ELEVEN

My little Texan baby chewing on his stuffed animal possum. He sleeps with it every night and it is the funniest thing to see him snuggle his little face into it. But, truly, that tail is perfect for chewing. 

2016 week eleven

The garden is in; Texas spring may begin!

Impromptu birthday party in the backyard for one of our friends. Notice how impromptu the sheet fort is. Haha. The wind kept blowing it over so it was quite dangerous unless adults were sitting in the chairs. 

We were worried it would rain so we played in my backyard instead of the park so we could all go inside if it started to rain. It never did. But this is what our yard was made for: filling with friends.

Happy Birthday Eleanor! All the children wearing normal clothes, and shoes -my child wearing dress up and barefoot.

An early birthday present! I have been searching long and hard for a copper kettle that also whistles. I love it. Thank you ebay. Yes, it is slower than our other kettle, yes, we already had another kettle, yes, it was electric so it didn't take up extra space.... but this one is... pretty... and it whistles -which is important. There is very little sound reasoning to back up this acquisition, I am aware, but I love it. 

Theodore at every meal. He has a 4-8 second window between a bite being put into his mouth and full-bodied screaming for another bite.  I eat much slower these days. Thank you Theo for helping me learn to slow down my meals.

And speaking of meals... my dear former college roommates and I have started a group text where we tell each other what we made for dinner each night. I love it so much. I look forward to getting their texts and I love having an excuse to talk to them every day. Plus, all I ever really want to talk about is food and preparing food and eating food, so these are really my type of texts. 

Monday: Garbure (french bean and veg soup [veg in this one: cabbage, potatoes, asparagus, green beans]) with leftover Corned beef from Sunday's St Patricks themed Family Dinner. 

Wednesday: Lemon Garlic Rosemary Spatcocked Grilled Chicken with roasted potatoes and asparagus. This is the loveliest looking meal from this week and the biggest failure. Not all is as it seems. The chicken was raw 2 inches in... So everyone got microwaved chicken! Wah. Wah.

Friday: Fish and [lovely golden] Chips [precious] and Mushy Peas. Easy Peasy. Tasty. 

This was my experiment dinner this week: Saturday: Eggs en Cocotte with asparagus, garlic rosemary mash potatoes, honey vinegar glazed carrots, semolina raisin cake with creme anglais. Everything was good. And I'll be making eggs en cocotte frequently from now on. What a lovely simple dish.
Eggs recipe Here
Cake recipe Here

Quotes
Me, "Mmm. You smell like honey."
V, "That's because I ate a honey sandwich... last year."

V "Holy Boogers! I need to wipe my nose!"

V, "Here giraffe. Blow away the dandelion." *Holds up her giraffe to blow away a dandelion. And then I started crying because it was way too cute.*

I'm going to go unlock the box so I can see the Queen and Princess taking a bath!

Me, "Theo, why are you fussing so much, love?"
V, "Theodore says he wants breast milk, and that's why he's crying."
V likes to translate Theo's fussing into sentences. My mom says I used to do the same thing with my little brother.

V, "I'm touching my bun!"
Me, "Why are you doing that?"
V, "Because I love it so much."

V, "Mama, do you remember cotton-crete candy?"
Me, "Concrete?"
V, "No. Cotton-crete."
Me, "Do you mean cotton candy?"
V, "No. Cotton-crete."
Me, "No. I don't remember it."

It's V's job to put away all the silverware now. She loves having the responsibility.
V, "This is a BIG BIG BIG spoon. It's for raspberry pies."

V, "I'm at the store and I'm going to ask you do you have any cannibals or snakes?
Me, "No. I don't think so, sorry."
V, "When you say 'cannibals' you mean 'candy lions.' What do you have that has cannibals in it?"
Me, "Sorry. Fresh out of cannibals."

V, "I'm making a Play Doh sandwich."
Me, "A Play Doh peanut butter sandwich?"
V, "No. A Play Doh peenie-butter sandwich. It's like a penis."
Me, "Oh. Right."

Stories

There are moments when I am holding a happy baby, and making my toddler laugh as I'm deftly wielding a spatula making something delicious while we're listening to lovely music and all is calm and serene. In those moments I breathe in and devour the glamor of Mother. I try to absorb those moments and solidify them. There are other moments when your toddler is crying in the bathtub because Papa said it is time to get out and your naked baby suddenly peed all over your shirt and, uhm, yep, also you're standing in a puddle of it -in socks. Those moments are more frequent. The moments of saying a calm "No" that you didn't expect to escalate, but then your toddler is stamping and heavy breathing and emitting a whiny squeal that turns every cell in your body to instant rage, but you bite your tongue and try not to take it personally. And even though 3 minutes ago everything was lovely and now everything is dissolving into chaos, you somehow manage to physically lift your consciousness out of your brain stem and say a meditative prayer and remain calm. Those moments of calm Mama are far more glamorous because they are far more hard won.

Today is my birthday! My birthday wish is to keep the serenity enmeshed in my soul for 24 solid hours. Blow out a couple candles for me to help me achieve this.