http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/ en-us Copyright 2010 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:35:42 -0700 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Is anyone in Nashville free and able to help me change a flat? I should have learned this in high school, I know... I was too busy with show choir. Why don't I ever have an emergency in which I need to dance to "Superstition"? I laughed so hard I started crying. Hannah has that effect on me a lot, and it kills me that I don't live closer to her. It also reminded me of a story that I meant to blog and didn't. So here it is. One day week before last, Kate and I went to Burger King for lunch. This pretty much means it was a weird day to start with, because I can't remember the last time I went to a Burger King. But after a morning that featured several mini-crises, I had a starving kiddo on my hands, no real food in the house and Burger King was the only place I could think of in a two mile radius that would be fast and did not have a playground attached. At this point in my life "restaurant playground" is code for "half-hour of my life that WILL end in me climbing my giant pregnant self up a purple plastic tube to drag out my two-year-old." I have decided that I have to stop doing this, since I can see the headline now: "Fire Department Called to Dislodge Pregnant West Sider from Chik-Fil-A Slide. SUBHEAD: Hose deployed; playground flooded." And I just didn't have time for that on this particular day. So off to Burger King we went. I mentioned recently that the pregnancy is starting to make me tired, but it's also making me stupider. By the minute. In the course of four days, I set off our smoke alarm twice while cooking. Kate had never heard it before, was totally traumatized and still occasionally points to it on the ceiling and says "No more youd! (loud) No more youd, OK Mommy?" The other day when Kate and I went to the museum, I lost my keys, a fact I failed to notice until I was leaving ... three hours later. Thank goodness lost and found had them. And I pretty much cannot be trusted to grocery shop these days, since every single time I try to leave the register without either the groceries or my wallet. So on Burger King Day, Kate and I got some lunch and headed home about ten minutes before I was going to need to put her down for her nap. Shortly after we got on the road, we got to a four-way stop. Now I do not wish to make generalizations, but in seven years of living in New Mexico Dan and I have decided that the rules for four way stops must not be covered in whatever driver's education course is offered here. It's just a free-for-all. Maybe the other drivers know the rules. Maybe they don't. Thus, I usually pay pretty close attention when we get to a four-way. But I am willing to admit that Pregnancy Stupidity may even be affecting my driving, because I can't honestly say who was at fault in what happened next. I pulled out into the intersection to make my left turn, truly under the impression that it was my turn to go, but all the sudden there was this giant truck RIGHT on my bumper and then pulling around me on the left while I was still getting out of the intersection and straightening out for the turn. I don't know if I pulled out in front of him or if he was just driving really aggressively. What I do know is that I did the one thing you should never do -- I looked away from the road, lost track of where I was in the turn, and as a result I ran into the curb. Actually I didn't run into the curb so much as I ran all up onto the curb and then came back down. One whole side of our car jumped up, and there was a terrible loud BANG. I got the car straightened out and driving in the right direction again quickly, but I could tell our tire was flat immediately because of the WHUMPA WHUMPA sound it was making over the sound of Kate screaming "Too YOUD mommy! Too YOUD!" from the backseat. Poor child is developing a fear of sudden loud noises and it's all my fault. I pulled over into a residential neighborhood and got out just to visually confirm that the tire was flat. Then I called our roadside assistance number. We have been paying for this service through USAA, our insurer, for more than five years, but in that entire time I have never had so much as a fender bender. So it was with some sheepishness that I told the woman on the phone that why, yes I did have a flat tire, and yes it was because I ran into a curb. But that moment of humiliation was just the start, because after getting all the basic information on where we were so the assistance vehicle could find us, she threw this one at me: Insurance lady: "Do you have a working spare tire?" Blink. Blink. Dogs bark in the background. Birds chirp. Kate screeches about wanting to get out of the car. Me: "Umm. I think so. I don't know for sure." Her: "Well do you think you could check?" Me: "OK. Stay on the line. I'll be right back." I left Insurance Lady to enjoy the peaceful Muzak of Kate's whining and tried to think about where in the world a spare tire might be stowed on my car. I am not proud to say that it took me about ten minutes to find it, a fact I'm sure made it painfully obvious to Insurance Lady that she was dealing with a genuine idiot of a motorist. I imagined her typing notes into our customer file while the minutes ticked by: "Wife is obvious liberal arts major. Cannot be trusted. Clearly a liability." For the record, the spare tire is under the floor in the trunk of our car. We haven't cleaned out our trunk since about 2006, a fact that did not help my search, so I had to conduct an archeological dig to find it. When I finally got the floor clean enough to lift it up and saw the spare tire, I wanted to high five someone, but Kate did not seem to be in the mood, and somehow I felt that Insurance Lady was not sufficiently impressed with my