A Matter of Life and Death

It's been a busy three years, life-cycle wise. I got pregnant, then miscarried; Karoly died; I got pregnant with Matteas; Aaron's maternal grandpa died; my maternal grandpa died; Matteas was born. And now, Aaron's paternal grandpa is slipping away from pneumonia and a tired heart. The doctor said if we wanted to say goodbye we should do it sooner rather than later, so yesterday Briana and Shane took the kids and Aaron and I drove up to Mt. Vernon to be with Grandpa Caseri. Grandpa Caseri is actually Aaron's step-grandfather. He married Aaron's grandma, Doris, when he was 51. It was a second marriage for both of them, each having been previously widowed. They recently celebrated their 38th wedding anniversary. The first time I met Aaron's grandparents was at Thanksgiving dinner. I was three months pregnant with Jack and a little apprehensive about meeting Aaron's extended family as the pregnant girlfriend, but everyone was very kind and when Aaron introduced me to Mr. Caseri he said, "You can call me 'grandpa.'" When we walked into his hospital room last night he perked up visibly, smiled and thanked us for coming. Grandma Caseri sat in a wheelchair next to her husband's bed, smiling vacantly. She has pretty severe dementia and often has trouble remembering people. She's not so steady on her feet anymore(thus the wheelchair for the long hospital halls) and is completely dependent on her husband, who she calls Bobby and who is now dying slowly but surely in front of her unbelieving eyes. It was so sad to watch her; you can tell that every few minutes she notices her surroundings and wonders why she's not at home, wonders why her husband is lying in a hospital bed with a tube in his nose and why he won't get up and come home with her. She asks him to come home every few minutes. "Bobby," she demands, "get up out of that bed and come home with me." He has become so vital to her that she cannot possibly conceive of ever being without him, pneumonia be damned. "I'll come home tomorrow Doris," he replies patiently. He's not lying. He wants to die at home, so arrangements have been made to have a hospital bed set up in the living room so he can be comfortable in his last days. He doesn't tell her he's coming home to die; he knows it won't do any good, because in five minutes she won't remember. She lives in a perpetual present, all her short-term memories slipping away from her and the only constant in her life is the familiar comfort of her husband. He follows her around the house as she totters on uncertain feet, her hand on his arm always so she doesn't fall. He bathes her, dresses her, puts her to bed, remembers things for her. It's been long enough that she knows who I am now, but I can tell walking into the hospital room that she doesn't know what we're all doing there. She is so afraid of Bobby dying that she won't let him fall asleep, something he tries to do occasionally until she barks at him. His eyes begin to close slowly, but he's not dying yet, just dozing. "Bobby!" she scolds, and he jerks awake. "What is it Doris?" His voice is soft and gentle, not a hint of reproach. "You keep your eyes open, you hear?" "It's alright if he falls asleep Grandma, he'll still be here," I offer, hoping to soothe her into allowing him a small nap. "He'd better not sleep while I'm here. Bobby, are you ready to come home with me now?" she nags. "I'd like to Doris, but I have to stay here tonight; I'll be home tomorrow afternoon." His voice is still soft and gentle; they have this exchange several more times before Aaron's dad takes her home for the night. While we visited, I worked on the blanket in the picture at the beginning of this post. I've been working on it for over three years, casting on the first stitches while I was pregnant with the baby we lost. I put the blanket away for a while after that, and the following month Karoly died. A month after that I got pregnant again, and I brought the knitting out again. Two months later, my mother's dad lay dying in the hospital and I spent long hours sitting by his bed while the blanket grew in my lap, the sound of my clicking needles mingled with hospital machines and Grandpa Ken's quiet breathing. I think the blanket was comforting to Grandma. Knitting is something from so long ago that she can remember; she pointed to my work and said she used to do a lot of that stuff. I asked her if she wanted to feel it; I was sitting next to her so I draped a piece of the blanket across her tiny old lady lap. She gripped it with her wrinkled hands and sighed appreciatively, then complimented me on my time investment. She did this several times, since conversations with her tend to repeat themselves on a ten-minute loop. She kept asking me who the blanket was for, and I kept telling her I don't know. I intended it for two different babies, first one who died and then one who outgrew the need for a baby blanket before I could finish it. It even moved with us from one house to another, spending long periods packed away in closets and boxes. The baby it will eventually keep warm is still just an idea, a future possibility. As it grew stitch by stitch last night, I realized what day it was: Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day has always been tricky for us; we usually manage to get into a fight a few days prior and ruin any chance of a good time. We weren't fighting yesterday, and for the most part I'd forgotten what day it was until it occurred to me that it would be the last Valentine's Day that Grandma and Grandpa Caseri would have together. It was amazing to see how much they still love each other after 38 years. They still flirt, still make racy comments to each other(seriously, I can't repeat some of them in a public forum), still find the other person totally essential to their own happiness. It was clear from watching Grandpa that he's not afraid of dying, but he is afraid of what will happen to his wife after he's gone. There's plenty of family to care for her, but no one will be able to replace her husband. He is her entire point of reference, the only thing that makes any sense to her mind which cannot grasp the passage of time or form new memories. His arm under her hand, his body next to her in bed, his voice responding whenever she calls out, his daily presence in her life is the whole of her existence. As Aaron and I made the long drive home, we agreed that this had been our best Valentine's Day so far. There were no flowers, no chocolates, no cards, no fanfare; but there had been witness to deep love between two people, a memory that will be woven into the blanket that was in my lap that night and will some day be wrapped around a baby Grandpa Caseri will never meet.

