lucky one

October 10, 2011 By

I remember the marble being such a pretty color, peachy with ribbons of coral running through it.  It was everywhere.  Marble tub.  Marble sink.  Marble floor. “That’s a lot of stinkin marble,” I thought to myself as I was lying there, half-naked, face-down on the floor with a nose that might be broken. I was only sixteen.  When it happened– the familiar burning and surging and cramping in my abdomen– I’d carry pillows with me to the toilet.  I figured that if I passed out, they would break the fall.   It never worked, and I never learned.

Once, after waking up on the floor in a public stall, I simply wiped my face off and headed back to Chemistry class.  My friends in college all freaked out in that dramatic, ohmygodshe’stotallygoingtodie way, as supportive as newly formed friends who share a common dormitory can possibly be.  The doctors never figured out why the pain caused me to pass out.  The neurologist ruled out epilepsy, although according to some probe-strapping test, something was definitely a “bit off” with my brainwaves.  That explains a lot.  But one day, I had a beautiful little girl and I never passed out again.

My life doesn’t exactly follow the odds.  I guess you could say I’m lucky.

▪               Ten years ago, an oncologist told me I had a chunk of melanoma living in my eye socket.  Eye cancer is very rare, as it turns out.  One in a million.  Who knew I’d get to travel to Philadelphia and have surgery in one of America’s oldest cities?  As it turns out, I love cheesesteak and Thomas Jefferson.

▪               When I was in the hospital after the birth of my daughter, first a week and extending to three and then four, undergoing multiple surgeries and stabbing myself with blood-thinner injections, I was told it wasn’t exactly normal.  I tried to put on lipstick to make it all better, but with a four-week-old child at home I’d barely begun to hold, Chanel can only do so much.  Don’t get me wrong – it can do a lot. But there are limits.

▪               Most people don’t pass out after having their wisdom teeth extracted and have CPR performed in the oral surgeon’s office lobby because they had some extreme reaction to Demerol. Lucky for me, they had some sort of anti-Demorol agent locked away someplace they stuck in my arm.  I remember getting to drink juice when I woke up. But then again, I’ve woken up from loads of surgeries, so I might be getting them all confused.

▪               Before the birth of my son, right after the spinal tap was placed and the medicine was slowly crawling through my veins toward the arteries of my heart, it stopped. The monitor would just so naturally flatline, because that’s what luck I have.   But like I arose from the marble floor, so too would my heart begin to beat.  After, of course, the chest compressions, the stabbing of epinephrine, and some other medication that apparently gives you dry mouth.

So it wasn’t all that surprising that our house was struck by lightning.  And instead of killing us or burning our house to the ground, it instead wiped out all our plumbing.  “That’s very rare,” the fireman said.   Yeah.  Welcome to my life.  Things happen to me.  Things that don’t happen to normal people.

I can’t help but think God has some grand scheme behind all of this, like there is some grand point to be made.  In response, I’m actively searching for what that is.  What role I need to play in the universe in return for my good fortune.  I’m open, as they say, to change.

I am truly grateful for the moments in which we are tested.  To see what’s most important.  I am grateful for a faith, true and honest, despite all reason to the contrary.  I am grateful for this body, as battered and broken as my insides might be.  I am grateful that I’m not married to some boring widget of a man, but a man bursting at the seams with heart.  I’m grateful for my children, deep in character and beauty.  I’m grateful that we are living in a rental, with Goodwill furniture and mice in the garage, because we are together. And laughing.  Last night, I fell asleep holding my husband’s hand.  And today, my daughter told me she’d give me hugs and kisses even when love got so sweet it turned rotten.   I’m a lucky, lucky girl.

I think I’m going to buy a lottery ticket.  I’d probably lose.  Just my luck.

Filed Under: Eye, Health, Humor, Religion Tagged With: , , ,

Fire!

October 8, 2011 By

Last Tuesday night, I ate bad frozen pizza.  I rocked my son to sleep.  I trimmed my nails and waited for my husband to get home from work.  All fairly normal things folks do on Tuesdays.  Until I heard a bomb go off over our house, consoled our screaming children, saw my husband rushing inside wearing his suit with a look of terror on his face, and noticed huge billowing flames in our back yard.  Then, after three fire trucks, water leaks, and a night spent at Embassy Suites, I can honestly say it wasn’t a normal Tuesday.  We normally have tacos on Tuesdays.  Life was in all kinds of disarray.

With all the fires in Texas lately, I’ve played the “what would I grab if my house was burning down” game plenty.  You map out in your head the route you’d take.  Grab the computer.  Load up the guns.  Great grandma’s clock will probably not make the cut and that’s just life.  All your stuff falls like cards into some sort of loose priority order. Eventually, you just sigh with the realization that life’s not easily replaceable no matter how you slice it, but you have a pretty good idea of what you’d grab.

