Tantrum town

Oh, my word.

Things, they are a-changing around here.

My beloved two-year-old is undergoing a bit of a metamorphosis as he approaches his third birthday.



He's like a mogwai - so cute and cuddly,
just don't get him wet, or feed him after midnight

For the record, B was a difficult baby - colicky and cranky. Sensitive to over stimulation and alert to any changes in routine, however minor and well-intentioned they may have been. We walked a finely tuned, well choreographed, and intricately customized path for his highness.

As a toddler, he became significantly easier (a fact I didn't even realize until his brother came along and taught me everything I ever wanted to know about difficult, unruly and unmanageable toddlers).

Suddenly, however, my little man is declaring his independence, finding his voice, asserting himself and driving me absolutely nuts pointing out to me (like any good Buddhist teacher) that I have some work to do in the patience department.

Here's the truth about this week's tantrums:

At swimming he strongly disapproved of our new instructor and her ideas about how swimming class should be conducted. He screamed so loudly and obnoxiously asserted his opinion so vehemently that I thought briefly about dunking him. It was briefly! BRIEFLY, I said - do not call the Department of Social Services.



Perhaps we'll just move to a less structured swimming environment



And then there's his ongoing crusade against dirty golf balls. It is his strong opinion that golf balls are an outrageous and egregious offense against his sensibilities when they are dirty. "It has dirt ... on... IT!" he wails, jumping up and down, weeping as he carries the besmirched golf ball to me. "Mama will... clean... it... OFF!" The problem, as you may have guessed, is that golf balls are often dirty (especially when in the hands of a two year old).



Quality control.

I am deeply afraid of what the next 6-12 months have in store for us.

It ain't gonna be pretty, folks.

The good news is, if we all survive - I may, in fact, be a saint when it's over.  You think saint-hood comes with a decent 401K package?

Soup's on

One cold, rainy, dreary, sniffly-sneezey, grouchy day this week - I broke out the Duo again. Vegetable-barley soup and oat-wheat bread.

This is my theory on soup: throw it in the crock-pot and you can almost never go wrong.

Repeat after me, "Guesstimate, approximate, and taste."

1/2 medium white onion
1/2 green pepper
2 stalks celery
1 cup baby carrots
2 cloves garlic (smashed and finely chopped)
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 can kidney beans (rinsed and drained)
1/2 cup pearl barley
2 inch long squirt of tomato-paste-in-a-tube
1 1/2 quarts of low-sodium chicken stock
a liberal shake of granulated garlic (about 1 tsp)
a pinch of ground rosemary (a wee pinch - I find rosemary to be strong)
4 sprigs of thyme (can you tell I have a thyme plant on the porch?)
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper

Chop all your veggies into bite size pieces, then add everything to the crock pot. Cook 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low for very soft veggies - decrease the cooking time by an hour if you like some crunch left in your veggies.

One note - adding the raw barley into the crock pot gives a strong barely flavor to the soup in the end. For a milder barley flavor, cook the barely separately and then add it to the soup before serving.




No, we don't have snow yet - this is a pic from last winter,
but I think it captures the mood of this rainy week just perfectly



Oat-Wheat Bread

This is a recipe I lifted from Orangette. It was not originally a bread machine recipe, but I plopped the ingredients in mine, gave it a whirl, and yowza this is some seriously good bread.

2 cups warm water
2 1/4 tsp salt
4 tbsp melted butter
3 tbsp molasses
1 cup quick cooking oats
2 cups bread flour
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/4 tsp yeast

Add all the ingredients into the machine (liquids first, yeast last). I run the "dough" cycle and then transfer the dough to a bread pan (sprayed with non-stick cooking spray) and let it rise for about 30 minutes.
Bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes.

A few notable points:
*This makes a ginormous loaf of bread so keep an eye on your bread machine the first time you try it or you may discover the dough exploding out the top of the machine.
*I would not recommend throwing this into your machine and running a regular cycle (i.e. baking it in the machine) I think this makes too much dough for that.



I wasn't kidding! Uber-loaf!



