Mountain Mama

I Love Three

Barrett in her birthday crown. Custom made by Liz at CozyBlue. Check out her Etsy shop, here.

There is so much to love about you at three.

I love that you're never bratty in social situations, but instead play the perfect hostess, formally introducing people to your family (and each other) and showing them around the house, holding your hand gracefully to show "My garden" by the houseplants.

I love that you didn't even care that your birthday party consisted mostly of adults with only your sister and six-month-old Daisy to play with.

I love that you held your own among those adults. And you were so very sweet and gentle  and good.

But not at all shy. I love that too.

I love that you dug your fingers into the cake. Before dinner, even. Unabashedly. (Encouraged by Grandpa, of course).

I love that you opened your presents one-by-one, taking time to appreciate each. No ripping through every package in two minutes for you. No, you opened one, and were happy to go play with that one, until I encouraged you to open another.

In the same way, you take life as it comes, enjoy the moments, live completely in the present.

I love that you are sure of yourself. Of what you want. I realize that you are too young yet to allow the insecurities and doubt creep in as I am already beginning to see in your big sister. But I love that for now, at least, you know who you are. That you will announce your presence with a firm, loud (but not obnoxious) voice: "I am Barrett!"

I love that you are larger than life. That you fill a room with your energy and spirit.

I love how you adore your sister. Greet her happily, follow her around, talk with her, ask her questions, play with her, ask about her when she's away from you. I even love how you steal things from her and run away, just to get her to chase you.

I love to hear you playing with Daddy. Giggling, squealing with delight, teasing, joking, chatting. I love that you don't take his guff.

I love how cuddly and snuggly you are. How you say "I want to hold you." How you always want to be touching someone, prefer to be in my or Daddy's laps whenever we are sitting down.

I love your greetings at the end of the working day. Running running full force and all smiles into our arms, calling "Mommy! Mommy!" or "Daddy! Daddy!" Often dashing off then to show us something, anything, just happy to have our attention.

God forbid, I secretly love that you always want to sleep with me. I love the way you curl your body toward mine, scoot your feet under my legs, touch my face, look into my eyes, then drift off to sleep.

I love the way you smell, the softness of your skin, the lightness of your touch.

I love the red streaks in your hair, the deep deep jeweled blue of your eyes. I love your dimples like your Daddy's.

I love that you love music. And singing. And dancing.

And performing. I love to watch you perform, whether it's with a plastic coat hanger for a saxophone to a living room full of guests  or singing to me in the car or dancing for the three of us at home.

I love the way you close your eyes and bow, deeply, arms outstretched when you're done.

I love that you remember and sing to yourself the made-up versions of songs that I sing to you at bedtime.I love the way you say the ABC song, and "Wheels on the Bus" and "Old MacDonald's Farm" ("with a baa here and a baa here, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, ei ei o"). I love that your animal sounds are pretty realistic.

I love to play with you. To pretend to eat when you bring me all the play food from the play kitchen or a bowl of sand "soup". To sit at your tea parties. To "try"--as you put it--to be a dinosaur or horse or elephant.

I love your voice, the sweet words you say, the endearing mistakes and quirks of language all your own.

I love how you say "I love this!" about everything, asking "Do you love it, Mommy?" in return.

I love that you are so very clearly a happy happy child.

I love that I have the privilege of knowing you.

I love you, my baby no more and yet always my baby Boo Bear.

Three years ago, today

... this happened:  an amazing, wonderful, challenging, sweet, beautiful, incredible person came into our lives.

And changed everything.

I am so very happy that she did.

(more later, I promise).

Happy Valentine's Day (and Soup Sunday)

I am sick. Chest cold, screamingly sore throat, chills, aches. We have more snow on the ground, with more to come. I am behind in my work. My house is a wreck. Laundry undone.

But I had an elegant hour-long dinner out  and conversation with my sweetie last night. And this morning I was awakened by eager little girls happily presenting me with cards and a gaudy box of chocolates. Paul made me pancakes and coffee and let me go back to bed for a while. I made myself a chicken soup in the slow cooker (lots of garlic for my cold) and its scent fills the house.

Warmth, love, and a happy Valentine's Day.

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Whatever happens,
those who have learned
to love one another
have made their way
to the lasting world
and will not leave,
whatever happens.
                    Wendell Berry,  in "Sabbaths 1998" from Given

**************************************************************

Chicken and Garbanzo Bean Soup

1 Tbs olive oil

1 pound skinless boneless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into bite-size pieces

1 14-oz cans chicken broth

1 15-oz can garbanzo beans, drained

2 1/2 cups sliced carrots

1 cup sliced celery

1 large onion, cut into think wedges

several cloves of garlic

1/2 cup water

1 tsp dried marjoram, crushed

1 tsp dried thyme, crushed

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup shredded spinach or escarole

In a large skillet heat olive oil over medium heat. Brown chicken in hot oil until no longer pink. Drain off fat. (I usually add some Emeril's Essence seasoning or even Italian seasoning to the chicken at this stage to add flavor).

In a 4- to 5-quart slow cooker combine chicken, broth, beans, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, water,  marjoram, thyme, pepper and salt.

Cover and cook on low heat setting for 8 to 10 hours or high heat setting for 4 to 5 hours.

Stir in spinach or escarole before serving.

Top with freshly grated Parmesan and serve with biscuits or crusty bread.

Share it with your Valentine.

