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your tradition
Last year around this time I went to mom’s group that was run by older moms. They were so much older that most of them were already grandmothers. On this date a year ago, instead of the typical morning talk, they set up a roundtable and discussed their favorite holiday traditions. They each had called their adult children and put the question to them: what do you remember of our family holidays as a kid?
You could feel some of the anxiety in the room. Many of us were moms to very young children. Making a sandwich was a struggle, much less a fleet of reindeer cookies. The idea of creating new traditions for the next generation to carry on, traditions somehow built among the remains of the dusty shredded kleenex and fishy cracker crumbs we’d left behind on the floor that morning, well, it sounded almost impossible.
Some of the women said they’d cried on the phone, because asking their adult children about this reminded them how often their young working husbands had been gone during that time, or how tired the women had been, or what high expectations they’d had for themselves.
There was one surprising revelation from the phone calls: the things their kids loved and remembered were usually not the ones the mothers had intended. Not the three-tiered cookie tray that showed up on the right day, but the fact that the kids got to pick the food coloring colors for the frosting. Not the getting of the tree at the charming corner store, but the bag of chips they were allowed to pick out for the ride home. Not the deluxe Christmas meal, but how many candles she managed to light around the room each year. Not the gifts, but the fact that their dad built a fire every Christmas eve.
The talk instantly reminded me of how my mom let us have donuts and orchard cider with cheese and crackers for dinner on the night we decorated the tree. In any order we wished: crackers, then donuts. Donuts, then cheese. Hands down it is one of my favorite memories of annual traditions. I vaguely remember that she sent out tins upon tins of cookies each year, vaguely recall the Advent calendar that was different and creative every year, have a fleeting image of all the lovely hearth decorations, but the thing I remember most: cheese and crackers.
I wonder if it was the thrill of a snack for dinner, or the way dinner formality bowed to decorating hubbub, or just the fact that I could tell my mom was happy not to worry about dinner for the night. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. I love that memory.
To sum, they told us, you do the best you can and they end up remembering the oddest things anyway. Which I think we should take as, do what sounds wonderful and rewarding to you, and skip the rest.
It sounded really really nice to follow up on a promise to Lux and go to cvs and buy candy, so much candy, and then make a little graham cracker house that looked just like the one in Martha Stewart’s kids craft book. And it was.
p.s: the dough in that top photo is the weelicious graham cracker recipe. It’s delicious and easy. It makes cookies for munching, not housebuilding. I found it in this fantastic cookbook.
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in November
There are many ways November tells you you can’t do it, beginning with the election days. Find yourself attached to a small item on the ballot, just a flimsy thing that seemed like a good idea, only to find it scorned by most of your state. It’s passively discouraging.
There’s also something unfathomable about a shift in weather and we worry we can’t make the leap. I’m missing the confidence boost of a larder full of canned peaches, a pantry full of preserved honey, or blueberry jam gathered in August. I can’t look at my pantry of pickles, the wood pile in the backyard, and say: yes I’m ready. Certainly in the past this would have bolstered a homemaker peeking around for encouragement, no?
And if you haven’t yet flown lightly over a grey, long, freezing week with everyone still taking naps and not crying most of the time, you might wonder: can it be done? Perhaps this why fiercely persevering peer-encouraged challenges happen in November, like no-shave-month or write-a-novel-in-a-month (NaNoWriMo).
So many times in motherhood there’s a new corner up ahead and a voice appears like genie smoke in our mind whispering “you can’t do it.”
.I can’t handle four days by myself..I can’t handle both of them sick at the same time..I could never do it if if we couldn’t go outside..I couldn’t do it if she started sleeping badly again.
I don’t know why we set these parameters for ourselves but they fall into place before we’ve even noticed and then we’re stuck dreading the next change. Naturally we end up arcing over these challenges like fillies in the mud, kicking up our heels. But the genie in your head will never tell you that.
In the face of this shark-toothed-month I have mayonnaise to keep me company. I will never, ever, relate to those food writers who say “I can’t understand why people buy mayonnaise it’s so easy to make!” I can’t understand why you would make mayonnaise, it’s so easy to buy! Hellman’s and the American flag are inextricably linked as our national anthem for me. Egg Salad, call me back girl. Tuna melts, comin’ attacha.
