C'est L'Halloween!

Finally able to catch a breath around here to post.  The good news: everything is all lined up so that Halloween can happen.  Phew!  I've planned an easy dinner (read: Kraft Dinner and hot dogs), the costumes are done, the pumpkins are carved, and everything is pretty much in place.  Let's cross our fingers.

Pic heavy post today - clearing out the back catalogue for those interested (all 3 of you).  

This selfie took about 20 million tries and in the end, I missed getting Prof. Gantok in the photo.  This photo is notable for a few things: the fact that the Great Gazoo looks nothing like himself, how amazing my hair looks, and little baby moobs

This is me, Dr. Rei, and the Great Gazoo, all wearing the same uniform.  This is after Dr. Rei rallied from being the grumpiest mcgoo you've ever done seen.  

Then this happened.  Prof. Gantok's favorite thing is to show you the whites at the top of his eyes.  When I took art in high school, one of the things we learned in portraiture was to not do the kid-drawing thing where you draw a person's eye and show the whole, round iris in it.  Most people's eyelids cover the iris so you only see 2/3 of the round.  Major exception: Prof. Gantok.  

Selfie with 3!

I kinda phoned in this year's pumpkins.  This is a Totoro one.  I free handed it.  

This is the ghost from Spirited Away.  See? Totally phoned it in.  The Dotytron last week said to me, rather delicately, "Umm, maybe this year you don't want to go so buck with the pumpkin carving?" and every fibre in my being recoiled at the thought that I might have the two-triangle-eyes-and-snaggly-tooth-mouth standard issue pumpkin.  This is a happy medium.  I banged these two out in about an hour.

Behold!  The Totoro costume!  Made possible by this amazing tutorial from the blog You and Mie.  I totally winged (wung?) it - the sleeves ended up a little short, but overall, I'm happy with it.  There's a (poorly sewn) zipper up the back and everything!!!  It's pretty warm and cozy and the Dotytron wants his own.  

These guys dressed as soot sprites...except it looks like the Great Gazoo has white boobs.  LOL!  Thank you, Fabricland for the cheap fun fur!  I was actually going to make these into more permanent costumes, but when we ended up not going to a Halloween party on the weekend, I decided to make my life easier and just safety pin the soot sprite fronts to their onesies.  The Great Gazoo's expression here is so Dotytron.  See:

 A lot of times, after a feed, when they're all full and happy, I look at the Wonder Twins on the nursing pillow and they're giving me these faces:

That face!!!  The Great Gazoo has such a sweet, shy, pleased looking smile - he curls his top lip under and it stretches his mouth so wide.

Prof. Gantok on the other hand has the stereotypical, jolly, cherubic thing going on.  Big, wide-open mouthed yappy smiles.

This is one of my baby sleep secret techniques: babies like to feel like they're all snug and secure.  To recreate that feeling, I weigh them down with a pillow, so they feel the force of gravity acting upon them.

Last week was kind of crazy.  I had Academic Book Club on Thursday, where the ladies were all in a twitter about their kids using drugs.  Apparently, high school kids start using ecstasy really early.  There's a big bias though, in that these women are fine with teenagers drinking.  I think I might do a little PSA next book club and disavow them of some of their misconceptions.  For instance, DRINKING IS THE WORST!  You know what happens when you're on E?  You love listening to music and you want to give people hugs.  You don't want to leave, you don't want to get into a car and drive, it's not a depressant (it's the exact opposite), it doesn't make you want to fight, or particularly sexual.  I'm obviously not advocating wide-spread ecstasy use amongst teenagers, but I find the bias in favour of alcohol really misinformed and weird.

