So How Long Do I Have To Do This???

Impressions of the First Week of School:

• The playground - "It's hot ... too hot to slide down the bars on my arms... because they're metal ... and it's hot."
• Art class - "I drew a fish .... This is a picture of a fish .... See the fish??? .... That's a fish.... I got a stamp on my hand for drawing a fish..... That's a fish."
• Classmates - "There's this boy, Logan, he got his frog moved down to the water .... Then he got moved to the mud! .... Then he got moved down to the frowny face.  He's naughty.
• Classmates Part 2 - "I played with Clangston <Who?> Clangston .... You know, I played with him at preschool .... <Oh, you mean, Clayton!> .... Yeah, Clangston."
• Lunchtime - "I sat between Logan and Clangston. <You mean Clayton.> Yeah, Clangston..... He's nice, but Logan's naughty."
• Class - "All we do is work, work, work!"
• Music Class - "The teacher played some music and told us to dance.... So I did this." <Does an awkward, jerky rendition of the white man boogie ending in a breakdance pose on the floor>
• His teacher - "She made me her special helper. <Does she pick someone new each day to help her?> No, I missed you and was sad, so she asked me to be her special helper."
• His overall impression of his first week of Kindergarten - "It was long .... very, very long!"

Love Notes

I put a new one in his lunchbox every morning ...

He put them in his pocket so that I would be with him all day,

then carried them home and showed me.

Every day.

Sweetness.

Random

This is what happens when you let a 3 year old get a hold of sticky note pads.  

These are her "notes."  Reminders of 

very important things she needs to take care of.

A toddler's mind is a very busy place, you know.

He'll Wake Up Tomorrow a Kindergartener

This is my favorite picture of my firstborn.

He starts Kindergarten tomorrow, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.  Part of me wants him to stay my baby boy and not grow up, but the other half is very interested to see what he will become.  I guess my anxiety showed through today in the form of extra hugs and kisses because at one point, Jarrett wiggled out of my arms and said to me, "Don't worry, Mama.  I'm never going to leave you."  The sweetest words I could have asked for.  But I know that he won't always feel the same.  One day he will leave ... move out of my house and into his own.  And I'll be happy for him, I know.  But for now, I'm savoring all the spontaneous hugs and kisses I can get because I realize that one day, he'll decide that he's too big to snuggle with his mommy.  What a sad day that will be.

It's what's for dinner ...

     I first had this at a friend's house.  Her husband is Iranian and always makes the most wonderful Persian dishes.  He offered to teach me how to make it one afternoon, and I've been making it (and tweaking the recipe) ever since.  This is my favorite version so far. You can either saute the eggplant in a pan or brush them generously with olive oil and broil them in the oven.  Sauteing them is the traditional way.  Some people like to salt the eggplant for a few minutes (and then rinse them well) before sauteing. Doing this draws out the bitterness of the eggplant.

Khoresh-e bademjan

Olive oil (enough to brown the eggplant slices on both sides)

2 medium size eggplants (skin removed, cut into 4 pieces lengthwise)

2 tsp salt

2 tsp garlic powder

1 1/2 C onions, diced

1 lb. stew beef (cut into small cubes)

1 tsp. ground tumeric

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1 1/2 C water

3 limes, squeezed (or about 9 TBSP of lime juice)

3 C tomatoes, diced

1/4 C tomato paste

Saute the eggplant pieces over medium high heat in a large heavy bottomed stock pot until they are browned (or broil them in the oven).  Remove them from the pan and season them with the salt and garlic powder while they are still warm.  Add the onions to the same pan and saute until they just begin to brown.  Add the beef and continue to saute until they are no longer pink.  Add the turmeric and black pepper and stir well until absorbed into the beef.  Add the remaining ingredients along with the eggplant pieces.  Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer over low heat for about 1 hour.  Serve over Basmati rice.  I also always have naan bread with it too.

Don't I Know You From Somewhere???

Do you know how sometimes you look at someone, and they remind you so much of someone else?  To me, I've always thought that my husband looks a lot like the comic strip character Dilbert.  Tell me that he doesn't...... really!  Right?!?  Only, don't tell him I told you so.  It'll be our little secret.  Okay????  

From My Cold, Dead Hands

The Boy has taken to video games lately.  He alternates between his handheld Leapster Explorer, the Disney website games on my laptop, and Angry Birds on the iPod his aunt gave me a couple of months ago.  His current favorite, though, is Mario Kart on his aunt's Wii.  He asks if we can visit her every day ... all day long.  He's showing signs of addiction.  A kind of Charlton Heston "from-my-cold-dead-hands" addiction. And he's good.  Like beat-his-dad good. Like child-prodigy good. I picture him years from now parked in front of a big screen t.v. in a dorm room seated on one of those hideous video rockers surrounded by empty pizza boxes and soda cans ... flunking out of college because he'd rather try to beat some kid named Hiroto from Japan at World of Warcraft or Prision Struggle or some other horrid, violent blood-bath of a video game than go to classes.   .......  I'm scared.

