My Valentine's Date with My Fifteen Year Old Son

Peter broke his arm in gym class on December 1st. That's the view from the side.  Arms are not supposed to bend there.

It was pretty bad.  The school called an ambulance for him.  They neglected to mention the ambulance when they called me to tell me he had broken his arm and was being taken to the hospital.  Communication at an all boys school with an all male staff is not the best.

I was torn between driving the 30 minutes north to be with him and waiting it out at home.  The Chef was at the hospital quickly.  Word on Fire's office is not far from there.  The Chef kept telling me things like, "By the time you get up here, we could be headed home."  That's what he said at 2 pm and every half hour until 10:30.

I was also torn because Susan had her Christmas concert, in which she was playing bass G and bass A in the handbell choir's performance of The Little Drummer Boy.  The Chef was supposed to go to that. 

I was supposed to go to Lucy's Drama Showcase, in which she recited a poem and performed some improv.  And I did go, to the Showcase, not the Concert, because I can't bi-locate, but I'm working on it.
My father-in-law went out of his way to drive me, Baby J, and Edmund to Lucy's Showcase.

Gratuitous Baby J photo. Now you know why we call her the Turtle and celebrated her namesake's feast day last week with Turtle Brownies.  Though I have uploaded the upright version of this photo 10x, it remains sideways.  arrgh.

No one went to Susan's handbell performance.  I hope she doesn't need therapy for that in the future. 

Peter was sedated when the doctors set the bones.  When he was coming out of the anesthetic, he kept saying things like,
"Dad!  Dad""
"What is it, Peter?"
"I luuuuuv you."

 Or my favorite,
"Dad! Dad!"
"Yes, Peter?"
"Dad, my arm hurts like a b*&%#."

Eventually, he came to.  But then he started vomiting and had to stay a few more hours for observation.  Oh, and at some point pre-setting-of-the-bones, The Chef stopped letting me talk to Peter, because we would both end up in tears.

Basically, I should have gone up there, and I've regretted it ever since.

Fast forward to today.  I made the romantic gesture:  Heart-Shaped Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf. 

I also wasted most of my day making my family's secret recipe, Great-aunt Sister Cristella's Sugar Cookies, in the shapes of hearts and lips, as my Valentine gift to my brood. Plus, I love them. I frosted them and put sprinkles on them. Well, Lucy frosted the pink ones.  Here is a photo of Lucy with a sugar high.  That's her in the background. 

Edmund and I were just getting started on the Smashed Potatoes when Peter remarked, "I love Valentine's Day, because it's the day I get my cast off."  

AAAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!

The appointment with the orthopedist was for 6:10 pm.  We got there 10 minutes late.  The nurse removed the cast.  We saved it to give to the kid who accidentally caused the break in gym class.

Weird things about getting a cast off:

•  The arm in the cast has way more hair.  
• The skin on that arm keeps flaking off.  I have bits of dermis stuck to my jeans right now.
• The inside of the cast has cotton padding.  That cotton padding is sweat stained where his hand was.
• The skin on the cast hand is weirdly smooth and freakishly cold.  Like corpse skin.  Peter keeps trying to touch The Chef's face with his corpse hand.

I know you really wanted to know all of that.  But wait it gets better.

There were red pepper flakes stuck to his hairy, peeling arm.  I don't know why.  I just thought it was worth mentioning.

In the parking lot, he kept sticking his nose in the cast and inhaling deeply.
I told him to stop.  "Gross." "That's weird."  "Cut it out."
"But Mom, it's such an interesting smell.  Kind of musty."

You'd think I'd know better.
I don't.
I smelled it.
It smelled like cologne and butt.
He said, "That's because I shoved that fragrance slip from American Eagle in there."  I'm guessing that was the cologne smell, not the butt smell.

I told this story so well when we got home, that the Chef had to take a whiff too.  He agrees with my assessment.

Now, every few minutes, we hear Peter say things like:

"I will now open the closet with my left hand!"  "Ow."

"I'm going to shower tonight and at least once every two days from now on."

"Now, I can put deodorant in my right armpit."

"I will now smack my little brother with my left hand."  "Ow."


He still has to wear a removable arm splint for four more weeks.  No gym for four more weeks.  No baseball yet.  But soon.  And he can drive again.  Yee-haw!

I just heard him say, "I am now turning the page with my left hand."  Deo Gratias!
Happy Valentine's Day!

The Most Romantic Thing I've Ever Done

Every year on Valentine's Day, I make a heart-shaped bacon wrapped meatloaf.  The Chef says that this is the most romantic thing I've ever done.  He really loves my meatloaf.

I originally posted this on Pots and Peter Pans.

My meatloaf recipe comes from a cookbook, The Best Recipe, by Pam Anderson. She recommends a meatloaf mix of 50% ground chuck, 25% ground veal, and 25% ground pork. I'm too lazy and cheap to do that. I use a very gourmet mix of 80% lean ground beef and 93% lean ground beef. It probably doesn't matter how lean the beef is for this, because most of the fat drains out of a free form loaf anyway.

Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf with Brown Sugar Ketchup Glaze
Serves 6-8

Brown Sugar-Ketchup Glaze

¼ cup ketchup or chili sauce
2 T light or dark brown sugar
2 t cider or white vinegar

Meat Loaf

2 t vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 large eggs
1 t dried thyme
1 t salt
½ t ground black pepper
2 t Dijon mustard
2 t Worcestershire sauce
¼ t hot red pepper sauce
½ c milk, buttermilk, or low-fat plain yogurt
2 lbs. ground beef ( or ground pork, ground turkey, or any combination of)
2/3 c crushed saltines (about 16), or quick oatmeal or 1 1/3 c fresh bread crumbs
1/3 c minced fresh parsley leaves
6 oz bacon (8-9 slices)

1. Glaze: Mix all ingredients in a pyrex measuring cup and set aside.

2. Meat Loaf: Preheat oven to 350. Heat oil in a medium skillet. Add onion and garlic, and sauté until softened, about 5 min. Set aside.

3. Mix eggs with thyme, salt, pepper, mustard, Worcestershire, pepper sauce and milk or yogurt. Add egg mixture to meat in a large bowl, along with crackers (or oatmeal or bread crumbs), parsley and cooked onions and garlic; mix with fork until evenly blended.

4. To bake free form: Cover a wire rack with foil; prick foil in several places with a fork. Place rack on a shallow roasting pan lined with foil for easy clean up. Set formed loaf on rack. Brush loaf with all of glaze, then arrange bacon slices, crosswise over loaf, overlapping them slightly and tucking them under loaf to prevent curling. (This is where you can get super romantic and shape your meatloaf like a heart for Valentines' Day.)

5. Bake loaf until bacon is crisp and loaf registers 160F, about 1 hour. Cool for 20 minutes. Slice and serve with smashed potatoes or sweet potato fries and a green salad.