7 Quick Takes on cooking, Michael the duck whisperer, and old photos

And for more quick takes, visit Kathryn at Team Whitaker.

1.

I recently realized that this equation:  Hannah’s proficiency in the kitchen + newborn coming = excellent opportunity to have Hannah make some meals.  This post by another mom with older kids and a young baby inspired me, and I suggested to Hannah that she might enjoy planning and making a dinner.  She was enthusiastic, so Hannah made dinner for us Thursday night.  Seared cod with gazpacho salsa and tomato vinaigrette.  It was delicious!  And she also made dessert, because why would one have an opportunity to make dessert and not do it?  She made white chocolate pudding with blackberry curd.  The pudding didn’t gel as she expected, so she ended up freezing it.  It was also tasty.

2.

#1 gave us learning opportunities.  Hannah was really disappointed when she discovered the pudding hadn’t gelled.  Really disappointed.  Then she was irritated with me because I didn’t know of any helps for non-gelled pudding.  (I don’t think I’ve made pudding from scratch, ever.)  It took a little while for her to realize that her irritation with me was actually disappointment about the pudding, and being disappointed about the pudding was something I was glad to work with, whereas having her irritatedly yell at me was not.  But we got there, even fairly calmly, and she’s now vowed to MAKE PUDDING UNTIL SHE CAN DO IT WELL.  But next time it’s going to be regular chocolate, because white chocolate isn’t as good as she’d expected.  I have no objections.

3.

 We like your husband.  Not you.

Michael, because he is a generous and loving soul, offered to close up the duck house Thursday night when the time came.  Did I mention he’s generous and loving?  I told him I’d help if they weren’t in yet, but they’ve been very good about going in at dusk.  He went out and came back in a few minutes later.  “They weren’t in their house.”  Oh.  So then I started to get up to help him herd them in.  “But I just herded them in.”  Um, what?  Whenever I go out there and try to herd them into their house, they act like I’m trying to herd them into the lion’s jaws.  Yep.  The ducks love Michael and don’t like me. 

4.

I’ve been working on some old photo projects, because it’s obvious that these projects are what are keeping the baby from being born.  What baby can be born into a house in which there are outstanding photo projects?!  Seriously.  So…I’ve been looking at lots of old photos.  Like this one:

Hannah’s First Communion, while I was pregnant with Tess. 

5.

One of the outstanding projects is photo compilations from Tess’s first three years.  So I’ve been seeing lots of baby Tess:

Totally cute.  And she had no hair. 

Which makes her hair situation now look like she’s got a ton. 

6.

We have a rule at the table:  no shooting people.  The shooting is, of course, pretend, but I don’t want to say, “No pretend shooting people,” because I don’t want anyone really shooting people at the table, either.  I’ll give you one guess which child was the one who made us come up with this rule.  It’s one I have to repeat a surprising number of times.

7.

One benefit of being past the due date with this baby is that we don’t actually have anything planned.  So when friends called Friday morning and asked if we wanted to have dinner with them that evening, we could say yes.  That turned out to be a lot of fun.  We hadn’t seen them in a while, and it was great to catch up.  Our kids all had fun playing together and we were tricked into staying fairly late by the long hours of daylight.  A good way to start the summer.

…But I’m still ready to have the baby.  :)