09 March 2016

Midweek Motley

What we're doing

Little Bear learned about exclamation points today. That knowledge may or may not have been acquired by reading comic book sound effects... He was very proud of himself.

Matt is home from his work trip, and hopefully not traveling again for a while. So many things are just better when he's home, when I know that he'll be back every evening. Rhythm and schedule are important to me, and it seems like the kids do better when our days follow familiar patterns as well. And of course, it's good to spend time with him and for him to have time playing with the kids. Kit definitely talks more for/to Dada in the evenings than she does all day with me: he regularly gets "drum," "(s)tan(d)," and even "dum(p) t(r)uck" from her, and I rarely hear anything other than "nigh(t) nigh(t)" and "done," both cues that she's tired of whatever else is going on and just wants to go nurse. Daddy is for playing with, Mommy is for eating and sleeping on. :-)

Kit has reached the point where she's very sure that she should be able to move around the room, and becomes upset quickly when it turns out that nope, actually, she can't. Tonight during story time she was rolling all over the bedroom floor, and found herself over by the mirror, where she happily smiled at herself for a while. She's become very good at "driving" her walker where she wants to go in the kitchen and dining area, but she can't get off of that hard-floored area into the rest of the apartment. If she's sitting on the floor and something or someone is out of reach, though, she quickly turns on the tears until Matt or I come and pick her up.

What we're eating

Red lentil vegetable soup tonight! It was my first time cooking with red lentils, and I'm pretty sure also my first attempt at vegetable soup. I left out the spinach and green beans, mostly because I forgot about them, but it was very colorful anyway with the carrots, tomato, and green bell pepper. The red lentils did not dissolve into creamy shapelessness like the recipe had promised, but it was a very good soup regardless. Little Bear was not a huge fan, but I'm hoping we can attribute his reluctance to eat it to the brown basmati I served it over... There's a lot left over, and I'd like him to help me eat it for lunches.

For breakfast on Matt's birthday, I had a pan of these dairy-free banana pecan cinnamon rolls waiting for us. So delicious! I was planning to have the rolls all prepped the night before and ready to pop in the oven when we got up, but then he had to take a later flight home than he'd planned and I was up waiting for him until midnight, so I just went ahead and baked them. We didn't wind up frosting them, and they really didn't need it. I wouldn't have believed that you could get such a smooth, springy dough with no milk or butter, but they were perfect; I even used spelt flour!

If, and this is a big if, everyone gets enough sleep tonight and is having a good day tomorrow and I decide that I'm feeling adventurous, we may be attempting to make homemade coconut milk. Surely it's not that difficult; the only ingredients are flaked coconut and water. There's a sack of unsweetened flaked coconut taking up pantry space that is not disappearing quite as quickly as I'd expected, and oh my goodness non-dairy milk is expensive. I've been using almond milk from the store, not coconut, but if I can make non-dairy milk at home with ingredients I already have instead of buying those cartons that cost twice as much per ounce as cow milk? I should try. We don't have a blender, though, and the idea of making milk in the food processor still has me a little skeptical.

What we're reading

I loved Simcha Fisher's post at the National Catholic Register today, "Suck it up" vs. "Offer it up". She explains well what "offering it up" means, and the reasons why we do it.

Over at Carrots for Michaelmas, Haley has a great collection of suggestions and ideas for How to Do Holy Week with kids. Although I've been keeping track of Sundays in my head—last Sunday was Laetare Sunday, we're coming up on Passion Sunday, and after that is Palm Sunday—I needed to see those lists of so many things we could potentially be doing to remind me to get our own lust hammered out here quickly.

Plus, she's hosting a giveaway for beautiful handmade beeswax candles shaped like Easter eggs, from Toadily Handmade Beeswax Candles! We used their make-your-own Advent candles kit this past year and loved it, and now I'm eyeing those eggs... do I really need more candles? But they're so cute! Check them out here.

Katherine of Half Kindled is hosting a series this week on creating a capsule wardrobe, which has been fun and informative so far. If you're interested, it begins here with Capsuled Style Day One.

And Little Bear is reading superhero books. Well, I'm reading superhero books, and Little Bear is reading "Boom!" "Crack!" "Zzzap!" etc. We have a set of Little Gilden Books featuring the Avengers, and it looks like they are back in the current set of books he wants to hear every day. At least it's not Dick and Jane; his insistence on trying to read that all by himself, when they start out assuming the kids know about silent Es and double vowels and all kind of non-short-vowels was making me crazy!

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