Life Lately

Easter. Has it really come and gone already? Looking out the window it seems impossible (just leave us alone already, winter) but the gallon-sized Ziploc bags in my pantry filled to overflowing with jellybeans, chocolate rabbits, and pastel colors suggest otherwise. While we had a nice Easter, it also just didn't seem very Easter-y. I'd feel like we should have a do-over if I wasn't already burned out on holidays by this time of year. Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year's to Valentine's Day to Birthday Week to Easter is quite enough for me by now, and I'm happy to sit back and basically coast again until fall. Just yesterday Brooklyn asked me, "Which holiday comes next, Mommy?" and I thought for a moment before happily replying, "Mother's Day." I'll take it.

As for Easter itself this year? Less than two weeks ago and I don't have much to report. We dressed up, went to church, the Easter Bunny hid their baskets, Uncle Tyler hid a bunch of eggs, the kids gorged on candy and I bought tulips just to make it feel like the slightest bit of spring. Hahaha.

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Swimming lessons have commenced and you are looking at three little fish. With "Do we have swimming today?" being asked on the daily around our house, it's become the most highly-anticipated activity in our week. They've taken to the water with ease and you should have seen Nolan's enthusiasm for jumping into - and under - the water this week. (Unfortunately his attitude of no fear applies to water, as well. Great.) Just a few weeks in and Caden and Brooklyn have already progressed to using goggles (earned only by keeping their faces in the water to the count of "five bananas"). I may be projecting here, but maybe swim team will become our sport of choice? I'm all in just for the joy of sitting in the 92-degree heated pool area.

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We're into all things super heroes lately. We being primarily Caden, Brooklyn most of the time, and Nolan just because whatever his big brother and sister do must be cool. Batman, Batgirl, and Robin are the favorites (and the Halloween costumes for the year - or so they've told me and given the obsession lasts all the way to October) and Caden is rarely seen without his blanket cape.

"Mommy," he asked yesterday, sitting pensively on the couch, "Who is your favorite super hero? Batman or Batgirl or Superman or Elsa or Iron Man?" After further questioning, I figured out that Elsa is a super hero because she has a CAPE attached to her dress. Duh. 

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Have I mentioned the part where it's still basically winter here and everything is terrible? It's all anyone talks about lately. We're going on our sixth month of snow and cold and everyone is over. it. all. "Do you think it will ever warm up?" "Some winter, huh?" "Can you believe this winter?" " It's been a long winter" and "UGGGGHHHHH" (from the parents) have all become standard greetings around here.

Keeping the kids occupied, particularly Nolan, is my main challenge lately. At the beginning of the cold, I was eager for the chance to hunker down and be cozy. Let's snuggle up with blankets! And read books! And watch movies! And drink hot chocolate! And play with Plah Doh and build block towers and create art and do all the indoor things! Six months later and I'm burned out, I have no new ideas, we've gone to all the indoor play areas one billionty times and the TV has come to the rescue with more and more frequency. We. just. need. to. be. outside.

Don't let the photos above fool you. The train track and the Play Doh didn't keep that kid occupied more than a hot minute before he was over it and onto other things. I'm sick of looking at my house, I'm sick of toys strewn everywhere because the kids are bored to distraction, and I'm sick of trying to come up with new things to do. No one should have to parent three kids under the age of five through six months of snow and cold. This rant brought to you by: the longest winter EVER.

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In other news, we're on day 11 of Whole 30. So far so good. I guess. I still miss cream, sugar, pasta, rice, ice cream, and most other dairy products. Anyone who tells you otherwise or says "You won't even miss ______!" is a lying liar. I do miss those things. We have actually discovered some truly tasty recipes (such as the chicken fajita bowls pictured above) and I'm sure some of the recipes and changes will stick with us. But I can't wait for day 31 when real cream and sugar is going straight back into my coffee. Dairy-free creamers taste like lies and just aren't the same.

One nice change for me is a significant change in the amount of bloating in my body. As in little-to-none. I didn't even know I was bloated before, I just thought that was how my stomach looked after having three kids. My stomach area feels completely different now, in the best of ways. I was surprised at how soon I noticed that change, too, really only five days in. Otherwise I've felt mostly the same, thankfully avoiding the raging sugar-withdrawal symptoms that others warned me about. 

