I almost bought the sauce

Really. Not hit the sauce but bought the sauce. There's a difference.

Is it just the end of the school year that leaves me so mentally and physically tired? And crabby? And bitter?

To help with this diagnosis, wrap your mind around this.

Tomorrow night is Open House and the Science Fair. Our PTAish group, of which I am (for a few more weeks!!!) president, is hosting a spaghetti dinner beforehand. We give families a chance to sit down and enjoy a home-cooked dinner together without having to cook (or clean up, for that matter); families who commute fairly sizable distances (there are lots, including the Figs) can meet their kids out at school for dinner without having to pick them up, drive home or out to a restaurant, and then hoof it back to school in time; and we make a little money for the school (heard about California's budget problems???).

We've done this a couple of times a year for the past three years. It's not brain surgery. I go into my usual do-it mode and send out an email announcement; print up signs; make a crap-load of meat sauce; and pre-cook pasta. I have a volunteer on board to make pesto and another to make garlic bread. Tomorrow on my way out to school in the afternoon (it's also my carpool drive in the morning) I will pick up frozen lemonade and half-and-half. When I arrive at school, I will make coffee; put on the water for tea; mix up the lemonade; locate and set up dishes, mugs, cups, napkins; warm up the sauce; put on water for the pasta; and set up chairs and tables. I will most likely be there there by myself. If I'm lucky, the principal will give me a hand. I do have a parent (who helps with everything) to help serve. People will no doubt step in to lend a hand collecting money, washing dishes, etc., but no one else has answered my call for set up, serving, or clean up. OR MARINARA SAUCE, goddamn it, until just this afternoon. The woman who offered to pick up a jar of bottled sauce from CostCo has no idea of the lifeline she threw me.

Of course it's the end of the year, and everyone is busy. But like I'm not??? My 3/4-time job is bleeding over to full-time as we scramble for strategies to cover work that will be left by coworkers whose contracts will not be renewed in a few months. My sister and her family of five will be here for dinner on Friday. Early Saturday morning we are leaving for the mountains. I am not sitting around on my ass.

I should delegate more, I'm told. Really? How? I don't know what else to say than "We need help in these areas. Please let us know if you can lend a hand."


But I'm drawing boundaries, if only for myself. My instinct when I checked my email this morning to find that no one was stepping forward on the marinara was (I'm embarrassed to admit) to whip up a homemade batch myself tonight. But I came to my senses and decided to buy some. And came then the volunteer who offered to buy it.

I'm looking forward putting energy where it is more needed and deserved: my work and, of course, my own family. Things are changing so quickly at my job, in ways that while sometimes painful are exciting and long overdue as well. I want to step off the mom track and back in. I have ideas and energy that I'm looking forward to putting back into the job that has given me so much but at which I've been mostly coasting since becoming a mother. I will continue to make spaghetti sauce but for my family and friends only.

Coming up next: Electrical appliances in the Fig kitchen conspire to crap out at the same time. Can a stick blender take the place of all of them? Tune in to see.

Advice needed:Fairies and pierced ears areasonable combination?

Being blissfully oblivious to the economic recession, Sophie has already settled on what she would like for her birthday. Which is in March. Didn't we just finish Christmas???

Oh, well. It's always good to plan ahead. Here is what's on her list:

She got a few of these fairies from Santa Claus, and I gave her cousin the carousel. Sophie would like a few more fairies and the carousel to add to her fairy Ferris wheel to make a fairy amusement park. Good enough.


She would also like this "-ology" book. We have a few of these books, and they are really fun. Lots of pop-ups and little compartments where you can lose yourself for hours. We always like books.

But she also would like . . . to get her ears pierced. NO! I shriek without giving it any consideration at all. But I'm willing to consider it. She will be nine. I had thought ten. She has her arguments marshaled.

Serena has pierced ears! I am not impressed. You, I point out, are not Serena.

And yes, I have pierced ears as well. But I wear thong underwear, walk around the house while brushing my teeth, and use bad words (not often at the same time). I am a grown-up and get to do all sorts of things that kids do not.

But, really. Am I completely out of step here? When is an appropriate age? Anyone?

Thanks for your help.

Embarrassing my daughter through baking

Because I am a PARENT! And that's we DO! And because I can.

