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Lofty Intentions and Chicken

WARNING: The following is random drivel. You've been warned.

I keep reminding myself at about 3pm each day that I want to start a week  in the life photo project. Yesterday, I went as far as setting the camera on my nightstand.  Of course, when you get a tiny visitor in your room at 5:30am who watns to snuggle up then falls back asleep and spreads out so much that he runs his dad out of the room at 6:15am, you kind of forget details like that.  Now it's almost 4th of July and my goal was to do the project during a very ordinary week (without holidays and road trips, you see), so we'll put it back on the shelf for now. But it WILL happen. Oh yes.

We've sort of been holed up in our own little world lately. It's SO hot. We've tried to take Dean to the park as much as possible, but even he's figured out it's too hot sometimes.  He now asks to visit Chick-Fil-A when he wants to go to the playground, which is fine with me. They have a big, clean play area and I can sit there and sip a sweet tea while he climbs.  Yesterday, Marcus dropped us off there then went to pick up a few groceries.  While we were there, Dean told me he was hungry.  I reminded him that this place ONLY serves chicken and he said he'd try it.  I bought a small kids' meal and a lemonade for myself, assuming I'd be the one who actually ended up eating the 4 nuggets and waffle fries.  Dean looked warily at the nugget, which I tore in half and dipped in a little ketchup. He licked it, then stuffed it into his mouth and declared it "Tasty."  We're calling this a huge parental victory people.  It took me nearly three and a half years, but my boy has now ingested chicken voluntarily. Amen.

Our life these days seems full of afternoon rainstorms that don't last nearly as long we we'd like, tiny boys' underpants (which really are the cutest things), fresh fruit and dinosaurs.  The rest of our summer is filling up with plans, as we head to my mom and dad's for the 4th of July, then to visit the Lanes in Virginia in late July.  We continue to work on using the potty and it's going really well. So well, in fact, that Dean scored a trip to the movie theatre to see Kung Fu Panda 2 this weekend.

 
Going to the movies is totally fun, especially when you sucker your parents into buying the Kung Fu Panda 2 snack pack, none of which you will eat, so your mom has to drink her Coke Zero out of a goofy Kung Fu Panda cup. Bwahaha.

 
Helping with the yard work.  Wisteria = the devil.  Also, why are you so huge, child?

Comfort Food Saturday: Rosemary Lemonade

I have an abundance of rosemary in my herb garden this summer and we're all sick to death of my favorite rosemary chicken recipe, so I've been trying to venture into new territory with this lovely, fragrant herb.  Here's a new twist on lemonade that could just as easily be made with lavendar, mint or basil for a different, yet still refreshing, taste.

ROSEMARY LEMONADE

• 6 cups water, divided
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 6 sprigs fresh rosemary
• 3/4 cups lemon juice (fresh-squeezed is best)

Make a simple syrup by bringing 2 cups of water and 1/2 cup sugar to a boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved.  Remove from heat and add rosemary.  Steep for 30 minutes.  Strain infused syrup into a pitcher, then stir in 4 cups of water and 3/4 cups of lemon juice.  Add more lemon juice to suit your taste.  Chill and serve over ice.

 

Photo credit:  culinary.net

Wordless Wednesday: Pickin' and Grinnin'

 
 
 

Comfort Food Saturday: Blueberry Cobbler

Each June, my family and I attend the Black and Blue Berry Festival at a nearby farm.  Their berries are outstanding and picking them is always a lot of fun. Here's one of my mom's favorite recipes using the fruits of our labor.

 

Blueberry Cobbler

• 
  3/4 cup water
• 
  2 T. cornstarch
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 
  4 cups fresh blueberries

In saucepan, combine water, cornstarch, and sugar; bring to a boil.  Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly.  Add berries and mix together; remove from heat.  Pour into a 10-inch pie plate or 8x8-inch baking pan.  Cover with Topping (see recipe below).  Bake at 425 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until topping is lightly browned.  Yield:  6 servings.

