Rhymes with....

Last week I turned 32. I like these thirty something birthdays but last year I made the mistake of getting a rhyme stuck in my head about 31. It was a cute little rhyme. 31 and having fun. Sounds innocent enough right? This year in the week leading up to my birthday a new rhyme popped into my head that I had to get rid of; 32 and feeling blue. As I said, I actually like these birthdays lately so to have an icky rhyme like that settle itself into my brain was not pleasant. I tortured myself a bit about why I might think I'd be blue in the coming year, no luck with that. I decided to just chalk it up to overdosing on the Dr.Seuss with my kids. But what to do? I went to my husband with my dillema and with a wicked grin I got an even more charming rhyme to replace it, 32 with out a clue. My son was even more helpful, 32 you lost your glue. I feel kind of Rodney Dangerfield after all that so help me out here. Send me your best rhyme for 32.

Chop and smile

I know, I've been slacking off on the blog. Apologies all around. Something had to give last week and this was it.

I've done alot of method acting lately. For a mommy like me, that means completely getting into the moment and acting as if you adore things you hate. Grinning like a maniac while you run the loudest food processor on earth just to avoid my toddler freaking out.

Sometimes the freak out can't be avoided. My third youngest daughter became completely unhinged at the mere sight of Santa at my my husband's office. Hopefully she will make some money off of her scream as an expert horror movie screamer. Is that actually a job?

Well, I've got another doctor appointment to drag a child off to. With any luck it won't be scream part 2; my youngest is getting her stitches out.

a meeting of one

It is lunchtime. I've decided today's the day for my stockholder meeting. Time to sit down and hammer out the goals and strategic plan for the new year. But first, soup in a bread bowl. I know they must eat at these functions so I might as well too. Hard to think on an empty tummy. Okay then, enough procrastinating, time to name the goals. If I say them out loud it seems there is more substance to them. In addition to continuing on in my role as wife, mommy, chauffer, maid, chef, etc. and freelance writer, I'd like to remove some of the free from freelance. Yes, to get paid would be good. Step one would be to write more, how to achieve that in an already jam packed day? Wake up earlier. My alarm is already set for 5 am as my husband can attest. Now I just need to pay attention to it. Hmmm, suddenly I am sleepy after lunch. Must've been the chowder in the bread bowl, I think I'll just sleep on it. G'night.

Waiting

December's theme seems to be waiting. We wait in traffic, in checkout lines, and what seems like hours at the doctor's office. It's the season of Advent in which we wait for the birth of Christ. In desperation I told my kids last weekend that we were cleaning for Jesus. It wasn't so far from the truth, but normally my religious instruction for the kids is less hands on. Usually they are more conversational or inquisitorial ( is that even a word) depending on how you want to look at two grade school children grilling you on the details of Bible stories you haven't read since you were their age. There might be something to this hands on method.

Some of my best thinking occurs while washing dishes or folding clothes. The rythmic nature of those activities frees something up - the hands are busy but the mind is still or at least freed from the to do list that seems to run in my head 24/7. That could be a big appeal of the Rosary. Not being a so called cradle Catholic the Rosary has not been something that I've focused on a great deal.

This waiting goes beyond Christmas and the holiday season, we wait for our kids to grow up, our spouses to come home, the water to boil, the phone to ring, for the right time,- for so many things. We wait but while we are waiting maybe we should recognize the gift sitting in our laps. Now. Right now is the time that we have, this very moment will not be given again. Although we can't possibly squeeze everything into one single moment while we are there we should do what matters, kiss our babies, cuddle our children, smile at a stranger, watch the sunset and hug our husbands.

Try to do all of that at the same time and you might forget why you are trying to do any of it. Sometimes the moment just requires one thing, to breathe.

would ya like some cake with that frosting?

Sitting on my plate is a slice of pumpkin cake with a huge mound of cream cheese frosting. This dessert of mine has to be proof that there is a female fat gene. My husband looks at how I serve this cake to myself and really doesn't get it, in fact he says the cake is great with out the frosting. Clearly he doesn't get it, there is something divine about fat and sugar mixed together. Not so great when I go to try on clothes after a week or so of this high calorie consumption. Moderation isn't my strong suit when faced with these treats so generally they stay out of the house. Below is the recipe. It came from a cookbook created by the families in my son's kindergarden class.

Pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting

15 oz can of pumpkin ( or if you have the time peel and microwave your own fresh pumpkin using a small decorative one or just an approximate 15 oz portion of a larger one)

2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
4 eggs
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a mixing bowl, (I use a kitchen aid stand mixer)beat pumpkin, sugar and oil. Add eggs and mix well. Add salt, cinnamon, and baking soda and mix well. Add flour and mix well scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Pour into a greased pan 9 by 13 or a bundt pan and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 35 - 40 minutes. Cool cake completely before frosting.

