Category Archives: Food

Restless

We’re all stretched a little thin here. HRH has injured his right wrist somehow and can’t lift things or grab things; he was sent home from work on Friday. The humidity, courtesy of a lovely rain/stormy thing that has happened on and off for the past 36 hours, makes everyone feel like they’re suffocating. Sparky is all right for a while then turns all Toddler Jekyll on us without warning. I have hit the phase I hit every couple of years where I absolutely cannot stand my house and must change it in some way. I feel as if there’s nowhere I can go to relax in my own home, which is problematic. The living room and bedroom make me tense, and my office is a workspace with no room for any other furniture, otherwise I’d try to put a reading chair in it. We can’t afford a new living room sofa and chair, of course, but these ones are now past well-used in a colour that has never thrilled me, and HRH and I can’t agree on slipcovers. (Come to think of it, the boy is the only one who has new furniture in his room. The only new pieces of furniture we’ve ever bought are bookcases, the fridge, the living room carpet, and the kitchen table.) The television is having major issues with the visual display on the screen and it appears to be dying, another costly problem we’re reminded of every time it’s turned on for a movie or to watch the news. I live and work at home, and if I don’t like being there, well, it creates tension in my brain and body. Not a good thing. It’s odd that I can put up with objects that I don’t enjoy for a long time, then suddenly, as if a switch is thrown, I’ve had enough and things have to change or I will go mad.

Also, no matter how many times I wash the kitchen floor, it remains sticky. Little things like this are dangerous to my temper.

But there is freshly baked bread as of an hour ago, of which I have eaten a quarter-loaf already.

I put the new strings on the viola Thursday night (I so want to say ‘I restrang the viola’), and I think the previous set of strings were violin strings. (Whoever owned this before I picked it up knew nothing about stringed instruments.) My trip to the easily-reached luthier reaffirmed that I don’t like them much; no matter who talks to me they seem to think I know nothing about the instruments I play or consider any of the research I’ve done ahead of time of use or import. Telling me you’re giving me forty percent off the list price of strings and making it seem like a huge favour when I know every luthier does it impresses me not a bit, and in fact makes me think you’re condescending to me. Also, if I wanted to spend a hundred dollars on a bow, it would be put towards one for me and not one for my son to mess around with. I’ll be going back to Archambault to pick up one of the cheap-quality ones for $37, thanks.

(Note to self: just stop trying to like them, okay? Give up. Use your regular luthier, even if it’s further out of the way via public transport and has no parking, and be thankful.)

We went out this morning to Valois, where I made a quick stop into the Bramble House for dolly mixture and Walnut Whips. HRH and Liam hung out at the train station and watched four long freight trains go by, up close and very loud. This thrilled Liam beyond belief because we took him to the Montreal train museum last Sunday and he has asked to go see “the big trains” every day since. I poked about the secondhand bookstore in Valois while HRH and the boy relaxed on the back bumper of the car with the hatch up at the station. It was a nice morning out.

The second batch of ratatouille on Thursday wasn’t as good as the first. I baked the first for a half-hour longer than the recipe indicated, which mellowed the vegetables out more, I think. The second batch was cooked for exactly the specified time, and the veggies were crunchy but not as sweet.

Read Christopher Priest’s The Glamour in its entirety on Thursday. Good, but not as good as his Extremes. I finally finished Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora which was good, but took me a long time to settle into. The style of storytelling wasn’t exactly easy, but the story was interesting enough that I stuck with it to accustom myself to the style. Once I had, it was enjoyable enough that I found myself chuckling now and again.

The boy just woke up early from his nap, crying as he does sometimes when he wakes up and wants to still be asleep. I slipped into his room and wrapped him in his blanket, picked him up, and carried him to the chair where we snuggled for about five minutes until he fell asleep again. I sat there in the dark with his long rangy preschool-like body across my lap, his head on my shoulder and his eyes closed, his breathing a bit snuffly, and I wondered where the past two years had gone. I have sat with him in that chair so often, more so when he was younger. There is a certain peace that descends when you hold your sleeping child. Part of my mind frantically tells me to make the most of this time by putting him down and getting stuff done, while the rest (thankfully) ignores it and rests in the moment, feeling that peace, the weight of the warm body, the soft damp curls on the head, the fists that twitch randomly in sleep, that snuffly post-cry breathing, the legs that dangle off the side of my lap. I’m having trouble with life in general these days, so moments like this give me the still time I need for both my mind and my spirit.

