Sweet Saturday

This past month has been busy.  So busy that when I look back on our calendar, there are days that so much is scribbled down that I can't even read what the date is.  That's not the way we like to live, but it was what needed to be done, so we pushed through.

Baby Ben asleep in my arms.

Last Saturday things seemed to slow down.  We were able to spend a relaxing morning with new friends, and after a beautiful Autumn day walk back to our house it was time for everyone to nap.  Jack crawled into bed, Ben fell asleep in my arms (which almost never happens anymore), and as I tried, and failed, to fall asleep (still jittery from our friend's yummy coffee) I got to think about how grateful I am for rest.  I almost always look for the next thing to do, but it's the time of rest with my family that brings me just as much joy (sometimes more!) as doing things with them.  And while I didn't get to sleep this day, I did get to enjoy listening to Jack snore, watch Ben drool on my arm, listen to Alex blow the falling leaves off the driveway, and get excited for that night's UK football game with my Dad.  It was such a sweet Saturday.

Happy Birthday Jack

Today is Jack's third birthday.  We've had a wonderful couple of parties for him with friends and family.  We felt like he deserved a couple after missing his 2 year old party (he was sick in the ER this time last year).  It is such a cliche, but I'm going to join the countless parents that have said it before me: these three years have flown by (or maybe it just seems that way when you don't sleep).  I am grateful for all these pictures (and there are a lot here today) to remind me he was once a little boy. 

Jack's first car accident.  Thanks Abuelo!

Getting ready for his birthday party.

Here I come!

Boyd's Orchard has a wonderful animal area.  Jack loved feeding the goats.

Of course, it had to be a Cars cake.

I love the excitement on his face! Next to Jack is Zeinon, his friend from school and it was his birthday party, too.

Eating the ice cream wasn't enough.  He had to lick the bowl...that's my boy!

More please?!

Family party cake.

MORE cake and ice cream.

Presents!  Thanks, Tia Maria.

Tia Maria flew in to celebrate Jack's birthday. Jack was so excited (Ben was pretty happy to see her, too!).

A rare picture of Jack and Mama.  Thanks, Maria.

Post ice cream...do I need to say more?

Oh, how I love that smile.

I think this picture sums it up.  Jack had a great birthday!

My Children Are Perfect

That's right.  You heard me.  My children are perfect.  Now, go on.  Go tell everyone I said so, laugh about it, gossip about it, then come back and finish this read, and I think you'll agree.

As a Christian, I'm always told I am the perfect mother for my children, and I believe it.  I believe God plopped Jack and Ben in my womb knowing I would be the mother that could provide exactly what they need.  I'll have to admit, though, it has become my 2AM mantra.  You know what I mean.  It's 2AM, Alex is out of town on business, both kids are sick, and I have just bonked one kid into the door frame as I was running through the house to try and rescue the other from falling off the bed, and they're both crying in my lap.  What do I do? I cry, of course, and keep repeating over and over: I am the perfect mother for these children, I am the perfect mother for these children...  Ha!

An early AM play session

While there is truth in my roll as their mother, what I have found over the last three years is that the reverse is also true.  My children challenge me in ways I never thought about.  They make me a better mother, a better person, and they have helped me grow as a Christian more than any Bible study, sermon, or revival ever could. They've also made the Bible much more clear for me. 

There is a Bible verse that has always thrown me for a loop:

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:3

Now, what in the world does that mean? Pre-babies, I always thought I needed to throw out worldly knowledge and understanding to get a glimpse of what Jesus was saying here.  As someone who loves to read, learn, and try to understand how this world works, I had a very hard time with this. However, Jack has shown me differently. 

Recently, Jack has been tearing through his Bible.  I mean tearing through it.  He will read it day, night, weekends, fall asleep with it, talk about it, sing about it, and dream about it.  I wish I could say that I had something to do with it, but I don't (besides providing him with the Bible).  This is of his own accord, and, honestly, I had a really hard time with it. I love that he wanted his Bible...to an extent. I value a balanced life so much that I was becoming concerned.  It all came to a head when we decided to walk to our local health food store for lunch.  

We're on the way out the door and Jack wants to take his Bible.  I'm trying to talk him out of it.  I mean, there are hippies there and I don't want to make them uncomfortable (read here: me uncomfortable!).  In the end, he wins out and we're off.  We run into a lady in the street and Jack shows her his Bible.  She's kind, but she quickly runs away because I think she thought I was about to witness to her (Ha!  If she only knew how much I sweat just writing this semi-anonymous blog).  We make it to the store and Jack is telling everyone about his Bible, the stories he's read, and it's so normal for him. He's talking about his Bible just like he's breathing in and out. 

