Coping...

or not?  If you were to draw my outline these days, I'd look like a sawtooth blade.  I don't have a lot of patience to smooth over the rough edges brought on by the following: lack of sleep, too many kids, too many chores, a boob that's been sucked raw (literally!), and a sore throat.  

Last week was a blur.  This one is much the same.  I know that somewhere in there, we celebrated Chinese New Year with my family (I'm Chinese, so I get to call it Chinese New Year, okay?) and it was wonderful spending the day with my sister and her family, even if it did result in my CHILDLESS brother, Bruce Wayne, piping up in the most patronizing way when we were discussing how I don't let the Big Yam watch the rebooted My Little Pony cartoon, "See, my concern is that he's going to grow up without knowing these cultural references and be outcast because of it."  REALLY, CHILDLESS YOUNGER BROTHER?  THAT'S your concern?!?  For serious?!  Granted, he's an idiot.  But it's galling, the way it's always galling when people who don't have kids and lack the imagination/creativity to even empathize with people who are in a different situation from themselves, weigh in.  The Big Yam is a scared little butt!  He's just like that!  I didn't make him that way because I didn't let him watch Saw 1-10!!!  Geez.  

The Dotytron had the pleasure of taking the Big Yam to his dance class on Saturday and brought home video.  Guys, it is AMAZING.  Nothing will prepare you for how awesome it is to watch your little kid in a class full of tuu-tuu'd and tricked out girls, all of whom are at least 8 months to a year old than he is, trying to learn a hip hop routine and getting lost in a shoulder-shrug reverie and missing the next count.  NOTHING.  Apparently the Dotytron overheard some boys who had younger sisters in the class make a comment from outside - something along the lines of: "There's a BOY in that class!" and if the kids' dad hadn't piped in, I think the Dotytron would have gone postal.  I'm not usually the kind of parent who defends their kid.  I'm the kind who is way harder on my own kid than anyone else.  But picking on the Big Yam for dancing?  I WILL CUT YOU.  We had SMckay over for a sleepover and hang on Saturday night and we decided that we're going to make the Big Yam a "Dance like there's nobody watching" t-shirt to wear to dance class.  SO GOOD!  LOL!

I think one of the things contributing to my funk is that I don't have a lot of non-parenting/domestic input going into my head right now.  I'm reading a meh book (Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings), don't have a good show I can marathon currently, and no time to catch up on movies.  I'm out of the loop in terms of the news cycle generally, and no time to do the things I love - like knit and sew and create things with my hands.  

But I don't want to do to whingy posts in a row.  I promise you I will write wonderful book and movie reviews shortly.  Yesterday Momma D came and helped me out and guys, it was HEAVENLY.  She took care of dinner!  She brought lunch!  She helped wrangle the babies while I went to a doctor's appointment!  She hung out and helped fold laundry!  She did dishes!  Thanks to her I was able to mop the kitchen floor!  

It made all the difference in the world.  I was able to hang out with my babies and enjoy them.  There is much to enjoy.  Lindsay Lou-Lou is all about giving you the biggest, widest, scrunchy-faced, open-mouthed grin lately, one that shows off his bottom gums.  It's so cute.  The Quincess is all about sticking his fingers in my mouth and making his weird noises.  I know the Big Yam hasn't been getting much love photo-wise lately, maybe be cause he is such a ball of activity that it's hard to catch him standing still, but I can't say enough how wonderful he is.  He is a treat.  A sweet, fun, funny, little guy who wants to do everything by himself, and yet is still young enough to insist on morning cuddles with me.  He is all about framing his requests in the negative: "Mama?  It's a school night tonight.  I can't have iPad."  and I think the idea is that he frames what he can't have, to manage his expectations, on the off-chance that we bend the rules.  It's so funny and endearing.  So is calling "yellow" "lallo."  I never want "lallo" to go away.

Look at that sweet little expression!  What a sweet elf with devil eyebrows!

 I can never resist a good finger gun picture.

Simple meals lately:

Bratwurst, a cheddar-broccoli brown rice casserole with garlic panko topping, and roasted Brussels sprouts

Freezer Greek spinach-lemon soup, a tartine of garlic butter, fresh mozzarella, and roasted grape tomatoes, and a salad of romaine, caramelized pear, and toasted pecans.

I was supposed to have my friends R & M come over today, but the snow curtailed cross-city travel, so I had my street ladies who are also on maternity leave over instead.  I made a bacon, fig, and brie quiche, and these blueberry muffins.  I can't resist a warm blueberry muffin soaked in salted butter.  I will post the muffin recipe tomorrow.

Fin.

What's the Spanish word...

for neti pot?

My immune system finally succumbed to the viral bath that I've been floating in for the past two weeks.  While on vacation in Puerto Aventuras.  Le sigh.  I woke up mid-trip with a wicked sinus infection and a head stuffed full of gallons of mucous.  It was not buddies.  I took the Dotytron's nasal steroid spray about 3 times while I was down there, just to get me through (luckily, the worst of it hit all on one day and I was able to rally the rest of the time), but then we came home and read up on it and pregnancy and there was all this bad info floating around about how inhaled steroids have shown links to cleft palates and stuff.  Which had me promptly bursting into a pile of hormonal, sleep-deprived tears (did I mention we took a midnight flight back home???)  It was not the best.  Then we checked Motherisk which said that there are no such associated risks with topical and inhaled corticosteroids, which made me feel much better.  At this stage in the pregnancy, all their gear should be formed, it's just a matter of getting fatter from here on in.  It was still scary though and I felt bad for not taking the time to read up on it before exposing the twerps to potential risk.

