Rantastic

Cupcakes... with BACON!

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 15:09:00 -0500

So, I said I would NEVER do this... bacon did NOT belong in desserts! But sadly, I cannot resist trying new things when it comes to cupcakes, and after the bacon ice cream at the Stampede last year, I figured I could give it a shot. Matt seemed enthusiastic about the bacon anyway.

Now, I've modified my own batter recipes before and that turns out... about 50% of the time. I knew I wanted maple bacon flavour, and sweetening with maple syrup was beyond my realm of experience, so off to the internet I went, and found this recipe. I had to make a few changes - I don't have self-rising flour, and I wanted to do my own frosting. Also, the recipe said it would make 6 cupcakes, so I doubled it. Here is the recipe I followed:

Maple Bacon Cupcakes

1/2 c. + 1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. bacon drippings (refrigerated to solidify)
1/2 c. + 2 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 c. maple syrup
2 eggs
2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. well-cooked bacon, minced, plus extra for garnish (I needed about 9 slices)

Cook the bacon. I did it in the oven (best method ever!). Reserve some of the drippings and put in the fridge to cool. Once solidified, beat with the butter until nice and fluffy. Add the maple syrup and brown sugar and beat until well combined. Add the eggs and beat some more.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together. Add the the batter in three parts, alternating with the milk in two parts. Fold in the bacon.

Divide in paper-lined cupcake tins and bake for 18 - 22 minutes at 350^oF. Cupcakes are done with an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Now, this did not make 12 cupcakes. I probably should have made about 18 cupcakes from this batter, but I filled the tins too full, trying to jam in all the batter, and the cupcakes were huge. Normally that's fine, but I did almost run out of frosting, which is not good. NOT GOOD.

Speaking of which:

Maple swiss meringue buttercream

3 egg whites
3/4 c. sugar
1 c. + 2 tbsp. butter, room temperature
2 tbsp. maple syrup
1/2 tsp. maple extract

Whisk the egg whites and sugar together in a metal bowl or double boiler, then place over a pot of simmering water and whisk, whisk, whisk until the sugar dissolves (about 2 minutes, but remove from heat and check the mixture - you'll be able to feel the grittiness of the sugar until it dissolves). Once heated sufficiently, mix on high speed, using a whisk attachment if you have one, until stiff peaks form. I almost never get stiff peaks (overheating? altitude? impatience?) but have found that soft peaks works too. At this point I will switch to my normal beater blade. Add the butter a tablespoon at a time and beat the heck out of it. Right before it's done, it will look kind of curdled and horrific, but just keep beating and it will come together again. (If you want a fantastic tutorial on swiss meringue buttercream, I cannot recommend this one enough!) Once the buttercream is done, add the maple syrup and extract and beat thoroughly. Pipe onto your cupcakes and top with a little bacon!

My review

The icing was fantastic. Seriously. I don't even like maple and it was just insanely good.

The cupcakes... hmm. Not as great. I found the amount of baking soda to be a little high, I could taste it in the cupcakes and that's not a good thing. It's tough to mess with the chemistry of a cupcake though (ask me how I know! hah), so if I was really dedicated to bringing bacon cupcakes to the world, I'd do some experimenting, but... meh, I'm not. I would've liked them a tiny bit sweeter too, but maybe taking the baking soda down a bit would help bring out the maple some more. The bacon was good though... I'm starting to really like the sweet and salty combination! One other thing about this recipe - because the tins were so overfull, they got really big crowns which dried out quite a bit. Would definitely make more, smaller cupcakes next time.

Overall... I wouldn't be ashamed to give this to someone who really loved bacon. But it wouldn't be my first choice to bring someone around to the magic of bacon in dessert.

Cupcake Hero

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:48:00 -0500

So there's this little competition called Cupcake Hero. Those of you aware of my current cupcake obsession are probably not surprised I'm getting myself into something like this.

This month's theme ingredient is peanut butter... well, peanut butter is the title, but we've been given free reign with any of the nut butters. What else would I go for but... Nutella! YUM!

(ETA: Nutella was excluded after I read the post for this month. Balls! Disqualified before I even submitted my entry.)

