J.C.'s Weekend

Praise be the higher power (if they exist), our daycare provider is back from vacation!  Regular life resumes!  This is negative for me because it means I'm back on duty getting the Big Yam ready in the morning, but good for the family as a whole because it means we don't have to keep patching together a network of care.  Plus, it's just nice to be back in the regular routine of life, with an orderly schedule and whatnot.  It's good for everyone, but me in particular, because schedules and order are my talismans against the capriciousness of living.  

We couldn't possibly have had a better weekend.  It was soooo nice.  Four day weekends are bliss piled upon bliss.  They are especially so when your family obligations are neatly wrapped up on the first day (we had dinner with Momma D and my mum decamped to do some cross-border shopping in the States so we were off the hook with my family) and you have nothing but aimless days filled with some household chores and some dinner preparation and some friend visiting (but not too much).  It was perfect.  We cooked and cleaned and napped and relaxed.  There was a flurry of activity yesterday, spurred by my receiving my weekly pregnancy-email update.  According to Baby Centre, at 23 weeks the twerps are now considered "viable" (that is, if they were born now, they would be disgusting jellybean quarterly baby Voldemorts, but have a high statistical probability of survival).  The word "viable" resulted in me yelling at the Dotytron and rhyming off a nonsensical list of tasks great and small that I, in my fevered nesting state, would like to see accomplished.  The list included everything from doing something with the speakers and bass bin that had been plopped unceremoniously on top of my cherished rosewood buffet, to buying the minivan, to like, remortgaging the house, to cleaning the basement, to organizing extra cables and labelling them.  I went cuckoo, admittedly.  

The Dotytron was a peach and tried to stem the tide of hormonal anxiety by writing up a list of things to do, which culminated in "contract gonorrhea." 

We got a good chunk of business done and reorganized the basement some more and put things away so that they made sense for access.  The speakers and bass bin (what I jokingly refer to as the "Valve Soundsystem") have been rendered slightly less unsightly in a show of compromise between the Dotytron's quest for audio fidelity and my quest for harmonious living room aesthetics.

The Big Yam got (another) ear infection.  At least now he can tell us, although I'm not sure that hearing him plaintively cry, "My ear hurts, my ear!" is an improvement because it kind of breaks your heart.  He was a trooper though.  We pulled him in for Sleep Away Camp and dosed him with painkillers until we could see our doctor and he rallied enough to participate in the Annual Street Easter Egg Hunt.  This year we ramped it up.  I made breakfasty/sweet bread/snacky type things and someone bought coffee from Starbucks and someone else brought fruit and juice and cups.  The hunt was over in about half an hour, but we got an awesome group shot with all the kidlets on the street and then everyone stayed outside for another hour or two while the kids rode their bikes and the adults chiefed it up.  So cute!

We went to our friends' house for a tapas meal (I think there were like, 10 different dishes?  And cava?  And red and white wine?)  and caught up with our amazingly talented, interesting, intelligent, and engaged high school cronies.  Sometimes, when I take a look around at all the amazing people in my life, I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to count so many smart, talented people as friends - old and new.  As someone who thrives on conversation, debate, philosophizing, and taking the world apart and (trying) to put it back together again in a way that makes sense and is reflexive, honest, thoughtful, and conscious, gatherings where hours of wide-ranging conversation disappear in what seems like minutes are the stuff that I live for.  We came back from that lunch feeling very lucky, very loved, and very, very full.  

The Big Yam is so so so delightful right now.  Basically, if he's not whining, everything he says/does right now tears us to pieces with cuteness.  A small sampling:

- Washing the dishes from dinner, over the sounds of the tap and the suds, the Dotytron and I heard a very grave, "Mama, I'm not happy with you" from the Big Yam, who at the time was preoccupied with hopping on the couch in his jammies.

- He likes to put me to bed on the living room couch, which includes pulling a blanket around me, singing "Blackbird," and more often than not, him climbing up on the couch to snuggle in next to me with a: "I want to be cozy" or "I want tickles."  

- There is lots of dancing, all the time, and the newest iteration of his dancing style is hilarious.  

- "Mama, can I have butter on my bread?"  "Yes, I'll give you some."  "I want aaaaaaaaaaaa-lot."

He really is the best.  I was tired yesterday and fell asleep and missed the bedtime routine, despite the Big Yam's exhortations that "Mama, come!" I just couldn't move from the couch.  Then when I finally roused an hour later, I felt so guilty.  It was definitely hormonal but I was so sad.  I know you love all your kids (hopefully?) but there are times when I can't fathom loving the twerps as much as I love the Big Yam.  Or at the very least, I don't know where the extra love comes from.  I'm also trying to be very conscious that our time together where it's just us and him is limited and soon he's going to have to share us and we'll have to share ourselves and him with his siblings and it's going to be so different.  I don't know how you pay attention to all the little details of your kids when you have more than one.  I don't know how you find the time to give them the love and support and learning opportunities that make them grow when you have more than one.  

I don't know the twerps.  I know the Big Yam and I find myself being hyper-protective of our relationship.  I don't really know how you find the time/energy to make more than one kid feel special and awesome.  Two at the same time?  How the heck does that work?  I know this is something all parents with more than one kid grapple with.  I also know that this is me being a hormonal mess.  Still, it eats away at me a bit each day that goes by as we move closer and closer to imminent twerp arrival, especially when I'm reading stories to and being cozy with and  planting kisses on my sweet little Boobla.  

'Twas a weekend of good eats:

Saturday morning breakfast - oat & whole wheat scones with Devon cream & my concord grape jelly.

The craving for crispy fish & tartar sauce continues apace: sweet potato oven fries, a dilled cucumber salad, and a panko-crusted salmon burger with arugula, tomato, and tartar sauce on a buttered toasted bun (you'll notice my attempt to be low-carb by only eating half a bun).  This recipe for sweet potato oven fries produced the best version we've ever had.  All you have to do is soak your cut sweet potatoes in advance (to take out the extra starch, I'm guessing) and then drain them and dry them on a towel.  Then you put them in a paper bag with some cornstarch, shake it around so they get all coated.  Toss the coated fries in a bowl and toss with oil.  Season and bake in a 450F oven until crispy, turning halfway through.  

You'll then notice how I completely went ultra-mega-carbs by making Bouchon Bakery's TKO's - their take on the Oreo cookie, aka the most sinfully delicious, salty-sweet, rich thing in all of existence.  I dream of this cookie.  I rolled my dough out a little thick, but with a cold glass of milk, there are few things better.

My new favorite healthy lunch, inspired by some cheap brie I scooped with Dr. Rei on our lunchtime travels last week - pan-toasted sourdough bread, with my homemade tomato jam, some sliced red onion, some avocado, and melted brie on top.  Sided with more cucumber salad.

