Down on the Farm

This week I've been inspired by the fear that we may have to move to take better advantage of all the fun stuff there is to do around the Boston area. Yesterday I took the kids to Castle Island, which is hands down the best day trip with young kids in Boston, I'm convinced. There's a huge playground, a fort, a beach, a french fry and soft serve shack - and it's free! Especially on a sunny weekday when the crowds are down, it can't be beat as a way to spend the day with your kids.

Today, high off my castle island success, I decided to take the kids on a trip to Ward's Berry Farm in Sharon. Ward's is the most popular of the local pick-your-own strawberry places, and Owen seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea of picking strawberries, so I packed up the kids and went. Unfortunately, our Ward's trip was significantly less successful than our trip to Castle Island.

To be fair, I think it would have been ok had I brought along a second adult, but it definitley was not a single parent activity. At least not without any sort of baby contaiment device (of all the times in the past 3 years to be caught without an Ergo....)

We got started right away setting the tone for the failure of the entire trip. There are three choices of receptacle for berry collection at Ward's. They had little pint containers, slightly bigger baskets, and very large cardboard trays. As I was selecting 2 baskets, one for each boy, Owen asked if we would have enough strawberries to make strawberry jam. Looking at the baskets, I realized if we wanted to make jam we'd need a lot of strawberries, and should get the big tray. This, of course, was mistake number one. What Owen knows (or cares) about making strawberry jam comes entirely from a passing reference in one of his Berenstien Bears books, and furthermore, the sheer quantity of strawberries it would take to make an acceptable quantity of jam exceeds my own attention span, not to mention that of a 3 year old and 17 month old. Nonetheless, however, I forked over $20 for the big tray, which I then set out with toward the strawberry fields.

Halfway there, the not-such-a-great-ideaness of it all started to hit me. The promised "short walk" to the fields was, in fact pretty short. To me. To Elias, it may as well have been to Athens and back. He walks just fine these days, but at his own speed, which is best described as an amble, and an amble punctuated by frequent limp-body plopping to the ground when he's decided that he's either walked far enough or (more frequently) doesn't feel like going in the direction you are going. The hot sun was beating down on us as we slowly, slowly, made our way to the fields, with me awkwardly carrying the diaper bag, their lunch bag, my purse, the empty strawberry tray, occasionally Elias, and trying to keep Owen at at least an arm's length.

For some reason, I thoght things were going to get easier once we got to the strawberry patch. But Eli proved equally difficult to redirect within the confines of the strawberry field, with the added wrinkle of a complete inability to explain the finer points of strawberry picking to him. Oh, he got the whole point of the strawberry plants allright - that child is somewhat of an expert in all things edible - but he immdiately turned into a rampaging, strawberry-hoovering monster. Ripe ones, unripe ones, hulls on, rotten ones, berries out of other people's unattended baskets and trays - he ate them all. This occupied his attention for about 14 minutes, after which he had eaten his fill and got bored of the strawberry picking experience, and converted to just regular old rampaging. Owen, for his part, was a pretty good strawberry picker for the 14 minutes Eli spent eating every strawberry he could see. Unfortunately, because he's 3 (note to self) he promptly lost interest in the whole endeavor. For those of you keeping score at home, we had one very large strawberry tray, filled with only the contents of one 3 year old's pickings for 14 minutes. So, not very many.

I started to sweat. The tray looked cavernous and I realized I had no hope of maintaining the kids' saftey and/or attention for the time it would take me to fill the damn thing. I embarked on a mad picking mission, raking my hands throught the plants while desperately trying to sing any silly song or tell any silly story to keep the kids vaguely interested and hanging out relatively near me. Owen it worked out allright for, but Elias just trampled and terrorized the strawberry patch. Luckily, at some point he decided he had room for more strawberries and spent about 10 minutes sitting in the middle of a particularly berry-laden plant eating more. I was relieved about this for awhile, because it gave me more time on the clock to fill the tray. Relieved until Owen went over to check on him and yelled "Mom, Eli's eating more rotten ones. Really Rotten ones." I called back, "Ok, honey, it's probably fine. Just show him where the good ones are." To which Owen replied "and dirt. He's also eating dirt, mama".

