Babylon Registration

I registered the Big Yam for junior kindergarten yesterday.  The night before, I was a bit of a sleepless wreck because of it.  Well technically, it was 1 part "my baby is growing up!"/"I hope the school system doesn't strip him of his innocence and openness", 1 part the Wonder Twins only wanting to sleep if they had a steady intake of boob nectar, and 1 part reading this Guardian article about James Lovelock and how he's this big climate change doomsday guy who basically says that we've fallen off the precipice and that the effects of global warming are irreversible, any attempts we make to curb greenhouse gas emissions are laughable, and that in 20 years we're facing a future of famine, mass human migration, and other Max Max-type nightmare apocalyptic scenarios.  This of course spiralled into, "Why am I bringing children into this horrific future?" and on and on and on.

Anyway, I was fully expecting to be an emotional wreck, picturing this as a bit of a dress rehearsal for his ACTUAL first day of kindergarten when I will have to drop him off by myself (as the Dotytron will be facilitating OTHER people's kids' first days of school) and will probably promptly come home and bawl myself silly.  I somehow turned a corner without knowing it and now that I'm faced with the open, guileless, exuberant person my Yam turned out to be, I want to protect him from all that school represents.  It's the thin edge of the wedge here, people.  Bullying!  Other people's poor parenting decisions!  Hegemony!  Conformity!  Well meaning but ill-informed liberalism!  Gross white kids in fedoras!  It's all there and then some.  I can't shield him from all this ugliness indefinitely, but I would like more time.  It's so personality dependent, too.  The Big Yam is a gentle, sweet kid who doesn't have the kind of toughened, entitled, bragadociousnes with which I swaggered into kindergarten.  I've been hanging around with the Wonder Twins at drop-in centres trying to suss out prospective nannies and the reports from staff, other parents, and caregivers who frequent the centres are all unanimous - the Big Yam has a reputation as being a considerate, good-natured, kind soul.  I mean, the kid spent an hour yesterday practising his hip hop dance routine, of his own volition.

I digress.  I also put the cart before the horse.  Yesterday's registration turned out to be rather unemotional and instead, boringly administrative.  So much paperwork!  Emergency contacts and then a 6 page sheet on your kid - what they can do, their fears, their interests, their skill level.  SO MUCH HANDWRITING.  My hand cramped up after writing my address.  Seriously school board, can't this stuff be done online?!  Upload that shiz yo!  I didn't even know how to answer the questions - my sense is that they're just trying to prescreen for those kids who have always been at home with a parent or doting grandparents and haven't been socialised.  For his interests, I put down: transportation, dance, music, reading, philosophy.  LOL!

Last night was Academic Book Club, which is slowly being seeded with non-professors, which is nice.  We read A.M. Homes' May We Be Forgiven.  It's about this kind of layabout, directionless, blank slate man, Harold Silver, whose brother has clear violent issues and basically destroys his family, leaving Harold to pick up the pieces.  It sounds like very, very heavy stuff, and yet, the book is blackly comedic (I would say more black than comedy).  I had a lot of issues with this book.  Unlike similar family-implosion books (Jonathan Tropper's This is Where I Leave You for example), I had a hard time navigating the tone of this one.  According to my book club member, Homes is deeply critical of the ridiculousness of bourgeois, middle-class American life and this is meant to be a big EFF-YOU to that.  I got that to a certain extent, but I found the satire was lacking.  Right when things would border on being humorous (in a Jonathan Tropper/David Sedaris way), Homes would bring in an element of grotesqueness or grim, discomfiting reality (bully brother as a child circumcising a cousin in the basement during a family gathering), or something so beyond the realm of reality that it made the novel no longer funny but just kind of depressing and unbelievable.  I kept getting jolted out of my wavering investment in the characters and events.  The ending is also a little tacked-on and maudlin as well.  I was also uncomfortable with how a non-Jewish writer wrote a Jewish main character - first of all, I never got that Harold Silver was Jewish.  As my (Jewish) book club friend said, "Bashing your wife's head in with a lamp so isn't a Jew way to kill someone.  First of all, if he was Jewish, she probably would have been able to fight him off."  LOL!  I was also uncomfortable with a lot of the Asian stereotypes and supporting characters, whose race was used for cheap jokes.

I wasn't the biggest fan, but Book Club was of course, hilarious.  One of the academics was talking about how she'd read in The New York Times about "this app that allows gay people to look up other people who are nearby who want to have sex" and I'm like, "Yeah, Grindr, what's the deal?" and she's like, "How do you know about it?" and I'm like, "BECAUSE I LIVE IN THE WORLD, DUH."  I will never understand how these women can read everything like The New Yorker, The Guardian, Slate, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and still KNOW NOTHING!  How can you be so "informed" but be so clueless at the same time?!?  It's the biggest paradox to me.

Other books I've read lately.

