‘Burgler Day!

Remember him? The Hamburgler from McDonald’s?

Yeah, this guy.
Source:
https://mcdonalds.fandom.com/wiki/Hamburglar

Sorry if that makes anyone feel old. I’m right there with you.

Anyways, today was burgler, I mean, burger grinding day. We take all the waste/excess/tiny pieces of meat from butchering the deer, bear, and other critters my husband shoots in hunting season and run it through a meat grinder to make hamburger. The process involves the whole family. The Teen helps with grinding, I pack and wrap, Hubby assists and supervises, and the littles do little jobs like opening doors and fetching things. Since the meat is very lean on its own, we mix in a certain percentage of pork sausage to add some fat and flavor. Unlike beef fat, venison and bear fat do NOT add good flavor to the meat. Trust me on this, putting in the extra effort to trim off all the excess fat is vital to turning out a tasty product.

After grinding and mixing we portion the burger into roughly 1lb packages and seal with our vacuum sealer. Then it goes into the freezer and we all sit back to relax with the pride in a job well done….but only after we scrub everything down and clean the grinder.

Our goal every year is to hunt enough to provide meat for an entire year. This year we churned out roughly 67lbs of ground venison in addition to all the steaks, roasts, hocks, haunches, and other cuts. No Bear or Elk were harvested this year in spite of Hubby and Teen’s best efforts so our burger is straight venison.

How do we use venison burger? The same way we would use ground beef. Tacos, spaghetti sauce, meatballs, soups and stews, meatloaf, etc. The best part, in my not-so-humble-opinion, is that venison is so lean and the percentage of added pork sausage is so low that there is never any excess fat to drain. Unlike ground beef where you lose upwards of 25% of the meat through draining off the fat, we get to eat 100% of our venison burger. Venison is also grass-fed, organic, and antibiotic free. So yeah, when Hubby complains about how expensive it is to hunt (tag prices and hunting license fees drive him nuts) I remind him that pound for pound it’s no more expensive (and may actually be slightly cheaper) than buying the same quality meat from the store.

So is it worth it? I think so. It’s good food and a quality family activity. Is it a lot of work? Definitely. Would we have it any other way? Nope.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is a time for family, celebrating the birth of Christ, and exhaustion. Between gifting, baking, cooking, hosting, shopping, trying to find time for prayer and reflection, keeping up with laundry and the day to day household tasks, and making sure the kids are getting some understanding of what Christmas is all about…..

I’m tired.

It’s not just being a mom and the domestic engineer that makes this entire ship we call a family run with some semblance of a smooth course, it’s the draining of the social batteries. On our best days those of us who incline towards introversion don’t mind some socializing. It does help us keep our social skills in working order and reminds us that there is a bigger world outside our cozy little routine. But hanging out with family and friends, managing kids who have eaten too much sugar or haven’t eaten at all, and trying to remember who to thank for the enormous gift basket of goodies is tiring. Add on two days of Masses thanks to how the Advent and Christmas calendars work out this year….and I’m already tired tomorrow.

I’m not complaining. Well, maybe I am. But just a little. Christmas this year is actually more relaxed than it has been and everything is shaping up to be a wonderful next few days. Cookies are baked, gifts wrapped, everyone is off school and no on has obligations outside of Saturday Vigil Mass, Christmas Vigil Mass, and Christmas Day fun. It truly is a wonderful time of year and I’m very grateful for the loving family I’m spending it with and all the blessings God has showered on us this season.

But I’m still tired.

The Battlefield of Motherhood

I had an idea this morning as I sipped my first cup of coffee and watched Mr. Fantastic don his work boots. He reminded me (nicely as there is no nagging in our household) about checking a certain game camera to see if still works after being attacked by either a bear’s paws or a cow’s butt and knocked to the ground. I mentally ran through my day tallying up when quiet times are and which quiet time is likely to be more conducive to the concentration needed for this task…and I realized that being a mom is like being a general about to fight a battle.

It’s a daily battle to keep the kids alive, uninjured, and somewhat happy or, at the very least content, while keeping the house in one piece, performing such necessary chores as laundry and vacuuming, and getting decent food on the table at fairly regular intervals. Like any successful battle in any war planning is key, knowledge of the enemy helps, and luck is something for which to hope. As a mom I have a serious advantage in knowing my “enemy” (a.k.a my kids) well and understanding those things that make them nice people to be around and those things that will snowball us into a day of disaster.

