Delicious Time Wasters

Filberts or Hazelnuts? I don't know why they have two names but personally, I like hazelnut. And hazelnuts. Mmm! So when I found a recipe for hazelnut gelato, I was dying to try it. Hazelnuts aren't in just any old store, but it just so happened, that when we went looking for allergy medicine, we found hazelnuts. So we got them and some cream and ice and all. It took me 3 days to make it. Because first you have to roast the hazelnuts. Supposedly, all you have to do is roast the nuts on a tray at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. When you take them out, the skins are supposed to be cracked and blistered and so you stick them in a dishtowel and rub them together and all the skins rub off. Then you toast them again till they're tan and toasty. RIGHT! After 15 minutes, some of them were a little bit more than tan. So I did the rubbing thing next. By the time the movie ended, there were about 15 of the 300 that had shed some skin. So I toasted them some more. It didn't help. They burnt. So the next day, I tried a new batch. Less time. I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. By the time a third of them had come undressed, I decided that was it. I googled and found another possible way to blanch then roast that is supposed to be way better. I will experiment on a handful someday. Meanwhile, I finished roasting the nuts till the naked ones were toasty. Next day, I made the actual recipe. After grinding the nuts to a powder, you heat them up in the milk mixture and then you let it seep for 30 minutes. Except that life interrupted and they seeped for 2 1/2 hours. Then you strain the liquid from the nut. Several times, to get rid of all the bitter skin powder. The remaining liquid seemed a bit too strong and bitter. I added extra sugar. Not exactly a fix-all. I added more milk. Much more passable, but it wasn't going to be remarkable. So, I did the sensible thing. I added chocolate. I thought Papi was going to hate it at this point. He didn't. He said it tasted like a Ferrer Roche candy. So I froze it. And it made a ball of ice cream. Like it would easily fit in one of the little cartons of ice cream instead of the big tubs. But it turned out good.This is the closest I can get to giving you a taste.
I learned a lot about how to make it better next time. Which will not happen for a long, long time!
For an easier dish, make fruit gelato- Passion fruit gelato! It is called maracuya or maracuja in Spanish, or mariconada in Papi-ese (which is a politically incorrect way of saying dirty trick in Spanish). You do have to strain the fruit and all, but it is soooo yummy!!! Can't get enough of it!

The Return of the School Lunches

Wanna see some crazy awesome lunches? Jen brought up this link.

I know it's been forever since I was going to post about the lunch ideas everyone gave me and my experiments, so now I'm keeping my word.

Here's the comments from my lunch post.

boufmom9

said...I just sent tuna salad on wheat wraps yesterday that the kids all loved. I just made tuna salad with mayo and diced red onions, then mixed in sliced red seedless grapes and then wrapped that along with sprouts in a honey wheat wrap. I was certain the kids would complain, but instead they all loved it. Go figure!

imbeingheldhostage said...I have the BEST book for making creative lunches--and then my kids request peanut butter sandwiches :-( (I wanna read that book, gal! What's it called?-Shellie)

Darla said... I tried always to do a sandwich or something filling (usually pbj), something dairy (cheesestick, yostick or yogurt), something fruit (usually apple slices) and something veggie (about 99% of the time two baby carrots...that usually found their way back home!)

Anonymous said...Ours is typically pbj or ham, cheese, cucumber sandwich, and then a fruit or two, few chips if we have, carrot sticks ... or if the fruit, etc supply is low in the house, a granola bar, fruit snacks, etc.

Robyn said...For breakfast vans makes a blueberry mini waffle that doesn't have the bad junk in it. I like those.

Mandy said... I have child that hates sandwiches but LOVES soup so I have been making lots of soup, recipes from motherhood for dummies, cheeseburger soup and taco soup. It's a hit with him. He also loves cherry tomatoes, string cheese, and grapes.
The other loves sandwiches and wants a sandwich everyday. His favorite is tuna. He also loves yogurt, cheese, raisins, grapes, mandarin oranges, almonds, banana bread, well, he eats A LOT! A growing boy.
Oh, my middle child LOVES hard boiled eggs so I sent one with him one day and he said kids laughed at him and he was so embarrassed and not to ever send that again! Crazy, huh! Mandy

Amanda D said... My oldest is too picky to eat lunch at school. I send him with pb&j most of the time. Today he got a yogurt tube and a bag of grapes with it. Yesterday he took a little thing of Spaghetti o's. Those are pretty much it!

