Fruit – It’s what’s for dinner!

I have shared this strategy with quite a few people and a number of times those same people have come back to me to tell me how much they appreciated the idea. So, it must be blog worthy. Right?

Our kids are now 3 ½ and 5 ½. So we have now twice been through the transition where your infant/young toddler goes from eating everything you offer them to eating a diet of 5-6 items. It is incredibly frustrating and the more you try to force and fight your kid to eat, the more they will refuse.

At least this is the case when you have children of the stubborn variety. I hear tales of kids who always eat everything that they are offered and regularly try new foods…but I believe that they are either myths or outliers.

You can’t control what a toddler eats. You can offer, you can make mealtime pleasant, you can involve them in shopping, gardening and cooking. But you can’t make a toddler or pre-schooler eat. Not going to happen.

(Caveat – we know families that have certain rules about trying a bite of everything or finishing certain things before getting seconds, etc. That’s fabulous if it works for your family and we’ll try it again when our kids are older. Rules like that result in huge tantrums and aren’t a good fit for our family right now.)

One book that I read had a lot of good suggestions concerning meals and young kids. One was to offer bread at every meal. This way if your child liked nothing else that you cooked, you wouldn’t feel the need to be a short order cook and cater to their whims. They could just have bread for dinner. We also had a rule for a while that if the kids tried a little of everything (or most things) and didn’t like them, they could have yogurt. Similar to the bread, it was zero effort for me.

Eventually, I came around to the idea of serving fruit with dinner every night. Both kids like fruit. They may occasionally decide that they don’t like a particular fruit on a particular day (that happens with everything), but if they are hungry, they will eat fruit. So I know that at least one item in the meal will be eaten and I stop worrying about what else they do or don’t eat.

And bonus, the fruit is good for the adults, too. We don’t always do a great job eating all of the fruits and veggies that we should, so this makes it easy. Also, it helps satisfy us at the end of the meal with something sweet, so sometimes we are less inclined to have dessert.

Here is the rotation of fruit that I serve with dinner:
Apples (lots and lots of apples)
Pears
Oranges – Navel or Clementine
Kiwi
Grapes – all colors
Applesauce
Peaches
Nectarines
Strawberries
Blueberries
Raspberries
Blackberries
When we run low on fresh fruit or I want to sneak some spinach into their diet, we mix things up with a fruit smoothie.

Portable Homemade Breakfast

I eat breakfast at my desk each day at work. This is mostly because I am making lunches while the kids are eating their breakfast and also because I’m tired in the morning at work. I also prefer to eat my breakfast slowly, so I would have to get up notably earlier to eat my breakfast at the pace I prefer.

I have always found it a little tricky to bring a well-balanced breakfast to work. When I worked downtown, it was relatively easy to buy breakfast. But that isn’t a convenient option in my new location without spending lots of time and money at the Starbucks drive-thru.

For a few weeks I was bringing oatmeal cups or oatmeal packets and bowls to work. This was a good food solution, but I was either throwing away a lot of containers or eating oatmeal with a lot of added sugar. I remembered that I had seen references online to crockpot oatmeal, and I began to wonder if I could make a better breakfast…
We are on week three of the experiment and it seems to be going well. My first batch didn’t have enough flavor, but this week’s batch is basically perfect as a base recipe that I can add things to as I want. Below is my recipe for a week’s worth of oatmeal. I toss everything in sometime on Sunday morning/afternoon and later that day I scoop it out into 5 or 6 servings for the week.

Crockpot Oatmeal
1 ¼ cup Steel Cut Oats
1 cup milk
4 cups water
4 Tbsp peanut butter or almond butter or sunbutter
4 tsp honey
3 apples, chopped
2 cinnamon sticks

Put all ingredients in crockpot and stir together. Put crockpot on high for 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally. Once oatmeal is simmering, put crockpot on low and stir occasionally. You just need to stir often enough that the oats don’t stick to the bottom of the crockpot and so the peanut butter mixes well.

In 2-3 hours your kitchen should smell great. Turn off crockpot. Once mixture is warm, put in reusable containers and refrigerate. When ready to eat, microwave for 1-2 minutes. Add water to get the oatmeal consistency that you like and then heat for an additional 60-90 seconds.

In future batches I plan to try adding raisins, sunflower seeds, almonds, pears or maybe even a little pumpkin in place of the apples.

Lifestyle Change

Right now, I'm not choosing to make time for exercise.

I know, I know.

Really, I do. I know all of the reasons that exercise is good for me and how good it makes me feel. But for now I have to settle for the occasional walk or hike and the exercise associated with doing laundry or straightening the house. (Seriously, I have chore days where I barely sit down all day, so it’s not like I’m completely sedentary.)

