As I was carrying the cat out of the kid's room, I offered to let her kiss the cat goodnight. She said yes for the first time, and I brought the cat over. The kid leaned in and the cat cooperated and touched her nose to the kid's cheek. All through story time the kid kept talking about kissing the cat.

The cats chased a fledgling bird into the house today.

Much excitement all around. I had to hold the cat back until R could shut him in another room, all the birds outside were loudly chirping, and the baby kept yelling "Baby! Bird! Baby! Bird!"

I scooped the poor thing up in a bowl. Seems like one of its legs was broken, and it had a moist patch of feathers on its chest. Once we left it alone outside its parents came by to check on it and it hopped right out of the bowl. Hopefully it will be okay, but I think I will be checking the back yard tomorrow before I let the cats out.

Learning through doing

In order to preserve a very cute shirt from the ravages of BBQ chicken and baked beans, the kid dined topless this evening. Little did I know that it would result in:

1. The kid painting her entire torso with sauce

and

2. The kid demanding a bath way too early in the evening.

You couldn't really fault her logic, as it was evening and she was already undressed. Clearly bathtime.

Neglect

Hmm... looks like the blog template I'm using is referencing something that no longer exists. Wonder how long that has been going on? Guess I need to do a little work...

In other news: more teeth. Not me, the kid. Four molars are emerging in one fell swoop. We were getting close to being weaned in December, but getting sick followed by vacation disruption followed by teething has taken us back a step. Hopefully once this is over we'll be able to get back to it. I'm ready, though I will miss being able to keep her in bed when she gets up too early through the use of boob.

Yup, definitely have a toddler now. The kid has learned "no." Whenever she's going to do something she knows is bad she'll even say "no no no no no" as she does it.

Happy Thanksgiving

I made two things to bring to Thanksgiving dinner.

1. Apple Cider Jelly Candy - Tasty, but would have been much better had I gotten better cider. I meant to, but forgot, so I had to make do with grocery store brand apple cider, which was scarcely better thank store brand apple juice. It made for pale candies.

2. Hot Jalapeno Popper Dip - Delicious, but add more cheese. I mixed in some Parmesan and I think it could still use more cheese. It was really good just on bread, but it was also good spread on the ham that my sister insisted on bringing (not that I don't love ham, or the ham bone my step-mom was kind enough to let me have, but it definitely was not a family tradition like my sister was convinced it was).

A fun coincidence

Dreamed about seeing my godmother again (I haven't seen her in a decade or so). The next morning, a friend called to ask if I would like to be her son's godmother.

Countdown

I'm moving this weekend. This week has felt very much like I'm camping in my own home. Meals were planned, and anything we wouldn't be eating was packed. Appliances have been slowly disappearing, which means that tasks I used to take for granted are suddenly difficult or impossible. I've made toast using the broiler twice now. Lesson 1: Don't go off and take pictures of the kid in her Halloween costume while broiling toast. Lesson 2: superficial blackening can be scraped off into the sink.

Happy Birthday!

The baby is now one year old, which officially makes her a toddler (though I think the walking precipitated the name change, as she's definitely been toddling around the place for a while now). She got to celebrate her birthday twice. Once with a cake, in a joint party with my dad. He's been doing his best to turn his home into a beach hut, so I thought it would be fun to make a tiki cake. I also made a little tiki cupcake.

Let's talk about the cake briefly. I got the tiki idea while looking at this monkey cake. I didn't really feel like randomly making a monkey-shaped cake, but the shades of brown also work nicely for a tiki. The cake itself... well, it was okay. Part of it was my fault. I put it in the oven, went upstairs, and totally forgot about it. The cupcake, which I removed from the oven on time, was nice and moist. The cake itself was denser, more like a banana bread. The other issue was the frosting. Very delicious, but I found it to be way too sweet for the cake.

Alright, back to the fun stuff. Celebration number two was just the three of us at home, on the baby's actual birthday. R's family would traditionally go to an ice cream parlor, but since there are no longer any within San Diego county (I checked), we decided to make sundaes.

When we gave her the sundae, the baby just dipped her finger in the whipped cream and ate the cherry off the top. We eventually dumped it out of the bowl onto her tray and broke it up a little bit so that she would have an easier time eating it. She doesn't really like getting her hands messy (sometimes), so she decided the best way would be to lick the ice cream off the tray.

