odin planted some wheatgrass at school to help the easter bunny fill his easter basket with grass, but alas, it wasn’t quite ready to be cultivated. still, it’s neat that he had the opportunity to plant the seeds and watch them grow. i wonder what else you can do with wheatgrass besides fill a basket…

phew, what a day! the easter bunny apparently was on a bit of a "humanities" kick this year and brought odin watercolors and a book of poetry. and just a smidge of candy which he didn’t seem to mind since he was much more preoccupied with the fact that a whole bunch of his friends were coming over for a whole lot of playing, a great dinner, a suprise easter egg hunt and some tremendously yummy cake.

happy easter from odin and us!

( wow! just look at how much he’s grown since last easter! )

while we’ve been marveling at how well odin has been adjusting to his new, stylish glasses, it’s hard not to occasionally wonder how safe the remarkably thin frames and lenses are as we watch him run and tumble and behave like the extremely active toddler he is.

apparently there’s very little research on the types of injuries sustained by toddlers, but one recent study reported that 21percent of all injuries occurred in children between the ages of 2 and 17 years and among children 2 through 9 years, the leading cause (55 percent ) of injury was falling. unsurprisingly, follow-up research indicated that a majority of the falling injuries occurred as a result of "sports and recreation activities".

it’s not like odin is playing in organized contact sports, but i wonder if we should be following the recommendation to have him wear "sport-specific eyewear" when we know he’s going to be out roughhousing? or maybe i’m just being a nervous ninny?

bonus points will be awarded for pointers to additional research or comments from actual pediatric optometrists 🙂

without a doubt, we couldn’t be more pleased with how well odin has adjusted to having his new glasses. over the weekend we went on an adventure to "the city" ( a.k.a. la crosse ) and to give us more errand running time, we started out at what would have been odin’s naptime, thinking he’d quickly fall asleep in the car. instead, he politely refused to go to sleep and proclaimed, "i need to keep my eyes open so i can seeeeeee everything!" before counting all the storage silos along the 40 mile trip ( there are a lot of silos ). and during our shopping adventures it was amazing to watch him point out this or that detail in his environment that would have previously gone unnoticed. he’s soaks it all up and enjoys providing running commentary with loads of details ( hmmm, i wonder where he gets that from? ).

at first he wasn’t as interested in wearing them around the house, presumably because he didn’t get as much benefit from them in familiar surroundings, but he’s wearing them more often and reportedly keeps them on all day at school.

and my fears of quickly losing or damaging his glasses seem to have been completely unfounded as he’s very careful with them and treats them with far better than i did my own glasses when i was years older than he is now.

most of his schoolmates and regular playmates knew he was getting glasses and have been very supportive, but i remember getting teased on the play ground about my glasses and it’s probably foolish to think it won’t happen sooner or later. i wonder if it’s much less of a problem now that kids are getting examined and given glasses at much earlier ages than they did “back in the day”?

in our efforts to keep expand our range of "everyday" recipes while keeping the prep and cooking time to a minimum to accommodate our busy schedule, we’ve recently subscribed to "everyday food" which is published by martha stewart living omnimedia. now i know it’s fashionable to be a martha hater, but i have to admit that this book lives up to it’s billing and each issue comes chock full of delicious and easy to prepare recipes – most of which can be prepared and cooked in under 40 minutes.

warning – these pancakes are rich!

of course we made these with organic valley ricotta cheese and other organic ingredients. i suppose they would turn out just fine with "conventional" ingredients 🙂

prep and cooking time: 35 minutes

1 3/4 cups (15 ounces) park skim ricotta cheese
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons grated orange zest
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons canola oil
confectioners’ sugar for serving

1. in a medium bowl, whisk ricotta, granulated sugar, eggs and orange zest. whisk in flour until combined.

2. in a large skillet, heat oil over medium-low. add batter, using only 1/4 cup for each pancake. cook until browned, 4 to 5 minutes per side. serve hot, dusted with confectioners’ sugar.

i guess when you’re living in the land of odins a play put on by 4th graders about the Original Odin is to be expected. relatedly, our odin goes to school with a girl named after freya. in norwegian folklore, odin and freya would divide the dead lost in battle. strange but true.