kefir krazy

I keep waiting for this new...tritional... thing... of mine to blow over, but I keep coming back for more. Bryan remains supportive but hesitant to jump into my new cult, as we affectionately call it, but he allowed me to drag him and the kids to Hendricks Farm to show them real food (moo) and start brainwashing them early. Cause Mommy has PLANS now. With a capital A for Agenda. I've never had an agenda before, not one that wasn't all about me anyway. I care about others now, and feeding them well so they will be pleasant to spend time with. Oh wait, I guess it's still about me. 

jamie oliver wants to nourish america. and I want to help.

I'm so moved by this video in my current state of nutritional zeal. It coincided nicely with Hamish's parent-teacher-child conference this morning, where I got the opportunity to bring it up with his teacher Miss H., who feels the same way about whole wheat Pop-Tarts as I do. I was so super-psyched that she is on the same page with this business, I almost high-fived Bryan right there.

Miss H. is all for a change in what the kids are being offered for snack and brought up another relevant point, that the kids are being fed snacks all the gosh darn day, in addition to their three meals, and that some parents bring in two trays of birthday cupcakes, one for their child's classroom and another for their kid's aftercare session.

LK day

We had a playdate with a pair of twins and their mom, new friends from Stella's class. The KPs, I call the twins, as those are their initials. The KP's mom is a nurse. That's her, above. Her name is AC. Her initials stand for a Russian literary heroine. Her dad was into that sort of stuff. AC works the graveyard shift at the hospital on weekends. She has two older boys as well. That's four kids if you're counting at home. And the career. And she is so upbeat. This put me to shame when I first met her. A little. For most of my mom career, I've been getting my ass kicked with just two measly kids. I've been broigus. I've kvetched. Vented. Thrown tantrums. Curled up on my bedroom floor. Not every day mind you. But on and off for the past six years. Kind of like living with PTSD.

an unexpected gift

I hugged my mother the other night. 

You might not think this is a big deal or worth blogging about. But. If you know me, or more to the point if you know my mother you know she is a hard woman to hug, and it’s been years since we’ve embraced. For one thing, I usually hate my mother. She is a powerful force in my life, though not in the way she might like to be. My relationship with her sends me back to my psycho-spiritual tool box over and over, yearning to find a way to forgive us both and be kind-ish. 

But hug-wise, honestly, it’s the Vaseline. Have I mentioned this before? My mom has been moisturizing with petroleum jelly for as long as I can remember. Really it’s more like shellack. Or lube. And lube and my mother in the same sentence? Egads. If you're like me, you don't want to know when it comes to your parents’ sex life, as in, Please Lord let me have been an immaculate conception. The white-knuckled prayer. 

Dear Heidi,

Dear Heidi Montag,

I feel a little weird writing you like this. I just wanted to talk. We don't know each other obviously. I'm a suburban mom. Two kids, a house, a mini-van, a dead cat buried in the backyard. The whole enchilada.

day of service

I'm glad I finally get that Martin Luther King Day is a day of service.

Bryan and I were happy to head to a local school and help in whatever ways we could and bring the kids along to teach them that helping people in need is not only important, but it feels good too. The kids were excited to write their names on name tags they got to keep forever and to get T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of Martin Luther King and Barack Obama even though Stella refused to wear hers.

friends friends friends

Last year one of Hamish's favorite friends moved all the way to Brazil.

This year, one of his new favorite friends is moving to another state a thousand miles away. On Friday. I'm hoping this doesn't turn into a sick and twisted annual tradition. The out-of-state-bound friend, her mom, Alicia Smith is a professional photographer, with gear and talent to show for it. We thought she'd brought along an overnight bag to this afternoon's playdate. (Of course we would have made up the guest room for her if she'd wanted.) A mini suitcase on wheels it looked like, just right for the overhead bin on an airplane. But no. It was her camera.

wolf-boy

I can’t believe it’s 2010, it’s such a futuristic date.

