Father's Day 2013

Mr. F.  spent Father's Day being a father.  We noticed that Finn seemed a bit warm to the touch Saturday although he spent the day running about as usual--weekends involve lots of playtime with dad around here.  His temperature was 102-103 F.  Although he seemed more or less himself during the day, the night was disrupted.  Finn very sweetly requested that "dada" spend the whole night with him in his bed, and Mr. F. was up multiple times in the night taking care of our sick boy.

On Sunday, a couple of symptoms concerned us enough to call the doctor on call.  She suggested that we go to urgent care to have an analysis done to check out the most alarming of them.  The results were normal (thank goodness!) but the ordeal was stressful for us all.

Sick kids are the worst as a parent.  I get so anxious for them.  I want to take away all their pain and discomfort.  I want to soothe and protect them.  And sometimes there isn't much or anything that you can do. 

My little boy, who wants to be close to someone even when he watching his beloved Toot and Puddle.

Enna at 4 months

Enna at 4 months:

• She learned how to roll from her back to front and is using every opportunity to practice her new skill.
• Celebrated her 4 month birthday by cutting a new tooth!  Unlike her brother, she pulled out all the teething stops: low-grade temperature, body rash, propensity to chew on everything, and fussiness.  Either that, or she had some sort of viral thing that coincided quite nicely.  We will never know.
• Wears a generic white onesie because the few girl outfits I have for her are dirty.  She is sporting the 6-9 month old sizes these days, my Hunca Munca.
• Laughs when I pretend to chew her face (those cheeks!) and then eats my face in return.
• Her hair might be coming in lighter?  The (sort of) bald spot on the back of her head has hair that is quite a bit lighter.  It makes me a bit sad because I love the idea of a dark-haired beauty with blue eyes.  It would be her Welsh genes shining through.
• Her sweetness makes me so happy.

 

Meal Planning and My Obsession with Variation

Meal planning.  I do it weekly, by the way, although I post about our dinners monthly.  I spend at least an hour, often more, planning.  It is a long, lengthy process wherein I browse my Pinterest pins, bookmarks, previous months meals, cookbooks, etc. looking for ideas.  Every week, I wait to be inspired.  I have huge binders of recipes and numerous recipes on the computer, but I keep searching for something new.  Something inspiring.  Something life-changing.  

I have known a number of people who have a weekly menu that plays on continuous repeat: Roast on Sunday, spaghetti on Monday, chicken on Tuesday.....pizza on Friday, and baked potatoes on Saturday.  They might vary up the type of chicken or their pizza toppings, but it more or less stays within this predictable pattern.   I kind of wish I could do that.  I wish I wasn't so obsessive about what I ate, "but, we had meatloaf the week before last.  I can't eat it again!"  I have even played around with just having general themes by which to plan: A Mexican meal, pasta night, pizza night, etc., but even that seems too constraining.  I become all tortured artist by such thought: "I don't want to set any limitations to my creative menu muse!"

Adding a husband and a toddler to the mix (oh yes, I am a meal planning veteran.  I was meal planning years before I actually got married) has made the process even more difficult.  I will come across a recipe that I think sounds good (black bean quesadillas with mango for example) but then I have to see if it passes the Finn or Mr. F. test.  (Yes and No respectively if you are wondering.  Mr. F. has this real hang up with fruit in savory applications.  It kills my creative muse on a regular basis.)

I don't know from where this stems.  Growing up, we had a core set of recipes that were in heavy rotation.  It didn't repeat by the week, by any means, but I am sure we had some repeats within the same month.  I was completely fine with this.  I liked knowing what to expect.  Hamburger soup?  I knew exactly which soup my mother was talking about.  Macaroni and cheese?  Kraft Mac and Cheese from the box, baby.  By comparison, I tell Finn we are having macaroni and cheese, and he might wonder which of the twelve variations it could be.  (He was not a fan of the green macaroni and cheese we had for dinner the other night, by the way.  Can't really blame him.  It didn't look particularly appetizing.)

I think there might be an issue here, is all I am saying.

As I was thinking about menu planning and my childhood, I was reminded of this clip from This American Life: A Little Bit of Knowledge.  Of course the whole episode is great, but the applicable bit starts around 10:09.  A girl describes how she was raised and what she ate for dinner:

Robin didn't think there was anything strange about the way she was raised. She lived together with her sister and her parents in a nice house in the suburbs. She went to school like the other kids, watched TV and did her homework. And she ate the exact same thing for dinner every night of her life, baked chicken.

Robin: It was like Monday, chicken.  Tuesday, chicken.  Wednesday, chicken.  Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken, every night of my life until I left for college.

She then goes on to tell the story about how she found out that other people had variation in their weekly meals.  Hilarious.

Besides it being a funny story, I have to have a private little chuckle too--this would be my father's worst nightmare.  He was not particularly fond of chicken (although we ate it on a regular basis.)  When asked why he didn't like it, he would spin this tragic tale of having a pet chicken/duck (it varied on the telling), and his mother cooking it for supper one day.  That experience (so the story goes) has rendered him incapable of fully enjoying chicken.