Strawberry picking stopped seeming like the cute family bonding activity I had envisioned and more like the exhausting, backbreaking labor it actually it is. My tray, which I had optimistically recently judged as half full now looked closer to a quarter full. I was sweating and still trying to pick berries as fast as I could. Just then, Elias made a break out of the strawberry patch, directly in front of a tractor pulling a haywagon full of families. Owen started screaming "mama! Eli's going to get run over by the tractor!" and just generally losing his bananas, during which episode he capsized our half (quarter) tray full. In truth, Eli was in no danger - the tractor was a good 40 feet away from him and going approximately 1 mile an hour, and he was caught and returned to the strawberry patch well before the tractor even passed us, but it certainly added to the, er, general ambiance.

I instructed the kids to put all the strawberries that had fallen out of the tray back into it so we could leave. I clearly didn't give very good instructions because they heard "eat as many of these spilled strawberries as you can before we go". I gathered up what berries I could save from their maws and then was faced with the return trip to the car. This time, I had all the acoutrements of the way out (diaper bag, lunch bag, purse, recalcitrant and dawdling toddler) but ALSO a tray of strawberries that had to be carried in such a way that the berries would not go flying. It took us an embarrasingly long time to go approximatly 1/4 of a mile, at the end of which we were several strawberries the lesser.

When we finally got home, Owen was still very interested in making strawberry jam. I looked at him, looked at the berries, and ALMOST pulled out a big pot. Then, I thought better of it, asked him if he wouldn't rather watch an episode of Bob the Builder, and suggested that jam-making was really an activity better suited to be done with Daddy.

My Proud-Mama moment

I know, shameless bragging about my kid. But come on, what did you expect coming to my blog? It was pretty much created for that sole purpose. Andy and I are so proud of Owen for learning to ride a 2 wheeler. And we're even more proud that he figured it out only the second time we let him try it.

here's the link to the video.

We had a feeling he'd be able to do it pretty much right away - he has had a balance bike since he was 2 and we noticed the other day as we walked (and he rode the balance bike) to the park that he could pick his feet up and balance/glide for pretty long periods of time. We figured that basically, this is pretty much what you need to master to ride a real bike, so we bought him the smallest one we could find, didn't attach the training wheels, and let him go for it. he still can't steer and he's not terribly steady, nor does he understand the hand brakes (this bike has both pedal and hand brakes) but he can unquestionably ride the bike. We're pretty proud of him.

But don't worry. On balance, there's probably more to be mortified by than proud of in the case of this particular 3 year old, particularly lately, and particularly in the behavior department. So let me have my small positive moment...I promise I won't let it go to my head.

Burnt to a Crisp

If you're checking in to find out what the kids are up to, please, don't ask me. I have no idea, because I haven't seen them in a month. Not literally, of course, but I'm feeling like I may have finally reached my limit for how much I can manage at once. I generally like to think that in the 'keeping multiple balls in the air' category I'm above average, but I have met my match. To April, I say uncle.

Things started out ok, back in mid-to-late March. I have my normal work schedule (25 hours a week, Wednesday-Saturday, 6pm-12am and 5pm-12am on Fridays). I have the kids the rest of the time. Andy's been working a lot lately, usually at least one weekend day and several late nights, so we need occasional babysitters to cover the gaps, but at baseline, it's manageable. I've adjusted to getting less sleep, and though it's not ideal, it largely works. On top of that, the small business I've been trying to start with a colleage is actually taking off a bit, and we've generated ourselves a small but growing client base. Which is good, but layered on top of my normal schedule (so trying to meet with clients the three nights I don't work and on weekends) was making me feel like I had a bit too much on my plate, maybe. Right before we were supposed to leave for Phoenix we knew that the month was looking busy, but it still seemed manageable.

