Housebound and Loving It

For the past two weekends, we've been stuck in the house and had to cancel dinner with friends due to various plagues that have beset our house. And I've been as happy as a pig in mud (sadly, that is a commentary on the state of my house right now).

Don't get me wrong. I was disappointed to miss out on drinking wine, eating fabulous food, enjoying adult conversation and laughter with great friends. But at the same time, I was extremely relieved to not have to channel my inner Martha Stewart (of course, we always have fresh flowers throughout the house...I grew them myself...) and frantically clean my house, ordering my children not to breathe much less look at their toys so that the house stayed tidy until our guests arrived.

I've always been a homebody, but my husband is much more social. He loves to entertain, whipping up the latest Bobby Flay creation on his Big Green Egg, drinking expensive beer (he admits it's the beer drinking he mostly enjoys) and gabbing with his buddies while the women commiserate about the latest exploits of our children and the trials and tribulations of motherhood. And I enjoy it too. But every weekend when he asks "What's on the agenda? Who can we invite over?" I cringe. I pretend he didn't ask the question ("Look, something shiny!") And then when that doesn't work, I hmm and haw ("I don't know...") until it finally becomes a sore spot and he accuses me of being anti-social. And for a while, I was willing to accept that, ok, maybe I am anti-social.

But I finally realized, and calmly explained to my husband yesterday, that after the ridiculous rush of the week, where every day is jam-packed with endless tasks, rushing to get here, there and everywhere and dealing with unreasonable people (both big and small) that 48 hours of nothing planned is heaven. I can NOT clean, NOT shower, NOT put on makeup, NOT wake up at the crack of dawn and actually do some things that I enjoy like read a book, play a board game with my kids or catch up on my blogging. Or I can do things that help me get a jump start on the next week, like laundry or researching birthday parties for the kids.

Come spring, we'll have soccer games and other weekend activities that will get me moving on a Saturday, making it easier for me to get in the groove to entertain again. But while we have these activity-free weekends, especially when it's too cold to go anywhere anyway, I'd rather make like a bear and hibernate. Is that so wrong?

That's probably why I'm so hooked on this blogging thing. I can visit with intelligent and entertaining people without having to clean or shower.

Housebound and Loving It

Eureka!!!

This week, my children ate sweet potatoes, carrots, white beans, wheat germ, cauliflower and zucchini. And they loved it!!!

I assure you my children are normal, red-blooded American children whose diets primarily consist of chicken fingers, mac and cheese and pizza. And I am a normal, American mom whose concept of "making dinner" is popping something in the microwave or ordering from the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru window.

But that's all behind us. We've discovered the joy of being a sneaky chef!

The Sneaky Chef is an ingenious cookbook full of standard kid fare recipes with a boost of nutrition snuck in. The sneakiness starts with a variety of veggie purees mixed into the recipes. You add just enough puree for your kid to get some honest to goodness vitamins, but the veggies themselves go completely undetected. This week, we loved the cheese quesadillas, pizza bagels and peanut butter mini muffins all made with the sneaky orange (carrots and sweet potato) and/or white (cauliflower, zucchini or white bean) purees. But the biggest hit of the week was the chicken fingers made with the orange puree and the wheat bread crumb, almond and wheat germ breading ("MMMmmm!!!" said the four year old; the seven year old asked for seconds.) Even moms like me can handle these recipes. Although the purees forced me to get reacquainted with my food processor, they're easy enough to make and can be frozen for future use.

God bless the original Sneaky Chef, Missy Chase Lapine, for spending hours on end with her girlfriend testing tons of sneaky recipes that our children would love. The sneaky chef concept is now a hot new trend. Jessica Seinfeld (Jerry's wife) has come out with her own cookbook (watch Oprah tomorrow) which offers more sneaky recipes and ingredients to choose from. As loathe as I am to buy Seinfeld's book (ok, I admit I'm anti-celebrity. She may be a very nice person and I realize it's not her fault, but I'm a bit bitter that the doctor that cured me of cancer and my mom who taught inner city kids each made a teeny tiny fraction of the fortune that her husband did for what -- pretending to be himself on TV??? But I digress...), I'm now a sneaky chef convert and am anxious to find some other recipes to add to the repertoire.

These books kill two birds with one stone answering the dilemma of what to make for dinner while minimizing the food wars with the kids. The sneaky chef concept is a great example of the kind of balance I seek -- making things better for my kids, yet making life (so much) easier for me.

Eureka!!!

Become an Email Activist

I don't consider myself to be politically active. I have an opinion, of course, and I vote, but I've never contributed time or money to a political campaign. Lately I've been dipping my toe into the world of email activism and I gotta say, it feels pretty good.

I started through my day job. I work for a major cancer organization and as a cancer survivor, I have a personal stake in many of the issues that my employer advocates (increased government research funding, smoke-free communities, etc.). Then, as a frustrated mom trying to find a better way to balance a successful career and a thriving family, I stumbled across (hallelujah!!!) Momsrising.org, a movement dedicated to advocating for a family-friendly America. (My peeps!!!) Both organizations make email activism so easy. You get an alert, click on a link, fill out an online form, hit send and voila!, you've taken a stand on an issue and let your voice be heard.

