Ice Cream. Summer. What more do you want.
We have been driving an hour and a half to Middlebrook MO to buy raw milk from a really rustic farm. One drives over a creek, up a huge hill, past a couple of beehives, and parks near an old dog and a pigpen. The farmer or well family who lives on this 275 acre farm is jovial and living off the land. The cows are wandering in their front yard. Moo. Pigs, rabbits, chickens, cock-a-doodle-doo's, peach trees, and fresh strawberries make for the quintessential suburbanite meets country.
Raw milk is delicious! Get this....he only charges 3 dollars a gallon. Yes, for organic, grass-front yard fed, and raw three dollars a gallon! I cannot even buy a gallon of milk at Aldi's with extra BGH and some antiobiotic flavoring for that price!
The first time we went I got stung by a bee, dropped Scarlett on the ground, and the farmer threw chewing tobbacco on my arm. Helped the sting but did not help the guilt of dropping her in surprise. Damndest thing though. I have five hives in my front yard and I have never been stung. 10 minutes into my coutry experience and sting!
Anyhoo back to the raw milk. I poured of a bit of the cream into a pyrex bowl and soaked a vanilla bean pod in it all day. Sensually scraped the seeds from inside and licked my fingers. A bit of salt and some Mexican sugar later and I throw it in to seperate ice cream maker bowls. In one bowl went the almond extract and the other maker got some rose water. Simple. Raw. Yummy. A close to perfect summer night. A good recipe.
Did I mention a few lightning bugs were caught in between batches of cream?
David stops munching on his ice cream and says "This is one of those moments". The kind that we dreamed about for so many years before we finally had a kid. I agree. Summer night, homemade ice cream, and the kid of our dreams. That makes an amazing recipe and a perfect summer night.
04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Or shall I say Mother's Weekend? What a lucky gal I am. I had a brilliant idea about two months ago during an exceptionally difficult period Scarlett was having regarding whining, crying, complaining, and just being plain difficult. The dads would take the girls camping to give us moms a break! Oh may I pat my own back and say what a fabulous, wonderful, and even miraculous time I conjured.
They did in fact go camping, much to the delight of the children as well. Our good friend Gary and his daughter Leia accompanied my now behaving child ,who is back to herself, (Praise). The went to Pierre Marquette and had a great time! Of course they took turns squabbling like sisters and prompty flipped to getting along well. But, did I care? No! Because I did not have to break up or mitigate one single fight. Why, because I was at home luxuriating in my Mother's day dream!
Look! See how happy she was too! Win win for everyone!
I went out to eat and did not talk about my kid (very little at least maybe uttered one or two words) one single iota! Not one word! Came home and did not miss anybody. Nope. Not me. Next slept in very late (although I woke up once at the normal time to let the dogs out and then another time when I dreamed my little smiling girl was waking me up! agghhhhh) and luxuriated on the couch. Did not make breakfast but ate leftovers. Then, I worked in the yard the rest of the afternoon without interruption! Oh joyous day!
Sunday morning I went to our normal Sunday morning brunch at our friend's house. The boys, the ticks, and the girls were back from their adventure. She ran into my arms!!!!! Talking happily and filling me in on her weekend I realized why this weekend was so good.....because she missed me yet had a wonderful time without me.
This makes me so happy as a mother that my daughter loves me and is happy and well rounded. She has a father that she loves and I love. What a nice family I have! I loved to see them go and took a deep breath in and did a little happy jig once they finally walked out the door to go camping but my heart did the jig when they returned.
01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Maybe what I most want you to know is how much I like you. Of course, I love you. I have too! :) But really how much I like who you are becoming is what makes me smile so much. Sure, there are some days where "mommy needs space" but you also tell me that you "need space" too so I guess we are even! Considering how much time we spend together (I hate missing even a minute even though I need those minutes) we still want to be in each other's presence.
"Let's talk mommy, let's talk" If I heard this once today I heard it one thousand times. You make me use your Snow White doll, that your Grandma Marlyn gave you on their recent visit, to carry on a conversation. I, Daddy, or any victim that may be close by talks to you about what is happening in your life. The good, the bad, and the ugly is discussed with full disclosure. How adorable you are as you practice your hand movements like an Italian mafioso and say "because" too many times in one conversation.
