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Today we had mountains of stuff to do before picking up our friends from the airport around 6pm. At 9.30am it seemed like we had so much time left that we would be sitting around a spotless house drinking tea before leisurely driving to the airport, all showered and sweet-smelling. I don’t know what happened to the day but this afternoon we had two screaming inconsolable children and a lot of stuff which just got shoved into cupboards. The baby did not sleep for more than 5 minutes in a row all day. Every single time she fell asleep I’d carefully put her down and she seemed fine, then 5 minutes later she was screaming. It seems that she has been doing that ever since she got her injections but that’s almost a week ago.

Anyway, it’s great to see our friends, and their little girl seems like an absolute charmer. Little A was in bed by the time we got back from the airport, so we’ve yet to see them interact. I think there’ll be a lot of “that’s mine” from our wee one. I am trying to speed type as Baby N finally crashed out on the way to the airport so she must be about to wake up any time now. Hopefully we’ll have another couple of 5 hour stretches of sleep tonight, in my dreams at least.

This evening I made Spinach and Spicy Ham Pasta Bake which had a tremendous amount of cheese and oil products. But, it was a success with the weary travellers and ourselves. The onions are fried in olive oil and butter, the flour is sprinkled on top, the milk whisked in and everything is seasoned with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and nutmeg. Drained, cooked frozen spinach, spicy ham and Parmigiano cheese was added, followed by mozzarella and the pasta. Everything was mixed together, put in an oven proof dish, topped with Parmigiano cheese, olive oil and breadcrumbs, and browned under the broiler.

This meal was substantial and comforting. The creamy sauce worked well with the breadcrumb topping. It looked reasonably healthy, by virtue of the spinach, but it contained an enormous amount of cheese. Still, it tasted good so who’s complaining? Tomorrow we will be having Honey Chicken over Snow Pea Rice, which sounds pretty tasty. I am so much hoping for some sleep tonight. I think you can run for a while on pure adrenaline, but the crash has to come somewhere. If we could only get baby N to take a nap when Little A is asleep, then I could sleep and we could keep the crazy at bay for a while longer.

Today was the last day that Little A will be attending daycare. I know that many people dream of being a stay-at-home parent, but I’m just not entirely convinced that it is right for me. Which is really a way of saying that I had to try extremely hard not to bawl my eyes out when dropping her off and picking her up today. Which is bizarre because it doesn’t feel that long ago that I was even more upset dropping her off for a few hours when she first started daycare. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my children, they are obviously the most beautiful, talented, wonderful, intelligent kids ever, it’s just I am floundering a little when trying to work out how to achieve a life-balance. I know this sounds ridiculously self-indulgent, but I can’t help but feel like the next few months may continue to feel like they are taking place underwater. That each day is a matter of just getting through, minute to minute, hour to hour. I’m also concerned for Little A. She is such a bright social little butterfly, I worry that I can’t give her the variety of experiences and socialisation that she is getting at daycare. I am aware that the things I can see us doing are the things that I enjoy doing and she enjoys doing, such as crafts and baking and reading. The physical side of things and the exploring of the unknown we’ll just have to figure out somewhere along the line.

I’m not rabidly ambitious by any means, but what I do is important to me and my sense of identity. When we first moved to the States, to Smallsville, Midwest, I could not work because I didn’t have a visa, while L had a relatively high profile new job. One of the things that I found hardest was suddenly being perceived solely as L’s wife. Because we also collaborate, for a while that element of my life felt just like an extension of what L did, as if my work was to supplement his. I was also pretty unhinged when we lived there, which could account for some of my crisis of self, at least. My biggest fear at the moment is that I won’t manage to make a success of my grand plan, and I’ll just be the girls’ mum and L’s non-working wife. Of course I realise that the newborn/ toddler combination is more than a handful, and that things will get easier. And maybe parenting will be all I achieve for a while, it is certainly all-consuming and exhausting. I am just wiped out at the moment, but there are so many things I want to be doing. But without resorting to amphetamines, I have no idea how to make that happen. Well I suppose there is a New Year just around the corner, and setting overambitious ridiculous expectations for yourself is what resolutions are for.

Anyway, on the plus side, L put up the Christmas tree today. We bought bounceable not smashable decorations from Ikea the other day in purple and silver. The tree looks beautiful, if a little “department store does Goth”. Or Goth lite. Like maybe Norah Jones singing Sisters of Mercy covers. We got some other stuff sorted out today and removed all the cardboard from the hallway and stairs. The house looks much bigger. If you’re ever feeling claustrophobic, I would recommend taping paper to your floors or walls, leaving it up for a few weeks then tearing it out. Hey presto! An enormous house. Tomorrow we have mountains of stuff to do before picking up our guests. Currently they have a bed to sleep in but no sheets. We should try and remember to work on that.

