Goldfish Crackers – why are they so good?!

Sisee! Sisero!

Where you at? Why you no write your country-livin’, immigrant big sis? I’ve been waiting patiently for 6 months for the big boat to bring a letter from you, telling me about the “big city” you live in.  But alas, hitching up the horse and buggy and taking it down the gravel road, while ol’ Farmer Brett is working the field, proves to be a disappointment… it’s usually just more barrels of fish and boxes of tea being unloaded by men with scruffy beards, dressed in sweat-stained, flowy button-down shirts. (It’s ok to write jokingly about immigrants when you ARE an immigrant, right? I hope so, cuz I do it pretty much all the time.) (And you like how even though we are Middle Eastern, our “Immigrant Experience” is straight out of Ireland? After I checked the docks, I went and “found mi-self a fawncy haat, fer church.”)

Sisee, I have major food issues. Food issues with the boys, that is. They are SO PICKY. It’s killing me. Evan especially – getting him to try anything is a battle royale. (Not to be confused with Casino Royale, the James Bond movie, which for the record, I LOVE. What’s with all the Daniel Craig haters out there?? Could he be a better Bond?? So he’s blonde – DEAL WITH IT! What is there, James Bond purism now? You know he did all his own stunts? Yeah. He’s amazing. And none too shabby on the eyes, either.)

Ok… yeah, ok: I don’t understand how this picky eating happened, when they both gobbled up those yummy veggie purees I HOME MADE, when they were babies. Carrots? Check. Broccoli? Check. Pears? With Apples and cinnamon? Check and check. Seriously, the other day, I had baked a CHEESE PIZZA… ok?.. cheese pizza… the food every kid likes, which frankly hasn’t the best nutritional value…. and I told Evan to eat at least 5 bites, and while he did, he also almost GAGGED on every bite. Like it was eel sushi. Pizza, sis. PIZZA. Same goes for: Spaghetti. Lasagna. Hamburgers. French toast. Regular toast! It’s completely and utterly maddening. Should I have made cheese pizza purees when he was a baby??

And actually, I know – I KNOW! – it’s TOTALLY my own fault. It’s this combination of my own selfish desire to avoid combat with the kids and my immigrant-based need not to see food wasted, that have led to this daily diet mayhem. Forget giving the kids vegetables – I can’t get them to eat pizza! What the WHAT! 

Anyway, I read this article one time, written by a mom who had slowly gained 15 lbs by guilt-eating her kids’ leftovers. NOT hard to understand. Nothing is more annoying than scraping perfectly good food into the trash. (Which, thanks to said article, I do, rather than stuff my own face with extra food I don’t need.)

So as of the last 6 months, I have eliminated almost all semblances of snacks from our routine (with minor playdate-related exceptions) and it has been working to a great degree. It’s amazing how much more eager they are to gobble up lunch and dinner, when they haven’t eaten a string cheese and a bowl of goldfish crackers 2 hours prior. (Not to mention, picky eater kids is such a first world problem... hey, picky sons – privileged much?) Our pediatrician always uses the tag line “No kid ever starved to death with a fridge full of food” which I totally agree with… but letting them starve until they get so hungry they will eat grilled salmon and steamed broccoli has its own problems:

A) The hungrier they get, the more grouchy and unreasonable they get. Well, they’re not the most reasonable people to begin with, so the worse their moods are, the more insanely difficult it becomes to take them anywhere nor do anything. Mom: “Get in the car, so we can go.” Son: “NO! I WANT TO LAY IN THE DRIVEWAY IN THE PUDDLE OF DIRTY WATER AND GET WET AND DIRTY!” You find yourself playing an intense game of chicken with… well, an unreasonable, small human being.

Then there’s…

B) The worse their moods get and the more difficult it is to deal with them, the worse YOUR mood gets. Dealing with endless, hunger-driven whining makes YOU more moody and annoyed! Then you’re snapping more, and yelling waaaay more, and in turn, they are getting worse… it’s a vicious cycle. Ultimately, it’s just so much easier to throw mac’n’cheese and a handful of goldfish at them, than make the whole family crazy. (And yes, Daddy feels it, when he gets home and has three cranky people waiting.) What is one to do??

As an aside, though – why are goldfish crackers so good?! They’re cheesy, they’re crunchy, they’re good with a side of cheese. They pair well with sweet and savory things! You can class’em up or dumb them down. If someone highbrow told me they put a teensy dollop of crème fraiche and a singular caviar egg on each goldfish and served them as an appetizer to their dignitary guests, I’d totally believe it. (Though, I'd definitely question their judgement.)

