Month: August 2019

12 Years, 178 Days to Go

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Our town starts school the week before Labor Day, then gives everyone the Friday before Labor Day off, so kids have exactly two (2) days of school in the first week. I like this for kindergarten because it lets us all ease into the routine–it gives two (2) days in the first week to take care of all the administrative work, like labeling stuff and teaching kids the very basics of school life, and then the second week is still short so they aren’t too tired, and likely the real intense stuff doesn’t really pick up until the third week, which starts this coming Tuesday.

But one way or another, school started this week, and it was quite an experience.

Monday afternoon, Kyle and I took Sam in for an open house at the school so that we could drop off his supplies, meet his teacher, get him familiar with the school overall, and ease into everything. Sam’s classroom is ENORMOUS, like about the size of our entire downstairs (minus the dining room). There’s a typical desk and learning space, carpet in front of whiteboard, a play corner, a table with bouncy ball chairs around it, an entire nook for the teacher… it’s amazing. I’m sure most kindergarten classrooms are sizeable (when I remarked on its size to my mom, who taught kindergarten for a few years, she seemed nonplussed), but it still kind of blew my mind. 

What blew Sam’s mind–eventually–was seeing his best friend Hunter there. The two of them warmed up to each other kind of slowly at first, for reasons that Hunter’s parents, Kyle, and I couldn’t figure out (weird new environment? They haven’t seen each other since June? Some sort of kid code? Who knows?), but once they realized that (a) oh that’s you, and (b) we are still best friends, they started frolicking about VERY happily, around the auditorium, on the school bus they had for the kids to explore, all over. It was pretty great and set a positive tone for the first day on Wednesday.

Now, granted, that great and positive tone didn’t show up again for most of Wednesday morning, but who’s counting?

That’s not completely true. The great and positive tone showed up again more quickly than it probably could have, but it was kind of like pulling teeth to get it there. Sam’s my first baby, so I went a little overboard on all the “first day of school” photo supplies, like an oversized shirt that says “CLASS OF 2032” like I’d seen in a friend’s first day of school pictures of her sons and then one of those chalkboards talking about all of Sam’s favorite things and such. I 100% did not need to do all of that, but I like celebrating my kid, and I really want to get to his senior year of high school and have these great collections of photos to look back on.

So Wednesday morning. We all got up at 6:30ish because everyone slept kind of miserably for reasons we haven’t figured out, and I used the #momprivilege card to call dibs on the shower because I’d be the one dropping Sam off that morning, and I didn’t want to look like I was heading right back to the house to spend the rest of the day in my pajamas (even though I was, because chasing after twin toddlers is so much easier when you’re in comfy clothes). As I got in the shower, I let Kyle know where Sam’s first day outfit was laid out and asked him to encourage Sam to get dressed as soon as possible. 

So quick shower later, I come downstairs with dripping hair to see Sam, bundled in a blanket and wearing naught but his underwear and a smile while watching Netflix. Cue, therefore, a lot of flipping out because we had to leave in 15 minutes, and I still hadn’t taken a single picture with all the stuff I bought. And look, if I spend money on a photo prop, I am going to use that photo prop. 

We all rushed. Sam got dressed, and then… well, he didn’t want to get his picture taken. 

It’s the duality of the five-year-old. When I’m taking candid shots of his brother and sister being cute, he jumps in the picture with just his underwear, prompting me to say, “IF YOU WANT TO BE IN THE PICTURES, YOU NEED TO PUT SOME CLOTHES ON” in the Scary Mom voice. This has the excellent effect both of allowing me to take pictures of Sam AND stopping him from running about with nothing on. But then when I want to get pictures of him specifically, he’s suddenly hiding from the Momarazzi, like I’m going to sell pictures of him with chocolate on his face to the highest paying tabloid. 

(…would any tabloids like to buy? I’m just saying, we could use some more simoleons to add to the Halloween Costumes fund)

sellingtomillennial

And, of course, because I wanted to take pictures Wednesday morning, Sam would rather have had his teeth pulled out one by one. 

