Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real.

  Happy Easter!This is my pretty picture, but also my real one.  Note that Jack is not wearing the dress shirt I searched every store in the greater Fitchburg area to find and Ann has lost her bow and her shoes, and John lost his beard!  Oops.  And of course, Jack is not looking.  He is busy escaping.  

Can you believe how much they've grown since last year??

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real.

I know I am late joining the linky party, but I had stomach flu and had a very difficult time getting the button to work,  Thanks, Leila for the tutorial!  I was using the older editor...  






Pretty Girl: dancing while she eats

 



Happy Siblings: enjoying each other's company






Funny Fashion Sense: fresh from the bath

 





Real Boy

 




Three Feet Deep in Snow

Ever since our second big snow in December, Jack has not been able to play outside. The snow was fun the first time, we made snow angles and snow balls and half-hearted snow men. After that it came up past his knees and he informed me from his position, unable to move from the drift in which I had dropped him, that he did "not like this." Since then the snow has only increased.

Earlier this week, in desperate need of milk and laundry detergent I packed the kids into their snow suits and shoved their puffy snow-suited selves down into the straps of their car seats. I then spent about fifteen fruitless minutes trying to back out of the freshly shoveled driveway, as Jack commented curiously on my efforts. That is about when he noticed the backyard: heaps and drifts and piles of snow with the top six inches of fence sticking out in some places and not in others. "Oh no!" he said, "The backyard is Broken!"

A Soy Free, Dairy Free Diet

So, one of the things that has kept me away from my blog for the last several months is learning to eat Soy and Dairy free.

You see, when Ann was about three months old, so back in April sometime, we discovered that she has a dairy and soy allergy. Since then we have learned that this is not so unusual for a baby. And hopefully is something that she will outgrow. In the mean time we have been very happy that, with an altered diet, I have been able to keep nursing her.

One thing that was very hard about this transition was that it came very suddenly with little or no direction. We noticed some unsettling symptoms in our baby, called the doctor and left a message and a couple of hours later got a call back from the nurse saying that it was "probably a dairy allergy so try eating dairy and soy free and call back in a few days if that doesn't work." There did not seem to be any understanding of how that shook my world. What?? No milk? No cheese? No ice cream?? No butter??? Doesn't that seem a little extreme?! Surely there is another option? Or shouldn't we at least make sure this is the problem first?? Imagine my surprise when I found that every cheese or butter substitute in the grocery store was made from soy! I spent a long time one day reading the ingredients on every package in the dairy isle...and everything else on my list too.

Another issue was that while there is a lot of information on how to eat dairy free there was very little available on how to eat soy free at the same time. I did find this website (or really my mother did) and the coconut curry is delicious!

So my intention is to make this the first of a series on the subject. This way, if I ever have to do this again I won't have to re-invent the wheel, and perhaps some stranger, who is hungry and scared to eat for fear of hurting her sweet little nurser, will find it useful as well!

So for now, if you're interested, check out that website, and I'll add some more recipes and substitutions and such later on!

Slip-covers: Inspired by the wonderful Mary Rosaleen!

So, I made these two slip covers for some REALLY ugly, horrible scratchy poly-somethin pillows I had. Aren't they cute? I'm not sure I'm quite sold on the red patch on the one, but I love the ruffle on the other. And it was sooo quick and easy. I did it during nap time and was done before the kids got up!


The Yellow (which I got from Ikea and love; it's so bright and cheery!) and green I already had, I'm discussing the other two.

(for some reason I can't rotate this picture...tilt your head.)

Adding the ruffle was the hardest part. I guess there might have been an easier way of doing it, but I just pinned the fabric first at the ends of the ruffle to the first layer of the cover and then in the middle and then in the two middles and then in the 4 corners, etc. till it was stable enough to sandwich the second layer (or other side) of the cover on top and sew.

See, so here is what the cover looks like inside out. It's one square piece of fabric and two rectangles that are slightly larger than the square so that they overlap in the back. So fast and easy!

Weren't they so ugly before...I'm almost embarrassed to show you...

Borax: a treatise on cheap effective detergent

I try to buy the cheapest laundry detergent that I can. Because we use a lot of it around here. But I also have small children who don't just wear their clothes. They get them DIRTY. So I need a detergent that will CLEAN.

So I've been buying cheap detergent (was using Arm and Hammer till my daughter was allergic to it, now using All Free and Clear) and adding a scoop of Oxyclean to every load. This works pretty well, but Oxyclean is expensive too! So shouldn't I make it simpler and just buy the expensive detergent (Tide!) and skip the booster?

Enter Auntie Leila, who suggested that I substitute Borax for Oxyclean. At $2 per box as compared to $10 for Oxyclean it is a definite savings and I am here to tell you that it works!

That being said, I still think Oxyclean is best for soaking out pesky stains. Like when Ann crawled through the mud in her white tights and turtleneck, I soaked in Borax to little or no effect whereas the Oxyclean did the trick.

And while we are on the subject of detergent, let's move to the kitchen. I've been using liquid soap (just about the cheapest: Palmolive Eccosomethingorother) in my dishwasher, because I figured that if the soap didn't have to spend time dissolving it would spend more time cleaning and that should be a good thing. Last week a dear friend suggested I try the powder instead (again about the cheapest available: Cascade) and low and behold, it works so much better! Yay! cleaner dishes!

The catechistic method In practice

I remember in college people sneering at the use of the catechistic method as something outdated at best, barbaric, ridiculous, and sinister at worst.

I have never felt that way about it. I like the method. There is simply no substitution for memory by route. Sometimes, when push comes to shove, you need something safe, something memorized, something familiar to fall back on. This is why children love reading the same board book 8 million times every night and why we, as adults, love reading our children the same books our parents read to us. We know them. They are ours. They are safe, comfortable, lovely. As my father reminds us so often, the philosopher says, "there is pleasure in repetition."

So, we've started using this method with Jack:

It began on his birthday in May, as I wound up and down the isles in Wal-mart:
"Jack, how old are you?"
"Two!"

(With his arm thrown confidently in the air, presenting his two sausage fingers)

And continued:
"What is your name?"
"Jack!"
"what is your last name?"
"TriLOlo!"

(Always with great enthusiasm, and, unless he's strapped down, a hop, skip or a jump. Because he's a boy and everything comes with a bounce.)

And my favorite:
"Who made you?"
"God!"
"And why did God make you?"
"Because Him LOVES me!"

Said with such utter enthusiasm! I don't know if he loves this one the most because I do, or if it is because he realizes the awesomeness of it in some way, but he likes to ask me back:

"Mamma, Who made you??"
and I say, "God!"
and he says "Why did Him make you?!"
and I say, "because he loves me!
and he says, "Him loves YOU!"

And we are happy, and it is good. Because we know that it is true, we know that it is right. I enjoy that Jack knows and he enjoys that he knows and he enjoys that I enjoy that he knows. And yes, this is very sinister.