What kind of cake?!?

My brothers and I often used to tease my Mom that for an English teacher she had the darnedest way of phrasing things. Oh, don't get me wrong—Mom's usually very articulate, but every now and then she has trouble finding just the right word and before you know it she tends to come out with a thingamajig or whatchamacallit or whosamawhatsit.

"Is that what you teach the kids in class, Mom? Whatchamacallit?"

We're brats.

Mom has also been known to say her fair share of Spoonerisms. Sometimes she does the classic first letter switcheroo. Other times it's letters in the middle of the words that she mixes up. There was one time she kept saying that she needed to go to the store to buy a tune of tinna. It took her several attempts at restating the words before she finally came out with tin of tuna, and by then my brothers and I were laughing so hard we could hardly hear her.

Brats, I tell you.

But my absolute favourite example of Mom mixing up words was the time years ago that she was trying to tell my brother John and I that she was going to make her German Applesauce Cake for a family get together. But that's not what came out of her mouth. Instead she announced that she was going to make German Sheppard Cake.

We, of course, had a heyday with that one.

"Good Lord, Mom! We're not going to eat THAT!"

And now—in honour of my mom and her wonderful way with words—I present to you the recipe for my mom's famous cake.

German Sheppard Applesauce Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 small jar applesauce (24 ounces)
1/4 cup brown sugar
cinnamon

Directions:

1. Mix together the first five ingredients.
2. Crumble and put half of the mixture in a square 8-inch pan.
3. Cover with a layer of applesauce.
4. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.
5. Put the rest of the crumbs on top.
6. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes.
7. Serve with ice cream or whipped topping.

Enjoy. Woof!

From whence my sense of humour came

I think of myself as someone who has kind of a quirky, odd sense of humour. I have a bit of silliness in me, an appreciation for the absurd, a love of word play, an affinity for jokes that reference politics and popular culture, and—while I have an appreciation for humour that can be dark and cynical—I veer away from humour that is overly vulgar or mean-spirited.

It occurred to me that it might be fun to examine the main literary influences that helped me develop this strange sense of humour I have. Other than my family, here's who's to blame:

• Dennis Lee poetry—I still have poems from Alligator Pie and Garbage Delight etched in my memory from childhood. I loved the rhymes and rhythm of the poetry, the way he played with words, and the dark and sometimes disturbing undertones to some of the poems. One poem named off body parts that would be eaten in different cities ("In Napanee I'll eat your knee/In Winnipeg I'll eat your leg..."), and in another poem, a child lamented that his parents had been kidnapped by monsters. That's funny stuff!
• Dr. Seuss—If you want to create an adult with a quirky, odd sense of humour, Dr. Seuss is certainly a good starting point. I particularly remember reading The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, all of them wonderfully absurd books that empower a child's imagination. My absolute favourite Seuss book, though, was Fox In Sox. I used to beg my older brother John to read it and all its wonderful tongue-twisters to me on a regular basis.
  
• Asterix & Obelix books—My brothers and I owned a bunch of Asterix and Obelix books when we were growing up. We used to read them over and over again. I loved the clever story lines, the amusing characters, the puns and wordplay. During one of our early dates, Ed actually quoted a line from Asterix and Cleopatra (I think it was, "ah, but what a nose!") and I became even more smitten with him than I already was. "Hey! This one might actually get my sense of humour!" I thought.
  
• The Far Side—Is there anything funnier than a comic with a cow in it? What's that? Huh? Okay sure, perhaps a comic with a cow AND a chicken. In any event, Gary Larsen's The Far Side comics had plenty of cows, chickens and a ton of strange, off-the-wall humour. Like many a smart child who occasionally did the most incredibly air-headed things, I felt the "Midvale School for the Gifted" comic especially spoke to me. It pictured a child attempting to push open the door to the school, and on the door in large letters is a sign with the word PULL. Yeah...been there, done that.
  
• The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy—Oh yeah, I sass that hoopy Ford Prefect. He's a frood who really knows where his towel is. ("HUH?!?" say the non-HHGTTG fans.) I spent a good portion of my teenage years reading and rereading the HHGTTG books, listening to the radio show, reading the radio transcripts, quoting large sections of the book to friends and family.
  
