The Best Damn Sauce I’ve Ever Had

OK, I realize this isn’t a cooking blog, but it’s so rare for me to stumble upon a recipe that gets me excited to eat (because I am completely lost in the kitchen) that I feel compelled to post this.

We had a small party on Saturday and someone brought over some chicken strips with Creole Mustard Sauce.  The sauce was AMAZING.  The best part is that all of the ingredients are fairly straight-forward and easy to find in the store, something that my cooking-phobic little heart adores.  I have used the leftover sauce on chicken, salmon, burgers, celery, broccoli, and cucumbers.  It’s incredibly versatile. 

One substitution to recommend: instead of regular dijon mustard, the person who made the delicious batch that I’ve been enjoying over the past few days suggests Grey Poupon Country Dijon Mustard.  I am cutting and pasting from the recipe website; the link is below the recipe.  I did NOT try making the chicken that goes along with the recipe.  Anything that calls for combining Cap’n Crunch cereal and chicken freaks me out a bit.

Creole Mustard Sauce

• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup creole mustard or Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
• 1 teaspoon horseradish
• 1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
• 1 dash worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon water
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon green onion, sliced in pieces
• 1 teaspoon crushed garlic
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped green pepper
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped celery
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped onion

http://www.recipezaar.com/Planet-Hollywood-Captain-Crunch-Chicken-18065

If anyone decides to make this, I would love to hear if you like it or not.  Feel free to criticize – I won’t be offended since I claim no ownership of the recipe (the credit goes to someone named Mysterygirl, as cited on the recipezaar.com website).

And To Think I Once Believed My Kids Were Smart

I had another reminder recently of just how stressful it is to be a parent and how the title “parent” really ought to be changed to “permanent guilt trip.”

The kids and I headed over to a local park for a play date with one of Ginger’s friends.  As the kids played, the other child’s mom and I were discussing the kids in general and as an airplane flew overhead and my kids went nuts over it, I casually commented that some of their current obsessions include airplanes and helicopters, as well as the moon.

Other Mom then said that her daughter asked her earlier that day if the moon was a planet.

Um, what?

This child understands the concept of planets enough to make the connection that the moon might be one?  And here I thought my kids were somewhat intelligent.  I guess it’s time to start looking into some “alternative” classes for Ginger given that I’ve never considered discussing the concept of planets with her.

Seriously, though, this is the brutal part of parenting.  Surely there are ideas or concepts that Ginger gets that her little friend, who is only one day younger, doesn’t get… I hope.  It doesn’t help that her mother told me recently that they sometimes pass the time by singing songs in English, French, Spanish, AND sign language.  Meanwhile, I’ve spent three years trying to teach Ginger some French and we’re still stuck on “bonjour.”

It’s easy to think that your child is a genius whenever they make some new connection, and it’s certainly fun to think that your child is ahead of the curve on something, anything.  But then things like this happen to bring you right back down to earth.  And really, does it matter that Ginger doesn’t understand the concept of a planet yet?  She is three! 

This is what I loathe about parenting these days.  Pick up any book or read any news article, and it’s all about the hyper-competitive nature of Gen X and Gen Y parents who will do anything to get their kids ahead of the curve.  I see this at our play groups.  One three-year-old goes to a Spanish immersion class and now knows more Spanish that I ever learned from my year of study in the 7th grade.  Another 3-year-old is obsessed with horses and apparently knows all about different breeds, how to care for them, the best diet, etc..

Meanwhile, I read to my kids, speak to them using adult words, and encourage as much creative play as possible, hoping that somehow this all creates some fertile ground for a intelligent adults.  I’m certainly not using flash cards or quizzing them on the fifty states or taking them to piano lessons… yet.

Parenting really can be madness and I struggle regularly with keeping my head about myself as to how we are doing as parents.  Finding out that Other Child is a genius really doesn’t help my cause.

Losing My Mind, One Cell At A Time

I’m fond of telling people that having children caused me brain damage.  And when I say “fond,” I mean that I’m forced to confess this to people after humiliating moments of raging stupidity brought about by having birthed said children.

