Twins.

I want them. I don't get them. I struggle with this daily. Some reminder or another pops up daily and every day I try to not care. Try to ignore it. Try to be brave. To be strong. To love what I have. To be happy with my four (almost) perfect children. 

But it's not enough. It can never be enough. Because out floating in the heavens far beyond reach I have 2 twins. 

Charlie's twin and Delta's twin. 

I so deeply want them. Perhaps more than any mom with living twins has ever wanted twins. I ache for them. Every second of every day. But I pretend I don't. Because nobody gets it. No oft knows the loss and pain I feel. Nobody knows the secret lies I tell total strangers when they see the double stroller and ask if I have twins. Nobody knows that longing in my heart. That 3 years later I would trade every single living person in my life except for my husband and four living children for one of my lost twins. 

And I will forever live like this. Missing what should have been. What could have been. What almost was. Twice. 

Anytime life can start being fair. 

If I had a time machine and could talk to 20 yr old me

My last baby is on the verge of not being a baby. Sure, she still LOOKS like a baby with her adorable bald head. And she snuggles almost like a baby. And she almost crawls like a baby. But by definition she will be a toddler in 3 days.
My mat leave pay ended last week. And I didn't return to work. And I am spiraling into a bit of a panic. Her party is in 2 days and I CAN'T STOP MAKING TISSUE PAPER FLOWERS. And her cake has taken me hours to make (see previous post and the next 2 posts that don't exist yet). I am obsessing about her party like I have never obsessed before. It is for me. My baby girl is not a baby. My child bearing days are done. My nursing days are likely numbered. No more pregnancy, no more labour, no more births, no more sweet tiny baby heads to smell.

And I am a disaster. Now what?? I wish I could go back in time and tell myself what I should have studied so I could have a plan now. And then I think of all the things I wish I could tell myself. If only I had my time machine.

1. Those perky 20 yr old fantastic boobs that you're self conscious about? Flaunt 'em!!! Enjoy them! In 14 years you will miss them. Stop wearing 2 sports bras to try to squish them away. They are FANTASTIC.

2. While you're at it, wear a bikini. You are NOT fat. You are beautiful. You glow. Your tummy is just fine.

3. Be confident. Fake it. Stomp on all that enormous self doubt. Don't listen to that voice in your head telling you you're not good enough. And don't listen to the people that agree with that voice. You will learn this lesson eventually. Better to learn it early.

4. Your heart is about to be more broken than you can imagine. Do not let that broken heart dictate the decisions you make about dating and boys for the next 5 years. You ARE love-able. You WILL find somebody that you love that also loves you back. You will be cherished by somebody that you also cherish. And it will be wonderful. You will spare yourself and a lot of other people a lot of pain if you learn that lesson.

5. Stop wasting your time in school learning Chinese in the off chance it will make that boy love you. It won't. He doesn't and nothing will change that. Ever. Go learn something useful. And since you have NO idea what you are passionate about (and no, that boy doesn't count. You won't marry him. And you will eventually be happy about that) go take occupational therapy specializing in sensory processing. Or midwifery. Either way you will love it.

6. When you see moms bottle feeding, just can it. That silent judgment of yours? Knock it off. Karma, dear Chrissy, Karma. Also, cut your mom some slack. Still move across the country to run away from her, that's a good idea. But she tried. She really did. And one day when you are up to your ears in little kids and all their stuff you will understand. You will have these "aha!" Moments that make her human. That shed light on her terrible coping skills. She certainly wasn't perfect. And you aren't, either. You will stumble constantly as a parent. And you will wish you tried to understand her a bit more.

7. Eat. Eat whatever delicious things you want. I won't tell you why, because nothing can prepare you for your second child, but enjoy food.

8. You WILL survive your first birth. You won't feel like you will, but you will. It will be easier if you learn to stand up for yourself now and find your voice now. Practice now and it will go better. And if it doesn't, please please please reach out for help.

9. You will also survive your second child god knows how, but you will. And he will bring you so much joy and so much heart ache and he will be worth it. You find the depths of your heart and humanity with that one. You face hurdle after hurdle, and again you find your voice.

10. Your fourth child? Run with it. Stop crying about the pregnancy when it happens. Because she's a fantastic little girl.

11. Your third one will also bring you to your knees many times over. But he will have these eyes that you will fall into and never escape.

