probably not the best way to start lent

If you have given up chocolate or sweets for Lent, you might want to go and read another blog today. But be sure to bookmark this and come back after Easter. You'll be so glad you did. I promise.

We have made these cookies twice this month and I am craving them again. They are incredibly good and surprisingly easy. But I can't take credit other than following the Barefoot Contessa's Shortbread Cookie recipe. I will never make another rolled cookie recipe again. These are truly the best.

For the chocolate, I melted a bag of chips in a 9 x 9 glass dish in the microwave. (Cook in 30 second increments and stir at each break. It takes about 2 minutes for all the chips to melt.) Then I spooned the melted chocolate over half the heart, shook off the excess and let them dry on waxed paper.

:::

Tomorrow morning I leave for Washington DC for Ray's memorial service and a weekend with my sister Liz. A bittersweet getaway, but anticipating a plane flight with no kids, where I am free to read and knit and think, a whole Friday to do as I please and 72 hours with my little sis, I'd say the sweet is outweighing the bitter. Now if I just had one of those cookies...

he's back

Little by little Liam has returned to his old self (not before passing his bug in one form or another to the rest of us - c'est la vie). This weekend it seemed like he physically, cognitively and creatively needed to make up for ten days on the couch. At 9 a.m. he was asking for lunch and then a snack every twenty minutes (a lot of missed meals to make up)... he spent hours(!) building every possible version of amazing, imaginary Star Wars lego craft, including our favorite Stormtrooper Butterfly Catcher... he battled us in game after game of Superhero Yahtzee and Sorry, uttering hilarious comments and asking us if we wanted to smell his butt (boys!) the entire time... and he happily agreed to participate in a "pen pal"-type adventure that I signed him up for online earlier in the month. The idea came from two creative bloggers, Erin and Blair, who proposed a kids' Artist Trading Card (ATC) swap. They organized the kids who signed up (over 900!) into groups of six and sent us each our list of names and addresses. Liam then needed to create five ATCs to send to the other 4 1/2 year olds on his list (and they will reciprocate by each sending a card they make to him). The only rules are the art (and the title of each piece) has to be totally done by the child and they each have to be 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 on heavy artist paper.

I adore these little cards. It is going to be tough to send them away this week but it will be so fun to see what comes in the mailbox from the kids in Liam's swap group, particularly from the one international 4 1/2-year-old artist who lives in England.

The titles of Liam's ATCs are: "going to the beehive," "the daisy," "orange fish," "elephant in a puddle," and "the car in the darkness." The little smiles on the elephant and the fish just kill me. In this house, there is no such thing as an unhappy animal.

sometimes you just can't help it

I have heard stories that my grandpa would forbid his children to cough. He was an incredible man in so many ways, but he had a hard time tolerating improper, unruly or, dare I say, pedestrian behavior. Have a bad cold? Control it, or at least be discrete about it.

My sister Liz will tell you that I have that man's blood running through my veins. Years ago the two of us backpacked through Italy and Liz contracted a nasty cold. The poor thing did her best to participate as fully as possible during the day, which probably is what intensified her coughing at night. I tried to be sympathetic, but packed in our economy rooms, beds inches apart most nights, I didn't do a good job of it. I didn't understand why she couldn't control the coughing. It sounded excessive and so incredibly loud. We were losing sleep and our neighbors were surely cursing us. More than once I remember telling Liz in the middle of the night that she should go in the bathroom and steam her head, not because I was looking out for her but because I might be able to finally fall asleep.

About the same time Liz got well, which coincided nicely with our departure, I caught the cold. I remember so well the little room in Milan our last night in Italy where I sat coughing my head off. No matter how I tried, I just could not stop. That night, Liz had every right to say, "I told you so," but she didn't. Instead, she went out and found me chamomile tea with honey and sat and rubbed my back. She never once gave an exasperated sigh or told me to go steam my head. She had been there. She knew.

This week that same cough came back. And all week I have been thinking about my little sister and how generous and kind she was to me in Italy. It is a good reminder of how struggling through something yourself is one of the only ways to have real compassion for someone experiencing that same pain. I think that is part of the bright side. Thank you, Liz, for showing it to me. Now, excuse me while I go and steam my head.

he's no dummy

For whatever weird reason, when Liam was born we could hardly wait to introduce him to dessert. You know, cookies, cake, candies, and the dreaded afternoon "snacks." What were we thinking?

So, when Elliott came along, I vowed to approach eating habits differently. In fact, Elliott's one-year-old birthday cake was about the first real taste of sugar the boy had ever had. No cookies, no Halloween candy, no need. Lately, though, we've been softening up. For one thing, Elliott has started paying attention to the things that Liam eats and he wants them, too.

