Snow Day

We were expecting a blizzard today but despite it snowing all day, we didn't really get much accumulation because it was pretty warm.  We treated it like a snow day anyway though, since I think we were all kind of looking forward to it.  Other than bringing Zoe to gymnastics in the morning, we didn't do anything outside of the apartment..just stayed nice and cozy inside.

First thing in the morning, I made some yummy sweet potato muffins and while I was finding more puttering to do in the kitchen, the kids randomly came in and asked if they could paint.  I realized as they were getting set up that it's been SO LONG since they did that.  It's been funny for me to think about how last year was all about art projects and experimenting with paint around here and this year is more about the kids playing together and me getting more into my own thing..specifically cooking and baking right now.  Strange how things can change so drastically sometimes.  Anyway, it was so fun and refreshing to see them making a big ol' mess at the kitchen table again.

Then we decided to do a test run of the science experiment I have in mind for this week's Young Scientists group (one of the activities I run for my job as an RM here in Family Housing).  It's really simple but really fun and it kept them busy and interested for a good amount of time.  I think it'll be a hit on Tuesday and I'm sure we'll do it again sometime at home.  

Give the kids an empty clear glass or cup and then two cups, one with water and one with vegetable oil.  You can ask them what they think will happen when they pour the liquids into the same cup.  These guys were sure they would just mix together....

..and were pretty amazed when they saw what really happened.

Then I gave them some liquid food coloring and told them to put some drops in to see what would happen.

They both wanted to try stirring their concoctions

I'm sure you're not surprised that this is what ended up happening with Owen's.

I suggested putting some ice in and then Zoe played around with putting the food coloring onto the ice cube

Seeing the beautiful, light, delicate snow falling outside gave me an urge to make some chocolate pound cake with powdered sugar on top.  I found a recipe for regular pound cake in my Moosewood Cookbook and added four tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder to it.  It came out just the way I'd hoped it would and we ended up sharing some with our neighbors.  I love doing that on a snowy day like today...I love the thought that we are all cozy in our little apartments with our little families but somehow still connected to our neighbors at the same time.

Yuuuummmmy

The rest of the day was a mix of chores, board games and book reading...pretty perfect.  We had our weekly movie night and I made this yummy Mediterranean Stew from the online workshop I've been lucky enough to take these last few weeks called Whole Food Kitchen.  My East Coast friend Jenny gifted the workshop to me a couple of months ago, straight out of the blue and I still can't get over how generous it was of her.  I feel so spoiled.  It's so nice to be enjoying cooking and to be making a bigger effort to fit in more nutritionally dense foods for myself and my family.  The kids aren't totally into the new food I've been making but I'm still managing to make new stuff without making completely separate meals for the kids AND I feel like they are getting plenty to eat.  It's tricky with these picky kids but I'm getting there..for us it's all about good, simple "sides" (chick peas, black beans, fruit, toast made from homemade bread).  That way if they don't like the main course, at least they are getting what they need from the sides.  I like this approach because I'm not giving them the impression that I'm cooking something separate for them, and then I don't get mad at them if they don't eat the main course, which is good for me AND them!  

Zoe's tough--she has really gotten so picky.  She even turns her nose up at macaroni and cheese now, which used to be one of the only things she would eat.  I do think I was relying on it too much and she just got tired of it.  I have nothing against mac and cheese--I just think we were having it way too much and so I'm proud to say that I haven't made a box of mac and cheese in over a month.  I also haven't made a frozen pizza and have been making homemade mini pizzas with the kids once a week.  Change is so good sometimes.  Owen isn't nearly as picky as Zoe.  He doesn't like everything but he will at least try it and if he likes it he'll go ahead and eat it (as opposed to the combination of not liking stuff but also WANTING to not like stuff that Zoe has going on at the moment).  When that happens I get this warm, proud feeling in my gut as I watch him shovel kale into his mouth without flinching like he did a couple of weeks ago.  Or like tonight when he polished off some of my homemade oatmeal bread, boiled fingerling potatoes and THREE HELPINGS (he finished Zoe's for her) of stew.  If not for this workshop, I never would have thought to try giving him stew made with quinoa, sun dried tomatoes, spinach and kalamata olives.  You just never know until you try.  I say that to Zoe all of the time, but I'm only just now realizing that I should give myself that advice more often.

