Life Off Headset

Holiday Movie 2022 Recap #1

Halfway through the month so I thought I’d run down the Holiday Movies we/I’ve watched so far. Spoilers ahead.

First off, the Non-Hallmark stuff:
Spirited – Musical on AppleTV with Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. The Ghosts of Christmas (a la Christmas Carol) try to redeem one person in our modern world. There are big musical numbers, tuneful yet forgettable songs, lots of funny bits and lots of heartfelt bits. I liked it mostly for a) Octavia Spencer being all sorts of charming and sassy while singing, b) Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynold’s great chemistry, c) the dance numbers, d) the clever wit. I did not like the plot detail of one child cyber-bulling another. I had a good time watching this movie, but I’d be very reluctant to watch it again.

Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special – We picked this because it was short and we could fit it in after the ten year old’s Friday night basketball practice. I thought this had all the good holiday warm fuzzy ingredients: Aliens trying to understand this “Christmas” thing, human re-discovering the spirit of the season, family, a dash of action, a big dash of quirky humor and so many Christmas lights. If you’re looking for a 45 minute holiday pick me up, this would definitely fill that.

Arthur Christmas: Animated film from 2011 about Santa’s sons – one of whom, Steve, has optimized the gift delivery process to such a high tech degree so that everything happens as stealthily and efficiently as possible, and another son, Arthur, who answers the letters and has to save the day when one lone present gets left behind. Even though this movie came out eleven years ago, I’d never heard of it. It was on every single “Family Christmas Movie” list that I googled, so I figured there was something to it. I thought this movie was wonderful – it’s funny and smart but also has some really heartfelt moments. We laughed so so hard. I also loved the “peek behind the scenes of Santa’s workshop” aspect of it. And the cast – James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, Hugh Laurie, and Bill Nighy as Grandpa Claus and Laura Linney as Santa’s computer-was perfect.

AND… the Christmas Rom Coms…I have to acknowledge that the rest of the family does not want to watch as many Hallmark Holiday movies as I do. Well, maybe the ten year old. But she loves watching anything on tv.

(Note – I say “Hallmark”, but really I use that term, probably incorrectly, as a genre rather than a network specific descriptor. I really mean any of those hundreds of cute, fluffy, predictable romantic movies about the holidays that come out this time of year, be it on the Hallmark Channel, or Lifetime, or Hulu, or HBOMax… whatever channel or platform.)

So while we have watched a couple as a family hunkered on a couch, I have also watched a few on my own as I clean the kitchen at night. It does not (should not) take 90 minutes to clean the kitchen. But sometimes, in December, it does.

Anyhow, here is what I’ve watched so far, and my thoughts and feelings (Definitely more spoilers ahead!):

Inventing the Christmas Prince – Rocket scientist widow convinces her grumpy boss to pretend to be The Christmas Prince for her daughter.
My rom com cat nip: Widows, Grumpy uptight men, diverse leads, stars of the 90s (Tamara Mowry-Housley from Sister, Sister)
My Take: This movie was cute, though the whole idea of a “Christmas Prince” who grants twenty-four wishes every Christmas season was a little much – I mean if you are going to make up a Christmas legend for your kid, that one seems kind of excessive. Like maybe one or two wishes. But 24 is just setting yourself up for failure.
The ridiculous: Do rocket scientists really work in cubicles?
Favorite bit: The pocket protectors for the rocket scientists, and cozy sweaters for everyone else. Actually the cozy sweaters are one of my favorite things in these movies. Seriously, right next to Santa’s toy shop is a knitting shop where elves spend all their time knitting the coziest chunky sweaters for the Holiday movie season. I want them all.

A Big Fat Family Christmas– Newspaper photographer Liv is teamed up with new reporter Henry to cover the Chang family’s annual holiday party. Twist is, the Chang family is her family and she is trying to keep it under wraps.
My rom com cat nip: Asian leads, stars of the 90s (Tia Carrere of Wayne’s World)
My Take: Plot-wise I thought this movie was a little silly. I don’t love screwball “quick hide so people won’t see me” type plots. But the leads were both really cute and charming and I liked how the movie addressed the main character’s feelings about growing up as a minority. Another thing I thought interesting about this movie is that they had all sorts of Asian people in the movie and then felt the need to explain it. Like Tia Carrere is Filipino-American, and her character is married to Yee Jee Tso who is Chinese – and there is a specific line where one character makes reference specifically to the fact that the Tia Carrere character is Filipino. They also go out of their way to explain the background of the main lead, who had a South African accent. So I really appreciate that they didn’t cast a bunch of Asian actors in this movie and pretend they were all Chinese, even if it was a little heavy handed at times.
The Ridiculous: I spent a lot of the moving thinking that Yee Jee Tso looked way to young to be playing the father figure, then chalked it up to good skin. But then I googled him and he is only two years older than I am.
Favorite bit – the scene where the Chang family sits around an wraps dumplings. This feels so nostalgic to me, even though I’ve only done it maybe once.

The Royal Nanny – MI5 agent Claire goes undercover as a nanny with the royal family, winning over prankster children and Prince with the heart of gold.
My rom com catnip: Nannies, Prince, British accents.
My Take: The romance component in this one was surprisingly understated to the point of non-existent. The main plot point of this movie revolves around a threat to the king, hence the agent going under cover, and trying to unravel the source of the threats. Also – the main character looks a lot like one of my friends and I spent a lot of the movie just staring at her. I was overall pretty “meh” about this one – there wasn’t a lot of chemistry between the leads and the Royal Family just seemed like any other suburban family with work/life balance problems, only they had body guards and chauffeurs. I wanted something a little more fantasy/magical.
The Ridiculous: The prince falling in love with Claire pretty much based on a single game of charades. Like I said, the romance component of this movie wasn’t great. Also Claire taking down the villain with nothing but an umbrella was pretty silly.
Favorite bit: Greta Sacchi as the lady who runs a Nanny school and who trains Claire. I thought her bits were all very clever and entertaining.

A Christmas Spark – Widowed grandmother goes to visit her daughter in Vermont and gets roped into directing the small town holiday play starring the town’s handsome bachelor.
My rom com catnip: Widows, putting on a show, mature people in love, stars of the 90s, diverse couples
My take: I will admit the number one reason I wanted to watch this was because it stars Jane Seymour and Joe Lando. And lest you think the Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman smoldering couple-ness was a fluke, it was/is not. Their chemistry is so off the chart amazing and their banter is adorable. I have to admit I loved this one. I mean how often do people in their 60s/70s get to star in a holiday rom com. Also – Jane Seymour is ageless and Joe Lando wears striped tights.
The ridiculous: Having a final dress rehearsal where the final monologue isn’t written and then improvising it on the spot on opening night.
Favorite bit: Any scene that involved Jane Seymour and Joe Lando bantering and making eyes at each other.

