Kissing 2009 Good-Bye

It's a new year. A new me. A whole new name. Well, an old name, but since I haven't used it in 13+ years, it feels new. New "About Me," over there on the right, too. Kinda had to change it now that I've officially left the limboverse between separation and divorce and entered single motherhood.

Felt all that merited a new template, too. Old one was nice and green. This one is not green, but it's far easier to read, and that's considerably more important. I wish I had the time and the talent to make my own beautiful green blog layout. I don't.

And so, a new year. I'm tickled pink to have kissed 2009 good-bye. Much crap in 2009. Much. Crap.

Lots of joy too, though. And since I'm a rose-colored glasses kind of gal, I thought it best to wrap up the year with a Done List of the good stuff.

In the past year, I have ...

• Introduced my kids to 35 members of my immediate and extended family, all of whom love them to pieces just because they were born.
  
• Hugged my dad. In person even.
  
• Successfully baked cakes from scratch. Martha Stewart's Cupcakes is my new kitchen bible, and trust me, the yellow buttermilk cupcakes with fluffy vanilla frosting will put you in a cupcake coma. Pure joy.
• Rediscovered old friends and made some new ones. These friends? They're the kind who, once you've met them, you wonder how you ever thought your life was whole without them.
  
• Found The Best Side Dish ever - Cauliflower Goat Cheese Gratin, at Bobby Flay's Bar Americain in New York. If you go there, order five servings of cauliflower and a Cosmo. It's all you need.
• Saw Wicked. Lately, my diva's been singing "Defying Gravity" ... and she's doing it well.
  
• Saw the most beautiful place on earth: Paradise on Mount Rainier in August.
• Learned several important lessons, one of which I'm currently ignoring (that would be Lesson 3: Get Some Sleep, Stupid)
• Rescued one sorely damaged and dearly treasured cast iron fry pan from kitchen fire. Elbow grease and bacon brought it back. So nice to have an excuse to cook lots and lots of bacon.
• Made 57 blog posts. People actually read them. Awesome.
  
• Got my kids through an insane number of transitions. Separation. Divorce. Middle school. Preschool. New au pairs. Old au pairs. And realized that, after a full year of change, they are happy. Really, truly, genuinely happy.
  
• And, of course, made it through Limbo. That's the big one, really.
  

If I sat here long enough I could think of another dozen or so wonderful things. Because there's never so much crap that it completely obliterates the good. Rose-colored glasses, you know. They make the good stuff that much easier to find.

Love the World

I am a geek.

In fact, I'm a geek on so many levels it's hard to know where to start. I've got a fair amount of sci fi geekness, a strong streak of grammar geekness, and a mountain of English lit geekness (actually, make that medieval lit geekness, which is worse because it means that somewhere along the line I actually learned Old English). The list is kinda endless.

I'm also a geography geek. And this week, that's a very cool thing to be. 'Cause it's Geography Awareness Week, and you can get free maps.

I love maps.

I come by this particular geekness quite honestly. For one thing, I grew up following my dad around the world. His work took him to India, Bangladesh, the Philippines. When I was 11, my sister and I flew to Manila all by ourselves. Unaccompanied minors jetting off around the world to visit our dad.

But it's not just about the traveling. My dad and stepmom, they have always loved this world of ours, and they made sure to share that love with us kids. And their house, it was a haven for a map geek. Maps out the wazoo. I still remember, in Bangladesh, there was only one spot in the whole house with the right kind of outlet for my hair dryer. It was right in front of a great big map of the world. No mirror; just a map. I was a teenage girl with - well, with hair - so I spent a lot of time in front of that map, exploring the world and trying to get my hair to feather back just so.

When I was a kid, I decided it would be fun to learn all 50 states in alphabetical order. I'd sit and list them out whenever I was bored. I even memorized the capitals to go along - in the order of their states -and let me tell you, that's a serious accomplishment. Montgomery ... Juneau ... Phoenix ... you can look up the rest.

By the time I got to college I could list 120 countries from memory, continent by continent. I'd keep myself awake in class by writing down every country I could remember. Though I'll admit, the Soviet Union did make that an easier task than it would be today.

The world's pretty darn important. And those maps, they open your eyes in a pretty special way.

My kids get the world, and I love that. In part, that's because we've been using au pairs for childcare since my littlest one was born. Seven au pairs from six different countries. My kids have an extended family that spans the globe. They can say "Sweet dreams" in German and "Stop tickling me!" in Japanese. They've danced around a maypole at midsummer. They eat Nutella and celebrate birthdays with Brazilian brigadeiro. Our lovely new au pair is Belgian, and I can't wait for the kids (and me!) to learn a little Dutch.

Even better? They can pick out every one of those countries - and several more - on a map.

So print out a great big map. Put it up, and teach your kids to love the world.

And, for the record? It's Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin and Wyoming. And no, the District of Columbia is not on the list.

Fear of Flying

I love my cast iron. I love it almost as much as I hate to fly. And I really hate to fly.

On Tuesday, these two facts collided.