Ding, ding, ding!!!  And it all starts to click.  Think about that verse now.  Don't give up your reason, your understanding of this world, but just live your Christian life as if you breathing in and out.  It's who you are.  It's what you do.  There's no church Amy and secular Amy.  We're one and the same. What an amazing lesson for me, and you know what. I don't think I would have ever understood that verse without Jack.  

I couldn't have planned this picture. Thanks for helping me out Jack!

 And, this is just the tip of the iceberg. They have taught me patience, how to control my temper, how to listen to them (those baby books are worthless. I wish I had never read a one), and how to take life day-by-day. So, you see what I mean? My children are perfect...for me.  Now, if I could only get those boys to quit picking their noses, they really would be perfect. 

Week of Ghosts

This week was a tough week filled with ghosts from the past. I don't know why I dwell on things from so long ago, but I do, and I let it affect every part of my life (you should have seen this disaster of a house I had here).  Mostly I thought about the way I've hurt people, how I could try to make amends, and if I can't, I just fester.

It takes time, sometimes days, for me to move past these ghosts.  When I do, I try to think what I have done to hurt, and it's almost always because I have forgotten how important the small, honest gesture is.  So often I focus on the grand event or the big to do, when all I need to do is to take that genuine step toward another person.  An email, a call, a wave, some bread, help someone move, appreciation for something given, an invitation, a thank you, a hug, an attempt to understand where they're coming from, an ear to listen, a ride somewhere, an apology, a look in the eye, an honest explanation. Really, this list could go on forever, but invariably, I have failed, sometimes purposefully, one of these and hurt someone dear, or sometimes not so dear, to me.  And these are the hard ones to repair.  These all are a move away from someone, and that hurts us to the core.  They're so simple, not always easy, but so, so simple to do.

As I fester, I pray, and I try to find ways to apologize and ask for them for forgiveness, but there are some that I will never be able to apologize to.  So, I ask God for forgiveness, try to forgive myself, and pray that I don't do it again. I wish I had learned how simple it all could be earlier in life.  I'm not saying I'm giving up the big to do, there is something to be said for it also, but I will be focusing on these small, genuine gestures from now on. 

The New Fish and Chips

Before I had children, I used to serve braised kale for supper, and my husband, always so patient with my cooking, would chipmunk all he could into his cheeks, as far away from his taste buds as possible, quickly chew a little, swallow, and go for the next little bit he had squirreled away. All this while saying, "Yum. Tastes healthy." Not a real compliment, but somehow it didn't stop me, and I kept cooking the greens.

After children, I didn't think I could get away with the "it's healthy for you" argument, so I have been steaming, pureeing and "hiding" kale in everything from pancakes to pasta. I don't think Jack would know what to do with a pancake that wasn't green. Poor kid. But I'm oh so tired of finding ways to slip the greens in, so I decided to go for the full frontal attack.

If you read any food/hippy/natural living blogs, you have seen the kale chip recipe floating around. I thought it was the biggest joke out there, but I had to try something. So, I marched over to my favorite grocery, bought some organic kale, carted it home, and tried this recipe with a little garlic powder. I have to say, it was wonderful! Both boys ate a ton, husband didn't chipmunk it, and it was super easy to do. I served it up with some baked salmon and roasted squash and they practically licked their plates clean. Now, don't buy what they're saying that it takes all the bitterness out of the kale. That's just hogwash. It helps a lot, but it still has that kale-y taste. But, like I said, both boys ate it! That means a lot in my book. Note: be a little careful serving to wee ones. All chips aren't so dry and can be difficult for new chewers to swallow. I ended up crumpling some into smaller pieces, just to make sure Ben could swallow easily, with plenty of water. I hope you're curious enough to give it a try. It is worh it!

Well, I never meant for this to blog to talk about food so much, but it's what we're doing day in and day out: eating. It's to the point that I feel like I'm raising two locusts and not two boys (how can something so small eat so much). I like to joke that, now that I'm a stay at home mom, all I do is feed babies, wipe butts, and try to balance everything else in between. It would be funnier if it weren't so true. My closest friends are the check out ladies at my favorite grocery stores. But that's life these days, and I ain't lookin' back.

Off the Sugar Wagon

Hi everyone...I have been sitting on this post for a while now, but life has kept me too busy to get it out. So, here it is. I pray that it is helpful to you and that we're all finding some peace, especially in these last few weeks.