On Friday I took all three of the kids after the Big Yam's sports class to try the Hey Meatball location that opened up in Leslieville.  I was just proud to have made it out, first and foremost.  I wasn't a big fan of the actual meatballs at the place.  For one thing: they do single-protein meatballs.  So you have to choose whether you want a pork, beef, chicken, or vegan (!) meatball.  Ummm, THAT MAKES NO GODDAMNED SENSE.  That's weaksauce to the max!!!  No self-respecting meatballery should be doing single protein meatballs as their base product.  I had the "Rodfather" sandwich, which is 3 meatballs (in my case, pork) with tomato sauce, basil pesto, and parmesan on a ciabatta bun.  It was good, but it was just as good as that combination of things generally is.  It didn't EXCITE me or make me think: "this is the definitive iteration of this meal," which is a bit of a problem when you're building a shop around one item.  That item should be knock-it-out-of-the-ballpark good, don't you think?  The salad was tasty.  But you don't make friends with salad:

Then on Friday night, I left the Dotytron to watch the Big Yam, our neighbour's daughter, and the Great Gazoo so I could do ladies night with the neighbour ladies.  We went to the Real Jerk and I had a plate of pretty good-but-bony oxtail, fried chicken, delicious rice, and a meagre helping of tasty coleslaw:

Other things we've been eating lately:

Mortadella & robiola panini and cream of cauliflower soup

Spaghetti and meatballs.  I could eat this all day, every day.

That bacon, lentil, baby spinach salad thing with fried goat's cheese that we do

A CSA-busting meal of chicken thighs, mashed root vegetables, sautéed cabbage, and buttered carrots.

Tagliatelle with bolognese sauce that I had in the freezer.  Alongside a tasty salad of escarole, sliced raw pear, almonds (should be hazelnuts), pickled red onion, and a sharp dijon vinaigrette.

I know this post was the boringest!!!  I'm so sorry...I have a slew of book/television/movie reviews for you shortly - and maybe an anecdote or two?

Fin.

Too Mad to Write

We just came back from our park's annual fall festival.  The one put on by the organization that invited me by email to help, but remained eerily silent when I told them that I would only help insofar as providing a new strategic direction, revamping their website and social media presence, and growing the organization (i.e. if they put me in charge.)

They had a "best pie" competition, which I mean, already - there are HUGE problems with.  They only had 6 entries.  And it's a bitch to serve pie outdoors when it's cold and you need all this stupid pie infrastructure - plates, forks, serving utensils.  My idea?  A cookie/bar bake-off.  You'd have WAY more people participating, it's easy to make enough to feed a crowd, and they're portable.  AND THAT'S WHY YOU SHOULD LET ME RUN THINGS, PEOPLE!

Anyway, one of the contestants was this like, 9 year old kid and I called it from the get-go: "they're going to give it to the kid."  He made some kind of chocolate pie that he clearly had parental help with.  So of course, kid pie gets first prize and the kid is a TOTAL DICK about winning.  Like, they announce the winner and he's got both arms in the air and is like, "YES!!! I TOLD YOU I'D WIN!" and parading around the park.  Then he TOOK HIS PIE AWAY so that festival participants couldn't partake.  WHAT A DICK!  My problem is that I can't refrain from saying, probably too loudly to the Dotytron, "Ummm, that kid is being a real D about things."  I'm so mad!  I hate gimme prizes to kids!  Eff that!

While I cool down from the injustices of the world, allow me to show you some Wonder Twins videos:

In this one, you'll see the Great Gazoo get a little perturbed 

when Prof. Gantok tries to latch his head.

This one is kind of boring, but I was impressed with the Great Gazoo

for engaging in some self-directed play.

Fall Festival was just the second of three activities today.  We've got a birthday party this afternoon.  Then home for a rest.

Fin.

Fall Love

I'm typing this on relatively lazy Sunday - finally having some time to do a bit of catch-up after a busy week filled with a bunch of nothing activities.  Something about maternity leave - the days (can) feel like they're 83 hours long (especially when you have stereophonic baby wailing) and yet, I never have enough time.  I have costumes to sew and little wee hats to knit and frequently find myself zonked by around 9pm, without fail.  It's too much for me to even make a phone call and catch up with friends most nights.