Hedgehog Cupcakes

This is a cake that's been rattling around in my head for quite awhile and I finally have a good reason to try it out. It's a basic white cake batter (my favorite one of all the white cakes I've tried), with Nutella swiss meringue buttercream inside and dark chocolate ganache frosting, with hazelnuts and a little more Nutella on top for good measure. It's a bit of an inside out cupcake, with a typical frosting on the inside and a typical filling on the outside, but I still love it.

Cake

The cake batter is from I♥Cuppycakes's Rainbow cupcakes, minus the food colouring.

3/4 c. butter
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 large eggs plus 2 egg whites
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. milk

Beat the butter and sugar together until well mixed. Add the eggs and eggs whites one at a time and beat well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla.

Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together, and add it to the batter in three parts, alternating with the milk in two parts.

Divide into 18 paper-lined cupcake tins, and bake at 350^oF for 17-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack and cool completely.

Filling

2 egg whites
1/2 c. sugar
3/4 c. unsalted butter at room temperature
1/6 c. Nutella
salt

Mix the egg whites and sugar in a stainless steel bowl. Add a pinch of salt. Put over a pot of simmering water, and mix continuously with a whisk until the sugar dissolves. The eggs need to hit 140^oF to be pasteurized, but the sugar dissolves at a higher temperature, so rather than futzing about with a candy thermometer to check the temperature, you can just dip a spoon in and feel to see if the sugar has completely dissolved. If it's at all grainy, it's not hot enough yet.

Once the sugar has dissolved, whip the eggs until they've cooled to room temperature (they must not be too warm lest they melt the butter) and they're forming stiff peaks when poked with a knife. Add the butter a tablespoon at a time, mixing until well incorporated. The mixture may look curdled, but keep beating and it should come together. One note for those living in colder areas like me - "room temperature" butter is too cold for this in wintertime! If you feel the bowl and it's cold, either keep your hands on it (if you're blessed with good circulation) or put a warm water bath under the bowl. When I make this when my house is cooler, I can see the butter not incorporating very well and the mixture is lumpy. If it's warmed up a bit once you've started adding the butter, it mixes in a lot better.

Add the Nutella and mix well. Put in a piping bag or a baggie with one corner cut off if you're a little MacGyver in the kitchen.

Take a cooled cupcake, and cut a cone out of it, being careful not to go too close to the edge. I personally find my el cheapo serrated paring knife GREAT for this job. Fill the cupcake with the hazelnut buttercream. Cut the pointy end of the cake cone off and put the top back on the cupcake.

Frosting

1 c. dark chocolate chips
3/4 c. whipping cream
2 tbsp. butter
Nutella and chopped hazelnuts for garnish

Put the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl (I usually use the top of my double boiler). In a pot over medium heat, bring the whipping cream and butter to a boil. Immediately pour over the chocolate chips, and let stand 5 minutes. Whisk until smooth, and allow to cool a bit before frosting the cupcakes. If it's too warm, it will not cover the seams from the filling very well.

Top with drizzled Nutella and chopped hazelnuts. The Nutella will need to be warmed; I had the most success keeping the piping container I was using in a hot water bath. Initially I microwaved it in a bowl (10 seconds at a time, stirring in between, until it was very soft) and then put it in the piping container, but it cooled too quickly and couldn't be re-microwaved without cooking it. All in all, I will probably not be using Nutella for a garnish again anytime soon as it's pretty finicky!

The result was worth it though. YUM.

What a fricking waste

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:00:36 -0400

Was trying to write about this on twitter but I really, really could not fit a proper rant into 140 characters.

So. OK, go here and look at this ugly-ass bridge that Calgary city council is paying a buttload of money for. I mean, yeah, it's kind of neat, but it looks like total crap in the beautiful riverside parks it's being plunked down in.

Yes, the money is infrastructure money that came from the province, and yes, I recognize that it's not directly tied to our huge property tax increase, but SERIOUSLY... could they not think of anything more important to do with FRICKIN' 22 MILLION DOLLARS?!? Are there not any more pressing infrastructure needs? Could we have possibly gotten a cheaper bridge that didn't look like ass? I mean, come on! What a total waste of money!

