Not Me! Monday

I would never be a slacky blogger, so I wouldn't ever have to ride on MckMama's coat-tails, desperate for an excuse to stretch my itchy fingers and dust off my keyboard!

So here we go, since I'm teeming with creative juices of late, I've got plenty of stuff that I can only imagine doing!




FOR instance, I ALWAYS eat healthily and provide for my family well-balanced meals full of nutritional goodness.  I'd never dream of allowing Jack to eat Cheetos for breakfast, nor would I, desperate for a sweet-fix, ever be caught dead standing in the pantry pouring myself a mouthful of Aunt Jemima pancake syrup.

Ick, like, for reals.

And because nutrition is so important to me, I would NEVER decide that my steamed beans were too bland at dinner and shove them onto my toddler's plate when he and Daddy weren't looking.  You know, because it's totally more acceptable for a 2 year old to not eat his veggies than his nursing-twins Mommy.

Yes, sirrie, Bob, all about health here.  No Nor'easter flood-puddle jumping for us... I mean, I'd be totally grossed out if I let my child splash in every puddle between school and home (and if I had accompanied him!) only to find out later that sewage was backing up.  Eeeew, sick!

I also like to hold myself to the highest grooming standards, so I would never be left wondering if my eyebrow hairs grow faster than my leg hairs, or if it just SEEMS like it and if I let my eyebrow hairs get as long as my leg hairs, would they seem to grow as slowly?  And is it an exponential growth-rate where the shorter the hair, the faster it grows and it slows down as I get more and more shaggy?  All of these musings are totally moot points as my legs are always shaved and bows always neatly plucked.  Seriously.**


Likewise, since good manners accompany good grooming, I would never delight in my son's use of the word "deuce" to describe his bowel movement, nor would I praise the statement, "Ow, fock, I hurt me!" for the demonstration of a solid understanding of pronouns at an early age.  I would certainly correct him and explain that "deuce" is not a nice word and should be replaced with "potty" or "feces" or "bowel movement" and that "fock" is a terrible word and that I have no idea where he heard it since I would never, ever use it 30 times a day once in my life and neither should he.

You know what? There are plenty - PLENTY - of other things I'd be ashamed of myself for doing or saying or not doing or not saying.  BUT I am going to try to divert my creativity to more, better posts and especially stop procrastinating and go ahead and do my "awards" post, as well as the girls' next food: Butternut Squash.  Yikes, lots to do... Thankfully I always am totally on top of everything!  (*grin*)


**Disclaimer: I haven't got busy eyebrows - I just have stragglers that need to be plucked to MAINTAIN my arches.

Pass the Peas... Please

The girls are 5.5 months old now... that magical time when I get to start introducing them to one of my favorite parts of life: food.  Solid, real, delicious, caloric, crave-worthy food.  It's such a huge part of our family, food.  The preparation, discussion, consumption of food... meals together and rewards and mood picker-uppers.  So naturally I get super excited about moving beyond breastmilk and crappy cereal into the real foods that will put them on track to join the rest of us in our happy fat-kid-dom. 

That, among many, many other reasons, is why I make my own baby food at home.  Like nursing, I can spend hours justifying my decision - our decision - to put the extra effort into it.  But not least of all is the taste; homemade baby food tastes great. 

I even enjoy the process.  Absurd, but when Justin asked me last night, "Are you excited to be making baby food again?" I honestly answered that I am.  I don't know why - maybe it's like nursing in that I know that I'm doing something really good for the kids.  Or maybe it's just that I delight in making neon green mush or that it appeals to my sense of order and accomplishment to see a freezer stocked with neatly frozen cubes of brightly colored yum.  I don't really know, nor do I think it matters. 

So, that all being said, I'm going to take you, if you'd like, on a journey through my children's first foods with me.  I will post step-by-step instructions on how to make the foods I'm giving them and when I introduce a new food to them, I'll post the instructions so if you'd like to learn along, feel free.  If you'd rather not worry about pureeing peaches, you are welcome, of course, to skip.  So, today, I give you... Peas!

