounds when he's happy:

Meanwhile, the Quincess is a Quincess, as you can tell from the videos above.  He is the master of the raised eyebrow.

Finally, here's a tiny fraction of what I've been eating lately:

I didn't think a Christmas Cookie plate would happen this year, but during the week I'd do a batch or two of cookies a few times and then before I knew it, I had like, 10 different varieties balled up in the freezer.  From left to right, starting at the top row: brown butter financiers, buckeyes with fleur de sel, chocolate brownie cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, gingersnaps, nutella bittersweet chocolate cookies, malted milk chocolate cookies, shortbread, toffee espresso cookies.  I'll have to post the recipe for the nutella and the malted milk chocolate ones soon.

Rainbow trout with horseradish mayonnaise, cauliflower-potato mash, a Korean-beet salad from Yummy Market, and quick-pickled cucumber dill salad

Sour cream apple pie.  One of my all-time favorites, from this recipe, in my own butter-lard crust.  This is an almost-perfect pie.  I double the crisp topping and it is craggy, not too sweet, silky, chock full of tart apples, all bound up in a flaky crust.  It's exactly what you want to be eating on a cold winter's night.

My new favorite low-carb breakfast: sliced avocado, pinch of crunchy kosher salt, topped with this rainbow trout spread-type thing (poached rainbow trout, crumbled with diced apple, diced cucumber, lemon zest, olive oil, and more kosher salt and pepper - served on fresh baguette slices, it's a nice, light, fresh tasting appetizer), and soft boiled eggs (overcooked in the photo above).

Tonight's dinner was a retreat to Eastern Europe from the record cold snap we're facing: Yummy Market Siberian perogies (pork and veal), pinehedge organic sour cream (the best sour cream I've ever had), roasted Brussels sprouts with lemon zest, pickled beets.

I have a slew of book/movie/restaurant reviews that I'll save for a post tomorrow.

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.

And Just Like That

We are in the thick of THE HOLIDAYS.  I kind of hate this time of year.  I'm in it to do fun stuff for the kids, but anything to do with traditional holiday stuff for adults makes my skin crawl.  You're into Christmas? You're GROWN.  Get over it!  The most important thing is spending time with family, right?  And also, almost more importantly, it should be about KICKING BACK.  Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool.  But will anyone let you shoot some b-ball outside of the school?  No!  Because there are a million holiday parties to go to and concerts and blah blah blah time sucks that keep you from doing what you really want to do, which is sit in your jammies and watch Netflix and ignore the outside world.

Unless that's just me.

The holidays have gotten harder ever since Poppa D passed away.  I think there was a natural contraction that was going to happen anyway - as the kids got older (we're all in our thirties!) and when we added the Big Yam, it wasn't going to be the present bacchanalia that it had been in the past.  Great Nany is getting on in years and has a reduced income, we're all grown and the "presents" we want cost a lot more, etc., etc.  I think that the move towards making the holiday less about us and more about kids the Big Yam's age coincided with Poppa D passing away, and it makes everything seem a lot more quiet and restrained and sombre.  Staying in town doesn't help - Poppa D had so much childlike glee and silly enthusiasm that he really injected a lot of fun and spirit into the whole process.  When we try to replicate things here, his absence just seems all that much more stark.

AREN'T I JUST A BARREL OF FUN?!  I'm actually not feeling all that down about things, really.  Just trying to articulate why things feel a little different.  My sister asked me what cookies I was making so we wouldn't duplicate (which never happens anyway), and I was like, "is you tweaking?!"  As if I have time to make cookies!  Usually by this point I've been slowly amassing a store of frozen cookie dough balls in the freezer, to be pulled out and baked à la minute so that I could give people warm boxes of like, 9 different varieties.  Newsflash: THAT AIN'T HAPPENING THIS YEAR.  I can barely get dinner on the table each night, and to top things all off halmeoni quit on me!  The day that she was coming to help clean the house wasn't working for her any more and like, I'm sure she probably wanted to spend her time looking after her own kids and grandkids and not the neighbours.  I'm taking it a little personally and getting all up in my own head about it.  Like, was it because she was appalled at our house?  Did she find my general housekeeping disgusting?  Did we not express our gratitude enough?  Did she feel like she was being taken advantage of?  I know all that probably isn't the case, but it's hard to think rationally.  I'm feeling really rejected here, people.

Now I'm thinking about if I can still catch up and bang off a batch or 9 of cookies.  TALK ME DOWN OFF THE LEDGE, PLEASE!  

