Have Your Ice Cream and Eat it Too

Friday night took an unexpected turn when two trains collided in Connecticut and derailed. My cousin Jeff, who was on his way back to New York on the train behind the collided trains, was diverted to a station back by us. I met him at the station, picked him up, and we had dinner with Liz who drove down from Rhode Island to pick him up.

Silver lining #1: miraculously no one was killed on the train. Silver lining #2: we got to have a nice impromptu dinner.


Prior to the impromptu dinner Jen had the next phase of her dental surgery to repair the damage done by the large, unwieldy melons of her two sons, the fatal blow delivered by Elliott some months ago. This left Jen in a fair deal of pain. Luckily the ice pack acted as a source of great amusement to the nasty little critters who separated her from her tooth.

Those guys have a sick sense of humor.


The next morning we headed out to the latest round of swim class.


Class went well, particularly for Elliott who chose to take an extra ball so he had one to hold and one to chew on. All the other babies in the class were far more restrained.


It was Elliott's turn to join me in the locker room this week. We stagger it by weeks so that both guys have equal opportunity to look at nude old men shamelessly combing their hair in the mirror.


After I went to work Jen took the guys up to hang out with their uncles Joe and Ryan.


Apparently it was a great day for the guys. They got to pat on a horse and they got to watch their mother score some shrimp cocktail serving pieces at an estate sale.

Overall it was an important day of firsts in the life of any growing children.


Yesterday, while I was at work, Jen painstakingly repaired the sheep mobiles that the guys had done their best to rip to pieces. Was this a much-needed chore or a fruitless attempt to stop the unending wave of damage they are doing to our living quarters?


Elliott's crawling attempts have been getting better and more frequent. He's got the part nailed where he gets onto all fours.


Then he kind of flops onto his belly.


Then, after not knowing what to do he gets really angry.

Almost there, Buddy.


For dinner we thawed out two burgers from the freezer and Jen made them with onion gravy and mashed potatoes. I made corn with olive oil, butter, garlic, onion, and chopped bell peppers. We had hoped to grill but what may have been the last bit of cold drizzle cancelled those plans. The rest of the week looks like it will usher out the chilly spring weather for good.


After dinner I settled back with this 2011 bottle of Twelve from Victory Brewing Company. The year-and-a-half it aged certainly didn't mellow it much. At 12% ABV one glass was more than I needed. It is supposed to be a Belgian-style quadrupel but it was much lighter in color and heavier in alcohol than I would have expected. Still, a nice after-dinner beverage.


One of our favorite things to do during hockey playoff season is to go get ice cream. In recent years this has been at our local Longford's. With Jen's dental work and getting the babies to sleep it seemed unlikely. On Friday, after picking up her prescription, I decided to stop by Longford's and pick up some ice cream to bring home to her since bringing the sleeping babies in a stroller seemed like a fool's game.


This never materialized so, instead, I made up some ice cream cones last night with salted caramel and coffee chunk ice creams. This went nicely with an exceedingly boring match up between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Ottawa Senators as well as the first sixty minutes of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Normally the movie release date to our viewing lag time is eight years so we were beating the odds with this one.

With the exception of the cones being incredibly stale, and possibly rancid, this was a great Sunday night treat before entering another week of work, Bubs day care, and a pile of laundry that if you laid it out end-to-end it would stretch half way to Saturn.

You can't have it all.

Ten Months

Tuesday began with a walk to the park, a walk back home to get their bottles, a walk back to the park, and a walk home.


The guys had a very good time at the park playing with Pete and their aunts.


Martin, in particular, was impressed with his Aunt Lisa's cat necklace. It's his new favorite item, knocking the strings from my hoodie down into second place.

Don't feel bad for them. They had a good run.



They guys stayed up fairly late and had a good time yelling and banging bowls together. this is a critical component that is missing from so many meals in the world.


The babies did not get a chance to enjoy the taco salad that we all had.


