The Naughty Book

When Sophie was a toddler/ pre-schooler, she seemed to always be getting into some sort of trouble.  She drew on her bare chest with permanent markers, cut her own hair, cut holes in her clothes, colored her furniture, scrubbed a variety of random beauty products into her hair, etc.  You get the idea.  Being the sensible parents that we were, we would scold her appropriately and then go and get the camera and take a few photos.  Let's face it, sometimes naughty toddler high jinks are completely hilarious.  

As previously noted, since we were such wise parents, we would always explain that we were taking her picture for "The Naughty Book."  This proved to be highly effective until she was about three years old.  Then one afternoon she came to us with something horrible all over her face and my camera in her hand.  She presented the camera to me, grinned enormously and said, "Here you go, Mum.  I very, very naughty!!"  I expect I took her picture.  It is so important to be consistent when you are a parent.

Now Sophie's younger sister is putting all of our previous kids' antics to shame.  We are certain that her naughtiness is far worse than any naughtiness we've had to contend with in the past.  (Either that or we have simply forgotten how insane toddlers can be.)  So George and I have decided to re-open "The Naughty Book."  Here is one of the most recent entries...

After she had gone missing for about three minutes, I found this little rascal having a ball with my waterproof mascara.  When she saw me coming, she spread it on her face and hair even more furiously.  Best to go out in a blaze of glory, you know.  As you can see, she was seriously displeased when I took away her new toy and scolded her for being so doggone naughty.  (Incidentally "naughty" MUST be pronounced with a British accent.  There is no other way in the Carson household.)  The removal of this mascara, which involved covering her face in a generous layer of Vaseline and then scrubbing with very warm water, did not improve her attitude at all.

‎To sum up, I am stealing a comment from my clever friend Jantz: "You are in big (click) trouble, young lady! (click) Just wait (click) until I post this on (click) Facebook..."

I am the queen of effective discipline, and don't you forget it...or you may just find yourself in my "Naughty Book."

Just Happy

I celebrated my 35th birthday this week.  I was already happier than a pig in mud, so I didn't need a party to lift my spirits.  In fact, in the summertime when "bedtime" is merely a rhetorical concept for my children, every night feels like some sort of party at my house.  Honest to goodness, on one recent summer evening all of us girls found ourselves dancing with underpants on our heads in our upstairs office.  If memory serves, my husband was "working" at his computer, but someone snapped the elastic waistband of a pair of colorful knickers around his forehead so he wouldn't feel left out.  The best part of it all is that I am able, in the midst of these bouts of frivolity, to take a mental moment to process how wonderful it all is.  I often sigh contentedly and think to myself, "I am very happy right now."  And that is a gift.

My current state of summer happiness is completely enough, but my husband, who is not an accomplished party-planner, managed to secretly gather a few of my new Michigan friends and surprise me with a perfectly pleasant birthday dinner.  As a matter of fact when it came time to blow out the candles, I had a really hard time coming up with a wish...

I decided to go with the beauty queen's favorite: World Peace.  So that's sorted.

My daughter Emma made for me a book full of artwork, poetry and photographs.  It was absolutely perfect.  The back cover reads, "Read this when you're happy; read this when you're sad.  It will cheer you up to see all of the smiling faces of those who love you...  This was made with love just for you."  The second to last page was left blank except for the printed instructions at the top: "On this page please stick a picture of your 35th birthday par-tay."  I think I will stick this one there:

But I would also like to include for the record my very own "Cake Wreck."  According to my husband the lady behind the bakery counter at Meijer was not an accomplished cake decorator.  She had, in her own words, only practiced on one other cake.  George encouraged her to continue her training on my birthday cake.  Of course I love it way more than a perfect cake...

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." -George Santayana

Wonderful Summer Weekend

I love summer.  I love weekends.  Combine the two, and I am in paradise.  This weekend proved to be especially wonderful.  It was full of unexpected moments of perfection like this one when the girls stumbled across a magic froggy (or toad?) in the front yard...

Shortly thereafter the big kids and I went to a local beach with an old friend and her children.  Lili stayed at home with her Dad, and I was able to swim and frolic with my big girls in ways that my toddler buddy usually prevents.