accomplishments. But she did send out the guys in the truck, and they fixed us right up. They only made a little bit of fun of me about running over the curb. They did say "Wow. This looks like a brand new tire," which it totally was. Dan had the tires on our car replaced not three weeks before this happened. He was really nice about it. Not that I'm happy I blew out the tire, but really the whole thing wasn't that bad. Our roadside assistance service is clearly worth the money, and they had us fixed up in a matter of minutes. It turned out that the tire was under warranty, so the tire shop gave us a new one for no charge and it was fixed by the end of the day. Almost two weeks later, Kate has even stopped talking about how "Mommy broke the car! It YOUD!" But I am sure the whole thing would have been much more fun if Hannah had been there to sing and dance to a Stevie Wonder song while we waited for the truck. ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/03/stevie_wonder_could_change_tha.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/03/stevie_wonder_could_change_tha.html Every day stuff Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:35:42 -0700 this advice about transitioning from one child to two posted on It's Almost Naptime, a blog I have started following and really find hysterical and wise. Being at this point in the pregnancy made her advice about dropping the supermom expectations hit home for me. These last few weeks might just be my opportunity to start working on that so that I don't go into total shock when Isaac gets here. Update: Kate's changed into a Minnesota Vikings cheerleading outfit and a pink tutu. I am choosing to view this as an improvement. Hey, it's clothing. And it's also naptime, so I'm going to clean up the breakfast dishes, put on the one load of laundry we can't live without, email my editor the final touches of a freelance project I've been wrapping up and then go to sleep for an hour or so. It's just eight weeks. It can't last forever. And it's not like I'm going to get any sleep once the baby comes, right? Sigh. Unrelated note: I started reading It's Almost Naptime because a friend linked to this post, "I don't want my children to be happy," which I loved and think worth sharing. You should head over there, since I'm not exactly keeping the blog lit up with new content these days. Thanks to Paula for the original link. ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/03/32_weeks_are_we_there_yet.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/03/32_weeks_are_we_there_yet.html Babywatch Every day stuff Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:22:45 -0700 One of the smartest things my family ever did was start recruiting outside for talent. By this, I mean that when we get married, we really do our best to bring people into the family who have useful skills. It's great if you're a nice person and all, but what can you do for me? That's really what matters. For instance, Kelly has the ability to get Aaron in line, and that is more than anyone else was ever able to do. Also, she has such unbelievably cute babies. Go look at this and then tell me I'm wrong. Then there are the Daniels, my husband Dan and my sister's husband Daniel. They both know about computers, which is great, because none of the rest of us do. And as I may have mentioned a couple of times on the blog before, Daniel is an incredibly talented photographer. When my family got together a few weeks ago in Mississippi to collectively fawn over Aaron and Kelly's new son Clark, Daniel documented the whole thing beautifully, and so I have some great pictures to share thanks to him. Sorry it's taken me forever to post them. Pretty soon we're probably going to just go ahead and declare Daniel MVP of the family, since he also spent hours salvaging photos and data off Kelly's dying computer during this trip, and on a Mississippi visit a few months back, he installed a new kitchen faucet in my parents' kitchen. Frankly, he's making the rest of us look bad. Here I am blowing out the 30 (!!!) candles my mom and Kate put on my birthday cake. I like how Kate looks halfway scared of all the fire gusting off the cake. She has good reasons for that. I was worried we'd set off the smoke alarm. Clark attends his first late night coffee drinking session with my siblings. We'll probably make him wait until he's three before he gets his own cup. The newest member of the family. LOOK HOW HANDSOME HE IS. With his beautiful mama. Kate, of course, racked up in the loot department on this trip as she does every time. Here she is sporting some of her new dress-up/Mardis Gras fashions. If this child doesn't grow up to be a Rockette, it isn't going to be because our families aren't trying. Daniel, I love you so much for taking this photo. Aaron modeling the feather boa. It looks good on you, Arnie. Pink is a nice color. I don't know why more men don't wear it. Kate works the camera with her Aunt Audrey. Audrey and Kate take two, Napolean Dynamite pose: Hannah and Baby Clark snuggle on the couch. My brother Ryan and his lovely girlfriend, Rebekah. And then just for purposes of making Daniel's work look even better, here are a couple of pictures I took of Kate holding Clark. She loves Baby Clark. She pretty much wanted to hold him all the time, but she definitely requires adult supervision, since when she's done holding him, she just starts getting up to walk away. It was good information to have for our own upcoming adventures in having a newborn around. But really she was so sweet with him. As always, you need to check out my amazing brother-in-law's work here. ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/02/ricemeigswachdorf_family_portr.