This morning though - we've got the furnace on (I finally caved), we have the flannel sheets on the bed and the big comforter out, slippers are on our feet, and I've got a 4-hour spaghetti sauce started on the stove.  Autumn has arrived at Casa Dotytron-Lagerfeld and I couldn't be happier about it.  I'm ready.  Ready to wind down, unplug, curl up, hibernate.  Ready for weekends to consist of less activities, big dinners with family and friends, movie nights.  

Pretty much the only thing left on my fall checklist is a hike through the Don Valley to take in the colours.  I also have a semi-harebrained scheme that I'm going to build some kind of garbage/recycling shed but we'll see whether that actually happens.  

99 Luftballoons ended up being a lot less majestic than I had envisioned - but the Big Yam was still thrilled:

Family Thanksgiving weekend involved three (!) days of turkey, one jacked-up looking Thomas cake (I made Smitten Kitchens apple pie spice cake with cream cheese frosting - it was a fail.  I wouldn't do it again), a viewing of the newest production of Les Misérables, dim sum, and a visit to the pumpkin patch/farm on Monday, that was the stereotypical pumpkin patch experience: corn maze, giant tricycle rides, an obstacle course, feeding goats, etc.

Les Misérables was great.  Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, can ever come close to Colm Wilkinson's genius and embodiment of Jean Valjean, but the current one is really good.  The revised staging is really great - the sets are used to great effect and they do some evocative things with screens and lighting - you can see the smoke moving in the factory chimneys and the wind moving the trees.  Our Eponine is top-notch - a crystal-clear pop voice that nails her big song.  Fantine is a bit weird, and they changed the pacing to speed things up a bit.  Overall, it was a really fun night.

Some pumpkin patch/farm shots:

Cousins!

Squinty pumpkin selection

Last night we had friends over for a film club - we watched Dog Day Afternoon.  Ummm...Sidney Lumet is a freakin' genius.  You CANNOT replicate how amazing 70s American film was.  First of all: shooting on film gives the film, which is already beautiful, an extra warm luminosity.  The daytime sequences glow.  The story is almost too unbelievable to be true.  Al Pacino's character holds up a bank to pay for sex reassignment surgery for Leon, his "wife."  The film rides this incredible line between humour and drama.  It's not a dark comedy.  Instead the film walks this balancing line between being legitimately funny and tense.  They don't make movies like this any more.  It's so anti-establishment.  It thrums with counter-culture zeitgeist.  It also makes you understand how film critics long for the heydey of 70s American cinema.

These two are in cahoots in a big way.

Prof. Gantok's other doppelganger - Boh from Spirited Away

We also had Dr. Rei and Uncle Hanbo over for brunch today.  We had croissant sandwiches with bacon and leek scrambled eggs and they made a pear-blue cheese spinach salad.  We also had monkey bread and then went on a long walk to check out the Leslieville Flea and be surrounded by hipsters over-paying for mason jars and other novelty goods.  It was so much fun:

This pear tart is SO EASY!  You can whip it up anywhere and with almost any fruit.  We first had it at JJ's house for Oktoberfest.  It uses just a few ingredients: butter, oil, sugar, flour, and the end result is fantastic.  Easily made dairy-free too!  I'll post the recipe below.

Leftover turkey and stuffing turned into one of my all-time favorite meals: a hot turkey sandwich with canned gravy.

Fin.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Easy Pear Tart
serves 8
not adapted in the slightest, from Food52

1 1/2 c. plus 2 T. all purpose flour
3/4 t. salt
3/4 c. plus 1 t. sugar
1/4 c. mild oil (vegetable or canola)
1/4 c. olive oil
2 T. whole milk
2 T. cold unsalted butter
3 bartlett pears (but can also be made with 3-5 peaches, or any similar sized fruit)

