World, meet your future ruler.

Posted by Jen Rouse on Wednesday, October 27, 2010 • 2 comments • Read Full Article


Evie makes me laugh and want to pull my hair out at the same time, every single day.

Her hair is always a mess, no matter whether I fix it in the morning or not. By 10 a.m. the rubber bands have disappeared and it's just a big white puffball flying every which way on her head.

She smiles the biggest, sings the loudest, runs everywhere she goes in such a headlong way that she often topples right over.

She loves her sisters, calling out cheerfully for them when she wants their attention (which is always). "Girls? Where are you girls? Look at me! Look at me!"



When they displease her, (which is often) she has no qualms about reaching right out and smacking them, no matter how many times I tell her that we don't hit in this family. Other times she just comes up, pushes them over, and climbs on top of them, where she sits cheerfully while they cry underneath her. "Mom! Get her off of me! Get her off!" It's as though they forget that they are older, bigger, and stronger than she is. Somehow, Evie just doesn't come across as small, even though she's only 2 years old.

She loves knock-knock jokes, hates Kit-Kat bars, and is, I feel certain, destined for world domination.

I've never known anyone with such zest for living...except maybe her daddy.


today's dilemmas

Posted by Jen Rouse on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 • 3 comments • Read Full Article


Clock picture from Wikipedia.

The clock...for a woman without a boss, a time card or a set schedule, somehow it still seems to rule my life.

It is 1:45 p.m. My 2-year-old just wandered out of her bedroom 15 minutes shy of the 1-hour-quiet-time mark, so I sent her back to bed. Now she is in there crying and sobbing.

I could:

A) Let her come out. Which sends the message that if she cries and throws a fit, she gets her way.

B) Make her stay in until she is done screaming. Which means that there is a very good chance that she will cry herself to sleep, and then still be in a deep, deep slumber when it's time for us to all leave to go get Beth from school.

C) Stand my ground, but cross my fingers that she stays awake for the next few minutes, and then let her come out at the official end of 1-h0ur-quiet time. I'll have a cranky, non-napped 2-year-old for the rest of the day...but usually that's actually better than a 2-year-old who was awakened before she was really ready to rejoin the world.

Other dilemmas: School pickup is at 3:15. Meatloaf for dinner takes 1 hour to cook. Childcare is available at the gym starting at 4:30. Grocery store visit is absolutely essential today. Kids must be home by 7 p.m. to start bedtime routine. How to successfully incorporate all five of those elements into the next few hours of my day? And with a non-napped or half-napped 2-year-old in tow?

Such are the mysteries I ponder.

In the time it's taken me to write this post, it's gotten very, very quiet in Evie's room. Time to open the door and find out what fate has in store for the rest of my day.

a rainbow pile of you-know-what

Posted by Jen Rouse on Thursday, October 21, 2010 • 9 comments • Read Full Article

My daughter has recently discovered a series of books that she loves. They're short, easy chapter books, with simple words and small illustrations scattered throughout the chapters. They might even be simple enough for her to read on her own, but she loves to have me read them to her. They hold her interest and make her eager to get another from the library as soon as we've finished each one. They're everything I'm looking for in a book for an new reader, right? There's just one little problem.

I really hate these books.

I'm serious. They're so inane, they make me want to gag every time I look at their sparkly pastel covers.


Mean mom says thumbs down to Polly and her party fun.

They're the "Rainbow Magic" books, and when I look at the sheer number of available titles (134! with more due to arrive on store shelves this summer, according to Wikipedia), I can do nothing but shudder and cringe at the horror.

What's so wrong with the Rainbow Magic books, you ask? Oh, where to start...

First of all, they're all about fairies. Which is fine. I love me some fantasy literature. It is, in fact, one of my favorite genres. But the drivel between the covers of the Rainbow Magic books bears no resemblance at all to good fantasy novels.

