He Speaks Superhero

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The Gypsy Mama is hosting Five Minute Friday.

Here are the rules:
We just write. For five minutes flat.

Today’s topic is “I feel the most loved when…”



I hung up the phone rather curtly after I said I love you. I whipped my minivan around the corner, my heart racing, for the last spot in the entire parking lot. Pulling in between those two white lines my soul felt I had just crossed a finish line, outsmarting the luxury vehicle in front of me. I pulled the keys from the ignition, grabbed the stroller already set up, and pounced it on the pavement. It is hard to move three active boys in snow gear, each hauling a backpack, up a long side walk to the front doors.

I was questioned at the front desk about our final destination. Frustrating to be stopped in a hurry. Why couldn't she be efficient as me? Did she not see my son in a swimming cap? Fast and furious we sped past her, sprinting for an elevator that was stuck. So I threw the door open to the stairs, and sent the older two corraling down the flight. I urged the eldest to undress his brother at the pool deck, while I dragged the stroller backward down an entire flight of stairs.

In the lobby of the pool  deck, I finished flying the clothes off my son, down to his swim trunks. Swim lessons in Massachusetts at night with three kids in the dead of Winter? What was I thinking?

Finally. He was in the pool just as the lessons began. I relaxed. I wasn't running anymore. Now, just to manage the wriggling toddler and the chatty first grader, and hold a conversation with the interested mother next to me.

And then I saw him. My heart stopped, and then it sung. Straight from the airport, straight from his delayed flight, in just an oxford shirt, sans winter coat. I announced to the entire pool lobby, "I have just been rescued!!"

I feel most loved when he speaks his love language to me, not mine. Forgetting my sharp goodbye in the parking lot, he came straight to the poolside to lend me his hands. He said not a word, and lifted the wriggling baby from my lap and held him in his arms as he watched the swimming son through the window. Despite my frazzled, broken communication, he showed up.

STOP.

Rescue Mission: Half Birthday Cake

I don't want to disappoint any of you that are new around here. I know I have been blogging a lot lately about food. But I would hardly classify myself as a foodie. It has been freezing in Massachusetts for about a hundred years, and this winter has nearly lasted a millenium. So I have had my oven on a lot!

But there are times my baking becomes a rescue mission. Case in point, this cake.

You know you are foodie if you can tell what happened already. But first, you have to know how this all started. This cake is at least six years in the making. Well, maybe even longer if you count back to my childhood.

Without fail, my mom always made my birthday cakes. She always made my favorite chocolate cake made from meringues. Think deep chocolate, and then dream more chocolate, and trust me, you still haven't daydreamed enough chocolate. I always imagined myself baking my kids' birthday cakes one day, from the days I had an Easy Bake oven. It's the thing about being a girl....about planning out every detail of how to live your life. I imagined baking birthday cakes up until the months before our kids' birthdays. I had romantic ideas of taking cake making and cake decorating classes like my mom, and baking picture perfect cakes that people oohed and ahhhed over.

The truth is, I have been a mom for 6.5 years and I have never, ever made any of my three kids their birthday cakes.  

Confession: I have bought every single one of their cakes for under $20 at my favorite giant wharehouse where I hold a membership. And I have major Mommy guilt about that.

At least I tell the warehouse bakery to leave the cakes white, and blank, apart from Happy Birthday and the kid's name. Then I buy and top the white frosted cake with some impressive large brand new toys, in the kid's party theme, and people ooh and ahh. But they are not actually oohing for the cake. They probably just don't know anyone else that builds toys on top of cakes but me. And plastic toys on top of frosted white cakes does not erase my mommy guilt around homemade cakes.

Recently, my eldest came home from school asking about his Half Birthday, like it was an obvious and recurring event in our home. He asked, and he asked, and he asked some more. I dismissed his questions, hoping he would forget. I knew that if we celebrated his Half Birthday this year, that it would become an undying Farmer family tradition for the next 16+ years, you know, until my youngest turns 18. I may tend to be fatalistic and dramatic about such decisions.

I remembered that a friend makes half a cake for her children's half birthdays. If I was going down this road of Half Birthday family tradition it required me baking and creating the cake myself. In my mind, there was no alternative.