Steppin’ into the Holidays: Out of work former dance show host Billy returns home for the Holidays and helps dance teacher Rae put on her Holiday Dance show.
My rom com cat nip: Stars of the 90s (Mario Lopez of Saved by the Bell), putting on a show, dance numbers, multicultural family
My Take: This movie was a little meh, mostly because there wasn’t a whole lot of chemistry between the leads. Regardless, I really liked the other characters – Billy’s family, especially his sister, is a lot of fun. For that matter, so is Rae’s sister. Hmmm … this seems to be a movie where the sisters are more interesting than the leads.
The Ridiculous: The duet Billy and Rae dance through the strangely deserted streets of town and the very obvious added stick poking out of the street lamp pole so Billy can grab the stick to swing around the street lamp a la Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain. Gene Kelly did not need a support stick.
Favorite bit: The Christmas show montage. The original dance show evolves to a show featuring talents of the residents in their small town, a decision inspired by the singing firefighter who helped to fix up the barn where they have their show. There’s even a ventriloquist. It’s kind of hilarious and silly.

The Holiday Sitter: City workaholic bachelor Sam agrees to help his sister out by watching her two kids in the suburbs when the baby their adopting is born early. Out of his depths, Sam enlists his sister’s neighbor Jason to help him out. They like each other.
My rom com cat nip: gay romance, nannies (well, actually a sitter), babies
My Take: I thought this movie was really cute and charming. The Chemistry between Sam and Jason was great – I love soulful stares from across the room and there was a good amount of that. Jason was a little too good to be true, but that didn’t bother me because Sam was such a hot mess. I have to say, as I was googling movie reviews to narrow down what to watch, I came across a few sites that refused to review this movie, calling it “not family friendly” and also taking issue with other movies that have gay couples as supporting characters. It’s so disappointing. I want to be fair minded about this all and respect people’s beliefs, but it’s hard. I mean I’m also watching the World cup in Qatar, so maybe I’m not taking a strong enough stance?
The Ridiculous: Sam’s sister and her husband drive three hours to get the baby they are adopting, and bring home the newborn the day after it is born. Through a snowstorm in Buffalo. I know everyone wants to be home for Christmas, but oof….
Favorite bit: Jason’s dimples. It’s so shallow, but there you go. Also – Jason, the perfect Uncle, makes some amazing looking pancakes shaped like Christmas trees.

A Jolly Good Christmas – David, an American working in London, hires Anji to help him find a Christmas present for his girlfriend.
My rom com cat nip: London, Asian leading lady, interracial romance, British accents
My Take: I thought this one was pretty good, though movies where the leads fall in love whole-heartedly over 24 hours always strain credulity for me. I always think, “Wait… maybe you want to go on a second date or something first?” Of course I’ve never been one to kiss someone on the first date, so… I also liked that this movie was as much about David as it was about Anji. Sometimes these rom com movies tend to be about the heroine’s journey and the man (typically it’s a man) is this perfect cloud that she has to learn to be worthy of.
The Ridiculous: see above. Whirlwind romances are not my thing. Also – I know costume choices are a great way to show character development, but the guy who appears at work in the first scene in a three piece suit, and then in the last scene in a velvet blazer worn over a black t-shirt. I don’t know that I buy that wardrobe development.
Favorite bit: It might be sappy, but Anji’s speech at the climax of the movie where she says, something to the effect of “As a professional shopper I used to think everyone wanted a unique gift, but I’ve learned that everyone wants the same thing… to be loved.” Christmas with a bow right there.

Whew. That’s a lot for half a month. More to come, though, I’m sure.

Weekly recap + What we ate: World Cup watching

Last week was a quiet week; between a sick kid and a supertitle gig I spend most of last week at home. Trying to work, getting distracted, cuddling, and reading.

The week started with yet another sick child. The five year old had been running a fever all weekend. He’s a good patient and just lay on the couch all weekend, moving to his bed when he got tired of that. We had had plans to get the Christmas tree, and when he still wasn’t feeling better on Sunday, I sent the Husband and other two kids out to get the tree from our local fire station, where we always get our tree. They came home with a nice tall tree, the bifurcated top led the tree to be dubbed Maleficent by the ten year old.

While they were gone, I strung the outdoor lights. We have a motley assortment of lights and every year I try to remember how I strung them up the year before so that things don’t look too patchwork. We have red and white lights – those go on the front stoop. We have multi coloured lights – those go on the hedge. But those come in two sizes, so I have to be strategic on how those go on. Plus one set actually has a white light setting which we use after Christmas. Then we have one set of white lights that go on the witch hazel tree. Every year it seems like we have too many or not enough but then push, prod, and re-adjust and things work out. I need to just take a picture for posterity.

The lights for the tree were also kind of a saga. The Husband bought a new set of lights for our tree because one of our string of lights had that cliched section that didn’t light up. Unfortunately, the new strand was not the right quality of white light to match our existing strand, even though both were “warm white” light. The nuances of “warm white” baffles me. So I took our old light strand and swapped out light bulbs until I figured out the problem and managed to move the non-light up section to the end of the strand. Fine, we wadded up the non-light up section and pushed it into the middle of the tree. Lights went up on the tree. Not an hour after we put all the lights on the tree, the middle section of one strand went out. Argh!!!! By this point we were kind of over it and decided to leave everything. There is a swath of unlit tree in the middle of our tree, but we have decided just to live with it. I’m putting a reminder in my phone to buy new lights for next year.

Ignore that black hole in the middle of the Christmas tree.

Anyhow the rest of the week: Two days at home with a sick kid, with a trip to the pediatrician whose verdict was some kind of virus. We watched a lot of Snoopy. I tried to convince him to watch Steven Universe, but he was reluctant. I did watch one holiday movie as I worked – Steppin’ into the Holidays.

The the five year old got better just in time to go back to school for the scheduled half day. (I’m a little baffled by all the random half days and days off that the kids get…) With the half day, I took the five year old and his friend on a walk on a trail nearby that I’m sure is lovely in the spring, but in the winter, it is pretty clear that the trail is mostly a cover for a sewage pipe that runs the length of the creek. While it was nice to be out an stretching our legs it wasn’t the most picturesque winter stroll. But we went to Sweetfrog after, and that was a nice treat. My favorite Sweetfrog combination is: plain yogurt, mochi, fresh fruit.

Thursday night I had a super title gig. The featured singer was someone I had worked with before so that was fun to hear her sing. I’m always unsure if singers I work with remember me because I feel like a lot of my job is to be in the background, but this singer gave me a huge hug and was really happy to see me, so that was nice. It was a lovely program, the theme of which was “nomads” so a lot of the pieces had some kind of mystic/Orient flavor to them. Beautiful music, but also some of the translations/texts were definitely a little cringey in how they exoticize women of eastern cultures.

World cup + Laundry. A good combination.

Random thoughts on watching the World Cup. I wouldn’t call myself a sports fan, but I am a “big event” fan, and the World Cup certainly is that. Despite playing soccer for much of my youth, I am definitely not up on any of the soccer language or subtleties. I don’t have a favorite team and usually root for the underdog. This week, I watched most of the quarter final games and it was harrowing. Talk about underdog stories. What I’ve discovered about me and soccer:
– Seeing athletes cry gets me every time. Not in an “they shouldn’t be crying” kind of way, but more like a “That’s so sad” kind of way. Disappointment is I think the one emotion that I find the saddest.
-Athletes are really good looking. There’s youth on their side, of course. But they all have a certain glow about them. Maybe it’s that light of determination in their eyes, or the glint of optimism. Maybe it’s just sweat. Anyhow. Gah. I feel so agist to have said it, but I do feel like I spend a good amount of my soccer viewing time just marveling at how beautiful these players are.
-Soccer is a game of instants. It’s not a million instants like basketball or glacial instants like baseball or football. It’s fast but sometimes it takes a while to score so you have to stay glued to the set, or you will miss a goal. After missing one goal by going to the bathroom, I did not move off the couch again while play was still going on. And when a team does score, it’s always breath taking. Every single goal was deemed beautiful and amazing and perfect by the commentators.
-Watching soccer is really stressful for me! Especially having to decide the game in penalty shoot out. Soccer is such a team sport, and the penalty shoot out- where it’s down to two people – just seems the wrong way to decide things. It’s nail-biting and I hate nail-biting.

