A LOVELY freaking day.

Go watch the lovely treat that nature had in store for me this morning at my Kitchen Party blog - and also read about me working through my fear of a kitchen appliance. EXCITING!
(I forgot to mention earlier so I will now - my menu plan for this week is up at my food blog, if you want to see that.)

So apparently pop culture + miserable personal memories = posting GOLD! Now that I've figured out the magic formula, expect more of the same, like:
1) Episodes of Friends vs. Bad Dates I've Been On
2) Horton Hears A Hurl: Bad Hangovers From My University Years
3) Big Comfy Couch: Or I Have Spent Five Of The Past Eight Years Breastfeeding
4) A Very Special Facts Of Life.

I'm not really looking forward to writing any of these, though.

We had to make an emergency shopping trip today because The Boy told us - and I'm totally paraphrasing here - that his clothing was inappropriately effeminate for his rural educational setting. His new clothing has Hot Wheels logos and guys skateboarding and jeans with buttons instead of elastic, because that is what Men wear, especially Men in Kindergarten. We grabbed The Baby a new outfit since she's been looking kind of Dickensian-shabby, and what did we get for the poor Girl? Nothing. Not ONE thing, the poor dear child.

Once you're past the 6X sizes, girl clothing suddenly becomes a distressing wasteland of pre-teen tartwear, the clothes you wear for the few years before you have your first kid at fifteen or catch throat gonorrhea at 13. I spent way too long grimacing and rifling through racks full of short skirts and t-shirts with vulgar slogans and just felt a near Old Testament-level of outrage after a while, which caused me to make a prediction to my husband as to the future career of girls wearing such clothing, and thus earning me a dark look from a grandmother with a cartful of crappy clothes.

I will do things, The Boy's clothing predicts, possibly unwise things but whatever - an exciting future awaits, needing sturdy pants and cars that go places, skateboards that will hurtle through the air. The future that we offer our daughters promises less, a cheap disposable sexuality and a world where there are no adults. Look at me.

Villainy

We had YET another snowstorm this week, crazy amounts of snow making everything white - the hills, the trees, the stroller accidentally left on the ground - and I'm tired of it. None of our mittens have mates, the snowboots are all outgrown, coats and snowpants show an inch of ankle or wrist. My winter boots spring leaks as soon as I step outside. We are done with winter but winter is not done with us.

Two old men were standing outside the grocery store talking and watching me with amusement as I pulled The Baby's stroller through the unyielding snowy muck in the parking lot.
"I don't know what everyone's talking about," said one old guy. "This is just a good old fashioned winter."
"Yep," said the other old guy. "Back when I was a kid, we used to always have snow like this. Sometimes it stuck around till June."
They both seemed pleased with this thought, and then offered unsolicited opinions on how The Baby was now too old to be riding in her stroller - true, but she also can't make it on through the snowy sidewalks, so she's stuck riding until spring. Should spring ever come, of course.

I could probably find some way to enjoy the rest of winter, but as soon as I think of something - taking The Baby out sliding, for example - my brain rejects it as unworthy while making rude raspberry noises. So we're just hanging out, not going anywhere, not doing anything and not being very happy, just waiting for all of this snow to magically go away and for lovely spring to come and meanwhile some invisible clock is counting down and these days will never, ever come back.

Songs They SHOULD Sing On American Idol

... and how it all relates to me.

If you watch American Idol - and you likely do, this being The Planet Earth and that being What We Do On Tuesday Nights And All - you will have noticed, if you have ears, that most of the songs are truly, truly terrible and not just because they're being wailed out by fame hungry 19 year olds with somewhat limited talent. That show features TRULY TERRIBLE SONGS. JUST AWFUL SONGS. REALLY ICKY SONGS. If you don't watch it, you are a very, very lucky person who has spared their ears much suffering and also you are probably a martian.

So last night, the latest batch of victims sang songs from the year they were born, which was five minutes ago, pretty much and they chose (or had chosen for them) really insipid, awful songs. Well, of COURSE they did. But it got me thinking what songs I would have chosen from the Idol-qualifying years - 1978 (I think) until 1992 - and what I was doing during each of those years, besides not being a fetus in 1992, FOR PETE'S SAKE.

In 1978, I was six and hating Grade One and sitting at a table with this big creepy kid who'd failed the year before and who licked my arms all the time.
That Idol contestant could have sang Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush, which would have made me laugh myself just about to death.

HAHAHAAH. Awesome.

