The Day I Got Engaged

I love super romantic engagement stories. I tear up every time I see an engagement on TV, even if it's not overly thoughtful or romantic. Like most women, I guess I'm just a sucker for love. So that's why I wanted to share my own engagement story. Get ready to be disappointed by your own stories - if they don't involve pedophilia, dirt, the f-word, and Kentucky, you ain't got nothin' on us.

At the end of my senior year of college, Husband (then Boyfriend) and I were exclusively dating, but neither of us were overly convinced of the long-term sustainability of our relationship. I had recently been awarded a Fulbright scholarship and would be leaving in early September to spend a year in Germany. Our initial reaction was to end the relationship, since we were sure we'd never last (or want to last) a year away from each other.

Husband still had another year of college left (although he is older than me, he didn't join ROTC until his Sophomore year, so he had to do a fifth year of college in order to meet all of the ROTC requirements to commission on time with his graduation), and the summer before the last year of ROTC is full of Army-training-goodness. Because of this, we would only have about three weeks in August to actually spend with each other before I left for Germany. So we basically decided to spend the last couple weeks of May together, to enjoy each others' company while we could.

Of course, those fateful weeks made us realize we actually did, in fact, like each other, we both had the same goals in life, and we turned out to be surprisingly compatible.

In early June, Husband left for the Army's Leader Development and Assessment Course (LDAC) in Ft. Lewis, WA (it's basically a giant test of everything they're supposed to learn in ROTC - then they're ranked on their performance, and this ranking helps the Army assign them to their branches, decide which jobs they should have, and determine their first duty station after graduation/commissioning). Because he wasn't allowed to use phones or the internet, I wrote him letters almost every day (how old fashioned and romantic!). As soon as he finished the LDAC course, he was flown to Ft. Campbell, KY to do a Cadet Troop Leader Training course (CTLT) with an aviation unit there.

He called from the airport in Kentucky and told me, since he was staying in a hotel for the entire CTLT course, I could come and spend the three weeks there with him. Like a young person in love (and without a job), I jumped in the car an hour later and drove 13.5 hours straight, from South Dakota to Ft. Campbell.

Over the course of the LDAC letters, we'd basically decided we wanted to get married. It really only seemed logical. Kentucky would be a test to see if we were sure. We talked about marriage, divorce, children, religion, etc, and discovered we shared almost all of the same ideologies and philosophies, and, let's face it, we could tolerate each other better than any of the other people we'd dated. Isn't that the ultimate test of marriage-compatibility? We can spend exponentially more time in a small room together before wanting to bash each other's heads in than with anyone else we'd ever met. True love at it's finest.

So we went ring shopping. We picked out a ring together, he ordered it, and they said they'd call when it was in. Then we went about our daily CTLT lives - Husband went to work every morning, I wasted time until he was finished for the day, and we spent the evenings going out for dinner and hanging out with the other cadets doing CTLT at Ft. Campbell.

One day toward the end of the course, Husband suggested we go to the nearby town to stop by the mall, get some dinner, and maybe go see a movie. He picked a teppanyaki-style restaurant (where they cook the food on the big griddle in front of you at your table), and we got relatively dressed up.

I have to admit, I suspected something. I knew he'd bought the ring and was waiting for it to be delivered to the store, and I had a pretty good idea that he was going to ask me to marry him while we were still in Kentucky. What better place than a super-romantic, fancy dinner? I'd always loved the idea of being proposed to in a restaurant, with all the other customers looking on and clapping for us as I wiped tears out of my eyes and happily said, "yes, of course I'll marry you!!" Sort of like a miniature version of our 15 minutes of fame. The restaurant would probably even give us a free dessert so we could feed bites to each other and solidify the public image of our undying love for each other.

The waitress who came to take our drink order asked if we were there for a special occasion. I glanced nervously at Husband, who also seemed exceptionally anxious. "No, just here for dinner," he told her. He was obviously trying to build up the suspense - waiting for the perfect moment to get down on one knee and ask me to make him the happiest man in the world.

We ordered our food, and the chef prepared it. I'd never been at one of those types of restaurants before, but I was almost too nervous to really enjoy the show the chef was putting on. I could almost feel the ring burning in Husband's pocket. Waiting for its big debut.

We ate our food and finished our drinks. Still nothing from Husband. Okay, he must be waiting till we're about to leave.

The waitress came by with the check and Husband paid.

Wait, what? Why are we leaving? What about my fancy-restaurant, romantic proposal? All these people are just sitting here, waiting to clap and be excited for us! They all want to look at us and exclaim about what an adorable, young, clearly-in-love couple we are! Their dinners will end so anticlimactically!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, HUSBAND?!