And I should be.  Did you hear about the kid who recently died from playing video games too much.  It wasn't the video game that killed him.  It was the pulmonary embolism as a result of sitting for 12 hours straight playing his XBox that killed him.  Video may have killed the radio star, but now days, video games are killing young 20-somethings. That's why I'm going to insist that the Boy run circuits around the house while simultaneously playing his Explorer from now on, and I'm definitely buying the Just Dance Kids for the Wii he'll be getting from his grandparents for his upcoming birthday....... yes, they are enablers.

From My Kitchen to Yours

Sundays are special in our family.  Its the one day each week that mommy gets the night off, and daddy takes over in the kitchen.  He looks forward to trying new dishes, and this is his one chance to experiment.  This week he grabbed a Creole cookbook that I picked up in New Orleans over 15 years ago and decided to try his hand at Shrimp Etouffee.  Do you know what makes a dish delicious???  When someone else makes it for you.  Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.


Shrimp Etouffee


1/4 lb. butter     
1 C Onion, chopped
1/2 C bell pepper, chopped
1/4 c celery, chopped
2 TBSP garlic, minced
2 TBSP parsley flakes
2 TBSP all-purpose flour
2 C seafood stock (or water)
1 1/4 C Bechamel sauce
1 TBSP Creole seasoning (see below)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
1 TBSP turmeric
1 lb. shrimp, peeled and deveined
Cooked Rice


In a 12" skillet, melt butter on high heat.  Add onion, bell pepper, celery, garlic and parsley.  Saute until onions become transparent.  Add flour and whisk until flour begins to brown (to make the roux).  Add seafood stock or water, a little at a time, whisking until all is blended.  Mixture will begin to thicken slightly.  Add Bechamel sauce and stir in well.  Add Creole seasoning, salt, black pepper, turmeric and shrimp.  Stir in well.  If you want to thin the sauce, add water a little at a time, making sure it is blended completely before adding more.  Serve over cooked rice.  


Creole Seasoning:


1 C salt
2 TBSP cayenne pepper
1/4 C black pepper
1/2 C granulated garlic
1/4 C onion powder
1 1/2 TBSP celery seed


In a food processor, add salt and cayenne pepper.  Process for 30 seconds.  Add black pepper, granulated garlic and process for another 15 seconds.  Add remaining ingredients and process another minute.  Store in an air-tight container or ziploc bag.  Makes 2 1/4 cups.


Bechamel Sauce

• 5 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 4 cups milk
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

In a medium saucepan, heat the butter over medium-low heat until melted. Add the flour and stir until smooth. Over medium heat, cook until the mixture turns a light, golden sandy color, about 6 to 7 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the milk in a separate pan until just about to boil. Add the hot milk to the butter mixture 1 cup at a time, whisking continuously until very smooth. Bring to a boil. Cook 10 minutes, stirring constantly, then remove from heat. Season with salt and nutmeg, and set aside until ready to use.  Makes 3 cups.

The West Top Ten List

Top 10 Things My Husband Does That I Don't Understand

1. Makes 10 trips to Lowe's in one weekend instead of writing a list and going once.
2. Measures the length and width of a wall before hanging a picture - just eyeball that sucker!
3. Uses his shop vac anytime I ask him to vacuum the floor even though we have a very nice Kennmore.
4. Wraps every package he mails to relatives in gift wrap first, then re-wraps it in brown grocery bags (logo inside out, of course) before mailing.
5. Insists on cocooning himself in the flannel sheets he's had for 20 years even after I've specifically gone out and bought new flannel sheets for our bed.
6. Washes his hair with Ivory bar soap.
7. Insists on keeping his rusted out, raggedy, broke-down mountain bike in the garage even though its in pieces and completely unusable.
8. Ditto for the doors, window screens, plywood, cardboard boxes and various bits of wood that aren't being used for anything other than getting in my way every time I try to get in or out of the car when parking in the garage.
9. Refusing to use reading glasses, so that I end up having to read menus, labels, small print in advertisements, newspaper articles, etc. for him.
10. Hand washes every plate, glass, utensil, dish, and pan with soap and hot water before putting them in the dishwasher and running a wash cycle.