When Sophie moved into the 3-4-5 classroom this year, she informed me that the baked goods I prepared for our monthly snack obligation in K-1-2 would no longer be acceptable. Apparently, bigger kids favor more sophisticated fare. Like (according to Sophie) popcorn (hmmm . . . maybe) or chips and salsa (um . . . NO). Homemade baked goods would be (her word) EMBARRASSING. Perfect!! I told her. Embarrassing kids is the JOB of parents! (My mom excelled at this. Except I realize now in hindsight that some of the things that embarrassed me were actually really awesome. Like her bright red lipstick. She totally rocked that, and I was too clueless to realize it. The pincurls with the scarf tied over them? Maybe not so much.)

But I was horrified to realize last night at about 9:00, when I really wanted to be in bed, after supervising homework and violin practice, baking another installment of the wedding cake I am making for a wedding on Saturday, and cooking and cleaning up dinner that I HAD FORGOTTEN WE ARE THE SNACK FAMILY FOR TODAY. Loser.

Good thing I had received one of these in my produce box last Friday.

It's not just any pumpkin—it's a sugar pie pumpkin.

I halve them and roast them cut-side down in roasting pan filled with about an inch of water. Remember the quince? Like that. They're done when you can stab them easily with a knife and the skin starts to darken.

Once they are co0led, I remove the seeds and scoop out the flesh. I use a hand-crank food mill, but you could also use a food processor. If you use the later, you'd probably want to let the pulp rest in a sieve over a bowl to drain out some of the extra water.

I keep a stack of plastic containers with this in my refrigerator most of this season. It's great for pumpkin risotto, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin pie, or . . . thank goodness considering my snack crisis last night . . . pumpkin bread.

This recipe works best in little loaves.

PUMPKIN BREAD

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar (brown, white, or a combination)

1/2 cup canola oil (or one stick of butter melted and cooled)

1/3 water

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup pumpkin

1 3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon (optional)

Mix wet ingredients. Sift together dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Fold wet and dry ingredients together.

Pour into greased or buttered pans and bake at 350 degrees for about half an hour. Baking time will depend on whether you use a full loaf pan, mini loaf pans, or a cup cake pan. At any rate, bake until they are done.

Sophie likes her slice with a little butter, but how amazing would this be with the apple butter that Lisagh made over at the Grosgraine Garage??? Really, she and I should live closer to each other.

Hand me that Mother of the Year award RIGHT FRIGGIN' NOW, please

Some of my readers have said the nicest things about my parenting, but really the truth is I just have a great kid (most of the time). As I parent, I am unbelievably inadequate in many ways. To give a few examples: I have a mercurial temper, I swear like a sailor, I do not have a universal love of children (I like many of them once I get to know them, but as a group? Eh.), I hate going to the park, and I refuse to sign up my daughter for soccer (the season conflicts with my our skiing. Plus, those soccer games? Booo-ring.

But yesterday I really pulled it out. I almost died for my kid. Here's what happened.

I woke up feeling just dandy (per usual) but by midmorning decided I was feeling very undandy and went home to climb into bed. I had some kind of stomach bug. I broke our family ban on soda by consuming a glass of ginger ale (hid away for circumstances such as this), which I promptly barfed up. Sorry if that's too much information, but we're talking about illness here. Anywhoo, I was "enjoying" an afternoon of lying in bed repeating the cycle of read, sleep, barf, repeat when I realized I had told Sophie I would pick her up at summer camp early to take her to her violin lesson. The second to last lesson before her recital, so an important one (recall that I whore her out to the SF Opera so I can see free opera, so I've become a bit of a stage mom). Plus I had told her to be ready to go early, and unlike me, she never forgets anything, so she would be waiting and worry if I did not show.

So I peeled myself out of bed and staggered to the car— armed with a handful of plastic produce bags. The cycle was now drive, pull over, barf into bag, recline in seat for a minute, repeat. I pulled up to the camp office and had to spend 15 minutes negotiating the track-down of my kid. (She's up at swimming! No—she's over at soccer now!) "Fine," I told them, "I am sick and absolutely cannot get out of this car. I need some assistance here. You need to send someone to get her down here." I could tell by the looks on their faces they were scared. For all they knew I could be going through heroin withdrawal.

I finally got Sophie in the car and drove her to her lesson. Usually I sit right beside her so I can help micromanage her lesson (really, it's so I can ride her ass when she practices at home), but I sent her in by herself and pulled the car around to a shady spot so I could barf in peace. After the longest two hours in history, I got home and crawled back in bed, with the feeling that for once I had really nailed the mom thing. For once.

