Mama Vlog - Episode 3

Organization officially underway! I have completed so much, it feels, in the past week and a half. My son's room is nearly PERFECT and my daughter's is well on its way. It feels so good! If you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it. Once again, it's called "One Year to an Organized Life" and in only the first two weeks, it has already had a drastic impact on my home and my psyche. It's available on iBooks (I downloaded it to my iPad) and you can get it in hardcopy at any bookstore...I even saw it at FedEx Kinkos! I'm hooked. I might even start a group!

Mama Vlog - Episode 2

Okay, I'm a little behind on the posting. Already. And it's only week two. Well, actually, I took this video last Monday, three days after my first one. I decided I would do them every Monday morning at about the same time. Or whenever I feel inclined!

In this episode, I'm feeling overwhelmed by some things on my to-do list. Although, I'm pretty good at maintaining a calm, cool, collected exterior, no?? Haha. Well, anyway...to whoever might be watching, hope you enjoy my journey!

First Video Post Ever.

It has literally been years since I have posted to this blog. I have so many distractions *ahem* responsibilities but it has suddenly become pertinent for me to consolidate all of myself into one spot. So, over the next few weeks, when I have time (when will that be??), I will begin to update this blog to encompass all that I have created both online and off. I confess, it will not be pretty, organized, or even make any sense to you. However, it might be mildly entertaining as I try to get my erratic thoughts and ideas down in writing or in videos. Where one day you may find I am processing photos for a senior portrait session, the next I may be up-cycling an old leather jacket into jewelry. You just never know with me. I am very difficult to keep track of. So, my apologies in advance!

What Has Happened to My Child??

It has been a loooooong time since I have posted. For a variety of reasons I will decline to indulge you in. But, in the time between my last post and now, something has happened to Anja. She has completely transformed. She's like one of those magic pets that grow before your eyes...all you have to do is add water. Except, in Anja's case, I added soy milk, toast and bananas.

(I remember putting the tiny little dinosaur in a big glass mixing bowl of warm water and then coming back two days later to find a slimy, gelatinous, oversized creature that looked like it was ready to burst forth from the comfortable womb that was the mixing bowl. Ah, memories.)

Anyway, as annoying as it is to receive unsolicited advice from old men in the PVC piping aisle at Lowe's Hardware, it is true what they tell you: "Enjoy it...it goes fast."

I might note, too, that the after picture of Anja shown above is not a representation of routine. I simply placed her in the Bumbo to have a frame of reference for her size difference. In fact, she was upsidedown within moments, trying to get the thing off her butt.

Creepy Dolls and an Entirely Unrelated Story of a Stuffed Bunny

We were recently in a local toy store here in North Bend when we came upon the doll section. It made me reminisce about being a little girl and pretending to mother various stuffed animals, namely BunBun (a rabbit) and Tigor (a tiger). Once, I lost BunBun in our apartment complex and went so far as to post "Lost Bunny" signs all over the place. I was determined. Amazingly, we got a call back. A little girl close to my age found him in the playground. I remember going to her house to pick BunBun up and she had placed him dotingly in a basket and put a bonnet upon his head. I abruptly took him from the basket and removed the bonnet. No one was going to dress my bunny.

This led me to realize that I have no memory of any particular dolls I had as a child. Not because I didn't have any but because I think I really found them creepy. Much like these (see photo). I just can't picture some little girl seeing these and saying to her mother, "Mommy, pleeeeeease can I have the dolls with the plastic bags over their heads? Pleeeease?!"

I find the choice in packaging morbidly hilarious. I snickered as I approached them to get a closer look. I had so many questions. Why are there two of them? Are they twins? Is the fact that one has its mouth open supposed to illustrate the aftermath of what having a bag on your head might look like? What might that lesson sound like? Okay, kids, now this one is a normal baby (referring to the closed-mouth doll). And this one is a baby after a plastic bag has been on its head for a period of time (ahem, referring to the, uh, open-mouthed doll). And I find it eerily coincidental that their attire is blue. Is it a subliminally macabre reference to asphyxia? I will never know. The wheels keep turning. While they do, I am going to try and forget the images these creepy little dolls invoke. Maybe I should go cuddle with BunBun...

