Freezer Meals - 20 Meals, $140

Today I spent about $140 and made 20 dinners! It was awesome and is going to be so nice once the baby comes. Here are the recipes I used.

Black Bean Chili
Italian Sausage, Onions, and Peppers
Beef Stroganoff
Sticky Chicky
Honey Chicken
Lemon Marinade Chicken

A Mother's Journal - Part 2

Today Jane came up to me while I was doing my hair and makeup. I helped her on to the counter. She looked at me and said, "Mommy, can I always stay with you?"
"Yes, you can always stay with me," I replied with a hug.
"I always want to be with you."
I just wanted to write it down, because I know that all too soon I'll never hear little comments like that. And in about 14 years she'll be ready to get out of dodge. I know. I've been there. But right now...I'm just relishing this.


Max kicked me in the back today. He got in trouble and I said, "Max that hurt me. That hurt the baby. When you hurt me, you hurt the baby."  His remorse was instantaneous. He immediately picked up a blanket and brought it to me in the kitchen. He lifted it to my stomach and whispered. "I didn't meant to hurt the baby. I didn't mean to." Then he gave me a big hug. Sometimes he's rough, but underneath that layer is a whole lot of soft and sweetness. Sometimes we both just need reminding, me and him.


I've started reading "The Mouse and the Motorcycle," to the kids. We are only in the third chapter, but I'm realizing that Jane doesn't ever hold out much hope for her characters. Every time I ask her about a character, in any book we haven't read before, along the lines of, "Do you think he'll get out/get what he wants/solve the problem?" She always replies with a very confident "Nope."  Right now Ralph is trapped in the waste basket and according to Jane, he's doomed. In face she went so far as to lay out exactly what would happen between the trashcan, the dumpster, and the garbage truck.


The other day I checked Postsecret. Something I haven't done in a couple years. One of the postcards said, "I think all stay-at-home mom's are just lazy." Of course, it rankled me for a moment. Not that it's something I've never heard before. I know lots of people believe that. But the next few thoughts that hit me were a bit different than usual. I know that my day is not as "busy" as a mother who works. I can fit my housework into a whole day instead of a few hours. Quality time with my kids isn't necessarily anything stressful, many times it involves sitting at a park while they play, making rolls with Max when Jane doesn't want to play, or painting a picture.

Most people don't know this, but I actually was accepted to do biomedical research with a professor at Creighton. After taking the GRE and getting all the letters of recommendation I got the e-mail. He'd love to work with me. Now I just needed to apply to Creighton, which was more of a formality, and I'd be on my way to a Masters. Except I couldn't do it. I had to have the sit-down, honesty chat with myself. We've all had it. The "Why am I doing this discussion?" Because the truth was, while I love chemistry, I hate research. Hate it. So why was I going through all the hoop jumping? Well, because that was what was expected of me! I didn't want anyone to think I was wasting my potential! What would the people back home think? That's when I gave myself a little slap and said "What do you want?"

Well, you obviously know how that conversation with myself went. So when I looked at that postcard I though, "Am I lazy?" I guess that depends on your definition. Isn't it funny how today in our society we wear our busyness like some kind of badge? Like the more we have to do and the more stressed we are, the more valuable we are? I mean, if you're not stressed and out-of-your-mind busy can you really be important? Successful? And yet, so many people, especially mothers, feel like they can't do anything well. Their mothering cuts into their career, their career cuts into their mothering, we are driven to be uber-successful in everything we do from decorating, to parenting, to moving up the corporate ladder and it's either be the best or be a failure. How is this healthy when the truth is most of us will just be normal people, with normal careers, and normal children?

I stepped off that path years ago. Of course, I could try to tout how busy I am and how much work I do to try and impress everyone else. I could put my kids in every activity under the sun so that we spend our days shuttling all over kingdom come. Would that make me "not lazy"? Would that make me productive? No. Over the last year or two I have come to appreciate more and more the beauty of "slow". Slow lifestyle, slow food, slow childhoods, slow entertainment. Slow, enriching, rewarding, with time to reflect, enjoy, savor, and dream.

