All in an Effort to Appease My Fans (read: my family)

Ok, fans of 3 turkeys, (all 3 of you) you've twisted my arm. I humbly accept the challenge of writing on a more regular basis. But what will I write about? Your guess is as good as mine. How about this? I have exactly 5 minutes to write, because it's 2:43pm. Emma just came home from school, Anne-Marie is upstairs talking in her crib (only moments from crying) Andy and Renee are begging for food and I still have to clean myself up, pack a diaper bag for the rest of the day and then we have to go to ballet and straight to Emma's open house after that. Ok? Ok.

So, here's what Renee thinks is a good wardrobe choice in the dead of Winter 22 degrees outside and a snow storm approaching: A sun dress layered over a long sleeve t-shirt with sandals. No, pants underneath are out of the question and a coat will ruin the entire ensemble. I have a few minutes to convince her otherwise, because we are about to head out to ballet, but more importantly to Emma's school, where the teachers will suddenly understand that all the notes and questions and letters sent to school are, in fact, written by a crazy woman.

Time's up.

Today I Am

Today I am a Domestic goddess! I normally refrain from elevating (?) myself to mythical divinity, but today, what the heck? I'll throw caution to the wind and just say what I feel: today I am a Domestic goddess. To me, the height of success in the domestic world is a clean house, happy kids and husband and multi-tasking like nobody's business. Well, my kids and husband are outside playing in the new fallen snow which makes the clean house possible. Check one and two. Inside, the baby is napping which is where the multi-tasking comes in. Get ready to be stunned.

I have a clean house, a happy and playful family, I am making chicken stock for no particular reason, I've got a crock pot full of hot apple cider tea to thaw the frozen masses, I'm a watching a cooking show while I keep a roaring fire stoked and crochet a scarf. What say you the that! (It's the crochet that takes it to the next level, I think.)

I am so stinkin' happy about this day and how it's going that I can't help but shout "I AM A DOMESTIC GODDESS!!!!" at the top of my lungs -figuratively, of course, there is a baby sleeping, after all. Tomorrow I will likely revert to the domestic schlemiel that I normally am as the house comes crashing down around me. But for today, I am!

Seems a Good Day to Blog

It's a snow day. Let me say that again: IT'S A SNOW DAY! YAHOOOOOOOO!!!! Christmas break just ended, the kids haven't even been in school a week and still I find myself in desperate need of a day off. Little Annie-Mae woke me up at 5:15 for unknown reasons, so as I fed her a bottle in the pre-dawn hours, I tuned in to the pre-dawn news to see if maybe, just maybe, I'd get my wish. Our school district starts with S and I tuned in at the beginning of the alphabet. So I sat there trying to divine if school would be closed based on the other districts around town. Lo and behold! Snow Day!!!!

So here I am, it's 11:36, I've been up for 2 hours because Little Miss went back to sleep. In that time, I've fed the kids, read some blogs and I've had a delightful conversation with a wonderful woman, Paula, who stopped by to pick up some dvds Kevin made for her. I invited her to stay and have a cup of coffee even though we were all still in our pajamas and she had to climb over Andy's "Slidy Town" creation of blocks, discarded garments, a pile of clean laundry and a fort of pillows. There really was no hiding the disorderliness of my home. But Paula, ever-wise and generous, harkened back to the days when her 4 boys were little and told me her house looked about the same. "You do what you need to do for the kids and forget about the house" is what she says. Amen.

So, I had a lovely little chat with Paula. Now the kids are playing, the baby is napping, so why not ramble on a bit. It's been ages. I have no wisdom to impart, no funny stories. Andy is playing Wii, the girls are playing cars (!)and outside is some crazy overachiever plowing his driveway in 14 degree weather. Not me.

Ah....for the love of a snow day. Joy and peace. I will not work today. Kevin already called to suggest meeting up for dinner at a fast food restaurant. While I'm not inclined to get dressed at any point today, tomorrow begins P90X, so no more fast food for a very long time. Maybe he'll drive through and come home instead. I'd hate to have to brush my teeth. Just kidding- I wouldn't do that to Paula!