In 1979, I was 7 and my parents moved out to a farm complete with 100 year old creepy haunted house and no indoor plumbing. Jolly.
Sing "Another Brick In The Wall" by Pink Floyd, the "We don't need no education" chorus being MORE then self-evident for American Idol.

1980! I have a stomach bug that nearly kills me and end up in the hospital!
Sing Rock Lobster by the B-52's.

In 1981, I do not remember much of what happened because I had the same teacher two years in a row and they all blend together in a big dull blur.
We Got The Beat - The Go-Go's.

In 1982, all of the kids were singing 867-5309/Jenny, by Tommy Tutone and even THEN I thought that perhaps Tommy was not being fastidious enough in his choice of female companions.
Sing "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses.


1983 - I was 11 and unpopular and skinny and to my chagrin, many of the beefy girls I went to school with were already hitting puberty.
Sing "Add It Up" by the Violent Femmes.

In 1984, my parents took 12 year old me and my 9 year old brother aside and told us that they had some news and both of us instantly thought "YOU ARE GETTING A DIVORCE" because heck, everyone else we knew was, but nope - my mom was pregnant. That was pretty startling.
Sing "Here Comes the Rain Again" by The Eurythmics.

In 1985, I was 13 and had a brand-new baby brother AND made my first best friend but still was sadly bosom-less.
The appropriate song: "How Soon IS Now" by The Smiths.

1986 - Did you know that being a skinny, unattractive, unpopular, pre-pubertastic kid in grade nine is NO fun? I still sometimes have nightmares where I wake up and have to go back to high school again, even though I am WAY too old.
Sing "What You Need" by INXS, but do it as a sad, acoustic version.

1987 - All the boys think my best friend is attractive. Oh JOY. I wear only black and I am a vegetarian.
Sing "Behind The Wheel" by Depeche Mode, just because I thought that song was REALLY COOL when I was 15.


1988 - I date a creepy guy. That'll show you, high school!
Sing "What I Am" by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians.

1989 - Have unrequited love for unobtainable guy. Be sad.
Sing "Blame It On the Rain" by Milli Vanilli, because LET'S BE HONEST NOW, it's AMERICAN IDOL.

1990 - This was my OAC year and I had three classes and started dating the guy who would eventually become my husband, so I basically spent this whole year over at his house while his parents weren't home and not paying enough attention to university choices. This turns out to be important later.
Sing "Monkey Gone To Heaven" by the Pixies.

1991 - Whoops! I picked the wrong university! Drop out and spend the rest of the year working in the school library. Break up with future husband.
Sing "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak, mainly because I LOVE that song.

1992 - And this - the last year - is a depressing place to end up, because this was a really, really miserable year, full of bad dating choices (again!) and regretting the way things went with my future husband and hating my new university program. If I'd had a child that year, that child would now be old enough to sing "Under The Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers on American Idol, which is sort of startling to think about, since it was only 15 minutes ago and all.

It's Monday!

My parents just whisked my kids away so that I could write my Kitchen Party post, which is sort of unintentionally melancholy and about carrot cake. Carrot cake: THE FOOD OF MILD SADNESS.
So go read that and say hi. I'm off to enjoy having a shower without being interrupted 500 times. Whoo!

I am feeling much too lazy to type up my hot cross bun recipe, so if you want to bake some - and they're very easy - you should go check out Morning's recipe. Even if you don't want to bake anything, go check out her blog anyhow, since she has one of the most breathtakingly pretty sites I've ever seen.

We had our family dinner tonight at my parent's house and I ate too much and am now sitting here feeling RATHER miserable. Tomorrow, I'm going to make a gluten-free carrot cake with thick cream cheese icing, which should please my grouchy ol' Baby. And I'm doing a fancy breakfast - yeast-raised waffles (which I really should make before I go to bed, yeesh) with strawberries and whipped cream, grape juice (which I just found out that The Girl LOVES and we never have! The poor wee mite!) and breakfast sausages, which is about as elaborate as I can get first thing in the morning. I am currently feeling guilty that I don't have elaborate table settings planned, which is a stupid sort of thing to feel guilty about but there you have it.

Tonight, my husband and I are going to hide (shhh!) tons of plastic eggs full of various things around the living room and then in the morning, we'll hide the hardboiled, decorated eggs. We'd hide those tonight, but they might get a bit putrid. And on that note, I have to go fill plastic eggs. Happy Easter!

