September 2, 2010

Things I love about two-going-on-three-year olds

(I posted this on a mama's forum, but thought I would share it here as well)

I love hearing everything that goes through their little heads.

I love their theories about life. For example, when they're not with someone they love--grandma and grandpa, their cousins--their usual theory is that during that time-period, "they're sleeping." Let me just say that they would have a lot of very well-rested people in their lives.

I love the fact that Elanor can't quite say "music," so she calls it, "joojik."

I love their little voices when they call out "I love you, mama!" when I tuck them in at night.

I love their little prayers, and that "p'ease b'ess teddy bears" and "cars" get stuck in with the list of people that they love.

I love it when Elanor comes out of a funk, and shouts out, "Look mama, my HAPPY now!"

I love their little songs that they make up. Or the songs that they think they know the words to, but don't really. Like, the "Do, Re Mi" song. Elanor can sing it from start to finish now, but it has a lot of lines like, "Re! da-go-de-SUNNNNN!"

deux bebes | By Tim and Jo | 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

September 1, 2010

Hilton Head

Tim: Despite the craziness of the begining of the semester, we somehow squeezed in a vacation in Hilton Head with Rich, Deb, Jon and Beka and their kids. We didn't spend too much time at the beach because of the heat and the jellyfish. We brought some beach toys for the twins but they were delighted when they saw that "the cousins" had Toy Story and Cars beach toys. I can see the plot for Toy Story 4 forming in my head now: Buzz and Woody get toynapped by a posse called "the cousins" and are left for dead on an abandoned beach (after getting trampled on by 12 little feet).

I dug a hole in the sand right at the waterline so Ian, Elanor and Andrew could have their own "baby ocean," or "baby sauna" as we called it. The three older kids could swim well so they were racing with the waves and hunting for sand dollars. They also helped their dad build sandcastles (complete with ramparts and moat). After the beach we hit the fountains at Coligny Circle to wash off the sand and get squirted in the face with jets of water. The combination of the cousins, Pixar movie beach toys, the beach itself and running through the fountains afterwards was almost too much fun for the twins to handle.

One day we stopped at the Tybee Island Lighthouse and let the kids climb on the big gun there that was used in BOTH world wars (as Gabriel, an authority on WW 1&2, informed us). Another day we climbed up the lighthouse on Hilton Head in the Sea Pines area. Gabriel, Nathaniel and Ian made the trek up. (It was one of the first grand adventures he went on sans Elanor. He loved it, until he looked down at her standing below the lighthouse with grandma and Aunt Beka, and then the whole rest of the time, he was begging to go to down so he could "see my Elno.") It was only 90 feet tall but we still had a great view of the sun setting on the ocean and on the harbor filled with boats. Near the lighthouse was a playground with an amazing tree house, which the kids loved.

adventures & travels , family , fun | By Tim and Jo | 1:44 PM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2010

Pesto, Part I (recipes)

Yesterday morning we spent the first half of the morning puttering around our little garden, and the second half puttering around with pesto. Our one cherry tomato vine is absolutely out of control. So, we tied up some of the vines to our porch to get out them out of the way of our pepper plants. And tidied up some of the weeds. The kids helped--by throwing out the weeds, and by eating tomatoes right off the vine.

And I started harvesting my basil plant. It's turned into a bush. I've been grabbing handfuls all summer, but I picked about four packed cups today (and you can't even tell anything is gone on the plant). Making up for the many years when I killed off my baby basil within a few weeks.

So, I decided to make a few pestos with the basil and stuff we had in the fridge. The kids helped me pick the leaves off the stems, and dry the water off the basil after I rinsed them.

Then I plopped all of the ingredients together and used my immersion blender to chop/puree the ingredients together, stopping while the sauces still had a fairly chunky texture. I used cashews because I had it on hand (and pine nuts are rather expensive and too much of them makes my throat feel itchy) (but feel free to use them instead of the cashews!).

(from top to bottom: Sicilian pesto, traditional pesto, and sundried tomato pesto)

Sicilian Pesto
[Two years ago I had a pesto from the Dekalb Farmer's Market that was unlike anything I had ever tasted, sweet, salty, and green, and I still remember the unusual taste. I dug around the internet and found some recipes that sounded vaguely similar, and did what I could to recreate it.]

1/4 cup fresh mint
1 cup basil
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup cashews (or pine nuts)
1/4 cup golden raisins soaked in hot water for 10 minutes
1-2 tbsp. capers (rinsed off)
3 garlic cloves
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice (I didn't have fresh, but I know it would be better)
2-3 tsp. grated citrus rind (not the bitter part--I didn't have lemons on hand, so I just some grapefruit peel)
1/2-1 tsp. salt

Traditional pesto
2 cups basil
3/4 cups olive oil
1 cup freshly grated parmesan
5 garlic cloves
1/3 cup cashews (or more traditionally, pine nuts)
Salt to taste (but probably don't need it)

Sundried tomato pesto
1 cup basil
1/3 cup sundried tomatoes in oil (or sundried tomatoes w/out oil, soaked in hot water)
4-5 cherry tomatoes (or a roma tomato, or 1/2 a large tomato)
3 garlic cloves
1/3 cup cashews
1/3 cup freshly grated parmesan

In the next entry on pesto, I'll give a few suggestions for using it. If you want to comment on *your* favorite way to use pesto in the comments, I'll include them in the next entry.

CSA , cooking stuff | By Tim and Jo | 1:30 PM | Comments (1)

August 23, 2010

MOR Monday: Mama + Scholar

Keeping it real with one of the central dilemmas of my life.

I am a mom.

I am a scholar.

Started rereading Mama Ph.D. the other day, and the tears came. Some cathartic, some nostalgic.