So how does menu planning look at your house?  Do you have a core set of recipes that you work from?  Do you obsessively look for new ideas like I do?  Do you eat baked chicken every single night of the week?

Enna at 3 Months

At three months Enna is:

• Trying desperately to roll over from her back to her front.  She is determined to master this skill.  She wakes up from her nap, houdinis out of her miracle straight jacket swaddle, and then strains to flip herself over.  
• Is sort of laughing.  But she makes me work for it.  She is much less stingy with her smiles.  She is very smiley.
• Dislikes being out and about.  She wants to be home where it is cozy and nice and where her bed is conveniently located in case she gets tired--which is fairly often.  I can't say that I blame her.  It does make it difficult when I am trying to cope with an irrational three year old who could probably benefit from some outside distraction.
• Might end up with blue eyes.  They certainly aren't getting darker.
• Is all together wonderful.

At three months I am still rejoicing over not being pregnant.  When I mopped the kitchen floor for the first time after being pregnant (embarrassingly not that long ago), I thought, "this is so much easier than the last time---when I was 9 months pregnant."  I rejoice in my unpregnant state every time I am shifting around in bed trying to get comfortable.  Sitting on my son's bumblebee wheely thingy (the official name, I am sure) would have been impossible not that long ago.  I am so enamored with my unpregnant state that I wish I could state that I was done, that I would never be pregnant again.  But that is a decision for another day. 

Chunky Monkey Baked Oatmeal

So, the granola that I made and then had to find alternate uses for?  I decided to use it to make my weekly baked oatmeal--since it is essentially oats plus add-ins.  Pure genius, I tell you.  I love it when I astound myself with my own creative brilliance.  I added bananas and peanut butter and whammo!  Chunky Monkey Baked Oatmeal (since the granola itself included nuts, coconut, and chocolate).

Now to be completely honest here, I have never actually tasted Chunky Monkey ice cream.  A strong banana flavor doesn't appeal to me which is why I have always been hesitant to try it.  I have not, though, found bananas to be too overwhelming in my baked oatmeal, so I gave it a whirl.  If you have issues with bananas, you can leave them out.  I actually didn't have bananas the second time I made it.  Still awesome oatmeal.

Also, I reckon that most people won't have batches of French Chocolate Granola hanging about (and if you did, you would probably just choose to eat it by the bowlful and rightfully so), hence I adapted it to use raw ingredients.

Chunky Monkey Baked Oatmeal

Ingredients

2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans, lightly toasted, divided
1/2 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1 tsp. baking powder
Two pinches of salt
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 cups milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup peanut butter
2-3 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced ½-inch thick

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375˚ F.  Lightly grease a 9 x 13" baking dish.  In a medium bowl, combine the rolled oats, nuts, coconut, chocolate chips, baking powder,  and salt.  Stir with a fork to combine.  In a liquid measuring cup, combine the maple syrup, milk, egg, butter, vanilla and peanut butter.  Spread the sliced bananas in a single layer over the bottom of the baking dish.  Sprinkle the dry oat mixture over the fruit in an even layer.  Pour the liquid ingredients evenly over the oats.  (Or just skip all this nonsense and just mix everything together willy nilly like I always do--except the bananas.  The bananas must be arranged first.  Don't ask me why.)

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the top is browned and the oats have set.  Let cool 10 minutes before serving.  Serve with a generous glug of cream, because life is short and cream is the nectar of the gods.

The Shifting Baseline of Moderation

There is a concept in fisheries called the Shifting Baseline.  It comes about when fishery management fails to correctly identify a true baseline fish population.  You can imagine a manager saying, "Well we will say that an unfished population of cod is [insert large value here]."  The manager uses this value  because it seems appropriate given his/her experience of past cod populations.  However, if you were to look further back in cod fishing history, you might realize that the cod population was 100 times that number.  In our imaginary scenario, let's say that you, as a manger, did your research on historical cod populations and used the really large number to determine a proper catch amount.  You then tell the fishermen that they can only fish said amount.  This number will seem quite small, because it accounts for the need of the cod population to recover to actual historical levels.  The fishermen, though, will be irate.  They will tell you things like, "my family has been fishing here for generations, and we have never seen cod populations that large.  That is a ridiculous value to use." etc. etc. etc.

Your perception of what is normal or adequate is based on your personal history.  The perception of normal changes over time and over generations.

I have read a number of blogs where the author chooses to drastically change their diet for a set amount of time.  Sometime during that experience, either the author or the readers will say something along these lines, "I believe in moderation in all things when it comes to diet."  "I think having the occasional treat is o.k."  "An occasional dessert is not bad for me, and it makes me so much happier."

I don't necessarily have a problem with any of those sentiments.  However, what, exactly, is moderation?  What is occasional?  Some people think that having a cookie every day represents moderation.  Others might think that a small treat after lunch and dinner is not excessive.  Others reserve their dessert for once a week.  What you might think acceptable is strongly based on your personal history.  For example, growing up we had dessert once a week on Sunday.  I had a friend though that had a dessert after dinner every day of the week.  (And it was an actual dessert like cake vs. a mere cookie.)  I thought that was a bit crazy; she thought it normal.

