Category: Kids
Thursday, Aug 28, 2008 | Kids |
Hmm. The past two writing mornings seemed to disappear without me writing one actual word of fiction or poetry. This must change. Next week school starts and I resolve to take my writing ambitions seriously starting then. I will head into the writing morning with a clear idea of which story I would like to write (I’ve got dozens of ideas floating, and the only way to get anything done is to pick one and commit to it till it’s written out). I will not check email or Facebook or read blogs. Instead, I will make things up out of my own head!
Oh dear. Thought I’d picked a calm moment, and instead, conflict just broke out in the living-room over a piece of plastic the size of my fingernail (Playmobil: the most vacuumable toy on the planet). Ah, parenthood. How to help my children work through their arguments on their own, which seems to be the ultimate goal? Sometimes just leaving them be is the solution. Kids can work out quite a lot if left to their own devices. However, there’s a certain shrillness to the tone that alerts the mama-ear that a child-based solution is not forthcoming. Another possibility is showing them how to negotiate. This helps a bit, but probably more in a long-term, down-the-road-they-might-put-this-into-practice kind of way. Then there are the techniques of distraction: removing anyone who is being mean or intractable or screeching or whining or hitting or lying on the floor declaring his/her extreme boredom (time out); suggesting alternate play ideas (this only works if everyone is in a generous-enough mood); or sometimes just offering two options and forcing them to pick one, even if neither option is exactly what every child wants to do. ie. upstairs to your room, or outside to play, I’ll count to ten, then you tell me which. Neither is not an acceptable answer. This is all assuming it isn’t time for mama to stop what she’s doing (aagh, blogging!), and do something with her kids–which for me would be to read them a story or organize an art project or sit outside in the front yard and people-watch.
Just now I went with the modelling-how-to-negotiate technique, which turned into insisting that A and AB negotiate. Which worked out, kinda. And I’m back at the blog.
We’re now doing “quiet time,” my favourite time of the day. Next up will be a walk to buy A’s school supplies, and get some exercise and fresh air … even if it starts to rain.
I have a canning question: can someone tell me whether a jar is spoiled if, when pulled out of the canner, it was bubbling, ie. air bubbles looked to be coming up out of it? All the tomato lids seemed to have “popped” successfully, but I’m remembering that one jar came out of the canner doing that–and I can no longer tell which one it was. Also, tell me, please, does canning get easier? Do you start to assume the lids will pop, that bacteria don’t lurk invisibly within, that you’ve sterilized enough surfaces, and all the rest of it?
Can canning become casual?
Wednesday, Aug 27, 2008 | Kids, Recipes |
So the tomatoes arrived. And I dealt with them. That’s the short story. The longer version involves me questioning (on multiple occasions yesterday) why the heck I’d ever thought to pre-order two bushels of tomatoes this past April. In my defence, I’d just given birth. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation.
Despite imagining myself prepared to can, I discovered almost immediately upon returning home with these masses of tomatoes that I had no new lids; or, more precisely, the new lids that I did have (see–I knew I had lids!) were an odd size, which is probably why they were hanging around unused in our basement. My knowledge of canning is admittedly limited, but I do know the lids need to be new. So after a fabulously delicious and simple supper of hamburgers (local), sliced tomatoes, and corn on the cob (CSA), I sent Kevin and kids on a walk uptown to find lids. And bottled lemon juice, which I also discovered I lacked. While they were out, I washed the dishes, and the jars, and set up the canner on the stove, along with another large pot of simmering water for loosening the tomato skins, a small pot of simmering water for the lids, and a pot of cold water nearby for cooling the tomatoes before removing their skins. And I filled the kettle. And started washing the tomatoes. Our kitchen renovation makes all of this set-up ridiculously easy. There’s room for everything, and I didn’t even have to clear the island of the day’s extra collected junk (A’s pocket flashlight; receipts; two containers of driveway tomatoes, et cetera).
By the time Kevin and kids returned home, I’d already filled several jars with whole and halved, skinned and cored tomatoes. He’d found one packet of lids in the entire grocery store. So that put a limit on the amount I could can. I wasn’t that sad, actually. Also, the store had no bottled lemon juice, so he’d brought home some lemons. In fairly short order, I filled seven quart jars, topped each with a teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of fresh lemon juice (hope that’s okay), attempted to remove air bubbles (huh??) with a rubber spatula, fished the hot lids out with a magnetic thingamabob made precisely for this one purpose, screwed on the lids, and stuck the jars in my simmering canner. I followed directions in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Home Canning and Freezing, and canned the jars for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, I filled another seven jars. That makes it sound effortless. How can I conjure for you the mess this was making of my kitchen. Note to self: do not wear a white shirt while canning tomatoes!!! (Noted far too late in the process to bother changing).
