Uncategorized

Today was a day of cooking. I am truly amazed at the amount of baking I did today. 3 pumpkin pies, 1 apple pie, 4 loaves of pumpkin bread, 1 big batch of candied walnuts, and a chocolate cheesecake. All of this is in preparation for the feasting tomorrow. Chalain & Chaliren are coming to spend the day, help cook food, and help devour food. I’m really looking forward to it. During a preparatory pow-wow where Chaliren and I divided the list of things to be cooked, we agreed that we’d eat ham rather than turkey. Tonight at dinner Kiki expressed disapointment with this decision. She really wanted turkey. Or to be more accurate, she wanted a huge roasted bird so that she could peel the cooked skin off and eat that.

For anyone who doesn’t know, cooking a Turkey starts about 4 days before hand when you pull the beast out of the freezer and use up your entire fridge to give it room to thaw. When the bag the turkey is in starts leaking, you know it’s ready to cook. In short, it’s too late to acquire a turkey and expect to be able to cook it tomorrow. Besides, I baked all day I don’t want to go shopping. Howard was sporting a vicious headache and didn’t want to go shopping either. In hopes of heading off the looming Pout of Doom, I rummaged in our freezer and discovered a frozen turkey breast left over from last year. It was small enough that if I used the defroster in my fridge I might be able to cook it tomorrow. I triumphantly carried the partial bird up to Kiki expecting excitement and thanks. She took one look at it and sat back pouty again “It says turkey breast. Will it have skin on it?” sigh. I’ve no idea, but at least I attempted to not ruin Thanksgiving for her. If our sacreligous decision to have ham instead of bird does ruin her holiday, then she can add it to her store of character building memories.

In unrelated news I’ve got a new game at the top of the “We will never rent this again” list. It features a cartoony alien creature who runs sideways across the screen while violently slaying and infinite supply of identical FBI agents. It is repetitive and annoying and my kids love it. As I was baking I got to listen to them howling with laughter while shouting things like “I bit his head off!” “Die FBI!” and “I cut him in half!” It was rather disturbing, at least to me. I did discover that there was a feature that allowed you to turn the “gore” off. This meant that when you sliced FBI agents they spouted flowers instead of blood. I hoped that would be better. Instead I got complaints. “Mommy! The blood is all gone!” If I really believed that it was harming them, I would take the game back right now even though that would make me into the super bad guy for days. As it is, I’m going to work really hard at finding them more interesting things to do. It just feels wrong to hear those things coming out of the mouths of my beautiful little children. Yuck.

If you haven’t already, got read Howard’s Open Letter (http://www.livejournal.com/users/howardtayler/137093.html). It makes me cry to read it and so grateful that we’ve come to a place where he could write it.

We’re so lucky.

On Halloween night someone in our neighborhood handed out coupon books instead of candy. I wish I knew who it was so that I could thank them profusely. The coupons are for Einstein Bagels, they come 6 to a booklet and each coupon is for a free bagel. All four kids got one, so we have 24 coupons. These coupons are ingenious from a business standpoint because they only apply to kids 12 and under. So the kid gets a free bagel and mom or dad is standing there in the store looking at yummy food and will probably buy something.

Einstein Bagels are one of the things that I miss. We used to buy them with shmears for the family fairly regularly and we all loved it. Thanks to these coupons our kids are getting to have bagels again, at least until the coupons run out. We’ve made a real treat out of going to “the bagel store.” Usually it is just one child and Howard. The child gets to hold the coupon, pick a bagel, hand over the coupon and walk out of the store with a little brown back of “yum.” They feel grown up and important doing those things themselves. Howard brings the bagel home, toasts it and sprinkles it with cinamonsugar for the child to devour. Sometimes the child isn’t very hungry and then Howard or I get to have some too. Yum.

Getting to eat yummy bagels is happy, but even happier is being able to provide a small treat for the kids. The bageling ritual is far more imporant than the actual food content of the bagel.

This past week does not qualify as the worst week of my life. But if I kept a list of most stressful weeks, this one would be right up there. Fortunately it is now Friday evening and I discover that I’ve weathered the week to find a happy place on the other side. I survived managing preschool with a baby in hand. I not only survived it, but I feel like it went pretty well. NotMyBaby cooperated by taking a long nap at the best possible time. Howard removed Patches from the house at a critical moment and all else went well. Most amazing ofall, I was able to sneak in some leaf-raking yard work during one of the free play times. I still have events scheduled tomorrow and Sunday, but now that my brain isn’t busy supressing panic at the anticipation of preschool, I can see that these final events are all ones that require me to leave the house without my children. That kind of activity generally de-stresses me rather than stressing me further. So, now I’ve got a survivor’s euphoria and I feel happy.

I still want to do some analysis of the effects stress had on me this week. I need to sort it all out and figure out why I was so panicked and why that panic surfaced in the ways that it did. But that’s too thinky for me right now. For now I just want to float calmly on a wave of relief, put my kids to bed and have a long bath. That would be good.

