Category: Daily living

Taking Strides Towards Walking

My camera is out of charge so here's a pic from my phone
My camera is out of charge so here's a pic from my phone

Today I’m home with Thane. It’s actually going remarkably well. I have focused very intently on some worky work stuff and gotten quite a bit done. I transported Grey to preschool. I’ll go pick him up in the not-too-distant future and then get my MIL from the airport. I knew that this day was coming – the day when Thane would non-stop sleep in order to finish healing up from his cold. Two and a half hours this morning — hoo yeah!

In not unrelated news, my living room currently looks like a bomb hit it. It did. A drooly, cheerful 11-month old bomb, to be exact.

It’s been fun to spend some one-on-one time with Mr. Thane-pants. He’s pushing through one of his top incisors, and he has the cutest snaggle-tooth expression. His curls are excessively long and usually covered in food. The front of his face is a melange of snot, drool and stuff he’s found on the carpet. I know that doesn’t sound enchanting. You’ll have to trust me on it. Part of the fun has been watching just how he’s using his feet these days. He’s standing much more, and taking a step or two where he wants to go before dropping to the safety of crawling. He’s less ambitious than I recall his brother being. I think this is entirely behind why Thane will walk a month or two behind his brother. It’s been quite a while since those first steps, and Thane hasn’t been all that eager to keep going with them. Why, when he can crawl perfectly well? Grey was DYING to be one of the big boys from day #1. Thane seems a little happier to be a baby, assuming babies know how to read books.

We had a great weekend: hiking, doing aikido (Grey was HILARIOUS at aikido – I’ll blog more later), destroying and undestroying the house, lunch at church, Stoneham Town day… good times. We had a terrible night’s sleep last night. Adam went to bed at 8 pm last night and it was still a wretched night! Grey had nightmares (quality nightmares including zombies and ghosts. What? It wasn’t MY idea to let him watch Young Frankenstein! It was his!) Thane woke up every two hours due to excessive snottage. With the aid of penicillin, Adam was finally well enough to go back to work.

I wonder when Thane will finally figure out its faster to walk? Maybe I should put shoes on him in addition to socks. Or maybe I should let him go barefoot. Cute little baby feet!

They call me baby driver
They call me baby driver

Daycare woes

Sometimes I really, really wish I was the kind of person whose mom lived down the street and mother-in-law lived two blocks over. Back when I was seventeen, I decided I was going to be Adventurous when picking my college. Although raised in Washington State, I flew to the Nutmeg State to be educated. At the time, not counting Great Uncle Walter, my nearest relative was my sister who was attending college in Minnesota.

Brilliant.

I’ve been trying with no success to get home ever since. But you see, college was good. Great, even. And I met this GUY. And then he proposed to me, and got a job (as a programmer in 1999! Ah, 1999. What good times.) in Massachusetts. And somehow we just never left. And now my nearest relative (of the kind who’s good for babysitting duties) is my brother in grad school in Princeton. An improvement, but….

My daycare provider has had terrible luck. The most memorable period was the calendar year when she had breast cancer, knee replacement surgery and her mother died. I feel like I’m missing one there. And then there was the (completely unfounded) accusation that she’d hurt a kid, which kept her closed for two weeks. It’s not all on her side — when I go on a business trip or get sick, just how are the kids supposed to get to daycare in the opposite direction from my husband’s employment?

Anyway, at the end of September, she explained that she was going to the Dominican to push through some immigration paperwork for her niece, whom she’s sponsoring. (She’s a citizen.) This was going to take a few weeks. I froze up in fear as she announced this. But not to worry! Her niece Lisa, who had been helping out all summer, was going to keep daycare open for the private clients (eg: me). Phew. And maybe she’d be home sooner than expected, if all went well. I should mention that in Grey’s entire lifetime, she’s never taken a single DAY’S vacation, if you don’t count chemo as vacation, which I don’t.