Some days disaster is unpreventable. Stuff just happens. Little Miss wakes up on the wrong side of the crib, Little Bear is extra curious and extra frustrated by the word “no”, and mommy just loses it. Such is life. Those are the days when I retreat, turn on a movie, give them snacks, and retreat for a bit to clear my head before going back into battle.

Other days the war is fought and won with smiles, giggles, and happiness all around. Those are good days and we have a lot of them. But without the punctuation of the bad days, we wouldn’t know how many good days we actually have. Those days when I start with a plan, when I remember we have a schedule of sorts and I stick to it, those are the good days. It’s true that kids like regularity and structure. They feel safe when life is somewhat the same, somewhat predictable. I throw a curve-ball in on occasion because predictability is not life and I want them to learn to adapt and survive and still be nice about it, but I try to give them as much regularity as possible.

An old friend summed it up nicely the other day: “if I don’t carpe the diem it’ll carpe ME first!!!” And she’s right! It all comes down to planning. Not the detailed, meticulous planning I did in college to stay ahead of my classes and assignments. I’m not a person who likes strict schedules, they annoy me and make me anxious and grumpy (unless they are set by outside forces beyond my control). But a loosely organized, somewhat routine plan with more or less set times for certain activities is what keeps this little home battlefield clear of unnecessary carnage. Not to mention keeping this General Mom sane and nice which is key to keeping this little home a nice place to live.

Call it just another angle of this “self-care” mantra that’s going around all the parenting blogs. I call it following in my grandmother’s footsteps. She raised 5 kids and had a set time each afternoon when the kids either napped, or played quietly in their rooms for 2 HOURS so she could have some peace. Woe to them that broke that peace! (I may have mentioned before that my petite, white-haired grandmother is a lovely, wonderful, delightful, loving person with the terrifying ability to melt NFL linebackers and Navy SEALs into puddles of jelly with a single “look”. The woman is amazing.)

Today is still young, just budding out, and there is no telling how the battle will go. But the plan is in place, the battle lines drawn, I’ve run out of things to say (though I have an inkling of at least 6 tangential directions to take this thought), and the clock is reminding me that if I don’t shower and dress now, it won’t happen at all. So, best of luck to all the other General Moms out there! May your battles be few and the war not too terrible today. Soldier on!

 

The Styles of Parenting

I have a confession to make. I’ve been listening to Dr. Ray Guarendi. By “listening” I mean streaming 2-6 archived episodes a day for the last 3 weeks. This might seem like a lot, but compared to the way I go through audio books, it’s nuthin’.

The side effects of listening to Dr. Ray so much is that it’s made me more aware of other parenting styles, especially those of the people around me. Now, I don’t hang out with a ton of other parents. Living out in the boonies like we do means it’s a 45-minute drive anywhere except the local library and their story-times are all smack in the middle of nap-time. So we stay home a lot. This means that when I do go out and see other parents at the grocery store, church, in the neighborhood, etc. I’m extra aware of how they parent their kids and I’ve come up with some names for the various styles of parenting I see.

Please note that I’m not trying to be critical of these parents or that I think they’re doing a bad job of raising their kids. I’m an observer, a natural-born people-watcher (just ask my mother), and love to see how other folks do stuff. I find that watching other parents makes me more aware of the ways I don’t want to raise my kids. Again, not because other parents are doing it “wrong”, but because I want to see if their system might work with my kids.

Styles of Parenting:

The Yammerer: This is the parent who yammers. “Don’t throw rocks, Johnny.” “Johnny! I said not to throw rocks!” “Johnny, if you throw another rock you’re grounded for a month!” “I meant it when I said not to throw rocks!” “Don’t you dare throw that rock young man!” You’ve all heard this one. The tirade just goes on and on, and eventually the parent gets fed up and acts, or the kid gets bored and stops throwing rocks. To me this is super annoying because it has little to no effect on the kid. My suspicion is that the parent doesn’t know they can physically step in and put an actual stop to the rock throwing without damaging the child’s psyche. But whatever, it’s their kid, they can parent how they want. In fact, I was this parent for a while until I got sick of Little Miss just ignoring my continued commands and decided to change up my style.

