the uneven days of winter vacation

where one boy gets dressed, and the other - well. Our daily rhythms have vanished in a startled, grinning burst of winter break.

We've had playmates, the Eldest's first and eminently survivable sleepover, houseguests and important self-discoveries, such as my discovery that, if I must have reading glasses, then by golly: purple.

And houseguests (hat-making, farm-building, kid-loving guests) and chatter and amazing sushi and ooooh-warm soups and holy-freakin-moly cold, and - yes - talk. The Man and I had a series of those spiraling, serious conversations about how we parent, and how we want to parent. We believe strongly in explaining our parental lines in the sand, but that's developed into a compound 'do X, because otherwise there's natural consequence/irate parent consequence Y' approach. Which does not work so very well.

When you do that, the Eldest informed me, I can choose between the consequence and what you want me to do. He raised his eyebrows, waiting while I winced. Tucked under his covers, the Toddles looked up, clear-eyed and thoughtful. Good to know, I admitted. I'll have to think about it. I certainly don't like being the kind of parent who threatens. The Toddles shook his head. Me, neither, he told me.

Wincing, laughing, the Man and I began hammering out a new plan. Possibly involving a lot of hugs. Certainly requiring us to be honest about what we are capable of. Which one of us is more likely to be set off by a recalcitrant, naked person at 38 minutes past bedtime? Which parent can best manage a shrieking, you're so unfair rant over toothbrushing? A shoeless, shirtless small child whose backpack and lunch are still politely at the top of the stairs, while parental teeth grind, trying to herd the kids to the car - and the morning commute? We sat and talked on the futon, on the kitchen floor, curled up in bed, talking about the boys, about who we were, the parents we want to be, the people that we are - and could be. It was necessary, cathartic, and brutally honest. A good way to end the year, we told each other, and talked until a small boy arrived to insist that someone curl up with him.

And then it was quiet.

But in the quiet, gears turned,

How does it work? the Eldest mused, and ran for paper and pencil. He drew carefully, copying sculpture titles, the artist's name, and the details he could find. Oh, said a venerable gentleman observing one sculpture. It's using gears. He looked at the Eldest, to see if the child appreciated this bit of wisdom. Having just fought a round of the duh* wars, I held my breath. But the Eldest merely looked patient. Yes, he said. And there is the motor. And do you see the two springs?

...eyes looked,

taking notes on the wonders of rocks. The Eldest spent a full hour, drawing, wandering, exclaiming. My favorite is the aquamarine from Brazil, he told me. I rather liked some of the lapis lazuli, myself, but was struck by some of the more bulbous rocks. The Toddles, drawn to the meteors, stroked them comfortably. He showed me their inclusions, but discovered the joys of grin-and-duck when I aimed the camera at him. Urgh.

....hands worked,

[this photo blocked until Gamma has received her birthday gift]

And, alas, worked some more. This project took over three weeks, as the Eldest designed, budgeted, and redesigned once his materials arrived. And then, ack! had to re-engineer his work on the spot, as we learned some rather basic lessons about wire. But, said the Eldest, I wonder if we can do things with wire like Arthur Ganson does?

When we took Gamma's birthday gift to the experts (help!), we picked up some supplies. Maybe. Not, I suspect, as effectively as Ganson, but let's try and see, I said. Doubtfully.

...and oh yes, snow fell.

It's been a snowy pair of weeks, with bone-chilling winds. But snow somehow transforms teeth rattling cold into fun. So, the boys happily shoveled the walk on Thursday, stopping periodically to fling snowballs. It's not the best snow for snowballs, I was informed. It's too fluffy! But they cleared the sidewalk and stairs regardless.

Cheeks glowing, the snow critics headed inside for hot soup (see below) and onion tart. And a sense of deep satisfaction - right until the moment when the smaller critic was informed that he was overdue for a nap. [insert wail, whisk and roar here]

Folks, I'll be back with Part Two of the OT/sensory integration story, but for now, I'm off to help the Eldest sort recycled (okay, rescued) glass beads. He's singing quietly to himself at the table as he works, and his peaceful pleasure, the quiet, satisfied vibration of his work ripple outwards. In the kitchen, washing lettuce, I find myself smiling.

And then, he looks up. I love you, Mum.

My throat tightens, thickening. I love you, too, kiddo.

It's been a thoughtful, honest, loving - and as always, slightly cranky- end to the year at Chez Imperfect. With any luck, we'll begin the new year as we've ended the old one, ripe with the awareness of our gifts, and ruthless in considering our needs. But before I head over to join my order-from-chaos kidlet, I did want to say:

from all of the Chez Imperfect denizens, we wish you all a happy new year, rich with ripples of love, satisfaction and the work that makes us sing. And, of course, the imperfections that make us shine.

*****************************************************

A Wintry Day's Soup:

3 medium potatoes, washed and chopped roughly

2 large onions, or 1 large onion and 1 (washed) leek, chopped roughly

7-8 Jerusalem artichokes, a.k.a. sunchokes, washed and chopped roughly

1/2 inch ginger root, peeled and sliced into thin strips, or 1 tsp ground ginger

1 can of white beans of your choice: navy beans, chickpeas, butter beans, even Roman beans are good here. Drain and rinse.

salt and pepper to taste

3 bay leaves

6-8 cups water, or vegetable broth

1/3rd cup leftover white wine (or cooking wine, if you are so equipped)

4 Tb olive oil

optional: a sliced carrot

Saute fresh ginger and onions/leeks in oil until browned. (if using ground ginger, add when adding the rest of the spices) Add potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes, beans, spices, wine and enough water to cover the veggies by 1 inch. Let simmer for roughly 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are quite cooked.

Puree. Return to the stovetop and simmer for perhaps 5 minutes, adjusting seasonings. Serve hot, wishing you hadn't eaten all the garlic croutons yesterday. I like sprinkling them on top, said the Toddles, wistfully. Can you make some really, really quickly? And be done making them already?

Um, no.

*in which one side offers various sarcastic, oh jeez that's so OBVIOUS sorts of comments, while the other side suggests that perhaps those are, um, obnoxious. If not also disrespectful and somewhat indicative of the opinion that He Who is Dismissing is far superior than the Dismissed.

dribbles of competencies

In case you were wondering, while I can get blood out of just about anything, I'm a little stumped about the black greasy stuff on my hands. But in a non-neatfreaky shift, I'm loving the black goo.

Last night, my car declined to start. I sat on a random street, betwixt and between errands. And stared. The lights on the dash flared, then faded. The radio went silent. I turned the key, suggested politely, then firmly, finally used the evil mom growl. The car was unimpressed. This, I knew, was many many miles outside of my range of experience.

The lights were on, I said out loud, then they were off. And the NPR - where did it go?

Alas, said the AAA emergency roadside kit booklet, it went with the battery.

Clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick, said the engine, agreeing. This, I thought, is why I hid a chocolate and peanut bar in my bag for tonight's outing. I'd known that tonight was going to need it.

The chocolate was silky and the peanuts crunched, and mollified, I merely grinned when the booklet informed me that my troubles would be solved if I signed up with AAA. Failing that, said the booklet, find someone to jump-start the battery. I called a friend, it's going to take me a while to get to you, to drop your things off. I sadly looked at the empty bar wrapper, contemplated the lack of chocolate and peanuts. Would tea fill the void? But perhaps we can help, replied the friend. I'll send competent male out to jump-start your car.

Competent male turned up, and was indeed competent.* We compared AAA kits and happily, he knew how to use his. Except that, to his chagrin, there was his car, running - and the keys locked in it. Spare set of keys, he told me, and ran home to fetch them. Spare battery? Not so much.

We finally unlocked his car, untangled the jumper cables and compared identical AAA booklets on What To Do. We were attaching the jumped cables when roadside assistance turned up, and gasped with horror.

Don't do that! exclaimed the RA guy. You'll fry your computers.

Competent male and I looked at each other. We will? Competent male shrugged, and left me in clearly professional - and non cable-using - hands. Battery jumped, I drove home, weaving around and through my route in an effort to charge the battery. But don't expect the car to start again tomorrow, warned the professional. That battery is done.

