This was a long weekend for us. And Dave and I took a few days-off to extend it even longer. For the first part of the weekend we were in Western Massachusetts where we rented a house with our friends, Caitlin and Kyle.

We spent a lot of down time in the house playing chess with Andrew, reading books with Isaac, cooking, lighting fires in the fireplace, playing Boggle and sleeping.

On Saturday we went tubing at a nearby ski-lodge…on man-made snow (this year has had pretty disappointing snowfall accumulation for the snow-lovers among us)…but man-made or not, it was pretty fun.

On Sunday we went to Mass MOCA (the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art).

I had heard that it was relatively kid-friendly as far as art museums go and I was pretty excited to see it. It did not disappoint.

Mass MOCA is housed in a renovated factory with large, open rooms. Isaac was really, really taken with these geometric wall paintings. He would stand in front of one and say solemnly, “circle.” or “triangle.” It was super, super cute.

Andrew was more taken with the map of the musuem, it’s hidden-passage-layout-feel and the multi-media exhibits.

I took that photo about a minute before Andrew got yelled at by security for picking up one of the glass stars. I was standing right there and still he managed to pick up the art. Live and learn, I guess. And never take your eyes off Andrew in an art museum…even if to look at the art. ;)

Then yesterday we went to an indoor water park.  Which was pretty fun.

It was great to have a few days off and put together this make-shift vacation. The boys still have the rest of the week off, but Dave and I both have to work a few days here and there. I’m hoping we can get some REST in before regular life starts up again on Monday.

Fingers crossed. :)

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I like the word swamped. Sometimes I like feeling swamped. I have been swamped this week…but not in an entirely bad way. I’ve shifted into the harder, more tedious, part of the project I am doing at work (spreadsheets! ack!). I’ve been working HARD. My body aches from staring at my computer screen and maintaining the level of attention needed for this part of the project. I’m exhausted by the time the kids get home…exhausted from sitting in a chair, working at a computer. Wild!

But…it’s not all bad. I have the “I’m doing a good job” feeling. I have the supports I need to make sure its coming together correctly. AND…there is a light at the end of the tunnel that comes TODAY! The boys have their winter break next week and Dave and I have taken some days off to sleep in and play and be lazy all together.

Great, great timing.

Have a lovely weekend! See you next week!

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There is a new *girl* in Andrew’s class. The only girl in his class of six. And, from what I gather, Andrew is quite taken.

His teacher reports that he’s written her “I love you” notes that she brings home in her backpack. Though, I’m pretty sure he’s written “I love you” notes to all of his classmates. He’s not really one to guard his heart at this point.

When I asked him about her, he couldn’t really describe her. But he did tell me “there is no one like her in the whole world.”

And I have a feeling he must be right.

I sent one of these valentine-oatmeal cookies in Andrew’s lunch. He may not be one to guard his heart, but I know he will guard his cookies with everything he’s got.

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

This year I actually sort of feel like a Valentine bum. Usually our apartment is be-dazzled in hearts and I have crafted up a storm of pink goodness to mail out to friends and relations…but this year…it just didn’t happen. What DID happen though, was the boys made some pretty rockin’ valentines.

Andrew decided to make pop-up Valentines. He was VERY particular about what parts of the Valentine would pop up and how it would work. He made 14…which for pop-up, homemade Valentines is A LOT…and he still had to be picky about who he could give them out to.

Isaac stamped hearts and x’s and o’s onto paper which I cut out, and attached a mini-photo-collage, seen below, on the back. There were only enough of these for grandparents. So I had to rig something quick for his classmates.

Here’s more of Andrew’s Valentines:

He used my alphabet stamps to stamp some of the words. This one is for his teacher.

Inside is a little robot holding a heart.

You can see here that the heart and the words are popping up.

And these are for Isaac’s classmates and teachers:

A simple photo collage that I stapled to the back of Winnie-the-Pooh valentines.

And that’s the scoop! Have a lovely, lovely Valentine’s day!

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This was not a glamorous weekend for our family. Usually we set about to make memories and do very-awesome-things. This weekend we slept in, cleaned the apartment and got stuff done.

I got a tripod for Christmas and Andrew loves to set it up. We got it out this weekend and he used it to take a few shots.

He shot snowflakes falling from our back window.

And this very dramatic, artistic depiction of me cutting Isaac’s toenails.

He also spent some time this weekend with one of his kits and started to assemble a remote control car, no wait!, a tram, no! no! a helicopter…and it ended up to not really come together at all.

Isaac watched the snow. “Blue. Snow. Bluesnow.” he said.

