The Short Years

a letter to 2008

2012-01-23T07:25:00.000-08:00

Dear Jen,

I know you're tired. Really, really tired. I don't know how many times the baby woke you up last night, but I know it was a lot. I know that sometimes you fall asleep in the rocking chair and wake up with her still attached to your breast and wonder how long you've been in that position, and whether or not it is worth it to even go re-join your husband in bed or if you should just sit very still right here, since she seems to like it pretty well.

I know that you've got two kids in diapers at the same time, and that you change so many of them each day that you currently feel completely nonchalant about poop. And there is a little part of you, somewhere in the back of your brain, that tells you this is a bad thing--that one ought not to be quite so at ease with excrement--but you ignore it.

I know that it feels like every time you sit down to nurse the baby one of the other kids is begging for a sandwich or crying because someone stole a pony from someone else. I know you could care less if they all steal all the ponies in the world, you just want them to not yell while you're trying to nurse the baby.

I know that you have calluses on the palms of your hand from carrying around that bulky, heavy car seat everywhere you go.

The kids, in 2008.

I know that your only chance of getting away for an extended period of time means that you'll have to leave a bottle with someone, and that leaving a bottle with someone means acquiring breast milk, and that therefore you try to find time in the day every day to strap a plastic contraption involving cords and tubing and an extremely noisy motor and little things called "nipple shields" onto your breasts and try to ignore the loud, grating sound and uncomfortable tugging sensation and close your eyes and will yourself to produce enough milk, just so that you can in good conscience leave your baby with someone for longer than an hour.

I know that you secretly eat the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets off your kids' lunch plates when they are done with them because those stinking breaded fake-meat chemical-filled things are so tasty. But that you feel too guilty about this to actually just make them for your own lunch.

I know that the kids follow you everywhere, even into the bathroom while you're on the toilet. Even into the shower, sometimes. I know that sometimes you think you will never be alone again, ever.

I know that sometimes you're lonely, and you just want to get out of the house, but the only places you can think of to go are the grocery store, or the library, or the park, and you've been to those three places so many times that you would rather sit inside and stare at your messy house than go there again.

I have news for you.

In just a few short years (yes, short years--you were right about that blog title) all of that will be gone. Gone, gone, gone.

By 2012, you will not remember the last time you changed a poopy diaper. The only time you will have to deal with your children's excrement is when you view it from (relatively) afar if they forget to flush. The toilet. That's right. All your children will poop on the toilet, every single day.

By 2012, you will no longer use sippy cups. At all.

By 2012, you will be able to answer a phone call with your children right there in the room, talk to an adult for a few minutes (note that I said a few, not a lot) and your children will know that they are not to disturb you.

In 2012, your children will make their own beds (when you remind them to).

And they'll get dressed all by themselves, every single day. Even coats and shoes.

In 2012, you will no longer own a diaper bag. Or a breast pump. Or a pacifier. Good Lord, the pacifiers. You will have actually forgotten how you used to stash pacifiers in strategic places all over the house, and in the car, and your purse, and the coat pockets, and the diaper bag, all for fear that you will need to quiet your screaming child and you won't be able to because you won't have that crucial little piece of plastic.

Nobody will spit up on you, in 2012.

You will be able to take your children out in public with no special equipment at all. Nothing other than a pencil and whatever scraps of paper you find in the bottom of your purse, and they will actually be able to entertain themselves with these things, and sit quietly and behave in polite company. (Not always. But it has actually been known to happen).

The kids, four years later (almost. This was fall 2011. Close enough).

You will be longing, mentally begging, for a day when you can just stay at home all day, but that never happens, not ever, because not only do the kids have schools, sports, and social lives, you yourself will have work, and a lot of volunteer stuff, and a lot of friends that you enjoy spending time with.

You will still be tired, but it's because you never slow down enough to let yourself catch up. You can't really blame it on the kids anymore.

All those things that completely consumed your life--potty training, and pursuing a coordinated nap schedule, and fretting about whether or not your baby got enough milk at her last feeding--you won't think about them anymore, at all. They will go from 100% of your brain capacity to zero.

So don't worry, Jen of 2008. Right now you feel completely overwhelmed, pulled into pieces, like there just is not enough of you to go around. But I'm here to tell you: they get bigger. And life gets easier.

With love and empathy,

Jen of 2012

just be awesome

2012-01-10T21:35:00.000-08:00

So here is my goal for the year: just be awesome.

And so you don't think I'm horribly egotistical, let me explain my thought process.

"Just be awesome" is shorthand for my bigger goal of being intentional about my life. My version of a WWJD bracelet, if you will.

Sign courtesy of my moms' group: our meeting today was about dreams for the new year, and we all had the chance to make these beautiful signs.

I mean, we all know this: life is what you make it. We all have choices, all the time, about how we spend our days. We all get the same amount of hours in each day, and some people do great things with them, and others just sit by.

By great things, I don't necessarily mean big things. Traveling the world is a great thing. So is taking the time to build real relationships with your own handful of neighbors in your own little town. Having a really successful career is a great thing. So is doing a really, really, killer job at whatever non-dream-job you might find yourself in.

Basically, I don't want to live my life half-heartedly.

So many times I make the choice to skip things that I know I really should be doing. Things that would benefit me in the long run. Because they would take effort, and I'm tired, and I just want a chance to relax.

Complacency, fear, and laziness are always there, whispering to me that it's okay to give up, to give in, to not try. And that's what my "just be awesome" goal is about. Saying no to those voices, and yes to the ones that encourage me to aim higher. My awesome life will look different from your awesome life, but we can both feel it in our bones when we're doing a lazy job of living our own lives--when we're not actually being the awesome people that we want to be.

We all just get one shot at life. I may not succeed at doing great big things or great little things, but at the end of the day, the end of this year, at the end of my life, I don't want it to be because I didn't bother to try.

So here's to 2012. It's going to be awesome.

Ugly cookies

2011-12-22T16:21:00.000-08:00

It's the mess, messiest daaaaaay....of the year, here at the Rouse House. Yes, it is the day once again when Mama chucks her sanity to the wind and invites the children to participate in a little tradition called "frosting Christmas cookies."

This is a beloved yearly ritual dating back to the ancient times of my own childhood, when my mother and sister and I put on our matching aprons and cluttered up my mother's kitchen. However, when I think back to those days, I recall much less mess. Whether this is because my daughters are more exuberant with the sprinkles than I was as a child, or because children in general don't notice messes and therefore my child-eyes were categorically blind to the frosting-hurricane we created, or because my mom was better at keeping things sane than I am, I don't know.

I can tell you that my cleaning-up this year involved not only bathing all three children and vacuuming the floors, but also vacuuming the countertops. Don't ask. It seemed like the thing to do at the time.

Really, anyone who has ever spent time around children has got to know that frosting + children = mess. What I didn't realize when I started doing this with my kids was just how much opportunity for lying it would give me. Because I am sorry, but my children do not generally make attractive cookies.

Their cookies do not reach out and appeal to a potential diner's aesthetic sensibilities, saying, "Look how pretty I am. You want to eat me, don't you?" No, my children's cookies say, "I am the product of a horrible nuclear accident and now half my face is melting off. Will you put me out of my misery?" and the diner runs away and averts his eyes and never eats cookies again.

Yes, I'm looking at you, orange-and-green snowman with the frowny mouth.

OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little. The older the kids get, the more conventionally attractive their cookies get. But they still operate under the "more is more" method of cookie-decorating--slathering the frosting on in inch-thick increments, adorning each little cookie with as many sprinkles and candy pieces as its weight can possibly support. To them, the more loaded up a cookie is, the more delicious it looks...not having come to the realization yet that amounts of sugar that massive are more likely to make people gag than anything else.

Which comes to the lying. Because my children firmly believe that each and every cookie they make is a work of art, destined for greatness. And while I do, on one level, appreciate the creativity and passion that they bring to their work, I do NOT actually think their cookies look good.

And yet...when my three-year-old holds out to me a cookie that is covered in orange frosting, lavished with green sprinkles, and spotted with chocolate chips--this cookie looks more moldy, than anything else--and says, "Isn't it *lovely*, Mama?"...I do the same thing that all mothers before me have always done.

I lie to her face.

"Yes, sweetie, that is lovely," I say.

Courtesy Corner

2011-12-15T14:42:00.000-08:00

Here's the thing about Oregon: it does not have self-service gas stations. This means that when you pull up to the pump, you can't jump out and start filling your own tank. You must stay put inside your vehicle and wait for an attendant to do the task for you.

Most of the time, I'm fine with this law. It's more pleasant to stay in my nice warm car. But when I'm running late, I hate it.

Last Tuesday, I was running late.

Instead of going to the cheaper but busier gas station I usually go to, I went to the one down the street a little ways. The one that's a few cents more per gallon but doesn't ever have a line at the pump. And sure enough, I was rewarded: a young man greeted me at the car promptly, started the gas flowing, and then left to help another customer while it filled.

OK, I thought. This is good. As long as paying doesn't take too long, I'll only be five minutes late.

And then I saw the elderly man. He was in a gas station uniform. He had a squeegee in his hand. And he was headed, slowly but surely, right toward my car.

He gave me a friendly smile. "Let me just get that windshield for you," he said. I really don't have time for this, I thought. I do not care about getting my windshield washed right now. "Sure," I said politely. "Thanks."

He cleaned the windshield carefully. I could hear the pump click off outside my car. He finished the windshield. OK, now he'll get my receipt and I can go. He started to reach for my receipt. And then he turned and spoke through the open window.

"Has anyone given you a calendar yet this year?"

I was confused. "A calendar?"

"Well, let me get one for you!" He turned and headed slowly back to the office. He was so pleased, so glad to be of service.

A calendar? A calendar? I don't want a calendar! I don't need a calendar! What I need is to leave, NOW. I watched the digits change on my clock as he made his way back, then handed me the calendar. "Here you go!"

Small, spiral bound, with a pre-punched hole so you could hang it on a nail. "Beautiful America" it read. At the bottom, a rectangle extended advertising the name and address of the service station, so that no matter what month of the year it was, you'd always remember the Courtesy Corner. I flipped it open. Each month had a picture of some scenic American landscape. They looked like every picture postcard at every roadside truck stop you ever saw. The date squares were tiny, too small to fit the jumble of dates and appointments and to-dos that I scrawl on my kitchen calendar.

Tiny lettering above the dates caught my eye. "handy pocket for storing coupons, bills, receipts, etc." it said. Fingering it, I could see that each page did in fact contain a pocket where you could stuff small pieces of paper.

That would be kind of handy, I thought. When the dentist gives out those reminder postcards, I could stick them in that pocket. Then I'd have them, right there on the calendar, instead of lost in a stack of papers somewhere.

I suddenly felt like I'd seen this before--this calendar. It was just like the ones Dad used to get from the auto parts store or the machinery supplier. Or like the ones that some citizens' group in my childhood town of Sweet Home used to give out every year--was it the Elks? the American Legion? In tiny type on each calendar square was printed the names of every Sweet Home citizen who had a birthday or a wedding anniversary on that day. I remember flipping that calendar as a kid and being amazed: there was my parents' wedding anniversary! There was my grandpa's birthday! There was MY NAME, right there on the calendar. Right below a picture of some beautiful, beautiful place I wanted to see.

The old man in the uniform was back now, handing my receipt through the window. "It's got pockets in there, for putting in receipts and coupons and what have you," he told me.

"I saw that," I said. "That might be nice."

"We've handed out those calendars at this station for 60 years," he said. It was a simple statement, but I suddenly wondered if his name was the one listed first on the bottom of the calendar, the one with the abbreviation "Prop."--proprieter--behind it. I wondered if he'd been here for all of those 60 years.

"Yeah, you know, it reminded me of the kind of calendar my parents used to have," I said.

He broke out into a big, genuine smile. "I bet they did. I bet they did," he said, nodding.

I was 10 minutes late. I smiled back: grateful for the calendar, for the memory, for starting my day with an honest human connection. Grateful for the Courtesy Corner.

red leather boots

2011-12-12T07:36:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, my grandma had a dress-up box for the grandkids. She kept it in the back bedroom closet, and in it were her old clothes, I think dating from the 60s and 70s: A-line skirts that we hiked up to our chests and pretended were strapless dresses; brightly patterned blouses; multitudes of handbags; and high heeled shoes in many colors, excellent for clomping around the house in.

Also, I vividly remember, it contained a pair of boots. Knee-high. Leather. Bright red.

They were huge, nearly impossible for me to walk in. I adored them.

Flash forward 25 years. Yesterday, I went shopping for boots. I went to a couple of stores. I tried on several pairs. Nothing seemed just right. And then I found the perfect pair--they were on sale, they looked great with my jeans, they felt good on my feet--easy decision. I bought them.

It wasn't until I took them home and saw them leaning against the wall of my closet that I experienced the wave of deja vu.

Knee-high. Leather. Bright red.

They fit me perfectly.

breaking news

2011-11-29T23:23:00.000-08:00

The other day I drove past shirtless guy's house. It was a cold November day, grey and wet, and there was a man outside raking leaves.

This man was wearing a green T-shirt.

If this is not blowing your mind right now, go back and read about my neighborhood semi-nudist.

I drove past two more times that day, staring at the house. Was that the right house? Was I sure? Had I just imagined it? And every time, I came up with the same conclusions.

Yes, that was shirtless guy's house. And yes, a man wearing a shirt had been outside raking leaves.

I have so many unanswered questions now.

Was that even the same guy? His distinguishing characteristic in my mind has always been his big hairy naked chest. With a T-shirt on...I just can't be sure. Maybe it was a relative or a friend or a neighbor. Maybe shirtless guy died of pneumonia and a regular, shirt-wearing individual bought his house. I can't be sure.

If it *was* shirtless guy, what could have happened to make him start going about fully clothed? Did the neighbors complain enough? Did someone leave a basket of T-shirts on his porch? Did his wife wake up one morning and say, "Honey, I am so tired of looking at your grey, hairy belly that if you don't put a shirt on today I'm out of here?"

Or maybe, just maybe, he suddenly, after all these years, developed sensation in the nerves of his chestal area. Maybe he went outside one morning and said to himself, "Hey, it's cold out here. I think maybe I'll put a shirt on today."

What a novel idea.

putting the shoe on the other foot

2011-11-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

I've been spending a lot of time on hold with customer service lately. We're having a refrigerator melt-down around here (literally--it stopped keeping things cold) and it has turned into a long, drawn-out drama of me on the phone with various help lines, trying to convince them that YES, in fact, they SHOULD repair or replace my fridge.


The telephone...aka the tool of doom that sucks hours of my day away. Photo by modomatic on Flickr.

Today, after I had been on the phone for 52 minutes (I know, because I looked at my handset and it told me) and my girls had been fending for themselves during all this time because I was occupied, I heard loud wailing from the other room. It didn't sound like urgent somebody-is-bleeding kind of wailing, but it was loud and sad, nonetheless. I peeked in the room and saw two red-faced girls, tears running down their cheeks, clearly having an issue they couldn't resolve.

And so I interrupted the floor supervisor who was in the middle of telling me how there was no possible way he was going to help me out.

"Excuse me! Excuse me!" I said (okay, maybe yelled) into the receiver. "I'm going to have to put you on hold." And then I threw the receiver down and walked away.

And that felt good.

confessions of a recovering slob

2011-11-09T14:43:00.000-08:00

Or... reason #1,240 why parenting is making me a better person.

I am not a neat and tidy person.

Shoes? I like to kick 'em off when I come in the door. Or when I'm sitting at the couch or working at my desk. I end up with little shoe piles all over the house.

Same with papers. Mail? Pick it up, sort through it, set it down on the table. Need to use table for dinner. Move piles of mail to the bookshelf or the coffee table or the kitchen counter or whatever other flat surface looks like it needs a pile of clutter.

Books? Stack them up wherever you find them. Laundry? Will find its way to the closet eventually.

There are just so many other things in the world that I'd rather be doing than cleaning. Pretty much *any* other thing, as a matter of fact.

I functioned reasonably well with my untidy ways as a single person, or as a person sharing a home with just one husband (note that I said reasonably well, not REALLY well--there have been plenty of times I've found myself soaring around the house in a panic, looking for a lost shoe, or bill that needs to be paid, or other crucial item that I've misplaced).

But now there are five of us in the house, and only one person in our entire family has any inclination to ever keep things neat on her own. (Lucy, bless her heart, truly enjoys having a place for everything and everything in its place. Whenever I'm trying to clean up, I offer to "let" her assist me, and then she swoons to Eric when he comes home, "Mama let me organize the desk today, Daddy!" Best. Day. Ever. for her.) But the rest of us, were we left to our own devices, tend to function more like the balls in a pinball machine, careening wildly around our own little world of flashing lights and bouncing pieces and chaos.

Which doesn't work so well in a family of five. The clutter multiplies, breeds, and spreads, and the house because dysfunctional so fast it's almost frightening.

And so...I'm finding myself forced to get my act together. Not because I've learned to like cleaning any better. But because I do like the way my home looks when it is clean. And because my world is not sustainable when every surface is covered in sweatshirts, newspapers, rain boots and crayons.

It's just not really a choice anymore. Having all these kids means I HAVE to clean things up.

(Please note: if you have been in my home lately or plan to be there in the future, please do not take this post as an indication that you should actually expect my home to be clean when you see it. Merely take it as an indication that I am *trying* to make it that way...and that it's most likely better than it would have otherwise been).

Here's what I'm doing:

Having the kids pick up the living room every single day, usually right before we're getting ready to set the table and eat dinner (since the table's going to need to be cleared so we can eat at it anyway). They do not like this. They always react in dismay. "We have to clean up the whole living room?" they moan, as if I've just told them to scrub Buckingham Palace with a toothbrush. And I heartlessly tell them that yes, they do have to clean the entire living room, and then we do it. If at least the living room, which is what people see when they walk in the door, gets tidied pretty regularly, it doesn't get too bad.

Being merciless about papers. This is really a hard one for me. I always think I need to keep things because I *might* need them. Coupons I might use if I might get to the store this week. Magazines I *might* want to finish reading. So I'm trying to just let go. Unless I know, for sure, that I will definitely use that coupon? Toss it. A cleaner house is worth more than $1 off Pull-Ups. I'm already heartless about my kids' crafts. And papers I really do need to keep? I have a couple of different file boxes, one in the kitchen and one in the office. They have different sections and categories, so that I can at least attempt to have organized bundles of papers, vs. big messy bundles of papers. I use them for papers that I feel I *must* hang on to (bills to be paid, receipts I think I need, important notes from school, etc.) It would probably be better if I had just one file box in one location, but hey--it's a work in progress. They are, at least, a place to *contain* papers, rather than just having them in stacks around the house.

Getting three things done before I leave the house in the morning: Making all the beds (the girls' make theirs, I do Eric's and mine); making sure the dining table and kitchen counters are cleaned of dishes (this might mean the dishes are all in the sink, but at least they are contained to one spot, not scattered all over the place); and wiping off the bathroom sink and counter (so it's not littered with hair ties and my makeup bag, and there are no globs of toothpaste waiting in the sink).

On the days that I actually manage to do these three things, plus the tidy-the-living room-in-the-evening routine, it means that at least the public areas of my house look somewhat presentable. It's not Martha Stewart, by any means. But it's something. (Those of you with clean homes are probably laughing at me, that these basic things are my minimum standards.)

The laundry still gets away from me. I cannot seem to manage to find a good routine for actually putting it AWAY once it's washed, dried and folded. And the kids' bedroom (and Eric and I's bedroom, let's be honest) are frequently messy. And the playroom? It's usually best to just close the door and walk away.

What can I say? My name is Jennifer, and I'm a recovering mess-a-holic.

Admitting you have a problem is half the battle, right?

mornings with my buddy

2011-11-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

These days, it's just me and Evie hanging out together most mornings. Lucy's in kindergarten, Beth is in second grade, and except for a couple of hours a week when she's in preschool, that leaves just me and Evie.

It's really quite a change. I've never had one-on-one time with a 3-year-old before. When Beth was this age, I had a 1-year-old Lucy distracting me, plus Evie herself on the way. When Lucy was 3, I had kindergartener-Beth plus evil 1-year-old Evie.

And now, this. Large chunks of time with a single child. A child who is able to walk (although she suckers me into carrying her all the time) and to talk (about lots of interesting things) and to put her own shoes on (though they're usually on the wrong feet).

Evie and I don't generally do anything major on our mornings alone together. A lot of times we go out and run errands. She loves the bank, where all the tellers fawn on her and give her candy (except on Friday, when they give her cookies.) She's less fond of the grocery store, which is too lengthy for her attention span. Yesterday found her bored to tears, hanging halfway out of the grocery cart, moaning repeatedly "Get me out of here! Get me out of here!" Other times we just come back home, and I clean, or work on articles, and she paints or draws or makes a huge mess with Play-Dough. But we also find time for snuggling together on the couch, or drinking a cup of tea together (she likes raspberry, I like chai) or doing a puzzle or reading a book. It's a lot easier to make time for these little moments when I only have to read *one* book or do *one* puzzle, not three different puzzles or books or games all at once. I still like the way my girls are close together in age and such good playmates...but there might have been something to be said for spacing them out a little bit more too.

The other day I thought Evie had school, but I drove to the preschool to discover it closed, the parking lot empty, and I remembered belatedly the teachers' conference that was going on that day. Evie was so disappointed at not going to school that I promised her something fun--so we went to the park and played in the pale October sunshine.

I can tell that mornings like this are fleeting--I don't have another baby growing up into a 3-year-old, after all, and somehow I want to save them up to remember. So I suggested that we take a picture together on my phone.

Here we are, me and my buddy.

After that, Evie wanted a turn with the phone camera, so I let her (I don't think I would have let my other girls have my camera when they were only 3).

First, an attempt to take a picture of me (umm, she got part of my leg, at least).


Then a photo of the swing.

Then another mommy-photo attempt. Hey, who needs eyes or a forehead? They're highly over-rated.

Then a surprisingly good picture of the playground, with only a little bit of three-year-old finger in the corner.

And, finally, a picture of mommy's entire face.

Evie is still not a pushover. She still does things her own way, in her own time. If, for instance, I tell her to put her shoes on before her hat, because shoes are a more essential item than hats and we are running short on time, she might--just must--shove a hat on her head anyway, before picking out said shoes, and then turn to her parent with a devilish gleam in her eye and say, "Too late."

Sometimes it's hard to know what to do with this child.

But she also has a special sweetness to her. Whenever she falls down (which she does often, because she never ever walks when she could run full-speed or hop or twirl), I pick her up and she wraps her arms around my neck super-tight, and I'm glad I still have a little bit of a baby in her. Yes, I'm treasuring our mornings together, for the entertainment value if nothing else. Evie is not always easy, but she is also not ever boring. Yesterday she said to me: "Mama, if sharks were real, and if one came in our house, I would get a ray gun, and I would kill it."

No need to worry about sharks when Evie and her ray gun are around.

no heart for art

2011-10-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

I am a crusher of creativity, a destroyer of dreams.

Every single day, my daughters create pages and pages of artwork. And every two or three days, I gather it all up, and fold it up real small, and shove it to the bottom of the recycle bin. And out the door it goes.

I always feel guilty about this, every single time. And yet, if I did not do this, every surface in our house would be covered, covered two or three layers thick, with paintings and drawings and crafts. The sheer volume of creative efforts that come from three little girls in one house is almost impossible to fathom, people.

Our fridge. Sometimes I honestly have problems opening and closing it because of all the priceless artwork attached to it.

It wasn't always this way. I clearly remember the first time I forced Beth to color. She was maybe 9 or 10 months old, and I taped a piece of blank paper to the floor so it wouldn't wiggle around on her, and I shoved a big, fat, orange Crayola into her hand and moved it back and forth across the paper in a wide squiggle. I hoped that she would be entranced by this, that she would get the picture and immediately begin creating on her own, but she didn't. She put up with my little art class for a few minutes and then crawled away, completely uninterested.

Of course this didn't last long. By age 2, Beth was coloring like mad, and her sisters followed suit, and now we have an entire craft section of our closet--a six-drawer plastic cart stuffed with felt and markers and stickers and glitter (oh, how I have come to hate glitter) and googly eyes, and more stuffed-to-the-brim plastic bins stacked on top of the six-drawer cart, and two plastic bins full of coloring books in the kitchen, and three plastic pencil boxes full of crayons on the other shelf in the kitchen, and a little round table in the corner of the kitchen that is always completely covered with works-in-progress. I would guess that each child draws or paints or glues something together at least two times every single day. That's six pieces of paper a day, times seven days per week. It's 35 new pieces of paper every week. At least.