Once he’s awake (again, and at the proper time), we’re off to a barbecue with friends this afternoon. I’m looking forward to it.

Dinner Tonight…

… was the best ratatouille ever.

The secret is to be willing to grate most of a seven-dollar block of fresh Parmesan, and make sure you put a decent amount between every layer. Also make sure every vegetable you use to make it was in the ground/on the vine three days ago at the most.

Between us, HRH and I ate the entire thing. I was expecting to put half of it away for lunches this week. Liam helped us by eating a mushroom or two, a bit of sweet pepper, and some aubergine that I told him was another kind of mushroom, ferried to his mouth with forkfuls of rice.

Evidently I will have to make more. Good thing I have extras of all the ingredients, and it’s dead simple to make.

Twenty-Six Months: Addendum

I was just looking at some pictures of our weekend in Oakville, and I forgot to record that Liam discovered salmon sashimi.

Yeah. The kid who generally isn’t interested in meat or fish eats raw salmon like it’s going out of style. Also, he will eat chicken bites that have been marinated in sake and garlic. Go figure.

Wednesday

Thank you all for your good wishes. The boy was reunited with BunBun this morning and gave him a fervent cuddle. “Liam hugging BunBun now,” he said, wrapping his arms so far around the bunny that it was gripped in the crooks of his elbows in front of him, and rocking it back and forth in a mildly violent fashion.

Meallanmouse and I met for lunch today (pasta chips at L’Etranger, how I have missed you), and while I was out I picked up a new notebook as well as doing a quick stop at Archambault to look at double bass method books (Eva’s a fretless bass, okay? Regular electric bass books keep telling me to put fingers on my non-existent frets, and double basses just happen to have the same tuning and thus fingering as an electric bass). I stopped at Indigo to get a book as well, but ended up leaving it behind after carrying it around for a while. (Gratuitous and self-serving stock check: they had one copy of my second book on their shelves, and two of my third.) When I got home there was mailbox joy in the form of the first cheque for the urgent work I did in July, which means Hydro and Bell can be paid. Also in the mailbox was my first issue of the Strings magazine to which I subscribed as a birthday gift to myself. (Of course, that was before I bought Eva as a birthday gift, so I ended up with two from me to me.)

I’d forgotten how public transport allows me to read a lot. I began Stephanie Cowell’s The Players last night, and as of now I’m something like two hundred pages in, with only fifty more to go. I’ll be finished tonight. And finish it I will, most likely in a warm bath, because I will need the break after an afternoon of reducing this script. This is the fifth time I’ve gone over a version of this story (three different versions are required for the project, let’s call them X,Y, and Z: I went over X twice, and this is the second [and significantly longer] edition of Z), and I’m already cross-eyed. And now we have the added twist of working within very specific coding tags, so I have to be extra careful of what I delete and add.

Very pleasant weather we are having. We have only had the air conditioner on for all of five days this summer so far. In fact, HRH took it out just before we left for our long weekend away, and it won’t be replaced unless absolutely necessary. I approve.

Absent Friends

Of all the days to have forgotten BunBun at daycare…

The boy is very out of sorts today (not surprising; we did two six-hour drives in four days and had lots of fun with Nana and Granddad and cats and cousins in between). After a couple of half-hearted nibbles of rice and carrots at dinner, he cried for no apparent reason as we changed him for bed (we suspect because HRH sat him on his lap to slip his pyjama shirt on — usually this is fine, just not tonight for some reason). He sort of settled down during the stories, but insisted on holding every regular toy I brought in to put in his crib (his arms got quite full) and sang snippets of the Cars soundtrack while HRH read. And then he had a little heartbreaking crisis when BunBun was not awaiting him in his crib after his stories. He didn’t have a tantrum — he whimpered BunBun’s name a bit, sat up and looked around, and said, “BunBun? BunBun in?” When I told him that BunBun had stayed to play with his caregiver, there were some big fat tears that rolled down his cheeks, a sob or two, and he lay down and pushed the little white rabbit he calls Peter away when HRH tried to give it to him. “No, no Peter,” he said, lying down and turning his head away, lower lip trembling. “Oh, BunBun, BunBun, BunBun in,” we heard him mumbling as we blew him kisses and closed the door.

