Time Out on the "Time Outs"

Ok so i don’t know about you, but when i was growing up there was no such thing as a “time out”. I can just lol to the thought because even hearing those words coming out of my parents mouth would have been hilarious. See, when we acted up or misbehaved or answered back, there were no words..lol..no, there were just actions. I am not saying my parents beat me because that is not true, slightly beating would be more accurate..lol. No seriously, I don’t think I would have been trembling if my parents would threaten me with a 5 minute break away on a step. Not even when I was 3. It was Diana get over here, slap on the ass. It was done and over with all in a matter of 10 seconds. I cried and they felt satisfied..lol. (beating was a big stress reliever back then..lol.) We as parents today have to threaten once and then wait (because we all know they are going to do it again) and then boom, use the “ok Joseph, now you are going on a time out.” Then we wait, are they going to listen (and your thinking please listen and don’t move, please listen and don’t move), low and behold, they don’t listen. So in the advice of SuperNanny..(british accent) “You must keep putting them there using no words until they remain in the position and the spot you placed them in”..lol...lol..lol..I want to know what happens to those families after the cameras stop rolling and while Ms. Supernanny is out tanning her kidless ass somewhere??? Sometimes my mother would use the “time out” thing but it was more of a “time gone for 3 hours of the evening in my room” kind of thing. And me calling from the stairs (while she was enjoying the time away from me watching St.Elsewhere or something like that)...”ma,can i come down now”..no response..”Ma,can i come down now”..no response..so my voice got louder..”ma, can i come down now”..and then all at once..my mother yells “I said NO”..and i am thinking..you didn’t say anything because you didn’t even answer me..lol. So that was my mother’s version of a time out. Nowadays all these child therapists and specialists say “don’t slap, don’t yell, don’t curse, just give them a time out and that will teach them”..umm I don’t know, but I clearly remember the lines that came out of my mother’s mouth when she was running towards me with the hard wooden Italian slipper..”Come here..I’ll teach you”..lol..and let me tell you this..she did teach me...she taught me that Italian leather does hurt more than the “imitation leather”..lol. Ahh the good old days of kids fearing their parents, not fear like in a horror movie, but fear like..oh shit, thats gonna hurt if I get caught kind of fear. Respect was a big thing in my home (you know like Aretha Franklin R-E-S-P-E-C-T) I guess that’s an Italian thing like a Tony Soprano (it’s all about respect), so anyway my father was big on that and if God forbid we didn’t salute a neighbour, aunt, cousin, milkman or anyone older than us with a big smile and a hello then we’d get the “look”. So we pretty much kissed and said hello to almost anyone and everyone over 5 feet. My kids are pretty polite too with guests..lol..except they are warned about 50 times before they get there to be polite and maybe slightly rewarded afterwards..lol. Fear, it worked for my parents..i still love them and loved then at the time (except my mother in my rebellious teenage years..lol). I am not saying that us parents today should go out buy 3 wooden spoons and beat our little holy terrors, all I am saying is that most of us got a little tap, slap and bite here and there, and guess what..i survived to tell the tale..lol.
That’s my peace today!

Pasta e Fagioli
1 pack Ditalli pasta
1 can of canellini beans
1/2 White Onion finely chopped
1/4 cup pancetta
2 cup water
Salt 1tsp
Olive Oil

Boil pasta as directed on package. Put aside. On high heat, In a medium size pot, pour oil heat and add onions and pancetta, sautee for about 3-5 minutes. Add beans and sautee for another 2 minutes. Add 1 cup water (the beans will become a creamy consistency) then add rest of water, salt to taste. When it reaches a boil lower to medium, until slightly thick add cooked pasta.

Would you like fries with that?