It is madness, I tell you. Pure madness.

I see these ideas for displaying kids' art on magazines and blogs. "Create a revolving art gallery of your children's latest creations," they say. And they have some cute arrangement involving picture frames, or a wire strung along the wall with clothespins for attaching paintings, and it always looks so cute and neat and pretty. Some moms I know save their kids' work in boxes or files, so that one day their kids can look back on all their childhood talent. I've heard of people who take pictures of their kids' creations before throwing them away, so that they can have a digital record of said art--and, even, if they choose, print up all the artwork into a beautiful photo book that will be a family heirloom forever. Genius!

But I'll be honest: I do not rotate the actual art in my actual picture frames on my walls more than once every few years. There is no way I could keep up with my kids. And the digital photo thing? I have not made my actual family photos, the ones that involve my actual children doing actual things, into photo books since 2008. When they ask to see pictures of some thing we did in the past, or they need family photos for a school project, I resort to pulling open the craft drawers, finding some stiff-ish craft paper that will fit into my printer, and printing off pictures from the computer that way. (Because not only have I not created any photo books, I also don't even have any photo paper to print on).

A few years ago I gave my two older girls bulletin boards to hang in their room, with the idea that they could keep their OWN precious artwork on their OWN personal bulletin boards, and that then when they were out of space, they would be the one to make the hard decision to let something go. But the only result seems to be that they keep a few old pictures pinned to the boards, and there are thumbtacks underfoot in their room all the time.

Because here's the thing: they don't want to keep this artwork for themselves. They want to give it to ME. "It's for YOU, mama!" they cry with bright eyes. They write my name on it. They sign it proudly. And they present it to me with the certain knowledge that I will treasure it.

And so I stick it on the fridge, on top of the other 100 pieces of artwork already on there. Or I display it on my desk. Or I leave it out on the table for Daddy to see.

Some of the ones that I do think are exceptionally creative or beautiful or well-executed for their age I stuff into the cupboard where I keep their baby books, with the intention of actually putting it into said baby books one day, so they can look back and see how clever they were. Some of the ones with especially touching messages I stuff into a little box on the dresser in my room so that when I am old and grey I can look back at them and tear up over how sweet and bright and loving my little girls were.

And the rest...I keep it for awhile. And then I wait until they go to bed. And I throw it away. Because I am heartless, and because I fear that my house would collapse under the accumulated weight of craftiness if I didn't do something about it. Or we'd get featured on "Hoarders."

I bet Picasso's mom didn't have to worry about getting featured on "Hoarders."

Sisters. Together.

2011-10-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, here's a correction to an earlier post: I was worried about one thing with Lucy starting school. I was worried about how she would get along with her sister.

My oldest daughter is a very social kid. She has a lot of friends, and she loves to play with all of them. My second-born is quieter--more inclined to stick with a particular friend or two. She was starting kindergarten in a school where she knew no one, and I knew that come recess-time, she'd be looking to her big sister for guidance and playmate. I was afraid that, in turn, my oldest would want no part of the little kindergartener tagging along behind her, and that hurt feelings would result all around.

I talked with Beth about this. I told her that it would be very nice of her if she would play with Lucy, show her around, and help her make friends. I didn't want to burden her, or make her into a babysitter, so I told her that after awhile I was sure Lucy would make her own friends and feel more comfortable--but that maybe for the first few days at least, they could play together at recess.

Flash forward a month, and it's mid-October and I'm heading home after a PTC meeting. I'm walking across the playground just as I see Beth's class come out for recess. I stop, waiting for Beth to spot me, but she doesn't go to the playground with the rest of the second and third graders. Instead, she stops and turns to face the door, just standing still and staring at it.

Instantly, my mother-heart is wondering. What happened? Does she not feel good? Is she sad about something? Did she have a fight with her friends?

I step up behind her and give her a hug, and once she's recovered from her rapture at seeing me at school during the day, I ask her: "Why aren't you playing with your friends?"

She looks at me like I'm dumb. "I'm waiting for Lucy's class to come out."

"Oh! Well, you know, it is okay to play with other people sometimes," I tell her. "Maybe she has other kindergarteners she wants to play with too."

Again with the don't-you-get-it? look. "But I just like to play with Lucy all the time!"

And then Lucy's class came out, and I hugged them both, and they ran off to play. Together.

This probably won't last. I am fully prepared to see my girls at each others' throats throughout portions of their lives. In fact, I witness the tears and the rage and the fussing at each other daily. But right now? They're actually friends.

I had my girls 22 and 24 months apart on purpose--because I wanted them to be friends. Playmates. Companions. Yes, having daughters who were 4 years old and 2 years old and newborn was very, very challenging at the time. But now I feel like rubbing my hands together in glee. It's working!

When I see them walk to school side by side, blonde ponytails bobbing and pink backpacks bouncing, identical from behind except for the few inches of height Beth's got on Lucy, I can't help but smile. When Lucy tells me about her day and says, "And I saw Beth in the hallway and we hugged," it melts my heart.

Evie's in on it too, at home. Three kids playing together does have a different dynamic than just two, and there are all kinds of sisterly schisms, loyalties and allegiances that shift daily. But oftentimes, they run in a pack. A trio. People see them and say, "Look! It's the Rouse Girls!" as though they are their own entity. Together, they create a unit that's bigger than each of their three single selves. A cord of three strands, one that is not easily broken.

Here's to the Rouse Girls. Long may they rule the playground--together.

My new fear

2011-10-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I cleaned out my cat's water dish, which had been contaminated with little bits of kitty kibble from small over-enthusiastic cat feeders who can't dump a scoop of food without getting it everywhere. So the water looked gross anyway.

But then I dumped the gross water/mushy kibble down the garbage disposal, and when I did so, a truly horrifying, large, and fuzzy spider slid out of the dish as well. Even my fearless husband said it was disturbing.

It was, thank goodness, drowned. But I want to know what in the world a thing that big was doing in my house in the first place, and second of all, why it was in the water dish. Was it going after the mushy cat food? Do we now have spiders that eat cat food in my house? Why won't the spiders just leave me alone?

If I start finding kitten-size spiders around here, I am MOVING OUT.

If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you might miss it.

2011-10-06T14:14:00.000-07:00

Life moves pretty fast. And right now I feel like mine is speeding up.

I am stunned by how life keeps on changing every time I turn around.

I feel like I just got the hang of this stay-at-home mom thing. I was at peace with spending my days puttering around the house, baking bread and soothing toddlers and reading stories. I was never alone, but I had no one to answer to but myself, either. And what I found so difficult to adjust to at first--the lack of any sort of external structure in my day--I was coming to cherish. Having complete freedom to do whatever seemed best to meet my own and my family's needs? That, my friend, is a rare privilege.

And now, stay-at-home mom really doesn't describe my life anymore. As my kids have gotten older, other things have been beckoning, so that I now have part-time work and free-lance work and volunteer work. I don't have any single formal position that I have to report to every day; instead, I have a patchwork of responsibilities I've willingly taken on that have me here and there and everywhere. I used to get so tired of being at home all the time. I used to make up reasons to take the kids places. Now, when I have a day in which I actually don't have any appointments or meetings or deadlines, I find myself rejoicing in the bliss of a day when I get to stay home and clean the house.

Whereas my most important tasks of the day used to be lactating and gestating, and every day looked very much the same as the one before it, now each day is has its own different set of places to be and things to do, depending on which hat I'm wearing at the time.

It's one more way my youngest is getting a different upbringing from my oldest. When Beth was three, I had a one-year-old and I was pregnant. I wasn't part of any mommy groups, I did writing and editing work but it was all from home, the kids weren't in any schools or sports, and the only regular thing on my schedule was storytime at the library on Tuesday mornings. Naptime was rigidly and daily enforced. I could make home-made pasta for dinner on a whim, because I had nothing but time.

Now that Evie is three, I've got kids on three different school schedules. We have gymnastics and piano lessons and I've got a variety of work and personal commitments. Today I'm giving Evie a nap for the first time all week. We just don't really have time on the other days. I'm looking up crockpot cookbooks and "on the table in 30 minutes" recipes, because I don't have time to spend hours at the counter anymore.

I'm not whining about my overly-busy life. My life is as busy as I choose to let it be, just like everyone else's. Everything I do, I've said yes to for a reason. I'm just blown away by how quickly I've come full circle. Just a few years ago I was wondering how I'd ever adjust to my new life...and now, just when I was getting good at it, things have gone and changed again.

The years may have been short, but my days did go slowly by...and now the days are passing at warp speed too. Can someone please tell me the trick to pressing the pause button once in awhile? I think I need that.

The good news is, it's Friday.

2011-09-30T16:36:00.001-07:00

It’s been one of those weeks.

The kind of week where everyone in the family has a cold and you’re all feeling a little bit cranky.

The kind where the cat throws up all over the kitchen.

And where you spill your coffee all over the counter. The one particular area of the counter where you dump all your crap everytime you come in the door. And your purse, your iPod, a copy of “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” that you’ve had since you were 8, and a notebook containing all your handwritten notes for a bunch of articles that are due that very day, all get coffee on them.

The kind of week where you try to put lotion on your hands and instead you squirt it all over the front of your favorite shirt.

The kind where you step on the scale and are horrified by the number you see. When did *that* happen?

The kind where the kitchen sink clogs up.

And all the ants in your daughter's ant farm die.

And you have a major computer crash right before you are due to start a major work project.

The kind where your daughter wets the bed and you have to strip pee-soaked sheets off everything.

And the kind of week where you go into the garden to pick a tomato, and as you lean into the bushy plants you feel a spiderweb brush your head, and you run your fingers through your hair and pull it out, and then you go about your business and 20 minutes later you’re driving down the highway and you glance in the rearview mirror and there is a BIG FREAKING BROWN SPIDER sitting on top of your head.

Yes, that is the week I’ve had.

the only thing I worry about is my lack of worry

2011-09-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

Before I became a mother I was pretty sure of one thing--that whatever else may happen, at least I would be a *fair* parent. You always hear that the first-born gets the most attention and the youngest is constantly babied and the middle child is neglected. None of that would be true in my family--I would always treat each child equally and love them all exactly the same.

Two years ago, when my firstborn started kindergarten, I cried. Not big tears, not lengthy tears, but tears, just the same. And now, this year, my middle-born started kindergarten AND my youngest started preschool and not only were my eyes entirely dry, I didn't even get around to blogging about it until two weeks after the fact. That's how not a big deal it was, the second time around.

So here's the truth: you really DO give more attention to things the first-born does, because with the first-born everything is all brand-new. She's always sailing off into uncharted waters, and you feel like you're just throwing her to the lions all the time (please excuse my mixed and cliched metaphors here--I'm not sure why there are lions in my uncharted waters). When Beth started elementary school, I didn't know if it would be a good school, if her teacher would be nice, if she'd learn a lot and make friends and have fun.

Turns out the answer to all those things is yes, yes, and yes. And so when I dropped Lucy off at the same kindergarten this year, with the same classroom and the same teacher, it wasn't nearly so scary. In the past two years of walking back and forth to this school every day, we've gotten pretty intimate with the place. The staff members, from the crossing guard to the principal, know our names. As I stand at the door, waiting to pick Lucy up, listening to the sweet-faced five-year-olds inside singing the good-bye song that they sing every day, I already know all the words.

My own sweet-faced 5-year-old

And Evie. Little Evie, who is starting preschool a full year younger than either of her sisters did (and, I will admit, that's partly because she really wanted to, and she's the baby and the baby tends to get what she wants). She's in the same preschool classroom that not one but two older sisters have been through already, with the same little tables and the same story-time rug and the same cubbies by the door. When we walk up the big set of steps to her school, it doesn't feel like we're embarking on some grand new adventure. It feels like coming home.

My crazy Evie-child, off to preschool.

Sure, I had some slight concerns about each of the younger ones. They are different people than my oldest. Would my sweet Lucy be intimated by the louder kids? Would my brilliantly bold Evie be able to remember that she's not the boss of the entire classroom?

So far, it seems, the answers to these questions are yes and yes again. All three of my children seem to be thriving in their classrooms--and this happened even though I didn't shed tears or fret or lose an ounce of sleep.

And my oldest, who gets to be last, for once, just in this post.

Does my lack of angst this time around mean I love them less or that I'm not mothering them as well as I did my oldest? Let's hope not.

I actually think it's the opposite. My oldest child always has to deal with this cautious, worried mother who is concerned whenever it's time to go off and do new things. My younger kids get a confident, relaxed mother who can send them off to school with a hug and a kiss and a dry-eyed smile.

Poor first-born. It's just not fair.

the lazy gardener

2011-09-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago the editor of my local newspaper (a man I like, and respect, and whom I happily worked with for five years) wrote an editorial about home gardening. After a few sentences in which he damned gardeners with faint praise, saying growing your own food was probably a source of self-satisfaction, he moved on to the gist of his editorial: that growing your own food is an unnecessary waste of time.

"...it's often a far better use of time to leave the growing of food to those whose business it is to do that, and whose production benefits from certain efficiencies of scale, while you do something else to earn a living, whether it’s developing software or driving a truck. Sure, there’s a huge amount of satisfaction in making a meal out of something you have grown, especially if you don’t have to do so out of necessity. Just don’t think of what — in terms of personal effort, time and also cash — each of those delicious tomatoes has cost."

I've got to say that on this point, Hasso is just plain wrong. He seems to think that gardening is an expensive and time-consuming hobby. But that's just not true. I am cheap, and also lazy, and yet my small home garden produces pounds and pounds of beautiful food for my family. Personal effort, time and cash are almost nil.

Every year my efforts in the gardening spectrum vary. This summer, we were gone a lot, and I was busy a lot, and I basically did nothing to my garden. I put less work into my garden than I ever have before, and yet it kept on growing without me. Here's a true summation of the personal effort, time, and also cash I've spent on my garden:

May 1: I planted a bunch of lettuce starts (purchased from Tom's Garden Center, and I think it was something like $3 for a six pack of starts)

I also planted sugar snap peas, Brussels sprouts, carrots, green bush beans, and broccoli from seeds. Seeds are something like $1 for a package, and I certainly didn't use an entire package for my little garden.

My final planting on May 1 was 2.5 pounds of purple seed potatoes from Tom's. Again, I didn't save my receipt from that shopping trip, but I doubt I paid more than $1 or $2 per pound for the seed potatoes.

I had mixed in some compost (which I produced myself in a compost bin from food scraps and yard debris, which means it was basically free) and some fertilizer that I had purchased a few years ago--I got a medium sized box of it and I haven't run out yet.

May 18: I planted zucchini and yellow squash and butternut squash from seed--I believe they were leftover seeds from a packet I didn't use up last year.

I also bought some tomato starts from a nursery in North Albany, and they were a great bargain: $2 each for large heirloom tomato plants. I planted six of those, and a couple of strawberry plants as well (they were somewhere between $1-3 each, I believe).

At some point later in the spring: I planted some basil and a cucumber.

The rest of the summer: I ignored my garden almost entirely. I watered it every 2 or 3 days. When the sugar snap peas and tomatoes got big enough, I put stakes and tomato cages around them to support them.

I fertilized the whole thing again one time when I thought it needed it. I pruned the tomatoes once when they were getting really huge. I weeded occasionally when I spotted big ones that looked like they were taking over. I sprinkled some slug-killer stuff down a couple of times.

Pretty much the extent of my time and effort is watering my plants with a hose. It takes me about 10 minutes every two or three days. My water bill has been, at most, $5 per month more than it normally is in the winter.

Now: I just go out there and harvest.

This is some of what I got from the garden yesterday: squash, beans, tomatoes and basil.

Yesterday I got three pounds of tomatoes--enough to make a quart and a half of homemade salsa. The plants are still loaded with green tomatoes and I expect to make several more batches before the year is over.

A few weeks ago I dug up pounds and pounds of potatoes. I didn't weigh them, but it was enough potatoes to fill up an entire cooler. (I still have some out in the ground that I haven't dug yet, too). I'll save them and my family will eat potatoes for at least a few months of the winter.

We had an entire spring's worth of salads for free from the lettuce. My kids pick cherry tomatoes and sugar snap peas and green beans for a snack any time they walk by the garden.

I've gotten enough green beans to have fresh beans on the table at dinner several times, plus freeze a couple of gallon bags full of beans for the winter.

My yellow squash is flourishing and I'm putting it in omelettes and salads and dinner dishes every day. I will probably make some zucchini bread or muffins with it soon to use up some of the excess.

The cucumber is doing okay, but not looking especially robust-- still, we've had several fresh cukes from our one little plant, and there are several more on there ripening.

The basil is doing great--best batch of basil I've ever grown. I've made one batch of pesto already, freezing the extra for winter, and I expect to make at least one more batch, if not two.

There's butternut squash ripening, plus a surprise plant that I didn't plant at all--it appears to be a pumpkin, and I think it must have been from a rogue pumpkin seed that survived in the compost bin from last year and decided to propagate itself when I put the compost in the garden.

Did everything take off? No. The broccoli has so far been disappointing, with very low yields. So have the strawberries. The brussels sprouts got eaten by slugs or something and didn't grow at all. The carrots didn't even sprout.

If I were a better gardener, perhaps I would have done more about that. But I'm not. I'm a lazy gardener. I put stuff in the ground, and wait for it to grow. If it doesn't grow, too bad. If I wanted to spend more time, more care, more money on sprays and fertilizers and weeding, I could. And maybe I'd get even better results.

But as it is, I'm pretty darn happy with the results I do get from my garden, and it costs me almost nothing in amounts of time and effort, and very little in cash. (Next year I'll have to save my receipts so I can do a more accurate cost comparison.)

I think that perhaps Hasso has a misguided idea of how much work gardening is. Do I actually feed my family entirely off my produce production efforts? Not even close.

Do I provide my family with fresh, mostly-organic vegetables (I did use some Miracle-Gro once this year) for a far cheaper price than I could buy them for at a store or the farmer's market? Absolutely.

It's fun, it's easy, it's cheap, and my kids get to see the miracle of nature in action, over and over again.

Is it worth it? Without a doubt, yes. Maybe next year someone needs to get Hasso a few pots of tomatoes, and he can try it out himself.

the bedroom transformation

2011-09-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

A long, long, time ago, we moved into this house (OK, four and a half years ago). And when we did, we knew from the start that we wanted to fix up the master bedroom. It had been converted from garage space into living space, but it hadn't been done very well. There was no closet. The floor was covered with cheap tiles, stuck directly to the uneven cement that had previously been the garage floor. And the whole thing was grey.

But here's the thing about the master bedroom: most of the time, nobody sees it except the couple who lives there. When you invite guests into your home, you hang out in the living room or the dining room or the kitchen or the back yard. Kids play in kids' rooms. Everyone uses the guest bath. But visiting the master bedroom usually isn't part of the equation, unless the hosts are specifically giving a tour of the home.

I'm sure that if the floor of my living room had holes in it and was peeling up and sticking to everything, we would have gotten that swapped out immediately. You don't want to have people come over and walk on the dirty concrete visible through the holes in your floor. But when it's only yourself being inconvenienced? You find you can live with that for awhile. I can, anyway. And so we ignored it and hated it and finally saved up the money and carved out the time and FIXED IT.

Starting a year ago, we (by we, I mostly mean my husband--though I did do most of the painting) completely transformed our bedroom into something ugly that I was ashamed of into something beautiful that I love.

Now, if this happened a year ago, why am I just sharing about it now, you ask?

Because, just as with getting the project going in the first place, it's taken me that long to FINISH the job. All the major work happened last year, but I just had one last thing to do--just one tiny little bit--get around to re-finishing the dresser. And it took me a year to get it done, but I finally did, and so now I can reveal my bedroom in all its new prettiness.

Sadly, I have virtually no "before" pictures. I think this is because the bedroom looked so bad that I didn't even want to take pictures in there at all, ever. The closest thing I can find is this:

Yes, this photo of the evil unicorn. This shows you a bit of how the dresser looked before: white, chipped, and faded. You can also see a bit of our old bedspread in the reflection, and the color of the walls.

And then there's this--taken just as we were starting to get to work. See those holes in the floor? They weren't because we'd starting ripping up the tiles. They were just there, because the tiles were crappy and started peeling up almost as soon as we moved in. The closet had been built, at this point--you can see the closet wall in the left-hand side. Before that we kept all of our hanging clothes in the closet in the office and had to walk across the house to get them.

Now work is really getting going--here's Beth helping pick up the old tiles.

And Eric spreading leveling compound on the floor so that our new flooring would actually lay flat.

Here's the lovely new color we picked. I don't remember the name of it, but it's such a pretty blue. There's nothing really wrong with gray--I think it can look kind of sophisticated. But the gray walls and gray floor and everything just made it all look so blah. I like color!

Here's Eric laying the first row of flooring! So exciting. We choose bamboo flooring. Partly because it is beautiful, and less expensive and easier to install compared to hardwood. And partly because we had two different friends who both had done bamboo in their homes, and both had remnants left over they were willing to let us have. We bought the remainder of what we needed.

Look! Here's the floor, all done. Isn't it pretty? Amazingly, Eric was able to mix and match the bamboo from the three different sources and make it look like one complete floor--not a mishmash at all, but just with natural-looking variations in the tone of the wood. I love it. A year later, I still love it.

I had intended to have this pictures posted in order, as though you were coming in the door and slowly turning in a circle. But Blogger didn't upload them that way, and I certainly don't want to go back and re-do it. So here's our bed, and the east wall. The bed is from craigslist, bedspread for Kohl's, nightstand from Ikea, lamp from a garage sale. Curtain fabric from Ikea. Blue wool throw on the end of my bed was a Christmas gift to me from my parents the year before I left for college. I took it to Linfield with me and slept under it every night. The picture above the bed you can't really see, but there's a quote superimposed on the picture by photographer Shaun Sundholm. It says "Let's find some beautiful place to get lost. You can see a bigger picture of it here.

Little overflow bookshelf from Target. It holds some of the books that won't fit on the big bookshelves in the living room; mainly old college textbooks we couldn't part with. The picture of the loon we bought at a gallery in Missoula when we visited Meg in Montana last year; the jar with corks from wine bottles we've been working on filling up for several years now :)

I know this one is blurry, but I didn't want to go back and re-take it. This is the corner closet Eric built. I think I'd like a door to go in front of it or a curtain or something though. Alas, is any project ever really finished?

This is the east-facing wall again, with a door to the outside. And, you get your first glimpse of the thing that took me so long to complete--the dresser!

And here it finally is. The dresser was originally from my mother-in-law, and it bore the marks having been used by a busy family for many years. But I loved the curvy lines and funky look it had, and I knew I wanted to fix it up. When I told Eric I wanted it to be yellow he said, "Yellow?" But I knew I wanted yellow. I like bright colors. I had to strip all the old white paint/shellac off, and sand it, and re-paint it twice, and take all the handles off, and strip them, and replace the round ones in the middle because some of them were missing. I told Eric originally that I thought it would take me a day or two. It took me a year. But I stick to my statement--if I ever had taken a day or two and done *nothing* but work on the dresser all day, I could have gotten it done. I'm sure I'm right.

And here's the west-facing wall. Mirror from Ikea. Doorway to the rest of the house just visible on the right-hand side.

And there you have it. Maybe if you stick around and wait another year...I'll have another home improvement project done.

Reach out and touch someone

2011-08-26T16:58:00.000-07:00

Although I didn't mention it at the time, my husband was actually out of town last week, when I was writing my sappy anniversary post. He had a business trip to Tel Aviv (poor him, right?).

He's been away on business trips before, and we've gotten quite good at staying in touch while he's away. We both have cell phones, and we'll text each other when something comes to mind that we want to share. I'll take a photo of the kids doing something cute and send it to him with my phone. I know he has his phone with him during the work day, and that if something pressing comes up that I really need to talk to him about, I can call him and he'll answer if he's able and call me back soon if he's not. At night, when he's back in his hotel room, we would each use our web-cam equipped computers to video chat with each other. It certainly wasn't ideal, but it worked.