Here’s a deliciously satisfying, nearly-evil snack, depending on your feelings about ms. mayo, that Joan and I eat whenever Lux is eating something boring like animal crackers. Chickpeas from a can, drained, rinsed and poured into a bowl. Dolloped with a spoonful of mayonnaise and sprinkled with garlic salt from the spice drawer. Microwaved for 15 seconds or so and stirred to a smooth sheen holding each chickpea within it. So satisfying and you’ll eat a whole 14 oz can this way.
What else is helping, while we’re at it: a glass of wine with dinner prep even if it begins at 4:30pm in the pitch dark, smiling happily at the sun up so early in the morning, a Spotify station built on “What Else Can I Do” by Kat Edmunson, looking at homemade Christmas decorations on pinterest, this funny cop show from last year, Louisa May Alcott’s cozy Thanksgiving short story. -
Fix-It
I received an email titled “Our Fix-It Diaries” and thought: YES. Because it’s been the theme for the past few weeks. First, shoes to the cobbler to sew up and clean up. I don’t know how I manage it but I always pick the most pessimistic cobblers. “This is just a do-our-best and see what comes of it job.” “No, I wouldn’t count on that one coming out matching.” “I’ll fix it but it won’t last forever.”I recommend not calling a cobbler if you need a new campaign statement any time soon. Sweaters in otherwise good shape except for tiny holes that threaten to widen. I tried to leave a sweater to get a little hole stitched up at the dry cleaners and she told me I should just do it myself. I wanted to say but didn’t say, “Would you tell a male customer to do that?” Was there something about the way that both girls were clinging to my ankles that made me look at loose ends for something to do with my hands? Sigh.
Packing away things. Pulling old friendly things out. Remembering how lovely it is to wear a warm sweater with jeans and no coat. The coat stage is coming, but the-just-sweater stage always reminds me of how you actually see sweaters advertised. You get to be warm and not look all buttoned-in. Whistling to myself the passing wish that I had a brand new winter coat and a brand new winter hat. What do we think is the best winter hat trend this year? I would say: mono-color with furry pompom on top. Yup. Forgive me if I’m officially 12 months behind trends. It takes me awhile to warm up to them. haha.
There was a lull in the land where I forgot what I wanted to do during nap time besides stay utterly and absolutely silent. It’s ironic that I can’t find the words to describe how much chatter fills my day except to say that sometimes people stand near me for minute or two at a street corners, waiting for the light to change, and then turn to me and ask, “is it always like this?” Yes sir, it is always like this.
I just sat here for three minutes trying to come up with a way to describe Lux’s vocal companionship right now… The image that comes to mind is this tank at the aquarium filled with sting rays that we visited last week. The sting rays have had their stinging-rays trimmed (“Just like your fingernails,” the guide crowed to us), and so denuded, circle the tank like a rapidly flowing tributary of soggy pancakes, bobbing up every ten seconds or so, to brush against your hand. If you move your hand too much they sense the vibration and slink off course ever-so-slightly, and then eagerly swim on, only to circle back a minute later. That’s the best visual my weak brain can muster of my three year old’s conversation in my life right now.
So besides absolute silence for one hour which falls upon my ears like a soft flannelly manna from heaven–I had a breakthrough yesterday which was: bars of chocolate. I think I forgot about them all summer. And now: they are back! In all their faintly caffeinated glory.Photos from picking zinnias and finding pumpkins at Parlee Farms two weeks ago. It was raining; it was glorious. Thank goodness for things like child-backpacks. I’m not exaggerating when I say this situation would have been a disaster if Joan had been wandering on her own in the mud. If you go, stop at Dream Diner on your way home.
young city life
I read this article in the Globe the other day, written seemingly on a lark, by a woman who brought her two little boys back the South End (Boston’s Brooklyn, replete with brownstones tugged from the hands of artists who were there first) for a weekend, “to see what it was like living in the city.”
It annoyed me that it was implied that living in the city for a weekend was in any way close to actually living in the city. Like if I went to Spain for a weekend, I could then write about how crazy it is to have kids in Spain.
But to my surprise, even in that short amount of time, she quickly experienced and noted the tough stuff about city life with young children. By the end of it, I didn’t feel that it was a romantic article. In fact, it was the good stuff about city life that didn’t get fair play.
Tough stuff: 1/ You are conscious of your close neighbors whenever your children behave like children, and are noisy—crying, stomping, jumping, dancing. You worry that they hate the noise and aren’t complaining out of cringing kindness. 2/ You experience meltdowns in public places regularly because you started the two mile walk back home just a little bit too close to nap time. 3/ You spend less time dwelling at home because home is actually pretty small. 4/ If you use your car, you often can’t find parking close to your apartment, and therefore add 10-15 minutes of walking to your trip home.