And now this stupid thing is back in the news because they've decided to name it the "Peace Bridge". Supposedly to honour the troops. Personally, I think that if Bronco was serious about honouring the troops he could, I don't know, allow yellow ribbons on city vehicles or half-mast flags for Calgary's fallen soldiers instead of white-washing his pet project by pretending to name it for the troops when really "peace" is just some nebulous lefty ideal that often means "we don't like the military".

P.S. FRICKIN' UGLY.

The new computer

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:49:37 -0400

My beloved iBook has well and truly kicked the bucket. It's barely even booting... I grabbed a couple important files off there (like the iCal files with all the kids' firsts and whatnot written down), and it's been put away. I can't bear to recycle it yet. :(

Since the iBook started to have problems last spring, we were looking at alternatives. New MacBooks are pricey, but awesome; on the other hand, it's more computer than I really need. We were also looking at netbooks, and realistically, I knew that's what had to happen, though I was in denial for a long time. I really did not want to go back to Windows, but the netbooks were pretty much all I needed, really, and they were 1/3 the price of a new MacBook.

Fortunately I have a wicked husband that understands the Mac cult, and he found a brand of netbook that other people have successfully put Mac OS X on. A Hackintosh, hooray!

So now I have a little HP Mini. It's alright. The screen size doesn't really bother me, and I'm getting used to the keyboard... it's slightly smaller than my old iBook, so there were a LOT of typos the first few days. It can be a little slow sometimes, but really, most of the time I don't even notice any lagging. The one biggest problem is that Wil thought it was really, definitely his computer since it was Wil-sized. That was not a fun fight getting it back from him.

Anyway, it's approximately a thousand times better than surfing on the Wii, which is what I did for a week and a half while waiting for the new computer to arrive. Gah!

Oh hey, look! An update!

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:11:00 -0400

Four months since I've talked about the kids... that's too long. Too much to think about and try to write down, but I'm going to try.

James has started crawling (within the past week)... he has a pretty funny gait, two hands, one knee, and one foot. He really gets around though. I have to watch him like a hawk now or he finds every single bit of fluff on the floor and it goes straight into the mouth. He can sit up by himself as well, which is nice as it makes it easier for him to play by himself. He also pulled himself up to standing yesterday... eep!

He has started eating more now; a combination of him figuring out the pincher grip, and us figuring out how to keep him from getting all plugged up. When we started feeding him solid food, he didn't poop for two weeks. Poor kid got pretty much nothing but peaches, pears and prunes for two months.

James is still the happiest baby ever; even when he got his first two teeth last week, we couldn't tell until afterward. He was slightly fussy, and not sleeping well, but that was it. No sustained scream-fest like with Wil. James is so full of smiles and giggles. He is still totally thrilled to be around his big brother, and also loves the fact he can get to the cats now. Hah!

Wil is doing well. He is finally starting to speak more; we get more sentences out of him these days. He's still tough to understand, and I have to translate for him, but I think it's starting to come along. Unfortunately someone's taught him "Why?" "Why?" "Why?" and I'm not such a fan of that.

He is more or less potty trained now; we did the three-day method, and he pretty much had it by the end of day two. It had the unfortunate side effect of nighttime potty training him as well; we weren't going to bother with that, and just put diapers on him for naps and bedtime, but the first night after he "got" it, he was up twice asking us to take him to the potty. Not loving the 3am wake up calls, but at least we'll get him out of diapers sooner. He still has a few accidents now and then, but overall I'm totally happy with the progress.

I'd better get to bed; hopefully I update again sooner than four months from now!

Meet my new obsession...

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:29:00 -0400

Mmm, cupcakes.

It started when an online friend mentioned she was going to an event in Toronto known as "Cupcake Camp". Basically - you buy a ticket (cheaper tickets if you bring cupcakes), and go eat cupcakes. Who doesn't like cupcakes?

Unfortunately for her, way too many people liked cupcakes, to the point where it sounded like she didn't really enjoy herself.

I thought it sounded awesome, except for the crowds, and the vulture-like attitude of some of the attendees (as the number of attendees vastly outnumbered the number of cupcakes). So I suggested that maybe we could have one in Calgary, except for not sell tickets, and just keep it private, maybe?

