A Twinge of Guilt

I have a twinge of guilt.

I am off for a tropical paradise, leaving my husband to manage the boys.

I'm not saying he can't do it. Not at all.

It's just that usually it takes BOTH of us to get everyone where they need to be. We have a change over of sports this week too. Flag football has ended and basketball, both NJB and school teams, are starting practice.

What I'm Getting Out Of, By the Numbers

6: Days I will be gone
14: Number of basketball practices
3: Number of soccer practices
1: Number of baseball practices
1: Number of soccer games
2: Number of baseball games
10: Trips back and forth to school in the car
6: Dinners I will not be cooking
8: Number of times the dishwasher will need to be unloaded
0: Number of "people" my family has working for us to help with all of the above jobs
500: Number of times I will not be asking someone to stop bouncing a ball in the house
15: Number of times I will not be yelling at someone to go to bed
0: Days that I will wake up at 6:30 am

Oh god, now that I look at this list I hope that my husband will not read this. At least not until my flight leaves. Maybe I have more than just a twinge of guilt. As a mom there is just no getting around it, the guilt is always there when we shirk our duties to do something for ourselves. It shouldn't stop us from taking a break once in a while.

So I am going to do my best to not feel the guilt, have a great time, and come back to a very appreciative family with a rested and tan smile on my face.

Not too tan, or I'll feel too guilty next time I see my dermatologist. Oh there it is again. Stop it!

Kale Chips

This is not a cooking blog, but I must share this snack that has become a recent favorite in my house.

Who doesn't need an easy, quick way to get your kids to eat kale?

Kale Chips
recipe from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:
1 bunch Tuscan kale leaves (also known as lacinato kale in my area), rinsed, dried, cut lengthwise in half, center ribs and stems removed
1 tablespoon olive oil (I use garlic-scented olive oil)
kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 250°F. Toss kale with oil in large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange leaves in single layer on 2 large baking sheets. Bake until crisp, about 30 minutes for flat leaves and up to 33 minutes for wrinkled leaves. Transfer leaves to rack to cool.

I have made these several times lately. My boys scarf down two bunches of kale made into these chips as an appetizer. I recently brought them to a cocktail party. They are vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, and almost fat-free, pleasing just about everyone. If you have a three year old, you might want to rename this recipe Green Potato Chips, as one faithful reader of this blog did the other night. I hate to tell people how easy they are to make but I've had too many ask for the recipe so the secret's out.

Let me know how you like these.

Oversporting

I am drowning in the deep waters of sports. I'm blaming my lack of ability to update this blog on that at the moment.

Select soccer, tournament baseball, flag football (two teams), competitive tether ball (ok that one's only during recess), basketball practices (five different teams, don't ask), lacrosse clinic, timed-mile running in PE, football games on TV, World Series games on TV which seem to justify staying up late to watch or at least listen to the games. And mom, I might want to try out volleyball. Sports Illustrated magazines everywhere.

AARRGHHHH!!!

And that's not all, it's the endless discussion that we must have about each of the above, the review of each play, the analysis of each game or practice, the details of each point scored or lost, what each player was doing and what they could have done better.

I feel like I am living each day in preparation for the sports; the laundry, the food, the trips to the gas station. The shoes, the balls, the constant organizing of the right equipment in the right place. My car and my husband's car both smell like locker rooms.

Yes, I am drowning. But my boys are quite happily swimming around in this sea of sports. Not literally, thank god. That is one sport we are not participating in at the moment. Shutter. Those weekend-consuming swim meets are a no go.

So while some parents might think we are nuts, and I wouldn't disagree, what I CAN tell you is my boys are healthy, they are having fun, and they are NOT out at the local elementary school on weekends experimenting with Malatov cocktails. Which some 13 year olds in my town are doing. They are NOT taking marijuana with them to the school fair. Which some 13 year olds in my town are doing. And they are not sulking and sitting around playing violent video games. They don't have time for any of that shit!

Oh thank goodness, a life preserver has been thrown to me. A trip with a girlfriend. And no sports for a few days. It just might save my sanity.

Here is a little test for you. How many pieces of equipment are shown in this picture? (Answer: 13) How many pieces of equipment are necessary but not shown here? (Answer: 5) Can you name them all? Can you organize them all? Can you clean them all? Can you find them all when no one else can?

Brace Yourself

My oldest gets braces later this week. In anticipation of this teenage right of passage I have done something completely contrary to my personality.

I bought him a whole bunch of candy.

He doesn't even have much of a sweet tooth, but I felt like he should be able to eat a bunch of the stuff that will soon be forbidden fruit. I have this faint hope that he will get tired of those certain candies and not miss them for the next year or two.

So we have Starburst, Laughy Taffy, Airheads, gum, Sour Patch Kids and kettle corn around the house and his brothers think his getting braces might be the best thing that ever happened because MOM BOUGHT CANDY. I'm sure in the backs of their minds they are compiling a list of all the candy they want before they get their own braces. Damn, I think I've set a precedent.

And you must not know my boys very well if you have to wonder about Halloween coming up. No costumes yet but candy-trading negotiations reminiscent of Wall Street are starting: shares, unit trusts, derivatives, pooled investment products and bonds are being issued and discussed. Wouldn't surprise me if someone broke out a spreadsheet to track it all.

Future Careers

What if one of my sons ended up as an artist someday?

What if he became an artist like this?

It would be really cool but what if as a mom I had to describe to people what he does for a living?

I was thinking of selling all those little Lego people on ebay but I may have to reconsider JUST IN CASE.

A Test of Patience

I was looking over the contents of my son's Friday Folder last night. You know, the folder that comes home on Fridays with his completed work and tests. One test caught my eye, a vocabulary test where he missed five of the questions. My youngest son certainly has a pretty good grasp of the English language so I looked over the questions he missed.

Here is one of them:

A person needs be patient in order to

a. eat dinner.
b. wait for a delayed train.
c. play in a band.
d. go into a hospital.

My son chose a. And let me tell you, this shows me he absolutely understands the meaning of the word patient.

In his lifetime of experience, he has had to be patient many many times to eat dinner and has never once had to be patient waiting for a train. He has had to wait at crowded restaurants, while ravenously hungry, to be seated. He has had to wait, while ravenously hungry, for me to finish cooking dinner.He has had to wait, while ravenously hungry, for food that has been ordered in a restaurant, to be served to the table. He has had to wait, while ravenously hungry, to eat his food until others at the table have been served. He has had to wait, not hungry but perhaps bored, to be excused from the table until others are finished with their meal.

Another question he missed:

Good baby-sitters are always alert. In this sentence, alert means

a. watchful and wide-awake.
b. fun and energetic.
c. not easily upset.
d. trained in first aid.

He chose b. I absolutely know that he would say a good babysitter needs to be energetic and fun and that means they are alert, awake. He would say, why would they need to be watchful?? That's not a good babysitter in his mind!

Yes, for a fourth grade boy, it requires much more patience to eat dinner than wait for a train. And an alert babysitter is fun and energetic, not watchful.

Are these tests written with fourth grade boys in mind??