Top 10 Things That I Do That My Husband Looks at Me Like I've Lost My Mind:

1. Changing the kids' clothes after he's picked something out for them to wear (that would be because he's colorblind and pattern-blind thus, tending to mix pastels with primary colors and plaid shorts with striped shirts).
2. Not measuring spices or other ingredients when cooking.
3. Re-hanging clothes so that the shirts and sweaters are all facing the same direction and are organized according to season, type (t-shirt, polo, button-down, etc.) and color.
4. Ditto for the sock drawer.
5. Folding clothes very neatly and placing them in a laundry basket before taking them to and putting them away in drawers or hanging them in the closet (btw, I do this so that if I'm unable to put them away right after I fold them, they will still be wrinkle-free when I DO get a chance to do so).
6. Suggesting we renovate anything in the house or redecorating so that it looks more stylish.
7. Researching every major purchase to the point of obsession for weeks or months before eventually deciding to buy it.
8. Stacking pots, pans, glasses, plastic containers, etc.  according to size before putting them away in a cabinet.
9. Coloring my hair, painting my nails, plucking my eyebrows or any other beauty improvement that is somehow painful, tedious or superficial.
10. Watching any reality t.v. especially, but not limited to, "Teen Mom," "Sixteen and Pregnant," "Mob Wives," and "Real Housewives of _______."

That's what I had kids for ...

I grew up in the country.  So weekends and summers meant work.  During the summer, my mom would get me and my sister up and into my papa's "garden" shortly after the sun came up each morning.  We would spend the morning picking every variety of corn, pea and bean that the Burpee catalog offered (at least it seemed).  While other kids enjoyed a carefree morning spent watching cartoons and eating Cocoa Puffs, my sister and I would be sweating it out in the fields.  If we dared complain about the grime and the heat, my mother would start telling us about HER childhood summers spent in her dad's cotton fields, and how, despite wearing long sleeved shirts, gloves and long pants, the burrs from the bolls would prick her hands, arms and legs. I learned at a young age that you can't get sympathy from a woman who's worked in a cotton field.  After dinner (lunch for you Yankees), I would always volunteer to stay home and shell peas.  It was much preferable to me to submit to the monotony and raw painful fingers that accompany shelling rather than face another 4 hours in the brutal sun. 


During the school year, Saturdays were chore days.  We had a choice.  One of us could stay inside and clean while the other did yard work.  My sister almost always preferred to mow the "lawn."  Basically, that was any acreage between the house, pond and woods that didn't have to be bush hogged.  As long as she didn't run into any water moccasins slithering up from the pond, she was happy to ride around on the lawn mower in monotonous circles if it meant she could listen to Lionel Richie on her Walkman.  So, I stayed in the house and spent the day vacuuming the floors, polishing the furniture, washing the windows, cleaning the bathrooms, doing laundry and any other task my mother could think of.  One day, I remember asking her why we had to do this much work.  Why didn't she and my dad do the work themselves and let us play?  "Because," she replied, "I don't have to.  That's what I had children for." 

So now, as a mother myself, I look forward to the day that my own kids can take on their fair share of work around the house. And if they dare complain, I know that I will tell them in excruciating detail about my childhood days spent picking in a hot, dusty field.  And at long last,  I will be able to repeat to them my mother's long-resented words.  After all, that's what everyone has kids for, right?

What If ....?

"Why ... ???" has been usurped in the boy's daily arsenal of quick-fire questions lately.  It used to be "Why do we stop at red lights?  .... Why red?  ..... Why not stop when the light turns green?" or "Why do we go to sleep at night?  .... Why can't we stay up all the time?"  Those were pretty easy to answer.  It didn't take a lot of thinking to give a fairly accurate and informative answer.  Lately though, he's progressed to the next level.  Now its "What if a volcano exploded?" and "What if we ran into an electrical pole and knocked it over?"  These kinds of questions seem simplistic.  But once he's sucked you into his vortex of insatiable inquisitiveness, you immediately find yourself in intellectually dangerous terrain requiring a P.h.D in applied mathematics and a college level physics text.  Take the earlier stated "What if a volcano exploded?". Its the sort of question-answer scenario that sends me racing to the liquor cabinet afterwards for some brain-numbing libationary relief:


The Boy: What if a volcano exploded in our backyard?
Me: We don't have a volcano in the backyard, Jarrett.
TB: ....... What if we did, and it exploded?
Me: We would run away really fast.
TB: ....What if we couldn't get away in time?
Me: Then we would burn up.
TB:  ...... Why? What would make us burn up?
Me: The lava.
TB:  How?
Me:  The lava is so hot that it incinerates anything that it touches.  
TB:  What does "incinerate" mean?
Me:  Burn. 
TB:  Even our bones??
Me:  Yes.
TB:  How?
Me:  Lava is so hot that it turns them into ash.
TB:  .......... I don't want to burn up!!!!!
Me:  Don't worry that wouldn't happen...... 
TB:  Whew!!!!
Me:  ............The poisonous gases would kill us before the lava ever had a chance to burn us up.
TB:  .... What kinds of poisonous gases??
Me: ................... I need to go lie down for a little while, Jarrett .......

The Thinker

The Thinker, a photo by Jarrettsmom9705 on Flickr.