On Tuesday, I set fire to my favorite cast iron pan. Real fire. Orange flames leaping toward the ceiling. Smoke alarms screaming madly all over the house. In other words, a scary fire. A little one. But scary nevertheless.

The fire started because I'm afraid to fly. In the face of that fear, my everyday insomnia had become a big hairy insomnia monster. Lack of sleep is normal for me. But lack of sleep to that degree? It'd make Einstein stupid.

The fire started because I couldn't find my Xanax. Xanax is the miracle that makes flying possible. Without it, I get panic attacks and can't even set foot on a plane. I was getting on a plane in 12 hours, and I couldn't find my Xanax. My brain had stopped cold.

But mostly, the fire started because I love my pan.

This pan, it's a simple 12-inch skillet. My grandfather made a gift of just such a skillet to my mom when she left home for college in the early 1960s. My mom gave that same skillet to me in 1985, when I moved into my first apartment. And I gave that skillet to my sister when she moved into her first place all by her lonesome.

My sister knew just how much I missed that skillet. So she took the time to find me a new one. She seasoned it lovingly until it attained that black patina good cast iron gets when it's properly cared for. And then she gave it to me. Twin skillets, one for me, one for her.

We don't have twin skillets anymore.

Late Tuesday, on a quest to feed the insomnia monster, I set a pot of water on the stove to boil for noodles. I turned the burner on high and went upstairs to pack. Thing is, I turned on the wrong burner. I turned on the burner under my beautiful - and very empty - cast iron skillet. When I came back to check on my water, the bottom of that beautiful skillet was peeling and gray and ugly.

My first thought? My poor pan! It needs oil!

You can see how sleep deprivation and panic may have played a role here. In my normal, well-rested state, I can tell you, point of fact, that if you pour oil into a superheated skillet, it will light up like a giant fireball.

But that night? That night all I could think about was my beautiful pan. I didn't turn off the stove. I didn't let the pan cool. No, I pulled out my big bottle of Trader Joe's cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil and poured a good quarter cup into that hot cast iron frying pan sitting on a glowing red electric burner set to HIGH.

Moments later that pan exploded into flame. Gosh, what a surprise that was, eh?

I'm damn lucky the whole bottle of oil didn't explode in my hand. I'm luckier still that the part of my brain saying "Oh shit, better put that burning skillet of oil into the sink and pour water on it" got stuck on "Oh shit," so I didn't act on the thought. Instead, I grabbed the fire extinguisher from the cabinet next to the stove. I heard some voice in my head - I think it may have been Dick Van Dyke's - telling me to pull the pin and shoot. So I pulled the pin, and I put that damn fire out.

The oil splattered. It burned the crap out of one of my fingers and singed my kitchen floor. My formerly white cabinets are a dingy, smoky gray. My kitchen is covered in extinguisher dust. And my poor, beautiful, well-loved skillet is sitting in the sink, a ruined, greasy, extinguished mess.

That's all waiting for me when I get home.

The good news? I found the Xanax. I got on the plane. I got off the plane. And then I got a great big hug from my dad.

I think that makes it all better.

Martha's Cupcakes

Next month - in fact, on the very first day of next month - it's my little guy's birthday.

He's very keen on the idea of his birthday. I think mostly that's because he wants presents. And he wants to be the center of the universe, even if it's just for a day. With three kids in the house, trust me, that doesn't happen very often.

So every night he asks me if it's his birthday tomorrow. He knows August is coming, but he doesn't quite get the when.

And this year his birthday is a little more complicated than usual. That's because this year, for some reason, my little guy is refusing to age.

I've tried to explain to him that he will turn four on his birthday. He says no. Vehemently, with full on pouty face. "I'm not gonna be four," he grouches at me. "I'm gonna stay three again!"

It's hard to disagree with him. I'd have been perfectly happy to stick at 32 for a decade or so. Not possible, of course. So I'm trying to convince him that older is okay. And I think I've found the perfect bribe.

Cupcakes.

I decorate cakes for fun and frolic. My kids' birthdays are a special treat because I get to pull an all-nighter, run a Harry Potter marathon on the portable DVD player, and get crafty with fondant, colored nonpareils and run-in sugar. Few other things make me as happy.

The kids love the cake thing, too. At least once a week, they will pull out all my many cake books and create fantasy celebrations in their heads. It reminds me of the Sears catalog, back in the day. My Oma used to call it the Wish Book (I think everyone else's grandmother did, too), and my sister and I would spend hours building a wished-up life complete with furniture, glamorous outfits, and - um - tools.

My little guy, though, is less about the cakes of late. Nowadays he's all about the cupcakes. He loves Dede Wilson's Baker's Field Guide to Cupcakes (oh, and I do, too - her Italian meringue buttercream is lightly sweet, all natural and utterly delicious). He'll sit with that book for an hour at a time, flipping the pages and sighing with cupcakey joy.

