Flipping Pancakes

This morning I was the perfect picture of motherhood. Padding around in my fuzzy slippers, leaving the newspaper in a heap on the couch, I was inspired to make the boys some pancakes. This is a big deal for me.

Reason #1- For whatever reason, I really hate cooking breakfast. I’m a cereal and toast kind of gal. Frying bacon, flipping pancakes, and scrambling eggs is just not on my agenda. This is usually my husband’s gig, but only on weekends. You can imagine Chop's excitement when I made the announcement, "Mama's making us pancakes for breakfast!" Treats like those are usually reserved for lazy Sunday mornings or overnights and Grammie and Grampy's.

Reason #2 I cannot cook pancakes. As simple as they may seem, I always manage to screw them up. Either they aren’t cooked on the inside but perfect on the outside, or the edges are burned in the sizzling scraps of butter.

But for whatever reason, I decided to whip up a batch. Maybe it was the fact that Chops is now what I like to call a serial snacker, especially since he’s gained the muscle to strong arm the fridge door open. All day long, he’s dragging out bits of food, taking a few bites, then chucking the remnants in the sink. Then, ten minutes later, it begins all over again with a new delicacy. Perhaps with pancakes for breakfast, his stomach would be effectively coated for the rest of the day. (By the way, it only lasted him about 45 minutes before he started ransacking the fridge again.)

Maybe it is because Bubba has crossed over into the realm of finger foods and he has never had a taste of a mushy sweet hot cake pass his lips. Everyday for this future linebacker is a journey into the joys of people food. More times then not, he shakes his head violently at the Gerber fare, in favor of whatever is on the dinner table. Let's just say the Chipotle Chicken we had for dinner last week didn't treat his poor tum too well at 3:00 am.

So, out comes the Bisquik, the eggs, the milk, and the dash of cinnamon. As I whisked, Bubba clutched my cotton pj bottoms and Chops sang about the yummy pancakes to come from the kitchen table.

As I was mixing the gloppy concoction and coating the pan, then pouring and flipping, an image came into my mind, vivid as the gleam of Bubba’s new baby teeth. One of sitting at my aunt’s counter, much like Chops was doing, and following her own motherly dance around her kitchen. She had decided on a whim to bake chocolate chip cookies. I wasn’t nearly as young as Chops, more like eight or nine. But I just remember being amazed because she mixed this seemingly elaborate recipe of butter, eggs, various powders, chips, etc...without even following a recipe. Each scoop of flour and sugar, spoonful of baking soda and vanilla extract, was dumped into the large bowl with a certain rhythmic confidence. In that moment, I wanted to grow up and be just like her.

So, I admit, the pancakes won’t win any gourmet chef acclaim. But the look on both of the boys’ faces as they devoured them, crumb after crumb, filled me with a sort of motherly, Betty Crocker-ish pride. Bubba moaned and squealed with each new mouthful. His eyes followed me around the kitchen, and he looked at me expectantly when his tray was cleared once again. The smell of butter and cinnamon and maple syrup stayed on Chops all morning. Every time he’d come near I’d beg him for a kiss, just to breath in his sweetness. So what if flipping pancakes only bought me 45 minutes of Chops forgetting about the contents of our fridge? That was just enough time to set up shop on the floor with the boys, and to play-fight with them for each section of the paper. The morning was a warm glow on an otherwise dull day.

Summer Books

NOTE: After wading through this brief intro, just know that I'll come and revisit this post as I finish another book and I'll share my measly two cents about them... So come back every once in awhile :)

My household is slowly disintegrating. An out of commission dishwasher, renegade ants in the kitchen, and a home that must be scrubbed top to bottom... Let's just say, I'll be lucky to get myself and my boys out of our pajamas today.

In lieu of another day in the life of Kelly rant (which I don't seem to have the energy, inspiration, or brain cells for today), I'm posting a list of books I've been reading this summer. The list is by no means extensive...I don't have many moments to steal away and lose myself in a great book. But, I've been trying to read more, just to be more inspired as a writer. I'm happy to say, I seem to have chosen my reading wisely, because I'd recommend any of these books to you.

So....

Down Came the Rain, Brooke Shields
Now, she isn't the most literary of authors, which I wasn't expecting. And anyone who hasn't been pregnant probably wouldn't appreciate this book. But, she has a lot of guts to come forward with her story of extreme postpartum depression. She calls it the big elephant in the room, that everyone sees but nobody wants to talk about. She lays it all on the table and the emotions are raw and disturbing and real. I have more respect for her as a person since reading it.

