I don't have much to write about lately, so I'm posting some photos of recent adventures in food.
1) Mulberries: I bought these at the market because I'd never had them or even seen them before. They're pretty, with a subtle, not-too-sweet taste, but they go bad quickly.
2) Monkey cake: I made this banana cake for a children's monkey party hosted by a friend of mine, and it was scrumptious. And cute. Ignore the sloppy decorating please.
3) Zucchini! I don't know whether I've mentioned it here yet, but I'm attempting to grow zucchini in a container on my back step this summer, and this afternoon I noticed my first tiny zucchini growing! This is the first food I've ever grown (if you don't count herbs, which I don't), so I'm very pleased with myself. And I'm very impatiently awaiting the day when I can pick this little zucchini and eat it right up.
14 July 2008
monday food blogging
10 July 2008
i knew i would jinx it somehow
We've started potty training Evan, and I've been holding off on writing about it here, because I knew that as soon as I proclaimed to the Internet that Evan was really doing well at potty training, he would stop doing well, because that's the way things go in my life.
It turns out I was wrong. He hit a speed bump in the potty training today, after all I did was think about writing about it. I don't know what I did in my last life to end up with such ridiculously bad luck in this one, but if we're at the point where my thoughts are jinxing things, I'm in trouble.
Anyway, he had been doing well. Really, really well. Greg and I had a big argument a week or two ago in which I firmly insisted that Evan was not ready for potty training, and then about five minutes after yelling at Greg and bursting into tears I realized that it was really me who was not ready. So I decided to suck it up and move forward with the potty training. It couldn't possibly increase the amount of bodily fluids in my life, and might actually reduce them a little bit, so what did I have to lose?
And he was good at it! And so very different from James. James didn't care what it felt like, what it smelled like, he was not going to interrupt his precious playtime to pee on the potty. Thankfully, with James, poo was a different story -- I'm pretty sure he never had a poopy accident after we started potty training. After the last three years, I shouldn't have been surprised that Evan would be the exact opposite.
He's good with the peeing. We let him run naked a lot, now that it's so hot, and he has no hesitations about running upstairs to pee in the potty. A few days ago we even attempted an outing in underpants -- I didn't even bring any diapers with us -- and we returned home from the library clean and dry. We've had a couple of minor accidents, but mostly he's been willing and even enthusiastic about peeing in the potty.
But. There is a but. We are having poo issues. One issue, really, and that is issue is this: my kid would rather poo in his pants -- underwear or diaper, doesn't matter -- than go on the potty. Today he was playing naked and started asking for a diaper. We both knew why. So I had him sit on the potty, and he peed, and then said he was done.
"Don't you need to poop?" I asked.
"No."
"Don't you want to try?"
More emphatically: "No."
"Please, can you try? Just try for a minute?"
"I don't want toooooo!"
"What's the matter? Why don't you want to try?"
"I don't want you to see it."
"Do you want me to leave? So you can do it by yourself?"
"Yes."
I start to walk out of the bathroom and notice I have an extra shadow. Before I can stop him he streaks into my bedroom and hops up on my bed.
"No! Don't poop on my bed!"
"Mom, I think I'm ready for a nap."
The little sneak. Since he naps in my bed, I don't let him nap diaperless.
I tried to push it a little longer. I said it wasn't time for a nap, so we went and played for a while, me hoping the whole time that he would give in and use the potty, and Evan determinedly holding it in.
Eventually it was nap time, and I diapered him and we snuggled together and he quickly fell asleep. And an hour and a half later from downstairs I heard little footsteps running out of my bedroom, and heard a door slam. Oh, but it's not what you think; he was not going to use the potty. My little sneak likes to fill his diaper in the privacy of his bedroom, which is exactly what he did.
So I brought him downstairs and changed him and tried to stay positive! And encouraging! And enthusiastic! About how next time he can use the potty! Then, as I do after most diaper changes, I asked him to throw the diaper away. All of a sudden we had a tantrum on our hands.
