Boom! Shake the Wiggle

After a few too many weeks of winter and cold and grey, a day filled with sunshine was exactly what the doctor ordered. While Mila jibber-jabbered in the back seat, Alexis called out over the roar of the open sunroof, "Mama turn on some good music!"

Her definition of "good music" and my definition of "good music" are miles apart, but I knew what she meant. I quickly scanned through some saved albums on my Amazon Music app and found something I knew would make her happy.

Jason Derulo. Wiggle.

It's a ridiculous song that's just this side of awful, but it's the kind of silly that makes little girls happy. Alexis cheered through the first few notes then threw herself into the song. She sang along and danced and jammed, Mila giggling at her silliness as I smiled through a most spectacular moment.

As the song faded, Alexis gushed, "I love that song. It reminds me of summer." She continued to tell me how it's the song that she sang with her friends last summer and wasn't last summer great? It was great. The song reminds her of her friends, going to Kennywood, dancing, and FRIENDS! All of her friends sing the song, too.

"It makes me feel all warm squishy inside," Alexis said. Squishy is good, by the way. Very good.

She went on to ask me if I have a song that reminds me of summer quite like that. I went on to tell her that OF COURSE I do. It's DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's Boom! Shake the Room. It reminds me of living in Spain. While it wasn't summer, it was sort of like a summer break since I didn't really care if I went to classes or not (Long story short, I attended high school in Spain, but I had already graduated in the U.S. Thus, school was a very optional activity.). That song is about being carefree and dancing and literally being responsible for absolutely nothing.

It represents the very last days of being responsible for absolutely nothing.

Alexis has a few more years to collect more songs that take her back to the days of carefree summers. Here's to hoping there are some good ones in there.

It Just Occurred to Me That I Don't Know If Anyone Emptied The Vacuum

Mila has been eying the stairs with an expression that's not entirely different from the way I eye cupcakes sitting on the counter.

She wants the stairs.

Specifically, she super wants to find out what happens if you put your hand down on the next step. I super don't want her to find out how very bad that idea is, so I spent five minutes teaching her how to scoot down the stairs on her butt. The hope is that if she happens to find an unattended flight of stairs, the pause required to get on her butt will be enough for someone with common sense to catch up to her.

It may work. It may not. Either way, her new little trick came with an extra side of fun. Little Miss Mila isn't quite tall enough to reach the next stair down while sitting on her butt, so she has to wiggle wiggle wiggle her way forward.

It's pretty adorable.

So I was sitting on the rug in our foyer watching Little Miss Mila wiggle wiggle wiggle and DID YOU SEE IT. DO YOU SEE WHY I NEED TO SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE?

Ants.

ANTS.

MOTHER TRUCKIN ANTS. RIGHT BY HER FOOT.

We have yet to make it through a spring without an invasion. We moved to get away from the giant ants that could survive every kind of poison known to man. Now we've found ourselves surrounded by little tiny ants that just keep coming and coming and coming.

You guys, while I was sitting on that rug, I was surrounded by literally thousands of ants. They were pouring in through the little gap at the bottom of our front door. They were EVERYWHERE. It was one of those things where at first you only see one or two, but then you see the world in a different way and suddenly there are stupid little ants EVERYWHERE.

So, I did the only thing I know to do when there's a crisis -- I vacuumed. Some day there are going to be looters working through our neighborhood and I'm going to grab the Dyson and vacuum up the mess they leave behind. I can solve all the problems with a vacuum. Illness. Natural Disaster. VACUUM!

VACUUM ALL OF THE THINGS!

The only problem with my coping mechanism is Mila. The little sprite with the big blue eyes never met a situation she didn't want to try to improve by plopping herself in the middle of it. So as I was trying desperately to vacuum up the ants, Mila was crawling into the middle of my nightmare. I escorted her to other parts of the house no less than 400 times in about two minutes because ZOMG, MOM DOES EXCITING STUFF.

The good news is that I had a lovely stash of DEATH TO THE ANTS in the garage. The bad news is that now I'm going to have to vacuum every little bit of Mila because YOU GUYS SHE WAS SITTING NEXT TO ANTS.

ACK.

Baked Strawberry Donuts

Do you ever get in food ruts? I don't mean that as a bad thing. I mean it as a REALLY good thing. When I do it, it's that I want that one thing ALL THE TIME. All day, every day. I just can't quit with that particular food.

I do it a lot, to be honest. I'll go a week where all I want is salad, but then I will balance it by going a week when all I want is donuts.

Guess which kind of week it is.

BOO-TO-THE-YAH.

I've been basically wearing a path between Dunkin' Donuts and my usual haunts lately. I'll be the first to admit that Dunkin' isn't even all that good, but it is convenient. I mean, I drive a couple of miles past where I was going anyway and BAM. Somebody trades me a $1 for a donut. It's a pretty good deal.

But it was time to upgrade to better donuts.

I basically spent the entire evening making all sorts of different flavors of donuts. This one was Alexis' favorite.

Strawberry.

Absolutely a good choice.

(There are no bad choices when it comes to donuts.)

Baked Strawberry Donuts (Makes about 6 donuts)

1/2 cup sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 large egg
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup strawberry yogurt
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup finely chopped strawberries

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Spray a donut pan with nonstick spray.

3. Dry stuff goes in a bowl. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda, and you'll be doing just fine.

4. In a separate bowl, stir the egg, sugar, milk, vanilla, and yogurt until well blended. Then add the melted butter and stir some more.

5. Fold in the strawberries. Note: if you want to prevent the strawberries from creating little pockets of moisture in your donuts, toss them in a baggie filled with flour and shake to lightly coat them before adding them to your dough. I didn't bother because I have no patience for these sorts of things.

6. Place the donut batter into your pan. You should fill each hole about 2/3 full.

7. Bake at 350 degrees for 11-14 minutes. They're done when you can poke one with a toothpick and it comes out clean.

8. I like these just fine without frosting, but if you want to frost them, a simple glaze works really well.

9. Allow the donuts to cool for a minute or two in the pan then transfer them to a cooling rack. Eat one before they cool off completely, though. It's there in the instructions, so you HAVE to do it.