Are We Zen Yet?

Food, laughs and crafts with our beautifully crazy family.

Sight Words Parking Lot

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I love serendipity. I love serendipity even more when it happens after an indulgent brunch that includes carbs, dairy and mimosas — three things I don’t normally consume.

A friend and I recently had an amazing brunch right around the corner from a Target. I needed to buy a few things for a mommy craft meet up I was attending later that day. I had in mind what I wanted to do and needed to pick up a few supplies. I found this cool Sight Words Parking Lot project on Pinterest ages ago and decided it was time to make it a reality.

Image of Sight Words Parking Lot

I was looking for some card stock at Target. I knew I wanted a thicker paper than what appeared to be used in the original, and I was also trying to figure out a way to swap words over time but keep the base parking lot drawing. Alas, Target let me down that day… or so I thought. There was no white card stock, but there was foam board and I just picked it up because I didn’t have time to be picky. I also bought some colorful new Sharpies because… New.Sharpies!!!

As we walked back to my car, I was telling my friend how I’d wanted to save the base parking lot drawing and just swap the words out so I wouldn’t have to make a new parking lot every time we wanted to learn more words.

My friend turned to me with a funny look on her face, “Isn’t there an eraser picture on that board you bought?” We flipped the board over and she pointed it out, “Yeah, right there. This is a dry erase board, [dummy].” Okay, I added the “dummy” in there because she was too polite to say it out loud. Woot! Problem solved! Base parking lot drawing in permanent Sharpie, sight words in dry erase marker. Done deal.

Sight Words Parking Lot Play

This project took me about an hour and a half to complete start to finish. If you aren’t as OCD as I am about having perfectly uniform lines , you could probably cut that time in half at least.

This is another really easy project, and it has a big pay off. The kid actually recognizes these words now! (The miracle of a developing brain right before my very eyes.) This can be as easy or complex as you like — you can see that I added some parking lot images to try to spiff it up. Auto themed stickers would be cool too, I think.

Sight Words Parking Lot Supplies

Dry Erase Foam Board
Sharpies, Markers
Dry Erase Markers

Instructions: Use a book edge or a ruler to create your parking lot spaces with the permanent markers. Add sight words in parking spaces in dry erase markers.

Sight Words Parking Lot Play

Move the red car to the word “up”.

Greek Spinach Rice Spanakorizo

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Don’t be scared. Say it with me: SpanaKOrizo.

“Spa”, as in: Hahaha! Remember when you used to go to the spa for a massage instead of cleaning diaper blowouts?

“Na”, as in: “I’m NOt going to pick up my toys!”

“Ko”, as in: The COpious amounts of times in a fifteen minute span you hear the word “Mommy”. (I counted today — 30 between the two of them, no joke.)

“Rizo”, as in: I’m hungRY ZO I’m going to eat my kids’ leftovers over the sink again.

Or whatever… just call it Greek Spinach Rice. (But it’ll really impress your friends if you pronounce it phonetically when you bring it to a potluck.)

Greek Spinach Rice - Spanakorizo

I have such great memories of Spanakorizo, it was one of my favorite foods to eat and was prepared a lot during Lent. It was several of a group of recipes my mom labeled “Greek Soul Food” — not that she ever cooked Spanakorizo. Cooking was mainly done by my Yiayia (Grandmother) and years later, as an adult, my Thea (Aunt) showed me how to make it with a twist — by adding a little can of tomato sauce, or V8 juice.

The original recipe calls for long grain rice, and I used to make it that way (or with short grain or with brown rice or any combination therein and adjust cooking time). Then, there were the bunches of spinach that would have to be soaked and drained a few times in the (clean) sink or a large pot to clear out all the dirt/sand. That was pre-baby days, though. Nowadays, the family has neither the time or patience to wait an hour or more for dinner.