And then he went to Israel, and suddenly none of that worked.

We don't have international plans on our cell phones, seeing that we don't often travel internationally. So I couldn't call Israel from my cell phone, and he couldn't even use his over there.

We thought we might be able to use mobile-video apps to stay in touch via my cell phone and his Samsung Galaxy Tab (it's like an iPad). But oops! My phone doesn't have the right kind of camera.

We thought we could Skype, but turns out Skype isn't supported on the Galaxy Tab yet; and when he tried his computer, it wouldn't let him register an American number while he was in Israel.

Video chatting from computer to computer didn't work because the laptop he had with him for work didn't have a webcam.

I spent quite a bit of time researching video-chat apps that would work for him on his Galaxy Tab and me on my iMac (and it's surprisingly hard to find one that will work on a desktop computer and also on a mobile device). Something called "Movicha" sounded like it might work in theory, but online reviews of how effective it actually was were mixed.

Years ago, we used to have a calling card, so he emailed, asking me for the calling card number so he could call me from his hotel room. Miraculously, I found it in a desk drawer, and it did still have minutes on it, but it was very old, and had gone through the washing machine while in someone's wallet, apparently, and the instructions for international calling printed on the back had been worn off. The website connected with the card wasn't very helpful in explaining the international calling process either.

It looked as though we would be down to just plain old e-mailing back and forth for the duration of the trip (which was scheduled to be two weeks long). And I was sad.

And then, it occurred to us, that I could just use my *land line* (yes, we still have one) to call his hotel's *land line.*

Good old regular non-mobile telephones. Sometimes the old stuff is the best stuff.

He e-mailed me the hotel phone number, and after looking up international calling instructions on the internet (I'd forgotten you have to dial 0-1-1 before calling an international number) I was able to punch in the long string of numbers. Within moments, an accented but very understandable English-speaking woman answered the phone at the front desk of his hotel and transferred me to his room.

And there he was--his own familiar voice on the other end of the line, just like he was next to me. We were able to talk to each other, oceans and continents apart, plain as day. We talked for an hour, just like we did back when we were in college and I used to stretch the phone cord of my dorm room phone out into the hall and lay in the hallway to talk to him every night.

And it honestly took us a day and a half to figure out that we could just fall back on this decades-old technology.

Sometimes, I think we're just too smart for our own good.

**A note: While I do still have a land line, we've switched our phone service to Vonage, a company that routes phone calls through Internet lines rather than standard telephone lines. It's a cheaper monthly price for us, and the service has been better. When I called Israel, however, I had no idea what the overseas rate would be and I was afraid we'd pay dearly for that little bit of connection. Turns out, Vonage's overseas rate is .01 cents. For real. We owe them less than a dollar for the all the international calling we did while he was over there. This post was in no way sponsored by Vonage. I'm just a really satisfied customer.

No regrets

2011-08-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

I regret buying a house *riiiight* at the peak of housing bubble.

I regret not going to Europe the summer before we started having kids.

I regret not discovering that I liked long-distance running until my late 20s. Maybe I could have been a cross-country runner in high school if I'd given it a chance.

I regret being 31 and not having finished a novel (yet).

I regret the too-many pieces of hot, buttery French bread I had at dinner last night.

You know what I don't regret?

Him.

There are many, many decisions in my life--major ones, some of them--when I look back and think, "Yeah, I really wish I would have done that differently, come to think about it."

But not marrying him.

We were young when we got married, for sure, but that doesn't bother me at all.

Yes, we still had a lot of growing up to do at age 21, but we did it together, figuring out life and love and each other side by side, as partners.

I've been furious with him, plenty of times. I've wished he weren't so ____ (fill in blank with whatever personality trait happens to be annoying me at the moment). But I've never, not once, looked at him and regretted this moment.

It was 10 years ago. I wish I could say that I remember that moment, the putting on of rings, the saying of the vows, but so much of that day is all a blur now.

What's not a blur?

Walking through a driving downpour together in the streets of Liverpool, England, on our honeymoon; completely drenched, completely happy.

Standing on top of a mountain in Montana and looking out toward the Rockies and feeling like we'd conquered the world.

The exhaustion on his face as he held my hand through the entire 18 hours of labor with our first baby.

Clinging to him as tight as I could, zipping around a windy road on the back of his motorcycle.

Sitting in a roadside Denny's at 2 a.m. to talk for hours about how we really, honestly thought our marriage was going.

It's the accumulation of all those little memories and more--the hard things, the sad things, the boring things, and going through them side by side--that's made us who we are now. On the one hand, I can't believe it's been 10 years. I don't feel 10 years older. On the other hand, when I think back to that summer of wedding planning, that seems like a different life ago. A different person ago.

I don't believe in fate, or destiny, or soulmates. But I'm thankful that it was him. Thankful to still have this guy next to me.

Not a great picture--but it's the most recent picture of the two of us together that I have, so it'll have to do. Clearly we need to start having the kids take pictures of us, and not just us take pictures of the kids.

Ten years. And the only thing I can think of to sum it up is this:

No regrets.

Sometimes, I don't want to talk to my kids

2011-08-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Let's have a little confession time here: you know how family dinners are supposed to be the holy grail of parenting? How you all sit around and share about your day and laugh together around the dinner table, and doing so is supposed to raise your kids' IQ and make them less likely to do drugs and just make them into all-around good people?

Well, here comes the brutal honesty: sometimes talking to my kids while we eat is boring, and I don't want to do it.

Sometimes I ask them something about their day, and they say, "I don't know." or "I can't remember." and then we all just sit there silently until I find some other topic to try to force conversation.

Sometimes they chatter incessantly at me and repeat song lyrics over and over and make weird faces that I am supposed to find funny and sometimes they complain about the food and I get mad.

Sometimes--like tonight--I am tired, and conversation with anyone sounds like work. Tonight Eric wasn't home, and though I made a real dinner and the kids set the table, I was on the brink of telling them that maybe tonight would be a good night to turn on a movie and watch it while we ate. And maybe I would pull out my book, or the newspaper that I didn't even get a chance to look at this morning, or maybe I'd wander off to the computer and sit and stare at Facebook and other people's blogs for awhile. Because to be honest, holing up inside my own head sounded way nicer trying to get inside the heads of a a 7-year-old, 5-year-old, and 3-year-old.

But I didn't. I made myself sit down and talk to my kids. And here's the main reason why:

Respect.

When you sit down around table with someone and then turn your attention to something else--the TV, a book, your e-mail, whatever--even if it's by mutual consent, you are telling your dinner companions that they are not important. That they are not interesting enough to talk to. That this inanimate object is more interesting than they are.

And even when that's true--which, when you're talking about conversation with a 3-year-old, is most likely the case--it's still just plain rude. I constantly insist that my kids respect me. I can respect them, too. And so I try, at least once a day, to stop whatever other thing I'd rather be doing, and converse with them while we eat.

There are other reasons, too. Such as: if you never engage your kids in conversation, they'll never learn to be more interesting companions. Manners and politeness and friendliness are learned skills, and in this world where we all interact virtually all the time, the opportunity to learn them is more critical than ever. If you get a degree from Harvard but you can't sit down and engage with someone over a meal for half an hour, you're not going to go very far in the world.

And also: making mealtime about more than just shoveling calories into the body while your mind does something else...lingering around the table until your dining companions are done...giving thanks for the food before you eat it...these little rituals remind us that food is something to be savored, shared, and enjoyed. Not just mindlessly consumed.

Spaghetti. The meal that I make when I don't really know what else to make, because I know that if nothing else, the kids will eat it without complaint. Photo from Wikimedia commons.

And so, because of all these high and lofty reasons, I sat around and ate spaghetti and green beans with my daughters and talked to them, even though I didn't really feel like it.

Evie told jokes that didn't make any sense, and the punch line of every one of them was "Poop." Except for one time, when it was "Mr. Poop." And the girls played with their broccoli, and they spilled their milk, and when I asked Lucy what her swimming teacher's name was she said "I don't know," and when I asked her what she learned in swimming she said "I don't know" and when I asked her what she did this afternoon while I was working she said "Fun stuff" but then none of them could remember, apparently, what "fun stuff" entailed.

But there was also a discussion about gravity, and how it's different on different planets (and I sucked at explaining it, because I really don't understand that much about it myself), and we talked about the audio-book we'd been listening to in the car, and we talked about future career plans, and (because we are girls) we talked a lot about a dress that Beth wants to buy.

It was a slow, unremarkable, normal, messy, Tuesday night dinner with my kids. And I'm glad I made myself do it instead of watching TV.

the good, the bad, and the laundry.

2011-08-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a wonderful family camping trip, full of sunshine and water and long nights around the campfire. Camping with your kids along is like wine, I think. It only gets better with age.

The trip was so much fun, it made me feel like doing this, too.

How come grown-ups don't throw their arms up and leap out of the water in sheer joy anymore? I think I'd like to go back and 5 over again, because I'm not sure I properly appreciated it the first time around.

It was so much fun, it makes me want to go camping every weekend.

If only I didn't have to come home to this.

Laundry, my old nemesis, we meet again. You know your laundry/unpacking situation is bad when you can't even fit it all in one room.

Why can't there be a service that completely packs and unpacks your camping gear for you, does all your laundry, and also cleans so that you come back to a tidy, welcoming home?

I'd like to have just the camping fun, please, and not all the work that goes with it.

the road

2011-08-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

2,134 miles.

That's how far my summer has taken me.

When people asked me, at the beginning of June, "So what do you have planned for the summer?"

I answered, "Oh, nothing big. Just some weekend trips here and there."

Which was pretty much true. There were no giant cross-country excursions, no get-on-an-airplane kind of mega vacations. But it actually would have been more accurate if I had said, "I have a trip or an outing of some kind planned every single weekend from now through August. Plus a few mid-week ones too."

What looked like a several small-scale trips, when lumped all together into the space of six weeks, has led to what feels like the busiest summer I've ever had. We've criss-crossed the state, and made some wonderful memories, and had a lot of fun, and in between we've spent a lot of time in the car, and a lot of time at home doing the unpack/do crazy amounts of laundry/repack routine.

And when I reflect on what the summer has been about so far, strangely enough I don't come back with "fun!" or "adventures!" or "road trips!" My mind tells me: Gratefulness. Thanksgiving.

After spending hours and hours in the car with my family, I have come to a wonderful realization: I really like these people.

My husband and I will hit the 10-year mark in our marriage later this summer, and if I had to go back and do it over again, I'd still pick him. He loves me, challenges me, entertains me, and makes my life all-round richer. I would be so boring without him.

My kids are healthy, bright, creative, funny, and should all get Olympic gold medals for being good on car trips (knock on wood! knock on wood! We've got a couple more trips planned in August, and it would serve me right if they all turned into little demon-children after bragging like this). I really like them too. All four of these folks are fantastic people to go on vacation with. I should know. According to the Google Maps calculations, I've spent 1 day, 20 hours in the car with them this summer. And amazingly, I'm not sick of them yet.

This little fact--that we're a happy family who enjoys one another's company--I hold out, not to congratulate myself, because there's nothing I have done to make it so. But rather, I clutch this fortunate fact with trembling, wondering fingers. Because I know it isn't always like this. Some people's husbands leave them. Some people's kids have cancer. Someday I might look back on this sunny summer on the other side of a sadness that I can't see today.

I bask in the sun that my family shines into my life, even while I try not to worry about the shadows that may someday come. What did I ever do to deserve these little lights of mine?

Nothing. That's the answer. A gift is a gift because it's not earned or required or deserved. Just freely given. And so I enjoy my gifts today, and leave the future to itself. And thank the Giver for this summer, for long roads together, for making our way safely home.

peeing in the woods

2011-07-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

I have always been quite happy to be a woman. Never in my life have I thought that my life would be better in any way if I had only been born a man.

But suddenly, for the first time in my life, I am finding myself a little bit jealous of the male anatomy.

Why? Well, our family has spent the last several weekends in the woods, camping and hiking and having a blast. It's been great, up until the moment when one of the girls looks at me and announces, "I have to go potty." When you're 50 miles from nearest toilet, this simple statement suddenly takes on a whole new level of complication.

One of our recent hiking destinations: Gordon Lakes in the Willamette National Forest. Yes, it's gorgeous, but do you see any bathrooms nearby? (Photo taken by Lucy)

Let me walk you through the steps of outdoor peeing for the two genders, just in case you haven't had the pleasure yourself.

Men:
Step One: Find a tree, any tree.
Step Two: Unzip.
Step Three: Pee.
Step Four: Re-zip (step four optional).

Women:
Step One: Walk through the forest until you find an extremely large bush, fallen log, or tree.
Step Two: Ponder whether or not said bush or tree is really large/leafy/secluded enough to ensure complete privacy from other hikers who may happen to pass by.
Step Three: Conclude that it is not, and wander farther away from the trail. Repeat Steps 1-3 as needed.
Step Four: Unzip and push your pants and undies way down around your ankles, completely exposing your naked bottom.
Step Five: Maneuver yourself into an awkward squatting/crouching/reclining position, making sure that you are leaned waaaay back so that in no case are your feet ever actually positioned directly below yourself. (Failure to comply with the completely awkward and uncomfortable position described in Step Five means that pee will simply flow straight down and soak the pants and undies around your ankles.)
Step Six: Pee as fast as you can, hoping all the while that no one will come along and get an eyeful of your naked rear, and that you have positioned yourself appropriately and you're not going to pee on your pants, and that no pee splashes up onto you as you're going.
Step Seven: Pull your clothes up, try not to step in the puddle you've made, and wonder whether you can find your way back to the trail.

Peeing in the woods is an awkward manuever for any woman, one that I don't really love doing myself. Taking my daughters to pee in the woods is even worse. You have to do all the above steps, except that you have to coax an reluctant apprentice through all of them and literally hold her hand as she does it. After years of training on *only peeing in the toilet* we're suddenly reversing courses. It weirds them out. As one daughter said to me as I helped her go behind a bush, "I just don't feel very comfortable with this. "

In the past three weeks, while attempting to help my daughters pee in the woods, I have been peed upon, I've had girls say they need to go and then get stage fright and refuse when faced with the prospect of actually peeing behind a tree, and I've had the whole process simply take too long for a small bladder to handle and had to carry backpack full of stinky, wet clothes around with me the rest of the day.

This doesn't mean that I don't love getting outdoors with my children. Or that I wish I had boys. But I am wishing that there were an easier way. Women of the world, help me out here. How do you handle taking your daughters potty in the woods?

photo obsession

2011-07-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

I have a love/hate relationship with my digital camera. With digital photography in general, actually. So let's be positive and start with the love, shall we?

I love the fact that the cameras we have nowadays are so gosh-darn GOOD. With the zooming ability and different flash/lighting settings, not to mention computer photo-editing software, it is so easy for even the most untrained of amateurs to get really good pictures. You can see the photos you took instantly, and then take another if you don't like the way it looks. And then another, and another, and another, because you have a memory card that lets you store hundreds of shots with no problem. As a mom, it is now easier than ever to have stunning pictures of even the most mundane moments of your kids' childhoods.

Which brings us to the reason I hate digital cameras. Now that digital photography has come along, I feel like I *should* have stunning pictures of even the most mundane moments of my kids' childhoods. I feel the urge to bring the camera along whenever we're going to the park. Who knows when I might have the chance to get a great candid shot of my kids' little toes in the green grass, or their smile of pride as they swing across the monkey bars? And let's not even get started on the "special" moments. At Christmastime or at a school play I can't stop--I find myself snapping shot after shot after shot.

I took fourteen pictures during the approximately one minute my kid was on stage pretending to be a fish. And that's not even counting the dozens of other pictures I took when she was just standing in the background singing as a part of the chorus. I think there's something wrong with that picture. And it's not the kid in the fish mask.

It came to me, at a recent school production, as I crouched in the aisle next to my seat, madly fiddling with the settings on my camera so I could get a good shot in low-light without the flash, then zoomed in and zoomed out, trying to find the best way to frame my daughter's face, then I had gone too far.

I wasn't actually watching her performance. I was there at her performance. My eyes were taking it in. But I wasn't paying any attention to it. All I was focusing on was whether I was getting a good picture of her performance. And for what? So I could later on, one day, look back on a picture of said performance, which I wouldn't even recall because my brain never focused in on the details of it long enough to form a memory?

Back in the day, my parents attended all my school performances. They raised their regular old film camera when I came on stage, snapped a couple of shots, and then put it away. They didn't get picture after picture after picture, because who would want to waste a whole roll of film on the school play? And then one day, months later, when we did finish a roll of film, maybe we'd remember to take it to the drugstore to get it developed, and then maybe another month after that we'd remember to stop by and pick it up. The shots would be kind of far away, but that was okay. You could still see us kids up on the stage, and it was enough. No one expected the parents to be taking professional-quality pictures, because the parents were not professionals. Just folks watching their kids put on a mask and dance around pretending to be a fish.

And you know what? That's okay. It's okay to not document every moment of your child's life. It's okay to fully experience the present, rather than sacrificing the moment so that you can have a perfectly preserved memento. One that will sit on your computer forever, clogging up the hard drive without ever being looked at again.

I need to remind myself that I'm there so I can be enjoying life with my kids, not making a documentary about them. That sometimes it's okay for me to put the camera down, sit back in my uncomfortable metal folding chair, and just enjoy the show.

A near miss

2011-07-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

Rainy summer morning. Three antsy children. Brilliant idea: get them involved in a fun project.

Twenty minutes later, all three girls are sitting on an old plastic tablecloth stretched out across the kitchen floor, happily painting with home-made finger paint. I am in the adjacent bathroom, scrubbing the shower, mentally congratulating myself on what a fun mother/domestic goddess I am being on this rainy morning.

Suddenly, I hear peals of laughter. The devilishly delighted kind of laughter that can mean nothing good. "Look! Look! Charlie made a paw print on my page!' Beth squeals, and my heart just about stops.

I rush in to see the cat walking away from the loud, giggling girls...and that there are, indeed, little green kitty footprints on Beth's painting.

I think I yelled, despite my pact. "No! You can't let the kitty walk in the paint!"

Then I realized that getting loud might actually scare the kitty. Visions of a startled kitty, dashing through the house, leaping from couch to chair to bookshelf, covering it all in green paint, rushed to my mind. And I changed my tactic.

"Goooood kitty. Come here, Charlie. C'mere, boy."

He glared at me, turned his tail and trotted out of the kitchen, heading for the living room (the location of couches and chairs and bookshelves!), and I followed, tiptoeing my way gently around the giggling girls and wet paint.

Charlie hopped up onto a mercifully non-upholstered dining room chair and begin to lick himself. I swooped in, picked him up, dashed to the door and tossed him outside, where I figured he could dance around and make footprints in the grass all day long without hurting anything.

I warned the girls sternly about not letting him back in until their paintings were dry, and explained to them in full detail about what would happen were they ever to attempt mixing cats and paint again. I wiped up the short trail of still-wet green kitty footprints he had left on the floor and the dining room chair.

And then I thanked my lucky stars, one more time, that I live in a house will nearly all hard-surface floors. Non-staining, easily wipable, easy to clean.

I swear I will never live in a carpeted house again. They're just too risky.

the year of enough jam

2011-06-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

Well, folks, I finally did it.

In 2010-11 I made the perfect amount of jam. Forty-four jars. Those forty-four jars lasted us all the way through until last week, when I scraped the last few spoonfuls out of the last jar.

They lasted us all the way through until the new strawberry season, when on the very day I used up the last of the '10-11 batch, the girls and I picked 24 pounds of berries and made 35 NEW jars of jam. (Don't worry: I plan to add to my stash with raspberry jam next month when raspberries are ready). The timing could not have been better.

My new jam.

So, just in case you were wondering (as I've been wondering, oh, these many years) how many jars of home-made jam can one single family eat in a year? Now you know.

Forty-four: my perfect jam number.

No-yelling pact

2011-06-24T07:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon my girls were being awful to each other. Really mean. I think they are just not used to being *around* each other all day, every day. And afternoon quiet time is much harder to do with all three girls around too. So I was attempting to let them all stay up and play, but playtime soon disintegrated into angry shouting time.

After a longish time out for everyone, I sat them all down and had a serious talk, during which I talked about how it is hurtful and mean to scream at people, and we don't treat people that way, and in which I pledged that I, too, needed to watch my words and my tone of voice. Because I do often fall into the trap of yelling at my kids to get their attention or force their obedience. So we all had this big discussion about NO YELLING AT EACH OTHER, about how we will treat each other with kindness and respect in our family.

Two hours later, I looked out the window and saw the girls in the sandbox, scooping up sand with shovels and flinging it everywhere--at each other, at the house, all over the yard (and this was right after we had a talk about what was and was not appropriate sandbox behavior)--and I was so mad to see them misbehaving *again* that I began screaming "No! No! NO!" before I even got out the door, rushed out, chewed them out thoroughly in a loud and angry tone, and sent them inside.

Yelling fail.

Ideally, I'd like it if they followed my instructions the first time I say them, in a pleasant and moderate voice. But they don't. And so I raise my voice. A bunch of times. And then they get around to it. And now we're in a cycle, I think, where they recognize that they don't need to really worry about obedience until mom starts using her mean voice. Which means that I find myself raising my voice a lot, throughout the day, about everything. Brushing teeth, picking up toys, turning off the TV. I feel like a drill sergeant. And that's really not the mom I want to be. When my kids think back on their childhood, I seriously do not want them to remember me yelling at them constantly.

So today, it starts again. No yelling pact. This means, of course, that I'm probably going to have to employ other forms of discipline when they don't obey me the first time around. Which may actually be harder for all of us for awhile. But I'm hoping, that in the end, it will produce good fruit: a calmer, more pleasant, more respectful household.

Does anyone else have this problem? Have any of you succeeded in a yelling ban in your home? And if you did, how did you make it work? I really want to make it work, because I'm tired of it. Also, I really don't want my neighbor to call child services because she's tired of living next door to a crazy lady screaming at her kids all day long.

June, how I love thee

2011-06-23T16:15:00.000-07:00

Let me count the ways:

(with sincerest apologies to Elizabeth Barret Browning)

I love you for the swish of the ceiling fan, that spins away the heat of the day.

I love you in the sip of sweet iced tea.

I love you in the squeak of the swingset.

I love you for the scent of sunscreen and the splash of the sprinkler.

I love you for sweet strawberries and sticky fingers.

I love you in the pop of canning lids.

I love you for dirty feet and sleepy eyes at the end of the day.

I love you on a summer solstice night, sipping wine in dusty lawn chairs while the sun sets behind the trees.

I love you to the very depth and breadth and height my enjoyment can reach...and I shall love you even more after you've passed us by.

Secret Garden? Sable? Dark Night? Snowdrop? Chamomile?

2011-06-20T14:41:00.000-07:00

Eric and I are looking at doing a few renovations to the house this summer. Namely: new gutters. Oh, so exciting. It's one of the things that no one tells you when you become a homeowner. Home improvement magazines tend to devote their pages to glorious bathrooms and spacious kitchens. And while I would love to have a glorious bathroom or a spacious kitchen...instead we kind of need to make sure the gutters don't fall off the house. We live in Oregon. It rains a lot. Working gutters are a necessity.

But, as we have begun looking into what will go into tearing off old gutters and putting on new gutters, and selecting new gutters, we started thinking that this might also be a good reason to re-paint the outside of the house, which is badly chipping and peeling in some places. And THAT, I am excited about. New paint! New color! Woo-hoo!

I uploaded a picture of our house into the nifty Color Visualizer tool at Sherwin Williams, and then spent way, way too much time pondering the infinite color variations that are possible. (This tool is seriously addicting).

The girls want purple. Eric and I do not.

We all like green. But the lady next door is planning to paint her house green this summer too, and the house two houses down from us on the other side is green as well. Maybe we don't want to have a whole street of matching houses?

Most of the other houses on the street are either blue, grey, or beige. So maybe we want something different.

I like brown. Is brown too boring?

Do we want to paint the front door some different color for an accent, or is that too much?

Oh, and my house is currently yellow. Which I like fine. But if we're painting, why not change it up instead of keeping it the same?

I will not make you look at all the different color combinations I currently have saved on my desktop, because there is a multitude of them (although if you're local and you want to come look at them and give me input, I'd love it). But I will post a few favorites and ask for your feedback:

Here we have: Secret Garden (wall); Rookwood Dark Red (door); and Chamomile (trim).