The trade off at the moment is that I’m spending a lot of time focusing on what I’m eating. R and I are using the Livestrong app on our phones to keep our eating in check. It has reminded me that I don’t need to eat until I’m completely stuffed. I've stopped going for seconds at dinner, I'm no longer mindlessly snacking while I am cooking or cleaning in the kitchen and I am eating less crap. Mostly less stuff that is filled with sugar.

I am not giving up entire categories of food. I am not giving up chocolate. I am working to create a meal “plan” that I can live with long term because the weight is coming off very slowly. Which, honestly is good. These changes are sustainable for the next 6-9 months to get to my goal. (I’ve lost about 7 pounds in 2 months.) And once I get to my goal, I hope it won’t be hard to maintain my new weight since I have established a life strategy and not used a fad diet.

My favorite thing about the livestrong app is the reminder that you start fresh every day. Even if I go way over my goal one day…<>…the next day I start from scratch. It is a wonderful reminder that one day of extra calories does not *ruin* my efforts. It is just one day.

The reason that this is a trade-off for exercise is that I am spending more time planning around food. Meal planning, preparing and regularly shopping to have healthy foods available for all of us to eat. I really do enjoy vegetables a lot, but they generally take a little more forethought than fruit. If I plan, I can have them available so that I munch on red peppers and carrots instead of grabbing chips or bread while I make dinner.

I have slowly been building up my bank of recipes and trying to focus on meals that have more vegetables. Some nights I am making a batch of stir-fry veggies for me, a meat dish for R and a noodle side for the kids. They all go together as a meal, but each component has a certain family member in mind. Other nights I can make one dish or two that makes us all happy. Rare, but it happens.

All of this is a way of introducing a few posts that I have in mind about food. I just wanted to set the stage for what is to come.

Three

I am not sure what is more sad…the fact that I have only posted once this year. Or the fact that I posted in a timely fashion about Heather’s birthday and not about Todd's.

Ahem.

So let’s bring the number of posts for the year up to two by talking about our little man who is now three.

Three?! Yes, three!

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I am an only child. There are many things about the sibling relationship that I struggle with or that just plain don’t make sense to me. I have had fights with my friends. But I don’t think I’ve ever had a relationship where I can be happily playing with another person for half an hour, fighting with them for 5-10 minutes and then happily playing with again as if the fight never happened. Sure, part of this is the relatively short “memory” of pre-schoolers and the quick forgiveness that goes along with that. But I still don’t really get it. I love watching them when they are getting along, but it drives me batty when they are clearly pushing each other’s buttons on purpose.

There are pros and cons of being a second child.

R and I are more relaxed. We generally feel like we know what we’re doing. We weren’t freaked out by bringing a baby home from the hospital, aren’t upset by fevers or tantrums, don’t flinch at the first sounds of unhappiness…that isn’t to say that nothing surprises us. They are clear differences between our two kids and Todd has acted in ways that are different from Heather (tricks that worked on her would never work on him and
vice-versa), but we mostly feel like we have the majors bases covered and it just takes a little experimentation to find the best tricks to handle whatever Todd throws at us.

The downsides of being a second child are probably pretty obvious and predictable. It wouldn’t take long to find a lot more posts on this blog about Heather than Todd, and I would venture that blogging has slowed down in general since Todd was born. Heather will continue to do all of the “firsts” first, and at least in our mind all of Todd’s “firsts” are compared to Heather’s.

(I’m not talking about competitive comparisons, just “isn’t that interesting” comparisons.)

And of course, there are all the things that Todd will have to watch Heather do first and wait for his turn. They are close enough in age that some things that we have put off for Heather (…cough…swim lessons…cough…) will turn into things that they can both do together, but there are lots and lots of milestones that Heather will naturally get to do first.

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Three doesn’t seem as monumental as it did the first time.

Watching Todd turn into a 3-year old has reminded me that there is a lot of Heather’s threes that I have blocked out of my memory. Todd starting acting like a 3-year old a couple of months before his birthday and…whew…did I forget how mentally exhausting it can be! Even my laid back boy can now lose his cool when things don’t go exactly.as.he.wanted.

He can be intensely stubborn and refuses to move onto something other than getting what he wanted. Other times the pronouncement that there is a worm in the backyard or the opportunity to help mommy feed the cats will snap him out of his funk quickly.

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Todd is a charming, sweet, and very lovable little boy. He screams and shouts with delight, he enthusiastically greets the people that he loves and once he has warmed up to you, he will tell you anything about himself or our family. Todd loves babies and loves animals. He will chat and coo to every baby we see, and he will notice immediately if there is a baby in need of attention. He loves visiting our kitties and helping to feed them. He would sit and pet them or play with them all day if they would let him. He has a great time at the zoo and loves playing with the doggies at Grandma Sharon’s house.