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/02/ricemeigswachdorf_family_portr.html Every day stuff Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:16:27 -0700 As I may have mentioned 15,000 times or so recently, Kate discovered the world of dancing a few months ago when we went to a production of the Nutcracker. It isn't that she didn't dance before that. She's been dancing since before she could crawl. But watching a professional performance seemed to cement something in her mind, something about how you can dance and wear amazing outfits AT THE SAME TIME. And our lives have never been the same. Thus, once we wrapped up our epic January travels, one of the first items on my list of things to do was to find Kate a dance class. This is partially self-defense. I'm 30 weeks pregnant and along with that comes a certain ... ungainliness ... that does not lend itself to a lot of dancing, especially not the kind Kate wants to do, where you spin around in a lot of circles that make me dizzy just watching. Dan is holding down the fort, but it's not really his area of expertise either. So it's basically imperative that we find Kate somewhere to get some of the dancing out of her system before she kills us. On Saturday, we went to try out a creative movement class for two and three year olds at a local dance studio. We planned this out in secret and did not tell Kate anything about it until the morning of the class, because if we had, our day would consist of a constant loop of the following conversation: Kate: Go dance class now? Me: Not yet. Soon. Fifteen-second pause .... Kate: Go dance class now? I don't think it will surprise anyone to hear that Kate loved it. She didn't really have the attention span for the more structured parts of the class, but I think that's expected in a toddler class, and the instructor was great about keeping things moving along and not worrying about making the kids all do the same thing. I am probably a bad mother for sitting on the sidelines and openly laughing at my child for running the wrong way, but in my defense there were other moms doing the same thing. And Dan was there to play the role of supportive parent who doesn't laugh at you, which he did quite well considering that I think it was his first dance class, too. Here's a clip of Kate obstructing traffic in the class. She's the one in the white dress. She did eventually figure it out, and she was really proud of herself. I think it's fair to say we'll be going back to dance class again. Especially since Kate's first words upon waking up from her nap the day we went to class were "Go dance class again?" Between the dancing and the singing, I am beginning to think I should start planning my life as a stage mom. Have I mentioned the singing? Because here is a video of Kate singing one of her original compositions at the dinner table. She sings songs constantly these days. Some of them are real songs, but a lot of them are just made up, and she sings all of them with such confidence that I sometimes think she's singing a real song that I just don't recognize. That is what happens in this video, and I want you to notice how in the middle, when I ask her what song she is singing, she ROLLS HER EYES at me and answers in total gibberish, but still manages to convey this tone of utter condescension. Like "Mother, I cannot be bothered with these trivial questions." I am in so much trouble. ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/02/kate_goes_to_dance_class.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/02/kate_goes_to_dance_class.html Baby Kate Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:20:01 -0700 Me: If we have a girl, her name will be Katherine Elizabeth and we will call her Kate. Dan: OK. I like that. But our boy-name conversations were more lengthy, and so it was to those conversations we returned in November when we found out that this, our second born, would be a boy. Once we picked up that thread again, Dan reminded me that the last name we had been considering for a boy was Isaac. It's funny how long ago three years can seem when in that same period of time a child who was in your womb as a completely unknown entity has learned to walk, talk and demand Gummi Bears in reward for using the potty. Three years ago sounds like a different life. Maybe a different dimension. But by squinting and concentrating really hard, I was able to ascertain that yes, Dan was right, and our last boy name candidate was Isaac. Dan said he still liked it a lot and that's what we should name the baby. I said I would think about it, and Dan knows what that means. It means we're going to be here for a while. This is one of the major differences between Dan and I. If you want to come over some time, I could show you some impressive charts and graphs demonstrating how utterly un-alike Dan and I are in terms of how we process information and arrive at major decisions. I have these charts because my whole family did Meyers-Briggs personality type testing a few years ago. I had to laugh at mine and Dan's results, which seemed to indicate that, on paper, we are the world's most unlikely match. Take this baby-naming scenario as an example. Three years ago, Dan (ESTJ all the way) and I talked about naming a theoretical baby boy Isaac. Dan remembered that and, within five minutes of having that recollection, was able to definitively declare that there was no other name in all the world that he liked more, and that if presented with the birth certificate paperwork right there on the spot, he would name our son Isaac and never look back. I had to think about it for a month. (INFJ, if you were wondering.) And after doing that, one random Saturday morning weeks and weeks later I told Dan that I too thought we should name the baby Isaac, and that his middle name should be Daniel, after Dan of course. And there we have it. Our baby boy will be named Isaac Daniel Wachdorf, and I like this name very much. In the weeks that I thought about the name and let it sit with me to see if it would stick and