Laura@Storytellin' Mama said... the school called three weeks in and said my son was eating hot breakfast every day (after breakfast at home) and maybe I didn't know because i hadn't sent any money!!

Tiaras & Tantrums said... oh my son is so picky - there is no way he would eat hot lunch at school ($3.25 a day!!) he will ONLY eat a Fizzix yogurt, buttered wheat bread, no crusts and perhaps somedays he may eat the fruit snack I put in there. Most days, not!

Mandy said...Mine loves when I put pretzels mixed with something else like Yogos, etc. in a baggie.

Gerb said... First, I always include a joke on their paper lunchbag (or on a sticky note or index card inside). For the main course you can do tortilla wraps, stuffed pitas, bagels, sandwiches cut in strips or with cookie cutters... the possibilities are endless!! And for fillings, try cream cheese instead of mayo/mustard with lunch meat or strawberries or cucumbers... etc. I'll stop now. I have a million ideas for making home lunches AWESOME!! Maybe I should do a post on it. (?)Then look at the following days for 4 more great posts!

Sharon said...My kids' lunches usually consist of sandwiches and fruit and maybe a granola bar. They also like wraps of all kinds. Be creative with the ingredients or let them make their own - with supervision of course. :) Good luck. I'd love to see the blog with all the ideas.

tommie said...Mine are only in Preschool, so we don't do packed lumches this year. (Last year we did).
I rotate about eight or nine meals: quesadillas made with whatever protein we had, PBJ, the rollups you mentioned, sandwiches, mini pizzas made with mini bagels, mac and cheese, easy finger food type things mostly.

Now, don't feel guilty if you don't wanna do those crazy first lunches. We are all in a different place in life. Sometimes the best thing we can do is buy a big box of cheap burritos at Sam's and toss it in a brown bag. But, some days, we can do something special. My kids are supposed to make their own lunches, but the youngest two still need help. Here's how my teenager makes her lunch. Go to school. Hang out with friends. Eat their leftovers. Or starve till you get home. Or waste your money on something.
Here's some ideas we came up with. Gimmicky stuff your kids will be all over. I hate wasting crusts, but we had some cookie cutters handy, and cutting cheese slices, lunch meat, sandwiches or what have you with them thrills their little hearts out. So does the silly sandwich cutter that makes a round sandwich and leaves half a piece of bread in crusts. I forget what they call those pbj sandwiches that are sold like it, but I guess since my husband wasted money on the cutter, we might as well get mileage out of it instead of cluttering up our house with it. I need to come up with some more great recipes that use bread crumbs or cubes so my frugal little heart can stand to murder the bread. Another item, if you have an apple peeler/corer/slicer is to cut apples and any other firm fruit with it. My kids love eating fruit that way.
I tried to come up with portable versions of what the cafeteria makes. I figure the other thing drawing the kids to the hot lunch is the smell. So, we did lasagne rolls. This is where you cook the lasagne noodles and make (or buy) a meat/tomato sauce. You spread ricotta cheese on the noodle, then sauce over it, then roll it up and cook it. I was thinking of maybe some day making my own pasta again, (which I used to do back when I only thought I was busy) , and then I could make some big raviolis like that with the round sandwich cutter. I think it will cut down on the messiness.
Next, I made corndog muffins. This is where you either make your favorite recipe for cornbread batter or use a mix, and before cooking it, you stir in little smokies and cook the mixture in muffin tins. They liked that one.
Then, I had the stroke of genius to make something out of dinner. If you are making shepherd's pie, or pastel de papas if you're Chilean, or you have some leftover ground beef from something like tacos, and instant mashed potatoes, you can make this treat. I rolled the mashed potatoes in little balls, then I poked a hole in the middle and stuffed it with cooked ground beef (spices added and all) then I wrapped the potato back around it so the meat was in the middle. Then I fried the balls in an aebleskiver pan. They liked this so much, that I did some more, and this time I used the toaster oven.
I'm hoping to try a few other ideas, and I've gotta get some Chinese food in there. I also want to make some homemade chicken nuggets. I've been stewing over whether or not it would be worth it to try these new metal insulated containers I've seen around that have exorbitant price tags. They keep the food hot and you could just put leftovers of any hot dish they like, but I doubt I would get them all back home, so I gotta test them on disposable gladware first.
If you didn't check out Gerb's great ideas, go look at them now. They are here for bags
and here for main dishes and here for sides and here for desserts and here for recipes! Have a great lunch!