You are mommies little parrot. You regularly copy me including moments like when I dropped a jar out of the fridge and said a favorite word of mine....oops. You walked around tonight saying shit, shit, shit practicing several times. I must change my language..I must increase the good words...I must. On a good notre I see you mimicking the lovely things that I want you to do. Like when you lovingly pat a friend's baby when he cries. Or when you delicately stroke a kitty and whisper sweet pet nothings into their furry ears. Hmmm I just love you so much. Too sweet. I also adore when you come up and pat me on the back just to make it clear you love me! Pure sugar!
Hurricane talking comes from those lips! Talking up a storm just does not cut it. You love to speak fast and are just now learning to speak fast enough to do that but the last few weeks to compensate for the lack of words that you could get out fast you just mumble jumble nonsense. LOL. You speak quite well when you are talking normally but when fast talk happens this is not the case. We taught you to say excuse me when you wanted to politely intterupt but I think that I may have taught you a tool of mass control. You hold up your little dictator hand and say no no no no mommy excuse me. Of course I will see what you want because you were being polite and the fact that certain days I think I may have met my match. The minute you detect Daddy and I may become the Bickersons you put up that same hand and say MOMMY MOMMY mommy getting higher pitched until we are laughing and you know that you have taught us kids a lesson in how to get along.
Trampoline. Nonstop. Bouncing bean of a little thing. You like it so much that Christmas night we were out jumping with you at 2 in the morning! I met my bad mother quota for the day and you got to jump. Two birds with one stone.
You had a blast and were a blast during our Merry Hannuka/Happy Christmas celebrations. We somehow blended both parts of the celebration which turned out to be a mini marathon present fest for you. Thank you dollar store for presents that thrilled a two year old. How fun it was that you
grasped the concepts of what was happening. You helped me wrap presents, bake cookies for Santa,
set out carrots for the reindeers, cook latkes, spin dreidels, assemble traditional Guatemalan Christmas eve tamales, dance in merriment, and circle the many parties we went to with ease and late nights.
I hate to label you as shy but when you are with someone new or in a new place you tend to be reserved. Make sure that you do not think that I believe you to be a wallflower...oh no! Just reserved. No amount of pushing you forward makes you budge towards being social. However, the other night I had a gentleman come to the house to purchase a chandelier I was selling. Your friend Leia was over and you both were playing while I showed him the light. You walked in and he said hello and I expected you to leave but no you said hi back! Then you even introduced Leia to the man! Shock. "Hi, this is my friend Leia"!
Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the fairest talker of all? You carry on conversations with the mirror. I cannot help but secretly watch you as you converse with yourself/mirror. So cute. If you see me looking game over. So I sneak looking at you.
You adore your friends. Your best galpal is Leia. You frequently talk about her
when she is not here and when you both are together it is nonstop giggling. It warms my heart to watch you both play.
I hope it is a lifelong friendship that is started this early. I have friends that I grew up with and Leia is like your family. We do Shabbat every Friday together, babygroup on Wednesdays, and the Perry's house on Sundays!
I miss when you were a baby. I love the age that you are now. I cannot wait for tomorrow. I like all of your ages. You are such a happy child!
04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
What does a mom say about Halloween? Should I tell my kid how seriously she needs to plot which houses to hit up or how to calculate the speed in which her two year old legs can carry her. This is about an ambush during a specific allowable time to acquire the goods. Ultimately the candy was always going to be for us. Tsk. Tsk. I know. Since we allow her very little sugar and usually on special occasions I surely was not going to let her eat it all. But us....oh how I could not wait to marinate in the yummo goodness of crappy candy.
and then there was the melamine scare...duh duh duuuuuuuuuuuuu. No worries I plowed through the m and m's and my kidney's are fine thank you. And of course I let my sugared up kid indulge too much. She lollipopped to her heart's content and danced to the tune of milk dud's. Proudly, she held up her freshly caught prey.
Her co-conspirator, who might I add had quite the halloween spirit, Leia urged her strongly to run Scarlett run to the next house and get more candy! Oh the joie de vivre touched my Halloween heart.
Halloween and Shabbat go hand in hand. At least for me who plotted all week of switching the challah (ceremonial bread gorily sacrificed on Fridays) to a scary life size scary head named man. Leia pulled the Challah cover off and instead of yummy bread-like butter transportation was a scare. The kids cried. Yeah that met my daily quota of bad mother moments for the day and I guess um it surpassed it. Proud. yes I was.
