Peanut Butter and Diaper Ponderings

So today I was craving peanut butter. I am allergic to peanuts....kind of. Well I have something called Exercise -Induced Anaphylaxis. It's this rare allergic disorder where I have sudden allergic reactions after eating trigger foods (some of mine are peanuts, pistachios, ibuprofen, sprouts, jicama, garbanzo beans, soy...etc.etc. ) during or after I exercise. I end up with huge hives covering my body---it's terrible looking and feeling! However, if I eat some of those same trigger foods (like peanuts and pistachios--I can live without the rest) without exercising, I don't have any reaction at all. It's weird. So since I exercise for a living, I eat peanut butter on my weekends....and I look sooo foward to it! Almond butter is good (thank-goodness I am not allergic to almonds at all!), but it's just not the same.

Is there anything better then peanut butter and chocolate? Ok, peanut butter and jelly are close but peanut butter and chocolate are a marriage of amazing flavors! You get the salty, the sweet, the melty-ness, the fattiness....mmmm! So, after church I decided to make the rest of my aerated chocolate kisses (that David had mistakenly gotten when I asked him to pick up some chocolate kisses) into the centers of some delicious peanut butter cookies! By the way, what is with this aerated chocolate? I think it's a conspiracy (a brilliant, but maddening one) that Hershey has cooked up to save money.  Hershey's is making these aerated kisses, that basically have lots of little air pockets inside---to make it very 'melty chocolate eating experience' but I think it's to cut cost on the manufacturing of chocolate (if you can cut out even 5% of chocolate product from each kiss, it's gotta add up right?) but still charge the same price...and even tout a lower calorie content per kiss! Big fat conspiracy! Ok, well not a conspiracy cause they aren't trying to hide the air pockets--it does say to expect air pockets on the package. I guess it is a win-win for those who like chocolate that melts quickly and if Hershey cuts costs AND we don't consume as many calories---it is pretty brilliant I guess...(she admitted begrudgingly).

Ok so cookies: We had some leftover green sugar crystals from Christmas so we made some four leaf clover peanut butter cookies! Silly I know as it's not even March, but this is my version of a rain dance, or rather a spring dance (bring on Spring already!). Plus I just finished a read called 'Violets of March' it's bubble gum reading (mindless entertainment---not the best literature, but necessary in these long winter months!), kind of a romantic mystery so March, green, spring, clovers, St. Patricks day, cookies....that is my line of thought.  We didn't have enough kisses or green sugar for all the dough, so we did multi-colored sprinkles and jam too. To make four leaf clovers, I just rolled little balls of dough, stuck four together and pressed them into the green sugar sprinkles---we baked them for 8 of their 10 minutes, then pressed the kisses in the center and baked them for 2 more min (now there is some melty chocolate for ya!) and voila!

Preston and Eli had the temptation-filled task of unwrapping the kisses. They were hilarious, as they began to speak in high pitched voiced for the kisses, creating a whole story line about the kiss creatures attending school and snubbing one of the kisses who lost its pointed top. Does everyone talk for inanimate objects or is this just running in my family line? They get the creating weird voices thing from me, and I got it from my mom. I actually normally just talk for my babies....I don't usually talk for inanimate objects. When the boys were babies I would speak for them, the way my mom would speak for her babies and pets way back when. We make funny comments and sing silly songs. So we skip the whole baby talk thing...I don't talk to my babies with baby talk (I talk to them like I talk to any kid) but I talk for them in a silly voice....I can't help it! So, these days I  talk for Dallin, I make this obnoxious high pitched voice (sometimes with a bad british accent) and say sarcastic things as if from Dallin's point of view--the boys find this hilarious and often say, "Mom can you do Dallin's voice? Dallin! What do you think of my hair style?" I usually oblige with some dry witty comment and I admit, I am often as amused as the boys.

So as the boys created a world for their little chocolate kiss creatures, Dallin sat in his bumbo seat, eyeing the ingredients around him with a look of interest and reaching out to knock bottles and boxes (and a carton of eggs!) over or onto the floor when I put them within his reach. He made occasional sarcastic comments about his brothers and how the peanut butter resembled something he had seen in a diaper recently (as you can imagine potty humor goes over well with the boys right now---and I admit I indulge them here and there...but it's not me, it's Dallin!). We had a great time!

Dallin George...with an Alfalfa hairstyle courtesy of Preston

Speaking of diapers, today when I was changing a dirty diaper at church in the mother's lounge, I began to sing "Poopy man, poopy man!" to the chorus of "Choose the Right". I realized how sacrilegious that probably sounded and realized a lot of my silly songs I sing to Dallin are to the tunes of hymns. I like to sing the tune of 'Carry On' with "Dallin George, Dallin George, Dallin George!" in it's place. I have also found myself singing "I am a stinky man...." to the tune of I am a child of God. Apparently my musical inspiration mostly comes when Dallin is on the diaper changing table. Wow,  I am realizing there are a lot of quirks I picked up from my mother, and where did she get them? Maybe 100 years ago I had an aunt or great-great-grandmother making up silly irreverent songs too right?  I can just imagine a maternal ancestor with fat baby in in a sunbonnet singing (set to the tune of 'America the Beautiful'.... or 'Oh Christmas Tree' come to think of it) "Oh babyface, oh babyface you mussed your pantaloons.....!"