I baked a vanilla cake, Son1's favorite. I cut it in half, and anointed the cake with a rich cream cheese frosting recipe, courtesy of Paula Deen. Then I donned the cake with strawberries. It drives me nuts to eat cakes layered with fresh fruit, and have my dessert be reduced to a sliver of fruit I need glasses to find. So my cake was punchy with strawberries, for sure. I tried to crown the cake with the second vanilla half, over the punchy strawberries, but the crown slid off. I had a solution for that. I shellacked the strawberries with more cream cheese frosting, only to throw myself into a fit of laughter as they slid around. I then crowned the cake with the second vanilla layer and watched punchy strawberries squeeze out the sides of the cake. I shoved them back into the cake and held the crowning vanilla layer down with two wooden skewers. This cake was not about to escape my grip.

I will never again wonder why fresh fruit cakes are served with slivers of fruit rather than punchy layers. You may want to take a moment and scroll back up to the picture of the cake. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Now, Son1 is in a deep soldier phase. He is in love with all things soldier. Watching Toy Story 3 only enhanced this love. I knew without a doubt I was making a soldier cake. I pondered fondant and fanciness, but I am glad after the sliding strawberries I stuck to my dirt plan. I threw an army full of oreos into the Vitamix for the cake.

I should make one more confession. I have never, ever, eaten anything with crumbled Oreos. You know those things like dirt cakes, or cemetery cakes served around Halloween with crushed Oreos? I have always passed on those desserts. The thought of eating dirt, or gummy worms buried in crushed Oreos places an undue stress on me. GROSS. So this was an absolute stretch for me to coat this cake with Oreo crumbs.

The cake was a complete surprise for Son1. He had no idea that I remembered his half birthday with a half cake, let alone a soldier cake. So after a dinner of his favorite, tacos, the Farmer family ate a ridiculous lot of this entire cake. If I have ever doubted crumbled Oreos, this strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting has made me a believer.

But most importantly, here is what I will take away from this first Half Birthday celebration in our home. Son1 jumped up and down, hugged me, thanked me, and said this.

"Thank you, Mommy!! I LOVE it!! And this is my very first cake you have ever made me!!"

I have never, ever mentioned my mommy guilt over not making my kids birthday cakes, ever to them. But just when I thought baking a birthday cake was important to just me, I realized I was wrong. I asked him if ever minded that I bought his cake. No, it did not matter to him. But he really did love this cake. That was enough to make this homemade Half Birthday cake tradition stick around here!!

Winter Interrupted

I want my boys to believe me, to take me at my word, to hedge their bets that I am telling the truth. It is painful to hear my sons ache, to long for other days. I am surprised at how this New England cold with its sinking teeth has bothered them. As a boy mom I mistakenly thought they would brush off the bitter cold.

This Massachusetts winter has been brutal. It has been record long, record cold, and brimming with snow. This meteorologists say this winter has been unlike any other winter in years. When the snow falls my boys forgive the temperatures, throwing on snow boots, jumping into snow pants, finding lost snow gloves. But for the days when the mercury barely creeps past the numbers the weather has been wild.

This is all new for them. They are spoiled to only remember warm childhood days lived in Hawaii and California. My boys are used to sweatshirts when the temperatures dip below 70. But every day for three months they have packed snow pants, snow gloves, and snow boots shoved deep into a bulging bag slung next to their backpacks. My heart hurt the most for them one -25 degree school day.

A few weeks ago the eldest shed tears for San Diego winters. When will the cold stop? His otherwise olive skin is chalk white and dry. His hands show chapping from the days he chose not to wear the gloves. I pulled him close as we stared out the window from the second floor, protected from single digit temperatures. We stood staring down at the snow hedge at least 100 feet long. I want you to remember this, I told him, as I pulled back the curtain. We stared down at birds perched on a six foot towering wall of snow that ran like a sterile hospital corridor between our house and the next.I told him that God had not forgotten the little birds in winter. Even in this deep snow He sees them, and He provides their food. How He cares even more for us, and how He knows we need spring to come quickly.

Wow, I want him to remember the metaphor, and not just the literal example. I can't impress that upon his six year old mind. All I can bank on is that he will remember the day we stood at the window, when it seemed there was no hope for spring to show up in Massachusetts. I want him to remember that God sends the spring even when we feel in the dead of winter. He doesn't forget the seasons. He holds time.

Just the other day the snow fell and I could not find him anywhere. I peeked outside, and there he was, eager to live in this season. He forgot the temperature, he forgot his snow gloves, again. But he lived this season, pinching the sleeve of his jacket, scraping the snow.

And just a couple of days later, when there seemed no end to winter, the Author of the Seasons sent a day in the mid 40s for the first time in months. The snow melted. The jackets were left inside, and my boots were borrowed.

I caught the birds singing. Their melodies were loud and echoed around the neighborhood.