Travelling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, by Anne Lamott, who writes fiction, memoirs, and is a contributor to Slate.  This was another Academic Book Club pick.  I was intrigued.  Lamott became Christian later in life and is a leftist Christian.  I am so deeply secular that I find it hard to empathise or relate to people who have religion or faith in their lives.  You might as well be telling me that you believe in aliens.  In this memoir, which is really well written (she can turn a pretty phrase and conjure evocative, imaginative metaphors), she talks about how she came to Christianity and how her faith has helped her.  To me, the idea of praying and knowing that God exists is so far removed, I can't even approximate what that must be like.  Anyway, I found the book revealing because Lamott is kind of a gong show.  Recovering alcoholic, eating disorders, unnaturally obsessed with her son.  She writes about the mother-son relationship charmingly and describes her love for him in a way that completely resonated with me, but at the same time, there was definitely an undercurrent that she was/is too reliant on her kid.  Like, she NEEDS her son to prop her up in some way (she's a single mother).  Her son ends up getting some woman pregnant at like, the age of 19, after going to "art college" and living and studying on his mom's dime (yes, I'm feeling judgemental about that).  Also, Anne Lamott looks like this:  

That is to say: kind of cray.  Even though she writes about her hair in this book that I read, I can't get over the thin white-lady dreads.  She also comes across as mad drama.  Too emotional.  The kind of friend who has too many peaks and keening lows and NEEDS YOU all the time to talk them off the ledge.  Still, it was worthwhile reading.

Y'all know how much I loved Eleanor and Park, so based on my sis' frantic FB status updates on her book, Fangirl, I read that and followed that up with Attachments (her first novel).  Fangirl is a YA book about one half of a twin sister set who goes off to university and experiences the inevitable growing pains of that first year away from home.  The girl, Cather (sister named Wren - Cather-Wren, get it?  I will say that one of my bones of contention with Rainbow Rowell is her character naming!  It's so teenaged girl Writer's Craft!  I should know!  Every female character in my OAC Writer's Craft course had a name like Mächen, or Zelda), writes fan fiction and is famous in the fan fiction world.  When she goes to college, her sister decides to forge her own, independent path, leaving Cather, who has clear anxiety and attachment issues stemming from their mother's abandonment and their father's mental issues, to figure out how to become an autonomous being.  The writing is SO GOOD.  It was deeply addictive reading and the romance in it (OF COURSE THERE'S A ROMANCE!) unfolds in a YA-approved way.  I loved this book.  Some people have had quibbles with all the examples of Cather's fan-fic that are interspersed amongst the chapters, and I can see that, but I might have liked this more than Eleanor and Park, if that was even possible.  Eleanor and Park goes to this really dark place that I didn't love, but the boy-girl stuff in it is better than in Fangirl.

Attachments is written from a male point of view and is skewed older than YA.  The characters are in their mid-to-late 20s and it's about a guy who is some kind of arrested development genius who is living at home with his somewhat smothering, over protective mother, working nights where he screens people's flagged inappropriate emails at a major newspaper (this book takes place in the late 90s).  By reading the email exchanges between two female staffers, he starts to fall for one.  This was okay.  A decent, quick read but I didn't love it.  Let's just say I can see how Rowell got a book deal, but this one definitely felt like a person's first novel to me.

Relish is a graphic memoir that chronicles the author Lucy's long standing love affair with food.  Picking particular dishes and memorable food moments throughout her life, she illustrates how her gourmand parents instilled in her a love of fine wine and cuisine.  The book has charmingly illustrated recipes and I quite like the clean-lined drawing style.  However, I will say that it felt kind of slight.  She was raised by a pioneering caterer mother in Rhinebeck, New York, before Rhinebeck became Rhinebeck and I would have liked to see more of that.  Otherwise, it's a pretty flimsy memoir as far as memoirs go, and the food writing isn't as tantalizing as top-notch food writing can be.  I didn't salivate once.  

I finished the Divergent series and as I suspected before it came out, Veronica Roth didn't end on a high note.  Like many other YA trilogies there were too many loose ends to wrap up and it wasn't properly plotted.  The ending of the series is deeply unsatisfying and meandering.  The message is all garbled and while there is a big, shocking death of a principal character, I wasn't super invested in any of them any way.  It felt like a chore to read.  

And that pretty much brings me up to date on the reading tip.  Not too shabby for a mum of 3, if I do say so myself.  

Last weekend we spent with my sis and outlaw bro.  It was a very low-key weekend.  Lots of eating, maxing, relaxing, some House of Cards watching, and some shopping at Target.  We left on Valentine's day, but I still made the Big Yam make Valentine's for his friends.  We did a heart-shaped potato stamp on cardstock, signed his name on the back, and made these chocolate sugar cookie cut-outs and gave them out in little cello bags tied with red yarn bows.  

Valentine's breakfast

Our Valentine's dinner was boss.  A friend of mine from the jungle days is the chef de cuisine at Aft Kitchen, a tiny barbecue restaurant in Riverside.  He hooked us up with 2lbs of brisket, their queso mac'n'cheese, baked beans, and collards.  The brisket was SO GOOD.  Melting, fatty, with a delicious crusty barque.  It was amazing.  So spoiled.

Made a batch of cheescake brownies recently.  Ate practically the whole pan.  My go-to recipe is this one from an old issue of Gourmet magazine (RIP Gourmet magazine, I miss you so).  

I finally tried the famous Marcella Hazan tomato sauce that's been floating around the internet.  Made a triple batch and dialed back the butter a bit.  I froze it but used some for a skillet lasagne dish - it's really good!  Nice and rich with the acidity of the tomatoes mellowed by the butter and simmered onion.  I thinned mine with a bit of water.

