Sit back, lock your door & enjoy yourself ladies.

Was it good for you?

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Here is the most important thing to know about my recipes. I am not a Martha Stewart and even if I use a recipe to get started I hardly every stay true to it. I don’t always know how much of something I use & I season to taste with almost everything. Feel free to change any of my measurements. Also I am not a food blogger so my food pictures don’t look that great. But I’m telling you this was good. 

In a wok or large frying pan cook garlic, ginger, & pork in the oil for about 5 minutes or until pork is almost done over medium heat. Next add in the carrots & green onions until the carrots start to soften. Add in your two eggs and scramble them with the meat & veggies. Once your eggs are done add in peas. Cook all together until the peas have been cooked through 3 maybe 4 minutes. Not too long because you don’t want the peas to get mushy. 

At this point your rice should be done dump into your wok. The amount of rice you cook can be totally up to you. I cook the rice according to the package which is about 1 cup of uncooked rice, but if I am making it for just the boys & I, I will only use about half the rice and freeze the rest or save for Caspian to have during the week. 

Add in your hot rice and a few shakes of soy sauce & your sriracha. You can use both of these to taste, more srirachi if you like spicy, less if you don’t. Once everything has been mixed together I dump in cut up avocado and stir it up a little longer until its warm.

And that’s it! You can add anything else you want to this mixture or take away anything you don’t think will work for you like maybe the avocado. I’ve never done avo before but I had one the first time I made it and thought it tasted delicious. Let me know if you try it. 

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The reasons things have been so quiet lately have been major acts of God. First was me getting sick. I thought I might have had a breast infection a few weeks ago. I had a fever, chills, & extreme body aches but after piling on 10 covers one night I woke up feeling really good, unfortunately because I was really looking forward to having Shawn take over for the day & lay in bed. But Mother’s Day is around the corner…

After getting over that, last Sunday morning my 20 year old brother had a motorcycle accident on his way to lifeguard training. He broke some fingers & got a huge gash in his knee that required surgery for both and we are hoping that he will regain full use of his hand. It has been a really tough week because yes, he survived but none of us could stop thinking about how he almost didn’t. He was hit by a cab & went flying in the air. The thing that shook me the most was hearing him say that as he was being hit he said to himself “this is it.” I couldn’t stop thinking about how scared he must have been & how he was all alone. We are incredibly, incredibly grateful that he is alive & instead of going to appointments at a funeral home we have the honor of being able to take him to the doctors. And to top the week off on Thursday a teenager brought a gun to my sister’s high school & the school was on lockdown for 5 hours. Luckily she wasn’t there, but OMG close calls for us all around. 

That was Sunday; on Tuesday Shawn & I had a really busy day dealing with business stuff when we noticed a bad rash spreading all across Caspian’s neck & head. The night before he kept waking up scratching at his head but I didn’t put two & two together until late in the afternoon when we were in the sunlight and I noticed he was digging in to his skin. Luckily we only spent an hour in urgent care, but because he was so uncomfortable he had trouble sleeping for the next couple of nights.

Throw in regular everyday stress (but up the pressure) and you have my last few weeks. Things have been just incredibly emotional & a couple of “Why Me’s”. But you know what they say. If Britney Spears can survive 2007 I can survive anything. 

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Why do you always make me do stuff I don’t want to do?

Gosh! I hate this!

I’m running away!

Your house is boring!

I’m not going to eat your nasty food.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

This is dumb.

Your dumb.

Dumb.

Dumb.

Dumb.

I hate chores!

I am a teenager!

I want to stay up until 9 billion.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Mommy you have to go to sleep when I do.

It’s not fair!

I don’t want to go school.

I hate school.

Homework is boring.

And then some days he’s all…

Mom I love you, I’m going to buy you a magazine.

