finally in a better mood

for the last nine days (10 if you include most of today) i've been in a terrible mood. everything bothered me. my clothes, my back, my children, my coworkers, my car, my lack of car, grouchy people, smiley people. you name it, it pissed me off. big time. to the extent that it was confusing, because i didn't want to be bothered by every little thing, but i couldn't shake it off. i'm usually on the upbeat side of calm and cool, but this was the pits. but here i am. i tried really hard to be nice and positive and have a good day, and it worked. and i wanted to go to ballet today and didn't succumb to the voice that said "oh, just stay home. . . you can't find clothes, you're feeling bloated, just skip it." i'm so glad i didn't listen to that voice because ballet was a wonderful challenge and great fun. i sweat and breathed heavy and got a little sore. good stuff. now that i'm in a good mood, i want to document some funny moments. yesterday, while sorting through ornaments to put up on the tree, we came across the light up reindeer glasses and the "coffee and bagel store" coffee cup ornament. ani put those two together and decided she was "grandpa," and stated as much in her deepest voice. "i'm grandpa and i'm drinking coffee," she'd say. cutest thing ever. i may still try to get a video of it, but she is a sly little thing and does not perform for the camera. she is nothing like nissa in that respect. as soon as a camera or other recording device is present, she immediately stops whatever it was you got the camera out for. a couple weeks back at great grandma's, i woke up to her nuzzling her head on my arm. weird, but cute. i think she was pretending to be a puppy at the time. oh, and she can count! not just recite numbers, or recite numbers and randomly point at things at the same time, but actually count out items, beyond 2. she counted her ornaments yesterday up to 8. so cool! i don't remember nissa doing it half as well at this point. just don't ask her to sing the alphabet. . . a, b, c, d, e, f, g, w, x, y, z. sure, that's how the song goes, but she's missing a whole bunch in the middle. nissa is doing awesome as well. she's taught me how to count in japanese, and i can get all the way up to 99. we don't know how to say 100, so that's as far as i can go. she even gives me random math problems to do. she's taught me hello, good bye, stop, blue, red. watch out tokyo, here i come! i've told nissa she's my sensei and she's living up to it so far. oh, and she came home with a boy's phone number today. he's having a sleep over party and wants her to come. i swear when she says it, it sounds innocent enough. when i say it, it sounds terrible. and she's showing some real progress with reading. she's remembering sight words and more smoothly sounding out words as she goes. 10 apples up on top is a recurring favorite and she's getting it down pretty well. ok, back to work. i've got the energy, must put it to good use!

The times, they are a changin'. it must be commonplace to ask for a charger for your phone at a bar, prior to ordering a drink

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first loose tooth!

so it started a few weeks ago now, when nissa started complaining that her tooth was hurting, then moving. it's been wiggle-ably loose for a solid couple of weeks now! nissa even started keeping a little zip-topped bag in her backpack, just in case it came out during school. some days she is focused on it all day - other days it is not so fascinating. she asks me to wiggle it for her, and it creeps me out. who knew loose teeth were so traumatic for me? it brought back weird feelings. anyway, working on a tooth pillow so the tooth fairy won't have trouble finding the tooth.

Sunday School Sighs

i didn't realize that when grandma talked us into taking nissa to sunday school that i'd end up being the full-time teacher. the first week last year, i asked if it would be ok if i hung out to help (with the intention of learning myself). next thing i knew the usual teacher isn't available one week, then the next, and i'm preparing my own lesson plans just to avoid staring at a group of kids for an hour and a half. last year they varied from 4-7 years old, a decent age gap, a group not prone to listening attentively without a lot of structure and guidance. i also learned i can't fake structure or guidance for very long. so i decided this year would be great - i'd prepare lesson plans in advance, send home parent newsletters, the whole nine yards. then no parents gave me their email addresses and my "supervisor" can't figure out what she did with everyone's sign up sheets. plus, i have two kids coming beyond my own. so i'm planning the day before, big deal! i'll make it happen. last week my "supervisor" insisted a mom leave her 2 and 3 year olds with me for that infamous hour and a half. she was completely ignorant of the fact that the little ones do not speak english. fortunately, they spoke spanish and my brain worked just well enough for me to struggle through some basic instructions to at least keep them occupied and reasonably comfortable staying with me without mom. did i mention my "supervisor" didn't know i spoke spanish either? geez. then there's the whole "incorporate scripture into my lessons" thing. this week: "and may the wife fear her husband." - yeah, we'll be skipping that part of Ephesians at Sunday School. Yes, love your spouse as yourself. No, do not be submissive to any other human, seek to understand and support instead. the bible (and some traditions maintained by our church) are archaic at best, rooted in a fear and misunderstanding of women and their bodies' mysterious ways. it's bizarre to me that women in this day and age are content to "contribute" by spending time in the kitchen. yes, i love cooking and baking, but that's not all i'm good for. yes, i menstruate once a month, but it is no more than the sloughing of unneeded material, no different than peeling after a sunburn. it's not a plague or a disease, just natural function. anyways, my early-formed sense of feminine pride (a.k.a. refusal of gender stereotypes) and unfailing perfectionism make being a sunday school teacher a real challenge. i take it as a worthy challenge to improve myself spiritually and give nissa (and soon ani) a good example of incorporating her heritage into our lives. it makes me cringe all too often, but i'm going to stick with it. besides, how can i stay away, when nissa looks forward to it every week?

