I love the passing of time

I was just sitting on the couch watching Nickelodeon with Annie & Shelby. Annie was on my lap. Shelby was beside us. A commercial came on for Zoe 101, and, during the commercial, they said ‘Boys Rule’.

Me: Annie, do boys rule?
Annie: Yeah
Me: Really? What about girls? Do girls rule?
Annie: No
Me: So, boys are better than girls?
Annie (turning to me and ‘whispering’, putting her hand beside her mouth): No. I just don’t want Shelby to cry because boys don’t rule.

Of course, that’s part of the reason why girls rule.

Jim & I don’t fight. When I tell people about it, I’m afraid that I come off sounding superior or condescending or like I’m bragging in some way. I don’t really feel that way. I know that I’m lucky that we found each other. I know that I could just as easily have ended up in a relationship where there was more fighting, but I don’t think I would have stayed very long.

And, sometimes when I say ‘we don’t fight’, I feel like I need to follow it up with some kind of advice to the person/couple who are fighting, since I seem to be saying that we’ve got it all figured out. The thing is that I think it’s more about who we are as people than about what we ‘do’. I don’t know if it’s anything that I could ‘advise’ to others, because, well, they are who they are (and that’s not a bad thing - it’s just different than who I am).

Jim & I were talking about this last night & trying to come up with the reasons why we don’t fight. Here are a few of them.

We are both very empathetic people.
We are both very open-minded.
Neither of us really believes that fighting is a way to solve a conflict or a difference between people.
Neither of us believes that the other is selfish or insensitive.
We both have similar feelings about how we want to parent the kids, about the life & lessons that we want to provide them with in their childhood.
We both can see our own faults when we see the faults of others, which helps us to be more forgiving of other’s mistakes.

If he does something insensitive, I’m more likely to think ‘Whoa, that’s not like him at all. I know that he didn’t mean that. I wonder what’s worrying him that made him so distracted that he didn’t notice that insensitive thing that he did.’ Then, I try to fix whatever’s worrying hime. He does the same for me.

We both want the other to be happy, because we love each other & you want to make life better for the people that you love. I know that that sounds like we’re walking around doing for each other all day, sublimating our selves, but that’s not the case, really.

For example - I make Jim a lunch to bring to work every night. Some days I’ll put some extra effort into making it really nice. Some days I’ll just throw something together. Some days I get busy & forget altogether. And, he doesn’t get mad about it. He just appreciates that I do it for him. And, I like being able to do it for him.

Or… If I’m listening to a ‘This American Life’ in the car CD player & Jim is the next to drive, he will check where I left off on the CD, before he puts in whatever CD he wants to listen to. Then, when he gets out of the car & knows I’m going to be driving next, he will put my CD back in and queue it up to where I left off, so that I don’t have to do that myself.

It’s just being considerate of each other. Trying to help. Trying to let the other know that we appreciate them. -And- appreciating how lucky we are to have such a kind person in our lives.

I’m remembering a time when Jim & I were folding laundry together. Brandy (teen niece who lived with us) was watching. Jim & I fold differently. Brandy asked if we don’t get mad that the other one doesn’t fold clothes the way that we do. She’s seen enough TV couples fight about things like that. She’s seen her own grandparents and parents fight with their spouses & SO’s about things like that. Jim said, “No. When I open my drawer and see a shirt folded differently than I would have folded it, I don’t get mad about it. I think ‘How nice that someone folded my shirt for me.’”

I don’t *always* feel that right away. I do get annoyed at little things sometimes. I think that Jim does, too. But, it is so easy to defuse it when I remember the shared love that is part of our every day and when I stop to think of the person that Jim is, remember that he is a whole person with emotional and physical needs of his own, to think of things from his point of view and know that there are only good intentions here.

Maybe it’s the faith that we have in each other’s love and in each other’s character that makes it easy. Hmmm… I don’t know what it is. But, I do know that I wish that everyone had it as easy as we do.

He wanted me to put it online where everyone in the world could see it!

They are metphors. They are myths. They are parables. They are meant to entertain and to teach a moral.

No one should expect their life to turn out exactly as it does in a fairy tale. That’s just not possible.

And, there are so many people who have wonderful lives, but who are so disappointed that things didn’t happen exactly as they ’should have’ that they can’t even see how great their lives are, how great they are.