Before I begin, I assemble my tools and utensils and put them all in the dishwasher on "sanitize" and use a bleach solution to sanitize everything else, such as counter tops, etc.  I also make sure to wash my hands often in hot, soapy water and I avoid touching prepared food and the surfaces with which the food comes in contact as much as possible.

Also important to note is that I cook foods minimally (except meat, which I cook the everliving snot out of) to retain the highest nutritional content possible and I similarly avoid microwaving food as heat saps food of essential vitamins and minerals.  I use the smallest amount of water possible and whenever I can, I retain the cooking water for use in thinning the puree because it has nutrients in it that have leached out of the food.

Step 1: Fill the bottom of a pan with a scant amount of water for steaming.  If you don't have a steaming pot, blanche the peas by chucking them in a pot of boiling water for a minute or two and removing from the heat.  In that case, drain the water into a separate container.  But for the rest of this post, assume the use of a steaming pot....

...like this one!

Step 2: I do two bags of Baby Sweet Peas at once - pour both bags of frozen peas into the upper part of the steamer pot.  I always always always use frozen instead of canned veggies. 

Step 3: Steam until the peas are gently cooked... and basically just thawed.  They should remain a lovely, vibrant green color and have lots of "pop" to them when you bite into one.

Step 4: Put the peas - yes, all of them! - into a blender... remember, keep that leftover water for use later!

Step 5: Start by pulsing the blender a few times, and add a little cooking water as you go...

...so that the bottom starts to look like this:

Step 6: Add a little more water and crank up the speed of the blender until you're looking at something like this:

Step 7: Pour a cup or two of the puree into a strainer.  This step is going to be absolutely crucial for the lil' ones: you HAVE to strain peas to separate the hulls from the uh... no idea... pea "meat" I guess?  Yes.  Pea hulls from pea meat.  The hulls make the puree lumpy and worst of all, cause lots of gas because they're extremely difficult to digest.  What baby is fun with gas?  Exactly.  So, we strain. 

Step 8: I like to use a silicone spoonula for this since it's sturdier than a spatula and gives just enough that it conforms to the curves of the strainer really well.  But I mush the crap out of the puree and force it through the strainer, leaving the hulls inside the strainer. 

Step 9: As you start forcing the puree through the strainer, you might have to scrape the mush off the outside with a regular spoon or spatula or whatever you'd like and put it into the bowl...

When you've forced about a cup and a half of mush through, this is what the inside of your strainer should look like...

...see the hulls?  I scrapped these off the inside of the strainer so you'd know what I was talking about.  Eeeew, babies don't want that!

Step 10: After you've rinsed the strainer and strained the rest of the puree, it should look like this: smooth and creamy. 

You should now be ready to store it.  I keep a couple days worth out and in the fridge, but only about 2 days out since I freak out about groody leftovers... I don't have fancy food-storage systems or anything, just good, old-fashioned ice trays...

Step 11: Using a teaspoon just spoon the puree into the trays, tap to level...

...and, if you want (and I do!) cover with Press 'n Seal or plastic wrap to keep them clean and stuff and freeze!  Ta da!

Delish.  If you like peas, that is.

I freeze and then pop 'em into a Ziploc baggie with the date and contents written on the outside.  I thaw them in a plastic bowl in a bath of hot water or take them out at breakfast for lunch or at lunch for dinner... viola! Peas.

Wordless Wednesday

My Anger Migraine

More often than not my posts tend to be light-hearted and (I think) funny. I try. That's who I am. That's how I write. That's how I cope.

There isn't a lot I need to cope with. Really. I read lots of blogs and I know lots of people. And you know what? I am the first to admit that I have it easier than so many others, and also the first to be thankful for that. I mean, I am CONSTANTLY thanking God that I am as blessed as I am... and maybe that helps me cope too.

Pardon me, this is going to be a bit brain-dump-ey...

BUT every once in a while I get to the point where I need to vent. I have one of the longest fuses out there. BUT. But, that nagging little article of speech everyone dreads... But. If you read my blog on any kind of regular basis you deserve a medal you've probably noticed I haven't posted since last Monday. And before that, it had been a while... Well that's because I've been really struggling to find the funny inside because the mad inside is getting a little out of control.