Until it actually happens.

The minute I saw our back yard ablaze – lightning had struck our house and back shed and all I could see through the kitchen window was one huge ball of fire – I did what any normal person would do in this situation.  I went to the pantry and started stocking my purse with nutri-grain bars.

Instead of remaining calm, I shrieked at my daughter, who was standing right next to me.  “FIRE!,” I wailed.  “PUT ON YOUR SHOES!”  Balancing on son on my hip, I grabbed a bag and with superhuman strength, loaded it up with crackers and squeezable fruit.  I then filled up a sippy cup with water, threw in some diapers, and if I remember correctly, I think I might have actually dug up some underwear.

If the flames reached the house and burned it down, taking with it all our treasures and family heirlooms, don’t you tell me we wouldn’t have plenty of applesauce and underwear to remind us of our past.   Because we so totally would.

I then grabbed the photo albums and threw them all into a box and set them by the door.  I was set.  At least we would have food, water, diapers, photos, and underwear.  Then, with tears on my face and nutri-grain bars in my purse, I left everything sitting neatly inside the house in one neat pile and went rushing out to the neighbors in some sort of anxious frenzy, my daughter running behind me wearing sparkly sandals.

“There’s a fire!” I yelled as I banged on my neighbor’s door.  “Big!  Big fire!”  I had resorted to caveman speech, apparently, and pointed in the direction of our back yard.  Our neighbors, bless their hearts, are nearing sixty, but they ran out toward our back yard like spry sixteen year-olds, the wife jumping the fence in her housecoat to help my husband fight the flames and her husband (recovering from knee surgery) turning on the water. Only then did I notice that my daughter, who was standing beside me, was sobbing uncontrollably and was holding my son’s diaper bag with white knuckles.  “He might need a diaper,” she said amidst the sobs.  I so love her.

Finally, three fire trucks came and I directed them to the back, all the while convincing my daughter that her daddy did not, in fact, perish in the flames.  Only until she saw him, standing there wearing a sweat-soaked dress shirt, did she believe me and stop hyperventilating.

Eventually the flames were extinguished and we went back inside, allowing firemen to stomp through our home in mud-soaked boots, peering in attics and corners and closets for evidence of secret fire pockets.  We eventually calmed down our exhausted kids and thought the drama was over.  Until such time as we discovered our carpet was a subtropical wetland and things were sloshing where in fact there should be no sloshing.  Hmm.  Slab leaks.  Six of them, from the size of the puddles.  My husband rushed to turn off the water, we navigated the automated maze of the insurance 1-800 number, and at some point a company appeared like Batman with fans and dehumidifiers and water damage information (we just nodded and promised never to turn the fans off).  I put the kids to bed on a mat upstairs and was ready to call it a night.

At midnight or so, my husband came in the room and instructed me to find a hotel.  “But the kids are finally asleep,” I moan.  “Can’t we do that tomorrow?”  He looks at me, his face soaked with sweat, still wearing his suit and nice shoes (now ruined).  He throws up his hands, and it hits me that perhaps now is not a good time for this discussion.  The “we’re a team” mentality is really the way to go in this situation, so I nod in agreement with any single thing that comes out of his mouth. Perhaps he’d like to shower. Perhaps he’d like to go someplace that might not burn up.  Perhaps he’d like to talk in a normal tone of voice instead of screaming over large fans that make our living room sound like an airplane hanger.  Yes, yes, yes to everything.

At 1 am, we loaded up our kids and headed downtown to a hotel.  They were thrilled, and my daughter asked if it’s really true that we got pancakes for breakfast. “It’s really true,” I said.  I heard her mutter something about it being wonderful as she nodded off in the car.

So now, a week out, we’ve had six plumbers give us all different ideas of how to completely re-plumb our house.  They all do agree on one thing, which is “this is a pretty big deal” and “don’t expect an easy fix.”

We are living in our second rental, soon to be third come Tuesday, and I think about our week.  The uncertainty and the contractor decisions and the reality that we are homeless gypsies for a while.   But mostly I think about how lucky we are.  Many people aren’t in the situation we’re in with a home to come home to. We have each other.  We have great insurance.  We have a problem that can be fixed.  But most of all, we have nutri-grain bars.

Life is, indeed, very good.

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood, Texas, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

sparkles

September 26, 2011 By

This weekend, we went out of town for a wedding.  Weddings are bright and happy, filled with love and flowers and sparkles.  Or in my case, poop and overflowing toilets, with oozing wounds and gas.

On the day of the wedding, I had to leave a bridal brunch early since my father-in-law, who just had surgery, needed to head back to the doctor to see if his wound was infected.  There’s no way to make that situation less disgusting.  We were all huddled around in the exam room trying to distract ourselves with models of spines and feet bones so we wouldn’t see the surgical tech digging into his shoulder with a long needle trying to get out all the puss.