We walked out into the parking lot, and Husband suggested we start to walk toward the movie theater in the mall, even though we had about an hour and a half to waste until our movie started. I was starting to feel stupid for having expected a proposal. He was probably wondering why I was acting so strange and nervous. But I couldn't shake the feeling that he was acting strangely, too.

The mall parking lot was in some state of being re-done. The current stage seemed to be "torn up, covered in dirt, and not tended to in over a year." As we started the trek across the dirt-covered, cracked cement lot, the sun finished setting, and the street lights came on, illuminating the mostly-vacant, kind of creepy area on the backside of the mall. I could feel myself getting more and more agitated and irritated with Husband. I felt so stupid; I'd been convinced he was going to ask me at the restaurant. What a disappointment. How could I have so completely misread the situation?

As we walked along, Husband noticed a group of scantily-clad teenage girls walking in front of us across the dirt lot.

"Don't look at those girls," I told him, letting the irritation take over.

"But look at what they're wearing. Pretty hot."

"They're like 14 years old! That's disgusting."

"Mmm, underage girls... that's the best."

I knew he was joking, but I was so emotionally strung out after the last hour and a half of bitter disappointment, I just let the frustration take over.

"Seriously, if you're going to act like that, I'm not even going to walk with you," I said as I walked faster to get away from him.

"Aww, come on, Laura, I'm sorry. Come back here and hold my hand."

"No, I'm serious. I'm not in the mood. Walk by yourself, or go ask those children to walk with you, if you're so interested in them," and I stomped further away from him.

"Please, Laura? What could I do to get you to come back and hold my hand?"

"Nothing. I'm done."

"Nothing? Not even this?"

I turned around to see him, down on one knee, in the dirt and weeds of the torn up cement parking lot, holding up a little ring box and smiling at me from ear to ear.

"Are you f---ing kidding me?"

Yes, that's right. That is word-for-word what I said in response to my proposal. The epitome of romance.

I walked back to him, and he actually asked me to marry him. I, evidently, said yes. It wasn't how I ever imagined it would be, but I honestly couldn't fathom my proposal being any different than it was. At the very least, it was a microcosm of our relationship. No matter how much Husband can piss me off, he can always make me laugh again. That was almost six years ago, and I still haven't tried to bash his head in.

(It should also be noted that, while reading over this before I publish it, I teared up. Guess it is kind of romantic in its own, weird way. I love you, Husband!)

The Day I Flew Air France

After the harrowing experience of flying Air India, I'm fairly sure the only way I convinced myself to ever step foot on a plane again was the simple fact that I needed to, eventually, go home. Countless very drunken nights in Berlin over the course of nearly a year of living and "studying" there probably didn't hurt to numb my memories of how awful cramped plane cabins can be when full of the scent of Indian airplane food, disgruntled Chinese stewardesses in saris, and gigantic Nigerian princes. But regardless, the time had come for me to once again brave air travel to return to my homeland.

Because this was the second half of our round-trip flight for the study abroad year, it was also booked through Air France. After saying many tearful good-byes to my absolutely wonderful German family (the ones who lived in the communist block housing), and the German guy I was dating at the time, I sadly made my way to the boarding area, only to discover that one of my classmates from the study abroad program would be flying home with me. Not just with me, but in the seat next to me. We hadn't exactly gotten along; he was part of the group of students who thought studying and learning German was for nerds, and I was most certainly the teacher's adoring pet (it's not like it was my fault I spent most nights out getting drunk with Germans and practicing my language so I could speak it significantly better than other people in our group). We gave each other courteous nods, and I sat down on the other side of the waiting area, trying to pretend like I wasn't crying.

After what seemed like an agonizingly long time, we finally got to board the plane. My classmate (whose name I've honestly forgotten - let's call him Nick, because I'm fairly sure it was some variant of a generic male nickname) boarded a few minutes after me and slowly made his way to his seat, immediately next to mine. Courteous nods again as I stifled back more tears. We both put on our headphones and continued to ignore each other while the cabin slowly filled with other passengers and the plane took to the air.

About an hour and a half into the flight, after they had started whatever in-flight movie we were effectively forced to watch in the small screens in the back of every seat, the flight dramatically left the realm of "standard, boring over-seas flight" and decided to try a different angle for our in-flight experience: terror.

The seat-belt signs had been turned off, and flight attendants and various passengers were "free to walk around the cabin," but, like the obedient passengers we'd all be trained to be, the majority of us were still in our seats with our belts fastened.

Out of no where, we hear an incredibly loud boom, then deafening quiet, and the plane seemed to fall. It didn't start to nose-dive, like one would expect if it were going to crash, but instead, it felt as if it suddenly dropped about 100 ft straight down. And then it just simply kept flying.

