Culinary Tips

I am less than a master in the kitchen. I have few skills. Just ask Mr. Bean or my brother-in-law about "The Great Pancake Incident." Or, ask Mr. Bean how he "enjoyed" my meatloaf this week.

I just cut up a plethora of fruit and vegetables (with Mr. Bean's help) for a welcome home party for my friend Aimee. Here's where I need your tips. The damage is already done, but for future reference, how do you cut cauliflower without mangling it into little bits? I'd be happy to hear your tips on that one.

I put Mr. Bean in charge of the strawberries and oranges. They turned out fine. I've done broccoli and peppers a million times. We bought baby carrots so they required no preparation. (That's my kind of cooking!)

I must say I did a fantastic job on the celery. I think my mom must have made celery a lot as a kid because I had flashbacks to watching her cut celery the whole time I was doing it. I felt completely at ease as I sliced my way through that vegetable.

Share you cauliflower tips. And while you're at it, I'll take your meatloaf and pancake tips, too.

Flashback

Yesterday, I pulled off our street onto Main Street. In front of me was a 1985 booger green Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale. What a flashback to my high school days when I drove my own "booger machine" to and from school.

I pulled up to the stoplight to turn left and the Delta 88 was in the lane next to me. I think the 60ish year old man driving was eating figs, but I took the opportunity to look at the car and remember the thin double white stripe that went from bumper to bumper. I peered into the car and could almost feel the feel of the seats and started to reach up to change the gears on the column shift- then my light turned green so I went on my merry way.

I was surprised that I saw the same car parked across the street from our street. It appears Olds guy works for Walgreens, so I'll be having many flashbacks in the coming weeks and months.

If my sister had remembered to put oil in the booger machine, I could have driven it to the classic car show that String Bean, Mr. Bean, and all the dogs of our fine city attended this evening. Well, if I hold onto my current car for just a few more years, I can enter that in.

Impress Your Kids

Parents who are looking to raise godly children need to check out the new site, Impress Your Kids. Author, Amanda (who also writes for Oh Amanda) and Leigh, both mothers of two, co-author this site. In their own words, here is what the site is all about:

When my daughter was 2 years old she came home from church one day with a magnet that said, “Love God with all your heart.” (taken from Deuteronomy 6:4-9) We looked at it, read it once or twice and stuck it on the fridge. Then promptly forgot about it.

A few days later, we were making a card for Daddy. She was supposed to be writing “I love you, Daddy” but instead began to chant, “Love God with all your heart!” I was dumbfounded! My little toddler was quoting scripture!!

So, right then, I knew it was time I actively put God’s Word in her heart! I started doing an alphabet letter of the week, a craft and a verse. We call them our “ABC verses”. I began posting our crafts and activities on this blog to keep myself on track. One of my great bloggy friends, Leigh has a son the exact same age as my daughter. When she decided to do the same type of crafts and memorization with her son, I asked her to post, too. (She’s way more creative than me, so I need some ideas!)

As our kids have gotten older and we’ve moved past our “ABC verses” AND as parenting has gotten more intense, this blog has morphed into a toolbox of sorts. This is the blog you didn’t know you need. We post our parenting struggles, our triumphs, our creative ideas, our fun activities, special events and silly stuff—so dig around in our toolbox, use what you need and watch your kids grow into the life God has planned for them.

Text taken from ImpressYourKids.org at http://impressyourkids.org/?page_id=11.

Piggy Bank

Amy mentioned on Facebook one day that Cashew was up for grabs. String Bean put down a bid, her entire life savings of 5 cents.

Since then, she attended the 4th of July parade and thanks to the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln, her savings increased 60% to 8 cents as reported here.

Thanks to tonight's visit to the laundry room, she now has another cent to add to that collection. That is a 12.5% increase in just a few days. Take that, Bernie Madoff!

All this collection of coins leads me to the dilemma of what to do with them. Right now, they are taking up residence next to String Bean's shoe collection. I'd like to keep them a bit safer from grubby hands that might decide they'd make a good choking hazard. I could put them in a jar, but that's not very cute.

All this brings me to today's question. What sort of "savings account" should we start for String Bean? I am soliciting all ideas including the traditional piggy bank to an envelope shoved under her mattress.

What kind of bank should we get for String Bean?

First Words

At 19 1/2 months, String Bean is starting to talk! We typically get the first sound of a word when we ask her to say something. Instead of "cheese" we get "ch". When we hear "K" we know she wants crackers. The following words are generally said in their entirety: Mom, Dad, more, Pop (grandpa's name) and ball.

Today while flipping through the channels, I paused on the news which happened to be showing baseball highlights. String Bean dropped what she was doing and yelled (complete with fist in air): Go Cubs!

Mr. Bean would have appreciated this more if the first phrase she said unprompted was: Go Bears. Sorry, dear, if only String Bean were born a few months earlier or later.

