In Which I Spend an Awful Lot of Time Talking About Dishes

Hey! Remember when Thanksgiving happened?

<insert Wayne's World flashback fingers and sound effects>

I do the same thing every year: I intend to ROCK OUT with a whole slew of Thanksgiving-related blog posts. I make such a big goddamn deal out of the holiday in real life that you'd think my blog would reflect that. Maybe take a yearly dive into recipe blogging and 500-word entries about napkins. Show you the real depths of my vintage glassware obsession. (It's deep, man. Like The Descent, only with more bowls.)

Instead, I completely freak out over EVERYTHING that needs to be done in preparation for Thanksgiving that my blog basically sits silent while its author runs around like a headless turkey hopped up on coffee brine in the distant background. 

Then I gorge myself on challah-bread stuffing and sleep for four days straight. 

IN OTHER WORDS, will y'all please indulge me and look at some pictures? You actually don't have to really look at them — I'll never know if you keep your Minecraft window open — just type a fake-appreciative mmm-hmmm in the comments and I'll be happy. 

First: Something old.

Or, well. A lot of somethings old.

I have cobbled together a somewhat bizaare collection of Depression glass and stuff from the 50s and 60s, which I mix in with more modern-looking white plates and serving pieces from Ikea. The black stuff is L.E. Smith black amethyst glass, and is actually the most gorgeous purple color when held up to the light.

Note that this hidden feature is only noticiable if you hold it up REALLY REALLY CLOSE to a lightbulb in an otherwise dark-ish room, which nobody in their right mind is going to do during a dinner party. 

Note that this will never, ever stop me from forcing my guests to hold their black coffee cups up to the light and squint while I fuss with the dimmer switch until everybody nods appreciatively about my weird-ass cups, because I am not in my right mind.

(I LOVE MY WEIRD-ASS CUPS.)

Next:

Ta-daaaa! Look at me, trying to be all grown-up and shit with my table. 

Twee little flower arrangements/party favors courtesy of Jason's aunt, who joined us this year and who shares my obsession with twee little flower arrangements. I was extra jazzed about these flowers because they justified my purchase of an entire set of those funky avocado trays. I mean, I have four and technically only used this one, but lay off me, it looked AWESOME.

(The trays are mid-century Kyes Moire Glaze. I also have a full-size round bar try in cream, and am currently lusting over several others in various colors that I have no specific use for, but HO HO HO that probably won't stop me.)

(I bought the little trays because I thought they were cute. I bought the big tray because it went with the little trays. I bought the ice bucket because it went with the big tray. I bought the hot toddy glasses because they came as a set with the ice bucket, and now I have to figure out what the hell goes in a hot toddy and start drinking them constantly and I THINK I NEED HELP, YOU GUYS.)

More flowers in mini mason jars, restaurant supply tea towels for napkins, and a shot of good whiskey in a tiny jelly jar.

(That last one is kind of a tradition around here. That we just made up. Just go with it.)

After I remembered to light the candles.

FINALLY, some appreciation. For the fire, mostly, but I'll take it.

Now, lest you think I've gone all crazy isn't-my-house-all-perfect design-blogger on you, allow me to show you what was happening all day just out of frame, in the living room:

Aaaaaand that's the squalor we all know and love. Bonus points for the visible tangle of wires. 

Okay, back to the grown-up section of the house, which gives me a sense of control in a world full of Legos:

Appetizer station.

I made you some cheese puffs, but we all ated them. Took about three minutes.

To be fair, we had help. 

YEP.

YEP YEP.

YEP YEP YEP.

A toast to our hipster Thanksgiving.

(And yes, the children were banished to eat in the kitchen. Off colored plastic Ikea plates from the circa last-time-we-went-there era. I did not take any pictures, prefering to forever remember the sounds of their collective whines over having to eat like, four bites of turkey and stuffing before being allowed to have the pie and ice cream IN MY HOLIDAY HEART.)

Appetizer station later morphed into the doodle station. 

And then a dessert station. Ezra ate the filling out of a full half of a pie.