Sausage, Leek and Kale Soup

1 pkg. Italian sausage, any variety(I used chicken, but pork also works well) 2 leeks, cleaned and sliced 1 onion, chopped small 3-4 carrots, peeled and chopped 1-2 bunches of kale(red, green or black dino) ribs removed and leaves cut into small pieces` 4 cloves garlic, chopped 2 qrts chicken stock/broth 2 cans diced tomatoes, undrained 2 cans white kidney beans(also called cannellini or great white norther beans), drained and rinsed fresh or dried thyme, oregano or rosemary salt and pepper cayenne pepper Heat a little olive oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Crumble the sausage into the pan and saute until cooked through, chopping the sausage into smallish bits. Remove the sausage to a bowl, reserving any oil left in the pan(if using pork sausage, drain some of the fat). Reduce the heat to medium and saute the leeks and onion together and cook until soft and a little caramelized(don't stir too often). Toss in the carrots and cook another five minutes. Add the kale and toss until the kale begins wilting. Add any herbs you're using(one or all three is fine). Add the garlic and toss everything together for roughly 30 seconds, then immediately add 1 qrt of the stock. This will deglaze the pan, so be sure to scrape up all the lovely browned bits at the bottom and watch your stock turn a rich golden color. Add both cans of tomatoes with juice and the other qrt of stock. Add cayenne to taste(this soup is delicious with lots of heat). Return the sausage to the pan, reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer(don't boil) at least 15 minutes. Serve with a hunk of crusty bread and plenty of grated parmesan. Notes: I normally prefer the fattier version of things, but I actually like chicken sausage better in this soup; it makes it very light so you really taste all the vegetables, and you can eat a lot of it without feeling weighed down. Also, there's as much fat in a single link of pork sausage as there is in 5 links of chicken sausage. I've made this soup using all three herbs; fresh oregano is my favorite, but I've also used dried oregano, fresh or dried thyme, or a small sprig of fresh rosemary. The soup is delicious with one or all, and I'm guessing fresh or dried basil would also be interesting. If you're using fresh thyme, there's no need to remove all the little leaves; just toss in a couple of sprigs after the leeks an onions caramelize. The same goes for fresh rosemary, just be careful to only use a small amount; fresh rosemary is potent. Regular red kidney beans would also be fine, but I find I prefer the lighter flavor of the cannellini beans. Whatever you use, always wash your beans; the packing fluid can be very salty and make your broth taste too bean-y. A great way to get lovely parmesan flavor is to toss in the rind from a spent wedge. Whenever you use up a wedge of parmesan, put the rind in a zip-lock bag and keep it in the freezer. When making soup, toss it in at the beginning of the simmering stage. Of course, you could also cut the rind off of a wedge you have on hand. Lots of recipes call for cooking onions and garlic together; I never, ever do this. Onions need a long cooking time to develop their sugars and caramelize, while garlic burns very quickly. Nothing ruins a dish faster than burnt garlic. I always add the garlic at the last possible moment, just a quick saute before adding the liquid. This goes for making red sauces too, but is especially important with soup. This particular recipe results in a lot of browned vegetable matter at the bottom of the pan, especially if you're using stainless steel. This is fine as long as all you're cooking is vegetables, which can become quite dark without developing an off-flavors. If your garlic were to get as dark as the bits sticking to the bottom of the pan, it would be game over. This is one of the best soups in the world for a cold, especially with lots of cayenne.

