Making stuff

Back in the day, our family had a record player. There were a number of records that I used to play especially often. On any given non-school day, our large living room speakers would blast Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits, Sinatra, or the Beach Boys, and I could be found choreographing elaborate routines in my pajamas and a good pair of slippery socks. Around Christmas time, we had a separate collection of records. Listening to Salsoul Orchestra, La Rondallita, and the Chipmunk's Christmas album was a stalwart tradition that did not buckle, even with the advent of the compact disc player and the introduction of Mariah Carey's Christmas classic to the playlist. We have our Christmas traditions, but they're particular.

Now that Danny and I have our own family, we've started to develop our own traditions, (though I don't think Danny is even aware of it. ) For the past two years, we've taken a Christmas photo. My family used to do this when we were very young but I don't remember taking one since I was ooohh... about this little:


We've been without a dependable camera for some time, so finding the opportunity and the means to take our family photo has been some what of a struggle. We weren't able to take a photo till this past weekend, less than 2 weeks before the big day. Jonny and Hana joined us for our last-ditch effort to keep our fledgling tradition alive, taking the photo on an unseasonably hot December day at a baseball field of all places. It's amazing how many shots you have to get to get a single decent family portrait. God bless my long-suffering brother and sister in law.


A second family tradition that my family never got into but which I attempted to start is baking. In addition to my insatiable sweet tooth, a bucket of egg nog icecream that begs for cakey accompaniment, and some untried recipes in my Southern Living cookbook, I was also inspired by my neighbor's gift:

How gorgeous are those cookies? And they double as puppets!

This year may mark the end of this tradition. I'm a pretty decent chef in my opinion. But I've always said cooking is an art; baking is a science. And I have neither the patience nor the delicacy for science. Amy and Melissa (and Rosie) came over to help with the project this weekend, while Danny was off at work. We settled on sugar cookies, gingerbread men, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and started early in the evening, Melissa watching the kids while I cleaned and prepped and Amy made the dough (which needed to chill for 2 hours before baking).

We took a break at Sawgrass Mills because we're slightly ADD then came home and put the kids to bed. I made dinner while Amy got to baking.

Amy's first batch of sugar cookies were fat, but otherwise, great! As I surveyed her progress, I noted that she wasn't using a timer. "So how do you know if they're ready?" I asked. She opened the oven door to show me how easily this can be determined by simply using one's eyeballs. And it's a very good thing she demonstrated this procedure, for that was how we came to realize that she hadn't removed the plastic wrap from the second baking sheet. And so we salvaged the oven, but not so much the cookies from batch #2. Feeling somewhat frustrated, and somewhat concerned about toxic fumes, we dumped the dough and sat down to eat dinner. About halfway through dinner, she remembered batch number three. And so, we were left with 14 edible sugar cookies for the effort. 10, if you count the un-burnt ones.


"Amy, why do we have so much left over butter?"
"Because we didn't need it."
"...yes, we did."

And thus we realized that we'd halved the required amount of butter for the gingerbread men. One stick of butter is only half a cup. Tell your friends.

Amy melted the butter. In the microwave. Without using a splatter guard. And it exploded. And, once she recovered, had to massage it into the hardened block of ginger bread. Thoroughly dejected, she devoted herself to cleaning the microwave and to knitting Gio's Christmas present for the rest of the evening with Rosie at her feet.


I confidently set myself to making the oatmeal cookies. And after they were done, to humbly peeling the sticky, chunky mass off the baking sheets. By the time we cleaned up and went to bed, it was 1 am and I was dreading the morning.

Amy made frosting in the morning while I took the kids to find black dress shoes for Noemie at Target. (No such luck. Toddler 6 is like the holy grail of shoe sizes). When we came back Amy looked relieved and redeemed: 4 successful batches of gingerbread men, women, and bears, and a large bowl of picture-perfect frosting. Danny says break-and-bakes for next year. I don't know if I can bring myself to do it but knowing the disasters are coming sure does dampen my motivation. For now....

So my forever-long To-Do list is starting to see some check marks. With less than a week before Christmas, I'm almost done hand-sewing Gio's onesie, and I've pretty much given up on the Christmas cards I haven't gotten to writing. I haven't wrapped any gifts, I have to find a white elephant for Emily's party and I have Melissa's gift being shipped to a wrong address... better fix that. Tomorrow we celebrate my dad's 55th birthday with some family friends and some very ugly cookies and then Gio gets here on Wednesday and then we eat lechón on Christmas Eve and then Danny has the weekend off! YAY!

