One Small Christmas Tradition

A few years ago my wife and I stumbled upon a vendor in New York City who sold these great leather bound books filled with gorgeous Dickensian paper inside. We immediately decided to purchase one for each of our children. I think it was my wife who had the idea for me to write a story in each one for Christmas - and so a little Christmas tradition was born. The kids have enjoyed it and it makes me happy to give them something that won't end up in the garbage or at the bottom of the toy box (hopefully).

Sometimes I try to deliver a message or a bit of subtle parenting into the story. Other times I just write something like this which is the poem I wrote from my Lego-crazed son this year:

Legos Legos Everywhere

“Why are there Legos on the chair?”

“Why are there Legos over there?”

“Why are there Legos in your sister’s hair?”

Joey’s father was not happy

He told Joey to make it snappy

And clean up his Legos before he went batty

So Joey did what his father told him

And cleaned up the Legos so his father would not scold him

He scooped up the Legos from the chair

And checked for extras in his underwear

He even picked out the pieces from his sister’s hair!

When he was done his father was pleased

“Now it’s time for you to clean the bathroom,” his father teased

“No way Dad. I think I’m done.

“Picking up all those Legos wasn’t much fun.”

So Joey vowed from that day on

That no one in the house would ever step on

Another Lego from his vast collect-tion 

So it's not Oscar Wilde but I guarantee the underwear line in there will get a laugh and that's all I'm looking for. What's better than making your kids laugh on Christmas?

Time to Step up my Game

Yeah that's right - I'm not peeling my daughter's pears and therefore submitting her to the searing  4 year-old pain of eating the "black part". The black part being a bit of skin on a Bosc pear. Obviously this is a mild form of child abuse. Love the smiley face at the bottom of this note to soften the message from her teachers.

I've also been reprimanded for not cutting the crust off her sandwich...not cutting her sandwich into an X as she likes and then there was the great peanut scare of October when I received a phone call from the school to clarify whether my daughters sandwich had peanut butter on it - GOD FORBID. Allergies you know.

Editor's Note:  It was not peanut butter it was sunflower freakin' butter. I never knew you could make butter from tini tiny sunflower seeds but I guess you can - and it looks and smells like peanut butter. Too much in fact.

So I'm going to take this as a challenge. A challenge to construct the most PC, milk toast (is that allowed?), non-threatening lunch this Pre-K has ever seen. Since I'm not a very PC person can anyone offer any help?

Ravioli Should Cost $30 a Pound

 In my never ending quest to make life harder than it needs to be, I decided to make ravioli from scratch the other day. When I say scratch I mean everything - the dough, the filling, the sauce, the meatballs to go with - everything. The meatballs and sauce I've done quite a bit so that was no problem.

The ravioli were another matter. It took my wife and I over two hours to get the ravioli set to boil. It was fun but I must say - not really worth the effort unless you're going to fill them with something fancier than the regular cheese ones we did. Maybe if you fill them with some yummy lobster it would justify the time. Otherwise you'd be better off getting them from the frozen foods section of your local grocery store. It pains me to admit that as a food guy but it's true. Next time I do homemade pasta I think I'll stick with spaghetti. 

Side note: Isn't this supposed to be a blog about being a stay at home dad? When did this become a food blog? The nuns always said I had trouble focusing. I'll try to provide some better insight moving forward. Can't promise anything though...