The Okay-er: This parent turns every single command or request into a question. “Put on your coat, okay?” “It’s time to get in the car, okay?” Like the kid has a choice! But hey, if it works for you, that’s great! One mom I know gets fantastic results and no back-chat with this tactic. I’m not giving my kid an option because Little Miss would take it and run. She’s that kind of kid. As she gets older I anticipate her working to find any and every loophole in rules and commands. In our house it’s get in the car or I’ll put you in the car, and if you fight me I’ll take away your beloved stuffy for the rest of the afternoon.

The Hoverer: This is, I guess, the same as a helicopter parent. It’s the one who is constantly there to help or rescue their kid from whatever they’ve gotten themselves into. If this works for you, fantastic! Maybe your kid is more timid or unsure and needs the encouragement to step outside their comfort zone and try stuff. Little Miss would LOVE it if I were this parent. She would play “helpless princess” all. day. long. I tried it for about a week and gave it up as far too much work. Especially since I knew her to be perfectly capable of whatever it was she was trying to do (because I watched her do it unaided the day before). She still pulls this stunt with Daddy on occasion and gets away with it and that’s okay. Daddy enjoys playing her knight in shining armor.

The “It’s not a threat, it’s a promise”: This is what I grew up with. If mom said she’d put me in time out if I didn’t do/stop doing something…then I was going in time out. There were no ifs, no buts, no extenuating circumstances. And if I dared give any back-chat, the consequences got worse. Mom was in charge and we kids knew where the boundaries were. We also knew that if we crossed those boundaries, there would be consequences. It was as simple as that. My mother got this style of parenting from her mother. If I remember the story correctly, one of my grandmother’s kids made some snide comment about her threat of discipline and she just looked at him and calmly said “It’s not a threat, sweetheart. It’s a promise.” This is the parenting that works best with Little Miss. She likes knowing Mommy and Daddy are in charge. She proves this by being a happy, content toddler, eager to please and ready to dance at a moment’s notice. When I let stuff slide and fail to hold her to account, Little Miss’ behaviour gets worse and her mood goes haywire. So I have to step up and reset boundaries, and then life gets better.

The more kids I have (we’re not done yet!) and the longer I parent, the more I find that setting boundaries, keeping discipline as consistent as I can, and starting all this early, the better my life is. That’s not to say we don’t have rough days and that I don’t sometimes question what I’m doing. There are days when modern “psychologically correct” parenting worms its way into my head and I get nervous that I’m messing up my kids in a massive way. But then I stop and think. How many centuries have gone by, how many great men and women have lived and died, how many fantastic discoveries were made by folks who were raised with steady discipline and firm boundaries. Then I get up, shove the doubts aside, and we get back on track.

The fundamental thing is, Little Miss knows I love her and that I’m setting boundaries and rules for her benefit. Some day she will be old enough to understand that I did all this when she was young so that when she grows up and steps out on her own, she will function well in a world that is full of boundaries and rules, and where discipline can result in a lost job, losing a home, or time in jail. To steal a line from Dorothy L. Sayers short story Tallboys, “But one’s got to prepare people for life, hasn’t one?” and that is what Mr. Fantastic and I am trying to do.

Because…Kids…

It’s 3am. Or, if it isn’t, it’s so close to 3am that it doesn’t matter. Little Bear woke me sometime around 12:30am for no reason except that he felt like it…or maybe it’s because he went to bed with a temperature of 100.1°F and doesn’t feel well.

Whatever. All I know is that I dragged us both to the recliner for some rocking and feeding and soothing until Little Bear finally passed out somewhere around 2am. He woke up again during the ticklish business of transferring him to his crib and wouldn’t go back to sleep or stay quiet so here we are. Back in the living room.

I have nothing profound or even remotely smart to say about this. It’s just one of those nights when you debate whether or not to add extra grounds and water to the coffee maker to facilitate adequate caffeination for the morning. Or daylight. Whichever comes first.

This is just what life is at this moment. Eventually Little Bear will fall asleep again and I might get some sleep too. Eventually, God willing, the sun will rise in a couple of hours and the day will begin regardless of whether I’ve had enough rest. And inevitably I will feel the need to turn on a movie tomorrow to keep Little Miss entertained while I try to focus a sleep-deprived brain and get a few things done.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll put Little Bear on his play mat on the floor and curl up next to him with my favorite fleece blanket. Who knows? Maybe we’ll both sleep.

