On Growing Old

I can't figure out anybody's ages any more. I've never been good at it, and I'm getting worse. Here's the problem: I don't realize I've aged.

We met a nanny at the park the other day. She had light blond hair, the kids had light blond hair. She's astounded that everybody thinks she's their mom: "I'm not THAT old!" She must have been in her early twenties, having just graduated from college. Well, she didn't look much younger than me because I'm not that much older than her--am I?

True, I've entered my thirties. I've been married ten years. I have a daughter who's starting kindergarten. I also am joint owner of a house (me, Lar, and the bank), two cars, a 401k, and other adult trappings. I don't text message. But that doesn't make me old. Or even middle-aged.

To me, my parents are in their forties, and other grandparents don't look old enough to be grandparents. Young parents (like me) are in their twenties. Parents of teenagers are way, way older than me. My grandparents are the same age as always, and it's a little astonishing to me that my children's grandparents have brown hair, not white like Grandma Bassett's.

As for me, I'm just out of college. And I always will be.

On Growing Big

Alex can't wait to grow up. He wants to have big thumbs and big feet, wear big shoes, and dig with big shovels. His latest career goal: ice cream maker.

Katherine's latest career goal: teach preschool with Grandma/draw pictures for kids who can't draw very well.

Rebecca: she's started rolling around the carpet, so presumably her next goal is mobility. Or maybe, since she just started grabbing her feet, it's eating her toes.

Food foibles

For the last three days Alex has left his breakfast peach on the plate. Why? Because he's decided he doesn't like "pit horns," the tiny hooks that stick out of peach flesh when you remove the pit. Today I invited him to cut them out with a butter knife. Successful pit horn removal ensued; he cleaned his plate except for four tiny, hairy peach slices.

Gourmet food? My kids will eat about anything. But given the option of a roast beef or pastrami sandwich, chicken tikka masala, gazpacho, blueberry or apricot jam...they inevitably prefer peanut butter and honey. I used to feel like a bad parent for serving it; now I feel like I'm giving them a special treat. Especially when there's raisins in the middle. Now that's gourmet.

School supplies

The list on the website:

(1) box of Kleenex
(1) box (8 count) of #2 pencils
(1) box of Mr. Sketch color markers
(12) glue sticks
Fiskar scissors
(1) box of Crayons
(2) boxes of baby wipes

The list we were given at registration:
24 glue sticks (Scotch Permanent preferred)
2 boxes Kleenex
1 box markers
1 box crayons
2 reams copy paper

Last year's supply list:
24 glue sticks (Scotch Permanent preferred)
2 reams Xerox copy paper 20#
1 box Kleenex tissues
Baby wipes

What the teacher says:
"What's on this list? I didn't make the list. I haven't even seen one."
"Markers? I have plenty of markers. Don't bring markers."
"Crayons? Sure, crayons are good. Bring a box of 24 and we'll pool them."
"Glue sticks? Well, we sure go through glue sticks. Scotch Permanent, what's that? What they really like are the purple ones."
"Copy paper? Well, yes. They use it at the office."
"Kleenex? Why? We just get a box from the office."
"Scissors? No! I have tons of scissors. Don't bring scissors."
"And crackers for snack time. Everybody brings a box."


What we brought:
24 glue sticks (8 Scotch permanent)
1 box of 24 crayons
1 ream paper
1 box Wheat Thins

Leaving
2 boxes pencils
1 box 64 crayons
1 pack of 16 Crayola markers
1 pair Fiskar scissors with a fancy cap
2 pink boxes Kleenex (Katherine chose)
Guess we get to put some new things in the earning bag.

Eggplant Parmesan Recipe

This is how you make eggplant Parmesan:

Search for store-bought breadcrumbs, realize you used them up. Tear up last week's hamburger buns and throw in oven.

Teach Katherine an impromptu piano lesson.

Slice eggplant. Salt and place in colander to drain.

Reengineer the angle on a Brio railroad track. Install train bridge.

Change baby. Feed baby.

Supervise cleaning kitchen. This consists of asking Katherine to put away her papers, and asking again, and again, and again...

Give baby to husband.

Clean up husband's wheat-grinding mess to create workspace.

Ask husband to grate Parmesan. (Turns out the rotary grater is quite a kiddie attraction.)

Food-process bread crumbs, ending up with sand-sized grains on bottom and huge chunks on top. Turn job over to husband.

Measure pepper. Debate merits of serving plain spaghetti.

Dress Katherine in jacket and Alex's baseball cap to pick garden lettuce in the rain.

Open door for Katherine, her four soggy lettuce leaves, and her complaint that it's raining. Run out to pick lettuce. Kids follow Dad out to pick beans and peas.

Recruit Katherine to shake eggplant slices in flour in a bag. Dip in egg, roll in bread crumb/Parmesan mixture, place on rack.

