Out of the mouths of babes

She said it out of nowhere, apropos of nothing.

“Mom, if I were you I’d be really happy.”

“Why’s that, sweetie?”

“Because you have a great life.”

It made me smile. I didn’t ask what her measuring stick was, what she thought made my life so great – I didn’t want the shine to go off the statement if it was only because I could have ice cream for dinner if I wanted to, or because I’m allowed to wear lipstick. I just treasured the sentiment, stored it away in my heart. I’m sure I’ll need to pull it out again – on a day I’m feeling shrewish and frumpy and overwrought. On a day I forget – and it happens so often! – what a great life I truly do have. There are so many beautiful people I have the privilege to know, to love, to be loved by – I have delightful daughters, a sweet husband, a comfy sunny little home, the opportunity to write and craft and cook up a storm. I have enough quirkiness and mystery in myself and my loves to keep it interesting and make certain life isn’t sickeningly sweet. I have complete freedom to be myself and to be loved for it – and that is priceless.

So yes, my dear Olive, I am really happy – because I do have a marvelously great life.

help, please?

I absolutely love every bit of them. Let’s start there.

Candle

They are the light of my life and they amuse, appall, challenge and inspire me beyond what I ever dreamed possible. And yet…

And yet maybe because I work with kids all day, too, or maybe because I have only the precious few moments of my daily commute that are kid-less in my entire day or maybe because I single parent two girls 5.5 days per week or perhaps, perhaps because I’m absolutely never alone – even in the shower…

I have very little left to give to them.

We spend our evenings on playdates, or hustling around running errands, or watching horrendous amounts of Curious George and Elmo while I fold laundry and try not to play on my phone. We have occasional dance parties and we read and sing together some, but, on the whole? It’s not what I dreamed or imagined for my family, for my life as a mother. It feels all too often like putting in time. It nearly kills me to play dolls or a board game or (God forbid!) try to do a messy craft. I’m snappy and impatient and I find myself bellowing and sending little girls to their rooms when really? I’m probably the one who needs to go to her room.

I’ve tried to set the alarm a little earlier so that I have half an hour or so to myself in the morning quiet… but it’s so much easier to snooze it when half an hour would feel so good and I’ve only gotten five hours of sleep, anyway…

And here we are. Mommy burnout.

Have you been here? Are you here? Do you have a light you can shine to help me see the way out? Because this? Feels awful. Truly truly awful. And I would love some help.

And a hug.

fallow

It’s angry and red and horrible. Painful to look at.

But look at it I must, as she toddles around with her little bum bare, willing air and time to do their healing magic. No more of the “remove diaper, clean area, rediaper, repeat” cycle… her sweet tush must lie fallow if it is to be remedied.

So too this space. It flourished, went slowly stagnant, died. And though I wanted to write, wanted to make the page flow with life again, it couldn’t, I couldn’t. I wanted so very much to submit something for Listen to Your Mother but it simply didn’t feel right. There were no words. My blog, my tongue, my typing fingers, weren’t ready. It had to lie fallow.

We had been friends a very long time, and suddenly there was strain and awkwardness. I wanted to reach out but there was some barrier, some invisible weight holding me back. And now, a long while later, there is an olive branch. The friendship is beginning anew. It needed some time, some space, some settling of the snow globe we had shook up. It needed a fallow season.

I never realized how much space between was needed – how often the answer is simply to wait and let things fall into place, to let time and the universe and the fates and God work things out as they’re meant to. Things are not always instantly fixable, and healing – whether physically, mentally, relationally, emotionally – takes time. Its like that boiling pot you never could get to boil while watching – the magic is going on beneath the surface, out of our sight. The burner is heating, the molecules are speeding up and the warmth is spreading. The field is resting, the worms are aerating the soil. And when all this behind-the-scenes is played out, then the visible action can begin. Then things can become productive and healthy and glittery again. And then… then… it is all worth it.

The greatest gift is happening while all is quiet, while things are lying fallow.

***linking up with Heather for the 77th installment of Just Write. Join us!

homesick

For the first time in a long time, I’m homesick. I miss sunshine and sandy beaches, spicy Mexican food under meandering branches of oak and feeding tortilla chip bits to seemingly endless streams of scavenging songbirds. I long for sea breezes and late night bonfires replete with guitars, off key singing, marshmallows on unwound wire hangers and thick Mexican blankets. It’s an ache that persists, not because now it’s wintry and snowy (I honestly rather adore that) or because California outdoes Minnesota somehow. I have no regrets, no ice-induced angst. I simply miss home, and I need to go reconnect to my family, my beloved friends, my previous selves.

