Playdate

Magic lives here

I know that there are more and more parents these days who are reluctant to play up Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. I've even read that people refer to it as lying. Well they should avoid my house. Because Santa et al are all welcome here and they should bring along their other friends the fairies, wood-sprites and Man in the Moon.

My grandparents gave me a magic genie lantern when I was 5 years old. You may have seen it on my mantle. It's the oldest thing I own. And on special occasions we would hear it rattle in the other room. I'd run down their pink carpeted hallway and sure enough...the genie would have left me something. Not necessarily a toy, but always something special or unique. Often it would be left in the open hands of their Buddha statue. I can remember everything about the moment I received a handful of polished stones from the Magic Genie Lantern. How had these beautiful stones whizzed through time and space to me of all people? It was treasure. Magic meant that anything is possible.

Lucia and I went to the reservation last week into the woods to build a fairy house. I watched her diligently gather sticks, pile up rocks, yank up moss and create a cozy nook for the fairies to live in. She ran around and found 12 acorns that she turned into miniature cups. The final touch was a leaf for their bed.

And on Easter morning (after finding all the big guy had left for us including the chewed up remains of a very large bunch of carrots) she wanted to take the whole family back to the woods to visit her house. So we did. And when we found it, the cups had been moved. Proof!

I hope she remembers that moment the rest of her life.

Italian Wedding Soup, sort of.

I like making soup. It's easy and it feels like you're being some sort of good mom/cook on cold winter's day.

I pour lots of organic chicken broth into a big pot and warm it up. Then I add carrots. Then use whatever you have to whip up some tiny meatballs: ground beef, turkey, meatloaf mix...whatever. Salt, pepper, egg, breadcrumbs, fresh chopped parsley. Sometimes a bit of chopped onion, but my family prefers not to have it. Put a little olive oil on your hands to roll them out and put them on wax paper. They should be petite! Add them to the chicken broth. It can all simmer for awhile and then I chuck in pastina (or little pasta like orzo or rings or ABC's.) Watch the pastina ratio, because a small amount turns into a lot very quickly. The last thing is to toss in a bag of baby spinach. I think kale is more traditional, but I find I usually have spinach on hand. Season to taste and simmer until done.

Microplane a bit of strong cheese over the top and swirl it in: parmesan or reggiano or some other stinky Italian cheese. Serve with a crusty loaf of bread and glass of white wine. Comfort!!

The Dreaded Pee Sneeze

Okay, ever since I gave birth I live in fear of the pee sneeze.  If I feel a sneeze coming on I have to freeze and concentrate very hard in order not to pee my pants.  Isn't that pathetic?  And now we have been doing jumping jacks in exercise class and I spend the whole time concentrating on clamping my pelvic floor muscles.  Will I soon be doing commercials for Poise? 

Thankfully the internet saves the day again.  I have a plan!

• Initially

  - Tighten the pelvic floor muscles for count of six and relax for six seconds. Each contraction cycle should last 12 seconds or 5 contractions a minute. Repeat 25 times. Do this 3 times each day - total 75 contractions

• Week 2

  - Tighten the pelvic floor muscles for 6 seconds every 12 seconds (5 per minute) for 10 minutes, 50 contractions. Do this 3 times each day - total 150 contractions

• Week 3

  - Tighten the pelvic floor muscles for 6 seconds every 12 seconds (5 per minute) for 15 minutes, 75 contractions. Do this 3 times each day - total 225 contractions.

• Weeks 4-24

  - Tighten the pelvic floor muscles for 6 seconds every 12 seconds (5 per minute) for 20 minutes, 100 contractions. Do this 3 times each day - total 100 contractions

• After 24 months

  - Continue maintainence at 10 minutes three times a day or 15 minutes twice a day, total of 150 contractions a day

2 years?  Really  that's a little much.  I need something to speed the process along...

Vaginal cones. They are miniature weights which are placed into the vagina and help pelvic floor exercises.

So now you now what to get me for Xmas.  That and some way to censor myself.

If only I had time to write like I have time to surf.....

Here is a pet monkey for our blog.  I named him Topper.  You can play with him.  Click on him.  Really he's quite sweet.

 

Sawdust blues.

Crafter-in-training

Lucia loves the part of the Goodnight Show where you do a project.  You would think I would be more amenable to this with all the crafting paraphanalia I have.  But at 7:00 PM at night the last thing I want to do is scrounge two toilet paper rolls to make a pair of binoculars or gather spoons to create wind chimes that I do not want in my house or hanging in my trees.  (I caved and made the binoculars.)

On the plus side Lucia is finally interested in projects AND able to take direction, so when I am in the mood, it's really, really fun!  This week I needed a quick craft to kill an hour before work and I decided to make laundry peg people.  All you need are round top laundry pins, markers, yarn, fabric scraps and a hot glue gun.

Draw little faces on them, create a hairstyle out of yarn, glue on a dress or pants and voila! peg people.

Lucia is so proud and she has played with them non-stop for several days.  She even drew a big playmat for them on butcher paper with little houses, roads and pathways and an ocean full of shrimp.

Somewhere over the rainbow..