This evening we made Chicken Cutlets on Buttermilk-Cheddar-Chorizo Bisciuits with Tomato-Olive Salsa Mayo which would have been pretty straight-forward if we’d concentrated on cooking. Instead we were simultaneously decorating the tree and entertaining Baby N. Amazingly it would seem that twinkling tree lights plus shiny things plus somewhat inattentive parents are not conducive to calming down an overtired baby. We suffered a meltdown like we haven’t seen since the early weeks. Poor little mite was obviously totally overstimulated. Anyway, eventually with the help of lots of rocking and shushing and a darkened room, the little one calmed down. But not before it sounded like she was being severely tortured.

The biscuits were made from a packet mix with added cheese and chorizo. The chicken cutlets (chicken breasts in our case) were fried in olive oil with dried coriander, salt, pepper and lime juice. The salsa mayo was made with chopped tomatoes, red onion, parsley, olives, lime juice, hot sauce and mayonnaise. The whole lot was put together as if it was a burger, with a lettuce leaf thrown in there for good measure. I’m always a little disappointed by the biscuits made from a packet. They look just like really good cheese scones, but always end up tasting a little institutional. Still, the cheese and chorizo were definitely great additions to the mix. The chicken and salsa mayo sounded less than appetising this evening, but actually they were much better than expected. There were plenty of different tastes and textures at play, and the chicken was particularly good. I was wary of the raw onion + mayo combination, being fans of neither, but actually everything worked well together so that the final effect overshadowed any particular ingredient.

Tomorrow we will be making Spinach and Spicy Ham Pasta Bake, probably for lunch as our guests arrive at dinner time. We’re very much looking forward to seeing the people, we last saw them when we went home for Christmas way back in 2005 when Little A was just Baby N’s age. I’m guessing that the adults will all look the same, albeit fatter and more tired looking, but between us we now have 3 kids and that’s just bonkers.

As we swiftly approach the end of the year, the big question is when are we going to eat the bonus recipe, Day 366: And Last But Not Least… Christmas Pasta? We can’t have it for Christmas dinner because we’ll be eating Rachael Ray food for lunch and duck for dinner on the 24th, and Rachael Ray food for lunch and turkey for dinner on the 25th. So the logical thing would be to eat it on the 366th day of this project, 1st of January 2008. But I suppose that means that the one year project would have taken over a year. Maybe on New Year’s Eve we could do Rachael Ray for lunch and dinner. I’m only thinking about it online because I just asked L and he said he didn’t know.

Mind you, we are too tired to know much of anything at this point. I can’t begin to figure out how many hours I have spent asleep in the chair in the baby’s room rather than in bed. I just can’t stay awake when I go to feed the little one. L and I keep starting the “what should we do next year?” discussion, and somehow we never get anywhere. This may be because we only really manage to get time to chat in the car, and Baby N seems to hate the carseat with a passion. She is not a baby to be taken out for a car ride when she can’t get to sleep at night. We should get a move on, apparently the year is almost over.

The strange thing is with visitors coming for the holidays, rather than family coming to help out, there is a sense that things in the house should be finished. We’d hoped that our endless construction would be over by now, but it is still dragging on. We are going to postpone any work while we have prisoners guests because it gets pretty noisy and dusty, and they will have have come a long way for a relaxing break. We are going to take up the cardboard which is currently all over the house to stop the floors getting scratched. There’s still a great big hole in the wall upstairs where our linen closet should be. One of the workmen must have hung our wreath outside- the one I ordered when I was in labour from some local kids who were fundraising for their school. It was delivered a couple of weeks ago and has been sorrily sitting in its plastic wrap on the front porch ever since. Finally Baby N’s room does have a matching pair of curtains up, I changed one set weeks ago and never got around to doing the other one. She also now has drawers with her clothes in, rather than drawers filled with piles of junk hastily packed up from the old house on moving day. Things are going very slowly on the organising front. In many ways it is as if we are still in the process of moving in- finding places for stuff and still unpacking occasional boxes. We have far less storage here than we did in our condo, so things have to be figured out a little more creatively. And the creativity is currently sadly lacking.

In other news, we missed a Christmas performance at Little A’s daycare today- somehow we just didn’t know it was going on. However, I’m not going to go down the conspiracy theory route. Well maybe a little bit. The toddler class were donkeys, how I’d have loved to see that. Apparently Little A managed to sneak away to wolf down handfuls of cookies. That’s my girl. And between starting this post and finishing it, Baby N threw up on me in a spectacular fashion. It’s only happened a couple of times, fortunately, but pleasant it is not. Of course I’d spent the last couple of hours sniffing her delicious little head which smells so good after she’s had a bath.

Anyway, I still need to settle the little one so this should be brief. Tonight we made Crispy Rosemary-Orange Chicken with Parmigiano String Beans, which was much better than I’d anticipated. The chicken was sautéed with rosemary, garlic, onions and carrots then sprinkled with flour. Chicken stock and the juice of an orange were added. Once the liquid had reduced by healf, chopped kalamata olives were added. The chicken mixture was put in an oven-proof dish and topped with a mixture of breadcrumbs, parsley, orange zest and Parmigiano cheese. The topping was browned under the grill; in our case we just saved it before it became blackened. The beans were cooked, drained then returned to the pan with butter, olive oil, salt, pepper and more Parmigiano.