We closed out the weekend with breaded cod sandwiches, sweet potato latkes with apple sauce and chili mayo, and a broccoli, red onion, and almond salad.

Tonight we had Spanish style braised tripe with chickpeas and chorizo, served with warmed crusty bread for dipping.  I love me some tripe and it was nice to have the day off yesterday to prep it so it only had to be reheated today.  Recipe below.

Fin.

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Spanish Style Tripe with Chickpeas

serves 4-6

3 lbs tripe, cleaned and cut into 1" strips

2 T. white vinegar

1 c. dried chickpeas, soaked overnight

2 links semi-cured chorizo (not completely dried, not the fresh kind either, I get mine from Segovia in Kensington)

1 large Spanish onion, sliced thin

4-5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 T. Spanish smoked paprika

pinch saffron 

1/2 can of tomato paste

salt and pepper to taste

- in a fairly large pot, put the tripe, the vinegar, and just enough water to barely cover the tripe.

- bring this to a boil, then skim the scum off the surface and drain the tripe.

- heat enough olive/canola oil to cover the bottom of a heavy dutch oven and sauté the chorizo over medium-high heat until it starts to render.  

- add the onions and sweat, add the minced garlic, the spices, and the tomato paste and cook out.

- add the chickpeas and tripe and about 4 cups of water. 

- bring to a simmer, reduce heat to a bare, bare simmer and cook the mixture with the lid on for about 3 hours, or until the tripe is tender, stirring occasionally.  Add water as needed to reach desired consistency (I like it to be a mostly thick stew with just a bit of extra gravy).  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Update

I was at Academic Book Club Thursday  night, hosted by JJ (and only one other lady showed!  WTF?!?)  and my friend said that she had to get fisted to remove the placenta after labour with her second kid and it HURT LIKE A MOTHER - like...WAAAAAAAY worse than pushing out a giant baby (her baby was giant - like an 8 pounder).  This kind of first hand experience is useful for me for my decision making purposes.  The Dotytron was like, "don't just not do it just to be a tough guy,"  because I am kind of notorious for being a tough guy (see: getting the skin horribly burned off my foot, rejecting the percocets I was prescribed, and making a meatloaf dinner that same night).

Not much to report around here.  The Big Yam has been spending his days with his Auntie Ehmdo and Momma D and it's been cute to see the videos/photos/reports from his Nana and his Auntie.  He's so loved! What a lucky Yam.  The weather has been nicer (marginally) and because it's light out again at night we're incorporating more outside time as part of our day.  Insert the usual refrain about how I love my street and I love my 'hood.  It's so nice to see all the parents on the street getting together and talking and supporting each other.  I'm so lucky that we have such a strong network of support, on our street alone.  One of the ladies is expecting a baby any day now and sent out an APB to the neighbours asking if we could fill the gaps and watch her older daughter if she went into labour before her go-to caregiver was back on vacation.  Everyone was so willing to help - it's cute and sweet.  My neighbour has been offering to watch the Yam while J is on vacation.  It's just so heartening that you can build a community in a big city.  The Big Yam has been getting out on his strider bike (which he calls his motorcycle), but is usually more content to just wheel this cheap plastic baby stroller around.

I am very much looking forward to this extra-long weekend.  We've got an amazingly light agenda.  We're having dinner with Momma D tonight and then our friends who recently moved back to Toronto from spending a few years in Spain are hosting us for a lunchy tapas meal on Sunday, following the street Easter Egg Hunt.  Other than that, we're free (aside from Chinese School and having our water meter installed and grocery shopping and laundry and housecleaning duties and maybe a visit with Lolly and SMcKay on Saturday)!  I just want to relax and unwind and putter and bake and make and eat good food.  We're going to do major work on getting the basement organized and a final home for all our crap down there so we can have the Big Yam's room painted shortly and we can start configuring it.

Last night I caved to my insane fish and chips craving and we went to this place Olde Yorke Fish and Chips.  It's a veddy British looking placed that was packed by 6pm.  80% of the clientele was lily-white and over the age of 65.  Ose are all very good signs for a fish and chips resto.  E couple next to us had driven down from Willowdale just to eat there and we're very sweetly chatty and had lots of tips.   We had an order of fried clams and each got haddock and chips.  The portions were generous, e price was decent (haddock runs you $11.50) and the batter was crispy.  It hasn't usurped my favorite, Harbord, but it's my second for Toronto fish and chips.  It's close by and has the option of really nice indoor seating, which makes it a good alternative when Harbord isn't really viable (i.e. 9 months of the year).  And they do a brisk takeout business.  I kinda already want to go back.

Wednesday night's dinner: shakshuka!  So good.

The night before: spinach and feta brown rice casserole.

Thursday morning as I left for work I saw this on our walkway, courtesy of one of the rugrats on the street.  Such a nice way to start the day.  I love, love, love my 'hood.

Happy Easter, all.

Fin.

Blasé

Things to never tell a hypochondriac (if you're an OB): "Your pregnancy is as high risk as they get."  Wait - what?  Thus far, my principle concerns have been related to the minivan, whether my Land of Nod order will come in time to set up the Big Yam's new room, and the fact that I look like I'm 7 months pregnant (from the front only!!!).  I have also had concerns that the global food supply is insufficient for my current needs (where, like a newborn, I'm ravenously hungry every hour on the hour) and at AYCE sushi on Saturday with my family, THEY  were concerned that I was going to Hulk-smash the f**k out of the place when our food didn't materialize on the table immediately and when our salmon sushi order was mistakenly placed as 2 pieces instead of two orders.

Which is all to say, that even though my OB is really nice and laid-back, I guess I wasn't taking the whole monochorionic-diamniotic dimension of the twerps seriously enough.  The major issue is the Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome, which happens in 30% of my type of pregnancy AND if severe and left untreated has a 60-100% morbidity rate (*knocks on wood a billion, trillion times*)  There's the issue of them sharing a placenta, and the placenta giving out.  As an aside: how crazy are placentas??? Your body like, GROWS a new organ that has a shelf life.  Then there's the risk of my cervix thinning too much and the twerps falling out of my body (or something).  Ugh.  It was definitely a bit of a wake-up call.  I guess I've been pretty blasé so far and worried about the wrong things.

I don't think there's anything I can do about it though, so there's that.  I should start seeing the multiples clinic soon and they have crazy state-of-the-art ultrasounds to make sure things are copacetic in there.  In the meantime I'll continue to preoccupy myself with the weird statistical anomaly concerns that I generally bring to the table (prolapsed cord, DIC).  Living with a midwife I tells ya - it will mess you up good.