- in a bowl, mix together the 1 1/2 c. flour, 1/2 t. of the salt salt, and 1 t. of sugar with a fork.  In a separate measuring cup/bowl, stir together the oils (note: I didn't have enough olive oil so used all canola and it was fine), the milk, and maybe a 1/2 t. of almond extract if you have it (I didn't and it was fine).  Stir the liquids into the dry ingredients and combine until everything is evenly mixed.
- dump this mixture into a 9" diameter tart pan with a removable bottom and press the mixture on the bottom and slightly up the sides of the pan
- in a separate bowl, mix together 3/4 c. of sugar, 2 T. of the flour, and 1/4 t. of salt.  Using your hands, pinch the butter into this mixture until all the butter is in small-ish pieces (as if you're making a crumb/crisp topping).
- slice the fruit of your choosing into 1/2" slice and then arrange on the crust.  Sprinkle with the butter-sugar-flour mixture and bake in a preheated 425F oven for about 35-45 minutes or until golden brown and the top is shiny and bubbly.

3

Somehow, we went from this:

To this:

 

To this:

 To this:

Somewhere along the way, we lost our baby and got this little dude up there above.  He is sweet, he is loving, he is gentle, he is scatolgically inclined, he is funny, he is disarming.  Even as I scroll up and look at those pictures above in the writing of this post, I find that I'm getting a little teary - the usual parent marvelling of where has the time gone, and I can't believe how big he is, and where did my baby go?  Why can't I remember every single minute from the Big Yam's previous 3 years?  If human beings have all this brain capacity that goes to waste and lies fallow, wouldn't every parent in the world be better serviced if we could put that grey matter to use with the ability to recall in perfect detail every moment of our children's lives?  I honestly don't know how we got from that first picture to the last, but I do know that, as Anne Lamott says, children come into our lives and wedge our hearts open.  

The Big Yam has a habit of coming into our room whenever he wakes up enough to be semi-conscious.  It's like there's no hazy, liminal, between-sleep-and-waking space for him, that fog that generally envelops us and coaxes us back to sleep.  No, for him that gentle nudge from sleep signals that he's supposed to clamber out of bed, and slip-slap on his cabbage roll feet down the hall to our room, where he stands by my side of the bed and waits for me to wake, sometimes scaring me half to death in the process.  If I'm slow to wake he'll do an exaggerated pouting, pre-crying hiccup sound, just to hurry things along.  Usually what I do is lead him by the hand back to his bed and lie with him and we both get a few extra hours of sleep.  If it's close enough to waking time and there's not going to be any additional sleep in our future, he'll ask for "covers" and "snuggles" and I'll wrap his cold feet in my hands and we'll "tell secrets" (telling secrets generally means whispering stuff like: "Baba smells like stinky poo" - you know, salacious stuff like that) and talk nonsense and laugh and be silly.  It's in those moments that I can feel my heart unfurling - parts of me opening up and making space in which his him-ness can reside until such day comes when he'll use those very same spaces as collateral for hurting me (or so I think in my darker moments when I contemplate what it means to be a mother to 3 boys who will be inevitably morph into teenage hooligans).  When I think about those future versions of ourselves, I wonder if I'll be able to remember what it felt like to hold his thrumming body under a pile of blankets in the slowly warming grey light of early autumn morning.  If that memory will sustain me when he tries to find his autonomous self and breaks me in the (necessary) process.

I doubt it.  Let's be real: that memory doesn't sustain me now when he goads me into being a ridiculous caricature of parental punitive hysteria.  

But, as in all things, I try.  Now that the Dotytron handles the Wonder Twins during the last feed, for the past 3 months I've been putting the Big Yam down to bed and it's been glorious.  When it all goes right - when we're not running late and we can luxuriate in many, many stories, and ad-hoc games, and bedtime philosophizing - we have time for one of my "fireside chats": where I can take stock and apologize for being a shrieking harridan and we can brainstorm what we can do so that tomorrow might be better.  It's an iterative process and I try to be mindful that to parent is also to give him respect and agency.  Just because I'm technically the grown-up doesn't mean that I don't have to answer for my actions as well.

A snapshot of the Big Yam  at age 3:

On his birthday, over breakfast, I started this new tradition where I ask him a series of "interview" questions and wrote down the answers so that we could compare them over time.   Me: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Big Yam: "BEER!" Me: "You want to be beer when you grow up?" Big Yam: "I want to get beer! 