Todd definitely has a reserved streak when it comes to new people and new situations. There is a warm-up period required often to get acclimated to “new” people. And when I say new, that even applies to people that we know but haven’t seen in a while. Having Heather around helps him acclimate faster, but it can still take 20-30 minutes for him to adjust. He can be so clingy during these adjustment periods that it feels like he wants to climb back in the womb.*

Todd loves to play outside, to play in water and sand, and to play with any sort of sports equipment. If it involves a ball or a bat, he is happy to join in the game. He even learned to throw a Frisbee this past weekend with his Aunt Tara. When we play inside, he can entertain himself with play-doh or a puzzle or a pile of cars, but it seems like his independent play lasts the longest in sand and water. When we spent time at the beach while we were camping, there were long stretches that he didn’t need to interact with anyone else – he was totally content. Overall, Todd plays well with his sister and with his friends at school, both the girls and boys.

Todd will draw and color, but while we wait at a restaurant he would choose to play a game on an iPhone over crayons every time. He will also watch anything on a screen. Look back at the lists I've posted about the things that Heather watches and the same is true for Todd. We've recently added Diego, Dora, My Little Pony and Babar to the list.

It feels like Todd is very quickly leaving all of the "toddler" behind and moving ahead to little boy status. We saw a toddler this weekend and it is quite amazing to realize how much he has grown and changed in 18 months. We don't even blink when he speaks in long sentences and paragraphs and it seems that each day we discover something else that he can do for himself without help.

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*Description stolen from Michelle at Burgh Baby

Five

Sometimes it is daunting to try to capture a moment in time in a blog post. It is easier when I am remembering an anecdote or talking about a specific topic. But I find it almost overwhelming to summarize an age or summarize what my kids are like “right now”. I do it, because I know it is something that my family and I will value in the future.

Heather is five. Five?!

I am not a mother who begrudges her children for growing. They were adorable as babies, but I don’t find babies to be easy and I don’t miss the “why are they crying” guessing game. I love having kids that I can have a conversation with and so far each age has been better than the last, so I am happy for them both to keep getting bigger.

My exclamation is more about excitement and amazement than sadness. I remember the day Heather was born so clearly, it is hard to believe that it was 5 years ago. And I am so thrilled to see her developing into a little person. All of the “older toddler” is gone. I remember that around this time last year a friend of mine with a daughter about the same age was considering the possibility of putting her daughter in Kindergarten a year early. At the time, the thought of Heather being emotionally mature enough to go to Kindergarten seemed SO far away. And now, even though there are still emotional outbursts and difficult moments, they are somehow less out of control than they were last year and imagining her going to Kindergarten this fall seems totally right.

Heather still seems to have a lot in common with the boys in her class – talking about them frequently and enjoying Star Wars, Super Heroes and Cars. But in the past 6 months there has also been a suddenly awakened interest in princesses, Barbies, ballet and wearing dresses. If your goal is to pinpoint girls as being tomboys or girly-girls, Heather will give you a run for your money. Which is fine by me. I grew up with Barbies and matchbox cars, too.

Heather started taking dance class and loves it. She has also found a passion in drawing and doing puzzles. Within the past few months, she is drawing a ton and can be easily occupied with a pad of paper and markers while I make dinner. The only “downside” to all of the drawing is trying to figure out how to manage all of the results of her artistic efforts. ;-)

More & more she can be depended on to do little things to help out around the house (although toy clean-up still remains an elusive issue we need to solve as a family). Heather is a happy, helpful and cheerful girl who enjoys her friends as well as her quiet playtime. On the playground, she is a good mixture of careful and carefree - not taking unreasonable risks while also not being afraid to try something new.

I went back and read what I wrote last year. Four

Quite a lot of it still applies. There are more movies on the list, including several Star Wars episodes (we started with Episode 4, of course) and The Lion King, as well as recent runs of Shaun the Sheep and Martha Speaks for our morning TV.

In general, I will say that four was an awesome age and I have high expectations for the year to come!

Plans for 2012...

In a number of different ways, 2011 was a very disorganized year. It seemed that each time I began to eek out a “new normal”, something else out of my control would change and upset whatever balance I had found.

I keep thinking to myself “Goodbye 2011! Don’t let the door hit you on the arse on your way out and good riddance! Hellooooooo 2012!”

2011 certainly wasn’t all bad. There were a lot of fun times, Heather has shown us that age four is awesome in many ways, Todd has exploded onto the scene with his personality & charm and I am employed full-time again. As I’ve said in the past, we have a lot to be thankful for. Yet 2011 was a hard year in many ways, so it is somewhat gratifying to see it in the rear view mirror and prepare for a “fresh start”.

Out of all of the challenges of 2011, I find myself reconsidering my priorities and refocusing on the things I really want. Thinking about how I spend my time, what I would rather spend less time on and what things make me happy. I can’t say that I have figured it all out yet. It is still a work in progress, of course, but I feel like I am getting a handle on some of the changes I want to make.