 

The squirrels appeared out of thin air, flying from branch to branch, chasing one another like a game of boys chase girls in the school yard.

So we celebrated the vanishing snow with melting snowmen. We spread the dissolving snow on the cookies, squished those sinking snowmen down, and laughed as we imagined their sadness.

And the big boys hands, the ones that scraped the snow with chapped fingers, happily danced in that pretend vanished snow.

Story Telling

A friend from another time and another place lives here. Her two boys and my older two boys have birthdays within weeks of each other. Once there were four boys between us.

I knew when I watched her at the back of the lanes.
She talked to my baby as he begged for a bowling ball.
It was time for story telling. She has told hers. I needed to tell mine.

I was absolutely uncomfortable. It would have been easiest not to share.

I needed to tell her that I know what it is to long for a third baby.
I needed to tell her that three years ago I wished I was pregnant as I watched her growing belly.
I needed to say that I know what it feels to ask God why life twists and turns to end up in knots.
I spoke her baby girl's name, the one in heaven.

I almost did not share. She would have been just fine had I remained quiet.
But I shared. I told a story different from hers, but still one of longing.
I told her about life in the desert, and finally about life in the green valley.
I told her about untamed joy with our third child, our beautiful son.
I spoke of a full heart, of no more longing.

Twenty four hours lived, and stories are written on every one of us.
Twenty four hours later will we remember how God worked in us, yesterday?
Will we share yesterday's story, and the next one, and the next one?
We are not the sum of just one story, but many stories.

What will it cost to be exposed?
Is the risk worth the return?
All of these stories different, yet each point to the hand of God.

Banana Macadamia Nut Muffins

Recipe courtesy of Bon Apetit Magazine at the end of this post.

We are moving soon. Moving again sends me spiraling. When I start to let the "I Cant's" creep into my mind, I remind myself that "I Can" and that "I Have." I remember moves past. I remember the things that were easy, and the things that were awful. And I remember God's hand in it all. It is the only way I keep bright in the foreground and bitter in the backdrop. And, on Sunday, the Banana Macadamia Nut muffins were more than muffins. They reminded me of a move to Hawaii made with apprehension with rewards of many blessings. I needed to be reminded.

It helped that our baby has suddenly, without notice, ended a banana breakfast ritual. He recently declared a banana strike. That is how I ended up with plenty of ripe bananas. It was also the end of just effortlessly preparing half of his breakfast. Truly this was a momentary grumbling point. I am over it now.

Following the Bon Appetit Magazine recipe, I mashed 3 bananas. My bananas were not smooth like baby food puree. They had a bit of chunkiness to them. The recipe called for all things to be mixed by hand, so I assumed this was sufficient.

 

And when I added the sugars, eggs, and melted butter to the 3 bananas, I knew the reviews that declared these to be moist muffins were dead accurate.

 

Then I hand blended the wet ingredients I cannot even begin to express how appetizing bananas blended with sugars and pooled with melted butter and vanilla smells. Oh.My.Word. This was my favorite moment preparing the ingredients right here. The lumpiness of the bananas turned a bit smoother.

 

I did not chop the macadamia nuts very finely. I don't like digging for nuts when a recipe calls for them. I like them to be robust and present. The nuts on the right have not been chopped. The group on the left was the final result.

I toasted the macadamia nuts and chopped them before placing them in the batter. I almost did not toast them. It seemed silly if I they were going to bake in the oven anyway. But was I wrong! If you have ever wafted the smell of toasted macadamia nuts....oh heaven! Oh how I missed living in Hawaii when I pulled these out of the toaster oven.

 

I reserved the last of the nuts to top the batter. I may or may not have been a bit giddy at this point! The rich smell of the batter with the heaven of those toasted nuts...I almost did not want to part with the batter because I may have tasted it a time or two.

Finally, after 25 minutes I opened my oven and my family came running!

Banana Macadamia Nut Muffins
Courtesy Bon Apetit Magazine

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 1/4 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 large)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup unsalted macadamia nuts, toasted, chopped

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease twelve muffin cups or line with muffin papers. Sift first 4 ingredients into large bowl. Combine bananas, both sugars, butter, milk and egg in medium bowl. Mix into dry ingredients. Fold in half of nuts. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle tops of muffins with remaining macadamia nuts. Bake until muffins are golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer muffins to rack and cool.

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Banana-Macadamia-Nut-Muffins-2050#ixzz1Eli1H1Km

Confessions Before the Contribution

 Today I posted this also at Half-Baked Beauties.