Then, right before we left for our trip, I got a call from my former boss. It's a long story, but let's just skip to the punchline, where she asked me to come back to my old job for a month. And how somehow, by the end of the conversation (a crack in the time/space continum? Momentary complete lapse in sanity? alien mind control?) I agreed to do so.

So, we return from Arizona, and the very next day, all hell breaks loose. Andy had a bunch of special projects and some staffing issues at work, plus he'd been away for a week. He essentially would need to live at work until late May. And I realized that I had signed myself up to work 32 hours a week at my former job, plus my regular 25 hours at my regular job, plus I had to keep all the commitments I had already made for our independent venture. Oh yeah. And the kids. Can't forget the kids.

I know. I'm with you. Nuts. Bonkers. Bat guano insane.

I generally am one that thrives off too much to do, and truth be told when I'm given too much free time I tend to put myself in predicaments just such as this one - it's somewhat of an inborn personality flaw. But this time I've really gone and walked a bit too close to the cliff. After three weeks of working a full and 2 part time jobs, plus doing the lions share of dressing, feeding, organizing, packing and transporting the progeny (who are remarkably flexible and having a great month at their old family daycare plus spending quality time with favorite babysitters, thank goodness) I've just about had enough. They say you can do anything for a short amount of time, but I think maybe "they" were thinking more like 5 minutes. One more week of this insanity and we can return to the regular, only marginally insane version of my life. And it can't come a second too soon, because for the first time I really understand what it means to feel "burnt out". I'm not sure I have more than another week in me.

The bright side, if there is one, is that I do get the whole day completely off tomorrow. The plan was that we were going to all go to CT where Andy's parents and my sister live for Easter. However, I had to work 9 to 5 today at my old job (daycare inconvieniently closed on Monday and full on Wednesday) and then 6 to 12 tonight. Much as I wish you could, you can't drive to New Haven in an hour, so we would have had to leave Sunday morning. But since I am still working next week, and need to be at work Monday, we would have had to turn right around and come back tomorrow night, and since tomorrow is the first day in the entire month of April that I didn't have one thing for any job scheduled....I just couldn't handle the thought of driving to New Haven and back in one day. So instead, the boys took a roadtrip to Grandma and Grandpa's, and I stayed home. And how will I spend Easter Sunday?

Cleaning. I trust you can use your powers of deduction to figure out what our house looks like right now.

Happy Easter, if you celebrate. I did buy the boys matching spring green plaid shirts, and assuming Andy gets some good pictures I'll post them when they return from their trip.

Lie to your children. It's good for them.

I plagarized the title of my blog post which is funny in this case because it's one of the criticisms (among many) that was leveled at Jessica Seinfeld when she published her book Deceptively Delicious. And in general I would have to say that I agree the book is kind of dumb. First of all, it's not really teaching your kids to eat healthfully if you're putting spinach puree in brownies. You're still feeding your kid brownies, which you really shouldn't do very often if you want them to be healthy. Plus, putting 1/2 cup of spinach puree in an entire pan of brownies really isn't boosting the nutritional profile all that much. On the other hand, hey - if you were going to be serving a dessert anyway, at a birthday party or whatever, why NOT put some vegetables into your baked goods? I guess. But, making purees (and baking, for that matter) are not really things I have the time and/or energy for, so the cookbook never interested me much.

Until we started having our produce delivered, that is. And as anyone who has ever joined a winter csa knows, there is pretty much no limit to the amount of beets and kale those people will try and fob off on you. We have gotten to a point where we're trying to put away 2 lbs of beets a week - and hey, I like beets. But that is a LOT of beets. The kale I find much easier to dispatch, but I was getting to the point where I was actually consider trying to use the beets to dye fabric with.

I know. Pull myself back from the edge. But don't worry. Like I said yesterday, I can't find time to shower so I'm not dyeing anything with anything.

