Good Eats?

If I am being honest with you (and myself), I would have never thought on my own that I could/would/should make baby food for my kids. Would have never even occurred to me. Isn't that why they sell it in those cute little jars at the store? Because you are supposed to feed it to your cute little ones at home? And yet, with Harrison, I made 95% of the purees he ate starting around the six-month mark. Why? Because my aunt asked me if we wanted a Babycook for his first Christmas and I said, "Ummmmm? OK?"

While I have some contention about the product's name (seriously? it sounds like you are meant to cook the kid, not for the kid. this is just as disturbing to me as the phrase "good enough to eat" when used in reference to children. why do we want our little ones to think we want to eat them?!), the Beaba Babycook really is amazing. I believe my aunt found it through Williams Sonoma (T, correct me if I'm wrong) and she also got us this amazing cookbook that I truly adored. The first time I tried using the Babycook, I had no freaking clue what I was doing, but it turned out to be a pretty simple system and the little man liked the end result, so we just went with it. I made everything from sweet potato and squash to asparagus, whipped cauliflower, and ground turkey. I honestly don't know if I bought any baby food in jars from a store for him. Puffs and snacks, yes, but nothing else.

Then came Miss Raegan. Our little peanut who refused to eat pretty much anything besides yogurt and certainly nothing homemade besides some sweet potatoes and squash. Actually, mostly just the squash. She just didn't care for anything I tried making for her, which, I'll be honest again, wasn't as much. I was too frazzled, apparently, and since my few attempts didn't exactly win her over, I decided it just wasn't worth the hassle. Jarred baby food it was. I felt a fair amount of mommy guilt over this that I tried to assuage with Organic jarred baby food, but it was what it was (and I was not going to spend every weekend making stuff she was going to not eat!).

So now that Lincoln has hit six months (almost seven, actually, if you can believe it), I get my third shot at this. And because, you know, I have so much free time, I decided to try the Babycook once again. Last weekend I spent about an hour chopping up, steaming, and pureeing two batches each of sweet potatoes and squash. It looked like this at the mid-point:

And then, true to form, both HD and LT were willing to try the goods:

While some feedings since the first have been less than successful, Lincoln's general consensus is that my homemade stuff is OK ( or, at least, he seems to have fun spreading it all over his face). I guess this means that, for now, the Babycook is back in business!

Homemade Brownies

For a brief period in my childhood, I was in Girl Scouts. And I believe it was a Girl Scouts cooking class where I stumbled upon the Best Brownie Recipe Ever and have continued to use it for the last 20ish years. Seriously. SO good. And SO unhealthy (as you will soon see). I say "I believe" because my overactive imagination tends to make things up (like the years I spent believing that the Cargill billboard I saw on my bus route to school as a kindergartner/first grader featured my dad's face - um, why? Because he wore a Cargill hat around the farm? I don't know, but I was pretty shocked when I later learned he was not their model!). So maybe it was GS, maybe it was not. But either way I ended up with this awesome plastic bound green cookbook (and yet that I remember) with the beloved and much used Dump Bar recipe. In fact, it was so much used, that the page is terribly stained with baking debris because like my dear father, the handsome-but-not-actually-a-seed-billboard-model, I am a terribly messy being in the kitchen.

I mention all of this because earlier today (two posts in one day - oh, my!), when I wrote about the crazy arse morning we were having, one of my dearest and obviously wisest friends suggested the word "chocolate" to me. And I, of course, thought of Dump Bars. And some folks started asking for the recipe. So here you have it - my first (I think) recipe post.

But I need your help. I hate extremely dislike the name Dump Bars. But I've always called it that because I'm a rule follower and that was the name given in the green cookbook. But seriously? Dump Bars? I get it because all you do is dump stuff in and stir and viola, magic happens:

But, for real, can you please help me come up with a better name?

