We were much more organized this year and ended up being ready and waiting for the guests to arrive, and only forgot ice. Unlike last year where we sent three different people on scavenger hunts to find fairly crucial items. I, have evolved this year. I allowed someone else to cook a few things on the barbecue and in doing so actually got to a. eat something myself, and b. Speak to some of the guests. Unlike a lot of birthday parties, we invite not only ThingOne’s friends, but their parents and siblings as well and most of the time the adults outnumber the kids. It’s quite a good time and once again the weather cooperated nicely, (touch wood, and Thank You Karma police!)

Because of ThingTwo’s allergies, the SugarMomma is saddled with the task of coming up with a kid friendly and allergy friendly birthday cake that people actually want to eat and aren’t just being polite. Last year after much experimentation both on her part as the baker, and our parts as the tasters, she found a killer chocolate cake recipe, because if it’s not chocolate, why bother? I mean really!. So I thought I would share with you, my dear readers (all two of you) the details of this fantastic concoction. So without further ado, I give you....

The Best Chocolate Cake Ever(that happens to be Gluten Free)

• 2/3 cup dairy free margarine
  • 1 cup cocoa powder
  • 8 egg whites
  • 1/4 tsp cream of tartar (or vinegar will work)
  • 2 whole eggs
  • 8 egg yolks
  • 1 cup coconut milk
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup sifted coconut flour

Melt margarine in a saucepan. Add cocoa powder and mix together. Remove from heat and let cool. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar together until stiff peaks form; set aside. In a separate bowl mix together 2 whole eggs, 8 egg yolks, coconut milk, sugar, salt and vanilla. Stir in cocoa mixture. Whisk coconut flour into batter until there are no lumps. Fold egg whites into batter. Pour batter equally into 2 greased round 8 or 9 by 1 1/2 inch layer cake pans. Bake at 350 F for 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool. Fill layers and cover top and sides of cake with favorite icing.

This is an exerpt from the Cook Book / Christmas Letter we sent out last year. We had so many new recipes from trying to find meals that were safe for ThingTwo to eat, we decided to put them together and what resulted was a coil bound, full color cookbook full of recipes, and pictures with anectdotes all about the year we had. Most of the recipes in this book came from the Internet in their original forms. If you recognize this recipe as your own, please let me know and we will credit you as well.

BBD

Tags: Tail, Cake, Allergies, Cook Book

It’s fiesta time again. My little ThingOne is turning Six. SIX! Can This be possible? didn’t she look like this just yesterday?



In the blink of an eye she’s finished kindergarten and poised to become a first-grader, but not before a blow-out summer! So it’s fiesta time again, time for charcoal and lighter fluid, for burgers that are too big for the buns, goodie bags full of useless junk that ShortThings find priceless. Water balloons.....what is it with kids and water balloons? Wait a minute what am I saying? Water Balloons rule! I love water balloons, except when I have a phone or a camera in my pocket, but that’s another story. Now, ThingOne’s name is not Donna, but her Birthday always brings out more than enough Prima in her. She can’t help it, all that excitement, the adrenaline coursing through her veins( or maybe that’s sugar?). She gets a little, let’s say, entitled. For one day a year we quash it a little less, but remind her that if she wants people to come next year, and wants kids to play with her the rest of the year, she should be nice to them, that usually works.

This event takes weeks in the planning. Her birhtday being in July takes a little extra legwork because you can’t send invites through the school channel. So we have to round up email addresses and go the evite route, which works quite well I might add. It’s quick-ish, easy-ish, cheap, and environmentally friendly! As with last year it will be outside, which is a gamble with the weather but it looks favourable so here’s hoping. I am not a seasoned briquette barbecuer so that’s always interesting. We secured a covered picnic area this year so our guests won’t melt. Last year the only spot left was in the middle of a field, with no shade, on the hottest day of the year. Nuff’ said. I have to say, given that it’s in the middle of the summer, we always get a good turnout. I’m told we throw a good party, maybe that’s why they keep coming, it’s certainly not for my cooking.

Once more into the breach dear friends......

Tags: Kids, Parties, Birthdays

I’d like to say I’m too proud to beg.....but I’m not. We are now 9 days away from The Weekend to End Breast Cancer. My wife, aka my “SugarMomma” has signed up with a team of 2 other women to participate in this worthy event. I’ve said it before, who doesn’t love boobies? So the Team of ladies has been hard at work fund-raising. They have hosted a Pancake Breakfast, organized a raffle and now just yesterday held a bake sale: which were all successful. Just not successful enough. To everyone who came by yesterday and purchased something from the Bake Sale, Thank You! To everyone who helped out with Baked goods, set-up and supplies, Thank You too! The required fund-raising by each team member is minimum $2000, they as a team now sit approximately $600 short of that goal, with under two weeks till the event. If they do not raise the required amount, they will not be allowed to participate. The money raised so far will still go to the cause but the ladies on the team will not be able to join in the 2-Day 60km walk and all that goes with it. This would be a great shame, these women have been training for months to be able to complete the 60km walk and put in many, many hours, and dollars of their own to try and be apart of this event.