The revelation flower grown from the seed of this month’s despair is (drumroll please)... I belittle my suffering. You knew? Well I didn't realize. And, and if I can change just that one little thing, forget about trying to actually be happy, if I can just respect my pain instead of drop-kicking it to hell, then I can actually find some relief. And when I’m particularly depressed and thinking extra mean thoughts about myself, a little relief goes a long ass way.

strike a pose

Wanting to jump-start my flailing yoga practice in the name of all things spinal, sinewy and mental, I did find the time between loafing and resting to purchase a monthly pass to the yoga joint where my fave teacher works these days, and it was good to have a laugh again while touching my toes and minding my breath.

Daniel as you know is also my friend and wouldn't you know it, he utilizes this service called couchsurfing.org where you post a picture of your sofa (or guest room) and advertise it as a crash pad for travelers. And of course you get to crash on others' couches too. A pay-it-forward type dealio. In my current incarnation as a suburban mom, I had no idea these things even existed. So up until today I think, a young Italian gent was staying on Daniel's sofa. Cool.

the jew who stole christmas

So Hanukah is done.

social anxiety

This is what happens when you leave Stella unattended. It almost made the holiday card. Almost.

heroine

Mary Karr. I didn't read her first two memoirs when they came out.

I ❤ NEW YORK

Dinner in Manhattan Saturday night, a little planned spontaneity with Kristi Bennett who found the cyber-me, what, last year? And has supported this blog for months now with some seriously thoughtful comments that reassure me these hundreds of thousands of words are not for nothing. 

Smitten

At the library this afternoon the kids and I kept it together pretty well. Until it was time to tell Stella it was time to go. "Nooooo!!!" she shrieked, eyeballs glazed purple from all the computer time she'd logged during our visit. One of my favorite things about the library is that books are secondary to computer games and DVDs.

Not.

yes, actually I would like a medal

Hola from flu-la-palooza 2009. Hamish kicked off the festivities this year by getting a flu-mist vaccine, free of charge through his school. He fell ill the following evening, has missed three days of school and went to bed on his own this evening at six. He can currently be heard whining in his sleep through a tropical fog brought to you by his humidifier. Hamish's sister Stella has hacked and coughed her way through the week, as she loves to copy her big brother. She missed one day of school and awoke at four the other morning to yak her guts out all over her bed, and thank you CJ (Ceiling Jesus), she managed to hurl some chunks into the toilet as well.

elise in lumbar-land

My three-year odyssey of back pain has led me finally to a chiropractor's office, a place I never thought I'd enter after reading Dr. Sarno’s books which explained my pain to be psychosomatic and nothing that a firm self-talking-to couldn't fix. And it worked. For a while. But now the yoga has brought my pain into sharp relief. There are certain poses and transitions between poses that just hurt my back in a way that I can't abide any longer.

mind diet

This isn't my son's latest collection of crap but it is recent-ish. The current pile of boogers is drying out nicely atop his yellow bookshelves. Hopefully I will share its glory with you soon.

biting the hook

It turns out that screaming at children is bad for them, and for us, but a lot of us are doing it.

don't come in, mommy

Stella has a new habit. Is there any nutritional value in pencil erasers? Because there's nothing my daughter loves more than sneaking a couple pencils into her bedroom and chewing the tops off of them. "Don't come in Mommy," she says, which in our house can mean nothing but trouble.

shenpa

Whenever life is running smoothly and by smoothly I mean that I'm not throwing hissy hysterical tantrums when the kids don't follow my plans (obey my orders, however you want to put it), and life is still doing its crazy life dance but I'm centered and flowing and annoyingly upbeat, but then maybe because of or in spite of my pond-calmness, Hamish and Stella magically transform into doe-eyed vegetable eating cooperative huggy bears, which is good, obviously, but. Whenever I'm feeling confident, in control and thankful for all the abundance I am receiving a funny thing happens. I can't think of a thing to write about. Because, and I just realized this today, ding-ding! I've been working under the auspices that I have to bleed all over my keyboard in order to produce a piece of writing worth your time, which means mining my most odious characteristics and embarrassing foibles, since the human condition is a messy affair and I want to document it in all its gelatinous glory. To, you know, bring us closer together. But then I was all up in my own grill like, is that true? And I answered, no, Elise, it's ridiculous. And I was all, well no wonder I've been battling myself on the issue of writing, beating myself into, well, an emotional bloody pulp, wearing myself out over it.