Maybe, for inspiration, you should make a batch. Here's the How To:

The Yet-to-be-Properly-Named Best Brownies Ever
Ingredients:
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. cocoa (all I have currently is special dark and I have to say, for this recipe, not my fave)
1 3/4 c. flour
1 t. salt
1 c. oil
1 t. vanilla
5 eggs
1 c. chocolate chips (divided) (and for this, I LOVE the special dark)

Directions:
Mix all dry ingredients. Create a well and mix in remaining ingredients, including 1/3-1/2 chips last. Spread in greased 9x13 pan. Top with remaining chips. Bake 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees (I go for minimum time to get maximum goo factor).

*******
Seriously. That's it. And then they look like this and taste like amazing.

Now. I know some of you just fell off your chairs when you read that ingredient list. I know. It's terrible and SO unhealthy (I warned you!). But please, don't judge me for how unhealthy this is. Or do, if you'd like. I really won't mind because I'll be here enjoying my lovely sugar coma thanks to my awesome but
yet-to-be named brownies.

******Naming Update******
There were some great suggestions when I posted this the first time, but the winner is, hands down, Tuesday Bars. Great job, S! You know me and this blog well enough to know that that is just perfect! And since it is frigidycold today, we are making a batch (even though it is Saturday) because it will warm up the house (and add an extra layer of padding to ourselves, too). Enjoy, should you chose to do the same!

Early Morning Shenanigans

On the mornings when I wake up feeling less than rested (which, let's face it, is pretty much every morning these days), I like to stay upstairs in bed after Ben and the kids go downstairs. Rarely am I able to actually fall back to sleep during this time, but I like the dark and the quiet and the stillness before I officially start my day with the munchkins. I say officially because often by the time I get this "alone time" I've nursed a baby, changed a diaper or two and hung out with a 4yo who likes to come in our room right at 6 and then waits with us until we get his sister up at 6:30. So yes. I like having a few minutes to myself to close my eyes and be "off duty" before heading downstairs and if it means I don't always get a shower before Ben leaves the house, so stinky be it.

This morning was much the same as I am just wiped out, uber tired these days. We're going on two, almost three, weeks of really crappy sleep (which is saying something in our world). Lincoln's night sleep is all over the place, so much so that we gave up the beloved dream feed because it wasn't making a difference anyway (I'd go up to nurse him at 9ish and be up again at 4ish, so boo to that). So now I go to bed every night not knowing when or if he's going to need me which is just as bad, especially since he's needed me at different times every night but one since we ditched it last week. And then you add in the sickness. HD spiked a fever late Sunday and then, wow, Sunday night was perhaps one of my worst nights ever for sleep (which is really saying something!) because of looking after him and having him crash for the night in our room. So yes. I am a dang zombie once again, which is exactly why I decided to once again hang out in bed this morning as long as I could.

When the clock told me that I better get downstairs so Ben could finish up getting ready and get out the door, I entered the kitchen and straight away noticed this:

Why were there pillows by the counter? I had no idea. Then I saw that LT & RL were in the dinning room with Ben having breakfast but HD was not. "He's been under the blanket for half an hour." Ben informed me, adding, "I think he might be asleep" which would have made sense because Lincoln had us ALL up before 5:30 this morning crying and screaming at the top of his lungs, so needless to say, I wasn't exactly the only one who might be feeling like a zombie this morning. And did I mention that RL woke up with HD's fever and cough from earlier in the week today? Probably not because my brain is not functioning properly this morning and so my writing is scattered to say the least. But he did and she did and so I thought, yeah, I don't blame HD one bit for crawling back under a blanket today. 

Except then Ben went to check on him a few minutes later and you know what he was actually doing? Why those pillows were in the kitchen? Because he used them to reach the Kindle I'd left at the back of the kitchen counter yesterday and that's what he'd been doing for half an hour under the blanket. Turkey.

