Kiss Me, I'm Irish

I celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Despite the hefty dose of Dutch in my blood, there's still a wee dram o' Irish in there, and a great big dram o' Irish in my kids. Their dad is just one generation removed from the green hills of Skibbereen, and while he's not so into the shamrocks, I've taken it upon myself to give my kids a healthy appreciation of their Irish-Americanness.

I celebrate St. Patrick's Day with food, of course, because that's how I celebrate everything. If it doesn't involve a big meal, it's simply not a celebration. Giant, comfort food holidays are the bomb. I'm a particular fan of giant, comfort food holidays that are also dirt cheap. Give me five pounds of potatoes, a big bag of carrots, a fat head of cabbage, a hefty slab of corned beef, some Dijon mustard and a fine bottle of Guinness, and I will give you a St. Patrick's Day meal that could make banshees cry. Though, um, they do that already.

It also makes my kids cry. They each like exactly one thing in this meal, and absolutely nothing else. Hence the tears. The redhead eats the meat (with ketchup), my diva eats the potatoes, and Peabo - surprisingly - gobbles up the cabbage. No protein in cabbage, so I'm not sure where that comes from.

And that's St. Patrick's Day. Big crock pot full of cheap eats, and everyone wears green. No big bouncy bunny handing out baskets full of jelly beans and chocolate. No soot-covered fat man in a red suit passing out gifts. No magic. Just corned beef, cabbage, and kids clad in green.

Except there's supposed to be leprechauns. I didn't know about the leprechauns.

The night before St. Patrick's Day my redhead was apopleptic because he doesn't have any green pajamas. Apparently there were leprechauns coming, and if he didn't have green pajamas, they'd pinch him in his sleep.

At which point I did what any good mother with a freaked out kid would do. I said they weren't real.

Wait, did I say that was a good mother move?

What I was supposed to do, as it turns out, was find the kid some green pajamas, then meet the leprechauns downstairs and help them throw sofa cushions on the floor, dye the milk green, and leave a trail of coins. When you don't know this, though, the little green guys play a trick on you and do nothing at all, leaving you with one deeply disappointed five-year-old the next morning.

So I said they weren't real. I put the kid to bed in brown pajamas. And I ruined the magic.

Did you know about the leprechauns? Because in my day it wasn't leprechauns who did the pinching. It was any budding masochist amongst your group of besties who caught you greenless. I guess in this day and age, that would be considered bullying. So pinch-happy friends have been replaced by leprechauns. Yes, even in school.

Which I found out when the redhead came home, full to bursting with news.

"Mom!" he shouted. "You were wrong! They are real!"

And he told me about green footprints on the windows and tables in the classroom, chairs upended, and chocolate coins everywhere.

The leprechauns couldn't find him at home so they came to his classroom instead.

Magic.

And next year, I'll be able to help. Food and magic? Why that's almost like Christmas.

Sleeping into the Sunset

It's been 16 days since my last blog post.

You know what I've been doing? Aside from working, raising three kids, managing Christmas and New Year's, and - oh yeah - dealing with a resurgence of head lice (which, fortunately, struck over the holidays when the risk of contagion was low and the time available to nitpick was high).

I just distracted myself. Wait, what was I doing? Oh, right!

I've been sleeping. S-L-E-E-P-I-N-G. Which deserves every capital letter I can find.

I meant to be on vacation, so the sleeping thing would have maybe made sense. Except for, you know, the raging insomnia. But that vacation didn't work out quite as I planned, and I wound up working. I did my work the easy way, though. Started late. Kept it to the daytime. Didn't bring out the computer at night. And you know what happened? I got tired. I got tired, so I got up off my sofa and I went to bed. I made myself horizontal by midnight every single night. Well, except Christmas Eve. But that's only because I was tracking Santa with NORAD and couldn't go to sleep until he was finished.

I'm well rested. Which means I'm not blogging. And I hope it doesn't offend you if I hope for more of the same in 2011. I'd call it a New Year's resolution, but I'm not so good with those.

Since I'm awake now, though, I proudly present my 2010 Done List.

In the past year, I have ...

