mathmom's blog

Today, Luke decided that the lettuce was ready to be harvested. He found a bowl, let himself through the fence into the garden, removed every single leaf from one lettuce plant, and proudly brought the lettuce back to the house for lunch.

Today, Luke decided that the trash can in his room was too full. Entirely on his own initiative, he tied a double knot in the bag, removed it from the trash can, carried it outside, climbed on the pile of boxes in the recycling bin next to the (tall) wheelie trash bin, disposed of the full trash bag, found a new trash bag in the closet, and re-lined his trash can. (Wait until we tell his girlfriends about this!) Also on his own initiative, he decided to make crinkle cookies. He found a bowl, "remembered" that a cup of water was required ( all of Luke's recipes start with a cup of water), measured it and added it to the bowl, remembered (correctly, this time) that 4 half-cups of sugar were required, got the sugar out of the cupboard above the counter, and added the 4 half-cups of sugar (all we had left!) to the water. So close! And yet, not quite close enough. Off to the store to buy more sugar...

This afternoon, Luke got hungry. So without any help from anyone else, he got out Michael's birthday pie (strawberry, of course). He then got out the pie server from the drawer, got out Amanda's can of soy whipped cream, added "just a little bit" as he says, and ate the last piece of pie. It's hard to know what to do with this type of initiative. On the one hand, he was hungry and he solved the problem, quite elegantly and completely, with no help from anyone. He paid careful attention to the correct way to eat pie, down to the server and the whipped soy stuff, which he put back in the fridge when he was done. He cleared his dish when he was done. On the other hand, I do kind of wish he would ask before doing things of this sort... I guess you can't win. Strawberry Glace pie, from Better Homes and Gardens cookbook Baked pie shell 8 cups berries 2/3 c water 2/3 c sugar 2 Tbsp corn starch Wash and hull strawberries. Take out 1 cup berries, set the rest as...

Whenever I try to make dinner for some particular time, it ends up being served half an hour later. This is very frustrating. It is the more frustrating because as a mathematician, you would think I could figure this out. If f(t) is the time dinner is actually served at when the input is the time I am aiming for, then f(t)=t+30 minutes. So if I want the time I serve dinner at to be a particular time, I should just aim 30 minutes earlier: f(t-30)=t. But there is some subtle paradox I am having trouble with: the input has to be the time I'm trying to serve dinner at, so I can't plan for the output to be the time I'd like to have dinner. This analysis doesn't even include helpful children, making the calculation even trickier. Ah, the paradoxes of everyday life. It's a good thing I have my degree in math, or I'd never be able to analyze this... =)

Yesterday, Amanda got home from school and wanted to go play on the play structure. Fine, I thought, and I put her school bag and lunch box on the porch. We played and went in, and I forgot about the bags until this morning. This morning, when I went to make Amanda's lunch, I remembered that the bags were on the porch. They hadn't gotten wet, so I brought them in and got out the lunch bag. It didn't take me long to realize that the lunch bag was full of ants. I chased them down, killed most of them, and washed out the bag. YUCK! Then I got to the school bag. The inside was coated with ants too. I emptied them into the sink, and washed them all down. If giant ants emerge from the sewers in a few months, you can blame me! In all, making lunch took about 10 more minutes than I expected, which was OK because today, I was running about 10 minutes early. Now we just have to get rid of the stragglers. Hopefully we are not in for a long process. In the mean time, I keep...

We are part of a CSA association (community supported agriculture) and we really love almost all of it. There are a few things we don't like to eat: NC grapes and eggplant are two of the biggies. Fortunately we get to choose which box of food we get delivered, provided that we request early enough. Unfortunately, for the past 2 weeks I have forgotten to request the correct box. Most of the default box is just fine (apples, peaches, loads and loads of cucumbers), but we've gotten peanuts in the boxes. First we got raw, then salted and roasted. I really feel anxious having them around the house with Amanda, like any minute she'll break out in an allergic reaction... We'll probably give away the raw ones and Michael will take the roasted ones into work, and I'll be glad to get them out of the house. Except that Ella and I tried the roasted peanuts this afternoon (Luke refused and had almonds instead). Peanuts are so good! There is nothing like them. We ea...

