Control

A week ago tonight I returned from the Exponent II Retreat in Harvard, MA (it's obviously been a bad blogging week). It was the first time post- Samantha that I have left the fam and gone on an adventure by myself. I will admit, I had a little anxiety up-front about going. Would the girls miss me too much? Would Brian forget about the pre-school carpool or the violin lesson? What would they do for entertainment if it rained ALL weekend? What if the girls ran out of clean clothes? What if the van broke down because I still haven’t gotten around to having it serviced? What if the house caught on fire? What if Ella left the door open and a squirrel got in and ran rampant through the house? What if Brian forgot he had two children and took a trip of his own and the girls had to fend for themselves all weekend?

So I have slight control issues. It has nothing to do with Brian as a competent father—it is much to the contrary. He surpasses me on many fronts (such as the clean, orderly house I came home to last weekend—can’t remember the last time HE got that luxury.) This is also why I am generally the designated family driver. Not because I’m a better driver (a speeding ticket and running over the Dora scooter, which led to a sobbing pre-schooler, have been recently added to my record), but because I can’t relinquish the control.

Last weekend, I did. With parenting AND driving. I drove with two of my good College Park friends, Jenni and Donna, for 8 hours to Boston (Ladies, I never got that picture I wanted of us! Sorry you're not represented!). Jenni drove most of the way, but she did let me get behind the wheel for a few hours. It was the fastest 8 hours--we talked non-stop. Adult conversation. For 8 hours. What a concept. I can’t remember the last time I drove in a car for an extended period of time without having to pacify kids, dole out snacks or sing songs. I did glance at my watch every now and then and think about at what point in the schedule Brian was at with the girls—and I did wonder when my cell phone would ring with clarification questions or some emergency.

But the phone didn’t ring.

As we drove further and further north, we got progressively deeper into Fall. The leaves turn earlier up North and New England was on the verge of gorgeousness.
And then I got to the retreat, and reunited and met some of the most fabulous women ever. There were lots of smart women, honest conversation, a serene setting, yummy food, and a large supply of chocolate and Diet Coke. I also got to be with my two very dear Oberlin friends, Anne and Margaret, who both live in Boston. That meant lots of catching up (intermingled with essential gossip) and some serious Nertz playing (Kathryn, Anne's long-time friend is fortunately down with the game).

Here we are together looking a little unsightly—wet hair, morning time, no make-up. The beauty of Exponent.

And the next day, I realized that I had stopped looking at my watch. I couldn’t remember what itinerary I had left for Brian and an emergency just didn’t seem so imminent. I became engrossed in the workshops, relished in the company of good friends—and I discovered I really had relinquished control.

For you Moms out there—try it. It sure feels good.

Fall Fever

Fall is a much loved season in the Bowcut household. Well, actually, it's MY favorite season and by default everyone else's. I anticipate it all summer long. What better way to inaugurate it with some yummy chocolate chip pumpkin bread. Here's the recipe--which is actually for pumpkin-walnut bread, but I thought chocolate chips sounded much better. Not terribly healthy, but it's very moist, and not too sweet (except for the choc. chips). I made a second loaf with walnuts to prove to my husband that I am actually capable of not altering a recipe.
Pumpkin-Walnut Bread (from Bon Appetit--October 2000)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp. sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup canned pure pumpkin
1 1/2 tsps. grated lemon peel
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup whole milk
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts (or 1 cup chocolate chips)

Preparation
Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 325F. Butter 9x5x3-inch metal loaf pan. Sift first 7 ingredients into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light. Gradually beat in 3/4 cup sugar. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Beat in pumpkin, lemon peel and vanilla. Whisk sour cream and milk in small bowl. Beat flour and sour cream mixtures alternately into batter in 2 additions each. Fold in nuts/choc.chips. Transfer batter to pan; smooth top. Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp. sugar.Bake bread until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 1o minutes (I FOUND IT TOOK ABOUT 15-20 MINUTES BEYOND THIS). Cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn out onto rack; cool. Wrap in foil; store at room temperature.

And a thumbs up endorsement:

PS- Working in the kitchen is a much sweeter experience when your children actually entertain themselves. (of course I would prefer it was outside of the kitchen, but I'll take what I can get.)
Making alphabet soup (totally Ella's idea after I kindly asked her to play with her sister so I could get dinner on). I thought that was rather clever.

Samantha's new favorite hat

PPS- I'm off to the Exponent Retreat tomorrow for a girls' weekend! Wahoo! Brian and the girls will be partying hard while I'm away. In fact, after I handed him 2 pages of neatly typed instructions with accompanying maps and driving directions, Brian said he wouldn't even have to exercise any kind of independent thought or judgment the entire weekend! What can I say...I'm thorough.

