1 Mother 2 Another

href="http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2013/05/30/worst-end-of-school-year-mom-ever"
target="_blank">This?


Is me.


I am d-u-n DONE with school.

This week is not shaping up to be a good
one.


Yesterday we had our handyman out to fix a few things on the
outside of the house – rotten boards, leaky spots, and so on.
A few hundred bucks later, and our house looks – exactly the
same. But less leaky, I guess.


Then our refrigerator started not refrigerating so well. This has
been going on for a few weeks – the freezer conked out a
while ago – and we decided to just live with it and not buy a
new one, as the repair, we’ve been told, is not fool-proof
and costs as much as a new fridge. So we’ve been limping
along, but apparently now must get a new one.


The warranty, in case you were wondering, expired two months ago.


Did I mention that both caterpillars cleaned out our dill –
AGAIN – and left, never to be seen again?


Can we just call this week and be done with it?

You know, when you have a
three-day-weekend just a couple weeks before school gets out, going
back to school that next Tuesday feels a little bit like trying to
put on your skinny-girl jeans after you’ve spent a week on an
all-you-can-eat cruise. You can barely fit into them, and it makes
you crabby and oh-so-aware of how quickly you spread out.


We spent the past three days wasting no time spreading out; the
girls woke up around nine (NINE!) a.m. on Monday. We began moving
slower, taking our time, puttering desultorily around the house.
Now comes Tuesday morning with its alarm clocks and quick time
schedules and errands and lunches to pack and forms to sign and . .
.


Bleh.


We can sQUEEze back into our usual routine. Barely.


We are SO ready for summer break to be here.

Apparently our dill has grown back enough
to become a nursery. Yet again.


Yep, that's right, we currently have two new caterpillars munching
their way through the baby new growth in our dill. Fortunately for
us, there's only two of them. Unfortunately for them, they're
tiny and it'll be a while before they cocoon. I don't think
there's going to be enough dill.


Again.


Oh, God, hope springs eternal, doesn't it, you crazy Guy?

A couple days ago, Cora asked me why I
haven’t bought Pirate Booty recently; that and Veggie Booty
have been regular snack treats in our house, and it was a fair
question.


I explained to Cora that one of the main ingredients in Booty is
corn, and over 85% of corn in the USA is genetically modified.
I’d called Robert’s Snacks, combed their websites, sent
emails – and been told explicitly that yes, they use
genetically altered crops. And while our diet may not be 100%
GMO-free, it’s rather close, and that’s on purpose.


I’m not trying to get into a conversation on GMO foods here
– that’s a much longer post, believe me, and I’ve
made it a couple times. But this did lead us to a child-level
version of that conversation, and I spent a few painful minutes
talking through GMO crops and why we choose not to eat them with
the girls.

Yesterday was dominated by a bad weather
threat all over north Texas; after the events in Oklahoma on Monday
I spent the entire morning working on turning my fear over to God
and leaving Him in control of my girls. Not an easy task when
you’re a mama, but I tried. As I saw the weather forecast
predicting that the bad storm would hit right around school pick-up
time, I decided to play it safe and had the girls come home from
school after lunch.


In other words, Early Release Day.


In other words, Extra Play Day.

Yesterday afternoon Maddie came out of
school distinctly subdued. She had a couple papers in her hand and
immediately handed me her backpack, keeping the loose papers to
herself. “Do you want me to put those papers in your
backpack?” I asked.


Maddie handed me one, and as she did I caught a glimpse of the
other, retained paper – a math test with the score written in
red. “You can have this one,” she said, handing me her
vocabulary test. “But not this one,” and she waved the
math test.


“Baby, is it because of the grade on the math test?” I
asked.


She nodded.


“Honey, it’s ok, we all miss some sometimes.”


So Maddie handed me her math test and burst into tears.


She made an 89.

As you can’t help but be aware, I
got an awesome new blender about a week ago. I’m lucky
there’s a seven-year warranty on this thing, because
I’m certainly going to wear the motor out before then.


Cora’s favorite smoothie right now is: one whole orange
(peeled); one pint of whole strawberries; one banana; one cup of
homemade plain yogurt; and, unbeknownst to her, a handful of fresh
spinach leaves.


I made this smoothie for her last night with dinner, and I had to
make three full batches of it. That’s three pints of
strawberries, folks. Suddenly the sixty-eight pounds we picked a
few weeks ago doesn’t look as big in the freezer any more.


I’ve started experimenting more with what’s going in
them, and quite like a green smoothie I make for myself every
morning now. A friend of mine told me she puts half an avocado in
any fruit smoothie – it doesn’t add any taste, but adds
a creaminess and some healthy fat to help with the blood sugar
spike from all the fruit. So I’m starting to do that, too.


The upshot is that the poor blender’s been working overtime,
and I’ve made copious trips back to the grocery store for
more produce.


This fresh, healthy eating thing is getting expensive.

Dear Cora:


Every morning provided the weather holds, you scooter to school.
About a block and a half into it, you arrive at your friend
Lily’s house, and invariably you pause there, lingering in
the hope that she’ll come walking out the door at that moment
and you two can continue on to school together.