Maybe that makes me lazy to some. I'm glad to remark with Mr. Butler, "Frankly, my dear. I don't give a damn."

Jack and the Beanstalk - Preschool Unit

Letter: J

Story: Jack and the Beanstalk (here are the printables I used to make magnet board characters)

Rhyme: Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley

Vocab words: cow, bean, hen

Literacy Activity: Compound words. I taped the words corn, bean, and stalk onto separate duplo blocks and we practiced building one word out of two smaller words and then practiced taking away a word and seeing what we were left with. We made the word cornstalk and beanstalk. Then I would take away stalk and the kids would shout out the word we were left with. We did the same thing with cowgirl and cowboy later in the week.

I can't remember what days I did what printables, unless they specifically went with the focus for that day (like I know we did most of the letter J printables on Monday). So I am just going to link to the packet and you just realize that I printed worksheets off and we did them as needed/wanted.

Monday: Letter J
Worksheets
Alphabet sidewalk chalk game (found here)

Tuesday: all about beans
We learned about the life cycle of a bean using this worksheet. Cut and paste in sequential order.
Started our lima bean sprouts in sandwich bags. (Instructions here)
Painted lima beans, said some magic words to make them magic beans, and then planted them. I made the kids draw a picture of what they thought would grow. (Day 1 a sucker stick grew, day 2 a small pompom was added, day 3 a bigger pom-pom, day 4 a sucker!)
Beanstalk art project. (found here)

Wednesday: numbers
Sidewalk chalk beanstalk game. I drew a beanstalk on the sidewalk and numbered the leaves from one-ten. Then I would say "run to the 8" or "skip to the 4". The kids loved it.
Add 'em up dice game. I drew a beanstalk and numbered the leaves 2-12. Using two dice we practiced adding/counting. The first person to roll all the numbers won.
Counting worksheets.

Thursday: Review
I made golden eggs out of yellow construction paper and put a lowercase letter on each one since Miss J has been struggling with those. Every time the kids found one they had to tell me the sound it made before putting it in the bag. Max played this over and over by himself throughout the day.
I cut out cardboard giant feet and attached yarn. The kids took turn feeling like giants and knocking over towers and terrorizing their Fisher Price Little People.


We also added a literature element to our days. I have been reading the first story in A. A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh out loud to the kids. (The one about the balloon and the bees) Then we are working on this lapbook. The book is a bit complex so we read it through slowly and now we are reading it again as we do the lapbook and we will probably read it through a third time as well.

We also started doing a few Brainquest cards at night.

Jane has started reading the first Bob Book, "Mat". I will probably have her read it every day for a week, maybe do these worksheets/activities, and then move on to the next book. She decided she wanted to do this on her own, and so we are taking it very slow and I'm trying not to push anything.

No tears in the writer...

There is a quote from Robert Frost that says "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader." While I have read from other writers about the agony of putting one of your beloved characters into hard situations, I had never experienced feeling that pain for an imaginary person until I wrote "Cradle and All."

This short story is being released today as part of the anthology "Summer Burn" from Elephant's Bookshelf Press. You can buy it here!

When I read the call for submissions, stories about love that didn't last, I didn't initially have a story idea. However, throughout the next day or two, one slowly came into my mind. It wasn't a fleeting thought, it was a nagging, obsessive barrage of thoughts. All of a sudden I had this character who was talking to me and I could feel what she was feeling and I could see her going about her day and I knew her story.

It might sound strange to say, "I knew her story." Because, obviously I knew her story. I wrote it. But when a character becomes real to you as a writer, sometimes you discover their story along with them as you go along for the journey, get to know them better and understand how they will act and react. And yet at the same time, I knew what I was going to do to this character. I knew the pain and the hell I was going to put her through.

I sat down and typed. 1000 words every night and finished the story within five days. Without any rereading, I sent the story off to my critique group, expecting to have lots to fix. Instead I got comments back that said, 

"Wow! This is haunting. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight."

"This brings back a lot of painful memories for me."

