[ Posted by bibliomom
Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:43:38 GMT ]
My son came to me last week, with a book full of story problems.
“M-om,” he whined, “I hate problems like this!”
Since I knew he’d woken up in CRM (Cranky Wookie Mode), I tried to be sympathetic.
“What kind of problems?”
“This kind! ‘If Tina has five doughnuts and Bob has ten doughnuts, and they go to the bakery and get fifteen cookies … ’ that kind of problem!”
Ah, I thought, the curse of the story problems, and went for humor.
“It’s like Mr. Bockel with the pretzels in The Number Devil, huh? Well, story problems aren’t that bad, you just have to find the information you need to solve the problem …”
Monkey howled in frustration.
“It’s not that, Mom! It’s just that there’s all that delicious sounding food, and I’m so hungry!”
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[ Posted by bibliomom
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:27:34 GMT ]
Fall’s here (for the second or third round) and the fruit stands are flush with new crop apples. Know what that means? Caramel apple time!
Even since I first saw those giant caramel apples in the gourmet food magazines, I realized there was almost no limit to the stuff you can stick on the side of an apple.
My current favorite (and easy) caramel recipe is from honey.com:
Caramel Honey Apples
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup butter or margarine
½ cup honey
¼ cup heavy cream
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
⅓ cup chopped nuts
6 small apples with sticks
Combine all ingredients except apples and nuts in 2-quart saucepan.
Cook over medium-high heat to 265°F; stir constantly. Remove from heat. Cool 5 minutes.
Holding apple by stick, roll in hot honey mixture to coat; roll bottom of apple in nuts if desired.
Place on waxed paper squares to cool. Repeat with remaining apples.
Now it won’t make as many giant apples, but it’s not a bad amount of caramel. The cinnamon is best for just plain caramel – I leave it out when I roll my apples into toasted, chopped TJ’s pecans and my favorite Callebaut chocolate chips. You can also do the Rocky Road style by adding mini-marshmallows, or pretty much anything else you can think of – white chocolate, sprinkles, chopped up toffee bars, etc. Just remember that the caramel is hot, and the stuff you stick on it might melt a bit – I have to let the ones with chocolate on them sit for quite a while until the chocolate firms back up.
Hey – it’s fairly quick and easy, the kids love them and I get my gourmet apples for way less than $25 a piece.
Oh – and by the way – though the recipe says “wax paper squares”, I think they’re smoking something. Putting hot caramel anything onto waxed paper tends to lead to a permanent situation – and caramel flavored wax paper tastes nasty. Ask me how I know. Anyway, use parchment paper or a silpat – you’ll be much happier.
Posted in food | Tags apples, caramel | no comments
[ Posted by bibliomom
Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:00:52 GMT ]
Really, some days it’s just the simplest things that bring me such happiness.
Like today – stuffy and achey, I just wandered into my kitchen looking for relief. And lo! There on the counter was my beloved Zojirushi thermos that I had filled with tea some six hours earlier today for our trip to the park.
And behold, there was tea. And it was still hot. And it was good.
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[ Posted by bibliomom
Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:53:17 GMT ]
Dulce de Leche Smoothie
2 cups milk
2/3 cup Dulce de Leche
1 medium rip banana
2 cups ice
Blend until smooth; serve immediately.
Now, this is what I get for having a can of La Lachera Dulce de Leche kicking around my kitchen in the first place. Really, how am I supposed to lose weight with that darn La Lachera girl smirking at me? Being me of course, I had to tamper with the recipe off the back of the can in order to justify it. I threw in a handful of raw oatmeal, a scoop of protein powder, used non-fat milk and pretended not to know how many calories are in 2/3 a cup of Dulce.
Having said that, so good! And so much! Wah! My blender’s really not big enough for that. So sad – I guess we’ll just have to drink the rest later ;-)
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[ Posted by bibliomom
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:51:18 GMT ]
Really, I don’t have a whole lot to add to this. It was just something my daughter’s Evil Twin yelled out to her mom as she raced by.
“Ninja Happens.”
Really, it just explains so much …
Posted in my crazy life | 2 comments
[ Posted by bibliomom
Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:46:58 GMT ]
This last Sunday, after many trials and tribulations, we finally made it to Church. Yes, the boy’s hair and shirt were dripping water, but since he was actually wearing pants at this point, I had decided to call it good.
“Okay,” I said, “you know you’re starting your new class today.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Good. Your new class is held at the small classroom at the front of the auditorium. Now, since there’s a class being held in the auditorium, you need to be quiet. Do you understand.”
“Yes – I should be like this,” he said, while tiptoeing in an exaggerated manner.
“No! I didn’t say dorky, I said quiet. Do You Understand?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Okay.”
I sent him on his merry way and went to my own class, not really giving it a second thought until a friend stopped me in the hall afterwards.
“You must have been late this morning and told Monkey to be quiet,” she said, looking deeply amused.
