Ode to Garlic

I love roasting garlic. It's one of my new very favourite things to do. I buy six to eight heads of garlic, peel off as many outer layers of papery skin as possible, chop off the tops to expose the meaty pungent garlic, and bathe the entire head in olive oil. I then wrap each head lovingly in foil and roast it in the oven for 30-40 minutes.

The heads come out sweet and buttery and lovely. And then we eat them in a sensual orgy of oily delight.

It's excellent because now that we're new-age hippies, I'm all opposed to antibiotic drugs for sickness, and garlic is "nature's antibiotic". Roasting the garlic this way takes away the garlic-breath threat because slow-roasting it cooks away the compounds that make garlic a breathy nightmare. We eat it at least twice a week.

And I always roast extra so I have one or two heads leftever. I pop all the cloves out of the skins and mash them up with lots of extra virgin olive oil. I use this garlic puree for so many things!

For example:
- garnish on my salad for lunch the next day
- smeared on salmon filets with salt and pepper and then baked in the oven
- mixed in with canned salmon, eggs, green onion, parsley, and lemon juice and fried into garlic salmon fish cakes
- mixing with basil and parmigiano reggiano and tossing with whole grain pasta for Dylan
- using as a marinade for shrimp
- stuffing chicken breasts

I'm sure there are other uses. I just haven't found them all yet. Oh garlic. You are so fine and wonderful.

I will end with an ode in haiku form:
Don't ever leave me
Sweet and oily, so supple
Sliding down my throat

I don't think I'm doing it right

I don't get it with playgrounds. Now that the weather is warmer, I take Dylan to the park a lot to tire him out and to get him fresh air. I remember when I was a kid, parks used to be super fun and time would speed up while we were there. Now that I'm a mom, time SLOWS at the park.

We get there, and we go to the slides. I contort my body and twist out my neck trying to get both Dylan and myself to the tops of these playgrounds and we go down the big slides together. Dylan loves slides so he has a great time. We go back up maybe five times, playing with all the steering wheels and spinning attachments on the way up. We swoosh down with him giggling and loving it.

Then I take him to the swings and push him in the swing for a good long while, at least until he starts to look bored. I check my watch.

11 minutes have passed.

I'm convinced that the park I frequent sits on some kind of ripple in the space time continuum.

Updates! Updates! So Many Updates!!

Dylan is asleep. Let's do this.

I swear I have been meaning to blog over the last little while, and to prove it, I actually have three entries started in my list of posts. I just never got around to finishing them and putting them up. So!! To give you more to read, and to lessen the amount I need to write, I will copy and paste those entries into this post as a means of catching you up. Why work harder than I need to?

CRUISIN' March 31, 2009

I've been trying to write this post for weeks now. Dylan hasn't been sleeping well so that has taken away from my free time during his naps. Now that it's so late, you will be getting what's left in my head of what I can remember. Sorry.

We took Dylan on his first cruise in the middle of March. The trip also marked our first feature-length family vacation complete with Dylan's first time on an airplane.

We were nervous and excited for our first big family vacation so we stacked the deck by trying to convince all our friends to come.

Okay pause. If you didn't receive the email convincing you to come on this cruise, I amend my previous statement to say that we tried to convince only our friends who were most likely to come...to come. Of all those friends we contacted, only Luke and Cathy were cool enough to jump aboard. Everyone else was either renovating their basement, replacing computer equipment, being pregnant and too anxious to travel, saving up for a gay cruise instead, hanging out with their dog, busy with tax season, going on a cruise the MONTH BEFORE just because they're jerks, or just too lame. You know who you are.

So we went with Luke and Cathy, and it was totally awesome. Eric and I have never been known for light packing. We went to France and Spain for our honeymoon and packed over 80 kilos of luggage. We travelled to 5 different cities over 3 weeks and took several planes as well as one sweaty overnight train. We nearly died lugging that shit around.