"Your ending is heartbreaking and yet inevitable at the same time."

I was floored by their reactions and so I went back and read it and found myself crying along with my character. Not necessarily because I am such an amazing, powerful writer (Because I'm not. I'm still learning the ropes of this thing). But because I knew this character, I'd created her, and I could feel everything she was feeling.

I wanted a more thorough critique though, so I sent it off to a critique partner who I knew would be harder on it. She too loved it, but offered very thought provoking questions that I had to ponder for a few days while I got to know my characters and their history. I know it sounds crazy, but that's exactly what it was. Getting to know my characters, even the antagonist.

So pretty much, writers live in an imaginary world, where they hear voices drawn out in complete conversation with other voices and they "get to know" characters that don't really exist and that they can basically control. 

I, of course, would love everyone to read this story. But before you do, I want to make a few important clarifications. First, this story is about domestic abuse. It is not based on anything that I have experienced personally, especially not at the hands of my own, tender husband. Writing this was purely an exercise in imaginative empathy.

Second. because of the nature of this story, it is rough around the edges. There is some swearing. Nothing awful, but it's just pretty much impossible to make an abuser come off as genuine when he's saying "heck" and "darn". I do not apologize for the language, I just thought some of my friends might want to know.

Of all my acceptances so far, this story is the one closest to my heart. I truly felt inspired to write it. It is hard to put something like that out there for the world. What if no one likes it? What if my friends judge me by it? Oh well, I guess. That's part of being a writer. Putting your heart on the line. I hope you'll read it and I hope you enjoy it.

Little Red Riding Hood Preschool Unit

Letter: R

Rhyme: A Tisket A Tasket

Literary Exercise: words that rhyme with red

Vocab words: red, wolf, basket

Day 1: Talked about the letter R. Did R and r cookie sorting, letter finding, and writing practice from this worksheet package. Most of the worksheets/games I talk about are from this packet.
Color mixing. We experimented with mixing colors and learned how to make purple, orange and green.

Day 2: Practiced writing the letter R. Did the scrabble letter word building activity.

Made a map to get Little Red Riding Hood to her grandma's house. Then we made a map showing how we got to our grandma's house. Kids had to recount the "directions" to me and then to grammy over the phone.

Day 3: Did the clothespin number wheel and "add 'em up" dice game. We also glued construction paper to make a letter R.

We drew pictures of our grammies and then used proper pronouns and complete sentences to describe them.

Day 4:  Shadow matching, Cut and paste following directions with prepositions, pattern worksheet.

Learned about healthy and unhealthy food and planned our picnic.

Day 5: This will happen tomorrow, but we plan to replay some of the games from the last week and went on a picnic. The kids will help make the "healthy food" and put them in our basket. At the picnic I hope to have everyone act out the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

Fourth of July: More than just red, white, and blue

When I was trying to plan preschool for this week, I knew that I wanted to have the theme be Fourth of July. But I was super disappointed with what I found on the internet as resources for preschool. Most of it was just various, cutesy crafts, painting fireworks, or decorating with red, white and blue. All those things are great, of course, and they are nice to do. But I wanted a lesson plan that really celebrated America and all I was finding was fluff.

So I had to come up with something on my own. I'm sharing some of what we are doing early so that you can do it with your kids, if you would like. Red, White and Blue is nice. But a beginning introduction to what makes America special, our flag, and some American history is better.

First, the flag. This was easiest part because you can find F is for flag worksheets, crafts, lesson plans, etc. Be sure to count the stripes. What does each strip represent? What does each star represent? What are the colors? Who made the flag? All of these questions can be discussed while working on one of the various flag crafts you can find around the internet.

Second, What makes America special? Every day we are briefly discussing what makes America special. I am using the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment as our guide. Here I've included the pictures and quick explanation for each. With younger kids, just this explanation will do. These explanations are, obviously, very simplified. But we're talking about 3-5 year-olds here. With a little bit older kids you may want to discuss further, maybe do a little playacting or something.

Freedom of Religion: We can go to whatever church we want.