But I did eventually convince him to stand for some pictures by reminding him that the oversized “CLASS OF 2032” t-shirt makes him look like a ghost. So he posed… in our messy living room, which is somewhat like a mausoleum (we have a gorgeous picture window that means we don’t need lights on most of the day, but first thing in the morning, it makes things kind of… you know, dark). 

Whatever. I got the pictures, and he and I shipped off to school. I was in a mild state of panic because we’d left several minutes later than I’d wanted, and we were supposed to meet with Sam’s best friends from preschool for pictures before we went in. I didn’t want us to be late, so I muttered angrily at red lights and moseying farm equipment the entire ten minute drive to the school (ah, the privileges of living in a tiny town). And lo and behold, we got there way too early for us to do anything but wander around the outside of the building like a pair of lost John Travoltas. 

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(I did get a good picture of him in front of the school, though)

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And then the best friends–that’s Hunter and Kaia–and their families arrived, and we all took pictures and watched our kids, now happily in the company of the friends they’ve had since they were just a year old, run off to their classrooms without so much as a reluctant look back. 

And that was that! I’ll admit to having a lump in my throat for the drive home, but then the twins proceeded to keep me so busy that I didn’t even realize the entire day had passed by when my mother knocked on the front door to keep an eye on the twins while I waited for Sam to get off the school bus. 

(I blame the speed of the day also on the return of the Weather Channel to our Verizon cable, because I’m a nerd and eat hurricane coverage up like ice cream)

For Sam’s part, he seemed to have a good first day. He didn’t get into any details about it, so for all I know, they spent the entire time rehearsing to summon the Great Old Ones and bring about the Destruction of Humanity and A New Age of Cleansing or whatever, but I’m pretty sure they mostly just practiced school things.

(I mean, not that eldritch summoning ISN’T a school thing…)

dmdmp

The only problem was that he got home with a backpack that was literally dripping. We’d mistakenly given him a water bottle that he couldn’t close all the way, and as a result, his backpack was absolutely flooded. Worse, it wouldn’t zip one way or another, so as soon as he was in bed and the twins were in bed, I found my bra again and headed out to Target to find us a replacement. The pickings were slim (most were like… mint green with pastel donuts or with a mauve paisley print), but I managed to find him a Jansport backpack with stars on it, and those things last forever, so problem officially solved.

Day two was a little wilder to start, somehow. It was Kyle’s first day doing drop off, and in his haste to leave and Sam’s five-year-old-ness and my having twins on me ness, we all forgot about Sam’s lunchbox. Cue Kyle hurrying back less than ten minutes after leaving and delivering said lunchbox to the office, in the hopes that it would make it safely to Sammy (which it did). But for all that hustle and bustle, Sam didn’t really eat much. He had most of his carrots (weirdly enough), and we think? he had the pepperonis we packed him, but everything else was untouched. 

I get that, though. I never used to really like eating more than a snack at school, saving my appetite until I got home and could make myself some real food. But this stuff has basically been Sam’s lunch since he was about two so ???

Whatever. We’ll figure it out, and now he’s home until Tuesday, currently playing his Kindle quietly while the Weather Channel tells us about hurricanes. Isaac is awake after sleeping for maybe three and a half minutes, but seeming less upset about that fact by the minute, and I can shift my focus to the next thing…

…which is school picture day in less than two weeks. Ha.

idekman

First Day of School Stuffed Cookies

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FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL STUFFED COOKIES
Recipe borrows liberally from Tasty’s recipes for The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies and Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies. Check out the notes below for variations! 

Ingredients
1 ¼ cups bread flour
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking powder
¾ cup white sugar
¾ cup dark brown sugar
1 cup butter, toasted
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 ½ cups chocolate chips
Stuffing (hot fudge, Nutella, peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, caramel), chilled

