kindergarten can wait

today is kieran's first day of second grade. he's ready. he was excited and nervous about meeting his new teacher and seeing how the landscape of this school year would be different. he's been out of school since june 2nd, and he was just starting to get a little bored with camps and my office and being home. this is something we really love about the year round schedule. we take our vacations in september and march, when the beach is quiet and not crowded. we get longer breaks in december right before christmas and in june for the weeks leading up to the 4th of july. it's good. it works for our family.

all of that said, i must tell you that kieran's kindergarten year was hell on wheels. it wasn't the schedule, but rather the jump from a montessori-ish preschool environment into the rigid hyper-structure of today's public school kindergarten. wow. 155 minutes of math and reading with no real breaks every day. 20 minutes of recess, IF he had finished all his work, which he never had. homework on weekends that took us FOREVER to do. a teacher who, though she is a good and experienced teacher, was not a good match for our son and thought he was in need of labels and medication. she was not allowed to say this to us, but it was in every way implied. parent teacher conferences consisted of her giving us lists of his shortcomings and telling us she could do no more to help him unless we got him on a special education plan. we were worried--we talked to his doctor, who all but rolled his eyes at the school system after a handful of preliminary questioning and tests. then we gave up, called that whole year a wash, and just endured. he absolutely hated school. but his grades, i will add, were fine. all year.

first grade was much better, which is almost entirely due to a better teacher fit. it helped, too, that kieran was in after school care at the school, which gave him a very-much-needed sense of school ownership. now he's proud when he does well. he had a flexible and insightful teacher who focused on his strengths and on helping him recognize and address his attention issues without the need to slap a label on them. she had constructive suggestions for ways we could help him at home. my conversations with her were always productive, and i always came away feeling hopeful. it was good.

hopefully second grade will be good, too.

but finn--my sweet, but crazy finn is another bag of chips altogether. he is old enough for kindergarten, his july 12th birthday long before the end of august cut off. he can recognize  colors, letters, and numbers with ease, read a few words, count to a hundred, manipulate scissors--in these areas, he is ahead of where his brother was. but emotionally, he is not there. he is tantrum-y and sees accidental injuries as personal attacks. he hits. he yells. he was thrown out of the preschool/daycare he has attended since he was 4 months old because they were unable to handle his behavior. he is also the loviest, huggiest, most enthusiastic cheek-kisser you will ever meet. he is missing that emotional regulation button that comes with age and experience and will eventually make him a little less sensitive. he also has all the same focus issues as kieran. further, our school schedule means that finn would start kindergarten while still 4 years old, and then turn 5 a week later. what do you do with this child? he's academically ready for kindergarten, but not socially. and there is NO social support in kindergarten anymore. none.

finn, who should be starting kindergarten this week, is getting red-shirted. after much stress, debate, advice from professionals, we decided that sending him to kindergarten was asking for a year of hell for our entire family and was likely to set finn up to hate school forever. we have talked to many families who have been in this situation. nearly all of them who sent their kids anyway regrets it. and not a single one who decided to wait later thought they had made the wrong decision. i believe we are doing right by finn. we have put him in a new school--a teeny, tiny montessori based preschool where the student teacher ratio is 6:1 and the focus is almost entirely on social and emotional development, which is what he needs. he adores it. the academics will come later, but right now, i am choosing to be an elephant mother instead of a tiger one.

some excellent articles i've recently read while debating The Finn Question:

Kindergarten and the Big Divide
Inside the World's Best Kindergarten
Being an "Elephant Mom" in the Time of the Tiger Mother

checking up on myself

lord, how i miss writing!

someone left a comment on a post here from last fall, which made me go back and look at the post. and at last year, which--yes--sucked. it's good to be in a better place right now, though the Bad Things are certainly not without consequences, to which i am still adjusting and recovering. a couple of months ago, i was thinking about last year, wondering if it was really that bad? i looked back at my 3 posts from 2013, all of which were about death. yes. yes, it really was that bad. a rough road, and one that's starting in memory to all run together.

but then, i also looked at the list of changes i recorded here for the new year, and well--i am not doing too badly with those. that gave me a flutter of hope that things are getting better. and they are.it's kind of nice to have a list like that to which to refer when checking up on your own mental progress.

the point here is though--i am going to start writing again. i have been relying on facebook updates and the like to record my thoughts. and for a person who grew up journal writing and then maintained a blog for years, it turns out that it's not enough to just post a blurb here and there. there are rants to release! recipes to write! stuff to say! and who's going to say it if not me? certainly not the several million other bloggers on the internet... :-)

anyway--i'm back. i'm blogging. and imma keep on doing it.

new year

i am not usually one for new year's resolutions, but there are some changes i want to make, and this seems as good a time to start as any. ready?

