taido’s best breakfast

taido is the star breakfast cook at our house. his waffles and pancakes make weekly appearances on our table. it is a tradition we started with our pack of toddlers in seattle…dad makes breakfast or we have eggs and cereal. but the favorite breakfast is crepes. incidentally, my favorite breakfast growing up was crepes. my mom made them on saturday mornings. she had a crepe iron that she received as a wedding gift that she used for years, even coaxing it through its puttering end before it finally died. we had to hunt for a new one. they weren’t easy to find back then…no ebay, no bed, bath and beyond. i think we found it at a little specialty shop in the mall. so, when each of us (my sister, brother and me) got married, mother got us crepe irons. now we all serve up crepes to our kids regularly. we actually now have two crepe irons for our crew and taido has taken over the crepe making as part of his usual breakfast making routine, and he’s even adjusted the recipe to make it healthier. yay! they are most frequently a saturday morning treat, served with berries and powdered sugar. today we had them oozing with fresh peaches and juicy blackberries, courtesy of our local csa. we gobbled them, i tell you. gobbled them up.

taido’s breakfast crepes

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

pinch of salt

1 tablespoon sugar

3 eggs

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 1/2 cups milk

fillings: fresh berries, fruit, yogurt, whipped cream, powdered sugar

blend all ingredients. pour batter into a dinner plate. dip crepe iron into batter. cook until edges brown. serve with filling of your choice.

enjoy!

shucked

we ate corn today that was still growing in the field this morning…so good! where else can you get that kind of turn around? we are locavores for sure! besides, it’s fashionable. and even though this isn’t usually my argument for doing something, everyone is doing it!

vacation bible school…why exactly do we call this a vacation?

ok…i feel the need to explain that i am drained of all creative energy, and indeed energy of all kinds because of vacation bible school. we do a great vbs at our church. if you can come, you should…or you should send your kiddos. especially if they like total craziness. it is insane. 200 kids, 90+ temperatures along with 99% humidity, free hot dogs and preservative packed packages of partially hydrogenated oils and msg…what’s not to love? seriously, i do think it is an amazing ministry and i believe it is a great step into our surrounding community. it is raising all sorts of questions and ideas for me…things i should write down to muse about later because right now, i need a nap.

the first grade boy chant (revised after our first night of madness to include the last part):

FIRST GRADE BOYS…YOU KNOW! WE DON’T THROW ROCKS!

pleeeease, just one more chapter

i hesitate to say that our last week was crazy, because that is pretty much true every week at our house, but this week we had a few extra crazies…our dad was gone, our baby turned one, our chicken ran away (we’re preferring to say that lulu ran away instead of that she was nabbed by a dog while happily playing in our front yard…which is sadly, probably what actually happened.) so at the end of every crazy day this week, i sat down somewhat frazzled to the bone and almost in tears and read a few chapters of this book to my kids. i bought it at the scholastic book sale. i have wanted it since it was published last year. i adore this author. she is certain to be one of those children’s book authors that goes down in history as a favorite storyteller of many generations. my kids will certainly collect all her books as adults, i hope, remembering reading them aloud together.

anyway, this book about a china rabbit who gets separated from his owner did not disappoint, neither in its magic ability to hold three different little attention spans, nor in its being able to calm my own soul down harried day after harried day. there are 27 short chapters, each one having it own exquistite small illustration, in addition to several full color plate illustrations, each one highly anticipated at our house. mary polly, in particular, spent a long time going back through these sweet drawings after we finished the book. we finished it friday night before dad came back saturday morning…i made it last until then, holding the book hostage during the day despite protests from cole and mary polly who wanted to just go ahead and read the rest on their own. i held on to it because we needed it. we needed that time at the end of each day this week. we needed to be quiet and listen. we needed our hearts to be stretched by a good story. and maybe, my kids needed to hear my voice at the end of the day…just calm and reading, not being mad at anyone or giving orders or barking consequences. just reading.

