WHAT?

We were talking about the dining table tonight, after the boys left the table. I love the table, but hate the table top (my dad built the whole thing, and the top is covered in - ack - wood-grain formica). I found THE COOLEST formica yesterday while picking out new kitchen counters (because I love-love-love wood, but formica is brilliant for durability), but one sheet of it, which is what I'd need to re-cover the table, would be $350. (Man, I can really make a story unnecessarily long when I talk about furniture).

And for $350, we could probably have the carpenter (the one building the kitchen) build a new hardwood top for the table. The base is solid brass, from the Titan nuclear missile guidance system, built by AMF, because my dad was an engineer on that project and even had his finger on The Button during the Cuban Missile Crisis - how could I *not* love that table?

The top is attached to the base by a heavy - very, very heavy - brass fitting that screws onto the bottom of the table top. There were two table tops - the round one we have and a larger, oval one - but the oval one went "missing" when we moved to Australia, along with about a third of the rest of our furniture. I'm just grateful that the top that we still have is the one the fitting was attached to at the time.

So if we had a new top built, we'd have the beauty of real wood, and it could be just a bit larger.

But I like the table as it is, a bit small, because we're all comfortably close (it's round, and has a pedestal base, so it doesn't get in anybody's leg space). And Duncan said, "Yeah, but we need to fit five children at the table."

FIVE???

1) Why Stop At Three When We Could Go For A Whole Back Line

2) Old Navy has all these cool maternity clothes; it's a whole section of shopping I've been missing out on.

3) My favorite half-sister has been complaining that I don't blog often enough, and I needed something else to talk about.

4) Tiffany makes a rattle we don't have. Actually, they make two. Did I say two? I meant three.

5) We have to eat all the meat that hasn't sold, and some days we could use another mouth (and stomach) to help.

6) Because we already have a plumber, a builder, and an electrician, but we need a butcher as well so we can retire into that fancy house.

7) When I had Oliver, I asked the doctor to check on the state of my uterus. He said it was fine, and to "keep havin' em." So really I'm just following doctor's orders.

8) With the two business, three children, two dogs, and all the school sports, etc, etc, I still find myself with some free hours between midnight and four a.m., and thought I'd like something to keep me busy then.

9) We've had them on the other two continents on which we lived. Of course, it might be hard to follow this tradition when we retire to Ireland.

10) We now live in a country that will pay us for it. How could we not take advantage of that? Really, it's just the financially responsible thing to do.

Is It Still Only August?

That episode with Malcolm took about ten years off my life. How long is this year, anyway? I am totally done with 2007. Wake me up in January.

Because Fintan Needs A Birthday Cake

My friend Alina wants to make a low-allergen, healthy birthday cake for her son's first birthday. He doesn't have any allergies that they are aware of, but I may have freaked her out enough with my horror stories about our experiences over the last several years... so she's being really careful. And if I'm honest, which I can't always be, because people don't REALLY want honesty when it's inconvenient, I wish all parents were like Alina. It can prevent your child from having lifelong, life-threatening allergies, if you just hold off feeding them the seven major allergens until they reach the age of three, when their little immune systems may have matured to the point where they are able to react properly to the allergens, even if they might otherwise have been prone to allergies.

And now I'm off on my little lecture. Just one more minute: Obviously, it's hard (if not impossible) to avoid all seven allergens for three years. Avoid them for the first year, and then avoid the ones in your family history, which for us means eggs and nuts, until the child is three. And of course, it's also important to avoid eating these allergens if you are pregnant or breastfeeding and the baby has a family history of allergies.

And don't complain to me that it's hard, because I've done it. It's not that hard, people. Not nearly as hard as imagining yourself plunging a huge, scary Epi-pen into your baby's sweet little thigh while he chokes and gasps for breath and clings desperately to life.

Right! Enough drama; onto important things, like chocolate!

This recipe is some sort of wartime, rationing recipe. In fact, I used to make it all the time even before we had children (before I even knew that egg *was* an allergen), because it was cheap (and ingredients in South Africa were expensive), ridiculously easy, and really moist and delicious. The only major allergen it contains is wheat, and by the time your child is one, you usually know if he's had a reaction to wheat (and you could substitute the flour with whatever flour substitute you usually use). The recipe is dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, and effort-free. You don't even need a mixer.

1½ cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
¼ cup cocoa powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp vinegar (white)
½ cup oil (I use canola)
1 cup water

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl, in no particular order, and bake at 375 (or 180 C) for 35-40 minutes. I have three kids and a husband, so I always double the recipe and bake it for 40-45 minutes. As it's written above, it will fill an 8x8 baking dish. Use an 8x13 if you double the recipe.

We modify the recipe further to suit our specific dietary needs, by which I mean we use alternative sugars, and we add dairy to it (because my children and husband all have a tendency to lose weight, damn them).

So I use dextrose instead of sugar (dextrose can usually be found in the home brewing supplies), and half again as much glucose syrup (which can be found in the candy-making supplies). And I use some percentage of milk instead of water (half and half, usually). I also replace some of the oil with melted butter (never margarine). Those substitutions took a lot of fiddling with (the sugar ones, that is), but I have finally managed to bake a moist cake with just the right amount of sweetness, and it's incredible how satisfying that is.

I make a frosting with Nuttelex (which, surprisingly, contains no nuts - it's a margarine), cream cheese, dextrose, fructose, and food coloring. But before we knew about the CSID, we just bought Betty Crocker's ready-made frosting. For a one-year-old, frosting is completely unnecessary, though it does add value to the photo opportunities, particularly if it's inhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif the hair. You could just apply it directly there to save your child's teeth.

Happy Birthday, Fintan!