So, here’s the begging. If you have boobies, and you like them, and you’d like to keep them: If you know someone who has boobies, and you like them, and you’d like to keep them. Please consider either making a purchase of one of our Baby Onesie t-shirts which you can see here. If that is too much please consider purchasing one of our stickers which you can see here. The sticker with shipping is a mere $6. Six whole dollars! what is that? One Latte? One frappa-dappa-lappa- ccino? One pint at the local pub? We will send this sticker anywhere in North America. If you live outside of North America please choose the International sticker option which is $8 and we will mail it to you anywhere in the world. If you don’t need or want either of these items but would still like to help you can make a donation directly online here. Any amount will help, each one of us can make a difference and at any time any one of us can be touched by this tragic disease. If you have already helped us, We THANK YOU. If you haven’t and you are considering doing so, please do so now. If you’re just stopping by to check in on my ridiculousness........thank you and come back soon.

BBD.

Tags: Boobies, Fund-raising, Request, Plea, Worthy

Let me set the stage. “ThingTwo is showered, slathered in skin cremes (excema), and dressed with hair in an up-pony to keep it out of the way while I deal with ThingOne, before we move out to the spot where we dry and brush the hair. I am still in my boardshorts, soaking wet. ThingOne is reasonably capable now and can get herself dressed with a minimum of help. I start to untie the string on my shorts and ThingOne nudges ThingTwo and whispers ”We’re going to see Daddy’s butt.” Instantly all attention is on me, but whatever, I have to get changed right? So I do the quick dry off of everything not covered and drop my shorts and grab my underwear. As I am pulling them up, ThingOne giggles and says to ThingTwo “ Look! we can see his penis!” and ThingTwo immediately reaches out grabs me and exclaims “I GOT YOUR PENITH!”............ I swat her hand away while trying not to fall over (my underwear are still halfway up and the floor is slippery). I yank them up and reach for my cargo shorts and before I can get them on, again with the grabbing and the “I GOT YOUR PENITH!” Again I swat and turn away still struggling to get my shorts up, before I can get them up she gets the third and fourth grabs and exclamations in and all the while ThingOne is laughing uncontrollably and I can’t keep a straight face to say STOP! or NO! with any kind of authority.

ThingOne did not do this kind of thing at this age, she looked a bit but never progressed to grabbing. I knew I should have remembered those snacks....

Motherhood is not without peril either. I recall a story Sugarmomma tells about ThingOne and a public bathroom. ThingOne has always had quite a strong vocabulary and we have always been advocates of anatomical correctness. Those Potty training books that say shit like “and you have a pee pee for making wee wee.....” just piss me off, I always changed the words on the fly. So anyway, Sugarmomma and ThingOne are using the public bathroom, momma pees and then stands up to finish and THingOne Shouts out “Mommy, you have hair on your P-Gina!”. I’m told there were stifled snickers from the stalls on either side. You know you’ve got stories, go on, ...spill.

BBD.

Tags: Pain, Self Preservation, Kids, Contact Sport

I love to ride, but am in a bit of a holding pattern because the ‘Things are getting too big and too independent for bike seats, carriers, or trailers, but not big enough to keep up on their own yet. To see them tackling this hill on their own, let me just say it was inspiring. It had me dreaming of the day when I could buy them their first Stinky 2-4., their first full face helmet, and their first Seasons Pass to The Park at C.O.P. But I’m getting waaaay ahead of my self.


It got me thinking about learning to ride a bike and the first kinds of things I learned on. I remember, only because there is home movie evidence of the fact, that my first wheeled experience was before I could walk in one of those baby walkers. You know, the ones that are banned now. (which is sooooooo lame.) There I am ripping around my grandparents farmhouse, and yard in this thing, maybe that’s why I like to ride so much.....

