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"Ah, this one," she said as we all gazed intently at a picture of a train. "In this exercise," she explained, "she is trying to get the toddlers to put small stickers onto the circles. It's intended to test their eye hand coordination. This looks very good. So good, in fact, that I suspect she was helping. Let's move on." She produced a piece of paper with some rather inscrutable scrawls on it. "Oh, this is very good," she enthused. "See, there is lots of very definte scribbling on here, along with a very good specimen of a straight line. Often times at this age, you won't see anything on the paper other than a couple of scattered dots. And the straight line is a very good developmental sign." We nodded sagely as we solemnly regarded further specimens of the Larval Unit's ability to generate definite squiggles. It was a bit like amateur tea leaf reading.
We were further informed that Ivy doesn't seem to have any hangups about getting her hands gooey when they do painting activities and that she's shy around people she doesn't know very well, but quite friendly once you get on her good side. Also, it seems that she's not easily frustrated and she had a marked ability to travel in generall a straight line. We were given some activities to develop her motor skills (those puzzles with the little yellow knobs, Play doh, peeling the backs off of stickers, Koosh balls) and advised that when she starts drawing faces, we should encourage her to include as many features as we can. Apparently the number of features 2 year olds include in their drawings of people is directly linked to intelligence later, so we should encourage her to be thorough.
It was all a little surreal, especially since I only got 4 hours of sleep broken into 2 2 hour chunks last night. By the way, I'm now in a position to definitively inform you that if at any point during the night something pushes your head into your pillow with 15 pounds of force, you will rocket out of a deep slumber and into an adrenaline soaked panic regardless of whether the cause is, in fact, the boogeyman or if it's freaking Tilt who chose to walk across your pillow for no apparent reason at 2am. Or so I've heard. Stupid cat.
What's odd is that even with the kitchen the way it is, we regularly used to end up with 10 or 15 people crammed around the cedar trunk in the microscopic breakfast nook every month when we were still doing Last Saturdays. The kitchen, whatever the configuration, is still the heart of the house.
2 lbs FRESH cauliflower. (this, as I found out today, means a 2 lb head of cauliflower, not 2 lb of florets. I doubled the recipe, and it was fine. Also, I tried this once with frozen cauliflower, and the florets were bitter and awful. Buyer beware.)
1 c hot milk
1 chicken boullion cube, crushed
2 Tbs flour
2 Tbs butter
1/4 - 1/2 c shredded parmesan cheese
1/4 - 1/2 c shredded swiss cheese
1 tsp garlic powder
Salt & pepper to taste
- Heat oven to 400 degrees F
- Bring 1c of water to a boil in a large saucepan
- Add cauliflower. Cook covered tightly until tender, about 10 min. Drain.
- Heat milk
- In medium heavy saucepan, melt butter.
- Add flour, stirring constantly
- Cook over med heat until mixture is thick and smooth and begins to bubble (about 2 min)
- Remove saucepan from heat and add hot milk all at once
- Return to heat and stir vigorously with whisk.
- Sauce will be thickened and smooth in about a minute
- Add crushed boullion cube, garlic, salt, and pepper to sauce.
- bring sauce to a boil
- Add drained cauliflower and half of parmesan cheese
- Spoon into baking dish and top with remaining parmesan and Swiss cheese
- Bake for 15 min.
- Mood:
full
Ingredients
- 1/3 stick butter
- 1 med yellow onion, diced
- 2 med yellow onions, sliced thin
- 2 cups milk
- 2 cups vegetable oil (I used canola)
- 1 cup Bob's Red Mill GF All Purpose Baking Flour
- 1 8 oz package of white mushrooms, sliced
- 2 bags (1 lb) frozen french cut green beans
- 1/4 cup white wine
- 4 cups chicken broth
- 1 (10 3/4-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
- 1 (10 3/4-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup with roasted garlic
- Pinch House Seasoning, recipe follows
Directions
French Fried Onions:
Because I'm GF, I had to make my own onion rings. They actually turned out really well. If you don't want to bother with this, then you can buy 2 of the 2.8 ounce cans of french fried onions, but I kinda preferred these, dietary needs notwithstanding. I made them about 2 days in advance.
- Separate the onion slices into rings and soak them in milk.
- Heat the oil in a pan til water skitters on it
- Combine the flour with 1/2 teaspoon of House Seasoning in a ziploc bag
- Shake the milky onions in the bag until they're generously coated with flour
- Carefully place the battered onions in a single layer in the hot oil.
- Cook the onions until golden brown, turning once.
- Remove onions to a plate with a paper towel on it to drain.
Store in airtight container.
The next day:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Melt the butter in a large skillet. Saute the onions and mushrooms in the butter.
- As the onions get soft and the mushrooms get small, add wine and let it boil down.