LAST week, it wasn’t Lisa who was there in the morning, but Titi. Lisa works a night shift job and the combination of the two jobs plus the long commute was too much. So Titi was taking the last week off before my daycare provider comes home.

Then. Oh then. Word comes in that Abuela is hung up on immigration issues for another week (they’re immigration issues — God only knows how long they’ll take!). And Lisa is out of the picture. And Titi doesn’t have any more vacation. So couldn’t I find someone else….

Gah. No. That’s the problem with my life. There isn’t someone else. I gulped.

Have I ever mentioned I have the best mother-in-law in the world? I called up. “I need a big favor.” I said. “Sure!” she replied, injudiciously not asking WHAT first.

Four hours later, she had tickets to come up for two weeks (in case immigration issues taken even longer than the week extra). I’m sure we would’ve made it work without this. I would’ve put Grey in preschool full time and found SOMEONE who could take an infant. I would’ve flown my dad out. Something. But this situation means that I get a kitchen renovation, babysitting AND fashion consulting all at once!

Crisis averted… until next time!

Hope shes getting some beach time in while shes down there
Hope she's getting some beach time in while she's down there

Will the excitement never cease?

I had a tiring weekend. Adam spent the weekend at a jQuery conference in Boston — basically “working” longer hours than he usually works. Friday night I spent an exciting evening doing bills (I know I know! The hedonistic lifestyle!) Saturday morning I didn’t get much sleepinginage due to aforementioned conference. But that’s ok! Stoneham Town Day! Bouncy houses! Funnel cake! Fun times! I piled Thane in a stroller and shod Grey, then went to knock on my neighbors’ doors. One neighbor wasn’t ready yet. The other neighbor had a house-wide cold, so we walked down the street by ourselves.

There was a man singing outside the Honeydew donuts. Dressed in a clown suit. Exciting!

Then the common appeared in our sights. The green, barren, empty common.

You know, they could at least have had someone there with an umbrella explaining what had gone on. I finally tracked down the guy disassembling the fair rides to ask what was going on. Postponed, he said, due to rain.

Ok, ok, I understand the postponement. What I totally DON’T understand is how the rest of Stoneham knew not to come!. I mean, neighbor #1 looked online and there was no mention. There were no signs. The paper is a weekly. I really like my town. But sometimes I feel like there’s this vast network of people named “Rotondi” who know what’s going on and who are REALLY from Stoneham and then there’s the rest of us.

As a consolation prize, I took my sons to Angelo’s pizza. There was a table of men sitting in the back gossiping in Italian, with succulent looking appetizers on a plate in front of them. This is a tip, people. The best pizza in town is likely to be found in a place where old Italian men gather to complain about the weather.

Backlit boy is angry!
Backlit boy is angry!

The rest of the day was in the same vein. Grey had a complete and total meltdown at aikido. Thane squirmed. I attempted an overly complicated dinner. Adam came home two hours later than I thought he would. Then I went to Target, failed to get sufficient formula, and spent an unconscionable amount on stuff, which included a steam cleaner. I can’t remember the other things. I think Target doubles it’s bills and I never actually noticed.

But Sunday would be better, right? My neighbors were coming to church with us. Look at that! Actual outreach! You’d think I was the chair of hospitality or something. (Oh wait….) But I was running solo. And when I went to drop Thane off in the nursery, a desperate-eyed fellow parent looked at the 7 one year olds bitterly crying and mentioned she could use a hand. I’m pretty sure it’s NOT in the membership handbook to leave your three year old with your friends (even if it includes his best friend) to “show them the ropes” while you do nursery duty. Also, I fail Fall Luncheon Planning 101 due to complete lack of knowledge of “who usually does this”. The guy who knows all that died of a heart attack this summer, and his loss is felt on a thousand levels. Anyway, I hope they felt welcomed and had a good time anyway. Also, does anyone want to sign up for a beverage for the Fall Luncheon?

We got home. Grey refused to eat the delicious meal I prepared for him. (Really. No sarcasm.) Grey didn’t nap. Thane was desperately weary and I had to keep waking him up to: get my coffee, get in the house, etc.

