Break

I'm finally feeling like myself again.  It took a while to get here.  I was a ball of anxiety and nerves and stress and an extra-long weekend was what I needed to refocus.

It's been an intense week!  Last Wednesday we hosted my sister's kids and my mum for dinner.  The Big Yam was half out of mind with excitement at seeing his cousins.  We played Pie Face, which is a totally sadistic, gussied up version of Russian Roulette, with whipped cream instead of bullets.  You can play with a wet sponge (which the Big Yam prefers), but my sister's kids being the sugar hounds that they are, they went with whipped cream:

Thursday I took the twins to the indoor trampoline place during the day, and visited with the Roomie, then we had Dr. Rei and Hanbo and Zoony over and it was the best, obviously.  The best moments where when Dr. Rei mentioned getting Zoony sunglasses and I asked whether she got the "kind that have the strap that goes around the kid's head" and she was so offended that I asked her (with just cause, Baby Banz - pictured below - are horrendous).  LOL!  It was amazing.  She was so mad at me for 1) suggesting that she would buy them, and 2) implying that even if she did get them, they weren't the most horrendous thing you've ever seen.  Seriously, check them out.  They're THE WORST.  Only the worst people put Baby Banz on their kids.  We were also trash-talking Minions until Hanbo interjected with, "Uh, guys, Zoony kinda loves Minions," and we look over and Baby Zoony is standing enthralled by Minions in front of our TV, and pointing and saying, "owl."  So cute.

Friday we took the kids to Jamie Bell Adventure Playground again, except this time it was a skating rink.  Then we looked at the sad animals at the High Park Zoo (v. sad), and then took the kids to Kinton Ramen.  Except THIS time, the Kinton location we picked didn't even have proper chairs, or bench seating - they just have those blocky wooden stools.  Stools are NOT great for kids, but somehow, it turned out to be the best iteration of ramen en famille we'd ever attempted.  Pros: empty restaurant, I now roll around with little pucks of Play Doh in the diaper bag, we ordered the right stuff (turns out, Twin B loves ramen).  It was great.  We even jinxed it halfway by saying, "This might be the most successful restaurant outing ever) midway through the meal.

Then, the most epic thing happened on the way home.  I turned around and Twin A had Dizzy Gillespie cheeks and his mouth was all pursed closed and his eyes were watery and there was suspicious stuff around his mouth and I was like, "Oh s**t, he barfed!  In his mouth!" I frantically looked around and luckily we had an empty cardboard coffee cup and I twisted it around and held it under his mouth and told him to spit and he took his little wisp of a hand and pushed the cup away and shook his head.  I gave him a tissue and told him to wipe his mouth and he took it and wiped his lips but otherwise, held the barf in his mouth for the entire ride home (about 10 minutes)  until we got home and convinced him to spit it in the street.  It was epic.  Near the end, the Dotytron and I looked at each other and shook our heads in disbelief and the Dotytron said, "he is a better man than I."  Truer words have never been spoken.

This pic came home with the Big Yam the other day from school.  I feel like it's kind of passive aggressive???

After that adventure, we went to La Carnita with my sister and mum and C-Hova and Aunt Viv and then came back and ate cake.

Classic "Happy Birthday" spacing issues.  Shoutout to John Mulaney's standup special for reminding us all of Happy Birthday card-making spacing issues that befall us all.

Snapchat (or, "Snap-chap" as Twin B calls it) is proving very popular with the younger generation.

THEN SMckay showed up and our Discerning Coyote friend and we went to the SURPRISE PRINCE SHOW.

SO EPIC.

SMckay nailed the ticket getting.  I didn't know anything about the show before I agreed to go, only that it was a surprise show at the Sony Centre.  When the Dotytron informed me that it was an intimate show with just Prince and a piano, I was a little worried that with tickets to the 10pm show, I was on a fast-track to the most expensive nap I've ever taken.  I was wrong.  SO SO WRONG.  Prince shows are pure vibes.  Prince fans are the most beautiful mix of multiracial people - it's like going to Shondaland.  He is such a charismatic little miniature pony - he was in such a playful mood.  Stripped of the production, the power and craft of the songwriting shone through.  It was incredible.  I'm so glad I got to go.

This is actually a big month for me, concert-wise.  I went to Prince, I'm seeing Pusha T on Saturday, and then RiRi with Dr. Rei.  The freedom and socializing we're doing because the kids are all at an age where they're pretty manageable by a sitter is definitely mitigating my baby-craziness.  