"Something in me resists the calendar expectation of happiness," crabbed J.B. Priestly, a largely forgotten writer from the post WWII era. When I was in my teens and very jaded, I thought that was a terribly sophisticated sentence and used it as my own personal lodestone as I sulked my way through Christmases and other holidays sitting in the corner in a black turtleneck, all skinny and miserable. Now, of course, I think that both Mr. Priestly and my very own long gone self were a pair of pseudo-sophisticated crabby jerks casting a pall on days that might have been happy, had we bothered to actually look.

It is Good Friday today and I COULD give you several quite-adorable anecdotes of my children innocently asking me why such a bleak day would be called good and my theologically wise (or not) answers, but you can probably fill in that blank for yourself. What I really find interesting is that this is the one day in the Christian year that is specifically set aside for SADNESS and yet I still have several emails wishing me a "Happy Good Friday!". Um. Really?

Oprah has built up a huge, terrifying empire around the idea that we are entitled to happiness, that we can make ourselves happy. Tons of books are published every year purporting to carry the secret to happiness. We are frantic in our pursuit of happiness, like it's this everyday thing that we can purchase and own, and yet life is often a very sad thing and most days are long and tiring and filled with small annoyances and small ephemeral pleasures and yet we are still so convinced that happiness is our lot that we wish each other "Happy Good Friday" on the day when Christians remember Jesus Christ's brutal torture and death. Something in us resists not only the calendar expectation of sadness, but even the suggestion that life itself is frequently sad.

I have hot cross buns rising in the oven right now. It amuses me that something so tasty is served on a day when many people fast, that the scent of cinnamon and allspice and orange peel is still clinging to my hands from kneading the soft, raisin-studded dough while I typed my sad, bleak words. I have been sad for ages now, this long, snowy winter and my housebound, seasonal depression, and Lent has fit into my current mood very, very well. Yet life is still sweet, as sweet as the dough that is rising, as sweet as my children playing Go Fish in the blanket fort beside me and the sun is out, melting away the ice and the snow and this Easter Sunday should mark, really, the first day of spring, when no matter how much I resist the calendar expectation of happiness it finds me, anyhow.

The Internet Is A Special, Special Place

GO CHECK OUT VERONICA'S COMMENTS FOR THIS POST!

Bunnies

My kids were very, very sad when I told them that I had no plans on making them cupcakes before Easter for their class. Very, very, very sad.
So obviously, I really stood by what I said:

The kids went to bed at 8 last night and then my husband and I spent 2 hours assembling dozens of stupid bunny cupcakes and eating LOTS OF SMARTIES. The bunnies with the drunken smirks were iced by me until I realized that my husband could do it better and indeed, he did.

"We're making bunnies LIKE BUNNIES!" he said, cheerfully enough. He's a good sport about things like this, and is the one - for the record - who carves little leprechaun feet and stamps footprints all over the house and buys the gold coins (although I'm the one who comes up with all the ideas, which is apparently my job.) and I don't know what I'd do if he wasn't cheerfully enthusiastic about our homelife, since I'm not very good at things like frosting cupcakes and I would also not be very happy sharing my life with someone who treated my ideas and my enthusiasms with withering disinterest. So it's a good thing that I married him.

We made LOTS of cupcakes:

It is Maundy Thursday today and the first day of spring and the day of the Last Supper and those cupcakes do not feel solemn enough or spiritually appropriate. We don't have Easter decorations up - aside from one hideous chalkware rabbit glaring on top of the television - because this is a solemn, sad time, and I think that all of the exuberant bunny cupcake-type stuff should be saved for Sunday. But faced with my children's disappointment, I caved.

Tomorrow, we're going to make egg carton caterpillars - great idea, Karen! - and hot cross buns and many, many relatives will be up and I'll be spending a lot of time at church, of course. The years go on and on and I find that with each passing year I'm a little bit sadder, the knowledge of life's costs adding up over time, like the rings in a tree or the layers in rock. This is, I think, the cost of living and it's worth paying but my children carried trays of smiling bunnies off to school with them this morning, chattering and weightless and happy over the long weekend and fun to come while I felt my heart within me, as heavy as an old tree, as heavy as stone.

And where was I? Why, I was at the dentist's! What a magical, fun-filled day!

I feel like we're always at the dentist's office, really - but the kids all cheerfully had their check-ups, and I was complimented on their sturdy, cavityless teeth once again. My husband and I find this praise sort of mystifying, because aside from making sure they brush their teeth twice a day we do NOTHING. They have naturally sturdy teeth from some distant ancestor and NOT from their chalk-teethed parents, although you will be glad to know that the hygienist declared my gums to be in their best-ever state. So hooray for me and my nice new toothbrush.

