Sunday, December 19, 2010

Get your chunk on

Canada Food Guide says we should be eating 8-10 servings of vegetables and fruit a day. I'm lucky if I get that in a week. I think alot of people struggle with eating enough, but my friend has the answer. The chunky.

She whacks a load of fruit and veg in a blender and bim bam boom - the chunky. They say necessity is the mother of invention, so what started off as a smoothie transformed into one hard core vegetable concoction that's anything but smooth. This ain't no berry breeze we're talking about, she adds brussells sprouts, edamame, kale, the lot. A frozen brussells sprout is tough on a blender, so there are lumps and bumps. But such is the case with all the best things in life.

She admits it looks and smells awful, but she's doing it man! One chunky once a day and she's good to go!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Dancing feet

This weekend, I got Xavier new winter boots with flashing lights in the heels. He loves them.

Good Mom? Check!

This morning, I forgot to bring shoes for him to change into at daycare. He had to wear shoes from the spare bin. As luck would have it, the only pair that fit him were sparkly ballet flats.

Good Mom? ------------

Anyone else have any Monday morning Mom stories?

Sunday, December 12, 2010

sweet Sunday afternoon

Sometimes you have to revel in chaos and who better to teach you than a child?

My boy and I made cookies today and I knew it was going to be messy. But I clad the dining table in vinyl thrift-store tablecloth and threw caution to the wind.

After rolling out the sugar cookie dough, we grabbed our cookie cutters and got to work. We managed to get about 11 cookies instead of the promised 4 dozen. Some of the blobs had to be creatively named.

There was much wailing while we were waiting for the cookies to bake until I produced the coloured sugar and silver dragees. Xavier tasted a pinch of this and a pinch of that and was soon reduced to a multi-coloured smile.

We decorated the cookies with the remaining sugar and dragees and iced them with Scribblers. What a great invention! I would have had a royal meltdown if I'd had to make royal icing.

We iced and ate, ate and sprinkled, sprinkled and drageed.

We did it. We made homemade Christmas cookies. The house is a mess and there are none left for the Christmas tree or the neighbours but the sheen of the red and green sugar between the floorboards will act as testament to our magical afternoon for a long time to come.


Friday, December 3, 2010

Cheerio-no!

I remember complaining to my mother-in-law once, about how I never seemed to have time to clean the house. She said, "oh, it wouldn't take long to go through your house, would it?". I was speechless. I didn't have an answer for her, because I'd never 'gone through the house' once in the three years we'd been living here. In fact, I'm guessing there are a few nooks and crannies remaining that have yet to beblessed by a duster or a broom. I try to stay on top of things but, you know. My mother-in-law goes through her house every day. I don't know how she does it.

I use the "Cheerio gauge" to determine how clean the house is these days. Anyone with a toddler will know that Cheerios shrink with age. I'm not sure why this happens, I think it is a unique talent in the cereal community.


All I know is that the smaller the Cheerios I find, the more aged they are, and the more derelict I am in my duties. See Exhibit A from a few week ago:

Lately I haven't found any really small Cheerios. Hooray! I just hope it's because I've swept them up and not because they're so old that they're invisible to the naked eye.