SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

5:00 on a December evening;

it's dark outside, but all ten of us are indoors, getting dinner ready, dodging children at play, checking email, drinking coffee, talking, laughing, being quiet, being together.

I sit down to nurse my youngest; next to me, my sister is burping baby Carson, the newest member at only 7 weeks old. The other four kids are scattered around the house. Baby Einstein is on but nobody's watching. The kitchen smells good, like gooey butter cookies and sausage balls.

My Mom would love this.

Family gatherings were her forte. She lived for these moments, loved them, loved us all being home, loved the slightly controlled chaos that followed, loved her grandchildren.

She knew my sister's two oldest and my firstborn; I was pregnant with my second when Mom died in the summer of 2007. Before the cancer made her too sick to leave the house, she bought a blue baby blanket, confident that I was having a boy.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Witching Hour

Every day, just before the time my husband is going to get home from work, something strange happens in my home. The kids have just had a long nap and a snack, but they get inexplicably whiny. The house looks dirty all of a sudden. The pile of laundry on the bed increases fourfold. The plans I had for dinner seem inadequate, and my feet hurt, my back hurts, my head hurts, and what-I-wouldn't-give for a little peace and quiet...

Welcome home, honey.

I'm embarrassed at the times Joe's walked in the door to that atmosphere. It seems like on those days, when I've "just had it" and all I need is a little relief, he's just had it at work too. Wierd. I'm drained; he's drained. All I want is to sit down; all he needs is a little rest. My day was constantly busy, but seems unproductive now; his, too. The kids are clamoring for our attention, and when Joe and I meet eyes it's with a mutual question of "How soon can bedtime come?"

Whose Fault Is It, Anyway?

I blame it on the undone items, usually. If I hadn't had so much to do, if I'd gotten a bit more done, if the kids had napped longer, if the phone had rung less... then the house would be clean, laundry put away, dinner on the table, make-up on my face, kids neat and happy, and I'd feel better because it wouldn't be there waiting for me. When it isn't that way, I feel tired just looking around and then I feel resentful. Why should I still have to work once Joe gets home and is off work? Why does my job never end? Why doesn't he notice what needs to be done?

Hmmm. Wondering where those kids pick up that whiny attitude?

Two things are necessary to kill the whine. And it's necessary to kill the whine in order to eliminate that witching hour and make the Welcome Home, Honey, a genuine welcome.

1: Kill the expectations.

2: Have a party.

The Secret of Happiness

Here's a secret that every woman, mom, wife should learn from day one. Want to be happy? Quit expecting to be served. Drop it. Set your sights, from the moment of waking up onward, to doing your job fully and without expecting anyone else (such as, ahem, your husband) to pitch in and do it for you. You are the CEO of your own life and life's work, whatever that includes. Take charge of all of it, not just the parts you enjoy. See it to the finish, not just to the moment Hubs walks in the door and you decide to throw the rest in his lap.

The secret of a happy family is a happy mom.

Once you let go of that ball-and-chain (the expectations are the huge, heavy ball; your emotions are the chain), you're free to do your job AND to enjoy it at the same time. This is when the party starts. You may not have it all done by the end of the day, but that's not really the happiness issue. You are. If you're tired of whining, dragging, and nagging through dinnertime, bathtime, and bedtime, turn up the music. Get your kids with you and dance your way through making dinner and folding clothes. Sing at the top of your lungs. See how many neighbors you can shake out of twilight tiredness. Get out in the front yard, play freeze tag, throw water balloons, make daisy chains.

You'll still be tired at the end of the night. You may have to finish folding those clothes at 10pm instead of 7. But the kids will be asleep with dreams of how fun their Mommy is, your husband will be humming a tune, and you'll be matching socks and smiling a little secret smile.

Photo courtesy of charles chan * on Flickr.

04 August 08 Album

Fun with my little mp3 player...

Robbie Laughing

Me and Robbie getting pretty serious.

You can see the rest of the photos from our Belleville trip last week, if you are so inclined.

We stopped at Bread Co. for dinner tonight. I got the chicken salad sandwich. Okay, not as good as Mom's (no one else's ever is) and I should have gone with my standard panini.

Except that's what Joe did, and they kind of forgot to paninize it. Or something. I think they put it together and just skipped the whole heating-squishing process. It was a pre-panini'ed panini, which ends up just being a sandwich.

Kind of like my chicken salad sandwich. At least I expected mine to be cold.

Panini is a great word. It fits into the Food category of "Words-You-Cannot-Sound-Macho-While-Saying," like couscous and escargot. I don't care how gruff and deep and manly your voice is, when you ask for a big helping of couscous and endive salad, all the macho has left you. Bye bye.