When he's angling for some iPad time, he likes to ask me: "Mama, are you using with the iPad?" wait for my response, and then ask, "Baba, are you using with the iPad?"  I love the phrasing.

Sometimes we'll be out walking or in the middle of watching TV and he'll turn to me or the Dotytron and say, "I want a hug" and I hope and hope and hope with every fibre of my being when I wrap him up in my arms that he never, ever stops asking.

Sports class is still heart-breaking.  I keep sending the Dotytron sad photos of the Big Yam standing off on his own, with a soccer ball a foot away, doing that kid kicking-at-the-ground thing or that kid stationary-hip-twisting thing while around him the other kids are running around with the balls and throwing and kicking them and going nuts.  We've had three classes and he spends the bulk of them standing off by himself.  It's all I can do not to pull him from the program and get a refund.  I know rationally that it's good for him to do things that challenge him socially and aren't comfortable, but f**k if it's not one of the hardest things I've ever had to see.  That's why I send the Dotytron the photos - I can't bear the burden on my own.  I worry he has problems socializing generally, but I think it's just a comfort and familiarity thing.  He's fine with his cousins and fine with daycare and fine with playing with the kids on the street.  He's just not that kid who goes into a new situation running and screaming with excitement.  Thankfully, he's also not that kid who starts crying and freaking out when you try to drop him off.  But in a way, I think his stoicness in the face of the class is part of what makes it so hard to witness.  I keep asking him and debriefing after the class to find out if he's hating life and just suppressing it, but the reports are pretty matter-of-fact, if not matter-of-fact tinged with a tiny bit of nonchalance.  Maybe I'm just projecting adult anxieties onto him.  It doesn't seem to be affecting him at all, but I am looking forward to the day when he's a bit more of an enthusiastic participator.    

He is currently into: Bob the Builder, Thomas, the Wiggles, watching the odd nature video, playing on our neighbour's riding train toy, poo and pee jokes, playing with his "vehicles" and a huge assortment of stories.  

He's been potty trained as of a month ago.  His daycare provider decided he was ready.  It happened all in a week.  We had still been putting him in cloth diapers or pull-ups and taking him to the bathroom on weekends, but it was fitful and intermittent and half-a**ed on our part, at best.  J had us send him in underwear one week, and by Friday he came home in the same underwear and pants he wore to her that morning.  He had a couple of accidents on Monday and then the rest of the week she managed to bring him to the bathroom in time, even when they went to the drop-in centre.  By the end of the week, he knew to hold it until she brought him.  The following week, she gave him Monday and Tuesday and then stopped bringing him, waiting for him to tell her that he had to go, and he did.  It was a two-week process and rather effortless.  I will say that having him already do the deuces on the potty for so long is an extra bonus in our favour - he's been pooping on the toilet exclusively since he was about a year old or so and telling us since he was 2.  

We've implemented a no-TV, no-iPad on "school" nights routine which seems to work.  Now he asks us if it's a "school night" or the "weekend" and is fine with our answer and will do his own thing.  

His birthday was really nice - cake on the street went well (except for the fact that we sent all the kids home on a sugar high) and some of the neighbours got him small, thoughtful birthday presents.  We celebrated again with the cousins during Thanksgiving and again with Nana and Auntie Ehmdo on Monday.  

Anyway, there's nothing more to say than that I love him to pieces and want him to stay exactly as he is at every moment of his development, forever.

Fin.

Vindicated

...and it feels so good.  I went to the special breastfeeding clinic on Tuesday.  This is one that requires a special doctor's referral - it's not in a hospital, it's a dedicated staffer, etc.  So I go and the lactation specialist asks me a tonne of questions and then is like, "Ummm...I'm not sure why you were referred here?"  She asked how much I pump in a session and when I told her, she said that's a lot.  She said the Great Gazoo's weight gain of 20g/day is really good, considering that usually by this age, their weight gain tends to slow down and taper off.  She said that tandem feeding was fine and didn't really have much to add.  The only suggestion she had was to switch them mid-feed, because that might stimulate a different let down.  

