Soon, I’m going to run out of things to make or, at the very least, I’m going to run out of good things to make and start making dumb things just to keep making things. Last night it was vegan, sugar-free pumpkin loaf (based on my recipe).
It’s not bad, but not amazing. The vegan part isn’t the problem — the eggs were easy to replace. The sugar part is more tricky. I replaced all the sugar with an equal amount of stevia baking blend. I like stevia (and have been using it in my coffee) but I don’t know. The pumpkin loaf is a little too sweet, with a bit of a weird stevia aftertaste. I mean, it’s still good enough to eat — just not as good as the regular sugar version.
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Soren still likes golf. He’s enjoyed watching golf on tv since he was a wee tot. Today as we were getting ready, he was watching Ryder Cup coverage on ESPN. That was more exciting than the episode of Peppa Pig (his favorite show) where they go to Potato City. Every time someone made a shot, he yelled, “He made it!” and clapped. Maybe golf is the sport for him (he continues to have no use whatsoever for soccer). Hey, it looks like he can start taking golf classes when he’s 4. Maybe he can be the next Rickie Fowler (by “next Rickie Fowler” I mean “next awesome hipster golf dude”).
We get some crazy morning sun in the living room.
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Soren is learning about privacy. Or, well, he’s trying to learn about privacy. Yesterday he said to one of the cats, “Xochitl, I have some privacy for you!” Later, when I was attempting to attain privacy in the bathroom, he came in with his hand cupped as if he were holding something in it. “Mommy, I have some privacy for you,” he said as he extended his hand to me. “Eat it!” It has to be weird to learn about abstract concepts when you’re a toddler.
We’re also working on the concept of an “ensemble.” This is the word I use to describe food items that are intended to be eaten together, such as a sandwich, where in an ideal world you eat, say, bread, Tofurky, cheese, lettuce, and mustard all at the same time. Soren’s normal practice is to separate the parts of a collective food item and eat them one at a time. For example, with pizza, he’ll generally eat the cheese, then the top layer of crust that contains sauce, and then (maybe) the rest of the crust. I tell him that a sandwich or pizza or whatever is an “ensemble” (in italics because that’s how I say it) and move my hands in a circular motion (I don’t know why — somehow hand movement seems to increase the importance of the ensemble concept). It’s an ensemble. You’re supposed to eat it together. Who knows if or when he’ll start to enjoy the ensembleness of his meals. I was one of those kids who became mortally offended when food items touched each other, so I get it. (And I’m still to this day annoyed by the people, and there were multitudes, who said “But it all touches in your stomach!” because, duh, you don’t taste it by the time it’s making its way through your digestive system.) That said, what he does to an innocent slice of pizza should be illegal.