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Nolan calls buttons "butts". It's as hilarious as it sounds. "I push the butt!" "My turn to push the butt!" "My butt!" "I want to push the butt!" "Push this butt!" Etc. Insert all the laugh-cry emojis here.

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All these two want is to play together lately. All the imaginative play. Give them a couple of dinosaurs, Barbie dolls, or Moana figures and they're all set. Or sit back and watch the epic tales that ensue as they send their dinosaurs off on a spaceship where it meets up with an airplane, and the pilot loads every figure in existence in our house from Olaf to farm animals to all the Little People onto the plane, and then Elsa flies to the rescue (because she can fly with that cape, obviously) because they all get stuck in outer space, and afterwards they fly home to eat candy and go to bed because it's clearly time for nigh-night after such an exhausting day.

The Same Two Feet of Space (National Siblings Day 2018)

I always laughed last summer as I watched how my three kids approached others to play at the park.

“Hi,” one of my then three-year old twins would say, “What’s your name?”

The kid would respond with their name, before asking back, “What’s your name?”

Without missing a beat, the twin would respond with, “We’re Caden and Brooklyn and Nolan.”

Every time. They didn’t really take a break between the names, or make a distinction between the three of them. Just Caden-and-Brooklyn-and-Nolan like it was one word, all in the same breath.

I love that they think like that. That they have this bond together. Surely asking for one of their names is asking for all of their names, right? It would be simply unthinkable not to.

I’m used to having them all around me all the time. Having twins followed pretty quickly by a third, I had full arms right from the very start. Our house is rarely quiet as they run and chatter and fight and scream and sing. Usually at least one is underfoot while the other two are nearby. I’ve asked, “Why are we all occupying the same two-foot space when we live in a 2000-square foot house?” too many times to count, as I sit with one in my lap, another climbs up my back, and a third hovers an inch from my face.

Photo credit Prall Photography.

Read the rest over at the Twin Cities Moms Blog!

The Feminist Housewife

It can be hard to reconcile my outward image with my inner turmoil these days. I sigh and cry out, weeping and gnashing my teeth as I read the news. My heart is heavy over it all. Everything from the lack of paid family leave to the fact that climate change is an actual thing.  The explicit racism that seems to be taking over. The recent rash of natural disasters, the failure of our justice system, and the lack of laws for reasonable gun control. And at the head of it, most frustrating of all, that man in the White House (He Who Shall Not Be Named).

I cheer on our female leaders, soak up their theology, buy their books, laugh at the late-night shows, subscribe to the New York Times. I want to raise my young kids to know of the injustice in the world, to work for change, to talk and ask questions and be anything they want to be. I write and I read and I discuss and I work to understand the things I don't.

And I’m a housewife.

It may be a phrase reminiscent of the ’50s, but it’s true. Call it what you will: homemaker (yeesh, even more of a relic), stay-at-home mom, SAHM for us millennials. I cook, clean, fold laundry, match socks, and put away toys. I even enjoy some of these things. (Gasp!) I bake my own bread, cloth diaper those little bottoms, and host neighborhood playdates.

There’s a tension inside of me lately. If you peek in from the outside, everything about my life screams basic stay-at-home mom. One income, a house in the suburbs, three kids, a minivan; a woman who spends her days at playdates, running errands, cleaning house, and with our neighbors. Surrounded by people who, due to circumstance, mostly live and look just like us. This stands in stark contrast to my inner feminist, the one who devours the news and analyzes it each night with my husband or over (local, craft) beers on the weekend with my cousin.

Though maybe not such a stark contrast. I am the same person, both feminist and housewife, after all. These things are not mutually exclusive. They only seem like opposing views because society tends to box us in that way. As though I can’t be a feminist just because I am also a housewife.

My beer-loving cousin is a teacher—middle school social studies— and politically active. He's white, straight, and male. He told me that for the first time in his 15-year teaching career he let his students know who he was voting for before the last presidential election. As a teacher in a large metro area, his classes are a mixed bag of backgrounds and socioeconomic status. Many are Somali immigrants, mostly Muslim, possibly illegal. It was unthinkable to him that his students could think for a second that he supported a man who ran on a platform of kicking their families out of the country. Just because of who my cousin is, what he looks like, what could possibly be wrongly perceived from the outside.

So much grates on me for the very same reason. White, middle class, privileged. It feels that so much of me could be perceived one way when in fact I feel exactly the opposite.

