Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

Jack loves Nutella.  RJ wants to save the orangutangs.  Why do these two things exclude the other you ask? Well, all commercially made chocolate hazelnut spread is made with palm oil.  And palm oil plantations destroy the natural habitat of orangutangs.  Since there is no way to determine what products that use palm oil obtain it ethically we don't have anything in the house that contains palm oil.  Well, we make a concerted effort at least.  However, nutella was the one exception.  Until the screaming, crying fit in Costco one day when I tried to slip the double pack into the cart without anyone noticing.  RJ noticed and gave me quite the lecture.  Jack noticed when I attempted to put it back and had a melt down.  Then the boys were having it at each other and I knew I needed to do something else.  
Jack is a picky eater.  I want to encourage RJ's need to be a servant of the planet.  
So, we agreed to get one more small jar and to look for alternate brands and then to make it ourselves.  No brand I found doesn't have it.  So the last jar was finished this week.  I found three recipes and away I went.  I bought the best ingredients I could afford and took 15 minutes this morning and made our first attempt.  
Success!  
Jack said, "It's just like nutella!" 
RJ said, "Thanks mom."

Whew, narrowly averted chaos.  What will I do when Jack decides next week it doesn't quite taste the same?  Try another recipe, and love my boys.   

Birthday Party Lament

How hard can a birthday party be really?  They are all under 5 ft tall, have unrefined taste buds and well, they are kids.  Come on, how hard can I make this on myself?  Pretty darned impossible, unreasonable and just down right ridiculous.  
To start the journey I lost track of time.  Having a summer birthday is the pits and so we decided after years of last minute desperate calls to anyone who was in town that might know my child's name invites, to schedule something before school is out.  Brilliant! Right, with all the crazy that is the last couple of weeks of school I choose to host a birthday party.  So of course I loose track of time and when he finally settles on what kind of party (B.J. the Clown, at the house) I find that there is only one date available for the next foreseeable future and have a lovely Friday night party on the books.  Less brilliant.  Then I forget to invite half the kids he wants to come because they don't go to his school and I can't possibly send out an e-vite, I have to hand make invitations that need hand delivering.  Thankfully they are understanding mothers and are used to my last minute shenanigans and will love my child by attending anyway.  Even less brilliant.  I think that I will have it really together and bake the cake two days early so that I can frost it early and it will be brilliant!  Cake is lopsided, I ran out of frosting and because it was baked too early or taken out of the oven too early it is a crumbly soggy mess and the great cake fix it of more frosting makes it worse.  Oh and did I mention that the frosting is different colors because I couldn't possibly buy the same kind of white icing.  Genius is slipping away.  So I make cupcakes instead.  What was I thinking?  Dropped the egg shell into the batter.  Awesome.  I had the oven set for 200 because of the pretzels I was making (????) and forgot to up the temp.  After 20 long minutes they weren't finished and I had no idea how to fix it.  Typical Mama E style I over-corrected and over cooked the cupcakes.  Fine!  I will buy a damn cake!  But wait, there is a way to mess that up too!  Leave it on the floor in the back seat of the car and let your child step on it while getting out to go to school.  #$@%*!  
Well, now that I am officially sick and totally over the top strung out, I decide to not cry in front of my child but shout.  Recovering rather quickly I pull him into my arms and apologize and explain that I can fix it.  I don't know how but I will manage.
After a long talk with my mum last night I was reminded of how I even got here and how grateful I need to be.  Just over six years ago I was told that I needed to sacrifice my lady bits in a very real and hard conversation with my doctor.  I was watching this little man of mine who was 18 months old and was told that if I kept them I would have cancer within 7 years and it would probably kill me because it is so hard to catch and treat.  I couldn't imagine not seeing my baby's 8th birthday so the surgery was the next month.  
Well, here I am being ridiculous about my son's 8th birthday because I didn't always think I would get to have it.  
I fixed the cake and it looks decent enough that he will be happy.  My house is a mess and I think that is going to have to be okay.  I'm going to love on my kids and do the best that I can.  There is no need to cry over a lopsided cake and burnt cupcakes.  There is enough icing in the world to fix a stepped on cake and it is amazing how Pinterest can help you craft a clown out of ice cream cones and gumdrops.  I wouldn't miss all these 7 years for anything and I am going to celebrate that I can be here now, for him.

 

Technology Tickets

Well that does it! I'm so tired of hearing about the games on the iPod, iPad, iHeadache, commercials and more terrible shows than Netflix can keep up with. I'm tired of signing the Mom Song and the fighting and the attitude and the loss of control that comes with technology.  So, thanks to Pinterest I have created a much more complicated version of Wii tickets/time.  Honestly, it looks like this because it is what I had at home at 10 o'clock at night and I didn't want to waste a day of getting them in line.
The kids get 10 tickets a week.  We are still deciding if it is M-F or Sun-Sat.  They can also earn extra reward time.  It applies to all things electronic except music.  Any time is rounded up to 30 minutes.  I hope that it is a better way of tracking and I get to spend less time nagging.