work challenges

so, i just said this in a meeting: "it sounds like you just said a bunch of accounting words in a random order." it's gotten to that point around here, people.

not long enough

last day of a three-day weekend and it's still not enough time. went to two birthday parties saturday (after gymnastics), then on sunday had a marathon church visit, followed by nutcracker rehearsal. came home and slept for twelve hours. today, i went grocery shopping, gave the girls baths, carved pumpkins, roasted another, made pie and jarred the rest, roasted all the seeds. made fabulous broccoli soup with bounty from our yard, did laundry (not folded or put away yet), traced 75% of the patterns i need to make halloween costumes, had a 15 minute webchat with mom.

havent put away groceries or laundry, or two remaining baskets from two weeks ago. wanted to clean out the fridge, clean the ceiling fans, sweep the upstairs floors. the back lawn could use an evening-out trim. only two out of four kitchen bulbs work. the outlet out front shorts out, so i cant put out our inflatable pumpkins or lights. gibson is two months past due for a vet visit, though adam will likely take him thursday. 

i spent a lot of time yelling at the girls and very little time enjoying their company. the costumes and pie are for them, but the process of getting them made is no fun for them and im stressing out to get them done faster. something needs to change, but i cant decide what to let go of first. truth be told, i dont want to let go of anything. i want the house and yard to be in good order. i want to make the girls' hlloween costumes. i want pie (and brownies, chocolate chip cookies, cake). i want to sleep eight hours a night, i want to catch up on tv.

sigh

last night, while trying to wrangle the girls to bed, i was advised by ani to use my inside voice. yes, i was yelling because i was very tired and speaking didnt seem to be cutting it. i guess i was wrong. sad thing is, adam suggested the same thing in general recently. i guess it's time to work on that in earnest.

grateful

there are parent bloggers everywhere explaining how to be more present, how not to yell, how to make just about anything awesome. i'm not trying to be awesome, but i am on the lookout for ways to make my life a little better, more enjoyable, fun for everyone at home, etc. i'm working on being grateful for everyday-type stuff, not just the big stuff.

i'm grateful for having a flexible employer. school for ani and nissa both starts up in a few weeks and there are a ton of things to keep me from work and i'm glad i can pull it off. so far, so good, at least. it's going to be interesting, for sure.

i'm grateful to see technology being used in helpful ways all around me. i heard on the radio that some college campuses are employing a phone app to loop students in with campus security. when i was in college, a cell phone was a distant concept, something i really didn't need. it wasn't until after graduation and i was travelling for work that i got one. ha. adam still had a pager when we first started dating. the rumor is i might get a smart phone soon, but i'm not holding my breath. my regular-ol' call-making, text-sending, photo-taking phone is doing an acceptable job for now. i like that it's small and relatively inexpensive. we'll see.

i'm grateful for being able to take time to be with adam, just the two of us. we got to go out for a show last weekend and it was great! dinner, music, seeing old friends, drinks, trying new fabulous tacos, sleeping in, just chatting without interruption. i'm glad he was able to take the next day off work to really make the time enjoyable and i'm very grateful grandma and grandpa a could help facilitate that. like a good friendship, we don't need to be connected at the hip, we just need a solid re-connection once in a while to keep everything in working order.


