Time Flies

...when you're hustling like a mofo.  Which I am, all the time.  It is exhausting and leaves little time for other stuff.

Lots of irons in the fire and I'm seeing some payoff for my preparation and drive, which is good, but it might lead to some hard choices, which is not bad, per se, but fraught.

WAS THAT VAGUE ENOUGH FOR ALL Y'ALL???

The past few weeks and the next few weeks until the end of June are pretty much bananas.  But it's okay, I've made my peace with it.

We spent the May 2/4 weekend in Cleveland with H & A and their kid, Danger.  We managed a 5+ hour drive there and back without having to resort to screens in the car, but we almost broke down (and by "we" I mean, obviously, "the Dotytron" who is ready to unleash the screens-in-the-car-kraken at the slightest provocation) on the way home.  The kids were cranky and overtired and I was driving and it was a bad combination.  I just gotta say: when I'm riding shotgun, I KILL the kid distraction game.  The Dotytron's methodology is very strange.  It involves near-instant capitulation, turning up his own music in the car VERY LOUD, playing one half-hearted game of "Eye Spy" and then asking why we can't turn on Eddie VAN Halen's DVD player.  At the end of the day, the point is: we made it.  My tips for longish car rides with kids success:

1) PACK SNACKS.  SO MANY SNACKS.  I have an emergency stash of snacks in the car, and before we go, I pack a snack container of a mix of goodies for each kid.  Each kid also has their own bottle of water

2) Try to do the driving around bedtime, if at all possible.  We'v gotten burned before thinking that if we leave the city at 3 or 3:30pm, then we'll "beat" rush hour traffic heading out of the city.  THAT IS A G-D LIE!  All you do is pick up rush hour traffic.  Basically, you leave the city by 2pm, or not until 6:30 or 7pm.  So, we eat dinner at home, get the kids into their jammies, and then pack up and roll out with the aforementioned snacks.

3) Depending on your kids' interests, pack some appropriate, portable, no small pieces entertainment gear.  The Big Yam gets some crayons and markers and a big pad of paper.  The twins get to hold a foam sword, conducting baton, or one of those magna doodle boards.

4) Bring music your kids like.  We have a Spotify playlist of all their favorite tunes, so when they get tired of being quiet, we play that for an hour until they invariably pass out.

And that's it.  We've never driven for longer than 6 hours.

We basically just chilled out, ate some food, hung out with their friends.  Went to some playgrounds and their Museum of Natural History.  It was very low-key.  Some snaps from our time there:

LOL at my cautious Big Yam struggling on this thing.

Three amigos

I made that toffee bundt cake from Baked Occasions but this time put a brown butter glaze on it.  It was MURDERATION

They took us to Eddie's Grill, which is this cute, old-timey place that serves chili dogs and fries and hamburgers along lake Erie.  I have to say though, Americans have no idea how to cottage.  They're clueless.

We tried Michael Symon's new BBQ joint, Mabels.  The brisket was delicious.  The lamb ribs were way too fatty.  The pig's tail was in this super-spicy, vinegary, buffalo-type sauce which was super-addiction.  Baked beans and slaw were good.  As was the spaetzle side and the beet salad.  It was tasty, but kind of expensive.  Not sure if I would go back.  Portion sizes were kind of weak.


Whenever we travel, we always come back and get Vietnamese takeout from our local.  It's a tradition.  We came back late on Sunday of the long weekend, which meant we had all of Monday to relax.  We spent the morning doing chores/laundry, and then grabbed takeout and spent the afternoon at Cherry Beach.  It was the perfect long weekend day.

This past weekend was lovely.  On Saturday, the Dotytron was at the Discening Coyote's bachelor party, and our caregiver invited my kids to her son's 12th birthday party at her house, I was on my own on Saturday night which was SO NICE.  I went shopping for a dress (in a REAL. LIVE. STORE.) for my brother's wedding, and then met up with Lolly and we had dinner at Lamesa, which is a modern Filipino restaurant on Queen West.  The irony is not lost on me that my kids were chowing down on home-cooked Filipino food and I was eating an upscale version.  The food was delicious, though.

Our appetizers, a crispy pork belly with papaya slaw and sawsawan reduction, and a tuna/avocado poke-type thing with shrimp chips for scooping.

Our mains: octopus and crispy polenta; chicken adobo with garlic rice (so good!); a charred eggplanta caponata thing with creme fraiche; and this DELICIOUS grilled zucchini with coconut zabaglione, and foam and housemade ricotta.

I really loved the vegetable dishes in particular.  There's nothing bad about a super-charred eggplant dish and the zucchini was delectable.  The coconut was so rich and light and the lightly grilled zucchini played so well with the ricotta.  I would definitely go back and it was a fantastic choice for gluten intolerant people.  We lucked out because it was a walk-by situation.

Then I came home and had my buddy M over to watch a movie as part of this half-assed Marxist film.

Sunday the Dotytron was pretty wrecked so we took it easy and kept it local.  We went to the farmer's market and hung with people we saw there, then came home and had dinner with Momma D, freshly returned from Iceland.  I made pizzas on the grill, which were good, but not great.  I need to get my grill hotter!  I don't know how to do it. They were still tasty, but the pizzas need a minute or two under the broiler to get the top browned (the bottom cooks before the top crust can get really burnished).

In other news, this actually happened to me the other week at lunch with my homies KD and G.  We were at Burrito Bandidos and because I'm really making a concerted effort to shape up, I got a "wrapperless" burito bowl.  I ate half of it and the rest was in my styrofoam container that I had closed up because I was planning on saving the rest for lunch the next day.  While we were sitting there, an indigent man had come into the restaurant, and rifled through the garbage next to our table, looking for something to eat.  He came to our table and asked if he could have my container of food.  I hesitated, probably longer than was decent (because I really wanted to eat the rest!), but after a pause, I said he could have it.  He opened up the container, looked at the mess that was inside (a wrapperless shrimp burrito bowl will never win any plating awards), and then shook his head and handed it back to me.  LOL!  It was kind of hilarious that he was hungry but not THAT hungry.  But also sad.  But also good that people maintain their humanity and always have standards?

I've been on this pretty disciplined weight loss regimen for the past two months and I've actually seen results.  I'm about 4 lbs off from my pre-twins pregnancy weight.  I run about 5km 3 or 4 times a week, getting up buttf**k early in the morning to do so (I'm up and around before 6am, ideally).  And I do gross things like start my day with a green smoothie and exercise portion control and log everything I eat.  I feel like I do this every summer, but this is the first time I've seen marked results, and I think I can chalk the success down to this: being kind to yourself.  That was the breakthrough for me.  So, if I have a bad day where I go off the rails on what I eat?  It's no biggie.  I try again the next day.  I don't sweat, or stress, or beat myself up over it.  Which means that the shame/guilt spiral of excessive overeating that used to accompany previous lapses doesn't happen.  Same with the exercise.  If I feel like not doing the full run, I don't do it.  I don't beat myself up over it.  It's working for me, this whole being kind thing, and I kind of like it.  If I know I want to eat ice cream for dessert (which for me, is I KNOW IT), then I just dial back on dinner a bit.  Not hating myself for enjoying myself makes a big difference, I've found.  It's just easier to dust yourself off and try again (try again).

