Life goes on

and on and on. Having to hold it together for the Big Yam is making a big difference - as is the fact that I have an interview next Friday, we're heading out to Geneseo for March Break this Friday, our social calendar shows no signs of letting up, and I have to do a make up assignment for the class I missed on Saturday and I still have 1 five page paper and 2 twenty page research papers to do before I'm all caught up with school. Also: I have summer school. Ugh.

After watching the following trailer for the new X-Men movie, X-Men: First Class starring my beloved Michael Fassbender (from Hunger and Inglourious Basterds)

we set up the following shot, with the role of Professor Xavier played by the Big Yam and Magneto played by Little Big Cuz:

Here's the Big Yam all decked out in Nany knits. I showed this photo to the Dotytron and asked, "happy or angry?" (Answer: happy):

The Big Yam has been working on quite a few things, as it turns out. On Thursday night he started making the wet, "raspberry" sound which is hilarious. He wakes up in the middle of the night blowing raspberries and it's pretty cute. He's also started more actively reaching for things and putting things in his mouth - a couple of times he's gotten the bink in there on his own, which is a milestone I'm REALLY looking forward to - I'm more than happy to relinquish the role of binky-inserter. Tummy time is progressing quite slowly but he almost almost rolled over (the hard way, from back to front) on the weekend, so that's something. I think I'm going to buy him a little potty this weekend and a potty seat for the toilet so we can start doing our own jerry-rigged form of EC (elimination communication).

I have a job interview next Friday - I'm 100% not going to get the job, but it's been a worthwhile experience revisiting my resume and cover letter and getting my face out there and gearing up for the interview. I'm not sure what the start date is for the position and while I've been joking all this time that I can't wait to go back to work, last night, when the Big Yam was hanging off me like a little monkey child and I was kissing his cheeks and he was laughing his butt off, I felt a twinge - well, more like a hot poker burn - of ruefulness at having to leave him in the care of others before the year was up. Even at the end of the year it's going to be hard - as much as I love working and my job and the productivity of not being a full time mom, the idea of the frenzied rush of feeding, bathing, sleeping all squeezed into 2 hours post-work is really sad. The fact that you have to squeeze all your parenting in from 5:30-8:00pm is the pits. Job share is really the wave of the future. I didn't think I would be all sentimental about it, but my heart does give a little wrench whenever I think about him smiling all day in the company of a stranger. I have to remember that I'm lucky I get the promise of a year anyway.

These are the salmon and potato cakes from last week. I ended up using more potato than I should have - the salmon flavour could have been more pronounced - but after a dip in panko and a quick pan-fry they were pretty delicious. And you can't go wrong with brussels sprouts. The next morning, I took the leftover cakes, pan fried them, topped them with the chili mayo and topped that with a fried egg - breakfast of champions:

Here is the split pea and ham hock soup I made with the leftover ham. I could have used more split pea for the amount of leftover ham I had. I always add lots of celery, onions, garlic, carrots, and a sweet potato - this is a soup that eats like a meal:

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday as it's known around these secular parts. I made buttermilk pancakes using a David Rosengarten recipe. David Rosengarten is a chef/food writer/food personality who had a show in the early days of the Food Network called Taste. It was really good - kind of a less science-y, more austere, less goofy Alton Brown. Anyway, even though we don't normally like non-Swedish pancakes, these turned out really nice, light, and tender - I think it'll be my go-to buttermilk pancake recipe. I'll post it tomorrow. I added a little more buttermilk to thin it out which probably helped the consistency. I also embedded bacon and sausage in the pancakes. They were delicious. To complete the meal I made a Swedish pancake "cake" of Swedish pancakes layered with a thicken 3 berry compote topped with whipped cream. It's based on something similar R (of R&R Acres fame) made for the Dotytron's birthday some years ago at the farm - R is Estonian and the originator of the Swedish pancake recipe:

Tomorrow I'll post the pancake recipe and do a post on cloth diapering, since we get asked a lot how it's going.

Fin.

Developmental delays

A while back we stopped reading about baby milestones because it was just easier for our own peace of mind to be blissfully unaware of how far the Boobla was lagging behind his peers. Recently, I became a bit concerned because after a steady round of early-onset cooing, he's sort of clammed up for the past month or so. Whatever vocalizations he does make can usually be more correctly characterized as either complaining or whinging, more often than not at high decibels with a fist jammed in his mouth, whereas before, he was very happy to try vowel consonant combinations at all hours of the day.

I went on a Google safari and came back armed with some sketchy, anecdotal evidence that other parents have experienced this too (although realistically, no matter how obscure the problem, the internet has infiltrated enough homes that you can usually rest assured that SOMEONE out in the world wide web shares your concern), and that they noticed it was usually when the baby was focusing on sorting something else out.

Here's the thing: as far as I can tell, the Boobla isn't really working on anything else at the moment. Not that I can see, anyway. He has mastered the art of vegging out, which he will happily do if placed facing anywhere in general proximity to the boob tube, sitting there, legs akimbo, eyes glazed, his mouth agape just enough to give him the idiotically contented look of the scripted-comedy satiated. It's appalling. I think he does it just to bother me, as a preemptive strike against my inevitable television-limiting ways. Even if you're holding him facing you, away from the screen, he will somehow swivel his head around, all Exorcist-like and commence vegging.

I relayed my concerns to the Dotytron yesterday, who took the Boobla upstairs while I was making dinner. When I came up, the Dotytron turned to me and said, "I don't know what you're talking about, he's TOTALLY working on other stuff right now." and I was like, "what is he working on?" and the Dotytron claims he's working on reaching up his arm to hold something you dangle in front of him. He then set out to prove this to me through a painstaking ritual that involved picking up a small, soft, shaky toy, tapping it against the Boobla's hand, raising it slightly, and generally enticing him. As the Boobla made small spastic, probably involuntary jerky arm movements, the Dotytron would place it close to his hand so that the Boobla could grasp it in his chubby mitt and more often than not, promptly drop it. It was maddeningly boring to watch. But! I had a realization. "So, basically, you have to treat him like you're doing physical/psychological therapy for someone who's been in a coma for 20 years?" I queried, to which the Dotytron responded with a resounding YES.

It is a testament to what a fantastically inept teacher I am that I totally forget that babies are tabula rasa. No motor skills, fine or gross. No mental skills. Nothing. You're starting from scratch and it's MY job to help him build up those grey matter connections by engaging in mind-numbingly tedious, repetitive play. Ah, so. It's totally changed my perception of him and his skill set and refocused my patience, which has been tested lately. Incremental steps. And if he still turns out to be a little bit of a dullard, well, he's my dullard, and I'll shank anyone who tries to give him a hard time about it.

In other words - I'm vowing to give the kid some space.

Tonight for dinner I'm making salmon & potato cakes with sriracha mayonnaise and a brussels sprout salad - steamed brussels sprouts tossed with dijon, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and toasted pine nuts. I'll post a photo tomorrow.

