Visions of Sugarplums

Christmas.  What a heck of a lot of pressure I put myself under every year.  It has to be "perfect".  The kind of perfect that Martha Stewart and Norman Rockwell would create if they had produced a holiday.  This is whole-heartedly my doing.  I do this to myself.  No one calls me on Thanksgiving night and says "Now get busy making every weekend memorable.  Pack your free time with cookie-making, decorating, kid crafts, and most of all, [drumroll]… MEMORIES YOUR CHILDREN WILL TREASURE FOREVER.

So, we have been on a crazy roller-coaster of Christmas joyfulness of my own making, resulting in this morning's cookie debacle.  Yes, I know that there are pre-made sugar cookies that I could have sliced or placed and baked.  Santa wouldn't know the difference.  Having been raised on black and white Hollywood visions of holiday perfection however, this simply wouldn't do.  Don we now our 50's style aprons, fa-la-la, la, la, la, LA, LA, LA.

Stand mixer at the ready, ingredients for a double batch of sugar cookies ready to roll, I have eggs, sugar and butter whizzing festively 'round the bowl when I say to my elf-y helper "Now we need two whole eggs…"  (Notice my wording…Do you see what's coming?)  With a groan heard at least two streets up, I watched as my four year old threw two WHOLE (i.e. in the shell) eggs into the bowl, right into the maw of the KitchenAid. 

CRACK, slop, crunchety-OH NO!

Round two went slightly more smoothly until Little One got into the mix, pinching up the dough every time I turned my back and gobbling sugar and raw eggs and butter in a ratio that fast out-paced  her body weight. 

This is where perfect came in and bit me.   The memories my children will have of this particular Christmas Eve morning, should they not repress them  fully, are of Mommy sobbing hysterically;  egg shells and butter on two cabinet doors; a few Santa cookies with bizarre two year old fingernail tracks across  the abdomen, looking something like a holiday attack by Wolverine, and finally, if I'm lucky, they'll remember that we did start a second batch and we did spend the morning baking together and we did sing Christmas carols before and after the crying jag.

Time always renders our memories more bright and shiny…right?

Merry Christmas my friends.  Happy Holidays.  Best wishes for a bright and healthy, happy and certainly imperfect New Year.

XO

I will love you...

A window into my reality…

I have bathed my two children and they are "jammied".  This is no mean feat in and of itself.  (During my recovery phase, one of my brave friends bathed my children, not once but twice.  She knows that washing Little One's  hair is something akin to water-boarding.)  I have brushed their hair and we are settling in with the last sippy cup of the evening. 

Miss 4 has settled behind me on the couch and is asking to brush my hair.  The following conversation/monologue takes place.

"Your hair is pretty. .. I like the gray part…  How come when you get old your hair turns gray?...I will love you even when you are as old as sixty-nine years old.  That's pretty old….  I'll probably be sixty-nine in about two hundred years. … I made a swirly curl in your hair.  I bet you wish it was like Auntie B….  Your hair is like the inside of my new boot.  It's all brown with shiny bits in it.  Like the stuff on the Christmas tree….What's that stuff?  You know,… tinfoil?....It's like that in my boot fur and on your head too…Your hair is having Christmas."

And that, my friends, is why I just can't take life that seriously.    Don't mind me, I'm just having a holiday on my head.

And now for something completely different

We cooked dinner tonight out of our own garden.  Zucchini and squash and basil from our own backyard.  Tomatoes from Edgewater Farm. 

Happy Birthday to me!!

Baked Ziti with Summer Veggies

Ingredients

• 4 ounces uncooked ziti
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cups chopped yellow squash
• 1 cup chopped zucchini
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 cups chopped tomato
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano
• 3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1/4 cup (2 ounces) part-skim ricotta cheese
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• Cooking spray

Preparation

• Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat; drain.
• Preheat oven to 400°.
• Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan. Add squash, zucchini, and onion; sauté 5 minutes.
• Add tomato and garlic; sauté 3 minutes.
• Remove from heat; stir in pasta, 1/2 cup mozzarella, herbs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper.

(See that chiffonade, yes I said chiffonade, of basil?  That was out of my garden and picked by my own Miss 4, who went out and picked it herself while I waited in the kitchen and counted to thirty.  I'm working on this independence thing!)
• Combine ricotta, remaining salt, and egg. Stir into pasta mixture. Spoon into an 8-inch square glass or ceramic baking dish coated with cooking spray; sprinkle with remaining mozzarella.
•  Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until bubbly and browned.

Mother's Day High/Low

So for mother's day, here's a snippet of the high/low...

• delicious breakfast with my sister's family and parents/ children who refused to eat it
• road trip to pick up building material/ full-blown four-year old temper tantrum, complete with high pitched shrieking, kicking and flailing
•  Walpole Creamery ice cream/ too much ice cream=tummy ache (mine)
•  "I love you so much and I'm so lucky to be your Mommy"/ "If you throw that toy at me again while I'm driving I'm going to toss it out the window for someone else to have!"  ( I did apologize and own up to my poor behavior...)

As you can see, I'm still evolving.