Saturday I took the kids to meet my family for lunch and then we came home and went swimming at the Regent Park Aquatic Centre.  It was fantastic, although very, very crowded, and as always, Twin B continues to be a maniac.  He climbs up on the ledge and will basically cannonball into the pool without checking to see if anyone is there to catch him, frequently jumping ON TOP of other swimmers.  He could *just* keep his head above water by bouncing on his tippiest toes and then proceeded to push us away saying he could do it "hisself."  The Dotytron followed behind him as he walked down a ramp (Twin B couldn't see the Dotytron) just to see if at some point, maybe when the water was over his head, if he would get freaked out.  Nothing.  Nada.  When it got so deep, he just grabbed the railing, hooked his legs around, and just held on.  His confidence and level of entitlement is next level.

Twin A's face was basically like that, ALL MORNING.

We hosted my family for dinner and then they packed up and left.  The next morning was the annual street Easter Egg hunt, where I learned a few things: 1) my kids are terrible at Easter Egg hunting.  So slow and laid back.  2) Twin A woke up on the wrong side of the bed.  He doesn't get mad often, but when he does...it lasts nigh on the whole day.  He basically spent two hours inside our porch, pouting, radiating misery, and glowering everyone at our screen door, protesting until he could go back in the house.  He's having a bit of a time right now with tantrums and being in a snit and inconsolable for hours on end.  He has a way of wiping his eyes like a grown person massaging a migraine with one hand, that is very hilarious.

Easter is one of those fake holidays that I just can't do.  Some people do the hunt inside and then an auxiliary hunt outside and I just can't.  I also can't with hyping my kids up on the Easter Bunny.  Some people also treat Easter like it's second Christmas (which, I guess it is?  For Christians?) with legit presents and stuff and I don't see myself going there, either.  A simple hunt, some chocolate, and that's all I really have the mental energy and wherewithal for.

Sunday dinner we had at Momma D's house.  We were eating dinner, and I announced to the twins, "You know who's wearing underwear now and goes poop and pee on the potty? Jack." At which point, Twin B drops his fork, drops his hand palm-down on the table, slouches back dramatically in his chair, presses his head against the chair back, exhales mightily, and says in a deadpan, flat voice, "I hate Jack."  lolololol!  It was so funny.

Finally, Monday was a day of semi-rest.  The Dotytron and I took the morning to go eat ramen (he's on a HUGE ramen kick lately), then we had the Big Yam's friend over, then we hosted the Roomie and L'Armi and their kids.  It was epic.

Tuesday was the Annual General Meeting for that non-profit I volunteer on.  I was nominated to the Board of Directors!  The past two nights were proper nights off, and then it starts up all over again today.

This weekend is PACKED.  

Friday night: dinner at the Discerning Coyote's house

Saturday: Brunch at JJ's, Pusha T for me, Record Club for the Dotytron

Sunday: Supper club

After this we need to take it easy for a bit, methinks.

Fin.

On raising a weirdo

or, potentially, weirdoes.

The Big Yam last week: "Sometimes at school, my brain shows me pictures from last year, and I don't want to see them, but they go wherever my face goes."

Me and the Dotytron: "What."

LOL.  This kid, man.  This kid, who comes home from school periodically and will say stuff like, "I didn't play with anyone.  No one wanted to play with me," and then I drop him off at school and everyone's like, "BIG YAM!!!"  "Over here!!!" and I ask him, "Who is that?" and he's like, *shrugs* "I don't know."  He's such a little weirdo.  Such a clueless, lost-in-his-own-world weirdo sometimes. I find it very believable that he might be so immersed in his own world of play that he ignores kids trying to play with him.

When I came back from my trip, the Big Yam spent the weekend punishing me for leaving by being a giant beast.  Screaming, disobedient, obstructionist, difficult to the extreme and basically the worst version of himself, which in turn, made me the worst version of myself.  This Maclean's article on "The Collapse of Parenting" had already made the rounds and we had already fielded significant looks from our respective mothers about our "parenting" (or perceived lack thereof).  I ended up listening to this guy on the CBC and that Maclean's article is pretty terrible in the way it misrepresents him.  First of all, I'm not sure he's entirely qualified to talk about it, being a family physician (and psychologist, but whatevers) and second of all, the approach that he espoused on the radio was "strict but loving" which is what the Dotytron and I generally aspire to, and have actually been told we're more on the strict end of the spectrum.  This guy's approach seemed to come back to common sense stuff - like, putting the family back at the centre (don't overschedule your kids), limit activities, eat dinner together, not everything is a consensus, etc., etc.  We've heard it all before, and yet...sometimes it feels like nothing is working!