Let’s Talk Self-Care

I am 8 weeks exactly (as exact as one can be with babies) away from being a mom of 2 under 2. That being said, I am trying to look forward and prepare for caring for myself while caring for a toddler and a newborn. Part of that preparedness is figuring out just exactly what “self-care” is and what it looks like.

“According to my research” (to borrow a line from that one character on The Magic School Bus), there are TONS of things moms can do to take care of themselves and thus help them be better moms. Now, I haven’t read all the articles and books out there that cover the topic of self-care. It’s not physically possible to do so while keeping a 15 month old from killing herself or destroying the house. However, in all the articles I have read the one thing I have yet to see mentioned is taking time to clean the house.

Maybe it’s because my goal is to be a good housekeeper while being a good wife and mother. Or maybe it’s because I just hate not being able to find the thing I need when I need it in the place I expected to find it. Or maybe it’s because I’m 8 months pregnant and can’t see past this massive belly.

Whatever the reason, I need a tidy house to stay sane. A tidy house means a clean kitchen, laundry that is at least washed and dried (bonus if it’s folded and put away), floors that are swept and vacuumed, and a bathroom clean enough that I won’t be embarrassed if guests drop by unexpectedly. Thankfully, most of this I can do with Little Miss’ “help” (or hindrance, depending on how you look at it). But there are some days when I can’t. Those are the hard days.

Those are the days when I have to stop, breathe, tell myself it’s okay to let the carpets go another day without vacuuming, it’s okay to leave the dishwasher until tomorrow, it’s okay to just take a quick swipe at the toilet and wait to clean it properly.

And then there are the days when the only way I can keep it together is to feed Little Miss a continuous stream of graham crackers, cheese, and other snacks while I clean. Little Miss doesn’t like always like it when Mommy doesn’t drop everything to read the Dr Seuss Alphabet book for the 9th time that day, but I tell her that a “sane mommy is a happy mommy.” This is not a concept Little Miss can really understand at this time in her life, but as she grows she will appreciate having a happy and sane mommy.

The trick to all of this is to plan ahead and to make the choice to set things up for success now while I just have one kid to chase. And it is a choice. A choice to take/make time to clean and tidy, to involve Little Miss in the endeavor, and to change and adjust processes to facilitate productive speed in completion of the required tasks. So the next 8 weeks will be spent in planning and preparing for the coming days when I will have two kids to care for. After all, Proper Prior Planning Prevents (Pissed) Poor Performance.

The Things We Learn…

when we have kids and houses. I’m not going to bother with an introduction because I’m squeezing this post into the last few precious moments of nap-time. So here goes.

A) Sweeping and vacuuming floors is a daily necessity. Especially once kids learn to crawl and to feed themselves. Little Miss did not like it when Mommy pulled that tasty pine cone out of her mouth last night. It was chewy and felt good on her gums…and Mommy always spoils all the fun.

B) Coordinated and customized storage bins are cheaper than therapy. My house is tiny, my budget is tight, and I need an organized house to stay sane. So I took paper grocery bags, cut them open to lay flat, and used packing tape to wrap this nice brown paper around a few random boxes. Each box was marked with its contents and now I know exactly what is in my front, bedroom, and nursery closets. (And my husband will know where the game camera goes when it’s not in use outside.)

C) Saving ribbon is a life saver. I mentioned my house is tiny, but it’s not a legit “tiny house.” A “starter home” would be a far more accurate description. However, the designation of “home” holds no bearing on the relative size of the kitchen or the amount of storage provided within said kitchen. (Seriously, for a house built on an island where the authorities recommend having a 3-month stock of non-perishable food in case the bridge to the mainland goes out, this house seriously lacks pantry space!!) I own a few more baking pans than I normally use and don’t have a good place to keep them. This is where the ribbon comes in. I tied two lengths of cheerful red gingham ribbon in a decorative fashion around my quiche pan and thumb-tacked it to the kitchen wall. I can get to it any time I feel like making quiche, but in the meantime it serves a decorative purpose. Ribbon hoarding for the win!