Made a version of the Barefoot Contessa's (one of the most ridiculous cooking persona names, ever!) pot roast with roasted tatties and brussels sprouts.  The pot roast was bomb.  My new trick is to freeze the extra pot roast/beef braising liquid to use to add richness to beef broth-based soups, or in pastas like the one below.

Mushroom pappardelle with garlic bread.  So easy!  Sautéed like, almost 2 lbs of thickly sliced onions in butter/oil.  Then added diced onion, garlic, and about 500mL of pot roast liquid and a sprig of rosemary.  Reduced it and then tossed with just-cooked pappardelle with some pasta cooking water to loosen.  Finished with grated parm.  I ate bowlfuls and bowlfuls of this stuff.

Cheddar broccoli soup and Ace bakery roasted garlic bread, spread with my garlic butter and broiled on both sides, then spread with basil-scape pesto and topped with white beans that I simmered then mashed with some rosemary and lemon zest.  Topped with a drizzle of good olive oil.  So good!

Fin.

Gastrointestinal Fortitude

Or lack thereof.  And then, and then we got a round of stomach bug through the house.  Huzzah!  So far me and the Big Yam have been spared.  Lindsay Lou-Lou got it first, and was a sad, barfy sack yesterday.  It was tragic.  He barfed for about 4 hours and then was so tired that he was extra slumpy and cuddly.  There is something uniquely tragic about when your kid is sick and can only stare dull-eyed into the middle distance.  That being said, I took him to our doctor's urgent care clinic (another point for the family health team model!  Urgent care hours until 8pm Monday through Thursday!) and he was obviously flirting with the doctor and smiling and being the sweetest, so the doctor thought that it was just a reaction to something he ate.  This is before the Quincess was felled and the Dotytron, last night.  In case you're keeping track, this is night three of heavily interrupted sleep.  In case you're keeping track, this is the third individual visit to the doctor's this week, by a member of Casa Dotytron-Lagerfeld.  The Big Yam: finger infection!  Me: possible thrush but just a hurty boob!  Lindsay Lou-Lou: possible food reaction but more likely stomach bug!

[Edit: Got a call from our doctor's office yesterday afternoon, as it turns out, the strep throat swab they did came back positive.  A-mazing]

Clear eyes, strong hearts, people.

In between loads of laundry, let's talk about better things.  Things like: how amazing the Big Yam is right now.  Usually as the bed time routine draws to a close, I lie next to him and we put our noses together and have a talk.  I was telling him that I loved him, and he said he loved me, too.  I asked him why he loved me, and this is what he said: "Because you're exactly as I are."  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, did I mention that I'm most likely getting a late-stage tattoo?  Haha.  It is to honour the Yeti, as tattoos were really important to him, and it's also a way for me to recognize those I've lost these past few years.  In terms of what I'm going to get, that remains to be seen, although I can totally see how it can be a slippery slope.  These are the general areas I'm thinking of:

Something linear and geometric

Or, something to honour my beloved cat, Smudge

A delicate floral, maybe?

Or maybe something in a stylized script.  Johnny Cash's Flesh and Blood has been on my mind lately (as you can see in the video above).  Trying to put it into the lullaby rotation.  The Dotytron just came home sick from work yesterday and I showed him the video and he welled up.  Proud Baba.  

Getting felled by sickness all around lightened up our weekend considerably.  I had the pleasure of going tobogganing with the Big Yam and then taking him to his dance class.  Guys, he tries so hard.  It's the sweetest.  Watching your kids navigate the world is heart-breaking.  The Big Yam is so sweet and has so few defences to protect him.  He's a pretty guileless kid.  We were at the play space with our neighbour and her daughter.  We were joined by our neighbour's friend and her daughter.  As soon as the other girl showed up the girls stuck together and started to shut the Big Yam out.  He was set on playing chase so he tried to run around with them, and the next thing I knew, one of the girls was saying, "Big Yam, nooooo!" and I went to intervene and he was standing there, all bashful, arms akimbo, not really understanding what he had done wrong.  I asked what had happened and he said, "I was - I was just trying to catch her" and it was the saddest little moment.  He's not generally malicious or a precocious kid - he's very innocent and I hate the fact that this innocence is going to be stripped from him, little by little, as the years go by.  Because you're exactly as I are.

Last night we ordered pizza, hung out, and watched Frozen together (review to come).  Tonight we had a pancetta, squash, and kale risotto, my version of the Olive Garden salad for dinner and will be snacking on cheesecake brownies while we watch the Wolf of Wall Street and I knit.  Sounds like a pretty perfect evening for a family of sickies.

Fin.

Coping...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 I can never resist a good finger gun picture.

Simple meals lately:

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

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

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

Fin.

A Day In The Life

Last week, I was at the indoor play space with the Big Yam and the Wonder Twins and started chatting with another mum of multiples, whose twins were 20 months old.  She was a wreck and had the classic, dazed/crazed eyes of the stereotypical new mom.  She goes to the play space EVERY DAY.  Anyway, she asked me what kind of help I had when I first had the babies and I told her: my mum coming maybe once a week, my outlaw mom helping out here and there, my partner home the first two months.  Then I asked her what her situation was.

SO GET THIS: her mother moved in with them for the first TWO months.  Then she had a "mother's helper" coming in 3 days a week for the next TWO months after that.  THEN SHE AND HER PARTNER AND THE TWINS MOVED TO GERMANY TO LIVE WITH HER IN-LAWS FOR FOUR MONTHS AFTER THAT.