1. stand up straight
2. walk more
3. keep a cleaner house
4. get organized
5. make at least one thing every month
6. write more
7. play with my children more
8. take care of my man

that's it.

2013 sucked. this year will be better.

an open letter to the district attorney's office of rutherford county, nc

my mother tells me that the DA's office would like each of the surviving children to write a letter detailing how the loss of our father has impacted our lives. these letters would then be available to be read in court if and when the court date regarding his accident ever comes--right now it's been pushed out and is scheduled for november 5th, a day when none of us can go. i have thought long and hard about whether or not to comply with this request, and in the end, i decided that if it was to be a public declaration, then it deserves a place here on the blog.

To: The Office of the District Attorney, District 29A, Mr. David S. Norris, Jr., Assistant D.A.
From: Jackie Jones
RE: The death of Jerry M. Jones, June 13, 2013

Dear Mr. Norris,

Dealing with my father's death is an ongoing process. I have finished the paperwork dealing with the settlements of two insurance companies regarding the valuation of my father's property and his life. Both settlements are done and the money paid--money for a life, which could never be replaced, even for a hundred thousand times the amount. I wrote another letter for that settlement, in which i described the financial impact of his life, his health at the time of his death, and the expenses resulting from losing him. That one was hard, too.

The physical impact of my father's death is everything you would expect from any life cut short, and more, because he was simply tremendous. He was charismatic and a natural leader, and the holes he left with our family, in the Rutherford Country community, and in the organizations he cared about are unfillable. Talk to the people at Habitat for Humanity about the work he did for them--that place was my father's church and the calling of his retirement. They have not yet been able to replace him, through an entire building season.

Here's the thing--how can you say what the emotional impact of a person's death is? I feel so cheated. My father was in good health and could well have lived well into his nineties, like his mother and her father before him. Or not--cancer and heart disease can strike any of us at any time, with no warning. He could have lived through June 13th only to find out a week later he was going to die of a slow horrible cancer. There is no way to know, right? But he didn't live, and he didn't die of any natural cause. He died because another driver on the road made a mistake. Right after the accident, I went and looked at the road where he died. It was easy to see how it could have happened. There's a 4 inch drop off a shoulder that isn't wide enough for the curve--a tire goes off, you over-correct, pop back up over the shoulder, and before you know it, you are on the wrong side of a curve slamming into a motorcycle. I empathize with Caleb Owens and his family and what they must be going through. But it's hard to see through the rage of grief sometimes, too. My father is gone, and I miss him every single day.

I am angry that my young sons will barely remember their grandfather, if at all. I am angry that he will not get to impart to them his knowledge of the world or teach them his amazing work ethic. I am sad they will not get to hear the stories he told with such humor and enthusiasm. I am sad they will not learn to hone an argument as I did, with him as an opponent. I am sad that he will not get to teach them to give back to their community and take care of their families the way my father always did. 

I am mortified for my mother, who has lost her companion of 55 years. She is alone now in a house that she has always thought of as his, taking care of his dogs on her own, forced into a new level of independence that was utterly unwanted in her golden years. She's dealing with the day to day things that now remain undone because of my father's death: a new roof, oil changes for the car, yard work. Simple things, until they aren't. As his death becomes more and more real, she is ever more lonely. I worry about her every day.

I am sad for my sister who has lost so much financial and logistics support in losing our dad. As a single parent with an inflexible manufacturing job, she probably relied on my dad more than any of us for the day-to-day support that only family can bring. And my mother is stepping into that void, but she is not able to maintain the same pace and level of involvement as my father, and it's setting limits for both my sister and her daughter.

And maybe most of all, I am depressed for my brother. As long as I can remember, it's been the three of them, Jay, Doug, and Daddy. We lost Doug two years ago to kidney cancer, which is something from which our family, and especially Jay, is still recovering. When Doug died, I was holding his hand in one of mine, and Daddy's hand in my other. And now my father is gone, too. There are so many pictures of the three of them--it's hard to see those and know that only one remains. Jay's entire adult life has been modeled after our dad's. They worked together, played together, fought and laughed together. And now, Jay feels the weight of responsibility for our entire family with Daddy gone--he is the last man standing.