There's probably a few of you saying, "I knew it wouldn't last!" Well, you're right. I fell off the wagon - for a short time. This recent trip to St. Louis was tough for me. There is very little you can eat on the road, besides salads, when you are trying to avoid sugar 100%. Looking back, I should have planned better. But after packing baby food, homemade formula, soy-free food (allergy), and snacks for Jack, I just didn't have it in me to pack food for myself (nor much space - we had two big grocery bags of food and a small cooler stuffed with food). I thought I would wing it and see what happened, and you know the rest. The real low point was the mint oreo milk shake at Steak-n-Shake. Thankfully, it tasted horrible to my sugar-free tongue, but I sure did try to like it. A couple of you have asked how I started the sugar-free thing, so I thought I would tell you here. It really wasn't too difficult, but it definitely was a gradual process, when I look back.

It started September 2010 when we learned we had a soy allergy in the family. Lucky for us, it was the most restrictive soy allergy and encompassed all soy products, including soy lecithin and vegetable oil (which is almost always soy oil). We quickly cut these out of our diet (which was a real roller coaster, let me tell you), and we weren't left with much else besides home cooked food. Now, I love too cook and bake, but when you don't have a choice it can quickly become a chore. I was having a hard time varying our meals (there's only so many times you can eat pasta or roasted chicken) and a friend turned me on to Relish. It's an online menu planner, and it's awesome! The meals are yummy, healthy, and mostly soy-free (with a few exceptions). I can't recommend it enough. They also have a gluten-free menu for all you gluten allergy folks.

My Boys:

Once we got the homemade, soy-free food down, it was easy to jump to sugar-free. Pretty much anything that doesn't have soy in it, doesn't have sugar or corn syrup (or corn sugar, they've renamed it in hopes of tricking us consumers...how dumb they must think we are). The hardest meal to fit into our new lifestyle has been breakfast (have you ever tried to buy sugar-free yogurt?!). I don't know why we are like this, but breakfast is always packed with sugar. To get around that problem, we eat a lot of steel cut oats, bagels, eggs, pancakes and toast.

Steel Cut Oats - serves ~4 adults

1 cup steel cut oats

4 - 4 1/2 cup water

1 t salt

2-3 T butter

Mix all these in the crock pot and cook on low for about 6-8 hours. Sometimes the oats stick to the side in the morning. Just stir those into the oats. I use a light timer to start these in the middle of the night, so they're ready when we wake up in the morning. Note: you have to use a small, 2 qt. crock pot, the big ones won't work.

Some of you might not be interested in cutting out sugar completely. I can understand. It's hard, and I really don't think sugar in small amounts is all that bad for you. As a special occasion (or just because), it's a wonderful treat! But if you're looking for some way to reduce the amount you eat, I once heard a good rule of thumb is to only eat food that doesn't have sugar in the first three ingredients (I think that came from the movie Food, Inc.). It's a good way to make sure that you're eating actual food, not just sugar laced with food.

Well, there it is. I hope this helps those that are interested. I've been doing this for a while now, and it's been great. I feel wonderful and can immediately tell when I get into some bad food. My body shuts down and says, "Sorry. You've just trashed the system. We will reboot, soon." I wait...and it does. Then I get back on the wagon and start all over again.

Preschool..hello!

Well, it has happened. I have become the cliche: where have three years gone?! Yesterday, Jack started his first day of preschool at a wonderful local Montessori school (it happens to also be the school I went to when I was a wee lady). I wish I could say the day went smoothly, but it was anything but.

It all started when we all slept in. We NEVER do this. I mean never. I can count on one hand the number of times we've slept past 7am. It just doesn't happen. Of course the one day we need to be up, we're all snoozing like teenagers that have been out dancing all night. Alex rolls over and tells me it's 7:30, I bolt out of bed, ask Alex to get Jack up, and I run into the kitchen to start breakfast...without my glasses. While I'm slinging slop in bowls and mead in mugs, I start to smell something. I'm squinting and looking around, letting my 100% working senses take over, and there it is. My dog has diarrhead (not sure that's a word) all over the floor, all over the wall and all over boxes waiting to be unpacked. I mean, generations from now archaeologists are going to find my dog's poo in cracks and crevices. You have got to be kidding me! We finally get everyone together (poo cleaned up), out the door, and on the way to school, and I've forgotten everything. Jack's spare underwear, wipes, shorts, name tags, everything. We loop back around, pick it up, drop Jack off (amazingly on time), and pop in to the "Are you a freaked out parent" coffee this wonderful school has planned for all of us. I continue to down more coffee, watch Ben spit up on their floor and generally interrupt the whole discussion, and wonder why I ever thought this day would go smoothly.

Thankfully, the most important thing I wanted to go well, did. When we pulled in front of the school, Jack jumped out of the car, sashayed down the sidewalk while holding Ms. Ashby's hand, into school. Not a look back, not a tear, nothing. I couldn't have asked for a better beginning.

Jack's first day of school. I dressed him in the brightest shirt I could find in case he took off running. At least they would see an orange streak cruise by.