Directions

  1. Melt one cup (2 sticks) butter and bring to a boil, stirring constantly to ensure an even brown. Once you notice dark flecks in the bottom of the boiling butter, transfer to a liquid measuring cup and allow to sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes. *note: if liquid butter does not reach the 1 cup marker, add water until it reaches that line*
  2. Sift or whisk together flour, kosher salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl. 
  3. Cream cooled butter, white sugar, and dark brown sugar in a large bowl. 
  4. Add vanilla extract and eggs to the large bowl and combine thoroughly. 
  5. Gradually add dry ingredients to the large bowl (about ⅓ at a time), mixing until just combined. 
  6. Fold in 2 cups of chocolate chips and other add-ins. 
  7. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for at least 2 hours (overnight if you’re an A+ student!). 
  8. Preheat oven to 375°F. 
  9. Use 3 oz. ice cream scoop to form large balls of cookie dough. Flatten balls between the palms of your hands and rest on cookie sheet.
  10. Place fillings (about ½ tbsp per cookie) in the center of the cookie and seal cookie dough around the filling. 
  11. Top each cookie with chocolate chips and other toppings.
  12. Bake cookies for 10-13 minutes. Allow to cool 2 minutes on cookie sheet before transferring to cooling rack. 

NOTES:
I use salted butter for my cookie recipe because I really like the contrast of a saltier cookie with sweet chocolate chips (using unsalted butter is a bit too cloying for me), but unsalted butter will work just as well!

I usually only mix standard, semi-sweet chocolate chips into these cookies, but other add-ins can really boost them to a new level! Try any of these: 

  • Chopped dark chocolate. Use a bar of dark chocolate (not bitter chocolate, unless you’re REALLY into that) and give it a rough chop before folding it into your dough alongside the chocolate chips. 
  • Mini chocolate chips. Substitute for about a cup of regular chocolate chips to give some texture contrast to your dough.
  • Espresso powder. Add one tsp after creaming your butter and sugars. 

The possibilities for fillings and toppings are absolutely endless! I tend to stick with just chocolate chips and rainbow sprinkles (to give the cookies a celebratory flair!), but you can top and fill with any number of things! Experiment; that’s what fun in the kitchen is about! 

*

I always hate when I’m looking for a recipe for something and I have to scroll through hours of reading on somebody’s life before I get to the actual recipe. I get that it’s a THING, and I get that it’s all about self-expression, but look. If you’re coming to my blog because you googled “chocolate chip cookie recipe” and this somehow popped up instead of the Food Network or Epicurious or something, here you go. The recipe is at the top, and if you want to read about my life, you can keep going while the cookies bake or something.

67396929_10156380619950592_4343912859269332992_o(they’ll look like this after they bake, for reference)

It’s early August, and Sam is less than three weeks away from starting kindergarten. I’ve got all his supplies here in my office, still sitting in Target bags (more supplies than needed, because I was a bad student and tried to find his supply list online… and the list I found was The Most Wrong, so now I have a bunch of pencils and erasers and things that he’d probably need at some point, just not this year). I’ve got his metaphorical Hogwarts letter with all of the instructions and a little fish with his teacher’s name on it. I know his best friend from daycare is going to be in his class with him. I’ve no idea what bus he’ll be taking home in the afternoons, but if this year’s routes are similar to last year’s, he’ll be getting home a little past three in the afternoon–hopefully while the twins are still napping. 

We’re winding summer down slowly with trips to the beach and company picnics. This past weekend, we packed everyone up in the van and drove up to Hampton Beach in New Hampshire, an experience that fell squarely in the middle of the stressful things scale. On the one hand, Isaac got carsick three separate times during the drive and then had a huge diaper blowout after about two hours on the beach. On the other hand, he, Carrie, and Sam seemed to have a blast despite the sickness. Sam and Kyle built a sandcastle together, and the twins huddled with me under our beach umbrella, experimentally playing with sand and eating Goldfish crackers (and sometimes eating sand, too, because they’re babies). 

It was a typical outing for a family with young children. Kyle and I looked at it as a balanced affair, with frustration that having young kids meant we couldn’t do as much around Hampton as we otherwise would have (they have some great arcades and candy shops, and even though I’m trying to lose weight, I have a hard time turning down a beachside candy shop), relief that things went smoothly aside from Isaac’s bodily fluids, and happiness that it was a good day overall. It lasted just long enough that everyone was happily tired when we got home, not so brief that the hour and a half drive seemed a waste of time, not so long that we were exhausted.