• Bloom County—I can still remember the excitement of discovering Bloom County for the first time. Here was a comic that was so timely, fresh and irreverent. I loved the way it mixed together politics and pop culture references within a strip that had characters as cynical as Steve Dallas and as sweetly naive as Opus the Penguin.
  
• Calvin & Hobbes—Bill Watterson's comics were so hilarious and imaginative. It's funny, I find it hard to come up with words to explain what exactly it was about Calvin & Hobbes that appealed to me so much. I guess it just comes down to the fact that that little kid's crazy imagination cracked me up.
  

All it's cracked up to be...and more!

Every time Winter comes around, I invariably end up with horribly dry skin. My skin is very sensitive to the dry air and I've never found a lotion or hand soap that actually helps me keep them moisturized enough. My hands especially become very dry and cracked. Parenthood certainly has not helped the situation, since I'm constantly having to wash my hands in the course of looking after the kids.

This Fall my dry skin problems showed up even earlier than usual. With the flu bug going around, I've been washing my hands a little bit more often and a little bit longer than usual.

This week my hands were in particularly bad shape. My knuckles were all cracked and sore. At one point on Friday I had to reach into my jeans pocket to get some coins out, and when I pulled my hand out I found I'd scraped one of my knuckles enough it was actually bleeding a bit. Ugh! If my hands are already this bad in November, what are they going to be like in February?

So Friday night before bed I decided to put a bit of Polysporin on my hands to maybe heal the cracking. The headboard of our bed has a couple of little cabinet drawers in it where we tend to keep stuff like that, so I went looking for the Polysporin. I didn't find it, but I did find this:At the back of the cabinet was a tube of Lansinoh that had probably been back there since Jamie was about 6 months old. I looked at the tube and thought, "Hmmmm. I wonder..."

I applied the ointment to my knuckles Friday before bed, a couple of times yesterday, and then again this morning. And ohmygosh, it actually works. Why didn't I think of this earlier? My hands are in way better shape than they were in Friday afternoon.

Lanisinoh...for cracked nipples knuckles.

Every now and then a haiku comes in handy

NaBloPoMo means
Time to bring out the haikus!
It's a tradition.

Busy all day long.
Swim class, kid's birthday party,
Have friends for dinner.

About that last one...
We've invited friends to dine.
We're not eating them.

Sometimes I explain
Things that don't need explaining
Just to be silly.

That's all for now folks
I'll be back here tomorrow
With a real post...swear!

Snacks

During the 45 minutes or so that Hana was happily skating on the ice at Crosby Memorial Arena the other day, I had Jamie to keep me company. I'd thought of signing Jamie up for skating this year, but at 3 years old he's still a little young, I think. Next year...

Usually after we get Hana onto the ice at the back of the arena, then we go hang out in the front lobby for a bit. I bring a snack for him to enjoy while we wait—one of those mini juice boxes and some goldfish crackers or saltines. This week after Hana went skating off I realized that I'd forgotten the snack for Jamie in the car. When I told him we had to go get it, he shook his head.

"No car. No outside."

"You don't want to have a snack?"

"No, I want orange crackers."

"You mean goldfish crackers?"

"No, orange crackers."

Okay, I always thought goldfish crackers were orange, but nevermind.

All of a sudden Jamie started running alongside the rink toward the main lobby.

"I show you! I show you!"

I hurried after him, wondering what he was up to. Then I remembered that Ed mentioned a few weeks ago, when he brought the kids to skating, he forgot to pack a snack so he got Jamie something from the vending machine.

I called after Jamie, "I'm not going to buy anything, if that's what you're thinking."

"No mommy, I show you orange!"

He kept running ahead, then led me into the lobby, and made a bee-line for the vending machine. Quelle surprise! He pointed madly at a bag of nachos. "These ones!"

"Yeah, I see Jamie, except we have a snack in the car so I'm not buying them."

And then the meltdown occurred. It was short-lived, at least. I'm thankful for that. After a minute or so he let me pick him up and take him to the car to get the crackers I'd brought.

Oh, but Jamie wasn't about to let me win all the snack related arguments of the day. A little bit later, as he was happily munching a cracker while watching Hana skate, a piece of cracker fell onto the well-trodden lobby floor. I reached to pick it up, but he beat me to it.

"Don't eat it Jamie. It's got germs on it now."

He grinned at me then popped it into his mouth.

"I LIKE GERMS!"