But the next morning, it did. And when it started, I was prepared: had driving directions in hand, apples in bag and Eldest in the backseat, and we drove straight to AutoZone. Bought a battery. Watched the store's guy try and fail to unscrew the strap holding the old battery in place. Watched the car try and fail to turn on. The hours, which had been sliding away, giggled and picked up speed. Lunchtime came, and the Eldest finished his apple, two bags of potato chips and a pair of cookies. I'm still hungry, he told my rumbling stomach, having eaten my share of the snacks along with his own. I clamped my jaws shut, and worked to preserve any illusions of loving motherhood that he might have left.

Ah, but this time: spare battery.

One Roadside Assistance call later, the troublesome nut had spun off, we had a new battery in place, and I had been talked through hubcap replacement by the RA guy. I drove home considering this - the Home Depot guys are of the opinion that I can do nearly anything myself, including cutting tile. Is the RA guy of this ilk? I'd be disappointed in you if you couldn't, said a friend. I eyed the tires dubiously. Where I grew up, you called a guy. Competent, RA, handy or otherwise. Or caught a bus.

Sure enough, my first efforts popped off. The next round looked oddly askew - I'd covered the air thingie. Bloody car. Need a pack mule. Telecommuting, mutter mutter mutter something about a bicycle. Four new hubcaps and black goo later, I'm of the opinion that competency is a slippery, fluid concept. But I might - possibly - perhaps have dribbles of it.

perhaps. occasionally, I mused, spreading putty over the rusting holes in my paint. But, from the look of the swirling, delightedly unsmooth putty, not terribly often.

*please note that I say this with all sincerity: comparatively and otherwise, he was competent.

*********************************************************************

on an un-lunched day like this, when I'd rather have been doing any number of things other than considering my own dubious compentencies - and not so dubious ignorance of things vehicular, a serious pick-me-up is crucial. Mine? Steaming wedges of plain potato, coconut curried chickpeas from this wonderful cookbook, and unMarthaed green sauce.

unMarthaed green sauce

based on a recipe for green sauce, from a Martha magazine, picked up and carried reasonably far in a slightly chimicurried direction.

1/2 of a red onion

3 cloves garlic, peeled

1/3rd tsp red pepper flakes

most of a bunch of parsley, including stalks (if your food processor is up to the challenge, that is)

3-4 stalks fresh oregano, leaves stripped off (even if your food processor can handle it, the stalks are woody in flavor. I'd pass.)

1/3rd cup stuffed green olives (plain green are fine, too)

juice of 3 lemons

1/4 c rice vinegar, unless you have red wine vinegar (I didn't)

1/3rd to 1/2 cup olive oil

salt, pepper and ground coriander to taste

Add ingredients to the food processor: heavier ingredients first, then leafy and spices. Keep the liquids in reserve as encouragement to the machine when it falters, or has trouble chopping the elusive leaves. A nice, percussive pulse should do the trick: you want your sauce to be finely chopped, and not pureed. Mine was puree, however, and I managed to love it regardless.

Adjust your flavors to suit you - add olive oil if you need the sauce to have less zing, and more smoothness of flavor. Add lemon juice if you need more zing, salt if the flavor feels wimpy, extra onion for more pungency, capers and cornichons if you are having a Marthaesque moment of piquancy, anchovies if you are feeling traditional (but for heavens sake, add the anchovies early on in the percussion, 'k?). In short, have fun.

And when you are done, consider the simple, wonderfully neutral steamed potato as a backdrop to all that flavor, hmmm?

dinner? anyone?

Note to self: anyone making a highly aromatic soup on a fast day, gets what she deserves.

(siiiighhh)

*******************************

Badly Timed, Deliciously Smelled Tomato Soup

(serves 4)

6 cloves of garlic, smashed and peeled

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 stick cinnamon

3 slices of ginger root, matchsticked (note: smaller or larger slices as per your ginger-lovin' preferences)

2 cardamom seeds

1/3rd tsp coriander seeds

3 bay leaves

3-4 Tb olive oil

4 nearly overripe tomatoes (or canned equivalent), plus 28 oz diced tomatoes

salt and black pepper to taste

4 cups water/broth

toss spices and oil into a large pot, and let them heat - and start sizzling while you finish smashing and peeling the garlic. Fling the garlic in as you go along, because surely dinner should have been on the table 20 minutes ago? And hey, isn't anyone setting the table?

While you holler for the kids to come and bring plates, forks, knives and spoons to the table, roughly chop the fresh tomatoes, if you are using any, and toss those in. Remind the boys to bring glasses, also, while you open the canned tomatoes. Stir the pot, toss in anything remaining, cover and abandon to simmer while you go and chivvy the troops.

And dig up the napkins - how on earth did they end up down there? Hmmm. Resist the urge to go and find the guilty party (and congratulate him on his creativity), because at this point the soup's been simmering nicely for about 20 minutes, and you need to find a stick blender.

Use the stick blender.

Remind the children that dinner is traditionally eaten at the table. Remind them again. Disentangle the younger one from his Lego, and airlift him to his seat. Pour soup, and pass bowls of toppings, like cubed avocado, the slightly crushed tortilla chips from the bottom of the bag, bits of cucumber, and consider the days when you might've plopped sour cream on top.

Note: if you have, for some unimaginable reason, just discovered that your defrosted salmon went into the oven with a lovely pomegranate sauce (open bottle, pour) with a hint of plastic (take scissors, release salmon, release plastic), then possibly you are 1. overtired and 2. could happily dump a can of small white beans, great Northern beans or another mild white bean into this soup. Cook briefly, puree and serve with salad and maybe some of Gamma's improbably good croutons. Or, consider some leftover chicken, shredded and added post-puree, or possibly as a topping.

Note the second: this would never happen to me. Nope. Nuh uh. And especially not after a long, thoughtful conversation with the Man whilst returning home from Rosh Hashana, in which we identified a prompt 6 pm dinner as being the key to many happy widgets. Like timely bedtimes, less tired children and smoother evenings and mornings. Nope. I'd pick that plastic out before it melted into an alarmingly viscous sauce and swirled into the lovely pomegranate stuff. Yep. That's what I'd do.

and to all, a belated wish

Happy Mother's Day. 

For the mothers who are made, shaped and discovered: thank you. There are many mothers in our Imperfect world, and I am grateful to all of you for your support. 

*********************

8am, Sunday morning: roll over and crack an eye at the clock. Close eyelid.

8:20 am: crack the other eye. Review the various things that need to happen before it's time to leave the house. Compare that list to the noises from downstairs: are those getting dressed sounds? breakfast sounds? Mmm - breakfast. Stomach rumbles, slam eyelid shut and require both to be patient.

8:35 am: okay, patience sucks. Did breakfast/clothes/making snacks/pouring water/finding the hats/finding the soccer ball (soccer today!) happen? And speaking of breakfast, am I getting my own? Roll over and grump quietly into the pillow

8:40 am: stop grumping. Follow the sound of keys tapping down the hall, and gently ask the Man if I can get up now? He stares at me. Get up? I blink. Get out of bed, I clarify. He stares some more. Get out of - OH. Uh, um - OH. No. You can't get out of bed! I try not to grin wickedly, and offer some highlights from the list of Things To Do in the next 30 minutes. He hyperventilates, and I suggest that perhaps I'll take a shower now, while he regroups. I escape down the hall while he splutters.

8:49 am: Mid-rinse, the bathroom door opens and the Eldest pops in. You have mail! he sings. I spit out some bubbles and say something coherent like, what? hello? But he has gone. When I get out of the shower, I squint nearsightedly at something that might be a card. Sitting on the toilet seat. I resolve to be nearsighted, and squelch down the hall.

9:10 am: Mouth full of toothpaste. The Man whisks in, did you get the card? can you get the kids dressed? can you make snacks for them? can you fill their waterbottles? I have to take a shower and get ready to go. I am faster on the draw this time, and spit out the bubbles before he vanishes - but only just. Sure, and I did get the card. Kid left it on the TOI-let. I crack a significantly arched eyebrow at the Man. I'm going to open it in the car, to make it a family moment. He huffs and races down the hall, trailing his towel.

(I do the petty thing oh, so very well, eh?)

9:35 am: we're in the car, and I make a production out of opening the car. It is wonderful, all snarks aside - the Man got the boys to make handprints, slipped a really terrible pun, and all three of them signed their names. The Man, in unreadable swirls; the Eldest, in tidy cursive; and the Toddles in oh my goodness readable printed lettering. Which, the Eldest delightedly points out, the Toddles did all by himself. With no-one holding his hand! I melt ever so slightly. No, a whole lot. I admire everybody's signature lavishly, and decide to hold off on explaining to the Man exactly how lame he is. (the toilet? a card-and-run? hello?) Oh, I am not going to get teary over the Toddles' writing his name. No. Not at all. Just a little damply proud.