Then the "fasten seat-belt" light dinged back on.

To this day, I'm still fairly impressed at how well the passengers reacted. Most of us stayed frozen, clutching our arm rests and gazing around wide-eyed at each other. A few people let out startled screams when the plane dropped, but, overall, no one, at least no one near me, panicked.

Except the flight attendants.

They were all prim and extremely proper, perfectly skinny, meticulously manicured French women and gay French men. And suddenly, after the plane stabilized, they seemed to turn into bolts of white shirt, navy pants, and styled hair, zipping up and down the aisles, rapidly shooting out bursts of urgent sounding French to each other. They looked like a panicked flock of odd, yet proper birds - like doves with a crocodile thrown into their nest.

The sight of the clearly distressed stewardesses began to unnerve the majority of the passengers (over half of whom were American, and, based on future events, didn't speak a word of French, like me), but the fear didn't really set in until the pilot spoke to us over the loud speaker:

"Uhhhh.... jemapanesajumouisxtjeaux. Uhhhh.... letimejioux. Uhhh... siseauis."

Those of us who didn't speak French held our breath, waiting for the translation.

The seconds ticked by. Then, the audible 'click' of the speaker turning off.

Nothing else.

I turned to Nick, who had also turned off his ipod and taken off his headphones, and I simply said, "what the hell was that?"

He shrugged, looking about as terrified as I felt, and daringly stuck his hand into the aisle to stop one of the stewardess-doves in might squawk. He asked her what the pilot just said, and what that loud explosion was. She fluttered his hand away with her wing, trilled something in French, and flew away, down the aisle.

Looking around, I noticed other passengers trying to catch the stewardess-doves, also to no avail. Evidently, in a crisis situation, Air France had trained its employees to revert to only speaking French, to sprout wings, and to flitter about, so as to ensure any non-French speaking passengers will be the first to die, from lack of instruction or situational understanding.

After what seemed like an agonizing eternity of confusion, trapped in a small, possibly unstable plane cabin with a bunch of worthless, panicking birds, someone finally managed to gain control of the loud-speaker and explain what had happened in English. It was not, however, the pilot (who had previously used the loud-speaker to greet the passengers in English at the beginning of the flight).

The voice told us simply that, "one of the engines has exploded," and we would be returning to Paris.

Our in-flight movie had been stopped, and instead, the flight map, with the little airplane and red line showing the completed route, had taken its place. Based on the map, we were somewhere over the UK - we could have easily landed in Glasgow or London and been safely on the ground and out of this potential death-trap in a matter of no more than 30 minutes.

But instead, we watched in confusion as the plane flew past all of these possible savior airports, and made its way back toward the English Channel. Where it continued to fly in circles for approximately an hour and a half. If we hadn't been so terrified, the red line showing the path of our plane on the flight map would have been rather comical - it tracked all the circles we were making in a big squiggle, right over the water.

The stewardess-birds continued to ignore our pleas to speak English, and they refused people's pleas for beverages - even water. If someone tried to get up to go to the bathroom, they would swarm the poor passenger, squawking wildly and flapping their wings until the passenger gave up and retreated back to his seat.

Finally, we heard through other passengers that the plane had to waste fuel before it could land. Being a large airplane on the beginning of an over-seas flight, the tanks were still very full of fuel, and, evidently, it was risky to try and land the plane with that much flammable gas and only three engines. So we remained trapped in plane, making slow squiggles over the English Channel, for nearly two hours before we could safely land back in Paris.

Once we landed (with no further incident), we were ushered into a waiting area of the Charles De Gaulle and told a new plane was being prepared for us, and we would be able to re-board soon. Nearly four hours later, the plane was finally ready. This one managed to fly us all the way to Cincinnati without incident.

Along the way, through this whole ordeal, Nick and I actually began to talk and discovered that we didn't actually hate each other. At least not enough to not be able to put our differences aside and both entertain and joke with each other through the terror of getting on another plane.

By the time we landed in Cincinnati, it was well after 1am. The second leg of our flight, from Cincinnati to Omaha, had left around 8pm. Together, Nick and I made our way through Customs and to the desk the airport had set up specifically for our flight - because the delay was mechanical, Air France was footing the bill to put every single passenger up in a hotel overnight. Nick and I took a shuttle to the hotel we were assigned and planned to meet each other in the lobby to get some food together, after checking in to our rooms. However, the hotel restaurant had long since closed, and the only thing open was the hotel bar and dance club (don't all hotels have a bar and dance club? In northern Kentucky, they do).