- Place the green beans in boiling broth. Once the broth comes back to a boil, cook about 3 minutes (I find this whole process takes about 10 minutes)
- Add the green beans, mushroom soup, and a pinch of House Seasoning, to taste, to the onion mixture. Stir well.
- If you are ready to put your casserole into the oven now, then add 1/2 of the onion rings that you made yesterday and stir well. If you're preparing this ahead, I recommend preparing up to this point and mixing in the onion rings right before you dump everything into the casserole dish.
- Pour into a greased 1 1/2-quart baking dish.
- Put the other half of the onions on top as a garnish
- Bake for 30 minutes.
House Seasoning:
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- Mood: full
I admit, when I was offered a glass of wine, I felt a certain amount of trepidation when I glanced over and saw the box wine on the shelf. "Oh no," Matt said, "we keep that around for cooking. You wouldn't want to drink it or anything, but it's fine for cooking, and it keeps well enough to cook with for at least a month or so." I was intrigued.
When we got back, we went to Target and got their "wine cubes" in a cabernet blend and a chardonnay blend. Oh my gosh. It's great, because any time a soup needs a little hit of flavor, it's no big thing to splash a bit of wine in there. Need a pan deglazed? You're set. No big drama over whether we have a bottle open, or do you really want to squander that nice wine on sauce. No wondering if we've got a bottle of white at home when we want chicken picatta. It's just another staple, like flour or rice.
You wouldn't think that box wine would be a kitchen revolution, but it's really changed the contents of my mental "List of things that are easy to make in a pinch."
Two thumbs up.
Maybe a nymph? Nymph Unit? That might be taken wrong. She might be able to pull off "Larval" until she gets verbal. I've sort of started testing out thinking of her as The Moppet, but I don't know if that will stick.
In the meantime, as I mentioned, she's toddling around the house, answering various objects she finds by picking them up, holding them to her ear, and saying, "Aww-wo?" (for the non-parents out there, that's "Hello?"). She's also quite proficient at "Uh-oh!" which, for her, constitutes the appropriate response for a broad array of situations. Much broader than you'd think, actually. She will also periodically muster a lilting, "Dek-yuu" when you hand her something (Translation: Thank you!). The cats are horrified at her mobility, but she's actually doing pretty good with the whole "Gentle!" thing when they fail to move out of range.
The other night, we were in the kitchen cooking dinner, and she crawled up the stairs into the kitchen and started rummaging through the recycling. She managed to come up with an empty wine bottle, at which point she started toddling off out of the kitchen, her prize gripped firmly in hand. The spectacle of her weaving gait combined with a wine bottle half her height was a fine photo op, but alas by the time I retrieved my camera she'd lost interest in her hobo-ish activities. Probably just as well, since if I'd posted that video there's probably an even chance someone who doesn't know me would report me to CPS or something.
In any case, it's an interesting (and messy) time around here.
( Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand & Kity Raises Hell, Carrie Vaughn )
( Living With The Dead, by Kelley Armstrong )
( Anathem, by Neal Stephenson ).
( The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown )
( Coraline, By Neil Gaiman )
On a related note, we received our Nez du Vin set. Anyone interested in a sniffing party?
The thing that struck me, though, was, when you stop and look at the tiny little Roman numerals, how many of my most beloved cartoons were generated between 1948 and 1952. They're STILL FUNNY. And they don't look particularly dated! Those were produced when my parents were between 3 and 7 years of age. *I* watched them at that age. I remember my parents liking to watch the bugs Bunny Road Runner Show with me, and they probably said something to me about seeing these when they were young, but I didn't give that much credence since they were 35 or so and therefore too impossibly old to have ever been my age. The fact that I am 35 now is not lost on me, even if I still think I'm 33.
Trying to organize my worldview to accomodate the idea that Rocky and Bullwinkle is a decade or so more contemporary than Bugs Bunny is causing some cognitive disonnance. Those Termite Terrace guys were GENIUSES, though.
Case in point, today I put on my coat and found in my pockets the following:
Crayons, whole, 2
Crayons, half, 4
Puppets, finger, 1
Crackers, graham, 2
Cookies, fortunes of, 3
Receipts, shopping, 2
Kleenex, unused, 1
Keys, set, 1
Pins, bobby, 3
Holders, pigtail, 2
On a completely unrelated note, I saw Apocalyptica this evening, and I think I'm safe in saying that I understood the message of the moving, which seemed to be "it's a good thing that the Spaniards came along and wiped out those big city Mayans, 'cause those guys were jerks." I think it was well done, and I didn't like it.
