I Scream! You Scream! We All Scream For Ice Cream (That I Made Weeks Ago And Which Now Is Gone)!

While we're waiting for my kid to turn into a goddamned grownup even though I am not ready for such a ridiculous thing to happen because COME ON SHE IS ONLY A BABY WAIT WHERE DID MY BABY GO WHO IS THIS EXTREMELY TALL TALKATIVE BOSSY PERSON SLEEPING IN HER BED WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BAAAAAAAAABY YOU FIEND, let's talk about ice cream.

A while back, I got this incredibly inspired idea that I have approximately 80 bajillion dollars worth of Kitchen-Aid appliances and accessories in my kitchen that I haven't used in maybe a hundred years, so let's bust everything out and do something with them. I guess you could say I went on a Wheaton-esque "get excited and make things" kick for about twenty minutes.

I decided to make ice cream because it was very hot at the time. The heat has broken some in the meantime, but at that particular point it was too damned hot to even write about it. Hell, it was almost too hot to EAT it. But we took all our ingredients and spread them out on the stove so I could take a picture of them, and then we got to work.

We could not reach a consensus on what kind of ice cream to make. I've made ice cream before, in those practically prehistoric Days Before Children, but this was my first attempt with a very militant chocoholic in the house. Which could have been dicey, because I don't like chocolate ice cream (I know, it's un-American, WHATEVER, I'm already a socialist so hush). The compromise recipe was for cherry chocolate chip, which we made using 2 cups heavy cream, 2 cups half-and-half, 3/4 cup sugar (divided -- most of it in the ice cream, 2-3 tablespoons for the cherries), 1 tablespoon of my 15-year old Mexican vanilla (not I am not joking, my vanilla is THAT OLD), 2 dashes kosher salt, 3/4 cup fresh sweet cherries, and 1/3 cup mini semisweet chips.

At this point I will tell you what we did wrong. One, we should have used all cream -- either all heavy cream, or a combination of heavy and light cream. The final texture using the half-and-half was a bit too grainy. We might have been okay if we did a custard-style ice cream, but I didn't want to do that much work, and my eggs are always a bit dodgy. Also, we did not cut up the cherries into small enough pieces, nor did we let them "marinate" long enough. Probably we should have prepared the cherries the day before, let them soak up all the sugar, and then mashed the snot out of them.

We left our ice cream bowl in the freezer for 24 hours. We might want to let it go longer than that next time, but it was mostly okay. Our ingredients were not cold enough when we put them in the bowl; if you follow this recipe, I recommend putting everything in the freezer for at least an hour before adding it to the ice cream bowl. Let the mixer do the work for about half an hour or so (according to directions), and add the cherries and the chocolate chips for the last 10-15 minutes.

Also: you will need to freeze your ice cream before you can eat it. We let ours sit overnight before we ate it. So, basically, we started the process on Sunday (bowl in freezer), made the ice cream on Monday, poured it into covered containers and let it "ripen," and then finally ate it on Tuesday. Was it worth the wait?

Mostly. Like I said, our ice cream had an "off" texture, and because the cherries were not cut small enough some of them were basically solid chunks of frozen fruit when we finally ate it, plus since we didn't let them "marinate" long enough we got random bites of cherry that were more tart than others, but overall, the flavor was quite good. I really liked it. I'd definitely make it again, making a few small tweaks to the recipe and process. Although it was not all chocolate, the chocolate chips satisfied the animal urges of the not-so-little one.

Ain't No Party Like A Preschool Party

'Cuz a preschool party has a trampoline and an ice cream truck. HOLLA!

In case you were wondering: no, we did not intend to cut her hair that short. I am significantly less than happy about it, honestly, and in fact had quite a nice little nutty hysterical fit, but I'll be damned if the kid isn't enough of a diva to pull it off. It's longer than it was at first, since it's had a week to grow in already. On the plus side, her shower time has been cut in half, and we don't spend 45 minutes alternately screaming and then staring dumbly at each other in the morning trying to detangle / comb out / style her damn fool head.