When I catch up with you, you’ll always say that your leg is
“tired and needs to rest”. One day I teasingly pointed
out that your leg always seems to get tired at the same spot on our
journey; you shrugged and said matter-of-factly, “My leg
always wants to rest with my friends.”


Well, I don’t know about your leg, kiddo, but I know for
certain that your heart rests with your friends. You spent the past
few years essentially “borrowing” friends from your
older sister, but this year you’ve truly come into your own
and have spent kindergarten developing your own sweet little gang.
You are always begging me for a play date with Lily, or Maggie, or
Logan or Rawan – always wanting to spend more time with your
friends. And it’s not that you’re not comfortable in
your own skin: you can easily entertain yourself in your room for
hours at a time. No, you simply love your friends. You have an easy
confidence with them that, frankly, I envy: I can’t imagine
being that comfortable with myself and open with so many others at
your age.

Monday afternoons always feel a little
hectic for me; Mondays are my “errands” day, full of
grocery stores and the cleaners and the drugstore and taking care
of returns and all the other million things your children HATE to
do with you. Then I come home for about ten minutes to eat and
switch mental gears as I get ready for the second half of my day:
pick the girls up from school, spend a few precious minutes with
them, then rush off to teach for the rest of the day.


I try hard not to be flustered and tired when I see the girls, so I
can be focused on them and enjoy them for however brief a time.
This past Monday my teaching started a bit later than usual, so I
was looking forward to having a good hour with the girls before
heading out the door.


Then Cora was invited over to a friend’s house – a
house she’s never been to before. I couldn’t say no. So
as I prepared for this past Monday afternoon, I pictured the
quality time Maddie and I would spend together, chatting about the
day and having deep talks while cuddling on the couch. I headed off
to the school to give Cora a quick hug in passing and pick Maddie
up for the day.


But when I got to school, Maddie ran at me bursting with
excitement. “Mom! Marina invited me over to her house to
play! Can I go? Please???” I looked at Marina’s mom,
who nodded that yes, this was a sanctioned invitation.

On Sunday morning, my plan was to sleep
until I absolutely had to wake up, jump in the shower and get ready
for church. I’d heard Brian get up a bit earlier and was
snuggled down under the covers, half-asleep and enjoying the fact
that it was almost 8 a.m. and I was still in bed.


At which point I felt a tap on my shoulder and opened one eye to
see my husband looking at me sympathetically. “I’m so
sorry to wake you before your alarm, but this is just too darn cute
so you need to roll over to see it.”


I obligingly rolled over and opened the other eye, and there was my
five-year-old with a huge grin on her face, holding a breakfast
tray.

Yes, I’m writing about my blender
– one more time, I promise.


Yesterday I threw in three oranges (only the outer skin removed),
two frozen peeled bananas, a bit of honey, some vanilla and some
whole milk and made Orange Julius drinks for everyone.


Me likey.

In an extravagant fit of sheer
awesomeness, my mother just gave me a Vita-Mix blender as an early
Mother’s Day gift. I’ve been eyeing one for a couple of
years and we really thought this was the year, but a few household
repairs came up and . . . you know how it goes.


But I suddenly find myself with this Lamborghini of blenders at my
disposal, and there is no stopping me now.


My first day with Frieda (my highly efficient new friend, on
constant call, ready to whip up any drink I might want with
Teutonic efficiency) I used it Five. Times. Yes, five. For one
round with the girls, I peeled four clementines and threw them in
there –seeds and pith and all – with a peeled banana
and some yogurt and some vanilla extract. Sheer heaven. Frieda (my
new best friend) will take any fruit and pulverize it to a smooth,
un-pulp-y liquid. I have high hopes that she will help me get more
whole fruits and veggies down Cora’s throat – Cora is
my Texture Nazi.


So far I’m sticking with classics – mango, strawberries
(we’ve got a few of those around), bananas, oranges, that
sort of thing – with a bit of plain yogurt. I’ve
learned that if I put in frozen fruit it makes a drink the
consistency of a milkshake.


A milkshake.

Last Friday I pulled the girls out of
school early to go strawberry picking, an annual event we always
look forward to. We’re lucky to have an organic strawberry
farm just north of us here, and we pack a picnic and make a day of
it. The strawberries are EXCELLENT and the prices below grocery
store, so we always pick plenty to bring home and freeze for
canning and smoothies.


This year we may have over-reached a bit.


Maddie and Cora were able to really participate this year and did a
great job filling up a few buckets with very ripe strawberries,
while my mom and I worked diligently to pick as much as we could. I
kept remembering how we ran out of the thirty pounds we picked last
May by mid-July, and I was determined to pick more this year. I
sent the girls back to the farmer for extra buckets a few times,
and we ended with quite a haul.


Sixty-eight pounds, to be exact.

Total number of caterpillars we started
with in our garden ten days ago:


Ten.


Total number of caterpillars now in residence in our garden:


Zero.


Yes, we have managed to lose every. Single. One.


In a related story, my dill is miraculously growing back from
one-inch stubs.


Not that it makes me feel better.

We're down to one caterpillar out there.


One caterpillar, and five people all hovering anxiously around it,
our hopes and dreams for it and its nine former friends all poured
into this one stupid larva.


I swear, God's creation will drive me to drink this week.