Snippets and Vignettes

I'm super behind in my blogging, so I'm using my lazy Mother's Day time sitting at the bar counter drinking champagne and watching James make my French Toast-filled brunch (I never eat breakfast, but French Toast is my favorite and making everyone wait until noon to eat it is part of my present) to do some bloggy catch up on the past week. We'll talk about today tomorrow, or whenever I get time again to sit down and write (an activity that always takes 5x longer than I think it will or should, but it's a labor of love and typos).

The last week is already a blur, but I have a collection of snippets from facebook and short phrases I typed into blogger each night before Silicon Valley took all my attention (finally started watching that show and freaking LOVE it. So hilarious, with such great dialogue, I can't do a single thing while it's on except rewind parts where I was laughing too hard to catch the next line. It's swallowing all my evenings and I'm not sad about it, even if James "misses shows were people die") I must flesh out because I particularly want to remember the Landon quotes forever. And the veggie lasagna recipe. It's food for the beef-minimizing gods.

But it is Mother's Day and it feels appropriate to share this photo of my mom and 1-month-old me. I didn't have a picture of my mom and baby-me until I found this Polaroid at the bottom of one of the boxes my parents gave me when they moved. It now sits propped against the mirror on my dresser, waiting for me to get it restored and properly framed, surrounded by my favorite pictures of me holding my babies. I love her big smile and love that I'm looking only at her.

Diving right in to the week...

~ ~ ~

Tuesday morning, in the kitchen, while I'm rushing around trying to get out the door by 7:30.

Landon: Mom, Mom, MOM!

Me: Yes!

Landon: Look! I combed my hair the other direction.

Me: 😶. Well, it looks great.

Landon, with a happy sigh: Yeah, I just wanted to try something a little different this morning.

~ ~ ~

I had a dream early Wednesday morning that I was pregnant again and I was so excited. I was half-awake in bed for at least 20 minutes where I still believed it was true and I was so sad when I woke up completely and realized it was not. I'm coming to accept I'm probably never going to be okay with the fact that Cora is our last. I can move forward, it doesn't overwhelm me, but that feeling of closure or completion or "oh thank god I'm not actually pregnant because we have 3 kids and our youngest is potty trained and we have 3 bedrooms and college is expensive" is just never going to happen. Instead I'm working making peace with not being at peace.

~ ~ ~

I had a Planned Parenthood/Annie's List legislative update happy hour on Thursday night, so for the first time in as long as I can remember I wasn't home for a weeknight dinner (it's been years; no matter how crazy our schedules are, somehow Monday through Thursday dinners remain pretty sacred). Realizing that made me so glad I made myself go- the kids can totally miss me for a night and getting more involved in things that matter to me was one of my post-election goals of the year. I picked up Landon at a friend's house on the way home and since the girls were already asleep, I got to spend a little one-on-one time as I shuffled him through the bedtime routine.

I was laying on his bed, another thing I never do because by the time dinner is over and everyone is in/near bed, all I want is my couch and my James, listening to him jabber away and all of a sudden he exclaimed, "MOM!! I found something for you!!" Wondering if perhaps it was a diamond or extra few hours in the day given the level of excitement in his voice, I sat up with a "what?!!"

"It's a Ninjago encyclopedia! Now you can read it and finally understand what I'm talking about!"

I adore that he genuinely believes my lack of understanding of the Ninjago universe is based on a lack of source material rather than a deep and abiding lack of interest. I simply cannot give it brain space. I do not know Cole's hair style or element or the color of his dragon. I don't know what a master of spinjitzu is or how you become one. I could not possibly care less. But I tucked that encyclopedia under my arm and I will probably try to read it for him.

~ ~ ~

Friday morning began bright and early with Muffins with Moms at the big kids' school. Cora did not have a Mother's Day, but she did make me this potted plant that I am not actually allowed to hold. It lives in her room with her, but she did allow me to take a picture with it.

Like everything at our elementary school this year the parent involvement just keeps growing and growing and it is such a joy to see. Even if it means they run out of muffins right when we get to the front of the line. (They refilled with donuts hastily purchased by a dad who ran across the street.)

Love our school, love our PTA, and love that Claire used the R in mother to say I'm "rilly sweet."

