a day of pink and red

my boys now know that there is another holiday other than halloween that seemingly revolves around candy. and they love it. there was candy everywhere. it was inside cards, it was at story time, it was from us, it was from grandparents, it was on cupcakes!

i even worked up the nerve and energy to do a craft with them, and in my book, it was a success.  elisha sprinkled crayon shavings, helped me iron the paper, and even cut out two hearts. asher sprinkled the crayon shavings but then i lost him to his current obsession – singing along with carole king to i feel the earth move. on repeat. very loudly.

our valentine’s day dinner ended up being a bust. i know the grass-fed cow i ate was supposedly happy and well-fed while on this earth, but oh boy, it was bad. what i would have done for a little marbling. i wish that the cow we ate had found its way into a lovely corn field and gorged himself until he got caught.

good wine, cupcakes, and an endless supply of sweetarts made it all better.

when he’s seven

at some point in the last five days asher has come to believe that age seven is magical, freeing, and a lot older than it really is.  all the following have been declared:

i’m going to have a computer when i’m seven.

i’m going to separate eggs when i’m seven.

i’m going to be a pastor when i’m seven.

i’m going to be done with school when i’m seven.

i’m going to drive when i’m seven.

i’m going to have a watch when i’m seven.

i’m going to be a diver with a spear when i’m seven. but still a pastor, alright?

two flew north

i don’t normally take pictures of my food at restaurants, but this was a memorable occasion.  it was the best blt i have ever eaten.  it was eaten at a table with only omar.  it was accompanied by a crispin chotokkyu hard cider and fries covered in five spice powder. in an airport.

we just got back from a trip to north carolina, and we knew we were in for a great trip when only two hours into our journey omar remembered a Food&Wine article about the best airport restaurants.  atlanta earned a mention with its restaurant one flew south and we had two hours to kill.  now we’re just trying to figure out reasons why we must always fly through atlanta. the restaurant was lovely, the food delicious, and the cider a fortunate find.  we just finished watching the pbs show based on michael pollan’s book The Botany of Desire, and a segment of the show discusses the history of hard cider (not always the sweet variety) in america and how it is harder to come by these days, just not in the atlanta airport. and they even carried a more obscure hard cider made with sake yeast.

so good, friends. and it’s in terminal E, which is always a nice breather from the craziness of the rest of the airport. and isn’t it our good fortune that we’ll be back up there in a couple of weeks for another trip.

it was a work trip for omar, but i got to tag along and spend time with the dearest and most generous of friends. i was a bit worried about leaving the kids for four nights (their rambunctiousness and my parents’ sanity being the chief concerns) but they seemingly had a wonderful time and found my phone calls more of a disturbance than a time to shed any tears (by parents or kids).

we’re now back. the scarves are packed away. lenna has been a little bit more cuddly than normal and actually let me trick her into letting me carry her in the beco for awhile today. (our baby carrying days are nearing an end. sniff.) and the boys took turns coming up to me today telling me how glad they are we’re back:  “oh, you are!?” i gushed to asher.          “yeah, i missed my bed.”

welcome home.

beds

lenna’s bed is full of buddies and books and baby toys that she’s long outgrown but uses to make fantastic noises against the wall. i’m not quite ready to put them away yet. she is learning the art of the bedtime delay:  needs her buddies just so, asks for water, pats her back as a signal to begin the scratching, and hums/sings to prompt us to start the lullabies. the other night she was too tired to flip onto her back so just patted her tummy. i laughed and started scratching her belly while her eyes started to close.

elisha’s bed is full of, well, everything. he’s our pack rat. many nights we open the door to find him fast asleep with a truck, a horse on a stick, a light saber, and legos upon legos. he used to love lots of scratches and song after song and question after question. but now his napless days mean his eyes are already rolling back as his head hits the pillow.

asher’s bed is full of blankets and books. he wants us to stay and talk about how he’s never moving out. it’s the one time of day he is still.

my bedside is full of books which is ridiculous because unless i am absolutely riveted with a book, i doze after about two lines when i read in bed. at this stage in life the best reading happens in an uncomfortable chair. i’ve started moving any book that i have any desire to read to the living room. at least it’ll have a chance. “but tonight will be different,” i said last night. The Aeneid and i became acquainted through page two. and goodnight.