So Ben took the Kindle and then left for school and I was left to finish up breakfast with the kids and prepare for another few days of hunkering down with sick kids (and at the rate RL is coughing, in my face, I'm probably next). Harrison and Raegan both like to have orange juice each morning and HD likes to be the one to carry it from the fridge to the table. Normally that's just fine, but in my tired stupor last night, I put an unfinished bottle of wine on the bottom shelf of the fridge door, resting it against the OJ because it wouldn't fit anywhere else upright-ish. But guess what happens when you take out the orange juice? The wine no longer stays upright-ish and suddenly you've got wine all over the floor and the door and all that's left in the bottle is this:

And if you're like me and you've been up since 5:20 and you're stuck in the house for the foreseeable future with sick (and really whiney kids) you think, seriously think, that maybe 7:30 a.m. isn't too early to just polish off the bottle.

I didn't by the way. But only because it's a Moscato which isn't my favorite white wine in the world. If it had been a Riesling? Yeah, I think I might have just gone there. Instead I'll just rely on my other survival technique, our beloved PBS!

*********
A dear friend had the brilliant idea to try chocolate today instead. Here's the result of that! 

Will Be vs. Is

While it may not come as much of a surprise to you that I think about my kids a lot during a typical day, I do want to share that I've been makings steps towards being more mindful about what I say around and to them. Some of that goes back to the unfortunate language coming from the four-year-old's mouth on occasion, but a lot of it is coming from the developing language of the two-year-old. Raegan is in that beautiful phase of toddler language that I just love. You can see the wheels turning when she speaks and she takes such delight in copying everything from sounds to tone to facial expressions of pretty much anything HD says. While she makes up her own words and phrases from time to time (seek-a-boo for peek-a-boo is my all-time fave), she's got a pretty good grip on talking (for just turned two, anyway). Just yesterday she watched me stack her snack cup on a box of crackers and grinned as she said, "You balancing!" OK, it sounded like "Ewe bawancesing" but I'm her mama, I get it. ;)

Cuteness aside, there have been two word things happening here lately with RL that have given me pause. The first was that I found myself speaking for her/about her out in public quite a bit. If you've ever read my stories about Miss Raegan, you know she's a pretty spunky and bright little personality. Lots of fun and LOTS of noise from that child! But that's really just at home. Out and about she's much more reserved and tends to hide in my shoulder or hair or behind my legs if people try to talk to her (which they often do because she's petite and sweet and how can you resist?). And all of the sudden I realized that for no apparent reason other than to make idle conversation, I started trying to explain her and her behavior to these people, most of whom are total strangers. I would say things like "She's shy" or "She's the loudest little person I know at home" and while the latter is certainly true, the former is probably not.

I don't know that Raegan is shy. She might just be more cautionary of new people (or maybe it's a typical two-yr-old thing), or as one friend put it, she might just take time to warm up to people. And so I find myself not wanting to put that "shy" label on her. It's not my place to say what she is just because she's not willing and ready to giver every person out there the same vivaciousness she gives us on a regular basis. I can give her the space and time to figure out what she is and in the meantime, if someone does question me/her on it, I can use the advice of another friend and say, "She might be feeling shy today." There's a big difference between feeling and being, if you ask me. Plus, as an introvert, I way totally so, so, so get her vibe if she doesn't always feel like talking to people. Hello, why do you think I write so much?!

Our other word conundrum as of late has been the phrase, "It's OK." I'm sleep deprived again this week (thank you full moon and LT's nursing habits!), so I can't remember where I read it, but recently I came across a bit of parenting advice that warned against being so quick to say "It's OK!" when our kids fall or are upset or hurt. The idea is that doing so can diminish their feelings and possibly make them feel like it is not OK to be upset. And that's just silly. Of course it is OK to be upset! What's important to remember (saying to myself just as much to my kiddos or to you) is that it will be OK in time. Maybe in five minutes, maybe five seconds, or maybe five months....eventually the hurt and worry and concern of today will ease and everything will be alright in the world again. I really do believe this. So why am I constantly trying to tell me kids "It's OK" in a sing song voice when they are clearly not OK?