This is the result:

These were my contribution:

Chocolate-covered strawberry cupcakes. Cake was adapted from an old family recipe, and the icing was made from the icing recipe on the back of the icing sugar bag, with some strawberry sauce added (unfortunately, I've lost the original source for the strawberry sauce).

Having conquered (hah!) chocolate and strawberries, I wanted to try a new (to me) technique that a lot of the girls at Cupcake Camp had used... fillings.

Decided on these:

Chocolate cupcakes with basic chocolate buttercream, and white chocolate-cream cheese filling (recipe here). I used the same chocolate cake recipe as before; it's a pretty decent recipe - low-fat (well, for a cupcake), good texture, tastes great. Takes a lot of abuse from me while experimenting. I liked the filling, but the cream cheese overpowered the white chocolate a little bit too much for my liking.

At this point, having found a "go-to" chocolate cake, I started trying white cakes. Someone pointed me to I ♥ Cuppycakes, and I felt brave enough to try one of her recipes... Malibu Strawberry-Lemon Crunkcakes. Had to make a few changes... I wanted to put the strawberry in the cupcake instead of on top, but plain (uncooked) strawberry puree was not at all working with my implements to do so, so I re-used the strawberry sauce recipe I had used for my chocolate-strawberry cucpakes. I didn't have a stand mixer, so I had to use the basic buttercream off the back of the icing sugar bag again, and just used Malibu in place of vanilla/milk. Let me tell you, booze in the icing makes it waaaay better. Not just taste, but texture too. It was the best basic buttercream I'd ever had.

Next up: Rainbow Cupcakes. A lot of people seem to be doing these lately, but the go-to recipe was one with cake mix, instant pudding, and diet Sprite. Um, no thank you. I ♥ Cuppycakes did not disappoint.

The batter was nice and thick, so the layers of different colours didn't mix at all. Despite the thick batter, the cake was fluffy and delicious. I think I may have found my go-to white cake recipe.

That brings us back to this little morsel:

Matt got me the awesomest Mother's Day present ever, a KitchenAid stand mixer. I can now make real buttercream... the kind with egg whites, ridiculous amounts of butter, and so much deliciousness you can barely stand it. But I couldn't decide what to do first... the possibilities were endless. I asked CB from I♥C what to do first (with chocolate cupcakes, as I was in the mood for chocolate). She suggested Caramel Swirl Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

OH. MY. GOD. That stuff is GOOD.

Unfortunately I had a few hiccups along the way... it's definitely not as forgiving as the basic buttercream from the icing bag. First thing I did was cook the egg whites... had my double boiler too hot, and stopped stirring for a minute to go pick up the baby. Came back to an omelet instead of icing.

Take 2 went much better (baby was in bed) and I decorated the cupcakes and stuck them in the fridge to wait for our dinner guests.

I should've taken them out sooner, or perhaps not put them in at all? Buttercream is not as good when cold, it loses the smoothness a bit (gets a tiny bit crumbly). I'm sad I didn't take them out sooner... they were still good, but not as good as they could have been.

So that's what I'm up to most weekends these days. Wil still loves baking, and he loves singing Happy Birthday to the cupcakes (whether or not they're for a birthday), so he's right in there with me most of the time (I leave the icing until after he's in bed though).

Thanks to CB for all the inspiration and sharing all her recipes! :)

Quiet morning

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 08:32:00 -0400

Some time to myself - it's a miracle!

Wil has gone to Grandma & Grandpa's for the rest of the weekend, and James is sleeping in with Matt. I woke up a bit after 6 and just could not get back to sleep, so I decided to get up and try to get some things done. Not any useful things, but I did get a little done.

We've been pretty busy lately; since the plague finally left us, and the weather got nicer, we've been out of the house a lot more. We've been to see the koalas at the zoo twice; they're not terribly exciting (but they are pretty cute).

Wil has started just letting himself out of the house at random. It's incredibly nerve-wracking as we still don't have a fence across the back of the yard. The other day he wanted to be out so badly, but James was sleeping (so we couldn't go to the park or anything, and I couldn't go out into the yard with him). I ended up letting him play in the yard while I watched from the back door to make sure he didn't take off into the alley, and then begging him to come in when James started waking up so I could go pick him up without Wil totally disappearing. Then I bribed him with popcorn and Yo Gabba Gabba! so I could go to the bathroom without him leaving.