I hear some kids asking each other , "When is it lunch time?" so my rambling must come to an end. It's awful dang cold outside- too cold for little people to spend much time. I think we'll have some lunch, play a little more Wii and maybe later pop some corn, build a fire and watch a Christmas movie- because yes, it is still the Christmas season and we are gonna celebrate every blessed minute of it!

Merry Christmas to you. I hope you get a surprise day off soon!

Christmas Cleaning

Well, tomorrow is Christmas, which means today is Christmas Eve. We are down to the wire in preparations. All my wrapping is done. I need to label and bow the presents, though I may not get around to bowing. Andy wants Nutella cookies, so we'll make one last batch before Mass this evening. My biggest project today, as every year, is getting the house clean enough for Christmas.

I was talking about this yearly endeavor with some friends of mine, who also partake in this yearly task. Yesterday, the kids stripped the beds so I could wash the sheets- and mattress pad,even. Then I set them to work cleaning their bedrooms so they could be vacuumed. That is the "v" word here in our home, always drawing nervous tears from Emma who is terrified I will suck up a Polly Pocket shoe, never to be seen again. I don't blame her, it's a real possibility. Those shoes are microscopic! The cleaning took 4 hours with all the playing and running around that took place in between my shouts of "You'd better be cleaning up there!".

Another friend of mine was sharing how she was glad she got the toilet cleaned yesterday so she didn't have to do it today and still another friend told how she had to steam clean the carpets because her daughter spilled a cup of milk and didn't want the whole house curdling. Not only that, but she had her kids cleaning their rooms under fear that Santa might not bring new toys to kids who don't take care of their old ones.

Amid all of this, one good friend was looking at us perplexed. "Why is everyone cleaning their homes before Christmas? Is this a Catholic tradition I missed in my RCIA classes. Why do you clean your house before the mess is made on Christmas day?" She was curious and confused.

Here is my response:

"Well, Kathi, hmmm, you got me thinking. I thought everyone cleaned their house like I do before Christmas. Yes, it must be tradition, but I don't know if it's a Catholic one. I can't have a dirty (not the same as messy) house on Christmas and it must be from childhood. It must be part of "making straight the path" so Jesus can enter and not trip on all the crap and see all the dust bunnies (and worse). My mom would always say things like, "Is this house clean enough for the Pope?" (No, it never- NEVER- was with 6 kids in a 3 bedroom apartment!) So that must be where it comes from for me. My house is just this side of "cesspool" most of the year, but on Christmas it ABSOLUTELY must be clean, no matter how much my legs are swelling or sciatica in my back. That kind of drive, for me, can only come from tradition. Too bad it will only last until breakfast the next day when milk and cereal once again begin a committed relationship with my kitchen floors.

By the way, the sheets got washed because Renee had a diaper leak, so I figured that was a sign from God that it was time to wash my poor kids' sheets. (I won't tell you how long it had been since they were last washed, but if I needed prompting from God, that should tell you something.)"

Of course the most important preparation-and it must be said- is preparing our hearts for Jesus. If the house doesn't get cleaned, that's unfortunate, but not critical. Our heart is the home Jesus wants to enter. A clean home can be the outward sign of an inward preparation, or it can be a smokescreen. First things first. In the midst of cleaning, let's be sure our hearts are turned to Him and that all the work we do is for love of Him.

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday, Jesus.

Three stitches and a corneal abrasion

Yes, that's right. Three stitches and a corneal abrasion between 2 of the kids. Here's what happened:

I took the kids creekin' last week (that's playing in the creek, for you cityfolk) with Joanie. Andy's eye had been red ever since. Monday I took him to the pediatrician. Christian, Andy's good buddy, came with us to lend moral support and help Andy be brave. Andy was found to have an abrasion on his eye and had to wear a patch. He was not happy about it until Christian got a patch first and then they got to be pirate brothers. They were such good kids, I took them to DQ for ice cream. We went home at our leisure, having a nice evening.