i'm grateful for a potty trained 2.5 year old! i don't remember exact details, but it was a relatively smooth transition. of course, there were bumps in the road:

but all in all, a good and relatively clean experience. the diapers have been officially retired to the attic. whoop!
ani is now able to stay in undies for naps and bedtime, though sometimes she'll insist on sleeping undies, which i'm trying to get away from (since we only have 3 pair and they are elusive). she had an accident just tuesday, but it was highly unusual and apparently nissa was supposed to tell adam. i'm working on getting her to be more take-charge about potty time; she tends to be clingy when she needs to go and not confident that she can do it all herself (even though i've seen her do it!!).


i'm grateful for being able to work in the yard. every weekend, the girls have let me mow, pull weeds and otherwise tend to the garden to keep it in good shape. since i've been able to keep up, it isn't a terrible weekend every week, and i don't have to do all of it every time. and now, i get compliments on the yard and have a small harvest almost every day. it does look good and the girls have a great time playing in it. sure, gibson gets the short end of the stick, but we try to play with him a little too. the secret? the girls being able to occupy themselves. they can dig in the dirt, make mud, play in the pool, run around the yard, blow bubbles, draw with chalk. the benefit? a daily supply of cherry tomatoes, cukes on demand, a decent supply of kale, zucchini that are embarrassingly huge, and a decent selection of herbs. go us!

bye, dipes

oh, and did i mention i packed away diapers over the weekend? yep. fab. she's been consistent day time for months now, though i still feel most comfortable bringing her potty seat with us. she has her father's bladder and can hold it for ages. naptime was hit or miss, really miss that one time early on with the wall painting incident. sigh. bedtime was always good, she could go all night pretty consistently. visit requests after lights out were suspicious, but usually productive. she started being dry regularly at naptime, even with long naps, and now we are good. now all we need to do is to get her to be a bit more self-reliant in the bathroom and i'll consider our efforts successful. though the lack of urine clean up is a really great place to be.

breastfeeding wisdom, sorta

for moms having a hard time in the beginning: think back to riding a bike - assuming you learned when you were a kid? it was terribly hard and frustrating, but once you got it, it was fabulous and freeing? breastfeeding is a lot like that. and much like how some kids learn faster than others, so is it with getting breastfeeding down- sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's harder; but always worth the effort in the long run. on a different note: it made me smile the other day when nissa recognized neil degrasse tyson in my facebook stream. yay! ani is getting so smart, it's crazy. though we do have to get a video of her running and her saying stethoscope. we were playing hide and seek a few weeks ago and when it was her turn to seek, she counted up to 6 on her own (not a lot of time to hide, by the way!) she recognizes a handful of letters, but we are working on that by playing gappy on the ipad with nissa. she loves to just sit and look at books, but not let you read them to her. she loves to explore with nissa, especially playing in the mud. she has a good memory and is ridiculously good at using "please" and "thank you."

