Take the Pledge

It's no news that I am somewhat of a novice at this whole blog thing. Even though I've been sharing random thoughts for the last two+ years (that long?). I still don't know what I am doing, but I still feel a need on a constant basis to find like minded people and share bits and pieces of myself. Today, by following the foot prints of things that I feel connected to over the blog waves, I came across something that I thought worth sharing. I think sometimes about the things I could blog if I weren't as insecure as I am.

Insecure? Me? I often feel that everything I write is just plain crazy. No one has yet to actually tell me that it is. But I guess that's all part of being insecure. It doesn't matter how much reassurance you get, you don't believe it.

Why am I insecure? I have a loving husband who adores my muffin top and my breastfeeding parts and my random need to climb a tree in the middle of a thunderstorm or get out of bed in the middle of the night just to write something down that won't leave my head. I don't know. Maybe because I watched too many kids get laughed at as a kid, maybe because I rarely felt like I had a real friend growing up? I count those things as blessings. But I believe they gave me a general mistrust of peoples intentions in social realms.Which is why I love so much when I find someone, by some blessed coincidence, that I connect with; why I look here and there and everywhere for people that I might find those blessed coincidences with.

What I found tonight was nothing more than a place where I feel safe. A place that lays down the rules for safe social engagement, over the internet, between women. We women, I believe, mistrust each other more than we like to admit (admit it). But this link made me think...maybe if there were a level playing field and I thought that even if people do think I'm crazy, they'll try to understand my craziness, I might just feel more free to be the crazy person that I am and love.

If you like to feel free about being the crazy person that you are too, go HERE and make a pledge to be a humane participant of this powerful tool for people to connect across spaces. You can also grab the button on the bottom right of this page.

After this post, I will officially be a Mommy Blogger. I've never blogged about my kids more than a word here and there and a few images. But I have to say that I am really in Love with the stages that they're in right now. Nahuel is so tender and sensitive and I love the way that he needs me. But his affection has expanded lately. Being a nursing Mamma's boy it's only natural that his attachment to me is stronger, but lately he shows more the need for his Papa's gentleness. He also gets more mischievous by the hour. Anything that can be strewn across the floor will be.  We've been busy securing all furniture and seeking out hiding places because everything is either a ladder or a hide out for more trouble.

Ada lives more in her own imaginative world every time I look at her, but more so when I've just tied a bow in the back of her dress. Ada is very particular about dresses. A dress is not a dress unless is is ankle length, soft, flowy and has some ruffles with a long sash that ties in the back. This is convenient since her Grandmother is a dressmaker and has volumes worth of sewing wisdom for her mother. I intend to take advantage fully of this feminine tendency of Ada's, being a lover of dresses myself, but by no means a prompter of this creative glitch, uniquely hers. I outgrew my Mothers good taste when I was about 12 and ever since have been trying to master the art of figuring out how to make whatever it is I want with dollar-a-yard fabric and no zippers, buttons, or any special stitches or feet. Sometimes I feel bad for her because she doesn't have a Mother who will teach her the wiles of womanhood. I paint my nails about once a year. I love to wear dresses with tennis shoes, I brush my hair about once a month. That's not to say I don't look in the mirror, but using a brush for more than my teeth is definitely not in my daily routine. (Actually Ariel gave Ada and I an assortment of brushes for Christmas because we didn't have any, anymore...)

My favorite part about when Ada wears a dress is the look on her face just after she finishes putting it on. As soon as it registers in her mind that she is wearing a dress A hazed almost drugged look floods her eyes as she focuses on some image in her mind of I wish I knew what and where...Sometimes she spreads her fingers out and runs them down the length of the skirt until her fingers no longer reach and then flips them out and twirls. Often she wanders around in a daze or just sits there for a few minutes and it's useless to talk to her because she is in a very far away place. Only when you clap in front of her face or catch her eye with something flashy and pretty does she look at you and giggle, not because she has been woken into this reality, but because you have suddenly become part of what she is imagining.