And compounding the mad is the guilt I feel because, as I've said, I really don't have it bad at all. Roof over my head (albeit, a crappy, 100-year-old roof), food on the table, clothes, health... all good. So there's just this amorphous, directionless, vague anger bouncing around inside making me feel... well, ugly. Not in the sense that I feel like I could use a good makeup artist but in the "I don't like who I am" sense. I'm angry at my husband's job. I'm angry at the house I'm stuck living in. I'm angry at people who expect the world to take care of them regardless of effort or lack there-of to do anything about a situation. I'm angry at lazy people. I'm angry at... well, I don't even know, and that's the problem. I'm just mad.

Like, constantly.

And I'm doing my best to not take it out on people who don't deserve it, but that gets to be so damned difficult because I can't possibly take it out on those that do or that which does deserve my wrath. (And, for future reference, my wrath is NOT something anyone ever wants to see. I'm very good at being mad.) So the mad inside just stays there. Bottled up, bouncing to and fro, waiting to leak out through a harsh word or a barked command at my toddler or to turn my sigh of frustration over a crying baby into a scream of anger. It's always there, pushing at the edges of my conversations with my husband, trying to hone my words into weapons and wound with intractable insults.

But why? This isn't me. I'm not an angry person! I hate - hate- this mad in me. I want it out and I want it to not come back. I want to not look at the clock and be instantly furious. I want to step into my kitchen and not have fury flash into my heart over the cold, damp awfulness that my landlord allows to seep in through the non-functional door. I want to watch the news and not want to commit assault when I hear about the multitudes of people looking for someone else to blame for problems that can be over come with hard work. I. Just. Don't. Want. To. Be. Mad.

I don't want to growl angry hateful words about people who don't do their jobs and make my husband pick up their slack. I don't want to compare our paycheck to someone else's and think about how much more work we do to earn ours. I don't want to leave one job behind for another and have bitterness and scorn taint the good memories we've made.

Grrrr, go away, Mad!

I am happy with so much in my life. Beyond happy. I'm completely content and, as I said, so grateful for so much, that I guess I should probably embrace the stupid mad and be thankful that I can be mad that my husband works absurd hours because it means I want him here, home with us, instead. I guess that anger highlights how much I love him and his presence. I should learn from the frustration with this house and apply it to the next time we pick out a place to live...

But come on; I don't need week after week of a crappy work schedule or cockroach roommates to teach me life lessons! I get it!

Grrr!

I don't mind being mad when I can use it to do something positive... to be proactive or to make a change or something like that. But this mad just sits there... it's like the pain of childbirth versus the pain of a migraine... one is productive and has an amazing outcome and the other is just plain, stupid, pointless pain. This - what I'm dealing with - is like an anger migraine. Pointless and painful for no good reason.

I don't know. Maybe this will help. Bitching to you all 3 about it. I'm sorry. I am. I feel bad griping and moaning and whining because this is my funny place. This blog is my laugh at myself and see all the good in things place and I'm yucking it up with my mad. Do you ever feel that way? Just mad? How the heck do I get past it? What I want is a punching bag. What I've got are some plaster walls that (I tried) don't really like getting punched and will most certainly hurt you back. I've got a pile of leftover Halloween candy and some absolutely adorable kids to snuggle and that does help. But as soon as I'm not cuddling them in my arms, that stupid anger migraine pops up again and undoes all the good my babies' presence has done. So what to do? Wait for it to go away? Ack.

*sigh*

So in the meantime, I'll get my funny on again and find my laugh deep down, underneath the cursing and growling, and step my game on up. Promise. Hold me to that.

Not Me! Monday

Here I am, bummed that it's Monday and a little shocked that it's already Monday and pondering how on earth I ever got by without MckMama's Not Me! Monday routine to cleanse me of last week's potential disasters and get ready to tackle the next 7 days with my customary confidence and poise...



I am happy to announce that I'm typing this post at a desk free of clutter and devoid of Halloween candy wrappers (especially since it's pre-Halloween) and empty snack-sized bags of Sun Chips. I would never have made myself a dinner composed of such nutritionally empty foods. Not when I'm fully capable of and enthusiastic about cooking. All the time.