No, the fairies in these books all have some certain specialization. The Rainbow Magic books are released periodically, categorized into little sub-series, such as the Party Fairies, the Weather Fairies, the Jewel Fairies, even (Lord help us) the Music Type Fairies. Not to be confused with the Music Fairies. That's a completely different Rainbow Magic series, of course.

So far, we've only read the Party Fairies books. Here's what happens in each and every one:

Two friends, Rachel and Kirsty, are on their way to some special event, when something goes awry. Instantly, they recognize that goblins are at work. The goblins are out to--gasp--spoil the party! But never fear, one of Fairyland's finest has been sent to stop him. Except that the fairy inevitably loses her special party bag full of fairy dust, and then the girls have to keep the goblin from getting the party bag. If the goblin were to get away with the magic bag, then (oh, the horror!) the goblins might throw a better party than the fairies!

Surely, such a crisis must be averted. But don't worry: Rachel, Kirsty, and their fairy friends such as Grace the Glitter Fairy and Pheobe the Fashion Fairy will not let such a thing happen. Within 9 chapters, the party bag will be in the hands of its rightful owner, and Kirsty will be saying something clever and insightful, like: "We helped our fairy friends again, and we had fun, too. Fairy adventures are always the best!"

Okay, so you get the gist of how cheesy these books are. They're formulaic, shallow, and blatantly marketed to appeal to everything that is girly: they're all about sparkles, rainbows, and glitter. Of course 5-to-9-year-old girls go crazy for them. But other than the fact that they are words printed on paper, and practice at decoding words is useful for beginning readers, whether it's a grocery list, a stop sign, or a book...there is just no redeeming value in Rainbow Magic.

The plots are unoriginal, the dialogue is dry as toast, and the "adventures" are anything but adventurous. The appeal of a good story, of any kind, is seeing the hero face adversity and overcome. These heroines never face any real peril. As a matter of fact, I think that the books even send a subtly sexist message; that if you're a girl, these are the things you ought to be concerned with: fashion, ribbons, parties, and fun. Heaven forbid that a girl fight a dragon, save a kingdom, or do anything truly valuable and useful with herself.

I'm not saying I never read any formulaic books as a child. I am certain my parents read me some books that bored them to tears. Baby-sitter's Club, anyone? I read those books month after month after month. But the BSC books, despite their repetitive opening chapters and the endless spin-offs, actually had character growth and development, both within the books and throughout the series as a whole. The girls in those books dealt with the loss of loved ones, with parents' divorce, and with chronic illnesses, in addition to the real-life problems and pressures of middle school. They weren't great literature, not by a long shot, but there was at least some kind of content there.

Nor am I saying I read only high-quality literature now. I enjoy a quick, light romance as much as anyone. But the Rainbow Magic books really have to rank pretty high up there on the list of most meaningless books ever written. And they're not even written by a real person! Daisy Meadows? Get real. That's not even pretending to sound like a real name. Daisy Meadows is actually four other childrens' authors who are probably making millions off these shamelessly cheesy and commercial books. (Side note: why am I not doing this? I can come up with a pseudonym and slop out a unicorn book every month! If you notice me driving a Lexus and wearing Prada anytime soon, you'll know where my money is coming from. Sparkle Unicorn Divas: the series.)

So far, I've been keeping my opinions about these books to myself with Beth. In addition to the Rainbow Magic books, we read all kinds of kids' lit that is truly fantastic--old classics like Ramona and Little House on the Prairie, plus newer books like Junie B. Jones, which may be light-hearted and simple, but are also laugh-out-loud funny. It's not like I'm letting her have a reading diet of pure, 100% bubble gum. I don't want to discourage her from reading, or tell her that the Rainbow Magic books are bad. Because they're not. They're just cheap, manufactured entertainment.

But when she turned to the back page of our most recent Rainbow Magic read and gasped with delight at the realization of just how many more magical adventures we have yet to explore, something inside me may have snapped. I am considering a boycott of Fairyland.

Too harsh? Should I be patient and let her enjoy the Rainbow fun, even if they're not the books that I would choose? Or should I just say no to crappy books?





