Snacking. Grazing. “Just a little piece”.

All excuses for not eating dinner, “just ONE bite, mom?”.

My kids are snackers. Love the snacking, will snack all day … because I let them.

They eat the square meals with us as well and we have rules at the table about clearing your plate and only taking what you know you’ll eat, but also trying something new … no matter what.

This is just what works for us as a family and they’re not snacking on cheetos all day, although … I do let them have those types of things once in a while. It’s a variety – that’s how they like it, that’s how we deal with the dinner time blues.

Both of our kids are Little Dippers. They love to dip their snacks. Carrots in ranch or hummus, pretzels in peanut butter or hummus … hummus goes with everything. They dip in yogurt, soft cheeses, even ketchup on occasion. They love sauce!

That’s a t-shirt – “My kids LOVE the SAUCE”

We frequent the Farmers Market for in-season berries and fruit and I generally let the kids drive the “what are we getting” train. Some times that means we spend $15 just on fruit and sometimes it means we splurge on things like dips, sesame sticks and organic butters. It also means that by the time we’re home they’ve probably already devoured the raspberries (they’re FAVORITE) or made a great big dent in the 20 pound box of blueberries.

I don’t mind that they eat A LOT of the healthy food and some of the not-so-healthy snacks. An ice cream cone peppered in between some avocado and hummus is OK with me. I want both of our kids to love food, not be afraid of it or worry about calories or the junk factor.

I realize I’m sounding like I’m a pro at this which isn’t my intention – but I get the feeling that there’s a huge rift in how we feed our kids and how we view food ourselves. Maybe it’s just my generation (specifically the legacy the women before me left about food) and that I grew up believing that food was evil and the only good thing about it was the sense of control we could feel if we gathered our intentions and stood on the scale obsessively.

I still struggle with this, personally, daily. Food isn’t “good” and it cannot be “bad”. Food is not a moral. It can be healthy or unhealthy, it can be a choice you make for your self, for your health, for your emotions. The most important thing about food, aside from the intake we need to survive, is that we are in charge of the choices we make about food.

The book you just read can’t make the decision for you. The doctor you just consulted with has no power over what you put in your mouth. The magazine cover you stare out as you’re paying for your groceries is asking you to believe in graphic design more than what would be best for your life, for your body and for your family.

I don’t feel that are many RIGHT and WRONG answers when it comes to food but I do feel that food is a journey to be enjoyed and that it’s not always smooth sailing.

So I let my kids along for the ride.

They just happen to be really adventurous … such is their life on a daily basis.

Our baby boy turned two on May 5th.

It was a big day for him. Lots of frosting and presents.

It was a big day for the whole family, really.

We celebrated the joyfulness he fills us with every single day …

And how incredibly in love with life he is, he’s made us and he continues to be as his own little two year old self.

It was a very low key celebration with just Grandpa’s and Grandma’s, a few aunts and uncles. It’s not really our “thing” to make a huge deal out of birthdays outside of our own family of four. We like to celebrate each other in a big way, without fanfare or 17 primary colored toys.

Because celebrating life isn’t about getting, it’s about giving.

And he gives us so much.

Being the baby of our family is fun, I think. My daughter and I like to cater to him but we also like to treat him like a big boy – because that’s what he prefers. She said to me yesterday, driving around in the car, that she can’t wait to be a Mommy! Hearing something like that from your own child is a pretty big compliment – because their frame of reference of mothering is you. It’s me.

I get pretty paranoid about screwing them up. Am I telling them I love them enough? Am I smothering? Am I strict enough where it counts? Do I establish boundaries well enough? It’s always about being enough and doing enough and accomplishing it all when really they see me being me. Just me.

Short comings, pitfalls in my own character, crabby and sad. They see it all. Of all the people in my life – my kids know me, my heart, the best. We’re with one another every single day, all day. But she chooses to see the happy, well adjusted person I try to be. She chooses to see me for me.

And she said she wants that, too.

Happy birthday to our little guy, to our special girl and to our family of four. We just might be doing this right – and we’re loving every single minute.

Maybe it’s because yesterday was the very last day of preschool or that I can’t stop comparing years ago to today in photos but this summer smells of something Big for us.