Fin.

Laugh out loud

at my kid singing along to "Jolene" this morning when I fired up some country pon the Youtube. The Boobla was fixated on the screen and cooing along - it was hilarious.

Dolly is amazing. I feel like I've posted that video before, but it's worth a repeat rinse. I also fired up The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by the Band. I really have to see The Last Waltz (which is the source for the above clip), which is a concert from the Band in the 70s. I'm inspired to do some checking out of country music - after watching Winter's Bone and seeing some of the acts in the Grammy's on Sunday, that songwriting and emotion really speak to me (you know, a Chinese Canadian growing up in the suburbs obviously has a genetic predisposition to mandolin and steel string guitar and dobros). I'm pretty sure I must have linked this video before too, but it's an all-time fave. There have been more than one occasion when the Dotytron and I have been driving down to Geneseo and either the Dixie Chicks version or the Stevie Nicks version comes on the radio and we both start bawling. I love that the Dotytron is so emotive. It's the cutest:

There was talk of how that tune would work as a funeral number but the Dotytron vetoed it...too sad (which is true).

In a bit of a tonal shift, here is a video of the Boobla in his Jolly Jumper, getting down to Usher:

And here's a photo of him raising his head (with the assistance of a pillow) with an expression on his face that's all like, blasé and "welcome to Masterpiece Theatre" and all like, "but of course I can raise my head, it's no big deal"

Finally, a picture of last night's dinner, fake eggplant parmesan sandwiches. It was supposed to be a healthier rendition. Instead of breading and frying the eggplant slices, I drizzled them with oil and seasoned them and baked them in the oven at high heat, flipping them halfway through until they were nice and soft. Layered it on a split long potato bread smeared with garlic butter (unhealthy check one!), topped the slices with homemade tomato sauce and grated mozzarella cheese (unhealthy check two! - mostly due to quantity) and then topped it with some panko breadcrumbs that I also drizzled with oil (to replicate the crunch of the breading and frying, without the added step) and popped the whole thing open faced into the oven. Sandwiched it together, cut it into three and we were done. It was pretty intense. Like garlic bread to the max:

Naptime sleep-training seems to be working okay so far. With some built-in flexibility. We're trying to do 2 two hour naps a day and have him in bed by 9:30pm. It worked okay yesterday, but he skipped morning nap because we hoofed it on TTC to visit my friend H and sweet baby D and he was all like, "whattup sketballs on public transit?" and too wired to sleep. He's been waking up closer to 5am since we implemented the earlier sleep time, but I figure eventually his belly will be able to hold a bit more and it'll tide him over consistently. 7-8 hours of consecutive sleep from a 4 month old is pretty darn heavenly, so I'm not going to fuss over it.

Fin.

To overindulge

The Big Yam is 4 months old as of Friday. I can scarcely believe it. He of the expressive eyebrows, fulsome cheeks, teensy nose, gummy grin, and disregard for physical milestones has been around for 16 life-altering, refocusing weeks. Oh, we do adore him so. It's hard to believe he started as a collection of cells - his consciousness pulled from the great universal unknown, cooked in my belly until he emerged as a complete, total, sentient being. Nature versus nurture indeed (six of one, half dozen of the other).

Thursday night neighbs hangs were absolutely delightful. We stayed until almost midnight - talking about food, music, parenting, home renos...it's SO NICE to have neighbours we like! It's truly the best. How lucky are we?

Well, not so lucky that our car won't get broken into. Truth be told, the Dotytron suspects he might have left the Captain unlocked. It's happened on our street before - someone checks car doors and looks for open windows and rummages around looking for cash. The would-be thief must have been sorely disappointed to find that there is nothing in the Captain but a plethora of burned CDs with little mass-market appeal (ranging from Heart and Rush's greatest hits to the more esoteric of the Dotytron's listening pleasures), my beloved emergency preparedness kit, and my equally beloved Jolly Jumper car-seat organizer, which contains a lovingly curated stash of MORE emergency preparedness supplies - these ones baby-centred (spare diapers, outfits, wipes and the like). More than anything, it's intensely irritating that someone in the neighbourhood would DO that and that they're pawing through our stuff and that they think we're dumb enough to keep cash or meth in the glove box of our car. I'm going to write out a note and post it in the window lambasting them. I'm also going to take up a watch on a random, sleepless night. The lack of sleep will be totally worth it to catch the dickface in the act. I don't even want to hand them over to the cops. I just want to unleash a string of expletives on them and scare the s**t out of them by blasting an air horn in their face. I want to be like that landlady from Kung Fu Hustle:

My Facebook post on the subject revealed that it's happened a bunch on our street and elsewhere in Toronto, to a wide range of people, so I'm not getting all urban-scared about it. It's just what happens when you live in the city.

Friday night we dragged the Boobla to our dodgeball game which we WON for a change. It was a bit of a cakewalk, but I think the team needed a win for morale. Then we dragged Master T up to Markham for AYCE sushi with Lolly. Whereupon he had a class A wigout and we turned into THOSE people at the restaurant. He just wasn't happy. There was a lot of pathetic pouting going on. He wasn't being cranky or a fuss - just not buddies with the situation. Our friend L was having his birthday party and there was another dinner/drinks gathering of high school peeps that we had wanted to go to, but we bailed on both because the little Boobla obviously wasn't having it.

Saturday we cleaned house a bit and hung around and then packed up Master T to drop him off at Dr. Rei and Hanbo's place so that we could go see Wayne Shorter at Massey Hall. We picked up rotis and had dinner with them first - I also baked these toffee s'mores cookies, which are INSANELY good:

A chocolate cookie dough that bakes up soft and chewy, studded with toffee baking bits and topped with a gooey, melted marshmallow graham cracker topping. Wickedly intense.

It was so nice of them to babysit for us and for us to have the chance to visit with them for a bit. That's what you call champion best friends. We probably could have asked Momma and Poppa D, but I figured it's always nice to expand the potential pool of people we're comfortable leaving Master T with - that way, in situations like now, when my parents are preoccupied looking after my Kung Kung, there are just more avenues for child care available.

Wayne Shorter was incredible. It was basically jazz nerd mecca. The talk surrounding our seats was all "I have a gig at blah blah blah" and all "I go to Humber/U of T" etc. I don't have the grounding in jazz to really appreciate the intricacies (in fact, earlier that day I had asked the Dotytron, "so, Wayne Shorter plays the trumpet, right?" and basically broke his heart), but it was an incredible sonic experience. Brian Blade, the drummer, is INSANE. Not to mention a hot piece of ace:

See? When we came back from the show, Dr. Rei's mum and dad were there, so we had a chance to visit with them. Apparently Master T was quite taken with Dr. Rei's mum speaking to him in Farsi. We had a really interesting discussion about Facebook and Twitter and social media and peak oil and the food crisis which made us all kind of depressed and resulted in the conclusion that we have to figure out a way to keep the developing world down somehow. So that the growing middle class in the developing world doesn't take all our food and grain and oil. LOL! The funniest thing is truly how we KNOW peak oil has come and gone and yet we still insist on thinking it's a big joke and ignoring the problem. I love those guys so much. All of them! Dr. Rei, Hanbo, Dr. Rei's mum and dad. They're all adorable and warm my heart.