But I still have all these beets. And my friend had the cookbook, which is how I ended up making a quadruple batch of these pink pancakes and the kids LOVE them. I use hodgson's mills 100% whole wheat pancake mix and they come out really well. They also freeze really well, so I put 2-3 in a baggie and put them in the freezer and then just reheat them in the toaster for breakfast.

The best part is that I now have an excuse to avoid eating any more beets. They're for the kids!

The great debates

I guess it's been a little while, sorry about that. I haven't had that much to blog about lately, or rather, I've had so much to blog about that I've had trouble finding things small and manageable enough to encapsulate in a post. But, in the spirit of not letting the blog get too far away from me I'll udate today just to get a post on the board in March.

First, I'm putting a new blog in the "blogs I like" section of my blog. I wanted to call attention to it because it's just been started by a friend and neighbor of mine. She and I met a little over 2 years ago through our knitting club, and bonded over the fact that neither of us had a very good idea of what we actually wanted to be when we "grew up" despite the fact that we both had full time jobs and pretty clearly defined careers. I'm really happy to say that she's found a passion in photography and I hope that she is able to parlay it into, if not a career, at least a wonderful and satisfying hobby. She's currently doing a project where she's going to take a photo every single day and post it. I am extremely impressed by this, because I can barely shower every single day. So, kudos to Cara and please check out her blog. I personally think she's extremely taleted!

As for me, as many of you know I've been spending the past couple years working toward a self directed career as well. I'm happy to report that, although I'm not ready to pull back the curtain on it yet, I think I'm only about 6 months away from being truly and exclusively self employed. I take my licensing examination on March 24th at 8am, and provided I pass it, the last puzzle peice will be in place and I will be independently licensed by the state of MA. It has been a pretty arduous journey to meet the clinical requirements while also having and keeping track of 2 kids, but I finally finished at the end of February. Now I just need to pass the exam. If I do pass, all systems will be go. I have a colleague, an office space, an idea...stay tuned on that front.

Finally, Andy and I have been agonizing (and agonizing is really quite an understatement) about our house situation lately. Should we stay in Boston (which we love, is best for our careers, is convienient and comfortable) or should we move to an area that has better public schools? we go back and forth on pretty much a daily basis now that Owen is 3 (next week? I can. not. believe it.) and pre-k is more of a reality with each passing month. We want to stay, but my parents really think we should move. Half my friends around here with kids are committed to staying and making school options in Boston work, and the other half are busy going to open houses every weekend. What we really want to do is put a second floor on this house and never leave, but that seems to be an option that no one thinks is a good idea. Ugh. and so the debate rages.....

Owen's birthday party is this weekend, the big 3. I'll try and remember to take lots of pictures to put on the blog.

I don't know about you, but.....

I'm tired of opening up my blog page and seeing a picture of a toilet. So while I wait for inspiration to strike for my next post, please enjoy these photos of Elias on his recent 1st birthday.





PS: I've only been to the grocery store once since December 15th! I bought one carton of yogurt, one package of deli turkey and 2 loaves of gluten free bread. success!

What will they think of next?

I can't get over the cleverness of this thing. After seeing it at two friend's houses recently, I just HAD to have one. This is simply an ingenious product:





A toilet seat with a potty seat BUILT IN. I love it. I love it most because it means we can now dispense with the disgusting potty seat that must be moved on and off the potty multiple times a day and best of all, Owen can now make the potty kid friendly all by himself without bellowing for me to retrieve the seat. Simply genius, I say.

Speaking of geniuses, Owen may or may not be one. Here's some evidence in the "not" column. Owen's new favorite game is called "trash pile". It consists of...well...



gathering up as many of his toys as he can and creating a heap with them. I have to say, the appeal escapes me. Also, slightly discouraged that we go to all the time and trouble to find toys that we think will be both entertaining and educational and the favored game involves making them into a....trash pile. Let's not dwell too much on that, shall we?

finally, how cute is this photo:


I hope you all are enjoying the snow as much as we are this winter.