On The Importance Of Knowing What You Really Want

February 5th, 2005

"The cool thing about you is, you're like an older woman." Aaron says this to me over dinner one night, back when we were still dating. "Um, how exactly am I like an older woman(I was 21), and why is that cool?" I ask. "Because you know what you want and you don't play games," he answers, clearly satisfied that he's paid me such a great compliment. "Ah. Thanks. I guess." I didn't really feel like what he was saying was a compliment at the time, and, as a few years of marriage would teach us, it wasn't entirely true. I definitely thought I knew what I wanted, but I turned out to be lying a lot of the time. Fast-forward about a year. We are living in our Tiny Stinky Apartment, and Jack is teething. I've been giving him Motrin. Aaron expresses concern that Jack seems to be spitting up more than the usual amount lately, and wonders if the Motrin is irritating his stomach. I calmly assure him that I've been alternating Motrin with doses of Tylenol; Motrin is processed through your kidneys, Tylenol is processed through your liver. I further assert that one of my nieces used to projectile vomit(as opposed to spitting up normally) and she still grew round and chubby, so even though it looked like Jack was spitting up a lot I was certain he was still getting enough calories. "You know," Aaron says, "you say that kind of thing like you're absolutely certain you're right and there's no room for error, but you turn out to be wrong about 80% of the time." "Excuse me?" I splutter, so angry I can barely speak. I grew up in a family of nine, I have dozens of nieces and nephews, I was a nanny for eight years, did two years of nursing prerequisites in college, and I'd watched a lot of 'ER,' so naturally I resent my husband questioning my medical expertise. I get angrier and angrier, and very shortly it becomes clear to me that I am far more furious than the situation warrants. I excuse myself, saying I think I needed a time-out. I step outside and sit on the top of our steps, trying to get a little objectivity. A few days later I'm still so upset that I decide I want some professional counsel and I make an appointment with a therapist. I meet with her once a week and we discuss my marriage, my romantic history, my adolescence, my childhood; she asks very good questions, and I do my best to give honest answers. I can tell when we are really getting somewhere, because sometimes after she asks me a question I get really uncomfortable and I don't want to answer, but I do because I don't want to waste my time or poison my marriage. I work at it and work at it, and eventually it becomes clear to me that I have never in my whole life had a clue about what I really wanted. I thought I wanted to be smart, to be respected for having all the right answers. What I actually wanted was to be loved, but I'd been so busy trying to be right all the time that I didn't know I already had what I really wanted. Turns out, I don't have to be right all the time for my husband to love me. He does anyway, and he'll keep loving me no matter how often I'm wrong. Which is a lot. The summer I got pregnant with Jack, two of my siblings separated from their spouses. My oldest sister decided after five kids and fourteen years of marriage that she would really rather be single, so she left. She lives in another state now and I haven't heard from her in years. She got married when she was nineteen and had her first baby at twenty. She was young and in love, and for the first several years of her marriage everything appeared to be great. She married a very nice man who loved her, earned a solid living, and their kids were cute. But somewhere along the road, something in her started to break down. She gained weight. She watched a lot of TV and didn't leave the house much. She started drinking and gained even more weight, which eventually led to a cycle of rehab and relapse. Whenever she went to rehab(which was pretty often), I watched her kids so her husband could work. The days were long and intense as I attempted to fill in for a mother who'd been absent for a lot longer than she'd been physically gone. This went on for two or three years until she finally left for good, and by that time I'd decided I never wanted to have kids. It just looked way too hard, and the stakes were so high if you screwed it up. Five little boys, the youngest only four, were left without a mother. I still don't really understand what happened to my sister; maybe she's crazy, maybe she's ill, maybe she's wicked. Maybe all three. For a long time, I hated her. Loathed her. Then I felt sorry for her. Today, as Aaron and I celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary, I'm grateful to her. It may sound like an odd thing to say, but I really mean it. I only have two boys(for now), yet I've had days when I thought I would go stark raving mad if I had to change one more poopy diaper or settle one more fight. Motherhood can be incredibly exhausting; it is constant, unrelenting work that often demands everything of you and never says 'thank you,' just tortures you through the night so you don't get any restoration and then you have to drag yourself out of bed and do it all again the next day. And the next. And the next. For years. So why am I grateful to my sister? Because she showed me what not to do, and otherwise I might not have known. And I feel sorry for her because I don't think she ever knew what she really wanted either. I don't think she really wanted to be married. I think she wanted love, attention, excitement, and change. Marriage can give you those things, but it's a really bad plan to get married because you hope to get something. There's a lot of giving involved, and she didn't like that part. So she took and she took, and she still didn't get what she wanted. In the meantime, she had a lot of kids, and life got harder and harder. To this day, I doubt she knows what she actually wants. Had someone asked her at nineteen where she hoped she'd be in 19 years, I highly doubt she would have described her current situation. It probably wasn't what she wanted, but she got it anyway. The big surprise was that I didn't actually not want children. What I wanted was to do it differently, to not force myself into a role I wasn't certain I wanted and then make all kinds of restrictions about how I had to do it. I make an effort everyday to know what it is I really, really want. Some of the things I want are good, and it's helpful to be in touch with those desires so I can make a plan to achieve them. Some of the things I want maybe aren't so good, and it's really helpful to be in touch with those desires so I can try to figure out what in my life or heart is out of alignment and needs to change. I still enjoy being right, when it happens(which, despite what my husband says, is more than 20% of the time). But I enjoy being loved a lot more. If you're not honest about what it is you really want, you're never going to get it. If you really want to be married and have kids, you need to accept the reality that it will require you to work your ass off every day. If you don't want to do that, you don't really want to be married. The good news is that when you know what you really, really, really want, getting it is really satisfying. I'm going to get off my soapbox now because my husband just walked in with groceries and flowers. We're going to put the boys to bed early and then cook dinner together. Later we'll sit by the fire and drink wine, and talk about how we want to be married for a long, long time. This is what I want. This man. To be married to him, to grow with him, to learn, to change, make babies, and get old and wrinkly.

Beef: What's For Dinner??