My favorite pasta

Posted by Jen Rouse on Thursday, October 21, 2010 • 7 comments • Read Full Article


I've mentioned it before, but I've never actually given the recipe. It's my favorite sauce: Butternut Parmesan sauce!

It's squash season now--you see all these lovely winter sqaush all over at the stores and farms and markets this time of year--and in case you're looking for something nice to do with them, I highly recommend this butternut-parmesan pasta. It's so yummy, you will love it and your kids will too, and they won't even know it's full of vegetables. Sneaky and delicious...it doesn't get better than that. This sauce is the whole reason I grew butternut squash in my garden this year--just so I would have lots of raw materials to make it with.

The original recipe comes from Simply Recipes, but I've tweaked it slightly here and there to meet my own preferences.

You start with some squash. The original recipe says "a butternut squash weighing about 2 and 1/2 pounds." But if your butternut squash is a different size, don't worry. If you have extra squash, you can freeze it and save it for later.

So first you roast the squash until it's very soft, scoop out the flesh, and puree it in a blender. You can read the recipe if you want specific instructions on how to do that. You can do this step hours before you want to start making dinner...days or weeks before, even. Just save the puree unti you want to use it. That's what I did, this time. The squash was one I had picked from the garden a month or so ago, then roasted and pureed, storing the puree in the freezer.

Now here's where I think the original recipe should have been more specific. It doesn't tell you how much puree you are supposed to get out of your 2 and 1/2 pound squash. Because what if you add more water to yours than the original chef did, and you end up with more or less? I find making pureed squash to be a variable thing--you're not going to get the exact same results every single time you do it.

So, I've found that using about 2 cups of squash puree ends up with a sauce that is tasty to me. I don't know if this is more or less than the chef intended, but that's what I use.

OK, so you take an onion and dice it small. The original recipe called for shallots, but I rarely happen to have shallots in my kitchen, but I always have onions. So dice 1/3 cup of onion finely, and saute it in olive oil over medium heat, until it is tender, about 5 minutes.

Then add in your 2 cups of squash puree and cook for 1 minute, stirring so the puree doesn't burn or stick to the bottom.


Here's the sauce as it is with just the sauteed onions, olive oil, and squash puree.

Now you need half a cup of cream, milk, or some other dairy beverage. The original recipe calls for heavy cream. I hardly ever have cream in my fridge, so I normally use 1% milk. I used cream when I made it most recently, because I did have some on hand, and I did not taste a difference in the finished product vs. my normal practice of using milk. So if you're wanting to save calories or save yourself a grocery store trip, just use milk.

Mix in the half-cup of milk a tablespoon at a time, stirring well.


Mixing it in, a bit at a time. I don't actually measure it out by tablespoonfuls. I just add a little, and stir, add a little, and stir, till it's all mixed in.

Then stir in 1/2 a cup of grated Parmesan. I used to always use the canned grated Parmesan for my recipes, but then one time I actually bought fresh Parmesan and tried it, and I fell in love, so now that's what I always use. I don't usually measure the amount, but just put in what looks (and tastes) right to me. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with a rather generous 1/2 cup of Parmesan.


Cheeeeeese. Yummy, yummy cheese.

Now add 1/8 tsp of nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste. You want to be cautious with your nutmeg--the little tiny bit of it that the recipe calls for is just right. If you add too much, the combination of squash + spice makes it taste like pumpkin pie. And while pumpkin pie filling is delicious, it's not what you want on your pasta. The salt, on the other hand, I encourage you to be quite generous with. Otherwise I think it tastes too blah. But I tend to like my recipes salty. I often use garlic salt (because I also like things garlicy) but plain salt is fine too.


Adding in just a touch of nutmeg.