Oh, and an update on the first word. Apparently it stands for any food, as a few nights ago I was getting ready to nurse her and she was making hungry noises then said "cheese" before latching on with relish. Silly baby.

All the excitement, in one run-on sentence

The baby has said her first word, "cheese," though it sounds like "chsss," and she thinks anything square on the chopping block is cheese, which was very funny when I was cutting up some tofu; with all the baby news flying through the internet via Facebook, R has finally got himself a page; also, we're buying a house!

Babies!

Dang. It is all babies down here at the moment. Good friend just had a baby nearly two weeks late. R's cousin just had her baby seven weeks early. Our baby is toddling around like a madwoman, especially now that we've moved the gate around upstairs so that she can go from the office to the nursery. She kept walking between the two rooms with the biggest grin on her face, hands flung in the air. Oh, and the new fun thing to do is take a big sip of water and then spit it out. Hilarious!

Vacation Post #1

The latter half of August my little family took a driving tour of the Pacific Northwest, hitting such sights as scenic Roseville, CA, the Bavarian village of Leavenworth, WA, and my sister-in-law's wedding. First, however, I've promised my best buddy S a review of Voodoo Doughnut.

When I told S I was heading to Portland, she told me I should try to stop by Voodoo Doughnut. She's seen it on the Food Channel, and apparently it had been haunting her consciousness ever since. Then again, while we were in Washington with my cousin, we were told to go to Voodoo Doughnut while we were in Portland. At that point in time, it became something of an imperative.

We made it into Portland and R immediately had to head out with the guys for the groom's man night (it would be a misnomer to call it a bachelor party, as that would imply excessive drinking and licentious behavior, whereas the man night just had steaks, designated driver levels of drinking, and a long discussion about sausages). R mentioned Voodoo Doughnuts, and apparently his description was so alluring that the party had to make a detour. R's dad suggested that they bring back doughnuts for the ladies, as we had been wanting to go to Voodoo Doughnuts, but R astutely reasoned that a doughnut alone would not be the full Voodoo Doughnut experience (and his dad wonders how we get along so wonderfully).

So, Voodoo Doughnut. Located in a slightly grubby neighborhood of downtown Portland, down the block from a hentai theater. Saturday night (well, Sunday morning, as it was after midnight), the line was around the block, but Monday night the line was merely out the door. If you go, don't let it deter you, as the shop is a tiny hole in the wall, so there really isn't space for people to wait inside. The line moves fairly quickly, though you will be mocked by jaded locals as they pass by.

When you finally make it into the building, there is a giant chalkboard with the names of all the doughnuts divided into their price categories (standard, filled, etc.). They don't have any descriptions, though, and with the sheer size of the menu and the perennial line, it is probably best to check out the menu online beforehand. R got a maple bacon bar on his first visit and a McMinnville cream on his second. As the name implies, the maple bacon bar is a maple bar with a strip of bacon on top. I wasn't there to taste it, but R says the bacon improved the doughnut, but the doughnut didn't improve the bacon. The McMinnville cream is a Bavarian cream-filled doughnut with maple glaze and a curly mustache drawn on top. I got to taste this one, however it was after eating my own doughnut and a large dinner, so I was a bit full and all I noticed was the overwhelming sweetness.

I, on the other hand, had a doughnut far outside of the normal catalog of doughnuts. I had a mango tango, which is a mango jelly-filled doughnut whose vanilla glaze is topped with Tang powder. It was totally awesome. The mango jelly was very mango-y and the Tang added a nice citrus-y bite, the tart element preventing sweetness overload. I think, when I fantasize about doughnuts, from now on it will be about that lovely sweet and tart confection. I've probably ruined myself for doughnuts.

Waxing

In response to a blog friend posting her horrible home waxing story, I thought I'd share mine. I think I was also 15 at the time, as it was over at my dad's first place (what we called the bachelor pad, though it was just him, my sister, and me).

Anyway, I'd gotten one of those home waxing kits with the wax already applied to the strips and ensconced myself in the bathroom. I was doing my bikini line, which was probably not the best area for learning how to wax. I applied the strip, pressed down to firmly attach that sucker to my hair, and pulled with all my might.

I made it about an inch. I think half the hairs came out, but those that did left bloody spots. I could pull no further, but the dang thing was firmly attached to my thigh. I sat for a bit and pondered, then did the only thing I could think of: I put on my bikini bottom and called for my dad, who ripped the strip the rest of the way off in one firm tug. Ouch.