When Half-Baked Beauties evolved, I was a new mom for the third time. My baby was just a few weeks old, born in September 2009 in San Diego. At the time, I longed for old friends, the walking kind of friends to be present in my life, as I had with my eldest in Virginia, and my middle son in Hawaii. But while I had family in California, I did not really have friends with whom Dr. Romance and I had a Together History. I was lamenting this just before B. dropped me an email to join this blog.

I could not keep up with every formula in the book. I was potty training a toddler, breastfeeding a newborn, settling into a new home after a move, and my eldest started Kindergarten. For the times I felt constrained to my house because of all of my mommy duties, I never missed any of your posts. I knew many of you in real life, and some of you I just knew as friends of friends. But during the months that people contributed here, I felt like I was connecting with old friends. And to be real, I was not constrained to my house. I had just started attending two small groups through church, in addition to the breastfeeding, potty training, house adjusting, and starting kindergarten.

And now our family is yet again in a time of transition. In the summer of 2010 we drove cross country to Massachusetts. My Dr. Romance has a one year assignment here. We anticipate our next move, yet to be announced, in the summer of 2011 to a new city, and a new home.

I have died little deaths with our moves. My attitude has always been, and will always be, I will go where you go, I will live in a hut in Africa. Still, I die little deaths of things that will never be. I keep them to myself. I dare not share them with my children, because I know my attitude sets the tone for our home. So I struggle with this whole concept of "home" and what my children will remember about "home." I die the death that they will not live in "the house they grew up in," that they will not have a neighborhood kid that has been their best friend since they were five, and on and on the list goes in my head. You can imagine.

I cannot say I do not like to move. I cannot say I love it. But I cannot say I mind. We have lived in amazing places over the course of our marriage. My kids have had some amazing life experiences, for their small ages of 6, 3, and 1. I could tell you all about them, but it might sound a a bit puffed up. Just know I am telling the truth.

So how then, do I build a home, when this whole idea of home is so transient and somewhat unpredictable for us? This book has gotten me to ponder such thoughts.

When I reflect on my own childhood, on the moments that were celebrated, on the memories I conjure up when I remember "home," I do not think back to a specific friend. I do not think of the house I grew up in, or that I lived in the same town from birth until I left for college. I remember long dinner discussions about days at school. I remember several side dishes to a rich meal. I remember my parents making albondiga soup. I remember burn marks on wooden spoons that stirred the avocado green skillet and vegetables chopped on the built-into-the-counter wooden cutting board. I remember my mother's moist chocolate cakes and oatmeal raisin cookies. I remember spring coming, and my dad in the back yard shaping our trees with his shears, and my mom sending me out to announce dinner was ready. I remember brownies made from scratch, and lasagna layered with love.

My kids are struggling with this concept of "home." Yes, we still own our home in San Diego. Yes it is ours but people are renting it, and yes, they are paying us to borrow it. No, we cannot swim in the pool in the backyard when we are home for Christmas vacation. Yes, it is still ours. Yes, when I say we are going "home" from Costco I mean the house we are renting in Massachusetts. No, you cannot jump on the couches because this is not our "home."

So how then, do I build a home for them?

Our now rented home in San Diego is large with multiple eating areas. Often my kids ate meals at the over sized island, longer than most dinner tables. This was mostly for my own need to multitask while they ate. But when we moved to Massachusetts, our 1928 Craftsman home only has one area for dining. This house is not even half the square feet of my home in California. But this new dining area has forced us to eat with one and only one option. We must all eat together staring into each other's eyeballs. It is a beautiful thing. I will never let my kids eat at a granite over sized island again. Well, so I say...

Building our family "home" when home is transient

This book I am reading now talks about Jesus and his thanksgiving at the Last Supper. But what strikes me is that there was a Last "Supper." There was a meal. Jesus knew time was short before he was betrayed. The next day he would go to the cross. He did not sit the disciples at an over sized center island, multitasking his last 24 hours. He sat with his friends intimately, around a table. He looked into their eyes. He dined with them. He spoke with them. He encouraged them. He shared his concerns, his heart, his expectations. There was safety around that meal.

This was my childhood "home." We sat around a dinner table many nights up until I left for college. It is the home I want for my sons. It is what I can give them right now. Together, Dr. Romance and I are demonstrating love, of listening to narratives of the day's events, and breathing safety around a dinner table. We talk about days gone by of babies, now years ago, of bite sized miracles and fountains of blessings in our every days. Everyone is there, all five of us, doing the very same things together. We are talking, laughing, giving thanks, and identifying blessings. We speak of important decisions, we ask questions, we make plans. We raise eyebrows, speak our minds, and offer apologies.  