Now, the original recipe says to stir in water or chicken stock at this point to thin the sauce to your desired consistency. I never do this. Maybe I just like a very thick sauce, or maybe the puree I started with was more liquidy than the puree the original chef started with. I don't know. I just know that to me, the sauce always looks just fine, and doesn't seem to need any thinning. But if you like a thinner sauce, add some more liquid here.

Then you're supposed to take it off the heat, add 2 teaspoons of lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of fresh chopped parsley. I always do add the lemon juice (or, on one occasion, I had some white wine and I used that and thought it was good). It gives just a nice little zing to the sauce, I think. I normally skip the parsley, though. I don't usually have any fresh parsley on hand, and also the brand of garlic salt that I usually use also has dried parsley mixed in to it, so I figure it's already got some in there.


Sauce: complete.

Now you've got your sauce! During all this time, you should have been boiling some pasta so it would be ready when your sauce was done. If you didn't, you can also just store the sauce in the refrigerator for a day or so. I think it tastes just as good even after it's been stored and re-heated.


You can use any kind of pasta you want with this. I've done it with spaghetti noodles, or penne, or here, rotini.

There you go: cheesy, tasty, deliciousness. And the butternut gives it that delightful bright orange-y color that actually almost looks like the color you get when you make a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese--except this comes from a nice healthy vegetable, instead of a little packet of "cheese" powder. Is this color affinity the reason my children like it? I don't know. But I know that all of us love this pasta and will eat it happily any time I get the urge for it. Enjoy.

Pasta with Butternut Parmesan Sauce Recipe

INGREDIENTS

2 cups butternut squash puree

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1/3 cup of finely dice onion

1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup of milk or cream

1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg

2 teaspoons of lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

Cooked pasta

DIRECTIONS

1. Roast and puree your squash.

2. Saute the onions in the olive oil over medium heat until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the butternut squash purée and cook for about a minute. Add the milk (or cream), a tablespoon at a time, slowly stirring it in. Stir in the Parmesan. Add the nutmeg, salt and pepper. Add water (or chicken stock) if desired.

3. Take off heat and add the lemon juice (or white wine). Cover the pan to keep warm.

4. Serve with hot cooked pasta, or store for future use.

the stuff that dreams are made of

Posted by Jen Rouse on Monday, October 18, 2010 • 3 comments • Read Full Article

Last night I had a dream, the contents of which are as follows:

  • My children and I went to the dollar store.
  • We bought hand soap for the bathroom.

I think I need to get a more exciting life.

Seven Quick Takes

Posted by Jen Rouse on Friday, October 15, 2010 • 2 comments • Read Full Article

1. The day after the marathon, I almost fell over when I woke up, tried to stand, and realized just how stiff and sore my legs were. I could walk...but I couldn't walk fast. And I don't think I could have run a step if you paid me. Over the next few days, things improved, until yesterday I thought my legs were totally back to normal. This morning I decided to go for a short run, and...oh. my. goodness. It was the hardest, slowest "easy run" I've had in awhile. Eventually, eventually my muscles will recover. But not today.

2. Since this is a question several people have asked me, I'll go ahead and say it: yes, I would run a marathon again. I'm not definitively committing to running 26.2 each year or anything like that. But yes, it really was a great experience, and I'd love to do it again sometime. But faster.

3. Other updates: Evie's non-pacifier sleep situation is continuing to work great at bedtime. Naptime...not so much. I am not getting my guaranteed hour (or two) without the kids bothering me, that's for sure. But she's relentlessly marching down the path to big-girl status, and if that means only sporadic naps, then that's what we'll deal with. Next stop: Potty Training Take II!

4. Lucy told me yesterday that she has a boyfriend at school. Beth quickly added that she does too. I told them that while they are too young for boyfriends, they are welcome to have lots of boys that are friends. When I told Eric, he said that it's too bad there are going to be so many little boys with broken legs limping around Albany. Aaah, the joys of having three girls.

