Three little words

Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides.

Rita Mae Brown

It's amazing how much someone's words can impact our day, the way we feel, the way we see ourselves. Sometimes these words can bring us down, fill us with doubt, frustrate of anger us.  Other times these words can lift us up, encourage us or brighten our day.  Yesterday was one of those days when a small comment from a stranger put a smile on my face for the rest of the day. 

I do my weekly grocery shopping on the weekend and yesterday I hit up the store with all three boys in tow. Our grocery store has a children's play area that the boys LOVE, so Big-Bug and Middle-Bug checked in to play while Little-Bug and I made the rounds.  Once our cart was stuffed to the max with our weeks supply of groceries, we headed to the check out line.  As I was loading our order onto the conveyor belt, I couldn't help noticing the woman in front of me was inspecting each item I places on the belt.  I was starting to get a little uncomfortable, thinking "WHAT are you looking at!!" When she turned to me with a kind smile and said "Looks healthy mom!"  I thanked her and we continued to make small talk about babies and motherhood until we finished checking out and parted ways.  But even though our conversation ended, the impact of her words stayed with me all afternoon.  

Healthy eating is something that is so important to me, but the challenge of feeding unprocessed, nutritious meals to five people while maintaining a budget can be a bit of a challenge.  I know I have a tendency to obsess over menu planning and really over-think food choices, so receiving approval from an unbiased, outside observer really means a lot to me!  

Lately we have implemented a 7-day meal rotation to take some of the pressure off of menu planning and to allow me to stock up on basic ingredients in bulk to help out the grocery budget!  So far it seems to be working well, 7 dinners provides enough variety for me to enjoy my meals without becoming bored (which happens to me easily) yet it is a small enough number of dinners that I can quickly memorize my recipes, making dinner prep smoother/faster and I know exactly which ingredients to stock up on when they go on a good sale.

Our current dinner menu is:

• black bean - zucchini quesadillas with spinach salad
• baked tilipa with brown rice steamed broccoli and steamed carrots
• broccoli - mushroom quiche with spinach salad and green beans
• white bean chicken chili with spinach salad and steamed carrots
• black bean - sweet potato casserole and green beans
• chicken stir fry with brown rice
• red bean taco salad

The kids do a pretty good job of eating each of the dinners, although Big-Bug sometimes has objections to his steamed broccoli.  Most surprising to me is the fact that the boys always finish their salad first :)  Little-Bug has even started eating his, which is a big step for him since the texture must seem a little unusual for the little guy.

The boys still eat their favorite lunch every day: PBJ, milk and apple slices, but Hubby and I have recently revised our lunch.  Hubby is trying to eliminate refined sugar from his diet, so things like bread are off his menu for the time being.  I am participating for moral support (but I still love me some sugar!)  Our new lunch consists of vegetable sticks, roasted cashews and almonds and cubes of cheese.  It's actually pretty satisfying and sometimes we throw in some apple slices :)

Lunch Time!

White Bean Chicken Chili

Black Bean Sweet Potato Casserole.
This doesn't look super appetizing, but it is SOO good!

Red Bean Taco Salad

Silence in my house

With an almost five year old, a three year old and a one year old, silence is pretty much a foreign concept in our house.  Even at night someone is getting up to go potty, or having a bad dream, or talking in their sleep, or (in Middle-Bug's case) just making noises in their sleep.

Today was one of those days when life just gives me a headache.  It wasn't a particularly bad day, just an obnoxious one.  It started out fine, with a few snuggles from Middle-Bug and a breakfast of cheerios, bananas and peppermint tea with all three of my boys.  When Hubby got back from his spinning class at the gym, we switched into "get ready mode" and shortly after, headed to the DMV.  I was fully prepared to sit all afternoon in the DMV office.  Hubby kept the boys in the car and we packed a bag with bag lunches and diapers for the kids. Surprisingly, I was in and out in less than an hour - even WITH one trip back out to the car for Hubby's signature when I was informed I am not even on the title of my car....hmmm. Next we popped over to best buy in an attempt to resolve some on-going computer issues (that's a story for another day) and then finally back home. It was a lot of car-time and waiting for the kids, they did pretty well considering. 

Unfortunately, Hubby had a work commitment this afternoon - the kids were pretty bummed.  I think they hate it when he has to go in on his day off more than I do!  Today he had to attend a meeting with the corporate office to go over something they call a "dealer round table."  Supposedly it is a meeting for franchise-owners only, but somehow it landed in Hubby's lap.  He never seems to mind, but I always feel like she should be receiving the benefits of being the owner if he is going to take on the owner's responsibilities!!

