December is flying by, isn’t it? Just two weeks until Christmas Eve, and I’m happy to say everyone here is pretty cheerful and into the spirit and enjoying the Advent calendar. Yes, even the Captain – MyFriendJen suggested that maybe he was doing a testing thing, and now that he knows the rule (i.e. you WILL ENJOY CHRISTMAS WITH YOUR FAMILY, DAMMIT), he’s pretty happy to participate. Dodged a bullet there – THIS YEAR, at least.

So far the activities are going well, just little things that we’ve enjoyed and help celebrate the season. I have been especially happy with our charity activities this year – I know many families that do so much more than we do, but we try to do what we can, and this year it’s going well. It was the first year I made a point of taking the kids to the Fill The Bus food bank campaign, and they were really into it, going through the store and picking things out for the drive (a nice mix of things they actually need, and fun things the kids like that they wanted to share with others). Then, we did our annual toy mountain trip and the kids each picked out something from the toy store that they themselves would want, then gave it away happily, and everyone left feeling really positive, and all was well, and CHRISTMAS WAS SAVED AND WORLD PEACE.

You know, the usual.

I think what I have learned here is that abstract giving of cash on the computer means nothing to them, but actually getting out and DOING something and GIVING something concrete has meaning for them, so we will definitely be focusing on that in the future, and looking for more opportunities to be more physically involved.

The only other thing I wanted to mention here was about Alight at Night at Upper Canada Village. We went last Friday and it was lovely and magical, and really, SO worth the trip down if you are considering it. But most importantly, there is a brand new rest stop on the 401 just outside Morrisburg, literally 1 km down the road from the Upper Canada Village exit. This means you can leave here at around 4:30, which is really too early for dinner unless your kids are 6 months or 60 years old, and then stop at the rest stop for either a pre-packed picnic dinner (which we did) or the treat of take-out (there’s a Tim’s and Burger King). All of which makes heading down there for the evening SO much easier, especially in winter.

Now I must go and make chocolate dipped marshmallows, then struggle not to eat them all while the kids are sleeping and the marshmallows are “drying.” IN MY BELLY. Did I type that out loud?

Yesterday we started up the family advent calendar, and even though the first item is always to put up the (fake) tree and decorate the house, there was much excitement and wondering about what the first activity would be. Once revealed, the girls were super pumped, and ran to get the decorations, and immediately flew into a decorating frenzy.

Then this conversation happened:

Captain Jelly Belly: “When I grow up, I am totally going to do this advent calendar thing.”

Me, heart swelling with pride, imagining Mother Of The Year award on my mantel: “Really honey? That’s wonderful!”

Captain: “Yeah, it’s a great way to trick your kids into doing work around the house and actually getting excited about it.”

Me, set to WAH-WAH horn of disappointment: “Oh.”

So yes, the Captain felt that trimming the tree in Norman Rockwell Treasured Family Moment style was work, and that we were trying to trick him into doing lame-o chores with his lame-o family. And so, I have seen the dawn of preteen behaviour, and it is a long, dark, lonely road ahead of us.

At first I told him he didn’t have to bother bringing his bad attitude around, and he could sit and read or whatever while the rest of us had fun. But that started to bother me, and Sir Monkeypants and I went to have a chat with him that covered these highlights:

• He would not be allowed to pick and choose which advent activites to partake in – he couldn’t pooh-pooh the things that seemed like work, then join in if we were going to Funhaven or something. (He immediately and without hesitation decided to opt-out of the entire thing.)
• Opting out of the entire thing was not going to be acceptable, because Christmas is about more than getting a heap of gifts on December 25, it’s about spending time with your family and sharing the season with those you love, whether you want to or not.
• Plus, some activities actually involve leaving the house, but he is still too young to stay home while the other four of us go out and have a good time without his sorry ass, SADLY.
• So, he better re-think his attitude on the entire subject and get his butt in there and get trimming.