This week I've been trying to change my phrasing, going from the "is" to the "will be." I can't do it in every situation and you wouldn't believe how many times I have caught myself reverting back to the old phrase, but I am making progress. Earlier this week Raegan woke up from a nap and was Upset. Crying, sucking in deep sobby breaths, UPSET when I went upstairs to get her from her crib. This happens on occasion (usually thanks to a nasty diaper or the fact that Daddy isn't home) but there was no apparent explanation for this little post-nap meltdown. Thankfully both boys were occupied and safe downstairs, so I picked her up from her bed and settled down in the rocking chair with her. I didn't say "It's OK." I didn't say anything, actually. I just held her head in my lap and stroked her hair with one hand while holding her legs with the other. She cried and kept breathing heavy for a few minutes but then she calmed down, bit by bit until we were just sitting there rocking together in silence. Then she smiled and said she was ready to go downstairs. Just like that. I am so grateful for that experience together. And for the parenting tip about not trying to fix the hurt by saying it's OK instantly. Because sometimes instances are painful and we have to learn how to work through the pain. On that day, at that time, holding my sweet girl helped her work through it. What a blessing. And as much as I wish it could always be that simple to ease her pain, I know it won't be, which is why I want to hold that moment in my heart forever...to remember that even when she's too big for me to cuddle in the rocking chair that I can still work to find ways to be a calming, safe presence for her. Because no matter how bad it gets, it will be OK eventually.

On Being Human

Ugh. Do you ever have moments when you are just so human and can't hardly stand being so? Let me explain. Today is Tuesday. Actually, that right there says a lot in my world, but it is also a Tuesday in which I am home alone with all three kids for the first time in, um, three weeks. That's nuts, but that's how it's been with the gloriousness known as a visit-to-grandma's-and-holiday-break-for-Ben-and-polar-vortex-"cold"-day-of-no-school. Three weeks ago was the last time I had to do this stay-at-home parenting gig solo. And so I got spoiled.

Of course I knew it would end and Ben would go back to work, but man, it was a wonderful break having him around to take the lead with the kids. And the going back to bed in the morning after all the early risers went down for play and breakfast at 6:30 (at least until I had to get up and nurse LT again)? Fanfreakingtastic. Totally worth the crazy dreams to be able to snooze w/ the whole upper floor of our house to myself. But again - this was temporary and I knew it.

So why does today surprise me?

I tried to turn it around from the very get-go this morning after I'd already nursed the baby and fed the kids and unloaded the dishwasher and drainboard and done the dishes and put the baby down for a nap (all by 8 a.m.) and called it a Terrific Tuesday. Let's have a Terrific Tuesday! I said full of glee.

But then glee turns to sweat and sweat turns to semi-panic when you attempt to leave the house and realize that the 25 minutes you alloted yourself for layering and loading weren't enough and you're late for your playdate and all you really want to do is chat with your friends but then there's that whole parenting thing going on where you still have to keep an eye on your kids (who aren't listening, by the way - ever, or so it seems), and then the playdate is done and the panic comes back because you now have to relayer and reload to get them all home for lunch and naps and for the love of God, would someone please just listen?! And that is when you threaten to throw the Kindle in the trash, unless someone starts listening right this instant. Or at least that's what you do when you are me and you are human and you're having a human Tuesday where shit is not Terrific and you're bummed that you haven't won the Lottery and your spouse had to go to work today and your kids are human, too, and so you lose it. Just a little, but still - you lose it and make threats that you know you don't mean and won't keep and it's just such a waste. Because now you've added tears and wailing to the sweat and panic of layering and loading and for what? A teachable moment, I guess, because none of us are perfect and we just have to keep extending grace to others and ourselves, even when we lose it.

