As a parent, I am forever expressing pride in my children: to them, to my parents, to my coworkers, to anyone who stands still long enough to hear stories of their unmatched brilliance. What I do not do often, and should, is express pride in my husband.
The marital relationship does not necessarily lend itself to the constant stream of glowing acknowledgements that are omnipresent in the child-parent conversation. I praise my kids for assembling puzzles, clearing dinner dishes, and holding a bottle independently, and I feel a surge of pride every time they do these things. I think it would border on patronizing if I praised Chef Matt every time he used his fork at the dinner table.
But even though I do not feel a burst of pride for his every minor accomplishment, I think it is important that he knows I am proud of him, too. All of us need to know that our lives and work are appreciated, and that we give someone cause to boast a little to someone else.
This week, Matt cooked a spread of appetizers for an event at my work. It was small, perhaps 30 people, and held in a museum classroom with little pomp or circumstance. But as he always does when food is involved, he delivered, with care and class and creativity.
He arranged brie and manchego alongside blueberries and golden raisins. He seared and chilled strips of filet, and sandwiched them between crostinis and horseradish cream. He spread spicy cream cheese over homemade crackers, and topped them with roasted peppers and thinly sliced apples.
It was a beautiful spread. He worked with such precision, and projected such professionalism in his chef's whites.
And I was very proud. I could see my colleagues and their guests enjoying and exclaiming and going back for more, and I wanted to walk around to everyone, tap them on the shoulders, and say, "Isn't that delicious? My husband made it."
I am gushing a little here, but honestly, when was the last time someone told you that they were really proud of you? We do not hear it as often as we might have as children, when we were formulating skills and self-esteem. I argue that we need it just as much as adults, that it validates our hard work, which often goes unnoticed, and gives our self-worth a boost.
I charge you all, then, to express pride more often to the people you love who are not your kids. It will make their day. I will start it off: Honey, I am proud of you. You make awesome food.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
I'll Give You a Million Dollars if You Eat that Broccoli
Before I became a parent, I had lofty expectations for myself as a mother. Many of said expectations did not simply go out the window; rather, they were tossed hastily at a closed window because I did not have time to open it.
“My children will not watch TV until they are at least two.” Except that Dora the Explorer is the greatest house-cleaning-time babysitter. “My children will never sleep in bed with us.” Except that at 2:00 a.m., after the baby has been up at 11:00, 12:00 and 1:00, this is the best idea ever. “My children will not be bribed or threatened at the table.” Except that actually happens every single day.
Trying to get my kids to eat is a marathon wrapped in an ulcer. Between the preschooler, who takes 45 minutes to eat two bites of chicken, and the toddler, who shovels with one hand and smears in his hair with the other, I am amazed that they get anything in their bellies at all.
Paranoid visions of sickly children with low iron because they never consumed any green vegetables have driven me to desperate behaviors. If there are any treats in the house, I bribe. “Look, honey, a cookie! Only three more bites of asparagus!” Suddenly, eating those greens is a mission conducted by unrecognizably motivated kids. Cookie is consumed, but then, so are the greens.
Threats I like even less. But (here comes the justification) my sanity is at stake. I threaten bedtime, loss of toys and privileges, calling of Santa Claus, and the one the preschooler hates most: the kitchen timer. Most of the time, they eat, but when I have to follow through with the threats, I think I can confidently say that I am up for Meanest Mommy Ever Award.
I am a different mother than I thought I would be. I did not know how wonderful and challenging it would be. I certainly did not know how something as simple and relaxing as dinnertime could put me so quickly on the road to Crazytown, where I can be rescued only by the un-lofty dangling of cookies and kitchen timers.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Long Live the Dinner Table
A teacher friend of mine told me recently that almost universally, her most well-adjusted students have two things in common: they talk about current events at home, and they eat regular meals around the dinner table.
I can see the logic of both of those, but especially the dinner table. Growing up, we ate dinner at the table just about every night, with conversation and no TV. It was non-negotiable, and I was under the impression that all families ate that way.
This is not to say that those who ate on TV trays in the family room are any less well-adjusted, or that simply shoveling food while in the same proximity as your family members makes you a better human being.
What it does do is open up an opportunity to talk to your loved ones, and in this time of snatched moments between sleep and shower, or quick recaps just before bed, I think we could all use a little more time to converse. If you think about it, when we want to catch up with our friends, what do we generally do? We eat. Sometimes at restaurants, sometimes in our homes, but whatever the setting, we circle up, grab a plate of food, and talk.