~ ~ ~

Landon had 2 friends over after school on Friday while Claire played at another friend's house. Cora, delighted by the increase in her audience size, raced across the house the moment we got home, picked up her giant princess book, and ran over to show it off to the boys. My heart squeezed as they ooh'd and ah'd appropriately, and then they kept their appreciation going even as she opened the big book up and starting telling them the detailed stories on each page.

I was listening from the kitchen, knowing I needed to rescue them soon, but just loving listening to them endure her stories, "SEE! Cinda-weh-wa has TWO CATS!!" without laughing at her or trying to escape. This is very much to their credit- they're very sweet boys- but it's also to Landon's. They knew darn well he would tolerate no disrespect towards his baby sister, and he was sitting there totally attentive, giving her an audience for as long as she wanted one, and they followed his lead. I must admit, it's not a lead I likely would have given my friends, and while he has his moments that make me want to bang my head against a wall (like omg most of today), none of them involve his role as big brother.

~ ~ ~

And my very favorite snippet from the week. This gem occurred Friday night, while I was making dinner and Landon hanging out in the living room.

Landon, casually: Mom, so did I tell you I kind of like two girls?

Me: No! Who?

Landon: [discloses]

Me, dying a little but trying to be cool: Well that's fun.

Landon: So can you text their moms to tell them to tell the girls?

Me: Ummm, that's not really how it works.

-- later --

Landon: But how did you tell someone you liked them when you were little?

Me: Hmmm, I guess mostly you told your friends who told their friends who told them.

Landon, laughing hysterically: You should have just texted their moms.

I think I was still giggling in my dreams over this one. Love love tweenage Landon.

~ ~ ~

We did a mostly meatless week, sort of by accident, and these two recipes were delicious.

Turkey Vegetable Lasagna- best lasagna I've ever made. I loved that even though it had lots of veggies it was still super solid (most of the veggie ones I make end up watery) and the turkey, something that so often feels like a pale beef substitute, was exactly what needed to be in there. I did use less mozzarella than called for because I ran out, but it was perfect. This is my new official Lasagna Recipe.

Quinoa Fiesta Enchilada Bake. I've made this before, but I love it and I'd forgotten about it and we should all remember together. Serve with chips and lots of chopped avocado. So good. (I never have the chipotle peppers in adobo so I just dump in some chili powder, still works out great.)

~ ~ ~

So that's about it!

Cora has made herself a fort "just like the kids!!" (she always refers to Landon and Claire as "the kids" and it is the best) and I'm going to go to yoga. Because if there's anything that says "I love my children but also my sanity" it's an hour on your yoga mat. Hope your days are going great! And/or that you are able to take some time to enjoy your personal yoga-equivalent. Cheers to all the moms and mother-figures out there!

Ballet Super Star Weekend

You guys, we have SO MUCH to cover. I always think our weekends feel so fun and lazy and easy and restful, and then when I go to type them out I spend like 4,000 words and too many pictures trying to capture it all. That's about to happen again, so consider yourself warned. And lucky that I left my phone in the car as part of my unplugged New Year's Resolution while we were at the zoo this morning so there aren't any pictures of that.

First up, Tara is pet-sitting a French bulldog puppy and asked if she could bring her over Friday. "Of course!" I yelled into my allcaps text message, "Cora LOVES dogs!" And oh does she.

Hermes is the cutest and Tara said she was as obsessed with Cora as she was with her. Which seemed obvious when I got home and immediately tried to love her and she was super skeptical.

Claire tried too and she was just "Where is the little one?"

Here she is!

And then, after Tara and Hermes left (after Cora gave Hermes a thousand kisses and some sticks from our yard to-go), I realized Landon was spending the night with a friend and James was coaching late and the weather was spectacular and it was Friday and we most definitely needed a girls' night out.

The girls grabbed their purses and we were off to try a new Mexican place that opened up near us with a big patio and $5 happy hour margaritas. It was great. I love spending time with the girls, and not just because they love cheese as much as I do (side-eye to Landon) and they fill up on tortillas and queso and are super cheap (side-eye to James), they're so fun and funny and so very much themselves. I love any time I get to spend a little extra time with them.