Imma give you a minute to read that last paragraph over one more time and let it sink in.  I was like, "YOU IS SOFT, LADY" (in my head; outwardly, I was in full sympathetic, mum-to-mum support zone mode).  I get that everyone has it tough in their own way etc., etc., but I was still a SEETHING, ROILING BALL OF RESENTMENT after hearing about her cushy situation.  CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT I WOULD BE ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH IF I HAD LIVE-IN HELP FOR EIGHT MONTHS?!?

I've been feeling under pressure lately.  Quincess has his helmet and doing the upkeep on that, in conjunction with the both of them eating solid food has been robbing me of even more of my precious, precious minutes in the day.  This is how a 24 hour typical day goes:

10:30pm - go to bed
11:00pm - pump for the Wonder Twins' night time "mega-bottle"
11:30pm - go to sleep after reading and winding down for half an hour (note: one of the only times I have completely to myself, ALL DAY)
2:00am  - the Big Yam wakes up, walks into our bedroom, stands beside my side of the bed dramatically whimpering until I get up, and go lie down with him in his bed
4:00am - the Wonder Twins wake up for their night time feed.  Stay up with them nursing, burping, and putting them back to bed until they're for sure asleep (this takes about an hour, on a good night)
7:00am - up for the day (note: this means I've had about 5-6 hours of INTERRUPTED sleep a night).  Feed the Wonder Twins, change them, clean out the Quincess' helmet, wash his head, put the helmet back on, get the Big Yam ready for the day - tooth brushing, changing, face-washing, packing for daycare).  This is a solid 1-1.5 hours of activity until we get out the door.
8:30am - drop off the Big Yam at daycare
8:30-10:00am - either doing a stupid errand (doctor's appointment, grocery shopping, etc.) or at home, feeding the Wonder Twins solids, cleaning up, changing them, cleaning out the helmet, doing some tummy time, doing the Quincess' stretches, prepping their food for the day, washing bottles, dishes, general tidying
10:00-11:30am - Wonder Twins napping, when I'm doing stupid admin stuff like: passport applications, kindergarten registration, banking, claiming insurance stuff, coordinating the cars being serviced, putting away laundry (maybe), putting on a load of laundry, cleaning the house, shovelling, tidying, dentist appointments, more doctor's appointments, etc.  Hopefully eating some breakfast (finally).
11:30-1:30pm - either having a visit/outing with a friend or in the 'hood or more of the above.  Nurse the babies, then solid food for the babies, then more play time where I dump them in the exersaucers or leave them to wrestle on the floor while I try to get a handle on life some more.
2-4pm - Wonder Twins afternoon nap.  Dinner prep, responding to emails, making more arrangements, organizing, etc.
5:00pm - Big Yam and Dotytron home.  Pass off the Wonder Twins so I can get dinner ready
6:00-7pm - dinner and clean-up and bottle prep and more bottle washing
7-8pm - games with the Big Yam or bath for one to three of the kids.  Babies' night time bottles (Dotytron responsibility)
8-9pm - Bedtime for the Big Yam
9-10:30pm - "free time" (which is basically more tidying, maybe folding laundry, passing out in front of the TV, talking to my partner).

Rinse, repeat.  Each nursing session lasts about 30 minutes, minimum.  That happens 5-6 times a day.  Each solid feed lasts about 30-45 minutes, and that's 3 times a day.  That doesn't count the time it takes to prep, cook, and warm their food, whatever they're eating.  Each diaper change is about 15-20 minutes and that includes lotioning up their eczema, powdering their little butts, etc.  That happens about 8 times a day.  The Great Gazoo's helmet has to be wiped out every 3 hours, washed with baby soap once a day, and then disinfected with rubbing alcohol every 3 days (but I think I'm going to do every other, because it already stinks and it's only been a week).  Each helmet session takes about 15-20 minutes.  Then we're supposed to do the Great Gazoo's stretches, every 3-4 hours, which takes about 15-20 minutes.

It's a f**king s**tload of work, guys.  I'm not gonna lie.

And honestly, I can't believe how well we're doing.  We know so many people who are getting OWNED by their ONE kid, let alone 3 under 3, let alone 2 of those 3 being twins.  But just because we CAN, doesn't mean we SHOULD.  I would effing LOVE to be able to really SPEND TIME with my kids instead of having to turn down a Big Yam request for a game of Thomas-themed Uno, so that I can do something a million times less fun like folding laundry or wiping down the kitchen counter or making sure our bathroom isn't one giant ball of hair and urine.  I would love to be on the floor PLAYING with the Wonder Twins instead of hoping against hope that they will keep themselves entertained long enough to allow me to eke out one stupid administrative task.  What I mean to say is, holding the babies is the last step in a long process of work that is invisible.  That's the GOAL.

At Ladies Night I was talking to my neighbours, some of whom are, like me, lucky to have partners who are hands-on and great, nuturing, capable parents in their own rights, and some of whom are kind of slackers.  My one neighbour was talking about this documentary that aired on the CBC called The Motherload, which is about women, mothering, work-life balance, etc.  Apparently (haven't had a chance to watch it yet, for reasons listed above!), the filmmakers talk to Anne Marie Slaughter and Sheryl Sandberg, etc.  One of my neighbours, who has a very hands-on partner, was still complaining about how her partner sometimes asks if he can "help" her give their daughter a bath, and she's like, "why are you 'helping' ME? Just give her a G-D bath!"  One of the women with a less hands-on dad was like, "So and so can get my daughter dressed, but he doesn't realize that getting her dressed is the last step in a 10 step process, of which he's oblivious - like, buying the clothes, making sure she has enough in every size for the right season, making sure she has back-ups, knowing that she's only wearing purple and making sure there's enough purple stuff and then doing the laundry when we're running out, etc."