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If you follow me on Twitter you heard me desperately cry out for help on Friday as we almost witnessed a complete and utter maternal catastrophe in nature. Walking home from Phoenix’s school we passed a man-made waterfall/pond in front of an apartment complex that had a Mommy duck & 13 of her little babes swimming around. Caspian was fast asleep in his Ergo so we decided to watch them for a bit. After watching them for almost an hour the unthinkable happened. At this particular complex there were two pond areas so after swimming in one & unsuccessfully trying to make it across the street the mother duck started over to the next pond with the ducklings.  She jumped up on the curb & made it in & 5 other ducklings did as well. Before the rest could hop onto the sidewalk & get in the water a lady starts taking pictures of the ducks with her dog very close behind her. The ducks were so frightened by this dog that 8 of them fell down the sewer drain. The mother duck after realizing she was short ducks gets out of the water & starts quacking. The ducks who were in the water get out & fall down the drain as well! I was frozen in my inability to help the ducks & had no idea what to do. The mother duck was frantic & quacking & waddling in circles & I was on the verge of tears.

While we watched them I became mesmerized by how she carried on much like a human mother. When they tried to cross the street & couldn’t she quacked for them to stop & they stopped. When one of them didn’t fall back in line she jumped out & grabbed his neck just as he was almost ran over. And now here she was losing all but two of her babies. I was frantic with worry & just as I was about to call animal rescue some of the maintenance men from the apartment complex came out, climbed down the drain & rescued the babies. Once the ducks had been reunited they climbed back in the water & continued their leisurely swim & the mother stopped quacking.

****************************************

If any of you have a 4 year old out there you know the level of obedience you receive from them on any given day. You know that most of your day consists of counting, daring, begging, empty threats & promises of rewards. You go from one crisis to the next often without a breath in between. At the end of the day I’m exhausted & drained from the battle of wits against my son. Even in the middle of the night there is no break as I battle with him to keep his legs, arms, & head, to himself. I’ve explained the virtues of obedience and why it’s better than sacrifice-something I heard a lot growing up. But we hardly ever get traction before we are right back at it again.

My love for him runs deep, very, very deep but sometimes I look at him when he’s misbehaving & want to shake him & yell “Listen to me! I know best! I know best! I know best! I’m trying to help you.” but obviously I don’t shake him. I just sit, often with my head in my hands & wonder what & why having a 4 year old can be so very difficult.

But then Friday came & a duck & her ducklings hopefully helped get my son to understand the importance of being obedient. I’ve been trying to talk to him about consequences lately but I’m not sure he fully gets it. But there before his eyes consequences played out.  I’ve had to remind him almost every single day, several times a day since Friday “Remember the baby ducks”. 

I know that today when he comes homes from school will be another battle to get him to finish homework, to gently put the baby down, to do his chores with a cheerful attitude, stop jumping, stop screaming, stop whining, stop this, stop that. I know the lesson of the ducks might fade away in a few days but maybe, just maybe it won’t. 

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My children are quickly growing before my eyes & this makes me a little bit sad. I’ve been tinkering in my lab lately working on a potion that will keep them small-but also self-sufficient, forever, but until then I have to come to grips with the fact that before I realize it they will be gone. Before that day comes & we have to pack up the cars & store away the toys I made a list of things I wanted to teach them. First up. Things I want to teach my boys about love.

Dear Boys-

Before you two realize it girls won’t just be those friends you have that like pink, they’ll suddenly become that friend that looks really, really pretty in pink. You’ll start to notice that you feel different around her & you might find yourself thinking about her often & your heart may swell with all sorts of feelings that you won’t be able to explain. You’ll hear the word love & you might feel you love her, but you won’t really know what that means.

Falling in love with someone can be tricky and it can also be very scary. Before I met your Dad I thought my first love was in 3rd grade. He was the boy that all of the girls loved & had Justin Bieber hair long before the Biebs was even a twinkle in his mother’s eye. When your Yaya said I couldn’t possibly love him because I didn’t know anything about him I challenged her with my everything I knew of Josh “I do know him! He likes the color purple & macaroni & cheese & he doesn’t have a Dad!” and I stomped away threw myself on the bed & cried that no one understood me.

When I was a little bit older I fell in love again and that didn’t work out. A few years later I thought I fell in love again and again a few years after that. Each & every single time when people asked me why I loved these guys I always gave them the exact same list of qualities but in a different order that way no one could call my bluff.

He’s kind. I said.

He’s caring. I said.

He makes me laugh. I said.

He’s got a good sense of humor. I said.

He’s sweet. I said.

He has a good heart. I said.

He makes me want to be a better person. I said.

