More Deliciousness

Two things keep happening:
1. Babies keep growing
2. Charlie keeps cooking


Thus far the two items do not intersect, but they will someday. For now let's look at the tasty treats coming out of our kitchen.


Blueberry Basil Goat Cheese Pie. I have to capitalize every word because it is pretty much the most epic pie ever. It rolls a 20 in deliciousness. First seen several months ago on an episode of Diners Drive -ins and Dives, Charlie watched the segment several times and meticulously copied down what he thought the chef was doing. He researched the pie again before cooking and the recipe had been recently posted online. Turns out he had figured it out almost perfectly. His ratios were spot on, but he had guessed one cup where the recipe called for 1/2. Pretty good for sherlock holmes recipe writing!

marcona almond crumble on top, oh my.

This pie, oh this pie was delicious. I could eat it every night, so it's a good thing he only made one.

Then there was the limoncello. Citrus has been in season around here, and we picked up two big bags of lemons the other day. When we were in the Amalfi region of Italy, every restaurant had their own limoncello concoction. To my delight, they all seemed set on acquiring your judgment through bringing you a small glass of it after every meal. Oh yes, fantastic restaurateur, if you would be so kind as to bring me a frosty finger of your best lemon, I will be happy to give you my opinion. And while our own first effort wasn't as good as the best limoncello we had there, it was pretty damn tasty.


First, a week of the pith-less peels floating in some Everclear. Then marry that with a simple syrup blend and viola. The most interesting part: the lemon-infused liquor was absolutely clear yellow (not photographed because, well, it looked like pee). The cooled simple syrup was also crystal clear. But combine the two and instantly it assumed the traditional cloudy bright yellow color.


And finally, a cute baby attack:

at sixes and sevens

I did manage to take photos of the boys for their sixth month birthday, just didn't quite get them up here. Yesterday Charlie helped me with month seven. Changes? I measured them this morning and for sure they've both grown a half inch longer. Haven't gotten around to weighing them, so we'll find that one out perhaps tomorrow.


Sixes:

Dash, so very stern. Liam impersonates a frog.

Sevens:

more smiles, thanks to Charlie's help

babies in motion

mother, you call this food?

Avocado: not such a hit. We will try again later!

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Two minute slice of life. Crying, rolling, happy, chewing, crying, then who knows what will come next! Dash has also just learned to roll over in any direction.

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Liam discovered Harry's tail, and surprisingly the cat put up with it.

sweet-ish

From the department of number of foods you've eaten still counted on one hand: sweet potato edition.

cautious acceptance

wild-eyed enjoyment, complete with crazy hair

Verdict: Dash enjoyed, Liam was standoffish. Not as messy as we thought it was going to be, but I am sure those days lie ahead.

And since I'm typing this while trying to ignore the crazed screams of boys who really should be napping right now but are crying for 10 minutes to see what happens, let's just skip to more entertaining pictures.

Liam sporting one of auntie Maggie's awesome outfits.

The boys have been rolling around a lot on the carpet and bonking their heads. The quickest solution was interlocking foam tiles for comfort. The fact that they come in eye-bleeding colors is something I'm trying to get used to.

...and my screaming time is up. Time to let some babies scream in my face instead. Motherhood is awesome!

Circles of Neglect

I never quite understood what people meant when they said that they loved an item that entertained their baby for 10 minutes. I mean, what can you really do in ten minutes?

hard at work

The babies are asleep, so I have ten minutes to tell you that ten minutes is an eternity with babies. The list of things that I would do is pretty much endless. Enter: the circles of neglect.

Liam exploring physics with monkeys

Our friends Kristie and Andrew coined the term. You put a child in one, and you can have upwards of fifteen minutes hands-free. If I'm in the kitchen where they can see me, they will sometimes play happily for twenty minutes. This is long enough to make coffee, drink it while it is still warm, and at least start to get dinner going. Or eat some lunch myself. It is a whole new world!

