Author: maggie

I dooooooon’t waaaaaaant to eat my oooatmeal with a spooooooooooooooooon!

Tonight I made a new culinary discovery- Ready Rice. You tear the pouch, put it in the microwave for 90 seconds, and that’s it- rice! No water, no measuring cup, no boiler with white goo stuck to the bottom. How simple is that- it could easily replace cream of mushroom soup as a staple in the cupboard. And, as you all know (except maybe a few of my Yankee readers, bless their hearts), there is nothing a Southern woman can’t “casserolize” given 8 ounces of cream of mushroom soup- I don’t care what Robert St. John says! But given the speed and ease (and taste I might add) of Ready Rice, you can now have funeral food thrown together before the bereaved can decide just which shoes Aunt Estelle would rather take with her to the great beyond.

The above is actually the second great discovery I’ve made in the kitchen this week. Did you know that they print recipes in magazines- and that you can actually cook them?! I realize this is sort of obvious, but I have been taking it for granted. As many magazines as I have lying around- I very rarely read (much less) try the recipes they publish. I bet we could eat something new every night. We first benefited from this discovery earlier this week when I made Chocolate Paradise- a chocolate cheesecake with ganache topping (see February 14 for pictures). Tonight I made sort of a Southern version of fried rice- Southern because you use bacon drippings instead of sesame oil to cook your chicken and veggies in (leave it to us to turn Oriental food into your next coronary). It was pretty good, but now that I’ve got cooking rice down pat- we’re going places. Julia Child’s got nothing on us!

I realize that you all “tune in” to read the latest on Wilson and not me and the low bar I set for myself on the “Donna Reed” scale. So, tonight I’m posing a multiple choice question for all of you to see how well you know the little guy.

The right side of Wilson’s face is red and swollen. What happened?
a. Jack had it up to his beard with Wilson’s antics and finally let him have it
b. Wilson finally scaled the piano bench and fell off
c. I noticed him chewing while coloring and half a crayon is missing- this is an allergic reaction to red dye #40.
d. All of the above.

Let me hear from you- I’d really like to get this one figured out!

If anyone’s looking for a good sitter- I’ve got a great suggestion. He makes sure that his charges are well taken care of, comfortable, and that they get lots of rest. He is also careful to see that they keep up with their “lovies” like this young man (pictured to the left) and his lion. He might watch a little too much TV, but his rates are reasonable, let me know if you need his number.

It is no coincidence that Gerber does not “jar” hummus. Wilson is really into dipping things these days. Pretzels in peanut butter, chips in salsa, pita in hummus. Last night I gave him a bowl of hummus and some cracker sticks to munch on while I heated up his “bupper”. Apparently the ratio of crackers to hummus was a little off & he decided that his fingers, arms, and face would do just as good a job as dippers as the crackers did. If he smells a little like chickpeas and olive oil the next time you see him, check under the chins- I may have missed a spot!

Wilson and I have just made chocolate ganache. We’re both bouncing off the walls! I can only assume this heavenly sauce wasn’t mentioned in the Bible because there was no good Hebrew or Greek word for “ganache” (I’m sure some street up there somewhere has to be paved with this instead of gold!). Whipping cream, milk chocolate chips, and semi-sweet chocolate chips- doesn’t get much better than this!

For several weeks I’ve been a little worried that we’d turned our little boy into a card carrying redneck way before it was time. The first sign was that at the site of one of our dogs nearing his chair at dinner time, you could hear him screaming throughout the house “eeeeeeeeeeehn” (to get the full effect of this noise, take yourself back to the sound that came from the old man in your neighborhood as he ran out on his porch attempting to deter dogs from digging in his trash). This was really funny at first, but then became a little concerning when I realized he was imitating me, and I wondered what else do I utter throughout the day that gives away the not so eloquent side of my southern heritage. However, it did keep the dogs away from his food and alerted me to when they were breaking the rules.

Today I noticed a shift in the tides. I walked into the kitchen to find Tate under the table happily sopping up every crumb of Wilson’s breakfast as he threw it to him on the floor. I watched for a few seconds until Wilson looked up and saw me. As soon as our eyes met he blurted out “EEEEEEEEEEHN”! Too late! Busted! His inner monologue must have gone something like, “Um, oh, shoot! Maybe if I scream real loud she’ll think he snuck up on me. Yeah, that’s it, he snuck up on me. That’s our story, I’m eating my cereal, Tate walked in real quiet like, I was so scared I dumped the whole bowl on the floor, then in shock I sat and watched. She’ll buy that.” I think he’s also got some ocean front in North Dakota if anyone’s interested. I can just see the two of them in some dark room somewhere plotting. “Okay, I like to throw food on the floor and you like to eat food off the floor. I think we can work something out here.”

His first attempt at sliding one past mom. The teen years should be fun!

Many people have requested that I start a blog. I have refused until now saying, “When on earth am I going to find the time to ‘blog’?” ( I guess that’s the right verb). After all, the requests have come on the heals of a few emails detailing the now very busy life of me and my toddler side kick. I am just now realizing the irony that his initials are WEE! I need to have that exclamation point legally added to his birth certificate. He is pictured above hosting a car show on the window ledge in the backyard.

Well, here I am at 12:34am starting what I said I wouldn’t do- bore you with the minutiae of our lives. At least this way you can be bored on your own terms and not have our stories bombarding your in boxes. I am “blogging” at this hour because Wilson is refusing to go to sleep. He is a little stuffed up and just keeps waking up. Right now I’m trying out a technique I was sure wouldn’t work on him yet. This is the trick where you say, “I’ll be right back” and then come back in 5 minutes. You then say you’ll be right back and come back in 10 minutes and so on, increasing the time in between your pop ins until the child is asleep. So far, so good. The only problem is, is that if I leave and he doesn’t cry, I feel I’ve just received a get out of jail free card. I also see the green light to start a new project- like a blog! Maybe one day he’ll come to appreciate my ADD like his dad has.

Nothing much new has happened today. Wilson is continuing to grow and add words and expressions to his vocabulary. Today after many run ins with the “sucky-ball” (aspirator for those of you out of the loop on our vocabulary) he began grabbing it, sticking it in his own nose and mimicking the slurping sound it makes with his mouth. It was hilarious- he tried out several noises before he settled on just the right one. He’s the only kid I know that is actually amused by the sucky-ball. He leans right in for you- happy to have the snot whisked away.

A final thought before I end this, our first post. Why is it that in the pale glow of a night light things that made you hopping mad at noon are now so sweet? His mirror is covered with little hand prints. As I sat rocking my now 30 pound “baby” who is over half my height, I spied them. Each finger represents a struggle to get a diaper on as he clung to that mirror for dear life, hoping this time he wouldn’t end up bare-bottomed on the changing table. They represent special hardware that I had installed so that that mirror could withstand 30lbs swinging from it- hardware that I learned about from installing art in a courthouse where common thugs are known to rip things straight off the walls for sport. Yet now, in the middle of the night, these little prints become such a sweet reminder of the little boy that has filled our home with such joy and laughter. Even things like toy “gucks” (trucks) that make me wonder how many more times I’ll trip on them or board books that have taught me there is something more painful than a paper cut (a cardboard page cut) take on a special light. They remind me that these are the things that make up the best parts of his day- and that he is what makes up the best parts of ours.

He’s still asleep. Goodnight.