Right now

The forecast says "blizzard," but the snow has stopped and we can still see the ground.

The girls keep running to the window to see if Grandma has arrived, then running to hide in the play tent so they can surprise her when she does come.

I have a conga line of dinosaurs and zoo animals snaking across my dining room floor;

a half-ruined cardboard brick fort in the girls' bedroom;

wooden play food scattered across a makeshift picnic blanket in the living room;

a pile of Valentine art detritus on the table;

homemade frozen fruit pops melting on the kitchen counter;

and a whale swimming in the bathroom sink with his turtle friend.

Yep, it's just an ordinary no-school snow day at home.

Soup Sunday

Since Christmas, I've twice made Molly's Banana Bread with Chocolate and Candied Ginger and, may I just say...yum! Rich, delicious, with a bite of ginger. I highly recommend it.

This weekend, however, I wanted to bake something good yet found myself, alas, with no candied ginger. So I sorted through Molly's site again and came up with her Banana Bread with Chocolate and Cinnamon Sugar.

Once again, oh my, yum-my. I used whole wheat flour, bittersweet chocolate chips (60% cacao), and added walnuts. Since this recipe contained no milk or oil or other discernible fat (not terribly much sugar, either), I could convince myself that this crumbly cake-y heavenly stuff is good for me. And promptly ate most of it myself, straight from the pan.

So for my soup this week, I felt the need to make something super-healthy to go along with my, um, health food dessert. I found this recipe written on a piece of paper and crammed into my cooking notebook. I have no idea where the recipe originated, but I vaguely remember trying it once and thinking it was good. Lentils, sweet potatoes, spices, soup. What's not to love?

Oh yes, I feel healthier already.

Sweet Potato Stew

4 cups broth

3 cups sweet potatoes (peeled and cut into cubes--or not peeled, however you like)

1 1/2 cups dried lentils, rinsed

3 medium carrots, cut into chunks

1 medium onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp cayenne

Put all ingredients into a slow cooker and cook on high for five hours.

Stir in 1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro and salt to taste before serving.

Make sure you follow it up with chocolate chip banana bread. Your body will thank you.

Saturday morning

Making pancakes in pajamas. Frog pajamas. Pink polka dot pajamas.

Little sis wants to help but big sister won't let her.

We dream of someday being able to stay in bed while they make the pancakes all by themselves, wake us with the scent of hot butter, maple syrup.

Until then, we'll just do it all together.

What to do when you're snowed in and the power goes out (Part two)

Over the next three days, spend lots of time outside, playing in the snow.

Go sledding. Go sliding (without sleds).

 

Help Mama shovel Grandpa's driveway for a while, then walk down to our house for clean clothes, more supplies.

 

When you're too cold and wet and you've had enough, stage a sit-in until Mama agrees to go back inside, by the fire.

Peel off the layers, hang them to dry. Play with your animals by the fire. More card games. More reading.

Try to entertain yourself so Mama can read her work she brought home. Do so by painting your face with marker "lipstick."

When Daddy and Grandpa get home, they'll fix dinner again on the camp stove. Salmon and chicken kept cold all day in the freezer packed with snow, now cooked on the gas grill. Raw veggies, remarkably not-sour milk, wine for the grown-ups. Steaks for the dog (can't let them go bad).

Go to bed again by the fire as soon as it gets dark. Fall asleep immediately, exhausted from your day.

The third day--still no power--run away with Mama to Grandma's house an hour away. Baths, clean clothes, TV. Happier Mama.

Skate across Grandma's yard not even making tracks in the snow it's so hard.

Come home in the evening to power restored, hot dinner on the table, heat, lights, ahhh. Sleep in your own beds and start forming in your mind the story you'll tell of your first big power-out snow.

Be glad it's over, and know that you'll remember this for always.

 

What to do when you're snowed in and the power goes out (Part one)

When the expected snow begins, go outside. Dance around. Make tracks. Try to catch flakes on your tongue.

 Or, if you prefer, watch it all from the warm dryness inside. Where the DVDs are.

Once it accumulates a little and Grandpa gets home, make snow cream.

Later that night when the power goes out and you're already in bed, Mama will light the candles, bring out the extra blankets, snuggle up next to Daddy to watch a DVD on the computer until the battery runs out.

Sometime in the night, as the temperature drops, go climb in bed with Mama and Daddy, so that you wake in the morning piled together under a mountain of blankets. Talk and wriggle and giggle until daylight creeps in (because little kids, of course, wake before the sun).

Daddy will break out the camping gear, set up the stove on the porch for coffee and hot breakfast of oatmeal and/or grits.

After breakfast, bundle up in layers. Head outside to play.

 

When it looks as if the power won't be coming back on for a while, walk up the hill, next door to Grandpa's house. Move in there to the warmth of his gas fireplace. Play dinosaurs and Go Fish and blocks.

Read Alice in Wonderland with Grandpa. Make sure it's the original version. The copy Grandpa gave your mama when she was ten years old.

As darkness falls, make art and crafts by the light of an oil lamp while Grandpa cooks dinner on the camp stove on the porch. Appetizers of  blueberries and strawberries for the little girls, shrimp and red wine for the grown-ups. Main course of fried chicken and baked beans and salad.

Make your beds by the fire like you're camping.

Treat it all like an adventure. Be happy to be together and safe and warm and dry.

Wordless Wednesday