We don't really have pizza in the house. For a long time, Amanda was allergic to wheat, and is still allergic to dairy, and so if we get regular pizza we have to figure out what Amanda is going to eat. Add this to the fact that Eleanor really despises tomato sauce in all forms, especially on pizza (why would you let tomato sauce get in the way of lovely bread and cheese?), and we really haven't had pizza for a long time. Thus, when Luke is faced with a piece of pizza, he reacts the same way he usually does to an unfamiliar food: Why are you trying to poison me? Why are you giving me this burning hot piece of so-called food? But last weekend when I asked Michael to come up with an idea for dinner this week and Eleanor had already suggested bratwurst, he suggested individual pizzas. He has become enamored with roasted garlic (a result of Easter dinner, lamb shanks with rosemary and 3 heads of garlic in the slow cooker), and so he wanted to try it out on a white pizza. Sinc...

The other day Eleanor was trying to be funny, and when Michael mentioned "hamburgers," she came back with "Yummy yamburgers !?!?" Michael thought about it and decided that it would be a good idea to grill sweet potatoes. After consulting The Joy of Cooking , I peeled and sliced some sweet potatoes lengthwise into about 3/4 inch thick slices. I steamed them (always put the steamer into a pot of water that is already boiling) for 6 minutes, until the fork went in, but the slices weren't falling apart. We cooled them a little (the JOC recommends until room temperature) and Michael coated them in oil. They actually absorbed a good bit. We then very unscientifically grilled them until they were done---I think we would have been better off setting a timer, since some were a bit blackened. The JOC recommends 5-6 minutes (I don't remember if that is each side or total time). The verdict: Michael and I liked them very much. Eleanor liked them since we le...

So if I don't even cook the gruel (oat bran) that my middle daughter eats for breakfast, does that make me a cruel mother? She asked for dry oat bran and salt this morning for breakfast...

Sticky things I have had to wipe off Luke's face, mouth, hands, and everything else today: lip gloss chocolate soy nut butter caramel chocolate syrup ketchup candy cane I am taken aback by how Luke eats with his whole body, not just his mouth---I picked a piece of candy cane from behind his ear, just now. Most of those things were authorized (not the lip gloss or the chocolate syrup), so it's not like he was getting into things he shouldn't. He's just very messy. In other news, yesterday Luke saw a teenager walking across the street in front of us. The teenager spit on the ground. I didn't think much of it until a few minutes later, when I saw Luke bending down, trying to spit. He kept it up at dinner tonight, which earned him a few time outs. More than once the time out was almost done when he spit again, starting the time out over. Ugh. Keep in mind that whatever you are doing, the toddler is watching...

Today Luke went for a walk at a nearby park. He ran up to everyone he met and grabbed them around their legs. It wasn't quite clear what he was trying to do, since he was roaring at them at the time. He gets this from his sisters, who often roar at each other randomly, to try to scare each other. Luke loves the noise, he loves joining in making noises, he loves doing whatever his sisters are doing. The time will come soon enough when he realizes that this is not appropriate, in the meantime, it is very cute. I was sitting on the porch and heard jingling from outside. A cute little dog peeked through the screen door. I went to investigate, and the dog walked as bold as you please, right through the open door. He wanted to go into our house (maybe he smelled the stew I was cooking...) but I managed to get him back onto the porch. I did eventually get a look at his collar and called the phone numbers on it (I would have walked him home, but Luke was asleep). A relieved owner...

We had an actually pleasant dinner last night, which makes me wonder if my children have been replaced by aliens and if I have to try to get my children back. We had pork chops, cooked with apricot jam and ginger, along with broccoli. When I carried the pork chops out to the table, Amanda made gagging noises about the "white hamburgers", and was trying to tell me that she hated them, but I made her try one. She proceeded to eat all the meat on her plate (and afterwards told daddy that the white hamburgers were really yummy!). Eleanor was pacified by giving her a sharp knife. She did use the knife to cut off all the "skin" (the part with the jam on it, since she doesn't like sauce) and kept trying to use her fingers instead of her fork to hold the meat as she cut, but she was too distracted by the fun of a new, dangerous tool to complain much. Luke ate his usual amount without much fuss. He has a tendency to stuff 4 or more pieces of food into his mouth and ...

At lunch today, Luke learned that if he puts a grape in his mouth, closes his lips partially over it, and blows, the grape will shoot out across the table onto the floor. He also learned that if Mama gives him a cup to drink out of (not a sippee cup) he can use it to blow bubbles. Lunch was very giggly today, on two people's parts. Not so much on Mama's part, although since Luke did go over the floor, picking up and eating the grapes he spit out, I guess I should not complain.