What's been going on over here?  Two weekends ago we went to Cleveland and visited our buddies, H & A.  Good lord, do we ever loves us some Cleveland.  It was so nice.  They have a new baby girl who was 9 weeks old when we went there and they are kind of getting rocked by the new parent thing so it was a perfect weekend away - just lolling around the house and eating and smushing babies together and taking the Big Yam to the odd playground:

Doughnut's from Jack Frost Doughnuts.  We have pumpkin pie, salted caramel, buckeye, lemon curd - all of them really delicious and the whole box (plus a GIANT cinnamon roll) cost $12.  TWELVE DOLLARS.  This many "fancy" doughnuts would cost like, $30 in Toronto and not be half as tasty.

No trip to Cleveland is complete without a visit to Happy Dog.  Hot dogs with unlimited toppings and tater tots and dipping sauces and craft beer.  What more do you want?

Then we came home and made the ill-advised decision to try to eat low-carb for a while.  We used this diet called the "4 Hour Body" and in classic us fashion, didn't read anything but just listened to our friend H's description of how it's done.  Ummm...IT WAS HELL.  I love carbs.  As the Dotytron repeatedly said: "I feel hollow inside."  And that's with us cheating!  We kept fruit!  And we kept dairy!  I'm not cut out for restrictive eating.  I actually did better than the Dotytron, who promptly got "sick" at the end of last week but I think it was more likely that he was suffering the ill effects of carb withdrawal.  Anyway, we ended up eating meals like these:

A curried butternut squash red lentil soup (from the freezer) with a big salad of roasted Brussels sprouts, apple, celery root, bacon, hazelnuts, and shaved pecorino in a remoulade type dressing.  The salad was really good.  We still felt hollow inside.

Baked maple squash, roasted pork and merguez sausages and a "mash" of cauliflower, celery root, and sunchokes.  This was also delicious.  We still felt hollow inside.

I guess our "action items" from this terrible and half-arsed experiment is that we don't necessarily need carbs to complete a meal (even though they are delicious) and should be mindful of how many carbs we generally consume in a day.  Maybe.  But probably not.  

This past weekend was reasonably chill.  We hung with SMckay and Lolly and watched Who's the Boss and the aunties soothed the babies to sleep with a rendition of Stay by Lisa Loeb.  We also watched the new Flowers in the Attic trailer a million times and read the plot synopses and were thoroughly scandalized.  I had the Big Yam's buddy over for to play where I basically used them as free labour and made them rake and bag frozen piles of wet, slushy leaves with the promise of hot chocolate as the enticement.  The Big Yam has a buddy named Felix who is a year younger than him (just turned 2!) but they are so sweet together.  They hug each other like, constantly.  When they put their winter coats on: hug; when they come inside: hug; when they transition to playing with something new: hug.  It's pretty cute.  They have a special connection - their temperaments are very similar and they're both sweet, quiet, and pretty easy going, all things considered.

On Sunday I took the Big Yam to this model train club in Scarborough that was having an Open House where they run the trains.  The Big Yam loved it, even though it's basically just a giant cement bunker that these dudes have rented out and rigged up.  It was very bare bones.  I'm also 99% sure that everyone there was on the autism spectrum.  They also don't do a great job of "selling" it.  WAY TOO MANY FACTS ABOUT TRAINS CIRCA 1948, GUYS.  I guess the interest of the club members is historical accuracy and not so much broadening the fan base.  They could definitely use some PR help.  Let's capitalize on some of those train puns!  There was an old dude who was wearing a trucker hat with pictures of train crossing signals that lit up and the slogan: "One Track Mind" (get it?)  I actually think we need more of that and less talking your ear off about who manufactured what train and what the painting specs were.  But that's just me.  WHAT DO I KNOW.  

The Big Yam is pretty hilarious right now.  He's gotten into this thing where if he disagrees with you, he uses "no" as a place holder until he can tell you what he really wants.  It's pretty cute though kind of Aspberger-y.  Like, I'll say, "You can't watch that movie right now," and he'll stammer, "No no no no no no no no no...but Baba said I could!"  He also likes to say that he's "more hungry" apropos of nothing when he sees something he likes to eat, like if we pass by a tray of cookies at the grocery store.  "But Mama, I'm more hungry..."  