26

 Happy birthday to me... a few weeks ago. I had a lovely birthday. My good friend S came down for the weekend (can you believe we've known each other for 20 years?), and on my birthday we all went to the zoo. S took some rather adorable pictures of the baby.

It was the baby's first trip to the zoo, not that she'll remember it. She enjoyed the monkeys and the fish, and seemed to notice a few of the large animals, but mostly she enjoyed looking at the other babies. So many babies! So many strollers. I was totally getting a bit of stroller envy. Our Graco works well enough (and has a nice big basket underneath where I can carry the groceries), but it definitely isn't the lightest, most awesome thing around. We'll have to look for something lighter when we're shopping for a double stroller, as two times the weight of our current one would be a mighty heavy stroller indeed.

Being my birthday, I also made a couple of recipes that I probably wouldn't have made in my everyday cooking, as I knew R wouldn't have liked them. For my birthday dinner I made a zucchini and ricotta galette, which, I'm sorry to say, was definitely more work than it was worth. Mine also leaked butter like mad and make the oven very smokey. We ate it, and the baby snatched a chunk of it off my plate and stuffed it into her mouth, but I wouldn't deem it fantastic. I also made broken jellied wine with summer fruit, which, if you're looking for a mature version of jello shots, is right on the money. Of course, I forgot that anything gelatinous makes S gag, and R doesn't care for wine, so I was faced with the prospect of eating all the wine gelatin myself. Over the course of several nights I made it through about half, but one can only eat so much alcoholic Jello.

Alynda over at Breathe Gently recently shared her lovely, round, girly handwriting (with very pretty capital As, if I do), and somehow that convinced me to share my handwriting. Why? Who knows, as my handwriting is by no means pretty. In its natural state, my handwriting is barely legible, but I took my time here. Needless to say, there is a reason why my few attempts at doing notes on the whiteboard while teaching were dismal failures. Long live PowerPoint!

Instructions:
1. Name/Blog Name
2. Right handed, left handed or both
3. Favorite letters to write
4. Least favorite letters to write
5. Write: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
6. Write in caps:
CRAB
HUMOR
KALEIDOSCOPE
PAJAMAS
GAZILLION
7. Favorite song lyrics
8. Tag 7 people
9. Any special note or drawing

Lyrics from Sunlight in a Jar by The Lucksmiths (Warmer Corners)

4th of July

Well, I know it's been a week since the 4th, but hey! It's only been a week. I feel like I'm practically writing about current events. We had a lovely holiday. We BBQed, had a bonfire (and I, being a large child, toasted many marshmallows), and watched fireworks. We got home later than ideal, as I was teaching the next day (yay!), but I think it was worth it.

When R and I decided to take a friend up on his invitation to celebrate the 4th at his family's beach front house (rather than, say, hanging out at home), I had one though: yakitori! Sure, yakitori probably isn't the most traditional food for the celebration of our nation's founding, but it had been on my mind recently thanks to my favorite food blogger.

This also meant that I got to try out a recipe that I probably wouldn't have otherwise made from one of my new cookbooks. I hadn't marked it when I did my initial pass though the book, due either to my lack of a BBQ or a feeling of "grilled chicken, so what?" and so nearly missed out on something delicious. The yakitori sauce, slowly caramelized on the grill into an umber glaze, really does something magical to the chunks of chicken thigh. It was delicious and everyone was much impressed.

As I wasn't going to make a giant mountain of yakitori, I wound up halving the recipe, which was the perfect amount for the eight chicken skewers (five or six thighs) and five vegetable skewers (plus a smidge left over that was subsequently brushed onto some grilled pineapple). I didn't have any kombu, but while I'm sure the kelp would have added some nice umami notes to the sauce, it's presence wasn't missed in the final product. I also substituted shichimi togarashi (Japanese 7 spice blend, including red pepper) for ichimi togarashi (Japanese red pepper flakes) and lime juice for lemon juice. Bonus: this can be made a day ahead of time.