For me, I miss the security of knowing my father was there to help me if I needed him. I miss hugging him. I miss the sound of his voice. There are small reminders of him literally everywhere I go--I cry in the car a lot. I have trouble on the highway when I see anyone on a motorcycle, fearing for the unknown driver. The outgoing message on my mother's answering machine is still my father's voice--I downloaded software so I could call and record that message, feeling a bit foolish, but clinging to that sound all the same. I wear his watch on my arm for the comfort of his presence. I miss watching the blooming relationship between my father and my partner, Jason--they had just begun to find their way through a sometimes rocky friendship. And I am so very disappointed that if Jason and I decide to get married, my father will not be there to witness it.

We are entering a holiday season, our first without my dad--who will sit at the head of the table now?

Whatever happens, please consider that my father was a large presence, hugely impactful on everyone with whom he came into contact. His legacy is far-reaching and impossible to describe, much like the man himself. His loss is quite a hard weight to bear, for all of us.

Thank-you for your time,
Jackie Jones, youngest daughter of Jerry Jones

heavy

there is mud on my desk from photographing the boot my father was wearing when he died, for the insurance company. my heart is as heavy as his watch feels on my arm. it has been nearly two months since my father was killed in a motorcycle accident, and i have only just begun to believe it.

there is a staggering weight of paperwork associated with death, especially a death related to a traffic accident. it begins almost literally the moment that a person dies, and it feels very much like it may never end, even though it's only been two months, and i believe the finish line is close before us. in the case of my father, it has meant planning and executing a funeral, dealing with a cremation and the resulting ashes, obtaining death certificates, changing bank accounts, backing up and changing passwords for his computer, extracting contacts and photographs from his ruined phone, filing claims with two separate insurance companies related to the accident itself, talking to claims adjusters and handlers till i am blue in the face, and supporting my mother as she has dealt with the administration of his estate, the vehicles, the financial investments, the yard and the house, the dogs, the letters and the thank-you notes. we are not done. we are hip deep in liability and property settlements with the insurance companies. the boy who hit my father has a court date pending next week. each milestone brings me and my mother and brother and sister closer to the moment when we have to face that it is done and that my father is truly dead and gone.

my grandmother died last fall at 94. my great-grandfather lived to be 99, almost 100. my father was 76 and in fantastic health for his age. he was active and taking care of himself. he was still sharp as a tack. and i admit, i expected to have another 20 years of him with me on this earth. i feel robbed. i feel like at any second, someone could come in and tell me that this was a horrible mistake, and that really he is alive and well. i know this is all normal. it's odd how you can compartmentalize so much, and then be so utterly taken aback by some detail that you don't expect. i was helping my mother assess the blue book value of one of my father's trucks, and i went to the truck to get the manual. i opened the door, and it smelled like him. that was my worst moment so far, by a wide mile--like a punch in the gut.

my father was a strong man, seemingly invincible. he was often kinder and more generous with strangers than he was with his family. from us, he expected near-perfection, and was satisfied with no less. he was harsh sometimes, but all of us loved him in spite of that. his often gruff exterior hid, many times, a desire to help and take care of us all. sometimes not--sometimes it was more about control. it's been an interesting experience to see how my outward facing father was respected and loved, and it's been eye opening how different a person can be on the outside and the inside. i will miss the man forever, even though i often wanted to kill him myself. he and my mother raised me to be an independent thinker, and then i think maybe they regretted that when i turned out to disagree with so many of their beliefs about things, especially my dad's. and yet, he had my respect, always, even in the darkest of times. and my love, too.

no matter how it comes, losing a parent simply sucks. losing one so suddenly is a strange thing. i am happy for my father that his death was not a long, lingering illness that robbed him of his self or his dignity or his mind. i am happy that he had a good day the day he died, and that he died doing something he loved. and yet--i am so unprepared for it! there were no goodbyes. it had been too long since i had seen him. i have no idea what the last thing i said to him was, and i will never know. i hope i told him i loved him. but even if i didn't, i know that he knew. i am grateful beyond words that there was no unfinished business between us when he died.

i am sure this will not be the last i write about him--this is just the beginning of me processing everything after a summer of tumult. it is heavy on my soul today because of another sudden death. and in the end, as trite as it sounds, tell your people you love them. tell them over and over. give them hugs and kisses and caring. it ends too soon.

where does it go?