I feel I should begin this post by sharing some of my darker food past. I was not a born organic zealot, I was a convert. I grew up eating like most other American kids; cheeseburgers, spaghetti made with ground beef, the occasional trip to McDonald's. At the time, there wasn't much information to indicate that any of those choices were ill-informed. My Mom made good food with ingredients purchased from the supermarket, a place most of us assume carries products which are safe for consumption. My girlfriend Anna ate only organic foods. We used to tease her about how much more expensive her groceries were, and as far as I could tell they didn't taste any different than the non-organic versions I was buying. Then I started reading. An article here, a book there. Before I had kids I wanted to be an investigative journalist. In college I got straight A's in English, Journalism, and Research Writing. Also Chemistry, which is sometimes a handy research skill. What I have learned is that there is a lot more involved in the production of food than just food. Politics, money, lobbying, more money, and a lot of very badly done science. I understand that it's a widely accepted industry standard for companies seeking USDA or FDA approval to conduct their own research, but anyone who's taken a high school-level biology class knows that such a practice violates some of the most basic premises of science. Science is supposed to be objective and conducted without bias. If you are a multi-million dollar company trying to bring your product to market, you cannot be objective. Also, you're going to keep throwing money at your experiments until you get the results you want. I'd already decided we would stop purchasing certain foods unless they were organic or, if they lacked certification, passed what I felt were reasonable quality tests. First on that list was ground beef, a product which has been in the hot seat of the food safety debate for years. We buy only organic ground beef from Costco or from PCC, which carries two brands of ground beef; one is certified organic and one is not. The reason for the non-certification is that Country Natural(the brand) is a collection of family-owned farms and ranches who graze their cows in open country, and not every piece of grass and weed can be tested and certified as organic. I don't think being certified organic necessarily guarantees the quality of a product, nor does it promise that the animal in question was ideally raised. "Organic" doesn't mean "grass-fed" when it comes to beef, but it does mean "not washed in ammonia" like 70% of the ground beef on the market today. This isn't news to those of you who've seen the movie Food Inc. I watched it twice this week and, while it wasn't all new information, it did serve to reaffirm my determination to know what's in the food I'm eating and feeding to my children. Then I read this article in the NY Times. The practice of washing beef trimmings(trimmings as opposed to whole cuts of meat) in ammonia to kill bacteria like E. coli and salmonella was engineered by the company Beef Products Inc., in an effort to utilize otherwise-useless scraps of cow leftover from commercial slaughter. At least, they were useless with regard to food intended for human consumption. The scraps which are now processed, cleansed and combined with 70% of commercially sold beef(fast food chains, supermarkets, and school lunches) used to be reserved for pet food and other non-human consumption. The contamination rate of these "trimmings" is very high, due to the fact that many of them literally wind up on the floor of the slaughterhouse. The trimmings are processed to remove most of the fat and connective tissue, then ammonia is added in high enough levels to kill the bacteria not only in the finished product, but also any bacteria which may be present in the ground beef it is intended to be combined with. The goal of this practice is two-fold: to increase the volume of ground beef using a cheap filler, and to kill harmful bacteria. So the logic is, save money by using cheap, contaminated trimmings and then make them safe to eat by adding chemicals. Um, what? Why don't we spare ourselves the ammonia by eating only meat that was clean to begin with? Oh, right: because you can't make as much money that way. People who are critical of the organic movement often cite the fact that the U.S. feeds so much of the world's population, and is in a position to do so because of innovations in food production which afford high-output for low-cost. My concern is this: you get what you pay for. If you're paying .99 cents for a cheeseburger, you might feel like you're getting a bargain. What you need to consider is that for only .99 cents, someone is still making a profit, which has to make you wonder what that cheeseburger is actually worth. I'm well aware that raising cattle as ruminants instead of corn-eating machines costs money. It requires a lot of land, produces leaner meat, and results in a product that costs more for the consumer to purchase. Traditionally, people tend to consume less of something that's more expensive. I don't think this is a bad thing. Broccoli is cheaper than rib eye. Cost aside, there should be proportionally more broccoli in our diet than rib eye. If the price tag contributes to reasonable ratios, so much the better. I'm perfectly happy to pay top-dollar for a high-quality product. I'm not happy to be assured I'm getting a quality product at a reasonable price when there are ingredients in that product not listed on the label. Beef Products Inc. managed to convince the USDA that the ammonia they use should be considered a "processing agent" and not an actual ingredient, so it doesn't have to be listed on the package as an ingredient. The only ingredient listed in Beef Products Inc. hamburger filler is: beef. That's it. Pardon my skepticism, but I don't feel like that single word tells the whole story. A friend e-mailed me some time ago to share my concerns over food safety and then asked a really compelling question: how should it change the way we eat? Lots of ways, but the bottom line is this: less meat. There's no way around it. It takes a while to shift your thinking away from American portion sizes, but the fact of the matter is that the average American consumes way more meat than is necessary or healthy(200 lbs per year. Per person.). That deserves more than a parenthetical