on your graduation day {a video}

This weekend, Uncle Ben is graduating from four years of undergrad at RPI in NY. The bug had some words about this:

Congrats Uncle Ben!

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom.

Isn’t she pretty?

I get it now why there isn’t a kids day. Every day really is kids day.

Love you, mom!

refresh

i have a lot of updates but not a lot of time.

so, here’s a refreshing picture for you!

mom groups

i get nervous at the thought of getting together with a bunch of women. or anything with other moms that involves the word “mom” along with “gathering” “playdate”, or “group.”

i haven’t been able to pinpoint why, but that stuff is draining to me. i dead it and then i want to come home afterward and take a nap. i am not much of a napper so i just end up being tired and grouchy the rest of the day.

mainly i don’t like plastering on a smile and saying nice things about child development and how much or little my kid naps and eats. i don’t like playing the game of whose child is more advanced and which mom gets the most pity for getting the least sleep. i don’t always get when someone is making a joke or when the tone is serious.

now you may be wondering why i want to be an at-home mom, but i love the kid part. i love sitting at home on the floor with shilah and playing and reading and talking. i love seeing her learn new things and try new foods and figure out how to solve little problems like keeping the cracker in her own hand and not giving into the temptation of handing it to the charming dog, which results in: no more cracker, then trying the scenario all over again.

i also like getting together with friends one-on-one. i like talking to and learning about other people and all those one-on-one get-togethers with close friends are fun and engaging.

but the group stuff is overwhelming.

we’re sitting at lunch the other day and my very nice husband asked, “why do you think that stuff is so frustrating to you?”

i stared at my cheetos and then i began to talk, slowly. about how other moms just want to compete and how people start talking about dumb stuff like how they had a friend who had a natural childbirth and it was ridiculous, and how they are ridding their house of bleach because traces of it in their homes is going to kill their kids, and how they did everything right and now their kid sleeps through the night every night, and how everyone wants to have another baby.

it sounds like the problem is everyone else, not me. doesn’t it?

well i kept talking about what is wrong with other moms. and he says, “yeah, but why does that stuff bother you so much?”

and i don’t think before i talk but i start: i think it bothers me because in that instant, when i realize that i had a birth that people think is dumb, and my house does contain more than a few traces of bleach and my kid wakes up crying every other night, and shilah will likely hit the magic age of two and not have a sibling and…i feel like a terrible mom.

the problem is me.

whoops.

in those situations, i immediately lose confidence in the things i know. i forget that God created me with a purpose and that i can be confident because even on my very, very worst day, Christ would have died for me. for me to live eternity in heaven. i forget all of those things. instead, my stomach tightens and it gets a little harder to breathe and i hold on to my child tighter and i am looking for the nearest exit, because i must be a terrible mom. because of the traces of bleach and the fact that my daughter doesn’t like to drink milk.

and an aside here, are people really saying these things as drastically as i think? i am absolutely sure that they are not. i am internalizing them. i am so prideful that i think people spend time thinking about me and that i make the wrong choices. i am choosing to hear everything through the filter of my own insecurities, and consequently, words and emotions hit my emotions sounding harsh.

i am writing this because i trust that someone needs to hear it: you are fearfully and wonderfully made. God is in control of your family and your home and all the things you have and even what you do not have…remember that when someone else is forgetting and telling you otherwise. or when you are just hearing it all wrong.

how to know you are ready to have kids

We help lead in a class at our church fill of engaged and newly married couples. The last week of the class, participants get to ask whatever questions they want to a panel of four couples who have kids and have been married a while.

The most common question? Some variation of “how do you know when you are ready to have kids?”

The answer is that God will give you kids when He wants you to have them. But, the answer everyone wants is, “you will now you are ready when you have completed _______” but they want you to fill in the blank.

So, here are 10 tests you should pass so that you know you are ready to have kids…and you will see why “you will now you are ready when you have completed ____________” is not a good answer to be searching for.

First, here is a fitting picture of Shilah after she got the powdered sugar out of the cabinet, opened it, and dumped it on the floor/ate it.

10 Tests to Pass Before You Have Kids

1. Time and Money Test:

1. Pick up the newspaper.
2. Read it for the last time.
3. Go to the grocery store.
4. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
5. Go home.

2. Discipline Test:

Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who already are parents and berate them about their…

• Methods of discipline.
• Lack of patience.
• Appallingly low tolerance levels.
• Allowing their children to run wild.

Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s breast feeding, sleep habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it because it will be the last time in your life you will have all the answers.

3. Nighttime Test:

1. Get home from work and immediately begin walking around the living room from 5PM to 10PM carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8-12 pounds, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly. (Eat cold food with one hand for dinner)
2. At 10PM, put the bag gently down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12 and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1AM.
4. Set the alarm for 3AM.
5. As you can’t get back to sleep, get up at 2AM and make a drink and watch an infomercial.
6. Go to bed at 2:45AM.
7. Get up at 3AM when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs quietly in the dark until 4AM.
9. Get up. Make breakfast. Get ready for the day (start your day and be productive)
10. Repeat steps 1-9 each night. Keep this up for 3-5 years. Look cheerful and together.