Since we had both turned 21 in Germany, this was our first time to legally buy alcohol in the States. We decided to make a celebration of it, and used all our meal vouchers on alcohol. We had to ask the bartender to ID us. Other patrons of the bar (surprisingly, not people staying in the hotel - this bar was so "popular," the locals actually frequented it) soon caught on to our "delayed 21st birthday party," and several of them bought us drinks. Nick and I even tore up the classy dance floor a little.

Early the next morning (after having retired to our separate quarters - no "hanky panky" was involved, despite what Husband may think), we met in the lobby again, took the shuttle to the airport, and caught our flight to Omaha, laughing and joking with each other the entire time. We landed in Omaha and walked off the plane together. Nothing like a near-death experience to bond two people together.

That is, until we walked past the security check point and saw our friends and family again. We both turned our own ways and never spoke another word to each other.

But no matter what happens in this life, we'll always have Air France, Nick. Or John. Or Tom. Or whatever your name was...

I Am the Real Life Lois Lane

Intended in the most modest, strictly observational of ways, I used to be a fairly attractive person, and I frequently had men attempt to hit on me. Not only have I had my fair share of free drinks at bars, but for a while during my attractive phase (thank you, child-production for abruptly booting me out of that era), it was often common for men to strike up conversations with me practically anywhere. I'm not trying to brag or gloat, but this is important to know as background for this story. Really, I promise. But I was pretty hot...

So one day, about halfway through my senior year of high school, my dad was returning from a business trip, and he'd asked me to pick him up at the airport. I was probably wearing some tight-fitting, revealing outfit (I was 18, after all), and while I stood in the terminal waiting (this was pre-9/11, when we could go up to the gates, still), I noticed several men trying to sneak looks at me as they passed. I didn't think anything of it, because, like I said, I was fairly used to getting the attentions of gentlemen. I looked away casually, not trying to actively draw anyone's attention (believe it or not, I actually had really low self-esteem, and it made me nervous for men to approach me and talk to me - thank you, anxiety disorder).

My dad's flight finally landed, and people started to make their way past me, out of the gate. I kept glancing down the jetway, scanning the faces for my dad. Suddenly, a middle-aged man caught my eye. I didn't know him, so I looked away quickly, embarrassed to have made eye contact with him. After a few seconds, I looked back down the jetway, searching for my dad, again. The man was closer now, and still staring right at me. Smiling. I awkwardly turned my head away again quickly. He wasn't unattractive, at first glance, but it was making me feel slightly uncomfortable. I wished my dad would hurry up.

As the man got closer and closer to me, I kept my head turned away, so as to not encourage his attention. I tried to briefly scan the crowd in the hopes my dad would be in view and save me from any interaction with this man who was still smiling, still staring right at me, and almost close enough to engage in conversation. I mentally willed my dad to appear immediately in front of me.

Before I knew it, the man was right next to me. I looked past him, down the jetway, feeling the panic starting to set in, and my dad was still nowhere in sight. I refused to turn my head to face the inevitable - the man had stopped right next to me.

"Hi, Laura," he said.

How could he possibly know me?! I'd never seen this man before in my life. My heart was beating through my chest. I took one last pleading glance down the jetway, swallowed hard, and turned to face my evident stalker.

"Oh... hi, Dad." The strange man, the one I'd never seen before, was, in fact, my father. The man who had given me life and lived with me for the entire 18 years of my life. But I didn't recognize him as he got off the plane, simply because he'd shaved off his beard.

Now I know what you're thinking: a beard can be a very identifying characteristic. It's not entirely unreasonable to not recognize someone, even a familiar someone, without the beard they'd had for as long as you've known them. And while that may be true, it should also be noted that my dad had shaved his beard off several weeks before, and I'd lived with him for at least two full beardless weeks.

Why wasn't I able to recognize my own dad?

Have you ever watched or read any Superman movies, shows, or comic books and wondered how it was possible that Lois Lane didn't realize that Clark Kent was, in fact, none other than Superman? Other than the glasses and the suit, he looks exactly the same. But she was fooled every time. How could it be that removing a simple pair of glasses made it impossible for Lois to recognize the love of her life?

Simple. She suffered from a bizarre disorder, known as prosopagnosia, or "face blindness." In this regard, I also believe I have a strong commonality with Lois, aside from our insatiable lust for men in skin-tight blue spandex, in that I, evidently, also suffer from a mild case of prosopagnosia.

For the most part, this doesn't disrupt my life too greatly, except in a few key aspects.

Meeting people in public places. In combination with my anxiety disorder, this incredibly simple act of human interaction is practically a nightmare for me. I dread meeting people for fear I won't recognize them. Consequently, I try to plan the meeting down to the most specific details, so that I'll be able to find the person, based solely on the exact location (three steps to the left of the due north side of the fountain) and time (precisely 7:34pm). If I'm still unsure, I resort to my fool-proof method of smiling in an inviting, friendly manner at everyone, in the hopes that the person I'm meeting will think I recognized them and approach me first. So far, this method hasn't let me down.