illness anxiety

i was always told my my mother that she will always worry about me because she's my mother, because mothers worry. man, am i getting a taste of that right now. i've noticed this before, but it is exceptionally noticeable right now, that i am very anxious when the girls have something medically amiss that cannot be immediately addressed at home. last time it was nissa with a perpetual, though not confirmable, bladder infection. right now it's ani's impetigo. it started thursday or friday last week and it looked like she had had a runny nose for a week - her left nostril inflamed and runny. by the end of the day friday, it had gotten worse and she had a spot under each eye and one on her chin. plus, her thumb, which had what looked like a paper cut, had the appearance of a small popped blister. by saturday night she had a spot on her cheek, on the top of her nose and under her other nostril; an effort to remove the crust from her left nostril led to a slow, brief nosebleed after her nap and at the dinner table. sunday, the spots were larger and weeping, and the blister on her thumb had expanded to be the entire width of her thumb and the length of the joint. i called sunday morning and paged the doctor on call, to ask about her symptoms. adam had them first and was dealing with a sore in his nose for the last two weeks. after explaining about the sores in her nose and on her face and confirming there was no fever, she suspected hand foot and mouth disease; it is viral and all you can do is wait it out and ensure she gets plenty of fluids. i looked it up and ani didn't have sores in her mouth, nor a fever, nor any sores on her feet (the one on her hand was an infected cut) and neither did adam. i kept looking online and found impetigo to be a better match with her symptoms. starting saturday and building sunday and this morning, i am anxious for ani. all night saturday to sunday, i was fearful that she would die in her sleep because of this mystery flesh disease that i was doing nothing about. the research i did on sunday made me feel a bit better, because then i knew with a fair amount of certainty that it was just a bacterial infection (although highly contagious), that it could be treated, and that in most cases it goes away without incident (or scarring). what i realize now is that i need to be more observant of symptoms and not be afraid to look them up for an answer. not knowing was painful, but yet i chose to do nothing about that. i need to stop feeling helpless when it comes to medical concerns- that i can call the doctor on call any time and they will talk to me about my concerns, that the internet can hold reliable answers (and lots of scary, unlikely ones). i can't be like ned flanders' parents and try nothing and be all out of ideas. i need to be confident in my ability to do sensible research and my ability to observe her symptoms. no, i am not a doctor, but i am a mother with reliable instincts and an adult with a scientific background and mentality. impetigo repeated in my head hundreds of times over as i struggled to settle in for my scant six hours of sleep last night. upon waking, it was back and my anxiety grew as 8:30 approached and i could call the doctor's office to request an appointment. the anxiety lingers as i await a call from the doctor to see if she can squeeze me in today. i would really appreciate the closure of treating the illness and have hope of stopping the spread and fostering the healing process. adam is doing ok, because he is an adult who can wash his hands thoroughly and not touch is sores. ani is two and a half and can't help herself. at this point i just need to relax and get some work done. i need to think positively that the infection is not mrsa and will not spread to other parts of her body. i need to remember that ani is an otherwise healthy girl that has not been impeded by this infection, who will make a full recovery in short order. i need to keep my fingers crossed that i did not infect others over the weekend, before i understood how highly contagious her condition was.

nissa called Ani "miss bossy pants" and Ani replied yes

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nap disaster

no sooner do i comment to my father in law that ani really isn't ready to nap without a diaper, i find this. and yes, that is poop smeared all over the wall (and other places less easily visible). sigh.

amusements, abajian girls edition

the last week or so has been filled with random acts of amusement, here they are:

i got new crocs for myself in the garden. at first i bought some drab khaki-colored ones, then had to exchange them for a different size. walking into a store emboldened me to get some bright blue ones, and i love them. apparently, so does ani, as she insisted on wearing them around after i showed them to her. the color struck me as funny and i had to post these photos side-by-side, after showing ani and nissa the photo first to explain why i was so amused:
a little later, the girls had been playing nicely on the bed on the ipad and i tried to jump in the shower. no sooner did i pull the shower curtain across, did ani walk in and say hi. i suggested she go back and play with nissa some more, but she insisted she watch me shower. "i see you!" she'd repeat as i bathed, laughing at the bubbles and trying to move aside the clear shower curtain. she even pulled up her stool to comfortably supervise. no amount of encouragement could dissuade her from watching me shower, she was too amused to see me in action. oh, ok.

my watch-ability continued on tuesday when our toilet overflowed and i was cleaning up the "damage." the water was mostly cleared away, i was just mopping the floors to remove the ick factor. nissa insisted that she "loved" watching me mop, that it was the best thing ever. maybe because i don't mop very often, like maybe once every few years, was why this was so appealing? nissa carried on and on about how great it was to watch me mop. weird kid.

the highlight of the last few days was nissa reading from "go dog go." she has been reluctantly reading here and there, but frequently gets overwhelmed and frustrated. she gets it, and i know it, i just struggle with trying to get her over that "hump" and show her she's actually really good at reading. the three of us had been sitting on nissa's bed reading a bunch of stories before we started on "go dog go." nissa has heard the book a few times, but not enough to have it all memorized. she did some "sight word" work in preschool this year, so she is starting to recognize words as a whole, not just after sounding out the letters. on a whim, i just pointed to words and had nissa read them. she assumed a couple incorrectly, but i could count the times on one hand. she got all the way through 25 pages, which seems impressive (and is) but some pages only have a max of five words per page. only 35 more to go! i really played up my excitement after reading the rest of the pages myself and tried to get her excited, too. i think it worked and we'll be trying more again soon.


on a related note, i'm proud of myself for thinking up a new "game" for after dinner. we have a semi-habit of enjoying treats after dinner, so i decided to capitalize on it. we have long, narrow white boards with two sets handwriting guidelines on them, where i write a sentence about a treat. nissa has to copy the sentence then read it to me, and she is rewarded with the treat. apple cake is sweet. raspberries are red and bumpy. strawberries are not blue. watermelon is juicy. she actually enjoys it!

