Halloween High

I'm a bad blogger lately. Too too tired. Last Friday I wanted to share a video clip for my This Moment post, and I didn't. And then I spent the entire weekend revamping and reconstructing my house (i.e. nesting). No time, apparently, in my busy life for my already existent children. I'm focusing right now on the one that is in the works. (Oh please, please come a little sooner than you're supposed to. I can't take feeling this big and slow anymore!  I want the old me back.)

Anyway, the day after Halloween turned into a day of no school for my yet again lice-infested children. Which, in its own weird way, was a sort of gift for this tired and slow mommy. We slept in a bit, didn't have to get dressed bright and early.

Chris and I laid in bed and listened to the pitter patter of their feet running up and down the hallway. We rolled over lazily and giggled at their hushed conversation. We knew they were getting into the halloween candy, but in our own naive way we enjoyed it. Until later when, after who knows how many pieces of candy, they turned into this:

Now, I can't get my iMovie to recognize this video taken with my android phone, and I'm too tired and impatient to try anything else. So if it works, you're looking at them sideways, which is just as well. You'll notice that every sheet and blanket has been thrown onto the floor, and the monster on the top bunk (Mae) is terribly menacing and unable to string together any coherent sentences.

Let's just say that since that morning, Halloween Candy has been strictly rationed around here. In fact, it seems that it will never run out, which makes me want to eat it faster - you know, just to get the stuff OUT OF HERE.

Enjoy the madness.

Magic Trick

After almost 7 years of parenting you'd think I had a few tricks up my sleeve, the kind of tricks that magically calm your restless, pestering children; the kind of tricks that silence them in the middle of chaos, make them listen to you, behave. But I don't. I mean, I didn't, until now.

I hesitate to share this with you - it is, after all, quite powerful. But I'm a generous person at times and this really does work wonders. The number 1 way to silence a car/room/house that was just mere seconds earlier brimming with calamity is....have a complete breakdown in front of your kids. And then sob. Silence.

It can't be just any old type of breakdown, though. It has to be the kind that builds, grows, festers, over days and weeks and months. It has to be accompanied by sore back and weight gain and sleepless nights; by surging hormones and by hundreds and hundreds of papers to grade. It emanates from a deep source of sheer exhaustion and stress.

And then, on top of that all, the following events need to transpire - not necessarily in the same order: You need to completely tear apart your home in the midst of a very busy weekend full of halloween costume making, exam correcting, and composition grading, because your place must look and feel better when your new baby comes in 7 weeks.

You need to scramble to finish the final details of your kids' costumes so you can push them out the door in time for this very important of days at school.

Your youngest needs to soak her (basically un-washable) halloween costume with urine before the school day is over and have nothing to wear for trick-or-treating.

Your oldest needs to be named the newest victim in the lice outbreak at school and GET SENT HOME just HOURS before the big parade and halloween party she has been looking forward to for weeks. You need to cry on the phone, on campus, in the middle of hundreds of undergraduate students, and tell the school intern/receptionist that this is a cruel and awful way to ostracize your child and please OH PLEASE couldn't she just stay one more hour for the party?

Your husband needs to lose a day of work so he can race to the rescue, grab her, treat her with nasty shampoo, and return her to the school just in time to participate.

You need to lose a whole day and $500.00 to go to the lice professionals to ensure that NO ONE in the family has even one nit left in their hair and then start to freak out about sending your kids BACK to the school where they got lice because you definitely don't have another $500 you want to spend on parasites.

You need to visit your midwife and be told that your iron levels are plummeting dramatically and that you are probably breathless and exhausted due to this and must start iron therapy. And then learn that you gained 3 pounds in 2 weeks.

You need to go home and wash every bedding article on all beds, all towels, all stuffed animals, and then change them and wash them daily for the next week or so.

You need to stay up well past midnight grading (late) compositions, counting on that one glorious hour you have between your four classes the next day. That one glorious hour where you can grade at least 6 more compositions. And then you need to open your email to learn that you have to sub for a TA the next day, during that glorious hour. Which means no eating, sitting, grading, resting at any point the following day.

You need to get up at 5 am to finish the compositions. Rush out the door without breakfast or a wallet. Almost run out of gas, pull into the gas station, discover missing wallet. Return home, (it's important that you start sobbing uncontrollably in front of your kids at this point) get your wallet, get gas, and get to your daughter's school - whose door is locked because school has started and you're just standing out on the street wondering what in the hell to do when a passing parent sees you and calls the school for you so they let you in.

You need to rush to class with an ill-prepared, boring lesson plan, and repeat it 5 times in a row. And then it's important that your Friday babysitter text you to tell you she has to cancel.

And most importantly, you need to get home, stumble into the kitchen, and completely break down in front of your girls, who are in the midst of a vicious battle over gummy bears;  who then smother you with kisses and hugs and sweet sayings for a few minutes.

