Butter Oil

April 25, 2014June 1, 2014Leave a comment

A little while ago, I noticed 5yo’s teeth didn’t look as white as before, and certainly not as white as his brothers’ pearly whites. There was yellow creeping up on a lot of his teeth. Apart from not looking fantastic, it’s disappointing because we don’t eat a lot of candy and we don’t drink any soda. Admittedly, he doesn’t eat as many fresh veges as 7yo, so there are greater amounts of vitamins and minerals that he is missing out on because he is obstinate, but he is just as conscientious at brushing his teeth as anyone else.
Having read about butter oil and remineralising toothpastes, and a few other crackpot ideas, I decided to start with butter oil tablets, but no one stocks them in town, apparently. I found these on amazon.

He has been taking 2 a day, most days, for a month. I thought the results would have been more noticeable earlier on, so I also got some clay toothpaste. It doesn’t have the calcium in it like the remineralising recipe, but I need to be realistic about what I will actually make at home. After 2 weeks of the new toothpaste and countless ganders into his mouth (he has 4 loose teeth in a row!), I have noticed improvement in the appearance of his teeth, and Husband agrees. Hooray! They have a dentist appointment in a few weeks, so hopefully by then, his choppers will be super duper healthy and we won’t hear any talk about early intervention techniques, like we did last year (about then 6.5yo needing a visit to the Orthodontist), because that is bullshit.

Box-free Breakfasts

April 22, 2014April 23, 20142 Comments

I’ve been thinking and talking about chemicals and preservatives etc in food with the boys for a long time. When 3yo was 2 or thereabouts, we were at the grocery shop and walked past a display of sports drinks or some other coloured beverage. He says “Mummy, this is chemicals”. It was a proud moment. Add in the gluten/wheat free diet for 3yo, I have been making cookies and muffins from scratch for a long time, and now I’ve decided (and remembered to be somewhat organised) to do away with crappy boxed cereal for the same reasons. The boys are eating through the last of the rice bubbles and cornflakes this week. 7yo refuses to eat the cornies because there is not many crunchy flakes left between him and the broken crumbs at the bottom, boo wah. So I have been googling for out of the box breakfast ideas the last few days.
Right now, I am trying to make some hash browns, which I can then put in the freezer for a later date.

I don’t have an egg ring, so had to settle for a turkey-shaped cookie cutter.

I might have one after the boys are in bed (omg they are SO good!), but the rest will go into the freezer after they cool.
Obviously there will be scrambled eggs once a week or so – I got 6 eggs today, HOORAY! – and I have made 2 flavours of muesli/granola to shake and pour into a breakfast bowl. But so far, I have not found something super awesome that the boys would clamor for in the morning. Perhaps that is just because they are still going through the factory-~~grade~~made cereals. Or perhaps it is because they are too dang loud and arguing with each other in the morning and I just can’t hear them begging me for more faux foods.
Anyhoo, I’m going to try and make some waffles to freeze as well, and I did have a recipe sent to me for dandelion petal bread. It was tasty, except for the gummy texture due to the xantham gum in the gf flour mix. Blech. I will definately try it again sans gum, and I think the boys will like it – it was great toasted – and like picking the yellow flowers for the recipe. I could probably substitute anything for the dandelion, like a bit of shredded carrot or zuccini. 3yo, 5yo and Husband – and me occasionally – also eat porridge/oatmeal, so altogether, that would be
5 breakfast options. Husband and I often eat a plate of grilled vegetables (olive oil is magic!), but the boys wouldn’t stand for that. A bowl of fruit would not do for the boys’ breakfasts either, because they don’t see it as a meal, and therefore won’t sit down and finish it before running off to make a mess somewhere else. Maybe that will change in Summer when the garden comes in.
I will keep looking for box-free breakfasts, I am certainly on rhe right track, but right now I need to put those turkey hash browns away so I don’t eat them all, they are awesome.