As an aside, Evan appears to have been taking tantrum lessons from a 12-year-old girl lately. More than once, after putting him in time out, we have heard him sob melodramatically, "No one wants me around!" and today's time out had him wailing about how he never gets to go anywhere. "Why exactly do you think you're in time out?" I asked him. He knew, but I guess he likes to throw dramatic non-sequiturs into his tantrums these days.
Anyway, back to the problem at hand, this poop thing. Anyone with some potty experience have any advice about this? He's so stubborn, I don't want to push it and make a huge issue out of it, but I would just like him to, you know, go in the potty. I'm ready to be done with the diapers already, and he's not helping! What's worse is that he has pooped in the potty, several times. He just seemed to suddenly develop this aversion and I don't have any ideas on what to do. Suggestions?
08 July 2008
01 July 2008
maybe i should raise my standards
I have been trying to get motivated this summer, to do a lot of fun things with the kids, and accomplish some things of my own as well. I've started an incentive system where every day the kids and I complete a list of tasks (a mix of chores and errands and fun things too -- I have mandated both reading and playing outdoors as every day "tasks") and if we do well enough, we will "earn" a trip to a local water park at the end of the summer. So far it's turning out to be as good for me as for the kids in terms of being productive and not just lazing around.
So yesterday, I spent much of the day cleaning and organizing and putting things away, enough so that when Greg came home he remarked on a visible difference. This afternoon we invited one of James' friends over to play, so I spent a good portion of the morning cleaning up as well. I hate cleaning, but I feel so victorious when I can cross something off my list, not to mention how much better the house looks in general. So I was feeling pretty pleased with myself after this whole bout of productivity.
James' friend came over after lunch, and as soon as he came in, almost the first words out of his mouth were, "Wow! This house is messy!!" As if that weren't enough, he felt the need to reiterate after seeing another part of the house. There's nothing like the discerning eye of a six-year-old to deflate your ego.
30 June 2008
perspective
One of Greg's aunts passed away last week, after a long struggle with brain cancer. She had cancer as long as I knew her, and I didn't know her very well, but she was always very kind and sweet and welcoming to me, which I especially appreciated in the early years of my relationship with Greg while I was trying to find my place as a new member of his family.
It is a sad loss, and we're sad that we can't be with Greg's family, but it wasn't until I read this post by Greg's sister Karen that the whole things began to resonate with me. I've been slipping again recently -- slipping into laziness, slipping into bad temper, slipping into pettiness and resentfulness and pessimism. And reading Karen's post just made me stop and think about how lucky I am, how very fortunate I am to have my good health and a wonderful family and very little difficulty with anything, in general, and even though Lynn passed away, we are better off for having had her in our lives in the first place.
Yesterday we went to the beach, despite the storm warnings. I sat in the sand at the edge of the water, next to James digging in the sand, watching Greg and Evan play in shallow water as dark clouds inched their way nearer and nearer to us. I let the water wash over my feet and legs and I let the slimy green algae sift through my fingers and for a moment, I was hit with a sense of wonder at how lovely life can be when you just let go of the little things for a while. Sometimes I think I make my life much harder than it needs to be, and it's hard to remember to just slow down and enjoy the moment.
So thank you, Karen, for a much-needed reminder and change of perspective.
25 June 2008
milestone
My first-born child finished kindergarten today. I can't really think of anything meaningful to say about it, just -- that kid is getting old, now. The time, it flies, even when you're not always having fun.
24 June 2008
midweek recipe
Tonight I made what Greg and I agreed to be the worst meal I've ever made. It was a "simple dal" -- lentils cooked with Indian-style spices, and it was simply disgusting. I don't know what went wrong -- the cardamom? the cloves? (both of which seemed suspicious to me when I added them to the pot) -- and I will never know, because I will never make this dish again. I've been obsessed with Mark Bittman lately (author of "How to Cook Everything" and "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian", among other things) because his recipes are generally quite good, but this? Unspeakably bad.
