For Your Play Dough Pleasure...

We made home-made play dough the other day.

Once it was ready for use, I left the room to come back to these masterpieces:

(I know he's my son but I think Isaac's got mad skillz.)

"Ware-rabbit"  by the 4 year old Isaac.

"Lizard" by the 4 year old Isaac.

"Hello Kitty" by the 3 year old Peaches.

My latest yum

Rachel's Blackberry Cous-Cous Pudding

(Note:  I never follow recipes.  I measure-by-eye.  My philosiphy: Just keep at it until it tastes right.)

~~This is my take on an Indonesian-style dessert.~~

Steam: 

*cous-cous 

with a generous amount of:

* ginger

* cinnamon 

* cardamom 

Add:

* honey &or sugar (honey is yummier) until desired sweetness is reached (may need to add more later as cream will subdue sweetness)

* Lots of fresh "Washingtonian" black berries

* Fresh cream

Mix and enjoy.

Great for dessert or breakfast!

Serve warm or cold (warm is best)

I would love to hear from those of you who try this...

Sleep, where are you?

I am so tired it feels like pop rocks candy is popping behind my eye balls.

Complete and Total People

My toddlers love to play "superheros".  We have a costume box loaded with capes, wigs, spidey-suits, and vacuum attachments that serve as good makeshift bazookas in times of dragon-slaying and shark-hunting.

Spidey-suit or not...if you ask my son what his name is, 99% of the time he will reply "Peter Parker".  If you ask my daughter what her super-identity is...she will always tell you, "woman".

Woman.

She is 3...and that projection of herself could not be more accurate.

All children; are in fact, whole and complete people.  I agree, my daughter is most definitely, a "little woman".

How many of us grew up hearing responses like,  "I will tell you when you're older" or "because I said so"?

What a diss to the one inquiring.

Really. 

 

If someone asks the time.

Tell them 2:35.

Not the type of watch you have and how it gages 4 different time zones as you fly over them with a mouth full of honey roasted peanuts.

Talk to your kids like they are complete and total people.

Love and appreciate their views and ideas.

Let them have their own.

Who cares how old you are and what initials are after your name...you can learn a lot from someone so fresh to the other side. Things our minds have forgotten, can be resurfaced by the mind of a child.

Much power is entrusted to parents.  It is by and through the experience of family-life...that much power is created.

You know I speak tha Tr00F!

Lullaby of Death

My baby Aaron is 19 months.  Many of his oddities are manifesting themselves.  

Some cute, some uhhhh....

Here is an example:

He hates it when you sing to him.  He screams and arches his back to leap out of your grip and gouges out your eyes.

No I am not exaggerating.

Yes, I am serious.

Is this normal?  Is this abnormal?

Whadoya think?

New Kids

Remember the early 1990's poppy, bubble gum band:

The New Kids on the Block?

Well I found out they are touring again.  You can relive all your girlie puppy love for Donny and Marky Mark...or whoever those guys are/were all over again.  Just like it was the 5th grade!  They are at the Tacoma Dome this November.

I keep thinking this is a joke...and feel it is silly enough to post on my blog.

Relief

My 2 oldest kids are at a summer day camp in the afternoons all this week.

The house is quiet.

I think I can isolate my thoughts enough to realize that I can make this crazy-motherhood-gig work another day.

I have had the theory of "nature vs. nurture" on my brain lately.   I have determined that my kids are just plain crazy! No I am not exaggerating.  It is just fact.  Sure their surroundings play a big role in their behavior...but I gotta just declare that this is the package in which they came.  I feel I am pretty mellow with them and should just deal with this as the way it is and stop sizing them up to other kids their age and how well they behave for their mommiez and daddiez. 

Even though they are crazy...they are that much more animated and fun.

I guess I am feeling a lil' less-sane these past few days and am finding myself more frustrated.  

The schedule, the fighting, the opposition, the time-wasting, the yelling, the "science experiments" of oddities in the bathroom sink and toilet, the language, the needs and requirements of my children and family...have all increased a notch.

I reckon my capacity to handle all this must too.

So yes, this summer camp came in the nick of time.  I think I might now lay on the couch with my baby for 30 minutes or so.

Ahhhhhh, so nice.