She Finally Gets Me...

Hello? Hello?
  Is this thing on? (tap, tap, tap)

It's not that I haven't had anything to blog about since March, but I had this thing called "writer's block" where I just couldn't commit anything down.

It really was annoying.

  And then I thought about the last few days.

Yesterday I took my daughter to the beach. Just me and my gal. We went to the beach because a friend of mine from out of state happened to be vacationing at the beach and I wanted to see her. I haven't seen her in 11 years. I've known her for over 40 years. That's all my life. You have to understand that this was the friend that I "grew up" with. I saw her at least twice a week, every week, throughout my entire childhood.

Anyway, this friend, who still holds a special place in my heart, took to my daughter like glue. Within five minutes my daughter was ready to leave me for her. And I wasn't even jealous because I was ready to follow my friend to the ends of the earth within five minutes too. Some people just have that affect on us, I guess.

This special beach trip of ours did exhaust us, though.

  Did you ever notice that when you spend a whole day at the beach, even if you are just sitting in the sun, watching your childhood friend bury your kid in the sand, you are exhausted and sort of feel like a walking zombie the next day? I love that feeling.

That feeling is even better when you are a kid and you are on vacation at the beach and you have nothing to do but play at the beach all day for a week. Pure awesomeness.

We only had a day at the beach and today my daughter and I were sort of doing the zombie-after-beach-thing. And I have pink eye and a sore throat so I had to go to the doctor today. And I had to pick my car up from the fix it place to the tune of six hundred and thirty two dollars (that's enough to make anyone a zombie). And I had laundry to do and coffee-filter butterflies to make.

  Seriously. It's been a full day.

A part of me was ready for bed before I even put dinner on the table. But then we walked to the store after dinner and had to get the kids ready for bed. Every night my husband reads Bible Stories in our bed to my daughter before bed time. It's a sweet bedtime ritual that gives them their special time and it gives me some time to myself. I was half-listening to what my husband was reading and I heard him say, "Jesus needed some disciples, so he went to Barnes and Noble."

  I started giggling. My husband is not especially fond of being interrupted during Bible Story time, so I got the look.

  "What did you say?" I asked him.

"I said, 'Jesus needed some disciples, so he went to look for helpers'."

  "Oh. It sounded like 'so he went to Barnes and Noble'."

My daughter can't help herself. She starts giggling.

My husband says, "Well, if it were today, maybe he would go to Barnes and Noble, but back then he went to some fishermen."

My daughter giggles some more.

I think to myself that really, you probably could find anything you want at Barnes and Noble. Kinda like Target.

  I can't help myself. I smile at my daughter and say, "Barnes and Noble." She giggles harder.

My husband and I both say "Shhh!" because we don't want her to wake her brother, but I am smiling.

  Because my daughter is starting to get my sense of humor. It makes me feel like at least if she followed one of my friends back to their house, she'd take me with her. 

Girl Talk

Not much has happened lately on my blog and I apologize to all of my 8 readers.

I have no excuse. And I have a lot of excuses that all add up to being incredibly tired for the past six weeks.

Seriously, it's been so busy around here and we've lost so much sleep that my husband and I walk around like zombies and neither one of us retain information very well.

This weekend I went to go visit a friend for her birthday back East. back East does mean Connecticut, although I guess since I live in California, anything can be considered "back East", but in my head "back East" = New England. Anyway, my husband had to ask me five times when my return flight home was. After the third time of asking me, I pulled the ol' teacher "repeat after me" game by saying, "I'm coming home on Sunday. What day am I coming home?" and he would say, "Sunday." I would then give positive reinforcement by patting his arm and saying, "Right!" and smiling big. But as any teacher knows, even this method is not always a guarantee of retainment of information, so after the fifth time he asked me, I sighed and wrote it down.

I am not blameless in this either, though, because my husband has reminded me several times of things he has on his schedule and I still end up saying things like, "You never told me that."