The other thing is that I'll have to give birth in a full operating room, which is a step up from the hospital room I was in last time.  There'll be a tonne of people around.  If all goes well the OB will let the midwife deliver the first baby (provided twerp A is presenting head down) and then usually steps in for twerp B.  She said that she usually recommends an epidural, which gave me pause.  I didn't have one the first time and I'm more freaked out by that than what I remember of labour and delivery.  Induced labours with oxytocin tend to be more intense and painful than non-induced labours and since I rode out the first one okay, then I feel like I can handle it.  The recommendation for the epidural is because if twerp B is breach, then the OB has to basically fist me and pull the baby out by its' feet.  DRAMAS!  I dunno...I still am way more freaked out by the epidural (who wants a needle in their spine?!) than the whole fisting thing.  Like, after pushing a baby out, can you even feel a hand going in?  I checked my OB's hands (although she might not be there for the birth), and they're pretty delicate.  Obviously, she can't force me to do anything, but that was her recommendation.  I'll think about it (in between calculating how many Oreos I'm going to eat tonight dunked in milk, and how many I'm going to eat straight-up).

So on to the good news: we had a lovely weekend around here.  We were up in Markham on Friday evening and all of Saturday hanging with my sis and the niece and nephews and eating delicious Chinese food at Congee Queen, and AYCE sushi, and an awesome banquet dinner for my mum's birthday Saturday night. So much good food!  I made my mum a tres leches cake which went over about as well as anything I've ever made for her, which is high praise indeed as she tends to be hyper-critical.

One of my favourite moments from the weekend was pulling out an old piano book and learning a Bach minuet with the Dotytron.  We did two right hands (me treble clef and him bass clef part).  It was SO. MUCH. FUN.  Yes, we are giant nerdlingers.  You would have overheard us saying stuff like: "This is really pretty," "I know right?  I can't wait to hear it come together,"  "It's Bach - he makes statues cry," and we practised and practised until we got it down and it was SO REWARDING.  It's made me so hungry for a piano I can't even tell you.  I want one, like yesterday.  Playing a piano is like playing golf - each time you have a chance to get it perfect.  I am totally the kind of personality to get off on that kind of thing.

Sunday was a lazy day of laundry, hanging outside with the neighbourhood kidlets, yoga, and making Sunday supper.  I made us spinach and ricotta stuffed shells (the filling was extra and frozen, as was the sauce, so this was relatively painless to put together), an arugula salad with lemon juice and grated parm, and toasted Ace bakery olive bread, buttered.  So good.

Tonight for dinner I made us a mulligatawny soup with chunks of sweet potato and chicken breast, that we had topped with a squeeze of lime, some yogurt, and toasted coconut.  The Dotytron and the Big Yam bought samosas to go with.

Fin.

CALM DOWN

Ssshhh...don't tell my mum, but last night we took advantage of our temporarily childless state and went out for dinner.  My mum is totally the kind of mum who gets mad at stuff like that.  In our defence, knowing what we now know about the lockdown that inevitably occurs when you have one bambino, let alone the twofer we're getting, we wanted to enjoy life a bit before the option of eating out is but a distant memory.  

We met up with our friend the Discerning Coyote and were going to go to Grand Electric for tacos, but when we walked by Electric Mud, the new bbq outpost from the same peeps (ex-Black Hoofers) and saw there were tables available, we called the audible and went in.  This is after I had read the slavering review posted by the notorious (to me) n00b restaurant reviewer in NOW magazine, Toronto's alternative, leftist, weekly rag.  The review was laughable, and it's also like, dudes, CALM DOWN.  The reviewer makes this big stink about how Electric Mud serves texas toast with their barbecue and marvels at the novelty.  Ummm...that's like, standard in the barbecue belt.  I didn't get it.  The reviewer gave this resto their highest rating possible and I was just like, RELAX!  

Anyway, we checked it out and the three of us ordered the following:

From the shareable sides ($3.50 each) we got the "crack rolls," which are a standout.  Soft, buttery, sesame-flecked rolls are served with a side of whipped, sweetened rendered smoker fat mixed with butter.  The spread is topped with sea salt and has that killer combination of sweet, salty, fatty deliciousness going for it.  The rolls are warm and are the perfect empty-calorie consistency.  This dish was great.  We also got their pickles, which were ho-hum at best.  

In the background you can see the "root beer" I ordered (I'm a root beer connoisseur) which I took one sip of and then realized it's an IPA mixed with some root beer syrup.  I guess props to them for being willing to serve an obviously pregnant woman alcohol?  The Dotytron drank it instead. 

Also from their sides, we got their smoked nuts, which turned out to be peanuts given the baked beans treatment, which wasn't what any of us were expecting.  I think we all thought they would be seasoned, dry smoked nuts.  We also got the duck ham, which is duck that is cured and smoked like a ham.  Nice texture. This was the Dotytron and Discerning Coyote's favorite, but not mine.  I got tired of the ham taste and you really lost the duck.  I liked the lightly pickled cucumber it was served with.  The main dishes were in the $13 range, overall.

The ribs were tasty.  They were smoked but not overly so - I didn't get an overwhelming smoky flavour from them.  They were cooked to the point where they still had a decent bit of chew and served with a kind of Asian/hoisin kind of a glaze and topped with crushed peanuts.  This was probably my favorite dish.

We also got the fried chicken, which was 2 weirdly shaped thighs (so weird that even though I'm a thigh woman, I thought they might be white meat and passed them up in favour of a drum), and 2 drumsticks served with honey and special reserve Tabasco.  This was also good but not transcendent.  The crust on the chicken was thin and slid right off the chicken skin, which was still flabby underneath.  The meat had been brined, but possibly almost too much so?  I think there's a difference between a juicy fried chicken and a fried chicken where you have crust and then it tastes like the meat is poached underneath.  This was good, but nowhere near come fi testing other better fried chicken I've had (I am a fried chicken connoisseur).  

Dessert was an aggravatingly overpriced ($5!) "banana cream pie" which was such a throwaway.  Basically graham crumbs, a dollop of banana pudding and whipped cream.  Whither my 'Nilla wafers (the way they do it in the South).  It was amateurish at best.  I came home and yammed about 10 Oreos with a cold glass of 2% and that was much more satisfying, to give you some indication.

The interior is all plywood and Schlitz posters from the 80s.  There are a million staffers for a place that seats like, 30 people.  3 Servers and about 4 people working the kitchen/bar - all of them standing around with toques.  To me, this is the kind of place where the cooks could easily staff the front of the house.  They're blasting blues and hip hop and the environment left me feeling blah.  It just felt really smug and contrived to me.  I get it.  You're wearing toques!  I get it, it's so funny to pretend to be a rough-and-tumble dive!  I just want a bit more authenticity (which I know is loaded).  I guess what I'm looking for is something that isn't so engineered and textbook.  

Overall, the food was good, but not great.  Definitely not deserving of the hype.  Not worth lining up for either.  The price is good...I think we spent about $60 on food for the three of us but the Dotytron and the Discerning Coyote's beers added to the bill considerably (beers are about $8 each).  