5. A couple weeks ago Eric took me out for breakfast at The Original Breakfast, which is here in Albany, on Highway 20 right where it hits I-5. Now, this restaurant has been here for several years, and I've never been there. For some reason--maybe its truck-stop-like location, maybe its exterior, which is not the most beautiful in the world--I had assumed it was a greasy-spoon/diner type breakfast joint. Not so!

I had a fantastic veggie omelette, and Eric had corned beef hash. I have to say, I've never had corned beef hash. Corned beef? Hash? The name does not sound appealing. But I had a bite of Eric's and it was delicious too. According to the menu, everything is made from scratch with fresh, whole ingredients. It tasted like it was true. Check out the extremely positive reviews on Google and Urban Spoon--definitely a spot to try out if you're in Albany or making a trip down the freeway.

6. I finally watched the movie "Babies." Love it! Watching these honest looks into the lives of families in such different parts of the world was so fascinating. Things were so very different--in Namibia, for instance, where the baby never wears diapers (or any clothes other than a loin cloth thing) and the mother shaves the wiggly little baby's head with giant, sharp, knife; or Mongolia, where the mother gives birth in a hospital, then climbs onto the back of her husband's motorcycle and bumps along all the way home, balancing on the back and holding the baby in her arms. Also watching out for the 2-year-old brother riding up front. And then the next day goes out to milk the goats. She's super-woman, in my opinion. But other things about all the families were so very, very, similar. The expressions on the babies' and parents' faces. The little milestones each of the babies reach--crawling, sitting, feeding themselves. There is zero dialog or commentary--just babies, babies, babies. Highly recommended, even if you're not a parent. I think it would be interesting to anyone.

7. The weather has been gorgeous here all week--sunny skies, crisp mornings, warm afternoons. Perfect! The kind of weather that makes you fall in love with fall every day. And all I can think is, where you were on Sunday when I needed you, good weather??

For more quick takes (and some hilarious tales about scorpions, today), check out Conversion Diary.

my first marathon

Posted by Jen Rouse on Monday, October 11, 2010 • 9 comments • Read Full Article

Yesterday I did something that I never thought I could actually do. Something I'd been dreaming of for years, but that seemed so far past my capabilities that it was hardly worth talking about, much less planning for. Even when I started training for it, I didn't tell very many people I that I had signed up for it until less than a month before the race, because it still didn't seem real. Somehow I still didn't believe I was really going to do it.

But yesterday, I did it: I ran a marathon.


I was nervous for days before the race. Not just a little nervous, we're talking heart-pounding, butterflies in stomach, can't sit still or focus on anything kind of nervous. The night before, I woke up three or four times to sit bolt upright and look at the clock, that feeling of mingled anticipation and dread inside.

But you know what? When it finally was time to go--when I was waiting there in the dark and the cold and the wet with all the others--my nervousness was gone. Not because I felt super-confident. I think by that point I'd just been waiting for so long that I was impatient for it to finally happen and I had no more room for nerves.

It was a typical day, for October in Oregon--cold and pouring down rain. I was sopping wet 10 minutes into it. But it really didn't bother me. All I wanted to do was make it through. It helped that the streets of downtown were lined with spectators cheering for the runners. Bands played along the way, people in crazy costumes waved signs. It felt like a big party. Aid stations were dotted all along the route, which meant every mile or two I had to ask myself: stop here, walk a minute while I drink some water, or push on to the next one? These were all welcome mental distractions.

Because, while some sections were lively and pretty, others were straight and flat, through boring industrial sections of town. At that point it wast just trudging along, trudging along, constantly trying to run at a comfortable pace that I thought I'd be able to maintain the whole way.

And then came the St. John's Bridge. There's a long slow hill leading up to the bridge, and then the climb up and over the bridge itself. "The St. John's Bridge is the worst," everyone had told me. "After that it's all downhill," they said. "If you can make it over the bridge, you've got it!"


Bridge photo from wikipedia.

