The last of our of houseguests for 2012 have left before this morning’s sunrise.  I am sitting at the table basking in the glow of my happy lamp, munching on blueberries and sipping coffee while the children make play-doh cookies and ignore their oatmeal.  The Natalie MacMaster Pandora station is blasting, because it is never quiet in our house, there must always be music.

It is a new year.  The calendar says so.  The Mayans say so.  Susan Miller says so (the best astrological forecast for your money, in my opinion, thanks to sweet RoseRita for the introduction).  2012 has been a challenging year for some many people I know and love, and certainly it will go down in my own personal history as a particularly dark time.  But on this clear morning, it’s nothing a good maritime jig can’t fix.

We have been blessed with a steady stream of guests all year, 2012′s one saving grace.  Weeks and weeks of time with my parents, quiet time with an old Chicago friend, finally meeting an old Calgary friend’s family and falling in love with them all, bonding time with my in-laws, an epic Thanksgiving weekend with some of my favorite college friends.  Is there greater pleasure than getting together with old friends?  Arguing loudly over books and music, baring your soul over quiet coffees, hatching plans, widening the embracing to welcome new loves and chasing a growing gaggle of children- still crazy, after all these years.

Now the house is quiet, save for The Wind that Shakes the Barley.  I hatch my own plans.  Life is good.

Here’s an exercise in letting go.  As I was baking last week, I let Pip do some freestyle baking of her own.

Ingredients include the predictable: flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, milk.  Also, tortilla chips, lots and lots of paprika, and some other stuff.  Frankly, it was hard to keep up.  Oh, some cut up strawberries too.

There was so much pride, so much anticipation as these little muffins were baking in the oven.  And I think they came out pretty good, all things considered:

Oh, my sweet girl just couldn’t wait for her unsuspecting Dad to get home so she could share the fruits of her labor with him.  (I couldn’t either)

But don’t we always tell her that she has to at least take one bite of everything on her plate, before she can decide whether she likes it or not?

I have looked at these pictures a hundred times and I am still busting a gut.

Is this a good Dad, or what?

Seriously, what is in those things?

Don’t you fret over our Pip’s confidence, she was back in the kitchen the next day, ready for action.

My parents have been visiting for a little over a month.  Those of you who do not know my parents are feeling a twinge of pity for me or are groaning at the thought of having guests at your home for that extended a period of time, but those of you who do know my parents know 1) how thoughtful and kind they are, and 2) that they are machines that fix, clean, build, paint, design and garden, while babysitting two children and with a hand tied behind each of their backs and you are feeling a twinge of relief for me and you are also wishing that my parents would visit your house for 5 weeks too.

Also it is the hockey playoffs.  So we thought we would get cable television, something we haven’t had in our home for a couple of years now, managing just fine with a computer hooked up to our television set and surfing Hulu, Amazon on Demand, Netflix and the like.  But grandparents should not be expected to figure out the mess of remote controls, receivers, dials, buttons and levers that come with such an arrangement if they are not already inclined to figure this stuff out and frankly, who has the time when there are guest rooms to paint, dahlias to be planted and playhouses to be built.  Just let them have their cup of tea and watch Dancing with the Stars in peace, for crying out loud, so they can go to bed already, the kids are up at 6:30.

Which means that in the span of 5 weeks my daughter has become hooked on Dancing with the Stars and both my daughter and son are hooked on American Idol.  Those of you who know my children don’t see this as a big surprise, since my son already plays guitar at the tender age of two and looks like a young Bruce Springsteen

and my 4 year old dancer already has a habit of assembling everyone in the fancy living room for various plays, dance shows and concerts of her creation.

The eternal parenting question for me is “Are my children watching too much television?” 

According to the American Pediatric Association, which recommends 2 hours of TV a day max (I can work with that) and a big fat zero hours of TV a day for children under two (wha?? Even if your 22 month old is up at 5:30 AM and you’re in your first trimester and you should have baked those cookies for the playdate yesterday?  Not fair!! [p.s. not pregnant, I just remember how awful it was to limit TV at that time]), then the kids are alright, or at least now that they are 2 they are.  According to all sets of grandparents, the kids are more than alright and frankly I should cut myself a break and turn on some Looney Tunes, it’s not gonna hurt them.  According to all the moms I know and admire, I am not doing nearly enough crafting and playing outside with my kids (though I suspect I am being a bit hard on myself here, since I know that most of the moms I know and admire let their kids watch TV because they are the ones who told me about Dinosaur Train and Busytown Mysteries).

Oh and P.S. I am NOT judging you for how much TV you or your kids watch in your house.  Different house, different rules.  You do what you got to do Mama.  noneofmabizness.

The answer for our family has always been about 1.5 hours of TV a day, at 5:00 PM, so that I can get dinner on the table.   That’s 3 episodes of whatever, with maybe a 4th one if dinner is going to be special or is going off the rails.

