Why buy when you can borrow?

I still remember learning the Dewey Decimal System in elementary school.  I started my research papers with a trip to the card catalog.  Like me, your local library has grown up a lot over the past few decades.  My family relies on the local library system for free entertainment.  In honor of National Library Week, April 12-18, 2015, I give you five little reasons to love your library.

1)      Maximize your access to the library system’s reach through its online catalog.  I can search for items I want to borrow and place them on hold.  When they become available in a few days or weeks they will ship to my local branch for pickup.  My choices are not limited to what I see on the shelves on any given day.

2)      Say goodbye to Redbox.  My library has new movies just after their release.  This is no different than waiting for something to come to Redbox.  It’s free and you can keep it for a week.  I can drop off what I borrowed at any branch in the city.

3)      Catch up on your favorite television series.  A rainy weekend calls for a TV marathon.   I am amazed at the variety of TV series box sets I can borrow from the library.  My kids like to bring home Pokémon and Scooby-Doo episodes for a treat.

4)      Name that tune.  I have a long commute, and I hate commercials on the radio.  My solution?  Check out CDs from the library.  I may be stuck in traffic, but I can pass the time pretending to be the next American Idol.

5)      Learn a new skill.   I dropped in for a social media marketing class.  My kids participated in a spring break spelling bee.  There is always something scheduled in the community room. 

If you haven’t been to the library recently, you will love all the fun and free things it has to offer.  It’s come a long way since the last time you toiled away on a bibliography.  Check it out!

Getting dressed

We go to great lengths to educate our children using Maria Montessori's methods.  We have waited in line on cold January mornings with newborn babies in tow to be at the front of the line on magnet school registration day.  At one point or another in the past 11 years I have toured every Montessori preschool within 30 miles of my house.  

Applying Montessori principles at home can be challenging.  You want the child to do it herself, so you struggle to hold back as she does it imperfectly.  You must watch calmly as she wipes up her spills.  In a perfect Montessori house, there would be low sinks and only small cups, but we live in a regular sized house with a plethora of Dickey's Big Yellow Cups.

One learns not to argue over clothing choices.  Does it sort of fit?  Is it reasonable for the weather?  Can the child put it on herself?  Is it NOT Easter Sunday?  Then pretty much anything goes around here.

And that, my friends, is the reason why Mackenzie wore a pink sweater, a purple penguin pajama top, Elmo underwear, mini green scrub pants, no socks, hand-me-down fire truck shoes, and a butterfly necklace to school today.  She chose those items, and I approved them.  She won't be on the cover of Dallas Child, but she left the house a happy girl.

The diet verdict

I love food.  Fast food and slow food.  Fancy restaurant food and street vendor food.  Elaborate Julia Child food and nuke it in the microwave food.  I was one of the pickiest eaters ever as a child (ask my mother), but I grew out of it.  (By the way, that's why you should not freak out if you have a picky eater.  By the time your kid is out of college, I promise he will eat more than chicken nuggets and string cheese.)  Now I love trying new foods, making new foods, cooking food for others.  

So, when the hubby said he wanted to go on a diet, I was a bit skeptical.  If he goes on a diet, I have to go on a diet, because it's not very wifely to devour pizza and hot fudge sundaes in front of someone eating lettuce.  However, he found not just a diet, but a whole meal plan, grocery list, and recipe booklet here and asked if I wanted to try it.  I liked the idea of whole foods and preparing more foods at home.  It was all spelled out - buy this, cook it on this day, use the leftovers in this dish the next day.  Some of the recipes looked pretty good.  We decided to do it, and today is the last day of the two week challenge.

Overall, we liked the meals.  We actually enjoyed replacing sugary sweets with fruit and almond butter.  We modified the plan a bit - we continued drinking coffee and rearranged the order in the second week - but otherwise stuck with the principles like no soda, no bread, no processed foods, no red meat.  I felt like we ate a lot of eggs, and that got a little old by the end, so I made extra smoothies instead of omelets.  We had to buy a LOT of greens in the first week - and that was just for the two of us - and that caused some refrigerator space issues.    