I love reunions with old friends!

Unexpectedly our friends were easily persuaded to spend the night, and we let the proverbial good times roll.  A backyard campfire and a couple of summer strawberry margaritas accompanied our jolly evening.  The second best thing about the night was these Reece's peanut butter cup s'mores.  

Have mercy.

The best thing about the evening was the good company we found ourselves in... and the awesome dance party that spontaneously broke out on our back deck.

"We’re going at it tonight. 

Tonight there’s a party on the rooftop top of the world!"

And better still... in a moment of weakness this rock star let her mama give her a big hug right in front of our too-cool-for-words company.  Keep it coming, Summertime!

"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit.  A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world."  ~Ada Louise Huxtable

'Take Your Daughter(s) to Work' Day

Since it is my job to look after our home and mother my children, every day is "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" at my house.  My daughter Sophia has always been particularly interested in the work that I do in the kitchen.  She is also very interested in this blog, which saves my sanity and makes me a better mother.  Today she decided she wanted to help me with both...

My oldest daughter Emma and her Dad were having a special Daddy and daughter day out*, so that left me and the other two girls to get on with the everyday business of grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning.  After the majority of the chores were done, we decided to finish off yesterday's blueberries by making our favorite fruit crisp recipe.  Sophia thought it would be fun to document the entire affair with my camera.  So here it is for your viewing and baking pleasure.  I have a feeling, I've shared this recipe before,  but here it is again fully illustrated.

Apple, Berry, Peach or Whatever Fruit Crisp...

Start with five cups of any fruit in season.  Today we used blueberries and few blackberries.  Have your helpful helper arrange the fruit in a buttered 8-inch square baking pan.  Preheat the oven to 375 F while you're at it too.  Be careful not to let all of that delicious fruit make your head spin.  Apparently seasonal berries can make a girl feel a little overwhelmed...

Next stir together the dry ingredients: 

1 cup rolled oats

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp allspice.

Using an electric mixer, blend the dry ingredients with 6 tablespoons of softened butter until it forms a coarse meal.  It helps if you do it in your pajamas with a mixer from the 1970's.

Now crumble the mixture evenly over the fruit.  This part is so much fun that everyone in the family will want to be involved.

Now sprinkle the top with 2 tablespoons of apple or orange juice and bake for 35 minutes.  The finished product will smell divine and feed six sensible people...or five Carsons.

Happy Eating!  Remember: if you aren't the color of a Smurf after you have a serving, you're doing something wrong.

"Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple." ~Willy Wonka

*Daddy and Daughter Day Out included meatball subs, a trip to Home Depot, and a colorful roll of Mentos.  Emma was thrilled.

Practicing What I Preach

Last night when I was telling my oldest daughter good night, she didn't even wait for me to sit down on her bed before she asked matter-of-factly, "Mom, what does F#%k mean?"  Yes, I am completely serious.  Can you imagine this word coming out of my sweet little nine-year-old's mouth?

So what did I do?  Did I gasp and clutch my pearls?  Did I screech, "Where did you hear that word?!"  Did I go weak in the knees?  You bet your Granny's booty I did all of the above, but then I took a deep breath and remembered that I want my children to come to me with these questions.  And I took a moment and felt very grateful that she was asking me instead of someone else.

Last night I did indeed discuss the f-word with my nine-year-old.  We talked about the fact that most "bad words" aren't actually about bad things.  I have heard some pretty horrible words used to describe certain parts of the human anatomy.  None of these body parts are bad, of course, but some of these words are quite rude and disrespectful.  (At this point in the conversation Emma chimed in and said, "It's like someone's insulting your va-jay-jay."  Exactly.)  The same idea applies to the f-word.  Emma already knew about the mechanics of "having sex."  She, of course, at the age of nine, thinks it is completely gross, but her dad and I have told her that sex is really nice when a person is grown up, married and in love.  (That is all a nine year old needs to know, people.)  So I explained that the f-word is like having 'sex without the love'.  That word takes everything beautiful and loving out of sex and makes it into something bad.  This made perfect sense to her.

