The world lost a lovely lady last night in Vermont. Cheddar was a good, sweet dog with eyes that would melt your heart and a tail that never stopped wagging. She loved strawberries and havarti cheese, her daily visits with the cows in the field down the street from her home, and more than anything else, her Mom, Sally. She thought she was a lap dog despite being enormous and she was gentle with Liam from the time he was a baby, even resisting Eggy, the ultimate doggie temptation.  The above photo is of me and her when she came to see me in my dorm room at URI shortly before moving in with my grandparents, and remains one of my favorite college memories. We will all miss her very much. 

Potty Treats

Peter: Yeah, I'm looking for toilet-training books.
Bookstore Clerk: Oh, yes. We can help you there. Everybody Poopsis still the standard, of course. We've also got the less popular Nobody Poops But You.
Peter: Huh. Well, see, we're Catholic, so...
Bookstore Clerk: Then you want You're a Naughty Child And That's Concentrated Evil Coming Out the Back of You.
Peter: Perfect!

So, potty training.

Grilled Pesto Chicken

This is (I think?) the first recipe I've posted here. I have no idea where I got it--sometime last summer, I was inspired to make something with chicken and pesto and this is the recipe Google suggested. I've futzed with the recipe a little in the last year, but it mostly stands as it was. It's pretty healthy, great served with green beans and a salad, and for those of you who are wary of tomatoes I would like to posit that while the tomatoes are pretty important, it's not a tomatoey dish and you should try it, because you might really love it. It's a perfect summer recipe, and a great reminder that warm weather will come again if you have it inside during the colder months. Try it out--and let me know what you think!

Grilled pesto chicken

4 large skinless, boneless chicken breasts
⅔ cup homemade or store-bought basil pesto
3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice, divided
4 ripe plum tomatoes, cored
3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil; more for brushing
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

Splash of balsamic vinegar (optional)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 generous tsp. Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp. choped fresh basil (or a mix of cilantro, basil, and flat-leaf parsley)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat a gas grill to high.

Combine the pesto with 2 Tbsp. lemon juice and rub over the chicken in a nonreactive dish, or place chicken in a plastic bag and pour pesto sauce over it, then close bag and turn to coat. This does not need to marinate long--10 or 20 minutes is more than enough!

Cut each tomato in half. Gently remove the seeds and guts with your fingers, coarsely chop the flesh, and put it aside. In a small bowl, combine the oil, vinegar, garlic, mustard, basil, remaining 1 Tbsp. lemon juice, 1 tsp. salt, and a generous amount of pepper. Pour this over the tomatoes and combine well. Taste, and add more of any ingredient to taste.

Remove the chicken from the pesto, shaking to remove excess marinade. Grill, turning once, until golden on both sides and cooked through, 4 to 6 minutes total. Transfer the chicken to a platter and serve hot or at room temperature. At the table, spoon the tomatoes over the chicken.

Recipe notes: No grill? Heat the broiler as high as it will go and cook the marinated chicken in a cast iron skillet, flipping once, for 4-6 minutes on each side. Serve as indicated above.

Liam tried a little experiment today where Lightning McQueen spent some time driving across my computer keyboard. Here are the results:


jikki,ounnu/
[['l'----='./.[/.'0='=0p['=0..////[.p[..p.[.p[p[[/[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[/;/[[[[[[[][[[ip////////////////oo,po0p

So...who else is impressed that he managed to get that last word in there?

"I fall down, broke a head!"

Liam climbed out of his crib this morning.

To be fair, Liam has climbed out of his crib for the last several mornings, and after a couple of naps, but I had him figured out. I'm a 31-year-old, college-educated woman after all--I can out0smart a two-year-old!

False.

Put on my blue suede shoes and I boarded the plane

To continue my series on my awesomely awesome cohorts, I thought I’d write this month about my former roommate, bridesmaid, and friend in all things labeled “guilty pleasure,” Carol. Carol is currently a lawyer in a swanky firm in Boston, but I met her back when she was a Brown University Research Assistant and wore jeans and tshirts to work (note: I’m sure she would still do this if she thought in a million years she’d get away with it). We shared apartments from September of 2007 until June of 2009, although I’m sure she would agree it felt like much longer than that, given all of the stories that came from that time and the things we still talk and groan about.

In keeping with the last post I made of this sort, here is a list of ten reasons (out of about a million) that Carol is the greatest.

First day of (pre)school!!

Cozy

Liam is in that word-repeating stage that we've been warned about since...well, since I can remember cousins, aunts and uncles in my family having babies. Sometimes, this is a huge pain, and leads to things like Liam repeating Kurt's cursing when he has to slam on his breaks in the car (thankfully, this is not a common occurance, as he is a fantastic driver), but sometimes it's awesome.

Some Liam updates...

So, it's been a little while since I've posted anything! I'm going to get better about this, I swear, but for now here are some cute things Liam has been doing lately:

it seems to me we'll come around

This afternoon, Liam was standing  on the big chair in our living room, arms crossed. I came over to him and asked, "Liam, are you ok? You look kind of angry!"

"I mad!" He replied and made an angry face to prove his point,

"You're mad? Why are you mad?"

"You no play with cars!"

 "Oh! Do you want me to play with cars with you? I would be happy to do that."

Pause,

"K mommy!" He hopped off the couch and we played with cars until Daddy came home.

Potty training: Day NEVER MIND

So, after two days of cleaning up messes and bribing Liam to sit on the potty...Kurt forwarded me this message from our sister-in-law, and finalist for Favorite Person Ever, Anne:

Potty training: Day Zero

Current stats

Days of attempts: .5  
Underpants: 3 pairs soiled 
Total attempts: 6 
Successful attempts: 0 

Potty training. What were we thinking? Well, I can answer that question: we were thinking, hey, we’re smart, college educated people. We have training underpants and flushable wipes. We haven’t resorted to googling for crazy advice. We’ve read potty related books to Liam, and we’ve observed him being aware of what’s going on down there, his ability to hold it while running around in his pre-bath nakedness and his interest in flushing the toilet. We can do this! Right?

Well, maybe.