a few fun things

Here's a couple activities we've done together lately.

The other day, we made a maze out of blocks. Idea from Highlights High Five Magazine.



Then we played with it for a little while.



As my own project for her, I made a baby carrier for her dolls.





And finally, we've picked up the best children's art book I've ever seen per C's recommendation. This will be our art curriculum through Kindergarten. I am excited to do the projects along with her!

no writing?

I think I'm starting to glimpse the true meaning behind "Quit writing," and if I'm right, it's also not something I'm ready to accept. And here comes Sassy up the stairs....perfect timing.

This is the usual pattern. I settle into something that cannot by the nature of the activity include her, just like this post. And next thing you know, she approaches me. And it bothers me. Sometimes just a little bit. Often, it's more than a little bit. I snap at her. I say crazy things to her, like, "Mommy needs quiet time!" or "I HAVE to get my work done. You need to find something to do!"

In reality, telling a 4 year old, in so many words, to "Go away and leave me alone" never works. In fact, it usually has the immediate opposite effect. I might as well just whip out my velcro & give us each a piece instead.

This post isn't very well thought-out & might meader, so my apologies upfront.

It isn't just writing that brings on this scene. It's writing, paying bills, checking email, doing financial spreadsheets, doing group maintenance, researching ideas or information online, replying to posts within larger forums, reading posts within larger forums, requesting media from the library, purchasing things online, sometimes even downloading music. It's interesting to me that I call all of this "work," when actually, it's not. Most of it is truly just play.

When we were browsing the thrift store together yesterday (and, BTW, she was SO GOOD), we were playing this back/forth imaginary game where she was a little girl who was buying a dog from me. She told me about her family. "My daddy doesn't go to work out of the house," she said. "My daddy works in his study. He works on the compootier."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yes. He works a lot. But he doesn't go outside the house. Well, actually, he doesn't work on the compootier. He doesn't work at all!"

"Oh," I said, "That's interesting. Well, if he doesn't work, what does he do with his time?"

"He plays with me!" she said. "All the time."

No, I don't think it's possible (or appropriate) for Jeff or for me to play with her all the time. But I do think this is a telling representation of how she is experiencing life.

And, as much as it pains me to say it, I don't feel like I am experiencing her. I am managing her. That's mostly how I feel. Even when we play or do things together, my mind is usually on "grown-up" things.

Last night, we laid in bed when we were both getting tired and we played a question game. I told her I could ask her any question I wanted to & then she could ask me. My first question was, "What was your favorite part of today?"

"All of it!" she said, although we truly had not done much that was exciting yesterday.

As we were exchanging questions, I looked into her eyes & she into mine. It was so hard! I was amazed that looking straight into her eyes was as hard as it was. I used to look into her eyes all the time when she was a baby. Why was it hard?

I'm not sure why exactly. Part of it was the earnestness in her eyes. I've never seen someone look at me so earnestly, except maybe an ex or two that was far more into me than I was into them. Not so with Sassy! I look at her with just as much longing and love but it's always when she's sleeping. The mere intensity of her undiverted stare made me uncomfortable with a mix of guilt, radical love and too much emotion. But I think part of it was also that I'd let myself get un-used to it. Most of the time, rather than really listening, the kind of listening where the person can "see your eyes," I maintain our conversations with an "mm-hmm", "oh, yeah?" "hmm, that's cool." Often I have no idea what she's actually talking about.

Naturally, children separate from their parents. Sassy's too little to need to separate so far.

Where does this bring me?

It's not about the writing itself. It's not about the computer or the TV in and of itself. It's about my attitude of management rather than engagement. I could set limits on our TV time & computer time & I think that would be a great start. But it won't finish the job.

To engage with Sassy means that I need to not assume that since she is old enough to be more self-sufficient, that I can take off & do my own thing for a couple hours while she watches cartoons, plays computer games or plays with her toys in a different part of the house. It's OK for her to do those things -- I am not her permanent entertainer. But, it's not OK for me to expect that time. That time is a welcome surprise. An unexpected treat.

My online habits will have to change, of course. I am likely going to take TTC down completely. Well, actually, I will likely make it password-protected & keep it as a virtual filing cabinet of various financial "articles" that perhaps I could market one day. After a few months, I hope I can find time to transfer those to hard disk somewhere & take it down entirely.

I doubt I'll check email more than once/day unless I am expecting something.

I will try to maintain a consistent bedtime at night so that I can do computer work then while Sassy sleeps AND she can hopefully get the sleep a child her age needs, which has been a problem lately.

I will try to involve Sassy in my activities & limit cartoon time to an hour each morning & perhaps an hour of "downtime" in the afternoon, if needed.