And finally, after the wedding vows and songs and exchanging of rings, we reached the reception, whereby my son began a tirade of screaming and thrashing in extreme fatigue.   At that, without even a bite of cake and an untouched plate of food sitting on a table somewhere, I began a thirty-minute drive to take my son and husband’s grandmother home.  My son was passed out cold, but she was in a chatty mood, and went into great detail, bless her heart, about the effect of beans on her digestive system.

The next day, it was back to grandma’s for cornbread and a pot of beans (we’ve covered that! I know the full effects!) and after hours of sitting around in an extremely hot house, it was my son’s nap time.  But the moment I laid him down, I heard a strange rushing-water sound coming from the restroom.  I went to investigate and discovered a bubbling witch’s brew of urine-laden water overflowing from the toilet basin and pouring onto the tile floor.  I screamed as my drugged father-in-law stumbled in like he was woken from the dead.   I told him I needed a plunger.  Like, immediately.  Perhaps some Pine-Sol?  He headed for the garage (what? why is this essential item in the garage?) while I tried sop up the water with towels and bathmats.

The day actually got slightly better when I did my mother-in-law’s laundry.  That should tell you something.

On the seven-hour drive home, the kids did great.  No poopy diapers in the car and no major breakdowns.  But Sunday night, after an exhausting weekend, I looked down after getting my son out of the high chair and saw brown things on the carpet.  It was, in fact, poop.  Literally dangling from his shorts and dropping to the floor below in small little clumps.  I rushed him into the bedroom to change his diaper, whereby he immediately stuck his hands directly into his filthy, half-exposed diaper, squished his fingers around in the contents before I could stop him, and then stared at his crap-covered hands in wonder.  I later had to go around the house like it was an Easter Egg Hunt trying to find poop droplets.  I ended up on my knees scrubbing the kitchen floor until my hands stung from the bleach water.

All in all, a really fabulous weekend.  I love weddings.  Peace and joy and sparkles, after all.

Filed Under: Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , ,

the loom

September 22, 2011 By

I feel like a decent mother. After all, my daughter eats her spinach, draws excellent giraffes, makes up songs that rhyme, and announces randomly at dinner that, sadly, Pluto is no longer a planet.  We mothers pat ourselves on the back for being that rock in our children’s changing world.  The straight arrow in their quiver.  We, after all, are good mothers.  Smart mothers.  We know best.

A few years ago, at my daughter’s pre-school, I noticed that a little girl was munching on pizza rolls and trying desperately to pry apart a fruit rollup apart with her teeth.  My eyes darted to my own child’s lunch, which luckily contained cottage cheese and fruit. I grinned.  My child might thumb her nose up at olives, but at least she’s not eating that.  Forget the fact that pizza-roll kid will end up at a Virginia private school on a soccer scholarship, or become a world famous scientist, or perhaps save a species of fish from extinction.  My kid won’t fall asleep with orange Cheeto dust in her hair, and that’s really what matters.

Then there was the time the preschool teacher announced that my daughter was able to spell her own name before all the other children.  I made a quirky little face like “What?  We just sit around drinking sodas and drawing on the walls.  I just have no idea where she gets it from.” In reality, I was patting myself on the back for putting up a word tree in her bedroom and for reading her so many stories despite the fact I was so tired I wouldn’t have cared if Curious George got hit by a truck and died.

But when your kids are little, your barometer for success or failure as a parent reflects back at you.  You control their diet, their wardrobe, and their bedtime routine.  You can set firm rules and make sure they show respect for others.  You drag them to church and make them wash their hands and eat their carrots. And when you feel like a failure, you call up your really good friends– those who occasionally put their kids to bed without baths or pull out dirty clothes from the laundry pile on picture day – for moral support.  One such friend called me in horror of what she had done, like the Mother Gestapo would hunt her down and take away her Mother-of-the-Year pin.  Crippled by the stomach flu and a husband out of town on business, she locked all the doors, set out a platter of lunch meat, crackers, cheese, and cookies, and just let her children watch Dora the Explorer all day while she lay in bed clutching her abdomen.  Don’t sweat it, I told her on the phone. That will probably make their “best childhood memory” list. 

But then someday, something changes.  It’s not about you anymore. It actually never was. I recently got a note home from Kindergarten saying my daughter wasn’t following the rules, and she could stand to listen more, and that perhaps she needed some practice on the daily sound tests. My heart sank.  As my husband was brushing his teeth that night, I said surely this teacher didn’t really see our daughter’s true talents.  That she’s creative and curious and brilliant.  I wished there was something I could do to show her teacher just how fabulous she is.

“No one will ever see her like you do,” he said. “To you, she’s perfect. You’re her mother.”