(This is EXACTLY how I ate pumpkin pie for much of my life, so I can't really judge.) 

(Look! I was there! MY PRESENCE WAS DOCUMENTED!)

(I actually made it into a record-breaking TWO photos this year.)

After pie and coffee (LOOK AT THE CUPS. LOOK AT THE SAUCERS!), we had the traditional wrastling:

Feats of strength:

And possibly some impromptu streaking.

The next morning I ate stuffing straight out of the casserole dish for breakfast. 

Best Thanksgiving ever?

Best Thanksgiving ever.

See you at Christmas, mah pretties. Hopefully by then you'll be joined by some vintage Pyrex and some festive hot toddies. 

Adventures in Family Photography (AKA HERDING CATS UPSTREAM BOTH WAYS)

OMG. So I have like, 40 million things to do today. And approximately 30 million of those things may or may not involve butter.

(Plus I obviously need to go to the store and buy some more butter.)

But I just got our photos from a photo shoot with Blue Lily Photography we did last month, for the second October in a row. (Once again: I have the best boss who gives out the best Christmas presents.) Last year, Ike was a four-month-old blobby of suspicion. 

This year, he proudly moved up the ranks to fully accredited goofball:

He's in good company, obvs:

Despite bribing them with toys and threatening their very lives, my gorgeous children were a horrifically uncooperative pack, I must admit. 

Luckily, Tyler stumbled on the winning trick of getting them to look at the camera by ordering them to not look at the camera. 

Occasionally, we even managed to ALL look at the camera at the same time:

(And by "occasionally," I of course mean "basically those three times.")

And finally, presenting what may be my favorite photo of anyone, ever:

I plan to use this photo as my universal reaction to everything from stupid PR pitches, writing deadlines and suggestions that maybe I should take it easy on the butter. 

Decorative Gourd Season*

Okay, so. First, as required by LOOKIT MAH OFFSPRING law...uh, LOOKIT MAH OFFSPRING:

Anakin Skywalker

Obi-Wan Kenobi

(Captions provided because yeah, those Jedis all look alike. [SO RACIST.] Noah was also mistaken for a ninja and two people thought Ezra was dressed as a monk.)

And of course, Baby Yoda, the pièce de résistance. Who was occasionally mis-identified as Shrek, but that's okay, because this poor kid had no idea what was going on.

Your customs baffle him, earthlings, but your candy is pretty friggin' delicious.

***

BONUS:

***
And as if all the Halloween craziness wasn't enough, what with the class parties and trick-or-treating and staying-up-late-to-eat-your-children's-candy-while-watching-American-Horror-Story-and-then-Poltergeist (because anything seems like a good idea after enough Kit-Kats)...I had to go chaperone a first-grade field trip to a pumpkin patch yesterday. 

Cozied up on the bus together, when this still all seemed like a good idea.

I am pretty sure, waaaay back when I signed the volunteer sheet, that I was wearing a tank top. The school sent a reminder to check the weather and dress children appropriately that morning, but I can say with confidence that 99% of us completely failed to do that. Kids showed up dressed for the mild weather we'd all experienced the night before, while trick-or-treating. T-shirts. Hoodies. Little girls in knee-length leggings. Not a single hat or mitten in the entire bunch.

It. Was. Freezing. 

Even the adults were all pathetically underdressed. I prepared for muddy conditions, but not cold: rubber boots, spring trenchcoat, short sleeves underneath. Noah probably had the warmest coat out of everyone (because I couldn't find his other one, no points scored), but was wearing it over a t-shirt and again, no gloves or hat And even HE started complaining about the cold after an hour. Which means to a regular adult with no tolerance for "outside" and "nature" and "the slightest twinge of bodily discomfort," the weather felt like at least 30 degrees below zero. Sometimes it rained a little bit.

Me on the hayride. It has just dawned on me that we are all totally going to die, and I am contemplating a duck-and-roll and a mad dash back to the semi-heated school bus.

Yes, child. Smile through your chattering teeth! Use the festive gourd for warmth!