This morning we woke up and had the fat baby pancake with maple syrup poached apples and cranberry maple sausage from the mennonites for breakfast:

Tonight we had a special Valentine's day meal with Lolly over for good measure. I made rack of lamb with a mustard-herb crust, roasted potatoes, creamed spinach, and Indian-spiced cauliflower:

For dessert I made the malted milk ball cake from the Baked cookbook. I was happier with this cake recipe - the malt flavour is built by adding Ovaltine to the cake batter. I pooched up one of the layers by grossly over baking it so what was supposed to be a triple layer cake turned out a more modest double layer extravaganza. I substituted my own milk chocolate buttercream for their frosting recipe, which I don't trust. You can't beat a whipped meringue buttercream for texture and flavour anyway:

This was a weekend of over consumption. Now I'm trying to restrain myself and lose those last 5 pregnancy lbs.

Fin.

Like an orange on a toothpick

The Big Yam had his 4 month check up today, a day shy of his 4 month birthday proper. His head circumference is in the 75-90th percentile, his body length is also in the 75-90th percentile, and his weight is in the 50th percentile (tell that to my back and shoulders), making him a top-heavy bastard.

Our family doctor asked me a bunch of questions about his progress culminating in a question about whether or not he gets "tummy time" to which I answered with a hesitant affirmative. IT'S NOT MY FAULT. I try to give the kid tummy time, but his only reflex when put on his stomach is to faceplant his giant head into whatever surface I have him on and cry in abject misery. If I'm lucky, he ends up crying himself to sleep. So to reiterate: my child would rather complain himself into exhaustion rather than TRY to lift up his head and use his abdominal/arm muscles. I don't know where he gets it from [/deadpan]. Anyway, the doctor flipped him onto his stomach on the examination table and wonder of wonders, the kid lifted his head about .005mm for about .000001 of a second. I must have been wearing a telltale sheepish, vaguely embarrassed expression on my face because our doctor said briskly, "Well. Hmmm. He's definitely on the spectrum of ability" which is a really nice and politically correct way of saying that my kid is a lazy fathead. I mean, ALL HUMAN EXPERIENCE exists on a "spectrum" with lazy fatheads like my son making up the furthest poles of the available breadth of ability. Le sigh. There is a statute of limitations on how long and far being a fathead Buddha will carry you in life. What is beatific and charmingly jolly now is one case of congenital sausage fingers and a motorized scooter away from being pitiable.

Tonight we're going to our neighbour's house to watch Top Chef and eat takeout. FRATERNIZING WITH THE NEIGHBOURS!!!!!!!! This is a great leap forward for Dotyron and Lagerfeld neighbourhood integration. I'm quite excited about the whole thing, if a bit sheepish about our contributions - guacamole and chips and those Paula Deen kit kat bars (pictured below). We just got a text inquiring about our beer preferences - so I feel they're doing too much and are going to make me feel like a crummy guest. Eeep.

That's not a bad contribution to bring for a Top Chef viewing party, is it?!???

Fin.

Pre-interviewing

This morning we had a PRE-interview for a spot on the waiting list for a home daycare in our neighbourhood. It went really well...it's crazy - it was more about her interviewing us than us interviewing her. We really liked it though...but spots opening up are rare so I doubt we'll get in. The point is: we passed. As the Dotytron says, "you love passing stuff" - it's true. I love being validated by some kind of assessment process. She said she'd put us in her file of people to call if a spot becomes available, but I'm not holding my breath.

Today marks the beginning of sleep training for the Boobla. Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuuun. The daycare lady said that sleep training is super important. We do it at night already - he seems to understand that after giant bottle, swaddle, story, song, and head pats it's time to go to sleep for a good stretch. Nap times are a different story and are pure randomonium currently. He kind of goes down whenever/wherever, averaging about 2 a day. I don't really see the point of structured naps because I'm not finding his randomonium impeding my daily life - like, I'm still leaving the house and doing my errands on my own time, and he pretty reliably falls asleep/chills out whenever he's in his stroller/carrier. But I can see why daycare providers would prefer a kid who consistently knows how to put themselves to sleep at fairly regular times of the day.

[edit: time lapse]

Well, we just had a visit from my friend in my book club C, who brought her 6 month old baby N along. This means a few things: 1) Sleep Training: Nap edition has been postponed because he's all jacked up and we're about to go for a walk to our local yarn purveyor, which means that once he's in the car seat in the stroller he's going to conk out, requiring negatory training. 2) I got all freaked out because C is part of like, 3 different mom clubs and does mom & baby yoga, mom & baby cardio, and has a tonne of friends with babies. I'm all worried that **I** should join a billion mom clubs or that the fact that I'm perfectly content to meet up with people a couple of times a week and to see friends/family on weekends and spend the rest of the time at home doing errand-y/house-y/grad school-y type stuff means that there's something wrong with me.

I mean, I don't feel like I'm lacking in social interaction. If anything, I feel like our social calendar is too busy, considering it's only the second weekend of February and we're already booking into March. And I'm really happy to hang out at home, calling our mechanic, calling daycares, working on my school stuff, going grocery shopping, going to the library, and making nice dinners...so I guess I just answered my own question. There are many models of maternity leave and motherhood and I suppose mine don't include hanging with a bunch of stranger-lady moms drinking coffee and talking about parenting styles, per se.

That being said, I do have enough people in my life who have babies. Some are good friends from work, some are more acquaintances from various points in my life - if I slot them all in once a week, I feel like I'm doing enough socializing with people who can answer my questions on sleep training and when to start solid foods and what's the next car seat level to go up to (since Master T's feet are DANGLING OFF THE ENDS OF HIS INFANT CAR SEAT AT NOT EVEN FOUR MONTHS OLD). Oy. This kid is a juggernaut.

This is Monday's curried sweet potato soup, which we had with a baby spinach salad and warmed pita with PC baba ghanouj:

Last night for dinner I made that broiled feta, grape tomatoes, and olive thing with rosemary and chili oil - so simple to put together and so tasty scooped up with more warmed pita. We had a hearty caesar salad on the side:

This week of eating healthfully has been going well so far. I am considerably buoyed by the fact that I've been fitting into my pre-pregnancy skinny jeans. Only one pair though. One pair that I'm pretty sure was mislabeled a 27" waist. WHATEVER. I want to get back into a regular yoga routine, if for nothing else than to give my jacked-up back a break from hauling the little electric tubalub around.