Girls With Guts, Revisited

Some of you may remember my Girls With Guts post a couple of years ago.  I recently reworked it so I could audition for a Mother's Day reading of it at a local theatre.  I was excited to audition because, having been an "actress" in my early days (yes, I meant to put that in "quotes"), I sometimes wonder if I'd ever be able to overcome the stage fright I developed after realizing I liked working backstage WAY better than onstage.  I looked at it as an opportunity to overcome a fear but was also excited about the possibility of using this platform to share Girls With Guts and hopefully get more people on board with the mission (the reading will also be put online for the internet world to see).  I was pretty nervous about going but part of me, I'm embarrassed to admit, felt like I had it in the bag so was excited too.  While reading my piece to the two women in charge of deciding which ones will be used for the presentation, I was way more nervous than I hoped I would be.  They were perfectly nice afterwards, but I could tell they weren't on my wavelength when one of the two women asked me if I "really think it works to say these words out loud and expect the heart will follow" and then at the very end, she said that she had "read somewhere that you can't give to your kids what you don't have yourself".  I came back with some good arguments, but I just knew...I was disappointed because I wanted to yell "Just because someone said it doesn't make it true!  That kind of thinking is exactly the problem!"  but I just calmly gave my retort and thanked them for their time.  Today I got the confirmation that they are not, in fact, interested in letting me share my story.  I admit I'm relieved.  If I was that nervous reading my personal story out loud to 2 people, I had a hard time picturing how I would do in front of an audience.  Now I don't have to worry about it.  So, I'll share it with all of you again because you are always in my corner and I love you all for that.  XO

Girls With Guts

The journey to motherhood is different for all mothers.  My personal journey involved being pregnant and giving birth twice and therefore witnessing first hand the mind bending changes a woman’s body goes through while babies are all cozy and warm in her belly.  My journey also involved the inevitable post-pregnancy body issue battle.  Despite my valiant efforts to avoid this battle, I did succumb to it after both pregnancies as I think most, if not all of us eventually do.  After my second baby, it took about 9 months for the thoughts to start creeping in:  the nagging voice in my head that pointed out every roll and every stretch mark.  Slowly but surely, I began to get more and more self-conscious about my belly...my whole midsection, really... The shadow I caught a glimpse of on my morning run was a lot more jiggly than the girl I once knew and it was getting more and more annoying to try on shirts from my closet. Once in a while, I'd pull an old favorite out and think "surely, this fits now" and throw it on confidently only to find it about 4 inches too short and my stretched-to-the-limit skin pouring out of the bottom. 

As I started to notice these thoughts making their way in, I suddenly felt compelled to talk about how incredibly tired I am of the body issues that plague so many people these days.  I wish there was an easy way out of the trap, but since it's a problem based in other people's opinions, it's a hard one to solve.  If our tendency is to wonder what other people are thinking about how we look, then the only way to stop this cycle would be if EVERYONE out there considered the following question to be the most important in terms of our bodies:

Are you healthy?

Nothing more.

Although I think this should be the norm for everyone, no matter what stage of life you happen to be in, I find it particularly cruel to subject pregnant and recently pregnant women to the madness of the body issue battle.  During my first pregnancy I stood my ground against hints at the importance of a "perfect" body.  My midwives lectured me every time I got off the scale at my appointments.  Over and over again, I told them that I ate healthy foods and was still going to the gym and so wasn’t worried.  They didn’t let up until I finally refused to step on that scale at all.  When I met my midwives here in Boulder, the first thing I told them was that I never wanted to talk about my weight.  Thankfully, they took careful note and never once said anything about it.  I admittedly didn’t eat as well the second time and was much less active, but wouldn’t you know,  my body did the exact same thing as it did the first time around, and the weight came off at the same rate.

Any mother who has spent time being pregnant can relate to being asked the question: "When are you due?" but how many of you have experienced that AFTER you've had the baby?  The worst part about being asked that question is that it's usually asked by a complete stranger right when you are starting to feel like yourself again.  Most of us get mad or annoyed at the person and rattle on to our friends about how we can't believe people have the gall to ask such a question, but honestly I think we react that way because it's such a hard smack of reality.  Like it or not, our bellies stretched way out in order to grow a human being and it's to be expected that it may stay that way for a lot of us no matter what we do.  If you really think about it, how can we get mad at someone who honestly (and kindly) wants to share in the joy that goes along with this amazing process? 