This was all pretty relevant because the Dotytron and I got into a minor disagreement about how I disproportionately shoulder the majority of the household administration.  Some of this is just me being a Type A Little Dynamo multitasking, administrative, ubermensch.  Like, a lot of the stuff that stereotypically falls on the "man" in a relationship (insurance, mortgages, bills, budgeting, cars, home improvement, etc.) I take on 100%.  In addition to that though, I also take on a lot of the domestic stuff - meal planning, grocery shopping, cooking, now that I'm home on maternity leave - the cleaning.  My big beef is that I'm responsible for the administration of four people's lives: mine and the kids.  The Dotytron is only responsible for his own, and very often, I do the majority share of his administration, too.  So, when I'm back at work, I'm working effectively at minimum, 3 different jobs (simultaneously), whereas the Dotytron only focuses on his one.  The other galling thing is that the Dotytron likes to position his job as more demanding or challenging than mine.  Which is patently false.  We're both public servants - I'm just helping the province to run, NO BIGGIE.  Anyway, we had an in-depth, not entirely adversarial conversation about it and we're working through some of those issues.  At the end of the day, I can't reiterate enough how I can leave the Dotytron in charge of all the kids and be totally secure that he's got stuff handled.  He can take the Big Yam to the doctor's and whathaveyou.  That's a biggie. But, as my neighbour mentioned, physically bringing the kid to the appointment is the last step in a long chain of events, of which the Dotytron tends to be oblivious.   However, I don't think that changes things that the bar is set much lower for "dads" traditionally, and that with the amount of work women take on in the home and work spheres, simultaneously, it makes it even more galling that such gross income and professional advancement inequities continue to exist.

Anyway, enough belly aching.  I'm not going to get s**t-all done if I continue on like this.  That being said, GIVE ME SOME DAPS, DAMMIT!  Haha.  At the end of the day, someone telling me that I'm rocking this whole situation goes a long way to soothing or smoothing over my raw edges.  Also: please don't ever, ever tell me how to parent, if you haven't had multiples or 3 under 3.  What went well for you 10 years ago, doesn't apply, and so please keep your comments to yourself.  If you're not going to say something supportive, or, better yet, offer PHYSICAL support, then please take your tips and tricks to, like, Yahoo Answers, where they belong.

In other news: the Great Gazoo got his Great Gazoo helmet and somewhat predictably, is the CUTEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN:

This is how chill my kids are: they don't cry when they get needles and you can plop a helmet on their head and they don't cry or complain at all.  He's been so good about it!  We were supposed to gradually wean him up to the 22-23 hours a day in 3 hour increments but we basically fast-tracked it because he was so fine.  That being said: he's a stink-head.  I wash it out every three hours or so with water, wipe it dry, baby powder his head, wash it with soap and water twice a day, wash his head with soap and water twice a day, and disinfect with rubbing alcohol every 3 days, and he's still a Schweatz McGillicuddy.  I don't think there's anything to be done about it.  You wear anything for 22 hours a day, especially something that traps the heat and makes you sweat, and you're going to be a stink head.  Luckily for him: an adorable one.

We spent the weekend in Port Stanley.  Our friends S & P moved out there and bought what would be a million dollar house in the Beaches for a song.  I'm in LOOOOVE with their house.  Look at where we got to be holed up through a storm:

Our friends B & G came up as well and we ate and hung out in our pyjamas and played board games and snacked, and hung with the babies and talked and went for a long walk.  It was so nice.  They're about a 5 minute walk from the beach at Lake Eerie so I'm pretty pumped to visit in the summer.  I miss having them in town terribly, but am grateful for the opportunity for extended hangs.  You know how much I loves me a friend sleepover and a cottage getaway vacation.

Also, these things happened:

This outfit will forever be the funniest thing in the whole world

For people who think the Big Yam and Lenny the Lighthouse look identical, here's a chance to play, NAME THAT BABY: 

The Quincess rocking some mad cleavage

Freezer bolognese with slow-cooker polenta, topped with a fried egg.  Steamed cauliflower with browned butter and toasted thyme breadcrumbs.  Steamed green beans.

Slow-cooker "Asian" style ribs, root vegetable mash, and more steamed green beans.

Phew, it feels nice and cathartic to get all my "YOU THINK YOU KNOW, BUT YOU HAVE NO IDEA, THIS IS THE DIARY OF KARL LAGERFELD" griping out of my system.  Now I can sign off and proceed to the task of doing 10 billion things!  Huzzah!  

Fin.

Recipe

for a perfect Sunday:

- having a friend sleep over and then hanging out in the morning in our pajamas, eating breakfast
- clean house
- going braless all day
- no outdoor activities planned
- two noise machines, 3 kids sleeping
- freezer bolognese on the menu
- smell of roasted garlic

You know how people talk about life hacks?  I find those compendiums very idiosyncratic.  A life hack for me is to roast garlic cloves in oil in bulk and then have a jar of them sitting in my fridge, ready to be milled into mash, or turned in my award-winning (self-adjudicated) garlic bread at a moment's notice.  Garlic roasting days are days when I'm pretty happy that we don't have a working hood vent in the kitchen.