and then he made a sandwich

the morning was abuzz with so much talking.  there is always (always.) an incredible amount of talking around here but this morning it felt like too much. so much so that things almost felt muffled and hazy.

there was an incident involving two little boys that resulted in an all things star wars (humming theme songs included)/light saber/nerf gun ban for the foreseeable future. sweet relief.

some quick errands provided plenty of “teachable moments” to the point that by the time we got to the grocery store we were all getting tired of the fussing and correcting thus everyone was a bit on the mellow side. cue well-intentioned shopper who bestowed upon me the parental kiss of death, “oh my, i have never seen such well-behaved children at a grocery store ever!”  i gripped the shopping cart with white knuckles and braced myself for the almost absolute certainty that a full-on meltdown was about to erupt from one of them as a result of such hyperbole. but then the boys actually looked right up at me and giggled. the boys and i shared a knowing laugh, i winked at them, and (thankfully) everything was fine.

we came home. and the talking continued and got louder and louder. and there was a girl who flirted with a tantrum because her mama refused to put the rio theme song on repeat, a boy who just couldn’t sit semi-still and eat, and another boy who was a bottomless pit and kept asking for me to get up and get him more food. and as i was about to hit that point where i just wanted to put my head down and sleep for a bit, he said, “it’s ok, mom, i’ll make my own sandwich.” and he did. things got quieter and less hazy, and he was beyond proud and looked quite a bit older over there smearing pb and jelly on his bread. i smiled and told him that i thought he should take over making dinners from now on.  “sure!” he said happily.

watching

what does one do when they are emerging from a blurry weekend of migraines?  they watch things:

1. Bill Cunningham New York.  80 year old New York Times fashion photographer pedals around manhattan on a trusty bike wearing his blue jacket while taking photos of street fashion.  to me the most intriguing aspect of the documentary was the focus on the simplicity of his life and his refusal to be swayed by the money and power that could so easily have been his for the taking.

2. The Bark Side VW commercial.  for the past few weeks there is someone, at all times, humming various songs from Star Wars.  i am going mad from it.  but this just makes me laugh. very hard.

3. Buck Denver Asks…What’s in the Bible?.  we’ve only watched one episode, but omar and i laughed, the boys laughed, and we all got to learn about Catherine of Siena, Saint Jerome, the septuagint, and what the overarching story of the bible is telling us.  not bad for 30 minutes.

4. The War on Kids.  documentary #2 of the weekend (you can watch the whole thing here).  thought provoking film that aims to show how many (please note: i am completely aware that not all schools are like the schools profiled here) public schools are moving/have moved in a direction that denies students’ civil rights and seeks to control and instill fear in kids. the best parts are about the policy of zero-tolerance, drugs in schools, and the unfortunate results of much of the medication used to calm children.  what bothers me about the documentary is how it fails to offer any ideas on how to change the state of much of public schooling. what are some possible answers? it doesn’t give any.  where is the call for parents to step in and refuse to be bullied themselves? there is none.  many friends of mine who send their kids to public school are deeply committed to their children’s education and refuse to sit on the sidelines and tolerate much of the absolute crap you see here.  i felt i watched this more from the perspective of a former public school student than i did a teaching mother. much of it resonated with my experience.  i attended public schools from kindergarten through my undergraduate years. i would say i got an ok education and had 4 teachers (from elementary through high school) that i clearly remember as being excellent and many, many, many who were abysmal. and then there were some who were downright strange and wacky (like my 11th grade AP english teacher who accused me of doodling while taking notes (guilty) and tried to force me to put my head down for the rest of class). metal detectors weren’t at my high school by the time i graduated but we did have the equivalent of barney fife as our school police officer who truly made us nervous, except he actually carried a loaded weapon.

while there are some definite weaknesses here, i recommend it.

thursdays are for cleaning

thursday is cleaning day.  thursday is the day motown music blares.  winter thursdays are the days when all doors and windows are opened.  thursday is the day i lose half my supply of paper towels to the little people before i wise up and switch them to rags.  thursday is the day i realize that my pre-kid self would’ve thought three kids “cleaning” together would have been just shy of precious. this thursday is the day that i laugh at my pre-kid self and turn the music up a bit louder and am thankful that at least they’re eager. thursday is the day that nap time/quiet time is indeed quiet because of all the rambunctiousness of the morning.  thursday is the day that the floors are clean, omar notices, and i kiss him.