“Gee, Erin … how on earth have you not managed to lose the last of the baby weight? And the twelve pounds remaining from Seth?”

Gosh, I have no clue. Maybe it’s the extended breastfeeding, getting pregnant again, and now breastfeeding again. Maybe it’s the asthma that makes exercise much less fun. Maybe it has something to do with YET ANOTHER BAKING ADVENTURE tonight.

Just look at these … how could I resist?

Mom's Delicious Chocolate Cookies

My mom has a recipe – I forget where it’s originally from – that makes the best chocolate cookies ever. As well it should since there’s 1.25 cups of butter in these things. I decided I’d make them tonight so I could send some to my brother as a Christmas treat. Thus the mint Holiday M&Ms on top … quite a delicious addition. As I was mixing the batter, Seth asked, “Cimmanon?” So I added about 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon.

These are to die for, and incredibly easy. Since I’d like the rest of you to share my baby weight, here’s the recipe.

• 1-1/4 c. butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2 c. sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 3/4 c. cocoa
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 c. chopped nuts

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Blend well. Add dry ingredients and nuts. Bake at 350 for 8-9 minutes. Cool for one minute only, then move to rack.

If you’re going to add M&Ms to the top, do so right after you get them out of the oven. It makes it much easier to transfer the cookies … something about structural integrity, I’m sure.

Gratuitous baby picture!

Nora & Mommy, Hanging in the Kitchen

Originally published at treacle.net. You can comment here or there.

Yesterday and today, per Facebook:

Erin: I need to go to Kohl’s and Target to finish Christmas shopping.
Will: I need to go to the post office and a few other places.
Erin: Well, we could split up the kids and each go …
Will: [nods] Okay. I’ll take Clive.

Yesterday, 8:13 a.m.

Ha, ha, funny ha. Clive, in case you’re new here, is one of our cats.

Seth was having a morning made mostly of Being Two, so he went with Will to hit the post office, the haircut place (for Will), and we’d meet for lunch. I’d take Nora and we’d do the shopping before the lunch. Yay! Except Nora slept until 11:30 and Seth needed to eat lunch around noon.

We did meet for lunch, Nora and I did parade through Target and Kohl’s with her bundled in the wrap on my hip or chest, and many people were delighted by her happy squealing and kicking. Any other Christmas shopping will be done on Amazon, because I’m done with being in shopping centers right now.

Apparently today is Naked Saturday for Seth. Any suggestion of clothes is met by “NOOooOOOO!” and running around the house.

Around 10 am today.

A friend commented, “Your house must be warmer than ours!” No, I’m just going to let the little goober run around until he’s cold and then he’ll put on his clothes! I don’t think he’ll get frostbite in Houston in December. When Seth did get dressed, it was in a miniature Dallas Stars jersey – number 21 for Guy Carbonneau. I still miss him.

Wrapped presents while watching “When We Left Earth” … absolutely fascinating! I was never a space geek (ironic), so a lot was new to me.

Probably around 3:30 or 4, just before the kids woke up.

The stars aligned and the children took naps at the same time. <Cue “Hallelujah Chorus.”> I put together a beef stew for dinner, watching the documentary on the laptop while in the kitchen. Then I hauled presents and wrapping gear into the living room and picked up the doc on the Wii. Netflix Streaming may be one of the best things to happen to us this year.

It really is fascinating to watch and think, “I know who these people are. I go to buildings named after them. I go to THAT building. We ask that guy to come speak at certain events.”  My generation in America couldn’t help growing up with NASA … it was just part of the common experience. I’d never really looked into the history of manned spaceflight, though, and this is really eye-opening. For some reason it’s also more meaningful than if I’d watched it when I first started working there.

And now … time to get a little girl back to sleep, then to sleep myself. I mixed up some white chocolate popcorn tonight for Seth and Nora’s Sunday School teachers, and I’m tempted to go eat it all myself.

Originally published at treacle.net. You can comment here or there.

We’ve been busy little people around here, thus the lack of actual updates!

I’ve been stretching out my maternity leave (unpaid Family Medical Leave) by working 20+ hours a week and taking the unpaid leave the rest of the time. While it’s good to have the time with Nora and at least some sort of a paycheck, it does make things a little harried trying to balance what needs to be done at work and at home. Then there’s the stuff I want to do, too … most of the time that gets shunted aside in favor of sitting on my butt on the couch, relaxing with Will while we watch something on Netflix.