We got home and did some late night Face Timing with the Big Yam and my sis.  The little Boobla started off staring at the screen at us for about 30 seconds and then he started to get a little pouty.  I think actually seeing us made him start miss us.  It was heartbreaking hearing his little sad noises.  The Dotytron and I both started tearing up...poor little Boobla.  He's going to have a great time today because all his cousins are there but we started missing him.  To be honest, probably the Dotytron more than me.  I'm not like one of those parents who feels like there's a piece of me missing when my kid isn't around (I've learned).  I was more sad that he started to get sad and maybe was confused as to why he hadn't seen us in a while, and I did miss him, but I wasn't all like, "Let's drive up there right now" the way the Dotytron was.  

We're going to be reunited tonight at Congee Queen.  Yay!

Today is a day off.  I've got my first OB appointment and then a visit for massage therapy.  I got the report back from my chiropractor and it's like basically a giant X through my whole body.

Fin.

Where oh where

has my Boobla gone?

I actually know his whereabouts - my amazing mum has taken him for two days and he is staying up in the 'burbs with her and Big D.  My sis is coming up with her brood of hooligans Thursday night and she's going to watch the Big Yam up in the 'burbs on Friday.  Yam was super-stoked.  We were talking about it on Monday evening and he was all like, "I'm going to have a bath with Little Big Cuz, and Little Ze, and Miss Ramona..." all matter-of-fact and excited.  Kids love group baths.  Real talk.

This is the longest stretch that we've ever been without the Boobla and when we got back home after dropping him off we were already all like, "Aww, the house feels so weird without him" (it's a 20 minute drive from Markham to our house).

He's just been so amazing lately.  Once we weaned him off the iPad (he developed an addiction during our vacation), he's just been so sweet.  We lie in our bed with him in the morning and before his bedtime and read stories and he asks to be cozy and for cuddles and for tickles.  He's really chilled out on the b***h slapping, which has been nice and he's cooled it a bit on the whining.  He doesn't eat a tonne at dinner but he's not throwing his food on the floor any more.  All of this is a healthy reminder to me that what they say about these challenging stages of parenting are true: it will pass.  It does.  It really does.  I have a notoriously low threshold for inappropriate kid behaviour and so I tend to go straight to: "he's a sociopath" and it's a good reminder for me that you just have to ride it out a couple of months and you have a totally new kid on your hands.

There is a lot of nature and a lot of nurture in there.  You can't convince me that so many things aren't culturally dependent.  This whole, "boys will be boys" malarkey is nonsense (so far).  Little Big Cuz loves light sabre battles and pretending to be Iron Man and Hulk-smashing things left, right, and centre.  He has older siblings and they watch action-y cartoons and stuff, so that's what he's around and knows.  By comparison, the Big Yam doesn't even know how to hold to a toy Nerf gun.  He holds the one at my parents' house in both hands (like the way you would hold a pita sandwich) and points it up at the sky.  Last night when we were hanging out before leaving he was doing that and kept asking for us to play with him with it.  We were like, "what do you want us to do?" and he had no idea - just kept pointing it at the ceiling.  I took him to the drop in centre on Tuesday and there was this slightly older kid just ahead of us walking the same way who was all like, "I'm a pirate!  Grrr!" and waving a plastic spoon like a sword at us and being all rambunctious and pirate-y about life.  The Big Yam like, never does that.  Which is good.  I can't handle that level of aggression.  Like seriously kid, CALM DOWN.  Now look, I'm saying this and I bet you one of the twerps is going to be all Randy Macho Man Savage and basically bite my ear off as soon as he comes screaming into this world.

Our family already has enough aggression, courtesy of me.  The other night, I was musing about how much I hate Justin Timberlake when his stupid song "Mirrors" came on in the car.  The Dotytron is all like, "You feel the same way about him as I feel about Kanye" at which point I LOST MY EVER-LOVIN' MIND and started screaming like a banshee.  I am a known Kanye apologist, but here's the thing.  Kanye is a sick producer.  Also, the worst thing people can accuse Kanye of is being a bit of a clueless megalomaniac (but that's everyone!) and of being "mean" to Taylor Swift and saying that Beyoncé's video was better (which is TRUE).  Also, Kanye West came out and said that George Bush hates black people, which is amazing.  He's just so unguarded.  Whereas Justin Timberlake is under the delusion that he's so funny, is super smug, makes boring music, AND had a video played at his wedding that made fun of homeless people.  I hate him so much.

When we dropped off the Big Yam on Tuesday we took my mum for dinner at Restoran Malaysia, this awesome, awesome Malaysian restaurant in Richmond Hill.  It is so so so good.  They only do halal meat and don't serve alcohol but it's the best Malaysian food I've had outside of Hong Kong.

We started with the appetizer platter: balacan fish patties, spring rolls, beef and chicken satay, cucumber and a peanut and sweet chili dipping sauce.

Our mains: green curry chicken (incendiary), red curry beef (really spicy), roti for dipping, and a Singapore laksa.  Not pictured: this seafood stirfry rice noodle dish with a thick egg sauce.

Technically, the food above was more than enough for the 3 of us and the Yam, but then I panic-ordered an extra dish (as is my wont).  That laksa was sooo good.  The Dotytron thought it was too fishy, but I think he's crazy.  A fiery coconut rich broth with lemongrass, ginger and yes, fish/shrimp paste notes surrounding slices of fish cake and tofu and chewy yellow noodles, it was so comforting on a cold day and the perfect amount of lip-tingling heat.  My other favorite dish was the rice noodle stir-fry.  I love fat rice noodles and these were FAT.  Like, 1" thick, with pieces of gailan and mushroom, squid and shrimp all bound in a lovely rich, thick, eggy sauce.  So tasty.  The Big Yam had one bite of the beef curry and his face crumpled in distress and he said it was "Hot!!!" so we gave him water.  Did it stop him from eating more?  No.  He is the original Spice Girl.  I think he just needed to get used to the level of heat.  I hope the twerps turn out to be Spice Girls too.

Recently it has come to my attention that there isn't enough food in the world for me.  This is distressing on multiple levels.  I am hungry all the time.  ALL THE TIME.  Like a newborn, I'm hungry every two hours.  You would think that I would be concerned at the fact that I'm gaining over a pound a week at this point and I still have nineteen weeks to go, but I am not. My new favorite pastime?  Other than talking about my food cravings to my willing and enabling cohort, Dr. Rei?  My new favorite pastime is walking away from the Dotytron and asking if it looks like I'm pregnant from behind.  For some reason, this is VERY important to me.  You have to pick your battles, I guess?  

For some reason, I clicked on these photos of Gisele, with her 3 month old daughter, rocking the same carrier I have and a teeny tiny bikini:

For the record: that's EXACTLY what I look like 3 months post partum.  