Twiddling thumbs/Steepling fingers

April 21, 2014Leave a comment

Usually I schedule my days from dawn til dusk, but today, on my day off (all the boys are in school today) I have nothing to do and no idea how to do it.
I should be catching up on housework, or enjoying time in the garden. I could have gone to a movie. But I did none of those things and have instead, done an errand or two, but mostly twiddled my thumbs.
I could say I’ve wasted my day, but really, having nothing to do is a nice change. No bums to wipe except my own; no arguments to quieten except the one in my head about what to do with myself. Of course, there’s always shopping, but the vintage shops are closed Mondays as are most of the antique stores.
I will have to come up with a plan for my next day off so I don’t waste the day again. Let me mull it over in this peace and quiet.

‘Old Nag’ or, ‘Out to Dinner and Other People not minding their Gosh Darn Business’

April 19, 2014May 2, 2014Leave a comment

We were out to dinner with the boys, which sometimes is great but most of the time is fun some of the time and the rest of the time is just a bad idea, and the guy at the table next to us kept eyeballing (my hat and collar)

our table at my incessant nagging of 7yo. I don’t enjoy constantly asking him to stop or change his behaviour, but the thing is, my boys know how to behave but sometimes they forget, so I will remind them, then take a gulp of my wine. I was getting a bit pissy that this fellow couldn’t keep his eyes and ears at his own bloody table. Even my boys can do that most of the time.
Of course, I started getting self-conscious about my parenting, then I just got self-righteous as we got in the car. Isn’t it my job to raise children who can follow the rules of semi-polite society? Wouldn’t he be the first to complain if they didn’t respect and listen to their elders? Isn’t it my responsibility to make sure they learn to keep their body parts to themselves and not use them for hurting others, unless we’re at home and they’re running rampant in the backyard? Wouldn’t he be insulted if they threw things and yelled and ran around while he is sipping his beer? I would, and I do when other kids are shits in restaurants. I don’t want my kids be “other people’s kids”, so
Elbows off the table
Use your napkin
Chew with your mouth closed
Sit up, on your bottom, close to the table
Don’t shout at the table
Walk to the play area
Share with the other kids
Be gentle with the little kids
Use your manners
Wait while we get ready to leave
Let’s walk together
Etc etc

Then as luck would have it, I decided to go out to lunch and I lost my temper at 3yo for being a shit and the old duck two tables down had disagreement all over her face. Or was it too much make up? She didn’t know he had been a shit all morning, even though he had played for two hours prior, or that I had just bought him a pined for toy and it was none of her business, anyway. She had never had kids or she had forgotten that sometimes everyone else can go fuck themselves while I voice my disapproval to my child about his behaviour.
I am of the very ardent hope that by guiding my children through the twists and turns of becoming positively contributing members of society, especially while out and about within that society, they won’t need to be poked and prodded and told to hush in the library when they are adults. They may also be able to look people in the eye and ask just what the hail they are staring at.