I am not the type of person who can play imaginary games all day. Even an hour really wears on my nerves. But I can involve her in what I do & not try to live these separate lives in the same household so that I can loaf on my own.

a couple more cleanse recipes

For dinner, roasted spaghetti squash with homemade tomato sauce. I used 1 can tomato paste, enough water to make a good consistency, generous oregano, sauteed onion & sauteed garlic.

For a chocolate craving, blend 1 frozen banana, 2 Tbls. peanut butter, 2 Tbls. carob powder (this was iffy on the allowed scale, but it was a serious chocolate craving) & enough water to make a smoothie consistency.

when I grow up....

Driving past my old college yestserday, Sassy and I had this conversation:

S: Mommy, what's that big building?
M: That's actually the place where I went to college.
S: Oh....well, what did you want to be?
M: (trying to ignore how loaded a question this was) Well, Mommy went to school to be a writer, actually.
S: Oh. Well I going to be a chef!
M: That's great, sweetie! You should be sure to tell Daddy when you get home. You know, when Daddy was little, his Daddy was a chef. He worked in an expensive, fancy restaurant.
S: Well I not going to be that kind of chef. I going to be a chef who makes sweets. Like cookies and cakes and candies.
M: Ahhh.....so you're going to be a pastry chef. You should talk to Aunt Angie about that. She was a pastry chef for a long time.
S: Uh-huh. And I going to have my own little bake shop.
M: You know, when we move to the farm, Daddy's going to have his own bake shop too. But he's not going to bake sweets. He's going to bake bread.
S: Ooh! Then I can open my bake shop right next to Daddy's!
M: Or, maybe when you get a little older, you can work in the bake shop with Daddy. You could bake sweets and Daddy could bake breads.
S: (thinks for a minute) No, I going to have my own shop. Next to Daddy's.

Sounds like she's got it all figured out.

unexpected answers

I share this with trepidation, because I fear it wil make me sound kooky--more than I already do. :-)

For many, many years I have stated, "I don't pray. I try, but it seems like I'm talking to myself. I don't see the point in it." Lately, this has changed. Why? Because I started getting answers. Not answers where I laid still & pondered for a good long while about what I was bringing up in prayer. More like the kind of answers where you barely get the question out & a bullhorn voice smacks you upside the head with the answer.

In my agnostic years, I would have assumed it was my subconscious talking. Who knows? It very well may be. I wonder at times if we don't all have the "rightness" of the world constantly in our subconscious waiting to be tapped -- or asked. An innate conscience. An inborn godliness. Whether I have a direct line to God way up on His Throne in His Heavenly Universe through His Son, or whether I have all of what I ever needed to know resting in my soul, waiting its turn to speak, I don't know. What I do know is that the answers I get never come from me directly. They never are a scientific conclusion after I review the facts. In fact, the latest one was an answer I did not want to hear. I'm still chewing on it. I don't want to obey the answer just yet. It's too big.

The first time this happened, I wrote about it here. The first answer brought with it a sense of calm.

The next time it happened was last week. I was exhausted from a completely overwhelming week, and I was flopping an incident around in my head that had happened earlier in the day. I prayed on the incident, asking for Christ's help in figuring out why I had reacted to someone new to my life in such a defensive way. Before I could even get through to the "How can I change my reaction?" part, I received an answer that came from way over in left field. The answer brought with it a sense of wisdom.

Last night, it happened again. I made a mental note in the evening that I was going to bring my anger to Christ in prayer that night, so when we all were on our way to sleep, I started to pose the question. "Dear Lord, I want so badly to get rid of explosive anger with Sassy --" I couldn't finish the statement this time, let alone get to the question. Here came another answer from past left field, you know, way out past left field, where you can't hear the game anymore or even see the stadium. The answer said, "Quit writing." That was it.

What do you all do? What do you all do that is a key part of your person? That is as intertwined in your identity as your face, your memories, your values? What kind of answer is that?

I was shocked. I don't know what to make of it. I asked. I received an answer. A loud and impatient one, at that. As if the answer was wondering if I would ever ask the question.

But I do not like this answer.

I tried to understand it a bit last night. It does make some kind of sense, though I doubt I'll ever understand it fully until I'm looking back. As Sassy has gotten older, I've found myself drawn to creating more for myself, which usually means writing. I have at least five book ideas going right now. I maintain 3 blogs. In my blog profile, I state it clearly: "The Tightwad Trainer loves to teach and lives to share information."

More accurately, perhaps, is that The Tightwad Trainer lives to raise children. This is as much a part of my person as writing is, as writing ever has been. Never in my life have I doubted that I would one day write a book. Never in my life have I doubted that I would one day raise children. Perhaps those two things are less compatible right now than I want them to be, and anger is my clue.