Synchronized noshing. This picture gets me REALLY EXCITED about the photo possibilities for the summer, because I am that totally dorky aunt who bought matching outfits and swimsuits for these two so that I can do the whole "identical cousins" thing for next year's calendar. Because don't they look so much alike? Except my niece looks like my dad and my daughter looks like my mom and so basically they look exactly nothing alike?

For the longest time I thought I hit the jackpot, because Shae has so much personality and pizzazz in pictures, but it turns out I actually hit the jackpot at least TWICE, because Makayla loves posing for the camera, too. You can't really tell here, but she was pedaling herself backwards on this trike and saying "Vroom vroom!" the entire time and it was the cutest thing EVER.

I asked Makayla to show me her lollipop, and she held it out to me like she was going to let me have a taste, and then yoinked it away at the last minute, all "HA ha!" like Nelson Muntz. Booger. Wiseassery runs in the family, obviously. Must be something in the water.

Hey, look! CAKEFACE! Oh, how I missed it.

Abandonment Issues

Oh, hey, I still have a blog! And despite all evidence to the contrary, I didn't run off and join the circus or anything! Even though I kind of want to! Because there has been a lot of stuff going on! Like finding Christmas presents from last year! And wrapping them! Because other ones went missing! And then there was all that paperwork for graduate school! And calendars to finish! And then nervous breakdowns about finishing calendars and getting grad school paperwork in! And holiday card to make and print and mail! And parties! And more parties! And not enough tequila! And possibly running out of exclamation points!

It hasn't been all bad, just extremely busy. As things tend to be at this time of year.

And somewhere in there when I wasn't paying attention, my niece turned a year old, which just shouldn't be allowed. Babies should be babied forever because I said so. If she's a year older already, then so am I, and I don't think I can take getting much older because DAMN. I am tired.

Makayla's party was a lot of fun, though, even though I am starting to suspect that this kid might possibly not actually be related to me, because she basically wanted NO PART of her birthday cake, not even the adorable little smash cake.

She just wanted to prance around in her pretty little princess dress, although I can't say I blame her, because that dress was gorgeous. But I wanted to get the "money shot," the perfect picture of her tiny little delicious one-year-old first birthday cake-face.

207 shots later, I got something I could work with. Happy birthday, kiddo!

Surprise Cake Face

You guys, these pictures are SO DAMN OLD (taken on 10/1) that I had forgotten I even had them.

October 1st was Shae's half-birthday. Yeah, I know we're grasping at straws, but it's been a while since we had a birthday - the last one was G's birthday, way back on August 28th. So we let Shae pick out a cupcake so we could have a little "party." There were all kinds of cupcakes decorated with footballs and baseballs and Phillies logos - remember, this was way back at the beginning of the playoffs, when we still had high-cherry-pie-in-the-sky-hopes - and even a couple that looked like the Phillie Phanatic.

But she picked out this one, a Halloween-decorated number, with purple icing and a ghost-shaped Peep and a little decorative pick that said "Boo" on it, which she didn't even noticed because OMG YOU GUYS PURPLE ICING AND A GIANT PIECE OF CANDY WHOOOOOOO! The "Boo" pick was my favorite part, because we still call her Boo at home (after Boo from Monsters Inc. and also Boo-Boo Kitty from Laverne & Shirley. I AM OLD SHUT UP GET OFF MY LAWN.)

Yes, she is kissing the Peep that she is about to stuff into her mouth. This kid has a very bizarre romantic relationship with her food. Whatever. My sister once wanted to marry a Brussels sprout or a broccoli, I can't remember which, so it's not like messed-up relationships with food are unheard of in my family. (Now that I think about it, my sister was around this age at the time that she fell in love with a vegetable, so maybe it's just preschoolers, and not something hereditary.)

Anyway: Happy Friday! And Happy Surprise Cake Face Day!

