Scarlet Lily

Goodbye bed rest

2012-02-02T11:57:00.002-05:00

I'm taking a wildly optimistic stab in the dark and am going to assume that the unborn child has put the pieces together that I'm over 39 weeks and that his father has the next several days off of work and will grace us with his presence soon.

At the very least, even if the previous assumption is wrong, it's safe to say that while hovering around and (God forbid) past my due date next week, I'll either be too lazy or cranky to blog. Hence, one last blog post before The Berry Patch goes from three to four Berrys.

I'm happy to report that the challenges of last week subsided and life this week returned to normal. Charlotte has been almost unusually well behaved and happy and has also taken to mothering her brother even though he's not technically here yet.

After her bath yesterday she said that her brother needed some lotion too and then rubbed lotion on my belly. Then she decided that he also needed some snacks and lined up Crispex on my belly. She's also taken to walking by and spontaneously hugging my belly while closing her eyes and laying her head on it. I'd like to take all of this as signs of child psychic abilities and that she knows something about his impending arrival that we don't. After all, she's the one who told us that he was a boy right from the start, so it's not totally off base.

I was thinking about our little Adventures in Bed Rest around here and realized that like any challenging situation that's not an actual tragedy, it could absolutely been seen as a blessing in disguise.

For a lot of reasons that are partly due to upbringing and partly due to my inherent personality, I'm terrible at asking for help. It's not that I have too much pride or am too embarrassed, it just always seems a little like a waste of time and like a burden on other people. If I technically CAN do something, why wouldn't I? Why would I ask someone else to change their schedule or pitch in when there's really no urgent need for them to do so? It's just never made sense to me.

But this time, despite my internal resistance that I would probably be fine and probably wouldn't end up in the ER again, I had to decide that it obviously wasn't worth the risk and dive in and line up help. And believe me, it felt wildly indulgent to have someone watch Charlotte while I was home watching television or browsing Pinterest. Do you know what actual alone time feels like to a stay at home mom? To someone who hasn't peed or done errands alone in two-and-a-half years? It's bizarre... and awesome. It feels like what it must feel to be a wealthier parent, someone who can regularly pay to set it up so that you're only with your kid half time - way easier.

But after a while it felt less indulgent and kind of nice. And then I realized that my unwritten criteria of "ask for help only when your ship is sinking" might have been a little stringent. That maybe some people ask for help when nothing at all is wrong and they just want to make their life a little easier. It's still a concept I'm digesting because we all know of the indulgent, coddled cry babies of the world who seem to take advantage of people.

But as I come out of this three years of new parenthood and grad school and financial stress... and as I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I can also see that life doesn't have to be quite as hard as we can make it. And I think the forced bed rest came at the perfect time to make me start to see that.

Seriously?

2012-01-26T16:28:00.002-05:00

You know those really bizarre Fun Houses that you see in movies from time to time? The ones that you've never actually seen in real life, but have meandering hallways and wavy mirrors and small children with butcher knives hiding in the corners. The kind they use in movies where a character is hallucinating and it's meant to convey to you that he's HIGH. HIGH! THE DRUGS ARE BAD! THEY'VE BEEN SPIKED.

The Berrys are feeling like that this week. And this is big for me to say because I'm an inherent non-complainer about my life. I have gratitude and perspective and resilience. I've never used the acronym FML and none of my Facebook posts have ever complained about how my Starbucks order got screwed up and now my whole morning has gone to shit. Everyone in my family is healthy and here to enjoy. So, big picture, I'm still quite blessed. Small picture.... small picture is kicking our ASSES.

So there's already the partial bed rest that essentially turned into full bed rest because my body couldn't handle any more. And then there have been the weekly additions to the bed rest - now you have to increase your salt intake to keep your blood pressure up, now you need to shower using a granny stool, now you're only allowed to shower twice a week, now your fat ass is causing episodes of sleep apnea, now you need to start stretching your legs in the morning because pregnant people have problems with minerals and that's what causing the terrible cramping...

But STILL I've been rockin it. I had a little talk with myself early into the bed rest about how to every thing there is a season. A time to be hot and skinny and feel awesome and a time to lie low and sit on your couch in the middle of winter and just grow your child. And Husband Extraordinaire seemed to be rockin' it too. He was cleaning the house every weekend to make up for the previous week when nothing got cleaned, he was doing one small chore each morning before work to keep us in towels and bowls, and we weren't even ordering out.

Additionally, I kept noticing all of these wonderful little instances where things were just working out. Someone who thought they wouldn't be able to babysit suddenly could, the doctor's appointment lined up exactly with B's work schedule, etc, etc. See, I said to myself. What a beautiful example of life and karma just rising to the occasion. You were handed a setback, but it takes a village and all the villagers are coming together.

ROCKIN' IT. Suck it, bed rest.

But then last Thursday hit and things started to slide down the hill faster and faster and now it's just getting comical around here.

B started his last semester of grad school last week and came home from his first class a little ashen. In addition to some major drama with the structure of the class that's already resulted in letters to his Dean, he came home proclaiming that the work load for this last semester was going to be unlike anything he's seen in the previous 2 1/2 years.

He spent the FIRST DAY after his FIRST CLASS at the library. And then he went back again two days later. He has FOUR projects due next week so I anticipate seeing him only for breakfast and his 8pm beer this weekend.

Then Charlotte got sick. Like, crazy, out of her mind, sick. Almost sicker than she's ever been. Fever, chest cold, coughing, mucus, no sleep, etc. All the mucus and coughing culminated in her puking in our bed at midnight - us spending 45 minutes cleaning up her and the bed - and then her doing it again five minutes after returning to our bed. Thankfully B has some serious cat-like reflexes and CAUGHT IT. Yup, welcome to fatherhood.

Then the beginning of the week rolled around and I started to get a wee bit sick and things started to go a wee bit haywire at B's work. Then Tuesday and Wednesday hit and all of the projects and conferences and drama B was starting to deal with at work really exploded, simultaneously with my "wee bit sick" turning into Is this the sickest I'VE ever been??

So Charlotte wasn't better, work wasn't better, and my is-it-pnemonia chest cold made me pee myself. Let me just wait while you let that sink in...

...

...

Oh, are you picturing some cough-induced drips? Please don't. Please envision a potty training toddler who has forgotten that they have to pee and has caused a visible problem on the hardwood.

Let's add up what went wrong. First, I've been instructed to drink 3 liters of water a day to help with my blood pressure. Also, I'm full term and I challenge you to find the sorry sliver that is my bladder on this medical diagram. Now I'd like you to picture a cough so spontaneous and violent it's like you're actually drowning in your own fluids. Mucus waterboarding. Without warning, even though you have half a bottle of doctor-approved cough medicine in you.

So Much Pee. Twice. It happened twice.

And now if you aren't WAILING with laughter at my own absurd piss situation than you need to find a different blog. Because if this misery can't get a little company in the form of huge fits of laughter than we aren't seeing eye to eye.

Feel free to tell your friends. Have them call me to retell the story in person. It's the most insane zenith of our week that I can't even bring myself to be embarrassed because it's just that dumb. Pregnancy is a miracle.

Also, our vacuum broke for good this afternoon. I peed myself and the vacuum shit itself. It's poetic, really.

Yet another reason 2 yr olds rock

2012-01-18T16:08:00.000-05:00

Have I mentioned that I've been loving the 2 year old stage? The old adage is "the terrible twos" but every parent I've ever met has said that it's really "the terrible threes."

Charlotte and I had a seriously rough patch from 18mo-24mo. EverySingleThing was a huge battle. Every diaper change, every meal, every moment throughout the day was a struggle. And while some people/websites/etc. mentioned that toddler frustrations can come about because they can't talk, I figured that this couldn't possibly be the reason b/c it went on for SO LONG.

But. The moment she could really talk, her behavior turned on a dime and she's been pretty delightful ever since. She's animated and curious and a quick learner and a quick forgeter, and shockingly observant and always hysterical.

Almost all of the adorable two year old sayings come from the process of learning language and how to use it to figure out the world around them. This most recent example is so endearing that I think it should be a saying from now on. Kind of like the broken moon.

She was playing with stickers. I told her not to put the stickers on the chair... she put the stickers on the chair. I said that if she put one more sticker on the chair I was going to take the stickers away... I had to take the stickers away. Tears ensued.

As she was sitting next to me in a heap of tears I calmly re-explained what had happened, and that if she agreed to only put stickers on the paper, she could have them back. While she was mulling that over, she wiped her cheeks:

"WAIDIN'!"
"What???"
"WAININ'... MY EYES"
"Raining?"
"Yeah (sniff, sniff), rainin' f'om my eyes"

Checking In

2012-01-17T16:59:00.001-05:00

I'm checking in out of pure guilt and blog obligation, but I should start by saying that I really have nothing interesting to report. You'd think that all of the hours on the couch would yield a multitude of blog posts, but clearly this hasn't been the case. Apparently when you do nothing with your days you have nothing to write about. Not a surprising conclusion.

The Berry clan is surviving bed rest surprisingly well so far. Mr. B does a LOT of chores, sometimes both before and after work, Charlotte has had a stream of various cousins and babysitters come visit her on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings to keep her busy, I no longer fit into anything but pj pants and leggings, and Baby Boy still doesn't have a name.

We're circling a few names out of a pure sense of responsibility that he should probably have one at SOME point, but in the end we'll probably just go with whatever feels right once he's here.

B starts his last semester of his 3 year MBA program this week. We started his first semester a few weeks after Charlotte was born, so it's appropriate that we'll start the last semester within a few weeks of Baby #2's birth. I can't believe we're really been doing this for so long, but everyone is ready for it to be over.

I say "we" because the one thing that grad school has taught me is that it's a team effort. I didn't realize that before, but they should hand out spouse degrees on that stage as well. Anyone who has been through this can attest to that fact.

So that's it, friends. Thank you for continuing to visit the blog even though I've been so remiss on the updating. I really do try to think of things to write about, it just rarely works. Three weeks to the due date...

Just like Florida, but closer

2012-01-09T19:24:00.001-05:00

Since I'm too pregnant to fly anywhere warm this winter, we took a little weekend getaway to an indoor water park about an hour from here so we could at least experience some manufactured warmth. It was a huge hit with the whole clan and a lovely distraction from all of the health issues and accompanying chaos that's been going on at home.

Charlotte was a total water bug and loved every minute, and I learned that floating in a lazy river removes every single pregnancy symptom I've been dealing with. No heartbeat issues, no blood pressure issues, no cramping, no dizziness, etc. B said he'd swing by the farm store this week to get me a big tub to put in the living room so I could float for the next four weeks. He thinks he was kidding, but I would rock the shit out of that farm tub...

Sundaes in the room

Whispering secrets to the bear before sliding

Strawberry smoothie

Lazy River.

Now if only I had a picture of her laying on her arms in the inner tube, B holding her up, floating along like an Egyptian princess. She got so used to her station in life that towards the end of our float she turned to me and said "Daddy go?" and I had to reply something along the lines of "Oh my god, you DIVA!! He's BEHIND YOU, and has been holding you up this entire time. Turn around!" Oh to be an adored two year old...

The swing was a HUGE hit. Apparently you don't have to actually be IN the water to enjoy the water park.

Bed rest survival guide

2012-01-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

OK, the ducks are officially in their row. If all goes as planned I won't have Charlotte for any full days until Baby No Name arrives. Between school (black), cousin help (red), B having every other Friday off (green), and a babysitter filling in on the Fridays he works (blue), plus the weekly cleaning lady to help reduce the burden, I think we're set.

It'll be a little trickier once the spring semester (his last) starts, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now that the calendar is set and the tree is down, we're turning our attention to finding a name for the wee one. It will be a miracle if he has one by the time I go into labor.

How to store Christmas lights

2012-01-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

For a totally foolproof way to store your Christmas lights and never deal with tangles or knots ever again, roll them in a ball. Don't put anything in the middle or wrap them around anything, just wrap them around each other. Works every time.

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T18:48:00.000-05:00

Secrets of Adulthood

2011-12-30T13:49:00.000-05:00

Upon learning of my bed rest, my dear friend Ouiser sent me The Happiness Project. It's a book that has been on my mental To Read list for a while, but let's be honest, there are probably hundreds of books on that list and I'm generally pretty terrible at making time for reading. (Notice I don't say I don't HAVE the time to read, I falter at MAKING the time - big difference)

Anyway... I'm a whopping 14 pages into the book and it already seems great. Inspiring, but in a practical way. Also, it dovetails nicely with some life realizations I made a few months ago regarding happiness. But we'll talk more about that after I finish the book.

In the meantime I wanted to pass along her comical, yet accurate, list called Secrets of Adulthood. You'll see yourself and probably half the people you know in various parts of the list. Let me know which of the items strike you.

Secrets of Adulthood

People don't notice your mistakes as much as you think
It's okay to ask for help
Most decisions don't require extensive research
Do good, feel good
It's important to be nice to everyone
Bring a sweater
By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished
Soap and water remove most stains
Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch
If you can't find something, clean up
You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you like to do
Happiness doesn't always make you feel happy
What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while
You don't have to be good at everything
If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough
Over-the-counter medicines are very effective
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good
What's fun for other people may not be fun for you - and vice versa
People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts of their registry
You can't profoundly change your children's natures by nagging them or signing them up for classes
No deposit, no return

(image via wee decor)

Christmas 2011

2011-12-28T16:49:00.000-05:00

Christmas morning was a lovely, if unexpectedly drawn out, affair. Charlotte isn't quite old enough to digest the whole Santa concept, so she had forgotten anything we had told her by the time she woke up. Then when we tried to explain that there were presents downstairs, we were met with equal parts confusion and suspicion.

As it turns out, presents, plural, weren't necessary. Christmas 2011 will henceforth be referred to as Scissor Christmas. We eased her in to the whole present thing by starting her off with her stocking - glue sticks, glitter glue, pink camo band aids to play with, button candy, and her first pair of Crayola Kids Scissors.

Game. OVER.

The next two hours were spent in the approximate fashion:

Charlotte - I cut! I cut! I cuttin!
Us - OK, let's open some more presents!
Charlotte - I cut presents?!
Us - No, honey, you don't cut them, you open them.
Charlotte - No, I cuttin.
...

B (to me, during all the cutting) - Seriously? SCISSORS?
Me - Well I knew she'd really like them, but I never envisioned them grinding the entire holiday to a halt six seconds after it started.
B - I need to call my mom and tell her that we're going to have to move our Christmas brunch to tomorrow...
Me - Seriously, I'm starting to get a little worried we're not gonna make it.
...

Me (to Charlotte) - Honey? Honey? Look, alllll of these presents are for YOU! They're from Santa and Grandpa and Uncle Mark and Nonna...
B - Charlotte? Don't you want to open another present?!
B - What if daddy gives you some gummy bears? If I give you gummy bears will you open some presents?
Me - Charlotte?
Charlotte - I love cuttin!!