Gods in Alabama, Joshilyn Jackson
The author is a fellow momwriter (a writing group I belong to) and this is her first novel. I had no idea what I was getting into when I checked this out at the library. A magazine I edit is holding a meet with the author chat at the end of August, so I figured I should know my stuff.

I absolutely love this kind of book. Part mystery, part thriller. It's about a southern girl who flees her hometown for the big city to leave a dark secret behind. When she does finally return, all the truths she thinks she knows begin to unravel. I love books that keep me guessing until the very end. With twenty pages left, I was convinced I had it completely figured out. But, I didn't, and the author effectively toyed with my mind.

Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow-Lindbergh
This was a total accidental read. A friend of my husband's left it here and I happened to pick it up one day. It is a meditation on life and its many beautiful phases that she likens to the many shells she finds on her solitary vacation by the sea. According to her, I'm plunged in the oyster bed with my family.

She writes: "It is an oyster, with small shells clinging to its humped back. Sprawling and uneven, it has the irregularity of something growing. It looks rather like the house of a big family, pushing out one addition after another to hold its teeming life--here a sleeping porch for the children, and there a veranda for the play pen; here a garage for the extra car and there a shed for the bicycles. It amuses me because it seems so much like my life at the moment, like most women's lives in the middle years of marriage. It is untidy, spread out in all directions, heavily encrusted with accumulations and, in its living state--this one is empty and cast up by the sea--firmly embedded on its rock."

After absorbing this little book I had the aha! moment that I somehow didn't get until reading the author bio...she was married to Charles Lindbergh, the famous pilot, and their first son was tragically kidnapped when he was just a baby. Duh, Kelly.

Automatic Wealth, Michael Masterson
My quest continues to bring in some extra income for the family. This one took awhile to get through and I probably won't use a lot of his suggestions. But it was worth reading just for the first few chapters on goal setting and rethinking the way we view wealth and our spending habits.

Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott
Awesome, funny, sarcastic, and genuine writer. I'd been wanting to read this one for a long time now. It is basically her journal of her first year as a mother, a single mother at that, and she really captures the chaos, uncertainty, and wonders of motherhood.

Waiting for Birdy, Catherine Newman
One of my new writing heroes. This is another memoir type book of her second pregnancy and how her life is transformed when her daughter is born while her son is just a toddler. How she manages to crank out a first novel, have a weekly column for Babycenter.com and contribute several articles a month to Family Fun is beyond me.

I'll post more books to his page as I devour them. (Next one to come: Down Came the Rain, By Brooke Shields) Everyone have a fabulous week.

The Teeter Totter of Brotherly Love

(Note: Before I begin my newest rant, I must preempt it with this. Today’s world is a scary place and there are privacy issues, disturbed people lurking everywhere, and a resulting paranoia in every parent’s mind. Therefore, I won’t be using the boys’ real names in this space. I’m sure that if someone really wanted to do the legwork, dig up their names, and what town we live in, etc. it would be easy enough. My hopes are that it would never come to that. Instead I’ll use their family nicknames.

My two year old is called Chops. Since his first teeth started popping in when he was about four months old, one of his Aunties starting calling him that after a boy on Paris Hilton’s "The Simple Life" who had an incredible smile. Chops takes after my dad’s side of the family, with his notoriously big, gummy, Irish smile. To me, Chops has the purest, most joyful smile...even when he’s up to no good and that grin is dripping with mischief.

My second son earned his nickname while he was still kicking around in my belly. Since Chops couldn’t pronounce ‘Brother’ when he was that young, he started calling my belly ‘Bubba’ and the name has stuck ever since. Bubba is such a fitting name for my little man. I’ve always imagined someone called Bubba to be a somewhat hefty kind of guy, whose build rivals the most solid of linebackers. And that is exactly what he is, even at nine months old.

Well, this could have been an entry all by itself...but now that I have the whole situation of names cleared up...on to what I really want to talk about. Oh, and by the way, since my husband doesn’t really have a nickname and I’m not too concerned he’ll be abducted or otherwise harassed, I’ll just use his real name.)

Ahem. I called this the teeter totter of brotherly love. You probably know what is coming. Since Bubba is newly mobile, crawling circles around the house and beginning to pull himself onto furniture, the sibling rivalry in the household is escalating. I knew it was coming, and in fact, it was already well established. Before Bubba was physically able to chase down big brother and scam on his dump trucks and hot wheels, Chops was already snatching bottles and baby toys away from him, or trying to drag Mama away as well. The reason I haven’t gone completely gray (only partially between color touch-ups, thank you very much) is that these daily battles are balanced out by the moments of love and play too.

