NB: I am really enjoying the title of this post, as if – after 6 years of practice – I have some secret cache of parenting tricks. I don’t, but I’m pretty confident a few of the things we learned to do on the fly, or habitually (but originally accidentally), can be helpful to others, so I’ll try to spot them and share along the way.
Hack #1: Snack Foods as Inspired by Still Life Paintings
We used to stock a small drawer with “snack foods” to encourage the boys’ independence. Unfortunately, however, those snacks that could be stashed without refrigeration were almost all convenience foods (read: not particularly nutritious and packaged individually in a way that makes me cringe at our ever-growing waste production).
One day, I bought a big, casual-looking bowl and stocked it full of gorgeous fruit: apples, pears, clementines. I left it right in the center of our kitchen table. The boys saw it and went bananas (ha). They ate so much fruit in the following days that I was able to catch up with Steve the Wine guy twice that week. We now buy 2 small bags of lunchbox-sized apples each week just to keep the bowl itself stocked. To the boys, they seem to enjoy it not just because they can help themselves to snacks, but also because there’s this choose-your-own-adventure component involved.
With very few exceptions, we make a point to give them the green light when they ask if they can help themselves to the fruit bowl. Does it interfere with dinner appetites sometimes? Yes, but then again, there are worse things than filling up on fruits and carrots (which we also dole out liberally if they simply cannot wait for the meal itself & their pleas for food are so intense that surely someone will call CPS if they find out in which conditions we force our children to live).
All that said, a warning: appealing though the fruit bowl may be for those of us that live here & have few qualms sharing germs with small children (which is to say, those of us who prefer not to follow in Sisyphus’ footsteps), a visitor to our home should double check their fruit selection as closer inspection of our beautiful bowl of fresh fruit does — on occasion — bear the signs of a certain toddler’s early efforts at eating in moderation.
Summer weather is ramping up here in Michigan, and we had a couple of days of temperatures exceeding 85* over the weekend. We celebrated by getting Slurpees twice in one day, doing a hasty restock of summer essentials (sunscreen + swim diapers + popsicles), & skipping our scheduled swim lessons to stay longer at the recently opened neighborhood pool. The boys alternated between sweaty and chlorinated, missed a couple of meals in favor of cracker snacks and carrot chips consumed atop lounge chairs and underneath damp beach towels, and slept like logs at bedtime.
Even as an adult, there’s something deeply satisfying about looking at your day’s agenda & knowing you’ll be outdoors so much that there’s simply no point in bathing until right before you call it a night.
But the real MVP of the weekend was this gem:
Per usual, I am evidently years late to a given trend as lots of people have confirmed this is, indeed, delicious… but I only just discovered this after my friend, Julie, surprised me with this treat at our sons’ soccer games on Saturday morning. It was light, fresh, flavorful, and I now have an official “treat yo’self” plan for the summer when I’m out.
Let’s start with the most important point: in this baby-making season of life, I’ve become far more aware of other people’s experiences conceiving (or not), feeling healthy and supported (or not), carrying to term (or not). There’s so much you can’t control, so much that you don’t know about your own body until it’s tested in this unique way, and no shortage of unprecedented scenarios that come up during the process to keep you humble to the fact that even if things appear to be going “as planned,” your world can turn upside down in an instant.
All that to say, I am currently pregnant with our 4th baby, and I am profoundly grateful for my almost entirely unearned privilege of having pleasant, uneventful pregnancies.
By the numbers, however, Dave & I realized recently how comical the breakdown of time looks during this chapter of our lives. Since J was conceived in fall 2014:
- I have been pregnant for 3 years, nursed for 2.5 years, and therefore had just 15 glorious months when my body was not quite so directly responsible for another living being.
- As a result of point 1, I have fluctuated in weight from my former (pre-pregnancy) average, ranging from -15 lbs to +40 lbs. I have spent so little time at what might be my “normal” size in the past 6.5 years, frankly, that I’m not even sure what my body’s dimensions technically are anymore. Thoughts and prayers go out to my credit card bill when I officially retire my maternity + nursing clothes & restock my “solo” wardrobe.