I started to write about these priorities and realized that the ideas and their place in line are still forming in my head. So hopefully I will be back soon with more concrete thoughts about changes I want to work toward next year.

Oh-Ver-Whelmed

The holidays are just adding another layer of crazy to a 10 layer crazy salad.

I need to write about it, but I’m not complaining. I know how incredibly lucky we are. I’m happy that we have two smart kids who know what they want and want to do everything themselves. (A hard job now, but will make them awesome adults someday.) I’m thrilled that one of my “problems” is adjusting to my new job and our new everyday life. I’m thankful that we’re healthy, have a roof over our head, have the food and clothes that we need, and that we can afford to get the kids just what they want for Christmas. I’m thankful for a new laptop, the ability to continue teaching at the yarn shop and the possibilities for having knit and crochet designs published in 2012. I’m thankful for my dishwasher, washing machine and dryer for making my tasks easier, even if they aren’t smart enough to fill and empty themselves.

Most of the things on my to do list are not hard, they just take time. And I feel like I am too often sacrificing sleep for the things on the list. Which I know is just as bad, if not worse, than having a messy house.

Quite frankly, a number of things are on that list now so that I can ENJOY and RELAX during my two days off at home for the holidays. On Christmas and the day after I just want to enjoy time with family and enjoy time in the house I love, without feeling like I should take a few minutes to vacuum or go through a pile. And let’s face it, if I am going to do any organizing or cleaning during those two days, my efforts should be focused on helping the kids find places to store their new toys!

I also can’t wait to give our family members this year’s pictures of the kids and to send out what I’m sure will be an adorable card using said pictures. But I still need to get through the agonizingly difficult process of picking the handful of pictures to use from the big stack that she gave us. I am thankful to know someone so talented, but my job would be a lot easier if there weren’t so many great images to choose from! (I’ll show you some once presents have been given.)

Now that I’m employed, the biggest problem we have is a cat issue. It has changed and grown over time, and I have reached a point that I just need it to be fixed…and we found someone to help us and give us a list of things to do to fix it. Which will be fabulous in the long run, but in the short term just adds another layer of items to the task list. I really wish we would have known about this person years ago…but all we can do now is move forward and figure out the right strategy for this point in time. I think it might be less complicated if we had more rooms in our house with doors. :-)

Good Weekend

Each time I tried to compose a facebook status update about how nicely the weekend was going, it was much too long for that format and it was hard to express some of my thoughts without sounding cranky. So I must need to right a blog post about it.

 

Friday was the holiday luncheon with my new employer, followed by a 2-hour early release for the weekend, giving me time to cross a few items off my list while I was home alone. The kids came home happy, the house was reasonable straight to be seen by someone new (this weekend’s babysitter was coming for the first time) and the homemade pizza was ready for the oven on time. Despite some initial shyness (that is Todd’s MO with many people lately and since the babysitter was his teacher, Heather doesn’t know her as well), the kids had fun and we returned home to a glowing report of their good behavior. It is always nice to hear that what we are trying to teach the kids is sinking in, even if that isn’t clear on a day to day basis to us.

 

R and I had a lovely dinner. The food was excellent and we covered the topics on my list. (The more that is going on, the more lists I make.) These are discussions that I find it hard to have at 9:30 or 10pm when all I want to do is relax my brain and go to sleep. I feel better now that some decisions are made and there is less pressure for us to have a “big” discussion on a weeknight after doing an hour of chores.

 

After we ate, we went shopping for my Christmas present – a new laptop! My old laptop has been in need of replacement for a while…and I don’t think we could have shopped for it successfully with the kids along. This time I specifically went for a lightweight model and I think it has the speed and storage to last me for a good, long while. And hopefully the battery life will live up to their promises, too.

 

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Saturday was our activity and errand day. We went to Phipps to see Santa, and have our annual visit to see the trains and flowers. I think when the kids are older we’ll spring for a membership and try to go a few more times a year, but there are so many great places to go in Pittsburgh, this hasn’t risen up our list yet. Santa was great, as always – kind, chatty and not in a rush

Heather asked Santa for a Belle and Cinderella. Todd refused to sit on Santa’s lap and barely made eye contact with him, so Heather let Santa know that Todd wants “Christmas Lights” this year. His previous answer was “presents”, so at least his revised answer is more specific. :-) Now that requests have been made officially, the elves can get to work. And the elves are very happy that they didn’t shop early since these requests just materialized in the past week…

 

After lunch, we bought Heather’s first ballet outfit. She starts class in a couple of weeks. The class is run in the same building as daycare, so it doesn’t currently add any event to our calendar other than making sure her attire is clean and present on the right day. And then while the family had movie/nap time, I did some shopping for Christmas and groceries, knocking a few more items off my massive December to-do list.