He fell asleep in five minutes anyhow. But a bad day to have left BunBun behind.

Also: this morning I found that the tiny chip in his left lateral incisor at some point got chipped again, and is now a huge chip. Argh.

Twenty-Six Months Old!

It is becoming increasingly apparent to us that we have a child instead of a baby, a child who can hold conversations, communicate abstract concepts, and with whom we can negotiate instead of legislate.

Among his favourite books these days are My Working Mom, Seuss’s In a People House (which he can read almost all of, so long as a parent supplies some of the connecting text), and Fish Wish. He reads the action depicted in pictures, describing what’s happening, often with snatches of actual story text interspersed. Lately he’s taken to running his finger along underneath certain words and saying the word itself. He’s not actually reading it, although it’s the first step: he’s recognising that these letters in this sequence means a particular word. Words that are mostly similar, such as ‘fish’ and ‘wish’, fascinate him. Compound words like ‘starfish’ and ‘jellyfish’ are very interesting as well.

His current favourite film is The Incredibles, although Lilo & Stitch is a close second. On Saturday mornings we sometimes allow him to watch Kids’ CBC on TV, so he has discovered and loves Arthur (which is fun because HRH worked on the show), enjoys Lunar Jim, and gets up and dances to the Doodlebops.

Among the new words in his vocabulary are enormous, cheeseburger, we, I, burgundy, too and also, sea anemone, trailer, whatever, Benjamin (as in Peter Rabbit’s cousin), and “yes, Mother” (a direct quote from the animated Tom Kitten story). If you ask him if he’d like something, he pauses for a moment then says “Ahhhhh…” as if he’s considering it, followed by a perky “okay” or “no”. ‘Please’ and ‘thank you’ are used nine out of ten times, and without prompting (including when he and his younger cousin were racing around and around his grandparents’ house and he accidentally ran into a chair: he bounced, blinked, said “I sorry!” and kept on going). If we get in the car he asks, “Listen to Cars music too, now, please, again?” Sometimes we say sure, and other times we say that we need to take turns when we’re in the car and Mama or Dada wants to listen to something else for a change.

In his world, every computer is connected to the Pixar website and can immediately play Pixar trailers. Except Grandad’s computer; it shows plane and train pictures instead.

He’s taken to going into the pantry and surveying what’s available before requesting what he wants for breakfast. Lately oatmeal with added raisins and a swirl of maple syrup is his thing, spurred early this week by seeing the new bag of oatmeal on the shelf. (He asked for the raisins with it; I offered the syrup.) He spoons the stuff up with great gusto and eats it in no time flat, only asking for parental help to chase the last bits of oatmeal around the edges of the bowl. At his grandparents’ house he fell in love with organic kamut flakes, and I can’t blame him: they’re sweeter and crispier than regular cornflakes. After warning him away from the green tomatoes in the back garden and waiting impatiently for them to ripen, I gave him half a red cherry tomato this week and he spit it back out again. Blueberries may be the most awesome part of August; peaches, not so much. I made homemade cherry popsicles and he loves them. Sauteed mushrooms over pasta with freshly grated cheese tossed with a bit of butter is the best meal ever. He has definitely discovered doughnuts, and they are the food of the gods. Chocolate milk is a huge treat when we’re out. He drinks from a regular glass at the table, and only uses his booster seat when he’s in a particularly active mood and we need him to sit in one place for a bit.

He asks for crayons by specific colour. Circles are his newest favourite thing to draw. When he colours in an outline drawn by one of us or in a colouring book he no longer scribbles randomly: he colours very specific portions of the image. Red may be his favourite colour, followed closely by blue, if the frequency of the request for a crayon of that colour is any indication.

When he leaves somewhere he says goodbye to everything he can see (and can’t see), including ‘up’ and ‘in’ and ‘out’. He played in a big pool for the first time this month with his caregiver, and after resisting it he fell in love with it. He loves to play soccer and kicks the ball around the yard, and he likes flopping over a swing on his stomach to swing back and forth while staring at the grass. Lying on our stomachs and watching ants is still a great way to spend twenty minutes or so. He’s so good at walking while holding someone’s hand now that we can walk through stores instead of locking him in a stroller or a shopping cart.