One thing I wanted to be sure and do was thank you gifts for Seth’s preschool teachers. I absolutely love them. My mom was a preschool teacher for a while, and I know from her that they love the little gifts from their kids. (Except really, they probably don’t need another candle or coffee mug. But they’ll love every one they get.) I wanted to add gift cards but that just wasn’t in the budget this year – see the aforementioned half-paycheck since this summer. So we baked and melted.

Christmas Tree Cookies

I had seen kits for making cookie Christmas trees out of star-shaped cookies, but I already have three sizes of star cookie cutters. We used this Sugar Cookie recipe from Cooking Light, and it was pretty good. I actually ran out of sugar and had to substitute agave nectar for part of the sugar, so who knows what that did to them. They were still yummy!

We made the frosting in the recipe, put it in a piping bag, and then Will lowered the cookies into the can while I drizzled frosting over each cookie. The frosting did help glue the layers to each other – three of each size cookie, alternating points – but we had a couple of anxious moments when we thought one tree was going to slide into the side of the paintcan container. (Which came from Hobby Lobby and are food-safe, btw.)

Hot Chocolate on a Stick

The other, chocolate-y things are Hot Chocolate on a Stick. I’ll warn you about this: reading the very precise directions on tempering chocolate got me stressed out beyond belief. It turns out it wasn’t that bad, and you just suck it up and add some oil or shortening (my mother’s recommendation) if your chocolate gets ugly. Ta da. We used Semi-sweet chocolate and then dipped them in melted white chocolate bits. We put some in candy molds (the shaped ones) and the rest in a mini-muffin tin. I actually liked the muffin tin ones best! And don’t get all “fancy” like I did and think you can pipe in white chocolate first so you can skip the second round of melting and dipping after the chocolate cools. You don’t see the wrecked second batch where the two chocolates separated from each other when I took them out of the molds. Whatever!

The chocolates are delicious, and as I shared on Facebook, make great mochas if you stir them into your coffee with a little milk. We’ll definitely be making these again! Actually, we might be making them tonight to give to some more people …

And yes, Seth helped me with the cookies. That was an adventure in itself, but he does love to cook with us. It’s worth the mess.

Originally published at treacle.net. You can comment here or there.

Today’s Holidailies prompt is to talk about the strangest thing in the room. So I ask you: which one would you say?

Baby Corral

Clive - December 2010

The Baby Corral is, well, a corral for babies. Okay, it’s branded as a SecureYard, but it’s really a baby corral. You put it up inside, you put it up outside on a blanket, you unhook it and make a really long gate, or you unhook it and make two long gates. It keeps happy but stupid Black Lab/Great Dane mix dogs off your little baby. It contains your precocious little boy or girl who has learned to roll and rolls all over the living room. It cordons off the living room so your baby can explore to their heart’s content and still be safe. But it’s a baby corral. People use them for puppies, too. I’ve seen them at pet adoptions at the pet store. It’s true. Right now ours has ribbon draped over it that I’m too lazy to get on the Christmas tree tonight.

Then there’s Clive.

Clive is as old as this journal. He’s really been the star of it, if you ask some people. He was raised by a dog, so he acts like one. He comes when he’s called and he has been known to go for walks on a leash. Clive likes people food. I found him at a Chick-fil-a when he was a kitten, and he’s displayed a fondness for chicken nuggets ever since. He also likes to pull lettuce from the drain board after it’s been washed. He’s kind of fond of green beans.

It’s a toss-up, really.

Originally published at treacle.net. You can comment here or there.

One of the things I never expected thirteen years ago, back when I started being online, was that I would get married “late” (based on when almost everyone I knew got married), that I would have a child within two years of being married, and that I would be a working mother.

My plan was to get married around 25 or 26, have a child about five years later, and then stay at home with the baby while my husband worked. Instead, I got married at 29, had our first baby just before my 31st birthday, had our second baby just before my 33rd birthday, and my husband works from home and stays home with the kids.

It’s had various challenges, and I could talk about those at length. Maybe one of the biggest things has been trying to not be the stereotypical “working parent” who comes home and ignores all the wonderful things the parent at home has done during the day. I’m bad at this anyway; Will has an incredible tendency toward service, and he has taken care of our home, of me, of all the little things that I hate doing, and he does it all because he loves me and our children. I – not having that gift – tend to take it for granted, don’t reciprocate as much as I should, and I forget to say thank you.

I’m trying to be better about that. I’m grateful for the chance to play with the kids when I get home from work. I’m grateful for the dinner Will made for all of us, and the clean kitchen. I’m grateful for having clean clothes because Will took the time to do laundry. I’m grateful that when I came home, Seth (our two-year-old) was happily playing at the sink, “helping” Daddy wash dishes while Will made dinner.