become real, I remembered that there were reasons why we liked this name three years ago. In the Bible, Isaac is the long-promised son given to Abraham and Sarah, who are way too old to expect children, but who have nonetheless been told that God will give them descendants more numerous than the the stars in the sky. They've been waiting so long for that promise to come true that when a messenger of the Lord tells Abraham that he'll have this son within a year, Sarah overhears it and laughs. And a year later, the baby is named "Isaac," which means "laughter" in Hebrew. I love that Sarah, clearly a skeptic like me, laughs in disbelief and yet God still blesses her with a son. I identify with Sarah a lot. I would have laughed too. But I do believe that God does the things I would long ago have given up as impossible. I have seen it, like Sarah, and laughed in joy. Perhaps the best-known biblical story concerning Isaac is of a time in Isaac's life when God tells Abraham that he must sacrifice his only son to God as a burnt offering, and Abraham is on the verge of doing so when an angel of the Lord stops him and shows Abraham a ram in the bushes nearby who can be sacrificed in Isaac's place. A few years back, Dan heard someone teach on this passage of Scripture and point out that when this event occurred Isaac carried the wood for the sacrificial fire up the mountain himself, indicating that he was stronger than Abraham and plenty old enough to know what was going on. He could have run away, but he didn't. He believed, like his father, that God would provide a substitute. That is some pretty serious faith, and that made a big impression on Dan. We want our son to be a man of faith, and we claim for him the same promises God made to Abraham about his children: "I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you." (Gen. 17:7) As for the middle name Daniel, that's a name from the Bible too, and a good one. But most immediately in my life it's my husband's name, and that has so much meaning to me that I am grateful to have a son just so I can name him for the wonderful man I married. I think Isaac is a blessed little boy to have as loving a daddy as Dan is, and I know he'll be proud to have his name. Not to mention it's so much better than "Texas Ranger." So we have a name. And here are Isaac and I at 29 weeks. Eleven weeks to go. ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/02/how_we_named_the_baby_1.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/02/how_we_named_the_baby_1.html Babywatch Every day stuff Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:45:09 -0700 It might not come as a surprise to anyone noticing the total lack of posting on the blog that January sort of ran all over me and got mostly out the door before I could collect any thoughts about it. I knew it was going to be this way, but still, here I sit on January 25, shocked that the month is almost over. I really can't even begin to cover everything that we've done this month, but I'll tell you about the highlights, tell a funny airport story and then later post some super-cute baby photos of my nephew Clark so that you don't notice, OK? When we decided we would not be traveling to see family for Christmas this year, we instead scheduled trips to see both sides of the family in January. That allowed us to work in one good visit with each side before the baby comes in April. April, incidentally, is starting to seem alarmingly close now that it is within the calendar year we currently inhabit. But that's another post. My point about January is that for 18 of the last 26 or so days, Kate and I have been out of town. When we saw Dan's family in San Antonio, Dan was with us, and then when we flew to Mississippi to see my family, we traveled on our own. For anyone counting, I am 27 weeks pregnant right now. During this trip I took with Kate to Mississippi, I apparently passed over that threshold of looking pregnant enough that total strangers started asking me when I am due. It was weird, because on the way to Mississippi, not a single person asked about the baby. Ten days later, on the return trip, I bet I told 15 people that I'm due in April, that it's a boy, etc. I blame sweet tea and that chocolate cake my mom made for my 30th birthday, which I celebrated while we were in Mississippi. I might be 30 now, but I felt about 65 by the end of the days when I traveled by myself with Kate. Traveling alone with a toddler is a very physical process that involves a lot of bending down, picking up and twisting around in an impossibly small airline seat to pick up dropped crayons. It turns out that having a waist capable of bending and a functional center of gravity is also an advantage in that situation, and let me tell you, I no longer have either of those. So I am relieved that this was the last airplane trip we're scheduled to make while I'm pregnant. All told, it went pretty well, with one massive exception, which I now refer to in my mind as The Chicago Incident. Usually when we fly to Jackson, we're routed through Houston. Hobby is not the nicest airport in the world, but having spent countless hours there over the course of eight years of connecting flights home, I have gotten really familiar with it, and when you have a kid in tow, there's something to be said for the familiar. When we went to book this trip, we were taking advantage of a very very good fare sale that Southwest did in the fall, and in the process of trying to get the best possible price, it became apparent that I would have to fly though Chicago Midway airport on at least one leg of the trip. This added a pretty good chunk of flight time to the day, which wasn't great, but I was actually the most annoyed at the prospect of a layover at Midway. I haven't been there in years, but my enduring memory of that airport is of claustrophobia-inducing low ceilings, inadequate