Ham Balls!

First, to those of you with a deep attachment, this post is not intended to ridicule, but to educate.

Anyway, you might think that, "Ham balls!" is a tame way to express your frustration in front of a youngster. Drop the car keys in the snow and blow of steam with a hearty, "Ham Balls!" And, there is no reason you couldn't go ahead and use it that way, but you would only know a part of the story.

I grew up without ham balls. This, depending on perspective, is a failing or a limited success of my parents. Tonight, I had them for only the second time and, reversing course from the direction of my parents (generally a good policy), Ellis had them for the first time and he looooovvvvveeed them.

So for those of you who don't know, a ham ball is basically a muffin sized meatloaf made of equal parts ground ham and ground pork bound with eggs and graham crackers then baked twice, the second time in a brown sugar and mustard glaze. Ellis thought they were sausage and under a loose definition I suppose they are. He bolted down his first meat cupcake, had a little bit of potatoes, and then ate another half of a ham ball. (He also had two monster servings of five cup salad, another distinctive dish.) While I don't share his love of HBs, I do support his decision to forgo green beans until his craving for meat was satisfied or the meat ran out, which it didn't, so he didn't eat any beans. Something, it seems, is sinking in.

Now, I may get accused of snootiness here since my objection can't have anything to do with being kosher (thank Yahweh). My suspicion is that only those who chewed their first ham ball with their milk teeth experience cravings for them later in life and that is why I am luke warm about them, having had my first at 26, and I have been told it was a bad example at that. For similar nostalgic reasons I like pasties(a dry meat pie favored in Cornwall and the areas of the upper Midwest where Cornish miners came to work). There is little to recommend these to the taste buds, but I had them when I was young and I can't smell Lake Superior without a craving for one. At times I snarf a spam sandwich (with mustard, only hillbillies put mayo on a perfectly good spam sandwich). And, I have been known to enjoy a three-pack of vanilla zingers in less than six bites. So, I think I have some cred when it comes to enjoying the unsnooty and most of my list is considerably worse, the pastie being the exception, than a ham ball.

I do need to remember to get the boy to a pasty region soon, because I would simply be a negligent parent if I didn't foster important nostalgic links to odd food, particularly, rutebega, carrots, beef and potatoes in pie crust, with ketchup if that is what it takes to get him to eat it. If the ham balls didn't put hair on his chest, a pastie surely will.

Let it snow

Too bad there wasn't an Eskimo around to teach me those supposed 27 names for snow, since Mother Nature has provided visual aids for most of the varieties of frozen precipitation in the last 15 hours. And, it is still coming down. We probably have over 9 inches now. I know some of you love being snowed-in as much as I do...and I hate to rub it in...but, na-na-na-boo-boo.

Time to wield the shovel.



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Urgent update after a trip to the store:
I now have statistically significant evidence that one must not be more intelligent than an eggplant to get a job driving a snow plow truck in this town. It is good that all of the snow off of the main streets has been plowed into the little side streets creating two foot dams, otherwise, people might actually be able to get out and use the main streets. Likewise, wasn't a full street width with 8 inches of snow better than a single lane down the middle bounded by giant plow dams? Not to mention all of the cars parked on the street that could easily have been moved at 9:30, but at 10 required two hours of digging to free them.

Future work will use genetic testing to verify that the drivers are not indeed eggplants.

Where is da mama?

Rachel is on a shortish business trip. (I keep telling myself that it is short anyway, but neither of us feel that way.) Ellis and I are bachin' it and so far, so ok.

Ellis seems to understand better this time what it means to be on a trip and when I say, "mommy is on a trip," he fires back with, "she back on fieday."

Ellis is definitely bossier when his mother is gone. Maybe he feels unfettered when the real boss isn't here.

Looking at his Mother Goose book, I pointed to an egg-shaped guy on a wall and asked him, "Who's that?" He responded enthusiastically, "Humpy Dump!" I said, "I think that was a Digital Underground song." He didn't get it.

They say Montessori kids want to do it themselves and here I offer you some evidence in the next two vignettes.

After work while I was getting dinner going, Ellis was unusually quiet so I went to investigate. When I got downstairs he had pushed an ice chest over to the kegerator, climbed up and poured himself a giant 40 oz. root beer. Unfortunately, he only had a 6 oz. cup in his hand. Since there was no sign of drowning, I am pretty sure he didn't try to put his head right under the tap.

