I went swimsuit shopping with a friend yesterday.  I loaded my buggy with heaps of dresses, shirts, and one swimsuit, as if I was born to shop, and indeed even enjoyed the act of stripping to my undies in a  public closet with a full length mirror that, perhaps, could be concealing a secret video camera.  (It kinda says something when you don’t feel violated at the thought but just feel pity for the hypothetical person on the viewing end.)  I did this shopping with no liquor, wine, pill, or anything else to numb the senses.  At the risk of losing the 5 readers I actually have, I will even say, DO NOT try that yourself, I do not believe I will attempt it again.  Anyway, I found myself trying on clothes with one of my thin, petite friends and tried desperately not to compare my figure to hers and was pretended to be HAPPY that the dress that fit me like a too small glove, looked FABULOUS on her.

I tend to stay positive about the things that life offer.  At any given moment you could call me and when you ask how things are going, I am going to tell you that they are great.  My house may be on fire, I may have the kids locked in a closet (a joke, people) or the apocalypse could be happening, but darn it, things are going to be great sooner or later, right?!  Might as well start the ‘great’ now.  It is kinda like that whole ‘fake till you make it’ theory….

My son is sick, well, not sick exactly – he doesn’t have cancer or a fatal childhood illness or an ongoing infection that we can’t cure – and I am grateful for that. But, the knowledge that there is something wrong with him, is at times more than I can stand.  Last night he had the worst headache that he has since he got out of the hospital in November.  I got home from my swimsuit shopping and he was teary eyed because he had a headache and I wasn’t there.  I set aside the intense mommy guilt and sat down on the sofa, with him on my lap.  I patted his back and rubbed his head and neck and kissed his head, and told him I was sorry his head hurt and that he would feel better when he woke up.  Just one of many things I promise because I am praying that God will make good on it.  My son is catching on to this, however.  Not to long ago, he came and told me he had bad dreams, I explained bad dreams were not real and could not hurt him.  I told him that he could pray and ask Jesus to take his bad dreams away (Hey, it works for me!).  He came to me the next morning and told me very succinctly that it did not work.  Darn.  What can you next?  I told him to just keep praying and try to remember that the bad dreams are not real and they can not hurt him.  He got up this morning and he did not feel better upon waking.  He did feel better after being up for around an hour, but his head still hurts on and off. 

When he is symptom free, it is easy to think that there is nothing wrong, that a prescription isn’t the only thing keeping my baby boy active and ‘normal’.  It is easy to pretend that I don’t have all these feelings of, well – I don’t know if they have a name, that attempt to suffocate me at times. Then when he does have symptoms, and all of that threatens to come up to the surface of my day, I cope by pretending that I don’t question whether or not he will ever be better, I pretend that I am and he is strong enough to withstand it.  You could call me and I will not mention that I nearly sobbed when I ordered my mocha latte (extra shot of espresso please!).  I will tell you everything is fine and I will never mention to you that it isn’t, really, isn’t.  Not because I am being fake or disingenuous, but because that is the only way I can keep my sanity intact while questioning every parenting and life decision I ever make or have made.

If you are a “real” life friend, and you know me at all, you will know that I do NOT want you to call me, I do NOT want you to mention this blog post and I DO want to be left alone in this matter.  I want to stay in this cocoon of pretending that I am not so darn mad at the world that I can not see straight and everyday I question the God I believe in.  I want to pretend just for a second longer that I don’t feel guilty for this because I know of children that will not live past this year, maybe not even past this summer, and it seems that their moms and dads deserve these feelings more than I do because they would give their left arms for their child to have the illness mine does, rather than the life sucking illness their child has. 

So, there you go.  A snapshot of the “real” me.  It is not pretty, it is not funny, it just is.  I am me and I am flawed and faithless.  I am weak and in need of the God I question. 

I have clean hand towels. The bathroom is still organized. There is still a stock of toilet paper and hand soap. So what is the problem?

My dh has removed the flushing handle we all know and love, and has replaced it with a button. In the interest of lowering our monthly payment to the utility company water conservation , he has installed a flusher button that will do a half flush for ... ummmm ... number 1 (as designated by the etching of a single drop of water on the first part of the button, to a full flush for number 2 (as designated by the 2 drops of water on the bottom of the flusher button.

