Life Lately

I made a Dutch baby for breakfast this weekend. Two out of three kids tried bites and then scrambled for cereal instead. (The remaining child added copious amounts of powdered sugar for it to be deemed edible.) We played board games and ate Thai food and watched TV under soft blankets. We played Wordle. The kids went from laughing together to fighting in 3.2 seconds flat. Yesterday we went to the nearby nature center and rejoiced in the warmth of temperatures over 32-degrees. The sun warmed our cheeks and the kids discarded their jackets and we remembered what it was like to enjoy the outdoors when the wind doesn’t take our breath away.

I listened to The Daily this morning and heard a Ukrainian woman talk about how it was spring there, too, how the sun was out and the birds were singing (Did I mention the birds who sang us to the bus stop this morning?) and she just wanted to enjoy spring and her peaceful life. I felt the parallels in my bones, both of us trying to rejoice in the promise of spring but only one of us consumed by the reality of war in our streets. That we’re different only by virtue of birth, nothing more.

I half-laugh at the warning at the beginning of The Daily episode, “This episode contains strong language.” As if there is any other kind of language for war.

After two years of pandemic, after George Floyd, after January 6th, after Afghanistan, you’d think we’d have learned to live with tragedy. It feels impossible, for the umpteenth time in the past however many years, to hold all of these tensions.

I bought iced coffee this morning on my way to pick up my groceries. I might balk at the increase in prices and yet I can still afford to fill my van with food to feed my family and pay a stupid amount of money for drive-through coffee. Driving home in safety is a given.

And I drove home, the sun shining down bright on another warm, hopeful spring-is-coming sort of day. I try to hold the parallels in my brain. I fling prayers that mostly resemble Anne Lamott’s Help, Thanks, Wow at the sky because I don’t know what else to do. Don’t know how else to hold this tension and bear it.

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Thing I’m Doing

I hate when my “thing” is all “throw money at a problem” and yet that’s really all I have the ability to do. NPR has a roundup of resources that are trustworthy and on the ground in Ukraine should you feel so moved and able to donate.

The other thing I’m doing is holding space for the stories. I can stand in one teeny-tiny, baby iota measure of solidarity with Ukraine by listening to their stories. I have again found The Daily to be a good resource for this.

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Around the Internet

• “If you're tempted to post things like: Russia is doing this because Americans use too many pronouns! At least Putin isn't woke! How will the murder of Ukrainian civilians affect gas prices? Stop. Go outside for a walk. Call a loved one. Cuddle a pet. Do anything real and good and tangible while counting your blessings that you will very likely never know the fear and pain of having your country invaded by a warmongering dictator.”

• “It sounds trite. It’s not enough. We do it anyway.”

• Maybe the best thing I’ve ever read.

• What with attending Iowa State University and marrying a guy from Iowa, I consider myself an honorary Iowan. This article about Casey’s gas station is everything.

• My friend Molly (Who happens to be an Iowan—Molly do you love Casey’s?) is going through her old journals on her blog and it is a DELIGHT. Where my other millennial women at who based their entire afternoons around AIM chats?

• I played The Sims again for the first time in over a decade during 2020 as a little pandemic treat and honestly, this article, about The Sims and food, seems like niche content created just for me.

• I adored this essay on marriage and honestly could have written this paragraph: “When Bill sneezes, no matter how far away he is, it’s like a blast from an air horn aimed at your face…Every sneeze is an emergency. I don’t think I’ve ever not said “Jesus Christ” out loud upon hearing one.” Now every time Tyson sneezes I say, “Jesus!” (which is my standard response) followed by a muttered, “Always an emergency.”

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Eating

• This was the recipe I used for the Dutch baby. Maybe your kids will appreciate it more than mine.

• I’m planning to make patty melts this weekend and already looking forward to it. I use this recipe and it is a meaty, cheesy, umami perfection.

• I had a horrible cold last week which left me with a slight sore throat so I started making vanilla malts with my immersion blender. I used roughly 1 cup milk + 4 generous scoops vanilla ice cream + 4-5 Tbsp. malt powder + a teeny dash of vanilla and it was DELICIOUS. Tyson prefers chocolate so I add 1 Tbsp. cocoa powder for him.