Well, hello there.
Wait... do I see NACHO on one of those bags?! Sold!

I recently discovered my own love of goldfish-and-raisin “sandwiches” – two goldfish on either side of a plump raisin. Or a Craisin. Or a couple of currants, which according to my (NON-IMMIGRANT, impulse-buying, American husband) are “Just like raisins, but tiny!” (BTW, do not buy currants. No one will eat them, EVER.) Seriously, the salty crackers with the sweetness of the raisin are freaky good – and I’m sure it’s “good for you” so eating the normal 47 “sandwiches” in one sitting won’t matter.

Also – dip goldfish into cream cheese. O!M!G! Maybe I should say, DON’T dip goldfish into cream cheese. You will not stop until one of the ingredients has run out. I tried it last night, as an after-dinner snack FOR THE KIDS. They had miraculously eaten all of their pasta (thanks Auntie Bev ;)) and plain yogurt AND fruit, but were still hungry (thanks to the NO SNACKS METHOD!) so I thought I’d see if they’d like a little cream cheese-dipped goldfish cracker. They LOVED it! The unfortunate part is that I loved it too. I loved it to the tune of an entire meal portion, thus ruining my own appetite for dinner. Mmm… goldfish. And the multi-colored ones – they’re so cute, right? WHYARETHEYSOCUTE?!?!

Sis, how is spring time in the land of East? We are having the usual rain-rage inducing Oregon “Spring”: Cold, rainy drizzle 6-8 days in a row, followed by random and senseless one or two days of 60-80 degree, kind-of-sunny weather. (So yes, the rainy days are colder than 60.) It makes me realize how much I hate Oregon some months of the year. Actually, let’s just say it – 10 months of the year, I hate living in Oregon. I’m not satisfied with the random warm day, when it’s the end of freaking April. It’s Spring. It’s SUPPOSED to be warm EVERY DAY. There’s a reason stores start carrying shorts, skirts, sandals and cute lightweight dresses in March – it’s because in the season called Spring, one is supposed to be able to wear those items, without a North Face fleece on top. 

Typical week in Oregon "Spring"...
But, hey, keep moving here, unemployed young Californians.

I was telling someone that the weather here is like a philandering husband, who on occasion, in order to make up for his constant betrayals, will try to appease Wife with some half-aced gift.  And she’s like… Yeah, thanks for the Jane Seymore collection open-hearts pendant from Kay Jewelers that I’ll literally never, ever wear, but maybe you could just stop cheating on me all the time, mmmkay? Anyway, I’m ready to move. And you know that says a lot, because I’ve really grown to love beautiful, conscious Portland and its endless supply of illogical but admirably-defiant and unending liberalism. I won’t miss all the Subaru's though.

Ok, Sisee. I hear the whistle of the tug boat, so I best be getting’ my letter to the dock. I hope you, my brother in law and beautiful niece are well in the big city and are “keepin’ yer wits about ya.”

Love you,
Ava

Tiny Plastic Pieces and Other Signs You Have Kids

Dear Sisee -

It’s 9:00 AM and I just now ate breakfast. I woke up at 5:45AM thanks to one Alec P. Of course by “ate breakfast”, I mean that while I stood at the kitchen counter, I attempted to shove half a banana smeared in almond butter and honey down my throat as quickly as possible (bananas, almond butter, honey: because I’m trying to eat in a more healthy manner… BOO! That’s not the point – FOCUS!) before a two year-old decided he urgently needed me. I also tried to drink an entire cup of coffee without it getting cold (HAHAHAHAHAHA!! I can hear you laughing! You’re also applauding my dedication to a dream though, right?)

Halfway through my meal, a little kitty cat appeared. A little kitty that looks like a beautiful two year old boy with a mop of curly hair and big brown eyes, who makes teensy high-pitched squealing sounds, while he tries to wedge himself in between me and the cabinet base, wrapping his arms around my legs.