Nor did they have any of the lemon curd.

Luckily they were happy to simply eat mozzarella, avocado, and multigrain cereal for dinner the third night in a row.


With dinner Doug brought over a bottle of the 16th Anniversary ale from Two Brothers Brewing Company. It was deceptively easy to drink at 16% ABV, so much so that we suspect they are liars. I would believe up to 10%. At any rate it was very tasty.


We followed it up with another find from Three Floyds, this heavy metal collaboration called In the Name of Suffering. We did not suffer through it at all. As with all Three Floyds beer I've had it was very well crafted and drank easily.


Yesterday we took the guys on a tour of downtown Naperville and the riverwalk where Jen served as their tour guide and taught them about where she spent her formative years.


They also enjoyed a tour of the Millenium Carillon and learned about its bells of numerous weights and sizes.


Elliott was quite grumpy as he has been teething so he spent a lot of time simply frowning at the sights.


By the end of the walk they had been won over and their first day wearing shorts and seeing historic Naperville had been a success.


What was not a success was our earlier attempts at nap time for Martin. It ended with me on the floor and Martin showing no signs of giving in to the sleep that he desperately needed.


Instead Martin decided that he was read the morning paper. By read I, of course, mean tear off pieces and try to eat.


After ditching the babies with their aunts and grandma Jen and I headed over to Aurora to meet up with friends at Two Brothers Roundhouse.


Shortly after leaving we got a text message that Martin had taken advantage of his Aunt Lauren's one-click purchasing power on Groupon.

At least someone's using Groupon.


The Roundhouse was great and I sampled a wide variety of what they had on tap along with some fantastic small plates including a smoked brisket risotto.

After a rousing game of "Guess Who?" with our friends, Amanda and Rick, we returned home to two sleeping babies. It's remarkable how much easier life is when someone puts your babies to sleep. I think I may want to consider hiring someone to come in every night and just spend 1-2 hours putting the babies to sleep. We didn't feel the normal feeling of defeat and exhaustion we feel at that hour of the night.


In fact there was even time for another beer, this Anti-Hero IPA from Revolution Brewing. Normally I turn to my evening beer as a way to dull the pain but last night's beer was a celebration.

Oh, and it was their ten-month birthday, so I suppose it was a celebration of that as well.

Hooray!

The Water's Fine

After an action-packed week Thursday allowed me a chance to get the boys to day care and have a relaxing day of simply doing the laundry, cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing out the humidifiers, cooking dinner, and generally tidying up our dwelling.
Sadly I'm not being the least bit sarcastic when I say that this was a very relaxing day for me.


For lunch I explored this new Pepper-Salt that Jen brought home from Eagle Street Rooftop Farm. The label proclaims that you should "USE on EGGS, in CORNBREAD & all FOOD." That has got to be the strangest and laziest bit of copy ever scrawled on a spice or condiment label in culinary history. However, it is technically accurate so I can't argue with that.

I started off by sprinkling some on some mango for a tasty after-lunch treat. It turns out that it was perfect as it should have been since mangos are safely covered under "all other foods."


Before dinner I made this avocado salad with a little olive oil and the pepper-salt.

For dinner I made this seafood soup with lobster stock I'd made from lobster shells a couple of weeks back. I use fennel, onion, garlic, and potato in the broth then tossed in some cooked coho salmon, shrimp, and sea scallops. I finished it off with cracked pepper, fresh dill, and grilled bread.

I figured I would crack open this Existent Farmhouse Ale from Stillwater Artisanal Ales as I thought a saison would go nicely with the night's dinner. I was very shocked to find this saison to be a deep brown color with a surprisingly malty caramel flavor. It was a delicious beer but I would not have selected it with this dinner at all had I known. I'm not really sure how they get off calling it a farmhouse ale, however, it was delicious so I didn't really let it bother me too much.

On Friday I made the guys some toast with their first goat cheese.