Then there's this:

How cute is it that my kid is into Mary Poppins?!  Pretty darned cute, I tells you.  The Dotytron watched How To Train A Dragon last weekend and the Big Yam was so scared but really trying to face his fears on his own terms.  He basically sat on one of the topmost steps on our staircase and "watched" it from there, peppering the Dotytron with questions the whole time.  He wouldn't come any closer.  It was pretty freakin' adorable.  I know he will eventually, but his innocence is so charming right now.  Like, all he wants to do is quietly "read" from his Robert Munsch collection, bare-bummed, by himself.  This stage where he can occupy himself for long stretches with quiet activity is kind of the best.  I never thought we'd get here, but now he'll totally just hang out in his bedroom, flipping through the pages of one of his books.  He LOVES "Wobert Munsth."  In his own words: "I love Wobert Munsth.  I do.  I weally weally do."  !!!!!

Then there's the Wonder Twins.  Prof. Gantok rolled from front to back last Saturday for the first time.  He was doing tummy time on the playmat, looked over, saw that the Great Gazoo was already on his back, realized that was an option and just went for it.  The Great Gazoo pretty much rolls onto his back any time you put him in tummy time.  Like, as you're putting him down on his front he's already tucking his shoulder under to roll onto his nice, cozy flat spot.  The Great Gazoo has also found his voice recently and it appears as though his voice is equal parts Mogwai and baby dinosaur.  This is him "cooing":

This also happened:

I feel like they look really alike, here?

This Lindsay Lou-Lou expression kills me.  This photo kills me.  That look!  Those toes splayed out!  That Run DMC shirt!  

All over their hand-holding lately.

More low-carb times: braised brisket (from December of last year!  It was still delicious!), slaw, and baked beans I also pulled from the freezer

Korean jap chae and marinated flank steak

Fin.

You'll have to excuse me...

I'm not at my best.

So, it turns out the Big Yam gave me the hand, foot, and mouth disease.  NOT to be confused with foot and mouth disease, which is what cows and other cloven-hoofed animals get (so like, goats and horses and Tim Curry in Legend).  This has been a lesson in poor parenting.  Last week the Big Yam was waking up crying in the middle of the night so we brought him into our bed for a bunch of what we call "Sleep Away Camp" and I was kind of stressing because I thought he was just getting into the habit of it and didn't want to sleep in his own bed.  THEN he got this weird speckly rash on his butt.  THEN he had pretty bad cold symptoms (cough and runny nose) and he probably had a fever but we didn't check because we're the worst.  THEN he complained about having a "boo boo mouth" but I totally told him he was faking.

BEST MAMA EVER.  LOL!  So the worst.  On Friday, when I discovered I had FIVE cankers in my mouth, I naturally assumed that I had mouth cancer and hypochondriac me was already tearing up thinking of the Dotytron raising the Big Yam alone and how I was going to control their lives from heaven or hell.  Then I realized I'd had a stressful week (I had a job interview on Tuesday for a job I REALLY REALLY REALLY want but so does like, everyone in Canada and will most likely not get, meaning this will be my 3rd consecutive failed job interview) so that was probably it, but I was still like, that's kind cray because I usually handle stress well.  I also started getting weird blisters on my feet so I was like, "I should stop wearing stockings and kicks."  Anyway, I dragged Dr. Rei EVERYWHERE on Friday during lunch looking for Listerine to gargle with which burned the hell out of my mouth and gave me temporary relief.

Then on Friday night we had S & P over for dinner and suddenly I got these pin-prick blisters on the palms of my hands and more blisters on my feet so I started freaking out.  I went to the walk-in clinic that my doctor's office holds for patients (by the way: super hooray for the Family Health Team model, province of Ontario!) and the doctor was like, 100% hand foot and mouth.  By the way, at this point, my tongue is like 30% ulcerated and I'm in constant pain and talk like I'm brushing my teeth all the time.  The good news is: the virus clears up by itself in about a week.  The bad news is: there's not a lot they can give you for the fact that your mouth is on fire.  She told me about this juju Doctor's Book of Home Remedies bulls**t that consists of rinsing your mouth with equal parts Benadryl and milk of magnesia but that barely works.

In summary, my kid had hand, foot, and mouth and we did the following:

a) ignored him
b) told him he was faking
c) stressed about how we were going to "wean" him off of his only source of comfort (Sleep Away Camp)
d) sent him to daycare

BEST!  Apparently only kids and babies get this virus but occasionally it makes the jump to immune compromised adult humans (so in addition to not getting the job, the stress from the interview gave me s**t mouth, great).