Me: “What is it honey?” Alec: “Meeeeeewwwoooooo…?” That means pick me up. He knows how to say pick me up please in regular human talk, he just doesn’t want to. Also, he doesn’t know why he wants me to pick him up – I know this already. I just asked What is it, Honey? as a formality, and to buy time. What he wants is my attention, because his big brother is at pre-school and he is bored. And he is bored because we walked in from dropping off big brother 10 minutes ago, and he doesn’t feel like playing with the bucket of play-doh “toys” – aka: a million, tiny plastic pieces (that’s more or less how I classify toys: a million tiny plastic pieces and NOT a million tiny plastic pieces) – which he dumped out earlier. He dumped them out initially, not because he needed a particular mold/tool, or even that he wanted to play with play doh, but because he likes the act of dumping a million plastic pieces on a hardwood floor. It’s fun. It makes a loud sound, and everything scatters.

It will take a small act of God to get him to pick these up, and since I feel bad wasting God’s time trying to summon “The Miracle of Picked Up Toys” and also because I’m tired and don’t have it in me to Love-and-Logic-style seize the opportunity to teach some valuable lesson or other, I will just pick them up myself later. Later, that is, after I have pierced the heel of my right foot in that same exact spot that always lands on the sharp corner of something tiny and plastic. This is how I roll. It’s tradition at this point, and who doesn’t love tradition?

[BTW – thanks DADDY for impulse buying that super awesome millions-of-plastic-pieces play doh set, the one time I didn’t go to Target with you guys. Cleaning up all the tiny pieces AND constantly vacuuming dried play-doh crumbs is exactly the piece of the stay-at-home-Mommy fulfillment puzzle that had been missing. Who says only Moms buy uneccessary things at Target? Sarcasm? Yes. Truth? Also, yes.]

This was the account of one fraction, of one morning, of one day, of one week, of one month, of the last 4 years. I didn’t even transcribe this morning’s pre-school “Dance of the Crazy Mom” trying not to be late again.  (Suffice it to say that while I was upstairs for no more than 10 minutes, the kitchen faucet had been on at some point and not all the water remained in the sink. Also, some dry erase markers were involved. Do they know better? Yeah. But do they just really love messes and chaos? Oh yeah.)

It’s funny, on “days like this” I inevitably end up in some hurried conversation with a female who is thinking about having kids, or more kids, or lots of kids, and I catch myself saying something like “DON’T DO IT! It’s hard!” Then less than one second later, I say: “Wait, actually, do it. It’s hard, but it’s fulfilling in the most weird way, that I can kind of explain on most days, just not today.” Then I try to lighten up the awkwardness I just created with something funny like “Actually, do you like to sit down when you eat? Or do you even like to eat, at all? You should enjoy those things now.” (It’s funny, you see, because it’s TRUE.)

My point in all this is that it’s not easy, but there are more good days than bad days. I love my boys so freaking much it hurts, and honestly, 90% of the time, I feel truly privileged that I can stay home with them before they start school forever. At night, I sneak into their rooms, and I pray over them while running my hands over their sweaty little heads, and bend down and kiss them however many times I like, because they won’t push me away. But, do I have to pretend that every day is Mommy bliss? No I don’t. And I won’t.


Can we all just acknowledge that sometimes, it’s not easy and that’s OK? It’s normal. That there are mornings where you are tired, and listening to the tiny people's relentless and loud noise isn't what you were looking forward to? Let’s sympathize with each other and let one another off the hook. You ever meet one of those moms who pretend they love every second of it? You test the waters of Friendship Material by saying something like “It was total chaos this morning – Evan dumped out four puzzle boxes in the same spot, then mixed all the pieces up like soup. WHY would he do this?!” And she gives you that closed-mouth smile, like she has no idea what you’re talking about but is just being polite. Then you give her that sideways smirk, because you both know she’s pretending stuff like that doesn’t happen to her or at least phase her and you BOTH know she’s a liar. (You know who you are – stop it right now, and join forces with the rest of us!) Then one of your kids sneezes and green snot comes out – not because he has a bad cold, but because the tip of a green marker had been up his nose earlier. (All true stories, btw.)

Anyway, it is 10:52. It took, 1 hr 50 min to write this. In order to make it happen, I allowed Alec to open a deck of cards, and scatter them about, while bending and tearing some of them. I also had the tv on. Some other messes were made, which are so routine I don’t have it in me to explain. For a while, he played in my car, in the garage. Also, some of the paragraph starting with “It’s funny” was written with him laying sideways on my lap. Like a cat. I gave him kisses, and squeezed him. Because I love him a freaking ton.

Love you a ton too, Sisee!
Miss you – COME HOME!

Ava