- I have received the recommended 3rd trimester Tdap vaccine 4 x in 6 years, whereas the normal booster cadence is 1 x every 10 years. I am pretty convinced at this point that if I were to step on a nail, the nail would simply melt under the strength of my juiced up tetanus immuno-response.
Jokes aside, I really enjoy being pregnant, I have minimal qualms with nursing, and I made a deal with myself years ago to be more appreciative of my body after seeing it demonstrate what it can do (on autopilot, nonetheless!) in the most critical moments I needed it to perform. But I’m simultaneously looking forward to the fact that when Dave & I are ready to close this chapter of creating incremental life in the world, I’ll be able to enjoy the silver lining of having my body back to myself. Maybe this time wearing a new, well-fitted bra. And definitely while enjoying a glass of wine.
If I can get through my weekend grocery run in <45 minutes, it is a major coup.
To be clear, I have grown quite efficient in my list-making, organizing our week of meal ingredients and quantities by department. I also have no problem moving swiftly with a child (or two, or three) in tow, as I am seldom without at least one during errands. More than that, I can even do so while narrating all the grocery goings-on with said child(ren) — in a practice I picked up from my own mom — however non-conversant the child may still be.
No matter my prep, my process, and my years of practice, I simply can’t wrap up quickly. And the reason is simple: Steve the wine guy.
Steve the wine guy is not, strictly speaking, just a wine guy. Rather, he’s my grocery’s drink specialist (there’s probably a professional title for his role, but all I know for sure is that there’s a sign with his face and name on it near the alcohol section that suggests shoppers ask him if they have questions). When we first moved to this area, I went to this grocery seeking advice on a DIY-style wine pairing for a dinner menu I had planned for my sister’s bachelorette party. Steve was available, offered fantastic suggestions for the event, and a friendship was born.
Fast forward almost 6 years: he has seen my boys grow from being strapped in their infant car seats to tearing down the frozen food aisle towards the end cap featuring all the Hot Wheels we don’t need. He has helped carry bulky objects out to my car, has flagged other co-workers to give me a hand when he spotted me coming into the store with my hands full and in need of a cart, and he has happily alerted me to upcoming 20% off wine sales. He updates me on the Labradors he breeds, tells me if there are any litters of puppies on the way, and likes to point out that the food I occasionally open to entertain or satisfy a hungry child shopping with me (blueberries, baby carrots, bread) is often the same that he uses to treat his dogs.
I sometimes pseudo-complain to Dave about how long my grocery trips take, as if there’s nothing I could do to expedite them. But I think we both know the truth: I really love people and cultivating relationships with them and playing a small part in making someone else’s day a bit more sunny. Plus something about forging community in the places we’ll frequent seems like a fundamentally good investment to me.
So yes, I will almost always make a point to say hello to Steve the wine guy, even if he’s with another customer and as if we are bona fide friends. And I will probably always ask him how his dogs are doing when he swings by my cart to see if he can coax a smile out of my ever bashful toddler. And frankly, regardless of Steve, I’ve also gotten pretty chummy with the produce guy who teases that we nearly clean them out of broccolini when we visit, or the meat guy who likes to tell me stories about his grandsons when he hears me chatting with the boys while we wait, or the check-out clerk who has 2 cats and feels strongly about alternative solutions to declawing them (honestly couldn’t tell you now how I know that about her except that it involved a long wait for my balloons to be inflated).
And thus I will likely never make a “quick” grocery run.
Today I am grateful for:
- Finally locating 2 missing library books that we have otherwise auto-renewed an obscene amount of times… I mean, Mo Willems’ “Pigeon” books are good, but they’re not that good…
- Putting the Bachelor in Paradise premiere date on my calendar for August. IMO it’s equal parts guilty pleasure and I-am-immune-to-your-judgment-because-I-am-so-enjoying-myself programming.
- Weather consistently warm enough to move my lemon tree outdoors! In the process, one of its winter warrior lemons fell off and we cut it open to find that, although small, it appeared perfectly ripe and tasted great.