I suppose that’s true.  Mothers only see the good things.  The bright, shiny mornings.  The giggles and thank-you’s and made-up stories about dancing monkeys. We snuggle and love and pray and give, assuming that all the work we put into our children will pay off. Like a bonus that’s supposed to arrive at the end of the year. But we forget that these are independent little people, separate and apart from us.  They are not vessels we just fill up and push out the door; they are unique creations from God.  They must learn to fail, and must face struggles of their own – some we might not always be able to fix.  That’s hard for us mothers.  The thought of our daughter getting a broken heart, or our son not making the team, is too difficult to bear.  We can’t always make it all better by holding them close and reading them stories.  Homemade macaroni-and-cheese with crunchy breadcrumb topping only goes so far.

So I suppose we must simply love.  When times get tough, or they don’t fit in, we just love some more.  After all, we’ve already got our bonus.  We get to be the loom upon which their lives are woven, and watch them grow into beautiful people.  They will overcome, and change, and beam with pride when discovering their true selves.  We’ll stand in the background, us mothers, and realize that it’s not about us after all.

Filed Under: Motherhood Tagged With: , , ,

little house, big tears

September 11, 2011 By


(my daughter, looking very old fashioned)

When my daughter was sick last year, my mom came into town to stay with her so I could go to work.  The old-fashioned, no-cable, non-Disney people that we are, we thought it might be a good idea to start a lifetime of Little House on the Prairie episodes.  After all, there’s lots of “we’ll totally make it through the winter on one sack of wheat” and “golly pops – a peppermint stick in my stocking is what I’ve always wanted” and finally, “let’s pray.”  I thought it might be a good lesson in family values.  Perhaps force the message that home is really where the heart is.

Between a budget meeting and a conference call, my phone rings.  It’s my mother.

“I have something to tell you,” she said.  My heart sank.  My daughter probably spiked another fever.  Maybe the dog unearthed a dead bird or my china was shattered into a million pieces. She continued, but in a low whisper.    

“It’s about Little House on the Prairie,” she said, her voice barely audible.  I sighed with relief.  What about it?  Maybe Pa and Ma had to stay up late tending to the fields.  Quite possibly, poor little Laura got her chalkboard thrown on the ground and a valuable lesson was learned. I had a call in a few minutes.  What was so urgent already?

“Some man died,” my mother continued.  “On the show, I mean. He was working in the mines.  There was an explosion.  His body was blown to bits.  Pa had to go find the dead man’s child to let him know that his father died in a horrific accident.  He took his wife the man’s belongings.”

Anyone that knows my daughter knows how incredibly sensitive she is.  That she cries for humanity and for lost dogs and for fictional characters in cartoons.  “How bad is she?” I asked my mother.

“She’s sobbing.  We are trying to focus on puzzles.  Maybe she can have some ice cream?”

I’m pissed off.  What’s next?  Is Laura’s mother going to abandon her and leave her at home eating nothing but roasted field mice and corn? Will she have her arm severed?  Get smallpox? Will Ma and Pa get a divorce due to some illicit affair with the blacksmith?  When I got home later that night, I was prepared.  I was expecting to have to answer questions about dying or abandonment or other topics four-year-olds shouldn’t know anything about.

Instead, life was surprisingly normal.  My daughter was wearing stickers on her ears like earrings.  And playing with her new doll house.  She made a book tied together with ribbons.  She danced during her bath and pranced her way into the bedroom for stories.

I suppose there’s a reason why we don’t remember all the negative stuff buried in TV shows.  We only take the good – straining through all the junk to find what’s worth keeping.  In time, she’ll forget about the time this father died in the mine.  She’ll remember Laura’s braids.  And long winters. And gumballs in large glass jars at the general store.

Children see the world in its finest light – hopeful and happy, sparking and new.  They believe and trust.  The Gospels speak of it in this way: “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:17).

We can’t shelter our children from this world forever, no matter how hard we try.  We can only encourage them to look backward with joy, remembering the braids. The little window in the top room. Cast-iron kettles and cornbread.

Someday, my daughter will have to battle the same issues with her own offspring. “Back then,” she’ll tell me, “we didn’t have all this stuff to worry about.  Everything was good and honest and pure.”

That’s when I’ll remind her that fathers were blown to shreds in Little House on the Prairie.  That she got to eat cereal for dinner not because I was a cool mother but because I worked and sometimes didn’t have the energy to fry an egg.  And that one time we spent the night at a Motel Six?  Where she got to stay up late and mommy and daddy were having a bit of a loud discussion with strange four-letter words about lost reservations?

You’re right, my love.  Those were the days indeed.

Filed Under: Motherhood, Television Tagged With: , , ,

Amanda (from Texas)

September 9, 2011 By

Dear Martha Stewart,

Today, my son projectile vomited all over my shirt.  I had to change into a gown at the pediatrician’s office, walking out with a pile of my son’s throw-up still remaining on the little table.  Try getting that out with a stain stick.