They seemed to like this quite a bit though they seem to like anything smeared on toast and cut into strips. Mostly they like squashing it in their hands and making the largest mess possible. Martin, in particular, ended up with a good amount of goat cheese smeared on his grubby little face.

I used some of the coho salmon from the previous night to make the guys their first salmon as well. I combined them with rice, avocado, and a little milk. They seemed to really enjoy this a lot.


Even Martin, who had enough goat cheese smeared on his face for another full meal really took to salmon nicely. I think they enjoyed it more than the flounder they'd had previously.

To top off the evening I poured this Private Stock Imperial India Pale Ale from Narragansett Beer. When I heard that Narragansett made an imperial IPA I was intrigued. It was a bit on the chalky side but still a nice effort from a beer company one doesn't associate with such styles.


This morning we took the guys on to their first ever swim class. Elliott was immediately interested and seemed to want to dive into the pool from across the room.


Martin was a little more reluctant to get into the whole situation.


After thirty minutes Martin warmed up and seemed to enjoy it. Elliott seemed to have a blast the entire time. I was pretty sure Martin was going to lose his mind at some point but he held strong. Like his father he seems to hate anything involving strangers but once he gets comfortable he generally has a good time.

Unlike me. I never get comfortable and have a good time.

I'm the Worst Dad so Just Cool It!

Jen worked late this evening so I picked up the guys from day care and headed home where I had lofty plans for what I would get accomplished this evening.


By the time I pulled into our driveway both the guys were asleep. This is never a good sign for what's to come. This meant I would have to wake both of them up to feed them. My instinct always leans toward just putting them straight to bed but I'm pretty sure that would just result in an extremely stress-filled evening starting at 9:00 PM when they awoke realizing they were starving and demanding dinner. As bad as it seemed, waking them up was probably the right thing to do.


A few nights ago I thoroughly enjoyed this Augustijn Brune from Brouwerij Van Steenberge. It was a great Belgian dark ale with dark fruit notes and a wonderful malty flavor. Tonight I figured I'd be able to do more than just enjoy a single beer and go to bed. I was on Mr. Mom duty and I was confident I'd have both babies asleep by 8:00 PM and have the rest of the evening to myself.


This morning Martin reminded us how ill-prepared we are to be living with mobile babies as he attempted to climb out of his crib. This was a terrifying moment for us as it reminded us of the horrible truth that we have done far too little to prepare ourselves for wandering babies.


After getting the babies to sleep Elliott soon woke up and would not stop fussing. He did the same thing a few nights ago and this resulted in me sleeping with him on the couch for most of the night so that Jen could get some rest. Tonight it was a little different. I fed him and fed him and fed him and he still was screaming. Finally I just put him in our bedroom and let him cry it out for a bit while I did the dishes. I gave him ten minutes before I went in to check on him. After eight or nine minutes he started getting more frantic so I went in and what I found was my poor, sweet son lying in a puddle of his own vomit on our bed. I immediately scooped him up and brought him to the bathroom where I proceeded to bathe him. He cried unlike I've ever heard him cry before and I think it was because he must have had some vomit go down the wrong pipe as he lied there on the bed thanks to his neglectful father. After drying him off I cradled him in my arms to try to soothe away the fact that I was the world's worst dad.


After a bath, some snuggling, a clothing change, and a little music he fell asleep and I was able to put him back in the nursery and return to my role as the worst father on the planet.


After that harrowing experience I uncapped a bottle of Augustijn Grand Cru, again from Brouwerij Van Steenberge. This was another beer given to me by my parents for Christmas and it was quite nice. It was very reminiscent of Champagne in style. The label said it clocked in at 9.0% ABV. Based on how I felt after one glass I think it was a little closer to 25% ABV. It could have been that I didn't eat for seven hours or maybe it was just dealing with my poor, sick child. At any rate I was glad to not have to drive anywhere any time soon.

The world's worst dad is also a lightweight.