I spent the morning at a friend's house and she mentioned in passing that she reads my blog regularly, which was lovely to hear and also made me think about the real me and Me, the character on my blog, this creation. Blog Me doesn't swear, is apparently sexless, is full of cheerful industry and is more pleasant and better-looking, all in all. I like her and we lead parallel lives (and drink the same mugs of delicious chai - thanks, Jaymi.!), but we're not really the same person. It's sort of inevitable, I think, this subtle fictionalizing of our selves - and who wants to deliberately hang out all of their dirty laundry in public? Every one edits to at least some extent, unless they're odder than the bloggers I like to read. - but it becomes funny when my actual friends read my blog, anyhow.

I don't like keeping pictures up for very long - although my husband regards me putting up pictures with complete shrugging indifference, because as he says, there are MILLIONS OF PICTURES OF PEOPLE ONLINE, and should someone be a ninja stalker-type, why on earth would they choose a pudgy 35 year old mother of three (okay, that's not my husband saying that, it's me.) when there's MILLIONS of underdressed teenagers on Myspace with poor decision-making skills to choose from? But it still feels funny to have my picture up, so my compromise is to whisk it down abruptly.... I know that when I read a book, I like to flip to the author photo all the time, and I frequently judge books by their authors - are they a smug, self-satisfied jerk? are they a skinny rageaholic? are they boozy good fun? - and I like seeing bloggers' photos for the same sort of reasons.

It snowed yesterday while we were away and the drive home was sloppy and vaguely distressing, although we rode on a back road and encountered MAYBE three other vehicles in our half hour ride home. We still came perilously close to ending up in a snowbank, although we luckily did NOT come perilously close at all to tumbling off the side of the road and into the fast-moving, ice-filled river that runs alongside many roads here, this certain death. It is nothing like spring here and yet the air has something of spring about it, even as I pushed our heavy-duty stroller across town this morning through the thick slush and over hard ice, snow melting from trees above us and a bird singing, someplace. Tomorrow is the first day of spring.

Boy oh boy, you guys. One of these days I WILL start that blog called "Tell Me How Cute I Am" and just spend all my time posting flattering pictures of myself. It'll be great.

Anyhow. I have a post up at The Kitchen Party today where I make sandwiches and sound all broody and stuff. I also link to an incredibly moving version of Danny Boy, so you should probably head over and check all that out, since I'm pretty sure that I've never written about cooking or wanting babies before. Exciting AND new!

Goofing around

If you want to take a survey, here's one:

It has to do with finding out what kind of ads would appeal to my readers or something. But if you DON'T want to take the survey, that's fine too - not everyone loves surveys. Or ads. Or - sob - me.

Here's a question: do you have an online shop? Let me know if you do - either email me your shop's address (and your blog address too, eh?) or leave the link in my comments. I've been thinking about setting up a little craft shop directory in my sidebar, since I've noticed that so many of you are really talented. Let me know in a couple of words what your shop sells too, okay?


There's a meme making the rounds where people post pictures of themselves taken first thing in the morning. HAHAHA, no! Never! But then I thought, who am I to shy away from a challenge? So here you go - my pathetic attempts to play along:

Great! Except for the mammoth glare and giant light smudge on my nose.

Attempt number 2#:

Here we have a lovely portrait of my camera. I, however, am receding into the misty distance. How DO people take good pictures of themselves in a mirror, anyhow? So at this point I gave up and my oldest kid took the following picture of me, which was much better:

There you go: THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I LOOK LIKE FIRST THING IN THE MORNING -especially if I've been awake for an hour longer than you have and have spent that day curling my eyelashes and blowdrying my hair. And applying five hundred pounds of makeup. Other than that, I am as nature created me. I find the actual, untouched look of myself first thing rather horrifying and try not to look into mirrors until at least lunchtime because, geez, who needs that kind of grim reminder that I don't get enough sleep and that I'm getting older? Ick.

(and these pictures will, of course, self-destruct.)

Luck

I don't know if you do this - I hope not - but I'm constantly ranking myself against other mothers and coming up short. For example: this morning I was talking with a friend on the phone and she mentioned that she'd taken her kids sliding a lot this March break AND brought her kids to the movie that was shown at the arena and that I'd forgotten all about and I instantly thought I HAVE FAILED MOTHERHOOD. I GET AN F IN MARCH BREAK.