• Said good-bye to a beloved friend - our dog, Moose, who passed away in January. We still miss her. 
• Survived the 80+ inches of snow dumped on our area last winter. With help.
• Got my kids eating real food, at a real table, with real manners. They put their napkins in their laps and only talk with their mouths full when they have something really important to say.
• Saw my diva into - and then back out of - vegetarianism. Along the way, she learned there's not a veggie grown that she does not love. Even better - she dragged her brothers kicking and screaming into the veggie madness with her. Now I can serve broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, brussels sprouts, peas, corn, cucumbers or carrots ... and everyone eats them. Last week, I introduced sauteed spinach and lima beans - on different nights, of course - and got nothing but yums from the peanut gallery. Hats off to Veggie Girl, because I'm pretty sure none of that would have happened without her.
• Fixed my plumbing. And my car. And my lights. And my computer. And my microwave. I got jiggy with the home repairs.
• Made new friends - a few who actually live near me (yay!), and one who lives with me. I've had lots of great au pairs, but only a few have become true friends - and the one who's living with me now is among the best of them. 
• Hired a boy. That's right - our next au pair is a fella! And he's got the URL to my blog, so if he's reading this - we're pleased as punch that you're coming, and the kids can't wait to make you play soccer with them. Every. Single. Day.
• Got my oldest into the Right School, with the Right People. Which means he's now attending a school where every single person on staff understands Asperger's Syndrome and not only accepts my son but loves him for exactly who he is. So far he's brought home straight A's and a girlfriend and a few best friends who call him just to chat and sometimes to invite him to the movies. His joy at getting on the school bus every day is palpable. (And, a nod here to the local middle school, because they did everything they could to support him and make sure he got where he needed to go.)
• Left my heart in San Francisco. And brought some yummy chocolate home.
• Saw my redhead off to Kindergarten. And only cried a little. And now he's reading. Kindergarten is magic.
• Knit stuff. This year I finished - yes, I said finished - my knitting Olympics project and a handbag, plus the three hats and a scarf I just gave as Christmas gifts. And I finished those last four on time. Barely. But it counts.
• Picked hundreds of nits from the heads of various of my children. And thanked my au pair for doing the same, for them and for me. (Ew.)
  
• Wrote another 57 blog posts. Which seems to be about all I'm good for in any given year, seeing as that's the exact number I wrote in 2009, too. 

Happy New Year, folks. I walked out of 2010 with a smile and my rose-colored glasses decidedly intact. I hope that you can say the same.

My Blind Side

Sorry for the long bloggy break. Lice, as it turns out, are massively time consuming. I've done approximately 67,000 loads of laundry, bought 9 new pillows and spent at least 40 hours of my spare time (yeah, right, like I have spare time) picking nits and combing insecticide onto the scalps of my children and myself. I think we won, at least I hope so. I really hope so. But to be honest, once you've had lice, you are wary to a point of paranoia seen only in victims of PTSD. Because that's exactly what you are.

And now, all of a sudden, it's Thanksgiving. I'm not sure how that happened. But today at 6:00 p.m. my ex showed up and drove my crying kids off into the sunset. Well, okay, just my diva was crying. The boys were head down over their respective DSes.

I still miss them. A lot.

I miss them because it's Thanksgiving, which is about family even more than it's about turkey. And the pre-turkey turkey fest we had last Saturday, wonderful though it was, really wasn't the same.

And I miss them because even though I took three extra days off this week, I spent so much time catching up on work and laundry and vacuuming that we didn't get one single moment of quality time. Not one. Unless nitpicking counts. (Trust me, it doesn't.)

And I miss them because this is my first big holiday without them.

Of course, Netflix picked today to send me The Blind Side. No mother who just sent her kids off to spend a major holiday without her has any business watching a film about a boy who really, truly needs a mommy.

Because, at least in my case, I think it's the mommy who really, truly needs her kids.

Ice Cream for Breakfast

Today was the very best kind of day.

A year ago - and this is where blogging is just a little surreal, because you do get to look back a full year and see where you were - but a year ago, I was in a very different place. A year ago, I dropped a pitcher of iced tea on the floor, burst into tears, and put my cranky kids to bed.

Today I had ice cream for breakfast.

Today I had eager kids bouncing on my bed, and an amazing au pair who woke up early and helped them mix and scramble and toast and scoop. They gave me ice cream for breakfast, with four spoons and a heaping helping of Belgian chocolate sprinkles (I am so planning a trip to Belgium, 'cause those folks really do have their priorities straight when it comes to food).

Today I had my family around me, with two mothers in the house and a birthday to celebrate, and plenty of yummy goodness. That includes some incredible cupcakes - and yes, I made them, but it's not really bragging because they are not really my cupcakes. These cupcakes belong to Martha. THE Martha. They are Martha Stewart's tiramisu cupcakes, and they are easily worth whatever you have to pay for real vanilla beans to make them happy.