Ever since then we have been actively working on reducing our travel baggage. It has not gone well. Having a baby didn't help matters, and to make a long story short, we packed three enormous suitcases, one large duffel, and three carry-on bags for this trip. We also travelled with a rented convertible carseat and a stroller. It was good times.

We were on Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas, which is their newest ship to date. It was enormous and ridiculous. It had everything you can think of that could be on a ship, and then some. Dylan was absolutely dumbfounded by what he saw! Little guy had never experienced such stimulation before! Watching him experience everything with his little one-year-old eyes was definitely the best part of the entire trip - but there were a few other memorable highlights.

Update: I then proceeded not to actually write any memorable highlights. I remember what most of them were though (see, cause they were memorable). My favourite one revolved around the fact that Cathy actually physically cannot stop talking. She is compelled by unknown forcese to fill almost every silence with a running commentary of anything that crosses her mind, like a constant vocal stream of consciousness. Like the Cylon Hybrid from Battlestar Galactica. It makes me very tired, but it's excellent for Dylan because she points out everything that is occuring in the world around us, which will either make him very aware and very smart with an early grasp of the English language, or intimidate him with the amount of talking he will assume the average human needs to do, and he will never speak due to the enormity of the challenge in front of him.

Secondly of course, I was going to write about all the food we ate. You can imagine how it all went down, and it was especially awesome because we had Dylan with us. I used him as an excuse to order TWO full three course meals every night. One was for me, and one was for Dylan. Like the night we both had escargots. He had two snails and I ate all the rest. Or if I couldn't decide between two entrees, I would just get them both. And then I would eat them both. And then get extra lobster tails. Three of them. I was really full that particular night.

And then I wanted to write about how much I love "Name That Tune", and it's pretty much a boring topic since it consisted mostly of how much I love "Name That Tune", and how I insisted that we attended every "Name That Tune" that took place on the ship...it's probably just as well that I didn't belabor that point cause it doesn't seem very interesting. But Name That Tune rocks, yo.

WHY WON'T YOU SLEEP? April 15, 2009

My baby sucks. I'm pretty sure it's all our fault (mine and Eric's, not yours), because we took him on a cruise in March and his sleep got all screwed up and has never gotten back to normal.

This is how bedtime USED to happen:
At 6:30, Dylan would get a bath. He loved his bath and splashed around happily. After his bath, he would get a foreskin pulldown, a fresh diaper, and jammies. Then we would read "Pirate", "Goodnight Gorilla", "Goodnight Moon", "Hug", and "I Love You Through and Through". Then I would hand him a pacifier, and he would drop his head down on my shoulder. I would snuggle him for maybe 8 seconds, and then place him down in the crib and zip him up in his Grobag, which is basically a sleeping bag for babies with shoulder straps. He would then turn his head to one side to play with the animals on his crib bumper, and I would leave him to it. He would put himself to sleep within ten minutes.

It would be 7:00pm. He would sleep until 7:00am. I would then congratulate myself on being a wonderful mother and proceed to have a quiet evening of watching tv, cleaning the kitchen, or entertaining friends. I would go to bed and get a good night's rest. Life was awesome.

This is how bedtime happens NOW:
At 6:30pm, he is wired. He refuses to take baths and instead loves showers. This means that one of us has to take his giant heavy little body and stand in the shower with him. We have to try to soap him up and get him cleaned up and rinsed off while holding him. He is a slippery little booger. Then we come out of the shower, freezing cold and wet. He gets a foreskin pulldown, a fresh diaper, and jammies.

We go to his room and try to read him books but he will have none of it. He stands up, walks to the bedroom door and bangs on it to be let out. So I dim the lights and give him a pacifier. He whips it at me angrily. I pick it up and put it down and go to sit with him in the glider chair. He freaks out and points at the pacifier. I give it to him and he slams it into his mouth and sucks angrily.