Topping
1 cup flour
1/2 t. salt
1-1/2 t. baking powder
1/3 cup skim milk
3 T canola oil
1 t. sugar
1/4 t. cinnamon

Combine flour, salt, and baking powder.  Mix milk with oil; add to flour.  Using a fork, mix until dough forms a ball.  Drop by spoonfuls onto cobbler.  Combine sugar and cinnamon;  sprinkle over dough. 
Serve hot with frozen vanilla yogurt.  (My mom would like you to know that it's good with ice cream or whipped cream, too.  )

Our week at a glance

 
Mooooooooooom, do these black ballet flats go with my new big boy undies?  I like them. Sorry I trashed the living room. (again)

 
Dean has started calling his father "Marcus," probably because he heard all of us calling him that a lot on vacation. When he says it, it sounds like "Mah-cus."  Here he can be seen explaining how to catch a bluegill.

"You trow the cricket in da water and da fishy bites it--CHOMP, Mahcus."

 
Look! A rare photo of me! I do exist!

Whatever, lady. It's hot. Let's get a juice box.

 

Deano Lane'll make ya JUMP JUMP! (on the couch!) (which is a no-no!) (but still cute!) (in big boy undies!)

 

Mooom, I appreciate that you and Mahcus are "show people," really, I do.  However, I do not care about these Tony Awards of which you speak.  Hook me up with some Princess and The Frog.

Don't call us show people, son.

The one thing I didn't get a picture of that OH, I wish I would have was Dean and me watching his lovey, Stu, in the washer last night. We had a bit of a traumatic evening--Dean was stung by a yellowjacket 3 times. He was such a trouper about it though. Between his screams of pain, he made sure to say "thank you" to me for putting ice on his stings and to his dad for applying hydrocortisone cream.  With all that excitement, we all lost track of how long it had been since our last potty break, so we had a little accident on the living room floor. Poor Stu got a little damp, so into the washer he went.  Dean was nervous for him, so I let him pour in the detergent and we sat right in front of the door and watched Stu roll around in the suds.  It was one of those perfectly simple moments. I got to steal lots of top-of-the-head kisses and we sang a lot of songs.  And once Stu was all clean, to bed they went.

Today, we head to Birmingham Children's Theatre to see one of our former students in The Little Red Hen. I'm so, so excited and I hope Dean loves it.  Something tells me he will, being the son of show people.

Comfort Food Saturday: Lemon Ginger Drop Cookies

My friend Tanya came over the other day bearing a whole box of these delightful cookies. The recipe is from Martha Stewart's website.  They may well be the perfect summertime cookie. They're crisp, spicy (from the ginger), refreshing (from the lemon), sweet and just plain delicious.  Bring a batch to your next picnic!

LEMON GINGER DROP COOKIES

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, plus more for sprinkling on top of cookies
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest
•  1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup diced (1/8 inch) crystallized ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.  In an electric mixer, mix butter and sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes).  dd egg and mix on high speed to combine.  Add zest; mix to combine.

In a bowl, whisk together flour, ground ginger, baking soda, salt and crystallized ginger;  add butter to mixture; mix on medium-low to combine, about 20 seconds.

Using 2 spoons, drop about 2 teaspoons of batter onto baking sheet. Repeat, spacing cookies 3 inches apart.  Bake 7 minutes.  Sprinkle cookies with sugar and bake until just golden, about 7 minutes more.  Cool on wire rack about 15 minutes.

 

Free At Last

DIAPER-free, that is!  We started potty-training Dean not long after his second birthday.  He went along with it when we'd put him on the potty. I think he liked the rewards (chocolate chips or stickers).  Then we had a setback. For a while, we had to completely abandon the idea of the potty, lest he end up in tears.  We started trying again after he turned 3.  No interest.  Bribes rarely worked. Wearing underwear or going naked didn't work. Enlisting the help of his teachers at mother's day out was a disaster. They found it much easier to stick to his diaper and pull-up changing schedule than try to get him to the potty before he wet.  Almost nothing we tried worked.

