The Minnesota State Fair

On our second day in Minneapolis, we visited the Minnesota state fair. I will not record here the minor (ahem) difficulty that Steve, Grandpa Tom and Samuel had in parking and making it to the fairground. Grandma Susan, Shira and myself, traveling in a separate car, had no trouble.The first thing Samuel wanted to do was get an ice cream cone.
Followed by lots of rides.
And here is the one thing I wanted - a picture in front of the famous "All You Can Drink Milk Booth" It truly exists, and I have the proof. In Steve's memory it was a quarter. Still, a dollar ain't bad. And another sign proclaimed that they also had chocolate milk. Apparently you can buy that for a dollar.

Trip to Minnesota

Each morning began with Samuel and Grandpa sharing cereal and bananas for breakfast.Not a day went by without Shira climbing into this dump truck and convincing someone to push her around by looking at them with her beseeching eyes.Carpeted stairs are always fun. Samuel advanced his playing on the stairs when he realized it was pretty cool to launch the laundry basket (with and without clothes in it) down the stairs. Luckily he did not take it to the next level by launching himself in the laundry basket down the stairs. I'm sure he's saving that discovery for next year.Grandma pulled out a treasure trove of puzzles for Samuel. We discovered that Samuel is more than ready to put together any puzzle in sight, frequently with no help. It's an amazing leap from just a few months ago.And of course, no trip to Grandma's would be complete without some baking activities.

HALFWAY!!!!

We started our house remodel exactly 2 months ago, today.

Heating is in, plumbing (copper pipes!) is in, next up is electrical, followed by sheetrock... enough talk, on to the picturesOur new front door

The living room with new entrywayThe kitchen. The blue tape on the floor denotes where our cabinets will go. The black pipe in the front right of the picture is the waste line where the sink will go.The dining room and family room (kitchen to the left)Samuel standing in his/Shira's/the guest bathroom
Steve wanted me to include a picture of the heating ducts in the attic - he's very excited about the idea of having a heater. Notice also, that beautiful copper pipe.
Our bathroomOur bedroom - look at that closet!!!Our former master bedroom, currently supply storage, soon to be Shira's and Samuel's room

Questions for Teacher Claire

In about an hour we will be meeting with Samuel's new preschool teacher for our first Parent - Teacher Conference.

Samuel is nervous about going to a new preschool this year, and we have had a few tears over leaving Teacher Mindy behind at the Observation Preschool.

When I told Samuel that we would be meeting with Teacher Claire today so that she could get to know us in order to know best what Samuel needed to learn this year, he started asking me a lot of questions about what preschool may or may not have.

Here is the compilation that Samuel had me write down to ask Teacher Claire so that we wouldn't forget:

1. Do kids have to wear shoes?
2. Do the mommies who are working wear cards around their necks?
3. What kind of balls do you have? Do you have a volleyball court?
4. Do you have baseball bats?
5. Do you have glue and scissors? Stickers? Watercolors? Markers? Paint?
6. Is there water to play with?
7. Is there a play kitchen?

Interestingly, there was no mention of cars or trucks. I'm not surprised Samuel didn't ask about a play structure, as last year at preschool, he did not go on the play structure a single time. But sports, kitchen and art projects are clearly the activities that interest him most. Noticeably, no mention of snacks, story time or music time.

Most notable to me, of course are the first two questions that inspired us to write down a list. First was appropriate dress. Not shockingly, the next thing he wanted to know had nothing to do with him, but was all about what the mommies (specifically me) would be doing when we were there, and how we would be identified. The "card around the neck" refers to how during preschool summer camp the moms all wore a card on a piece of yarn to tell them what their jobs for the day were.

Sourdough Starter

Just in case you hadn't picked up on my obsession with food...

So my good friend Shannon (I'd put a shout out to her here, but I won't because I know she has better things to do with her time than read my blog) has taken her own quirky food obsession to the next level by making her own sourdough starter and baking her own bread on a semi-daily basis. When she hosted last month's potluck, the pizza that she made with her whole grain rye sourdough starter blew me out of the water.

Apparently I raved about said pizza one too many times, because two days ago Shannon gave me a piece of her biga (sounds a little racy, but I think that's the fancy name for sourdough starter for those in the know, or maybe I'm just making it up.)

Anyway, Shannon must really hate me, because now I'm obsessed with feeding the beast. Which of course means I need to actually use it to bake, now, too. Steve's comment when he learned of my newest nutty foody thing was to say, "That means you have to make bread and stuff with flour again, right?" He's very excited. So maybe it's not that Shannon hates me, but that she really likes Steve.

The beast needs to be fed twice a day. Samuel is helping me. He thinks it's pretty hilarious to call a bunch of flour and water a "beast" or "monster" and that I must be kidding when I say we have to feed it. I think you can imagine how our conversations go.

