Maya Catching Butterflies

Hello, friends. Good Monday afternoon to you all!

I don't know where the time has gone for all of a sudden the start of the 2011-2012 school year is drawing near. I can't say that I'm sad about this because I'm actually excited for the girls to begin anew. This summer has had its ups and downs and mostly I attribute the 'downs' to my lack of planning. I over scheduled the girls in the late afternoons and had absolutely nothing for them to do during the mornings and early afternoons.

I've worked during the morning and afternoons leaving my girls to fend for themselves, only emerging briefly to prepare snacks and meals, otherwise I was involved in daily conference calls and working feverishly to meet deadlines. Did I tell you that in Direct Mail, the mail never stops. NEVER. While I was pounding away on the computer writing and reviewing direct mail materials, my girls were off cranking up the Phinneas and Ferb music and jumping on the sofa in the family room, which by the way, is strictly verboten. But it's hard to enforce the rules when my face is buried in my work.

Additionally, Alex continues to be a rascal. I get so darned angry with her until I have time to sit quietly and truly reflect on where I believe her hostility is coming from. I think I've found the answer. Alex will be starting kindergarten soon and I'm positive that the approaching school year has caused her much anxiety. I can't say that I don't feel for her to some extent, but mostly I want her to come to terms with the fact that school will be fun, exciting, full of surprises and new friendships and new teachers and new playground and a new routine and all that good stuff. I want her to understand that listening to Phinneas and Ferb all day while jumping on the sofa isn't as much fun as kindergarten. HA! Try telling this to a five year old right?

Meanwhile, my first born, Sammy, is turning eight tomorrow. She is beyond giddy and for days now she's been screeching, "Can you believe it, mom? I'm going to be eight!" I can believe it alright and this occasion tugs at my heart a wee little bit. I still remember when I brought this baby... this baby, this Samantha baby home for the first time. I had no idea what I was going to do with her. She was snugly and wiggly and pink and scary. She made foreign noises. Her face contorted into what could not be described as any facial expression I was familiar with. I didn't know if she was, mad, or glad or sad or afraid or anything. When I asked other parents, more experienced parents, what she was trying to convey with a puckered O shaped mouth, they'd say, "She's hungry," or they'd say, "She's constipated." It took me days to figure out the difference between a hungry face and a constipated face, but soon I got it.

Now this tiny baby is a moderate sized eight year old, and I'm still learning what some of her facial expressions mean. Sometimes, there's the ubiquitous rolling of the eyes which totally means the same thing in all languages, Whatever. And then there's the blank stares out into nothingness that I think means, she's bored, or she's got something on her mind, or she's reflecting. I don't know which, but every day I'm learning.

Now summer is coming to an end and I'm closing the book on this chapter of my life. I'm now parent to, a kindergartner and a third grader. Oh what challenges are in store for me, only time will tell.

Last week when Alex was in gymnastics, her coach came and sat down beside me and said the following, "Alex is a hard worker when she wants to be. Mostly she's off in her own little world doing her own thing... she's catching butterflies. Now this isn't a bad thing, she just needs to focus sometimes." This news was unsettling for me to hear. I don't want coaches or teachers for that matter, telling me that my child isn't focused. I took the information with calm and just chewed on it a bit. In the end, I had to admit something that I've known all along about myself, and that is, I too am unfocused... catching butterflies. Could it be that my girls have inherited this trait? Be that as it may, I don't think of it as a negative, only a small opportunity for improvement. We all sometimes need to make adjustments, large and small, in order to move forward in life a better person. I guess this is something me and my girls will have to work at, focusing.

Friends, you have been so incredibly kind coming to this blog to read about my rascals and all the silly things we do as a family. I'm moving on now to a different space that I think might be better suited for my personality. I hope you'll join me there: Maya Catching Butterflies. Maybe this new blog will help me along my journey toward becoming a better, more focused person. I hope to see you there.

Obsessive Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies

The other night I had a bothersome sweet tooth. This sweet tooth was a real nuisance. I'm talking nuisance like a house fly endlessly buzzing against the window while the back door is wide open nuisance. I'm not sure how you would handle an overly aggressive sweet tooth, but I'll tell you how I handled mine.