Years ago, in your post-prison haze, I took a leave of absence from my job.  I said goodbye to my husband for the summer and jetted off to New York in a vainglorious attempt to work for you.  To impress you.  Befriend you.  After all – it’s ME!  Funny, confident, dancing-in-the-hallways me!  If I could just have a chance to meet you face-to-face, you’d totally agree with my three best friends that I’m fabulous.  We’d toast to our newfound friendship, sewing monograms onto calico pillows while sipping on chai tea.  I’d finally admit that I’m a wretched gardener and we’d have a grand afternoon plotting total world domination.

Okay, so it was reality television.  Not exactly the classiest venue.  But the fifteen folks who joined me in New York were not pond scum, but really successful people, chosen over a million folks to be talking with you about summer bulbs and apricot preserves, vying for a job where we could work with you on a daily basis.  This was my chance.

On day, in the middle of making a wedding cake to be sold at a bridal expo on 5th Avenue, your daughter paid us a visit.  I asked her a question I’d always wondered about.

“What was it like to have a mother like Martha?”

I envisioned parties of grandeur, with sugar cookies piled high with edible flowers and friends dancing around maypoles drinking cucumber water and reciting old nursery rhymes.  Alexis just gave me a flat look and said with hardly a breath that it was hard.  “Once,” she said, “when I was young, I tried to bake her a cake.”  I saw little Alexis running around in my mind in a petticoat, flinging sprinkles around with glee.  “She yelled at me for making the kitchen all sticky.”

Everyone chuckled with nervous laughter, because the reality was too sad to imagine.  We were on television.  5th Avenue, no less!  Let’s not focus on what the woman did years ago.  She’s changed!   So what if her daughter is dressed in black and seems to have a sour attitude, living with the memory that she never could live up to her mother’s standards.  We’re living in New York City.  Street vendors and expensive four-inch heels. Who-hoo!

Now, Martha, let’s be honest.  I didn’t have to meet you personally to realize you’re a big fan of order.  Rationalized numbering.  Labels.  You like steel and grey and windows and white, all clear of clutter and chaos.  You could literally eat on the floor of your office.  Somehow in this imperfect world we live in, you’ve found a way to have perfect rows of cabbage.  I respect that.  The ability to yell at the gardener and demand he remove the one wilted head on the end of the row?  Genius.

But I slowly allowed myself to question the long-standing truth that (1) you would surely think I’m special (2) we would be swapping sweet potato recipes long into the future.   Perhaps you weren’t the person I imagined.  A crack was starting to form in the armor of my Martha-ness.

The thoughts naturally arose – does anything gross happen in your world?  Have you ever accidentally peed in your pants or had to comb lice out of your daughter’s hair or invented a recipe that tasted like goat manure?  Surely once in your life you thought “I’m going to hurl.  I’m totally throwing this out and ordering pizza.”

Weren’t there ever a few moments in life, brief as they might be, that you cupped your hands over your mouth with delight at the beauty of seeing your child try to bake you a cake or make you a valentine or knit you a crooked potholder?  Is there ever a wilted cabbage you just don’t have the heart to pluck?

One morning, we got to have brunch with you in Bedford.  I was so confident you’d finally love me that I casually strolled over to the cappuccino machine in your gigantic kitchen and made small talk about the flower arrangement.

“Want one?” you asked me as the coffee machine hummed and hissed.  I tucked my hair away from my face and nodded.  Just me and a few pals, hanging out at Martha’s.  No biggie.  I was prattling on about how we can’t grow peonies down south, due to the hot weather and all, when I realized by the look in your eyes that you weren’t even listening.

“Are you Amy, from California?” you suddenly asked.

“No,” I stuttered.  “I’m Amanda.  From Texas.”  You briskly walked back in front of the camera to give a lesson on making waffles.  I was hurt and ashamed.  All the while talking of peonies, for goodness sakes.

The moment we left your place, after taking a tour of the greenhouses, hearing about elephant ferns, and watching your brilliant black horses pad around the back 40, we climbed in the car back to our quarters and, suddenly, it was if we didn’t exist.  Just another day in the office.  Just Amy from California.

I suppose the folks we idolize don’t always turn out to be as amazing as we had hoped. There is no pleasing you.  You will always be yelling at the gardener, the sticky child, the producer.  No cabbage or bath towel or applicant will ever be good enough.  I suppose if I get my book published, I won’t be back on your show to promote it, eating those yummy scones and sipping coffee backstage, waiting for hair and makeup.  Which is unfortunate.  Those were really good scones.