it's almost the end of march, many months after my last post. i have no idea how time passes as quickly as it does. this has been a full, full year--some good and some less so. the children are thriving and growing, and i feel so very lucky to have the life i have, even though it's a chaotic mess most days.our family is (mostly) healthy, (mostly) happy, and (mostly) enjoying each other.

today is maudlin for me--i am thinking about the mad rush two years ago to get to my brother's side before he drew his last breath. tomorrow is the second anniversary of his death, and in many ways, it is still an open wound. as adults, we weren't close for many years, but there is something intangible about knowing that your brother is there that just can't be replaced when he is gone. when his second daughter and then my first son were born, we saw each other more, talked more, and gave each other more support. when he got sick, all i did was read and read and read and try to prepare him and my parents and myself for what lay ahead--for the waste that cancer brings. i can't express how much hate that awful disease. my knitting group has a young friend, a barrista at the cafe where we knit, who got sick last fall and recently died after a brief, intense battle with lukemia. he was not quite 21 years old. another friend has a girlfriend who just had a malignant tumor removed from her brain, and is facing the long road to recovery and a lifetime of monitoring. she is in her 30s and has 3 small boys at home, one with special needs. so many families i know are affected by this horrible disease in so many ways. it's an emotional roller coaster for the patient and for all those who care about them. sometimes even for those who know them only peripherally. but you have to keep the faith. there are always cases like the hippie's aunt, a walking miracle, who had clean scans after a 4-year battle with a glioblastoma, a terrible brain cancer that is almost always swiftly fatal. medical science is a wonder, literally uncovering new solutions every single day.

anyway. this is what i am thinking about today as i go through all the motions of my job and mothering my family. i am treasuring the moments in front of me, no matter how frustrating or mundane or beautiful. i am reminding myself that life is a gift. i am seeking ways to make mine matter more.

morning walk

it was a nice morning out, and everyone was a little tired of playing in the house...

so we decided to head to the park, which the littles thought was an awesome idea!




so we grabbed some snacks.


and we headed out.


the littles got to ride in style with the hippie as their chauffeur.


the critter walked and scootered.


when we got to the park, there was a lot of swinging. hippie was on pushing duty for the littles, while i was hangin' with the critter.


kaiya LOVES to swing!


and so does finn!


man, did we get HOT and THIRSTY!


but that didn't slow anyone down.


no one wanted to go, but everyone was getting hungry, so we headed back to the house.

on the way home, it started to rain, so the critter ran for it and went inside asap. not the littles! they loved the rain!

kaiya didn't want to come in, and neither did finn.


so we let them keep playing for a while. the downspout was the favorite attraction of the day.


then we wrapped it up with a little puddle stomping.


lunch and naps were calling, and the rain stopped, so we went back inside.
a good outing...

the new normal

tomorrow marks the end of the 3rd week since we became a temporary family of 5, and i have to say, it's going far more smoothly than i expected. it's most certainly an adjustment, having 3 little ones in the house, but thanks to our particular kids having a lot of flexibility, even that has been easier than i thought it would be.

kaiya is a sweet girl whose care is a bit high maintenance because of a difficult list of food allergies. but thanks to her uber-laid-back nature and lack of pickiness about what she eats, she is blending right in. first of all, she LOVES daycare. she's happy to go in the morning and happy to see me when i pick her up at night. she's fallen into our routines without effort, and has already come to understand what to expect when. she reaches for her crib at night, and plays happily while waiting to be picked up in the morning when she wakes up. her skin seems under control, and we've been crazy careful about not letting her come into contact with any of her allergens. she's now having one bath a day, one application of a tiny amount of steroid cream per day, and lotion head to toe every time her diaper is changed. it seems to be working. she is happy and giggly and a little demanding--her biggest adjustment has come from not being the only kid in town, but she's getting used to it.

finn has noticed that there's more competition in the house and has responded with a handful of the most insane tantrums you have ever seen, which we ignored. they stopped pretty quickly once he realized they weren't going to get him anything but left howling in the middle of the floor where the dog is almost certainly going to come lick him in the face. he's changed tactics, and has become the loviest little boy on the planet. i admit, that's working better for him--i can't resist me some baby hugs. mostly he's happy to show off for kaiya and make her laugh, and he likes being the only one to get to ride in the stroller in and out of daycare.