I used to mock these things, these garish plastic monstrosities. That's totally fine by me now. Just the other day, I managed to pick apart an entire poached chicken to put in a pot of soup. Can you imagine how hard it is to pick a chicken one-handed, with a screeching baby on your hip? It is difficult.

always coveting what is on the neighboring circle

Friends loaned us one circle, and then last weekend we ponied up and bought a second one. Sure, it makes walking through our kitchen a bit of a parkour exercise, but I can take that. They will sit in the jungle one and push monkeys back and forth and back and forth. They hop up and down in the green one and smack everything within reach. It is entertaining, especially while I'm drinking coffee.

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Dash rocks his inner Mr. Rogers

Deliciousness

Time to branch out in the food department. After vacationing, the boys got to try their first food. Monday was oat cereal and today was rice. A rosy horizon looms ahead as they will be trying sweet potato sometime this weekend. Thus far they haven't been terribly enthused by the food, finding it more of a game than anything else. I can't blame them....the baby cereal is kind of like licking stamps. Sweet potatoes will blow their minds!

So far feeding the two of them at the same time has been quite the circus. Both want their own spoon, want to cram it in their mouths far enough to gag, then look surprised. Betrayed by tableware! My original plan was to let them feed themselves entirely, but it became obvious that they don't have the coordination to do that at all so for now I'm helping them a bit. (my apologies for the same bib in the pictures. It does make it kind of difficult to tell them apart)

Liam's experience:





Dash:




And my favorite:

Hawaii, you win this time

baby toes!

Hawaii wins in many ways. It's lovely and warm and there are palm trees and exotic foods and parrots everywhere. We tend to go there every spring for Charlie's work vacation. And this year, this year Hawaii defeated us.

Dash wiped out for part of the trip there

I suppose we were optimistic, rakish even to think that over a week in paradise with six month old babies would be....paradise. We did our best but just couldn't last the whole trip. The boys weren't sleeping really and in a hotel you can't exactly relax while they shriek like banshees. It took the two of us full time watching the babies just to survive, which didn't mean any real sleep. Envision this: at 4 am every morning the boys would wake up for the day. We would each take one baby and sit in a chair and try to cuddle our baby to sleep. Sometimes it worked. One morning I had a glorious two hours sleep with Dash on my chest, the most I ever got in a row while we were there. Then inevitably we would end up on our room's patio watching the sun rise and trying to keep the babies from screaming.

Those sunrises were beautiful, really. I usually had Dash, and he loved nothing more than to sit on my lap and watch the palm trees. One morning we ordered a huge pot of coffee for room service. They asked me if I wanted any food and laughed when I groaned no, just the coffee. Lots of it.

taking in the fresh air

Liam's summer shirt

The warm weather was wonderful too. I think the boys were agog to have so many of their body parts exposed. Toes! Legs! Arms! There was a lot of wiggling and toe grabbing. We took them swimming in the salty lagoon a couple of times. Liam really enjoyed the water. Dash, not so sure. He didn't outright scream, but he moaned and groaned.

ready to swim

Liam stayed in a bit longer and enjoyed himself

The final adventure was after we asked to come home a few days early. The people who organized the trip were lovely enough to find us seats on a direct flight the next day, one of the only flights available to get home. The catch: we each had to take a baby in our laps. Middle seat. Six rows apart. Now, on the way out we were spoiled in quite possibly the most crazy way possible. We were on a charter flight, in first class, with four seats. Baby heaven! And for a very first flight it was great. We worried about the babies raising a ruckus, sure, but it was a plane full of our friends. They'd understand if there was a bit of mayhem. On the way home it was strangers cheek to cheek. We managed to trade with our row partners to get the aisle seats (but couldn't sit closer, because you can't have more than one baby in an entire row of the plane and it was packed full). And then we held our breaths. The boys were fantastic. There were a few crying spells but for the most part as long as they were constantly entertained they were quite pleasant.

first-class baby wants to know where his champagne is

By the end of the six hour flight I felt like the court jester to an overlord prone to beheading court jesters at a a whim. Dance, mother, dance! And then we drove home and it was late at night, and the boys went to bed with a bit of screaming and then we sat in the kitchen and ate grilled cheese sandwiches and drank wine. And even though Hawaii won, we still came in second, third, fourth, and fifth place.

winners!