D) Command hooks and Monkey hooks are your best friends. Seriously. I have command hooks mounted in the most random places for hanging things like my apron, my clothespins bag, giant colander, etc. And every set of antlers, every large picture, and even a random cooking pot is hung up with a monkey hook. Inexpensive, reusable, stronger than a thumb-tack, and less damaging than a nail, I love monkey hooks. (No, this is not a paid endorsement. Just an honest opinion.)

E) You need more than one apron. I thought I was a fairly tidy cook….until I got pregnant. Then I realized the belly containing my child was a magnet for flying food drops, grease, and various other things. When pregnant with Little Miss I was still working full-time and got away with only owning one apron. Now that I’m a stay at home mom and pregnant again, I’m realizing the necessity of owning two or three aprons. They are handy for protecting clothes, drying your hands fast (while racing across the house because baby is crying, getting into something, or looks like she might be chewing on a non-food item), and wiping little faces. I wear the darn thing every day and seriously miss it when it’s in the wash. *sigh* Oh well, guess I’ll have to break out the sewing machine and make a new one. Too bad that means a trip to the fabric store. (That last sentence is dripping with sarcasm, btw. ;))

Camping

We took Little Miss on her first camping trip this past weekend. To put it mildly, she had a blast. Family, friends, food, fresh air, sunshine, and all the other good stuff that goes into a giant family reunion camping trip. Mommy kept Little Miss slathered in sunscreen so she did not burn, and there were enough cousins around that Little Miss got a lot of practice walking.

Daddy spent the weekend zooming around the hills and valleys on the four-wheeler looking for deer and practicing his game calls. Just exactly his favorite way to spend a weekend. He saw several deer each day and thinks there were even more hiding in the brush. A small group of deer came down into camp each evening to nibble the fresh clover that carpets the little valley. Little Miss wasn’t quite sure what they were, but she could see the deer were big and furry and moved on 4 legs so she did what any self-respecting 11-month old does. She squealed at them. Loudly.

This deer showed up early in the morning, watched the squealing Little Miss for a moment, then took her leave.

She squealed at the dogs too. They weren’t sure what to make of the small, noisy human and kept away from her as much as they could. After all, her shrieking and squealing hurt their sensitive doggy ears. But, on Monday morning the oldest and calmest dog was cuddled into submission and allowed Little Miss to pat and stroke her. Of course, Little Miss’ idea of petting a dog is to slap them with all the vim and vigor of her little hands. So we worked on learning to pet gently and Little Miss got the idea eventually. Smokey the dog was very patient and, as long as someone was petting her, didn’t care what Little Miss did.

With all the stimulus of new people and new surroundings Little Miss overloaded frequently and needed to nap. A lot. She slept like a lump each night and didn’t mind the wind rustling the tent. What Little Miss didn’t like was Mommy’s insistence on putting her in the tent to play while Mommy cooked supper. But Mommy packed toys and Little Miss made the best of things. It turns out throwing toy rings and reading books is just as fun in a tent as it is at home.

Little Miss wasn’t terribly happy, but Mommy was busy so she just had to practice being patient. (Yes, the photo is fuzzy. With all the moving Little Miss does it’s a miracle I got a semi-decent photo at all!)

When we got home, I was pleased to see the garden had survived the weekend. Turns out that trick of shoving a full bottle of water upside down into the dirt is truly a great way to slowly water plants. It looked like I was trying to grow margarita mix and O’Mara’s Irish Cream, but my tomato plants, radishes, lettuce, and other veggies stayed nicely watered.

Most of the camping gear is cleaned, organized, and stowed away until our next trip. Now I just have to weed the front yard and make our house look decent again. Weeding is not my favorite activity, but the garden beds are small so it shouldn’t take long. I hope.

Big Moves and Little Changes

Holy crap! It’s been a while since I wrote last. Baby Girl is content so I’m snagging a few minutes for a quick post…just because I can. The laundry, dishwasher, messy house, and all my other chores can wait a minute or three.

Summer hit full force this past week with temperatures in the 60s and 70s, sunny days, and flowers blooming everywhere. Nevermind that it’s technically still spring. I pulled out all my shorts and t-shirts and my beloved hiking sandals. And sunscreen. Lots of sunscreen.