I can't believe the twins are almost 3!  THIS IS UNREAL.  They're such little people now.  So much talking and being ridiculous between the two of them.  I love their little butts so much.  This week, Quincess woke up and barfed a few times.  He wasn't feeling well.  When Lindsay (Twin B) heard, he scuttled down to the basement to get their toy doctor's kit, and was talking to himself the whole time about how he knew what to do.  He then struggled to get the doctor's kit up the basement stairs.  He was so determined!  I was in the kitchen futzing around and Twin A (Quincess) was in his high chair and all I could hear was him screaming, "LEAVE ME ALONE!!! LEAVE!!! ME!!! ALONE!!!" as Twin B advanced on him with a plastic syringe.  So cute.

This video shows the cute little gasps that Lindsay does when he's excited about something.  He's such an enthusiastic little dervish.  He's been all over his "ice lollies" lately (that's a Peppa Pig reference).

Lindsay talking about his "snow cones."

This guy's morning hair

 

At one of our new favorite playgrounds

Outside all day, erryday.

Twin A is so funny.  He has this belly-laugh chortle which is so adorable coming out of his wee little body.  He also gives major teenage-style attitude.  "Line up your shoes on the mat!" Response: "I diiiiiiiiiid" and then he throws his head back and drags his body around like Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer:

He also gets very teenager-y when he wants something and drags all the words into one moany-sentence.  I'm trying to capture it on video.  It's so good:

So. Much. 'Tude.

For all my friends who still have the option of avoiding this fate: don't drop off your kids/pick them up at school.  I don't have the stomach to watch schoolyard dynamics play out.  The other day, I went back to watch the Big Yam surreptitiously from the side after dropping him off.  He ran up to a friend of his, and playfully grabbed his friend's baseball cap off his head.  His friend whipped around, annoyed, and ripped the hat out of the Big Yam's hands and hit the Big Yam with it.  Then the kid turned around and continued talking to this other kid.  I watched the Big Yam stand there, kind of chastened, his arms akimbo, all awkward-like, and then you could see him trying to recover, so he asked his friend, "Are you Iron Man?" and his friend ignored him.  The Big Yam stood there for a bit more, before running off to play with other kids, and my heart hurt for the rest of the day.  I could barely stand it.  

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

I know that I can't protect him.  I just don't have the heart to watch this stuff happen.  He is a very sweet, gentle, weird kid.  He's not great at reading social cues.  I mean, he's okay at it, and he likes other kids, but he's also very content to play in his own interior world.  Like, if all the other kids are doing a game of hide and go seek, the Big Yam will frequently just go off and do his own thing...he's not the one to succumb to the group propulsion to do what everyone else is doing.  These are all beautiful, lovely attributes.  I just want him to be safe in who he is.

This sweet little butt.

I also know that a lot of the time the view from outside is way worse.  That I'm likely projecting a lot of my adult psychological baggage and nuances onto his social interactions...it doesn't make it easier.  Can I just like, never drop him off and pick him up?  

I've been gently probing during our dinner time conversations, because I want to know about other stuff happening that might be bothering him.  I feel like we don't know very much about what happens during his day.  The other night, I asked, "Did anything happen that made you sad, or mad today?" He thought for a moment, and then his whole sweet face brightened up and he said, "Something made me so happy! Our butterflies hatched!" And then he went on a long, rambling description of the butterflies hatching.  Never change, Big Yam, you sweet little soul.

Dinners around here lately:

Oven roasted kalbi and bi bim bap rice with fried egg

Leftover almond toffee from making the bundt cake with maple bacon ice cream and mercury espresso ice cream (I have a bit of an ice cream problem at the moment)

Stew oxtail, squash, and spinach with a double

Quickie weeknight meal - brisket in the freezer, King's Hawaiian rolls, and broccoli

Soft shell season!  Breaded soft-shell po' boys with bacon and homemade remoulade

A veggie-heavy meal - tater tots (fried, of course), roasted aspargus, poached eggs, proscuitto and hollandaise.

Fin.

Buffs'n'tings

Last weekend, I went through all three kids' clothes and did my seasonal inventory, which is an extremely boring, but necessary task where I write up a list of their needs for the season (# of t-shirts, # of long-sleeve shirts, sandals, hats, etc.).  Then I go through their drawers and see what they have that will still fit into the next season, what has to be retired, and what has already been bought or is in a hand-me-down bin and cross-reference with that list so that I only buy what I need (I always end up buying a little bit more, but because I have a giant and twins, they all get used eventually).  It is mind-numbing work and I'm really glad I have two Master's degrees and also: guys are useless in this department, although if there are any cis males who DO do this work, then please message me because you should be sent for study at a highly acclaimed research facility on gender equality in the domestic sphere.

ANYWAY, I had already bought the Big Yam this tshirt below, but hadn't opened the package yet:

Cut to - a couple of night's ago, him asking me when we were chilling, "Can you get me a shirt that has a skull and crossbones on it so I can be a pirate?" and me saying, evenly, "OK, we'll see."  

Cut to - last night, me showing it to the Big Yam with much fanfare and him being the MOST jazzed of life.  

Cut to - this morning, 6:15am, me in the kitchen starting the daily routine and the Dotytron eating his breakfast in the living room when the Big Yam comes down the stairs, and announces, "Hi Baba, I already dressed and brushed my teeth" and I was like, "What the - ?!" and he's standing at the bottom of the stairs wearing all his clothes for the day, with that proud/shy expression on his face that slays me dead.  Usually, it is a FIGHT getting him to change out of his jammies (he doesn't like putting on cold clothes), and he waits until the very last possible minute, and there's a series of escalating (in tenor and volume) reminders for him to brush his teeth.  But today!  Today he stood at the bottom of the stairs and was dressed (even his socks!!!) and had brushed his teeth all because he was so pumped to wear a $10 t-shirt with skulls on it, and he broke and simultaneously mended my heart.  He's such a fearful kid and he's generally afraid to do the wrong thing, so it really shows when he's self-conscious.  That mix of shyness and pride that he sees you noticing him doing something is so eternally sweet, I can't handle it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was holding strong and refused to let the kids watch a show on a Saturday morning, because sometimes I like to make my weekends as torturous and masochistic as possible.  They were in the basement being maniacs, and finally I had enough and said, "Fine. You can watch one show before breakfast," and from the basement I heard Twin A screaming, "ONE SHOW!!!" like he was a civil defense siren in a little wisp of a body and it makes me laugh to this day.  

