Dream Waffles

Last Christmas, Luke asked the Wagner fam for a waffle maker and he received it, along with the best waffle mix ever.  He makes waffles at least once a week now, and they're always good, but never quite the same pudding-middled eggshell-crusted delight as that first box .. until this morning.  He found the Aretha Frankenstein recipe online and if you've got a waffle iron you need to make this tomorrow.

From food52.com:

Serves 2 hungry people

• 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup whole milk or buttermilk (or a combination)
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 3/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Butter and pure maple syrup, for serving

1. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Add the milk, vegetable oil, egg, sugar and vanilla and mix well. Let the batter sit for 30 minutes.
2. Heat a waffle iron. Follow the directions on your waffle iron to cook the waffles. Serve immediately with butter and pure maple syrup or hold in a 200 degree oven, directly on the rack (don't stack them or they'll get soggy). These also reheat very well in the toaster.

Prime the pump

By the 10,000 hour rule mentioned in Malcom Gladwell's Outliers, which says one becomes an expert at a given task after practicing for 5 standard American work-years, I'm an expert at parenting my children at least twice over.  Conservatively, I parent 12 hours a day.  Now there's at least one child awake 14 hours per day, but sometimes they go to the YMCA childcare or family watches them overnight(s) (THANK YOU!), and when it was just Scott there was a nap break, and they used to go to day care a bit.  Still, easily 25,000 hours of parenting accomplished.

So as an expert at my children -- not every child, certainly -- I want to share a little tip: priming the pump.  Luke's a pro at this. I saw him do it with his little cousin before we were even parents.  Instead of telling the child to do something, or why or how to do something, he just starts entertaining himself with that something where the child can watch.  He draws, or builds, or does Legos.  No lecture on why it's good.  No forced enthusiasm.  Just fiddling in an open way.  You don't lecture the water until it flows up the pipe, and you don't give it a pep talk, you just draw some up and let the rest follow.

Maria Montessori talked about this approach in her work, describing it as the teacher charming the children into paying attention.  I've been trying it more and it's good for everyone.  It's especially fun in big, open areas like the blue foam block building sites you see at childrens' museums, or when looking for something fun to do on a dull day at the playground.

What do you think?  Do you try this?  Does it work for you?

Doing it right

You know those times in life when you wonder if you're doing it right? The blog thing, I know I'm not doing it right. I'm supposed to WRITE, encapsulating twisting thoughts and events into neat little pill-sized lessons. But I haven't. I'm not there now. I'm all twining vines and compost piles and building soil for next season in my mind over here.

However, I've got a gorgeous little sister who is tired of hearing my adored brother-in-law "harumph" every time he logs on in Hawaii and sees no new pictures of these three darling babes that fill my days, which I get, because I love the pictures of their little adventurer. So -- SPLAT -- here's a quick mind dump of what we have been doing right in the last hundred days:

My partner in crime and former neighbor visited with her 3 dear children and we adventured.

EVERYTHING about this gif is right.

Okay, so, we wished they'd checked with someone before they jumped on the longhorn at the Stockyards, but I'm awfully glad they didn't, 'cause these pictures are pure joy.

 

We went to the property with family.  Luke shot a rabbit.  I cooked it and we ate dinner.  This was exciting and odd and made me feel very powerful. Like, on the order of natural childbirth powerful. Strange ideas to explore in my thirties ... (watch out rabbits)

We visited San Antonio.  My mom took a vacation day and we played at Sea World!  I didn't take enough pictures.  We drove to Austin to pick up my dad, played a serious game of predators and prey (Scott's favorite tag) on the airport lawn, and ate way-late-night Taco Cabana.

We scored the good grocery cart at Kroger.

Actually, we didn't.  We shopped with a boring regular cart.  After loading the groceries into the car, we spotted this one and I pushed the kids around the parking lot for 10 minutes before we left.  I remind myself of this when I wonder if I'm a good mom.

Ellen became a full-fledged nurse.  She continued spending more time around us than I probably deserve.

Luke traveled for work for a couple weeks.  Ellen helped us bake a pretty welcome home cake.  Then he took a month of stay-cation, working only Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we saw this city!

We almost took a family picture (but accidentally cropped out the dinosaur)!

A friend's dog had puppies.  We held them. I continued to be in love with Mark's eyebrows.

We built a chicken coop and filled it with chickens! The boys (note, that's the Batman costume on DIFFERENT boys on different days) like them a lot, and June loved them so much the day they arrived that I want to present her with a baby chick every morning.