The kids were about, of course, and decided they would like a sleepover in A’s room. They admired my work and chattered endlessly, and I nursed baby CJ off to sleep while Kevin handled virtually all of the bedtime prep: snacks, baths, flossing. I knew I’d do two canners-full and freeze the rest, so basically I just kept on skinning and coring, skinning and coring. I had the skinning down to a science. The skins really do slip right off after the tomato’s been dunked in hot water, and this saves skimming the skins off whatever you’re cooking at some later date.
The kids refused to fall asleep. Baby CJ woke up screaming. As a result, the first batch was in the canner much longer than the suggested 45 minutes. What was I thinking?? Do we need these tomatoes? Yes, they’re organic, and yes, they won’t have to sit in cans lined with bisphenol-A plastic; but. So baby CJ eventually nursed back to sleep. It was after 10pm by that point, and I was still faced with a bushel and a quarter of raw tomatoes. Kevin stayed up painting with me, and on and on we went at a positively feverish working pace. I spent the last hour or so fantasizing about sitting down on the couch with a beer. Or even just taking a quick bathroom break. My heart sank at every squeak from the baby monitor. But twelve large freezer bags later, I was done! I decided to stuff the freezer bags completely full and resolved to make giant batches of fresh tomato sauce this fall and winter. If I hold myself to one batch per week, I’ll have enough in the freezer for close to three months. And with the fourteen jars (though one didn’t pop) … well, it’s something.
Sitting on the couch with Kevin after midnight, I decided this would be my last canning attempt of the season. First and last. Yes, I’d love to make pickle relish, and can peaches, but I have to accept that I have a not-quite-five-month-old baby, and therefore that I cannot be up past midnight very often and live to tell the tale. The only concentrated time I have available to do this kind of work is after the kids fall asleep. So next year. I still intend to continue filling the freezer (one is already full, thank you tomatoes), but in smaller batches. For example, yesterday I also packed a pile of chopped fresh basil into an ice cube tray, which took a matter of minutes.
So, on this note–do I order the half bushel of peaches I’d been planning to from Nina’s buying club? I think I will anyway. Do peaches freeze? Or maybe peach freezer jam?
Yesterday afternoon, the kids were playing “Little House,” a game based on the Little House series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder which we are reading right now (we have gotten to Little Town on the Prairie). AB was Laura, leading around her older brother, who was blind Mary. At one point, Laura demanded that “Ma” give her some work to do, so I suggested she get the clothes off the line for me. I didn’t have time to check up on that project, which got derailed at some point by a million crows who were “attacking, attacking!” (“Mary” was most enthusiastic about this plotline). It was past midnight when I remembered the two loads of clothes still hanging outside; but when I went out to check, here my little Laura had gotten every stitch off the line and into an overflowing basket. So there you go. She was entirely helpful, and it was one less chore I needed to do last night.
Now it’s nearly time for swim lessons. Off for my daily run. “Mommy might not be able to talk to you when we get to the end of this block,” I told the kids yesterday. “I’ll be puffing like an old train engine.” A told me at the end of the block that I was indeed puffing, but not like a train engine; he did not elaborate.
Sunday, Aug 24, 2008 | Chores, Kids, Spirit |
We’re not a church-going family. Coming from a Mennonite background, I’ve tried my best to make us so, and we may attempt Sunday school again this fall (AB enjoys it), but we don’t find ourselves naturally drawn, on Sunday mornings, to our church. Other religious rituals have found a comfortable place in our home, including singing a prayer before our family meals (led forcefully by F, age 3), and, for me personally, humming hymns. I’ve had the first line of a hymn in my head these past couple of days: “My life goes on in endless song, above earth’s lamentations.” So yesterday afternoon, while the children were splashing outside in the wading pool, I sat nearby with the hymnal on my knee and sang the whole of that song. F came and sat in a chair beside me, cuddled in her towel. She wanted to know why I was singing, and I said it was because it made me feel happy and comfortable and peaceful. She said it made her feel the same way. Baby CJ was nursing, and it was a really joyful and calm moment for the three of us, in our beautiful shaded backyard, in the humidity of an August afternoon in Ontario, the leafy canopy overhead, the big kids splashing gleefully (the neighbours love us, I am sure!).