We ended up on the beach on Sunday night and ran around for about 20 minutes before the cold sunk in and we headed back to the car to turn up the heat.

Another weekend, come and gone.

And a busy week to come.
Here we go!

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When Andrew started attending the program he’s in, he was the only white student in the school. His school is in an African American neighborhood and the majority of students are African American. There is also a small Chinese population and a dual language Chinese-English program. But as far as students with his racial makeup? He was the lone ranger.

That is no longer the case. There are now a few other white students, and all of them, as far as I can tell, are drawn to that school to attend the program that Andrew is in. The percentages, especially in his class, are shifting, but he is still very much in the minority.

For a long time Andrew never noticed. There are a lot of ways that Andrew doesn’t see basic social groups. Gender, age, race: he has a tenuous grasp on these categories and is only now sorting them out. He still mixes up girls and boys from time to time. He talks to every one, of any age, the same way. 3 year old Tess, his classmates, the little old ladies at my church, have all sat through a thorough explanation of his bey-blades and were encouraged to try out these toys themselves. He has no filter to tell him that the octogenarian he just asked to rip a bey-blade, might not want or be able to. So as he started this program, I knew that race and color wouldn’t come up for a while.

Andrew started talking about skin color last fall. He told me that he wished his skin was more like his best friend’s. He remarked on different people in his life and how they had “black skin”. But his tone at this point was merely observational and nothing more. It was an easy stage. I just affirmed his observations and that was that.

Around Martin Luther King’s birthday, his tone began to change. We talked to him about Martin Luther King at home and he heard about Martin Luther King at school. They watched clips from the famous “I Have A Dream” speech and wrote about “diversity”, “respect” and “dreams”. It was about a week later that Andrew started talking to me about not wanting to play with his best friend anymore. He listed off the kids he didn’t want to play with and told me the one boy he did want to play with and the boy he chose was the only other white boy in the class.

When we talked about it he would talk about the other boys’ black skin but in an off-handed way. The reasons he listed for not wanting to play with them were vague. “Chase is too silly.” “Rashan talks too much.” “I like Tomas because Tomas is quiet.” (Tomas was born in Poland and is the other white boy in his class.) I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. My hunch was that all of the talk about Martin Luther King emphasized the differences in his classmates in a way that made Andrew squirm.

Andrew could have very well been telling the truth. He truly might have wanted a quieter friend to play with, a change in pace, some time to get to know Tomas. What stood out to me though, was that every time Andrew DID mention skin color, I didn’t know what to say. The more he brought it up, the more flummoxed I felt. I had my lines… “we are all different colors”, “diversity is great!” etc, etc, but the more I said them, the more it sounded like a script that just wasn’t helping. He seemed to be processing something and I felt ill-equipped on how to help.

So, I started asking around about it. I find race very, very hard to talk about. I felt embarrassed that this was happening and embarrassed that I didn’t know what to say to Andrew, but I needed to figure out what to do. I talked with a friend who knew someone with years of experience in diversity training. I emailed her our story and she called me the same evening to talk.

She told me a LOT of things that I found extremely helpful. She told me that everyone seeks out people that are similar to them. It’s just a natural part of life. And the more Andrew feels comfortable with who is he, the more comfortable he will be with people that are different from him. She said that is it normal for him to go through phases of seeking out people that look like he does. But that will change and shift and grow. Basically, she said that I have nothing to worry about, she said to keep the lines of communication open and to just keep talking about it.

And so I asked her how. How do I talk about it? How do I talk about it in a way that is meaningful and productive? She told me to avoid value statements. When Andrew told me that he wished his skin was like Chase’s, I said, “I know. Chase has beautiful skin! He’s a cutie pie!” She said instead to just state facts and ask questions. ASK Andrew about Chase’s skin. What does it look like? What color is it? What do you think about that? What color is YOUR skin? Is skin color important? And she said that his answers will change. Sometimes skin color WILL be important to him. Sometimes it won’t be. And all of that is normal. And again, the more comfortable Andrew feels about himself, the easier it will be for him to relate to people that are different than he is.

I decided to add a page about this in my advocacy journal (I changed the names and blurred the faces of his classmates). It felt like an act of advocacy to track this down and learn some skills. Heck, it felt like an act of advocacy to learn what questions I had and to see what I didn’t know. And going through this process was hard and sort of embarrassing, but ultimately really, really good.

His homework one night was to write about diversity and draw how his classmates are diverse. He drew himself with Chase and wrote how Chase loves mozzarella sticks and Andrew loves apples. They both have white shirts. I scanned his paper, shrunk it and added it to the book.