Tonight we had shrimp po' boys with a celery root and apple remoulade and kale chips:

The shrimp was dredged in flour with creole seasoning, then an egg wash, and then a masa harina/cornmeal mixture with creole seasoning. The remoulade had Zataran's creole mustard in there. This dinner was DELICIOUS.

I feel like I've gotten my knitting mojo back. I'm starting a scarf for the Dotytron (thus the trip to the Purple Purl today) and a hat for myself. Trying to eke out time is damn near impossible but I have to start prioritizing this stuff, if for no other reason than it makes me feel like more of a whole, normal being again. There are exciting plans a foot for my super-close, super-longtime friend T to come and visit from Vancouver at the end of April and I'm BEYOND excited. WestJet was having a 72 hour seat sale and I wanted to capitalize on it, but being tied to the school calendar is really limiting and it would have meant that we would have flown to Vancouver for only 2.5 days, which even at the heavily discounted seat sale rate, doesn't make sense. So instead I've cajoled her into coming here! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

This summer is going to be the summer of fun poverty. My work maternity leave top-up dries out in late June, which means we'll be running on fumes. But we have my family's cottage week to look forward to, cottage time at the Dotytron's family cottage hopefully, a road trip to Cleveland, maybe some time spent at the farm with R & R and their menagerie, and definite weekends in Geneseo. Pretty damn full if not exactly glamorous.

Speaking of R&R Acres - R gave us this pair of baby slippers for the Boobla and they're THE BEST. Not only do we want them for ourselves, but seeing him wearing what comes down to baby Uggs is hilarious. The best is when he's in a little short sleeved onesie and wearing them - boy babies in Uggs are the cutest, if only because they remind us of Jason Segel in I Love You, Man.

Fin.

Weekend shenanigans

I'm realizing that being a parent means living your days measured by how many times your love for your child is re-set. One minute I'm wrestling a baby energetically playing bucking bronco in my arms and letting forth a ululating howl of unearthly volume directly in my ear; his tongue, vibrating in tandem with his screams, made visible by the open-mouthed, downturned lip of the dramatically, pathetically distressed. I'm letting out a stream of steady shushing noises the tenor of which has rapidly degraded from soothing to a furious seethe. Finally, blessedly, the baby sleeps. And sleeps. Napping for such an unprecedented jag that I managed to finish my readings for class tomorrow, prep dinner, do the dishes, AND shower uninterrupted. I peek in on him and he looks like this:

and at that point, you realize the wisdom of his being and clamber into bed beside him, your heart swelling, your previous anxiety seeming like a distant hallucination carried away by the regularity of his steady breaths and the wonder of his little fingers curled up into tiny fists.

My friend G gave me some sage advice this week - she reminded me to ENJOY EVERY MINUTE that I get with this bundle of sweetness. That while the urge to finish projects, clean the house, and all the other sundry noise pulling at my attention can be strong, that those things will wait and that I have a very limited window when he will be so focused on me, his mother. So I'm going to try to go against my essential being and relax a bit and rejoice in the fact that when the Dotytron and I are both vying for his attention, his gaze finds and fixes on me. That he reserves his most special smiles and happiest squawks for me. Because it's not going to be like this forever and when it's time to go over the ledger of my life, I'm going to be very willing to have my dishes-and-laundry-done column in the red if it means my nose-to-nose time with the Boobla is in the black.

He is so very, very, very sweet.

Friday night we had an early dinner - I made a lamb, eggplant, and chickpea stew flavoured with vaguely Middle Eastern spices and a rice pilaf with a crunchy layer of tadiq (the Persian - I think - name for the crunchy layer at the bottom of the rice), which I have been craving since I ate it for the first time when Dr. Rei's mom made it for me, like, 4 years ago. It's THE BEST. There are a lot of tricks to making it, the most important being that you have to use high quality, WHITE basmati rice (in a nod to the Dotytron's long-held preference for white rice over brown). I added some grated carrot and saffron, but next time I might do a proper pilau and add sultanas and pistachios and caramelized onions as well. Fluffy white basmati rice IS addictive, especially when it's accompanied by the textural contrast of a butter-browned, slowly crisped, crunchy pita hat:

We narrowly lost our dodgeball game on Friday. We have a lot of new people on the team this year and we seem to have a pretty strong divide between people who are playing to win and who want to play "for fun." Now, as I've mentioned before, I have a REALLY hard time playing "for fun." I also have a REALLY hard time listening to strategies from players on my team whose understanding of the game is shaky at best. But ultimately, I'm just grateful to be playing again, so I'm trying to curb less sportsmanlike impulses. It is exceedingly frustrating when your team doesn't heed your hard-earned nuggets of dodgeball wisdom though.

On Sunday we went to Momma & Poppa D's house for a birthday brunch for Ehmdo. Momma D made us "daisies" which are eggs cooked in a cream sauce made to look like a daisy. They were most delicious. We also had fruit and I contributed monkey bread. Nany was there too and was totally taken with the monkey bread (as is everyone I've ever made it for):

Then we came home and hung out until the Goosetang clan came over to watch the Super Bowl. We pooled our resources and made a random assortment of foods: crockpot meatballs in bbq sauce, baked brie with pepper jelly, chips & Helluva Good dip, corn chips with guacamole and salsa, baba ghanouj and pita, and these homemade "kit kat" bars that are a Paula Deen recipe - they're freaking amazing...I'll post a picture tomorrow.

Watching the Super Bowl was jokes. We didn't really pay attention to it and instead had a hilarious time consisting of many soon-to-be classic gems, among them:

- trying to come up with a working definition of constipation

- a lengthy discussion about how after I tricked the Dotytron into singing the Beach Boys' Kokomo with me, we decided that our life's mission was to go to all the Kokomo places in Kokomo order (Kokomo itself will be the hardest to execute). This then segued into a conversation about the Kokomo state of mind and how difficult it is to maintain.

- a rousing game of Bananagrams

- Hanbo turning to me and saying, semi-sarcastically, "so, are you excited for the Black Eyed Peas half-time show?" fully expecting me to say "no!" and being somewhat taken aback by my wide-eyed enthusiasm when I said, with the utmost sincerity, "YES!!!" (my logic is that it's better than Bruce Springsteen, or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers).

- During said half-time show, watching Will.I.Am's antics, I uttered the phrase, "I can't believe Will.I.Am wanted to be the mayor of Haiti"

- A prolonged discussion about the ethnicity of the fourth, oft-overlooked member of BEP (ie. not Will.I.Am, not Fergie, not the Vampire guy - the black-ish [me]/possibly Filipino [the Dotytron] dude who never gets featured).

Today is all about eating vegetables and fruit and getting our cholesterol count back in order. For dinner tonight we're having a curried sweet potato soup with a big spinach salad with all kinds of goodness chopped up in there.

