Archives for March 2012

Mini Food Blogger in Training

March 30, 2012 by Kathryn

She doesn’t blog about mini food. She is mini and she’s already thinking like a food blogger.

Today I told Wanda it was lunch time and she said, “I want lunch abouuuuuuut apple sauce!” She added that she also wanted apple slices of the orange variety. All sliced fruits are apple slices, just different flavors.

The apple sauce is topped with probiotic powder or as we call it, “Sprinkles.” The Thomas train is not for consumption. Maybe I’ll catch her with some protein or grains later. For now, I’m excited when she expresses interest in anything that’s not candy.

I took this picture because once she’d laid out all the food, she said, “Okay, now take a picture of my lunch like this!” She staged and I shot. We are good team.

This is cross-posted at my food blog BiteUponBite.com.

Little Boys

March 28, 2012 by Kathryn

Magoo started Little League this week. I’ve never seen him this excited about a new sport. It could be all the gear. (The protective cup is certainly blowing his mind.) Maybe it’s the danger of never knowing when one of the other muffin-headed kids will whack you in the face with a metal bat. Whatever it is, there’s just something about baseball that thrills him and it’s so fun to watch.

He wants to wear the batting helmet all the time, running the bases, doing passing drills, standing in the outfield. It gives him the look of an oversized bobble head, made more adorable by the perma-grin on his face.

Of course there were the usual crazy boy shenanigans. They made crude noises which were, of course, followed by raucous laughter. A couple of them walked around with mitts on their faces, pretending to be Darth Vader. None of them, however, did anything illegal. That was left to older boys, later in the week.

We were at the park, where a group of tween Justin Bieber wannabes were tearing up the playground and scaring the kids. These boys travel in a pack and they’re annoying but not usually destructive. Every couple of weeks I a-little-bit tell them off and they a-little-bit stop being annoying.

They’re loud. They run fast. They throw things. They run up the slide when littles are trying to slide down. They wear skinny jeans and those zip-front skeleton face hoodies that make Wanda cry. Personally, I think they should find a skate park somewhere and leave the baby swings to the babies.

Well, after they’d driven all the young families but mine from the park, they ended up in a pow-wow around the slide, whispering and pointing and talking about marking everything with their “gang sign”. They are twelve-year-old preppies who play at a children’s park. Quite the gang.

When I walked toward them, they dispersed and headed for home.

What was on the slide? Chicken scratch written in permanent marker. It dawned on me that I was the adult in this situation.

“Boys!” I called out in most menacing mom-ish voice.

All but one froze in their 12-year-old aviator-glasses-wearing tracks.

“Did you write on this playground equipment?”

In unison, they all pointed at their fleeing friend, already a block away on his scooter. Because that’s literally how he rolls, on a Razor.

“He did it,” one boy piped up sheepishly. None of them moved. They’re old enough to be annoying, still young enough to think I had the power to keep them there.

“Well, you can tell your friend that what he did is illegal. If I see you doing anything like that, I’m calling the police.”

No one vomited but I’d say it was a close call.

“So you’re telling me that none of you wrote on anything on the equipment this park?”

The same boy piped up, all the color draining from his face, “I, I, I just drew it on that boulder over there to show him how and then he, he drew on the slide. It’s not illegal to draw on rocks is it?” His question wasn’t belligerent. It was sheepish. He really wanted to know.

“Everything in this park belongs to the city,” I said, my voice serious as a sledge hammer, “It is definitely illegal to deface public property.”

“But I, I, seriously, I really didn’t know.” He looked like he was about to cry.

“That’s why I’m giving you a warning. Don’t let it happen again.”

They all nodded earnestly and turned to go, their heads hanging slightly. It’s a strange kind of power to be able to terrify a pack of man-children. Hopefully they’ll knock it off. But I will call the police and even more frightening, their mothers, if I see any of that behavior again.

