Soren's first watermelon

I think he likes it.


Or maybe he likes the dirt. Hard to tell.

Toffee-chip cookies

First point: Our favorite cookie store, Anthony's Cookies in the Mission, makes great toffee-chip cookies. Thin, chewy—delightful.

Second point: For 99 cents, you can buy a cool iPhone app called Cookulus: Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie, which lets you start with any of four base recipes (classic, chocolate chocolate chip, with nuts, or whole wheat) and then adjust three sliders (crisp/soft, chewy/crumbly, thin/thick) with eleven selectable choices (-5 to 5). It then spits out your recipe. You even can choose whether you want ingredients measured by weight or by volume (and if you search a bit, you can even make those choices on an ingredient by ingredient basis).

Ok, so I tried 3, -5, -3—that is, soft, ultra-chewy, and thin—classic chocolate chip cookies, except I substituted Heath toffee bits for the chocolate chips.  I also added an extra step of letting the cookie dough sit in the fridge for 36 hours, based on a tip from the New York Times.

The resulting cookies are probably too thin and a tad too soft. Maybe I'll try 2, -5 -1 next time. But I'm not dogging the results—I ate two cookies as soon as they were cool enough to handle.

So soft and thin they cooked together.


Up close and personal.


Some of the cookies tore a bit when I transferred them to the rack, because they are so thin and soft.


Mmmm.


Here's my recipe, adapted from the Cookulus recipe. Instructions in (parentheses) are for the next batch I try.

Makes 2 dozen cookies. If that's too many of have in the house (they're addictive!), prepare all two dozen on two trays, but stick one in the freezer. Once that tray is frozen, you can transfer them to a freezer bag and save for a rainy day (remember to cook that batch longer).

Ingredients

• 120 g (142 g) all purpose flour
  
• ½ t baking soda
  
• ½ t salt
  
• 7 T unsalted butter (room temperature)
  
• 172 g (167 g) dark brown sugar
  
• 1 t vanilla extract
  
• 1 egg
  
• 8 oz bag Heath toffee chips

Directions

1. Mix flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
   
2. Cream butter and brown sugar in your stand mixer, scraping sides once.
   
3. Add the vanilla and egg and mix until smooth.
   
4. Add in the flour mixture and mix on slow until all of the dry ingredients are just incorporated.
   
5. Add toffee chips and mix to incorporate.
   
6. Transfer dough to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Rest in refrigerator for 36+ hours.
   
7. Pre-heat the oven to 375°F (385°F).
   
8. Roll dough into one oz balls—tablespoon-size mounds. For typical cookie sheets, you can fit a dozen to a sheet. Use a silicone baking liner (or parchment paper).
   
9. Bake for 10 minutes (6 minutes).
   
10. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 5 or so minutes to let the cookies set.
    
11. Transfer to cooling rack to finish cooling.
    
    

Jail

This is the little space Anders created for Soren this morning, to keep him from taking Anders's toys.


P.S. Yesterday, we noticed two more teeth coming in—that makes five! Alas, there's only one matching top/bottom pair so far.

You can see so much more from this height

Since Soren realized that pulling himself up was a possibility, he's been practicing like crazy. Here's this morning's accomplishment.

Next comes cruising

Pulled himself up.


(In these pics, it looks like he could easily bend at the waist and tumble out of the crib. That's just the perspective of the shots making it look that way. No cause for alarm; everything's safe. The mesh at the bottom, by the way, is to keep him from getting limbs stuck in the slats—we had to do this with Anders, too.)

P.S. If you look very carefully in this picture, you can see that one of Soren's top teeth is coming in. Well, ok, you can't see that. But it's true.

Lime

That is a lime. From our backyard.


We planted that lime tree (in a large pot) about 2-1/2 years ago. While I think we may have gotten a lime-like thing or two out of it before, this is the first year we're seeing full-size fruit. Not a ton, by any means, but a few legitimate limes (of which this is #1). Our lemon tree (in another large pot) is also thinking about offering us real lemons.

Maybe this means that next year we'll get fruit in more useful quantities.

Teething biscuit

Soren tried his first teething biscuit today. He liked it. Here he is at the beginning of said biscuit...

...and here he is at the end.

Nap!

We were told that even kids who had stopped taking naps at home often took naps at school. But every day when we would pick him up, there was a big "no" next to Anders's name in the nap column of the check-in/-out sheet. But today...

Vegetarian no more.

After seven or so months as a vegetarian (though not a vegan), Soren tried some meat.


Soren, by the way, looks a little bit like the Gerber baby.

Stroller

Soren, trying out the non-car-seat stroller.

It looks like he's unhappy with the stroller, but really he just doesn't like when the stroller stops moving.

How did I get here?

Unclear whether Soren backed up into this spot, or crawled under the table to end up here.


Comparable Anders pic:

3-limb scoot

Sigrid witnessed a full-on, two step crawl this morning, but we have no video of that. Here, however, is a 3-limb scoot.

At the lecturn, the sequel

For those of you who missed the original, here's Anders, at about the same age that Soren is now:

Look, no hands!

By which I mean no parental hands. Soren's holding his own bottle!

Good dinner!

Very soon there will be two mobile boys in our house

...but until then, the little guy is experiencing a lot of frustration.

Madness

There is a difference between what an adult finds fun, and what a 3 year old or a seven month old finds fun.

Eel swimming

Anders and Agreen have graduated to a no-parent-in-the-pool swim class. They were the first two kids to show up for eel swimming.


They were soon joined by some twins...

...and then another little girl. Here they all are doing some kicks.


The five kids take turns practicing skills, like swimming while holding onto a barbell.


And here they are practicing alligator hands (or at least that's what they called this in kipper swimming).



They then swam with alligator hands.


After class, Anders and Agreen relaxed in the hot tub.


(Here's the shrimp swimming class that goes on at the same time as Anders's eel swimming class. Anders was a shrimp twenty months ago. That was a half a lifetime—half of Anders's lifetime—ago.)

Smile!

Family hike

Basement floor

Twenty interlocking floor mats. We like them. We'll give them a few days, and if we still like them, I'll order more.

Seven months old

Today, Soren is seven months old. And, for those keeping track, about 17 pounds, even.


Here's Anders, 3 days shy of seven months.


And here is Soren, a few days shy of seven months (i.e. a few days ago):

Drooling and (supported) standing.




Looking out the window.



Enjoying the exersaucer.



Just hangin' out.