When I got to the hill leading up to the bridge, I was tired. You've already run 15 miles by the time you get to that point on the course. But I remembered my second leg of Hood-to-Coast: the one that was 5 miles uphill in the gravel in the dark. I conquered that hill--I could do this one. I kept on pushing. All around me, other people were walking, but I kept on running. By the time I got to the middle of the bridge, I felt fantastic. "Defying Gravity" was playing on my iPod, I was passing people left and right, and inside my head I was saying things to myself like "Yes! You are so strong! You're going to make it! It's all downhill from here! You're doing so great!"

And then I got to the bottom of the bridge, and we went around a little corner, and then--what the heck?--another hill! A much smaller one, but still, another hill. No one told me about that one. I was completely dismayed. And that's pretty much how the last section of the marathon felt to me. Because even though, after that last little hill, it truly *is* mostly flat or slightly downhill from there, you've still got 9 miles to go after the bridge. Nine miles. Nine. It's a long way. Dismayingly long, after you've already run so far.

Whereas the first half the race, I was asking myself whether I should stop at aid stations or not, the last 1/3 there was no question. When there were people handing me water, I slowed to a walk and gulped some water. When cheerful people gave me gummi bears, I slowed again and ate some gummi bears. The hard part was forcing myself to run again afterward. It was just pride and stubbornness that kept me going at all. And, you know what? The spectators on the course really helped. When there are cute little kids in rain slickers holding out their hands, hoping runners will slap them five as they run by--well, no one wants to get a high-five from a sad, defeated walker. They want to get a high-five from a strong, confident runner. I couldn't be giving up when there were little kids watching me, could I?

And the inspirational signs that many spectators were holding? They actually were inspirational. One said: "Pain is temporary. Pride lasts 4-ever." The sign is right! I told myself. If you just finish this race, you can be proud of yourself forever. Forever, you'll be able to claim that you have run in a marathon. If you stop now, you'll be disappointed in yourself forever. The other one that stuck with me was a simple two-word phrase on a sign that a smiling man was holding. "Never quit." That was my mantra, those last two or three miles. Never-quit, never-quit, never-quit. Because those mile markers? They kept seeming to get farther and farther apart. I know my pace got slower and slower and slower. But I didn't quit.






Me at mile 26. Wanting to fall down on the nice pavement and rest for awhile.

When I finally saw Eric and Evie smiling at me at mile 26, I was so happy. I knew I was almost at the end. But even then I had to fight my way through the last .2 miles. I thought I would never, never, never see the finish line. But finally, I did.

Did I sprint my way across, hands held high in victory? Not even. I slogged over at what felt like a snail's pace. And actually, I could hardly feel my hands. Those last two miles they were doing some weird thing where they went all numb and tingly. Perhaps my brain had decided hands were a non-essential part of the body and was directing oxygen elsewhere.

But that's not important. What matters is, I did it. Even though I never used to think I could.





first-grade fashionista

Posted by Jen Rouse on Thursday, October 07, 2010 • 5 comments • Read Full Article

Living with Beth is starting to feel like living with a very small but passionately opinionated girlfriend. One who is very fond of the phrase "soooo cute."

Let's take yesterday as an example. As I was getting dressed in the morning, I picked out a skirt, shirt, and sweater that I had never worn together before. I put it on, looked in the mirror, as wasn't sure if I liked how it looked.

Even though I should know better than to ask Eric's opinion on my appearance, I asked him if he thought the cardigan looked okay with the shirt.

"Hmm. Well, it kind of looks like it should be buttoned down one more button, not at the top like you've got it," he told me.

"But this sweater doesn't have buttons in the middle," I told him. "It just has these two at the top."

"Oh. Well, then don't worry about it. You look fine," he said, and then left for work.

With that very non-reassuring "fine" echoing in my ears, I kept the sweater on anyway and headed for the bathroom to start drying my hair. Halfway there I ran into Beth, who immediately started gushing. "Oh, mommy! I love your outfit! You've never worn those clothes together before, have you? It looks sooo cute!"

I smiled and thanked her, unreasonably buoyed up by the fashion opinion of a 6-year-old.

