then came the Black Death

I have been away for a few days, and in the spirit of full honesty and disclosure, I am not fully "back" yet because I sense something horrible on my horizon   But I wanted to leave you with a couple thoughts, and this will be a taste of what is to come eminently here on the blog ...

Illness.

I am outnumbered three to one by males in this house.

No matter their age, men are babies when sick.

I hate people who share germs with anyone this house.  They have no idea how greatly I suffer.  

Thank gawd for my immune system, it appears to be the only active one in this !@#$ing house!!!

How a minor ailment can sweep through my home, with such brutal life ebbing force, I will never know.  One moment they are all fine, the next they are dying.  Yet, most mysteriously of all, I am only barely inconvenienced by my own equally-poorly-timed illness.  I find that I am too busy keeping them from their own looming death to have time to sit in a dark room and moan that no one has ever suffered this much before.

And just when I get all sick of dealing with the dying swan routine and decide to get all hard assed on them and tell them to just suck it up, they will survive, the puking begins.

Not even my drama queens would fake that for sympathy and wimpiness.  Damn, they are actually sick ... and my days should be numbered.  I -- the number one vomit-slinger, brow-wiper, and cracker-bringer -- should never be able to evade this death bug.

That's all, for now.  I will be back soon.  I hope.

20 Things I Want My Sons To Know

I have recently seen lots of pins on Pintercrack that sound like "10 things mothers of boys should know" or "15 things you should raise your son to understand" or something along those lines.  I have read some of them with a smile and nod, and some of them offended the spit right out of me.  Many of them focused so much on how to treat or get women that it implies that this is the sole life-goal men should have.  Others were so watery and transparent that I really felt they were almost demeaning.  The daughter ones are just as bad, but I can't speak with much authority on them since I don't/haven't raised girls.

But I decided to to my own boy list, one with some dignity and humor.  It got longer than I meant for it to, so we are now up to twenty.  Some of them, I admit, are taken from some of these lists I found pinned (like #4, totally true but makes me laugh to read it every time).  But the vast majority of them are mine.  

20 Things I Want My Sons To Know

1. Some chicks dig scars, some tattoos, all women appreciate a man in a well fitting suit and tie.

2. Spitting in publicly gross. Even in sports, don't do it unless you must.

3. Aim.

4. Dutch ovens are never funny. EVER.

Not this kind

5. Education is the one thing no one can ever take from you, no one can force on you, and can make all the difference in your world.

6. No woman is worth your dignity, except The One, and she'll never want you to compromise your dignity. 

7. Just because you're male and society tolerates certain things by virtue of being male doesn't mean you should be impulsive. Your first, and any number of times after, should only happen when you're ready and when it matters.

8. Wear protection, always. From riding your bike on forward, if protective devices are made for the activity in question use them.  Helmets can save your life, and "helmets" can prevent life from being created. Wear them.

9. Respect the work others do.

10. I will always think you're awesome but you'll have to prove it to the rest of the world.

Trust me, it looks stupid

11. Demeaning others is never funny.

12. Don't just dream, do. The only things beyond your reach are things you're not brave enough, devoted enough or strong enough to chase.

13. There is no such thing as "woman's work."  Men who think there is are either lonely or in relationships with weak women.

14. Never wear pants that require you to walk like a pregnant woman to keep them from falling down. You shouldn't wear women's pants either unless you plan to go full throttle and live as one.

15. Be courteous to everyone, not just pretty women or people you hope can help you.

Rock on, baby!

16. If you ever call a woman a word that starts with B and rhymes with "witch" just know that she should lose all respect for you.

17. Being a "mama's boy" as an adult is not a good thing.  I love you, I will always want to be part of your life and will be there for uou, but once you're married your wife becomes your immediate family along with any children you have. Dad and I become your extended family.  Be the independent man I have raised.

18. Reading is always awesome, keep doing it.

19. Say how you feel, I know sometimes it is hard or awkward, but always worth it.

20. Your imagination just might save the world someday, I believe it.

Parenting Advice 101

It isn't often that I give out parenting advice.  This isn't one of those blogs.  But it is often that I alert you to potential hazards and pitfalls you may encounter should you chose to do certain things.  Well, here is a doozy.

Do not teach your child to play "knuckles" on National Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Why?  Well, a combination of karma, bad luck and the universe's sadistic sense of humor will combine and you will find yourself texting this to your husband:

So I spent National Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19th) with my left eye tender and debating the value of an eye patch.  Sure enough I had a shiner the next day.  Trust me, you feel like a total badass telling people that your black eye came from an adorable little nearly-18-month old.