A Letter.

Dear Grandma and Grandpa Bowcut,

I must thank you for sending me this FABULOUS dress for my birthday. I was by far the best dressed one-year old at church today. However, I would like to put in a request that as soon as I learn to dress myself, that you send my darling Gymboree clothes by covert mail. My thinking is that if my parents don’t have a heads up that I’m going to look so dang cute, then my mom won’t put a ridiculous bow in my (sparse) hair and they won’t break out the camera so fast. I was so perturbed by the photo shoot today, that I refused to model my new talent of standing up by myself (my Mom and Dad kept yanking up my arms--what am I, some kind of puppet?)

Then when they tried to catch me pulling up on furniture, I quickly changed my course of motion and attempted to confiscate the camera. Or at least get a few slobbery fingerprints on the lens.

And to show them who really runs the roost around here, I rummaged through my Mom's nice table linens in the dining room. Clever, huh?

But then I did decide to cooperate a little in some pictures with my Mom because she really is a babe. And since they seem to get all ecstatic about these things, I decided to throw in a few extras.

Standing with a wave:

a patty-cake:

and some other general cuteness:

I really do wish they'd get a grip. However, as I write this, I do remember my parents saying something about posting some really cute pictures of me as bait to get you two to come here for Thanksgiving. Sounds good to me...just don't forget to bring me new clothes.

Love, Samantha

Gross.

What do you do when your house is plagued with crickets? A plague of biblical proportions...well, not really--it just felt like it. A one-on-one confrontation with such a shadowy, lurking, large, jumping, insect I can cope with. But when I’m out-numbered…I don’t deal. We’ve seem them occasionally in the basement, but they seem to be particularly fond of the back porch. In attempting to finish cleaning it out, I discovered their favorite hiding place was behind some sheets of wood belonging to shelves for our storage room, leaning up against the back wall. You can see here how big and nasty they are.
Would you want that jumping out at you? And as I pulled out the last piece of wood, you can see how many were there. (Notice the camera is not focused on them because I was so grossed out I couldn’t take the time to focus it properly.) It gives me the heeby jeebies just looking at that picture.

So this was my plan of action:
Attempt #1: Remove their hiding place—lay sheet of wood down on ground. They would for sure get the message and vacate the premises, right?

Nope. They simply scoured the wall and ceiling. I felt threatened--under attack, actually.

Attempt #2: Bribe Ella and the kid next door to scare them away. Bless their little hearts. Worked a little bit.

Attempt #3: Bring out the big guns. I sucked those suckers right up.

RIP.

A Weekend Wedding

Brian and I escaped for another night away from the kids.
My dear friend, Pam, from college, got married this weekend outside of Philadelphia. She married a Brian—who not only has a great name, but is a terrific guy. I love that they got engaged in Venezuela en route to the South Pole. Not very many people have an engagement story like that!

Due to some miscommunication with my Mom about when the kids would be dropped off on Saturday, and having to call in an emergency favor from my friend Leslie to briefly stay with the kids, we drove like crazy. We arrived 2 minutes before the ceremony began—I was so relieved! Everything was beautiful, most of all Pam, who literally glowed down the aisle. Since I got married before many of my friends, I'm a little bummed that I did not reap the benefits of getting to attend numerous weddings before my own so I could have gotten some good ideas. I really needed your wedding, Pam, in my hat of ideas. Really, the traditional Polish veil removal dance would have been a nice addition to my reception.

And isn't her dress gorgeous?

Pam was a year behind me in college—besides sharing Polish roots, we became fast friends through taking a number of science courses together. She was by far my favorite lab partner and as Pam tells it, “I knew we’d be good friends when I saw we were wearing the same shoes on the first day of class.” We endured a lot of tough science courses together, but one thing is true—I would not have passed immunology my senior year if it weren’t for her. While I was cavorting back and forth to North Carolina to visit my Brian, Pam was recording lectures, taking notes and collecting homework assignments for me. She has always been a rock solid friend—much better than I deserve. In fact, for the last several years she has lived just 2 miles away from us in Silver Spring (until we moved, of course). We haven’t taken advantage of it nearly enough, but it has been so great having her nearby.

Although we were good friends, we didn’t run in the same social circles—mostly because I was a year ahead. I knew some of her friends and she knew some of mine. At her wedding reception we sat at the Oberlin table--I didn’t know many of them tremendously well, but spending an evening with a group of Obies took me back to why I love Oberlin so much. Obies are quirky and substantive. They often have out of the ordinary experiences and stories—several at the table were involved in PhD programs, one was currently serving on the jury for a murder trial (not by choice, of course), they had traveled to interesting places. And although they were out doing remarkable things, they were humble about it, in addition to accepting and interested in my decision to be home full-time. (Brian and I were the only married couple at the table and the only ones with kids.) A good number were vegetarian or vegan, they were musicians, they drove hybrids and cared about making a difference. Leaving that evening, I felt somewhat refreshed—I had returned briefly to some of my roots. Being with people from my past helped remind me of how I came to be who I am.