But today - oh, today! I have found the Holy Grail of cupcake books. I was at BJ's, doing the warehouse thing. It's tedious and annoying, so I treat myself to book browsing while I'm there. This evening I was rewarding myself with a fruitless hunt for the new Nora Roberts novel when I spotted it ... Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. Oh oh oh oh oh!! Gorgeous. Tasty. Inspired. Now, I can make my own chocolate faux-bois! I can make little fondant monkeys! I can create a tiny cupcake forest of meringue mushrooms! It's a cornucopia of cupcake creativity.

I think it'll be enough to convince the little guy that he does, in fact, want to turn four. Because if he turns four I will make him any cupcake he wants. In fact, I will make him two dozen of them. And I won't make him share.

I'd turn four for Martha's cupcakes. Wouldn't you?

PS: For kicks, check out the Cake Wrecks blog link on the right. Daily posts of absolutely abysmal cakes, with occasional highlights of a few stunning concoctions. If you're serious about your caking, try 52 Cupcakes.

It's Good to Be the Mom

It's high time I admitted the truth. Nearly all of my parenting decisions are predicated on my relentless need for sleep.

This is what happens when you are a night owl in a daytime world. Most people wake up in the morning bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to start their day. Not me. My best time is after the sun goes down. I pulled my first all-nighter in high school. By college, I'd learned not to schedule any classes before 11:00 a.m. ... and sometimes I'd miss even those.

And yet, I am forced to survive in a world where I need to be not only awake but alert and conversant by 8:00 a.m. What's even more terrifying - I have somehow birthed not one, not two, but three morning people, all of whom rise with the sun.

And for some reason, they want me to get up, too.

This is why it's good to be the mom. When the not-yet-ex left and I no longer had my a.m. safety net, I put into place an entire set of rules designed to bring peace and quiet to my mornings and keep the kids happy and safe. I can catch a few more zzz's and ease into my day.

This has had some unexpected benefits for the kids. To wit:

• They can cook. My kids wake up hungry. Now, I honestly don't think they need to eat at 6:30 a.m. Not when it means I have to get out of bed. They disagree. So I've taught my older two how to heat toaster waffles, fill a bowl with cereal and milk, slice up some cheese, peel a banana, open a yogurt or two, and pour their own juice. Voila! Breakfast.
  
• They are responsible. The kids have noticed that if they don't let the dog out and feed her, the house gets loud and stinky, and mom gets cranky. So they take turns managing the dog in the mornings. (To be fair, this has been a kid chore for years; the difference is that now they do it without being asked.)
  
• They use the potty. My older two had the benefit of a grown-up morning person in the house when they were toilet training. I suspect that's why neither of them mastered the art till the age of four. Not so my little guy. He is now fully independent on the toilet and has been since he was two. That's right, two. This is largely because I move verrrrry slowly in the mornings. He hollers "Pee-pee!!!" and runs into the bathroom in a blind panic. By the time I get there he's washing his hands. (For which, by the way, WAY TO GO little guy! )
  
• They play fewer video games. My kids used to get up in the mornings and go play on the Wii. World War III would promptly follow. "You cheated!" "That's MY game!" "Mooooooom!!!" Screaming, bickering and tattling are not conducive to sleep. So I no longer allow video games in the morning. They play less, so their brains rot less. Yay!
  
• They are independent. My kids know that if they dress themselves, brush their own teeth, and head quietly downstairs, I will remain in bed. If they're lucky, this means an extra 30 minutes of SpongeBob.
  
• They're more creative. Books, art projects, pretend play - these are quiet and can be done independently, with a minimum of bicker-inducing interaction. Quiet is good, and TV gets boring. So the kids set out stacks of books, art supplies and toys to entertain themselves.
  

Oh, and get this! Yesterday I figured out a whole new bonus to the "protect my mornings" plan. This is because yesterday, the kids decided to play board games when they woke up. On the surface, a good idea. Nice, quiet activity. No remote control. My kids, however, are very poor sports. Before long, my diva and my Aspie were hollering the house down. It was far worse than the Wii on a really bad Wii day.

As punishment, I decided to enforce cooperation. I made them do the dishes.

This. Was. Brilliant.

Even more than I love sleep, I hate washing dishes. In the 43 years of my existence I have had exactly one argument with my dad. Just one. It's true. Surprising, but true. And guess what that argument was about? It was about doing the dishes. Didn't want to do them at 13. Don't want to do them now.

So yesterday, I didn't do the dishes. The kids did. I supervised. From the sofa. With my eyes mostly closed. And the kids learned two valuable lessons. They learned to be self-sufficient, and they learned to get along.

Win-win, so far as I can see.

They still come into the bedroom and jump on me at the slightest provocation. I try very very hard to enjoy it.

P.S. While these rules are designed to protect the quiet of my mornings, the fact is that I'm rarely sleeping. Most often I am upstairs in my room letting my brain get used to being awake and listening at the open door to the peace and quiet produced by three wonderfully independent, cooperative and loving children. I'm starting to realize that I'm doing a pretty good job of raising them (and, credit where credit is due, their dad's not doing so bad either).