If I've ever met you in a public place, and you're now concerned that I wouldn't have known who you were (in spite of our being friends for many years), rest assured that, after the successful meeting, I've always felt confident that I would, in fact, have recognized you, after all.

Watching movies. This hasn't proven to be overly frustrating for me, but, unfortunately, I can't say the same for my poor husband. He, more often than not, has to pause the movie to explain who main characters are, even 3/4ths of the way through the movie (especially if they, God forbid, change clothes). If there are two blond, white women in a film, even if they look nothing alike and are over 30 years apart, I have no hope of distinguishing them. This has made watching WWII movies extremely difficult. Put all the characters in uniforms with short, dark hair, and I can't help but wonder why that one German guy keeps getting killed, coming back to life, and shooting at himself in an American uniform. It just doesn't seem like a very well-written movie, in my opinion...

Meeting my husband in a public place after he gets finished with work. This is basically a combination of the first two situations. Mix the dreaded fear of meeting people in public with the inability to distinguish men in uniform (Husband is in the Army), and I'm hopeless. I rely on two characteristics to get me through this (assuming he's too far away to read his name tape). First is his individual gait. Luckily, I learned early in our relationship that my husband has a somewhat particular gait. I've gotten quite good at distinguishing it from all other men in uniforms'. The second telling trait is his mustache. Thankfully, not too many soldiers have small, black mustaches. However, if you put my husband next to five other soldiers in uniform, all with black mustaches, I might have a serious problem.

"Hi, honey! So good to see you. Hey, when did you become a Staff Sergeant? ...And why did you change your last name to 'Thompson?' Oh well, I know it must be you because you're in an Army uniform and you have a small, black mustache. Give me a big kiss, and let's go home."

Babies Are Stupid: The Miracle of Life

Becoming a parent is a huge adjustment for anyone. I've been babysitting and nannying since I was around 11 years old (for other people's kids, not just my little brother), so I'd spent a good amount of time with kids of all ages for many years before I became a parent. I thought I had a good idea of what real parenthood would be like. I didn't even have a clue. There is nothing that can really prepare you for being the sole provider to a completely vulnerable and utterly incompetent newborn human. Of all the major adjustments I had to undergo in my process of becoming a decent mother, I think the most surprising was the realization that I was responsible for teaching this little blob of screaming flesh everything it had to learn. Everything. When I sat back and starting really thinking about it, I became overwhelmed at the things you have to teach a baby. Holding this fragile little life in my arms - knowing its survival, its successes and failures, its understanding of the world and life in its entirety, EVERYTHING - was in my hands, I realized, babies are really stupid.

I think it's safe to assume that most everyone knows you have to teach babies the basic things. Language, walking, how to pee and poop in a toilet, sarcasm, manners, basic hygiene like washing our bodies and brushing our teeth, how to drive a car, etc. Parents look forward to teaching their kids certain things, like throwing a ball, riding a bike, swimming. We spend hours every week teaching our preschoolers the alphabet, colors, and numbers, so they can learn to read and count and function in society. We know that becoming a parent also means becoming a life-long teacher, showing our kids how to do the things we learned from our own parents, like checking the oil in the car, cleaning out a refrigerator, doing laundry, mowing the lawn - things they'll need to know someday so they can have stable homes and lives, and eventually teach their own kids. Since I'm a relatively new mom, I haven't spent the years teaching my children all the things yet to come, but it's truly astounding how much I've already had to teach my kids. When you sit back and really think about the things kids must be taught, it's kind of astounding that our species has survived at all.

Most babies are born knowing how to eat - sucking is an inherent instinct. But get this - some babies don't even know how to do this. That's right. You could give birth to a screaming flesh-blob that can't even do this most basic life function. Breastfeeding isn't as natural as the general public would have you believe. There are multiple products out there that help babies learn how to latch on correctly (be it to a real or synthetic nipple), because this is a common enough issue that people can make money off it. Lactation consultants, breastfeeding product companies, and all the dozens of different bottle companies making their dozens of different style nipples, all with one purpose - teaching your little idiot how to eat. In nature, when things are born and they can't eat, they die. Natural selection would have it so things that are too stupid to know how to do this at birth don't survive long enough to reproduce. But not humans! We've defeated natural selection. Take that, Nature!

