Sweet Yet Sour

Pinkalicious

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 | Anna | 1 Comment

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I am always surprised that my tomboy self is raising a serious girly-girl.  Anna loves pink! Everything must be pink! From her clothes, to her shoes, to her snack and the cookies that she gets at the store – it all must be pink!

The other day I went in to her room after nap and Anna said, “I want to wear a dress and be a princess.”  Thankfully we had a pink dress that fit the bill that day!

So I should not have been surprised when Anna demanded a pink umbrella the other day (along with a pair of pink scissors – she’s in a paper cutting phase too).  Fortunately I found both at the grocery store (while Anna chomped on her free pink cookie).

That first day, since I’m not terribly superstitious, I opened it inside for Anna.  The umbrella went everywhere with her; she ate her snack under it and walked around with it for hours.

The next day it rained and Anna ran downstairs to get her pink umbrella and go outside.  Here she is trying it out on the porch for the first time.

Under the Pink Top

Then she got up the nerve to actually go out in the rain and try it out:

Out in the rain

And then, as if she had actually seen “Singing in the Rain”, she started twirling the umbrella and dancing with it:

Dancing in the Rain

In the end, much to the gladness of my tomboy heart, Anna handed the umbrella to me and just danced in the rain and splashed in the puddles:

Splashing

Pinkalicious!

Henry – 4 Months

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 | Henry, Updates | 2 Comments

As of 4:09 a.m. yesterday, Henry turned 4 months old.  It’s amazing how much babies change in such a short period.

This was taken when Henry was 10 days old -

Henry - 10 days old

And this was taken today:

Henry - 4 Months old

Henry had a check-up at the doctor’s office today.  They weighed and measured Henry and then tested his development.  And then they gave him two shots; I’m pretty sure that was his favorite part…

At 4 months Henry now weighs 13lbs 3 oz. and is 24 3/4 inches long.  He’s gained almost 2 lbs and has grown 1 inch since his last check-up on June 10th.

Pretty soon Henry should start rolling over – which should be fun. Right now he’s doing really well at grabbing things and then pulling them into his mouth.  All things go into the mouth at this point – that’s Henry’s only way of finding out about things.  I went to change him last night and discovered that his whole left sock was soaked because he had found his foot and wanted to taste it.

Right now Henry is feeling the pain from his shots – he’s been fussy and inconsolable for a few hours, except when I put him in the bath.  But generally Henry is a lovely happy boy and he dearly loves his sister, who posed for me this morning in Henry’s crib:

Anna and Henry

Someday I hope they’ll be great friends!

The Professor Retires

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 | The Daily Special | 4 Comments

After 41 years of teaching, my father retired this year.  My dad has taught organic chemistry at a small liberal arts college since 1969 and will spend this summer cleaning out his office and his lab and starting a new life as a retired citizen.

Amazingly, my father has had one job interview his entire life.  My grandfather was an auto mechanic so when my dad was young he and his brothers worked in the shop – no interview there!  In 1969, having completed his Ph.D., my father interviewed for a job at Colorado College for a chemistry teaching position.  He got the job and has never looked back, until now.

When my father first announced last year that he was retiring, my sister and I wanted to do something to celebrate his retirement.  With help from the alumni office we received the names and email addresses of every student of his since 1985 and every chemistry major from 1969 – 1985.  My sister diligently emailed ALL of them, asking for submissions for a surprise collection of memories of my father’s long teaching career.  For those students that did not have email addresses we had postcards made and sent 650 of them out.

From those submissions that my sister received she created a beautiful book and had it printed and ready for my dad’s retirement party. The book was filled with stories of my dad’s teaching style, which was firm, but always helpful when he recognized that people were working hard.  He has always had a little humor and sarcasm that has shone through his teaching. Over the years my father has taught an immense amount of students and many of them have gone on to do amazing things.  Many of them are medical doctors, medical researchers, and a few are even chemistry professors.  It was wonderful to have so many people praise my dad for his hard work and dedication.

I was supposed to add my own memories to the book, but the book had to be sent to the printer right after Henry was born.  During the last stages of my pregnancy, and after Henry arrived I simply did not have time to write anything for dad’s book.  So I’m going to make up for that now.

I have always been proud to tell people that my dad is/was an organic chemistry professor.  For me, it was always pretty cool.  When I was in grade school my dad would come to school once a year and set off a little volcano.  As I remember it was a small black volcano that would spew out some “lava” after my dad set it off.  I’m pretty sure it was a little explosion of baking soda and vinegar, and probably did not require a doctorate in chemistry, but it was fun nonetheless.  I remember one year my class was asked to write thank-you notes to my dad for coming to school and setting off the volcano.  I wrote, “Hi Dad.  Thanks.  What’s for dinner?”

