I pop my face in front of hers with big eyes and drop the news: “Guess what? Your friend is coming over to play soon!”
Her eyes light up and she claps, “I so excited!”
Then she pauses a moment and a thoughtful look crosses her eyes before she says, “I share.”
My eyes light up for a completely different reason, “Yes! That’s right, when a friend comes over to play, it’s nice to share your toys! You are so generous!”
When her friend arrives and she hands over her play fruit, I am so proud of how she’s grown in this area, and I reinforce her verbally, “You are so generous! You shared your food, you are so generous!”
“I share!” she smiles, proudly.
“Yes, you are such a good sharer!” I say, wondering if sharer is even a word. Nevermind that. The point is, she is internalizing that being a sharer, or being a generous person, is part of who she is. It’s part of her person, ingrained in her way of being, and something she will continue to do. I will call her a sharer all day if it helps to cultivate this part of her character!
Later, when beans spill onto the floor, she quickly begins picking them up and putting them back into the bin.
“You are such a good helper! Thank you for picking up the beans!”
“I help!” she smiles.
“Yes, you are a helper. Thanks!” I repeat.
While this may sound like a pretty ordinary conversation between mother and toddler, there is actually very intentional language going on here. Here are phrases I did not say when she picked up the beans:
- It was nice of you to help.
- I am glad you helped.
- Thank you for helping.
- How nice of you to help!
Instead, I said: You are a helper!
And when she shared, I did not say:
- It was nice of you to share.
- I am glad you shared.
- Thank you for sharing.
- How nice of you to share!
Instead, I said: You are a sharer! and You are generous!
While they may seem to give the same message, there is a subtle difference between the phrases I didn’t say and the ones I did, and it boils down to this: If it is a quality I want her to have, I frame it as a quality that is a part of who she is, not just something she did.
You are a helper vs. Thank you for helping: It’s not that it’s bad to thank a child for helping. But don’t leave it there. I don’t frame it merely as
I think this is the first year where my daughter is really registering the idea of the Christmas season, and it is SO MUCH FUN! I’ve been so excited to share the thrill and anticipation and joy of the season with my kids, and I’m delighted whenever I see that she is delighted. She loves the decorations and lights and music and everyyything.
I’ve dabbled with a few things that may turn into long term traditions, like making a gingerbread house,
seeing fun Christmas lights,
and visiting Bethlehem:
She was perched in her high chair drinking milk when I peered into her face and sang out, “Today for breakfast, we’re having… PANCAKES!” She squealed with delight, showing enthusiasm for pancakes in a way only a toddler can really do.
“PANCAKE PANCAKE! I WAN SOME PANCAKE!!” (not a typo)
“Yep yep, just give me a few minutes to mix it up and cook it!”
Rookie mistake. Breakfast rule #1: Do not tell the child you are serving pancakes until the pancakes are already DONE.
Unfortunately, I had realized that twenty-two seconds too late.
So my leisurely pancake-making morning turned into a frenzied dump this dump that, mix mix mix, get the fire going rush to the whines of a hungry almost two year old.
“You need to be patient, sweetheart. It’ll be a few minutes. Can you be patient?” I asked.
Yet I knew, even as I was asking it, that my little girl had no concept of patience yet. I had to teach it to her. And before I could teach it to her, I had to break it down and define it in a way that made sense to a toddler.
Patience. Let’s see. How do I explain patience…? Patience is… waiting quietly? Hm, not quite… 2 tsp. baking powder… 1/2 tsp. salt… Patience… waiting with a good attitude? But she doesn’t necessarily understand attitude yet. 1 egg. 1 cup of milk. Honey. Patience is… waiting nicely? Yes. Let’s go with that. Waiting nicely. And how do I teach that?
Suddenly, a vision flashed in my mind of 33 students sitting up with straight backs, quiet hands, and eyes focused on me. If I could get 33 fourth graders to give me their patient, undivided attention, surely I could get this one 1-year old to do the same.
Okay that logic actually makes zero sense, but still, it was worth a shot.
I paused mid-mix and turned to my whiny child,
It’s my first day totally on my own, guys. I had a luxurious start to the two-kid life, but now it’s getting real. Ben’s back at work, and I’ve got a toddler and an infant allll to myself today.
Stay at home moms: HOW DO YOU DO IT?! It’s only 3:38pm, but I feel like I deserve some serious kudos for making it this far with everyone intact. Some small (or HUGE?) accomplishments:
- Guys, I thought ahead of time to sign her up for a gymnastics class. Am I on top of it or what? 😉
- We made it to gymnastics class ON TIME. Early, actually, because of accomplishment#3 (see below)…
- I nursed in the car. She read books. EVERYTHING GOING ACCORDING TO PLAN SO FAR. Except for the nonstop crying and totally interrupted baby nap. Sorry, second child.