I know Valentines Day was over a week ago and it’s not very interesting to post about it now, but Pip made her preschool valentines and they were so easy and turned out so well, I thought you might like to check them out.  You could make these into whatever you wanted, really.  They would make a great rainy day project.  I just made a quick stencil for her, taped onto a blank card and let her paint away.

Lift off the stencil and voila!  A super sweet handmade card:

I woke up in a panic two days before Pip’s 4th birthday party.  ”What if nobody shows up?  What do we do then?”.  Such are the anxieties of a family still setting down roots in a new town.  I needn’t have worried.  It was a lovely party.  We kept things pretty low key, with a camping theme.

Finally, the Ikea easel proves useful.  I had to buy it 2 years ago and neither of my kids have every shown any interest in it.  We parked it outside to welcome guests.

We moved all the furniture out of the way and set up a tent in the sitting room.  And check it out, it’s the birthday banner!  I also made a few garlands of stars (they were just foam stars from Michaels, some wrapped in aluminum foil.)

The food was very simple.  The highlights were fruit kabobs and ham and turkey sandwiches made in the shape of squirrels and porcupines thanks to these Ikea cookie cutters (which get a remarkable amount of use in our house).  And of course, a rainy day version of s’mores, which were marshmallows dipped in melted Trader Joe’s Belgian chocolate bars and rolled in crushed graham crackers.  I ate all the leftovers, I couldn’t help myself.

We played Pip’s favorite birthday game, Pin the Tail on the Donkey, we did the limbo, we waited patiently while the children gently tapped a pinata until C decided to help move it along (Seriously, how long do you think it would take for 7 4 year olds to break a pinata?  4 days?  5?)  We painted birdhouses, which turned out beautifully.

And of course, we ate cake.  Pip’s worn this birthday crown every birthday of her life, by the way.  Isn’t that cool?

The verdict from the birthday girl?  ”It was exquibit!”

“No!  I didn’t say exquisite!  I said EXQUIBIT!”

It started out innocently enough:  ”Mom, is it true that there aren’t as many tigers now as there used to be?”

I have been preparing myself for the birds and the bees talk for a while now, I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for those questions.  But I was not ready to explain endangered species and threatened habitats to a not quite 4-year-old girl whose favorite games are playing okapi and jaguar (it’s just a lot of running around the house as far as I can tell) and who fancies herself an animal rescuer (the kinds of rescues that involve life rafts and zip cords, not poachers and black markets).  Let’s just say I botched it.  Big time.

I tried to explain that there were some people who were not kind to animals but fortunately, there were a lot more people who were kind to animals and who worked really hard to protect them.  Then somehow, through her persistent line of questioning, I got into poachers and bear skin rugs and maybe even shopping malls in the jungle, I don’t know.  All I know is that I had a little girl with tears welling up in her eyes in the backseat of the car who just couldn’t stop herself from asking more questions.  ”Have you killed an animal?”  ”How do they kill animals?”  ”What’s a gun?” “How do they make a rug out of skin?”  ”No but how?”  ”Does Dad know?”  Parenting fail.

Two days later, we’re still talking through it.  We’ve talked about how people in the past used to hunt, and some people still do now, and they are very grateful for the meat that the animal provides and that they use every part, including the fur, to keep warm.  We talked about how killing lions and tigers and pandas is illegal and that there are a lot of people whose job it is to protect those animals.  We role played with her jungle hospital and nursed a menagerie back to health.  It’s interesting how she’s working things out in her mind.  She told us tonight about her pet pig whose butt she chops off once in a while to make ham for people so that they don’t have to kill tigers anymore (she has a lot of imaginary animal friends, she also has a dog that kept her up all night howling and gave her such a headache that she just couldn’t eat her dinner).

It breaks my heart to think that she is at the age now where she is going to start asking questions that have difficult answers and she is going to slowly (quickly?) learn that the world is kind of messed up and sad in a lot of ways.  Ugh.  ”These animals have all been killed” she said as she wheeled each plastic creature into her hospital.  How sad is that?  What have I done to my child?!?  Thankfully, she just meant seriously injured.

At least we know what we’re getting her for her birthday.  She can be the pride mother and protector to her very own tiger, through the WWF’s Adopt a Tiger program.

Dear Santa,

We are going to give you a present that’s golden glass.  Why doesn’t our green pen work?  This letter is from Piper Angeline MacDonald.  I have the Rudolph movie, you are in it.  Our refrigerator door doesn’t work.*  How are the elves?  Why do all the elves work all day and all night?  You were a baby once, right?  Silly, silly baby Santa.  I’ve been good this year.  I’ve been all day happy.  I’ve been helping Mama cook.  I want candy canes**, pumpkins, please.  I would like something that is round, that has a tail, nose, ears and a mouth.  It’s a poodle.  I want a toy poodle.  That’s it.  Please and thank you. 