In junior high and high school having a dad that was a chemistry professor meant that every year, right before science fair like clockwork, some popular boy would come up to me and ask for my home phone number.  I learned after this happened the first time that this was not so they could call me, but so that they could call my dad and ask for his help with their science fair project.

I myself always got help from my dad with science fair.  Science fair was a little father-daughter bonding time for us, beginning in the 4th grade when we experimented with the elasticity of rubber bands at different temperatures.  My most successful science fair involved feeding fruit flies various foods/supplements to determine if any of them would extend their normal life cycle.  Broccoli was the clear winner, but thanks to my dad I fed a batch of fruit flies a food preservative, Butylhydroxytoluene (BHT) – only a chemist could have thought that was funny!

When I was a child my dad’s office was a wonderland of fun things to play with when we visited.  There was a deep drawer in my dad’s desk that was filled with small plastic tubes of different colors and little connectors.  They were supposed to be for making 3D models of chemical structures, but we would spend hours making little people and the like with them.  I remember once fooling around with these things and having my father take what I had made out to the conference room where his students were studying.  My father showed them what I had made and then quizzed them on what chemical structure it was.   When they all looked perplexed and frightened by the potential affect on their grades, he laughed and said, “It’s nothing.  Just something my daughter made.”

While my father was hard at work teaching future doctors and researchers, my mother was working hard raising two kids.  As busy as she was, every Thursday for years my mom would make two 13″ X 9″ cakes, one for our family and one for the chemistry students.  Friday afternoons we would take the cake into the chemistry department and my sister and I would fight about who got to carry the spatula (we were never allowed to carry the cake).  My mom would set the cake in the conference room and we would watch with amazement as the students appeared out of the woodwork and would descend on the cake like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

When I transferred colleges in the middle of my junior year back to Colorado College (CC), partially because I was homesick and couldn’t take another Wisconsin winter, and in part because I wanted to study primates, I learned of my father’s reputation on campus.  Being his daughter I knew my father was a hard task master, but it was interesting to hear of the same unbending attitude towards his students.  Once, I met a former student of my father’s who, when I informed him who my father was, silently smiled and then ended the conversation – I’m guessing he didn’t get a good grade!

And then one day I met a former student of my father’s who had a far different story of my father’s teaching style.  He told of how he had done miserably in one of my father’s classes, but my father had seen some potential in his failure.  My father asked him to spend a block (CC is on the block plan) retaking the class.  The student did so, spending my father’s once a year block off with another student who was also retaking a class.  The student passed the class the second time and went on to be a chemistry major.

I think what our family will miss most about my father not teaching anymore will be the community of the campus.  My sister and I grew up on campus, were friends with all of the other professor’s kids, took swim lessons at the pool, spent hours in the library and really considered it our second home. My father, when he wasn’t teaching also coached the women’s cross country team and had positions on many faculty boards.  We were dedicated fans of the hockey team and probably always will be to some extent.

I will miss being able to go into my father’s office, find the coffee cup and the hot apple cider packets he kept there for me and sit down with my dad for a chat while his students come in and out of his office asking for help.  I’m sure my father will miss this too, but I’m hoping he can make up for that by spending lots of time with his grandkids and even someday help them with their chemistry homework like he did for me when I was in high school.  Perhaps then they will realize that not only is he a great grandad, but he was also once a great professor.

The Evil Little Machine

Monday, July 19th, 2010 | Cooking | 5 Comments

You know how people sometimes imagine that in the future we will all be controlled by machines?

Well, in our house, we are controlled by one evil little machine in the kitchen.  It doesn’t look evil, does it?

The Machine

This is the Cuisinart Supreme Commercial Quality Ice Cream Maker.  It’s evil; it speaks to me, it makes me do things that I should not do.

Makes damn good ice cream too.

Mike got this for me for my birthday last year.  When the machine first arrived we discussed that we would leave it on the counter for a little while, perhaps until we each gained 10 pounds, and then it would go down to the basement.

Instead, it has taken up residence on the counter and has never left.  See how evil it is? It’s wormed its way into a permanent place in the kitchen…

Mostly we use it for vanilla ice cream, since that goes nicely with anything, but I’ve also branched out into other flavors as well.  I’ve made chocolate, mint chocolate chip, peach sorbet and blackberry ice cream.

But recently I’ve perfected the technique for butter pecan ice cream and I can’t seem to stop making it; every time we run out something tells me to make more.