By the book

Hana can be a bit of a perfectionist. She places a lot of importance in following rules to the letter, and gets very anxious if she thinks that she's gotten anything at all wrong. This perfectionism even spills over to things that are supposed to be just for fun. On Remembrance Day, the kids in her kindergarten class were told to wear red to school. In Hana's mind, that meant that she had to wear red and only red, from top to bottom. Pants that are mostly red with a few green pinstripes would not do.

"The teachers said we have to wear red!"

In Hana's mind wearing red and only red wasn't optional—it was absolutely necessary. She couldn't disappoint her teachers!

It's not just school teachers, either, that she needs to please. Last week at the end of Hana's skating lesson we were reminded that this week would be Pajama Week at the skating club. Kids were asked to come to their skating lesson dressed in pajamas. Fun!

Except my first thought was, "Arggh...how are we going to do this?"

Hana's still relatively new to skating, so she falls a fair bit. Since her body is making frequent contact with the cold, hard ice we like to have her dressed up in her nice cushioned winter coat and waterproof snowpants. If we put jammies on underneath, I knew Hana would be upset that no one could see them. If we put jammies on over top...well, that was pretty much impossible. I didn't figure her pajamas would fit overtop of her coat and snowpants. Sure, another option was to just "forget" about Pajama Week. But I know my daughter...she considers such theme days to be mandatory. It doesn't matter how many other kids around her are in their regular clothes, she'll still think she's breaking some all-important rule if she doesn't come dressed up in sleepwear.

I just didn't know what we could do.

And then, typically, we forgot about the whole Pajama Week theme until Tuesday night, just as we were getting the kids ready for bed. Then Ed remembered, "we're supposed to bring pajamas for Hana to skating tomorrow, aren't we?"

After a wee bit of mumbling under my breath and scurrying about, a thought occurred to me. We could put her nice big fluffy housecoat on over her jacket. That would work.

I ran the idea by Hana and she seemed to like it. Woohoo! That wasn't so bad after all.

We got to skating a bit late, so most of the kids were already on the ice as I got Hana changed. The housecoat fit over her jacket just fine. Hana seemed pleased as she stepped onto the ice and skated towards the other kids—some dressed in pajamas, some not. But actually, I was surprised just how many kids there were dressed in pajamas. I spotted a few others in housecoats, too, so that was a relief.

Hana spent the next 45 minutes smiling and having fun. Near the end of her lesson, though, she skated over to me, looking a bit concerned. I could see her lips moving, but it was hard to hear what she was saying through the Plexiglas walls surrounding the rink. Something about pictures and only pajamas, and then something about her housecoat. I glanced further down the ice and saw one of the instructors with a camera taking photos. A line-up of kids, all in pajamas waited to take a turn getting their photos taken.

And then I realized, ahhh...she thinks she's not allowed to get her photo taken because she's in a housecoat, not pajamas. I shouted to her, "it's okay...you can get your photo taken."

I could see her mouth forming words, "No mommy! No! She said pajamas only."

I knew there was no way the teachers would exclude her from photos because she was in a housecoat. "Yes, Hana!" I shouted and nodded, then gave a thumbs up, then pointed towards the woman with the camera.

"Hana shook her head, no."

I cursed the impenetrable walls of Plexiglas that were making it so damned hard to talk to the silly girl in front of me.

"It's okay, Hana. Get your photo taken!" Thumbs up, grin, point point, nod nod.

Hana started to well up. Oh man...

Luckily, the instructor with the camera finally noticed us. She called Hana over. It took some coaxing because Hana was absolutely convinced that she was not allowed to go near the woman since she was only wearing a housecoat, not pajamas. I saw the instructor hunch down to talk to Hana face to face. She patted Hana's shoulders and smiled. Then Hana skated over to the end of the line-up of kids. A minute later it was her turn to get her photo taken.

At the end of class, the instructor said to me, "I'm sorry...she heard me say pajamas and I guess she thought she wasn't supposed to get her photo taken."

I assured her it was okay. Hana's just very rule-oriented, I explained.

So it ended fine, but it made me realize that I really do need to work on getting Hana to loosen up about these things. I'm just not entirely sure how to start....