In he came to witness the awesomeness, and wouldn't you know, I propped her up on her little feet whereupon she immediately sank onto her butt. This behavior continued for about a week. Each time she'd stand up, I'd think that she was really in the mood to perform, but her dad would come in and she'd become princess noodle-leg. I felt like that guy in the Bugs Bunny cartoons with the frog. I started calling her Michigan J. Baby.
She eventually started standing up for her dad, but then that transformed into walking, which apparently only HRH's mother and I were qualified to witness. When the menfolk arrived, we were back to Michigan J. Baby mode. She eventually walked for her dad as well, and we proudly declared to Day Care that she'd learned to walk while we were away. The first time they saw her walk was a week later.
I think the next thing I'll try to teach her is, "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal..." I've often called her the Hardest Working Baby in Showbusiness and The Godbaby of Soul, but apparently she has another role model.
This is all, of course, because the explanation of units of measure was written by the fellow who translated the book from French. Because I read all of this (in addition to his forward) before launching into the meat of the story, I'm finding some of the turns of phrase to be... not bad translations, but I'm struck by how the turns of phrase in the book are influenced by having been written by someone who thinks in French.
For instance, when I was in the lavatory on the way back from Texas, I happened to notice the difference in tone between the same message being delivered in French and English on the mirror. In English, it said something along the lines of, "Out of courtesy to the next passenger, please consider taking a moment to use your used paper towel to wipe water off of the counter. Sorry to trouble you." In French, the message said something more along the lines of "Everyone has to use this bathroom, you know. A simple swipe of your napkin is all it would take to keep it clean. Inconsiderate pig."
Okay, it neither said "Sorry to trouble you" nor "Inconsiderate pig," but it's sort of an interesting illustration of how we dance around a lot of topics in our culture. I was in the ladies' room at work, and they have this spiffy water saving toilets that bear the legend, "Please save water. Push handle up for liquid waste and down for solid waste." This causes me to wonder, how would that message ever be relevant in a ladies' room? I can think of only limited circumstances under which the toilet paper would NOT be solid waste, and I hope not to be present for any of them. I know what they mean is poop vs pee, but that's not what they SAY, because we have euphemisms for everything.
In any case, I'm hoping that this state of mind will add a whole extra level of enjoyment to this go of 20K Underwater.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10
Which of the following is NOT a town that we saw evidence of on out Grand Tour?
1 (10.0%)This year for Halloween, the Larval Unit went as a crustacean. Lest I be accused of having a lobster free blog, I present the Larval Lobster:
I posted the snapshots from the Grand Tour of Texas to Smugmug.
http://rkimedes.smugmug.com/Travel/Grand-T
The videos are all sorted to the beginning, but then it's generally in chronological order. One of the things I didn't get a photo of, though, was a billboard I saw on the way to Austin. It had 4 grinning children who were declaring, "We want to go to Port Aransas!" Now, it's been a while since I've been to Port Aransas, so I'm given to wonder, has something changed that would make it realistic for 4 grinning children to demand a trip there?
I know you've seen pictures of how much the Larval Unit enjoyed chocolate cake, but here's ( the video proof... )
Before I left for Texas, it still had a tendency to be light out when I was driving home (albeit with the sun pretty low in the sky). This had the effect of setting this particular maple on fire at about exactly the time that I was generally driving around this curve on final approach to my house. It was striking enough that one day I pulled over to take a picture before the opportunity was lost until next year.
The picture doesn't do the tree justice, but I suppose you can't have everything.
We went by Wade's Gun Shop the other day to pick up a replacement for the knife that HRH graciously donated to the TSA this weekend. When we were there, I noticed that in keeping with the spirit of the season, they had these in lieu of their normal targets:
I think I might be tempted to take up shooting as a regular hobby if that was what I got to fire at on a regular basis!
The Larval Unit has shown evidence of a previously undiscoered talent this evening. See, on this trip we just took, we discovered that she likes corn dog bites (but not corn dogs... go figure), so this evening when we went to the store, we picked some up. I gamely nuked them for 30 seconds per side and put the plate out. She dropped the piece of bread she was munching on (another activity that I was previously unaware that she was capable of) and grabbed a corn dog bite, shoving the whole thing into her mouth. I was frankly amazed that it fit. I settled in for a front row view of the action.
The chewing went on. And on. And on. It continued for aboout 10 minutes. There were 2 times when we thought we were going to have to whack her on the back, but she managed to recover her equilibrium on both occasions. Then it became pretty clear that a finale was comng. She stretched her neck and opened her mouth and a hot dog casing emerged. She had managed to stick a whole corn dog bite into her mouth and chew and swallow all of the corn dog breading and all of the middle of the (chicken) dog and eject just the casing. I don't think I could even do that. I think she might be part owl. Oh wait, if she were part owl, it would have come out of a different location. Perhaps she's part python?
In any case, I was impressed.
- Mood:
impressed