We ended the trip up on a goddamned HILL OF WIND AND HATE, so the children could go down some giant slides on burlap sacks. The teachers and chaperones huddled together and spoke wistfully of coffee and thermoses of soup.

The good news is that I was put in charge of four children (Noah and three little girls) and I did not lose a single one of them. (And oh hey are all first grade girls like, the most adorable things ever? I seriously almost stole a couple of them, and they would have LET ME, because "Noah's Mom" was the "best mom." DIRECT QUOTE, YOU GUYS.) Well, okay, technically I did kind of lose Noah for awhile, when he ran off and mingled in with another classroom and it took me a little bit to notice he was gone (HAYBALE MAZE, WTF).

But since he was my own kid I don't think that counts. I took damn good care of other people's children and shall be rewarding myself with a commemorative personalized CafePress mug shortly. 

"Noah's Mom is the Best Mom." -- Youth of America, Pumpkin Patch 2012 Never Forget

*Fuck yeah motherfuckers

This Official Everything Is Okay Alarm

We're fine, yes, for those of you who aren't on Teh Twittermajob or Teh Instagramamajig and therefore missed my HOURS LONG, hurricane-related, compulsive-shopping bender, during which I purchased approximately four dozen mismatched pieces of vintage Depression and Indiana glass, because apparently I am That Person now, That Person Who Collects Mismatched Vintage Glass And Gets Like, Scary Into It. 

OMG PLATES OMG BOWLS OMG CANDLEHOLDERS HOLY SHIT IT'S A GODDAMN CREAMER OMG.

A warning to anyone contemplating spending the holidays with us: I am now obligated to cook approximately 35 different side dishes, including stuff that will fit in a "pickle dish" or "celery plate."

(That aren't, like, plain pickles or celery. BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE WEIRD.)

(Not weird: Anything else I just typed.)

(Shutit.)

(It runs in the family.)

The kids slept in the basement, just to be safe. Although technically I should say they "slept" but only a little, after several hours of a live re-enactment of Beyond Thunderdome II: The Lost Tribe of Stir-Crazies. 

(I'm technically supposed to be "reviewing" the Furby for a holiday gift thing, but Noah won't let me put batteries in it because he's afraid it will grow up mean. The Furby 2012: it's an attractive yet vaguely creepy paperweight!)

Meanwhile, Giant Ikea Carrot kept Ike company in the Pack-n-Play. 

Anyway, that's about all that's happening here. Our power is on, our cars and house are undamaged, our streets are full of leaves but no flooding, and I am really, REALLY hoping I can send a couple certain children back to school tomorrow because really. Enough togetherness. It's time for me to spend some quality time trolling eBay and Etsy for the perfect vintage soup tureen. 

I hope everybody else reading fared similarly, and that y'all are okay and fine and up to your usual weirdness too.

 

Bait and Switch. BAIT AND SWITCH!

On the other end of the Halloween Drama Spectrum, Noah walked into Target a few weeks ago and calmly and casually pointed at an Anakin Skywalker costume.

"That one," he said, like a perfectly regular kid who has never flipped his everloving shit at the mere mention of dressing up. 

It was one of those hugely baffling, come-from-nowhere breakthroughs that I no longer question. Just shut your mouth and hand over the credit card, Mom, lest you say the wrong thing and accidentally rip open the fabric of the universe anew.

I planned to take Ezra to Party City yesterday, hoping that maybe a non-Green-Ninja alternative would look more attractive in person. If that failed, we could pick up some poster paint and take another crack at a homemade costume, using the adorable cardboard ninja tutorial that a bunch of you linked to in the comments that I had somehow missed during HOURS of Google-fu for all things DIY Ninjago. (Though I was deeply doubtful that Ezra would tolerate wearing a cardboard box for more than five minutes no matter how cool it looked, and our attempt at the homemade ninja scarf was already a documented disaster of GET THAT OFF MY HEAD OFF MY HEAD OFF MAH HEEEAAAAADDDD.)