Luke has taken to not drinking milk. He had a few sips of his sister's chocolate milk and then decided not to drink regular milk. He then decided that all sippee cups are bad, and so he won't drink it from a sippee cup unless he's really thirsty. But he loves the word “cocoa,” which he learned from “Snowmen at Night” (“sipping cups of ice cold cocoa made by snowman mothers.”). So I pour his cold chocolate milk into a mug with a straw, and he drinks it right up. He doesn't like anything to be warmer than room temperature, so I don't heat it up at all. He says “cocoa” over and over again while drinking his chocolate milk. It's all a matter of presentation.

Today for dinner, in honor of the kids' aunt and uncle and cousin, we had: sloppy Uncle Joes, with Anderj juice, and Aunty pasta Amanda got much more enjoyment out of eating the meal after the boring names were changed. Even Luke wandered around the table, laughing like a maniac (he imitates his older sisters very carefully) although he didn't want to actually eat anything else.

We have an excellent recipe for sausage, black eyed peas and rice. I like it. Michael really likes it. The kids, however... Luke will actually eat it. With a spoon, he manages to move the rice from his plate to his mouth. Somehow when he is done eating, his plate contains only tomato pieces. Amanda loves eating the sausages (my little meatatarian !) but isn't really excited about the rest. She spent much of dinner gathering the black eyed peas into a pile and saying that they were sheep, gathered in a cozy bed, snuggling up next to each other. I wanted her to eat them, but she informed me that she didn't eat sheep. She would eat it if I put spoonfuls into her mouth, but only if they contained no tomatoes or onions. Eleanor dislikes the entire dish. Finally, after about 35 minutes she managed to choke down one small sausage round (about the side of a quarter). She puts it in her mouth and chews for about 5 minutes (does she realize that she is prolonging the agony?)....

The other day after gymnastics, Amanda announces from the back seat of the car, "I want a sprout!" I think to myself, "OK, she's interested in gardening now? Or maybe bean sprouts?" (Actually, my first thought was What!!??? Those were my second thoughts.) We get to the Wendy's where we eat after gymnastics (otherwise Luke falls asleep without having lunch, a bad thing). I order the usual hamburger with only pickles and no bun for Amanda, with a side of mandarin oranges and a Sprite to drink (preferable to the Hawaiian punch or the sugar free lemonade). We pull away from the window and she asks, "Can I have my sprout now?" I finally understand that I had been talking about going to Wendy's, and she knows that they don't have juice so she gets a sprite. Except that she can't remember the name. At least she knows what she wants. Addendum: After Amanda said that she wanted a sprout, I told her that she could have one when we got hom...

Luke is still sick, so if he wants something to eat that isn't actively bad for him, he gets it. This morning, he was barely tolerating milk and soft foods. Shortly afterward, he asked for a corn chip. We thought maybe the corn chip tasted good enough that he would eat it even though his mouth seemed very sensitive. He brought it outside with him while we moved the last ( yay !) of the mulch to the back yard. (The formula for mulch moved over time had been approximating 1/x so we had been feeling hopeless.) When we noticed that Luke had been quiet for too long, we looked to see what he was up to. He was using the corn chip to scoop up dirt, and licking the dirt off the chip. Mmm . Salty dirt.

Amanda and Luke have been seriously underweight for a long time. Amanda actually lost weight when she was 10 months old, and has been hanging on just under the 3rd percentile line for a long time. Luke went from 50th percentile at birth to 10th to 5th to 3rd at a year, although we never measured a loss for him... It has been hard figuring out exactly why they weren't growing like expected. I know in my head that Michael has some relatives who were small children. Amanda and Luke certainly are not interested in eating---too many other things to do. Luke has lost his appetite over the past few weeks, while Amanda's has been improving steadily and becoming more regular. Well, today we had a weight check. Amanda is up to the 5th percentile for weight and 15th for height, while Luke is up to the 10th percentile for weight. I know that someone has to be below the 3rd percentile (otherwise it wouldn't be the 3rd percentile, right) but I'm just as glad that my kids are ...

Luke picks up a few cheerios very carefully with his spoon. He lifts the spoon to his mouth. On its way to his mouth, one cheerio falls out. He looks down and tries to grab it with his other hand. The rest of the cheerios fall out of the spoon. He puts the spoon in his mouth and is confused by the fact that there are no cheerios there anymore. Repeat. This is why when you come to my house, you are allowed to wear shoes. Perhaps someday we will be able to go around our house with no shoes on.