My coming-out as Lunch Lady

So….I’m not sure how to start this… Hi! In my free time I cut sandwiches into animal shapes, strawberries into hearts, and I make pancakes out of veggies.

About a year ago, I think after Arthur was born, I started making elaborate lunches for Julian. He had just turned two and was, imagine that, a picky eater. I wanted to find a way to make food fun and give him options. And then I got carried away. 

Are you still with me?

I bought this lunchbox and have been using it pretty much every day since. I’ve made hundreds of lunches.

Why?

I like doing it. I prepare lunch in advance so I don’t have to do it when Julian is hungry and scramble to put something together. He gets different options and feels like he’s in charge because he can choose from a variety of foods. It makes him happy. I can’t count the times he has said, “OH! Mama!” with excitement. Just yesterday he said that this was his favorite lunch yet. I like thinking about new things to feed my kids. I like making food fun and healthy and colorful. Whatever. I’m Lunch Lady!  

Does he always eat everything? Not always, but usually, yes. Lunches tend to be sandwiches, fruit, cheese, and turkey. We all eat dinner together, and that’s where he gets his fish, meat, and veggies. 

Of course now I make lunch for another kid as well. Arthur usually gets something similar to what Julian gets, but he doesn’t care about the presentation, so he gets his all in little containers or on his tray. He also gets more vegetables because he likes them. Portion-wise he eats about the same amount as Julian. Both my boys can eat. And nothing makes me happier than feeding my family.

If you had told me, five years ago, that one day I would be baking kale muffins and sweet potato pancakes, I would have called you crazy. I was living a completely different life.

I’ve always enjoyed cooking, but I totally love cooking and baking for my family. Of course I don’t love it every day. I love it a little less right now because Arthur has learned how to climb up the stove and touch the burners, so that’s a great skill if you want to go to the ER anytime soon. And some nights are just crazy and I can barely scramble to get anything on the table. Some nights we order in or go out. And I don’t cook on weekends. But during the week I bake and make granola; I make Jeff’s lunch and lunch for the boys and me; breakfast and dinner. And I love all of it. 

Hell. I am Lunch Lady.

Pizza, pancakes, ice cream, what’s next?

I’m one week in with this solo parenting gig – with five more days to go. Also I’m two weeks in with the “No Yell Experiment.” I’ve only slipped once, so I consider it a success.

The boys definitely miss their Papa. Julian asks for him several times a day. He has no concept of time and expects him to be there every morning when he wakes up. We will all be so ready to welcome him back home this weekend!

That said, I’m doing my best to make these two weeks fun for the boys and fun and easy for myself. We’re spending as much time as possible outside. I hardly ever say no when Jules asks for ice cream. Because guess what? I want ice cream, too. There have been cookies and lollipops and pizza dates with friends and with Uncle Brian. Pancakes at the diner. And trips to every park and playground in sight. The weekend was tough though, and I felt lonely. I miss my partner in crime.

 

 

Yesterday I asked our babysitter to come, and I had some time in the morning to get out and clear my head. I went for a run all over Brooklyn Heights and down to the piers at Brooklyn Bridge Park. I worked out, drank fresh juice, and bought lots and lots of groceries for these boy children who will not stop eating. I listened to music. I rebooted. 

Here are some of the things that make me happy right now:

• iced coffee
• shady playgrounds
• sunshine
• watching my boys play together
• working out
• watching Julian protectively put his arm around Arthur as he was approached by a bigger kid at the playground
• hugs and kisses and brothers holding hands
• my bike
• sprinklers and water fun
• playing board games with my boy
• naptime
• soccer!
• watching Julian play with old friends and make new ones
• friends, in general. 
• the last bits of baby that remain in Arthur. His dimpled hands and milky breath and chubby thighs. 

It’s so easy to get sucked into the daily grind, the bickering, the mundane tasks that repeat themselves over and over again, the incessant talking and never-ending demands, feeling overextended and not appreciated enough. And yada yada yada, boo hoo. I’m fucking lucky. Tomorrow will be another sunny day, and I will have two beautiful, healthy children to wake up to. And there will be coffee. So pretty much nothing else matters. 