So … I try to remember to clean the bathroom on trash day. It helps me to have a reminder like that. We both hate it, but there’s no reason I can’t do one of the things I hate so Will doesn’t have to. I try to remember to make the bed. (When I write it out like this, it seems pathetically small!)

And tonight we had a special little treat after the kids were in bed. (No, not THAT treat. I wouldn’t tell you about that … ) A French press of decaf coffee with a little pumpkin pie spice, some Laceys cookies, and the choice of decorating the Christmas tree or watching tv. He chose watching tv, which I was very happy with because I didn’t really feel like standing upright anymore today, what with being up since 3am and all.

And now … bed!

Evening Snack for Two

Originally published at treacle.net. You can comment here or there.

Nora woke up around 2:45 or so for her middle-of-the-night feeding, as she usually does. On a typical night Will, being an awesome husband and dad, goes and gets her out of her bed, brings her to me for her feeding, then takes her back to bed when she’s done. Lately I’ve been falling asleep (sitting up) during the feeding because Miss Nora is a gourmet eater who, true to her French roots, takes eight hours for a single meal. Fine, it’s more like 20 – 30 minutes, but whatever. Seth was a get-it-done, I-can’t-believe-you-starved-me-so-long sort of nurser; Nora takes her time and enjoys the experience. That’s fine, though, because usually I fall right back to sleep as soon as Will comes back from putting Nora in bed.

Obviously I didn’t do that tonight.

Instead I lay there with the random thoughts of the day swirling through my head again. You know how they say that dreams are your brain’s way of dealing with what the subconscious has absorbed through the day? Sometimes I feel like that happens while I’m still awake, usually at 3am or some other insomniac moment, and it GETS REALLY ANNOYING.

A sampling of the James Joyce-style rambling that rams through my brain at this time:

• That manager today asked about the invoice for his training class … he shouldn’t have received one, did he actually submit the external training request, did I already approve it and forget about it?
• Seth just cried out in his sleep — awake? Dirty diaper? Bad dream? He’s asleep again.
• Why has Bonnie [black cat] claimed me as her own lately? She used to be just Will’s cat and now Clive sleeps on Will and Bonnie sleeps on me. She’s heavy. And hot.
• I should really add some links to blogs I read.
• Do people still check links on blogs? I mainly read through a feed reader and then click to comment. Would anyone even notice if I kept the actual site bare bones?
• My back hurts. Maybe if I stretch it like this … no good.
• Seriously, that manager at work. Did I forget that request? What happened to November?
• I’m hungry.
• I hate coming up with Truths for “Two Truths and a Lie.” Why are facilitators so bad at the activities/icebreakers we facilitate?
• I am never going to sleep again.
• What is Nora going to wear in the Christmas card pictures? I could reprise the Strawberry Shortcake dress with a long-sleeve onesie under it …
• Why is it raining now?
• I’m hungry.
• Need to get that binder over to that other manager today.
• I am never going to sleep again.

I finally gave up after an hour and got up for an apple, a book, and — since I obviously can’t sleep — computer time. I know that computer time is completely not supposed to help with insomnia, but whatever.

I’m hungry again, btw.

Halloween 2010: Strawberry Shortcake

Originally published at treacle.net. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at well.notes. You can comment here or there.

I’m trying to write more, and that means writing more about what I actually do in my life instead of just what I think may be interesting to others. So … sorry if it gets boring.

One of the things that I do is teach 2-year-old Sunday School at church. It can be quite the challenge, trying to find a way to relate a lot of abstract concepts about God to something that makes sense to a preschooler. I realized today that it would be a good idea to have notes about what’s worked well for some of the recurring lessons that we have. I’ve tried looking up other Sunday School lessons online, but it’s hard to work through the truly horrible clip art and lessons that talk more about stories or characters rather than the character and actions of God (which is what the whole point of the stories should be).

My favorite so far has been when the lesson was about Jesus healing a sick boy. I tell the story in a couple of ways throughout the morning and then ask the kids questions to see if any of it sticks. So I told the story (Jesus healing the centurion’s servant), and asked, “Who was sick?”

“JESUS!”

Um … no.

Anyway, today’s lesson was about Jesus feeding the huge crowd with food shared by a little boy – the five loaves of bread and two fish. If you’re not familiar with the story, a huge crowd of (around 5000, according to traditional tellings) people were listening to Jesus teach all day and didn’t bring any food. Jesus saw they were hungry, and wanted to feed the people. The disciples told him that not even a year’s wages would feed all these people. One boy had two small fish and five barley loaves, and offered them up. Jesus thanked God and then told his disciples to start passing out the food. They ended up with 12 baskets of leftovers.

