Doctor, Doctor, Gimmie the news....

Life in the last 48 hours:

Friday afternoon around 2pm - Violet woke up from her nap and was her normal, rambunctious self and was trying to see what I was doing in the kitchen, but I put my hand up to shoo her away because I was making ramen on the stove. She took this as a major affront and started stamping her feet and threw a massive fit. I finally get a chance to pick her up and I can feel that she is warmer than usual. It took me about 20 minutes to figure out a way to calm her down and take her temperature. When I finally did, it read 102.-something. I call Scott to get his advice on if I should go to Urgent Care, but he suggested just a bath first and then see how things are when he gets home. We do this and the temp still reads 102-something. The funny thing is, other than the tantrum, she's fine. Eating, drinking, playing and was probably more of a cuddle-monkey, but fine. We give her food, Tylenol, Curious George watching, a story and set her down for bedtime. She woke up twice, but finally settled at around 10pm and slept the night.

Saturday morning: she woke up chipper, completely fine, and no trace of a fever. The trick I finally learned to get her to let me take her temperature was to have her hum with me while the numbers went up. Temperature was back to normal, and her appetite never really changed. She wanted to have pancakes, so we had pancakes: purple ones with white chocolate chips. Morning play followed by normal nap.

Saturday afternoon: after her nap, I cooked up some pasta and gave her a little bit of tomato sauce, which is rare. She ate fine, played and had one very messy diaper. It wasn't until about 4:30 when we were getting ready to head out that I noticed a rash around her mouth. She had a rash on her chin, but I had figured that it was from the taggie blanket she constantly sucks on while she sleeps. While we were at the block party, we saw the rash on her arms, legs, back and shoulders and one bump on her lip and a (mosquito?) bite on her leg. With the trip coming so soon, we didn't want to mess around, so we went to Urgent Care. They took her vitals, checked out her mouth and said, yeah, it could be an allergic reaction to the tomato (she's had that before, but only around her mouth, probably because of the acid just settling on her face and us not wiping it off quickly) and not Hand Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD), which has been going around on base. We go home, have dinner, read, watch more George and off to bed, this time with no fussiness.

Sunday: rash is still there, no fever since Friday, still energetic, playful and hungry. We go about our day just fine until around 4pm after eating watermelon. I noticed more bumps on her lips and now, a white bump on her tongue. Back to UC, same caregiver, and now a confirmation that it is HFMD. Nothing too bad, nothing alarming since she was hamming it up for him and displayed she was fine and playful, but still, that's what Violet has.

I don't blame the dude on changing his mind since Violet looked like she was just having a mild reaction. But now, I'm a little scared about how this will play out while we are away. I do, however, have the comfort in knowing that since we're going to be at Tripler Army Hospital anyway, we won't be far from doctors that can take a look at her.

MOMMY NOTE: So, apparently you are not supposed to give the child anything acidic while she has HFMD, like tomato or orange juice. I did both within the same day. Whoops.

I'm a traveling man, Made a lot of stops all over the world

This is the first moment I've been able to sit and take stock of what has happened in the last week. Actually, what has happened in the last year, because that's how far I'm taking this flashback.

End of September 2012, I arrived in New York City to hang out with some friends for a few days, go to another friend's wedding, travel from Northern NJ down to Baltimore and catch a flight to Greenland so that I could visit with Scott for a week. But, instead of all of that, I found out on the day that I landed in NYC that Scott had broken his ankle and was going to be transported to an army hospital in Virginia. He and I spent the majority of October in a hotel in Fort Belvoir, having him go through two separate surgeries. We were still able to have fun and I was even lucky enough to catch a post season MLB game at the Washington Nationals stadium, thus crossing that off my "list of stadiums to go to." Not too shabby.

Montage time: Scott finishes his time in Greenland, we pack up our home in Colorado, have a loooong awaited reception for our wedding, move to Japan, live in Yokota for 4 months.

In all that time, Scott was still limping. He finally gets a doctor here at Yokota to look at it and then flew down to Hawaii for a further assessment, came back and told me he needed to get another surgery because a) the bones never healed properly and they are fusing incorrectly and b) a screw that was placed in his ankle has broken. Keep in mind: Scott had previously broken THE SAME ANKLE back in August 2009.