We planted a garden of sorts this year. After demolishing the rhododendrons in the front of the house with a chainsaw, Mr Fantastic added some extra dirt and I got to work creating a string trellis for snap peas. We will have a small container garden on the back deck for lettuce, radishes, etc. while we save the garden bed in front for squash, zuchini, and cucumbers. It’s not a huge food production endeavor, just a little experiment to see what works. Keeping it small also prevents me from overwhelming and ditching the whole project. Knowing one’s own capacity for something makes that something easier to accomplish.

Baby Girl is growing fast. She is on the brink of walking by herself and loves nothing better than taking Mommy or Daddy for a walk down the hallway. She learned too that crawling is an acceptable alternative to walking. Though she hasn’t mastered the technique yet, and hates crawling on the vinyl floor, Baby Girl scoots around the living room with remarkable speed on her hands and knees. I just hope she gets the walking thing figured out and locked in soon. She’s getting heavy!

Fairly soon we will have to upgrade Baby Girl’s nickname to something else. Child #2 is expected in November and we may need to recycle Baby Girl’s nickname if Child #2 ends up being a girl. We won’t find out for several weeks, so stay tuned.

Well that didn’t last long. Baby Girl just pulled over the trash can…..

What are you looking at? (The orneriness is real with this one)

Sweet Potatoes are a Gateway Drug…

Into the world of food that is.

Last Thanksgiving my husband had the brilliant idea to let Baby Girl sample his sweet potatoes (yes, the ones dripping with melted marshmallows, butter, and brown sugar). She liked them. We tried solids off and on for the next few months, but she wasn’t terribly interested. Then, about two months ago, Baby Girl was obviously ready to start solid food for reals. She breastfed every 2-3 hours, 24/7 and just wasn’t satisfied. So we pulled out the baby bowls and got started.

She liked mashed bananas, but it was the sweet potatoes that did it. Anything mixed with sweet potatoes was an automatic winner. In two weeks Baby Girl went from 1 feeding a day of solid food to 4 feedings a day and lost interest in breastfeeding.

Then I pulled a “new mom” and freaked out about her getting enough nutrition. Everything online and in the books say babies need to get most of their nutrition from breast milk or formula until they are 1 year old. Baby Girl wasn’t buying it, but Mommy wasn’t so confident. So I called the doctor, explained Baby Girl’s current diet and was informed she needed to either breastfeed 4 times a day, or drink 24-32oz of formula a day because a solids-only diet is not recommended for babies her age.

As mentioned before, Baby Girl hates bottles. She chews on the bottle nipple and gets enough fluids to stave off constipation and dehydration, but no way will she ever consume 24-32oz of formula from a bottle. Why not breastfeed again? Because I’m done. I don’t want to be a human refrigerator any more. Once we both figured out how to do it, I thoroughly enjoyed breastfeeding Baby Girl for those first 6 months. But now I’m done. Does this make me a bad parent? No.

So I pulled another “new mom” and texted all my friends with children 2 years old and under asking them how they weaned their kids. Only one friend has a child with a similar anti-bottle attitude. She watered down her son’s food to help keep him hydrated, and supplemented with vitamin drops. All my other friends have children that liked bottles. Lucky ducks.

Then I called my mom. My mom breastfed me until I was 14 months old and my little brother until he was 5 years old, and therefore never faced this particular problem. So she called her mother.

Can I just take a moment to say something? Gramma’s are awesome. I may be biased, but I’m pretty sure my Gramma, in particular, is the greatest Gramma ever invented. I cannot sing her praises high enough so I won’t even try.

Turns out my grandmother weaned all 5 of her kids at 3 months of age, putting them on a diet of rice baby cereal and homemade formula (canned milk and corn syrup). All 5 kids grew up just fine. No one has diabetes, no one got rickets, all of them are healthy adults. Passing on this information, my mom said “Don’t worry about Baby Girl. She is fine. She is getting far more nutrition than we ever got at her age.”

And then she reminded me of the two magic words I can use with the pediatrician at Baby Girl’s 9-month check when I’m sure this discussion will come up again: Self-Weaned. Baby Girl self-weaned. I feel a bit guilty about going against the “rules”, but I’m listening to, and working with my baby. That is the most important thing because Baby Girl knows what she needs: a mommy who listens to her.

And more sweet potatoes!