Toilet Training

Dear Children,

You may wonder when you're older what it was like for me to earn my Ph.D and quit working to be a stay-at-home-mom in the same year. Well, it was hard. In my social circle, it wasn't done. In the larger society, people were writing articles about how women who received advanced degrees and did not remain in their profession were failing women at large. Even without that, it was hard simply because the life transition was so enormous.

So I want to tell you about an experience I had when I was younger which helped me make sense of this sudden change.

My first summer in college, I was in a training program that included  a communal bathroom  for 16 girls. We were put in teams of four. On the morning of my team's turn to clean the bathrooms, I found myself scrubbing toilets while my teammates were still sleeping. I was a very bitter camper.

I huffed my way through the toilets, the shower stalls, and the floor. Then I started on a long row of sinks. Somewhere between the first sink and the last sink, I realized that while everyone else was asleep, God was watching, that these were God's sinks, and that He was pleased. No one else had to know. I didn't need to snark at my teammates.  The bathrooms were cleaner, and this was something I could do for God's glory.

In the years since then, when I've found myself doing stuff I don't like or value (or others don't value), I've been able to turn back to that bathroom experience. It reminds me that seen or unseen, valued or unvalued, my doings can be a "spiritual act of worship" and God sees.

So those years when you were small and needed a lot of "unseen" care, I remembered that God saw and his value of what I was doing with my life meant more than anything, certainly more than faceless article writers. (This also meant I didn't have to welcome your dad home with a boring recounting of all the wonderful mom-things I'd done that day.)

Anyways, as you grow up and face the twists and turns of your own life, remember that God sees and cherishes you, and that you don't need to live for the pleasure of anyone else but Him.

And about you and me: it was hard; you were worth it.

Love to you both,
Mom

Random things that have worked

Watch timer

I got a sports watch for Christmas that has an easy to use count down timer. This is both useful for working out when I want to rest between weightlifting sets for a certain amount of minutes and for managing kid fights over toys. When my kids used to fight over toys, sometimes I put the toy in timeout because I couldn't figure out who had what when. Now, I usually try to see if one is willing to let the other play for a few minutes while I set the timer. When the timer beeps, the toy is handed off. Frequently, by the time the timer beeps that "must have" toy has already been abandoned. But for some hot ticket items we have switched back and forth three or four times. Way less tears lately, and I love it. 

Broiled chicken "nuggets"

I did this a long time ago, but recently tried it again. It's quick and the whole family enjoys it. Here's how I've been doing it lately:

Preheat oven on broil setting

2 chicken breasts, sliced in 1 cm thick pieces, tossed in 2 tbsp milk

Breading:

1 c. corn meal

1/2 c rice flour (we have two gluten free eaters)

salt & pepper

paprika

cumin

garlic powder 

Mix breading ingredients together, dump in ziploc bag or tupperware container, add chicken, shake until coated.

Line a cookie sheet with foil and spray with oil. 

Lay out chicken and throw in oven for 4 minutes, 

turn pieces over

put back in oven for 3 min

check and add for another 90 sec - 2 min depending on how they look

Done.

Clorox wipes/equivalent

I was a cloth rag person for a while, but then I realized that some time after I had the kids, I also stopped cleaning my bathroom. The perfect being the enemy of the good, and having clean bathroom surfaces during potty training being a good idea, I broke down and got these wipes. You know, the stuff they advertise on TV. I have a stash in each bathroom, and it take seconds to wipe the surfaces down. 

On clothing--Apropos nothing

Timed well with On Expecting's post on body image I suppose.

I finally went through my dresser and pulled out the winter clothes and the maternity clothes! Woohoo. I surprisingly fit back into my pre-maternity unmentionables which feels like a huge win, so I put the maternity ones away too. I also thinned out my closet of old stuff and stuff that never fit well.

At this point I have about three-and-a-half sizes of clothes. Maternity stuff for when I'm huge; big stuff for when I'm bigger than normal but not huge; normal stuff; and skinny stuff. There's not a ton of skinny stuff but I have a few items from when I inadvertently lost a lot of weight before my wedding. I'm currently wearing big stuff, but they are starting to be noticeably big. So I think I'll soon be back into my normal stuff. Hooray!!

Since things have calmed down with the baby, I'm willing to consider a third kid and I haven't got rid of all the big and maternity stuff. However, that'll be it's own day when all that stuff finally goes to goodwill.

I found a lot of t-shirts from college that I have a hard time parting with. And it reminds me that I need to "grow up" with regards to my clothing. And I fear that I'll go from a slouchy grad student right into a sloppy housewife. I definitely dressed better when I was teaching, so I'm trying to figure out where to land at this point.

I would like to eventually have a minimalist wardrobe of classic, quality clothing for summer and fall/spring--the two primary seasons here. But there are several obstacles: 1) a deficient fashion sense 2) a loathing of shopping 3) an aversion to spending money and 4) an unstable body size and shape. Currently, I'm using #4 as an excuse to not figure out ways around #1-3.

Anyways, we'll see. Right now I'll just revel in the prospect of fitting back into my old jeans soon.