Lovely weekend winding down, gone too soon.  I skipped Book Club on Thursday night because my neighbour had my car.  It was for the best.  We were discussing Alice Munro's Dear Life and I think for the first time in Academic Book Club history, I didn't finish the book.  Alice Munro is terrible (sample size: this one collection of short stories).  So not my bag.  Stories about small-town Ontario white women dealing with not-so-very trying small domestic issues that are given the weight of REALLY BIG DEAL, stuff?  NO THANKS.  I can't relate to that level of repressed passivity and layered, repressed introspection.  It's just not the stuff I'm made of.  I found the stories went nowhere and I didn't see the point or where the meat of the story was and I was by and large not interested in the characters.  They don't speak to me.  It was a snoozer of epic proportions, in my humble opinion.  But I have a feeling my Book Club would have loved it, which probably means I made the sound decision to bow out.  This way, feathers would remain unruffled by my blunt dismissiveness.

Friday night was Ladies Night.  We went to a newish restaurant in the neighbourhood, the Brooklyn Tavern (before you write off the name, it's at the end of a street named Brooklyn).  The menu is a right hodgepodge of stuff but what they do there is done decently, I guess.  I had the pork flautas which came with purchased green salsa and were decent.  More of an appetizer size but I had eaten my weight in doughnuts earlier in the day.  I was tipped off by my neighbour about Von Doughnuts, and he claimed they were as good as NYC's esteemed Doughnut Plant.  I made the mistake of listening to my neighbour, even though we rarely see eye to eye on food (let's just say that he went to Guu and ordered 3 dishes.  'NUFF SAID.  Ordering 3 dishes at Guu basically means that you and I are diametrically opposed from a culinary standpoint).

From left to right, top row then bottom row: chocolate mint, lemon meringue, peanut butter and jelly, salt and pepper caramel, and bacon banana.

I was so excited by the size of the doughnuts and the appearance and the relatively tasty creme brulee one I housed immediately upon returning home that I prematurely posted a favourable capsule review on Instagram.  After sampling the rest (you can see why I didn't have much of an appetite for dinner after), I revised my opinion.  The good: doughnut size.  All the yeasted doughnuts have the same base, which is okay, but a little dense and chewy for my liking.  They are skimpy on the flavourings.  Whereas at Doughnut Plant, your creme brulee doughnut comes impregnated with a squishy, pillowy ring of fluffy custard, the creme brulee doughnut here was a yeasted doughnut cut in half, smeared with a rather pedestrian pastry cream.  The lemon meringue had a paucity of lemon curd (I can't reiterate enough that at Doughnut Plant, EACH BITE features lemon curd!) and the salt and pepper caramel was okay.  Peanut butter jelly was an afterthought: same yeasted doughnut base with a topping of peanut butter American-style buttercream and some jelly piped on top.  The cake doughnuts were ATROCIOUS.  The mint one used fresh mint in the glaze but it had been over infused and so tasted acrid and bitter.  It was disgusting.  The chocolate cake base was dry as f**k, tough as Bette Midler in Gypsy, and flavourless as an Alice Munro short story.  The bacon one featured a similarly egregious banana cake doughnut base.  I won't be going back.

Yesterday we walked the Big Yam to his dance class, this time with our neighbour's hand-me-down ballet slippers in tow.  It was a substitute teacher and while her ballet program was okay, her hip hop program was terrible.  She didn't even play hip hop music!  The Dotytron watched her start the class and said aloud, "What the - ?! Highly unorthodox hip hop."  I can't even describe it.  It was like a half-time ballet class taught by someone with a severe iron deficiency.  The Big Yam loved it though, so I can't complain.  It was so cute watching him.  We had SMckay and Lolly over later and he was so proud showing them what he learned.  We spent the night Youtubing videos of Steven Sondheim and Les Miserables numbers and singing along, which basically means: BEST NIGHT EVER.  The Dotytron, SMckay, and Lolly have basically decided that they're going to take advantage of the lack of an age limit enforcement at Kiwanis Music Festival and enter in the musical theatre category.  If they actually pull this together it's going to be hilarious.  They will be competing against kids.  People half their age!  This all started when the Dotytron enquired about whether they were strict on the age limit and was told that while, if he did take the highly unorthodox route of competing as a grown man, he wouldn't be able to progress to provinicials, they would still allow him to enter.  The thought of 3 adults competing against teenagers in a music competition, with the fervour that I know these three will bring to the table, is the stuff that lesser comedies are made of.

The cookie recipes promised last post are at the end of this one.

Now I'm off to lose myself in The Interestings.  Omnibus post of recent films/books to come this week, I hope.

Fin.

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Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies

pulled from a blog that took them from a Giada recipe, apparently

1/2 c. butter, softened

1/2 c. nutella
1/2 c. brown sugar, packed
1/2 c. white sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
1 1/3 c. flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling on top
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips (but preferably bittersweet if you can find them - it cuts the sweetness of the cookie)

-  cream the butter and nutella together with the sugars until light and fluffy
- add the egg and vanilla, mix well
- stir in the dry ingredients, then the chocolate chips
- bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 10 minutes (based on tablespoon sized balls), sprinkling the dough balls with additional kosher salt before baking.  You want these cookies to be very chewy, so underdone is better than overdone.