New car

April 10, 2014April 20, 2014Leave a comment

A while ago a young driver ran into the back of our car,

Mine is not the white one

so right now it is at the mechanic getting repairs. Luckily, we have almost a plethora of other cars to use in the absence of mine, so we aren’t using a rental. If we did, I would have a hard time cleaning that sucker out afterwards, considering the general state of my car the rest of the time. So what I’m driving right now is The Black Bomb. I don’t know what year it is, but it’s as long as a proverbial and has floaty steering that’s rubbish compared to my safe car. The boys love it, of course, because it is big and noisy, and the seats are higher so they can see easily out of the windows, but 7yo saw that it doesn’t have many airbags. Mmm-hmm. The Black Bomb does, however, have a cassette player, so we can have ear-worm kids songs on high rotation every time we get in. Husband woke up the other day singing the Bananas in Pajamas entire back catalogue; he was not impressed. I am not impressed that I have favorites on the BIP album, but the alternatives aren’t much better. Fingers crossed, my car will be ready to pick up by the end of the week.
But my car, while relatively new, has had a few things go wrong with it, and they always happen when Husband is away. Shits me. So we have started the “new car” conversation. We have also started the “purge and consolidate vehicle ownership” conversation. Insert raised eyebrows here.
The last 3 cars I have had were all maroon, coincidentally, and we are adamant that any future cars will not be, but that’s what we said about my current car. We are impatient and ended up with the maroon because that’s what they had on the lot and we wanted to drive it away NOW, damn it. Anyhoo, toes crossed that there will be different colours available when we decide to buy something new if and when we decide which car.
In the spirit of that old chestnut the “family meeting”, I have asked the boys a few times – because kid conversations have so many tangents – what sort of car they think we should get. 5yo wants a car with a tv, did I even need to ask? The problem is, our sweet widdle sausage before he was 3, put pennies in the disc slot, so our unnecessarily expensive entertainment option is now sort of fucking useless, until we can find a way to get those bad boys out of there. I rang around to ask the pros, but basically the whole dash needs to come off and blah blah blah, money money money. I am thinking more along the lines of a straightened coat hangar and double sided tape; Husband is dubious of both methods.
One thing we can all agree on is the colour – not maroon, but blue. The problem, if it can be called a problem, is that there aren’t many colour options in the models we are looking at. Literally 5 colours and no shades in between. Boo wah, I know that is a first world problem.
We could all probably use bigger cup holders, because some of our bottles don’t fit. And is there anything worse than kids yelling about spilled whatevers because they didn’t have the lids on properly and they didn’t check that the bottle actually sat inside the cup holder before they carelessly let go of said bottle and started teasing their (mother) brothers? No. No there isn’t.
What would my ideal car have? Spa pedicure in the footwell. I don’t care about the rest, I just want neat feet after every drive.
I know Husband doesn’t care so much about the new car so much as that I would be comfortable and safe in it, of course, and perhaps I might be so over the moon happy with it that I might keep it clean and tidy. Ahem. He obviously does not do much driving with his family of young children and semi-delirious wife.

It might be better to accept defeat and go this route.

Kombucha Adventures

April 9, 2014April 9, 2014Leave a comment

My house is cold but has lot’s of windows which doesn’t seem right for Kombucha-growing on the bench. So, mine is on a shadowy shelf in the pantry. The temp seems ok but out of sight is out of mind, so it has been brewing for a lot longer than necessary, I think.
I finally had some down time and was able to clean some bottles and find a funnel – because you know the boys have all 5 of them somewhere in their little kitchen – and pour out 2 bottles.

It was a nice colour, if a little dark, and fizzy enough, though apparently it will get more fizzy after bottling. Now for the taste test.

Smells about right

Tastes about right, I reckon

But what to flavour it with? I will be sure to use apple and ginger when the apples come in, but right now what I have in abundance is weeds, so I picked a bag of dandelion greens, and washed and juiced those fuckers. But the weeds had the last laugh because they are bitter as hell.
I added juiced then blended blueberries to it, then dumped them in the kombucha bottles.

Delicious! Next time I will try something else with the dandelions, then I will try to feed it to Husband, that skeptic.

Birthday Awesomnity continued

April 5, 2014April 7, 2014Leave a comment

Finally organised the eggs, and will have to remember to put them in solution asap, so the crystals actually grow. The rock candies seem not to be growing (only 10lbs of sugar, dammit), though a blog or two about how much of a pain in the neck they are suggests a week of growing, or a week in addition to the supposed 4 day growth period. Never mind.
Husband has checked the weather, and fingers and toes crossed, the afternoon should be warm and clear! So I can worry less about tents and wind, and concern myself with the old mine shaft and glow in the dark rocks. Or better yet, cleaning the house.

I should have figured out out to make a rice crispy volcano before I made the rice crispies, but I got there, I think. I still need to make a bigger section for the bottom of it, but I’m confident in these 2.
Note to self: rice crispy cylinders and other shapes need to be solid.

I have run out of rice crispy makings, so this will have to do. And actually, when they are all stacked, I think it will be at least a foot tall. Add the muffins, choc icing lava, some fleeing snakes, frilled toothpicks and sparklers, it will be (fine) perfect.