Safe travels, take care of the elves. 

Piper

encl. picture of rainbow

encl. picture of poodle

* The refrigerator door has long been fixed.

** She doesn’t actually like candy canes, please don’t buy her any.

You know what’s really cool?  If you mail your letter to Santa here, he (or a dedicated volunteer team of letter writing elves) will write you back.  Thanks Canada Post!

Santa Claus

North Pole

H0H 0H0

Canada

Well I won’t lie, this year has been a particularly challenging one for me and for our family.  Most of it was spent in one transition or another, which is tough enough on adults but really disorienting for children.  Moving is hard.  I know.  It could be much worse, people do this all the time, it will get easier, we just need to give it time, the worst is behind us.  But sometimes it’s important to just stop and acknowledge that something is difficult.  No positive spin, no bright side.  There is comfort in validating your feelings, even wallowing in them for a few minutes.  You cannot change what you won’t acknowledge.  Moving is hard.  Starting over from scratch is hard.  It takes so damn long to find a groove.

So you can imagine my joy when some of our dearest, oldest friends came to visit and celebrated Thanksgiving with us.  At last something warm and familiar.  I don’t know if there is greater comfort in life than sharing familiar stories, strong opinions and a leisurely meal with old friends.  Just like that, house became home, and we get brief respite from the lonely road we are traveling.

Pip has been collecting and painting rocks for the past few months.  Every guest at our table got one, and deposited it in a bowl as we went around the table giving thanks.  It was lovely.

Should you ever be so lucky to host friends you love, consider this recipe for dinner: Farm Girl’s lasagna soup was hearty, inexpensive, fed a small crowd and was delicious.  I edited a bit by using ground beef instead of sausage (my kids like it better) and just mixing all the cheeses together and really going for it.  I also humbly offer you my own pancake recipe, which is requested 3 mornings a week by my kids, and which I cooked twice on the weekend for my friends.  It is the only recipe I know by heart.

Love my Pancakes

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tbs sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tbs baking powder

Stir dry ingredients together.  Make a well (dig a hole in the middle), add:

1 1/4 cup coconut milk *

1 egg

Whisk

Stir in generous 1/2 cup cottage cheese **

Drizzle to drown with maple syrup.

* I can’t take credit for that, that’s Miss Kathleen’s genius.  We use Trader Joe‘s light coconut milk, which helps to alleviate guilt

** It’s good, trust me.  Stir in at the end so you don’t mistake lumpy batter for cottage cheese.

Try them!  Let me know if you like them!

Oh hi, it’s nice to see you again!  What’s that you say, I look pretty good?  There’s a bit of a spring in my step?  I’m…chipper?

Well you see darling, I went away to Calgary for my best friend’s bachelorette party for 4 whole days.  All. by. myself.  And I gave myself a special little treat, I decided to not feel one tiny little bit of guilt about it.  Confession: it was surprisingly easy.   Hello old friends, let’s share a hotel room and gab all night.  Hello 9:30 am, what a perfectly civilized time to wake up.  Hello sticky toffee cake, you’ll make a terrific lunch.  Hello new boots, you’re going to look fabulous on the dance floor.   Hello Tom Collins, you old devil you.

I’m not going to go on and on about how I deserved this weekend.  I know I did.  I don’t need to justify it to myself or to anyone.  We all deserve a few days to ourselves.  Parenting is hard, whether you are at home full-time or have a job outside the home, whether your family lives nearby or not, whether your children are angels or “going through something right now”.  I will say though that the week of puke, poop, dehydration and fever leading up to my weekend away made it that much easier to pack my bags.

And surprise, surprise, I’ve come back an entirely different person.  I’ve laughed more in the last 3 days than I have in a month.  My kids are just so cute. They’re so sweet!   And my husband is so funny and handsome.  And he just really appreciates me, you know?   This week, we’re re-organizing closets and getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner, doesn’t that sound like fun?  When my daughter yells at me (she does that sometimes because she’s 3 1/2 and 3 1/2 is a lot like 16), I don’t yell back.  I just gently, kindly, zen-ly respond “I’m not yelling at you, please don’t yell at me.”  When my son wakes up whining and crabby, I look to Pip and we smile and shrug.  He’s just not a morning person.

How can you feel guilty about something that makes you feel this good?  That makes you an exponentially better parent??

I wish this for you, harried, tired Mama.  I wish you a weekend away at a super fun bachelorette party weekend with old friends you love with all your heart, sure.  But really, what I wish for you is that whatever time you manage to carve out for yourself, that you don’t feel one second of guilt or hand-wringing about it.  And don’t you dare feel guilty for not feeling guilty.  I know your game.  Just have a Tom Collins and slip back into your old pre-mama self for one hot minute.  Own it!! as a wise Mama friend once urged me.  And then bring some of that spark back home with you.  It feels really, really good.