Cannot. Wait. to get a fence.

James is getting a little more mobile; he spins himself around a bit (on both his back and his front). He is pretty strong; the doctor couldn't do the hip check at his four-month visit because he was kicking his legs so much and she couldn't hold him still enough. He is so cute when he gets so excited and just kicks and kicks and kicks.

They are incredibly cute together; Wil is always hugging and kissing his little brother. We've started doing bedtime routine for both of them at the same time (even though James doesn't usually go to bed when we want him to). Anyways, after Wil's bath, they both get into their jammies and cuddle up in Wil's bed together for stories. I have to get a picture, it is just so sweet. Wil usually puts an arm around his brother and holds him close. It makes me all melty inside. :)

In non-kid related events, Matt and I had a date (of sorts) yesterday... we took a cooking lesson together! A friend's husband has started doing private cooking lessons, so we got him to come and teach us how to do something we've never done before... rack of lamb! It was so delicious. We actually learned quite a bit of handy stuff (how to blanch vegetables and re-heat so there's less to do right before dinner, for one thing... and how to crack eggs faster!). And my knife technique is getting a bit better! Here are some pictures:

It was so awesome. The food was so good and I had a lot of fun. (His website is Your Plates or Mine if anyone is interested... I totally would recommend him!)

James is up so that's it for now...

The plague: Still not over

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:41:00 -0500

Is it summer yet? I hate cold and flu season.

Matt finally went to a doctor (he did have some -itis or another... sinusitis? rhinitis?) and got some antibiotics and seems better. Unfortunately he gave his nasty cold to the rest of us first. He had it three weeks I think? Wil got it first, and then me and the baby at the same time. It didn't seem too bad for me, but it's gotten a lot worse in the past few days. I woke up and had lost my voice this morning. It's slowly coming back, but man, I wish I could take something. Even throat lozenges are pretty much out as menthol affects your breastmilk supply. Actually I think James prefers the bottles at this point as it's much easier to stop and start feeding many, many times (and I have to say, my nipples could kind of use a break... yeouch!). Saturday was the worst for him... he was just not eating, I finally had to pump because the pressure of the milk buildup was getting a bit much. I got more than 8 oz! That's pretty amazing, last time I pumped I got less than 2 oz. So that told me just how much he hadn't been eating. We let him have bottles the rest of the day and he seemed much happier. And hey, I got a cooler or two so I was happy as well!

In other news, James is getting good control of his hands... he's grabbing the dangly toys on his playmat on purpose now, and he gets really frustrated when he can't pull them into his mouth. He's also started scratching, which is not great since he's scratching his head all the time (I think he might have a bit of eczema), to the point where he's made himself bleed. I think I'd better take him to the doctor soon...

Wil is still enjoying playschool. We're trying to get him into preschool for next year but having a hell of a time. For our first choice class at the preschool closest to us, he's 46th on the waitlist! Insanity.

Wil has also taken a huge interest in cooking lately. He'll drag out the flour bin and measuring cups when he wants to cook something. We did french bread together last week, and he did focaccia bread with Matt last night. He's always liked making muffins too. I'm trying to discourage him right now though... I went to Cupcake Camp on the weekend and we still have about a dozen cupcakes in the fridge. I'll post pictures on facebook soon hopefully. Cupcake Camp was so awesome, but is going to be horrible for my hips! I had a mocha cupcake with kahlua icing for breakfast. Yum!

I think I hear James waking so I'd better leave things here...

I think the plague is almost over...

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:34:18 -0500

After Wil got sick, that bug went through almost the entire family. That Saturday night, I passed out on the couch at like 6 p.m. Felt queasy all night. Went to bed early. Woke up freezing and shivering. I called Matt and got him to bring me an extra blanket and a bucket. Good thing, because I woke up at 11 p.m. and promptly threw up everything I'd eaten that night. Woke the baby too, poor little thing.

