Evie: “If I was in charge of this house, there’d be candy everywhere.”
Me, reading a sign on the side of the highway: “Free house, you move it.”
Sara: “I’ve been LOOKING for a free house to move!!”
Evie: “Daddy, did you have your ear pierced?”
Me: “Yes, a long time ago.”
Evie: “Is that why you married him?”
Sara: “Yes, that’s exactly why.”
Me: “‘Your Highness’ is usually what you say to kings.”
Ollie: “I can see your highness.”
Oh, snap.
I am at the bottom of a big black hole of parenting badness lately.
I have been losing my cool multiple times a day for weeks on end. 0 patience, end of my rope, etc. etc. etc. I am not being the parent I want to be.
Logically I can look at the situation and say, “All of this is typical behavior for their ages. This will pass and they really are good kids.” However, illogically I have two little tyrants who know every possible little way to get under my skin and no ability or desire to restrain their use of said irritating power. Every possible minute of the day is a power struggle; from getting them dressed, to getting out the door, to picking things up, to any other possible required action. All of this on top of a heaping helping of constant meltdowns and you have a recipe for disaster.
Each of them have their own fun little twists. Oliver is in a “no!” phase, as well as an “I didn’t do it!” phase. He’s also emotionally raw, with his heart on his sleeve and ready to sob at a moment’s notice. I think this last is part of just going through one of those phases where he feels like he’s having trouble expressing himself properly, or he’s not understanding why he can’t get/do whatever he wants. So I think he’s feeling a lot of frustration and not knowing exactly what to do with it.
For Evie’s part, she’s going through a phase where she feels like the queen of the world (well, she’s kind of always going through that phase, but it’s a little more right now). It’s like she’s just realizing how much power and control she has and just reveling in it. This is both power over her brother (usually physical power in the form of violence of some kind) and power over her parents (usually in refusing to do what we want her to do, especially if it prevents us from doing something, like going to the store).
Of course, when the two of them get together, it’s multiplicative. And with all this summer we keep having, they’ve been spending a LOT of time together. Always in the past, only one of them has gone through a difficult phase at a time, which is apparently within my grasp as a parent. Two at the same time is apparently not.
Parental authority relies on an elaborate series of bluffs. As soon as one of the children starts calling you on those bluffs, you both quickly realize that you have practically no leverage over them. We really can’t MAKE the children do anything. We try, oh do we try, but actually what do you do?
I make a lot of threats, which I absolutely HATE and always try to follow through on, but the problem is even with the follow through, the threats just don’t work. There’s nothing that we can threaten with. Our children already live a practically monastic existence to begin with; no tv, as minimal possessions as possible, no junk food, etc. We accidentally made our lives very difficult by already removing anything we could possibly use as a threat. And we’re very averse to using food as either a punishment or reward if at all possible (enough food and body issues in this world as it is).
So often I resort to “making” them do something, which is ultimately “defeating” them physically and not something I would like to set a precedent for. I would much rather reward than punish, but that’s not really helpful in the middle of a confrontation. It is very difficult to out-maneuver Evie, because she is so quick and perceptive. I feel like I’m stuck in a maze where every turn is wrong and every choice is a dead end!
Sara: “Just remember that you’re smarter than her. Er, well…at least you have more experience than her.”
Starting today we have a new strategy: Evie gets a sticker each day that she’s “good”. If she gets 5 in a week, one of her parents will spend a little special time with her (i.e. play a game or read a book). If she gets 6 stickers in a week, she gets to pick the parent (i.e Sara). Hopefully this will be rewarding (get it? rewarding?) for everyone and help us get through until she grows out of her current difficult state, rather than just turning into one more thing to threaten her with. For now it’s just Evie; Oliver’s a little young for that, but he’s a little easier to manage when he gets in an obstinate mood (basically you just have to distract him for 20 seconds or find the right way to word it, and he’s putty in your hands).
I’m hoping it will be enough to break me out of my parenting funk and get back to where I’d like to be.
::Evie and Ollie sharing a bed::
Evie: “Haaaay, you’re taking all the blankets!”
Ollie, whining: “Evie called me ‘Aaaaa’!”
::Evie walking out of the tent::
Sara: “Hey Evie, you have to zip the tent up!”
Evie, bursting into tears: “Why do I have to do everything?”
Teenager already? That sure went fast.
Me: “She said, ‘So-and-so told me I need to get over there.'”
Evie: “Is ‘so-and-so’ a common name?”
The first Friday of the month is reserved for recipes. You can see additional First Friday Food posts here.
I like scones as much as the next guy, but I have to be honest: pastry blenders kind of scare me. Well, it’s not so much that they scare me, it’s just that nothing I do with a pastry blender seems to turn out right. Too complicated to chop butter, too bulky to use as brass knuckles. What’s a boy to do?
So when I came across this recipe that does not use butter, I knew it was a match made in heaven. (Before you get too excited, it more than makes up for that in heavy cream, so you’re not exactly getting away with anything) (Except using a pastry blender)
The recipe calls for strawberries, so we tried that first and it is as good as advertised. However, we have been making this recipe with any kind of fruit we can get our hands on, strawberries, blueberries, and even scavenged mulberries.
It turns out that Chicago is absolutely crawling with mulberries, if you know where to look. In fact, even if you don’t know where to look, you can’t help but stumble upon them. Literally! Because they make the most god-awful, bird-dropping-looking mess all over the sidewalk or your car if you are unlucky enough to park under one.
It turns out we have not one but TWO excellent locations for scavenging mulberries right next to our house; the sidewalk outside of the YMCA and the grass lot surrounding the abandoned fire station. And nobody seems to mind one bit if you steal them.
Evie: “What does that sign say?”
Sara: “No trespassing, violators will be prosecuted.”
That’s right, ILLEGAL mulberries. That’s just how we roll around here. “Kids, it’s okay to ignore the law, as long as it results in delicious scones. Remember that.”
What a pain mulberries are! They are the most stain-y things on god’s green earth, and if you work with them you just have to commit to purple hands for the rest of the day. The first time I actually took all the little stems off, but I will never do THAT again, thank you very much. I couldn’t tell one bit of difference between the scones where I took them off and the ones where I didn’t. So there’s 30 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
I dare you to say to my face that you didn’t like these. Double-dog dare. We CAN NOT stop making them. They are a little moist and a little sweet and a lot wonderful. I would eat them every day. I would force my kids to illegally break and enter on public property to get at the ingredients if I had to.
And don’t forget the most important ingredient: a pinch of photobomb
Recipe (*very* slightly adapted) from West of the Loop.
Evie planned out pretty much every aspect of the day, up to and including picking out which colors of candles she wanted and how they should be arranged. She selected pancakes for breakfast, popcorn for lunch, and (her favorite) saffron zucchini couscous for supper. Finally, we will end the day with a “movie night”; Evie has selected Annie, which she has been dying to see for a long time.
Happy birthday to my always colorful girl!
Shane Halbach 