- I put him in the baby carrier and snapped the Ergo buckle on the back BY MYSELF. *Applause!* (This is really hard for me for some reason- anyone else feel my struggle?? Or am I just really not flexible?)
- When we got to the gymnastics facilities, I took her to the potty (one of those small stalls where you can barely squeeze in when the door is swung open) and held her up on the seat WHILE carrying the baby. Yep. All three of us in the eensy teensy stall together. Good times. I think this one is worth ten points right here. Ten Awesome Mommy Points. Thank you.
- We got home. We got food into her belly. Even something green. Okay fine it was a tiny shred of green onion, but still… hooray!
- I nursed him and fed myself and fed her ALL AT THE SAME TIME. I have a friend with two littles that does this all the time, but I honestly doubted my own abilities to mother at that level until today.
- I vacuumed (okay fine, Roomba vacuumed. But still, I pushed a button twice… HIGH FIVE??), did the laundry, made dinner (which you can do 3 hrs ahead of time when you’ve got a nifty new electric pressure cooker that keeps food warm til dinner time!), and washed the dishes (okay I pushed two buttons on the dishwasher… but I have every intention of putting them away before Ben comes home. That counts for something.)
- I wrote a blog post. :D.
I first fell for huge, chunky slabs of dark chocolate shortbread when I made a pilgrimage to Extraordinary Desserts in San Diego. If you enjoy sweets and are ever within a 50-mile drive of the place, you MUST GO. There are two locations. Go earlier if you don’t want to be disappointed, because stuff sells out pretty quickly. Karen Krasne, please, please open up a shop in Norcal. Please. I bought your book
One thing the gorgeous cake book does NOT include is a recipe for Karen’s extraordinary chocolate shortbread, though, so I’ve been on a mission to make something as close as possible. Her shortbread is not dry and sandy and crumbly like your typical shortbread (which I also love, but in a different way). It’s huge and mouth-filling and intensely cocoa-y in a way a small shortbread cookie could never do. I’ve tried a number of chocolate shortbread recipes in an attempt to recreate hers, and recently re-tried one that, for some reason, I passed up before: Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies. It got a second look because my friend Diana, over at Chomping Board, made some for us while we were providing her with a meal delivery (talk about hospitable!). I was sold. I went home and got to work on the new recipe that very week.
After making Dorie’s cookies according to her recipe- dainty little teatime circles- I decided to double the recipe and make huge rectangular slabs of it in an attempt to imitate the ones at Extraordinary Dessert. So I tweaked the preparation a bit and… GUYS, IT WORKED! Mine came out with the same parched-desert-looking crinkles across the top, the same melt-in-your-mouth chocolate discs throughout, the same moist-sandy texture I loved. Most importantly, you could really sink your teeth into each intensely cocoa-y bite the same way you could with hers. Yes, they sink in. Like I said, not your typical shortbread. Better, IMHO.
Thank the Lord for Costco pounds of butter and Costco tubs of cocoa powder.
This is my new addiction. Make it yours.
This sounds like a dramatic post, doesn’t it?
It’s not. Not really.
I just wanted to get your attention. Looks like it’s working so far. But it is about losing my heart. Sort of.
A couple weeks ago, my brother’s family came over for breakfast and a play date for the kiddos. Somewhere along the way, we started talking about memories, and my brother shared one of his core childhood memories with me.
“I still remember that time you lost your heart sticker,” he began.
“Wait, one of your core memories is about me losing a sticker?” I asked.
“Yeah, do you remember that?” he asked.
“Nope. Don’t remember it.”
“You don’t? We were in the garage trading stickers with one of the neighborhood kids, and you said there was only one sticker you wouldn’t trade: your shiny heart sticker. It was your favorite. But
I just realized I ran out of scheduled posts. OOPS! Well hello, here I am in real-time again :). Yes, I had some real-time posts in the last couple of months, but for the most part my posts were scheduled. I hope you enjoyed the series of guest posts (I sure did!) and I hope you’re also happy to have me back :].
I have so many things I want to share with you. The transition from 1 to 2. Thoughts on thankfulness. Random things I remembered from teaching. An awesome chocolate shortbread recipe. A new toy I got… which begot a new idea on how to save time in the kitchen. My dad’s potato pork pancake recipe (*drool* finally got reproducible measurements out of him, which is a WIN for all generations to come!). There is so much to share. I have no idea how I will find the time to get it all out. Oh well. We’ll figure it out.