We appear to be raising a small geek (which will come as no surprise to most, I’m sure). Not only can he recognise Superman and Spiderman along with their associated logos, he appears to have absorbed the Doctor Who revival as well. This will amuse PDaughter:

GRANDMA: [speaking of her sister] … so I made her go see the doctor

LIAM: The Doctor!

GRANDMA: Yes, Liam. Do you like your doctor?

LIAM: The Doctor! Sonic!

(As in, a sonic screwdriver. The one used by Doctor Who. Yeah. Grandma was mildly baffled.)

He “sings” along to songs on movie soundtracks, echoing repeated or random phrases in the song, and inserting movie dialogue at the appropriate places. When he hears tracks from a film score he can describe what’s going on in the film at that time, making him the only person I know who can visualise and identify musical cues better than I can.

He wears size 3T shirts, 2T pants, size 5 diapers, and size 3/4T pullups. Toilet training is going so well that I bought him his first set of underwear last week, which he wears with great pride and excitement in the late afternoons and evenings. He’s barely fitting into his size 6 1/2 shoes, and has worn through the toes of his racecar sneakers. Good thing we have a pair of size 7 sneakers in the wings.

Maybe it’s because our friends all have bright kids who are being raised in a similar fashion, but to me Liam doesn’t seem any different from them developmentally. And yet I’m told by people who work with kids not associated with our circle of friends that Liam is unlike other children his age. Whatever. He’s Liam to us. He is normal for who he is. We read to him; we communicate basic values like responsibility and sharing and turns and respect and courtesy; we insist on a regular early bedtime, naps, and toothbrushing; we share time with him and ask questions and talk to him. And if that makes him unlike the average kid, then I don’t know that it’s the kid in question who’s different, or the parents.

Weekend Roundup

Cats woke me up at four AM by knocking over an empty glass in another room. I got up four times in the next half hour to handle various cat issues. I gave up trying to fall asleep again and have been working since five.

We had a wonderful weekend! Thank you to everyone who shared it with us in some way or another. Not only did we pick up groceries (very necessary) and really really really clean the house (everything except washing floors and windows, including laundry and mowing the lawn and gardening, although by Sunday the bathroom was dirty again, possibly because of the latter two tasks), but Saturday I went on a lovely UK-foodstuffs-import recon and purchasing jaunt with Pdaughter (no Penguin bars in stock at our newly-discovered Bramble House, alas, but I have a packet of real dolly mixtures and Jacob’s club bars and Fry’s chocolate tablets, joy!), and then we had a visit with Ceri and Scott (who have a stunning new car, rendering us victims of new-car envy, and they also spoiled the boy by bringing him a Cars puzzle; “Picture Lightning and Mater broken, Mama, help Liam fix” is therefore the newest order I am given when he wants to play). Sunday morning saw us doing yard work at the in-laws’ house, then we went out to the farm roadside stall on the south shore that HRH has been going to since he was ten in order to buy strawberries and cherries and peaches and peas and peppers and corn. There the boy was carried around by the farmer himself and given a half-pint of blueberries and raspberries and strawberries to eat as he did; the child proceeded to stuff five huge blueberries in his mouth at once, and ate the rest of the fruit while sitting on the cart piled with corn watching the activity around him. He said “Bye bye farmer and strawberries!” when we left. We ended the weekend with a lovely co-coven Lughnassadh BBQ with piles and piles of seasonal food and excellent company all around.

I finally got that month-late baby gift in the mail on Saturday, as well as another small parcel that had been sitting around for just as long.

Despite the fact that the days were full, everything was relaxed and we didn’t feel rushed or overwhelmed at all. The weekend went so well that everyone woke up in a vaguely bad mood today because it was back the work routine again. The boy was cranky because he knew he was going back to daycare (he loves his caregiver and playmates and always has fun, but he misses us and we miss him too), HRH was cranky, and I was already in not such a terrific mood thanks to waking up two hours early. But this week we return to a more normal rhythm as HRH drops back to part-time and I deliver the current project. And then next weekend we’re in ON visiting with my parents, so there’s plenty to look forward to in the next fortnight.

Also this week: a trip to my bank branch on the West Island to deposit this US cheque that’s been sitting here for two weeks, so there will be money again. As it’s in that neighbourhood I’ll be stopping by the Bramble House for those Penguin bars, and possibly some whiskey fudge as well. The fretless bass will also be taken into the local music shop for its set-up, maintenance, new strings, and case that day. It feels good to be catching up on things.