Last night we came home from a party where Ada's coat mysteriously disappeared, much to my annoyance. It wasn't very cold and wrapping my scarf around her neck was plenty to send her out into the air. When we arrived Ada and Nahuel ran off like they usually do to play their game of making Mama or Papa carry them into the house, stopping at the grapevine angel choir that lights up our house for the holidays. Ada said that the angels were cold and started to take off the scarf and wrap it around the neck of the angel at the front. At which time I ran inside to grab the camera and arrived just as she was putting the finishing touch on the scarf wrap.

I might add my children are obsessed with yard art. It if were up to them we'd have pinwheels and wishing wells and little statues of people all over. But alas I have not yet come to that place in my life, though I don't doubt that I will.  After the scarf was in place Ada stood and surveyed the scene and then walked up to the scarved figure and kissed the lighted being, walked to each one in turn, kissing them as well.

Some people are Huggers, some people prefer a good handshake at arms length and others a slight nod.  My Son is going through an identity crisis and is still figuring out what he is, but the rest of us here, we're Kissers.  It's one of the parts of Ariel's culture that I love most. Warm and inviting. When you walk into a gathering no matter how large or small, it's customary to walk around to each individual and kiss them a hello. It's a custom that breaks the ice, helps you to meat new people. After all, if you're in the same gathering, you must have something in common and there's an unconscious part of it that is validating. Obviously if I'm clean, good, pretty, human, enough to be kissed then I'm doing something right. I've mostly learned where to kiss and where not to kiss, but sometimes I go into kissing mode and kiss people that most definitely don't understand why I would do such a thing. Of course it's not necessarily a real kiss and my lips don't necessarily actually touch your cheek or any other part of your skin. It's a greeting that is cherished in hundreds of cultures around the globe and I feel that it helps people feel more connected. Once you've kissed someone there's no going back. It doesn't matter whether you are the same or agree or even like each other, you can deal with each other on civil terms.

Language is a key topic in our household, not just because my kids are learning what it is, but because we have a bilingual home and both languages are constantly growing and taking shape in one or the other of Ariel and I. Because of this Ada, though three, doesn't talk very much. Actually I don't know very many other three year old children very well. Maybe they don't talk very much either, but Ada is smart enough in every other way that I'm not worried about how she'll grasp it or when. She understands completely every word in both languages, she just doesn't say all of them yet. However with every other way of communicating Ada is a master.

All of these things combined make this figurative moment very important in how I view Ada and Nahuel and Mothering them in this place in our lives. Imaginative, sensitive to others needs, affectionate, playful. I can't claim to have researched every part of every stage of development that my kids will ever go through. All I know is that they are unique and beautiful. I believe that the nature of being human contains a self-propelled need to grow and change; experiment until you get something right and then move on to the next stage. I feel, in very simplified terms, that if I feed the need they'll make their own choices about what makes them happy and what they need to learn and will be at a great advantage having figured out how to learn early in life, something that I'm still figuring out.

I guess in a way this is my New Years resolution. In the last year I've been too distracted from what changes my kids are making. They are at a critical stage in their figuring out how to be people. Along with dog training and personal training and expanding my gardening skills and area are my kids. One important goal as I go into a new phase of Motherhood is to come up with a solid yet flexible plan to help my children to learn who they are, including reading and writing and enjoying simple things that will form them into anything but simple.

Happy New Year!

Me Eats + Three

Sort of the point in this whole red neck blog is that I've never really known whether something I do fits with what is expected of one human by another. I don't necessarily want it to fit and I don't necessarily want to know if it does. And so my life is just one big awkward human moment, I just try to enjoy it. But there are some things that are common to all of us humans. We all, for one, eat. But what we eat and why we eat it, that comes from innumerable places as we go our merry way on this planet. It differentiates us and it defines us. I don't feel fully qualified to say much regarding the ethics of food. But Michael Pollen sums it up pretty well in The Omnivores Dilemma and In Defense of Food. I've never been extremely concerned about the health factors either. It seems pretty simple as long as I am eating real food (again, refer to above links). We all have our special ways of going about this human act, but my kitchen is my own and I am on a quest to find a happy balance for my family and, like I always tell Ariel, make sure we live to be one-hundred-and-eleven. 