UGH. I mean, on one hand, I don’t want to force him to do family stuff. My mother was always forced to do family stuff as a kid, and HATED IT, and still speaks to this day of the HORROR of HAVING to do to big family dinners every so often. When we grew up, she insisted we never had to do any family thing if we didn’t want to, and I took her up on that once when I was about 16, staying home while the rest of them went to Easter dinner at my grandparent’s house, and it was bizarre and uncomfortable and lonely, and I never did it again. So maybe it’s really best to leave him out of a few things and have him come around on his own.

But on other hand, at 10 I feel like he’s still too young to stay home alone for several hours or a whole day, especially in the evening, while I am taking the girls shopping or to a movie or to a museum, so he’s going to have to tag along to some activities, at least. And I agree, he shouldn’t be able to label some things as “lame” or “work” and ignore those, then do the fun things. I think maybe what I should do is get HIM to pick the activities for next year. Maybe I’ll even run this year’s list by him and let him make substitutions (which means, 24 days of PLAY VIDEOGAMES in the advent calendar, GAH).

It’s quite sad for me that the girls are still so passionately enthusiastic, but the Captain has apparently moved on. It’s going to be a tough, tough few years of juggling preteens and teens while I still have at least one kid who wants to still be a kid. I guess that’s what these years are all about – time to buck up and suck it up. Sigh.

Here’s the recipe for my chicken nuggets, as advertised by the Captain as being popular with the other kids in his class. Although, he will eat them himself when they are for dinner, freshly made; it’s only cold, in his lunch, that he frowns upon them. Luckily, Gal Smiley and Sir Monkeypants will usually eat the leftovers when placed cut up, in a wrap, with a little lettuce, ranch dressing, and sprinkle of cheese. Mmmm.

This recipe is actually from Allergy Proof Recipes for Kids by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger, and I highly recommend it to all who have kids with multiple food allergies – it’s simple, basic stuff with simple(ish, for allergy recipes) ingredients, and all the kind of stuff kids like to eat.

This is the original recipe; I actually make 1.5 the amount now in order to have enough for our family of five.

Chicken Nuggets

1 pound chicken breasts, cut into chunks
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I use canola)
2 teaspoons gluten-free tamari (I omit this due to the soy, but have made it with – good with or without)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning (I never have any around, so I use 1/4 teaspoon thyme plus 1/4 teaspoon marjoram)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper (I skimp on this – usually just a sprinkle)
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup rice flour (I use white, but you could use brown or a mix for a healthier version)
1/4 cup corn, tapioca, or arrowroot starch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Oil for frying (you’ll need about 2 to 3 cups)

1. Wash cut chicken and place in a large ziploc bag. Add the oil, tamari (if using), salt, sugar, and other spices, then shake the bag, coating each piece.

2. Put the bag in the freezer for half an hour (this will stop the outside from cooking too quickly, before the middle has time to cook).

3. While the bag is in the freezer, mix the flour, starch, and baking soda in a small bowl. With about 15 minutes left in the freezing time, get out a heavy, deep frying pan and fill it with about one inch of oil; pre-heat on medium heat.

4. Remove the nuggets from the freezer and pour in the 1/4 cup water; reseal and shake again. Then, add the flour and shake to coat. I have found it’s hard to get an even coating this way; instead, what I do is open the bag, then spoon about half the flour mixture over the nuggets; then flip the bag over, and spoon in the other half. Then seal and shake, and that works better.

This is what they look like at this stage:

5. Put a few nuggets in the pan at a time – don’t crowd them – and cook until golden brown. Depending on the heat of your oil this will be about 2 1/2 to 3 minutes per side (forgot to mention – they need to be flipped). I usually get paranoid and cut one open to make sure this batch is cooked all the way through. If the outside is getting dark brown or black in places, you need to turn down the oil.

Here’s a shot of the frying in action:

I am a nervous fryer and I hate splatter and kind of freak out when it happens, so I have a splatter guard I got at the dollar store, shown here:

It isn’t 100% effective but it does cut down on the tension in the kitchen a fair bit.

