I'm her mother, not her sister

I was recently out with a friend and her kids. She's got two girls that flank the babes in age. The three of them are great friends. We were eating out and D and I got into a bantering match and my friend burst out, "Oh my gawd, will you two just stop! You're like two siblings bickering!" And then she tried to share a strategy as to how we could calm ourselves down and engage in a respectful way.

Two outstanding recipes

Hi! I am saying these two recipes that I am sharing below are outstanding because they are! I've made them several times for different groups of people and they ALWAYS comment on how delicious these two dishes are! And they are both super easy.

I love...myself!

Yep. Lately, I've really been loving on myself. Might be the laboradorite bracelet I've been wearing...might be because I follow a lot of motivational/affirmation personalities on IG. In any case, this NY Times article found its way into my inbox and as I read it, I thought, "Yes, it felt great the other day when I complimented myself on a job well done."
The other day, I had a packed morning schedule. I had a lunch date with a friend who was recovering from knee surgery so had planned to make some healing soup and bring it to her. Then I also had planned to bring baked goods to the babe's classroom to celebrate her assistant teacher's bday. The back up was just to buy the goods if I ran out of time. But, I got it all done! Woke up in the morning, make brekkie and lunch for the babes and the hubs. Put a pot of beans in the slow cooker. Took the babes to school and started making the soup. While the soup was cooking I made mochi cupcakes for the class. When all was done, I felt like giving myself a high five!

Advocating for others

Hmmm...sigh. I've been meaning to write this post for a while. Seems I can't seem to get online to blog! Shame.

We recently had the opportunity to stay at the Hotel Bel Air. This is a very lovely hotel. Our first time there. The location is tucked away in a residential neighborhood and it's so quiet and peaceful there. I highly recommend it for a staycation.

Boundaries

Our lovely teacher held a Friday circle last week and the topic was "boundaries." We each have personal boundaries and it's respectful not to cross another's boundaries. It's interesting because apparently, my child shared that people touch her hair all the time and though it bothers her sometimes, it's not enough that she would make a fuss.

The culture of silence

This summer, my child got to participate in a vaulting class, which she loved. Vaulting is basically gymnastics on horses. We decided to enroll her in classes at the one she went to over the summer, but first, we took a trial class. At this trial class, the instructor, who is a male made an inappropriate comment, such that we now will not be enrolling her in the class.

Insights gleaned from the playground

D shared with me a conversation she had with some of her friends last week. M was lamenting, "The boys always just hit us or kick us when they play."
T replied, "M! The boys basically just act like we are their toys...we might as well just dress up as toys for Halloween."
Now that struck me as rather insightful. The boys play with the girls as if they were their toys. And does that ever really change? Does the objectifying start then? Thankfully, our girls are not pushovers. The ones that do play with the boys certainly hold their own. The ones who don't, make it known it's because they just aren't interested in being punching bags. All good traits for our girls.
It's really interesting to me how this particular class has such strong girls. Despite the ratio being 14:8 boys: girls, these girls are strong. In games class, the teacher had boys against girls and the girls tied and tied two times and just last week, they actually won! Now that must've been a good feeling. #girlpower

Orangetheory

Have y'all heard of Orangetheory? I discovered it through two separate friends who had been raving about this new fitness studio. One friend lives in Colorado and the other in Seattle and they don't know each other! So, when they both highly recommended this particular workout and I saw that they have some fitness centers out by me, I checked it out.

The picture of the 9/10 year old

We just had our class meeting. I love our class meetings because our teacher always gives us a picture of where our children are developmentally. The 9 year change is a big one - the children start realizing that they are an individual, they recognize mortality. Many will start saying things like, "No one likes me."

Infidelity

Here are my thoughts on infidelity and why our current common response as women doesn't serve anyone or our offspring coming up behind us.
Lately, I've heard a lot about infidelity. You know, husbands cheating on their wives...this seems to be a common scenario:

A motto for my 9-year old

My 9-year-old is getting on my last nerve. She is very privileged and lives a pretty good life. And while I'd hoped that these "privileges" would result in gratitude, it hasn't. I mean, of course, why would it if she hasn't learned what gratitude is? I guess when you're not around poverty or scarcity, how would you compare to learn about gratitude?

Crazy Rich Asians

Crazy Rich Asians debuted last weekend and hit #1 at the box office. We had plans to go camping Thursday through Sunday so we made sure to get to the theater on Wednesday, the opening day of the movie so that we contributed to box office numbers. Apparently, the last major Hollywood picture with an all Asian cast was Joy Luck Club...25 years ago. That was major back then, but this is definitely different!

Home Alone

Every year around August, I get to stay home alone for a weekend. The hubs takes the babes and they go camping with another family. This started as a father daughter thing because one year, the mom of that family couldn't go so I happily stayed home. Consequently, the mother does join them every year and I still, happily, decline.

She laughs at me

First of all, let me just state that it is unacceptable that I have waited so long to post. Tsk! Tsk!
I'll try to be more diligent.
My child, she laughs at me. I've only really lost it, in a sad way twice. Once when the babes was around 4 years old and I had just had it with all her complaining about the food she has to eat, "Ugggh, oatmeal AGAIN" Meanwhile, I can understand if I was feeding her oatmeal every day she would have a reason to complain. But, we don't.

Natural flavors is to food as...

Fragrance/parfum is to beauty/cosmetics! Whaaat? Yes, do not be fooled by the ingredient "natural flavors." That makes me sad, though I am not surprised. Sad because I have sometimes been excited about minimal ingredients in my packaged food and have overlooked the natural flavors as an ingredient that should cause me to pause. Not sure why, I certainly avoid all skincare/beauty products that have fragrance/parfum as an ingredient because they can hide any number of toxic ingredients under that label.

Mothers...motherhood

Gwyneth Paltrow interviews her mother, Blythe Danner on her Goop podcast. This interview brought tears to my eyes because it exemplifies how mothers often feel like they weren't good enough. I felt sad that Blythe diminishes her influence on her daughter, always attributing G's good qualities to her father. We never seem to recognize our gifts as mothers and we really give so much...from the moment we give birth, actually. Am I right?

My mother and myself as mother

Does anyone ever compare their parenting with that of their parents? I don't necessarily think "compare" is actually the word I am looking for. I'm not necessarily comparing my parenting to that of my mother's but I do have flashbacks of what my childhood was like in certain scenarios as I act out something different.

Brown Rice Porridge

Mmmm...I really should've taken a photo of this yummy breakfast dish. I was at a bookstore the other day and happened upon the SQRL cookbook. One recipe that caught my eye was their Brown Rice Porridge. Yum. I did not buy the cookbook but jumped online this morning to find a comparable recipe. The Interwebs is so good like that - you can put in "SQRL brown rice porridge" and it will pull up either that exact thing or something like it - like this one is the one I used. Or like when I entered "In and Out special sauce" and recipe totally comes up. So easy!

Full body gua sha

I just did a full body gua sha and it felt great! A while ago, I attended a wellness panel hosted by Jenni Kayne. The panelists were singing the praises of body brushing aka dry brushing for detox. Truly, they were all saying if there's one thing we should all be doing, it's dry brushing.

The Art of Monotasking

Yes, monotasking, focusing on one task versus multitasking. And it truly is an art.  You mommies know well enough how to multitask. We do it all the time. In fact, I am multitasking right now. I am eating my lunch at typing up this post. Prior to jumping into this post, I checked my emails really quickly since I just finished monotasking so I felt like I needed to catch up on things before jumping into anything else.