We're Going Episcopal

Back in May, I came to the realization that the Catholic Church just wasn't cutting it for me anymore.

Well, we started attending the local Episcopal church. You know, where Little Miss was supposed to start preschool last Tuesday? Yeah.

It's very different from the Catholic churches around here in some good ways. This is a country church, and I mean that in the best possible way. It's very small, and there's a real feeling of community.

The first Sunday we went, there were twenty one people in attendance, excluding the minister. Granted, it was the 8am service and Memorial Day weekend, but the church we'd come from averaged over 700 each week, including summer. So when the service ended, what do you suppose happened? Of those twenty-one, eight introduced themselves to us. And one woman tried to get me to be on the flower guild. Whoah, I haven't joined the church and I'm not an Episcopal -- too much pressure could turn people off! But they were all really nice and sweet.

Now that summer is over, there are more people there (well over 100 but I forgot to count). And today, the woman in front of me introduced herself because she hadn't seen me before. I always felt like I was sitting alone in a sea of people when attending Mass in the Catholic Church, but definitely not here. And I like that. Religion is community to me.

And the Episcopal church will give the wee ones the exposure to religion that I so desperately want them to have. I could pretend like I do a good job at home, but so far we've gotten into the following conversation one too many times.

Mister Man (or Little Miss): What does God do?
Me: He watches over us.
MM: Why?
Me: Because He loves us.
MM: Why?
Me: Because we're all His children.
MM: Why?
Me: Because He made us.
MM: Why?
Me: Because He loves us.
....
MM: Why?
Me: That's a really good question, Sweetie. When you go to Sunday School, be sure to ask your teacher.

I can only have that conversation so many times. And we've started talking about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and their sons. But without weekly reinforcement by someone who knows how to teach it way better than me, I am just not comfortable with the base of religious education.

Catholics: $600 for my family to attend Generations of Faith six Wednesdays a year from 6:30 to 8:30pm. Oh, and that includes a dinner where we eat with other families, and then the entire family goes off in age appropriate groups to learn. Adults, too. But no kids under kindergarten age. Oh, wait. We can't start for two more years then since Mister Man doesn't go to kindergarten until next year and Little Miss until the year after. And what do I do with her when the rest of us go if she isn't welcome? Six times a year isn't enough for me.

Episcopals: Sunday School is every Sunday at 9:05 am between the two services. It's free. Children start at age 3 and go through high school.

That part of it really sort of made the choice for me. They start Sunday school next week. They're supposed to be in the same class as of now, as Godly Play is for ages 3-5. But if that's a problem, they'll move Mister Man up a level since he can read.

There are several other differences in the two churches, but really Episcopal is as Catholic as you can get without being Catholic, so that's somewhat comforting to me. The service is structured the same. The prayers are essentially the same, with some slight wording differences (and I still have a hard time saying "became incarnate of the Virgin Mary" and "suffered death and was buried" in the Nicene Creed instead of "was born of the Virgin Mary" and "suffered, died, and was buried." I'll get there though.

I love the bulletin that gives the words to everything. This may be this church only, but I can follow along with all the readings - versus looking them up in the missilette - and the prayers that will be said during the service. Definitely more customer friendly, in my mind. Not the most green though.

The Episcopal church also welcomes everyone, in many ways.

All can receive communion, including children who have not yet received their first communion. It's part of the whole welcoming everyone aspect of the church that I really love. Catholics? Technically, not only do you need to have your First Communion, but you must also be Catholic, have all your sins forgiven already, not divorced, etc etc etc. And there are children at the church now who get really into going up to the rail with everyone else. Oh yeah. You receive communion at the rail, old school. A little different, but I'm good with it!

The interim rector when we started going was a divorced woman. Yeah, not gonna see that in the Catholic church, are we? It's different but totally logical, and that was one issue I had with Catholicism. I still remember being in the 5th and 6th grades getting ready for the weekly Mass (yep, I went to Catholic school). It rotated amongst the grades, and starting in 5th grade, you got to do much more of the Mass. Except girls (at the time) couldn't be altar boys. That really turned me off and kept me from participating. Not exactly an issue here, is it?