We are celebrating my mum's birthday and my little bro's belated birthday this weekend up in the 'burbs with the family.  Tomorrow is my first visit with my OB and then I have a massage booked with my RMT.  Bring the pain.  Otherwise, it's a low-key weekend.  Back to Chinese school after a three week hiatus (two weeks of which were break) and we're hosting the Roomie on Sunday for brunch and otherwise just chilling out.

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.

Eddie VAN Halen...

Guys, we've had Eddie VAN Halen for less than a week and already I feel like my life without Eddie VAN Halen was a pale shadow.  How did we live so long without a minivan?  This thing is, in a word, awesome.  No doubt.  On Friday I took one for the team and drove it to Costco and IKEA and it was so effortless!  I could have fit the entire inventory of both stores in there with room to spare!  Also, driving a Honda after driving the Captain - you can't even compare.  Oh, so THAT'S what it's like when brakes and gas are like, responsive to your touch.  LOL!

This past weekend was jam-packed, but a good mix of some leisure time, some chores time, some family time, and some friend visiting time.  It was pretty balanced.  

On Friday night we had our street Ladies' night, which heralded the return of El Sol's tacos to my belly.  As you may or may not remember, we were banned from El Sol  5 years ago.  Even though boycotting El Sol was the right thing to do, there hasn't been a minute that's gone by where I haven't missed those tasty, tasty tacos.  I've had a lot of Toronto tacos by this point.  El Sol's are totally different and totally delicious from the fare you get elsewhere.  And their beans and rice are top notch.  Anyway, the ladies all went to a neighbour's house and we had El Sol takeout and someone made a pavlova and I made tres leches and it was a delicious evening.

The Dotytron, on the other hand...well, let's just say that in terms of gender parity in the Dotytron-Lagefeld household, he was a champ.  Two of the ladies' partner's were otherwise occupied so I volunteered the Dotytron to have two little girls (aged 4 and 3) over for a movie night at our house.  It turned into a pajama party, and when I came home at around 10pm, the Dotytron was like, pale.  LOL!  The Big Yam was thrilled to have his friends over, the girls were all over-stimulated, and the Dotytron didn't pace the evening well.  What was supposed to be a quiet, cozy night of movies on the couch ended up being a hot dog and Kraft Dinner/popcorn/cupcakes/running up and down the stairs every 20 minutes-fuelled bacchanalia.  He had a bit of a rough time and I owe him bigtime for being such a trooper.  We've also earned neighbourhood points though, so the next time we get to dump our kids off at someone else's house on a Friday night for a movie night.  

Saturday we hit up the Farmer's Market at the Brickworks for our beloved crepes and some waffles and a walk around looking at fishes in the pond and snails and blowing dandelions:

Then we went to my friend G's house and she hosted this cute little playdate for all the ladies crew at work with the partners and the kids.  So cute:

I started working with these girls 6 years ago - big changes in the intervening years!  Look at what we've done!  Also, look at that sweet blue-eyed baby amidst that pile of mixies!

In other news - I have EXPLODED.  No joke.  I look like I have a beach ball welded to my gut.  It's very alarming:

I feel like this dress doesn't even give the proper picture of my true girth.

Last time I saw my regular OB she said that if I make it to 37 weeks, they'll induce me then.  So that's around 1st or 2nd week of July.  I just hit 30 weeks on Sunday so around 7 more weeks to go.  EEKS!!!  STRESSBALLING!  I need to figure out what to pack in the hospital bag!  I have to start sterilizing stuff!  I have to get the rest of the gear on our list!  

I had an appointment at Sunnybrook on Tuesday and one of the twerps is starting to be weird!!!  There was evidence that he was shunting blood preferentially to the brain.  That's usually something that babies do when there are Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) issues or TTTS.  It's called the "brain-sparing" effect and basically the baby is like, "well, if I'm not getting enough, what am I going to prioritize?" and you have babies who have teeny tiny shrunken bodies and regular sized heads (if left unchecked).  Everything else checked out normal, so the report was like, "difficult to interpret given normal growing fetus" but that means I have to go back next week for another ultrasound instead of in two weeks.  NOT COOL, TWERP B, NOT COOL.  STOP BEING WEIRD IN THERE!  Even though the doctor told me not to worry (in a very brusque, uninformative fashion), I was pretty upset and left a teary message on the Dotytron's phone.  Then I sent an update email to the main interested parties (grandmothers).  My mom's response was pretty reassuring, along the lines of now that we have such sophisticated diagnostic tools, it just gives us more to worry about for no reason.  Momma D's response to the email?  "I'm eating that leftover pasta you gave me for lunch.  I love the lemon flavour.  What is it?"  LOL!!!  Pretty funny, and reminiscent of the whole, premature labour of the Big Yam/roasting pan debacle that happened when the Big Yam was born.  "I know you're having you're baby 4 weeks early and it's caught everyone by surprise...but it's still cool if you loan us your roasting pan for our turkey, right?"  

Anyway, I'm trying not to stress but it's annoying that OBs are like, the worst.  I had to call the Roomie to get the lowdown on what the results actually meant and I'm seeing my midwife tomorrow.  It's called BEDSIDE MANNER, OBs!  Learn a little something!  It's called INFORMED CHOICE!  Jeez.  

The way the Roomie explained it is that it sounds like of the 9 things they look for to assess how they're doing in there, one thing with Twerp B was off.  So they want me to come back in a week to see a) give them more time in my belly; and b) then they'll see whether next week that one thing has either resolved itself, or now, 3 things are off and they have to devise some kind of plan.

The Big Yam has been hilarious lately.  Last week he had this weird, mysterious fever for two days, with no other symptoms of sickness.  Day 1 he came back from J's and was pretty miserable - lots of whining and crying and wanting hugs.  At one point, while the Dotytron was in the process of making our weeknight dinner, the Big Yam rallied enough to point a finger at him, and say, apropos of nothing, "And remember, Baba, never give up!"  It was pretty awesome.  As far as words of encouragement from a 2 year old go, that was definitely one of the highlights.  

This week has been crazy busy and this weekend is shaping up to also be bucksauce (as per usual).  It was nice last weekend to catch up with friends and eat ice cream in the park with our buds, B & G, and feel like we did our familial duty by seeing my mum and Momma D.  

We've been killing it on the food fronts lately:

April Bloomfield's smashed chicken livers (iron intake say what!) on garlic-rubbed toast with a big-a** Greek Salad.  I love me a crunchy, cold, Greek salad when the weather is hot.

Sunday breakkie - nduja scrambled eggs with cheddar and baby arugula

Dinner with my mum: roasted leg of lamb (cooked pretty bang-on), roasted potatoes, minted peas, and roasted asparagus with bagna cauda

The orange creamsicle tart from the Baked cookbook.  It's been a while since I've made it (recipe reproduced here) that I had forgotten that the curd is very, very loose, even after a full day in the fridge.  Next time, I'm either going to up the amount of gelatin to set the curd, or do what I did this time, which is give it a good 2 hours in the freezer prior to serving.  You could also just store it in the freezer and pull it out and hour or two before you plan on serving it - it tastes best when it's icy cold and the freezer time helps to set the filling.  It really does taste like an orange creamsicle in tart form.