I don’t have to be walking along Broadway to feel my lungs fill with fresh air.  I can do that in my own backyard, watching my daughter scoop piles of pebbles into bowls and call it popcorn.  She will come running over to me with messy hands and a popsicle-stained face, showing me a stick that reminds her of a telephone.  My son will someday break a lamp or get motor grease all over my travertine floor and eat so much fried chicken in one setting that he’ll groan with delight, wiping grease on his jeans as he stretches back in his chair.  This is the texture and fabric of life.  It’s not monogrammed.  It’s not in perfect order.  It’s vomit-down-your blouse crazy.

So screw peonies.  I’ll take fields of bluebonnets, swaying in the breeze, my kids on the side of the highway buried in them, squashing the flower heads in their Sunday best.  It’s then, and only then, I realize they have buggers in their noses.

Yours most truly,

Amanda (from Texas)

Filed Under: Humor, Motherhood, Television Tagged With: , , , ,

what’s for dinner?

September 7, 2011 By

This evening, I fed my daughter scrambled eggs with broccoli.  She said it was gross and why do we always have broccoli and I’m really annoyed that you put the broccoli with the eggs and finally, my stomach hurts.  I didn’t have any excuses really, except to tell her that some children were starving and she was lucky she had food and that I did her a huge favor by adding cheese.  She just stared at me like really, mom.  Don’t do me any more favors. My husband walked in and stared at the skillet with disgust.  “Is this supper?” he asked.  I told him he could just have cereal.

I enjoy cooking.  I like to make really complicated dishes involving demi-glazes and stuffed pork and sautéed vegetables.  I love shallots and herbed chicken and thick cheesy potatoes and fresh thyme.  It’s soothing to have the time to roast and baste and present things on woodland spode platters.  And there’s nothing like pumpkin bread fresh from the oven.

But when I’m home late, my son’s pointing to the high chair and shrieking at the top of his lungs, and my daughter’s begging for more applesauce (“I’m starving to death.  To death!” she says), I’m in total panic mode.

I have exactly one recipe I throw together in a moment’s notice.  I mix together pre-cooked brown rice with raw eggs into a rudimentary batter and fry it up in some olive oil.  We call them rice cakes, and we eat them with sour cream and sea salt.  But that only covers Monday.

So I sat down and forced myself to come up with a list of simple meals that you could assemble quickly.  Many you can do over the weekend, freeze, and literally just forget about.  Until that one weeknight that you need them, and they’d be there like trashy reality tv.

Just consider this post a public service announcement. You’re welcome, people.

(1) Make a truckload of meatballs on Saturday and freeze them.  When you’re crazy busy, you can just microwave them, heat up some sauce, and serve with a bit of shredded cheese.  I also heavily butter and douse whole-wheat sandwich bread with garlic salt and then toast in the oven, which sounds gross but at least your kids are getting some whole grains.  I have also discovered Quinoa pasta, which is quite good if you have the energy to boil water. Which I rarely do.

(2) Put any sort of beef or pork roast in a slow-cooker with BBQ sauce (thanks, Neita!).  You can freeze this as well.  Then, on a Tuesday night, thaw out some hamburger buns, nuke the meat, and ta-da!  But if you do meatballs and then BBQ in the same week, that’s a lot of meat.  Unless you’re from Texas, and then it’s not that much, really.

(3) Cook some really good rolled oats over the weekend – slowly and stirring often –add milk, butter, cinnamon, honey, and raisins until the whole mess is sloppy, sweet, and wonderful. Then swat at your children’s hands as they reach for a bite, let it cool, and put it in the freezer in some Tupperware dish with a lid that actually matches.  Some random weekday, you can defrost it in the microwave enough that it pops out of the plastic tub and plunk it down like a hockey puck into a saucepan.  Add a bit more milk to thin it out, cook on low while you feed your starving son some grapes, and in no time you’ve got a great healthy dinner (even though it’s technically breakfast.  And mostly carbs.  But I doubt your kids will complain.)

(4) I make a ton of quiche.  You can literally hide almost anything in quiche (except, apparently, broccoli) and your kids will (possibly) eat it. Plus, it sounds fancy to say you made a quiche.  Unless you make a ton of quiche, like me.  Then they aren’t so easily fooled. This is a good way to use up lunch meat ham that’s about to expire.  You can also use canned spinach, which is otherwise quite disgusting. It’s super easy to throw together, but it does take a while to cook.  That’s the only downside.

(5) I have discovered that ring sausage lasts for an unusually long time in the fridge.  The expiration dates are crazy far-off, which means that they are probably full of preservatives and perhaps shouldn’t be consumed by humans.  Nonetheless, I buy it and keep it in the bottom drawer for emergencies (until it gets close to expiring, when I’m forced to cook it).  I just sauté bell peppers and onions in oil and then throw in the sliced sausage.  You can serve over rice if you have the energy. My daughter always balks at the onions and peppers, but I tune her out.  I also tune her out when she says she wants to be tinkerbell or a cheerleader, so I have loads of practice.

