The Queen's Rambles

What an exhausting evening. I spent more time in the kitchen cooking two little items than I’ve ever spent cooking a meal, excluding an authentic Mexican fiesta or a holiday dinner. And the result? Was barely edible. Erik, though, loved it. He has loved all our low cholesteral meals, mainly because they are utterly devoid of flavor.

Now I need to clean my house because we are having a cooking class with six children and five moms over here tomorrow. What the hey-tang was I thinking? We’re going to make banana pudding, which will be easy and fun, but where are we going to do it? My kitchen table is covered with junk. Yet here I sit, typing this entry.

Elsa had her 9 month check-up today. I was glad to see the office park has planted tall, huge trees in a pattern that makes it much more difficult to see the graphic anti-abortion signs. Thankfully it was so cold that the protestors weren’t out so we were spared. I have several friends who live near there and they say you really can’t drive past on the weekend if you have kids in the car. Even those who are pro-life and pro-free speech are disgusted and want the people stopped.

Anyway, Elsa is doing well in most respects. She is 28″ and 24 lbs, so she is still off the charts big but less off the charts than she was at six months.

I chatted with the doctor about her eating and she was slightly concerned but said she doesn’t have very many teeth for a baby her age and may just be immature. However, if she is still gagging on food on her 10 month birthday I should call in and they’ll give me a referral to have her evaluated for occupational therapy.

I was pleased with the result of the discussion. Nothing hysterical from the doctor. We have a reasonable plan. I can table my worry for a month, no problem. Obviously we don’t have any concerns about her nutrition in-take.

She said I could start giving her meats and cheeses and other finger foods, which makes me laugh so hard. How is she going to handle a piece of meat or cheese when she gags on oatmeal that’s too thick? I have tried finger foods and she loves to put them in her mouth, but she gags on them. It’s really messy to feed a baby, but it is ten times messier to feed a baby that gags on everything and spits it out.

Speaking of messy. . .

I may have been negligent on bathing my son. He’s growing mold on his chest. Seriously, I don’t know what’s going on but when I was putting his karate outfit on him today I noticed he had these blue-gray spots that looked exactly like mold. I tried to pry them off, thinking they were spilled food or something, but they didn’t seem pry-able. I’ll bathe him tonight and see what happens. I hope he’s not growing some weird sort of fungus. My nephew has some weird fungus thing on his belly and apparently it is quite normal in boys. His is white, though, not moldy.

Can someone please explain the appeal of red velvet cupcakes? Other than the name sounds pretty and intriguing? On Cupcake Wars they are always thinking they are so original and fancy and whip out their red velvet cupcakes and they are rarely praised for them. Erik wants to make some but I find them so gross that I refuse. I thought I would like them. I’ve TRIED to like them. But I can’t get over the taste of food coloring. Why would I want to ruin a perfectly good chocolate cake by making it taste of artificial food coloring? I realize that red velvet cupcakes developed a long time ago because a certain type of cocoa powder reacted with vinegar and turned a reddish brown color, but these days all the recipes I see include a full ounce of red food coloring. So so so so nasty.

I am trying to regain something of myself and do an actual quilting project. I was very naughty and bought some fabric so I could play along with the big Harry Potter paper piecing project that Ofenjen is putting together. I have my first block half done. Hopefully I’ll find time to complete it by next Tuesday. It’s the first sewing I’ve done since moving my sewing room into my bedroom. It is a pretty horrible set-up and makes me feel very uncrafty, but you gotta do what you gotta do when you have kids.

And now I gotta go do laundry and bathe my moldy child. Whoo-hoo!