Once your baby has mastered eating, you face the next big educational obstacle: teaching them how to sleep. Some babies are born as really good sleepers. They already know the difference between day and night, and they have no problem sleeping for 9-12 hours overnight, right off the bat. But don't get your hopes up, because that won't be your baby. Brace yourself for having a baby like mine. My two year old didn't sleep for 6 consecutive hours until he was 14 months old. I spent countless hours reading half a dozen books from "sleep experts," teaching me how to teach my son how to sleep. We tried at least 4 different methods. My five month old daughter will only sleep in an infant bouncer seat, and rarely sleeps longer than 45 min at a stretch, even overnight. I'm dreading the day I have to start trying to train her to sleep flat on a bed, much less for longer than an hour.

So you've taught your baby how to eat and how to sleep, and now she's six months old, and ready to start eating solid foods. Back to square one on teaching her how to eat. Because eating solid food is also not an inherent skill, you have to buy a plethora of "learning" utensils, plates, and bowls, and teach your baby how to use each of these. Starting with a mush of "cereal" that is effectively just thickened formula or milk, you have to work a baby up to eating actual solids, teaching them how to chew and swallow without choking. You have to teach them how to drink from a cup, too. There's a whole series of "learning" cups on the market so you can teach them in stages, from bottle (or boob) all the way up to drinking out of a normal cup like a grown-up in a civilized society.

When I started out as a new mom with my son, I didn't realize any of this wasn't just instinct. It was a real struggle for me to learn how to teach all of this and have the patience to do it correctly. But I knew being a parent wouldn't be easy, so I didn't mind (too much), spending hours upon hours every day, working with my son so he could learn to sleep in a bed or swallow some mush. But as the months passed, I stumbled upon some other weird things that babies don't know how to do and, consequently, have to be taught. I'll share a few of the ones that really stand out in my mind (mostly because I had to learn how to teach each of these - not an easy feat by itself, let alone then translating it into toddler to teach my son).

How to wear shoes. Ant learned how to walk around 9 months. He got really good at it, really quickly, so he wanted to try it outside. I had a pair of shoes for him, so I put them on. He turned into a cat in slippers, froze, started crying, then fell over. I went through three pairs of shoes before I found some that were soft-soled enough for him to learn to stand in them, then we had to gradually move to harder soles, and eventually to actual shoes.

How to wear clothes. At first, babies just wear clothes because you put them in them. But then they start to have opinions about their bodies, and, sometimes, they don't want to wear clothes. You also have to teach them how to take off their clothes. Then you have to teach them when it's appropriate to take off their clothes, and when it is absolutely not appropriate. We're still working with Ant on wearing shoes during Church and pants in Walmart (though sometimes I get the feeling I'm in the minority trying to teach this one).

Holding hands. This one was really surprising to me. We spent an entire day at SeaWorld, fighting over walking and holding hands vs being carried against his will. I had to continually negotiate with him: "you can walk by yourself, IF you hold my hand. Otherwise, I have to carry you." We'd take two steps holding hands, and he'd dramatically hurl himself onto the ground in a fit of rage, while the people behind us had to stumble around to keep from tripping over us. It took about 4 hours, but eventually, he learned how to do it without a rage-attack.

Regulating emotions. We're still working on this one (I think most people have to work on this one their entire lives), but it's much more pronounced with a toddler. First, you have to teach them the names for emotions. Then you have to be consistent, every single day, with how to handle each emotion. We use "time out" solely as a means to control emotions - frustration and anger, mostly - that get out of hand. Babies and children don't know how to "self-soothe." Learning that is a central key to many of life's secrets, including sleeping and functioning in a normal society.

Not getting yourself killed. This is another one of those life-long struggles for most of us. It starts with things like not rolling off a tall bed and landing on your head, or not running into the street and getting run over, or not just walking off the tall platforms on playgrounds. Surprisingly, babies have absolutely no survival instinct when it comes to things like this. Squirrels are terrified of loud trucks barreling down on them. But human babies? They'll just sit there and be smooshed.

The list goes on and on. Learning how to sit upright, then sitting in a high chair, stroller, booster seat, shopping cart, etc. How to open things - all things - doors, cabinets, lids, bins. How to go up stairs. How to stay upright in water (including the bathtub). How to turn lights on and off (at one point, we taught Ant that he could turn lights on and off by stomping his foot on the ground while we secretly hit the switch whenever he did it - that led to a world of disappointment when we weren't ready and standing at the light switch when he decided the lights should be on one day). How to stand still and wait for mom or dad (which is closely related to "how to not get run over by that big, loud truck barreling down on you).

