Coffee post time?

So I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been preaching more lately or what, but I don’t seem to be having the deep thoughts lately.  But I still want to write some bloggy stuff.  Sooo . . .

Haven’t had a coffee post in a while.  What the heck?  How’s about another?

So I think coffee is rotting a hole in my stomach.  Or totally demolishing that little muscle–whatever she may be–at the top of my stomach.  You know, the one that’s supposed to stay closed to keep the food and acid and general yuck down in my stomach where it belongs?  Something is going horribly awry with my stomach.  And I’m suddenly suspecting the coffee.

No one warned me.  My dear husband who encouraged me to drink coffee, strongly encouraged, cajoled, dare I say? pushed me to drink coffee over the course of 17 years never told me it would rot my stomach out.  Has it been his secret plot all along to get me to join him in his stomach woes?

To this point I’ve had stomach of steel.  I’m of good, fine Lithuanian stock.  Our stomachs can handle diets of nothing but potatoes, sour cream and bacon.  I can eat what I want, how I want, when I want with nary a second thought.  But now.  Suddenly. . . . yick.

I blame the coffee.

I share my fears, my woes, my pain, my concern with my dearly beloved.  And what does he say?  “You just have to push through this uncomfortable time, till those nerve endings in your lower esophagus become deadened by the acid and you no longer feel anything there and then once again you can eat and drink anything you want.”

OK then.  As long as the man’s got a system.  I’m going to have to think about this . . .

Funny kids say funny things . . .

I think it’s been a little while since I’ve had a funny kids post. And I’ve had little of significance to write about for the last several days, so I thought I’d write about significant little things. Which, you know, is pretty much the biggest story of my life these days: trying to savor all the little, teeny-tiny, mundane things beautiful life with beautiful little children brings in abundance. Knowing that this stage of life will be gone in a flash, I want to try to not get bogged down in the frustrating junk, the relentless cycle of dirty-clean-dirty-clean, wash-brush-dress-eat-play-eat-play-eat-undress-brush-wash, just-keep-swimming, that is the other big story of my life these days.

So. A moment to pause. And chuckle at my silly kids.

Heard in the kitchen last week: A fly was buzzing around the kitchen, in fact, there were lots of flies buzzing around last week, not sure why, but there we were in the kitchen with a buzzing fly. Hannah says, “Shoo, fly! Shoo!! Shoo!!! . . . I have a shoe!” (scurries over to her cubby and pulls out a bejeweled flip-flop, raises it in attack) “Shoe, fly!! Shoe!” I confess I did stop her from squashing the fly with her shoe on my counter. But I did it with a straight and understanding face.

Heard at the breakfast table this morning: Ruth was eating pancakes (pay-pates) with syrup (see-up).  “I put mine finger in mine nose!  I put mine finger in mine nose!”  (lighthearted response)”Oh, yucky, Ruth.  Don’t put your finger up your nose.  Yuck.”  . . . . minutes pass . . . . (very excited pronouncement) “I hat see-up in mine nose!”  “You have syrup in you nose?!”  ::sneeze:: “Yeeaah!”  ::sneeze::  ::giggle giggle::  Maybe it’s just because I’m her mom, but this one  cracked me up.

Sniff . . . Sniffle . . . Sniff-Sniff . . .

Why do my children refuse to blow their noses?  What is the answer to this great riddle?  Was it the nose bulb wielded by an overzealous daddy in the early days?  Are they afraid to lose this precious part of themselves?  Are they genetically predisposed to torturing their mother?

What is it?  What is it and how can I fix it?  Isaac and Hannah both have this aversion.  So far Ruth’s actually been willing to engage in some genuine nose blowing.  Isaac will do it now, but only under extreme duress.  Hannah?  Refuses.  At all cost.

As I write this I am sitting in Hannah and Isaac’s room waiting for Hannah to fall asleep.  She struggled to fall asleep–though I think she may have finally slipped off into the land of nod while I was writing the title of this post–because she got a sniffle.  She doesn’t have a cold or anything, so it’s not like she has the sniffles. No, she just had a random need for a tissue.  But she will not use one.  Ever.  Well, that’s not true, she is willing to wipe her nose with it, she simply refuses to blow her nose into it.

So there she lay, at half-past nine, “Sniff . . . sniff . . . snifflesniff . . . whimper . . . sniff . . .” for fifteen minutes.  While I sat and listened to it.  Yuck.  I didn’t even suggest a tissue because I know it would come across as if I were suggesting we actually remove her nose from her face and she’d get all riled up again.  No.  I just sat here and listened.

