Now We Are 6

It's been so long since I blogged that I barely remembered my password. Well, it's been two weeks. Not really that long. Which just goes to show you how bad my short-term memory is.

And because I seem completely unable to hold onto a train of thought for longer than 30 seconds, this is going to be a bit of a random ramble.

Here goes. 

• We are on our 4th au pair in 4 months. I swear I'm not that bad a host mom. Really. 
• In April we said farewell to our beloved Belgian au pair, who was with us 18 months and left as she was meant to. Then came the manny, who, well, just did not work out and left us at the end of that month. In June, we welcomed our beloved, formerly purple-haired German, whom we loved and who loved us. But a family emergency called her home, oh, about two weeks ago (oddly, that would be the last time I blogged). So, on Sunday, we welcomed a young German whose hair has never been purple. She is sweet and sincere, albeit utterly fried today. I think we are wearing her out.
• Yesterday, my redhead hugged her. I can't remember the last time he hugged an au pair who hadn't already been here for at least 3 months. He is not a kid who touches. He hasn't let me kiss him since he was 2, and I'm his mother, for crying out loud.
• He did kiss me today, though. On the arm. He never does that.
• He did not, however, let me kiss him. I asked.
• When our formerly purple-haired German had to fly home, I called my former mother-in-law in the wee hours of the morning and left a message that said, very quietly, "help." She was in her car even before I woke up the next morning. She stayed for 3 days, bonded with the grandkids, spoiled them rotten, and gave me a big giant helping hand. She rocks.
• Then we went to the beach for a whole week with an awesome mom friend and her son, one of Peabo's best buds. The kids watched lots of TV, played lots of video games, discovered the joys of hand-dipped donuts and spent hours in the ocean. It was awesome. And that's despite the constant bickering my kids subjected us to. They gave Peabo's only-child friend a lesson in sibling rivalry I am certain he will never, ever forget. I'm so very proud.
• There was no internet at the beach. Which means I got lots of sleep. And I finished Middlemarch. I'm not sure how I got through as many courses on 19th Century novels as I did without once reading George Eliot. She rocks too, you know.
• I also read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. With the kids. We haven't finished it yet: it goes kinda slowly when you're reading a few pages at bedtime every night. Reading it used to be a chore because the redhead hated it. Now he loves it. I think that's because he has a scar on his forehead (seriously, he does), and his birthday is the day after Harry's.
• Because I know you're an enormous Harry Potter fan - isn't everyone? - I'm sure you've realized my redhead's birthday was, in fact, yesterday. And that means means that my redhead, who was 5 before yesterday, is suddenly and most unexpectedly 6. 
• I gave him a book that uses the word "jackass" twice. It's okay, though, because it's describing an actual jackass and the book is damned funny. We read it over dinner last night, and all three of my kids cracked up, out loud even, and the redhead's read it twice more on his own. It's Lane Smith's It's a Book. Check it out. Though if you've got any issues with introducing your younger kids to that kind of mildly cussworthy snark, you may want to hold off. My guy invented snark (we call it self-defense when you're the youngest of 3). So I'm good with it.

And that's the biggie. My baby is 6. I'm trying hard not to be misty about that. Which probably explains why I went for the snark.

PS For those who don't know, Now We Are Six is a brain-stickingly brilliant book of children's poems by A. A. Milne.

56 days

I just got through 8 weeks without childcare. 56 days. 1,344 hours. And I am still standing. So are my kids. In fact, they were pretty darn fabulous for 8 straight weeks. Cooperative. Cheerful. Eager to help.

I so love my kids when they're like that. I love them all the time, of course, but it's easier when they help.

My friends and neighbors rock. For those 8 weeks, they walked my kids to school and back, invited them for playdates, fed them, hugged them, and even hooked us up with a good sitter.

All that was a lot easier to manage because there was a vacation at the end of it. In Florida, with a beach and a sunset and my fabulous fella. And that part was awesome.