Matt was so great; he took James downstairs to sleep so we weren't keeping each other up. He brought him up for a feeding later that night, and took him right back down when I was done.

I slept most of Sunday (after passing Wil off to my mom since I was sick and Matt had been up a lot of the night), finally eating some gummi bears around 2 in the afternoon and sipping on Gatorade most of the day.

And then, the baby threw up Monday morning.

*sigh*

I started feeling normal again Monday night, and the baby didn't get it too bad. Matt doesn't seem to have gotten it (at least, not to the point he was throwing up) but I think he's got bronchitis again... people should not cough in technicolour. Wil had a random unexplained fever on Thursday night (gone, of course, by the time we got him to the doctor on Friday).

So that's what's up at our house. It's been a pretty mellow week... lots of movies and bottles and taking it easy. We still haven't potty trained Wil... we were going to over the weekend when everyone was sick, but he was still a bit sick from when he was throwing up and we didn't think diarrhea and brand new underwear sounded like the best combination ever. And then we didn't last weekend because we were going out several times for my birthday. Right now we're planning for the long weekend coming up... hopefully it goes well!

In other news, I turned 29 last Friday... 362 days left of my 20s! I feel like I should be out partying or something...

Craft kit = TOTAL HIT.

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:18:25 -0500

Awhile back, we went to a kids' Hallowe'en party. Our wonderful hostess had crafts prepped for the kids. I thought, Crafts? Seriously? My kid is 2. He won't go for it.

I was so, so wrong.

Not only did he go for it, he was enthralled with it. He kept heading back to the craft table after I'd drag him away for pictures or food.

At playschool, he loves craft time too. If he talked more, he'd probably say, "My own glue stick! Sweet!" (As of right now, he makes the "Ohhhhh!" sound that means he's really excited about whatever is happening.)

So we got him a craft kit of his very own. It had been in hiding so we could bring it out this weekend (and keep him on the lino instead of the carpet for potty training).

Unfortunately my kiddo caught a bug somewhere this week, and is sick today. The kind of sick where you do a lot of laundry and unfortunately, scrubbing the carpets.

He seems to be feeling better, but I didn't want to take a chance, so I decided to break out the craft kit a bit early to keep him on the lino (as I've already scrubbed puke from the carpet once today - at 6 a.m. - and didn't want a repeat).

I brought it down and he saw it, smiled, and said, "Ohhhhh!"

I said we'd take it to the table, and he wouldn't even take the chance of me not following. He held on tight to that box.

He's in heaven - cutting and glueing and colouring - he's been at it for almost an hour so far (which is really good for my kid). We got crayons, scissors, gluesticks, construction paper, a drawing pad, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, and the holy grail of craft kits - GOOGLY EYES!

God, how that kid loves googly eyes.

He's glued about fourteen eyes to a heart I cut out. I'm planning on putting it up at Matt's office on Valentine's Day. How long do you think that will stay up? :D

Life with two...

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:25:40 -0500

Finally recovering from new-baby-hood, Christmas, re-adjusting to home life after Matt's Christmas break, etc. Things are going swimmingly (for the most part, but we have our days). I don't think I would ever recommend to intentionally have a baby that close to Christmas, though. Things were a bit, um... hairy.

James continues to be the world's easiest baby (touch wood). Eats well, sleeps well, goes to sleep by himself (it's a miracle!), and is generally happy and smiley with everyone. He's not a super big fan of the car seat, but as long as he's fed and dry, he tolerates it fairly well.

He had a little chuckle while I was changing his diaper last week; I'd forgotten how sweet that first little laugh is. And he's bringing everything he can get his hands on (which is basically: my hand, and his other hand) to his mouth. This one is definitely a thumb-sucker right now. Wil never was; so I'm trying to figure out how to swaddle him well enough so he sleeps, but leave out his hand so he can self-soothe (and keep sleeping). I'm also trying to figure out how I can sleep when he is making such a noisy, slurpy racket in the middle of the night. I can't believe how loud thumb-sucking can be!

James is also a very farty little boy... which is really good, because it's not hurting him the way it did for Wil. I can't even count the hours I spent sitting on the couch with Wil, pumping his legs and rubbing his belly...