For now, my own little man is a cute mini baseball dude. On the way to the bus stop this morning, he ran up beside me and grabbed my hand, holding it all the way to the top of the hill, even in front of his friends. He’s nearly seven and I know this kind of mamma/baby boy affection can’t last forever but I sure hope he never gets to the point where perfect strangers have to scare the cheese out of him at the park to get him to behave.

Pinteresting

March 25, 2012 by Kathryn

I resisted Pinterest for quite a while, not wanting one more place to waste time online but I finally succumbed a couple of months ago and I’m so glad I did.

I spend maybe 15 minutes per day on the site and I actually use things I find there. I’ve found great recipes, home cleaning tips and craft ideas and I’m making my home more beautiful and becoming a more fun mom.

But, a few weeks ago, I read about their scary terms of service. Essentially they said that by posting something, you claimed to have ownership of what you were pinning. They also said that Pinterest would then take ownership of the pinned information and had the right to sell those images or information. Further, the terms stated that if Pinterest was ever sued relating to something you pinned, you would be liable for all legal expenses.

That was scary enough for me to stop pinning but I couldn’t quite bring myself to delete my boards.

Luckily, there was enough of an outcry that Pinterest updated their terms of service and I’m much more comfortable with them now. The biggest change is that they no longer claim to have the right to sell the content you upload. To me, this was the biggest risk for legal action (you pin something, they sell the image, get sued, and then charge you for their legal fees).

With that out of the way, here are a few of my favorite Pinterest finds, big and small:

I made three of these homemade chenille blankets for my kids for Valentine’s Day. They turned out gorgeous!

Here was our Valentine’s Day wreath:

This is the best way to shred chicken. Shockingly effective.

I learned how to cook my own whole chicken in the crockpot.

I used the inspiration from this cake to make these Blue and Gold Banquet treats for our cub scouts.

For the first time ever, I found salsa that Dan enjoyed.

There are so many great hair styles I’ve found. Here is one of my favorites, simple, easy classic braided buns. It looks great on Laylee and I enjoy wearing it myself.

What are some pins that you love?

Like a Ninja

March 23, 2012 by Kathryn

Today I thought seriously about calling up some of my film friends and asking them to follow me and Wanda around the house several hours per day. I need to capture her like Pooh needs to capture a Heffalump. I want every moment of her life, every morsel of her speech recorded so that when my little friend leaves me and heads to kindergarten, I can sit alone in my bathrobe reliving the glory days.

She is my buddy, my nearly constant companion and I can’t get enough of her.

Wanda goes limp and swings with no hands, her head thrown back, her arms dangling to the side. She must have her mouth open when she swings. This is called “flops.”

She likes to play outside in the rain, splashing in puddles and showering in the rain spout.

When we were at Dan’s band concert this week, Wanda was dressed like this:

A stranger came up and said, “Oh my! You’re a pretty princess.”

Wanda replied, “Yeah! I’m like a ninja!”

Mouseketeers

March 22, 2012 by Kathryn

Dan called me from work yesterday, his voice somber. “I have something to tell you,” he said.

“Okay?” My heart started racing.

“So, how’s your anxiety?”

“Oh, for the love, you’re freaking me out. Did you lose your job?”

“No. I saw something in the garage this morning.”

Silence.

“A mouse?” I said with my tiniest voice.

“Yeah.”

“Where was it?”

“I won’t tell you that.”

Now, you should know that I have a near-psychotic fear of rodents. I’ve improved over the years and even worked with a therapist to resolve some of my issues but I’d still classify myself as a grade A level phobic.

I don’t want to be afraid and logically I know they’re no big deal. I tell myself that they are just teeny and harmless.

I tell myself that what I should really do is make them tiny shoes and hats like Cinderella and encourage them to fashion me a stunning gown for the ball.

But I am as yet unable to turn off the drama. Mice trigger an intense physical reaction, panic, inability to regulate body temperature, teeth-chattering body tremors. It’s not pretty.