Here we have Sable (wall); Terra Brun (door); and Chamomile (trim).

And here, we have Rookwood Dark Red (wall); Indigo Batik (door) and Chamomile (trim). (Chamomile seems to be my favorite trim choice). I wouldn't have thought I'd like red, what with there already being red brick on the front, but I actually kind of do. And it would be different from anything else on our street.

Thoughts? What colors do you like, dear readers? Bear in mind that any of these are interchangeable--you can have brown with a blue door, or green with a browny-orange door, or a color scheme that's completely different from any of the above options, or pretty much anything else you can imagine! The possibilities are endless. Which is kind of my problem. How in the world do I narrow it down?

Whew!

2011-06-16T14:36:00.000-07:00

It's the last day of school--finally!--for my oldest. Lucy has been done for a week, and now Beth is done too.

Just for fun, here's a before and after shot of Beth this school year.

I don't really know why I've been awaiting this day so eagerly. It's not as though *I* am the one out of school for the summer. And summertime means I'm going to have all three of my children home, underfoot, in each other's hair all day every day. But that's okay. In some ways, summer has a busier pace than the rest of the year. When I look at our calender, we've got camping trips, hikes, and little mini-vacations going on almost non-stop. But while the "special" things might be more frequent, the day-to-day slows down.

I think she's the one who has changed the most this year. Doesn't she look so much more grown up in the right-hand picture??

During the school year, we've got two separate school schedules (and next year it will be three!). We've got soccer and ballet and MOPS. We've got places to be, at certain times, all the time.

And Evie wasn't in school this year, but she wanted her picture taken too :)

During the summer, things are different. I don't care if my kids sit around in their pajamas all morning. I don't care if they spend all afternoon in the backyard in their swimsuits. We can decide to go to the park, or berry-picking, or to visit a friend, without having to figure out whether it will work into schedule and worry about if I'll be back in time to pick up someone from school. There's more room for both laziness and spontaneity.

And I'll get to see Beth a lot more. I really like that kid, doggone it, and I only get a few short hours with her each day during the school year.

I asked the girls to make a list of things they want to do this summer. Here is what they came up with:

1. camping
2. watching TV
3. Zoo
4. Wildlife Safari
5. eating brownies
6. go camping with just our family in the wilderness
7. catching fish
8. picking berries
9. making jam
10. picking blueberries
11. making pies
12. camping in the back yard

(I like the fact that camping comprises three separate line items...and that about 50 percent of the other items involve either picking, eating, or making food)

I think we better get started.

Blog Year Seven: privacy

2011-06-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Blogiversary to me! Today is exactly seven years since my first post!

If my blog were a kid, it would be a first-grader. My blog, in fact, is almost the same age as my oldest daughter. I was very large with child when I started this thing. And as she has grown and the blog has grown, so I have grown too. I don't know if I would have gotten so into blogging if I hadn't had all these *kids* to write about.

But having the blog at the same time that I've had kids has been a fabulous outlet for me: a way to vent when I was going crazy with frustration. A way to connect with other moms, from far and wide, on days when the only other people I saw were age 3 and under. A psuedo-baby-book filled with stories about my kids' childhoods, to make up for the lack of time I have invested in their actual baby books. And, of course, an at-home writing tutorial for me. Go back and read those old posts (or better yet, don't). I truly think having a blog has improved both my writing skills, as well as my confidence about sharing what I write with the world.

So thanks, blog, for being there.

This is Blog Year Seven: 2010. There were a lot of big things this year. My first marathon. A trip to Montana. A camping trip that I will never, ever forget. My 30th birthday. My first kid starting first grade. But the post I want to share with you is just a little mundane one about one little facet of my life as a mother. One little way that shows how things are changing; how I am moving *out* of babyhood and *on* with the rest of my kids' lives.

I'm reclaiming my privacy.

Originally posted July 8, 2010

Closing the Door

Locked Door Knob by Prefundis on Flickr

"Where is she?"

"I don't know, is she in the office?"

They're coming for me. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter. Closer and closer they come.

"I don't see her."

"Let's check in here."

Thump thump. Bump. They're almost here. They're right outside the door. There's a hand on the doorknob.

And this is when I start shrieking out sentences that once upon a time I never would have imagined I'd find myself saying.

Things like: "No, I can't give you a hug while I'm peeing."

Or: "No, you can't come in just to watch."

And, most frequently. "You leave Mama alone while she's going potty!"

I blame myself. Pre-kids, I never thought that my bathroom time would become a public event, and yet somehow it just happened once I became a mom. You know, when you're a new mother and you have this beautiful newborn that you're both attached to and a little bit intimidated by, you feel wrong about leaving her alone at any time. And do you really need to shut and lock the door for privacy from a 1-month-old?

And then they grow, and suddenly they're regarding what you do in there with interest, and you're thinking this is actually a good thing, because you want them to start to utilizing the glory that is indoor plumbing themselves. So you continue to leave the door open while you do your business. For the educational value.

Once you have a second child, you continue with your policy of bringing the baby with you to the bathroom, only this time it's because you're nervous about leaving the infant alone with the 2-year-old--even in such seemingly safe locations as the crib or the baby seat--because you're afraid of what your inventive toddler could do to the baby even in the mere 30 seconds that is your daily allocation of time for peeing.

And before you know, mommy's bathroom time is a family affair.

But I'm fighting back. Lately, I've been starting to (you won't believe this) shut the door while I pee. It's an amazing concept, isn't it? Bathroom privacy?

But my girls are mortally offended by this new leave-mama-alone-in-the-bathroom policy. It's just unbelievable to them that there could be a time and place, a time and place within their own house, where they can't have access to me 24/7. They stand outside the door, asking WHEN I'm going to be done, when, when, when?

But I ignore their angst and continue to potty alone. Now I'm even starting to go in there on purpose sometimes. With the door shut, the fan on, a candle burning, I can hardly see or hear them at all. I've got a stack of magazines, scented lotions for my skin, pretty colors with which to paint my nails if I so desire. I can enjoy the stillness and pretend it's going to last.

I can hear them faintly from outside the door, but they're not right there in my face. For the moment, I'm all alone. And I turn the pages of my magazine ever more slowly and promise them that mama will be out in a minute, just a minute.

Bathrooms doors. Ones that lock. Sometimes it's the little things that keep you sane.

Blog Year Six: amazement

2011-06-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

Are you tired of these old posts yet? Well, too bad if you are, because we have two more days of them. Today is Blog Year Six: 2009.

That year was a great year. For one thing, I trained for and completed my first half marathon. Along the way, I discovered that what do you know? Contrary to what I had always believed about myself, I actually can run long distances. And I enjoy it!

Eric and I hopped on a plane and traveled halfway around the world to visit my dear friend Meg on the sunny beaches of Grenada.

Evie became mobile and began showing her true self more clearly.

I wrote some funny posts, about books and gender and hair. And some sappy posts about love.

And my children, as always, continued to amaze me.

Originally published Sept. 12, 2009.

The Mighty Unicorns

Dear Beth,

You amazed me today.

First day of soccer for you--ever--and of course we were running late. And we didn't know which field your team was playing on, and most of the other Unicorns had already shown up by the time we found it. We hadn't gotten your uniform in advance so you had to change your shirt right there on the sidelines. I had your little sisters in tow and it was a million degrees on that shade-less soccer field. I was a flustered, sweaty mess.

But not you. I pulled the way-too-big purple jersey over your head, made you stop for a moment to pose for the obligatory first-day-of-soccer photo, then gave you a nod. "Go on out there," I said. "Listen to your coach and do what he says."

And you were off. Dashing to the field, shouting your name, giving a high five. No hesitating on the sidelines for you, no sir. You exuded enthusiasm and confidence from the get-go. And that's how you were the whole time. You sprinted after the ball. You kicked at it whenever it was within three feet of you. You sat on the sidelines only when forced to, and even then your mind was on the game.

You threw yourself down on the grass beside me. Grabbed your water bottle, wiped your flushed face, kept your eyes on the field the whole time. "Go! Go! Do it! Do it! Score a goal!" you screamed to your fellow Unicorns. You were so intense, so happy, so clearly in love with the game. And I realized that you reminded of those girls.

The sporty girls. The ones from high school. The fit, athletic, assertive, confident ones that I so wished I could be.

Oh, I tried sports. I liked the idea of being an athlete. But when it was time for a real game, I much preferred daydreaming in the outfield or on the bench to actually participating in the event. And when I was forced do something that would contribute one way or another to the team's success...oh, how well I remember the panic that clawed its way up my stomach whenever I got anywhere near the ball. I'm a hesitating on the sidelines kind of girl.

Not you, my Beth. You're a play-your-heart-out kind of girl. Running so hard that the rubber bands slipped right out of your braids and your hair streamed loose behind you. Watching you play, I was proud but bewildered. Where had this mature little athlete come from?

I love your passion, your determination, your casual self-assurance. Maybe, if I watch you long enough, I'll learn them from you.

Love,

Your mom

Blog Year Five: Full.

2011-06-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

2008, Blog Year Five, was my most prolific blog year ever. Which I find astonishing, considering that when I look back on that year of my life now, it is mostly with the mixture of awe and head-shaking amusement that you feel for crazy experiences you can't believe you survived. Like college all-nighters or really horrible teenage jobs. You look back and say: Yep, I did that. Boy, was it wild. But when you try to really remember the details of it, like what it actually felt like to live it, it's kind of a blur. (Like childbirth!)

Not that 2008 was a bad year. But it was a year in which I had a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old, and newborn. I was nursing and potty-training at the same time, once again. My husband was working a lot. I was working a little bit. Evie screamed in the car every time we went anywhere. Now that my kids are older, I think back to that year a lot, and marvel out how much simpler things are now. The speed with which I can dash up the preschool steps, now that I'm not lugging one of those infant car seats! How fast I can type when I actually use both hands! How many more hours there are in the day when you're not spending half of them stuck in the rocking chair with an infant latched onto your chest! How much less cranky I am when I'm sleeping regularly!

Seriously, not that 2008 was a bad year. I loved my life and my babies. It was just a crazy year, a challenging year. A year I am glad I experienced but that I would not choose to live through again. It was real life. Messy, but so delicious.

Oh, and it was the year my blog got its name. So you can read this, if you've ever wondered why my years are short.

There's really only one post that can sum up this year: the one about having my hands full. Because I really, really did.

This picture shows me with only two out of my three kids, but it pretty much sums up how that year went for me: holding one or two children at any given time, trying to enjoy myself while also keeping an eye on the baby (and what the big kid is doing to the baby). And also there might be a nursing cover somewhere in the background.

Originally published Sept. 12, 2008

Full Hands

I imagine every mom hears it from time to time, but lately, with my trio of tiny blondes in tow everywhere I go, I've been hearing it more and more:

"Wow, you sure have your hands full!"

And they're right, of course. Literally. When we go out to run errands, I am often wearing my newborn in the Snugli front pack, holding the hands of my 2-year-old and my 4-year-old, and carrying the diaper bag and my purse slung over my shoulder. My sunglasses are on my head. My car keys are sometimes in my teeth. "Hands full" doesn't begin to describe it.

And yet, I sometimes feel irritated when the fourth or fifth person in a row comments on my plethora of small children. I know they're just making conversation. Still, I feel a bit condescended to when people shake their heads and chuckle at the sight of me juggling kids and car seats. Three isn't even that many kids. We're not a freak show, people. Just a family.

My friend Amy and Stephanie at 5 Minutes for Parenting both also wrote today about the attention families with a lot of young kids get. So I know I am not alone in attracting stares merely by taking my kids to Target.

I think sometimes when people see small children in a group, they seem less like individuals and more like a herd. One little baby is cute. Three kids ages 4 and under? Well, that's a handful.

I'm sure people are merely trying to be nice when they remark upon my family. Some of them have probably even been there, done that themselves and are perhaps remembering those good (or sometimes not-so-good) old days when they smile faintly at the sight of us. So I just smile back and say, "Yep, they sure are," when people tell me that my hands are full.

Privately, I think to myself all the things they are full of:

tiny hands that alternately cling to me desperately and try to tug free of me

golden hair that I brush and braid and pull into pigtails daily

a baby whose bright eyes follow my every movement

stacks of crayon artwork, created just for me

and at this very moment, a half-cranky, half-snuggly toddler who needed some post-tantrum loving. She crept up beside me, laid her head on my leg and said, "I want you." That's code for, "Hold me on your lap now, please."

Now, I'm having to stretch all the way around her to type, her hot, sticky face burrowed into my chest. So if you'll excuse me, I must finish this post.

My hands are full.

Blog Year Four: the real danger

2011-06-06T16:02:00.000-07:00

More of the past: this is Blog Year Four. This was 2007. The year we moved into our house (which we're still in--yay for no more constant moving!) The year I finally got one kid out of diapers. Which I promptly followed up by starting all over again for the third time. I began the great adventure known as "attempting to work from home." Eric finished school.

In a way, this year was kind of the beginning of the rest of our lives. Since then, not much has changed. No more pregnancies, no more moves, no big new ventures. And in other ways, so much has. It's a strange thing, looking back over these old posts. It's like sitting still and watching a video of yourself played in reverse at top speed.

Here's a post from that year that is still entirely true for me, even four years later with older kids. Children in the car are *still* way more dangerous than cell phones, in my opinion; just today I found myself reaching into the back and scrabbling around with one hand trying to find, of all things, a plastic parrot that Evie has named "Scratchy." In the end, I had to give up the hunt. Scratchy was not worth dying for. Let's all give our representatives a call today and encourage them to pass this important legislation immediately.

Originally published Feb. 27, 2007

image from Wikimedia Commons.

D U I C

Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, I would like to propose a bill.

I know Senator Burdick's recent attempt to ban cell phone use and other distracting activities while driving failed. But I have something else in mind. Burdick's bill listed several potential distractions to ban: "reading, writing, performing personal grooming, interacting with pets."

In my opinion, those aren't the real dangers. It's kids.

I mean, interacting with pets? Get real. I know some people take their animals with them in the car, and I know some people have conversations with their pets. But does a dog drop its pacifier and start screaming, causing the driver to reach as far backwards as her arms can go, fishing around blindly for said pacifier among the sippy cups and picture books and other debris that litter the back seat?

Does a cat suddenly yell, "The sun is in my eyes!" wailing as though the world is coming to an end, as though sun has never shone upon any human before, causing the driver to yell, "Then put your sunglasses on!" and mentally start trying to list just how many pairs of tiny pink plastic sunglasses this particular child has either broken, lost, or just refused to wear despite the whining caused by every appearance of the sun's rays?

Personal grooming is not nearly as distracting as keeping your eyes fixed on the grassy fields around the car, rather than the road, in hopes that the driver will be able to spot some sheep, or a school bus, or some other item that ties in with a hit song ike "Baa Baa Black Sheep" or "The Wheels on the Bus," which will allow driver to entertain children with her musical skills.

And speaking of kids' songs, punching numbers on a cell phone can't be as bad as doing the motions to "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" while driving.

And while the number of people who read or write in the car might be higher than it ought to be, I am certain that for every Toyota Camry with a bored commuter glancing at the paper, there are at least five minivans or SUVs stuffed full of noisy children and one frazzled mother.

Now, I realize that the state cannot ban driving with children. Instead, I propose that the state provide a personal chauffeur for each family. While mom chats and sings with the kids and fishes out dropped cups, pacifiers and toys as needed, the driver can be watching the road. Or, if mom prefers to drive, she can listen to the music she prefers and peacefully pilot the vehicle while the chauffeur sits in the back and tends to the children. Either way would be fine.

People who do not comply will be charged with DUIC--Driving Under the Influence of Children. We will pay for this program with all the money the state will save by not having to dispatch troopers to accident scenes caused by distracted parents. People who want to upgrade to the DriverPlus program--a chauffeur who also runs errands and fills the tank up with gas--can do so voluntarily for a small fee. This should fill the state's coffers immensely.

All in favor? Say, "Aye!"

P.S. All child-distraction scenarios in this proposal are purely fictitious and have never actually happened to the author. You believe me, right?

Blog Year Three: things get a little crazy

2011-06-05T21:56:00.000-07:00

More in my series of nostalgia posts, one from each year of my blog's existence so far.

We're up to Year Three: 2006. This is the year when things started to get good, blog-wise. I was starting to really get into the whole blogging thing. I was actually getting comments on a semi-regular basis. That's always fun. Also, I had a 2-year-old that year. If you look at the number of posts for each year, years in which I had a 2-year-old in the house provided me with much more blog material, apparently, than non-2-year-old years.

I started doing Poetry Thursday, that year. And for the first time ever, publicly posted a poem that I had written (although I kind of hid it in the comments). I also had my second daughter, moved twice in six months, tried out for Jeopardy, and survived the near-destruction (and miraculous resurrection!) of my apartment's carpet. Oh, and I had my gallbladder removed.

2006. It was quite a year.

And out of all 180 posts, I think the one I am re-posting here today is my favorite one. One of my all-time favorite blog posts, actually. It's a 24-hour chronicle of a single day just a few days after I brought Lucy home from the hospital: my introduction to life as the mother of more than one child. I swear everything in it really happened, even what Eric said to me in the middle of the night.

Here's a picture of us from back then too, just so you know how cute we all were five years ago.

Originally published June 7, 2006

24 Hours in the Life of a Mommy; Or, a Portrait in Sleep-Deprivation

Warning: the following post contains multiple references to breasts, breast milk and breast feeding. If this is too weird for you, don't read it.

12:30 a.m.: feed baby.

1 a.m.: put baby sleeping baby back to bed. Crawl into bed beside husband, who is snoring. Feel quite surprised when he rolls over, looks straight into your eyes and says: "Seriously, all secrets aside, I think we've got enough people--that is, the people in the pink trousers--to really kick some ass." (Mommy is not making this up). Ask husband what the heck he is talking about. Husband responds in a very huffy tone: "Nothing," and rolls over. Mommy realizes that husband has been completely asleep for this conversation.

1:30 a.m.: feed baby

2:15 a.m.: attempt to feed baby again. Realize that baby doesn't really want to eat; she's just wide awake and wants to be held. Consider asking husband to wake up and hold baby for awhile. Remember husband's utter lack of coherence earlier and ponder difficulty of waking him up, making him understand what is going on, and then getting any sleep. Decide it's not worth it.

2:30 to 4:30 a.m.: hold happy, wide-eyed baby and finish reading The Eyre Affair.

4:30 a.m.: nurse baby to sleep and crawl into bed again.

6:30 a.m.: feed baby.

8 a.m.: Feed baby, who immediately falls into a deep sleep. Lie in bed and listen to sounds of toddler and husband eating breakfast in the kitchen. Decide to get up, not because tiredness has abated, but because stomach is demanding food. Discover that breasts have swollen to gargantuan size. The milk is in.

9 a.m.: Pull out pre-pregnancy clothes. *Rejoice* to see that by some miracle, mommy can zip one pair of pre-pregnancy jeans. *Despair* to discover that shirts, which fit fine before pregnancy, have undergone a transformation to something resembling Britney Spears' wardrobe: too tight in the chest and two inches too short in the belly.

9:30 a.m.: End up putting on husband's old Mozilla Firefox T-shirt. Tight T-shirt + geeky logo = happy husband.

10:15 a.m.: feed baby

11:30 a.m.: feed baby. Leave for baby's doctor's appointment. On the way, realize that in sleep-addled state, mommy has somehow missed the turnoff to the doctor's office. Find a new way to get there.

12 p.m.: Arrive at medical plaza. Get off elevator on wrong floor. Wander halls for awhile before realizing that office is on third floor, not second.

12:05 p.m.: Get a stack of forms to fill out from receptionist. Sit in waiting room and begin filling them out.

12:07 p.m.: Baby begins crying. Manage to drape a blanket over shoulders, nurse baby, and then finish filling out forms with one hand, without flashing anyone in the waiting room. Mommy feels as though she deserves a standing ovation, or at least mild applause, for accomplishing this feat.

12:40 p.m.: Get called for 12:20 appointment. Sit in exam room until nurse comes in and weighs baby. Baby weighs 8 pounds already, just three ounces shy of birth weight. "Good job," nurse says, eyeing mommy's enormous chest. Mommy feels glad that all that feeding is accomplishing something besides making her crazy and tired.

1 p.m.: Doctor examines baby and tells mommy everything looks great. Mommy nurses baby one more time before leaving. Baby spits up on mommy. As she stands up, mommy catches a glimpse of self in the mirror and realizes that spit-up has left a wet spot on miraculous pre-pregnancy jeans, inconveniently close to crotch. Also, because mommy forgot to put nursing pads in bra before leaving home, milk has leaked through bra and shirt, making a large wet spot on Firefox logo. Mommy ponders whether she still wants to go run errands with said spots on clothing. Decides she just doesn't care.

1:30 p.m.: Arrive at Costco. Realize happily that hot weather has dried up spots on shirt and pants.

2:15 p.m.: Get home. Toddler and baby are still sleeping and husband is playing on computer. Mommy lies on couch and attempts to sleep.

2:30 p.m.: Toddler wakes up, sees mommy, and wants to read a book.

3:30 p.m.: Feed baby.

4 p.m.: Lie on couch and doze while husband listens to "Marketplace" on the radio.

4:30 p.m.: Clean up the big mess mommy made this morning while trying on and then pulling off all the shirts that do not fit.

5 p.m.: Tell husband, "Let's start making dinner." Husband says, "Let's play Yahtzee on the computer." Mommy breaks down into tears when for some reason her fuddled brain cannot comprehend how to make Yahtzee on the computer work.

5:30 p.m.: Apologize for break down. Help husband make tacos. Laugh when he spills salt all over the floor. Eat tacos.

6 p.m.: feed baby.

7 p.m.: watch Jeopardy.

7:40 p.m.: put toddler to bed.

8 p.m.: feed baby, who is wide-eyed and alert again now that it's night time.

8:15 p.m.: pay bills that have been piling up during end-of-pregnancy lethargy and hospital stay.

8:45 p.m.: feed baby. Hand her to husband and try to go to sleep.

9:30 p.m.: baby cries. Feed baby. Finish watching "Last Comic Standing" with husband.

10 p.m.: attempt to go to bed.

10:30 p.m.: feed baby. Attempt to go to bed.

11 p.m.: Feed baby. Put her to bed, and by the grace of God baby does not immediately wake and start fussing.

11:02 p.m.: Sleep.

Blog Year Two: the meanest photography trick ever

2011-06-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

Day two in my blast-from-the-past blog birthday celebration. We're up to Year Two now: 2005. I still wasn't posting a lot. For the first time, people I knew in real life (other than my husband) began discovering my blog. Still juggling work and motherhood. Got pregnant again and complained about my pants.

Here's my favorite post of the year: a story about the evil photographer who took Beth's Christmas pictures at Sears. It's still one of my favorite baby photos of her.

Originally published Dec. 30, 2005.

Milk and cookies, anyone?

I finally got around to putting a new picture of Beth on my desk at work, and when I was showing it to my co-worker Jennifer, I told her the story behind it and she laughed and said I ought to put it on my blog. So I am heeding her advice.

This picture was taken about 30 seconds before Beth had a screaming fit. Here's why:

Beth normally loves getting her picture taken. She loves smiling for the camera and most of the time we come away from photo sessions with more cute pictures of her than we can afford to buy prints of. But for some reason, this year's Christmas pictures were not that way.

It was the first time we'd had her picture taken since she could walk, and all of a sudden sitting or standing still, even if she is the center of attention, just wasn't her thing anymore. And the Sears Photo studio in Albany has no door between the waiting room and the studio. She could still hear other kids out playing with toys in the waiting room, and she made it clear right from the beginning that that's where she wanted to be -- not standing still and smiling for the camera in some boring back room with Mom and some stranger with a camera.

So for this picture, she was already fairly grumpy. Then the photographer had her sit down and gave her a plate of milk and cookies. Beth loves drinking out of big people glasses without lids, and she loves cookies, so when the photographer plunked that down in front of her she picked the milk right up and got ready to take a big drink. You can see the little smile on her face: "I can't believe they're letting me have this whole glass of milk."

The photographer snapped the shot, Beth put the glass up to her lips...and nothing came out. She turned it upside down, then stuck her finger in the glass and poked it. It was fake! Completely fake! Just some white rubber in a glass that made it look like milk. And those three chocolate chip cookies? Fake too!