Fin.

Kung Kung

My grandfather (Kung Kung) on my mum's side had a stroke last Wednesday. Followed by two more additional smaller strokes. The past week has been a blur of juggling hospital shifts with my siblings, taking care of my Poh Poh (grandma), and making sure the babies (plural, because my sister came up immediately with her 3 in tow) were taken care of.

This hasn't been a good year for grandpas in the Dotytron-Lagerfeld family tree. The brain is a funny, miraculous thing, though. Unlike with Poppa, whose cancer had progressed to the point where you knew it was an end-of-life care scenario, Kung Kung's situation is quite different - more touch and go. The doctors want us to be prepared for the worst but at the same time, he's still here, a week later, talking, lucid, complaining, knowing who we are. He can't move the left side of his body and he can be a bit confused sometimes - asking for his mother, reaching for a glass, etc. Other times he can be really funny - he's such a wily old fox. He really wants to get out of bed and on Sunday, when I spent a chunk of time with him, he kept asking to get out of bed, "just one step!" he said. When I told him that he couldn't, because he was attached to an IV, and we'd need a nurse to put it back in, he said, "I'll put it back in!" He's also been asking for milk tea and Perrier, with ice.

I've definitely seen the dark side of socialized medicine this past week. The hospital he's at is less than stellar and there have been numerous complications - it was impossible to get a doctor to see him, he apparently had pneumonia which was undiagnosed for THREE DAYS, and on the weekends, the hospital is a ghost town - the nurses are harried and didn't notice his IV was put in incorrectly until one of my mum's friends pointed it out. It's scary.

It's going to be a long, long road. Poh Poh and Kung Kung have been married for sixty two years. She's very much lost without him, as he's been taking care of her for that long. She doesn't really know what to do without him and even now, he's still taking care of her. When I was asking my grandma whether she took her eye drops and she said yes, I was giving her a hard time because I knew she hadn't. Out of nowhere, my grandpa, who I had thought was sound asleep, chastised me, "don't be mean to Poh Poh!" in Chinese. She has been reminiscing about how they met. How he was a total shrimp - short, skinny, and a bit of a country boy. How she didn't want to give him the time of day at first, because as she says, he didn't know how to do anything. Didn't know how to dance, didn't know how to ride horses, didn't know about a lot of things she loved to do, all he knew how to do was play mah jong. She told us how he pursued her - how he would stand in front of her desk at work and make fake bird calls that would say, "want to go for a date?" "yes! yes!" She's been talking about how clever he was - joining the Hong Kong civil service at age 16 and eventually rising to the rank of Chief Registrar. There is a whole generation of people in Hong Kong who have Kung Kung's signature on their birth certificates, marriage licenses, and death certificates.

These scenarios stretch a family to its limits and there has been a fair amount of heightened tempers. It's hard on everyone. There is no real graceful way to navigate through this - I'm so glad I have my siblings. And the Dotytron, who has been so incredible, at one point he was in charge of the two babies AND Miss Ramona and Little Ze. I came home from my shift at the hospital to find that Miss Ramona had lost a tooth, they had done some finger painting (pictures for Kung Kung's room), and he had two babies peacefully lying on the play mat. It was very sweet. The other sweet thing was that Little Ze woke up the next morning when Miss Ramona was rejoicing in her Tooth Fairy money claiming that he saw the Tooth Fairy the night before. According to him, the Tooth Fairy looked like a tiny flea and it was sparkly and had a blue light (it was a boy). I don't know how I'd be able to navigate through this without my brothers and sister and the Dotytron - and friends, too (you know who you are!)

On Sunday night, the Dotytron and I were having dinner at Gal's Sushi in Markham. We had one of those ESP moments where we both wanted the same things from the giant menu without consulting each other. I was telling him about how my grandparents had a true love story and how the Dotytron and I love each other, but it's different from the way my grandparents adore each other. The Dotytron took offense to that and claimed to adore me. I was like, "no you don't!" and he said, "the only reason I don't is because you would see that as a form of weakness and take every opportunity to capitalize on it and exploit it" LOL. So true! Then he followed it up with, "of course I adore you, just look at how I've been following you around this sushi tray" and I looked at the decimated platter and realized he had been following me around it. I'd have a piece of butterfish, and then he would, etc. Pretty darned cute.

Well, you know I'm not going to talk about something being pretty darned cute without segueing into a discussion of the Boobla. He's a grinning, happy, babbling mess right now. My mum has been calling him "Dai Fan Shu" which means "big yam" after a character with that name from this classic Chinese comic called Old Master Q - about the exploits of Old Master Q (aka Lao Fu Zi). Big yam is the one on the top right in the picture below - you can see the resemblance - big goofy smile, giant head, squat little body, extensive forehead:

Here are some recent shots of my Big Yam, laughing his head off:

Looking like such a little boy in the outfit his Auntie T got him:

and finally, chilling with his his cousin:

Fin.

Admin

This week so far has been all about admin. Calling contractors, calling deck/fence people, calling daycares, calling school daycares (you know, for when Master T is FOUR YEARS OLD!!! - daycare in Toronto is mental), and maintaining and updating all my files pertaining to the above. It's insane. Daycare rates in Toronto range from $1300/month to $1800+/month. Luckily, we're on the waiting list for a fee subsidy, thanks to the fortuitous timing of the Dotytron being a student in recent memory. We're fortunate that we can afford to pay full fee as well, I know many other families don't have that option. At that rate, you're pretty much working to pay for daycare. At that rate, you might as well open your own home daycare.

Calling contractors is similarly disheartening, but at least I know there's going to be a significant return on my investment. I know I'm building equity. With your kid, it's a crapshoot on that score.

I say all this, but every night, we lie in bed and the energy emanating from that little body snoozing away in the next room worms its way into your heart and envelops you in a warm wash of memories of happy smiles and chuckles and baby babble. At the end of the day, lying in bed, there's a certain Darwinian trick that results in your ability to only recollect the good stuff and not the crying, the screaming, the poopsplosions, or the particularly demeaning moment when you found yourself seething at your child through gritted teeth, "shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"

The Boobla (or the Bubby as I've been calling him of late) is SO FREAKIN' CUTE! i love him to pieces. I love his soft skin and showering his chubby belly with kisses and tickling him and making him do his silent, open-mouthed, one-note laughs. I love it when we're reading the nighttime story and the Dotytron is holding him and you can see the Bubby fighting sleep. I love how he's starting to talk more and more and how his favorite place to hold court is on high on the changing table, where he loves to tell us his thoughts on all topics big and small. I love how one of his favorite things to do while eating is to break off from the boob and coo at me to test me to see if I'm listening and will repeat back what he's said, and I love the big grin of satisfaction he gets when I do. The Dotytron and I still look at each other sometimes and say, "we made this!" with equal parts wonder, pride, and incredulity.

