Friday, May 18, 2007

Way overdue

Tomorrow night Eli and I are going out *gasp* together to have dinner and see Arcade Fire. Yelena will have her first past-bedtime babysitter. I'll report back on how she and I did. I'm not worried about Eli.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Cicada Romesco

Flurry of brown eyed cuteness below, as promised. Not all my promises are empty.
I just made a scrumptious Romesco sauce to accompany the surfeit of of ramps I bought for tomorrow. (Love them wild and crazy leeks.) Now, there are as many recipes for Romesco as there are Catalan grannies, but I seem to have struck a happy medium in preparation time. Of course, I roasted the peppers, but I didn't bother roasting the garlic or tomatoes, just skinned and half-assedly seeded the latter. I did fry the bread in olive oil which was, oh my God, an insanely delicious thing to do with bread. In fact, when the sauce was complete, I fried up another piece of bread in the remaining oil to sop up the sauce clinging to the blade of the food processor. Eli was mercifully asleep and didn't witness this act of sheer gluttony.
Speaking of cooking seasonal delicacies, I keep coming across recipes for cooking the 17 year cicadas that are about to rise like winged zombies and take over Chicago at the end of the month. Apparently, the boy cicadas don't have enough fat to be worth eating, and one should remove the wings and legs -- not inedible, just not tasty -- from the girls for a crunchy treat. Man, this is one time I'm glad I keep a kosher home. When we were digging up along the deck to plant some clematis, I came across what I swear were some cicada nymphs, although Eli disagreed. I know they're allegedly not harmful, but I smashed those little buggers into a pulp with my shovel. I'm not a squemish girlie girl -- I even talk to my happy earth worms while gardening -- but cicadas really creep me out.
This post is pretty much procrastination, as I've a looming deadline.

All the better to chase the kitties


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Full Yelena Asana 1


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Hair bandtastic


Yelena was having a big hair day. Combined with the leopard print bib was a photo op I couldn't miss.

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Bilateral bling


While working on her bilateral skills last week, Yelena donned three necklaces all by herself.

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Tuesday, May 08, 2007

CI Induced Vortex

Nope, not sucked into a black hole in the blogosphere, just stuck in the springtime capital improvement zone. I'm trying to finish staining the deck before this weekend's flurry of company (Eli b-day party, a bridal shower I'm co-hosting), deal with the infernal ongoing mishigos of the private alley, write a (paid, woohoo!) article for a friend, squeeze some dancing in, and take care of my bambina.
On the topic of the lovely Yelena, she is well and adorable. I have some pics, but the camera is 2 flights down and I ain't going to get it just now. She's starting to crawl for bits on her own and can hold herself up in quadraped for extended periods of time. She is also transitioning into and out of positions more smoothly, including pulling herself up on stationary objects. She's been able to pull up on people, doing all the work, for a very long time, but something about furniture has eluded her. After experimenting a lot, I found a little sensory input on her hands -- just touching them lightly so she doesn't lift up a hand while pushing with her legs -- does the trick. Go Lele! She also lives to work on standing and practice walking, so the motivation is all there, which is great, since often children with motor planning difficulties get frustrated and don't want to work. She is still a snuggly delightful little koala, without the unpleasant eucalyptus odor, as always.
I promise to be more amusing in the near future or, at the very least, shower you with cuteness, but assurance that we all breathe must suffice for now.