I am fully aware that the most simple machine in my home has become techno savvy and a potential embarrassment for all who dare sit upon the throne. Ahem...

Good news! I may have figured out how to post to the blog from my phone! Yay!

Scrolling across my screen this morning, I see “Hardees first chain to add turkey burgers to their menu”.  I am guessing this is supposed to be a positive statement.  I just thought “WHY?!! It’s not Thanksgiving!”  My shock and concern were furthered when I realized, some people must like them, as in they enjoy the taste.  I can only think their mothers must not have fed them properly.  Is the “lettuce and ketchup taste good for breakfast” group responsible for this addition? 

Random things like this are what I think about before my kids get up, in those few moments of quiet.  I can not seem to think rational thoughts at 7:00 in the morning, sans the noisy noises from my four children.  It is like their very presence and all of those noises that make me say, “Everyone stop talking, I CAN’T THINK!” that actually inspires me to think beyond the randomness that floats around in my head.  It is funny that all my best ideas come to me at the most inopportune times like while driving the van with the children singing along with Veggietales or grocery shopping or while serving dinner.  If the president could call on me during those moments, I could possibly tell him how to handle the current crisis in Libya in a way that would win him accolades from both sides of the aisle. 

I love being a stay at home mom and homeschooling. One of the reasons is that I like having my kids with me. I like having them close and safe, I am all to aware that one day they will be out on their own and I will have to settle for silence and wondering how they are and if they are going to remember to call me on Sunday afternoon.  There are so many things that want to compete for my time with them, the TV, the computer, the phone, Facebook, life in general….  We who are moms, should know that while our time is short and valuable, our time with our kids is shorter and even more valuable.  Sometimes when I lay down at night, I cringe in remembrance of the day, because I realized I let all the cares of life and distractions steal the majority of my time, and my children actually had very little of it, when they are the primary reason I am a stay at home mom. 

One of my goals while pregnant and then while the baby was very little, was to act with no regrets.  I did not want to look back to my time of pregnancy and the baby’s infancy and regret a single moment.  I generally live in peace and contentment.  I can typically move past my mistakes and failures and chalk those times up to the “school of life” and move forward.  If I miss an appointment, a friend’s birthday, or a day of school, it doesn’t bother me for too long.  Everything comes back around.  What I won’t get back though, are the missed opportunities to blow bubbles with the kids, to push Beks on the swing, and put together puzzles with them.  I miss these opportunities because I am trying to get things done.  I know in my heart that it is ok if the puzzle pieces are on the floor and the bed isn’t made if it is because I stopped what I was doing long enough to enjoy the children.  A bookshelf that isn’t straight won’t hurt anything but my pride and that is only when I am glancing around the room with a critical eye because people have come over.   So, I try not to sweat the small stuff. 

It is the bigger stuff, like the bitterness that is in me towards some things in my life where I have a problem.  But, I know that bitterness and anger are best friends and will grow roots on the top of the garden of life that trip you and can cause you to fall.  These issues are the true time stealers for me.  They are the issues that make feel like I can not cope when the kids or my husband are losing their minds.  The problem is, these things are not going to go away.  They will be here, I am just going to have to learn how do deal with them and how to set them aside in “you can’t change it, so leave it alone” pile.  That is more of a process than I would like to think about.  The wonderful thing is that God indeed knows the issues I face and is aware that I fail miserably at dealing with them, and tend to just get irritable when they crop up.  God knows that although I mow them down they always come back and I know that He alone can dig up the roots for me, because I am woefully inadequate.  So, I can arm myself with that, some prayers, and a few deep breaths, and just be.  I know that I can put the mantle of peace and contentment down and that I can also put it back on, living with no regret means that I have to choose this every day, on purpose.

	Breakfast	Lunch	Supper
Monday	Doughnuts	Chicken Nuggets and Fries	Meatloaf, baked potatoes, salad
Tuesday	Cereal, Milk	Seed Dinner	Chicken and Rice Casserole
Wednesday	Cereal, Milk	Grilled Cheese, soup	Spaghetti and meatballs, salad
Thursday	Cereal, Milk	Homemade Lunchables	White beans, fried potatoes, cornbread
Friday	Apple Muffins	Tofu Pad Thai, falafel, and butternut squash soup	Crockpot chicken tacos
Saturday	Cereal, Milk	Grilled Burgers, chips, salad	Leftovers from the week

 

I am participating in Menu Plan Monday at Orgjunkie.com.