To wit, recently I was at the park with the kids, talking to another mom.  I can’t recall precisely what we were discussing because, as I mentioned, I have brain damage, and I was trying to describe the part of the jungle gym that Ginger was going down… you know… the thing that angles down to the ground.

The other mom stared at me blankly.

“You know, that silver thing that kids sit on and then scoot down… from the top of the jungle gym to the ground… that thing.”

“Oh,” said the other mom.  “You mean the slide?”

“Yes, that’s it!” I said, at which point I promptly dropped to the ground and pretended to suffer from a sudden, severe ankle injury to distract her from my swiss cheese mind.

It’s amazing: I can remember random details from 30+ years ago but can’t recall what happened yesterday.  For example, thanks to a temporary childhood infatuation, to this day, I can still describe the technical differences in all the various figure skating jumps despite never having been a figure skater myself, but I couldn’t tell you who won the Super Bowl last year.  Given that I spent many years being a huge – HUGE – football fan, that makes this all the weirder (not to mention that my father, who took so much pride in my love of football, is so ashamed).

Another regularly occurring example: I can walk upstairs to do something and by the time I get there, forget what I’ve gone to do.  I can’t begin to count the number of times this has happened.  I used to think it was because I was sleep-deprived, but little Fred has been sleeping through the night for 15 months now so that’s no excuse.  Then I thought it was because I was malnourished, since every parent knows that having a newborn means you can barely find time to use the bathroom, let alone feed yourself.  But I have no problem finding time to feed myself these days.

Then I thought it might be because I let my brain go after leaving my job, and reveled in parenting magazines, learning the proper way to sanitize baby bottles, puree sweet potatoes, treat eczema, and soothe a screaming infant.  But I’ve since abandoned that mindset and now read about current events pretty fanatically (although I can still get through entire news articles without being certain of what I have just read.  This tends to happen when a small child wearing underwear on her head is banging on your arm and shouting your name while you are trying to read).

So perhaps you can see why I’ve concluded that I suffer from permanent brain damage.  I just hope that I never forget where my underwear should go.

Die!

Yesterday the kids and I went to a coffee klatch through our local moms’ group.  As the moms were chit-chatting, the kids were running around, playing.  Every now and then they would lie down on the floor and get very quiet.  We all thought this was lovely because it gave us the occasional few moments of peace and quiet.

Among the kids doing this were my one year-old son, another one-year-old, and several three- and four-year olds.  Spearheading the games were two girls, aged 5 and 6.

Toward the end of the gathering, the kids picked Ginger to be the “villain” and the two oldest girls were across the room, yelling “Na-na-na-na-na” at her.  This all happened in the course of about 5 seconds, and I was out of my seat as quickly as could be to address the situation.  Ginger’s face was red (although she was smiling) so I asked her if she was OK.  She said yes and I assumed the red face was from running around like a maniac.  Then another mom asked what game they were all playing, and the oldest girl yelled, “DIE!”

In other words, when they had been lying on the floor, they were pretending to be dead.  And they were picking “villains” to kill them all.

My kids don’t understand these concepts and needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled with any of this.  I also wasn’t pleased with the “na-nas” being directed toward my daughter, although it was fairly clear that it wasn’t intended to be malicious; the older girls were merely imitating something they had seen elsewhere.  Nevertheless, this whole escapade was an unwelcome wake-up call.  Right under my own nose, my kids were playing something highly age-inappropriate and my daughter was being marginalized, if temporarily, by her friends.

I made clear to everyone in the room that I didn’t like the game and that it was over.  Thankfully, the other moms agreed and chimed in after me.  But these things are going to happen and I have my tight feeling in my chest just recounting all of this.  I was bullied for one year in school as a child, and I am going to make damn sure that my children don’t have to deal with this.  They also don’t need to be pretending to die at the ripe ages of 1 and 3.

Going forward, this Mama Bear is going to be paying more attention to what her kids are doing when they play with others.