Twice today I have referred to events which are happening on Saturday as “tomorrow”. I guess part of my brain is still chanting “Lalalalalala! I can’t hear you Friday!”

There is also the part of my brain that is very absorbed in trying to figure out how I managed to so severly over schedule myself so that I can Never Ever Do It Again. If I survive through Monday it will only be because Howard is a wonderful husband.

I thought I was prepared. I thought I had everything ready. Once again preschool mowed me flat. Behind the cut is a really long description of what running a home preschool is like. Everything in the description took place today between 9:30 am and noon. …

PreschoolRead More »

There is a place beyond “stressed out” where I resided last night and early this morning. It is like the eye of a hurricane where everything feels heightened, different, but the whirlwind is about to descend. Beyond stressed out I am not exactly calm, but I have no time to do anything but be focused. Unless I am also tired, then about all I can do is sleep or cry.

This week accumulated deadlines and Events Which I Must Manage. At least one per day all week with some days doubling or tripling up. Contemplating this week exhausts me. Today was enormously simplified when NotMyBaby’s mom called me and told me he was sick and she’d be staying home with him. I don’t want NMB to be sick, but I’m so glad he won’t be here during my hosting of Gleek’s preschool this morning. 6 preschoolers I can manage, add a baby into the deal and suddenly I’m having to manage 6 preschoolers one handed and with only half my attention. I knew I’d have to do it when I agreed to watch NMB, but I was anticipating today with dread. I’ll still have to do it on Friday, but right now Friday is an endless list of Things To Do away and I can safely pretend it isn’t there. Lalalalalala I can’t hear you Friday!

Today: Preschool
Tomorrow: NMB, craft & luncheon at the church building. (I’m in charge), cub scouts, activity day for Kiki
Thursday: NMB, Evening at the temple with relatives (Agh I’ve got to find babysitting!)
Friday: NMB, Preschool again (1 handed with half attention Lalalala! Can’t hear it!) imediately followed by having people over for lunch.
Saturday: Hide in bed while the kids wreak havoc in the house.

And of course each of those days will also include meal preparation, Homework Time, sending kids to school, retrieving kids from school and random sprinklings of tantrum or emotional drama.

Edit: Nov 17, 2005 After I wrote this entry things were added to the schedule. NMB’s mom called and asked if he could stay 3 hours longer on Thursday. I said yes because I was so grateful for his absense on Tuesday. Kiki came home with an invitation to Harry Potter for Saturday morning. More babysitting had to be arranged for that. Sunday acquired a Relief Society meeting and an evening Devotional in addition to Church. Even more babysitting. So the collapse on Saturday can only be a partial one. Whee.

Today’s episode of CSI: Mommy began with a loud THUMP and crying. I dashed from downstairs to go and see if there was blood. I found the following scene:

Patches was sitting on the floor legs straight out in front of him. He was waving his hands as if they had “yucky” on them. Gleek was sitting on the floor next to the back door emiting a wailing noise. Between them the floor was … shiny. Hardwood floors are supposed to gleam, but this one glistened liquidly in swirling patterns. Something had been smeared. All over. By small fingers. A glance at the counter showed me the remains of Gleeks bowl of pink yogurt. The floor was glistening pinkly. By this time I was pretty sure that it was yogurt swirled so artistically all over the floor. And that Gleek had slipped and fallen on the slick yogurt. All that remained was for me to figure out the motive behind this particular crime scene. In true CSI fashion I began questioning suspects and in accordance with the script, they spilled the beans.

Gleek was eating yogurt. She wanted to share some with Patches, so she dropped dollops onto the floor for him to swipe up with his finger and lick. Apparently sharing into another bowl or with an additional spoon didn’t occur to her. The swirl patterns left by this activity were so fascinating that Food Sharing turned into Art Project. They were quite happy with themselves until Gleek was betrayed by the slickness of be-yogurted flooring.

I made the little artists help me clean up the mess.

Today is the first day of me being a childcare provider for someone else’s child. NotMyBaby arrived this morning at 8:15 and he’ll be staying until half past noon. So far it’s working out just fine. NMB is down for a nap now and I’m having breather. The adjustment is taking a lot of energy from me. NMB is an only child and isn’t quite sure what to make of Gleek or Patches who keep shoving toys in his face in an effort to make him happy. After about an hour Patches started feeling a little insecure about all the attention that NMB was getting from me and started plunking himself in my lap. After NMB went down for a nap I made sure to snuggle Patches and read him a story.

In other news I’m pleased and flabbergasted at how successful Howards first ebay auction is going. I’m hitting myself for not learning how to sell on ebay before this. We’ll probably be doing one auction a week during the Christmas shopping season and slow down after that.

I am happy today for the sunshine
For the skies of gray or blue
For within my heart is a song of life
I’ll live, I’ll work, I’ll do

No cloud can cast a shadow
Over courage such as mine
I’ll sing my song as I go along
I’ll live, I’ll work, I’ll do

My mom used to sing that song in the morning as she made breakfast. Today I found myself singing it while making breakfast. Singing it made the morning a good place. Generational connections have value.