I spent the weekend starting The Vampire Diaries which is pretty bad but also good because it features the signature teenaged Karl-Lagerfeld plot bait that is "the-bad-guy-who-falls-in-love-with-the-heroine-and-is-somewhat-but-not-fully-reformed-of-his-sexy-brooding-misunderstood-badness" (see: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, EVERY HARLEQUIN ROMANCE EVER).

Then on Sunday we went to Canadian Tire to pick up Christmas lights for the front of Lil' Ugmo and I basically had a melt down and LEFT before paying to sit in the car in fulminating, sullen, tear-filled silence while the Dotytron paid for the purchases with the Big Yam.  Here is the context: EVERY YEAR the Dotytron complains about how we don't have a plan for our lights and how he doesn't like them.  Every year, I've put them up.  So this year I was like, let's do it up proper.  We go, and the Dotytron did this thing that he does where he gets all weird and super-unhappy about shopping for anything that's not a pick-up for his Tele or like, vintage records, and was all abdicating responsibility for the decision-making and I got super-frustrated and then gave up and had a meltdown which resulted in: leaving the Big Yam and the Dotytron in line to pay for our purchases to sit in stony silence in the car, followed by tears and lots of f-bombs at the house.  IT WAS CLASSIC HOLIDAY SEASON ME.  BUT ALSO CLASSIC HOLIDAY SEASON DOTYTRON.  Because I'm the one dealing with both families and making sure that people get presents and making sure that things get made for his family's various holiday potlucks and also getting stuff for the Big Yam and making sure that he gets a special holiday.  So yeah.  All the equality stuff I was rhapsodizing about in the previous post goes out the windows during the holidays through a combination of: being a psycho, lack of delegating, lack of communication, and internalized martyrdom.  Anyway, in order to mitigate that stuff I'm going to put him in charge of contributing something for the Doty family Christmas.  And otherwise delegate stuff out so that I'm not the only one responsible for the MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS.  I hate myself for even talking about that right now.

Related: I find it weird when grown adults get amped about presents.  I just can't wrap my head around it.  It's so not me.  I'm of the school where if you want something, you go out and get it your own damn self.  I guess there is the case to be made for stuff that you want but will never get for yourself?  But I dunno...all the things I want, I'll get.  The notable exception being: one of these head massager thingies

which totally feel amazing and that I totally want but can never justify getting for some reason.  Although last Friday while I was dragging Dr. Rei around everywhere, she was like, "It's $5. TREAT YO' SELF."  So I did.  See how simple that process was?  I get that it's one thing when someone sees something in some Moroccan bazaar that is PERFECT for that other person and that other person is never going to be there to get it themselves and so they buy it as a present.  I totally get that.  Or when it's motivated by you seeing something thoughtful and going and grabbing it in the moment.  I just don't like the whole, birthday and Xmas need to produce manufactured pressure.  I just took a look at my own list of "stuff I want" and yup, I plan on getting all that stuff someday.  I'm trying to think of what I would want someone to secretly surprise me with and I can't think of a single g-d thing.  What can I say, I'm a self-reliant, endlessly practical person.  

I served P & S this gorgeous pork & poblano stew from the slow cooker - we destroyed it.  I served it with salsas, corn chips, and shredded cabbage.  There was supposed to be avocado too, but stupid Chinatown bargain basement avocadoes were mad bargain basement.  

For dessert: coconut tres leches.

Saturday night's dinner was similarly divine (though it doesn't look like much). Turkey tetrazzini - turkey and egg noodles and mushrooms with leftover gravy-jumped bechamel and leftover brussels sprouts folded in, baked with a crispy panko topping.  Casserole love!  

Served with bacon roasted carrots and parsnips.

Last night's dinner was inspired by April Bloomfield's cookbook, A Girl and Her Pig.  I made us ribeye with chimichurri, roasted broccoli with lemon & garlic, duck fat roasted potatoes (!!!!!) and sautéed mushrooms.

Tonight I get to dine with SMckay!

Fin.

Bad news cycle.

Catching up on the news post-weekend is depressing stuff. Anne Hathaway survived on dried oatmeal cakes to lose 25 lbs for Les Misérables? Worst.  Petraeus carrying on an affair like a n00b?  So dumb.  The fiscal cliff? Depressing.  The on-going miasma of misinformation surrounding teacher negotiations in Ontario? Grim.    The spate of sexual assaults in the GTA? Appalling.