Ah. Christmas. The one tradition I've definitely kept from my parents is to be unnecessarily stressed before, deliriously excited during, and numb after. Amen.

These great gettin-up mornin's

I've been a chocoholic since the day I stopped believing I was allergic to it, sometime around age 5. Since then, I've steadily shifted from a milk chocolate preference to a dark chocolate preference. This may be due to my discovery that 1, dark chocolate has higher levels of antioxidants; 2, it's satisfying in much smaller amounts; and 3, Europeans think milk chocolate is kinda gross anyway. (Doing anything like the Europeans do just ups your level of cool and for those of us who are lacking in that department, we have to pay attention to these things.) I mention this because, despite my addiction, I have never enjoyed "the World's Finest Chocolate" fundraising bars. Yet I recently was gifted a dark chocolate bar (and I ate it because I never turn down chocolate even if I don't like it...with the exception of Butterfingers and Milky Ways...) and I thought it was fabulous! So, all that to say, if you don't like World's Finest milk chocolate, don't run from their dark chocolate on account of it.

I eat chocolate the way most people drink coffee. And as Cubans need extra coffee to be extra Cuban, I need extra chocolate to achieve the same effect. I am not a morning person. I can be cheerful at all hours of the day because I usually love my life. Call me up at 11 pm and I will talk your ear off, dance a marathon, do 100 push ups, whatever. But wake me up before 9 am and, well, I wont. There have been days where I will sit on the couch in semi-consciousness, where Dominic can do everything short of stick a fork in an electrical outlet before I snap out of my coma. And the second 10 am hits, I'm up and in action. I'm just a night owl! I can't help it! Who signed me up for 1st period math all those years? For shame! No wonder I had to repeat Algebra! And Analysis of Functions! (I got through Algebra 2 with a D because my teacher felt pity on me, no doubt. I don't know a quadratic equation from a Gucci handbag, to say nothing of a logarithm). So God blessed me with a handsome, wonderful, little boy who is in every way shape and form, a morning lark.

Danny leaves for work sometime before the sun comes up. I am so dead asleep, I just assume he's telling the truth that he kisses me on the way out every morning and that I sometimes tell him niceties like "Have a great day" or "I love you." (If I do, I'm not aware of it but I think this shows that I'm a genuinely nice person on a subconscious level at least. ) And at 7 am, every morning that Danny goes to work, I wake up to Dominic, like a siren, wailing his heart out that Danny has gone and left him forever. "Donde esta Papi?!" he cries as he jumps out of our bed (when did he get there?), and runs desperately around the house searching for his missing Papi. The answer is always the same, "Dominic, Papi is at work." And he cries and he wails, and he cries and then, all of a sudden it's quiet. (I usually wait a few seconds then I poke my blind head up to see if I see movement). And seeing Dominic standing in the doorway, I plop back down. Because it's 7:06 and no one needs to be awake at 7:06.

A few seconds later I feel breathing on my face. Dominic has crawled into my bed again and now, not an inch away from my face asks me in all seriousness, "Camión? O Bulldozer?" And he continues quickly. "Beep. Beep. Estoy titilando así" (he is twinkling, he says, and makes twinkling hand motions). "Que numero es hoy?" (by which he means, 'what's today's date?') "Quiero comer. Te gustas ir a Miami? aunque... UN MOMENTICOOOOO! Dije que yo tengo hambre! ....RAWR!... mami, te asusté? No te quería asustar. Yo solo quería comer. Como un leon. " (You'll notice here that Dominic wakes up very hungry. He had 2 waffles, a banana, and a bowl of cereal for breakfast this morning). And this is how I wake up every morning that Danny goes to work. Dominic sounds the alarm that Danny is gone, and after the mourning passes, he is alert, conversant, cheerful, and very much in my face. For an hour. Because that's how long it takes me to drag myself out of bed most of the time. Hence, the chocolate. And Noemie? She woke up chirping at 8:30. I took her out of bed and she laid on my belly with one arm wrapped around her teddy and the other around her blanket, with her fingers stuck firmly in her mouth. And so we laid there on the sofa peacefully for another 20 minutes, while she eased into consciousness. That's my girl!

_________________

Dominic clasped his hands and jumped the gun on saying our dinner time prayers the other night so Danny, Noemie, and I obediently and quickly followed suit with our heads bowed as Dominic blessed the meal. Dominic's first prayer:

Señor, Gracias que la comida esta lista. Te pedimos que los niños lo comen. Y el arbolito. Amen.