I cannot put my finger on it, nor do I really want to. But it feels like we were just released into the great unknown, that something is coming. Hopefully good, hopefully wonderful and amazing. Hopefully an adventure.

Schools OUT! It’s SUMMER! The freedom alone in those words is delicious. Beach time, both of my babes every day all day. Sun burnt noses and freckles. Berries to pick and a garden to sew.

I feel like we’re on a countdown to when the “Real” parenting begins, the official school season of our lives begins in kindergarten with homework and science fairs and all kinds of sleep overs and hot lunches.

She doesn’t need a push – she’s all ready to go.

Get ready, world.

Here we come.

This photo was taken weeks before we decided to start adding to our family. It was in August of 2009. We took our little fam to Grand Haven for lunch and a walk on the pier – I remember getting a beer and sitting there thinking how perfect life was. Sitting outside on a deck eating with the people who meant the most to me.

Our little girl. Our world. In a pink dress and barefoot, she cascaded the rocks on the pier, always looking for something else to climb. Another mountain to over take. A challenge to over come.

I think back to this day often, actually. I knew in my heart that we were spending one of the last weekends as the three of us before a fourth became a reality in my womb. I knew, in the bottom of my gut, in all of my instincts that this weekend was for all of us. For Aaron and I to remember how sweet it is. For Jessica to remember how much fun it is. For me to know how peaceful my life really is.

We’ll never forget those years with “just her”. We wouldn’t trade that time for anything and we wouldn’t redo it or decide to not move forward and build a bigger foundation in our family.

Before we knew it – her bare-feet were tangled and touching his.

And then we could breathe. We could exhale. We didn’t know we were holding our breath, trying to hold on to every moment and every feeling. Trying to touch our souls and reach for that moment.

I don’t know if we’re complete, yet. But I know we’re lucky. We are so damn lucky.

I’ve had to say thing like this, out loud.

“Hey, get your penis off the table.”
“Keep your penis in your pants.”
“Yes, Oliver, those are balls.”
“Why are you pinching that?”

Every morning when he wakes up and then comes in to get me out of bed by removing all my blankets and getting in my face with his morning breath – he says “HI MORNING!!” and then smiles. I see his dimples, curse his alarm clock likeness and wait for the very next words out of his mouth.

“I hungy.”
“Mommy, I hungy.”
“Hungy, MOMMY!”

So far this morning I’ve made him 3 eggs, sausage, and a bowl of cereal for breakfast and we’re not done. That was all before 8 am.

I now understand the statement “He’ll eat us out of house and home” because it’s true.

I approach his curiosity towards my chest a little differently than I do of my daughters. She just wants to know when she gets them, he wants to grab them and yell BOOOOOBIES! Then giggle.

And he’s stealth. All of a sudden I’m putting him to bed and the next thing I know there is an invasive little hand traveling down the neck of my shirt. Like a ninja.

And no, Son, mommy’s penis didn’t fall off and I don’t need a tampon to make it all better, but thank you for offering … every single day.

I can’t sleep and have been shocked at what I’m finding in the early hours of a Wednesday.

Sadness shrouded in joy. And other things, too.

I just read this and think you should too. Leah is amazing and I never knew any of this about her – I only knew that she was part of this, behind it when a friend nudged me to submit something … and so I did.

This is not what I submitted – it’s something I tried to write but couldn’t figure out how to make it work and now, after reading her story and re reading my rejected one … I’m ready to tell you.

I wrote this April 30, 2010

On May 5th we will be celebrating my son’s second birthday. It’s hard to imagine our life before he was with us but I know my daughter, now 5 1/2, remembers me being pregnant. She remembers how special it was to be the only one and now knows how special it is to be one of two. I have guilt about having more kids, more than her, more than them. Right now life is so wonderful and easy yet difficult and tiring and so unwilling to bend. She sees me love him while I’m scolding her, she sees me hold him while I can’t touch her at all. I wonder if she sees me loving her, too.