That weekend when I came back from my week away wasn't great, I'm not gonna lie.  I ended up screaming my face off and hauling the Big Yam's butt upstairs and dumping him on his bed when he was screaming at me and hitting me in the face (which is no easy task because he's pretty much 7/9ths my size at this point) and I also stuck him in the basement bathroom with the lights off (he can reach the lights but was too busy losing his s**t to remember that) when I caught him kicking Lindsay in the head.  At the same time, I tried the progressive discipline thing, I tried mirroring back his feelings, I gave him opportunities to express himself in a more constructive way, but at a certain point, after 15 minutes of this in a grocery store when your kid is sitting on the floor and freaking out, there is a point where you have to hiss at them that they are embarrassing themselves in front of everyone.  Or is there?  I dunno.  I'm just trying to muddle my way through!  What would YOU do?

Shortly after, we ended up having another bad weekend where the Dotytron and I were both stressed from work and brought it home and just weren't up for 15 minutes of variations on, "I know you're mad, but your behaviour is inappropriate, if you want to go up to your room and scream there, you can and come back when you're ready to talk..." and we both snapped more than a few times.  That night, I resurrected the "fireside chat" model, and I had a talk with him, starting with apologizing for raising my voice.  The worst part?  When he said that: "When you scream at me it makes me more mad and I can't stop being mad."  Way to cut to the heart of me, Baxter.  So we talked about how screaming is not an appropriate response to being mad and that if he does want to scream, he can do it in his room and we'll give him one warning and then if he still screams we'll take him up to his room but we won't be mad when we do it, etc.  I think we might have gotten through?  Who knows.  It was definitely worthwhile to have the conversation just to be reminded that my losing control was feeding into his loop of losing control and it wasn't helping anyone.  Things have been better since the chat, but he's still an emotionally volatile weirdo.  Not sure there's anything that can be done about that.

I also take solace in JJ telling me that she heard from a psychologist that some kids need to be yelled at because it kind of snaps them out of their inward cycle.  It's the equivalent of a bucket of cold water to the head.  All justifications aside, the fact that my kid could self-identify the effects of us raising our voices is enough incentive to make adjustments to the way we handle outbursts.

It's just not very easy, this whole, raising people thing.  Making sure you're strict but loving and you preserve their weirdness but also allow them to buck convention.  Imagine if your kids end up basic? How often do you think that happens?

The twins are at the stage where they have cottoned on to how boss it is to sleep in your parents' bed and actively campaign for it, every night.  Twin B will go from punching me in the face and then laughing uproariously and otherwise being a complete and utter maniac and then at night, he's the softest, sweetest little bag of smushes - it's like all the fight just exhales on a breath at night.  He insists on having us lie next to him on his floor mattress, and then he turns to face you, throws an arm around your neck to pull you in close, and then presses his face against yours.

On to other weirdoes.  Am **I** a weirdo for feeling the hots for Zayn Malik?  Or, a 2016-Grammys version of Justin Bieber? The one with the voice of an angel and who was part of a hype-inducing Jack U performance at the Grammys?

I'm just already getting excited for an EDM show this summer, and I just don't care who knows it.  Being able to party with my brother who is 10 year's younger and his girlfriend and get messy to top 40 EDM is a pretty fun outlet for my pent-up dancing desires.

This weekend was kind of insanely busy - I loved every minute of everything, but I could have used a touch more downtime.  Friday was the Big Yam's parent-teacher interview and then I did a million errands and then took the Big Yam to a skating session with his homie.  The good thing is that I learned that I'm actually NOT a terrible skater.  I can do it.  I just get shook and too much in my own head.  This time was way better.  Saturday we had another Big Yam homie over, then we packed up and visited friends in KW and then came home and hosted another group of the Dotytron's musician friends.  One of whom had just finished treatment for Hodgkins.  Can you imagine?  I can't.  It takes my breath away.  I can't imagine how scared and scarred and freaked out I would be.  This is happening now.  You read stories of people your own age who are getting cancer and some of them make it and some of them don't, and while it's rare, it's not freakishly rare.  We are moving into that cohort.  We are not young anymore.

