fighting words

Maybe the triple digit heat with temperatures upwards of 110 degrees have something to do with it, or maybe it's a consequence of us slacking off on our agenda, but I've noticed an unwelcome increase in the amount whining, fussing, and caterwauling heard in these parts -- yes, even from me.  What's going on?   The answer is probably multi-fold, but on my part I'm sure my sleep deficit isn't helping.  I thought this braid of homegrown garlic curing in our kitchen might help ward off the crankies (just kidding), but alas it has not.

I am not one to criticize, blame, nag, cajole, or be passive aggressive.  When I am extraordinarily tired, however, I am far less able to take the "normal" drama and shennanigans in stride.  Instead of employing humor, goofiness, or alternatives to yelling like singing or whispering, I am far more inclined to be snarky, snippy, snide, or sarcarstic in my terse responses.  I am never proud of those pronouncements.  They are anything but constructive. I don't like to be spoken to in any of those ways, and I always feel terrible when I allow such vitriol to escape my lips. 

It is one of my highest priorities for our bambini to learn to authentically, respectfully, and honestly express whatever emotion or need they're trying to verbalize.   However will they learn to do that?  By replicating the way the adults in their lives handle themselves in times of stress and moments of need.  (That would be me, among others)

When one of our children spouts off some poorly-phrased demand request or hurtful insult, I try to respond matter-of-factly with an opportunity to restate him- or herself and a script to use in doing so.  When the insults are flying among siblings or disrespectful demands are hurtled my way, adding my own yelling voice to the equation gets us nowhere good (even if I'm trying to communicate that some things are better left unsaid).

Feelings of frustration, disappointment, hurt, and confusion are all part of the human experience.  It's important to sort them out and move on without name-calling, empty threats, or brute force, just as it's important to take ownership of the emotions we feel and take control of how we allow the treatment of others to affect us.  Similarly, we all have basic (and not-so-basic) needs for all kinds of things both tangible and intangible.  Not every need is of equal necessity, nor can every one be met *right now.*  And we can't always have everything we want -- not in this life.

We owe it to our bambini, their future spouses, ourselves, and society at large to express our own emotions, needs, and desires clearly, respectfully, and as lovingly as possible -- even when we are tired, frustrated, hungry, overheated, or otherwise vexed -- so that when our little loves go to express themselves, they will have some positive point of reference to model.  They won't always get it right, but with practice comes a greater chance of success.

On my part I have to get better about going to bed earlier so that I have easier access to the tools at my disposal.  When it comes to conflict resolution, I'm still working on developing the virtue of fortitude to speak up in a manner that honors the needs of all involved.  The best outcome of such a faithful response to conflict or insult instructs those who are watching closely to be ever mindful of the presence of Christ in every person and to be respectful of the inherent dignity in each of God's precious children, young or old, sassy or circumspect, willing or unwilling, peaceful or troubled, happy or sad, whatever and whenever.  It's how I wish to be treated, and it's how I endeavor to teach our bambini to treat others, to "do as I would be done by", and to tread lightly on the delicate ground that is the heart of the other.

green goodness

The vegetable garden in our backyard is on a great run.   Earlier this spring we had dumptruck loads of beets...

The lads' Tonka dumptruck makes a great produce-hauling mobile, especially with the younger lass at the wheel.

  ...garlic ...

homegrown garlic.  Who knew?!

 ... and peas.

School uniform shirts are good for holding freshly-harvested peas that younger sisters will soon devour.

We also had spinach, radishes, and carrots.  In recent weeks we've been enjoying green onions, white onions, an array of heirloom tomatoes...

 ... and some sweet Jimmy Nardello peppers.   My beloved has been tweaking his salsa recipe with the rest of us (even me, shockingly) serving as taste-testers.

Juan Flamme heirloom tomatoes and Jimmy Nardello peppers from our garden with some thyme from Grandmare's garden

The elder lad has taken upon himself the morning watering duties, all the while doing his level best to keep his baby sister from plucking the unripe fruit from the tomato vines.  That's proving to be a mighty challenge.

All the bambini have gotten into the garden-tending spirit, even sampling the fruits of their labors (some more willingly than others).  Seeing them out there working alongside their daddy is as sweet a sight as the taste is delicious from the "farm to table" produce just beyond our doorstep.

good news • bad news • good eats

This can't be good:

our washing machine presently

...especially when we're going on a week with a nasty virus afflicting most of us (the elder lad and I are the holdouts).  One might expect that a few days with an offline washer might mean I'd catch up a little, but alas this is not the case.

Downer as that may be, I am happy to report that the elder lad has been branching out a bit from his standard fare, eating more fresh fruit and even some vegetables.  He says broccoli is his favorite, but he and his sister (the three-year-old elder lass) made short work of some of our backyard garden-fresh peas.

Lass could use a manicure.

We had planned to use those peas in a stir-fry for dinner, but our little field hands took a hefty "fee" for their picking work.  That's alright. 