PS - Purple cupcake frosting? DOES NOT COME OUT OF ANYTHING.

Sliding Into Home

This past weekend was gorgeous, or so they tell me -- I didn't really notice because I was stuck in the house with some kind of plague or whatever. Damned sinuses. So here are some more pictures of my kid from two weekends ago, when her "Flyin' Hawaiian" shirt was still a sign of hope and expectation.

She might not quite be able to work the swings yet, but we have no noticeable issues with the sliding board, except that this particular one is all plastic and seems to attract static electricity from other solar systems.

I love that, even after all these years (because, you know, she's 517 years old, God could I be any more melodramatic? [DON'T ANSWER THAT]), going down a sliding board still makes her so happy.

Still diggin' the teeter-totter, too. Not that I blame her for this one, really. Aside from the merry-go-round, which seems to have been removed from every single playground in the world, pretty much, the teeter-totter is one of my favorite rides.

See that Dora watch? It's about three hours slow -- or nine hours fast -- and the date is completely wrong, and if you ask Shae what time it is, she usually says something like "Time for a snack!" No dummy, that one.

This is the closest we've gotten to cake face in a while. Haven't been many birthdays lately.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

Now that all that other sad stuff is over with -- well, all over but the random crying jags and the self-medication with the occasional caramel-dipped shortbread cookie that actually tastes more like butterscotch, if you want to be completely honest, not that I am complaining, because I really think there ought to be more butterscotch-based cuisine in the world -- it's time to get back to our regularly-scheduled recounting of events that happened to my kid way the hell back more than a week ago, which is practically a lifetime in preschooler years. I mean, she probably doesn't even remember this stuff any more -- which is of course precisely why I take 958 squidillionty pictures of everything that happens ever day forever and ever, amen.

So Shae's friend from school had a birthday party, and there was a sprinkler with a spinning head that you could jump over, and it was pretty much determined to be The Greatest Thing Ever for like ten minutes until someone got the brilliant idea to start throwing water balloons at each other's heads.

That went as well as could be expected. Nobody lost an eye, thankfully, primarily because small children do not have (1) especially strong throwing arms or (2) particularly good aim, both of which significantly improved the odds in favor of not having to call the paramedics to remove little rubber bits from tiny eyeballs.

Oh, and there were also frozen Dora bars that I think were made of sherbet or something, with gumball eyes. They were kind of gross and messy and of course they were a huge hit with the kids. Although Shae was disappointed because the boys got Spider-Man pops, which were equally disgusting, with the added bonus of being bright blue and red and shaped like a superhero instead of "some dumb girl." It's like she's not even my child or something -- oh, wait.

Looks like someone is proud of her gift-wrapping skills. It IS my very favorite part of Christmas, after all, and it's fair to say that WE NEED A LITTLE CHRISTMAS, RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE, every day all the time all year 'round.

And, yes, there was cake. This particular cake was very pretty and I really love the flower work here. This cake was almost too pretty to eat.

But only almost.

Pictures of Pickles

My grandfather's funeral is today, and I just can't even, so here are some pictures of my kid eating a pickle on a stick from when we went to Musikfest the other night.

You try and have a good weekend. I'll be drinking myself blind. See you on the flip side, hopefully.

(PS: This is not denial. This is strictly avoidance. I know the difference. I just wish I didn't have to.)

A Day (Plus A Week) Late

Last Wednesday, July 27th, was my brother-in-law's birthday. No, the other brother-in-law. I was supposed to get a cake for him the weekend before last, because I wanted to be able to post pictures on his actual birthday, but if you've been having the same kind of crazy-ass summer that I've been having, then you'll understand why it seems like absolutely diddly-squat is getting done on time.

But we did get a cake for him last weekend, and I was planning to put up pictures yesterday in honor of the first week-a-versary of his 29th birthday (I think he said he is 29; I don't even remember any more because I am having a pretty awful case of old-lady-brain lately, and I'm lucky I can even remember which kid is mine at the preschool most of the time), but see above paragraph re: the special insanity that is my life, and be glad that I remembered to put up pictures in the same calendar year.