The same theory applies at home. Certainly we can still talk while sitting together on the couch, but there is something comfortable about looking across the table at someone, asking about their day between forkfuls. Right now, of course, there is nothing of the idyllic dining room scene that I envision. At our current table, dinner is a forty-five-minute affair with a toddler who likes to watch food swim in his milk and a preschooler who does not actually eat, but rather, chews her cud.
But someday, when Chef Matt is home for dinner more often, and the kids are a little bigger, I hope that we will gather around our worn dining room table and catch up over a hot dish. Even when they are teenagers and do not want to look at me, much less talk to me, at least I can look around that table and see all my favorite people, assuring them that this will make them well-adjusted and someday they will thank me for it.
And since it is likely long overdue ... thanks, Mom and Dad.
I can see the logic of both of those, but especially the dinner table. Growing up, we ate dinner at the table just about every night, with conversation and no TV. It was non-negotiable, and I was under the impression that all families ate that way.
This is not to say that those who ate on TV trays in the family room are any less well-adjusted, or that simply shoveling food while in the same proximity as your family members makes you a better human being.
What it does do is open up an opportunity to talk to your loved ones, and in this time of snatched moments between sleep and shower, or quick recaps just before bed, I think we could all use a little more time to converse. If you think about it, when we want to catch up with our friends, what do we generally do? We eat. Sometimes at restaurants, sometimes in our homes, but whatever the setting, we circle up, grab a plate of food, and talk.
The same theory applies at home. Certainly we can still talk while sitting together on the couch, but there is something comfortable about looking across the table at someone, asking about their day between forkfuls. Right now, of course, there is nothing of the idyllic dining room scene that I envision. At our current table, dinner is a forty-five-minute affair with a toddler who likes to watch food swim in his milk and a preschooler who does not actually eat, but rather, chews her cud.
But someday, when Chef Matt is home for dinner more often, and the kids are a little bigger, I hope that we will gather around our worn dining room table and catch up over a hot dish. Even when they are teenagers and do not want to look at me, much less talk to me, at least I can look around that table and see all my favorite people, assuring them that this will make them well-adjusted and someday they will thank me for it.
And since it is likely long overdue ... thanks, Mom and Dad.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Six O'Clock is the New Midnight
A few hours ago, our house was ringing with the sounds of a dozen yelling, running children celebrating at our inaugural New Year's Eve Kids' Ball. They decorated cookies, thundered up and down our hallways, and jumped on bubble wrap under a balloon drop at "midnight."
It was a new threshold for New Year's. This has always been one of my favorite holidays, full of nostalgia and promise and champagne. For many years, I spent the night drinking with my girlfriends at New Year's parties, and in 2003, I walked into a party and saw a man standing in the kitchen who would later make a Kitchen Widow out of me.
But tonight, New Year's shifted focus and was about my kids. It was a turning point, just like the first night you bring your newborn home and realize that good sleep is gone, or when you realize that Christmas is absolutely not about you anymore. Part of the shift was just out of necessity; I am too old to crash on someone's floor after drinking keg beer out of a plastic cup until three in the morning. I am almost too old for going out, period.
Our New Year's traditions changed as soon as we had kids. We stayed in and went to bed early. But something always felt empty. I did not necessarily miss throngs of people or a New Year's Day hangover, but I missed the air of celebration.
I am reluctant to let go of New Year's forever, though. So instead, I will channel my love of New Year's into my children. We will forgo the champagne for sparkling juice, we will do the big countdown at six instead of midnight, we will play with balloons and toys, we will be noisy in that joyful way that children have. We will end the year as happily as we spent it.
As I sit awaiting the ball drop, alone with my champagne and pondering the resolutions I will quickly break, I am content in our new manner of celebration. It was a great thrill for my kids ... and you cannot get a headache from sparkling apple cider.
It was a new threshold for New Year's. This has always been one of my favorite holidays, full of nostalgia and promise and champagne. For many years, I spent the night drinking with my girlfriends at New Year's parties, and in 2003, I walked into a party and saw a man standing in the kitchen who would later make a Kitchen Widow out of me.
But tonight, New Year's shifted focus and was about my kids. It was a turning point, just like the first night you bring your newborn home and realize that good sleep is gone, or when you realize that Christmas is absolutely not about you anymore. Part of the shift was just out of necessity; I am too old to crash on someone's floor after drinking keg beer out of a plastic cup until three in the morning. I am almost too old for going out, period.
