I love my son

Just sayin'.  He is the sweetest, most beautiful, delicious boy thing that has ever existed.  I didn't get to spend much time with him today and he is asleep now.  Asleep in his own bed...lately he has been wanting to sleep there.  I worked for months to get him to sleep there and give us some room back in our bed, but now I miss his warm little body, I miss hearing his breath.  I still have to get up in the night to make sure he is breathing....I used to check like a 100 times per night, but now just a couple.


I love my son. So inadequate for this feeling.

Daily Lunch Box

This is actually a lunch from last week, before my camera died and I couldn't find the charger.

Fresh Mozzarella Cheese, on pumpernickel bread, with a drizzle of olive oil
Raisins
Snap Pea crisps
Tomatoes (they are in season, and all of their deliciousness is to be found at the Farmer's Market! I am thinking of some gazpacho I want to make!)
Edamame

This lunch was a bit of an experiment...and one that didn't really go well.  B has decided that he does not like tomatoes!  Alas! Alack!  Who is this son of mine?  Surely this is only a phase and he will come to his senses soon!  He also didn't eat the edamame or the cheese!  The edamame I can understand, but why my son refuses delicious Mozzarella cheese I could not tell you, especially since he eats every other kind of cheese imaginable!  He did eat the bread though.

Pea & Basil Soup and Thunderstorms

I had the most delicious (and healthy) dinner tonight.  Pea & Basil Soup over some quinoa, with a swirl of basil pesto....mmmmmm...I want more just thinking of it.  It was actually very simple to make...some onion and garlic in olive oil for about a minute, added the peas (I used frozen ones that I wanted to get rid of, but would be even better if they were fresh...) cooked for a few minutes, until the peas were bright green, added about 2 cups of water and some salt and pepper then covered and let it simmer for about 5 or 6 minutes.  Blended in a handful of fresh basil with the immersion blender, poured it over the quinoa and added a spoonful of some delicious pesto I made this weekend (also very easy to do, something I did not realize until very recently) 

I would have taken a picture of it, but the charger for my camera has been missing for about a week now, instead here is another picture from our vacation.  My Mom and Baby Boy were watching a thunderstorm out the window of her house.  There was actually a tornado warning in the city this week!, but I didn't even realize it until the next day. Obviously we are all okay! In Kentucky, where I grew up, tornados are common, and every spring you have to watch the weather carefully.  I used to love the storms, the sky would go from bright to dark in minutes and then the rain would start coming down in sheets.  Our whole family would sit on the front porch, watching the rain, ready with blankets and food to dash down to the basement should the storm get dangerous... it was nice in the basement too, we would play card games and wait for the storm to blow over.  I'm glad B got to watch a storm with his Grandma.

PS  Happy Birthday Grampa!  I was going to post a picture of you and B from our visit, but you seemed to avoid my camera all week.  Love you though!

I love these boys!

Was going to post about our vacations, but after a morning of laundry, a full day of fun with BFF, and dinner with Aunt S, I'm too tired.  So here are some pics of the boys hanging out.  Really what is there not to love?  and they love each other so much....nothing sweeter!

Where have we been?

Well first we were on vacation: Tennesse to visit my parents, then the Northfork with BFF and family...and then my sister bought a place and had 10 days to move, and 12 days before my Dad and Step-mom got here...and in the midst of all of that I put together a kid's room for a client...and have another project in construction.  Baby Boy liked the vacations, but has been less fond of his distracted Mother.  Yesterday we played in the sprinklers after school and then his Daddy brought home Sorry (the board game)  so today we sat in the air-conditioning (mostly)  and cleaned his room and played Sorry....oh and I took an hour long nap while Bowie played Batman (he was supposed to be napping with me, but only I fell asleep)

OIL SPILL

Okay, okay, I shouldn't follow up that last post with this....I try to keep my personal blog on a lighter note and also things like the oil spill make me feel not just sad, but helpless.  I don't own a car (which is not to say I never drive, and I live in NY which makes it easier for me, I realize this is not a choice everyone can make)  I try to buy local and vintage, both for myself and my clients (though I definitely have a little bit of an IKEA addiction) and I avoid petroleum based products (did you know crayolas are made with petroleum?) but I can't clean up the gulf.  I am a decorator not an engineer.  I am a mother not a politician, and over the last several years, though of course I continue to vote, I feel like the system is so corrupt that means very little.  So I just feel helpless.  I sign petitions and read and try to educate myself and my son, but seriously, there are dead dolphins and they are cleaning it up with paper towels.  Thanks? Mother Jones reporter Mac Mccleeland for kayaking into the oil-filled gulf to get some truth on camera.

Thoughts on Food While In TN

No photo here.  I am down south visiting my parents, both of whom have type 2 diabetes.  For all of my thoughts on food and pictures of what I serve my son, I live in a place where most of the parents and children I hang with take it as a matter of course not to feed their children fast food and high-fructose corn syrup.  You would probably be ostracized from the play-group if you gave your child a sip of soda, but here all of those things are a way of life for children and adults alike.  I am not making a blanket, biased statement, I am saying this based on very unscientific observation and a lot of reading.  I don't think there are any parents who set out to feed their children (and themselves) poison, but they (all of us really) are victims of not just un-education, but actual mis-education, an under-funded, under-staffed FDA put up against companies with massive ad budgets.  Even the companies serving organic are part of the system.  They just discovered lead in juice, in brands running the gamut from organic to big company, and no one knows how it got there!  What chance do our children have of growing up to be healthy in this environment?  To borrow the words of Jamie Oliver, we need a revolution!