12. Everything will be ok, 20 yr old me. You will fall on your face, you will hurt a lot if people, you will be hurt. You will be ok.

Now if only 50 yr old me could come talk to 34 yr old me I'd be golden.

The perfect birthday cake and frosting

It has taken me four full years to perfect the white birthday cake and frosting. The chocolate cake is fine. Easy, even. But the white cake...... Oh the white cake! I have tried so many. I have tweaked, altered, started again, stomped my feet, screamed, and tweaked some more.
And I did it.
The perfect egg free dairy free soy free white birthday cake. And it tastes amazing. You can't tell that it is not full of eggs and butter.
The key? Beating. You beat this cake to total and utter death, then beat some more. Best if you have a stand mixer. Otherwise it's hard to beat it enough and your arms gets REALLY tired using a hand-held.

So here's the recipe and method. I will post the frosting soon and then photos of Delta's cake on Monday. (How is delta turning one, exactly??)

1 cup vegan becel (or whatever butter-type ingredient you prefer)
2 cup + 2 T sugar
1 1/2 t vanilla
1/3 cup egg replacer mixed well with 1/3 cup hot water (or 4 eggs)
1 cup rice milk (or.... You get the idea)
2 2/3 cup flour
2 t baking powder
1/8 t salt

Preheat oven to 350 and line 2 8 inch pans with parchment.
In the bowl of your stand mixer beat becel and sugar for a good 5 or more minutes. It needs to get nice and fluffy.
While it is beating combine your dry ingredients and mix with a fork.
Keep letting the mixer mix.
Add vanilla, beat for a couple more minutes.
Add egg replacer mixture.
Beat some more. Just keep beating.
Add 1/2 c milk, then 1/2 of dry, then half if milk, then rest of dry MAKING SURE YOU BEAT REALLY REALLY WELL between additions. While you're doing this it seems like an excessive amount of beating. It's a good 20 minutes or more of running that mixer. (Like I said- you can do it with a hand mixer but your arm gets tiiiiired).
Pour into pans. Bake for 50 minutes until top springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes, then cool completely on rack.

Seriously. Make this cake. You will not be disappointed. As far as allergy friendly cakes go, this is the best I've had. (Unless you're allergic to wheat. Then just never mind).

It's that time again....

(no, not time to change your underwear. Thank you, Animaniacs)

It's allergy testing season. Last year it was in November. This year I didn't really want to make the appointment so it's a few months later. And you know why I didn't want to make the appointment? Because then I get the results. And then I feel defeated by allergies. Again. How many times can I feel defeated by them? How many times can I plead with them to just go away?

I'm having a little bit if a meltdown this very second. I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm feeling sorry for Bravo. I'm angry that we have this fear and these limitations in my life. You know what I want to do? Tell my 3 year old that we've had a crapy go of things and then take him out for ice cream. But that would kill him. Or maybe we could eat at the food court. Nope. Death. Alpha gets to go on play dates without me. His friends grandma took him and his friend to McDonalds. Bravo will never get to do that. Will not get to go to a friends house for lunch. Will not get to do a lot of things. Because his body hates him.

I play this game a lot. The "if I got to pick 5 allergies to keep what would they be?" they would be: peanuts, tree nuts, shell fish, alfalfa, and clover. And really that's far more than 5 because there's lots of kinds of nuts and lots of different shell fish. But that list is only half (well, less than half) of what we have to avoid.
It's a pointless game. But I play it anyways. If I got to pick just one to outgrow hands down it would be milk. That's a whole food group! But I'm pretty sure that milk will be a life long allergy.

We were given the option of challenging soy this year. But I don't have it in me to put him or us through that. Nothing else has improved. So I'm thinking this years challenge if we were to go through with it would end like last year's challenge did. Badly.

I try to console myself sometimes with "it could be worse". But that doesn't actually help. Then I try to just suck it up and say "it is what it is". But that's obvious. And doesn't help.

So I keep riding this emotional roller coaster 'cause I have no choice.

I'm now trying to figure out how to navigate bravo through this. He's getting.... I don't know. Angry I guess. Angry about his allergies. He states that they're not fair. He makes up songs about forbidden foods. He tells me that he will just pretend that he's not allergic. He straight up told me that he wasn't going to have allergies anymore and then touched alpha's hand (which had milk on it). I don't know how to parent him through this. I need a guide book. Or maybe I'll just blindly grope my way through this and then write my own guide book.