And today was Kyle’s company picnic, at a conference center about 40 minutes from our house. I say “conference center,” which makes it sound like it was some sort of buttoned up meeting space and very dull; really, it was more like a summer camp-slash-carnival, with lawn games and bounce houses and cotton candy and face painting and so on. They had some great typical cook-out food (not quite barbecue–hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken, plus a bunch of sides) and some free ice cream, and all-in-all, it was a nice set-up. 

Trouble was that it was LOUD. This is par for the course at every company event I’ve attended for every company ever. The DJ always has the music turned up to 11, the fans are always going to keep the tents cool, there’s a lot of talking and buzzing and noise. I gather that this isn’t something that bugs most people, but it makes it hard for me to engage with anyone–my brain just won’t filter out unimportant sounds like the conversation way over there, the constant roar of the fan, the faint buzz of some fly that wants my lunch. 

Basically, I spent most of today staring blankly into space and probably looking really strange. 

The times I didn’t spend staring blankly into space were fun. The babies enjoyed their cook-out fare, mostly (good: chicken, corn, pasta salad, hot dogs; bad: bell peppers, zucchini). Sam played in the bounce house and obstacle course until he was too sweaty and exhausted to do much more than whine at us. Kyle and I split a cherry cotton candy, and Sam and I giggled our way through a pair of ice cream sandwiches. The twins were adorable, my hair and lipstick were awesome… it was mostly good.

But I am tired. 

So is Isaac, for that matter. He didn’t nap at all today, which meant that the afternoon following the picnic was flavored with his exhausted sobbing at all points, with him nearly nodding off while standing on my lap and then crying when he realized he wasn’t actually completely asleep. I wish we had a clearer picture of what’s going on with him, if only so that we could plan for days like today, maybe with noise cancelling headphones or with frequent breaks or with one of us staying home with him.

He can’t go for an evaluation most places until he’s 18 months old, which is frustrating. He and Carrie turn 17 months old less than a week from today, but the Early Intervention autism specialist can’t test him until he’s 18 months old, and I really want to go through them because otherwise, wait times for an autism screening are many, many months long. And like I’ve been saying, if it turns out that he’s autistic, I’m not bummed out or even slightly disappointed; it’d be nice to have another brain that works like mine in the house, someone to sympathize with me when everything is just too much. 

BUT I also want him to have better coping skills than I have, and to know from a decently early point if he’s going to need more assistance in any area–if he’s going to be like me and deal with frustratingly heavy executive dysfunction and sensory overload issues; if he’s going to need help communicating with us; what accommodations he’ll need to live a happy and healthy life. And I’d like to know that stuff sooner rather than later. 

Sigh. I don’t know. It’s not a super rough waiting game, because at the end of the day, we’re probably only waiting another month, and the screening centers our service coordinator suggested to us haven’t gotten back to me yet anyway. But it’s still frustrating to have no news whatsoever, not in a good or bad way, just because we’re waiting.

And then there’s Carrie, just running laps past every milestone, perfecting her toddle, adding new words to her vocabulary every day. She’s frustratingly cute; she’ll say ‘uh oh!’ or shake her head while saying ‘mm-mm!’ if she’s caught doing something she shouldn’t be. She has her stuffed Bear that she found after my mom brought some boxes to our house a couple of weeks ago; said Bear is now her constant companion, and between him and her stuffed Ariel doll, she’s constantly on about her favorite little friends. She’s impish and giggly and basically everything you’d want out of a little girl, almost stereotypically so. All she needs are the little pigtails and she’ll be sitting squarely in the “Platonic form of Daughter” box. 

She and Isaac get along better these days than they used to, though they still fight over toys and books and my lap. They give each other kisses pretty frequently, team up to accomplish whatever baby feat they’re working on, hide in their “clubhouse” (which is underneath and behind their high chairs, against the wall), and find each other’s lovies whenever the other is crying (Carrie will actually toddle around calling “Wubba! Wubba!” when Isaac loses his pacifier-slash-Wubbanub; Isaac throws Bear at Carrie whenever she cries). I think that’s my one fear with Isaac having autism; I worry that it will affect their relationship. I don’t think it will, but I want them to be close, or at least as close as they can be. 

But. But but but. 

School starts soon, and there are cookies to bake. Good night.