Dear February 2011, So long! Farewell! Happy to see you go! We can’t kick you out the door fast enough! Goodbye!… wait, wait, wait, haven’t I written this exact post before?? Oh, yes, it turns out I have—at this same exact time last year. So, basically, ditto to just about every single thing in that entire post. Whoa. Can a life that feels as never-a-dull-moment-ish as this one truly be that mundanely cyclically pathetically predictable????? Can Seasonal Affective Disorder effect a whole family unit? All I know is that we are so done with February.
It started like this (how did I get such stereotypically boys’ boys???):
(don’t worry, they did not get hurt… they almost never do… knock on wood.)
And it ended like this (how did I get such a stereotypically girl’s girl???):
(don’t worry, we are currently reading Cinderella Ate My Daughter… hopefully that will give us some guidance on raising her?)
So, yeah, those two photos were two of our relatively nicer moments. And at least all the snow has melted. But just about everything else in between was blah and February funkish. Here is my Top Ten Things I Hated Most About The February Funk of 2011:
- snow days gallore
- wiping 3 – otherwise cute, but in February totally snot-covered – faces over and over and over and over again
- constantly running out of Kleenex. constantly.
- K & O’s growth spurts that always seem to collide with the dead of winter… thus cabin fever isn’t just cabin fever, it is Cabin-Fever-With-Constant-Incessant-Never-Ending-“Mommy-I’m-Hungry”’s from the time they wake up until the time they go to bed. I swear, when they see me, day or night, they immediately say “Mommy I’m hungry.” It is like a conditioned response. Pavlov’s dogs. I swear.
- my obsession with the subject of “How Can I Fit In Exercise When I Can Barely Fit In Brushing My Teeth?” which seems to get profoundly worse in the deep dark icy days of winter when daylight hours are fleeting and work is at a fever pitch and hardy heavy meals and glasses of red wine are at their finest. I find myself dreaming of living in a place where we can ride our bikes and go for walks and swim outdoors year-round.
- the gross sticky-sweet smell of the made-for-children liquid-form heavy-duty antibiotics, and the strange breathing sounds that come from the at-home pediatric nebulizer. need I say more?
- the palest of pale skin on three of us; the driest of dry skin on two of us. nothing seems to help when it is deep into February. and to be honest, I’ve pretty much given up and am now just waiting for spring to fix it all.
- laundry. of the heaviest, bulkiest kind. I cannot wait for the coming days of shorts and t-shirts and little size 3T sundresses. Yes, it gets dirty, and yes, they still go through at least a couple of changes of clothes on most days. But, you can fit a lot of that stuff into our washer and dryer. corduroys and sweaters and turtlenecks and snow-pants… not so much. the laundry is just overwhelmingly endless around here. I know I only have three, and I shouldn’t complain, but seriously, the laundry is just overwhelmingly endless around here.
- twin boys age 6 = double the obnoxious inappropriate so-not-funny “potty talk” and the burping-farting-obnoxiousness that dominates this particular (6 year old boys) segment of the population. It is bad anytime… but I swear that the caged-in-cabin-fever-snow-days-shortened-daylight-days-of-February make it clinically, empirically, absolutely worse during this time of year. I don’t care how “normal” it is, I so do not find it funny.
- snow days gallore. I know I already said that. which leads to number 10b: the constant mind-numbing sensation that my mind is going numb, which is totally mind-numbing. Call it what you will– ‘mommy brain’—or whatever (by the way, they say that “mommy brain” is not a factual reality, and that indeed women’s brains actually grow stronger – not weaker – upon becoming mothers), but speaking only for myself, personally, I swear my brain is mush. Mush I tell you!!! And by the end of the February Funk… it is even mushier mush. Yes, mushier mush. That’s how mushy it is. Just plain mush.
Good riddance February. Don’t come back any time too soon— you hear? We will gladly savor the eleven months between now and the next time you roll through. You may think you have toppled us…
…but oh how you have not!!!!!!!!!!!! You do not have us beat! We do not lay low for long! We are here and ready, eagerly chomping at the bit to take on that roaring lion of March! We’ll take the March Madness over the February Funk any day! Bring it on baby! Tomorrow is a new day!