And my poor little brain, fizzled out on some sort of random sickness and fever I have at the moment, said, “Hey.  I haven’t written a blog post in a while.  I know.  I’ll write about Hannah’s gross sniffing.”

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen: My life.  Soundtrack produced by a four-year-old and her gross symphony of sniffs and sniffles.

Tune in tomorrow for more tales of putrid bodily fluids and functions.  ‘Bet you can hardly wait!

The continuing saaaaga of a mom who has gone to the dogs . . .

File this in the same category as my two girls with their apples and Sesame Street. Did I create a category for that yet? What to call it . . . Dreams Disintegrated . . . Good Intentions v. Brick Wall of Reality . . . Wonder-Mom, the Later Years . . .

Today’s installment?  What, exactly, constitutes a healthy lunch?

With Isaac, I thought out every morsel.  Processed white flour would never cross his lips.   Not on my watch, anyway.  (Well, except for the occasional sweet treat.  Mostly in the form of Krispy Kremes kindly brought by Auntie Marilyn.)  Each meal, planned.  All day, circling the food groups, round and round we’d go, accentuating the proteins, being selective with the carbs.

Do you know what Hannah had for lunch today?  Her favorite.  (Which, of course, indicates this is not a one-time thing.)  A ketchup sandwich with a pickle on the side.  Nice.  This is what it’s come down to, ladies and gentlemen:  counting ketchup as a fruit and pickles as a vegetable.  At least the bread is a grainy whole wheat.  But now I just let her wash the whole thing down with some old-fashioned salt-and-mush-in-a-can, reconstituted condensed chicken noodle soup.  I’m making no effort to get anything else into her.  I think I’m losing my steam.

I truly, from the bottom of my heart, do not think this has to happen to every mom.  I resented the people who told me when I was obsessing over Isaac’s diet that this is how things would go.  I still kind of resent it, because I didn’t ask, and I really don’t think it was inevitable.  I think it speaks more to me and the stage of life I’m hitting than moms in general.  And really, calorie for calorie, my kids still do really well.  But today?  In my current dissatisfied-with-life-in-general mood?  Yeah.  Hannah had a lunch of champions.  And I think I’m OK with that.

At least she used a spoon to eat her soup. 

Sooo . . . What silliness to talk about today?

Because silliness seems to be all I’m capable of today.

Well . . . there’s the fact that my dear husband made coffee again today.  While I was sleeping an extra 45 minutes, making up for the time I spent up with Ruth last night.  He also made hot cereal and straightened the kitchen some.  After thanking him, I said, “So should I blog about this, too?”  “It wouldn’t hurt.”    So here it is.  He’s the bestest man ever.  Really.  I got it good.

And . . . there’s the fact that as I write this my two girls are locked in the living room–one on the couch, one wandering around aimlessly–eating whole apples and watching Sesame Street.  Yep.  Exactly how I pictured my mornings as a progressive stay-at-home mom back when I had only one wee one to care for.  We used to have snack times.  We used to only eat at the table.  A toddler, especially, would never be out and about, wandering with food at random times.  And eating while watching TV?  Scandalous!  Certainly not!

Well.  There they are.  Munch.  Crunch.  Slurp.  Drip.  And here I sit.  Writing and drinking coffee I didn’t even have to make.  Barefoot, make-up free, dirty dishes scattered about me.  Nice.  I am Super Mom.  Hear me . . . yawn.

Ruth has been wandering around eating all morning.  I’m hoping the fact that it’s all healthy food will make up for the steady stream of calories entering her little body.  She already had breakfast with Ry before I got up.  A banana was involved, I’m not sure what else.  But then she starts helping herself to stuff.  Like we have a freezer-on-the-bottom refrigerator/freezer.  So she just opens that door right up.  Grabbing a bag off the door, she lifts it up, looks at it:  frozen blueberries.  “NnnoooooO.”  Sets it back down.  Next bag:  frozen raspberries.  “Rapbeyies,” as she lifts the bag up to me.  Sure, why not?  I grab the bag, she grabs the bowl.  Today I insist on the table because for the last week and a half she’s been eating her frozen raspberries while sitting on the little stool on the floor.  But we’re civilized people, so I insist on the table.  And she even insists on the spoon.  Nice.  I don’t know how she eats raspberries frozen.  I get brain freeze just looking at her.