The kids have had a pretty great March break, regardless of my listless mothering - they've done tons of crafts, made some possibly-toxic potions out of most of my spice cupboard, watched some truly heinous movies, played with friends, went sliding (with their grandmother, thanks), blahblahblah. Did you know, however, that some kids get to go to Disney World on March Break? My kids have found out this shocking news recently and reported it back to me as though they'd thought their lives were okay up till then, but now they know THE TRUTH. I have some bad news for you about our financial state and the likelihood of us ever taking you to Disney World, my children. So now there's this other childhood running alongside of theirs, the childhood of The Lucky Kids, these happy ghosts.

Speaking of supernatural beings: a leperchaun broke into the house last night, felled the dining room chairs, upturned a jar of pens, threw some books out of the bookshelf and left little green boot prints all over the kitchen and living room:

He then hid the kids' treasure boxes, stuffed full of notebooks and markers and stickers and gold chocolate coins, possibly because he felt remoresful over leaving such a mess in the house. The Girl had been a bit smirky at bedtime, a little bit knowing and suspicious, but the look on her face as she followed the trail of tiny footprints was something amazing, the knowledge of some sad realities falling away from her as she once again was a little child, certain of finding something amazing.

Quick Note About St. Patrick's Day

It IS on the 17th, but for the first time in nearly 100 years, it's happening right in the middle of Holy Week - the solemn lead-up to Good Friday - and so we're celebrating before then.

The kids are in the kitchen, playing with food colouring, spices and sprinkles. They are making, The Girl just told me, potions. Good to know.

We're celebrating St. Patrick's Day tomorrow - the kids have decorated elaborate treasure boxes for the leperchaun to fill. Then it's Easter and then it's The Running Of The Birthdays, when EVERYONE WE KNOW - The Girl! The Baby! My Mom! My Dad! My Brother! My Brother's Wife! My Grandmother! My Aunt! My Friend Lisa! My Uncle! - have their birthdays in rapid succession and we are invited to all of their parties, which means that our birthday cake consumption goes WAY through the roof.

It's snowing today and apparently I wasn't paranoid enough because The Girl went to bed sick last night (she's better today, thanks) and The Baby started the day off with a bang by throwing up on the couch. She seems to be feeling better - she ate two pieces of gluten-free toast and an orange popsicle and is currently enjoying some gingerale which I really should just keep on hand at all times, apparently - but now I'm a bit jumpy. I've decided that it's something I'm doing or not doing and that this is all my fault. Shame on me.

My kids are cutting this out right now - what an awesome site! - and watching cartoons and March break is very nearly over. I've enjoyed having them home, but it's really cut into my blogging.... I have a few big posts in the works, but they're going to have to wait for next week, since my house is as restful as a busy bowling alley right now.

Degrassi - the television show mentioned in the previous post - is a really horrible remake of a Canadian tv show from the 80s - Degrassi Junior High followed the adventures of a group of young Canadian teenagers and their Message Of The Week escapades: racism is wrong! suicide sucks, especially when Caitlyn's ex-boyfriend offs himself in the school bathroom! having sex even once will result in you being 14 and pregnant! Oh, and Wearing a Fedora will Make You Look Like A Loser, Joey Jeremiah. Now they've remade it, dealing with The Issues Of Today: School Shootings, Hooking Up, Becoming A Stripper... the ads make it look pretty gross and my husband has said, grimly, that No Child Of His Shall Ever Watch This Show. That's just the way we roll. Strictly.

There's a meme making the rounds where people post pictures of themselves first thing in the morning. Oh, like I don't feel unattractive enough already. No.

Hey, I have some new cookbooks! Lucky, lucky me - and here's what I think of them...

The first is the brand-new book, Martha Stewart's Cookies. I tend to be a bit suspicious of a) specific-subject baking books and b) Martha Stewart's recipes in general, but this book was actually really good. I have (ahem) several other cookie-specific recipe books (what does this SAY about me? I shudder to think.) and was really wondering how this could be in any way a new or different addition to what I already have, but it's a really interesting collection of recipes, with a fun focus on au courant ingredients (dried cherries, dulce de leche, ginger), as well as having a nicely rounded selection of old favorites. It doesn't have the breadth of some other cookie compilations, but it's a nicely modern book of recipes and beautifully illustrated as well. The Girl immediately grabbed it and made the Giant Chocolate Cookies, which turned out to be very yummy and head-sized. That's a lot of cookie.