Chicken Yakitori
Adapted from Takashi's Noodles
 

• 1 c soy sauce
• 1/6 c sake
• 1/6 c water
• 2 t ginger juice (grate ginger into plastic wrap, poke a hole in the bottom and squeeze out the juice)
• 1 T sesame oil
• 1/8 c lime juice
• 1 c sugar
• 1/2 t shichimi togarashi 

• chicken thighs, cut into 1" cubes
• scallions, cut into 1/2" pieces
• veggies, if you would like (I had red bell pepper, eggplant, and summer squash)
• bamboo skewers

Combine sauce ingredients in a saucepan over high heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves and bring to a boil. Decrease heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Set aside.

Skewer chicken, threading on a piece of green onion every few pieces. Make sure to leave room at the end for use as a handle. Skewer veggies, if using (you can also mix them on the skewers, but I preferred having them separate).

Heat grill to medium. Place skewers on grill so that uncovered ends are hanging over the edge. Sear on each side (~2 minutes per side), then baste with sauce and flip skewers every minute or so until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce is caramelized (8-10 min). Cook the veggies the same way.

Conditioning

When getting your child to bed, the experts say to make a bedtime routine. Do a certain set of activities to ready your child for sleep, so that they know what to expect and can mentally ready themselves for bed. What they don't say, though, is that the kids start picking up on the cues and may not be cooperative in this whole "getting to sleep" arrangement. In my case, Goodnight Moon, which has been the last book I've been reading to the baby before bed. Picking up the book now makes her cry. Other books are fine, but Goodnight Moon is a threat. Perhaps it is the psychology major in me talking, but I find it adorable and hilarious.

"Oh, hi, Mom. I'm up."

The baby has learned how to stand, which means that I've often open the door at the end of nap time to a little person standing up to greet me. Of course, I also get to come in during the middle of the night to a little person holding on to the edge of her crib rails and crying, because she's woken up and can't figure out how to get herself back to sleep. So, there's a trade-off. For a while there, she was napping for longer periods and getting up earlier, a nice trade-off, but now she's just getting up earlier.

Recent cooking
Mac and cheese - I declare a winner in my search for the best macaroni and cheese recipe. The roux-based recipe from The Pioneer Woman (made with the delightful cheese combination of Swiss, Parmesan, and blue from the CIA macaroni and cheese recipe) is creamy and cheesy, but not so rich that it makes you sick. The leftovers are also good, something I find important in family-sized recipes. The the copious quantities of butter in the CIA mac and cheese separated from the sauce when the dish cooled, leaving the leftovers greasy.
Red rice - I know red rice is an actual dish, but this just seems like a jambalaya hack. I only recently discovered They Draw and Cook, and while it is a very pretty format for displaying a recipe, the quality of instructions for actual cooking was not great with this particular recipe. It's hard to read and the rice needed several cups more water in order to cook properly (one can of tomato sauce and a half can of water just doesn't cut it for two cups of rice). Still, tasty.

Sally Hansen 02 - Green With Envy

After having sworn off nail polish a year or so ago, I found myself unable to resist a summery green bottle of the stuff last time I was in Target. I painted my nails today and the baby was fascinated by my foot for the rest of the afternoon.

Recent cooking
Rice noodles with chicken and oyster sauce - After so many mediocre or just acceptable recipes, it's so nice to finally find one that is really tasty. Here it is several hours later and I'm still thinking about it. Definitely going into the regular rotation.

I've entered that period in life that is defined by the omnipresence of Cheerios. They cover the floor under the high chair and there are a fair number in the kitchen, but they've also traveled into the living room and I've even found a few upstairs. Cheerios are so useful, though, that I'm willing to live with the mess. The fat cat eats a few off the floor, but he's nowhere near as useful as a dog.

The baby baby likes to eat Cheerios and will spend long periods of time happily feeding herself. She learned to recognize the box fairly quickly and jumps up and down in her high chair when she sees it, something that is adorable and also a little frightening. Brand recognition already?

Recent cooking
Apple-cinnamon upside-down cake - I was expecting something with a gooey, sugary syrup on top, but you wind up with just a moist sweetness. The cake not touched by the sauce is mild in flavor and somewhat dry. This could work as a breakfast cake, possibly with some yogurt, but it definitely wasn't the dessert I was looking for.
Red velvet cake - When R expressed interest in a red velvet cake, I turned first to smitten kitchen, as the recipes there are always so carefully vetted. I wound up reducing this recipe by a third, as I only have two round cake pans, and I think somewhere in the process the cake became a little dry. Maybe it was my oven, as I cooked it for the minimum time and it came out crispy around the edges. Still, good flavor. Also, best recipe for cream cheese frosting.