What's funny is, that bad day, a year ago? That's the day I realized I was happy. And yes, I know that seems a bit contrary. But it's true. I knew I was happy because that one bad day didn't knock me down. It didn't send me diving for the covers. That one bad day was followed by one good day. And then another. And another.

And that's what makes happy. A string of good days, with a bad day plopped in there from time to time to remind you of what you've got.

Crap happens. It happens a lot. And then you have ice cream for breakfast.

Happy Mother's Day, folks. Gosh but this mom thing is fun!

The Rose-Colored Life

You know what happens when you live a rose-colored life? Sometimes you get stressed out. Ridiculously so, to the point of total wigginess. And you're so busy being chipper and looking at the bright side that you don't even notice.

And then suddenly you're breaking into the big bag o' Nerds Jelly Beans that the Easter Bunny's been storing on top of your fridge. Nerds Jelly Beans, by the way, contain no chocolate, which makes that particular behavior highly aberrant. The cheerful sound of your children singing along with that horrible Justin Bieber song sends you zooming off to testy land. And the rhythmic crunch-crunch chewing noises on the new Kit-Kat commercial drive you beyond the brink of insanity.

Why anyone would think bad manners sell chocolate is beyond me.

I want a vacation. And a margarita. And a back rub, 'cause I spent 8 hours driving on Wednesday and everything still hurts. I want to be 20 lbs lighter (40 wouldn't hurt) and able to run long distances without throwing out my hip. I want money to grow on trees. I want to sleep at night. I want to win the lottery and buy me and all my single-parent friends a house and a hybrid, and then pay someone to clean them both. I want the new season of Glee to start tomorrow. I want to be a teacher. I want to write a book, without working very hard at it. And I want it to be a bestseller. I want about 800 people to suddenly decide my blog is crack and they can't get enough of it, and then maybe someone will pay me to write it. I want my kids to grow up healthy and happy and fairly well adjusted. I want them to be good and caring people who think their mother walks on water.

And I really, really, really want the whole world to chew with their mouths closed.

Mostly I'd just like my rose-colored glasses back, please. Life works better when I have them on.

Happy Heart Day

Here's why I love Valentine's Day.

You wake up in the morning to happy, smiling children bouncing on you because there's (wait for it) ... chocolate downstairs and the big sign you left says "Wait! Don't open me yet! Go get your mom!" So they do.

You shower your kids with little Russell Stover boxes and gifties from their grandparents, and they are so overwhelmed they not only share their (wait for it) ... chocolate ... but they also run off immediately to make you all the Valentines they can think of. This resulted in one poem from the Aspie, a lovely hand-drawn card from the diva, and ... um ... a green scribble from my very proud comedian who announced, "I didn't draw you a Valentine. I scribbled it!" and then broke out into maniacal laughter.

You spend the morning playing board games and getting hugs and (wait for it) ... chocolate covered kisses.

You then get all gussied up and head out on an honest to goodness date that features not only fabulous food and the company of a fella who thinks you're kinda cute despite 40-odd years of living and three journeys through childbirth, but also (wait for it) ... well, okay, not chocolate, but flowers, the stunning kind, and really that's every bit as wonderful. Plus, there was pie.

And then you head home. And you make a family dinner that features (wait for it) ... chocolate chip pancakes and sausage and fruit and Valentine's Day cake. Big hugs on a plate. Your kids are full and happy, and your au pair is full and happy, and you are full and happy, and the world is a happy, wonderful, chocolatey place.

Yum.

Smiling Eyes

Today marks 467 days in limbo.

It's also the day after Christmas.

The kids and I, we had an awesome Christmas morning full of magic and hugs and a ginormous holiday breakfast, with pretty much everyone's favorites - pancakes for the diva, fruit smoothies for my redhead, and a truckload of sausage and bacon for my protein-starved Aspie. Then, the three of them went cheerfully off with their dad for dinner. They're staying with him through the weekend, so I am sitting here quietly, appreciating the lights on the tree and the chance to sleep in.

This is my second single-parent Christmas, so I'm a little more used to coping on my own. While we didn't get our tree up until Christmas Eve - I'm blaming the East Coast blizzard for that - I did manage a few other things. We baked cookies, including my favorite eggnog cookies. I ordered holiday cards and got them in the mail before the New Year. (That's a personal best, by the way - I once sent out Christmas cards with hearts and shamrocks on the envelopes.)

And, after a few years off, I made calendars.