The beans were great; crisp and rich. Of course after being tossed in both butter and olive oil they were bound to be good. The cheese was an extra fat-tastic bonus. The chicken dish was better than we thought it was going to be, although we both felt that the layer of breadcrumbs was unnecessary. It made everything a little stodgy, but this is not always a bad thing. The rosemary-orange flavours were subtle and understated, in a good way. Often dishes with “orange” end up being almost like caricatures of orange-flavored food, if that makes sense. The orange here didn’t scream, hi I’m orange and I’m here to be all orangey. And the kalamata olives, which I have to admit puzzled me a little as they were being added, offered a nice saltiness and element of interest. Good food, good times.

Tomorrow we will be having Chicken Cutlets on Buttermilk-Cheddar-Chorizo Bisciuits with Tomato-Olive Salsa Mayo. I have to grocery shop for the week tomorrow; I just hope I remember to buy stuff for our many planned Christmas dinners.

All the excitement of last night paled a little when Baby N decided to make up for her fantastically timed bout of evening sleep, by staying awake till 3am or so. Today has been a bit of a slow one, to say the least. As I remarked to L, today I managed to sort out half a box of Little A’s old clothes. Success. Really, having little ones at home is all about adjusting your expectations for the day. Aim lower than low and be pleasantly delighted if anything is accomplished.

We gave away one of our cats today, which was sad but good. When L and I first lived together we got two cats from the Humane Society. We liked them so much we got two more; the kitten sisters. Bad idea, all things considered. Four cats is quite a handful. When we moved to the States we actually brought two of our cats, and we would have brought all four if our new landlady had allowed us. We knew it was insane to fly cats half way round the world, after all it’s not as if there aren’t plenty of homeless cats here. But, we were moving to an unfurnished apartment in a new town with no friends, so we thought the cats might provide some comfort. Turns out we probably messed up our poor cats more than we ever thought possible by moving them here. It was quite pleasant to only have two cats again after the chaos of four. It was so nice in fact that we went to the Humane Society and got two more. After Little A was born, three of the four cats adjusted well to having a baby in the house, but one did really badly. He was our only boy-cat and he was special, very special, in a developmentally challenged sort of way. He was the sweetest cat you could ever meet; he was the tester animal at the shelter. They’d bring him out to see if the other animals were aggressive towards cats, and no matter how loud or menacing they were towards him, he’d just roll around on his back, purring. He was the loveliest cat although he couldn’t really jump, he’d bang into things, he didn’t notice anything. Looking into his eyes was like gazing into a vast pool of vacant. There really was very little going on inside. When we moved house he barely registered. continuing with his life as if we’d just moved his food bowl, so we thought that he wouldn’t even notice a baby in the house. We were wrong, he was scared of the baby and hid all day until she slept at night. Then he would come out and be so incredibly, relentlessly needy and we were so incredibly, relentlessly exhausted that we could barely be bothered. As Baby A got bigger and more mobile, Ziggy’s quality of life with us went downhill, until we eventually found a new home for him. He is apparently thriving in his new child-free environment, walking into chairs at leisure, falling off the sofa just because he can. Although saying goodbye was very sad, we don’t miss him. I remember him fondly from our pre-kids days, but it would be awful for him to still live with us. We sometimes joke that we have a one in- one out policy.

And so we now have a two month old, and it seems another cat had to go. We are keeping our Scottish kitten sisters who have all sorts of neurosis and chronic illnesses between them (and incidentally, terrible teeth. Our American cats had perfect teeth. Stereotypes: not just for people). But we decided that we need to downsize so that everyone gets a fair share of love and attention and no-one becomes neglected. Chutney has been picking on the others since the baby came home, obviously she is bored and a little attention-starved. She has been lunching daily with the carpenter who has been working on our house, and they seem to have a beautiful blossoming relationship. He is looking for a new cat as one of theirs just died, so we played cat matchmaker, and today she has gone to her new home. She will be missed. She was probably the only truly well-balanced, loving cat that we have ever had.

Today we arranged to take Baby A out of daycare. It probably came at a very good time in that we just learned that her very favourite, most beloved teacher is leaving on Friday. Every time we drive down there she tells us that she doesn’t like the two other members of staff in her classroom, but that she likes S. I don’t know how she would have reacted if S was no longer there, probably not too well. We mentioned that the classroom staff had been acting oddly around us. It turns out that they are being blamed by the Administration for the incident- that it was their responsibility that one of the children in their care fell against a project under construction. No wonder everyone has been walking on eggshells around us. L had a lengthy conversation with the Director of the place yesterday after we filed our grievance. In all honesty he may as well have just sat down and banged his head off a brick wall for twenty minutes. Suffice to say that the institution which prides itself on its lofty ideals with regards to child learning and development could do with displaying some compassion towards the staff and parents. I’m really sorry that we have to take Little A out of daycare, out of an environment in which she is obviously thriving, but we have ended up being very disappointed and a little bitter towards the Administration.