(So basically, he wanted a Green Ninja costume but did not actually want to wear a Green Ninja costume. Thanks for making so much sense, four year old!)

Before we left, it dawned on me that I hadn't actually tried any of our toddler-sized costumes on Ike yet, but was just sort of assuming we'd have something that fit. Probably better double-check that thesis, brainiac. 

So I gathered up the sad little green karate suit and hauled out our box of hand-me-down costumes: Monkey! Steve from Blue's Clues! Random alien monster thing! Obi-Wan and Baby Yoda! 

Hold the phone. Obi Fucking Wan and Baby Goddamn Yoda. 

Lesson learned: Never underestimate the power of the words "If you wear this, I will buy you a lightsaber."

Of course, THIS costume is technically at least two sizes too big for him, but since it's a cheap-as-hell piece of mass-produced shit, there's no hemming or seams: Just cut off the extra fabric and you're done.

Now THAT's a level of Do-It-Yourselfieness that I can handle. 

Now I just need to figure out a costume for myself. I'm thinking Sexy TIE Fighter or Slutty Jabba the Hutt. 

The DIY Green Ninja Costume of Fail

So. As you may have gathered from the million and seventeen point two times I have mentioned it, my children are pretty obsessed with the Ninjago series from Lego.

(Well, Noah and Ezra, anyway. Ike seems on the fence about it. On the one hand, you can't actually ride on any of the Sonic Raider Dragon Chopper Skull Truck Whatever The Hell things, unlike our ancient neglected Cozy Coupe which is getting a late-in-life chance at love again. He especially enjoys driving it off the step into our living room, Thelma-and-Louise style.)

(On the other hand, he very much enjoys chewing on the small rubber tires that come with many of the Lego vehicle sets and then multiple like rabbits throughout my house. If you ask him "What's in your mouth?" he'll obediently spit out an entire slobbery set of four.)

ANYWAY. While there are easily 4,230,402,293 different building sets and minifigures to buy at this point, Lego has not expanded the line to include stuff like party favors or Halloween costumes. You know, because responsible consumerism and un-stifled creativity and also to be a tremendous pain in my ass.

Ezra started asking for a Green Ninja Halloween costume in August. August! Which gave me plenty of time to ignore that request and assume that he would TOTALLY move on and chose something else closer to Halloween. 

When he continued to insist on a Green Ninja costume in September, I gave in and started looking at our options. And lo, they were not good. He had no interest in any of the non-green ninja options. He could not be talked into a t-shirt and headband. Someone on Etsy made a nice-looking one, but wanted $150 for it. And while a single mass-produced unlicensed knock-off costume existed, it was 1) not particularly convincing (read: ugly as butt), 2) pretty expensive for a cheap-looking polyester unitard, and 3) ALREADY SOLD OUT ALMOST EVERYWHERE.

Goddamnit. 

Eventually my feeble peanut brain started working out a plan. I could buy a white karate uniform and dye it green. He could wear Noah's old green belt. I found a trick for turning a t-shirt into a ninja scarf. Add a gold-handled plastic pirate sword from a local costume shop and we were in business. Glorious, DIY craft-blogger business. 

(BECAUSE YEAH THAT'S JUST SO AMALAH.)

I shopped around until I found a 100% cotton karate uniform since that seemed more likely to dye evenly than one with polyester or nylon. This meant ordering it directly from some random martial arts website instead of Amazon, and it took FOREVER. When it arrived, I was concerned that the size chart had been a little...misleading, because it seemed awfully small for something that was supposed be a 4T. It fit, but only just. But there was no time to wait for an exchange to arrive, so as long as it didn't shrink, it should work. 

(FORESHADOWY FORESHADOWING.)

Ezra's school is having a Halloween party this Friday night, so it was time to finally execute my World's Greatest Mother Nobody Tells My Kid He Can't Be The Green Ninja Foolproof Plan.

I dyed it twice: the first application colored it beautifully and evenly, but was a bit on the lime-y side. Another dye bath deepened the color, but it still wasn't quite in Authentic Green Ninja Territory. It didn't even remotely match any of the half-dozen green t-shirts I rounded up from Ezra's closet, and clashed terribly with Noah's green belt. 