My vacation was also kid-free. It was one of two weeks this summer they'll spend with their dad. I missed my kids. Weird that you can have fun and relax when your heart aches because you left three giant pieces of it back home.

I grew up - at least for a little while - on the Gulf Coast of Florida. We were there for just over a day, and it still feels like home. I don't want to move back there, because I like winter just enough that this barely Southern part of the world is the right part of the world for me. But I want to visit more, and I want to bring my kids.

But not right now.

Two weeks ago, my old au pair came to visit, and to help. Our new au pair came to stay. My kids had a week with their dad. I went off on vacation. Then we said good-bye to our old au pair, with a fanfare of tears. So now we're in full-on transition mode.

You know how my kids do with transitions? It's not pretty.

I don't know why, but my kids keep telling me they're stupid. One little mistake and they go all, "I'm an idiot!" Do yours do that?

Oddly enough, Peabo - the one with Asperger's, the one you'd think would struggle the most with change on this scale - he's the one who's handling it best.

It's the redhead who worries me. But I think he's starting to come around.

I did not get a lot of blogging done in those 8 weeks. I did not sleep much. But the Big Get Healthy is working. I'm not sleeping much, but I'm sleeping more. I'm not moving much, but I'm moving more. And I've lost 22 pounds.

Which means all my pants are falling off while I try to catch up on work, get my kids through yet another transition, and go back to missing my San Francisco sweetheart.

Eh. Who needs pants.

Gelukkige Verjaardag

Today is my amazing au pair's birthday.** Or, it was, when it was still today. Given my night owl habits, I think it's tomorrow already.

Birthdays in our house start just one way. With breakfast. Big, gooey, fabulous breakfast. When the diva and the redhead go birthday happy, their preference is always - always - chocolate chip pancakes. And for Peabo it's all meat, all the time. What can I say, the kid likes his protein. Usually he wants sausage and bacon and more sausage with a bit of cheese on an English muffin and a hefty dose of cinnamon rolls on the side to satisfy the little tiny sweet tooth he's been burdened with.

This morning, we made a birthday breakfast for our au pair. And that meant I was up early. Earlier, in fact, than I wanted to be, because my kids take this tradition so very deeply to heart.

The first hit was at 6:00 a.m. On the nose. A full hour before I'd set my alarm to ring.

"Mom! Mom!" That was Peabo. "You wanted to make breakfast for our awesome au pair!"

"Yes, and I will," I mumbled. "But I'm going to go make it after my alarm goes off. Okay?"

He went to go watch the news. It's his latest thing. He tapes the news at night, then watches it in the morning, and we talk about it at dinner. That's pretty cool. (Albeit totally beside the point. But you wanted to know, right?)

Then came the Diva. Who got the same response.

"Okay. Then I'll go make her a card." So she left, and my redhead climbed out of my bed and followed her. (Wait, how did he get there? I missed something. I musta been sleeping.)

Then the dog - remember the dog? - went berserk. Can't sleep when there's barking, so I woke up and got to cooking.

For my au pair: Pancakes. Bacon. Eggs. Raspberries. All on a tray with a pretty napkin and lovingly handmade cards from the two who like to make them. We tried to feed her breakfast in bed, but it's hard to get everyone ready for school when they're watching someone else eat, so we wound up with a big, family breakfast at the table, with manners and everything.

I so totally love that.

This is her second birthday with us. When she came to the U.S., she was 18, and more mature and responsible than most fully grown grown-ups I know. Now she's 20. Still mature, and nearly a fully grown grown-up herself.

Of the many, many wonderful au pairs we've had, she's the first who stayed with us for more than a year. She fits into our family as though she were born to it. I don't know if it's the hint of Dutchness in her Belgian self that clicks with the hint of Dutchness in our American family. Or maybe it's her experience with Asperger's, which she has in spades.

The best of our au pairs have been far more than just daycare providers. They were - and are - family. And this au pair, she is just that. Family. A big sister to my kids, a friend to me, and in many ways the daughter I'd have had if I'd started my family twenty years ago instead of twelve.