10:05 am: I am climbing out of the car, and we're stuffing an extra kid into it. The car pulls away, leaving me and a bag of ripped clothes behind - I'll have a sewing mama-date with another soccer mom, a semi-regular Sunday arrangement.

10:06 am: there is coffee, there is a fabulously cute baby (oh yes, and his mom), and look! I'm going to sew that damned button on the skirt that has been waiting for the past seven weeks for me to get to it. Ha. I am alarmingly pleased with myself, and breakfast? Sure. Let me just grab a pan and scramble some EGGS. Yep: eggs, baby. Scrambled. With butter. Heh.

10:40 am: and there goes the ripped sweats, now reincarnated as shorts. I forget that I'm insisting on the righteous indignation thing and grin. Whee! I reach for the Eldest's unraveling kipa and hm -whazzat? 

10:42 am: ballet? what? WHEN - wait, ballet? Quick inhale. Quick jog down the memory, small grin. Bigger grin.

10:43 am: honey? honey? what do you think about me skipping out for a matinee? There's a last minute ticket - yes, I know. Oh, you didn't have anything planned for the afternoon? Really? Great!

12:57 pm: I have not a single fucking thing to wear. Pants are falling off my bony butt, and when on earth did that happen? Clothing is flying in my neat-freaky room, piles of things that used to fit are looming, and oh cripes, what is left? I swear quietly and creatively, trying not to wake up the Toddles, who is sleeping in my bed. 

1:03 pm: the Eldest pops his head in and cheerily informs me that my cab will be here soon. I remind myself not to snarl at the kid, and settle instead for informing him that I'm having a somewhat difficult time, and perhaps now isn't a great time to be here? He settles on the bed, and happily offers to help. Teeth clenched, I propel him out the door. I hate getting dressed. It's like playing Old Maid with a stacked deck: the pairs I want vanish, and giggle. What on earth did I use to wear with this shirt? Surely not that - why would I do that? Ack.

1:12 pm: I'm dressed. I'm also mocking myself in the mirror, but who cares? Cab should be here momentarily and oh, need to change the ratty burlap bag, okay, can do that, and hell. That was a ripping sound, wasn't it. Oh, bugger. 

1:20 pm: cab's here, I've found some things that kind of work, the hair is, well, it's pinned firmly on the back of my head, so I can't see it, and ignorance is probably bliss. Bag's changed, got a warm layer - right! Time to go.

1:20:56 pm: my dad? calling from Kosovo? Aaaahgrlfk - hi, Dad. 

1:22 pm: cab's gone. Call cab back. Chew nails. Curtain is at 2pm, furiously calculate just how late I'm going to be.

2:11 pm: standing in the dark theatre, waiting the usher to seat me in the second row from the freakin' holy hell front, I'm entranced. It's Eifman's Onegin, and it is wonderful. For the next two hours, the snarks and petty grumps will drop away. The muscles will relax. The jaw will drop, the vocabulary will be temporarily silenced. Instead, I'll watch elegant, brutal, thoughtful dancing, set against a backdrop of a carefully designed set, with a brilliant mix of classical and modern music, classical and modern dance.  The patterns of the ballet - a color theme here, a trail of prop there, an echoed dance step, bend of an elbow - piece themselves together in my head, and I stare at structures forming in my brain, intricate and deliberate. I remember those structures, remember building them inside my skull, lo these many post-grad years ago. And then onstage, a dancer will move and -

oh. 

OH. 

For two hours, I'll sit in  another world. When I step out of it and on to the train home, I'll carry wisps of it with me...and I will smile. And yes, no problem, love - I'd be happy to go online and order myself a gift. From the bit of paper I'd posted on the fridge a few weeks ago?The Man eyes me suspiciously, waiting for the petty, the snip or snark. Instead, I smile. I'm brimful of the oh.

OH. 

I drift off happily, completely forgetting about the thingamibob that we've budgeted for. I have, after all, been well celebrated today. At bedtime, I'll reopen the card and admit that yes, I am after all sniffling a bit over the handprints and the carefully - laboriously - written names. And the guy who had the foresight to make it.

***********************************

A Mother's Day lunch: for a fast lunch, I had a bowlful of this, happily reworking the sabbath's leftover brown rice.  I suspect it would make an excellent meal for a new mum, baby in one arm, spoon in another...got to remember that. If only to bring it along to a virtual baby shower sometime.

B'sha'a tova*, Seamaiden.

Far From Leftover: Sweet Gingered Brown Rice Salad 

(based on "warm brown rice salad," Boston Globe 4/22/2009, G25)

serves 4.

salad:

3 cups cooked brown rice

1 small crown broccoli, cut into small pieces (stems and florets)

2-3 scallions, sliced somewhat finely

1/3rd c toasted sunflower seeds (or slivered almonds, pine nuts, or some other mild crunch.)

1 punnet cherry tomatoes, rinsed

1 can chickpeas, drained

optional: add more! I considered craisins and thinly sliced carrots, but you could replace the chickpeas with cubes of leftover chicken. Have fun.

Pour brown rice and broccoli into a oven-friendly casserole. Pop into a 300 F oven while you assemble, chop and mince everything else. 

dressing: 

1/8 c. maple syrup

1/8 c. tamari soy sauce (regular soy sauce has wheat)

1/3 c. olive oil

1 clove garlic, smashed and chopped rather finely

1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced. Yes, minced. Just do it.

1.5 Tb maple syrup

Whisk the dressing together while the rice and broccoli are warming up. Pull rice and broccoli out of the oven - the broccoli is now that bright green color that shows that it's barely begun to be cooked. Add the rest of the ingredients to the salad, and toss gently with the dressing.

Serve, having reserved a bowl for yourself. Eat that for thirds - it's only the fast and the cleverly prepared who are going to get that much. Fair warning, people.

* in a good hour. Meaning, may what happens come in the right time, and the right way - however that way, and whenever that time may be.

a time of rest (and food)

this is the view through the hole in the wall.
And this is on the other side: unfurling growth,

 a place of testing and trust,

a breath of peace,
and a pause for memory.
And always, but always, a spot of vibrancy and joy

 not to mention play! Much of which happened on shabbat, when I could not take photos. 

What photos I do have, I'm saving for spousal blackmail. But do imagine the Man on a child's pink tricycle, knees up by his ears and careening around corners. Me, screeching with laughter, while a crowd of sane adults cheer for him, or for the equally scrunched up athlete behind him.

With the children delightedly in grandparental arms,  the Man and I flung ourselves into the car. For a weekend, we lived in a fantasy in which we slept, ate and walked around the lake. I was persuaded to try acupressure, courtesy of a group of volunteers. I then managed to be persuaded to try massage, then reiki, then any number of excellent slices of angelfood cake with oooh, lemon-orange sauce. (Eight parts confectioner's sugar to one part lemon juice, said the chef, plus orange zest. Because you know, I really had to ask.) And endless cups of tea. And popcorn. And how-to insurance tips. And yes, you've got me, there were sketches of our ideal home. Mine was not, by the way, the only one with solar panels and a veggie garden. And I was totally out-greened by the person with the imaginary goat. And in-house claims manager. 

Damn.

Oh, but we talked. And talked. And laughed immoderately. And, while I was relaxing in a haze of not-my-allergens and people who know how to find the knots in my back and persuade them to relax a bit, the Man was reaching. 

He made it to one handhold and paused. Then he reached for another. And another. Until, blinking and alarmed, he was at the top. (need a visual? Scroll back up. Yep, that's it.) Roughly 35 feet off the ground, the Man sat down and laughed. The guy hates stepladders, you know. Made no difference.

Those Holes in Walls can hold the damndest things. Reliably, I fail to describe the place, let alone explain it. And I'm not even going to try now. Suffice to say that oh, it brings laughter and joy.

*********************************************

No KoolAid so far from the HitWGC folks, although there were many carbs rich with dairy and gluten. I tried hard to eat my weight in allergens, and I think I nearly succeeded...

We staggered to the car and drove home - where most of our GF, allergy-friendly fridge had been emptied. The grandparents nearly trampled us when we walked into the door, fleeing, perhaps, to more culinarily friendly climes? Well, maybe not. Taped to the countertop was a list of requests for recipes...one of which is below.

