Things 22-Month-Olds Like to Do

They are, in no particular order: throwing hard objects, chewing on crayons, dancing, picking flower petals, eating crackers, pooping, yelling like a banshee, chasing, being chased, saying "no," cuddling, drinking juice, splashing water out of tubs, peeing on carpet, biting noses, rolling cars into walls and off tables, running, climbing atop tables and chairs, falling down, throwing sand, giggling, crying, stepping on sprinkler heads so they go back in the ground, hiding in closets and under beds, climbing out of shopping carts, giving kisses, touching dirty things, breaking their older brother's toys, falling asleep in car seats, waking up early, going to the park, shaking their sippy cups so that little drops of milk go all over cars and couches, scooting down stairs, calling for Mommy, being tickled, going for piggy-back rides, watching cartoons about dinosaurs, pulling hair, tossing food on the floor, hugging, throwing balls, taking off socks and pants, and, last but not least...being cheeky and adorable.

Just thought I'd make this list for a few years down the road when I've forgotten all these wonderful things.

Food Fail

OK, so last week's new recipes weren't all utter failures by any stretch of the imagination, but I won't be making any of them again, so as far as I'm concerned, it didn't bode well for my recipe collection. Here's the low down on each meal:

1. Asian Chicken Burgers. These weren't horrible, but they were super labor intensive. I had to buy two new types of sauces as well as toasted sesame oil. The end product just didn't sit well with me. Brendan, however, really liked them and happily ate the extra burger that I turned up my nose at.

2. Curried Pork and Pea Soup. This will forever be in the "what was I smoking??" category. I literally opened my crock pot recipe book and picked the first recipe that I saw. I don't think I've ever done that before. And, no, I'll ever do it again. I never even tried a bite. Whatever was simmering in my crock pot looked like what dog food is made out of before it gets ground into the canned mush. Smelled awful, too. Yeah, let's move on.

3. Family-Favorite Taco Salad. This one was from a healthy cooking magazine I've gotten for many years. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't amazing. I did like the fact that you cooked the taco meat with diced canned tomatoes; kind of a simple way of adding tomatoes without cutting them up yourself. The taste of the meat itself was OK, nothing too special. Next time I'll probably just use the Lawry's Taco seasoning and call it a day. In my opinion, taco salad is good based on what you put with the meat. For me, that's beans, avocado, cheese, sour cream, chips...and a bit of lettuce. ;-)

So, when the week was said and done, I decided to go the fool-proof route, and I made my mom's time-tested curried chicken recipe. It never gets old.


And come Saturday night? It was Habit time.


(No, I didn't take that picture, but dang, doesn't it look good?)

Shaking Things Up

Now that our tummies are feeling good again, I've decided it's time to try out some new recipes. Usually I will throw one into the mix in the course of a week when I'm feeling daring, but this week I'm living on the edge. I'm trying THREE new recipes in a row. They are:

1. Asian Chicken Burgers
2. Curried Pork and Pea Soup
3. Family-Favorite Taco Salad

That last one only half-counts as new recipe since it's really just adding a few different spices/seasonings to ground turkey and sprinkling it over lettuce. Nevertheless, this week will either be a nice experiment with some new flavors...or it will send our just-back-to-normal stomachs into a tailspin of epic proportions. I'll let you know next weekend!

(Confession: I've already made the first one. I meant to write this earlier in the day. I'm still leaving you in suspense, though.)

Good Intentions

The stomach flu. It can happen anywhere, anytime, and you're never really expecting it. Our anywhere was over 100 miles away at my parents' cabin in the mountains. We had postponed our annual trip to their cozy getaway for a couple of weeks, since the weather was so cold and treacherous two weeks ago, that a trip there wasn't even possible, let alone advisable. But this weekend, temps rose into the 70s and even 80s all over Southern California. That, combined with a long holiday weekend, seemed the perfect framing for the ideal winter escape. Ah, the best laid plans. Those are the kind the universe likes to screw around with. I'll skip over the super gory details. (I can hear your relief from here). But someday...once I stop referring to the cabin bathroom as The Portal to Hades; once I've completely gotten my appetite back; once I've somehow managed to repay my parents for both caring for us and parenting my own children for two days; once I've convinced my mom to let me hire a cleaning crew for their abode...I will try again. Because lightning (and the flu) can't strike twice. Right?

Yet, so as not to end on a sour note, here's one really bright moment from an otherwise bleak weekend. Brendan, the ever-ready photographer, created a one-minute time-lapse of the sunrise as seen from the back of my parents' cabin. And the sun also rises... Enjoy.

1Minute - Time Lapse - Cabin Sunrise from Bibble on Vimeo.

Snow, snow, snow!

There are a lot of things that I'd be surprised to see out my kitchen window. A grizzly bear, for instance. A streaker in a trench coat (I can only hope for that one). Medusa. Feet that aren't attached to a person. You get the idea. But nothing had me more surprised than seeing honest-to-goodness snow falling from the sky the day after New Years. Snow here is a once-every-couple-of-decades thing. So, despite it only amounting to a couple of inches and disappearing the following day...for a few hours we, too, got to experience a tiny little sliver of Real Lady Winter in all her glory. And no one was more excited than I was.

I was born in the San Fernando Valley. So were my parents. While my four (still living, by the way) grandparents were not born in Southern California, all came here as either children or young adults. One grandpa arrived here via Model T with his mother and settled in what's now the heart of East L.A. Another rubbed elbows with gangsters and movie stars alike as a cop on the beat in 1950s Hollywood. One grandma graduated from Los Angeles High School in the '40s, and another watched movies for a nickel by the ocean in Long Beach--before movies had sound and before people had cars. Our family's roots in Southern California run deep, and, due to the nature of our home state's geography, snow has not factored into our day-to-day life for the last century.

But, contrary to popular opinion, it sure does snow in California. And it snows a lot. But of course, it only snows in certain parts of this great, Golden State, and generally only at the higher elevations. As a kid, my grandparents had an awesome cabin in Big Bear where we would go to get our winter weather fix, and now my parents own a similar mountain getaway in Tehachapi. Even when there were no cabins in the family, I can remember my parents driving us up to Frasier Park for a day of sledding down whatever hill was most convenient and, often, had the most dangerous natural protuberances (my mom must have loved that). I'm grateful that my dear parents always provided us the chance to enjoy the white stuff. But alas, it's just not the same as having it in your own backyard.

So, I want to take this opportunity to thank Mother Nature for her New Year's gift. I've always dreamed of seeing snow from my kitchen window. Even more than that streaker, dare I say. And while I'm sure if I lived on the East Coast or in Alaska or Russia, I would spend most of the winter huddled in a cozy burrow in my closet, wearing four pairs of pants at all times, and ordering pizza every other day so I wouldn't have to leave the warmth of my heated home...I enjoyed being a part of your world for one day. And when that backyard thermometer hits 110 this August, I'll remember what it felt like to have snow crunch beneath my feet one crazy January afternoon.