The new rector is now in place. In the Catholic Church, the bishop would have appointed a new priest, and here's hoping you liked him. Here, there was a search committee who decided what kind of a priest they wanted and then did a job search. They found their new guy in England and offered him the job. He had a choice. And so did the parish. What a concept! And so far, he seems to be fitting in quite nicely. Today was just week 3 though (and my first week not out of town or at a wedding since he's been here). And yeah, he's married and has two kids.

In the Catholic Church, there were always three Masses (at least at the churches I went to). Saturday afternoon around 5 and two Sunday morning services. At this church, we have no Saturday service except for the three picnic outdoor services they held -- which alone were way cool. The morning services also have a very different feel to them.

The 8am service has no singing. No opening hymn or communion or closing hymn at all. Some of the sung/chanted bits in Catholicism (Holy, holy, Holy! or Christ has died, Christ is risen..." for example) were simply said. Needless to say, couple no singing with twenty-one people, and we were out of there in thirty-eight minutes.

Now, I'm not saying that church should be a specific length, but I sort of have an agreed-upon contract. I'm going for somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour, give or take. Holidays are longer. It may be a bad attitude, but it's my expectation. The Catholic church has started singing everything which drove me nuts. And drove the average Mass to over an hour twenty. Since Mass was 11am, that meant missing almost the first half by the time you walked to your parked car forever away since there was no parking by the church because it's too big and then drove home. Sad, I know. But Sunday and football are sort of a tradition, too.

The 10:15 service at the new church is much more familiar, with even some of the same songs that I sang growing up (no comments on the musical director at the Catholic church who I swear chooses only the songs that he wrong and published and the ones that are the most difficult and unintuitive to sing -- and I like to sing and can read music well). It has a lot of families with children who frequently sit up in the front pew to play in the extra wide pew with the paper and markers and stuffed animals and cushions for children.

Yes, you heard me. Something to keep the children occupied while their parents worship. Granted, there's also a nursery (where I put the wee ones), but if you want your children with you or if they don't do well separated or if you're working on getting them to learn to pay attention in church, it's set up to help you. What a brilliant idea to get kids to not feel like church is punishment. Oh, and the nursery is free, too. I used to have to pay $2 per child per week. Just saying.

So yeah... we're switching. I don't have to go through all the fancy rites of christian initiation I would were I becoming Catholic. They accept that I'm Christian and baptized and a believer and move forward. I just have to make a date to talk to the new priest to walk through some of the finer points that I want to better understand (like they only have two sacraments versus the seven Catholics celebrate) and then officially register.

Even though we aren't going there for preschool, we'll still go for church. And I'm happy to be going to church again. It's been a long time.

Angst

Mister Man started preschool on Tuesday. He's doing well, and except for the mishap where he almost got onto a bus that would have taken him to the elementary school instead of his school, it's all gone well. I still can't believe he's only got five kids in his class this year -- I know it will grow as the year goes on and more kids qualify for and enter the preschool, but still five kids is tiny!

Little Miss was also supposed to start preschool on Tuesday. In fact, we've been using the "They won't let you go to St Marks if you aren't potty trained" refrain for several months now. But she didn't go. Why not you might ask?

Well, Mister Man's preschool is our local early learning center for special needs and at risk kids ages 3-5. Mister Man qualified when he turned three and graduated from Early Intervention but still needed services. His social development was far behind (fortunately much due to his speech delay that is now resolved), and his fine and gross motor were also delayed.

Little Miss has also spent time in Early Intervention. When she was six months old, she wasn't babbling at all. And by not babbling at all, I mean she didn't make a sound, including when she "laughed" - all she'd do was open her mouth wide with a smile and shake. She entered speech therapy shortly thereafter.