When I dropped Meera off at School/Daycare yesterday, Miss Kristen sat down with her and started coloring. Meera of course grabbed the pink paper an purple crayon (and her friend followed suite) and began coloring. She told me she was “doing this for you papi”. When Heather picked her up, she gave the paper to her and told her “this is for papi.”
Just something I want to remember.
Poor Shalinee has been out straight lately at work with way too much weighing on her. She has a huge deadline looming for Friday, plus a million other things going on, so her cooking for the swap this week was out of the question. It was also her birthday Tuesday! And so this week was a swapless swap week— I made dinner for Shalinee’s family and she didn’t cook… which we’ve never actually done before… but was exactly as it should be on a week like this.
About a year ago (before we started blogging about the swap), I made “Asian Noodle Salad” from The Pioneer Woman one week for our swap. It turned out to be an incredibly awesome salad that both Shalinee and I absolutely loved beyond belief! Our husbands and kids loved it too. It was a real keeper of a recipe. Probably one of the best salads I’ve ever made (or eaten, for that matter) ever in my life. No kidding! Since I made it for swap that time I’ve made it two or three other times for my family. So, given everything going on with Shalinee this week, I wanted to make something for the swap that I knew she would love. I also wanted to make something super refreshing to help get us through these gray dark freezing-cold-days-of-winter. And so, for this week’s swap I, for the first time in our almost one year of swapping, made a dinner I’ve made before for swap. Here is the link to Ree Drummond’s fabulous recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/03/my_most_favorite_salad_ever_ever_ever_ever/
It is a labor intensive salad (lots of chopping!), but totally worth it. I pretty much follow the recipe, just with a few tweaks. For example, I use baby salad greens instead of spinach. And I like to add shredded chicken to bulk up on the protein when the kids are going to be eating it. I also like to add diced fresh mango. For the swap, because of Alex’s allergies, I made Shalinee’s dinner completely nut-and-seed-free (which meant eliminating the cashews and the sesame oil). This salad is so incredibly delicious! In the summer we eat it totally cold, but in the winter I like to warm up the noodles so that there is a warm-and-cold thing going on together on the plate. Either way, it is absolutely awesome (and slightly addictive!). Braydon and I eat it all tossed up together, but K, O, and M like to have all the items separate on their plates. So, we put all the containers of ingredients out on the table and let everyone “make their own.” The kids love the “sauce” (the salad dressing), and especially like to pour it all over the noodles and chicken. It is all good and I have to admit that I kind of get a huge kick out of seeing my six year old boys devour the “Asian Noodle Salad” dinner and clean their plates completely.
This week I also made a dessert (which we don’t normally do for swap, but this week was an unusual week all around so I went all out). I made the most homey-comfy-wintertime-treat: bread pudding. There is nothing quite like warm and gooey bread pudding with whipped cream on top to bring some comfort on a cold February night. The recipe I used came from MomsWhoThink.com (you can find it here); I’m posted it below. It is really good! I highly recommend that you make it for your family soon (and double it to give one away to your friend who needs it!).
Bread Pudding (copied and pasted from MomsWhoThink.com)
This bread pudding recipe, from an old Amish cookbook, is absolutely incredible. It was copied, loaned out, scribbled on note cards and passed on by grandmothers, great-aunts, beloved neighbor ladies and those whose home cooking reaches the very soul of the family. This is the bread pudding people get dreamy-eyed over. For a lot of us, it’s nostalgia. A yearning for a simpler time when dessert was made from a few common kitchen ingredients. It’s also the way it brings everyone into the kitchen, warm with the smell of cinnamon and vanilla fresh from the oven. Whatever the reason this bread pudding becomes your number one comfort food; savor every bite. It is truly the soul satisfying treat that most people crave. Nothing beats warm bread pudding on a cold or rainy night.
Ingredients:
2 cups whole milk (or 2 cups half & half)
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark, depending on taste preference)
3 eggs
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups bread, torn into small pieces (french bread works best)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
Directions:
1. In medium saucepan, over medium heat, heat milk (or half & half) just until film forms over top. Combine butter and milk, stirring until butter is melted. Cool to lukewarm.
2. Combine sugar, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer at medium speed for 1 minute. Slowly add milk mixture.