In order to go to the new awesome preschool in the fall, Dean has to be completely potty trained. No pull-ups. No diaper for nap time. Totally trained.  I began doing research and found the Potty Boot  Camp book. It claimed to do 90% of the training in 2 days.  I ordered the book on Amazon and read it quickly. (It's only about 50 pages long.)  In a nutshell, it was NOT the method for us. This approach has apparently worked really well for a lot of people, but it just didn't fit into our lives.  The 2 days of nakedness, the cleanup procedure and, especially, the "potty drills" seemed a bit harsh and counter-productive. Plus, Dean is a bit stubborn. (NO idea where he gets that, y'all.)  He would not have reacted well to punitive measures.

I was venting my frustrations to Andreaone night as we chatted on Skype and she asked if I'd heard of the 3 Day Potty Training method. She sent me a link to a site where you can download an e-book called "3 Day Potty Training."  You even get an online mentor who you can email with questions or concerns.  I read the 38 pages in no time flat and knew this was the method for us.  I'm not going to do a commercial for the product, I promise, but in order to tell the story, I need to tell you about the method. It uses praise and positive reinforcement. It allows the child to call the shots. He  learns from his mistakes, but he's not punished for them. 

The night before we started, we washed underwear. ALL our underwear.  We let Dean see ours and help fold them and pick out which ones we put on after our showers.  We also discussed the many types of cool undies that were available and he said he'd like some with Buzz and Woody on them. NO PROBLEM, kid. Your grandmothers sent you about 30 pairs.  After Dean was asleep, Marcus and I stuck some Buzz Lightyear wall decals all over the bathroom, cleaned the heck out of the toilet and put out his undies, some stickers and a reward chart.

 On day one (Sunday), we got up, had breakfast and read the paper.  Once Marcus and I were sufficiently caffeinated, we took Dean to the hall bathroom.   Once in the bathroom, we told him that he was now a big boy and that he no longer wore diapers. He took off his diaper and threw it in the trashcan, along with the 6 diapers and 2 pull-ups left in the packages.  He picked a cool pair of Buzz Lightyear undies and discovered his sticker reward chart. I borrowed an idea from Christy and made an underwear bowl. There's a big mixing bowl full of little boy briefs in his bathroom  and he can pick his own pair whenever he needs a change. He often picks new pair just for the heck of it, even when the ones he's wearing are still fine.  We told Dean to tell us if he needed to go potty. We said this about every 10 minutes.  He got extra cups of water and other liquidy refreshments throughout the day to provide more "learning experiences."  Each time he'd start to pee, he'd look at us and scream, "PEE!" and we'd all run to the bathroom to finish the "experience" on the potty.  By the 4th time, we were dribble-free and we made it to the bathroom with completely dry undies. 

Now when I say we told him to tell us if he needed to go every 10 minutes, I mean it.  We must have said those words a hundred times on Sunday.  We also did pop quizzes, where we all checked our pants to see if they were dry. If they were, we all got a sticker or a treat.  (Don't you want to hang out at our house?)  Anyway, the gist of it is, we made it DEAN's idea.  Now he tells us, either with words, by grabbing his crotch and running, or with "the look" that he needs to potty.  Sure, we're still having accidents from time to time, but he's woken up dry the last 3 mornings (we went cold turkey on the diapers--nighttime, too!) and he got up from his rest time yesterday to go potty.  Pooping is going slowly, but at least he will say, "Chock-o-lit?" when he feels like he needs to poop. I think all little kids are kind of freaked out by doing #2 in the potty, but we figure that will come eventually. We'll keep working.

We are SUPER proud of him and very, very relieved to be making huge steps in the right direction with potty training.   I know there are a ton of methods out there, but this one worked beautifully for us.  And it surely did feel good to break up with Huggies once and for all! 