Super awesome pink tricycle care of Nana & Papa

Bed rest

2011-12-22T18:18:00.000-05:00

So, I'm on partial bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy (7 weeks). And I've told the story so many times, to EMTs and ER nurses and ER docs and specialists and friends and family members, that I've lost the ability to tell it with any interest or flair. FLAIR!

Basically what happened is this... I was in the shower with Charlotte when I started to pass out. I immediately sat down and crawled out of the bathroom thinking it was just the heat of the room. My OB had said that when you're pregnant your blood pressure can drop suddenly (and often for no reason), leading to fainting and near-fainting.

I also thought that maybe it was a blood sugar thing since I hadn't eaten second breakfast yet. First breakfast occurs at 6:30am and is always a bowl of cereal, second breakfast occurs a few hours later and usually has protein.

But then my heart started beating fast. And I don't mean work-out-at-the-gym fast, I mean out-running-a-serial-killer-fast. Like faster than I knew it was medically possible for a heart to beat. So fast and violent that I could actually SEE my chest moving and couldn't even count the beats.

At first I thought it was a fluke and some kind of body-correction from almost passing out, so I waited a few minutes. Then I thought I was crazy and just needed to take some deep breaths and slow everything down. Then I thought that I should help the blood sugar issue and get some string cheese.

But after I went downstairs to get the cheese and came back to the bathroom (Charlotte was still in the tub) to try to eat the cheese, I immediately felt sick and started hyperventilating.

This was what I couldn't figure out: I knew at needed to go to the ER. The neighbors weren't home, all friends and family were 15 minutes away, and there's no way Charlotte would have let a huge paramedic pull her naked from a tub and get her dressed. Also, the front door was bolted shut and I knew I wouldn't be able to get down the two sets of stairs to unlock the door for them without passing out with a child in the tub. Do I call B? Do I call 911? Do I call B? Do I call 911? Do I call B? Do I call 911?....

So I called B and whisper told him (b/c I couldn't breathe) that I was having an emergency and needed to go to the ER. Then I prayed to god that he wouldn't kill himself or someone else on what I knew would be THE most ridiculous drive home in history. I half expected him to pull in the driveway with most of the police department trailing him.

So I waited. And it only got worse. I was on the floor of the bathroom and felt like I was going to pass out again (not a reassuring feeling when you're ALREADY sitting down) and I thought so help me god I can NOT pass out with this child in the bathtub, I will WILL my heart not to make my brain it's bitch and lose consciousness. So I picked a spot on the wall and tried to will myself to stay awake.

B came home, saw what was happening (panting wife, child in the tub) and called 911. Luckily we live four blocks from the hospital and could hear the sirens about six seconds after he hung up.

Two fire trucks, one ambulance, nine people, and a few monitors later and they told me that my heartbeat was over 180bpm (MORE than 3 beats per second, in case you're counting). They actually said "WHOA!" when they hooked me up. And the crazy part was that that wasn't even my peak, it had started to settle quite a bit by the time they got there.

And then, when everyone was in our living room (and trailing down the stairs because not everyone could actually FIT in the living room) the episode broke, 40 min after it started.

So I got an ambulance ride, spent the day in the ER and the night in the hospital, talked to a cardiologist and my OBGYN and came out the other side on partial bed rest.

The cardiologist thinks it was all pregnancy related and was just a perfect storm of a warm room, dehydration, low blood sugar, a very low baby who's pushing on all the good things in your legs that return blood to your heart (veins? arteries? capillaries? plastic tubes?), and bad luck.

The OB isn't convinced it was pregnancy related since it went on for so long. But either way, it doesn't matter. They were on the same page with recommendations: Drink 3 liters of water a day instead of the 2 I had been drinking (water keeps your blood pressure up), and sit my ass on the couch for the next 7 weeks. No cleaning, no cooking, no going out to stores, very little activity, and no driving, and hope it never happens again.

You can imagine that these orders would be a little difficult for someone with a toddler at home, but with the help of family, our amazing neighbors, and some paid help, I think we've cobbled together enough people so that I won't ever have Charlotte for a whole day to myself, only half days.

And for the half days, we'll set the living room up to be blocked off, hold more toys and diapers, and keep the Disney Channel and Nick, Jr. in business. We don't have all the logistics worked out, but we're getting there.

In the meantime, I present Scenes From A Hospital...

The 13 heart monitors I pulled off my chest and stomach. Every step (EMTs, ER, OBGYN) meant that more got added and none every got removed.

Water tracking chart

Jewelry souvenir

Laugh at the stoners

2011-12-20T09:06:00.001-05:00

The husband found the website High Ideas (via The Dish) and just sent it to me for a great holiday laugh. The Dish describes it as "those accidentally brilliant ideas one gets while stoned."

Excerpts:

"We should be able to text 911... you know... just in case your hiding from a psycho serial killer and can't talk.

"'White Chocolate Milk' Tell me I didn't just blow your mind. I know I just blew your mind"

"If you watch Jaws backwards, it's a movie about a shark that keeps throwing up people until they have to build a beach."

"Here's how u end the Twilight saga in one scene... Bella and Edwards smoke a blunt. Edward gets the munchies. No more Bella. The end"

"All right, so you know how people do the air quote thing with their fingers? What if people cupped their hands and put them up by each other when saying something in parentheses..."

Click over and have a chuckle...

Simplicity: A reminder

2011-12-19T15:15:00.001-05:00

The Berry family leads an intentionally simple life. We don't have a lot of stuff, we don't have a chaotic household, and it's all by design. Having B in school for three years, plus having a toddler, and now being in my third trimester adds enough inherent activity.

We both very much believe in the energy of a home and we want ours to be simple, welcoming, and filled with joy. Thankfully when both people are committed to one ideal, it's pretty easy to pull off. And yet, even with those practices in place, it's human nature to be myopic and accidentally cause yourself undue stress.

I have seven weeks left to go in the pregnancy and it's shaping up to be a difficult home stretch. Extreme cramping (it's been tested, I'm fine) has lead to many days where I can't get off the couch until the late afternoon, difficulty walking around the house, terrible discomfort, and the obvious mental stress and crankiness that brings with it.

The house is a mess right when I desperately want it to be tidy, I can barely finish the fun holiday things I had planned out, despite the fact that none of them were elaborate, and we're spending far too much money on take-out than I'd like.

So as I was thinking about the upcoming holiday events, all of them (even the ones that have to do with only me - like leaving cookies for people) felt extremely overwhelming and more like obligations than the happy events they're intended to be.

But a big part of it was because I was forgetting that it was possible to simplify. It literally never occurred to me that you can make just two (or even one!) batches of cookies and not five... It never occurred to me that you can buy appetizers and not make them because I never have before.

And I think this phenomenon happens to us EVERY SINGLE DAY. We don't know we can be calm and not stressed because we never have been before... we don't know that we can choose to feel compassionate instead of angry... we don't realize that there are different (and sometimes simpler) ways to approach everything. And forgetting that is what causes us stress.

So I made two types of cookies and I packaged them up. And everything I have to bring to every event will be purchased because that's all I can handle this year.

I wanted to pass this on because I bet you're forgetting too. I bet it's never even occurred to you that there is another path to whatever one you're on that's adding stress to your life. You can say no, or say yes, or spend less, or decline an obligation, or put your own needs above someone else's, or pursue your hobby next year, or whatever it is.

If you've forgotten, this is me and my experience reminding you.

Just gotta say

2011-12-16T08:29:00.000-05:00

So this week I ran into someone I don't know hardly at all (in fact, I'm only partially sure about her name), but who I see a lot, and she told me that she had gotten her nose shaved down.

Every time I see her I'm struck by her natural beauty. I can't explain it fully, just one of those people that strikes your eyes as so beautiful and a little bit different looking from everyone else in your life. So to hear that she had got her nose operated on was sad to me. (Granted, the Italian in me actually makes me partial to the arched noses)

I'm not in any way against plastic surgery. It's not my place to judge what makes another person feel better. And this has nothing to do with this woman or any individual woman for that matter. But the specific type of surgery that seems, to me, like the unification of all faces and elimination of uniqueness makes me sad.

Have you ever noticed that all beautiful celebrities are beautiful in the exact same way? There seem to be no Barbara Streisands anymore. No varying forms of beauty anymore. Somewhere along the way we settled on the one kind and it's steamrolled everything else.

Some faces look better with a little nose bump, some people don't look better with blond hair, some dresses hang more beautifully when worn by someone with small breasts, and a lot of men find a lot of different and non-typical things attractive. We're collectively forgetting that and, to me, it's a detriment to our culture.

Where do you stand on this? Is there anything non-typical about someone's physicality that you love? Do you see the same phenomenon that I do and does it bother you, or do you think I'm being too sensitive? Let me know.

Holiday Spreadsheet

2011-12-15T10:27:00.002-05:00

Last year Ouiser introduced me to the idea of the holiday spreadsheet. And since EVERY DAMN YEAR I think I'm doing SO good only to realize I still have tons of odds and ends to tie up and buy, I thought I'd give it a try.

We have family and friends all over the country (requiring pre-planning so shipments arrive in time), as well as several birthdays between November and January, so present shopping is even more complicated here.

You guys, you NEED to do this. Christmas Spreadsheet has changed my life. In that same way where the Advent Activities calendar has been a simple way to bring the spirit of Christmas throughout all of December, Christmas Spreadsheet has brought so much calm and simplicity to the season.

The gift giving part truly feels more special because I'm not always remembering who I haven't bought for yet, what I still have to go out and buy, what gift I need to think of, etc. Every single stressful part about presents has been completely removed.

As a result, I've been done for days now. DAYS. And it's only the 15th. The only things left to finish are the ornaments from Charlotte that I make for our families every year (90% done), and B's homemade birthday present. Do you know how lovely it feels to know that there are ten days left until Christmas and I can mostly just relax, ship a few things, do some craft projects, make some cookies, and enjoy the season?

If you feel a little overwhelmed every year by the holiday season (and seriously, who doesn't?), then you need to implement this and be totally amazed at the results. Let's talk about the details:

You can either make your spreadsheet in Excel or in Google docs. I made mine in Google so that I can have access to it where ever I am. I also kept mine very simple: Person, Gifts, Total Price. Ousier is more elaborate with hers and includes a color coding system for which gifts are wrapped, which are shipped, etc. So go with whatever level of detail you'd like.

All gift ideas are written out and boxes are darkened when the gift has been purchased. I wanted an accurate financial record of everything Christmas related, so I included teacher gifts, Secret Santa gifts, the cost of our annual Christmas card, the amount I spend on craft supplies, etc.

I also found so many good deals on Cyber Monday that I've pre-purchased some birthday presents and even a few of NEXT year's Christmas presents already, so those ended up as side columns as well.

It might not take all of the stress out of your life if you start it now, but it's not too late for this year if you still have shopping to do. Give it a go.

Adventures in Advent Activities

2011-12-13T15:12:00.004-05:00

It needs to be said that I am obsessively in love with my ridiculously large advent calendar. Insanely. I look at it's room-dominating awesomeness and all I can think of is how this will be part of Berry family legend. And every year it'll come out and the activities will get more complex until our youngest child is old enough not to care, and then I'll just put stuff in there for us. And it will be an integral part of our children's Christmas memories... "you didn't do advent stuff? Oh my god, my mom has this nine foot tall advent calendar that filled half the living room and every day there would be candy and some kind of activity, etc... it was actually kind of awesome..."

I literally never buy anything for myself unless it's absolutely 100% necessary - like not attending a wedding in my yoga pants. Finances and space have trained me to convince myself that I don't need anything. But this calendar and the memories it's creating and the tradition it's starting is the problem with never. Thankfully sometimes your mom steps in and buys you a killer birthday present.

We're actually doing pretty well with all things advent, although it's much more of a peaks and valleys kind of pathway and not a straight line. Luckily there were a few days of repeats that ended up being built-in ways to skip something, and this past weekend we did about 5 of the things on the list to play catch-up. I think there's only been one full activity that has (so far) been skipped altogether. Still plenty of time though!

Here are some of our activities:

Making homemade hot chocolate

Hanging the mistletoe

Decorating the tree

Making gingerbread houses

(Notice the candy organization in the background. Thanks, Pinterest)

But mostly just eating the candy...

... and still eating the candy...

... and still trying to decorate with chipmunk cheeks...

"Daddy have some candy too!"

* This year's full list of activities can be found HERE

Christmas Tree Shopping

2011-12-12T10:35:00.001-05:00

Charlotte - Fish swimmin'?
B - Yup
Charlotte - Charlotte go swimmin' too?
B - No, honey, it's yucky in there, it's only for the fish
Charlotte - Yucky 'cause fish go poopy?
B - (laughing... trying to respond to the ever random musings of the toddler mind) Uh... yeah, they go poopy in there.
Charlotte - Go pee pee too?
B - Yup, they go pee in there too
Charlotte - Water yucky

Just hanging out with the tree.

Fake sleeping - one of her favorite games

Design Love: Painted wrapping paper

2011-12-09T09:36:00.001-05:00

This is what about 3/4 of our Christmas presents to others look like this year. I saved all of Charlotte's paintings from over the summer and used them to wrap up presents. It started out as a green initiative since it seems so wasteful to just throw away all of that paper (well, recycle), but I'm really happy with the results. It's so sweet and personal that everyone gets a little piece of her artwork, plus the addition of the baker's twine and the handmade gift tags (cardstock, red paint, and glitter glue) give them the perfect Christmas touch. My initial inspiration came from Pinterest, obviously.

And when I ran out of paintings, I still used the initial gift tags, which I'm in love with.

Broken Moon

2011-12-07T20:08:00.001-05:00

Driving home after it was dark, Charlotte in the back seat.

"Mommy, moon b'oken"
"Huh? The moon is broken?"
"Yeah, moon b'oken"
"Oh!! (much laughter) Because it's only a half moon?"
"Yeah, b'oken off in pieces... fall to the g'ound"
"Oh really?
"Daddy fix it.... get a ladder... fix the moon... moon b'oken."

One of the best parts about toddlers is watching their brains work. I don't even know how she knows what a ladder is as we don't own one. Our life together has changed drastically since she became so verbal, and only in the absolute best ways possible. I love her so much that I frequently (and irrationally) believe that no other parent in the history of time could have ever loved their child quiiiite as much as I do. Luckily I know that I'm wrong.

Design Love: Package edition

2011-12-07T08:23:00.001-05:00

I'm a huge fan of packaging. Both in retail products and (when I have the energy) when I mail packages to loved ones. Last summer I bought a roll of candy cane packing tape for $1 at Staples and I was very excited to pair it with my roll of brown kraft paper yesterday. Brown kraft paper, incidentally, makes the best wrapping paper ever since it's such a beautiful, natural blank canvas.

More pictures in the coming weeks of how I used Charlotte's summer paintings as wrapping paper...

Toddler Tip: Bribery, Just Do It

2011-12-05T09:25:00.001-05:00

Charlotte with her bag of bribery mini-marshmallows

I think when people are pre-kids or no-kids or too far post-kids (or smack in the middle of kids but not displaying much grace), there's a lot of parenting judgement that occurs. We hear stories or see incidents and we pull on our judgey panties and start waving our fingers.

