Naptime conversations

Once again today I was reminded how much my kids are like their father FP. He tends to say things that are random and then hilarity ensues.

Today Superman and I went to my room for naptime. Yes he did his snuggle routine and then a few minutes later I got up to check on something and came back and sat next to him on the bed. We chatted a little which ended in "I love yous" and then I laid next to him. As we laid there I heard this odd tap on the window. Then I heard another noise, all coming from our backyard. I knew it wasn't our dogs so I looked out the window. Well in truth BOTH Superman and I looked out the window to see a pigeon party in our backyard. Several birds were flapping around and kicking up a fuss. I was satisfied it was a bird that tapped the window and prepared to lay next to Superman again , when he gave a soft sigh and said with a smile.

" I hope they have a son"

blink
" you hope they have a little birdy son?"

"yes"

" why?"

" because I am a son.

" baby birdies are way cute huh?"

" yea I like them. The Daddy bird can take care of the baby"

" what does a daddy birdy do?"

" he ....I dunno?"

" does he protect the mommy birdy and the baby? Get food and give it to the mommy and baby? He works hard doesn't he?"

" yea he does"

" so what does the mommy birdy do?"

*pause* as he looks at me like " don't you know?" He gives a half smile and says:
"Uh...I dunno. She farts the babies out?" He giggles a little but tries to remain serious.

The conversation continued on for a few minutes more but ladies and gentlemen this is the best part. So from what I gathered from this encounter :

Superman saw something FAR different when he looked out the window than I saw otherwise his conversation about birdy babymaking came entirely from his mind. What is he thinking?!

Superman has the notion that Daddies don't participate in the process of birdymaking. Only the Mommy farts them out. *laughs* I honestly don't know where he even got that much information. *goes to have a conversation with Supermans older siblings*

I love a childs mind.

Late night musings and a little bit of snuggles.

As Halloween approaches I have found I have less and less time to write. One thing I have realized however is that no matter how little time I have or how many things are rattling around in my head or how many things I have to do , I have a constant stream of recipes I am writing in my mind. Ever since I decided I was going to write a cookbook, my mind has gone into overdrive. I have so many ideas and thoughts going through my mind that I find that I go to sleep thinking about recipes and wake up doing the same. It's like even while I slept it continued. It is very wearing.

I keep thinking some day I would love to have a little chichi shop where I sell handmade creations or run a catering company but the more I research it the more it feels like a unreachable dream. Your talking about a woman who never went to college, never had any formal business training. Everything I know is self taught. All I know is I love to cook and bake. I love every aspect of the culinary arts. I love candy making. Working with chocolate is so fun. Also it has all come really easy to me. Any recipe I have tried. Or created has always been something I thought was really good but more importantly, everyone I had try it felt the same. Somehow I feel I have a knack but I really don't think I will ever really be able to make anything of this particular love. I want to be a caterer. I love the whole idea of providing a custom experience , doing something I love.

It's funny how dreams develop. I could never have seen this being my dream when I was 16. Or even 18. However as I have gotten older and learned to feed my family on several levels, it became something I just really felt I was good at. I never anticipated actually being so much like the other women in my family. What I mean is that between my grandmother and my mother I did not have a typical food experience growing up. There was no fast food, boxed meals or even "normal" meals. My grandmother made elaborate and stunning meals whenever I came to her house and she cooked that way all her life. When my friends were eating rice a roni and chicken , my mom was making sticky bones and noodles. Or we would have fruit and cheese and crusty bread for dinner. I could recount endless moments where I was intruduced to things my friends had never heard much less had eaten. Food for my family wasn't about eating or even about the food itself. It was about people who loved you preparing something to feed your body and your soul.

The women in my life did that. I presume that is why I have such a love of this kind of work. DM lets me help with some of the food at her christmas eve party she holds every year. I should clarify a little because it sounds as if this has been a long standing tradition but in truth this is the second year. I think she lets me help because she knows I like to but not necessarily because of any particular skill or aptitude I have. I think honestly she would rather do it herself. *giggle* I like helping cater her get togethers because it gives me experience in real time application of my recipes as well as being able to judge portions and quantity. Judging quantity is the hardest for me. I tend to make far too much food compared to what is actually consumed.

I have no idea why this post is all about my catering dream..lol. Perhaps it is just that I am tired and I haven't been sleeping well. Ah well enough of that. Onto much more fun topics.