 

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Sunday was designated to decorate the house for Christmas. Given our recent mild temperatures, R had already done the outside decorating and put up some window lights. We got a lot done, especially when you consider that we usually use the long Thanksgiving weekend for decorating. 

 

But this is where I’m going to sound cranky. I don’t want to wish the time away. I love the ages that the kids are at now…but when it comes to decorating for Christmas I am looking forward to the kids being old enough to help without making the process more stressful. Between the random unpacking of decorations, the leaving of ornaments on the floor, the concern that ornaments will be dropped or broken, the impatience to decorate *now* and the following boredom half an hour later…I just found it making me very stressed out yesterday. I suppose that “ideally” the prep work of unpacking and putting lights on the trees would be done while the kids are otherwise occupied, but that didn’t work out this year and I would like them to really be able to help.

 

I have to give Heather credit. She lasted a lot longer in the process than Todd did and other than a few branches that had 2 ornaments, she did really help with tree decorating. (Todd’s fullest branch had 5 ornaments on it…) But she still required a lot of direction and she isn’t immune to the dropping problem (maybe we need to get a carpet remnant to put under the tree?).

 

I also kind of hate how the decorating process makes the house look so messy. I need to dust as I do the mantles and put out the knick knacks this week, and a post-decorating vacuum is definitely in order. I know that the result will be fabulous, it just felt like a lot of work yesterday, and there is still more to try to finish (hopefully) before the week is out. Part of it is internal pressure to go into the holiday with a house that feels clean. I only have two days off at home, and I don’t want to feel like I should spend them cleaning (other than maybe organizing the kids’ new toys)!

 

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You can see how I was having issues coming up with a concise and happy facebook update. ;-)

This Weekend

Things I’m looking forward to this long weekend (in no particular order):

1 – Spending time with the kids while they are surrounded by relatives and friends someplace other than our house. This means that I won’t be multi-tasking on chores while spending time with them and they will (probably) be on their best behavior because of the other people. Also, they will spend time playing with others while I sit and watch (and knit).

2 – Lots of time to knit and crochet in the car.

3 – Eating the pumpkin pie that I’m making for Thursday using my Great-Grandmother’s recipe. It is easy and it is my favorite pumpkin pie in the world.

4 – Time spent with family and friends. I expect to see some people that I really like that we don’t get to see very often. And I am hopeful for time that is relaxed and calm.

5 – Good food that I don’t have to cook. I will have some responsibility food-wise – the pie and the general task of making sure that there are healthy snacks around to keep the kids from getting hungry between meals. Also, making sure we have meals on a reasonable schedule as to not make the kids irritable or throw off bedtime. But thankfully, as they get older, the latter is better since they can mostly express when they are hungry.

6 – Not setting an alarm for four days. Yes, it is likely that the kids will wake us up before we necessarily want to be up, but it is still better than my alarm going off at 6am. And last time we were with my parents, the kids got up to play with them and let me sleep a little longer.

7 – I have a lot to do during the next two evenings to prepare for the weekend, so getting to Thursday morning should mean that my tasks are done. Hopefully.

Part of the reason I am focusing on these things is because there is a somber aspect to the weekend as well. This is the beginning of our first holiday season without my father-in-law and without my grandfather. I am not looking forward to the emotion and the sadness, but I know that it is part of the grieving process and I am thankful to have my energetic children to constantly remind me to live in the moment. There is actually something a little….refreshing (not quite right, but I lack of a better word) about talking with a 4 year old about death. It is a very straightforward conversation in that it is best to give straightforward and clear answers. The hard part is not really knowing what question will be thrown at you next.

Also, this post is to remind myself that the craziness and late nights this week will be worth it for the sake of our weekend together.

I hope, dear readers, you have a wonderful weekend with people that you love.

Fall Chops

Have you ever found a recipe that sounded just perfect, but it took a half dozen tries to get it to really work and meet your vision? I just finally realized the desired goal last night on a pork chop crockpot recipe that I probably found over a year ago.

orange-apricot-pork-chops-in-crockpot

Ha, ha. Look – it was almost 3 years ago that is was posted, so I would guess that I tried it for the first time while I was on maternity leave with Todd. So it has taken me this long to get the recipe right *and* figure out my crockpot.

I’ve had pulled pork. I know that it is possible to get that kind of tenderness, and yet each time that I made the recipe we had meat that needed to be cut with a serrated knife and that had to be completely drenched in sauce from the first bite to the last. I knew it could be better, but it took me a while to figure out why I was having so many issues.