That was just about the end for us. Beth was furious at the nasty trick we'd played on her and did not want to smile pretty for the camera at all. After another minute or two of unsuccessfully trying to pose her, the photographer turned to me and said, "I think we've got enough." I took the hint and took my screaming child out of the photo studio.

Celebrating seven: Jen's Page circa 2004

2011-06-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

With all the birthdays that have been going on at our house, it's easy to focus just on the human ones and forget one other very important one: a birthday that I always, always, forget.

But not this year!

Next week marks SEVEN YEARS that I've been blogging.

That's kind of ancient in the blog world.

I actually got started with it because I was writing a newspaper article at the time about the "new, emerging trend" of blogging. In fact, I was fortunate enough to land an interview with one of the guys who founded the Blogger.com company. And to demonstrate just how easy it was for anyone to start a blog, I went through the steps of setting up my own, and described them for the article.

And then didn't know what to do with the site. And then decided I liked it and would keep it up on my own.

To celebrate my blog's birthday, this week I'm going to revisit some old posts--one or two from each year I've been blogging. Today, I'm taking it all the way back to 2004. The blog was kind of sketchy back in those days. The first two months focused mainly on journalism, writing, and blogging. Then I had a baby and my posting dropped considerably (imagine that). For a few months I barely wrote at all. For whatever reason, I didn't want to be considered a mommy-blogger. I wanted to find *important* things to write about. But I couldn't. Once I embraced that starting in 2005, I really began to find my blogging voice, if you can call it that.

But for today, let's go back and read about how I felt like I didn't have time to do everything I wanted to do, and how what I really wanted to be was a novelist. (Hmmm, not much has changed in seven years).

originally published Monday, Dec. 27, 2004:

funny, female, new mom author

first off, let me just say that i dont know how other bloggers do it. i never update this thing. it's like the diariesi kept during adolescence. i'd get all into the diary thing and write every day, then nothing for months. i always felt that i had nothing to say. all i ever wrote abo9ut then was boys. now i just have the one guy n my life, eric, and there really aren't any dramatic soap opera like twist and turns in our relationship. We're married and we have a baby and life is pretty great actually, but not that interesting, really. So I never know what to say when I write.

That's assuming I find time to write. Now here I am thinking of a specific person, an author named jennifer weiner. She wrote some great books, including one I got for Christmas and just finished reading, "LIttle Earthquakes." It's about being a new mom, and I just really related to it. I felt like I related to the character in her other novel, "Good in Bed," also, because she was a newspaper reporter.

According to her web site, Jennifer is a former newspaper reporter who became a novelist, who writes funny books about women in real- life situations. Jennifer also happens to be a new mom and finds time to update her blog all the time about the cute and funny things that happen to her and Lucy. How does she do it? I want to be her.

NOTE: I swear that by the time my second daughter was born, I had completely forgotten that Jennifer Weiner had a daughter named Lucy. I did not name my sweet Lu in homage of her.

This was followed shortly thereafter by this one, also published Monday, Dec. 27, 2004:

baby asleep now

So that last post maybe didn't make much sense and the typing was horrible. But that's because Beth was sitting and squawking in my lap at the time. She is now asleep and I can actually attempt to be grammatically correct.

I wrote that I want to be Jennifer Weiner, but I don't really want to be HER, per se. Here are the things I want to be/do: Funny. A novelist. At least someone who writes in her blog more often than once every couple of months, because I figure if I'm going to have a blog, it's just stupid to not actually write in it.

I'm not sure I can do much about the funny. I think funny is something either you have, or you don't have, and I don't have it. I appreciate humor. I appreciate funny people. My husband is very funny. But I do not have the gift of being funny.

And writing in the blog is something that is easy to change. Or at least it's something I can SAY is easy to change. I just need to do it. Same with writing a novel. The problem with writing a novel, is you have to have an idea, and I don't. Maybe if I just started writing something I would come up with one. We'll see.

Sweet little Lu.

2011-06-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

My little Lucy has the biggest heart in the world.

Physically, she's small. Surprisingly so, when you gather up her bony little body and realize just how light she is. Her sisters are hard to cuddle with--too wiggly, too wild. Not Lucy. She can take that little body of hers and curl it up like a cat, into a little ball that nestles right into your arms. Then she breathes a long, comfortable sigh, and melts herself over the top of you and is still. Lucy is nice to take a nap with.

Lucy does not willingly reveal herself to strangers. A sideways glance and a whispered "Hello," are all an unknown person is likely to get (and then, only because Mom or Dad reminds her to be polite.) But once you've made it onto her internal list of trusted friends and associates, you're in. For life.

Lucy has a radiant smile.

Lucy feels everything. Feels it ten times harder than anybody else. You know how some people talk about wearing their heart on their sleeves? Lucy goes around with hers fastened to her fingertips, stretched out where it gets battered and bruised from the tiniest of bumps. So many times I want to tell her to hold back a little. To just chill out. I cringe at the thought of all the pain she's going to go through if she doesn't learn to be little less intense. Middle school is hard enough for an easy-going kid, right? What will the world do to my sweet, tender, Lucy-girl?

So many times she collapses in tears, and instead of responding with compassion, I snap at her to knock it off. Because I am not nearly as nice as she is.

She might feel sadness more intensely than I do, but I think she also has a better handle on love.

Last week, the girls each had a helium balloon. They took their balloons out into the yard, despite my warnings that this could be a recipe for disaster. And, sure enough, Beth accidentally let hers go. And it floated away and was gone forever and she started to cry.

And Lucy, without a moment's hesitation, let her balloon go too. So Beth would feel better. Her pretty balloon soared off into space, and she didn't care a bit. She only cared about her sister. Lucy bears all things, believes all thing, hopes all things, and endures all things, if it's for someone she loves.

Lucy is all heart.

You can't see them, because they're not very tall, but Lucy has fixed a plate of Cheerios-and-raisins and a cup of "tea" for an assortment of stuffed animal friends who are seated around the table at her tea party. She will not allow herself to sit down and have any food herself until each of her guests has been served.

Happy birthday, to the sweetest 5-year-old in the world.

teeth: the beginning of the end

2011-05-31T19:12:00.000-07:00

We waited so long for these things to show up.

The bottom ones came in at about 10 months--but those top two didn't show up until she was almost a year and a half old. It seemed like forever.

Bethie, five and a half years ago, with two brand-new front teeth.

I remember how excited she was to be able to bite into an apple, just like a big girl.

And now she's gone and lost them.

Bethie, on Monday morning, with no front teeth.

No front teeth!

I am, on one hand, thrilled. The second of those top two to get loose had been hanging on by a thread for more than a week. She would wiggle it and wiggle it and turn it around in circles, but wouldn't pull it out. It looked so gross. I was glad to see it go. Plus, just like I thought she was adorable back when she finally got top teeth, I now think she looks really SUPER adorable without them.

But I'm a little sad, because now they're going to grow in. Big, full-size, *grown-up teeth.* (And if she takes after me, the result won't be pretty. I had the biggest buck teeth! Braces were a good thing for me). Because once you've got those big grown-up teeth in front, you just don't look like a cute little kid anymore. I remember in the book Peter Pan, that was how the author made the point that Peter would never grow up: "Wendy saw at once that he still had all his first teeth." So there it is: if you believe in J.M. Barrie's criteria, getting those grown-up teeth is it. The end. The proof. She's not going to stay little forever.

Spit vs. snot: why spit wins.

2011-05-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

Here is another eternal question to ponder:

Why is it that I can think my children are perfectly presentable, only to get them in the car, lean in to buckle their car seat straps, and discover that their faces are disgusting?

Seriously. I look at them before we head out the door. Sometimes, I even notice a spot of jam or something and tell them to wipe off their face. Sometimes I even wipe it off for them. And I think everything is good. And then suddenly, when I get to the car, I see that their faces are covered in gunk. Boogers, snot, jam, peanut butter, toothpaste...they've got it all.

Pretty eyes. Pretty smile. Disgusting food all over the face.

Is the lighting better in the car? Is it just that when I do the car-seat buckle I have to lean in real close, so I can see the gunk on their skin in all its glory? I don't know what it is. All I do know is that every single day I think we're ready to go, and then we get to the car and I find myself licking my thumb or pulling a crumpled napkin out of the glove compartment, or sometimes even using the cuff of my shirt, and then wetting it with my own saliva to wipe their faces clean before I pull out of the driveway. I fully admit that this is disgusting. And, as Beth pointed out to me, I'm not really making their faces cleaner. "You're making them *dirtier,* Mama. Because you're putting your spit germs all over us."

Guilty as charged. But I don't care. You know why? Because if I go out in public with kids covered in snot and jam, people are going to think I don't care about keeping my children clean. When in reality I do care, it's just that a strange rip in the space-time continuum occurs inbetween my front door and my car, making it so that children who appeared clean one minute earlier are now revealed to, in fact, be filthy.

If I wipe their faces with spit, I may indeed be coating their faces with germs. However, while germs may be disgusting, they are INVISIBLE. Boogers and peanut butter are highly visible, and also disgusting. If my children must be covered in something disgusting, and there is a choice between invisible-disgusting and visible-disgusting, I'll take the invisible variety every time.

Spit. It's my disgusting face-coating of choice.

Birthday success and failure.

2011-05-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

I intended to buy her some pink hair. I really did.

I was not about to dye her hair pink, but I had visions of finding some little clip-on thing that would give her a cascade of glorious pink curls for her birthday.

But somehow between work and kids and everything else in life, I never found time to get over to the beauty supply store at the mall during a time when she wasn't *with* me. In fact, I ended up doing almost all my birthday shopping in a last, desperate, after-the-kids-are-in-bed mad dash, far after that beauty supply store was closed. And I couldn't find any other pink hair.

I thought I could do the other stuff though. I was sure I'd be able to find a toy mail truck. I could have sworn I'd seen them, both hot wheels varieties from the chain toy stores and more educational, wooden ones from the upscale toy stores.

Neither of them had one.

I ordered a crocodile shirt. It arrived in time for her birthday. It was, alas, not "just her size." Though it claimed to be a size 2-4, it is far, far, far, too big. (Maybe it was a size 2-4 in womens???)

I'm feeling a little bit like a birthday failure.

I did, at least, come through on the crocodile cake (though I won't mention how late I had to stay up the night before the party in order to get it done).

And we found other things, things not on her list, things that she seems to like just as well.

And today, regardless of how prepared or unprepared I was, or how well I did at finding the presents she thought she wanted, she is 3. She's beautiful and articulate and completely original. She never, never fails to make me smile.

We have a birthday tradition of allowing the birthday person to pick whatever they want to eat for dinner. Evie's choices for tonight:

oranges
crackers
potato soup
cake
life savers

So that's what we're having for dinner tonight. Oranges, crackers, potato soup, cake, and life savers.

You know what's amazing? Potato soup was what I was already planning to make for dinner tonight before I remembered about the birthday dinner thing! (Another mom fail: forgetting to plan the birthday dinner until the morning of). But I hadn't mentioned it to her. I hadn't mentioned it to anyone. I just wrote it down on a sticky note. And then remembered about birthday dinner, and prepared to chuck my potato soup plans and run to the store for ingredients to make whatever her little heart desired.

And instead she picked what I was already going to make anyway (well, I was going to couple the soup with salad and bread, but oranges and crackers are fine too). Birthday dinner couldn't get any easier than that.

I just love this kid.

Beyond the pink hair

2011-05-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

More insights into the fascinating world of Evie:

my mom asked her yesterday what she wanted for her birthday and she rattled off the following list (no mention of pink, this time).

1. A car like the mailman drives

image from Wikipedia

2. A lot of puzzles

3. A pig; but not a real pig, a toy pig

4. A crocodile shirt that is just my size

Shirt from spreadshirt.com

5. A book of "The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf"

and

6. A plant.

plant image from Wikipedia

I better start my shopping.

The end of it all

2011-05-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

Eight days. Only eight.

That's how many more days Harold Camping and his followers believe are left until Judgement Day. These people truly believe, based on Camping's calculations, that the world as we know it will end on May 21, 2011.

Let me just state that I absolutely don't believe that's true, without commenting on the mental facilities of people who DO believe it.

I will say that if I truly believed the world was ending next week, I don't think I'd be spending my remaining time on a long road trip handing out tracts. What would I do?

Well, this might not be very ethical of me (and probably a sign that therefore I wouldn't make it to heaven on the 21st) if I truly believed it didn't matter any more, I'd stop being careful about money and just do all the things I want to do but think I can't afford. Who cares about paying? I wouldn't be here when the bills came due.

I would go out and buy fabulous, brand-new clothes so that at least I'd spend my last days on earth looking gorgeous.

I'd thank my parents for all the ways they have cared for me and supported me, both throughout my childhood and continuing to this very day.

I would spend every minute of every day with my family.

I would not do laundry.

I would eat a different delicious dessert every day.

I would spend every night in my husband's arms.

I would hike to a mountaintop--which one doesn't matter, just somewhere pretty and tall--and sit there and contemplate the beauty of this world.

I know I would not have time to travel to all the many, many different parts of the world that I have not seen, or do all the many different things I've dreamed of doing. But there's one thing I think I could manage, before the end.

Fireflies streaking through the forest. Original image, and more details, at Wikipedia.

I would book my family a flight to some part of the world where fireflies live. And then at night time I'd find a pretty spot, and we'd all sit in the dusk and watch the fireflies come out and swirl around us. I'd give my girls jars and join them in running around and catching as many as we could, then study them as they glowed, just for us, in our hands. Then we'd set them free and watch them shine out, up and away.

Because I've never seen a firefly, and I've always wanted to.

What would you do, if this week were really your last?

worst babysitting experience ever

2011-05-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

This post is another from my series of lost-and-found posts. Originally begun on Sept. 10, 2009.

It was the summer I was 15. Old enough to want a summer job, but not old enough to drive yet. Living out in the country, I was stuck at home...until a neighbor family asked me to babysit their kids a few days a week.

It sounded ideal--I could walk to work and I would earn tons of money. They paid me $1 per kid per hour. Most of the time, I had two kids, which means I would earn as much as $15 a day! Woohoo! But sometimes, when brothers and sisters from a previous marriage were visiting, I had as many as five children to watch, which means I was making the unbelievable amount of five dollars per hour. Plus, if you grew up reading the Baby-Sitters Club, like I did, then you knew that baby-sitting was totally awesome.

logo from Scholastic

The problem was, these kids and I just weren't a very good fit. I was 15 (only a few years older than the oldest of them) and soft-spoken, and really would have preferred small, compliant children who wanted to read books and draw pictures and play Barbies all day--after all, that's what I did when I was a kid. But these kids were active grade-schoolers who found sitting at home all summer with a dull teenage girl to be the worst thing ever. They soon learned that I had pretty much no actual authority over them--I couldn't ground them, or spank them, or do anything that really made a difference. The worst I could do was give them a "time out," which mattered absolutely nothing to them.

What I should have done, obviously, was mention any misbehavior to their parents, as soon as it happened. As a parent, that's what I want babysitters to do when my kids are naughty. I'm sure that the parents would have enforced some actual consequences for not minding the babysitter, and we all would have gotten along much better. But I was afraid that if I mentioned anything to the parents, they would think I wasn't a good babysitter. That I wasn't capable of handling the job. And so I kept my mouth shut, and the kids took advantage of this (stupid, they were not). Talking back, not doing what I told them, complaining about everything I suggested--kids will generally take as much slack as you'll allow them, and I found myself completely incompetent at reining them in at all.

One day, one of the girls--she was about 6, I think, a cute little thing with an angelic face and long blonde hair--looked at my feet (I was wearing sandals) and said, in a tone of absolute scorn, "Your toes are the ugliest toes I have ever seen. If I had toes that ugly, I would cut them off."

But the real kicker came one day when I had all the kids. We were playing outside. Two of the boys said they wanted to walk down to the mini-mart at the end of the hill. I told them no. I didn't want to wrangle the whole gang, and argue with them about what snacks they could buy or what movies they could rent from the little corner of the store devoted to VHS tapes (they were all partial to horror movies, which they swore up and down their parents *always* let them watch). The boys got mad. I said no. One boy in particular got even madder. I still said no. And then he just took off. This was all taking place in a rural area, with houses set on big pieces of property, bordering fields and trees. And the kid just ran off into the trees and before I knew it he was completely out of my sight. Gone.

I felt sick, and scared, and guilty, all at once. I knew that a good babysitter would never LOSE one of her kids. This did not happen to Kristy, Mary Ann, Stacey, or Claudia. What if he got lost? What if he didn't come back? I was going to lose my job, I was sure of it. And most of all, I was so pissed off. If I had found that little sucker, there were no guarantees I wouldn't have smacked him upside the head. Two or three or ten times.

I couldn't leave the other four kids by themselves while I looked for him. I couldn't let them all wander the woods with me because then I'd probably just lose the rest of them too. I yelled his name. I screamed at him to get back here right this minute. I was sure he was up in a tree somewhere nearby, where I just couldn't see him, laughing at me. I waited. And he didn't come back.

And then, finally, I gave up. I went in the house and called the kids' grandmother, who lived up the street. I told her what had happened, and she came right down, and then I just left.

I didn't stay and help her look for him. I didn't watch the other kids while she found him. I just turned around and walked out the door.

I considered never going back. But I didn't want to be a quitter (even though walking out before my babysitting hours were over the day before kind of made me a quitter already). Not going back at all would *really* mean that the kids had won. And I couldn't let a bunch of little kids know that I couldn't handle them (even though I kind of couldn't).

So the next day, I went back. And the parents assured me that the kids had faced some consequences for the day before. And they didn't take me to task for abandoning my charges halfway through the day. And as far as I remember, the rest of the summer continued uneventfully. But I don't think that particular family ever asked me to babysit again.

How about you, readers? Did any of you have horrible babysitting experiences you care to share? Please let me know that I'm not the only one who fell short of the BSC's lofty standards.

my dream kitchen

2011-05-03T19:56:00.000-07:00

Another post from my series of lost-and-found blogs; originally started Dec. 4, 2008.

Three words:

Brown. With speckles.

Seriously. I want everything in my dream kitchen to be something that doesn't show dirt.

Everything in my current kitchen is white. White floors, white cabinets, white tile, white appliances, white sink, used-to-be-white-but-is-now-dingy-grey grout inbetween the tiles.

You can clean this kitchen and have it sparkling and lovely, and 30 minutes later it looks messy again. Because white shows everything. I have come to hate white. Hate it very much.

And everytime a crumb gets dropped on the counter (which happens approximately every 17 seconds, I think); or everytime someone walks in from the back yard and bits of dirt and grass fall off the soles of their shoes onto the floor (daily); or everytime I cook and a splash of sauce or a bit of flour falls somewhere, I hate it more.

Now, when I say that my dream kitchen is going to be brown with speckles, this does not mean that I really want it to be floor to ceiling beige Formica. But I think you could select counters, floors, and cabinets that looked beautiful and yet were more forgiving than just plain white.

You are probably going to question my design sense forever, but I keep thinking back to my mom's 1983 kitchen. You can't really tell in this picture, but from what I recall it was pretty much all browns, and yellows. It had brown cabinets, Formica countertops patterned to look like butcher block, and some kind of brown and orange patterned linoleum on the floor. Also a bright yellow kitchen table.

Me and mom in the kitchen.

With the exception of the ugly linoleum, I think a modern kitchen along those lines would look really cool. Butcher block counters, wood floors, non-white cupboards and a spot of color in there somewhere.

I mean, just look how beautiful this kitchen is:

Photo from frugalbits.com (these counters are from Ikea and are relatively cheap, apparently. Who knew?)

Simple wood counters, wood floors, a shot of color with the cupboards. (Not that my busy family kitchen would ever be this serene and uncluttered, but a girl can dream).

Or this one?

Photo from High Street Market.

It's got the wood counters (brown! with a pattern to them!) more green in the cabinets (why isn't anyone pairing red with butcher block? I'm partial to red). The backsplash is white subway tile, but a *little* white I can handle. Just not one hundred percent.

Now, I'm not saying for sure that I would have to have butcher block counters. I love the way they look, but I have heard they're kind of a pain to maintain. I could go a completely different route, with maybe some kind of a retro '50s laminate.

I kind of love that Champagne Nugget one. Different from the butcherblock counters in the two pictures above, but still you see the common thread?

Something that's a smooth surface (no grout to get disgusting);
in the brown/beige color family;
and with a pattern or variation to the surface (so every little speck doesn't stand out).

I'd pair the laminate counters with

cupboards in a color other than white
a wood floor

And I would be good to go!

(Some of you may be tempted to ask: Jen, if you get the kitchen of your dreams, the kitchen that doesn't show dirt, will you ever clean again? And the answer is yes. I still would. But I just wouldn't get stressed out looking at my smudgey, imperfect kitchen inbetween times, the way I do now.

There you go. A complete kitchen remodel. That's not much to ask, is it?

the great Northwest

2011-05-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

Today, as I look out my window, it's grey, windy and wet. Just like it has been for so many of the past few months. Yesterday was golden; today is depressingly not. Some people talk about moving somewhere else, some place where sunshine is not a rare commodity that Mother Nature measures out in drips and drops. But I can't help loving it here anyway.

image from Wikipedia

After all, according to the New York Times, Corvallis (and its overlooked sidekick, Albany) is THE safest place to live, natural-disaster-wise. I mean, yes, we've got rain. But we don't generally have tornadoes, hurricanes, major earthquakes, droughts or blizzards. Unless you're made of sugar, rain isn't going to kill you. (That's what my mom always used to say to me. "You're not made of sugar! You won't melt!")

I also love that when we *do* have a sunny day after a long rainy spell, it's not just another sunny day. It's a magical day. Yesterday I went for a run with a friend along the Willamette River on Albany's lovely Dave Clark path, hiked with my family at Bald Hill along the edge of Corvallis, and worked in the yard for hours. It was one of those days that was just so gosh-darn pleasant you want to put a pin in it and keep it in your mental scrapbook, preserved forever. (And, as my friend Stephanie eloquently points out, the fact that the news about Osama bin Laden's death came as just a pleasant surprise at the end of a pleasant day is a testament to how fortunate we are to live in relative peace and safety every day).

In the Northwest, a sunny day brings everyone out of hiding--not just physically, but emotionally, too. There's a tangible sense of goodwill spilling out of everyone. Everywhere I went yesterday, there were people, people, people; paths and trails and yards were full of pale folks soaking in the Vitamin D. Living here in the wintertime can feel a little like hibernating--everyone dashes from their cars to their houses without taking time to stop and chat. In spring, we all emerge, blinking in the light, and neighbors walk their dogs and dig in their gardens and wash their cars and we all smile at every person we see, whether a friend or a stranger, because after all--it's a sunny day.

A peek inside

2011-04-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I have thoughts I want to share on my blog. Deep thoughts about important things.

Today, that's not the case. Today, I thought you might like to just get a little peek at what each member of the family has been up to lately. We'll pretend that my life is interesting and call it "Real Housewife (and children) of Albany."

So here's Beth. She lost another tooth. Pretty soon she won't be able to eat at all.

I'm also using her to test the "if you can read, you can cook" theory. She can read now. So I'm "teaching" her to cook by giving her a recipe and letting her follow it. She absolutely LOVES being considered grown-up enough to cook by herself. And I make sure to wander into the kitchen frequently and casually give her helpful hints, like "Hey, did you notice that recipe says, 'Three *and* 1/3 cups of flour?' That means you need three cups, plus the 1/3 cup. Not just the 1/3 cup." That was today's helpful hint.

Today's recipe: pumpkin muffins. I think she did everything right--I guess we'll find out in 15 minutes when they come out of the oven. Update: Deeelicious! She used this recipe. If a 6-year-old can make them and they come out great, I would say it fits in the "it's a keeper" recipe category.

Here's Lucy. Today was "career day" at school. She's being a doctor. She's been fascinated with medicine ever since my brother-in-law broke his leg badly and had to be in the hospital last year. Beth? Couldn't hardly stand to look at the IV in her uncle's arm. Lucy just stared at everything, then came home and declared her intentions to grow up and fix broken legs and arms and heads. She has also considered veterinarian, like my friend Meg, but for career day she said she wanted to do doctor. Today she told me it's because she likes to help. "Doctors help people, mama," she said. "And I want to help people." I don't know if she'll stick to this intention as she gets older (and realizes how much schooling doctors have to go through) but I think it's incredibly sweet that this is the criteria she's using to choose her career at age 4.

