July 20, 2011 by Barbara.

While Reid is staying with Grandma Joyce, Ken and I rely on others to tell us about stories. This one came from Aunt Karin.

I went to Mom’s tonight to take Reid for a walk to get a freezie at Captain’s Corner and then I was to have her bath and let me wash her hair (hence the bribe of the freezie or icecream). Before her bath she was having trouble having a bm and I said “It’s probably from your lack of fruit and veggies”, because today her lunch came home today with all her fruit and veggies still in it. Quick as a wink she said “I ate fruit today! I had pizza with pineapple on it tonight for supper!” So you can tell her mom she is eating healthy lol!

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July 19, 2011 by Barbara.

I took Reid to Wheatley last Friday for two weeks of “Grandma Camp”, as she calls it. Reid cried a bit when we left Ken and told me that she was missing him a couple of times on Friday. Aunt Karin told me about a conversation that she had with Reid:

Aunt Karin: So, you’re not going to see your mother for fourteen days.
Reid: I know and I don’t care! 

I’m sure that she does care, at least a little bit, but not in a worried she’ll miss me kind of way. In any case, there were at least three points where I noticed that life would be better at Grandma Joyce’s. 
 

1. Grandma buys ultra-soft, super-deluxe toilet paper. Don’t think, “quilted”, think “duvet”. The first tme she touched it, Reid exclaimed, “Mom, it’s so soft!” and then she added, “it’s fresh.” (I didn’t understand that, really.) If Will and Kate use softer toilet paper, it’s made of actual cloth.
2. Grandma serves grilled cheese sandwiches on white bread. They’re golden brown, made with higher fat cheese and available on demand. Reid’s mama buys whole wheat bread and light cheese. She is boring.
3. Grandma’s world is populated with many teens and adults who have, between them, lots of time to dedicate to Reid. She loves adult attention and having a teen talk to you is like having a rockstar speak with y0ou, when you’re not-quite-seven.

Life is better at Grandma Joyce’s. I hope that Reid still believes this at the end of 14 days. It’ll be okay if she is at least a bit glad to see Ken and me when we arrive, though.

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April 23, 2011 by Barbara.

Guest post written by Reid, photographs by Barbara

 The beginning of the story: how it started. One day Reid was blowing eggs at her Grandma’s house for Easter.

 Reid likes to hold the eggs in the bowl of dye instead of using the dye thingamajigger.

 Once the eggs were dyed and dried, Reid painted them.

 Look at how messy her hands are.

 After Reid was done dying eggs, she helped Aunt Pam with the cake for Easter.

 Reid put icing over top of the white icing that Mama had put on at first.

 The icing that Reid was putting on was the colours that are primary and one colour that was secondary and one colour that was tertiary.

 In the end, Reid was very messy.

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April 6, 2011 by Barbara.

View More Wordless Wednesday Participants, look at my previous Wordless Wednesday entries, or check out the cute babies and kids at 5 Minutes for Mom.

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March 31, 2011 by Barbara.

Ever since Reid was small, she has looked forward to “helping” Aunt Karin make pie dough and the pies themselves. I think that Reid may actually be lessening the work now. Aunt Karin says that she is investing the time so that she won’t always be the one who must be “rolling out the dough” (like that guy in Perfect Strangers).

To be sure that the knowledge lives on, I’m offering Aunt Karin’s pie crust recipe and a how-to video.

 Pie crust

• 5.5 cups all purpose flour (use 5.5 toothpicks to keep track of the flour as you put them in the bowl)
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1 lb Tenderflake lard
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• cold water

1. Mix together flour, salt and sugar.
2. Cut in Tenderflake lard with pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse oatmeal.
3. In a 1 cup measure, combine vinegar and egg. Add water to make 1 cup. Gradually stir liquid into lard mixture. Add only enough water to make dough cling together.
4. Gather into a ball and divide into 6 portions. If desired, wrap unused portions and refrigerate or freeze.
5. Good tip: Aunt Karin freezes the dough in pie-size portions in sandwich bags.
6. Roll out each portion on lightly floured surface. If dough is sticking, chill 1 to 2 hours.
7. Transfer dough to pie plate. Trim and flute shells or crusts and bake according to filling directions.
8. For a perfect, golden crust, mix a bit of milk with coarse sugar and paint the crust carefully.