Funny moment with our Portuguese contractor (one of many names I keep on file) the other day. I had him in to take a look at a leak in our kitchen ceiling that's been happening when we take a bath. Well, apparently, "bath" means a different thing to Carlos than it does for me. "Bath" for Carlos is inclusive of showering AND running the tub, so he was a bit startled when he started checking the shower and I said, "no, it only happens when we take a bath" and he said, "every time?" and I said, "well, we only take a bath at most, a couple of times a month." I was wondering why he paused for a bit before gamely going on to ascertain the problem - only realizing that he thought we were disgusting pigs when after a few more false starts he finally said, "oh, you mean it only happens when you use the TUB?" HAHAHA!

We watched Winter's Bone the other night - a story about a girl in the Ozarks looking for her meth-cooking MIA dad. Anchored by a strong, steely performance by Jennifer Lawrence, it's a story that I found enthralling because it shows you a piece of America that you don't normally see - what it's like in the Ozarks for people growing up dirt poor, addicted to meth, on the fringes, and far from the urban comforts of which I'm so familiar. The film is gorgeous and the story has a tense urgency that makes you invested in her increasingly dire situation. There is something beautiful in the craggy, lined, faces and sunken mouths of people in the film...the performances were all exquisitely good, especially the actor who plays the dead beat dad's menacing uncle, Teardrop. There's a beautiful scene featuring some banjos and fiddlers and bluegrass music - I love that stuff - it's so strange that such a beautiful music could come out of such abject poverty. I'd highly recommend this flick.

This means that we've seen 9 out of 10 of the best picture nominations for this year's Academy Awards. We just have to see The King's Speech and this might be our best record yet for the Oscars.

Monday night we had that kale and ricotta pie with a caesar salad:

Last night I made us cauliflower soup with a grilled zucchini, eggplant, roasted pepper, provolone and pesto panini.

Fin.

Sarah McLachlan Public School

...now accepting students!

On Thursday night we wandered over to the open house for this alternative school that's opened up recently in the school that we're in district for. The Dotytron was nosing around a few weeks back and was doing some research on schools in our area and found out about the open house, so we figured we'd walk over and check it out just to see what it's all about. A bunch of our neighbours who have kids entering JK next year were going too.

WELL WELL WELL. We were greeted at the door by the Chair of the Parent Council who was giving out name tags. There was also Starbucks coffee on hand and some home baked goods and samosas provided by some of the local businesses in little India. The woman who provided our prenatal training was there. One of the baked goods was labeled, "organic sugar, organic flour, organic butter" which I found immensely annoying, and the ginger cookie I sampled was terrible. Strike one. Technically, the bad cookie was strike two. Strike one happened when we walked in and saw all the other parents and their kids who were overwhelmingly: white, privileged, and vaguely hippity dippity in the way that I loathe. The Dotytron gave me a sidelong glance - we were definitely on the same page.

We went down into the gym and heard the presentation, from the principal of the school (who actually wears two hats, as principal of the alternative school and principal of the larger school in which the alternative school is housed), and one of the teacher founders of the school, another teacher, and the chair of the parent council.

Guys, it was AWFUL. So smugly self-righteous! So full of empty, arbitrary, 60s mother-earth counter-culture appropriation of eastern cultures signifiers! They apparently base their practice on John Miller's book, The Holistic Curriculm, with some Waldorf mixed in and Reggio. The woman founder name-checked all the above buzzy terms and talked about how they base their school on being in touch with nature, building community, narrative/arts-based learning, experiential learning, project-based learning, blah blah blah. All of which I'm generally in favour of. And yet! The presentation from the founder woman was TERRIBLE. Full of lip-service, entirely too proud of how they have equinox and solstice harvest festivals, of how teachers try NOT TO READ FROM BOOKS but make up stories (which was accompanied by a power point slide of a TEACHER READING FROM A STORY BOOK!) and all this mumbo jumbo that I couldn't get behind, and a list of potential skills my child would learn on one of the weekly visits to a nature reserve that culminated in the line, "for example, your child might learn to identify edible plants, or track a coyote to its den" (with COMPLETE sincerity!)

Can I just say that I REALLY don't need my kid to learn how to track a coyote to its den? This woman was completely incoherent, but she was loads better than the teacher that followed who was one of those super-soft-talking teachers who wears long, ankle length full skirts and earth tones and infantalizes her charges, pedagogy, and herself in the process. Her presentation (she is a grade 1/2 teacher) went off the rails rapidly, with a particular low point being when she was so hopped up on her own juice that she spiraled into a personal reverie recounting in excruciating detail the song-device they use to get kids to learn the alphabet, which of course meant that she had to SING THE SONG TO US (prefacing it with a giddy, "forgive me if I just sing the song for you") and which went on for far too long. I was like, lady! We are adults! The she talked about how the kids do Shakespeare every year and that's "her " baby. Ugh.

We left after the Parent Council lady spoke and skipped the classroom tours. At that point, I was pretty sure that it wasn't our style. I'd rather send Master T to school in Scarborough (and I'm not saying that in a way that's supposed to be pejorative to Scarborough. I mean that I believe the quality of the experience he would get exposed to the income and ethnic diversity of school in Scarborough would be far more beneficial to his overall well being than going to an alternative school surrounded by 99% Caucasian kids with parents who are overly invested in the idea that their child is a special star. )

I was pretty angry when we left and was bubbling over with righteous indignation. It was all so very self-congratulatory. What was most galling for the Dotytron, as a teacher in the Board, is that they thought they were so different from other schools. As he said, any school you go to in the board is going to say the same things about community, Reggio, etc. This school was no different - paying lip service to these principles. I thought the application of the theory was so half-arsed and so arbitrary - creating false dichotomies between nature and the city, this false idea of an idealised, reified, pastiche of Eastern cultures (one rapt parent next to me breathed, "that's so awesome" when the teacher showed a slide of kids doing yoga with the accompanying line, "of course we believe in nuturing the inner self and all our students conduct daily yoga and meditation practice." WHY? WHY IS IT AWESOME? Why is it more awesome than doing team sports?

As the Dotytron said, if you're conducting an open house, you're going to put your strongest people forward as presenters - if those were the heavy hitters in the school, that speaks VOLUMES. We both thought that having these lofty, ideals so indifferently and poorly applied does a disservice to the whole methodology. You know what I want in an alternative school? I want them to teach my child the ability to question and critically engage with these kinds of ideologies, not substitute one ill for another. It was fantastically disappointing. Although I'm rueful that I won't be able to join that Parents' Council and start a ruckus. It's worth it to enroll Master T just for that purpose, although the Dotytron said it wasn't fair to him to subject him to having those kids be his peers. Also, if John Miller is an advisor at the school - why not have him speak, instead of having dummy disciples who are probably garbling the heck out of his scholarship run the show? If you came up with a pedagogical theory, wouldn't you want to see it applied and presented in a way that does it justice?

