Smile For The Camera!

You know how people joke that the younger children always gets "less" than the firstborn. There aren't as many photos, the baby books aren't as filled, they get the hand me down clothes and toys. Not in our house. Little Miss is in fully as many photos as Mister Man. And since I haven't started with his baby book, I feel no (additional) guilt that she's behind on that one, either. Since she's a girl and he's a boy, the only hand me downs are - shhhhh - a few pjs and t-shirts. I'll completely cop to the books and toys though, since how many Legos can one person have in a house anyway?

That doesn't mean she gets fully equal treatment, unfortunately. I've posted about him on my blog ten percent more often than I've posted about her. And more to the point, when Mister Man lost his first tooth, I posted about the event with photos pretty quickly. Little Miss? Not so much.

I did post about her loose tooth awhile ago - though mostly because it was a pretty funny story. That was almost a month ago. Her tooth grew progressively looser, and she was determined to pull it out herself. The thing was holding on barely by a thread. When we went to Florida, I was paranoid that her tooth would fall out when I wasn't there as my parents went down with them two days before I arrived. Silly me. A week later, the tooth was still in her mouth, and she was going to pull it out when she got to school. She came home, and the tooth was still there. As it was the next day. And the next. I wasn't too worried, though, since she didn't have the new tooth growing in behind the loose one the way Mister Man did.

She finally came home from school a week ago Monday with her tooth in a treasure box. Or she would have except that she took her tooth out on the bus and promptly lost the box. Amazingly, she didn't lose the actual tooth. And yes, the Tooth Fairy came that night and left her a quarter in the little pink bag under her pillow.

Ummm yeah. It only took me nine days to post about her losing her tooth. (Note to self: For the baby book, Little Miss lost her first tooth on October 24, 2011.) Sorry, Peanut! Worse? I still don't have a photo of her showing that missing tooth. That's not to say I haven't tried. "Smile, Peanut!" I cried at her. "Where are those teeth, my dear?" "C'mon, show me that beautiful smile!" I kept at it. And failed.

This was as close as I got.

We'll keep working on it. After all, I don't want to have to pay for her therapy in another fifteen years for having heaped all the attention on Mister Man!

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Tasty Tuesday - Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Yep, it's fall. And fall in Chicago means that there's frost on the ground when we wake up and the furnace kicks on all night long trying its best to keep the house comfortable as the temperatures plunge. During the day, we might get a respite into the 50s, but it's still chilly, and by the time sets at 5pm (ok, so it just feels like it's 5pm, it's cold again and I'm ready for a bowl of soup and some fresh bread.

This week, I did a roasted butternut squash soup that made a lot of soup - yay! - that the wee ones even liked - yay, yay! - and was super healthy - yay yay yay? - and took a minimal amount of effort. By minimal I mean I started it just before I left to pick Little Miss up from her Daisy meeting then finished it a couple hours later while helping her with homework.

Yum. And yes, I did have some of the soup for breakfast (again) this morning.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients:
1 decent size butternut squash
1 onion
1 bulb garlic
3 c chicken stock (use vegetable stock to make this vegan)
1 c milk (I used rice milk to make this dairy free)
1/2 t nutmeg (ha, like I measured this)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Split your butternut squash in half with a sharp knife. Use a large knife, and give it a good whack to get it started. I then find it easiest (and safest) to leave the knife embedded and simply pound the squash on the cutting board, much like you might do when splitting wood. Once the squash is open, scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Yes, you can save them for later to roast like pumpkin seeds. (Yes, it's a theme with me right now.)

Lightly oil a 13x9 glass baking dish, and place the halves of the butternut squash cut side down. Peel your onion, cut it in half and place it cut side down, as well. Lastly, cut off the top of your bulb of garlic. Set it on a piece of tin foil, and lightly drizzle it with olive oil. Place this atop your squash.

Roast all of these at 375 degrees for forty-five minutes. You'll see the skin start to soften and shrivel just a bit. When it's soft to the touch, it's done.

Note that I didn't go through the effort of peeling my squash ahead of time or cutting it into pretty little cubes. Nope, I'm of the opinion that minimal effort can still create great dishes. Once it's roasted, you simply scoop the flesh into your soup pot, leaving the skin behind. The skin will practically peel off by itself.

