Brilliant dinner ideas!

During the week, you'd think a mom who stay home would have time to cook dinner.

HA!

So, for those moms who don't stay home, and who do stay home, and who live in a constant state in between home and somewhere else, here's my latest brilliant idea!

It always involves the crock pot, mind you. The crock pot is a great invention, whoever thought of it deserves to be sainted.

Anyhow, we always do a Sunday Crock Pot Chili, and then eat the leftovers another night.
So, on Saturday, I can prepare a crock pot meal and NOT eat it... then, I have two weeknight meals in tupperware in the fridge waiting for the day when I realize it's 5:30, and I've just BEGUN to think of dinner.

Anyone else have any better, or good, easy dinner ideas that don't involve processed foods? :)

Wall Street -- why moms should care

Okay, okay that sounds a bit funny, doesn't it?

Moms should care about Wall Street. Everyone should care, and I believe most people do, but we're in a watching state. We are aware of the giant catastrophe that is our financial sector, we are aware that it got this way only because of gross mismanagement, greed and incompetence. And we're about to give the industry 700 billion dollars. But, this post really isn't about Wall Street.

It's about what moms should take from this financial garbage heap we're in. It's about how to shape our children's future, and how we need, some of us, to reconsider how we handle our money.

We need to rethink how much we give our children. We want them to have all the best, fun stuff, we want them to enjoy the luxuries of modern technology -- from Ipods to MP3 players to lap tops to game consoles -- we want them to enjoy the clothes they own -- designer clothes, pricey tops, the 'in look,' we want all of that for them. Maybe it's not so good for them, though. Lets face it, one of the top target markets are our children. Yes, our children! Not the moms who shop for them (and any dads that may) but the children themselves.

Maybe, just maybe we should take that power back. Now, I'm not saying this is going to save Wall Street. But it just might save our children. Which, in turn, might save America, because it's our children, with the financial lessons we instill in them (or don't instill) that will one day be working on Wall Street.

Lets look at what our children do to earn their extras. Lets look at the financial responsibility we place on our children (be honest, I know some people do marvelous jobs of teaching their children finanical responsibility, but if alll of us moms did, frankly, companies wouldn't be targeting our children). Lets teach them now, the lessons that we keep getting slapped with by our government, Wall Street, and our own financial habits.

Lets teach our children to take care of their finances now. Lets redefine American consumerism. Lets not be such blatantly easy targets for corporations to market stuff we don't need or even really value. Then, when our children grow up, maybe, when the ones who go to Wall Street get there, they will take with them sound financial principles taught in their own homes.

What do you say?

And, now, returning to the topic of Wall Street, do you think they could spare about 15K for me? You know, maybe one of the jerks who got us into this mess could take a 15K hit on what is sure to be a whopping compensation package funded by us, the taxpayers, and just hand it over to me. Since we're stuck with helping them stay comfortable as they leave Wall Street. And, just one more small thought... could we exile them from Wall Street, and put restrictions on how much money they are allowed to handle? You know, to keep them from jumping right back in and destroying our financial markets some more?

Planets aligning in perfect pet harmony

Something has happened in the cosmos.

Something strange. Something... a harbringer, a sign, a message from the Creator of the Universe itself...

and we'd all be fools to ignore it.

My cat, the vicious old fart, and my dog, the crazy spastic gal, are co-existing on the same floor as I am...

This can only mean a few things...

a) The earth has tilted on it's axis slightly, throwing off my cat's inner hate beacon.

b) the third horseman from the four horseman of the apocylypse is about to arrive, shortly followed by the other three (but don't panic, they have to make it through customs first)

c) the lion has laid down with the lamb, which can only mean d will occur.

d) a comet is going to fly really close to our planet and set us into an early ice age.

Yes, it's that big.

Dear children,

I am asking, begging, no, pleading with you...

Can you please wake up in the mornings? Is it so hard?

Why must I grab the foot that is hanging over the loft bed and shake, pull and prod it just to get a response? You must get up preferably at 6, at least by 6:30, and go to school at 7 every morning five days out of the week. You would think that you'd get up naturally, or with a little less prodding.

