pork roast

Although I love cooking and love experimenting with many international recipes, I'd never actually done a pork roast. Probably due to the fact that it's a large chunk of meat and untill recently, we were only 2 people to eat it. Now with Kevin starting to eat meat on a regular basis, we at least have 2.5 people eating meat. Maybe also because it seems a little old-fashioned. It's the type of thing my grandmother used to make, not quite the modern thai and sushi dishes that are so popular now.

My husband forced my hand today when he brought home a huge slab of pork from the grocery store. As a typical digital woman, I went straight to www.epicurious.com to find some recipes and was not dissapointed.

I tried the Tuscan-style pork roast. It's super simple. All that's required are garlic, rosemary, salt & pepper, the pork and patience (~ 3 hours).... but the results were stunning. After about 1 hour, the house started to smell heavenly (at least if you like the scent of garlic & rosemary cooking), and when we sat down to table, the roast was succulent, full of flavor and aromatic.

I'll have to try more of the old staples.

Groenten

Hoera, hoera, hoera.

Kevin heeft vanavond voor de eerste keer in weken weer eens degelijk groenten gegeten. Hij is al altijd stapelzot op fruit. Het maakt niet uit wat: ananas, peren, druiven, avocados, frambozen, bosbessen, appelsienen....hij verorbert het zonder problemen. Maar voor groenten trekt hij zijn neus op. Het zal wel aan het verschil in natuurlijk suikergehalte tussen groenten en fruit ligggen.

We bleven (en blijven) hem natuurlijk wel groenten als deel van de maaltijd presenteren, maar meestal laat hij die gewoon liggen. Om een of andere reden echter had hij vanavond ontzettend veel zin in mais. In tegenstelling tot vorige dagen at hij niet alleen alle groeten op, maar vroeg om meer....je zal het maar begrijpen...

White

I just got back from the Sundance Film Festival where I had the opportunity to go skiing at the Deer Valley ski resort. I'm not sure what it is about pure white snow and high altitude, but to me, it just makes everything look so peaceful.



Maybe it's the quiet, the solitude. when you stand on top of the mountain and there is only the slight sound of the wind.
Maybe it's the pristine look and untouched feeling of pure white color. Maybe it's the coolness of the snow. Maybe it's the absence of any distractions at the apex of the mountains, or the amazing vistas.

Regardless of why, it puts things in perspective and calms you down. It helps to prioritize.
Despite the physical exertion of skiing, you feel reborn afterwards.
Don't worry, I'm not going to get religious on you, that's not my thing, but there is something spiritual about untouched nature, and it's nice to get back to it on a regular basis to remind us of what's important.

On to better things

I'm happy to report that Kevin's fully recovered and none the worse from his bout with walking pneumonia. I celebrated this with a couple of glasses of the 2005 Beaujolais Nouveau yesterday.

I admit, it's late in the season to try it out for the first time. When I was living in Europe, we had the traditional 'le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrive' party in October. Alas, this is North Carolina, and I lack the wine-connaiseur friends here to go out and celebrate the wine's arrival (that, and there is no public transport here to get safely home afterwards:-).... Eventhough it was in the comforts of my own home and not in a chic bistro, I still enjoyed the wine. It wasn't the best Beaujolais Nouveau I'd had in my life, but very drinkable. Cheers!

I'm off to Salt Lake City for the next 3 days for the Sundance Film Festival. I've never been before and quite looking forward to it. Not sure on how good internet connectivity will be from there, but will try to send you some snapshots.

walking pneumonia

It's official. Kevin's got walking pneumonia....

As this is the our encounter with this bug, the initial diagnosis scared me. 'pneumonia' conjours up all kinds of nasty images of long bed rest, hospitalization, weeks of sickness, etc....fortunately it turns out that 'walking' pneumonia is a very mild type that doesn't require weeks of bed rest.

Amazing what you learn when you become parents...no wonder so many parents become semi-bratty know-it-alls. As a parent, one does in fact collect lot's of trivial and not so trivial knowledge about all things related to bodies, sleep, food digestions and developmental steps..maybe they should give parents (mothers) college credit for this. Might help with perceived notion mothers/fathers/homemakers don't do/learn anything anymore...

Bug Season

't is the season....for children's bugs. We were almost to the 2 month mark of Kevin not being sick, but alas, 't was not to be. He just succumbed to pinkeye and a general cold/flu like bug.