It seems nowadays everywhere you go there’s a drive -through. To the point where our kids think it is a normal process to bank and ride. I mean, if you stop and think about it, we are too lazy to get out of our car to deposit money in our account. Our parents ran to the bank to deposit money. Banks were only open Mo-Fr 9am-3pm and 2pm on Fridays. For any other time they just stashed it in the mattress. The “Golden Arches” existed back then but they were very few and far between, now they are at every street corner to accommodate our ever so busy lives of eating fast food on the go. Are we lazy or busy? Do we have less time than our mothers did? Well, I can tell you that mothers today are busy. It’s not because we have less time than our mothers did because as we all know, you can’t stop, pause or fast forward time. We do it to ourselves..its called self stress.lol. All the sports, playgroups, dance, gymnastic..and don’t forget swimming and skating. My parents did put us in a extra curricular activity..key word “a”..like 1..uno...that’s it. You chose 1 thing you like and stick with it. There was no, “ma, I want to do ballet, tap, acro and gymnastics. Do you think my mother would drag all 4 of our asses in her car (yes we were fortunate, we had a car..lol) to bring me to tap, Am to ballet, Nancy to swimming and Gina to karate??? I think not. It was 1 sport on 1 day and 1 place...take it or leave it! If that year we didn’t like something we were able to change..but only once. There was no such thing as competitive this and Rep that. There was some of that going on but that was only the parents that were “pazza” (Italian for crazy).
Nowadays we are lucky if we have time to pee. Everything is fast paced and now now now. The “One Stop Shops”, the “Pay as you Go” and the “Don’t pay to 2035”. A regular phone line wasn’t enough so along came all the “extras”.
I remember wishing my mother would hurry up and get off her looooong boring conversation (I thought it was boring but my mother always seemed very interested and involved which made it even worse) with my aunt because I was waiting for Sandra to call and I couldn’t tell her to get off, I had to wait..patiently or she would purposely stay on longer..lol. So Bell introduced Call waiting..yippee..then.. Call display..wow we can see who is calling us and we can avoid (which we all know we have done many times..lol) who we didn’t want to speak to. Do you guys remember the Maestro??? It was like state of the art robot for phonecalls. We were one of the first ones to have the phone because Bell was doing a trial (I think my parents still have it in their house but you can’t see who’s calling anymore because it is half faded..lol) anyway once Maestro came out it was high rolling phone call technology. Need I go on to introduce the HUGE Motorola flip phone (my friend Sandy had it, we all shared it when we went out..lol) then the phones got smaller and smaller and technology faster and faster and well...yes the infamous “Crack” Berry. What the hell is sooo important that we have to type it and send it within a minute? Pictures..all digital. Our kids have become jpegs on our computers..lol. But isn’t this what we all wanted? Fast and furious...because we just have no time so tech companies made it better for us to get it done faster. Forget about Sundays at home with the family when all the stores were closed..nope..lets just choose 1 day in February and call that “Family Day”...doesn’t that make more sense? Lets replace the Game of Life with the latest NHL 2009 game..why not? And lets do our banking, coffee ordering, and ice-cream buying from a window..why park and walk when you can order and drive?
That’s my peace today!

Frittata

1 pack of cooked spagetti

1/2 c ricotta

4 large eggs

1/4 c grated parmesan

1/4 c chopped parsley and basil

1/4 c cooked chives

1 cooked Italian sausage (optional)

In a large bowl mix all ingrediants. In a large skillet (frisura) pour olive oil to coat bottom of pan. Once heated at med-high add the mix. While cooking make a very small hole in the middle to ensure contents cook through (about 10 min on each side). Using a large plate, slide cooked side onto plate and flip into pan to cook other side.