As of today, I'm on vacation for the next week!  Huzzah!  We have some laid back, fun, staycationing times ahead of us and I couldn't be happier about it.

Edit: picking up this post mid-way through my staycation, which so far has been anything BUT laid back and/or fun.

UGH.  My Friday before going on vacation was so stressful.  And I got called into work yesterday to deal with work stuff and it was so not fun and I had heartburn all last night as a result and I had to field work-related calls while at the sugar bush with my kids today and that was also very NOT fun.

Our latest obsession is watching American Crime Story: The People Vs. OJ Simpson which, I know, I was as surprised as anyone that it is THE BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION RIGHT NOW.  And look: I make it a habit of watching the very best curated television.  There were SO MANY strikes against this, coming out of the gate (mixed sports metaphor, say what!): a Ryan Murphy pedigree (I've never liked anything he's done), stunt casting, a story that we already know, from every angle, and that could so easily be played for lurid, grotesque, People magazine-like titillation.

The thing is: it doesn't do any of those things.  It is that perfect mix of staying on the tasteful side of camp and so incredibly entertaining, while framing this ground-breaking case within the paradigm-shifting intellectual/cultural context.  It is because of this that we have reality television.  I went back and checked, Survivor debuted almost 10 years after this trial.  We have the birth of the Kardashians as an entity.  We have racial politics playing out in a very visible way in the courtroom - and by the way, nothing has changed!  We have the 24 hour media cycle elevating ordinary people to the level of celebrity, we have tabloid culture, racial dynamics, feminism...it has everything.  The casting is PERFECT.  Like, the most perfect.  David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian is everything.  Sarah Paulson is perfection.  John Travolta as Bob Shapiro is the role of a lifetime and he is NAILING IT.

I seriously want to go back to grad school so I can write a million papers about this.  It is so ripe for a densely layered reading.  Anyway, the episode "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia" that focused on Marcia Clark was so real from a feminist, working mom perspective.

This was made very real for me when things blew up at work and I got called in yesterday and was putting out a fire.  I was like, YES MARCIA, I GET YOU.  When I was methodically going through all the kids clothes, I was like, YES MARCIA, THIS WOMAN'S WORK IS HARD STUFF.

We were debriefing about my no good, terrible, very bad day yesterday and the Dotytron made a solid observation about how the amount of training you receive on a job counterintuitively gets less the more professional and important your job is.  It's so true.  He was like, "It's like, when you're a teenager they're like, 'this is how you cut a bagel - no, not that way! - this way - ," and no one trains him on anything to do with being a teacher.  You're just expected to learn on the job.  Which I get in terms of the minutae of how you do your actual job...but I feel like people don't get training on process, or administrative procedures either?  Which is totally weird.  When I was a cashier at Loblaws, I had to go to Loblaws central and I was tested on PLU (produce) codes for like, 2 days, before I stepped foot in the store.

I'm also obsessed with this seasons of Girls (which I have been watching from day one because I am a good quasi-Millennial, but which really picked up for me in season 5 and now I legit love it), and Broad City, and anything to do with the Duplass brothers.  I LOVE ME SOME DUPLASS BROTHERS.  I want to be the meat in a Duplass brothers sandwich.

They are so smart and funny and they were seminal in the development of "mumblecore" movies and they care.  They executive produced Tangerine, which is about trans women in downtown LA.  Jay Duplass is in Transparent, which is another current favorite show.  Mark Duplass is a good actor and they're just amazing.  We started watching their show Togetherness which makes really astute observations about (heteronormative) relationships at a certain point.  I just love them.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yeah, work was stressful.  March Break has been semi-fun, and semi-stressful and by Tuesday mid-day I was like, that was the LONGEST day and a quarter of my LIFE.  Yesterday was a write-off, but the Dotytron and I did manage to go out to eat (more on that later).  Today we took the kids to Bruce's Mill Conservation Area to go to their maple syrup festival.  It was actually really fun.

We've had some pretty low key weekends which is good - we're sticking to one day of socializing and keeping Sundays for nature walks and being chill, even if it does result in Twin B complaining, "I don't want to go for nature walks!" on the regular.  Haha.  We had an epic snowball fight at the Brickworks on the last snowy day.  The Dotytron took the Big Yam to a birthday party at Laserquest and was the only adult to participate and came in second place (proudly) (at a 7 year old's birthday party).

I also made the kids these double-sided fall/spring neckwarmers and they've been a big hit.  It was nice to get back to sewing - I've taken a long sewing hiatus over the winter.  My goal is to make Twin B his quilt before he turns three!  Then the one after that is a big quilt (queen sized, minimum), for me.  Then I'll probably start all over again with quilts for the kids as the Big Yam is already outgrowing his crib sized one.

You Actually Can Teach An Old Dog New Tricks...

...as it turns out.

Did I ever tell you guys about my fantasy career as a food stylist/researcher for television shows?  The genesis of this idea came about 2-3 years ago, when the Dotytron and I started our brief (too much Claire Danes ugly crying and CRAZYEYES) dalliance with Homeland.  There was an episode in the first season when she goes to her sister's house where Danes' dad (who also deals with mental illness) is staying after a recent trip to a psychiatric institution.  He offers to make her a turkey sandwich, and at that point, my suspension of disbelief was severed.  I went on a long rant about how NO ONE EVER EATS A TURKEY SANDWICH, and how implausible it was (he basically just slapped some sliced deli turkey between two slices of bread and called it a day) and how shows needed someone like ME to consult on how PEOPLE ACTUALLY ATE.  Other subsequent shows have triggered a similar response.  I haven't eaten a ham or turkey cold cut sandwich since I was in grade 5.

Cut to me, last week, at my friend K's house.  We had tried to get takeout but nothing was open so she graciously served me a a turkey sandwich, on whole wheat, with lettuce, tomato, mayo and sliced havarti, and GOD DAMN IF IT WASN'T THE BEST THING I'VE EATEN IN FOREVER.  I'm literally thinking of ways that I can add a sliced turkey sandwich into my weeknight meal plan, and the Dotytron has given me mad side eye because I don't think he can quite believe the turnaround.

People are capable of change.  It's a beautiful thing.

Last week I had the opportunity to visit the mock reactor at Darlington which was hella cool.  A bunch of us from work went and it was the best work field trip of all time.  Hands down.  My job is so cool.  I didn't have to pretend to be interested once!  Haha.  As it turns out, I also fundamentally misunderstood nuclear energy.  I thought the fission generated heat that was captured.  I didn't realize there was the intermediary step of the heat being necessary to generate steam which in turn gets the turbines moving.  I always thought the water needs were to cool the reactor, but not also as a component of the energy generation process.  This lead me down a rabbit hole of reading up on Fukushima and Chernobyl, and remembering the stories during Fukushima of the Japanese government asking single, old people to volunteer to help clean up the reactor and how that was so moving at the time, but now that I had something tangible to hang my feelings on, was even more poignant in retrospect.

