STOP!

When we were at Callie's house last weekend, Charles said something about using a waffle iron to make cookies. I didn't hear it perfectly because once he said cookies my imagination started filling in the (crispy) (buttery) details and I just couldn't concentrate.

But just now I stumbled across the item itself, on my favorite time-waster of all. Yes, Foodgawker.

So go check out cookies made in a waffle iron. If you think you can stand it.

P.S.: Santa, I do not own a waffle iron.

Tonight, after supper (scrambled eggs, bacon, and yogurt with kiwi, milk, juice and water to spill on his lap), Iain watched this:



He loves this bit, though I can't get him to clap along. But I can tell that he thinks sitting on Mom and Dad's big bed, wearing only his diaper, watching Sesame Street with a full belly and two sippy cups is about as close to heaven as a 19-month-old is likely to get.

Oh, and he's now demanding "EAT!" on the way home from daycare. I'm working on my salute.

Driving

Here's what I'd like to ask the fellow ahead of me at 4:56pm tonight (the one in the Volvo):

Why did you spend half a mile carefully smoothing your mohawk into place, only to then don a knit cap?

Psst - Mom! Hey Mom!! Take Me To The Park!

Park! Park!! PARK!!!

New Book

New to me, anyway. I mentioned earlier that I've finally made the transition to books not on tape. That is, to digitized versions of books. I could have gone the CD route, but they cost the moon, I use my computer's DVD drive for more important things, and I don't own a CD player. So, at Charles' suggestion, I downloaded 2 books on tape for my iPod.

The first book was the third volume of Schama's History of Britain, a wonderful book I've listened to maybe 20 times. I am not a specialist in British history, so I don't worry about little things like "accuracy." I'm listening for the language, and especially for the careful use of colloquialism, contraction, and wry humor.

The second book was the one whose book jacket you see above. The image is a link to Amazon. It's new to me (though published in 2003, so not new by Schama's standards. He has a yet newer book on American history/culture which I might read soon), and so far very enjoyable. Like all his books, there are growling bits of gritty practicality, puns and references to older, other histories, and a wide-ranging mixture of ideas and actors.

Now here's the thing: real historians aren't supposed to like Simon Schama. His popular success, his inability or unwillingness to stick with one field, his crazy-complex sentences that sometimes seem to side with one historical interpretation but on a second reading take the opposite stand - it's not the stuff of which academic stars are made.

But I don't care. It makes me want to write.

Reading

Last night, Charles and I prepared Iain's dinner while he...wait for it...read quietly on the sofa. And he climbed up there by himself.

This morning, after breakfast, he did the same thing. I looked over and saw him turning the pages on one of his truck books, staring intently at the different kinds of trucks.

So that's one new trick Mommy is so, soooo happy to see. It almost makes up for the Epic Meltdown 2009 from the other night.

Family

Today I was reading a new set of letters written by my favorite cartoonist, and came across his description of his household in Harlem. Julia and Tommy were his two eldest children.

"When you are in town, you may certainly count on finding us at home, no matter when it may be, and the shanty and its intimates at your service, our hospitality is of the rough & tumble, higgledy-piddledy type, as we have no serf whatever, not even the shadow of one, but none the less hearty for all that. Julia is installed as head nurse, Tommy jr. general assistant, the dog is door tender and Mrs. N. maid of all works."

Sounds kind of fun, doesn't it? In another letter, about a year later, when there was a new baby, he wrote:

"The baby on whose account the country was prescribed, came back quite ruddy and fat, and so did the other children although there was no necessity for a change in their case, and there was in hers. They all discourse of corn fields, water horses, milking cows, feeding pigs and chickens, hunting eggs and other similar delights with the greatest animation, and by the racket that they make, I think you have good reason to thank kind fate who has again preserved you from an infliction of the Nast family."

These are the moments which make me sorry never to have met Mr. Nast.

In other news, Iain walked into the house tonight, stood next to his high-chair, and demanded "EAT!" Pray for us.