grrlTravels

five offbeat things

Assuming I am thankful for all of the usual things (K., kids, food/clothing/shelter, friends, therapy) (I am deeply, deeply thankful for these things), here are 5 random-ish things I am thankful for this year.

1. Brining.
Ok, just kidding. The turkey was indeed moist and flavorful with minimal work. But I'm still making my peace with the brining.

1. Stickers.
I am at the point in my life where it's the little things that make me happy. I like stickers. The kids like stickers. Stickers are inherently cheery.

2. The Zoo Membership.
We decided in an effort to save money we would buy a few select memberships and really use them. Use them we have. The kids love the zoo and beg to go almost every day. Z. says, "Face painting!" almost every day. R. signs and says "more" at every giraffe, rhino, and monkey.

3. Crayons and white glue.
It is a treat every single day when I open the backpacks after school to see what is inside. Some days there isn't anything. Other days the backpack is a treasure trove.

4. Seltzer.
We all need treats, and a treat that gives me a boost every single time, has no calories and isn't expensive? A very good treat indeed.

5. My white noise machine.
Sleep is precious. Sleep is difficult. Sleep makes the world go round, at least when there are young children in the house.

Happy day to you.

brining: the new basting

I didn't want to brine. I had decided firmly against brining before I even went online. I was attempting to recreate a reasonable facsimile of the Thanksgivings of my childhood which included a bird that was roasted, basted, and stuffed with stuffing. I had conceded the stuffing to the threats of salmonella and other bacterial nasties and I was not in the mood for more conceding.

Turns out it's tough to find a recipe that isn't all about the brining these days. I resisted as long as I could and with a flourish at the end gave into the peer pressure of soaking the bird overnight. Alton convinced me. The bird is swimming; I am dealing with it.

this is why we travel, part uno

We are not going away this year over Thanksgiving. Although we feel a wee bit sorry for ourselves, there is no need for sympathies to be extended. Everyone is cutting back, everyone is dealing with the economy, everyone has a pinch somewhere.

A few weeks ago E. said, "I want some turkey." This perplexed me because E. does not eat turkey as far as I know.
Me: What do you mean you want some turkey?
E.: I think lots of people eat turkey on Thanksgiving. At least some people. People do eat turkey for Thanksgiving, right?

My son the traditionalist. And from that brief 1.34 minute conversation a disaster of a Thanksgiving dinner has emerged, cooked solely by me.

Proposed menu:
shrimp cocktail
butternut squash bisque (it's not squashy enough, but it is finished)
turkey a la Alton Brown (this recipe has 1,919 comments!)
stuffing (this will hopefully be similar to the stuffing I am imagining)
mashed potatos (K. actually had to remind me of this one—I am pretty focused on stuffing)
rolls (from a can)
pumpkin bread (from a box)
green beans with bacon
brussels sprouts
cranberry sauce (from a can because I don't eat it and K. said the canned kind is fine)
pumpkin pie (from Whole Foods because I don't do pie crust and seriously there is no time for pie, but I am making real whipped cream)

Notice there is no gravy on this list. I know gravy is de rigueur, but I cannot for the life of me make decent gravy. I don't know why. I watch them whip it up on tv and it looks so easy but I cannot cannot cannot do it. I do not know what to do about the gravy to tell you the truth. I will probably attempt gravy since it is Thanksgiving and all, and I will probably botch it and we will have lumpy, nasty gravy, or no gravy at all if there are any tears involved, which there may well be.


Notes:
1. Fresh squeezed orange juice.
One of the recipes I am working on (and I have no idea which one, to tell you the truth) calls for fresh squeezed oj and being the slave to recipes that I am I spent some time this morning squeezing.

2. Stuffing.
I have not had great success with stuffing in the past. The stuffing of my childhood has none of the fancy stuff stuffing has recently acquired—no sausage, chestnuts, fruit of any sort. And no mushrooms. No, no, no! Just bread, celery, onions, and seasonings. That is what I'm going with because if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it so that I'm happy. Day old bread from the supermarket is currently drying out. We shall see. I'm hopeful, but not very optimistic.

3. Butternut squash bisque.
Butternut squash anything is not part of my childhood memories of Thanksgiving. But it is one of the very, very few things that Z. will attempt to eat, so I made some soup from scratch for her today. Sadly the bisque isn't squashy enough for me, but since I spent a lot of time on it we are going with it. My sweet family WILL eat bland butternut squash bisque (K. says perhaps it's the recipe and not you...is there garlic in this?...I like it) on Thanksgiving and perhaps it will be become a time honored tradition for my kids. Or maybe next year we will be somewhere else eating Chinese food like I want to be.