"... So what's a d!#k?"  she asked next.  Oh boy, we've got a long road ahead of us, don't we?  The answer to this question brought on a fit of giggles that lasted a good ten minutes.  Then I tucked my little girl in for the night, a little wiser but very much on the right track as far as I'm concerned.

And since we're on the subject of that little mademoiselle, here are a few photos of her newly painted, Rock Star bedroom.  The walls turned out to be two very respectable shades of purple (Xanadu and Ashley's Heather), and the accessories are a work in progress...

Don't grow up too quickly my dear Rock Star!  Childhood innocence is far too fleeting.

"A child is a curly dimpled lunatic."  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Summering In Michigan

Summertime in Michigan almost makes up for the suffocating, frigid, seemingly interminable winter.  Almost.  But as I have said before, I genuinely love Michigan in the summertime, and here are some more reasons why...

As you can see I took my girls and some blueberry-loving, enthusiastic friends out to Freeland this morning to pick blueberries.  We came home with three buckets full, blue stained fingers, and big plans.  I see blueberry pancakes, cobblers, buckles and smoothies in our futures as well as more blissful Michigan summer days.

"In summer, the song sings itself."  ~William Carlos Williams

A Proper Stateside 4th of July!!

Dear me, summer is flying by so fast, my head is practically spinning.  I'd better post a few pictures from our proper American fourth of July before I turn around and find that it's time for Halloween.  We were in the US last year, but I seem to recall feeling exhausted and uncertain about keeping our infant out until 11pm to view the fireworks.  But this year, we decided to do it up right with a live, late night fireworks show.

My husband made sure that everyone displayed appropriate, appreciative 'firework faces'.

And some of us made goofy faces without even being prompted because watching fireworks with little kids is just magical.  Lili was so impressed, she kept pointing at the sky and shouting, "WHOA!  RAINBOW!!"  Just try not to smile like a goofball when you have that sitting in your lap!  Emma and Sophie were equally impressed with their first big fireworks experience.

She couldn't help but bust out the happy dance.

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.  You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism."  ~Erma Bombeck

Pretty Peas

I love summertime.  I love the sunshine and the relaxing, unscheduled time with my children.  Summertime and me are like peas and carrots.  Know what I mean?  Summertime is an open-ended invitation to stumble onto silly, extraordinary wonderfulness posing as everyday nothingness.  Oh Summertime, take your shoes off and stay a while, won't you?

This morning we met some friends at our local farmer's market where we browsed and bought all sorts of exciting summer produce.  (I do believe that heaven will smell like peaches.)  After a challenging brunch with my overtired toddler, we headed home with our cache of fruits and veggies.  The grumpy toddler was down for the count, so the rest of us girls took advantage of the peace and played cards.  We also giggled non-stop and ate all of the strawberries we had bought this morning.  At one point my nine year old laughed so hard, bits of strawberry came out of her nose.  That's how you know it was a good card game.

Next my girls became very interested in a bag of sweet peas that needed to be shelled.  Shelling peas can be a bit of a chore unless there are lots of charming helpers involved.  When our baby woke up refreshed from her nap, she didn't even have to be invited to join in.  She climbed right up on the table with her little bare feet and dived right in.  Sensible young ladies, of course, do not sit on top of the kitchen table, but today we were having too much fun with one of summertime's ordinary tasks to be sensible.

Give peas a chance.

Happy children always say, "Peas and Thank You!"

Pretty Peas!!

What kinds of bountiful invitations is Summertime extending to you? 

And feel free to leave any other obnoxious pea puns in my comment section.  I obviously cannot get enough.

Fearless

Fear is the root of many evils.  Fear motivates prejudices, wars, the hoarding of resources, and unnecessary, unproductive worry.  Fear keeps us from taking chances.  Fear can stop us in our tracks when our heart is telling us to "do the right thing."  Fear is bad...

...but not entirely bad.  Fear is a learned emotional response, one that my toddler seems not to have learned at all.  A fearless toddler is a terrifying thing.  A fearless, clever, and dexterous toddler is capable of causing her mother's insides to seize in panic multiple times a day.  Let's just review today.  Shall we?