Dinner with Momma D: I made that spring pasta I do - in this case, farfalle with ramps, peas, mint, lemon and crème frâiche, and seared scallops.

A rosemary, pear, and cambozola tart.  Usually I avoid cambozola like the plague (it's so common!), but in this application, as on top of the steak sandwiches from last week, it works really well.

Sunday morning I spent making a million pounds of empanada filling (my own recipe - ground beef, spices, olives, hard boiled egg, chopped roasted peppers) to be stuck inside Martha Stewart's cream cheese empanada dough (with whole wheat flour subbed in).  I froze them and then they got an egg wash before being baked.  They were pretty darned tasty and worth all the work in the end.  Now we also have extras for a quick weeknight meal when the twerps arrive.  Even with doubling the dough,  I still have enough filling left over to freeze and use in the future.

Gluten free peanut butter and nutella sea salt cookies.  I'm bringing these to our friends' M & M's house tonight.  So easy!  I'll post the recipe below.

Fin.

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

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies (with Nutella and Sea Salt)

makes around 24, 2" cookies

1 c. creamy or chunky (as long as it's not the natural stuff) peanut butter

1 egg

1 cup of sugar

1 t. baking soda

Nutella

sea salt

- preheat oven to 350F

- either beat the ingredients together vigorously by hand, or use a hand mixer like I did.  This is not a recipe that requires the brawn of a stand mixer.

- for the dough into tablespoon sized balls

- place on a lined baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, or until the cookies flatten out and aren't glossy any more.  

- take the tray out and using the back of a measuring spoon, make a little indent in the centre of each cookie.  Fill the indent with about a 1/4-1/2 tsp. of Nutella and then bake for an additional 2 minutes.  

- sprinkle the cookies with sea salt and let cool on the trays.  

Lucky Button

Feeling like a very, very lucky button this Sunday morning.  We've got a funk mix on the stereo, we had a delicious Sunday Breakkie of Dotytron buttermilk pancakes, bacon, and a mixed-berry banana smoothie and we've got a lazy day of mostly nothing ahead of us.  As far as Daylight Savings Spring Forwards go (the worst of the Daylight Savings), we're doing okay with being robbed of that extra hour so far.

This weekend has been absolutely splendid.  I met my friend S for coffee before the ROM with the Yam on Friday and we had a nice, long one-on-one chat that was absolutely delightful and heart-warming.  She is such an incredibly talented artist and she is so committed to her craft and so inspiring to be around.  Her heart is so big and talks with her always mean getting to the heart of the matter - no b.s., no boundaries.  

The ROM itself was a bit of a bust, but a learning experience nonetheless.  The Big Yam was completely enamoured with the fish tank they have, which wasn't really worth the cost of the $15 admission for me.  He's too young.  I have to remember that.  I don't usually plan high-concept outings but then I feel pressured because so many other young, urban parents do.  I gotta trust my instincts.  The ROM isn't particularly fun for young kids, either.  As far as museums go, it's not that hot.  Children's museums and the Science Centre are way better for the under-5 set.  He was just as happy to sit outside the ROM eating a hot dog watching construction across the street and then taking the subway home.  I will say though, that I feel lucky to live in downtown Toronto.  We have access to the AGO and the ROM and it doesn't take us more than half an hour by public transit to get there.  When he gets to a certain age, it's going to be so much fun raising him with a huge metropolis at his fingertips.  

Friday night I had an awesome, side-splittingly funny International Women's Day evening with SMcKay and Lolly.  We went to Pacific Mall and got frozen yogurt and then went out for a delicious Chinese food dinner and they got to experience the wonder of Asian food value-for-dollar.  I think the price of dinner blew Lolly's mind, even if she did white person out and tip an egregious 20%.  The Dotytron's Record Club went until 2am.  It's so cute.  I love the concept and I'm glad he gets to do it.  The four guys get together, listen to an album and then drink and eat nibblies and talk about the record and associated music.  It's such a great outlet for him and the boys in the Club are a good crew.  

It was the Dotytron's first time hosting, so it was B's first time at our house.  He was really impressed with our dead-end street.  In his words: "You can't put a price on that!"  I have a few friends who are making their first forays into home buying in Toronto and it makes me feel so lucky that the Dotytron saw what he did in Lil' Ugmo.  We got really, really lucky.  In the price we paid and in all the stuff we dumb-lucked into.  I didn't think a dead-end street would be so awesome, and it is.  When you have kids?  It's the best.  Our street itself is the cutest.  Our neighbours knocked on our door yesterday afternoon and asked if the Big Yam could come out and play.  That's the kind of Jane Jacobs/Sesame Street type thing that I love about small towns like where my sister lives, and I never would have imagined that we would luck into living on a street where stuff like that happens.  It makes me so happy that the Big Yam will have the opportunity to grow up in this Norman Rockwell-y type setting in a big urban centre.  Yesterday was the first real warm day we've had - the day that signals the beginning of spring.  Thinking about walks to the beach in the summer, or playing in the splash pad or the park or the outdoor swimming pool THAT'S AT THE BOTTOM OF OUR STREET makes me feel so grateful that the Dotytron convinced me that Lil' Ugmo was the house for us.  It was the most solid call he's ever made.  We decided that he can coast on that for the rest of his life, and the only thing that will get these daps taken away from him is if he makes a call that causes us to lose the house.  Pretty fair, I'd say.

Then we had a Supper Club dinner at Momofuku Daisho.  I had pre-ordered us the Bo Ssam large format meal, which serves 8-10 and costs $240.  That's the base price and then any additional drinks, food, tax, and tip are added on top of that.  Here's the menu:

The Dotytron and I shared an extra dish of the halibut cheek crudo, because I love crudo.  The crudo was sliced a little thick for me, for a fish like halibut cheeks.  It would have been better if things had been sliced thinner.  It wasn't as nice as the crudo at Porzia.  The toppings for this crudo were kind of unimaginative (caper berries, fried wonton crisps, some thinly sliced white radish) and there wasn't any lubricating element like oil, or acid to bring all the elements of the plate together.

The Bo Ssam - a 6lb slow roasted pork shoulder served with lettuce leaves, white rice, pickled cucumber, 12 oysters, and a chili sauce, some kimchi, and a ginger-scallion sauce for making rolls.