Lucia found a rainbow.  It was much brighter than this, but this was as good as my camera could catch it.  Can you see it?

Dinnersmith

Figuring out what's for dinner is one of the dreaded tasks here at the Bessitano household lately.  The kids are starving by 5:30 and if we waited until 6:30 for dinner the breakdown level was red alert.  Everyday at 2:00 pm I'd get a little depressed knowing that the inevitable conversation was coming.

What do you want to do about dinner?
I don't know.  What do we have?
Pasta.
We had pasta last night.
What do you want?
I don't know.
Maybe we should meet at the Trattoria.

I know that I should prepare nice, nutritious meals the night before, but damn I'm tired by the time they go to bed.  So instead I watch Frank watch baseball and fall asleep by 9:00 PM.

Dinnersmith to the rescue!  Dinnersmith is a new food prep place located on Springfield Ave. in Maplewood.  The concept is that you assemble a bunch of meals at their kitchen while relaxing with other housefrau's who dread the dinner hour much like yourself.  The process is easy.  You go online several nights before, peruse that month's menu, select the dinners you want to prep, the number of meals you want and pay online.  I'm a jump in kind of girl, so I selected the maximum amount of meals (12) and paid. 

Two night's later we arrived at Dinnersmith, coolers in tow.  The studio is immaculate.  The owner's were super friendly.  They had us stow our stuff in lockers, gave us aprons, showed us where to wash up and then showed us around the "kitchen."  There are a series of stations around the perimeter of the room.  You have the  fixings for each meal all prepared at each station.  No need to chop, or do any of the tedious work of cooking.  It's more like mixing and stirring.  This was great!  After you complete a meal, it's placed in a tin with cooking directions on top.  The entire process was fun and easy.  We drank wine, ate some appetizers they provided, and had good time cooking for the month.

(Sandra showing off the lovely side dishes you get with your meals)

So here it is a about a month later. How was the food? It has been wonderful to not have the dreaded meal conversation so often.  Now it's like...what should we defrost?  The seafood dishes were really good.  I loved the horseradish salmon, thought the pecan encrusted tilapia was very good, and enjoyed both the shrimp and chicken kabobs.  The flank steak was a big hit with my husband, but the sauce was a little too intense for me.  The turkey burgers were great and moist but the stuffed beef burgers were a little dense and salty for me.  I think maybe I added too much of one ingredient.  The BBQ pork and Southwestern bake were the two disappointments in the bunch.   We're picky about our BBQ so it might just be a personal thing.  I think Shama liked it (Shama?  chime in!) however.  I think the trick is to find the meals you like and then repeat them.  It would be great if Dinnersmith had meal tastings so you could decide what you wanted ahead of time.

(Shama being forced to make one of my meals because I ordered so many)

All in all, I think Dinnersmith is well worth the time and money.  Some of the meals actually covered two
nights, and by not ordering out at the last minute we actually saved money for the month.  The owners were lovely and the business is a great addition to Maplewood.  I'm deciding August's menu now.  Crabcakes anyone?

Listen to this!

I recieved a promo email today from Tracy Speuhler and it reminded me to post a link to her music on here.  She worked on a TV show with Frank & I many moons ago and then left for LA to pursue a successful music career.  She writes catchy, well-crafted songs that I think you guys would really like.  Plus she references Frank Black.  How cool is that?

Tracy Speuhler

Unfinished business

Today was going to be a catch up day.  For the first time in almost a year, I had a Wednesday off, a sitter for the kids and a chance to be at home and catch up on whatever I wanted.

(unfinished scarf, computer room)

Industriously, I decided to work in the morning and do some computer stuff like order business cards and create a ad.  That actually passes for fun these days.  And as a reward, I would do something indulgent and for me all afternoon.  Sew or knit or read a book.  Alone. No interruptions.

(unfinished baby hat, family room)

And of course the phone rang.  It was my daughter's camp.  She had shoved a bead up her nose and they couldn't find it.  Yes, she is that kid.  A tiny, pink bead no less.  The exact color of the inside of her nostril.  Not so bad.  I could run, take her to Dr. Cotler's and drop her back at camp spit, spot, hurry, hurry.  Maybe finish Toby's pajamas.

(unfinished baseball pj's for Toby, sewing room)

No such luck.  Dr. Cotler was out of the office and I could visit the sub at 2:45.  In the meantime I could try and blow it out of her nose.  This fun exercise involved me holding one nostril shut, covering her mouth with mine and blowing hard in order to shoot the bead out of her other nostril.  We did this sporadically with no luck.

(unfinished collage, bedroom)

At the appointment, the doctor couldn't find the bead.  Maybe she had swallowed it.  Or maybe it was lodged in her sinus cavity where it could become infected.   The doctor wanted me to take her to the ER.  She must have seen my look of despair, because she called several ENT's until she found one that could see me. So off we went to Dr. Levitt located strategically across from St. Barnabas.  At least if I needed xrays we were right next door.  My daughter moaned about the bead in her nose.  I tried to feel more sympathetic. So into the crowded room we went.  After a bit we saw the doctor.  And you know of course what happened.  There was no bead.

(unfinished human, family room)

We came home at 5:30.  Just in time to make dinner.