We got home at the same time as James and let the girls pick the movie. It was Trolls (obviously) and there was a lot of dancin, but we all missed Landon and kept wondering where he was and why he wasn't asking to switch the movie. Claire said she got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and saw his door open and went in to check on him. James swam at 7 a.m. and went in and did the same. We're used to all our ducklings being together. Luckily Cora had her second dance recital at 11 a.m. (relieve the first here) and we like to turn out for these things in full force, so we went to pick him up at 10. He may half-heartedly pretend otherwise, but Landon LOVES a family supporting occasion.

And a photo booth accessory.

Cora had been talking about her "ballet 'cital" for weeks, asking every one of us repeatedly, "Are you coming to watch my ballet?" When each of us always responded, "yes! of course!" she'd squeal and give us a hug. She loves with her whole body and soul and it is the best and she was SO EXCITED to do ballet up on stage and that was the best too.

This would be our 5th ballet recital as parents and we'd never had a child dance on stage to every song. But Cora seemed calm and confident and overflowing with the joy of dance.

They did the introductions and she stood up and said her name and did her poses and we were like, oh my gosh, is this really going to happen?

And then BAM. It did!

We had toe pointing.

Second position.

Spinning!

She rocked it. And she loved every. freaking. minute.

The big kids were beside themselves, "She's dancing mom!" James and I were cracking up and passing the video camera back and forth between the heads of the women in front of us who would not stay in their seats. This is the last song and my personal favorite, but if you need more camera, the other 3 little parts are all here.

It was amazing.

We brought her flowers and she loved them.

She got to sit on faux-Princess-Belle's lap and she loved that.

She got glasses as a dance recital party favor and she loved them too.

It was 11:30 p.m. when it was all over and it was probably the best day of Cora's life. Besides basically all the other days.

She got to pick the location of her victory lunch, PIZZA! (AND SQUASH AND CHEESE!, though I couldn't fulfill the squash part until we got home; butternut squash is literally her favorite food while she still hates fruit and candy and most delicious things, she is such a weirdo and I adore her), so we drove to Mellow Mushroom and feasted and then she went to bed and napped for 4 hours. Being a star is exhausting.

My favorite part is when I finally went to wake her up (at 5 p.m.) she emerged from her bedding wearing her new princess shoes. Shoes that were not on her feet when I tucked her in.

Once everyone was awake we drove over to our local polling place to vote in our municipal elections (mayor, city council, school board, and water district board). I will admit I have frequently ignored local elections- figuring that either all the choices were depressing or I didn't know enough to vote and/or it didn't matter anyway because I'm a democrat in Texas and see reason 1, but after the shitshow of last November I vowed I would never ignore any election ever again. A week ago I went online and downloaded my ballot. I read all the voter's guides I could find to learn more about the candidates and also WTF a water district board is. This guide was my favorite, mostly because of the title, but also because it was the best description of what the water district board is, something even the water district board's website could not tell me. So we voted! And we all got stickers. And the whole thing took 10 minutes and then all we went home and ate dinner.

After dinner we went on a family walk/bike ride to visit a friend's new puppy. It was the perfect end to Cora's awesome day. And then she went back to sleep at 8 p.m. for another 11 hours. She sleeps more than any toddler I know, but I think exuding all that joy all the time just wears you out. Or she's just the rare toddler who understands how awesome it is that for a few years of your life everyone in your world will structure their life around your sleep whims and desires and she's soaking up all she can.

Today James and the big kids went on their run and then we headed to the zoo. Much joy and happiness and running ensued. We pink puffy heart our zoo.

When we returned we brought champagne over to some new neighbors, ate leftover pizza, and then tucked Cora back in bed for another nap. Claire had a friend over, which turned into two friends, which turned into a mom date for me, while Landon worked on a robot alligator metalworks kit he bought in the zoo gift shop. He's running a small business selling hand-made bracelets and necklaces to his friends and it's surprisingly lucrative. I'm probably going to have to do an audit soon.

I erranded, Cora awoke, and other friends came over for more swimming. It was such a gorgeous day. Cora had a wardrobe change partway through when she remembered she had a Princess Belle swimsuit. I understood.

