No Fast Food Here

Where did the time go? I feel like summer was just here. I have been baking up a storm for the holidays and the kids want nothing to do with helping, but they come running when it is taste testing time! The hot chocolate cookies were a big hit.  I didn’t let them try the whiskey cake, but I enjoyed that one!!  Snickerdoodles and toffee blondies rounded out the holiday baking this year. Maybe next year the boys will want to help out in the kitchen…

Where on earth did this summer go? I had such grand plans to blog every week, add a restaurant here and there, try new recipes, and well, pretty much none of that got done. One amazing restaurant discovery, the Brasitalia Pizza place on Lindsay and Main ended up closing for the summer and doesn’t seem to have any plans of coming back. Sadly missed.  I even bought a pass to the local pool at the junior high and only went twice all summer. I blame the heat. And Facebook. I did make it to the gym most days, teaching 2x a week most definitely helps motivate me to go.  The farmer’s market that I thought was going to be amazing turned out to be a dud.  At least I have the Superstition Ranch Market to get good produce.  And I need to start getting those Bountiful Baskets again.  Definitely good motivators to try new/unusual produce I wouldn’t normally buy in the store.

I have a ton of new restaurants I want to try with Ben.  Hopefully I will get to them this year, and post reviews.  If there is one thing I know I can talk about, it’s food.

So we have finally had our first visit from the tooth fairy.  $1.00 is the going rate in the Bellomy household.  Apparently, our tooth fairy is stuck in the 1970′s and has not accounted for inflation over the last 3 decades.  What are teeth worth these days?  Do kids really need $5, $10, even $20 per tooth? He hasn’t said anything yet about what his friends get from the tooth fairy, but I am waiting for the comparisons to start.  Every family’s tooth fairy is different, right? According to Wikipedia (a fully trusted source), different cultures have different tooth fairy traditions.  I like the Japanese version, where when the child loses a tooth, he or she throws the tooth straight up in the air (if it was a bottom tooth) or down into the ground (if it was a top tooth.)  The belief is that the incoming teeth will come in straight.  No money changes hands.  No deceiving of the children.  I like it.

We’ve got another loose one.  Which has since fallen out.  The tooth fairy must have had a really busy night and completely forgot about the tooth under the pillow.  She made up for it the next night, still with $1.00 but with an accompanying note that apologized for missing the night before.  What an understanding kid!

What is the one thing that just grosses you out more than anything else in the entire world? For some it is vomit. Others, feces.  Some might be grossed out by flies, or birds, or maybe it is small rodents.  For me? Maggots.  And to my wonderful surprise this morning, my kitchen was filled with them.

It all started last night around midnight.  Obi-Wan Kenobi, the obnoxious cat, brought a bird into the house.  My fearless husband, even with his irrational fear of birds, managed to get the still living and breathing bird outside, lock the cats and dog inside, and the house was safe.

In the morning, I got up first, as I do every morning, fed the dog, made coffee and looked outside.  Nothing.  So I opened up the dog door and let the cats live the dream outside.  The kids got up and were eating breakfast.  I was reading the paper and enjoying my first cup of coffee.  All of a sudden, devil cat streaks across the yard with a bird flapping it’s wings in his mouth.  I get up, lock the dog door, run outside and wrestle the still flapping it’s wings bird from the cat’s mouth.  Throw the cat inside and attempt to save the poor little bird by getting in out of the back yard and into the front. (You Tube needs a video of a woman in her pajamas chasing a bird around the backyard with a pooper scooper.) This takes about 10 minutes. Tops.

As I am nearing the back door to come in from my heroics, I hear the kids talking.  ”Cool!” “Pets!” “There are so many of them!” “We should name them!” Huh? To my utter disbelief, I walk in and the floor is covered with these little yellow worm-like creatures, about the size of inch worms, just mingling around. Gag reflex kicks in.  It’s like in the movie Poltergeist, when the guy sees the maggots on the meat and starts peeling his face off.  (Which I think may be the reason for my irrational fear of maggots in the first place.) I want to just peel the skin off of my body.  But my kids are watching.  I can’t show fear. I must be brave for the children.

I grab paper towels and start squishing them. They don’t squish. They crunch.  More gag reflex. Must be strong.  I lose count around 150.I put the kids in charge of pointing them out for me. I am dying inside.

Later, while discussing what must have died in the house for this phenomenon to occur, we learn that they may not be maggots at all, but a kind of inch worm that lives in a yellow flowering tree in AZ. But how did they get in so quickly?  Or they could be mealworms.  Again, where the frick did they come from?  I am still itching all over.  I know I’m not the only one with an irrational fear of something.  But come on? What are the odds? I didn’t even get to finish my coffee.

Teaching kids about politics can be exhausting and exhilarating.  During the presidential elections in 2008, my then 4 year old was fascinated by the process.  I tried to leave out my liberal leaning bias and just teach him the facts, but I have to admit when he would recognize Obama’s voice on the radio and say things like, “That’s Obama, our next president!” I was such a proud mama!

So what happens in 12 years when he joins the college Republicans? Will my heart break? Possibly.  Will I be proud that he came to his ideas on his own and didn’t just drink the kool aid that I fed him his entire life? Most definitely.  Same with religion.  If I can instill in my kids the self assurance to make their own minds up about things, I will have done my job.  I try and be as open as possible with them about religion and politics.  I want them to figure things out on their own.  Research.  Find a fit that works with their beliefs and ideas. Don’t drink my kool aid, but don’t drink any one else’s either.

I want to be as tolerant and non judgmental as I can possibly be.