My So Called Life

That’s what I call a nice weekend

/ Shane / 2 Comments

The weather was so beautiful this weekend. Summer’s last hurrah, I suppose. We tried to spend as much time as possible outside, since Evie is going to be penned inside all winter. This may have backfired a little bit in the sense that she now is really excited for playing outside, and is going to be disappointed when the weather turns cold and we can’t.

Anyway, we practiced riding the tricycle on Friday and Saturday, and her improvement was incredible. On Friday she was constantly steering into things and had trouble keeping the trike going in a straight line. By Saturday, she was steering pretty well. She still gets distracted easily, and then forgets to steer, but at least when she is paying attention she does a good job. She also figured out how to peddle on her own. The tricycle has a handle on the back, so normally we push her. But once she figured out how to do it on her own, she didn’t want anything to do with that handle. In fact, she made me remove the handle and carry it, so she could be sure we weren’t pushing when she wasn’t looking. She usually needs a push to break her inertia, but once she is going, she can keep going until she stops. Then she needs another push to get going again.

(You can see another video here)

Growing up, we could play in the yard whenever we wanted, but living in the city, it’s not so easy for Evie. Finding a place to play means walking to a designated playing area. So, on Sunday, Evie and I walked up to the Midway to play in the grass there. We played tag, kicked balls, climbed up and down stairs, had races, and played hide and seek. It was a lot of fun! I figured Evie would have a good time, but I was surprised at how much fun I had.

One of the funny things that happened was when we were playing hide and seek. We were basically in a big field, so there really wasn’t many places to hide. Evie didn’t care though, she thought it was so much fun. She would just run out into the middle of the field and stand and wait for me. Not wanting to just walk right over to her, I would make a big show of looking around a few places before “finding” her. If I took too long, she would helpfully yell, “Daddy!” so that I could find her. So, when it was her turn to count, she told me exactly where to “hide”. I ended up hiding a few feet away (by hiding I mean sitting in the open, but covering my head). When she was done counting, she got pretty mad that I wasn’t hiding where she told me to. So I told her to count again, and I moved to the exact spot she indicated. When she was done counting, I expected her to run right over to me. She knew exactly where I was; she placed me there. But instead, she made a big, exaggerated show of looking in a few other places first. Here I thought I was fooling her. I guess there’s no putting one over on that kid. 🙂

She continues to surprise me with her grasp of language. Like when she told Sara, “Maybe we could wear similar sweatshirts!”

She also continues to surprise me with making up songs. I would expect at her age she would be into repeating songs she hears a lot, or in making up songs about what she is doing. And she does do both of those things. But when she and Sara both wore pink shirts, she burst out singing “Two pink girls, singing in the rain!” No idea where that one came from. It wasn’t even raining.

Finally, the other day she was taking a nap when she cried out, “I want it, I want it, I want it!” so I opened the door, but she wasn’t sitting up. I whispered, “Are you awake?” as a joke, since I knew she was awake; I had just heard her. But she wasn’t awake, she was completely out. We have been noticing lately a new possessiveness, a new demanding-ness, a true toddler I-want-it-all-and-I-want-it-right-now-ness…but usually not when she’s sleeping.

Halloween – everything we hoped and more

/ Shane / 2 Comments

It was a good weekend. Evie really got into the Halloween experience. I wasn’t sure if she was going to be a little too young to understand or appreciate things, but I don’t think she was. She was a little shy with saying “Trick-or-treat!” and she often forgot to say, “Thank you!” or she would mumble it to Sara or I after she had already turned away. But she caught on really quick to holding her bucket up and getting a piece of candy.

We went to a certain street in our neighborhood that is known to be a little crazy about Halloween, drawing people from all over the city. Every story I heard about the place was totally true, and we were done by 5:30. I can only imagine how crazy it would be by 6:30 or 7. My mom kept saying, “This is like a movie!” It was pretty crazy, but it was a lot of fun to be around so many people who were really into the spirit of things. There were lots of displays in yards, people dressed up, and spooky decorations, but these people really took it to the next level. One of my favorite things was a giant spider rigged 20 feet overhead with a pulley system, so it could drop down on unsuspecting people. I also remember a giant plastic knife that was rigged out on a rope, so it could go flying across the street through the air as if possessed.

There were some houses that Evie thought were too scary to go to. There was a giant spider suspended over a door that Evie refused to walk under, even though she confided to Sara, “It’s not real.” Another person in a mask took her by surprise and she just froze in place, refusing to move until the person dangled some M&M’s for her. Sara and I agreed that M&Ms were probably the only thing that could have gotten her to go any closer.

But overall, Evie had a blast. My mom remarked that Evie would probably be playing “trick-or-treat” for quite some time to come. I think we didn’t do too bad either, considering we convinced her to stop in the middle and eat a banana. I doubt any of the other parents had such luck.

Other than that, it was a pretty quiet weekend. We dealt with the time change (though I never found a suitable hour to re-live) and we did some getting ready for the impeding winter, including packing our grill off to storage and removing the tomato cages from the garden. Yesterday was officially the last day for the garden, and I expect it will either be demolished immediately, or sit tantalizingly empty forever, just out of reach. It is possible that we could get another plot in some other garden elsewhere, but I am sort of drained about the whole garden thing, so we might just sit it out. We’ll see.