Just a Quick Redirect

I'm in a hurry, but hop on over to Gerb's for 5 great posts on school lunch ideas. Run, do not walk to her posts Sept 16-21, 2008. Thanks, Gerb! Sometime soon I will come up for air and let you know about our "experiments".

Levitating Strawberries

I am amazed at the Suburban Correspondent's organized fridge. She thinks it's a mess. Sure, it's not perfect. But, really? She should be proud. Sometimes I think I exist just to make her feel better. I can't go longer than a month without cleaning it, and I try to do it more often. Last week, the thing exploded. When you have levitating strawberries, you know you're in trouble. Yes, that's right. If you don't get to cleaning the fridge in time, you may have more than science experiments, you may have paranormal experiences.



Isn't that sad? NOW, it looks all squeaky clean and orderly, because I dropped everything and took care of it. Do you know that I fished flour out of the fruit bin, a few lego pieces and pencils out. I found fossilized old dinners and sob! FROZEN tomatoes from the garden (early frost). There were a few moldy pieces of fruit, some stray bitten apples, 2 tubs of butter, 1 cracked, and 2 ketchups, 2 mustards and 2 hidden bags of lemons. There were ends of salami and empty bread bags. There were a few penicllin farms. There was even a baggie with a slimy piece of cheese on the inside and a dry plastic piece of cheese on the outside. I decided that chip dip shouldn't bubble, so that went the way of the world. There were 3, yes that's 3 cans of whipped cream that my purchasing agent got at Sam's instead of getting a tub of cool whip like I planned. Before I could do anything with them, the offspring had lost the lids and sucked who knows how much fatty sweet goodness out of them and now they do NOT spray and all the 1/2 can left of each of them only drips ever so slowly out. The trash can was heavy when I got done. It looks so good now, I never want it to get that bad again. It felt AWFUL seeing all the wasted food. We must do better. I am on a campaign to eat healthier, mostly spurred by the fact that I have already had to ban hot dogs and go-gurts to save my sanity and the purchasing agent also bought a whole big tub of bubble gum. The ensuing scene of carnage was horrible. It looked like the bowels of that tub were digested and blown up all over the place in one massive explosion. NO MORE GUM! Everything else that has a bit of processed anything ends up pretty much the same, so I quit. If it comes in a wrapper, I probably don't want it in my house. Wish me luck!

Food 4 Thought...

A week or so ago, I asked for bag lunch ideas and on the go breakfasts. I got about 34 responses. Unfortunately, most of them were admissions of despair or confessions of a love of buying lunch. Yet, some were suggestions! Yeah! So, now I am on a mission to beat the lunch lady wars: in the .003% of my day that I have time to squeeze this into. I'm going to reference the comments in a future post and research some answers myself! Stay tuned. (Long term.) There WILL be experiments at my house. Watch out, family!

I'm also thinking, after reading reports on hurricane victims, that we all need to have our own Emergency Food and Water stash, that can help us survive a week or so instead of 3 days. It seems like you'd want to cram the most nutrition into the smallest space AND be pretty easy to store. So, what of the fad for super foods? Every week there seems to be some new miracle food out there that will cure all ills. I'm sure they are healthy, but isn't it pretty gimmicky?? Are these really just ads for barley growers or whatever the latest craze is?

And now, a few questions on food in your life. What kinds of food do you like to eat the most? What are your comfort foods? How important is nutrition to you? How important are fresh foods to you or how important are processed foods to your life? I often think our culture is just a bit bizarre. We have unprecedented wealth, and excess amounts of food. We waste food all the time. My fridge is truly a scary place. We throw away perfectly good food all the time too. But we as a people in general are really bad about eating healthy. It's as if the availability of unhealthy but yummy foods is impossible for us to resist as a nation. Ironically, really healthy fresh food is often pretty expensive. How much do you think diet has to do with our different physical, mental and behavioral ills? And why don't we take better care of ourselves?

Recently, I saw a discovery show about food. This "expert" was spouting out food advice. It was pretty much just common sense. One interesting comment was that if great grandma didn't know what it was, it probably wasn't healthy. Well, yes and no. Great grandma didn't travel around the world, she knew what was healthy in her own backyard. Also, things like lard were used which are supposedly taboo now. Is it because our lifestyles are also so much more sedentary? Really, more consideration should be made with that in mind when talking diet. In general, though, maybe it's not a bad rule of thumb. It eliminates Twinkies and all. In the end, Mr. know it all said something I just found so silly, I can't forget it-"It's up to YOU the EATERS to defend FOOD!" I'm not sure I can put into words how that just seems to sum up our bizarre popular culture. Any help? What do you make of that?

