Category: Uncategorized (Page 38 of 40)

Now that the fog of Juneuary is beginning to lift, we are able to get outside and get some Vitamin D the old fashioned way. Dashiell has been practicing playing with water in the bathtub–and is really into “the fountain” (hand-held shower sprayer).

But nothing beats playing with water outside on a hot day. Aunt Amanda sent us a “water table” so Dashiell could both master his standing (not that he needed anymore practice in that department!) and get his hands in the water. This is her second beach-themed gift. Thanks Aunt Amanda! Here he is at the table.

Amidst all the chaos and confusion today, I got a surprise reunion with Dede! It took Dede a few minutes to realize I was there, in Janice and Sydele’s house; she didn’t expect to see me either! But once she did–oh boy was she excited. It meant so much to me to hold her in my arms again. Thank you, Nan, for restoring her beyond what we ever imagined. Thank you for being her Super Mom! We are so grateful.

It is with a heavy heart tonight that I think of all the wild animals around Los Alamos. The brown bear spotted last week–where will he go to escape the flames, let alone eat? And our elk herd–so accustomed to the protection and relatively good food supply on LANL property; what will they do?

After a long day of travel (first time away from Dashiell), I ended up evacuating from Los Alamos late last night. I felt lucky up find a hotel room via the Internet–phone lines were jammed. It was a bizarre thing to be coming down the hill at 11pm with lots of others, just like a normal commutting weekday, except with a glowing fire in the rear-view. This morning in Santa Fe, my rental car is dusted with ash and the smell of burning piñon is ever present.

Dashiell loves blueberries! Here he is trying to fetch more from the sieve.

Happy and full:

Dashiell worked hard on this banner late into the night and hung it up while everyone else was sleeping…

But some time with scissors and scrap-booking paper was not enough to show Dad how much we appreciate him. In keeping with our gift theme of salt, we got Dad a Himalayan Pink salt cooking block from our fave store which I have blogged about before, The Meadow.

It took a few days to get up the gumption to actually cook with it (and Jeff was still sick on Father’s Day), but we eventually followed Mr. Bitterman’s recipe for Salt Block Flank Steak.

You have to heat the block very slowly to preserve its life. It took about an hour to heat up enough (Bitterman has tested it as high as 700 degrees F.) But once it was hot, we got exactly what he promised: super sizzling meat that only needed to cook for about 5 seconds per side (with the cover down):

Most of us have had a bad experience with this tough chewy cut. But cut into 1/2 strips (against the grain) and cooked at high heat on salt–wow! The steak bits were so juicy, tasty, and oozing with goodness that we ate several pieces outside standing around the grill. I could not believe how succulent it was. I haven’t eaten that much red meat in ages (and had a stomach ache afterward to prove it).

Mr. Bitterman explains in his literature that these blocks, which come from a mine in Pakistan, are ancient, dating back to an era pre-cavemen! It’s amazing to be holding something that old, let alone cooking on it. Read more about it on his site, or, better yet, buy his book. The content is beautifully engrossing, and his writing is a revelation.

I promise, this is my last post about salt…for awhile, at least (did I mention the excellent salted chocolate bar Jeff bought me?…). Sigh.

For the last couple of weekends, we’ve stopped in at Cafe Sip ‘n Play, a local spot for kids and coffee. We have lunch in the cafe then enjoy all the new toys. On his first visit, Dashiell went right for his (then) favorite thing: a (toy) banana. It was so funny–out of what must be a gazillion toys, he grabbed something he recognized.

But then, he discovered his new favorite toy: a mini shopping cart. The perfect “vehicle” for our young walker, we could barely tear him away. He exhausted himself and fell asleep in the car afterward. Click here if you cannot see the video load in the object below.

So enthralled was he, we returned the following week. This week, we splurged and bought him one for at home!

He can steer, reverse (“beep, beep, beep!”) and is very focused on the direction in which he wants to go.

He’d had some practice; an early version of this game was “School Bus,” where we’d pick up “kids” and drop them at school, then take them home at the end of the day:

It’s astounding how much children learn from imitating adults. Not being an anthropologist, or a biologist, I would guess the imitation is a survival skill. We like the pack. We like to look like others, be like others, to fit in. This can be a good thing: we will waste less water if we know how little our water our neighbor uses.

Having never been one to run with much of a pack, I was surprised to learn this lesson the other day by watching young Jackie Evancho. If you haven’t seen her yet, take a moment to watch her perform the beautiful O, Mio Babbino Caro, a song made famous to non-opera goers in the Merchant-Ivory film A Room with a View.

And yet here is even more evidence! Sung-bong Choi, a homeless, uneducated street orphan from South Korea, who taught himself opera by watching a man in a club.

These performances have taught me to never underestimate the inherent abilities of any child. We throw around these truisms all the time: monkey see, monkey do; we talk about how children are sponges. But they’re so much more; we have only scratched the surface about how the brain works.

By now, the entire Internet-accessed population of the world has seen the babbling twins on YouTube…

A couple months ago, when the twins story broke, Dashiell and I watched the video, a few times. And we sometimes joke about their banter at home, always ending our babble with an upward tone, as if asking a question, the way the twins do. Well, Dashiell was listening! Here he is impersonating them (click here if you can’t see the video embedded below).

How, then, to not limit them?