Our New Year's traditions changed as soon as we had kids. We stayed in and went to bed early. But something always felt empty. I did not necessarily miss throngs of people or a New Year's Day hangover, but I missed the air of celebration.
I am reluctant to let go of New Year's forever, though. So instead, I will channel my love of New Year's into my children. We will forgo the champagne for sparkling juice, we will do the big countdown at six instead of midnight, we will play with balloons and toys, we will be noisy in that joyful way that children have. We will end the year as happily as we spent it.
As I sit awaiting the ball drop, alone with my champagne and pondering the resolutions I will quickly break, I am content in our new manner of celebration. It was a great thrill for my kids ... and you cannot get a headache from sparkling apple cider.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
'Twas the Treats Before Christmas
'Twas three days before Christmas,
And all through our home,
Our diets were dying,
No one's worse than my own.
The children were sleeping,
All cozy and sweet,
As their tummies digested,
Yet more holiday treats.
I in my slippers,
And Chef Matt in his shorts,
Were attempting to fend off
Another sugary course.
And then arose from the kitchen
Quite a deafening chorus.
The stashes of treats shouted:
"Please don't ignore us!"
"You know that you want us,
The cookies and fudge,
We'll be here 'til New Year's,
We're not going to budge.
"Don't stick to your diet,
Now that's just not living,
Haven't you baked six whole pies
Since the week of Thanksgiving?
"The potlucks and gatherings
Over the last long five weeks,
Have certainly filled out
Your waists and your cheeks.
"But what wondrous treats!
What chocolates, what cakes!
It is the sweet delicacies
That a good holiday makes.
"Cake pops and mints,
And peanut butter kisses,
Frosted sugar cookies,
Full of butter, and delicious.
"The New Year is your chance
To keep the calories at bay,
To go back to vegetables
And hide the Crisco away.
"But it's almost Christmas,
A time for family and peace,
And gratuitous indulgence
In all manner of sweets.
"So eat up, my friends,
Give up your noble fight,
And a merry Christmas to you,
And to all a sweet night!"
And all through our home,
Our diets were dying,
No one's worse than my own.
The children were sleeping,
All cozy and sweet,
As their tummies digested,
Yet more holiday treats.
I in my slippers,
And Chef Matt in his shorts,
Were attempting to fend off
Another sugary course.
And then arose from the kitchen
Quite a deafening chorus.
The stashes of treats shouted:
"Please don't ignore us!"
"You know that you want us,
The cookies and fudge,
We'll be here 'til New Year's,
We're not going to budge.
"Don't stick to your diet,
Now that's just not living,
Haven't you baked six whole pies
Since the week of Thanksgiving?
"The potlucks and gatherings
Over the last long five weeks,
Have certainly filled out
Your waists and your cheeks.
"But what wondrous treats!
What chocolates, what cakes!
It is the sweet delicacies
That a good holiday makes.
"Cake pops and mints,
And peanut butter kisses,
Frosted sugar cookies,
Full of butter, and delicious.
"The New Year is your chance
To keep the calories at bay,
To go back to vegetables
And hide the Crisco away.
"But it's almost Christmas,
A time for family and peace,
And gratuitous indulgence
In all manner of sweets.
"So eat up, my friends,
Give up your noble fight,
And a merry Christmas to you,
And to all a sweet night!"
Monday, December 12, 2011
Finding Fellowship in Coffee Addiction
Lately, life has been reminding me, in all kinds of creative ways, that coffee is crucial to my survival on this Earth. Without it, I just might shrink down into a barely functional, unsociable grouch.
Normally, I am a very moderate person. I can summon the willpower to say "no" to another drink, to a dessert I do not need, to a pair of shoes on sale. And when I am pregnant, I can turn away from a morning cup of coffee with little distress.
But once that baby is born, all bets are off. Coffee calls to me, a siren song of warm, aromatic comfort that brings to mind nothing less wonderful than a quiet, sunny Saturday breakfast in fuzzy slippers. Some mornings at work, I have to distract myself with mindless inbox cleaning simply so I will not get up, head downstairs, and fill my cup for a third time within an hour.
Recently, coffee has been coming at me from all angles, taunting me into drinking far more caffeine than a human should consume in a day. First, the Christmas season brings with it irresistible, frothy, chocolate-y confections from coffee chains, waving down from billboards in their whipped-cream splendor. They are more dessert than coffee, true, but it is that bitter taste of espresso amidst the chocolate that forces me to fork over five dollars without hesitation.
