Afraid

I am not a brave person. Case in point: I am deathly afraid of mice. Seriously, I had to hide my eyes for approximately half of the children's movie Ratatouille, and I STILL almost vomited several times. When we saw our first mouse in our old apartment, I refused to go into the kitchen for several days. Eventually, the expense of takeout changed my mind, but for weeks I couldn't go in unless I first (a) put on John's skateboarding shoes ("mouse stomping shoes"), (b) turned on all the lights, (c) turned on the TV, (d) stomped around for a few minutes, and finally (e) clapped my hands loudly and erratically outside the kitchen. It was exhausting, but the motivational power of my terror was substantial.

Even less logical than my fear of rodents is my fear of several basic cooking ingredients, none of which are at all exotic. In the spirit of the new year, I've been slowly attacking these remaining impediments to mastery of my space.

First up: yeast. I love to bake, but usually, I limit myself to cakes and cookies leavened with baking soda or powder since I was certain I couldn't get yeast to work. Early last month, I faced my fear and baked my own bread for the first time. (My 44-day bet to avoid sweets was probably what put me over the edge. Baking cookies and sweet breads when you can't eat them is not that fun). It was a mixed success, but in defense of yeast, I used a recipe that didn't provide it enough moisture to do its job. Since I realized my mistake, things have been going very well. In fact, I haven't bought bread since, and I finished my first "jar" of yeast last week. Emma: 1, magic ingredient: 0.

Fresh ginger is another ingredient used to studiously avoid, like a mental patient stepping over sidewalk cracks. Don't ask me why, but something about the peeling and mincing and the fact that you can't substitute the powdered stuff had me running scared. A couple weeks ago, when my mom was in town to give me courage, I geared up to make a chickpea curry that included fresh ginger. Yeah, that fear was pretty much completely absurd. Nothing could be easier.

Last week, I took one more brave step when I bought my first box of Knox unflavored gelatin. Why I am afraid of unflavored gelatin but not our friend J-E-L-L-O is a bit mystifying, but there it is. I ripped open all four little packages in my first attempt at homemade marshmallows. Despite some bubbling over issues when I added the gelatin to the 260 degree sugar mixture, I knocked it out of the park. Homemade marshmallows are so much better than store bought with chocolate fondue for Valentine's Day. Next stop: double boiler!

So, after all this, I don't think I'm exaggerating if I give myself props and say, hey, I own the kitchen. Of course, the fact that we're far far away from that old apartment of the mouse-stomping shoes doesn't hurt either.

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After the fact, I realized that Evelyn did not get even one marshmallow. Maybe that's why she's so upset here? The picture doesn't really do the tantrum justice. Apparently, my child is a total prima donna with an irrepressable urge to stop shrieking just long enough to pose for the camera if she realizes she's being photographed.

Maybe I should spend more time photographing her. All kidding aside, she has her sweet moments, too. As she acquires better language abilities and motor skills (last week she took the first step toward dressing herself by getting one arm in a shirt without any help; of course, the shirt was inside out, but still),

she also gets more adept at telling us that maybe we're not doing such a terrible job as parents after all. Yesterday, John let me semi sleep in while he showered and got ready. Evelyn quickly figured out I was in bed, however, and not out running. She kept asking to get "up" into bed with me. After we obliged, she started hugging my neck and kissing my face, then patted my hair while saying, "Nice, nice." It was nice.