I made these black bean burgers for dinner and they were SO GOOD. I had never had a black bean burger but they were easy and hearty and everyone loved them. I served them with roasted sweet potatoes and strawberries. It was the perfect Sunday night dinner after being outside as much as possible all day.

And now I'm doing Orangetheory in 7 hours so I need to end this, but may you all embrace your weeks ahead with the joy of Cora on stage and the enthusiasm of my children jumping into our freezing cold pool. Or even just half the enthusiasm. I'm aiming for half.

Harkening Back

I've been stuck in a cycle this week of insomnia - being tired - insomnia - and being more tired, so I haven't been as productive at night as I prefer. But last night I fell asleep in a reasonable amount of time and I taught barre tonight, which always leaves me feel a pleasant combination of ennervated and invigorated, so I'm putting words on the screen! We can this. Also, James is working on summer scheduling, so he's not going to bed before midnight anyway and I like to keep him company. Like Cora keeps Landon company when he practices headstands.

To properly recap, let's harken back to Saturday afternoon, a more innocent time, a time before Congress passed a healthcare bill that does nothing Trump promised and is so awful and immoral they made sure to exempt themselves from its coverage (and to make sure they voted before the CBO scored it, because deep down they know that insuring millions fewer people is not actually going to work out to lower premiums for those left), back when Republicans sort of still pretended they cared about human lives and fiscal responsibility, juuuuuust as I was pressing publish on this last post, we heard a knock on our door. James was asleep, Cora was "not tired," and the big kids were watching the Great British Baking Show with me in the name of "down time."

not tired

I ambled over to the front of the house and it was our neighbor! Who wanted to let us know a giant limb had fallen out of our tree! And wondered if we knew that and/or need a car to go anywhere later because ours were clearly being held hostage for a while.

We most definitely did NOT know our tree had broken and we DID need a car because we were supposed to leave in 30 minutes for our play! And that's how I ended up driving a Range Rover for the first time! On our way to see the BEST children's play we've ever seen at Casa Manana.

The plays are always good, but this one was just spectacular. The singing and costumes and stage production and cast... we loved it. Not even fear of the tree clearing estimate hampered my enjoyment. After all, I now had a Rover! Our neighbors are the best.

James called around to see if anyone could clear our limb, but no one could come out until Monday or Tuesday and the minimum quote we got was $350. He decided to take matters into his own hands and busted out a hand saw and ax and tore that thing apart. He's my hero. I stayed inside to monitor dinner and drink wine while occasionally calling out safety advice.

By bedtime, our driveway was clear and I could go to Sunday morning yoga!

The kids spent the morning enjoying their new tree home and the afternoon helping James clear all the leaves and branches to a neat pile by the curb. Teamwork! I didn't help with any of it.

To thank our neighbors and in a bit of serendipity with Teacher Appreciation Week, I baked 5 loaves of my mom's amazing Orange-Glaze Poppyseed Bread. And then some cookies, because why not? We'd just saved $400 on tree limb removal!

We ran a few errands on Sunday, after Landon submitted a quiz under my door asking if me to circle yes/no/maybe for various exciting activities like "go to the park" and "go to Target or Toys R Us." He remains the cutest. We did Target AND Toys R Us so the big kids could spend the $15 my parents gave them in their eggs at Easter. This was an agonizing experience fraught with danger, there were so many choices and they had to make the PERFECT ONE. There could be NO REGRETS. Cora does not enjoy shopping and was super over it super early.

Particularly since I'd already selected her gift for her and it was coming in the mail. I possibly spent more than $15, but when the Disney Store has a sale and you have to spend $50 for free shipping and your toddler grew a million inches in 3 months so all the swimsuits you bought ahead of time were too small and had to be returned, you go big.

New shoes.

Belle swimsuit.

Amazon Anna dress. (The other Disney dress is a beautiful Princess Aurora gown she's getting when we go to Disney in a million months; It's so beautiful I'm jealous of my toddler.)

Obviously she LOVED her new things. She demanded I "bring her Gigi's face" which I decided must mean FaceTime? My parents never do that, so I don't know where she came up with it, but it seemed to satisfy her. She knew her Gigi would love her "new tings" and she did. It was the cutest. She wore her shoes for the rest of the day and tried to convince me they were slippers when it was time to go to bed. Disney can have all my money.