And then there was this morning, when she came into the bathroom to lean her head in as close to mine as possible while I put on my makeup, inquiring into every step of the process.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Eyeshadow," I said, opening up the multi-colored compact.

"Ooh! Mommy, do blue, do blue!" she said, pointing at the light blue, slightly glittery shade that came with the others, the one that I rarely wear.

"Umm, not today. I think I'll wear this one today," I said, going for a subtle grayish brown.

She sighed, clearly disappointed in my choice. "Well, my teacher wears blue, and it looks sooo cute," she said.

And then came the most exciting part of the routine for her.

"Ooh, mommy! Are you going to do your moss-cara now?" she said, leaning in even closer.

"Yep," I replied, trying not to blink.

"Oh, I just love moss-cara. It is my favorite of all make-ups," she said. (Keep in mind that this child does not wear make-up, never has worn make-up, and won't be wearing make-up until some unspecified age in the teenage years.) "It makes your eyelashes so dark and sooo cute."

Lest you think that I'm raising an empty-headed Valley Girl here, let me assure you that this child also loves to whack things with swords (real or imaginary), read books, climb trees, and dig in the dirt. She plays soccer every weekend, considers many little boys her friends, and enjoys watching superhero cartoons with her daddy.

And if, in addition to all these things, she also likes to look pretty, I'm okay with that. Especially as long as she keeps on believing that I look "sooo cute" too.



the non-napping house

Posted by Jen Rouse on Wednesday, October 06, 2010 • 5 comments • Read Full Article


Pacifier picture from Wikimedia Commons.

Last night, while visiting a friend with a new baby, we were discussing the pros and cons of pacifier use, and I mentioned that one potential drawback to giving your baby a pacifier is that you might end up with a kid like mine: two and a half years old and still dependent on the pacifier to get to sleep.

Not half an hour later, I got a text from my husband, who was trying to put the girls to bed, wanting to know where the heck said pacifier might be.

I texted back that I had no clue, then fretted to myself the whole rest of my visit about what torture he must be going through at home, trying to put her to bed without it.

And...what do you know? I returned to a scene of total serenity: kids all asleep in bed, husband and cat asleep on the couch. According to Eric, Evie whined a little bit but then went to sleep just fine, even without the pacifier.

I was seriously thrilled that this occurred so relatively smoothly; both our other two required a night (or two) of hard-core tears when the beloved pacifier was taken away. I'd been delaying pacifier-removal in part because the three girls are all in one room now, and I didn't want to subject the older two to Evie's (potential) screaming.

So. Eric apparently has the magic touch, as far as non-pacifier bedtimes go. So later on, when I found the missing pacifier, I hid it away in an interior pocket of my purse, and when Evie forlornly asked where it was this morning, I lied straight to her face. "Gosh, I don't know."

But now, it's quiet time. My sacred hour of getting-things-done time. And Beth (home from an early release day at school) is reading (out loud) to herself on the couch. And Lucy is doing the same thing in my bedroom. And Evie...oh, Evie. I know that if she'd had her pacifier, she would have been out like a light. She told me, before I laid her down, how tired she was. But instead, she's sitting on her bed singing songs to herself. It's cute as all get-out. And she's being very well-behaved. But she's *not* sleeping. And that means she's not going to be a pretty picture later on this afternoon.

Now that I'm six years in to this stay-at-home mom thing, I'm feeling like I'm pretty good at it. I know what I'm doing. I have my little routine all set. But part of the routine is having a guaranteed hour or two each afternoon where I know my kids won't disturb me. Now...faced with the possibility of a non-napped 2-year-old to deal with for the rest of the day...I'm *almost* tempted to pull that little blue pacifier out of the bottom of my purse and throw it in to her. So far, I'm being strong. But I'm left pondering the question:

Is this the end of naptime as I know it? And if it is...will my world go on?

the food I remember

Posted by Jen Rouse on Monday, October 04, 2010 • 10 comments • Read Full Article

The time just after you have a baby is such an amazing time. You're full of conflicting emotions: joy at the baby's birth, doubt at your own parenting abilities; relief that the pregnancy is finally over; exhaustion because not only have you just given birth, you also have a new baby that wants to be held all the time and eat every couple of hours. And then there's this kind of all-pervading sense of immensity. You know that the things that are going on right now--these first few days of your child's life--are special, and fleeting, and you want to remember every minute. Except you won't. And you can't. Looking back, even just a few years down the road, it's a blur. All a blur.