I'm not giving you that recipe. I'm willing to blame myself, and not Mark Bittman, for my culinary failure, but I'm not going to think about that dish ever again.
But last night, I made one of my best meals ever. It's one of the first things Greg and I ever cooked together, and remains one of our favorites. My sister and Greg and I invented it -- not that it's incredibly unique, not that no one's ever combined these particular things before, but it's one of the few things I can reliably make well without a recipe, and it's delicious. Incredibly delicious.
Lemon-Asparagus Pasta
This is not a real recipe, so I don't have precise amounts of things to tell you, but you will need:
pasta
olive oil
garlic, minced
salt
pepper
lemon
Parmesan cheese
asparagus, chopped into chunks
Cook your pasta. Whatever style you like, though we usually use angel hair or something similar.
Heat some oil in a skillet. Since there's no real sauce for the pasta in this dish, I tend to go heavy on the oil, and sometimes add butter too, so I can drizzle it over the pasta at the end. If you don't like the flavor of your meals to come from delicious fat, use only a tablespoon or two.
Add the garlic (I do two cloves or so). Sometimes I also add some chopped onion, but not always. Let it cook for a minute or two.
Add the asparagus. Stir things around a little, and then cover your pan for a couple of minutes. You want your asparagus to be bright green, and easy to stick with a fork. This only takes a few minutes, so pay attention or you'll overcook it. I usually add the Parmesan at the same time as the asparagus -- just give it a good sprinkling of cheese and stir it around a bit.
Season it with some salt and pepper, however much you like. Dish out your pasta onto your plates, and top the pasta with the asparagus, and some oily fatty scrumptious drizzle, if you're so inclined. Give it a squeeze of fresh lemon. I discovered last night that it's also good to top it off with a little feta cheese.
And that's it. Serve it with a salad or some bread, or just enjoy it by itself. It's fast, easy, flexible, and now that asparagus is in season, it's the perfect time for it. Even the kids liked it -- James, who's been eating asparagus since he could chew it, inhaled his and asked for seconds; Evan, well, it's a good meal when Evan doesn't leave the table in tears. He actually ate all the pasta, even if he wouldn't touch the asparagus.
I only had one bunch of asparagus from the farmer's market, and three of us were so disappointed when it was gone that I'm planning to go back to the market on Thursday (the next time the market is held, or I'd go sooner) and buy more asparagus so we can have it again this weekend.
Enjoy!
19 June 2008
homophobia starts early
James got off the bus today and told me that one of his classmates and classmate's 4th-grade brother were teasing him on the bus, saying that James likes boys and James wants to marry a boy. James didn't seem too upset about it -- he said he told them it wasn't true, told them not to say it, but I don't think he got very angry about it.
But I'm angry. I can't believe that that's something six-year-olds are teasing each other about. First of all, all this talk about marriage in general among kindergarteners is unsettling -- how quickly do kids need to grow up these days? I hear far too much for my liking about which of the kids in James' class are "getting married." Yet already, at such young ages, these children are acutely aware that boys liking boys is something to tease about, something to shame another child for.
If it starts this early, how bad will it get as they get older? I made sure to point out to James that even if it were true, even if he liked boys, there's nothing wrong with that, but how do my reassurances stack up next to the taunting of his peers?
It makes me incredibly sad, actually. It makes me grateful that I've never had to face teasing over something as wonderful as love. It makes me worry about what my kids might face should one of them be gay. It makes me worry about my small voice versus the roar of society in their ears. It makes me fear that my kids may one day end up teasing other kids this way.
You know, I was so overjoyed about the recent California ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. But then something like this comes along, elementary children being already caught up in the prevailing negative attitudes about gay people, and it makes me realize just how far we have to go before it will really, truly not matter who you love.
16 June 2008
and i don't even have gray hair yet
James: Mom, how old were you in 1804?