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Fun Things

• The kids received this version of Ticket to Ride for Christmas. We fell in love with it so I gave what Caden calls “the parent version” to Tyson for Valentine’s Day. I know we’re late to the game (Pun not intended. Ha!) but everyone is right: it’s the best. Cue all of the expansion packs in our future.

• I already raved about this fleece-lined jumpsuit on Instagram, but here it is again. I promise you need this in your life.

• We hit up both the Mall of America and Great Wolf Lodge last week to celebrate the kids’ birthdays and it felt like one of the most “normal” things we’ve done in a very long time. Looking for more normal in the very near future.

Life Lately

Even though I thought we were done with the parental-preference phase of things (full of toddler-isms such as “Daddy do!” No! Only Mommy!”), the kids have been back to a big mommy-only phase. They want me to help them with everything from brushing their teeth (me, only me) to playing with them to doing everything involved with their food. It’s not quite so rigid as maybe when they were two. Tyson can put them to bed, for example, and it’s not (usually) the end of the world. They no longer turn into screaming, sobbing puddles on the floor due to the presence of one parent instead of another. Still: the kids want mommy and mommy only. I’m sure this is somehow related to the past two years of *gestures* everything, but heck if I can figure it out.
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It was a cold month here in Minnesota. That sentence might sound redundant, so maybe what I should say is that it was a particularly cold month. We had more subzero January days than not, more days where the windchill had a negative sign in front of it than a positive one. I rather like the cozy months, but even I will admit it can get wearing after a while, when the kids can’t even be outside for recess. Instead of dwelling on the cold, I’ll list the things that saved our sanity this month, which include Wordle, Bluey, hot chocolate, wearing sweatsuits on repeat, family games, and making all the soups, stews and pastas. (Seriously, whoever decided that January was a great month to market You Should Begin All the Diets did not live in Minnesota.)
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I learned, again, that if we just sit down and talk to the kids, they’re…really good. We had a Family Meeting over the weekend to remind them of our morning rules: 1. No coming out of your room until 6:30 and 2. Play quietly until Mommy and Daddy are out of bed. Being blessed with Morning Kids™ who are frequently awake before 6:00, we’d fallen into a cycle where Tyson and I were woken up by what sounded like an entire Marvel movie breaking out in the hallway or kids barging in with a barrage of questions in our still-dark room. Though the final straw was Nolan’s Saturday morning 4:45 call for help because he “couldn’t reach” his water bottle and he “didn’t want to get up,” after which neither Tyson nor I fell back asleep. But after a single family meeting Saturday night to discuss, we’ve had two perfect back-to-back mornings (fingers crossed, throws salt over shoulder, steps over all sidewalk cracks, makes sign of the cross) which leaves me wondering why we didn’t just talk to them sooner.
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If there are any other words to sum up the month for parents, it seems to be these lyrics from Encanto: “...see if she can handle every family burden/Watch as she buckles and bends but never breaks/No mistakes just/Pressure like a grip, grip, grip and it won’t let go, woah/Pressure like a tick, tick, tick ‘til it’s ready to blow/…Who I am if I don’t have what it takes?/No mistakes/Just pressure.” And not just because those lyrics are living on repeat in all of our brains right now. (Love you, LMM, but could you make some songs that just aren’t quite as catchy?) Still, we made it through January. I think I spy hope ahead, in the form of warmer temperatures, the end of distance learning (for those who were back in that hellscape), and quieter mornings.

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Thing I’m Doing

Inspired by last Tuesday’s outside of politics conversation on Pantsuit Politics, I thought I’d share how I’m involved at the kid's’ school. Every Thursday afternoon, I volunteer in the workroom for about 2-4 hours where I run copies, put together projects (soooo many Kindergarten projects), and other classroom organization-type things for whoever needs it. I don’t know why I don’t talk about it much—I did this when Caden and Brooklyn started Kindergarten (though in-school volunteers were on pause for most of the pandemic)—but it’s a pretty big anchor in my week. I’ve also helped in the cafeteria and am signed up to staff the book fair in a few weeks. It’s a small thing for me to do yet the gratitude from the staff is enormous.