Clutter

God, the clutter is getting to me today. It's EVERYWHERE.

I can't think straight when the house looks like this.



Check out my sweet photo editing!  Removal of a phone number from the whiteboard.



 Crumbs and dishes and sticky spots on the counters and floor.



I'll have you notice the open cabinet doors again. It's true! I never close them.

It even spreads up to our bedroom. 

 

Seriously, why is there a small collection of fans on my bureau?

So I went on a somewhat crazed tidying mission.

Irritated that I was giving up my two meager hours of freedom (i.e. nap time) to clean, straighten and organize, I grumbled as I set about the chores.

Until I put down the toilet lid and discovered this



Do not click on this photo to view it in a larger size, the bathroom is really dirty.

Surprise! Hi Mom!

And I laugh.

Come on! That's funny! Dude, what are you doing there, little green car?!

My grumbles disappear. I tidy up, but cut myself a break and leave the scrubbing and the laundry for another day and I head to the computer to share this little green car that cracked me up. 



I think I'm a bad mother

For those of you reading this who haven't actually been to my house, the setting is, shall we say, rustic. We've got woods and rocks, deer and fishercats.  We live in a quiet neighborhood and there isn't a ton of traffic on our road ... nor are there streetlights - but I digress.

Our yard is set down from the road, providing the big boy in my life some serious rock climbing adventures right in his own front yard.

Our little mountain goat.

There's about five feet of grassy shoulder at the top before you hit the pavement of the road, so I let his highness climb all the way up (while I stay below in the yard).  He's king of the mountain up there, and I know my cautious boy won't bolt into the road.

There is an unseen tether between this boy and I, and he has begun to stretch it. Farther and farther, he's inching away from me.  This simple act of letting him climb to the top, alone, and trusting him to obey the rules - it's important to him, and to me. He knows I am trusting him, and I know I can.

Yesterday, a car drove by and I saw the startled driver, staring at this boy. Watching him to be sure he stayed away from the road. I was grateful for her caution and her concern.

Almost immediately though, a chorus of derisive commentary began in my head. I could hear this woman's thoughts:

Oh my god! That kid is way too close to the road!

Where is his mother?

What an idiot! He shouldn't be allowed up there.

I was seized by an irrational urge to chase after her and explain that he's perfectly safe up there - I know I can trust him.

It's just that apparently I don't trust my own judgement.  Those aren't her condemning opinions little mama, they're mine.

This is what motherhood feels like for me. I don't have a damn clue what I am doing here, and I'm just waiting for someone to find me out.

I do the best I can, but I think you are doing a way better job with your kids than I am doing with mine.

This is the most important job I've ever done, and I have no confidence that I am headed in the right direction, or even that I'd know the right direction if I stumbled into it.



Hey Bud, don't pick your nose. This is a serious post.



I just want what's best for them. I just want it so bad it's an endless aching. And the worst part is, it's up to me to give it to them, and I'm not at all sure that I know how.

Reading: Blue Jay's Dance by Louise Erdrich

Oh how I wish I had discovered The Blue Jay's Dance while I was still pregnant with one of my boys. Every pregnant mama out there should run out and read this book (this means YOU pregnant friend whose name I won't mention). The author describes pregnancy, parenthood, work, and her lovely home in the woods just beautifully. Warning: there is kind of a traumatizing scene about duck mating, but other than that, this book was a delightful and inspiring read. I love literature that focuses on bringing mindfulness to the day-in-day-out job of parenting young children.

Bad Mama Moment Mini's

Here are a few snippets from my life lately

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If the dark circles, uneven complexion and deepening crow's feet weren't fabulous enough - J just hit me in the face with a rather large (although thankfully not life-size) ambulance.

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Then I couldn't find my slippers. 



Seriously, has anyone seen my slippers?

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Then we found this on the wall. 


This crusty, spill is, as yet, unidentified.

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Then I made this phone call:

"Poison control. How can I help you?"

"Umm. Hi. My son just ate a bit of Desitin, and it says here on the tube, that I should... Ah... Call you."

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