That digression notwithstanding (if you want more catch-your-breath-at-your-own-mortality material, read this stunning article in the Guardian), it was actually a great hang.  One of my god-Dotytrons was there.  He's a ginger, which I never thought would be appealing, but him and Domhnall Gleason are turning me around.

Saturday we took the kids swimming, where we learned conclusively that Twin B has NEGATIVE instinct for survival/self-preservation.  There was a ramp into the pool and he would RUN across the deck and then start trotting down the ramp, his eyes alight and his mouth open in big, belly-chuckling glee, even as the water is coming up over his head.  He will no-look jump into the pool and just trust that everything will turn out alright.  It's terrifying.  We spent Saturday and Sunday with my family, doing a delayed Xmas and then came back on Sunday, did a quick tidy of the house, and then hosted our favorite non-blood family, the Dr. Rei-Hans.  I couldn't think of a better way to spend my Family Day then sitting in the basement playing Super Mario Brothers with those guys.  My heart was filled to the brim with love this weekend, even if the Dotytron and I did nothing to observe Valentine's Day, other than get into a heated exchange about whether Kendrick Lamar's first album was "commercial."  Ain't love grand?

Multiple, multiple, book reviews coming at you soontime!

Fin.

Giving Thanks

First, let's get the money shot out of the way:

Isn't she a beauty?  I got a 20lb bird and it still isn't big enough!  NO BIRD WILL EVER BE BIG ENOUGH!  I obviously need a larger roasting pan.  I want one of those large, short, squarish ones.  The one I have is fine for most roasts and things, but when it comes to feeding my family, where only an 8 rib prime rib will do, and a 20lb bird is the bare minimum you would consider, I need something much, much larger.  

Thanksgiving has taken on a whole new dimension in the last five years.  As you've been hearing me trumpet for the past 8 years (!) of this little space, it was already my favorite holiday.  Then, my beautiful, dearest, sweetest BFF married the dearest, sweetest, kindest guy on Thanksgiving weekend and I will remember always being there, so incredibly happy for those two, sing-shouting Africa by Toto at the top of my lungs and the Dotytron giving his best go at dancing with all the Iranian biddies.  Then, a year later, the Big Yam was born, and every year since then his birthday has fallen around Thanksgiving and I am so thankful to have his little butt in my life.  Parenting is a weird thing.  If the mirror that being in a long-term relationship reflects back at you is one of those department store dressing room types (detailed and unflattering enough to show all the bumps and ridges in your bod, but not poorly lit enough so that you can still emerge with a small shred of self-possession and ego intact), then the self you find in the mirror of parenting is one of those illuminated, magnifying mirrors on cosmetic counters.  Every flaw, every pore, every spot, every wrinkle, every errant hair blown up and exposed with the harshest, most flattening light.  I am tested and made better by him every day, even as I enact the patented, Karl Lagerfeld School of Dog-Training/Spirit Breaking style of discipline and coercement that makes up the foundation of my parenting praxis.  

I took last Thursday off from work to take him out on a special day.  Our only goal was to take every kind of TTC imaginable and take a Go Train and end up at Dr. Rei's house to visit her and baby A.  We took the Go Train to Long Branch (which is somehow still considered part of Toronto?!  How does that work) and then promptly turned around and headed right back.  He was THRILLED:  

Just so, so, so happy, the entire time.  He was pretty sweet at Dr. Rei's house and most of the weekend.  He remembered his manners, wanted to kiss baby A a bunch of times, and was just so kind, and loving, and curious, and the perfect amount of impish, that it was truly a pleasure hanging with him.  

Last year I started the tradition of asking him 20 questions on his birthday.  Here are last year's answers:

1. What is your favorite color?  Blue like my Thomas pajamas
2. What is your favorite toy?  My double decker bus (He made me rephrase the question as: “What’s your favorite vehicle?”
3. What is your favorite thing to eat? Sausage (as he was eating sausage for breakfast)
4. What is your favorite movie? Thomas movie
5. What is your favorite outfit to wear?  Blue shoes
6. What are your favorite animals? Who’s a farmer?The animals in Farmer’s Rick barn and a rooster came and I start to cry.
7. What does Mama do for work? Hmmm...
8. What does Baba do for work? I don’t know
9. What is your favorite book?  I don’t know either.  My favorite book is...play some trains and helicopters and trains and truck
10. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play Choo Choo
11. Who is your best friend? Mama / Tristan
12. What do you want to be when you grow up?  Here - I want to get beer
13. What's your favorite game to play?  Thomas
14. What's your favorite thing to do with Mama? Nothing.
15. What's your favorite thing to do with Baba?  Play
16. What's your favorite special treat?  chocolate
17. If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?  Poh Poh (Poh Poh’s house)
18. What makes you happy?  ...
19. What makes you sad?  ...
20. What makes you scared? ...  