Butter Pecan

The machine comes with a recipe book that I have diligently followed, although I made up my own blackberry ice cream recipe, but I had to tweak the butter pecan recipe.

Butter Pecan Ice Cream

Mix together until the sugar is dissolved:

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup whole milk

Add to this:

2 cups heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

Once the mixture is well blended, place in the refrigerator for 1/2 hour or more

While the mixture is chilling:

Chop 1/2 cup pecans

Melt 1 stick (8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter in a saute pan

(do not use salted butter – I made that mistake once)

Add the pecans and 1 tsp kosher salt to the butter and, stirring frequently, toast the pecans until the are just starting to turn a light brown.  Strain the pecans into a bowl, retain the butter (which is now pecan butter) and allow the pecans to cool.

Throw the cream/milk mixture into the ice cream machine.  Our evil little friend only takes 50 minutes to make ice cream, and all you have to do is add the cream mixture and go – hopefully your ice cream machine takes a little more work!

After about 40 minutes of stirring in the machine I add the cooled pecans and a few teaspoonfuls of the butter.  Try to get the some of the butter sludge at the bottom – it’s butter, salt and tiny pieces of pecans and it really makes the difference.  Allow the machine to blend the pecans and butter into the ice cream and then once completed freeze for at least 3 hours.  Then, consume.

Last week my mother was visiting and before I went upstairs to take a nap I told her she should have some of the butter pecan in the freezer.  I awoke from my nap to find a happy mom, and no more butter pecan.  Apparently she felt that the ice cream was “almost gone anyway” and so she ate two bowls.  I think I saw tongue streaks on the ice cream container too…  Now the machine is controlling my mother!

The Bad Break-Up

Friday, July 9th, 2010 | The Daily Special | 6 Comments

For me, high school is like an ex-boyfriend with whom you’ve had a bad break-up.  You think you’re over him, that you’ve moved on and forgotten him entirely.  Until one day, years later, you see him one day in the grocery store.  You attempt to hide from him, darting between aisles and displays, only to be caught by surprise behind, ironically, the Hostess shelves.  You exchange greetings, suffer through some embarrassing pauses in conversation, and finally it’s over.

You turn to leave, relieved, only to think moments later that he will probably go home, call all of his friends and say, “Whoa! She got fat!”  By the time you get to the check-out line your posture is slumped and by the time you get to your car you jump in so no one sees you crying.  None of the wonderful things you have done with your life since you saw him last were reflected in the conversation, and you almost want to run back and say, “But wait! I’ve accomplished so much – I’m a totally different person now!”

You were a different person then and he was an awful boyfriend.  You wonder sometimes where your self-esteem was at all – it seemed to be missing entirely.  He made you feel ugly, unloved, stupid, and worst of all, alone.  You said and did things that were out of character, until you completely lost yourself in the mess.  When the break-up came, you wondered, “Was it something I said or did?  Is this all my fault?”

I’ve never been one of those people who could keep a friendship going with an ex-boyfriend anyway.  The last time I tried it was, well, high school.  I tried to stay friends with my senior year boyfriend after we broke-up.  It was going pretty well until Graduation Day when he informed me that he and my best friend had been secretly dating since Prom.  I remember smiling and telling them how happy I was for them, while suppressing nausea and hoping that the day would end soon and that I would never see either of them again.

I never felt I belonged anywhere in high school, or with anyone.  And so when it was over, I ran, far, far away – trying to forget how awful it was – how it made me feel about myself.  Almost immediately I lost contact those few people I thought of as my friends in high school, the result of lack of trying on my part, and perhaps lack of interest on theirs – I really don’t know.  And I really, truly, thought I had moved on, that the person that I was now did not care about the past and the pain that was there.

But then, of course, there is Facebook.  A childhood friend of mine convinced me join, told me it was a great place to find old friends.  And it is, there are so many people that I have wondered how they were and what they were doing that I have found on Facebook.  But I have also found, much to my surprise, that I am still not over high school.  I still feel like I don’t belong with these people, that I am yet again the girl in the corner of the gym waiting for someone to ask me to dance.

A high school friend, with whom I, of course, have lost contact with, once told me that in high school I was “invisible”.  And I can’t remember whether that was purposeful on my part or not – but there I was, or wasn’t, really.  I wrote poetry then, acted in plays, wrote great papers and got good grades, but never belonged.  Are there people who feel that they belonged in high school?  That this was the greatest time of their life? I am most certainly not one of them.

It wasn’t all bad – I loved my physics class, my history and French teachers.  I learned a lot, took some great classes and had friends that I loved very much.