The No Yell Experiment

Last week there were two days in a row when I yelled at Julian. For mostly dumb reasons (not that there are great reasons to lose your temper with your three year old). Like annoying his brother during nap time and ruining that precious, holy break for everyone. Or for normal antics of a three year old that just drove me up the wall.

As opposed to what you read in the literatures on the childrens and stuffs, Julian usually responds to yelling in the “right” way. He’s not distraught, he can hear me, and he usually starts obeying. That said, I still feel tiny and awful and go to bed with a big pit in my stomach.

So I did some reading and came across this article and that article again and thought to myself: If I can motivate to work out every damn day of the week (this means getting up an hour before the kids do), I should be able to come up with enough self discipline to not yell at my preshus children.

I set myself the goal not to yell for one week. That means to never raise my voice out of frustration, ever. I made a little purple heart on my calendar for every day that I succeeded. I chose purple because it was the first pen I could find amidst Julian’s art supplies. The ridiculousness of awarding myself a “purple heart” only presented itself once I had gotten started. So to anyone who might be offended: Sorry. I was really going for orange.

Day 1 was a breeze. And once I saw that I could do it, it was no big deal at all. Except on the second day, I yelled out “Arthur!” once in dismay because he kicked a diaper loaded with poop off the changing table. Perhaps I should revisit the “no yelling rule” because when it comes to poop, it seems anything is fair game.

In general I have to say that everyone was calmer and happier. Most of all me. I went to bed with no regrets, no shame, no frustrations.

Here is what I learned and/or reminded myself of:

1. Take a break when I need it. Julian and Arthur are getting pretty good at playing by themselves. So rather than letting the never-ending demands and constant talking wear down my patience, I just take a step back and do something for myself or around the house. Or better yet: we go outside.
2. My three year old is acting like a three year old. Most of Julian’s behavior is very typical, three year old behavior. It’s nothing to get my panties all in a bunch about. That’s not to say that I accept bad behavior. I don’t. In my opinion I am fairly strict. I’m just strict with a collected mind.
3. My boys are my most important audience. I got that from one of the articles I linked to above. It’s so true. I don’t ever yell in public. Because I want people to think that I am the good, patient mother that I am. Because yelling is embarrassing. So if I can do it there, then I should be able to keep cool at home, right? Right.
4. We are all people. People who have feelings. People who have good and bad days. Julian will have bad days, and so will I. He’s always compassionate with me when I don’t feel good and the first to offer a hug or rub my back. I should have the same empathy when he’s feeling off. He is three and doesn’t always have the right way to express himself. So sometimes he does so by acting out.
5. Try a different approach. When I didn’t resort to being harsh and barking quick commands at my kid (yes, sad, I know.), I had to look for another way to solve the situation. It really helped to sit down with him on his level, make him look me in the eyes, make sure he listens, and make him repeat back what I was trying to get him to understand. Or to just put my arm around him and tell him that I understand. I understand that it’s frustrating that you may not play with your new toy the really expensive Dyson fan your father just bought. And even though I just wanted to snap, “STOP TOUCHING IT ALREADY! STOPIT!”, once I took a deep breath I really did understand. Why wouldn’t he want to play with it. It’s an awesome toy fan.

So now it’s been 7 days of no yelling. I’m kind of pleased with my experiment. I’m gonna keep going. Of course I just started two weeks of solo parenting while Jeff is frolicking working in LA, but I won’t let that deter me. It’s just a great excuse to take the boys out for pizza, ice cream, and hamburgers (yay! no kitchen clean-up!) alllll week long.

 

In case you missed it (ha!), yesterday was Father’s Day.

It was a celebratory weekend over at the Weston house. Saturday we celebrated Jeff’s birthday with cheesecake, presents, and a bike ride to Prospect Park. Sunday of course was Father’s Day. The boys made cards, and Papa got to sleep in until 7:30am. Yes, no joke. Being a Papa is not for the faint of heart. We are so lucky to have the best Papa I could have ever dreamed up for our boys.

It’s so easy to think of all the sacrifices I make, because I spend all my days with the boys. Goodbye free time, goodbye thoughts in my head, hello constant chatter and doing things for other people at all times and hang on a second, I have to go get someone a snack.