The vacation was lovely, overall.  I think 5 full days and 4 nights was definitely sufficient for me, for this type of vacation.  By the time the week ended, I was ready to go home.  But I just love my G-D house so G-D much, ya know?  My preferred mode of travel is to do my own thing and explore and seek out amazing food and soak in the culture, which are all things you can't really do on an all-inclusive resort.  I got a lot of napping and resting in and a lot of QT with my outlaw fam and the Big Yam and the Dotytron, which was really nice, and a perfectly acceptable trade-off.  For intergenerational travel, resorts and cruises and the like are really the best.

Our resort was pretty swank and really family friendly, which was good.  Our initial room had a loft/tv space!  So fancy!  While we didn't have an ocean-view suite, we had the "garden view" which was cool, because it actually faced onto the dolphin (and manatee!) aquarium, which was non-stop fun to look at.  It also overlooked the "adults-only" pool which was considerably quieter and less Vengabus-y than the main pool and beach.  We had rain one day which resulted in a leak in our room, which resulted in them moving us (at my request).  We lucked into the honeymoon suite, which had a jacuzzi on the balcony.  The Dotytron couldn't reiterate that enough (he was the one to actually go and view the room) when we were trying to decide what to do.  So we had mad jacuzzi times at balcony high.  They also threw in 25 minute massages for me and the Dotytron for the hassles (which I also requested - Chinese bargaining say what!)

I'm glad we didn't have to pay for the massages.  I am very, very lucky in that I have probably the best RMT in the GTA.  I love my deep tissue massage and she RUINS us.  I don't feel like a massage is effective unless it hurts, and my RMT makes me hurt so good.  This was kind of like, gentle non-erotic petting.  I guess some people find that relaxing?  But in my head I found it more irritating than anything else...like, if you're going to touch me, touch me with PURPOSE.

There were 5 or so restaurants on the resort and none of them required reservations and they didn't have wristbands, which I thought was quite civilized.  You could just show up and sometimes there was a bit of a wait, but we never had to wait more than 20 minutes for a table, which was fine by me (although not as fine for some of the irate tourists we came across).  Breakfast was by far the standout meal.  They had tostadas!!! And a chilaquiles station!!!  And a taco bar every morning!!!  It was heavenly!  The annoying thing was dealing with the other tourists - I found some of them quite rude.  Like, it's a chilaquiles station - don't try to order your egg white omelet there just because you don't want to wait in line at the omelet bar that's 10 feet away.

I felt like if they could just offer Mexican food, then resort food wouldn't be so maligned.  But I guess for them, it's really about adhering to the palates of these tourists who want their food replicated.  Like, I can't tell you how many people just wanted bacon and eggs and pancakes instead of the the delicious salsa roja and pickled red onions and fried plantains.  Yes, the Italian food didn't taste like Italian food...but why would you expect that to be the case?  It's not like there's a huge ex-pat Italian population like there is in other areas of the world that aren't Italy but that do great Italian food.  I would never travel to Florence and expect them to be able to turn out amazing Japanese food, but for some reason, that attenuated expectation is okay for those tourist destinations, but not for resorts.  It's very, very strange to me.  JUST EAT THE DELICIOUS COTIJA ALREADY!  Having dined at my share of "HK style cafés" where as a style of restaurant they replicated for the ex-pats a taste of their home countries but with the ingredients available, creating a delicious (to me) new form of mestizo cuisine (think, spaghetti with ox tongue and a "tomato" sauce that tastes like Alphagetti), I totally get how these kinds of diasporic iterations of food can become legitimate styles in their own right (the tomato is not native to Italy, lest we forget).  This kind of globalization-of-the-plate is not happening at all inclusive resorts, though.

Another feature of the resort is that it sat in a natural cove sheltered by a reef.  There was one part of the resort where they had a natural salt water pool with steps leading down and all kinds of fishies hanging out that had taken refuge from the Gulf of Mexico.  Our first time down there, there was a heavily tanned, Dog the Bounty Hunter-type who was feeding the fish Kellogg's cornflakes.  He offered some to the Big Yam and Ehmdo said, "Uhh, but the sign says you're not supposed to feed the fish..." and he said in reply, "This is Cancun baby! You can do what you want!" (Something tells me this guy is not an international law specialist).   Ahhh, Americans.

Yesterday was the first day of rotating daycare for the Big Yam while J's on vacation.  He spent the day with Ehmdo and she's been super-cute about it.  She's like, way better at being home with the Yam than I am.  Last message I got from her, she was blowing the insides out of eggs to decorate with him next week during her shift.  Awwww.

Today I'm on duty.  Ugh.  It's only 9am and the day feels looooong.

Fin.

U.S. Election Day!

Aside from the choices made to elect the next POTUS, I'm extra nervous and on tenterhooks today on account of the fact that my outlaw bro will find out whether he gets elected to be District Attorney.  It's nerve-racking!  I semi-strongly believe that the differences between Obama and Romney are largely negligible and I'm worried about what the Republican party is likely to do in the wake of a loss (whether they're likely to go more far right and abandon the moderate centre), but my investment in this election is mostly from the perspective of wanting Uncle Rico to win.

Go go Uncle Rico!  

At the very least, I'm happy that my lovely sister and her family no longer have to participate in the absurd farce that is US electoral politics and campaigning.

Yesterday I had a terrible, awful, no good very bad day.  I came home and dinner wasn't ready and so we ate late and I was crochety.  As an attempt to re-align the family, I started the "What was your favorite part of the day?" round.  

Me: "Big Yam, what was your favorite part of the day?"

Big Yam: *not missing a beat* "Meatballs."