Greek Spinach Rice - Spanakorizo

So, I’ve simplified it… given us a shortcut or two. And that is: frozen rice and pre-washed baby spinach. It’s a total lifesaver, albeit more expensive. I don’t really care which frozen rice you use, but we happen to use Whole Foods 365 Frozen Thai Jasmine Rice and it imparts a slightly sweet flavor along with the browned onions that’s really nice.

So nice in fact, that my husband and I ate an entire pot of it before we had to do kid pick-ups. They were none the wiser except for a bit of spinach stuck between my front teeth.

If you chop your onion and mince your garlic ahead of time, you’re looking at a meal that’s ready in about 20 minutes.

Greek Spinach Rice - Spanakorizo

Greek Spinach Rice Spanakorizo

7 oz Pre-washed Baby Spinach
12 oz Frozen Rice
1 Medium Onion, chopped
3 Cloves Garlic, minced
Olive Oil
Salt to taste

Serves 4

Prep your onion and garlic. Coat the bottom of a large sized pot/dutch oven with olive oil and heat on high. When the oil is ready, add your onion and sauteé until translucent. Lower heat to medium and add garlic and spinach; stir to combine and reduce the spinach. While the spinach is reducing, cook your frozen rice according to package directions. (I will sometimes cook by about a minute less since I know I’m adding to the pot and it’ll continue cooking with the spinach.)

Once the spinach has reduced and is tender, add in your rice and stir together. Keep on the heat for another minute, add your salt to taste, serve and enjoy!

(If you want to add the tomato sauce, I think the right time would be when you add the spinach as it’s reducing. You’ll also want to add a pinch or two of sugar, or a comparable sweetener, since it balances the acidity/tartness of the tomato sauce.)

Lowered Expectations Mommy Resolutions

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Lowered Expectations Mommy Resolutions

I used to love challenging myself with New Year’s Resolutions. They really worked for me. Year after year, I’d mentally tick off a goal and pat myself on the back for another resolution successfully completed. Since becoming a mom though, I’m less interested in personal challenges requiring more effort than say, figuring out how many pieces of chocolate I can fit into my mouth at one time while hiding behind a cabinet door so the kids don’t see me.

As I continue to adapt to motherhood so too, I realize, must my resolutions. I like the feeling of accomplishment, but I feel like I need to aim a bit lower from now on in order to set myself up to succeed. I’m hopeful that the following resolutions are ones that I can maybe, kinda, sorta accomplish.

Lowered Expectations Mommy Resolutions

1. To lose enough weight that I don’t have to unbutton my pants after a meal

You know how when you’re pregnant you hear left and right how awesome breastfeeding is for losing weight? Oh, that shit just melts right off when you’re breastfeeding. I was so excited to hear this with our first child that I gave serious thought to breastfeeding any willing baby (or funky fetishist) within a 5 mile radius after my baby weaned.

Yeah, guess what? Nope. Not me. Apparently my body doesn’t merely like to hold on to weight after birth. No. It likes to actually gain weight until baby is completely done pwning my breasts. And considering the second is breastfeeding everyday at 17 months as often as Pookie hits a crack pipe in “New Jack City”, I’m going to be stuffing myself into my “fat jeans” for a while.

I’m aiming for a two pound loss in 2015. Just enough that I don’t have to unbutton my pants after I eat a meal over a sink. (See #2 below).

2. Return to eating like a normal

It’s not that I dislike stuffing my children’s picked over and “ABC” leftovers into my pie hole. It’s that I do it over the sink. Shamefully hunched over like Quasimodo in the shadows of the bell tower. Bring me more watermelon soaked macaroni and cheese! Hey kid, you done with that chewed up piece of tofu? Give it here. Why, that’s a perfectly good morsel of avocado smashed into a pancake, I can’t let it go to waste.

Sanctuary!

I want to return to the table on a regular basis. I want to eat with my family instead of over the sink, or over pots on the stove snarling like a wildebeest as I cook and taste test.

3. Go to the bathroom alone

This really shouldn’t be a big ask, but unfortunately it is. During the best of times, I am bombarded with little fists pounding on the door yelling “Mommeh! Mommeh!” During the worst of times, I’m precariously balancing a toddler on my lap for 30 seconds.