But still. I held out hope that if I could just get all the pieces on Ezra together that it would be convincing enough. That he'd be okay with just going as the Greenish Patchwork Ninja. Worst case, I figured, I'd have to spend the next couple days gluing or sewing some extra embellishments on it to better match the stupid minifigure.

Noah took one look at the sad pile of karate suit and announced, "That doesn't look like the Green Ninja." 

Ezra heard this and looked at the suit, then me, then repeated, "That doesn't look like the Green Ninja."

"What do you mean? Of course it does! Don't listen to Noah. Let's try it on."

We tried it on. 

It had shrunk. MASSIVELY. A questionable 4T was now a definitive 2T. The sleeves hit Ezra just past his elbows, an inch of belly showed above the waistband of the pants...which were of course way, way too short for him anyway. And all the various ties and drawstrings were now a weird bright blue color and completely distracting because there wasn't enough fabric to hide them anymore.

I started to attempt the cool t-shirt-as-ninja-hood trick, but at this point Ezra was shrieking and pulling at the too-tight everything and demanding I take it all off, he didn't like it, he didn't liiiiiiiiike it. 

So the bad news is that I have no costume for my kid and two days to come up with something. (I don't even have any workable hand-me-downs, as Noah was in full-on costume rebellion at this particular age/size, and apparently last year's chef costume is too big of a step down in awesomosity after months of Green Ninja promise.) After showing Ezra every possible option — Red Ninja! Black Ninja! Batman! Spiderman! Sexy Spiderman! — on Amazon Prime, I think he may be warming up to Captain America, or at least an overpriced polyester unitard version of him. WHATEVER.

The good news is that I now may very well have the perfect toddler-sized costume for Ike.

Poor kid. BUT SOMEONE MUST SUFFER AS I SUFFERED FOR THIS DAMN THING.

This Is the Birthday That Never Ends

After a few years of convincing our children that a visit from Grandma and Grandpa totally counts as a birthday party, we decided that we owed them a wee bit of a blowout. 

And so in accordance with our local traditions, we set two dozen or so children loose in a local inflatable thunderdome for a couple hours. 

Not to brag or anything, but this was THE birthday party to be at, at least between the hours of 1:00 and 2:45 pm. The next party started at three and was probably pretty much the same.

Slides, climbing, jumping, bouncing and the sounds of shrieking sweaty children hurling their bodies in every direction because everything is soft and squishy and WE ARE INVINCIBLE UNTIL SOMEBODY FACEPLANTS ON THE CARPET.

(So not kidding about the sweaty part. By the end of the party the children all looked like they'd just run through a car wash.)

Ike, who is — surprise, surprise — turning out to be absolutely FEARLESS, charmed our party hosts into taking him on every piece of equipment approximately 100 million times. After awhile they were just tossing him down the slide free-fall style while he shrieked in delight. 

After a couple hours it became clear that everybody was in dire need of a shitload of sugar.

Luckily we had some on hand. 

So. Okay. We decided on two cakes because 1) it would let us cover both sides of the oft-brutal chocolate vs. vanilla debate, 2) I was not sure I wanted Noah and Ezra crowding and elbowing each other just inches away from open flames, and 3) the bakery described these as "two small rounds," so why the heck not?

They ended up being easily twice as big as we were expecting, but also twice as BADASS AWESOME LOOKING.

Every little boy in attendance (and several of the girls) shrieked at the sight of GREEN NINJA CAKES and I was like, WINNING AT PARTIES AND PARENTHOOD. OR AT LEAST ORDER FORMS AT BAKERIES. 

(Ten minutes later one of those boys pointedly ask me why Noah "chose" to put a bunch of lame erasers in the goody bags, which of course were something I chose, so all coolness points were obviously immediately lost.)

(Though nobody can take away my awesome they-don't-make-licensed-Ninjago-party-merchandise sticker-application skillz.)

