weekday morning muffins

I have struggled with the breakfast battle for months. The "What do you want to eat?" question leads to frustration for my eaters who usually want something I am not prepared to offer. So lately I haven't been giving a choice, which sometimes gets grumbles, but is so much easier and quicker for all. One of the weekly specials includes muffins, which I can whip up blind in just over 20 minutes start to finish (with only 5 minutes or so of hands-on time). They are adapted from the Mountain Biker's Banana Muffins recipe from Simply Colorado, a healthy cookbook that once belonged to my ever-nutritious grandma. Add a side of homemade applesauce and this fresh-baked breakfast would make her proud.

Quick and Healthy Banana Blueberry Muffins

3/4 c. unbleached white flour
3/4 c. whole wheat flour
1 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. almond milk (or cow's)
1/3 c. olive oil
1 t. vanilla
1 egg
1 large banana, mashed
1/2 c. fresh or frozen blueberries

Stir together dry ingredients in mixing bowl. In small bowl or large measuring cup, whisk milk, oil, vanilla and egg. Add wet ingredients to dry along with banana. Stir until just mixed. Gently stir in blueberries. Cook in sprayed muffin tins at 375 for 15 minutes. (Also great topped with maple nut granola as last step before baking.) Makes 12 smallish muffins, which will probably be polished off in less time than it takes to make them.

a good thing isn't necessarily a right thing

At a baby shower this afternoon my cousin did a little reflection for the mom-to-be on the top ten things she has learned in her 13 years of mothering. It was both funny and poignant and, quite honestly, I needed to hear a lot of it. One item that stood out was how there are so many good things we and our kids can be doing, but that doesn't mean they are the right things.

This last month I have been doing a lot of good things. I have been working like crazy to help make money for my family. I have been volunteering for things at school and at church. I have been running my Elliott to preschool and therapy after therapy. I have been making gifts and planning events. It's all good and yet I'm disappointing people I love. I'm putting a whole bunch of busyness and stuff before the things that really matter to me: my writing, my mental health, my friends, my family and God.

So, I'm going to start dumping some good things by giving up a big job, which is a big thing for me. I'm good at it and I like the team I work with and the money. But it sucks up my time and my energy and swallows my life. It's a painful release for a girl who never says no. I just need to keep reminding myself what I'm missing:

:: Long Monopoly games with a six year old
:: A bigger glimpse of fall than what I can see out the coffee shop or car window
:: Trips to the park with a thrilled three year old
:: A somewhat tidier house
:: A longer time to read than one minute before falling to sleep at midnight
:: Bread baking in the oven (oh, how I miss this!)
:: Progress on a year-old sweater project that I so want to wear this winter
:: Yoga
:: Deep thoughts in a quiet mind
:: Date nights and long conversation with the guy who picks up the slack
:: The ability to keep commitments with friends who still forgive me for canceling
:: Time to write
:: Time to pray

Another cousin of mine who is also on a mission to stop trying to do it all, linked me to this great piece by Anne Lamott about finding time to create a rich life. How incredibly ironic that I run around filling up my time in order to live richly when, in fact, a rich life requires empty hours of quiet time. It's going to be difficult, but it's high time I found some.

something not to master

In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities,
in the expert's mind, there are few. –Suzuki Roshi

By age four or five, life becomes focused on mastery. We learn to ride a bike, field a ball, read, subtract, and on and on. The hours of exploring and experimenting and imagining become limited. During the school year they dwindle down to nearly nothing.

Enter music. For the past six months Liam has been taking piano lessons. One might imagine that piano would be one more thing to master. One more constrained and tedious activity. It could be, I'm sure, but we discovered Miss Carol, the most wonderful piano teacher, and she has been teaching Liam something far more important than the technicalities of the instrument. She has been nurturing his creative and experimental soul. She has been opening up a world of musical possibilities.

What Miss Carol does is both simple and unique: she appreciates. Liam sits throughout the entire lesson - other than the times he is actually playing a piece he has practiced during the week - and plays around composing little runs and flourishes. Miss Carol might be writing in his notebook or putting a sticker on a piece he's successfully completed, but she is always listening to what Liam's making up. Sometimes it's dissonant, sometimes melodic. Sometimes sweet, sometimes wild. She never tells him to stop. She notices interesting note combinations and points them out. She sits back and shakes her head like she's amazed at what he's doing. She tells me I should record him. I can tell she wants to bottle what he's doing. He is not trying to get something right. He's doing something far better, something he's hardly allowed to do anymore, something so essential to discovery and expression. He's creating something inspired, something new.