The next book was a book of cupcake recipes, Little Cakes From The Whimsical Bakehouse. My kids have declared this to be their favorite cookbook ever, and are desperate for me to make the shark cupcakes with the oozing raspberry filling. We tried out the Twinkie recipes - tasty! - and a few of the muffin recipes, and everything was really good, but this is a VERY specific topic baking book. The cupcake and frosting recipes are quite simple but the decorating techniques are complicated and beyond the reach of the average home cook.... but it IS a lovely collection of cupcake recipes and fun browsing material and making homemade Twinkies was a lot easier than you'd think, should you have ever thought about doing that and all.

I never had a Twinkie as a child - I don't think they were distributed up here and my parents took a grim, forbidding view towards low-quality baked goods, so I spent my childhood reading about them in Archie comics, with Archie and his friends exclaiming over the "delicious cream filling" in between dating non-exclusively. Oh, Twinkies looked so delicious and yet so unobtainable, this mysterious dream food.... can you tell this story is leading to disappointment? YES IT IS.

So a few months ago, a friend brought over a big bag of treats for us and in it was A PACKAGE OF TWINKIES. I waited about ten seconds after she left the house and tore open the wrapper, eagerly took a bite and then spit said bite into the sink because ICK! YUCK! EW! OTHER EXCLAMATIONS OF DISGUST! The kids were not interested in the other little yellow plastic cake and so that's the end of my story about Twinkies. Freaking skanky Archie.

Just Now

Husband: (watching ad on TV for Degrassi) If I went to Degrassi, I would just sit in the library by myself.
Me: (rude snort of laughter)
Husband: But I would spray the seat with Lysol first... just in case.

Here's a title for ya.

I have written MORE posts that I've ended up not posting recently then ever before- what is up with that? THREE ALONE have been rants about various aspects of food, which makes me think that I'm a bit deranged, possibly.

March break is chugging along. We're watching a terrible movie right now. An awful, awful movie*. Later on, I'm going to cut out a ton of big construction paper Easter eggs and the kids are going to decorate them, which will be the arts and crafts portion of today. We also - this is pretty exciting, so hang on - are going on an excursion to the hardware store. WHOO!

I'm in a better mood. The sadness of the past week has fled and life feels sweet again, although apparently I AM in the mood to rant endlessly about food, so brace yourself because I probably WILL end up posting some pointless grump one of these days.

* The Flinstones In Viva Rock Vegas. The horror.
The horror.

Monday Means Kitchen Party

I wish I was having a real kitchen party right now, friends sitting on the counters and drinking beer and laughing - but I'm busy sorting all of our lunch containors on the counters, so I guess that would just be uncomfortable.

My Kitchen Party post is up - it's about food rituals and very specifically about making pizza, so head on over and tell me about your family's food routines. Is that snoopy? Maybe.

The Girl was building a mighty mall on the Sims 2 and ran into some problems, so I've just spent the entire afternoon helping her build a pretend shopping complex. We went with white marble floor tiles and Tiffany-esque lamps, in case you were wondering, for that upscale shopping experience. I couldn't afford to shop there, certainly.... and there goes several hours of my finite life.

The Baby is happily sitting on my lap, eating some gluten-free Dora gummy things. God bless you, gummy fruit snack people! You have made my child very happy. She fell heavily asleep yesterday afternoon and woke up cheerful and hungry, so whatever vile bug made her so sick yesterday morning passed quickly. My husband is now staggering around the house palely, like Roderick Usher, but his consolation must be that he'll feel better just in time to go to work tomorrow.

Also poignant: looking through old photographs, even ones from only three summers ago.

They will never be that young again. Look at a picture like that on just the wrong minute and it's like a bitterness in my heart that I was probably wandering around just at that moment oblivious to them as they were at that very moment and regretting that they weren't three years younger. And that would be because I am a complete freaking idiot and learn from nothing. Ah, motherhood.

Another picture - The Boy staring into a mysterious something:

And what I would find, if I looked into a mysterious something, would be - I suspect - that nothing has been lost, that everything is fine. The Baby - unseen in these pictures but present, a little smudgy faced infant, just a few months old and completely exhausting - is now a great big girl, crabby and querulous after yesterday's illness and The Girl is a funny, smart girl and quite talented at building imaginary real estate and The Boy would still insist upon looking into that odd thing and so what is with this mournful feeling, this sadness?

It is for me, I think, for my own remembered sulking, weary presence, this unspoken shadow in every picture - wanting to be indoors, wanting the kids to hurry up and finish playing, wanting to be home, wanting whatever was going on to be over with already. And still, I'm wanting this winter over, this day over, the kids back in school, and wishing away the time that I know that I'll look back on later with a clutch in my heart. Oh, poor girl, I think, half-bemused. You'll never be happy.