Since my dear husband's job does not demand that he work ludicrous hours throughout the entire week, including the weekend, I am never left trying to cram several days' worth of family activities into one morning, so I most certainly would not have dragged us all to the Pumpkin Patch with the intent of getting at least two good photos out of it and if everything went to hell thereafter, I'd at least have my photos. Therefore, I would never have propped my infant daughters up in a pile of hay, knowing they can't sit up on their own yet and started snapping pictures, regardless of their obvious discomfort. Had I done that, one of my babies might have tipped over and face-planted in the straw. At least, being the excellent mother that I am, I promise that if something like that were to happen, my priority would definitely be to pick her up and make sure she's okay. NOT to snap a picture, howl with laughter and THEN fix her position... I would honestly consider such a person to be a terrible, heartless mother.

She'd probably also be the one who insisted on taking her son, obviously uninterested in goats, into the petting farm so that she could pet the adorable, cuddly little baby goats... you know, the "exploiter"... using her kids for things like free Dum-Dums at the bank drive-up...

Loser.

Anyway... In case you didn't know, I exude sex appeal at all times. I can't really help it. I'm just not at all the kind of woman who would ever be caught dead without make-up or wearing the same outfit for 3 days in a row. So I most certainly did not pick my son up from school one afternoon and have several conversations with several other people and get all the way home before I realized that I had forgotten to snap my nursing bra cup back in place. I, pinnacle of hotness, wouldn't have to worry about being totally mortified when I realized that one boob was supported and in its proper place while the other udder had sagged down with zero support whatsoever. Thankfully, too, since I'm sure that would be beyond embarrassing.

Not to worry though; it's not like I'd get embarrassed about anything, ever.

So it's totally fine when my son wants to pretend he's my father-in-law's dog and "tinkle" every 5 feet on our way to school by lifting his leg on the landscaping in every yard between here and there. And since I'm never in a hurry, clearly, I certainly wouldn't lift my own leg when he demands that "Mama tinkle" just to get him to continue walking. Nah, I'd just stand there clutching my dignity and grace and wait for him to tire of the game. No freakin way would I give in to the demands of a toddler with an active imagination.

Well since I did not let my babies hang out in swings for the last 5 minutes to wrap this up, there's no reason they'd be crying (especially since they're perfect babies who never make a peep) and since I have endless patience, any peep they did make would never bother me even a tiny bit so I'm not going to go scoop them up and read Goodnight Moon to them 15 times even though all they do is drool and smack the pages since they don't understand 2-dimensional versus 3-dimensional yet.

Have a great week!

Make Room on the Mantle...

... for my newest award from Tamara whom I'm beginning to consider a good friend through her blog. It makes me happy to read and that she enjoys mine absolutely tickles me pink!

It's a little shocking to "win" these awards, considering I was the kid in elementary, middle, and high school have been my whole life, the kind of person who gets that lame "Thanks for Trying" award that really just meant I'm not good enough. (Gee, wow, way to plug my self esteem right there... *ahem*)

It's not so much the award itself that makes me happy... it's that there are people out there that I get to connect with who would, without the blogging world, remain nameless, faceless strangers in the vast world out there. And these nifty little awards make that fact so much more tangible. So while my husband makes fun of me for having a swagger to my step tonight because I've got THREE bloggy awards on my side-bar, I'm going to just smile and pass it on to keep on making those connections. Neat.

So here are the rules......To accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his/her blog link. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you have recently discovered and think are great! Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award!

Okay to be honest, (and I'd better be!) I don't think I can give it honestly to 15 blogs. So I'll give it to some of the blogs I've been reading lately and really enjoy and if the number is less than 15, okay fine... Deal? Deal.

Mindy of Because I SAID SO....

Amanda of Belli's Place

Kate of Hangin With the Hagans

Beth of Keesler Chaos

Alright, ladies. You're pretty fab and I am darned glad you're out there for me to read!