After I finally got the children in the van, the panic and the sweat started to subside and HD and I started to talk. He was still crying, saying he didn't want to tell Daddy about losing the Kindle for the day. He thought Ben would send him to Break in the Action (Time Out in our house) and I explained that Daddy wasn't going to punish him for losing Kindle, although he might be sad or disappointed to hear about it and that he loves him anyway. That I love him anyway. And mid-sob he looked up at my eyes in the rearview mirror and asked, "Really? You do?" which about broke my ding dang heart and I replied, "Of course I do." "Why?" "Because you are my Harrison." And just like that he quit crying, wiped his tears and started smiling again. And from there we were able to talk about saying what you mean (duh, this was for me - of course I'm not going to throw the Kindle in the trash!) and following through (listen when Mama tells you do something. Please!!!!). And everything is OK. He gave me a kiss after lunch and he knows that I love him, even when we are mad or sad or not listening. That is what matters here.

Does it sort of suck to learn these lessons? Um, yes; especially since it feels like we have to learn them over and over and over again. Plus, all the sweating and panicking and threatening and apologizing is exhausting. But we are human, and so are our kids. If we don't want to pretend like we are perfect (and we should not because no one is!), we shouldn't expect our kids to be perfect either. It is just that complicated and just that simple.

So is this a Terrific Tuesday? Far from it, but it is Teachable. We can teach our kids (and they can teach us) what extending grace and unconditional love is all about. We simply must do this, as difficult and painful and sweaty as it may be. Because life is real and "Tuesdays" suck, but we owe it to ourselves and our kids to accept the less than perfect humanness in us all.

That's Unfortunate!

When my brother and I were kids, my mom hated hearing us use any form of the verb "to suck." Now that I'm a mom, I hate hearing my child use any form of the verb "to hate." And yes, I see the contradiction in that last sentence, but let me explain. I really can't stand to hear "hate" come out of my sweet boy's mouth and it is really confusing me as to why it keeps happening for several reasons.

For one thing, we've been in a total love fest here lately with Harrison. He's such a happy guy these days that he goes around flashing his dimples all the time and giving each and every one of us big squeezes and smooches that are all accompanied by the "mmmmmmmmwah" sound effects. All day long. He's a lover, not a hater.

For another, I don't get where he gets it. Yes, I know I wrote it in the sentence above (and in the text to a friend earlier today, but in my defense, that was in reference to my old school phone that never lets me see group messages and therefore keeps me stuck in the dark and pleading for a recap of convos all. the. time. first world problems, I know, but annoying nonetheless). But really? I hardly ever use the word "hate" and certainly not out loud. Do I catch myself about to say it? Sure. I'm a recovering cusser, so I catch myself about to say a lot of four letter words some days, but I really try not to use hate because it is awful hearing it repeated. Such a strong word and violent and just plain awful sounding to my shocked, parental ear.

In the classroom, I've got this covered. As a writing teacher, I use the phrase "that's unfortunate" to replace "this sucks" when my students inevitably tell me that a project sucks or their work sucks or they hate something. I tell them unfortunate is a much longer, more impressive and descriptive word and that is why they should use it if they feel so strongly about something. I've said it enough times that I really do use the phrase more myself. So where is the 4yo getting "hate"? Because I can't even tell you how many times Ben and I passed raised eyebrows back and forth as Harrison claimed to "hate" pig cards in his Angry Birds came and the food for snack and the temperature in the bathroom during bath (and so on) today. In typical first-born Type A fashion, we tried to squash it, telling him he couldn't use such language and that it wasn't kind and whatnot. But dang it, that H-word just kept popping out of his little mouth.

Did we make too big of a deal about it and now he's just looking for reaction? Probably. But if I  struggle to get college kids to make the switch in verbage, how do I get the preschooler to do it? Oh, no! Preschool! He's totally going to start saying this at school now and his teachers are going to think we are hater parents who go around hating on all the hates! NO!!!!!! We give love here, folks. We do! Perhaps therein lies the answer to my little problem. Instead of Totally Freaking Out (PBS shout out!), maybe I just need to give HD more love than ever if he continues experimenting with this language. Because I see his head and his heart and I know they are capable of much more greatness than an ugly word like hate.