The thing about answers is that they always carry more meaning than their simple words convey. "Quit writing," was spoken in a way that carried with it, "Not forever, but for now. It's not time yet. There are bigger priorities."

Will I listen? More importantly, will I obey? Right now, I'm writing about the very answer that has told me not to write.

I've decided to mull it over a bit before I make any big decisions. When the answer is right, it always has a habit of not going away. If I choose to obey, I'll keep my blogs up, but they won't be maintained as they are now. I won't write to share information, only to organize my thoughts and release them, when necessary.

We shall see.

Fasting

I started my 3-week fast yesterday. Actually, it's officially a "cleanse," but I'm tired of having to either define or defend the cleanse to people who are ignorant to its ways, so I'm calling it a fast instead. Everyone can relate to a fast; plus, it has that added benefit of having a spiritual connotation which makes people less likely to criticize it.

I have so very, very little energy right now. I looked at my half-closed eyes in the mirror and realized, try as I might, I can't pull them upright into a position that does not make me look half-dead. Or at least half-asleep. Maybe it's a benefit because I really don't seem to care about anything right now. My energy is so low that my stress level is at a 0. Unfortunately, that's extremely rare.

I'm writing a few of my experiences as I think of them, but I especially want to document what I'm eating. I'm always looking for vegetable recipes, so I'm taking advantage of this time to jot some more ideas down as I use them for my fast.

Yesterday I made sauteed veggie rolls. I wrapped a Napa Cabbage leaf (now my favorite cabbage BTW) around finely chopped carrots, regular cabbage & pineapple). I sauteed them in about 1 Tbls. light oil and some water with the lid on (so they also were steamed). For dinner, I had baba ganoush (1 roasted eggplant, 6 cloves roasted garlic, 2 Tbls. tahini, juice of one lime). I ate it with roasted zucchini sticks (thin spears of zucchini tossed with 1 Tbls. light oil, roasted at 350 degrees just until tender), raw carrot sticks and sugar snap peas. It was a birthday party, so for dessert I brought crushed pineapple mixed with 1 Tbls. chopped raw cashews and topped with banana slices.

Today I had some Napa cabbage, zucchini & onion "stir fry" (just sauteed in water, not oil) and a salad with 1 Tbls. almonds & 1/2 date for lunch. For dinner I had 2 yams sliced & roasted with 1 Tbls. oil & Bragg's kelp seasoning. For a late-night snack I had steamed/sauteed pears with cinnamon (just 'til tender) and a banana coconut ginger sauce to dip in.

The specs of the fast per day are:

2-3 protein shakes/day (special shakes from SP, unsweetened, so I add banana & berries)
30 horsepill size supp's this 1st week each day
as many salad veggies as I want
whole fruits, but only at 50% of my veggie intake (so twice as many veggies as fruits)
cooked veggies are OK but no starchy veggies (potatoes, corn, peas or legumes -- I pushed it with the yams today, I'm sure)
2 Tbls. olive or flax oil
1/4 cup MEASURED OUT nuts
seasonings that don't have any salt or sugar (or preservatives, chemicals, etc.)

That's it, in a nutshell. I'm so tired now. I'm off to bed.

go local

So I joined this Y! group for our area's localvores -- those who try to eat locally as much as they can. And the more I read their posts & the more I think about our impending move to Indy, the more I think about learning to eat more locally. Plus, it's exactly the kind of far-left (or is it far-right? they are strikingly similar these days....) activism that makes me happy and tickles my need to be in control.

Well, conveniently, my good friend, a fellow localvore member herself, decided to make 2008 her local foods challenge year. If the details of her challenge aren't up on her site yet, keep checking -- she assures me they will be!

I plan to join her in this challenge and I think you should too! Since it's not my challenge, I don't know that I'll be as hardcore as she will be, but I've been talking the talk for a long time & I think it's about time these boots got walking.

Now, I've done some preliminary thinking on "going local" and my first conclusion is that it's one of those things that almost has to happen gradually unless you want to severely cut your diet. Or, if you are a firm believer in eating seasonal foods only, you might not have a hard time. Personally, I think January and February are far and away the best time for fasting anyway. But, I get grumpy after fasting for too long so I'm big on eating seasonally when and where available, and using preservation techniques for any surplus you can get your hands on.

Knowing your seasonal availability of different foods and where to get them when they're harvested is the key. Then, you just show up and buy in bulk, planning to preserve your surplus in whatever way suits the food. If I find an oat grower, for example, here in my area, I would probably buy 100 pounds. This should last us for a year (we rely on having oats always available) and it might even be cheaper to buy it in large quanities. Thing is, we'll still have to feed ourselves while we're building our supply, so general cost-cutting will have to be a priority for 2008 if I'm going to strive to be 90% local in 2009.