One half of a scale recreation of a reactor

The other day I was walking somewhere with the Big Yam and we stopped to smell some flowers (literally), and he said, "These flowers smell damn good."  I was like, "Ummm...you're not allowed to say that."  I think we can chalk that down to reverberations from letting him watch Jurassic World on repeat.  The other night at dinner he asked us if we knew what "capiche" meant.  His kindergarten teacher says it to him.  It's quite cute seeing an almost-five-year-old say "capiche," let me tell you.

Otherwise, we've had a bit of a busy week (aren't they all?), and this is even BEFORE our programming starts in a couple of week.  One of the neighbour ladies was asking about art classes for her daughter, who is also five, and then I started remembering how most of the kids I know are in organized (not city parks and recreation offered) sports and I started spiraling about how reasonable people are supposed to manage all this programming?  We have the Big Yam in Chinese school on weekends, followed by a math class (because we are monsters), and then we're putting him in swimming and gymnastics, because the Dotytron believes it's important for kids to learn basic coordination and how to tumble and stuff.  We also have him doing piano lessons, at our house, thankfully.  I'm willing to pay a premium for someone to do piano lessons in my own home.  This is him killing the more pensive theme from Jurassic World:

Anyway, just thinking about that series of activities for just ONE of my three children and thinking about what would happen when we have all three in something made me blow a gasket and I had to have Dr. Rei talk me down from the ledge.  I have peeps asking me about what soccer club I prefer and I know people who have their kid in a different organized sport (or 2!) a season and I was freaking out because, as with all things parenting, you're wondering if you're IRREVOCABLY DAMAGING YOUR CHILD by not having them do what a million other whack-a-moles are doing.  Like, I have people asking which art studio they should send their five year old to!  Then Dr. Rei reminded me that kids get good at art by sitting their butts down and drawing and I flashed back to my own experience being a creative, artsy kid, and I was like, oh yeah.  I made pop up books out of printer paper and toilet paper tubes.  I was fine.  It's all gonna be okay.

I do have a tendency to get whipped into a froth when it comes to parenting stuff and then regain perspective.  The twins are in this mode where they cry themselves to sleep. EVERY NIGHT.  It basically started after we came back from camping.  Something about us all being in the tent together finally triggered the need to experience the awesomeness that is sleeping in your parents bed and it's been a bitter pill for them to swallow that they can't do that every night.  No matter how quiet it is, now matter how drowsy they are, no matter how many times I kiss their hands and their feet (somewhere along the way, I got into this routine where they proffer me a papal-like palm and I kiss it and then I kiss the soles of their feet - also papal - and now part of the bedtime routine is me scrabbling from toddler bed to crib, kissing alternating proffered palms/soles), there is an inevitable chorus of wailing that starts up as soon as I click the door shut.  I don't know what it is, but I know it won't (can't) last.

It sucks because it mars what is otherwise a very sweet time of the day.  There is something that I hope I'm imprinting on these unformed little nuggets,  I want that hazy feeling of their little bodies giving way to sleep, the feel of my hand smoothing their hair to the side, the rhythm of their eyes falling just a little heavier shut with each pass, attempting to cling to consciousness so that they might hear my whispered affirmations of love but feeling so secure and enveloped by the coziness to be okay with giving up to slumber - I want all of that deeply embedded in their subconscious.  I want them to be able to remember that feeling of security.  Mostly so that when I am old and infirm, they will do the same for me, and not begrudge me a single minute.

Just when you get your kids under control, you end up having to look after your doddering parents and they are so out of touch and out of it that it really does feel like a thankless task.  Dr. Rei and I have marveled at this before.  You love your parents, but not nearly as much as you love your kids, and the grand tragedy is that THEY WILL NEVER KNOW AND WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND the depth and breadth of your love for them.  It's tragic.  It's why looking after your parents who can't figure out simple technology is so frustrating (but seriously.  YOU USE A COMPUTER EVERY DAY AT WORK, DO YOU NOT?!?).  That moment where you felt you could sleep because you were safe and secure in the cradle of your parents' love is inaccessible to you as an adult.

                    

I checked The Brief Thief out of the library for the Big Yam.  I tend to do that to test out stories before making a permanent investment in our distended collection of children's books.  I didn't know anything about this, other than the fact that it has been generating "buzz" and has been circulating on the lists.  Ultimately, this is a story about a chameleon, who uses a pair underpants he finds conveniently hanging on a tree to wipe his butt after a poo, and then is bullied by his conscience into doing the right thing (washing them thoroughly and returning them).  There's a funny surprise ending and because it comes right out and uses the word "poo" is obviously a HUGE hit with the under-65 set.  I would recommend this.  It is also a good starting point for launching a conversation about a person's conscience.  Although, if your kid is anything like the Big Yam, the conversation will go something like this:

Me: "Blah blah blah, describe a conscience, blah blah.  Do YOU have a conscience?"

Big Yam: "No."

Me: "Are you sure?  You know when you do something wrong and then you feel sorry, or you know that what you did wasn't the right thing?  That's your conscience."

*pause*

Big Yam: "Oh yeah!  I do!"

Me: *gratified*

Big Yam: "YOU'RE my conscience!"

Me: *smh*

LOL!  This conversation came at a very opportune time.  Our caregiver randomly spilled the beans the other day that the Big Yam has been teeing up his brothers and hitting her and acting up like crazy (spitting, kicking) when he doesn't get his way with her.  So we had to have a big sit down with her and figure out a game plan and give her some tools to cope and discipline because she's not very adept with that kind of stuff.  I was mortified because he's apparently been doing this at school and I can't imagine what the other parents think of us.  

Anyway, we set up a chart and laid out some ground rules.  If he doesn't hit/kick/act violent or misbehave in a noticeable way (like, these have to be indictable offenses), then he gets a smiley face and accruing 4 consecutive smiley faces means he gets to watch something that he wants that's a bit more sophisticated than our usual fare (which lately has consisted of Wonder Twin-appropriate programming like, nature documentaries, Cinderella, and the Halloween episode of Yo Gabba Gabba).

When you implement a system of reward-based discipline like this, it's important to do a few things:

1) make the increments easily attainable.  Don't set this impossibly high bar/time frame: "You have to do X, Y, Z for a whole month or else!"  Kids' sense time on a whole different level and if it's too stretched out, you lose the immediacy of the reward.