He’s good looking. I said.

We have fun together. I said.

He’s just a really great guy. I said.

And all of those things were true about all of those guys, but you know what all of those things are true about a lot of people. Your father also has those same exact qualities in a different order. It wasn’t until I was watching the dating reality show The Bachelor {which hopefully by the time you read this no longer comes on or at the very least is finally considered a scripted comedy} that I realized that love cannot be summed up in a list of superlatives. All of those characteristics are all good to have but just because someone has those things doesn’t mean you love them or you are right for that person. If you asked me exactly why I loved your father you know what I would say? “I don’t know.” all I know is that when I met him my soul finally took a big sigh of relief.

For the many people you will meet in your life you will have many different answers to what love really is & that is ok because love for everyone looks different & getting to love is different for everyone. But for me I didn’t fall in love with your father because he makes me laugh because Daniel Tosh also makes me laugh but I don’t want to marry him. I didn’t fall in love with your father because he was kind or caring or giving because Oprah is all of that times a 1000 & I’d never let her put a ring on it. No, I fell in love with your father because as cliché as it sounds, when he walked down the steps to meet me at BWI & put his arms around me I was home. There was an audible-if only to me, click that told me I was finally in place. Nothing about us made sense or frankly should have worked because there were many obstacles stacked against us & sadly many objections lobbied from people that told us we shouldn’t work.

Falling in love with your father was not easily explained. Yes of course now 6 years later I could explain to you what I love about him or rather what keeps me loving him. What I’m trying to say boys, is that love is not easily explained & not easily understood by you or those around you. Does the person you fall in love with need to be a good person & be all of those other adjectives explained above? Yes, of course they do. But that isn’t the only thing to look for. 

When the time comes listen & pay attention. Don’t be easily swayed by the girl that I love or your father loves. Don’t worry about checking off an imaginary list of qualities. Sometimes when you fall in love you won’t be able to explain why & in my experience that is the best kind of love.

Love,

Mom

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I didn’t make my goal of posting 5 days a week, but I figured 4 is better than nothing. Baby steps, baby steps.

This morning I was browsing Facebook & came across an article from The Stir about a mom keeping her sons hair long. I immediately clicked over, because I have a son with long hair & Caspian pretty much seems like he’ll follow along the same hairy path. The article was about an issue that no matter how I try I just can’t seem to understand.

I’ve mentioned before that I tend to lean a little to the right on some issues & I am more conservative than some other bloggers I read. I also have mentioned how I wish the issue of gender stereotyping with children would die, but since it hasn’t I reserve the right to talk about it again & this time I asking for those of you who feel strongly about it to help me understand.

I enjoy being a woman very much. I am happy with the traditional roles that my husband & I play in our home. I’m not interested in chasing out lizards, dumping the garbage or hunting down the mysterious smells coming from under the sink. I don’t mind the laundry-well I do mind it, but there are a lot of things I’d mind more. I enjoy making him dinner & serving him when he’s home. Even though I prefer playing the role of a 1950′s housewife I am no Michelle Duggar. He is not my king, lord, nor my master. I am his equal & his partner. I get my way, he gets his, I get mine twice, he gets his a half. There is no “Well he said it, so it is so” in my home so please understand that.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a feminist. And so maybe that is why when the issues come up about not raising our children within the confines of gender I tend to be a little confused. When I hear things about not wanting your daughters to be princesses I scratch my head. I don’t understand why we are putting so much insistence that men & woman are the same, because in case you haven’t looked down below lately we aren’t. We move differently, we speak differently, we act differently. Women push babies out, men push sperm. Women can bring peace to a situation with one assuring glance while a man can bring confusion. Men are stronger than most women. Women are stronger than most men.

Why are we putting so much focus on trying to be like men, when we can put focus on being the women we were created to be. When did it become a shameful thing for a little girl to want to put on a pink dress or a little boy to want to play with a truck and not a stupid baby doll? 

I understand the idea behind all of us being equal because we are. We should have equal pay, equal rights, and be respected equally. But I just feel that to continue to say we are the same is ridiculous. We really aren’t the same in various ways. Woman we’re given such special gifts, things that only we can do, feel & understand. I don’t want to be able to do every single thing my husband can, I don’t think I’d be as good as he is. I want to be the best I can at what I was designed to be. He can never be me, I can never be him. Our strengths & our weaknesses are different. 

