Lunch a Deux

The sole remaining child at home during lunch is luckily also the only one who is young enough not to complain about the vegetable soup with dreaded mushrooms that I like to make for lunch in the winter.

Way to be, Jack. You can be my lunch buddy anytime.

Miracle on the Canadian Border

It's multiple choice time!

How would you respond to the following statement?

It is 5:34 a.m. and I am currently drinking my second cup of coffee in a quiet house.

   a) What in the hell are you doing awake at 5:34 a.m., you crazy person?

   b) That sounds nice.

   c) A quiet house? You mean all your kids are asleep and you're drinking coffee in peace? ALLELUIA!

If you chose "c," then you're right there in the small-child trenches with me. right? But even if you're not right there in those trenches, you will perhaps understand my pleasure in a 5:30 a.m. uninterrupted cup of coffee when I tell you that Jack has been waking up every. single. morning. before 5:15 for two weeks now. Sometimes before 5 a.m.

While I will willingly get up that early to have some cherished quiet time before children awake, waking up WITH one of those children that early is not so cherished. Much as I love sharing my coffee time with a squirming two-year-old, I actually prefer, uh, not to share it.

Sorry, Jack. Mommy can appreciate you more after 5:30 a.m.

I have no idea why Jack is sleeping in this morning. I can only hope it continues.

Mixed Reviews

I made some split pea soup for dinner tonight, mostly because I had all the ingredients on hand and no other brilliant ideas for dinner.

I don't think I've ever made split pea soup before. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever actually eaten it before.

I used a recipe from Christopher Kimball (of America's Test Kitchen fame), and it was okay. Not being an authority on split pea soup, I don't know if mediocre is all I can expect from it (I suspect this is the case, seeing as the main ingredient is, well, dried peas), or if it was the recipe, but I wasn't overwhelmed by the taste sensation.

Apparently, neither was Cubby.

He was halfway through his bowl of soup when he announced, "I'm going to have seconds of this. It doesn't taste perfect, but it feels good in my tummy."

Yeah. Sounds about right to me.

P.S. Any mediocre soup dinner can be salvaged by cornbread. Good thing I made some. It was a good call. Everyone kind of grudgingly ate their (single) bowl of soup, but everyone wanted seconds of the cornbread. Life lesson: Always make cornbread with soup. It ends the meal on a happy note and makes everyone forget about the soup, especially if it was forgettable to start with.

The Sweet with the Bitter

This morning at 7:10, I dressed all three children and myself in our outdoor apparel so we could all go out together to wait for the bus. (It was a balmy 18 degrees above zero this morning. Tropical!)

At 7:20 a.m., the bus arrived, Cubby led Charlie onto it holding hands, and the bus driver got off to tell me that because Charlie is only four, the bus driver will buckle him in with a seat belt and he'll have a permanent seat with Cubby every day. Then the bus driver got back on the bus, buckled Charlie in, and drove away with two of my three boys.

That was the bitter part.

And then Jack insisted on taking a walk, because hey! We're outside! In the semi-dark! HOW FUN!

Jack also insisted on getting up at 4:58 this morning, so at 8:30 a.m. I declared both him and me done and put him down for a nap.

And then . . .

This is the sweet part.

Some of you may recall the great joy I experience from a solitary, quiet meal with a book. So when I was standing there in a quiet house trying to figure out what I should do next, and I remembered that I hadn't eaten breakfast yet, I made myself a real breakfast. An egg, leftover mashed potatoes with cheese, and greens*. Then I sat down with my book (that's a really good book, by the way, if you're looking for a non-dry but fact-filled non-fiction book) and read and ate.

I'm so tired today that I feel a little ill, but I have a hot cup of tea next to me and probably 45 more minutes of quiet before Jack wakes up.

Bitter and sweet. The essence of motherhood.

* Incidentally, those greens are actually lettuce. The reason that I cooked lettuce for the first time was that our refrigerator inexplicably went crazy yesterday and more or less froze the entire contents of the refrigerator, including an entire head of green leaf lettuce. I was reluctant to throw the whole thing out, so I chopped it up and cooked it with olive oil and garlic. It's good. Indistinguishable from bok choy, pretty much. Something to keep in mind the next time I have excess lettuce from the garden and get sick of salads.

Then There Was One

Charlie's first day of school today required me to go with him for an orientation/open house thing for the families for an hour or so before we left them to it.

A. had to leave this morning for Blackrock, so it was just me and Jack to take Charlie. It was 8 degrees below zero when we left for the school. So by the the time I got the van started to warm it up, everyone dressed, and the backpack on the school kid, I only had time for one very rushed photo. Which is totally blurry and useless because Charlie was mostly concerned that his cool new backpack be in it:

It is a pretty nice backpack.

We made it to the school right on time. His teacher is very sweet, and Charlie didn't seem to have any hesitation about racing to the front of the pack and leaving me behind with Jack when we went on a school tour with the whole group.

Jack was the only younger sibling present, which meant the other parents spent a lot of time watching me corral him in attempts to keep him with the group and not, say, stopping at all the fascinating water fountains or making an unscheduled visit to the computer lab.

Most of the other parents also took photos at some point. I forgot both my camera and phone, so I fail at that.

When it was time for Jack and me to leave, I gave a disinterested Charlie a high five, pulled a reluctant Jack away from the toys, and left.

There was remarkably little drama involved. I can only hope it stays that way. (Unlike his previous school experience.)

Tomorrow he gets to start riding the bus with Cubby. The good times just keep coming.