If you dig a little deeper, you’ll find hints of rebellion in me. I’ve never owned an iron, for one. (Such a rebel.) Neither the kids nor I possess any clothing that requires ironing. Tyson works a flexible schedule from home, mostly in sweatpants, no traditional suit-and-tie 9-5 job here. (And the dry cleaner takes over those pesky ironing duties the few times a year he does wear a dress shirt.) While I handle most of the child and household-related tasks due to the fact that I do stay home, he is quick to take over everything from dishes to diaper duty on the evenings and weekends. This summer we attended our local Pride festival, joining in the fun of the family-friendly area, where my children played games and colored pictures and didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary besides the fact that everyone was wearing so many bright colors. My e-reader is filled with book titles that educate with humor or scream for change (or both): Jesus Feminist, Of Mess and Moxie, Hillbilly Elegy, The Unwinding, Love Warrior, Just Mercy.

I’m an iced-coffee drinking, JCrew wearing, Target shopping, fall-loving basic girl who also has a heart that screams for change. Who has wild thoughts in her head of running for office (I would hate it), writing a book (maybe), and taking her kids to protest marches (much more plausible).

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I don’t know what to do with this tension, except sit in it. The best I can do right now is educate myself, to read about my own privilege and the abounding injustice in this world, raise my kids, and work on living a life based on love and understanding. I continue to work on teaching and practicing empathy, compassion, discernment. Each afternoon, snack time finds me at the kitchen table with all three kids, reading aloud from our storybook Bible, answering their questions and talking it through, about the radical Savior who stood up to the leaders, sat with the sinners, and came along in love just in time to rescue us all.

I cringe sometimes, thinking how we must look from the outside, this neat and tidy “perfect” little family in our cheerful blue suburban home. I often feel like anything but. Still, my traditional stay-at-home mom life doesn’t confine me to one neat little box. I don’t want to be boxed in, but turning around and boxing up someone else is just as bad. And I am so guilty of that this time around. Writing off anyone who checked a different box on that ballot as "the other". I am working so hard to fix that.

In the end, this life as a housewife — the cooking and the cleaning and the laundry — really is the backbeat of our lives. Tyson and I show our children how our household runs, with love and respect and cooperation. There is an importance to these things, mundane though they may be. They keep our household running, functioning, ensuring that we are clothed and fed and happy so that we can go out and change the world. Or just get to preschool on time.

Besides, my inner rebel may be emerging a bit, if you happen to see me in that preschool drop-off line. I recently added purple streaks to my hair and a “Nasty Woman” pin to the diaper bag. Take that, stereotypes.

Seduced by the Mom Jeans

"When high-waist jeans came back into style, my first thought was, “No freaking way.” I’ve seen the photos of my mom and her sisters from the early ‘90’s. The tucked-in shirts, the unflattering behinds, the zippers that went on for days. No wonder my mom eyed the one-inch long zippers of my high school days with suspicion.

I’m comfortable with a mid-rise. I don’t care to go back to the low-rise, micro-zippers from my high school and college days, but a mid-rise? Yes, please. They hold in my not-quite-so-tight tummy and rest comfortably above my c-section scar. Cropped shirts are apparently back, too, and with my mid-rise jeans, well, I can hold my own in some of those cropped styles. No problem. See how fashion-forward I am?

Never a high-rise though. The horror. I swore them off on principle.

I’m sure you know how this story ends: I was seduced by the mom jeans.

Read more over on the Twin Cities Moms Blog!

Read, Watched, Listened

I love reading just about everything (okay, you won't see any mystery or sci-fi picks on here), watching things, especially if they make me think but especially if they can make me laugh, and wholeheartedly embrace the podcast. I also enjoy hearing about what other people are reading, watching, and listening. Here's my two cents worth.

READ

George and Lizzie
I heard lots of people hyping this novel up, but I never really got into it. I found George and Lizzie's entire relationship to be a little weird, and there was a whole sex thing from Lizzie's past that I found mostly strange and never quite fleshed out for me. Overall, the book was about marriage and how our past shapes what we think marriage and love should be. Which sounds great and super interesting but it never quite got there for me. Really, the problem was that I didn't care all that much about George or Lizzie to really get into it. The characters had so much potential, and it all fell flat. I was kind of disappointed.