In just over a month, she goes home to the family who raised her, who made her this special and entrusted to her us. My kids and I owe them a great, big, giant thank you for that.

We call her Chuck, because Peabo likes it that way.

Gelukkige verjaardag to you, Chuck. You're the best birthday gift ever. And we are gonna miss you like crazy.

**Published nearly a week late because, well, you know. Timeliness is not exactly my strong suit.

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.

Lice, the Universe and Everything

There is a certain, very specific brand of ooginess that washes over you when you're brushing your hair and notice that the little gray speck that just floated down to your shoulder, and which you thought might be a dandruff flake or bit of dust, is moving. All on its own. In fact, the damn thing has legs. Six teeny tiny oogy little legs.

We have lice. And that speck was a nymph.

I squished it. And I flushed it. And then I dragged my itchy, scratchy kids upstairs and bathed them in pyrethrum.

Did you know that stuff is made from chrysanthemums?

You learn a lot when you start a war on blood-sucking parasites. To wit:

• My diva has the patience of a saint. As long as I put the Wizards of Waverly Place on an endless loop, she will sit still for up to three hours at a pop while I comb and pick and pull individual hairs out of her head by the root. She's my hero.
• Redheads have less hair. Little known fact. (Ignore the picture on the link. It's really kinda gross.)
• ADHD really does mean you cannot sit still. Even with the aid of a Nintendo DS primed with relatively new birthday games. Given that my kids get only 30 minutes of screen time a day and that nitpicking screen time is a full-on freebie, that's saying something.
• My kids have waaaaay too many stuffed animals. All 8 million of them are now bagged, thanks to my au pair, and waiting for any little lice babies to die a sad and lonely death. Many of them will not be coming back. I mean the stuffed animals. And, of course, the dead lice babies, too.
• Reading glasses also make good nitpicking glasses and are a vital part of the home war arsenal.
• So is a flea comb. If you pick one up, buy one labeled for dogs. They're cheaper - and not a whit different - than the ones labeled for cats.
• Cats can't get lice. Maybe that's why they need pricey flea combs.
• Apparently, neither can au pairs.
• Moms can, though. Yay for that. And yay for my au pair. This would be another one of those times that I wonder what the hell I'd do without her. Because it's not like I can pick nits from my own head.

Oh, and now I'm feeling all oogy again just talking about it.

Hey, the good news? At least we don't have the swine flu.

Killer Chocolate

It's a well-established fact that I am not so good with the waking up. Mostly I muddle vaguely through the a.m. hours until that little hand hits the 12 and my brain jumps to life with a "Hey! There's a post before that meridian. I am so in!"

This morning was no exception.

Because I am now officially middle aged, I've had plenty of time to learn this about myself. As a result, I'm usually smart enough to pass off  breakfast-making duties to my amazing au pair, who can give me lots of a.m. support now that all my kids are at school during the day. Yay, Kindergarten. She's mostly a morning person, and since breakfast usually involves such dangerous items as hot stoves and sharp knives, we're both a lot happier when she cooks and I sit at the table like a zombie mainlining coffee, staring at my ridiculously animated children and wondering how on earth I gave birth to three morning people.

I still don't get that.

Today, however, the middle schooler was home for the day, so I was forced to take morning on all by myself. No snooze button, no coffee, and I had to cook things so that my children could eat. In an effort to keep the damage to a minimum, I stuck to the breakfast of champions. Eggos and toasted frozen homemade chocolate chip pancakes. (With cheese and bananas, because even a crappy, mostly pre-packaged meal is a balanced meal in my house.)

Easy, right? Push a button. Wait. Out pops an Eggo. The crowd roars.

Not so much. Because the chocolate chips attacked me. I went to pull a nice, warm pancake from the nice, warm toaster, got two fingers full of melted chocolate ... and wound up with blistering burns on my fingertips.

From chocolate.

You know the world's gone mad when the chocolate is out to get you.

What it's done to my thighs is bad enough.