(You could ask, what about being a wife? Well, for the most part, that hasn't been a dilemma. There's the pull of balance and time, but for the most part, the academic bit has drawn us together. Tim fell in love with me by geeking out that we we're both reading the same 3,000+ page novel [hence our blog title] [and, no, neither of us have finished it, thanks for asking]. And there's been the interconnection of our work and life ever since as scholars in parallel fields. We wrote some encyclopedia articles together a couple of years ago, and seeing our names side-by-side in print symbolizes that scholarly-togetherness for me, romantic in a totally dorky way.)

My kids, though, could care less if I loved Proust or studied an obscure composer. And hence the dilemma.

It's not that the two are incompatible, I don't think they are. But sometimes that means I have to consciously shut out the extreme formulas that I hear (or imagine) from extreme sides (mama and wife+anything else=sin OR scholar+mama=not-scholar) . The main tensions? Tiredness and time and my brain gets fuzzy.

And because I want to spend as much time with my kids as possible during this formative stage, that path that has opened in front of me has been non-traditional. Editing, tutoring, writing--mostly at home, teaching piano at my parent's house. Taking advantage of nap-times. Reimagining my skills to take part in a cool interdisciplinary summer camp (still need to write about that). I'm figuring it out as I go. And sometimes it's lonely. Three-hour, mind-blowing conversations in a coffee shop? Doesn't happen all that often these days. And sometimes it's disappointing--I was offered an adjunct position out-of-town, but I couldn't figure out a way to make about 15 extra hours of driving a week plus four afternoons of babysitting work in the life that we're living right now. But I miss teaching in a college setting. A lot.

I've seen--and I'm so proud of them--many of my friends get tenure-track jobs. At my most maudlin, I sometimes thought, "Here they are getting TT jobs, and I can't even use a public bathroom." (Ever tried navigating a double-stroller and two kids in a public bathroom?) (Thankfully, we're past that stage, though I do have to apologize to the woman the other week who had two little heads pop into her stall and shout "Who's that?" followed by "It's a LADY!")

There are many lovely, encouraging, profound things that have come out of the collision of mama and scholar, things that confirm that this is who I'm supposed to be, and this is what I'm to be doing. And I'm going to write about them, especially as I continue rereading Mama Ph.D. and discuss it with friends. But for this post, I think I'm just going to leave you in the tension. Because that's where I am much of the time.

******
Please join us in our Ministry of the Real Mondays (or Tuesdays!). We didn't have a round-up last week, so we're including those posts in this round-up.

Ministry of Reality , Thinking , parenting | By Tim and Jo | 5:03 PM | Comments (5)

August 18, 2010

The "more" song and variation

So, my kids made up a song today, complete with call and response and variations. So, here's how it goes. Someone starts by singing "No more [object of choice]" (the call), which is responded to by singing, "Yes more [prior object]." The call and response can be interchangeable, you could start out with a "Yes" phrase, rather than a "No" phrase. There's even a little melody, "No" (high) "more" (low) "OBject" (higher, then low).

Got it? Now for the variation...whenever "pickle" is inserted as the object of choice, you have to add a simple phrase to the response. And after you insert the phrase, you giggle hysterically until the song starts again. Here goes a round...

"No more MONey"
"Yes more MONey"
"No more ICE cream"
"Yes more ICE cream"
"Yes more PICKles"
"No more PICKles...PICKLES ARE DIRTY!" (cue hysterical giggles)
"Yes more PEAnut butter"
"No more PEANut butter"
"Yes more PICkles"
"No more PICKles, PICKLES ARE DIRTY!" (more giggles)

The song soon morphed, creating yet another variation as it combined with the roaring game:

"No more SANDwiches!"
"Yes more sandwiches...ROOOOOAAAR!"
"No more CHOColate....ROAAAAR" (and giggle)
"Yes More PICKles"
"No more PICKles...PICKles are ROOOOOOAAAAAR!"
"Rooooooaaaarr" (uncontrollablle giggles) (all sense of structure and melody now gets lost between the giggles and roaring)

You too can now play the "more" song or its close cousin, the "more-roar" song.

You're welcome.

deux bebes , funny , music stuff | By Tim and Jo | 1:03 AM | Comments (2)

August 13, 2010

Homemade finger paints OR how to feel like a heroically creative mommy in three easy steps

I'm excited because this was easy, fun for the kids (they had a blast for a long time), and comparatively unmessy. To be completely honest, I have more the ideals of being a creative mom than the actual motivation to make it happen, so if its too involved or messy, it probably won't happen. (If you want some real inspiration, check out the crafty ideas on my bud's blog, she has all kinds of ideas, and also follows several fun crafty mama blogs)

The kids were running out of inks for their stamp pad (their aunt gave them some Christmas stamps for Christmas, and they love it), so I decided to poke around and see if I could find homemade ink for stamp pads. Found a recipe for finger paints instead, and decided to experiment. Lots of fun paint recipes here, I used cornstarch recipe #2

I thought it would be a really involved process, but it was uber easy, just some cold water, cornstarch and sugar mixed together, all simmered together until thick (it started to turn clear just at the time it thickened, about 10-12 minutes into it), and then a little dishwashing liquid and food colors (used leftovers from Easter) added at the end. (The recipe calls for a drop of food coloring, but it needed a bit more than that, and the colors were still on the pastel side.). It didn't have that funky chemical smell I remember from finger painting growing up, it was rather nice knowing what all I put into it..

I put it right into little containers from Ikea. Actually, I just gave them a bit at a time on the lids, and saved the leftovers in the containers for another day.

And the fun began!

It was thick enough that it wasn't *all* that messy. Even when finger painting turned into face painting.

creativity , deux bebes | By Tim and Jo | 11:51 AM | Comments (4)