We have managed to give our kitchen and dining-room that just-moved-in feeling. Everything’s cleared out for painting purposes, and it echoes. I picked up take-out pizza for supper last night, and as we sat eating together, it felt exactly like it feels when you’ve just moved in somewhere new, that very first meal in a brand-new house. I like that feeling, actually. I’m glad to discover it’s as easy to replicate as ordering take-out and taking the pictures off the walls. The smell of fresh paint added to it too.
Did I suggest in my last post that I’d actually finished all my (house)work the other night? Yah, that didn’t happen. Literally, by the time I came down the next morning, the kids had replicated the disaster in the living-room. I shall either have to ban all creative play (art projects, puzzles, games, and Playmobil), or live with the consequences of having fostered such fabulous creativity in my chiildren. Hmm. The latter, I think. If only I were just slightly more slovenly. How’s that for a personality trait to work on.
Saturday, Aug 23, 2008 | Kids, Local Food |
Haven’t mentioned that we got the bushel of onions we ordered from our CSA. I was expecting the tomatoes to arrive first, and had, quite frankly, forgotten about the onions. “How do we store these things?” I asked Kevin, who has exactly as much expertise as me, so I relied on the google consensus. Dry or cure the onions first, then store in mesh baskets, or–a more creative option–pantyhose. I’ve got loads of old pantyhose (my current job doesn’t exactly come with a dress code), so that’s my eventual plan … once I get these onions off my table. We have a huge dining-room table, very plain but long, and virtually half of it is now overtaken by our curing onions. Kevin teased the kids that they would have to eat three raw onions every night to get rid of them. These are big, beautiful yellow onions, and I started to do the math on how many we’d need if we were to feed ourselves with stored onions over the winter. Say, one per day, or even five per week (not much for us; I use onions in virtually everything), that adds up to … well, a lot more than what’s on our table currently. How did people survive before grocery stores??? If we were to rely on what I’ve put up this summer, we’d be hungry before Thanksgiving … and I’m trying hard. Anyway, the onions are supposed to cure for 2-4 weeks before storage. This might impede our hosting ability …
Today was Nina’s buying club. She had extra help this week, and it felt very well-organized and smooth, even though a lot of people were there when I was. AB sold sweets, as she’s done before. I got a half-bushel of blue plums, so we had to make room in the fridge for them. We hadn’t gotten through our apricots, so I halved them, removed the pit, and froze them on baking sheets in the freezer till solid, then popped them into bags. My canning/freezing guide recommended a syrup or sugar pack instead, but I’m hoping that’s just to keep the colour; too much extra work, plus I don’t like sugary things. I tasted one frozen and it was delicious, so maybe this will be a winter fruit treat when we’re eating nothing but apples. I also put away two bags of plums since some arrived a bit over-ripe. But they are delicious. My fruit plan this summer is to binge on whatever’s in season. We will survive on apples and the occasional never-seasonal fair trade banana in the winter, so let’s celebrate the variety and flavour of summer fruit.
This evening, I had to skip joining the family at Buskerfest, which is happening just up the street from us. There was simply too much work to be done. I had four days’ worth of laundry sitting unfolded in baskets, plus diapers to fold, plus the day’s dishes, plus these apricots to put up, plus the main floor looked like small people had been randomly flinging every toy in the house while simultaneously half-putting together every puzzle and dumping every game with small pieces, while inventively scissoring and pasting sheaves of scrap paper. For days. Which is exactly what had been happening. It was 7 before Kevin got the kids out the door to eat their Buskerfest supper (hot dogs and sausages; gelato for dessert), so I stayed home instead and fiendishly attacked the disaster that was our home. I’m only just done and it’s past midnight. (Okay, that’s an exaggeration–I did a few other things between now and 7pm, including sit on the couch and drink a beer.) I won’t be able to clean tomorrow, because Kevin will be painting in the kitchen and dining-room. He’s going to take the week off work specifically to get this done, and we wanted to get a jump on it. We’re both hoping it won’t take the whole week, so that we can enjoy a bit of a family holiday, too, before school starts.
School starts …!!! I’m not ready. This has been such a fine summer. And I love having all my kids around me. They’re such great kids. I realize every parent will tell you this, and every parent who does is absolutely right.
Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008 | Kids |
What a great adventure with the kids today. Getting out the door is the main challenge, planning for all the eventualities, and in this case getting together the gear for swim lessons and a picnic in the park afterward, but once that’s conquered, the kids and I work together like a well-trained team. Actually, the kids probably are a well-trained team, and I’m the coach, shouting encouragement and reminders as I push the jogging stroller (F and baby CJ riding) and chase the big kids on their bikes down the sidewalk. Maybe one of the reasons the Olympics are so appealing is because we all know what it’s like to push through and perform our own personal bests, in tasks unrecognized but necessary. So mine today was to chase those kids down the sidewalk while pushing the stroller loaded with children and gear and picnic and water bottles and towels.