Now . . . couple of minutes later . . . Ruth wanders back out to the kitchen.  Opens up the pantry cabinet next to the fridge.  Pulls out the bottom drawer full of cans.  “Hmm.  NoooO.  NoooO.  Oo.  Deans.”  Picks up the can of kidney beans, hands it to me.  I grab the can, she grabs the bowl.  Again I insist on the table.  Again she insists on the spoon.  See?  We are civilized.

Hannah, of course, didn’t partake in all this snacking.  So, when 10:15 rolls around, she is ready for a snack.  She’d like an apple.  Well, then.  Full-of-berries-and-beans Ruth sees the apple.  She too would like an apple.  So there they are:  apples and Elmo.  I didn’t insist on the table.  And you don’t need a spoon for an apple.  And civilization is highly overrated.

Now, back to my coffee.  And my mess.  And tomorrow I’ll be a better mom and homemaker.  For afterall . . . tomorrow is another day.

And for today’s visual:  Ruth in the Living Room of the Perpetual Mess.

For the record, she has lovely silver and pink with bangles dress-up shoes under that blankie dress.

Upon Request from the Man I Love . . .

I came downstairs this morning to a freshly brewed pot of hot coffee.

“Hmmm.  Thank you!”

“Yeah.  I want to see a blog about this.”

So here it is.  I hope you’re laughing, because we sure were.  The man just cracks me up.

And I didn’t even need to use any womanly wiles.  Unless you count broadcasting to the world his new get-out-of-making-coffee scheme.

Ok. So apparently I’m addicted now.

Nice.

It’s been a while since I had a coffee post, and, after 25 years (or maybe it was 1.5 months) of dwelling on death, I figured maybe it was time for a coffee post. So here it is.

It was right around this time last year that I began drinking this stuff.  And I have come to be utterly enamored with it.  Even as late as last week, I burst out in gratitude to my husband:  “Thank you, thank you, thank you for the Coffee!  For persisting in encouraging me!  For never giving up on me!  Thank you thankyouthankyou!!  I was wrong.  I was so very wrong!”  No kidding.  And in a deadpan that is as dead as only he can make it:  “Yes.  You were wrong.  And you’re welcome.”

So, on the one hand, my passion for the stuff has only increased with time.  On the other hand, with the newness wearing off, I’m finding the whole act of making the coffee a bit tedious.  Actually, it’s not the making that’s so bad, it’s mostly the cleaning of the percolator that’s getting annoying.  So while the coffee maker was once entirely Ry’s domain–I never touched the thing–we now, in all fairness, should share responsibility for the pretty pot.  And I was excited to step up.  For a while.  Now I understand the drudgery of which Ry would speak.

So now, being the perpetual adolescents we are, we’ve joined in a new game together.  Avoidance.  Ry is particularly adept at the game, but now I’m on to him.

There’s always about a cup of coffee left in the pot at the end of the day, and of course we don’t clean the pot out at night, so now Ry has taken to simply starting his day with the leftovers.  That gets him going, he’s set.  But then I come down to the kitchen.  Ry is drinking his first cup of coffee without making any–without cleaning the pot and brewing some new–and I’m left with an empty mug.  So, what do I do?  I make myself some coffee.  And then, of course, Ry fills up his sippy cup with the brand new, fresh stuff.  Nice.

So.  Today I said, enough of this.  I’m just not going to make any coffee for myself.  I’m too tired to clean the pot and I’ve made it for days and days in a row, and Heck!  I never even used to drink the stuff.  I don’t need any today.  I’ll be fine.

Well.  I’m not.  I’m not at all fine.  All morning I had this dull little feeling in front of my eyes, in front of my foggy brain.  Everything a little dull. Hunh.  After a year of coffee drinking, it seems I am now addicted. Didn’t see that coming.

So, it’s now two in the afternoon and I did clean up the coffee pot and make new coffee and I’m sitting here pepping myself up to go outside and play.

Part of me doesn’t like the whole idea of being addicted to something.

But that’s just a teeny tiny part of me.  The rest of me sits here saying, “Mmmmmm . . . Cahfeeeeeee . . . ” and tries to devise a scheme to rope Ry into making coffee more often.  I might have to use my womanly wiles.

Don’t let me read anymore.

Probably an unexpected title coming so soon after the choirs of angels and mommy pride over Isaac’s reading.  I take it back.  Reading is bad.  Very,  very bad.  It can devastate a life.  Or at least a house.  Specifically, my house.  Man oh man.