Anyway, this evening we made Asian Pinwheel Steaks with Noodle and Cabbage Sauté. My supertiredness is suddenly catching up on me so I will be brief (for if I were a Superhero I would be the fabulous, invincible SuperTired). Flattenened New York strip steaks are spread with a sort of Asian pesto, rolled up, skewered and baked in a hot oven. The pesto-type mixture is made from peanuts, scallions, garlic, ginger, spinach, lemon zest and juice, parsley, cilantro, cayenne pepper and tamari blasted in the food processor then mixed with vegetable oil. Drained, cooked angel hair pasta is added to a pan in which garlic, ginger, cabbage slaw mix, tamari, rice wine vinegar and chicken stock have been cooking, then everything is tossed together with some scallions.

This was a pleasant meal, the elements of which I would consider using again. I enjoyed the noodle dish in an understated quiet sort of way. The pinwheel steaks were perhaps a little too dense and heavy. This is one instance in which we thought that chicken breasts might actually be more successful. The pesto mixture is very substantial in flavour, it is a hearty accompaniment, so maybe the meat itself could be a little less rich.

Tomorrow we have to make a list of everything that needs doing in the next couple of days and actually start working through it. We are too tired to get much of anything achieved otherwise (see non-appearance of thank-you notes for baby gifts and holiday cards etc). We will be dining on Crispy Rosemary-Orange Chicken with Parmigiano String Beans. We have friends flying in from Scotland on Friday for ten days with their 1 1/2 year old daughter. It should be interesting, and hopefully fun. Last time they visited we were all child-free and we had an absolutely fantastic time. We just hope this time will be as fun, and that at least two out if three kids will nap at the same time.

Today was the day of the book signing. I hadn’t exactly decided what to do this morning, whether or not to go, whether or not to speak. We have a friend who works in the cafe of the bookstore where Rachael Ray was due to do the signing today. She said she’d try and get us one of the 300 wristbands which were being given out so that I didn’t have to drag the kids in to the mall and line up for half the day. So as instructed I called her at 9am and she told me to call back at 1pm, as the bands were being handed out from noon.

I then I packaged up the girls, after a number of false starts, and we were all set to head off to The Children’s Museum. The phrase “Closed Mondays” popped into my head from out of nowhere, which I thought was pretty impressive as I barely know what month it is at the moment, never mind what day of the week it is. I checked online and, lo and behold, Little A was to be disappointed; the museum was closed. We left the house anyway, knowing only that coffee would figure strongly wherever our destination may be. Little A opted for playing on a trainset, so back to the Mall of America we went.

It turned out to be a pretty fortuitous decision; I saw our friend at around 11am and it turned out that she wouldn’t be able to get us the wristbands after all. I pretty much resigned myself to ending the year with our recipe book as unsigned as when we began; I couldn’t handle waiting anywhere with two fidgety children. However I was amazed to realise that the army of people sitting in their lawn chairs playing cards already had wristbands and were waiting to be the first people to meet Rachael Ray. The signing started 8 hours later. I strolled past the table and got myself a wristband. Easy; I was now one of the chosen 300.

After a slightly bonkers day where I seriously doubted my ability to be a sane stay at home mother of two, I made Pork Chops in a Sweet Chili and Onion Sauce with Creamy Cilantro Potato Salad while L bathed Little A and put her to bed. It was easy and tasted extremely good. The pork chops were seasoned with salt and pepper, caramelised in the pan then finished in the oven. The sauce was made with red onion, garlic, cumin, chili powder and brown sugar, joined after a few minutes of sautéing with chicken stock then butter. The cooked potatoes were made into a salad with mayonnaise, red wine vinegar, red onions, garlic, celery, red pepper, cilantro, salt and pepper.

Initially I thought that the liquidity of the sauce was at odds with the creamy potato salad, but actually this was a very good combination. Perhaps I was having a seasonal issue; the pork and sauce seems to be very wintery food, whilst potato salad screams summer, in my mind at least. The sauce was tangy and rich, I could imagine that it would have also made a good relish had there been less liquid. Given our aversion to cilantro, and my dislike of mayonnaise, raw onion and raw garlic, I was not particularly excited about the potato salad. I have to say it surprised me; there was enough contrasting tastes, textures and colours to make it seem like a fresh and gratifying new interpretation of potato salad.

All in all this was a very pleasant meal, although I ate in maybe ten minutes so I could drive off into the darkness with Baby N. Back to the mall we went, and I headed straight for coffee. The baby was still sleeping so I took a chance by not feeding her- although I was fearful that she’d wake up screaming just as we got to the head of the line. I took a bizarre pride in being the last person in the line for a while, texting L to say that “I is a slacker”. Everything moved quickly, I was maybe there for half an hour before it was my turn to do the meet and greet thing.