She's wearing Eric's white shirt as a doctor coat. It almost touches the floor, it's so big. And you could fit two Lucys side-by-side into the shoulders of the thing, I think. I tried to convince her to wear my white shirt instead (it still came down to her knees) but only Daddy's would do.

This is Evie. Lately her favorite word is "hate." She says she hates everything, even things we know she loves, constantly. I've heard that she hates shoes, baths, stories, milk, and apples, all in the last few days.

There are some moms who would probably be very upset about the use of a word like "hate." I know a neighbor girl over here was shocked when one of my kids used the word "stupid;" that's a bad word, at her house. And maybe a few years ago I myself would have been one of those moms. But for whatever reason, I just can't bring myself to care about it right now. It's a word. She wants to use it. I know it will pass.

We have a few limitations--we don't let her say that she hates any particular person. Too mean. And she's not allowed to say that she hates anything I've cooked for dinner. My kids don't have to eat what I make, but they do at least have to show respect, gratitude, and refrain from insulting the cook.

Other than that, we've been letting her express her hatred for whatever she pleases. After all, if she says she hates chocolate, that just means more for me, right?

This is me.

Lucy bonked me in the head while we were playing at Wacky Bounce with our MOPS group yesterday. Now I have a lovely bruise on my eye.

It's actually not too noticable when my eyes are open and I'm looking straight ahead. The bruise is right on my brow bone--it kind of looks like I just applied too much purple eye shadow to my right eye. I considered just putting a lot of purple eye shadow on the other side, and then at least I'd match. But instead I just let it be.

Motherhood. It's a dangerous job. But somebody's got to do it.

music to move me

2011-04-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

Post number two from my list of lost-and-found blog posts. This one's actually pretty recent--first begun on April 7, 2011.

I don't know about any of the rest of you, but listening to good music while I'm running makes a huge difference to me. The right words or the right tempo at the right time inspires me to get up and go, to keep on moving, to pick up my pace; left to my own devices I'd probably just plod along slowly. Sometimes I play little games with myself--if a fast song comes on, I have to run fast for the entire song, no slowing down till the last note fades. If a song I really like comes on, I can listen to it twice, but only if I keep to a quick pace for both repeats of it--no slowing down, or I have to skip to something else.

I do sometimes get stuck in a music rut, though, listening to the same songs over and over again. So a couple weeks ago, right before the Corvallis Half-Marathon, I posted a cry for help on my Facebook page: I had a race to run, and I needed music to help me do it.

I got a few suggestions from my friends, and couple with old favorites from my iTunes list, I put together a nice mix of music that I think helped me finish the race with my fastest half-marathon time yet.

Now, since that was nearly two hours' worth of music, I'm not going to bore you with a rundown of every song on my list. But I will list here ten of my favorite running songs, new and old, and tell you why they work for me.

1. "All These Things that I've Done," the Killers. This song starts off slow for about the first 30 seconds, but then kicks into a nice beat, and really becomes an awesome running song when it hits the chorus. "I got soul, but I'm not a soldier...I got soul, but I'm not a soldier..." When I was training for my first half-marathon two years ago, this is the one that always made me want to hit repeat and kick it up a notch.

2. "My Body," Young the Giant. This one was new to my playlist for this race, a suggestion from my friend Kristin, and I greatly appreciated its fun, up-tempo beat, especially the chorus: "My body tells me no, but I won't quit, 'cause I want more." This is the perfect running anthem! I enjoyed it during the race--the only thing that would have made it better is if I had listened to it later. It came up at about mile 3--and my body wasn't really telling me no yet. I could have really used it at about mile 11.

3. "The World is New," Save Ferris. This was another new suggestion, from my friend Devon. I love the peppy horn section in the background, I love lead singer Monique Powell's voice. It definitely makes me want to move--actually, it almost makes me want to dance. And that's something, considering how poor my dancing skills are. This came on at about Mile 7 of the race, when I was heading down kind of a boring straight stretch of Walnut Boulevard, and it was a wonderfully cheerful distraction.

4. "It's All True," Bryan Free. You have probably never heard of Bryan Free. This is because he's a Portland-based indie musician who has been around for quite some time but really hasn't made it big. But Eric and I have heard him in concert several times, and he's great. He is a pianist, which of course means his music is going to remind you of Ben Folds to an extent, but I like him better than Ben Folds. This song in particular has this amazing, galloping rhythm on the chorus, and he has a beautiful tenor voice soaring over the galloping background beat--it's a great one to run to.

5. "Kick Drum Heart," the Avett Brothers. "I and Love and You" is the only Avett Brothers album I've listened to, but I just love the entire thing. However, the entire thing is not great to run to. The Avett Brothers are kind of a folk/indie/rock band, and some of their stuff is a little to mellow to be good running music. Kick Drum Heart, however, has a fabulous rhythm, especially at the end, when the drummer is just banging his heart out. It will make you want to run your heart out too. ("It Goes On and On" is another one on that album that I enjoy for running.)

6. "Gone Daddy Gone," Gnarls Barkley. I am not knowledgeable about music at all, so I can't tell you *how* fast this song is, but I can tell you that it's got a super-fast tempo right from the first note that always makes me pick up my pace.

7. "The Hives are Law, You are Crime," the Hives. This song has no words. It is rare for me to enjoy music without words. But for running, this song is great. It's got this thumping, driving beat to it that's very easy to fall into step with.

8. "Another One Bites the Dust," Queen. This was kind of a toss-up. I like a lot of Queen songs to run to--"Fat-Bottomed Girls," another Kristin suggestion, has a good tempo *and* lyrics that remind you that you're awesome even if you do have a large posterior--that's always a plus. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" has a great swinging rhythm to it. But "Another One Bites the Dust" has a good beat *plus* I'm-a-winner kind of lyrics. It makes you feel like beating people. Which is good for a race.

9. "Never Miss A Beat," the Kaiser Chiefs. The Kaiser Chiefs are another group with a lot of great up-tempo songs to run to. My favorite part of this song comes near the end, when the music is pounding the and the singer is repeating "Never miss a beat, never miss a beat, never miss a beat!" It makes me match my strides to the rhythm, and I *can't* slow down...or I'd miss the beat.

10. "No You Girls" by Franz Ferdinand. The whole album that this song is from, "Tonight," is full of song after song that's fast, fun to listen to, and good to run to. I usually have the whole thing on my playlist, but this is one I seem to fall into groove with especially well when I'm running.

11. "Defying Gravity," "Wicked" soundtrack. This one is not really about tempo. In fact, the beginning part of it is two characters talking. You have to run through that, just get past it, to the chorus. This inspiration in this one comes from the characters' glorious voices and the lyrics. "I think I'll try defying gravity/and you can't pull me down!" Sometimes I wish I could fly away to the western sky. Running hard, even when I'm tired and want to stop, makes me feel like I'm defying my limitations.

12. "Dog Days are Over," Florence and the Machine. This song also starts a little slow, but goes into a great chorus for running. "Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father/run for your children, for your sisters and your brothers." It actually says "Run fast" right there in the lyrics. So of course, you have to run fast. (Can you tell that I rely on really simplistic mental tricks, like forced obedience to song lyrics, when I'm running?) This was the absolute best song for my most recent race. It came on just when I needed it, right at the end of the race. I was tired. I was sweaty. I felt like the end was never coming. And then this song came on and it gave me just the push I needed to sprint across the finish line--I think the first time I've ever found the energy for an actual sprint at the end of a race! It was a great way to finish.

So, okay, that was 12, not ten. But I had a hard time choosing. What am I missing? What are your favorite running tunes?

why?

2011-04-19T15:00:00.000-07:00

All right, you asked for it. Here's the first in my series of lost-and-found blog posts. My sister was the first one to give me an answer, so this post, titled "Why" and originally begun on June 7, 2010, is the first I'm writing. I no longer know what I was wondering about on June 7, 2010, so I give you instead a series of questions that are on my mind today.

...do my kids swear they're not tired, not tired, not tired, play throughout half of naptime, and then fall asleep 10 minutes before naptime is over, so that I have to forcibly drag them out of bed, groggy and grumpy, when it's time to pick up Beth?

...does my cat ignore me all day, and then at random times--say, 11 p.m. or 4 a.m.--decide that he MUST HAVE ATTENTION and stand at our bedroom door and meow and scratch at it like the world will come to an end if someone does not pet him immediately? (Note: I do NOT pet him when he does this)

...does the guy who lives across the street from me never make eye contact and wave? Am I really that scary?

...can't I ever just say no to chocolate?

...did I spend money on cloth shopping bags so I could be "green," when I forget to take them to the grocery store 99 percent of the time?

...do I still hate bananas, even though I have learned to like everything else I despised in my picky-eating childhood?

...do shows that are popular with little boys tend to focus on personified inanimate objects (toys, cars, Thomas the Train), while shows aimed at girls are about people (if you count princesses and fairies as people)?

...do I never return from the grocery store without forgetting at least one thing I really wanted to buy?

...can't I ever find myself really engaged with a non-fiction book?

...do I still post comments when the Pioneer Woman does give-aways? There's no way I'll ever win. (There are more than 25,000 comments on her Anthropologie giveaway today. It would be like winning the lottery. But hey--I like Anthropologie and I can never afford their stuff!)

...do my three girls, whom I swear I make an effort to treat very similarly, respond to the same things in such very, very, different ways?

...do I remember theme songs to cartoon shows and jingles from commercials that I heard 20 years ago, and forget the names of people I met last week?

If anyone has the answers to these questions, go ahead and tell me. I'd love to have these mind-bending dilemmas solved.

lost ideas: found

2011-04-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

Lost and Found office in Berlin, 1973. Archive photo from Wikimedia Commons.

I have been blogging for a long time. If I remember it, I plan to celebrate my blog's seventh birthday in June. I don't know what I'll do to commemorate it, but I feel like it deserves a party. I've never given it one before, even though it's been my faithful companion, my repository of experience, and my back-up baby book throughout this mothering journey. (When Evie asks why her baby book is half-empty, I'll just print out the blog posts that mention her and hand them to her. "Here, kid. I was busy doing this instead.")

Anyway, to get to the point of THIS post, I was unsure of what I wanted to write about today, so I went to the page on Blogger today that lets you edit past posts. There's a feature you can use wherein you save unfinished posts as a "draft." I use this all the time. I get an idea for a post, and I open up Blogger. I bang out a title, a few sentences, a word, and then vow to get back to it later.

But sometimes, I never do. I was shocked when I started scrolling through and saw how MANY "draft" posts I had, just waiting to be written. And how old some of them were. And how I no longer had any clue what I intended to write about some of these things.

But there were some good titles, dog-gone it. Titles that sounded like they would make an interesting post. And so I'm offering up for you today my list of draft blog post titles . Leave me a comment and tell me which ones you would like me to actually write. If I remember where I was intending to go with the post, I'll brush off my dusty ideas and polish them up again. And if I have no clue what I intended? I'll make something up. Something shiny and new to go with the old, abandoned title.

Ready? Here you go.

10/2/06: Sports and shared experiences
10/13/06: Who am I?
10/20/06: Here’s the thing about being a stay-at-home mom
12/8/06: I got skillz
9/13/07: Ashland
2/25/08: Oldest known possessions
4/18/08: twins? Matching
7/7/08: “I want to live here”
9/28/08: banned books
11/12/08: 10 years 100 characters
12/4/08: my dream kitchen
1/2/09: faith
1/13/09: barbies
4/14/09: The deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things
9/10/09: worst babysitting experience ever
11/13/09: Bacall/Bogart
1/10/10: living with purpose
2/16/10: vintage eclectic
3/15/10: a graphic conversation
3/30/10: things I want to remember
4/16/10: things to know about girls
4/28/10: It’s an interesting thing, this sisterly love
6//7/10: why
6/17/10: things that my girls have pretended to be today
7/12/10: a more equitable solution
7/19/10: lemon chicken and coleslaw
8/12/10: squash three times a day
10/7/10: no-yelling pact
10/21/10: just be awesome
11/23/10: a psychological insight
2/24/11: control
3/7/11: on the fleeting nature of time
3/27/11: I miss singing
4/7/11: music to move me

Leave me a comment and tell me which post you wish I had actually gotten around to writing.

Getting smart?

2011-04-15T14:04:00.000-07:00

OK, people. I'm about to make a big decision, and I need feedback.

Smart phone, or no smart phone? (Just in case there's anyone in the world who doesn't know, when I say smart phone I mean an Internet-enabled phone that lets you check your email and browse the web in addition to talking and texting)

The iPhone. Sometimes I feel like the last Luddite in the world without one.

I've been anti-smart phone for a long time now. Not in general--I have no problem with the concept of smart phones, or with other people having them. But I've been anti-smart phone for me. I have refused to get one, even while watching my husband adore his iPhone, for several reasons:

1. The cost. It costs an extra $30 a month for a data plan. $30 a month is a lot. That's a couple of bags of groceries. That's 10 lattes. That's a haircut. That's three hours' worth of babysitting money. In case you couldn't tell, I can think of a lot of other things I could be doing with $30 a month.

2. The non-necessity. A smart phone would be a splurge. I don't NEED to have it. My current cell phone allows me to be in contact with people all the time via voice or text. It even takes pictures. I could just keep things the way they are, and my life would continue just fine. Plus, I spend a lot of hours each day at home, where I already have high-speed Internet via my computer. Why would I need a second, hand-held computer with me all the time?

3. The addiction. I hate seeing people all the time with their attention directed to the little tiny screen in front of them instead of the world around them. I am theoretically "home" with my girls all day, but I spend a lot of my time sitting in front of my computer screen as it is. I feel like a hypocrite when I tell my girls they can't play computer games or watch TV too much, because too much time staring at a screen is bad for you--even while spending a great deal of my own time on the computer. I'm afraid that a smart phone would just make my Internet addiction worse.

But, despite all those good reasons, I have to admit it: there are times when I want one.

I keep my main calendar online, where both my husband and I can see it and where it's always updated and current. The family calendar is my lifeline--I can't keep track of anything by relying on my own brain power, that's for sure! I've tried, repeatedly, to use a small pen-and-paper planner in my purse to keep track of things, but then I always just have to transfer my paper entries to my computer calendar when I get home, and I end up doing twice as much work. Or, I write it down on paper but forget it because it's not on the computer calendar. Having constant access to my calendar when I'm out and about and people ask me to make plans would be very helpful.

There are so many times when I wish I could just check on something quickly--a piece of information that was in an e-mail, or a phone number that isn't saved in my phone memory (or in my brain, which is where people USED to keep phone numbers, and now no one does anymore), or directions to somewhere that I forgot to look up before I left. There are many times when I can see where having all the power of the Internet in my pocket would be really handy.

My husband even tells me that having a smart phone would reduce the amount of time I spend sitting at the computer--that instead of sitting down intending to just check one quick thing and then getting sucked in to doing something completely different, I would pull it out of my pocket, check that e-mail, then put it back and continue on with my day.

I wish that cell phone places would let you rent a phone for a trial period, so I could determine whether I really would get my $30 worth of use out of that Internet phone before I committed to paying for it month after month after month. Will it really make me more productive and reduce my screen time? Or will it just suck me in with its shininess and trap me in a swirl of constant e-mails, stupid YouTube videos, and incessant updates?

Readers, do any of you have smart phones? Love 'em or hate 'em?

Lost: one mind. Please return to owner immediately if found.

2011-04-13T15:00:00.000-07:00

Proof, once again, that this motherhood thing really is destroying my last few remaining brain cells:

The other day I was making one of Beth's favorite dinners, cheese-and-spinach manicotti. It's really easy. After I stuff a cheese and spinach mixture inside the pasta shells, I just dump canned spaghetti sauce over the top.

On this occasion, I remembered using part of a can of spaghetti sauce a few days earlier, for homemade pizzas. I was sure I still had the sauce in the fridge. I looked on the top shelf. I looked on the bottom shelf. I looked behind the milk. I looked in the door shelves. I could not find it. So I concluded I must have been wrong, opened up a new can of sauce, used half of it, and stuck it in the fridge to save that one for a later use.

A few minutes later, I opened up the door and saw this:

Not only was the half-used can of spaghetti sauce that I had been looking for clearly visible RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, apparently when I put my new can of spaghetti sauce in the fridge, I set it right next to the identical can without even noticing. How is that even possible?

Sometimes I wonder about myself. Is it really safe to leave the children alone with a person as absent-minded as this? Maybe I ought to hire a babysitter for myself.

Confidence supreme

2011-04-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

Evie, at age almost-three-years-old, is the most supremely self-confident and unselfconscious person I have ever met. All 2-year-olds are like that to an extent, but Evie has more innate charisma than I saw in either of my older girls at this age. She's not pushy about it: she simply knows that she, herself, is the most amazing person in whatever room she's in.

If I could somehow extract minute portions of her confidence and sell it in pill form, I'd be a millionaire overnight--fear and anxiety would be things of the past. Like Powdermilk Biscuits, Evie's Amazing Confidence Cure would give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.

Evie. She's kind of a big deal. Just ask her. (Photo by Anne Nunn)

One of these days, I fear, the world will knock her down a peg or two. But until then, I revel in her earnest assessments of her own greatness. Here are a few things she's said lately:

1. "I'm going to be a princess when I grow up."

2. "Evie power to the rescue!"

3. "I am pretty, pretty, pretty today."

4. "I drew this picture for you. I know you will love it."

5. "I am a super-duper singing girl."

6. And, pretty much the best one ever...
Evie: "I hate boys."
Me: "Why do you hate boys?"
Evie: "Because they are jealous of me."

Who knows, sweetie? They probably are jealous of you. I know I am.

A mystery garden

2011-04-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

Last fall I decided I would try over-wintering some vegetables. You can do that, in Oregon, so I've heard. We have a mild enough climate here in the Willamette Valley that cool-weather crops can survive, so you have something growing all year round.

So, at some point last fall, I planted some stuff in one of my beds. Onions, leeks, lettuce, and possibly something else. Garlic? I'm not sure.

The reason I'm not sure is that none of it really seemed to be doing anything so I completely ignored it all last winter. And yes, I did put down the little markers that came with my baby plants so that I would have some idea of what grew (or failed to grow) in which spot. But either I mis-labeled things, or little hands moved things around, or the plants migrated on their own, because I have some stuff growing now that does not match the little signposts.

Take these guys. I think they're onions. Or possibly garlic. Or chives? But I'm 99 percent certain I didn't plant chives there (because I already have chives in another spot in a different bed, so why would I have planted them there)? They seem to have done the best of all my winter veggies, whatever they are. They had some green shoots showing all winter long, and now that the weather has warmed up a tiny bit, they've perked right up, and they look lush and green and healthy.

So healthy that I'm afraid to pull one up and find out what it is under there. And how do I know when it's mature, anyway?

Vegetables that grow underground are a big mystery.

The marker in the midst of these two rows of pretty green-topped vegetables claims that this area is leeks.

But I'm sorry. I know leeks. And these guys do not look like leeks to me.

You know what IS a leek?

Look! A leek!

This guy. Growing all the way at the back of the bed. So far back, in fact, that he's not even technically in my garden. He's squished himself into this little dirt-filled nook inbetween the edge of the bed and my neighbor's fence.

I KNOW I did not plant him there. Why would I put a baby plant way back there outside the edge of the garden? And it's not like I grew these from seeds, that could have somehow fallen out of a seed packet and been carried anywhere on the breeze. I grew these guys from starts, not seeds. So how did he get back there, and why was he the ONLY surviving leek?

Maybe I should start planting all my veggies in random non-approved locations.

He was so tightly wedged in there, I couldn't even harvest him appropriately. I tried to dig the whole thing up, but failed. The stalk broke off at the roots, and I had to abandon the bottom of the plant in the ground. Not that you eat the very bottom part anyway, but it just seemed sad to manhandle my lovely leek that way. (I don't know why I'm so delighted that I grew a leek. It just makes me happy whenever I manage to grow anything at all, I guess, especially something new).

Of course, he's currently resting in my kitchen sink, all green and white and faintly onion-scented, waiting to be chopped up and sauteed for dinner. So I guess it doesn't matter too much if he was not perfectly picked to begin with.

But let's get back to the problem of not having a clue what I'm growing. Those lush healthy things look like onions. But the "onion" marker is over to the left of them, where there are a few other similar-looking (but not identical) things that are much more scraggly and sad. But the only markers I have in the garden are for lettuce (I know they aren't lettuce); leeks (we've established they're not leeks); and onions (except these guys are not in the onion spot).

So, pretty soon here, I'm going to have to get up the courage to pull up one of those pretty things, and stare at whatever's underneath, and try to discern what my mystery vegetables are.

And you know what I'm going to get before I start planting my spring veggies this year?

A garden journal!

Or something similar, anyway. Even if it's just a $1 spiral notebook, I have clearly proven that I am too scatterbrained to keep track of what I'm growing. And I love the idea of being able to take notes on what I did when, so I can see how things grow from year to year.

Or, maybe I won't get around to it, and we'll just eat what we grow whether we know what it's called or not.

Girl on a bike

2011-04-05T14:28:00.000-07:00

One sunny afternoon last week I suggested to Beth that we practice riding her bike without training wheels. It was the first sunny day we'd had in months, and it looked like the perfect day for learning to ride. But she didn't really want to.

"It's really hard for me," she said, looking down at her shoes. "And a lot of other kids in my class...they already can do it."

I understood what she meant. Oh boy, did I understand.

It took me forever to learn to ride a bike. I think I was 8 years old, and still pedaling around on my sister's tiny training-wheel model. There were a lot of reasons, I'm sure: I hate trying new things. I'm naturally uncoordinated. I took a bad fall one day while I was learning. And most of all, it scared me.

All those things mixed together and made me paranoid, so paranoid that I didn't want to try, even though I was embarrassed about being the only kid in the world (or so it seemed) who still couldn't ride a two-wheeler. It was a circular thing: wanting to ride/being scared to ride/being embarrassed that I couldn't ride = stubborn resistance to riding.

I could see all those same fears and conflicting emotions in my daughter's eyes. And I did not want her to follow in my footsteps. So often, I find, I don't want my kids to be like me. I want them to be *better* than me.

The thing is, though, Beth was so close to doing it. We first started working on riding last fall. She wanted to learn. A lot of other 6-year-olds had the balancing skills for it. And we could tell she was outgrowing the training wheel model anyway.

But fall days came and went, and Eric practiced with her, and I practiced with her. And she wobbled here and she wobbled there. She would ride a few feet without a parent holding on, and she seemed so close to ready...but she never quite mastered it. And then winter came and the bikes were tossed in the garage and the practicing stopped. And in the meantime, kid after kid would go whizzing down our street, balancing straight and tall.

I knew she wanted to be one of those kids. I could see it. And so on this sunny day I told her that I remembered how hard learning was. I told her I would help her practice. I swore I wouldn't let go of her bike, not at all, not once, until she was ready.

And so, bent nearly double to hold onto the seat and handle bars of her tiny purple bike, I balanced with her over to the school yard, where the big expanse of nice, smooth pavement seemed more auspicious for riding than the narrow, bumpy sidewalk in front of our house.

I held on. She pedaled. I held more lightly. She pedaled more, begging me not to let go. And then Evie called from the top of the jungle gym--up way higher than she ought to be, and with no way to get down. I had to go help Evie. I had to let go.

At first Beth put her feet down on the ground immediately to support herself. But then, ever-so-slowly, she started pedaling on her own, throwing her feet down for balance with every little wobble, but doing it. When I wandered back over and casually offered to hold onto the bike again, she said, "No, it's okay. I can do it by myself."

And little by little, she did. By the end of the second day, I was just standing back and watching, helping Evie climb up the slide and pushing Lucy on the swings while Beth rocketed around the playground furiously, not needing me at all.

Sometimes she's still wobbly.

Sometimes she needs to concentrate.

But she's doing it all on her own. Just like that.

I guess when you're finally ready for something, you're ready. And my girl was ready to ride.

big pink plans

2011-03-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

She's all cuddled up on the couch in her pink blankie, clearly dreaming big dreams.

"Mama," she calls. "Mama, I'm so 'cited that my birthday is comin' soon."