seating in gate areas and very little in the way of food options in terminals. It turns out not much has changed in the four or five years since I was there last, with one notable exception: Moving walkways that take up 80 percent of the already narrow hallways between gates. Those might have been there for years, but I at least had forgotten about them, probably because in my pre-kid life there wasn't any reason to look at those things as a tool of Satan. But now I loathe them, and here's why. Kate loves the moving walkways like they are some kind of fair ride. When Dan is with me, we just take turns riding up and down the moving walkway and everyone is happy. When she and I are traveling alone, however, this sets up a bad situation. For safety reasons, you're not allowed to take strollers on the walkways. I can't leave my stroller and all our gear behind to escort Kate up and down the moving walkway, but I also can't let her get on there alone. So I have to tell her we can't go on the walkways at all, and much weeping and gnashing of teeth ensues. This scenario kicked in approximately one minute after we deplaned in Chicago, so things were already not going well when I decided that the first thing we needed to get done was a bathroom stop. In Chicago, they do have a family bathroom, which is one of the greatest innovations in recent travel history as far as I am concerned, since it gives you a little more space and privacy when you're traveling with kids. However, if you only have one family bathroom for an entire terminal, as Chicago Midway apparently feels is adequate, it is pretty much always occupied. So after a while I gave up and we went into the main ladies' restroom. This is where I discovered the following series of true facts: First, sometime during the plane trip, Kate's diaper had sprung a leak of massive proportions and the back of her pants were soaked. Second, it had clearly been wet long enough for her to slide her wet pants around on the plane seat and pick up a nice layer of airline grime that was now coloring the pink pants a disturbing shade of gray. So now we've got wet, filthy pants. (And no, I don't know how I failed to notice that this had happened when we were on the plane. So that one's on me. But I don't want to even think about what is on those seats. Yuck.) Third true fact: For the first and only time in our two-year history of flying with Kate, which has encompassed dozens of flights, I failed to pack a change of clothes. I want you to know that I have faithfully packed that change of clothes every other time and never ONCE have I needed them. But on the one day when it really mattered, did I have any extra pants for her? No I did not. Total Mommy Failure. And don't think she didn't notice, either. When I took the wet pants off her, she immediately started going "I not need pants, Mommy. No more pants! No pants!" thus casting her vote for not putting the wet pants back on, and I don't blame her. But it was 15 degrees in Chicago that day. Warmer in the airport, obviously, but not run-around-with-no-pants warm. There is really no way to let your kid strip down half-naked in that situation without looking like a delinquent. I love how in parenting, you are inevitably confronted with this kind of complex problem-solving situation when you are in public and surrounded by so much chaos you can't even think straight. There were other travelers milling around and bumping into us left and right, incredibly loud announcements were blaring out of the PA system non-stop, and Kate was continuing to lobby for her no-pants policy loudly, while kicking her legs on that useless fold-out changing table. My first thought was that if there was a hand-dryer in the bathroom, I could dry the pants and we might be saved. But no. In the year 2010, surrounded by all manner of public campaigns to stop overflowing the landfills of the world, the Chicago Midway airport has chosen to go with only paper towels in their restrooms. And not nice paper towels either. Those brown ones that have all the absorbency of cardboard and fall apart. Fantastic. So under pressure, I draped Kate's pants over the back of our stroller, strapped her in, used her jacket to cover her legs and told her that she was going to have to stay in her stroller until her pants dried. I tried to make this sound fun. Like "Hey, you get to pretend that your jacket is a pair of pants! Won't that be a fun game?" I'm going to let you take a moment to laugh at the very idea that that worked. Go ahead. It's OK. And just like you thought, she was happy to stay in that stroller for about the next five minutes. During the span of time I managed to grab us lunch at the McDonald's that was one of my two choices for food in that awful terminal, and tried to find us a relatively quiet corner to eat in, but it didn't matter. We were still seated next to three or four business travelers when Kate ran out of patience for pretending to be an old lady with an afghan draped over her knees, got up with a French fry clutched in each hand and started running back and forth in tight little loops, squealing and wearing a top, a diaper, no pants and her tennis shoes. Meanwhile I sat there and tried to be a good sport as passing travelers laughed at Kate's glee and my obvious chagrin over the situation. On the upside, her pants did dry during the course of the layover. Also, at some point, the powers that be cranked the heat in the airport up so daggum high that she was probably more comfortable with no pants on than anyone else had the option of being. I wish I could say that this was the only travel crisis we had, but that would be historical revisionism. It would ignore the time we had to prop Kate up on her training potty, which was balanced on the front seat of my Mom's Suburban, which was parked on the side of the highway in Gluckstadt Mississippi, where it turns out that one exit has lots of rest stops, but the other one has NONE. It would fail to take into account that Kate's car seat got lost somewhere between Albuquerque and Jackson. And people, these were things that happened during what I would classify as a relatively smooth trip with a toddler. No wonder I can't even think about learning to do this with two kids without breaking into a sweat. The good news is that we had a wonderful time with all our family, and I'll post more about that soon. For now I am going to let Kate watch an absurd amount of Sesame Street while I unpack our suitcases. I figure after the pants fiasco, my shot at Mother of the Year for 2010 is pretty much over anyway. Big surprise. http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/01/january_whoosh.