question

to those of you who use google reader: when i publish a post, then realize there's an error in it and go back and edit it and repost it, does it show up as a new and different post? what i'm asking is...is their proof of my neurosis lurking in your google reader?

happy faces happy tummies

of course when i muster the energy to write, blogger has changed the format/template. dear world: i don't like change. it is not helpful. regardless:

today was a good day.

i used to think that a perfect day would look something like a hallmark commercial. breakfast in bed, tidy, well behaved children always smiling and laughing but never actually making any noise, nice house that's perfectly clean and in order as the backdrop, yummy looking food that the mother either doesn't have to prepare or clean up after or that she joyfully prepares in her cute stylish outfit without nary an interruption from those quietly smiling children.

yah, that's just not doing to happen around here. tim tried to make me breakfast in bed once and the boys screamed from the dining room table because they wanted to be with me. when i gave in and let them join me, they stole all my food and something ended up getting spilt. not relaxing. i've come to accept that even the best of days, at this stage of my life, are going to involving preparing food, breaking up squabbles, wiping bottoms, and weathering max fits. because in case you didn't know, it's really hard and totally traumatic for max to have to get his own socks out of the drawer. not even put them on, just get them out. we had two of those meltdowns today.

i have this yummy yum yum to thank for setting the mood of our day. when i saw the recipe last night on angry chicken, i knew i wanted to make it today. this was the fourth recipe i've tried for something like this. for awhile i was stuck on trying to make them in a muffin pan as individual popovers, but they always got stuck and i hate cleaning the muffin pan. this recipe was perfecto! gotta love cast iron. ms. amy karol called hers a dutch baby. when max asked what i was making for breakfast and i told him a dutch baby, he seemed confused and suspicious. i decided to just call it a puffy oven cake, which is what my nephew calls this same sort of creation.

we put extra butter and a little maple syrup on ours after taking it out of the cast iron. the boys enjoyed watching it deflate but it always makes me a little sad. so lofty and then so flat. side note: i used whole wheat pastry flour and it was still totally delish.

i was a little nervous serving it to the boys because, like i've said, i've tried something like this before and i don't remember the boys loving it, but i think i put jelly on it once and blueberry sauce another time. plus, since it was super easy to make and fun for me, i figured naturally they would hate it purely to spite me. but oh happy day! they loved it! so much in fact that i made another one for our afternoon snack. i love how easy these are.

because the weather was absolutely beautiful, i decided we should have a picnic. puffy oven cakes are even better when eaten lying down soaking up glorious sunshine.

and a little kombucha because momma was feeling really wild and high on vitamin D.

ben wanted to use the camera and this pose was his idea.

while the boys played on the driveway and in the forest, i enjoyed this view.

last monday the wind blew from the north and it was cold and cloudy all day. max's behavior left me in tears several times, i was totally depressed mourning the end of sunshine and the approach of winter and tim and i had a huge fight.

today i spent my day washing windows, preparing food, cleaning up, doing laundry, and parenting. AND BASKING IN THE SUNSHINE. it was no hallmark commercial for sure. the moms in hallmark commercials certainly don't raise their voices or discover their darling offspring throwing wet, dirty rags at the freshly cleaned windows.

but today was still pretty great. thank you God for the sunshine. and the charming offspring who say sweet things like, "momma, i like your fancy hair."

oh my darlins'

i've mentioned before that my boys drive me crazy, right? what's that you say? "every time you mention your boys, you explain how they make you crazy. it's getting a little old mary." well sorry. this is my life. a big 'ol pot of crazy.

a lot of the time, the brand of crazy is of the frustrated/annoying persuasion. max is a bit volatile and we're never quite sure how he's going to react to things. plus, even when the kid is happy, he sometimes headbutts me, HARD, to show his happiness. and screeches like a pterodactyl. if you hear the screeching and look over to see max grinning at you with crazy eyes: protect yourself.

max is capable of doing a lot of things, like dressing himself, but if he doesn't want to, which is most of the time, he just won't do whatever it is you want him to do and will throw a mega huge fit about it. there are also a few things that max can't do, or that i don't have the patience to allow him to do, like doing every step of making the french toast, including cracking the eggs, that he very adamantly insists he can and should be allowed to do. i've been hesitant to let him carry the one precious egg that we get every few days from our hens because i don't want it getting broken. the first time i let him carry it he kept running after ben, even after i told him to stop running, and was being silly and dropped the egg. it didn't break but i confiscated it from him because of his unfriendly to precious egg conduct. he found that majorly offensive. the next time he was with me when there was an egg, he begged to carry it and i let him, reminding him not to run with it. i was so proud of him for carefully marching next to me and making it all the way to the house without any egg offending behaviour. then he smashed the egg on the big tree stump we have by our front door. careful, careful, careful, SMASH!!! yep, that's max alright.

so sometimes, they make me crazy with frustration.

but sometimes, the craziness is of the mind blowing, totally beautiful love kind. a lot of those moments take place when they are sleeping. i love me some sleeping boys. they're so quiet when they sleep. except for when they thrash and talk in their sleep and sniff their nose eighteen times while sharing my pillow with me. but i'm not talking about those times.

i'm talking about times like tonight when ben sings me a song. we were driving home from tim's parent's house and were talking about something that reminded ben of a song from veggie tales: madam blueberry. he started singing "i'm so blue" and i started to laugh. he asked me why i was laughing and i told him that his singing made me so happy that my happiness came out as a laugh. he then said, "well, this song will make you even happier."

"i love my mom.
she is the best.
we are so happy when we are together.
she is so nice.
i love her and she loves me."
(lots of repeating)

during ben's singing max started to sing but then started to yell at ben for "erupting" him. (how appropriate that max pronounces interrupting as erupting. he certainly is our little volcano.) for about ten minutes the boys fought over who's turn it was to sing to me. i tried to intervene, but i find parenting while driving to be really difficult. i finally just turned on the radio and turned it up to block them out/distract them. it was a bluegrassish instrumental song and it caught their ears. then they started singing again, together but singing their own songs. i turned off the music so i could listen to them. i couldn't hear max very well and he kept fading in and out, but what i could hear was "i love momma" over and over. ben was singing his song again and he also sang about looking at the clouds and about how he wished we lived in metrocity where robots would take care of us.

yep. crazy beautiful. with a little dose of crazy frustrating thrown in the middle to keep me from floating away, of course.

oh those boys.