A Tragic Love Story: The Perfect Cookies and Growth

Let's completely digress into the personal arena today.

Over the past 2-3 months I have gained 15 pounds! Prior to this adventure in weight gain I weighed about 5-10 pounds more than when I got pregnant the first time. Back then, at only +5-10, I figured that wasn't too bad for having two babies in two years. I decided that I wasn't going to be morose and self deprecatory about the weight and instead I was going to take a healthy lifestyle approach to (hopefully) a gradual weight loss.

Then, to place the blame where it belongs, my husband went on the hunt for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. (I love you, sweetheart!) It really was a wonderful hunt. We started with the generic cookie recipes on the back of the chocolate chip bags and were disappointed. That didn't stop the two of us from consuming each batch, mind you.

Then we moved on to a recipe my aunt kindly sent me in response to my post asking for recipe contributions. Her recipe was really good actually. We ate that entire batch as well.

But one fateful day we remembered that about three years ago the New York Times had published something on the perfect chocolate chip cookie. He went searching online and found it. The recipe was terribly complicated. It requires two kinds of flour neither of which are all-purpose. It requires a sifter. Most importantly, it requires patience. According to the article you need to stick the dough into the refrigerator for 36 hours before cooking. Really, you make cookie dough and then don't cook it? But he was determined. He bought all the ingredients and made the dough.

Now, we didn't wait. We baked two cookies that first night. They were very good, but not exceptional. Then we put the rest of the dough in the refrigerator and baked two more the next night. Wow!! They were even better. That still was only 24 hours and we wanted the full effect so we waited one more night to bake the rest. Oh my goodness were these cookies wonderful. Seriously, best cookies ever. You need to try the recipe and really do put the dough in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours. It makes an amazing difference.

At this point I had eaten half of several batches of cookies, but my husband wasn't done yet. He needed to find the perfect chips for his cookies. He started working his way through every kind of chocolate chips found in our local grocery store. That's at least 4 kinds.

And then I stepped on a scale to confirm my suspicion that the feeling that my wedding rings were getting tight was not in my imagination. And our love affair with the New York Times cookies came to an end. It is very sad. Very, very sad. I didn't even let him try the last bag of chips he had bought. The bag is sitting forlornly in the pantry calling to us.

And so, here I am 15 pounds heavier and still trying to keep a positive, healthy attitude about the situation. I have started by eliminating treats (cookies) and soda. I am watching portion control closely. Finally, I am increasing vegetables in my diet considerably. I like vegetables, but they're so much more work than the carbs that I love. So far, after about one week of the new plan, I am already 4-5 pounds down. I'm not sure exactly how that happened, but I'll take it. Now to continue the effort when the novelty and rate of weight loss decreases will be the real trick. That and resisting that last bag of chips.

Crisis

Before I tell you about the introduction of kittens to children and vice versa I need to share another story.

Yesterday I decided it was time to let the kittens out of the two room area they had been confined to, but the floor plan of our house is pretty open so after that it was difficult to do another gradual change. I tried. I took scrap material and blocked off the upstairs "balcony" and closed the child gate at the top of the stairs. I hoped that would be good enough to keep the kittens upstairs. They would be able to hear the children and I playing on the first floor and get used to those sounds a little before diving in. At least, that was the plan.

Two hours later two kittens appeared at the foot of the stairs. They figured out how to get under the material and just jump onto the stairs. I just went with it. I followed them around for an hour or so and they seemed fine. I blockaded the doorway to the basement with a few laundry baskets hoping that would keep them on the main floor. Then I started making lunch for the kids.

An hour later I noticed I hadn't heard from the kittens for a while. Unusual because they are kittens. They're usually running around underfoot. I just figured they had gone back upstairs for food, water, and a nap. After lunch I went up to check on them but couldn't find them. While the kids wandered, I searched the entire upstairs and main floor. I searched the basement in case they had squeezed past, or climbed over the laundry basket blockade. I searched all those areas again but couldn't find them.

I hoped that they were just hiding because the kids are kind of noisy and they'd come back out once the kids went down for nap. I rushed the children to bed, gave it a half hour and began searching again. No luck. I was really panicking and upset at this point. I noticed the basement door was unlocked and wondered if Michael had let them outside. I wondered if they were trapped somewhere. I just couldn't figure out how I had managed to lose not one but two active kittens in my own house. One, two, three, and then four hours went by. They hadn't been quiet for that long in the two days they'd been here.

A hint of a thought appeared in the back of my mind and without even thinking I wandered to the laundry room. I didn't see anything there either. Absentmindedly I picked up some clothes that had fallen off a pile next to the washer. Then I wondered why the pile had fallen. Then I started trying to peer behind the washer and dryer. Now, I'm pretty short and so getting a look behind there was going to be difficult, but just then I saw Sophie sticking her head around the corner. They managed to get back there, but couldn't get back out.

I was so relieved. I had been just sick with worry. And is it strange that I kept thinking how disappointed the shelter would be with me for losing the kittens they had entrusted me with?

Anyway, crisis averted. Thank goodness.

Sophie and Grace

Meet Sophie.

Meet Grace.

They are sisters born Wednesday May 4, 2011. They were adopted into our family on Saturday July 16, 2011 from an amazing no-kill shelter in our area. They are 10 weeks old.

The shelter had 300!! cats for adoption. (They also had 100 dogs.) I wish I had taken a picture of the room these two were living in. It was kitty heaven. It was extremely clean and full of kitty toys, beds, climbing posts and kitties. We spent a couple of hours there picking out which kittens we wanted to take home, and then waiting for the shelter to send someone to drive by our house to check it out (apparently part of their check before letting people adopt their pets).

The cats are allowed to roam freely in their room during the day when staff and volunteers are there to care for them and show them to potential adopters. Then, at night they are kenneled in very nice crates. Because the kittens are out and playing with each other and people all day, seven days a week they are extremely well socialized.

They already have their kitten shots and a microchip. The adoption fee includes pre-paying to bring them back when they are four months old to have them spayed. At that time they will get their final kitten shot and at that point they will be up to date on their shots for a year. They sent us home with two kitten sized litter boxes and a scoop, a bag of the food they had been feeding the kittens, two collars, and two toys. If we hadn't brought our own carrier they would have had a cardboard carrier for us too. I really was impressed.

I'll share more details about their introduction to the children later. For now I have two kittens to go play with.