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Chewy Malted Milk Chocolate Cookies

1 c. unsalted butter, melted
1 c. packed light brown sugar
2/3 c. malted milk powder
1 T. vanilla extract
3/4 t. salt
2 c. plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1 c. milk chocolate chips

- stir together the melted butter and the sugars and malted milk powder.
- add the remaining ingredients, stirring well
- bake at 350F for 10 minutes.

Random Ephemera

I am feeling STRESSED, sons.  Which manifested in a painful, blocked, engorged boob on Monday which is probably a sign from the milk gods that I should relax a bit.  EXCEPT THAT I CAN'T.  I've got a million things on the go - this week alone has doctor's appointments every day Monday to Wednesday, then the Big Yam home with me on Thursday, and hopefully Friday I can get a breather except I have Book Club Thursday night and Ladies night on Friday night and no time to do anything or research kindergarten or fill out a million passport renewals, or stay on top of laundry, or keep the house clean, or tidy or put things away from Christmas...you get the drift.

When the Dotytron was asked to MC the Yeti's Memorial on Saturday, at one point he turned to me and observed that if there's one thing we have learned from this experience of three under three and newborn twins, it's that people generally have a VERY high opinion of us.  The things we are asked to do on the regular is INSANE.  Like, people wouldn't ask that of people with one newborn kid, let alone two at once!  People would hesitate to ask the same from like, people who just work one regular 9-5 job!  Also: the offers of help dry up faster than the need for help does.  That's just the way it goes, I suppose.  On the one hand I'm proud of how well we're managing, all things considered.  On the other hand, IT'S OKAY TO OFFER HELP TO PEOPLE WITH TWINS AND A PRE-SCHOOLER, FOLKS.  THEY WON'T BE MAD AT YOU, I SWEAR.

That being said, I want to give shout outs to my brother, Bruce Wayne, and his gf, and Dr. Rei and Hanbo who came and managed the kids while we went to the memorial on Saturday.  My brother took the Big Yam to the first of his winter parks and rec classes - I signed him up for a half hour of hip hop followed by a half hour of ballet.  As it turns out, he's the only boy in both classes, but he was so into it - it was so cute.  We asked him what he learned and he showed us and was so proud, which is a million times more engaged than he was for the sports classes.  Bruce Wayne took some photo and videos and we basically died watching them.  I'm on the hunt for some ballet slippers for him now.  Some of the other girls were mad tricked out in full dance apparel, but thankfully the Big Yam was oblivious.

My mum was amazing and came with me to Sick Kid's Orthotics Clinic last week to manage Lindsay Lou-Lou while the Quincess was having his first appointment for his helmet.  They took a 3D scan of his head and will base the helmet off of that, so there won't be a need for any plaster casting of his head.  In order to do the 3D scan they put this stocking cap on his head and well, I'll let the picture speak for itself:

I mean, COME ON.  How cute is that?!  

He looked so friggin' cute in the stocking cap that any lingering fears I had about the helmet were washed away.  If anything, it's just going to put more emphasis on his little sweetums face.  So yes, he will have to wear it 22-23 hours a day, but I have a feeling it's just going to be the most adorable thing, ever.

When my mum showed up she tossed me one of my Poh Poh's fur coats.  So now I own a black fur, which is kind of boss.  I should raid my Poh Poh's closet for her vintage Christian Dior purses.  This is how much of a baller my mum is.  I asked her, innocently, "Do you know what kind of fur it is?" and she gave me a look of withering disdain and was like, "It's mink, OBVIOUSLY."  LOL.  EXCUSE ME!

After the appointment I took her to Santouka Ramen for lunch.  The menu hyped up this special, limited (until they run out) ramen that was $15/bowl so I ordered the shio version and my mum ordered the spicy version.  We also split an order of gyoza.  Here are my notes: 1) ramen for 2 people with gyoza should not be a $50 meal (which this was).  2) I gotta learn and stop ordering gyoza out.  It's always a less satisfying, less meaty, more delicate (read, wimpily flavoured) corollary to a Chinese potsticker and those are way more up my alley.  I always want more of everything - more filling, a chewier, doughier wrapper, more of a stomach-filler.  3) The special ramen wasn't so special.  The broth was nice and clean tasting, the ramen were really bouncy and had a great chew and the pork neck was perfect, but overall, I still prefer Sansotei.  At least I now know that I've tried all the heavy-hitting Toronto ramen contenders now and can come to my own preferences with a clear conscious.  PHEW.

I also went crazy and decided to install a runner on my stairs.  I got sidetracked by a busy week but I'm slowly gathering my supplies.  I will do a full blog reveal when this shiz gets done (which should be in the next two weekends), but it did require me putting out an APB to the neighbours for a pneumatic stapler and having one dropped off to my house within minutes of pushing send on the email.  Way to go, street!  Killin' it!  My quest for the runner led me to Target which also led me to impulse-buying a Dyson vacuum, on super-sale (only $299!).  I put it together and gave it a test run and once again, I am in awe of Mr. Dyson's industrial design sensibilities.  The thing just makes sense, you know?  Like, how does one become a Mr. Dyson?  I'm going to start crowd sourcing funding to make a documentary on that guy.  He's one of those people that I'm just in awe of.  How do you dial yourself in to that extent?  