I decided to bake chocolate chip cookies, but I was down to my last stick of butter when most chocolate chip cookie recipes call for two sticks of butter.

I thumbed through cookie books and blogs, searching for a recipe that required only one stick of butter, and in a short amount of time, I found one. Hot damn! I could already envision that pesky sweet tooth in my rear view mirror. So long sweet tooth!

Though my 'Hurray!' would be short lived because right smack dab in the middle of the page were the words, Hazelnut Butter. Hazelnut Butter? I didn't have Hazelnut Butter, nor would I ever have had Hazelnut Butter. My excitement waned. If I had had an empty tin can, I would have kicked it I was so bummed. And then it came to me. Nutella! In place of the Hazelnut Butter I could use Nutella. Hurray again!  {These cookies were starting to look less like the recipe in front of me and more like an exercise in substitutions: First the Nutella in place of Hazelnut Butter, then considering the sweetness of the Nutella, I reduced the amount of sugar. In place of a whole vanilla bean, I used vanilla extract.}

While the cookies baked I sat in my kitchen listening to a man on the radio talk about crop circles. It was late in the evening, the rascals were sleeping, and my husband was downstairs watching Mad Men by way of Netflix. Don't you just love Netflix, especially now that it's streaming through XBox? Anyways, back to the sweet tooth/cookie fiasco.

While the rascals were in bed, and husband was downstairs, devouring episode upon episode of Mad Men, I was in chocolate, hazelnut heaven. There's something calming about the smell of butter and sugar, AND Nutella. Don't you agree? I kid you not, my house smelled like what I think the Keebler hollow tree would smell like.

When the oven timer went off, I opened the over door to thick, almost perfectly round chocolate chip cookies. I didn't even wait for them to cool before I bit down on one. Almost immediately my annoying sweet tooth was gone. Can I get another, Hurray! These cookies stayed chewy in the middle even after they cooled.

That night I went to bed dreaming of hazelnuts, chocolate and crop circles. Crazy.

Here's the recipe:

 

Obsessive Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

From Mom’s Big Book of Cookies by Lauren Chattman

Ingredients

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup hazelnut butter or Nutella

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

¾ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

¾ cup granulated sugar (I used ¼ cup)

2 large eggs

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (I used a teaspoon vanilla extract)

2 cups semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

¾ cup finely chopped skinned hazelnuts (optional)

1.       Preheat the oven to 375⁰F

2.       Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in medium-sized mixing bowl.

3.       Cream the cooled melted butter, hazelnut butter (or Nutella), and sugars together in a large mixing bowl with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add the eggs and beat until smooth. Scrape the seeds of the vanilla bean into the bowl (or add the vanilla extract) and stir until well distributed. Stir in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips and the nuts, if you are using them. Place bowl in the refrigerator for 10 minutes (or up to 6 hours) to let the dough firm up.

4.       Drop the dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets, leaving about 3 inches between each cookie.

5.       Bake the cookies until golden around the edges but still soft on top, 9 to 11 minutes. Let the cookies stand on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then remove them with a metal spatula to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies will keep at room temperature in an airtight container for 2 to 3 days.

Five Year Old

Suddenly my adorable youngest offspring has turned into a stark raving angst ridden teenager. How did this happen? She’s only five years old. Often times I feel more like I’m aiming to break a horse rather than raise a child. I know it’s a horrible thing to say, comparing my own little girl to a wild horse, but I said it and now its out there, sort of like when a cat hacks up a hairball, it just gets to hacking and despite the pitiful stares, there’s not much it can do but continue hacking until the hairball is up and out. So I guess that’s where I am. I’ve already put the words out there so I might as well hack out the rest.

 

Anyway, as I was saying, I’m breaking a horse instead of raising a five year old. We have our battles, Alex and I, about ten times a day and in the end, I can’t tell you who won, we both walk away dissatisfied. When our arguments finally come to a halt, Alex clomps her hooves angrily as she heads off in the opposite direction all the while pouting her lips with arms folded tightly at her chest like she’s trying to muffle the rage. I too trot off, eyes filled to the brim with tears, unblinking to avoid wetting my cheeks.