Ani's new favorite word: awesome.

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summer fun

so the weather is not promising a very consistent temperature, but i am going to try to not let that stop me. my goal is to do something fun every friday afternoon this summer. we will see how that goes.

yesterday we went to the zoo to take advantage of our newly renewed membership. not only did we get rare rock star parking, but we had a fabulous picnic lunch, walked a lot and ani did great without a diaper. cant wait to go back and see the other half of the zoo, with all the construction. 

i need to write down three funny things that ani does that i will likely never be able to record, because she will not do them by request. first, she runs like an anime character: with her arms stretched out behind her. it is really funny to see. second, she gives different-pitched voices to her toys, including low, deep voices. nissa seems to keep to the upper registers, but ani goes up and down- really funny to hear. third, she will randomly perform, you never know when or where or how, but you know she did because she will bow like a gentleman and say, "tank ou, tank ou" a couple of times when she is done.

I had a fantastic dinner tonight. Homemade spaghetti carbonara with prosciutto. Spinach and granny smith salad with gargonzola and strawberry-orange-balsamic vinaigrette. Fresh pineapple for dessert. Delish!

dinosaur poop

last night the girls were finishing up their baths and ani asked to poop on the potty. after a few minutes, she was successful and looked in to inspect her work. she declared that it looked like a dinosaur by exclaimining, "dinosaur poop!" nissa and i laughed pretty hard and i have to admit it was the silliest thing i had heard in a long time. it did kind of look like a little alligator to me, so wow. 

potty training has not been as easy as i recall it being with nissa, so that could be it is trickier this time, we've inadvertently done something differently, or my recollection isn't correct. to be frank, it's likely a combination of all three.  i feel like nissa had a three day weekend to get started, that following week was rough, but then she was fine. dryness while sleeping (nap/night) came a few months later. ani does ok whem i am around, will even ask some times. what is weird is she doesn't go often, despite trying to encourage her to drink often. potty checks can be a fight, but have proven to be worth fighting over. pooping is denied nearly every time, but because she is slightly dehydrated, it is a hard thing for her to hide. 

this weekend was a monumental success for our yard. earlier in the week, nissa and i started seeds for  veggies we want to grow and almost all have at least one little sprout now. i weeded and mowed while adam turned over the vegetable garden bed on saturday. on sunday, i picked up a few herbs and flowers at the store and planted them that same day. the same day! that has never hapened. the garden actually looks presentable and i accomplished evertything i wanted to in the yard this first go around. i am so proud of us. i hope we can keep it up, because both girls love being outside and i want to make our yard worth being in.

Things i never thought id say aloud: nissa, dont hit your sister with the refridgerator. Ani, you can pretend to be a mummy cat after nissa.

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If it's not a milestone, it should be: when kids start giving voices to their toys. Ani has been doing this more and more in the last few weeks. Right now grandma santa and cat in hat are exchanging pleasantries on our ride home.

Ani has had a cute night. She accidentally peed on our bed, so i whisked her off to the toilet. Once there, she declared her undies wet, "yuck!" and said sorry. Aww. She sat for a few minutes and peed in the toilet. Win. During the wait she randomly leaned over and gave me a big kiss. She also had her jingly frog go for a walk along the tp holder to the coffe and bagle store (mmm bagel says the hi pitched voice of the frog) then goes for a ride in mommy's car.

Cant wait to celebrate birthdays with cousins.

Ani's favorite phrases: right? I do it!

