mathmom's blog

One of our new family favorites, thanks to the Raleigh International Festival. Ingredients 1 Pound flank steak or tri-tip, thinly sliced across the grain 5 Tablespoons soy sauce (we prefer 1/2 light, 1/2 dark Pearl River Bridge) 2 1/2 Tablespoons white sugar 1/4 Cup chopped green onion (we skip this for the sake of our children) 2 Tablespoons minced garlic 2 Tablespoons sesame seeds 2 Tablespoons sesame oil 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper Cheese (we skip this) Steamed rice (we just cook white rice) Flour tortillas (we use lettuce instead) Directions Place the beef in a shallow dish. Combine soy sauce, sugar, green onion, garlic, sesame seeds, sesame oil, and ground black pepper in a small bowl. Pour over beef. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight. To grill: Preheat an outdoor grill for high heat, and lightly oil the grate Quickly grill beef on hot grill until slightly charred and cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes per side. To broil: Line a broil...

Amanda and Luke were in the back seat discussing superpowers.  Whenever one of them declared that they had a superpower (like x-ray vision), the other would steal it from them. Amanda got tired of this and declared that her superpower was that no one could steal her superpower from her.  My mind is still trying to wrap itself around that.  Amanda is definitely the philosopher of the family...

For many many years I've wanted tickets to the symphony, but somehow we never got them.  I still remember going to see "Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" soon after Amanda was born and sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time worried that my phone would ring and I'd have to go home. (Looking back on this, I was being ridiculous.  Michael was perfectly capable of handling any emergency.) This year we finally got season tickets.  For the first concert, I was out of town visiting my brother.  No problem, Michael took Eleanor.  For the next concert, Amanda got sick that night.  If she had been less sad, we probably would have gone anyway, but we decided that she needed to have a parent there.  But there was no time to change the tickets, so they would have to be used that night. We asked Eleanor, who flatly refused.  I called the neighbors.  My friend was busy.  As we were doing all this calling and asking, Luke kept pestering...

Occasionally your children do something that makes you think they'll turn out OK.  On Halloween, Amanda trades away much of her candy because she's allergic to dairy and nuts.  Eleanor loves peanuts especially. So during trick-or-treating, Amanda specifically picked up things with nuts because she knew that Eleanor loves them.  And Eleanor specifically picked up Amanda-safe candies because she knew Amanda would have to trade. Made me smile. =)

So we didn't get any pictures of kids in costumes this year.  I'll tell you why later, but first let's get to the costumes. Eleanor wanted to be Harry Potter, or at least someone from that franchise.  She had some money saved up and asked if we could actually buy her costume---not my favorite thing to do, but for a Harry Potter robe, it actually makes a certain amount of financial sense.  She did not buy the wand (which lit up) or the broom or the tie or the white shirt, figuring that she could make something of her own.  She got a dowel from the hardware store and turned it into a wand and broom of her own. The most troublesome part came when she insisted that she'd wear her rollerblades.  They don't really fit.  She can't go up and down hills or steps in them.  She's already broken her foot on the scooter, not to mention falling down and busting out several knees of her pants.  I was seriously running out of ideas for how to say, "This is a ...

The other day I asked Luke to fold towels.  He does this instead of folding his clothes, which he steadily insists he does not know how to do.  I let him fold towels instead of arguing. Usually he spends most of his folding time telling me about how tired he is, and how he doesn't like to do work, and how he just can't do jobs today, and then he spends a few minutes folding like mad when his sisters are almost done.  Today, however, he folded cheerfully.  The difference?  He folded the towels into triangle shapes instead of squares. He explained that this method of folding was from North Carolina before I was born (he implied that it was from prehistoric times, but I don't remember exactly what he said...)  He tried to get me to fold my things into triangles.   He was generally so pleased with himself for having found a superior method that he was cheerful and happy the whole time, even when I tried to get him to fold the towels into squares s...