So I fought it as hard as I could and we did some clean-up in the garage, throwing out tons of food, craft supplies and cloth items. The mice had chewed through our winter coats and pooped in my yarn bucket. The sad thing is that many of these things were in Rubbermaid totes that I didn’t take the two seconds required to snap shut so the critters got in and violated the contents.

Knowing my level of anxiety over these bad boys, my friend Erin dropped everything and came over to help me for a couple of hours. She even took charge of cleaning out the scariest boxes, boxes of clothes that just screamed, “Build a nest in me so you can birth several truckloads of pink slimy babies!” I have yet to choose an appropriate gift to reward her bravery and valor.

We cut off their food supply, throwing out anything that they’d chewed on or opened and Dan bought an arsenal of mouse-fighting tools. My favorite is a little box that zaps them when they step inside. Then a little light flashes on the outside of the box so you know to go dump the corpse in the yard waste bin.

On top of that, to stop my adrenalin from ripping my insides to shreds in a series of panic attacks, we called in an exterminator who charged us a billion dollars for a year of service, only to tell us that the destruction in the garage looked like the work of probably one or two mice.

Well we’ve already caught two mice ourselves so that was a pretty expensive visit just to give me peace of mind. Alas. It looked like a lot of poop to me. I thought we had an army of mice out there. However, according to the exterminator, mice are incontinent and poop falls out everywhere they walk so they’re always “producing”. Then they use the trail of poop to find their way around. They are prolific poopers.

Maybe that’s why my kids never flush the toilet and leave dirty clothes, lego and pencils all over the house. They just want to mark their territory so they can successfully navigate our house.

Fish-steria

March 17, 2012 by Kathryn

They want a cat. Or a dog or a bat or a snail or a crab. They just want something to love. And given how baby hungry I’ve been since my sister gave birth to a little piece of heaven earlier this week, I was feeling just vulnerable enough to oblige. A little.

We shopped all day today. The shopping was for shoes. Shoes were what we shopped for. Hours. Hours and hours were spent in the pursuit of proper footwear and when we were done, we were Done. And then, out of the blue, a PetCo rose up in front of us and before I realized what was happening, we had turned into the mini-zoo parking lot and were headed inside, “just to look.”

We passed the kittens and slimy things and made our way to the fish, which are also slimy but you don’t pet them so their sliminess is inconsequential. I asked what kind of fish we could put in a bowl with no filter and was told Betta fish were the only option.

We’ve had Betta fish before and I swore we’d never do it again but a pet Betta is better than a rat and thusly we left the store with one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, and a bucket load of supplies.

On the way home, Laylee and Magoo cradled their little fishy tubs on their laps, thinking up names, staring at them through the plastic and giggling randomly.

“I can’t wait to get him home and spend some time with him!” Magoo cooed.

We got home and set up their little habitats in spare flower vases I had in a cupboard above the fridge, a testament to Dan’s talent for bringing me flowers spontaneously on days when he doesn’t even know that I need them the most.

After fussing over the new family members for several minutes, Laylee and Magoo moved on with their lives and Wanda took over caring for the fishies. She stood with her mouth almost to the water, yelling out with Darla-like zeal, “HELLO FISH! HI FISHIE! I LOVE OO FISHIE! HIIIIII FISH!”

The fish gave no response.

“Do we touch the fish?” I asked her, remembering this picture taken of Magoo last time we gave these pets a try.

“No. We don’t touch FISHIES!” she laughed.

Good. We were on the same page.

As we gathered the family for bedtime scripture reading and prayers, Wanda got a little too close to Magoo’s fish landscape. The vase toppled. I screamed. Wanda grabbed the vase with both hands, bobbing it back and forth uncontrollably trying to right it as water spilled everywhere and everyone, everyone in the house began screaming.