Sophie got me all set up in bed: water with a bendy straw, a bell to ring for service, and a thermometer. My 101 degree fever broke later that night, and by morning my stomach was mostly settled. Thanks goodness because I am absolutely convinced that Husband could not get Sophie's backpack and lunch adequately packed for camp. She could probably do it herself in a pinch, but him? No way. Although he did make chicken soup from scratch for dinner last night. Or so he says. I'll give my verdict when I taste it tonight. At any rate, Sophie proclaimed it "delicious!" Did I mention that he served it at 9:00 at night? I had to ring my bell furiously to admonish Sophie to hurry up, eat, and get to bed—immediately (probably her first five-syllable word).

I'm back at work but still a little queasy. The food post I have on deck will remain there until I'm feeling a little better. Preview: chicken marinade for dummies and white bean salad that is so good you won't care if it gives you gas.

Sophie grows up; I grow a little too

The most annoying and disturbing thing happened yesterday. I tried to encourage compassion in my child and almost ended up throttling a homeless person.

Here's what happened. Sophie and I were walking out of a neighborhood bookstore we frequent and passed a homeless older woman sitting on the sidewalk collecting coins in a plastic cup. I usually give Sophie a little money to give to homeless people, especially those we see regularly around town (there are quite a few; Berkeley has good weather and a liberal temperament). I've tried to teach her that not everyone is as fortunate as we are and that it's good to share what you have. But as I fished in my purse, Sophie beat me to it and produced a few coins from her jacket pocket, which she placed in the woman's cup. The woman glared at Sophie, and I wasn't sure if she said anything. When Sophie came over to me I asked her if the woman had thanked her. The woman heard this, threw the coins from her cup and started hurling what I'm sure were obscenities in some other language at Sophie. I quickly placed myself between the two of them and hustled Sophie off.

Sophie was frightened and confused about what had happened. We then had one of those conversations where I know she is asking really important questions but I'm totally making it up as I go and mostly talking out my ass. I tried to explain that she did not do anything wrong and that some people are sort of crazy in the head and do and say things that don't always make sense [at least to us]. Maybe she wanted more money and was offended by the few coins [although Sophie didn't consider the amount meager at all]. Sophie wanted to know why people are poor. I told her that many people are born poor, that some [like this woman] come from other countries that they had to leave because there was nothing to eat or a war [probably sponsored by us]. But many homeless people start off just like us but then go to fight in a war and see and experience things so horrible that they are never the same and can't get or hold down a job. Like what things? she asked. Like people [maybe your family, your children] being killed, like being driven from your home. Too much information for a child? Maybe, but it's true and a reality for children all over the world.

I was trying to model compassion and understanding. I was happy when Sophie said that what happened wouldn't stop her from giving money to other homeless people because she said she knows not all people are the same. But she wished she could have her coins the woman threw on the ground back. And she had bad dreams last night about this woman coming to hurt us. I pointed out that the woman doesn't know where we live and that her daddy and I were there to protect her.

But while I was espousing compassion, I was boiling. I wanted to kick that woman off her grubby spot of pavement, smack her across the face, make her apologize to my daughter, say thank you. And how reasonable is that? I want a homeless beggar to be well-mannered even though she is treated with contempt and indifference, grateful for charity I can't imagine what it must be like to depend on. And I have to admit, when I'm alone, I often walk past these people as if they don't exist. It's only with my child that I feel pulled into their proximity and am asked to consider their existence.

Sophie will be eight tomorrow. She is growing by leaps and bounds, in both body and spirit. I try to teach her, but I'm continually amazed by what she teaches me. Eight years: What a long, strange [but good] trip it's been.

Mean Mommy

My daughter Sophie is a very busy person. No moss grows beneath her little feet. Maybe it runs in the family? Anyhoo, I've been having a hard time getting her to write out her Christmas thank you notes.

Well, victory is finally mine. But I'm not particularly proud of how I got it.

Me: You know how your birthday party will be next month?

Sophie: Oh, yes!

Me: Well I'm thinking of telling people that there will be NO PRESENTS.

Sophie: Really??? Whyyyyy?

Me: Because you have not finished thank you notes for your Christmas presents and we can't get new presents until we have thanked people for the old presents.

Sophie: Would you really do that???

Me: You betcha.

So if you are expecting a thank you note from my daughter, you should be receiving it soon.

Fallout from questionable parenting practices

A conversation between my seven-year-old and I in the car the other day:

S: Mama! [most of our conversations start out this way] In after care yesterday, J. asked us what music group or singer we liked best.

C: And you said?

S: The Scissor Sisters, of course!