Finally, we found the time to hit up our favorite breakfast spot, Yolk. Everything was delicious, as usual. But the interesting thing was that my mom ordered the “South Beach” and it was something to see. People were literally turning their heads as it was carried through the restaurant. That might have been because it looked like perhaps my mom was the Don Corleone of the fruit mafia, and she had just ordered someone to bring her the head of the Chiquita Banana lady.

The South Beach consists of half of an entire pineapple, on its side, piled high with granola, strawberries, orange slices, and other fruit. This stuff is literally overflowing off the top and piling up on the surrounding plate. After my mom ate all she could, we cut off the top and bottom and still couldn’t fit it in the largest to-go box they had. It was worth ordering, just to see the thing.

Unfortunately, the picture I took on my camera phone doesn’t really do it justice, so you’ll just have to imagine it.

Closer and closer to Halloween

/ Shane / 1 Comment

On Friday, Evie and I tried our most ambitious baking experiment yet: a pumpkin roll.

Pumpkin roll is easily in my top 2 deserts all time. I could probably eat one by myself, in a sitting, if I had to. But this is the first time I ever tried to make one. People kind of talk it up like it is hard, so I was a little worried, but honestly it wasn’t really that much trouble. And it was deeeelicious (even though half of it was eaten by a bunch of barbarians).

On Saturday we hit up the Halloween thing at the Lincoln Park Zoo, where we are members. It was a cold, wet, miserable day like you wouldn’t believe. The kind of day where nobody should be outside, everyone should be inside, under blankets, with something warm to drink. So traipsing around the zoo wasn’t really the greatest idea. Especially since Evie couldn’t wear her coat, because that would have ruined her awesome bat costume. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but most of the indoor enclosures were closed for the day, meaning we couldn’t get out of the elements. Luckily the bat enclosure wasn’t closed, so we were able to get some pictures of Evie in her bat costume looking at the actual bats. We did not stick around for the music or trick-or-treating, but Evie did ride on the carousel, so she was happy.

Finally, on Sunday we carved pumpkins. Readers of this blog will not be surprised that Evie requested that her pumpkin be crying, with tears running down its face. That being said, I am quite proud of the way hers turned out, very sad looking. Evie was a good model, fake crying for me whenever I needed it, to get the look right. She wanted my pumpkin to be angry / scary and Sara’s to be happy. She helped do hers, but got bored long before everything was done. That’s okay, I had fun doing it. Plus I have a bunch of roasted pumpkin seeds to eat now!

One last thing to mention about the weekend, I opened my first jar of pickles! They were very good. If I had been given that jar by my grandma, I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But, since I was the one actually making them, I was maybe a little over critical of them. They were a little vinegary and a little salty. Still, all in all, not too shabby for my first time out!

A spoonful of honey?

/ Shane / 4 Comments

Sara read an article that stated honey was more effective as a cough suppressant in young children than actual cough medicine. I’m not sure if this is the same article or not, but I did find this link, which I assume refers back to the same study.

This is a pretty good tip since A) we already have honey, B) honey has no side effects, C) honey is bound to taste better than cough syrup, no matter how many artificial flavors they jam in there, and D) I’m assuming honey is cheaper than cough syrup (though I’m not sure). Also, the article points out that the FDA has recommended you don’t give cough syrup to kids under 6, but honey is okay for kids over 1.

In short, why wouldn’t you give your kid honey instead?

So, is it true? Well, Evie has been sick lately and we gave it a try. We’ve had mixed results. The first time it worked really well, and her cough more or less disappeared for a couple of hours. The second time, it didn’t seem to do anything at all, though maybe her cough would have been that much worse with nothing. The third time it seemed like she was coughing less, but it’s hard to tell.

So I guess it’s just one of those things; until we can invent a time machine and go back and try it both ways, once with honey and once with cough syrup, we’ll never really know if she would have coughed less with the syrup. I will say this though, Evie was begging us for more “medicine”. Somehow I don’t think that would have happened with the cough syrup!

Caffeine is the enemy

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Fall makes me feel like drinking tea. So the other night I opened up some new White Chai that I bought and gave it a try. Not too long after I started to feel very light headed, and then eventually sick to my stomach. Finally, I had to lay down for a while until I felt better. That’s right, a cup of tea laid me out. That’s the kind of party animal I am these days.

So of course, I had to try it again.

Though I hadn’t had this particular tea before, the ingredients of the tea were pretty standard. I thought maybe it was a coincidence that I happened to feel sick after I drank the tea. Also, I hadn’t eaten any supper that night, so there was a lot going on. The second time, I had eaten a huge super, so I wasn’t going in on an empty stomach. This time I didn’t feel sick, but I did feel pretty light headed for a while. Of course, that could have been the power of suggestion, after the previous night.

The only thing I could figure was the caffeine. A while ago, I decided to cut caffeine out of my life, where possible. I drink caffeine free pop and I drink decaf coffee. If one cup of tea can give me a caffeine buzz, I guess it’s working! I searched the box for information about the caffeine content, but I didn’t find anything. I can only assume this means it has the regular amount of caffeine, that is, it is caffeinated, but not ridiculously so. In fact, it is white tea, which I understand to be the least caffeinated tea.

So my question to the tea drinkers out there is, how much caffeine is in tea? Has any one else come across this? Is there something else in there besides the caffeine that could be hitting me?