Skip, the author behind the blog Word of Wisdom Living wrote:

1833, American consumption of sweeteners stood at 10 lbs per year—about 3 tsp a day.  Now, depending on the data source, we eat 21-30 teaspoons daily.  The AHA recommends no more than 6 tsp (24 grams) daily for women, 9 for men (based on their greater weight).

[Source]

In the past year or so, our family has drastically cut our sugar consumption.  (And feel SO MUCH BETTER for it).  I think and feel like we eat very little added sweetener.  However, a rough calculation shows that I might eat more along the lines of 9 teaspoons vs. the 6.  To me, 3 teaspoons seems very extreme.  I find myself thinking, "why bother adding sugar at all if you are only going to have 3 teaspoons a day?" yet in 1833 this was normal.  Not to mention that any sweets they might indulge in would be much less sweet than the equivalent item today.

[Source]

I mean seriously.  Does a dessert really need to contain chocolate chip coconut cheesecake, chocolate cake, chewy brownie, and coconut-pecan frosting (an actual "cheesecake" at The Cheesecake Factory).  No.  That is just ridiculous people not to mention coma inducing.

There was a time when people indulged on Feast Days and.....that was it.  As a missionary in Ukraine, I noticed that Ukrainians have cake or sweets on actual special occasions like birthdays or celebrations.  Not everyday.  Not even every Sunday.  (They can't afford it!)

I guess I feel like we, as Americans, are like those fishermen baulking at the Fishery managers.  We have no idea what it eating moderately means when it comes to sweets.  Our level of sugar consumption is just so out of the ballpark that any sort of limitation on our ingestion of sweets seems unreasonable and downright crazy.  

On my mother, motherhood, the Atonement, and Grace.

 I always miss my mother, but there are times when the loss of her companionship is more acute.

I miss her when I give birth.  Although I have been blessed with help from my mother-in-law (invaluable this last time!), and my sisters, I really have just wanted my mother--my mother who could just come and take care of everything, all without it being awkward.  I miss her as I try to parent a three year old.  I suspect that I was a pretty terrible three year old since I can remember throwing some epic fits.  I want to ask her how she and I both survived.

My mother died when I was still a self-adsorbed child.  (And, yes, I can say that I was still much a child at the age of 19.)  We had an excellent relationship.  I would tell her anything and everything about my day.  I often preferred sharing her company to that of my friends'.  She was my best friend and the best mother.  Yet, I have no idea how she occupied her day while I was at school.  I have no clue what her opinion and thoughts were on any given subject.  (The exception to this: mothers giving talks at church on Mother's Day.  I remember quite clearly what she thought about that.  Hint: it wasn't positive.)  I find myself longing to know who she was.  What was she like as a child, a teenager, a young mother.  Who is she now?  What I crave is an adult relationship with her.

Being a mother is hard.  I feel like I have stepped into a role for which I am vastly unprepared.  I feel like I should be more patient, more loving, more of a spiritual rock to my family than I currently am.  I want to be more like my mother.  But then I had an epiphany.  When I think of my mother and her attributes, I think of her as a mother of mostly grown children.  I didn't know her as a mother of small children.  That gives me hope.  I still have time to become more like her.

In the not so distant past, I called my sister.  I was sobbing.  I felt at the end of my rope.  I was not being a good mother.  I was being too rough, too callous, too overwhelmed.  I felt out of control of my emotions, and I had a child who didn't (and still doesn't) understand the statement, "I need to be alone."  After talking me down from the ledge, my sister said a profound statement.  "It is at times like these that we have the Atonement."  At the time, I took that to mean that through the Atonement we can be forgiven of the moments when we are lousy parents.  And there is that.  However, I think it encompasses more.

I mentioned that I didn't know or remember my mother as a parent of small children.  (I am the youngest by the way.)  I am pretty sure though that there were moments when she wasn't emotionally or even physically present.  My dad worked really long hours; we lived on a really tight budget; and I suspect there were periods of depression (although this has not been discussed as a family).  The raising of us four kids stood on her shoulders for the most part, and both physical and emotional resources were limited.  I think it is safe to assume that she experienced days like the one I mentioned above.  I, however, don't remember them.  I don't have memories of horrible days.  I feel like I had a blessed and idyllic childhood.  I feel like I was raised in a safe, secure environment.  

And this, I think, is the Atonement in action.  I know that my mother tried really hard to do her best, to be the best mother she knew how.  But I also think there were times when she fell short.  But because she was faithful, and trying her best, the Lord made up the difference.  As a result, I don't remember and wasn't affected by those times.  As an imperfect mother myself, this gives me hope.  I hope that through the Atonement, not only can I become a better parent, but my kids will be buffeted from my imperfect parenting--that Grace will make up all my woefully lacking areas. 

Because of the Atonement and the Resurrection, I can hope to see my mother again.  At that time, I imagine we will have a long, lengthy, adult conversation about being mothers and how we survived the age of three.