when we finished this book, i kissed my kids goodnight. then i just sat in my room and cried for a little while. maybe just because i was exhausted from the week, but also for sarah ruth, for bull, for abiline, because kate dicamillo’s characters are so real that they become your friends, or they remind you of your friends or just people in your life. i even thought often of our stupid chicken as we read about edward’s journey, which is why we are preferring to imagine her traveling the world and having adventures. i think that maybe that’s the treasure of a good children’s story, or any good story. hope.

while you were gone

taido walked in this morning at 6am (we didn’t expect him until 10am…note to all men: always come home earlier than planned…”it’s best to come in on one’s family before the lookout begins.” from emma) from being gone for a week and i swear i think i felt a weensy bit in my heart like it’s going to feel when jesus comes back. the relief, the gush of oh-thank-God-i-made-it-and-now-it’s-finally-over came over me like a wave. i was so happy to see him. we visited for a few minutes. we sat down and i squeezed him…held his hand. and then i handed him the baby and headed out to the river market, thrilled to be going sans enfants.

it’s hard to explain (even to myself) why exactly i hate so much for him to be gone. i have others around me. i am not technically all alone. life goes along in much the same way that it does when he is in town. still, there’s this sinking, this gutt-wrenching feeling that i get in my stomach as he drives away, and it grows deeper with each day that he’s gone. then when he comes back, it is like a flood filling back up again. i can actually feel it in my stomach. incidentally, my stomach signals this way to me about people’s comings and goings in general. i don’t know if everyone is like this or if it’s just part of my bizzarro social awkardness/anxiety, but when there is a knock at the door or a car pulls up in my driveway, or i answer the phone, my stomach goes one way or the other depending on who it is (or maybe on how i am doing or on what day of the month it is…i don’t know). one of the ways i knew that i loved…really loved…taido was that this feeling in my stomach…clenched or relaxed, that’s the best way i know to describe it…was indescribable when he would come around our house or i would see him at church. it took me a while to trust it, but now, after years of being married and having children and fighting and making up, no one can match the relief, the relaxing, the truly just feeling like it is ok to just be me that my stomach does when he walks through the door.

surely, i am too dependent on him, you say… surely, i have turned him into a god of some sort. well, maybe… but ask me about him in a few days and i’m sure i will be able to oblige you with a let me count the ways taido chino drives me crazy rant, numbers one and two being hours logged on the computer and five pairs of size 11 shoes in the floor… but today, he can do no wrong.

enjoy it while it lasts, babe.

the babies are one

i can’t believe a year has passed so quickly!

who knew our hearts could grow so much bigger?

simon and kyah have melted us and widened our hearts.

happy birthday little ones! we love you!!

 

ooooh, and go see whitney’s pictures of the big event! they are soooooooooo great! thank you whitney!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

anger management

i’m wading into dangerous ground today.  i spent this morning re-reading the first chapter of this book.  i started this book last fall but i didn’t get very far.  i was in a bad place as far as parenting goes, and i was struggling with anger, especially with one particular child…not to name names, but he’s nine.  i asked for and received some great recommendations from friends with boys just a wee bit older than mine.  i promptly ordered up about five books and read through several of them, this particular one being so good for where i was…constantly getting angry, failing as a parent and then beating myself up about it.  it was like a whole year’s worth of parenting therapy for just $12.  really worth it.  anyway, i also started a book on anger but realized very quickly (about 2 chapters in, i guess, b/c that’s where the bookmark still is) that i was going to need some help getting through this one.  it is the kind of book you want to read with someone, because there are all kinds of probing questions about anger patterns in your own life that i certainly would not go through the emotional digging required to answer unless someone else was asking me for my responses.  so i told the person who recommended this book to me that i needed her to read and work through it with me.  of course, she is an amazing parent…she has five children (FIVE!!!) and she frequently seems sane, but not insincere.  she is the real deal…full of joy, real joy…the kind that often comes with tears.  well, several weeks ago, she mentioned that this summer might be a good time to get around to this, but some of the summer has already passed now, so this week we nailed each other down and here we go.  we’re cramming it in…between swimming and kids and vacation bible school and just life in general.  we put a date and time on the calendar.  then we moved it around.  now it’s tomorrow.