Apparently there was a great party at my house once in high school.  But sadly I wasn’t there, so I don’t have all of the details.  A friend of mine took the opportunity of being asked to house-sit while I went to visit my sister and my parents went to the Sand Dunes for Thanksgiving, to use our house for a party.  I arrived home, hours before my parents were due to come home as well, to find the house a wreck.  Corn flakes were sprinkled all over the entire house, trash cans were filled with beer bottles and strangely, every single one of my 64 crayons were broken in half.  I cleaned it all, frantically, and made it look to my parents as if nothing had ever happened.  If I had felt like an outsider before, the fact that I had not been at a raucous party at my house only made it worse.  I remember feeling as if I were a piece of paper that had folded in upon itself in an attempt to disappear entirely.

And so now, when I see that those people from high school are still friends, that they still get together, play together, etc. for some reason I still am jealous.   I still wonder, “Why doesn’t anyone invite me?” You see what Facebook has done to me? I’m wallowing in self-pity again! Just like high school!  I think I’m hoping that writing this will give me a little catharsis, perhaps help me to leave all of this behind.

You were a horrible boyfriend high school. I often hated myself just as much as I hated you.  I want you to know that I am, except for when I make the mistake of reading my Facebook home page, a different person.  A happier, more enlightened person.  I will never get the apology from you that I think I deserve, the attention I craved and you will never know what I am like now.  I have indeed accomplished many things since last we saw each other, I am loved and have others to love in return.  I turned my back on you and ran, and in the process regained myself, but every once in a while you haunt me.  Perhaps someday (maybe when I finally stop going on Facebook!) I’ll be able to let you stay in the past.

The Busy Girl

Sunday, July 4th, 2010 | Anna, Updates | 3 Comments

Our mostly sweet, but sometimes temperamental Anna, has been pretty busy lately.  Along with keeping up a schedule of music class, school, and tumbling class, she’s also been doing lots of fun summer activities.

A few weeks ago Anna’s cousin Brendan came over to play.  He came with a large pitcher and some freshly squeezed lemon juice in it; he had a plan to have a lemonade stand in front of our house.  Since I was a big lemonade stand girl myself, I happily added some water, honey and ice to the operation.  Then I made a sign that said, “Lemonade – 25 cents” for them and told Brendan to color in the letters.  Too bad I forgot that he’s still 4 and watched as he colored over the letters…

Lemonade!

I thought people would probably get the idea anyway, so I taped it to Anna’s art table and we moved the operation out to the end of our driveway.  Anna didn’t really get the whole “Lemonade Stand” idea, so she sat across from Brendan and drank a cup of lemonade – thereby giving Brendan his first quarter of the day…

Drinking the product...

Brendan, meanwhile, had gotten a new “Home on the Range” harmonica that day and played that through the whole stand set-up process.  After two cups of lemonade went to the kids (yay! 50 cents!) we managed to sell the rest.  One cup to a nice woman who stopped her car in the middle of the street and paid $2 for her cup, one cup to my sister, one cup to a kid who tried to drink his cup and ride his bike away at the same time, and a car with a mother and 4 teenage girls that were on their way home from school.  Everyone who bought a cup of lemonade was treated to a harmonica song from Brendan – free with purchase – what a deal!  All in all, a major success!

Two weeks ago we had a lovely playgroup with some friends from our original birthing class for Anna.  Our friend Angie brought her son Timothy and her new baby Kate over, and our other friend Brooke brought her two twins Morgan and Keira over.  After lots of playing with the water table, etc., we sat all the kids down for lunch (fruit and cheese pizza) at Anna’s little table.

Timothy, Anna, Keira and Morgan

They all had a great time and everyone had so much fun at Anna’s water table that now they each own one too – I should get a commission from Toys’R'Us!

For Anna’s birthday my parents sent some money for a new outside playhouse for Anna.  We couldn’t find the right one until just recently, and it came this week, and was set up for Anna on Thursday night.  Anna saw it from her playroom window Friday morning and demanded to go down and “play with that!”  She didn’t even know what it was, but Anna knew it was a new fun thing for her! It has a door, mail slot, working doorbell, two windows, a little sink, table with seats and a little phone.  Anna loves it and played with it all day Friday.

I took some video so that my parents could see what a hit their gift is with the little girl:

Anna even demanded to eat her lunch in the playhouse (she also commanded that I make pizza rolls):

Playhouse Lunch

All-in-all, Empress Anna has been having a great summer so far.  Oh, and thanks Nana and Grandpa for the playhouse – the little girl obviously loves it!