Wish balls and such

Yesterday evening around 5, Tom laid a fire, the boys set up Herd Your Horses (a board game circa Jack's cowboy phase four years ago) and I got out our Wish ball. It's a silver hinged sphere that my mother-in-law gave us a few years back. Each New Year's Eve, after removing our wishes from the year prior and reading them aloud if we want to share, each of us writes a new wish for the coming year on a small piece of paper, folds it neatly and tucks it inside the ball. It's a relatively brief activity, and the Wish ball resides in the bowels of our basement for 364 days a year, but we all enjoy this tradition; I relish the moments of thoughtful reflection as we look both backward and ahead. Jack always writes something enormously thoughtful and kind. It's never about him but rather on behalf of the world: peace and kindness are common themes of his. I beam with pride.

Even though we don't discuss our wishes, T and I usually wish for things like the happiness and health of our family, job satisfaction or similarly adult-/parent-oriented hopes.

And then there's Oliver. Oh, Oliver.

Last year, as we were reminded last night when reading his aloud, Ol wished that his piece of Galette du Roi would have the fève every year. A galette du roi is a King's Cake, but the sort that hails from France rather than Louisiana. Both, however, contain a trinket that's often shaped like a baby. In France, if your piece of cake contains the fève, you get to be "King" for the day. In Louisiana, if your piece contains the baby, you're tasked with bringing the next King Cake to the next party.

Anyway, Ol got the fève last year when we celebrated with friends, and apparently that made such an impression that he wished for it to continue in perpetuity. Hoarder that he is, he still has the fève; it has a dedicated box in his box collection.

This year, he asked if I'd write his wish and then whispered it to me: "I wish Mommy would make tomato soup more often."

I wrote it down and then asked, "Ol, would you like this to start coming true right now? I have all the ingredients."

"Yes, yes, please!"

Easy enough. I made the soup in about four minutes, and it cooked while we played Herd Your Horses.

When ready, I served it in mugs with thick slices of brioche that I'd bought just hours earlier. Good brioche is hard to beat; it's like excellent challah. You can't stop eating it, nor do you want to. Oliver asked for another slice, and then another and then another.

I cut him off after five slices simply because I wanted to save some for myself and T. Not thirty seconds after I told Ol he was done with brioche for the night, we heard him mutter, "I should have wished for bread."

Tom about fell out. While hysterically laughing, I remember the Thanksgiving three or so years ago when, on a family walk after eating, Jack -dressed in his cowboy outfit, incidentally- called out to see if he could get an owl to swoop in. He was just getting into Harry Potter so surely was hoping to summon Hedwig. One of the houses up the street from us has a fake owl tied to its chimney; we knew this so we geared our walk in that direction. Tom was pushing Oliver on rolling, toddler car, and as we came in sight of the house, I said, "Jack, look! There's an owl! You did it! You called an owl!"

Jack was thrilled. It was magical and we all smiled. And Oliver? He said, under his breath which I thought was really quite polite, "That owl is not real. That owl is a statue."

Swear to god he said that. A three-year-old being pushed like a Tiny King outed the fake bird.

Oh, Oliver.

1/1/14

Believe it or not, T and I accidentally stayed up past midnight last night. We were enjoying our annual viewing of Love Actually, and when it wrapped, T said, "Oh my god, it's 12:20. Is my watch right? We did it." First time in many moons! Oliver wandered into our room just after 3am complaining of a "bad nightdream" and immediately we were a bed of three. T started snoring, and Ol threw his leg over my back as he fell back to sleep so after a half hour of growing increasingly annoyed, I decamped to his twin bed where I was, quickly thereafter, joined by Nutmeg who was alternately wildly irritating and the best sleep companion ever. I was in the thick of a very odd dream when Percy bounded up the stairs needing to go outside to pee. I could NOT drag myself out of bed but knew if I invited him in, he'd hold things a bit longer. He eagerly joined the Nut and me and though he was happy to stay on his side of moi, Nutmeg's jealousy got the better of him and he started swatting Percy over my stomach. By the time I finally threw in the towel, I had only one sock left on and my hair was positively frizzy-huge. Suffice it to say I did not feel fresh.

After sucking down a quad espresso latte -Happy 2014!- the boys and I went to a friend's house to hang and play. She is one of my dearest pals, and I love her daughters so the whole thing would have been treat enough without her having also ordered a beautiful galette de roi to kick off this fine new year. This king cake was unlike those made in Louisiana during Mardi Gras season but the origins of the two must be similar. Both are round though the LA ones are just a ring versus a solid disk. Both have a baby (ceramic or plastic), the feve, hidden inside but the meaning varies for the finder: in LA, the winner must buy and serve the next cake; in C's French tradition, the winner is "king" or "queen" for the year and gets to choose a co-monarch.

Louisiana king cakes are dripping with sugary frosting sprinkled with dyed sugar in green, purple and yellow in honor of Mardi Gras. Today's galette was much more sophisticated looking, and its feve was decidedly higher brow. Oliver's wedge continued the babe, and he was beside himself with glee and satisfaction. With no delay he named Jack his co-king.

We finally made our way back home at which time I insisted upon taking a lengthy shower and then a short nap. T was very helpful. I realized I needed to get busy with our traditional New Year's meal of collards (really any southern green will do; turnip greens are lovely!), black-eyed peas, and cornbread, so Ol and I washed the greens and got things started. The greens symbolize wealth, the peas luck and the cornbread health (some traditions associate different meanings with each food though peas and luck have long been tied together). Even if I were bed-ridden with the plague I think I'd try to make this meal each year; the risk of bringing bad juju onto my family just isn't worth it.

I decided I wanted to combine the elements this year instead of cooking each separately and ending up with three distinct mounds on our dinner plates. Riffing on the collard cobbler I often make around Thanksgiving, I sauteed some shallots and garlic, added the collards which I'd blanched and chopped, some bacon, and a bit of chicken stock and milk and let that stew on low heat while I cooked the black-eyed peas until just tender. I then added those to the pot and let them steam while I made a cornbread biscuit top to lay over the whole mess. Into the oven and out forty minutes later, and my crew sat down to our first family dinner in quite some time (we ate early).

As we dined, we talked about what we were grateful for from 2013 and our hopes for this new year. Each person wrote one wish on a slip of paper, folded it tight to prevent spying and dropped it into a wish ball we received last year. As Ol cannot write but also didn't want to tell just one person his wish, we took turns listening to him whisper 1-2 words in our ears, writing those down, folding the paper and passing it to the next scribe. He seemed satisfied but naturally, once he was asleep, I had to look at his.

He wants to get the feve again next year.

As opposed to sweet Jack who wrote this:

Are you dying? I am! Both of them are so precious and dear. Even when my head is about to blow off, I know how lucky I am. That said, here's hoping that no one crawls into bed with me tonight AND I am excited that the kiddos are going to gymnastics camp tomorrow. Yee-ha!