I am absolutely as guilty of this as the next person, believe me. In my better moments, which hopefully outweigh the others, I remember that everyone is just trying to do their best. No one is TRYING to be a shitty parent, it just happens sometimes. And this is why:

Parenting doesn't occur in a vacuum. And I think that's what none of us realized before entering the journey ourselves. Yes, you're instilling values and discipline and love and teaching moments and giggles and hopefully a lot of fun. But you're also doing it while doing everything else in your life, with all of the same moods and crappy days that existed before.

And the flip side of all of our judgment of others is really just us worrying that we're not doing a good enough job ourselves - or won't when the time comes. Over the summer when I was deep in first trimester misery of near-puking for 12 hrs a day and my child did nothing but watch cartoons and eat pretzels and ice cream and drink whiskey for six straight weeks, my total inability to perform even the most basic of parenting skills, let alone the good ones, forced me to see the bigger picture and take the whole thing WAY less seriously.

Really, will it matter to her intellect that she watched cartoons for 8 hrs a day for two months? No. Did her long term nutrition and brain development suffer because no nasty ass vegetable was going to come near me and therefore didn't come near her? No. I could go ON and ON with this list.

And when I was feeling better, but still clearly pregnant and had (have) all of the accompanying symptoms that come along with that, I still tried a lot less hard, and I'm a hell of a better parent for it. Because sometimes she's going to come into our bed in the morning to watch cartoons and snuggle and she's going to see the bag of gummy bears that are on her father's nightstand. And she's going to know EXACTLY what they are since apparently a two year old does not have to have actually SEEN or EATEN said candy to know that it IS candy... and she's going to ask for some.

Is it seriously worth the fight of saying no and starting the day off with a crying, upset child? NO. Let me be VERY clear - IT IS NOT. Give them the god damned gummy bears! Just don't leave them out next time. None of this matters. It FEELS like it matters - pre-parental relaxation - because you don't want to "set a pattern" or "a bad example." But in my experience those things happen a lot less often than you'd think.

And the reason all of this will make you - and me - a better parent is because you're more relaxed. More relaxed means more happy, more happy means more patience, more love, less yelling, less snapping. I know for a fact that a kid who is smiled at more and snapped at less is going to thrive and have a happier childhood than the alternative. A few less platitudes and a lot more patience.

My friend and I have a saying that most parents either aren't trying hard enough (and clearly we all know those people) or are trying WAY too hard (and we all know them as well). So this is my long way of getting you to the reason my adorable child, in the lovely pink Christmas outfit up above, is holding an entire bag of mini-marshamallows:

Yesterday we had a lovely brunch at the country club, followed by activities and a visit by Santa. We had to leave the house - dressed, polished, bags packed, and in a good enough mood to enjoy the next three hours - by noon. That's usually when Charlotte starts her nap, and she needs her naps.

So I put her down at 10, let her sleep until we had about 15 min before we had to leave, snuck into her room with a bag of mini-marshmallows, opened the curtains, gently woke her up, and whispered this:

"Charlotte? Hi honey. Listen, remember how I told you that we were going to go see Santa today? Well Nana and Papa are going to be here very soon to pick us up. I'm going to give you this bag of mini marhsmallows and you can eat as many as you want. But you have to let me change your diaper, get your dress on, do you hair, and leave the house. OK?"

Knowing the value of a really good deal, she looked at me all blurry eyed, took out her pacifier, set her blanket down and said "Oh-tay mom." And she ate the crap out of the bag until we walked out the door (at which point I shoved a string cheese at her to balance out the marshmallows). And as a result, she was a rested, happy, relaxed little crazy person all through brunch and activities and Santa (who she roughly equated with a serial killer based on her reaction).

And believe me, I was wishing I could have employed the same tactic this morning as we were attempting (and failing) to get to preschool on time, but that wasn't really a special occasion, so I had to stick to the tried and true methods of threats and coercion. Which, if you're keeping track, are FAR less effective than marshmallows.

First time with painted nails. Her father was far less thrilled than she was. Her reply was "Oh tay, I do toes now, self."

B is only smiling because of the lack of oxygen he's receiving from the Santa Death Grip

The expression says it all

Cousin chivalry

Advent Activities

2011-12-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

You may recall that last year I discovered the existence of Advent Calendar Activities - Advent calendars that focus on doing one holiday activity a day rather than a present a day. Or rather than those funny little paper ones we all did as kids where you opened the perforated window to see a little picture inside.

My mom snagged the Advent Calendar* I was coveting last year and saved it for 9 months until my birthday this fall, so we're seriously official around here. Each bag has tissue paper, the activity for the day, and some Hershey Kisses. (Editor's Note: OK, the first three days have Hershey Kisses. I bought the Kisses a week or so ago and have consumed most of the bag. The rest of the days will get their Kisses next week when I go grocery shopping)

I really wanted it to be a genuine holiday tradition where we actually DO the activities that are listed for the day, and not some crazy disaster where only about half of the things get done. These were the things I took into consideration when doing the planning:

* All activities would be Charlotte-focused. Therefore, things like donating to charities is something I'll do online, in my own time.

* I wouldn't schedule events unless I knew they would work on a specific day. I have no idea when the Christmas cards will arrive and when I'll be able to mail them, nor do I know when I'll be able to squeeze in all the Christmas baking, etc. So for the most part, stuff I can't control was left off.

* Pre-determined schedules had to be accounted for. On Mondays Charlotte goes to preschool in the morning and then I babysit in the afternoon, so all Monday activities are extremely light... some days B has off and others he'll be out of town... some days already had holiday parties, etc.

* I tapered things down on the week leading up to Christmas to keep the stress non-existent and the fun in tact. From my observation, these are the EXACT types of things in life that people do to attempt to add happiness, but really just end up adding stress. That's not how we roll.

So without further ado, here is the official Berry Family Advent Activities List - 2011. It's geared for a 2 year old and therefore has a few repeats, but I'm really happy with it. Let the holiday traditions begin!

1st - Make homemade hot chocolate with mini marshmallows
2nd - Collect branches and paint (to be put in a vase for a decoration)
3rd - Dance to Christmas music
4th - Country Club Santa brunch
5th - Hang Mistletoe
6th - Make holiday decoration craft to mail to relatives (TBD)
7th - Hang up yesterday's craft to decorate Charlotte's room
8th - Dance to Christmas music
9th - Make gingerbread houses
10th - Buy Christmas tree
11th - Decorate Christmas tree
12th - Make Christmas potpourri (orange peels, cinnamon sticks, etc.)
13th - Read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
14th - Make Christmas cookies
15th - Make holiday craft (TBD)
16th - Make Christmas cookies
17th - Watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas
18th - Make Christmas pancakes
19th - Leave cookies for mailman / garbage men / recycling men
20th - Birthday lunch with B
21st - Visit with family friends, give their daughter her Christmas present
22nd - Hanukkah party at school
23rd - Family time under the tree (Dance, drink hot chocolate, etc)
24th - Annual Christmas Eve dinner at Nana & Papa's
25th - Open presents!

* The advent calendar in the picture is the catalog image of the one I have, not a picture of our actual wall. It's finals week around here, so the husband hasn't had a chance to hang ours up yet. I mean, technically I know how to stand on a dining room chair and bang some nails into the wall, but really, why? That seems VERY proactive when there are still all those Hershey Kisses to eat.

Advent for Working Parents

2011-11-30T08:49:00.001-05:00

I just finished making up our list of advent activities for December (which I'll post tomorrow), but for the working parents who can't do an activity a day I thought this would be a great alternative. Two bloggers put together this little bag of 24 small trinkets and presents for $35. Half of the proceeds go to charity and I just read on Twitter that there are still some left!

You could still supplement the weekends with fun activities, but now all of the other days of December would be taken care of. All you need is an advent calendar of some kind, but there are tooooons of easy homemade ones out in internet land, so you're a quick Google search away from a solution.

This is why the term "WTF" was invented

2011-11-29T08:25:00.001-05:00

We own a vacuum. Said vacuum has a long hose with attachments that I use almost more than the actual vacuum thanks to hardwood floors, and the space under the couches, and the cat hair, and the indoor "sand box" that has pasta in it, and on and on and on.

Sometimes, when the vacuum is out, Charlotte will take off the hose extension pieces (2 pieces of hard plastic about 3 ft long) and pretend to vacuum.

The pieces - the two pieces of hard plastic that are each about THREE FEET LONG are missing. Have been missing. For over a week. Despite the fact that we've been on a huge organization kick and have no parts of our home that are currently unseen or ignored.

Lest you forget, my home is 900 square feet and, while often messy, isn't cluttered. This is MAKING THE BERRY ADULTS INSANE!!! We've looked everywhere. We've asked the 2 year old. We've looked again. It's just not possible that they're GONE!

**UPDATE**

THE HOSES HAVE BEEN FOUND! She put them in the bottom of the bathroom closet UNDER the little potty that she doesn't use yet. Well played. My theory is that she knew she was being humiliated on the internet and secretly led me to them when she asked to use the "little potty."

Thanksgiving Kid Craft

2011-11-23T08:17:00.001-05:00

Charlotte and I made a few of these Thanksgiving marble paintings to send to her west coast family members.* Since they only get to see her a few times a year in person (though more over Skype), I try to keep them feeling not as far away by sending art projects around the various holidays.

I printed and cut out the letters to spell "thanks," lightly glued them to the cardstock with a glue stick, put the paper into a shipping box and we were off. Once the marbles were dipped in the paint and inside the box, we taped it up and shook, shook, shook.

Let it dry, peel off the letters, punch some holes, tie the ribbon and voila. One Thanksgiving picture to hang on the fridge, the wall, a door knob, etc.

It was a great 2 year old project - I was able to prepare plenty of it ahead of time and just leave the fun stuff to her. After we did two of them, she hit her limit, but that was fine because two were all we needed.

* Apologies for the poor photo quality, I snapped this picture with my cell phone and forgot to get a better picture with the camera before I packed them up for shipping.

**This post was featured on Craft Gossip - thanks so much!**

Do the old marrieds make out?!

2011-11-22T08:30:00.001-05:00

Apparently some of you do! After a funny conversation with a fellow Old Married about this topic, I ran a poll last week to see what was going on in the world of The Make Out. We were both hoping that we weren't the ONLY couple to/to not make out, and as you can see we can both relax.

38% of you said that, yes, you and your long time mate are fans of the random, pants-on, make out session. Here's what that camp had to say:

"We don't really sit down and make time for it, it kind of just happens sometimes...
like if we're passing each other in the house"

"Making out is also great because you get to feel like you're 15, instead of feeling like
you're a thousand because you actually eat wheat germ and go to bed at 8pm"

The other 62% of you said, no, The Make Out is only done as part of something more - ahem - involved. Here's what that camp had to say:

"Um, no... who has the time?!?!"

"That sounds crazy! (but nice)"

"No, but I'd like to. I think it would be a nice reminder of what started us
on the whole married path"

"I never thought about making out like a bunch of virgin teenagers in my
long term, committed relationship... we should try it!"

The whole survey has been so fascinating though because I'm sure everyone just assumed (as my friend and I did) that whatever you do in your own house is what other people are doing in theirs. It's been making me wonder what other innocuous things we're doing differently from one another - things where there's no right or wrong, just different, that we've never thought about before.

If you've run across any little nuances in your conversations over the years, let me know in the comments, I think it would be so interesting.

Kissing Poll

2011-11-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

I was talking to a friend the other day who was telling me a funny story that started off like this:

"So I was making out with my husband when he said...."

And then she told me about a funny little exchange.

I immediately replied something along the lines of "Yeah, yeah, funny... what do you mean you were making out?? Like JUST making out? Like hanging out on your couch after the kids were in bed, clothes on... kissing? Is that a thing, do us old marrieds DO that? We've never once done that! I think everyone would be very confused or start laughing if there was some make out session just for the sake of a make out session and then everyone parted ways and went back to Modern Family."

And it's not that I in any way don't like the idea, it sounds like a lovely way to keep the romance alive and like a very sweet part of a marriage. But I have to know - from you! - do people do this? Do people have little make out sessions that aren't connected to something more involved?

Now here's the thing. You're ONLY allowed to take the survey if you're in some way an "old married." You don't ACTUALLY have to be married, obviously, you just need to be in the spirit of a couple who has been through the trenches, had the shine wear off a tad, fought with the relatives, you get the idea.

If you still have lots of disposable income, go on dates all the time, have never had anyone had a misunderstanding about anyone else's in-laws, still wear the lace underwear while pretending the beige cottons don't exist, you don't get to play.

And feel free to reference a past "old married" relationship, I just really want to know - is this something people are doing??!!

** Poll results HERE**

Design Love: Children's Art

2011-11-17T09:27:00.000-05:00

This is a duvet cover (via Ohdeedoh) that a mom made for her art-loving son out of his favorite drawings. The process is time consuming, but very simple. What an incredible example of supporting your kid's interests, not to mention a beautiful end product.

I know that I will never be a perfect parent, but I frequently pray that I'll be the RIGHT type of parent for my own specific kids. That whatever type of parent that THEY need in life for THEIR individual personalities is they type of parent that I'll be to them. This seems like such a small but beautiful example of that prayer in action.

Toddler Art Tip

2011-11-16T09:04:00.000-05:00

Charlotte loves art of any kind - coloring, painting, drawing, etc. But toddler art is an inherently messy process, even if it just means picking up tons of crayons off the floor.

From the time she started drawing and painting we've always used the same method and it's worked amazingly well to mitigate the mess: Use a tray.

Years ago I bought B a sushi set for Christmas and it came with this black wooden tray. It works great to have the paper and crayons portable from room to room, contained within the tray, not sliding of the table, etc.

Maybe I find the benefits of this more helpful because of our small house - art needs to occur in small spaces near things that I don't want to be covered in paint. But regardless of house size, it works incredibly well. Go buy ye a tray.

Inner Fire

2011-11-15T08:12:00.001-05:00

"In everyone's life, at some point, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit."

-Albert Schweitzer

My end goal in life is to spend my life - in whatever capacity - being that person for others. As my father would say: So Be It.

1st Parent Teacher Conference

2011-11-14T09:28:00.001-05:00

It's been a week of charming firsts around here. First school picture order form and a first parent teacher conference. I always get struck by the mundane milestones like these more than the typical ones like birthdays or holidays.

I mean, school picture order form? REALLY? Half the time I still feel new to the whole parenting club and now I'm picking out pictures and sending in unholy sums of cash for my 8 wallets and 2 5x7s.

Just look at her in that picture. All confident and using an apple for painting and out in the world doing her own thing, all on her own. It's a bizarre concept for a stay at home mom. She's already started her own little life, one that doesn't include her father and me. It'll blow your mind if you let it.

And since she's been with us, all day, every day, since the beginning, it was fascinating to get someone else's perspective on what she's like. No surprise, she's not any different at school than she is at home, but it was interesting nonetheless.