And also be glad that we managed to avoid burning down my grandparents' house, because it was windy that day, and yet we insisted on having candles, and do you have any idea how flammable most of the small-child-related crap my sisters and I have to lug around all the time is? Thank God the pool was right there, in case we needed to put out any frosting and/or hair fires.

Why, yes, of course I took pictures of my kid eating the cake. What are you, new?

Everybody got into the cake-eating action, even the baby, and even though I believe birthday cake is technically verboten for babies before their first birthday, I personally endorse letting kids have at least a taste of cake every once in a while, because otherwise how do you know if they're going to like it? How am I supposed to form a loving, lasting relationship with someone who does not adore baked goods as I do, I ask you?

Oh, wait: that whole child-of-my-sister thing. Whatever, pedant.

Makayla had frosting put on her nose for pictures - I did that, even though I not-so-secretly actually want to pose her with a Marlboro and a Zippo and recreate the bestest picture in all the history of the lands and the seas and the Internets - and so of course SOMEBODY ELSE needed to do the same thing. Shae is generally very good with other kids, especially with my niece and nephew (she calls them her "sister-cousin" and her "brother-cousin," respectively, which is just so many kinds of adorable that there aren't even words, even though if you think about it long enough you start pondering "sister-wives" and then things go down a rabbit hole from which there might possibly be no escape save from going outside or something, getting some fresh air for a little while, not that I encourage that sort of behavior, because it's just entirely too wholesome), but even though she usually flatly refuses to look at the camera when I am trying to take pictures of her, if she notices that I am pointing the camera at anyone else, she tends to become a bit of a show-off, as older siblings and cousins are wont to do. (I myself was guilty of this from 1977 through approximately 1990, inclusive.)

And of course when I end up getting a picture like this one out of it, I can't exactly start discouraging that sort of behavior, now can I?, or else ... well, I will no longer get pictures like this one. Which would be a damned shame, because this is one of the best pictures of her that I've taken all summer. I am particularly fond of the lighting here, and the way her hair just is.

Anyway ... happy birthday to my brother-in-law, a week and day after your birthday. Better late than never, though, right? (And hey: I remembered that orange is one of your favorite colors and picked out this cake instead of the one with pink balloons, so I think I ended up doing alright. If you disagree, be polite and lie about it, okay?)

Let Them Eat Those Little Whaddaya-Call-'Em Italian Cookies

It's Friday, y'all! Whoo hoo! Let's wrap this week up and then commence with the heavy drinking, shall we? It's what all the cool kids are doing.

Do they still have those alligator wrestlers in Florida? The Seminole ones? I wonder if they ever recruit from out of state, because I think we may have a live one here. Assuming that Seminole alligator wrestlers ever wrestle polyvinyl pool toys, of course. Everybody's got to start somewhere, don't they?

Caption this. No, I mean it: caption this. Because I got nothin'. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of preschool primal-growl-roar-scream thing going on, maybe even a barbaric yawp, but from the right angle ("right" being "correct" or "proper" here, and not the geometric 90°) it looks like it could also possibly be a yawn. Maybe. If you've been drinking enough (or maybe if you have not been drinking enough).

Oh hey, how did this little bit of delightfully delectable deliciousness get in there? Om nom NOM! Look at those CHEEKS! Look at those ARMS! Look at those ADORABLE LITTLE TEEFERS! Also: she has my mother's eyes, and the same missing upper lip that the rest of the women in my family have. This one is definitely related.

As promised (and expected, at this point, because there ALWAYS has to be a picture of my kid eating something on this blog every week or else I feel like a complete and utter failure as a human being): those little whaadya-call-'em Italian cookies. They probably have a fawncey-sounding name that ends in "i" or "o" or possibly "ei" or "ie." Cookie, maybe.

BONUS! Juice box hero. Have a great weekend.