(Also the cutest? She got to go home with a friend for her first ever playdate on Monday when both our nannies had conflicts after school and she had the BEST time. The pictures made me melt. Claire does not do princesses, so this was a very special bonding experience for Cora.)

The week has been super busy and full of logistical details I will spare you, but this event yesterday was a TOTAL highlight. My grandpa, retired Air Force Colonel, Vietnam vet with 169 combat missions and a Purple Heart, got to take back to the skies thanks to this awesome local organization in San Antonio. The video made me cry. He's always happy, but his huge smile after being back in the air was a joy to see.



Adorable. If I had access to emojis in blogger, I'd be using all the hearts and rainbows and happy faces here.

Maybe even a unicorn. It's a special occasion.

Today Landon had his orthodontic consults. I put James in charge of the whole operation- scheduling, consults, insurance, etc. He picked Landon up from school at 10:30 and 1:30, which made for a crazy day, particularly since he had to go back to school at 3 for his Battle of the Books practice, but they liked both orthos and Landon is SUPER EXCITED about braces and wants them on AS SOON AS POSSIBLE (we had a long discussion about the colors he can put on them and what's appropriate for which holidays and which colors he'll pick first and it's all SO EXCITING AND HE JUST CAN'T WAIT). One had a less invasive plan that cost $2,300 less than the other, so we're going with him (he's also who our dentist recommended). Getting to wear colored bands are your teeth is expensive y'all, and we'll get to do it again for Landon after all his adult teeth come in! It's like we had that fourth baby I wanted except Landon is both of them.

But for this round he'll just have 4 braces across his front upper teeth, like a little starter pack, and that is so adorable I almost don't mind the sudden $1,100 expense. I mean, we did just save $400 on that tree limb.

Moving on to this week's food! Why do my little meal plans always turn into novels when I write them out? Food is just my favorite and I want to give you all the information.

Sunday: Slow Cooker French Onion Pot Roast with mashed potatoes (not the polenta as instructed bc I didn't have any polenta but I did have potatoes) and lightly sauteed green beans. This was SO GOOD. "Best meal in months!" according to James, and he likes all our meals.

Monday: Migas with spinach, black refried beans, diced tomato, avocado, whole wheat tortillas. Migas are my favorite fast egg dish. Scramble a bunch of eggs in a bowl with some milk, salt, and pepper, set aside. Cook diced onion and garlic in butter until soft, add a whole bunch of spinach until wilted, add eggs and start to scramble. While still wet, dump in a bunch of stale tortilla chips (or broken leftover tostadas from dinner the week before!), stir around until eggs are set. Eat with black beans and tortillas. So good!

Tuesday: Pizza at the PTA Board Meeting.

Wednesday: Chicken breasts, zucchini, and rice with Everglades Seasoning. Have you had this magical seasoning? My parents ate a chicken dish with it at a friend's house and immediately bought us all a jar. It's super good. For this iteration I just diced up some nice organic chicken and tossed it with olive oil and seasoning and then broiled it for 10 or so minutes until done and juicy. I sauteed the zucchini rounds in a little bit of butter and more seasoning and made the rice in the rice cooker with chicken stock. Super simple. Very tasty. Let me know if you have other Everglades ideas!

Thursday: French Dip Sliders, chips, fruit, veggies. SO FREAKING GOOD. Go make them. Use lots of crispy onions. Get a roast beef that is rare and not heavily seasoned, otherwise the au jus sauce will make it too salty. James now declared this the best meal ever. It also comes together really fast- prep time until it was sitting in the oven took exactly 10 minutes. (Other notes: I skipped the sesame seeds because I didn't have any, skipped the seasoned salt bc I used salted butter, and used 1/2 tsp. garlic powder instead of dried garlic bc I didn't have that either. It's a flexible recipe.)

Friday: Creamy Spinach Tomato Tortellini, except with ravioli because I don't have tortellini.

And that's a wrap! Tomorrow I will get my car inspected (thrilling) while reading a bunch of deposition transcripts (even more so). There probably won't be pictures. But I did score an amazing deal on pink shorts at Gap today ($5! and they were for me and not my children like everything else I buy!), so I'm going to let that bit of joy carry over into tomorrow. Happy Friday!