A little over a year into her speech therapy, they wanted her evaluated for occupational therapy, as well. She fell constantly and didn't use her hands to catch herself. Plus, she showed no reaction to pain. She had a really hard time moving from one surface to another, like from the sidewalk to grass. She qualified for occupational therapy well before her second birthday. But there were no therapists in Early Intervention available, so we were put on a waitlist.

Last August 31, Little Miss graduated from her speech therapy and now has quite the vocabulary. We were lucky. Her delay was due to constant ear infections (see the comment on pain -- we had no idea) that essentially had deadened her hearing. She's had tubes in for almost two years now, and the hearing is fine -- a huge relief. The speech therapy allowed her to catch up, and she shouldn't need any going forward.

When she graduated from Early Intervention, we still were on the waitlist for a therapist and we gave up in October. It seemed silly to keep paying for a service we weren't receiving. But she still falls all the time and ends up with huge welts and bruises and scrapes whose source are unknown. We constantly get incident reports from daycare and preschool from injuries she's incurred - at least once every other week, if not more often.

So we wanted to have her screened at the early learning center. The screening isn't scheduled until the Friday before school starts. So I found out last Friday that they want her at the school. I knew previously that she would have qualified as you now only need one qualifying criteria to attend (a change in Illinois this year, as it had been at least two until now). Qualifying criteria include everything from a second language spoken in the home to having been in Early Intervention at some point to having a sibling attend the school to income levels and more.

However, the recommendation is to have your child in the least restrictive environment possible, and I was hoping that this would mean the private preschool we'd signed Little Miss up for. They were concerned about her balance and stability, however, and strongly recommended that she attend his school. They picked up on something I hadn't noticed which is that when she stands to play with something, she sticks her feet out like a ballerina which is indicative of a balance problem.

I got the recommendation at 1:26 last Friday and immediately called the private preschool to let them know the verdict. They were closed last Thursday and Friday, so I left a message explaining and asking the director to call me. I just realized that I've yet to hear back from her. Now I'm irritated by that. Hmm.

Because the screening didn't happen until last Friday, the newly eligible students aren't to start until this coming Monday. I made sure to get all our paperwork in by this afternoon, including the bus forms on Wednesday.

By this afternoon, I still hadn't heard about when the bus was going to come to pick her up or who her teacher would be. When I called the school, the admin told me that the principal had yet to make up the class lists and may not get to it today. And that students may not start until Tuesday or Wednesday.

Oh no no no no no.

Monday is my in the office day. I leave the house at 6:15. My mom comes over, and the plan was for her to put Little Miss on the bus at 8:30 or so and to get Mister Man to his "kindergarten" program by 9am. Since it was her first time, I was going to stay to get Little Miss on the bus and take the requisite pictures but then head to work. And my mom had bridge at 10am. And our daycare doesn't exactly smile upon random added hours, nor should they.

I called again a little before five to get an update and spoke to the principal who explained that she'd spent much of the week putting out fires but totally understood my issue and was going to go work on the class lists right then and would call me back later. But no bus. Maybe no bus until Thursday.

I called my mom and she graciously agreed to take Little Miss to preschool on Monday -- which means that I miss out on seeing her off on her first day! -- and ensuring that my dad would take Mister Man to his program. That whole thing about trying to be in two places twenty minutes away at 9am just wasn't going to happen, and I can't go into the office that late. Or shouldn't anyway.

The good news is that she does have a class now. She has a teacher, and it's a teacher that I'm totally cool with. And there are currently only ten children in her class with a teacher and two aides. I know that will grow as the year goes on, but I don't think it will ever get above 17.

The bad news is that I'm missing her first day now! I'm debating faking the photos and pretending like her first day on the bus is her first day. Or making my mom take the photos and praying that she learns how to use the zoom feature.

The other option that I've seriously been considering for awhile is quitting my job. What I do is generally interesting, but I have a schizophrenic boss now. He's a huge micromanager which just doesn't work for me in general. And he piles on random assignments that he then forgets about two days later. He is never on time for meetings and frequently blows off meetings with me with no warning. But yet I'm an incredibly valued employee who they treasure.