Babywearing in the bathroom? Been there, done that. The balancing act is my preferred method versus 22 pounds on my back and a buckle around my waist to contend with. Or when babies were younger, fighting wraps with yards of flowing organic cotton intertwining with toilet paper.

I’m feeling success in 2015, people! How about you? Talk to me in the comments below. What are your Lowered Expectations Mommy Resolutions for 2015. Let’s start a trend!

5 Tips for Airplane Travel with Toddlers

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I’m fresh off a solo trip with my adorable little toddler, Kidbe. We had a one hour plane ride each way and the two flights could not have been more different.

First flight she was all:

Second flight she was all:

During the first flight — The Exorcist Flight — I was mortified by some of her antics. There was the typical screaming, pulling on adjacent seats, kicking the seat in front of her, and spilling of my precious in-flight beverage (water from a can). She raised the bar by rocket launching her doll into the air and onto the head of the other person sitting in our row.

When we finally made it home (me exhausted), I decided to come up with 5 tips for airplane travel with toddlers to avoid any repeat occurrences that might have me once again wondering if there was a priest on the plane to perform an in-flight exorcism.

5 Tips for Airplane Travel with Toddlers

1. Do not.

2. Create an altar to whatever higher power you believe in because you’re going to need divine help. Worship at that altar for a good week before your trip. Light candles, burn incense, dance around a fire naked and sacrifice an Elmo stuffy.

3. Leave yourself enough time before boarding to have a drink. (One drink. Otherwise you may have child services waiting at your destination.) You must not have this one drink on the plane because your toddler will dump it all over you, effectively rendering you a human brewery or vineyard or distillery… and it’s a waste of alcohol too. That’s sacrilege in my book, and probably in the book of your higher power. If you did not follow tip #2 then forgo all beverages both in the airport and on the airplane. You’re screwed.

4. Creative play goes a long way. Sure, people will tell you to bring loads of toys to swap out during the flight, but my experience is that I spend more time picking them up over and over again, or as previously stated they are used as weapons against innocent passengers. A few games we played that actually helped pass the time were: Rip the Pages of the Complimentary Magazine, Pretzel Drop Down Mommy’s Shirt, Baby Performs a Digital Tonsillectomy and Confined Space Gator Wrastlin’.

5. Eliminate the concept of “vacation” from your mind and re-set expectations. There is no vacation with kids; you go on trips. Vacations happen without kids for people like us. If you’re like Beyonce and Jay Z, your vacations are champagne toasting, slow motion playing on the beach in black and white film, throwing your heads back laughing family music video affairs and you-can-suck-it-no-I’m-not-bitter.

Do you have any epic airplane travel stories? Share them in the comments below!

“Sleeping Beauty” Alternate Ending

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It started out innocently enough: reading a book on my phone through the Kindle app. Once we’d finished that book, the Kindle app suggested we might like to read a Little Golden Books version of “Frozen”. I was hesitant because G rated or not, it’s a Disney story. There’s bound to be a frighteningly animated villain, or a sweet animal biting the dust, or both.

I’d been harboring trace amounts of guilt for letting the “Frozen” train come and go without jumping on board, so I bit the bullet, bought it and we read it. I was happy that there was only one page devoted to some sort of snow monster, and it seemed pretty glossed over and harmless. Booyah! Pop-culture indoctrination complete, peer brotherhood level 3 achieved, +10 cool mommy points.

“Read this one, Mommy”, Kidday said as he pointed to “Sleeping Beauty” in a new list of suggested books. I paused. I knew better than to read him “Sleeping Beauty”. It’s always been my favorite classic Disney animated film, but it’s intense and again: Disney. Villain. Frighteningly animated. “Noooo… not that one, honey — let’s find another.” When he requested again though, I relented. After all, Little Golden Books had handled “Frozen” so well, I figured they’d handle “Sleeping Beauty” just as gracefully.