6. Remove nuggets to a paper-towel lined plate to drain, then serve with sweet and sour sauce for dipping (or in a wrap, as described above). Despite what the Captain says, they are actually pretty good cold the next day, as well.

Man, this November is kicking my butt. I have no idea how I ever managed to do NaBloPoMo – between Christmas shopping and work and activities and parties and sports and Sir Monkeypants being away in California for 10 days, I barely have room to breathe. The PVR is all backed up and I keep forgetting to do laundry and I think I have been to the Chapters about 40 times this week because I keep adding someone extra to the Christmas list. Breathe, Lynn, BREATHE.

I have about 25 blog posts rolling around in my head, but no time, so today I bring you Speed Blogging: Two Minutes or Less on A Variety of Topics. Alternatively: Blogging As It Was In 2003.

Two Minutes on Supermodels

A few weeks back I rented the movie Diner, which was made in 1982 (loved it, by the way). There’s a strip club scene in it, where a gal dances around in a sparkly bikini, and it was so obvious how much our ideals of physical beauty have changed, and not for the better. This girl was lovely, and, if you know me in real life, at least 15 pounds thinner than I am, and I am not a large person, so yes, slim and fit. And yet, due to her lack of six-pack abs and surgically enhanced areas and buffed and toned skin, she looked like an average person, and it’s odd and terrible how little we can tolerate that sort of thing in our ads and catwalks and movies these days.

The very next day I was watching TV with Sir Monkeypants and a Victoria Secret ad came on, and those models were, in comparison, so unhealthily thin, so oddly proportioned, so weirdly tanned and shiny, it was glaring. And I was horrified.

I know everyone says this all the time, to the point where I kind of nod and agree that our beauty ideals today are unattainable and bad for self-image, then not really register it. But this was the first time I think I’ve seen such an obvious contrast presented to my brain, and my brain did not like it, no siree.

Two Minutes on Holiday Music

It was my birthday on Monday, thanks to all well-wishers! I had a great day, actually – although Sir Monkeypants is still in California, the kids gave me gifts that he’d left for them that were awesome. I spent the day getting some work done, doing puzzles, eating a metric ton of squares from Totally Squared, and then watching National Velvet with the girls, an awesome family film about horses and female empowerment.

But the best part about my birthday is that it marks the official open season on Christmas, specifically Christmas Music. So on Tuesday I busted out the Christmas CDs and put them in the van, and was bopping along in no time. But the BEST best part is that the Captain, much like his father, has decided he DESPISES Christmas music, especially my beloved Hi-5 Christmas CD, and so that only means I need to play it MORE often and MORE louder and me and the girls will sing along MORE, while he squirms delightfully in the way-back of the van. DELIGHTFUL.

This morning he said that if he were in The Hunger Games, and they used Jabberjays against him, instead of having them make sounds of his family screaming, they could just torture him by having the birds sing Hi-5 Christmas songs. SNORT.

Two Seconds on The Hunger Games

The Captain just finished Catching Fire and now is reading Mockingjay, which has totally re-awakened my embarrassing passionate love of all things Hunger Games, and he is begging me to take him to see Catching Fire on Saturday morning as early as possible, and I just never thought I would love being a parent SO MUCH. Related: we are both getting little Mockingjay pins through Scholastic and DAMN RIGHT we are going to wear them on our coats like some kind of cult.

(Only, possibly, pinned on the inside, because we do understand that the first rule of Hunger Games Cult is that you don’t talk about Hunger Games Cult, except with other cult members.)

Two Minutes on Pie

Had the pie party this month. There was SO. MUCH. PIE. It was AWESOME.

Pictures! These are just of the 7 pies I made; overall there were like, 30 pies. Click to enlarge.

End of round one; more to follow.