Oh, What a Night

Okay, I give. It's after 1:00 a.m. and it's just been a freaky, surreal kind of evening. And it's Monday. Just Monday.

This morning, my au pair was sick. So I told her to sleep in, and I took the kids to school. Which meant I worked late. Which meant dinner was late. Which is kinda where this started.

I came down from work to find my amazing and, mind you, still sick au pair playing Monopoly with my younger kids, and my Aspie waiting on a phone call from his girlfriend. (Yes, he has a girlfriend. Which is really his business until he says otherwise, so no, I'm not blogging about it. And no, we haven't gotten to the surreal bit.)

So I made dinner. I made a simple, easy dinner of hamburgers (with lots of yummies mixed into the meat) and steamed green beans and Wacky Mac. This is a favorite meal of all the kids generally, and my Aspie in particular, because he loves protein and he loves bread and isn't that the very definition of a burger?

Except that when we all went to sit down at the table, he started screaming. And it wasn't a tantrum. He was in pain. His tummy hurt. His head hurt. His everything hurt. And it must have hurt a lot. Because this kid is hyposensitive to pain, and while he may over-react a bit when he knows he's been injured - as in "Hey I can't feel that but it's bleeding so it must hurt like hell and, by the way, OW!!!" - that internal pain stuff? The stuff he can't see? It's got to be pretty bad for him to notice.

Plus all the color had suddenly drained from his face. 

So I spent dinner in the bathroom holding my poor guy's head over the toilet. And hey, y'all, this is my first post about vomit since last November. Ten months without vomit? That's a blog record, you know.

I got my Aspie up to bed, came back to the table and found my au pair falling asleep in her food. So I sent her to bed, too. The poor thing. Because she's been sick since last Thursday and just isn't getting better.

That's not the surreal part, either. I'm used to the sick and yuckies. It's fall, school's in. This is par for the course.

The surreal part came at midnight, when I was decompressing and avoiding the dishes, because that's what I do at midnight. And I was cleaning the bathroom, because, well, you know. Vomit.

And that's when somebody knocked at my door.

After midnight.

There was knocking after midnight.

I am a single mom alone in a house with a sick 19-year-old au pair and three young children. I did what any normal woman would do in the circumstances. I freaked the heck out. I jumped up like a crazy woman, heart pounding, and looked for a weapon (because, you know those criminals, they always knock so politely). I turned on about 87 lights. That's in addition to the 13 lights I already had on.

And that, as it turns out, is why the fella knocked in the first place. He was a police officer, trying to find the owner of a Jeep parked in the middle of the street with its lights on, and figuring the owner would be in the only house on the block where people were actually awake.

Apparently not.

From now on I'm going to enjoy my post-vomit insomnia in the dark.

P.S. On the vomiting ... I'm kinda worried it's my kid's meds. He didn't eat all day today, and that might just be an upset tummy. But he's on risperdal and ritalin, and while he's been on that combo for more than a year now, the risperdal sometimes causes heat stroke with vomiting. It's not hot right now ... but the ritalin means sometimes he doesn't eat, and today he skipped his lunch and his after-school snack, and dinner was delayed, and that poor kid got sick anyway with nothing in his tummy. For the second time in two weeks. Given that he just went back on the ritalin with the start of school, it's got me wondering about the meds. So if anyone reading has any thoughts, well, I'd love to hear.

A Whole Lotta Frittata

Do you all remember my pan? My sturdy, strong, beautifully seasoned cast iron frying pan? The pan with all that meaning and history. The pan I burned to bits about this time last year.

Yeah, that one.

I saved it. I scrubbed and I scraped and I seasoned, and then I seasoned again. I cooked a mountain of bacon (and created a true baconophile in my Aspie).

And I saved it.

Now it is making frittatas. Perfect, evenly cooked, gorgeously browned frittatas.