And before anyone starts suggesting ways of how we can remember things, please understand that we both have computer calendars, post-it note reminders placed within our line of sight around the house, and a very nice dry-erase board calendar in the upstairs hallway. It's just that we are too tired to write anything down on the calendar upstairs (that requires walking up the stairs and consciously writing on the calendar-who has the energy for that?) and we can't see our post-it notes in the kitchen because we're zombies...so we wander around mumbling our schedules to each other hoping the information will stick.

My husband did remember to pick me up at the airport. I expected this huge chorus of "Mama!" from the backseat. I expected my children to great me with hugs and kisses and shouts of joy. They were both bent over asleep in their car seats. "They've had a long weekend," my husband explained.

I did too. I had a great, long weekend.

I flew out "back East", as I stated earlier, to surprise my friend for her birthday. It wasn't just any friend, though, it was one of the only people in the world I consider a "kindred spirit", so to speak. We met twenty years ago this summer,we both were camp counselors at a christian summer camp. We did not become close, though, until the following summer, when we returned as counselors to the same camp. For some reason, the friends I made at this particular camp are sort that I consider my closest allies in navigating the world and all that life entails.

Anyway, this particular friend is probably the one I would chose if anyone had to say who is your "best friend", although that term sounds sort of silly at our age.
But remember when we were young and best friends meant you stayed up all night talking about boys and music and movie stars until all hours of the morning?

I stayed up all night talking this weekend, but our talk was the talk of grown women with responsibilities. Austistic children, children with emotional anxieties, husbands, financial troubles, relatives we struggle with, schooling, spiritual growth, spiritual needs,housework,jobs, etc...we still managed to laugh and even giggle, but it was apparent by the lines on our face and the softness of our child-bearing bodies, that we are older.

And the great thing about being a grown up is that sometimes you get to have these kinds of conversations with a glass of wine in your hand and the kind of wisdom and love that only comes with twenty years of friendship.

I came back exhausted. I can hardly think straight. And my poor husband has had parent duty all weekend, so he's exhausted too.

But it was totally worth another upcoming week of zombieland.

Little Linguist

I’m pretty sure that although my daughter has dreams of being a lounge singer, she is better suited to be a linguist.

And it’s not just because her father is a genius and uses words I’ve never heard of before. And it’s not because before I had children, I had a pretty good vocabulary myself.

It’s not even because I suspect my husband of sneaking J.R.R. Tolkien books under her pillow at night, hoping some of Tolkien’s linguistic talent will go to her head through osmosis.

It’s because she’s already started down the path that leads to being a linguist.

I think one of the talents you must have to be a linguist is the ability to make up words on the spot and define them and then convince everyone that your definition is correct. She’s really good at this.

For example, during the Christmas season, we would drive around town looking at lights. If there was a house that had a display of lights that might put Las Vegas to shame, the Four Year Old would say, “HungaMunga!”
Without even waiting for the question that would ask for clarification, she would define her word for us: “HungaMunga. It means A LOT of lights.”

Pretty soon we were all bursting out with “HungaMunga!” anytime we saw a house with a lot of lights. Then my husband began to use it in a sentence, “That house has a lot of HungaMunga. Wouldn’t you agree?”

One day last week I was driving around completing errands with my kids in the car and my daughter started crying. If you know my daughter, it’s not very unusual for her to burst into tears all of a sudden and scare the heck out of you. Sometimes I can be strong enough and patient enough to deal with these little emotional outbursts. Other times she is so spontaneous in her crying that it surprises me and I respond by practically jumping out of my seat.

“What is wrong?” I asked. If you want to, you may believe that I asked this in the most patient and loving Mommy voice. If you want the truth…I probably asked it with a tone of exasperation.

“All the HungaMunga is gone!” she wailed.

I didn’t know whether to laugh because it’s obvious this word has become part of our family vocabulary or cry because I was too tired to explain the cycle of Christmas decorations yet again.

I could make a list of the words that she has made up and have become part of the household vocabulary, but I won’t because I need that list for future blog entries. I have to stretch the fun out.

Another language “issue” I’ve noticed about the Four Year Old, though, is her ability to make sure that everyone understands that words that are used in past tense, are REALLY used in past tense. What I mean is that she throws an extra “ed” on the end of a word to make it as meaningful as possible. She doesn’t just say, “Mommy, I missed you.” She says, “Mommy, I missed-ed you.”