Conclusion: his surgery must take place in Hawaii again, he is required to have a chaperone to travel and stay with him. Sounds fantastic, right? We'll get back to this, because in the meanwhile....

One of our mutual and close friends gets engaged and was to be married 6 months after the engagement. Scott and I made the decision to send me to represent the Fourres and have Scott and Violet stay behind. I went, I cried, I partied, I laughed. I was also a walking zombie because of the jet lag and time difference, but I was able to cowboy up for a good time.

I then flew back and only after one good night's sleep, I tried to tackle the possibility of Scott having to leave for Hawaii a day before Violet and me. Looking down the barrel of an 8 hour flight and being the only one to wrangle a very active 2 year old was a little bit too much for me to wrap my head around. Especially considering we had less than a week to nail down the details and were coming up against a 4 day weekend (stupid Labor Day....)

In order to nail down said details, we needed Scott to receive his orders. In order to do that, I had to fill out some paperwork, though it took me three trips to the hospital offices to do this. Time check? Wednesday the 28th and Scott is (semi-)scheduled to leave on Monday the 2nd for a surgery on Wednesday the 4th. On Thursday, it took some major wandering (and LOTS of patience), only to have to wait a bit more for Scott to finally leave work early to sort out Violet's plane ticket.

The final outcome to this story is that we finally got our flights, our hotel and Scott's surgery all arranged by 3pm Thursday, cutting this really close to the 3:30pm end of office hours and a Friday and Monday closure of these offices.

Yes, it turned out alright in the end. But I am not an adrenaline junkie who needs the rush of success at the last minute. I'd much rather not go greyer than I have to and have a few more years on my life.

Grand Marnier French Toast

Last recipe-related post for the evening: MORE FRENCH TOAST!

Again, I was at a loss for what to do for dinner, so my fallback is always brinner. I had retrieved a free bottle of Grand Marnier from a family who is PCS'ing (Permanent Change of Station - basically, people/families who are moving onto their next base) and I figured I should make use of the windfall by making something yummy.


Grand Marnier French Toast

Ingredients

• 4 large eggs
• 3/4 cup half and half
• 1/4 cup Grand Marnier or other orange-flavored liqueur or frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon grated orange peel
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 8 3/4-inch-thick French bread slices

• 4 tablespoons(1/2 stick) butter

Preparation

Whisk first 6 ingredients to blend in medium bowl. Dip each bread slice into egg mixture and arrange in 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Pour remaining egg mixture evenly over bread. Let stand until egg mixture is absorbed, at least 20 minutes. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Place baking sheet in oven and preheat to 350&F. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add 4 bread slices to skillet and saut&until cooked through and brown, about 3 minutes per side. Place on baking sheet in oven to keep warm. Repeat cooking with remaining 2 tablespoons butter and 4 bread slices. Transfer French toast to 4 plates. Sift powdered sugar over. Serve with maple syrup.

-----

In an unusual move, I strayed from the path right from the start. Judging from my last try at French toast and the fact that I ran out of batter and butter from the get go, I adjusted. Also, I had no half and half, so I made do. Here are the adjustments:

5 eggs
1 1/2 TBsp water
1 1/2 TBsp  milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp banana extract
7 TBsp butter
1/8 c Grand Marnier

That last tweak was because I was a little worried that the alcohol wouldn't burn off completely and I was serving it to Violet. Yay, responsibility!

The recipe turned out pretty well and I had batter to spare, so I just fried it up like it was regular scrambled eggs. The eggs tasted a tad greasy, but pretty good other than that. Definitely warranting a bit of variation, but good overall.

Strawberries N Cream Pudding Cookies

Here's my Pinterest board for food.

And the next recipe I followed was for Strawberries N Cream Pudding Cookies.

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter softened
• 2 TB strawberry jello
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 3.5 oz. box white chocolate pudding package instant
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 bag white chocolate chips 

 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cream butter, sugar and jello together. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, pudding mix, baking soda and salt. Slowly add to butter mixture. Mix well. Add vanilla.
4. Stir in white chocolate chips.
5. Spoon onto a greased baking sheet. Bake for 9-11 minutes. ENJOY!