By dinner time this evening I had a nagging headache, but I was doing my best to stay positive for the kids sake.  As always, they were FULL of chatter...screeching...and bickering...and fork-poking...and cup tossing...and just general chaos!!  I had a steady internal dialogue all evening that sounded something like this "only two more hours until bed time, you can make it! Hubby could walk in any minute, you can make it!  Just keep smiling for two more hours, you can make it!  Don't worry about your paper (which is due tonight) until the kids are in bed, you can make it!"  I had pretty much convinced myself it would be loud and crazy and busy until 8pm and then I would have time to sit down, close my eyes, feel sorry for myself a little and hopefully get this headache to go away so I could finish my paper on Ethics in Resource Management.  My internal pep-talk was so effective in fact, I felt calm enough to volunteer to whip up a little dessert for the boys.  I diced an apple, filled some ramekins, topped them with some cinnamon, oats and brown sugar and tossed them in the oven to bake.  While I waited I broke up a few fork-sword-fights, stopped a couple of rice in my brother's ear/eye attempts, retrieved a sippy cup a dozen times, caught a glass of milk and listened to a very long (very long) imaginative story about a honey bee.  Finally, I pulled the ramekins from the oven, served the baked apples and.......SILENCE!  For a good five minutes, there was not a sound in the house.  Just the slight scraping of spoons on porcelain and the quiet smacking of preschooler lips.  Who knew it was so easy to buy sanity with a little dessert.

Random act of kindness

So this weekend Hubby went up to Washington to visit some friends and go golfing.  Ordinarily I probably would have tagged along with the boys and used the trip as an excuse to visit family in Washington, but this time I had a dentist appointment I needed to be here for.

For some unknown reason, I am always way more productive and mellow when Hubby is out of town.  I don't know if it's the calming predictability of calling all the shots, or the absence of  little boy vs daddy knight/wizard/dragon battles in the living room but I always get so much more accomplished!  Last night I felt so great as I headed to bed because the house was sparkling, my homework was completely finished and I had a plan for the morning.  When we all rolled out of bed this morning I made french toast with fruit and orange juice for everyone, did a little assigned reading while the boys watch a movie and Little-Bug napped, then we headed out and took care of the grocery shopping.

Yes, everything was going very smoothly...until it was time to leave the store and Little-Bug fought his car seat like it intended to munch on him for a little afternoon snack.  Big-Bug and Middle-Bug were both fully harnessed, waiting patiently while I strained to wrangle Little-Bug (who suddenly seemed to have 8 limbs) into his car seat which is conveniently (NOT!) positioned in the center of the back seat.

As I battled the baby, I suddenly detected the presence of someone coming up behind me.  Any of you moms probably know what I am referring to, that person who parks next to you in the lot and has the perfect timing to come out at the exact moment you are blocking their door while you buckle a child? At this point I am obviously already stressed and so I pretend not to notice the person who is lingering behind me and continue struggling with the baby, trying to distract him with silly sounds and songs with no success.

About then, the mystery person behind me walks around the back of my car to the other side window (at which point I am cringing because I am anticipating a "come on lets hurry it up!" gesture of some kind)  When she gets to the window she starts tapping and waving at Little-Bug, who is completely intrigued and calms down instantly. I buckled his straps as quickly as I could and then began pouring my gratitude on this stranger.  I seriously almost hugged this lady.

Such a simple gesture, but one that made a HUGE difference to my day.

By the time we made it home from the store I was back to feeling ambitious and decided to mow the lawn and sweep off the driveway.  I went through the gigantic process of laying out all the necessary yard tools, setting up the playpen and a selection of toys for Little-Bug, getting out the soccer ball and scooter for the big boys and FINALLY, I was ready to mow the grass.  I walked the boys across the street to the baseball field in front of our house and set Little-Bug in his playpen on the front porch.  As I was just about to start up the mower, Big-Bug hollers to me "Middle-Bug peed his pants."  *sigh* back into the house we all go.  At the end of a three hour process I finally managed to mow my tiny front lawn and sweep the driveway...the neighbors had better notice!

A little polite dinner conversation

*Whew*  I didn't know if I was going to make it through dinner tonight.  The boys were on a roll!  I don't think there was a single moment during dinner when there weren't at least two people talking....that is, until the moment Big-Bug became very quiet and sort of stared off across the room.  Suddenly he looked at me with a VERY serious expression and said

Mom, you're not going to like to hear this....I'm having a pretty violent dream.  It's about a big guy fighting some police and shooting at their ship and blowing it up.  You know how I turn it off? I poke my cheek, then the dream gets all bumpy and turns off.  My NEW dream is about sledding in the snow and the sled flipping over and landing back in the snow *HAHAHA* It's actually a snow sled RACE with Mario and the first person who gets to the bottom is the winner.  And the hill is SO big, it takes 28 hours! *Hysterical laughter* That's the funniest dream I've ever had! Now I'm having a dream of a gingerbread song! 