Other than that, it was just sitting and chatting and she had one other handy suggestion, which was that if I'm out and about and want to give them formula because breastfeeding is a pain, that I could give them an avocado instead.  I had thought that Health Canada's guidelines were breastfeed exclusively until at least six months, but apparently the WHO have changed things and are back on the 4 month solid tip.  Basically, they want the babies to get whole food, or anything BUT formula.  

I was also seen by a paediatrician there and she examined both babies and was like, "You're doing great, mum!" I repeated the thing about the Great Gazoo's 5th percentile status and she was like, "So? As long as the growth is consistent and doesn't dip, it doesn't matter - that's just his body type."  Which is totally what I thought!  I mean, yeah, it's concerning that I might have a kid who is going to be runty for his whole life, especially compared to his giant Big Yam brother and comparatively fatso Prof. Gantok twin.  But for now?  His 5th percentile-ness is so darned cute!  Especially when he catches you looking and smiling at him and gives you his gappy, wide-mouthed, tongue-biting shy grin.  Both of the Wonder Twins have such wee little moufs, but when they smile, it goes from ear to ear.

The upshot of all this was: it was reassuring and good to hear and a reminder that I should continue to trust my instincts.  

We are currently preparing operation "99 Luftballons" for the Big Yam's 3rd birthday tomorrow!  Basically, that means we've wrapped his presents and put them downstairs in the living room, which we are going to fill with balloons.  The original plan was to fill his room with balloons, but considering that he gets up at 6am and it's still dark out, the Dotytron (wisely) surmised that stepping on a pile of balloons might be terrifying in the dark.  We went with the: want, need, wear, read style of present-giving.  We've gotten him a Cranky the crane from Thomas from his brothers (want?), and a Toby train (need?), hand-me-down Thomas pajamas (wear), and 3 new books (read, duh).  I had all these high concept plans to take him to the new aquarium that's opening up, but the opening date has been delayed (which makes sense to me.  Remember when you were a kid and brought home a goldfish in a bag and you had to put the bag with the goldfish in it in a bowl of water to acclimate the goldfish to the new environment?  Imagine that with like, sharks and moray eels and stuff!), so I went lower concept.  We're going to his rec sports class and because it's going to be nice outside, we're going to a pirate ship park in the Beach with our neighbours and then coming home for a nap, then his favorite food (Indian).  

We will be seeing both sets of family over the course of Thanksgiving weekend, so tomorrow night it's just us.  I invited all the neighbourhood rugrats for cake outside.  IT'S NOT A PARTY, I stressed loudly.  Since everyone is outside anyway, just singing and cake (the best parts!) and NO PRESENTS (I also stressed loudly).  

I made him a Totoro cake and soot sprite cupcakes in order to feed everyone (with all the usual suspects and their parents on the street - it's upwards of 30 people, total).  Here is the source material:

Totoro

Soot sprites

And here's what I did:

I baked the cake last weekend and froze it.  I made one 8" round and one 10" cake round.  Then this morning, when the cakes were partially defrosted, I used the 10" cake pan to trace and cut a chunk out of the 8" cake to make a place to join the cakes together.  I used the chunk I cut out to make the ears:

Then I tinted a vanilla butter roux frosting with black paste food colouring and outlined the tummy with a piping bag.  I found it easiest to pipe the frosting and then smooth it out with an offset spatula.  I used white chocolate disks for the eyes and black gel decorating icing for the whiskers.  Easy!  The cupcakes were even easier.  I made 2 dozen chocolate cupcakes and made a chocolate frosting.  Spread the frosting on the cupcakes and then dipped them in black sprinkles.  Then stuck two candy eyes on top.  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

He won't be in daycare tomorrow so I sent some cupcakes to daycare today for his homies.  Except...he didn't eat the cupcake.  Everyone else went to town and loved up life and the Big Yam ate the candy eyes and wouldn't touch the cupcake.  

