Quiet

I need to take a little break here. Some heavy stuff is going on in our family, and I can't write about it here, yet. I'm not even sure if I will.

Too Legit

Three things have happened lately that are making me feel  super legitimate as a blogger.

1. Dave's valentine's day present to me was MY OWN domain name. Coming soon to an internet near you  - motherhoodispainless.com (I still have to set it up)

2. I registered to attend Blogher12, a huge conference. It happens that this year it's here in New York.

3. I applied for a job as an official (as in paid) blogger. I haven't heard back from the organization yet, and I'm not thinking about it too much, since the concept gives me the shivers, but I did it.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Fifteen

Fifteen years ago, a friend invited me to a party.

 Her boyfriend, a graduate student, was having a party with his housemates and she wanted someone to talk to. The boyfriend, housemates and all their friends were graduate students in physics and she claimed she didn't want to spend the whole night talking to a bunch of geeks.

For the record, we are both pretty geeky ourselves, just in a different, less applied science sort of way.

Rock and a Hard Place

The girl has become so stubborn lately, she makes me want to cry.

From the moment she wakes in the morning, she is crying for things to be other than they are. She doesn't want to get dressed, eat  breakfast, walk to school, go to school, walk on this side of the street OR THAT SIDE EITHER. Doesn't want to use the bathroom, even though it's obvious that she should.

She wants to do something special. But NOT THAT THING, HO-NO, that's not special enough.
She wants to play with a friend, but once the friend comes, doesn't want to participate and would rather sit in the corner, morosely reading books.

When bedtime comes, she is suddenly too tired to get ready for bed, brush teeth, use the bathroom. She doesn't know which story to pick, but is incensed that you might choose one of her favorites for her. She's not sleepy anymore, but she doesn't want to sit quietly and look at books until she is sleepy.

She's a 46 pound ball of contrariness, and I love her to death. But some days, I just don't like her all that much.

Things I like to cook

I am supposed to post today (it's Sunday) and I'm not really in the mood to tell you about another museum we went to this week. It's wintertime, and either we freeze our behinds off at the park, or we find inside spaces to play in. This week we checked out the MOMA: Materials Lab. We had fun but my friend, Paula did a better job writing it up.

I've been exploring my culinary side and making some interesting things.

• sweet and sour brisket with mashed potatoes. Delicious. 
• mashed cauliflower and potatoes. So easy and a great way to trick your kids into eating a vegetable. Cut up a whole cauliflower into bits. Peel and chop one potato. Cook them together with 1 clove of garlic in a pot with about an inch of water. You want to steam them until fork-tender. Drain and return to the hot pot, off the heat. You want the veggies to be as dry as possible. Then, add them to your food processor and mash them up. You need to get the potatoes as mushy as possible to get the right texture. Add milk, butter salt and pepper. Just like you would your favorite mashed potatoes. I usually add some goat cheese too, since I don't use much milk. My daughter actually prefers this recipe to regular mashed potatoes. 
• Five-minute bread. Outstanding results for very little effort. Mixed up a batch of dough yesterday while the kids were watching TV, and had a loaf ready for dinner. Prepped another batch this morning to have with our brunch with my in-laws. (We bake 1 pound of dough at a time.) Although we're going to be careful, lest I become more dough-like than I already am
• Omie's Carrot Salad. When I was nursing Claire, I was lucky to have my parents and my mother-in-law come visit me every week. (Not at the same time, which helped immensely) When she came, my mother-in-law, who the kids call Omie, brought me this amazing carrot and chick-pea salad. Years later, she's finally shared the recipe with me, and I made it for the first time today. 
• Dyed rigatoni for crafts. Super easy and fun. Take cheap white pasta, food coloring and rubbing alcohol. Mix the dye and alcohol in baggies and add a handful of the pasta. Squish it around until the pasta has absorbed the color. Spread flat to dry. (Pictures to come.)

SCIENCE!

(Am I the only one who says that like the old Thomas Dolby song?)

As I was saying - sorry for the lag, but Ben has had a terrible cold, with several days of fevers AND I've been trying to stick to a workout schedule, to attempt to get back into some sort of shape that doesn't immediately call to mind "marshmallow"

However, I did want to share some pictures of some of the great adventures we've had. One of the great things we love to do around here is head to the New York Hall of Science. It's not billed as a kids' only museum, but it might as well be. With a dedicated playspace for little kids, the Preschool Place as well as a host of other interactive exhibits, it's a great place to spend a few hours on a cold weekend. In fact, we run into so many of our friends from the neighborhood there, that I just go expecting to see familiar faces.

We are trying to raise our kids to be curious learners, who are engaged in the world around them, and I love this small gem for making that a little easier.

Snowy Saturday

We finally had some snow around here. (We had a freaky blizzard back around Halloween, but nothing since.) This morning brought several inches. So, we ate pancakes, played in the snow, and took the kids bowling with some friends.

heading out to play

Bowling shoes

Waiting for the ball return

"I knock them down!"

Those rosy cheeks!