LOL!  He looked right into my eyes, too.  He believed it.  So funny!  He's a bit of an unreliable witness - I'm not sure that he actually had meatballs or came in contact with meatballs yesterday.  

In other funny news.  I was emailing my sis to find out what I should get for Little Big Cuz's 2nd birthday.  She emailed me back, "I just asked him and, no joke, he said 'Big Yam' and when I asked him if he wanted to SEE the Big Yam, he said yes."  !!!!!  So cute!  I love that the two cousins love each other so darned hard.

This weekend was legit.  Friday night was Ladies' Night on my street.  We went to the Riverside Public House.  It was pretty good!  I ordered the burger but I should have ordered the fried chicken.  You get two drumsticks and a thigh (I tried my neighbour's) and it's perfect, crunchy, juicy fried chicken served with a heap of mashed potatoes and kale with gravy.  All this for $14, which I think is a great price.  I highly recommend it and wished I had ordered it instead of what I did get.  I ordered the burger, which was fine - delicious, juicy, with skinny salty fries, but the fried chicken was much better.  I split some appetizers with my neighbour as well - a mussel and lobster chowder and chanterelles on toast.  I love love love chanterelles - what's not to love about a pile of buttery, rich, gorgeous sautéed mushrooms piled on toast?  Absolutely nothing, that's what.  

Saturday was Lolly's wedding - it was a beautiful affair in a beautiful space with amazing food.  We sat at a table with the full slew of kdubsguelph crew and it was one of the few times we've ever had to sit at a table at a wedding without the (seemingly) obligatory random couple shoe-horned in.  It was great!  Uncle Jesse made this video that they screened during the reception - it's adorable.  He's so talented.  

The Irish Artist - A Wedding Film from Jesse A on Vimeo.

Then SMckay slept over and we woke up the next morning and gave the Big Yam a haircut and she bought us McDonald's and we gossiped.  Maybe it's a by-product of being raised by super-strict Asian parents who were always like, "why would you ever want to sleep somewhere OTHER than your own bed?" but I don't think I'll ever get tired of friend sleepovers.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm particularly well suited to communal living.  I just think it's the funnest to come home to your besties!  I would happily lose the ability to walk around the house naked for living with friends again.  I'm a big proponent of it taking a village.  Which is all to say that I love it when SMckay sleeps over.  

Anyway, I drove her home and picked up Momma D, who had extensive hand surgery last Tuesday, which means that she's not really equipped to be on her own for long stretches until she gets the hang of doing everything one-handed.  She came over and we napped and snoozed and watched movies and ate pizza.  It was lovely.  I banged off another batch of cookies (hazelnut thumbprints) and made hot chocolate and we were cozy on the couch.  I didn't feel like I particularly got the benefit of the extra hour, but we made up for it that night by going to bed at 8:30pm and not waking until 6am the next morning.  Bliss!

Last night's (rescued) dinner: sunchoke soup with bacon, cheddar cheese, and chives.  This was soooo good!  I love Jerusalem artichokes so much.  The flavour is so unique.  I had wanted to smoke the sunchokes but didn't get around to it on Sunday.

Tonight we had the roomie and T over for dinner.  We had a baked pasta with ricotta, mozzarella, and a turkey tomato sauce.  With an arugala & radicchio salad with parm and lemon juice.  I also made us ginger molasses cookies.  That up there is the PERFECT blanket of cheese with the PERFECT amount of browning for chew/goo.

We got our MPAC assessment in the mail today.  Ugh.  It's so bittersweet.  The good news is: according to MPAC, our house has increased 135% in value since we bought it (and actually, the appraised price then was more than we paid for the house).  The bad news is that our property tax rates will go up accordingly.  

Fin.

Parenthood

We were talking with friends recently and the Dotytron said something pretty astute on the topic of parenting.  He was remarking on how it's mind-boggling to him how soon the notion of a double life takes hold in a kid.  The Big Yam just turned two, but he totally leads a double life.  The other day, he started whining when the Dotytron went to pick him up from daycare and J was like, "Master T!" all shocked and surprised and stuff and Dotytron was like, "Um, what. WELCOME TO MY LIFE."  J says the Big Yam never whines at her house.

WHAT MUST THAT BE LIKE?!?

I don't even know.

We've been having major issues with diet and acting up lately.  He's just turned snoopy.  He doesn't want to eat vegetables (but will randomly eat kale chips and sag paneer) and doesn't like to eat anything but meat and carbs.  It's super-frustrating and makes meal times kind of the worst because he starts getting all psycho and throws his plate, placemat and utensils on the floor.  I don't really have any great tips for dealing with this.  We basically just move stuff out of his reach, or tell him that this is what he gets for dinner and that's it, or tell him he can't have the thing he wants (bread or meat) until he has some of the thing he doesn't want.  More often than not, for the past month this has meant that he doesn't eat very much dinner at all and we just treat it really matter-of-factly.  I know the kid's not going to starve.  I'm not going down the path of making two meals or changing our diet to suit his whims.  When he turns into a massive juggalo I turn his high chair around so that we both have a chance to reset and so that I can eat a meal without him being disruptive.

It's a little frustrating but mostly we just try to ignore it.  Last night, he really wanted the biscuit but didn't want the borscht.  So I told him no more biscuit until he had some of the soup.  He pitched his placemat and spoon and then did this monster voice thing.  Then he calmed down and started rooting around in his high chair and somehow found a lump of biscuit that had gotten wedged in there.  He picked it up, examined it and said, "Oh! Little bunny [he was calling the biscuits bunnies for some reason].  This guyyyyy."  We almost died laughing.  Calling the scrap of biscuit "this guy" is so funny.