The first thing they told us was that she LOVES the art table. That it's her favorite activity, that she goes to it immediately and never wants to leave it. The other favorite is the water/rice tub. This was all very reassuring to hear for our extremely limited toy household. She doesn't have buckets of toys, but she does have plenty of art supplies (and more coming for Christmas from relatives), and a great pasta tub that her uncle built her. I would have felt like an ass if they had gone on and on about her love of the toy kitchen, knowing that we can't fit one in the house.

They also said that she was extremely verbal, which was surprising to hear since she hardly spoke much at all until she turned two and then the valve never shut off. But it's true that she's very chatty now.

They said that they loved her, that she was very independent, never at a loss for what she wants to do next, totally comfortable exploring her surroundings, fairly fearless, good at taking directions, strong willed, and charming. Pretty much the exact wrap-up I would have given you, had you asked.

TP Lady

2011-11-11T08:30:00.000-05:00

We're standing in the upstairs hallway and she points down to the living room and says "Mommy, toilet paper downstairs" all confused like.

"OK, you can go get it. Put it in the bathroom"

...silence...

...mother intuition that silence is deadly kicks in a little too late...

"CHARLOTTE!"

Free Party Signs

2011-11-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

Last spring I made photo signs for my sister-in-law's 30th birthday. I just ran across the pile (minus a few that have disappeared along the way) and wanted to offer them up to anyone who might be throwing a New Year's Eve party, or any other party for that matter.

I'll happily pay to ship them to you, otherwise they're going to be gifted to the recycling men.

Let me know!

***SIGNS HAVE BEEN SPOKEN FOR***

Sick toddler food solution

2011-11-10T13:15:00.001-05:00

Charlotte came down with a horrendous case of the croup over the weekend and it's been hanging on tight for days. In addition to the roughly 36,000 hours of cartoons we've watched, there's been very little interest in food on her part. You'll be relieved to know that I'm still doing MY part to eat my weight in white carbs and processed sugar daily. Nary a veggie passed through my lips in the nine months I was pregnant with Charlotte and she's both beautiful AND smart, so clearly that's the key, "SCIENTISTS."

Anyway, I had to get all parent ninja to come up with something healthy that she'd be willing to eat in her hacking, phlegming, grumpy, clingy condition and the answer was Toddler Smoothie!

You'll probably recall that I make Charlotte's morning yogurt in batches and then freeze it (Greek Yogurt - which has 2-3 TIMES the protein of regular yogurt, sweet potatoes, applesauce, & flax seed). So I took the yogurt, added in a banana, honey for sweetness, milk, and voila! A meal in a glass that the sick kiddo will eat. Until today at lunch, it's pretty much what she's had for every meal this week.

I've also been thinking about Christmas morning and breakfast and I think the Toddler Smoothie is going to be the answer. Charlotte always wakes up in need of food right away, but I'm pretty sure the sight of presents won't lend itself to pre-present yogurt eating. But the lady clearly inherited my blood sugar issues and will be a cranky monster without food, so I was trying to think of things I could shove in her face before we go downstairs that morning. Once again, Toddler Smoothie is the answer!

My plan is to set up the coffee and pre-make the smoothie on Christmas Eve so everyone has their necessary sustenance to get their Santa on. Genius.

Food Tips

2011-11-09T08:22:00.006-05:00

It's important to prepare breakfast the night before to facilitate a smoother morning routine.

Halloween - 2 yr old style

2011-11-04T08:05:00.001-04:00

Admittedly, trying to take a 2 year old trick-or-treating is just an inherently dumb idea. They're little, they don't understand the whole ritual, it's near their bed time. But they have no appreciation for the possibility of how darn CUTE they can look all becostumed (new word), standing at someone's door.

So, thus it goes. Now to be fair, the parents of all the toddlers (ourselves included) could have approached the situation much much better - gone at least an hour earlier, and picked a neighborhood route that was a nice small circle and not one that was a straight line, necessitating a very long and cranky walk back. Live and learn.

This is how it went:

Phase 1 - I do NOT want to leave the house where we're having pizza b/c these people have super awesome toys to play with!!!! Mom and dad have to bribe me with candy to even put my costume on or get out the door - stuffing Starburst in my face so we can go have some family fun, damnit!

Phase 2 - OH MY GOD THAT WOMAN GAVE ME A PIECE OF CANDY!!! I will NOT walk or move or think or function until we open it RIGHT NOW AND EAT IT. Lots of parental pleading for walking and promises that MORE candy lies ahead ensues. This goes on for several houses until we luck out enough to have someone give us a bag of popcorn (pre-packaged, not homemade) that we can dole out to her to keep her moving.

Phase 3 - She gets it... and gets a major sugar attitude to go along with it. Now it has clicked and there is NO TOUCHING OR HERDING OF ANY KIND! All attempts to keep her away from cars or out of streets or gardens and onto driveways is met with her commanding us to STOP.TOUCHING.HER. This culminates when my DIVA of a daughter - like she's f*cking Whitney Houston - honest to God tells me "Don't Touch the Ladybug!!" "THE LADYBUG???" Are you KIDDING ME?!

Apparently, she's now the Queen of England and refers to herself in the third person, as her alter ego, and isn't to be spoken to unless directed... like she's so special that no one is to make eye contact with her. I must not have read her rider closely enough before departing. Little shit...

Phase 4 - THE WALL. All 5 toddlers simultaneously hit the wall. As mentioned, we didn't trick or treat in a circle and we are pretty far from where we started. This leads to melt downs, pleas to be carried, etc, etc. Double unfortunate - by the end of the night we were one parent short which meant that B ended up carrying two toddlers for several blocks and couldn't move by the end of the night.

So, not totally successful, but we tried. Like all things parental, we learned about the kinks on the first go-round and will be better prepared next time.

Do you believe?

2011-10-28T10:02:00.001-04:00

It was probably only a matter of time before there was a post on here about Oprah, right? I mean, it kind of fits the whole lifestyle / creative / teaching nature of mom blogs, so here we are. I've been recording and watching her new show on OWN called Oprah's Lifeclass. It's brilliant - every night is a new lesson culled from her 25 years hosting her show. If you took all 25 seasons and filtered them and reduced them and were just left with the absolute best of the best, that's what Lifeclass is.

Last week she did her all time favorite lesson, which is funny because it is absolutely what I would have picked for MY all time favorite lesson. Love, Love, LOOOOVE. And, of course, like all great lessons in life, I've forgotten it hundreds of times, but ever since I heard it years ago I think a small part of it's wisdom has always lived in me since.

"When people show you who they are, believe them." -Maya Angelou

When you have your first interaction with someone (or your second, or your third, or your one hundred and twenty third, etc.) and they are rude or late or non-committal or distant or judgmental... BELIEVE THEM. This is them showing you who they are. BELIEVE THEM. See with both eyes what their words and actions are conveying and trust it.

Stop making mental excuses and being nice and giving second chances and thinking "if only..." People are who they are from Day 1 - just agree to see it and believe it. That's all.

Peeps, do you KNOW the confusion and heartache I could have saved myself from about ages 19-26 had someone told me this sooner?? DO.YOU.KNOW??

Of course you do, because you did it too. I bet you still are... we all are. We're all having some kind of relationship with someone in our life out of hope or kindness or fear or whatever, and it's all because we are choosing not to see the person they were from Day 1. (More quotes and clips from the episode can be found here.)

Three quotes from the show that I particularly liked:

"My dear, when people show you who they are, why don't you believe them? Why must you be shown 29 times to see who they really are?" (Maya Angelou to Oprah Winfrey after a heartache)

"Potential isn't a quality... it's a fantasy"

"You aren't just responsible for the energy you bring into a relationship, you are responsible for the energy you allow into it."

Oh SNAP! That last one just slays me in the best way possible. The first half of the sentence is completely killer and I want to hand that saying out on business cards to a few people in my life, but the second half is even MORE killer!

So now you tell me - what are your thoughts on the whole thing? Did you already know this, is this the first time you've heard it phrased in this way, could you use this advice now? Let's discuss, because this is the stuff that REALLY matters to all of us, much more than the other stuff that's easy to talk about.

Homemade Watercolor Paints

2011-10-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

Last year Feather Nester bought Charlotte a bunch of art supplies for Christmas, one of them was watercolors. We used them for a while until they were getting worn down and run together and then we turned them into a bathtub activity instead.

We finally burned through all of the paint, but luckily Martha Stewart knows how to make more! And since we only use them as a bathtub activity now, it was a stress-free experience on getting them to turn out right. It was a great activity for her to help with, only four ingredients and very simple to make.

Our color palate ended up a little monochromatic thanks to a lack of red food coloring and SOMEONE grabbing the yellow food coloring and adding half the bottle to the blue paint, thus making more green. But again, the bathtub won't care so neither do I.

Highly recommended for you to try at home!

Homemade Gnocchi

2011-10-25T20:15:00.001-04:00

B had a dream the other night that he made homemade gnocchi, so he decided to go ahead and try it. Charlotte pitched in when it came to the rolling and cutting:

Roll it out...

Flour your hands...

Sprinkling flour up her arm - not quite grasping the logic behind flouring your hands.

All done!

Finished product - eaten after bedtime so the adults could actually enjoy and not inhale.

Scarf-tastic

2011-10-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

It's no secret that I long to be French. I want to wear nothing but stripes and berets and eat crepes and visit art museums. That's pretty much all actual French people do, yes?

I've long been thinking that people in America don't wear scarves enough. They're so beautiful and functional, especially in New York. But my stumbling block, aside from not really owning any of the non-winter kind, is that I don't know how to tie them.

Enter brilliant scarf video! I need to watch it again and take notes because once is not enough

Housekeeping

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

Is there anyone who reads this blog who I'm not either actual friends with or Facebook friends with? If so, cue the now anti-climactic drum roll please.....

I'm Pregnant! With a Boy!

I'm due in February and the coffee limit of one cup a day is killing me even more than the no-wine-while-being-the-stay-at-home-mom-of-a-toddler rule is. Though that one is not to be understated either.

O Canada!

2011-10-19T20:57:00.000-04:00

I grew up in a small town in northern New York that my husband not-so-lovingly refers to as the Arctic Circle. He likes to correct me when I say "I'm from the Adirondacks" by chiming in something along the lines of "No, you're not!! You're from a place SO COLD that it's actually ABOVE the Adirondacks. When you drive SOUTH on the highway, you eventually hit the Adirondacks."

OK, technically true. I MAY know exactly what 40 degrees below zero feels like and that when it gets that cold the radio will be filled with warnings about how your eyeballs will literally freeze in under five minutes and you need to stay the hell inside. But I also know that a Geo Prism with 100,000 miles on it, sitting outside a bar, will start in a surprisingly quick fashion despite those temperatures!

I can't tell you what the state of the American and Canadian dollars were in the late 80s / early 90s, nor do I really care, but I CAN tell you this - listening to all of our parents and older cousins complain about the "damn Canadians" who would flood our town every weekend to shop and shop and shop was a major part of growing up.

They didn't turn right on red yet drove aggressively, often didn't speak English, and most egregiously, felt that denim cut-offs falling approximately half an inch below your ass cheek was perfectly acceptable attire for a man.

It was such an understood part of the culture of upstate New York that it kind of didn't occur to me that the rest of Canada existed. It wasn't until Beverly Hills 90210 hit the scene and I kept hearing about how Jason Priestly was Canadian that my confusion set in. How could he possibly be Canadian?? I mean, he played hockey, but he didn't speak french and seemed to wear normal length shorts of the non-denim variety.

I think I went so far as to actually ask my dad about it, who probably had the grace not to look horrified that his old-enough-to-know-better daughter had forgotten that the REST of Canada wasn't French-Canadian. OOOOOOOOO! Right! Because Quebec is just ONE of ten provinces. Got it. Obviously.

So that was my first relationship with Canada. My second one consisted of the 18 year old drinking age and some seriously eye-opening behavior at the strip clubs. I think it's safe to say it was time to meet Canada as a grown up.

Sometime in the last few years they changed the entry rules and required you to have a passport to go there. Upon hearing the news, and still thinking of them as my strange neighbor a block over, I had a conversation with B that went something like this:

Me: Did you hear that you need a passport to go to Canada now?!!!
B: Yeah
Me: A PASSPORT! To go to CANADA!
B: Well, it IS another country.
Me: No it's not! It's CAAANNNAADDAA!

But B and I needed new passports anyway and we wanted to have one for Charlotte, so we got the family internationally-ready last summer and finally put them to use last weekend on our trip to Montreal.

We stayed with an old friend of mine and her family who were the most lovely hosts you could ask for. They didn't even look offended when we said "We couldn't afford to go to Paris, so we came to you! Show us some people speaking other languages on a narrow cobblestone street!"

We got a full driving tour, a walking tour of the Old Port, a lesson on the politics of the language debate, and got to escape to a different culture for a while. One where women can't change their name after marriage, where milk comes in bags, and where you have the option to spread congealed pork fat on your bagel in the mornings.

It was a great escape and did nothing but reinforce our plan to take the kids and live in another country for a year at some point in our lives. I want them to know, with a full understanding, that there is more than one way, more than two ways, to approach things - some people live in a world where health care is free, school is longer and harder, the convenience of box stores don't exist, and toilets flush differently.

Because if you can understand that the most basic parts of life, the parts of life that you take for granted and never think about, can be done in a completely different manner, than you can start to realize that everthing can be done in a different manner. You can think more broadly and go beyond what you see and what people expect of you.

On that note, here are some of the shots from the weekend..

Did you know there's a mountain right in the middle of the city? Well there is and it's awesome. So are the castles, with actual lion statues out front, that sit atop of it.

(You may also notice that Fat Face has started to set in. My stomach seems to be a normal size for 23 weeks, but thankfully my face and my ass are picking up the slack. Those features are going to look downright GORGEOUS by the end of this pregnancy)

Old Montreal.

Cobblestone, restaurants, hundreds of art galleries, and the most perfect spot for a couples weekend someday.

Notre-Dame Basilica

Tina Fey, I love you

2011-10-13T08:42:00.004-04:00

I finished reading Bossypants a week ago and have been totally book-depressed ever since. It was everything I could ever want in a book - interesting, hysterical, inspirational, etc. Just 275 pages of awesome.

Here's one story (slightly abbreviated) that I thought was particularly awesome:

Amy Poehler was new to SNL and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers' room, waiting for the Wednesday read-through to start. There were always a lot of noisy "comedy bits" going on in that room. Amy was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can't remember what it was exactly, except it was dirty and loud and "unladylike."

Jimmy Fallon, who was arguably the star of the show at the time, turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, "Stop that! It's not cute! I don't like it."

Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. "I don't fucking care if you like it." Jimmy was visibly startled. Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit.

With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear that she wasn't there to be cute. She wasn't there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys' scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care of you like it.

I think of this whenever someone says to me, "Jerry Lewis says women aren't funny," or Christopher Hitchens says women aren't funny...Do you have anything to say about that?"