Anyway I was trying to remember what other bikes I had and couldn’t until the first bike I bought with my own money which was when I was 13, so what did I learn on? It’s been driving me crazy. What were bikes like when I was kid? Then it hit me, the coolest bike-like thing you could have when I was little, The Big Wheel! and of course it’s mutant cousin the Green Machine! Then it hit me again! I never had either of these bad-ass rides! It was the rich kids with the big house, the hot mom, and the dad who did custom car work, who lived around the corner that had these coveted machines. They were twins, and they each had one. To top it off, these kids were super cool, and by that I mean they were so nice and let all their friends use all their stuff. For two summers it was Power-Slide Heaven!

I went looking for pictures of said machines and found this video:


I think that says it all.



Now of course when we went looking for bikes for our girls they had to be cool. Poppy & Grandma got ThingOne her first trike for Christams one year but being a summer baby and a small kid she was never the right size for it. It was a classic red/white combo with some sweet pinstriping on it. I then saw a metallic bubble gum pink Trike with a skateboard style wooden deck for the footrests at the back and chrome trim which looks amazing but tips over instantly. So we jumped straight to a two-wheeler with training wheels. She’s done quite well with this one but again confidence issues and her small size have slowed her progress a little. Last summer, we had to find something for ThingTwo because she was constantly wanting to ride the big bikes and did not under any circumstances want help. We found this awesome “Radio Flyer Scoot-About” and though it took until this summer to not get her feet caught she’s wired it now and is ripping! In my earnest excitement and the observation that ThingTwo was picking up things faster due to keeping up with her big Sister, I decided she needed a two-wheeler, and the perfect choice would be a “Run-Bike” A tiny little bike with no pedals that they push like Fred Flinstone with their feet. The idea is to bypass training wheels and get them balancing before they have to worry about pedals. Well, ThingTwo is also on the smallish side and the bike is just * * that much too big for her. Guess what ThingOne is riding.....her little sister’s run-bike. It is awesome! She is learning how to balance and coast and in two days can coast halfway down the block without touching! Not to forget the aforementioned downhilling. She has been riding it in the basement and the backyard for a few weeks now but there isn’t enough room down there to really coast so, Two Days! Woo Hoo!

Today I am a Big Proud Daddy.

Oh, by the way, you can now click on the small images to GO BIG OR GO HOME!

BBD.

Tags: Big Wheels, Green Machines, First Bike, Learning to Ride

SugarMomma and I watched P.S. I Love You recently. I picked it out. I cried. I smiled. I laughed. It reminded me of music i had not heard in a long time. Specifically “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues. I love this song, but then again so does everybody. I however, got to see the Pogues live when I was in High School, at The Concert Hall in Toronto, with my dad. It was f*^%ing awesome. I got to see Shane MacGowan, so drunk he could barely stand, stop in the middle of a song, and demand that pair of meatheads in the middle of the crowd stop fighting because in his words, “You don’t fight at a f*^%ing Pogues show!” He wouldn’t start again until they had been thrown out. So this movie, and this song sent me on a quest. I know I own “If I Should Fall From Grace with God” on cassette, and that cassette lives somewhere in my basement, but this is the new millenium, so where do i go? iTunes of course.( I don’t mind paying for music). So while I’m looking through the catalogue of Pogues music they have on there, they hooked me with the “Others also Bought” Section, and wasn’t it a trip down the lane. The Engllish Beat, The Clash, Billy Bragg.....You might call me a sucker, i prefer the term “enthusiast”. I like what I like, and i like it deeply. I came across some new stuff though, Amos Lee, pretty cool, he sounds different on every track. I especially dig “Street Corner Preacher”. I know I’m 2 years too late but the Ok Go album with the treadmill video song is really good for what it is. I can’t forget the new one by G.Love and Special Sauce, “Superhero Brother”, go G.Love. Now I just have to pre-listen them all and create some ShortThing friendly playlists so I can get them singing along!

I Love Music. I f*^%ing love it. I can’t get enough. I love how a song can conjure up a memory so vividly that you can feel it in your other senses. I would like to think that one day I will muster up the discipline to learn to play again. I used to play, albeit Tuba, in the high school band, but it was still music. I’m sure it’s just like riding a bike, which I can still do.....

BBD.

