Wednesday 18 September 2013

Hostage Situation

I have this feeling like everything to do with sleep learning with O, my two-year-old, I missed or did wrong. We had nothing to go on, no one we felt could help us, a tough sleeper and no capacity to listen to crying. 

But through it all, O has been reliable at letting us know when he's ready for the next step in sleeping. Whatever we used to do just stops working. This boy is still probably the worst sleeper in the universe, however. But we have gone on to the big boy bed. We chose this bed for a few reasons:
It's big enough for him to grow into. Also big enough for the precise cuddles A will be forced to deliver at various intervals. It's low to the floor so rolling off and hurting himself is less likely. 

Here's how it goes down:
We fight through the bedtime routine. "Time to brush your teeth, buddy!" "No brush!" "Come put on your pyjama pants!" "No pants!" Etc etc. It winds up being an hour or so of us doing every silly thing he demands and then stopping when he inevitably decides he no longer wants it less than a second later. "Blanket! No blanket" and "bye mama, sit mama" are common refrains at our house between 7-8 pm.  

For two years, the person O wanted at bedtime was me. Within the past month, O insists on laying with his daddy, but not too close, of course. I consider this a promotion even though I'm not allowed to leave the room. I do get to read my news feed on my phone while sitting in the rocking chair, though. Sometimes I get a high score playing Drop7.  

When I'm sure O is good and asleep, I wake up my husband and we sneak the hell out of there. We then hope he stays asleep for at least three hours before we have to go back in. 

Everyone learns to sleep eventually right!?!?!?!!!?!

Sunday 1 September 2013

On Buying New Spices

I have been cooking.  I have been watching every cooking reality show on YouTube.  I have been making lists of tricky foods I want to make someday (eggs benedict, chocolate soufflĂ©, pommes fondants, among other things).  I have been excited by Gordon Ramsay's campaign to "get women back in the kitchen".

Yes, Gordon Ramsay is a class-A dick.  He uses the word "stunning" far too often.  He has this weird idea that he's not a celebrity chef.  He's ugly as hell, and in every show he's on, they make a point of how he's sexy in some weird way.  I can't say I get that.  And now this sexist-sounding campaign?

BUT...

He knows food.  And, he wants people to fall in love with cooking again.  So he got me on that one.  I think feeding my family is one of the most important things I do every day.  I want to make it count.  I want to teach my boy a thing or two about food, and that involves more food prepared by mama, and less food delivered to our table or door.

So I decided to give Indian food a try.  I didn't attempt anything too authentic, I am sure tonight's supper was a very Westernized rendition of Butter Chicken (I mean, I don't even use chicken--we eat it with this fake chicken sort of stuff which is uh-maze-ing!), however it is tasty and tasty and tasty.  Andy goes mental for it, which pleases me infinitely.  It's the look of complete pleasure on my husband's face while he eats that keeps me happy to be in the kitchen.

Anyway, when I first decided to try to cook these new dishes I had reservations.  I didn't want to invest in a bunch of new ingredients if it turned out poorly, or with too much difficulty.  Every look at the spice rack would become a reminder of that time I tried something and failed.  Well, I didn't fail.  We have a new favourite dish.  I like having the aromatic smell of my cooking filling up our condo.

I was thinking about taking a picture of what I made for supper tonight, but for anyone who has had butter chicken before, you know it just looks like lumps of stuff in an orangey slop-sauce.  If you can't smell & taste it, the look is nothing special.

But, you know, come by and smell and taste it sometime.  No kidding.

What have you been cooking lately that you're proud of?  What would you like to attempt some day?