Tuesday

Tuesdays are very busy days for me. I have to actually go into the office to do my job, and I don't see as much of the boys as I do other days. It can be a nice break for all of us, or a stressful time full of too much to do in too few hours. Today, with Music Man home, I had a good day with some help. I managed to get Little Red registered for kindergarten in the fall, picked Maestro up at school, and had a nice relaxing evening with my guys. Today's picture is a reflection of our evening together...lovely warm fire, relaxing quiet time and Maestro enthralling us with his latest mystery, which he's reading out loud to us all. This is a tome called "Dial M For Mongoose" by Bruce Hale. It's really pretty funny, if you're looking for a good read for a cold winter evening. I've been introducing him to the world of "whodunnits" since that's a common bond we share. We both love a good mystery.

Wishing you peaceful family time together, ~Peacemom

Our own cooking show

Good Morn to you,
Just wanted to post a recipe for some yummy pumpkin bread that Little Red and I made the other day. He's really becoming quite adept with the mixer and is loving not fighting over who gets to mix the wet or dry ingredients. Since both boys love to help cook, and both love to do the wet ingredients, we have to switch off who does what each time we cook together. Now, Little Red gets to do wet AND dry and life is good in his little world. This having big bro gone to school for 4 hours each day is not all bad after all.

He's been having some fun with me during this time. I've purchased a few workbooks and we do our "school work" for 1/2 hour each day and we have set up a bit of a routine already. Once we wave our final goodbye to Maestro each day, we usually hop in the car if we need to go somewhere and head out first. This gives Little Red something to look forward to as he's always ready for an adventure. And let me tell you now, anyone who doesn't have at least two children wouldn't know this...it's absolute heaven shopping with just one of the boys at a time. Instead of dancing around, singing, knocking things off shelves, chattering incessantly, the list goes on, Little Red interacts with me, is well behaved, asks me questions, isn't hopping around like an ant with his butt on fire, it's all good.

After errands are completed, we usually come home, have that 1/2 hour of school work, then it's snack time. After snack time, we usually will make something together, some days it's cooking, some days arts and crafts, whatever the mood strikes me that day. Then, here's mommy's one big guilty pleasure that I've not been able to indulge since they stopped napping years ago...I turn on...shhhhh....don't tell anyone else, okay?....the Food Network....and watch a cooking show! A whole half hour of cooking, and no one jabbers through the whole thing, I can actually hear it AND get to increase my brain power instead of just listening to (let's face it, can't watch it) Curious George for the 453rd time. Oh, I love it! And, Little Red even likes it too. He says things like "YUMMY, that looks good" and "Can we make that, Mommy", oh it's music to my ears. I so rarely get to watch any TV that is adult TV and to be honest, most of the time, I don't care. I prefer to read at night once I crawl wearily into bed, so it works out just fine most of the time. But, I do miss the days when Music Man and I would snuggle up on the couch with some buffalo wings and the drink of choice and camp out for whole afternoons in the fall and winter and watch the Sox or Pats and enjoy a peaceful afternoon together. Though I'm not a football fan at all, I am a Music Man fan, and snuggling up on the couch with him didn't need an excuse! Time alone? We NEVER get that now, and I do mean NEVER. You parents know what I'm talking about, I know you do. I guess as they get older perhaps this will change, but I'm not holding my breath. I think life as we knew it is gone for good. But, when I look at my wonderful little men, I don't mind so much, they are more inviting then a Sox game most days!!

Now that the cooler temps are rolling in, I hope you'll try this delicious bread recipe. The boys like it a lot and have been eating muffins for breakfast for 2 days now.

Little Red's Pumpkin Bread

1 cup canola oil

2 1/2 cups sugar (I didn't say this was high nutrition this time around, did I?)

4 eggs

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 cup water

1 15 oz can pumpkin

1 cup dried cranberries, raisins, or both

Grease bottom and 1/2 in up sides of three 8x4" loaf pans (or one 9x5" and 12 muffin cups), set aside. In an extra large mixing bowl beat sugar and oil with electric mixer on medium speed. Add eggs and beat well; set aside.
In a large mixing bowl combine flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add dry mixture and water alternately to sugar mixture, beating on low speed after each addition just until combined.
Beat in pumpkin. Stir in cranberries and/or raisins.
Spoon batter into prepared pans. Bake in a 350 degree oven 55-60 minutes or until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Remove from pans, cool completely on racks. Yum mo!!