So the other day I was watching Love It Or List It Vancouver on HGTV. It’s a show where a family is featured who hate their house, but can’t decide if they should pay to upgrade/change it, or just move. There’s a lady designer – Jillian – who comes in and remakes a good chunk of their house (always finding some unexpected problems, for dramatic purposes), and a guy real estate agent – Todd – who shows the family some buyable options. Then the family decides whether to Love It – that is, stay in their house – or List It.

Sidebar: If you are thinking of checking out this show, be sure to catch the Vancouver version, instead of the original, which is set in Toronto and features a different designer/agent combo. Unlike Jillian and Todd, who seem likeable and friendly, the Toronto people appear to hate each other, their clients, their jobs, and the entire known world. Not that it stops me from watching, of course, but Vancouver is definitely better.

Anyway, Sir Monkeypants was there too and we got into a friendly debate on how old we thought Jillian and Todd were. After placing our bets, we went to Google to figure it out.

Now Google – that’s a wild, crazy place right there.

Guess what we found out? Jillian is Jillian Harris…and was once on The Bachelor! She was the runner up back in 2009 and then even had her own season of The Bachelorette. And, it turns out she looked different then, because she has since had a nose job, and lost a lot of weight! She’s like the Kate Gosselin of interior design!

I…don’t even. I mean, it’s not like it has any bearing on her role in Love It or List It, and yet. SO WEIRD. It’s like finding out your next-door-neighbour, handing out Halloween candy in her yoga pants and a dollar-store witch hat, was actually a teen pop star named Robin Sparkles. What to do with information like this?

At least it explains why Jillian owns so many shoes. She has a really lovely design blog too, by the way.

So then, of course, we had to Google Todd and OMG. First of all, there’s almost no mention of him online in a real estate capacity – instead he appears to self-identify as an actor, Actor And Modern Man Todd Talbot, and even has an IMDB entry. Due to the thinness of credits there, I’m guessing he had to have a back up career, and I’m HOPING that career was as a real estate agent.

OR, is he just some sort of Milli Vanilli front man for a schlub of an agent who is doing all the real work behind the scenes? YIPES.

And THEN, we learned that Todd’s wife Rebecca Talbot is an actress/singer/model/housewife/princess, that’s right, princess, as she runs her own company where she plays the role of various princesses for kids’ birthday parties. And she also has a personal blog, which is actually really charming and Sir Monkeypants and I were chuckling along to it until we were suddenly overcome with a weird sense of voyeurism, like we were stalking Todd and his family.

And of course, all three of them are on Facebook, and Twitter, and YouTube, and are fully branded, and it was all just so surreal.

So now, when watching the show, I still like it and everything but it does seem to have taken on a more scripted feel. As if Todd and Jillian and even the family involved have a script they are working from. Could it be possible that Reality TV is not actually Really Real?

I CAN’T EVEN.

[Sidebar: Jillian is 34 and Todd is 40. We were WAY OFF.]

So on Monday I got up, intending to write a lazy is-it-too-late-already Halloween post, when suddenly I realized it was November. And that means screw Halloween, it’s time to start thinking about Christmas, because I absolutely cannot stand shopping in December so this is my main shopping month of the season.

And then I went to update my Facebook page with this week’s activities, and there were two major toy sales on there. That meant I had to go through my gift lists – I make a note of ideas throughout the year – and actually pick out something for everyone, so I would know if it was worth it to me to attend these sales.

And that triggered some sort of Christmas-shopping-frenzy, during which I spent two days rushing from store to store to get items on my list as if it were December 22. Just now I looked at the calendar and discovered it is, in fact, only November 6. Sir Monkeypants has a hard-and-fast rule that there are no Christmas-y things before my birthday, November 18 – no songs, no decorations, no talking about wish lists, NO. So it seems I have gone to some strange mental fugue state in which I have been transported weeks into the future and am panicking about it.

Someone kindly hose me down.