I asked him what he wanted for his birthday breakfast tomorrow and he said, "Chinese food" and the Dotytron and I looked askance at each other because he usually hates the food of his people.  Then we were like, "are you sure you want Chinese food?" and without missing a beat he said yes and he wanted the "cake" (this Malaysian sweet steamed cake) he had  had TWO MONTHS AGO.  LOL!  It obviously made an impression.  So funny.

Anyway...99 luftballons are calling!

Fin.

Feast and Famine

Last Thursday I had an epic (solo) 2 hour visit with the paediatrician our family doctor refers us to - he wants us to have a second set of eyes going over the Wonder Twins, to make sure he doesn't miss anything specifically related to their prematurity, especially given all the extra stuff we're dealing with - brain cysts and the like,

It was...tough.  First of all, she started by talking to me about Prof. Gantok's brain cyst, which is still there, unchanged.  According to her - there's nothing to do but adopt a "wait and see" policy and go with early interventions if he starts missing developmental milestones.  However, she did use the phrase, "I mean, a cyst is really just a part where there is no brain."  Umm...excuse me?  Things you never want to hear: that there's a part of your kid's brain that is MISSING.  She did follow up with, "There are some kids that are missing huge chunks of their brain and are fine!"  "We all know we don't need our whole brain!"  I had always understood the cyst to be a fluid-filled pocket...not the ABSENCE OF BRAIN.  Awww, poor little brainless Prof. Gantok.  No wonder he looks so alarmed all the time!  We might get a referral to a paediatric neurologist who won't be able to offer any additional assessment, but might be able to provide information on probabilities and outcomes, based on their research.  Not sure if we're going to go down that route, but it's an option.

So THAT cheery news was followed by a lecture on the Great Gazoo's weight gain, or lack thereof.  He's measuring in the 5th percentile, and that's on the "low birth weight, pre-term infant" growth chart, which adjusts for his prematurity.  Basically, I heard that I was starving my baby, by putting "too many limitations" and not paying attention to his hunger cues.  The limitations she identified were: feeding them on a schedule, feeding them both at the same time, feeding them only one boob each, etc.  It was really demoralizing and I came out of the office and sat in Eddie VAN Halen and cried for 15 minutes.  I think any time you're talking to a mum about feeding her kids, it's going to be taken hard, because you want to do the best for your kids and it's a super-charged topic of conversation.  It's a really sensitive topic on its own.  Add to that a doctor without a great bedside manner, and it all adds up to me feeling like the worst mom ever.  The idea that someone under my roof going hungry?  Basically the antithesis of everything I stand for.  Things got marginally better when, after an hour of giving me the gears about my feeding and referring me to this special breastfeeding clinic (my appointment is tomorrow morning), she came back into the room after leaving and said that she averaged his weight gain on a per day basis between our visits with her and he was actually within the acceptable range (20grams/day).  TOO LITTLE TOO LATE, LADY.  The damage had been done.

After a few days of sitting on this, I feel like I have some better perspective.  I still have to find a style of feeding that's going to work with my life and my schedule, in acknowledgement of the fact that I have another baby and a preschooler at home.  I also feel like we have a control subject (Prof. Gantok) who is thriving under the same circumstances.  I think I'm just going to give them both extra boob whenever possible and as a first line of defence and go from there.  We'll see what I learn tomorrow.

These two!

On Friday, we tempted the Boston Pizza fates and posse'd up and took the family out to eat.  That's right, Friday Night Takeout Night became Friday Night Eatout Night.  We went to a REAL restaurant on a FRIDAY night.  It was kind of a big deal.  I made us reservations at Big Crow, which is a barbecue restaurant owned by Anthony Rose, of my birthday lunch at Rose and Sons, fame.  The concept of Big Crow is like a camp-cookout, or Canadian barbecue.  Not the Southern, low-and-slow, super-smoke stuff...more like grilled things, cooked over a wood fire.  The restaurant is behind Rose and Sons - outside, with big tarps and heaters now that the weather is cooler.  There are hurricane lamps strung from sturdy wooden posts, woolen camp blankets, and big, long, rough hewn wooden communal picnic tables and benches.  Water is poured from plastic Hudson's Bay striped pitchers for that added touch.  The staff is 100% hipster but they were really nice to us, considering out of a table of five, only 2 of us were eating.   Originally the roomie was supposed to join us, but bailed at the very last minute.  We ended up cancelling some of our food because the server gave us the whole, "that's a lot of food for 2 people" line, but after our meal, we could have had the extra dishes, no problem.