At the end of next month, our eldest son, J, will turn 6 years old. To commemorate his 5-year-old self, here are a few recent anecdotes and observations:
- On unadulterated sweetness: today I tried to snap a picture of him and his buddy palling around as they boarded the school bus. Instead, I captured him in a moment of turning back to me with the sign language symbol for “I love you.” On just about every school day this year, he started his bus ride by waving goodbyes, “I love yous,” blowing kisses, and otherwise making goofy gestures out the window at me until the bus pulled away. I reciprocated in equally animated fashion & from underneath my umbrella or behind my layers of winter clothes or whatever else the elements mandated throughout the seasons. I know this won’t last forever, but for now, his affections are uninhibited and resolute, and the bus stop is therefore a place of happy associations in my mind.
- On independent development: with several small children in our home, we spend a lot of time teaching, helping, and doing things alongside our boys. Watching J grow, where every new milestone as our eldest is a new milestone for us as his parents, I’m increasingly noticing the many things that we cannot do for (or even with) him. My first conscious taste of this was watching him learn to ride his two-wheeler: repeatedly falling, crying, frustrated… getting back on and trying again until he mastered the physics. I could burst with pride for the way he’s stopped preemptively asking for help before sounding out long words in his books, the way he volunteered to play goalie his first soccer game this spring, the way he happily assures me he can just “help himself to something else” (read: deli meat, see also: a battle I’m not willing to wage) in the refrigerator if he really doesn’t like our dinner entree.
- On the increasing influence of friends: J brought home a drawing from school recently that featured a figure on a path to a building labeled “WWE.” I asked him what it was. He casually replied, “John Cena.” As if we have ever, ever viewed or discussed or even tangentially referenced professional wrestling (much less John Cena) in our home. Upon further probing, he told me that his friend at school introduced him to John Cena and WWE, and while he didn’t have many more specifics than that, he is confident that John Cena is a “great guy, Mom.” I’ve loved watching his humor and enthusiasm for imaginary play matched by his friends before, but this was my first overt reckoning of the fact that, over time, the direct influence of my son’s friends will only grow… and there’s no reason to believe I will ever be privy to the full extent of it. I contemplated this fact solemnly that night along with the realization that I had said “John Cena” more times in a single evening than the entirety of my lifetime before.
In sum, I’m feeling pretty content about closing out this 5th year with a son who loves his mom enough to bring her home a dandelion from recess (however mangled it may be by the time it arrives), who seems fundamentally motivated by making progress rather than expecting perfection upfront, and who has spent >1/5 of his life in various stages of severity in a global pandemic, yet is genuinely delightful to be around. And just in case anyone else is equally as uninformed as I, it turns out John Cena is evidently a pretty great guy indeed.
I am 35, which means I’m old enough to appreciate what a joy Tide original scent is on freshly cleaned laundry, but young enough to remember when Friday nights were a thing.
I have been married 9 years, which means I have discovered new dimensions in a profound & evolving love, and also have asked my husband to flush out the wax buildup in my ears… more than once.
I have 3 sons, which means my single-family residence is increasingly eligible to rezone as a fraternity house.
I work at a global tech company, which means that since March 2020, I have been holed up in a corner of my unfinished basement with a $40 faux-wood photographer’s sheet prop behind me to give the illusion that I am not, in fact, making business decisions from within what appears to be a poorly appointed prison cell.
I am not strictly a “glass half full” person, but I am definitely a “glass could have been emptier” person, which means I spend a lot of time counting my blessings even when things go wrong.
Hence the site name. In my estimation, lemons don’t get nearly the acclaim they deserve compared to the “make lemonade” adage.
Every year I write a letter to send along with our family’s holiday card. It includes illustrative anecdotes that portray the mess, the humor, and the passage of time with our three sons (5, 3, and 1). Every year I (humbly) receive a flood of compliments — how fun it is to read, how vibrant our household sounds, how relatable so much of it feels. One friend told me that he saves it for after his children are in bed and he’s poured himself a glass of wine (though I hope he told me that as a way to suggest it was an enjoyable event and not that the font has gotten so small and the page so decidedly double-sided (to be clear, it absolutely has) that to read it requires hydration along the way…).
At the urging of a few particularly enthusiastic friends, I am trying my hand at more frequent cadence and a wider potential distribution list. Normally I have a pretty limited social media presence by design, but I have to say that I find the idea of translating observations, thoughts, and feelings into words that might resonate with others so appealing. So here goes: life as I experience it — and maybe you do, too.