Curried Chickpea Polenta

(adapted from the Voluptuous Vegan, serves 4-6, can be made 1-2 days in advance)

2 onions, somewhat finely chopped

4-6 Tb olive oil

1-2 Tb curry powder, depending on your tastes (and the heat of your curry!)

2 tsp salt

1 c. chickpea flour

.5 c medium ground cornmeal/polenta

4.75 c water

In a cake mixer or food processor, blend the chickpea, cornmeal, water and salt. The stuff will clump, so a fast whipping is helpful. You can try mixing the water and salt while slowly adding the cornmeal and chickpea flour - sometimes that helps avoid lumps. Personally, I embrace my lumpiness (to a degree), and just move on.

In a pasta-sized pot/medium pot, saute the onion in the oil until deeply browned. Add curry powder, and stir for a couple of minutes, until the curry powder is warmed and smells wonderful. Pour in the batter, and stir to mix. Heat uncovered over medium heat, stirring occasionally until it comes to a boil. 

warning: this stuff will splatter a bit, so take me seriously when I suggest that...

Once the mixture begins to boil, turn the heat down to med-low and stir constantly. The mixture will start to thicken, but keep stirring for another 20 minutes or so (almost constantly, slightly less so if you have a really kickass nonstick pot). The chickpea flour can have a beany flavor, but heating it steadily like this will mellow that flavor wonderfully. At this point, you can add optional yumminess, like fresh corn kernels, freshly ground black pepper or a sprinkle of minced fresh herbs, or whatever else makes your mouth happy. 

Spray a springform pan (or other pan, I like the springform because it's easy to uncrate the thing after baking). Pour the batter in, and let the pan sit on the counter for a 30-45 minutes. Then, bake at 350F for roughly 30 minutes.

The top will be golden and somewhat cracked - and entirely delicious. Serve it warm! 

note: for the non-vegan/dairy consumers, a grating of Parmesan might just be perfect here. If it is, for heaven's sake don't tell me, okay? I think I might just be dairied out for now.

being repetitive

I seem to be stuck. Repeating myself. Saying the same damned thing over and over. Quick, someone find the reset switch, because I'm stuck.

Rosh Hashana is staring me down, eyeball to eyeball (okay, liturgy?), and waiting for me to blink. Yes, okay, I know you are coming. Deep thoughts, internal cataloguing, the usual half-resigned, half-pleased discussion with my ceiling. Yes, I see you coming: the raisin challahs are cooling on the counter, and the boys are practicing on the Man's shofar.

But I'm not so much coming up with anything new to say to you. Or for that matter, anything off the donkey-track I've been tracing for the past few weeks. All I can think about is fear, and I think I've amply covered that one already. But what the hey, you're here and I'm here, so why not.

Recently, a doctor that I was working with told me that he thought I had an anxiety disorder, and pushed me to get a psychiatric evaluation. The psychiatrist laughed and sent me on my way, with a cautionary note about doctors and their opinions. But not before I, the apparently not clinically anxious, started to worry. Am I too anxious? Am I limiting my family and my self with my anxieties? Reluctantly, I let a niggle from the back of my brain creep into the light: am I defective? Will I need medication to be a functioning human being?

Self-doubt is a cruel thing, not just because of the way that it can undercut you, but also because it makes you back up and admit to fears and feelings that you would really rather bury. The Eldest takes medication to function, as does the Toddles, as do I. We've settled into our hematological and immunological imperfections, and kicked the idea of defectiveness into lurking under a rug. Where it waits for a new category to turn up, so that it can come out and loom.

This is where fear meets choice: defectiveness, imperfection, disability, challenges - the words we choose to define ourselves show what we want, as well as what we fear to be. My children will be marvellously imperfect and challenged, but they won't be disabled or defective. I can say that as often as I like, and even believe it. But oh, for that lurker.

Which brings me to Rosh Hashana. Every year at this time, I look myself over, poke at the bruised spots and pick at the scabs, as part of choosing how I want to kick myself in the ass. I can do better, we say around here, and we pick ourselves up and try. And as always, the boys are way ahead of me. While I worried about allergens, the Toddles went happily into his new preschool classroom, reconsidered the next day, and casually dismissed me on the third. You can go now, he told me. I'm going to have all the fun at peeschool, and then you can come and pick me up. Oh. The Eldest went up that crazy high ladder, over and over again, each time refusing to let a limit stop him at the bottom, and willing to try and see if the boundaries could change. It was fine not to make it all the way up, because I knew that I tried, and that's what counts, he informed me. Up, pause, down. Up a bit farther, pause, down. Yes, I'm watching you. And yes, I'm starting to get it.

Why must fear be static? say the boys. Why must our definitions of ourselves be static? reluctantly admits the mama. Our boundaries? (A brief pause to admit that this year, I've come up with a tough one. It's easier to stay within your boundaries than to question them, and investigate beyond. Sigh. But like I said, this is all I've got right now.)

So I started with something symbolic. Mind you, this wasn't my idea - somebody got this idea, and somebody had a new baby, and somebody needed to do something crazy. And she wanted me to do it with her. Ahem: no. But I somehow wasn't flatly turning her down, either. (And at this point, my apologies to anyone who is now really sick of trapeze stories, but hey, like I said: repetitive. )

As you may recall, the Eldest got stuck on this ladder. He made it high enough to touch the board between the ladders, but not onto the board, and certainly not off the board and onto the trapeze. And nevermind the net. Sneakily, my friend approached him: if your mum went up on the trapeze with you, would you try it? The Eldest considered, then agreed: yes.

I weighed my fear of heights against the strength of that agreement, knowing that his yes could easily melt near the top rungs. I pushed on the idea of my feet on the ground, and decided that in fact, I was quite happy with them there. I hate heights, hate the idea of falling, and losing control. Long since a member of the anti-rollercoaster party, I didn't have to think about this much. Yes, terra firma suits me fine. No thanks, I told my friend. Just not going up there. Can't. See you on the teacup ride.

Hearing fear shut down choice, something under the rug sniggered.

A few days later, the Eldest went up that ladder again. On the other side of the net, I did too. Until I stood at the base of the ladder, with my hands on the rungs, I hadn't really appreciated how damned high it was. Holy crap, my brain suggested. Not the point, I told it. I focused on the kid, watching him and hoping quietly that maybe together we could push past his limits. Rung by rung, we went up, carrying each other. Two-thirds of the way up, the Eldest stopped and remembered to be afraid. I'm here, I told him. We'll do this together. The kid reached the top of the ladder, and let go. He double high-fived the staffers at the top, his hands comfortably in the air - and then he went back down. The staffers cheered as he went down the ladder, and turned to me. Okay, then, up you go.

Watching the Eldest, my heart in my eyes, I blinked. Wha? Where?

The staffer smiled. Here, she said. Here turned out to be the board on which you stand, waiting for the trapeze. It was just barely wider than my feet are long.

Oh, I said. Um. Somewhere in my stomach, my brain muttered. The staffer reached out. Put your hand on the bar, she told me, and steadied the trapeze. I looked at the bar. To reach it, I'd have to lean far out - so far that I'd be off balance. I'd be falling.

Bloody fucking hell, my brain said. I'm outta here. In the frozen silence, the rest of me stopped and considered. One rung at a time, I remembered. I can choose to take the next rung. I accepted the cold tightness in my chest and reached past it. There was my hand on the bar, then another, and I was bending my knees and not - looking - down. Take a breath. Another. My hand is on the needle, on the EpiPen, yes, love, I told him years ago, but look at me and breathe. Yes.

and fly.

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One of the things that I like about this bread, besides that it's gluten-free, egg-free and generally Imperfect-friendly, is that it's so flexibly flavored. Replace the honey with molasses, the vinegar with apple cider vinegar, and you have a pumpernickel-ish dough that practically begs for caraway seeds. Try a milder vinegar and honey or agave syrup, and you have a milder bread. We put raisins in this batch, but we've also flavored the bread with a mix of annato, mustard seeds, pink peppercorns and cumin seeds. Trust me: it's good. But however you mix it up, this is one gluten-free bread that is a legitimate challah, thanks to the oats. For some time now, we Imperfects have had non-legit challahs and invited our guests to make their ritual blessings on bread before arriving for our shabbat or holiday meals - or, sadly, to go off and make their blessings while we make ours. Meet you back here for main course! we'd say, but the division is pretty nastily symbolic.