So yeah, he brings us a lot of happiness.  I know much has been made about the studies that show that people without kids are happier than people with kids (but it's balanced by the fact that people with kids find their lives more rewarding).  I asked the Dotytron a few weeks ago if having the Big Yam in his life made him happier and he gave me the "are you crazy?" look and answered very much in the affirmative.  I don't question my level of happiness with the Big Yam in my life nor do I yearn to go back to my childless state (much).

The other night, I pulled all the pillows off the couch and made a fort/tunnel with blankets and sheets and we made a big mess and acted like idiots and it was profoundly enjoyable.  As was teaching the Big Yam to talk like a robot yesterday.  For every moment of being a psycho there is an equal and opposite moment of being a funny little turd burglar.

I forgot to mention that this weekend will forever go down as the weekend in which my mother in law got mad at me for not liking mincemeat tarts.  We were at her house for a bit and eating these pecan butter tarts she had bought and Momma D was like, "when are you going to learn to make mincemeat tarts?" and I was like, "Uh, I don't like mincemeat."  And she gets all snappy and says, "do you even know what they are? It's beef suet!"  and I'm like, "yeah, but I don't really love dried fruit and I hate raisins" and was given a look of withering incredulousness for my troubles.  I was like, "get one of your own kids to make you mincemeat tarts!" Hahaha, oh outlaw moms.  It's nice to know I'm continuing my streak of striking out with every parental figure I come across.

Tonight I'm going to see Thomas Keller with JJ!  We got the tickets that get us a copy of the Bouchon Bakery cookbook.  I'm excited.

Fin.

BLW addendum

I keep feeling like I neglected to add something in my BLW rundown...but I can't remember what it is.  Ultimately, as with everything in life, you gotta do what's right for you.  Did I follow strict BLW procedures?  No.  But how you interpret parenting styles/methods is also up to you.  I know people who implemented BLW but would make individual turkey-quinoa patties for their kids to eat and then hover over the baby while they were eating, and then end up eating their own (different) dinner later.  To me, that kind of defeats the whole simplicity of the BLW system.  What I liked best was not having to make a separate meal for myself and for the Boobla.  I also know parents who have 2 year old kids and still cut up everything into teensy weensy little bites for them cuz they're so afeared of choking.  Again, if that's what floats your boat, go on ahead.  You're talking to the lady who put a bumper on her crib from birth because it tied the room together.  I clearly don't have all the answers.


I'm a pretty devil-may-care parent.  I'm not over-protective, I'm not generally a hoverer (this will come later, when my kid develops guile - I'm DEFINITELY a check-your-browser-history type of parent), I let my kid fall down and I don't rush to make sure he's okay.  It's just not my thing.  A lot of it is ignorance - ie. I didn't know you're supposed to have a helmet on a kid when he's tobogganing - and some of it is just me using my own internal common-sense-o-meter.


Par example: I gave the Big Yam peanut butter at 6 or 7 months.  We don't have any allergies in my family, the Dotytron doesn't, and I followed a tip from my neighbour where I rubbed some on his arm, then on his lip, to see if he hived up.  He didn't, so he's been yamming p.b. ever since.  I also gave him whole eggs - I didn't really get what the egg embargo was about anyway.  I think the conventional wisdom is yolks only, but then Poh Poh told me that the Chinese way was whites only, so then I split the difference and gave him the whole egg around 7 months.  He ate meat pretty much as soon as BLW was underway, he eats seafood and shellfish, he eats spicy food - it's all a go.  The only thing I'm a maniac about is sweets.  So he doesn't get juice, or syrup on his pancakes, or ice cream, or chocolate, and never sweet treats or prepared snacks.  I keep some disgusting spelt Cheerio-type things around the house and he gets those, and the odd Mum Mum, but otherwise, I don't let him have any processed food.  Sometimes I feel bad for the kid, cuz I think he must be wondering what's that EXTRA stuff we put on our pancakes and french toast, but then I get over it.  He has a lifetime of desserts in front of him.  He's had the odd taste here and there, but that's about it.


I keep thinking that I should put photos of the Big Yam's room up on OhDeeOh or something.  Only because I think I did a good job with his room and it's all tied together.  Maybe I will someday.  I have some fantastic nursery ideas for the next one (if there is another bambino in our future.)  I think part of my drive to have kids is for the decor purposes.  I'm a strange one, admittedly.


Today is my day off.  I wanted to keep the Big Yam home with me but I had too much shiz to do.  A lot of school and prep and getting the house ready for the focus group I'm hosting tonight.  I know, it sounds all weird and Tupperware party but it's considerably more benign.  My friend J is writing another book on foodies and asked me if I wanted to host a focus group for some of my foodie friends.  This post-doc is administering it and will bring snacks.  Host gets a $50 g/c to Loblaws and participants get a $25.  At the time,  I didn't know how bucksauce my life was going to be so I went with it.  I'm treating it very much like a focus group.  Like, even though my friends are coming over, I'm not hosting per se.  I'm definitely kicking everyone out by like, 10pm, because a) we want to take the Big Yam swimming tomorrow; and b) we're both exhausted from Ehmdo's show the night before.


The show was fantastic!  I haven't been to Lee's in a long time.  Predictably, I'm not used to going out to hear someone singing pop numbers.  If there isn't a driving bassline or if it's not like, Heart or Prince, it's not really my bag per se.  But my outlaw sis has a fantastic, expressive voice and a gift for writing catchy pop tunes and it was so nice to see her getting the support she deserved for the work she's put into this new album.  We left at around 11:45 to relieve the poor roomie, who was kind enough to babysit for us.  Yes, we got a preggo to do our babysitting for us.  I love the roomie.  