So next time I would just try this with sugar, as alum is sort of expensive and the recipe calls for 6tbsp for 1 cup of water. Alum apparently only takes 12-24hrs for awesome results, though. Or I will just never do this again, hmmm.

I baked the fossils for about 4 hours and left them overnight to make them properly fossilize. They look great. I found the dinosaur stamper cookie cutters in a random home store; they’re awesome.

It would seem that I like work, and thrive on stress, because I have left much to the night before the big day. This is contrary to my general lackadaisical attitude to daily chores. Hopefully Husband doesn’t get any ideas about my work ethic.

Cut to post party, and everyone had a wonderful time and went home with a bag of rocks and bellies full ofdynamite

and volcano

after admiring our awesome letterbox.

Good! Night!

Colour Blind

April 5, 2014April 5, 2014Leave a comment

It is merely a coincidence, because I have really only noticed it retrospectively, that I have gone threw colour phases with my wardrobe. I suppose this is not news to people – there are trends constantly doing this, that or who cares, but I don’t follow trends, and I don’t shop very much or even, shock! horror!, in trendy stores. I have found my colour phases – or trends, for anyone who wants to get on board – have spanned years rather than seasons, but I’m not sure how many years or what life events they have coincided with.
For a while, probably 15 years ago, EGAD, I was in a blue phase. I found these gorgeous blue suede shoes (literally!) one winter, and then a matching bag (complete waste of money), and I know there was a blue cardigan in there somewhere, and I’m pretty sure an awesome pair of blue pants, too. I can only hope that I didn’t wear them together, but I can’t remember.
Later, there was the green phase. It started around the time of our wedding, I think. I bought a very cute green leather bag. I don’t recall green shoes, but there was a green corduroy jacket, woollen scarf, leafy-patterned skirt and a handful of other stuff. It just seems that whenever something catches my eye, it is the same colour all the time.
Right now I am in a red and/or pink phase. It started about 4 years ago, I think. First I had a red leather bag, rectangular, long straps, beautiful; next a pink bag, shorter straps, rounded corners but still rectangular, zips galore, very cute. Next: 2 pairs of red pants, red hat, red shoes – nose bleed section tall, a couple of red/pink/orange patterned blouses, and again, every other thing that catches my eye is red or pink.
I can probably correlate some life events with my colour choices, but it’s all hearsay at this late stage.
Blue phase – a bit depressed from long term relationship with the wrong guy.
Green phase – I was envious of myself as I was so bloody happy after finally meeting the right guy.
Red/Pink phase – I have kids therefore I see red; pink is the colour of love, or of my kids’ faces when I hug them too long.
I have a white/off white/cream/ivory/beige bag right now. I hope it does not turn into a new trend for me, because that colour palette just invites disaster, and even though the animals at Yellowstone were only taking the air, I don’t want to add to the tension. Also, I think my caboose looks enormous in white.

Oh, poo!

April 3, 2014Leave a comment

I have successfully partnered with 3 children to reach the competence of Toilet Trained. However, 3yo has regressed a little to the point where he won’t go to the bathroom without me. Hopefully, back at home from vacation, his own bed and our routine will accelerate him back to where he was. I also drew up a handy chart for reinforecment and encouragement.

In the mean time, I have composed this:

‘An Ode to the Commode’.

I don’t dance – I try but fail
to catch the tune;
I fall and flail.
But when my son is on the can,
it seems my bladder can’t refrain
from needing to void right then and there!
So I must move and swing my hair
to take my mind off the unending doom
of being alone with him in the bathroom.
I kick up my heels and swing my hips
to keep cries of desperation rising from my lips.
Because, you see, when he does a poo,
it just so happens I need to go, too.

