The outcome: Mommy and I agree that my vegan cupcakes (the Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes With Almond Buttercream ones from the vegan recipe blog, Oh She Glows) were so good, they were actually better than those trendy “$4 cupcakes” that we used to buy.
We were able to enjoy all the physical and psychological thrills of eating chocolate cupcakes, but without the guilt hangover afterwards. (The fat in the cupcakes comes from almond milk and olive oil, not animal products or bi-products.)
They were so perfecto, we’re going to make them again this weekend. Lucky us!
(Yes, I meant to say perfecto.)
As a vegan, it is nearly impossible to find vegan chocolate.
It’s one thing to find chocolate that just so happens to not contain milk or eggs, or even honey, but that’s not good enough for most vegans like me.
I also will not accept high fructose corn syrup (Monsanto much?) nor food dyes derived from bugs (Carmine or Crimson Lake) or petroleum (Red 40, Yellow 5 and 6).
In other words, the public’s demand for vegan chocolate, as well as chocolate treats and snacks, has more than doubled in the past 3 years; in theory, at least.
So even if I sound extreme in my search for vegan chocolate, I’m clearly not alone.
Annie’s Homegrown, an admirable brand that keeps finding its name randomly mentioned by me on a regularly basis, is clever enough they actually have a “Vegan Snacks” tab on their website, featuring my personal favorite: Chocolate Bunny Grahams.
I should point out that Annie’s Homegrown is the only affordable and easily obtainable vegan snack source I have been exposed to so far.
For example, for my birthday Mommy bought me these awesome coconut cocoa ball truffles from some fancy vegan company, but they probably cost as much as a couple of bald eagle heads.
In other words, affordable vegan chocolate is a rare find.
Even if the major food companies ever pick up on this growing demand, I doubt they will be able to make a product in which vegans approve.
It’s probably not worth it to them to market to the 3% of the population who (I assume, if they’re like me) generally distrusts food companies who use petroleum and bugs in their food designed for children to eat.
We’ll stick with the plant-based stuff; even if we have to make it ourselves.
Sharing a birthday with Adolf Hitler typically means I expect bad things to happen on or around April 20th: The Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine school shooting, and this week, the Boston Marathon bombing.
Today on my 32nd birthday, I find comfort in knowing that both of the suspects of the Boston Marathon bombing were caught and captured.
On the lighter side of things, for my birthday today… I’m trying to think of a… more masculine… way to say it…
Mommy took me on a much needed clothes shopping spree!
Half the clothes in my closet were from before I met Mommy in 2006, while the other half were bought nearly 5 years ago when we got married. A lot of my clothes are either worn out, out of style, or simply sloppy and baggy.
I let Mommy be my guide, picking out what looks good on me, not what I think looks good on me. Left to my own demise, I would end up picking out clothes that were all blue, and of course, baggy and sloppy.
As for you, some friends from our church watched you in their home. This marks the first time ever in your 2 years and 5 months of existence that we’ve had anyone other than family watch you while you were awake.
Needless to say, it went very well. They sent me the picture above while were Mommy and I were at Old Navy.
Granted, you were pretty psyched about the whole event to begin with. You could barely contain yourself as we unbuckled you from your car seat to take you into their home:
“Hi Nelda, look: I brought my purple truck!”
By the time we picked you up about 2 and a half hours later, we found you kicked back on the recliner with Stan, Nelda’s husband, watching the NASCAR race.
So I would say your first babysitting experience by a non-family member, while you were awake, went quite well.
As a treat for you, we brought you home some Thomas the Train “big boy” underwear.
Hint, hint… don’t you want to start going potty so you can wear them the right way, instead of on your head?
In our pop culture, we have been conditioned to accept and relate to the cliche that men are constantly on the verge of forgetting their own wife’s birthday, their wedding anniversary, Valentine’s Day, and/or Mother’s Day. At best, men at least need to be reminded of these dates regarding the love of their life and the mother of their children.
The Wal-Mart commercial above features this exact concept. I apologize for the poor quality, but I am assuming Wal-Mart pulled the actual one from YouTube after realizing how it negatively stereotypes men.
I decided to take matters into my own hands in outing this familiar cliche about men. In the attempt to find out if there was any truth to husbands forgetting important dates in regards to their own wife, I asked Twitter and Facebook this question:
“Husbands, have you ever completely forgotten your wife’s birthday or your wedding anniversary? Wives, has your husband ever completely forgotten your birthday or wedding anniversary?”
Guess how many people agreed that this has happened to them?
Zero.
Instead, I received only comments from wives bragging on their husbands never forgetting these dates and from husbands who said not only would they not forget, but that it’s impossible to forget amidst all the commercialization of these holidays and events.
Here’s the simple truth: Men don’t forget their own wife’s birthday, their wedding anniversary, Valentine’s Day, and/or Mother’s Day. That would be sort of impossible.
In fact, I’d say we not only don’t forget, but we can’t forget.
Consider how many thousands of sports stats most men keep stored in their brains. Consider history buffs; most of which seem to be males. Men are wired to remember important numbers and events; regardless of their individual math skills.
I talked to a guy at work about this recently. He responded with, “Yeah, that’s ridiculous. I’ll never forget my ex-wife’s birthday and our anniversary; and I’ve been remarried for a few years now.”
So sure, as a wife, I can see how it can be frustrating when your husband can instantly spit out who won the Super Bowl in 2006, yet forgets to pack the diaper bag before the trip the park.
But even if our short-term memories are crowded by random number-based facts like knowing what year the first Star Wars movie came out (1977) or that at 6′ 4″ Abraham Lincoln was the tallest U.S. President, those important dates regarding our wives and kids are taking up precious space too.
Do men have selective memories? Sure, but I guarantee we select to remember our own wife’s birthday. Not to mention our own, Wal-Mart.
If you have a “Man Cliche” you’d like for me to expose here on The Dadabase, let me know in a comment and I’ll consider writing about it in your honor!
In my first “dad from day one” post on April 13th (dad from day one: She’s Having a Baby), I told the almost spooky story of how my Mexican grandma dreamed she was having a granddaughter two weeks before we went public with the news that my wife was pregnant. Since then, we have been asked on a near daily basis if we think it’s a boy or a girl.
I have found it easier this whole time just to assume my grandma’s dream is right. And in the past couple weeks since my wife has began “showing”, it’s become pretty obvious she’s “holding the baby high”, which is typical for a girl in the womb.
I would never go see a psychic myself. But… what happens when someone else goes to a psychic and their fortune is about you instead?
That’s exactly what happened. Today, one of my wife’s coworkers went to a psychic as a sort of “joke birthday gift” to herself. The fortune told: “One of your coworkers is pregnant with a girl.”
So it’s settled. My grandma and a psychic have both had a vision about this baby girl.
Our kid is the size of a sweet potato.
Only one way to know for sure- wait until next Thursday (June 17th). That’s when we’re officially finding out whether we’re having a boy or a girl- given that our baby isn’t crossing its legs during the procedure.
In a week’s time, I will have posted “dad from day one: The Gender of Our Baby”.
Here’s what The Bump says about our baby this week:
“Your fetus has become amazingly mobile (at least compared to you), passing the hours yawning, hiccuping, rolling, twisting, kicking, punching, sucking and swallowing. And, baby’s finally big enough that you’ll be able to feel those movements soon.”