The real miracle of life isn't the evolution of humankind, the way we're conceived, our gestation process, and the fact that we're born into this world as little replicas of our parents. No, the real miracle of life is that our parents are patient enough to teach us how to do absolutely everything so that we can eventually grow up to be somewhat functional humans, spawn our own babies, and start the cycle all over again. It's truly a miracle that, as a species, we have tricked ourselves into thinking it's normal to dedicate at least 18 years of our own life to teaching children what it took our own parents 18+ years to teach us - and that we're entirely okay with this process. If our parents abandoned us as infants, the way many other species do, we would most certainly no longer be on the top of the food chain. We're far, far too stupid for that.

Recipe: Hot Fudge Sundae Cake (Vegan)

I know this picture doesn't make it look like the most appetizing thing in the world, but if you look at it knowing that it's a "molten" style cake, I think it looks a lot more appealing. I don't really like chocolate, but I even thought this cake was pretty delicious. It's from a vegan cookbook called "More Great Good Dairy-Free Desserts" by Fran Costigan. This is only the second recipe I've tried from this cookbook, so I don't yet feel I could recommend it (or not), but the other recipe I tried was a little strange. Edible, and sort of good, but just a little... off. Anyway, here's this one (that was very, very good).

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake:

1 cup cake flour (the original recipe calls for 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour and 1/2 cup unbleached white flour. I just used 1 cup cake flour - because I was too lazy - and because who wants whole wheat in their delicious cake?!)

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar, divided

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa, divided

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup soy or rice milk alternative

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 3/4 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350.

Oil a 2 - 2 1/2 quart baking dish that is at least 3" deep (a classic oval corningware dish worked great for me. Also, I have never "oiled" a baking dish before - I always butter/flour - so I wasn't overly sure on this one. I used canola oil, since it's also used in the recipe - and just made sure to coat all the sides. It's easy to soak up the excess oil afterwards with a paper towel, much like oiling a dutch oven before using.)

In a large bowl, strain together the flour, 3/4 cup of the sugar, 1/4 cup of the cocoa, the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt (I actually didn't strain them, because I was feeling very lazy. I added them and used a whisk to combine them and mix evenly. It seems to have worked out just fine).

In a separate small bowl, combine the oil, milk alternative, and vanilla with a whisk until well mixed. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until batter is smooth (I just continued to use the same whisk).

Pour the batter into the oiled pan (make sure there isn't any excess oil in the bottom of the pan). In a separate small bowl, combine the remaining 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa, and sprinkle the mixture evenly over the top of the batter. Then (seriously) pour the boiling water over the top of the whole thing. It kind of mixed around into it when I poured it on (it won't just stay on top), but that's fine.

Bake for 25 minutes. You can't really test if the cake is done, as it will "look" set, but will still be really loose. The original instructions say the sauce should bubble up through the top, but that didn't happen with mine. I gauged doneness by the edges - when they looked finished but not burnt, I took it out. Let it set for 15 minutes in the pan before serving.

The top of the cake is the actual cake part - and it kind of hovers over the liquid "sauce" underneath it. Serve pieces of the cake on plates, and then pour several spoonfuls of the sauce over the top of the cake. I found that letting it soak a bit in the sauce made it even better.

Super easy cake, and super good! The original recipe says it serves 6-10. I guess we're much more gluttonous consumers - I'd say 6-8 servings, tops (because, really, if you're going to eat delicious chocolate cake, who can possible be satisfied with a small portion?).

Recipe: Dinner Rolls (Bread Machine)

I'm not a big "dinner roll" fan. I would always prefer biscuits to classic dinner rolls. Until I met these. I could eat these, plain, for every single meal for the rest of my life. I love these so much. Tons of melted butter on the top makes them deliciously-fattening. I've also tried these with dairy-free substitutions, and they turned out great. Thankfully.

This is a bread machine recipe (dough cycle only). If you don't have a bread machine, but you still really want to try these, let me know and I'll write out a hand-kneaded conversion recipe, too (but if no one needs it, I'm not going to waste my time with it). :)

Dinner Rolls:

Makes 16 (delicious) rolls

Estimated Total Time: around 2.5 hours (but they can be refrigerated for up to 48 hours - which will increase the total (active - not counting the refrigerated time) time to around 3.5-4 hours)

1 cup warm (100 -110 degree) water

2 Tbsp margarine, butter, or dairy-free butter-like spread, at room-temperature

1 large egg, at room temperature

3 1/4 cups bread flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp salt

3 tsp bread machine or quick active dry yeast, at room temperature

2-3 Tbsp melted margarine, butter, or dairy-free butter-like spread (don't melt it until dinner rolls have only 1 minute left of baking time)

Place all ingredients in the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer (usually: water, egg, sugar, salt, margarine, flour, and then make a small "bowl" in the top of the flour to hold the yeast).

Use the "dough" cycle on the bread machine. Do not use a delay cycle.