These are photo calendars, a kind of year in review that I have made, on occasion, for my family. Most of these folks are pretty far away, so the calendars were a nice way to bring the kids into their day-to-day. I'd take the best pictures of my kids from the past year and put them in, month by month, with each month capturing the kids from exactly a year before.

And so, I built my calendars. January, and my diva's 7th birthday. April, with the cherry blossoms in Washington, DC. Our trip to Seattle last July and August. Snow in December.

And I saw something.

Last January, the kids were pensive, sad, with smiles that didn't quite reach their eyes. February, March, it's more of the same.

By summer, though, you start to see a change. A twinkle, sometimes. A real smile or two. And by fall, it's crystal clear. The kids are not just smiling. They're happy. Really, really happy.

And I'd never have noticed if I hadn't laid all the pictures out like that, chronologically.

This level of change, with the separation, and soon (I hope!) the divorce - it's not easy, even if it's for the best. But I'm so so proud of these little people. They've come through it. They held hands and they hugged each other and they got through it.

And they're happy. Really, really happy.

Know what? I am too.

So here. Have an eggnog cookie on me :-)

Eggnog Cookies*

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (even better if it's freshly grated)
1 1/4 cups white sugar
3/4 cups butter, softened
1/2 cup eggnog
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large egg yolks
1 tbs ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 300 F. In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix well with a wire whisk and set aside. In a large bowl, cream sugar and butter with an electric mixer to form a grainy paste. Add eggnog, vanilla and egg yolks and beat at medium speed until smooth. Add the flour mixture and beat at low speed until just combined. Do not overmix. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets (parchment paper helps), 1 inch apart. Sprinkle lightly with nutmeg. Bake for 23-25 minutes or until bottoms turn light brown. Transfer to cool, flat surface immediately with a spatula.

* Thank you, Mrs. Fields!

Alas, Poor Microwave

At 11:13 p.m. last night, my microwave died.

It's been on life support since the day after Thanksgiving. You'd punch in the time, push start and wait. It might turn on. It might not. You couldn't know until you pushed the button and it either worked or it didn't.

Now, you know. No question. It's completely non-responsive. Dead as a doornail.

And I can't replace it.

I can't replace it because my dryer broke. And then my dryer broke again.

I can't replace it because the $500 I'd budgeted for the 60,000 mile service on my crappy minivan became $1200 when they got in there and saw how neglected the poor thing had been.

I can't replace it because the overhead lights in my living room buzz and spark when you turn them on and I am unwilling to set the house on fire so now I sit here in the dark.

The faucet in the kids' shower is stripped and can be turned on only with a screwdriver. And now the darn thing is starting to drip. Hot water, no less. It's dripping hot water.

The fancy pop-up tub stopper broke, and now I can give my little guy a bath only by inverting a cup over the drain.

Two of my toilets need new flaps, I need to replace the door handle on my half bath, and I've shut off the hot water to the sink in there for want of a new washer. It's going to take an exterminator to get rid of the ant colonies in the basement. There's a hole in the roof of my shed, and I'm missing a good chunk of deck railing from where a tree fell three years ago.

My house is falling down around my ears.

So now I have to reheat my leftovers on the stove. Bake potatoes in the oven. Serve chicken nuggets cold.

Um, not sure what to do with the microwave popcorn, though.

But hey, I raked the yard. All by myself. I've got the blisters to prove it.

And the good news? Now the kids get to learn that "it's the thought that counts" applies to Santa, too. And, believe it or not, I think that's a pretty valuable thing to learn.

The Great Pumpkin

I love Halloween.

When I was a kid, it was all about homemade costumes, made-from-scratch popcorn balls and hometown Halloween fests where you bobbed for apples and watched your sister win the prize for most creative costume. She was a turtleneck-headed monster with a mask made from styrofoam bits, construction paper and tinfoil, and she was awesome.

I was a princess. I was always a princess. Of course, I was a princess in a dress brought back from India with my face "hennaed" in waterproof eyeliner by my artist mom. But still, a princess.

I'm not so much into the commercial bits of Halloween - the big puffy air-blown pumpkins and cemeteries in the front yard, the giant Halloween stores with countless cheaply-made costumes and scary rubber masks, the oceans and oceans of candy. But I don't mind them. The way we celebrate as a society, it's very American. And it's kinda cool.

For me, though, Halloween is something more than ghosts and chocolate and dry ice. It's also about my Oma, who passed away in 2000 after a long and interesting life. I think of her nearly every day, but more, of course, on her birthday. Yesterday, on Halloween, she would have been 101 years old.