What I loved about the lesson today was that it focused not on the boy and how he shared (which most tellings do), but instead on the fact that Jesus saw that people had a need and wanted to meet it because he cares for people. Excellent, excellent message, and the miracle part of it is a bonus. We got to talk about ways we could help people when we see they need something.

Then we colored cut-out fish and bread loaf pictures and decorated paper bags to make baskets. We all put our fish and loaves in our baskets, and then we had a snack on a picnic blanket in the room. First we had five “loaves” (pretzel squares) and two fish (goldfish crackers), and then they had extras after they ate the first part. The craft and the snack actually seemed to help convey the idea of Jesus making a lot of food out of a little bit. It also let us talk about (again) how Jesus saw that people were HUNGRY and wanted to help.  (We said the word “HUNGRY” very loudly.)

I’m just glad that this one went well. Some of the other lessons are just WAY over their heads, but we keep trying!

Originally published at well.notes. You can comment here or there.

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23 weeks!, originally uploaded by dormousie.

Oh wow … it’s been nine weeks since I’ve updated, and that’s a long time in the life of a developing baby! The picture is from two weeks ago, but just imagine a little more roundness added to the belly.

How far along? 25 weeks, 2 days

Total Weight Gain: +11. Not too bad, since I’m mentally adding the 12 pounds I still had left from Seth. (Which would make it 23, if we’re all adding together.)

Maternity Clothes? Oh, most definitely.

Stretch Marks? No new ones! The Palmer’s Skin Therapy Oil has definitely helped reduce the ones I already had.

Sleep? Thank goodness for the Hypnobabies tracks. They help me get to sleep, stay asleep longer, and get back to sleep.

Best Moment This Week: Feeling the little tiny baby knees, elbows, or feet pushing out against my abdominal wall.

Movement: Lots of it!

Food Cravings: I still want bagels, but now I only want Everything bagels.

Gender: We still think it’s a girl

Labor Signs: No, but I’m definitely feeling the Braxton-Hicks this time. I never noticed them with Seth. I especially feel them when I walk or stand too much, or after bending over a lot.

Belly Button: Streeeeetching out. I may yet have an outie with this one!

What I miss: I still miss sushi alot, and the great weather is starting to make me miss margaritas!

What I am looking forward to: the end of the second trimester – it’s coming faster than I expected!

Weekly Wisdom: I shouldn’t expect to drive home from a glucose tolerance test.

Milestones: Starting to see and feel the little baby parts poking on the outside of my stomach!

Originally published at well.notes. You can comment here or there.

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15 weeks, 4 days, originally uploaded by dormousie.

How far along? 16 weeks today

Total Weight Gain: (?) since pre-pregnancy. I have no idea, really. My face is thinner, I can still wear most pants with a Bella Band, and I don’t think I’ve gained much, if anything.

Maternity Clothes? I’m definitely in the maternity clothes now or stretching my regular pants with the Bella Band. That’s actually starting to get really uncomfortable, though, so I think I’ll be switching to just maternity pants soon. The shirts are a definite; my regular shirts are snug across the middle or just not long enough.

Stretch Marks? I get occasional red marks but no lasting stretch marks. I started using the Palmer’s stretch mark therapy oil to at least help the ones I already have.

Sleep? I’m starting to wake up early in the morning and have trouble getting back to sleep.

Best Moment This Week: Going to bed early and getting a little more rest!

Movement: I do feel little jabs and squirms, especially when the band of the maternity pants presses against the baby.

Food Cravings: Einstein Brothers asiago cheese bagels, toasted, with a little cream cheese. Mmm. Otherwise, I keep getting strong aversions.

Gender: Still thinking girl

Labor Signs: Nope

Belly Button: Becoming more of a crater than a button. Seth likes to poke at it in the mornings.

What I miss: Sushi!

What I am looking forward to: Hearing the heartbeat again on Monday during our appointment.

Weekly Wisdom: You kind of have to remember to eat enough food, or you don’t feel good.

Milestones: Four months completed!

Originally published at well.notes. You can comment here or there.

Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I think I set my expectations too high for this book. I thought the idea was fascinating, but that fascination didn’t carry throughout the book. The two main characters were just sort of “eh” for me. I sort of liked them, but I just didn’t care that much about them. It’s hard to be interested in a three-book story arc if the characters don’t grab you. I might give the second book a try just to see if the plot development helps me care more about the characters. It won’t be a huge loss at this point if I can’t find the second book.

View all my reviews >>