Proof of delicious lunch
Proof of delicious lunch

Also, I would like to mention that if your friend has a child who is learning how to walk, and you never see the child but there’s a new egg on his head, scratch on his face, and oatmeal stuck in his hair, it’s not because the parents are abusive. Or that they don’t love their children. No. It’s because 10 month olds attempt to commit suicide by stupidity ALL THE TIME. Thane loves: standing up in the bathtub and jumping (he can’t jump), climbing on to things he doesn’t know how to get down from, playing with the dishwasher, falling, hitting his head, and trying to play with his brother’s toys. All of these can lead to injuries on a regular basis, try as I will to wrap him in bubble wrap in the morning.

Then Sunday night I did yoga. Yay! And ouch! Aaaaaaand I lost in St. Petersburg by 29 points. Adam says he’s sick of playing with me. I say I’m playing until I figure out why I’m so terrible at the game, and that if he prefers I’d be happy to play Agricola instead.

Finally, I had terrible insomnia last night and despite going to bed at 10:20, didn’t get to sleep until well after midnight.

Now I’m at work and daycare apparently has NO formula (how did I spend that much at Target and not even get formula?). Grey informed me this morning that he’s “A little shy with girls” and refused to explain. Also, I’ve tried really hard not to write the “and after my Honey Nut Cheerios I let Thane clean the kitchen floor (lacking a dog) and stacked the dishwasher for the 34th time this weekend” posts. But I didn’t have any better ideas today, so you’re stuck.

Completely unrelated! The put-together bedroom for your lilac viewing pleasure!

I steamed the curtains after this, so now they're less wrinkly
I steamed the curtains after this, so now they're less wrinkly

The view from the door (a lie - our bed is never made)
The view from the door (a lie - our bed is never made)

Cloud change

This will look so outdated
This will look so outdated

I am here to tell you that the second age of personal computing is over, and the third has begun. This week, we bought a netbook. (Pauses for gasping intakes of breath!) (Is disappointed by heckler in the imaginary crowd shouting out “So what?!”)

“So glad you asked. Let me explain.”

My family got our first personal computer in 1982 or 1983. I was four. Mom and dad took the plunge in a very financially hard time, I believe because it was good for dad professionally. Also because my father is the earliest of early adapters (let us discuss the LD player, shall we?). That was the first breaker of the first wave of personal computing. That computer had a word processor (was it Wordstar 2000?). It booted from a 5 1/4 floppy. It hooked up to an electric typewriter as a printer. (We called them Doc and Olive — Olive was an Olivetti whose usefulness far outlasted Doc’s.) I remember a banner spelling out my name in huge letters, with each letter made up of smaller letters. We got this computer before I could read.

That first wave of personal computing involved dumb machines. There were no connections to anything. Files were moved (rarely) by floppy disk. Computer games were played by yourself at the computer. This went from 1982 until, in my world, 1995.

In 1995 we got a modem and AOL. It was a long distance call. I got an hour a week. I would carefully craft a bunch of emails, connect, send them out and get new ones in, and then spend the rest of my time in (relatively tame) AOL chatrooms. All this was still done on the big tower computers that dominated backrooms and offices — nests of cables slung heavy against dusty backboards.

This second age of computing — the connected but dedicated machine — is the one now passing.

We have an office. We’ve had an office since we first got married. This office has always had two big computers. (We share our finances completely, but we DEFINITELY have his and hers computers!) One of the computers always has a big monitor, a cutting-edge (read: extremely costly) video card and a lot of processing power. The other had these things five years ago (that would be mine). Lately, though, we haven’t been spending a lot of time in the office. It’s ALL THE WAY UPSTAIRS. It’s also not a very kid-friendly room. While Grey is entertained on his own computer (err… what?) Thane thinks the room is delicious. It is not a Thane-ok room. So the upshot is that when we go upstairs, it’s usually late at night and when we feel like hiding.