I hate missing the moments of their lives. And I have so much going on outside work that I'd love to focus on more. I've yet to put together an agenda for the PTO meeting on Tuesday. I need to confirm that the newsletter goes out on Monday or find someone who can go to school and copy and distribute the announcements that the PTO meeting is occurring on Tuesday. I'd really like to get back to running. I'd like to do more on a day to day basis for and with the wee ones.

I knew I was getting burned out in mid to late June. My new boss started in early May. I had my week plus off at the end of August and thought that would be enough to recharge my batteries. I purposely didn't dial into any meetings while away and only checked email a few times. I came back and even that first morning soooooo didn't want to go to work. This is the first time that a vacation hasn't done it for me.

But I work three days a week, two of them from home. And I make more doing that than my husband does working full time. How can I justify giving that up? The situation I have isn't something that you can easily replicate elsewhere. And being completely meanspirited, I work in finance and that sector isn't doing so well. It's possible that my division would be shut down at some point in the next couple of years. The severance would be really nice.

For now, though, my alarm will be set for 5:40 on Monday. I'll leave my mom detailed instructions of what pictures to take of Little Miss. I'll call to make sure the handoff went well. And while I'm at work, I'll have plenty of moments wishing I weren't there, regretting that I'm not with my wee ones, and wondering if I'm doing the right thing.

I Must Be Old ...

Because when I watched 90210 last night (sue me, it got preempted by Cubs on Tuesday and I was too tired to stay up and watch it that night), I didn't get it.

Growing up, I loved Beverly Hills 90210. I didn't watch every episode, but I certainly watched many of them. It resonated with me for the most part. I really only remember one quibble I had with the show, and that was the town Brenda and Brandon had moved from. You all remember that they were from Minnesota. In one episode they mentioned the town. They called it WAY-zatta.

*sigh*

Really, you're writing for a huge tv show; can't you afford to do some research? I know it looks like that when you see it on a map -- Wayzata and all. However, it's actually pronounced Why-zhetta. And how do I know this? Well, that happens to be the town I lived in at the time. Sorta like how it drives me nuts now to see movies that take place in Chicago and watch roads that are nowhere near each other appear to be the same road.

But back to the new version.

A friend of mine was suppose to have a viewing party at her house. Unfortunately the preemption messed that up. And the reschedule didn't happen on Wednesday because she somehow Tivo'd only the first 23 minutes of it. Fortunately, she discovered this before we all showed up. Needless to say, I was on my own to watch it Thursday.

And I don't know if I'll watch it again.

I really feel like the show didn't know who it wanted to watch it. Were they going after today's teens or the adults who were teens when the original version was on?

It kept Brenda and Kelly (and may I just ask what happened to Shannen? I don't remember that huge gap between her front teeth before, and every time she opened her mouth to talk, that was all I could stare at). I'm not sure what Brenda's role is exactly. She sort of showed up near the end to visit with Kelly (or is it Kelli?). And Kelly has a child, which means that she's going to play a decent sized role in the show. I assume anyway. That or the kid will be the one to drive her off.

I think they also have Kelly's mom on next week. Because of course we all remember the sweet little Erin she had while on the show. Perfect mirroring, Erin is now in high school, and of course there's the triangle between the three ladies -- or so it appears.

It's odd the large role that adults play on the show altogether. The principal is the new Jim Walsh who moved from Kansas to take care of his mom who is quite the caricature, including being a drunk. His wife is a photographer, and both are playing a large role in the show. One of the high school girls' mom was apparently a high school girlfriend of the principal and is now hitting on him. Apparently because they had a son together that the principal never knew about. Yep, lots of adults in the stories, which seems like something the teens wouldn't care about. Just saying.

But my biggest issues were with the teens. My wee ones would not be watching this if they were of age -- unless it were with me to discuss the show and how very wrong it it.