Time, it goes so fast

Last evening we enjoyed a lovely time at our niece's Sweet Sixteen party. It was hosted by her parents at a local restaurant. Almost the whole extended family was able to attend and a couple of her friends as well. It was a surprise for her, she did not know everyone would be there and it was a really fun evening. We let the boys stay up until 10:00, which is the latest they'd ever stayed up on purpose. Maestro told me, "Mommy, I will remember this night for my whole life". I bet he will. We all have some memories or other from childhood that stayed with us for some reasons, and I know this will be one for him.

On a side note, they are so funny riding in the car at night because they so rarely do and all the lights and cars with their lights on fascinate them. It's funny how this thrill goes away as you age, now I just try to see what's coming at me without all the glare from the other headlights leading me into a ditch! The world is definitely a different view in the dark of night.

The niece's turning sixteen is a bit surreal for Music Man and I. I have known her since she was five, and it doesn't seem possible to me that almost 11 years has gone by since I met her. My own sister's daughter is turning sixteen in May and that's just not possible to me either. I remember holding her little ten week premature body in my hands and thinking how amazing that she was here. And now, she's turning sixteen and going to be driving and having boyfriends and working and it's just crazy how the time has passed me by. I will sometimes transfer times in my life to put things into perspective for myself, do you do this? Like I say to myself, I met our niece when she was the same age that Maestro is now. That's amazing to me! To see her practically a grown woman and to know that she was just where Maestro is now when we met is really something to me. Of course, it then leads me to think -I wonder what my own boys will be like at her age. I was thinking, as I looked at her boyfriend last night, someday that will by my son at his girlfriend's Sweet Sixteen party and of course I teared up. Hey, I'm a weepy kind of girl right now with all the milestone changes going on in our lives. I know, my brain works in strange and mysterious ways, it's tough for me to keep up with me sometimes!

The boys had a few playmates last night with the extended family of my niece. Her father comes from a large family of 5 children and one of the brothers has 3 girls of his own. There are 4 children in our niece's family, and so they had a bunch of other children to play with. My boys are not at all shy. They dive right in there and join the mayhem, it's pretty fun to watch. I love that they are like that. I have so many feelings about preschool and always wonder if we shouldn't have put Maestro in for the social factor, but then, we see him playing with the other kids and the choice to keep him home was a good one. His personality is such that he's very friendly and fun and makes friends without a problem, so I feel good that the years he spent with us here at home were good ones for him. Little Red is not so outgoing as his big bro, but he will follow him into the mayhem and then join in himself. He's not a child that will run out and play with other children by himself. He's more reserved and finds playing alone is just fine with him, thank you very much. Often, if he's in a group of kids, he'll still play by himself, but observes the others. If he knows one of the children, he MIGHT be encouraged to join in, but he's always relied on his brother to lead the way for him and that's been an adjustment for his little soul. One of the things we'll concentrate on while Maestro is off on his quest of higher learning each afternoon is getting him to join in playing with other children. Right now, if I take him to the playground, he'll just lay in the dirt and play cars by himself. We don't go anywhere without toy cars.

Any of you that personally know Little Red knows he's completely and totally obsessed with cars. He knows every make and model of every car. Once he hears what it is once or twice, he commits it to memory and then will spew those out to you the entire time you're driving him somewhere. Now, this is amazing in and of itself, that he knows the characteristics of each type of car and can tell you what they are. BUT, I am not a person who really cares much about what type of car other people are driving. AND I'm expected to be interested in all these cars both the boys know. This is hard for me, after a while I put on the fake enthusiasm voice (come on, you parents know what I'm talking about, the one that makes your kids think their passions are interesting to you even though you really don't care at all which car is just like your neighbor's, or friend's, or grandparents, etc) and answer with a "yah, I see it!".

So, time and family changes are interesting and makes me fell so old sometimes. Having had children a little later in life, Music Man and I have to get used to being the oldest parents in the room with children as young as ours. I waited a long time to find my wonderful prince and dated a few frogs along the way. Since we didn't have any children until I was 34, it's interesting to see that woman in their mid 20's have children my age. I sometimes feel like I could be their grandmother or something! This is the 40th year of my life, and so far, it's been a pretty good one.

Musing on time passage ~Peacemom