Read recipe. Realize you were supposed to heat pans in oven. Heat pans.

Put baby in swing.

Retrieve screaming baby from swing. Give baby to husband.

Switch on food processor with egg-free hand to process tomatoes, while husband holds processor with one hand and baby with other. Crank can opener while he holds can.

Oil hot pans, place eggplant on pans and put in oven. Sigh with relief at near-completion.

Put baby on floor under toy.

Rescue baby from toy, because she has rolled her face into the side of it.

Repeat.

Give baby to husband.

Clean table.

Place eggplant in pan with husband's tomato sauce. Discard shredded mozzarella, which smells funny after being forgotten in an unrefrigerated cooler for a week. Sprinkle instead with Italian mix, which magically appeared in fridge after departure of relatives. Realize you still have to bake the stuff, adding another half hour.

Entertain starving dinner guests.

Clean husband's bread dishes off table. Set.

Decide to eat green beans raw.

Cook and drain Pike Place pasta, serve.

Total time elapsed: 4 hours.

Portrait Photography by K

I was taking some photos and K wanted to use the camera, too. The SLR (Rebel XT) is still a little hard for her to hold.

Swinging R

Produce

How to eat a pea:
Yesterday in the garden Alex and Katherine started picking and eating sweet peas. Alex got one, plucked the seeds out, and dumped the pod on the ground. Unable to stand such waste of our hard labor, I offered to share with him, and started handing him seeds. But he didn't want them. Next he took a pea, took out the seeds, dumped them on the ground, and ate the shell. He ate his next pea like a corncob, nibbling off the shell to expose the seeds in the middle. I put a stop to his pea-picking.

We got an enormous bag of produce from our CSA today. I will have to cook something with eggplant for the first time in my life, and we got the most enormous onion I have ever seen. It weighed a whole pound and a half by itself. More squash and cucumbers, good thing I've learned how to make zucchini bread.

Also bought flowers at the farmer's market today. Katherine spent the next half hour (seems like) wondering why I don't buy flowers more often, wondering why she's never seen the vase (because I don't have flowers), wondering why I don't pick flowers from the yard (never get around to it).

Climbing the walls

Katherine has started climbing the walls--literally. She scoots up the doorframe, arms and legs splayed, toes curled around the molding. The top of the fridge is no longer safe, although if she tries to grab anything I fear she may come crashing down. Alex runs underneath, because she tells him to go through the tunnel, and I bite my lip and hope she doesn't fall and break his neck. Rebecca has started grabbing her feet, rolling to one side (she gets pretty astonished when she flips over), and batting at toys held over her head, which is all pretty athletic for a 4 month old. I have restrained myself from climbing the walls. So we're all good.

We donated a box of lettuce to the food bank today--a humble offering so organic that an earwig dropped onto the desk when I handed it over. Hope someone appreciates it, or thinks it's worth the astonishing $30 at which the secretary valued my contribution.

Also walked to the polling place today to vote in the primary--doing my civic duty even if I have no clue who I like. Mostly I voted for incumbents I recognized from radio interviews, but I did my duty. Everybody warns that voting in the primary is even more important now that we've gone to this crazy top two system, but I didn't see many other citizens out. We had the room to ourselves and a whole host of election workers, one of whom couldn't wait to get her hands on the baby while I voted. "It's impossible not to kiss a baby you're holding," she tells a fellow retiree as she covers Becca's head with kisses, and was disappointed that I finished so fast. (I skipped the potential judges.) Katherine rubbed a raw spot on her foot on the way back. Note to self: Crocs need socks.

Today was my day for trying things. We are still receiving produce from a CSA, and have all sorts of remnants in the fridge even though I cleaned out the wilted dill and slimy cucumbers yesterday. So I made vinegar cucumber slices with fennel (starting from Alice Waters' vegetable book but without the shallots), and zucchini bread to inaugurate the rubber bear mold our dear friend from Germany gave us several years ago. Rebecca got tired of the swing, the saucer, and the floor, so I bundled her to my chest in the Moby swing, and had to toast nuts and chop vegetables at arms length. The zucchini bread was pretty good--too bad the kids lost their chance to taste it when they refused to finish cleaning their room. Meanwhile, the kids got to decorate My Little Ponies with glitter glue and paint pens that Lar brought home from work only 6 months ago. (Katherine saw them on top of the fridge.) I admired both of them, eluding Katherine's demands to confirm that hers was prettier.

Was working on my article as well. Katherine asked me at one point when I'm going to retire. I looked around my house and said "Retire? How?"

In honor of Alexander...

...Who named his birthday cake the Chocolate Moose Goose Kemperoos cake.

Big Brother

Meet Rebecca

Meet Rebecca.