The Good Country Wife

If my husband had known moving out to the country would cause me to cook more, we would have moved out here the day after we were married. Cindalicuous says “Just because she moves out the country for five days she thinks she knows about cooking.”  

Well that’s what women who live in the country should know about right? So I am going to make myself and expert on it.

My knowledge of cooking is amateur at best. In the year and few months that I’ve been married my husband has continually ask me, “When are you going to learn how to cook?” I like and self respecting woman, responded the same every time. “I DO KNOW HOW TO COOK!” This was followed by a doubtful look on his part.

Part the issue of both of these comments is one; I do know how to cook. Two, I don’t know how to cook a lot of ‘black’ foods. Collard greens, grits, ham hocks? The first time I truly knew what those foods tasted like was under my husband’s tutelage. The flips side of this; I have caught the hubby measuring the ingredients for Kraft macaroni and cheese. Who does that? Someone who had never made boxed macaroni and cheese before he met me. EVER. Shocking.

Here is where our culinary worlds collide. Me, I have the basic skills. Give me any recipe; I can follow it pretty well. Everything created is edible. Him, if it doesn’t have to do with meat and potatoes, with a few added veggies, he’s not cooking. He’s probably not eating either. Snacks are the only meal where meat is not included.  What a carnivore.

But there are amazing creations that come out of our differences. Like Italian salad with steak and spinach. Delicious. What about double dipped Smokehouse Maple Chicken strips? Yummy. 

Tonight’s dinner menu was apple and sage pork chops, honey acorn squash and apple dumplings. Impressive huh!? Cue the clapping.

If you saw how I went about cooking you wouldn’t be so impressed. My rolling pin was a can of Pam, I almost seared my foot while switching the pans for the dumplings, and EVERY counter was covered in cooking apparatus. I did take a moment to show the hubby a proper cooking clean-up routine.

Me:“Hey baby come look at this.” 

Him: “What?”

Me, while wiping down counters and loading the dish washer: “This is how it’s done, cleaning the kitchen while your food is finishing.”

Him: ‘Yeah. You’re a toolbag.” (Or something along those lines. Football was on so he didn’t pause long enough to see the beauty of the kitchen.)

That’s what I get for being the good country wife. Supper was splendid. Desert was scrumptious. He’ll thank me later.

There's just somethings mom's can't teach

My son is horribly pissed at me. He’s on his belly on the floor and a tempting toy is about three inches from his out-stretched hand. He’s supposed to be learning how to roll over. At five months he has showed no interest in this activity.

I am devastated. Everyone tells me “it usually takes boys longer to get this skill than girls.”

BS. If I haven’t stated it before, my son is a baby genius in the making. Not only did he take to breast feeding like a pro, he gained weight within days of his birth, and oh yeah, he held is head up by himself twenty-hour hours after he was born. By six weeks his leg muscles were so strong I was proudly proclaiming he was going to walk before he would crawl. I didn’t know how true that really was.

Now he is on the floor in the middle of his lesson. At first it was all fun and games. Screeching he would kick and then look up at me smiling. The novelty of it wore off when Elmo was placed right out of reach. That was too cool of a toy not to have. The screeching turned hollering and tears.

Now, the common advice I have gotten from everyone is to let him scream himself into rolling over. Once he rolls over, crawling will be easy. Fat chance. 360 degrees later his ‘mom give me that toy’ cry turned into ‘mom I am tired’ cry in seven minutes and I am calling this session a partial success.

All the while I am blogging feeling like a horrible mother. Not only am I ignoring the pleading cries of my infant son, but I am using him to generate followers on my Twitter page.

Two seconds later he’s cuddling in my arms falling asleep. There are just some things you can’t teach.

Organization is not everything…it just helps

The four reasons why organization is key (in no necessary order):

1)      Organizing everything wears you out, which hopefully knocks you out (per no interruptions) for the night.

2)      It relieves stress.

3)      It grants a woman with the satisfaction that she has control of this minute moment in time and space. Tomorrow she will do it all again.

4)      When anyone (child, husband, mother, etc.) asks where something is, she doesn’t have to go and find it, she can tell them where it is. One of the greatest multi-tasking tools ever!

The one reason why women give up on organization:

1)      We are gluttons for punishment and drinkers of guilt. We think everything deserves 100% of our attention when in reality most things deserve less than 50%. We are nurtured to be perfectionists, while inside we are chaos and consider ourselves failures because our home décor consist of strewn clothes, toys to trip over and unwashed dishes. 

The one remedy for this is: Remember a child’s memories are not made up of perfectly matched outfits and immaculate appearances. They are made up dancing in the rain, splashing in mud puddles, and being tickled until you pee you pants. That a husbands needs are met when you have a moment for a hug or a kiss, the time to listen to his bad day, and the strength to help him build is dreams.  