A few weeks ago, the family of my amazing au pair came to visit us from her home country of Belgium. We spent a lot of time with them while they were here. We had them over for dinner one night (check the Fast, Fake-Baked Ziti recipe on the right – it’s my go-to dinner for events like this because everyone, and I mean everyone, loves it). We went sightseeing with them. And we meant to go to the zoo with them. Except that it was insanely hot, the air quality was bad, and my heat-strokey Aspie and my formerly asthmatic diva would have melted.

So I kept them air conditioned, and we invited our extended Belgian family over for brunch the next day instead.

I didn’t have time to shop, so I just used what I had. Two-thirds of a loaf of Italian bread and a handful of eggs, a drop of vanilla and some cinnamon made a nice little French toast.

I tossed a fruit salad. I brewed some iced tea.

And I made a frittata. A clove of garlic, half an onion. A handful of baby tomatoes, seeded and diced. Six little balls of fresh mozzarella, quartered. Several pretty green basil leaves. And, when it was ready for the broiler, a handful of freshly grated asiago sprinkled over the top.

Um, yeah, so I keep a fairly well-stocked kitchen.

My little frittata was yummy. So yummy that I made the same thing the next day for a house guest who had never had breakfast in bed. Everyone deserves breakfast in bed, dontcha think?

Look. Pictures.
































That pan is a wonder. Not only did it cook up a stunningly gorgeous and tasty concoction of eggy goodness, practically by itself (yes, my pan is that good). But it didn’t stick. Not even a little bit. Clean-up was easy-peasy.

I love that pan.

Go get your own pan, season the hell out of it, then make a frittata. It will make you happy.

Rosemary’s Caprese Frittata

• 1 8” cast iron fry pan
• 6 eggs
• A dollop of milk (presuming milk can dollop)
• 1 T butter
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• ½ medium onion, diced
• 4 small tomatoes, seeded and diced
• 12 or so leaves of fresh basil, torn
• 6 balls of the little bitty mozzarella (if you know what they’re called, feel free to comment!)
• ¼ - ½ cup grated asiago or parmesan

In a mixing bowl, whip eggs and milk until frothy. Turn on the broiler. Heat your cast iron over medium heat. Add the butter. When the butter melts, sauté the garlic and onions until translucent. Add the tomatoes and basil and cook for a minute or two longer to bring out their flavor. Even out the ingredients across the pan, then pour the eggs over the top. Drop in the quartered mozzarella balls. Leave that pan alone until the eggs have generally set (the top of the frittata will still be very wet), then sprinkle the asiago over the top and put the whole thing under the broiler immediately. Let it brown. Cut in the pan and serve in tidy little wedges. Or messy ones, if that’s your druther.

Do not serve with ketchup. That would be sacrilege.

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!

Prime Numbers

This week, I celebrated my birthday.

This is, believe it or not, a good thing. It's a good thing because I am oddly superstitious about prime-number ages, and before last Monday I was stuck at 43.

I'm not 43 anymore. I get to be 44 now. For a whole year, I get not one but two beautifully even digits and a whole slew of deeply gorgeous factors. I like factors. Factors mean no more primes.

Yes, I know this is vaguely math geeky. Sue me.

The bad thing about my birthday is that I spent several hours of it on an airplane. I hate airplanes. Because, while I may be a semi-credible math geek, I don't believe in physics, and I don't buy that there is an actual science that makes flight possible. Don't bother trying to convince me otherwise; smarter folks than you have failed. And yes, that includes my dad (who is a terrible flyer despite his very firm belief in physics).

But worse, getting on that plane meant I spent most of my birthday on the front end of a four-day business trip that took me away from my kids.

Now, there are some prime numbers I like. I like the number three, for example, because I have three bright, fabulous, amazingly wonderful kids. So three is good.

And I like the number 11. My Aspie is 11. That's not why I like it, though. I like it because it's got double digits and it looks like it should have factors. Yes, I know it doesn't. Still, as primes go, that's one of the coolest. (The other cool prime is two. An even prime? How awesome is that!)