Today's Special

And now I present Thing 1's latest favorite: "Strangled Eggs".

Now that the Things are eating at school, they have very specific requests for lunch, including the "strangled egg sandwich". Can't say as I blame them for trying to direct my lunch making. The first day of school I made them sandwiches with lunch meat, not cheese! Plus, I cut some oranges into quarters and stuck them in a baggie. They looked different on the inside, almost a red color. I wondered if I got blood oranges at the store without noticing. The kids came back home without eating them. I tried one. It was a grapefruit! I felt pretty dense. However, they were the size of an orange, and the skins were orange, not yellow. How was I to know? So, now that I have established myself as a flunkie lunchmaker, let me tell you another do not. Do not pack ethnic foods like empanadas or greek food wrapped in grape leaves, your kids will chew you out because their friends laughed at their food.

I can tell you a good thing to pack. Take a tortilla, spread it with mayo and some thin sliced ham and corn, roll it up and cut it in pinwheels. Send them in ziplock bags. The kids liked that one, and you can fill it with just about any other combination imaginable. Once my kids are in second grade, I have them pack their own lunch so they will stop complaining about my dumb food and I can start chewing them out about theirs. A baggie stuffed to the brim with chocolate chips does not a lunch make! This is why you check their lunch bag before they go.

Seriously, my biggest problem is competing against the school cafeteria. They feed them really yummy food, not the toxic stuff we were served as kids. A certain child of mine tries every year to eat school lunch when he shouldn't and racks up a bill. I can't afford to pay for school lunch every day, and I know that they won't eat half of it anyways, but I am trying to come up with food that can win the war against the lunch lady. Any suggestions? Please? What's your favorite bag lunch food? And while we're at it, on the go breakfast ideas would be great, too. If you comment or e-mail me any suggestions, I'll make a post for everyone!



Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Comfort Food

I've gotta cheer up a friend who's had some bummer experiences lately so here's some easy comfort food. You can join her recipe exchange here.




My old neighbor Cuca taught me to make this Mexican stew and there is just something about it...


POZOLE
1 pork roast

1 dried cayenne pepper

1 onion

4 beef bullion cubes.

1 large can of hominy

A bunch of chopped cilantro

about ½ head shredded cabbage

about 5 limes, cut in half which you use to squeeze into your soup

A bunch of chopped green onion

A bunch of sliced radishes

Brown a pork roast chopped into large chunks in a small amount of oil. Add enough water to cover it completely. Add one dry red cayenne pepper and one onion peeled and cut in two. Add about 2-4 beef bullion cubes. Boil, adding water as needed until the meat is cooked through and falls apart easily, 1-3 hours. Add hominy, drained and keep on stove till hominy has heated then turn off heat. Serve in bowls with the remaining ingredients on the table in individual bowls or on serving tray for people to add on top of the stew as desired. If you like it hot you can also add tabasco sauce to your stew.

Random Recipes- Birthday Recipe

I'm joining Pam over at Random Thoughts in her recipe exchange. Hop on over for more great recipes. My sister in law gave me this recipe. I made it for a friend's wedding once and her whole family loved it so much, they asked me to make another for a family get together. I finally told them the name and they were very amused. Makes for interesting conversation. Whether or not it lives up to it's name might depend on factors like how much you like chocolate, how big a libido you have and whether or not you are 91/2 months pregnant at the time. But like I always say, why not have your cake and eat it too? Who says you have to choose between the two?

BETTER THAN SEX CAKE
4 eggs, well beaten
1 chocolate cake mix
1 box instant pudding, made up following directions on package
8 oz. sour cream
½ c. oil
½ c. water
12 oz. chocolate chips
Beat egg well and then fold in all ingredients except chocolate chips ,which you stir in after the rest of the mixture is smooth. Bake at 350 for 40 to 50 minutes. I like to frost with whipped cream and top with shaved chocolate or dust on some cocoa powder.

The Black Bottom Pie Recipe

Yeah, so I thought I would include recipes on occasion and since I've been blogging for like 4 months now and I promised this recipe like about a month ago, I will now send it out into the blogosphere.