2) don't turn the reward system into a catch-all for any and all bad behaviour.  It has to be tied to one discrete thing you're trying to correct.  Like, if it's about not hitting, keep it to that.  If you start throwing everything under the sun under the umbrella (talking back, having to be asked more than once to do something, showing their frustration in a different, but equally annoying way), then a) they're never going to get their reward, and b) you're not adhering to the rules of the system you've established, which is demoralizing for the kid and they lose the drive

3) you've heard this a million times before, but it's a lot easier (and more fun) to reward and praise good behaviour, than to come down on them for the bad stuff.  They're just trying to make it in this workaday world, just like we are.  It's employee engagement,  man.  I am way more motivated when I'm not being micromanaged and when my boss shows they value my effort and work, even if I might have mangled the final product - same goes for your kids.

This post has been a week and a half in the making, so I'll end this here.  

Stay tuned for: What I've eaten! Quilts!  How I am fed up with casual racism!  How I'm over white women (related to the previous)!  How I loathe the lack of original content on Facebook!  My thoughts on problematic hyper-masculinity in Straight Outta Compton and Narcos!  How I accepted a new job!  What I'm reading!  Big Yam school drama!  And more more more!

Fin.

Intensive Mothering

I’ve had a lot of thoughts this past winter (long, cold, insular winters are conducive to thoughts) on the topic of intensive mothering (long, cold, insular winters when one has three young children and is project managing a renovation and starting a new job are particularly conducive to thoughts on intensive mothering).  This concept has been kicking around since 1996, when academic Sharon Hays wrote about it in her book,  “The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood” (accompanied by this amazingly dated picture):

What is intensive mothering?  Here is a description pulled from the abstract to Hays’ paper: “an ideology that holds the individual mother primarily responsible for child rearing and dictates that the process is to be child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive” (emphasis mine).  

Now, almost 20 years later, as my Facebook feed explodes with discussions about vaccines (populated mostly with commentary from women, natch), and as I see the endless stream of weird questions on this “Ladies with Babies” forum on Facebook filled with my cohort (mostly women in their 30s, educated, living in downtown Toronto, newish parents) – “Question: when to give my daughter eggs?”  “Felix has a weird speckled rash and mostly runny, green poos that resemble a verdant forest on a Bon Iver album cover - thoughts?”, and after my ill-fated experience on the parent council at the Big Yam’s school, it is evident that intensive mothering is still a pernicious and pervasive ideology - one that is contributing to gendered labour inequities in the domestic sphere and hindering women’s progression in the workforce.

I think we all know intensive mothers.  As progressive as I am, it is impossible for me not to fall into a certain trap when it comes to household domestic division of labour.    Part of the problem is me – being an insane micro-manager and type A.  I know of a few other relationships where the male counterparts in the couple fulfill the role of making sure that everyone is fed, clothed, and happy, but in the intensive mothering sense – which means enrolled in programs, eating organic food, dressed in the proper pediatric-approved shoes - that work still falls to the women.  In the vast majority of my experiences and observations though, even if the guys do the laundry and the cooking, the thinking about the kids is disproportionately borne by the “mothers.” 

In my own house, this manifests thus: the Dotytron is responsible for packing the Big Yam’s school lunch, but I still take a second look to make sure the Big Yam gets vegetables AND fruit, and I’m the one who manages the grocery list and notes which mini yogurts the Big Yam prefers.  I don’t think the Dotytron has ever, in his going on five years as a parent, ever bought our children a stitch of clothing, or expended a nanosecond of time thinking about what season we’re going into and what the kids have to have in their wardrobes to be sartorially prepared.   The Dotytron has never scheduled a doctor’s appointment or a specialist’s appointment for our kids.  Jobs that he does do, have been assigned to him, by me.  Yes, he does the cooking at the end of the day, but it’s from a recipe that I’ve laid out for him, with ingredients that I prepped (by waking up at 5:30am, most days), and from a weekly menu plan that I devised, with groceries that I planned for and stocked. 

The bar for fathers is deplorably low.  I’m reminded of this as I read through the proofs of my friend JJ’s forthcoming book on the topic of food and femininity.  In the introduction, she states: "We demonstrate how the organic child ideal is informed by neoliberal notions of individual responsibility, positioning mothers as personally responsible for shielding their children from the risks of the industrial food system. At the same time, we argue that critics must not dismiss food-focused mothers as neoliberal dupes. Maternal discourse is constituted through neoliberal logics, but is embodied and enacted through food traditions that have deep roots within feminine and maternal identities." 

Women are responsible.  Do you ever hear of people judging and shaming middle and upper-middle class dads for feeding their kids Gerber baby food (the horror?!)? No.  Women are the ones who are guilted and shamed.  Just like when I’m at a family event with the kids and older women feel the need to tell me what I should be doing or how I should be raising my kids and what I’m doing wrong.  It’s all on the mom, man.  It really is.  When it comes to “voting with your dollar” on the world you want your kids to inherit, it’s women making those consumer decisions. 

It’s a lot of pressure being responsible for waging war on capitalism and the industrial complex on your own.  I would LOVE to be a dad – where you get daps for carrying a diaper bag and being able to put your kids to bed.  That would be awesome.  If that’s all I had to do when I was home, and I didn’t have to spend any time negotiating “work-life balance” and making sure that I had a handle on 4 people’s lives (5, if you include the Dotytron), then I would be freaking Executive Director by now. 

I love my partner, but sometimes he has to be reminded that I don’t exist to facilitate his life, which it can sometimes feel like.  The pressures put on mothers and working mothers is indeed internalized externalized pressure – we are complicit in an ideology that serves to subjugate us.  I could easily just not care.  But, I do care and the general tenets of intensive parenting are valid. On the nights when I’m not home and the Dotytron has to pick up the Big Yam from his karate class (as an aside – the first time we watched him at karate class was worth the price of the class alone.  It is ridiculously adorable how uncoordinated our eldest is), the Dotytron’s default dinner is a walk-in special (large pepperoni pizza).  I don’t want my kids to eat pepperoni pizza and Habitant pea soup (which is what the Dotytron assures me would happen if I ever actually made good on my threat to give up on the menu planning and food prep) every night!  That’s gross!  What JJ’s research shows is that even when men are the “foodies” in a relationship, it tends to be reserved for the “special” cooking.  The entertaining, fussy kind.  The everyday cooking and the thinking about nutrition and the like fall on women, more often than not.   

I don’t have any easy solution for this problem, but I know that I grew up in a house where my mother was a working mother who categorically did NOT practice intensive mothering.  She was largely absent and preoccupied with running her own law firm.  My stepdad, Big D, did all the grocery shopping and laundry and dotes on my mum.  Cooking was largely hived off to the nannies my mum hired to look after us.  I’ve never talked to my mum about it, but I don’t think she’s ever felt an iota of guilt (I’m so sure of this, that it’s why I’ve never talked to her about it - there just isn't a need to confirm what I already know).  There are models in my life for an unabashedly career focused mother.  I don’t necessarily want to be the mum my mother was, but I don’t think I have to shoulder the burden of the pressures of modern mothering myself.  It’s nice to be able to give a form and language to the oppression of intensive mothering – to be able to name that which I am casting off. 