This poses lots of problems. There are now a bunch of things we can’t do without internet access. “What are we doing this weekend?” “Where is the party?” “Just what does ‘Onogaeshi imasu’ mean anyway?” “What can you do with kohlrabi?” These are all questions that we reflexively turn to the internet to answer. Google docs has most of our documents. Picasa has most of our pictures. Google calendar has the master data about our schedule. Gmail usually has several things in it that require action. Mapping is online. We do not have an encyclopedia set. So either we tromp upstairs, we wait, or sometimes we’ve brought our work laptops home.

Enter the netbook. It’s small. It’s light. It’s portable. It was relatively inexpensive. (If it gets damaged, we will be sad but not devastated.) It connects to that great googly cloud of information we need. It can run games. It has more hard drive space than my current tower.

I have a sneaking suspicion we will never buy another tower. Their day is over. We’re both programmers. But you know what? Both of our work computers are LAPTOPS. My laptop has enough power to run Eclipse and Flexbuilder and Coldfusion server and SQL Server Management Studio and WinCVS simultaneously without breaking a sweat. It’s not even specially tricked out — it’s the same laptop specs that our business folks have. Why would I want an immobile tower? I’ll turn our office into a peaceful craft space — a real retreat. Maybe I’ll even get an armchair for reading up there. I’ll banish the cables.

There was really only one reason we were hanging on as long as we did: gaming. My husband likes to play video games. But the video card on his last computer cost, I think, $600. The monitor wasn’t cheap, either. If our only reason to do this is games, we could probably buy TWO game consoles for what buffing up his computer cost.

Thus begins the third age of computing. This age will be small and mobile. Many devices will be able to access that part of the cloud they need. Instead of one big device intended to serve all purposes, we’ll have many smaller application-specific devices. We won’t have “my computer”. We’ll have the netbook, the laptop, the gaming console (which, if we aren’t there already, will handle your MMORPG too), the phone (which, God willing, will have our calendars and to-do lists on it). Many of our devices will do more than one of these. The netbook, for example, has a built in webcam and does Skype far better than the hard-to-reach upstairs tower.

Have you made the switch from the second to the third age? Do you see it coming? Is there a compelling reason for that tower that I’m not seeing? What do you think?

So many changes

Sometimes it seems like life goes more or less the same for a long time. Then suddenly you look down and your baby is enrolled in college. (Or, you know, going to his first day at preschool. 20 minutes until I can pick him up!)

This weekend was one of those abrupt-changes weekend. Since I’m now down to 19 minutes, let me sum up:

1) The boys switched places. For months, we’ve had one easy and one hard kid. Thane was easy — just drag him along and periodically boop him in the nose with a stuffed bunny while making a funny sound. Grey was hard — he has been known to be quixotic, investigative and opinionated at times. In like the last week they switched places. Thane is utterly frustrated, opinionated, thwarted and messy (we’re at the throwing everything phase of eating). Grey, meanwhile, can entertain himself for 10 or 20 minutes at a time! Amazing.

2) We debated a long time about Grey’s “Saturday activity” — something we’ve done since last summer. After a year of not-wildly-successful dance classes, we weren’t doing that anymore. I was interested in gymnastics but ugh. I did the math and they would cost between $16 and $19 per 1/2 hour session. That’s a lot of loot. Finally, building on Grey’s interest, we’re sending him to aikido classes at the same dojo my husband practices at. He had his first class on Wednesday. He loves being like his daddy, and I think aikido will teach him a lot of the body and self-control things I hope for. Also, it comes to like $6 per 3/4 hour class — assuming he never makes it to the Wednesday classes. I think this is a win.

3) We discovered that Grey really likes music. Duh. There was a MOMENT. In the tent two weeks ago during Hurricane Bill’s driving rain, I pulled out a Calloiu song-book with color coding and an attached keyboard. I was bored. I showed Grey how it worked and how to break the code. I played through the entire songbook.