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/01/january_whoosh.html Every day stuff Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:21:02 -0700 Loaded Baked Potato Soup 4 large baking potatoes 2/3 cup of butter 2/3 cup of all-purpose flour 7 cups milk (Note: Whole milk makes for a thicker soup, which is good, but not necessary. I would not recommend anything less than 2 percent, since I'm not sure the soup would thicken up right with 1 percent or skim.) 4 green onions, sliced (I use more.) 8 pieces of bacon, cooked and crumbled 5 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese 1 8-ounce container sour cream 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper Bake potatoes at 400 degrees for one hour or until done; cool. Cut potatoes in half lengthwise; scoop out pulp, mash to desired texture (I don't like a lot of big chunks, so I mash them down pretty well, but that's a matter of taste). Reserve pulp and discard shells. Melt butter in a Dutch oven over low heat. Whisk in flour until smooth. Cook one minute, whisking continuously. Gradually whisk in milk, cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until mixture is thickened and bubbly. (Don't be afraid to raise your heat a little to get things bubbling at this point, because that helps thicken things up, just keep a close eye and stir well to make sure the milk doesn't burn.) Stir in potato pulp and green onions; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for ten minutes. (Really you can cook it ten minutes or, if it seem like it's the thickness you want before that, you can cut the heat earlier.) Add remaining ingredients, stir until cheese melts. Heat through and serve immediately, topped with bacon and cheese. Yield: 14 cups.]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/01/potato_potahto_potaytatoto.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2010/01/potato_potahto_potaytatoto.html Every day stuff Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:52:06 -0700 Pioneer Woman. I'm cooking another recipe of hers for dinner. But more about that in a minute. Kate was thrilled with the name of the muffins, and wanted to wear her monkey pajamas and eat breakfast off her monkey plate. And it's Christmas, so she got her way. Then we read the Christmas story and prayed and headed into the office. Bless those locking double doors that close our office off from the living room, because they allowed us to hide the tree and all its presents until we were ready to open them. I mean, we were already up at 7 a.m., and being able to get some coffee and have a little time to wake up made the whole thing much more humane. It was such a funny experience to open gifts with a two year old. Every time she opened one, she just wanted to stop and play with it for a while, so we'd hang out and do that and exchange our own gifts until she was able to move on to a new gift. I thought we were never going to get past the fact that there were Hello Kitty stickers in her stocking, which was the very first thing she opened. Stickers! Can you believe her good fortune? It was hard not to laugh, knowing that she had so much bigger gifts waiting, but it's still adorable. Her two big gifts were given by grandparents. Gam and Geez, my mom and dad, sent her a totally frilly ribbon and tulle extravaganza of a ballet outfit, which she promptly put on and wore until I persuaded her that it would not be very comfortable to nap in. Here is video of her opening that and the dancing that ensued: And from her Grammy and Grandpa Wachdorf, she got a play kitchen. I love the video we got of her seeing this for the first time because of her reaction: "Awesome!" I think I say that more than I realize, but it does pretty much sum up how she feels about the kitchen. Kate also got about 6,000 pieces of play food to go with the kitchen, and she has been cooking us elaborate meals since then. The morning was so exciting she needed a sit-on-the-couch break by about 10 a.m. because she was getting so tired. So we watched some "Annie," and then it was time for more dancing and cooking. As for me, I got the Pioneer Woman's cookbook, which I have been longing to buy since it came out in October. I am going to have so much fun cooking from this thing. I love the fact that the cookbook is set up like the Web site, with a lot of photos of each step of the recipe process. It makes things turn out well even that first time you cook them, which for me at least is usually the time when I make mistakes and take notes for next time around. Anyway, I am loving cooking these days, and now that I'm armed with this book, you really want to get invited to my house for dinner sometime soon, because I've never cooked a Pioneer Woman recipe that wasn't fabulous. I'm just saying. And my big gift from my sweet husband was this: A Bissell ProHeat steam cleaner for the carpet! Now I realize there are women who might not appreciate this gift, who might even be offended to receive a housework tool for Christmas, but I am ecstatic. If I had realized before we had a child how much damage kids do to carpet, I