I've found a nugget of gold in this bucket of body image garbage in my daughter.  Not long after she was born, I was struck with the reality that I am raising a girl.  I realized that now more than ever, I need to find a way to stop contributing to this cycle.  It’s going to be hard enough to help her sort through the messages she’ll get from the rest of the world, so I need to be sure to give her a strong example of a confident woman, no matter what my body is shaped like.  I do not want to be the one to start her down the path of self-deprecation so many of us find ourselves on so I made it my mission to stop talking about my body in a negative way, especially in front of her.  Stopping the words proved fairly easy, but stopping the thoughts was a different story.  Even now, two years after her little brother was born, when she asks me if I have another baby in my belly, or why my belly is so big and squishy, I mentally take a deep breath and remind myself to look at these moments as opportunities.  While I am telling her, matter of factly, that I had 2 babies and that my stomach is all stretched out from it, I feel like I'm giving her a gift.  I want her to know that people come in all varieties and that being healthy is the only thing that matters.  I want that to be the message she replays in her head as she grows up.

So, where am I today?  Am I succeeding in my mission?  Well, I admit it’s not going perfectly but I continue to say the right words and I’m finding that my heart is slowly following along.  In fact, I’m going to take this opportunity to practice saying out loud what are for me, some of the hardest words to say and fully believe:  I am OK.  I am important.  I am interesting.  I am generous.  I am loving.  I am healthy.  I am happy.  I am perfectly imperfect and I am beautiful, just as I am.  I say these words as someone who wants more for herself and for the women she shares this world with, but most importantly for her children.

I dream of an army of warrior women who are willing to make a stand against this battle and demand more for each other and our children.  I once told a friend about this dream and she dubbed my army "Girls With Guts" .  I will continue my fight but I need all of you to stand alongside me.  We can stop this cycle together.

Raising Little Heroes: Project C.U.R.E./Kits for Kids

This past fall, Owen (my 2 year old) came down with a bad stomach bug and had to be taken to the emergency room because of dehydration.  It was relatively scary while in the midst of it, but in the end was a manageable experience because we are lucky enough to live in a country where we have access to medical care.  After this happened, I became slightly obsessed with the realization that if we had happened to live in another part of the world, it's more than possible that he would have died.

At some point in the months following this, I noticed that a Facebook friend "liked" an organization named  Project C.U.R.E. based here in Colorado (in Centennial, near Denver) that procures surplus medical supplies and sends them to 139 countries that desperately need them.  I looked over the website a bit and immediately emailed Megan Prentice, the name I saw as a contact in the volunteer section of the website, and told her about Raising Little Heroes and asked if there was something our group could do to support their work.  Megan wrote me back right away telling me that although our kids are too young to help out in the warehouse, they are the perfect age to help with their Kits for Kids program.  Basically, you pick up empty kit bags from the warehouse and fill them with items from a supply list and then return them to the warehouse to be shipped overseas to communities that need basic medicine cabinet items.  I agreed that the project sounded perfect for our group and I put it right on our calendar for the following month.

I knew we could pull this project off but also knew that it was going to take some creative thinking and planning.  Although many of the items on the supply list can be found at the dollar store, gathering the items would involve money--something I usually try to avoid while planning these projects.  Part of my vision for the group is that anyone, regardless of their financial situation, should be able to participate.  I don't want anyone opting out of a project because they don't have cash because that is something that happens to me ALL THE TIME.  In addition to the items, each kit had to be accompanied by a $5 donation to cover shipping costs.  So, I wasn't exactly worried that we wouldn't be able to pull it off but I did know I needed help figuring it out.  Luckily, four amazing RLH moms stepped up to the plate and offered to help me organize and plan:  Jessica Zeldner, Katie Volkmar, Amanda Murphy and Lesley Switendick.  The 5 of us got to brainstorming and came up with a plan.  We would set up a sign up sheet for the items (we used mysignup.com) and get the word out right away that we needed help gathering items.  We also gave people the option of donating gift cards so that anyone wanting to have the shopping experience with their kids could still do so, even if they couldn't fit it into their budget.  We set a goal of raising all of the shipping costs through donations (directly to Project C.U.R.E.) so that we didn't have to ask families to cover that on top of whatever they were spending on items for the kits.

Thanks to Backflip Studios here in Boulder and Sandi and Gary Stith, we almost immediately surpassed our shipping cost goal by $100.  This not only meant that we didn't have to worry about that piece of the puzzle anymore but that in the end we would be able to make a donation to Project C.U.R.E. when we returned our full kits.  In the weeks following, the sign up sheet slowly started to fill up and I received gift card donations from several non-RLH friends/family (Jenny Mathias, Joelyn Wilkosz, Ivan Grabowski and Sandy Yoon, Maggie Briggs and Gretchen and Bryan Rech).  Despite this promising and heartwarming activity, my dream of filling 50 kits started to downsize into dreams of filling 20 or so because the sign up sheet was pretty daunting..there were just so many items on there!