Grateful for this week:
– That my friend decided to throw herself a birthday gathering and I got to see some friends that I’d fallen out of touch with. It was so nice to see everyone.
-Hulu. Or rather being able to afford Hulu so I can watch the World Cup.
– The Husband for putting the kids to bed while I worked in the evenings.
– my food mill. I had bought at bushel of seconds at the farm stand at the five year old’s request for apple sauce. The Husband bought a food mill for me for Christmas one year when the ten year old was a baby and I wanted to make my own baby food. These days I only use it to make apple sauce, but oh how easy it is to make apple sauce with it. All I have to do is remove the stemps, quarter the apples, cook them down with about 1/2 cup water until they are soft, then run them through the mill. No peeling or coring.

Half of the bushel left after the first batch of apple sauce made.

Looking Forward to:
-Tuba Christmas! I really hope we can get tickets. This year they have a system where you can reserve your free tickets, which is different from in the past when you just showed up and tickets were just handed out. (We did this last night and it was awesome.)
-The ten year old’s school choral concert.
– Christmas baking. I’m starting to work on my list.
-World Cup semi-finals and finals.

And then Christmas is in less than two weeks. Eeep! Gotta to start thinking about what we are going to have for Christmas Dinner – I think it will be ham. And then finish with the Christmas shopping – I have the list, just need to buy everything, and also gifts for teachers. And do festive things and do cozy things.

What We Ate: Pretty much everything we ate came from Jenny Rosenstrach’s The Weekday Vegetarians. I didn’t think I would like this cook book a lot, but it’s proven to have some rock solid easy recipes.

Saturday: I went out to celebrate a friends’ birthday and I probably ate five plates of truffle fries.

Sunday: Cheese and cracker and snack dinner as we tried to put lights on the tree.

Monday: Quinoa and Roasted veggie salad. This was really tasty. The roasted veggies were carrots, cabbage, and beets.

Tuesday: Pinto Bean bowls. Pinto beans eaten over rice, topped with avocado, pickled onions, pickled jalapenos, sour cream, radishes.

Wednesday: Charred broccoli and tofu with spicy peanut sauce. Eaten over egg noodles. Simple and really tasty.

Thursday: I was working and got a grain bowl from Beefsteak, a vegetable heavy restaurant. I made up my own bowl combination today and liked it so much, I took a picture of the recipt so I could order it again.
For the record, it was: Quinoa, butter poached sweet potatoes, cooked cabbage, steamed kale, edamame, sauteed mushrooms, scallions, kimchi, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, toasted seaweed, miso dressing and garlic yogurt sauce.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and the Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special – which was hilarious and festive and touching.

A Cute Kid Sayings and Three Haikus

We put up our Christmas tree this week, something that takes several days to complete. We get the tree one day. Then the lights go on, often when the tree comes home, but sometimes not. Then the ornaments go on. Then a few days later we remember to put the ornaments from our wedding on.

Most of our ornaments come from the Husband’s family. My late mother-in-law loved Christmas ornaments, and the Husband and his sister would get a new ornament every year. When my in laws passed away, we inherited all the ornaments, mostly because his sister lived abroad and it would have been difficult to get the ornaments to her. We have two large bins of ornaments and they run the gamut from classic balls to Romulan War Ships that light up.

The process has not been with not without its casualties. The baby managed to break at least three ornaments so far. I hate that the breakage happens, but I suppose banning kids from tree trimming is not an option.

The morning after we hung ornaments, the five year old said to me:
“Decorating the Christmas tree is an activity for everyone, not just grown ups. That’s why the Christmas tree has high branches and low branches!”

I love his five year old brain.

Three Haikus from This Cold week:

Waiting for the bus
4pm. Winter dusk brings
Moonrise and pink skies.

“Can you touch the sky?”
He asks of the bare tree limbs
Poking at the clouds.

Drafty door, splinters.
It’s a little bit broken,
Pieces we call home.

Books Read – November 2022

A surprisingly full reading month. Some good, some not so good.

Dava Shashtri’s Last Day by Kirthana Samisetti – I felt pretty “meh” about this book. The novel is about a very wealthy lady, the self-made Dava Shashtri, who arranges for all her children to come home so that she can spend her last days with them. Secrets come out, families get redefined. I think the main thing I didn’t love about this novel was that I felt like that a lot of the storytelling was kind of … lazy. Throughout the novel diary excerpts, letters (unsent), newspaper articles, etc. were used to tell the reader what the characters were like, and while I love a good epistolary novel (Where’d You Go Bernadette did this so well), in this book these narrative devices just seemed a somewhat contrived and forced way to do some character development. Also … I know everyone has a story, but I think these days I don’t have as much patience for stories about rich people problems.

Shit, Actually by Lindy West – okay, this book was hilarious. Each chapter is devoted to one movie which West recaps while pointing out the sheer ridiculousness of the movie. Some of the chapters were so funny that I read them aloud to the Husband. West points out the sexism, agesim, racism, all the problematic -isms that were (are) pervasive in Hollywood, often to hilarous effect. The title of the book refers to Love, Actually – which I love, but yes, it has some really cringe-y things going on in it.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan- This book was really well written and crafted, but it made me so angry. Which, I think, was kind of the point. The novel tells the story about Frida, who leaves her two year old alone at home for a few hours and is sent by the court to a facility that is basically mom rehab. It’s a little dystopian/ Handmaid’s Tale in the way that the women at the facility have no rights and must buy into this very rigid idea of what makes a good mother. Ironically, I was reading Sibling Rivalry at the same time and some of the language that the educators at the facility use is very similar to language in Sibling Rivalry, except in the concept of “mom school”, the words sound like some kind of military state mantra, and for a split second made me question my own faith in parenting books. Anyhow, everyone is miserable, the women are powerless, motherhood is skewered, and fathers get off easy in this novel. I can’t say I enjoyed it but it was certainly powerful and I really understood the way that the mothers in the book were all being judged and expected to hold motherhood as some impossibly high standard. “Unrelenting misery, finely written” is what I wrote in my notes. Some quotes that hit close to home:
“My ex-husband said my custody might be suspended. is that true?”
“Yes, the child will remain in her father’s care.”
“But it won’t ever happen again. Gust knows that.”
“Ms. Liu, this was an emergency removal because of imminent danger. You left your daughter unsupervised.”
Frida fushes. She always feels like she’s fucking up, but now there’s evidence.

The mothers at the school are instructed in how to hug their children:
They shouldn’t hold for more than three beats. Sometimes five or six beats is permissible if the child is injured or has experienced verbal, emotion, or physical trauma. Up to ten beats is permitted in extreme situations. Longer than that will hinder the child’s burgeoning independence.
When I first had my kid, I always wondered what the right thing to do was, even for the intangible….this pretty much sums up some of my internal monologue.