Also, I just found this blog, a lot of interesting articles.

Daily Lunch Box

Banana
Broccoli
Snappea Crisps
Cheese Tortellini with olive oil and Parmesan cheese

This was another popular lunch...though B did not eat the broccoli.  The  banana is a lot, and I usually try to avoid sending them with his lunch.  Though nanas do have some good stuff in them (and they are delicious!) they also have a lot of sugar! which makes B a little crazy.

Peacock Butt

 

I couldn't resist one last picture from our trip to the Bronx Zoo last week. I don't think I have ever noticed the back of a peacock's tail....I find the structure amazing! Not as technicolor as the front, but certainly as beautiful. Not many animals that are as beautiful from the ass as they are from the front, but because peacocks are so beautiful from the front here is that pic also:

Daily Lunch Box

Sliced Jack Cheese
Broccoli
Sesame Bread Sticks (these were an experiment, B keeps begging for those gross, little, chemical-laden Snackables, the ones with the fake cheese spread and bread sticks, which the grocery store displays at kid eye-level. Anyhoo, before I let my rant go to far, I tried to make him his own, and made a sort of pimento-esque cheese spread for him, but he, of course, refused to eat it.  The breadsticks I bought to go in his fake lunchables he likes however.)
Blackberries

This was super easy to throw together, the only thing that even took a tiny bit of doing was steaming up the frozen broccoli.  Successful as well.  B ate almost everything.

Vintage Table

I like this table, spotted at the sidewalk cafe of Five Leaves.  The picture really doesn't do it justice (man I need a better camera!) but it has a great patina of age, under the green you can see spots of mustard-yellow, and deep red.
I really like this restaurant in general, beautiful, amazing decor and I could eat their home-made ricotta cheese every night.

Daily Lunch Box

Jack Cheese
Hard-Boiled Egg
Strawberries (now at the Farmer's Market!)
Red Grapes
Snap Pea Crisps (oh my god, if you have never had these, go out and buy a bag right now, delicious for children and adults alike)

This lunch was a little heavy on the fruit and nary a grain in sight, but B ate almost all of it...except for the egg yolk, came back perfectly intact minus the white.  How did he do that?

The Bronx Zoo

Do you ever have one of those of days? One of those days where you realize you are the crazy Mom yelling at your kid, and talking to your kid, even the things he wants to do, is like talking to a brick wall and you just want to lock yourself in a room for a while? Well B and I are having one of those days and right now he is laying on the floor of his room playing (after a no nap day) and I am sitting here on the computer. So instead of dwelling here are a whole bunch of pictures of a beautiful day we had at the Bronx Zoo earlier this week when B's godfather was visiting from Chicago.

Waiting for the Reveal

I have been watching this house for a while, in fact I am sure I have a bunch of pictures I never posted somewhere......Underneath that tarp it had been peeled completely back to the original facade...then it just sat there for months, freed of the vinyl siding, but no work. (I wonder if they were doing work without a permit and got shut down?) Walked by the other day and it was completely covered up.  I can't wait to see what happens!  Probably something hideous....but all that work makes me feel hopeful.

Mother's Day with Baby Boy--a really delayed posting

Sometimes things sit on my desktop for a while waiting to be posted.  Take this gold chocolate shoe for instance; this is what B picked out from Jaques Torres to give me for Mother's Day.  Odd, but delicious (FYI: it was real gold dust)

Rat Houses

Made In Brooklyn

Everyone seems to have moved on to ICFF (which I didn't attend this year, just so big! felt overwhelmed and figured everyone would blog about it!) but I just ran across this bike rack I saw at Brooklyn Designs.  So cool, especially in a long narrow NY hallway.

Seriously, someone go buy this awesome vintage Creative Playthings Kitchen

It's at Junk, on Driggs and No 9th, $50, great shape.  Seriously though, been there for over six months and every time I go there I want to buy it, and we really, really, really don't need it (especially since we already have an awesome vintage toy kitchen!)

East Village Edition

 

I've mentioned before that I lived in the East Village for several years (well back then it was still called Alphabet City and people were still shooting up on doorsteps, but that is another story) This store front is on 2nd Ave, and I find it very comforting. Even as fancy restaurants, little expensive boutiques, and big fancy condo buildings have overtaken the neighborhood (the old CBGBs is a John Varvatos store for God's sake!) this place has remained exactly the same, right down to the really dirty Spiderman sheets hanging in the storefront window.  I kinda want the Spiderman sheets.

Balthaup Kitchen

That wardrobe reminded me of this amazing kitchen storage system from Balthaup which I covet, but will probably never be able to afford. I do have a few friends, that if they ever build their dream kitchens, I might point the way to this....or next time I have a really large budget to do a client's kitchen.