The verdict?  Despite one of the worst weeks of sleep ever due to a sick baby, I have had energy and did not even take a nap today when I could have.  I'm down ten pounds, and he's lost even more.  I would love to make a loaf of bread (and probably will sometime soon), but we're definitely going to continue eating this way.

Recent Suprunisms

Name that kid if you can...

1.  In 500 years, I will be viewed like DaVinci is now.
2.  Can somebody help me cut this "beef boogie on"?
3.  No flirting at the table!
4.  Nobody knows history like I do.
5.  I don't have any black pants and I need them for school this morning.
6.  I need more shoes because we're not in the 70s anymore.
7.  MOMMY MOMMY PONYTAIL PONYTAIL PONYTAIL MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY PONYTAIL

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Answers: 1. Dodge; 2. Corda; 3. ALL of them; 4. Hank; 5. Dodge; 6. Dodge; and 7. Mac

Welcome year 2

A year ago when I started this blog I wrote about fooling my family into eating veal, black-eyed peas, and stewed tomatoes for good luck in the new year by calling it spaghetti and meat sauce.  Did we have good luck over the past year?  Did this family tradition help us out or was it just another meal with some of the food groups represented?

Looking back I am thankful for many blessings, luck, good fortune, or whatever you may want to call it.  Baby Wyatt (also known as Doc) arrived safely.  Maybe that sounds like it should be no big deal if you already have four kids, but ask anyone who has had a miscarriage or four and they will tell you that lines on a stick are no guarantee.

The big kids are doing well in school and Sunday School.  There were no trips to the ER, which I know is the place several of my friends spent the holidays.  The siblings all need to get along better and realize they are on the same team, but each day we have another opportunity to work on that.

Christopher and I carved out time for date nights, usually to try a restaurant and play food critic.  Among the highlights this year have been FT33, The Blind Butcher, Amberjax, and Kitchen LTO, all in Dallas.  I enjoyed our day trip to Waco where we ate at Schmaltz's.  We love using that kid-free (or fewer kid) time to collaborate on ideas for Mama's Pockets and Never Forget Foundation.

I returned to my day job and found that they didn't forget about me and there was still plenty of work to do, which is a good combination when you have a mortgage.  I have said it before, but it is truly a wonderful thing to be part of a company that not only allows but encourages me to balance work and family.

So, what's for dinner?  Spaghetti and meat sauce.

Focus

The long neglected blog returns!

I had a pretty good track record with the weekly blog concept until a couple of months ago when my focus shifted to other projects and obligations.  Each Wednesday passed and I fell asleep thinking if I had something really interesting to write about, I would take the ten minutes to do it.  The daily routine of work, meals, homework, cleanup, and bedtime sometimes lends itself to the mindset that each day is just like the last, and therefore not very newsworthy.  This year I took some clear steps to break that monotony – I just didn’t take time to write about it!

Most recently, I focused my creative energy on my hobby, Mama’s Pockets.  I am having so much fun choosing fabrics for baby slings and thinking about new products.  The time spent sewing requires concentration, but not to the detriment of the little kids, who play at my feet.  Corda picks through my remnants for her favorites and is learning to sew next to me.

I chose the name Mama’s Pockets because some of my earliest memories are of my mom wearing cardigan sweaters that had pockets.  All day long she could be found picking up the treasures that we left behind and sticking them in her pockets as a temporary home on their journey to their proper place.  Pennies, Legos, you name it.  In her pockets they would be safe.  Throughout the day I would reach in and see if she had anything good that I didn’t even know I had lost yet. 

I have friends who pick a word of the year at New Year’s instead of a resolution.  I have used the word focus a couple of times here and will use it as my motivation in 2015.  I will focus my spare time on strategic, manageable growth of Mama’s Pockets.  Here’s to endeavors that bring you joy!