However you choose to start your new year, there's few things that can beat an entire family, celebrating at one table. One meal, one bread, one ritual - and one family. If I needed a reminder that food has power, this might just be it.

Legally Yours: Oat Challah
makes 2 loaves on an ordinary day, 2 loaves plus a couple of rolls when the dough's enthusiastic

dry ingredients:
2 c brown rice flour
1 c oat flour
1 c teff flour
1/2 c quinoa/buckwheat flour
1 c tapioca flour
2/3 c arrowroot/cornstarch
2/3 c sweet rice flour
1/2 c flaxmeal/cornmeal
2 Tb xanthan/guar gum
6 Tb Ener-G egg replacer
6 Tb brown sugar
1 Tb salt

Combine dry ingredients, mixing gently. Keep very dry. (Note: you can combine these ingredients the night before using, but then keep in an airtight container.)

wet ingredients:
5 Tb hot water
1 tsp vinegar (see note above)
8 Tb margarine, melted
2 Tb honey/molasses/agave syrup (see note above)

Make sure that dry ingredients are at room temperature. Pour over dry ingredients.

yeast:
2 Tb yeast
2 Tb sugar
3.5 c. hot water

Mix gently and let sit until the yeast is frothy, or awake! (as the Toddles says). Good morning, yeast. Pour gently into the dry and wet ingredients you've assembled thus far.

Mix all together - the dry ingredients will fly out of the bowl if you start mixing vigorously, so try being a bit gentle initially, and then mixing strongly. I use my cake mixer here, and mix for about 3-4 minutes.

Pour into greased loaf tins (or muffin pans, if you want rolls). Put in a warm place to rise for about 45 minutes - for me, this is on top of the oven, with the oven on to about 300 or 350F. Bake at 380F for 45 minutes. Cool on rack for 5 minutes before tipping the bread out of the pan.

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To magid's friend in New Jersey, you are right: I should have a list of recipes. Magid pointed this out to me, and I realized that I don't even remember all of the recipes that I have on this thing. Which is part of the point. (sheesh) Hang in there with me - I'm working on it, starting with a list of my tags.

of shared badnesses

I've handed in my last draft (for now), and it's in the hands of the scary, scary anonymous reviewer people. So, I'm bloghopping to distract myself.

I found this kind note at DovBear, and this fascinating one at Juggling Frogs. The question of good or bad mothering is pretty near and dear, as you can imagine, mostly because when I want to wail about being an awful mum, any number of people tell me this: well, but you have so much going on, it's so hard!

This may be true, but as Carolyn points out, the wail itself is important. And, inevitable. No matter how hard we supermommies work, badness is unavoidable. Mostly, of course, because good mommydom is only partly based on our terms. My kids don't care how much I've got going on. To them, I'm operating on normal terms - we work hard to make their normal seem manageable and dull - so, say the children, why can't I get my ass in gear and oh, stop screeching? It might be hard, but they couldn't care less.

Kids are kind of ruthless that way, when you think about it. They need what they need (I'm thirsty, mum) - and they don't care if you've got the flu. You can browbeat them into accepting less (hold on a sec, kid, I'm busy), you can talk them into awareness of the other person (you look awful, Mum, can I help?), but none of this changes the basic need.

And when you have kids who need more, well that's just the deal, mom. So pony up. And so we do. But honestly, people, there are limits.

I appear to be a little tricky to talk to on the 'bad mommy' front. I tried to play the other day, and someone stopped me cold. What you do is heroic, she said, and I stared at her. She's no slouch herself as a medico-parent, and yet. Hunh? Why can't I be a bad mom, too? I took a shot: Whatever you think of what my kids demand of me, I claim the right to be as lousy as anyone else. Just the other day, I screeched bloody murder at the wee horrors for.... - and yet, end of conversation. New subject.

So, no bad mommy playtime for me. Partly because people like to pop me up on the Hero Mom pedestal (let me tell you, it's chilly up there and slightly two-dimensional), and partly because if my kids wailed over me not making it to their soccer game, I'd snort at them. It's a soccer game, I'm sorry I missed it, but there will be more. 'kay?

End up with a bleed or need me to yank soy out of the diet, and I'm there for you. Need a hug, and I'm happy to cuddle. Need any number of things that I can provide, and I will. But if you want something and it's just not going to happen, then I fully expect that we'll have a calm, caring conversation - and then you will deal, o child of mine. This isn't the smugness of a mum who has it all figured out, this is the can't be bothered-ness of a mum who knows she's only just got her nose about water. I get that, and so do my kids. Perspective is crucial. I bet Rix knows that.

Need vs want, I tell the kids. We can really want that which we don't need, and that's okay. Can't have the ice cream, can need a treat to replace it. Must trust me - and yourself - to do your best. Work with me, people.

(come to think of it, this ruthlessness may have something to do with the pedestal. Still. Brr.)

"It's just that complacency and smugness are incompatible with the authenticity and flexibility required for any important relationship," says Carolyn, and I wouldn't disagree. Thus the lack of parenting gurus in my life. Even Dr. Sears had to make it up at some point, so why not me? But I think that there's a certain degree of smugness in bad mommyhood - telling the bad mom story gives you an in to an intriguing social function: the anti-perfection patrol.

Martha bad, FlyLady good? Where do you draw the line on perfection? Individually, we can be amazingly harsh on ourselves, no matter how much we sneer at Martha. (and I'll admit here to having made one of her recipes for dinner. Yum) But watch how the discourse works in groups.

Try this. Note how the bad mom invites others to be bad, also? She creates a new normal, in which any number of relatively sane-sounding women are bad, too. It's okay to be imperfect, the women tell each other, and then reset their common denominator a few, socially sanctioned notches down from the pedestal. (again, I note: brr) This has the equivalent function of slugging back a nice cold beer - the women now relax and actually begin to talk to each other.

Bad mommying creates a connection, and sets a boundary in which more honest conversation is possible. It's a pretty good deal, when you think about it.

if you find yourself lacking in bad mommy inspiration - I, alas, am my own personal source - the parentblogger blog (say that three times fast? six times fast?) suggested this for bad mothering with trailer park style. Got to get me a copy...
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The feast of comfort food continues over at Chez Imperfect, and I can feel my skirts tightening. Looks like with comfort, comes padding. Alas for the slimmer version of me, and oh, well. But mmmm. Good.

Today, we reinvented a dish of my childhood. My mum used to make this for me, I told the boys. They dumped crisp, fresh blueberries on top and chewed thoughtfully, considering the gustatory virtues of their mum's mum. Finally, the Eldest swallowed. And when is she going to come and visit? he asked, and filled his spoon. Oh, I said, working it through. So you like this dessert?

Mouth full, he nodded. Right. Gotcha, kid.

Childhood Chocolate Pudding
serves 4

batter:
1 cup gluten-free self raising flour mix (recipe from Living Without magazine, below
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 soup spoonful of cocoa/carob powder (for the Aussies and English, this is actually a dessert spoon)
2 Tb melted butter/margarine
1/2 cup soy milk/dairy milk

Mix ingredients together, and pour into a 8x8 pan. Heat oven to 375 F.

sauce:
1 c brown sugar
2 soup spoonfuls (or dessert spoonfuls, for the Anglophilic) of cocoa or carob
1 and 1/2 c water

Heat and mix together until sugar has melted. Pour on top (no, really) of the batter.
Bake at 375F for approximately 45 minutes. Serve with a cold, crisp-flavored fruit, like blueberries or raspberries. Or, if you aren't dairy allergic (or vegan), serve with whipped cream.
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GF self-raising flour, by Living Without magazine:
1 and 1/4 c sorghum flour
1 and 1/4 c rice flour
1/2 c tapioca flour
2 tsp xantham/guar gum
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

....and the Imperfectly virtuous, Martha-made-us-make-it dinner: leftover watercress, a handful of olives (although we like this also with pickles), a teaspoon of child-despised capers (see, they don't eat everything), a can of well-rinsed chickpeas, and a cookie sheet of wonderfully garlicky fresh croutons. Tossed with olive oil (4 Tb) and red wine vinegar (2 Tb). Ahh.

Oh, yes. The croutons: I cut shabbat bread/challah into bite sized chunks, tossed with about six smashed, peeled cloves of garlic, a 1/4 cup or so of olive oil, salt, coarse black pepper and 1 Tb cumin seeds. Then we baked the croutons at 425 for about 15 minutes, and finished them off with a minute or three under the broiler. Then I chased small bums out of my kitchen when they ate too many pre-dinner croutons.

bah. Eat the bad mommy's croutons, will they?

gentlemen, start your gorillas

Meet Gus.