As I got up on the stage to meet Rachael, I glanced behind me and noticed that I was no longer the second last person in the line, I was now the third last. Santa had just joined the queue. When Rachael looked up and said “Hi Santa” I felt a mild panic; what if she only chatted with Santa while she signed my books? What if they had a long discussion about the perils of Christmas shopping? I would have no choice but to just leave the stage, silently, and curse my shyness in the comfort of my own minivan. So I quickly launched into some badly thought out, terribly delivered ramble about how it might sound strange but my husband and I are visual artists and we consider her to be a cultural icon and how we’ve done a couple of projects about her and in one we are cooking our way through the book she’s signing and we have been doing so since January 1st and could I leave a card with our website on because I wasn’t going to come but some of our readers, oh did I mention it was a blog, said I should come so here I am, and er thanks. And remarkably she was very polite and lovely and charming and didn’t call the stalker police, and said she’d love to hear more and we should send her some information. Then we had a normalish chat with one of her staff about how babies are an automatic reason to get to the front of the line, and I said I’ll remember for next time and then I went on my merry way.

I’m really pleased that I went and shook the hand of a real live celebrity personality. It must be ridiculously strange to be famous. People were standing all around and on the balconies above incessantly taking photographs and shouting down to Rachael. I like to think that I’m not particularly starstruck but I couldn’t really help myself from getting the camera out. It’s like a compulsion to document yourself, the normal person, with X the famous person, in a ‘look I was there, at that moment in history when a celebrity was there too’ sort of way. It’s particularly odd because essentially people were documenting someone demonstrating the art of, or at least the results of, being famous. It would be far less weird if the crowd were going nuts for a chef actually cooking, but because she was signing books it was like going crazy for the packaging rather than the contents, if that doesn’t sound dirty, or weird.

Tomorrow we are having Asian Pinwheel Steaks with Noodle and Cabbage Sauté. Maybe there’ll be pictures of our tattered but freshly signed book too.

Yesterday Baby N was really fussy and out of sorts after her injections. She normally sleeps really well at night, but yesterday she started screaming within ten minutes of being put down, no matter how soundly asleep she seemed. My night involved nursing and or rocking to sleep, putting her down, creeping to bed, lying down, thinking about going to sleep then getting up to attend to the crying baby. And repeat. I must have got into bed for 5-10 minutes about 5 times, before I just gave up and just sat with the baby in the chair in her room. Then we both slept the rest of the night. She seemed pretty rested this morning, I felt like I’d fallen asleep drunk in a chair. I had the headache, the grumpiness, the achiness and the excruciating exhaustion; once again I was just missing the alcohol. I had a nap this afternoon on the sofa while Little A was coughing her way through her nap upstairs, just to continue the slept but not rested theme for the rest of the day.

This afternoon I made a second batch of mince pies with Little A, using up the remainder of the pastry from yesterday. She loves baking, calling it “making” or “bacon”. I have a feeling we’ll be doing a lot pf cooking once she comes out of daycare. I thought we might make homemade playdoh tomorrow, another thing I swore I’d never do when I was a kid. Homemade playdoh was as abhorent to me as the clothes that my mother used to make. I wanted nothing more than to have the same stuff as my friends when I first started school. What goes around comes around I suppose; I wish I had the time and inclination to make more clothes for the kids. Little A has had plenty of summer clothes that I sewed and I knit a lot of garments for her when she was a baby. Baby N has half a hat that I started to knit about a week or so before she was born; it may never be finished…

Anyway, this evening we made Crispy Horseradish-Battered Fried Fish with Watercress-Cucumber Tartar Sauce, which was supposed to rival English fish and chips. We would have to beg to differ on that one, but the meal was certainly reasonable.The cod was seasoned with salt and pepper, then dipped in dry pancake mix. It was then dragged around in pancake mix reconstituted with water, with some prepared horseradish mixed in and dropped into a pan of hot oil and fried. The sauce was made with mayonnaise, dill, watercress, cucmber, pickle relish, pickle, lemon juice, salt and pepper and hot sauce. The fish and sauce were served with chips fries.

This meal was pretty good, although neither of us were convinced by the pancake-mix batter. Surely it would not be too much more difficult to make the batter out of flour, water and salt, and sodium bicarbonate if necessary. Then it would not taste sweet, which is an odd flavour element when mixed with fish. It tasted more like fishcakes, which was not ideal. The accompanying sauce was pretty good, even though I am not normally a fan of mayonnaise-based things. The watercress, dill and pickles added a piquancy and bitterness which contrasted well with the creamy white stuff. The fries were oven fries, which are nothing particularly special.

Overall, it was nice to eat fish again, and the batter was so thick that it did just peel away so eating it was not compulsory. The sauce is good- some chopping, but easy and quick and it has a very distinctive taste. Tomorrow we will be having Pork Chops in a Sweet Chili and Onion Sauce with Creamy Cilantro Potato Salad. Tomorrow is also the day that Rachael Ray is in town. I think I might go along with the very well-thumbed book, but no conversation.