He was entranced. Not a day has passed since then that he hasn’t supremely carefully sounded out “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and sung “Six Little Ducks”. (The wiggle waggle still slays me.) He has, for a three-nearly-four year old, quite a bit of patience with this. He has a really lovely singing voice. He’s very interested.

I got a mediocre “teach your preschooler piano” curriculum. Which, of course, starts with “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.

So here I present to you my young Mozart:

From Grey playing piano

(Let’s see if this is working … I’m skeptical. Hey! It does! But the quality is pretty bad. Picasa is not doing it for me video-wise. Still, that’s what you get because it’s time to pick Grey up from preschool!!!! Woot!)

A lump

Like every blogger in the universe, I struggle with how much I should talk about. My mom and my mother-in-law both read this blog. A future employer will very likely find it. (Hi future employer! Hire me!) Who knows – my sons may someday find themselves reading about it. (“Mooooom! How embarrassing?!” “What? Your Iron Man undies were soooo cute!”)

So it is with a certain hesitation that I tell you that I found a lump in my breast.

But wait! Before you panic, I’ll also tell you: the story is completed and it ends well.

I’d noticed the lump a few months ago, but as a nursing mom, well, Tigris and Euphrates are moving targets. They change a lot, all the time when you’re nursing. So I didn’t worry much about it. But now that I’ve dialed back and the girls seem to be returning to more normal proportions, it was time to pay attention to the lump that didn’t go away.

I’ve found lumps in my breast twice before. The first time I was maybe 23. I was newly married and so in love with my husband (still am, for the record, it’s just too late to die as newlyweds) that I was superstitiously afraid it would be poetically appropriate for one of us to die young because the universe just doesn’t like for people to be that happy. I spent a week convinced I was going to DIE of breast cancer! I went to my dr. She agreed it needed to be looked at. I went to the Breast Center at Faulkner Hospital (to which I could and did walk). They ultrasounded it. They mammogrammed it. They let me feel up a model boob. The result? Just normal but lumpy breast tissue. No problem. Let us know if it grows big or something, but it won’t because it’s just normal breast tissue.

Phew.

The second time was Grey’s first birthday. I panicked only slightly less than the first time because I had a baby! Imagine him being orphaned, never knowing how much his mother looooooves him. (Good thing I have the blog so he can now read about it in excruciating detail should I die in a tragic chopstick accident, eh?) I went to Lawrence Hospital and they ultrasounded and mammogrammed me. Shockingly, this too turned out to be lumpy breast tissue and perfectly normal.

So you can understand that I wasn’t ready to get all that worked up about what felt to me very much like lumpy breast tissue. But, as it remained through weaning etc., I decided that even though I was pretty darn sure that this one is just like the others, and even though due to changes in our health insurance, this time I’d likely have to pay for a good portion of that testing myself, it would really suck to self-diagnose as lumpy breast tissue and be wrong.

So I went to my midwife. And I went to get ultrasounded. I provided them entertainment by being a nursing mom (still at night) which totally messes up mammograms, so they didn’t even bother. The diagnosis? Well, as the charming, Russian-accented radiologist said, “Your breasts are lumpy-bumpy-happy.”

I do very much think about how this kind of health care plays into the larger debate. On one hand, all three of these lumps were significant enough that my primary care physician could feel them and not be certain that they were normal. (Of course, how much malpractice plays into that, I can’t say.) For two of the three, even after an ultrasound they wanted the second look with the mammogram. (Fun!) But none of these are dangerous, precancerous, anything. I would be perfectly 100% healthy if I’d never seen a doctor for any of them. What is the responsible healthcare decision to make? Should I keep going in every 3 years when I get a new lump? Is the best systemic financial decision for me to get some training in the difference in feel and morphology between my normal lumps and cancerous lumps? Is it best for my family and the system if I go in every single time to get them checked out, even though past history indicates my boobs are lumpy? How much does that cost? How much would it cost if one of them was a problem and I missed the chance to catch it early? What about studies that show (ok, that I think I read like 5 years ago) lumpy boobs are more likely to eventually get cancer? What is the rational treatment for the ongoing care of my lumpy ladies?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. The part that dismays me is that I’m not sure anyone does. My healthcare providers default to doing all the tests because THEY have no motivation to do otherwise. I follow their recommendations because I can, because I’m not a trained medical professional, and because the cost of being wrong is so high. But I’d love better training instead to know what cancer looks like and how it acts, so I can spot the difference. Or a statistical study saying that 90% of lumps aren’t cancerous and you should only go in with these criteria. Or even a study that says the most efficient outcome is to get every lump checked, every time.