The bright side of this story of course is that if you walk up to the Beans and say "knuckles" he will bump your knuckles  with his fist and make an exploding sound.

Its very cute, but it still makes me wince a bit.

won tons and paper owls

Have you ever heard of six degrees of separation?  Its this theory that any one person on earth could be six people away from any other person on earth in terms of an introduction.  Google it, cuz I am botching the explanation and it is merely a witty intro for a rant about won tons and paper owls.

What?  What could won tons and paper owls have in common you ask?

Well a couple of things, and we don't need six degrees of anything to see their similarities.

1. Folding.  They both involve folding.

2. I suck at doing them. Both.

This plan was flawed from the get go.  I mean when you consider me saying "I am going to make something new" you know already the odds for success are a tad low.  But I had no idea that won ton making was such a bleeding art form.  I know now.  I will always respect a well formed one, from this day forward.

To complicate things, my husband, Paul Bunyan himself, has decided we need to use cast iron.  I should hang my head in defeat now, but I won't.  We need new pans, and being the outdoorsy, woodsy, survivalist he is my husband thinks cast iron should be in our kitchen and not just our camping gear.  I can't say I disagree, exactly, but I can say that there are rules with cast iron and I do not know them all.

With these thoughts in mind, lets look at my inspiration.

Don't I always find beautiful inspiration?  I should get credit for that, at least.

Technically she calls them Spinach Pouches, and they looked delish when I saw them on Pintercrack.  I gather my ingredients and immediately notice that I want more seasoning because I am like that.  So I italic what I added.

• 1 box (10 oz) Frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• Large size wonton wrappers
• oil for frying 
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• garlic powder, to taste
• onion power, to taste

I thawed and drained my spinach, debated doubling the recipe because I had the supplies but opted not to.  Thank Gawd.  Mixed the spinach, cream cheese, and ricotta (obviously this was not a dairy free recipe and I had to be careful) together with the seasoning.  I added all four (salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder) because I really felt it needed it.  I tasted it and loved it, so I moved on.

I love spinach, but drained, thawed spinach looks really unappetizing. 

All of the ingredients mixed for the filling, and it is looking a little less icky. 

I am guessing the "large size" won ton wrappers she speaks of on that blog are not whatever I had.  I had itty bitty little wrappers that were tiny and numerous.  I wound up folding them like the package says, which made them look more like won tons than the "spinach pouches" I was emulating.  I had to experiment a bit with how much filling to use, she said a teaspoon but that was way too much in my wrappers.

She said to use a teaspoon ...

Is that the right amount?

Nope.

There it is!  Less than a teaspoon worked.  

Once I figured out the right amount without exploding won tons I was able to really get going.

And make fifty thousand of them.  Well, it felt that way.

Some of the finished product.

Once they were all made I had to figure out what I was allowed to do with the cast iron pan.  Paul Bunyan took pity on me and helped because I have an adorable tendency to burn the piss out of my hands when frying things, even with pans I am familiar with.

Burns were kept to a minimum, and only some of the won tons were a bit dark in places as opposed to golden.  Our oil also hit the smoking point at one point so my eyes were burning like a mutha by the time we were done.  Because the filling had an Italiany taste to me I made some marinara to dip it in.

All in all they were pretty good.  Not as pretty, only some were burned and a couple had raw spots, but they weren't bad at all.  I figure since my husband wanted to take some for lunch today we could count them in the didn't-screw-that-one-up category!

the top five worst places ...

I love lists. I live by them. I have an app on my phone called Clear that I'd probably die without. I put stuff on my to do list like "shower " or "eat lunch" and I swear there are days I'd forget to do both were it not in my list of things to get done.

I also love top tens, fives, or whatever number lists too. It appeals to my listiness and my short attention span to give me the best (or worst) at a glance.

Well here is another for you, not conventional, but if you are a parent you will understand and may be able to add to it.

The Top Five Worst Places For Your Kid To Make the "Poop Face" 

1. In a family heirloom, at a quiet moment, surrounded by microphones.  Oh yes, every single person in my very large Catholic family on my mother's side has worn the same Christening gown, painstakingly and lovingly created by my great grandmother from her children on down.  It is so delicate, so beautiful, so terrifying.  So when Meatball's baptism was wrapping up and we were in the home stretch to getting that sucker off and back in the box with my aunt where I'd no longer have to worry about it being destroyed by myself or my progeny I was taking a sigh of relief thinking we were in the clear.  Oh, no, not so lucky.  Have you ever noticed that those adorable itty bitty newborns, with their itty bitty cute bodies that are ever so tiny can make flatulent noises that out-do Fat Bastard in Austin Powers?  Well now have your little munchkin firing off a five minute symphony while on an alter surrounded by microphones.  Lovely. The whole church was laughing, and I was dying, praying that those Huggies held up to the onslaught.  For the record they did.

