Yeah, I Love This One Too

This is Cubby going to Alaska to fish for salmon, that he will then cut up and fry for dinner. I know because he told me so. 

Gold Stars for Charlie

I was all set for an awful afternoon yesterday, courtesy of modern medicine and the vaccinations given to my baby yesterday morning.  I still have bad memories of the screaming of an outraged and somewhat feverish Cubby after his two-month vaccinations.  So I braced myself and told A. I might need some help with Cubby yesterday afternoon if Charlie required serious comforting.

And then Charlie conked out at 10:30 a.m., not to awaken again (except for a few milk re-fuelings and diaper changes) until about 5:30 p.m.  That's right.  Seven hours.  And when he finally woke up, this is what I saw:

Damn, I love this kid.

Two-Month Pincushion

Charlie had his two-month check-up today, which means shots.  And lots of 'em.  The only thing worse than holding your baby while someone jabs multiple needles into his defenseless thighs is doing it with a running commentary courtesy of the two-year-old, at top volume to be heard over the baby's screaming.  "Those are needles!  That's the medicine!  The baby is crying!"

Unlike Cubby after his vaccinations, Charlie did not wait until we got home to start shrieking.  Instead he elected to scream at full volume the entire way home in the car.  That's half an hour of continuous screaming, with a few seconds of subsiding to whimpers in order to catch his breath, and then resuming the screaming.

It was way fun.

He fell asleep right after we got home, though, and is still sleeping now.  Cubby is sleeping too.  Mommy would like to be sleeping--or possibly indulging in a liquid lunch--but instead I think I will go check for chicken eggs in the shed.

Oh, were you wondering about Charlie's stats?  He's 12 pounds, 7 ounces and 25 inches.  Which means he's of average weight and the longest two-month-old you'll ever see.  That's why he's currently wearing clothing in the six-months size.  Craziness.

Kristin's Kitchen Tip of the Week

Okay, so maybe "of the week" is a little misleading, since I don't actually post a kitchen tip every week.  Or even every month.  Or, uh, even every year.  In fact, it's possible the only kitchen tip I have ever posted was this one about how to cut corn kernels off the cob without creating a blizzard of corn kernels in your kitchen.

ANYWAY.

On to the tip!

Next time you make mashed potatoes or polenta, throw a whole, peeled garlic clove in with the boiling water.  You can mash it right into the potatoes and leave it in the polenta when everything is cooked.  It doesn't make them taste like garlic really, just . . . good.  Flavorful.  I've been doing this with mashed potatoes for awhile, but just tried it with polenta last night.  It's really, really good.

And that should take care of my kitchen wisdom for the next three years.

Any good cooking tricks to share, duckies?  Fire away.

Higher I.Q.s Courtesy of Mr. Jason

I have mentioned before that the grocery store version of any kind of food sucks if you've ever had that food when it's been grown, raised, or caught straight from nature. We had another startling example of this last night when we ate some salmon.

Now.  I am not a fish fan.  I eat the fish A. catches, and it's okay, but I don't go wild for fish like some people do.  My previous experience with salmon has been, in a word, gross.  The fishy smell and flavor are absolutely appalling to me.  So when Mr. Jason returned from his annual two-week Alaskan salmon fishing expedition and presented us with ten pounds of salmon fillets he had caught and processed himself, I was apprehensive.

For one thing, ten pounds of Sockeye and Silver salmon is worth about two hundred dollars at market prices.  So I really didn't want to screw up cooking it.  For another, it was incredibly nice of him to give some to us and I really wanted to like it.

So I put my faith in my belief that most food only sucks when it's from agri-business and cooked a few pounds of Sockeye salmon last night.  The color is shockingly red when raw and is quite amazingly pink when cooked.  I broiled it plain last night, just so we could really taste the flavor.

The verdict:  Yeah, it's just grocery store salmon that sucks.  This fish had slightly more of a fish flavor than the white-fleshed trout and pike A. catches in our lake, but it was certainly nothing disgusting.  Cubby ate an enormous portion because, unlike me, he's all about the fish.  Good for his brain and all, I guess.  Everyone else was appropriately impressed with it as well.

So the moral of this story is that if you want to eat really good salmon, you need to have a friend who goes salmon fishing in Alaska every summer and then presents you with wild salmon straight from an Alaskan river.  Start hunting for that friend now.  You can't have Mr. Jason; we've called dibs.

Going for Good Enough

My standards are slipping lately.  This is solely because I have not enough time or sleep and entirely too-awake children.  Charlie is still up every three or four hours at night.  Cubby is still resisting sleep both for naps and bedtime.  Sometimes he skips his nap.  Sometimes it takes an hour of drama to get him to sleep at night.  Sometimes I want to do a runner and not come back for a week or so.

But since that's not really an option, the following are a few things on which I have conceded defeat:

1) Bribery.  Specifically of the "Finish your dinner and you can have a ginger snap" variety.  This has been standard for parents for time immemorial, I know, but was never necessary before with Cubby.  Now?  Now I just want that kid to have some food in his stomach to stave off the "You're* hungry!" announcement during the bedtime battle.

2) Screen time.  Oh, how I hate that phrase.  You know what it means, right?  The hours of television or computer time a child has in a day.  I tried pretty hard to limit that for a really long time, and it's still quite limited, but now I am SO RELIEVED when Cubby consents to sit down and watch "Curious George" for half an hour.  Because that is a half hour in which I only have to deal with the baby and not baby+toddler.  And so I am grateful to that annoying little monkey cartoon for that half an hour.  Also, these DVDs my mom sent with episodes all about car wreckers and sawmills and other machine things are pretty much Cubby's favorite thing ever and THANK YOU, Nana, for the guaranteed distraction.

3) Disposable diapers. We never had to use these when Cubby was a baby, but for some reason, the only thing that usually keeps Charlie dry at night is a disposable diaper WITH a cloth diaper cover over the top. I tried every combination possible and everything else results in a soaking-wet and awake baby.  And I do not need that baby awake any more than he already is.  I hate having to pay for diapers and I hate having to take them to the dump, but I hate being awake all night even more.

4) Monotonous food.  We've been eating a lot of hamburgers and omelets lately. Because they are fast and easy and don't require prior planning.  I'm pretty tired of hamburgers, but then, I'm pretty tired in general.

5) Personal appearance.  As I was sitting on the couch last night with Charlie, listening to A. wage the Cubby bedtime battle upstairs, the MiL remarked that the soles of my feet--visible because I had my feet up on the coffee table--were looking pretty rough.  I had to laugh at that, because that is the LEAST of my concerns when it comes to my appearance.  My sartorial choices these days are based entirely on what is cool enough and easy to nurse in.  Which is why I am currently wearing one of A.'s shirts over a nursing tank top that is way past its prime.  It is not a good look, but I really don't care.

Sometimes good enough is all you can hope for.

* His pronouns are still hit or miss.

He's Worse Than the Dogs

I was outside picking up bits and pieces of shingles this morning* while Cubby wandered around on the lawn  outside the kitchen door when I heard, "That's something gross."

These are not words you want to hear from the mouth of your two-year-old.  Especially when that two-year-old is coming towards you with something in his hands.  When he got close enough, I identified it.

It was a dead mouse with its head chewed off.

GROOOOOSSSSS.

I immediately told him to drop it, of course.  Then I herded him inside to wash his hands, in the meantime explaining that it's really not a good idea to pick up dead animals with your hands.


And now, to get the image of a toddler running around with a headless mouse out of your head, I will leave you with this:

Smiling babies make everything better.

* Remnants of the roofing job that is THANK GOD FINALLY done.  Yay for A.!