Easter Sunday: three lucky grandkids with four happy grandparents.

Lots of love, and see you sooner I hope,
Jenn

My curly girly

June is red waves and ringlets these days and it is terribly fun to move about town with a little strawberry-haloed angel on my hip! She smiles and makes friends at the grocery store, preschool, and speeding ticket court (do those friends count if they dismissed the ticket?). At home, however, she puts the halo away and enjoys emptying all drawers of all items. Yikes.

Weekend pictures

Dear Children,

When you look at this record of your childhoods, you may wonder why there aren't photos and stories about Christmases and family visits. Those big events tend to pass without a post, while there are so many words written about normal afternoons. I'll tell you what, kiddos: during those vacations and holidays and visits, I'm just too wrapped up in the living to stop and record. It's during the happy lulls that I take the time to snap pictures and write a few words. I want to change a little, because I want you to see and know, when your memories fade, that you were showered with love this Christmas (so many presents, goodies, and adventures), partied hardy with friends on New Year's Eve (10:30 pm before you gave up and fell asleep watching TED talks on their couch), and loved on little Cooper and Karen when they visited (June, the slow motion hugs and lap sits are hilarious and sugar-sweet).

For today, though, I bring you another lovely, easy weekend. A walk to the Stock Show fairgrounds with us, Ellen, and Grandpa; dinner at our house with Flash and Ben, too; church and a picnic after; and a play date at the Dallas Arboretum with the Andreanis. Glitz then grass.

 Good night darlings.

 

 

 

 

 

Childhood amnesia

I just read this abstract and was hit in the face with the fact that Scott is going to forget nearly every last thing that's happened in his life thus far!  They all are.  We all did.  But Scott!  He's so conversational, and he can recall in such detail the last 2.5-3 years of his life.  I thought he was special and would get to hang on to all of those gorgeous memories.  

The paper, titled The onset of childhood amnesia ... ,  says that children up to age 7 or so recall a good deal of their lives from age 3 on, but remember fewer and fewer events as they age. 

 shed tears!  His first little best friends, California, his first looks at June and Cooper, riding in the U-Haul to Texas, how much he loved the bunk beds, how much he loved dressing up (particularly as Superman/Clark Kent), swimming in Cap 'n' Juju's pool, his pride at how grown-up he looked in his tiny Tae-Kwan-Do uniform ... it's all going to be erased.  I don't want him to loose those memories that are so delightful to him now.

Wondering why this amnesia happens, Luke suggested that childhood is pretty tough and traumatic to go through, even when it's a happy childhood.  Lots of tantrums, lots of frustration.  Maybe forgetting helps.  I, ever the parenting pessimist, thought it was so the child could still love the mean ol' mama that raised them into the fine young human they are after age 7.  There are certainly a few times I've when I've lost my own temper that I'm glad he'll forget.

But mostly, ugh.  Crushed.  These beautiful little childhoods fading away. 

Thinking deep, here are my earliest memories:

• Standing on a chair in a dimly-lit restaurant in Wisconsin to play an arcade game (Mom and Dad told me it was a fish restaurant down the street from our house and a bowling game)
• Laying on orange and red shag carpeting and being aware of Mom taking care of Karen somewhere up above me, maybe on a changing table, and being filled with a very safe, happy, content feeling
• Sitting in a hollowed-out snow bowl in our yard in Wisconsin
• Sitting alone on the upstairs landing in our home in San Antonio and making Barbie and Ken kiss, worried that doing so was wrong
• Being 5, waking up late in the morning, and Mom bringing me a sandwich while I watched a kiddie show before going to kindergarten, feeling like the queen of the world

I remember almost none of our trips to museums, parks, and theme parks, though I know from pictures we were there.  I recall only a couple things about school before 3rd grade.  Almost nothing about people outside my family, and largely only feelings about them: closeness with Karen, thinking my Mom was perfect, blurred, combined memories of my Dad coming home in his uniform with his legs cold when I hugged them.

Scott just wandered downstairs while I typed this and asked to be re-snuggled to bed. 

Somewhere in my youth or childhood

I must have done something good, because while I was off doing dishes and measuring doomed carpets, these 3 little ones cozied up and OF THEIR OWN INITIATIVE read books, like the Von Trapps would've. Something about interrupting the regular schedule of their lives for a couple weeks has made returning to it very sweet.