Am I the only one a bit
horrified with these commercials?

2. The bathtub. Is it better because you can clean them up easily -- hey they are already in the tub! -- or worse because they are sans catching system and diaper free? How do you clean the tub if your kiddo has had a little more fiber than they aught?  Given that the floor of my tub is textured for reduced slipping risk, I find the prospect of the kid dropping a deuce in the tub quite horrific.

3. In their PJs, seconds from falling asleep.  Are my children the only ones who do this?  Oh man, I am so tired, I'd better take a poo first, cuz I can sleep so much better in a warm diaper.  So standing over them in their ten-seconds-til-they're-out-state while they wrap up that package you have to give yourself the talk.  No, it would be bad to leave them in that all night.  Yes, it will probably wake them up and you will have to start the night time routine, complete with fifty-six readings of Good Night Moon and Fox in Socks, all over again.  But it would be like a super-bad-mom-moment to leave them in that foul thing, even for a little while.  They will have a nasty rash, sigh, lets do this.  So I change them, and we start all over again.  I swear, they do it on purpose.

4. In line to have your picture taken with the Santa at the mall. My oldest was only three months old for his first mall Santa picture. As a first time mom I was so exited and had this adorable little outfit picked out for him with overalls and little boots and socks and everything. Quite the adorable, if not thoroughly complicated ensemble. So after two hours of waiting in line and only five people away from the fat man in red himself, when the Meatball's face turned purple with effort, I was not going anywhere. Sorry Saint Nick, I would loose my place and have to start all over if I went to the nearest changing table and disrobed the intricate series of buttons, flaps and straps, untied the little fake hiking boots that this cute little outfit contained and reassembled the kid after a thorough decontamination. So when it was our turn, eyes watering, I marched up to a retiree who generously had donated his time, apologized and set my little stink bomb down on his knee. Kudos to that Santa, he took a deep breath through his mouth, said the suit was machine washable and smiled for the camera. I display that picture every year, and laugh whenever I see it.

Ew, really now?!

5. When you are getting professional, non seasonal, pictures taken. Competition among brothers can be intense. The Beans hosed his father quite thoroughly in his newborn pictures -- because you just have to get a picture of that little bum -- but I think he instinctively knew number one wasn't enough. So when we went for his one year old shots he just had to up the ante. While posing like the adorable lil ham he is and working it like a professional model, he suddenly stopped mid-shoot and started grunting like a tennis player at Wimbledon. The photographer, who apparently does not have children, panicked and asked what was wrong with him. She must have realized that he was okay because we as parents wee laughing hysterically off to the side and asked of we could take a ten minute break.

I call it a tie between the two boys, simply because I don't want anyone to try to out do the other any more.

I am woman hear me ... roar?

You can't see me here,
but I'm the one hiding behind Joe Pesci.

My husband recently went out of town for a couple of nights.  I learned something very important about myself during this time.

As it turns out, I am a total baby.  Like left the lights on all over the house and was convinced the boogie man was going to come hunt me down level of "baby."

For realz, man, I would have been embarrassed for anyone to have actually seen me then.  Now, in hindsight, its kind of funny.  In a totally pathetic way.

You see, I protected myself and the children from all those unspeakable horrors I was convinced were making those bumps in the night, with a baseball bat.

But not like a real one, because that would still have some serious dignity ala-Good Fellas.

No, I had a mini (18 inches long, I measured) commemorative bat.  It is pink.  I'm pretty sure it is hollow and not entirely sure it is even made of wood.

Yeah.  It strikes fear in your heart just thinking about it, doesn't it?

It was with me almost instantly once the sun went down and the kids were asleep -- oh, did I mention that level of pathetic?  I felt better when the kids were up.  Yes, because the eleven-year-old and the one-year-old made for some kick ass back up in case of a break-in.  You know you are pathetic when you want to keep the baby awake so that you aren't "alone."

Yeah, it was that ridiculous.