I know this is a typical preschooler thing to do, but I am going to kind of miss (ded) those words when she grows out of them.

It's not easy being green

The other night I almost had a heart attack.

Well, not really, but I did almost do a cartwheel and shout, "Yippee!"

You see, my daughter ate a vegetable.

Not just any vegetable. But the green one that looks like trees and that one must usually smother in cheese sauce to make it appear edible to anyone under the age of thirty.

"What is this called again?" asked the Four Year Old, holding up her fork that had speared one of the small trees (not covered in any sauce, mind you).

"Broccoli."

She stuck it in her mouth. I waited.

"I like broccoli now."

Inside my head, the crowd was going wild. Cheers of joy filled my head. I mentally spoke to the vitamins in the green stuff she had just swallowed, asking them to find their way to the most vital parts and take root, because who knew when she would eat another vegetable. It took me four years to get her to eat this.

"Oh, good." I said.

"I don't like the white ones, though."

My husband said, "That's cauliflower. That's different. It's okay if you don't like it. You tried it at least."

My daughter ate another piece of broccoli. She could have asked me for anything she wanted and I would have given it to her. Would you like a pony? I will go get you a pony. Thank you, thank you, for eating a vegetable.

Did you ever notice that they make it as easy as possible to lie on the Wellness Questionaire at the Pediatrician's office? Maybe not at all doctor's facilities, but at least in ours. They put all the right answers in one column, and all the wrong ones in another. Does anyone smoke in your home? Is your water heater turned to the right temperature? Do you put your baby in a car seat? It's all yes or no, check this box, type of questions, all the correct answers in the same column to make it convenient to just check down the row. I wonder if whoever wrote that questionaire knew that most mothers are suffering from lack of sleep and multi-tasking headaches, and thought, "The poor dears, let's just make it so they don't have one more thing to think about." So I'm taking my son to get his wellness check up (four months late) and to get his shots and I'm filling out the form, feeling like I could get an A or a happy face sticker on the form for being such a good mom. And then the form says, "Do you offer your child vegetables at every meal?"

I actually hesitated. Like I held my pencil in the air and stared at the form and considered lying by marking "yes." Why, yes, my children are offered vegetables at every meal because what kind of mother would I be if I didn't do that? I'm certainly not the mother who throws five chicken nuggets on a plate in the microwave and asks, "You want ketchup with that?" and calls it good. I'm certainly not the mother who considers chocolate cheerios a decent snack.

I had visions of being tied up to a chair and being questioned by Jack Bauer (Okay, if you never watched 24, you won't get it) on my children's eating habits. Then being declared some sort of vegetable hater or terrorist and hauled away never to be heard from again. Caught by the Counter Terrorist Unit in defense of all things veggie. No, Jack, don't hurt me, I promise to offer peas and carrots.

I marked "no". I do not offer vegetables with every meal. Let the chips fall where they may. I can take it.

That Pediatrician didn't even look at my questionaire.

I still felt guilty - I made a promise to myself that I would make an effort to at least offer vegetables with dinner. And even if they don't eat them, I will have done my job. I was rewarded with 4 small trees of green being eaten by the Four Year Old. The Toddler just threw them on the floor.

You can't win them all.

I gave the Four Year Old cake for dessert.

A use for bacon

As if anyone needed to be told a use for bacon. I just couldn't think of a clever title.

So I was looking for good crockpot recipes because, let's face it, they are few and far between it seems, and I found one. But then I tweaked it because I felt it needed bacon.

Here is the recipe. It's a navy bean and ham soup. With bacon. And sauteed onions. And carrots. And cream. Basically, I rewrote the recipe. It turned out quite yummy, but rich. A little goes a long way with this one. I also threw on some asiago shredded cheese on the top. I served it with fresh asiago cheese bread.

You will need :
A bag of navy beans. Soak 2 cups overnight in 6 cups of water. Drain.
A whole package of bacon (I used applewood smoked. It was quite extraordinary)
3 or 4 large carrots
1 yellow onion
whipping cream
1 box of chicken stock (low sodium)
a bunch of ham, cubed
pepper to taste
throw in some garlic with the onions while your sauteing if you want.