------
I didn't take any pictures of the process and I did have to tweak the recipe a bit right away because the commissary didn't sell white chocolate pudding, but all in all, the cookies came out pretty good.

I've decided that I want to combine other pudding/jello combo's and I have yet to do it a second time, but I do have a bag of puddings and jello's waiting for me to try again.

I also figured out that I have to become friends with my neighbors in my building or the Fourres will became very round.

Banana Stuffed French Toast

Ok - first entry to my foodventure. I was going to start with what I hinted at a couple of blog entries ago: the moscato cupcakes. However, the site where I got the recipe is going through some maintenance, so rather than posting a bum link, I'll move onto the next recipe.

Banana Stuffed French Toast

I was struggling to figure out what to do for Scott's birthday dinner. As an adult, he's come away from really doing anything to 'celebrate' his birthday, which is too strange to me, who 'CELEBRATES' her birthday for about a month. I would have a New Orleans' style parade if I didn't have to organize it.

But, because his birthday fell on a Monday and the weekend got away from me, I found myself scrambling at 9am to figure out what to do. I went to the Seiyu to get even the smallest gift that Violet could 'give' to her Daddy for his birthday, like the green tea Kit Kats he's grown to love, when I came across a small travel bottle of Cointreau. This reminded me that I've always wanted to try to make fancy french toast. So, the plan formed and I hit Google for the recipe. This is what I came across: banana stuffed French toast.

Here's the recipe:

Original recipe makes 6 servings

• 1 (1 pound) loaf French bread, cut into 1 inch slices
• 2 bananas, peeled and sliced
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon water
• 1 tablespoon milk

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon orange liqueur
• 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
• 1/4 cup butter
• confectioners' sugar for dusting

Directions

1. Create a pocket about 2/3 of the way into each slice of bread by cutting along an edge. Fill pockets with 2 or 3 banana slices each.
2. In a medium bowl, beat together eggs, water, milk, vanilla extract, orange liqueur and orange zest. Dip the bread slices in the mixture, allowing slices to become saturated.
3. Melt butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Place a few slices at a time in the skillet, and cook, turning once, until both sides are golden brown. Dust with confectioners' sugar to serve.

 

In the first run of the process, I found that I need to add more butter and make more batter for the next time: the well ran a little dry for the last few pieces. I also think that there needs to be a creamy aspect to the middle with the bananas, so the next time I'll be adding a bit of pudding in the middle just to give it that extra little kick.

I have decided that I want this to be my signature birthday dinner for my family, so this gives me the incentive to perfect this recipe. I do want to explore other recipes, like Creme Brulee French Toast or Grand Marnier French Toast (I've tried the latter and I tweaked the recipe right out the gate; more on that later). Here's hoping I keep up on this aspect to my blog.

Just keep cooking... just keep cooking...

Oh! And for the actual foodies out there: please give me tips!! I'll try to incorporate them and let you know how/when I do =)

Teach Your Children Well - Noodles, DIY puzzle, Popsicle Stick Shapes

Other ways that I have been entertaining Violet (and teaching her fine motor skills) was to use anything you can find around the house. Well, maybe not popsicle sticks, unless you eat a lot of popsicles, but that is a perfect challenge for hot, summer days.

Noodles
Finding big tubular, pasta noodles, like ziti, is easy enough and as is finding yarn. Here's what I didn't realize right away - yarn is uncooperative.

Upon my mother's suggestion, I got shoelaces. Luckily, there is a store for military gear at the BX, so I was able to get very long and sturdy shoelaces that wouldn't get mixed up with Scott's uniform. I also threw in a couple of short Solo cups (clear), an empty tissue box and one of my espresso cups for Violet to play and transfer the noodles. She loves it. She even is enthusiastic about clean-up because she gets to hold the zip-lock baggie and control the situation.

DIY Puzzles
This was the simplest activity to do. All you have to do is take a cereal box, cut it into how ever many pieces or shapes you think your kid can handle and, VOILA! got yourself a simple puzzle. I used 4 different boxes and I made sure to label the backs of the cardboard just so I can set out one puzzle at a time and not confuse Violet. We're still working on this and I found that it's easiest to take a cell phone pic of the 'finished' puzzle for her to work off of.