To Jessica:

People suspect this, I’m sure, but 6 years later how about we let out this little secret? The one I told you while tucking you in not long after Oliver was born. When you were feeling down and I was feeling unconnected to you and wanted nothing more than to hold your heart ever so gently so you wouldn’t be hurt any more. We told everyone that your sex, as a newborn, was a surprise on the day you were born but it wasn’t. We were preparing for a girl all along, we were preparing for you. Your name changed in the delivery room and I’m so glad we did that, you’re every part a Jessica Ranae and not at all an Onalee. You’re fierce in every way. Dramatic and theatrical. You are magnificent.

I painted a window to put in your nursery before you were born and on it said “Sweet Baby, You are a breath of Heaven” and I would whisper that to you in my belly and then in your ear while you nursed and before you went to bed every night when your dad and I would fight over who got to hold you just one more time.

Jessica, I see through your ploys to get attention. I know how unfair it is be the oldest although I, myself, am a youngest. How difficult we can be as parents, how easy you really are as a child. I’m so sorry you feel the need to quit or be smaller than you really are to get us to notice you. I haven’t done a very good job of yelling from the top of my lungs that you are noticed. You are loved. God, how you are loved. We really are alike even though I lay awake at night worrying that you’re going to grow up resenting me, hating me. I hope you don’t do the same. This past week I witnessed a live birth that resulted in an adoption and the emotions in that delivery room were nothing short of a marathon from ecstasy straight to hell.

Tonight, I’ll hold you a little longer. I’ll play with you a little longer. We’ll ride bikes past bedtime and go on walks instead of naps and I’ll give up breathing just so you know how much I love you. It’s true, I push you, but Jessica, you keep me going.

Love,
Mom

I think I worry more now about my kids than I did when they were infants and it was expected of me to worry about them.

Mostly my daughter, actually. We have a relationship that I can literally feel pain when she bleeds but to touch her is like sand paper on her skin and she recoils. I always want more, she always wants less.

If there were leashes it would be very small with her choking on the length but panting from the short distance freedom.

She’s ready for more in life, more trust. More adventure. More of something other than this and it’s been a real struggle this past few months to occupy her mind.

The caveat is always trust, she (at age 5) has yet to show us that trusting her beyond her current parameters in our lives is a good decision. So we continue to hold steady right where are – all the while looking at each other with burdened eyes because we’re so damn tired from pulling on 750 pounds of Want forcing it’s way past our threshold.

This morning we had her Kindergarten Readiness test done at the school she’ll be attending in the fall and I will not lie, I was having a small panic attack that she would get in the class room and FAHREAK OUT – which means running and jumping and, think of it this way … it’s like watching someone have electromagnetic therapy – strapped to a bed, biting on a rubber strap – only her eyes don’t go in the back of her head. She kind of foils at the mouth some times, but it’s never bad. It’s just always a little uncontrollable.

At which point in my panic attack I envision the teacher walking out of the classroom to tell me, dead on, that this must be a joke? To bring her here thinking she can attend SCHOOL?!?! I must be out of my mind.

Don’t you worry. I was frightened for naught. She did GREAT! Better than great! We have nothing to worry about! She’ll go to kindergarten! NEXT YEAR!

This feels like such a proclamation because we tried to get her into Kindergarten last year but was told the above … with less horror and more seriousness as to why we thought our child was smart enough to be in Kindergarten yet? She only missed the age requirement by 6 weeks. And she is fucking intelligent. So yes. I thought kindergarten would be fabulous. The folks down at the Other school? Not so much.

So we went another round of preschool, in a different preschool, and the past few months we’ve seen some regression in her attitude and her willingness to listen.

TURNS OUT SHE IS BORED OUT OF HER MIND.

Thank you Jesus! She’s just bored! She’s not trying to taunt us or be awful. She’s NOT awful. I’m not doing it all wrong. It’s a waste to worry! I’m STEALING JOY!

We got in the car after her test this morning and she asked politely for her brother to share something with her. ohmygodohmygodohmygod. She sang songs on the way home and skipped instead of walked, but still stayed close enough not to require a reminder from me.

Which is when it dawned on me, right there, driving home and listening the joyful noise of a child who finally has something else to look forward to, that she can deal with the next few months of water-play and gluing scrap pieces of paper together if it means that she gets to GO TO SCHOOL and LEARN when she’s done.