kieran has probably had the roughest adjustment of all three kids. i think it's because he's the oldest, and just gets the reality more than the babies do. he feels just a little left out sometimes, being the biggest and the best able to fend for himself. he's found some confort in more stuffed animal time--he's been bringing one to daycare with him lately, which he stopped doing many months ago--and in some extra time with mama. he and i have started watching one episode of avatar at night after the babies are in bed, and it's helping A LOT. he loves kaiya--he thinks she's cooler than finn because she's less likely to wreck his stuff. but at the same time, he goes--mama, you are taking TOO LONG to get kaiya ready for bed! and i just tell him--it's takes as long as it takes--you must be patient. he's actually torn: on one hand, he's proud of himself for his independence, and on the other, he's resentful of having to BE a little more independent for the new dynamics to work. he, too, is adjusting.

and as for me and the hippie--well--we're adjusting, too. we're tag-teaming a little more. we're both learing to manage baths and bedtime on our own. we're learning how to fit time for each other in around time for the kiddos. we're learning to manage the exhaustion that comes with caring for an extra one. we're finding the little wells of extra patience that we need to make it all work.

i have streamlined my daycare drop-off and pick-up process so that i can now get through it in less than 15 minutes--i think that's pretty good. i have learned to make a couple of big things that kaiya can pack for lunches ahead of the week's start. i have learned to plan ahead for her snacks and foods she can feed herself if we want to go anywhere. i have read every label at whole foods and walmart and target and at least 2 grocery stores. i am finding new recipes to make for her. thank goodness i am a person who already cooks a lot and who likes to cook--i don't know how you would deal with the allergies otherwise!

we are working hard this week on backing the whole schedule up so that we get out of the house a little earlier in the morning--i have managed to get through the daycare door before 9am two days in a row. my goal is to get that closer to 8:30, but i'll take anything before 9am and call it success. we are also working on cutting down on TV time and increasing togetherness at family meals. we're eating breakfast and dinner together at the table with no TV and only one toy each, and no TV or iPad till after we're all done. aftermath of a good dinner looks like this:





the hippie left today for a week. it's going to be interesting to see how well i fare on my own without him--prayers and good thoughts appreciated!

anyway--bottom line--for the most part, we are a happy family of 5.

finn is two!

i can't BELIEVE finn is two today! this birthday has snuck up on me a bit in the midst of all the family upheaval related to kaiya's arrival, her mom's departure, and all the ensuing preparations and adjustments we are all still making. finn's so laid back, however--he's just sailing on through. here's what he looked like eating breakfast this morning:



finn is the child of my heart--he is sweet and cuddly and fun. he's a beast and a brute, and he has the cutest giggle in the universe. there's much i could say, but it would all be gushing because i just love him so much. so instead of boring you to tears with all my Proud Mommy Ramblings, i'm just going to show you a bunch of awesome pics of the cuteness. :-)














 

it's hard to look at all these and believe that just two years ago, we were here:




time truly flies. happy birthday to my dear, sweet, chubby, cheeky boy!

on change

change is familiar to all of us. life evolves, and we either run with it or we fall down and let it run over us. that sounds like a cliche, and it is. it is also 100% true. at our house, we try hard to just roll with the tide that comes.

we're facing a new tide right now, and we're gearing up for some major change coming our way. our little niece, kaiya, is coming at the end of the month to stay with us for the next year. her mama is a military mama, and she's deploying into a region that's unsettled enough that ms. kaiya can't go. i can't tell you how badly i feel for them both, especially now, right as they have passed the 1-year milestone when babies start to turn into actual people instead of what my friend jake calls hungry luggage. that said, we are also looking forward to having her and spending the time with her. i am glad our boys get to have their cousin for a sister for this long, and i really hope it leads to some awesome lifelong bonding between all the kids.

i've been working on getting ready for her. getting daycare set up, disassembling my studio to make her a room. remodeling our bedroom to make room for a smaller version of my studio there. fencing in the backyard. doing a big do-si-do of the kids' furniture so i can use some of it in her room, and they can use some of the stuff that used to be in the studio in their rooms. we're nearly there. kaiya's room just needs a few finishing touches, and i have to say--it's fun shopping for something girly in the midst my boyish sea of blue and red and orange and green. there are flowers. and pink. well, a little pink anyway...