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Around the Internet

• I am officially deceased after reading A Note of Reassurance From Your School District Regarding Our Updated Omicron Policies

• House shoes now and forever. (Pssst….my forever favorites are Mahabis.)

• “It’s a loop I and other parents have been stuck in for almost two years, willing ourselves to keep it together just a little bit longer, thinking this time will be the last time, that is, until the next time.”

• On schedules, routines, and TikTok.

• Speaking of TikTok, the Gardiner Brothers have a GIFT.

• “Pikler argued that babies, like seeds growing into plants, did not need any teaching to develop as nature intended; they would learn to walk, speak, sleep, self-soothe, and interact perfectly, if only we would get out of their way.”

• “I see the end of these cozy cuddles on the couch and the days when I am the social center for my kids. I hear the refrain of all those who have gone before me—those who remind me to enjoy these days because they go so fast, and here’s the thing: I’m trying to.”

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Eating

With those subzero temps, I’ve been making alllllllllll the comfort foods:

• I’ve made this soup three times in the past two months. I recommend adding an extra bell pepper and cooking the tortellini separately and adding it as needed so it doesn’t get mushy.

• These red curried lentils but I used an entire can of full-fat (urgh, please don’t use the “light” stuff) coconut milk. I kept an eye on it as it simmered and added more coconut milk as needed to keep it more soup-y.

• I’ve tried a few Swedish meatball recipes before but this one is my favorite. It comes together pretty fast when you buy the frozen Swedish meatballs from Target. Like IKEA…but better.

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Fun Things

• Speaking of cozy, my birthday gift to myself was a new sweatsuit. Enter this sweatshirt and these sweatpants.

• After twelve too many splashes and grease stains, this apron is now saving my clothes.

• These bins now live in my pantry to organize snacks and my life feels (almost) complete.

• Starting a new hashtag on Instagram. Would love to see you join in!

Life Lately

My brain is broken.

At least I thought I was broken but then I read this and felt better. Which actually means I am broken but I’m not the only one. I shared a snippet of that article in my Instagram stories and received a half-dozen messages from friends re-iterating the same thing: “My brain is broken, too.” “I feel this on a deep level.” “This is everything.” And lots of “100” emoji. I mean, I guess that’s comforting.

I mix up words that sound sort of similar but totally aren’t (Like “bacon” for “band-aid”. I…don’t know.) and have a hard time focusing on…anything. I also have no appetite which feels like my body has forgotten even how to eat and have become one of those annoying people who say things like, “I forgot to eat lunch.” And then makes a smoothie as if that’s a replacement for solid food that you chew.

I thought my brain would be better once the kids were in school but it’s not. In fact, it feels worse. It’s actually probably the same as before, it’s just that I have the time and space to try to focus now which only shows me how much I can’t. My brain is so used to interruptions it can’t handle long stretches of undisturbed time. Please hear me when I say that I am SO GLAD the kids are back in school. And also my brain forgot what it’s supposed to do when it has longer than 2.5 minutes to concentrate on any given task.

Maybe it’s like that saying around postpartum bodies, where it takes nine months for your body to stretch and grow a human so you need to give yourself (at least) nine months to get back to some sort of normalcy? We’ve been in this pandemic for nearly a year, so it stands to reason that it will take at least a year for our brains and bodies to get back to their pre-pandemic selves.

Also, we’re still in it. It’s absurd to think my brain would work like capital-b Before when, despite my kids being back in school, we’re still in the thick of a global pandemic. I still need to make sure we have clean masks, school could be disrupted at any time, and our summer plans remain somewhat up in the air.

I’m trying to give myself a break, trying to go against that clanging gong of society that beats a steady cadence of “Produce! Produce! Produce!” I need more—and longer—breaks to accomplish even simple tasks. I’m preaching to myself here when I say maybe that’s not a bad thing.