During getting into jammies, I had to run down and let the barking dog into the house. Ellis met me at the bottom of the stairs like this:
Note that he didn't achieve the trifecta of upside down, backwards and inside out. It is right side out. Bonus points to him for keeping a couple buttons buttoned.

We negotiated down to this:


Which is better than the last time Rachel was gone.

By the way, I did wash his face before bed.

Pie Hole Puts One in His Journal

Ate here tonight. This is Ann Arbor's newest brewery and is owned by the company that runs one of the other breweries in Ann Arbor's brewery district. The beers were good, but not as good as one would expect from brewers this experienced. One cool little twist is they are offering some old school cheap beer as well: Stroh's, Pabst, Schlitz and High Life.

They call themselves a BBQ joint. I detected from the menu and decor that the BBQ would not be authentic enough. They didn't even specify if it was east Carolina or west Carolina style Q. Someone at the table did get the Carolina pulled pork and it wasn't either one. Bah!

I ordered carefully and had one of the top five cheese burgers of my life: Medium with blue cheese, bacon (good bacon) and sweet onion marmalade and no green stuff.

They had one dessert that left me puzzled but I was simply too full to investigate. Read these words carefully: Fried Doughnut Bread Pudding with Butter Rum Sauce. Oh confusing adjectives. Is this a bread pudding made of doughnuts that is then fried in individual servings to create a pleasing crispy crust? Or, is it bread pudding made from fried doughnuts? Less likely, but still possible considering the major miss with the BBQ, it could be regular bread pudding topped with crumbled fried doughnuts or molded to look like a fried doughnut. I am pretty sure it isn't bread pudding made from fried doughnuts that is then fried again prior to get the crispy crust. That would be refried doughnut bread pudding.

Happenings about town

Bentos all around
Last night, Rachel was having a bad day, so I took us all out for Japanese, the only food that can comfort her. Since the food poisoning I can't do sushi, so I got a bento box that contained tiny portions of a lot of different things. To my surprise, Ellis tried almost everything and ate 1/3 of my meal. He ate the pickled potatoes, the potato cakes and even refused the excellent beef dish for more of the odd ball stuff like sweet pickled soy beans. He liked the smelt roe and even had a bite of his mother's raw tuna. And, of course, he helped himself to my fruit course.

We pack our lunches in little bentos everyday and Ellis sometimes has 6 different portions in his, so we know he appreciates variety. It seems though that last night's meal made Ellis aware that this variety is available at times other than lunch: Today at breakfast we had yoghurt on the table and he asked for bread with PB&J. Once that was in front of him he demanded a muffin. Only once all three were in place did he set to eating. This could be a really bad trend.

Rachel is a smart ass
Me: Do we have any baked beans?
Rachel: Yes, we have a whole case downstairs.
Me: But those are for the emergency pantry, don't we have others.
Rachel: No, just those and besides I can't imagine any emergency getting better by you downing a case of baked beans.

Ellis doesn't seem to have much pressing to worry about
Rachel: You just don't worry about it, do you?
Me: No, I don't worry about it.
Ellis: I don't worry about it!
Me [turning to Ellis]: Do you worry about anything?
Ellis: No. Oh! Kakadiles. Dey seeping now.

What makes her a mammal?
The scene: 5:45 am, in the dark, in bed. I am wishing I could sleep just a bit longer. Ellis is kneeling on me and mauling the dog, while the dog inadvertantly mauls me. Scout flips over on her back:

Ellis: Daddy what dose?
Me: Nothing honey, just be gentle with Scout.
Ellis: Dem's Nipples! Dout's Nipples! Woah she has awot. How many she got?

More with the dog
After a small toilet learning mishap, I had to take some soiled clothing to the washer. When I returned, Ellis, nekkid, was waving his new pair of undies at Scout, whilst they circled each other, Ellis screaming, "No Dout! Dat's ma bum."

For Aunt Bridget
When asked what song he would like to sing in the car, nine times out of ten Ellis demands the classic, Found A Peanut. He wants you to take the lead and he jumps in such that the song becomes a free form round of sorts. One longs for Old MacDonald. E-I-E-I-OOOOOOOOOO.

Breaking the cycle

Here we are at left arriving at the Christmas tree sale all optimistic with a car free of pine needles. Rachel took the time to smile for a photo, but Ellis was all business, staring down the sales guy before we ever got out of the car.


