Letter to Anna

Dearest Anna- I wanted to take a minute to write you a little note so as to memorialize some of your current quirkiness.

I am so very happy to know that your love of school has prompted you to walk around with a bag of pencils and a very thick book telling people that they need to sit down. I am further pleased to note that the book with which you choose to walk is The South Beach Diet. It amuses me no end, your mother who cannot lose the cumulative 30 lbs that you and your siblings have given me, to read the South Beach Diet book to you at bedtime. Your current innate ability to move at will in silence around the house is as unnerving as it is amazing considering it's rare that your brother can move from one room to another without raising long dead relatives. Speaking of your brother, it does my heart good to see you working together to accomplish such feats as stealing the candy from atop the fridge and making breakfasts from the freezy pops and hiding the evidence in the toy kitchen. I'm sorry that Mila has chosen you as her favorite target for her random acts of violence but, for the most part, you withstand her drive-by cup bashings with great aplomb. Perhaps next year when you are a boy and play soccer, you will lose your obsession with summer dresses. For now though, we'll continue to layer your tissue thin dresses with leggings and sweaters (a look you much prefer, incidentally, to tights which you routinely shed regardless of locale). I am looking toward to more of your vacant eyed, stern mouthed drawings and hope that one day you will actually draw mommy with a smile. Love- Mommy Ps. Love the dancing too

Thanksgiving Hangover

Thanksgiving is over. Whew. All things considered, it went pretty well. We had a great fresh turkey from David's Natural Market and great wine. I thought in the absence of a real post here (because I'm pretty freaking tired), I thought maybe I'd share some recipes that we used for dinner. Two of the recipes are basically modified from the food blog Simply Recipes (which I love). I say that they are modified (and the measurements are off) because I never follow recipes, and it's why I can't bake. Spiced Smashed Sweet Potatoes (this was really, really good) (a quick note that sweet potatoes are not yams, even though they are called same here) 6-7 sweet potatoes small handful of brown sugar 2 teaspoons of grated orange peel 1 Tbsp lemon juice (I used 1 1/2 tsp white vinegar & some orange juice b/c I didn't have lemon) 3/4 tsp cinnamon 3/4 tsp ground cloves 3/4 tsp nutmeg 1/4 tsp ginger 1 Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 400°F. Pierce sweet potatoes in several places with fork; place on rimmed baking sheet. Bake until tender when pierced with fork, about 55 minutes. Cool slightly.

2 Cut the sweet potatoes in half. Scoop out pulp into large bowl; discard peel. Add brown sugar, butter, vinegar, grated orange peel, ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger to sweet potato pulp. Using an electric mixer, beat until mixture is smooth; season with salt and pepper.

Can be made a day ahead.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Butternut Squash Apple Cranberry Bake

This one I pretty much followed, except I did substitute the nutmeg for mace (?). All in all, I loved the dish, but definitely make sure you sufficiently spread the butter out. My topping took a while to not look too dry.

Core Lessons

Today class, we will learn about the core muscle group. Also known as the part of your body that goes to shit after you've had four kids in four years and you use pregnancy as an excuse to eat two Berger cookies every night. Yes, class, mommy has thrown out her back. Daddy likes to tell mommy that if her stomach muscles were stronger, her back wouldn't go out. Mommy likes daddy to change all the dirty diapers. Could there be a worse time for your back to go out? Maybe when...nope, can't think of one. All my in-laws arrive tomorrow. My children sense something is amiss and run laughing when I try to catch them to change a diaper, or reprimand, or do pretty much anything. They know something is wrong when I need help standing from a sitting position. They take advantage. Bastards. This happened on Saturday. I was on a ladder and I felt it seize up. I didn't know what to do to prevent it from happening so I just kept telling it not to happen. Oddly, it happened anyway. We needed to move several large pieces of furniture. (When you live in a house like ours and are faced with the prospect of several additional people, you either move out or move furniture. Moving out didn't seem reasonable in four days.) C did not want to move the furniture. I am the catalyst. If I opt out because my back hurts, moving doesn't happen. Move it anyway. Our kitchen table was built by my grandfather, bless, and my dad. It is covered with Mexican tile. It is seven feet long. It weighs approximately a full-grown African elephant. "No," I say, "I'm totally fine. Let's move this thing." Christ almighty. It is now Tuesday. I am so grateful I have left over Darvocet it's almost disturbing.

Family love

Family love Originally uploaded by itsaduck

Fortunately my iPhone was nearby for this impromptu love-in. Home together all week (it's only Tuesday) is challenging so when we see little displays that they might actually like each other, it's nice to capture.

How you know your kids are yours

When I was little, my mom would sing me Brahms' Lullaby. You know the one that goes something like :

lullaby and good night, baby [name here] I love you, lullaby and good night, make up words or maybe hum here lullaby and good night, and the angels will watch you lullaby and good night, and hum some more here;

Every time my mom would sing it to me I would cry. No reason for it, just the thought of someone loving me and singing those words (or mostly humming), it seemed like the thing to do. Tonight I was singing You Are My Sunshine while all the kids were getting ready for bed. When I got to the verse that goes: "When I awoke dear, I was mistaken, so I hung my head and I cried," I looked over and Eddie was weeping. He is still weeping. He made me go get his teddy bear. The one that is so pristine it looks new. Apparently the song evokes feelings of needing to have your teddy bear. I have now sung both verses of You Are My Sunshine no fewer than 15 times since 6:30. Every time he cries. Towards the end, he warned me that he would cry. "Mommy, when you get to the part about hanging and crying, I'm going to cry."