Those of you that believe in living outside of the “gender box” do you ever wonder what kind of message it sends to your children? I am asking honestly here. Do you ever feel like if your daughter hears you ranting & raving over these issues do you ever feel she may start resenting being a woman & instead desiring to be men since make them out to be so damn cool?

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As 2012 closed and 2013 started to open I, like most humans, started thinking about what my new year’s resolutions would be. For the 4 years of this blog {which was apparently two months ago and I forgot} I’ve written pretty much the same thing every single year. Be more organized always tops this list and I never, ever seem to make any kind of dent. This year I even made a list of 13 things in my small apartment that I wanted to de-clutter & have not touched ONE THING. I’m just not good at time management. I never really have been, but I have a 7 MONTH OLD that only sleeps in two-hour increments so instead of organizing cupboards I take a nap. And no I don’t feel any guilty about it.

 Back to my resolutions.

I have lived in LA for almost three years now & I haven’t met any people & this is very, very sad. This year I was determined that I was going to crawl out of the deep & dark shell I call home & actually do things. I am proud to say that now with 3 months of the year behind me I have accomplished just that. I joined Meetup.com back before Christmas and since I go to some type of playgroup with Caspian once a week, if not more. We go to Yoga, music classes, playgroups at people’s homes & the park, and cute themed parties. I go and I chat & mingle & chat & mingle & smile & laugh & coo. This is huge for me. I’ve touched before on my extreme social anxiety, but I got really fed up with fear dictating my life. I’m a grown woman and it is time I act like one. Every time I don’t cancel or “accidentally” get lost on the way I want to give myself a gold star. I admit that I still hang back & observe a little more than some of the other moms but I’m making progress.

Being home with an infant day in and day out is really lonely & if you are like me & have a husband who isn’t always available it can be even more isolating. I have great built in friends with my sisters & my Mom but sometimes you want people who can relate to the vomit on your clothes, the husbands who have occasional jackass slip-ups & understand why you loathe Caillou. Enter Mom Friends. So I am on the prowl for some good quality girlfriends. 

I have a pretty different parenting approach than many do. Shawn and I are extremely laid back & don’t stress over some of the things other parents do {honest to God you should see some of the questions that get asked in one of the mom FB groups I’m apart of}. Admittedly there are some downfalls to this, but it’s a style/approach that works best for us & we continue. But because I have been trying to meet moms I’ve been a little sensitive about our parenting style. It could be just that it’s my social anxiety taking over, but I often wonder if when I off-handedly mentioned that Caspian fell out of the bed if all the moms shock & awe was for poor Caspian’s bad nighttime luck or his bad luck to be saddled with such an irresponsible & sleep parent. Would being friends with a strict granola eating hippie make me feel like a shit mom every single time we are together because instead of kale chips as the park snack I grab juice boxes & good old Goldfish. Would they think me particular lazy if I tell them some days we sleep until 9 {if we are really lucky} instead of being up at 6 AM and making arts & crafts out of used toilet paper rolls?

Do you think it’s important to be friends with Moms who are like-minded? Who won’t judge you if your kid knows the Disney Jr. evening schedule? Moms who can sit with you and commiserate about how much they fear when their children say “Hey Mom, why… {insert random question you can here}“. I want to look for moms who are similar to me because I don’t want to have to worry if Phoenix will lose a playmate if we let him bring out one his many toy guns. I want to feel comfortable to joke that Phoenix can be an asshole sometimes instead of being chastised that I used my child’s name & ass in the same sentence. I want to sit & talk sometimes about things other than my children! 

Will the long leash I extend my children be clipped by the helicopter parent, my ankles bitten by the tiger mom?

Attachment Parenting Dropout found at the  Huffington Post is what got me thinking about this particular topic.

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You guys I am really afraid I have bit off more than I can chew. Finding the time to blog every single day has been really tough and today is only day THREE. But I’m not going to quit. I always quit things, but I will prevail!