Yes. We don't fucking care if you like it.

...My hat goes off to them. It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don't like something, it is empirically not good. I don't like Chinese food, but I don't write articles trying to prove it doesn't exist.

So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or ever really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: "Is this person in between me and what I want to do?" If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you're in charge, don't hire the people who were jerky to you.

If the answer is yes, you have a more difficult road ahead of you. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece "Over! Under! Through!"

...If your boss is a jerk, try to find someone above or around your boss who is not a jerk. If you're lucky, your workplace will have a neutral proving ground - like the rifle range or the car sales total board or the SNL read-through. If so, focus on that.

Again, don't waste your energy trying to educate or change opinion. Go "Over! Under! Through!" and opinions will change organically when you're the boss. Or they won't. Who cares.

Do your thing and don't care if they like it.

2011-10-12T08:54:00.000-04:00

Oh dear. So very addicted. This is so much better than any other social media distraction that has entered your life in the past five years. Name your passions - food, crafts, technology, photography, design, travel, cars, fashion, history - they have it.

It's hard to fully explain until you're on it. Just picture a bulletin board of all of the best ideas that your interests have to offer. And then a way to click on your favorites and say "yes, please, put that on my bulletin board too!" The internet and its abundance of ideas is massive, and this is the first organized way to not forget all of those great things that you find.

It's such a beautiful way to fuel all of the hobbies in your life, the stuff you never make enough time for. Something just for you that has nothing to do with other people or what they think or what they want. Just a place to collect all of the stuff you love most about life.

Here's my page. Go make your own and celebrate YOU.

Boobs

2011-10-11T11:05:00.000-04:00

Before going to the birthday party mentioned in the last post, we swung by the mall so I could buy some maternity bras... and then change into one on the drive to the party. Count yourself lucky you weren't in THAT passing car.

Me - OH MY GOD. Seriously, my crankiness factor has been decreased at LEAST 50% by buying maternity bras. Seriously, you have NO IDEA.

B - (mostly just silence... out of boredom, I assume)

Me - You know they were $45?

B - WHAT? You've GOT to be joking. FOOOOORTY-FIIIIVE dollars?? (here I picture "fooooorrtyyy-fiiiivve dooollaars" being repeated echo-in-a-canyon style over and over)

Me - Yeah, that's why I had my dad get me a gift certificate to the maternity store for my birthday, so I could buy bras.

B - Oh My God, that's RIDICULOUS.

Me - Yeah, and you know what's funny? They basically didn't even have my size. Because non-pregnant I'm an A cup and pregnant I'm still only a B cup, which I'm betting almost no one is, so I had to search and search just to find a B. ALSO, I bought a 38 B, but I had to add my extender thingy b/c I'm REALLY a 40 B. For a small woman, I have a freakishly large rib cage.

B - Wait. YOU'RE A B?!!!!!!

Me - Yeah, a hearty B probably, but very very firmly no where near a C. I have plenty of room in the bra if I needed it.

B - Oh my GOD! You've somehow boob-conditioned me. I thought you were like a D! I thought your boobs were SO big now.... I can't believe you're a B...

Happy

2011-10-10T07:29:00.001-04:00

Yesterday Charlotte went to her first non-family birthday party so she was looking extra cute and put-together and not her usual homeless-chic self. Thanks to the bizarre October weather around here she even got to wear a skirt and put on sunscreen. (Her pregnant mother is FAR less enamored with the late summer weather)

After a big day she came home and had an extremely unusual moment of reflection. She walked over to the steps that lead upstairs, sat down and said nothing. She was there for a little while so I went and sat on a lower step:

Charlotte - Happy

Me - Charlotte's happy?

Charlotte - yeah

Me - Awww, I'm glad honey (big smile)

Charlotte - (leaps off of step and gives me bear hug) Mommy happy too!!!

Me - Yes honey, Charlotte makes mommy very happy!

Recipe for Violence

2011-10-06T10:36:00.000-04:00

1 Pregnant Lady
1 Spare Bedroom filled with mold - preferably for about a month, unaddressed by landlord
1 Severe mold allergy
1 Toddler with a suspected mold allergy
1 Broken plumbing system, to include the following non-functional items: shower, all sinks, dishwasher, washing machine
1 Thong - too small because of aforementioned pregnancy and therefore very violence inducing (included in the recipe only because of the broken plumbing and lack of clean laundry)

Before starting, take Pregnant Lady and make her hunch her fat ass with the bad spine over the tub to brush her teeth and wash her hands.

Combine all ingredients into a house in upstate NY. Stir. Watch for explosion.

Please Standby

2011-07-01T14:00:00.000-04:00

OK, clearly summer blogging is not working this year. I had great intentions and none of them have come to pass. So instead of continuing to wallow in my blog guilt, I'm calling a spade a spade and shutting things down for the month of July.

We'll be out west visiting family for most of August, but at least I'll be able to mobile blog you some pictures of all the fun things we're doing instead of the radio silence I'm giving you now. I'm sorry to leave you, but the fleeting good weather is calling my name.

See you in a month!
xoxo

Toddler Tips - Bathtub Watercolors

2011-06-23T09:04:00.000-04:00

It's been raining for a few days here so I needed some way to entertain the little lady before naptime to ensure that it was a long one. Enter bathtub watercolors. The girl LOVES to paint, but let's face it, it's a messy and kind of stressful experience when you hand paints to a not-yet-two-year-old.

This was genius though. The bathtub is my new favorite parenting tool. She played in there for quite a while, painting the tub, her diaper, her face, etc. And when it was over, all the mess was contained and the watercolors washed away.

I now think all toddler activities, save for sleeping, should occur in our tub.

Anais Nin

2011-06-22T12:36:00.000-04:00

"And the day came when the risk [it took] to remain tight in the bud

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom"

3 years ago...

2011-06-21T12:28:00.000-04:00

... was the 5 year anniversary of the day we met... was the longest day of the year, which made it feel like the entire universe was celebrating our union... was the most personalized, most creative, most fun wedding I had ever been to.

We exchanged rings that were engraved: Destiny Love Laughter

Three years, two cities, one daughter, and half a graduate degree later brings us to today. More than anything in my life I'm proud of the person I married and of our relationship. I'm happy to do the work to be kind when I don't want to, forgiving when it's maddening to to so, supportive when it's the easiest thing in the world. I wonder daily how I got so lucky.

H & G

2011-06-14T20:19:00.000-04:00

Gah! Sorry. Wasn't I JUST telling you last week that I wouldn't let the summer schedule cause neglect? Clearly I'm a liar.

Last Friday I was busy writing a guest post for the fashion blog of our local paper (I'll give you the link when it goes up), then we had guests over the weekend, and now Charlotte and I are headed up to the Adirondacks for a few days to see the family.

I promise to have my act a little more together next week...

Young Picasso

2011-06-09T08:56:00.002-04:00

Parenting is...

2011-06-08T08:09:00.000-04:00

... feeling like you seriously MUST be some kind of hero for mustering up the fake enthusiasm to sing about that little field mice abusing asshole Little Bunny Foo Foo ONE.MORE.TIME because your song-obsessed daughter has cheerfully said "no!" to EVERY OTHER song suggestion you have thrown at her.

Thanks for cooking, mom

2011-06-07T08:13:00.000-04:00

I didn't know until I was about 7 years old that spaghetti sauce or apple sauce came in jars. It blew my mind, both at the convenience of it and at the awful, sugary taste of it. All of our spaghetti sauce and apple sauce took half a day to make, and my dad got his orange juice every morning by plugging in the juicer and juicing the oranges on the counter (we lived in Florida).

I also didn't know that freezer meals existed until I was in 7th grade and started babysitting for the 3 kids across the street. Their parents were the first fat people I had ever met and everything was different over there. Their dishwasher had to be rolled across the floor and hooked up to the sink with a hose and they used the term "BMs" when referring to the kids' poops. It was all so bizarre. But especially the bags and bags of pre-made food that lived in the freezer.

It just inherently didn't make sense to me. I had no concept of health back then, but the frozen pieces of breaded everything just seemed wrong.

Even now I get surprised at the things you can buy in the grocery store because my instinct is just to make it myself. Now the motivation is more health-related, but even without that, my childhood informed the way I view food. What is and isn't food and what should and shouldn't be consumed.

Thanks for cooking, mom.

Trip to Paris

2011-06-06T13:27:00.000-04:00

You may know that Oh Happy Day is one of my favorite blogs. This year, she and her husband and two small kids moved to Paris for a year and now she's offering up a contest for someone else to share in that dream as well! No, you don't get to move there, but you do get to visit for an entire week for FREE.

My heart lives in Paris, so it pretty much stopped when I saw the post. If you'd like to dust off your passport then pop over and enter to win!

Friday Reading Group

2011-06-03T09:02:00.001-04:00

Hi, all! I feel like it's been so long since I've just... written. It's not you, it's me. Actually, it's not even me, it's the weather. After being imprisoned all winter (and rainy spring) with an active toddler and bad weather, we're taking advantage of the warm, happy days with a vigor that can hardly be described.

The other day we did outdoor painting at 8:30, bath at 9:30, walk to the library at 10, story time at 10:30, walk home, Skype with my dad, lunch, nap, play date at 3, dinner, laundry, bed. Needless to say I kind of collapsed around 7p. But all this sunny activity has meant a happy happy toddler who takes long naps and doesn't misbehave out of boredom.

I have a few other columns, in addition to Friday Reading Group, that I'm working on for the summer months for you. This way even when I'm frolicking about with the wee one, you will not be ignored. I shall not have you be ignored!

Giovanina is going to be doing a music feature here where she gives you some new songs to listen to and consider every week, and I'm going to break out the scanner and share some of the things I've been saving for a while. Some are inspirational (design pages ripped out of magazines), some might be less so (prom photo?).

In the meantime, let's get reading.

You know how I love me some make-ahead, freeze-ahead meals. I had never thought to pre-make slow cooker meals, awesome idea.

I never write about what it's like to be a parent because I'm fantastically non-eloquent about it. See?! Is "non-eloquent" even a word? I'm pretty sure it's not. I don't know how to write about or capture the emotion of what it feels like to love someone that intensely. Thankfully, there are better writers out there than me. I? Oh my god, I told you. Thank you, Rebecca for describing everything I am incapable of.

If you're a Word Nerd, this is brilliant.

You know about sugar, right? About how it's just toxic shit in terms of what it does to your insides? I'm currently 3 days off all sugar right now (holla!!), which is huge, because I'm one of those people who basically has dessert after every meal. If you have some time, because the article is massive, read all about it over here.

What Do Kids Really Need?

Facebook's News Feed is not comprehensive or random. Learn more about the algorithm here. (Disclaimer: the article is actually from last fall, so things could certainly have changed since then)

Sad about the end of Oprah? Then read 7 Ways to Discover the Calling Oprah Told You to Find.

Friday Reading Group is a weekly series where I help you procrastinate by offering various links from around the web. Help support the cause - email any good articles, pictures, or videos you find to sanders492[at]yahoo[dot]com with Friday Reading Group in the subject line.

Weekend Wine

2011-06-02T09:36:00.000-04:00

When I worked at a restaurant that was known for it's wine selection, the wine distributor told me once that there are weeknight wines and weekend wines. We were introduced to a great weekend wine last weekend. It's nearly $30 a bottle, but DAMN is it full bodied and smooth. Stag's Leap 2007 Merlot. Buy it. Amusingly enough, when we went out to dinner the night after we sat at home and drank the wine, the restaurant was offering it for the typical restaurant mark up of $62 a bottle.

Memorial Weekend in Pictures

2011-05-31T13:26:00.000-04:00

Golf...

Running on golf courses...

Painting...

1st Parade...

Teaching her to clap for the parade people...

Observing...

Despite the fact that the child was in the same dress twice (THE HORRORS!), we decided to wear different clothes on different days. It's a new thing we're trying. We had a wonderful visit from B's best friend, painted, played in various kiddie pools (Tupperware bin, pool... potAto, potAHto...), took Charlotte to her first parade, took her to her first roadside lemonade stand, ate all manner of picnic foods, and generally sweated our asses off in the high 80s/no wind weather we've been having. It was perfect.

Friday Reading Group

2011-05-27T10:16:00.000-04:00

It's Memorial Day weekend and if you live in New York, or I suppose any part of the northeast, that means it's planting weekend. It's a pretty well known guideline that no matter how warm your month was, most people won't plant their gardens and flowers until this weekend. We made that mistake last year and a late frost killed the herbs and flowers we bought. Live and learn.

We're celebrating the holiday in all kinds of random and non-related ways... I got a sassy new short haircut, we enrolled Charlotte in a 2 year old program (2 mornings a week) that will start this fall, and B's best friend arrives from Chicago today. Of course, there will also be the golf, the BBQing, and the playing outdoors.

If you didn't take today off to extend your holiday and you're still at work, here are some good reads to get to 5pm a little faster. (A side note to the great emails I've received with ideas for Friday Reading Group - thank you and I'm not ignoring you. I just don't want to link to anything I haven't read, so if you haven't seen your link here it's only because I haven't read it yet)

Mindy Kaling, writer and actress for The Office, has a new book coming out this fall which the New Yorker says "... really, really strikes a chord with the demographic she's writing for, which is the demographic just below Tina Fey's (i.e. unmarried, babyless women above the age of sixteen and under the age of thirty)." Is this the year of the funny woman? I'm loving all of these smart, funny books and movies by women!

This is awesome. Someone out there is going to be on the receiving end of this project one day, I just don't know who. Bribes accepted.

5 Experimental Features You Should Enable in Google Maps. These look SO great. Especially the "What's Around Here" feature, that's exactly what I wanted when we moved to town and I had no idea what businesses were in a 5 block radius.

Totally in love with this practical but designy idea for an entryway. Seriously, one of you has to do this and send me pictures. I'm a renter, so it's not in the cards for me just yet.

I'm not going to say much about this article because it's one of those things where I'll sound anti-American and I don't mean to, it's just that other countries do this SO MUCH SMARTER than we do. Why is America the No-Vacation Nation?

What makes you smarter than the rest?

2011-05-25T07:00:00.004-04:00

The philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next

- Henry Ward Beecher

For some reason I was thinking about old timey smoking the other day. Way back in the days of yore when it was normal and even encouraged. And then I thought someone HAD to know. In their gut. Someone, many in fact!, must have been sitting in yet another smoke-filled room and thought to themselves Ugh! This is just gross and I can't breathe and I want fresh air, and I don't care if it's good for you, this is awful. Someone is wrong.

I feel that way constantly. I look around and I think I must SO CLEARLY be living in the wrong century when there are people who still care about gay people falling in love, who deny evolution, who believe in torturing other humans, who spend their time watching Snooki. There has to be some future time period where people care about what's important and not what's distracting. Where they aren't wedded to their beliefs without the desire to question them.