And I like the number seven. I didn't used to like it. See, I was seven when my parents got divorced. Who knows, that may even be where my weird anti-prime age thing started.

But my amazing au pair has changed my mind. Because my amazing au pair is our seventh au pair. And while we've had several truly terrific au pairs (and one or two we don't talk about so much) ... well, this au pair, she really is amazing.

On my birthday, she let my three early birds wake her up at 6:45 a.m. She's 19 (oh, look, another prime!), and at 19, 6:45 a.m. is ridiculously early. But she's amazing, right? So she got up at that insane hour and helped the kids make breakfast and decorate a pretty tray and bring it all up to my room. I got to do nothing but wake up to my redhead's charming face planted squarely over mine, shouting "Mom! Don't. Get. Out. Of. BED!"

I didn't. I stayed in bed and enjoyed a homemade card from the diva, big hugs from everyone, a yummy Belgian bread pudding, scrambled eggs, and a tall glass of orange juice.

Although, I didn't get to enjoy the orange juice. At least, I didn't get to drink it. Because somehow it wound up in my lap. And all over my bedsheets. And my blanket. And my quilt.

You'd think a non-morning person like myself would have lost it, getting an orange juice shower that early in the day. Nope. Not me. I laughed and gave a big hug to my redhead, whose feet had done the damage. 'Cause all those prime numbers had put a great big smile on my face that even airplanes and orange juice could not erase. Thank you, prime numbers.

We'll see how I feel when 47 comes along.

Strep and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I know nothing about motorcycles.

Strep, though? Strep I know. It's not incredibly zen. More tired-and-cranky making. And we're deep in the heart of it.

My Aspie has it. Strep gives him a foul temper, a foul mouth, and outrageously foul breath. And no other symptoms. Kid can't feel a sore throat, so he just gets foul. Lovable - totally lovable. And totally foul.

My little guy has it too. It kept him up all night for two nights in a row. Gave him a scary high fever and a "hurty neck." That all makes him tired, and the tireds make him cranky.

And I have it. I have it, and I'm cranky because I can't sleep when the kids are always awake, and because I have work to do and little people to take care of and groceries to shop for and my throat hurts and I have an (admittedly small) fever. I also have an awesome au pair (seriously, she's awesome - she says things like, "you shouldn't do those dishes, you're sick," and "of course you're not talking too much") ... but she's sick too. It's not strep, thankfully. But she's sick nevertheless.

The diva is not streppy. Nor is she sick. She's just surrounded by cranky. Lots and lots of cranky, from everyone but the awesome au pair. So the diva's cranky, too.

All that cranky makes for a fun, fun time.

Oh, and we seem to have infected a few friends, including one of my wine and pie buddies who was gracious enough to watch my kids for me for a few hours on Sunday. The strep was our way of saying thank you.

You know how she said you're welcome? She made a complete right turn in the middle of a phone call this evening to tell me what a great mom I am. And how great my kids are. And how much fun she had with them (while they were giving her strep). And how wonderful they are together.

I gave her strep. She gave me happy mushy mommy tears.

It may not be zen, but it's close.

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.

Ew

I have always believed in my heart of hearts that ice cream is God's gift to dessert. It is the perfect treat. Sweet but not too sweet, blessedly compatible with chocolate, and it even has some honest-to-goodness nutritional value mixed in with all the fat and calories.

As of this weekend, I'm in the market for a new dessert.

My wonderful au pair has been running the kids ragged all summer. Long neighborhood walks, trips to the park with a soccer ball, and hours and hours at the pool. All three of them are brown as berries - and yes, that includes my redhead. My water-phobic oldest is learning to swim. And my diva, already a fish, has actually grown gills. The kids are active, active, active.

As a result, come the weekends, they are utterly fried.

This past Saturday, I tried to get them out of the house. I tried to take them to the pool. I tried to take them to the park. Nope. They wanted to sit at home and sleep and snack and watch TV. Can't say as I blame them. But me, I work from my house. I sleep at my house. I am always, always at my house.

I needed to get out of my house.