Courtesy of a guy named Steve (and a friendly anasthesiologist), Gus arrived today at the Man's place to work, where the Man was deep in quarterly work hell. Can we postpone our anniversary? he'd asked me. I'll have that quarterly thing, and oh, but I'll try not to work over the weekends this time. Too much. I made supportive spouse noises - and promptly called Gus.
Sinking deep into his chair, gorilla here: you are in trouble, the Man wrote. Gus hunted him down, sang enthusiastically, quizzed him on baseball trivia, made suggestions for the presidential elections, and proudced a fistful of balloons. One badly hummed Benny Goodman song later, I've got it on video! the Man wrote. And came home grinning.

Happy manyth anniversary, hon.
******************
While the Man digs himself deeper into his computer, I am digging myself out. Tomorrow, I hope to discharge my latest project, just in time to figure out how to tackle the next. That just might be our anniversary present to ourselves. Several rather impressive anniversary gifts ago (there was something with dachsunds, but I really couldn't go into details), we decided to do a joint gift. We choose something that would benefit the family or the home, and use the planning as a chance to talk about our hopes and concerns for the home.

This year is the year that we refuse to be overwhelmed, and our anniversary present to ourselves is to toss out lots of the junk that's accumulated in the basement. The basement happens to be a pretty popular place at the moment, as our downstairs neighbors pack up in preparation for their first child and first home. Yep, they bought a place and are filling their chunk of basement, prior to moving out. If we reduce and they fill, it's a balance I might be able to live with. And put these plans all together, and you have a bustling basement.

Know anyone who wants a 1 bedroom in my neighborhood? Preferably someone who finds the thumping of small feet to be a soothing, pleasant sound?

Today, the neighbors were moving boxes in and out of the basement when our doorbell rang. The Eldest zipped down the stairs, through our apartment door and plunged straight down, into the depths of the basement. Yep, down.

To afford real basements in our neighborhood, there has to be a catch. Ours is that the basement access is through a hatch that opens in the middle of our shared hallway. So, if you open your apartment door and charge through, yep, there could suddenly be no floor under your feet. Cue Wile E. Coyote, and charge up the maternal stomach acid.

Down drops the Eldest, and I watch his head bang on the edge of the trapdoor. The very pregnant neighbor grabs his shirt, but he's going down - and then he's coming up. Underneath, a friend had caught the Eldest's feet. Between the three of us, we hauled him back over the edge and looked up...to see the horrified face of the guy delivering the kid's clotting meds.

Oh, good. We're going to need that, I said. And dissolved into slightly hysterical giggles. The Eldest looked at us all, scornfully. But it's my JOB to scare people, he said, and marched proudly back up the stairs. Thus enlightened, we adults stared at each other and went off to shake quietly in our respective corners.
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After the various bits of excitement in the day, dinner was celebratory if somewhat subdued (the celebration really started after the kids finished eating, when the Man turned up with an armful of fascinating balloons). We had a variant on this meal, with a block of tofu sizzled in the pan with the kasundi spices, and small sprigs (and slices of tree trunk) tossed into the sauce perhaps 2 minutes before I turned off the heat.

The kids ate it with delight, and had seconds. Except when they had thirds. But who could blame them? There was red, there was green, white and...fried potato. And it was just simple enough for my poor adrenaline-drenched brain to handle.

straight - down. He went straight. down. Good grief.

flaring tempers: experimentally or otherwise

As my most recent deadline approaches, my temper grows shorter. At unexpected moments I look up, see a fairly standard bit of boy chaos, and the little voice saying, steady on old girl gets drowned out by the voice that had been chanting my To Do list (in a nice, upbeat tempo, with a muttering about the Toddles' hives in the background, a chanting of the neglected gardening and a wistful air about school politics, all coming together in a lovely symphony of stress), which is now roaring at the kids.

sigh.

The roaring subsides, and the sensible little voice says ruefully, now, did you really want to go and do that? Well, no, I didn't. And now I feel guilty and bad mom-ish, and that's bound to create a really wonderful feedback cycle that can only improve matters, I snap at the voice. The voice makes a patient sound that reminds me remarkably of my mother, and subsides.

And so it goes.

On Friday, somewhere in the middle of baking, chopping, broiling and stuffing, a little voice spoke up. I'm angry with you, Mummy. I looked down. There was the Toddles, hands on hips. He looked calm. I looked surprised. Are you? He'd been playing with his play stovetop for about twenty minutes, so barring lack of participation, I couldn't think of a maternal crime that I'd committed. (recently)
Yes, he told me firmly. I'm angry with you.
Oh, I said. I'm sorry for making you angry. Would you like a hug?
Yes, he said decidedly. And three kisses.
Hugged and kissed, he looked satisfied. Thank you, he said, and disappeared again.

It is consoling, really. The Toddles - as did his brother before him - was trying out the language of anger, and experimenting with patterns of response. I rather like this pattern, and I do hope that I can settle myself (or get past this deadline) before I teach him a different one.
***********************
So, what was I baking, oh-so-crankily? Ah. Well.
Friday was roll and crumpet day, courtesy of the Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread. We tried crumpets (see middle ground, right), popovers (background, top right corner), and french rolls (foreground, bottom left corner). As the Toddles is currently off banana, coconut and flaxseed (we use ground flaxseed and water or mashed banana to replace eggs), these three recipes offered an opportunity to try egg-free, flax-free options without the risk of collapse from lack of structural support - a constant challenge in gluten-free baking, and one that rolls avoid by being more crust than center.

The popovers, alas, were once again squodgy inside - those lads really need their eggs, I suspect, if they are to pop. The crumpets were too dense, despite my attempts to lighten the texture and flavor. Eventually, I dripped some soy yogurt on them and topped them with fresh raspberries and it was still - still! - tough going. Oh, well.

But the gluten-free french bread was all delicious crust and airy insides, despite (or perhaps because of) the tweaks we'd made to the recipe in making it vegan (no gelatine, no dairy, no eggs). So airy were they, that I could almost see the heat of my internal symphony holding them up...but not quite.

Hot Air Rolls
makes 12 rolls

1.75 cups white rice flour
1.25 cups tapioca
1 Tb guar gum
2.5 Tb Ener-G egg replacer
2 Tb sugar
1 tsp agar agar
1 Tb yeast
6 Tb Vance's Dari-Free powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vitamin C powder (I use this as a dough enhancer, you can skip it if need be)
6Tb + 1.33 cups hot water
2 tsp vinegar
3 Tb vegetable oil

Mix dry ingredients together. The Man does this for me, the night before I bake, and puts the ingredients in an airtight container. In a mixing bowl, combine wet ingredients.Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and turn your cake mixer to a high setting, and beat for about 2-3 minutes. When you are done, the dough should be like a somewhat thick cake batter - you should be able to drop spoonfulls on a tray and not have them run all over the tray.

Preheat oven to 425F. Then, choose: if you have a cupcake/muffin pan, you can spray and use that. If you are so blessed as to have a french roll pan, you can spray and use that. Distribute the dough as you choose, then let it rise on top of your oven (or in some other warm spot) for about 45 minutes or so until double in size. (Check your yeast - fast-acting yeast will rise faster, regular will rise slower.)

Bake for 20 minutes. Let sit in pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack. Sniff the most unlikely scent from a gluten-free baked good, and wonder if you haven't somehow used wheat. But you didn't.

Our next baking challenge? Making this Imperfect-friendly.

hedumacation and bread!!

Okay, so the Currier thing is over, and for the curious we have this brief.

I've heard from a lawyer in the firm representing her, and it sounds like there's a lot of specifics to the Currier case (high risk pregnancy, the NBME screwing up during her first exam, etc) and those make a great deal of difference in how you view it.

But enough lactation, time for some hedumacation and good old fashioned eating. Oh, and bumper stickers. More happily added here.

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The Eldest has now been a kindergartner for a full four weeks.

To be fair, for at least seven of those days he was absent for religious holidays, or the transitions thereto, but hey, he's in school. Officially. So, time for a blog favorite of mine, the stats:
Full disclosure: I know these aren't real, number crunched statistics, and yes, I'm quietly needling the Man, bean counter extraordinarie, every time I do things like this. You should've seen his reaction when I tried to explain (in print) that 'average' is really 1 out of 100%. Heh.