And the girls did great with Grandma and Grandpa Munk this weekend. It always slightly amuses me when grandparents are reminded of the challenges of taking care of little kids. They have memories of it when they raised kids, but so much of it fades into the folds of time. What I do know of Ella and Sam’s time with their grandparents was:

Treats were abundant

Car seats were not used

There was a pacifier emergency, where an evening run to Safeway was made for a replacement so Sam would stop screaming and go to sleep.

My Mom also remarked how involved it is getting ready for church in the morning with little kids and how it took four adults to keep Samantha under control throughout the church meetings. Never-the-less, the girls had fun, it’s always a treat to have a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa’s and Samantha once again reached a developmental milestone while her parents were away (you’ll recall she started crawling when we left her with Brian’s parents this summer): she has now started pulling up on furniture. That tricky little girl. Pictures will have to follow in the next post.

A Big Week for Ella

It’s been an eventful week for Ella. She experienced a few “firsts” this week.

Her first day in Ms. Susan's Class.
(This is technically a picture of the SECOND day of school—I had to co-op in her class the first day and I was a bit frazzled getting out the door. Oh well.) For whatever reason she was not paired with any friends from her class last year, and I’ve been so proud of how well she has made friends and settled in. She is the only kid in her class who can read—her teacher said she loves having a reader in class so that she can inspire the other kids to follow. Go Ella!



Her first violin lesson.
Ella has taken up Suzuki violin. Because the parent is highly involved in the Suzuki method, I have also acquired a violin to help in our practices each day. Being a pianist this is all new to me. I’m looking forward to learning and hoping that this sticks with Ella. I do keep thinking about sustaining this for the next 12 years multiplied by our additional children who will take music lessons. Am I really up for this? Any advice out there for getting your children through years of music lessons? A friend told me the other day that she told her kids they could stop piano any time they wanted—they’d just have to stop eating, too.

Her first pedicure.

She thought she’d died and gone to heaven. I have painted her toenails numerous times, but even Ella can tell the amateurs from the professionals. She found the brightest pink in the salon.

Her first time getting her finger slammed in a door.

Seems to be one of those childhood rites of passage. We went out to eat on Friday and she was playing up next to the front door of the restaurant. I watched in slow motion as a customer left the restaurant and Ella’s finger got caught in the hinge side of the door as it closed. The rest of the evening consisted of screaming, crying, whining, and whimpering-- with the use of tissues, bandaids, ice, the boo-boo buddy, cold washcloths, blankies, stuffed animals and many books. Really, where does this tendency for dramatics come from?

Not Working Day

Props to the Central Labor Union of New York City in 1882 for proposing Labor Day. No, I didn't really know that--I had to look it up. But still, it's a great idea. I mean everyone needs a holiday to celebrate their hard work by not working, right? "Not Working Day" sounds more appropriate, I think.

Our celebrations included:
The Kensington Labor Day Parade: It's been almost 2 decades since I've actually gone. But I love that K-town puts this on every year; it really is a fun event. Ella dove for candy, and slurped a slurpee while Samantha waved to the fire trucks. I was disappointed in the candidates running for office who put stickers on the kids. Fortunately the girls were sporting stickers for a candidate I supported, but still, it's a lame way of campaigning.

Cleaning out the screened porch--it was where we dumped everything outdoor/home improvement related when we moved and today we finally started to excavate.

Ella broke in the new Bowcut family playset. It rocks.

And then I tried a new recipe, which Brian and I thought was scrumptious. Burgers on Labor Day are pretty typical, but this is a new twist. I made the Turkey burgers for Brian, but substituted veggie burgers for me and the girls. The tomato jam and feta on top are what make the burger for sure! (I also left out the olives--I can't stand them.) An easy dinner idea, but it does take the tomato jam longer than 10 minutes to reduce, so it's wise to start that first!

Alas, the end of summer is upon us. And I'm glad. The beginning of the school year seems to be a fresh start in some ways. A new routine, new goals and activities. I know we haven't yet begun "real school"--we venture into pre-K this week. But still, it's a big deal to Ella and each year of pre-school has brought tremendous growth and change to her. She told me today that her friend Joe, who just started Kindergarten this past week, told her the first rule of being a Kindergartener. "You have to stay at your desk and you can't just get up and dance around whenever you want." Sounds like waiting till next year for Kindergarten was a good move.