Me: I wasn't born yet.
James: You mean Brown's Berry Patch was around before you were born?
Me: Yes.
James: Wow!! That's really old!!
15 June 2008
father's day/weekend photos/weekend recipes
Happy Father's Day! We had a fun day today, celebrating Greg with one of his favorite things -- fresh strawberries. Today was the opening day of the season at the U-Pick farms around here, a couple of weeks earlier than usual thanks to some unusually warm spring weather, so we went out this afternoon and picked fourteen and a half pounds of strawberries. The first, which I neglected to take a photo of, was a spinach strawberry salad that we had with dinner. It's a really simple recipe, one I got from the mother of a friend of mine: spinach, sliced strawberries and crumbled feta cheese with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It sounds weird, I know, but the combination of sweet, salty and tangy really works nicely. I used this vinaigrette recipe, and I added about a teaspoon of brown sugar and a little strawberry juice that had collected in the bottom of the bowl. I thought when I was making it that the garlic might be a mistake, but it turned out fine. I'm sure a store-bought dressing would be just as good. And for dessert we had strawberry shortcake! Soooo goooood. I found this shortcake recipe, which is a bit more like a biscuit than cake, but still good. We split each shortcake open and topped the halves with a layer of strawberries. We forgot to sugar the strawberries ahead of time, so we decided to try sprinkling them with cinnamon sugar, which turned out to be a nice touch. Then we topped the strawberries with fresh whipped cream and mini chocolate chips, and most of us were able to refrain from licking our plates clean, but it was hard. That was a good dessert. This one I took a photo of: Hope everyone had a happy weekend/Father's Day!
And then we came home and ate 10 pounds of them. At least, that's what it felt like. But just look at these; I mean, could you really help yourself when faced with these perfect sun-warmed little berries?
You probably won't be surprised to learn that both kids were more interested in snacking than picking the strawberries:
And we managed to eat quite a few more once we got home, with a couple of strawberry dishes. 
10 June 2008
a tiny misunderstanding
James came to the back door to complain about Evan splashing mud on him. I looked at James, already spattered with plenty of mud.
I said: "Ask him to stop, but if he does get more mud on you, it doesn't really matter, because you're already muddy."
James heard: "It doesn't matter how muddy you get! In fact, why don't you go ahead and cover yourself in mud, because I don't think you're muddy enough already. You can never be too muddy! ... And don't forget about your brother; make sure you coat him in mud too!"Evan Batman was very sad about having to come inside and get into the bathtub:
By the way, I know he doesn't look terribly muddy in that photo, but bear in mind that most of the mud on his body had by that time dried to a much lighter color.
James had literally painted his legs with mud. This photo was taken after he'd already started washing off:
The bathtub was filled with muddy water:
I was too busy at the time to think about taking a similar photo of the laundry sink while I was rinsing out the boys' clothes. Let's not even talk about James' sandals, which were about five pounds heavier with all the caked-on mud.
You know, after six and a half years of mess, dirt, sand, mud, muck, and bodily fluids, you start to think you've seen it all, that they've exhausted their capacity to disgust you, but kids always find a way to surprise you.
05 June 2008
happy birthday, evan
Today feels like summer. The cottonwood trees are spreading their fluff all over the neighborhood, making it look as if it's snowing, and I wonder whether you will ever really see snow on your birthday. Maybe one day you'll travel to Australia or Chile or the Himalayas and celebrate a winter birthday.
One of your most prominent traits to develop over the last year is your sense of adventure. It's easy for me to picture you climbing mountains or crossing the outback when you get older, because those things aren't so very far from diving fearlessly off the side of the couch or charging off on your own in strange places.
Your independence and your will have continued to grow this year. Now more than ever you are doing things for yourself, and you are as insistent as always that you do things your way. You have a very un-toddler-like quality of being incredibly determined and single-minded, frustratingly so.