The day of the event arrived and we had a great turnout and a lovely time.  The kids had fun choosing items for the kits and the parents all enjoyed chatting and getting to know each other.  Before we knew it, we had filled all of the kits and we called everyone together.  I got choked up as we all counted the bags together and realized we had reached our goal--in the end we were able to fill 53 kits!  I was so pleasantly shocked and touched by the effort put in by so many of our families.  It was a great project to do with our kids and they seemed to understand the impact, even if only in really basic terms.  As we were getting dinner ready at home later that day, Zoe (my 5 year old) came right up to me and said "Mommy, I wanted to say this earlier, but got nervous saying it in front of everyone...that was INCREDIBLE....all the people that came to help...everything that we did....it was INCREDIBLE" and she gave me a huge hug.  Now, if that isn't proof that we are succeeding in our mission, I don't know what is.

A couple of days later, my kids and I drove the full kits down to the Project C.U.R.E. warehouse and Megan was kind enough to take a little time out of her day to show us around and tell us more about the work that they do.  The kids had a great time and were blown away by how HUGE the warehouse is.  It is absolutely jam packed with medical supplies all waiting to go to communities that need them.  The volunteers work tirelessly and were all really kind and friendly.  We felt so grateful to have a little window into their invaluable efforts.

Although our event has passed, there are many ways in which you can support Project C.U.R.E.:

1)  There are piles of Kits for Kids at the warehouse that were filled by other groups but were not accompanied by the $5 donation, waiting to be shipped.  If you would like to help those kits find a home, you can check out Megan's Fundly campaign and make a donation.  In fact, I set up my own Fundly campaign to help them reach their goal so check out mine too and feel free to hop on board.

2)  Hold your own Kits for Kids event with your child's school or a group of friends/neighbors.  I'd love to help you figure out how to organize your event so feel free to contact me if you would like my support.  I'd even pick up and drop of the kits at the warehouse for you if it helps.  To help raise your shipping costs, you can set up your own Fundly campaign.  If you don't live within driving distance of a Project C.U.R.E. warehouse but want to hold a Kits for Kids event, it IS possible, but you would have to talk with Megan about shipping the kits to and from the warehouse.

3)  If you are traveling to an underserved region of the world, you can contact Project C.U.R.E. and ask about their C.U.R.E. Kit program.  If you participate, you can bring along a prepackaged C.U.R.E. Kit with you as part of your luggage and deliver it to a clinic in need.

4)  You can volunteer in one of the warehouse locations (there are several around the country, including New York **hint hint**) or donate items to those or a distribution center.

5)  If you are a medical professional, you can be a  part of C.U.R.E. clinics and have an opportunity to work with a clinic that Project C.U.R.E. has delivered supplies to.  They offer 12-14 trips per year.

I urge you to go to Project C.U.R.E.'s website to learn more about what they do and dare you not to feel inspired and support them in some way.

Thank you to everyone who made this event possible, I look forward to doing it again next year!

New Groove

For most of my life, all I've wanted to be was a mom.  I struggled (resisted) to find and settle on any sort of "career path" because I sort of resented the whole idea of it.  Why couldn't my "career" of choice be motherhood?  Of course I knew that in reality I had to do something to make money but I had a lot of trouble finding anything that didn't make me constantly think "Well, what I really want to do with my life is be a mom, so this just sucks."  In college I finally settled on theatre as a major because it was the only thing I really enjoyed spending time thinking about/working on.  I was never convinced I'd really make a career out of it, but I went with it knowing it was the closest thing to enjoying work I was ever going to get until I got to become a mother.  Turns out, I  did manage to make a pretty great career out of it and feel really grateful for my degree.  It won't make me millions, but I've always felt like it prepared me for any job that might come my way...life too really.  I won't try to explain this theory in detail because this post I read the other day hits the nail on the head for me.

Anyway, once we moved out here and I left my once in a lifetime job at The Lion King, I knew that professional theatre was no longer my career of choice.  I do love it, but the schedule you have to keep is not one that lends itself to the kind of family life I want to have.  You are basically working when everyone else is not and when our kids are in school full time...well, I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd never see them.  We settled into a life here where I'm able to stay at home with the kids because of my Family Housing RM job, which is obviously completely temporary.  It's the perfect setup for us during this phase of our lives even though money is super super tight.  There's just  no way I could find a job working outside of the home that would cover childcare and then some, allowing us to actually make a profit.  Nathan's schedule changes semester to semester (actually week to week) so drastically that it's not even a matter of me being able to work nights or something because sometimes he's just not able to be home, night or day, for weeks on end.