Late night movie review

I am watching The Impossible, the Naomi Watts/Ewan McGregor film about a family's struggle to reunite with each other after being ripped apart by the Indian Ocean tsunami over Christmas vacation in 2004.  Let's just say I will not be sleeping tonight. It is reminding me a lot of James Franco's 127 Hours about the man in Utah who got his arm trapped under a boulder while hiking.  Both movies are so intense in depicting the agony.  You know how you yell at the athletes on TV when they fumble the ball or cheer them on when they catch an interception?  I'm sitting here barking at the characters in the movie when they make boneheaded decisions and rooting for them to make it out okay as if it is happening in real time before my eyes.  I would definitely recommend both of these movies....just not right before your next vacation!

Fair Food

Howdy folks!  I know it's not Wednesday, but by writing this on Sunday we can count it as either late for last week or early for this week.  Six of one half dozen of the other.  My excuse for being tardy is that I wanted to go all food bloggy and share my reviews of the State Fair of Texas fried food finalists (the Big Tex Choice Awards), and we went to the fair on Friday since that was Fair Day.  Yes, folks, in Texas there is such a thing as Fair Day, a public school holiday designed to peer pressure otherwise reasonably financially responsible families into dumping hundreds of dollars on carnival rides and games.  This concept still baffles this Virginia girl even after ten years in the Lone Star State.

Anywho, since the carnies kind of scare me, we like to treat Fair Day as an opportunity for a tasting menu of fried yumminess.  However, there was not much yumminess to be found this year.  Granted, we could only try a few items due to the fact that we had three kids tall enough to ride contraptions that cost five bucks per person, but what we tried was underwhelming.  First up was the Fried Gulf Shrimp Boil.  This tasted ok, but leaving the tails on meant that the eater had to dig them out of the shrimp ball.  Presentation fail.

Second was the Twisted Texas Taco.  I had to come home and look up what kind of meat it was that I consumed.  'Nuff said.  Lastly we got the Fried Sriracha Balls and Chicken Fried Loaded Baked Potato.  There wasn't much difference in flavor.  Both reminded me of baby food dipped in hot sauce. 

It may just be that I am directionally challenged, but I really struggle to find the Big Tex Choice finalists at the fair.  I spend so much time crisscrossing the fairgrounds with the little map turned upside down trying to find the right stands that by the time I get there I am expecting something along the lines of the French Laundry to compensate for my efforts.  If I ever get to run the fair, I would put all the winners in one building in a line to make it easier for foodies like me.

New mom bucket list

Now that I have passed my enrolled agent exams and the bigger kids are all in school, little Wyatt and I have a few more days of mommy and me time with no commitments or obligations (at least between the hours of 8 and 4 each school day).  I go back to work in less than three weeks.  While it is lovely every once in a while to kick back and watch HGTV all day, we want to make good use of our remaining time together.  Besides that, one of the kids told me recently that I should really consider remodeling the kitchen so that it looks more like the ones on TV, so that was a sign that perhaps the Property Brothers need to be kicked out.

In between exams we have done several fun things.  We visited the Magnolia storefront in Waco (from the aforementioned HGTV's Fixer Upper show).  We accompanied Christopher on a work trip to Tulsa.  We walked around the Dallas Zoo a few times when it was not oppressively hot.  We caught up with old friends and made new ones at MOPS meetings.

So, with that, I ask for your best mom and baby bucket list items that I can check off in the next few weeks.  Got a day long Julia Child-esque recipe for me to attempt?  I'm game.  Know of an awesome little shop somewhere within an hour of Dallas that I need to check out?  Tell me about it.  Anything that I can do with a baby as a sidekick I am eager to try.

Easy as pie...I mean bread

I came across this bread recipe with the outrageous and somewhat grammatically challenged claim of being the "best easiest" bread to make.

http://www.alexandracooks.com/2012/11/07/my-mothers-peasant-bread-the-best-easiest-bread-you-will-ever-make/

I had my doubts.  After all, I took Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, at her word when she told me her orange chicken would be just like Panda Express.  (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2014/09/orange-chicken/) It was not.