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Nissa is learning about community helpers at school. She just informed me that she would like to have three jobs when she grows up: astronaut, police officer and mommy. As an astronaut, she will visit the moon and i will go with her. She will stop speeders and theives as a police officer. She let me know that being a mommy is a job too, and she will have kids and i will be the grandma and watch her kids.

nissa is fantastic

adam is right, i can be hard on nissa and im going to try to do that less. she continues to want to help and i need to keep that enthusiasm fresh. i need to keep doing animal stretches with her. i need to thank her for being a great big sister and limit my corrections. 

nissa is loving and smart and lyrical. she is creative and compassionate. 

ani is amazing

maybe i need a wider vocabulary, but ani really is amazing. she amazes me in new ways, constantly. i came home the other day and grandpa armin told me how they were watching something on tv about patterns, probably on team umi zoomi, and she said the next color in the pattern. she'll count with me up to five (awkward when nissa's in trouble). she asked to go to the bathroom before her nap on wenesday and actually went. she can open up the ipad and watch super why, her new favorite pbs show. she knows colors well and is taking an interest in numbers and letters. she heard me talking about sarah, her cousin, and wouldn't stop asking to see audrey. she gets better every day about telling us her nededs and concerns, and finding ways to get a smile. she looks me in the eye and time stops in a way that doesnt happen with nissa. nissa exudes love and enthusiasm though her pores. ani shows these qulities through her pupils (and occasionally other parts) and it is focused, intense and beautiful.

we found out we can get her into the early 3's class in the fall and i can't wait. i think she will enjoy plating with other kids and learning in a new way. she got to visit at nissa's valentine's day party and seemed to enjoy it. 

amazing

kids are amazing and i am making it my goal to notice more often. especially after this last weekend when i somehow lost my patience- i mean every little thing bothered me to no end, neither nissa nor ani could do anything right unless they were still and silent. i dont know where it came from, but it was awful.

last night ani pooped on the toilet; i found out when nissa exited the bathroom because it was, "too stinky." i walked over and ani insisted that it was, "no stinky," and i agreed. but we were all excited about the accomplishment taking place, regardless of the potential odor. she even shouted down to adam, "ani poop!" prior to that, nissa was enjoying reading her the pee book and helping her brush her teeth.

that reminds me- a few weeks ago, i was helping ani brush her teeth and she was drinking water afterward. sometimes she drinks it, sometimes she spits it out. this time she spit, but missed the sink, so i advised her to lean over when she spit. so the little goof ball tipped her head to the side to spit out the next sip. i about died laughing. 

ani was hilarious yesterday after she got up from her nap. it was cold, so we all stayed home, with plans to watch movies, eat popcorn and drink hot cocoa. we did two out if three earlier, so i prepped mugs whle making dinner. when ani got up, she noticed them right away and hardly ate any dinner so she could be done and have some hot cocoa. and while i prepared it, she chanted, "hot cocoa," the entire time, only stopping when nissa gave her a mug. nissa was in charge of marshmallows, always a brilliant helper!

ani is really getting better at talking, stringing more words together and speaking more clearly. a few days ago, she repeated nissa in, "i love you, daddy." i wish i could have heard that! now if only we could find a solution for all the screaming, id be happy. nissa doesnt always help with the screaming, but she means well. sometimes she repeats or responds with ani-speak and i remind her to speak normally with properly-pronounced words and full sentences. we have to lead by example, of course.

nissa has been doing a good job of reading, 10 apples up on top in particular. she is sounding out instead of assuming (which works sometimes, but more frequently not, for her). she is also randomly doing, "homework," where she writes down addition problems and the answers. not only is it amazing math for her age, but also illustrates the need to practice writing numbers. man, this kid is smart. 

speaking of, nissa took the gifted/classical test last month and i think she may have done well. our biggest concern was her deciding to randomly be nervous, which she did, but i guess she warmed up enough to answer questions when she went off woth her proctor. poor guy was a super geeky dude who was trying really hard to be nice, maybe too hard. she returned with bashful smiles and he gave me a thumbs up. was that a good sign, or just more dorkiness? who knows. i asked nissa about what she was asked and if anything seemed hard. she said no, and described some scenarios. im thinking positive!

one more thing about ani! she loves the ipad; so much so that when she knew it was with us at yoga, she was demanding it in the middle of class (it didn't help that she was overtired that day and not into yoga). i let her play once in a while and she is a whiz!  yesterday she took the ipad after a webchat and went straight for the pbs kids app, selected and shouted, "dinosaur train," then proceeded to lay on her belly, chin in hand and feet up, and enjoy the show. this took seconds. we may have a second smarty in the family.

success!

nissa was helping ani get ready for bed and while nissa eead the pee book, ani peed on the potty! i wonder if she will get it?

Meals ive made from christmas turkey: gravy casserole, hash, pot pie, enchiladas, egg lemon soup, a la king. . . And more to come.