First, the issue with my crockpot. It is a very basic model. And honestly, I have no problem with that. I can hook it up to a timer if I need to it to start after I leave the house, I tend to simmer things on low all day while we’re at work and I have made a variety of yummy foods in it for the 4-5 years that I’ve had it. The “problem” is that the heat dial just goes from 1 to 5. There is no “warm”, no “low”, nothing specific about temperatures or that relates to the way that crockpot recipes are usually written. So this is the recipe that finally taught me that 1 is “warm” and 2 is “low”. I decided that there was enough liquid in the pot that I could afford to try heating the pork chops on 2 yesterday, and the results were perfect. Fall apart when you just look at it, perfectly cooked pork.

Second, in the past I have stuck literally to the directions in the blog post, but I found that when I emptied the can of mandarin oranges over everything else, it pushed the sweet and savory jam mixture off the top of the chops, leaving them with just a few orange slices on top and the jam mixture diluted in the crock.

So here are my directions for this yummy recipe that seems to me like perfect fall fare. The orange and clove smell emanating from the kitchen reminds me of the wassail I make for the holidays. Yum!

3-4 Pork chops (I use boneless)
2, 10.5 oz cans of mandarin oranges
1 cup apricot jam (I also like peach or a peach/apricot mixture. You can use orange marmalade as well.)
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ginger (You could use more if you like more “kick”)
¼ tsp whole cloves

Put pork chops in the crockpot. Pour cans of mandarin oranges (including juice) over them, leaving at least 5-6 orange slices on each chop.

In a small bowl, stir together remaining ingredients, except cloves. Dollop mixture evenly over chops and oranges. Then sprinkle cloves over the whole thing. (This makes it easier to find and remove them before serving)

Cover and cook on low for 10 hours. It might not need that long, but that's the length of time I'm away from the house on a weekday.

Someday, when my kids will eat rice, I will serve this with rice because I think the rice would absorb the extra sauce nicely.

(Enjoy the picture on the original blog because it didn’t even cross my mind to take one last night.)

More Kid than Toddler

Yesterday was election day. Neither R or I made time to go to the polls before work, so that meant that we had to go in the 2+ hours between arriving home from work and the closing of the polls at 8pm. This is a busy time in our house – making dinner, bargaining snacks, talking about our days, enjoying time with the kids while trying not to rile them up before bed, getting ready for bed, bath or shower, wind down and getting the kids to sleep. (That last part is still taking a bit of time with Todd, but I’m working on it and it’s getting better…)

R went to the polls while I got dinner started and gave the kids a snack (aka, something from their Trick or Treat bags) in the kitchen. Sometimes having the kids in the kitchen while I’m cooking is a disaster and sometimes it is lovely. Never can tell for sure. Last night was good, maybe just because the kids got the snack they wanted. ;-) As soon as the food had 15 minutes of simmering to go and R was back, Heather and I walked over to the polls together.

Two bits to share from this:

1) Heather and I had a nice little walk. We vote at the elementary school around the corner. Heather seems to be more free flowing with information about her day when we are walking together (rather than being questioned during dinner). And as she is still less “needy” than Todd, there are times that she doesn’t get as much attention from me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not purposefully ignoring her. But for example, in the rush of the morning routine, I am busy getting myself ready and attending to Todd’s needs. I don’t generally get up earlier than absolutely necessary, and she spends time watching TV to help her “wake up”. This combination means that the two of us don’t usually talk much on weekday mornings. Now that it is dark out by the time we get home it feels harder to make little walks like this happen, but truthfully we could still do it when the weather is mild.

2) While R was voting and I was cooking, I let the kids know my plan to go vote when daddy got back. Heather’s suggestion was that she could watch Todd while daddy and I left to vote together. She’s 4 ½. I fully expect that at some point she will be watching her little brother at home without a parent present (and she already does some “supervising” of him while we’re in a different room), but I don’t think it’s time yet for us to leave the house. I suppose I’m beginning to wonder when that will be. I certainly think that we have a ways to go…but I suppose we’ll dip our toes in the world of more independence when she heads off to Kindergarten next year. It will be interesting to see what that looks like.

Steeler Sunday

Just posting a two month old picture in honor of the Steelers game tonight...

Drawing

All of a sudden (or so it seems to us), Heather loves to draw. For most of this year she would like to sit and draw letters from time to time. And sometimes she would be willing to randomly draw in a coloring book or scribble some color in paper.

Within the last few weeks she really likes to draw, regularly chooses it as a quiet activity and draws people, animals, houses and anything else her little brain thinks up at that moment. She's also more interested in coloring and is asking us how to spell a lot more than the typical list of names she writes.

Lately, she writes
"HEATHER
TODD
MOMMY
NANA"
And then asks how to spell Daddy, Bapa and Grandma Sharon. Then she goes on to ask other names or other words she's read recently.

Here is one chalk drawing example from Columbus Day weekend:

Fall fun

The pumpkin picking part of our trip to the pumpkin farm was not the highlight. We were there for a birthday party. It was a lovely day and the kids had a lot of fun!