would have ripped every square inch of carpet in our house up before Kate was born. There is not enough Resolve carpet spot cleaner in the world to keep up with it, and I am just obsessive enough that it drives me crazy to vacuum and spot clean and still have carpet that constantly looks dirty. On the other hand, it's not like you want to have a hard tile floor when you've got babies crawling and learning to walk and such. So my husband comes to my rescue, because he knows me and accepts that I'm crazy, and that the filthy carpet is making me crazier. If this thing does a good job, I might end up doing a commercial for Bissell. I mean, if it cleans my carpet, it must be good. I'll let you know after the epic day of carpet cleaning I have planned soon. Seriously, I can't even tell you how excited I am about that. Many thanks to Mike and Susan, who helped Dan pull off this surprise by hiding my gift at their house and then smuggling it to church last night. Sneaky people. Dan is currently playing the new Super Mario Bros. for Wii game to his heart's content, playing with his I-phone, which was not a Christmas present, but is a whole other story in itself, and has a pretty sharp new Minnesota Vikings jacket to wear thanks to my awesome wifely gift-buying skillz. Since I confessed my blog crush on the Pioneer Woman earlier, have I mentioned that my lifelong and largely dejected Vikings fan husband is probably just a few more wins away from leaving Brett Favre a love note next time we're staying at my parents' house and drive past the Favre estate? (The Favres live in Hattiesburg, where my family lives. I once served Brett Favre a sandwich at McAlistar's Deli, where I had a summer job, and did not recognize him. The male kitchen staff nearly had a collective aneurysm when they asked if Brett liked his sandwich and I was like "Brett who?") But seriously, I think I might have to compete with Brett for my husband's affection pretty soon now that he's gone to Minnesota and made my husband's football dreams come true. Good thing I have that cookbook. Stuff aside, it's really just been such a lovely thing to spend a day at home together and be thankful for our health and our growing family and the blessings God has poured into our lives this year and every year. I hope your celebrations have been filled with the deep joy of the salvation we celebrate today. "For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying 'Glory to God and on earth peace, good will to men.'" Luke 2:11-14 ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/christmas_day.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/christmas_day.html December Photo Project Every day stuff Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:07:19 -0700 Unfortunately, that was about the last time Kate actually sat still for the whole evening. The service started at the time Kate normally goes to bed at night, and she cycled through all of the Toddler Stages of Grief and Exhaustion before the night was over: Antsy, Crying, Squabbling and finally, Running Around in Circles in the Foyer During Communion. During that last stage, we had totally given up on keeping her in the sanctuary and Kate was alternating between dancing to the closing hymn and screaming "Christmas! Christmas!" We did get all dressed up for the evening and managed to get a photo as proof. Merry Christmas Eve everyone! ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_ch.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_ch.html December Photo Project Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:50:08 -0700 They let Kate have her very own glue stick, which was brave. She was ecstatic, and there is a lot of glue on that snowman. I don't really have any photos of that part of the project because I was busy trying to keep her from gluing herself to the table. ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_21.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_21.html December Photo Project Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:33:17 -0700 ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_20.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_20.html December Photo Project Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:11:12 -0700 Today, for the first time ever, Kate randomly announced that she wanted to use the training potty I got her, oh, six months ago, and then she did it. Before now, her comprehension of what we expected her to do with that thing has been less than stellar. It's not something we've made a big deal out of. I'm not too wound up about her getting potty trained and it really just seemed like something she wasn't ready to do. Still, Dan and I had agreed that the first time she actually sat down and used the potty we would make a big deal out of it in hopes of raising her interest in the whole process. So this morning we loaded up and went to Target to buy big girl panties (Kate picked out Hello Kitty themed undies. Hot pink.) and Gummi Bears to be used as bribes. I am all about bribery in this arena. I've gathered from talking to plenty of moms about this that potty training is more of a process than an event, so I'm prepared for this to take a while. But she was really into it today, and actually stayed dry all day, which was a great start. She is super proud of her new undergarments too, and if you see her soon, there's a good chance she's going to introduce you to Hello Kitty in person. Now that I think about it, maybe I should have a little chat with her about that before our church Christmas Eve communion service. ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_19.