Freedom of Speech: We can say whatever we want.

Freedom of the Press: The news can say whatever it wants.

Freedom of Assembly: We can meet with whoever we want.

And now for the big story of the week! We are talking about Paul Revere! I decided to tell the very simple story and then read (the very abridged) poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. When reading the poem I use the following pictures, a lot of expression, and a ton of sound effects. You HAVE to keep your kids attention. Once Paul Revere takes off on his horse, intersperse throughout the rest of the poem the sound of a horse galloping, followed by "The Redcoats are coming! The redcoats are coming!" (I know he didn't really yell this, but it adds to the drama of the story so I keep it in.) I've included my abridged version of the poem below along with the pictures I use for it. Be sure to make the picture of Paul Revere "gallop". Get into this! It's fun.

Here's a video of me doing it with the kids. They were thrown by the camera, but Jane is usually a lot louder with her sound effects. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eN1corvDqw&feature=youtu.be

Listen my children and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

He said to his friend, “If the British march

By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

One if by land, and two if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street

Wanders and watches, with eager ears,

Till in the silence around him he hears

The muster of men at the barrack door,

Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,

And startled the pigeons from their perch

By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,

To the highest window in the wall,

On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.

Now he patted his horse’s side,

But mostly he watched with eager search

The belfry tower of the Old North Church,

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height

A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,

A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,

Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;

That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,

The fate of a nation was riding that night;

It was twelve by the village clock

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.

He heard the crowing of the cock,

And the barking of the farmer’s dog,

It was two by the village clock,

When he came to the bridge in Concord town.

He heard the bleating of the flock,

And the twitter of birds among the trees,

You know the rest. In the books you have read

How the British Regulars fired and fled,—

How the farmers gave them ball for ball,

From behind each fence and farmyard wall,

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo for evermore!

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Well, I hope you're inspired!

Utilizing Expansion and Contraction in my Day

I recently read a book that was basically the introduction to how to do preschool at home with your little ones. Of course, there are probably a lot of these kind of books, but this one had a bit of a Waldorf spin on it, which I love. In the book, there was a section on expansion and contraction throughout our daily routine. At first, it seemed like a bit of weirdness to me, especially with the way the explained it. (And named it. Seriously? When they start asking, "Is your child too expanded? Too contracted? I start wanting to roll my eyes.)

However, when I actually put the idea and practice into place, it makes a big difference!

I've always been big on having a routine with my kids. Not like a down-to-the-minute-this-is-what-we-do sort of routine. But I like, and my kids like, knowing what comes next. I think its an important foundation for little ones (and for adults) and without it we end up feeling frazzled, spread thin, stressed, and disorganized. And it's just hard to have fun when you feel crazy.

So here's the idea behind being aware of expansion and contraction throughout your day.

Expansion is basically relaxation and entertainment. A child's free play falls under this category, as does playing outside.

Contraction is focus and productivity. It's completing a specific task. Think reading stories, doing chores, circle time/preschool, arts and crafts, etc.

Now a good day happens when we balance the two, and children need to go back and forth between the two more frequently than adults. As mothers we naturally do this sometimes. Like when your child just can't handle another second of playing with friends and you know its time to go home. Or when they won't sit through one more story and you know its time for them to go play.

I've tried to keep this idea of flowing back and forth between expansion and contraction in mind as I go through my day with my kids. Max has a tendency to need to go back and forth between the two rather quickly and frequently. When I make sure to vary his day and his activities between the two polarities, he is so much better. We don't get to the point where he is teasing Jane just for fun. But we also don't get to the point where he is throwing crayons across the room. I just try and keep an eye out for when it is time to switch gears.

I didn't know if trying this approach to viewing my day and planning our activities was working until Max's birthday when we took the day of from preschool. The morning was a disaster. I thought it would be fun to just let the kids play all day, but after a while they just ended up fighting non-stop or whining about what we were going to do next.

For some of you awesome moms out there, this idea will be nothing new. But for me, it was a little bit of an "Aha moment" so I thought I'd share!