Sometimes my worries scare me, I think to myself, is this ok to worry about? Am I doing it right? Should I lighten up here or crack down there? Should I, would I, may I?

And then I get a moment like I had today, where I realize that it’s all working out. It is tiring and worrisome and stressful, but fulfilling and life giving and awesome.

So we’re strapping our boots on for the last leg of this ride. The one where I cry and thrash my way about it but know full well that when it’s done, I’ll want to do it again … and so will she.

He’ll be two in one month.

He doesn’t like to wear shoes. And wants to do everything his sister does. Right now. No waiting. No worrying. No fear.

No help.

He climbs on everything, no obstacle is too large.

When he sees something he wants, he goes for it. No matter there’s a plastic protective covering.

And he’s the messiest thing I’ve ever encountered.

But he never stops smiling.

Or making us laugh or giggle. He woke up this morning talking about how funny he is. How funny Daddy is. Mommy. Duck. Monkey. All SO FUNNY! FUNNY!!

People who know me and see me out generally make remarks about how tired I must be or they wonder if my kids ever stop. They make silly faces and some times empathetic ones to let me know they understand, but only sort of.

That’s ok. I get it. Actually I don’t. I know nothing else. This manic chase of life and laughter. This wonderful marathon of mess, crumbs and spills. Of water every where and dirt on top of it. Of cleaning your entire house and turning around to see nothing has even changed – your shadow was undoing everything you started?

It literally is all I know. I didn’t get calm children. But I got happy ones.

Or is it Raising Children As Foodies?

Since undertaking the monumental task of fixing my blood sugar issues we’ve done quite a bit of reevaluating the foods we buy and serve our children. It’s been a long journey, actually – it started about 4 years ago when I went to a Wholistic Health Counselor for the first time. But it’s been a slow going process, one that I teeter and then totter to either side of the fence.

No more.

In order for me to stay healthy I must be firmly planted on “the other” side of the fence. The weird side, the difficult side, the side that cares if my kids are eating organic cheerios or not. It matters to me, it has to. And we just plain don’t eat cereal, at all anymore.

You can imagine the conversations we have in the grocery store when our 5 year old asks us if we can buy some Captain Crunch? Maybe Fruit Loops? Or her absolute favorite “Cheesy Chips” also known as Dorito’s.

There are a lot of No’s. No we cannot, no we don’t eat those things, how about apples instead? Strawberries? Let’s look for some asparagus.

I’m not a nazi, but for a while I had to be because if it was in the house I would eat it. There is no tricking me into thinking it’s there “for someone else” – it was there for me. It was staring at me and the temptation of “things I can’t have” was greater than any kind of will-power I possessed. So, I was a nazi, we did not have it in the house at all … I HAD to get better.

This is coming to a point. I promise.

Lots of time has passed since the nazi stage of my fight with sugar and we’re happy to announce that come this spring I’ll be redoing a blood test that will confirm what we already know. I have my blood sugar issues under control, once and for all.

I still cannot eat the foods I had to eliminate on a regular basis and I probably never will but I can have some here and there and my body knows how to regulate it. Did you read that??!

I NEVER THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO GET HERE. I DOUBTED IT FROM THE VERY BEGINNING!

Folks, here’s my proclamation. God is good.

So this has changed a lot of the way our family functions around a dinner table and this past week we got to bring Jessica’s birthday treat to school so I asked her what she’d like to bring to the class.

Her words: “Mom, I think the other kids would really like brownies, but I really want carrots.”

Pride. Full of it. I love that girl. I love that she knows the difference and cares about it. I love that she cares for herself.

Push came to shove and when we went to buy the treat, we ended up with Dorito’s … but carrots were still served and I love hearing how she regularly asks why the snacks at school have so much sugar? Don’t you know, it’s not very good for you.

Well, this is a heavy topic for this website and I’m angry about it. This particular topic never bothered me until recently – when my 5yo daughter began having reasonable intelligence to ask hard questions and expect easy answers.

As her parent I’m charged with raising a responsible and caring human being who does more good than bad in their life. If we wanted to boil it down to basics – that’s pretty much it. And you can see that through religious eyes or not, we happen to.