Back to school has always been in September

I was recently at Shoppers Drug Mart with my daughter and accidently walked through the aisle of..oh who am i kidding any aisle we walked in she "needed" something. So we got to the cuts and brusies aisle (dont know how they label it)..lol..and she spotted her "oh my God Mommy...please, please,please can i have those Barbie band aids????? So not to snap right away and say what my mother would have said..NO...i thought ok, let me get her the Barbie band aids just in "case" she needs them. Haha it wasnt until i saw how much they cost that my debating mode kicked in...i am not a "cheap" mother..lol..for this day in age but $3.99 for 10 band aids! My math is not that strong but i think that is 39c each band aid! So of course because i am a mother of today..i fold and get the band aids. Well, by the end of the day all those 10 band aids were gone! Lets see, "mommy my dolly had a boo boo, then her head hurt so i had to put another one." (but honey dolly doesnt talk, how do you know her head hurt..lol)..ok thats 2..where are the other 8? So of course my daughter had at least 5 on her own body because her pinky felt itchy so i needed one..I found one on the handle of the bathroom door, when asked why she placed 1 there?..mommy, the handle was slippery so it made less slippery..ohh...how can i be so dumb?? So just like that the pack was gone and if it just ended there it would be no big deal...but it never does. Barbie (or any Spongebob, Hello Kitty and i wont even get into Hannah Montana in this issue) is in every possile child product. I dont ever remember brushing my teeth with a Barbie toothbrush or toothpaste. We just used the great old minty flavour (they only had the 1 flavour back then) with no extra whitening crap.. plain old Colgate. We didnt have Dora wash cloths, lamps or carpets...nope, just plain old cloth for our bodies. My thermos...Mickey Mouse (not bad ey)...well that Micky thermos lasted me my whole elementary years. My mother's logic..why would i buy you a new one when this one still works?? I guess that makes sense now that i'm a mother..lol..but see you know who it doenst make sense to??...our kids. Every September we make sure they have the newest and latest item for Back to School. Napsacks..new. Pencilcase...new. Themos...new. You get my point. God forbid we send our kids back to school with the same character as the year before..what would the teachers think? or worse yet..what would our children think? On Tuesday my daughter will be fully equipped with a Barbie napsack, Barbie pencilcase, barbie thermos, barbie pencil even Barbie snacks! Going back to school for me and my sisters consisted of a trip with my mother to either Byway or Bargain Harolds, a short list on 1 piece of paper, the end result... a checkered pencilcase each, 1 pack of pencilcrayons each, a pack of 250 sheet paper, an eraser and a sharpener...thats it! But we were not different then any of the other kids because their mothers all shopped there too. We always had a brand new back to school outfit for the first day and a brand new pair of shoes. So i ask you this? was it so bad in the days that Barbie the Superhero was not printed on our napsack? Well, me and all 3 of my sisters graduated from elemantry, highschool and college unscaved..and imagine, we did it all without Barbie!

Thats my peace today!

Rice Balls

1 pack of Arborio rice

3 eggs

1/4 c Parmesan cheese

1/4 shredded mozzarella

1/4 c chopped parsley

1 cup bread crumbs

20 1/2 in cubed mozzarella

20 raw peas

Oil for fying

Cook rice as directed by package. In a bowl add cooled rice, eggs, parmesan, parsley and shredded mozzarella. Make balls (size of small orange), roll in bread crumbs. Once all balls are made, stick cubed cheese and a pea through centre and roll ball again to hide hole.

Heat oil in deep pan with about 2 inches of oil so the balls are fully emmersed. Using a spoon turn the ball once to get all sides (about 6-7 min to melt the cheese).

(makes about 20 balls)

When did the mommy connection turn into "French Connection"?

