Sarah the chef

Sarah has been able to make herself a simple bowl of oatmeal for breakfast for awhile now.  She simply measures the oats and the water into a bowl and cooks it in the microwave.  She usually adds brown sugar once it's done.

She had really hoped to have waffles for breakfast this morning, but I forgot to mix up batter last night. Oops.  She asked if pancakes were a possibility.  But I was in the middle of changing a diaper and warming a bottle and would soon be feeding a baby.  I knew that there was no way I could do something as hands-on as pancakes.  I asked her if she would just make herself a bowl of oatmeal this morning, and we could do pancakes or waffles another time.  

Sarah asked if baked oatmeal would be possible.  I knew I couldn't make it for the same reason I couldn't make pancakes--diaper, bottle, feeding--but I stopped to think for a moment before I said no. The recipe itself is pretty simple.  And I have it memorized, so I could talk her through it.  I turned the oven on to preheat, and told Sarah to grab a bowl.  She could make the oatmeal herself.

And she did.  I told her what to do, step by step, but she did it all.  All I did was take it out of the oven once it was done baking.  

It was good.  Tasted just like baked oatmeal.  ;) 

You can see her oatmeal behind her on the stovetop. 

I've posted the oatmeal recipe before I think,  but I'll go ahead and share it again, because I've changed it from the original anyway.

Baked oatmeal:

1.5 cups old-fashioned oats

0.25 cup brown sugar

hefty shake of ground cinnamon

freshly grated nutmeg to taste (Sarah skipped this step, so feel free to do so as well)

0.75 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

0.5 cup milk (or vanilla almond milk, which is what we use)

0.25 cups melted butter (sometimes I use melted coconut oil instead)

1 egg

If using regular milk rather than vanilla-flavored milk, 1 tsp. vanilla extract

In a bowl, combine the "dry" ingredients.  In a separate bowl or container, combine the milk, egg, melted butter, and vanilla (the "wet team").  Mix the two thorough and put the mixture in an 8x8 baking dish.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes (it's usually closer to 25 in my oven).  Serves 6 (theoretically).  

To serve, you may add milk to your bowl if you like.  Nelson and Sarah tend to do this.  Natalie and I prefer it without. So try it both ways to see which works for you.  

Enjoy!  :) 

P.s. Pardon any typos--I'm on the iPad, sitting outside in the sunshine.  So it's totally worth any mistakes that show up!  

Father's Day

I don't have too many male readers, but I do wish a happy Father's Day to any fathers who do happen to land here.  :)  

We are visiting my parents this afternoon.  I baked my dad a pie for the occasion.  

One of these days, I should write a tribute to my dad and all the ways he's influenced me and the things I admire about him.  But for today, I'm going to use a post I had planned for earlier in the week but never got written up and published.  It fits the theme of the day pretty well.  

Sarah will often sit on the bed right before bedtime and want to talk with Nelson.  She'll ask him some science or technology type of question, and it usually leads to a lengthy discussion.  I find it fascinating to listen in, because Nelson always answers in great detail.  He talks to Sarah like she's a little adult, and Sarah hangs onto every word.  

I'm sure much of it goes over her head, and I don't pretend to know how much she'll remember of what he tells her.  But I do know she'll remember that he took the time to answer her questions and that he was never condescending about it.  Honestly, that's more important in my opinion anyway.  

Thanks, dear.  :)  I think you're doing good work there. 

another Natalieism

The baby's mother took a day off, so I had a day off today as well.  We headed to my parents' house for a visit.  Along the way, we hit a bump in the road.  

"Whoa!" exclaimed Natalie.  "That bump almost made me lose my brain!  But it's back in my head now!"  

So I guess it's all fun and games until someone loses a brain.  

Watch out for those bumps in the road.  They can be pretty rough.  

Natalie the songwriter

Sarah has a doll that is Jessie from the Toy Story movies.  Natalie was playing with Jessie yesterday morning and started singing while she played.  This is the little ditty she composed:

I fell in love with Woody!
He starts to kiss me,
And I'm going to faint.

And at this point, Jessie indeed splats down on the couch.  It must have been some kiss.  Literally swept her off her feet.

Sarah's e-camp

I mentioned that Sarah wanted to do an online science e-camp over the summer.  A part of me finds it amusing that Sarah's favorite subjects are art and science--I can't claim I was ever overly fond of either.  But she loves them both, and she has been excited about starting this e-camp. 

The idea of an e-camp is somewhat funny to me as well, actually.  It really highlights how everything is available in electronic form--books, mail, businesses, science camps.  I'm not naive enough to think this takes the place of a "real" camp (and we're really hoping to send her to a real camp next summer--I'm working on it now), but it is a neat program.

It's through a website called Supercharged Science, and it's taught by Aurora Lipper, who is a former NASA scientist.  The camp covers astronomy, rocketry, flight, electricity, chemistry, lasers, robots, and more.  Yeah, it's an extensive course!  It runs from June 1-August 31, so she has plenty of time to enjoy the offerings while still having a relaxing summer. 

The program is set up with videos where Ms. Lipper explains and demonstrates the activity or experiment.  Everything is very hands-on.  Sarah even has a notebook to log all that she does and the results she gets.

The site offers a program for the school year too, but that isn't feasible right now.  However, we do take advantage of the occasional free teleclass she offers to her email subscribers.  Those have been fun. 

I may update more throughout the summer as to what she's doing and learning.  But so far, so good.  Today she even got a brief math lesson from the e-camp.  :)

more iPad shenanigans

For about a week now, I've had an outline of blog posts to write up--several different topics, notes I had jotted down, and so forth.  I just hadn't had the chance to actually sit down and write them up and schedule them.

But I'm reading this book on procrastination, and I guess I got inspired.  So while the baby napped earlier today, I grabbed the iPad, opened the Blogger app, and began typing away.

I finished up and began looking over it for proofreading.  I placed it in the "posts" pool of the app without publishing, because the baby started to stir and I wanted one more chance to look it over.  Later, I attempted to click on the post again so I could edit it.

I had said that iPad autocorrect had started to redeem itself.  What happened next wasn't an example of autocorrect gone awry--more app gone awry (or more accurately, app user gone awry)--but I still find it somewhat ironic which post it happened to.

In attempting to edit the post I had written, I instead managed to delete the post on autocorrect.  Completely, totally gone.  It didn't ask "are you sure?"  It didn't bump it back down to drafts or stick it with other deleted posts.  Just poof!  Gone.

That post is back now, thanks to a copy Nelson still had sitting in his Google Reader (and boy, won't I be sunk once that goes away here soon!).  I'm not too thrilled with the Blogger app at the moment and even less thrilled with myself for making a stupid mistake like that.  But all's well that ends well.

Anyway, we're fine here, and I'm going to try to get those posts written and scheduled for real now.  I'll play around with the Blogger app a bit more too, to ensure that I don't bungle something else.  I use the iPad's LiveJournal app quite a lot, but clearly there are differences between the two. 

autocorrect

No, you aren't experiencing deja vu.   This post was accidentally deleted.  Now it's back, thanks to Nelson.  The story of how that happened will come in the next post.  
 
Remember this post?  I still get something of a giggle when I remember the iPad randomly popping up with Ljubljana.

It still comes up with weird, random corrections at times, and the circumstances dictate whether I respond with amusement or annoyance.

However, I think it's redeemed itself somewhat.

The other day it tried to autocorrect to "Natalieism."

I think the iPad has been reading my blog.