Shopping list (what you'll need at least: )1 oreo pie crust
2/3 C. sugar
4 tsp. cornstarch
2 C. Half and Half
4 eggs
6 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips
3T. rum or rum extract
3T. water
1 tsp. unflavored gelatin
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
2 C. sweetened whipped cream

Buy an oreo cookie pie crust, because it's easier than making one.
Next make a custard. Yes, you can do this. It is so simple. In a saucepan whisk together 1/3 C sugar, 4 tsp. cornstarch, 2 C. half and half cream, and 4 large egg yolks. (Save the whites) Cook over medium heat while stirring until it starts to boil. Take off heat. Separate half of the mixture into a bowl. Add 6 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips to the bowl and stir till combined. Pour into the pie crust and put in the fridge to cool. Next, Combine 1 tsp. unflavored gelatin, 2T water and 3 T. rum or rum extract in a small container like an empty margarine tub or a mug or something that won't take up tons of space in your dishwasher :) Mix well and let sit a few minutes. Then stir into the remaining custard and put it in the fridge to cool. Now we go to the chiffon part. You can do this too. I did it with kids present the second time I made it. Now combine 1/3 C sugar, the egg whites and 1/4 tsp . cream of tartar in mixer. Beat until it forms very thick glossy peaks. If you did this while kids were around you probably wasted at least 20 minutes on it and so your rum custard should be cool and wobbly but not firm. So, take it out of the fridge and whisk it in with the egg white mixture till well combined. Pour as much of this as will fit into the pie shell and refrigerate another 20 minutes. Now it should be firm enough to pour any remaining mixture on top without it pouring over the sides of the pie plate. Refrigerate till completely set and top with 2 C. sweetened whipped cream. Enjoy!

It's yummy!

Si Vas Para Chile...

We went to a 18 de Septiembre party Saturday. It was fun to visit with a lot of people we haven't seen in a long time, but as usual, the food ran out before we could get to it. So we had huesillo con huesillo. It was an improvement. We already had empanadas coming out of our heads before we got there anyways. My mother-in-law was so anxious to go home, she didn't want to talk long when we called, the next day she wanted money to take a taxi. But at least we could hear her clearly :) Here's what they were eating: MMMM!


















Speaking of Chileans, amongst them we often discuss whether Chilean moms baby their boys too much. Girls for that matter, but mostly the boys. They really are professional at waiting on you hand and foot and serving you food, etc like you were a VIP at a fancy restaurant. I can't seem to get the hang of that, I usually get lost on the way to the fridge to get J. a popsicle. Or I'll tell my kids to do something themselves. When I actually have real guests, I plan to wait on them and prepare a dessert, which I forget either until they're leaving or gone. Then I feel so stupid. But back to waiting on your offspring hand and foot, sometimes I wonder if in my quest to teach them independence I go overboard. Like when D1 told me once, "Do it yourself," when I asked him to do something.Then the other day E. says, "Mom, will you scratch my nose?" My hands weren't exactly empty at the moment, but I asked her why and she said because she couldn't get it to stop itching. I asked her where? and she says, "In here." And points up her nostril. What??? I am not even going to worry about not babying her enough anymore.

OTHER THINGS HEARD AROUND HOME: D1 has a loose tooth! He woke up one day and told me his tooth was wiggly. So occasionally I ask him how his tooth is doing and he says, "busy". E. How do you spell corner? M. Corner or coroner? E. Corner, like in The hooker stood on the street corner. G. What's a hooker? Great example, E. As we get to church late, and I am instructing everyone to just walk quickly and quietly, D2 bursts off running and yells, "Quick, we've got no time to lose!" And then there's the "My shoe wants free from my foot."

And last but not least, PARA MI TIO BRUTO, the next 3 clips are from the beach in Vina del Mar.