Peeps Wreath

The boys and I do this one every year, usually right at the start of Lent so I can enjoy the color as I drive up to the house.  Birds don't eat them, neither do I.  Since I was slower this year putting it together, instead I am going to take it to the office for a couple of days to brighten the space.

Since I have also embarked on the world of Pinterest, here are the directions.

Start with a 12" straw wreath.
Leave the plastic on and you can reuse it every year.
Poke toothpicks just over half way through.
Cluster together the Peeps.
Leave them to dry/harden over night before hanging.
Add a ribbon.
Ta Da!
I use about 7 boxes of peeps, multiple colors, the closer together the better. 
Sometimes I wrap a ribbon around the wreath before adding the Peeps, especially if someone has gotten to them before I have and there are fewer then expected.

Mama Love

I tell the kids all the time that when they are naughty or I am angry I love them the most/more then ever.  

That being said, there are times like this morning where I have to meet with a teacher before school/work and all I want to do is cry my eyes out and tell them to stop picking on my kid; while at the same time telling my kid to knock it off and stop picking on their teacher.  

I love being a mom and it is an amazing experience that makes my heart full to bursting.  It is a wild ride sometimes too, and if I was honest, I want to get off today.  

Guilt

This has become an Olympic Sport in our house.  Trained as I was in the art of second guessing, door mat and self-loathing.  I would make a good Catholic I think, if I could manage the kneeling.  

As a mom I found it could be ratcheted up to a whole new level that I couldn't even envision in my inexperience and days of sleeping in.  I have been keenly aware of my guilt and talk often with moms from all walks of life about this shared experience.  This last month though, I must say my elitist view of guilt came into sharp focus when Phillip was deciding on taking a new job.  He had moments of sheer panic that he wasn't going to be the kind of dad he wants to be with this great unknown work schedule.  He was not comforted by my insistence that the boys and I could manage and he would still be very involved.  I saw in his eyes and on his face the pain and debilitating grip that guilt holds me hostage to so often.  I knew that nothing I could say would assuage his feelings or ease the burden of this decision.  We spent the rest of the evening doing all the funky math that is required to determine your vacation hours earned per month in time for summer camp to ensure that he would still be able to go with both boys.  Guilt, you have taken my love, curse you!

Parent guilt.  I don't care if you work for a paycheck out of the house, work for a paycheck from the house, volunteer at levels that are debilitating or volunteer to cut things out at home.  I don't care if you spend all day with your children and are consumed by their every waking moment or are frantic to cram in quality time in what little quantity time you have.  We ALL are motivated by parent guilt.

Is this enough?  Is it too much?  Do I need to do more?  Do I need to do less?  Did I say the right thing?  How do I recover from saying the wrong thing?  Did I hug them enough today?  Is it wrong that I can't stand one more person using me as a jungle gym?  Is it okay to want a break that doesn't involve a lock on the bathroom door?  I just can't get enough of my kids, is that okay too?  

If I am honest with myself I feel guilt regardless.  Prime example is the dinner I put on the table.  If it is home cooked, all their favorites and meets all their nutritional/allergy/preferences I worry that I spent so much time not 'fully' engaged.  You know, the time where they no longer want to help cook, have homework, have been plugged in too long, need me to sign something about volunteering for something but I really DON'T want to burn things.  When I cheat at cooking and instead play a board game, read a silly book or just sit beside them while they are plugged in, I worry that I'm not feeding them well.  Really?  Really?  

So this common thread through parenting can eat us up.  Maybe spit us out, but probably not.  It drives us to do these crazy things, like compete with other parents.  We begin to judge others against the nonsense we have going on inside our minds, which remember are being held hostage.  This of course, if you have truly honed your skills at guilt, just adds another, deeper level of self loathing.

I don't know what the answer is, but I am actively talking about this 'shared' journey with other parents, well mostly other moms.  Guess what?  There is less guilt when you hear that no one else cleans the shower as often as you would like and there are shortcuts to a decent dinner and yes, while we all like a break outside of the bathroom, we are all grateful when we can even close the door so a lock is nothing to be ashamed of. 

And now?  Well, for all my progress, now I need to compete with Phillip?  Well crap!  Who's going to make dinner?

WHAT?

NO way has it been a year!  

Okay, so Jess, here is my first post and it is lame because I am at work and my camera is at home charging and I have nothing witty to say.  Yet.

I haven't done any more biscuits but I have kept at cooking.  To mixed results.  There were the pork chops that were burned on one side, raw on the other and one was cooked okay in the middle.  RJ doesn't even make eye contact with me on dinners like that.  He just uses a lot of sauce and hides his meat in the puddle.

I have mastered chili this year.  Evidenced by the empty pot from a scouting event.  Although I have been informed that teenage boys eat anything, I still count that as a mastered dish.  

Ooh, I did make meatloaf this last week and it was edible!  

There is much to catch up on so I will get my act together and do a sorta xmas card.  Good start Jess?