I just updated the March Break Health Watch in my sidebar because The Baby threw up all over me in the library. Perhaps she was making some sort of artistic statement about her opinion on the state of modern snickering fiction or maybe she has the FREAKING STOMACH FLU AGAIN, since it is March Break and all.

I TOLD you that we have a March Break specific curse on us. Perhaps it's the kids gleeful attempts to catch a leprechaun and bash its money out of it. Maybe. All I know is that my poor littlest munchkin is feverish and sleeping on the couch behind me, wrapped up in a big old navy towel.

Good thing I already had a big stack of books to read. I most recently read In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate, who is a doctor in Vancouver's drug-afflicted Eastside. The book was, in part, a portrait of the terrifyingly bleak lives of his patients but also went farther, writing about what drug addiction actually is and the heartbreaking cycles of child abuse, abandonment and neglect that create future generations of addicts, as well as a society that is more than happy to just throw addicts' lives away. Doesn't that sound GRIM? It really was not a bleak read, however desperate the subject matter - Mate's voice was compelling, at once deeply compassionate and completely exasperated, and full of affection for the people that we, as a society, like to ignore, and the solutions that he puts forward are both sensible and challenging.

I'm hoping that The Baby just has a short little bug and that she's feeling better by this evening, although my heart is very, very heavy with dread. So I'm off to fill some homemade Twinkies with whipped cream, the obvious response to sick child worries. Wish me luck.

March Break: Day One - TV and Consequences

The Girl decided to spend today in a semi-haze, watching cartoons and only shifting to get up and change the channel since the channel changer is dead and we've decided that she needs more cardiovascular excitement. My dad came over right before lunchtime and took her for a walk around town, picking up the mail and Sears orders (new running shoes for both school kids, who decided that it would be great to outgrow their school shoes in March. NICE, kids.) and buying my Deserving Child $5 in candy. Which she then ate before lunch while staring, motionless, at the television.

I turned the tv off and after she recovered, she
a) made a dollhouse for The Baby out of a shoebox.
b) threw a party for her siblings with some generic party supplies she found in the back of a cupboard.
c) made a pitcher of Kool-Aid from a package leftover from a birthday party and is now setting up an in-house Kool-Aid stand.

Meanwhile, The Boy - who does not like tv as much - spent HIS morning vacuuming the kitchen and scrubbing the kitchen floor with a big pair of wool socks on his feet. He is a simple fellow and likes to be helpful. And The Baby has thrown one prolonged tantrum all day because the kids are home and BUGGING HER.

Aiiiieee, that is some sweet Kool-Aid. It is possibly the sweetest beverage I have ever drunk. And what is actually sweet - although I won't tell THEM this - is the sight of all three of my kids sitting around the play table, drinking vile, vile Kool-Aid and chatting pleasantly with each other, a few gentle minutes right in the middle of the day. Aw.

The Curse Is Come Upon Me

March Break starts tomorrow.

We don't have any plans. My husband isn't taking any time off - I'd rather he saved that for the summer, anyhow, and the kids and I aren't going anywhere. I'm going to stock up on the weekend on library books and craft supplies and plan visits with friends and take out board games and The Girl has plans to have some friends over to make scrapbooks, so it sounds like a laid-back, fun March break.

"Sounds like." And right now, I feel like hiding under my bed. But on the PLUS side - and it's a big one - I won't have to get up at 6:30 to get the kids ready for school for nearly TWO WEEKS! Hooray! I'll still be getting up at 6:30, but that's just because The Baby likes to greet the day nice and early. That's all right, though - I have recently discovered coffee, which now answers my lifelong silent question of how people got themselves moving in the morning. Next up for me to discover: driving, dating and gainful employment.

"You look like Troy from High School Musical!", The Girl told The Boy encouragingly this morning, after I held him down and brushed his hair. He jammed a toque on his head and blushed a deep scarlet while The Girl said "Oh, all the girls are going to want to kissssss yooooooou!" And while The Boy maybe didn't appreciate it very much, I was suddenly almost speechless with pride in The Girl, who said something NICE TO HER BROTHER. And then she started ragging him about girls wanting to kiss him, which is how I know she wasn't replaced by a really pleasant robot child while she was sleeping.

It's beautiful outside, but astonishingly windy - The Baby and I made it as far as the end of our driveway before we both agreed that it was way too windy to be outside. "I nearly blew AWAY," The Baby told me when we came in and I could just picture her, sailing away in her bright blue coat and with that look on her face that means that she expects nature to cut that nonsense out RIGHT NOW.