And this year's:

1. What is your favorite color?  Blue
2. What is your favorite toy?  The Dragons - the dragon book with the dragon pieces
3. What is your favorite thing to eat? hot dogs and macaroni and pizza
4. What is your favorite movie? The Incredibles
5. What is your favorite outfit to wear?  The cape shirt
6. What are your favorite animals? Elephants
7. What does Mama do for work? You...brush your teeth
8. What does Baba do for work? He...he...he plays music
9. What is your favorite book?  The Incredibles Book
10. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Ride my bike
11. Who is your best friend? Chloe & Indi & Meredith
12. What do you want to be when you grow up?  Ummm...a superhero
13. What's your favorite game to play?  Tag
14. What's your favorite thing to do with Mama? Go to Auntie Rei’s house on a...on a...go on a Go train
15. What's your favorite thing to do with Baba?  Have a walk
16. What's your favorite special treat?  chocolate
17. If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?  To the CNE
18. What makes you happy?  When you don’t listen
19. What makes you sad?  When you say I can’t
20. What makes you scared?  Um...when it’s dark in caves.

I think some of the questions will have to change with time (like, eventually he'll figure out what I do for a living, besides brushing my teeth in preparation for work).  But he's becoming such a capable, responsible, sentient little person.  We bought a small jar of that soy-butter fake peanut butter stuff which is what he gets for school.  This morning he asked the Dotytron if he could have "some of the large parcel of peanut butter" (our regular peanut butter is in a Costco-sized jar).  I love that I co-created a 4 year old who uses the word "parcel"!  He also generally has his shiz together.  When the Dotytron was stressing about his readiness to start JK, he polled the other teachers in his school and they were like, "Does he eat his lunch? Does he bring back his lunch containers?  Yes?  He's golden!"  He puts away his dishes in the dishwasher, wipes up his place mat, is fairly responsible for feeding the cats and will get himself dressed and brush his teeth.  We are now working on bed-making and laundry sorting.

We continued the celebration on the actual day of his birthday by having dinner with Momma D, where he was thoroughly spoiled with very thoughtful, considerate, enriching gifts.  He continued to impress me by giving unprompted thank yous for every compliment, every birthday wish.  We decamped to Momma D's house all day because our basement, which was sold as "finished" but was actually a "little shop of horrors," was being demo'd and stripped down to the concrete.  

Pro tip: when you are hosting the next day and your basement doesn't have a door and is essentially open to the rest of the space, it might not be a good idea to do your demo the day before.  The "finish" was actually keeping a lock down on this unholy, dank, disgusting smell that I've only encountered in long-occupied, seldom-aired Hong Kong apartments occupied by people with questionable hygiene.  A tumid funk, if you will, that then INFECTED OUR WHOLE HOUSE.  It was kind of stressful.

We gave the place a proper cleaning and aired out the main floor and ran the exhaust and thankfully, by the time the bird was in the oven, the smell of Thanksgiving had triumphed over unwashed neglect.  IT WAS A THANKSGIVING MIRACLE!  

The visit with my sister and her family and my littlest bro was awesome.  I LOVED cooking Thanksgiving dinner in my new kitchen.  It was so effortless!  It was so painless!  It was so easy to clean up!  It made me excited for the arrival of the basement, when we'll have a whole other space where we could throw the kids down there and spread out some more.  

A shot from the Brickworks last Saturday.  We are planning on being giant nerds this weekend and going for a walk in the Don Valley and taking in the fall colours.

On our visit with Dr. Rei, we stopped by a new patisserie, The Tempered Room, in Parkdale.  I got a selection of pastries, and had a snacky, brioche type thing there.  The brioche was good, the pastries were kind of the grossest.  Clockwise from the top left we have: pumpkin tart, pomme caramel, and an eclair with nutella.  First of all: they were hella expensive, which I can accept, if the flavours are out of this world.  They were very, very small.  The nutella banana eclair was the best of the lot, but the other two were too fussy.  Each one had a flavour element that was put there I think to be progressive, but just ended up not marrying well with the overall flavour profile.  Like, the pumpkin tart had a truffled cream that was so overwhelmingly truffle (and keep in mind, I'm not a person who goes banana for truffle flavour), that it veered into a savoury dish, and one with a paste-y, almost mealy texture.  The apple thing was very pretty, but the classic combination of apple and caramel was totally thrown off by the black and white sesame seeds, which added an almost acrid, coffee-like bitterness to the dish.  I LOVE toasted sesame seed flavours, but I think that warm, roasted taste is best offset with classic, mild flavours (cream, vanilla).  The acidity of the apple didn't match well.  I wouldn't necessarily go back to that place.  