You know what's not a blur, strangely enough? The food. After every baby, I've had kind friends who brought me meals, and I can remember many of them distinctly. Maybe that's just me and I have a weird food obsession, but I really can remember specific dishes and who brought them to us. The creamy chicken thing. The honey-glazed chicken and rice. That delicious Mexican dish. The giant tub of cookie dough. Maybe it's just the novelty of having food delivered to your door; I don't know. I do know that the meals were a really welcome gift--it was so nice, in the midst of all that was going on, to never have to stop and think about what you need to make for dinner. They almost always seemed so delicious, and so different from the things I would normally make myself.

But for me, whenever I now have a chance to return the favor by bringing a meal to a friend, I always feel like my own recipes are dull, or not that good, or aren't something that would freeze/travel well, or are otherwise somehow unfit to be taken to a new mama.

So, blog readers, I'm wondering--what were the best post-baby meals you received? Or do you have a tried-and-true recipe that you love to take to friends in need? Please, share!

harvest time

Posted by Jen Rouse on Friday, October 01, 2010 • 6 comments • Read Full Article


It used to be that to me the phrase "harvest time" simply mean the conservative Christian euphemism for Halloween, that time in October when church kids would dress up in costumes and get lots of candy and have a lot of fun, but it would *always* be called a Harvest Party, never a Halloween party. Now that I've gotten interested in gardening and preserving, though, the word takes on new meanings. Or, I guess, reverts back to what it's actually meant all along; gathering up the results of half-a-year's-worth of growing.



A few weeks ago we dug up all our potatoes--those potatoes that I thought were going to be toast, victims of some sort of horrible blight on their leaves. Apparently they were doing okay under the ground after all--we dug up about 25 pounds of delicious purpley-red potatoes of all shapes and size.

Three butternut squash took up residence on my counter for awhile; I've been gradually cooking them and reducing them to puree and making my favorite pasta sauce with them.

Tomatoes: they finally ripened, a lot of them anyway, and I've been salsa-ing away in the kitchen, making sure to use big latex gloves this time. No more delayed pepper-burning of the hands for me.

And then the last two days we've been picking apples: at the home of a generous friend and at a local orchard with adorable little trees that they've made sure don't grow much more than six feet high, with mounds of fruit on their low-hanging branches. Out in the sunny, crisp fall morning, my eager little daughters beside me, picking apples still wet with dew, I felt impossibly wholesome. We were like the living embodiment of a Norman Rockwell painting, I tell you. Did he ever paint this scene and call it "Harvest Time"? If he didn't, he should have. That's how sweet and all-American it felt.



Then we came home with buckets full of apples and the girls munched on them all afternoon while I made applesauce, and then in the evening I went outside and discovered a pile of those beautiful golden-red apples, each of them half-munched, sitting there browning in the sun, with no more than two or three bites out of it. I was ready to clobber my sweet, wholesome, apple-wasting daughters. Today, even as I was taking pictures of these apples to show you, I found another apple right there in the bucket with just two tiny teeth marks scraping tracks through the surface. So much for sweetness.



But now my daughters are sleeping, and I've got apple butter slowly cooking in the crockpot, and it makes my kitchen smell just like apple pie. There's a cat sleeping on my lap and the house is quiet. I've got jars of salsa and applesauce in the cupboard, and more tomatoes and apples and peaches waiting to be made into something delicious, and it seems to me like Harvest is a pretty wonderful time of year.

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