I hope you will forgive me if I fail to include a picture with this post. My future employer and sons are reading.

Why the summers seem so short

This year I think I’ve figured out why summers seem half as short as any other season. The simple fact is: they are shorter.

Consider. Summer officially starts June 20th or thereabouts. June 20th is reasonable for summer starting. By the end of June, we’re pretty reliably above freezing and most of the snow has melted. Then you have July, which is really summer. (Except this year, when it was May Take II.) For me, the first week of August we have our big vacation of the year where I go home and hike Mt. Rainier and relax while my kids are entertained by my parents. I come back August 10thish a bit more tan and a bit more relaxed. But as soon as the tires of my Jetblue redeye touch down at Logan, I’m into planning for fall.

It’s not summer that’s weird. It’s fall that’s weird. No other season requires so much advance planning. I don’t plan for summer. I don’t plan for spring. I plan for Christmas, but not for winter. But well in advance of the calendar start of fall (September 20th or thereabouts), I’m planning.

Part of this is due to my own unique circumstances. Let’s look at my autumnal schedule, shall we?

*September 23rd – my birthday (generally ignored)
*October 6th – Grey’s birthday (big deal)
October 12th – my FIL’s birthday (we miss you Mike)
October 16th – my sister’s birthday (I sometimes scrape up a card)
*October 21st – my husband’s birthday (err… I usually buy something for him off his Amazon wishlist)
*October 28th – Thane’s birthday (what am I going to do for his first?)
October 29th – my niece’s birthday (make with the loot already!)
*November 14th (this year) – Mocksgiving (huge big hosting deal that requires lots of forethought)

Items with an asterisk require me to do party planning if a party is going to happen (which is a longer and longer shot with the grownup birthdays).

Add to that the typical things that need doing in fall — a new wardrobe for the kids, a new Saturday activity for Grey (we’ve settled on aikido), starting preschool, prepping the house for winter (cleaning gutters, furnace maintenance, mulching, etc.), Halloween, Thanksgiving and all that.

Finally, toss in a good measure of church starting back up. Now church doesn’t close down, but we have a more moderate schedule over the summer. Our committees meet less often. We don’t have quite as many events. There’s no Sunday School (we do have a kids’ event). There’s less extra work. But there’s a lot to be done for fall: the Fall lunch, the pumpkin party, lining up teachers to teach, ordering curriculum, the Sunday School launch party… all sorts of seasonal things. (Many of which I should probably start thinking about since the loss of a member has made us very shorthanded for some.)

Well, of course I had better start planning for fall by the middle of August! But what this means is that the amount of time I’m in summer and thinking of summer is about 6 weeks — from the end of June to the middle of August. Although there’s another 6 weeks of summer left on the calendar, my mind is already engaged with the fun season of autumn and has left summer behind.

Hmmm… I’m not actually sure I’m glad I wrote out all the things I need to do in Fall. Because right after I get those done we’re in Christmas. Ah well. As one of my professors used to always say (which, to be fair, drove me absolutely bonkers in college), “Life is rich and full.”

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also

In my life as it is right now, there is tremendous pressure on my time. Working full time, commuting 1.5 hours a day, sadly being the sort of person who needs 8 hours of sleep a night, and taking care of two active curious boys is really time consuming, even when you have a great partner to do it all with. As things I enjoy have slipped away, it’s been enlightening to me what has stayed, and what I still make time for.