Her third birthday is about two months away, but around here, thinking and dreaming about birthday parties is kind of a year-round occupation. And she knows that of the three sisters, her birthday is the nearest.

The girl with a plan. She knows exactly what she wants out of life.

"And what do you want for your birthday?" I ask her. I'm expecting to hear about a doll, or a toy pony, or maybe even some new shoes. She really likes shoes.

She doesn't hesitate. She knows exactly what she wants. Fixing me with her wide blue eyes, she says:

"I want my hair to be pink. We can dye it, and it will be pink, and all fixed in a pink hairstyle. Pink."

I blink. I'm really not sure what to say to that one.

If this is what she wants at age 3, what in the world will she be asking for when she's 16?

Just what every home needs

2011-03-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

I am in love with a house. A house that is not my own.

I drive past it all the time. It's an older house, in a historic part of town, with high ceilings and big windows and all sorts of fancy trimmings. But that's not why I love it. Pretty old houses are a dime a dozen in Albany. Here it is. Take a look and see if you can spot what makes this house unique.

Do you see it? Let's try getting a little bit closer.

Now do you see it?

I love this house for just one reason, and he's sitting right there on the rooftop corner. It's a gargoyle! A real, live, (or, ok, real stone) gargoyle. What ever inspired someone to put a gargoyle on their roof? Where did they find him? How long has he been there? Does he have a name? If he were my gargoyle, I would definitely give him a name.

I am not likely to get a gargoyle of my own any time soon. For one thing, I have no idea where to procure one, and for another, my plain old single-level 1950s ranch house just does not have the appropriate Gothic atmosphere to pull off a gargoyle. And, although this is a residence from the 19th century, not a cathedral from the 12th century, I think this purple-and-gray house is big and stately and just slightly gloomy enough to look lovely with this little guy on its roof. It works. It would not work on my house.

But someday, should I ever own a huge, ornate, Victorian, I'll keep this idea in mind. Stone lions out front, bird baths in the garden, little gnomes among the bushes...those things are cute, sometimes. And other times not. But a gargoyle! That's the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Seven Quick Takes: spring break edition

2011-03-25T18:44:00.000-07:00

ONE
First things first: one of my favorite bloggers posted today about one of my favorite books:

It's Elizabeth Esther reviewing "Just Moms!"

I've been reading Elizabeth Esther for a year or two now. I appreciate her honest, vulnerable, thoughtful musings on life, faith, and fundamentalism. So I was especially excited to learn that she was one of the first reviewers of the soon-to-be-released anthology that one of my essays is featured in, "Just Moms: Conveying Justice in an Unjust World." And even more excited to read the review and see that she liked it :)

Go see what Elizabeth Esther has to say about it. And, the book has its own page on Amazon now, too, if you want to check that out.

TWO

It's been a busy spring break, full of a lovely mix of visits with friends and rainy days at home. Sure, the weather's been rotten, but that's nothing new. Didn't stop Eric and I from getting out of the house for a fantastic hike to Alsea Falls and Green Peak Falls last weekend. Wet. Muddy. Gorgeous. That's an Oregon spring for you.

THREE
If you like fantasy literature and you have a week or so to spare, I highly recommend that you read The Kingkiller Chroncicles by Patrick Rothfuss. I just read the second volume in the series, "The Wise Man's Fear," and it completely wrapped me up and wouldn't let me go. Monday I spent all day on the couch, reading. I didn't make dinner. I didn't do laundry. I didn't do anything. Beth was coming up to me with a bit of worry in her voice. "Um...Mom? Why are you just sitting there?" I mean, the kids are accustomed to seeing me reading, but not for hours on end, stopping everything else I'm doing. Mom sitting on the couch ignoring all her to-dos is a rare, rare, sight.

So, yes, it's a fantasy, but it's more than that. It's the story of what it means to be a hero and how legends are built and the power of stories to shape perception. It's a classic adventure story with plenty of old-fashioned derring-do. It's a college book, full of evil professors and happy evenings of drinking with friends and a truly fantastic library. It's a really, really, good story.

The first book, "The Name of the Wind" came out in 2008 and I read it back then. I re-read it a few weeks ago to remind myself of the storyline. Then I plunged in to "The Wise Man's Fear," came up for air 932 pages later, and have been frustrated ever since that it's going to be years before I get to read the third book.

FOUR
A few weeks ago my MOPS group made this muffin mix. It was super-yummy. I made it home again a few weeks ago and my family devoured them. It's great because it's customizable--you just make the base out of regular pantry ingredients (flour, oatmeal, sugar, etc.) and then toss in whatever else you have on hand--dried cranberries, some walnuts, wheat germ, and grated orange peel were what I added in last time. And it came out great. It's the best of both worlds--tried and true meets infinite variety. Go try it out: you won't be disappointed.

FIVE
My husband and I are considering changing cell phone providers. We are discovering that no matter who we switch to--or even if we stay with our current provider but upgrade to newer phones--we're going to end up paying more money. Because they are no longer offering small-scale plans. Right now we have something in the range of 500 minutes per month and 200 texts. And it's fine! That's all we need! But the newer plans start out at 700 minutes/unlimited texts. This drives me crazy. I don't want to pay more! I don't want all those minutes! Just let me stay content with my piddly little small-scale plan! It's all I need! But according to the representatives I talked to, anyway, if want to trade my old beat-up phone for something newer, I'll be forced to upgrade my plan as well. Evil cell phone companies. Evil.

SIX
My husband loves this Pepsi Throwback stuff. Made the old-fashioned way with real sugar. I really can't taste the difference. Can anyone else?

SEVEN
An update on the clam chowder backstory:
My husband claims this is the way it really went down:
Him: Hey, maybe I could have a taste of--
Me: No.
Him: Just a bi--
Me: No.
Him: Can I look at it?
Me: No.
Him: Can I pay for it?
Me: Yeah, sure, no problem.

Find more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

The meal I won't share

2011-03-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

Long, long ago, there lived a girl and a boy. They had recently discovered that they shared certain feelings of mutual affection and admiration for one another. And so the boy asked the girl to accompany him on a day-long excursion to the coast.

If you aren't from Oregon, you may not understand what "going to the coast" means. It does not involve frolicking in the ocean or sunbathing or even wearing bathing suits at all, most of the time. It means walking hand in hand down a sandy beach in the blistering wind and contemplating the glory of the ocean crashing to the land (or perhaps wading in the frigid water, if you are brave). It means collecting shells and rocks. It means browsing through little downtown shops on the bayfront and buying loads of salt-water taffy from the mom-n-pop candy store. And it means warming yourself up with a lunch or dinner of delicious seafood from one of the local restaurants.

And for this particular girl, "going to the coast" meant eating clam chowder in a bread bowl from Mo's.

Mo's is an Oregon institution, and their clam chowder is legendary. Please note that this girl did not even like seafood, at all, in other forms. But hot, potato-y, creamy clam chowder from Mo's with a pat of butter melting on top of it, served up in a thick, hollowed out round of sourdough bread, did not fall into the same category as other types of seafood. Clam chowder in a bread bowl was something special.

And so our two young lovers found themselves seated at Mo's, perusing a menu, with the girl swiftly setting hers aside. "I'm going to have clam chowder in a bread bowl," she said.

"Oh, that sounds good," the boy said. "Maybe we can share."

The girl paused. She contemplated her broad-shouldered 19-year-old boyfriend, a strapping lad who spent his days in hard physical labor as an ironworker. She thought about just how much of her favorite treat she was likely to actually get to eat, should she split her bread bowl with him. And even though she knew the servings at Mo's were hearty, and even though she knew she likely wouldn't eat the entire thing herself, she did not like the idea of getting only a few spoonfuls of creamy goodness and only a few bites of delicious bread.

So she refused.

"No, I'm not sharing," she said.

And that was the end of that.

The boy did not dump her in shock at her unlady-like greed, but instead has stuck with her throughout the 12 years of life that have so far followed that moment. He ordered something else and did not ever again suggest sharing her meal. But he has not ever let her live it down, either. (In fairness, he says I misunderstood him. He wasn't suggesting that we split a single bread bowl, but rather that we should each order something different and share portions of our meal with each other).

This is all just background to help you understand how excited I was when I saw a friend post the following on Facebook last month: "Home-made bread bowls and clam chowder for dinner tonight."

This blew my mind. It had never occurred to me that I could make my own clam chowder and bread bowls! Why, I don't know, since I like to cook and I make all kinds of other soups and bread. But this one seemed so special. So unique. Could I really do it?

The answer, my friends, is that I can. And I have. On two occasions now. And goodness, is it fantastic. Maybe not quite as good as Mo's. I don't melt butter on top of mine, and my bowls are not sourdough, because I've never managed to get a good sourdough starter going at home. But it is a delicious, delicious dinner. And it makes a big enough batch that everyone in our family can have their own and still have leftovers for the next day.

And no one has to share. Especially not me.

The recipe for the bread bowls is at Allrecipes.com under Italian Bread Bowls. I make them exactly as the recipe says, except that I substitute 2-3 cups of wheat flour for some of the white flour called for in the recipe, and I don't bother doing an egg wash on the outside. Other than that, I just follow that recipe, so I won't bother re-creating it here. Go, print it out yourself, and give it a try. You'll like it, and you could use these for any kind of hearty soups. And bonus: fewer dishes to clean up afterward. After you eat the soup, you just eat the bowl too!

The clam chowder one is adapted from a recipe I found in the Taste of Oregon cookbook. It's a little more complicated than the one my friend used, but I like it because it has bacon. Mmmm, bacon. The original recipe calls for both bacon and ham! But I just use bacon in mine. If you want a really meaty chowder, you could use both, though.

Clam Chowder

1/4 pound bacon, diced
2 cups chopped onion
2 Tb flour
5 cups diced potatoes
2 cans of clams, undrained
3 cups of milk
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Saute the bacon, drain off most of the bacon drippings, and save.

2. Add the onion to the bacon, saute until the onion is limp.

3. Stir in the flour. Pour enough bacon drippings back into the pan to fry the potatoes. Add the potatoes and fry, stirring constantly, about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.

(Note: during this process, I usually get a pretty good layer of browned bits cooked onto the bottom of the pan. And also, my bacon dripping don't seem to be of a large enough quantity to cook the potatoes very well. To fix this, I add a small amount of water--maybe 1/4 cup or so? to deglaze the pan. It gets the drippings up off the bottom of the pan, and mixes with the flour to form a roux/sauce type mixture in which to cook the potatoes. I add more water as needed if the potatoes seem to start sticking to the bottom of the pot again. If I didn't add this extra moisture, I think I'd have a very browned bottom of the pot by the time my 15 minutes of potato-cooking was up).

4. Add the clams with liquid and cook 5 more minutes. Add milk; season with salt and pepper to taste. (I'm pretty generous with my salt and pepper).

The only problem at all with this recipe is that at the end of it, you wind up with this: a bag of bread-bowl innards. What to do with the extra bread?

If I were more ambitious, I could season it and chop it up and toast it and make croutons. But we don't really eat croutons. Or if I had a food processer, I could process it into bread crumbs and save the crumbs for other recipes. But I don't have a food processor. The best thing I've come up with is what I did today when my kids asked for a snack: slap some jam on top and let them eat it like a biscuit. A big, soft, crustless biscuit. Which they actually liked quite a bit, since they pick the crust off their bread anyway. Win-win!

alone

2011-03-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

My husband's at work.

My mom took the kids to run errands for an hour.

My friend, who is coming over for lunch, isn't here yet.

I am completely, gloriously alone in the house!

Don't get me wrong. I love my family. But I'm an introvert by nature--time alone rejuvenates me.

And now I have some, and I don't even know what to do or where to start.

What would you do with an unexpected hour alone?

Vegetable voyeur

2011-03-18T15:36:00.000-07:00

I love personal glimpses into other people's lives. Like when you walk into someone's house and read the titles of the books on their shelves, and they have something by your favorite author, and you know that you're going to be friends. Or when I walk into the house of a fellow parent of small children, and I see that it's messy--just like mine!--and some small part of the angst I carry around about my housekeeping failures rolls away.

Even kids do this, comparing and contrasting themselves with strangers. A 4-year-old came to our house last week, glanced through the open door of our bathroom, and immediately starting yelling for her mother, pointing at the counter. "Mama! They have the same hairspray we do! Look! Look!" the little girl said. And the other mom and I nodded and smiled, marveling at the amazing coincidence of both owning the same national-brand tangle spray that's available at every supermarket. Because we understood. The stuff you have, the stuff you display, the stuff you consume defines you in some small way, and when you see that you have the *same stuff* as other people, there's something within you that can't help but marvel.

Well, if you buy into the thought that your stuff defines you, and if you like the slightly-voyeuristic thrill of peeping at other people's personal stuff, then you must check out this series of photographs by artist Mark Menjivar.

It's called "You Are What You Eat," and each photograph consists of nothing but this:

Freelance writer/Engineer / Albany, OR / 5-person household / Thinks other people's refrigerators are fascinating.

That's it. Photograph of refrigerator contents. Sparse biographical information about the household. The end.

And I can't stop looking at them!

From the completely empty fridge of a person who lives on $432 a month, to the weight-lifter with a SNAKE in her freezer, to the mid-wife with a fridge stuffed full of produce, these photos are revealing and startlingly intimate. They tell you things about people's income levels, their hygiene levels, and their daily habits. Does this person cook, or subsist entirely on take-out? Do they buy generic brands or spend their money on the good stuff? It shows you what people care about. And it creates little mysteries, like: why do the competitive eaters from New York have what appears to be boxer shorts in their vegetable drawer?

You should click through and look at this guy's photos. Some of them are even available for sale, here. (20x200 is a very cool art sale website, and that's where I ran across this series). And then leave me a comment and tell me whether you think your fridge reveals your personal life too.

Things that I have been doing instead of blogging lately.

2011-03-14T16:14:00.000-07:00

1. Standing out in the freezing rain to take a training session on how to be an official AYSO soccer coach. Yep. Soccer coach. I hope those first and second grade girls weren't hoping for a coach who actually knows anything at all about soccer.

2. Standing in a pool of luke-warm water to attend not one but two swimming-pool birthday parties within 7 days of each other.

(I hope my children appreciate my willingness to drench myself on their behalf. Also to embarrass myself. Because organized sports=really, really, not my skill set. And getting into a swimming pool in the middle of March and realizing as I throw up my arms to catch my daughter as she wants to jump off the side of the pool repeatedly, that I have not shaved my armpits prior to coming to the party=not my finest hour.)

3. Writing. Freelance articles, that I'm actually getting paid for, and fiction, that I only dream of getting paid for one day. But apparently not much in the way of blog posting, which is just purely for my own satisfaction.

(One of these days I'll get my head above water--figuratively, not literally, I hope!--and I'll finish one of the various blog posts I have that contain actual thoughtful content. Until then, please content yourselves with the following pictures, which also serve as illustrations of what I've been up to lately).

Laundry. Always.

Fighting the good fight of feeding three constantly-hungry children without allowing the madness to overtake the rest of the house. Every day.

Dealing with general kid weirdness. Constantly.

a step on the path

2011-03-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

Ever since I was a little girl, I've dreamed of going into the library and pulling a book off the shelf that had my name on the spine. I would stand in front of the R section, staring, trying to figure out which books would be on either side of *my* book.

That day is not here. Not yet. But I'm feeling more like maybe someday it will get here, because as of today my name is at least *in* a book. A real one, published by a real publisher, with an ISBN number and everything. It's not on the spine, because I'm just a contributor to this anthology, not the author of the whole 204 pages of the book. But one little chunk of that 204 pages is by ME, and people, strangers around the world or for generations to come, will be able to read the words that I wrote. It's a little unreal.

The book, since I'm sure you're all dying to know, is called "Just Moms: Conveying Justice in an Unjust World," and it's an anthology of writing by mothers who are attempting to teach the values of peace, justice, equality and simplicity in a world that doesn't seem to value any of those things. When the most aggressive, the most arrogant, and the flashiest seem to come out on top, how do you teach kids what really matters?

There isn't really an answer to that question, of course. No simple, one-size-fits-all answer, anyway. This book isn't a how-to manual, just real-life stories from real-life moms trying to figure it out day after day. I haven't even read all the content yet, but I've met some of the other writers, and they are such fabulous, thoughtful women; I'm honored to have my work alongside theirs.

Interested? Want to hear more? Want to read what I wrote? Here's a link to the book's page from Barclay Press. It's being released April 5, but you can pre-order it now. (Note: I'm not making any money off this--I just get my name in print, some free copies of the book, and discounts on ordering it).

*Shameless self-promotion over. We will now return to our previously scheduled programming.*

Alterna-princesses

2011-03-03T15:39:00.000-08:00

There's been a lot of jabber in the media lately about princess culture and what it does to young girls, to be shown through movies, books, toys and costumes that being an ever-beautiful princess is the norm for womankind.

I share a lot of those concerns, as I look at my three little daughters. I want them to grow up knowing that it's their character, not their looks or their charm, that defines them. At the same time, we obviously are not enforcing any kind of ban on princesses in this household. See Family Trip to PrincessWorld (aka Disneyland) as the prime example here.

That said, I do love it when I happen upon movies or books that capture my kids' attention without all the packaged glitter and glam of the Disney Princess Franchise. Lately, the movie-maker who's been doing that is Hiyao Miyazaki.

I remember hearing of Miyazaki back when his movie "Spirited Away" was winning awards. In fact, I believe Eric and I even watched it, having heard it was good. But that was years ago--pre-kids!--and what little I recall about the movie and/or it's maker has long since faded from my mind.

Then my kids happened upon Ponyo on the Netflix watch-instantly queue, and they were enchanted by this Little Mermaid-esque fairy tale about a goldfish who wants to join the human world. Next, we spotted "Castle in the Sky" at the library and took it home for a family movie night.

There was a lot to love about Castle in the Sky: an interesting plot line, stunning animation, and plenty of fairy-tale/fantasy elements that my kids love. A lost princess, flying pirates, a mysterious robot, a magical necklace--it captivated their imaginations from the get-go. What really struck me about the heroine, Sheeta, was how very non-Disney she was. Sheeta looks like a little girl, from start to finish. She wears her hair in pigtails, she's got no figure to speak of, and she wears simple clothes. While the hero, Dazu, clearly feels chivalrous toward her, it's all very innocent. There are no big love scenes, the main point of the plot is not about the romance, and there is no intended-for-adults humor that supposedly goes over the kids' heads (did anyone else watch Madagascar 2 and feel like blushing at the totally suggestive "I like 'em big and chunky" song??) Castle in the Sky was just an all-around cool fairy tale with an appealing hero and heroine.

"Howl's Moving Castle" was our next family movie pick. I would say that this one skews toward a slightly older audience. It's darker, the themes were more complex, and there were some creepy visuals that I think would have really freaked my kids out if we weren't sitting there watching it with them (although that's true of a lot of Disney movies too--Beth was too scared to watch Beauty and the Beast the first time we tried that one, and I remember being terrified of the ending of Sleeping Beauty as a kid).

Howl's Moving Castle actually has a lot to say about beauty and appearance: the heroine, Sophie, is changed at the beginning of the movie from a young woman to an ugly old crone. A lot of the relationship that is built between the hero, Howl, and Sophie occurs while she's in a crone body and he's morphed into a bird-man. Sophie's appearance actually changes from scene to scene--it's when she's most fearful that she appears the most old and ugly. When she forgets to be self-conscious, she changes almost back to her former appearance; and by the end, when she has saved Howl from his curse, she looks like herself again, with the exception of her silver hair (and she and Howl both agree that they like her "starlight" hair).

In both of these films, the focus is on a good story, with the hero-heroine relationship one plot thread among many. Miyazaki's heroines do not sing songs about waiting for their princes to come, and wedding bells are not the pre-requisite for a happy ending.

I don't want to come across as anti-femininity or anti-romance. I'm quite comfortable being a girl, and quite happy to be married to a wonderful man. I wish the same for my daughters. What I'm tired of--and what the backlash to "princess culture" is about--is the constant barrage of messages directed at ever younger-audiences. It's about the subtle and not-so-subtle messages telling little girls that being beautiful and finding a man are the keys to happiness. Miyazaki's movies are fascinating, solidly-told stories that don't rely on a heroine with Barbie-doll proportions dancing at a ball with a handsome man to create their happy endings.

racing raindrops: why we don't have a DVD player in the car

2011-02-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

raindrop picture from Mila Zinkova on Wikimedia commons

My family only lived about 10 minutes away from my grandparents' house, but driving those dark miles home when I was a kid, after a cousin's birthday or an Easter dinner or a Father's day lunch or one of the many other occasions we found to gather at Grandma's house, the distance seemed vast.

Dad would carry my sister and I out to the car one at a time, giggling, slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, as he said, and then we'd be buckled in and I'd lean my head against the cold glass of the window and stare into the darkness the whole way home.

I would watch for personal landmarks along the way. In particular, one tree at the edge of one driveway, marked with reflectors so that no careless driver would back into it: reflectors that had been arranged into the shape of a smile. Seeing the funny-face tree was a drive-home ritual; missing it by carelessley letting my attention waver or my eyes slide shut at the wrong moment was a tragedy.

The rest of the time, on those dark night drives, I spent the minutes just staring, not at the invisible fields and quiet houses slipping past us, but at the raindrops dripping down the surface of the glass (it is always raining in these memories). Lit only by the faint glow of from the dashboard or the occasional glaring streetlight, each drop followed its own crooked path down the window, wandering and wavering downward, until suddenly, its accumulated weight too heavy, it rushed out of my sight.

My friend Joanna brought this memory flooding back to me today with her lovely post about the small moments she remembers in her own life. And it occurred to me that those minutes when we're just sitting still and staring at the rain add something to the accumulation of our lives. That just because nothing is happening at any given moment does not mean it is wasted time.

Call it silly, but that's the reason we don't have a DVD player in the car for the kids to watch, not even on long trips. Because we live in a house with a TV, and dozens of DVDs, and two computers, and I don't think we need to bring yet another flickering screen with us out to the car too. Because there's a great big world rushing past us out there, and it's full of things to see. Because I think our kids need to know that it's okay to just be still and watch the rain.

Spring snow

2011-02-24T14:26:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago it felt like spring; my girls were attempting to wear shorts and tank tops. And now, here we are, end of February and the skies dump down on us.

And with the snow--every year, every time--comes the compulsion to run out and take pictures of my kids playing in snow. Yes, I am compelled, truly compelled, to do it. I don't know why, but I know every other mother in Oregon feels the same way; I know this because I saw all the other moms in my neighborhood doing it this morning, and then I looked on Facebook this afternoon and all my friends had posted hundreds of pictures of themselves and their children out frolicking in the snow.

Maybe because it seems so rare (although it happens at least a time or two every year) or because it's so brief (2 p.m. now and my yard is completely clear) but I just know that it happens: it snows, my children MUST be out in it, and I MUST follow them and take pictures. And then post them on my blog. These are the rules. This is how it must be done. Who am I to fight it?

Beth. A snowfall portrait.

I love this one. Don't they look like the Snowball Mafia or something?

I told Beth not to take her hat off, but she did it anyway. "I love to feel the snow falling down on me," she said.

And then it was off to school. Our district didn't close its doors, even though almost every other school in the valley did. Which is fine--we only got about three inches--except that at school they don't let the kids go out to play in the snow. They had to stay inside and look at it through their classroom windows and then have recess in the gym. Lame, lame, lame.

Evie was straggling behind on the walk to school. She kept stopping to scoop up handfuls of snow and eat it.

Lucy tried to eat it too.

And on our walk back from dropping Bethie off, the sun started to break through, and glorious was the only word to describe it.


Lucy kept throwing snow up over her head and then letting it rain down onto her so she could pretend it was snowing again. Trying to prolong the joy.

And then it was in the house for hot chocolate with marshmallows. Lucy still couldn't eat hers. Evie had no such problem.

And then this is the muddy, drippy, snowy mess Mom is left to deal with at the end of the day. Because that's the rule of a snow day too. But I don't mind (too much). Snow is magic, mellowing even the most laundry-hating among us. I'll take it, muddy drips and all.

Lists for the kids (aka Mama gets creative)

2011-02-23T15:49:00.000-08:00

"Play is the work of childhood."