reference: 200 lbs of meat per year. No wonder we're a nation of obese diabetics. What we need to get away from is the idea of meat as a main entree, as the central item on the plate. It's not that I'm opposed to meat consumption; I love a good cut of meat and I will never, ever be a vegetarian. But I definitely eat less of it than I used to, both for health reasons and economic ones. The idea that food should be cheap is also something that should be done away with. The reality is that good food isn't cheap(which is why income is the single greatest predictor of obesity rates), and it shouldn't be. I'm not interested in what can be produced at the fastest rate in the greatest volume for as little investment as possible. I'm interested in real, good, healthy food. I will cut back elsewhere, but the quality of the food I put into my childrens' bodies isn't something I'm willing to compromise. The question shouldn't be whether I can afford to feed my kids healthy food, it should be "Can I afford not to?" Think of it as preventative care: you won't have to spend money on the medical costs of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep apnea, cancer, acid reflux, food poisoning, and a host of other things that can cost a lot more than organic food. To that end, two things about the way I cook have changed: the proportion of meat to other ingredients has shifted considerably; also, I think of a meal less in terms of a recipe and more in terms of whole foods. Chicken, brown rice, broccoli. That's a meal. I love cooking, I love experimenting with different spices and flavors, but for the time being I've decided I need to simplify. My kids actually prefer to eat this way; they're not terribly interested in cuisine, they just want food. Another great way to use less meat is to make soup. I still need to nail down more precise proportions for ingredients before I post recipes for all of them, but two of our favorites have been a potato, leek and kale soup with bacon, and a chicken tortilla soup with black beans. The kids won't touch anything with kale in it, but Jack actually loves the tortilla soup. I buy organic chicken stock in bulk from Costco, use a single chicken breast for an entire pot of soup and I can feed my family a delicious, healthy dinner for around $10. No ammonia necessary. Chicken Tortilla Soup with Black Beans 1 onion, chopped 4 ribs celery, chopped 3-4 cloves garlic, chopped 2 TBS chili powder 1 TBS ground cumin pinch of red pepper flakes OR 1 chopped jalapeno(optional, especially if cooking for children) 3 cans diced tomatoes, undrained 1 quart chicken stock 10-15 corn tortillas, cut into strips 1 bone-in skin-on chicken breast, roasted and shredded 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed Sour cream, fresh lime, chopped cilantro, and grated cheese for serving Salt and pepper the chicken breast and roast in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. When cool enough to handle, shred by hand into bite-sized pieces. Set aside. Over medium heat, drizzle a large soup pot with olive oil(I like to use a little butter too). Saute the onion and celery until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, chili powder, red pepper flakes(if using) and cumin and saute 1 minute more(don't cook it any longer or the garlic could burn). Toss in the tomatoes, juice and all, then add the chicken stock. Simmer 15-20 minutes. Using an immersion blender or blending in a regular blender in batches, puree the soup. Return to the pot and add the corn tortillas. Simmer until the tortillas have disintegrated and thickened the soup. If your soup gets too thick, add some more stock or water 1 cup at a time until you get the consistency you want. The soup should be fairly thick. Add the black beans and the shredded chicken breast. Simmer everything together for about 5 minutes, and season with salt and pepper. This soup is perfectly tasty on its own, but is also delicious with any(or all) of the toppings I've suggested. Note: this recipe is really flexible. I've made it using an onion, celery and carrot base but also with a pure onion base; use any combination of these you have on hand, but don't leave out the onion. The carrot and celery are less important, but add a nice complexity and subtle sweetness which balances the heat. I love this soup spicy, so I often wait to add the red pepper flakes until after I puree everything, remove a portion for the kids and then add as much heat has I want. Jalapenos have great flavor, but if you don't like the heat remove the seeds before adding. Keep in mind that the corn tortillas will absorb a lot of the heat, so you have a chance to tone it down if you get overzealous with the red pepper flakes. Also, I've used different blends of chili powder in this, everything from plain chili powder to chipotle and all are delicious. The smoky flavor of the chipotle was amazing, but if you prefer a milder soup stick with plain chili powder. I've seen recipes that call for adding canned corn, but I found I didn't care for the texture. The chicken and the black beans have a nice smooth texture that compliment the texture of the soup, but I thought the corn was too crunchy and too sweet.

A Random Collection of Things

After two years of serious use, our digital camera is finally on its way out. Most of the buttons have stopped working, I can't turn off the flash anymore(thus the yucky quality of some of these pictures), and I have to rubber-band the latch that keeps the batteries in shut. It also sucks the life out of batteries immediately. As digital cameras age, they lose their ability to efficiently utilize energy. I put brand new batteries in and the second I turn it on the "low battery" light flashes. I snapped a few last pictures for this post before completely laying the camera to rest, as I'm not sure how long it will be until we can replace it. You may have noticed the size of my coffee cup. Those who know me well may recall that I usually prefer small cups for coffee, reserving the magnum mugs for tea. I haven't been getting good sleep lately and consequently have become a Big Cup Convert; the little cups just aren't enough to get me out of bed in the morning. This griddle rocks my world. I'd been asking for one for a while, and this Christmas my mother-in-law gave me this nice shiny one. I like making pancakes on the weekend, but it takes so long to make a reasonable quantity