What would the night be without some pumpkin stories. We got a bit carried away when the church across the street from our friend's house was giving away free pumpkins after 8. Needing chicken food, decoration, and great compost material we bit. Combine with the sugar high we were highly riding on it got scary.
It started innocently enough when we filled the trunk. Up to the brim of a witche's hat. Bur then the hysterical giggling started and it went downhill. Out of control.
Pumpkins were overflowing all orifices of the car. We filled and filled and filled some more. I will even admit to some stuffing and then some more stuffing.
In the pic to the right shall we play a little bit of Halloween Where's Waldo? Find the little girl dressed in a pink ballerina costume.
My mother sent Scarlett a card for Halloween. Sweet. S walked around with that card for a week. She even named all the characters in the card. The mummy is Daddy. The cute pumpkin is herself. The witch? Guess who? Me. Scary mommy witch. Why did she choose that character for me? Surely her two and a half year old mind has not made the connection between witches and bitches. As I always say. Everyday every mother must fulfill her bad mother moments quota daily. Apparently I meet mine.
02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
My litte honey girl. One of the things we have done over the last year was to become beekeepers. Scarlett refers to them as "my bees" like some kids refer to their adorable kitten Fluffy. See the gleeful look in that honeycomb eating thing as she chomps down on its waxy sweet goodness! In the next pic notice the honey oozing down her legs :)
Now I am playing catch-up for the past year. The next pic is the obligatory Fourth of July parade-dogs-candy-sweaty-people-pic!
My daring Guatemalan girl who was lullabied to sleep by fireworks in Antigua is now a bit more shy of the noise. Demanding that we go inside when my pyromaniac-who-spends-his-annual-salary-on-fireworks-neighbor was setting of his pre-fourth of July display. The dogs, however, loved the fireworks and would run around checking each one out as they went off. One I am sure exploded directly into her mouth and she kept going with joie de vivre. I had a heart attack as the rogue firework started shooting in our direction. Screw the municipalities fireworks. I am staying home from now on!
What would a pic post be without the "yeah I went potty!" pic that I can torture her with as an adult. Come one honey let us sing the song....Pee-pee on the potty! Pee-pee on the potty!
Saturday morning cake making.
This was her second birthday party and Passover combined.
And the next...ahhh the family photo. We had a friend who is a photographer do a shoot. We got some great photos but we also wanted to do a certain picture here but we did not get what we were going for. The mosquitos were biting furiously two chickens ran off, the cats were chased back into the house by the neighbors dog, I sweated through my shirt and our little model was sick of taking photos. However, in the effort to get the funny photo we were going for we happened to get a pretty accurate family photo strangely enough! This just about sums up our life. Chaotic. Unkepmt. Funny. Fun. Goofy. Loving.
02:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Finally, a picture. Not an updated one though..hanging my head in shame. Our lovely friends the Perrys are Hawaiian and brought shirts and outfits home from their trip last summer. So enjoy our family day taken last year. 
Scarlett was not having a good day. Teething. So the only way to get her to smile was her usual prescription of toddler air time. Always a sure-fire way to make that child smile.
02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Scarlett is doing oh so well! Adorable. She is talking so much, tantruming so much, and independently move through life. She is a cuddler and so sweet. Of course, as a Guatemalan, she loves babies. I mean loves them. She tenderly pats their head and nurtures anything resembling a baby. Kids her own age.....whack, smack, and scratch lately. If she is tired or teething, which she has been for a month, she is not very good at sharing or getting along. If she is well rested she is a delight. Fiery dramatic little thing.....oh where does she get it?
Have I mentioned that we got chickens last summer? Yes, we did. Urban farming here we come. We recently donated fertilized eggs to a school and they incubated our babies. One made it and came home a few days ago. Much to the delight of my dogs who are hovering over it's cage with their big noses chasing it around. The chicken likes it and the dogs are loving the chicken. Matches made in heaven. How do you ask do we come by fertilized eggs? Why a rooster of course! We are only allowed to have hens in our town but ummmm what do you expect from a couple of urban dwellers like ourselves who stupidly mistake a rooster for a hen. We are chicken farmers. Yep!
Bees.....Scarlett saw her first movie on the big screen and loved it. You know The Bee Movie. We though it was appropriate since we are getting two hives for our yard! We have an unheard of acre in our city and happen to be next door to the community garden so it seems as if we live in the country. We are so excited.