A woman can be satisfied on the love of her family and the knowledge of herself worth. Add the grace of God in and she is set for life. We may not be perfect and lack in major organization skills, but we make up for it in our genuine efforts to make the best of every situation.

So, on those days when organization refuses to be nice and has become your life time nemesis, stop worrying about it and create a lasting memory with you family.

She Beats Me

“She beats me.”

My husband mentions this to the cashier in passing. I roll my eyes and respond by looking apologetic.

“He’s joking,” I resolve to hit him later as we walk out the store.

“See! I was telling the truth!” Not a tear in his eye, wielding the widest smile ever. He’ll be ok.

My husband’s humor is why I was drawn to him in the first place. Some days it’s the reason I refuse to talk to him. Tonight is the exception, he is on a roll and I am talking crazy right back.  

“I don’t think I’ve given you the right to speak.” I smack him in the belly and laugh as he yells “Why are you hitting me?!”

“She beats me.” I reply. He had conveniently told one of my co-workers this today. I’ve decided to do just that every time he says an off-the-wall comment. 

“You know spousal abuse is the number one reason marriages end in divorce.” Smack. He yells again.This has honestly been going on since he got home. Then we decide to make breakfast for supper at nine thirty at night.

“You better not let the eggs get brown; if you do I’ll have to beat you!” 

“Riiiigght,” Is my response. He rules me with an iron fist and teddy bear hugs; the latter is why I am not close to being frightened. 

To be honest, he never has me frightened. Mostly because he’s my rock, my teddy bear, the one person who lets me rant and nag and still loves me afterward more than he did before. I know he won’t admit it, but I know it’s true. Because he knows me that well, so well that he knows when I buy him something to eat for work there will be a huge bite taken out of it. So well that before I open my mouth to nag he says “before you start biting my head of…” Insert any defense, ridiculous or not, under the sun. I have learned to fire right back at him. 

“You should stop giving me quotes to fuel my blog with.” 

He snorts. “This is not going on your blog.”

“Yeah, that’s what you think.”

“Yeah you do just want to portray me as a fool.”

“No, you are seriously funny,” I am trying to make him feel good about it. He says I never listen to him; in this case he is right. I will still quote him. Funny means more reads, besides the girls love it.  I tell him this.

“Well, you shouldn’t do that then, if you want to keep me.”

What? This one is definitely come from his huge kettle of BS. 

“Why is this?”

“Well, they will all fall in love with me,” The explanation when further and in more detail about how this whole scenario would work, but I have vowed to keep the overly explicit quotes out. Personal preference, but I wouldn’t want to jinx my marriage.

“Yeah, but you love and are married to me.”

“Yeah, will see what happens after you post your blog.” Geez…what at SA, gotta love him anyway.

Amazing Fall Days

Life is crazy now, but some days are slow and relaxing. Yesterday was one of those days.

In a lucky stroke of fate I have two week days off. Darren and I were able to spend the whole day together, I felt like a true stay-at-home mom. I loved every minute of it, even though Darren screamed my ears off. Not that he was upset or anything. He just likes screaming.

Me, I felt quite domesticated to be honest. I did laundry, cleaned, pretended I was a race car, fed my strapping boy those vegetables he despises, talked baby talk, probably asked my strapping boy why he was screaming one hundred times (he replied by screaming), pretended to be a soft pillow, watched Cesar Millan do his amazing animal thing, folded the four baskets of clean clothes I’ve been avoiding for a week and a half, took some amazing fall baby photos, danced in the kitchen with before mentioned little boy giggling his head off to Taylor Swift, accused my strapping boy of purposely blowing out his diaper so he didn’t have to take a nap ( it was the prunes to be truthful),cooked supper consisting of meat, vegetables, and a side plus dessert. Not bad if I do say so myself.

The whole experience brings tears to my eyes. Motherhood is the blessing I didn’t think I would be experiencing at the age of twenty-three and today made me appreciate my role more. Nothing can take back the moments that melt your heart. Like Darren stroking my cheek until he fell asleep in my arms, or discovering his sense of humor. Like him throwing all his toys from his walker then screaming for my attention and laughing when I mimic his scream.  

Then his daddy gets home and I could hardly keep it together. It was too picturesque for my emotions. I was wiping tears away as I watched my hubby playing with his little boy. Sigh give a man a baby and it makes him irresistible.

But enough of the sappy stuff, here are the best pics of today.

The Black Phenomena

So I am doing an interview on Wednesday. I’ll be talking about race. This should be interesting.