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Take Action

I was made aware this week by Anti-Racism Daily that there is an anti-trans bill making its way through my own state legislature. This bill seeks to ban those assigned male at birth from participating in girl’s and women’s school athletic programs. I encourage you to read the link above; it does greater justice to the issue than I can here. In fact, there are more than a dozen states with some version of this bill. Using thinly-veiled transphobic language, these bills do enormous harm to transgender youth, a population who is already stigmatized in society. Furthermore, we know how beneficial organized athletics are to all children’s physical health and mental well-being, and even more so for transgender youth. The thought of banning any child from being able to fully participate in school sports is nothing less than shameful.

I emailed my state house representative, urging her to stand against her Republican colleagues who authored this bill and received the most wonderful response. I urge you to do the same—particularly if your state is one of the many on this list. You can find your own state representative here.

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Around the Internet

• I am always and forever a Glennon Doyle stan.

• This whole piece, but this line sums up every parent sending their kid back to school right now: “When she returns to school on March 1, I will be terrified. And thrilled.”

• For anyone else who feels like the news around vaccines and normalcy are grimmer than they need to be.

• “But as we approach the one-year anniversary of remote education in America, I find that I am losing sympathy for the educators’ position and their myopic vision this far along into the pandemic. We can open schools safely, and we have the evidence in hand to prove it.”

• “But phyllo dough, at least the kind I bought, won’t work in this situation. It’s rectangle and you don’t manipulate phyllo dough like you do puff pastry. Phyllo dough is Mediterranean, isn’t it? Figures. You never tell a Mediterranean – especially a woman – what she ought to fit into. I know better, so I pull out a jelly roll pan and place all the sheets on that.”

• This, though.

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Eating

• I made these baked onion rings on Super Bowl Sunday and while they were a little time-consuming, they were also super yummy. A few notes: soak your sliced onions while you prep everything else (a quick soak helps the flour stick better). Also, put your flour and panko ingredients in (separate) plastic bags—then you can toss the onions in and just shake them all up to coat. And last I threw my own spices in, not the spice mix she listed. Roughly a 1/2 teaspoon each of onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, salt, and pepper.

• This cupcake recipe is everything. I made them for the kids’ birthdays but now I think I need to make them for no reason whatsoever because they’re that good. Also because I have what I think is scientifically known as a “crapton” of sprinkles left. (And because I can’t not give notes: I used regular whole milk, regular cream cheese, and canola oil.)

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Fun Things

• This headband is my new favorite accessory.

• We’ve been having some epic Uno Flip battles as a family. I don’t consider myself much of a games person but I will play this all day long. Since there’s no reading, (unlike another of our favorite games, Apples to Apples Jr.) even Nolan can join in since it’s mostly matching up colors and numbers/symbols.

• Speaking of those cupcakes above we celebrated some birthdays around here! I can’t let this section pass by without saying we now have two seven-year-olds and a five-year-old in this house. We celebrated COVID-style by visiting an outdoor ice maze, meeting some friends at a nearby sledding hill, and a small birthday drive-by. Since all three birthdays are at the exact same time (only two days apart), my house was still destroyed from making six-dozen cupcakes to pass out and all. the. gifts. they still received. At one point our living room was ankle-deep in assorted wrapping materials and presents. By now I’ve learned that party or not, I need a solid week to put my house back together at the end of February.

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Despite everything, the weather has been saving me. My brain might be broken but at least the sun is out and the snow is melting which all puts a smile on my face. Also, someone spontaneously paid for my breakfast on Wednesday and it made my week. Two weeks ago I was unsure if the subzero temperatures we were experiencing would ever break and now here, on this side, it looks like we could be in store for an early spring. Spring is just exactly what we need right now. And while I’d love to wrap this up with something profound, what I’ve mostly been thinking lately is some version of this:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Alyssa Limperis (@alyssalimp)

Doesn’t add up at all.

Life Lately

I started writing this section mid-month.

Then President Biden took office and I deleted everything I’d written here.

There’s been a shift—can you feel it?—in the very air we breathe.

It would have been a switch no matter what, but then January 6th happened and we, as a nation, held our collective breath. The inauguration was a balm to our weary souls. And I don’t want to minimize anything here, but please let me fangirl for a moment on my favorite inauguration moments.

• Michelle Obama. We are not worthy.

• Amanda Gorman. We should all be reciting her poem in liturgy every single morning.