In the meantime, here are two things that I wanna put out there today:
I don’t usually do lists, but I just kept noticing these things and thought, I can’t be the only one. I know life is about 100x more convenient for the modern parent today than it was for our parents back in the day, but still! Parenting is no easy gig. Parents, read on and see if you can relate to any of these daily occurrences that you probably didn’t think twice about before having kids!
9 Things You Only Notice When You Become a Parent
9. Sidewalks that don’t have ramps.
This.
8.Where every drive-thru Starbucks is. Because as precious as that cup of coffee is, it’s just not worth lugging the baby out of the car for. Or maybe it is. Or not. Or is.
OR DRIVE-THRU STARBUCKS. Problem solved.
7. Where all the elevators are in the mall. I park at Nordstrom because it comes with an elevator which makes life with a stroller so nice! I also know exactly where all of the other TWO of the elevators in our expansive mall are located. And the nursing area. And the children’s play area. And Starbucks. And about 10 other kid-friendly places that, five years ago, I didn’t even know existed.
6. Uncovered electric outlets. You bring your toddler to a friend’s place and realize the world is truly a dangerous, dangerous place. What kind of crazy people don’t cover their electric outlets and cushion their coffee table corners?!
5. The absence of a gate is a wonderful, wonderful thing. We’ve gone through several configurations with gating off areas of the house in the last year or so, but we are now nearing the best one: NO GATES AT ALL. I can’t even count the number of bruises and bumps I’ve received from turning the corner too fast through a gate or tripping over a gate.
Every time we’ve removed one of the gates, I feel a new freedom as though we’ve renovated a section of our house. I love it.
4. Where all the automatic door opening button entrances are.
And all the nice people in the world who hold doors open for you so you can push that stroller through the doors without looking like a clumsy noob of a mom.
Anyone who has had a baby girl has had someone, at some point, compliment her on her cute baby boy. Unless your darling is decked out in frills, lace, pink and/or hearts, it can be hard for people to immediately tell what gender your child is. But I didn’t always feel like dressing my daughter in everything girly, so sometimes I used a simple bow to give others a hint. Also, they’re so CUTE! 🙂
It can actually fit quite a number of clips!
I bought most of these clips off Amazon
I’m not really that girly, and I don’t expect my daughter to be, but this was a super simple project that was both practical and looked nice. Why not? Also a fun way to display clips if you’re hosting a baby shower and hair clips are part of the baby shower crafting fun
Day 1: A package arrives at the door. It is a lovely congratulatory gift set including lush and sweet Harry and David pears from Ben’s boss!
Ben: OOH you can make your pear tart! Remember last time we had these pears and you made that pear tart? It was so good!
Jo: Yeah! (secretly wonders when she will find time to bake)
Day 2:
Ben: So are you going to make a pear tart?
Jo: Yup. But the pears are not ripe yet.
Day 3:
Ben: Are the pears ripe yet?
Jo: Not yet.
Ben: Mmm. Pear tart…
Day 5:
I have slowly been making our way through the pears, usually as a post-dinner dessert for the family. So lush and juicy– really, they’re something else.
Ben, with concern: Are you going to have enough pears for the pear tart??
Jo: Yup. Just need two.
Day 6:
Ben is short on sleep, and planning to hit the sack early. But then he realizes I am now making the pear tart.
Ben: Oh, I guess I’ll stay up for it, then!
Jo: Hm. After baking it for another 50 minutes, it’s supposed to sit in the fridge for two more hours…
Ben: 🙁
Day 7:
Ben: THE PEAR TART WAS GOOD! Is there any way you can get more pear in there? I really like the pears.
Dad: Did you make this? Just following a recipe? It’s very good!
(Note that this is actually Chinese dad speak for “JO YOU ARE THE MOST AMAZING BAKER IN THE WORLD!! I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!!!” 😉)
I think this story speaks for itself. You should need no further convincing. This pear tart is worthy of your time. It is something Ben requests and looks forward to and I can think of few better ways to celebrate a gift box of sweet, creamy, and delicious pears! Plus, this crust recipe is great– didn’t get soggy, and would work well for a fruit tart!
P.S. The original recipe is actually called a “Pear and Almond Flan” but for some reason, that name doesn’t ring with me the same way “Pear Tart” does. Isn’t flan like a wiggly, jiggly eggy thing? I’m convinced this should be called a tart. And this is my blog. So there.
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