So, with all the ingredients on hand for once, having recently discovered the bulk yeast bin at WinCo, I set out to make the "best easiest" bread.  It involves no kneading, it bakes in a bowl, and it rises twice.  Unfortunately somewhere between the no kneading and the second rise, I had to go deal with some car difficulties and put a bunch of kids to bed.  I realized that unless I wanted to wait until midnight for my beast easiest bread, I was going to have to pause this process.  I stuck the bowl in the fridge last night and hoped I didn't just waste four cups of flour.

This morning I took the bowl out and split the dough into two halves.  I put one half in a greased Corningware dish as I wasn't sure my mixing bowls would be ovenproof.  Over the course of about 30 minutes it did rise again, so I picked up where I left off in Alexandra's instructions and baked the bread accordingly.  I gotta say, it is awfully good, and definitely easy and forgiving of my haphazard baking abilities.  It's a keeper!

Discipline

I listen to a lot of sports talk radio.  At least, I think I listen to a lot of it for someone who tries really hard to avoid all athletic endeavors.  I enjoy hearing the analysis, the predictions, the opinions.  This week I have heard variations on the theme of child discipline as it relates to the Adrian Peterson situation.

Let's be clear.  The situation is child abuse.  Whether or not he was trying to discipline, when he drew blood not once, but fifteen some odd times from his son's legs, he was being abusive.  He says he was parenting the way he was raised, and he turned out great, so it must be the right way to go.

I wasn't there, so I don't know if he inflicted this punishment out of anger or frustration.  But, we all reach the end of our patience with our kids, sometimes even before breakfast!  We're all trying to figure out what works the best.  And just when you figure it out for one kid, your next kid has a totally different personality, or your kid gets older and what worked for awhile no longer has the desired effect.

I am the first to admit that my kids rarely do what I want them to do, and it is not unusual for the dinner hour to culminate in a symphony of screams and tears.  But there are options that we should all keep in our arsenal so that we don't lash out with a violent reaction.  Off the top of my head, here are a few suggestions.  Granted, as I type this all of the noisemakers are asleep so it is much easier to do now than in the heat of the  moment when brother 1 is calling brother 2 an idiot and sister 1 is dropping brother 3 and sister 2 is pooping on the living room floor, but let's try.

1.  If siblings are fighting over a toy, put THE TOY in time out.  The top of our refrigerator is the home of many troublesome toys.

2.  For the screaming child: You can scream as much as you want, but you will do it outside.  There's the door.

3.  Instead of yelling commands at your kids, use "when you do this, then this will happen."  For example, when you pick up your toys, you can have ice cream for dessert.  Or, when you finish your homework, I will play checkers with you.

4.  There is a time for whining.  Tell the child that if he wants to whine about something, he can make an appointment at 2:30 am.

Most of these we learned from Love and Logic.  I strongly suggest you pick up one of the books at the library or Google it if you are not familiar with it.

By the way, in my experience absolutely nothing works to make my kids behave in church.  The one place I want them to sit still and try to be holy, they act the worst.  So if any of you have that one figured out, I am all ears.

Work ethic

I overheard a conversation between two HR professionals, one about my age and a supervisor nearing retirement age.  They were lamenting about a particular hire who only lasted a year because he didn’t like the grunt work that was assigned to him.  Then the conversation morphed into an attack on twenty-somethings in general who don’t know how to work, who expect everything to be handed to them, and who want to jump to the primo assignments without putting in the time.

 

Hearing this conversation left me with mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I hated the blanket categorization of a lazy, privileged generation.    Further, I thought it was wildly inappropriate for them to continue the conversation within earshot.

 

On the other, I thought these two HR professionals probably do have enough experience in the industry not only to make the claim, but to provide evidence, that there has been this shift in attitude about work.  We’ve all heard the characterizations of the generations, and my own company spends a fair amount of time studying generational differences to encourage better collaboration and workplace satisfaction.

  

Either way, I am responsible for raising the next generation of workers.  Dodge will presumably enter the workforce (you know, as a professional baseball player) in ten years or so.  Today we are shaping the people who will sell us products, shape policy, heal us, run the infrastructure, and so on.  Just like if you don’t vote you can’t complain about your elected officials, if you don’t play your part to foster independence and responsibility in the next generation, you can’t complain about the quality of young people entering the workforce.  