so this morning i started the book again.  i spent some time with these questions.  questions like, “what are things your kids say and do on a regular basis that set you off?  what is your usual response?  how could you respond differently?”  that’s question one baby!  out of seven.  i got the first two parts no problem, but i just couldn’t figure out how to respond differently to many of the things i listed.  i mean, what other response is there to eighteen pairs of shoes in the floor than pure, unadulterated rage??  clearly i have problems.

to two daddies

happy father’s day to my witty, well-adjusted husband!!! he is the daddy of four crazies and the husband of one completely insane, frequently incoherent, sleep-deprived woman…he puts up with a lot!!! thank you darling. you keep us on the path. even when you are the only one who knows exactly where we are going, we keep following because we are your biggest fans! just watch simon sprint (creep…slap slap slap on the wooden floor) for the door when it opens and it is daddy. we’re always so glad you’re home. and we’ll go with you anywhere in the world.

and happy father’s day to my sweet daddy, who is now more often known as “grandpapa” of nine super crazies!! i am thankful for all the adventures…we always knew you would find our way back, get the car fixed/towed and find another way in the mean time, show up with a surprise treat (m&ms, hot tamales) and teach us about jesus in the middle of it all. (i learned trust and obey sitting on ice chests in the garage when we didn’t have keys and were locked out of our house.) thank you for loving me unconditionally, always. for believing the best about all of us and about lots of people who didn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. for keeping on learning and growing and changing, even at 57. for leading our family, for answering the call of God on your life…then, now and always. for leading our church. for taking us to new heights.

thanks to both of you for going together on many new adventures with my children. i love to watch them grow up outside, piling up rich memories around the campfire, in the arms of men who love them. you are lights in a dark world, where so many men have taken a pass on the great journey of fatherhood, of faithfulness. keep on carrying those torches. we’re behind you all the way.

for the love of leeks, and other river market wonders

ok, the river market just makes me soooooooo happy. it’s at the peak of its abundance. everything is gorgeous. i was reading the new barbara kingsolver book last night and she talks about shopping directly from farmers. she includes recipes for the seasons, so that you can eat locally, seasonally. i love how she talks about learning the virtue of patience in waiting for food to be in season. and if i had been patient (which, really, i haven’t…i’ve been eating those vine ripened tomatoes from california at sam’s all year long…), the wait would definitely have been worth it this morning. if you got there early this morning (we go at 7am), you could have gotten all of the following and more grown right here in arkansas: blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, lettuce, squash, carrots, new potatoes, sunflowers, tomatoes, arugula, pearl onions, and LEEKS! i have never seen leeks at the river market. they were my star purchase of the morning. they are a rich delicious onion that highlight soups and other dishes. i was first introduced to them by taido’s mother–i’ve mentioned before how influential she has been in bringing new ingredients into my life. she chopped them up and cooked them in butter with squash, potatoes and shitake mushrooms in a skillet, a side to scrambled eggs. sooo good, i tell you. you just have no idea. they are also mentioned frequently in french cooking, putting in an appearance in french women don’t get fat, which is such a fun book. i got her new one for christmas which i will be using to cook my leeks. maybe i’ll make my leeks, watch this movie and dream about my trip to france. (i’ve been planning it since i had simon last summer…some time in 2008 if you’re interested…)

collectors of garbage

crazy quote i read today…

The United States spends more on trash bags than ninety other countries spend on everything. In other words, the receptacles of our waste cost more than all of the goods consumed by nearly half of the world’s nations.

Polly LaBarre

really? can you believe that? i’m happy to say that we have waaaaaaaaaay reduced our waste since reading this book. but still, it’s just a drop in the bucket. we still have a house full of consumer minded americans over here.