Touché Tuesday

In short... Oliver was up with a fever last night. Again. Third time in six weeks. As such, he was home sick today and likely will be tomorrow and the next, if the past repeats itself as it is so, unfortunately, wont to do. As such, I had to cancel out much of what I'd scheduled for this week, and I found mealworms in my damn chestnut flour, necessitating a giant pantry purge and more Container Store purchases. I found pus on Ol's left tonsil, we went to the doctor and it wasn't strep (shit!), Jack has a vague neck rash, and Thanksgiving is approaching. The boys and I went to CVS for Gatorade and came home with green, orange and gold nail polish for toe-painting. During a brief, medicine-induced feel-good, I took Oliver to the barber for his first shop trim (T usually does the boys' cuts). He was adorable but now looks like a marine. The loquacious barber never heard my "please, no more cutting" protestations as he told me about moving from Georgetown to Sangamore THIRTY years ago.

I told Tom I would not, tonight, help him carry in the seventy pound coffee table he's been refinishing because I was bushed and would help tomorrow. For christs sakes, who's coming over who wants to sit in the basement and have cocktails? No one. Did he listen? No. He carried it in, on his back, up the stairs, by himself. Great. An invalid husband I don't need. Now he wants a cookie. And really, I'm grateful, but I simply cannot go fawn over it. Not just yet. My puff pastry is ballooning to beat sixty despite the fact that I keep puncturing it down. And is chicken marinated in crème fraîche and Dijon mustard good? I hope so because it's cooking now. China gave a paltry $100,000 to the Philippines for post-typhoon aid - puh-lease - AND we did not have any white wine in the house tonight. Mother of crisis!

If it's not clear, I'm feeling a bit glum. A bit frazzled. Balls, Tuesday, take a load off!

Baby, quinoa, Monday

Before lunch, I went to my friends' house to deliver food and meet their new daughter. Of course I wanted to give them the food, but really I wanted to get my mitts on a darling newborn. Just shy of 2½ days old, this little peanut was what my arms had been missing. Oh! I love the babies. I could have 80 babies. I could happily hold a baby for hours on end, day after day. I love their tiny features, their little bleating sounds, teeny mouth puckers, involuntary motions and twitches. Little ma'am never opened her eyes today, but that didn't lessen my utter bliss in just snuggling her. Seriously, I should get a baby-holding job. Can you volunteer in hospital nurseries as a baby holder? Sign me up. Whatever happened after I returned home was unremarkable except for finding this amount of granola left when I went in for a snack. Seriously, husband? Seriously? Just eat the final three bits of granola for pete's sakes. #lazyanddoesntwanttowashdishes #doesntwanttogetintroubleforeatingallofgranola

And then I was stumped re: dinner. I wanted to caramelize Brussels sprouts with chunks of thick-cut bacon, but it's Meatless Monday so I made good on that instead: roasted asparagus with lemon and salt; quinoa with pistachios, apricots and lime vinaigrette; toasted bread with some hard Spanish cheese I found in my cheese drawer plus roasted tomato jam. All in all, I give it an A. T concurs. Off to watch Homeland.

A few final thoughts

If anyone has a random $7,500 and wants to treat Ms. Em-i-lis to a holiday treat, I'll take these stunners! Seriously, I saw these in the Times a couple weeks back and have been in full-scale lust ever since.

And, I was really jazzed by this article in today's NYTimes. It discusses the ways in which the federal government is helping curb the obesity epidemic in the US by making stores who accept WIC vouchers MUST stock whole grain breads and cereals, fresh produce, reduced fat dairy products and so forth. As 50% of all infants and 25% of kids under 5 will be on the WIC rolls at some point in their lives, access to healthier food that is also affordable is critically important.