tomato sauce fail

Last night after I put Matteo to bed I attempted to make tomato sauce from scratch.

I know many of you out there probably can do this in your sleep, but for me this was a big adventure. I had a (small) bounty of tomatoes from our garden just ready to be turned into something special and after seeing homemade tomato sauce recipes in yesterday's Food section of the newspaper, as well as on Smitten Kitchen, I was pumped.



Well, first of all, I really didn't have that many tomatoes to work with. See what I mean? That's all I got. And second, the recipe I followed called for a food mill, which I do not have. So I spent a lot of time boiling and peeling and removing seeds. But fine, whatever. I am a Midwest Woman! I grew these damn things myself and now I'm going to feed my family with them!

*sigh*

After all that prep, I don't know what kind of family I'm going to be able to feed with the measly pot of sauce that I ended up with. A family of gnomes, maybe?



To make matters worse, I was feeling so self-assured about my cooking skills after I got to this part that instead of following the recipe to the letter, which I almost always have to do with new things, I went wild and added waaayyy too much red pepper. It's tasty, and has a nice rich garlic and basil flavor, but then as soon as that hits your tongue you immediately start sweating from the red pepper flakes.

Now that I'm finished, I'm not sure what to do with it. Do I serve it over pasta to try to enjoy the flavor, or do I use it for pizza sauce to try to counter the pepper with cheese? Whatever it ends up being, at least I can say that I did it. And, for future reference, if I ever go to all the trouble of making homemade sauce again I'll make sure to get a few more tomatoes to make the process worth my time.

stacking up - part 2

Remember last week when I was all, "Boo hoo my baby can't stack rings on a pole! Wah wah wah!" ?

Here he is in the paint store on Sunday.





That kid is stacking things like nobody's business!

(And no, he didn't wet his pants. He spilled his sippy cup.)

terrace love

We met some friends at the Terrace last week to celebrate our friend Adam, who officially completed his PhD program on Wednesday. Congratulations Dr. Adam!

The weather was perfect, there were tons of people out, and there were burgers, beer and babies out the wazoo. If someone came to Madison for just one day and wanted to get a glimpse of what the city was like by going to just one place, I would send them to the Terrace. (In warm weather, of course.)

Have you ever seen the movie The Last Kiss with Zach Braff and Rachel Bilson?



It's set in Madison and there is a scene where Zach Braff is creeping around in the bushes at the Terrace spying on Rachel Bilson with her friends. It's fun to watch for spotting local landmarks and I've recommended it to friends who want to know what Madison is like.

Another movie set in Madison (although I don't think it was really filmed here) is Away We Go. A couple of weeks ago I told someone I lived in Madison and they replied, "Kook Town!" That's an accurate stereotype and Maggie Gyllenhaal's character in this movie is certifiably from Kook Town, Wisconsin - population = A LOT.



When it comes to the reality, I'm happy to say that most of the women I know here are way more like Jacinda Barrett in 'The Last Kiss' - sweet, warm, and totally grounded.



But I won't lie. There's definitely a little Kook Town in all of us too.



In all of the best ways, of course.

it was another great summer

Yep, school starts tomorrow.

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(Matteo at the pool on Friday afternoon)

connecticut

My brain still feels like it's on vacation even though we've been back for more than two weeks. Here are photos from the second part of our east coast trip - visiting family in Connecticut and introducing Matteo to his great-grandmother.

how a baby eats a popsicle

(full disclaimer - I actually did most of the eating. he did most of the sucking/mess making. and yes, his hands stayed blue all night long.)

stacking up

When I was pregnant, I signed up for all sorts of emails that would get sent to me each week telling me what was happening with the baby - how big he was, what he was doing in there...helpful stuff like that. What I didn't know was that the emails would continue after the baby was born and slowly but surely start to drive me absolutely, freaking crazy.

"Your house should be babyproofed tighter than Fort Knox!" (Er...not quite but we're getting there.) "Your baby should say 15 words!" (Hmmm...nope.) "Your baby should be drawing with crayons!" (Uh...absolutely not. I actually bought him some crayons after I got that email and he immediately ripped them out of my hands and simultaneously started eating them and snapping them in half like a wild animal.)

Last week's email was about stacking toys. "Your baby should be able to stack rings and blocks!" Oh, okay sure, that one shouldn't be too hard. Ha! We sat down with his stacking toy but no matter how I tried to show him, he would not put the rings on the stick. He threw the rings, he banged the stick, he banged the rings against the stick and then threw them when they wouldn't go on. He just didn't get it. He must not be ready for such a complicated toy, right?

Ummm...yeah. You know where this is going, don't you? The next day I told Matt about our failed ring stacking experiment and he suggested we try again. We all sat down together and I watched as Matt taught Matteo how to properly stack the rings himself in, literally, two minutes.

Ding ding! Lightbulb moment for mama. It wasn't that Matteo didn't get how to stack rings, it was that I didn't get how to teach him the right way. I had totally done something as a parent that I swore I would never do - I got so caught up in 'milestones' that I stressed over something stupid and let something totally fun - teaching him how to do something new - be frustrating and, ultimately, unsuccessful.

Matt and I were talking this weekend about what have been the most surprising parts of parenthood so far, and this is a new one for my list. It's not the big events that teach you the best lessons, it's the little things. Another lesson I learned? It's a great thing to have a teacher for a husband, not just for teaching children, but for having the patience to also teach stressed out mamas who have read one too many 'helpful' parenting emails.