Second, a recent bit of historical education on the Civil War built a kinship between me and those soldiers, who were apparently addicted to coffee. So intent were they on getting their fix that they ground their beans using filthy socks and the butt of their rifles, and they were known to hastily chew coffee beans if they were heading into battle and did not have time to brew. I suppose when your choice is between coffee and water from some suspect source, dirty-sock coffee is the way to go.
And finally, tomorrow would have been my grandma's 82nd birthday, a luminous, gracious woman who always had a pot of coffee on, and sometimes two. It was a rare moment at her house when she did not have a cup nearby, and for me, coffee-drinking and the contentment it brings is synonymous with the feeling that all is well and that Grandma is just around the corner, finding extra blankets or frosting up some cinnamon rolls.
Coffee seems to catch memories in its steam. It transcends time and geography and situation, settling comfortably in bustling cafes and Civil War camps and grandmas' kitchens, and sometimes when I clutch my warm mug, I can sense the kindred spirits holding their own cups, mulling over their lives and pasts alongside me. It is the addiction I cannot shake, but I think I am in good company.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
All That Comforts Us
I think if my kids had to choose between me and macaroni and cheese, they would choose macaroni and cheese.
When I pull the box out of the cupboard, suddenly there is my daughter beside me, as if she heard the slight rattle of the dry noodles from the other side of the house. And my son, when presented with a bowl, shoves macaroni in his mouth two handfuls at a time and spends several minutes digging every single dropped noodle out of the crevices of his high chair.
I love macaroni and cheese as much as the next person, and I know that it is a staple of the Kid Diet, but it is amazing to me that they would eat it every single day when I take such great pains to expose them to all the wonderment of foods like risotto and shepherd's pie. I think what it comes down to is that, more than any other food, macaroni and cheese is their comfort food.
Everyone has a food or three that acts as a bit of a band-aid for the soul. Mine are all tethered to childhood, to the memory of a warm house and my family around the table. I remember coming home from school and spotting the crock pot on the counter and knowing the best night ever was ahead: stroganoff over egg noodles. And having "What's for dinner?" answered with "meatloaf," and suddenly the day did not seem so bad. And eyeing a huge Thanksgiving bowl of my favorite comfort food: buttery, lumpy mashed potatoes drowning in gravy.
The very reason it is called "comfort food" is that it is comforting, not only to our bellies but to our minds. Food has a fantastic power to recall, for good and for bad, and our comfort foods bring on a pleasant feeling that is a little "I just had a massage/large drink/chat with my best friend" and a little "sleepy food coma," and perhaps a little "eating this makes me remember the best of my past."
Maybe my kids just really like eating macaroni and cheese. Or maybe it makes them just a little bit happier than usual, and in 30 years, when they pull out the blue box for their own kids, they will remember when their mommy used to make their favorite meal for them, in a warm house with family around the table.
When I pull the box out of the cupboard, suddenly there is my daughter beside me, as if she heard the slight rattle of the dry noodles from the other side of the house. And my son, when presented with a bowl, shoves macaroni in his mouth two handfuls at a time and spends several minutes digging every single dropped noodle out of the crevices of his high chair.
I love macaroni and cheese as much as the next person, and I know that it is a staple of the Kid Diet, but it is amazing to me that they would eat it every single day when I take such great pains to expose them to all the wonderment of foods like risotto and shepherd's pie. I think what it comes down to is that, more than any other food, macaroni and cheese is their comfort food.
Everyone has a food or three that acts as a bit of a band-aid for the soul. Mine are all tethered to childhood, to the memory of a warm house and my family around the table. I remember coming home from school and spotting the crock pot on the counter and knowing the best night ever was ahead: stroganoff over egg noodles. And having "What's for dinner?" answered with "meatloaf," and suddenly the day did not seem so bad. And eyeing a huge Thanksgiving bowl of my favorite comfort food: buttery, lumpy mashed potatoes drowning in gravy.
The very reason it is called "comfort food" is that it is comforting, not only to our bellies but to our minds. Food has a fantastic power to recall, for good and for bad, and our comfort foods bring on a pleasant feeling that is a little "I just had a massage/large drink/chat with my best friend" and a little "sleepy food coma," and perhaps a little "eating this makes me remember the best of my past."
Maybe my kids just really like eating macaroni and cheese. Or maybe it makes them just a little bit happier than usual, and in 30 years, when they pull out the blue box for their own kids, they will remember when their mommy used to make their favorite meal for them, in a warm house with family around the table.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