For me, there will be a process to 2008 that should bring us to near-complete local eating in 2009. The process consists of these eight steps:

1. Make a list of the foods that are both grown locally and enjoyed by our family.
2. Separate into two groups those foods that are available year round (meat and dairy products) and those that are only available seasonally (vegetables, grains & fruits).
3. Of those that are only available seasonally, research to find the harvesting month for each food.
4. Find a local source for each food, probably using the database in our localvores group.
5. Set up a carpool group of others who might be interested in obtaining these foods.
6. Trim costs in both the existing grocery store budget and other household expenses to free up more money for buying in bulk when seasonal foods are available.
7. Preserve all surplus using any method that suits the food.
8. Keep a list in the kitchen that details how much of each food we purchased this year so that we can adjust our buying next year.

I won't likely shoot for 100% local eating at any foreseeable time. I like my coffee and chocolate too much for that! But I believe that 90% local should be attainable after a year of careful planning.

Challenges like this are great and I'm glad Mama brought it up! Not only do I love kicks in the pants to live in closer alignment with my principles, but it's just plain fun to do a challenge with a friend. I have one of my own challenges going on right now that I anticipate will help me cut those costs so I can free up money to buy local foods in bulk. I'm tired of feeling like all I do is shop for, maintain, fix, clean and rearrange my Things. I want to know how all those Things are coming into my life. I want to know how much stress they are causing and how much time they are stealing from me. I've created a challenge to write down all of my transactions that involve more of these Things so I can see more clearly how much time they're eating up and how I can fix it. And you know what? Call it shameless self-promotion, but I think you should join that challenge too!

Braggy McBraggerson

That's me this morning, singing the praises of my little girl. So excuse me upfront for my assertion that I have the most empathetic, sincere, lovey girl in the entire world.

First, the background. In case you haven't noticed this about Sassy, she is made to be a Mama. This seems to be her driving force in her play, her words, her genuine love of all babies. I recognize this because that was me. That was little me, for as long as I can remember. I never cared what I "grew up to be," as long as I was a Mama. I am infinitely, supremely glad that Sassy is a little me in that respect. I didn't necessarily expect her to be, certainly haven't tried to force her to be, but she is. And it makes it so easy for me to understand her. It helps us connect. I've often wondered how I would handle a frilly girl, the one obsessed with makeup, playing "princess," cheerleading, her looks. I've also wonderd how I'd handle the athletic girl, the one who never met a sport she didn't want to play, who shunned all skirts & dresses, who fought for her right to play on the boy's team. Both are alien to me. I would hope that I'd learn from them & they'd learn from me, & we'd love each other unconditionally despite our differences. But it's so much easier when your daughter is just a little you. A little you who is so much more empathetic, thick-skinned, sociable & trusting than you ever were.

Because Sassy is made to be a Mama, I notice that she is particularly drawn to the babies in her life. Let me put it bluntly: she wants to be a Big Sister. She wants a Baby. She talks about it all the time. She plays it out in her imaginary games. I don't think I've seen a single imaginary game in the past year that doesn't include Big Sister & Baby.

So imagine my surprise when this eloquent assessment of her own little life came out in our conversation the other day. We were on the way home from my grandparents' house & I had just started my cycle again. I asked her, "How would you feel if Mommy never had another baby out of her belly again?"

Me: "How would you feel about that?"
Sassy (in an upbeat tone): "That would be okay, Mommy!"
Me (confused): "Why would that be okay?"
Sassy: "Because you can be happy even if you don't have a baby sister or brother, Mommy."
Me (still confused): "What if we brought a baby home that Mommy didn't have in her belly -- a baby that didn't have a home?"
Sassy: "That would be good! I think I would like that!"
Me: "So what you're saying is, you're OK with it either way?"
Sassy: "Yes, Mommy. I would be happy if I had a baby sister or brother but I would be happy if I didn't, too."

The release that this child gave me in this one interaction is so immense, I don't even think I could put it into words. I wasn't sure if I was transporting my child or my angel at that point. I know this is hard for most easily conceiving mothers to understand, but it's hard not to feel like you're failing your existing child when you can't fulfill their dream of having a Baby in the family. You watch them coo over babies everywhere you go, and you think, what I wouldn't give to have a baby of our own for you. When you have a child like mine, who intergrates a Baby Sibling theme into practically every single thing she does, it can be excrutiating.

I asked Sassy the other day if she chose me to be her Mommy. Yes, she said. Why did you choose me? I asked her.

"Because I loved you," she said.

Sometimes I wonder if Sassy really did choose me -- if she chose me because I needed to be healed, because that's exactly what she continues to do.