But I know that everyone feels that way about something, so I really want to know what you're something is. What's your thing that, as the quote says, is mere philosophy now, but you know for certain will be common sense one day? What thing do you think or know that other people don't think or know as clearly that will come to light one day? Tell us your thing and then we'll all be a little step closer to the common sense of the next generation.

Day Trippin: Saugerties, NY

2011-05-23T09:12:00.000-04:00

We took the family day trippin on Saturday. There are tons of small towns between here and NYC that are great for walking around, grabbing lunch, and seeing some new things. This time we went to Saugerties, but Hudson and Woodstock are on the list for the near future. We found a great children's consignment shop where we got a few summer items for Lady C, an unbelievable antiques store that was what I always think antique stores are going to be but never are, a beautiful boutique where I couldn't afford a single thing, and finally a hike out to the lighthouse.

The walk to the lighthouse was Charlotte's first hike, which is pretty much the most adorable milestone ever. We had no idea that it was going to be such rough, muddy terrain and had her in the exact opposite shoes that she should have been in, but she had a blast anyway.

The town has a farmer's market in the summer with live music and kid's activities, so I think we're going to go back down some Saturday morning to hit up the farmer's market and go on another hike.

Day trips are our new favorite thing to do but I feel like I rarely hear about people doing them. What are your thoughts... do you day trip with the family? Or is it one of those things that just never occurs to you? I'm starting to think it's the perfect travel solution for people with young families. You get to see and experience new things without getting on an airplane. Also let me know if you know of any good little towns in western Massachusetts, southern Vermont, or western Connecticut that aren't too far from Albany, NY

Friday Reading Group

2011-05-20T08:05:00.000-04:00

The flower pic is a combination of wishful thinking and denial. It's been raining for a week here and I'm learning that my child is not the kind who can be content inside for a week. I tried to take her out for a quick walk yesterday only to have it pour a half a block into the walk. We turned around, started jogging back, cut through our neighbors lawn because there's no sidewalk, hit the newly created trench they had dug between their lawn and their driveway with the stroller wheels and sent the child perpendicular.

Luckily she was strapped in and I was able to throw my hand in front of her face in case it met pavement, but my shin was the collateral damage from the incident. So yesterday's attempt was a fairly big fail. We have a few outings planned for today and a day trip this weekend, so I'm hoping that will restore sanity. If not, there's always wine.

I love this trend. It's always great when something that was really masculine and destructive gets a witty feminine twist.

This is such a cool idea for kids. Narnia, here we come!

This new show about parenthood looks like it has the potential to be really funny. Plus, those two actors are comic gold, so I have high hopes.

Regardless of the medium in which the message is delivered, some people just can't hide their idiocy. But it makes for great websites.

Sounds delicious!

I always love articles about simple, smart inventions

A new version of the stay at home mom

A week of dinner ideas

2011-05-19T08:00:00.011-04:00

I put together a list of what our dinners are going to be for the next week and did the shopping the other day, so I thought I'd pass on our list in case you need some food help this week:

Pulled chicken sandwiches and coleslaw
I don't have a specific recipe, just going to grab one off the internet. We have hamburger buns to use up, so I thought this would be a good way to do it.

Tofu Stir Fry
I used to buy all of the vegetables fresh and then cut them up until I learned that they sell frozen Asian vegetables specifically for this purpose. My whole kitchen life changed that day. Now I just buy a can of water chestnuts and sometimes pineapple to add in.

Chicken Quesadillas
We've never actually made these for a dinner before, but I needed something that could use up the chicken from the next recipe.

Easy Chicken Pot Pie with puffed pastry topper
Again, I've never made this, but it seems really easy so I'm just going to Google something.

Spaghetti
Despite all the Italian heritage in the house, we actually never have spaghetti for dinner because I can't handle a dinner of all carbs thanks to the blood sugar issues. But B is making homemade sauce this weekend, so I'm making an exception.

Meatball Subs
Again, because of the homemade sauce and meatballs coming our way, this seemed like a no brainer.

Pierogies
Oh good god, I would eat these every single night if I could. This is a total treat and I try to keep it to about once or twice a month. I buy the potato and cheddar kind in the freezer section, cook them with an entire onion and lots of butter.

Turkey Burgers
We had turkey burgers last week when my dad was here and had two left over, so we put them in the freezer, uncooked, and will just defrost and grill. Side dish will either be vegetables or fries, depending on how the day is going.

Homemade Toddler Yogurt

2011-05-18T08:44:00.002-04:00

From the time Charlotte was a baby I've made all of her food. When it was baby food, making it myself was both cheaper and less wasteful (no hundreds of little glass jars). Now it's still cheaper to make what I can, but it's also healthier since I can go the Jessica Seinfeld route and sneak in vegetables whenever possible.

In addition to some organic tomato soup (supplemented with rice cereal to make it thicker and therefore possible for her to eat), and some of Jessica's homemade macaroni and cheese with pureed beans and cauliflower in our freezer, we also have yogurt.

Charlotte eats yogurt every morning and I've tried all kinds of flavor combinations, but this most recent one has a lot of sweet potatoes in it, so I think this will be the final recipe for a while.

Apple & Sweet Potato Yogurt

Start with a large container of whole milk organic yogurt. Line a strainer with cheesecloth, and let the yogurt drain out all of the excess liquid using a set up similar to the picture. (If you don't drain the liquid out you'll have to add in almost a box of baby rice cereal to get the right consistency)

Excess liquid.

Cook a bunch of sweet potatoes and make homemade applesauce.

Mix the yogurt, sweet potatoes, and apples together. Add whatever other ingredients you'd like: cinnamon, nutmeg, ground flax seed, baby oatmeal, etc. Don't get too picky about any of it. I added enough applesauce until it tasted more like apple yogurt and a little less like sweet potato yogurt. Be sure to keep the consistency fairly thick - first of all because it will get soupier in the freezing and thawing process, and second of all because toddlers are messy and do much better with thicker yogurt.

Pour into muffin tins, freeze, empty into large freezer bag.

Ta-Da!

According to my calculations, each serving of yogurt is $0.50, as opposed to the $0.62 per serving of the apple sweet potato organic yogurt in the store. But more importantly, that yogurt has about 1 teaspoon of the fruit and vegetable mixture at the bottom, and this recipe is about 50% fruit and vegetables. hi-YAH!

Cost aside, getting toddlers to eat their fruits and vegetables can be a stressful pain in the ass and this helps make it SO much easier. Try it and let me know what other recipes or flavor combinations you come up with!

** CLICK HERE for an updated use on this recipe!!**

Friday Reading Group... on a Monday

2011-05-16T08:57:00.001-04:00

Blogger was down for most of the day on Friday so I couldn't get you your links. Hopefully you managed to find a way to procrastinate all on your own. Last week my dad, and then my mom, was in town, so we had all kinds of fun stuff going on. Here he is with Charlotte on the antique tractor that we couldn't get her off of. This was after our visit to see the baby animals - pictures later this week.

In the meantime, here are some of the articles I've been saving for you...

Unusual Items Worth Packing on Your Next Vacation - such an interesting list, and if you have a good memory you'll recall that I already told you about the baby powder for beach vacations.

Canadians found a cure for cancer?

Creme Brulee French Toast? OhMyGod,Yes!

This article on Sarah Palin is absolutely riveting. It's a little long and you have to read it through to the end to fully understand the power of the article, but it's totally worth it. It explains how easily she could have been a viable candidate had she just highlighted her actual strengths of fighting for justice and not began immediately pandering to the far right and becoming a naysayer for everything democratic.

If you need something short that will make you laugh your ass off, this is the link for you. I was practically crying.

10 Natural Wonders to See Before They're Lost

The reality is...

2011-05-12T16:02:00.000-04:00

... no toy company will ever invent a product that will entertain my child as much a dirt, seeds, water, and buckets do.

Charlotte and I are spending a wonderful 2 days with her grandfather, but I'll meet you here tomorrow with another great list of Friday reads.

Say it Plain

2011-05-10T08:35:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Ouiser and I were emailing back and forth and chatting about Mother's Day, and I told her that the whole reason I had had such an awesome Mother's Day was because I had asked for one.

I'm sure there are thousands of keys to being happy, but I know for a fact that one of them is just stating what you need. I learned years ago that nearly every movie, television show, and book about relationships gets it wrong and confuses people. No matter how loving, your spouse isn't just going to know what's going on in your head and what you need, so you need to take the life reins and say it plain.

Last week I said to B "honey, don't forget that I LOVED Mother's Day last year and it was basically my new favorite holiday, so I want it to be really special! Not present-wise, I don't care if you spend money, I just want to feel loved!" And that's what happened.

I hear people, myself included, complain all the time about what they wish their partner or friends or family would do or say or feel, etc., but so few people are just saying it in plain language.

"I'm really stressed right now and I just need you to support me" ... "Don't worry about (insert random event or holiday), it honestly doesn't mean that much to me" .... "I really want to be totally surprised and swept off my feet for my birthday!" ... "I miss you, let's get together more" ... and on, and on, and on.

Try it. Stop getting disappointed or annoyed or mad and just say what you want in a simple, straightforward, and kind way.

The best day of the year

2011-05-09T09:03:00.000-04:00

I legitimately had one of the most happy and lovely days of my life yesterday, all thanks to my wonderful and devoted husband. So relaxing and just... happy! I got to stay in bed alone from 6:30am (when Charlotte wakes up) until 11:00am. All the while I was brought coffee, got to listen to B go WAY out of his food comfort zone and bake, open presents, take a 20 min post-present nap, and then finally wander downstairs.

Of course in true mom fashion, it was really hard to actually stay up there. The innate sense of obligation and helpfulness kicked in about a quarter of the way through and B had to ask me if I REALLY wanted to be out of bed on the ONE DAY A YEAR when I don't have to be. Point taken, bring me coffee then. I can't be up there without coffee.

After a few hours of wrangling Charlotte while also making a breakfast he had never made before, I was presented with this...

Flowers, cards, presents, and my insanely delicious, better-than-a-restaurant breakfast of: Belgian waffles from scratch ("honey, I even had to separate eggs and whip them and FOLD THEM BACK IN!"), homemade almond whipped cream, candied berries, and crumbled pralines, with a side of turkey sausage.

After I wandered downstairs at 11am, B went to the driving range while Charlotte and I played outside in the amazing 70 degree temps. Then it was off to the Tulip Festival for some more outdoor relaxing... and fried dough.

The key to getting any toddler to stay in one place is to make them sit down and then offer them junk.

* The individual cakes are what I made for our Saturday Mother's Day celebration with B's mom. I got the basic recipe here and then made them in ramekins instead of a mini-muffin tin. The flavor was good, but I over-cooked them a little so they were denser than I would have liked. I served them with an optional side of raspberry sauce.

Quick Note

2011-05-09T08:34:00.002-04:00

I was featured over on Martha Stewart's Everyday Food blog. Yay!

Check me out here.

Friday Reading Group

2011-05-06T08:15:00.002-04:00

Happy Friday and Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there. My own mama is out in Utah touring Arches National Park, but luckily my second mama is in town, so we'll celebrate with her tomorrow. Then, of course, I'M a mama, so we'll do our own celebration of that on Sunday. I assume Charlotte has planned a brief but eloquent speech thanking me for all of my unending patience, the patience of a saint really, the homemade meals, the over-snuggling, and all the deep breaths I take before speaking to her.

But before we get to the celebrations, let's read.

As both an ex-waitress and a foodie, I thought this article about 10 Things That You're Doing Wrong at Restaurants was really interesting.

As I mentioned on Monday, I really like making food for company that you can prepare ahead of time and this Blueberry Cream Cheese French Toast would be perfect for that. I never serve an exclusively sweet breakfast, but pair this with eggs and you're good to go.

Did any of your Facebook friends post the quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. after Osama Bin Laden was killed? Did you know it's not a real quote? It wasn't a malicious deception, it was a half-genuine quote that got mixed up with other thoughts in the posting and reposting universe of social media. Read about how it happened here and remind yourself to delete most forwards you receive with any information purporting to be true.

It's always good to be reminded that you don't have to eat less to weigh less.

In case liposuction was on your Life List, you may want to reconsider. A new study, the first randomized of it's kind, showed that the fat sucked out of your body comes back in different places. Basically, your body likes to hang on to it's fat and gets worried when you suck it out... so it puts it back for you! How nice.

Does anyone remember the movie Cocktail with Tom Cruise and Elizabeth Shue? When they're talking about the guy who invented the little plastic thing on the end of shoelaces and how that little thing has a name and that it's name is probably Flugelbinder? No? You don't have the movie memorized the way I do? Odd. Anyway, apparently that little thing is actually called an Aglet. Learn the name of 24 other random things in your life here.

Since I know not one, but three, geographers I thought this geography article about finding Osama Bin Laden was a great story.

This tutorial on how to make the world's smallest postcards is awesome. Putting in my long list of bookmarks.

The power of humanity

2011-05-05T08:39:00.000-04:00

It's been an interesting journey to spend the first 20 or so years of my life in a mostly non-digital world and all the subsequent years in a hyper-digital world. I was in college from '95-'99 when the internet was still getting it's legs, so 90% of my papers were researched with books and articles and microfilms.

There was no social media of any kind in high school, college, and for the five years post-college. Ex-boyfriends and ex-friends stayed elusive and out of touch, there was no photo obsession, and there felt (to me) less of a focus on how it looks like you're living than how you're actually living.

But wedding planning and moving and pregnancy and parenting in an internet era has been a god-send. Easy access to information has saved my sanity thousands of times over. Not to mention that it's allowed me to feel like friends and family members all over the country are right here in my life even though they can't sit at my dining room table.

It's been an interesting thing to watch unfold. However. The pace of the world today and the amount of information overwhelms me on a second by second basis. Not tragically, just in a quiet way where it affects me. It's so easy to feel small, and it's so easy to feel like you have nothing new or interesting to contribute because it's already out there. And the beauty of the world is that that's not actually true.

Technology, regardless of stellar attempts, will never be able to usurp humanity. And every once in a while something comes along, something so simple, that really changes the world in a profound way. Dan Savage's It Gets Better campaign, started last fall, is doing just that. All he did was record a video of him and his boyfriend talking about how being a gay youth today can be hard, but it gets better, so please don't kill yourself. And it struck a beautiful chord and has saved lives.

I was reminded of all this the other night while watching Glee and Google Chrome used his campaign in their commercial. It absolutely made me tear up at the power of it all. Watch the commercial and the original It Gets Better video below.

The best decision we've ever made... excluding Charlotte

2011-05-04T08:51:00.000-04:00

Up until last fall B and I were sleeping on the same full size bed I had from high school. The mattress got a very bargain basement upgrade when my mom tried to drive the original mattress down to me about five years ago and got caught in a torrential storm that ripped the "protective cover" to shreds and soaked the mattress.

Full size. Do you KNOW how small that is? Even for two skinny people? Not to mention a few cats and a toddler. But an upgrade wasn't a priority, so we kept on with our doll-sized bed. But then B started having horrible back pain every morning. I told him it was just him being out of shape and being a bad sleeper and it wasn't the mattress. Until we went to a wedding and spent the night in a hotel and he woke up with zero back pain. Hmmm....

