That lovely new niece of mine is named Phebe Rosalee. That’s definitely misspelled, sorry, I got the news over the phone. Will correct in a future post. So now I’ve got Phebe, Willoree and Ella Hayes, plus a Waylan nephew. They’re all as adorable as they sound.

An adorable group of kids at Booker Arts Magnet (where my husband happens to work) are doing a project with Heifer International (where I happen to work), and my friend Sarah and I wanted to help. The kids are going to visit the Heifer Ranch and then write an ABC book about what they learn there. Paying for all the kids to get a copy of the book they write and illustrate is looking to be pretty expensive, so Sarah and I jumped into action with operation bake sale.

Awesomely, Sarah’s mom who lives in Jonesboro and was totally not on the hook for this in any way, took the lead. She’s just amazingly nice like that. So a few weekends ago she and Sarah stormed the Jonesboro Sams Club, making off with a cart full of rice crispy treat ingredients and enough saran wrap for a Christo installation. They spent their Saturday preparing 60 giant crispy treats for sale. On Sunday Sarah brought the goodies back to LR, all packed to go to the office the next day where we would nestle them into cute little baskets and set them out in the break areas with donation jars.

Then it snowed. Remember that? For three days Sarah and I fretted about the rice crispy treats that languished in their plastic shrouds, growing stale and gummy. Sarah conducted a.m. and p.m. freshness checks, sacrificing her own figure and oral health to make sure our wares were still worth the $2 each we planned to ask. The office opened up again Thursday, we adopted a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy about just how fresh-baked our baked goods were, and the first round of operation bake sale was a success.

The next weekend I pulled out my mom’s Junior League cookbook, a 1976 version from Asheville, N.C., that included a recipe for “The World’s Richest Brownies.”

elegance, y'all

The recipe was contributed by Beverly Maury Bagley. Never heard of her? Maybe Mrs. C.S. Bagley rings a bell. That’s how real ladies used to roll back in the day.

is this copyright infringement?

Mrs. R.S. Bailey was all about some brownies that come with a warning to cut squares small, a warning that I fully intended to ignore. But then I started in on my double batch. First, the butter:

Are you drunk? No, you are not. Four sticks of butter. Really, four.

Then eight squares of chocolate, then a mountain of sugar. Five cups.

Too much?

The finished product:

doesn't look too bad

Honestly, the brownies weren’t that great Sunday. And Monday they weren’t amazing. But by Tuesday they were freaking fabulous and those baskets in the break rooms emptied out. I can’t explain the magic. All I know is that operation bake sale was a mad success.

My parents live hundreds of miles away and don’t see Amos very much, but they often send boxes of goodies to let him know they’re thinking about him. One arrived last Tuesday. There was a set of wooden toys inside, which Amos completely ignored at first because he was absolutely obsessed with the styrofoam peanuts. I thought, fine, he’s into these things and surely they won’t be hard to sweep up, so go for it.

digging in

These little peanuts kept Amos busy for minutes and minutes, giving me hope that all those commercials we let him watch on TV haven’t obliterated his attention span after all. He was very happy.

hurrah!

Wheee!

But then I noticed that the 5 million styrofoam peanuts were getting crushed underfoot into millions more pieces, morphing into tiny, solid hunks of static electricity. Suddenly they were climbing up the walls, stuck to the refrigerator door, colonizing the ceiling. Amos volunteered to help with cleanup.

this isn't working

Once it was determined that the kitchen fit the definition of a superfund site I sent Amos away to play trains so I could sweep. It took that, plus a round of swiffering and a thorough vacuuming to clear the debris. Lesson learned, but it was lots of fun.

So if my story below about the poor man who’s consumed with guilt over his misguided search for a better life in North Korea (I know, duh) isn’t depressing enough, go over to In the Family Way and get your pants scared right off of you by the story about the deadly dangers of all of your kids’ favorite foods. Maybe it caused panic to set in only because I was already freaking about that article in the New York Times this morning about how I nearly killed my child and probably caused developmental delays because he had a walker. So this choking story is throwing me into action. No more grapes unless they’re sliced. I admit, I’m guilty of slacking on this in the past, but no more. If DHS reads this post they will take Amos away, clearly I’ve been screwing up left and right.