This is the nature of my days. A melting pot of delightful cackles and shrieks of frustration and fury from the wrestling rink. (I mean, from the floor) The boys clutching hands and cooing at each other one minute, then the sounds of skin slapping, heads crashing into piles of toys, brotherly punches, and then more shrieks. One morning Chops and Bubba actually took turns pushing trucks to each other across the room and I ran to grab my camera, only to return to catch Chops snatching the truck from Bubba’s chubby palms with his trademark brotherly war cry, reducing poor Bubba to tears.

One of the sweeter moments was when Chops begged me to let him play in Bubba’s crib. I laid the boys next to each other with their respective blankies. For close to fifteen minutes, the boys giggled, passed toys back and forth and actually HELD HANDS. I thought I would die of total adoration. Yet, I am well aware of the day, not too far off on the horizon, when Bubba will dare to fight back. Maybe it would by wise to have Robbie build a boxing rink in the middle of our front room, buy a couple sets of boxing gloves and a referee whistle, and just let them go at it. There is no way to prevent the inevitable. At least they would have the protective gear and there would be no permanent damage.

Their relationship is like the manic mood swings of a bipolar brain, right now tipped more towards the angry/depressed/crazy side. But then there will be these moments of total beauty, like when you see a patch of vivid purple wildflowers on a smoggy Bay Area highway. And it is those moments that get me through the day, that get me looking forward to more of the moments as they learn more words, learn sports and games, and generally become the best of friends (and the worst of enemies). Hopefully by that point, the scale will be tipped the other way where the brotherly love will outweigh the battles. Instead of a congested highway with small spots of beauty, their world will be an incredible garden with a few pesky weeds needing to be plucked now and then.

Mushy Mommy Brain

It seems that in virtually every parenting magazine I pick up these days, there is yet another article on ‘mommy brain’. You know, the general idea that somehow the act of reproducing and then living day in and day out as a mama zaps brain cells, any memory function, and the most basic form of common sense. A book was recently published with the latest studies of hormone levels, brain testing, and other scary thoughts. They all generally conclude that indeed, mommy brain is not a myth, but something no woman can escape.

Now, the first years of motherhood . . . fine. The extreme sleep deprivation, surging hormones, demands of nursing, of pressures to raise your baby a certain way, get your body back, maintain a welcoming home, all while trying to keep another being alive is enough to make any person a tad forgetful. I admit I’ve had my moments. Putting a box of cereal in the fridge and the milk in the pantry. Preparing an elaborate slow cooker dish then neglecting to turn the cooker on. Running my husband’s cell phone through the washer and the dryer. I am in the throes of the dreaded mommy brain syndrome.

Then the adventures in toddlerhood: the potty training, the big move out of the crib, the every day psychological warfare your pudgy, wild-eyed toddler wages against you. I even buy that.

But what about later on, when the kids are mercifully in school? The most recent article I read basically says mommy brain never really is cured. The stress, the extreme multitasking maneuvers, the parade of school lunches, permission slips, and slumber parties. Did the very moment I conceived my son doom me to a lifetime of brain mush with only fleeting moments of sanity and intelligence?

This is where the UC Santa Cruz feminist in me must chime in, if only in my head. Is mommy brain or the myth of it the reason for the dreaded glass ceiling that hangs over all of our ambitions, career goals and dreams? Maybe the glass ceiling isn’t some supreme conspiracy to keep women in the kitchen with the kids instead of as functioning workers in the free world. Or maybe the mommy brain ‘myth’ was created to justify the whole existence of the glass ceiling. Since no company can predict which of their aspiring women will procreate, they hold them all down, and move the men right up the promotional ladder. (I admit I exaggerate a tad.) Is this why we won’t have a woman president any time soon? If she is a mother, she has too much emotional baggage and her mind is dulled by the constant worrying, multitasking, and hormone fluctuations. If she isn’t a mother, well then, she is surely suspect and wouldn’t have a fighting chance anyway in an election.

What about the upside of mommy brain? Not the dying brain cells, lack of memory and good sense, but the incredible amount of patience and love we gain. The amazing talents of being able to break up sibling wrestling matches, while rescheduling a doctor visit, while attacking a mountain of laundry, and watching the morning news.

I really don’t know where I am going with this or what I should conclude. In a lot of ways, the whole concept of mommy brain pisses me off. (Or perhaps I just have a fresh batch of hormones circulating.) On the other hand, mommy brain lends itself well as a nice scapegoat.

"Sorry honey, I simply don’t understand how I managed to wash your cell phone. It must be that darn mommy brain at it again."