But here's the thing. My son is not a Mozart. He doesn't sit down and whip out a sonata. But he has passion and interest and incredible creativity. And no one has ever tried to correct his free-flowing ideas. Music just pours out of his heart and is edited by his own ear. On the piano, when he's composing, he beats to his own drummer, and it's heaven to him.

With Miss Carol, who is a very accomplished composer, he is learning technique, but not for the purpose of mastery. He's collecting tools he can eventually use to enhance his creativity and expand his expression. I can see how easy it would be to make piano one more thing to master, to squash that beautiful imagination for the sake of perfection. Instead, we have a teacher who is nurturing all the possibilities held in my passionate little beginner. A teacher who recognizes the joy he exudes when he plays. A teacher who knows what would be lost if she made him sit up straight and only play what's on the page.

When everything else is becoming boring or tedious or too hard for a six year old whose days are packed with things to learn and accomplish, the piano saves us. May it never become another thing to master.

how much does one person really matter?

Lately I've been hearing a lot about how one person can change the world: help end AIDS in Africa, rid the world of poverty, you name it. A popular movement with this focus is so aptly named ONE. As is usual on the third Tuesday of the month, the earth shifts and suddenly something I thought was so earnestly good and meaningful, I don't like it anymore.

I'm not opposed to people doing good, of course. I love to do good. I love to feel like I'm making a difference in the world. But why is the focus of changing the world so often on the one doing the supposed changing? Give some money, make some calls, contribute your voice and YOU can be the difference between a world of hungry homeless people and some unspoken utopia. You see, tonight I met Judy and suddenly I realized that being The One has nothing to with being part of a select group of do-gooders. We are all The One.

I've seen Judy at our Third Tuesday Suppers before. She is thin and tired looking. Some of her bottom teeth are missing and she often wears sweats. I'd guess maybe homeless, or maybe sick. Usually she seems kind of nervous. But she is always gracious, always so appreciative.

Tonight Judy was sitting at a table by herself. I was looking for plates to clear when I walked by and, not knowing what possessed me, I slid into the chair across from her and said hi. I asked her how her meal was and tried to figure out how to start more of a conversation. She looked kind of uncomfortable, but not necessarily opposed to the fact that I had sat down. So I asked her where she grew up and the talking just happened. She grew up with horses but has always been afraid of them. She moved to Manhattan in her twenties and managed a ballet troupe. She lived in a high rise with a doorman. She had wonderful friends. She met famous people. She visited Paris.

Although we chatted for nearly half an hour, we didn't talk about her life now. I still suspect she's been through some seriously rough times. But I saw this beautiful lady light up as she reached back to pull out her memories. I was stunned. Judy isn't the woman I thought she was.

As much as I think I look at people as being in the image of God, I am judgmental. I assume. I think I am The One, not them.

How many strangers do we really know? If one person matters so much that they can change the world, as the propaganda so winsomely feeds us (and our egos), what about that one person we might be changing? How much do they matter?

We are all so rich, all so incredibly layered and textured, troubled and glorious. Each one of us - despite our incredible unworthiness - matters. We all have something to give. We all have something to receive. Judy showed me. But I never would have seen her if I hadn't sat down and taken a break from being that one who's trying to make a difference in the world.

pancakes two ways

Friday night we were handed a menu for a new restaurant in town and I noticed carrot pancakes as a breakfast item. I couldn't believe I'd never thought of that. So this weekend I experimented and served pancakes both days. I adapted a basic pancake recipe from Everyday Food, changing the milk, oil, and sweetener and adding some extras. Both recipes are awesome! My family wolfed them down. I never even thought to take a picture of them, or my son standing at the counter crying because I wouldn't let him eat one before we sat down. I'm so mean. But after the first delicious bite he forgave me. It never even phased him that he was eating carrots for breakfast. (Both recipes make 8-10 medium pancakes.)

Carrot Pancakes
1 cup unbleached flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. cinnamon
couple shakes of nutmeg
1 cup almond milk
1 egg
2 T olive oil
1 T agave syrup
1 cup grated carrot

Sift dry ingredients. (I do this onto waxed paper.) Mix together milk through agave syrup. Add dry to wet. Blend until just combined. Gently stir in carrot. Let batter rest 10 minutes. Heat pan and spray with olive oil or other cooking spray. Cook pancakes. Serve with maple syrup.