Lessons From Vacation

So as you probably guessed from the paucity of posts lately, we’ve been on vacation.  The kids and I headed to my parents for a few weeks, with GrumpyDaddy joining us in the final week.  I’m tied up trying to settle back in at the moment, but I wanted to do a short post noting that the quickest way to remember what life was like pre-children is to visit people who don’t usually have the tiny monsters running around, destroying their home. 

My parents live the life.  They are retired and basically spend their days golfing, doing volunteer work, and partying with their friends.  They come and go as they please, and don’t need to do three hours of advance planning and bring along several bags of crapola that might be needed in the event one of them suddenly (1) gets hungry; (2) needs to poop; or (3) otherwise behaves in a way that could result in public humiliation.

Watching them live what I would consider to be a “normal” life was a sharp reminder of what used to be around my house.  I just can’t imagine having freedom like that anymore, and boy, is that depressing.

So here’s the kicker: my parents were kind enough to care for the kids overnight while GrumpyDaddy and I took off for a two-day trip just to get away.  It was my first night ever away from the kids and despite the fact that I felt zero compulsion to check in to see how things were going, I found that I missed them.

Thus, here’s the net-net: when I’m with my kids, I need a break.  When I’m not with my kids, I miss them. 

Do they make a drug to treat this particular form of mental illness?

You Know You’re A Parent When…

This morning I was drinking a large glass of water.  Ginger decided she wanted some and started taking sips in between shoving handfuls of Cheerios into her mouth.

When I attempted to reclaim my glass of water, I noticed a fair amount of Cheerios crumbles in the bottom of the cup.  Ginger’s backwash.

I drank the water anyway.

How To Stuff Your Child To The Gills

Any parent of a toddler knows the battle that can ensue at mealtime.  Sometimes your child doesn’t like what you are serving.  Sometimes your child simply refuses to eat, period, despite the fact that you are serving French fries, chocolate cake, and large dollop of candy-coated lard.

My darling Ginger likes to scare me by not eating much of anything for days on end.  I offer food but she’d rather play.  Or torment her brother while he eats.  Or follow me around, asking, “What are you doing Mommy?  What are you doing Mommy?”

Once in a blue moon she’ll gorge herself on cheese or yogurt or faux chicken nuggets (which, I must say, taste surprisingly like actual chicken nuggets).  But in between, she’ll eat the occasional grape and not much else.  If she wasn’t so healthy and active, I’d be terrified.

However, I seem to have stumbled upon a surefire way to get her to consume massive quantities of food.  You see, Ginger is in that maddening transition between needing-a-daily-nap and not-needing-a-daily-nap.  Back when she was transitioning from two naps a day to one, it took months for her to be able to consistently go without a morning nap, so I’ve been down this path.

This time, however, we have been negotiating the no-afternoon-nap for nearly a year.  Some days she needs one, some days she doesn’t, but she is always – ALWAYS – convinced that she does not need nap.  She could be falling down tired, leaning against the wall because she doesn’t have the strength to stand on her own two feet, and she will insist she is NOT tired, darn it.

So the quickest way to get Ginger to do something she doesn’t want to do is threaten to make her go take a nap.  The fact that lunch occurs just before naptime is pure serendipity, and I milk it for all I can.  As a result, Ginger now eats the world’s largest lunch because she will do anything to postpone the nap that she doesn’t want to take.  Today she ate blueberries, cantaloupe, two “pink pancakes” (pancakes made with pancake mix, apples, and – I kid you not – pureed beets), more blueberries, mini-waffles, goldfish crackers, and a mini-thermos of milk. 

Each new threat of a nap triggered a request for more food.  It was fantastic.  The very best part was that she ended up taking a nap anyway, probably because she needed to rest up to drag her improbably full belly around.  In light of the fact that she now gives me zero quiet time first thing in the morning, any nap is a reason to celebrate.

I’m now hopeful that my daughter will manage not to waste away.  Tomorrow I’m going to really push the envelope: I’m going to tell her that she has to take a nap if she doesn’t eat some veggies.

Ginger Gets Devilish

For anyone who doubted the veracity of my claim that Ginger had scrawled satanic verses all over our driveway, I present this small art project that Ginger brought home from camp last week. The top of the shell was painted, and apparently Ginger decided to show off her writing skills, which consist of only three letters. You can see the results.