After soaking beans over night and draining, throw them in a crockpot.
Cook all your bacon, pat dry with paper towels and crumble. Add to crockpot.
Save the bacon grease. While bacon grease is still hot, saute one diced, yellow onion.
When onions are mostly soft, add to crockpot.
Slice carrots and saute in onion and bacon grease. When carrots are completely coated and change color a bit, remove and add to crockpot.
Add cubed ham to crockpot.
Add in one box of chicken stock (about 4 cups or so) and 1 cup of water.
Stir and cook on low for 7-9 hours.
About 1/2 hour or so before eating, add in some cream. I did about half of a small carton.
Serve in bowls with a little sprinkled asiago cheese.

Enjoy!

Sneaky Christmas

Not to be one to say the glass is half empty, I am surprised at myself for thinking only of the Christmas-sy things I haven't done this season, rather than the ones I have.

I am slightly peeved because Christmas is two days away and I have not been to one "Sing-a-long Handel's Messiah" and I have not seen enough Las Vegas style Christmas lights. I haven't sung enough Christmas carols and I have not had one glass of eggnog. The closest I came was having eggnog flavored creamer in my coffee. Not really a decent substitute.

I didn't even get to attend the one adult Christmas Party I was invited to because the morning of the party, my daughter threw up five times and then I was so queasy by 4pm all I wanted to do was crawl in bed. I almost cried when I called the babysitter to cancel.

So now that Christmas has completely snuck up on me, I have finally submitted to the fact that although I didn't do everything Christmas-sy I wanted, I did at least do some things.

For instance, I took my four year old daughter to see The Nutcracker. She loved it, but she did loudly ask during the ballet, "Why are all the boys wearing tights?!?" I had to explain that men who do ballet sometimes wear tights. This led to all kinds of questions about costume choices so that I had to finally say, "Shush! Just watch the play!" To which she responded, "Is it over yet?"

I escorted both my kids to our church's childrens Christmas musical, only to have them both have a meltdown after the first 20 minutes. Then we had to leave.

We drove around town oohing and ahhing at Christmas lights one night.

My daughter and I watched "Elf" together and giggled through the whole thing.

We made Christmas cake pops that turned out not too bad. We made Christmas chocolate lollipops and gave them to preschool teachers and day care workers. We made sure they were wrapped in pretty ribbons.

The kids and I went to Target to go Christmas shopping at least five times.

I mailed out Christmas cards. Our pictures actually look decent this year. I know this because my mom told me. Last year she said, "Your card is really awful." It was. Last year I threw the kids on the living room chair and said "hold still" and took a few bad pictures of them not holding still. Then I threw those pictures on a card. This year, we at least are all holding still. And we're sitting on a beach.

I watched the movie "The Nativity Story" and cried my eyes out at the end.

After frantically searching for my James Taylor Christmas CD, and not being able to find it, I downloaded it onto my iPhone so I can listen to it in the car. Since I just downloaded it and I haven't heard it all season, my husband can expect to hear it all the way to San Diego on Christmas Day.

I frantically wrapped presents ahead of time so that my husband has the room to wrap his at the last minute.

And yes, we have a Christmas tree. All the ornaments are above waist level now because of the 16 month old, but we have a beautiful tree. And today I actually took the time to look at some of my favorite ornaments on the tree and just breath in the peaceful feeling that comes with having a Christmas tree.

I baked one batch of sugar cookies shaped like Christmas stars and trees. I made 11 cookies. Six of them burned. C'est la vie.

There's still time to watch A Christmas Story. It doesn't look like I'll get to go caroling this year or see Las Vegas type lights, but we may actually make it to a "Day After Christmas" party given by one of my old high school chums.

And in the end, I will get to watch my kids tear into wrapping paper and their stockings and eat candy and play and play and play. And then three days later, we travel to my parent's house and do it all over again. That's alright by me.

I start to wish that the Christmas season was two months long, but then I think about how I hate it when Christmas decorations go up in stores right after Halloween and I haven't had time to transition to the season.