Well, I was wrong. First, we came upon Maleficent’s curse that Princess Aurora would die (literally the word used in the book), the baby princess is whisked away from her parents, teenage Aurora is bullied by Maleficent into touching the spindle whereupon she falls into a deep sleep and finally, the book’s climax: Maleficent turning herself into a dragon that’s killed when Prince Phillip throws his sword into her heart.

Phew. Heavy.

I sugar coated, rainbow dusted and unicorned the hell out of the remaining happily ever after parts of the story as I read them, and Kidday seemed no worse for wear, but here’s what I imagine the story to look like for a kid:

 

Maleficent Curses Aurora to Die

Briar Rose Taken by Fairies

Maleficent Forces Aurora to Touch the Spindle

Phillip Kills Dragon Maleficent

 

The next morning as I’m lying in bed, Kidday shuffles into the room crying and I ask him what’s wrong. “Um… well… Mommy? I’m sad because… um… the sword went into the dragon’s heart and killed it!”

Goddammit, I silently sigh in my head. My husband pops his head into the room to add his usual sage contribution to the pseudo-crisis: “He’s crying because of you, you know”, then ducks back out. After giving him a psychic bitch-slap, I tell Kidday that I’ll “explain everything” after I get out of bed and that he should go eat breakfast.

As I put on my robe, an alternate ending to “Sleeping Beauty” begins to form in my head. I walk into the kitchen and over to Kidday eating cereal at the table. “Honey, you know… that was the short story of ‘Sleeping Beauty’. In the long story, they tell you what really happens to the dragon after the sword goes into its heart.”

“You see, the Dragon was actually under an evil spell too! So, when Prince Phillip throws his sword into the dragon’s heart, it breaks the spell. The dragon falls down into the cave and as it falls, it turns into 100 pink butterflies that fly back up to the kingdom and turn into a beautiful Butterfly Queen! So, you see? It’s really a happy thing!”

“But Mommy, the sword goes into the dragon’s heart! And the dragon dies!” fresh tears well up in his eyes and really, while it makes my job harder, I do sympathize with the kid. Maleficent is my favorite villain and I always felt bad for her.

“The dragon doesn’t really die though — it turns into the Butterfly Queen! And she’s so very happy and she thanks Prince Phillip and Sleeping Beauty for breaking the evil spell.” Kidday finally accepts my pathetic alternate ending, I kick myself again for having read the story to him in the first place, and I give my husband another psychic bitch-slap for good measure.

“Sleeping Beauty” Alternate Ending

Without further ado, I present to you the final two images for the alternate ending of “Sleeping Beauty”. Please feel free to print these and tape them to the end of any copies of the story you may have. Save your children… save yourselves.

Maleficent Dragon Turns Into Butterflies

…And the dragon turns into one hundred pink butterflies…

Queen Beneficent Thanks Prince Phillip and Princess Aurora

The Butterfly Queen Beneficent thanks Prince Phillip and Princess Aurora for breaking the evil spell on her.

 

Maple Spice Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

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Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

 

I really wanted to do right by this recipe. Anyone who has known me long enough knows that I love pumpkin pie flavored (pretty much) anything. Especially pumpkin pie ice cream, which I can no longer eat because at some point in my adult life when I ate dairy it started to feel like someone was stabbing me in the stomach. (Et tu stomachus?) There was a smoothie place I frequented in my early 30’s and every year around this time they’d bust out a pumpkin pie flavored smoothie. You better believe I bought the big ol’ barrel-hug-your-arms-around-it size and drank that till I peed orange.

My mission with this pumpkin pie smoothie was to get it to taste like a milkshake. This took a little work over the past week, but I think I achieved success this morning. I figured I’d nailed it when I realized I was halfway done with the smoothie in less than 30 seconds. I decided to put the smoothie in the refrigerator so I wouldn’t drink it so fast, but then I just kept doing a walk of shame back and forth to the refrigerator, opening and closing the door over and over again for three minutes until there was nary a drop of pumpkin pie smoothie to be had.