Everything I Never Told You
After Little Fires Everywhere, I immediately hopped on the waiting list for this one. Celeste Ng really shines with creating character portraits -- this one about a Chinese American (well, the father is Chinese, the mother American) in the 1970s. I found the exploration of what it means to be in a mixed family, especially for the children, to be fascinating. It was also an interesting exploration of family overall, as it detailed out the relationships between mother and daughters, father and son, sisters and brother throughout the course of the book.

An American Marriage
I might be broken inside, because I did not have the overwhelmingly positive response to this book that everyone else seems to have. I found most of the characters to be downright dislikable, the writing took a turn in the middle that didn't pay off for me, and, to be perfectly honest, I wonder if I just couldn't relate to the characters in the book because of their blackness. While I won't spoil anything of the plot, I didn't connect to either Roy or Celestial in the story. The characters had so much going for them, and I love me a good flawed character, but these flawed characters had no redeeming qualities for me. I just didn't understand them. However I couldn't stop thinking about this book for a solid week after I finished, so maybe I'm not giving it the credit it deserves.

The Locals
I found this novel and the writing to be fascinating. It's admittedly depressing - every single person in the just-barely-post 9/11 town of Howland, Massachusettes basically hates their lives - but all in such different, interesting ways. The author, Jonathan Dee, does an amazing job weaving their lives together and giving us background details on so many different people. It wasn't a happy read, but it was certainly a fascinating one.

Glory in the Ordinary
I was a bit wary of this book before I opened it. Even as a stay-at-home mom, I'm a bit skeptical of anything that smacks of "staying home is the only acceptable way to be a Christian woman", but I am so pleased to report that this book was not that. I really give credit to the author, Courtney Reissig, for encouraging all moms in their own work, whether of the stay-at-home or working mom variety. In the end she encourages all women in their work of the home - we all have a home to take care of at the end of the day regardless of any outside or paid work we do - and picking up those toys, cooking those dinners, and washing those dishes yet again matter to every one of our families. She also gave examples of a variety of moms: a part-time working mom, a full-time working mom, and a stay at home mom, which again I really appreciated from a book I initially thought might only sing the virtues of always-in-the-home mothers. I give Courtney full credit for recognizing the realities and complexities of our modern families and encouraging all of us in what seems to be our never-ending work of the home.

Beartown
So. Freaking. Good. A group of friends recommended this one and I finally bought it and was not disappointed. Literally one of my new favorite books. Ever. It's a novel about hockey that's not really about the hockey. (It also doesn't hurt that my hometown of White Bear Lake is a bit fanatical about hockey and has our very own team of "da Bears".) I loved every single thing about this book. I swear Fredrick Backman is secretly a psychiatrist; he captured the emotions and deep truths behind everyone in the book from 15-year old girls to the working mom to the old hockey coach. I can't recommend this one enough. I am a serial re-reader, and I guarantee I will be coming back to this one again and again. (And one note, I found the plot to be strangely similar to Jodi Picoult's The Tenth Circle. They're very different books overall, mostly because Picoult's version is part graphic novel, but the main plot point - same. Pretty much exactly.)

WATCHED

Queer Eye
I am 100% here for this reboot. The Fab Five are adorable, lovable, and absolutely kill it every time. I also appreciate the candor and honesty from both the Five and the men they makeover. While I haven't finished the season, they've talked about homosexuality in the church, the tension between black Americans and the police, and sexism in really beautiful, insightful (if not always deep - each episode is only around 40 minutes) ways. I appreciate how they educate without judging, and everyone comes to a greater understanding of one another at the end of each episode. I literally finish watching every one with a smile on my face.

My Next Guest Needs No Introduction
Such an interesting show. Okay, so far I've only watched the Obama one but it was so. good. I love how Letterman has defined a new version of the talk show: just a stage, himself, and his guest. It's honest, truthful, and funny. I'm also 100% here for Letterman's facial hair. Also, I just discovered that his most recent guest was Malala Yousafzai and OMG I need to go watch right freaking now.

LISTENED

The Popcast
Two-thirds of the way through March and we're still living through the 2017-2018 Winter That Will Never End. I think I'm looking for sunshine, joy, and happiness wherever I can find it these days to compensate for our dreary weather and The Popcast is all of that. Not only do I feel more informed on all things pop culture, (which I was lacking in knowledge of even before becoming a mom) but Knox and Jamie are just a joy to listen to. They're lighthearted, funny, and don't take themselves too seriously. It's a delightful escape.

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