Frida is exhuasted from crouching and squatting and chasing and listening and giving and trying to channel frustration into love.
Yup… every day.

Siblings without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlich – Speaking of which…. I thought this book had some really good concrete ideas for how not to create contentious sibling relations. Which is not to say that kids won’t fight… just that parents can minimize their own role in their children’s antagonism. So many useful things in this book, the big idea is that when we listen to our kids and make them feel heard, they will be less likely to feel resentful of their siblings. A few of my specific takeaways:
– Don’t compare your children. This seems obvious, but I think there are subtle ways of comparing that I didn’t realize I was doing until I read this book. Specifically doling out praise – rather than praise inherent qualities in children, praise actions. Which I know is oft given parenting advice, but I’d never thought of it in context of siblings. When you praise actions, then siblings may be less prone to jealousy because actions can be emulated in ways that characteristics may not be. So a kid isn’t thinking, “Oh I’m not smart like my brother.” rather they think, “Oh my brother studies after school. That’s a good habit. I’ll try that too.”
– When kids fight, address the injured party, not the aggressor. So rather than, “Don’t hit your sister!” you say to the sister, “Oh does your hand hurt? Let’s get it some ice.” Then you show that your attention is on the injury not the action.
– Encourage kids to work things out on their own. Their steps: Narrate the conflict (“It looks like you both want to play with the train.) then let the kids figure it out (“I’m taking the train away until you guys can come to an agreement on how to play with it without fighting.”) I’ve actually tried this several times and it seems to work a lot of the time. I think in the past, I’ve stopped at just taking the toy away, but that extra step of actually telling them to work it out seems to really encourage them to talk to each other rather than sulking in separate rooms.
-In Family meetings avoid deciding things by vote because voting can leave someone feeling as if their opinions don’t matter. Have each person state their case, then state the family values you want the decision to follow. If you do vote, acknowledge the disappointment.

Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg – I wrote little bit about this book in my last post when I was contemplating my morning routine. Fogg studies behavior science at Stanford, and his book is very organized- he lays out this step by step method he has developed to help cement little habits, with the idea that little habits become big developments or advances. I will say, I think the book is a bit of overkill for learning his method. I mostly read the book because I had heard him on an episode of Life Kit and was intrigued by his ideas, but I think I had expected the book to be more about the science and psychology of cementing habits, but there wasn’t a whole lot of that kind of backing. I don’t think one needs to read his book to incorporate his ideas into one’s life. I did like the lists he had at the back of the book of various examples of simple ways to incorporate tiny habits and prompts into one’s life. Also in the back of the book he has a fun list of ways to celebrate tiny habits – his method is pretty much: brainstorm tiny habits that would fix a problem/ pick one tiny habit and find a prompt for it/ link tiny habit to prompt/ celebrate tiny habit to cement it. One of my favorite is “Look for something yellow.”

My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows, read by Katherine Kellgren – I loved this book, a take on the story of Lady Jane Grey, the nine day queen. Funny, sassy, sweet, smart, this book made me laugh out loud so many times. I’ve always thought Lady Jane Grey’s story was so so sad. I mean, she was basically a 16 year old pawn who lost her life in the deadly games of the court power. I couldn’t see how the authors could give her a happy ending, but they did. There might be a little imaginative bending of historical truths, but I highly approve. Also the audiobook narrator has this deliciously dry tone that made the listening experience a delight. I hear the second book in the series is My Plain Jane, based on Jane Eyre and I’m already planning to read that in January.

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzales – There was so much I liked about this book, about a wedding planner to the elite living in the Bronx and her politician brother. The writing was great, the characters complex yet understandable, the book tackles themes of racism, classicism and the American Dream in a really sharp and observant way, and the plotting was swift and kept me interested. The book also made me realize how little I know about Puerto Rico, despite it being part of the United States. The two main characters are of Puerto Rican heritage and their complex relationship with the island is one of the main plot points of the book. The book also reminded me a little of The Dutch House in the way that characters in both books have to grapple with saintly absent mothers. I will say, that there was one bit towards the end that kind of just put me off to the book – it was just a plot point, an important plot point, but one that I wish had been handled differently. All in all, though, I thought it was a good read. Some passages I highlighted:

–Olga began to notice that her clients were growing steadily richer while people doing the work were getting compensated in exactly the same way. Even the rich people appeared less content than before. Simply existing seemed an immense burden to them. Their wealth bought them homes that were “exhausting” to deal with, vacations that were “overwhelming” to plan for.

– In the aftermath of the Spice It Up debacle, Olga realized that she’d allowed herself to become distracted from the true American dream – accumulating money – by its phantom cousin, accumulating fame. She would never made that mistake again.

In Olga’s heart there was a pin-sized hole of infinite depth that made every day slightly more painful than it needed to be. She thought of it, this hole, as a birth defect. The space where, in a normal heart, a mother’s love was meant to be.
I thought that was just some really beautiful writing.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Morning routines

This was supposed to be one of the few weeks this fall where everyone had a five full days of school. But… there was the unfortunate incident of the plane in the electrical tower which caused a huge power outage and resulted in school being cancelled on Monday. Then Tuesday and Wednesday, the baby was sick so she stayed home. So it was a lot of unexpected child care this week.

On Monday, I decided to take advantage of the no school day to take the five year old and the neighbor’s kid down to the Botanical Gardens to see the model trains. It actually worked out well – when we have gone to see the Botanical Garden trains in the past, we’ve had to go on the weekend and it’s always been really crowded. This time, the crowds were very light so we could easily see all the displays. I’m glad we went during the week because the train display was smaller than in the past, and probably would not have been as relaxed an experience if I had to fight the crowds to see it.

Model of Union Station, all built of plant matter.

Also – there were baby pineapple plants in the bathroom at the Botanical Gardens. I was so charmed by it, I had to snap a picture:

Monday night the baby started running fever, so I kept her home on Tuesday. She spent a lot of time sleeping, thank goodness, and I got some work done. Other than one incident of vomiting in my bed, she was a pretty low maintenance patient. Even still, she ran a fever again on Tuesday night so we kept her home on Wednesday too. Of course she was more her normal, curious, active self on Wednesday, so I didn’t get as much work done. I actually didn’t mind, though – I was reminded of how during the pandemic I was home and it was just me and the kids and we just kind of hung out and went on walks and baked and read books while cuddling on the couch. And while there was a voice in my head that said, “You really should be working on those supertitle slides!” I think hanging out with my kid is important too – for both of us.

Fun new thing – I’m working on supertitle slides for a concert next week, and one of the songs is in Arabic. I’ve never had to work in Arabic before, so it’s been interesting for sure to match up the translation I was given with the text of the song. Thank goodness for Google and Google translate. At first I was so daunted by the whole things and I kept putting off working on this one song, and I had to remind myself that it’s good to have new work challenges.

Moment to savor: One nice thing about earlier winter sunsets is that when I’m waiting for the school bus in the afternoon I get to see beautiful pink and gold skies. Even as I shiver in the cold there some something breathtaking to see.

I’ve been thinking about my morning routine lately, mostly because there’s been no morning routine this past week and a half. And when there’s no morning routine, habits fall through the cracks.