Squeeze the garlic from the bulb into the pot, as well. Try not to be like me. I have a horrible time resisting saving some of the freshly roasted garlic to put on the bread I know I'm going to bake with this, too. Roasted garlic is awesome. And so easy. Little Miss has requested that I make some just for her even. Add the onion, making sure to trim the root end of the onion before you add it. There's no need to cut it any further, as you'll puree everything later. Add the 3 cups chicken stock, and bring it to a simmer for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes of simmering, add the milk. Either use your immersion blender to puree it - if you don't have one, buy one; this is one of the most used tools in my kitchen - or you can use your standard blender. If you use your standard blender, be sure to fill it no more than one-third full and hold the top closed with a kitchen towel. The heat with cause the air in the canister to expand, and you don't want it to blow out hot soup to burn you (see, another reason why an immersion blender is so awesome).

Serve immediately with hot bread. This will last in the fridge for a few days, and personally I like it both hot and cold. The roasted garlic and onion add such a great flavor to this, and so healthy and hearty for a fall day.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Also posting now with A Southern Fairytale and her Mouthwatering Monday.

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This May Be Our Last Year Carving Pumpkins

I love Halloween. I love the costumes and the excitement. I love the decorations and the costumes. I love the parties and the trick or treating. And of course, I adore carving pumpkins.

I have carved pumpkins almost every year I can remember, and that includes long before children, long before my husband. I remember giggling with a friend shortly after college when we gave our pumpkins bubble baths in the bathtub before carving them - just to be silly. I remember finding those way cool toys that are essentially miniature hacksaws that let you create your pumpkin with so much more detail than my giant knives ever could.

We've made pumpkin carving with the wee ones a tradition. They get pumpkins every year, and we clean them and carve them and roast the pumpkin seeds. When the wee ones were little little, my husband and I did all the work ourselves. As they've gotten a little older, we've expected a little more from them. They can help empty the pumpkins of seeds. They can decide on the design of the pumpkins, and this year we put Mister Man in charge of helping to poke the design into his pumpkin.

We made a mistake a few years ago, however. My husband discovered he could make extra cool pumpkins with patterns the same year we discovered those awesome tools. It's possible that they're packaged together and thus the discovery was made at the same time. The wee ones absolutely adore the very cool patterns, and now they want their pumpkins to have those same cool patterns. Yep, the patterns that take my husband forever to do instead of the fun freehand scary faces that I can make in fifteen or so minutes.

This year, as we prepared our pumpkins for the first cut, Little Miss announced that she wasn't going to clean out her pumpkin because it made her itchy. Mister Man started to clean his out but gagged and had to hold his breath every time he went near his pumpkin. My husband and I ended up cleaning out the pumpkins.

Mister Man was put in charge of poking holes into the pumpkin for his pattern. Twenty-three holes and less than five percent done, he decided he was tired and needed a break. He wandered off into the homework room, picked up a book, and we couldn't entice him to rejoin us.

Little Miss drew a traditional face on her pumpkin for my dad to carve - yay, no patterns - but she used a Sharpie. Did you know Sharpies don't come off pumpkins? It's an interesting look. She oversaw the majority of the carving after having overseen the cleaning of the pumpkin. Then she was done, too, and she disappeared until after it was time to put our pumpkins outside for display.

I'm thinking next year they don't get pumpkins. I think next year I get a pumpkin and my husband gets a pumpkin. And we carve them at night after the wee ones are in bed. It's the end product they love anyway because how awesome do pumpkins look as they glow in the night?

Perfectly Imperfect

I try to bring my camera with me wherever I go. It doesn't always happen, and even sometimes when the camera is with me, I forget about it or I'm not fast enough or it's out of batteries. That doesn't deter me, though, as I work to capture the memories for myself and my family.

I have to use my camera. My brain is broken, and I can't remember anything otherwise.

The wee ones don't always cooperate, however. They don't like having their pictures taken in a given moment or they want it too much and get goofy and the moment I was trying to capture is lost.