of them that I often end up darting between the table and the stove in a most unsociable manner. With this baby I can crank out six pancakes at a time and the whole thing wipes clean with a damp paper towel. It's a dream come true, and has revolutionized our weekend breakfasts. And speaking of things that rock my world, um, yes. That tiny little girl perched contentedly on my husband's broad shoulders is Alessandra. I think we may need to borrow her. I always love seeing Aaron hold a tiny baby, but there is something particularly sweet about a big man holding a tiny girl. Kind of whips the ovaries into a frenzy a little bit. Let's move on, lest I get pregnant just from looking at that picture too long. And speaking of pregnancy and babies, here is my "baby" wearing the pajamas I bought for his big brother the day he was born. That is, I bought the pajamas for Jack on the day that Matteas was born. He was wearing the pants as well but declined to put them back on after I changed his morning diaper. My kids are oblivious to the fact that we're in the middle of winter; Jack is coloring(and singing) at the table in his underwear. It's not because I'm a negligent mother, it's just the way he likes to do things. I'm excited to try this pasta. My trainer announced that she's going to turn all of her clients into hard-bodies by summer. To that end, she's asking everyone to make resolutions in the direction of working out more, making healthy additions to their diet and giving up any foods or habits that aren't conducive to achieving hard-body status. After thinking about the way I eat(lots and lots of vegetables, hardly any sugar, organic meats, brown rice instead of white) the only real offender I could come up with in my diet was white flour. Even then, I don't eat a lot of it. We have a whole-grain-only bread rule, but we do like our pasta. As luck would have it, this month's edition of Cook's Illustrated contains a taste-test review of whole grain pastas. PCC carries the brand that won(Bionaturae) and it's cheap. That big bag of fusilli was only $2.69. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm excited. My sneaky brother-in-law gives me a subscription to Cook's Illustrated every year for Christmas. He eats dinner at our house a lot, so anything he does to improve my culinary skills is of direct benefit to himself. It's a win-win situation because I love my Cook's Illustrated, and I've gotten so many great ideas/recipes/tips from their pages over the years. This year Tristan finally came clean, and on the card from Cook's Illustrated telling me I'd been given a gift subscription he wrote "Merry Christmas to me." It's a great gift actually, because it extends to just about anyone who's ever eaten dinner at my house. Way to be such a giver, Tristan. On Monday nights, we have a tradition. Tristan and Trevor come over to watch Monday Night Football with Aaron, and I make soup. It's something that makes everyone happy because, while I'm not wild about football, I do love having a cozy dinner with friends. My Dad gave me a $100 gift certificate to JC Penny for Christmas, and I agonized over how to spend it. I really wanted to get something that I would use often and that would make me think fondly of my Dad, so after I wandered around the mall for a long time I was really pleased to find the perfect gift: a ginormous cauldron. You can't really tell from the above picture, but the thing takes up half of my stove. It has a 16 quart capacity. That's 4 gallons, y'all. Again, a gift that extends way beyond just me. I'm looking forward to steaming a lobster in it for our annual Wedding Anniversary Dinner; the set up we rigged last year didn't work so well in our smaller pots. The new bed we bought last week is lovely, but I'm afraid it hurts my neck. It could be coincidence, it could be the extra workouts I've been doing, it could be that hefting our old bed out and our new bed in caused my neck to go out of alignment; whatever the case, my neck has been in serious pain since the morning after I first slept in our new bed. This chaps my hide something fierce, because the bed is great for my lower back(the reason we got a new bed in the first place) and I didn't want to fix my back only to tax my neck. I went and saw my chiropractor yesterday who adjusted my neck and recommended this special, funky pillow. I'm not sure if it was one or the other that fixed the problem, but this morning my neck is feeling great. I think the pillow will take some getting used to, but the instant I put my head on it I felt my neck relax. And just for fun, my new(temporary) profile picture on Facebook. It's doppelganger week, and the look-alike gods finally decided to smile with favor on me; people have recently been telling me I look like Jennifer Garner instead of Molly Ringwald. Now, I'm sure Molly Ringwald is a lovely person, but I'd rather be compared to Jennifer Garner. The women in my family have this rule about our faces getting really, really round in adolescence, and my cheekbones were in hiding until I was about 23. Aaron is off doing some much-deserved skiing, so I need to go tend my kids who are still running around without pants. I also need to reclaim my house from the clutches of all the toys and dirty dishes currently overrunning the place, and if I have any energy left after that it'll be Core Fusion time. Summer is just around the corner...

On Finding Your Own Way

I've been reading a parenting book lately that I really like. I don't read a lot of parenting books because most of them are stupid, but I have a few that I really like which have for the most part come highly recommended by other moms. One of my favorites is Parenting the Way God Parents: Refusing to Recycle Your Parents' Mistakes, which I found through Angie. What I love about that book is that it helps you identify what your parenting weak spots are without pointing accusing fingers at your parents. It's not about coming up with a list of everything your parents got wrong, it's about being really straightforward and honest about how your own upbringing affects the way you parent, and identifying ways you can do that better. The book I'm reading right now comes highly recommended by damomma, and it's called The Blessing of A Skinned Knee . What I'm loving about it is that Dr. Mogel addresses a lot of my own personal fears for my children and illustrates what will happen if handled