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altarflameI've spent the whole afternoon in the kitchen cooking with the kids, and really dug it. We had butternut squash, steamed and mashed with butter, brown sugar, salt and pepper, for lunch, and brownies for tea and right now there is a roast chicken, green bean casserole, steamed brussel sprouts and garlic parmesean mashed potatoes nearing doneness. FREAKING YUM. Also this all started with a grocery trip with just Ananda, Aaron and I, where we bought supplies for this stuff and also breakfast tomorrow - french toast with oatmeal bread and maple syrup, and mushroom and cheddar omelettes. FREAKING YUM!! We were looking for little baking pumpkins for pies and bread, but alas there were only big carvers so far for jack o lanterns. I LOVE this time of year that's starting...
This is as good a time as any to tell you all that I love to cook...a lot of the time people seem to say things to me like "What are you putting yourself through?" or "I just can't imagine spending all that time in the kitchen..." as if I'm showing off or in a competition - I did it when I was in high school and had no kids, though. For my friends, and my school lunches, and my dinners when I lived with my grandparents who didn't even eat dinner. My house was the afterschool spot for stir fries and "pan concoctions" (just the phrase could make my best friends drool). I'm really not some sort of nutrition martyr so much as I just like spending my time preparing food. I escape TO the kitchen, as Nigella Lawson says. And so often it's such an easy way to go on autopilot and be engaging the kids, interacting with them, teaching them - without planning anything or going out or whatever.
I've been thinking some lately about how I feel I do a good job providing one on one attention to each of my kids, despite having several of them, and I maintain most of my standards as new babies get thrown in (playing outside, bedtime routines, yada yada). I even keep things cleaner now than I did with two. But my safety standards have really slipped as the clan has grown. I'm not sure if it's dangerous at this point, as I was paranoid as hell before...but it's definitely different.
Some examples are pretty silly - like as a scared first time mom I was *freaked out* by What To Expect the First Year's assertion that 8 month old Ananda should be allowed to crawl around in the grass at the park. What if there was TRASH!? Or ants?! Or dog shit? Whereas Jake was crawling through the sand at 6 months, and by a year Isaac could barely walk but could already climb the steps to slide. Other things are shakier, though. Like if Ananda or Aaron was in the bath and there was nobody to call for help and I needed a towel from another room or whatever, I would just have to get them out dripping and crying and make do. With Jake I will sprint like a madwoman to the laundry room, leaving him in the tub alone for the 30 seconds I'm gone. And I never would have let Ananda or Aaron go out on a trampoline or into a backyard with other little kids at 2 - but Isaac does it all the time. In my defense our trampoline has a very secure safety net and pads covering the springs, our yard is surrounded by a 6 foot wooden privacy fence, and there are many windows facing that way. But, there is all sorts of automotive stuff that's semi-dangerous over by the shed where they don't really go (but could), of Grant Sr's, and if you go around the side of the house, the one gate to the front (which is fenceless) is easily opened. I mean we live on a one block long street and know most of our neighbors well enough to take them Christmas presents, I'm just saying, obviously there is an element of risk involved there. I don't go get Jake down for a nap with him out there, but I allow myself to get a bit absorbed in cooking, or the internet, or trying to mop before they're back in.
I was telling Grant that something about Isaac and Jake being so small, makes Ananda and Aaron seem older than they are. For instance I recently let them sit nearby alone at a table at the mall food court, while I ordered smoothies for us. It was uncrowded (weekday) and there were security guards around. After I picked up the drinks and took them to the table and saw what a good time they were having acting grown up, I said they could stay there while I went around the corner with the double stroller to get our food, after making them promise they'd stay together, and stay there sitting. In retrospect I was very, "WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!" because really a 5 year old boy prone to easy distraction and a 6 year old girl have no business sitting unsupervised in a mall food court, even for a couple of minutes. ...At the time it seemed totally reasonable, though. They were sitting together just like I left them when I got back ("this time", a part of me whispers). What do you think? There are many situations these days where, for instance, we've been shopping for awhile and accumulated a bunch of merchandise that is piled on the stroller or a cart with both younger ones in it, and then it's time for me or A or A to have to pee, and there are big warning signs everywhere that you can't take unpaid stuff in the bathroom. So then I send one of them in alone, with reminders to clean the seat or not let your penis touch the toilet or whatever, and to flush. Or I make A and A hold onto the cart and dash in and out myself - usually able to hear them through the door the whole time, but not always. They're always standing there when I get out, though sometimes Aaron has let go of the cart. I have this idea in my head that they're somehow less vulnerable as 4 kids and a contraption, then 1 lone snatchable child would be.
Then there are the in-house hazards. I was such a vigilante about choking hazards, when Annie was an infant. It was insane. I didn't even want loose change in my house, and vaccumed maniacally. Now it's like, yeah, Jake has pretty much ALWAYS got some bead or lego or lip gloss cap in his mouth. I don't think I've ever checked without finding something. And...his first food was raw carrot cake batter that got spilled and he found before I realized I'd dropped some (I was still working, he was at my feet). He's healthy. He's happy. He's just also getting carried around by a Kindergardener who looks like he's doing a tightrope act as he struggles to not drop him. I DO make A and A stay on the carpet and away from tile when they're carrying him (big winning grin and thumbs up). Really Ananda gives Aaron and Isaac piggyback rides at running speed so it...uh..seems harmless enough.