With myself, two kids, and an Argentine, food at our house is a constantly changing adventure. Not because we are trying dangerous and daring things, but because you just never know what to expect. One day Ada's favorite food is corn chips, the next she won't touch them...that's life with a three year old. I've pretty much stopped planning meals around what they will and will NOT eat because, well I love to cook, and every time I make something specifically for THEM and something about it isn't JUST right (pretty much every time) it's like a cold wet blanket in the middle of January. But I do want to make things that they LIKE and I want to make things that will teach them what food actually IS (Wonder Bread NOT being included in this category). Since I've stopped trying so hard to please them and just focused on making good food, it seems like they've eaten more and better.

Food at our house is also an ongoing test in the human ability to adapt. We have two entirely different food cultures that we are meshing. I guess that could be true in any household. Having an Argentine in the house, there's pretty much no way we could ever go vegan or vegetarian. But I must give my carnivore a little credit (actually, alot) for the ways in which he's adapted. We usually eat meat once or twice a week, and very rarely red. In 'his' country, they eat red meat once or twice a day and fluffy white bread is the only kind of bread unless you happen to be diabetic or have high cholesterol. Some time I'll blog about a traditional Argentine Asado. It'd be worth the risk of disgusting most of the people who read my blog.

For all of the adaptation Ariel has endured, there are a lot of things we elect to do the Argentine way. For their love of meat, they use their vegetables very creatively and frequently. No meal is complete without a salad of greens, simple or complex. Rarely served with a bottle of salad dressing, rather some variation of vinegar and oil. Yams are eaten savory, with herbs, in stews and purees, not with marshmallows on top. Coming from the land of high fructose corn syrup, Argentine food to me is about cleansing your taste buds and filling them with simple goodness. In the beginning of our marriage, learning to cook for him was a labor of Love. In our first little apartment (which I was afraid to leave for fear of being mugged) I basically spent five months experimenting with six ingredients (literally that's ALL I did). Simply potatoes, garlic, white flour, onions, eggplant, and eggs I stole from my mother in law's chickens (Yes Lucia, it was me).  I bought cheap vegetables when I could, but for the most part that was it...until my Mom came to visit. She can attest to the fact that it WAS a pretty bland diet. When she came down for my wedding, she brought with her peanut butter and for the first (and last) time in my life I enjoyed 'American cheese'. It was nice because it didn't need a refrigerator and we didn't have one anyway. We were VERY poor.  The art of simple food arose out of necessity, but I have always had kind of an obsession with making something out of nothing. Many of those somethings have turned into very disastrous, inedible substances (each specific awkward instance is recorded very well on the walls of my brain and if you remember one of them yourself, I've probably retold the story laughing my guts out, more than once), but I keep experimenting. Cooking for my family still is a labor of love, though toned down and quite a bit less romantic with two kids.

Argentines follow a strong Italian tradition. Going beyond the ingredients, it means taking the time to cook and then, the time to enjoy food together. One of the ways we do things 'Argentine' style is that we eat 'Almuerzo' instead of dinner. Almuerzo is at the same time as lunch, though not to be compared in any other way. It means we spend a fair portion of time together in the middle of the day. A huge part of Argentine culture is about just enjoying one another's company over a meal, and 'Almuerzo' is always followed by drinking yerba mate unless there is something of THIS world that keeps us from it.  It is, in effect, ingested group therapy. If you are ever invited to drink yerba mate with us, it's only because we value you and want to validate you as a human being. That just what we do when we drink mate. That's not to say that there won't be a healthy share of brutal honesty along with a good amount of political discussion, also unavoidable parts of Argentine culture, but mostly, it's about talking. I attribute drinking mate with Ariel to why we are such good friends, because we are very different creatures. But taking the time, brings us back to the same place every day, together. It's also important that we spend time together with the kids. They drink mate too. But it's not about the mate, its about learning how to communicate and value each other. And this way they don't starve to death if they didn't like what we ate for almuerzo.

My biggest challenge with feeding my family (Argentine included) is teaching my kids about food. Though every day I doubt whether I am capable, I WILL teach my children that green food is good and that food is about people not just what you do and don't put in your mouth. So there you have it. That is part of the food culture at OUR house. I would love to hear about YOUR food culture. Why do you do things the way you do?