I still made him try one more week on the bed just to be SURE and then we went bed shopping. My reluctance to upgrade was due to the fact that we're both of the "do it once and do it right" philosophy. Especially when it comes to beds.

The way I see it, no piece of furniture in your house is more important than your bed. You spend half of your life in your bed, you relax in bed, your kids and pets cuddle up with you on Saturday mornings in bed, you can have some quiet time to talk with your spouse in bed. Nothing is more important in your house than your bed.

So we went ALL OUT. When I called my brother and told him we went "top of the line" he started laughing his ass off because he knows what a frugal cat his sister is and that she has literally never uttered that phrase once in her life.

We went king size, with a top of the line mattress, and a beautiful bed frame with two drawers in the footboard. Hands down, the best $3k we've ever spent in our lives. It's been about seven months and at least once a week we turn to each other and comment about what a good decision it was.

And when Charlotte gets sick and wants to sleep in our bed? There's plenty of room for her to snuggle in and still have the cats at our feet and have everyone get a good night's sleep.

So if you ever find yourself needing a new bed and if you have kids or pets in your lives I highly advise you to go big or go home.

Happily Aging

2011-05-03T07:48:00.000-04:00

This year I turn 34. Not for quite a while, but it's been the first birthday where I feel all "Thanks, but no thanks" about it. I was ecstatic to turn 30, and haven't really minded or paid attention to any of the three birthdays since. But I'm feeling the pull this year. 34 is basically 35 and 35 is scary.

So I was happy to stumble across this quote in O Magazine that gave me a little perspective:

"People who lie about their age are denying the truth and contributing to a sickness pervading our society - the sickness of wanting to be what you're not. Denial leads to delusion. I know for sure that only by owning who and what you are can you step into the fullness of life."

OK, I don't want to be delusional, so I'll give some thought to Ms. O's take on the whole thing...

Easy Entertaining

2011-05-02T08:35:00.001-04:00

We had the most unbelievable weather this weekend, just in time for Alice's visit. Today - and all week - it's back to clouds, rain, and 60 degrees, so I feel extra blessed that the four of us got to spend our time together out back talking, drinking, eating, and talking some more.

Menu

Since I knew the weather was going to be beautiful and I knew about all of the inevitable talking, I planned our weekend menu out in advance to be easy and fast. Despite all that, we still ate dinner around 8:30p thanks to all the chatter, but I had built in an appetizer so it was fine.

I used Alice's visit as a great excuse to consult all of those loose recipes from Everyday Food that I've ripped out over the past year and haven't added to my binder yet. I've had various food magazine subscriptions over the years and by far Everyday Food is the only one worth reading. The recipes are very short (no rounding up 20 different ingredients) and extremely delicious. If you need some easy monthly recipes, spend the $12 and get yourself a subscription. The magazine is small, has almost no articles, and gets right to the point.

We had one dinner and one breakfast together, and I did a lot of the prep work ahead of time to expedite the process.

Appetizer - Cucumber Feta Toasts
Oh my god. I will never make another summer appetizer ever again. These had 5 ingredients and were so easy and delicious that I'm fairly certain I alone ate half of that plate. I made the feta mixture ahead of time, using more olive oil and lemon than the recipe called for, and B did the rest when it was time.

Salad - Organic romaine hearts, chopped pear, crumbled Gorgonzola, chopped walnuts, homemade vinaigrette

Main Course - Pasta with Roasted Vegetables and Arugula (we used spinach instead)
I was moving a little too fast when I was making this Saturday night and forgot to add the spinach and the cheese and it was still delicious. This picture is from Sunday night when we had the leftovers, but remembered to add the missing ingredients. I had roasted the vegetables earlier in the day, so putting this together was super fast.

Breakfast - Scrambled eggs, turkey sausage (much quicker and neater than bacon), and Blackberry Puffs

My puffs aren't nearly as pretty as the ones in the magazine, but they were delicious. They were the perfect bread/fruit addition to breakfast and weren't too sweet. It's puffed pastry filled with marscapone cheese and crushed blackberries. Once again, I ate way too many.

I was really happy with how the menu worked out. We got to try new recipes, cook great food for our guest, and have zero stress and very little time in the kitchen. How about you - any simple, delicious, go-to recipes that you whip out for company? If so, let me know in the comments!

Friday Reading Group

2011-04-29T11:48:00.002-04:00

Hi lovies! Sorry for the absence yesterday, our internet was down. But I've been spending the last two days thinking of Charlotte's new baby cousin Noah anyway, so although I adore you, he's my focus this week!

What are your plans this fine spring weekend? B and I are spending the day cleaning out the guest room/office/storage room to make room for my lovely friend Alice who is gracing us with her presence this weekend. Alice and I have never had a weekend alone - ever! - so I'm over the moon at all the chatting and wine drinking and happiness that awaits.

These would make a super cute display for a party.

I had never heard of Tilt-Shift Photography before but these pictures are absurd! I still can't believe they're real!

There is NO woman who hasn't had this exact issue and it's so annoying. Be sure to look at the multimedia graphic on the left of the article.

As someone who has always been more Audrey than Snookie, I hope this fashion prediction is true.

Design Love

2011-04-27T07:15:00.001-04:00

From the most recent Ruche Lookbook. How adorable is that background?! I'm pretty sure it's just pink plastic plates glued to a wall. You should totally recreate that.

The top photo has me craving a beach house where I can playfully re-purpose construction material into gorgeous rustic coffee tables.

Minty Goodness

2011-04-26T07:44:00.000-04:00

Remember how a few weeks ago I was talking about finances and how important it is for someone in the household to keep track of what's going on? Well I have the next step for you and it's EASY, SAFE, and FREE. Seriously, I kind of freaked out with excitement when I signed up.

Introducing Mint!

You NEED to find an hour in your day - TODAY - and go set this up.

Mint syncs itself with your bank account, plus any loans and credit cards. It's been reviewed and certified as safe by every authority you can think of, so there's no need to worry.

Once you sync up all of your accounts you'll have a list of transactions from the last 90 days. Probably 90% of your transactions will be automatically categorized properly by Mint - restaurants, clothes, groceries, gas, etc. But to really make the system accurate, you need to go through and tweak the categories.

Change your Target purchases from Shopping to Baby Expenses; take that restaurant meal that you put on your card (but collected half in cash for from your dining patrons) and split it out so half is marked as Reimbursable and therefore doesn't show up as an expense; take your tax refund and exclude it from Mint calculations so it doesn't skew your monthly income, etc. The possibilities for personalization are endless.

But the best part comes after you've set the system up. Once you've perfected the past 90 days, you're up and running. From here on out you just tweak the categories every week or so and then get to look at EXACTLY what you spend every month on clothes, take out, travel, gas, etc.

Because how many of us really know exactly what our gas budget, clothes budget, and take-out budget is every month? I bet almost none of us, and that's kind of horrifying.

After living with credit card debt for years (not any more), and having to be a Money Ninja with only the one income around here, I feel so passionate (and a little militant), about all of us being more knowledgeable about our spending habits. Haven't you heard? Knowledge is Power.

Easter

2011-04-25T08:56:00.000-04:00

We had such a wonderful Easter yesterday. It made me think that Easter is an underrated holiday. It's a celebration of spring (a big deal around here), the colors are so pretty, the creative possibilities are endless, and there aren't any of the weird expectations that accompany other big holidays. It also made me realize that Charlotte is an Easter egg hunting master. We really didn't know how she was going to do with it, but damn.

These were the favors I brought to Easter dinner. They're real eggs, blown out, spray painted, and then with a fortune inside. I got the idea here. They were so fun. I think next year I might make them again, but with a twist. I think they'd be super cute painted in bright pastels, and then put on skewers and into a vase to look like flowers.

Reading fortunes

During the Easter egg hunt. Please note the expert, purse-like, manner in which she's holding her basket.

Delighted to learn that some of the eggs had Hershey kisses inside!

Friday Reading Group

2011-04-22T08:46:00.000-04:00

Good Friday AND Earth Day. Christians and Pagans unite! I feel like that has to be a good sign, a day when everyone can find a reason to celebrate.

Tonight we have last weekend's rescheduled Mexican dinner with friends, Sunday is quite obviously Easter, and we're still hoping that somewhere in the middle we'll get that new cousin we're all anxiously waiting for! I'm making a cute favor for Easter dinner, so if it turns out the way I'm hoping I'll show you that on Monday.

In the meantime, enjoy your links and enjoy your weekend!

As you probably know, the world's decreasing water supply and increasing population is starting to become a huge problem. And while it may not be on the radar of the average American, it's very much on the radar of the scientists and the green energy folks. Listen to this interview on Fresh Air and hear how many easy and great strides Las Vegas is taking to help out the problem.

When it comes to movies I'm exceedingly picky. I don't want to learn or be scared or be depressed. I just want to have fun. But the huge sinkhole I fall into is that I want to have smart, witty fun, not dumb shit romantic comedy fun, or jokes that appeal to 13 year old boys fun. The last movie I really loved was The Hangover, and that came out two years ago. So when I saw this trailer (and the accompanying good reviews) for Bridesmaids, I kind of freaked out. It looks smart and fun and has an unbelievably talented cast.

This non-candy Creative Play Easter Basket is so cute and awesome.

From an ugly sweater tank top (what??) to an adorable bag in about 30 minutes. Genius.

B and I are obsessed with this theme song! It's so bouncy and happy and we sing along every Thursday night.

An interesting take on the accusations that Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook. Basically the author says that it doesn't matter because it's what he did with it that counts.

Friday Reading Group is a weekly series where I help you procrastinate by offering various links around the web. Help support the cause - email any good articles, pictures, or videos you find to sanders492[at]yahoo[dot]com with Friday Reading Group in the subject line.

A Mother's Prayer for Its Child, by Tina Fey

2011-04-21T07:47:00.000-04:00

In the year and a half since I've owned my Android phone, the only application I've ever paid for is BeyondPod, an app that lets me download and listen to podcasts. I love it. I never really understood the world of podcasts before, but now that I can get them right on my phone and store them for road trips, flights, etc, I'm a total devotee.

The other day, while cleaning or getting ready or something else equally boring, I listened to the 45 min interview of Tina Fey on Fresh Air. I have to say, I watch 30 Rock but I have NOT been giving Tina Fey her fair admiration. I loved the interview and especially her takes on modern day feminism. The interview is free through that link; you have to listen. I really don't think there are any voices out there right now that are as on-point and funny, she's my new role model.

She was on the show to promote her new book Bossypants and as part of the interview read an excerpt entitled A Mother's Prayer for Its Child. B heard me listening to it from the next room and yelled that he had just heard that interview yesterday in the car and was crying with laughter when she read it. It's alarmingly true, I may frame this for Charlotte's room.

A Mother's Prayer for Its Child
By: Tina Fey

“First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, may she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels. What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, that she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back. “My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.”

Rainy hump day

2011-04-20T08:07:00.000-04:00

Just a quick one today. The kiddo has a cold and was up half the night. Plus, the big kiddos in the area are all on Spring Break which means that all of the story times and classes that we normally go to to keep ourselves busy are also on hiatus. Plus it's raining. So, no sleep, no activities, and no chances to go outside = tough week for the tall people in the house.

I very randomly ran across this short video yesterday called How An Engineer Folds A T-Shirt and it's awesome. The engineer husband really liked it and responded with "save that... I'm totally making one of those."

Cans & Eggs

2011-04-18T10:45:00.004-04:00

It was a low key but lovely weekend around here. Our plans for Margaritas and Mexican got nixed when I came down with a bizarre stomach bug on Saturday night (SO sad), but Friday at the museum and Sunday at Nana and Papa's house still provided plenty of excitement. Well... in that way where your definition of "excitement" changes in a post-kid universe.

Here's the Canstruction exhibit I had mentioned on Friday. It's a collaboration between the museum, the local food pantries and local architects. Ten groups of local architects raise the money to purchase their cans (around 3500 per sculpture), build their piece in one day, and then all of the cans get donated to local pantries in two weeks. Additionally, each visitor is asked to bring in a can of food and vote for their favorite display by putting their can into bins.

Here's B with the Rock 'em Sock 'em robots.

See how I'm in focus and she's blurry with one foot off the ground? The picture is an accurate portrayal of our days together.

In front of the Angry Birds sculpture

Charlotte casts her vote for the "tweet tweets"

Unlike every other time on the carousel where she dove off the minute it started to move, she had a passionate change of heart this time as you can see by the explosive smile on her face.

The happy chaos of dying eggs with toddlers

Friday Reading Group

2011-04-15T07:00:00.061-04:00

Alas, we've come to another Friday, horray! In case you don't know, Fridays are just as exciting to stay at home moms as they are to working moms. I have help with childcare! I have someone to talk to! I have an excuse to eat bacon tomorrow morning!

This morning we're headed to the State Museum to see the unbelievably cool exhibit/art installation/fundraiser Canstruction. It's only in town for less than two weeks and this is the only time we'll be able to go all together, so I did a little extra cleaning and bath-giving last night to help get us out of the house a little faster. B loved his bath, but he cried a little when the soap got in his eyes.

This weekend continues what I'm calling our Four Weekends of Awesome. Last weekend - NYC, This weekend - Mexican food with friends, Next weekend - Easter Bunny, Last weekend in April - Wonderful friend comes to visit. Hu-Ah! And somewhere in all that Charlotte will be getting another little cousin! April 2011 is epic.

I have so many links on my list this week that I'm only giving you half of them so as not to blow your mind. It is Friday after all. I hope your weekend plans are just as exciting, relaxing, or inspiring as you'd like them to be.

I don't really care about baseball, especially now that Andy Pettitte is gone, but this video about the Yankees / Red Sox rivalry with Alec Baldwin & John Krasinski is awesome.

I love these guys and I'm super excited to read this new (radical) parenting book.

This is one of those things that would have never occurred to me to put on my Life List because it just sounds so expensive and exotic. Thank god I've been shown the light. Thanks, Jordan!

A slightly horrifying but important article about how advertisers sell to women: "create body anxieties women didn't know they had, then sell them the solution"

I'm not usually one for animal videos on You Tube, but COME ON!

I had no idea Republicans from Wyoming could be so logical. Well done.

Design Love: Family jewelry

2011-04-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

Ever since Charlotte was born I've wanted a piece of jewelry that commemorates her. Something I can wear when we're not together to keep her close. I only recently started looking around, and whether you're a couple, a parent, or a grandparent, there's some really great stuff out there. Here are a few of my favorites:

Vintage Lovebirds - $68

This one appeals to me mostly because of B's love of birds, it reminds me so much of us. Just sittin' on a wire, lovin on each other, watching the world go by.

Hammered Charming Duo - $120

If I had two kids, this would definitely be my front runner. The necklace comes with two engraved charms and two birthstones of your choosing.