For the first time, I think, it’s a healthy longing. I’m not pretending to myself that I’ll go back and slip into my old life as though nothing ever happened. It’s taken me nearly 10 years to accept that that simply can’t happen, that life has gone on and I no longer have a space there – everyone’s lives and stories have continued and expanded into the place I once occupied, and this is a good thing. Truly, this is some of what I’m longing to see – the lovely ways their lives have gone on, have grown, and who these gorgeous ones have become. To be granted that window – framed in hugs and good food – feels like a tremendous gift. And it’s one I’m longing to open.

almond bars

I bit into the almond whatsit (they had me at almond) and sighed happily when something began niggling in the back of my brain. I had had something else blissfully almondish… Yes, the almond cake that everyone went wild for, but something else… And then it hit me. Astrid’s almond bars. Eureka!

Astrid was a sweet little lady at the church I grew up in, and one blessed day she brought these luscious bars to a church potluck. Or ladies’ tea. Or something. All I remember is falling in love, and my mother and I sweetly begging the recipe – which arrived on a beautiful little recipe card shortly thereafter.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that I’m making these now – Astrid called them Swedish Almond Bars, and I certainly live now in the land of Swedes and bars! And oh, these are delicious!

Almond bars

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 30 mins

Total time: 40 mins

Ingredients

1 cup sliced almonds, divided
1 cup butter, melted
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1½ teaspoons almond extract
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
2½ cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
¼ teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325.
Grease and flour a 9×13 pan. Sprinkle ½ cup of the almonds in the bottom of the pan.
Beat together the butter, eggs, sugar, almond and vanilla extracts till well blended. Add flour and salt and beat till smooth. Spread batter in the pan.
Combine the 3 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the batter. Top with the remaining ½ cup almonds.
Bake 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and cut into bars.

I’ve been a busy little elf, baking away over here.

pannycakes

Confession: I’m not a big fan of pancakes. When we go as a family out to breakfast I tend to get lunch – breakfast food is no great shakes to me. The one caveat is my mom’s favorite weekend treat growing up – banana pancakes with coconut syrup. Of course, neither Jeff nor Olive will eat bananas, so…. sigh. As I said, no pancakes for me.

Cut to Olive’s birthday party this year… 5 years old so she could invite 5 friends (I stole that from Barbara Kingsolver and it’s brilliant) and she wanted a pajama party. Which, to her, meant the girls come over in the morning in their jammies and eat pancakes (instead of cake! Have I mentioned how much I love this kid?). I made Jeff and Olive’s favorite buttermilk pancakes, a recipe I’ve had in my little recipe box for goodness only knows how long and whose provenance is an utter mystery. And here’s the thing: I could not stop eating them. Plain, even – no syrup needed. And tonight the unheard-of craving hit and I had to have them…

Buttermilk Pancakes

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 25 mins

Total time: 35 mins

Serves: 6

Ingredients

3 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
3 cups buttermilk
½ cup milk
3 eggs
⅓ cup butter, melted

Instructions

Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl, the wet in another. Keep separate until you’re ready to cook.
Heat a lightly oiled/buttered griddle or frying pan over medium/high heat.
Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir till just blended.
Pour the batter onto the griddle in ½ cups for each pancake.
Brown on both sides and serve.

Notes

You must use actual buttermilk for these to turn out right. Instant buttermilk or milk curdled with vinegar (that substitute trick every cookbook recommends) will result in soggy pancakes. I don’t know why this is, but trust me on this one.

** some of the munchkins in my classes at school call pancakes “pannycakes” and I think it’s the cutest thing ever. Thus the title.

can

“I can’t,” she says.

…get ready for bed.
…keep my voice down.
…eat my breakfast.
…take a nap.
…pick up my stuff.

And inside, I seethe. Yes of course because it’s an outright lie – she can obviously do those things. She’s five, for heaven’s sake. But more so because I don’t want those words falling from her mouth, feeling comfortable on her tongue. I want her to walk through life with an “I can” at the ready, to enter situations with confidence, hope, the gumption to give anything a try. And the honesty to say “I don’t want to” if that’s what she really means.

Elle Strike

food. family. fireflies.