Comfort Food Saturday: Asian Cole Slaw

My mother in law makes the best cole slaw in the world, if you're into that kinda thing.  While we were on vacation, we devoured a batch of this stuff pretty early in the week. when she picked up more cabbage on a shopping trip, I thought we were in for another batch.  Instead she made this Asian cole slaw, which is also quite good.  It has a lot of nutty flavor and a nice crunch to it and was a nice complement to sandwiches and burgers.

ASIAN COLE SLAW

• 1 pound cole slaw (shredded cabbage or broccoli stems--add in some shredded carrots if you want)
• 3/4 cup chopped green onion
• 2  (3 oz.) packages beef flavored ramen noodles (uncooked)
• 1 cup slivered almonds
• 1/2 cup unsalted sunflower seeds (shucked)
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup salad oil
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce, if desired

In a saucepan, dissolve sugar into vinegar.  When dissolved, remove from heat and stir in seasoning packet from ONE package of ramen noodles, soy sauce and oil.  Mix well and allow to cool for 5 minutes.  While mixture cools, mix together cole slaw, green onion, almonds and sunflower seeds.  Crumble the ramen noodles and add them to the cole slaw mixture.  Pour the dressing over the slaw and toss to coat.  Chill at least 30 minutes prior to serving.

 

Photo credit:  southernbite.com

Florida Vacation: Week 2

The second week of our trip was spent in Stuart, Florida, up near West Palm Beach on Florida's west coast.  Marcus's uncle and his wife have a great house there that they'll live in full-time when his aunt retires in a couple of years.  On the drive down from Ft. Lauderdale, we stopped at a very cool kid's museum:

 
Dean was happy to have something to climb.

Marcus also had a good time:

 
He got really good at making enormous bubbles! At one point, there was even a crowd of kids just standing there watching him.  I thought he should have gotten commission, but the smile on his face was enough.  He needed this break like you wouldn't believe.

 
Building makes you tired!

On our first night in Stuart, we all met up with Marcus's aunt and uncle and their puppy, Lucy, for a great dinner at Pelican Cafe, right on the water.  Dean was on the best behavior we've ever seen from him in a restaurant. He snuck fries to Lucy under the table, talked to everyone, watched the boats pull into the marina, read some books, played with Batman toys and ate nearly every bite of his dinner.  He even tried some of his G-Mama's coconut crusted mahi mahi and liked it! After dinner, we went for a walk on the dock, then played on the playground.  All the playgrounds in Stuart have sand. Dean does not like sand in his sandals.

 
No sand in da shoes anyMORE!

Our week was spent visiting different beaches, exploring Stuart, which is now where I'd like to retire, and fishing from the backyard:

 
What a view!  The only bad thing about this place was that I had a slight heart attack every time Dean left the screened-in porch because I was CERTAIN he and his fearless half-fish self were going to dive head-first into the river.  We made him wear his life vest, which went over about as well as you'd think it would, and just hovered over him like freaks every time he was out back.

This house was...interesting.  We had read all about it online, even seen some pictures before selecting this one to rent. (My MIL had ultimate responsibility for choosing the house, but we got to chime in.) We knew it had an above-ground pool, which probably would be ok for us to wade in with Dean. When we arrived, we saw a pool that looked a bit like an oil drum and had no way for you to get into it. No ladder, steps, not even a sturdy rope.  We quickly abandoned the idea of swimming.  The house also had a trampoline. I"m not the biggest fan of them and Marcus HATES them, so we weren't ecstatic when Dean wanted to jump.  Fortunately, this one had a big white circle right in the middle, so we could have Dean stand in the circle to jump. He immediately requested that Marcus and I jump with him, which we did a couple of times and which turned all of our feet, legs and the butts of our pants BLACK. (it came out with some Oxy Clean)  One night he beeeegggggeeedddd to jump, so I got up there with him. First jump? FIVE SPRINGS flew off into the yard. The sucker was dry-rotted. And that, friends, was the end of trampoline time.

The inside of the house was, how you say?, DATED.