3. Place bread in a lightly greased 1 1/2 quart casserole.
4. Sprinkle with raisins if desired. Pour batter on top of bread.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 to 50 minutes or until set. Serve warm.
If you make the sauce to put on top of your bread pudding, adjust the sugar in the bread pudding recipe, change it to 1/3 cups sugar (the sauce has the other 1/3 cup in it).
Bread Pudding Sauce
Ingredients:
1 cup whole milk
2 Tablespoons butter
1/3 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tablespoon flour
dash of salt
Directions:
Mix everything together and bring to a boil for 3 – 4 minutes, stirring constantly. Set aside for 5 minutes, then pour on warm bread pudding.
{Serve the bread pudding warm with whipped cream on top!}
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about how fast our life was moving, and about how soon we were going to have to hit pause. Well, the time has come, and I’ve pulled the reigns way, way in baby. Unfortunately, of course, there is no way to actually hit the pause button on life (Lord knows I wish there was!), but I’m trying my darndest to do the next best thing.
I knew in my own mind that as soon as the Haiti Party was over our way-too-fast-pace was going to have to slow-way-waaaaaaaay-down. That (the Haiti Party) was the last “big thing” in a long stretch of “big things” on our calendar that spanned all the way from pre-Thanksgiving until now. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got a lot on the calendar for the coming weeks, but we’ve got a little stretch right here and right now of a slightly toned-down-version of our “normal.” And so, on Sunday morning, with all of us in a hazy-blur-of-happy-from-the-Haiti-Party, it began: Mama’s demand for nothingness. And when Mama demands, the other four J-Ms have no choice but to do as they are told. And what they were told, in not so many words, was this: “We are doing nothing. For as long as humanly possible. And then, even after we stop doing nothing, we are doing very, very little for as long as we can.” So, yesterday none of us got out of our pajamas the entire day. We slept last night in the same pajamas we had slept in the night before. We snuggled in bed for hours, we lazed around doing who-knows-what, we watched movies and made popcorn, we drank coffee (2 of us) and hot chocolate loaded with fluff (3 of us), we watched the birds at our birdfeeder, we ate whatever we could scavenge from the fridge, we did “nothing” (i.e., everything). Owen had a bad cold and was running a fever – which, in a strangely ironic way – only helped our plight: Owen sick is Owen slower (and the only way that he’s ever slower). His fever broke in the night and he woke up feeling like himself again (and while we were slightly taken aback to be dealing with him at full-throttle again so soon, we, of course, wouldn’t trade our super-charged boy for the world, and were happy to see him bounce back so quickly).
Today was another day at home. We left only to go out to lunch and to the grocery store. And it was another day with Mama at the reigns, pulling them way, way in, saying “whooooooa there. slow it down there. take it down a whole bunch of notches.” And so there were airports built in the playroom, and sword fights in the basement, and elaborate picnics made for dolls on the floor of the kitchen. There were shows performed, indoor-jump-roping-records-beat, and there was dancing to all sorts of genres of music. There was a “Fancy Nancy Fancy Tea Party” that lasted a good long while:
And there was Play-Doh for another good long while too:
And my goal for the next couple of weeks is to try to keep it right where its at here: slow and steady for as long as we can possibly sustain it. Because we’ve had a lot going on. For far too long. I’d like to try to use this “down time” to blog about some of the highlights of our past few months in the next few days. Things that have happened over the past slew of weeks that have kept us going at full-tilt for a far-too-long-stretch-of-time… such as… our decision to move them, and the boys’ massive transition, from our old Waldorf school to our new Friends school; our decision to let go of our nanny for the past two years, Margie, and our re-acclimation to life without her; Meera’s start at her very own “school” (i.e. daycare) – so huge for her and for all five of us; and our purchase of a… get this… prepare yourself for the shock of it people (I, personally, am still in a state of utter shock over it): none other than, oh yes, believe it or not, a minivan. Oh, and believe me, there have been about a gazillion other things that have gone on, thrown in there, all betwixed and between the big-ticket-items of our past few months. And so, for the (hopefully) final phase of winter, my goal is to hunker down and try to reap the only real benefit I can see in the dead-of-winter-February-funk— that is, the chance to be part of the stillness and dullness and lack-of-excitement-in-the-landscape, the opportunity to embrace the nothing-ness (but everything-ness) of it, and the challenge to try to hibernate in it a bit. And so I’ll be shooting for a fire in the fireplace (or two), a lamb stew (or two), more soft old quilts snuggled tight around five bodies in this house of ours, and a slower version of myself at the helm of this family. This is our chance, and I don’t want to blow it. The chance to do nothing together. The chance to ‘hit pause’ as best we can – knowing that we can’t really hit pause, but knowing too that we can really savor where we’ve gotten ourselves to through this frenzy that has been our past few weeks.