Popsicle Stick Shapes
This is also a very simple project. Make simple shapes, ie. triangle, rectangle, diamond and square, out of popsicle sticks, trace them onto a piece of construction paper, and allow your kid to place the sticks on top of the traced lines to learn shapes. The extra step I took was to then put the construction paper in a page protector so that I can keep a lot of the loose papers in a three-ring binder for easy access. This also keeps Violet from ripping up the paper, just in case the destructive mood strikes her.

Teach your children well - Clay

In the past several months, I have been very motivated to actually implement the activities I pin on my Pinterest board for contructive kid play. There are friends of mine who are out there who have asked to be included in what I discover works. So, I'll try to keep track of Violet (and my) progress on the blog. I'll try to add as many personal pictures of either making each project or action shots of Violet playing with it, as well as the links of where I got the ideas just in case anyone wants to explore any of the sites I stumble upon.

The first activity I'll post is about clay. Yes, you can purchase Play-Doh and skip the whole process of making your own clay. Your arms and upper back may thank you. However, I HATE the smell of Play-Doh - I'm not even sure why. So, when I found a recipe for clay AND the fact that, miracle of all miracles, the commissary actually carries the gel food coloring, I forged ahead and made clay, like my mother did for us.

The major difference between the clay my Mom made and this clay recipe was that it didn't leave the hands grainy or tasting like a salt lick. That was a nice discovery. Here's the recipe:

Make clay
Ingredients:

1 cup water

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup flour
1/4 cup salt
2 tbsp cream of tartar
gel food coloring
*I used Wilton brand in Rose, Orange, Lemon Yellow, Leaf Green, Sky Blue, and Violet

Directions:

1. Pour the water and vegetable oil in a saucepan. Add in the flour, salt, cream of tarter and a teaspoon or two of gel food coloring. Lightly stir together to combine.
   *The dough will end up being about the same color that it is now, so add more food coloring now if you want the color to be richer/brighter.
2. Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly. It should be done in about 4-5 minutes. Because you might panic and think you've ruined it, here is a breakdown of what it looks like throughout the cooking process:
   • Minute 1: The mixture will combine, and look smooth and beautiful!
   • Minute 2: You'll start to get chunks. Make sure to keep scraping the bottom and edges of the pan to prevent any pieces from burning.
   • Minute 3: This is where you might begin to worry that you've messed it up. Looks like a clumpy mess. Don't panic! Just keep stirring!!
   • Minute 4: The dough will start to form into a ball. You'll know when it's ready when it's not sticky and pulls away from the pan. You can test by pressing the dough with your fingers. It will be hot!
3. Remove the dough from the pan and place on a plate to cool.
4. Once cool, knead the dough. This can be done by you or little helpers!
5. To store, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place in a sealed container.
   *I purchased a couple of 5-pack Rubbermaid TakeAlongs® containers (17 oz) at WalMart and the dough fits perfectly!

A few notes:

• Each batch makes about 2 cups of dough. You need to make a new batch for each color. It took me less than an hour to make all 6 batches.
• Surprisingly, the food coloring doesn't come off on your hands at all.
• The dough is safe to eat, but it is disgusting!
• Buy more cream of tartar than you think you'll need. I got 2 1/2 batches from one 1.5 oz container.
• Regular liquid food coloring will also work, but I think the gel makes the color a little more vibrant. Liquid food coloring may also come off on your hands

And some of my own pictures:

This was just the right size for storage

 All together, I made 6 colors: red, blue, yellow, green, orange and purple. The green was the easiest secondary color to make since there was a green food coloring tube already. I just added a bit more blue to make it a tad more vibrant. The orange was a bit tough, but I think it turned out alright and the purple was hardest of all. Mixing your own coloring helps insert your own creativity in the process, which I really liked.

So far, it's a pretty big hit and I figure if the clay dries out or the something odd happens to the clay (I'm always a little worried about things molding in this humidity), Violet will just be more and more useful as a helper in the making of her own toys.

Also, a helpful tip: if you have carpeting like I do, using a shower curtain as a drop cloth is the cheapest solution I can come up with to avoid any bits of clay being flung (accidentally or otherwise) and ground into the carpet.