I got into a Twitter convo with L'Armi about the Petraeus thing.  He's all like, "who cares if he had an affair?" and I'm like, yeah, I get that.  I certainly never care who is panking who and when.  That's private business, yo.  What I do have problems with are people who carry a great deal of responsibility acting like n00bs.  In this case, they were both giant dum-dums about it.  It's like Adam Giambrone with the affair that cost him his mayoral candidacy.

Dr. Rei and Hanbo hangs last night meant that we had several depressing conversations about microfinance, charity work, the province, cronyism, and how to solve everything, punctuated by interruptions from the Big Yam screaming and doing the thing he does when people come over, which is to run from couch to couch and slam himself face down, while yelling, "HUPPAH!" (or something like it.)  We had dinner courtesy of the Burger's Priest and it was a nice end to what had been a little bit of a trying day with a sick Big Yam.  There was lots of whining and indecisiveness and clinging to my pants' legs (I hate hate hate the feel of hands tugging on my pants' legs!) resulting in me finally throwing up my hands and deciding that 2 episodes of My Big Big Friend is what the doctor ordered, followed by a long, cozy couch nap for the two of us.  I did manage to get a few things done - laundry (I'm engaged in the fruitless and self-defeating pursuit of a house of empty hampers), fig pinwheel cookies, Mona's Mother's Mother's Favorite cookies, some knitting, a curried acorn squash soup for tomorrow and...

...a completed Advent Calendar!  Here it is, after the first of what will probably be many, many trips to the iron, hanging on our downstairs bannister.  Ta-da!  In my folly, I opted for linen, so it has beautiful drape but will wrinkle if you look at it funny.  I stencilled the numbers on the pockets with a Marta Stewart-by-way-of-Michael's typewriter stencil kit and black acrylic paint, and then sewed the pockets and the velcro straps with red thread.  It wasn't the hardest project, but not the easiest, especially since I was doing everything off an Excel spreadsheet-for-graph-paper and crayon-on-sketchpad schematic.  But it's done and it's ready to go for December 1st and I am happy about it.  It will have pride of place alongside my other holiday crafts like the GIANT QUILTED TREE SKIRT OF DOOM.

Here is a shot of my chocolate babka.  As you know, I am a dyed-in-the-wool believer in the culinary and restorative wisdom of Jewish grandmothers, and I'm considering adding chocolate babka, toasted and buttered with salted butter, to my arsenal of sickness or sucky baby fighters.  Let me tell you: there is no better snack in the world than toasted, buttered, babka.  Sweet, rich, tender dough folded around layers of bittersweet chocolate.  This recipe has been my go-to, but I'm dying to have a crack at this one.  A freezer full of babka is good insurance, I think, for most if not all of life's ills.

On Saturday we went to R & R's baby shower, which was held at the Mandarin.  Smartest move, ever.  Best shower location, ever.  I haven't been to a Mandarin in about 20 years.  It's like I never left.  So, so good!!!  I had the misfortune to sit next to a female body builder.  I'll let you guess whose plate belongs to who up there.  

Sunday night we had our 11 year (!!!!!) anniversary dinner at Guu Saka bar and brought along my sis and outlaw bro for the ride (outlaw bro has never been to Guu).  For the record: I had made us reservations at Woodlot, less you accuse me of never wanting to eat at a non-Guu establishment.  

 Friday night's dinner - latkes, panko-breaded chicken thighs with sweet chili dipping sauce, and sauteed sprouts.

Tonight for dinner we had spaghetti with a spicy shrimp scampi sauce and a salad of baby dancine lettuce, radicchio, and roasted beets tossed with buttermilk chive dressing jumped up with fresh grated horseradish.

I spent about 2 hours tonight putting up that shelf up there and my $10 junk store mirror.  THAT MIRROR ONLY COST TEN DOLLARS, Y'ALL (that was a Tami Taylor "y'all" in case you were wondering).  BEST!  I'm sooo happy and all the mucking around with drills and masonry bits and anchors and Tapscon screws was worth it.  I'm not 100% happy with the vignette but that will be a work in progress.  In the meantime: landing strip happiness!!!

I have been reading up a storm lately.  Rebel Angels is the follow up to Libba Bray's New York Times' Bestselling, A Great and Terrible Beauty, which I read ages ago.  At the time, I found it a good enough read but wasn't compelled to follow through.  I'm still on the fence about it.  I like it enough and it is deliciously creepy with it's Victorian setting and covens of witches and the like, but I'm not completely on board with the protagonist and her coterie of friends.  I think that's my problem though.  It's almost like I want the protagonist to smarten up and make the same decisions I would, but that's impossible and unrealistic and while it might be personally validating, doesn't necessarily make for good fiction.  I recommended it heartily to Dr. Rei because she loves 3 things that are well represented in this series: boarding schools, Victorian-era England, and magic/witches.  We'll see how she reports back.