SERVERS OF TORONTO: STOP UNDERESTIMATING HOW MUCH I CAN EAT.

Jerk chicken wings - nicely charred with a good amount of spice, and their barbecued bacon, both served with Thuet bread.  

A full rack of ribs with chimichurri, corn salad, the tomato-avocado salad we didn't order but were given accidentally.  Not pictured: the pork'n'beans and the ketchup chips (out of a bag) that the Big Yam hogged.

Overall, the portions were decent, the food was tasty, and the atmosphere fun and lowkey.  The music got really loud and the babies cried a bit, but it was worth it to feel like, IT CAN BE DONE (it's important for me to feel like IT CAN BE DONE.  Otherwise, I would go insane and would stop having babies.)  I didn't love the chimichurri on the ribs, and the food could be priced a touch lower, but I'd go back, and this time, ORDER ALL THE FOOD I WANT TO EAT.  

On Sunday we went to JJ & S's house for another themed dinner with the Discerning Coyote and those guys.  The theme was "Oktoberfest" - so what you see pictured above is pork schnitzel, carrots, vinegared cucumber, my German potato salad, my braised cabbage & apples with bacon, and the pièce de resistance, the Discerning Coyote's schweinshaxe - basically, German porchetta - a loin wrapped in a belly, slow-cooked with bubbly crackling.   I wish I felt comfortable telling you how much I ate...but it's pretty gross.  Let's just say it was a two-Tums night.  They also made this awesome sugary, sweet, delicate pear tart.  I love those guys.  They do life right.

We followed it up with Oktoberfest round two on Sunday - featuring sausages from a local butcher and leftover sides.

We continued the Eastern European theme tonight with beet/cabbage borscht, and toasted rye with liverwurst and pickled herring.

Friday was the first "Sports Pack" class for the Big Yam.  I knew it was drop-off, but for some reason, I thought there'd be an observation chamber or that parents would be able to sit in the gym.  But no, I left him there and they closed the door.  He's so tall, but he's one the youngest kids in the class (I had to get an age exemption to get him in because you're supposed to be 3 before the class starts).  It was a little heart-breaking...they closed the door and I saw him standing off by himself, just watching.  I got teary - first day of kindergarten is going to be a write off.  The other kids in the class were more rambunctious and instantly grabbed other kids hands and sat in the circle, but not the Big Yam.  He's so cautious and wary and this was his first time - I can't get that image of him standing by himself out of my head!  When I came back at the end of class they were playing "red light, green light" and he was so tentative again.  My heart - how am I supposed to stand it?

We also signed him up for 15 minute private swim lessons through the City.  The idea is that even though the lessons are short, they learn a s**t ton because they're not sharing 1 teacher with 5 other kids and only getting 5 minutes of actual swim time.  It was kind of hilarious.  He went with the teacher right away - no tears, no looking back, and he was hilarious.  At one point, from the observation deck, the teacher was pulling the Big Yam on a flutter board through the water and I could hear the Big Yam ask, "Where are we going?" LOL.  The Dotytron and I died laughing.

Guess who is (are?) four months old, today:

Their 4 month shot

At 3 months.  I think I must be terrible at taking these month-to-month comparison shots because I can't see a difference???  

Finally, Auntie Em took family photos of us on Sunday and I requested an additional headshot for my LinkedIn account.  These are the outtakes - aka, the shots I'm going to use if I ever become a real estate agent or need a headshot to advertise for a DeVry commercial:

Never not funny.

Fin.