Yesterday we hosted our fourth annual mid-year “Haiti Party” at our house. We’ve always had this party right before Christmas, but as all of our kids are getting older, and more involved in more activities, and making our family lives crazier-than-ever, a Christmas party was proving very difficult for families to be able to attend given their schedules (schedules that are even crazier during the holidays than the rest of the year). And so we decided that February would be better than Christmastime. It turned out to be nice to have something so fun to look forward to right in the midst of the depths of winter. We had a great day yesterday! In Kyle and Owen’s opinions it was the best “Haiti Party” yet. I think I might agree. This party is so special, and this group of friends of ours is so wonderful, that it is just impossible to try to articulate. I’ve tried in the past (you can check out past year’s posts by clicking here), so I’m not going to even try to again now. I’ll just say this: this group of kids – all of them; the Haitian kids and all of their siblings – have got to be one of the coolest, nicest, well-mannered, gorgeous, athletic, smiley, wild-and-off-the-walls-high-energy, polite, self-confident, talented groups of kids on the planet. I truly believe that. And their parents? I’ll just put it this way: they are raising these awesome kids… so they must be doing something incredibly right. All I know is that I’m inspired by being around them all (the kids and the parents alike), and I’m so proud to call them friends. Which is why we wasted no time taking pictures (because we were savoring every second of conversation), and ended up taking exactly four photos during the entire party. ?!?! So, I’m posting all four here.
Owen loves playing checkers. He learned the game a few months ago, and has become really, really good at it. The boys had today off from school (this weekend is a mini February break for them with no school on Friday or Monday), and during Meera’s nap Owen and I played two full games of checkers. I played my absolute hardest and used every strategy I know, but we were neck-and-neck the entire two games. The whole double-game-match lasted about two hours, with both of us in full-concentration the entire time, and neither of us getting up from our chairs even once. I beat him both times, but just barely. I could see him anticipating my moves, and plotting out his own strategy two or three moves ahead. I told him the truth: that if this is how it is to play checkers with him at age six, I can’t even imagine how it is going to be to play chess with him when he’s twelve. The kid is seriously, seriously smart.
On Saturday, February 12, 2011, Meera Grace got her first haircut ever.
I asked MorMor to do the honors of giving Meera her first trim. Growing up my mother always cut my hair. And to this day, nobody except me has ever cut Kyle or Owen’s hair. We take these things very seriously in our family! Meera’s haircut was a big deal… much more so for everyone else than for her… but still… a big deal! Kyle and Owen tried to capture all of it with their iPod cameras while Meera just happily and contentedly enjoyed a lollipop calm-cool-and-collected (in true Meera style) for her first trim. I was worried that the cute curly wave to Meera’s hair would be gone forever if/when we cut her hair. But I’m happy to report that that cute curly wave is still there.