the wrong way. I totally agree with her that most American children are overscheduled, overprotected and under-skilled. I think I was one of those children. Like most well-intentioned parents, I think my parents overprotected me a bit. My dad is a cop, so I get it. While I understand the forces which motivated them, I am proof of the flaws of that parenting style. Carefully shepherded in the 'right' direction my whole life, I grew up lacking the skills to make my own decisions, to choose my own way, to learn from my own mistakes. My parents didn't want me to make mistakes. They wanted to protect me from mistakes. What I love about the two parenting books I mentioned is that they both confirm something I've long suspected: you can't entirely avoid mistakes, so stop trying. Plus, mistakes are one of the greatest learning opportunities you're ever going to come by. It's not whether or not our children make mistakes that will determine their success or failure, but how they are taught to respond to their mistakes. In Parenting the Way God Parents, Katherine Koonce uses the example of a toddler learning to walk and points out a very simple truth: learning to walk involves a lot of falling down. No parent in their right mind would dream of scolding a toddler for stumbling while trying to learn a new skill; it's all a very important part of the process. No one learns to walk without a few(or a lot of) bruises. Yet somehow that lesson is lost on parents once their children are older and are, in a very real sense, "learning to walk" in lessons of character. My kids are still very young, and already I'm frustrated with their lack of ability to make the right choice the first time. I try to be very, very careful in how I respond to their mistakes because I know it will shape their attitude toward mistakes in the future. Will they seem that as an opportunity to learn something about themselves, as a nudge to go in a different direction, or will they seem them as personal failures, take them on as part of their identity? I had a psychology teacher in college who said one of her least-favorite parenting lines was: "I'm very disappointed in you." I got that one a lot as a teenager. Aaron and I have agreed that we will never, ever say that to our children. First of all, it's a lie. Secondly, it is aimed at the person, not the behavior. Jack makes a lot of mistakes, and the only person more frustrated by his mistakes than me is him. He draws a lot, and quite frequently it doesn't come out the way he wants it to. His usual response is to throw a fit, crumple the drawing up and say something self-deprecating like "I'm a butt!" When that happens, I walk him through the process of identifying what's really going on. "Jack, you're not a butt. I hear you saying that you're really frustrated, and I'm sorry your picture isn't the way you want it. You have some choices: you can try again, you can quit and do something else, or you can decide that even though it's not quite what you wanted, that your drawing is still pretty good." It was slow and painful progress, but it worked. Some days he'd get upset over a misshapen transformer drawing and he'd start to pitch a fit, but then he'd catch himself. "Mom, my picture wasn't the way I wanted and I almost tore it up, but then I decided I'm okay with it!" Or, my personal favorite, the Day He Experienced A Revelation. He is drawing at the table, I don't even remember what. He groans in exasperation and starts to explain to me what's wrong with his drawing. I get as far as saying "Jack," in an encouraging tone of voice when he cuts me off: he holds up his finger as if he's just been struck with an idea, and his entire countenance shifts. A smile spreads across his face and he sings, "Artistic license..." Okay then, my work here is done. I realize that a messed up drawing is not a moral issue, but he is learning responses that will come into play when there is more at stake than a picture of a robot. He is learning to see his mistakes not as personal failures, but as opportunities for improvement or a lesson in letting go. What really concerns me, the reason I read any parenting book at all, is that my kids' mistakes may not be the same ones I made. They might have different things to learn. Growing up, I longed for empowerment and independence. That was why, at the age of 11, I started running. I wanted the feeling of getting out into the world on my own two feet, and the practical activity of running provided that for me. My mom got married when she was 18 and only ever wanted to have a family, so she didn't understand those drives in me. I was a girl, I wasn't supposed to want empowerment and independence. I was supposed to want babies and a man who was strong enough to do the heavy lifting so I wouldn't have to. The irony is that my mother is a stronger person than the majority of the men I know. I married a man who likes the fact that I want to do the heavy lifting. He encourages me in it. What sometimes frustrates me about my husband is that he refuses to let me settle for less than what I am truly capable of. I wanted more freedom as a teenager, and the lesson I learned very late is that with freedom comes responsibility. I want to protect my children from pain, from failure, from danger, but what I am struggling to accept is that if I protect them from all pain, failure and danger, I will be "protecting" them from responsibility also. Responsibility involves risk, exposure, the potential for injury. I can't really protect them from those things, and I don't really want to. The best I can do is teach them management tools, which are easy enough for now: always hold Mama's hand around cars, always carry a knife with the tip pointing down, never touch anything on the stove. It will be harder when they're older and the consequence of a mistake is more dire, but we are laying the groundwork of trust. I want our kids to come to me with their mistakes with the faith that they will not be ridiculed or punished, that they will not be a disappointment to me. If I do that, eventually they won't come to me with their mistakes and then every poor choice is compounded by becoming a guilty secret. My kids will make mistakes, I guarantee it. My hope and my resolution is that when they inevitably do fall down, I will help them up and encourage them to try again, not push them back down to wallow in failure and my "disappointment."