Overall, I wasn't overly impressed with Daisho.  I thought the service, for a "fine-dining" establishment was really poor.  When the Dotytron and I walked in, we were told there was a 2 hour seating limit, which hadn't been made clear to me when I made the reservation or at any of the multiple points of contact the restaurant made to confirm the reservation.  Then, even though we were clearly waiting for the rest of our party to arrive, the server was like, "Well, your bo ssam is ready, and it's at its peak of perfection now," and I'm like, well what the heck am I supposed to do about that?  That's not MY FAULT.  What kind of restaurant expects to throw out a giant hunk of meat as soon as you sit down?  It's just poor and it set a bad tone.  The Bo Ssam was delicious, I have to admit.  The fat was nicely caramelized and the meat tore off in fat-soaked chunks.  The menu at Daisho was uninspiring, overall.  If the crudo and the service was any indication, I wasn't impressed and I had a hard time, looking at the menu, thinking of other dishes I would have ordered, had the Bo Ssam left us with any room.  The room is beautiful, but I'm in no hurry to go back.

Our company was wonderful, as always.  It's a mix of high school friends and some other peeps.  I love them all.  They are all so worldly, and interesting, and passionate, and brilliant conversationalists - it's just so nice to be surrounded by your smart, funny, accomplished friends, ya know?  Half of them we went to high school with and the other half are friends of friends and we all share a love of talking around good food and drink.  My friend L works at Hot Docs (her job is incredible) and was talking about starting a Documentary Film Club.  I love all these clubs!!!  It's like all these mini-salons with people I love.  What's not to like???

We have so many disparate groups of friends that it feels like we never get to see any of them as much as we'd like.  When we do, I'm reminded of how lucky I am to be surrounded by so many brilliant, talented, bright young things that love us as much as we love them.  So lucky.

Now we have the whole day to lazily prepare for Mexico.

Happy March Break, all!

Fin.

Pre-vacay last day

Yesterday was my last day of work before 10 days off.  Whoop!  It was a bit of a race to the finish but setting my out of office felt sweet.

We are going with Momma D and Ehmdo to Mexico (Puerto Aventuras, to be exact) for 5 days next week and I cannot WAIT to sit on a beach and laze around in the sun and eat tacos and drink virgin pina coladas until the coconut smell comes oozing out of my pores and I smell like an 80s teenage lifeguard.  Number of excursions I'm planning: ZERO.  Yeah, yeah, I know there are like, ruins and stuff.  But I care not.  I generally hate travelling when I'm on someone else's timetable and being shuttled with a bunch of other n00bs  to places and being dependent on climbing back on a bus with them to come back.  I'd much rather rent a car and do it on my own.  I also don't want to spend a single dollar, so I am quite happy to doze and nap on the beach with the Yam and roast my belly until it's as burnished as a Thanksgiving turkey.  Plus, that part of Mexico doesn't really interest me, per se.  I'd much rather check out the Yucatan or Oaxaca.  Those are my go-tos.  The tangle of resorts that is the Mayan Riviera is about me squeezing myself into a too-small two-piece and catching up on reading and some well-deserved zzzs.  

Our daycare provider is going on vacation for the next three weeks so we're patching together care through a network of family and taking some additional days.  I have today off and I'm planning on taking the Big Yam to the ROM.  It's a bit of a waste of $$$.  The streetcar ride will already send him over the moon, but it'll be some nice QT and one-on-one time that we can have before the twerps arrive and I decide to selfishly keep my days off to myself.  I highly doubt I'll be up for high-concept outings next year on maternity leave.  

I was working hard leading up to my vacay, guys.  Working hard on this:

Coconut cream pie for dessert every night.  Loving every minute of it.

The boys picked me up from work last night and we went for a walk and then went to this place, Burger Stomper on the Danforth.  I've been craving burgers hard after my White Brick Kitchen experience at K's house last week.  The White Brick Kitchen features a former Stockyards chef in the kitchen.  This place didn't live up to the memory of the excellence of the White Brick burger.  Burger Stomper smashes their patties flat (like a 5 Guys burger) and the toppings were mediocre.  The Dotytron and I both got banquet type burgers (bacon and cheese) and we were both impressed with the bacon coverage and preparation: each bite had a mouthful of crispy, greaseless bacon in it.  The fries were okay.  No special dipping sauces.  The milkshakes were tasty, but it was almost a $40 meal, when all was said and done, and it wasn't a burger that I felt was worth that type of money.  It wasn't appreciably better than a Mojo burger or an Apache or a Johnny's or a Square Boy banquet homeburger.  I was slightly disappointed, but still happy I got my burger fix.

The Big Yam is so funny nowadays.  I don't know if it's the tantrums or just residual sickness but his voice has been kind of hoarse and scratchy and high and it's impossibly cute.  Last night in the car he was all like, "What's Hakim Optical?" but it was obviously all broken up and garbled.  Then he was muttering to himself, "Oh my god, what's that" a few times.  Apparently he asked the Dotytron what "f**k" was on Wednesday after overhearing some coarse language from the pater familias, so we have to be a little more circumspect (like, more than not at all) around him.

I had my 20 week ultrasound yesterday and came back with 2 photos of each twerp in a long strip.  Fun facts: I had thought that the "Twin A" from the first ultrasound was always going to be Twin A (and same for Twin B), but that is not the case.  There's still room for them to move around in there so Twin A is the one that's closest to my cervix.  In a few more weeks, once they run out of room, Twin A will always be Twin A and Twin B will always be Twin B.

Anyway, we came home and I asked the Big Yam: "Do you want to see the pictures of the babies in Mama's belly?

Yam: "No"

Me: "C'mon, tell me what do you see?"

Yam, completely nonchalant: "Walrus, walrus, turtle, seal."

LOL!  A future radiologist.

I was invited to join this Leslieville/Beaches Moms Buy and Sell group on FB and it is HELLA DEPRESSING.  People buy the WORST shiz for their kids.  The clothes are sooo ugly!  So many dad polos and so much baby blue and brown and the worst toys.  Ugh.  No wonder you're trying to unload that shiz.  No, I'm not paying you money for that Baby Einstein DVD set.  No, I don't want that stupid sling in that stupid faux-mod pattern that screams suburbia.  I recently dropped some mad ducats on some fresh t-shirts for the Big Yam but it's worth it.  I like to supplement the standard-issue Baby Gap/Carters/H&M gear with some nicer things that make him stand out.  Also, I saw this t-shirt and couldn't resist:

Seriously, how perfect is that?!?

I mean, really.  IT'S THE BEST.

Looking forward to my day off today.  QT with the Yam, meeting my friend S for coffee, then hanging with Lolly and SMcKay while the Dotytron hosts Record Club at our house.  So cute.  He picked the album and he picked some Brahms symphony so he went on this special mission to an Eastern European grocery store to get thematically appropriate snacks.

Tomorrow we're lunching with my mum at Phoenix and then visiting my Poh Poh and then our Supper Club is having dinner at Momofuku Daisho for their large format (I ordered us the Bo Ssam).  Sunday will definitely be a day of rest as our flight leaves at 7:15am on Monday.  

Fin.