1/2 of 1!

How is it possible that Sweet Mr. Lincoln is already six months old? Six months?! I guess for good measure I should just go ahead and underline that last statement as well - that's how shocked I am at how quickly those six months have come and gone. Didn't I just push him out on a 90+ degree holiday? But suddenly here we are at the beginning of January and we're set to have some of the coldest temps in decades (see what I did there?), and my baby is quickly working his way into being a little person. Craziness.

Half birthdays are interesting. I remember being overjoyed when Harrison hit two-and-a-half, simply because I had survived a whole half of the terrible twos (I think I even texted my brother in celebration on that Jan. 22 two years ago). Of course, in time, I learned that when my friends had said "Just wait til he's three. Just wait til his' four" they knew what they were talking about. So now I know that hitting a half birthday isn't about celebrating surviving, it's about celebrating thriving. 2014 is going to be the year of perspective, my friends, so while you'll still be getting stories from me and mine about us and ours (including our less than shining moments), I want you all to know that I am working this year to remember that my perspective, my attitude, about where I am and what I am doing is, well, it's pretty much everything.

So half a year with Lincoln. My perspective and attitude on that? It's been awesome. It's been exhausting. It's been like it couldn't have been any other way. I needed to have some of those growing pains and struggles (hello hips-post-third-baby) to get me into situations and places from which I could grow. Enter yoga. Enter opening up to friends about my struggles. Enter a commitment to love first and leave the rest for later (OK, so I'm still not great at leaving all the other for later because then it would never get done, but hey, I'm a work in progress). That's enough, though, about me. What I really want to do here is tell you all about this adorable little big-eyed baby boy who is my best little buddy.

As the third, there are definitely more times that I set Lincoln down or walk away from him than I did with the first two because I inevitably have to go see what the first two are up to when they wander away from us to play elsewhere in the house. A Four and a Two can only be left alone so long before you start to wonder what's up! But Lincoln is patient with me and if I do set him down, he tends to wiggle contently on the floor until I return. Lately he's taken his Super Baby moves a step beyond and started flipping from back to tummy and tummy to back, so I know these days of leaving him are numbered because once he's mobile, look out. I'm going to have a world of work on my hands keeping him away from everything that the Four and the Two leave out that the >1 shouldn't have. Seriously. That is going to be scary. But for now we're all happy because he's fairly limited to blankets on the floor where he loves to explore toys and burp rags and teethers with his mouth and his busy, busy hands.

Speaking of busy hands, I have learned in the last few weeks that I need to look out when nursing LT during the day. Holy Moly Windmill Arms, Batman! He reminds me of Baby Raegan who was never very pleasant to nurse because there is just so much movement. Thank goodness I've gotten his sharp little fingernails under control, otherwise my face and lips and chest would be covered in tiny scratches because his free hand just whips all over the place as he eats. I am also thanking goodness for dream feeds. Every night between 9:00 and 10:00, Ben and I head upstairs where I get settled in one of my beloved gliders and he collects Lincoln for me. Then I sit and nurse the sleepiest, sweetest little boy you've ever seen. It is quiet and peaceful and beautiful. It is warm and snuggly and my heart could just about burst with love for my Littlest Man every single night. Those dream feeds totally make up for any nursing shenanigans during the day. Actually, they heal me of petty much all daily shenanigans, so even though I sometimes don't like having to end my evening shortly after 9 p.m., it does my body and soul good to spend that nightly time with Mr. Lincoln.

Seeing as this first half of the first year has gone by so quickly, I can only imagine how soon it will once again be blazing hot (although that seems unlikely on a cold day like today!) and Lincoln will be one and on the verge of walking and then talking and all the other amazing things he's going to learn and do and be. I can't hardly wait to see his personality and happy heart grow. He may be the crappiest napper on the planet (did I forget to mention that in the post? oh well..."perspective" can also be exchanged for "overlooking"), but we couldn't be happier to have him as part of our little family. Happy Half, Linky!