the critter is facing his own set of changes right now, too. he's handling it, but change is rough for him--harder than it is for any of the rest of us. but he's talking about his anxieties--telling a million stories about the things that scare him and/or make him uncomfortable, and i think he's really just fine. he'll come to temperature in a month or so. it's a lot at once, though--i get that: his bedroom got rearranged, he knows and understands about kaiya coming, he's in the middle of transitioning into the next room up at daycare, and possibly worst of all--daycare started summertime water play this week. the kid could not hate water play more if someone were paying him to hate it. he informed his teacher this week that, unfortunately, he was a robot and therefore electronic. there's no way a robot can get wet, since water could short his electronics or make his battery die. no way. water--it's not his thing.

finn, on the other hand, LOVES the water with the crazy love. he's been delighted by school lately. and change? it just rolls right over him. new bookshelf? cool! can he climb it? new friends at school? cool! do they want to be wrestled to the ground? new toys? eh. toys, schmoys--where are all the jars and cups with lids? that's really all he wants right now--ALL the cups and jars with lids he can put on and take off. so funny. his only recent change is that he's gone from a kid who would eat anything! everything! now! all the time! to a kid who will eat about 6 things sometimes, if he happens to be in the mood. toddler. right down to the 2-year-old tantrums. he's lucky he's so cute.

our family is growing and ever-changing and delightful. (most of the time.) (except when they aren't.) it's going to be a bumpy couple of months around here as we all adjust to adding a new person to the house, and as she adjusts to being added. but i believe that we will be fine, and that we will find our way together into a new routine soon. at least i hope so!

i am going to try hard to start updating here more and more, posting pictures and updates on all the kids so that not only kaiya's mom, but also all our extended family, can see what these fast-growing and ever-changing babies are up to. too many moments are slipping by with only facebook updates to show for them. i need more!

getting it right - creamy coleslaw

i have been making coleslaw for years, and yet, i've never been happy with it. i've tried recipe after recipe, and never loved the results. i managed an awesome one with savoy cabbage and green garlic a couple of years ago, but while it IS fantastic, it requires a very specific list of ingredients and season to pull off. it's good. it's not basic, classic coleslaw like i want with my barbeque or beside my burger in the summer.

so, yesterday i did some research--i read probably 100 recipes for basic coleslaw, then made something up. this time i was careful to measure everything as i went in case it was actually good. and man--it IS! it has the right mix of sweet, tangy, and creamy for me. it probably helps that all the produce was super-fresh, but i am telling you--this is the one true coleslaw for our house from now on. it's simple, to be sure, but it's a tasty enough version of the classic to share.







INGREDIENTS
1 medium head of cabbage
1 medium to large carrot
4 scallions
3/4 cup mayonnaise
3 1/2 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon celery seeds
black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS
core and chop cabbage and add it to a large bowl. peel the carrot, then grate it into the cabbage. slice scallions and add those as well. toss the veggies until mixed. in a separate bowl, mix all remaining ingredients and stir with a whisk or fork until it's smooth and creamy. taste your dressing, so you can adjust for sweetness and peppery-ness, etc. add dressing to the cabbage mix and toss until the veggies are well coated. refrigerate for an hour or two before you eat so that the flavors have time to marry.


we had this for dinner last night on some pulled pork sandwiches, and it was beyond delicious.







it's worth mentioning that this meal was almost all local. the produce was all from our CSA from in good heart farm, the pork from fickle creek farm, and the onion challah rolls from la farm bakery. i cheated on the beans--they are from the good folks at bush's beans. all of it was 100% yummy.

some things about the critter

NOTE: i started writing this back in january. it's now april, and i am just getting around to finishing it. this is an indication of a) how quickly the time passes, and b) how little time i have to blog these days. whew! however, i still love this information, so i am still posting. prepare for a long one...



the critter, he's getting so big, and there are so many things about him i want to remember. three and a half turns out to be a tough age. he's getting independent, but still needs us. he's developing opinions, but still can't really make his own choices. he's talking more and more and better and better, but still can't always make himself understood. he's got too much energy to nap, but not enough to get through the day. all in all, it makes for an almost bi-polar child who's either elated or completely frustrated. he throws tantrums you would not believe. but he's also a delight. it's all one big roller coaster these days. here are some things i want to remember, in no real order.

