Cooking for This Dummy, aka "Where's the Pepto?"

When I was in college I used to cook only for myself.  This meant that whatever I made did not look like what it was supposed to; I didn't care as long as it tasted okay.  Luckily I met, fell in love, and married a woman who has excellent cooking skills.  Over the years I have tried to learn how to do some basic things so that I can understand what she does, but frankly I still need to read the box of things while she can just pull it from memory.  Now that I am tasked with the cooking, I find myself trying to remember how things are done, double-checking every recipe, and calling my wife to make sure i'm doing things right.  I try to stick to her normal formula of a main dish, vegetable, preferred food, and a fruit of some kind.

Right now the Smurfs are happily eating a dinner of mac & cheese, tater tots, hot dogs (Smurf 2 only), apple sauce and mixed fruit cup, and shredded cheese (they like cheese!).  No one wanted the turkey burgers that I had to call my wife about twice to be reassured that I wasn't going to kill them with it.  Did it matter that I ate one?  Nah, I can tolerate half-cooked food because that's what I used to make.  Both seemed to like everything else because their plates are almost empty.  However, I think my son may be taking after me because he just poured the juice from his fruit cup into his milk and drank it.  Although I think that's something to try, my wife surely would have had a fit.  Plus he likes to mix his food to try out a variety of tastes.  He once mixed a bite of turkey burger, applesauce, and milk; he took several more bites after I told him it was okay as long as he wanted to eat it.

Fortunately this was not my first successful daddy-only meal.  The first real meal I cooked in the past few weeks was pancakes.  I was able to get them very close to the way my wife makes them, and the kids ate them all.  Of course Smurf 1 complained of a stomach ache a little bit later, which had me worried that he was sick from undercooked batter or something (he had to go to the bathroom).  I did do a crockpot dinner the second night alone with them of turkey chops, cream of mushroom, peas, corn, rice, and fruit.  They actually ate it without complaints and I was proud to have done it.  I will try meatloaf at some point, but I've got to make sure I have a backup meal in case it doesn't turn out well.

Misspoken Word of the Day
Violent.  "Look at the pretty rainbow! I see orange, green, violent, yellow, red, and blue!"

"Are They Twins?" Count of the Day
I've had 2 of them today, and 4 of "they're so cute!".  The short response still works.

Meeting New People, Aka "Are They Twins?"

I am not a sociable person.  Rather, I prefer not to socialize with a lot of people.  Aside from my wife I don't have any true friends. I have people I associate with, joke with, and even talk about some personal things with, but overall I wouldn't consider any of them close.  Case in point, those who could be considered my "close friends" don't know that I write this blog and don't know my wife is in the hospital.  Hell, I think only one person knows that she's even pregnant, and that person isn't someone I normally associate with.  My wife is the same way and didn't tell her family she was pregnant until she went to hospital at 27 weeks; her family has visited at least once a month and never said a thing (although several claim they suspected).

I say all this because I am forced to be more sociable than normal because of the Smurfs.  I used to only be alone with them one day a week, and most of the time we did our own thing and ignored other people.  Now that we're together almost all the time, I end up taking them to many social activities and places (I don't want them to become fat, lazy, tv watching schlubs like some kids I know).  So now on a daily basis, whenever we're in public, I brace myself for uninvited conversation starters from others.  To be fair, the Smurfs are cute and even more so when I'm talking with them while walking or having them hold my hands or each others. *

*A side rant here: when I talk to my Smurfs, I speak to them as if they're intelligent enough to understand proper English.  I have never used baby speak with them or said anything in a sing-song voice (which one of my sisters-in-law does all the time).  If they don't understand what i'm saying, both will readily ask me "what does ---- mean" since both have been speaking in complete sentences since they were two.  So when we're walking and talking, they may sound smarter than kids who are still using one or two-word phrases at the same age.*

Anyway, the most common thing I am asked is if they are twins.  I used to answer "No, they are a little more than 11 months apart in age" but have stopped because that usually provokes additional questions such as who is older (how the hell can't you tell? One is bigger than the other), do they get along well, do they look like their mother, do they get their hair from their mother, are you going to grow their hair like yours (I have dreadlocks), etc.  Therefore I have modified my answer to "nope. 11 months."  It's not that I want to be rude, it's just that I don't want to talk to people.  Only the most die-hard of people will try to continue a line of questioning, so I continue to shorten my answers even more until I'm just looking at the Smurfs and saying something like "You guys ready to go?" which is my BIG hint that I am not going to answer any more questions.  And heaven help the people who just make comments; all they get is a grunt in recognition from me, and then I ignore them.  Luckily I have taught my kids better social skills than I show.