I’ve been reading B.J. Fogg’s Tiny Habits, and he has developed a method for building habits that can be summed up as:
1) finding the smallest things you can do,
2) finding a prompt to do that small thing,
3) celebrate doing that small thing to make yourself feel good for doing it.

The part I’ve found most helpful is 2), finding a prompt and I’ve been trying to incorporate more prompts in my daily life. There are lots of good behaviours I want to encourage, but I struggle with finding a routine. So I’ve latched on to the idea of finding prompts for things as a reminder to do (or not do) something. For example:
1) The five year old used to wet the bed at night at least once a week. This was mostly because we forget to tell him to go the the bathroom before bed. Also- the ten year old was always leaving things in her pockets, causing havoc on laundry day. So now, after we brush our teeth (prompt – more specifically, after we put our toothbrushes back), the five year old goes to the bathroom and the ten year old empties her pockets.
2) I have a terrible habit of checking my phone at stop lights, and I decided I needed an alternative activity. So now every time I get to a stoplight (prompt), I do kegels until the light turns green to keep me off my phone.

Anyhow, I had set up a series of prompts in my head for the morning, and for a variety of reasons (holidays, the oldest has a morning writing club, just being tired), I hadn’t been doing these things. Rather I was just relying on memory and instinct to do them. My ideal morning prompt/habits would be:

– The Husband leaves for work. The moment the door shuts behind him, we all go do our morning teeth brushing.
-The ten year old leaves to walk the baby to the neighbor’s so they can take her to school. The moment she leaves, I do a ten minute yoga video. (In Fogg’s world, the tiny habit would be – the moment the door closes (prompt), I lay out my yoga mat (tiny action.)) I particularly liked this one because the five year old would do it with me.
-I take the kids to the school bus. When I pull in wherever I need to go after (work or home), as soon as I turn off the car, I do my daily Wordle and Duolingo.

(I still would love to figure out a prompt for journaling… maybe I need to put the journal by my bed and do it as soon as I wake up? I think this is also where routines and habits blend into each other.)

Anyhow, the morning brushing, yoga, Wordle, and Duolingo weren’t getting done this past week. Partly because not having to catch a school bus sucks the urgency out of the morning, and also a couple days, the ten year old’s before school writing club meant that there was no prompt for #2. Wordle and Duolingo usually got done at some point in the day, but I did have to use a couple streak freezes for the Duolingo because I would just forget. And granted none of this stuff was IMPERITIVE, but the morning feels better when I just automatically do things. I feel like when I know that these things will automatically happen after a prompt, I don’t spend mental energy on trying to figure when or if they will happen. (Contrast that with exercise/running – I don’t have a prompt for that because what with the weather and darker days and my current more flexible schedule, exercise doesn’t always happen at the same time and I like to look at my whole day in order to decide where it will happen. )

So I’ve been contemplating the difference between having a morning routine, where the morning is time blocked (ie. 7:00a teeth, 7:15 breakfast, 7:45 get dressed, etc…), versus just having prompts and habits and knowing the rest of the morning activities (pack lunch, get dressed, prep dinner, make breakfast – the essentials) will fall in place around it. I will say we have a luxuriously long morning – the kids are usually up by 6:30/6:45a and the baby goes to the neighbors’ at 8:10pm and the rest of us leave for the school bus at 8:50a. So nothing feels rushed, really. I just think I feel like the morning gets off to a better start when I do more than just the essential survival tasks of food and clothing. Anyhow, here’s hoping the next few weeks I can get back to my tiny habit mornings.

One the List This Weekend:
– Birthday Party (adult)
-Birthday Party x2 (kids)
-Decorate for Christmas/ go get our tree
– Tidy/ Pick up since cleaners are coming on Monday.
-Order Christmas Cards
-Christmas movie
-Bake Cookies (hopefully)
-World Cup Watching.
-Meal Plan for next week.

Grateful for This Week:
– That the pilot and passenger who flew into the electrical tower were able to be rescued safely. I don’t know them, but it must have been horrifically scary. I’m really glad that there were people who knew how to get them down safely.
-All the bloggers who participated in NnBloPoMo – I’ve really enjoyed reading all the thoughts they put into the world this month, such honesty, realness and humor. And now I feel like I have new blogs to pop in and read and the (virtual) world has opened up a little.
-That I’m not working right now and can just roll with the school cancellations and sick days. This week would have been difficult if I had been working because before/after care, which I usually would have used for school closures, was also closed due to the plane/power outage issue. I know so many parents that had to majorly scramble for coverage on Monday.
– Hoopla and my library card. The kids have been listening to Dear Evan Hansen a lot these days. (Also Taylor Swift.) I thought it might be fun to get some music from the show so we can sing it, so rather than buying the sheet music, I put a bunch of music books on hold at the library. When I was loading up my holds list, I noticed that a bunch of these music books were also available as eBooks via Hoopla, so I downloaded those and have been trying to learn Waving Through the Window. There was a lot of music available and I’m eager to dip into more!

Looking forward to:
– Helping my friend celebrate her birthday tonight.
– Supertitle gig next week.
– Getting my teeth cleaned. I know going to the dentist isn’t something people look forward to but, 1) next week is relatively quiet for adventures, and 2) I really like my dentist and hygienist – they are so nice, make me feel taken care of, and make me laugh even while suctioning spit out of my mouth.

What We Ate – This managed to be an eat-from-the-pantry/fridge/freezer week, which is always good the week after Thanksgiving:

Monday: Broccoli Pasta from Bad Manners cookbook. Vegan. This is really tasty for how simple it is. Boil pasta, drain. Sear broccoli in a pan, add garlic and red pepper flakes. Mix pasta in with broccoli. At the table, top with panko parmesan (Panko, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, paprika.) Yes, it’s essentially carbs topped on carbs, but the crunchy savory topping is what really makes this dish for me.

Tuesday: Spicy Salmon Tacos – I used the Korean Pork Taco recipe from Dinners Illustrated but subbed in Salmon and Shrimp for the pork.

Wednesday: Comedy night with my friend – I had a vegan mushroom risotto. The Husband stayed home with the kids and they had breakfast sandwiches and hash browns

Thursday: Butternut Squash Soup from Weeknight Vegetarian. Vegan version that used coconut milk to make it creamy. This was simple and tasty.

Friday: Meatball subs from the deli, wolfed down before the 10 year old’s piano recital. No movie this night – the piano recital was followed immediately by basketball practice.

Christmas Movie List 2022

We have a tradition in December of spending many evenings (and some lazy afternoons) watching Christmas movies. A couple weeks ago, we sat down and brainstormed all our favorite and “wanna watch” Christmas movies. Here’s what is on my list:

(Oh also – I would call this list very aspirational. It’s more like the menu so we remember what’s out there.)

Classic Films. As in TMC old.
– Meet Me in St. Louis
– It’s a Wonderful Life
– White Christmas
– Charlie Brown Christmas
– A Christmas Carol (pick a version.)

Classic Films. As in from our younger days.
– Elf
– Home Alone
– Polar Express
– Muppet Christmas Carol

Movies the Husband says aren’t Christmas Movies, but which I disagree
– Little Women (I like the 1996 version, but the 2019 one was very good too.)
– While You Were Sleeping
– The Holiday
-Bridget Jone’s Diary.
okay, maybe this category is mostly Christmas as an excuse to watch rom-coms.

