Quote Monday has jock itch

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Florence: “Oliver, here’s your jacket. Can you say ‘jacket’?”
Oliver: “Coat.”

::A small black and white chihuahua passes us on the street::
Oliver: “Moo! Moo!”

Evie: “What was that?”
Sara: “Medicine.”
Evie: “Jock itch?”
Oliver: “Jock itch! Jock itch!”
Sara: “I’m so glad my kids both know what jock itch is…”

Me: “Oliver, do you want to wash your hands for dinner?”
Oliver: “No! No! No!”
Me: “Let me re-phrase, who wants to wash their hands for dinner?”
Oliver: “MEEEEEE!!”

This works practically every time. He likes to say “No!”, but he also likes to say, “Meeee!” I have even caught Evie using this trick on him as well.

Green Bean “Un-casserole”

/ Shane / 1 Comment

The Reason:

I must admit, I am not a big fan of traditional green bean casserole. Actually, I am not a fan of cream-of-anything soup, which is what mars the green bean casserole for me. We’ve had this recipe for a long time, so I don’t remember exactly how we got it in the first place, but it is awesome, and I think everybody who tries it likes it. And those who don’t are probably filthy Communists*.

*I don’t actually believe Communists are any filthier than Capitalists. I meant to say filthy hippies**.

**Even though hippies do in fact tend to be filthy, how about we say “earthy” instead of “filthy”? Earthy hippies. Even hippies would be happy with that one. Except for the fact that earthy hippies would probably enjoy Green Bean Un-casserole.

The Journey:

This is just flat out delicious, however, some people see green beans and artichokes, and they won’t even try it. So, in order to prove to you how delicious (and un-healthy) this is going to be, I’m going to show you a picture of Sara drizzling oil over garlic and cheese:

Aw, what the heck, let’s throw some butter on top too.

Are you with me now?

The Verdict:

This is soooo good. I could eat it by the gallon. It was probably the best part about Thanksgiving, which is a holiday entirely centered on delicious food. In fact, it was so good, that we ended up making a second batch the next day!

The other nice thing is that the recipe is easy to scale up. So if you need to serve it in large quantities (such as for Thanksgiving), you can easily just double or triple the recipe. Or quadruple it and eat it all yourself!

The Recipe:

I’m not sure where this originally came from, so I can’t credit the source. Sara changed it a little over the years, so I’m not sure how much it even resembles the original recipe.

  • ~1/2 lb. frozen green beans, semi-defrosted
  • 1 14 oz. can artichoke hearts, hand-squeezed (you need to remove the water) and chopped
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/4 c parmesan cheese
  • 1/4 c bread crumbs
  • 1 cloves garlic, pressed

—

  • 2 oz French fried onions
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • Salt & pepper to taste

Combine 1st group of ingredients in casserole dish. Top with dots of butter and salt and pepper. Bake covered for 20 min at 400°F. Top with onions and bake uncovered for 15 min.

The von Trapp family-in-training

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Evie has always been into music. She picks up lyrics at the drop of a hat (sometimes when you’d prefer she didn’t), and she sings snatches of songs pretty much nonstop. I wasn’t sure if this would encourage Oliver to sing, or discourage him from singing, since Evie kind of steals the show (what are big sisters for?).

Lately, however, Ollie has started to sing and pick up words to songs. It is so adorable! The thing that’s interesting is that he generally gets the tone exactly right, even as he is mumbling out some vaguely-word sounding noises that generally approximate the lyrics. So far his repertoire is mostly limited to “London Bridge” and “Hello” from music class, but he’ll randomly do snatches from other songs, usually related to whatever his big sister has been singing lately.

Oliver really loves music class, the way Evie did when she was his age (she’s sort of ambivalent towards it at this point). At the beginning they always sing the Hello song, and that’s what Oliver has really keyed in on. He even calls it, “Hello class.” He very frequently does the hand motions and sings, “Hello! Hello! Helllllooooooooo…Boom!” I never get tired of making him sing it.

In fact, his singing is just sort of indicative of his language growth in general. He surprises me at least once a day with a word that I didn’t know he knew. He keeps being more advanced than I give him credit for. For example, when the book has a picture with the label “sky” and Oliver points to it and says, “Clouds!” Or when he’s pointing to dog pictures and saying, “Doggie!” and then he points to a picture of a weinheimer and says, “Luna!” Has he even seen Aunt Rachael’s dog, or did someone just tell him once that the picture looked like Luna?

He’s also picked up one party trick, which we make him perform over and over again. We ask him, “Oliver, how old are you?” and he thrusts his finger into the air and shouts, “One! One!”

I’m not really sure how many words he knows now, but it’s definitely in the hundreds. You would think that with my vast adult experience, combined with being around Oliver all the time, I would always understand what he’s saying. However, Evie is the best Ollie interpreter. She often will explain something that I’m not quite getting. On the other hand, she’s very bad at interpreting things that he says very clearly, confusing him by repeating back the wrong word.

I’m sure there’s a research paper in there somewhere, but the moral of the story is, he’s talking like crazy (figuratively and literally, since most of his talking involves mumbling and referring to himself in the 3rd person).

 

19 months is too young to potty train, right?

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Oliver went on the potty SIX TIMES today!!

One year with one car

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Last October, we became a one car family. You can read about that ordeal here, but at the end of the post I indicated that we would try to go with only one car until Thanksgiving. Well, that was last Thanksgiving, and here we are after this Thanksgiving, with still only one car!

We actually didn’t mean to do it, but we kept going a *little bit longer* without a car. When we made it to Thanksgiving, we said, “Well, we’ll just go until winter makes it  too difficult.” Then, after winter was going okay, we said, “Well, lets see how spring goes.” Summer was pretty tricky, because we signed Evie up for summer camp without realizing the bus schedule is drastically reduced in summer. But once we got through that, we figured, “Well, we’re good to go until Evie starts at her other school in the fall.” Then, Sara ended up switching her work schedule around a little, and it worked out for me to drop Evie off and pick her up on the way to and from work. So we STILL didn’t need a second car.

I should say that this is mostly due to Sara’s effort. When the bus wasn’t running, she had to walk, with both kids. When the bus was running, she had to get both kids on and off the bus, not to mention waiting in the cold, walking to and from the bus stop, etc. My life has been relatively unchanged, other than very occasionally working from home so Sara can use the car, and being responsible for the weekly grocery trip on Friday when I have the car.

I tried carpooling for a week or two. One day of the week I would pick up my co-worker on the way to work, and another day of the week I would take the train downtown and meet my co-worker, who would drive to and from work, dropping me off by the train station for my return trip. This did not last long. All the extra little things (walking to and from the train stations, waiting for the train, etc.) made the trip take SIGNIFICANTLY longer than just driving. Ultimately, Sara decided that having me get home at a decent hour was more important than having the car one day a week.

So now that we’ve made it for more than a year, there’s not really anything on the horizon that would cause us to get a second car. We’ve sort of fallen into a rhythm, and everything is working out. It’s not always the easiest thing in the world and requires some careful planning, but it’s well worth the money we’re saving by not having a car. Insurance is the most significant savings, but there’s a lot of other things, like license plates and city stickers, and the fact that if we had that car, we’d drive it. Rather than planning things out, for example taking the recycling when we’re going to the grocery store, we’d just go driving. Then we’d have gas, car maintenance, etc. Easily a couple of thousand bucks, to say nothing of the cost of the actual car.

So here we are. We’re still not opposed to having a second car, but so far it hasn’t really been needed. So I can’t imagine why we’d suddenly need one tomorrow. Until such time as we have a reason, we’ll just keep going as we are. I never would have thought it possible!