Doing things daddy style

Anyone else read Working Mother magazine? On one of the freebie sites I keep up with, I somehow signed up for a free subscription and I'm glad I did. It always has some interesting articles that make me think. Woah, right?

June's issue is called "How Dad does it" which stuck a chord with me since a girlfriend and I were recently bemoaning the differences between the way we care for our children and the way our husbands care for them. Sometimes it can be night and day!

Her complaint was the way her husband feeds their two boys, which are both under two. "He just throws some cereal on the highchair tray and calls it lunch! At least I give them a little of every food group" she cried. Then I lamented how it just doesn't occur to my own husband to fix our 6 year old daughter's hair before school. We agreed that they just don't get it. But what is the "it" in this situation?

The magazine article talks about how dads, by nature, just operate differently than moms. And also (ready for this?) how that can be a GOOD thing! Hmph. I for one was curious to see their logic on this one. NO WAY can an unbalanced diet and rat-nest hair ever be seen as a good thing. But....I admit that after reading the article....they were kinda right!

Apparently dad's way of doing things shows children that calculated risks are okay, multi-tasking isn't always a good thing, and lunchboxes and outfits don't always have to be perfect. (If you say so...)  :)

 Perhaps, Dad's seemingly non-chalant ways are really just lessons in flexibility. Especially for someone like me who feels the need to create harmony in all aspects our lives.

Turns out, the children will survive and the world keeps turning even if they did only eat a spoonful of peanut butter and some fritos for lunch. Good to know.

Bree Van de Kamp's raspberry lemon muffins

Ok, not really. But kinda. A friend of mine was sick last week so I decided to be very Bree Van De Kamp and make her a tray of muffins. Because nothing cures the common cold like baked goods. In my experience anyway.


 I didn't get off work until after 9pm so I came home, devised my little muffin baking plan and then searched my cabinets hoping to find some ingredients to throw together. I briefly considered using a can of tuna and some tea bags but luckily I found a bag of organic raspberries in the freezer and a couple of fresh lemons. Whew, that was close. I don't think she likes tuna. Here's what I came up with:


Cream 1/2 cup butter and 1 1/4 cup sugar together. Beat in 2 eggs. Add in 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup milk alternately. Add zest and juice of one lemon. Fold in raspberries and bake 350 for 30 minutes.


Now. I, for some odd reason (perhaps it was delirium from baking at 10pm), decided to add a dash of nutmeg ( ? ) and then top the muffins with brown sugar. Not real sure what I was going for with that but I don't recommend it. The nutmeg overpowered the lemon so much that I had to make a glaze out of the juice from the remaining lemon and some sugar. That fixed the problem. But still....next time I will definitely ixnay the nutmeg.