So I resorted to a bribe. I promised them a trip to Maggie Moo's. Like me, they'll do pretty much anything for ice cream.

Maggie Moo's is cool - one of those cold marble places where they mix up a bunch of stuff and put it into a cup. My little guy went straight-up chocolate with M&Ms. Good choice, though I'm still trying to get the stains out of his white T-shirt. The two oldest, though - they have really odd taste in ice cream, I gotta say. Both of them picked this sickly sweet, bright blue, cotton candy flavor. And then they mixed it with mint. Yes, mint. Oh, and the add-ins. My oldest added Reese's Cups and Heath bars. And my diva, she put in peanut butter and white chocolate chips.

Ew.

And then they had dinner. Meatballs. Apples. A little pasta.

By the time the three of them headed up to bed, my diva was looking somewhat green around those new gills. Then, as I was turning off the light and saying a hushed good-night, she exploded, sending a sea of bright, neon blue vomit all over her bed. I rushed her into the bathroom, where the explosion just kept coming. The poor thing was sobbing and retching and sobbing, all at once.

This is where the single mom thing gets really tough. I had to leave her sitting there. It's the last thing you want to do when your baby is sick and crying. But they all share a room. My boys were exhausted and needed to sleep, and it smelled awful, and cleaning up was going to take a very, very long time. So, in the space of about 30 seconds, I dashed into the bedroom, stripped the bed, spritzed some air freshener, said good-night and closed the door.

Then I rushed back into the bathroom. By then there was blue everywhere. In her hair, all over her pajamas, on the floor, the tub, the cabinets. The poor girl had nothing left. She was just standing there, miserable and wet and stinky. I put her gently in the shower, and while she washed, I disinfected everything. When the blue was gone at last, my diva crawled onto the futon in our playroom, snuggled up beside me and fell fast asleep.

It was over. No middle of the night wake-up calls. No post-breakfast nausea. Other than having to listen to my boys enumerate in great detail and with great glee all the contents of their sister's blue spew the next morning, it was over.

But, as God is my witness, we are never having ice cream again.

It's All About the Texture

My au pair doesn't like couscous.

This is a surprise to me. I mean, it's couscous. Cooks up in minutes, minimal on the flavor spectrum, nice and easy. On the starchy sides scale, it's easier and about as interesting as plain rice or potatoes. And she's a plain food kind of girl.

Still, no go for her on the couscous.

I'm starting to think that half the world's likes and dislikes have more to do with texture than flavor.

All his life, my not-yet-ex-husband vehemently protested the addition of onions to a dish, sometimes crying allergies if he couldn't get his point across to wait staff. We were married a decade before I figured out the secret. I was making soup from scratch one day and desperately wanted the onions in it ... so I sauteed them, ground them to a pulp in my food processor, and put them back in the pot. Two whole onions, and not a single complaint from the peanut gallery. In fact, the dish got raves and a request for seconds, even thirds. I realized that, much as he might like to think otherwise, the issue was never one of flavor. It was simply the fact of the onion, its clearly observed presence, and its texture, that set off this intense reaction.

My lovable Aspie has always chosen his food - with the exception of permafaves pizza and macaroni & cheese - by their texture. I think this is a symptom of his hypo-tactile sensory integration issues. He needs stimulus. So when it comes to food, he wants hard, crunchy, tough or chewy. Or tongue curdlingly sour - yes, a taste, but one that produces a physical reaction.

I'm not much different. I will eat almost anything, but there are some foods - well, two, to be exact - that I avoid like the plague. Rye bread with caraway seeds, because little hard things that get stuck in your teeth simply do not belong in bread. Or in anything, for that matter. The second? Cottage cheese. The lumps get me every time. Actually, it reminds me of this coconut ice cream - I think it was called magpuno? - that I had when I lived in Manila as a kid. Little soggy pieces of frozen, grated coconut. It felt a lot like eating worm ice cream. Ick.

Couscous I can handle. Worm ice cream, not so much.