Here is a video of Reid demonstrating the most important steps.
 

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November 4, 2010 by Barbara.

 Reid complained about one of her teeth on Monday morning. I checked the tooth in question but all was well. The next tooth over, however, was wobbly. I told Reid that her tooth was loose and she was ecstatic. She stared into the mirror and poked her tongue around. I had to confirm which tooth was wobbly, since it wasn’t an extreme case - it’s on the bottom, just to the left (stage left, as it were) of the gap in the middle of her bottom teeth.

At breakfast, I was told to serve only soft food “because of my …[insert drama here] tooth.” I packed an apple for an afterschool snack because (a) I always do and (b) loose teeth creep me out. I don’t like to watch them be wiggled, I don’t like to touch them and the idea of dealing with a freshly-freed tooth makes me shiver and make a face.

I told Reid that she should stop wiggling her tooth and keep it in her mouth until her dad comes home. Reid didn’t like the idea. Not even when I explained that I wasn’t ready for her to be a big girl who lost her teeth. Reid tried to reassure me that adult teeth would soon replace the lost baby teeth. That only makes it worse!

Reid must have spent the day wiggling her tooth because, by supper, it was noticeably looser. She wondered how long it would take for her tooth to come out. I have no idea. With all of the drama, wiggling and soft food requests, I’m warming up to the “not that long” school of thought.

We called Grandma Joyce so that Reid could share her news. Reid said, “I have a loose tooth!” (which sounds like toof, I’ll admit, and Reid *was* talking on the speaker phone) Grandma Joyce said, “You’re having stew?” Reid repeated her original statement and soon Grandma Joyce understood the excitement. She also told us that her mind was on stew because that is what she was having for supper. I was sad to miss out on Grandma Joyce’s stew but it turned out Aunt Karin and Uncle Roger were there and so Reid got to tell her story a couple more times.

At bedtime, Reid was worried that her tooth would fall out while she was asleep. My confident pronouncement that teeth don’t fall out like that was not believed. I wouldn’t mind if it did, though. She checked her tooth as soon as she woke up this morning as was pleased to find it present and accounted for. Reid is hoping that the tooth falls out at school because she’d be the first grade 1 to have that happen to her. I’d send my wishes that way, too, but what if it falls out and gets lost, all before I see it. Reid would be very upset.

All in all, this first loose tooth has provided for a lot of drama, on Reid’s part and on mine. I’m becoming resigned to the ickyness of a bloody tooth and (I hope) that Reid is finding the whole thing less worrisome than yesterday. Remind me how many more teeth she has to lose? On the other hand, please don’t.

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October 14, 2010 by Barbara.

Grandma Joyce brought her old punch bowl for me when she came to visit recently. Reid loved unwrapping each of the small cups and hanging each on its hook around the rim of the bowl. Since we were having Melissa and her kids to supper on Saturday night, Reid asked to make punch. Grandma Joyce washed all of the pieces and Aunt Pam provided the recipe and supervised preparations. We set the tables with good china and fancy silverware (but plastic glasses, because they’re less tippy than wine glasses). Reid loves getting out the “good dishes”, as Grandma Joyce calls them. They make an ordinary meal a bit more
special.

When Melissa saw the punch bowl, she asked what special event I was planning. I told her that having dinner with her family *was* the special event. If your best friend’s family isn’t worth getting out your best dishes, who is?

Disclosure: Grandma Joyce taught me that one should use one’s good dishes despite the risk of breakage. rather than keeping them “safe” and unappreciated in a cupboard.

Aunt Pam’s punch recipe

4 cups sherbert - lime or rainbow, if you’re feeling fancy(1 litre)
4 cups ginger ale (1 litre)
4 cups pineapple juice (1 litre)
1 lime

Mix all these together. (Originally served for st pattys day, pretty green colour)

Posted in Holidays, Food, Melissa and Peter | Print | 1 Comment »

October 6, 2010 by Barbara.