Silver Stacking Rings - $15 each

I think these would be perfect for a grandmother. They could be worn daily and added to easily.

There are several more beautiful options on the three websites I just linked to, this is only a small sample. Mother's Day is only three weeks away, so whatever you're buying, it's time to start thinking about it!

Poll: Pollyanna or Scrooge?

2011-04-13T08:20:00.000-04:00

When we were eating, family style with 8 other people, at Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House in Savannah, one of the gentlemen was talking about a trip he had taken recently and concluded his story with "Yup, you meet good people wherever you go." And his statement kind of knocked me on my ass. He just seemed so... convinced. It was his unquestionable world view that, obviously, you'll meet good people wherever you go.

And call me a product of a cranky New England upbringing, but I have never once thought that. I know perfectly well that there ARE good people wherever you go, but I've never been convinced of it in such a particular way as that man was. He fully expected to meet really good people wherever he went.

I fully expect to meet ignorant or distant or rude people wherever I go. Yikes. And the thing is, I've never heard any friend or family member or stranger express the sentiment that he did. So I think, unfortunately, that my assumptions are more common than his.

But I'd like to hear from you - when you go out into the world, do you assume you're on your way to meet good people or do you assume you're gonna encounter some assholes?

Tell me in the comments.

Yearly Family Album

2011-04-12T08:51:00.000-04:00

Some time last year B commented that he really didn't like the fact that digital pictures have essentially eliminated photo albums. He wanted to have a bookshelf with all of our pictures from over the years that our kids and guests could flip through. Not have them all huddle around a computer while we say "oh we went on this trip 20 years ago, let me pull up the folder, hold on..."

It wasn't long after that that I learned that both Ouiser and Feather Nester make annual albums. Ouiser's is a family album and Feather Nester's is for her daughter, whose birthday is near the end of the year.

So I set out with vigor last November and made the whole yearly album and thought it was going to be the best Christmas present B has ever received and nearly ordered it before I realized that the month of December hadn't happened yet. Oops. OK, so the album can't be a Christmas present, but I made it anyway as a family memento.

It was a really interesting process for two reasons. First of all, it finally gave me a good system for organizing our photos. Now I do it chronologically. There's a folder labeled "2010" and within that folder are 12 additional folders for each month. SO simple. Also very easy for album making.

The second benefit was that it made me realize that we had a really great year and had a lot more adventures and trips and memories than I think I realized. It was so wonderful to flip through the finished product.

The album ended up being about 90 pages long and I waited until I had a 20% coupon plus free shipping at Kodak Gallery and saved over $30 on the order. Again, if you haven't received any coupons, add the finished product to your cart and let it sit there for a while, they'll email you coupons to encourage you to finish the order.

Here are a few of the pages. Apologies for the poor picture quality, I had to scan them and the book didn't lay quite flat enough for perfect quality.

This is the first page - the cover is a blue linen with a cut out square so you can see part of this picture.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn: A Love Affair

2011-04-11T10:28:00.000-04:00

March was a really rough month in the Scarlet Lily household. B had an extra graduate class on top of the two he's already taking, he went through a major job transition whereby he was doing the work of the new job AND the old job (all that just ended Thursday), and it was the last month of an exceptionally long winter.

To help with the difficulties, B went behind my back and planned a weekend in NYC with two of our favorite people. And in the perfect Rom-Com moment, he even surprised me with the pre-planned trip after I had had a particularly rough day. It was the most unexpected and wonderful surprise a girl could ask for.

So we spent this weekend in Williamsburg, Brooklyn which is my new favorite spot. It's artsy, hip, walkable, fun, has amazing food, and is smaller and less frenetic than Manhattan. As always, there is nothing I love more than feeling like my world view has been expanded a little... new fashions, new ideas, new conversations, etc. and this weekend was perfect for that. Here are a few of the places we visited:

Dinner at Fiore
Drinks at BarBerry
Sampled (and purchased) gourmet chocolate at Mast Brothers Chocolate
Brunch at Sweetwater
Saw Neil Patrick Harris run by us and hop into his Maserati on Metropolitan St. (can't give you a link for that one!)

We also ended the weekend with our first IKEA experience to get Charlotte a table and chairs for eating and playing. It's already making our day much easier!

One of the awesome girls we visited is a trapeze artist (no, really) and was just featured in this unbelievable commercial for her employer, Trapeze School New York. If this doesn't inspire you to step outside your comfort zone, nothing will.

Friday Reading Group

2011-04-08T07:00:00.001-04:00

It's Friday, the weather has been amazing since Wednesday, and the hubby and I are popping down to NYC this weekend for a quick bit of fun with some friends. Life is good. It takes quite a man to arrange a surprise trip to spend the weekend with three women, all of whom are prone to squealing once they get together. Don't feel too sorry for him though, he's gonna feel like Hef all weekend.

The winter was too damn long and we ended it with a particularly brutal month of B's school and work schedule, so no one is happier to see April than we are. And I'm extra happy because I took a year and a half's worth of spare change to the bank today (they only charge 4% as opposed to Coin Star's 9%) and walked away with a sweet fist of $150 to help fund our weekend. Holla!

Enjoy your links and enjoy your weekend! Meet you back here on Monday...

The guy who invented Twitter has another big idea

Read about the "World's Worst Best Restaurant"

Slate makes the case that NPR should go on but PBS should get the axe

The magic of 4 chords

Charlie Sheen set to autotune - it never gets old. You'll be singing "I'm bi-winning!!" for days.

Read about one mom's account of school in France. Sounds far superior if you ask me.

Help me!

2011-04-07T07:00:00.001-04:00

I was cleaning out some boxes in the garage and found a box labeled "decorations." I sent about half of it to Goodwill and then found a little bag of metal letters. You guys, I have NO idea what these letters are supposed to spell! You need to help me figure this out - what are these letters supposed to spell out?! Go...

Post-pregnancy clothes

2011-04-06T07:00:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty sure at least half the women I know are either pregnant or just had a baby. I have no idea what was so exciting about the end of last summer, but I clearly missed the memo. The crappy thing about post-baby body is not only are you going to be hanging on to some extra weight for a while - making it so that all of your old clothes don't fit - the weight isn't evenly distributed throughout your body. It's all in the middle, making dressing even more difficult.

And of course you don't want to spend a bunch of money buying new clothes that you will hopefully not need in six months, but you also can't fit into anything you currently own. It is this exact dilemma that I was reminded of when I received yet another random clothing catalog from another random company I've never heard of.

But when I flipped through the Body Central catalog all I could think was these clothes would be perfect for post-baby! They're really inexpensive, and they're all in the blousy style, perfect for hiding the middle. (Because of that, they would also be perfect for first-trimester body when you just look a little fat, and not adorably pregnant yet.)

* Body warning for all the first-time moms out there... Most of the time, even if you lose all the baby weight, half of your clothes STILL won't fit because your hips have expanded a little and everything has just shifted in an imperceptible way that only your clothes notice.

Kimono Style Sublimation Top

$19.80

Blossom Print Maxi Dress

$34.50

Sublimation Smocked Top

$19.80

Brightly Embroidered Tube Dress

$24.80

Simple Composting

2011-04-05T07:00:00.000-04:00

Composting is one of those things that sounds really hippish, annoying, smelly, and complicated. But it's NONE of those things, and if you really knew how simple it was, you would start tomorrow, so let's talk about it.

ONE THIRD of our landfills are filled with food. Food that if it was in your compost would break down quickly and easily, but food that when buried and compacted doesn't break down easily and releases TONS of unnecessary methane in the atmosphere.

The worst thing you can do if you're considering composting is to Google it. Don't do it! You'll get site after site after site about oxygen and nitrogen and greens and browns and worms and lasagna layers and on and on. I used to work with a real life, Cornell-certified Master Composter and she knows and approves of my easy system. So if you're the type of person who needs credentials, then look! I just got some for you!

Now, let's compost in 3 easy steps...

1. But a container of your choosing, put it somewhere, and remember this: No meat, dairy, oil.
Yes - Fruits, vegetables, bread, tissues, the daily coffee grinds and filter, egg shells, soda, etc.
No - Meat, dairy, oil

2. You can't just have food scraps, you need to balance out the gases or your pile will smell and attract flies. Do this with dead leaves, dead hay, or paper scraps. I keep our shredder next to our garbage and recycling. I shred all white, non-glossy paper and dump the shreds into the composter.

3. Put everything from Step 1 and Step 2 into your composter. You can certainly make a pretty one out of a used wine barrel or build your own, but you can also buy the ugly one at Lowes for $50. Stir it every so often and you'll have a pile of amazing dirt at the bottom of the pile.

We don't even do anything with our super special dirt since we don't have a garden. Our main reason is environmental so it just kind of sits there. We'll probably scoop out the bottom this spring to make room for the new stuff.

Now get on it. Seriously, there's no reason not to do this. It's easy and it's the right thing to do.

Tips for flying with a toddler

2011-04-04T09:27:00.000-04:00

This is the backpack packed for the flight out. The black bag with white designs in the back was filled with snacks. The Magnadoodle was a new toy, and every other book and toy was in the checked bag on the flight back because she couldn't have cared less about my desperate attempts at entertaining her.

The Basics:

We flew from Albany, NY to Portland, OR on Southwest Airlines. We had a 40 min layover at Chicago, Midway, and Charlotte had her own seat. Flying time = approx. 7 hours.

DON'T:

Expect the airlines to carry milk as one of the beverage options and then not buy any extra before boarding a flight for 7 hours, especially when your toddler is firmly in the stage where milk is a comfort food.
Expect that "Family Boarding" is even remotely helpful because the moment your tickets get scanned, so do everyone else's and then it's still an awkward scramble to get to your seat, get the carseat in, and get everyone settled
Expect to do ANYthing other than hold their legs and feet down for the ENTIRE flight. Once in the car seat, their poor feet are touching the seat in front of them, so even the slightest twitch means they're kicking the person in that seat. And if you've flown enough you know how MADDENING that is when it happens to you. (see pic below)
Spend the world's shortest layover circling Chicago because the cloud cover is too thick to land, then deal with a cranky gate agent who won't look up your gate, then run to your gate, then have everyone on the plane move so you can put the car seat in the required spot (window seat), then fly for an additional 4 1/2 hours to your destination with the seat belt sign on, meaning your toddler has now been forced to sit for 7 hours without moving.
Let your laptop break a week before your trip and then have no media or cartoons to rely on.
Spend even two seconds feeling bad if you want to give your kid Benedryl. I didn't, but only because I learned on the flight out that I should have, and on the flight back she was sleep deprived and actually feel asleep once or twice.

DO:

Pack tons and tons of food - both for you and for them. Assume that you'll need all meals for both of you for the entire day - don't count on layovers or airline food.
Have a HUGE glass of wine when you land, or while you're still in the air if you want to!
Attempt to have a layover longer than 30 min if you have your choice of flights
Totally revamp your mindset on how early you should get to the airport. In order to get to the airport, return the rental car, get through security, and have enough time to buy food and let her run around, we left our hotel THREE hours before our flight departure time.
Spend the money and get them their own seat (it's not required until they're 2). It's safer, and unless they're a newborn, I don't see how you can hold them for that long and keep your sanity.
Relax and know that everything will go slow and awkward (security, seating, etc.), but it can still work out fine.

Friday Reading Group

2011-04-01T11:38:00.002-04:00

This is what I remember about Fridays in cube-land: you're kind of over it. I mean, I would imagine that everyone is kind of over it by the time Friday rolls around, but if your job is in front of a computer you have more opportunities to slack off than other people. So to celebrate you, the working man, I'd like to help you in your Friday quest to start your weekend early and abuse your company's internet policy by giving you things to read.

They will almost certainly not be too intelligent because that is not what Fridays are for, and there's a good chance they're going to come from the same six websites I visit everyday, but they will help distract you for a little while.

I'd like to make this a weekly series and you should definitely help. If you run across a picture, an article, a video, etc, that you'd like to share, email the link to me with Friday Reading Group in the subject line. Email: sanders492[at]yahoo[dot]com

I love this article about the turn that television has taken in recent years, proving that you don't have to be assholes to be funny.

Top 20 ways to use a disposable camera

Peach and Brie Quesadillas

I fell like not enough people wear broaches in the shape or placentas... or buy their kids really graphic birth dolls that illustrate the way babies are born. Check out those and the other Top 20 Weird Baby Products.

Think Facebook is a fad? Seems as though the experts think it could be just the beginning of a Facebook dominated world.

I know it's nowhere near Christmas, even for the early shoppers, but I adore these little hand made monogrammed ornaments!

Don't be a fool, spell it the right way.

Visit to OR and WA

2011-03-31T09:14:00.000-04:00

Blog Post - Take 2. I started this yesterday and was literally too tired to finish. But thanks to some slightly inappropriate Benedryl usage, the child fell asleep before 2am last night so I'm at least functioning at 75% today. Stupid time zones.

We had a wonderful trip to see the family despite all the rain. We divided our time between Charlotte's Grandpa and Didi up in Washington, and her Uncle Mark and his girlfriend down in Portland. We spent most of our Oregon time out on the coast, so I don't have many sightseeing pics for you, just a few family ones.

Dancing cheek to cheek with Grandpa

Loving every minute of her garden time

We weren't smart enough to introduce her to the piano until our last day with Grandpa and Didi, but she sat there forever, so we'll know better next time.

Low tide out on the Oregon coast

(Nothing in my New England brain makes it normal to see a coast bordered by coniferous trees!)

Playing in the tide pools

Only moments before the violent rain storm hit and we trudged the half mile through the sand back to the car - soaked and numb

Riding the Portland tram on our last day

Cross your fingers

2011-03-29T13:06:00.001-04:00

All seated and ready to go. She doesn't have any Bendryl in her yet, but that's only because I'm banking on sleep deprivation to kick in. Having to pin her legs down for seven hours to avoid kicking the seat in front of her is actually more annoying than the tantrums.

Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android

Giovanina Bucci: musical goddess and wildly photogenic

2011-03-28T11:31:00.000-04:00

Charlotte and I are still hanging on the left coast for another day, so until I can be reunited with my camera cord and show you some pictures and videos of our trip, I'll reunite you with an old friend...

New Music Website!

www.giovaninabucci.com

Rainier, WA

2011-03-25T07:00:00.001-04:00

Charlotte and I are having a wonderful time with Grandpa (pronounced "Baaap-pa") and Didi and all of the lovely sunshine. As you can see from the gravel driveway, there are enough rocks to keep the budding geologist happy for days.

We're headed back down to Portland today and then out to the Oregon coast for a few days. Hope you have an equally lovely weekend planned.

Business card

2011-03-24T07:00:00.002-04:00

This is the business card that B's sister and I made last month when I needed a card to hand out to the people at the party I was photographing. Lovely, yes?

Forgiveness

2011-03-23T07:00:00.002-04:00

Heard this quote on the Oprah show a while ago and thought it was so interesting - I've been meaning to share it with you forever. Thoughts?

"Forgiveness is giving up the hope

that the past could have been any different."