Recent Recipe Revelations (or, several recipes we’ve tried recently)

I’ve been tempted to try some more complex recipes, but I often get scared off. Last week, I found a recipe that sounded really tasty! How can you go wrong with chocolate chip buttermilk scones? The blogger/author/recipe-guru who created this recipe works to find and share healthy, family-friendly, low-fat recipes. While I like that idea, the scones I made left me wondering if I had forgotten to include the sugar. They get a solid meh. If it's the only scone I can have, then sure, I'll eat them. But I'm not sure that I'll make them again. I felt like the taste of the whole wheat flour was a bit much. Well, at least I know that I *can* make scones! Now, to try some cranberry almond scones.

Cashew Chicken--It’ll be even better when we remember the cashews! I stumbled on another recipe last week that seemed promising for PoppaGeek and me. It’s Cashew Chicken [quick! go read the recipe. Seriously, I’ll wait.]. We made quite a few adjustments to the recipe. Some of the adjustments were purposeful. (We love green beans and broccoli, so we added that to the mix, but eliminated the edamame and green onion. We did add a small white onion at the beginning of the cooking process.) Some of the adjustments were accidental. (Please don’t ask me about the full can of cashews still sitting on my counter!) As this blogger recommended, we served it with Jasmine rice. Wow. I never want another kind of rice. I want Jasmine rice EVERY.DAY. yum!

Voice-activated Technologies (or, how I’m teaching my daughter to talk to the TV)

It seems like the year has seen many new developments for voice-activated technology. Siri now helps iPhone users to answer questions (such as “What is the meaning of life?”), the Xbox Kinect will respond to voice commands (which I love for Netflix and Hulu), and now there’s a TV that will listen to your voice and obey your commands!

I’m loving this! PoppaGeek and I enjoy watching television shows through Netflix and Hulu on the Xbox. We can now pause a show or movie with the simple command “Xbox. Pause.” while one (or both) of us get up to get more milk for Geeklet. Before, we would often let the program run, because the controller was out of reach or had already gone to sleep. Now, we’re saving battery life on the controller and getting a better, faster response for controlling the show.

The bonus I didn’t expect? Geeklet is now learning to say words like “xbox,” “pause,” and “play,” with an occasional “rewind” thrown in for fun. I just wonder what life will be like for her...she’ll always know what it’s like to talk to the TV, slide your finger across an iPad, and have access to multiple computers at home and at school. One of my favorite stories about my childhood is serving as the remote control at my grandparents’ house. They had one of those “furniture” TVs--you know the type, it sat on a swivel base and as as big is a Smart Car. There was a number pad and an on/off button. When grandpa wanted to change the channel, he said, “go over there an hit 7.” Little Geeklet won’t know what that’s like, but I’m sure she’ll have some similar story about her family.

short-term aggravation for long-term health (or, how I tortured my daughter with eye drops)

Pink eye. It’s the bane of the daycare existence. Or is that lice? I can never remember. At any rate, PoppaGeek and I are slowly learning the rules (unwritten and otherwise) of Daycare. They call me for at least three things: fever, being bitten by another child, and pink eye. We’ve gotten two of those calls in one week. The first day of daycare one week last fall, we got the first call: little Geeklet had been injured at the center. She was ok, but had been bitten by another child. I’m quite sure that it’s relatively normal behavior for this age group (1 to 2 year-olds), and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it would happen eventually. Still...hearing something along the lines of: “it broke the skin but didn’t bleed” it slightly nerve-wracking! The very next day, we got another call: Geeklet needs to be picked up because they suspect pink eye. PoppaGeek (who is actually a superhero) picked her up and got her to the doctor to confirm the diagnosis.

And here comes the hard part. For the next 5 days, we needed to get 2 drops of medicine in her eye *three* times each day. /sigh. We have had some interesting times already in her short two years of life, and after all that, I completely understand the need for baby antibiotics to come with a flavor. Trying to get amoxicillan, augmenten, and other oral antibiotics into a tiny body are difficult, to say the least.

Please know that I am exceedingly happy, thankful, blessed to have a healthy, happy little girl! The good news: she made it through the Great Pink Eye Fiasco of 2011 just fine. :-)