(warning..this blog may offend some mommies..lol)
I remember when I was growing up in a small neighbourhood filled with families, there were kids in the street playing hide and go seek, Spud and sometimes the occasional baseball game. It didn’t matter how old you were, when the weather was warm enough you were out there. Sisters taking care of sisters, and friends taking care of friends. We knew when it was time to go in..yes..when the street lights came on. And I am sure we all cringed at that damn News anchorman(don’t remember which one) with the famous line “its 11:00, do you know where your children are?” My father would always say, Holy Shit (in his Italian accent) look at his own watch, because i guess he didn’t want to take the word of the news guy, and would give us the “look” . Of course we flew up the stairs and went to bed. I think that went on until at least my early 20’s..lol. But my point is we had fun outdoors with all the neighbourhood kids. Our mothers also had this connection..it was the mommy connection. You see, they all took care of eachother. If my mother had to run or walk to the grocery store she knew Mariuca , Lucy, Ada or Vera would be home looking out for us. She knew that she could safely leave us outside because we had 4 other mothers (of course equipped with wooden spoons) looking out their window to make sure we were ok. They were even allowed to yell at us, scold us or give us a little slap if they saw something mom wouldnt approve of. Their husbands were all at work and they were the heads of the household, keeping it together like glue..as a team. There was no such thing as playdates..what the hell is a playdate? A playdate in those times was all of us hanging out in the basement running around, dancing or just playing with rocks..lol.. and our mothers were helping eachother make the tomato sauce, eggplants in the oil or sewing the bedsheet that was slightly torn. Espresso, homemade bread and salami and cheese was all they needed,and of course the local gossip of so and so’s son. They had their slightly dirty aprons on and their Chinese tapinis (Calabrese for slippers) We got the occasional slap for getting out of line but it was always done with love and affection. What happen to those days of mommy connection? They got replaced with French Connection. You know FCUK. There is no more, Diana can i leave my 4 kids with you because i need to run to the store..she would get a look of .. “are you on drugs woman, i have my own kids to take care!” there is no more women helping women...its all women for themselves. There is no getting together in our slippers and dirty aprons because we might run into someone outside and that might make us look poor. Yes we have playdates and mom and tot classes but they only happen (at most) once a week. Even with that, the kids show up in their Diesel Jeans, Geox runners and Lacoste tops. We are no longer free to be free. So i ask you again..what happen to the mommy connection? Check it out..Its at your local mall.
Thats my peace today!

Buschetta
2 large Diced tomatoes
1 clove chopped garlic
1 small thinly sliced red onion
4 tbs oregano
salt
f3 springs resh basil chopped
Olive Oil 1/2 cup
1 italian baguette

In a bowl combine tomatoes, garlic, onions,basil,oregano and salt (enough for taste) and 1/4 cup of the oil
On a cutting board, slice bread (1/2 inch thick). Put aside. In a small bowl add rest of oil, oregano and salt mix. Dip each slice of bread and place on pan. Bake in oven at 400 degrees for about 15 min (until toasted). Remove from oven and scoop tomato mixture on each.

A "Built In" doesn't come with the house anymore!

Ill tell you why we have cleaning ladies and our mothers didn’t...we were the cleaning ladies...Saturday for me did not consist of Yorkdale shopping or the movies..Saturdays for me consisted of..am i doing the toilets this week or dusting? And my mother was the checker...she came around literally with a white glove and checked the dust..i kid you not. What do I do with my kids...I make it part of their “allowance” ya allowance. An allowance works for someone who actually doesn’t get money or things for anything else. Our kids get their “allowance” as well as their new Playstation game or the cool new Ed Hardy’s..and then of course there’s Nonna.”.oh i bought him this because he said he wanted it”...he wanted it??? Thats nice, how about when i wanted that Michael Jackson leather jacket? I had to wait until Christmas to get it and then I didn’t get the leather one.. are you kidding, because Woolco only sold the pleather ones...so you can imagine the sound a pleather jacket makes in the winter. Then there were those 2 kids in school who had the leather one and would just walk around showing off and asking..”oh is that real leather”..lol..does it look like real leather??? No, because they knew damn well that leather don’t crack! Ahh the good ol days of waiting for gifts on birthdays, Christmas and the ever so popular dark stale hard Italian Easter egg. My whole room was full of those shiny Easter eggs because when a cumara (Italian for Godmother) would come over, her and her hairy mole would pull this huge oversized Italian Easter Egg...why didn’t she bring me a Smurf Milk Chocolate one? Ill tell you why..because they only sold those at “real stores” Maria Dry goods on Woodbridge Avenue did not sell Milk Chocolate, she only sold the ones that didn’t sell from the year before and that’s what we got...take it or leave it...and we had no choice but to take a big fat wet kiss from her prickly moley moley moley face. And we knew that if we were rude, a small pinch , bite or slap would immediately follow the visit. We were just so excited to get that crappy prize in the middle that we actually had to WAIT to open until AFTER Easter..just so the chocolate got more stale. Then i was so excited with the big plastic ring that would break about 5 minutes later because i actually put it on to wear. So my whole thing on an allowance...it only works if you play by the rules. My kids have more money in their wallet then i had in all my years of college. The tooth fairy does not give $1 anymore..now its..”mommy can the tooth fairy give me the “green money”.” I try to tell them mommy only got the green money on Christmas or my birthday..and if mommy wanted money well too bad for mommy. So you see us mothers of today have a cleaning lady because a “built in” didn’t come with the house like our parents. We work, we cook, we take care of kids...and yes mother i know you stayed home and raised your kids and i say..good for you and thank you but let me tell you what i always tell you..times are just different now.
That’s my peace today!