The More Recent Stuff That We Loved
– 8 Bit Christmas (we watched this last year and we like it even better than the original Christmas Story)
– Spirited (We actually just watched this last weekend)
– Frozen (We saw this at the symphony already this year already so maybe not for home viewing this year)
– The Little Prince (Rachel Portman’s opera version. I worked on this opera twice and it’s one of my favorite operas. Here’s an excerpt from a music video that was made of the opera. Fun fact – we have a version of the rose costume in the video. The Opera where I work every so often has a costume sale where they get sell costumes they won’t use anymore, and they had an extra rose costume, so I bought it for my oldest kid.)
– Any Hallmark Christmas movie. I like ones where the hero and heroine like each other from the beginning so we don’t waste too much time being enemies and can just get to the romantic bits and holiday fun parts.

Not Child Friendly (aka, watch when kids are in bed)
-Die Hard
-Love Actually
-National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (I haven’t seen this, but the Husband assures me the kids aren’t ready for this yet.)
-Joyeaux Noel (Not child friendly because it isn’t in English. It’s about a Christmas Day truce during WWI. I worked on a great opera based on this movie.)
-Twas the Fight Before Christmas (Documentary about a man whose Christmas light display gets out of hand…)

Films we haven’t seen yet, but which are on all the Christmas Movie Lists
– The Santa Clause
– The Shop around the Corner/ You’ve Got Mail (I love the musical She Loves Me which has the same story)
– Nightmare before Christmas (Yes… I really have yet to see this movie)
– The Man Who Invented Christmas (Dan Stevens as Charles Dickens!)
– Gremlins (I haven’t seen this, but the Husband has)
– The Preacher’s Wife/ The Bishop’s Wife
– Bad Santa (this might be a “after the kids are in bed” one)
– Noelle (Looks cute – Anna Kendrick as Santa’s daughter, itching for a chance to prove herself)
-Last Christmas (Henry Golding! Enough said.)
-Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (It’s billed as a musical fantasy. I’m all about musical Christmas movies.)
-Arthur Christmas (Animated movie – looks really cute.)
-Christmas in Connecticut (1945 Barbara Stanwyck movie.)

2022 Movies that Look Fun!
-Hip Hop Nutcracker
-The Royal Nanny (Hallmark – Royal and Nanny usually piques my interest.)
-Christmas With You (Freddie Prinze Jr is now playing the hot dad. Of course.)
– Santa Camp (Documentary)
– Christmas at the Golden Dragon and A Big Fat Family Christmas (Christmas movies centered on stories of Asian families/characters. Wow. Yay for representation. My brother once made a comment about how Crazy Rich Asians was a very mediocre move (he’s wrong), but I said to him, “I feel like Asian people deserve to be in bad cliched rom coms as much as white people do.” Wish fulfilled.)
– A Christmas Spark (OMG!!!! Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman reunion – this one features Jane Seymour and Joe Lando as a widow ans the town’s hottest dad. Must watch!!!!)
-Violent Night (Santa as a bad ass crime fighting hero. This one actually looks a bit violent for me, but I looooove the premise.)

What else should I put on my list????

The false dichotomy of strengths and weaknesses

I was having a conversation with a friend a couple of months ago and she was lamenting how her children don’t let things go and are constantly saying how things are fair because of this small thing or that small thing that happened ages ago. “They hold on to every detail,” she lamented. Then she said, “And I think they get it from me. I remember everything and keep revisiting and bringing it back up.”

I turned to her and said, “But you know what? That memory for detail… that’s what makes you amazing at your job!” I wasn’t just making that up to make her feel good – she has a job that requires her to hold lots of dates and times and rules and protocols in her head and she has to make these details fit together so that everyone can get what they want without violating any rules or incurring unnecessary expenses. This characteristic that she saw as a weakness was also a great strength of hers.

It reminded me of one time when a director gave me a compliment by calling me a very “nurturing” stage manager. (Let’s forget for a minute how sexist that compliment might have been.) She went on to say, “You really go out of your way to make sure all the singers feel comfortable and are able to do their best work.” I was really not sure whether or not I thought of “nurturing” as a good trait – in my mind, that instinct to be nurturing was also the same instinct that made me seek consensus, which would often lead to indecision. And I’ve always felt like indecisiveness was one of my weaknesses. I am always full of admiration of stage managers who just know the exact right thing to do.

Here’s a thought, though – what if our greatest weaknesses are also our greatest strengths? I don’t mean it in a falsely modest way – like how in job interviews you say something like, “My greatest weakness is that I’m a perfectionist.” Rather, it seems to me that framing personality traits as strengths vs. weaknesses creates a false dichotomy. In so many instances the things that makes us strong or successful can also be the things that blind us to other things and set us up to fail. Confidence and hubris, for example. Being kind and being overaccommodating. Or here’s a doozy – loving someone and being vulnerable.

Our characteristics are all two sides of the proverbial coin. They are who we are, how we solve problems, how we interact with other humans, how we place ourselves in the world, how we pace ourselves in the world. Simply… how our brain just works. Rather than thinking of these traits as a weakness or strength, maybe we can just think of our traits as how we translate personality into action, into who we are.

These traits – they aren’t “strengths” or “weaknesses” but rather the unique ways that we are human.

What “weaknesses” can you re-frame today?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Thanksgiving 2022

Well we’ve emerged at the other end of Thanksgiving weekend. HOWEVER…. the kids were supposed to go back to school Monday, but there was a massive power outage last night and the schools were closed. Apparently a small plane flew into a electrical tower. No one is hurt, and the power has actually been restored to schools, but the schools need to do some damage assessment before they let the kids come back. So that makes day six of no school.

Given that last week consisted only of two half days of school, it certainly feels as if there’s been a lot of time at home and with the kids the past week and a half. I don’t feel like I have to be the children’s cruise director, but I do acknowledge that life is smoother if on days without school we get out of the house for a large chunk of time. With that in mind, one half day, I had the kids accompany me on my HMart grocery run – I bribed them by letting them pick out their own packs of Pocky as a snack- then took them to the park. It was chilly so I packed some hot chocolate in a Thermos.

The other half day the kids and I went to the library and the park next to the library. I love our library and park because it’s a low key one stop kids destination – there is a big open grassy area that the kids can run around in, there is a playground, and then when we get tired of that, we can go to the library and read book, or, more likely, play on the computers. I ran into a colleague that I hadn’t seen in two years but who just moved to the area, which always perks me up. I picked up another thick tome – Juliet Barker’s biography on the Brontës. I think January might be a Jane Eyre redux month – I want to read “My Plain Jane“, having just read the first book in the series, a retelling of the story of Lady Jane Grey, and found it hilarious. This second book in the series is a retelling of Jane Eyre, which is my favorite book.

Wednesday, was a full day off and I was offered tickets to a dress rehearsal of The Nutcracker, so I took the two older kids. I haven’t been to see The Nutcracker since probably high school. This was a nice traditional Nutcracker with all the expected bit – children, mice, Sugar Plum Fairy, a growing tree, lots of snow, and rows of tutus dancing in perfect unison. The kids were more engaged with the first half, which was where the main narrative arc of the story was. The second half, left them a little restless. My favorite part, though, was getting to hear the orchestra play Tchaikovsky’s score.