The characters in fairy tales are pure examples of the characteristics that they are meant to portray. There is no gray in them. There is no reality in them. They are anthropomorphisms of character traits.

Think about the Frog Prince for example. Do you think that, after the (horrible, hateful, unruly, rude) princess kissed that frog & he turned back into a prince, that she never even once remembered that he had once been a frog? Do you think that he never longed for the life he had before he was changed to a frog? Or, while he was a frog? Do you think that he never remembered how horrible she was to him, when he was a frog?

The ‘happily ever after’ part of that story does not work, if you take it literally.

As a moral metaphor, though, it’s great. It teaches ‘Don’t be mean to people based on their appearances, as their appearances don’t tell you who they really are’.

It was never meant to be teach girls that their love could transform something horrible into something pleasing. That’s not the message it was meant to convey at all.

It’s not about finding a prince, or about love transforming something ugly into something desirable. It’s about recognizing that the desirable lurks under the ugliness in all of us.

At least, that’s what I think, anyway.

Last time we were at the Dells, we bought the kids matching souvenir cups that had their names on them.

Annie was just sitting by me, drinking some tea from her cup.

Annie: (Examining cup) Mom, I’m wondering how our names got on these cups. We didn’t put them on them.
Me: No, they had the names on them when we bought them
Annie: But, how did they know that we were going to buy them?

Cooking and Baking for Kids with Food Allergies

Milk Allergy

Ingredients to avoid:
Milk, Butter, Whey, Cheese, Cream, Curds, Sour Cream, Yogurt, Lactose, Curds, Leche, Mantequilla, Queso, Any ingredient that includes any of these words.

Recipe Substitutes:
To replace Milk:
Soy Milk
Rice Milk
Water or Juice
Non-Dairy Creamer (check label for any hidden milk ingredients)

To replace Butter:
Fleishmann’s Unsalted Margarine
Shortening (check label for any hidden milk ingredients)

To replace Buttermilk:
1 T apple cider vinegar or lemon juice added to one cup of soymilk or non-dairy creamer (check label for any hidden milk ingredients)

Egg Allergy

Ingredients to avoid:
Eggs, Albumen, Egg Substitutes, Conalbumin, Globulin, Livetin, Lysozyme, Meringue, Ovalbumin, Ovoglobulin, Ovolactohydrolyze Protein, Ovomacroglobulin, Ovomucin, Ovomucoid, Ovotransferrin, Ovovitellin, Silico-albuminate, Simplesse, Vitellin, Huevo

Recipe Substitutes:
To replace one egg:
1 t baking powder, 1 T liquid, 1 T vinegar
1 t yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water
1 1/2 T water, 1 1/2 T oil, 1 t baking powder
1 mashed banana

Wheat Allergies

Ingredients to Avoid:
Wheat, Bulgur, Couscous, Durum, ein korn, emmer, farrow, Enriched/White/Whole Wheat Flour, Farina, Gluten, Graham Flour, High Gluten/Protein Flour, Kamut, Seitan, Semolina, Spelt, Triticale, Triticum Aestivum, Wheat Bran, Wheat Germ, Trigo, Harina

Recipe Substitutes:
Replace 1 cup of flour with:
7/8 cup rice flour
5/8 cup potato starch flour
1 cup soy flour plus 1/4 cup potato starch flour
1 cup corn flour

Peanut Allergies

Ingredients to Avoid:
Peanuts, Peanut Butter, Arachis Oil, Beer Nuts, Cacahouete, Goober nuts or Goober Peas, Ground Nuts, Mandelonas, Nu-Nuts, Nut meats, Valencias, Peanut Oil

Soy Allergies

Ingredients to Avoid:
Edamame, Miso, Mono-diglyceride, Natto, Okara, Soya, Soja, Soybean, Soyabeans, Soy protein, Vegetable Protein, Tempeh, Textured Soy Flour (TSF), Textured Soy Protein (TSP), Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP), Tofu, Soybean Curds, Yuba

Tree Nut Allergies

Ingredients to Avoid:
Walnuts, Nuez, Pecans, Pacana, Almonds, Almendras, Brazil Nuts, Nueces de Brasil, Cashews, Anacardos, Chestnuts, Castanas, Filberts, Avellanas, Hazelnuts, Gianduja, Hickory Nuts, Macadamia Nuts, Marzipan, Almond Paste, Nougat, Nu-Nuts, Nut Butters, Nut Oil, Nut Paste, Pine Nuts, Pignolia, Pinion, Pistachios

My younger sister just emailed saying that she was going to opt out of the whole tattoo thing. Her reasoning was that she didn’t want to be 70 years old & have a tattoo.