Ugh. It's midnight and I need to sleep. But on these nights sleep is hard to come by. And this is why I didn't want to do his stupid annual test. Because even though I KNEW that nothing would be outgrown it turns out I had buried hope. That has now been smacked into my face like a pie.

mugs of life

I'm pretty sure anybody who has read more than 3 of my posts is fully aware that I am a giant dork. Especially posts about me instead of my crazy family.

This will reinforce that.

There was a time in my life that wasn't great. I had compromised on a lot of things about me. I had let go of things that made me me. The result was a depressed Chrissy in a bad marriage who had totally lost herself in life. But you know what really stands out about that period in my life?

All of my mugs matched. The mugs matched each other and they matched the saucers which matched the plates which matched the bowls and I hated it. First thing I did when I started to get my brain back was to go to the thrift store and buy 4 mugs that made me happy. One of Matt's favourite shopping hobbies is going to thrift stores to buy mugs or glasses for me. We have some gooders now.

One day I'll do a drinking glass edition, but I'm going to start with the mugs.

I love that they don't match. I love picking out my
Mug based on my mood. I love that some of my mugs have stories.

Like this one.
Matt and I went to north Dakota a life time ago to visit a friend and I told her I thought the mug was fun. So she created an elaborate plan that included transferring her water to 3 different cups and mugs and eventually got it in her purse and stole it for me.

Or this one. It just makes me happy. Because sometimes I'm in a "Hello, World" type of mood. And it was $0.75 at goodwill but the lady saw it was chipped so I got it for a quarter. Score!!!

This one Matt loves. I think it's the ugliest thing in the history of ever and I refuse to drink out of it.

 

These ones..... Every 2 years at winners we have found a Beatrix potter mug. If the trend continues 2013 will bring the next one.

These 2 are my comfort mugs. Ones that suit a rainy day or a day when I'm just sort of crumby.

 

This one, why does it have a cow on it? A guy I used to support gave it to me at Christmas. I think it's from Dollarama.

 

This mug makes me happy. It has owls on it which make me happy. Alpha and Bravo have decided that these owls are our family. 4 babies of varying sizes, and a mommy and a daddy owl. When they're sad or sick this is the mug they want to drink out of.

 

And then there's this one. Bordering (or has it crossed the border) of questionable stereotypes. And just really really funny. I rescued it from work. It had been chosen as the mug that nobody would want to drink out of and was used instead to hold the dish scrubbers. So I traded with a boring mug from my house and brought this beautiful doozy home. I think it's one of my very favourites.

 

 

 

Food Friday.... It came to me in a dream

Fried Oatmeal

I woke up the other night from my terribly fragmented sleep (thank you, molars, teeth, croup, and a 2 yr old who discovered he doesn't have to stay in bed....) and the dream I was having was wonderful. I had cooked bars of oatmeal, all crispy and fried, and rolled in cinnamon sugar and in my dream we dipped them in apple sauce. I woke up thinking "ooooh. That sounds good!"

So. I made them. And they're every bit as good as I dreamt! excuse the crumby photos. My camera battery was dead so I used my ipod.

ingredients (scale down as needed):

4 cups oatmeal

8 cups water

pinch of salt

 

1/3 cup flour (optional- but it's crispier if you use it)

 

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon 

(Maybe. I forgot to measure this. more or less depending on how cinnamonny you like it)

1. put oatmeal, salt, and water into a pot. bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 5-7 minutes stirring frequently until cooked.



2. Pour oatmeal into a 9x13 pan. If you make less oatmeal use a smaller pan. You don't want it too thin. Put in fridge and chill until cold and gelatinous.

3. remove from fridge, loosen edges with a rubber spatula, and plop onto a cutting board. cut into fingers. don't cut too wide or it's hard to brown all sides.

4. preheat griddle or frying pan, melt margarine or butter or oil on med-low heat. enough to melt the butter/ margarine, not enough to burn it. Roll cold oatmeal chunks in flour, then put in hot pan. brown on all sides cooking until golden and crispy.

 

 

5. Roll in cinnamon sugar coating all sides. Eat while warm and crispy. Yummy!!!!!