Never in my memory has there been a more cacophonous, horror-filled round of agonized screams tearing through the fabric of our home. Wailing, sobbing, screeching psychobots degenerated into total hysteria as I ran to grab the vase from Wanda before the precious fish met his maker with a side-trip down the cavernous crevices of our living room couch.

Wanda, tossing the fish bowl back and forth between her hands, her head thrown back wailing like a banshee, Laylee, staring in horror, her eyes running over with tears, her face vibrating like she’d stuck her hand in a light socket, shrieking involuntarily, me yelling, “NOOOOOO!” and Magoo sob-yelling in a crumpled heap on the floor, already having given up all hope of survival.

When I righted the falling vase, the fish still swimming happily, I breathed a sigh of relief. My screaming had stopped but I was the only one. They just went on like that, as though frozen in time. Wanda dropped to the floor, exhausted, remorseful and more than a little terrified by the reaction she had caused. Her cries became ever more pain-filled and unstable.

Laylee grew more hysterical, her fear mingling with rage as she moved to protect her fish bowl with her body. “Wanda can never, n-n-n-EVER COME ANYWHERE NEAR MY FI-HI-HI-HISH!” Her body wracked with sobs, she periodically gasped, “Never.”

Magoo seemed unable to comprehend that VeilTail had survived. He would not stand up, writhing on the floor as though in mourning-inspired throws of agony. As we tried to comfort them, it was all Dan and I could do not to laugh hysterically. Maybe we should have let loose. There is no possible way they would have heard us anyway.

After several minutes, Laylee and Wanda’s screeching subsided and we sent Laylee and Magoo up to brush their teeth. For fully five minutes, Magoo sobbed. We’d convinced him that the fish was alive but I guess everything just felt too real now, this brush with death making him feel his own mortality too keenly. Everything. Everything. Could be gone in the blink of an eye.

And now they’re asleep, their piteous wails no more than a ghostly echo, ringing in my ears as I watch the two fish swim frighteningly close to the tops of their bowls. Is that one floating? For the love of all that’s holy, breathe man, breathe! They must not perish tonight. Not on my watch.

I do not believe our world can endure the riotous lamentations that will be heard in the land if they don’t make it. Sleep sweet, little fish.

Stop THREEING

March 6, 2012 by Kathryn

Wanda’s been spending a lot of time in the joint lately. Our personal joint is a spot in the hall outside the bathroom door. There is no worse place on earth than the time out spot. Placing her in it is practically child abuse.

Her emotions are just so raw and untamed and we aggrevate them by doing things like letting Magoo eat a lollipop he got for Valentine’s Day, asking Wanda to stop throwing wooden blocks in the house, and letting other people celebrate birthdays.

Here are a few classic shots from Laylee’s birthday earlier this year.

Wanda helps open the presents.

Eventually Laylee has to unwrap her gifts like this:

Notice how I’m more interested in documenting the drama than stopping it? Best mom ever.

Eventually she ran to the piano for a meltdown. Maybe she was going to write a song about it, which was apparently named, “WHERE’S WANDA’S PRESS-ENTS? I WANT WANDA’S PAH-TY TIME!”

The tragedy is highlighted by her smiling face in the photo behind her. I love this shot with a great wicked-stepmother kind of love.

So to help her comply with our unreasonable demands, I’ve started the time-honored tradition of counting her down to obedience.

“Wanda. You need to bring me that permanent maker and that chainsaw.”

“No.”

“Wanda. One. Two…”

The other day, about halfway through the fiftieth round of counting that day, she yelled, “Mamma, NO! Stop THREEING!”

I will. I will totally stop threeing as soon as baby girl stops twoing with such unyielding persistence.

Rejection Letters

March 4, 2012 by Kathryn

I’ve been thinking a lot about rejection lately. I’ve been shopping my novel around to agents and they’ve been telling me, “No thank you.” I expected to be rejected repeatedly before finding someone who wanted to represent me but it doesn’t make the sting any more fun. The night of my first rejection letter, I cried for two hours, while saying to Dan, “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

But I did know why I was crying. I want everyone to like me and be excited about my work and to validate me and want to work with me. I want acceptance, not rejection.