• 12 days of school
• 5 kids with food allergies in the class
• 15 food allergies (counting the nuts as a single allergy) in one class (okay, most of them belong to my kid, but hey.)
• 4 calls/emails from parents of kids trying to make allergy friendly food, because 'my kid really wants to sit with the Eldest'
• 1 cranky email about food tyranny
• 5 number of days of phys ed/sports club (which the Eldest chose from a range of options. Natch.)
• 0 panicked phone calls during school about allergy issues
• 0 panicked phone calls during school about bleeding issues
• 7 happy, proud teachers and administrators (no, really)
• 3 conversations in the parking lot with teachers/admin glowing about having the Eldest in the school
• 5 conversations with parents who admitted that their kids have allergies, too. Some of those kids are even in the Eldest's class.
• 0 laws requiring the school to do diddly for the kid
• 1 wowed, grateful, dancing in the streets mama

The school has gone through a number of options, settling finally on having a peanut-, nut- and dairy-free classroom, and with signs posted asking people not to consume peanuts, tree nuts in the common areas and hallways. The kindergarten classroom has a box of diaper wipes outside, for use on hands and face before entering, and a picture of peanut-allergic Binky, from Arthur (PBS TV show) on the door.

The kindergarteners do not eat lunch in their (carpeted) classroom, but eat instead in the (tiled) cafeteria. No sharing of food is allowed, for both kashrut and allergy reasons, and there is a covered allergy-friendly table. Kids can bring anything they want to eat, even peanut butter - it all depends on where they want to sit. Kids wash up before and after each meal, and clean their tables.

Kids with allergies or safe lunches eat at the allergy table, and with so many allergic kids, it isn't isolating. All snacks are provided by the teachers, and birthday parties are under discussion. Currently, parents are urged to consider food-free donations to the classroom, and no goodie bags.

Oh, my.

I knew that we'd made the right choice when I turned up to the pre-start o' school training session, and found 3 kindergarten teachers, the head of the school, the phys ed teacher, the dean of students, head of admission, 3 front office staff, dean of the lower school, and the head of the after school program who wandered in because, he said, he saw the schedule and said to himself, 'well, heck, this kid is going to want to do after-school at some point, and I need to be prepared!' He sat through the meeting, listening to the bleeding disorder stuff, the allergy stuff, and finally put his hand up and said, Okay, so the bottom line is that he's a regular kid - with some issues, but a regular kid - and we should treat him like one and just be prepared. Is that right?

I felt muscles relax that I didn't know were tense. Yeah, I said. That's right. He nodded to himself, and said quietly, 'Well, we can do that.' And they did. Parents battle for small things, schools fight back, angry and feeling taken advantage of, teachers plant their feet, feeling overwhelmed and underappreciated. But these guys sat and listened and asked questions and took me on a tour of the classroom, to identify potential issues, and asked more questions and just...did it.

You'd have to read hundreds of frustrated, angry emails by allergy parents to understand how amazingly lucky we are. Parents who dig out IDEA, who call the state attorney, who hire lawyers to let their kids go to school. Parents who actually know that IDEA exists, that the state attorney is useful to them, and who have the knowledge to do anything other than self-destruct with fury and frustration. And parents who homeschool, some because they want to, more because they feel they have to. I had an email this past month from a hemophilia parent who homeschools because her son has lots of bleeds and was missing too much school. Hemo-parents jumped to help, offering links to legislation supporting the kid, describing how the kid is entitled to an extra set of books (carrying a heavy bag isn't always possible with swelling, bleeding or at-risk joints - and definitely not possible in a wheelchair!), how he's entitled to a tutor, how the school isn't allowed to hold him back for medically-based absence alone...the bleeding disorder crowd know their rights, and few people in the school system give them trouble over it. Hemo kids? A sad, pathos-ridden bunch. Of course we support them. By contrast, the food allergy crowd is less well educated, has less media tailored to their needs, and their knowledge is more haphazard. And those phonies who just can't be bothered taking their Claritin? Why enable the whiners?

Oh, yes, we are lucky with this school.
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I cruised past Gluten-Free By the Bay and ogled this: http://glutenfreebay.blogspot.com/2007/09/gluten-free-challah-pareve-dairy-free.html I sat, I sighed, and then I smacked my head. I've just finished adapting a Bette Hagman's recipe for us (soy-free, egg-free, corn-free, dairy-free), and it is light and fluffy and wonderful as either rolls or bread. Here it is:

You Must Be This High to Be This Bread
Editor's note: most gluten-free breads are quite, quite short. And gluten-free sans eggs? Almost a guaranteed coxswain. Take a look at GFBTB's bread. Ooooh. Now look at the number of eggs. Ahhha. It is a mystery to me why this bread has the height and the loft of non-gf, vegan breads. Ya got me.

very,very adapted from Bette Hagman's New Challah. Makes 1 loaf or 12 rolls.

1.5 c rice flour (plain rice flour - not brown rice, not sweet rice)
1 c potato starch
.5 c tapioca starch flour
2.25 tsp xanthan gum/guar gum (guar for the anti-corn lobby)
.75 tsp salt
.25 c sweet rice flour
.5 c plain sugar
.5 tsp baking soda
1 Tb yeast

mix dry ingredients together. Dig out your breadmachine (or see below), and add the wet ingredients:

4 flaxgel egg substitutes (1 flaxgel= 1 Tb ground flaxseed, a.k.a flaxmeal + 2 TB water)
1.5 Tb honey or agave syrup, for the truly vegan - thanks for the nudge, joy!
.75 tsp vinegar (I like rice vinegar or cider vinegar)
.5 c margarine (I use Mother's stick margarine, the stuff from Passover which is corn free. Mother's tub margarine might work too, but the consistency is different.)
1 Tb instant potato flakes. No, really.
1.5 cups water

If you have a bread machine, dump the dry ingredients onto the wet ingredients and press a button. Look smug. I'd bake this in an oven, so once it's mixed and risen, turn off the machine and pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 400F for about 40 minutes. Or, pour into greased muffin tins and bake at 400F for about 22 minutes (i.e., check after 20 minutes and decide). Watch the bread puff and rise and say things like, 'holy cripes, that's vegan GF?' (There are probably children present when you say this. If not, feel free to improvise.)

If you don't have a bread machine, well, try this: having combined the dry ingredients, ignore them. Heat the flaxgels briefly in the microwave until they start to gel, then add honey and the margarine (in chunks) and the potato flakes. Beat in your mixer. In a separate bowl, mix vinegar, water.

Add the dry to the wet ingredients, adding the water-vinegar mixure slowly, to keep the stuff from flying everywhere. Mix hard, beating for about 3-5 minutes, to get some aeration into the stuff. Then let it rise somewhere warm for about 40 minutes. Less for the 'fast-acting, good for breadmachines' yeast, closer to 50 minutes for the slower acting yeast.

Spoon into a greased pan or muffin tins and bake at 400F as per above. When it comes out beautifully, ignore your lack of electronic doohickey and look smug regardless.

minions at work and rest

According to the teensy counter on the blog, installed some months ago, 8,945 visits have been made to the blog. I tested it, shifting between pages, and it counted me as one visitor - not counting per page visited.

Eight thousand, nine hundred. Even including search engines, that's a whole lot of you bleaders (I've been reading Julie Powell) and you are awfully quiet.
pause
That's not unnerving, really it's not.
pause
In fact, it's enormously egotistical to even begin to think that number is real.

I think that if I work on it, I can make that last bit sound convincing.
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I've been having a conversation with a mum to a newly diagnosed boy with hemophilia. She's also of the Judaic persuasion, also orthodox. We've been baffling the rest of the online support groups with our jargon, speaking in the short hand used by insiders. It's really a bit rude, and yet it's been a tremendous boost to, well, us both.

There's a specific challenge posed by the laws of the sabbath and religious holidays to the parent of a child with special needs - particularly one whose diagnosis involves runs to the ER. You aren't allowed to drive on the sabbath, but you can where someone's well being is concerned. A human life trumps the sabbatical legalities, so hop in your car and off you go.

But, can you drive home again? There's no life at risk where going home is concerned, just a question as to whether you can rescue the shreds of your shabbat, post-ER. If a doctor or nurse calls to check in with you, can you answer the telephone on shabbat? I'd say yes, since the purpose of the call is to reevaluate the patient and make sure they are doing well on the prescribed regimen. But what if the call is from a home care nurse, who is calling (on shabbat) to doublecheck the time of her arrival in your home (on shabbat)? You've made the arrangement, pre-shabbat, for her visit. Do you need to answer the phone or not to confirm?