When dough is finished (mine takes 1.5 hours in the machine), remove dough from the pan with floured hands, place it on a lightly floured surface, and cover it with a damp (with warm water) towel for 10 minutes.

Grease a large cookie sheet (I use crisco to grease it, but a spray grease, like PAM, also works, I believe). Divide the dough into 16 equal pieces (tear it in halves repeatedly until you end up with 16 equal pieces). Shape each piece into a ball (I've found you can get the prettiest rolls if you wrap the ends all under and pinch them on the bottom, then place the roll down so the pinched side is on the bottom and the top is smooth and pretty - they will bake and look exactly like how they do when you put them in the oven - they don't smooth out on their own). Place the balls around 1-2 inches apart on the greased cookie sheet (I usually put them about an inch from each other - so when they rise/bake, they bake into each other. This gives them softer sides. If you'd prefer them to have a "crust" on all sides (not just the top), place them 2" apart).

At this point, you can cover the rolls (on the cookie sheet) with plastic wrap and refrigerate them for up to 48 hours. When you're ready to use them, take them out of the fridge and let them rise in a warm place (covered) for 2 hours before baking. If you want them right away(ish), skip this step and continue:

Cover with the damp towel and let them rise in a warm place for 30 -40 minutes, or until an indentation remains when touched (I always put them on top of the dryer and turn it on - this also motivates me to actually remember to do laundry some days).

Preheat oven to 375. Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. When they have 1 minute left of baking time, melt the 2-3 Tbsp of butter/margarine/butter substitute (depending on how much butter you like - I like a lot) in the microwave. As soon as you take the rolls out of the oven, brush the tops with the melted butter (use all of it - I usually go over them each about twice, making sure to get all the sides). Serve warm.

These are so buttery and delicious, they don't need any more butter spread in the middle, I've found. They also work great as sandwich buns for leftovers. Or just to eat plain when you want a snack.

Recipe: Fiesta Chicken with Tomato-Avocado Salsa

This recipe is a Betty Crocker one, with very slight alterations on my part, and in my words. It was delicious!! Husband really liked it, giving it the highest of compliments by stating, "even my burps taste like I just at on the Riverwalk [in San Antonio.]" Can't get much better than that!!

Tomato-Avocado Salsa:

2 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1 medium avocado, pitted, peeled and chopped

4 medium green onions, sliced

2 Tbsp lime juice

1-2 seeded, finely chopped jalapenos

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 tsp salt (or a little more - I added more to mine on my plate, but Husband thought it was fine. I'm a bit of a saltaholic, though...)

Mix all ingredients together in a medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate until dinner time (at least 1 hour - try to avoid eating it all on tortilla chips beforehand - it's definitely good enough to eat plain!).

Chicken:

2-4 bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts

1/4 cup lime juice

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp salt

Place chicken in a medium-sized bowl. Mix together lime juice, vegetable oil, ground cumin, and salt in a small bowl, and pour over chicken. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour (I'm not sure if you could marinate them overnight, or longer than an hour, but I imagine you could without much problem - just be sure to flip them every now and then to marinate evenly - but they were plenty flavorful marinating for just an hour; I'd be concerned they'd get too strongly flavored if you marinated them much longer).

Preheat oven to 375. Place chicken skin-side up in a shallow glass baking dish in a single layer. Pour left-over marinade (from the bowl they were just in) over top. Cover with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove tin foil and bake for another 20 - 30 minutes, occasionally spooning the marinade over the tops until the chicken is thoroughly cooked (I probably checked/spooned the marinade over every 5-8 minutes or so - I also baked them for closer to 30 minute uncovered to try and get a crisper skin).

Tortilla Strips:

4 flour tortillas (8")

2-3 Tbsp vegetable oil

While chicken is baking, heat the oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat until hot. Cut the flour tortillas into 1/2" strips (I cut them in strips long-ways, then cut across the middle to make about 16 small strips per tortilla) and then put them in the hot oil. Stirring frequently, cook them over medium-high heat for around 5-10 minutes, until they are crisp and golden brown. Keep a close eye on them - they can burn easily. I turned the heat down to medium for the last couple minutes, because they weren't crisp enough yet, but I didn't want to burn them. Also, we love tortilla chips, and this was enough for just two of us - I'd definitely make a lot more if we had more adults eating (at least 8 tortillas).

Betty suggests serving them together (like salsa on the chicken and tortilla strips on the side), which was good, but they would also make excellent "fajitas" if you sliced the chicken and used it with the salsa on regular flour tortillas (omitting the tortilla strip part of this recipe). We're certainly going to eat it like that for all the leftovers!!

Serves: 2-4 (depending on how much chicken you make - you can use the same amount of marinade regardless)

Estimated Total Time: 2.5 hours