I will mention the goats in another post. :)
Still mind sucking infertile. Damn. So frustrating. This is one of the reasons why I feel blocked up here is because on one hand I am so damn happy to be a mom and on the other hand still pissed off...no not pissed just sad about not being able to conceive. On a funny note, my friend and I were chatting the other day and discussing infertility as she had recently come down with a case of bad-ute-itis. The conversation turned to if I ever get pregnant it would be a ticker on CNN. I do not know which is more funny....the fact that she had so little faith in Paris and Nicole ( my ovaries) to turn their ovarian life around or that it would be news worthy for us to get pregnant. I may have to add this to the list of "You know you are infertile when..." Six years plus and counting. Go ovaries!!!
Well I need sleep....really need sleep. Minana? OK? I know you need more...like pics.....
02:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
So now I owe you two posts today. I already broke my promise yesterday. Pathetic.
I have good reason for breaking my promise. David and I had our second date out since the Scarlinator joined our happy home. Grand ma-ma and her husband (pa-pa) came to spend the night last night so David and I could date!
We went to a fund-raiser for legalizing midwifery in Missouri. As many of you may know that in my past life as a presumed fertile I was trained as a midwife. After all of the infertility it was just too hard to press on seeing beautiful births while I struggled so hard to get pregnant. Accompanied by the fact that it is a felony in this state I could not risk practicing especially when Scarlett came home.
Please go here to this website to learn about this documentary. I thought it was a fair take on the side of midwifery. I strongly believe in choice for women's right to birth where they feel comfortable. That being said I fully support women to birth in a hospital with a planned c-section if they choose and all the way to the other spectrum of an unassisted birth at home. All births can be magical no matter where they are as long as women are comfortable and in charge of the process. It is when the choices are removed that I begin to seethe with anger.
I am a home-birth midwife. This means that I want to do births at home and not in a hospital setting. My agenda is to be with a woman who has chosen to be at home. I never would force my opinions on any woman and recognize my abilities and desires to be with a woman in a place of her choosing. Having said this I am also grateful that there are fabulous surgeons who can save moms or babies when there is clearly a life-threatening situation. Part of my training is to recognize risks and access the safety in the situation. I would only attend healthy moms with healthy babies.
What I do find frustrating and will open my big mouth about is the misconception that birth is a healthy process in most cases and that there is to much knife-centric birthing in America. We clearly have the worst maternal and fetal death rates in the industrialized world! There are third world countries who have far fewer deaths! That is pathetic! Again I want to make it clear that if a woman plans her c-section I am all for it. That is her right. But if a woman wants a natural birth then she should have one as long as it progresses in a normal manner. The problem is that often times a labor is not progressing in a standardized linear fashion and because she does not fit between perfect and perfect the threat is "we need to save the baby and sectioning is the safest way to go" mentality. The response that sectioning is safer has stemmed from so many lawsuits. A doctor can say that they did all they could if they sectioned the baby.
I do not at all believe that most doctors out there are doing it just to save their asses. I think the average doctor out there is a good person doing a good job in the way they were trained. Three doctors were asked on the film when they had witnessed a normal and natural birth and they replied almost never. That is sad. The midwifery care model does see natural birth often succeed.
I have been at many natural births with wonderful outcomes. So I know that it can work most of the time. There have been a few problems in the past and usually there have been roadsigns for us midwives to take action and transport to the hospital. Life is never perfect, nor are births.
Back to date-night! The lights went of in the auditorium and first thing I said is time to make out! We properly held hands throughout. We sadly behaved. David had said before the film that he had had a crush on Ricki Lake. Well, he got to see her boobs. I immaturely jabbed him during her birthing video and pointed this out. He is a boob man through and through. All joking aside she had a wonderful birth that made us cry.
It was a good turn-out. Many people came and even the senator of Missouri was there with his wife and child in support!
After we went to dinner and talked about our darling over tapas...this was after we called home to hear of her evening. We had wished she was there with us! Pathetic in love parents!
I always wished that my child would have the experience of being born at home. Of course my defective ovaries Paris and Nicole succeeded in keeping me from screeching under my own table with a gazillion pets scattering with fear as I properly birthed my baby. But, the beauty is that my wish did come true. Scarlett's birthmother refused to go to the hospital and birthed at home in Antigua. Wishes do come true just sometimes in a round about sort of way!
02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)