I'd hang my head in shame if I had more dignity.  Instead, I would like to project my weakness on others and shift blame.  I blame my dogs.  They barked at everything.  On the first night they stared at the front door growling in this really menacing way ... truth be told I have seen poodles more frightening than my dogs under normal circumstances.  I also have (under any other circumstances beyond the contents of this blog post) less than zero faith in their guard dog abilities.  Case in point, over a year ago a dude was in my backyard whilst on the run from the police.  True story.  My husband walked outside to do something and there was a guy in our garden.  He asked him, ever so politely, if he could please hide behind our bar on our porch because the "cops are looking for me."

Dogs never barked.  Not even once.  Dude in my freaking backyard, who by his own damn omission had just committed a crime (shoplifting and violating his parole, in case you were wondering) and the dogs slept on.

So when they started their Cujo routine I was convinced there was some scary stuff lurking outside my door.

Despite the fact I live in a home that is more than old enough to be settled and young enough to not creak with age, this house made all sorts of weird noises all night.

Freaked.  Me.  Out.

So it would seem, in all my I am an independent and proud woman glory that I am not as independent or glorious as I thought.  "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" -- whatevs peeps, I wanna sleep.

I developed a new appreciation for my husband in the wee, exhausting and stressful hours of the morning while I jolted awake and re-checked windows and doors.  It seems that while he may have some habits that annoy me at times, he makes me feel really quite safe.  It is a quality I have never appreciated fully before.

So sad as it may seem, I would like to morph this into a love note for my husband.

Dear Husband,

You already know that I consider you my soul mate, my Camelot, my life partner and my better-yet-smellier-half.  I hope you know the depths of my love and devotion, the vastness of my respect, and the enormity of my appreciation for all your fine qualities.  All that said, between your size and sheer kick ass confident know how and badassness, I just want you to know that I rest easier when you are near.  Literally and in a figurative poetic-ey way.  I did not sleep an easy wink while you were away.  So while you are all "oh sweetie, I missed you, lets get freaky!" I am like "zzzzzz" cuz my ass hasn't slept in days.  I will love and appreciate you with my conscious mind later, for now, guard on big boy.

Love,
Your Adoring (yet apparently completely chicken) Wife

it is SOOO easy ...

I take the words "it is so easy" when found on Pintercrack as a personal challenge.

It calls to me, saying:

Hey, yeah you! Moron, betchya can't do this!

Usually, it is right.  But this time?  I owned it.  Well, mostly.  If the end result tastes good we can't be too critical, right?

After the fiasco that I felt was my Hogwarts cake, I was craving simplicity.  I also had two boxes of unused cake mix and a mother-in-law in town.  So I just had to act all domestic-ish so that she doesn't panic that her baby boy is dying of starvation whilst in my clutches.

I had seen this on Pintercrack a few times, and really, with two ingredients ... pumpkin puree and cake mix ... how could anyone screw that up?

And so it began.

Here is the complex ingredient list.  I debated adding cinnamon or something, but I figured we'd just play it safe this one time and follow the ever so simple instructions as they were found in the pin.

The only deviation I made was that I happened to have a can (gawd knows why) of pumpkin puree, but I had the 29 oz size.  Recipe calls for 15 oz, but I also had two cake mixes and the recipe only called for one. I figured I could double it and be okay.

So I dumped my cake mixes into a big old bowl.

Then I added the pumpkin,  I started to mix it around with a spoon a bit just so it was slightly incorporated before I dug out my hand mixer that hadn't been used in ages.

I was panicking a bit here.  The mother in law was right there in the kitchen saying something smelled good.

I said a little prayer in which I may or may not have promised my next born (if I have one) and the secession of bad word usage forever.  I figure the Almighty is well aware I am no good on either of those promises, especially the former, anyway, but I was graced with kindness anyway ...

It suddenly looked right.

And it did smell nice.

So I busted out muffin cups and got busy loading them up and sticking them in my little counter top convection oven thingy.

I'd like to leave the story there.  But I am too honest a person, and simply cannot.  *Sigh*

The little oven do-dad was on broil.  The first six muffins went in and when the time was up I was puzzled why they seemed to be cooking nicely on top and not all the way through ... but I never checked the setting.

By the end of the first dozen I noticed my mistake and fixed it for the last dozen with no one noticing.

Since there are no eggs or "raw" ingredients in this, I wasn't too worried, and honestly I think the first dozen are almost better than the second.

I don't know that I would purposely do it, but the "fail that could have been" turned out okay.  My mother-in-law thinks I know what I am doing (obviously not a reader of my blog) and all was well and tastey.