I was telling Aunt Pam and Grandma Joyce about Melissa’s older kids refusing to go to McDonald’s with Ben, who is 9. Reid overheard and said, “We should go on a date night* with Ben. I don’t mind going to McDonald’s.” She is a master of understatement already! I’ll have to get something set up for a day when a second kid would make an activity more fun.

I’d been holding out for her to suggest that she and I go to Red Lobster, like she did with Aunt Karin in May. Apparently, Reid thinks
I’m not worth the big money meal.

*Date night for Reid does not require romance.

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June 8, 2010 by Barbara.

Reid’s daycare teacher decided to celebrate the birthdays of all of the kids whose birthdays fall in the summer tomorrow. I immediately volunteered to bake the cake that they would share. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to try my hand at a rainbow cake, like the one Amy at Muddy Boots made. I doubt I’d enjoy the additional stress in the midst of planning for a real party but without the rest, I was keen. I started the cakes at 6 and finished by 11:25. I’m so wired from the sugar - mmmm, marshmallow fondant - and I’ve got a second wind, that I decided to write down what I did.

I followed Amy’s directions for the rainbow cake -basically, I added gel icing colouring to white cake mixes - and also followed her directions for marshmallow fondant. Her instruction to grease your hands with Crisco was critical to success!

Adding the food colouring to the cake batter was a bit like making playdough. I loved the vivid colours.

Just look at them! You know the cakes are going to be amazing.

In order to avoid baking 6 cakes - 2 at a time in my little oven -I put two colours in each pan. Another time, I think I’ll try 6 cakes.

I need to learn how to bake cakes with flat tops. I had to cut the rounded parts off of the first two cakes. Of course, this meant that I had to try the cakes, just in case.

I melted a small bag of marshmallows in the microwave in only 1 minute and added about half of the 1 kilogram bag of icing sugar before remembering to add the 2 tablespoons of water called for in the recipe.

The water kneaded in easily and I added probably 3 tablespoons when all was said and done.

Amy mentioned chilling the fondant overnight but I didn’t have the time and it rolled like a charm still warm.

I measure against theh top of my cake-taker to see the size of marshmallow fondant I would need and then draped it over the cake. Marshmallow fondant is much more forgiving of irregularities in the stacked cakes than regular icing. If only I could figure out how to make cream cheese-flavoured fondant, I’d switch to it entirely.

I used some more icing gel to colour more marshamallow fondant to decorate the top of the cake. Reid has been very interested in rainbows lately, thanks in part to They Might Be Giants’ ROY G BIV, a song about the colours in a rainbow. I couldn’t manage indigo. She’ll have to tell the kids its ROY G BV instead.

And here is the final product. Ta da! (If I can get a teacher to take a picture of the cake once it’s cut, I’ll post it, too.)

Edited to add: I asked Reid’s teacher to take a pic of the cake once it was cut since I couldn’t see the inside. She sent this piece home with Reid. You can’t taste the food colouring.

Posted in Holidays, Food, Daycare | Print | 5 Comments »

April 27, 2010 by Barbara.

As Reid and I were eating breakfast this morning, she inspected the dried cranberries, blueberries and cherries mix I put on my Red River cereal. She wasn’t interested in the dried fruit, though, and asked for “the not dried kind of cherries”. I said we’d put them on the grocery list. Reid got a thoughtful look on her face and asked if we had any “of those frozen things that I like.” I told her - not surprisingly - that I didn’t know what she meant. Reid was more precise. “You know the things I like and Daddy doesn’t. They’re kind of like a wrapped present,” and she smiled a sweet smile as she remembered. I had a flash of insight and asked, “Do you mean brussel sprouts?” Reid grinned and said, “Yes!” I had to admit that I don’t think we have any in our freezer. She wasn’t happy with waiting for the weekend, or even until Wednesday evening when we don’t have an activity, and asked if couldn’t I go at lunch. That’s a lot of love for brussel sprouts, which I like but had never thought that they looked like wrapped presents. I should probably suggest that line to the Brussel Sprout Marketing Board or some such organization.

Have a great day! I hope it includes a few brussel sprouts.

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