So I had the beast for about 36 hours before I came to terms with the fact that it was completely pointless to have a sourdough starter if I wasn't going to use it on a pretty regular basis.

Enter sourdough blueberry muffins for breakfast. These mini muffins were a batch of 20 - see how many are left:And though my camera work sucks, let me tell you, that they were probably the prettiest, most perfectly formed muffin I have ever made.

And the leftovers of dinner's two enormous pizzas. That's homemade pesto with farmer's market basil, feta and sundried tomatoes on one, and fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes and CSA parsley root on the other.And the beast that made it all possible

Stay at Home Momming

I could say we had little supervision as kids (David and I), but the more accurate statement is that we frequently had no supervision.

So when Steve and I discussed kids, I said that it was important to me to not work full time. Steve hadn't really thought about it, but it sounded fine to him. It was so theoretical at the time.

Once I was pregnant with Samuel, that morphed into us deciding that I should take a year off work (with the idea that I would probably return to work fulltime after that). It didn't hurt that I hated my job, and so taking a year off sounded like an extra good idea.

The first year of parenthood was a rough one, in which I alternately desperately wished that I was working so that I could leave the care of my child to someone else (who I figured would probably do a better job parenting than I was), and felt terribly guilty each time I left Samuel and wasn't the sole person responsible for all of his needs. I enrolled at San Jose State fulltime to go about obtaining a Master's degree in Educational Counseling. That's right, I had an infant with "colic" and decided that the best thing to do would be to take 5 graduate school (night) courses a semester.

Things got easier after we hit the 12 month mark, and most days were downright enjoyable by 18 months. I went back to work one day a week that school year, but mostly hated it. Finding the appropriate daycare was stressful. Paying for daycare was stressful (me and my money issues). Leaving Samuel was stressful. Only being at a school site one day a week felt useless. I didn't return to that position the next school year. Plus, Shira was born.

I still had a bunch of intern hours left, so when Samuel was two, and Shira was a few months old, I returned to a school site, for a couple of hours two days a week. Daycare was a little less stressful, I decided we could afford the couple of hours a week, and being on site two days was not as useless as just one.

Throughout these first three years of parenthood, I continued to look for jobs, sometimes toying with the idea of returning full time, sometimes part time, but I was always looking. I was a stay at home mom because that is what I thought I should do for my kids, and because I was afraid to do anything else, for a variety of reasons, but there was always a significant part of me that was looking for a way out of my stay at home momness.

I worried that I wasn't holding up my end of the family money train. I worried that others thought I wasn't contributing to society. I worried that I would never be able to get another job. I frequently felt like I wasn't a real person because I didn't go to work on a daily basis. I missed feeling like I was doing something important to other people. I was afraid of losing the identity of being a teacher; an identity that was important to me and I felt gave me value as a person. Probably my biggest stress of all was worrying about how I would fill each day. How would I keep from being bored silly, and how would I keep my kid(s) occupied without them depending on me for amusement/entertainment every millisecond of the day? And how would I keep from being lonely? The lonely fear was especially intense toward the end of the first six months of parenthood, when a lot of "stay at home moms" suddenly became "moms whose maternity leave was ending" and again when friends would move away for various reasons, and especially when one particular stay at home mom moved across the country (damn those Phd husbands).

But here it is the beginning of August, Samuel is three, Shira is one, I have entered my fourth year of "stay at home momming" and for the first time, I find that I have no interest in looking for teaching or counseling positions. I have been reading Facebook posts from former colleagues about how they will be returning to school, and for the first time since I became a teacher, I am not returning to school in any capacity. And for the first time, I have no desire to.

I like being home with my kids. No, I love spending each day with Samuel and Shira. We're certainly not at home much, so that description doesn't really fit, and I don't just like it, there is nothing else I would rather be doing. I used to feel like I was holding my breath until I could send Samuel and Shira to preschool full time and I could return to work without guilt. Now I am trying to figure out how I can rationalize NOT going back to work way past kindergarten. Even crazier? I don't give a crap about what anyone thinks about it. (Well, you know, except my awesome husband).

Summer

What is it about going out to the local school playground in the evening after dinner to play, that just screams summer? We allowed Samuel to take a nap today, had a somewhat early dinner, and since we were freed from our criminally early bedtime, headed across the street to the school with Samuel's bike and soccer ball.Still trying to convince Samuel that he can pump.Whenever Shira sees a swing, she points frantically, lets out a high pitched scream, and bounces up and down in your arms until you take her to it and swing her. She doesn't care whether it's a baby swing or not. All she knows is, if there's a swing, she better get a piece of it.Basketball with a soccer ball. They're all purpose. Mountains of wood chips must be ascended.

And who is this big kid?