I rock him back and forth and he drops his head down on my shoulder. I try to put him down and he bucks his body and screams bloody murder. I sit back down and rock him. I sing to him. I sing to him and rock him until he's asleep. I stand up to put him down. He senses the change in altitude and screams bloody murder. I sit back down and rock him. I sing to him. I sing to him and rock him until he's asleep and snoring lightly. I stand up and place him down in the crib as gently as possible. If I'm lucky, he won't wake up.

I tiptoe out of the room. It is now 8:00pm. I am afraid to move around or watch tv or clean the kitchen in case the sounds wake him up. The kitchen grows mold.

At 10:00, he wakes up. He screams. He doesn't go back to sleep. I go to calm him down and he refuses to be calmed. He slides off my lap and run weeping to the bedroom door. He throws a huge tantrum. I take him outside his room and he smiles and runs around playing with his toys in the most adorable manner possible. He stays up playing happily and energetically until midnight. Eric then takes him to his room and rocks him to sleep. He falls asleep. Eric puts him down in his crib. He doesn't wake up. We go to bed. Eric and I start discussing the details of our death pact. It is 12:30am.

At 1:30am, he wakes up. He screams. He won't stop screaming. We get him and bring him into bed with us. He (no joke) sits up and quietly claps his hands while smiling. Then he snuggles in and goes to sleep. He sleeps like a performing acrobat. He takes up 80% of our king-size bed. I sleep way over on the edge of my side of the bed, Eric sleeps along the bottom edge of the bed. A large pillow ineffectually blocks Eric's side. If we do not do this, we get kicked repeatedly in various parts of our faces and anatomy. We all sleep like shit.

Dylan wakes up at 7:00am. He is a crabby and short-tempered child all goddamn day. Life sucks.

Yes, we're terrible parents. We're not being firm enough with him. But we have tried everything we can think of; he's gotten earlier bedtimes, later bedtimes, more naps during the day, fewer naps during the day, more activity during the day to tire him out, fewer activities during the day to keep him calm, more food to make sure he's full before going to bed, less food so he doesn't have indigestion, less spicy food so it doesn't bother him. He's been left to cry for hours on end, and all it did was make him unbearably clingy and needy for the following two days. We've brought him to bed with us right off the bat but he's too excited about it and flips all around like a deranged seal, and then inevitably gets bored and starts screaming bloody murder.

Update: This situation has not exactly improved, but we have found ways to work around it. I figure he can't be 15 years old and still sleeping in our bed, so I'm just going to roll with it. He naps better during the day and he'll at least sleep the night through as long as he's with us. Stop judging me.


OMG May 5, 2009
My mom and brother came over for dinner tonight. I made a roast organic chicken with organic chickpea salad and an organic green salad (we've gone organic crazy). Dylan finished eating first and started getting very cranky so Eric went to put him in the bath. Dylan recently likes baths again, so this calmed him down and he happily started playing with his bath toys.

My mom finished eating her dinner during this time, so she went to relieve Eric of bath duty so he could come out and finish eating his food. We were chatting with my brother Derek and generally having a pleasant time when my mom suddenly called out from the bathroom:

Mom: "Ai ya, Luy! A Jai Jai heung goh chung-leung-gong doe aw jaw mm mm!"

Translation: "Oh no, Carol! Dylan just shit in the tub!"

My brother and I gasped and ran over. Eric, not having understood the Chinese, sat bewildered at the dining room table chewing his organic salad.

Sure enough, Dylan stood in the tub with a large cloud of loose poo settling in the water behind him. All around him were his bath toys, floating in the poo water.

Update: Yeeah...that was disgusting. Even worse, he's done it two more times since then. Once he did it while Cathy and Luke were babysitting, so BIG apologies to them. This segues nicely into the following section!

Recent Updates (not prior drafts!):

Dylan is Gross
Our son is a disgusting boy. We don't know how he developed this habit, but for a few weeks now, he'll fart or burp and then laugh his gd head off. I mean yes, farts are kind of funny, but he LOVES it. I'm trying unsuccessfully to put a stop to it, but Eric is encouraging it. He's hoping Dylan will grow up to be that kid in class who laughs anytime anyone farts. One time, he was throwing an epic temper tantrum over...something totally inconsequential probably, and in the midst of his tossing and screaming, he accidentally let rip a loud and prolonged fart. And his screaming cries immediately changed to hysterical laughter.