There I was.  Really getting a handle on my entire house.  The laundry was under control (remember?), the bathrooms got done with enough regularity that we didn’t have to worry (too much) about disease, dusted once in a while, heck, I even washed the floor now and then.  For the previous year we had someone come in and clean for an hour and a half every other week, mainly to force us to straighten that frequently (no more so) and limit the disease quotient.  But I had reached a point where I had a handle on it.  No more cleaning lady.  Just me.  And my team of little helpers.  Now, it would never pass my mother’s inspection–a completely emptied, hermetically sealed, freshly painted and floored room would not pass my mother’s inspection–but it was a level of mess I was comfortable with.  I had a friend visit back in October and there really was little to none of the usual scurrying beforehand, such was the general condition of our home.

And then.  Then came the month from Thanksgiving to Christmas.  Now, some may think it’s because of the hollidays, the extra busyness.  But some’d be wrong.  Good grief.  I did all my shopping in one afternoon, all the wrapping that evening and all my decorating in three hours the day before.  We’re very low-key around here.

No.  It wasn’t the hollidays.  It was those things. Those little piles of processed tree pulp bound together and printed with words.  Words upon words upon words.  Glorious, beautiful words.  Words strung together to form thoughts.  Thoughts and ideas and thinkings galore. . . .

Prior to November I had been on a streak of very limited reading.  I was writing regularly, I had ambitions for writing more formally.  Then my computer betrayed me and stopped working and in its absence I picked up one of those old fashioned devices by name of boooook.  book.  And that was the beginning of the end.  One thing led to another and I could. not. stop.  One chapter for just this couple of minutes turned into two chapters and into entire books in a day and a half.  And I am not a fast reader.  Oh.  I’ll just read for fifteen minutes turned into Oh, I’m sitting down for eight seconds, I can squeeze in a couple of sentences.  Ahhh, the kids won’t really be hurt by three hours of TV, I must. finish. this book!!!  Read read read.  Read while I’m eating, read instead of sleeping, read while I’m nursing, read while I’m watching TV, read while the kids are drawing, read while I’m cooking, read while I’m brushing my teeth.  Read read read. Read read.  Read.

So I read.  Several thousand pages between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And I woke up on Christmas morning opening my eyes to the fact that my house had crumbled down around me.  Toys everywhere.  Paper, markers, crayons, crumbs, dust, junk junk junk.  Everywhere.  And the laundry.  The laundry.  Ohhh the shame.  After my 4000 words on conquering laundry I am too ashamed to describe the state of the laundry at Christmastime.  Apparently I was wrong in thinking I never really did any housekeeping and that’s why my house was never as neat as my mom’s.  No.  Now I’ve seen the result of my doing absolutely no housekeeping and it’s a whole ‘nother realm of mess, the likes of which civilized society has never seen.  In fact, I think we no longer qualify as part of civilized society.

So.  I blame the books.  And now I have stopped reading.  Well.  Kind of.  Mostly.  Um.  Except that I finished a book today.  But I started it several days ago and it was A Swiftly Turning Planet, a kids’ book, so it doesn’t count.  Right?  right?  All these books keep staring at me, taunting me.  And my dear, dear friend sent a Christmas package to my kids and what did she include in the box?  More books for me to read.  Bad.  Very bad.

Still, I have made progress.  I have begun to dig us out again.  The laundry is nearly under control again.  Isaac and Hannah’s room is neat and tidy.  Ruth’s room is a 30-second pick-up away from perfectly neat and tidy.  Both rooms have been dusted and vacuumed/mopped within the last week.  We can all eat at the dining room table at the same time.  The kitchen is almost show-room ready.  Close enough, anyway.  And as of this morning, the living room has returned to looking simply like three small kids live here.  As opposed to looking like you could easily lose three small kids in the piles of junk, or that perhaps there are three small children lost in there somewhere.  Progress. Slow progress.  Now.  If I could just keep those books on the shelves–and maybe even dust them–perhaps . . . perhaps I could invite those Mormons in again.

Welcome Back . . . Coffee

Ok, so I’m back on the blogging train. I figured what better way to hit the rails than with a story about coffee.

If you’re following my progress, you’ll know that after 17 years of husband’s urgings I finally started drinking coffee. I started with a more chocolate than coffee concoction and slowly weaned myself off the chocolate, replacing it with sugar–and really, the high cocao percentage chocolate was probably a healthier choice anyway–with the hopes of cutting the sugar down to out of the coffee altogether. Some day. Sooome day, I might make it to bona fide coffee as defined by my curmudgeonly friend: “Coffee is dark Colombian roast. Or Hawaiian Kona. Strong. Dark. No sugar. NONE. No cream, milk, half & half. Coffee is… COFFEE.” That is my goal. Not just to be a coffee purist, but to stop drinking my calories every morning, to have an indulgent yet fairly benign treat.