A couple weeks ago, I gave Elliott one of our homemade oatmeal chocolate bar cookies and told him with reverence that he was eating a "cookie." He held the sweet disc up and screamed and then wolfed it down. The next night at dinner, Elliott promptly tossed everything off his plate onto the floor, looked at Andrew and demanded, "Cookie!" I'm thinking it was the combination of cookie and candy bar that did us in.

This morning, as I was talking on the phone, Elliott crawled into the family room and closed the door. He loves closing doors and although I usually reopen them fairly quickly to be sure he's not getting into trouble on the other side, today I let him enjoy his privacy for a minute. Not a particularly great idea. When I peeked in on him two minutes later he was sitting on the floor with the small heart-shaped box of chocolates we had given daddy for Valentine's day, stuffing the very last piece into his mouth. Making up for a lifetime of sugar-free living, he had eaten the entire box. I decided it was probably better not to tell him he had just enjoyed "candy." I'm already fearing we may never hear the end of it.

needing some heart time

With one very sick boy and a lot of time spent indoors catering to whims and watching bad kid TV, I practically threw myself into this cute little crafty heart project I found on The Purl Bee. The combination of the felt and the hand stitching makes these sweet stuffed pins (a safety pin is stitched to the back of each one) too cute for words. (They started as teacher and grandma valentines, but I am on a roll now and have a surplus. Anyone want one?)

The best part about making the hearts has been stealing time at night to slow down and catch up on my favorite NPR program, Speaking of Faith. The making-pretty-things/pondering-deep-thoughts combo is bliss for a mama who does the wiping-running-noses/finessing-words-into-clever-marketing-hoo-ha combo every other waking hour.

And, yes, my house needs cleaning. And, no, I don't get enough sleep. But, I'm breathing easier, and tomorrow I get to wear a heart on my sweater.

waiting for the day

From the time I fell deeply in love with books, I have eagerly awaited the day when I would be able to read the stories I loved to my own children. Over the last month, nightly chapter reading has begun and, unlike many other long-anticipated pleasures that end up being so much less exciting than I imagined, reading novels aloud to my son is everything I dreamed it would be. Dare I say, that half hour before bedtime has become my favorite time of the day.

It began a little shakily as we were recommended Little House in the Big Woods as a book to begin with, and to say Liam was fidgeting while we read would be a gross understatement. About two pages into chapter three, as Wilder was going on at great lengths about the intricacies of smoking meat, I stopped and asked Liam, who was standing on his head on the couch, "Do you like this?"

"Borrring," he said flatly.

I was a little dashed, although I had to agree. Not the book I thought it was.

Remembering The Littles vaguely from my childhood, I picked up one from this series next. A bit better. We made it through, at least, but still pretty uninspiring.

Lest I lose my willing listener altogether, I decided we needed a solid classic. A book beautifully written with a story to match. I chose Charlotte's Web. It's a hit; we both eagerly anticipate it every night. Even poor little catatonic pneumonia boy (as Liam has been these last few nights) has requested his chapter before crashing.

Books buoyed me as a child. They took me away from troubles and helped me imagine the beauty and happiness I couldn't find in my own surroundings. Mostly they helped me find adventure in a world that I could readily enter, any time - my mind.

Now I love hearing the words read aloud, making up voices for the characters, adding just the right amount of drama. I guess you could say I love the sound of my own voice. But it's so much more than that. Getting lost in the words on the page with a willing and eager traveling companion who rests his head on my shoulder and makes funny and insightful little comments - this is joy. I have waited nearly 30 years for this day. It is all I imagined it would be.

ode to blankie

He pets his blankie like a cat, rubs his face in it, and hugs it to his chest, 25,000 times a day. It's an appendage, a must-have, a deal breaker. Once we tried to put him to bed with a substitute. He sobbed and sobbed and when Andrew went in to see him, Elliott pointed to the offending blankie substitute with a quivering lip and tear-stained cheeks and shook his head. Absolutely no. Not mine.

Comforter, plaything, warm covering, pet, hiding place, snot rag, chew toy and constant companion. What else could possibly provide all this goodness? One very long piece of yarn transformed by two wooden sticks. Ahhh, knitting. In 20 blankie-filled months, Elliott has become a very big fan.



(As for the heavy metal sign in photo one, it is just genetic. There is no other explanation.)

you know you are parenting boys when...