 

Alex is a tough one alright. To be so little she sure knows how to hurt me with single-syllabic words. The word ‘NO!’ can be awfully cutting when proclaimed with a growl and whinny. ‘NO!’ coming out of the mouth of a five year old is like a Ginzu knife running through a tomato, so quick, so effective – tomato juice running out onto the cutting board – talk about a pitiful sight. And when that knife punctures me, those hurtful proclamations and the hoof stomping, there is not a trace of tomato juice, instead the only thing coming out of me are etch-a-sketch threats like, “Don’t even think about watching Sunday morning cartoons, because you’re not getting any!” Then, come Sunday morning, there she is plopped down in front of the TV, engrossed. I stand there, etch-a-sketch in hand, shaking it vigorously like a danged fool.

 

When I was pregnant with my oldest, adorable offspring, I envisioned myself raising my child by way of clever eastern philosophical riddles like for instance, “There there my child, a wanderer can only find truth once they have traveled a great distance.” Then my child would look at me, confused, too confused in fact to respond, but then, as a young adult -- after the first major disappointment in her life -- my child would come back to me illuminated, “Mother! You were right. Now I see what you were trying to teach me all along. You are so wise!” Then I would smile a knowing smile, and that would be that. I would be right, and there wouldn’t be any arguing the fact. Instead, most every day since getting into the business of mothering these two adorable offspring, the familiar voice in my head reminds me, “But Maya, you ain’t got no wisdom.” And then I skulk about plotting more realistic methods of mothering; none of which seem to be working.

 

Perhaps threatening isn’t the right approach. Maybe the way to break a horse is sticking to whatever punishment I’ve hacked-up and take the etch-a-sketch out of the picture entirely. Or, maybe threats and punishments are altogether wrong? I haven’t tried horse whispering – could it be that this horse responds better when coaxed with a few sugar cubes? All I know is that I’m tired. I’m tired of the battles. Where the hell is Gandalf when you need him?

 

On a happier note, I’m back from vacation (I know, what a subject change). I’ll share images from our trip later this week.

Random Summer

We are plowing through summer with back and forth trips to gymnastics, the library, dentists appointments, birthday parties, swimming and so much more, and now the sun is shining and our little corner of the world is finally warm. And I say warm because I know most of the U.S. is suffering under oppressive 100+ degree weather which makes me very thankful to be living in the great state of Washington.

I really dislike all the back to school commercials I'm seeing and hearing because it seems premature. Summer really just started... so it seems. Mistakenly, I over scheduled my children this summer and it's only now slowing down to a comfortable rhythm.

Here are a few camera phone pictures from the past couple of weeks. As you've probably already guessed, most of which are of food.

Last week Sammy had two teeth pulled to help with the overcrowding. She did such a good job even though she was super nervous about going under the knife. She's a very brave girl and her reward, bowls and bowls of ice-cream. :)

And here is the reason why wearing a bikini isn't such a good idea for me - Root Beer Float belly.

There's my scary thumb.

Yesterday Alex was on the receiving end of two vaccinations. She smiled the entire time and her only complaint was that the Band-Aid kept falling off. The pediatrician's office is a few blocks from Trophy Cupcake and it's a tradition that after vaccinations, the girls get to feast on cupcakes. Alex chose the Neapolitan and Sammy, the Mint Chocolate Chip. After cupcakes we headed home and on the drive home, Alex said to Sammy, "The only reason why I did so well getting the shot was because you were there." Awe. I was thrilled to hear nice words being exchanged given my children usually can't wait to bust one another at every turn. The constant tattling and the "she hit me, and she snatched that" all day long is maddening.

I never imagined that I'd have a picture like this on my blog. I went with a friend to a tattoo parlor where she was getting her nose re-pierced. I have been contemplating a tattoo despite the grimaces I get whenever it comes up in conversations. If I were to get one, know that it will be discreet; something small, something cute. Trust me, if I were to get a tattoo, I'd also treat myself to a Trophy Cupcake afterwards because I hear getting a tattoo hurts like the dickens!!

Years ago I wanted to get a tattoo of a turtle just slightly above my hip bone, but a very wise friend told me that, "...in a few years, that turtle will look like a hippopotamus." Best darn advice I'd ever received because that friend was right. Refer back to my Root Beer Float comment.