I'm so surprised that more women don't actively engage in email activism on a regular basis. Every time I forward one of my email alerts to my super mommy friends network, it's usually met with a resounding silence. Maybe they don't realize that being an activist these days doesn't have to mean burning a bra or staging a march. Or maybe, as PunditMom muses in this post on Work It, Mom!, politics just isn't everyone's thing. Or it could be (and I think this is the real reason), as PunditMom points out in this post, that we're too nice to stir the pot and don't realize what a powerful force we can be when we do put our opinions out there.

I realize that changing the world isn't the first thing on everyone's to-do list, but we absolutely HAVE to get in this game. The stakes have never been higher for us as Moms and as Americans. It really doesn't take much effort or money (and if you don't believe that, check out THIS post from PunditMom). I've seen bills in Congress succeed and fail due to pure public pressure. If you don't want to devote your life or your blog to changing the political tide, start small like me. Sign up for some email action alerts at Momsrising.org, NOW or Congress.org. It takes all of ten minutes. If changing the world isn't reason enough, here's one more. Just like many of us have found with this blogging thing...giving yourself a forum to be heard feels friggin' great!

Become an Email Activist

Divide and Conquer

Tonight my husband and I will do something very few couples ever do. (No, I am not talking about sex). Tonight, we're going to divide The List.

You know The List -- the one that's committed to memory and constantly running through your head like the CNN ticker. The one that rules our lives made famous in the book, "I Don't Know How She Does It." It's the endless list of things that HAS to be done to keep your life and the lives of your family members on track. The one that as soon as one thing is checked off, three more pop on and therefore will never, ever, EVER be successfully and completely completed. That one.

Before you hail my husband a hero for offering, no INSISTING, that we split The List, I submit to you that this was an act of pure self preservation. He was the one that encouraged me to go back to work full time (which means less financial pressure for him). And after experiencing my umpteenth nervous breakdown and constant misery over not being able to keep up with The List anymore, there was simply only one solution. If we were going to share the earning power, we were going to have to share responsibility for The List.

Each Sunday night, we go over The List for the week. We determine who is going to do what and then my husband actually types up a separate list for each of us (ever see your list on paper? It's even more scary in print). At first, I kept forgetting to mention things that should be on The List. Not because I actually forgot them, but because I considered them things "the mom" should do. Eventually I learned to give it all up and I've been amazed at what my husband has taken on. He scheduled and accompanied the kids to their last dental appointment. He researched and organized swim lessons. He got our piano fixed and tuned (that's been on The List for years!). He's even made lunches and packed backpacks.

Now that The List has been reduced to something a bit more manageable, an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders. But it also has illuminated one simple truth. While our husbands are more than capable of stepping up and taking on more than they traditionally do, the ultimate responsibility will always lie with the mom. As wonderful as he is, my husband will never remember that we have to call the pediatrician three months in advance to schedule a check up or that every January we have to start registering the kids for camp. Those finer details are in my head and squarely and firmly in my court. But at least being able to delegate these tasks once they arrive is a step in the right direction. For now.

Divide and Conquer

Just Say No

Last fall, I did something absolutely scandalous. I turned down four party invitations even though we had no prior commitments. I know -- I'm a rebel.

One invitation was a four year old birthday party for dd's classmate that I couldn't pick out of a line up. Since four year olds tend to be oblivious, I figured no one would notice much less mind. Another was a Sunday afternoon holiday party for the four year old class. I don't know what the overeager class moms were thinking, but we had just spent the last four weekends with said class and their parents at five different birthday parties. As lovely as these people are, I was clean out of small talk and dd showed no interest in going. The last two were adult Halloween parties that happened to fall on the same night. Dreading having to don costumes, dh and I unanimously agreed to bag both events (dh: "I just can't imagine having a serious conversation with a grown man dressed as Batman."). I told both hosts, "So sorry, but we've been invited to another party at the same time!" Thankfully, I didn't have to lie!

Call me a party pooper, but I have no regrets. Turning down those invitations gave our family what we all covet most -- precious time. Time to get things done, time to chill out and best of all, time to be together. The night of the Halloween parties, dh and I took the opportunity to hire a babysitter and grab a casual dinner out. We enjoyed it so much more than we would have standing around our neighbor's house feeling ridiculous in our costumes and it gave us a chance to reconnect.

A version of no, "Not right now," is a similar stand I often take in my house to make life more manageable. Instead of jumping up the second someone asks for something, unless the need is dire, the response usually is, "Yes, but after I [fold the laundry, eat my dinner, send this email, etc...]" This is not revolutionary parenting advice, I realize, but I see so many of my friends drop whatever they're doing to immediately respond to their child's demands. I doubt they even realize they do it. "Not right now," not only makes my life suck less, but it teaches my children that the world doesn't always revolve around them. Sometimes, they may just have to wait to get what they need.

The point of this post is that we have so many non-optional obligations -- changing dirty diapers, school registrations, doctors appointments, soccer practices -- that we should protect our precious spare time as fiercely as possible. We should realize that not every invitation or ask is an obligation and that we do have the option to decline. Sometimes, just saying no means saying yes to something way more important -- your sanity.

Just Say No