(6) The other egg dish that my family actually likes is to sauté shallots in butter,  add herbs de Provence, leftover roasted potatoes, eggs, then shredded gruyere.  It really only takes about five minutes. But you have to have the leftover potatoes and gruyere on hand, which isn’t often the case.  Unless you’re a gruyere junkie like me, and most folks aren’t.  Smart thinking, since that stuff’s way too expensive.

(7) Tuna.  I know, it’s basic, but I always forget about it.  Make a simple tuna salad with canned tuna, mandarin oranges, pecans, mayonnaise, and lemon pepper.  Serve with crackers. But be sure to take out the trash.  No one wants to wake up with bad breath, stumble into the kitchen for coffee, and smell tuna cans.  Ick.

(8) There’s always yogurt parfaits, which I’ve done on occasion.  Layer fresh or frozen fruit with yogurt and granola.  Hey – at least there’s some grains, fruits, and probiotics.  Could be worse.  I just tell my kids it’s dessert for dinner and they totally believe me every time.  Suckers.

So these are my humble suggestions.  Just stock your pantry, frig, and freezer with these things and you’ll be guaranteed a week’s worth of meals in no time.

I realize I’ve suggested meatballs, BBQ, preservative-laden sausage, oatmeal, tuna, and a large number of eggs.  That’s a strange listing of food, so your family might say they’re actually full from lunch and why do you always make meatballs because it’s really quite annoying.  That’s your problem to solve.

Tell them there’s always cereal.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

technology rehab

September 2, 2011 By

When I was growing up, we didn’t have cell phones.  We didn’t have email.  What we did have, located in the smack center of our house on the kitchen wall (adorned with 1970’s fern wallpaper), was a regular home telephone.

It was yellowy-beige with a ten-foot-cord that could be stretched precariously around the corner when privacy dictated.  But there really isn’t any privacy in the center of a kitchen.  Every time my dad came in to make popcorn, he’d just wave and say “tell [random boy I was talking to] hello!  Are you coming in the family room to watch Hunt for Red October?”  Then he’d just grunt and pour himself a soda and I’d be left in utter humiliation.  Then, after I thought the coast was clear, I’d spot my mother doing something very important like ironing linens or peeling grapes next to the door so she could listen in.

Kids now-a-days have it so easy.  Televisions in every room. Cell phones on every belt.  Email and chatting and texting and instant messaging– the amount of unbridled privacy is endless.  It scares me to think what my daughter might be saying someday in the free, bare silence of modern technology.  I can’t snoop around the corner and then just say “What? I was just coming in to get a drink!” if I got busted.  I think I’ll force our family go back to the days of old, where the father sits around each night reading the bible and we all stitch our own dresses out of flour sacks.

It’s amazing how dependant we are on technology.  I’m one to talk. My commute home involves about twenty minutes of cell phone chatter with two minutes of checking my lipstick.  So the other day, when I forgot my phone at home, it was torture.  Torture, I tell you! What the heck was I supposed to do on the drive home– listen to the radio?  The thought of it brought back vague memories of youth.  Days when I made mix tapes and hoped to push the stop button before the DJ broke in and ruined the song’s ending.  In my extreme boredom, I started surfing through the channels.

I tried NPR, but they talking politics. I looked ahead at the string of red taillights and realized there was a wreck on the highway. Great. I couldn’t call home to tell the babysitter I would be late, and there was no way I could stop.  I felt trapped and isolated.  All I had to keep me company was top-forty radio, spiked with loud advertisements about luxury cars, a Joss Stone CD with a scratch, and boring economy talk.  My hands began to shake and I felt sweat forming on my brow.  I was unsure if I could make it.

Relax, I tried to tell myself.  Think.  Pray.  Flex your abdominal muscles or make a mental grocery list.  But after about three minutes, I checked all of these items off the list and was instead punching the radio buttons in a futile belief that something interesting would blare through the speakers.  I was looking at half an hour more.  I looked the car next to me and saw the driver laughing away while talking on his blue tooth. I thought I might need a Zanax.

After being on the road for forty-five minutes with no cell phone and finally landing safely at home, I had an epiphany.  I need technology rehab.  I’m an embarrassment.  I can’t go less than an hour without Tivo, iTunes, cell phones, or texting?  What has become of me?

Maybe it would be nice for the family to have only one phone with a ridiculously long cord. And how wonderful to enjoy the radio again, singing along with the window down —

Hold on a sec.  My cell phone is ringing.  I need to tell my best friend who got fired on Project Runway.  She was in a meeting and her cell phone was out of juice (she forgot her car charger – again!) and she just got home to find her Tivo was set to record a movie and she didn’t catch the show and I didn’t answer her text because I was in the middle of sending my husband a picture of our empty milk carton as a subtle hint to go to the store.  You understand.