Erin insists on being called Silver and has an incredibly mean-spirited blog where she attacks whoever she decides to. And since the whole campus at West Beverly is now wireless, everyone and their laptop sees the skewerings and buys into them, making that person the talked about outcast of the day.

The actresses also look so much older to me than even they did in the original version (Andrea and Dylan notwithstanding). And they're so skinny that they look unhealthy. In fact, pretty much all the representations of the teens (and adults for that matter) are ones that I can only pray my wee ones never emulate.

The houses are far, far larger than they were before. The cars the students drive are that much more expensive. Nat's Peach Pit is a way upscale charcuterie and coffeehouse. One boy flies the new girl to San Francisco on his private jet for dinner. To have anyone think that this is reasonable or attainable or even a good fantasy... it sets people up to be miserable later in life.

Interestingly, the "new" children on the show aren't twins. There's a girl and an adopted boy. I'm sure they're going to bring race into the show at some point, as the boy is black. He's also a rocking lacrosse player (anyone else see lacrosse's popularity becoming even more popular after this?) who gets kicked off the team because he is goaded into a fight with the previous star and someone on the team lies and says the new kid started it (is it sad that I have no idea what most of the names are on the show? I think that's probably a bad sign).

Lucky for him, the kid has a change of heart and the new boy is back on the team. But when they are pranked by the rival team, there's a huge show of "you have to be part of the team" which means the new kid devises a reciprocating prank even after being warned not to retaliate. Yep, being part of the team means never giving up your buddies, and this is celebrated by the dad/principal. Apparently my morals need adjusting since I'd fully expect my child to a) not retaliate after being told by the principal not to and b) to give up himself and others if he made the stupid choice to do so and got caught.

There's also the "not so sweet sixteen" party that one of the girls has which I wouldn't attend myself, let alone allow a child of mine to attend. Hugely over the top and lavish and insane. The new girl is grounded because she gave her term paper to the birthday girl and got caught, but she snuck out to the party anyway. Her parents found out, but no apparent punishment for that was doled out.

And don't forget the girls who go to the nightclub with a huge cover and drink. Oh and are on pills and steal purses to pay for said pills.

The disrespect they all show their teachers is also appalling, and I feel for my husband is people start to act this way in real life. I know the parents are already there with the excuses as to why Little Johnny should get a take home makeup exam or why a paper should be regraded or why an extension should be granted because I hear about it from my husband, but the mom on the show who wanted an extra week's extension for a paper because of the upcoming birthday party and the stress of that and the fittings needed, etc. If my wee ones started acting this way, there would be hell to pay.

And the girls are all so vicious towards each other. I remember the original having catty girls on it, but this was just horrible horrible behavior all around. I can only hope that people are a little more normal when the wee ones go to high school.

I don't watch a ton of tv, so maybe this is par for the course. You always have to top the one that came before you, right? I never watched most of the recent popular shows -- Dawson's Creek, The OC, Gossip Girl. To be honest, I had to think long and hard to come up with just those few.

So umm yeah, I'm a curmudgeon before my time. Did anyone else watch the new 90210?

White Chocolate Party Mix

As part of the celebration for Little Miss's birthday, I made a white chocolate party mix that was super yum. The inspiration for this came from the birthday party we'd attended the week prior. It had been made by my friend's mother and she doesn't share her recipes. Well, fine. Give me a challenge. How hard could it be?

Start with our ingredients:



4 c. Cheerios
6 c. Rice Chex (or the knockoff brand like I used)
3 c. pretzel shaped or waffle cut pretzels
3 c. M&Ms
2 c. craisins (my inspiration, ha!)
1 1/2 lb premium white chocolate*

*I tried this with Hershey's premium white chocolate chips and with the white chocolate chips from our local buy in bulk yummy stuff store. Hershey's was far superior. Definitely don't use almond bark. Find the best white chocolate you can and use it. It makes that much of a difference.