I have been going to a lot of playgroups with Caspian the last several months & pretty much all the moms I have met are first times moms so I am like veteran smart mommy of the group {ha! never thought I’d say that!} with my brood of two. I certainly in no way have all the knowledge of parenthood but I think I have a few words of wisdom that I can pass along to new parents.

1. If you can pick a sleeping baby’s boogers without them flinching then, and only then, is it safe to lay them in the crib.

2. Silence makes the heart grow fonder.

3…it also makes the house messier.

4. Never under estimate the power of the proper dosage of Dimetapp

5. Not all children’s shows are created equal. Some are created just to make us crazy.

6. A fragrant baby lotion can cover a multitude of smells.

7. Never count out a sick child. Just when you think they are the sickest their energy will rival that of a puppy on speed.

8. No matter how much you spend on Christmas, the toy from the happy meal will always be better.

9. Nothing will ever seem fair so don’t even try to make it.

10. 20 Questions is a preschoolers version of waterboarding. 

Boom. 

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I don’t make it a regular practice to air my marital dirty laundry, but I’m going to need some good material for 30 days of straight blog writing so… I have only blogged once about something my husband wasn’t happy about & it did lead to a disagreement in which I had to apologize. However, I don’t think he will be too mad if I blog about our fight this morning and if he is, well then…show the police this.

Caspian is a really tactile baby & has Benjamin Button syndrome. Instead of sleeping longer his nighttime sleep is still that of a small infant as is his nursing schedule which is something close to “nurse every time I see Mom” literally. He looks at me, I smile, he smiles and starts his cute crawl my way & crawls up my lap. It still makes things really hard to do & I have to be extra good about accomplishing things when he’s sleep.

Today, Shawn was home in the morning & after watching an episode of The Borgia’s, Caspian was asleep and I grabbed a quick 15 minute catnap {getting up at 6:30/7 has been a huge adjustment & more on naps later}. Once Caspian was up {9:30} I nursed him on both sides & took him to his Dad. I grabbed a quick shower, popped my head out of our bedroom & told Shawn I was going to be cleaning the bathrooms & our bedroom. With Shawn on child duty I knew I only needed 30 minutes & I could whiz through all of the most neglected chores in our apartment.

But this didn’t happen because within 5 minutes of me closing the door all I hear is Caspian’s velociraptor yell/cry & open the door “Uh, what’s wrong?” “I think maybe he wants to eat.” “I just fed him, not even an hour ago.” “Well maybe he’s hungry again. Just try.” “Shawn he isn’t, he just wants me and I can’t take him now. You deal.” “Really I think he wants to eat.” by this point Caspian is crawling to me with red bulging teary eyes so I scooped him up & stormed off in a insulted wife huff.

The morning precedes with him trying to clean the bathrooms and me yelling that I need him to help more when he’s home & he needs to figure out what Caspian needs without coming to me every 5 minutes ect, ect, ect. It ended with his rendition of “I go to work, this is your job.” HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT. I gathered up my iPad & EIGHT magazines that I had started & stopped since February, grabbed my keys & headed to the pool & closed the door by saying “I won’t be back until I finish every single one of these magazines” and I didn’t come back until I had. And when I got back the house was clean, including the bathrooms, Phoenix was occupied and Caspian was asleep. See you can do it without my help. 

I took ME time by force, but I also was so steaming mad that he actually implied that he doesn’t need to help because this was MY job that I had to get out of the house. Let me add that my husband is wonderful. He’s a great husband & a really fantastic father. But we certainly have some issues to iron out.  Maybe he just said this because he was pissed at me, but maybe there really is a little bit of “But this is your job” attitude he has.

I’m happy being a SAHM. I feel completely blessed that we are financially solid enough that I don’t have to put the babies in daycare or send them to my Mom while I go work some mind-numbing job, but HELLO being a Mom is hard & being a SAHM is even harder. Just because I’m home & he works outside of the home that doesn’t give him carte blanche to ignore any responsibilities of home does it? Just nursing a baby is a full time job, waking up with said baby every 2 hours is a part-time job, cooking & cleaning up all the meals is another full-time job, laundry is a job & half, than there is a 4 year old and all his needs, the chores, the management of the schedule and remembering where the wallets, belts and shoes get tossed at the end of the day. Aren’t I out working him at every given moment?

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