Blargh. The neighbourhood scuttlebutt is that if you're a minority, you have a better chance of being "picked" in the lottery because they're trying to introduce some diversity. For eff's sake. Also, they have no budget for special education, so my question is: how are you producing children who are capable of fully integrating and feeling a part of a "community" when the community being represented doesn't reflect minorities, those in different income brackets (obviously, it's a self-selecting pool of educated, income secure individuals who send their kids to these kinds of schools), or those with special needs? How does THAT do anything for a child?

It was galling.

We've had a pretty low-key weekend around here. Friday night was our first dodgeball game - super fun to get back into things. It was a bit of a shellacking, but I like our team and it's just fun to get out. A woman on our team who is herself a mother of two said that I was the most laid back first time mom she's ever seen, which I took to be an enormous compliment (this as I was nonchalantly tucking the little Boobla up on stage in his car seat so he wouldn't get an errant dodgeball to his soft spot.)

This is the last weekend until about late February where we didn't have any social engagements planned so we cleaned house and worked on our respective school and went for a nice long walk and had family naptime - it was lovely.

What we've been eating lately:

Wednesday night was beef barley soup with a warm baby spinach salad with a bacon-mustard vinaigrette and a poached egg.

Thursday night dinner was spaghetti in T's meat sauce with grated grano and a caesar salad.

Saturday morning breakfast was boss. Sweet potato & yukon latkes with sour cream and apple sauce, peameal bacon, and fried over easy eggs.

Saturday dinner was also boss. A "white" lasagne of mushrooms, spinach, nutmeg-scented ricotta with fresh pasta sheets (bought) and a romano-spiked bechamel sauce. More caesar salad because I love croutons.

Our Saturday walk consisted of a mission to check out the Canadian Pie Company on Queen East. I make pretty fan-freaking-tastic pies (both custard, fruit, and savory) if I do say so myself, but sometimes, it's nice to have a backup for baked goods when you're feeling lazy. We got a sour cherry pie to go. The texture of the pastry is nice, touted on their web page as a cross between "puff pastry and a croissant" - which is true. It's very flaky with a bit of the yeasty elasticity and brawn of a croissant. That being said, it was seriously lacking in flavour. I was really disappointed. The whole thing tasted kind of flat. The cherries were sour, but that's about it, the filling had too much starch in it to bind it and was very bland. The whole thing was unmemorable, which is disappointing.

Sunday morning breakfast was a bit inspired. A bacon, roasted garlic, and cheddar omelet with roasted garlic oil-croutons on top (I really do love croutons.) Delicious!

We caught up on our Top Chef: All Stars. I won't bore non-Top Chef fans with my slavering, overly-enthusiastic paean to its greatness, suffice to say it's definitely the highlight of our week.

We watched The Fighter over 2 nights. It's a bit of a predictable story anchored by a strong Melissa Leo and a strong Christian Bale performance (Marky Mark is good, but not great.) The movie overall was kind of ho-hum and tired with a well-worn arc that's made fresh by the window into lower-class Massachusetts and the hard-scrabble, rough Irish clannishness that prevails there. I thought it lacked the oomph of other under-dog sports stories, but maybe watching it over two nights diluted the urgency of the story. My vote for best pic is still Toy Story 3 or True Grit.

We tried watching 127 Hours but couldn't get into it. The Dotytron had no sympathy for Aron Ralston's plight and my fervent love for Franco couldn't push me past knowing what's going to happen and then just sitting there, waiting for it. Danny Boyle keeps the tension high, but I don't know if that's just because the whole world knows the real story, so it feels artificial.

We're having dinner with my mum and her crew tonight at AYCE hot pot. Wahoo!

Fin.

Sorry, SMckay!

Apologies to Smckay, who noted that I omitted the quantity of butter in the Baked Brownie recipe (it's widely available on the internet, but I've fixed the recipe anyway). Thanks, eagle eye!

We had an amazingly full weekend here - we're so lucky. We had dinner on Friday night with R and R and Bwong at Chako's and talked about the school yard game REDASS and Sir Francis acon and turning teenagers into nihilists, all whilst grilling up quantities of delicious beef, pork, lamb, and chicken and loading up on mango pudding and red bean pudding. We're thinking of starting an adult REDASS league. I think it'd be pretty hilarious. Picturing The Dotytron cringing in terror facing a school yard wall is pretty funny stuff. The bonus part of eating in York Region with these guys is that my mum and Big D get the chance to babysit Master T. And by "babysit" I mean that my mum has an opportunity to then berate me for all the things I'm doing wrong (namely, all my hippie, mama dread stuff like the cloth diapers, the itchy knitted clothing, the bulky pacifier clip, etc., etc.)

Saturday morning we woke up to another snowstorm, which means that we hung around the house taking the tree down (sad!) and worked on our respective projects (me: reading for school; The Dotytron: report cards) and I had a giant breakdown and lost my s**t when The Dotytron spilled his gourd filled with mate (what SMckay refers to as his "sludge) all over the living room floor and on our yoga mats and on my tree skirt. It was a MESS. That sludge is not kidding around. It's like green dust and it gets on everything and STICKS. The Dotytron is notorious for always putting down vessels filled with his special drinks on the edges of tables. This in itself is not really worthy of notoriety were it not also for the fact that he is also well known for being a bumbling, clumsy, gangly oaf with a propensity for knocking things over. The two character traits working in tandem means that he knocks over a lot of beverages. Notable fact: it makes my outlaw bro lose his mind when people knock over drinks. Hilarity ensues.

Then we all went to our friend Lolly's birthday party, where Master T was a total trooper and charmed everyone with his droopy cheeks and the fact that he was totally un-shook and calm when everyone yelled "SURPRISE!" at the top of their lungs. He was incredible. He was also almost the same size as another baby at the party who was almost 6 months old. I mean, the other kid's head was bigger, but in terms of body length and mass, approximately the same. Ai-yi-yi! I've packed away all his 0-3 month clothes but he's almost busting out of the 3-6 month size!

We also set up a gmail account for him this weekend. We've been meaning to do it for a while. Came up with the idea a month or so back...I thought it might be a good idea to lay claim to his online identity before some other person took it and I also thought it would be fun to send him weekly emails that he could read when he was older. Stuff like, "you were being a royal pain the arse today, because of x, y, z" or, "you had your first taste of udupi dhal today!" At Lolly's party her mom had her baby book out and it was cute to read through - her mom was intensely thorough! Waking, sleeping, eating (time and which boob!), Lolly's mood - it was pretty sweet. I didn't mention that her mom is the cutest and totally made a giant Moroccan feast for about 30 people! Who does that?!!? We have a baby book for T but we're going to have to reverse engineer the thing - apparently you're supposed to be keeping a log THROUGH your pregnancy and now we keep letting it slide so we have to back-date a bunch of stuff and guesstimate dates for things.