The phone is ringing

I waited six days for my firefighter/paramedic husband to return from the aftermath of the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon.  He will tell you that his efforts, and those of his first responder comrades, were not extraordinary or brave or heroic.  They did the job that they trained every day to carry out.  They answered the call.  The next day they answered another call.  It might not have been of the same magnitude to the nation, but to the family in crisis it was.

The Angels invited him to a commemoration during their baseball game against the Yankees on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  There he met Derek Jeter.  Many will remember Jeter after his retirement this year not for any particular statistic that he accumulated, but for his reliability day in and day out.  He has had an unwavering dedication to his team and the game.  He answered the call.  He never stopped practicing, learning, growing.

Motherhood is our call.  With any luck our on-the-job training will not involve racing into burning buildings, but it will mean getting dirty and running around in circles from time to time.  We are called to be the voice of calm, the dependable one, the one who can save the day (or the science fair project).  One day the emergency might be a crooked ponytail or a sandwich not sliced into perfect triangles.  The next it might be a terrible diagnosis, a lost job, an accident.  Mothers answer the call each time because it is the job we not only have to do, but love to do. 

Our children can’t tell the difference between when we know exactly what to do and when we are making it up as we go along.  As long as we start each day anew with the love and dependability that our children crave, we are succeeding.  You are already your child’s hero, even as you worry each night about the day’s shortcomings.  Over time, the questions and insecurities fade, and a confidence to take on each challenge emerges.  So answer the call.  You are ready.

Vacation

I have mentioned before that people will occasionally call maternity leave "vacation" and that I usually respond with something about how it is not much of a vacation to spend three months in a constant state of semi-awakeness while learning how to do everything one-handed.  Nobody believes me except other parents of multitudes, but this new baby in the house thing really does get easier each time.  I don't remember a single productive thing I did while on maternity leave with Dodge.  It was too much of an ordeal to even go to the grocery store.  By now, I navigate the aisles with 5 kids without much of a hiccup, although we do call it a "girls day out" when just Corda, Mac, and I go shopping (with the baby along for the ride of course).  

On the whole, since I am not working (outside the home) at the moment, I am far busier, or at least more active, than normal.  Instead of sitting at a desk for 8 hours, I have time to do all the other stuff that doesn't get done when I am at work all day, but that work also multiplies.  Instead of cooking and and cleaning up just dinner, all the meals and several snacks fill the days.  Toys that were put away once magically reappear several more times.  Nevertheless, I have been cleaning out closets, studying, failing miserably to install a garbage disposal, and trying my hand at applying for grants for Never Forget Foundation.  I may need to go back to work for a break.

Opportunities to support Never Forget Foundation

Many of you have seen me post about our non-profit Never Forget Foundation, in particular when Christopher visits high schools around the country talking about 9/11 and the skills that students need to develop now to be successful in school and their future careers in public safety, healthcare, or otherwise.  Now that we have official 501(c)(3) status, there are many easy opportunities to help our efforts.  In the coming weeks you will be able to register your Albertsons, Tom Thumb, and Kroger cards to support Never Forget.  In case you don't know how this works, you will simply designate Never Forget as your charity, and then the stores will donate a small percentage of what you spend.  After a minimal effort to register your cards, you can just do your normal shopping and forget about it, but we will never forget your support.  I'll have all the signup details ready soon, so stay tuned.

Observations from the past week

1.  Hank continues to be the source of a number of gems, such as "I slept so good I thought I skipped a day."

2.  When travelling, it might be less of a hassle to pack nothing and just buy what you need when you get there, since a certain mega airline never bothers to deliver the luggage with the passengers.

3.  Does Chris Colfer have a twin?  And if so, is he a Catholic seminarian in Texas?  I was seated at a table with this guy and kept wanting to refer to him as Kurt.