My parents are divorced and Jessica already grasps that messy triangle of a family tree. What she doesn’t understand is – if Grandpa and Grandma are like that – why can’t you (Me, Jodi, I) be?

My husbands parents are not divorced, so she sees marriage lasting a lifetime as much as she sees it not – and we, her parents, are married and plan to stay that way … but she still doesn’t get it.

Now, she’s 5. She doesn’t really have to get it yet. But when I get asked questions like “Why can’t daddy have a girlfriend?” then I know she MUST grasp this, whether she wants to or not.

In our house, there are no openings for Others in our marriage. Period. No negotiation or discussion, ever. I married one man, whom in returned married one woman. That’s how we did it. And because Jessica is my child, in my home, in this big wide world – she will see this through my eyes until she knows the difference of decision in her adult life.

I’m not talking about marriage as a whole right now, I do not want to talk about politics. I’m talking about MY marriage. MY family. MY daughter.

And why the hell she seems to think that Daddy needs to be allowed to love someone else?

Here’s where I talk about my marriage.

As said in the video our last calendar year was a total piece of shit. There are reasons we’re in counseling – most of them proactive to the very fact that we plan to stay married for our life time together. Some of them reactive to a horribly difficult year – one of growth in some manners, others of clear stunts and backward pedaling in other manners. Out of the 12 months of 2009 there was a total of 4 months that we did not have someone staying in our home, either on our couch, in a tent or for an extended period of time.

Having someone in my home has never been more stressful. Helping and having guests over is one of the things I love about being home, but last year it felt like I was constantly having something invade what little separation I had from the reminder that I am mostly alone.

Owning our own business is not a 9-5 situation. It’s a 24 hour a day job in this house, and even when it’s “my” time, it’s always Work’s time. And I am bitter and resentful. I know I sound like a brat and I will take it. Fuck, I’ll take “Princess” and then I’ll hand you a wonderful little reality check that is life as a married woman with small children inside 4 walls all day long.

No one tells me I’m valuable. I’m always hearing from my children how I’m doing it wrong, not doing it enough, making them angry or cry. When my husband comes home it’s my job to make him feel respected and I love making him feel important because I know he needs to feel that way. He needs it. It’s how he’s wired.

And then I get to listen to the bad days, the hard days – the big decisions and all the stress. I get the leftovers. And then I get asked why I didn’t have time to clean the house, or do the laundry. Why haven’t I called this person? Aren’t I organized? Can’t I do it?

What do you do? I get asked.

Honey, you might kiss ass all day long, but I wipe ‘em. And our children are happy and bathed and in clean beds. I made them breakfast, lunch and dinner, I cleaned the house 7 times in the span of 8 hours – all while listening to bickering and sometimes laughter. I daydream about affording help, a house cleaner … someone to keep things organized and tidy. Someone to give me a hand. I made your bed and folded your socks. I got the groceries you asked about.

I, I, I for You, You, You.

I feel out of balance in this life. Somewhere along the line I let myself say yes too many times and while I was saying yes, you were saying I’ll take it. All the while planning to give it back 110% but the ROI for the amount of time I’ve invested is emotional bankruptcy.

Problem is I was the teller who approved the transaction.

———————————————-

Alright, so everyone take a couple deep breaths. I have. It feels so much better. This is a very one-sided post today about how I’m personally struggling right now. So I’d like to give you some perspective as to how this is not a one-person fail. As in, my husbands job does suck time like a rabid vampire on the loose, but it does so much more than that.

It makes him happy. It provides for our family. It allows us to travel. It even excites me. I honestly think the real problem is that I am not working outside of the home – and where I thought that was what I wanted 5 years ago, my mind has changed. But I’m dealing with all kinds of guilt and hurt feelings (on my own) for changing my mind.

I have some SERIOUS hang ups, personally, about being allowed to change my mind this far into the game, but I know that if I do not gain clarity and ultimately conquer those hang ups it will be detrimental to them and myself. And I feel like a total failure for just admitting that.

I have some demons to fight and it feels like I’m fighting them alone, which breeds resentment. The current affairs of my life are in no way my husbands fault … but he’s offly easy to blame for them. Don’t let me do that.