Recently I had a breakthrough. I had my first cup of coffee without sugar. It had half & half, but no sugar. I was so proud. Progress, right?

Well. Yes and no. Sure, the coffee wasn’t sweetened. But the coffee was accompanied by a Krispy Kreme glazed donut. Umm . . . nope. No progress here. But boyyy, was it yummy.

My final semi-political post

Well for this election anyway.

And actually it’s just a return to telling cute stories about my kids.

So Isaac’s elementary school had a mock election last week. Isaac was totally excited to tell me he had voted that day and that he had voted for Barak Obama. I was very curious to hear why he had chosen Obama. Ry and I have never really had any kind of specific political conversation in front of him so he wouldn’t be going into it informed by our choices.

“Why did you vote for Barak Obama?”

“Because he never ever ever never never ever never uses guns.”

“Hunh. Where did you hear that?” I was wondering what sort of information the school would provide these little voters.

“Christy told me.” Christy is a classmate of his. Actually, his “reading buddy.”

“Well, Isaac, Daddy uses guns.”

“Yeah, but just for hunting. Barak Obama knows you don’t use guns for anything else.”

“Oh. OK.” And it dropped.

A couple evenings later, at lunch I think, I brought it up again, the whole gun thing.

“You know, Isaac, Barak Obama probably doesn’t use guns at all.”

“Oh, yeah, I guess not. He must use a bow and arrow to hunt.”

My boy. He just cannot fathom a man who doesn’t hunt. His brain is many steps away from drawing this conclusion. I drew it for him. “Isaac, I don’t think Mr. Barak Obama hunts at all. He lives in a big city . . .”

“Oh.” That’s about as far as it went, but I still don’t think he’s convinced. Too funny.

So, fast-forward to Monday evening for more political talk with Isaac. He’s totally excited about the election tomorrow. He makes me a sign to take with me when I vote: “Vote for Obama” “#1 is Obama.” Then we happen upon his Scholastic News magazine. Do you remember those?

This one had a picture of each of the presidential candidates on the cover and inside the bi-fold paper each half was devoted to one candidate, with a large picture of McCain and his wife and one daughter on one side and a picture of Obama and his wife and two daughters on the other. Underneath the picture there were three smaller pictures within boxes. These contained answers to questions about the candidate: What is your favorite food? What is your favorite children’s book? What is your favorite leisure activity?

Isaac is drawn up short when he sees Senator McCain’s favorite food. A picture of a Taco! Senator McCain’s favorite food is Mexican food! Isaac’s entire countenance changes, jaw drops, eyes widen. No other word to describe it: crisis. You see, Isaac’s favorite thing is food. And Isaac’s favorite food is Mexican. And Isaac’s favorite Mexican food–of his very limited experience–is tacos. Seriously, the boy is stopped dead in his tracks. In silence I watch his face tell the tale.

“McCain’s favorite food is Mexican food. Mexican food!! Maybe I’ve made a mistake. Maybe I should have voted for McCain. Oh no. . . . Ok, get yourself together boy. Now check out Obama’s favorite food. Quick! Check! . . . . Chili! Chili!”

This part is said aloud: “I love chili. I mean, I love chili.”

Looks back and forth, back and forth. Again, the crisis written all over his face:

“Mexican is my favorite food. But I love chili. But Mexican is my favorite. But I love chili. And I was already committed to Obama and he has the whole no-gun thing going for him. But Mexican is my favorite. But I do love chili. A lot.”

Crisis passes. Whew.

“What do you think, Isaac?”

“I still like Obama. I love chili.”

Ahhh. If only it were all that simple. I love this boy. I truly truly love this boy. I don’t think you could know him from just a story. You have to see his exuberance, his intensity, his inquisitiveness, his passion and zeal for life. Every part of life. There is no half-way with this boy. There are only extremes. Someday he will take over the world. We used to joke about it, see him at his toddler-preschooler best and know that he would take over the world, but wonder if he would use his powers for good or for evil. Now that he’s coming into his own as a boy, an elementary school student, it’s looking likely he will use his powers for good. And I can’t wait to see it. As I sang to him when he was a teeny tiny: he’s a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.