4. Mess Test:

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains.
2. Hide a piece of raw chicken behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flower bed.
4. Then rub them on the clean walls.
5. Take your favourite book, photo album, etc. Wreck it.
6. Spill milk on your new pillows. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look?

5. Dress Test:

1. Buy an octopus and a small bag made out of loose mesh.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this – all morning.

6. Vehicle Test:

1. Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.
2. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
3. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
4. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
5. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

7. Shopping Test:

1. Go to the local grocery store.
2. Take with you the closest thing you can find to a pre-school child. (A full-grown goat is an excellent choice).
3. If you intend to have more than one child, then definitely take more than one goat.
4. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

8. Feeding Test:

1. Hollow out a melon.
2. Make a small hole in the side.
3. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side.
4. Now get a bowl of soggy Cheerios and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane.
5. Continue until half the Cheerios are gone.
6. Tip half of what is left into your lap. The other half, just throw up in the air.
7. You are now ready to feed a nine-month-old baby.

9. Entertainment Test:

1. Learn the names of every character from Sesame Street , Barney, Disney, the Teletubbies, and Pokemon.
2. Watch nothing else on TV but PBS, the Disney channel or Noggin for at least five years. (I know, you’re thinking What’s ‘Noggin’?) Exactly the point.

10. Social Life Test

1. Make a recording of Fran Drescher saying ‘mommy’ repeatedly. (Important: no more than a four second delay between each ‘mommy’; occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet is required).
2. Play this tape while talking to an adult of your choice.
3. Have someone else continually tug on your skirt hem, shirt- sleeve, or elbow.
4. You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

This is taken from some stuff on the interwebs…can’t find an original source

the answer to your question

when you get married everyone asks, “when are you thinking of having children?”

it is a predictable question, like comments about the weather in an awkward silence.

when you find yourself with a child, everyone asks, “when are you thinking of having another?”

or at least that is what everyone asks me.

so here is the answer:

(wait, at least three of you now think i am going to tell you i am pregnant. i am not. promise.)

ok here is the answer: i don’t know.

that was just the first part of the answer. here is the second: i am ok with the fact that i don’t know.

there is like this unspoken thing with moms. it is that if i have more kids, i am more capable, more valuable, my life has more worth. maybe i am just reading into it, but that seems why people ask when we are having more. it feels like someone is asking you when you are getting a promotion. “when are you going to the next level?” it immediately makes me feel like where i am is unacceptable. that i should strive for more. it is sad that someone’s questions could make me feel so worthless.

before we had Shilah people would say things like, “oh, well you will understand when you have kids.” like having a child gives you some special powers. it does not. oh, wait – i don’t barf when i get diarrheaed-on anymore. is that the special understanding you were talking about? i am sure that it is not. sure, we have a child and there are some things i have come to understand that i did not before, but everyone comes to understand new things with each new day in life. having a child does not make me better or more valuable than someone without a child.

the fact is, i am content. i am content to sit where i am and wait until God lets us know what’s next. it is funny that we even ask people when they’re having more kids like life is created outside of the hand of God.

if we believe what is written for our us and for own children, “for you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb….My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them,” (Ps 139:13, 15-16) then we must believe that we are where we are because we are supposed to be here. if God wrote each of the days that were formed for our children….well then we dont have more kids or other kids or any kids because we’re not to that date where they have been written. that’s it. so go do what you’re supposed to do today and not wish there was something else written for you (and don’t imply to someone else that they should be wishing for something different)!

and e, as you wait for the days written for your child to come, i will enjoy my time waiting with you. we have wonderful husbands and wonderful babies and wonderful each-others to wait with. i am excited to see the joy in each day with you until THE day

 

embrace the camera: 2/24

I am trying to make sure my family doesn’t look back on pictures and say, “where’s mom?” because I was always taking the pictures and too hair-in-a-ponytail/no-makeup to participate in them.

Emily hosts Embrace the Camera every Thursday. Get behind your camera and get yourself in a picture with your kiddos.

I didn’t actually take this one. Deirdre took it, and she won’t even realize it until now. D got some camera lessons and was playing around with my camera in preparation while we were having a little birthday happy hour and Hilary’s. I was emptying my sd card yesterday and found this little gem.

Deirdre – this is awesome. Thank you!

the bug’s first birthday

We have been to our fair share of first birthday parties. Some were over-the-top and stressful. Some were relaxed. Many were in between.

I love to throw a good party, especially baby showers and wedding showers. I like these parties particularly because you get to plan dozens of little details and then everyone shows up and the party is about someone else.

I think my dream job would be to plan parties for people and then leave five minutes before the guests arrive. I would even give the host an apron and tousle her hair a little so it looked like she planned the whole party. I have even saved links to awesome kids party stuff that I imagined here, here, here, here, and here. And look! invitations here and here.