We did not go anywhere for Thanksgiving – at one point we had contemplated visiting a friend in New Jersey, but the thought of packing and travelling with the kids seemed so daunting and a nice quiet weekend at home much more appealing. We even made plans to clean out the attic, which did not happen. Thanksgiving Day itself was pretty quiet. As is our tradition, we watched the Macy’s Day Parade starting at 9am. I was a little confused at first because all the musical theatre numbers were shown at the beginning of the broadcast, and I was used to them being spaced throughout the parade, so I initially thought that they weren’t going to show the balloons and floats this year, just the musical numbers. But fear not. They balloons and floats started at 10am. My favorite bit was the cast of the Pitch Perfect spin off performing a mashup of 99 Luftbaloons + Take On Me. It was pretty awesome. Also the excerpt from Lion King – once you’ve seen stilt walkers as giraffes all the other performers seem kind of landbound. I had seen the musical years ago and the puppetry is just as brilliant and thrilling twenty years later seen on tv.

After dinner, we watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles – I hadn’t seen it before, and the Husband has been waiting YEARS for us to watch this as a family. In years past we’ve watched Scent of a Woman, but this year I guess the kids are at that phase where they’re too young for Scent of a Woman and just old enough for Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Another holiday tradition that shifts.

The rest of the weekend felt pretty full for a quiet holiday at home. I guess when we stay home, adventure comes to us. We ended up having two park play dates – one at our local park and one at a farther away park that I’d never been to, but which was huge and fun and had a carousel. I might have lost the three year old there and might have been that mother whose child was picked up sobbing by another mother on the playground. Ugh.

In addition to that, I went through the kids’ snow gear and made a note of what I needed to stock up on for this year, we watched football (American) and football (soccer), and tidied and cleaned and I went through the fruit bowl and decided to toss some really old apples, but then decided that I shouldn’t waste food like that so I made applesauce. I took the ten year old to buy some clothes and we found a dress for her upcoming piano recital. There was also church, a visit to the Farmer’s Market and the local co-op to stock up on snacks, a new to us coffee shop, and lighting of Advent candles. And we’ve started playing Christmas music at our house and watching Christmas movies.

Oh and before that, on Saturday night my friend called and said that she was sick but she had tickets for Frozen with the Symphony that night and did I want to go and take her kids? It’s one of those shows where they show the movie and the orchestra is onstage playing the music. So I said sure why not and took the ten year old, the three year old and my friend’s two kids. It was kind of an ordeal getting there – three preteens and a three year old in a car is not for the faint of heart, but we made it and mostly enjoyed the movie (I mean who doesn’t like Frozen?!?). And they blew fake snow over the audience during the closing credits – that was kind of magical.

The three year old wore her big sister’s hand me down Anna dress to the concert/movie, and it was interesting to me how many kids came dressed up. But also interesting is that most of the kids came in costumes from Frozen 2 – it made me feel the passage of time that my three year old’s Anna dress was kind of vintage Anna now.

Lessons learned this Thanksgiving:
– Find a better time to go to Costco. Or maybe there is no good time to go to Costco? I went Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving then I went to Giant to do the grocery shop. It was all so exhausting and crowded. Also- on Wednesday night, I discovered we were out of dish soap and I seriously started contemplating the it wouldn’t be terrible if I didn’t do any dishes for the next few days rather than going to to the store again. Thankfully, the Husband prevailed and went to the store and got dish soap.
– I tried a new fat ratio for pie crust this time and I really liked it. I used to do all butter or half butter/half shortening. This time I did 2/3 butter and 1/3 shortening and it’s not as tasty as a full butter crust, but the texture was perfect. Despite the droopy pie crust, the pies were really tasty.
– Make/ buy the rolls. I decided to skip the rolls this year because it was just us and I didn’t want to have a lot of food, but you know what? I miss having rolls at the table. So next year – don’t skip the rolls.
– Do better at trading off alone time with the Husband. Five days at home with the kids is a lot of togetherness and we all had moments of burnout. We need to be better at making sure there is child-free time for each parent on these stretches.

Grateful For This week: Of course it was Thanksgiving week, so my gratitude list was very long, but some specific things from this week:
– The opportunity to go see live performances. It’s a nice perk of my job that periodically I get tickets to things and get to take my kids. I’m also grateful that I can take my kids and they will usually sit through things, or if they get restless they will sit on my lap and cuddle.
– Neighbors and strangers who help. I had an odd incident on Thanksgiving Day while out on my run; I came across a lady walking up the sidewalk with three suitcases who clearly needed help, but I was so far out of my depths and didn’t know how to help her. I felt so thankful that my neighbor was able to offer some resources and then a random stranger pulled his car over and took the lady to a shelter.
– My kids’ teachers. We had parent teacher conferences last week and I am so grateful to the teachers who help my kids learn – not just book learning, but also learning life skills. I’m especially grateful for the ten year old’s teacher. Our conference was only supposed to be fifteen minutes but she spent over half an hour with us answering questions and talking us through strategies to help the ten year old in areas where she was struggling.

Looking Forward To
– Buckling down and getting the translation slides done for this supertitle gig I have next week. It seems weird to be looking forward to that, but I feel like I’ve spend so much time this past week thinking, and planning, and executing family and children adventures, that being able to do something that is work and not kid related is going to be a nice chance for flow and focus.
– Night out at a comedy show with my friend. I’ve never been to a comedy show, so I’m excited to see what it is like. This one is by a local comedy troupe and is called “Mother of all Comedy Show” and supposed to be about family and the holidays. Hopefully it will be funny.
– The ten year old’s piano recital this week.

One Fun Thing I Read:
I really liked this article about Japanese fans cleaning up after World Cup games. I’ve always been really fascinated by how Japanese children are expected to help tidy their classrooms and the how the expectations are pretty high for independence and stewardship in children. It was really cool to see those traits manifest on an international stage. (Related listening – I loved this episode of 99% Invisible talks about Japanese toddlers going on their first errands and how Japanese cities and culture supports that.)

What We Ate:

Monday: Crispy Chickpeas with homemade Flatbread from Weekday Vegetarian. We had some leftover yogurt sauce from when the husband make chicken schwarma last week, so I thought this would be a good use.

Tuesday: Butternut Squash Curry from Budget Bytes. This was simple and tasty and used up a squash that had been sitting around . We ate it with flatbread rather than rice. Vegan.

Wednesday: Kitchen sink fried rice, recipe loosely based off of Weekday Vegetarian’s Mushroom and Bok Choy fried rice. We had a lot of leftover rice in the fridge so this was a good way to use that up. Because I wanted this to be our second vegan meal this week, I made it with fried tofu rather than eggs. This recipe called for the vegetables to be sautéed then removed from the pan, then the rice cooked in a layer to make it crispy then the veggies added back in – it made for a fried rice that was very veggie heavy, which I liked.

Thursday: THANKSGIVING!!! Duck with orange sauce, roasted potatoes, cranberry sauce, broccoli salad, ribbon jello (which the ten year old made ann which the Midwestern Husband insists on calling “Ribbon Salad”.) Pumpkin and Apple pie for dinner.

Friday: Pizza and the Paw Patrol Movie. My first experience with the Paw Patrol Phenomenon. It was fine… though I was a little annoyed that there was only one female Paw Patrol. Or maybe obviously female. Maybe more of them are females and I just don’t know because I have preconceived gender associations and only the pink dog can be a girl…?