The Good, the Bad, and the Funky

I've had five years to get used to it, but the schizophrenia-fest that parenting can sometimes be still manages to throw me off. Lately, we've been having a lot of that. Some days I feel like two totally different people as I alternate between Calm, Problem-solving Character-forming Mama and Grumpy, Tired, Can-you-all-just-stop-being-so-damn-needy-for-one-cotton-pickin'-minute!-Mama. Some days I feel like my kids are two totally different people, alternating between fun-loving, creative, playful infectiously giggling boys and total loons with no common sense and a drive only to bash each other on the head with their toys. It all started when we made the mistake of having ourselves two really, really good days. In a row. Friday, the boys and I went down to my sister Moira's house where the kids all played really nicely, we had a nice visit, and we even magically avoided all traffic on the drive home which was a little miracle because we got on I-5 North at 4:30. On a Friday. Like a said, a little miracle. So we're driving home and I'm thinking about dinner, and I remember that wild caught true cod is on sale so I decide that's what we're having. I call Aaron to see if anyone will be coming over for dinner, because we are the hip young couple who frequently has last-minute dinner guests. Also, Trevor seems to have some kind of internal alarm system which alerts him to the fact that I've put a pan on the stove with the intention of putting something edible in it, because he often calls at the exact moment I start cooking. Jack says he wants Trevor and Melissa(Trevor's fiance) to come to dinner, and when I end up buying extra cod we all Tristan to see if he wants to come to. The adults aren't arriving for a while, so I decide I should feed the boys first. I whip up some beer batter for their cod, then slice the only potato in the house which is the perfect size to make fries for two hungry little boys. I fry it all up in sunflower oil, which is a revelation. So tasty. The boys eat every bit of their dinner, which is enormously satisfying to me. I toss them in the bath and get to work on dinner for the rest of us while Aaron, who is home from work by this time, lights candles and vacuums the living room. He's good like that. The adults arrive, all of them bearing wine. We let the boys hang out for a while, then put them to bed. They are out in no time, having played hard and eaten well. My mother's heart swells with contentment and I think that there is no better feeling in the world than putting sweet, clean, played-out babies with full tummies in cozy beds. I say a prayer for all the mothers and children in Haiti. Dinner is perfect. I made wild rice, roasted asparagus, and pan-seared cod I served with a tomato, shallot, champagne cream sauce. Everyone licks their plate, and then we all drink wine in the living room. Saturday is another great day. Our Friday Night Dinner guests become Saturday Morning Breakfast guests, and we have coffee and pancakes made from oats I soaked in buttermilk overnight. We discover we have no syrup, but the boys like brown sugar and butter on theirs and I improvise a quick raspberry syrup with ingredients from the freezer, and it's ready at the same time as the second pot of coffee. Everyone eats well, the guests depart, and we head to Costco. We take separate cars because we had a large item to return so Aaron drives his pickup, and when I get to Costco the only open parking spot is in the first row. Next to Aaron's truck. That's what kind of day it was. We fill our cart with food, and I say another silent prayer for Haiti. And then. Then we buy a bed. But before we buy it I want to lie down on it, which is tricky because it's Costco and they don't really have any display models, just lots of beds stacked on top of each other. High. The lowest one is about eye-level for me. Aaron wastes no time, and simply hoists me up under my arms. I'm inordinately pleased that my husband can do that to me, and I take a few moments to flop back on the bed and grin like an idiot at the ceiling. I do this mostly for Aaron's benefit because he tends to get a little uncomfortable when I openly swoon, but I'm still grinning when he lifts me down again. We go home with our loot and I feel like a princess. Alas, Saturday night at the stroke of midnight everything magical turned back into a pumpkin. The boys sleep badly during the night and they both end up in our bed, which causes me to sleep badly. We manage to make it out the door to church but discover that there is a Royal Funk in the car and the kids are both complaining about how stinky it is. This actually happens to us pretty often, but I'm confused because the last time was only about a month ago and I scrubbed down all the upholstery very thoroughly. Aaron tries driving with his window open, but it's a chilly day so that doesn't work for long. We make it to church on time and the boys behave well, but then we have to get back in the car. With the Funk. We get home and it starts raining, so I can't clean out the car. That night, the boys sleep okay but I wake up at 5:40 and can't fall back asleep. Jack wakes up at seven, so I get up and we have a fairly pleasant morning until Matteas wakes up and the boys proceed to fight with each other ALL DAY. My greatest parenting struggle right now is how to handle their conflicts with each other; initially I'd ignore them and hope they'd get tired of it, but their fights have escalated to the point where they end in blood shed if I don't intervene. I know this is normal brother behavior, but I get really tired of having two screaming, bleeding boys wanting consolation after beating up on each other. It's ridiculous. Why don't they realize that the cuts and bruises are of their own making and therefore totally avoidable? Oh, right: because they're children. Also? Matteas. Matteas has turned into a tornado of exploration and devastation of late, and he dismantles everything he can get his hands on. If he can't get his hands on it, he finds something to use as a step stool(the box of Costco diaper wipes, the dirty laundry hamper emptied and then turned upside down) and then wreaks havoc on the surfaces above his normal reach. Ridiculousness ensues, as he runs off to make another mess while I clean up his prior activities. No shelf is safe, no basket of toys left unturned; I want to know who took my sweet Matteas and replaced him with this crazed monkey tearing apart my house. Anyway, it got better. On Monday we went over to Briana's and the kids rode bikes while I used her Shop-vac to clean out the car and in the process discovered the source of the Funk: a bottle of rancid milk, hiding behind a package of diaper wipes underneath the passenger seat. Some of it had leaked onto the rug, so I take all the rugs out and spray them down with industrial strength carpet cleaner and scrub. It's a sunny day so I leave all the doors open for a while to get some air in the car, and now it's really clean and smells better, although I have to say some odor still lingers. It's not the sharp, retch-inducing Funk from before; it's mellower, softer, more like the inside of a pumpkin when you first cut it open. We may have to get a new car just to get rid of the smell. And that, more or less, is the way my life goes these days; some really good stuff, some really hard stuff, and some really unbelievably stinky stuff. I know what everyone older than I am is thinking: don't blink, it goes by too fast, you're going to miss this. I know I will. I'm doing my best to be fully present to where I am right now, in this moment, trying not to sweat the small stuff and trying to savor the good stuff, because there really is a lot of it. What I won't miss is the Funk. When it finally goes away.