And, I could honor that (and will), except that it sounds too much like something her husband would say. Like he talked her out of it because *he* didn’t think it was a good thing to have a wife with a tattoo. But, then again, she’s always been kind of conservative, so maybe it’s a joint thing.

Actually, though, her reasoning would work for me, too, if it was a trampy kind of tattoo. But, I actually think that *this* tattoo would be a cool thing to have when I was 70 (but only if everyone does it). I’d love for the nurse, who’s turning me over in my bed at the nursing home, to ask me about it, so that I could tell the story of my family. I think that I’d like to talk to an old woman with stories like that.

Wonder if I could convince my younger sister to jump in & do it, too.

At bedtime, I read Annie the first book from the Care Bears Friendship Club (of which she is a new member ). It’s called ‘Cheer Up!’ & it’s all about Cheer Bear.

At the end of the book, there are some questions that address the ideas in the book. One of them was “Do you know someone you could help feel better?”. She said “Daddy” & told me about how his back was hurting today (he did something to it yesterday at the gym & it hurts *really* bad).

The next question is, “What could you do to make that person smile?”

She looked at me with that “You’re joking me” expression in her eyes, like I couldn’t be serious asking her that question, then laughed and said “No, he always smiles”

I love her. I love their relationship. How great that she thinks of him as always smiling.

Just gonna copy/paste my post about this from another message board, in order to get it here on the blog…
I was raised in a big family. 7 sisters, 2 brothers. I am #9 of the 10. Many of my nieces & nephews are adults - some are only a few years younger than I am.

Last Saturday night, in honor of my oldest sister being in town (she’s the only one currently in another state (along with a couple of nieces who are in army & navy), we had a family get together at another sister’s house (she lives in the house we all grew up in). At that party, the sister who had a phone consult with a medium, shared her story about that whole thing - bringing back even more memories of mom & dad for all of us.

Apparently, sometime after I left the party, the remaining sisters & adult nieces (and maybe a brother) had a few too many cocktails & decided that, this coming Friday, before oldest sister goes back to Colorado, we should all have a pajama party at the old house, again. And, this time, we should hire a tattoo artist to give us all matching tattoos (that will be designed by an artistic teen niece and will include a shamrock with the letter ‘F’ (for Farrell - our family name) written on it in my dad’s handwriting).

I have no tattoos. And, I’ve never really wanted one. I am both intrigued by the idea, though, and a bit scared of the potential pain.

One really big issue that I have with it is that two of the sisters are currently not speaking to each other. One of those two is at her condo in Florida for a month or so, so she won’t be at the party -and- I really don’t want her to feel even more ostracized than the present sister is making her feel. So, I may just skip it as a show of, well, not solidarity with her, because I can really see both of their points of view, but as a sign of ‘I will not be a party to anything that separates us’, KWIM?

but I just wanted to get it down while it was still fresh in my head…

Talking to Shelby & Annie while they were in the tub. Had just read post on the family board about the tattoos (that’s what I’ll explain in a bit). I said to them, “So, do you think I should get a tattoo”.

Shelby: A permanent one?
Me: Right, a permanent one (I’d already told them a little bit about this tattoo party)
Shelby: Yeah, if you want. You get to decide.
Me: Right, I get to decide.
Shelby: I think I know a little bit why it’s hard for you to decide. Remember how you told me that your dad had a permanent tattoo? Well, I think that you want to get one because you liked him and you want to remember him. But, I think that you are afraid that it will hurt.
Me: You are one very smart kid

I also explained that I wanted to do it because it would be cool for us all to have the same thing, connecting us together. And, also that I wasn’t sure if I wanted a picture permanently on my body. But, how clever of him to remember that about my dad (it was ages ago that I told him) and to see that having one myself would be a way of honoring him.