So now, with the kids, Halloween is a chance to share the values I learned from my Oma, passed along through my own parents. We knock out some of the commercialism and take some time together. Each year, my kids & I pick costumes we can create by hand (though sometimes the drive to be a character means we pick up a superhero suit at Target). We bake cookies shaped like little black cats and send them off to school parties. We pick pumpkins from a pumpkin patch, draw faces on them with Sharpies and then carve them out meticulously and light them up.

It's still about the costumes, the candy haul and the sugar high. But it's also about spending time together, creating and planning, doing things for each other. Now granted, it's often me doing most of the work on this stuff - my kids are fabulous and talented, but they're still a bit young to handle a sewing machine. The idea that we're thinking and creating and being together, though - that's still important, and it's what they get out of this. At least, I hope they do.

I do love Halloween.

Oh, and bonus for the food fans: you, too, can make black cat cookies! I got this recipe from Taste of Home's Halloween Party Favorites in 2005 and have made it every year since. The cookies are not terribly sweet - but, the dough is stiff and these shape beautifully.

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup baking cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
24 wooden craft or popsicle sticks (I usually leave these out)
24 red hot candies
48 pieces candy corn (be careful - I'm a candy corn fiend, so if you buy these too early, I might just come to your house and eat all your candy corn before you're ready to bake ... that's what happens at my house, anyway)

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Roll dough into 1-1/2 inch balls. Place 3 in. apart on lightly greased baking sheets (I just use parchment paper & skip the greasing). Insert a wooden stick into each cookie. Flatten with a glass dipped in sugar. Pinch top of cookie to form ears. For whiskers, press a fork twice into each cookie. Bake at 350 F for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are set. Remove from the oven; immediately press on candy corn for eyes and red-hot candies for noses. Remove to wire racks to cool. Yield: 2 dozen.

The Best Way to Burn Waffles

This life in limbo, it's a bit like a roller coaster. One where you can't quite see the track, so every up and every down comes at you at 125 mph with no warning. All you know is that you're hurtling through space with your feet dangling in mid-air, and you haven't the foggiest idea what is going to happen next.

I hate roller coasters.

So, this morning, I overcooked the waffles. The toaster waffles. Yes, that's right. I burned Eggos. Bet you didn't even know that was possible.

This after probably my worst Mother's Day ever.

It started off well. My not-yet-ex brought the kids to me late enough in the day that I had a nice sleep, and even better, he was armed with eight doughnuts and a carefully selected DVD all wrapped up in pretty paper. And my kids, they showered me with thoughtful gifts they'd made in school.

Then, all hell broke loose.

It was the doughnuts that did it. There was one pink one with sprinkles, and everyone wanted it. The battle for it began as soon as the gift-giving ended. For the entire rest of the day, they showered me with screaming tantrums, constant arguments, and lots of "No!" My Aspie had not had his meds, so he was spinning through the house like a top, into everything, pushing at everyone, not able to settle. My unnaturally strong three-year-old up-ended - and broke - the coffee table. Everyone was a screaming, whining, horrific mess.

Then, at dinner, as a cap to this oh-so-lovely day, I dropped a full two quarts of iced tea all over my kitchen. Splatters on every cabinet, under the fridge, inside the fridge. I used up 7 dishtowels cleaning it up. And I burst into tears, right there in the kitchen.

My kids did not even look up from the table. But I could hear their conversation.

My diva: "Um, is mom crying?"
My Aspie: "I don't know."
My diva: "I really think she's crying."
My Aspie: "Why is she crying?"
My diva: "I don't know. Maybe we should cheer her up?"
My Aspie: "Oh, yeah! Let's tell her a story!"

... and then the three of them launched into a massive screaming battle over who would get to tell the story, who would be in the story, and how it would end.

That is when I finally gave up. Trundled them off to bed immediately and hunted down the ibuprofen.

I think they remembered though. So, this morning, they met me with hugs and kisses and gifts of gorgeous drawings that "use up the whole page." I got a warm and sweaty matchbox car from a warm and sweaty little hand, and a sweet "Mommy, play with me!" from my three-year-old. My daughter wrote a song for me, then let me do her hair and didn't say "ouch" even once. And my Aspie gave me no complaints - not one - when I reminded him to finish his homework.

All that, followed by a three-part chorus of, "I love you! You're the best mommy ever!"

Mother's Day, take two.

So I burned the waffles. Too busy with the hugs and the kisses to get them out of the toaster oven. And my beautiful, smart, loving children? They ate them. Every bite.