Tonight for dinner, we veered off Friday Night Takeout Night austerity measures and splurged on FOOTLONG PANZEROTTOES and FRIED CHICKEN.  That's right.  AND. FRIED. CHICKEN. Sick.  I also made this cornflake crunch cookie recipe (haven't baked the cookies off yet) from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook.  Cornflake crunch is THE BEST!  It smells like heaven when you're toasting it.  It's crushed up cornflakes, milk powder, sugar, and salt bound with some melted butter and it is insanely delicious, eaten straight up, or lending texture and salty-sweetness to a trashy cookie like this one:


Tomorrow is a big day.  Swimming, dim sum lunch with my fam bam in Markham, then back downtown for a bit of a date night for me and the Dotytron - we're going to try this new izakaya, called DonDon Izakaya and then we're going to my Discerning Coyote friend's birthday jam.  We hope to be home by like, 10pm.


Fin.

Walking it out

This weekend was crazytown.  At one time or another, it featured me, the Dotytron, and/or the Big Yam all being foul owls.  


Friday night I had the brilliant idea to make our weekend "easier" by organizing this after-work, super-ambitious, Friday night weekly grocery shopping mission, the intent of which was to free up time on the weekend.  Well - what little time I freed up on the weekend was quickly squandered by the Dotytron's tension levels at STILL having 2 more holiday concerts to get through, compounded with the usual bemoaning of the busyness that is a life with a kid, a house in Toronto, a super-type A significant other, a demanding job, and a full social calendar.  So imagine his dismay, when he met up with me at the veggie store, and I, blithely oblivious and offended at the state of the brussels sprouts at my usually stalwart Fruit King, said, "we have to go the Farmer's Market tomorrow to get carrots and sprouts."  He damned near lost it.  "BUT THERE ARE CARROTS HERE.  JUST GET ANYTHING." Me: "But I want colourful carrots" (imagine, dear readers, how well that reasoning played - know your audience, readers, know your audience.)  Suffice it to say that what ensued involved a lot of f-bombs (me) and a lot of long-suffering, tense pauses (the Dotytron.)  


When the dust had settled, we realized it was because I didn't pitch it correctly.  I should have said, "do you want to go to the Farmer's Market tomorrow morning and get breakfast and have coffee and walk around and then maybe we can see if there are nicer carrots for Christmas dinner?"  That would have gone over waaaaaaayyyy better.


Anyway, when we got home, we had this waiting for us: 

That would be warm, trippa alla fiorentina (tribe, Florentine style), which we scooped into bowls direct from the slow cooker and topped with grated parm, a dollop of chimichurri I was passing off as salsa verde, and sided with big warmed hunks of my roasted garlic, caramelized onion focaccia for dipping.  It was heavenly.  The Big Yam didn't think so, but that's because I had bought his grocery shopping compliance with cheddar bunnies.  I got him to eat it on Sunday, after he rejected it for lunch, by starving him into submission.  Is that mean?  Maybe.  I don't give picky eaters no quarter, though.  Choice is a luxury that is not allowed to him, unless I deign it so, and if he starts throwing perfectly good food on the floor, he can go hungry until he's willing to eat it later (which he was.)  

The Big Yam, after 6 months of being a fantastic eater (which isn't all that much time until you realize it's like, half his life) has started to become "snoopy" in the words of Nany.  But it's weird and day to day with him.  One day he's dumping handfuls of apples off the side of the high chair, the next day he's taking bites out of an apple the Dotytron is eating.  There are certain consistencies - like he will always eat: French toast, oatmeal, toast, most carbs, all berries, bananas, clementines, most fruits, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, avocado, corn, beans, etc.  Other vegetables are more touch and go...I just keep offering it and offering it again and again.  

Anyway, our morning at the farmer's market ended up being very nice.  We woke up and bundled ourselves in schluffy clothes into the car and went to St. Lawrence Market and had breakfast sammies from Carousel Bakery alongside some extra strips of oven-roasted bacon from one of the meat purveyors.  Did our shopping and came home and got ready for the Dotytron family xmas party which was being held up in Pottageville or some other place off the map.

It was a gong show getting there.  First we timed it so we would go to Costco and pick up gifties first and then head to Pottageville.  Got to Costco (which is MADNESS on a weekend generally, but ESPECIALLY SO on a weekend leading up to the holidays), and realized I had forgotten my wallet at home, which kiboshed the Costco mission but also kiboshed the me being the designated driver scheme we had cooked up.  So we had to drive all the way home and then head out again. 

Dotytron family xmas was lovely, though.  It was kind of a pot-lucky affair - I brought: thyme and Gruyere gougeres, proscuitto-wrapped prunes, and the homemade kit kat bars.  We were supposed to go to Supper Club afterwards but we left the family thing late (around 8pm) and it was too much for us and especially the Big Yam.  It would have involved getting him out of the car, waking him up, hauling him to Supper Club for an hour, only to pack him back into the car, him falling asleep, and then hauling him back out again when we got to our house...it just wasn't feasible and fair.  I think we'll be more ambitious when he gets a little older - in fact, it's very important to me that he get used to falling asleep at people's houses and being bundled up in his jammies and taken home, but for right now, it's too disruptive for him.

So we came home and started watching Louis C.K.'s show, Louie, which we INSTANTLY fell in love with.  It's the funniest thing ever.  We were laughing so hard we were crying.  It's also viciously smart, nuanced, highbrow, lowbrow, and keenly observant.  This scene, is brilliant.  Near the end, there's a discussion of the use of the word f****t, which I thought was so layered and perfectly encapsulates comedy, the simultaneously elasticity and rigidity of language, the nature of semiotics, and the use of taboo words.  It really struck me.  