But that doesn't mean that you don't still need us. Because no matter how stubborn and determined and aggressive you can be, you are in equal measure affectionate and loving. One of my favorite times of the day is naptime, when we lay quietly together in my bed and you pet my hand and I get to watch you fall asleep. Every day.
One of the things I love best about you is how free you are with your emotions. You still scream, oh yes you do, about all kinds of things, but when you're not unhappy, you are very, very happy. You are the most generous child I've ever seen when it comes to spontaneous acts of affection -- unsolicited hugs and kisses and snuggles and I love yous. It melts me every time.
You've grown delightfully silly in your third year. In fact, it's hard for me to tell how much you really know, because counting and reciting the alphabet and rhyming are games where you like to send yourself into fits of giggles giving wrong answers. But just when I start to think I've got a backwards child who can't even count to five without mistakes, you count perfectly to twelve. You like to keep us on our toes, in all kinds of ways.
Your creativity is blossoming, guided by your brother, who you are very easily frustrated with and angered by, but without whom you're a little lost sometimes. You and your brother devise clever games in which your identities are always changing, in which the adventures never end. Your imagination has grown in leaps and bounds this year. It's incredible to watch.
Something that puzzles me about you is how easily you identify with the bad guys. Your favorite part of The Wizard of Oz was the flying monkeys, you've requested a Darth Vader cake for your birthday, and you're the villian as often as you're the hero in games with your brother. You like the bad guys because they are big and strong. I hope to help you learn over time that strength isn't always physical.
We play a game at meals, at almost every meal these days, in which I tell you and your brother to stop eating, because I don't want you to grow any bigger. This is the only trick that has ever worked more than once to convince you to eat more than a few bites of dinner. "Look, Mom!" you tease, "I'm growing!"
"No!" I say. "You two are growing too fast! Stop growing! I want you to be my babies a little longer!"
And you think I'm kidding.
I love you, darling boy. Happy birthday, today and for many years to come.
04 June 2008
jedis don't read books
Greg and I were talking about books recently, and I said that I hope our children will continue to be readers when they get older. Evan overheard me, and, as always, had to be contradictory.
Evan: I'm not going to be a reader when I grow up. I'm going to be Qui-gon Jin!
Me: But don't you think you'll still like to read books?
Evan: No! I will eat Pez and play with light-sabers.
I suppose I should at least be glad that he's starting to think about the future at such a young age.
02 June 2008
back-ish
Things have been fine for the last week or so, but we've been very busy and I haven't really thought much about blogging. Once you take a break it's kind of hard to get back into it. What's there to say at the moment? We had a really fun weekend when Greg's brother John and his girlfriend Elizabeth came to visit. Other than that things have been ordinary, and time marches on with few changes. Only I'm not feeling sad about that anymore.
So. Summer is approaching; one of my babies is nearly three years old; my other baby is nearly finished with kindergarten; my boyfriend is nearly finished with his doctorate. And I am watching the progress of all three of them with pride and happiness.
19 May 2008
and on and on and on and on
I've been in kind of a funk lately, so I probably won't be posting much this week.
I'm in a rut right now where I'm looking to the future and seeing nothing but miles of monotony. Mostly I'm fine with the way my life is, but the past few days, the past week or so, it's feeling incredibly useless and depressing. My life is a broken record.
I cook and cook and cook, which takes as much mental energy as physical, what with planning menus and making things nutritious and even just trying to have each element of a meal on the table at once, and then we eat all of the food and my hard work has disappeared and I have to do it all over again.
I wash our dishes and wash our clothes over and over, every day, and yet we're always dirtying more dishes, dirtying more clothes, and I have to wash and wash again and again.
I pick up puzzles and blocks and Legos and trains and videos and yo-yos and board games, but the boys always need something to play with, so as soon as one thing is put away, something else comes out and I'm always picking up, putting away, picking up, putting away.
Let's not even get into other people's bodily fluids, because those never stop coming, either, and those things fall squarely into a mama's job description.