Cream cheese frosting

3 oz of cream cheese (full fat or reduced fat is fine)softened
5 tablespoons butter softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup of powdered sugar
1 -3 teaspoons of milk

Beat butter, cream cheese, and vanilla. Gradually add powdered sugar. If too thick at this point add milk 1 teaspoon at a time until the frosting is the consistency you want)


Next time a recipe for white bean turkey chili.

Just a Tuesday morning

This morning I let my two youngest girls be raised by public television. I knew it would happen. The deadline for my new column came and went yesterday so today I had to cement myself to the chair and get it written and emailed off to the editor. That's pretty bad, blowing your first deadline! So it's out there now. Hopefully in one week it can be read on the Fort Wayne Reader website. www.fortwaynereader.com

Now if I could just figure out this comment thing. People tell me that they are leaving comments but I haven't seen any posted but my very own. Hmmm. Do I have a doppelganger out there?

chess anyone?

Last night we brought our youngest to the ER with a gash on her forehead. She ran headlong, tripped and fell, and cut her head. Lots of blood and tears later I held her hand as she was being sewn up by a plastic surgeon. This experience confirms two things for me. One the sport for our children will have to be chess. Two, I am going back to the Johnny Cochrane method of parenting, "if you hit you must sit" now will have to have a companion saying for running in the house. Maybe "if you run you'll have no fun?" Nah, but I really don't want to go through that again.

In the moment

Anna Quindlen once wrote,"exhaust the little moment". I don't know if I'm up for that, especially when I am just plain exhausted by the moment itself. In all seriousness, there is something to be said for being in the moment. Children, especially babies and toddlers, have their own ways of keeping you in the moment. My youngest daughter of almost 20 months will pull me by the hand to drag me back into her moment. With my kids the moment can be exhausting especially when each wants his or her cookie, book, answer, drink or whatever NOW! The little moments do come as often as you let them. Often I notice the autumn sky as I pull into our driveway fresh from my latest errand. Or if I actually get down on the floor beside my toddler to view things from her perspective. I can almost see why string is so exciting to her, almost. It's a balancing act to be sure, learning to let myself be immersed in their moment while teaching them to begin to understand that their moment co-exists along side everyone else's including mine! Speaking of moments, at this very moment I need to be in the car. Till next time....

Mommy's got a blog

Mommy's got a blog and she's not afraid to use it. Would that really work as a threat? I have a second and a first grader and I am starting to teeter on the edge of invincibility. Especially my second grader, I can see the wheels turning in his head as I yet again tell him we'll have to google the answer to the question he asked. Hey, a mom can only know so many things about sharks and bats. But I can see him wondering," if she doesn't know that simple question, what else doesn't she know?" And it goes downhill from there, because in their minds if I don't have all those important answers to shark and bat questions, maybe they really don't need to take a shower, eat in the kitchen, do their homework, and the list goes on and on. Hmmm. What's a mom to do but threaten to publicize their misdeeds on the internet through her blog. Could it work? Sadly I know the answer is just the opposite. "Cool mom!" is the likely response from them. "Could you tell them about the time I...." Oh never mind. I think I'll just go back to "because I said so"

Halloween parade

Last week I went to my preschooler's Halloween parade. It was awfully cute, a bunch of 3-5 year olds marching around a gym in their costumes. My daughter actually walked and waved just like the princess she was dressed like. Dressing up is so magical for children. They can be whoever they want just by trying on clothes or a hat.

As adults we don't allow ourselves or even others that freedom very often. Somehow as we go through school and out into our jobs, marriages, and families we get this notion that there is one way to be. Having a baby can be very jarring as far as this notion is concerned. Some new moms go from the boardroom to the delivery room and then ask themselves which room now?

I had the luxury of taking the time to decide after my son was born. Up until I delivered I assumed that I would go back to work after taking my maternity leave. However once we brought him home, I don't think I left our green rocking chair for months. He was five weeks early and days turned into weeks during which he learned to wake up enough to eat. Those weeks turned into months as I realized that a)what I had been earning would not cover child care and b) I didn't really want to go back to doing what I was doing if it meant leaving my son with a stranger. I really didn't ponder it much further before I was pregnant with our daughter. Two babies in less than two years put me in crisis management mode and career management went to the back burner. It's a good thing too.

Having my hand forced like that made me take a long hard look at what I wanted. I realized that what I wanted first was my family and then when I knew where I wanted to fit it a career. Not that there weren't plenty of days where my plan seemed to have majorly backfired. A person can only deal with toddlers and the trailing mess they leave behind for so long before visions of a solo trip to a secluded beach pop into mind. The beauty of guided imagery aside, it was and is more helpful to say to myself, this too shall pass.

You know what? It did pass and now I am able to carve out time to write. Slowly but surely I will one day have a collection of things in print. For now they will just have to be on this blog. Till next time.

launched

I think my daughter is officially launched. She walked into the preschool room, hung up her jacket and didn't look back. Now if it were only so easy to launch myself as a writer. I'm having trouble making those early morning dates to write, I just sleep right through. If I stayed up to write, my mornings would be hellish to say the least. Wah, listen to me whine.