I was looking forward to a nice, easy weekend with some long family walks and dinners. Instead, I've been puked on twice, and have spend most of the time rocking a whiny, feverish little bundle...I don't mind it, I just wish there was more I could do. Other than giving him some Tylenol for the fever and holding him near, there's litte I can do. I hope he gets better soon. It just tugs at my heart to see him so miserable.

Outdated transport

Here's something I still don't get. Why do schoolbusses in the US remain unchanged since the sixties when are so many better, more updated and comfortable bus models available?

Every morning when I drop Kevin off at his day-care school, I see the old, yellow, squeeky schoolbusses drive kids to school. Honestly, If you'd judge the country by the schoolbusses, you wouldn't think you're in the number 1 internet/tech country in the world. I realize the look of the busses is somewhat iconic, but they could easily preserve a similar style on a modern bus.

I just don't get it.

Pizza

Kevin is gefascineerd door pizza, ttz door het woord 'pizza'. Als je hem vraagt 'wat eet je graag?', dan zegt hij zo direkt 'pizza'. Als je hem echter pizza geeft, dan eet hij er meestal niet zo veel van. Het heeft wellicht meer te maken met John's liefde voor pizza, dan Kevin's.

Grappig is ook dat alle gerechten die rond en warm zijn voor Kevin qualificeren als 'pizza': quiche, quesadillas, taart. Deze avond aten we een hapje bij Qdobba, een mexicaans restaurant, en Kevin zei de hele tijd 'pizza, pizza...' en was superenthousiast over zijn quesadillas, maar na een paar hapjes had hij er al genoeg van en begon met de ijsblokjes te spelen....een kinderhand is gauw gevuld.

Vocabulary Sponge

After watching watching the New Year's firework, Kevin came up with his unique translation of 'vuurwerk' or 'firework'. It's 'boom, boom, boom'. And I agree with him. It's an altogether more appropriate term.

Overall, his language acquisition is going really well. He is soaking up new words every day like a sponge. He loves repeating new words. Just this morning, I served him some fruit for breakfast and told him 'dat is lekkere mango' (in English: 'that is yummy mango') and he parrotted 'mango', 'mango'. Then this evening, I was loggin into the company's network with the security token and I told him: 'dat is de code' (that the token/code) and he again repeated 'code', 'code'.

I am careful only to speak Dutch to him, and my husband only speaks English. It's not always easy for me. I have to switch back and forth between speaking English to my husband (who doesn't speak Dutch) and Dutch to Kevin. But the consistency to Kevin is paying off. It keeps him from being confused. He knows I speak one type of language and daddy speaks another and he understands us both. Even before he started using words, he was able to respond to my questions in Dutch such as 'waar is het schilderij?'(where is the painting) and 'toon es je neus' (point to your nose).

And now that he's using single words and the odd two-word sentence, he does so both in Dutch and English. I'd say he uses slightly more English words than Dutch right now, probably a 60/40 split, which I think is not bad, considering he hears much more English at the school and from other people. It's funny, teaching Kevin Dutch has actually taught my husband much more Dutch than he used to know. He now repeatedly uses Dutch words and mixes them in his sentences, like he'll say to Kevin: "did vava go bye bye in the airplane, in het vliegtuig?'.

I'm not sure yet if Kevin's Dutch language development will keep up with the English one. I hope so. So far, it does not seem like it's lagging that far behind. I just think that I have to keep at it by reading a lot to him and exposing him to a lot of new Dutch words. A lot of studies have shown that if kids hear a large vocabulary as this age, that that makes a huge difference in how their brain pathways develop and that it gives them an advantage, so I believe we are doing the right thing. I hear from so many people here that they wish that they had learned another language when they were younger, so I think it's giving Kevin an advantage. Plus I somehow couldn't imagine not being able to speak to my son in my own mothertongue. It would also break my father's heart. He's crazy about his 2 grandkids and couldn't imagine not being able to talk to one of them.

I believe consistency is key. If the kids can easily make out who speaks what, then there's no confusion. It's when languages are mixed that you run into problems. I see this with a friend of ours. She's Dutch, married to a Britt and she speaks both English and Dutch to her 2 kids (one's 5 and one's 2). Surprise, surprise, they favor English. They can speak some Dutch, but not well and they mix the languages. So far, Kevin's not done that. When he's reading a book with me, he stays in Dutch mode and says e.g. 'zon', 'maan', 'appel', 'ja', 'bo(ven), 'vliegtuig', 'tas', etc. There are some terms he persists in English, such as 'bankie (for blankie), but there aren't many and he does understand the Dutch word for it too. In these cases, I think it's because the Dutch word is a lot harder ('dekentje') and he isn't able to pronounce it yet.