Place the white chocolate in a very heavy saucepan (I love my Le Creuset!) or in a double boiler and melt over medium low heat.



Cover the pot to ensure the heat is being evenly distributed and not just cooking the bottom part.


After about a few minutes, turn off the heat and begin stirring. It will look like this at first, which makes you think it won't melt.



However, it will quickly get to this consistency. Do you see how nice and pourable it got? Yum! Try not to eat it directly out of the pot.



While the chocolate is melting, place the remaining ingredients in a veeeeerrrry large bowl or roaster pan or something that will allow you to stir it without having everything go flying everywhere. I also love my giant bowls from IKEA.



Gently mix the dry stuff together without breaking anything (read: Rice Chex).



Use the spatula to drizzle the white chocolate onto the dry stuff. Only do about a quarter or so of the chocolate at a time and mix well in between or you'll end up with massive gobs of chocolate and lots of dry other stuff.



Eventually, it will look like this.



You'll want to put waxed paper on a counter. I have sheets of it (yep, more Costco stuff!), and it fills up about six sheets. I got smart somehow and realized that if you have a damp counter, the waxed paper sheets will stay in place while spreading the mix rather than sliding all over the counter. And I swear I figured this out via brains and not via trial and error. I'm still not sure how that happened.


Once the mix is all ummm mixed, pour it out onto the waxed paper and use the spatula to spread it out so that it hardens into manageable chunks. Once it hardens (less than an hour in the middle of summer for me), you'll want to break it up a little more, but not too much.

And if you have a family like me, when you put it into your container for storage, you'll have about this much left.

Enjoy! And definitely let me know what you think!

What A World We Live In

Mister Man starting up preschool had me thinking. Yeah, I know that's a bad idea, but it's what happens sometimes. Things are really different from when I was growing up.

Mister Man has been receiving various therapies -- speech, occupational and physical -- since he was 17 months old. I was lucky enough to have friends who were able to lead me in the right direction when I felt there wasn't something quite right about Mister Man.

My mom had no such interventions. She talks about how many things are so similar between Mister Man and I, and that frequently makes it hard for her to understand why he's in a special needs school and I turned out "just fine." Apparently I probably had low core strength as a child, which led to delays in gross and fine motor development like being able to cut and write properly. You should see my handwriting now, as I never learned to do it properly. And don't ask me to use a pair of standard scissors. My mom blamed it on being left handed, but "we know better now."

On the plus side, we moved around a lot as a child, following my dad's jobs as he was promoted or transferred. I rather enjoyed going to new places and meeting new people, but I know my sister didn't. Married to a math teacher, I know that I'll never leave the state, as there's no way he's giving up his place on the scale or his pension by moving elsewhere.

In fact, while Mister Man has lived in three different homes, we moved to our current house when he was still two. His only memories will be here, and he'll have friends that he went to kindergarten with. I always envied my friends who knew others from infancy practically. My oldest friends are from eighth grade. I wonder how much of an impact on me that's had.

At the same time, we rarely lived near family. We visited frequently, and they visited us. We'd even vacation with my grandparents. I had good relationships with them all and loved them, of course.

With my parents, my wee ones have a very different relationship. They live fifteen minutes from us, and they frequently do childcare for us -- at their insistence. There are times when I wonder if they love my parents more than they do my husband and I. The "grandparent rules" are all well and good when you see them sometimes. I am concerned about the impact of having these rules in play so frequently, but I wouldn't trade their relationship with my parents for anything.

By the time I was four and almost five, I remember heading over to friends' houses by myself to play. And coming back in time for dinner. Mister Man still naps frequently, and so many children are so scheduled that it's hard to have the unscheduled playtimes, let alone the trust to allow them to go on their own without knowing exactly what they're doing.

At least we have sidewalks in our neighborhood, something I learned from my childhood. We never had them, and there were definitely times I was concerned for my safety while walking. Plus, there's far less excuse to cut across neighbors' lawns this way!