It is difficult to be a socially conscious, environmentally driven, health-minded and reflexive person in society.  It is extra hard when you’re doing all that, working, and trying to be and create that culture for your children.  It’s exceptionally hard when you do all that, and you’re the kind of exacting, psycho, obsessive perfectionist like me.  I don’t make it easy for myself, but I can choose to say no.  I can choose to not let the state off the hook for collective social action.  I can choose to ask for and be gracious in the face of help.  I can choose not to do it alone.  I’m not sure if the model to aspire to is intensive parenting instead of mothering, but I know that I don`t have to die on the sword of social consciousness on the battleground of my children.

Diversion – how was your weekend?  I had a fantastic weekend, starting Thursday night with a lovely dinner in advance of Dr. Rei’s birthday at Sukho Thai.  This resulted in the following hilarious exchange when we some Chinese guava candies were presented with our bill –

Me: “You should try one, they’re good, Benoit in my office has a bowl at his desk.”

Dr: “Who?”

Me: “Benoit”

Dr: “Did you say, Benoit???”

Me: “Yes”

Dr: “Wow.  Benoit, huh, hmm”

Me “…”

Dr: “Benoit… “

LOL!  She was clearly very impressed with Benoit, based solely on his name, the way Jordan Peele’s character is so taken with a Continental breakfast offered at his hotel, because of its Continental-ness:

Then I had book club at my friend Judith’s gorgeous, detached, GIANT house close to Dufferin Grove park.  A house on the corner of my street recently listed in the $900s.  It had previously sold 2-3 years ago for $640-$700.  The house is the same size as mine, but detached, and a corner lot with two parking spots.  However, it is next to a rooming house and the back side is subsidized housing.  It also faces a main street.  The Dotytron has been very quick to quash  my dreams of capitalizing on my unseemly willingness to invite chaos into our lives with big renovations and real estate speculation, so I don't think it's in the cards for us, given that I refuse to pay a million dollars FOR MY OWN HOUSE.  Basically, if I'm buying a million dollar house, it's going to be for something that is not a detached version of what I'm living in.  I definitely would want a significant space upgrade.  Dotytron is insisting that Lil' Ugmo is the house they're going to wheel him out of when he's 99, so it is what it is.  No real-life Monopoly for me. 

J's house was so gorgeous though.  It is giant, close to Dufferin Grove park, old and untouched but liveable.  There are so many delicious details about it (servants stairs - which are not savory from a supporting-slavery ethical standpoint, but are a lovely architectural detail in a house), stained glass, dark beams on the ceilings. 

Anyway, Thursday was a good night.  Friday I came home to a Micelli Monday in full swing with Lolls and SMckay and baby Sheaslounge and my gaggle of adorable goofs and it was so nice.  I love coming home to a full house.  We made a delicious dinner and then hung out and it was delightful.

We watched the Amy Schumer Friday Night Lights spoof on football rape and about died laughing.  It is incisive, and funny, and cogent:

Saturday was our usual errand morning - dropping off the Big Yam at Chinese School. Two weekends ago he had a recital that we missed because we had no idea and had made other plans (we are the worst).  We felt EXTRA bad when I found out from my neighbour that during the Big Yam's class, a kid PROJECTILE VOMITED on the very last note of the song.  It was classic!  BEST POSSIBLE KID RECITAL OUTCOME!  I saw the video - the kids went screaming off in every direction.  It was chaos.

While the Big Yam is at Chinese school we do the grocery shopping and take the babies to a park where they give us multiple heart attacks.  Quincess Leia is pretty good, Lindsay is fearless.  I caught him mid-step about to go down the fireman pole, completely oblivious, just in the knick of time.  He has no self preservation instincts.  This makes both babies considerably more sure-footed than the Big Yam (who gives a hard no to anything remotely dangerous - see exhibit A, this photo from his first real roller coaster at Disney), but it also makes for a non-relaxing time at the playground:

Side eye to the MAX.
 

Quincess has been so sweet and loving lately, it's the best.  He throws his arms behind him when he runs and frequently runs into a room, arms behind him, gives us a signature Quincess crinkle cut eyes (his expressions are all about his ability to manipulate and scrunch his eyes suggestively) look of mischief, and then turns on his heels and runs out.  He is the sweetest little thing.  I was standing in the kitchen the other day and he came up and flung his little arms around my legs and gave me a knee-height full body hug, and then ran away with his arms behind him.  He's definitely a mama's boy, which is nice, since as far as Lindsay is concerned, the Dotytron is both baba AND mama (he uses both interchangeably to ask for the Dotytron, inquire about his whereabouts, request cuddles).  He's a baba's boy like you wouldn't believe.

Ever since Momma D's birthday party, Joni's "Big Yellow Taxi" has been on heavy rotation.  Lindsay's sweet little voice is the best thing.

This is my 4th baby.  He is the sweetest little goofball.  Look at him!  Those eyebrows!?  That round little noggin.  He kills me.

 The Big Yam is so funny and also filled with sweetness.  He went to a friend's house the other day and his friend's mom relayed this exchange to me:

Big Yam, upon walking into their house, "Whoa. This house is really small. Hey, we have two cats too! Except one is dead."

Mom: "Oh no! What happened?"

Big Yam: "Um. He just went to the vet and died."

LOL!!!

He has this hilarious friend at school, Frank, and the two of them just constantly make up ridiculous in-jokes and weird sayings.  The newest consists of running around singing, "Have a jolly, jolly Christmas!" and then claiming, "Me and Frank made up that song."  Also, there's this:

I'm not sure when "Mama Mia" gets employed and under what context, but as a "bit" it's so random, I love it.

We did an escape room with some of our high school buds on Saturday and then had dinner with them after.  I can't believe it's been TWENTY YEARS since high school.  I was looking around the table at dinner and was kind of floored.  So much history there!  So many experiences.  I still don't feel a day older than I was then.  I don't feel like I'm coming up on forty (!!!) at all.

Good friends, good times.  Sunday was a visit my Poh Poh, Yummy Market, dinner with my mom day.

This weekend is another good one - dinner and a movie with JJ, the Discerning Coyote, et al tomorrow night, then a friend's birthday party on Saturday, then friends over on Sunday for dinner and more hangs involving cute kids and people I've known forever (girls from my cooking days).

Fin.

Childhood

We've had a series of very chill weekends of late - weekends that have found us lazing on the couch after Saturday's Big Yam AM activity glut has abated, watching TV.  Some grocery shopping, some minor visiting, trips to the hill for sledding, being cozy and insular.