When I got to Christian's house, where the rest of my kids were playing, I learned that Emma had fallen at another friend's house and cut a big, nasty gash in her knee. Her friend's dad carried her all the way to Julie's house with Emma screaming at the top of her lungs. I forgot my cell phone, so while I was gone, Julie came in the back door of my house to search for my first aid kit for butterfly bandaids. When she couldn't find it, she went door-to-door, scouring the neighborhood for them. No one had any. By the time I got to Julie's our whole block was involved, including consultation from a firefighter and a nurse on whether or not she needed stitches. All this happened while Andy and Christian were getting brain freeze on Blizzards.

I took Emma home to bandage her up, took one look at that cut and said, "Uh-oh". I left the other kids with Julie and took Christian's big sister, Hannah, with us to urgent care (my first visit as a mother after 6 years, not bad) to help distract Emma. The doctor numbed her knee then shot it up with something else- Novocaine, maybe- then irrigated the wound. Emma was freaking out, as she is prone to do, so I asked Hannah to talk to her and take her mind off of it. Hannah gave her the play-by-play and said, "Emma, he's sticking a giant needle in your leg." Thanks, Hannah.

Emma ended up with three stitches in her left knee, no swimming and no long baths for two weeks until we go back to have them taken out. Andy, after 3 more hours spent at the ophthalmologist the next day, ended up with steroid antibiotic eye drops 4 times a day (fun) for two weeks.

Did I mention this all happened at the beginning of the week that Kevin was gone to Utah? Next week, I'm going to Utah!

Tastes Like Heaven

"Tastes like heaven". If you told me 12 years ago that my husband would say this to me about my homemade tomato soup and grilled mozzarella and roasted red pepper sandwich, I would have laughed in your face and wondered how you could be so cruel.

I was raised in a home where money was tight and sense of culinary adventure was seriously lacking. My mother's idea of a spice rack consisted of salt and pepper. I can't blame her though. The lack of culinary expertise stretches back for generations. My husband's mother, on the other hand, is a professional cake decorator of international fame. I'm not kidding. She knows her way around the kitchen. I have a lot to live up to in this department.

I am not a detail-oriented person and certainly not a perfectionist. This isn't really detrimental to good cooking. It can still be done, if you are lucky. Let me explain myself further. I planned to make sweet potato casserole for dinner the other day. I went to the store and bought all the ingredients. When it came time to start making it, I realized I forgot the sweet potatoes. They weren't even on my list! Now you start to see the problem.

Take, for example, the first time I cooked for my future husband. I made meatloaf- a rather foolproof recipe...until I got my hands on it. Did you know, there is a significant difference between a tablespoon and a cup? There is really no way to fix a mistake of this magnitude, especially when it's a liquid. I was measuring ketchup and thought, "Hmm, this is a lot of ketchup. Oh well," and dumped it in. I proceeded to mix it up and wonder why it wasn't assimilating into the meat. Only then did I double check. Short of making a 10 pound meatloaf, it was beyond repair. I shamefacedly ordered pizza. Strike One.

The next time he came for dinner (brave soul), I decided to keep it ridiculously simple. I threw some fish sticks on a pan and into the oven. 18 minutes later I pulled them out of the oven cooked to perfection- except for the cat hair. It seems my roommates cat had made a home out of the cabinet with the baking sheets. Major league embarrassment and Strike Two.

My darling husband decided to take a chance that he could live despite my cooking, so he married me. Apparently he planned to eat a hearty lunch at work to avoid starving to death at dinner. I don't know what he planned to do for the weekends.

For our wedding we were given beautiful cookware by some well-meaning soul. I briefly considered using them as home decor and mounting them on the mantle rather than continue creating gastronomic disasters. However, I was raised to never say die- I might kill all my dinner guests, but I'd never say die.

The next 9 years were filled with foul-tips, to continue the metaphor in an unappetizing way. There have been countless dinners I've had to start twice and baking adventures where I've had to try to retrieve too much salt from a bowl of flour, baking soda and baking powder. I will tell you that it can be done. I've learned to get it right the second time around, usually not the first. But every once in a while, I hit a grandslam homerun. And the crowd goes wild.

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