Category: Family

I have found the solution. Simply have your toddler smear a bowl of oatmeal all over his shirt, peel said shirt inside out over his head, put it through a wash, rinse, and spin, and then dry. When the shirt is removed from the dryer and turned right side out, you’ll have that oatmeal miniaturized and crispified (most will be stuck to the shirt, but watch the floor because plenty will spill all over there, too). This makes a great topping for yogurt or fruit cobblers/crisps. Or you could just put the shirt back on the young chap and send him into the yard as the ultimate earth friendly bird feeder.

This discovery was made after doing laundery after the “I don’t want to eat oatmeal with a spoon” incident. My washer and dryer have never been so fiber rich!

We would like to thank Pat Pat and Paw for keeping Wilson tonight so that we could go to a movie at the new Grandview! I am pleased to say that we passed the dress code with flying colors and rather enjoyed Match Point. Unfortunately, as I type he is hurling insults at me over the monitor- something about “outright defiance of his clear request to not go to bed. He was quite comfortable in the four poster, queen from which we aroused him, and this Jenny Lynn is just not up to snuff.” Guess it’s time to try out the old- “I’ll be right back…”

. . . really, I don’t need a nap. I’m not even a little tired. I promise I won’t through a fit when the animal crackers run out in Target & I’ll behave like a complete gentlemen when you tell me I can’t pull every book off the shelves in Borders. But, really, no, ahhhhh, nap. I’m not even the, ahhhhhhhhhh, slightest bit- zzzzzzzzzzz.

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!