...you hear yourself yelling things like, "Don't run with that gun in your mouth!" or "Your brother doesn't want to smell your butt." Oh, yes, I have uttered both of these tasteless lines this week.

So, I was looking forward to hearing the authors of the book Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys speak tonight. But I wasn't expecting it to be so incredibly excellent. If you have a boy and marvel at the words coming out of your mouth (or his!), do yourself a favor and check out this book and the authors' website. It will be a heart changer, for everyone involved.

it started with a sticker

Last night, right before bed, Liam pulled a sheet of animal stickers out of his craft box (thank you, uncle Mark and aunt Jamie) and, with great enthusiasm, declared that he needed to make a forest picture. Immediately. In one of my unusually patient and relaxed moods, I let him do it. Then as he was putting the title on his drawing, he asked me if I could find him a CD because he wanted to write a song.

"Honey," I said. "You can't just write a song onto a CD. Maybe we can work on it tomorrow."

But he was determined. So I found an empty CD case, cut a piece of construction paper and let him create the cover.


After convincing him that I couldn't work a microphone or dad's recording software but that Andrew could record his song in the morning, he agreed to wait. But as soon as he woke up, he put his half-awake face right up into Andrew's sleeping one and whispered, "Dad, time to wake up. I need to do a song on CD."

I just love how this kid's creative process works. From sticker to drawing to piano solo. And although he carried the theme all the way through, the end of the song just cracks me up. Where did this boy come from?

Liam's Special Wild Forest Song

25 things

This feels slightly vain to me, but I gave in and wrote this list on Facebook after several friends had "tagged" me. For all the work it took to come up with 25 random things about myself, I figured I may as well post it here, too.

1. I make a lot of lists and a lot of piles. Neither seem to improve my organizational deficiency.

2. I do not save phone numbers in my phone. I save them in my head.

3. I met my husband via email (at the prompting of a very dear friend). We fell in love and both knew we were meant to be together weeks before we ever met in person. We were right.

4. I have never had a cavity.

5. As a child, when I lived with my mom, I camped out at motocross tracks on Sundays, skied competitively, ate raw cookie dough, watched soaps after school and made my own dinner most nights. When I lived with my dad, I went to church Sundays, did chores, rarely ate between meals or watched TV and sat down for a family dinner nearly every night. As a result, I had a fairly confusing childhood, but I adapt to new situations very easily.

6. I wish I had been born on a farm.

7. I have three fractured vertebrae in my back. Two were fractured when I jumped off a 50-foot bridge into a river (following after 10 guys) at age 20, and the third was fractured in a fall down my basement stairs at age 40. I downplayed the first injury so much (although the pain was excruciating) that I never even knew about the fractures until my back was x-rayed in the emergency room after the basement stair fall. Oh, to be 20 and crazy again!

8. My mom sent me to finishing school when I was a freshman in high school. I do not remember a single thing.

9. I have a tattoo.

10. Until I found my home with Andrew, the only places I have ever felt totally at home - Palmer Lake, CO, Speculator, NY, Nairobi, Kenya, and Paris, France - are nowhere near the places I have lived.

11. I loved everything about giving birth (especially the beautiful boys I got to bring home). I would do it at least two more times if I had started younger.

12. I have a tendency to overreact and sigh a lot, which may be why one of Andrew's nicknames for me is "Mrs. Drama."

13. I jumped out of an airplane once. I don't plan to do it again.

14. I have never met a single one of my in-laws.

15. I wish I were more glamorous, but I can barely find time for basic hygiene.

16. I have a very high pain threshold. See #7, #9 and #11.

17. I almost never finish a book and have 5 to 10 partially read books next to my bed at any given time.

18. I loathe talking on the phone. (But chances are I know your phone number by heart - see #2.)

19. I rarely envy someone's stuff; I envy the absence of stuff. But getting rid of the little things that clutter my home is tough for me. I am too sentimental.

20. The unconditional, adoring love of my grandparents and time spent with them was the absolute best thing about my childhood.

21. If I had unlimited free time, I would take piano lessons (and practice), make all of my own clothes, write poetry and practice yoga on a very regular basis, plant a huge garden and cook a delicious meal for a different person or family every night.

22. I think a lot about homeschooling my kids. I never thought I would think about this.

23. I love what I do to earn money, but most of the time I don't like doing it.

24. Although I had a strong faith and was very active in church in high school and college, I wanted nothing to do with church for many years after I graduated. My incredibly loving, once-atheist, unchurched husband and a wonderful body of Methodists brought me back.

25. The greatest gift I have on earth is my family. There is nothing I enjoy more than being with them.