Walking back in silence

As I walk back to the car I heard the school bell ring. And for the first time I am alone. It's oddly silent. Both kids are in school for a full day (admittedly Wednesday's are short days) but its weird. The little guy will be away from us for almost five hours. I'm sure he'll be ok but it's a little scary.

Summer is over

Well summer vacation is official over and I'm back. I'm sitting outside of my kids school, my daughter is gleefully in kindergarten while the little guy is in his first day of Nursery. Yesterday was officially his first day but we stayed with him in class.

I'm so worried. Is he potty trained enough? Will he be able to open his lunch? I have practically done everything for him since I started staying home when he was 10 months old. I just hope he is ready. I hope I'm ready.

Wifi Free Wednesday

I wrote this post yesterday and blogger somehow deleted it. So I will try to recreate it as best I can. On Wednesday July 3rd I am going to go off the grid.

I am going to be more present in my own life.

So I will not answer or send texts. I will not be checking or updating twitter, Facebook or any of the other social media platforms I waste my days on. I will check mail for ten minutes or do every few (3-4) hours. I will be doing some work tomorrow night which will force me online, but other than that you are not going to see me If you need me call me say hi. But I am freeing myself from the otter box enclosed prison I locked myself in.

So don't let anything awesome happen on Wednesday. If something amazing happens to me I'll let you guys know on Thursday.

C-ya.

Attack of the Hot Dogtopus!

Yesterday, in my effort to have fun summer days and create memories for Nugget and Thor I decided to make hot dog octopuses.

I saw the recipe somewhere online, so I can't take all the credit. They turned out to be fun to make. Fun to eat. And the team wants me to make them again. I have never done a recipe post so bare with me.

Ingredients:
-Large pot of boiling water (salted as if you were making pasta)
- Some spaghetti
- Hot dogs (I actually used hillshire farms cheese filled turkey brats)
- Butter
- Parmesan cheese.

I put a pot of water to boil and cut the dogs in thirds, so you have nice big chunks. Then I took two pieces of spaghetti and snapped them in half. You take each piece of spaghetti and skewer the hot dog. Basically cross cross the four pieces, and there are your eight legs. It was so simple me and the little guy were able to do it. Though admittedly he really got into snapping the pasta.

Once they were all assembled we carefully put them in the water. They sink right to the bottom. And wait. I put a small frying pan over the pot as a cover and melted the butter and parmesan together for a nice simple sauce. Once the pasta was cooked, I poured the butter sauce on the kids plates. And plopped on some octopi (I did strain them gently) and my very picky kids loved them.

Game of Potties : a song of wet underwear and pants. A New Ally

After a few weeks of slow down of the "potty train", partially due to my back issues and partially because of frustration.

So I have a new plan. A few minutes on the potty every hour to get Thor used to being there. As I was trying to get him on the potty he ran off. Then Nugget went over to convince him to sit on the potty. She told him they he can't go to Chuck E Cheese if he didn't get trained. I think she wants to go to play driving games.

And then she took his hand and brought him to the potty. He sat down. This could work thanks to my "special potty training helper". FYI he peed into the potty.

See ya spring

I'm spending the waning hours of Spring at Brooklyn's Children's Museum. The kids are playing in the water area, shooting the canons and playing with rubber narwhals. It has been a whirl wind first week of summer vacation, with my back issues still unresolved, with potty training being an issue and some new freelance work.

We started the week with back to back trips to The Water Works at Pier 6. Fathers day was insanely crowded, thankfully Mrs.GMIBP was there because I couldn't handle both kids myself that day. We also enjoyed a brisket hand pie from the farmers market. Monday was actually quite nice with just enough people there for the kids to have fun, but empty enough so I could control both of them.

In an attempt to keep our park times fresh I've decided try new parks as much as we can. Out first stop was The Jackson Pond playground in Forest Park. It was your run of the mill playground with lots of areas to climb and a dense forest around it to keep parts of the park well shaded, and no pond to be found anywhere. It was very uncrowded and the kids found other kids their age to play with. We spent as long as we could there before the sun got too hot.

While searching on Mommy Poppins I found the JJ Byrne playground in Park Slope. This park was amazing. Tons of climbing areas, for big kids, little kids and even a fenced off baby area, the clear separation helped to avoid run and fall incidents. To me and the kids the highlight was the water features. You had a canyon with a shallow side with sprinklers and a deeper side with burst of water. Upstream there was a water pump, which wasn't working. What was working were two water canons that you could aim at each other. We were all pretty drenched, the kids ate some McDs before falling asleep. And I had some Defontes. The big disappointment was the Superhero supply company was closed. Which was bad since I need a new cape.

While here at the BCM, Nugget had befriended a pink haired girl who like her can be described as an enthusiastic dancer.

The third of the new parks was Grover Cleveland Park, which was very underwhelming. But much nicer than I imagined it would based on its reputation. The equipment which was ample, was old and the place was filled with local school kids on extended recess. It was mayhem. We had much more fun playing hide and seek and superheroes, around the edge of the park. Happy Boy (me) and CupcakeBoy (Thor) took on Lightning Girl (Nugget). Overall it was a good time and I'll research some more new parks for the rest of the summer.

The American Baking Competition Recap 6/19/13 – Bread

After consecutive weeks of sweet confections the remaining contestants in the American Baking Competition take on breads. Will favorites Francine or Elaine continue their dominance? Who will be the toast of the competition and who ends up as crumbs?

With confidence levels at an all-time low among most of the remaining contestants as this marks the halfway mark of the competition and they all knew they were in for some of the stiffest judging so far as breads are what has made judge Paul Hollywood a heavyweight in the celebrity baking industry.

One of the more confident was Brian, who during the walk around portion of the Signature Bake portion asked to speak freely to the judges. He told them that his baking has been as good if not better than the rest of the competitors and that he would like to be Star Baker. The judges were a bit taken a back possibly because of Brain’s frankness and because of his very middle of the road baking thus far in the competition. While his baking has never been judged as the top it also hasn’t been near the bottom, so he does have consistency. Honestly it was a little refreshing, he wants to win (as should all the others) and he wanted to let it be known. He planted a seen in Paul and Marcella Valladolid’s head’s that he is a serious competitor and his baking should be looked at closely. Paul said “Humility is also something important in baking.”  MORE ...

Back to reality

After a nice Father's day weekend which included a writing class, the zoo, the beach park and eventually a really nice dinner, all of a sudden it's Monday. And the first real day of this years edition of camp papa.

I have to get back into a groove of planning activities, but my back still hurts. And everyone is still asleep, so well figure out something.