Our "home," with meals here as the back drop for what is not transient, what is constant, what I will carry with me from this edifice into the next. Because those edifices are not "homes" on their own.


These thoughts motivated me to rise early yesterday and bake Banana Macadamia Nut muffins. I was remembering life on Oahu. I remembered how much I felt at home there. I was so caught up in the muffins, I had not even thought what else I would serve for breakfast. So in a rush job before church, I threw together mushroom and shrimp omelets after baking the muffins, and preparing my sugar cookie dough (another project). I had pre-sliced the mushrooms a few nights before, and the cilantro lime shrimp was from Costco. I served the plates and I shook my head because I had not thought through the pairing of my banana nut muffins and cilantro lime shrimp omelets. It was not exactly right. It was not perfect. But I am imperfect. And maybe my family knows that all too well. Regardless, my family was blessed. They loved it all around the breakfast table.

So now that I have confessed how I could not keep up as a contributor here, come back anyway and I will post my Banana Macadamia Nut muffin experience. I hope other contributors come back, too with their own recipes.

The Back Seat Winner

The Hubs and I  have won at many things. We are winners.

But there was a chance our son might lose, that he might not be a winner this year. He has won twice in two prior states in the Awana Grand Prix. We prepped him the whole way to the race, just in case. We made our claims of love for him, of our joy that he is our son. He was so quiet, his six year old head pressed into the gray leather headrest. We repeated ourselves a few times. Still just a quiet "uh-huh" from the rear of the minivan, barely heard over his two younger brothers between us.

We arrived at the competition and trailed the family to the basement. Dr. Romance was armed with his paparazzi camera. (I will have to take a picture of his telephoto monstrosity for you.) Definitely we arrived in a basement of winners. We packed in with 100 other tense folks. Some stood poised with axle lube and babied their cars. Others buzzed around adding weights. Dr. Romance and I gave each other a glance with raised eyebrows. These folks were intense for sure. I looked away quickly, too nervous to read his eyes.

But our sweet son, our first born, our first born just as I am first born, just as Dr. Romance is first born,  

yet so unlike us in so many ways, 

had no pit in his stomach. We are strong waves. He is a calm ocean. He unpacked his car quietly, unshaken by the table judges, and the hovering helicopter adults in the room. He is so unassuming, so compliant. He yielded his car to be judged for design. He knew that his design was simple. He did not expect that trophy, amongst the princess slipper, iPod, or Wii remote .

He was battling for speed, battling in the most demure and reserved way. 

He lined up his car on the track. He was chosen for the first heat, where he would race four times, once in each lane.

He lined up his car 41 inches in the air, somewhere around his first grade chin.

Thirty feet straight down the race track, his yellow bullet clearly smoked the pack. But just two inches shy of the finish line, his car toppled to the side. It did not cross the finish line. It did not count. He received no score. A piece of tape that cradled a shiny quarter to the underbelly of his car started to drag, started to uncurl, and toppled the car. Though Son1 attempted to blow dry the glued quarter that would exactly weight his car to the five ounce limit, it did not dry. Thus the tape.

The entire crowd AHHHHHED when his car shot out from the pack.There was no competition. A horrified 100 voices ohhhhhed when the yellow cannonball of a car fell off the red track.

And our first grader retrieved his car with no reaction, no readable emotion, and ambled thirty feet back to the ramp that measured just to his chin. Dr. Romance checked the car once over, and handed it back to Son1.

He continued his task, not phased by the hundred onlookers. That is him, every single day.

(Those hairy arms belong to a supervising adult, not to our family.)

And he watched only his car. He watched it complete three more lanes of competition. And he was done. We now waited for all of the other heats of cars in his division to finish their races. We were unsure he would advance to the semi-finals.

Dr. Romance and I sat back. We watched the over-lubrication of cars, the legal tinkering of weight, the balancing of wheels. We analyzed the competition. We repeated to one another that we were proud of him, that he is a winner. And yes, we ran the numbers and the averages on his competition, trying to predict his fate. We are math people.

The semi-finals were announced. He made it! I was squealing a high school squeal as silently as I could. I jumped up and down with my feet firmly planted on the ground, eyeing my oblivious 17 month old. I faked my disinterest to those hundred voices. But there is a proud 3 year old sports caster that let all onlookers know his brother advanced to the semi-finals, and finally to the Final Four.

And though his yellow car blew past all cars in every heat, he offered humility. Before the awards ceremony we knew he was a winner, but we had known that before we left the house.

And when his name was called, and when he collected his trophy, he made no noise.