--Jean Piaget

I've written before about how Mama needs quiet time. Those afternoon hours are when I work, when I write, when I recharge for the rest of the day and the evening. But, let's face it: my kids are getting older. I don't even remember the last time Lucy took a nap, and on the days Beth doesn't have school, of course I wouldn't ask a 6-year-old to take a nap. So if I still want to have my quiet time, that means finding things for my busy kiddos to do.

We have the naptime box, and though I've tried to rotate toys in and out of it, Lucy's getting a little tired of that whole routine. Sometimes I let her do crafty things that we don't do every single day, like painting and playdough.

I could, of course, simply tell my kids that mama is working now and they need to entertain themselves quietly for a specified amount of time. I don't think that's unreasonable, and it's not as though we don't have a house crammed full of toys, books, and crayons for them to amuse themselves with. But too much completely unstructured time tends to lead to squabbles that I have to referee or giant messes that I have to deal with later.

Then, I read a comment on a friend's Facebook page about something she remembered from her own childhood: her mother would give her a "to-do list" of simple things to keep her occupied.

I immediately recognized the genius of this idea and appropriated it for myself.

Here's the first list that I made:

1. Draw a picture of the most beautiful flower you can imagine.

2. Do 10 jumping jacks.

3. Find a favorite book and look at all the pictures.

4. Go in the back yard and find something interesting. Bring it inside and put it on the table.

5. Find one toy or book on the floor and put it away.

When the list was done, I told them that as a prize for completing every task on their to-do list, they could have a candy heart out of our left-over Valentine candy.

The girls LOVED it. It took them at least half an hour to get through everything on the list. I got interrupted a little bit--they had to come and show me their flower pictures when they were complete, for instance--but for the most part they were kept busy. They weren't bugging me incessantly. They weren't sitting in front of the TV. And they weren't fighting. What more can you ask for? I made them another list, and another, and bought myself a whole afternoon of quiet time.

Now they come to me, begging for lists of things to do. One little part of me worries that they're losing the ability to self-entertain, but the other part of me is just grateful for some free time. I know that if we do this all afternoon, every afternoon, it's going to lose it's appeal, but if it's a strategy that I mix in along with craft times and nap-time box, I figure I can have months of relatively uninterrupted quiet times.

Here are a few of the other favorite list items I've come up with:

Think of a person you love and draw a picture of that person. We will send it to him or her in the mail.
Make up a song.
Look at the shapes of the clouds until you see something interesting (Lucy came up with that one).
Build something cool out of Legos or tinkertoys.
Find three toys or books on the floor and put them away.
Write down five letters of the alphabet and draw a picture of something that starts with each letter.
Make up a new dance move and show it to me.
Run around the back yard four times.

And if my kids are now doomed to grow up to be list-obsessed fools like me? I can live with that.

If you've got any other ideas for fun activities I should put on their lists? Please tell me!

the omnipresence of coffee

2011-02-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

If you're a person with a churchy background, like me, you'll probably relate to this little quote. And if you're also from the Northwest, you'll doubly relate. And if you're a non-churchy, non-Northwesterner, perhaps you can leave me a comment and tell me whether you relate or not.

Coffee picture from Wikimedia commons.

"Finally, one of the central characteristics of church in the Pacific Northwest is the omnipresence of coffee. Maybe this is the true reason why evangelicalism is flourishing. "On numerous occasions," Wellman writes, "the idea of coffee and worship were twinned as normal and expected in evangelical churches. Coffee, as one evangelical put it, is the 'sacrament of the [Pacific Northwest].' ""

--Matthew Sutton

This is from an interesting article about the growth of evangelicalism and the decline of liberal churches in the Northwest--thanks to Maggie for the link to it.

What's so sacred about coffee and why do church people love it so much?

while the tea steeps

2011-02-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

"A SPLENDID CUP OF TAZO TEA.

How to make one.

1. Bring some fresh, filtered water to a boil.

2. For hot tea, place one Tazo filterbag in your cup, mug or gourd.

3. Pour 8 fl oz of water over the filterbag.

4. Steep for 3 minutes while contemplating your favorite eternal mysteries."

--From the back of my box of tea. Emphasis added.

This is a story about how giving up Diet Pepsi made my house cleaner.

Those two things may not seem related. Sweet, brown, addictive beverage and neat and tidy household? What's the connection?

Tea. The answer is tea.

You see, I used to drink Diet Pepsi on a daily basis. Or, when I felt guilty for the amount I was spending on my daily Pepsi habit, diet generic store-brand soda pop. But then, last year, I went to the dentist and was told that my teeth were showing serious signs of decay.

"Do you drink a lot of pop?" my dentist asked.

"Ummm....yes?" I answered guiltily.

"I can tell. These kinds of cavities come from people who drink a lot of pop," she said.

And so the fear of damaging my teeth (or even losing them--I've seriously had stress dreams where my teeth fall out) made me change my ways, when concerns about the cost and the other unhealthy things related to soda had never managed to make a difference to me before.

Of course the right thing to do would have been to just start drinking water. Free, healthy, water. But I just don't like water. It's completely boring, as a beverage. I need something with flavor. A little caffeine doesn't hurt either. And so, instead, I started drinking tea. I never was a tea drinker before, but now I love it. I drink at least two or three cups a day, all different kinds (chai tea and green tea with pomegranate are my favorite) and I really don't miss Diet Pepsi at all. Though I do still occasionally buy a soda at a restaurant or as a special treat.

Now here's where the clean house part comes in. Diet Pepsi takes no preparation time at all. You just grab it out of the fridge, and head off to do whatever you were doing, and you're done. Tea, you have to make. It's quick and fast and easy, but it does take a few minutes. And instead of just standing there staring at my tea cup, contemplating eternal mysteries, I've started using those few minutes to do things.

Just little things. The things that take a minute or two to do, but that add up to a big disheartening mess at the end of the day if they don't get done.

In the interest of science, today I timed myself as I made my tea. Today it was 1:14 p.m. when I put the teapot on to boil.

While the water heated, I finished putting away the random lunch things that were left on the table and the counter--plates, cups, a knife, a bottle of ketchup (hot dogs for lunch--the kids were in heaven). I finished unloading the dishwasher.

1:17 p.m.--the tea kettle squealed at me. I poured the hot water over the waiting mug and tea bag and left it sitting there to steep.

I filled the dishwasher with the dirty breakfast and lunch plates and cups and the frying pan from breakfast and various other cups and things that I walked around the house and collected. It's amazing how plates and cups wind up in every room of the house, even the bathroom. By the time I was done, the dishwasher was full, so I filled it up with soap and turned it on.

With the countertops cleared of dishes, I could see all the crumbs. I wiped them off, and noticed how messy the floor was. I went to the laundry room for the broom, and saw that the load of sheets and towels I'd stuck in this morning was done. I transferred the laundry to the dryer, started it, grabbed the broom and swept the kitchen, then put the broom back.

1:24 p.m.--the tea has been steeping for more than three minutes, but the kitchen is all clean, we'll have fresh sheets to sleep on later, and who wants to drink boiling hot tea anyway?

Ten minutes total, ten minutes that I wasn't spending on anything in particular anyway, but those ten minutes completely transformed my kitchen. I hate cleaning. I really hate all housework, all the time. But I like the *results* of cleaning. And since I have not yet run across a house elf in this place, it has to get done somehow. If I wait until everything's a big mess, I'm totally depressed at all the work I have to do and am even MORE likely to just ignore it or procrastinate. But if I just do a few things in little bursts here and there, in little chunks that seem do-able, then what do you know? The house doesn't look so bad.

So, sorry I'm not spending my time deep in meditation, Tazo. But I think spending my tea-prep-time making my surroundings a little cleaner, a little neater, a little nicer, is worth it. Consider it my own little way of pondering the eternal mystery of how to keep myself sane. A clean(ish) house helps with that.

And it only took trading in a lifelong love of carbonated beverages to figure that out.

giving imperfection

2011-02-17T15:03:00.000-08:00

The quilt is finally done. It's only 13 days after my new niece was born, but who's counting? It's only three days after her actual due date. That's hardly late at all, right?

I stayed up late last night finishing the quilt, and when it was all done I looked it over. If you step back and look at it from a distance, it's pretty. If you wrap it around yourself without looking, it's warm and soft and cuddly. But if you look at it carefully, with an eye for detail...oh, it's a mess. Imperfect stitching, crooked seams, little things all over the place that just aren't how they should be.

I feel that way about every quilt I make. A mixture of happiness that the project is done, that it all turned out okay, and frustration that it turned out merely okay. Not perfect. Like so many other things--my writing. It's never as good on the page as I thought it would be in my head. My house, that never seems to be quite as clean or as stylish as other homes that I visit.

But then I have to remind myself that sometimes okay is okay. I could rip out stitches and do it over and over until I get it right, and maybe eventually I'd achieve quilt perfection. But my niece might be 5 years old before she had her quilt. Sometimes you just have to stop, and accept, with humility, that this is the best you have to give. Not perfect, but warm and soft just the same. Trusting that others will accept you, crooked stitches and all.

the twice-lost tooth

2011-02-15T13:19:00.000-08:00

I walked in the door to help with Beth's Valentine's class party yesterday, and she ran right up to me, grinning. I noticed it immediately--the bottom tooth she'd been wiggling all week was missing.

She told me all about losing it at lunch. She bit into an orange, and then she saw blood--*blood!*--on the orange, and then she felt the hole in her mouth, and then she was afraid she swallowed it, and then she found the tooth on the floor. Quite the exciting event in the day of a first-grader. She went to the office, where the office manager put it in a special bag for her.

She fished the little baggie out of her pocket to show me. And there it was, visible through the plastic, labeled with a special little sticker with a picture of a tooth on it. It had blanks in which to write in the student's name and the date the tooth was lost. Do school secretaries across the land have special baggies and "I lost my tooth at school" fill-in-the-blank stickers? I had never seen one before, but it was pretty cute. "And she drew a heart in the corner, because it was Valentine's Day!" Beth said, beaming her missing-tooth smile. Sure enough, the office manager had drawn a little heart. I admired the packet whole-heartedly, and then I returned to my position behind the snack table and went back to doling out cookies and apple slices.

And the kids unpacked their Valentine mailboxes, and admired all their cards, and they played a game, and then they started packing up their loot to go home. "Do you have your tooth?" I asked Beth.

She looked on her desk. Not there.

She looked under her desk. Not there.

Pockets, backpack, coat. Not there, not there, not there.

Beth's eyes were starting to fill up with tears, and I was telling her that I was SURE it had just gotten swept up into her pile of Valentines and that we'd find it when we went home, and her teacher stepped in and saved the day. With a voice of confidence and authority, she said, "If your mom writes a note to the tooth fairy and tells her about your tooth, the tooth fairy will accept the note instead."

Beth looked at me, wide-eyed. She may have doubts about Santa Claus, but for whatever reason, she really seems to believe in the tooth fairy. I nodded at her. "Your teacher is right," I said. "I am sure that will be fine with the tooth fairy."

And you know what? When we went home and combed through every single Valentine, every pocket of her coat, every nook and cranny of her backpack...we did NOT find the tooth. That tooth with its special little baggie and sticker simply seem to have vanished. Where could it have gone to? I really don't know.

I encouraged Beth to write her own note explaining the situation to the tooth fairy, but Beth preferred to dictate to me. On a matter of this importance, she couldn't risk misspelling a word or making some other writing error that might hinder the tooth fairy's comprehension of the situation. So I wrote it all down exactly as she asked me to, and then she signed it, and we put that in her tooth pillow at night.

Sure enough, she woke up this morning to four shiny quarters. (Imagine that). The tooth fairy did understand after all. Although I'm not sure there was too much doubt about that. Her TEACHER said it would be okay, after all. And while she may not always agree with what her mother says, if her teacher says it, she knows that it's true.

Bewildering 4-year-old jokes

2011-02-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

Penguin and cow photo by Scootie on Flickr.

Lucy, at the dinner table: Where do a penguin and a cow go on a date?

Eric: I don't know, where?

Lucy: When everybody else is dead, to the movies.

Eric: Seems like an appropriate end to humanity.

Lucy: The mooooovies? Get it?

Eric: Oh, I get it.

*Why do my children have such strange, strange thoughts about cows? I just don't know.

moms of the world, take heart

2011-02-09T15:46:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, I never never never never ever ate my vegetables.

Nothing green and/or leafy ever entered my mouth. Ever. The only vegetables I would eat were corn (preferably cold and crunchy, straight out of the freezer); carrots (raw, never cooked); or potatoes (baked, roasted, or tots--never mashed).

I don't know how my poor parents put up with me.

I branched out a bit when I entered college--I began eating an occasional salad. That was still about it.

Then I got married, and my husband was not so long-suffering as my mother. He informed me that he didn't care what I ate, but there was no way HE was going to eat frozen corn every single day for the rest of his life. And since I was and still am our primary family cook, I started cooking some more vegetables. For him. Love will do strange things to you.

And while I had no problem turning up my nose at my mother's cooking every night of my childhood (sorry, Mom!), I felt differently once I was the one preparing the food. I knew that time and effort had gone into planning, shopping for, and preparing those meals. Plus, we were broke, and I couldn't exactly make two different dinners each night--vegetable-inclusive, for him; corn-and-baby-carrots-only, for me.

So I started eating more vegetables. And I didn't choke on them. And I tried new ones. And sometimes I liked them.

And now, we come to where we are today. This morning I was making a lunch for my husband, spooning up leftovers of last night's casserole to put in a tupperware container for him to take to work, and I couldn't resist scooping up a spoonful of the casserole just to eat myself because it was soooo good.

And what kind of casserole was it that I was salivating over, you may wonder?

It was a mixed-vegetable and lentil casserole. Lentils. I kid you not. Ten years ago I had no clue what a lentil even was, and here I am gobbling them up by the spoonful because they are so delicious. And it occurred to me how strange it is that I, the vegetable-hating child, was snitching bites of a vegetarian casserole as an adult. (Thanks, Rebekah, for the recipe!)

Me and my lentils. Deeeelicious.

Brussels sprouts? Roasted, sauteed, or braised, I can't get enough of them. They have such a good, nutty flavor. Spinach! Eggplant! Zucchini! Squash! Yum, yum, yum. I eat vegetables every single day, new vegetables all the time (just tried a recipe with bok choy a few weeks ago, and it was great) and I love almost all of them. (Not parsnips. They are gross). If you would have told me as a child that I would be eating, and enjoying, all these foods, I would have told you that you were dead wrong. Little did I know.

And so I share my story with you, all you mothers of picky eaters out there (myself included. My kids only each the carrots out of the lentil casserole, and the cheese off the top) as a ray of hope in a dark and stormy world. Even the pickiest of picky eaters may one day grow up to eat a variety of healthy vegetables. And even enjoy it.

The shirtless guy

2011-02-07T07:03:00.000-08:00

It was early morning, still dark, and I was out running, my feet hitting the pavement the only sound in the sleepy neighborhood. Then, up ahead, I saw a figure moving toward me.

A man, I could tell from his size. Not tall but stocky and broad-shouldered. Thick gloves on his hands, a hat on his head, and a muffler covering half his face. Dark pants, white shoes. But...something didn't look right. What was he...? And as I moved closer, I could see that this guy was not wearing a shirt. Pre-dawn, biting cold, out walking the streets with his chest bare and belly hanging out.

Maybe you'll understand that I quickened my pace and kept my finger on the trigger of my Mace until I was well past him.

That first encounter with shirtless guy was years ago. I've seen him many times since then, out walking various routes in the same neighborhood I run through, and he's never done anything more than lift a friendly hand in greeting as we pass each other. I'm used to him now, but I still get a little creeped out when I suddenly see his half-naked body looming up at me under the glow of a streetlight. And I've got to wonder: what is WITH this guy?

I've seen shirtless guy in every kind of weather, from pleasant summer mornings to icy winter ones when I wear layers upon layers of clothes before I go out. And he's always appropriately attired for the weather from the belt down and head up. But his torso is always completely bare. It's not as though he's got a fantastic physique to show off, either. This guy is old--I'd guess 60 or up--and though he still looks tough and hearty, he's got a hairy old man chest and a big round belly.

I've seen shirtless guy during the daytime, too, out working in the yard of a house that I assume is his, a nice, well-kept older house in one of Albany's historic districts. He never has a shirt on then, either. But going shirtless while you're working in the yard, especially if it's a hot day, is a slightly tacky but not unusual male prerogative.

But why the bare-chested early-morning walks in the freezing cold? Why doesn't he just put on a sweatshirt, for crying out loud? Because walking around half-naked in a residential area in the early mornings is just creepy. Maybe I need to start carrying a spare with me, so I can toss it to him next time we pass. "Hey, it's called a shirt. Ever consider wearing one?"

I suppose it could be worse. He could be going around pants-less.

when procrastination comes back to haunt you

2011-02-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

I received happy news at about 10:30 last night. My sister-in-law gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, making me an aunt for the second time. And, giving my in-laws five consecutive granddaughters, zero grandsons (yet). (And no, that's not a hint about anything. We have done our share for the grandchild count).

But I admit that after we hung up the phone with Eric's brother and laid down in bed, my thought, as I was drifting off, was annoyance with myself. I haven't gotten the new baby's quilt done yet!!!

Now, granted, she did arrive a week and a half early...surely I would have had it all done if she'd arrived on her due date, right? Or even just a teensy bit late?? I'll tell myself that and try to believe it.

Here's the quilt (thanks to Jenny for the link to the pattern) as it looked this morning, all spread out on my kitchen floor, rows waiting to be sewn together. I now have only three more rows to join up, and then the quilt top will be complete. And after a hugely lengthy trip to the fabric store this morning (did everyone in the world decide they needed to shop at Joann's today?) I now have the material for the backing and binding. Which means I'm all set! I've just got to sew those last three rows. And put together the top, the filling, and the backing. And quilt the whole thing together. And sew on the binding. Yeah, there's not much left to do at all.

I know there's no way in the world I can get the whole thing done this afternoon, before we go meet this new little one. There's just not. (sigh). But...I'm still going to sew my little heart out the rest of the day. So maybe I can get it done by what her actual due date was, and claim to have been on schedule all along.

tastes like home

2011-02-03T16:54:00.000-08:00

I forgive you if you think I'm a little schizophrenic in my food choices after you read this post.

You see, in my last post I bragged about how I try to avoid processed foods when buying groceries for my family.

And in this post, I'm going to tell you about a delicious meal that I made for my family this week, a meal that I love, a meal that is (unfortunately) chock full of highly processed foods with unpronounceable items on their nutrition labels.

It's Tater Tot Casserole. And it's soooo good.

I haven't made Tater Tot Casserole in quite a while. Because of the whole food snobbery-avoiding processed foods thing. But then, a commenter on my friend Mike's Facebook wall mentioned Tater Tot Casserole. And I knew as soon as I read it that I needed to have some. Soon.

Tater Tot Casserole is so simple to make, you barely even need the recipe--though I do have it, all written down in my mom's handwriting.

You take a pound of ground beef, and brown it on the stovetop. While it's cooking, you take a packet of dried onion soup mix, and a can of cream of mushroom soup, and dump them together in a bowl, and mix them up until you have a delicious, salty, brownish gray sauce.

You stop browning the ground beef before it's quite all the way done--you don't want it overcooked in the oven later--and drain the fat off. Then you dump the ground beef into a casserole dish, and spoon the onion-mushroom sauce over the top, and then you get out your bag of frozen tater tots.

You take your tots, and you put a nice healthy layer of them over the top of everything, completely covering the beef and sauce. Then you pop it in a 350-degree oven and bake it for about 35 minutes.

And that's it. You're done.

When you pop it in your mouth and taste the savory ground beef and hot, salty tater tot goodness on top, you'll probably understand why I am so fond of this recipe. But just in case the taste alone doesn't do it for you, I offer further explanation of why it is near and dear to my heart.

When my sisters and I were teenagers, we were each responsible for making dinner one night each week, which of course works out to about four times a month. This means that I knew how to make exactly four recipes: sour cream chicken enchiladas, tacos, breakfast-for-dinner (usually scrambled eggs, ham, and waffles), and tater tot casserole.

Over, and over, and over, I made tater tot casserole. It was my favorite dinner EVER. And when I got married, my mom gave me the gift of a recipe box containing a bunch of family recipes, including this one.

And now, every time I eat it, I'm not just savoring a good hearty casserole, I'm also reliving my childhood, and the comfort and happiness we knew around our dinner table.

So you'll have to excuse me for my occasional lapse from healthy-whole-food-goodness. Sometimes, food isn't just about food. It's about love.

why I'm not a coupon mom

2011-02-01T07:34:00.000-08:00

When something becomes its own verb, you know it's a big deal. Couponing. It's a whole new world out there.

I'm sure you've heard of this. Using coupons is not just about flipping through the newspaper and clipping out a few little bargains anymore. It's practically a movement of own, with a name of its own: couponing. There are couponing websites, couponing classes, even. Seems like everytime you turn around there's some woman on TV talking about how she goes to the grocery store and the checkers just automatically fill her cart with food and then hand HER a fistful of money, because she has perfected the art of couponing and now she's going to retire as a millionaire!

For a long time, I've thought that this coupon-clipping was not worth the hype, but with all these people talking about how they cut their grocery bills in half, I decided to give it a go this week.

On Sunday, I went through every page of the fliers in the Sunday paper, pulling out coupons and writing down prices of items on sale. Then I went to a couponing website and sorted through various menus and categories, trying to find more deals. I ended up with a page worth of hand-written notes, a stack of coupons, and a list of four different stores to potentially hit up.

Wheat Thins--something I did actually use a coupon for. Mmmm, Wheat Thins. I love to eat them with chevre. Why are there not coupons for goat cheese in the coupon fliers?

But first--before I drove around to every store in town--I did my normal grocery shopping routine: I went to WinCo, and I looked for the prices on generic, store-brand products. And when I did that, guess what?

Store-brand items were cheaper 87 percent of the time, even if you considered the coupon deals.

Del Monte canned fruit, Chicken of the Sea tuna, Head & Shoulders Shampoo, Eggland's Best eggs--all were on sale in the coupon circulars, all were something I thought I might purchase, but when I actually compared, even when factoring in the coupon prices I had written down, store-brand products were still cheaper.

What's more, some of the prices listed on the coupon website I visited were just wrong. They listed a ton of good deals at Safeway, enough so that I specifically didn't buy certain items at WinCo, planning to go to Safeway next and get the good deals. But then when I got to my local Safeway, the deals that I'd seen listed online simply didn't exist. Whether the website creators got their dates wrong, or their geographic area wrong, or they were just making stuff up for fun to mess with poor ignorant consumers, I don't know. But at that point I wasn't going back to WinCo to get the slightly-cheaper items, so I just sucked it up and bought them anyway.

I ended up spending my entire morning and driving to three different stores, even though I bought the vast majority of my groceries at WinCo and was driving to those other stores in pursuit of just a few specific items. By the end of the day, the kids and I were both exhausted and my 2-year-old was saying, "Why are we at ANOTHER store?" when I pulled into the third grocery store parking lot.

String cheese. The only other food item that I actually used a coupon for, out of the almost $300 I spent on groceries.

I think that some of the people who are saving so much on their groceries are simply buying different items than I do. If you read this blog post about couponing from TIME.com, and watch the little video in which a coupon guru shows off the deals she got, I would say at least fifty percent of what she bought are things I never purchase. Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, Cheetos, Coke, Easy Mac? Not things that I buy. How about a coupon for carrots or apples or whole wheat bread--things I go through by the truckload? Now, I'm not getting all food-snob on you here. I certainly do buy hot dogs for my children, and I could go through a box of Wheat Thins all by myself. But, overall, I've been making a conscious effort to cut down on the amount of highly-processed foods that I purchase, and that's what the majority of the items shown in that grocery video are.

So, to sum up, here's why I've decided my couponing experiment was a fail:

1. A lot of the coupons in the paper were for items I don't buy anyway.

2. The ones that were worthwhile to me were usually STILL more expensive than just buying the store-brand item.

3. Going through every page of the paper, searching through websites, and driving from store to store took me at least two hours longer than my normal grocery shopping routine.

4. In the end, I saved very little money. The only coupons I used were the manufacturer coupons, which would have been good no matter what store I went to. My grand total of savings: $1 off string cheese, $1 off Wheat Thins, $2 off razor blades.

Four bucks. I saved four bucks.

That, my friends, is not worth it.