 
This four-foot-tall lamp and her sisters, the driftwood lamps, complete with creepy fake birds perched on them, were among my favorite decorations.  There was also a gramophone (not just a record player, a GRAMOPHONE), a vintage sewing machine, bamboo furniture and this gem:

 
That is a 1968 Fridgidaire Flair Range. (The stove pulls out of the drawer below.)  My great-grandma had one just like it. It. Is. A. MAZING! Yes, it still works, though you need an advanced degree in engineering to figure out which knob does what. 

I think my favorite part of our Stuart trip were our visits to Indian Riverside Park.  They have a kids' museum, which we never actually made it into, a spash park, a small beach and a great pier.  There are tons of gazeboes for shade and clean restrooms.  Dean enjoyed splashing around in the water park and we spotted several dolphins off the pier.

 

There were also some IN YOUR FACE nature moments, like the afternoon this manatee showed up right behind the house:

 
Marucs and I had a similar experience on our honeymoon in the Keys, so we knew they liked hose water.  Dean was so excited he squealed.  It was pretty dang cool.

Florida also has its fair share of lizard-like creatures, including this little guy:

 
That's Gary the Gekko and he's about the size of my finger.  He spent most of the week on a chair on the patio, unless Dean chased him into hiding.

It was a fantastic, relaxing week in an absolutely adorable town. I'd go back in a heartbeat. (Like, now, please.)

Next time, I'll tell you about Thurston and Gladys (not their real names....at least I don't think so), the people who own the yacht parked outside the house!

Florida Vacation: Week 1

First of all, let me acknowledge the fact that having 2 weeks to go on a trip is pretty amazing. This was a trip to visit family as well as a much-needed vacation. My in-laws invited us to join them in Florida while Marcus's brother, his wife and their boys were visiting the Czech Republic, my sister in law's home.  Her parents have not seen the boys in over a year and her sister had not yet met their youngest son.  We missed them, but it was fun to have my in-laws to ourselves, allowing them some one-on-one time with Dean.

We started our trip in the Ft. Lauderdale area, where lots of Marcus's mom's side of the family lives.  We had a rental house that backed up to a canal off the ocean and had a phenomenal pool.

 
Vacation rocks!

Having the pool at the house was great.  Marcus's Uncle Billy is in the hospital right now, so his mom and dad spent a lot of time visiting him.  Hospitals are not the greatest place for toddlers, so Dean and I usually stayed home when they visited.  The pool proved to be a ton of fun. Dean, I think, is part fish. One day we spent six hours in the pool.  SIX HOURS. Do you have any idea how pruney you get after SIX HOURS in a pool? PROOOOOONEEEEEY!  The smile on his face, however, when he learned to jump off the side and put his face in the water? Was worth every wrinkle.

We spent a great day at Zoo Miami. If you are ever in south Florida, go to this zoo!

 
You can get super-close to the animals  and they have a nice variety of specimens.  You can even feed a giraffe! (Or he can lick you! Right in the face!)

 

Oh, HEY, y'all!

There were a couple of nights when we had extended family over to eat with us, which was fun.  I got to meet the cousins I've heard about for years but never met and we got to show off Mr. Dean. 

The nicest thing about having 2 weeks for vacation was the "permission" to have a buffer day if we needed it.  Dean sprouted an ear infection 2 days before we left, which sent us running to the pediatrician for antibiotics.  She threw in a steroid for good measure.  His ears had started feeling better by the time we left, but a couple of days into the trip, the antibiotics started to upset his stomach. That same morning, I sprouted what may have been bronchitis. In a nutshell, we both felt pretty crummy.  Instead of hitting the zoo that day, we stayed in, watched a movie, played with a treasure chest full of toy soldiers, ate yogurt, took medicine and snuggled.

Once we started to feel like ourselves again, we were back in business, hitting Ft. Lauderdale beach, a cute outdoor cafe and swimming swimming swimming until our first week was over.

Up next--Week 2 in Stuart!