So I say, "Sing it for me!" and Big-Bug stops laughing, the smile is instantly wiped from his face, he looks at me with an extremely serious expression and says

No Mom, I don't copy dreams.  I NEVER copy dreams.  

Pizza parties and recycling

Last week Big-Bug's preschool class had a field trip to the downtown library.  The library staff put on a private story time for the children, all about reusing and recycling and then the kids watched a short video clip called "Curious George Goes Green."  While I like the message behind the movie....the title makes me cringe!

After the story time, the kids got to have about half an hour of private access to the library's "discovery room."  This room is pretty cool because the staff changes the theme about once a month or so and it is always full of great hands-on learning activities for the children.  This month's theme is recycling (surprise!) and it's very well done.  There is was area where the children can sort compost "waste" from plastic recyclables, a station where the kids were able to "build" a worm bin, a great demonstration table with solar lights and wind energy (utilizing flashlights and hair dryers) and there was even a plastic play tent that had been constructed from layers of plastic shopping bags that had been ironed together!  Pretty cool.

Big-Bug was a little concerned about the recycling room because he thought we were going to ACTUALLY recycle!  Ha ha.  He kept saying "I don't know if I know how to recycle mom, I think it's pretty hard."  Eventually he explained that he thought we were going to be shredding plastic and melting it down to make new things! Silly boy.

After the field trip, both of the older boys were running around our house, looking for the recycle symbol on various items.  "Look mom, your little dipper crock pot lid is recyclable!"  "Look mom, this toy is recyclable!"  I'm glad they are enthusiastic....I just hope I don't find my crock pot out on the curb ;-)

Today was another busy birthday party day around here!  We celebrated the birthday of one of the boys very close friends at a local pizza parlor (coincidentally the same one Big-Bug wants to use for his upcoming birthday celebration.)  Our group wasn't the only one with this idea today, the place was PACKED with birthday parties! I was impressed with how quickly the staff had the pizza orders ready, and the place is just perfect for a noise group of kids (and adults lol)  I had promised the boys they could play arcade games and we spent last night hunting for quarters around the house.  Hubby and I were remembering the games costing $0.75 a piece, so I headed to the party today loaded down with coins.  When we got there we found most of the games were only $0.25!! So the kids were in arcade game heaven!

Insert ominous music here...

I must be crazy.  Here I am in my very last term of school (ideally for the rest of my life, but I have a sneaking suspicion I will find myself in grad school in the future) and I've heard of senioritis, the laziness that sets in when graduation comes clearly into view, but I am finding I definitely do not suffer from that dismissive affliction.  Instead, I have discovered my last term of school is probably going to lead to a heart attack (or perhaps just a panic attack.)  For some unknown reason, I am more stressed about my performance this term than I have been in quite some time.  I think it's the fear of knowing a failed class at this stage of the game sets me back an entire term!  There is no way I am going to allow that to happen!

Because I take my courses online, I have to log on every evening to view my readings, video lectures, discussion boards, assignments and returned work.  As I watch the page load each night I get a knot in my stomach, anticipating a missed deadline or a poor score on an exam.  When I finally close down my browser for the night, I often realize I had been holding my breath.

Thankfully, tonight when I logged on to my courses I was greeted by two full-credit discussion grades, one full-credit paper grade and a returned quiz with a score of 117% (I know lol)  Talk about a relief!  If only I could hold onto that feeling for a day or two....but I know that gnawing anxiety will be back in full force later tonight as I work on my discussion responses... 8 more weeks!

What is that yellow stuff?

Could it be...the sun!  Wow, it felt like spring today around here.  (Well, I guess I should amend that to "It felt like spring around here from about noon to about 2:30")  As promised, I took the boys outside to assemble their new soccer net today at the very first glimpse of sunshine.  I am pretty sure it would have been a great two-man job...unfortunately Hubby had gone into work today (something he seems to love doing on his days off) so I was out there trying to grow an extra set of arms.  I did manage to get the net assembled though, so that was a big triumph for me!

The boys had a great time scoring some goals, then they made up a cone-kicking-goalie game, then that turned into a throw-cones-into-the-net game which digressed into a throw-cones-into-the-net-with-your-head game, which turned into wear-a-cone-like-a-hat game which turned into playing kings and castles and then soccer was forgotten entirely. Ha Ha.