Loving the Little Years

 A few months ago a friend recommended that I read Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches by Rachel Jankovic (I highly recommend it...you can order it here).  The basic premise of the book is that while the years with  young children in the house are sure to bring their difficulties, challenges, and days when you just want to scream (or simply go to the bathroom by yourself), the years are short.  As a mother to five children under kindergarten age, including a set of twins, (you can read her contributions over at Femina Girls Blog), I figured she must have some words of wisdom for little old me- mom of only 2.

As I read the book, I was continually struck with the same theme over and over again.  Then, when reading another friend's blog, she also mentioned the same thing- while the days can be very, very long, the years pass quickly and you wonder where they've gone.  You know the days I'm talking about- the days when the baby was up several times in the middle of the night teething and as soon as you fall back asleep, the toddler wakes up and is raring and ready to go for the day!  The days when the baby is attached to you and can't be put down without screaming in protest and your toddler seems to have un potty trained themselves.  The days when your husband comes home and wonders what you've done all day (but hopefully never asks!) and looking at your house, you wonder the same thing ,but are sure you've done something!  But even taking all those days into consideration, the years are short.  I look at Bug and Doodle and wonder where the time has gone!  Wasn't it just yesterday that Bug was a baby, resisting nap time, taking her first steps, saying her first words?  Wasn't it just yesterday that I stared into Doodle's eyes for the first time, amazed that the Lord had blessed us with another little girl?

Yes, the days by themselves can be so very long, but in the big picture, the years go by quickly!

P.S. This is just as much a reminder post to myself as it is to anyone else.

For the Love of Carbs

I love carbs...pasta, bread, sweets...you name it, I enjoy it!  I've always enjoyed eating a slice of good bread (though I'm not a big sandwich eater) and so when I stumbled upon a local place (you can read about my love for all things local back here)  baking naturally leavened bread (no yeast) in a brick oven, I needed to find out more.  I read the blog of a friend of a friend and her blog directed me to McGrath's Brick Oven Bakehouse.

Located in Mechanicsburg (so only about 30 minutes from my house), McGrath's is in the beginning stages of opening a wood-fired brick oven bakery in South Central Pennsylvania.  Currently, they're using a brick oven on their patio until all of the red tape gets worked out, but their naturally leavened bread (no yeast, also known as sourdough) is DELICIOUS!  I get their e-mails every week, decide if I like the bread(s) they're offering that week, place my order via e-mail (does it get any easier, people?) by Thursday, and pick up the bread on Friday evening.  This was the first week I was able to make it work to get there to pick up bread and let me tell you how wonderful it was!  I was handed my bread in paper bags and they were still warm to the touch!  I deeply inhaled the scent of the fresh 7-grain bread, made with as many local grains as they can get their hands on.  I thoroughly enjoyed serving this preservative-free, sugar-free bread to my family and they couldn't get enough of it either!  Can't wait to see what breads are offered this week, but I'm pretty sure a stop at McGrath's (currently their garage) will be added to our Lovin' Local Fridays after we make our stop at Eastern Market.  And if any of my friends in real life (who live nearby) want to try some, feel free to come on over.  I'll warm it up, slather some butter or jelly on it and we can sit and enjoy knowing exactly what we're eating and where it came from.

Barbies and Babies

Once I had decided I was definitely going to nurse Doodle, I knew it was pretty much inevitable that at some point Bug would try "nurse" her baby dolls.  This is just something little girls do (you can ask me sometime about how I nursed my "baby" discreetly after my little sister was born).  However, I was pretty confident it would just be her baby dolls (i.e. cute, cuddly dolls with stuffed bodies that come with every baby accessory that you can imagine stepping on...I mean, playing with).  But recently the daughter of a close friend was cleaning out her toys and decided to hand down her Disney princess Barbie dolls to Bug (Ariel, Snow White i.e. Snow Man in Bug's terms, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella).  Bug was THRILLED!  This was her first introduction to Barbie dolls and she loves their little shoes and taking off their pretty dresses.

Yes...taking off their dresses is what led to this mama being slightly disturbed.  It is fairly normal for Bug to pick up a baby doll when I'm feeding Doodle and "nurse" it.  It's also fairly normal for her to find a bottle and some tubing and tell me she needs to "pump."  But on this particular day, we were just driving to meet J for lunch.  She had her babies (Barbie dolls) in the backseat of the car and had decided they needed to be "nakie babies."  Then she said, "Mommy, I need to nurse my babies."  So I look back and see Bug stuffing the Disney princess Barbie doll under her shirt.  Now, it doesn't bother me at all when she does this with her cute, innocent dollies, but something about stuffing a very naked, very well-endowed, buxom Belle Barbie doll under her shirt just disturbed me!

Oh the Horror...on the Playground!

Bug is a very active little girl and LOVES to go to a park or playground.  Any one will do, she's never met one she hasn't liked:)  So Thursday evening after dinner we headed to one of the parks nearby.  I didn't like the older kids (age 12 or 13) sliding down the slides at the smaller playground so we headed up to the bigger playground at the elementary school.  It's a great playground and she was having a lot of fun...

...I'm not sure which part of what happened next disgusted me more.  In fact I'm still kind of processing it.  There was a mom with 2 little ones who each looked about a year older than my girls, so roughly 3 and 1/2 and 1 and 1/2.  The 3 and 1/2 year old was clearly giving her mother some attitude, but this mother was giving it back.  I guess the little girl had indicated that she needed to go to the bathroom so her mother told her they needed to go (Brace yourself...Horror #1), not knowing that it was already too late.  The little girl sat on the playground and muttered under her breath, "You stupid mom!"  I was shocked!  We are very careful not to use that word where little ears can hear, though I'm sure Bug has heard it occasionally.  Then, there's Horror #2.  As I said, this mother didn't realize it was already too late and that her daughter had already relieved herself.  Yep, you can probably guess what's coming...Little Girl had an accident on the sliding board, Bug didn't know the slide was wet (curvy tunnel slide so neither did we) and Bug slid right down the slide through Little Girl's accident.  There really wasn't anything more disturbing in that moment than looking up as Bug went running across the playground, seeing very wet shorts, sniffing them and picking up the scent of urine, and then knowing that it was the urine of another child!  I'm not a germ-a-phobe, but it still grossed me out. Bug was quickly changed into clean clothes, she happily continued playing, and she most certainly received a bath when we got home!  Lesson learned: Always look (or feel or sniff) before you slide!