But I promise with all my heart, no more peanut butter unless it’s a tissue-thin layer mixed with a soggy glob of slippery jam. Peanuts, M&Ms, hot dogs=no, no, no. Not at all. None. I know it’s really good to know this stuff and it was a true public service for Heidi to provide the paralyzing statistics behind the conventional wisdom, but it got the nerves jangling overtime. Amos was having chicken nuggets for lunch. Oh my god chicken nuggets! I will likely put all his entrees in the blender first until I can calm down a bit.

Mad at your husband? At least he didn’t accidentally bring you and your daughters to a North Korean gulag to die. Sorry to start off the week with such a sad story.

Right around the second birthday. It begins with the feet.

When Mr. E the window guy got out of his truck Saturday and oozed his way toward our house, I knew he’d had a rough night. His eyes were wide and dazed, and he was moving slow. This is a look I recognize, since my husband and I usually look much the same. So I asked Mr. E if he was okay.

“My boys kept me up last night,” he said. Oh, I thought, so it IS the same look I see most days in the mirror. He must have young sons.

“How old are your boys?”

“Well, I’m 50. Ted’s 48, Bill’s—“

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I thought you meant you had little boys who kept you up.”

It was an awkward introduction for me and the party time window guy, but Amos was far more graceful. He doesn’t take quickly to everyone, but occasionally he falls in love at first sight. Such was the case here.

“Hi, man! Hi, man!” Amos shouted this nonstop while Mr. E circled the house, inspecting the windows and taking measurements. Amos followed him from inside, popping up at each window like a groundhog to greet him. “Hi, man!”

When Mr. E came inside, Amos snatched up his dad’s tape measure and fell in step, going behind Mr. E to make sure his window measurements were correct. Mr. E was clearly struggling, but I think Amos’ energy helped him. So much so, in fact, that Mr. E eventually serenaded Amos with a slow but heartfelt rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching in.”

Those two seemed perfectly content together so I stayed about seven paces behind, disguising my laughing with fake coughing fits and willing my weakened pelvic floor muscles to hold up so I wouldn’t wet my pants.

This isn’t Amos’ very first love. That honor goes to Uncle Jerry, a Korean War vet with the forearm tattoos to prove it. Jerry is the only member of my husband’s mainly teetotaler family with the balls to order a beer when we all meet up at the Olive Garden. When Amos’  grandparents took him by Jerry’s house a few weeks ago, Amos crawled into Jerry’s lap and the two reclined in a Lazyboy together to watch football. It was the only time in his life that Amos has been still when he wasn’t sleeping.

Surely it’s too early to label Amos as “a man’s man,” or to assume that because he’s attracted to these laid back characters he will also be a cool customer. It might just be that Mr. E is a real-life Bob the Builder, and Uncle Jerry looks like he has coloring books printed on his skin. Still, it’s so sweet for his mama to get to watch Amos get excited about these first crushes, as odd as they might be.

This is what’s been happening at my house daily since Mom on a Wire gifted Amos with the Thomas the Train sticker book.

Rodney is having lots of fun here.

I’d packed up the gift for Mary’s new baby then realized I hadn’t taken any pictures yet. So I unpacked it so I could brag here. It’s an Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern (the high priestess of knitting, eulogized in the NYT and adored by generations), but with some modifications. I ran out of the blue yarn before I got to the sleeves, and when I started casting about for a couple more skeins, it came to light that this particular yarn was discontinued. Which of course explained why it had been on such a stellar sale when I bought it. So anyway, EZ’s motto is “Be the Boss of Your Knitting,” so I took charge and modified the pattern from jacket to vest. It was a smidge trickier than it sounds, but it turned out well I think. The only other snag was that I was shooting for a size to fit a 1-year-old. For us, that was about the time the baby gifts and hand-me-downs stopped flowing in and we were facing the prospect of having to buy or own clothes for the babe. But I came out with something for about 18 months. Engineering is not my thing. Still, cute. Here’s Amos modeling it, back before I sewed the buttons on. A bit snug on him, but you get the idea.

Is the pointed hood not too cute? I don't wear dentures, by the way. I just have buck teeth.

rear view

And here’s a shot after the ends are all sewn in and the buttons are attached. Also, some bibs I whipped up. These squishy cotton bibs are great for those juicy babies who drool constantly. I plan to ship everything out tomorrow. Pretty sure Mary and co. are way too busy with the new baby to be reading my punk blog, so I feel confident it will all be a surprise.

ta-da!

super absorbent

My sister in Colorado had a baby this weekend. The little thing was two weeks late, but Mary still went with the home birth, sans epidural or narcotics. How hardcore is that? The results are wonderful:

No name yet. Beauty?