the most absurd thing happened tonight with the kids. they have been watching the barishnikov/kirkland video of the nutcracker on youtube, and both have been completely obsessed (to the point where we have to listen to it in the car all the time as well..) -- anyway, carter has upped the ante a bit where he pretends he is the nutcracker and he narrates the entire mouse-king battle (dark...clara...tree...big...mice! mice! mice!...cracker...). this evening, as it got dark outside, carter announced that clara was outside and needed to come in. so, imaginary clara came in. and sat down at the table. and then carter started to show her around the house. and then ava insisted that she was really with her at the table. and carter insisted that he had her, and then ava jumped up and took her--and then the battle over imaginary clara began. and it was a crazy all out tearful screaming battle and i was pretty much pulling my hair out and found myself saying "ava! please give clara back to carter" and then she came up with an alternative clara, and carter did not want that one, he wanted the one that ava had, and finally i had to kneel down and have ava hand me "a" clara without any commentary re how many claras there were and then i had to hand-deliver this clara to carter. it was insane. could it get any more difficult to mediate sharing than having to distribute an imaginary person??????

and then, carter stubbed his toe, and ava was all sympathy and sincerity. so totally random.

we are all pretty busy. seems like every morning we just get up and go. it is winter, so we are packing bags upon bags--ski bags for ava, and carter, skating bag for ava, diaper bag for carter, school bag for ava, snack bag, extra bag, mom-bag, and yet at the end of the day, they are all discombobulated and i have to spend a half hour re-packing everything for the morning.

we are in the throes of getting ready for christmas too--since all of our christmas stuff is packed in a box in the very bag of the storage space (seemed like a good idea in august, and i did not count on forgetting about it until the temperature was in the single digits), we are improvising this year. we got our little tree--very easy: "hi, can i help you?" "yes. please give methe smallest tree you have..." "how's this?" "perfect, thanks" "do you need help getting that in/on your car?" "nope (as tree fits horizontally in the back of the car), thanks!"

the great part of the tree-hunting was that the tree farm has horses, pigs, piglets (3 little pigs...), and some breed of steer/cow. aside from their gaseous nature, the piglets were really cute. the pigs were huge, and were carter's favorite, and ava loved the horses. we have been back several times.

as for the christmas prep at home--i got on the ball and put christmas music on the ipod, so i don't have to worry about the cds, i had santa deliver some christmas books early (such a tricky guy...), and we are making our own tree decorations--one a day. or 3, since there are 3 of us, but each day we decide on a new tree-craft. and i have been hanging up ava's art projects from school. it is actually pretty festive. fortunately they are little enough that the missing decorations are not that big a deal. and the projects are helping the kids get all super-excited.

and then i tried to make almond-brittle-praline-ish candy. it was a recipe in martha stewart's magazine. it only had sugar, water, almonds and salt. it seemed easy. i should have known better.

first, boiling sugar (ie carmelizing) is outrageously hot (340 degrees farenheit, to be precise) and it takes a while to cool. blowing on it to take a little tast does nothing to protect one's epidermal layer.

and when the recipe says "don't stir..." they mean "don't stir you idiot, because otherwise you will get a suddenly crystalizing lump of scalding hot sugar clinging to your spoon and it will end up being a crazy mess..." and remember...use a spatula to spread it on the cookie sheet, do not rely upon your fingers if you value them.

oh, and also...waxed paper and parchment paper are not interchangeable. waxed paper has wax. wax melts. and then you have waxed pralines or brittle or whatever this is. not tasty.

ultimately, after a second try, i managed to right all of my first-effort wrongs, and turns out it is pretty good. but what a chemistry lesson. candy making is NOT a child-friendly thing.