Sunday we did some more work and then dumped Master T at Momma and Poppa D's house and went to see True Grit. I LOVED this movie. Unlike Aronofsky, the Coen brothers retain their directorial stamp even as they venture into different genres. This film fell somewhere between the madcap slapstick of Oh, Brother and the sombre, near-nihilistic violence of No Country for Old Men, with the heart of The Big Lebowski. They love their sun-bleached, arid settings and this salty, whip-quick Western depicted the wide, no-nonsense landscape of the frontier States beautifully. The warm, softening glow of fireside talks gives way to the harsh, stripping light of day. The whole film is anchored by a lovely performance by new actress Hailee Steinfeld, who handles the fantastic, intelligent dialogue with a preternatural aplomb and grace. I'm going to say it, her performance in my view, is far better than Natalie Portman's in The Black Swan. I kind of thought Portman over-acted a touch, in much the same way as Jeff Bridges, as the "Rooster" here adds a touch too much drunken listing exaggeration to his role. All in all, I thought it was near-perfect and immensely enjoyable. So far, of the Best Picture lock-ins, I'm rooting for it over The Social Network and The Black Swan, but I think Toy Story 3 should win over them all. Have yet to see The King's Speech (don't really feel like I have to - I can pretty much already see the whole movie in my head), Blue Valentine, Somewhere, and The Fighter.

I'm feeling exceedingly lucky button-ish lately...surrounded as we are by so many dear friends, both old and new...our social network is rich, not to mention the incredible support we've been getting from our families. We're so grateful to have both our parents within the GTA for the ready babysitting (ha!) and that Master T gets to grow up with so much love around him.

Sunday breakfast was over-easy eggs with chimichurri (where were we before chimichurri entered our lives?), bacon, and challah toast.

Tonight for dinner we're having pasta carbonara with a simple salad.

Fin.

This is a throwdown...

Look at this little toughie, in his camo hoodie:

The effects of the toughie are mitigated in the following photo, when he's a chastened lion with teary eyes:

That article I was commenting about has certainly blown up on the interwebs! The debate and discourse around it has been very polarizing, and extremely interesting (possibly more interesting than the article itself). My sister has just read the book from which the article was excerpted (apparently without the author's input, see here). That article there goes more in depth with Chua and discusses how the excerpt in the WSJ glosses over her own journey in realizing that the "Tiger" methods she employed might have been to her detriment - and it is in trying to force them on her willful, stubborn and feisty second daughter (first daughter was dutiful and compliant) that she comes to realize this.

The San Francisco Gate article also discusses how it's important not to essentialize "Chinese" vis-a-vis "Western" which I think is a point that's so obvious, there's no point even mentioning it. I also think a lot of the furor over the WSJ article (especially the hysteria over how Chua's methods constitute "child abuse") are based on a willful misreading - I thought that her self-deprecating, rueful tone came through loud and clear. There wasn't a single point when I read it as proscriptive.

Ultimately, I find the whole discourse around the article to be the most fascinating and revealing thing. People feel so judged in reference to their own parenting styles - it reveals the not-so latent anxieties about parenting and parenting as manifestation of self that bubble beneath the surface. Parenting as competitive sport?

All that being said, my sister has been reading the full memoir and came down on the side that (as is always the case) the entire story is way more nuanced than that itty bitty excerpt indicates and that Chua comes across as way more cray-cray AND way less cray-cray than the discourse would have you believe. I think I'm going to suggest it as my next book club title. Our current theme for the next meeting is marriage - why not follow that up with parenting?

I would also like to clarify that my parent's parenting style isn't really "Tiger" in the strictest sense. My mum and Big D kind of created their own idiosyncratic, inconsistently applied, and ad-hoc version of parenting-by-proxy. They both worked very hard and there were definitely times when I felt neglected and overlooked. I don't think they really knew how to parent me - but as in all things and with all cases, you try your best with what you know. Luckily I'm the most self-reliant person, like, ever, so I flourished in that environment, but there were moments of my childhood that were miserable and filled with boredom as a direct result of their hodgepodge of irrational rules and class issues. I also count on my siblings. S-dawg, my sister and I (C-hova was a late addition to the party and the rules were considerably different by the time he came along) were three kids who were largely left to raise ourselves and make up our own rules in the absence of emotional guidance from the elders in our life. I think the reason we turned out the way we did (and by that I mean, exceptionally well) is because we had and still have each other, and a whole wack of crazy stories about our off-the-wall upbringing.

In the end, until I write my own memoirs, it is too hard to distill and condense my own reflections on my upbringing and attribute the complexities of my eventual self to one style of parenting or another. I think the degree of wackadoo-ness in your childhood reminisces is ultimately the symbol of how far from "Western" that you strayed, but that's always in relation to an idyllic, imagined, floating-signifier "Western" that is more always going to be more construction than fact.

Last night we had S-dawg and his gf over for dinner. I made a very controversial S-dawg meal, in that it was vegetarian and not from Milestone's or Moxie's. We had those black bean & spelt burgers with rosemary sweet potato and regular potato oven fries with chili mayo:

Ladies and gentlemen, throw out all your other brownie recipes, because if you're a fan of disgustingly rich, dense, dark, and fudgy brownies, then the baked brownie is for you. The recipe is all over the internets, but I'll post it below. So for dessert I made brownie sundaes with warmed up baked brownie, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, salted caramel sauce, and whipped cream:

Now we're headed up to Markham to drop off the Boobla with my parents while we have AYCE Korean BBQ & Japanese sushi at Chako with R & R and Bwong.

fin.

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

The Baked Brownie

Makes a 9x13" pan, from there, it's up to you how crazy you go with it in terms of serving size

1 1/4 c. all purpose flour

1 t. salt

2 T. dark cocoa powder

11 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 t. instant espresso powder

1 1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar

5 large eggs

2 t. vanilla extract

- preheat oven to 350 F. Butter the sides and bottom (I use cooking spray) of a 9x13 glass

- in a bowl, whisk the flour, salt, and cocoa powder together

- melt the chocolate, butter, and instant espresso powder in a bowl together (your choice, I do it in the microwave, you can do it in a double boiler if you want to make more work for yourself) until the chocolate and butter are melted and smooth. Stir in the sugars, whisk until everything is combined.

- add the eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Then add the vanilla and stir. Do not overbeat the batter!

- Add the flour mixture, and stir until almost all the flour is incorporated (some streaking is okay).

- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the middle of the oven (rotating halfway through) for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with moist crumbs attached (note: in my oven it took closer to 45 minutes). Check them frequently! Over-baking is a brownie's worst enemy.

- Cool, cut and serve.

- On the off chance that there's anything left, they will keep in a tightly covered container...but it's really in your best interests to eat them as soon as you can.