My pumpkin pie, which I've realized needs some tweaking.  It was considerably elevated by a drizzle of salted caramel sauce.

We've been eating well this week - Tuesday had my ex-bf over for dinner and had matzoh ball soup and these spinach-artichoke melts.  Wednesday we had this kale, squash, and bacon risotto.  Last night was my irie pumpkin stew with Jamaican-style rice'n'peas.

Tonight, I had the infinite wisdom to prep a pan of homemade nanaimo bars and am stupid excited for Swiss Chalet delivery.  It's the little things, folks.

Fin.

All Of The Lights

For the past 3 years my street has pooled resources and done fireworks in the park for Victoria Day.  This year, the woman who usually grabs them was away, so I did the organizing and volunteered to grab them from the fireworks store.  I can't remember what we spent last year per family, maybe $15?

I went to Kaboom! and it was hands-down one of the best customer service experiences I've ever had. First of all, I walk in, and it's like 3 Asian dudes who must have maxed out at age 22, going to town on a late lunch from Domino's that consisted of a THREE large pieces, a bunch of garlic knot things and wings.  A large pizza per person is SO CLASSY, in my books.  Then, one of those sweet kids agreed to stand outside and keep an eye on the van while the Wonder Twins snoozed so I could shop.  Then, the 22 year old store manager personally walked me around the store and helped me sort out a show.  This guy was an expert.  In the past, I think the woman has just bought those "kits" which are pretty lame - a million roman candles and burning schoolhouses.  SNOOZERS.  This guy made sure my show had a narrative arc with a beginning, middle, and end and I will say, that after witnessing the show on Sunday night, à la carte is the way to go.  I went a *little* bit crazy and spent like, $150, but the kid manager totally threw in a million sparklers and gave me mad deals on what I bought.  It was amazing.

People who complain about paying that much for fireworks are also the kind of people who can't appreciate how awesome it is when a kid manager buys his staff a large pizza each.  I would love to work in that environment.  Talk about morale!

We had such a nice long weekend.  Saw friends every day - the Roomie and baby T, dinner with JJ and S, MHui and her fambam, our friends B & G and their new baby.  So sweet!  We went for walks and ate ice cream and went out for a restaurant dinner, all five of us, which is pretty special.  When it goes off well, it's like, TOP OF THE WORLD, MA!  Eating at a REAL restaurant?  That is a feat, my friends.

JJ & S's kids are super-geniuses.  I was being a goofball and I was asking their 9 year old a series of inane questions: "Do you like to eat meatballs?  Do you like to eat giant meatballs the size of your head?" and he didn't answer me, so I said, "B! What, you're not talking to me?" and he said, "I assumed the question was rhetorical."  LOL!  He's NINE.

I can only hope my kids are that smart.  The Big Yam has been trying to figure out a bunch of stuff lately.  "Where does pee come from?"  "Where's my bladder?"  "What belly did Baba come from?"  "What does a Japanese spider crab eat?"  It's hilarious and amazing watching him process your answers.  You can see the wheels turning as he figures out how to phrase his question, and then again once you've given your answer.  My neighbour turned me onto these Youtube dudes called the "Slo Mo Guys" who basically make things explode and record it in super HD and play it back in slow motion.  Everything in that preceding sentence is the manifestation of the totality of little kid fantasies.  When the Big Yam isn't watching hours of ocean documentaries, he wants to watch this:

Meanwhile, the Quincess continues to be such a quiet, clever little lad.  He's like a classic middle child, which is hilarious, because he's the middle child by four minutes.  You basically show him something once and he'll give you a classic Quincess side-eye and then try to figure it out or start to mimic you.  Meanwhile, Lindsay Lou-Lou is, as the Dotytron said the other night, "kinesthetically smart" and then, in a whisper, "the fake kind of smart."  LOL!  Poor Lindsay Lou-Lou.  I don't want to box them in from the time they are babies though, so I will say that, right now,  Lindsay is physically advanced and is very attuned to his own emotions (read: he's very sensitive).