Magoo asked me if I thought anyone would ever want to publish my book and I said, “Yes. I know they will because I will never stop trying.” Again, that determination doesn’t make repeated rejection any more fun.

I’ve been struck this week by how badly I want acceptance and I’ve been noticing this same need in my kids. They are constantly petitioning me to love them and accept them and to tell them that they are okay. These petitions come in little ways, holding my hand while we’re sitting together in church, asking me to tell them a story at bedtime, telling me a joke, or showing me the picture they drew on the bus. They’re even looking for acceptance when they sass me.

How often do I give them little rejection letters by being only partially engaged in our conversations or telling them I’m too tired to walk up stairs and snuggle with them at bedtime? Too often. In every look, gesture, and use of my time when we’re together, to some degree, I am showing my kids acceptance or rejection.

It won’t be much longer that they want me to tuck them in or hold them on my lap. In a couple of years I may have to beg them to share their school work with me or tell me about the book they’re reading and I’m going to wish I was more attentive and more free with acceptance when they were begging for my approval.

We all hate rejection and after a certain amount of it, we just give up. I’m not saying I’m the wicked witch of the west to my kids but I know that I have it in me to give them more of my time and attention than I currently do.

I’m far from suggesting that you never say no to your children. Like a busy literary agent, I must say no to my kids frequently in order to teach them and to maintain order in our house. However, unlike a literary agent, I only have three children and one husband and I love all four of them. I need to think, do I really need to say no to this request (whether expressed verbally or not) or I can make this happen to validate my child?

I also need to think about how I say no. I received two rejection letters in two days last week. One was kind and validating, even as it rejected me. The other was cold and formulaic, and sounded like he hadn’t even read my stuff.

When I tell my kids no, I can be thoughtful and loving. I don’t need to always act out of instinct. I find that things go far better for everyone if I say yes unless I have a really good reason to say no, than if I say no unless they can convince me to say yes.

So, yeah. They can always use more love. I’m learning firsthand what repeated rejection feels like and I’d like to spare my family that feeling as often as I can. I’ll listen to their lame jokes with both ears and a willingness to be entertained. I’ll take an extra minute to cuddle with them, even though I’m SO busy. I’ll more frequently play trains with Wanda and do a Mario Kart race with Magoo after homework is done and sometimes I’ll even let Laylee pick all the music while we’re driving in the car.

They can get rejection at school or at work when they’re older. In my house, I choose acceptance.

Grow Your Own Easter Grass

March 3, 2012 by Kathryn

My fabulous next door neighbor is like the all-natural McGyver of crafting. She can take sticks, dirt specks and pine gum and create an elegant chandelier. She can make anything in the world out of sheep’s wool and she notices lovely things everywhere she goes and then tames them to decorate her beautiful home.

For Easter she helped me plant my own wheat grass to use as an Easter basket for my little bunnies this year. The project was super easy and looking gorgeous and I think you should all try it this month so it will grow in time for Easter. It takes at least two weeks to get looking gorgeous.

First, you soak a couple of handfuls of wheat in water for 24 hours. Soft white wheat berries are best and you need to get some that haven’t been stored with oxygen absorber packets. My neighbor purchased ours at Whole Foods for very little money.

Next you fill a pie plate or other dish with dirt about an inch deep. Then you sprinkle the soaked wheat berries over the top of the dirt. You only need about half of the amount of wheat that we used. We went a little overboard.

Water well and cover with plastic wrap until tiny sprouts appear.

After the sprouts start popping up (24-48 hours), remove the plastic wrap.

When the grass is a couple of inches tall, move the container to a sunny location so it will turn green in color.

On Easter Eve, cut the sod to fit in your Easter baskets, dress like a bunny and place eggs and treats amidst the blades of grass.

How sweet is that?