4. Chili.
In the middle of preparations for Thanksgiving today I also had to make a pot of chili because the ground beef was trying to go south on me. I was not in the mood to make a pot of chili. I was in the mood to lie on the couch and whimper.

Next up: unwilllingly brining

scenes from a kindergarten craft project

I took my camera into the classroom, knowing that there probably would not be time to take any shots. There wasn't any time to take any shots. The shots from Kindergarten would be of the chaotic sort, full of lots of children pulling out the silver wires after I mentioned to be careful with them, missing sticky googly eyes, and lots and lots and lots of white glue. I am sad not to have some shots.

Child in E.'s class: Why are we making squirrels and not turkeys?
Me: Uh...[because that's what the craft directions said to make--squirrels, not turkeys.] Because it's fall and the squirrels are all busy outside finding the acorns to store for winter. And anyway these squirrels look quite a bit like turkeys.

KITT, I need you!

I will be spending my weekend preparing for my 15 minutes of fame making a craft with E.'s Kindergarten class on Monday. I gave E. 3 choices and he chose to make these cute guys. It's a good choice, although I am questioning the decision to make 3 of something with 22 kids. But I am going to do a lot of prep work, meaning they will basically be made before I get into school. I am worried about taking up too much time. Kindergarten is much more rigid and curriculum-based than I recall. The time seems important, and I and my project, not-curriculum-based, seem so expendable. Must. Not. Suck. Up. Too. Much. Precious. Kindergarten. Time. (I recall quite clearly playing kitchen, a LOT, in Kindergarten. From my recollections Kindergarten was mostly moving from one activity center to another, playing furiously. 37 years ago.)

This project involving paint and felt and glue and googly eyes will slosh some water into the empty well that is my creative life right now. I looked at how many photos I have taken since R. arrived home and realized that I have stomped down most creative endeavors due to lack of time, lack of organization, and lack of ability to form coherent thoughts. My creative juices have been juiced.

During this little wander in the desert I've turned to kits. I loved kits as a child. With a kit all of the supplies are presented in a neat little package, pre-cut and pre-determined. All of the decisions have been made, all of the shopping has been done. I ordered this fabulous dress as a kit on etsy. I opened it and was sewing within 5 minutes. No patterns! No pinning! No cutting. Just the juiciest bites, all for me. Kits, I love them. And I need them. Right now.

I have become so kit-crazy that I spent the past week assembling a kit for some of E.'s far-flung buddies. Our kit consists of print-outs of one of the rejected Kindergarten class crafts and lots of edible materials (almost 4 pounds of misc candies the scale at the post office informs me). It took a long time to find all of the various candies, and I just gave up on large gum drops (seriously, where ARE the large gum drops?? I cannot find them!) and pastel non-pareils and send the packages with replacements. (The perfectionistic part of me did not like this one bit, but I had been to 4 shops and I was done.) We will also be making the polar bears and the skiing people and whatever else we can dream up with toothpicks and candy. Sweet candy, get those creative juices sugared up. Winter is coming and we will be stuck in the house with nothing but our wits to get us through.

six, six, in the mix

My sweet boy is six. We really are a bit birthdayed out around here, so the festivities were somewhat subdued. Still, we managed to celebrate. Of course we did.

E. loves video games, building with legos, puzzles/mazes of every sort, reading, soccer, drawing, swimming, magnets, telling stories, camp outs, and wrestling with Daddy. He is currently obsessed with Little Big Planet (and I mean obsessed). He is sweet, funny, obnoxious in that 6-year-old boy way, polite, awkward, honest, worried, fun loving, creative, and friendly. Here are the vital statistics as recorded on the poster for Kindergarten:


I am 6 years old.
My favorite color is light blue.
My favorite animal is snake. (Not true, but he insisted for the poster.)
My favorite food is mac and cheese. (Toss up with chicken nuggets.)
My favorite place is Disney.
When I grow up I want to be a medicine scientist. (This varies, but medicine scientist is fairly consistent. "Why do you want to be a medicine scientist?" "It sounds interesting.")
My favorite thing to do is play with Daddy. (Clearly he also loves face painting. But playing with Daddy trumps everything.)
If I had one wish it would be for a little kitty. (?!?)