Click on the link to see other menus and link up with your own!

No one prepared me for children.  I did think that after a full 10 years of infertility, praying and essentially begging God for them, that I was ready.  I read every manual, handbook, and website I came across that concerned child rearing.  I spoke with other mothers as if I had real knowledge about all things childhood.  I pitied them in both their successful and futile efforts of parenting their kids.  Pitied their success because surely, it was dumb luck that got the results, as they did not do what I would have done according to the all knowing book writers.  Pitied their failures because their first mistake was to *not* ask me for advice.  They just did not know the expert that I was, and could not be, because of our misfortune to be unable to reproduce our own offspring.
 
HA!

Then I picked up my first baby.  A 10 month old bouncing baby boy, whose birthmother, in a moment of wisdom mingled with desperation, grief, and despair, placed him for adoption.  As I took this child in my arms I imagined I could feel her loss and felt so sorry that I was gaining from her pain.  But, this was the baby I dreamed of and I was going to do this parenting thing perfectly.

We took our baby home, put together his “Nursery in a Box”, while he watched on from a high chair, and began our foray into the world of parenting.  At this point in time, my only “real life” experience with parenting consisted of the afore mentioned books, and my year and a half of being a foster parent.  The foster parenting experience did lend itself to increasing my knowledge of parenting, but I was parenting the way that the State of Tennessee told me to.  There is a remarkable difference.  I did not feel the weight of responsibility, the burden that knowing that, yes you can screw you child up for the rest of their life, and that only after years of therapy and multiple Oprah appearances can they ever be “normal” or “happy.”  I just did what I felt was right in my heart. For me this consisted of me constantly carrying the 1 year old girl, that I currently had courtesy of the state, around on my hip.  I did not worry that I was going to spoil her, did not worry that she was going to expect to be treated like a princess at 12, and did not worry about anything I had read in a book.  I just did what felt “natural”, within the boundaries the state of Tennessee set for me as her foster mother.  (I probably would have even tried to lactate and feed her breastmilk, but the state would have certainly frowned on that.)

My son did not receive that luxury.  He was loved and deeply cherished. But I felt the responsibility for him to “turn out right” to not “spoil” him and to “do it right.”  I did not do what came naturally for me, which looks more like attachment parenting.  I let him “cry it out”, put him to sleep and fed him at the appointed times.  I did not hold him all the time, even though I was desperate to do so.  I refused to let whine or fuss about things.  I confess, I was hard on him.

Then, I got pregnant.  This is where some may think, “That always happens when someone adopts.”  Let me assure you, it doesn’t always happen, and as a matter of fact, rarely happens.  When you say this, it also cheapens adoption, it insinuates that adoption was a means to an end, suggests that we only adopted to achieve pregnancy.  That is certainly not the case.  Anyway, I was fully aware during my pregnancy, that this was probably the only time that I would ever be pregnant, the only other baby I would ever have, and I threw the idea of perfection out the window.  I was going to enjoy it, darn it.  I chose to live every moment of my pregnancy (save the 40th week) in joy and satisfaction.  I knew that there were no guarantees that I would actually bring a baby home (my sister says I was jaded). So, I had pregnancy pictures taken, I took pictures of my pregnant self every week, talked about being pregnant to the point, I may have run off a few friends, and just generally lived in a constant state of gratitude.

I delighted in every ultrasound, cried every time we got to hear the heartbeat, and reveled in the attention and glory that pregnancy bestows on otherwise boring and plain women.  I bought an entire wardrobe of maternity clothes, started wearing them almost immediately and perfected the pregnancy waddle very early on.  Even though pregnancy was extraodinarily hard on my 30+ year old body, I relished the experience. 
Then, I brought home the baby.