Anything written about this, at my stage of life, must be caveated by the fact that having young children in the city is deemed the toughest. Asking your three-year-old to walk six blocks at the end of the day because you couldn’t find parking and didn’t bring your stroller on the car-adventure, yes, that’s tough. Living on the fifth floor and having the elevator break for most of the summer, yes, it slows you down on your way in and out, particularly when the one-year-old likes to climb stairs on her own. Hopping on the T is complicated by the presence of a stroller and a snack-loaded bag, no matter how small the bag and how slim the stroller. Rest assured the T car will be dead silent when one of yours throws a screaming tantrum, as well. The fact that your children can never wander outside on their own, with you simply watching from the window is tough and feels restraining, even unfair (to them) at times.
Having a nine year old, on the other hand, who is allowed to run to the corner market to pick up milk, who can walk side-by-side with you on the way to class before you go to work, who can name five friends who live within walking distance, and knows which train line to take the the museum, that is nice.
So I can see the future and the future is promising.
But back to the present: here are just a few things I like, limited to four lest I drone on.
1/ Every walk turns into an ad hoc lecture and discussion as we encounter new signs, businesses, cars, people, or destinations. Almost as if the city coaches me into talking to and engaging with my child. It’s probably just Boston traffic talking, but I never have these type of discussions when we’re in the car.
2/ I get excited about visiting new places. New coffee shops, bakeries, markets, parks, these things get me out of the house. They are probably the primary reason I live in the city at all. Your children have a calibrated barometer on your mood and know very well the things that please you. It makes me happy to know that Lux knows I’m excited about what we are doing, and that she gets excited too.
3/ You learn that the “tough stuff” is actually not that bad. It doesn’t matter how many people see your child freak out. It’s not really that big of a deal if you go out to eat and it goes terribly. It’s actually pretty fun to get stuck on a long walk in the rain, even if the baby does cry the whole way. In the end, you always end up home, and you always begin again the next day.
4/ Hyper-awareness of strangers. I like that the girls see so many strangers every day, they get very good and clear about whether they want to interact with them. If they aren’t feeling it, it’s obvious (here I’m remembering Lux dropping everything and sprinting towards me when she didn’t like an older lady that had started talking to her) and I don’t have to worry about them wandering into something. Conversely, I like that no one is really surprising to them. They see people from all over the world smiling at them every day (even if they choose not to smile back!).
What do you like about where you live? What’s tough? I’d love to hear.
Champagne jelly
The other day I had leftover prosecco in the fridge. Is there anything worse? When seen at the crack of dawn, light streaming into your refrigerator as you hunt for the milk, you know it’s already ruined. I had cheerfully popped the bottle the night before for a friend, we didn’t finish it before she left, and I certainly wasn’t going to donate a morning’s headache just for the sake of finishing it. Had it been good champagne, yes, certainly, but just-fine prosecco? No thank you.
So I made this champagne jelly, an idea first whispered in my ear by Ottolenghi. His recipe is for a full bottle, but, when adjusted, it’s perfect for using up the last cup of so if you have some in the fridge. You boil most of the alcohol with some saffron ( for color), but then add a little in at the end for flavor. So yes, if you share it with children they taste real alcohol. Good on them.
It has a strong champagne flavor, looks pretty in flutes, and would do well with some sweetened whipped cream on top.
Oh, and it wasn’t a hit at all…:
Champagne Jelly by Ottolenghi
+ 1 cup leftover prosecco/cava/champagne
+ saffron threads
+ 1/4 cup water
+ 1 gelatin envelope
Pour about half of however much leftover champagne you have into a pan. I poured in half a cup, and added a quarter cup of water. Bring that to a boil with few saffron threads and then removed from heat. Strain out the threads. Follow the instructions on your gelatin packet–mine advised sprinkling gelatin over the remaining champagne, pouring the hot liquid on top of that, and then stirring for about five minutes. Mine filled three flutes.
bippity boppity boo
My friends, it was a wonderful summer in the city. It’s not just my projection: weatherfolks back me up to say that it was one of the most pleasant summers in a long time. With no pool membership to our name, I didn’t regret one day that hovered around 70 with a breeze. Loved each and every one.