In retrospect, it becomes all the more striking when it is revealed that my mother-in-law, the dear Momma D, might possibly have heard me call the Dotytron a "f**king c**t" on Sunday.  Whoops.  In my defense, I was joking.  He left the lock for the stroller at home and I was jokingly berating him for messing with my system.  She was in the car and this all happened outside the car, with the car doors closed, so I'm not 100% sure she heard it...but the Dotytron is convinced.  LOL!!!  I actually find it pretty funny.  But I can see how this probably doesn't improve my image as the shrewish, shrill, harsh-o-matic outlaw daughter always giving her son a hard time.  I can't help it!  I've got a potty mouth!!!  I come by it honestly, having worked as a blue-collar worker for many years.  Cooks have the filthiest mouths.  I also go straight to: "I'm going to f**king kill you" any time something small happens.  In fact, the smaller the thing, the sooner I am to jump to: "you're an idiot" or "I'm going to f**king kill you."  I guess from outside, if you don't know me, I can see how it looks bad...but I don't mean anything by it!  That's just the way I talk.  Anyway, Momma D and Poppa D like, never had screaming matches (according to the Dotytron), whereas in my family, from the outside, it sounds like that's ALL WE DO.  So it's a cultural thing?  I don't know.  Alls I knows is - sometimes, I'm going to throw down the c-word, and it ain't no thang in my books.

This all happened on the way to the Toronto Christmas Market, which was amazing, the only downside being that it was a victim of its own success.  Basically, they turn the Distillery District into this European-style Christmas Market, with little wooden stalls selling mulled wine (DELICIOUS!) and apple cider, and maple taffy, sausage on a bun, schnitzel, mac'n'cheese, candied bacon, etc and also little tchotchkes  and stuff...there's a GIANT Christmas tree and there are twinkling lights all around and a bunch of stuff for kids like a Santa's village, and the shops are open so you can stroll in and out.  It's beautiful and lovely and very festive.  Because it was so awesome, it was also a s**tshow, with way too many people trying to navigate around dogs and strollers and a million other people.  If they do it next year, I would want to take an afternoon off and be leisurely about it.  I also hope they extend it into the holiday break so that it spreads people out during the holiday, instead of all crammed into the weekend.  I highly recommend it, though!

So the long and short of it is, even though we were foul owls at some point, in the end, the weekend was perfectly lovely - full of experiences, good food, and family.  

Here is a video we finally managed to capture of the Big Yam working on his crip walk:

Spicy beef udon for dinner tonight.  Shazzam!

Fin.

countdown...

to little big cousin's appearance into the world!!! eeks!!! can't wait to find out if i have a new niece or nephew! i'm calling the baby "little big cuz" because the boobla just got weighed at the midwives last week and is a whopping 8lb 5oz - gaining over an oz a day, BUT i think that's how much little big cuz weighed like, 3 weeks ago, in utero. my mum has taken to calling little big cuz the jolly green giant and referring to the boobla as sprout.

i can't imagine how rough it's going to be for my poor sis recovering from a c-section - it's major surgery! it's not like they can take a baby out laparoscopically. that and the fact that she gets 7 weeks off before she has to go back to work.

this weekend was fun! friday we had dinner at dr. rei and hanbo's house which resulted in this deliciousness courtesy of dr. rei (a lamb/eggplant dish with rice with raisins and carrots and a fattoush salad [not pictured] on the side):

my contribution was whipping my boob out during the meal and also a pumpkin/squash cheesecake that i forgot to flavour with pumpkin pie spice because i'm only half here, brain-wise lately. i was so stressed about it tasting weird that i had a slice of it during the day, which resulted in me bringing a pac-man cheescake over to their house. i had used this piece of squash/pumpkin from our CSA, it was a varietal i'd never heard of, which was MASSIVE. i roasted off cubes of it and then pureed it and folded it into the cheesecake batter in lieu of canned pumpkin. it definitely tasted fuller than canned pumpkin, but i think some cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger would have smoothed out the squashiness.

conversation on friday was aces as usual. we started talking about music and die antwoord came up and dr. rei started fuming, "die antwoord makes owl city [whom she had just been slagging] sound like freakin' pavarotti!" and we were all like, "PAVAROTTI?!? what does that even mean? is that a good thing or a bad thing?!?" it was jokes. it was also jokes when i caught dr. rei talking about how much she hates vince carter and managed to make her see that she hates vince carter for the same reason cleveland hates lebron (whom she had previously defended for defecting to miami). i felt so vindicated watching the dawning realization on her face when she realized she'd been caught.

saturday i went to school. ugh ugh ugh! the first hour i was like, WTF is going on?!? and then i eased into it. i went after lunch to maximize my time and left the dotytron at home for his longest solo stretch with the boobla ever. the boobla made it easy on him by basically snoozing the day away, the little champ. we had spaghetti and meatballs and a baby spinach salad for dinner:

and i baked off some of these macadamia shortbread cookies which are AMAZING! the ground up macadamia nuts add a rich butteriness that just underscores the natural butteriness of shortbread and the texture is insane. so crumbly and tender! these are definitely going in the xmas cookie tin this year for sure:



our saturday night was spent watching "toy story 3" which is SO GOOD. wow. pixar effin' nails every movie they make and they just keep getting better and better. the level of emotion they manage to squeeze into completely imaginary, computer generated characters should make james cameron and all those motion capture idiots writhe in their inferiority. the entire movie had me welling up every 10 minutes or so. so sad! and so cute! and so funny! there are so many genuine, laugh out loud moments that don't rely on cheap sophomoric humour - many live-action comedies should aspire to as much. blargh...so entertaining - i can't recommend it enough.

