Chicken and Reading.

First off... I'd like to brag about my innovation. I made a fancy/healthier version of some chicken strips the other night (mustard concoction marinated and pretzel coated) and to get them crispy all the way around, I needed a baking rack sheet thing. Well we don't have one. BUT!! If I can make shoe covers for my cycling shoes out of sandwich bags and duct tape, CERTAINLY I can make a tray that holds the chicken up away from the bottom of the pan.

Solution:

Result:

Win.

It was good.

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NOW FOR THE SERIOUS BUSINESS....

We read to Ben at least a few times a day. And we've been noticing something... PARTIES. These little cartoon characters end up in an awful lot of parties. Now I know that not every party has to be wild and crazy and filled with alcohol... but any party I've been to where multiple people end up in a bathtub together PROBABLY featured some alcohol...

I think Elmo might be the only one of these characters actually old enough to attend one of these parties and he is clearly the center of the party.

Hard to say where Bert is though... just Ernie hmmm suspicious I'd say.

But quite possibly the most honest of all the childerns books containing party images comes from "Go, Dog Go!" — one of Ben's favorites.

Following failed [random] attempts by the female dog to impress the male dog throughout the book... with different hat selections this is what unfolds:

I'm not even going to comment on that. I mean, really!? Did the author wake up one morning, try to write an autobiography that didn't work out and decide to disguise it as a book for Kids?? Maybe. At least parties are fun and relatively harmless. But when Ben has round up his daycare gang and they're out at the playground with Gin in sippy cups....... I'll know who/what to blame. Because it certainly wouldn't be my fault as a parent, ever.


Read to your kids. It is important.