Eggplant Parmegiano
1 large eggplant
1/2 cup bread crumbs
3 tbs pamesan cheese
2 eggs
1-2 cups of Cooked Tomato Sauce
salt
Olive oil
Mozzarella cheese 1 cup


Slice eggplant into 2mm thick slices, lay on large pizza pan and sprinkle with salt (this allows the water to come out of the eggplant). Leave for about 10 min
In a bowl beat 2 eggs, take each slice of eggplant and dip into mixture. In a seperate bowl combine the bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. After eggplant is dipped in egg mixture bread in the bread mixture. Lay breaded slices on pan, drizzle with olive oil and bake in oven for about 20 min at 385 degrees (turning once).
Once they are all baked take each slice and combine 3 slices per pile of the same size (you will have a range or large diamater to small diamater) Place the first one down, spread with cooked sauce sprinkle with mozzarella and top with next. Do this until you have as many piles of 3 possile ( depending on the size of eggplant usually you will get about 10 piles)
Cover with foil and bake at 395 degrees for about 40 minutes.

Is Ignorance Bliss or is bliss a sign of Ignorance?

Today i am bringing my 15 month old twins for their vaccinations. Now that doesnt seem strange or out of the ordinary does it? well i am here to tell you that in today's society talking about vaccinations is almost taboo. I am not going to get into my personal feelings about needles because that will just be boring and who cares what i think. What i do want to talk about is how mothers today read too much. No kidding we shit our pants every time we go to get a shot, there is so much research on each vaccine that we just know too much. What happened to the days we were getting vaccinated? My mother would just drag our scary little asses in the room hold us down and voila..done! There were no questions to the doctor like, "how long has this vaccine been around" or "are there any side effects, or even maybe "do they really need this one?". Everything was just assumed that doctors knew everything and there was no need to ask any questions because what did they know, there was no Oprah, Dr. Phil or The Doctors around explaining statistics and side effects..nope there was just ok Mrs. Colosimo next appointment we are giving Diana 6 shots. No questions asked. So my question is this....was i harmed? (well maybe a little damage to my brain cells but that was caused with some fun times in College..lol) I am pretty much normal and immuned. My mother did what the doctor told her she should do. Us mothers today Google every little thing., compare sad stories and watch Oprah religiously (especially when Dr.Oz is on..he's kind of cute in a nerdy way..lol)..but whats worse knowing too much and having the constant nagging worry..or....knowing nothing and living life blissfully?? I say give me some bliss and make me ignorant. Our mothers worried about the important things like, "how can i threaten my daughter not to go out" or "what part of her ass have i not slapped with the spoon" or even maybe "what part of the house can i give her to scrub clean"...you see, that is what was on their minds..not silly worries about vaccines. So today at 2:30pm when i give them their Varivax (for Chicken Pox) and their Menigitis shots i will try to just hold them down, look away and say..Voila..another one done!
That is my peace today.

Ministrone
Onions diced
Zucchini chopped
String Beans cut up
White Beans (1/2 can)
2 carrots chopped
Butternut squash (1/2 cup chopped)
Sweet Potato (1/2 cup chopped)
2 diced tomatoes
Peas (1/4 cup)
Escarole (1/4 cup chopped)
2-3 cups of water
Salt for taste
Olive Oil for sautee

In a heavy saucepan, sautee the onions and gradually add all the vegtables. Sautee for about 3 minutes. Add water. Let boil for about 10 minutes, add salt (enough for taste) and simmer for another 40 minutes or so.