4.  My efforts to get Mackenzie to "use her words" instead of screaming are being undermined by allowing her to watch the birth scenes in the BBC series Call the Midwife with me.

Limbo: How low can you go?

“You know, the key with us is we set the bar low.  That way we got a pretty good chance of winding up happy.”

That quote was at the tail end of a video snippet of my favorite author, Michael Perry, explaining his family’s approach to farming, available here: http://video.wpt.org/video/2365286449/

It pretty much runs counter to what we’ve always said, right?  Aim high, set stretch goals, exceed expectations, do your best!!!

He said that with farming, given his travel schedule and unpredictable Wisconsin weather, he’s happy if they can just grow a little corn to feed to the chickens, so his family can have fresh eggs.  Maybe they can raise a few pigs, and take care of the land they own.  He’s not trying to make a living as a farmer, or grow state fair prize winning vegetables.  Low bar = happy with the results.

I think we need to keep most of our bars high – succeed in school, figure out a career path, manage your money, treat others kindly.  Don’t forget about the low bars, though.  The daily successes will give you the motivation to attack the bigger goals. 

What low bar triumphs have you had lately?  Today, I scrubbed a bathroom, made phone calls and typed this while two babies took naps, and enjoyed a healthy lunch with Mackenzie.  All in all, a good morning.

Week 2

Mom.  Mom!  MOM!  Yes, Dodge?  Did you know that the baby is asleep on the bathroom floor wrapped in a towel?  Of course, that's where I left him, and wherever he wants to sleep is fine with me!  Dodge's concern was particularly amusing because at least once a week he wakes up at o-dark-thirty, takes a shower, and then goes back to sleep on the bathroom floor wrapped in a towel.

When he's not dozing on the floor, Wyatt is usually found in his sling, which always raises a lot of questions when we go out.  Everything from "where can I buy one of those" to "can he breathe in there?"  Or, oddly today when he was dressed in a blue and gray onesie, three strangers asked how old "she" is.

The sling keeps my hands free for cooking, and here's a new recipe that I tried today for lunch.  Half of the family appreciated it! 

Mushrooms and Spinach with Couscous

6 ounces mushrooms, sliced and sauteed in olive oil with garlic
Add 6 ounces of spinach, a cup of uncooked couscous, half a cup of water, and a bit of basil.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cook for 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in 4 ounces of cream cheese.  That's it!

Week 1

Pardon my absence last Wednesday as I was preoccupied with Wyatt's arrival early that morning.  The Friday before that I attended a lunch during which one person recounted a story of working with a pregnant colleague, and during the time they worked together, he would periodically get distracted and comment to her "You're growing a human right now!  Wow!"  Indeed, wow.  

During the time that I was growing a human, I worried about a number of things - people's reaction to a mom of five who also works outside the home full time being near the top of the list - but I worried most about how Mackenzie would react to being replaced as the baby of the family so soon.  So far, so good.  In fact, she has taken on the role of big girl by giving up her pacifier, adding a couple of words to her vocabulary, and drinking from a regular cup all in the past seven days.  She is still taking a long afternoon nap, giving me time to study for my enrolled agent exams.

The rest of us are working on how to function efficiently as a unit.  For example, we have to load the car in a different order now, and so that means people have to be ready to go when it is their turn.  We have to work more on our menu planning to identify healthy choices that everyone will eat so that we don't waste food or time preparing multiple meals.  I'm all ears on suggestions for getting everyone to pitch in with the laundry.  We get it washed and dried, but rarely put away.

More words to come next week...

Recipe of the week

You will thank me for this after you try it....

Crab Boil Potato Salad
courtesy of Food Network's 50 Potato Salads

Mix together:
1/2 cup corn
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 cup mayo
1 T lemon juice
1 and 1/2 teaspoons Old Bay

Toss with:
2 pounds boiled, cubed red potatoes
1 cup crabmeat

Chill and serve, assuming you don't eat it all yourself while making it.

Truth be told, I never measure for this sort of thing.  In my last batch I forgot the celery, used more lemon juice and less mayo, and had a greater crab-to-potato ratio.  Still great!