Oh well, so much for the instant gratification aspect of blogging. It's one thing to see my writing out there, it's another to look at the comment bar and see a big fat zero next to comments. Is anybody out there? And have you visited this site?

Pop Tarts anyone?

You know it's a bad day when you are reduced to buying Pop-Tarts for your kids after school snack. I used to be near fanantical about not purchasing products that contained partially hydrogenated oil. My oldest daughter could be heard asking me up and down the grocery aisles, " does this have the bad oil in it?" Now that I no longer have the budget to pursue that luxury I look back and I see that I was actually rather smug about it. I never talked trash about other people's snacks and didn't make them forbidden to my kids on playdates with their friends; but I wouldn't buy them. I can remember after making a soy nut butter sandwich for my son being horrified when a friend of mine blurted out, " For heavens sakes, give that boy some Jiff". Now if you look in my cupboard that's exactly what you'll find, Jiff. It became too expensive to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for three kids and one Dad day in and day out with the natural stuff. I made a valiant effort when we could afford it to limit the partially hydrogentated oil and artificial stuff that came in to our home. Now with two hungry grade schoolers and a preschooler with an eczema related milk sensitivity I find it near impossible to go to the store with the same list as before. I just want to buy something reasonably priced that everyone can eat, but as a result that "bad oil" has crept back into our diet. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. Before I learned about the damaging effects of partially hydrogenated oil I loved to buy refrigerated biscuits and crescent rolls. Especially the crescent rolls, because nobody that I know has the time needed to make crescent rolls or croissants. There's some guy out there offering millions of dollars for the first space flight by a private individual. I think the contest needs to be brought back to Earth and a prize should be given to the individual who makes the first crescent rolls in a refrigerated tube made without partially hydrogentated oil. Let the games begin.

New Mommy Top Five List

We went to the Christening of my chidhood friend's first child this weekend. By we I mean all six of us. We were even on time. It helped though that the baby was hungry and had to nurse before the ceremony. Sometimes the prayers you utter in despair while in the car do work. In honor of Jen and all the new mommies I know, I've decided to make a top five list for new mommies. Someone ought to tell it like it is so I guess it might as well be me!

1) Sometimes a shower is the major accomplishment of the day and that is just fine. When my first child was born a little early and he was learning to stay awake to eat the two of us lived in a big green rocking chair.

2) Assuming you are a duo,keep your instructions to yourself when Daddy is on baby duty. The diaper will work fine backwards, and the sleeper suit will stay snapped let him get the Daddy confidence he needs by doing all the things that need to be done. This is a very fine time for a NAP or a snack.

3)Friends and relatives who are a few years ahead on the mommy curve know all the shortcuts and will tell you so. However, it is your absolute right as a new mommy to be as neurotic about your baby as you need to be. Use that wipes warmer now to your heart's content because one day you might forget about it.

4)Learn now that mothering is not a competitive sport. After having four kids I am in awe of the range at which milestones happen for each child. May you be blessed to find friends that will share more than compare.

5)Mommy and Me refers to more than just a class. It took me a while to learn to be both mommy and "me". Don't be alarmed if you feel off balance for a while, you have just experienced a huge shift. There is are so many sides to this mothering thing. Think of it this way, a diamond is multi-faceted, why should you expect to be any less?


What can I say? After having four kids it seems like a waste if I don't share what I've learned.

stomach flu

After a week of the stomach flu I am ready to write again. My son and oldest daughter came down with it with in hours of each other on Sunday evening and my husband got it all through the night. Just when I thought the two youngest girls had escaped they threw up within minutes of each other on Tuesday night. I jokingly told my friends that I was the last one standing, but by Friday morning I was laid out by this thing, it was vicious.

It could have been avoided. We caught it from our neighbors. The father just mentioned in passing to my husband that his wife was upstairs sick in bed. What he neglected to mention was that their youngest son had brought this disaster in the making home from daycare. By the end of that day their oldest son had it too. All I could do was console myself that at least we had been outside the whole time. Tell that to the bug, because it didn’t seem to matter. In 36 hours we would be toast.

To all the moms and dads out there who sound the alarm at a sniffle, hats off to you.

first day jitters

I just dropped my daughter off for her first day of preschool. The novelty of the big kid rituals like hanging up her backpack and finding her nametag wore right off when she realized this was to be a solo gig. I made my exit after a two minute delay in which her baby sister made herself at home to scribble at the coloring table while big sis tearfully surveyed the room. We left, she cried and right now I have my cell phone in my pocket and one ear tuned for my cordless, just waiting for a call to say that potty training hasn’t officially ended or that she has thrown up from crying so hard. You’d think this being my third time around introducing a child to preschool that it would get easier, it didn’t. I’m sitting here trying to type and much to my chagrin, the silence that I thought I craved is actually deafening. I have a window of opportunity and now it turns out I’m a little afraid to jump through. Still I will see this through, as there is no substitute for butt in chair time if I really want to call myself a writer. See you Thursday for round two.