it was particularly affecting because the theme of the 3rd installment is all about growing up and coming to terms with growing up and i've had to grapple with that lately as the boobla continues to chub out and change on a daily basis and i've seen how his first month has literally FLOWN by. one of my favorite things in the world is after a feed, when he passes out milk drunk against my chest, and his eyes are closed, and his little mouth is gaping open in a little "o" shape and he's breathing all heavy and completely unaware of anything else - he's so defenceless and vulnerable, his little body slumped up against me is so small and trusting. looking down at him on friday night i started crying, because i was already missing the point when he wouldn't do that anymore. and i know that every stage just gets better and better, but it's hard to imagine anything more perfect than his being at every moment in the present. so hormonal!!!

sunday we strapped him into the ergo and went on a leslieville walk about. we wanted to try this coffee place that our neighbour, a coffee aficionado, recommended. it's called voulez-vous cafe and it's on queen, between greenwood and coxwell. the leslieville strip is rife with gourmet coffee retailers. we've got the original dark horse espresso bar, mercury espresso bar, te aro, tango palace coffee company, red rocket coffee company, and now voulez vous. the dotytron has been on a macchiato tour of all those places and agreed with the neighbour that voulez vous was the best, richest, most nuanced cup he's had so far. the ambiance is really nice, too. tonnes of magazines (my favorite is that they have lots of current issues of dwell) and a big, industrial communal table made from old bowling alley flooring.

then we headed down to visit my old canoe colleague, S's new storefront for her french macaron/wedding cake company, bobette and belle. they're a short, 10 minute walk from us and the store is GORGEOUS! just take a look at the wedding cakes on their site - freakin' incredible. and lots of delicious flavours, too. they've expanded so that the store also sells baked goods, pastries, cookies, and candies and it's a jewel box of a location with a full production kitchen in the back. we bought two cupcakes (red velvet and a chocolate hazelnut crunch), both topped with the airiest buttercream and a blueberry scone, which comes with a little pot of whipped devonshire cream. mmmmmmmmmm!!! we had the cupcakes late last night and they were DIVINE. moist, rich, cake topped with the fluffiest, lightest, most intensely flavoured buttercream imaginable, and all for the very reasonable price of $2.75 each! i'm so happy for S, her business is going so well - they did a bunch of macarons for the new york times party during the film fest, and they do cakes for the rich and famous and are routinely featured in high-end magazines.

i'm also selfishly happy that they set up shop in our hood. when we first bought lil' ugmo, i was more than a little upset to be moving away from my beloved danforth, home to my favorite grocery stores/cheese mongers/hardware stores, etc. and leslieville seemed SO gentrified to me. but now i freakin' love it. i love living in between two thriving, fantastic neighbourhoods that are equally accessible and yet are still far from the madding crowd. leslieville has amazing boutiques for clothes, vintage stores, more vintage furniture stores than you could ever possibly hope for, a plethora of charming neighbourhood restaurants, and SO. MANY. BAKERIES and brunch spots. plus my massage therapist and access to all the fast food along the lakeshore. then, when i have to do my grocery shopping, i can just nip up the danforht, which has all those material, daily life needs covered, but has a dearth of the "fun stuff" stores that queen east has. and in the middle of it all, is chinatown east and little india for arcane spices and cheap seafood. best! i love love love my hood!!!

for sunday breakkie, as a nod to the fact that we were scheduled to go to guu izakaya with mhui and her hubby for our quasi anniversary dinner, we had an OPEN FACED sausage and egg mcmuffin. i'll let you be the judge as to whether we actually exercised a lick of restraint or not:

not so much, eh? we dropped off the boobla for his first ever adventures in babysitting with momma and poppa d and went to guu for dinner and feasted like pigs. it was so good! i love that restaurant more than anything. i want in!!! how do i get in as an investor?!? mhui and her hubby (who were ALSO celebrating their quasi anniversary) eat the way we do (and by that i mean, a lot) and they love their guu hard. we just narrowly got into the restaurant, which almost resulted in a domestic.

the dotytron and i drove by at 4:40 and there was nobody there, so i made the call that he should drive me to my work so that i could pick up some books. i was also like, "don't worry! it's sunday night and it's raining! the hype has died down! we'll be there by 5pm!" we WERE there by 5pm to find that there was a LINE UP TO THE SIDEWALK. he wanted to murder me. we were the last people to the door when the host said the restaurant was officially full at which point you might as well have started making funeral arrangements for me. i asked if he would mind shifting people around at the bar and he agreed so we got to sit together. disaster averted (narrowly!) we ended up ordering 24 dishes at guu. plus drinks and dessert. amazing!!!

the outlaw grandparents were fine with the boobla, who again made it easy on them by basically snoozing for the entire four hours that we were gone. he was up long enough that momma d managed to finally get some photos of him with his eyes open:

what a little gaffer! goddamn, he's a cute kid.

fin.

camp momma & poppa d

oy. yesterday i called in sick to work. one too many sleepless, restless nights in a row - a combination of the heat, the no a/c at lil' ugmo, and the fact that on wednesday night we went out to see the dotytron's friend K play at gate 403 on roncesvalles in a straight ahead vocal jazz band. we didn't get home until midnight. i've been going to sleep at 9:30pm. it was a combination that resulted in me waking up on thursday morning feeling tired, cranky, head-achey and like a giant, sweaty, over-heated tubster. i couldn't face going to work.