Gosh I love him. I am lucky, lucky girl.

It's never too soon, and in fact it's probably too late

Do you know that at least one member of my family has been sick for each of the previous 31 days now? And that presently every single one of us is sick? I know, it's more interesting to me than it is to you. I had to tell you anyway.

I spent my day searching for a craft to do with E.'s Kindergarten class when I visit as part of the parent enrichment program. In my current state I do not feel all that enriching I must admit. And in the middle of the search for a suitable project for 22 wiggly children I got seriously waylaid by thoughts of advent calendars. And then I decided to make an advent calendar, this year, before the first of December, right then while I was considering paint and glue and feathers and pipe cleaners.

Right now is a grand time to consider advent calendars if you do not have approximately six months worth of gifts to craft in the next 44 days. I, having grand plans to begin working on my Christmas presents the second that summer was unofficially over (September 3), was completely blind-sided by school (as you know) and have yet to set my hand to work. Never you mind. Advent calendars it is.

Here are some of my favorites (we are not thinking small, oh no—we are thinking very, very big. Well one must think something in these troubled days, right?, and today it is advent calendars.):

quilted tree with fabulous handmade ornaments

a stack of envelopes with treats slipped inside

cookie sheet advent calendar with fabulous papers and typography (plus the colors are lovely)

traditional house-style calendar to customize a la Martha

matchbox calendar kit which I own but have not gotten around to putting together just yet

still-stuck-on-Martha, and too much work for me, but visually appealing

Shelba's sweet 2007 calendar with 25 fabrics

fun count down chain for the kids

None of these is The One, but I'm taking bits and pieces from here and there. Honestly although I have BIG PLANS I'm guessing something with photographs behind little doors is the most I may accomplish this year. But you! You aren't me and you have more time or you're more organized or you less sleep and your entire family hasn't been sick for 32+ days (I hope! Otherwise, poor you!). You, you may make the most fabulous advent calendar that has ever existed this year. I hope you do. Send me a link when you do—there's always next year.

R. confounds

I've put on the hip boots and I'm currently mucking around in the swampy stew that is the slurry of adoption issues / personality / maturity levels. The going is slow as the boots tend to get sucked into the mud and one must pull hard to get them unstuck.

R. came to us from his loving but outlandishly permissive foster parents. We appreciated at the time (and still do) the affection and attention that they lavished on him. They cared for him--it was obvious.

But some of the ways they cared for him were ... ... ... uh, completely opposite to every tenet of parenting which K. and I espouse. You know, like letting him play with their cell phones (fine) and laughing about how he broke 3 phones easily as they watched. Such as feeding him the best foods they could provide (thanks!) and taking turns eating dinner while they allowed him to preside over the dinner table, making demands and throwing food on the floor. He was a child who was completely out of control in many of the ways that count.

He came to us mostly healthy and loved and blooming. And spoiled. And tantrum-y. And throwing fits. With a frustration tolerance of zero. Preferring, wanting, NEEDING, and most of all expecting his own way 24/7.

K. and I knew there was much work to be done. And we set out to do it. We worked on getting him integrated into the family, showing him love while setting boundaries and teaching him the family rules. It wasn't easy. I took a break from blogging to have more time to devote to a semi-traumatized E. and Z. and a shell-shocked but defiant R. We lovingly set limits, set more limits, and then added even more limits. We worked hard on getting him to stop hitting the other children, and then to stop biting them. We tried to promote security while modifying behaviors. I'm tired just thinking about it all.

In the midst of attempting to modify the worst of the behaviors the adoption lexicon will float through my head. Attachment. Trauma. Abandonment. Parent shopping. Families. PTSD. Eye contact. Security. Love.

Here is the crux of the issue: I do not want to delay attachment, but we cannot live with the behaviors. He is clearly insecure, but he is also clearly aggressive. Charming. Manipulative. Intelligent. Willful. Affectionate. Destructive. I could go on.

I feel caught in quicksand, struggling with conflicting emotions, goals, and issues. The pieces of the puzzle will not unlock for me. I do not know when to go easy, when to stand firm, when I am going too far, when I am not going far enough. It's complex, this parenting thing, and wanting the best for my boy does not provide any obvious answers.

I'm tired of the boots and the mud and walking through the swamp. We haven't even talked about the mosquitos attacking me, the sweat dripping down my neck, the swamp rats following me a little too closely. Which direction to take? I long for a compass.

But it seems I left home without one.