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_19.html December Photo Project Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:30:48 -0700 The ladies from our church spent a fun Saturday morning at the home of Mrs. J celebrating the upcoming arrival of Baby Owen at a shower for my sweet friend Erika this weekend. Erika and Cody's daughter Lily is about five months older than Kate, and Owen will be three months older than our little guy, so this is the second time we've been pregnant at the same time. It works out really well for me because Erika is always a few months ahead of me on the new-kid process and she gives me all this great advice. I'm like "First kid? You go first, Erika. Time to have a little boy? OK, but only if you do it too." I should probably ask her how many kids we're planning on having. In the first photo, Erika is holding a quilt handmade for Owen by his grandmother Linno, our pastor's wife, who makes beautiful quilts for all the new babies in our church. And look at this diaper centerpiece our friend Cora made for the shower. No, she didn't buy it. She made it. How are people this talented? I have no idea. ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_18.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_18.html December Photo Project Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:02:33 -0700 I am blogging early today and posting a cheater photo that was taken a couple of days ago because today, the Saturday before Christmas, is filled with various activities and happenings and we are not going to be pausing for breath much. It's that time of year. But Dan has been telling me that I really need to blog about something Kate said the other day, and for some reason, this photo seems to go along with it, so before I go, let me tell you a story. The first thing you need to know to understand this story is that last Saturday, Dan very graciously loaded Kate up with him and went to run some Christmas errands so that I could get some shopping done without her assistance. Before he went, we had a conversation about stocking stuffer ideas for each other. We're not an exciting bunch, so when Dan and I talk about stocking stuffers, there's a pretty good chance we're mostly talking about picking up the kinds of things one might buy in an average trip to Wal-Mart -- I like certain kinds of pens, for instance, and Dan likes these little chewy Lifesaver candies. We also tend to give each other socks and underwear because you have to replace that stuff, or at least women have to replace it. I have realized in almost seven years of marriage that when a man's wife buys him new underwear, he doesn't think that's any reason to throw out the old ones. Men, or at least my man, will keep underwear until it just disintegrates into thin air and ceases to exist. That's how it leaves the house. But that is another subject. All you need to know for today's story is that we had a conversation about underwear before Dan left to go run top secret Christmas errands. Fast forward a couple of days. The night that Dan worked late this week, I blogged about how Kate and I went to kill some time at Barnes and Noble. The bookstore is adjacent to one of our large shopping malls, so to get there, you pull into the mall parking lot. Kate was in a pretty chatty mood, and since more and more stores have Christmas lights up, there was a lot to talk about, at least from the perspective of someone who just this year started noticing Christmas lights and thinks they are a-mazing. I was only about halfway listening to her little monologue from the backseat. But when we pulled into the mall parking lot, the one-sided conversation took the following interesting turn. I will translate the toddler jargon for you: Kate: "OH!!! Pannies for Mama!" (Panties for Mama.) "It a secwet Kisses supise (secret Christmas surprise)." Me: "Haha, did you buy underwear here? And it's a surprise for Christmas? Wow!" Kate:"Yeah. Not tell Mama!! Shhhhh!" Later I told Dan that Kate had not only remembered what errand she was on last time she was at the mall, but had promptly ratted him out, and we laughed. Dan said the remarkable thing is that she basically repeated verbatim what he told her when they were making the purchase, which was. "This is a secret Christmas surprise for Mama, so we don't tell her about it, OK?" I think the lesson for all the dads of two-year-olds out there is that maybe you want to leave the human tape recorder at home when you shop for your wife this holiday season. All in all, it's not like Kate really ruined any earth-shattering secret, and I might still be in for a bit of a surprise when I open my stocking on Christmas morning. Dan mentioned that Kate helped him with color selection in the umm, underwear store. She is really into hot pink these days. So this could be interesting. ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_17.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_17.html December Photo Project Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:00:54 -0700 Live from my kitchen at 3:30 p.m., here's what we have going on this afternoon. Cookies: Baked dozens of these for neighbor gifts and to take to a baby shower tomorrow. Recipe here, posted last year during the DPP. They are good cookies if I do say so myself. Clementimes. Those are the orange citrus fruit in that other blue dish. I'm pretty sure I've eaten about two pounds of these unaided in the last week, and I went to the grocery store and bought another ginormous bag today because we were getting perilously low, like maybe down to eight or nine left. If we ran out, I would have to cry. So we can't have that. Crazy kid: She paused momentarily from recreating The Nutcracker's Waltz of the Flowers, which was playing on the stereo system at the moment. Her choreography for this selection involves running around the table in circles. We always clap. ]]> http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_16.html http://www.wachdorf.com/haley-blog/2009/12/december_photo_project_2009_da_16.html December Photo Project Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:32:18 -0700