This morning we decided to divide and conquer; L took Little A to the zoo while I took Baby N to the doctor for her 2 month check-up. 4 injections and a few tears later (only the baby this time, for I am now apparently a hardened parent, unlike when Little A was but a baby) we were on our way. After an exciting trip to a newly opened branch of Trader Joe’s, followed by a trip to Target for everything I couldn’t find on our first stop, followed by a third and final visit to our local grocery store for a jar of mincemeat, we were good to go.

Last week we had talked with friends about Christmas food, and L and I had raved about the fabulousness that is the mince pie. This seemed to be a mystery to our American friends, so I thought I’d make some for their Christmas party. In the couple of hours I had between returning from my epic shopping experience and leaving for the party, I made some of Nigella Lawson’s frangipane mince pies [recipe], which are utterly fantastic. Little A woke up a little way into the cooking experience, so she “helped”. A lot. At least cooking with a toddler helps you get over any perfectionist tendencies you may harbour. We then got the girls ready in dresses, which is a novelty unto itself. I swore I’d never torture my children by making them wear tights, but Little A at least seems to love them. Baby N is probably too little to have an opinion either way. I am really not a girly girl at all, and very rarely wear skirts or dresses, and Little A is very rarely to be found not wearing jeans. Of course she loves wearing dresses and was very excited about the whole event, especially when she realised that her baby sister was wearing a dress too. It’s the little things. So Little A had on her dress and pink tights, and her big brown suede boots. The apple does not fall far from the tree.

The party was a lot of fun and Little A was on top form. The baby mainly slept on my shoulder, waking up sporadically to scream. The injections have really knocked her out of sorts. I did nurse her once which was interesting given what I was wearing. I decided to wear a wrap dress that is a little too small for me right now, because I didn’t have anything clean, never mind smart, to wear. Plus I didn’t want to be left out on the dress action. To feed the baby I had to unwrap the entire dress. Of course I was wearing jeans and a tank top underneath, but still I must have been some sight. At least it was a relaxed gathering. I wouldn’t want to unwrap at a formal occasion. Anyway, party= very good. Leaving the party= very very very baaaad for a certain toddler of ours. Out of the handful of kids there she was the first to have a complete and utter meltdown. She set the bar pretty high in both the flailing around and the wailing/ screaching categories; I hope the other kids can compete.

So after getting our own personal scream balloon to bed, I made Pork, Chipotle, and Bean Burritos. This recipe is identical to what we made yesterday, but substituting pork for the ground turkey and chipotle salsa for the tomatillo salsa. The salsa was stronger today, so the whole meal had a bit more of a kick to it, but other than that, there was not much to choose between the two meals. Both are fine, neither are wildly exciting. Tomorrow we will be venturing into the world of fish and chips, which is a world dear to my heart. We’ll be having Crispy Horseradish-Battered Fried Fish with Watercress-Cucumber Tartar Sauce. It seems to involve a box of pancake mix which is always good for a laugh.

Last night I fell asleep in Baby N’s room while nursing. I woke up just before L got up to go to work and I have absolutely no idea how long I’d been asleep. I can’t remember ever being this tired. I literally nodded off while sitting with Little A and nursing the baby this afternoon. How I love that head rolling asleep, head jerking awake thing. I was probably dribbling too. This morning I took the girls out to an indoor play area thing with a cafe attached. The website promised espresso drinks, comfortable seating and free wifi. I somehow imagined a kind of calm adult area with excellent caffeinated beverages and perhaps delicious classy chocolates. The conversation, it would be flowing; the kids, happily playing in an adjacent area, (quietly of course) would occasionally come by to say, look mummy I went down the slide, and we’d say, that’s nice dear, and go back to surfing the internet. What can I say? I am chronically sleep deprived. The reality was that it took from 7am to almost 11am for myself and the girls to be ready to leave the house. It was one of those mornings when the successful juggling of newborn and toddler needs was simply not happening, with all the juggling balls being dropped left, right and center. Maybe if I stopped trying to keep their noses clean, we’d have got out the door about an hour earlier. If we could also ditch the feeding, changing and dressing stuff, we’d have been good to go at the crack of dawn. Anyway, we drove out to this sort of strip mall in an industrial estate and entered screaming child hell. Little A was already grumpy when we got there, as was the child of my friend. The girls were given books for Christmas presents (do I need to say we’ve not even written cards yet, never mind done any shopping? We’re in serious denial) and Little A opened hers. My friends child, M, had a strop because the book was for Little A, Little A had a strop because M was trying to read the book; instant simultaneous toddler meltdown. Success. Then a friend of my friend arrived, with a crying toddler. The picture was complete. Within 10 minutes both Little A and M were in tears again because they’d been hit in the backs by bigger kids flying down the slide. Little A was exceptionally needy the whole morning and wouldn’t go on the enormous padded multicoloured structure by herself. I kept climbing up with her, to encourage her to play, then getting almost stuck in some of the narrower parts. Some of the other kids were little hellions, I’m looking at you, Jewel, and us adults were run ragged trying to keep things on course. In between times we tried to eat some disgusting microwaved spaghetti with a little sauce dusted on top, and tried to drink some pretty foul coffee. The wifi and comfy seats may have existed but unless they were in an invisible sound-proofed chamber I’m guessing they were not really relaxing. Attempting to leave was a whole other challenge, what with the running away and the refusal to put on clothes, and the removal of the wrangled-on clothes. And the running away. I feel like I have a split personality trying to steer the obstacle course of toddler moods. Adding another child to the mix has only heightened the crazy performer role. Sometimes I feel like I should just be completely silent, and perhaps mime my wishes to Little A. It can’t be any less effective than trying to reason with her when she is over-tired. By nap time (late, obviously) I was absolutely wiped out. Fortunately Baby N slept through the entire debacle, only waking the instant I climbed into bed in an attempt to slip in a stealth nap while everyone else was asleep.

