Approved – Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I think my kids are growing again. They keep eating. Five minutes after eating, they want to eat some more. Brian’s jeans are probably ok, because we bought them really big, but Honor… I think I’ll be shopping again, and soon. Another pair, barely used, has been outgrown. I usually have to shop online too. These guys are very tall, getting taller, and very skinny. It’s HARD to find pants that go all the way to their ankles, yet are small enough for their waists… even with those adjustable tabs. I’d have to spend hours scouring shops here to have any luck clothing them, whereas I know the sizes of Old Navy, LL Bean, JC Penney, etc. so I’ll hope for some good holiday sales online. I just can’t believe we may not make it through the winter in the clothes we bought this past August!

Keeping these hungry beings fed, with regular food, is easy. They aren’t too terribly picky and will eat their regular meals no problem. Snacks are trickier, esp. when it comes to school snacks that are fairly healthy, low in sugar (I’m not depriving them of sweets, but I don’t send candy, chips or frosted cupcakes, etc), and easy to transport without being smushed and wasted (you know, for those days when they decide to eat nothing, because there is no such thing as consistency!). Well, I sometimes bake and send them off with cookies, but they’re going to be oatmeal cookies, or full of fruit or something. Often they get a variety of cereal bars. I have also been trying different muffins. My banana bread, in muffin form, is the favorite, but I found the following Apple Cinnamon Muffin recipe yesterday, and the kids loved the results.

I subscribe to this blog: Taste Spotting which highlights interesting looking recipes, and it linked to this blog where you’ll find the actual recipe: Apples & Almonds 

Of course, the recipe called for using separate bowls, then adding half of the one mix to the other, then blending, then adding more… blah blah blah… I don’t always listen when told to do things… I was in a hurry and just added the wet ingredients, mixed. Added the dry, mixed. Added the apples. Ta-daa! Worked just fine. I used one red apple (McIntosh, I think) and one granny smith (and I didn’t peel them either, I like the tartness of the peel bits in muffins, not to mention the color). The recipe said “Makes 12” so I made only 12 (see, I *can* listen, sometimes). I bet I could have made them smaller and got 18 muffins. The important thing is, the kids LOVED them! Ok, they did say that I should add more cinnamon, but they love cinnamon, so I am not surprised.

Both ate one banana muffin and TWO of these monster apple muffins for breakfast this morning, and then asked to have another in their lunch boxes. Where’s my credit card? LL Bean jeans shop, here I come…

The Saddest Thing

There are a lot of sad things about Harry Potter… it’s a dark, forbidding tale of woe and danger. There are also grand moments of heroism, magic, and true friendship, and I highly recommend the books to adults and children, but the sad moments abound. Go ahead, those who have read and watched, think about it and try to choose. There is a plethora of misery to pick through.

We watched the first movies in the series this past weekend with the kids. Brian has watched and paid attention to them before, but for Honor, 7yo, who watches movies very haphazardly (much like her mom) this was really the first time that she’s sat through them. She enjoyed the movies very much, is looking forward to the new ones now too, and was very tickled to report to me today that her teacher had asked kids in her class what they’d done on break, and nearly everyone said that they’d watched the movies too. Some said they went to the theatre, which I take to mean that the newest one is being shown here. I haven’t been to the mall recently, so this is (good) news to me.

One thing that confused Honor, was why the kids packed their bags, got on a train, and had bedrooms at the school. When the story in the first movie reached the point of the children going home for Christmas break, she was totally confused. I had to explain boarding school. She was horrified. Yea… me too. That’s my ‘saddest thing’ when it comes to each and every one of the Harry Potter books and movies. I’ll stop right now and apologize to anyone this might offend, but I can’t help it. I’m an attachment parenting advocate and sending children away to be raised by quasi-parents, possibly disinterested or dysfunctional teachers, and god knows what kind of peers, well, that tears at everything I believe in.

Sure, boarding school might be a blessing to some, in the way a well-run orphanage or foster care system might be. Harry Potter definitely benefitted by being removed from an abusive home. Most kids though are ‘regular’ kids from ‘regular’ families. Why put them in an institution for most of their childhood and adolescence?? 

Honor thought it was downright criminal. She interrogated me with the imagination and exaggeration that only a second grader (or a second grader’s parent) might really comprehend. Part logic, part far-stretching maybes. Would the school tell them that the child had to stay? What if they didn’t tell the parent and the child got on the train and couldn’t come home? What if they told them the child would come home, but lied? She was about to lawyer up and go after Dumbledore herself. I was not a very good representative for the defense. All I could say was that the parents would know, and most likely, would have to voluntarily pay for, the child to go to school and not come home again except on holidays.

She was appalled.

Me too.