Saturday: Sandwiches at the theatre before Frozen. I think the Husband and the five year old had take out at home.

Sunday: Dumplings and Spirited, a new movie on AppleTV, a Christmas Carol inspired story featuring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. I mostly enjoyed this movie – it had singing and dancing and was funny and irreverent. And Octavia Butler as the romantic lead – how awesome is that? There was one moment that I found a little cringe-y that almost ruined the movie for me – there are two things things that I personally don’t like being used as plot points and this had one of them.

Low Key Weekend – why am I still tired?

The second pie is in the oven, so what am I to do while I wait, but send some hodge podge thoughts out into the world.

Also – I just checked the pie and 1) The edge of the crust is doing some kind of sad droopy thing – I had too much overhang and rather than trim it off, I thought I’d just leave it because really the crust is the best part, so why not have more. I had fluted the excess edge, but I think there was too much excess and it has kind of drooped like Dali’s clocks. It does not look good. But it will be tasty. and 2) I tried to peek to see if the rest of the crust was baking since soggy crust has been an issue of mine lately. And I thought, “That’s strange… why is the crust still so pale? It’s very white for having been in the oven for twenty minutes” And I panicked a little bit. But then I remembered that I didn’t use the clear Pyrex pie plate, but the white pie plate and all that white I was seeing was just the pie plate. So who knows if the pie crust is baking in there. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow/ today.

Anyhow, it’s been a really packed week so far. The two older kids have had very minimal school this week. Monday and Tuesday half days and today (Wednesday) completely off. Then of course tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Friday is off.

I think we all realize that the holidays are coming and we try to pack so much into the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we kept things low key last weekend. There was house puttering on Saturday, then dinner out with friends. We went to the same brewery that I had gone to earlier that week with my Mom’s Group. I don’t drink, but the brewery has firepits, so that was a plus. There were only two other groups sitting outside, which made me feel less awful about our combined six kids running around the patio.

Sunday the three year old had two birthday parties to go to, both of them outdoors in 40 degree weather. One party had chicken fingers, French fries, and mac and cheese, which I thought was brilliant for a toddler party. It was probably on the cold side to be having an outdoor party, but I figured at least it would be an opportunity to to check more boxes off my 1000 Hours Outside goal. Two birthday parties in one day might not seem low key, but they were both park parties nearby, so they were pretty easy to get to.

Then there is the issue of sleep. Or rather being tired. I’ve been feeling pretty tired lately even though I’ve been getting 6-7 hours of sleep a night. Thoughts on this:

– Maybe I’m still catching up from daylights savings having ended? And the shorter spans of sunlight certainly don’t help my lethargy.

– It’s not because I’m staying up til 2am or 3am like I tend to when I’m working. I’ve actually been really good about mindfully going to bed, as opposed to falling asleep on the couch and stumbling to my room at 3am. So yay me.

-It is partly because the three year old is not proving to be a great sleeper. I mean she sleeps like a rock for three hours at a time – you can roll her over without waking her when she is asleep. But inevitably at some point between 1am and 3am, she gets out of bed and comes to our room and climbs into our bed. Then it’s an internal battle of whether I should take her back to her own bed and spend another half an hour getting her to sleep, or if I should just give up and let her sleep in my bed. Usually the latter wins out. But she also will be up sometime around 5am yelling for breakfast. Or Milk. Full confession, the three year old still nurses to sleep. Which I have mixed feelings about, but also some degree of apathy because it seems like my feelings on the matter do not even compare to her feelings.

-Also, related to the not going to bed late … part of going to bed early is that I get up earlier. And when I’m awake earlier, I then get tired earlier and then fall asleep earlier. It’s kind of a viscous cycle. I do like the idea of being a morning person, but I can’t really be a morning lark and a night owl.

– There is a possibility that I’m coming down with something. I did have a cold sore this week that was so painful I woke up a few times. I get cold sores maybe once or twice a year – usually a combination of hormones, weather, and stress makes them appear. But they’ve always been mild. This time was pretty painful. And there’s general nasal congestion and everyone else is getting sick – we seem to be in a perpetual state of snot and cough. Makes these next five days with no school or work seem like an ideal time to attempt to keep ourselves germ free.

Two months ago I wrote about my attempts to get more sleep, which is admittedly not the same issue exactly as just feeling run down and tired. But revisiting those ideas – Some of the goals I’ve managed to do – I now brush my teeth and get into pjs when the kids do. I got a lamp for next to my bed so I’m reading more hard copy books before bed, though the occasional e-book does make it too. So now it is much easier to stumble straight into bed at 9pm after the baby falls asleep.

I have not established any kind of bedtime routine – mostly because of having to lie down with the baby until she falls asleep. So my ideal evening wind down of 20 mins yoga, 20 mins journaling and 20 mins reading hasn’t come to fruition. I have been doing 10-15 minutes of yoga in the morning, so at least I’m stretching that way. Maybe I should concentrate on 20 mins journaling and 20 mins reading in the evening.

Welp the pie is done (I hope) and I can hear the baby crying. So off to tend to that.

Not crying at naptime.

The three year old has been going to daycare since September, so three months now. She had been home since she was born with my parents or an occasional sitter coming to watch her when I was working. Understandably, I was a little nervous about her starting daycare; she’d never really spent an extended amount of time in a classroom setting. How would she deal with other children? With teachers? With mandatory nap time?

Well, the first day, she walked right into the classroom, without nary a backward glance. A friend of mine, a former preschool teacher, said to me afterwards, “It means that she was ready to be out in the world.”

Of course, there have been a handful of teary drop-offs since then. Inexplicable mornings when she clings and cries and doesn’t want me to leave. Or at least they are mysterious to me. I’m sure she has her reasons for feeling vulnerable and clingy those mornings.

It is a little bit of an adjustments to go from being with a child all the time to only seeing her in the mornings and evenings. There is so much to her day that I don’t get to witness, so many lightbulb moments that I miss. She can now count and recognize shapes and letters. I certainly didn’t teach her that. But I’m grateful that someone else is.

Every day when she comes home from school, I give her a big hug, and I ask her, “How was your day today?” (I know such a vague open ended question is exactly the kind of thing parenting articles tell us not to ask, but it slips out before I can think of anything else.)

And every day she says with excited pride, “I didn’t cry at nap time!”

I don’t know what goes on at school that not crying at nap time is the highlight of her day, but it always makes me laugh when she says it.

At her parent teacher conference two weeks ago, I asked the teacher about this, wondering, “Does she usually cry at naptime?”

“Well,” they answered, “The first week, she did. She found naptime hard. But now she does really well at naptime.”

I thought about it in the days afterwards, and and, really… not crying at naptime – it actually seems like a pretty good barometer for how one’s day is going. When the things that used to be a struggle are almost mundane, it is easy for these previous challenges to fade into the mist and for our minds to adapt to a new, higher bar for a “good day”. Things like remembering to pay the bills on time, or making the bed in the morning morph into bigger tasks like estate planning and having the house spotless and it’s easy to feel daunted. Sometimes, though, it is good to remember when those low bars once seemed really high, and to celebrate one’s continued ability to hurdle them.

Here’s wishing you a wonderful (American) Thanksgiving week, where there is no crying at naptime.