I’m sure this isn’t over and that it could very well get more complex as he gets older. But I feel like I have enough to go on for now. Which feels like sweet relief! :)

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First, let’s talk vegetables. I am happy to report that Isaac has been eating MANY MANY more vegetables. Part of that, is because I’ve been mastering the fine art of sneak-ery. Shredded carrots in his oatmeal. Eggplant dip (baba ghanouj) in his sandwiches. And a blueberry-kale smoothie every day. But, I’ve noticed that since I’ve cracked down on his “I’ll only eats carbs and dairy” nonsense that he’s less picky overall. He’s eating more vegetables on his own without my sneak-ery. A result I’m pretty surprised about.

Next, let’s talk vegetables.

I’ve made red velvet cake before. But it didn’t come out red. It came out the color of my hair: brown, but you can see some red in certain lights. A delicious color, mind you. This weekend I did some red-velvet research and found a recipe and explanation of the history of red velvet cake. Back before loads of food coloring was added, the red was achieved because of a chemical reaction between the type of cocoa that was used and lemon juice. So the recipe I used was fussy about what kind and how much cocoa to use and adamant that you not add baking soda…which would mess up the chemical reaction. She also had you add pureed beets.

It worked. The cake is pretty, red, super moist, and quickly scarfed down when plates of it are placed in front of members of my family. And I’m totally getting a kick out of its veggie punch.

Isaac, see what you’ve started?

Brave enough to try it out? The recipe is here.

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Last fall we went to the Maker Faire with our friends. There were really two stories that stand out to me from that day. One is all the cool gadgets and gizmos that Andrew, Dave and Eric were all into. The other side story was about Tess. She’s just such a warm and loving little munchkin and her persistence to get attention from my boys is endlessly endearing to me.

Anyway, I put this together and I really like it. I like how all the pinks in the paper and the astronaut suit draw attention to Tess in her pink shirt. And the numbers and tickets to the moon and astronaut suit draw attention to the science part of the Maker Faire. Both stories told. Done and done. :)

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This weekend we went to the aquarium. It had been a while and it was really nice to go back.

It was great to watch Isaac’s reaction specifically. The last few times we went to the aquarium I lost him a couple of times and spent our visit chasing him down. But this time he was much more interested in the fish. He could see them and followed them in their tanks and talked to them “hello fish.” Love watching that little guy grow.

It was a great weekend.

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Isaac is a hard one to feed. He is extremely picky about his food and has a very small range of things he’s willing to eat. Days go by when I can’t get one vegetable into that little belly of his. And when I can get a vegetable into him…its usually a pickle…which had me wondering…does that even count?

Well, this past week I decided to take on this niggling issue and face it. The ways I can get Andrew to eat what’s good for him don’t work for Isaac. Isaac can’t be reasoned into it (“Kale will make you run faster! Jump higher!”). He can’t be bribed (“First eat your kale, then you can have a cookie!”)…but I’ve found that there is something that works with Isaac that doesn’t work with Andrew. He can be tricked.

I’ve read about sneaky moms sneaking spinach into cakes and I thought, “that’s silly. Just teach your kid to eat spinach!” But I’ve learned its not always as easy as that. Now, my friends, I AM that sneaky mom.

Isaac eats a lot of yogurt. It’s one of his preferred foods. So, I decided to turn his yogurt into a smoothie. I started making him KALE smoothies! with KALE! HA! I blend a frozen banana, blueberries, coconut milk and several leaves of kale into the consistency of yogurt. It’s become his after school snack. And he loves it.

Well, he didn’t love it at first. It took five days. Five days of making smoothies for him to push away with an annoyed look on his face. But, on day 5, he asked for one! And I was shocked. And thrilled. And now that the smoothie door is open, I feel like I can sneak all kinds of vegetables into his life. And that is some kind of sweet relief.

These kinds of victories don’t really end up being about vegetables for me in the end. They end up being about facing and overcoming a challenge. Problem solving. Finding a system that works so that Isaac can live the best little life possible. Healthy and strong. With kale in his system. All engines GO!

And what does all of this have to do with these muffins, you ask? I’ve shifted my baking to serve a more specific purpose. I mean, we will still have cookies for cookies’ sake. I want things to be fun around here, after all. But, I am working on jam-packing nutritional goodness into more of my baking. These muffins had bran and flax seed meal and walnuts. And Isaac eats them up. And who knows? Maybe I’ll look into that spinach cake and dupe them all. Ha!

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