Goin' Country

Well, this weekend we took the kids to a local farm to pick out pumpkins and chase chickens and roll around in the hay... It was, by far, the most amazingly successful trip I could have imagined with the 3 kids. The girls were perfect angels and Jack was a riot and had a blast. Even Justin could put his New York City aversion to all things country aside and have a good time. We even got a family photo... of sorts... Okay, so we've got some work to do before we can get something good enough for a Christmas card, but it's a significant step in the right direction for us... as in, I'm actually IN the picture. That's a huge anomaly since usually a) I consider myself far to hideous to photograph safely and b) I am the one holding the camera. So we're getting there. 3 family photos in 5 months... we'll step up our game.



Anyway, really what I wanted to share was the amusement I felt when I looked around me and just observed the people around me. I've long been a fan of people watching, but since I'm usually supervising a toddler, I miss 98% of what's going on any more than 3 feet off the ground. Yesterday I got a chance to sit at a bench and nurse the girls while Justin and Jack played on the slides and play... stuff. This place, Hunt Club Farm in Virginia Beach, was such a neat destination for families of all kinds with kids of all ages, and believe me, they were out in DROVES yesterday.

So I watched one family of 3 - Mom, Dad, daughter (4ish years) - sitting together eating lunch nearby. They were all happily chattering about the baby chickens and all 3 were eating Uncrustables with fruit snacks and Juicy Juice juice boxes out of a Disney princess lunch box. Even the dad who had to be 6'5" tall and weigh nearly 250 pounds of muscle. It was so funny to me because I knew that when we sat down for lunch, we'd open our Thomas lunch box and pull out cheese sticks and animal crackers to eat. It's just what we do. And it's automatic and unquestioning. Do I really WANT to eat animal crackers? No, no more than I'm sure Big Dude Dad wanted to eat a once-frozen round mushy peanut butter and grape disk-shaped sandwich. But that's what we do.

Later, I was pushing my stroller, aimlessly wandering waiting to find Justin and Jack post-hay-ride when I ended up behind a Mom walking hand-in-hand with her son (one of my favorite things to do, by the way) wearing her very sexy Lightning McQueen backpack as proudly as my trendy little sis carries her Coach purse to work every day. It made me smile because I know I get some ridiculous looks when I don Jack's monkey backpack on the way to school because he's tired of wearing it and insists that I put it on my own back. That Mom probably didn't think any one would notice, or if they did wouldn't judge her... that is, if she thought about it at all. And, in all honesty, she probably didn't.



Standing in the pumpkin patch watching Jack try with all his might to scoop up one very round, very too large pumpkin, another two things occurred tome. First, most kids are exactly the same when it comes to pumpkins. What child have you known that doesn't immediately go for the biggest one he can find? And second, what is it about children and pumpkins that is just so darn, irresistibly cute? I mean, you know how you associate things like jingle bells with Christmas or party blowers with New Years' parties? I now associate pumpkin patches with the sound of camera shutters clicking furiously. I mean, not that I'm innocent...

...or anything, but I saw more babies and kids propped against these magnetic orange gourds on Saturday than I think Santa's lap sees in one season. I mean, newborns swimming in their "My First Halloween" onesies leaning against carefully arranged pumpkins, faces squished in the sun... just-barely-sitting kiddos straddling short, squat pumpkins... those "I can't walk but I can stand up finally" aged kids balanced precariously amidst soon-to-be Jack 'o Lanterns galore... Even sullen 'tweens sulkily holding a pumpkin for Grandma's home-made calendar. It just cracked me up.

And I'm not laughing because I'm judging! Good lord, no! I'm laughing because I'm right there with everyone else. I'm laughing because I get it. Because 4 years ago I would just have been walking around staring at the chaos and being a little overwhelmed and wondering why on earth anyone would gag down an Uncrustable (if I even knew what that was) or have imagined that I'd be right there in the middle of it shooing roosters off the front of my 29 foot long stroller and asking my own child to please not stomp in the puddle of goat pee.

Every once in a while I am dumbfounded by the realization that there are so many people out there doing the same things I do and having the same feelings as I am and we're all just trying to get by and do the best we can with our families - with that little niche of humanity we've carved out and live in. We are so alike and it's such a vast community and yet most of us never come in contact with one another and if we did we'd always have so much to talk about that it'd be like we were old friends.

Damn. That's intense.

And all of this - all of these musings - occurred on a sunny Saturday afternoon on some local farm with Country music coupled with children's laughter as the soundtrack