What kinds of reactions do you readers have, reading these things?
This is as good a time as any to tell you all that I love to cook...a lot of the time people seem to say things to me like "What are you putting yourself through?" or "I just can't imagine spending all that time in the kitchen..." as if I'm showing off or in a competition - I did it when I was in high school and had no kids, though. For my friends, and my school lunches, and my dinners when I lived with my grandparents who didn't even eat dinner. My house was the afterschool spot for stir fries and "pan concoctions" (just the phrase could make my best friends drool). I'm really not some sort of nutrition martyr so much as I just like spending my time preparing food. I escape TO the kitchen, as Nigella Lawson says. And so often it's such an easy way to go on autopilot and be engaging the kids, interacting with them, teaching them - without planning anything or going out or whatever.
I've been thinking some lately about how I feel I do a good job providing one on one attention to each of my kids, despite having several of them, and I maintain most of my standards as new babies get thrown in (playing outside, bedtime routines, yada yada). I even keep things cleaner now than I did with two. But my safety standards have really slipped as the clan has grown. I'm not sure if it's dangerous at this point, as I was paranoid as hell before...but it's definitely different.
Some examples are pretty silly - like as a scared first time mom I was *freaked out* by What To Expect the First Year's assertion that 8 month old Ananda should be allowed to crawl around in the grass at the park. What if there was TRASH!? Or ants?! Or dog shit? Whereas Jake was crawling through the sand at 6 months, and by a year Isaac could barely walk but could already climb the steps to slide. Other things are shakier, though. Like if Ananda or Aaron was in the bath and there was nobody to call for help and I needed a towel from another room or whatever, I would just have to get them out dripping and crying and make do. With Jake I will sprint like a madwoman to the laundry room, leaving him in the tub alone for the 30 seconds I'm gone. And I never would have let Ananda or Aaron go out on a trampoline or into a backyard with other little kids at 2 - but Isaac does it all the time. In my defense our trampoline has a very secure safety net and pads covering the springs, our yard is surrounded by a 6 foot wooden privacy fence, and there are many windows facing that way. But, there is all sorts of automotive stuff that's semi-dangerous over by the shed where they don't really go (but could), of Grant Sr's, and if you go around the side of the house, the one gate to the front (which is fenceless) is easily opened. I mean we live on a one block long street and know most of our neighbors well enough to take them Christmas presents, I'm just saying, obviously there is an element of risk involved there. I don't go get Jake down for a nap with him out there, but I allow myself to get a bit absorbed in cooking, or the internet, or trying to mop before they're back in.
I was telling Grant that something about Isaac and Jake being so small, makes Ananda and Aaron seem older than they are. For instance I recently let them sit nearby alone at a table at the mall food court, while I ordered smoothies for us. It was uncrowded (weekday) and there were security guards around. After I picked up the drinks and took them to the table and saw what a good time they were having acting grown up, I said they could stay there while I went around the corner with the double stroller to get our food, after making them promise they'd stay together, and stay there sitting. In retrospect I was very, "WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!" because really a 5 year old boy prone to easy distraction and a 6 year old girl have no business sitting unsupervised in a mall food court, even for a couple of minutes. ...At the time it seemed totally reasonable, though. They were sitting together just like I left them when I got back ("this time", a part of me whispers). What do you think? There are many situations these days where, for instance, we've been shopping for awhile and accumulated a bunch of merchandise that is piled on the stroller or a cart with both younger ones in it, and then it's time for me or A or A to have to pee, and there are big warning signs everywhere that you can't take unpaid stuff in the bathroom. So then I send one of them in alone, with reminders to clean the seat or not let your penis touch the toilet or whatever, and to flush. Or I make A and A hold onto the cart and dash in and out myself - usually able to hear them through the door the whole time, but not always. They're always standing there when I get out, though sometimes Aaron has let go of the cart. I have this idea in my head that they're somehow less vulnerable as 4 kids and a contraption, then 1 lone snatchable child would be.
Then there are the in-house hazards. I was such a vigilante about choking hazards, when Annie was an infant. It was insane. I didn't even want loose change in my house, and vaccumed maniacally. Now it's like, yeah, Jake has pretty much ALWAYS got some bead or lego or lip gloss cap in his mouth. I don't think I've ever checked without finding something. And...his first food was raw carrot cake batter that got spilled and he found before I realized I'd dropped some (I was still working, he was at my feet). He's healthy. He's happy. He's just also getting carried around by a Kindergardener who looks like he's doing a tightrope act as he struggles to not drop him. I DO make A and A stay on the carpet and away from tile when they're carrying him (big winning grin and thumbs up). Really Ananda gives Aaron and Isaac piggyback rides at running speed so it...uh..seems harmless enough.
What kinds of reactions do you readers have, reading these things?