• J.Lo slipping “let’s get loud” into America the Beautiful.

• Lady Gaga’s Hunger Games realness.

• Ella Emhoff’s coat is everything I want in a coat.

• Joe Biden’s speech was perfect.

• Swearing in Madam Vice President. Just…yes.

• Give me all the Bernie memes. God bless the internet.

Okay, thank you for indulging me. I’m afraid my “Around the Internet” section is going to be rather a ping-ponging of emotions. But isn’t that what we’ve lived, not just in the past year, but in the past few weeks? We were starved for the beauty, the dignity, and the pageantry of a presidential inauguration. To think it had been stormed by a mob wearing tactical gear and toting weapons, and it was transformed exactly two weeks later through the magic of bunting and flags and capital-F Fashion for all the world to see.

Joe Biden spoke, over and over again, of unity. Donald Trump’s inaugural address, in his own words, spoke of “American carnage.” So stop telling me Trump didn’t stoke the fires of rage in this country. Stop telling me he isn’t responsible for what unfolded at our Capitol on January 6th. Stop telling me the sky is magenta when we look out our windows and see it is a clear, bright blue. As Trevor Noah said, “Miss me with that bullshit.”

Phew. Ping-ponging, I know. I also know this: that I have been waking up this last week with an ease that’s been missing the past four-plus years.

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Take Action

This is a time where I’m regretting including a “take action” section. Oof, less action, more hibernation, please.

Though hibernation, in some sense, is the point right now. We’re entering a new phase of the pandemic where variations have sprung up and we’re still catching up with what, exactly, that means. On the other half of the split-screen, people are getting vaccinated and it will never not make me happy.

I know I’m not alone when I say that I am so freaking over it. I can see and feel the weariness around me. I want to have friends inside my house. I want to leave my kids with a babysitter and go eat in an actual, real-live restaurant. I want to be able to say “yes” when the kids ask for the 483rd time, “Can we go to Great Wolf Lodge/the indoor playground/to visit our cousins?” But we’re also so freaking close. So, take this as your reminder to set the example. Please wear your mask. Please keep your outings short and only to the essentials. And please don’t socialize with people for extended periods of time in indoor spaces.

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Around the Internet

• Ezra Klein called this “an extraordinary first draft of history” and there are really no other words to describe it.

• “In short, January 6 not only could have been much worse—it was much worse than was initially apparent. Sometimes real-time coverage of news events leans toward the sensational and overstates what happened. But because reporters were unprepared for the violence, and because of the fog of war (and tear gas), the horror of this event has emerged slowly. Many people were able to see the stakes on January 6, but it was much harder to see how close a larger catastrophe was to occurring, much less how much harm was actually done.”

• What To Tell Your Child Who Has Found You In The Kitchen With A Glass of Water Suspended Between Counter and Mouth As You Watch Live Footage of the News

• Dave Ramsey has always given me the creeps. This is all exactly zero percent surprising to me.

• Because you know I can’t let it go without talking more about the fashion.

• “When we live in temporary permanence, it doesn’t make sense to buy a rocking chair or a bedside bassinet or deck out a nursery. It doesn’t make sense to spring for the fancy convertible car seat or to give the walls a fresh coat of paint. There’s the always-present possibility we’ll be leaving soon. Why waste the money now when we can use it in the U.S.? But as time marches forward and the calendar flips to another month and then another, we find ourselves wishing for that rocking chair, blaming the baby’s lack of sleep on its absence. It may seem like a silly thing to grieve over, but it highlights the things we’ve had to give up over the last four years.”

• “That it is possible for Joe Biden and his team to release a plan this straightforward is the most damning indictment of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response imaginable.”

• “If we don’t get control of this—if we don’t reestablish an ethic of respect for facts—nothing else will be solved.”

• About a kitchen table and so much more.

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Eating

• This curry is everything I want in a curry. I’ve made it twice in two weeks. It’s fantastic and while you might need to double it to have leftovers, it’s even better the next day. My foodie kid literally licked his plate clean and the other two sauce-averse children even dared to try the chicken. 10/10 highly recommend.