Looking through the images that I've captured on my "fancy" camera, as Little Miss calls it, I'm struck by the variety of images that I save. They aren't the perfect ones by dictionary definition, but they're the ones that capture the personalities of the wee ones. They're the ones that show their characters and imperfections - sticky fingers and all.

It's those photos and those moments that give me hope, that tel me - yes, I can use this medium as a way to capture a single moment in time that passes before I blink. I look again at some of the images that I would have discarded because they are so imperfect or because I missed the expression and emotion I was trying to capture. I look at the ones where I so obviously let the wee ones dress themselves, and I see possibility.

It's all about my perspective. We are all imperfect, and it's those moments that we do need to capture. When I change my perspective, it suddenly does become a perfect moment for me - for us.

And that's a lesson I need to remember to apply in my life whenever the imperfection starts to overwhelm me. Because with the right perspective, it's all perfect.

Yes, that's the same photo - just cropped to change my perspective.

This post was inspired by a series of words and created in five minutes at a Hallmark event several weeks ago. I love the concept so much that I'm looking at expanding it, as there is so much word and inspiration from just three randomly drawn words - mine were camera, fancy, sticky, and broken. Any interest in participating in a randomly drawn word post linky?

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I'm Rooting For The Texas Rangers Tonight

My husband is from St. Louis. He's a Cardinals fan and still has his Rams season tickets in the obscure hope that they'll someday go to the Super Bowl again and he'll have a chance at tickets. Let's just say that this playoff season has been making him happy.

Me, not so much. Why?

On Tuesday, my husband called me from work. "Soooo just as an FYI, I bought tickets to Game 7 of the World Series. Do you want to go with me?"

Question 1: Wait, back up. Before I answer your question, exactly how much did you pay for your World Series tickets," I asked, knowing that friends of mine had paid over $1,000 per ticket to see a World Series game a few years ago.

"Oh. Well, just the $225 face value (ummm really, "just" $225? I don't pay "just" $225 for just about anything, do you?) because I entered the ticket lottery back before the playoffs started and won rights to World Series tickets. I promise, I just paid face value."

Oh. Because that makes it all better, never mind the fact that he neglected to mention this little detail to me until 48 hours - ok, to be fair, 49 hours - before the game.

"Well, when is the game?" I asked - the first logical question I have before answering whether I want to drive five hours to and from St. Louis. Gah, road trips.

"The game is this Thursday," he responded, as if that were obvious and no big deal.

Ummm, I can't go. It's a school night. And we have two children. In school. Well, one child in school and one child who has no school on Friday, which is worse. And we have Little Miss's conference after school on Thursday. And Mister Man has a Cub Scout meeting Thursday night. And my parents have a board meeting for their neighborhood and I already have to pick Little Miss up from gymnastics at the same time Mister Man needs to be on his way to Cub Scouts. And my husband has classes to teach on Thursday and Friday.


"How exactly are you thinking of going?" I asked, very calmly I might add, just figuring that maybe he forgot these little tidbits of detail.

"Well, flights right now to St. Louis are only $350 per person-" he started before I interrupted and asked if he was joking about paying another $700 to go, knowing that flights are only going to increase by the next night when he'd know if there was even going to be a Game 7.

His next strategy, after realizing that I wasn't going once I listed all the commitments that would prevent - in my mind - both of us from going, was for him to fly down one way himself then take the Mega Bus back. The only "issue" with that was that he'd somehow have to pick up his car at 6:10am from the airport, and the Mega Bus depot is not exactly in the best neighborhood to start. Then he decided he'd drive down - missing the end of the school day but getting other teachers to cover his classes - and then drive back Friday, taking a personal day. Except that since he has no personal days left this school year, it would be an unpaid personal day. Ummm, no. His last plan involved him driving to the game and then turning around after the game and driving home overnight and teaching Friday. As a parent, I would not be happy having my child taught by a teacher that exhausted and not with it, forget the danger of driving overnight on little to no sleep.

