Lynne's lessons in effective parenting, no. 1

Dealing with 3 year olds

The other day I got into a fight with my three year-old.

It started like this -

me: please, clean up all of those Uno cards you just threw all over the room. (long, empty pause while she continues to produce/throw more cards from game cabinet)

me, again: Please, please clean them up, sweetheart. Your sister is trying to eat them.

It ended like this -

me: you are never, ever, ever allowed to go swimming, ever again.

(we just got back from swimming lessons)

The Cookie King

Steve and I got married 13 falls ago, a week before he started medical school in San Francisco. Thus started an extremely fun, but extremely poor (in the money sense), phase of life for us. We lived in a series of tiny little apartments perched on foggy eucalyptus-y scented hills in the inner Sunset, and subsisted mostly on rosemary roasted potatoes and bread.

But no matter how empty our bank account got, we always had one vital ingredient in our small pantry: CRISCO. Because you can't make the king of all chocolate chip cookies without it. We've flirted over the years with other non-crisco recipes (this one is really good, too), but we always come back to you, dear crisco-laden morsel of wonderfulness. The dough is fantastically tasty, and somehow, I don't understand it, but the cookies are even better the second - and if they make it this long - the third days. (Ok, actually if I think about it I guess the highly processed nature of shortening might have something to do with it.)

So, my gift, from me to you:

Steve's Chocolate Chippers (no idea where the original recipe is from)

mix: 1 c. crisco, 1 c. sugar, 1/2 c. brown sugar, 2 eggs, 2 t. vanilla

add 2 1/4 c. flour, 1 t. baking soda, 1/2 t. salt, and mix

When ingredients are just coming together, add chocolate chips (as many as you like).

Do NOT over-mix dough.

Bake at 375 for about 8 minutes.

priorities

My friend Audrey is an amazing woman. Lynne would concur with me on this. She's set up a little Montessori school in her home for her boys. Her main reason for doing so was that she wanted to spend as much time teaching her kids as possible while they are little, rather than sending them away from the home for much of the day. She goes on frequent outings to museums and galleries in D.C. She spends at least an hour a day helping her son practice the piano. In brief, she's put herself and her own desires aside for the moment so that she can have the biggest, most positive impact possible on her children while they are little. I've been completely inspired by her. Hence the reason for putting aside my passions for the moment (sewing, painting, writing, etc.) so I can try to savor the time with my children while they are little.

By the way, I'm not saying it's been easy, or that I've not been tempted to pick up my old passions. In fact Sunday I became completely inspired to write a novel. Lynne and I have talked back and forth about this idea before. I felt like I had the perfect idea and I was going to do it (during my huge chunks of free time--about 20 minutes a day in total, I would say!) By Tuesday, I realized my novel stunk, and so did my house. Better yet put those dreams on hold for a short time so I can enjoy my morning Montessori time with the four-year old.

art lesson - andy goldsworthy

Our parent art docent program is off to a good start this year. It's been so wonderful to see other mothers (and I'm hoping for some fathers, too) step out of comfort zones and do this in our school's classrooms.

Last Friday I did this Andy Goldsworthy lesson with my son's class (check out all of the Duniway website's great lessons). We had a really interesting discussion while going through our slideshow, particularly over the question of whether the art installations, or the photographs, were the art (fourth graders can be profound, man!). Then we split up, went outside, and the kids got to work.

I thought their creations were breath-taking. (See some of Andy Goldsworthy's beautiful art here)

***

yipes! The link to Duniway's art lessons no longer is active - they have revised their site. If you are interested in the lesson plan, email me and I'd be happy to email you a copy.

cake table from wedding...making me hungry

(photos by Monika Elena)

Ann's Wedding

(All these gorgeous photos are by Monika Elena Photography. Ann's flowered hair clips are from Emerson Made, her bouquet by Kari Schrever, and the delicious food and cakes by Saffron caterers).

Ann's invitations

My little sister kindly gave me full creative freedom to make her wedding invitations this summer. It was really fun, and - bonus! - I got to watch pretty much the entire first season of Little House on the Prairie on DVD the Saturday I printed/assembled. Indignation towards that Nellie Oleson and her mother fueled my creative energy.

On the top is the little map. Dan proposed to Ann this spring at the cherry blossoms, so I wanted to include that romantic detail from the cutest couple in the whole world. Fortunately most of the people who came to the wedding reception already knew where my parents lived, or had GPS, because this map was not actually helpful in the traditional map-sense of the word.

I used my trusty gocco machine to print most of the pieces, with the exception of the announcement.

Ann and Dan got married in a beautiful and small ceremony in the LDS Washington, DC temple. We thought it would be friendly to hand-write the cards for this part, since it was a small group.

We had the announcement itself letter-pressed by Jordan Ferney. She did a beautiful job.

and then everything got bundled together and tied up with hemp string.

Congratulations, again, Dan and Ann! I love you guys.

boats, an article, and a haiku

It's such a pretty morning here - cold for fall (enough to wear sweaters, which is shocking for our part of California this time of year) and overcast. The baby is asleep, the three year old is at school, and I am going to paint. But first, let me share with you a haiku my husband composed the other night before falling asleep about our day:

Today he blew-dry

her urine-soaked ballet dress

with a hair dryer

Awesome.

Also great (perhaps, dare I say, even more profound than that?) is this David Brooks article - food for thought.