• he picks me a flower every morning at daycare when we arrive. we can't go in until he finds one. he hands it to me and says, "mama, here's a flower for your work! you can put it in water if you like!"
• he has 3 imaginary dogs called hardware, take-out, and jack. hardware is the biggest and the oldest and is very lazy. take-out is a blue heeler and the smartest. jack is little and sometimes bites. the stories about these dogs are endless. they are all boys. they have imaginary leashes and toys. they go for walks, just like our real dog.
• he still rides his little fisher price fire truck, for which he is WAY too big. that said, he's a daredevil on that thing and can make it spin out and slide to a stop in a very dramatic manner. he comes flying into the kitchen on it, screms it to a sliding stop half an inch from my foot, looks up at me and says, " stop it--you know you love it!" (WHERE does he get these things???)
• he's super fast on his scooter as well. he has pinwheels he puts on the handles of it so that they stick out on each side, one yellow and one blue. they spin as he rides, and he tells me that they are cooling fans. he puts his toy pliers over the rear axel "to make it go faster." the child is three, and he already believes in after-market mods on his vehicles.
• he tells me he's more of a cat person than a dog person because cats are calmer.
• every night we snuggle a minute in his bed before he goes to sleep. he tells me about his day, and then we have a set routine of hugs and kisses we have to go through. it started as 3 hugs and 3 kisses, but now it's those, plus higs and kisses for the following: firetrucks, fire engines (yes, they're different), bill ( his friend at school's alter-ego name), ribbon (HIS alter-ego name), caitlin (another friend), and one for the road. we repeat this same sequence at daycare drop-off.
• he has chosen a name for his t-rex alter ego: ribbon. mr. ribbon the nice t-rex, to be exact. he will argue sometimes that this is actually his real name, and not kieran. we still call him critter, too. it's all very confusing.
• ribbon's friend's name is harry (not to be confused with our actual real friend harry), and he's a parasaurolophus who makes noise with the bony crest on his year. the fact that he can say parasaurolophus blows me away, especially when he still has trouble with leading s's.
• the kid is obsessed with the mars rover. it is both a ROBOT and a SPACESHIP, and this is awesome. we got him a bunch of space themed bedding for his room, and his main observation was that there was no mars rover represented. because i am a sucker, i went online, downloaded a super high res image of one, and had it made into a pillowcase for him. he's beyond delighted, and carries it all over the house. win.

a few months ago at daycare, he was "friend of the week," which means he was kind of the focus in his class for a few minutes every day. every week, it's a different kid, and that kid gets to bring something in to share with the class every day as well as share his favorite books, snacks, toys, etc. you can do as much or as little as you want to enhance this for your child, and i'd say we're kind of middle of the road. k and i discussed it at length, and he decided he wanted to bring in a book to share every day, and then we decided we would alternate between snacks and toys so that he could give something he likes to his class every day. it's so cute how excited he is to share with them! we also had to do a questionnaire together, which was great fun for both of us. i went through, asked him the questions, and wrote down his answers. i tried hard not to lead him, and just let him answer for himself. some of the answers surprised me. i took pictures of the questionnaire so we could look back at his answers in a few years for comparison--click here if you want to see his crazy answers.

we also went on our first big trip together, just me and the critter, in january. we took the train to washington DC to visit our dear friend, meredith, and spend the weekend sightseeing, critter-style. he was awesome and brave, and had a TON of fun. we went to the natural history museum and the air and space museum, and it's an utter tossup which one he loved more. between the t-rex and the mars rover, i think his head about exploded! he's still talking about all he saw and did, aunt meredith's apartment, the food (especially the cupcakes), and the trains, both amtrak and subway, that we took. he LOVED the taxi ride. all in all, it made me want to travel more. he wants to fly somewhere next. so awesome.

the boy is into food. i LOVE this of course, and i really hope it's something we keep in common between us as he grows older. he loves to help me in the kitchen, and he has food jealousy that may actually be worse than mine. he likes to go to the farmers market with me and talk about what we will cook from the foods we buy there. he has to try everything, even totally unfamiliar foods. when i was out of town a couple of weeks ago, he gave his dad a long lecture on the importance of eating healthy and playing outside and getting enough exercise. i'm just going to go ahead and call that a parenting win. :)

he's my little man. he tells me he loves me to the sun and back. i love him to the sun and back...twice.