“Yes …”
“Ah,” she said, “I thought so.”
She paused for another second before continuing.
“He pretty much tiptoed down the center of the auditorium - past the class, past the podium and all the way to his classroom - with his finger held up to his lips.”
I closed my eyes in horror as the scene unfolded in my brain.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she added, “we just stopped class and watched till he was done.”
Yes. Because that makes it *so* much better.
Posted in my crazy life | 2 comments
[ Posted by bibliomom
Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:20:44 GMT ]
Another bizarre Seattle summer has flown by. This isn’t to say that Pacific Northwest seasons have ever been conformist enough to have sun in the summer or snow in the winter, but we usually expect there to be somewhat less rain, with occasional bouts of days gorgeous enough to drive natives-who-know-better down to the local boat store, and make clueless tourists start looking for job transfers. Because, it’s so scenic and picturesque and OMG, WHERE THE HECK WERE YOU PEOPLE HIDING THAT GIANT FRICKIN’ MOUNTAIN?!
How many cities do you know that get to play peek-a-boo with something as big as Mt. Ranier on a regular basis?
Anyway, this summer’s been on the wet side – partly cloudy with intermittent heatstroke – so we weren’t entirely surprised when we got back from New York to find the rain had returned. What did surprise me was waking to a bright, clear morning on Bug’s first day of school and finding out that Fall had unexpectedly arrived.
It was rather disconcerting, like finding some distant relative wandering around your kitchen in the middle of the night. Fall? In September? We’ve had it in August, October, early November – some years we give it a miss altogether and just go straight from Spring to Winter. (And if you think there’s a season missing there, you’re not the only one.)
Last year we charged straight from Summer into Winter, before backing up briefly for Summer-the-Revenge; really, what were we thinking packing up all our shorts after only four weeks of 50º weather?. We were then allowed a brief flirtation with fall before returning to our regular Winter programming. What can I say – it’s Seattle.
Yeah, Seattle, you say, but does this have anything to do with pants? Or is she just raving again? Well, yes and … yes.
Because Fall, when it bothers to show up, is my favorite season. In an ideal Seattle it’s cool, clear sunny days, which means my kitchen isn’t pushing 100º and things have generally calmed down enough for us to enjoy it.
The onset of Fall also brings out my dormant harvesting genes (which means lots of cooking and putting things in the freezer) and my nesting instinct, which means mornings and evenings spent in comfy pajamas, puttering in the kitchen or camped out with a good book or my laptop.
Enter, the Spoil Me Butt Pants.
Now, these are my favorite pajamas, so much that I’ve deluded myself into believing that they’re “lounge-wear” and I don’t have to feel bad wearing them all day as long as I put on a bra and a jacket before getting Bug off the bus. I got them on clearance a few years back – a red thermal shirt and black cotton track pants with “Spoil Me” written on the bum in big red, matching letters.
Utterly ludicrous. Scott thought they were hilarious, but I mostly thought they were comfortable. My children, however, were fascinated. Bug followed me around all winter, tracing the letters with her little finger and muttering, “Spoil me …” while grinning ominously. My son, however, was more concerned.
“Why do your pants say ‘Spoil Me’? They aren’t real pants, are they?” And, what was apparently the crux of the matter, “You aren’t going to wear those Spoil Me Butt Pants outside, are you?!”
This from the child who wants to wear his bunny yukata and ninja sword when we go out to sushi.
But the name, as bizarre as it was, stuck.
So last night, after a full day of cooking, cleaning and art lessons (home school, yah), I decided it was getting a little cool for shorts and a t-shirt and went to look for something to change into. And there they were in the back of the drawer. So warm! So comfy!
“Look, look honey!” I said as I came back down stairs. “It’s the Spoil Me Butt Pants!”
Fall has arrived.
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[ Posted by bibliomom
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:23:06 GMT ]
So, I think the last time I blogged about Bug’s books, it was all Maisy, all the time. Wow.
It’s really amazing – she’s changed so much. She used to climb all over me while we read very short books (like her beloved Maisy). Since then, she taught herself to read, obsessively read every word in sight, and then refused to read aloud for anyone. It’s as if she was desperate to decode those letters, but once she had it, she just didn’t care that much. We could still read aloud to her – she moved on to Sandra Boynton and then Dr. Seuss – but was still limited in her ability to deal with a high text to picture ratio. And her complete refusal to read aloud.
I’m sure others with Spectrum issues and a tendency towards hyperlexia have seen this before – reading as a code to break, not a tool for enjoyment. It was nice and everything, but don’t expect her to do it.
And then Scott started bringing home Elephant and Piggie books. First of all, they’re brilliant. Second, they star – get ready for it – an elephant named Gerald and a small, pink, girl, pig. Pigs are pink. Bug loves pink. Hence, Bugs love pigs. Or at least that’s our best guess for the sudden case of porcine passion that overcame her last year.