I knew from seeing the differences in the my son and my foster daughter, in terms of confidence, security, our bond, and general disposition, that I had indeed failed my son miserably.  I had already been moving to rectify the errors my perfectionist ways had caused, and was working on bonding more with my son.  I know enough to continue repeating bad ideas, and knew that the way I parented my daughter was a far better “fit” for me.  Besides, I could not have put this new baby down, even if I wanted to, which I didn’t.  I did not worry about spoiling her, I was just so GRATEFUL that she was here, that I determined to live every day in the gratefulness that I had.  I put aside the desire to do everything “right” and decided to do what I felt my God & my heart told me to do.

Kids have this habit about them.  They all grow and change, and you as a parent have to grow and change.  That first little girl I mentioned, has an older sister.  She is now 11.  She is one of the girliest girls you will ever meet. 

The other day I walked by the bathroom and smelled singed hair and sweat, I glanced in and my beautiful preteen was trying to flat iron her very kinky curly hair into straightened submission.  I tried to give her instruction on the “proper way” but she is determined that her way is best.  She popped out of the bathroom for a quick break from torturing fixing her hair, and asked, “Hey Mom? Can I get my eyebrows waxed?” I think her eyebrows are beautiful.  My first response was to laugh hysterically and say no, I can’t even get my OWN brows waxed, but I did not.  I took a deep breath, reminded myself that she was getting bigger and told her that I would pluck them for her.  After answering her questions about the procedure and assuring her that ripping your eyebrow hairs out by their roots did, in fact, hurt like.. Well, that, she declined.  She then asked about having a new face.  She is obviously beautiful, so why in the world does she want a new face?  She said that she wanted to look like the model on the front of the make up book.  The model has the perfect, botoxed to frozeness, look of serene happiness on her face.  So, I see in my daughter the desire to be what she considers perfect, and I want to hold on to her as tightly as I can and keep her from a quest that will be never ending.  I want her to know that she is perfect the way she is, and when she accepts that, she will find a level of peace that not many others can say they have.
 
I ended up adopting the little baby girl and her older sister.  Now I am the proud parent of 4 of the most beautiful children you have ever laid eyes on.   I want to live in peace about the way I parent. I don’t want to feel resentful of my kids or their demands on me because I am their mother and I am defined by that and that is okay.  I will never achieve an award from Parents magazine for being the perfect parent, for coming up with the newest discipline technique that “really works”, or have kids that always behave and make the right choices. Above all, I have to do what I feel is best for my children and live in peace with that.

Chicken frequently goes on sale here. When it does, I buy several big packs.  I only use boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  Yes, I know all the flavor is in the ______ (fill in what ever part you think I am missing out on), but I like them and I don't like the greasiness of the rest.  I do like to use those parts to make stock with, though.  :-D  I am going to give instructions based on how I use boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

1.  Take 4 pieces (around 3 pounds for the kind I have been getting), flatten using a meat mallet to a very thin piece.  Cut pieces into portions, 4 breasts generally give me 8 pieces.  Dredge through italian bread crumbs for a very light coating, and I do mean it will be light.  Flash freeze, then put into a ziploc back.  To prepare:  Cook in a skillet with a bit of olive oil from it's frozen state.  Squirt some fresh lemon juice over it, throw on a few capers and serve.  Very good!

2.  Take 6 pounds and boil in water with a whole onion, a few celery stalks and a couple carrots.  Don't worry about chopping the veggies, you are going to strain them out.  Right before they are done, throw in some thyme and fresh sage.  Simmer for another 5 minutes or so and then pull chicken out and put on plate to cool.  When the broth is mostly cool, strain it and store in several quart freezer bags.  Shred the chicken.  Divide into portions appropriate for your family.  Put each portion in a freezer bag with a bit of the broth.  Thaw and use for salads, chicken tacos, casseroles, etc....

3.  Take 5 pounds of chicken and cut into nugget sized pieces.  Dredge in flour, then in milk, then in flour with some salt and pepper again.  Fry each nugget in oil until just done. Flash freeze in a gallon ziploc bag.  To Prepare:  Preheat oven to 375.  Bake desired amounts of nuggets until browned and done. 

4.  Take the last 6 pounds of chicken and divide it half.  Place half the breasts in a freezer bag and cover with italian dressing.  Place the other half in a freezer bag and cover with jarred salsa.  To Prepare: Grill, bake, or throw in crockpot. 

This should net you between 8 and 10 meals depending on how big you make your portions. 

Freezer cooking is only as hard as we make it!