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dark days of winter meal 7: chicken and dumplings

i guess i missed a couple of weeks there--i am doing a LOT of local cooking, but the blogging part is often hard for me to keep up with. especially true when there have been some family illnesses to deal with on top of all the normal life madness. not making excuses...just explaining where the heck i've been. to me, the point of this challenge is to make me aware of where everything we eat originates and to make as much of an effort as i can to keep things as local as possible.

on the menu

• chicken and dumplings with kohlrabi and baby carrots
  

(WORST. PICTURE. EVER. --sorry!)

local ingredients

• whole stewing hen from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
  
• cutting celery from screech owl greenhouse (moncure, nc, 19 miles)*
  
• kohlrabi from coon rock farm (hillsborough, nc, 35 miles)*
  
• mixed baby carrots from coon rock farm (hillsborough, nc, 35 miles)*
  
• thyme from our yard (apex, nc, 15 feet)
  
• whole wheat pastry flour from singing turtle farm (dunn, nc, 54 miles)*
• rendered lard from fickle creek farm (efland, nc, 44 miles)*
  
• butter from maple view farm (hillsborough, nc 35 miles)
  
• buttermilk from maple view farm (hillsborough, nc 35 miles)
  
  

* purchased at western wake farmers market

non-local ingredients

• onion
  
• pepper
  
• salt
  
• baking powder
  
• sugar
  

easy: this is a meal i planned for while walking through the farmers market, so it was very easy to get all the ingredients on the spot. some things i already had on hand.

challenging: oddly, nothing to report here. i have accepted the salt, pepper, baking powder, and sugar limitations, so there were no issues there. i just use those things as sparingly as i can, and keep the focus more on the local things i CAN get.

recipes

chicken stock

ingredients:
1 whole stewing hen, about 3 lbs.
1/2 large yellow onion
4-5 stalks of cutting celery
a bunch of thyme
salt and pepper to taste

directions: this one's easy. place all ingredients in a large stock pot. add water until everything is well covered with maybe 1.5 inches to spare. bring it to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover. cook until the meat is starting to separate from the bone, about 4 hours. remove chicken and strain the broth into a clean soup pot. add salt and pepper to taste.
note: you now have awesome broth--you could make anything! :)

chicken and dumplings with carrots and kohlrabi

ingredients:
1.5 - 2lbs young fresh carrots
~1 lb kohlrabi, about 2 bulbs
1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp lard
3/4 cup buttermilk

directions:
trim carrot stems to about 1/2 an inch, then peel carrots. trim away thinnest part of root if necessary. peel and dice kohlrabi to about 1/2 inch chunks. return the broth to a slow boil, and meanwhile, make the dumplings. in large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. cut in butter and lard with a pastry knife or work in with fingers until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. aff buttermilk all at once and make a sticky dough. turn onto floured surface and lightly knead (more like patting) until dough gets just a little springy. roll out to about 3/8 inch thickness, and cut out dumplings (i used a 1-inch round cutter, but you can use whatever you like.) when the broth is boiling, add the veggies and let them cook for about 5 minutes befor eyou add the dumplings. add them slowly, one at a time, till they are all in. note that if your pot is furiously boiling, it will break the dumplings apart. go slow, and cook at a soft boil. everything should be done by the time the veggies are tender, about 10 more minutes.

note: the dumplings are adapted from the biscuit recipe in bill neal's souther cooking cookbook, and they definitely need a little tweaking to get just right. when i made this, i think i added too much buttermilk, so i cut the amount here back a little to 3/4 of a cup. my dumplings fell apart more than i would have liked, although they tasted great. next time i will put in 3/4 cup buttermilk, and maybe up the other fats just a little while dropping 1/2 a tsp of baking powder. the kitchen, as y'all well know, is a lab.

family ruling
AWESOME! will absolutely be making this again.

further thoughts
there are few foods on the earth more divine than fresh baby carrots. so. delicious.

kohlrabi is turning out to be a new favorite of mine. it's like a cross between jicama, broccoli, and a potato. it's good julienned and added raw to salads, it's good in stirfry and sautes for pasta, and it's delicious in stews and soups. it brings a lot to the table, and there's nothing hard to prepare about it. i was kind of intimidated by it at first, but now i want more, and i can't wait to try making slaw out of it, too. it seems like you could use it with or in place of many other things. i wonder if i could make it mashed with some cheese? steamed? in strips with hummus in my lunch box? it seems remarkably useful, healthy, and versatile. let's hear it for cool new (to me) veggies!

one last note on lard: this was my first time working with it, and man--it's pretty awesome. it's the texture--it's smooth as silk, and so easy to work into the flour. i think i might have to try making some tortillas. i am almost sorry i liked it as much as i did--it's not exactly the healthiest fat. but i just wanted to check it out. i felt so old school! i'd be interested to know if you've every cooked with it, and what you thought. my mother always swore it made her biscuits. i wonder if it would mine, too...