(These are just the highlights from my iPhone pictures. It is possible that, like the Halloween costume pictures, better photos exist in our main archive. But this is easier right now...)

Halloween Costumes

The good news – I’m employed full time again. Yay!
The bad news – The two weeks leading up to working (visiting family out of town and trying to prepare) and my first week of work have been super busy, leaving little time to do anything on the computer, especially to blog. Insert praise for iPhone here, which has allowed me some semblance of an online life at random moments.

But let’s jump back in to the now…Halloween!

Heather was set on being Darth Vader and Todd was not consistently set on any costume. Add in everything else going on for the last month, and it was a perfect recipe for store bought costumes. There was a little drama with Heather’s costume (the first store we visited didn’t have her size) and Todd talked about a lot of different costumes up on that big wall of pictures. Over the two weeks we talked about it we heard: Chewbacca, Obi-wan, Gumby, Dinosaur, Darth Vader, Luke, Woody and probably 10 others that I’m forgetting. On our last visit to the party store, with two days to go until his class party, he chose Buzz Lightyear.

I considered some sewn hemming for the sleeves and pantlegs that were too long, but after attempting to alter the too big Darth Vader costume that we bought originally and making myself crazy trying to get the sewing machine to play nicely with the stretchy knitted fabric…I decided that shoes would keep long pantlegs from being tripped on and sleeves hanging over knuckles wasn’t a problem. Besides, given the number of times that last year’s Woody costume has been worn, I expect this year’s costumes to see some more action during playtime, so there is no reason to hem them down too much.

I did knit Heather a Darth Vader “helmet” hat. (I never got a good picture of it when she was wearing it, unfortunately.) Masks aren’t allowed at school and I didn’t think it would stay on during Trick or Treat. The baby/toddler version of the Darth costume I’ve seen has a cute little hat helmet, so that was my inspiration. I used the Hallowig pattern from Knitty as my starting point, adding some different shaping to be more like Darth’s helmet. A crochet edging adding some stabilization to help the edges flare and I decreased in a more pointed fashion.



The hat was a little too warm for the school parties (the parties always warm, even without costumes!), but it was perfect for Trick or Treat, especially given the teeming rain that was falling all evening. Todd was able to wear a wool hat as well, under his Buzz helmet. In hindsight, a new pair of gloves for him in white would have been better than his mittens from last year for the costume, but who wants to knit white gloves for a dirt-loving 2 year old? Both kids wore Nana-made wool sweaters underneath their stretchy costumes and it wasn’t as cold as Saturday when it snowed (!), so everyone was warm and happy despite the weather. And from a” mom of little kids” point-of-view, the rain kept the hoards of big kids down, which was nice.

Work Life

I made a passing remark on facebook that I would write a blog post about the new job.

So now I sit here wondering what to tell you about it. For a myriad of reasons relating to client confidentiality (which are, in some ways, more critical in this position) as well as a personal goal to not inadvertently piss off my employer, I haven’t really written about work much. Granted, there are blogging architects out there who write in detail about their work. Even some who don’t own the business that they work for, but I’m not sure that is me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy showing off my completed projects and even took my mostly uninterested kids on a tour of one of my buildings (we’ll try again when they’re older ;-)…but I don’t think my architecture remotely relates to the reasons that I blog.

Anyway, so far the job is good. The people seem nice, the work seems similar to what was described and thankfully my first couple of projects aren’t big rush jobs. My position is new, so I think the department manager is trying to use my time to get ahead on a few things initially planned for December and January, allowing me to go a little slower to get my feet wet here. (Have I mentioned how incredibly awesome it is that this company uses Microstation, the same CAD program that my last employer used?! There are still adjustments, but I’m glad that isn’t one of them.) Any time now, there are several projects that could break that have more urgent deadlines, but I am enjoying the fact that I’m not putting out any fires. Yet.

We are still working out all of the kinks in our schedule and day-to-day life (having Halloween and related events happen in the first week means we haven’t really had many “normal” days yet.) Somehow I need to find a way to get to bed a little earlier and get a little more time to relax with TV and knitting each evening. Important for both my sanity and for getting projects finished. I have two book projects left, a waaaay overdue baby present, a design for an indie dyer, a sweater promised to Todd, several other baby presents not even planned and a few winter accessories for both Heather and Todd…which they will need very soon.

I am also quickly realizing that not making it to the grocery store over the weekend was a grave error and means that I going to have to go tonight after the kids are in bed. (It’s actually a lovely time to be in the store, just not really what I want to do at 9pm.)

But I am really and truly not complaining. I am thrilled to be working again, and my 14 months of uncertainty have given me a new perspective on work. I know that even when there are days in the future that the house is messy and I would rather be working on that than drawing floor plans, I will be thankful to be employed and be more positive about figuring out a better way to manage my time rather than just complaining about the things not getting done.