Think about it. The child has no idea what to expect (unless they have older siblings there). No trusted adults to talk to, and all that can be hoped for is random good guys, although it is also likely that they’ll end up with the uncaring (Snape) or evil (Filch, Umbrage) authority figures. Elder students are given authority over the younger – elder students who may be bullies, or too busy struggling with their own issues to bother with the needs of others. Kids raising kids? Peers raising each other? No hugs as they get off the bus in the evening? No parental help with homework or social issues? No special wake-up on birthdays, no bedtime tuck-in, or after nightmare snuggles, or other little day-to-day love affirmations? And what about the issues children go through as they reach puberty and head into their teens and young adulthood?? As Honor would say… “But! What if…???!!”

Appalling.

If Hogwarts were a day school, perhaps there would be fewer Deatheaters in that particular world.

Random Chaos

The kids are off to school. Husband is off to work. I’m finished with my breakfast, drinking my coffee, and planning my day. I hope it smoothes out a bit. It’s not been a BAD day (well, morning, it’s only 10-ish) but it’s been a bit too interesting for the first day of the week after a holiday weekend.

The kids were tired this morning. Too much staying up late this weekend. Couldn’t help it. AFN was running a marathon of the first six Harry Potter movies, two per night, which ended at 10pm. We didn’t let the kids stay up for the sixth movie last night, but their schedules were off and getting up this morning was not as easy as usual. Still, they got up and going well. I even remembered to tell them to put their shoes on before going in their bathroom in case the pipes had leaked more. Brian also practiced his book talk (oral book report) after breakfast with me.

O yea… first work order of the week... Repair busted water pipe under the kids’ sink. It looks like the sealant was simply old, died, and turned to dust. Possibly hastened by the warmth of the radiators we only recently turned on. Should be an easy fix. While placing towels under the sink, which she did before she even came to tell us about the mess… she’s so responsible!… Honor found a huge hunk of glass. Looks like it came from one of the glass blocks that fill the outside wall. No idea how it could have broken as the spot it came from is 12ft up in the air, behind the wall a bit (Hard to explain, but it isn’t anything that we could have hit). I’ll point it out to the facilities guys, but I doubt there’s anything to do about it. This place is so run down. The building is old and crappy. Ugly paint, ugly tiles, etc. Cracking glass blocks are no surprise. I wouldn’t want to move. Not at all. I like living here as it’s very ‘livable’ in so many ways and I like the layout better than most of the modern apartments I’ve been in locally. BUT, some days, I really don’t like looking too closely at things. If it were ours, I’d say we were 10 years past due for a serious facelift.

Anyway, the second work order of the week is the radiators. We had the heat turned on last week and have since discovered that three of the radiators will not turn on/off. In my personal experience, and this house is no exception, there are only two settings for radiators. On or Off. ON equals either “Just right” or “Too hot”. OFF equals “Just right” or “Too cold”. There is a real need to be able to turn the radiators off or on if the “just right” temperature is not happening. Believe me, I’ve tried adjusting the knobs for a setting somewhere between too hot and too cold but it doesn’t exist. It’s actually a pretty good system. I like radiators (we have them near our towel racks…  mmm! warm towels!) and I like the warm pipes that feed them as they run through the floors and make the marble tiles warm, but we do need the on/off function to actually work! Right now, we have two radiators stuck on ‘OFF’ and one (in the kitchen near the oven!) stuck ‘ON’.

What else? After putting the kids on the bus this morning, the bawab called me over and pointed to the truck. We had a flat tire. It had been needing air too often, but today, it was flat. I got Brad, and we went out to work on it, but our bawab (he is awesome!) and the guard took over and changed the tire for us. It’s nice to be looked after so well. We’ll have to get the tire repaired later today. We’re probably due for a couple of new ones anyway.

The flat tire may have been a good thing this morning anyway. As Brad came in, finished getting ready, and was getting ready to leave the house (only slightly delayed) there was a loud screeching noise and a crash. Brad saw the accident on his way out. It was only a block up, on the street that parallels ours. Problem is, that road also parallels the main busy road one more block up. Morons pull into our neighborhood and race down that road trying to cut around traffic. That intersection is one you have to inch forward into to make sure nobody is speeding through… if you don’t know to pull forward carefully, you’ll get t-boned, which is obviously what happened this morning. I’m glad Brad wasn’t in the area when it happened. I foresee large speed bumps in the near future.

After Brad left, the rest of my morning progressed in a fairly normal manner. Except for the cat jumping in the shower with me. Pumpkin lost track of his fear of water when he was overwhelmed with curiosity over the gurgle-y noises the drain was making. He was actually under the spray, almost to the drain, when he remembered that he does NOT like getting wet and leapt out. I was thankful to survive the incident without being climbed. I love that these cats love and trust me enough to run and jump into my arms when they need or want to…. but when I’m nekkid in the shower is not the time I want to be catching a fully armed (clawed) wet, panicked cat! I’m picky that way.

That’s enough randomness for now. I think I shall refill my coffee and spend the next hour or so doing some nice, calm, safe, online shopping.