This evening, just before we cooked dinner, we had our first instance of full on meltdown by both kids at the same time. Real tears all round and wails and gasps and the whole shebang. L and I looked at each other simultaneously thinking what the f* have we done? We had to laugh though, really, the volume was insanely high, and those stress levels could kill. Anyway, for dinner we didn’t make polenta, which was excellent, although the Turkey, Tomatillo, and Bean Burritos were average at best. They were easy though. Ground chicken, garlic, onion, salt and pepper and red pepper were sautéed then joined by chicken stock, pinto beans, tomatillo salsa and cilantro. The mixture was rolled into flour tortillas (badly) with Monterey Jack cheese. More salsa and more cheese topped the burritos which were finished under the grill.

Grilled cheese is always a good thing, and I am quite partial to a good fresh flour tortilla. Unfortunately the filling looked and tasted more than a little institutional. The ground turkey was very grey, with only the occasional sprig of herb and piece of red pepper to break up the monotony. As the salsa was reasonably spicy there was at least a bit of a kick to dinner, but it tasted shallow rather than rich, flavour-wise. It managed to be on the bland side, despite the spice. It’s always a little strange to cook something like ground meat without any seasonings aside from salt and pepper, and to add the flavour entirely from a bottle at the end. I would have thought that a couple more ingredients added to the initial meat mixture could have gone a long way in rounding out the flavours in this meal. Tomorrow we make it again but using ground pork and a chipotle based salasa for Pork, Chipotle, and Bean Burritos. I have to say I’m not so excited about that. Also on the not-excited about front; I’m taking Baby N for her 2 month check up in the morning. If memory serves me correctly, and I could well be wrong, I think that may be the check up where they start the barrage of injections. Fun times. Also, and finally, when did our tiny baby get to be 2 months old? And how come Little A has the ears and feet of a child? Where is my baby? What’s going on? And how can time fly by so fast when the days are so excruciatingly slow?

Today was a day of complaining. Perhaps you’re wondering why today was any different to any other day, when we’re always whining about something. But today we made a couple of complaints out loud, in words, and one of them was also in writing. We filed a grievance at Little A’s daycare suggesting that the “under construction” sign and the barricade blocking access to the stage should perhaps have been in place before our little girl smashed her noggin off the raw edge. It would seem to make sense, to us at least. It’s very strange when we have dropped off and picked up Little A since Tuesday, all the staff seem to be behaving oddly, being very reserved where once they were friendly. Studiously ignoring any mention of A’s injury, where once they would give daily updates on the tiniest of scratches. It would almost seem as if they were uncomfortable with something. When we went up to the office to make our complaint, I began to explain about the accident. The woman at the desk said “oh yes, I heard about that. How’s your new baby?”. Erm, well she’s fine, being that she is right here and all, maybe you might want to ask how Little A is doing, perhaps? Grrr. Some compassion it seems, would be nice.

Secondly, we are apparently in the realm of big-time construction again, in as much as we are having holes cut all over the house for vent work. Our contractor told us that we needn’t move anything and the people doing the work would be so clean that we wouldn’t know that they were there. That is very true. Unless, that is, you are somehow blind to thick coats of dust and unable to see large chunks of plasterboard all over the floor, then you might not realise that they’d been there. Or perhaps you do notice them and politely ask if they could use a dust cloth on the newly sanded and varnished floors. And then maybe you are told that they did use a dust cloth when they were working, and that the piles of debris on the baby room floor somehow happened after the fact, and that they don’t matter because no one is standing on them. And then seconds later another worker comes in and stands on the piles of gritty rubbish. And maybe you ask him politely if he’d mind using a drop cloth because once upon a time at least 3 months ago the floors were newly sanded, and he just snorts and walk away. And then you might find yourself sweeping up the rubbish and accidentally calling the contractor to complain. And then you might leave the house, so as not to start hyperventilating. Hypothetically speaking of course. Can’t wait to see them again in the morning; L and I did spend most of the evening cleaning up the mess and there is stil a long way to go. Plus the vents are big and ugly, where we were told that they would be small and pretty and discrete. Not smack bang in the middle of every room, and squint to boot. Harrumph.