Jeff works very hard for our family. He works long days and then comes home and doesn’t have time to catch his breath. “How was your day, Papa? Was the 1 train crowded? Did you get a seat?” Both boys run to Jeff the second he walks through the door. And then they play while I finish making dinner. Afterwards Julian will ask, “Papa, do you want to do bath or kitchen?” – and so we divide and conquer. Jeff usually brushes teeth and reads a book, and I put the boys to bed.

He is an amazing photographer, but for now he is content taking pictures of our family mostly. No time for anything else. He is a great musician, but as soon as he picks up the guitar or sits down at the piano, there are 20 grabby little fingers that want to join. Instead, he gets down on the floor and plays. He throws dance parties and makes a fool out of himself, which seems frighteningly natural to Jeff. He changes diapers, dries tears, mediates, rocks crying babes, cleans scrapes, wipes hands and mouths constantly (Hello, white couch! You are a reminder of all the things we didn’t know before we had kids.), and he makes the best pizza in the world.

He is a wonderful partner in crime and my favorite person to laugh with. About our silly children, our lives, ourselves, and everything else. Yes, about you, too. And I love nothing more than seeing the bond between him and his boys. They love their Papa so completely.

 

A Day at the Beach, Weston style

We officially kicked off the summer with our first beach day this year!

After a night of heavy drinking with my visiting German cousin (Friday), a huge hangover, a bike ride into Manhattan with the fam and the cousin…

…and a friend’s 40th birthday party at our favorite spot, the Brooklyn Crab (Saturday), we came home exhausted but still needed to pack for the beach. Because a) we don’t have a car, and b) we have a lot of stuff. So we gathered our beachy things, made potato salad and sandwiches, ate a few cookies, and went to bed.

The next morning, after breakfast, we loaded up our laundry cart (classy, I know) with beach stuff and our cooler (food! beer!), threw some kids on top, and off we went to Julian’s favorite place on earth: the subway station. As he will tell you, we took the A to the Shuttle all the way to the beach at Far Rockaway.

Once we found the perfect spot, we set up camp. Blankets, towels, two umbrellas, lots of beach toys. And then we spent the next 5 hours in pure bliss. The weather was perfect; not too hot, not too cold, not too windy. There was a sandbank that was perfect for the boys to play in the water. There were crabs and shells to collect and sand cities to build. I love digging in the sand. It’s one of the reasons I had kids in the first place. We ate our weight in sandwiches, cookies, fruit and potato salad. The boys entertained themselves for a good bit. Arthur by eating fistfuls of sand; it was so delicious, he could not get enough.

Julian played with his trucks and shovels, and other than a brief moment where he could have drowned when he fell face first into the deep end off the sandbank, everything was peachy. That part was not peachy. I’m glad I had my back turned (which is probably why it happened in the first place) and didn’t see my baby face down in a pool of water. Jeff did, and I think it scarred him for life. After the initial shock Julian was fine, Jeff was a bit shaky, but I am totally prepared for Julian to bring up this story in 20 years as his very first memory. And all I will say is that Papa was on duty.

Other than that everyone had a great time. Back home we showered off the sand and had dinner across the street at our favorite Mexican restaurant. Nothing like tacos and beer after a day at the beach. And then everyone (yes, everyone) was in bed by 9pm.

Quick! Get yourself a three year old!

If you have a two year old, and you think the twos are “terrible,” let me break it to ya: the twos ain’t nothin’. Three year olds is where it’s at. I’ve had a three year old for about a month now, so I am still new to this “parenting a three year old” thing, but I already have a few observations. Basically, three year olds are insane. They are completely verbal, so their eloquence will sometimes fool you into thinking that you are dealing with a rational person. Trust me, you are not. You are dealing with a pint-sized human being, who is still constantly overwhelmed by his feelings and thoughts and the inability to cope with the fact that not everything can go his way all the time.

Example no. 1:

Leaving the house. It’s really not a big deal. Right? As an adult, you put your shoes on and grab your keys, and off you go. As a mother of a young child under three, you put shoes on your kid, even if you have to physically overwhelm them to do so. Then you grab your bag and leave. As a mother of a three year old, you do a lot of prep work. “We will leave the house in a few minutes. You will need to get your shoes. We will be leaving very shortly.” A three year old will make you believe that everything is ok. He will respond and let you think that yes, we will be leaving the house in a few minutes, and everything’s cool. But then, within a split second, the air changes, and all of a sudden the little brother needs a push that will send him flying, the door needs to be opened and banged shut 10 to 25 times, ears all of a sudden are no longer capable of hearing, shoes are terrible, confining things created by someone who doesn’t understand feet at all, and good god whatever you say, I will do the opposite.