We killed one whole cake and about a third of the other. All the leftover slices are vanilla, which of course means they are naturally part of a balanced breakfast. 

So now the High Birthday Season is officially over around here. Until June, anyway, but luckily Ike still doesn't know that many people. Except Grandma and Grandpa. Those guys know how to party. 

Also:

Noah is in heaven. I am in some heavy-duty reinforced combat boots and mourning the official loss of the last uncluttered surfaces in the house. They belong to the Legos, now. Save yourselves. Have some cake.

Eat Like No One's Watching

It's easy to get a little melancholy around their birthdays...I spend a couple days going through photos and videos, watching them grow up in fast-forward mode, feeling alternately proud and wistful while absent-mindedly tugging the sagging, aging skin around my jawline over and up, like a fake facelift, because FOUR. He's FOUR. My baby is four.

So it's good know that some things haven't changed. Much. Yet.

That boy still enjoys the hell out of a good cupcake.

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate-chip cookies on top. Young minds, BLOWN.

And there it is.

It's like a choco-riffic autopsy.

However, he IS four years old now. So. You know.

Manners.

(Bonus flashback:)

(Aaaaaannnnndddd there's that melancholy all over again. Dang it. Somebody get me a cupcake.)

Four Going On Awesome

Today is Ezra's fourth birthday. Happy birthday, my funny little wonderful Zahbaby, and thanks for still letting me call you that.

He woke up insisting that no, he is NOT four. He is six and a half. He has been waiting his whole life to be six and a half, like Noah was. Apparently he thought once Noah turned seven, he could move into the six and a half spot, like claiming an older sibling's room once they head off to college. 

He's still a little grumpy about the whole topic. 

Which means it's time for me to queue up his favorite song in the whole word and dance with him around the kitchen to it, and then swing him around in circles until we're both dizzy. Then he'll wrap his body around my legs like a baby monkey and hug me as hard as he can, and I'll fall over, and the song will end and he'll leap on top of me and say, "AGAIN, MOMMY! I LOVE YOUR SHIRT AND THE GREEN NINJA AND NOAH AND I HAVE ON MY FAST SHOES. AGAIN!"

Works every time. 

Ezra's Fourth Birthday from amalah on Vimeo.
Ezra's Favorite Song in the Whole Word: "So Long" by Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward (from Winnie the Pooh) 

What's Black & White &...aw man this sucks

Well, which IS it, Cereal Box? WHICH IS IT?

Not all black and white? Or pretty black and white. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. STOP TOYING WITH ME. 

Especially in light of the National Zoo's devastating loss of the newborn panda cub this weekend. Which: No joke or snark, I am UPSET. I am feeling genuine feelings of feelingsosity and I don't like it. This goes against every word I've ever written about The Fucking Zoo and how it Fucking Sucks because it's Outside and Full Of Nature and Pooping Things and also Uphill In Every Possible Direction. But there it is. I am really terribly sad and bummed about the poor tiny wittle baby panda and the poor sad mama panda and DAMMIT, NATURE. YOU REALLY ARE THE WORST.

Also the worst: Me, for deciding to tell Noah about the baby panda yesterday morning, while he pondered the above cereal box and asked questions about pandas and hey! Speaking of pandas! There's a brand-new miracle panda baby at the zoo that we can maybe go see in a couple months!

And of course Noah — since he is NOT a bitter jaded Zoo-person like his mother who thinks the pandas are kind of overrated and not worth the line because they just SIT THERE and chew on leaves while the tourists are all OMFG PANDAS PANDAS PANDAS — thought this sounded excellent! Very exciting! Can we go today? Tomorrow? Today? 

I totally jinxed that poor baby panda and I feel terrible about it. And now I have to decide between telling my child the truth or inventing a cover story about how the baby panda went to go live on a nice big wide-open bamboo farm in China. 

***

Ugh. This is too depressing for a Monday. Let's look at some pictures instead, from earlier in the weekend when life was happy and fun and baby pandas lived forever.

BONUS OF WHAT THE ACTUAL LIVING HELL, STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, NOT-SO-BABY IKE: