What makes Momma cry
What makes Momma cry (#2. We attempt time-out, I read an interview with Joe Hutto* in The Sun)
This is time-out, I say, sliding her chair into the corner.
What time-out mean? she asks.
It means you sit there and be quiet.
What momma doing?
I’m reading and you’re being quiet.
What being quiet?
It means not talking. Momma is not talking and Nettie is not talking.
Momma is reading and Nettie in time out, she is NOOOT talking.
Momma is reading a magazine and —
“mule deer exercise reciprocal altruism.”
I’m pushing! I’m pushing!
Stop pushing, please. Don’t push your chair.
And stop talking. We’re being quiet, remember?
“are dependent on the accumulated wisdom of the matriarch…”
I’m pushing! I’m pushing with my feet!
You’re going to fall off your chair and hurt yourself.
“Most go no longer than a month without receiving
some sort of injury from a barbed-wire fence.”
I said stop pushing.
Momma said stop pushing! She said stop it!
And BE QUIET! Momma says BE QUIET!
“…we live in a profoundly brutal world.”
I slam down the magazine, suck in my breath: NETTIE!
Momma is TRYING to READ and YOU are SUPPOSED
to be QUIET and SIT STILL! Time-out is a PUNISHMENT!
Okay, we’re going back to the table! I slide her chair back.
Nettie, eat your food. (The bite is deflected.)
What Momma doing?
I’m trying to finish reading this while you eat your food.
“… I’m unapologetic about my emotions.”
Nettie, take a bite. Do you want to go back into time-out?
Yes.
You WANT to go in time-out? Okay. (sliding the chair)
Now you have to be quiet. And Momma’s going to finish this.
Nettie being quiet and Momma is reading —
“It’s such a gift … just to go out and be a mule deer for a day.”
*Joe Hutto is a naturalist and wildlife researcher. An interview between Hutto and Al Kesselheim, similar to the one I read in The Sun can be viewed here.
///
I feel sort of compelled to add the disclaimer that up until now, I've tried to parent mostly "intuitively," because reading things ends up really stressing me out and making me feel inadequate. And also because I haven't settled on any parenting method that I really like. But I'm finding that two-year-olds require a firmer hand sometimes, and so, since I haven't prepared or read up on what to do when, for instance, your child decides she's just going to stop feeding herself, I've resorted to some tactics that I'm not proud of. But things start to feel desperate, as some of you may know or remember. And stupid things, like the time-out described above, happen.
I've been going in a few other directions lately, working on some things that haven't ended up on the blog. I would say a lot of my life fails seem to come out in poem-form, and since I intend this blog to be (mostly) encouraging, I don't want to include all of them here. If you're interested in following some of my other writing, you can find more here.
easy as (vegan) birthday cake
I don't do a lot of baking anymore. There was a time when I baked on a near-daily basis, made all our own bread, regularly gifted people with cookies and pies and all sorts of goodies. Baking was kind of my thing. But people change. I started doing other things in my spare time, my diet changed, and now I can go months without getting out the flour. So when I DO bake, I try not to waste my time.
Nettie's birthday was this past weekend and at her request, we served "tiny pink cake," "little pink cupcakes," and "little brown cupcakes." All vegan. I got a lot of versions of this exchange:
Skeptical omnivore (Looking suspiciously at the cupcakes): "So, are all the cupcakes vegan?"
Me: "Yep, they're all vegan."
Skeptical omnivore: "Not even eggs?"
Me: "No, not even eggs in any of them."
Skeptical omnivore: (Looking at the cupcakes with narrowed eyes again.) "They look just like regular cupcakes."
There you go, folks. You may have eaten a vegan cupcake in your life and not even known it. I'll just let that sink in a moment.
Okay, if you've recovered from the shock of realizing that you may have indeed partaken of a vegan dessert without your prior knowledge or consent, let me tell you why I think vegan sweets are a really nice thing to make occasionally, especially to share with friends and family.
As my sister once sagely observed, "The cool thing about vegan food is that EVERYONE can eat it!" Now if that isn't already on a t-shirt, it should be.
Dietary restrictions and food allergies or sensitivities aside, this is true. And what's also true, and sometimes a little annoying, is that many, many vegan baking recipes also take into consideration dietary restrictions and food allergies. I have found that vegan dessert recipes seem, more often than not, to be gluten free as well. And many of them are nut free. Many are oil free, or refined sugar free. And many vegan recipes, if they are not free of all these things already, offer suggestions or substitutions to make them so. I sometimes read recipes that are free of so many things that I wonder what ingredient is possibly left to work with. Usually it's medjool dates and raw organic cacao powder. (That might be a little inside, I don't know.)
I know the thought of vegan baking makes a lot of people's hair stand on end. Regular baking can be difficult enough; why throw in the added challenge of cutting out dairy and eggs? But it's not that bad, really. You just have to find the right recipes. That's why I'm sharing with you, so you don't have to waste your time and ingredients. Here are a few vegan baking recipes that I think are delicious, easy, and fairly fool-proof. These are not healthy vegan recipes. These are special-occasion type recipes, for every few months or so. And they can be shared by (nearly) everyone. Don't be afraid, really.
This is my favorite white cake recipe that has never failed me. I tried three chocolate cake recipes for this party, two of which were good, though one was better, the third a complete wash. The cupcakes from that recipe literally disintegrated. It was sort of horrifying to watch. So try one of the other two recipes. (Second place chocolate cake)
A disclaimer about the winning chocolate cake recipe: it's an annoying format to follow. I didn't actually follow her instructions, just the ingredient list. Also, I am generally skeptical of recipes that include the words "EPIC," "THE BEST EVER," and "TOTALLY SIMPLE." But I made an exception for this recipe despite the fact that it included one of these phrases and also started with the prelude, "I've never really been a cake person." Are you freaking kidding me? Both those things should have disqualified it for sure, but the recipe was basic enough, and similar enough to my white cake recipe, that I thought it might work. And it did. So, you just never know.
I'm not going to claim that any of these recipes are actually epic, the best ever, or totally simple. But they are good, and they are worth sharing. And just look at those cute little sprinkles. I'm pretty sure you need some vegan baking in your life.
One tip that I've found when making vegan cake is that you need to fill your pans or muffin cups a little fuller than you normally would. Like instead of 2/3 full for cupcakes, more like 3/4 full.
This is a graham cracker recipe I like to make for kids, to give as gifts, favors, or to have as a less-sweet, unfrosted dessert alternative. Nettie loves them. Other kids I've made them for love them. I love them, too.
I found these pretty sprinkles on Amazon, of course. They are made with natural dyes. And I ordered some natural food dyes made by Watkins, too. I didn't use much of the dye since I made the frosting very light pink, but it worked okay. I think the red dye was made from beets, and I noticed that it bled a little inky-blue color down into the white cake. So it's not perfect, but it's natural!
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