And on and on. Parenting in such a moment is a slippery slope, balancing child against religious gray areas, picking your way through choice after choice. I think that the message here is a proud one: a person is more important than religion. And the challenge is a beautiful one: pulling person order, a sense of peace and sabbatical rest out of the beeping, whirring adrenaline of the medical world.
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As the bread machine, newly arrived in our home (courtesy of the Grandmere), whirred:

Mama has a minion!

You betcha, babe. And it does good work.
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Minion's Bread
Updated 8/9/07
makes 1 loaf, 1.5 lb size in bread machines

dry ingredients
1.5 cups rice flour
1 cup potato starch
.5 cup tapioca starch
.5 cup teff flour
.5 tsp salt
.25 cup sugar
2.5 tsp guar gum (non-corn allergy folks can use the same quantity xanthan gum)
1.75 tsp baking soda
1 tsp Ener-G Egg Replacer (check for nut warnings on label! One batch of Egg Replacer is at risk for nut contamination)
1 Tb yeast

wet ingredients
2 flaxgel egg subs (2 Tb flaxmeal mixed with 4 Tb water and let stand)
2 Tb honey
3/4 tsp vinegar
4 Tb margarine/butter
9 oz club soda
Optional: zest of a few oranges/lemons

For a bread machine, put wet ingredients into the pan first, mix dry ingredients in a bowl and let both come to room temperature. Layer dry ingredients on top of wet, and use a gluten-free cycle on the machine. Chuckle evilly, rubbing your hands in satisfaction as you anticipate the beautifully crusted bread to come. Pull the bread out as quickly as you can once the cycle is done, and sit on anyone who is too impatient to let it cool for 20 minutes, at least.

No electronic minion? Right, then:
Make sure all ingredients are room temperature. Prime your yeast in the flaxmeal/water mix and honey. Leave it alone for 5 minutes - no stirring!

Meanwhile, combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mash the butter into the flaxgel, then stir it into the rest of the wet ingredients. Pause to turn the oven to 300-350F. Combine all three: yeast, dry, wet ingredients, and set a cake mixer/hand beater to mix fiercely for about 3-5 minutes. Grease an oven-safe bowl, and pour the mixture in.

Turn the oven off and stick the bowl inside. Ignore it for 30-40 minutes while it rises. Leisurely grease a loaf tin, make yourself a cup of coffee, consider the newspaper. Then, yank the dough out of the oven and drop it into the loaf pan. Turn the oven back on, and set it to 375F, when it actually hits this temperature, bake the loaf for 45 minutes.

Yank the loaf out and cool on a cooling rack for 20-30 minutes. See above comment about impatient bread-eaters.

Tip: combine your dry ingredients, excepting the yeast, the night before. Put into a ziploc to keep them from absorbing moisture (gluten-free flours are the very dickens for absorbing moisture and then offering up squodgy bread with the most innocent of looks).
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Whole Foods is having a recipe contest - winner gets $100 in WHole Foods groceries! That's...maybe a bag full of stuff, actually. But the bag probably holds a heck of a lot of expensive gluten-free flours and fresh fish, so it's pretty cool beans. I'm tempted, and yet drawing a blank. I need to pick a recipe that I've adapted enough to call mine, that's delicious enough to tempt the non-allergic, but I do have me pride: I want to pick one that's allergy friendly, and note that in big writing somewhere on my entry.

Help?


Anyone care to vote for a recipe on this blog? I'm at a complete loss. But then again, I'm going through a menu dry spell these days.

Froggy went a courtin'

Have you ever heard Bruce Springsteen's version of it? Fabulous. The Nome sent us a CD with that on it, and I've been hearing echoes between my ears for days now. Finally, iTunes called and I answered...we are now the proud owners of a slightly used copy of We Shall Overcome: the Seeger Sessions, and I am happy to report that Erie Canal is as good as Froggy. Ribbit, sploosh. yay.

The Toddles, having turned a fantabulous 18 months, is following his brother's pattern. Not only has no emerged, but it has brought its friends, NO and NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Oh, joyous day.

But instead of being a source of independance and strength for the Toddles, the ability to say no (or, possibly, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!), is twisting him up into knots. We end up doing a little dance, in which he gets more and more distressed, unable to find satisfaction in the ability to refuse, as refusal bans him from a thing he actually wants.

Me (at top of the stairs): let's go get a snack, little man
Toddles (face lighting up): Eat! Eat!
Toddles walks over to me where I am now standing on the top step. Pauses.
Toddles: Noooooooooo. (backs away)
Me (eyeing him carefully): Eating? Do you want to go and eat?
Toddles (happily runs over. Pause): Nooooooooo. (backs away)

This can repeat for some time. I court him gently, he is excited about the prospect I suggest, but then something in him makes him refuse - upsetting him as he does. It's as if he can't stop his internal naysayer, poor tyke.

Last week, the little guy was hungry, and I happily provided both boys with the latest batch of failed cookies, a.k.a. 'gookie,' in Toddles-speak. But between hungry and end-of-the-day tiredness, the Toddles ended up on the floor of the kitchen, wailing, 'Goookie! No! Gooookie! Me! Me gooookie nooooo megookienoooomegoookienooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo' until finally lapsing into incoherent tears. Which just goes to show: it's tough to be small.

Three things have helped with the smallness: first, wrapping. I have taken to offering 'wrap? wrap?' to the Toddles, preferably before I start cooking dinner (evil coincidence there: tired children + tired mama +dinner needing to be made and put on the table + increasing hunger in children, who then haunt the teeny kitchen, interfering with the mama's ability to make said dinner = explosion, occasionally maternal, reliably offspringal). Snugly wrapped, he settles in.

Second, the Eldest. The Eldest has taken to looking after the Toddles from time to time, and finally seems to have learned that grumbles and noncompliance around dinner-production hour make for grumpy ME (which is to be feared) and let dinner (which is catastrophic, according to his stomach). Therefore, he tries to entertain the even tired-er, grumpier Toddles. It works about half the time.

Third, Bark, George, by Jules Feiffer. The Toddles adores this book, which is a delightful little story about a wee dog who does just about everything but bark, to his mother's consternation. John Lithgow does a great reading of it, though he is apparently unaware that the vet is British. The boys and I have investigated the matter, and he is.

The Toddles will carry this book around, delighted by a dog who says mooo, and demand multiple, serial readings of it, and will furiously decline other, lesser offerings. it speaks to his desire for patterning, his own struggle with rebellion and individuality (yes, 18 month olds and teenagers both), and he just likes saying moo.

On Friday, I came home from an errand to hear Mary Jr. reading a different book in a voice touched with a slight edge of desperation. From this I was able to deduce the following:
a. she'd already read Bark, George a few dozen times (Mary is a very patient soul)
b. she was trying to interest the Toddles in this less desirable book
c. he was having none of it, and was probably half-way across the room already.
d. If I was smart, I'd quietly tiptoe back down the stairs and out the door before the Toddles heard me and came running, a copy of - oh, damn it. Busted.
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Toddles On Me Back Dhal (variant)
serves 3-4

2 Tb olive oil
1-2 large onions, finely chopped (unless you have onion-eating children, in which case, chop roughly)
1 Tb curry powder or 1 tsp hot curry powder
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chili powder
2 cubed sweet potatoes
1 can small white beans OR 1 cup red lentils
2 and 1/4 cups water
1/2 cup light coconut milk or whole milk (not soy)
salt
black pepper
1 head broccoli, sliced into florets (frozen is fine)
1 pkg tofu, cubed (not really small cubes, or they will break up into crumbly bits - about 1 inch cubes are good, bigger is always fine)
4-6 kaffir lime leaves

heat oil and saute onion until browning. Add spices, stir, and wait until you can smell them. Then, add the sweet potato, stirring to coat it in the spices.

Toss in the lentils/beans, cook until potatoes are starting to get soft, about 10 minutes.

Add everything else. Cover and cook until the broccoli turns bright green. Serve, preferably with toasted bread to soak up the sauce.

Note: I find this to be a rather mild dish, but my crew like it that way - the Toddles will eat the tofu out of the dish, which suits me fine. Spice it up if you prefer some heat, and then let me know what worked!
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Babywearing warning: Infantino is having a sling recall. See here for information on it.