Speaking of stir-frying, that's what I'm writing about today at Foodie Proclivities.  Check it out here.  Have I ever mentioned that my beloved and I lived in the same high-rise residence hall for a semester but never once met?

He lived in the guys' tower and I lived in the girls' tower, but the two towers shared a cafeteria with a wok station (about which I reminisce further in the post at Foodie Proclivities; please do click over).

I can't help but wonder how many times we were in that cafeteria -- maybe even wok-ing -- at the same time.  The Lord sure does have a sense of humor.  He knew it wasn't yet time for us to meet.  I had to work on my stir-frying skills...

famous last words

The Lord has blessed our region with abundant rainfall the past few days, bringing relief to parched land (and fried senses). Temperatures in the 90s are a welcome reprieve from day after day (after day after day, and into the nighttime hours) of daytime highs upwards of 110 degrees.

With all this rain, it's mud season revisited.

Standing at the window watching the rain (for which we are so grateful), the lads can barely contain themselves and their desire to get out there and play in the rain. I can understand that. I also know, though, that the deluged planter boxes with what was our vegetable garden before the heat spell scorched it now thick with mud will prove too tempting to lads who claim they only want to go outside to wash their dirty, dusty trucks. As I was not in a position to clean up a huge muddy mess this morning, their request was denied, with empathy.

They promised they wouldn't get in the mud, which I believe was sincere. Such a promise is no match for the kind of mud we're dealing with, though. It's the stuff of mythical monster truck rallies.

Acknowledging their disappointment but holding my ground, I tried to offer some equally enticing indoor activity ideas, such as putting their clean laundry away.

(I'm a kill-joy, remember, but the elder lad at least did oblige.)

In a last-ditch effort to obtain the elusive permission by promising (again) to stay away from the mud, the elder lad made one final appeal.

"You can trust me. I'm a six-year-old."

Epilogue: The bambini reveled in the soggy sandbox at my beloved's parents' house this afternoon while I went to get a haircut.  When we got home (and with my permission), they practically ran straight from the garage to the back door to their happy little mud hole.  Just as I expected -- and just as it should be, they were soon covered in enough goo to warrant the moniker "mud bugs" when they came in.  They knew to head straight for the laundry room, then the shower. 

And every day the elder lad is growing in trustworthiness, becoming more and more of a "big kid."

flux capacitor, anyone?

The days are getting warmer -- enough to warrant homemade sno-cones after the annual heirloom tomato planting proceedings.

the sno-cone maker we received from Aunt J is pretty nifty.

I sure hope our air conditioner is up to the task...

maters

What do we do with a whole mess o'maters?

our basil and heirloom tomatoes: "pinkheart" (yellow), "carbon" (dark red in back), & "Grandma Suzy's beefsteak" (bright red)

Make salsa, of course.

in a pickle

Gracious me: do we ever have a lot of cucumbers...

Good thing we've got some pickle eaters here.

paradigm shift

In a startling break from tradition, I have posted a marinade recipe over at Foodie Proclivities rather than some baked good or beverage.  Even more alarming is what transpired at dinner last night:

elder lad: "Mom, tonight I'm going to try some of Dad's grilled chicken" (using the aforementioned marinade recipe).

And he did! *and* baked potato *and* some of the yellow "pinkheart" heirloom tomato my beloved brought in from the backyard. 

By "some" I mean the teeniest little smidgen of a taste -- if you can really even call it that -- but the willingness to even attempt that still has me stupefied.  This is after he tried (in a similar fashion) some fresh local corn off the cob the previous night!

Who is this child?

He *has* been saying that he'll try these things when he gets older, and he *has* been talking about being a bigger boy now that he's five.  He's a lad of his word.

garden-themed picture books

Our back yard garden is flourishing thanks to the careful tending of my beloved and lads.  This brings to mind some of our favorite garden-themed books:

The Gardener, written by Sarah Stewart and awarded a Caldecott medal to illustrator David Small (Stewart's husband), is a visually lovely book to behold.  Set in the Great Depression, young Lydia Grace is sent to live with her uncle and work in his big-city bakery (presumably to make money for her family, as her father has lost his job).  The story of her learning to bake, and by turns endearing herself to the staff of the bakery and teaching them about gardening, unfolds by way of letters she writes back home to her parents and grandmother.   Stewart and Small have collaborated on a number of other equally compelling books, including The Friend and The Journey.

Silvia Long's illustrations for Dianna Hutts Aston's A Seed is Sleepy are simply exquisite.  These two also collaborated on An Egg is Quiet, which is equally captivating.  The poetic text of each book dreamily teaches science, while the illustrations are detailed, delicate, varied, and realistic.  These and the Sarah Stewart/David Small books are among the most beautifully illustrated children's books I've seen.

Eric Carle is one of our favorites (as I've written before). His The Tiny Seed follows a handful of seeds as they float on the wind and land in various places -- some to meet their demise and some to grow into flowering plants that then themselves release seeds and repeat the cycle.  We have many Eric Carle books in our home library; the illustrations are always vibrant and engaging, and the stories appealing to young and old.