MorMor was visiting all of last week. Which was great fun. And then she left. Which was greatly depressing. Having her come and go is always a mixed bag– it is always so exciting and wonderful when she comes, and it always throws off our routine and puts us off-kilter in a big way; it is always a huge help to have her here (she is sooooooo helpful), and it always makes us feel even more “on our own” when she leaves us again; it is always awesome to have her visit, and it is always good to get back to being “just us” too. It is all of that and more all wrapped up together. At the end of it all, though, it always takes me/us a few days to recover and bounce back after she’s left. And so, now, four days after her departure, I’m finally sitting down to blog about our week with her. Here is a random selection of some of the highlights of MorMor’s visit:
MorMor taught me needle felting! She brought all of her supplies and we spent almost all day Friday needle felting together while the boys were at school and Meera played. It was my first time needle felting and I absolutely loved it! At one point my mom and I looked over to find Meera totally mimicking our needle-felting-behavior. She had no idea what she was doing, or why she was doing it, but she was doing what she saw us doing— she had found a wooden shish-ka-bob stick and was “needle felting” with it and a pile of wool felt. I’m sure this is one of those moments where, really, ‘you just had to be there’… but it was so striking to see Meera mimicking us this way. So, for a while there, we were three generations needle felting together. My mom and I made three little needle felted toys for Meera that day. We made Meera, Meera’s lovey Bunny Bun (both made my mom), and Meera’s best friend Jewel (made by me). This little trio is Meera’s new favorite things to play with. She’s been playing with them every day since we made them for her.
My mom’s visit just happened to fall over the week before Valentines Day. Cue Hallelujah Chorus. THANK GOD she was here to help me get through that week-‘o-crafting with my twin-six-year-old-super-non-crafty-boys. Oh. My. Word. We had to get K & O to each make four different days worth of hand-made “Secret Pal” V-Day gifts for school, PLUS the Valentines for their classmates. Stuff like this is tough with a non-crafty kid… double tough with two of them. Anyhoooo….. my mama was here to help and I love her for that. She even pulled out my sewing machine (which, by the way, only she knows how to operate, and which only comes out when she’s visiting) to help the boys whip up beautiful over-the-shoulder fabric bags for their Secret Pals. Amazing, I tell you! What would I have done without her???
For one thing, without her the V-Day bracelets for the kindergarten classmates would not have been possible. That’s FOR SURE. (we barely got through them even with her here). But in the end? We sure did pull off some nice V-Day gifts that the boys were very proud and happy to give away.
And a lot of more “normal” stuff happened while MorMor was here too. Like a Saturday playdate she got to witness with three of K & O’s friends. For a mid-playdate-break, they made Playdate Popcorn and drank Juicy Juice through crazy straws. I caught them doing “cheers” “just like a bunch of grown-ups” (their words, not mine), and luckily grabbed the camera just in time to snap this:
MorMor was also here for a weekend basketball game at Lehigh. It was a women’s game, and my goal was to try to get Meera to notice that girls can be basketball players too (not just cheerleaders). K & O just love basketball. Period. So it doesn’t matter to them whether the players are male or female. But the choice of a women’s game was very purposeful as far as I was concerned. I worked hard to do everything in my power to have it register with my daughter: GIRLS CAN PLAY BASKETBALL TOO. Look at the girls playing on the court, not just cheering on the side of it. But she barely took her eyes off the cheerleaders the entire time, seemed to not notice that females were on the actual court, and shook the pink (breast cancer awareness) pom-poms they were handing out that night with gusto, pretending –obviously— to be a cheerleader (they handed out pink basketballs too—and Meera got one—but she quickly asked me to “put it in my bag” so that she could focus her attention solely on those pom-poms). Toward the end of the game, when Meera said to me, “Mama, you paint my fingernails purple tomorrow, just like those girls” (pointing to the cheerleaders), I realized that none of my hard work was paying off and that she was entirely oblivious to the female basketball players despite my best efforts. Whatever. Luckily I had my mom there with me, who helps me laugh these things off. It is just a passing phase, right? My mom thinks NOT (and cannot get over that her daughter’s daughter is such a princess). But I’m still hopeful that Meera will eventually embrace more than just the cheerleading alone in the years to come.
MorFar was there for the ‘bookend’ days – the first day of MorMor’s visit, and the last day (he had a work trip in Pennsylvania that he was off at during her stay with us). But of course, while he was here, we made the most of it. And for his sake it is probably best to just take the bambinos in small doses anyway, because they make him do stuff like this when he’s around:
There were lots of other things too. Like a great dinner at Carrabbas (thanks MorMor!), some good mother-daughter bonding time, and lots of MorMor’s baked goods to keep her grandsons the happiest grandsons on earth. Oh! And the biggest highlight: MorMor gave Meera her first haircut!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was great to have her here. We all make the most of the situation, but we also just can’t help but wish we weren’t such a distance from MorMor and MorFar.
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