Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

We gave Joe a cookbook for his birthday and this is the fourth recipe we've made. We ate 1/8 size pieces and found them quite filling so we'll likely serve smaller pieces if we eat some with ice cream.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie
adapted from this cookbook
9" pan, 350 degrees (metal pan), 50 minutes
Serves 8-12

Ingredients:
1 9" pie crust, unbaked
1/2 c. (1 stick) butter, softened
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2/3 c. flour
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream the butter and sugar then add eggs and mix until light and fluffy.
Stir in the flour then stir in the chocolate chips and nuts.
Place pie crust in pan then pour and spread filling.
Bake 50 minutes and cover lightly with foil if pie becomes too brown.
Cool pie for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Elementary School Field Day

Paradise by the Grocery Store Lights

So, we were driving along in the minivan when I realized that it's Saturday night. Other people in the world were going to movies or dinner, getting ready to go out dancing, or having a party with friends. We, however, were on a family trip to the grocery store (Lucy stayed in the van). In honor of Saturday night we used the car cart. There are occasionally these moments where it becomes crystal clear that your life is completely different than it used to be.

I had another moment when a friend of mine resumed DJ-ing after being off the air for over 10 years. I remember when he was on the radio before and we would go out for a beer, talking for hours about our love lives. Back in the present, and once again in the minivan, I turn up the radio and yell to the back seat "Joe, that's Emma's daddy!"

The most striking moment, though, was the trip to Burger King. We were getting out of the minivan (are you noticing that the minivan really seems to emphasize my life as a parent?) when I look across the street to the porch where Kirk and I met. The porch where we spent many nights sitting for hours with a group of friends, drinking box o' wine and having what seemed at the time to be very, very deep discussions. I thought for a moment about what that 23 year old girl on that porch would think about this mommy with her kids going in to feed them high fat, industrial food. She would not have been kind about my conventional, boring life. Little would she know how happy I am.

Life is drastically different than it used to be. Thank God.

As long as it's educational, right?

Some recent developments as a post-script to my entry on Buy, Buy Baby regarding branding in advertising and videos for babies. Read this if you're interested in the latest on boyhood. Granted, they're all from Time magazine so bring your biases, take what you want and leave the rest.

Shoppers and parents take note....

Having the pressure of "non-renewal" to make me actually read a book in (almost) the library-imposed three weeks, I plowed through the final chapters of the book Buy, Buy Baby which discusses in great depth the marketing of "baby genius" and "educational" materials to children (parents). The author spent 4 years researching children's toys and paraphernalia -- such as, but not at all limited to, Disney, Thomas, Care Bears & Baby Einstein. Additionally she covers parenting, No Child Left Behind, 1996 Welfare reform, day-care centers, as well as the schemes and aims of the marketers/companies behind the commercialization of parenting and the materials used in day-care centers. She has nearly 30 pages of end notes and almost 10 more as a bibliography. This is not someone who's crying wolf. There is a wealth of material and, hoping not to ramble on too much, I'll describe a bit here.

As a group, Gen-Xer's share primarily two traits: shopping and television. The Gen-X mom, this should come as no surprise, has been deconstructed in amazing and frightening clarity by marketing companies and they know how to classify you to suit their needs. As for children's television programs, research has documented that the only thing a child under 2 can "learn" from a t.v. show/video is the sight of a familiar face - which is exactly what the companies hope for. Here are some of the areas of cultural reform that she says are needed: more research (introduced in 2005 (!) by Senators Lieberman, Brownback, Clinton, & Santorum, but stalled in Congress) on the effects of children's television programs; at least partially PAID parental leave; allowing children to have open-ended play, or as she describes, doing Nothing. That is, not adhering to "standard's-compliant curriculum" which has come to day-care centers as a "trickling down of 'No Child Left Behind' rules.

But enough from me. Listen to an interview with the author or read the book.