instead, we went to the dotytron's parents' house and i napped and soaked up their a/c and loved life. it was so nice to visit with them anyway. the live up the street (but quite a distance away - like a 25 minute walk?) but we don't see them nearly enough and so we drank their pop and they bought us pizza and spoiled us and treated us like big kids.

it was heavenly.

this all meant that even though i woke up at 3am last night and had to stay up reading on the couch (we're still sleeping on the living room floor) by flashlight for 2 hours until i could get back to a fitful sleep, i am much more well rested today and ready to face the mountain of work ahead of me.

tonight we're going for AYCE sushi and then a viewing of "twilight: eclipse" with jenny calendar, lolly, dr. rei & hanbo, bwong and his new gf (!!!) and my mum. what a crew!

i'll try to take some pics.

big weekend ahead!

fin.

scott fujita love

i'm so enjoying scott fujita's manly man face beaming up at me from the top of my blurg that i'm kind of loathe to post YET ANOTHER long-winded blabby post that will push him down the screen.

but...long-windedness is kind of what i do.

speaking of long-winded, s-dawg told me a funny story about big d that i thought i'd share. so like, in the summer when i was visiting at my family's crumbling estate i brought some laundry with me and as a direct result of my habitual tendency to over-estimate the capacity of laundry equipment...i burned out the motor and broke their washer. i offered to buy them a new one or contribute to a new one which went a LOOOONG way to big d not chewing me out for the better part of 16 hours. so my mum and big d finally bought a new washer.

now, lest you have ANY misconceptions about the gendered division of labour example in which i was raised, you should know that the assignation of duties in my childhood home go something like this: big d: everything domestic; my mum: nothing remotely domestic. that's not entirely true...my mum will come up with half-cocked theories and ideas about WANTING to do something (say, bake) and is very good at going out and buying all the necessary tools and materials, but not so good on the operationalizing. which is to say that all my life, big d has been the laundry-maker, grocery-shopper, etc. etc. in our house. which is to say that he has been applying his prodigious talent for OCD-ing and micro-managing a perfectly normal situation (cell phone plans, grocery shopping, etc.) to laundry for the past 25 years.

so s-dawg shows up shortly after the purchase and installation of the new machine to find that there's like 8 different detergents lined up outside of the laundry room door. he asked what was going on, and APPARENTLY, the new energy efficient machines are SO smart that you have to use detergent specifically designed for them, because otherwise they'll sense the excess of suds in the water and CONTINUE running, thereby negating their energy efficiency. s-dawg was suitably skeptical, to which big d replied something along the lines of, "i didn't believe it either, but then i verified it by looking it up on the FORUMS ON LAUNDRY DOT COM" LOL! the idea of big d trolling the forums and being a n00b on laundry.com is kind of the best, ever. the idea of big d being so invested in laundry that he went out and found a message board dedicated to his passion is also the best, ever. what gets even better is that even when presented with the irrefutable first hand observations of the interwebs, big d STILL didn't believe them and SAT AND WATCHED THE LAUNDRY GO THROUGH THE ENTIRE CYCLE WITH THE REGULAR DETERGENT. ahahahahahahahahahaha!!! that my friends, is TEXTBOOK big d.


last night we went out for em's birthday dinner. we went to vi vetha bistro in the beaches. i wasn't the biggest fan. if you click on the menu you can see the offerings - i had a hard time deciding what to get because all of the millions of plates of pasta had at least ONE thing that i wasn't feeling and didn't understand or appreciate the addition of. as a general rule i tend to avoid places with a vodka sauce, a rosé sauce, or with too many items in a pasta. i really feel like there should be a max of like, 5 ingredients in a pasta dish. and i really don't like fusion pasta - like curried pastas or pasta and chili hybrids or pasta and thai combinations...i ended up ordering a GIANT caesar salad that was pretty decent if a little over-dressed and a seafood pasta in what was touted as an olive oil, lemon, wine sauce (which i kind of assumed would mean the pasta would be lightly coated in the above), but which actually meant that the pasta was totally naked except for a giant pool of the liquid-y sauce sitting in the bottom of the bowl. my preference would always be to have a place do 4 or 5 pastas REALLY well instead of 20ish pastas okay. the portions were quite large though and the scallops in my pasta were cooked correctly.

more importantly, it was a hilarious night of much laughter and conversation with my outlaw family, that involved a spirited discussion on why me and the dotytron aren't interested in listening to CBC radio (1, 2, 3...whathaveyou) that culminated in momma d totally momming it up by leaning over and telling us that music is subjective and everyone has their own taste. lol!!! also, the dotytron's sister asked us, who would we like to have sing to us, and without missing a beat, i said: "hall and oates" and then "steve perry" but the dotytron thought i was mis-interpreting the question and tried to rephrase it so that i understood. basically, it's who you would want to like, stroke your hair while your head is in their lap and have sing to you, not who has awesome songs. and to that, i reply, "i SAID hall and oates." ha! i later amended my choice to include willie nelson, or spandau ballet, but only doing "true":



the dotytron picked sarah vaughan...BORING:



uhhhh...i know music is subjective (thanks, momma d!) but...I WIN. c'maaan!!!

tonight s-dawg came over so that we could have an on-camera interview for that tv show. it was to make sure we're comfortable being taped? s-dawg had already demanded that i refer/introduce him as colonel charisma (upgraded from the lower-ranking captain charisma). i *think* the interview went well - we're pretty winning. i really don't know what they're going to do about the finance bit, but as dr. rei said, if they want us on the show, they'll figure something out.


i made us a quickie dinner when we got home...penne with guanciale and cauliflower and a romaine salad with toasted walnuts and caramelized cinnamon pears and red onion in a red wine vinaigrette.

now it's yoga/stretching time.

fin.