And then go off in a different room to fight about Halloween candy.

I'm telling you, it's magic.

This Moment

A moment from our week we'd like to remember. Have a wonderful weekend, all!

Tradition

I get a little overly involved in crafting family tradition for the girls. It usually ends up with me forcing them to do things they don't like in an attempt to create some family traditions that will mark their youth and follow them through their years. And we usually end up mad.

But sometimes, tradition just happens. You're packing your car for a camping trip and you realize you've taken almost the exact same trip for the last 4 years counting... which may not sound like much of a tradition, 4 years, but when your oldest is only 6, four years is a hefty number.

In 2008 we drove north through Wisconsin on a cold rainy October night and met up with friends in the Kettle Moraine area near Sheboygan. Mae was 1. Bela was 3. I had the flu. It was my birthday, and we were also celebrating the birthday of my close friend, Karen. In spite of the rain and cold on the first night, in spite of the fever and chills, it was a beautiful weekend.

Kettle Moraine

Mae had just started walking!

I almost can't remember a camping trip that didn't involve knitting and sling shots.

Bela 

In 2009, Karen and company away on a two year adventure in NYC, we decided to take Mae (2) and Bela (4) to the south end of Kettle Moraine, closer to where we got married at Wandawega. We reserved three nights and stayed for 2. I don't know. 2 year olds aren't that fun at a camp ground.

Wool long underwear and boots. I wish I could pull off this look. 

Marshmallows for breakfast

Fairy houses

In 2010, we revisited our 2008 stomping ground near Sheboygan and had a jolly old time.

Beautiful colors - Kettle Moraine

Mae gathers

Bela explores

Silly hats required

Chilling in the woods

But this year takes the cake so far. Beautiful (albeit chilly) weather. Wonderful kids. Lots of target practice. Plenty of campfire action. Good friends. Good food. And that comforting, gut-warming sense of family tradition.

Kettle Moraine hiking trails

Una and Mae

Mae - barefoot in a tree. Her "hideout". 

Bela makes art out of Milkweed, wax, and matches.

The guys found this giant puffball mushroom in the woods We cut half of it and Eric cooked it up for us over the fire. The other half became target practice.

Yep. Target practice. Sling shots. Bela and Dave.

A rare family photo, extra buddy included. Bela brought a friend.

We have our site picked out for next year. It's a little more isolated, and maybe we'll go a few weeks earlier in the year for slightly warmer weather. We will, after all, be toting our newest family member by then, who will be precisely 10 months young.

This Moment

We're heading out of town tomorrow for a chilly fall camping trip. Wanted to get my moment up here before I forgot. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Chocolate thief

I'm a terrible jump-to-conclusions kind of girl. Can't find my keys? What did Bela do with them? Missing my chapstick?  MAE!

I am, however, trying to step back from the accusations a bit, because I see it in the girls too. Bela blames Mae, Mae blames Bela, they both blame their daddy.

Earlier this week we baked egg-free chocolate chip cookies * and really had a go at them. Two days after baking two dozen, there were only two left. Chris ate them. Bela and Mae were outraged. (I'd like to point out that of the 24, Chris only ate two. They just happened to be the LAST two). He promised to make more. He got really busy. They didn't want to wait.

Flash forward a day or two... The girls and I met up in the kitchen to make the promised batch of cookies with the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips left over from batch #1. We looked. We could not find. We jumped to conclusions. I suggested we pause, consider, not get all worked up. Maybe it wasn't him? Maybe I put them in the freezer to keep fresh? Maybe the moths ate them? We couldn't blame Chris until we had a chance to talk to him, and he was busy on a photo shoot.

Hence, the letter:

Dear Daddy - Did you eat the chocolate chips we were going to make cookies [with]?

Do you want to guess what the answer was?





*Recipe*

From Lorna Sass' Complete Vegetarian Kitchen

2 C whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 C old fashioned oats
1/2 t sea salt
1/ 4 t baking soda
1 C chopped walnuts
1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips (she uses Carob chips to make this vegan. I hate carob.)

1/2 C canola oil
1/2 C pure maple syrup
1 t vanilla
2-4 T water

Mix dry ingredients together. Separately, mix wet ingredients. Combine. Mix til just blended. I use a butter scoop that measures out about 1 T of dough at a time, and drop them into balls onto an ungreased baking sheet. Plop them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10-12 minutes. The stronger your maple syrup the yummier the cookie. The smaller the walnuts the better. If 2 T of water makes a dry dough, add more liquid - these aren't great when they're dry.  They are a small cookie, and they will make about 2 dozen, more or less. Excellent frozen and eaten straight from the freezer. Yum. 

This Moment

A moment from our week I wanted to share. Have a great weekend, everyone!