But, on the plus side, we got our concrete countertops installed today (for free, wheeee!) and they are beautiful, really beautiful. Once L has grouted and sealed where the backsplash tiles meet the countertop I’ll post pictures. I thought that I would vastly prefer the butcher block countertop that was removed, yet appreciate the durability and practicality of the concrete. Actually, I think that the concrete is really pretty and shiny and nice. And cold, but hey, that’s what sleeves are for.

Additionally, today L took a Christmas tree from the roof of a car in the parking lot at the mall, walked away with it, and put it on the roof of “Moomya’s Minivan” as Little A likes to call it. We were testing out mall security. He got away with it. No really, we know the manager of a coffee shop in the mall through frequent visits (you’d be surprised) and apparently her husband sells trees. She insisted that he would pick one out for us and drive it home to her. She then put it on her car this morning and drove 40 miles with it into work.  We went for coffee and paid her inside, then took it from her car, and drove it maybe 7 miles home again. It looks nice. Hopefully nicer than the ones for sale half a mile down the road from our house. It would have been funny if she’d called the police just as we went to pick it up, then denied all involvement. Well, maybe not funny exactly.

So, Super Mushroom Polenta “Lasagne”. It has more mushrooms, no sausage, and roasted peppers in with the ricotta. It is not super. It’s better than the meat versions but only marginally. I’ll leave it there. Tomorrow, Turkey, Tomatillo, and Bean Burritos. It’s got to be better than polenta, surely.

This evening we made Sausage, Mushroom, and Pesto Polenta “Lasagne”. We like pesto, we love pesto in fact. Earlier this evening Little A and I cooked gnocchi and pesto and I enjoyed eating her leftovers, very much indeed. The “lasagne” however, was unfortunately not so enjoyable, in fact it was downright unpleasant. The pesto ricotta mixture was a slight improvement on the tapenade or plain ricotta mix, but alas it could not save the dish. I would never have imagined before we started this project that we would repeatedly make versions of meals that we actively dislike. That seems like a pointless activity if ever I heard one. Still, we only have 20 more recipes to go, is that not just a little insane? We have been giving next years project an occasional miniscule little thought, and so far the farthest that we have got is that the good thing about this year is that you have to eat anyway. We’re thinking something along the same lines, but a little more flexible. We’ll keep on thinking until we figure something out. We only decided to do this project on the last day of December 2006, so we have plenty of time to decided. How about “One Year Project II: The Breathing Edition”?

Other things today have sort of overshadowed the Rachael Ray project. When I dropped off our bruised and battered little girl at daycare today, I noticed that the newly-constructed stage, against which she’d fallen, had some foam taped over the edge. When I picked her up this afternoon, the entire stage area was barricaded off so that the kids couldn’t get near it. A sign was up on the wall saying that the stage was still under construction. I went over and inspected the edge of the stage, and to be honest I’m amazed that Little A’s injuries aren’t worse. There is a raw jagged edge of chipboard and laminate just at toddler falling height. Either the stage wasn’t finished, in which case the children shouldn’t have been anywhere near it, or it was finished in a horrible way and this is a severe case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Either way we’re not too happy. Obviously yesterday our only concern was Little A’s well-being, but today we are starting to get mad. This was not simply a case of her falling over or falling off something or banging into something and getting a bruise or a cut. Little A is a toddler; falling over is what she does, but this particular injury could have been avoided, or certainly lessened. It doesn’t take much thought to realise that a hard, jagged unfinished edge (at toddler tripping height no less) has no place in a daycare setting.

And so today was the day that all our wonderful glowing thoughts about Little A’s daycare situation were somewhat mitigated. In between seeing the newly added foam on the edge and wondering why the * the edge had not been covered earlier, and returning to a full scale boycott of the half of the room containing the stage, I received an email from the Director of the place. She was informing us that there would be no exception to the 3 days a week= part time care rule, that Little A could stay there and we’d pay what we’d pay, or we could remove her. In fairness, we were hoping against hope that they would allow her to attend two days a week, against their policy, but this letter was a little more unpleasant than it needed to be. It was of the yes childcare is expensive, suck it up type variety. She does hope that Little A can return if our “situation improves”. Like maybe if one, or preferably both, of us manage to retrain immediately (requiring no childcare whilst doing so, obviously) and find a career outside the arts. Or maybe we could telecommute from Europe, or something. Oh look at the pigs outside, they’re flying right past our window, up in subsidised childcare heaven. And so it looks like very soon I’ll be a full-time stay at home Mum, attempting to continue one (admittedly financially dreadful) career collaborating with L, and trying to set up an online business at the same time. How about “One Year Project II: The Will I Ever Shower Again Edition”?

Anyway, it is almost tomorrow (yes I fell asleep once more upstairs nursing my beautiful baby. But on the plus side the house is very quiet, which is nice). Tomorrow is the day of the fifth and final polenta lasagne installment. We couldn’t be more relieved to see the back of this one. Fortunately it comes just in time for me to call a halt on the “bring back pasta in our lasagne” chant and placard that I’ve been working on. At least Super Mushroom Polenta “Lasagne” is vegetarian so there will be no more horrible sausage mixture. Unfortunately the P word is still in there. Shudder.