Exponentially Awesome

March 31, 2014April 4, 2014Leave a comment

Did you ever have one of those projects that kept on growing? Getting bigger and bigger until you yourself might explode because you couldn’t actually achieve all the awesome things you wanted to in a specific time frame?
Our honeymoon started out a little bit like that. I wanted to do about 25 things, but we were only taking a week off work. It was still awesome, but far more protracted than I originally planned.
Nearly 7yo’s birthday party is also in the Growing Out Of Control category.
Nearly 7yo loves gold and money and caaaash, and I can’t remember whose idea it was but it was agreed upon immediately, that the theme for his birthday party would be gold mining. So. I have gold and silver spray paint and rocks, and a pinterest account fit to burst. I also have a poor memory so have been taking and refining notes for a few weeks, and was wracking my brain this morning because I thought of another idea last night, but didn’t write it down and now it’s gone. Shits me.
While the muffins bake for the volcano cake

(diamonds come from volcanoes, yo, or something), I have washed the egg shells and peeled out the membranes as best I can to make geodes inside them.

What the hail is Alum powder? I found it in with the spices at the store, and apparently when combined with glue and some pinterest know-how, it will be totes the bomb.
We have the sticks laid out for the rock candy lollies as well.

I bought a pack of 100 as I’m expecting some of them to fail. We will see. We have invited nearly 7yo’s entire first grade class, siblings and parents also welcome, so, yeah. Half of the packet will be right on the money.
What initially included only gold rocks now includes geodes, dinosaur fossils, the bones of unsuccessful miners from years passed, glow in the dark rocks beneath an abandoned mining settlement, faux geodes with treasures inside them, and a plethora of themed foods. I also want to spray paint the letterbox gold, because why wouldn’t you? We will have to set up (everything) a geode station, for breaking those things open. They are tough nuts to crack, thats for sure! We did a few while on holiday and tore the shit out of a towel and chipped the concrete, too!

I just remembered I have sparklers in the pantry – they will be perfect for the volcano. But I am considering plaster of paris stuff to chip out, because I always like more of everything, and I want the parents to have stuff to do if they want as well. But what?
*
So it should be dinner time but I’ve started the fixings for the rock candy. And it’s basically sugar and water, and lots of it. I grew up on metric so the whole imperial pounds and ounces is still some sort of crazy bullshit to me, which is why I came up with needing 23.3lbs of sugar, which is stupid. So I will recalculate… well, that seems to be about right actually, which is even more stupid, and a shame because I only have just under 10lbs of sugar, and that will have to do.

Steamy!

I could pour some out, but the water is already as hot as beJAYsus, so I will forge ahead and hope for something more than limp biscuit rock candies.

I will be super disappointed if this doesn't work

There is about 36 jars, quite a few more spares than I thought, but I can’t imagine doing it all over again. Rock candy can go to hell.
I still can’t remember that awesome idea that I didn’t write down the other night, and it’s really chapping my hide, but I did come up with another idea that husband probably won’t like. Planks of wood as pathways! The weather here is on and off again rain with intermittent sunshine, which is great for the tulips, but rubbish for the lawn. It is very soggy, so even if we manage to mow it without tearing it all to hell, it will probably still be icky to walk on with whatever party shoes people choose to wear. And after watching the Yukon mini series with Husband, I think I’m expert enough to say that plank pathways are totes legit. Now if I could only get my hands on some army grade canvas tents.
I was wondering how to organise all the cars, and know we will need some sort of hanging sign. I hope double-sided tape will work on the siding, that is what I plan on using to hold up the old Christmas photos I had laminated for use as placemats. I have drawn large letters on the back of them in white-board marker, and that is the best use for them since they were made, as we never really used placemats. I have always found it easier just to wipe the table down after (ahem) every meal.

I’ve started on the faux geodes, which I’m intending to fill with diamond rings, snakes, and gold-themed chocolates, but the coffee grinds – grounds? – I have are moist. They need to be dry but I don’t want to wait another night, because I think it takes a while for them to dry, like days. So I’m drying them in the oven, and have a bit of time to kill.

What, they're done already?

The faux geode recipe calls for sand as well as coffee, so I got a bag at the hardware. A 50lb bag. The recipe only calls for 1/4 cup of frigging sand. I could have used dirt from the backyard! Anyhoo, I’ve got it now. Dumb ass.