Now, a photo dump:

My garden, 2 weeks ago, freshly mulched and looking fiiine.  

Lendigan just back from the Grateful Dead concert

Happy, crooked smiling Quincess

11 month shot!  So squirmy!

The Big Yam and the babies and I spent all of a gloriously sunny yesterday picnicking in the park.  They've turned out the splash pad water but yesterday was the first real day it's been warm enough to think about getting wet.  Look at that little munchkin' swagger!

21st century manhood

Minds: blown (they can't figure out 2D pics of people they know)

More from our picnic

Lendigan making a run for it

Chicken Milanese dinner on a bed of roasted grape tomatoes and baby arugula

Cinqo de Mayo posole

Meat-free meal - tagliatelle tossed with wilted radicchio and bagna cauda and topped with a fried egg

Mother's day meal: seared rib eyes, brussels sprouts roasted on the grill, potatoes grilled with red onions

That time I ate 2lbs of macaroni and cheese with crispy thyme breadcrumbs

Meat-free meal: roasted asparagus on garlic toast with a fried egg, hollandaise, and leftover thyme breadcrumbs

Stromboli (basically, pizza dough rolled up with sopressata and provolone and roasted red peppers), served with tomato sauce and arugula salad

Alsatian flammenkuchen - caramelized onion, lardon, and crème frâiche on pizza dough.

French chocolate "silk" pie - basically chocolate mousse in a pie crust - I made a pretzel crust but wasn't happy with it.  Next time, will either use a chocolate sablé crust, or the standard piecrust, parbaked.  The filling is worth making again.  Will post the recipe below.

Based on one of my favorite sandwiches from La Cubana - grilled halibut with an avocado-pineapple salsa and a Greek salad.

Fin.

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French Chocolate Silk Pie

serves 10-12

1 piecrust, parbaked

1 c. heavy cream

8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped

3 eggs

3/4 c. granulated sugar

2 T. water

8 T. unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into roughly tablespoon-sized pieces

- whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form, set aside in the fridge.

- melt the chocolate, stirring until smooth, set aside

- whisk the eggs, sugar, and water together in a bowl set over a pot of simmering water (double boiler style), and whisk until the mixture feels hot to the touch when you dip a finger in it.  Remove, and beat with a whisk attachment or beaters until thickened and cooled to room temperature.

- beat in the butter, piece by piece, then beat in the melted chocolate.

- fold in the whipped cream.

- pour mixture into your cooled pie shell vehicle of choice, then place plastic wrap directly on the surface and chill for a few hours, or overnight.  

- top with additional whipped cream and serve.

Mood Boards

I've been running around like mad lately trying to price out a potential kitchen/bathroom renovation.  It is a LOT of work.  I've found a contractor who gave us a good price on labour and rough materials, which means I've got to source all the special stuff - fixtures, tile, appliances, lighting, kitchen cabinets, etc.  First up - let's see some mood boards, shall we?

I used to think I wanted shaker style cabinets with contemporary, long pulls.  White cabinets, grey floor, grey counter.  Something like this:

As I sat on this, and as I realized that Ikea is probably my best option in terms of price point for cabinets and that I wasn't super into their version of the shaker style (I like a narrow, very clean profile), I started finding myself veering towards flat front cabinets with contemporary tab edge pulls (like in the last two photos).  I'm thinking white cabinets with a slight gloss (Ikea's Applad fronts), light grey tile floor, and a white/pale marble influenced counter with maybe flecks of grey, likely in a caesarstone/silestone composite quartz.  Some open shelving, in medium-warm toned natural wood stain, as in the middle photo.  With all that neutral up in that piece, I've been heart set for a long time on a colorful, graphic backsplash.  Originally, I wanted to carry through the grey-acid yellow-white thing we have going on in the main floor of the house, but then I saw this tile and fell in love:

This tile probably costs a billion dollars a square foot and is obviously out of my reach.  I did find a rectangular tile with a raised prism pattern in a shade of blue/teal that I very much liked.  I think with the rectangular floor tile, the white expanse of the cabinets and all, it's going to look very stark and the raised dimensions of the tile will add some nice texture (I hope).  