I had no idea food was so important to me.

I’m not a “foodie”. I don’t read recipe books for fun, like my sister. I don’t watch cooking shows or read cooking blogs. I don’t delight in new and exotic ingredients. In my perception of myself, I’m a pretty decent utilitarian cook who does enough to provide healthy tasty food for her family with a few heritage recipes thrown in for fun. Heck, when I married my husband I joked that I was doing so because I don’t know how to cook.

But when I look at the TIME I spend in the kitchen making food, it totally belies that perception. This weekend I spent several hours canning. I cooked chili and cornbread for dinner Saturday night (1 hour). I made Crock Posole and Arepas on Monday night. Then I stayed up after I got the boys in bed to prepare smothered pork chops for the gamers on Tuesday. Last night we served: Pork chops with onions, au jus, bacon gravy, bacon, baked potatoes with fresh chives and sour cream, bruschetta with fresh basil and tomatoes on homemade bread fresh out of the oven (my husband made the bread) and corn. Fresh strawberries and blueberries made up dessert. This was a little more overboard than usual, but not wildly so. Certainly, it wasn’t the longest prep I’ve ever had for a game night dinner.

We make roughly 3 “real” dinners (dinners with 45 minutes or more preparation) a week, and several little dinners (boxed mac and cheese, tuna fish casserole, IKEA meatballs, etc.) a week. If it only takes half an hour, I think it’s a moderate prep.

Basically, I spend way more of my negotiable time on food preparation than pretty much anything else.

We COULD do more takeout, although I don’t really understand how that works logistically. We could eat out more, although that’s not great on the budget. (To be fair, my grocery bill is pretty monumental. I’m increasingly coming to understand the impact that quality ingredients have on how a meal tastes and buying accordingly. Mmmmmmm blade steak….. But as a result, I’m not sure that cooking at home saves much money at all.) But frankly, my cooking is better than most food I can buy, up until the $25/entree price point. So I could pay to eat food that doesn’t taste as good as the stuff I cook.

I’m not really sure how I feel about this discovered value. On the one hand, there are many ways these tasty family dinners are considered virtuous. They tend to be healthier than purchased food (although knowing how much butter/bacon I use, I’m not entirely convinced of that). They are definitely tastier than the kind of food we could afford to eat out every night. We eat together as a family almost every single dinner. Studies show that children who eat dinner with their parents at a common table do better in some metrics, like test exams. Theoretically cooking your own food costs less than eating out. And my husband and I eat entirely (delicious) leftovers for lunch during the week, and always have. Finally, I imagine that my children will be grateful (in retrospect) for my great cooking (their Freshman year in the dorms).

On the other hand, the time I spend in the kitchen is time I’m not spending building block towers on the floor. I don’t have time to go for a walk with the kids before bed. I can’t make finger paintings with Grey because I have deadly chicken juice on my hands. Thane roams the kitchen floor, sweeping up old Cheerios and sampling tasty cat food while I work. This is some of the rare, precious time I have with my family and I spend it making bechamel and chopping onions. (Seriously, why don’t grocery stores sell 10 lb bags of onions?) And then there are the dishes. You have no idea how many dishes I can make.

Once a friend of mine came to visit, and exclaimed in astonishment at how there was no takeout boxes in our fridge. I actually hadn’t realized, to that point, that what I was doing was optional — that there was any other way to feed your family. On the other hand, I know it’s possible to be even more into it than I am. Many of my friends are far more adventurous in their cooking and eating than we are.

You can usually find out what’s important to people by looking at where they spend their optional time. We spend ours at church, playing games, cooking and outdoors. I am explicitly ok with the church, games and outdoors. I am surprised by this cooking thing, and not sure if I meant to make it such a big part of my life.

What do you think? Where do you find yourself spending a lot of your time, possibly to your surprise? What do you eat for dinner every night? Do you think the time spent in the kitchen is worth it? If you were my children, would you be glad for the effort at meals, or would you wish I’d spent more time with you than cooking for you?