Brain Strain

Most of the time I can't remember what I did yesterday. And every morning I am faced with the "Where did I put my keys?" predicament. Simply put, I have a hard time remembering where I put things that I use on a daily basis. Just when I begin to wonder if I have early-onset, I will recall where some long unused thing might be found.

This morning, as I was considering making my favorite Cranberry Salad, I was trying to remember what flavor Jell-O I needed. As I was thinking, I realized that my book of favorite recipes is still in storage. I started to panic, but then this crazy thought ran through my head. I knew where the original recipe was!

Thinking I had to be wrong I grabbed the Southern Living Recipe Collection from 1995 and started looking. I didn't think I would find it, but decided to give it a try.

There on page 301 I struck recipe gold! My recipe was right there and a few pages earlier was a glossy picture. How on earth could I remember that? My thought process went something like this: Cranberry Salad, first time I made it, the Thanksgiving before Savannah was born, found it in Southern Living, would be in 1995 recipe collection under November.

So what am I to learn? Must I mentally tie the location of my keys to a life-altering experience like the birth of my daughter? Or should I just quit using them for like 12+ years and then expect to know exactly where I might find them? All I know for sure is that my brain confuses me!

School Lunch vs. Packing Lunch

For years we managed to avoid the topic completely: one of the many advantages of homeschooling. In fact last year (the kids first year in public school in a long, long time) it wasn't much of an issue either. We just packed our lunches and took them. As a treat I would allow each child to buy their lunch at school once a week. Two of them took advantage of that offer. One detested the school food so much, they never bought their lunch at school. Not once the entire year.


Child #1 enjoyed taking their lunch last year and even made fun of school food. Their favorite things to take were fresh fruit, M&M's and a mini-sub sandwich that I made to their exact specifications. Child #2 refused to eat school food even when given the option once a week. This Child took the exact same thing everyday for the entire year - turkey and American cheese on wheat bread. Yes, there were other things in their lunch, I am addressing the 'main dish'. Child #3, being the easiest to please, probably would have been just as happy to eat at school everyday, instead he took PBJ, baby carrots, and ranch dressing.



So, can someone please explain to me why there is now a lunch-war in my house? Suddenly the "gross-fake-chicken" is preferred to a homemade sub sandwich. And, I kid you not, "beef bites" are more desirable than organic peanut butter with grape jam. Even the staunchest hold out will eat at school this year. (OK, this particular child has moved on to a new school and says that the food is actually pretty good.)



Could I be the problem? I am fairly particular about what my kids eat. Not in a count-the-calories-and-fat kind of way, but in a real food vs. fake food kind of way. Lunches packed from home need to include fresh fruit and a source of protein with water to drink. If you want to receive favored-child status, voluntarily add in a vegetable.



Even so, I try to allow as many normal things as possible. Chips, gummy-fruity things and granola bars (the kind dipped in chocolate). Occasionally they even get to take a soda, as long as it is made with real sugar, not corn syrup.



Some days the battle is very subtle. One child has been known to wait upstairs in their room so they have no time to make a lunch. Here 'make a lunch' is a phrase meaning tell mom what you would like in your lunch today. This same child has also resorted to taking their own money to school and buying their lunch while telling one parent that the other said it was OK. Problem is, neither parent said that. Other days it is down right ugly.


Now that I read this it occurs to me that really only 1 child is protesting greatly. Given this child's age, I think I'll chalk it up to hormones, stand my ground and go eat a piece of chocolate cheesecake.

White Board Leads to Nobel

In my opinion white boards are one of the best inventions to come along in my lifetime. Add some colorful dry-erase markers and it would leap to the top of my list.

On Tuesday, while working with a student in resource, I was having trouble making myself clear. (I know, hard to imagine isn't it?) So I turned around and drew an explanation on the white board behind me. Suddenly the light bulb went off and the student was enlightened. But to my surprise, so was I.

In that moment I thought about how handy it would be to have a mini-white board with me at all times. I could envision myself whipping it out of my purse and drawing a diagram for the unfortunate soul that I might confuse. OK, in reality I would spend like 5 minutes digging through my purse and eventually have to dump the entire contents out to find it.

More importantly, I thought about how many misunderstandings Steve and I could avoid by using a board. Don't get me wrong, we are very happily married on most days. Even so, at times I feel like I am speaking English and Steve only understands Farsi.

Later that night, the exact same night of my brilliant idea, as I was getting ready for bed I started to tell Steve some simple something that didn't require many brain cells. DISCLAIMER: I am in no way implying that Steve is an imbecile. I am simply acknowledging the fact that sometimes we can not understand one another. What should have been a simple exchange of information turned into a 10 minute exposition of something that wasn't that important in the first place. As I laid there in bed I actually wished I had a board so I could draw Steve a picture.

Even though the lights were off, I knew exactly what Steve's face would look like if I were able to see it. It would be a mixture of baffled, befuddled dismay with a hint of zoned-out thrown in. Of course I was eventually able to come up with a translation that got through and laughed as I fell asleep.

But seriously, think of the possibilities. Restaurants, stores, children, spouses, peers, co-workers, etc. All of these interactions would be much less stressful if we all had a white board.

Now, if only I could invent something that worked the same way for drive-in windows and computer tech calls routed to India I would seriously be up for the Nobel.

Time (Sucking) Bombs

Right now the phrase 'the best laid plans of mice and men' comes to mind. Why, no matter how prepared I think I am the night before, does the morning fall apart?

Knowing Steve had to leave at 0-dark-thirty this morning, I actually went to bed last night feeling like I had things under control. Only 1 person would need a shower this morning, the house was de-cluttered, I had lunch money for the kids (Note to self - write blog on the school lunch vs. taking lunch power struggle) Savannah actually had her basketball bag ready and every paper was signed. That left 1.5 hours to get dressed, eat highly-processed-full-of-white-flour-&-sugar cinnamon rolls, feed the dogs and leave.

It didn't work.

I pondered this thought all the way to school. Well, actually to the 3 different schools that I drove to. Sadly, even after that 20 minute trip, I don't have any clear answers. But, I do have a theory that is beginning to form.

Theory: Children are time-sucking bombs that can and will explode at any moment.

I feel the need to warn you that these bombs look innocent on the outside - a knee that needs an ace bandage wrapped around it, a 10 year old who wants to argue his decision to wear shorts when it is 32 degrees outside or a sock that doesn't feel quite right - but the results can be devastating. When one of these bombs explodes, somewhere between 15 minutes and an entire hour will evaporate completly.

The likely hood that one of these bombs will be launched is directly tied to how tight your schedule is. And the risk of explosion grows exponentially with the number of children present but is conversly affected by the number of parents involved.

Translated that means have any one parent responsible for getting three highly hormonal kids out the door and you can forget about leaving the house by 7:10 am no matter what time you get up.