What Joe actually ordered was a grilled panini. According to Wikipedia, the inerrant source of all information, a panini - or, to be proper, a panino, which is the correct singular of panini - is simply a "sandwich made from a small loaf of bread, typically a ciabatta." A heated and pressed panini, er, panino, is just one type of many possible panini.

(If you Google Image Search for panini, though, you'll find pictures of grilled panini until the 5th page of results, where this one shows up. I cannot tell if it is grilled or not. I'd like to try it with Filling Option #6. That tasty cheese is irresistible. You'll also find a picture of the Smurfs on the 1st page of results. I bet they like mushrooms in their panini.)

I guess Joe's cold sandwich still counted as a member of the panini panoply, then. I won't call customer service after all.

Resources: Can't get enough? Okay then:

Get your panini grills here. They are the latest rage in food service. And did you know they can cook virtually anything? "Yep, Bob, just throw that whole chicken on my panini grill there. Oh sure, it can handle it..."

The Panini Happy blog. Good recipes. I wish I had a panini grill.

Of course, a Squidoo page. How could there not be one?

Image Credit: The beautiful portabella and mozzarella panini picture is from daisygp at BiggestMenu.com. People at that site are licking the picture. The panini craze has gone a bit far.

The indelibly grill-marked panini image is from Chef Max Huppert, who says that panini "is simply the Italian name for sandwich, however it is mostly used in reference to sandwiches that are placed in a two-sided cooking press that compresses and grills the sandwich until hot and toasted" (emphasis mine). Hmm. Maybe I should call customer service. He is a chef.

And this picture of a great big panini grill for the accident-prone is from SnapDragon.com. You'll have to go there to find out exactly why it has such long handles...

Running errands with one small child requires some forethought. You need diapers, wipes, a stroller, a car seat, bottle-feeding gear if you're not breastfeeding. Once you get past the nursing stage, you need food, a spoon, a bib, more wipes. Lots of wipes.

Running errands with two small children requires a degree of insanity. Fortunately, I have reached this level and somewhat beyond, so I don't let have two kids under two slow me down, even when it should. Read the rest of this entry »

I think there is something, more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren't enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision. W. Clement Stone

(An aside: a great quotation above other than using the word "actualize." I'm not a fan of it.)

After a week away from posting, I have returned with slightly sunburned arms and slightly stretched muscles. I got in some good walking - it's the exercise that takes you anywhere! - but my abs are suffering from a failure to incorporate sexy-abs-situps into my vacation routine. Alas. I'll get right on that.

A week away is good for one's perspective on things, usually. This trip, however, I returned feeling a little muddled. I think it was just... well. I really don't know what it was just. It just was, but I'm muddling through the muddle. This day, home is a clarifying place. (Ironic that I'm at the library as I write this, not at home.)

Challenge Update (review of the week 17 - 25):

Day 17 (Thursday): Ran around the house packing, cleaning, laundering, stressing, calling random people, checking the mail too often, paying bills, sitting down, standing up, playing with Mara, repacking, forgetting things, worrying about forgetting things, making a list, losing a list, finding a list, ad infinitum. Wearily she falls into bed... Read the rest of this entry »

Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances. Benjamin Franklin

Challenge Update: It's a funny thing, when you have no to do list. You forget to do stuff. Like blog.

Just kidding. I didn't really forget for an entire week. I was otherwise occupied, shall we say? Let me 'splain. No, is too much. Let me sum up.

My Dad came to visit on Sunday, followed by my sister, her two kids, and her boyfriend on Tuesday, followed by a nasty flu that hit me on Wednesday. Dad left Thursday, Sister et al left Friday, flu left Sunday.

Despite the evil sickness with which I was smited (smiten? smote?), we managed to hit the City Museum and the Zoo on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. I can't say I had a whoppin' good time at either one, feeling as I was like a slightly livelier version of a feverish zombie. However, for those in good health who are in the St. Louis region, both attractions are worth the visit.

City Museum hits you with a rather pricey admission cost ($12 for ages 3 and up) and, if you participate in the fun at all, leaves you with sore knees, elbows, and vertebrae. But it is fun and interesting for kids and adults, they're always adding new stuff, it covers all ages, it's big and will entertain you for hours.

St. Louis Zoo charges no admission, though if you use the convenient, just-across-the-street parking they charge $10 per car, more for (full-size) vans. A little further from the entrance you can scrounge for free parking; there isn't lots, but it's there if you take the time to stalk a leaving party. (Try not to be too obvious.) They have snacks and drinks and merchandise available, of course, all for exorbitant prices; pack a lunch and make sure you catch one of the scheduled seal feedings (buyer beware: no scheduled feedings on Thursdays), the penguin house, and the insectarium. Get a guide to tell you about the big apes and be prepared for lots of discussion about poop if you have children under, oh, age fifteen, and you go anywhere near the elephants or hippos.

Better Life Tip: Find something fun in your area, scope it out so you know what to expect, and make a day trip.