Another time, he was in the bath and made a big echoing fart. He laughed, and since Eric was giving him the bath he also laughed to encourage this behaviour. Dylan decided to be a comedian and started making an effort to fart. He managed to push out a couple more, to great effect since his father is a depraved idiot but then it backfired. Dylan pushed too hard and shit in the tub. Haha Eric!! I was on my way out the door and I was all "Good luck! Bye!" I'm a good wife.

We've Maximized Our Living and Fixed Eric's Armpits
Somewhere along the way over the past year we've become new-age hippies. I don't know how this happened. It hasn't changed our spending habits or our penchant for designer goods we can barely afford, but we're suddenly all organic food and rock salt deodorant and grass-fed beef and non-toxic cleaning products.

It's all because of my friend BJ. I actually have a friend named BJ Hardick, no joke. He's a chiropractor in London and runs a practice with his dad. BJ has always been one of the most crazed and energetic people I knew, so back in university this made for good times. Most times I saw him he was drunk and awesome.

Now he's gone and taken all that energy and channeled it into his practice and a movement called Maximized Living. Eric and I decided to go check out one of his seminars and it changed the way we live. WE HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!!

But for serious, I started making the food changes he recommended and lost 12 pounds without even trying. I feel great and my skin is so nice I stopped wearing foundation and blush. And I can't wear my fat jeans anymore because they look baggy and awful. And this weekend I bought a dress at BCBG in a size 4. I'm so excited!

And we switched to this crystal deodorant because aluminum is all evil and sketchy. Eric's armpits are the armpits of death so I really did not believe that this was going to work. He applies deodorant twice a day just to try to control the stank and you can still smell the nastiness through the cloying perfume of his Axe antiperspirant. But no joke, Eric used this crystal rock deodorant on the FIRST DAY, and his armpits were fresh as daisies! I was appalled and amazed. I can press my face right up against his (somewhat damp) armpit at the end of a workday when he gets off the subway, and it has NO body odour smell at all! It's a miracle. Seriously go out and get one, if it can take away Eric's stank, it can probably make yours smell like pure gold.

Eric Likes Balls. Dylan Does, Too.
Have I ever blogged about how Eric likes balls? It started with Team America World Police. There's a scene where Greg The Actor goes undercover into a terrorist nest in Cairo and is brought before the terrorist leader. He says some bullshit about how he wants to be a terrorist too, and the leader says "I like you. You have balls. I like balls."

Eric and I love this line. Later on, there is a car chase scene through the Egyptian desert, and Greg accidentally makes some suggestion about blowing themselves up and the terrorist leader shouts "I LOVE YOUR BALLS!"

Eric loved these lines so much, he would try to work them into conversations, kind of like how you can say 'That what she said" and people know you're quoting The Office. The problem was, he would never commit fully enough to the line to make it evident that he was making a reference to something else, and not just being really creepy.

So we would be in a car with some friends, and someone would say something about balls. Like our friend Cathy, who is a phys-ed teacher would say, "and then the kids would put away the balls". And then Eric would kind of quietly and confidently state "I like balls" and then happily chuckle softly to himself. There would be a strange and awkward pause, and then the conversation would resume.

I had to have several talks with Eric to make him understand that people were going to think he was some kind of testicle pervert. So now he'll totally just shout "I LOVE YOUR BALLS!" but sometimes with minimal provocation. We may have gone too far in the opposite direction and ended up exactly where we started.

Anyway, the point of this is that I bought a thousand balls and dumped them into Dylan's playpen so now he has a ball pit in which to play. It's pretty awesome, and he loves it. Dylan loves balls.

Whew! That's all for now. Dylan should be waking up soon, but I am DONE this post! Wheee!!