• I made these tacos the other night and Tyson said, “Each bite is a perfect bite of taco.” If that’s not enough of a recommendation, I don’t know what is. (Note: not sure if my head of cauliflower was small or I just prefer a different cauliflower-to-beans ratio, but I only used about half a can of black beans.)

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Fun Things

• After several years of trying to get into a home yoga routine that works for me, I’ve found my groove with the Down Dog app. In the past few weeks, I’ve only missed a handful of days. I previously tried to scroll YouTube to find just what I wanted in terms of class, length, sequence type, etc., which was frustrating 9/10 times. I can choose all of the above with a few simple clicks in the app. I can choose a 15-minute class set to spiritual music with a full flow and focus on my lower back in less than 10 seconds.

• I got the Olive and June manicure set for my birthday and it’s worth every ounce of hype. It’s all packaged up in a fabulous box and it makes me so happy.

• This sweatsuit was my birthday gift to myself and it also makes me so very happy. In fact, I just did 10 minutes of yoga while wearing the sweatsuit after giving myself a manicure earlier today so I’ve basically just hit the trifecta of fun things bliss.

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On a personal note, the kids went back to school. Like, back-back. (Our district is still distance learning except for Pre-K—2nd grade, who went back full-time on the 19th.) And despite recently writing about routines and rhythms, I’ve yet to find mine. I keep telling myself we’re only a week or so in; of course, I don’t know what I’m doing yet. Just like I didn’t know what we were doing with hybrid and I never did find my groove with distance learning…it takes time.

Hear this: I’m thrilled for them to be back. My extroverted, please-fill-my-inexhaustible-socialization-bucket-up Nolan is a different person lately. Caden and Brooklyn are no longer trying to learn through screens for five-plus hours a day. AND ALSO: it’s weird. It’s weird because this has emphatically NOT been our life since March 12th of last year. It’s weird because I have some time and space to breathe each week but my body and brain are still operating in scarcity mode as far as Time Without the Kids is concerned. It’s weird because I don’t know how tightly I can hold on to this new schedule.

It’s weird because we’re on the brink of a new month and to think of everything this last month contained: insurrection, an inauguration, Bernie memes, turning 34, and also now GameStop, I guess? It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we’re a single month into 2021. Here’s to being on the brink of a new month and all the weirdness it will hold.

Creating Rituals Instead of Resolutions

Am I the only one who feels as though setting resolutions feels a little too much right now?

To be honest, I feel that every year. Resolutions and choosing a word and all that “new year, new me” talk has never lit a fire under me. But this year especially.

The new year arriving in January has always felt a little off to me. Especially if you’re a parent to little kids; we still have the same routines, same nap schedules, and same mealtimes to adhere to. The kids return to the same grades with the same teachers after winter break. Also? We live in Minnesota. It’s hard to feel like anything has changed with an almost unbroken wall of white outside our windows and a temperature that will hover around freezing for at least the next two months.

Then, of course, there’s this year, where things feel the same most of all. When we’re closing in on nearly a year of working from home, schooling from home, social distancing, wearing masks, and hibernating from other people. In some ways, we’ve been living the concept of “winter” for months now.

This year, it’s enough for me to remember how to get us all out of the house at one time. I’ll need a crash course in packing lunches five days a week when in-person school begins again. It’s enough, without resolutions, for me to continue to keep things going: to meet deadlines, to shovel the driveway, to cook regular meals. It’s enough to continue to stay in touch with people in creative ways, whether through social distancing at the park or virtual happy hours over Zoom. It’s enough to enforce screen time limits on not only the kids, but also myself.

No, this year, of all the years, calls for a softer and gentler approach. 

Forget resolutions. Let’s set some rituals. 

To go all English teacher nerd on you, a ritual is defined as “any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner.” Yes, please. I love routines anyway, so please let me plan out my weeks and days with “regularly performed patterns of behavior in a set manner” and I will live my best life. While a ritual could be mundane enough to be boring (teeth brushing comes to mind), I think instituting rituals into certain parts of our week can be life-giving instead of draining. And this year, more than most, I think we could use things to liven up our days, to give us something to look forward to, and to break up the monotony of our weeks.

Read more about setting rituals over on Twin Cities Mom Collective.