Maybe someday, we’ll abandon all this junk and just sit around by the fire reading the bible and sewing.  Or maybe, even better, there’s an app for that.

Filed Under: Career, Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Technology Tagged With: , ,

martha stewart clean

August 31, 2011 By

I never thought I’d say this, but thank you, Martha Stewart.

 

Today, after we returned home from the grocery store with items sitting randomly about the kitchen table, my son grabbed a bottle of bathroom cleaner and waddled off.  I was at the stove cooking asparagus and wondered why my son was so quiet. I went to investigate. As it turned out, he unscrewed the lid and poured the entire bottle of bathroom cleaner on the carpet.  And I had no idea if he drank some.  I immediately called my doctor, who referred me to poison control, and the conversation went something like this:

 

“Hello?” I asked in a panic. “Poison control? I think my son might have ingested some bathroom cleaner. “

 

“Oh no,” a woman said.  I could hear the seriousness in her voice.  “What brand of cleaner was it?”  She was typing something into her computer.  Probably something along the lines of Yet another negligent mother who let her kid drink poison.  Call CPS immediately to have her parental rights revoked.

 

“Martha Stewart Clean,” I said.

 

“Uh huh,” the lady said.  There was a pause.  “I think you’ll be fine.”

 

“But don’t you want to know the active ingredients?” I asked.  I really was hoping I didn’t have to get his stomach pumped, or worry about him being unconscious, or burning a hole though his intestines.  He didn’t seem sick.  He was laughing and pointing to my nose and trying to moo like a cow, but still. 

 

“Yeah sure,” she said as she bit into a sandwich, stuck in some cubical in Dallas.  “If you want.”  What’s wrong with these people?  Aren’t they experts in poison? Don’t they have some advice?

 

“Water, Citric Acid, and plant-based detergent.”

 

“Yeaaah,” the lady said, her mouth full of ham.  “I really wouldn’t worry about it.  That’s harmless.”

 

I wasn’t sure whether the judgment in her voice related to the fact that I am a negligent parent, not noticing that my son walked right past me holding a bottle of detergent, or whether I spent five dollars on a bottle of distilled water with a few drops of citric acid.

 

In any event, this stuff won’t kill your kid if they accidentally drink it, and it managed to create suds when I tried to soak it up from the carpet, so I’m never buying anything else.  I’m a loyal Martha Stewart Clean consumer (when it’s on sale). Or, conversely, maybe I should just pay more attention to my child when they walk by.   The next time, it might be a butcher knife.

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , ,

one liners, part two

August 29, 2011 By

Five year olds are officially hilarious.  At least I think so.  Here’s some recent statements said around our house that made me laugh.  I laugh a lot.

(1) “You see that?” she asked as she pointed to my son’s privates.  “I’m going to call that a hankerdoodle.  So if I ever say the word hankerdoodle, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

(2)  (a few weeks later, during a bath) “Mom, don’t forget to wash the hankerdoodle.”

(3) “Did you meet some new friends at school?” I ask.  She shrugs. “We didn’t have formal introductions.”

(4) “I scratched my arm and it feels like I’m being scraped by a giant cheese shredder. A GIANT CHEESE SHREDDER!”

(5) “I’m going to call grandma and tell her I got crunched” (after her brother bit her in the face)

(6) “I love you infinity times infinity plus one and then times a hundred.  Plus two.”

(7) “Why can’t we ever go to Chunky Cheese-its? I think they have pizza.”

(8)  “You can just call it recess, mom” (rather than the more inferior “playground”)

(9) “One hole in my nose is all plugged up and I just don’t know what to do about it.”

(10)               “Why are all the states united?  What does united mean anyway?”

(11)               (Sobbing). . . “I just think it’s so sad that Angelina Ballerina lost her doll and that she didn’t get it back and I tried to look at another book that was happy to get over it but it just didn’t work.”

(12)               “I don’t want you to put bows in my hair.  I never want to wear bows.  Ribbons are okay.  Just no bows.”

(13)               “When I grow up, I want to be a cheerleader, a mommy, and a nurse,” she says.  (“Can’t you elevate that to doctor?” I ask.  “Maybe a dermatologist even?”) “No.  I want to be a nurse. Nurses get to leave the room first.”

(14)               “I don’t need a nap.  I’m not tired.  And I’m not being mean.”

(15)               “I’m so glad I have you for a mommy.”

(16)               “If I wasn’t born and another kid was born instead and you named her the same name as me, would you love her just the same?”

(17)               “You can always get more money.  Stores will give you change.”

(18)               “If he can’t say the word “passy,” (referring to her brother’s pacifier), it’s okay if he just says “assy.”

(19)               (Crying). . . “I miss my old teachers. I want to write them a card first thing tomorrow when I wake up.”

(20)               (The next morning). . . “Card? What card?”

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , ,

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