Kept: Top 10 Signs You're a Spoiled SAHM

Okay, so we all know it is very challenging to be a mother. And a wife. And both combined. Not to mention the countless other hats we wear under the umbrella of those two titles. But when I really think about my mother/wife life, I realize how spoiled I actually am.

Don't get me wrong. We deserve it! After carrying a baby for nine months then enduring the blood/sweat/tears to help baby make the journey into the outside world, which I often liken to forcing a watermelon through a garden hose, for those husbands who might be reading who require a bit more descriptive of an illustration to truly understand the magnanimity of bringing another human being into the world. Okay, now that THAT is on the table, here is my list, which I admit, is directly influenced by my own life:





10. You have time to write Top 10 lists.
9. You get regular pedicures.
8. The woman who does your pedicures is a Peruvian lady named Lucy.
7. Your engagement ring offers your baby hours of entertainment.
6. While the DB's on your diaper bag actually stand for Dooney & Bourke, you find it amusing to tell people they also stand for "diaper bag".
5. Your husband surprises you with subscriptions to magazines he knows you like.
4. Your husband brings you your baby in bed in the morning after changing her diaper.
3. Your husband tells you that while you may think breastfeeding has completely changed your boobs, he still thinks they are perfect.
2. Your husband makes you coffee in the morning.

And the number one sign you are a spoiled SAHM is...

1. Your husband works 12 hour days just so you can have the other 9 things I listed, and then some.

Here's to all of you dads/husbands that work hard for your families! We may bitch and moan and give you grief. But at the end of the day, it's you who allow us to be stay-at-home-moms!

Thank you.

We love you.

The End.

Cooking with Kristin: I'd watch me if I weren't me.

I spent way longer in the kitchen than anticipated the other day and so then I felt terrible. At one point, I placed my big mixing bowl on the floor in the middle of the kitchen and squatted over it, violently mixing with both hands. I think I must have looked like a tribal woman, hacking away at bits of tree fibers with a rock to make a rudimentary dough of some sort. Not to mention the fact that my daughter had that "look". You know the one...that mouth-half-open-what-the-hell-are-you-doing-mommy look that can only be characterized by a truly awestruck 7-month-old baby in her ExerSaucer?

In between getting batter mixed, cupcakes in and out of the oven and things cleaned up, I attempted to keep Peanut relatively happy. I am not sure if she was fussy because I was focusing so hard on cooking rather than her or she was just generally fussy. I think it was a little bit of both. So now I feel like a terrible mother. Not to mention the fact that my cupcakes turned out less than pretty. Much less. And my ambitious attempt to make confectioner's sugar in my food processor was a flop and so my chocolate frosting is gritty. As you can see, lacking the proper automatic equipment to mix my batter, my hand is now festooned with four grotesque blisters from going crazy with my wooden spoons. (Note the tiny, suspicious-looking crumb on my pinky.)













What have I learned through all this?

Let's see...a few things:

1. One can't make powdered sugar with a food processor.
2. No matter how hard one tries, one cannot beat cake batter with wooden spoons as fast as a KitchenAid electric mixer and furthermore, if one tries, one will end up with blisters that look like the result of a long hard day in the fields. Or in the jungle, pounding tree fibers. Choose your own adventure.
3. It is probably best to make frosting with real powdered sugar instead of powdered sugar made with a food processor or the frosting feels like eating sand mixed with mud. Again, a tribute to early desserts made by our ancestors by pounding things with rocks.

But, dagnabbit, I have to hand it to myself for a commitment to a dream! My cupcake dream! I wanted to make devil's food cupcakes from scratch and by golly, I did it! They turned out good enough for me to eat the entire plate so that says something right there. I even have some leftover batter. Ohhhhhh, leftover batterrrrrrrr. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. (That last part should be read to the tune of Homer Simpson.)