We received Mortimer's First Garden by Karma Wilson (illustrated by Dan Andreasen) from my beloved's parents for our younger lad's second birthday.  It's a fun and faith-based story of a little mouse clutching a few sunflower seeds, which he sees as food.  Lamenting all the brown around him, he observes a family planting seeds in the springtime.  Reluctantly, he plants his few seeds, waters them, grows impatient after a few days with nothing to show for his efforts, considers digging up the seeds and eating them, then delights in the new growth he sees sprouting.  Pretty soon he has both something lovely to behold in the sunflowers that bloom from his seeds *and* more sunflower seeds to eat.

The veggie garden has been a daily delight for our family these past few months.  These garden-themed books and others like them keep the wonder alive year-round.

stay home day

Most days are "work days" for my beloved, and others are "stay home days."  How we relish the latter ones.  On this particular stay home day, we have literally been at home all day.  This is not unusual, as we have deliberately kept from taking on outside commitments and obligations during this brief season of family life, knowing the importance of just being with our bambini.  Settling into this home-based existence has been a challenge for me, because I'm one who likes to be out and about.  With three children in car seats and my ever-growing baby belly, however, getting out is not as easy as it once was.  I still do it nearly every day, as otherwise I get pretty antsy, but not today.

Instead, there was breakfast casserole this morning, haircuts for the lads after they happily cavorted in the muddy dirt box in the backyard as my beloved tended the garden (those are some of the salad greens, mega radishes, and wee little 'maters pictured above), baking a blueberry buckle, book reading, laundry, and Legos, among other things.

It's been a glory day.  I'll be ready to get out tomorrow.

cool as a cucumber

The first yield from our lovingly constructed and tended backyard garden: a wee little radish -- ruby red and charming enough sliced and dressed with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar to merit not one but *two* enthusiastic tastes from the elder lad followed by -- get this -- a declaration that radishes are his favorite vegetable.  (Nevermind that the competition for this title was not fierce.)

After this he went on to eat "ten or so" black seedless grapes (no exaggerating this time).  Heretofore, he has eschewed fresh fruit in favor of either dried fruit or fruit juice.  Suffice it to say that Mama is stupefied by his enthusiastic consumption of these vittles (but I tried to play it as cool as I could).

The black seedless grapes selected by the younger lad are, by the way, quite a sensation around here.  Everyone is raving over them.  Granted, Mama isn't too keen on the juice stains appearing all over everything.  I'll have to resort to my stain fighting tactics.  But if it means the elder lad is eating fresh fruits and vegetables, I am willing to deal with the aftermath...

tomato red nail polish: yes or no?

This morning my beloved took the lads to a local farm that specializes in cultivating heirloom tomatoes and selling the seeds to hobbyists as well as Seed Savers Exchange.  They chose several varieties of tomatoes to plant in our new veggie garden.  On the way, they stopped at a drugstore for some supplies to enrich the soil (calcium carbonate tablets AKA antacids, aspirin, and Epsom salt) along with the compost they bought at the garden center on the way home.

After some quality time digging in the dirt, the elder lad came in and wanted to bake cookies* with me.  As he was managing the mixer, he said "Mom, I saw some pretty nail polish for you -- green, and all kinds of colors."

"Oh?" Said I.  "Green?"

"Yes, and pink, and purple... all kinds of colors."

"You think I should paint my nails?"  I asked.  (I couldn't agree more.)

"Yes."

I'll get right on that...

*I use butter instead of margarine, because I'm a purist that way, and whole eggs instead of whites. I was ever so happy to have these cookies among the things I'd brought to the hospital with me when our lass was born, as they hit the spot in the wee hours of the morning when I was pacing with, rocking, and snuggling her -- and practicing using such descriptors as "she" and "her" in reference to a child of mine.

in their element

It's been a long time dream of my beloved's to have an organic vegetable garden in our backyard.  He's been working on the planters since last fall, but due to a variety of circumstances (among them life with young children and the wiles of the weather), the boxes are only just recently in the ground.  Today he went for a big load of dirt to dump into them.  One can imagine the excitement this might elicit from our lads.  They were rarin' to go with their boots on and shovels ready when he got home with the dirt.

The memory of the lads out there with their shovels and trucks will stay with me for a long time (but I took pictures too).  My nearly 17 year old sister has been spending the weekend with us helping get ready for our newly-minted three year old's family birthday party tomorrow afternoon, so while the menfolk were outside dealing in dirt, we were inside getting ready for the party.

I stuck my head out the back door at one point to ask how things were going.  The elder lad replied ebulliently "great!  We could use some help here.  Want to come out?"

'scuze me?  Dirt doesn't hold quite the same attraction for me. (though I do love seeing them so happy covered in it)

"Um... I'm working on getting ready for the birthday party tomorrow. Could I get you a water refill, though?"

"Sure!"  he replied. 

Now if we can get them to eat the veggies that issue forth from this lovingly-constructed and tilled garden, that would be really something...