Really, Christmas only lasted one night. One blessed, silent night.

I am thankful we get almost a whole month to revel in the season when I look at it that way. And even though I didn't get to do everything I wanted to put me in the Christmas Spirit, my daughter reminds me daily when she opens the door on her Advent Calendar that Christmas can't come soon enough.

So welcome Christmas and Happy Birthday, Jesus.

I just hope I get that bike put together before Christmas morning!

Christmas is coming...

To Santa or not to Santa? That is the question.

My husband and I briefly discussed this before having kids and as we talked over whether or not we would introduce our children to the make believe world of Santa, I honestly thought it might be a deal breaker and end our marriage before it even started. Seriously, who doesn't love Santa? My husband, apparently. Actually, he might like Santa, but he doesn't like to lie. At all. End of story. Case closed.

I finally got the compromise of we could "play" Santa as a "game". If she ever asks, we explain that Santa is a really fun game to play, but he isn't real like you or me. She's never asked. Okay, I take that back. She must have asked the babysitter. And the babysitter said Santa was real.

Enter her word against ours.

And somehow, I, the person that wanted Santa in the first place, is left to explain that Santa is a game to my four year old who is standing with her hands on her hips, saying, "Oh, no! He's real!"

"Talk to your father," I said. I figured he started this mess anyway.

In the meantime, I end up discussing with a friend how much money I owe to the Susan G. Komen Foundation . This leads to talking about debt. Which leads to talking about my drug addicted brother. Which leads to me talking about how my drug addicted brother acts all tough, but is really scared to death. Which leads to a mention of my fears and insecurities and how come I didn't end up like him.

I say, "There but for the grace of God, go I."

And then I end up spilling my guts about how there is a debt I will never be able to pay. How much I owe God. For saving me from self-destructing. For pulling me out of situations that I was stupid enough to get into.

And I say that I know all the spiritual buzz talk in my head about how I can never pay that debt back, but that's not the point.

I FEEL as if I'm supposed to pay it back and I never can. So I'm frozen in place.

So then my friend brings up lavishing gifts on our children at Christmas time. Actually, I brought that up, but she brings it up and asks if I expect as many gifts from my children in return.

Of course not.

For one thing, they don't have jobs. Their job skills are poorly lacking at this particular time. Unless you can call knowing all the words to Little Einsteins a job skill. Or throwing food on the floor.

No. I give my children gifts because of the sheer bliss I get out of seeing the joy on their faces when they open presents. It's a way to show them I love them.

And I realize I never will pay my parents back in a hundred Christmases for the lavishness of presents and love shown to me. They probably aren't keeping track anyway.

And I won't care if my children ever lavish me with gifts.

As for God...well, you get where I'm going with this.

Open the present. Look inside. Be joyful. Make someone else joyful.

Follow the star. Look in the manger. Be joyful. Make Someone else joyful.

Just accept that I didn't earn the gift and I can't pay it back.

Okay, and this leads back to Santa.

Why in the world do some people hold over kid's heads that they have to be good all year long to earn a Christmas present? Adults can't even be good all year long.

And we don't even remind them of being good all year long for Santa until like, after Thanksgiving.

I don't hear any parents on the playground in July saying, "Knock that off or Santa won't bring you a present this year!"

It's not until Christmas carols start playing on the radio after Thanksgiving that we are reminded we better watch out and we better not cry or pout. Or honk our horn in traffic. Or become impatient with our children. (I'm only talking about myself now). The year is practically over by then. I don't think that's very fair.

I remember one year when I was asked if I had been good all year thinking back to a particular incident in September and hoping Santa wouldn't remember. Oh, the pressure.

I hope my kids grow up knowing that even though they weren't good all year long, they still get presents at Christmas because it's fun and I love them.

And we still haven't completely resolved the Santa issue. Well, I resolved it. I just am putting a bunch of presents under the tree with a name on them, but no "from". So for all they know, the Easter Bunny could have left the presents there.

My guess is my cover is blown anyway because my daughter caught me wrapping one of her gifts and said, "So how's it going wrapping my gift?"

I said, "Fine. Get out."

See? It's all about the love.