While I'm glad my kid can get rid of the gas on his own, man, is he stinky! Like a tiny little rhino or a hippo or something very, very stinky. I thought babies were supposed to smell nice all the time?!?

Wil is doing really well with the big brother thing. Not much jealousy, and he really loves to hold and hug and kiss his brother. The wanting-to-carry-him is a little worrisome though.

We started going to a parented playschool class... I'm not really doing it so my kid will be the next Einstein or anything (though it would be nice if Wil sort of 'got' the school thing before grade 1 or kindergarten), but it gets us out of the house, and Wil really likes it. He likes the songs, and the gym time, and the crafts. My God, how he loves the crafts. He got his very own glue stick! Wheee! And I now get to display "art" on my fridge - a firetruck with a hose and a ladder glued on, and one red squiggle, because I convinced Wil he needed to use something other than the glue (very, very briefly).

That's all for now... I can't even believe the kids napped this long!

I have James' birth story all written up but it really needs some editing... maybe I'll try to do that tomorrow...

Family of four: Week One(ish)

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:34:00 -0500

James is nine days old now... I can't believe how fast it's gone already. He's already changed... he had the same little ear fold that Wil did (though less pronounced), but he's already grown out of it. He had really hairy ears too, and that's starting to go away. It was funny, when he was born, he had little werewolf ears, and little vampire fingernails (they were so long). He's an Underworld fan, just like daddy!

The dry skin is finally starting to settle down. When he was born, the skin on his hands and feet felt like paper, it was so dry. A day afterwards the skin started to crack and peel (just the top layer, thankfully), and then the skin on his face followed suit a few days later. I've been a bad mom and I've been peeling off all the flaky bits on his face. It should be almost cleared up for the party tomorrow (we're having an open house for people to come and meet the little guy).

Wil is doing well so far, but Matt is off work for a bit and my mom is staying with us this week, so he's getting lots of attention right now. He likes to hold his little brother (occasionally) and gives him lots of little kisses. Unfortunately he also likes to lay his head on James when I've got him on my lap, which is maybe a bit more weight than the wee one can handle.

I'm doing really well... the recovery from the VBAC is a helluva lot easier than the recovery from the c-section. I did have trouble following my midwives' recommendation to stay in bed for three days and let myself go downstairs once a day (packing up all the things I'd need for the day so I didn't have to go up again until bedtime). We've been out a few times (little trips to the grocery store and such) but I haven't gone by myself with the two boys yet.

Still have to write up the birth story... going to try to get the notes from the midwives next week at the appointment as I can't remember times and such. I do know I was stuck at or below 3 cm dilated for-flippin'-ever... I think I had too much fluid and it was letting James float around and so his head wasn't pushing against my cervix to open it when I was having contractions. Anyways, more on that all later. It was a hugely better experience than the c-section and I'm so glad we hired the midwives.

More later...

James Donald Hughes

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:24:48 -0500

James Donald Hughes was born at 3:03 a.m. this morning. 9 lbs. 6 oz., 55.5 cm. Things went really well. We got home about 5:30 or 6 and slept. More later!

I'm bored

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:08:00 -0500

Been up since 1:30 and I think I've read EVERYTHING ON THE INTERNET.

Been having contractions all that time... since 4:30 they've been about every 7 minutes. Much better than before, but still not close enough. Starting to really hurt though... doing all the usual stuff... breathing through them, closing my eyes, getting a backrub. I'm doing OK but I'm starting to get a bit nervous about driving to the hospital through 3 or 4 of these, when I can't get into a more comfortable position. Plus I'm really wanting to get into a bathtub deep enough to cover my belly, I had a bath at 6 this morning when things were starting to get painful and it was awesome, but would have been even better if I could get the water up over my belly.

Getting closer now; about 6 minutes apart. Maybe time to phone the midwives.

Please, please, please God, do not let this be false labour.

What the hell

nospam@example.com (Tamara) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:53:39 -0500

My power just flicked off and on. No bad weather, I can't figure out why it would have cut out?

George is thoroughly freaked out (staring towards the answering machine and one of the computers was beeping when the power came back). It's making me kinda freaked out.

Eeeee!