As part of my frenetic shopping days, I’ve been working hard on my Pinterest boards. I keep one board for each of the kids, as well as ones for several other people on my gift list, and when I come across something I think they’d like, I pin it there. That means that while others are pinning things like beautiful artwork and fabulous recipes and innovative interiors, I’m pinning things like Pokemon sets and pink plastic Barbie cars and DVD covers for Despicable Me 2. It’s not exactly Martha Stewart over here, but if you can get over the shame of having a cheap, weirdly commercial Pinterest board, I would recommend it, as it’s a really easy and visual way to shop for the people on your list, and if you decide to buy something, the links are all right there. Sir Monkeypants loves this – I used to send him an epically long, thousand-worded email each holiday begging him to review my choices, but now I just point him at the Pinboards. Awesome.

Anyway, after all that rushing around I’m still probably only 1/4 of the way done, and it’s not quite 1/4 of the way through November, so I should probably just chill and ride this marathon out, man.

Well, look at this – two recipes in one week! Soon you all will have to start calling me Lynn Ingalls Wilder.

(Please? It would be SO AWESOME.)

Anyway, here is the recipe for the infamous molasses cookies mentioned in yesterday’s post. I’ll post the chicken nugget recipe sometime when we are having them (we do often) and I remember to take a picture of them.

Soft Molasses Cookies
* from one of my all-time favourite cookbooks, Bakin’ Without Eggs, by Rosemarie Emro

2 1/2 Tablespoons margarine, room temperature (or you can use butter, or shortening, or for the deeply allergic and not at all grossed out, lard, which is what I use when making these for the Captain)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil (I use canola)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup molasses
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup raisins, chopped (optional, I have never used them, because AS IF my children would eat something with raisins in them. Although, have always wanted to try these with chopped dates, which I bet would be fabulous.)
1 teaspoon sugar to sprinkle on top

In a medium bowl, with a handheld or stand mixer, beat margarine, oil, and brown sugar until combined. Add molasses and corn syrup and beat some more until you have a smooth mixture.

Slowly add flour, salt, and cinnamon while mixing on low. Mix the baking soda with the warm water until dissolved, then pour into batter. Continue to mix on medium speed until a soft, sticky dough is formed (I find this point is too much for my hand mixer, so I just blend as much as the hand mixer can take, then knead in the rest of the flour by hand). If you’re using the raisins, add them now.

Divide the dough in half, and form each half into a thick log shape. Wrap each half in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for an hour or so.

Remove the tubes from the fridge and unwrap them onto a lightly floured surface. Roll a tube back and forth like you’re making plasticine worms until it is about 12 inches long, and 2 inches in diameter. Use a large, sharp knife to cut the tube into 16 equal slices, about 3/4 inch thick each. You’ll probably have to give it a little extra roll after each cut if you want round cookies; otherwise the slicing causes you to get triangles, which are also yummy but lead to awkward questions from the kids.

Place the sliced circles, cut side down, on a cookie sheet lined with parchment (or just lightly greased). Repeat with the other tube and a second cookie sheet for a total of 32 cookies.

Bake at 375 for about 8-10 minutes until firm, but not too brown on the bottom. Remove from the oven, and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Let sit for a minute on the sheets, then remove to a rack for cooling.

Mmmmm.

Him: Hey Mom, whatcha doin’?

Me: Making cookies for Gal Smiley’s Halloween party.

Him: Oh, that reminds me, I signed you up to make cookies for my party.

Me: Um, a little more notice next time would be good, buddy.

Him: I figured you wouldn’t be busy.

Me: SNORT. So, what kind do you want?

Him: Those soft molasses ones.

Me: Are you sure you don’t want something more festive?

Him: No, everyone LOVES those.

Me: Everyone? How does everyone even know what they are?

Him: Well, sometimes when you put them in my lunch I let other people try them.

Me: What?

Him: Sometimes I just don’t feel like eating cookies.

Me: You don’t feel like eating cookies.

Him: Naw.

Me: I guess this explains why you are a 52-pound ten-year-old.

Him: Mom? Everyone really loves your chicken nuggets, too.

Me: OF COURSE THEY DO.

And, scene.