I'm a younger mom than my mom was, ironically enough, but in many ways I know more than she did. I've read more than her and consulted more experts. She raised my sister and I as best she could, and we're both contributing members of society.

I can only hope that my children grow up with the same measure of love and safety and respect and happiness that my sister and I did. As long as they grow up happy and healthy, it doesn't matter what's changed over the years. As long as they grow up happy and healthy, I've done my job.

Last First Day Of Preschool

Yep, Mister Man started preschool (for the third year!) today. Next year, he'll be finished with preschool, and already this year is so different.

He chose his own outfit and got dressed one hundred percent by himself. And he's in afternoon preschool for the first time, too. Considering that he napped the last four days and asked to take a nap around 10am today, that doesn't bode too well, but we'll see how it goes. We really wanted him to do an enrichment program a few mornings a week to keep him challenged and interested in learning, and of course that is only offered in the mornings.

Before we got ready for preschool, we did our obligatory fashion show. We do this twice a year where I take out every stitch of upcoming season clothing out of the closet and lay it on each of the wee ones' beds. They have to try everything on to get a clean bed again. This was, of course, my mom's brilliant idea, but I'll admit that it had to be done.

Things we found out:
1) Mister Man is an angel. He tried on everything we asked him to.
2) Mister Man has grown a lot since this spring (read: May) when he last wore a lot of his clothes.
3) Hand-me-downs are a lifesaver. I literally do not have to shop for a single piece of clothing for either child this year because of all the clothes they received as gifts from friends and relatives and from handmedowns. In fact, Little Miss's closet is so stuffed, I can barely fit all her clothes onto the rack.
4) Little Miss is not my child. She is an evil spawn of some Stubbornbeast that I have yet to beat.
5) Little Miss will never be a clotheshorse.
6) There are two ways to get Little Miss to try on clothes: threaten to take away Snowy (the bear) or tell her that the shirt she's about to try on matches her underwear. Go figure.
7) There will be some VERY happy little children in our area this fall. The preschool Mister Man attends has a not insignificant portion of very high poverty families, and the school has a great network to distribute outgrown clothes to families who need them. And you wouldn't imagine how grateful they are for little things like this (or making Easter baskets or Christmas stockings for kids). They never ask for it, but there's always a need.
8) Little Miss may have far fewer clothes that fit her than we think she does because we only tried on about a third of her clothes and instead did the "yeah, I'm sure that'll fit" for the rest. It was truly that bad.

After lunch, we took our traditional first day of school pictures, and I ended up with 23. Thank GOD for digital photography, so I can see what he's done that makes the previous picture not the one for the memory book. I finally started talking about my dad goofing around with him at the pool yesterday, and that cracked the first normal smile I got.


Then of course he got all cute and coy on me, so I had to save this one, too. Awww, can you believe he isn't even five yet?

Little Miss was very sad that today was not her first day of preschool. It was supposed to be her first day, and more on that later. Today is about Mister Man's first day. She did wait for his bus with Snowy though. In fact we all waited.

The bus was supposed to arrive at 12:30. Preschool starts at 1pm, and it's about 20-25 minutes from our house. We knew that Mister Man was the last pickup (he gets carsick), so they'd go straight to school after him.

At 12:46, I called the bus company to see where the bus was and was told that they were running late today. They seemed truly perturbed when I asked them to check to see how late the bus was so that I could drive Mister Man to school myself if it was more than five or so minutes away.

While I was on hold, a bus pulled up to our driveway and opened the door. Mister Man started to get on. "Is this Grant?" Ummm nope, it isn't. I did some quick thinking and realized this was the kindergarten bus and that I knew a Grant who was going to afternoon kindergarten. He didn't live on our street though, so I gave directions to the grateful bus driver.

Our bus showed up at 12:54. I talked to Grant's mom later today and found out that the two buses both stopped at her house at the same time (she has one son going to Mister Man's school on his bus and one going to kindergarten), which caused just a tiny bit of confusion.