It is work that I do, this domestic stuff, this mothering stuff. Yet it's a curious kind of work, in which all of my efforts are continuously negated by other people, and there is never anything to show for all this work that I do. Everyone has housework, everyone has responsibilities, of course, but to take your own burden and multiply it by four (and with children, it often feels like even more than that), it just gets tiring.
No matter what else I do with my time -- taking the kids to the park, going to the grocery store, reading a book, going camping, sewing, playing board games -- those things are just tiny breaks in the never-ending monotony of domestic responsibility, and I am tired. I never envisioned that this was what my life would be. Most of the time it's okay. But once in a while it just makes me very, very sad that this is all there is right now.
16 May 2008
friday photos: lilac festival edition
For the last week Rochester has been celebrating spring with its annual Lilac Festival. We've been three times so far, and might make it back once more before the festival ends on Sunday. There are rides and vendors and tons of carnival-type food, but my favorite part is the flowers. Not just lilacs, but flowering trees and tulips and rhododendrons and peonies and on and on and on. We've gone a little photo crazy.
Here's Greg and me in front of what turned out to be a crabapple tree. Who knew they could be so gorgeous?
James climbing one of the best climbing trees I've ever seen:
The boys resting in a cool carved bench:
Evan spent much of this morning's excursion in tears, because he just needed someone to CARRY HIM!
Below the fold, a bunch of flower photos. But, as my mom pointed out, no photos of the famous lilacs. Sorry.
An orchid in the conservatory:
I don't know the name of this flower, but it was also found in the conservatory, in a very humid, tropical sort of room, and it was literally nearly the size of my head:
And some interesting varieties of tulips that I thought were just beautiful in both shape and color:
Happy weekend, everyone!
15 May 2008
pernicious penguins
I just read my children one of the most "challenged" picture books in America: And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. It's a very sweet book -- the true story of two penguins at the Central Park Zoo who fall in love, spend all their time together, and raise an adopted baby penguin together. It's just that these two penguins both happen to be male, so apparently telling their story advocates homosexuality.
It's true, by the way. If you're a parent, then you surely know all about the pernicious influence penguins have over children. After we saw March of the Penguins, it was all I could do to keep my children from jumping in the icy river in the dead of winter. And after we saw Madagascar my children started learning martial arts and tried to steal a cargo ship. And after reading this book this morning, my children immediately set out in search of gay penguins to have sex with.
Really, it's a very sweet, simple story and I find it incredibly sad that there are people somewhere out there who feel that their children are in some way threatened by a loving penguin family. Penguins.
09 May 2008
friday photos: budding artist edition
Yesterday I was feeling brave, so I got out the easel and paints for Evan. This is something he loves, but it's so much work on my part that we rarely do it. So yesterday he had a total blast.
06 May 2008
identity crisis
My darling younger son is entering a phase of identity crisis. Every day, we hear (multiple times) a very detailed description of who he is at that moment. Often he must stand still and repeat his title several times in a row before he is able to, say, walk to the bus stop, or get into the bathtub. Some examples:
"I'm super-duper big mean red blue Obi-Wan Kenobi on Hoth."
"I'm super-duper ultra mean brown Tuscan Raider."
"I'm super-duper big mean black white clone trooper."
He is always super-duper. I have to agree with that bit. But please don't address him as Evan, unless you wish to be corrected and reminded at least three times.
My favorite, though, was the night we were having dinner with friends, and, at a lull in the general conversation, Evan said, mostly to himself, "Everyone calls me Evan, but I call me a bounty hunter."
Good to know.
02 May 2008
friday photos
A cute photo of me and beardy Greg, just for fun:
Greg and James fishing at the lakehouse a couple of weeks ago:
The boys posing in front of the lakehouse:
Greg and James enjoying the hot tub at the lakehouse:
An example from James' kindergarten April journal, in which every entry involves video games:
Happy weekend, everyone!