We watched the film Boyhood recently, which is tied with Grand Budapest Hotel for my pick as the most deserving best picture nominee.  My film friend at work, D, claims you can never take into account the project or context for a film in your assessment - he's of the opinion that each film has to be based on what you see in front of you.  I think with Boyhood, it's too difficult to disentangle the scope of the project from what you're seeing - the collapse of time, the rumination on memory, on what makes a life, the creation of something that suggests epic in the mundane banality of childhood giving way to nascent adulthood - they're all invoked and evoked in this film.  I'm not generally a huge Richard Linklater fan, but this is an extraordinary film.  To me, it veered ever-so-slightly into melodrama (more than I would have liked), but the performances are outstanding, and the ability for this shambling series of vignettes to conjure what it means to be a kid, growing up, is incredibly, powerfully, affecting.

The film is called Boyhood, but it is just as much about the growing of all the central characters - the boy, his sister, the mom, the dad.  They all grow and change and morph on screen.  The 12 years encapsulated by the film passing by in a series of discrete non-events - the way lives are lived and remembered.  Patricia Arquette's breakdown when she realizes her son is leaving home really hit home (keep in mind, the Big Yam is my child who is closest to university-age and he's four).  I just really empathized with her state of mind.  I am going to be a WRECK when they leave home.  A wreck!  You spend 20 years of your life growing this kid and then they're supposed to go off and be independent?!  AND FORGET YOU?!?  Nuh-uh.  My heart hurts just to think of it.  Like, how can I hold onto Lindsay's awe at what happens when you crack an egg, forever?

I hope this never leaves me.  Classic Quincess with his little cocked head, observing and thinking, thinking, thinking always.

Lindsay's vocabulary has skyrocketed in recent days.  He says "pancake" and "binky" and holds up his hands when he doesn't know where something is.  He likes to enter a room and say, "Hello!" and is always good for a reaction in the vein of what you saw above.  He can do a version of the "Happy Birthday" song that is pretty recognizable.  He's a treasure.  The Quincess' latest tip has been to get a lot of epic nosebleeds in the night (Must. Remember. To. Turn. On. Humidifier).  They both understand so much!  I will never get over the sight of Quincess, the little homunculus, being a tiny walker, moving from room to room with something in his hand.

He suddenly got a fever on Sunday night and was a lethargic little homunculus hot water bottle.  Sitting dazed on the Dotytron for hours.  I'd been talking to Dr. Rei who is in a measles, anti-vax spiral and I got all freaked out Monday morning and made our caregiver bring the babies back from the drop-in centre.  She said he looked "lonely in the eyes" all day, but he seemed to recover by Tuesday.  No more fever, 78% less eye-lonely.  All good signs.

We met up with some Markham crew and drove up in a bonafide snowstorm to experience our first ever escape room.  Uhhh, those things are hella fun.  Why haven't I spent my whole life doing this?  There was a lot of back and forth and we ended up in the "easiest" room.  Despite being told, repeatedly, not to over-think things, we totally overthought things and got owned.  It was a crushing defeat:

The upside was that I got to take the gang to Phoenix and spent about $40 on 4 dishes of food for me and the Dotytron and expose everyone to my favorite restaurant.

We also celebrated Ehmdo's birthday and I made this ombré cake that was quite delicious, though a touch labour intensive.

It's a dark chocolate cake with a mint buttercream frosting and a mint ganache.  I was worried it would be too minty but it was delicious.  Kind of peppy and fresh and worth the hassle in the end.  I've attached the recipe at the end of this post.  The Baked guys tend to favour a buttercream that's akin to the roux-based buttercream that I use on my classic Hershey's chocolate cake.  I actually think I prefer that cake recipe to this one.  The buttercream quality was indistinguishable from the one the Baked guys use.  I would make this again.

We watched Episode 4 with the Big Yam, with frequent pauses so he could understand and process what he was seeing.  He still calls Obi Wan "the old man" and Han Solo "the pilot" and is weirdly fixated on the death stuff, but he's working that out at the moment and there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it.  I feel like his questions about death are his own personal journey he's undertaking at the moment.

We went mid-week to see the Dotyron play in this school board wide band that mixes teachers and students.  He was playing the bass clarinet.  Guys, having instruments around is FUN.  I can't wait to get a piano!

I ate my weight's worth in the crispy browned cheese on top of my skillet lasagne

I tried my hand at making Jamaican stew oxtail.  It was lacking.  The oxtail was tender, but it wasn't as full-bodied as I would like.  Most of the recipes I encountered had you adding in some kind of all purpose "brown sauce" or "gravy" agent and that's just not my bag.  We served it with mashed squash and brown rice.

A lot of my time has been taken up with a fundraiser I'm organizing - a family dance for a local non-profit that's also kind of a city agency.  It's complicated (the City pays for 1-2 staff positions and the rest are matched by fundraising and government grants).  I'm on the revenue generation committee and I floated the idea for the dance so I'm spearheading the coordination.  Anna and Elsa from Frozen will be in attendance.  The Dotytron will be DJing.  There will be face painting and treats.  It should be a good time!  I hope it's successful.  I sent the poster I put together to a local mom who maintains a mailing list and she kind of shamed me, "Want to put together the same thing for [Big Yam's School]?  He still goes there, you know."  

I was like, B***H, please!  How dare you?  I sat on parent council for about 3 meetings before bailing.  I joined with a very specific purpose, to fundraise to improve the music programming.  Picture the most mind-numbingly circular, redundant, namby-pamby work meeting you've ever had to sit through, and then multiply it by a factor of 50.  That was it.  No decisions, no movement, a lot of talk and opinions.  A lot of older (I'm so ageist, I know), one-and-done, stay at home moms who were freaking tits about weird stuff.  Their financials were a mess.  I couldn't read the sheets at all.  It was a nightmare.  When they decided they didn't want to put money towards what I was interested in, I bailed.  But seriously?  Why do I have to defend how I choose to be philanthropic and give to the community to YOU, SAHM?  I didn't see YOU at any of the meetings?  It was infuriating.  PS, my kid was one of the top fundraisers for his grade at the Walkathon, so SHADDUP!    

It's beyond aggravating.  

Stuff like that is the reason why I don't want to go to any of your "parent socials."  In fact, I brought up that very thing at one of the parent council meetings I attended.  I was like, "um, if I'm going to the trouble of arranging babysitting, I kind of want to hang out with my own friends."  I got some nods of understanding and some people were like, "well, I consider the other parents my friends."  WHICH IS SO REVEALING, NO?!?  If all your friends are parents?  Worst!  I was asking at my book club last month, "Are you supposed to be friends with your kid's friends' parents?" and most of the women there, who are generally about 5-8 years up on me, and have kids who are older than mine, were like, "NO."  Phew!  That just seems exhausting.