Over the holiday I took the Dotytron out for his birthday dinner.  We went with our Discerning Coyote friend and his gf to this high end Italian place called Buca.  It's one of those King West places that oozes money.  I wasn't a huge fan, to be honest.  The space is kind of impersonal and ill-designed, in that it's such a throwaway room - lots of exposed brick and a giant ceiling in the service of a disjointed design aesthetic.  Our server was basically Wario.  By that I mean he couldn't have been more the embodiment of a deplorable stereotype.  He was also a terrible, terrible server.  He seemed vaguely patronizing and I've never had a fine dining experience with as many awkward exchanges.  I'M NOT NEW AT EATING OUT.  I've been around the horn a time or two, you know?  Yet, he would come to the table and ask, "Do you-ah, know-ah, what-a, you-ah, would-ah, like, to order?" and we'd nod and then there would be nothing.  Like, beat after beat of awkward silence as my tablemates and I exchanged glances because we weren't being cued as to who was to speak first, or when.  So we'd be looking at him to see who he was talking to and he'd be staring blandly back at us and it would go on until finally one of us would break the silence with a hesitant, "Uh, I guess I'll go first?"  It was so awkward.  He also dropped a cheese plate with NO EXPLANATION and I know I sound all, "it's MINK, obviously" about it, but really, you're supposed to describe the cheeses on the cheese board!  I want their pedigree!  It was very untoward.

The food was pretty high concept and fussy.  The presentation of some dishes was needlessly conceptual.  We ordered a whipped boar lardo which came on a giant wooden board, but was composed of drips and drops and dabs of dots of the components.  We were told that the idea is that you're supposed to "smear" everything together and scoop it up with this toast/frico type thing, but here's the thing with serving stuff on a wooden board - THE BOARD ABSORBS STUFF.  So we smeared it as instructed but some of it got mashed into the wood grain and wouldn't come up onto the toast.  A lot of the dishes lacked a balance of flavour.  I had this ravioli doppi, a double stuffed ravioli with braised goose and foie and squash, with a parmesan foam and some orange.  It's pictured below:

Me so hungee.

That is five bite-sized ravioli for $26.  Why are the portions so small?  I know you're paying mad luche on rent, but c'mon, guys!  Give a gal something to eat!

My dessert was a torrone (nougat) semifreddo with pistachio blobs.  It was delicious but I could have used 3.75x the portion.  In the end, I think the restaurant is out of step with how I want to eat, and how restaurants are positioning themselves.  I can get similar flavour profiles at a place like Porzia, for half the cost, and emerge, stuffed (which is my preferred state of being!)  I just don't want to be taken for a ride to subsidize your King West rent, ya know?  Especially if the service doesn't make me feel, "it's mink, OBVIOUSLY."

We also ended the holiday by getting takeout from the bricks and mortar outpost of a popular foodtruck, Hogtown Smoke.  We got a dinner for 2 sampler and chose the ribs, the brisket, the wings, and beans and coleslaw for our two sides.  The standout was the brisket - it was so fatty and juicy.  Not a tonne of smoke flavour in anything, but the wings were snappy and burnished and tasty.  The ribs were pretty forgettable.  The sides were on the tiny side, with the coleslaw being an afterthought and the baked beans tasty, but nothing extraordinary.  There's another barbecue joint opening up soon in the 'hood and of course, I could always get off my butt and smoke 'em myself.

Prof. Gantok is a giant, hungry, hungry hippo right now.  He doesn't chew his solids, but swallows whole bites like they're shooters.  He also shotguns his night time bottle and then gets SUPER-MAD that the Quincess is leisurely drinking his and tries to bat it out of Quincess' hands.  It's hilarious.  He's such a Chris Farley.  He's like Belushi in Animal House.  He's been babbling up a storm - lots of "bababa" and "mama" whereas the Quincess just seems content to stare dreamily off into the ether.  The other night as we were heading home from dinner at our friend's place, the Dotytron was putting Quincess in the car and out of nowhere, we both swear he said, "Eyeeelooooovveeeeuuuu" and Dotytron was like, "Did you just say 'I love you'?" and when we pulled his car seat out of the car he had fallen asleep.  That basically sums up his sweet little daydream believer personality to a T.

Here are some random kid pics:

Dinner solidarity.  They stayed like this for the entire 30 minutes we all spent eating dinner.

   

Scoping the scene from the command centre

Lindsay Lou-Lou has been jail-breaking his swaddle lately, just to get that one arm out.

Had a visit with an old friend and her cute little wolf cub.  Look at that baby scrum!  Lindsay Lou-Lou's expression is totally, "Who is that man?" Also: the little cub is so chubby that Lindsay outright tried to nurse his turkey drumstick thigh.  Mouth open and everything.

7 months old!  What!

All the boys together.

Seared rib-eye.  Mushrooms sauteéd in butter and brandy.  I've been all about the cauliflower-potato mash lately and added pureed kale to this batch.

Butter chicken, peas paneer, and amazing garlic naan from (one of) the Pakistani joints around the corner.  For some reason the garlic naan is cheaper than the regular naan, but 10x as good.

Last night's cabbage rolls & broccoli

Chicken stew & biscuits.

Fin.