Next up was The Age of Miracles.  This novel has been getting good buzz and good reviews.  It's told from the perspective of a 12 year old girl living in California with her parents.  One day, scientists start to notice that the world is spinning slower on its axis, making days and nights longer and longer.  The book chronicles the first year or so after the "slowing" and the impact this has on the girl, her parents, her community, and the world at large.  The voice of the narrator is perfect - talk about food shortages and the sleep deprivation and blistering UV sun from 72 hour "days" is told with the particularly flat, matter-of-fact, incapable-of-understanding-the-magnitude detachment of a 12 year old.  What is also good about this book is how it shows how rather than dissolving into instant chaos and looting and rioting, the world continues on - there are  boys to crush after and bus stop indignities to endure, yet.  There are the fractures in her parents marriage that either existed before unseen or were brought about by the slowing.  There are the social and economic effects on countries and cities that happen slowly.  And there is the great unknown of the future - the questions that are always with us but are usually kept at bay by our blissful ignorance of the tenuousness of it all, our faith that tomorrow will be like today.  Again, I didn't love this, but being the doomsday prepper/apocalypse obsessed nutjob that I am, it did give me SOMETHING NEW TO WORRY ABOUT.  I contemplated tweeting Neil deGrasse Tyson to find out how likely a similar scenario would be in real life.  I still might.  Again, the detached voice of the narrator made it difficult to feel connected to the text and to her. I'm starting to realize that I like idealized teen narrators.  I want you to be exceptional!!!  

I most recently finished Nell Freudenberger's The Newlyweds.  Another much-lauded recent hardcover.  From Bangladesh, Amina and her doting, complicated parents pin their hopes for their future on the marriage she has arranged with George in Rochester, who she meets on an online dating site geared towards east Asians and their North American suitors.  This is a sweet, quiet little story about two people moving across nations to be together and carrying with them the baggage, desires, and secrets of two people moving across the world to be together.  The title is so deliciously deliberate.  Who are we when we choose to marry another? Is the leap of faith between two high school sweethearts really any different than an online marriage between a Deshi Muslim woman and her engineer husband-to-be?  The writing is top notch - it is evocative without being showy, plain and still but revealing and imminently readable.  I loved the tone that Freudenberger struck and her astute eye for the details - both in Rochester (and how thrilling it was to hear reference to places in the Rochester area that I knew and had even stepped foot in!) and in Bangladesh.  At it's heart, this is a love story, though an unexpected one.  It's also about faith and hope and the disconnection between the developed and developing worlds, who are at once so very far apart and not so different after all.  I quite liked this novel and would recommend it.

Fin.

holiday buckfest

has officially begun in earnest.

this weekend was intensity in ten cities. friday was a relatively low key evening, with my definition of low key involving pumping out 96 mini red velvet cupcakes, an angel food cake (which was a total, dense, non-angelic gummy bust - it's okay because i only did it to use up 8 egg whites i had in the fridge) and dinner, which happened to be AMAZING! i had frozen some leftover pork shoulder carnitas (pork shoulder braised in milk and orange and oregano until it falls apart, then you fry up the meat in lard so it gets crispy) from a dinner with J & S & L ages ago (pre-master T). i cut up some potatoes and fried them with the carnitas and made tostadas (i fried corn tortillas until crispy) and then topped it with thinned sour cream, diced avocado, salsa, and shredded iceberg lettuce. they were DELICIOUS:

here are the mini red velvet cupcakes:


saturday was mental. i spent an hour or so power shopping in babies r us and joe for little gifties for friend's kids and then the dotytron picked me up, we cleaned house, had a visit from uncle avi:

then got our shiz together to go to a supper club friendsgiving at our friend's B & G's house. look at this table and the spread - it's straight out of a vermont postcard:


so our hosts made the turkey, gravy, brussels sprouts, and roasted parsnips, as well as a DELICIOUS chestnut breadcrumb stuffing. L & B brought a broccoli salad, P & R made mashed potatoes, and L made little french haricot verts bundles tied up in chives, served with a shallot vinaigrette. i made a sweet potato pecan pie, which to my chagrin, we didn't get a chance to eat, because we had to leave early to catch uncle avi's second set at pero lounge.