After swim lessons, we headed directly to the park where we found some shade and ate happily, though not especially locally. Carrots and cucumber and zucchini slices were local, but the hummus and pita were not, and were bought. I haven’t been successful making my own hummus. Our blender isn’t up to the task (we haven’t found a task our blender actually is up to, come to think of it). But we sat on our blanket and chatted and watched jet planes in the sky, then the big kids ran and played on the playground and F and baby CJ and I read books, and the sky was blue, the air fresh and cool, the sun brilliant. This is the life, I thought. My own personal gold medal, to be-labour the metaphor …
Now it’s heading toward suppertime and I’m wondering what Kevin will be bringing home in our CSA box this evening. Supper will be brown rice (I add a handful of wild rice to the pot, too), and likely some stir-fry of CSA box offerings. And salad with feta and a balsamic/honey dressing, and more driveway tomatoes. I haven’t explained driveway tomatoes, Kevin’s gardening project. We have very little unshaded yard, so a couple of years ago, Kevin started growing tomatoes in containers along the driveway. This year he tilled a patch of front lawn along the driveway and planted more tomatoes and eggplant (we’ve gotten two of those already), and, along the back fence where there is now more sun thanks to those pruned fruit trees, we planted some potatoes that had gone to seed in our cold cellar. The jury’s out on those yet, but the driveway tomatoes are producing brilliantly. Mostly cherry. We may need to re-brand, however. Something about driveway doesn’t conjure up delectable.
Tuesday, Aug 19, 2008 | Kids, Recipes |
Another late night. Kevin and I decided to watch the men’s triathalon in full, and were we ever glad we did. Simon Whitfield won gold for Canada in this event in Sidney, but that seems like awhile ago now (I still remember watching the replay of his win, sitting on our tiny green Ikea couch in our miniature cat-hair-infested apartment near the Danforth in Toronto; pre-children). Our commentators had built up Simon as a medal hopeful for these games, but I tend to take these Canadian medal hopeful predictions with a big grain of salt. (“If she performs a personal best here, she’s got an outside chance at a medal, Ron.”)
We saw the race from beginning to end. According to the commentators, Simon has really improved on his swim since winning the gold in 2000; after winning gold, do you really need to improve on anything? In the bike race, there was a huge pack, but fortunately no crashes, and no one really got away. It’s the running race where Simon excels, and every step of the way, he stayed with the leader pack. The male commentator kept counting him out, doubting him: “I don’t like the way Simon’s running right now. His shoulders look stiff. He’s falling behind here. He can’t let these leaders get away from him or his race is over.” Et cetera. And every time Simon would push on and there he’d be–up with the pack again. The pack gradually dropped people till it was only four. “Oh no, not fourth,” Kevin said (we’ve seen a few great performances that ended in Canadian fourths). With a kilometre left, Simon fell off the pace and it looked completely impossible. And then–there he was again, and pushing into his sprint, past all of them and into the lead! Kevin and I were on our feet trying to run the race for him. He was overtaken by a big young German in the last 50 metres, but crossed the line in second, and looked like he couldn’t have taken another step. It was sure hard to get to sleep after that. Midnight, and baby CJ had another rough night. But totally worth it.
Just as I was writing this, I got to watch Alexandre Despatie win silver in diving. AND a daring 21-year-old Canadian trampolinist win silver. AND an unknown, unexpected Canadian hurdler win bronze: Priscilla Lopes-Schliep (sp?). Okay, so the medals are exciting. I’ll admit it. But why? And why claim these athletes as my own? Somebody’s done a thesis on this, I expect.
Yesterday I made paste for an art project. Thought I’d include the recipe here. I haven’t let the kids use glue for ages because inevitably the bottle gets emptied in one crazy “project,” like “Glue Lake on Blue Construction Paper.” This homemade paste is supposed to last forever. I’m keeping it in the fridge. I didn’t have the oil of cloves (what is that??) the original recipe called for.
Paste for Children’s Play (from MCC’s More-With-Less Cookbook):
Combine in a double boiler: 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 4 cups water. That’s it. Stir and cook till thickened, then stir in 1 tbs alum to preserve.
Mine came out lumpy, but there were some distractions while preparing it, the main one being I was trying to make paste for an art project that was already in full swing, so impatience was a factor. It worked, though. Things got stuck together.