Example no. 2:

Dinner time. We don’t cater to our boys’ dinner requests. They eat what we eat. Occasionally, I will ask Julian what he wants for dinner and make what he wants, but since that is pizza 100% of the time, it’s just not gonna happen every day of the damn week. I cook pretty edible things. Lots of chicken, rice, fish, pasta, beef. And lots and lots of veggies. Oh veggies, you colorful, offensive things of pure evil. How my three year old detests you. He won’t even look at you. Unfortunately for everyone, we have one rule in our house: Don’t knock it until you try it. Or: You don’t have to like everything, but you have to try everything. It’s a painful rule, but it works. Usually it means that Julian will stare at his dinner plate for a good 20 minutes after we’ve all finished. But in the end he will always try and usually like what’s in front of him. If he could just get to that realization without the daily power struggle (added bonus: screaming!), I’d be pretty pleased.

Example no. 3:

Everything else. I want a snack. I want to play iPad. I want to watch TV. I want to watch more TV. I want to sit here on top of your neck. I want to have the toy I haven’t looked at in a week that my brother just picked up. No, I want only that one particular toy. Oh. He dropped it. Never mind. I want that other toy he’s holding now. I need to push him now. Also, I can’t hear you. Can’t! Hear! You! Need to bang this thing here really loud. Open the fridge, close it again. Scream a little just for kicks. Why? Because I’m three, and I’m awesome.

So why do we keep Julian around? Because all these moments are wedged in between moments of pure and genuine joy with this child. Because he will redeem himself. With an apology that was unprompted. By biting blueberries in half and sharing them with his brother. By holding doors for me or whispering “You are the best mama” at the end of the day. By telling a joke or resting his blond head of messy hair in my lap.

P.S. What’s for dinner tonight? Pizza. You guessed it.

Sorry to bore you, but it was another perfect weekend

This weekend we did what we do best: ride bikes, eat, play, drink beers. We spent all day outside, both Saturday and Sunday. We leave at 11, and we come home at sundown. And after this long winter, I just can’t get enough of sunshine and being outdoors. I love this combination of being in the city and yet seeking out these gorgeous spots in parks all around us and smelling the trees and the flowers.

Saturday we spent all day in Prospect Park. We rode bikes and had a picnic by a lake. We jumped on rocks and tried to get Arthur not to dive head first into the filthy water. It’s nice to look at, but not so nice up close.

We went to a playground, climbed, and kicked the ball around.

And then the boys slept on the bikes.

After naps we discovered what will be my go-to spot this summer: a new area in Prospect Park called Lakeside. It’s a fantastic water area with fountains and lots of room to run around. It’s perfect for both Arthur and Julian because there is so much space and really nothing to trip over and break a tooth. So that’s nice. Also, there’s beer right there at the cafe. So it was a win/win situation.

Burgers (two8two – best burgers in town) for dinner and ice cream from the ice cream truck on the Promenade. Yay Brooklyn. We love you.

Sunday we checked out a borough we don’t usually venture to: Staten Island. Julian was thrilled to take the Staten Island Ferry.

Once we were there, I quickly remembered something I had forgotten since my last visit to Staten Island. It is quite hilly! So lots of uphill riding. Our legs were a bit shaky. Then a picnic by Silver Lake, which was gorgeous. We kicked the balls around for about 15 minutes, until Jeff tried to impress Julian by kicking a ball into the tree to shake the leaves a bit. Didn’t occur to him that it could get stuck, which of course it did. Julian cried. Until we told him that it was Arthur’s ball that was lost, so that was a little less devastating. Nap time, more riding, and fried chicken for dinner back in Brooklyn.

After a four day weekend last week, this one definitely seemed too short. I mean, since I don’t go to work, technically every day feels like a vacation, but we miss Jeff during the week! Just kidding. Motherhood is no vacation. Except for today, when we returned to the water park and played with our friends. Summer is awesome. My energy level is 10 times what it was this winter. I can’t wait for the boys to wake up from their nap so we can head out again.

Kidding. I can totally wait.