And Bear, why, why must I cajole you out of bed? Why do you need to come crawl into our bed in the morning before you will even entertain the idea of waking up. I'm not even sure you open your eyes on the way to our room. Why must I spend so much time convincing you getting out of bed is a good idea?

Now, Turbo, you are my exception. And I hate to mention you, because you are like the sun. You rise every morning, bright eyed and cheery, ready for anything... school, gymnastics, the hordes of Attila the Hun, anything... and Ipromise you I am not complaining or whining one bit. But I just ask one small concession. Before you inflict your cheery, bright-eyed gonna go tackle the day gleefully attitude on me, could you, you know, let me have some coffee first?

6-day old pajamas

I am tempted not to post this, even though we try to write honestly about the ups and downs we encounter as we try to be good moms. Here goes. See those brown stripy jammies my baby is wearing two posts down as he happily chews on the rubbery lid of that medicine dropper? I haven't done laundry this week AND I changed him out of those tonight. TONIGHT.

So my mind is racing. Did he wear those jammies for 6 days in a row? Did he???

*think*
*think*

*LIGHTBULB ON* I remember! I for sure had him in a stripey shirt and overalls on Friday. Thank goodness. 3 days in same clothes IS acceptable, if not desirable. 6 days and my brain starts to melt.

I was gone all day yesterday and my husband had the kids on his own. Maybe he picked the jammies up out of the hamper (I mean off the floor, who am I kidding) and decided they would be fine. Maybe I even did it last night, I was very exhausted.

This is in direct contrast to his sister that changes her clothes at least 3 times/day.

He'll Cry More If He's Homeless

The title is a mantra in our household, and as with most kinds of whistling in the dark, it doesn't always keep the hobgoblins of fear away from us.

I work at home. Not just the work of a household, but the kind of work that has deadlines, that depends on other people and has other people depending on it, and that brings in money. In order to do this work, I must be accessible for certain hours during the day, and I need a several hours, usually in a row, in which I can concentrate.

Sometimes I think my son would be better off in daycare instead of with a mama who can't always play with him when he wants to play. He used to jabber away with mock conversations, but he hasn't done that in weeks. Is it because I'm not paying him the attention he deserves? Am I not talking enough, responsive enough, smart enough to handle both him and a job? Daycare with all the stimulation and other children must offer advantages over and above what his constantly typing mother can give him.

Eye contact is the big one, of course. Lack of eye contact is one of the early warning signs of autism. He was never fascinated by my face, even as a tiny newborn - but I had to go back to work when he was three weeks old. He was in my lap, or beside me, the whole time. Still, my focus was on the screen and the keyboard instead of his sweet face. I know rationally that I did him no harm. Probably. But it doesn't keep me from breaking out in a cold sweat when I can't get my wide eyed son to look at me.

We nurse on demand in this house. But I feel like a cow, and from the first week of his life he has hated nursing in my office chair. Anywhere else, he's happy as a clam, and it seems to me to be a reasonable concession. But good lord. I'm bored just sitting there getting milked, and daytime television strikes me as a horseman of the apocalypse. So I've always had a book open during nursing. And now I'm wondering - have I taught him that he's not important enough to focus on? Is that why he gets upset after a long day of not having my full attention?

I know he hates the home office, some days - he'll cry and cry in the office, but the minute we go to another room everything is fine.

I do everything I can. I write these posts when he's napping. I try to schedule conference calls for naptime, or at least a time of day when he's usually happy to watch the wind blowing through the trees. I hold him on my lap when I'm doing research. I try to play on the floor with him for a few minutes every hour that he's awake. We go for walks every evening. The Perfect Husband reads dozens of stories every night. We cosleep. And yet I keep hearing the refrain "not enough, not enough." I look at his smile, I hear his laugh, and I think, my god, who thought I had the chops to get this kid to adulthood with the same perfection he had when I got him?

I have to work. TPH says "he'll cry more if he's homeless," and it's true. My friends whose babies go to daycare say I'm lucky I'm home with my son, my friends who don't have paying work say I'm lucky to have professional gratification and success. I am lucky, a hundred ways, I know that. But there are still days where every choice feels incomplete and every decision feels wrong.

Why I Like Infant Tylenol for Teething