Tags: Punk, Nostalgia, Music, Rebellion

It’s very, very frustrating. That is what makes this next bit so satisfying. She likes lemonade, and she likes Berry Lemonade. You may remember that we now have the “Mother of all Blenders”. Sugarmomma has gotten quite creative and with the help of a few books is now able, on occasion, to get something healthy into that child. Case in point, homemade “Berry Lemonade”. ThingOne would commit Hari-Kari if she knew that when she drinks Mummy”s “Berry Lemonade” not only is she consuming fresh whole blueberries, but spinach as well! SugarMomma blends up blueberries and spinach into a purée and then freezes it into cubes. Drops a couple into the lemonade concentrate, blends that up and voila! “Berry Lemonade”

SugarMomma says that I shouldn’t push ThingOne on the food issues, that I’m going to traumatize her and leave her scarred for life. She says she’ll end up like me, like I have “food issues” or something. Ok, Ok, so I have two stories about food that I tell from my childhood if that constitutes “Issues” then, guilty as charged. When I was young, I can’t remember exactly how old but at least 7 or 8, my parents made this dish with peeled tomatoes and boiled fish, to this day I’m not the biggest fan of fish, unless it’s beer-battered and deep fried. My parents were into the recycling thing waaaaaaaayyyyy before it was “en vogue” as they say, they were also mild hippy types and very into “health food”. So , when I was in Kindergarten my mom would bake her own bread and make me sandwiches with it. She would make me Peanut Butter sandwiches, (which now today would put Thingtwo in the ground, but that’s another story...). So what’s the big deal right? Her bread would be what today apparently is referred to as “Artisan Bread” and she could probably charge a premium for it. The slices were,...thick, and the bread was, .....crumbly, and she used that “natural” peanut butter. You know, the kind you have to stir for five minutes to mix the oil back in, and it was chunky. To top it all off She would pack them into old recycled milk bags that were cut open, do you remember when milk came in bags?(there’s the recycling part, see I didn’t forget.) All of this would win her Eco-Mother of the year these days but when I was 5,...let’s just say I wasn’t swapping lunches with anyone.

What’s the deal with kids and food these days? I find it SUPER helpful when the public health nurse says, “don’t force them, put it in front of them and let them choose, it will be better for them later on in life”, and then turns around and scowls at you like a degenerate when you tell her that ThingOne won’t eat any fruits or vegetables. Remember the days when you didn’t leave the table until your plate was clean because there were children starving in Africa? I’m so confused.....

BBD.

Tags: Picky Eater, Blueberries, Anti-Oxidants, Tears

The Boobie Breakfast was a resounding success and the Onesie’s have arrived! Last Saturday morning a group of volunteers got up early and put on a fantastic pancake breakfast in support of The Weekend to End Breast Cancer. There was tons of food and everyone was poppin the top button just so they could sit down. Lots of friends donated various items to help raise money. There was a huge gift basket from Starbucks, some Hand made baby quilts courtesy of Carmangay Custom Quilts, and of course the I Love Boobies Baby T’s! We also made an I Love Boobies Sticker if you’re too big to fit in to the T-shirt. I’m proud to announce you can purchase them here through PayPal if you missed getting one at the Breakfast. There is a limited quantity so if you want one, get one! You can get all of the details here.

Tags: Boobies, Weekend To End Breast Cancer, Fund-raising, Success

Last Thursday I had my worst computer nightmare come true. My computer froze, my hard-drive chirped and said a soft farewell. There was no Dylan Thomas- esque raging against the dying of the light, there was however Rage Against The Machine - esque “WAKE UP”. Just a couple of chirps and “see ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!” This has happened before, and I learned that time, you must BACK UP, regularly, in multiple places. So that time I got a nice external HD set it up and backed up. I haven’t been super busy on the computer up until about three weeks ago, whan all hell broke loose. I have done more work on the computer in the last three weeks than the last three months. Do you think I remembered to back up during the insanity, you’re thinking, yes, oh yes, he learned his lesson......well NO. I didn’t. I lost EVERYTHING I’ve done in the past three weeks, which like I said, is a lot. Sorry for all the “Type-shouting” this is still a little painful. For those of you who don’t know, I stay at home to take care of my two ShortThings full time during the days, and I run a small graphic design studio with all the spare time I have left *HA!*. I had a bunch of work come out of nowhere and was running on an avg of 3 hours sleep a night and a couple of nights with no sleep at all. Lots of work, good work,...all gone. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

This is a preventable tragedy, one that should not have happened and, due to new measures, should not happen to me again. I have a new backup system that backs up my HD hourly, daily, and weekly until it is full, and then only discards the oldest date as it needs space. It has 1TB (that’s tera-byte, oh yeaaaahhhh!!!!) of space on it. Plus I have a 500GB external which I will use as additional space and as a back up to the back up. The real pain in my ass has been reinstalling all of my software, serial numbers, fonts, settings, etc, three years worth of those. who knew that would take so long.

Don’t let this happen to you, for those of us who spend a great deal of our time in the digital realm, and make some kind of income from it, I urge you spend the money, get a system, and use it. BACK UP.

Peace OUT.

BBD.

Tags: Technology, Crash, Burn, Pain, Suffering