Like, if it happens organically, then fine.  But also, people are jack a**es.  Like, mean and small and socially awkward.  It's the worst.  If you go to the playground for drop-off and pick-up, there are full-on cliques happening!  All the people who are kind of "like me" (the vaguely hipster, but weathered, parent) cluster together and don't make an effort to reach out beyond people "like them."  No one talks to the South Asian parents, or the parents who clearly aren't "in the know" and don't work from home, or don't have that weird fantasy work set-up that allows them to do pick up and drop off EVERY DAY and be totally integrated into their kids' lives.  My neighbour (who has become a friend), was saying that she went with her daughter to a schoolmate's birthday party and it was so cliquey and no one was talking to her, because the other parents already knew each other.

People suck.  Like seriously?  Just try to be a nice, normal human being and reach out.  If the person happens to be a recluse introvert who doesn't know how to connect, fine, at least you can say you gave it ye olde college trye.  Excluding people because you're too scared and fragile, as someone in your 30s, to be decent and expose yourself and all you want to stick with what you know, is not a good MO.  And I say this as someone, who is a champion grumbler, who probably needs a "No new friends" t-shirt the most.

Rant over (for now).  I've also been feeling particularly rant-y because of the whole vaccine thing making the rounds.  The Dotytron's cousin, who is a chiropractor (I know, I know), posted this stupid article critiquing vaccines (from a nephrologist, of course).  When I pointed out that none of the sources referenced by the author were peer reviewed, she linked to all the sources and pointed out they were reputable journals (Journal of Pediatrics, etc.)  What she didn't know (because reading comprehension, what?) was that all the peer-reviewed citations were for quotes, that Dr. Kook was REFUTING.

My manager sent me this photo recently and it basically applies to our world, all the time, but especially anti-vax moms in the western world who have no idea how to read, use a computer, do research, be critical.  Like, they're functionally illiterate and IS NO ONE WORRIED ABOUT THAT?!

This photo is my life right now.

I've also been mildly obsessing about the kerfuffle with Kanye at the Grammys.  I am a well-documented Kanye apologist.  I can't help it.  I think hating on 'Ye is hating on someone who is putting themselves out there, all the time, and that people who slag on him just can't read the nuances.  He's sublime.  He is self-aware and oblivious at the same time.  He tries so hard!  He's the person who said on network television that "George Bush doesn't care about black people."  When has Jigga or Beyoncé, with their carefully constructed personas, ever put themselves on the line and opened themselves up to potential ridicule?  Never, because they're robots.  I don't GET the Beygency.  Anyway, never forget:

The fact that anyone would bother caring about how Kanye "disrespected" Beck, or Taylor Swift is so funny to me.  It's the Grammys.  Like, you actually care?  You actually have an opinion on that other than "let's see what people are wearing and hear the performances, okay it's a bunch of people that only basic people care about, k thx bye"?  Like, we're going to talk about how "rude" it is when Kanye interrupted Swifty?  So bizarre.  I'm sorry, I didn't read the etiquette guide for appropriate behaviour at MTV VMAs.  

"No, Kanye" forever.  This is the first time they've seemed not like robots.

“Well first of all, Beck is one of the nicest guys and one of the most respected musicians in the game. So, there’s nothing that I will want to do as a fellow musician to disrespect him in any way,” Kanye said on the air. “And the weird thing is like, and I don’t feel like I have the right to take away from people’s moments, but the reality of it is — and case in point by who came up to me right afterwards — is it’s almost like a chiropractor. You know, you just get a little crook out like, ‘Wow, this crook has been there!’ It’s just a little jolt of truth, right? And then you know, everyone feels better after the fact, or everyone is way more famous after the fact, or everyone sells way more albums after the fact, and then Kanye just goes on being an a**hole to everyone.”

Realness.

Lagerfeld OUT.

Fin.



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Baked Wintermint Cake
not adapted at all from Baked Celebrations
serves 18-20 people

Classic Chocolate Cake:

3⁄4 cup dark cocoa powder

1 1⁄4 cups hot water

2⁄3 cup sour cream

2 2⁄3 cups flour, plus more for dusting

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

3⁄4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1⁄2 cup unflavored shortening

1 1⁄2 cups sugar

1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla

Peppermint Buttercream:

1 1⁄2 cups sugar

1⁄3 cup all-purpose flour

1 1 ⁄2 cups milk

1⁄3 cup heavy cream

1 1⁄2 cups unsalted butter, soft but cool, cut into small pieces

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

Mint Chocolate Ganache:

6 oz dark chocolate (60–72%), chopped coarsely

1⁄2 cup heavy cream

1⁄2 teaspoon peppermint extract

For the Classic Chocolate Cake, preheat oven to 325° degrees.

- Butter and flour 3 cake pans, line with parchment, and butter the parchment

- Mix cocoa powder, hot water, and sour cream together and set aside to cool.

- Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.

- Beat butter and shortening together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.  Add sugars beat until light and fluffy, about 5 more minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then vanilla, and beat until incorporated. Then, slowly add the dry mixture and cocoa mixture to the batter, alternating the 2 kinds and ending with dry.

- Divide batter between 3 pans and spread evenly. Bake for 35–40 minutes (rotate the pans halfway through) or until a toothpick comes out clean. Then cool for 20 minutes then invert onto a rack to cool completely.

For the Peppermint Buttercream

-  In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk sugar and flour together. Then add milk and cream and cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until mixture comes to a boil and has thickened. This will take about 10–15 minutes.

- Transfer mixture to bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high until cool, which will take about 7–9 minutes of mixing. Tip: Speed up the process by pressing bags of frozen berries or frozen corn against the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl.

- Reduce speed to low and add butter. Mix until incorporated.

- Increase to medium-high and beat until frosting is light and fluffy, about 1–2 minutes.

- Add vanilla and peppermint extract and continue mixing until combined. If frosting is too soft, put bowl in refrigerator to chill slightly, then beat again until it is proper consistency. If frosting is too firm, set bowl over a pot of simmering water and beat with a wooden spoon until it is the proper consistency.

For the Mint Chocolate Ganache

- In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring cream just to a boil.  Turn off the heat, add the chocolate.  Let it sit for a few minutes and then whisk together until the ganache is smooth.

eat and pour over bowl of chocolate. Then, let ganache come to room temperature.

To assemble the Wintermint Cake

- place 1 cake layer on a serving platter. Use an offset spatula to spread about 1⁄4 cup of ganache on top only. Let set for 1 minute in refrigerator.  Spread approximately 11⁄4 cups of buttercream on top of ganache.

Repeat with following 2 layers.

Crumb coat cake and refrigerate briefly, for around 15 minutes.

Frost sides and top of cake with remaining buttercream.