Meringues for dinner

I'm making meringues for dinner. Why? Because I went to a class this week called Cookies for Dinner. These are supposed to be really healthy cookies because they have all the grains known to man ground into them. The class was to teach us how to use all these healthy things like barley, millet, amaranth, freshly ground wheat, etc.
I was set to get everybody so healthy! Who knows... maybe it will cure all our neurological difficulties and body aches and pains. Maybe our only problem is that we are O.D.-ing on preservatives and stuff. Unless of course we turn out to have Celaic disease, in which case this diet should have enough gluten to kill us. Maybe we should try the gluten free, casein free diet first, after all a few of us are at the least lactose intolerant. That should eliminate most of the grains and all the milk products from our diet. Then we must remember that C. really wigs out on too much sugar so we should keep sugar to a minimum at our house instead of resorting to living on it. Then maybe all our speech problems, not to mention a lot of potential heart problems would be cured if we replaced all that with a diet high in Omega fatty acids. J. should limit his salt intake for Meniere's and we both need to watch our fat intake for cholesterol's sake at our age, so that leaves us with FISH, lots of fish, doesn't matter that E.'s motto is "Fish are our friends, not our food" and everyone but me and G. usually pass on the stuff. They can fill up on the berries and nuts and salad. And the chocolate, that will still be left, since it is the most important food group of all, but since it will have to be bittersweet chocolate, I will have to eat most of that myself. After all, I'm the one who needs the magnesium and calcium, and the high inducing chemical in it that makes you feel like when you're infatuated. The rest can just absorb it by osmosis.
But just in case no one needed to avoid gluten, and just to find out what to do with all the grains that don't have gluten in any case, I went to the class. It was interesting. I learned a lot of things that I'm not sure what they have to do with grains, like the foam under your carpet can be ripped up and wrapped around you if you are in an emergency situation and freezing to death. Too bad we got rid of all the carpet...(note to myself, just move south before having any such emergencies). Then I learned about how healthy it is to drink barley water with a 1/2 tsp. of cream of tartar every day.
I know all about barley water. Chileans drink mote con huesillo. Barley with a peach pit; so delicioso (gag!). Let's see, if we just replace that pit with cream of tartar, we are talking nasty! But the cream of tartar is so nutritious, and has all this potassium. Of course, I bet a banana has more, but they do spoil so fast, and make such big messes around our house (don't get me started digressing on THAT one!) So of course the first thing that comes to mind, is making meringues. They're sort of cookies and they use cream of tartar, too. And I never realized how nutritious they could be! Thank goodness I went to that class!

BLAST FROM THE PAST- 2001

Just to get a feel for what some of my friends who's e-mails I didn't have back then, I'm adding a few excerpts from past years.

Nov. 2001

COSTCO CO.

To Whom it May Concern:

I would like to congratulate your company first off for building the only contraption that my sons Houdini age 3 and his Faithful Assistant age 2 have yet to be able to get out of. Your 5 point harness system is the best around.

This is the reason why I am writing to you today. I would like to know if it would be possible for me to order 2 more of the harnesses directly from you without having to buy 2 more car seats. I most certainly hope so as the future of my home and family hangs in the balance.

You see, other than being escape artists, my sons are food artists. As much as I try to keep them in the kitchen with it, they seem to think they have an allergy to the kitchen table and the kitchen in general once they get food into their hot little hands. Add the fact that any great escape artist naturally finds it easy to break into just about anything as well, and you can see that unless I plan to stand guard 24 hours a day in the kitchen or hire a retiree from Buckingham palace, it is unlikely that I will be able to stop all the pilfering of food from my kitchen that goes on around here. What happens to all this food? While anyone can see that they eat very well, they also feel a need to spread the joy around and since my house is their immediate world, they feed the world by feeding my house.

I don't know if any of you have ever lived in a home decorated in contemporary food fight, but let me tell you that after a while it does terrible things to your psyche, not to mention the health hazard. I'm sure we will soon have some kind of mouse or roach infestation, and stepping on slippery and crunchy things is a real slipping hazard. Add to this the fact that I am expecting another one of these little prodigies, and movement in general makes me seasick and all this bending over to pick crud up off the floor seems to bring up the contents of my stomach. As I get bigger it gets harder to bend over AND to chase little slippery guys around so in all I've got a home on it's way to making it onto the Health Department's list of homes to visit. I could just hang in there till I deliver, but

I know better. If the two of these guys can use each other as a diversion to get away with twice as much now, another helpless screaming creature will only add to the confusion. Especially when you consider that my children so far have all been champion nursers so for the next 2- 4 years I will have to contend with the fact that I will have a little barracuda latched onto me some 3 hours of the day off and on which will leave me as a sitting duck. Even if I chase after them and subject their sibling to milkshakes, it is sure to slow me down.

My solution to this problem is simple. If I barricade the doorway and put 5 point harnesses at their seats at the table, I can strap them in and their food can only get as far away as they can throw it. It might sound a little restrictive, but I figure it is much, much more humane than sitting on them, and they will most certainly be able to eat their food easier this way. I would of course not leave them unattended since I not only have safety to take into account but the fact that if they use this system on such a more regular basis they may learn to escape from it if left to their own wiles and then I couldn't drive with them anywhere either.

Please let me know how soon I could get these parts and what the cost may be.

Sincerely, Shellie Espinoza