Family words

A while back Andrea at a peek inside the fishbowl wrote a post about the words they use within their family that might not make sense to anyone else. I thought it would be fun to list off the family words we use in our household and what they mean. Here they are:

• Silly Monkeys—Hana's name for the Animaniacs, a show she found wonderfully silly when I first introduced her to it.
• Hana Character—What Hana coined the Nintendo Wii. When we first got it, she was fascinated with the little Mii characters that we created for all of our family and friends, and of course the one we made for her. Now whenever the kids want to play Wii games, they ask to play Hana Character.
  
• Hogans—Jamie's name for the Backyardigans.
• McQueequeeCar—Jamie's name for Lightning McQueen, from the movie Cars.
• Drink a lid—When Hana was little and she wanted to drink the last bit of milk in her sippy cup without the lid on the cup she would say she wanted to "drink a lid." Somehow the phrase stuck, so the kids still ask to drink a lid whenever they drink from cups with a lid on them.
  
• Special cereal—Quaker oatmeal. When we first gave it to Hana, we figured it was a treat breakfast, so we called it special cereal. Then she ended up eating it almost every day for the next year because she LOVED the stuff...so it wasn't such a special occasion kind of cereal after all.
  
• Mommy cereal—My fave cereal...a mixture of Just Right and Oatmeal Raisin Crisp. After Hana got tired of special cereal, she moved on to eating mommy cereal.
  
• Auntie Mel's noodles—Bucatini #6 noodles, introduced to the kids by my friend Meline during our week at the cottage this summer.
• Slurpy noodles—Beefaroni, which the kids get to eat every once in a blue moon.
  
• I got 'ecret!—What Jamie says when he has a secret to tell (generally what happens next is that he leans forward, blows in your ear, then runs off giggling madly).
  
• 'Amily!—Family! A few months ago, Jamie went through a phase where he would announce all our names, "Mommy, Daddy, Hana, Jamie, 'Amily!" For a while we wondered who the heck this Emily person he was talking about was...then we realized he was just dropping the "F" at the start of family. Ahhhh...silly us.
  

Sleep deprivation and miscommunication

When the kids were smaller Ed and I were perpetually sleep deprived, like most parents of young children. We had good reason—the kids had us up several times per night, sometimes for long stretches of time. Week after week of interrupted sleep takes its toll on you.

That's mostly over with. The kids go to bed a bit later than they used to, but once they are asleep they tend to stay asleep. Oh, every now and then they wake up, but it's not very often and it's rarely for very long. By all rights, Ed and I should be getting quite a bit of sleep these days.

Except we're not.

We're not getting nearly enough sleep these days and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

The problem is that it's only after we finally have both kids down for the night that we have a chance to relax a bit. Nighttime is our time to watch an episode of CSI or Top Chef we have recorded, or work on our blogs, or read a bit. It feels so nice to relax that neither of us are in any hurry to head upstairs to bed. And even when I do decide it's time for bed, I'll find myself getting sidetracked along the way. I'll realize that I still have to pack the dish washer and get it running. Or I remember there's a load of laundry I need to fold. There's always just one more thing to do.

Sometimes the silliest things get in the way of a good night's sleep.

A few nights ago Ed announced he was going upstairs at 11:30, a bit earlier than usual. "I have some ironing I have to do before tomorrow," he told me.

I headed up stairs about 15 minutes later and Ed was ironing some shirts in our room. I figured if he was busy ironing, there wasn't much point in going to bed, so I started to putter a bit. I put away some laundry I'd done earlier in the evening. When I was done that, I realized Ed had just started another shirt, so I nipped downstairs to do a couple more things. When I came back up he was ironing some pants, so I continued to putter. Finally at about 12:30 I decided to brush my teeth and head to bed, even if Ed was still ironing stuff.

A few minutes later Ed finally came to bed.

I decided to subtly suggest that maybe he should have started ironing a bit earlier in the evening. "So...had you forgotten you wanted to do some ironing this evening until you were just about to head upstairs?"

"No."

"It's just that it took longer than you thought it would?"

"Not really."

"So you'd actually planned to stay up till 12:30 ironing?!?"

"Well no, it's just that you were still busy doing stuff, so I figured I might as well keep ironing."

"But I was only keeping myself busy doing stuff because you were still busy ironing!"

"I was just killing time till you were ready to go to bed."

"Seriously?"

"I only really planned to iron one shirt."

"Gah...I would've gone to bed ages ago..."

"Honey, we just don't communicate anymore."