I do miss working at the yarn store, but I am still teaching a little and I have gotten to stop in to visit a few times during the weekend running of errands. If only yarn/knitting/crochet experts had the same earning potential as architects. ;-)

Halloween Pumpkins

The one “craft” I did partake in for Halloween was the pumpkin carving process. The kids both painted pumpkins at school and got little tiny ones for table decorations, but I am a big fan of the carving. Part of it is my need to design and render something festive and part of it is my love of the roasted pumpkin seeds as a reward for all of that hard work.

I’ve always thought that the pumpkin carving kits you see in stores were silly, but this year I learned I was wrong. I got a hand me down set from Todd’s teachers last year and I actually remembered to use it. The downside is that the blades are really bendy and by the end of the process the two knives and one borer had broken off of their handles. But while they were still intact that worked really well for the carving and had a lot more control than the kitchen knives I’ve used in the past. I’m hoping that I can either find a sturdier set for next year or maybe find some cheapie ones on clearance to stock up. I will definitely be using those tools again. Not to mention that the scooper for getting the guts out was about 10 times faster than my ice cream scoop method (and the scooper didn’t break).

Heather helped for a lot longer this year than last – she scooped for quite a while and she drew the faces. Todd helped a little, but was more interested than watching. I look forward to a year when they are old enough to help more significantly so that four pumpkins don’t take 6 hours of work…but I am happy with the results and the two bags of roasted pumpkin seeds. J




Pumpkin #1 – Heather’s

She drew the face she wanted directly onto the pumpkin. Initially she drew more detail than I could feasibly carve and some of the features were proportionally small. But all I did was make the elements larger and simplify the lines. You could say I faithfully reinterpreted her design for the carving medium. :-P




Pumpkin #2 – Todd’s

When she got tired of scooping, Heather drew out a number of possible jack o’lantern faces for Todd and Daddy to choose from for their pumpkins. She had a variety of happy and sad faces, and Todd insisted on a sad face. Again, this is Heather’s design reinterpreted for the medium.




Pumpkin #3 – Daddy’s

This is based on one of Heather’s sketches, that was drawn onto the pumpkin by both of them. I’m not sure who added the extra eye – if it was on purpose or a chance occurrence – but daddy was very happy with Heather’s design.




Pumpkin #4 – Mommy’s

I started with a sketch that Heather had designated for me, but made a few alterations for my own preferences. This is my “ideal” face and the first year that I have been happy with the way it turned out. (Thank you, pumpkin carving kit.) Next year I may do something more different now that I have finally gotten a good basic face.

Just Pictures

Summer fun has continued around these parts - more camping, playground, playdates, ducky tour, neighborhood fair, jazz in the park, pool and walks around the neighborhood. To keep you occupied until I can put together a more newsy update, I'm going to share my two favorite pictures that R has taken this week.

New Social Media Strategy

Things in the online world are constantly changing and evolving, just as many other things change and evolve in our "real lives".

When I started this blog I purposefully didn't make the name about knitting because I knew I wanted to post about a variety of things and not just my fibery life. While there will always be some overlap, I find that I want to separate my new knitting/crochet/teaching adventures and freelance work from my personal expressions online. My reason for using this blog and using facebook is about staying connected with friends and family, and about sharing personal thoughts and stories to keep in touch. And in some ways, it has become the closest thing to a baby book or journal that I have about the kids as they grow.

On the other hand, I have been using twitter mostly to connect with people in the fiber arts world and a few other Pittsburghers & friends. So twitter and my new blog will be my primary outlets to talk knitting, crochet, designing and teaching.

So if you are interested in my fibery pursuits, you are encouraged to add StructuredStitches to your feed reader of choice. But if your only interest is in family stories and personal anecdotes, there is no need to stray from this blog. :-)

Progress

There is no progress on the full time job front. No job posts to respond to that are decent fits for my skills and interests, and even my recent attempts at networking have gone silent. I'll blame it on the summer and do another round of contacts in a few weeks.

But there is some progress on fibery things. I really enjoy working at the yarn shop, I've had some great experiences teaching and I have some designs in the pipeline. Some will be published by me, two will be published through an independent dyer and three will be published in books! Woot!

In addition to the design work, I'm working on a style sheet and logo for my independent designs, tweaking my class handouts and working on the launch of a separate blog for my design work.

Oh, and knitting samples for teaching. You can see today's work below. One benefit of the hours spent working at the yarn shop beyond the nice people and enjoyable discussion.





Pattern: Aviatrix Baby Hat
(free pattern on ravelry)
Yarn: Claudia Hand Painted Yarns
Color: Donna's Favorite

(Sorry. No links right now. I need to go do dishes and prepare fruit to take to tomorrow's playdate.)