Who is bringing the crazy? I am bringing the crazy.

I think it's official. I will be hosting 13 people at my house for Thanksgiving. I truly have visions of a Norman Rockwell experience. I will likely have a Norman Bates experience. I think I have the menu planned. I go to Costco and quickly adjust the menu because Costco has strawberries, not cranberries. Turkey with strawberry relish. Works for me. Doesn't work for anyone else? Don't care. I think I have figured out where everyone will sit. Don't want guests eating in their laps in the living room? The other option is with the kids at the kids table but in real chairs, or at the grown-up table with folding chairs that may or may not fold up while you are sitting in them. I think that I know what I'll be feeding everyone the day before Thanksgiving. Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches can be quite the gourmet treat. Especially if the crusts are cut off and you do that thing that all of the "I don't have kids but I edit this kids magazine so I can tell you what would be cool" articles tell you and cut the sandwich into stars. I would love for one of those people to come to my house and cook with my children. It's somewhat challenging to actually not cook your children when you have them all in there with you. Something extra: Mom: Eddie, we need to button your shirt over your undershirt. We need to hide the frogs and these stains. Eddie: You know mommy, Opsy-clean Stain Mover will help get my shirt clean. Mom: Anna, get your cup and carry it up the stairs. If you want your doll, get that too. Anna: Me can't carry them up. Me small. Me have small muscles and legs. You big. You carry it.

Not cool enough

I'm not cool enough for Facebook. I got hugged and zombied or something and I didn't quite know what to do about it. I think I may have hugged someone else, who I didn't really want to hug and who I think might think it's a little weird that I hugged him. Then, someone turned me into a zombie. What?

About a month

So it's been about a month since the infamous "what irks me" post. I must say, if something irks me, it's usually enough to get me to move. In some freakish way, I suppose I should be happy that something irked me so much that it pushed me around the bend on going greener. So, a month into our "greening of the Bulls" I think we are heading in the right direction; we've learned some stuff (frightening stuff, some) and we've made some changes.

• Moved almost entirely to gDiapers.
• Now I'm much more in tune with my babies' bodily functions than is even remotely necessary.
• I've joined the gMums/gDiapers Yahoo group and learned that I'm not nearly as in touch with my children's bodily functions as other gMums are.
• I've learned how and when to auger your toilet. (It is not AFTER the toilet overflows, for those who are wondering. It is before. When the water level is low, not high.)

• I've thrown out all of our cleaning products and started using new ones that are ecologically friendly AND don't cost me my left arm at Whole Foods. I really like the products and have started taking their vitamins too. Can't hurt, might help.

• Have made everyone's favorite song Jack Johnson's Three R's. Eddie now runs around yelling at all of us to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Anna has started singing too. No one turns anything off though. It's just more fun to yell at mommy when she forgets.

• I'm considering getting rid of all of our plastic sippys and moving to the Kleen Kanteen products or the thermos foogo stainless steel stuff.

Of course, when Baltimore City offers its new recycling containers, we'll go get them. Until that happens, we'll drown in milk containers and take them out twice a month. Edited to add: I just noticed that the genius who made the Jack Johnson video misspelled Reduce. I, however, am the genius that posted it anyway. Deal.

Eddie took this

Things you do when you have all four

These things include:

1. Go to Ikea and discover that your local Ikea only has self check out. Check out anyway with a baby strapped to your front and another ingesting her third granola bar. Get paged to Smaland b/c your three year old wants to go home and wear her wellies.
2. Let your three year old wear her wellies just about anywhere she wants.
3. Put all of your children down for naps at noon.
4. Let children take bath and splash and swim until they are so tired they drop. (see above)
5. Eat at McDonalds.
6. Fall down a little bit on the gDiaper use b/c the parts are all over the freakin' house and you can't leave any of the babies alone for a second lest you get Gulden's Mustard spread all over the basement floor.

Julia Roberts is a gMum

Apparently, Julia Roberts and I have something in common. She's a gMum too! (i.e. she also uses gDiapers.) Does anyone else have a life-size picture of the Pretty Woman ripping open her baby's gDiaper flushable to dump it into the toilet and swishing it with the swish stick? I wonder if she learned, as I did, that you really must use the swish stick or else learn how to auger your toilet?

The Week Without a Nanny

Yes, this week we are without a nanny. Tomorrow (Tuesday) is election day (?) and there is no school. I haven't been a complete stay-at-home mom since Eddie was 19 months and Anna was 6 months old. I'm actually looking forward to it. I'm the type of person who implements little "systems". The technical equivalent lately is the Grand Central number I got (hence, the Call Me button on the right over there). I don't need it really, but it seems like a little cool system-y thing that I can add to my life. My systems don't translate to my husband or our nanny. Like the time I labeled all of the laundry baskets with everyone's name on it and expected all of the clothes and items of all of the kids to be put in their respective baskets to be taken around the house. Was logical right? Worked for about a month. Then I was the only one who did it. Long and the short of it is that I'm interested to see if my little systems work in practice as well as theory, or if people don't use my systems because they secretly harbor a passive desire to thwart my every move.

Check out the Inc. Magazine Article on gDiapers

We are still using our gDiapers. Now there's an article in Inc. Magazine about them. Nice.

Halloween Part 2B

Here is everyone getting ready to head out for trick or treating.


And here is everyone on the return.