You'll notice that the bus driver is checking off on her list that yes, this is in fact the correct child getting on the bus. Mister Man wasted no time getting on that bus!

And the bus driver remembered us. She had been our bus driver Mister Man's first year in preschool. God help me, I can't remember her name for anything, and I didn't have the presence of mind to ask. I did ask her if she could put him in a harness though (they hadn't told her that) and confirme that she would pick him up from daycare tomorrow and Thursday (nope, hadn't told her that either).

In the end, it turned out fine. He has the same preschool teacher as he did last year. This year, there are currently only five kids in his class -- three boys and two girls. My first thought? This will make his 15 child limit birthday party that much easier. I think that officially makes me a bad mom.

Truly though, having five kids in the class for a teacher and an aide should really help him out a lot this year. I hope! I know it won't stay this small all year long, as there are five more screenings yet this year and each screening means more children added to the program. At the same time, he's in the oldest and highest functioning class this year in the afternoons, so in all likelihood there won't be too many more children added to it.

When he got home, I asked him what he'd learned today, and his answer was "nothing new." I suppose I ought to get used to that. At least one thing hasn't changed though -- he came home with all his pockets filled with acorns that he'd collected from the field in the playground. They're currently sitting in Daddy's shoe (shhh!).

Dip Me!

Now this is my kind of Labor. Happy Labor Day everyone.

This is a dip that I've made several times now and had requests for it each time. If you're in a hurry, you can put it all into a food processor and give it a whirl. It still tastes great, but people have thought it was bean dip, liverwurst or who knows what the one time I did that. Now I do it by hand, and it's much prettier. Plus, I like the chunks.



We'll start with:
1/2 c. Kalamata olives
8 sundried tomatoes
1 14 oz can of artichoke hearts
1/3 c. dried parsley
3 cloves garlic
8 oz neufchatel*
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 t salt

*Neufchatel is a naturally lower fat cream cheese. Whenever I cook or bake with cream cheese, I always use half neufchatel and half cream cheese. Because fat wasn't removed, it doesn't get that yucky rubbery texture or other issues that low fat cream cheeses do. As always, make sure your cream cheese is at room temperature before starting.

Use about this many olives. When cooking, I'm notoriously bad at measuring, but I tried to at least get close. It's a pretty forgiving recipe, so if you use more or less, you're ok.



To get the pits out, place the knife on the olives like so. Then using a closed fist, bang down on the knife hard. The olive will squish.



Once the olive is squished, you can easily pull out the pit.



Then do lots of chopping so that it gets into nice little pieces small enough that you'd want to put them into your mouth as part of a dip.



Again, use about this much artichoke. It looks about the amount that would come in a can. Of course since I shop at Costco, I have to guesstimate. And yes, I actually finished off the entire jar of artichokes. I use them in a lot of things.



Chop your artichokes into smithereens. It's great therapy.

And here we have our sundried tomatoes. You'll also want to cut up these. I find it easiest to do them individually. I slice them into narrow strips then cut the strips in half.

Ahhh, garlic. My favorite ingredient. You'll want to go with the same theory as with the olives. Lay the knife on its side and smash away. It really feels great when you've been having a bad day.

Once you've done this, it's easy as pie to remove the skins. They almost fall out of them. Seriously, why waste the money on all those fancy gadgets? It's all about technique! Plus, that leaves more room in my kitchen for the important things like immersion blenders and pasta cranks and rice cookers and such.

Make sure you mince the garlic really well. The last thing you want to do is bite into half a clove of raw garlic while at a party. Ok, maybe not the last thing, but that would be mean.

Place all your ingredients into the bowl. The order doesn't really matter. I do like to put the cream cheese in first though.

Stir it up with a spatula. You don't want to overstir but definitely want to get it all mixed in and well-distributed. Just put it into a nice bowl and serve with crackers or veggies or whatever you like.

Enjoy! As always, let me know what you think