While not quite as romantic as going and cutting the tree down ourselves. The impromptu setup at the charity sale had its own appeal with the temporary lighting. We had the usual discussion about how nice all the soft needled Balsams and White Pines were but couldn't be had because of their propensity for early needle loss.
Ellis got fed up with our slow shopping pretty quickly and decided that we would be having the blue spruce. Apparently he was getting cold and decided some work with the saw would warm him back up.

It took us all week to finally get it decorated. I am proud to say that we got it straight in the stand without getting angry and heaving it back into the front yard in anger and we managed to get the lights on the tree without a fight, with the lights or each other. There were dangerous moments, such as when I brought home a new string of lights to find they had been opened and didn't work! But I fixed them calmly. Ellis, not yet three, was even allowed to help with putting on the lights, something I wasn't allowed to do until I had a driver's license.






Our desire to make all of the ornaments definitely contributed to the week long decorating time. Last evening we had our friends Jim and Torrie over for dinner and to pitch in. I strung popcorn and cranberries while Rachel, Jim and Torrie piped royal icing on these aromatic but unchewable gingerbread ornaments.

Torrie and Rachel were much better than Jim or me at the cookie decorating. After making one Santa with a club foot, I retired to hold their baby Sophie and string popcorn which is tedious, but requires very little skill.

Between me a pig and a fence post

We have had quite a week here. A few highlights:

Ellis went to have his cavity filled and it turned out to just be a consultation. Apparently he was an angel, other than filling his undies which his mother has admitted she just threw away rather than toting the dirty things home. I will admit that I considered throwing away some of Ellis's dirtiest clothes at times after an excretory disaster, but I have never actually done it. For shame.

Despite the accident mentioned above, toilet learning is going pretty well and most of the mishaps come with a good story. After using the toilet when we are helping him get his trousers up, he makes a proclamation that sounds to us like, "Don't ruin my penis." It's really more like, "Do-unt ooon ma pena." Does the boy think you can get the herp from having your pants pulled up badly? I hope not.

His shenanigans have been pretty much non-stop. After preparing a nice pair of toasts with Nutella for myself this week I was called away by Rachel. Upon my return I ate the toast and then noticed there was a blob of Nutella on the floor. I turned to the boy to interrogate:

Me: Did you drop my toast on the floor?
Ellis: Wah, afer I bite it.
Me: Then did you pick it up and put it back on my plate?
Ellis: Wep.
Me: So the toast I just ate was all dirty?
Ellis: With floor dirt daddy, an hair.

Then I took him outside and put him behind the wheel of the Blazer while I scraped off the windows. When I opened the door he was climbing from the backseat back into the front over the console. In his left hand he had a stack of four Chips-A-Hoy cookies dating from our last trip to the farm and the cookies were all missing one bite, as though he were eating them like a sandwich.

Ellis: I found cookies daddy.
Me: Ellis, those are old you can't eat them. Give them to me.
Ellis: No, deeze cookies are MINE.
Me: Ellis, you can't eat those old cookies.
Ellis [Handing me two of the four cookies and nodding]: Here you go daddy.

Were those two cookies a bribe, hush-cookies to keep me from telling his mother what was going down? This may have been our first "this-will-just-stay-between-us-pigs" moment. How sweet.

House Devil

A few updates. First, the Christmas tree post will have wait.

Second, Ellis got a flu shot today and was quite a trooper. The nurse was an excellent shot giver. I am not even sure he knew what was going on.

For those of you who were confused about the shower, it is being repaired, very slowly, by the landlord. They were supposed to just take out the bottom, replumb the drain and then rebuild it. But, when they demoed it last Friday, they discovered moisture and rot in the walls and decided that if the tile guy was coming anyway they would just take it all out. The flooring has been repaired and now we wait for them to finish it.

For those you who think Ellis is all snuggles and cuteness, I share the following. Tonight, I was making lunches and Ellis was in his learning tower "helping". He put down his crinkle cutter and grabbed the salt and upended it over the floor, watching it run out. I grabbed it from him and he grabbed the pepper, with a nasty little grin. I snagged the pepper and put them down out of reach. Then, I went to the fridge and while I was in there he climbed up on the butcher block, fetched both salt and pepper and returned to sprinkling the kitchen floor with them. I grabbed them both and told him, "You know that you aren't supposed to do that. It makes me very angry." While I was saying this, his hands were on his hips, an exasperated look on his face, and his eyes settled on the half pound block of yellow cheddar on the butcher block which he pounced on, raised to his mouth and gnawed off a gigantic chaw and then smacked his lips at me while he chewed it up. Eating as a form of in your face civil disobedience it is, I tell you.