Only time will tell, but I think we're on the right track.

Much Progress

I am so proud of Kevin. He is nearly fully potty trained, after just 1 week! This may not seem like much of a feat to people without kids, but those with kids will be able to appreciate the milestone.

As a true engineer, I did quite a bit of reading on the subject before embarking on the whole training. I was amazed to find out that untill the 1900s most kids were potty trained by 2 or 3 months of age. I didn't even know that was possible, but is appears this is very easy to do, and is still the way the vast majority of children in many parts of the world (asia, afrika, latin america) is trained..

Then in the 20th century came the advent of disposable diapers, more women staying home with kids longer and a couple of pediatricians endorsing the diaper industry claims that it's healthy for kids to be in diapers till they are 'ready' at 3, 4 or even 5 years of age...and so the western world became full of toddlers who had the competence to use the facilities without problems, but who stayed in diapers, in contact with their own waste, for months and years out of sheer ignorance...sad.

Determined not to let this happen and armed with the book 'toilet training in less than 1 day', I set out to train Kevin last Saturday. Kevin is now 1 year and 9 months, and does really well at responding to requests and commands without too many tantrums so he was at a good stage for toilet training. It took a bit of persistance to keep at it: practicing walking to the potty, taking down pant, peeing, pulling up pants, emptying the potty...for hours while constantly praising and encouraging Kevin is no-one's idea of a relaxing day, but wouldn't you know it: It actually worked!!! We went out later that afternoon for new year's eve celebrations without diapers and did not have a problem. My husband had been really sceptical about the possibility of training our son in just one day, having heard that it usually takes weeks if not months, but he was pleasantly surprised too and even apologized about the skepticism.

The only little snag came on Tuesday and Wednesday at the day-care school. For some reason, Kevin refused to go on the potty there for those 2 days, but then on Thursday 'got it' and did not have any accidents at all. Today, Friday, he only had one accident there...the teachers are both very excited about so much progress in so little time and also a little amazed. Most mothers in the US these days wait till their kids are older than 2, often 3 or older, but then it's a lot harder as the kids are more stubborn and have been unused to controlling their bladder for much longer, so it harder physically too.

I know we're not fully there yet with Kevin. We still need to work on the nap and nightime routine. So far, we haven't switched to underpants for tose yet, but most experts say that if the kids develop a good daytime routine, then the sleep routine will develop spontaneously not long thereafter.

For those with young kids in doubt, I highly recommend starting early rather than later, and recommend the book. It was writting in the 70s, so some language and references are a bit dated, but the training is still fully valid and works...and as they say in that l'oreal commercial: It's worth it!

A Different Point of View

About a week ago, we went to see Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol at NC State, performed by Actor's Comedy Lab.

Everyone's of course familiar with Dickens' traditional Christmas Carol with Ebenezer Scrooge as the protagonist. This one is shown from the point of view of Jacob Marley. Recall, it was Marley's ghost who first visited scrooge and who haunted the tight-fisted fellow. In this version, it's Marley who's doing the talking.

The play is done in a very minimalist type of setting, with only some walking planks as set, without any costumes to speak of and with only the talents of 4 actors to entertain you. Yet, when well done (and this was) it's a very powerful and moving play. A bit corny (yes, the message is still that it's never too late to redeem oneself), but much less so than the traditional version. More up to date, much more fun, with a lot of dry wit added into it. I especially like the no-nonsense approach: black canvass and the actors and the script have to do the work. That's real theatre to me. Seeing as these plays are very seasonal, it probably won't be put on again till next year, but if you have the chance to see it then, I give it two thumbs up.

In general, we've been very happy with the performances at NC State. Overall, the Triangle does not boast much high quality theatre to speak off, but the offerings at NC State and Raleigh's Little Theatre deserve to be pointed at as bucking that trend. True, Chappel Hill is usually more know for its artists and intellectual qualities. Unfortunately this doesn't extend to most performances at UNC's Playmakers Repertory theatre which needs to get the stick out of it ass and get on with the 21th century. I'm not usually a fan of the city of Raleigh, but in this case, they win from rivalling Chapel Hill.

Here's to plenty more good theatre in 2006!

New Year's Resolution?

Happy New Year !

It's that time of year. Resolutions time. I'm all for goal setting and working towards things rather than just ambling along and wondering why you got where you got...so here's my first resolution for 2006: I will drink better wine!

I'm still working on the rest of the list. If you have input. Let me know.