this is master T with his buddy baby D. baby D's mom fakes like she's all negligent mom, but in fact, is like, mom superstar. we were talking about smells and somehow lavender came up, and she was like, "oh D loves the smell of lavender, i give him a massage after his daily bath with this lavender lotion and he loves it" and i looked at poor master T and i was like, "awkward."

this is what went down in terms of master T's grooming before we left the house. so, i thought i was kind of being awesome implementing an every 3rd day bath. for some reason, bathing the baby seems like a major ordeal for me and the dotytron, even though it literally takes like 15 minutes. so for some reason we're always putting it off, until i finally decided that every 3 days was a reasonable schedule. my other less lazy-induced rationale is that babies don't need to get bathed all that often, and that i don't want him drying out (i was born with pretty sensitive skin.) ANYWAY, so he was due for a bath on friday night, but somehow the night got away from us and he was being an a**hole about taking the bottle so we ended up skipping it. saturday morning i could see that his head was getting greazy with a capital Z (like, the hairs on his head were all delineated in oily clusters) so i said to the dotytron, "we HAVE to bathe him before we go out tonight!" and then somehow the afternoon/evening got away from us and before we knew it, we were already running late for dinner, and i was wailing, "what are we going to do?!???" and the dotytron comes in and says, "okay. how about we give him a hungarian - i'll soap up a washcloth and we'll wash his head and face and then i'll get another wet washcloth to soak up the soap" and i was like, "done!"

so while baby D's mom is fretting over her parenting skills and giving her baby the full daily spa treatment, me and the dotytron are like, letting our baby fester in his own filth and then, when push comes to shove, FAKE BATHING our baby and just basically giving him a head wash to make him semi-presentable. worst. parents. ever.

the good news is that i spent a bajillion dollars on all kinds of bottles and he seems to have gotten over his rejection. of course he loves the super expensive "tommee tippee" (i know. i didn't come up with the name!) bottle that's like, super high tech and looks insane and takes up all the available cupboard room:

so buck. but at least he loves it more than life itself. so we're over that little hiccup, and i can go out to eat and watch movies and leave him with grandparents. woo!

so we had to leave friendsgiving early to catch uncle avi's show. baby's first jazz gig! it was cute. we caught up with a lot of the dotytron's old crew. also, uncle avi's last tune of the night, he called out, "is thelonious in the house?" and then launched into "blue monk" by theolonious monk, which was really sweet:

of course, we didn't get home until 1am and then we had to get up super early the next morning for dotytron family xmas party in oakville.

i dutifully ordered a nice, white-person fancy outfit for master T for his first dotytron family xmas party and of course, once we get him into it, the dotytron turns to me and says, "you know, if we just button the top button he'll look like a latin gangster" so that's what we did:

i call this look, "blood in, blood out" or vatos locos forever!

dotytron family xmas was buck...so much food! i ate a billion deviled eggs and crock pot meat balls and stuffed myself with shortbread. then we came home and had a massive family nap. and then we decided to take over momma and poppa d's house so we hustled into the car in our pajamas and took over their living room with their big screen tv.

now we're trying to get back to semi-normal life. i'm supposed to be researching my term end paper but instead i've got a cold and am feeling mad logey. the little boobla has picked it up and spend all night miserable and snuffly. we finally woke up at 4am and ran the shower on maximum heat for 20 minutes and let him schvitz in the bathroom to help him decongest. we're getting a humidifier for his room today and some eucalyptus oil that we can drip into the shower to help him clear the passageways some more. yay for hippie parenting! everyone thinks i'm psycho because i'm also making my own diaper wipe solution. i have to say though, so far, he's been spared diaper rash and i think the cloth diaper/homemade wipes combo works!

it is SO NICE to be off with the dotytron!!! i'm so excited already for march break and the summer - it's amazing to have the both of us off with the bambino. anyway, today i'm going to try to get a leg up on my non-thinking to do list (aka baking my family's xmas dessert, working on master T's xmas stocking). this might sound like procrastination to you. to which i say, "change of subject. i don't got to tell you s**t."

fin.

little big cuz

has arrived! markus, the gentle giant, showed up as scheduled on monday, weighing in at a whopping 9lb 1oz, he outweighed master T by about almost 3/4 of a lb. he's got a really chubalub, wide noggin, but he looks very cute and smushable.

i'm going out of my mind wanting to visit my sis like, yesterday. gah! i can't wait! we're hopefully going down to the ol' geneseo the first weekend in december, if all goes according to plan.