Welcome Home!

We recently returned from vacation. There is nothing like walking in the front door of your home after having been away for awhile. I love to use my own bathroom, sleep in my own bed and know where everything is in my home.

My friend, Aimee, has been gone for a year in Israel. She's been teaching there and comes back tomorrow! I have spent a few summers overseas and remember coming back to America. Simple things like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches gave me the warm fuzzies. I can't imagine how nice it will be to return home after a year of being away.

What do you like best about coming home?

Fizzled Out Fourth

We visited the Farm for the Forth of July this year as we do every year. The weather the day we arrived (Friday) was gorgeous. The weather the day we left (Sunday) was gorgeous. The weather on Saturday was cold and rainy!

Despite the rain, the parade went on as expected. For a tiny town in the heart of Illinois farming country, they put on a fairly large parade. It lasted about 45 minutes this year. The citizens of the town must save up all year long to provide candy, gobs of candy, for the parade-goers. String Bean stood in the rain, under an umbrella dutifully waving at every float and picking up the handfuls of candy tossed her way. One float full of junior high baseball players chucked candy at us as if were baseballs. Another float had good ole Abe and his wife (in honor of this being his 200th birthday) threw pennies which increased String Bean's life savings from 5 cents to 8 cents!

We were really looking forward to the fireworks display, as we do every year, since the town's display, lasting over an hour, rivals if not beats anything in our hometown. This was going to be String Bean's first fireworks show.

Due to the heavy rain we'd had all day, the fireworks were called off. Apparently the firemen did not feel the could safely get away if something went awry with the fireworks due to the soggy and slick ground where the fireworks are let off. As a sign in one town said, "July 4th has been rescheduled to July 5th." Unfortunately, due to that pesky thing we call employment, we had to leave this afternoon instead of sticking around for the rescheduled July 4th.

I'm hoping someone shoots off (illegal) fireworks tonight so I can feel like our nation's birthday was truly celebrated this year!

Pool Safety

I've mentioned before String Bean's intense fear of swimming. She's only 19 months old, but being near a pool is the most frightening thing for her. How do I know? Well, the crying, screaming and clinging onto whichever body part of mine is closest is a hint.

I've heard a lot of talk about pool safety this summer. I've even had friends suggest to me to enroll String Bean in an infant swimming resourse course. If you are not familiar with this program, go to their website and watch the video. After looking at their marketing videos on the site, you probably are like me thinking, "Wow, what a great idea to keep my kid safe from drowning!" At least that's what I thought until I did some reading.

I checked out a book on infant swimming from our library. While reading it, they referenced this program and I was disturbed. They teach children to float in the water (good) to prevent drowning (good) by simulating drowning (uh....hello?). In short, the instructors dunk your kid under the water and roll them over repeatedly teaching them to right themselves so they can float on their back. The result is a screaming kid (which is exactly what you want them to do when they are floating in a pool without an adult in sight) who is scared to death because of the water they are in. Seems counter productive to me.

String Bean already has that fear of the water! Why would I enroll her in a course that forces her to "simulate" drowning so she can float? We don't have a pool. None of our close friends have a pool. This just isn't a program that would be beneficial to us.

I had a friend post a video of her kid doing the infant resource swimming recently. His screaming and crying throughout the video was too much for me. I turned it off before it was halfway over and after 3 separate dunkings.

The best pool safety tip I have heard this year? Designate a special seat for the adult who is in charge of watching the kids in the pool. Whomever is in this chair is not to be disturbed. No talking to them. No radio. No anything. Every 15 minutes trade with another adult. That way, everyone can enjoy the pool and kids are being carefully watched every second.

For the mental health of my child, we will not be enrolling in Infant Swimming Resources courses. We'll do the gradual introduction instead, which begins with a bucket of water and the hose in the backyard.

Success, at Last.....kinda

I think I mentioned that potty-training was not going very well here. Well, last night, we finally had a bit of success. After bath, Cashew was running around nakey butt, and unbeknownst to Filbert and I, she managed to get some pee-pee in the potty. Unfortunately, the occurance was so startling to her that she got off the potty before she was done and peed a trail across Walnut and Peanut's room. Even more unfortunately, Walnut's beloved green and purple cow/hippo, Moo, was caught in the spray. Filbert and I did a super encouraging potty dance for Cashew, but I'm not sure was enough to counter-act the severe reprimand she was also receiving from Walnut.

Oh, Canada!

Happy Canada Day!

I ran into a Canadian today and wished her a happy Canada Day and she looked at me funny; I could see the wheels turning. Then, she said, "Oh! That is today!" The pianist who was there (Mr. Bean was in a recording session) immediately began playing the anthem and String Bean danced a jig.

What a way to celebrate Canada!