Felled

We were felled by sickness this weekend.  From Thursday until about Monday, we were pwned.  The Big Yam was running a high fever for about 4 days but we've been burned so many times by taking him into our doctor's and being told to relax that we rode it out.  Even though he was a royal pill.  Even though he didn't want to eat anything.  Even though he was coughing and was having wheezy breaths at night.  Because the Family Health Team model is the best, they have walk-in clinics on the weekends for patients.  We took him to our doctor who took his temperature, watched his breathing, listened to his lungs...and sent us to the hospital so that he could get a shot of ventilation to help his bronchials dilate.  Whoops.  Major parenting fail.

Brave little Boobla.  He wanted a photo taken to show Nana his cool mask.

We went to the hospital, he got the mask, was like, instantly better and we got prescribed antibiotics to handle the pesky bit of pneumonia he was fighting.  Then we felt like the worst parents ever for letting it go for so long to the point where a normal cold turned into pneumonia.

The Dotytron has been battling what they think is sinusitis for the past couple of weeks.  He'll think he's on the upswing and then he ends up feeling worse.  So he got antibiotics as well.

Pregnant nurse was holding it down with a heavy-duty assist from the Dotytron, which was necessary, since we needed all hands on deck to deal with a fractious, screaming, wilful, miserable, Boobla.  He was so unhappy.  He wasn't eating and he was so cranky that we basically just threw whatever he wanted at him (translating to non-stop Thomas and Friends and Yo Gabba Gabba! episodes), which has since come to bite us in the butts since he's feeling better but still acting like a despot.

A family of sicks is just brutal.  I can't wait for us all to feel better again.  So much laundry!  So many cancelled fun plans!  So much stir-craziness from being cooped up in the house!  So much knowledge of the island of Sodor and Sir Topham Hatt!  I say: enough!

There were elements that were pretty sweet, though.  The Big Yam was being a total sucky with me, which was nice.  We did Sleep Away Camp  for the past five days and he'd wake up disoriented and sweaty and yelling/moaning that he wanted to cuddle, which is pretty cute.  He also asked to be "cozy" all the time on the couch and wanted me to sit all slumpy next to him.  He also napped on me a bunch which was hot and twisty and uncomfortable, but also divine.

Twoandfourmonths is a strange, wonderful, perplexing, challenging, strengthening age.  It is screaming tantrums on the floor and dinner time stand-offs that seem to last hours.  It is parents angrily putting a kid in time-out/cool-down, and it is wilful little beings discovering their agency by dissolving into tears and insisting (at the top of their shrill little lungs) that they "want yogurt!" and in the next instant that they "don't want yogurt now!" (repeat x a million).  It is also watching a little being become more of an engaged individual, more funny conversations, more personality emerging, more of everything that is good and will make you laugh in wonder at this person you first brought into your home as a slumping mass of goobery, wall-eyed drool.  It is remembering when their little mewling cries sounded so loud and laughing at yourself for your own naive ignorance.

When he has his tantrums our new method is to take him upstairs to his room or to another spot in the house until he's ready to calm down and talk to us and tell us what he wants without screaming/yelling.  Then we wait and listen until the screaming stops and go in and tell him that we don't understand him when he screams at us and that it's not a nice way to talk to people.  We do this with a combination of distraction/diversion.  The distracting/diverting comes in handy when you go into the room and he's calmed down for a bit but can easily be set off again (kids hold grudges!  Little grievances are a big deal when your world unfolds from a perspective of 2 feet tall).  It helps us, too.  Especially when our nerves are frayed, as they were this weekend with everyone feeling a little off, we all needed a moment to take a break, take a breath, and kind of centre ourselves in silence.  This works about oh, 0.0043 percent of the time.  Haha.  Just kidding.  It's got a slightly higher success rate than that (very slight).  It all passes.

This whole weekend made me think about the notion of community, how it emerges in sometimes the most unlikely of places, and how it behooves us to be okay with asking for help and sometimes, more importantly, accepting the help that is offered.  Those are two that I continually struggle with.  When I was laid up with sciatica and the Roomie came over to watch the Big Yam and run me a bath and make us lunch, I spent the whole time apologizing profusely for being a burden.  Her general response was a firm, "shut up."  I am notoriously self-reliant.  I don't generally ask for help and have trouble accepting the help that is offered.  I don't want to be a burden.  But when I saw the offers that came in this past weekend in response to a FB status update documenting our state, it gave me pause.  The Roomie offered help, neighbours offered help, my mum offered to step in and provide emergency Yam-watching services, and our dear, childless friends in the neighbourhood, B & G, sent a sweet email asking if there was anything they could do.  In this case, there wasn't anything any of those people could do, but it just made me realize that this whole living in a city business is hard work, whether you have kids or don't.  And life has a way of getting unmanageable, for everyone.  

Granted, it happens with more frequency with people who have kids, but seeing the effect caring for Poh Poh had on my mum and Big D, even if you don't have kids, elder care (and we all have parents) is a growing and pressing issue in contemporary society.  As is any situation in which your health is compromised.  I think it's important to remember that people don't offer help unless they're willing to follow through with it (unless you're some kind of weirdo sociopath, but you can't do anything about those kooks).  It's important to take people up on those offers because it keeps the good will and community-building flowing.  I've realized that it's important for me to take the seat that's offered on the streetcar, even if I don't want to necessarily sit, because I don't want that person to not offer the next time there's a preggo huffing and puffing in the streetcar aisle during rush hour.   It's important and okay to need help sometimes and to take people up on their offers of help without feeling embarrassed or like you're imposing.  Life is hard work.  More hands make it easier.

Anyway, the point is: let me and the Dotytron watch your kids if you want a night off!  We LOVE hanging out with other people's kids!  Way better than your own!   Friends should just set up a swapping schedule - once a month you each take turns watching each other's kids so that the people can have a grown-up meal, without the extra cost of paid babysitting (although bless our teenage babysitter's heart).

Last night's dinner of gruyère, fontina, and aged cheddar fusilli'n'cheese with toasted thyme panko breadcrumbs.  I hoovered this meal.  There is magic in them there cheesy carbs.  Magic, I tells ya!

In other news - we have reached the capacity on our chest freezer.  WHY OH WHY DIDN'T WE BUY THE BIG ONE?!?  Knowing that I always, always, always cook enough to feed a small army and knowing that a supply of frozen foods will be super-handy once the twerps arrive, it was a major tactical error.  Ah well, live and learn.  

Right now we've got some Mexican tortilla soup that's waiting for freezer space along with some of tonight's dinner - a sausage, lentil and swiss chard soup that I made from a Smitten recipe (my changed being that I doubled-down on the amount of sausage, skipped the extra olive oil-garlic drizzle, and grated pecorino on top instead of parm).

I need to figure something out and soon, lest I be overtaken by delicious, frozen, home-cooked meals.

Fin.