But in addition to the sometimes glamourous Piggie, the books had another wonderful attraction: dialogue bubbles. Big, color coded dialogue bubbles, one per character, rarely more than one per page. No quotes, no narrator, just an elephant and a pig talking to each other. Dialogue in it’s simplest form.
And Bug loved it. She wanted to read Piggie’s part, use Piggie’s voice; for the duration of the story, she wanted to *be* Piggie.
For most kids, this is probably a “whatever” moment. I mean, great – it means they want to learn to read the text. But for my Bug – for a Spectrum kid with social and speech delays – this was huge. She knew how to decode the text; this made her want to read. She wanted to hear the story unfold; she wanted to see the humor and the drama; and as in all the Elephant and Piggie stories, she wanted to see the humorous twist at the end.
The Elephant and Piggie books really are wonderfully written and perfect for any emergent ready. They’re an amazing example of a good story condensed into its simplest form and shows the kind of focus, brevity and wit that I’m so badly lacking. But for a kid with social delays, the simple layout and clean illustrations also provide a distraction free arena to match what is being said, to what the character is feeling. Piggie is excited: “Today, I will fly!” Gerald is distainful: “YOU WILL NEVER FLY!” Piggie is hopeful: “I will try.”
Really, just a fabulous series I’d recommend to anyone. Sure, my Bug can read. She still surprises us by quoting things like assembly directions and game manuals (“After the dragon completes his journey, the game continues where it was paused.”). But very little makes us happier than to watch our little bug dancing around on the couch saying, “I’ll be Piggie! And you be Gerald!”
Posted in cool kid stuff, beginner read alouds for wiggly kids | no comments
[ Posted by bibliomom
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:21:29 GMT ]
So, my friend J calls me the other day to tell me how her daughter missed mine so much that she was telling people they were twins. Confused friends and family would look from this only-child to her mom trying to decipher the mystery. “Who are you talking about, honey?”
She’d sigh deeply and say, “You know,” with that condescending tone only small girls can achieve, “my twin.”
Then she’d smile sweetly before delivering the finishing blow: “We’re
Evil Twins.”
And so they are. Even when they’re separated by half the country.
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[ Posted by bibliomom
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:42:50 GMT ]
So after all these years, I finally got to go to New York. Not that it’s ever been super high on my list of places to go, but it’s there. Besides, I was getting really tired of mumbling, “Yeah, still haven’t been …” at dinner parties.
Scott had to go on business (again) and this time he made sure that I got to come, too – sans children. Museums, subways, getting lost (repeatedly) in Central Park – and yet one of my favorite moments was getting to have Tea at The Plaza.
Some of you might remember the old Eloise books, or at least the newish Eloise movies featuring a mischievous little girl who lives at the top of The Plaza hotel in New York. After getting lost (twice) on the way to MoMA and a full morning of museum crawling, I was tired and hungry and more than a bit overwhelmed. As Van Johnson said, “It’s not the heat – it’s the humanity.”
Needless to say I decided that much like Eloise, I needed tea at The Plaza immediately and charge it, charge it!
And it was nice, a true relief from both the August heat and the New York humanity. It was quiet and cool with big comfy chairs and a harpist. The few other guests who where there seemed to mostly be mothers and daughters having an Eloise moment. And as The Plaza has both an special Eloise Tea and a portrait of Eloise peaking in from the hall, the atmosphere in the Palm Court remains light, despite the gorgeous Tiffany style skylight and the wonderfully restored gilt and moulding that festoon the room. It could feel stuffy and ominous, oppressive and overly formal, but somehow it doesn’t. It’s rather like going to have tea with a sweet old neighbor lady. Yes, she has antique, fussy furniture and antique, fussy teacups, but she’d rather see them enjoyed and broken than mouldering on a shelf, so please sit down and help yourself. There’s plenty, and have you ever had this kind of tea before?
So I had tea. Four courses of the most expensive tea I’ve ever had, just so you know before rushing over and making an appointment. A course of tiny tea sandwiches, filled with delectables like Peekytoe crab and lamb loin; two lovely, flakey scones: one blueberries, one with currants; a nice berry fruit salad, with no melon filler so I could actually eat it; and a finishing plate of tiny little desserts like lemon tart and miniature eclairs.
Mind you, the food varies on the tea you order, but there really isn’t a “just a scone and a cup of tea, please” option. It’s Prix Fixe all the way, at a Prix that blew my food budget for two days.
The service was attentive but leisurely. Occasionally a bit too leisurely, as in “there is food coming at some point, right?”. I think I was there around two hours, start to finish.
Still, the tea itself was quite good, and the food was all well prepared. It was a lovely break for both the body and sprit on a hot and noisy summer day. Best of all? Whenever I’m reading Eloise with my own daughter or my beloved nieces, I can finally say, “And I’ve been there, just like Eloise.”
Posted in food, cool kid stuff | no comments