In light of the fact that she attends a Quaker camp, I’m sure this went over well with her teachers.

I Love You, Now Go Away

Here is one of the many ironies of parenthood: you love your children to pieces, but want nothing to do with them.

I exaggerate, but only slightly. In a nutshell, Ginger is now 3 years old and is full – FULL – of energy. We could do step aerobics all day long and she’d still have energy left at the end of the day to run a marathon. Apparently this is typical for toddlers, but no one warned me. I suppose it doesn’t matter, since there is nothing I could have done to prepare for this anyway.

The problem is that I don’t have the ability to keep up with her. Making things worse is the fact that we are stuck at home for at least 3 hours every afternoon while Fred naps. Forcing a toddler to hang out at her house and behave civilly for 3 hours is sort of like doing a 3-hour countdown for a rocket launch with the rocket revving up the entire time. The rocket gradually makes more and more noise, rattles, shakes violently, and ultimately launches whether you are ready for it or not.

So my goal in life now is to find activities for her that don’t require my involvement. Basically, I want to dump her somewhere and have someone else entertain her. Fortunately such a program exists and is called “pre-school.” Unfortunately, she will have this only three mornings a week, and not until mid-September.

I’m looking for anything: dance class, language class, make-mud-pies-and-spitballs class, whatever. The problem is that although these classes are everywhere, many are for children aged 4 and up. The world is engaging in age discrimination against my little Ginger, darn it!

And in the midst of all of this, I’m feeling more than a twinge of guilt that I, a stay-at-home-mom, am trying to pawn my kid off on someone else because I’ve run out of ways to entertain her. Isn’t this my job? Shouldn’t I be teaching her how to play a musical instrument, or cook a gourmet meal, or paint a masterpiece? I just assume this is what all the other SAHMs do. Not that I spend ANY time worrying about what other parents do to get their kids ahead or anything…

On the other hand, am I really doing my job when I plop her in front of Sesame Street because I don’t know what else to do while her little brother is napping and we’re trapped in the house and need to be relatively quiet? I can only bake so many things with her help that neither she nor her brother end up eating anyway, and frankly, my tolerance for coloring with crayons or lying on the floor whilst Dr. Ginger examines me has its limits, particularly when my head is off thinking about all the things I need to do around the house because I used to have that time when Ginger napped and now I’m simply accustomed to it.

Guilt, guilt, guilt. It just never ends. Hopefully getting rid of my child for a few hours every day will help with that.

My Refrigerator Is A Threat To Public Health

As I’ve posted on here many times before, I am completely inept in the kitchen. A couple examples here and here.

One of my many kitchen malfunctions is to buy food and forget that I have it. GrumpyDaddy occasionally audits the refrigerator, tossing out old food and wagging his finger at me for being wasteful and having the memory of a 98-year-old man who is convinced he walked uphill both ways to get to school.

So the other day at lunchtime, Ginger was standing in front of the fridge, trying to figure out what she wanted. She saw the container of cottage cheese and asked for some. Yay, I thought, a healthy choice! I’ve trained my child well!

So I opened it to discover that it was pretty rotten. As in stinky and bad. So much for a healthy choice. So that got chucked.

Ginger then saw a container of ricotta cheese and asked for some. I know this doesn’t taste good on its own, but I am a pretty big believer in learning experiences and I want to do anything I can to encourage my picky eaters to try new foods. So I pulled it out, opened it up, and… discovered that it was green. Not that familiar fuzzy, moldly green, but a strange, mint green color that I’d really never seen on food before. It was all quite alien and I’m actually bit surprised that the ricotta cheese didn’t talk to me. So that got chucked as well.

Poor Ginger was a bit confused at this point but I spotted some applesauce and offered that. Golf claps all around as now both kids were quite excited about lunch. I pulled the jar out of the fridge, opened it, and you know how this story ends.

The good news is that my children got fed. The bad news is that I am left to wonder what else in my refrigerator is older than my children.