Figuring that my husband was a mature and responsible man, I left the choice up to him. And before you start chastising me for not getting it, let me stress that I am a sports fan. I love my baseball (Twins) and football (NU Wildcats and Minnesota Vikings) and hockey (Chicago Blackhawks) and that my loyalties don't waver. I've gone to the Northwestern bowl games - because I was able to plan it out in advance. I'd love to go to a Vikings Super Bowl one day. I'd love to go to a Twins World Series game (don't ask about 1987 or 1991 when I lived in Minnesota and my dad had the opportunity to get tickets but chose not to do so). I chose not to attend a Blackhawks Stanley Cup playoff because the tickets were insanely expensive. At some point, you look at your commitments and your priorities and say "Wow, that would be really cool to do, but unfortunately, I just can't do it this time around and that's a real bummer." Or at least that's what I do.

My husband was going to the game. I was now going to Little Miss's conference by myself - after we'd moved it from the official conference dates because my husband had his own conferences to attend and couldn't make it - before picking up Mister Man to have him do his homework in the car while we headed to Little Miss's gymnastics where I'd pick her up and eat dinner in the car as I took her to his Cub Scout meeting - hoping this wasn't totally against Cub Scout etiquette - and keeping both of them up way past bedtime instead of just him, knowing that we'd be late to his Cub Scout meeting because there's no way to get from one activity to the other in enough time.

Whee.

I held my tongue, however, after suggesting that he put those tickets on StubHub and reap the benefits while watching the game from home (his tickets are selling for well over $1,000). It wasn't taken.

But someone, somewhere likes me. Last night's Game Six was rained out in St. Louis, so it was moved to tonight (the Thursday in the above story) with Game Seven, if necessary, scheduled for Friday.

And yes, my husband is still planning to go. Forget that he has a football game he's supposed to work on Friday night. Forget Mister Man's Tae Kwon Do that coincides with Little Miss's church Faith In. Forget her Daisy meeting that follows immediately that he'll now need to attend, which is always a joy, as I've had to do it last year when he was coaching.

So to be honest? Tonight, I'm rooting for the Rangers. I'm pretty sure that makes me a bad person, but I'm ok with that.

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Recognizing An Unhealthy Relationship

There was a time in my life where I defined much of my self worth by whether or not I was dating anyone and who I was dating. Fortunately, that "phase" of my life has long passed me by, but I can so easily see how it wouldn't. This is one of the parenting lessons - is it a parenting lesson? - that is most critical to have them pick up: you are the one who needs to make yourself happy.

I firmly believe that. If you can't make yourself happy, no one else can. And relationships are a big piece of making yourself happy. I so want them to understand that if the person you're with doesn't add to your happiness and isn't happy for you, that's not a healthy relationship. The person you're in a relationship with needs to let you grow and let you not just become but stay your own person.

In high school, I ignored that completely. My first real boyfriend I found out started dating my best friend several weeks after we first went out. He never said anything - and that relationship naturally fizzled out anyway - but she mentioned dating him without thinking about the fact that I had been dating him at the same time. It never dawned on her that this might be hurtful to me or just wrong altogether. I've never trusted her as much after that.

The relationship I entered - days after that conversation with my friend: I wasn't good enough for him, he didn't want me but my best friend instead - another relationship that lasted through the first month of college. It started out well with a nice guy who liked me and was fascinated by me. But doesn't it always?

Even then, I knew he wasn't the one. I met him at a camp I was at over the summer, and I remember telling myself that I'd break up with him when camp ended. I'd break up with him at the end of summer. I'd break up with him after Halloween. After Thanksgiving. After Christmas. After Valentine's Day. But I never did. Somehow, he kept me sucked in. And yes, part of that was probably his confession that he was initially attracted to my best friend but that she didn't appear to be interested in him so he turned to me. Yes, my self-esteem took another nosedive.

He slowly separated me from my friends because I began spending every available moment with him - though he lived twenty-five minutes from my home. He was a year behind me in school but still older than I was (I was young for my grade), and as I started looking at colleges, he pressured me to stay nearby. Somewhere close where he could keep an eye on me.