So, two black clouds have been looming over my head in the last couple of years here:

1) When Nathan is done with school, I'm going to have to get an out-of-the-home job immediately.  We will have to start paying back the mountain of debt we are now buried under and also, I won't have this RM job so we'll have bills to pay again.  Now that I've been able to have my stay-at-home mother job for a few years, I feel much more picky about what kind of a job I'd want to pursue.  If I was bitter about the idea of a job before I even became a mother (because nothing seemed good enough), imagine how I'd feel with actual children at home that I love spending time with.  I have to admit that when Zoe was a baby and I worked at The Lion King, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I actually enjoyed going to work and felt good about how I was doing as a parent because of it.  However, I will not be returning to the life I had when Zoe was a baby so I couldn't help but dread the inevitable job search.

2)  I've had a difficult time accepting that we are really done having kids and feel a mix of sadness and joy whenever either of my kids reaches a new milestone.  I cried tears of joy/mourning the day Owen first walked because I knew I'd never have another little baby hanging around on my hip all day.  I made a melancholic mental note the day I took Owen to the store to pick out his first pair of big boy underwear.  I watched him proudly carry the package up to the cashier and thought to myself "Here's another precious moment I'll never experience again."  So yeah, I have a really hard time accepting that this phase I've waited for my whole life is coming to a close.  I know I'll be a mom forever, but I've always really enjoyed the toddler-kindergarten age in particular and will be sad to not have these little trouble makers around the house driving me crazy all of the time.

BUT somehow suddenly I've magically gained an entirely new point of view.  I don't know how it happened but here is what I do  know:

1)  I'm working really, really hard to develop and organize Raising Little Heroes and feel extremely proud of what we've accomplished and how much it's grown in such a short amount of time.  Although I don't  know yet if I'll be able to figure out a way to make this particular group my eventual career, I do know that I feel highly motivated to seek similar work with a nonprofit or to work towards turning this RLH concept into an actual job wherever we do end up after Nathan is done with school.  I don't  know where I'll start or what will happen but I find myself thinking things like "Oooo!  The kids will be in  school so I'll have time to actually go and pursue something I find really rewarding and not have to sacrifice time with them!  Yay!"  Let me be clear, I have never--NEVER--had thoughts like this.  Usually I think things like "Well, they will be in school so I'll have to go out and make money somehow and count the hours until I get to go home and that will be fine."  Mind you, I know this may happen despite my new found passion but it feels really good to at least have a spark there.

2)  I'm discovering the positive things that come with having "older" (not infants anyway) kids.  My friend Becca said once, when her youngest at the time was around Owen's age now: "There's something I love about the winter.  We are cozy in our house and we can bake and just hang out together"..and I honestly thought: "HUH??!"  I could not relate in the slightest.  I used to hate hate hate being stuck inside with no other adult to keep me company.  I felt like I was doing every single thing for the kids and nothing for myself.  Anything I wanted to take care of (cleaning the bathroom, cooking something) had to be done in little pockets of quiet (nap) time and if I tried to take care of it with them around, I felt like I had a time bomb strapped to my ass.  At any moment, this could all explode so get it done FAST!  Now though, I'm finding myself actually enjoying our quiet winter mornings in the house together.  Lately I've been baking and cooking more and have discovered that I really love baking bread--something I thought sounded totally impossible not long ago--I mean, there's no way I'd be able to knead the dough for 10 minutes without someone throwing a fit because I wasn't doing something for them.  I can also now take a shower after Nathan leaves for the day..not only take the shower, but not have to rush through it (this does not always go perfectly but still).  This alone is huge.  It seems like I've spent the last 5 years of my showering life either making sure it was okay with Nathan or rushing through it before someone started throwing a fit because I wasn't paying enough attention to them.  I can also now clean the bathroom while the kids play together..or they help me clean and it gets done even faster...changes like this have been grabbing my attention more and more these days...

So, I feel like a major shift has occurred.  I don't know if it's because the kids are getting older and this just sort of naturally happens or if I've somehow magically changed my own point of view but I feel this amazing sense of relief.  I can now enjoy watching my kids grow without those black clouds over my head.  That probably sounds dramatic but I'm being 100% sincere.  I feel hopeful and excited for the years ahead and I can't believe I was carrying around so much sadness and dread before.  I'm not sure how I did it but I'm glad to have found a way to lighten that load.