What happened to the side of the road???

So i just came back from a mini trip to Montreal. We only went for 2 days and no matter how many days you leave for, when you have 4 kids you need lots of water, food, snacks and of course patience! So now I am going to compare to when i was young and travelling to the same destination with the same amount of kids/parents in the van. We would travel quite frequently to Montreal to visit my many cousins, aunts and grandparents. My mother always packed fruit, sandwhiches (sangwiches) and a huge thermos of espresso for her and my father. My father was a smoker so every 15 minutes he would slightly open the car window and have an Export A (green pack) cigerette ant tell us to keep our mouth shut when we complained of the smell. Our only form of entertainment was a deck of cards and our Sony Walkmans (that the headphones would slide off because they were made for a 400 pound male.)We would have a pile of cassettes to listen to (not bought from Musicworld) but songs taped from the CFTR countdown. My sisters and I would fight over who got to sit in the middle (the van was customized with captain chairs and a sofa bed in the back) or who would have to lay down the whole way down. I was always the lucky one who had to stay in the back because Ann-Marie had her excuse of car sick and after a few years Nancy used the same excuse. Anyway so we would go on this 5 hour journey at least 3 times a year. Now, keep in mind we were 4 daughters so there was always some point in the trip that 1 of us had to pee. So obviously my father (wanting to always beat the time before's time) would feel like he was being sidetracked and did not always stop at the rest stops...so what did we have to do....well as they say "When in Rome, do as the Romans" so we did like the Deer, skunks and any of the roadside animals..we pulled over on the side of the high speed highway, squated and peed. As most of you can probably figure out, girls cant aim like boys can...so sometimes we had to grin and bear the wet feeling on our pants...why???? because we HAD to...mom and dad didnt care that we were wet...why??? because pee on our pants will not kill us but if we didnt stop complaining they would!!!Once my sister Ann-Marie got car sick but mommy didnt caress or care, she told her throw up in her blanket (that was her favourite from her baby days) closed it up, opened the window and threw it out, yup..that simple, littering was very acceptable because why would anyone want to carry garbage or anything stinky on a long drive?? ahh..the good ol days...so now lets fast forward to today...20 years later, 4 different kids, 2 different parents and a severly different time...our kids...stop on the side of the road...NEVER...first of all, we have to wait to stop the fully equiped MIni van because we might stop it at their favourite part of the movie (and we might get in shit) so we warn them 30 minutes before that we will be stopping..once we do stop...its not one man for himself, its mommy help me get out my seatbelt and car seat...then its, I want fries, I want nuggets (after explaining that mommy packed a healthy lunch) and them obviously not caring or flinching. So once all the kids are out free, they see the vending machines filled with chocolates, chips and those stuffed animals that they just HAVE to have..so its a battle getting them away from that..then getting all the looks from strangers that we as parents must be on some heavy drugs for even having more than 2 kids in this society and crazy world..once all have peed, car seats back on, drinking water from their Evian bottle and not from a fountain, we travel, put back on 1 of their 100 DVD's and make sure their DS and PSP's are fully charged because why in the world would they want to play with a deck of cards or colour with Crayola's in a book and why would we as parents EVER dare think that they would squat their pretty little asses on the side of the road like we did in the olden days...lol.
That's my peace today!
This is a simple recipe today because i am still getting over the car ride..lol

Fresh Tomato Sauce
6-7 Fresh Garden ripe tomatoes
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
2 large basil sprigs chopped
olive oil
salt
oregano
pasta
Parmeson cheese for garnish

Peel ripen tomatoes, put in bowl and using a potato masher mash the tomatoes until they are not clumpy, finely chop garlic and saute in olive oil, add tomatoes, finely chopped basil, salt and oregano. Saute for 20 minutes. Add cooked pasta and toss and serve with fresh basil and parmeson cheese.