First thing this morning I awoke with my clever toddler's feet in my face.  She likes to be in our bed but hates being under the blankets, so she typically finds her way into our room in the middle of the night and sleeps horizontally between her parents' heads.  Why not?  We're obviously 'not the boss of her'.  Not long after I woke, big sister "Ophie" climbed into our bed and engaged said wiggly toddler in a lovely chat about the monsters on Sesame Street.  When Ophie left, Wiggle Worm wiggled her way out of bed and followed in her older sister's footsteps.  Moments later I got one of those bad Mommy feelings.  You other mamas out there know what I'm talking about.

I dashed out of bed and into the kitchen, where I spied my toddler standing on wobbly, tiptoes on top of the kitchen counter, reaching to get a glass vase off of the top shelf of the cupboard she had opened.  She obviously needed that vase for something important.  A silent prayer was issued in that instant, and I quietly swept up behind her and removed her from her precarious perch before any skulls were cracked on our impossibly hard kitchen floor.  Then I turned around and snarled at the oblivious seven year old who was drawing cartoon characters a mere meter away, "Weren't you watching her!!??"  Seven year olds make really rubbish babysitters, for the record.

The usual naughty, toddler high jinks ensued for a few more hours following my breakfast scare.  I successfully ejected the mouthful of coins that Lili had after playing in my wallet which she somehow procured even though it was zipped in my purse and on a high counter top.  (Note to self: re-read previous paragraph.)  I cleaned artistic, marker-drawn graffiti from her arms and legs.  I carefully wrestled the sharp knife out of her hand, which she had somehow gotten out of the dishwasher basket.  In the nick of time I stopped her from ingesting the contents of a small bottle of white children's paint which she was certain resembled milk.  .  Baby-proofing a house where other older children live is a serious challenge and keeps me constantly on my toes...

Nothing too out of the ordinary really, but the biggest gut-seizing scare I've had in a while came later in the afternoon.  Sophie had been sent outside to water the flowers while Lili sat in the floor of our office (likely destroying important tax documents) with me.  Sophie returned and joined us upstairs but sought entertainment elsewhere after deciding we were rather boring.  Lili followed. A few minutes later I called downstairs, as I regularly do when that monstrous toddler is not right by my side, "Is Lili okay??"

Sophie answered, "I don't know.  Where is she?"  This was not the response I was hoping for.  I scurried downstairs and saw that the baby gate in front of our laundry room had been left open by some careless (seven -year-old) individual.  "Great," I thought.  I was certain I'd find Miss Naughty Pants in there eating her fill of cat food, but when I rounded the corner I found, to my complete horror, that the laundry room door that leads to the outside world had also been left open, and the toddler in question was nowhere in sight.

A horrible scream erupted from somewhere deep inside of me,  "LILI!!  LILI!!" I screamed, and as I stumbled gracelessly out the door and down the steps into our open garage, I saw her standing in the street at the end of our driveway.  My heart pounds even now as I remember seeing her there, and my mind races to all sorts of horrible "what if" places.  I continued screaming that beautiful baby's name, and she could hear that I meant business, that I was indeed the boss of her in that terrifying instant.  She began to run toward me on soft, dainty, bare feet, and I scooped her up and hugged her almost forever and thanked her for not getting run over or hopelessly lost.  Then I waited for my heart to stop pounding out of my chest.

You can rest assured that the little gardener got an earful about not leaving doors to the outside standing open, but then I was left reflecting on how utterly helpless human children are at this age and how fragile little lives can change in an instant.  My precious little monster has thankfully never known serious pain.  She has never been aware of any reason to feel fear.  This will change, of course.  I am eager for her to learn a bit of the cautious kind of fear that keeps us from petting hungry sharks and jumping on pogo sticks near cliff ledges, but I hate to think of the other very real things that she will grow to fear in her lifetime.  Often her round, fearless toddler's face inspires me to be brave and to have hope when hope and bravery are not my natural responses.

Of course I wish I could keep her safe always.  I wish I could protect her from all of the things in our world that inspire our darkest fears, but for now I will do my best to keep her environment safe and to shield her from the consequences of her own mischievous antics.  Heaven help me!

"When you love someone, all your saved-up wishes start coming out."

~Elizabeth Bowen