There was still a heatwave the week of the girls’ birthdays, that second week of July. It appears to be an annual furnace week in Boston, no matter what the year. Forged in the fire of hot bricks and slate roofs, these girls.
I won’t tell you the mornings were quiet with the sound of birds chirping and rainbows percolating, no. Summer is high construction season in our neighborhood, these old stately homes being updated to all manner of modernity. I see the friendly contractors, bashful about their dust and clamoring, more than I see my own neighbors. Mornings began abruptly at 8am with the bang of jackhammers and the slam of dump trucks. And planes flying overhead whenever Logan needed to re-route, determined by an algorithm I don’t understand. But one day I will corner the right person on an airplane and she can explain it to me.
(note there I said SHE can explain it to me. As a mom of girls, I’m really working on my projected personal pronouns. All our stuffed animals have turned out to be male and I’m sick of it.)
Every now and then we’d peek out at a huge moon, or hear fireworks in the distance, or find the pink sunset sky too irresistible, and climb up to the roof to watch. From there we can see one of our friend’s patios. They have a huge framed rooftop patio, chock-a-block with boxes of plants. My friend says it took a long time for them to have a baby, a long time to eventually find a surrogate mother to carry their baby, and while she waited and waited for something to care for, she nourished these plants. Now their little boy has a babysitter while she is at work, and the babysitter is very good at watering the plants. All this to say that everything worked out in the end, and they ended up with a rooftop full of greenery to remember it all.
Once, we went over to this lush rooftop for dinner outside, with three other young children besides our own. All five children fought almost constantly, loud screaming wrestling battles with shoves and pulled hair. But the adults serenely drank glass after glass of wine, didn’t hover or apologize, did shifts to eat all of their dinner, and shrugged over the barbaric toddlers from the Empire of Shelfishdom. It was nice.
So many days ended with cool nights. All six of our windows on the left side of the apartment wide open, bedroom doors propped open, and wind blowing through. I am a certified insomniac of the mothering variety. Blame it on the wine, blame it on the midnight midsleep screech of Joan, owl-like and over even as I wake. I am startled and alert at odd hours. But I find the temperature has dropped even a few more glorious degrees and the wind is gusting from one side of the apartment out the other. Sometimes our pinned-up art has blown off the walls and onto the floor in the gusts. It’s dark but I can see everything by the lights of the city and I walk through quietly to poke around for a minute.
Plenty of stops for ice cream with sprinkles. Plenty of extra iced coffees when the day turned long. Still, flies-buzzing grouchy mornings followed by splashy baths in the tub to rinse hot-headed babes. Lux likes the water cold cold cold and I admire that.
I didn’t really expect Joan to start riding the carousel this summer. I don’t think we put Lux on it so young. Maybe we did? Without fail, Joan’s glee would attract the attention of bystanders, who would nonetheless look suspicious when I had to pin her screaming flailing child-tortured body to me after the ride ended. It was always worth it for that three minutes of joy.
We didn’t visit any museums and didn’t miss them. October can have them. Their long tiled hallways will seem to be fresh all-new territory. However the library received as many visits as ever. Lux is at this glorious, perfect moment where you can show her “the shelf about skeletons” and she’ll pull down every book and look through each one. Just as she hit this moment, Joan turned menace, sweet noisy menace, taking plastic animals from the children’s section and stuffing them into fiction shelves in the adult section, dumping whole carousels of books in the young adult sci-fi, screaming when I pull her away from the stacks of DVDs.
This summer we saw our first magician. He was billed as a pirate show on the flyer, but he showed up at our playground as a magician. Oh was I? He said to me. Well that’s my mistake. This show is more appropriate for this age group anyway. He warmed up slowly, with too many “this is how your parents look” jokes for two-year-olds who have young, hip parents. But anyway Lux was enthralled and after a few faux tricks that ended in kiddo titters, eventually he pulled out plastic flowers and a real live rabbit. They learned abracadabra and bippity boppity boo and chanted it back to him after every trick.
Ballet in the Garden
I can’t resist posting some of the photos from when the Boston Ballet recreated a photo from the 1970s. Certainly it was a publicity vie for their upcoming Swan Lake, but I will gladly take any and all marketing of this type! They stripped one boat of the benches and had one of the captains (the swan boats are pedaled, by foot, around the pond) slowly loop the pond twice. There were many people intentionally there to see it, but there were just as many who wandered and stopped in their tracks. Thankfully for the short people among us, it was not crowded at all.