I appreciate the details and the sentiments but the thought of talking to thirty people at your own house while you’re keeping an eye on your perfect cookie tray to make sure you shouldn’t replenish with round two of snacks yet, and trying to make sure a toddler doesn’t try to scale a floorlamp or trip over the back door threshold, and where is the birthday girl, anyway? all that…sounds exhausting.

So, we set out for a birthday bash outside at a third-party location. My only decor was a half dozen helium balloons that I purchased on a whim the day before. They had lost all helium by party time.

Our goals were:

1. To be able to invite a lot of people
2. To have a low-stress celebration
3. To keep our costs reasonable

Check, check, and check! We headed to Central Market, an upscale grocery store with a park, playground and tons of outdoor seating. Jon and I arrived about 15 minutes early, bought equal parts beer, bottled water, and cupcakes, and pushed some tables together outside while all four grandparents dressed and transported the birthday girl to the fiesta.

The invitation (emailed):

The birthday girl:

The venue:

The food (Erika’s photo):

The obligatory cake-eating (first is Erika’s photo):

The friends (last two are Erika’s photos):

The thank yous (mailed):

This event was made possible by Texas weather, where you can have an outdoor party in January and it’s 70 degrees.

Happy Birthday, Gigi!

Today is my mom’s birthday.

She is a great mom, she always has been. And, now she is a great Gigi too.

I will show you in pictures:

Isn’t she pretty?

Today, my dad is whisking my mom off for a fun couple of days. Hope you have a great time!

dan’s smoked ketchup

I have mentioned many times that a really really fun thing about my mom and dad is that they love to cook. Cook and eat and host and really enjoy other people enjoying their creations. So many memories are built around meals at their house.

Also, there aren’t a lot of recipes that they make twice in the exact same way. Making a dish for the second time is always a chance to add different spices or another layer or more cheese. When I was in college, I asked my mom to put together some of my favorite recipes for me.

Some of the recipes she had already and some of them I think she followed my dad around the kitchen and wrote down what he was throwing together in order to get a recipe on paper. I make tuna rice roll how my mom did and eat it many days in a row for lunch. I make her dutch coffee cake for breakfast or dessert. We have tater tot casserole for dinner. I know you are wondering what tater tot casserole is. I will share it with you later.

My dad does a lot of the meat. There are times when Jon and me and my brother are home and there are actually “meat fests.” This involves a lot of meat…smoked, grilled, anything goes. One time, we invited Erika and Micah to come with us and we still talk about the meat from that trip. The food is that good. The experience is that fun.

I think last year my parents went to Canada and they came back with a love for smoked ketchup. Naturally, they figured out how to make it. My dad also put the recipe down on paper! It is awesome. The smoked ketchup is like there is a little bit of an outside grill in your mouth, being carried by a fry. On burgers, it adds to the flavor and complexity of the burger.

We have finished three jars of it in our own house. Whew. He also recently has been smoking salmon, which is is good as it sounds…especially when it goes straight from the smoker into your mouth.

If you are revving up the smoker, get this going! If you are just revving up the grill – his instructions show you how to use your grill as a smoker!

^^before and after of the smoked ingredients

dan’s smoked ketchup

Makes 3 pints with some left over for burgers tonite.

• 10-14  ripe roma tomatoes (seeded and cut in half)
• 2  16 oz. Cans tomato sauce
• 1 large sweet yellow onion (sliced)
• 4 small shallots (peeled and sliced)
• 2 jalapeno peppers (seeded and cut in half)
• 2 heads garlic (peel and cut off the top third)
• ¼ c. red chili powder
• 1 t. sea salt
• ½ t. black pepper
• ¼ c. brown sugar
• 1 ½ T. cider vinegar
• 1 t. cumin
• 1 t. Allspice
• ½ t. Nutmeg
• 1 T. Worchestershire Sauce
• Mesquite chips (soaked in water for about an hour)

Instructions

1. Arrange tomatoes cut side down, onion, shallots, jalapenos, and garlic on a grill sheet or in a grill basket.
2. You will be smoking over indirect heat.  So if you don’t have a smoker, arrange your coals on the sides of your grill.  Once the coals are hot, cover them generously with a handful of mesquite chips.  Place your vegetables on the grill (but not over the coals), and close the lid.  After 30 minutes, turn the vegetables and add another handful of chips.  When the vegetables are tender and a little brown, they’re done.
3. Remove the vegetables from the grill and cool.  Squeeze the pulp from each clove of garlic. Remove the skins from the tomatoes.  Then transfer the vegetables to a food processor and add all of the remaining ingredients (you may need to food process in two or more batches, then hand mix the batches in a large bowl for consistency).   Process until a smooth ketchupy consistency.
4. Can in pint jars in boiling water bath for 35 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

note to the chef: the norris house is out of this stuff