The bathroom I'm basically ripping off my massage therapist's bathroom.  LOL.  I hope she doesn't mind!  Very basic - subway tile alcove bath, modern fixtures, a sink/console combination (no vanity), white open shelving and baskets for storing our unsightlies, wide wainscotting, marble hex tile floor:

That's actually the sink/console I'm eyeing

Running around to a million stores has been educational for me, in the sense that it has underscored how weirdly reluctant people are to HAGGLE.  1st rule of being a Lagerfeld is: PAYING RETAIL IS FOR SUCKERS.  Don't do it!  What the f**k are you paying these f**ks for?  To call up the manufacturer and place an order for you and then charge you a mark-up to make that phone call?  Gimme a break.

As an example, I have a small job I wanted done in our enclosed porch.  Basically, we have framing separating us from our neighbour's enclosed porch, and tacked onto the framing is basically like, cardboard, so you can't screw in any coat hooks that can take any weight.  The job is simple, rip out the old stuff, throw up some drywall, some beadboard, and a shelf, over an area that's about 12'x5'.  The job is so small that most of my contractors don't want to do it, so I found the name of some dude on a local community recommendation site and checked his work online.  I have him by, and he looks at the job, showing up with a business card with PAPYRUS font and reeking of butts (basically, he doesn't give you the white-glove customer service experience).  He comes back and quotes me $900.  NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS.  I was like, um, no.  I told him straight up that was more than double what I was willing to spend on labour and I ask him what his hourly rate is.  He writes back that he had included a bunch of time for "staining and finishing" (even though I had shown him pictures of what I wanted and it was white!  I had also specified paint-grade poplar!).  He tells me that his hourly is $50/hour (still high) so I said I'd pay him his hourly to a maximum of $350.  He INSTANTLY writes back "done. I can start on Friday."  !!!!!  LOL!  I felt a little bad about Carpenter Jim being such a sadsack and asked the Dotytron if he thought it was okay that I was lowballing to that extent.  The Dotytron was like, Carpenter Jim brought this on himself.  The sad thing is: some people will actually pay the $900!

Emboldened by my successful recent negotiations.I am officially the scourge of retailers.  Look, if an appliance store takes a mark-up of say, 20% ON EACH ITEM purely for the service of liaising with the manufacturer, then they can get that 20% on ONE item from me, not all.  Further, I'm of the belief that they should be okay getting a tighter profit margin on me, because so many rubes are willing to walk in and take the initial quote.  

The question of the hour now, is whether I can justify getting a 36" gas range.  I'm old school - I want a range that's as close to a commercial one as possible - which means: no fancy self-cleaning, no fancy dual-fuel, just gas on gas.  No computer to break down, no "multiple oven modes."  On, off, simmer, high.  No griddles!  No grills!  No wok functions!

TIME WILL TELL 

In typical me fashion this post has taken me a solid week to put together.  Thus far, our long weekend has been splendid.  Our friends H & A were visiting from Cleveland and stayed with us.  It's been so nice - like a proper do-over of our squandered March Break.  We ate, we played Pandemic (and won!), we hung out, the boys drank bourbon, my street had our annual Easter Egg Hunt, we went for dinner at Playa Cabana Barrio Coreano:

How cute is my street?  

On Saturday night, the Big Yam came downstairs, and asked me, "Mama, where does the Easter Bunny live?" trailed by the Dotytron giving us the "What was I supposed to say?!?" face and shrugged shoulders.  Parenting Tip: try to anticipate these kinds of questions so that your story checks out and it's consistent.  We said Easter Island.  We don't have a house where the Easter Bunny comes and gives out mad stuff.  I saw one of the Dotytron's cousins had this giant set-up for their kids with Easter baskets and matching mom-and-daughter Hunter rain boots (!) and a strider bike from the Easter Bunny.  WHAT. THE. F**K.  Are you f**king kidding me?  NOT A THING.  I love that the Big Yam has no concept of want.  He got owned at the hunt and came back with the fewest eggs and then asked to open one, ate a chocolate, and then promptly forgot about them in favour of watching BBC's Blue Planet on the iPad, which is his new obsession.  

Belated 10 month Wonder Twin growth pic

Looks who's doing THIS now?!? Lindsay Lou-Lou basically learned to crawl about two weeks ago, and then promptly started doing what you see up there, all the time.  Quincess continues to do his backwards inchworm/sliding on the back of his head technique.  He's really fast at it, so I'm beginning to lose hope that he'll ever learn to crawl properly.  He turns and pivots and kicks off from a stationary object when he needs extra leverage.  He'll stop and check to make sure he's going in the right direction and then continue on his way.  It's hilarious, but also not physiotherapist approved.

Says you.

Fin.