In a rare moment of veteran-savvy-mom, I had no expectations, told Lux almost nothing about it ahead of time, and got there a few minutes early.
The white tutus against the green drapey trees, the quiet motor-less touring of the boat, the lack of signs, chitchat, and branding and the fact that it was free and open for all–MAGICAL.
backyard surprise party
Last week a few friends threw a surprise party for our friend Birgit. It was such a treat to plan a summer party for a good friend, anticipating the surprise and writing clandestine emails behind the scenes. The evening was all about enjoying the love for one another in the air.
My friend Megan’s decorating was a testimony to the power of a few twinkle light strands and helium balloons. That, and the wonder of a warm summer night in a tiny backyard framed with towering evergreen bushes.
We bought far too much alcohol and there was plenty of food and old friends that went to grad school with Joe but now live in different cities. We put Joan to bed almost immediately, in a pack n play in our friend’s front bedroom, but Lux and her pal Haruka played the party until 10pm. It’s fun to have them at an age where they don’t turn into pumpkins at 7pm.
My contribution was a quadrupled recipe of the basil strawberry shortcakes from Bon Appetit. They were really, really good. The biscuit recipe is a great one. Biscuits are only ever good when made with heavy cream and then, they are amazing. The recipe has you mix creme fraiche into the whipping cream. I bought too many cartons, so Lux has spent the week dipping her pretzels into our extra creme fraiche. Joan has had many spoonful as well, because the girl is ever-underweight and we’re just trying to keep up!
24/52 my week in balloons
Joan: amazing ability to hold on to that balloon while she eats.
Lux: we went to see the balloon man at our playground and she waited the long wait for a pink flower.These days
I enjoyed my friend Melissa’s post about eating her purse for dinner (spending more than she planned, saving the money on her grocery bill for a week). I thought of it because I did a similar act this week, though it was still in the name of sustenance. Rummaging in the pantry in the evening to make do without a trip to the store, so we could eat outside the kitchen as much as possible. I took the girls the greenway to judge how dead the grass is (quite dead) and ordered hot squishy squares of pizza for $3.30 from galleria umberto, served up by two old men who tie the box tightly with baker’s twine when you ask for it to go. Joan gave the pizza a cursory nibble before she switched to the grass. This made me very satisfied, “Here we are, all eating the same thing, what a happy family.”
Chocolate croissant, a brioche roll, “and some coffee for Mama” from The Thinking Cup, eaten slowly walking back home through the Common. It’s our usual, to the extent that Lux orders the croissant for herself. Do I have a spoiled city child? Potentially. Ice cream sandwiches and a movie with Joe, followed by belgians and sweet roasted nuts in the depths of State Park (“And one pickled egg please” ordered Joe. The waitress didn’t bat an eye and it arrived, bright pink, on a plate moments later). For a celebratory Friday night, Pad Thai takeout that came with a paper bag for Joan to chew on.
All in all it was quite well spent, and now I’m ready to restock the freezer with butternut squash cubes and blueberries and feel again that the house is well supplied with good and plenty. Good and plenty is a very brief feeling that I have for 48 hours after my weekly grocery trip, it dissipates at the same rate as the greek yogurt.
Things have felt a little crazy, but the kitchen has looked lovely which just goes to show you can judge a book by its cover in this day in age, but you can’t judge how someone is feeling by the the looks of their instagram account. The sunlight has been magnificent.
It feels as if everything is falling into place, even the earth and the moon, for a moment. There will be a lunar eclipse. You’ll have to get up at 3:08am in the morning to see it, but whatever it takes, right?
I’m feeling really really good about life these days.
The lunar eclipse is Tuesday morning–one of only two days this week, Holy Week, that does not have a church service at the end of it. A near week of church services, many of them in the dark or lit by candles with breathtaking music in movements of mourning and celebration.
However, it’s also my birthday week! So Joe and I will go out for to a long anticipated meal at O Ya instead of going to the Good Friday service. This amazing Japanese place has been on my list for a long time, several people have told me they had the best meal of their Boston lives there. We will not order any alcohol, the whole budget will be put toward tasting delicious things and watching delicious things be prepared.
How are you feeling these days?
Photos of Rishi Green Chai tea (my super favorite lately) and bread from a Deborah Madison recipe. I’m going to start linking to the foursquare of restaurants I mention. It disrupts the reading a bit, but it is worth it for those collecting places to try in Boston.