not much to report here, lately. i have to bring the boobla into the midwives today for a visit that's going to result in major dramas. when babies are born they have their feet pricked to get blood for a series of metabolic tests that are mandated by the government (i think). checking for thyroid issues, etc. anyway, we had it done at the hospital but the lab just called and said they got insufficient amounts of blood!!! so now the little guy has to go in and get his foot pricked again. he's also started doing this thing where he cries himself hoarse if he's upset and we're not giving him what he wants. such dramas!!! luckily for us, the boobla has kind of a low voice. so it's not as brain-melting as other newborn cries. the roomie noticed it, too - and she sees a s**t f**k load more babies than i do, so i know now it wasn't all in my head. anyway, low voice is a blessing because he's been a bit of a fussy bo bussy lately.

last night was supposed to be my triumphant return to the wednesday night class...but i ditched and used the boobla as an excuse. heehee. i just felt that staying home and working on my paper on constitutional barriers to senate reform would be a much more quality use of my time. so instead of course, i procrastinated by working on a kitchen design in ikea. which i then accidentally ERASED like a loser. so frustrating.

dinner on monday was whole wheat fusilli with pancetta, fennel, onions, and grated parm, which we had with caesar salad:

tuesday night we had a freezer treasure meal of cabbage rolls, with my new favorite winter salad - caramelized pears, endive, dried cranberries, and toasted walnuts in a maple-mustard vinaigrette:

last night for dinner i made a semolina gnocchi gratin and topped it with a spinach, swiss chard, and mushroom gorgonzola ragout - freakin' hella tasty. the semolina gnocchi came together in about 10 minutes, too:

i'll post the recipe for it at the bottom.

i'm feeling very overwhelmed by the rapidly approaching holiday season right now. we haven't even finished planting all our spring bulbs yet! and we haven't raked any leaves. every time we set out to do it, we put it off, and then it rains and gets bitterly cold. rain + bitter cold are not conducive conditions for leaf wrangling. we have to put up our lights and get a tree and trim said tree and our weekends are RAMMED! i feel like we don't have a free moment, let alone finding time to carve out to write 2 assignments, 1 research paper proposal, a research paper presentation, AND the research paper itself. ugh. i just made myself sick to the stomach. i've only got one batch of cookie dough balled up and ready to go in the freezer - i've got to do a lot more. i keep reminding myself that it'll be easier this year because i'm not working, but being chained to the boob and watching after the little guy IS work and it's harder work, too. it's non-stop! at least with my job, when i come home, i leave work there. i don't have work following me around and screaming its guts out.

we've started on the cloth diapers. so far, so good. we had a bit of a learning curve with learning the right fold to avoid a**plosions, but it seems to be working okay. because the cloth doesn't wick away the moisture and because master T sleeps long hours at night and we don't want him a) stewing in his own urine/feces and b) waking up because of said stewing; we're doing disposables at night. i've heard that things become considerably more crazy once they start eating solid food. the breast milk poops are like nothing, really.

i better get down to business. tonight i'm supposed to meet up with H and baby D to check out the leslieville holiday wanderlust. basically, a bunch of the shops on queen east offer deals and have special promotions and throw open their doors and serve mulled apple cider and have fun stuff for you to check out. i think it should be really fun.

next blog post should feature some book reviews and hopefully more progress made on my schooling. *gulp*

fin.

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

semolina gnocchi gratin

serves 2

2 c. milk (or a mix of milk and water)
1 t. salt
1/2 c. semolina
1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
2 T. unsalted butter

- bring milk, salt, and semolina to a boil in a medium saucepan. reduce heat and whisk/stir semolina until it becomes quite thick, about 5 minutes on medium-low.
- pour the semolina mixture into a greased 8" square baking pan and put it in the fridge to cool and firm up (about 1 hour)
- invert the baking pan and cut the semolina cake into squares (i used a round cutter just to be fancy)
- lay the squares in a buttered gratin dish, overlapping slightly
- sprinkle with the grated parm and dot with the butter
- bake it in a 425F oven for about 30 minutes or until the top is nicely golden brown.

this makes a great base for a lot of different things. you could do the veggie ragout route like i did, but it would also be tasty as a base for a bolognese, or any thick meat sauce, or as a side for grilled meats or a braise like osso buco. to make a semolina gnocchi souffle, i would add about 2 eggs to the semolina mixture, just after it thickens in the pot and before you pour it into the baking pan. the eggs should make the semolina puff up a bit.
- butter a shallow gratin dish