For all of you that know me, ‘race’ is a tongue-in-cheek topic to me. They say age is nothin’ but a number, well, that’s how I view this whole race topic. It’s nothin’ but a color, stereotype, or category that makes people more noticeable to the general public.

 I play into the stereotypes all the time, while at the same time despising them. Because this is what I’ve found out; everyone is still going feel a little out a sorts when they meet me. Whichever stereotype they’ve placed (white or black) me in tends to be wrong.  My first experience with this came my senior year in high school.

I had to go into foster care for two months (another story all together) and my foster mom’s uncle called from California.

“Hi Unlce John.”

“I thought Katie said you were black.”

“I am.”

“You don’t sound black at all.”

Growing up in southern Minnesota for the majority of my life, I had no idea that I was suppose to ‘sound’ different. I mean come on; I was one of seven to eight African American students in my high school in a four year time span. Two of those seven were my brothers. That’s not much to go off of.

Fast forward to my first year of college, my first encounter with other ‘blacks’. I was continuously accused of ‘acting’ white. This left me scratching my head. They knew my background. Adopted in to a white family at birth, lived in rural communities for all but five years of my eighteen years.  Honestly, you would expect a cat to go feral if it lived in the wild that long. They adapt to their surroundings. This applies to humans too.

Not when you’re black. You’re born with the ‘knowledge of blackness.’ What that means is still beyond my comprehension, but my husband prays there is still hope for me. This is in general what I know about the ‘knowledge of blackness.’

#1 All black people love chicken, ribs and grilling.

#2 All black people have some sense of rhythm. 

#3 All black people know Ebonics. (if you don’t know what that is look it up, I had to to remember what it was called.)

 

#4 All black people are known to be right on time, fashionably late, or late.

#5 If you haven't seen Boyz n' the Hood or any of the Friday movies it's a major failing.

I know my general knowledge of this topic is limited and vague, but check with your local African American (not me) for a more accurate explanation.

What I am getting at is, being black has these weird cultural/social norms that are expected to be inherited at birth. Don’t worry though; the way I grew up has the tendencies too, like: you need to be extra early to everything, or you need to know everyone’s business, or you may not know how to dance, but you sure know how to party.

What do you do when all these cultural norms start seeping out of their boundaries? You sit back and laugh. Because when a sheriff walks into your parents house and then asks your dad (who is white) if he and your mom do foster care (which they don’t), that’s funny. When you do a family picture and all the black people wear white and all the white people wear black, that’s funny. When your friends (who are white) decide to name your unborn child Tavante, that’s hilarious.

And laughter blurs all that seepage together until it doesn’t make a difference. 

Because when it comes down to it, it’s nothin’ but a color and I can only be me.

Working Mommy Woes

It’s five-twenty in the morning. I am literally wiping sleep (in the form of eye boogers) from my eyes as I flick on my high beams to cut through the darkness of early morning. On four and a half hours of sleep I am more than reluctant to work an eight hour shift.

Is this really worth it? My son is five months and every morning at this same time I ask myself this question. Most days the answer is no.  But I am a working mommy.  If I had my choice I would be a work-from-home mommy; the term stay-at-home doesn’t fit me, I always have to be doing something.

Even so, the next eight hours seem like a mountain worth of time, especially, when my eight hours usually turns into ten hours or more.

It sucks. 

At the end of my shift I am always ready to go. I plot the minutes in my head and predict the exact time I’ll lay eyes on my little man. As I run the various errands I keep thinking of the last eight hours and what I missed. I feel guilty.

Finding Darren’s second ticklish spot.

Not being able to comfort him because he has a potential ear infection and is still getting over a weekend cold.

Is this really worth it?

It would be easier if I knew for sure that he misses me while I am not with him. Stupid right? He’s a baby all I should be worried about is that he is safe and happy. But I want him to miss me. I want him to be fussy, not because he his constipated, but because his is pinning for his mama.

But no, my son is the chillist of all chill babies. He’s eternally happy (if he’s not hungry or tired or sick), especially if all the little girls are there talking and playing with him. 

Until I walk (run) into daycare.

 

“Where’s my little man?”

He’s looking at me from his care giver’s arms

He starts frantically flapping his arms.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHAAAAAAA.” There’s a huge smile on his face. 

He leans out for me to hold him. Once he is in my arms he goes into cuddle mode. Snuggling in to my shoulder he immediately starts mouthing it.

“Ah Ah Ah Ah,” mouth wide he rubs back and forth, sits back and squeals, flaps, and cuddles some more.

My heart melts.

Is it worth it? At that one moment of my-mommy-is-here! reaction. 

Yeah, it’s definitely worth it.