Superman. He is such sweet , spontaneously affectionate yet outspoken and independant person. Since the time he was born he has been a snuggler. He loves to crawl in my bed and lay his head on my shoulder and curl his tiny body right up next to mine. He will just lay there. He doesn't need the T.V. or a book or any outside distraction. He just likes to lay there. I can't tell you how many times I have woken up to him next to me, wide awake but just snuggling next to me. The purpose of my telling you all of this is because he has a pattern now. He waits until he determines that I am getting ready for bed and he hops in bed ( we call it monkey in the middle) He announces to me and FP " I wanna sssssnuggle! "
That is my cue to say " you do?" Then in a softer more cajoling tone he says " Yes I wanna snuggle with you " Then it's my turn to get into bed and give him my shoulder , roll to face him and put my arm around him. He puts his thumb in his mouth, closes his eyes and sighs. Its a soft sound of contentment that I can only liken to that sound a baby makes after they have finished nursing and they have nodded off. Its that sound they make just after they seperate from you , like they don't want you to go away but they are so happy and sleepy that all they can muster as a protest is a sweet little sigh. This is our routine. This routine can take place at any time of day but most often right before bed.

Someday I am going to miss that. Someday I will read this and it might make me sad for want of the past. I wonder if any other mothers have these moments where they reflect and say someday I am going to ache with missing that. Or am I just a pathetic, sappy excuse for a mom?

There is no real point to this post and it is fairly random and bounces around a bit but that comes with being unfabulous I guess.
More later.
Mrs. F

Long overdue Update and Tradition commences.

It has been some time since I posted. Fear not I have not lost my desire to fill you in on the ridiculous and mundane details of my families life. Instead it was something more sinister and less dramatic. A sign of the times has manifested in us having to cut back bills to be able to pay others. Aka net,cable and phone. We were offline for a month and we just couldn't sacrifice the net so we pared down the phone and cable to make it a more manageable bill. We also rectified a problem with our electric bill so that we should see significant savings shortly.

It is safe to say that we are about as bare bones as we can take at the moment. The kids need the net for school otherwise I would say we could do without that but to be honest we do everything on the net. Bill pay, maps, homeschool materials, we get all notifications online ( insurance etc.) Not to mention just about all family correspondance. So yea internet has become a necessity. Odd that.

What is new with us? Well largely it has been more of the same. Homeschool, activities, friends and family. Tomorrow when I have more time I will update on everyone individually and I am wont to do but for now we are all doing ok. Kids are busy. Hubby and I are busy and tired. a lot. a lot a lot. We have a wedding coming up, my hubby's youngest sister. It has made me reflect a bit on my own wedding and marriage and I might post on that at a later date.

We restarted some of our old family traditions that we had to stop after the housefire. It seems a small thing but honestly to me personally its huge. We began baking bread again. Before the fire I made everything from scratch that I could. Bread, rolls, muffins, tortillas etc. We had theme nights of the week. The kids LOVED it. One night chinese, one night italian etc. After the fire I kind of stopped cooking, I mean I cooked meals ( we didn't starve ) but it wasn't "my " cooking. It was thrown together stuff that just got everyone fed. I used to really thoughtfully and lovingly prepare meals. I love to cook so it was easy. I had a very well stocked kitchen and it just felt good to make homemade pizza or calzones. Or eggrolls and wontons, potstickers etc. Over the past 18 months I have noticed the kids say things like " remember when you used to make this? or remember when we would always do this ? Or the one that hurts the most. " I wish we could make "( eggrolls, lasagna,tortillas etc.) " again" It's hard to miss the longing in a child when they say things like that and you know they long for it because YOU don't or won't do it anymore.

Personally it was hard to get back into my old swing. It felt foreign and awkward and it didn't feel like it fit anymore. It was scarey too. If I restarted some old traditions it meant I would have to remember a life we no longer had. A home we no longer had. People we no longer have. I would have to go back to that dark place and find a way past it to be able to access those memories without them smelling like smoke. Without them feeling like fear. So I just decided one night that I was taking back one tradition at a time. One memory, one action that we did . Bread baking commenced and my daughter took to it like a champ. It is amazing how the smell of baking bread doesn't smell like smoke. It's memory might bring that smell to the forefront but suddenly you are reminded that the bread baking in the oven is a new memory, an old memory reinvented. It might seem odd to someone who hasn't exprienced a housefire to hear me relating it's smells to memories. If you have never experienced it you just can't know what I mean.

Your brain attatches that smell to everything you once knew. It's like a tag. Almost a classification of that time of your life and no matter what you can't change it's tag. Now I have always said the fire was a blessing and I truly believe that. There is no measuring how much of a blessing it was because far too many good things came from it. However that is not to say it was not hard, painfull and even now continues to be a recovery process. This is a life altering event and it doesn't just go away in a couple of years. This continues. Recovering from something like this takes such a long time and often people forget or grow tired of hearing about it. So like any mourning process it takes a lot of time and it has many steps. Reintroducing small traditions into our lives again is a small step toward reinventing memories with painfull tags. So we started with bread. It was good.
Mrs. F.