This is a sweet smoothie, but it’s Halloween and dammit, we deserve a sweet treat — especially if it’s going to be healthy. Now, if you’re shuddering at the ingredients listed because you’re calculating it’s going to be about a thousand calories — and you’d be right — keep in mind these are nutrient dense ingredients with high quality fats. My body was so satisfied after this smoothie that I didn’t have a pang of hunger for six hours. Still not sold? Share it with someone then, not that I think you’ll be able to once you try it. I had Kidbe in the baby carrier while making this and I shared some with her. Both of us were sporting some serious orange moustaches.

The only minor complaint about this for me is that it wasn’t cold/frosty enough. If you know how to get the texture to be more like an icy milkshake, please post in the comments below!

Maple Spice Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

1 cup full fat coconut milk
1 cup cashew milk
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 cup pureed pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 medium banana, frozen
3 tablespoons hemp hearts
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
3 pitted Medjool dates (if not soft, soak in warm water for about 10 minutes)
6 ice cubes

Put all ingredients except the ice into your high speed blender. Once blended, add in the ice and blend again until the ice is completely broken down.

The Sweet Smell of Baby Poo

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Sweet Smell of Baby Poo

When I was nearing the end of my second pregnancy, I had a secret source of anticipation: I couldn’t wait to smell baby poo again. There were many things I remembered about infancy: the screaming, the bouncing, the sleepless days and nights, the screaming (sometimes mine), the anxiety, the crying (sometimes mine as well), the screaming again. Amidst the few fond memories of smiles and coos, there was one thing that infallibly put a smile on my face. Namely, the sweet, sweet smell of our son’s baby poo. To me, it was a movie theater lobby completely filled with the scent of buttery popcorn. (Yeah, I went there — sorry for ruining that for you all now.)

My husband Schmoops thought I was nuts back then and he thought I was nuts with #2. (Haha, get it? Number 2. See what I did there?) He’s the polar opposite of me, and has to completely breathe through his mouth and close off his nose while changing a diaper. He grudgingly wipes poo bottoms from a full arm’s length while saying things like, “Oh, God, it’s disgusting” or “Oh, God, it stinks!” All the while sounding like he’s got the worst head cold known to mankind.

After Kidbe (heh, #2) was born, I couldn’t wait for her first breastmilk poo*. I didn’t have to wait much longer than a couple of days before I heard the unmistakable expulsion propulsion. It was beautiful, and the familiar scent wafted through her diaper as I was nursing her. I relaxed further back into my pillows, closed my eyes, smiled and took a deep breath as the intoxicating scent enveloped me in euphoria.

There’s a lot of science behind “baby smell”, and the drug-like effect it produces, but I feel there is a serious lack of data on the aphrodisiac effect of baby poo and its role on the mother/baby bond. Is the smell the same for all babies, or does it manifest differently? Might there be a cotton candy scent, or pizza scent, or the ever popular holiday season pumpkin pie scent?

Inevitably, Kidbe aged and the time for solid foods arrived, heralding the demise of sweet buttery popcorn baby poo. I’ll never forget the last time I smelled it. She’d been eating solids for about two months and hadn’t had a breastmilk poo in about as much time. One day, cleaning up after lunch, my olfactory bulb caught a whiff of that sweet eau de poofum. I literally jumped up from cleaning and ran over to her thinking in my head, “That smells like… could it be? No, it couldn’t possibly be.” But it was, dear friends. By my nose to the outside of her diaper covered bottom, dear God it was. And that was a happy day.

*Sweet Smell of Baby Poo Disclosure:

Our babies were/are breastfed so that’s the only type of poo I have experience with. I am not trying to have a debate here on formula poo versus breastmilk milk poo and which poo is superior, has less eliminated vitamins and minerals, a more complex bouquet or indicates a higher IQ. Please feed your children the way that’s right for your family and be happy and healthy… and regular.

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