He didn't like that I was a cheerleader and constantly questioned where I was during practices and games and who I was with. He pressured me to spend more time with him, to show him that I cared about him. He was needy, and I could fill a void for him. Halfway through basketball season, I stopped by his house one afternoon and threw my entire cheerleading folder into the garbage to show him that I cared that I understood his issues. The fact that he shouldn't have issues for some reason didn't cross my mind. The fact that I was quitting something I'd loved was swept away. I was captain of the cheerleading squad, but I was throwing that away for him.

Things continued in that vein, and as I prepared to go to college two states away, he freaked. I wasn't changing where I was going to college - fortunately I still had my wits about me enough for that - but he wanted to talk every day. This was in the early days of the Internet, and he didn't have email yet, but he showed me how we could keep in touch by chatting online with our 2400 baud modems.

A week into my college stay, he provided me with a list of "rules." Those rules included a prohibition of ever being alone with a male person, regardless of the circumstances. There was something about never having my door open when I was in my room to discourage people from coming in and hanging out. I was to check in with him twice a day. There were more, fourteen in all, I think, though fortunately I don't recall every one.

I looked at that list, and I told him ok. I told him ok. I had no intention of following the vast majority of them - really, I couldn't have any male friends? I wasn't supposed to socialize and make friends at college? I resolved to ignore most of the rules - he wouldn't know anyway, and it wasn't like I was doing anything "wrong" so what difference did it make. Even after the rules, he was still jealous and controlling and concerned. I lasted three days. Three days after he sent me the list of rules, I told him I was done. I told him that was ridiculous, and I'm sure a whole lot more. That was the last time I ever spoke with him.

Something finally got through to me, and in a way maybe that list of rules was a blessing in disguise. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to trust people again. It was hard to date for months and months and months, and I remember flinching when a friend tried to kiss me a few weeks later. My self esteem was shot, but I couldn't trust anyone else either. I'm more grateful than anyone knows for the wonderful and supportive friends who were there for me and helped build me back up, but it wasn't a quick or easy journey.

That's the kind of pain I want the wee ones to avoid. I wrote earlier this month about the Purple Purse project because I was lucky. I got out before there was lasting damage. I got out before anything truly bad happened to me, but I know there are way too many who don't. To that end, I talk to the wee ones about making themselves happy. I talk to Little Miss about not giving her friends power over her, as it's already happening in first grade. Inoculating them though? I'm still not sure how to do that, but somehow I've got to.

What suggestions do you have?

In the interest of full disclosure, this post was inspired by the book "Lost Edens" by Jamie Patterson as part of the From Left To Write book club, where we write posts inspired by the books as opposed to traditional book reviews. I received a copy of the book for the book club, but I was not compensated in any way.

Tasty Tuesday - Peach Cake

So Mister Man missed out on our traditional birthday dinner because we were in Florida - rough life, I know. That said, I promised that I'd make it up to him and we'd cook it after we returned. He chose his favorite homemade bagel dogs and an apple cake.

That's fine. Oh, except that he changed his mind as we walked through Costco. The apple cake I wasn't sure quite how I was going to make turned into a peach cake - that I still wasn't quite sure how I was going to make. I've made cherry and strawberry cakes before, though, so it couldn't be too hard.

It wasn't. And it was pronounced delicious by all. Phew!

Peach Cake

Ingredients:
2/3 c butter (I used dairy free alternative)
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 c milk (I used rice milk)
3/4 c worth of sliced peaches (without any juice)
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
2 t baking powder
1 1/2 c flour

Directions:
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees and grease a 13x9 pan.

Cream the butter and sugars. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until well combined. Add the peaches and beat until the peaches are just itty bitty pieces. Add the milk, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and beat again. Add the baking powder and mix. Add the flour and stir until just combined.

Pour into your prepared 13x9 pan. Slice the remaining peaches from your jar (I use jarred peaches - no BPA from the lining of the can!) into bite sized chunks and lay them across the top of the cake. Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes, until your tester comes out clean.

Frost with your choice of frosting. I used the peach juice to make a cooked peach frosting (with cinnamon, yum!), and though it was really good, I need to work on it more since it was very hard. A non-cooked frosting might be better when using the juice to keep it from getting so hard.

Enjoy this and more with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. Also posting now with A Southern Fairytale and her Mouthwatering Monday.