C: Excellent choice!! [How cool is it that she did NOT say Hannah Montana??? The Scissors Sisters provided the soundtrack to daughter's last birthday party activities of freeze dance and leader dance. Along with the pitchers of cosmos I provided to the other moms to prevent them from abandoning me, a rocking time was had by all.]

S: And next he asked what is our favorite song by them. But I couldn't think of any of the song names.

C: We can work on that! [Envisioning a nifty little set of flashcards I could make. It didn't work for crap with the alphabet, but that was several years ago. I'm game for another try.]

S: Well I just told him my favorite line from my favorite song.

[Oh God, I thought. My somewhat permissive style of parenting looked like it was about to swing around and smack me in the face. Her favorite song is "I Can't Decide," a catchy little diddy about someone who is conflicted about a relationship, as in "I can't decide whether you should live or die." There's one line that even I decided was not appropriate for young ears, and so when we played the cd in the car, I would zap the volume for just this one line: "Fuck and kiss you both at the same time [Smells like something I've forgotten / Curled up died and now it's rotten]." But then one time I must have been executing some complicated traffic maneuver and let the line go. By this time, of course, daughter's curiosity was through the ceiling (duh), so she was delighted to finally hear it and now often bellows it out as she sings along. And I sort of reasoned that of all the things I want to teach my daughter, censorship is not one of them. The word is in the world, and we should be able to deal with it appropriately, which is total bullshit because there are all sorts of things that I attempt to censor from her world, including the fairly large categories of television, fast food, and gum. (We're loosening up a little on the viewing: she gets videos on the weekends, and I'm going down in the gum battle.) But now I had visions of her reporting this as her favorite line to the after care supervisor and all the bright shiny faces of her schoolmates, who of course would immediately report it to the parents ("Sophie gets to use the F word! But only when she's singing! Cause it's ART!"). Goddamn.]

C: Oh God, you didn't . . . Not that one.

S: You know the one I like best! "Oh I could throw you in a lake or feed you poisoned birthday cake"! [Of course! Kids are more interested in birthday cake than fucking! I knew that!]

C: REALLY EXCELLENT CHOICE!!! [After which I breathed a huge sigh of relief, rolled down the windows, turned up the volume.] Rock on, honey.

Epilogue: The poor Scissor Sisters—how horrified do you think they would be at being indexed along with "being mom"???

My Mother-of-the-Year Award at serious risk

So in moments that can probably be described as completely delusional, I look at a snapshot of my life (such as is documented in this blog so far) and think "Do I have a handle on it or what?" In general I run a pretty tight ship. I get shit done. I maintain my relationships. I'm a good mom. The last one is, of course, the most important. And I think much of the time I get it right. My daughter is happy, confident, outgoing, resilient, and wise. But I'm beginning to think this is because she's on to the fact that her mom isan ill-tempered potty-mouthed nutjob.

Witness a moment from last night when the wheels just totally came off. After finally getting her settled in bed and QUIET ("please please please JUST STOP TALKING!!!"), I leave her and go into the other room to fold laundry. About twenty minutes later she tiptoes in and announces that her tummy is rumbly and she thinks that is why she cannot sleep. And I just freak out, shrieking probably loud enough for Child Protective Services to hear me, "Well, if you had EATEN you GODDAMN DINNER instead of fiddling around and TALKING, then you probably wouldn't be hungry right now. It is already 45 minutes PAST your bedtime, and you have OPERA tomorrow night!!! I will give you something to eat this time, but the next time this happens, YOU WILL GO HUNGRY!!" To which she said in a small voice "Maybe a fried egg, Mama?" "NOOO!!!! The kitchen is CLOSED!!! Here is a bowl of cold cereal [slams bowl on table]. You will eat this and GO BACK TO BED!!!" "Oh, thank you very much, Mama."

Five minutes later she was snoring softly in bed. And the funny thing is I woke up in the middle of night, tummy rumbling but heart hurting too. I went and had a little bowl of cereal out of the bowl she left on the table, but sitting on the side of her bed and listening to her breathe is probably what helped me get back to sleep.

This morning I apologized for shouting at her. She just smiled, kissed me gently, and said "That's ok, Mama!" Inside she was probably thinking "Poor Mama. She's so whacked."

In other news, I made a batch of eggnog cookies to take to opera tonight. For the excellent recipe, visit Adrienne at d.c. diaries. Thanks, Adrienne! I now have a quart of eggnog minus what the recipe called for and I don't particularly like eggnog to drink (sort of like cheesecake: not bad but not worth the calories), so I'm noodling other uses for it. This weekend I'm going to enter my Pancake Lab and see what I can concoct. Stay tuned.