::

Taste-of-Hawaii Pancakes
1 cup unbleached flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. cinnamon
1 cup coconut milk
1 egg
2 T melted butter
1 T agave syrup
1 banana, diced

Sift dry ingredients. Mix together milk through agave syrup. Add dry to wet. Blend until just combined. Gently stir in banana. Let batter rest 10 minutes. Heat pan and spray with olive oil or other cooking spray. Cook pancakes. Serve with maple syrup - or coconut syrup (the best!).

Note: Either of these recipes can be made with buttermilk instead of almond milk or coconut milk. Even regular milk will work ok. And if you don't have agave syrup, you can substitute another sweetener, like sugar or honey. Just use a tad more. Although agave has a lower glycemic level, it's actually sweeter than sugar. Weird but true.

the importance of going away

Work has overtaken my life. I have been tired and grouchy. My house is a mess. I am not the best wife and mother. My blog is going postless.

Months ago I planned a weekend in Durham to visit one of my closest friends. It seemed crazy to go with all the work piling up and the rest of life barely treading water, but I went. And it was beautiful. Burdens lifted. Mind cleared. Perspective regained.

A cousin of mine, who will soon be entering motherhood, wrote a blog post recently about how she isn't even a mom yet and already she feels the struggle to do it all. It made me think about the immense pressure we can put ourselves under, perhaps moms especially, to have it all together. And the exhausting life we end up leading when we try.

As a result, I had several epiphanies while I was gone 72 hours:

:: Take control of the disorder by killing the clutter - stop agonizing over it and just start throwing stuff out. And keep throwing stuff out.
:: Stop being so militant about reading every little ingredient of snack foods/cereals my son wants to try. I grew up on Honeycomb and raw Pilsberry cookie dough. And I'm healthy. With an occasional treat - even if it has high-fructose corn syrup - he will be, too.
:: Sit in silence early in the morning or late at night and just listen to the world. Crickets, birds, the wind in the trees. Stop doing stuff for a change. And breathe.
:: Enjoy my children and my husband like I enjoy my friends. Respect them for who they are. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Trust them with my dreams and thoughts. Treat them with kindness always. Laugh with them a lot.

It's impossible to have it all together and to be the woman who can do it all. Figuring out where the time should go and what can get done and how, that's the challenge.

The first time I saw Liam today was when I picked him up after school. He ran full speed and threw himself into my arms. It's been a long time since I've had a reception like that. And he was gem the rest of the day. When I tucked him in, he gave me his high point of the day: "Seeing you again."

Lately I've been getting really caught up in the schedule and the attitudes and the mess. I've been focused pretty exclusively on getting it all done. I've been missing the people and the fun and the moments. I've been forgetting to relish my life.

Going away was just what I needed. Coming back is my high point.

in DC

This is the Bordoni family in front of their new house. Thirty seven bathrooms was just a few too many for our needs, so we decided to pass on it. Seriously, though, we wondered if we might be headed behind bars - oh, and not in this nice house - after this photo was snapped when Liam casually tossed his stuffed animal onto The White House lawn. If you want to see law enforcement and the secret service jump into action quicker than your son can even get a word out to tell you what he did, toss a child's toy through the fence. I thought for sure we were all going to be cuffed and read our rights. While a park patrolman stood with us on the public side of the black picket fence, men in black popped out around the perimeter, hiding behind trees. One, fully vested and armed with some crazy kind of machine gun, finally made his way along the gate, secured the offending animal and passed it back to the cop, who then gave it to my son. I thought Liam and his parents might get a good talking to, but the man was just doing his job. I'm sure our mugs have been archived.


Liam's high point of the trip, aside from almost getting arrested, was having a coke. We drove 24 hours for that pleasure. My high point was seeing and staying with my grown up, married little sister for two beautiful days. Hanging out with my dad, also in town, was an added bonus.

The car ride was surprisingly easy. Liam drew, wrote in his journal and spent hours doing a math workbook. When will this bizarre happiness with "homework" turn to dread? I don't want to know. He also sported a hoodie with earbuds while watching a movie on an iPod and said, "Yo, mom, how 'bout a snack?" making me wonder where we picked him up and who this mother was. Elliott played with cars, shrieked for no good reason and sang with the Wiggles. Blessedly, they both slept, even after we poisoned them with McDonalds. Thanks to my dear sister for making us sandwiches for the ride home. Thanks to her, too, for carrying Liam around on her shoulders, giving up her bedroom (thanks, Tim, too), planning out our fabulous days of sightseeing and being the kind of aunt a six-year-old boy can appreciate. I hope they can stand more embarrassment, more noise, more whining and more silly faces. Because, like it or not, we'll be back.