Ali is off someplace warm and relaxing for the week and she asked me to guest post today. WELL. I've never guest-posted before, so I was RATHER interested in doing it - I considered writing a post the way Ali generally does, but then a story rather dramatically presented itself this morning, and by "dramatically" I mean "grossly." And by "grossly", I mean "REALLY FREAKING EW."
So go on over to Ali's and read it, kay?

Much Ado About Brownies

I am eating a brownie right now. A brownie for breakfast. Hey, I've been SICK.... but there's something a bit off about this brownie.

The Boy and The Girl ate theirs yesterday evening, and the two of them had a discussion while they unenthusiastically picked at their desserts.

"It tastes... yucky," said The Boy.

"It tastes like Mama put some garbage in it," said The Girl, clarifying EXACTLY what the problem is with this batch of brownies: THEY TASTE LIKE GARBAGE. And they taste like garbage because I put pureed blueberries and SPINACH in them.

Unless you've been living on the moon, you've heard of The Sneaky Chef or Deceptively Delicious, the cookbooks for moms which involve putting purees of fruits and vegetables into all manner of normally innocuous foods: stuff them in meatballs! Soups! BROWNIES! And why mothers are doing this, I guess, is because it's easier to spend ages making elaborate cauliflower purees to hide in something their spoiled little brats will eat then to actually sit down and say to their child "Look kid, you are GOING to eat your cauliflower." But parents these days are too wimpy to even pretend to parent and so we have a generation of girls who wear padded bras at nine and six year olds who still have their parents wiping their butts (Good GRIEF) and fourteen year olds who talk about "hooking up" and kids who will only eat spinach when it's in teeny amounts and hidden in brownies. (and a note for parents of kids who, for one reason or another, have serious sensory issues and troubles with food: you do what you can to help your kids get the nutrition they need and don't mind me.)

And I'm not kidding about "teeny amounts" - check this out:

THAT is the amount of blueberry/spinach puree you're going to get in each brownie. In reality, it's mostly spinach but after several days of the stomach flu I didn't have the necessary gumption to take a picture of the actual amount of pureed sludge, which was a brackish colour and smelled EXACTLY like a combination of lightly cooked spinach and blueberries, which is not, for the record, a delicious combination.

"But every little bit helps, right? And if you're going to eat something as nutritionally suspect as a brownie, shouldn't it be at least a bit nutritionally fortified?", asks my rhetorical friend. Alas, Rhetorical Friend, you are just wrong. Here's the Sneaky Chef recipe for chocolate ooky brownies, compared to my standard recipe - watch how they add up:

The Sneaky Chef recipe makes a 9" square pan of brownies.

It uses:

1/2 cup butter

8 ounces of semisweet chocolate

2 (TWO!) cups of sugar

and FOUR EGGS.

My standard, non-gross recipe, uses:

2 ounces UNSWEETENED chocolate

1 egg

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter

AND MAKES EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT. And they taste better. So, nutritionally speaking, my standard recipe is better - SUBSTANTIALLY less fat, SUBSTANTIALLY less sugar and doesn't taste like I stuffed some pureed spinach in it.

So here's an idea: your kids eat their freaking vegetables first and THEN they eat a regular, non-sullied brownie, the order that wise mothers throughout the ages have insisted on. Don't go confusing the poor darlings by stuffing the cauliflower into their dessert: that's just confusing and gross. Their best friend wouldn't make them eat their peas before they could have their dessert, but you're not their best friend: YOU ARE THEIR PARENT, and it does no one ANY good for parents to pretend to be their children's chum. The whole point of childraising is to raise your kids to be kindly, competent adults who make GOOD decisions - and making good decisions about nutrition is one thing, and choosing the real, honest article over something making ersatz claims is another and sometimes getting your kids to that point means that you're going to have to be a bit stern about some things, vegetables included. And honestly, if the worst thing that ever happens to your child is that they have to eat some vegetables they're not enthusiastic about, they are luck's own darling.

A dull and dreary dismal day

We've been SO sick this weekend. Especially me, to the point where I lost 8 pounds over 2 days which sounds kind of awesome until you stop and think about it for a few minutes. Today's Kitchen Party post is up and about my not-so-irrational dread of the upcoming March Break, which sounds like just the thing to read on a grey and stormy Monday.

February is OVER!

YES!

The long icicles on my roof are melting furiously. Snow keeps sliding off our car, landing damply on the already-damp snow. It still looks like this:

Of course, everyone has some sort of awful stomach bug, one last bitter joke from winter to us.

But the end is nigh, freaking snow.