a public service announcement exposing the dangers of unmonitored chocolate use in seven year old girls

i would like to start this post by thanking all of my friends for their words of encouragement this past week as i endured a time of great spiritual crisis. for those of you who happen to be intrigued and are still reading, the answer to the 'what happened?' is...my seven year old daughter. formerly known as little miss sunshine, gb, during this past week, was a mixture between britney spears on the night she shaved her head and mary catherine gallahger (molly shannon's catholic, school girl character in the movie 'superstar'). there is scene in the movie where mary catherine gets angry with her grandmother, runs upstairs and proceeds to slam the door to her bedroom over and over and over. i once thought this scene was funny. now, not so much. the mornings were horrible. on tuesday, the morning we went back to school, i tell you there was weepin', wailin', and gnashin' of teeth. it was like living out a southern baptist sermon on hell, fire, and damnation. all i was missing was the brimstone. the afternoons were not much better. the afternoons are when gb made a run at the mary catherine gallagher impersonations. so, my solution: put her to bed early. this child needs to get some sleep. she has always been a child that needed sleep to function. so, tuesday night brought and early bedtime. unfortunately, wednesday morning still had the need for several come to jesus meetings.

at this point, i resolve myself to the fact that this is just a phase (i used to be in sales, i can sell myself if need be). i remember a few rocky years around this age with my oldest. guess it's time to strap myself in and hang on, again. it is during this pep talk with myself that i proceed upstairs to get laundry out of gb's room. i find that if you combine unpleasant activities, they get done faster. gb's room is in a bit of chaos as her sister is crashing on her floor while her room is being painted. now, gb has a loft bed, and the loft bed was still covered with christmas bags. (she had been sleeping on the floor with the teen-aged child.) brilliance strikes me! she must not be sleeping well because she's on the floor. if she were to sleep in her own bed, surely, this would solve (or at least help) the attitude problem. i put down the laundry basket, climb up to the loft bed, impressed by my own parenting skills and intuition, then I made the discovery pictured below:



what the...???? it all makes sense now...the consecutive days in a row that gb seemed to be ping-ponging off of the furniture and then coming to me two days later begging for candy..."mom, you are so pretty. you are the best mom ever. can i PLEASE have some candy, PLEASE, PLEASE???" this explains why when i told her she could not have candy, that she should find a healthier snack, that she crumpled into a quivering pile on the floor. i guess i was not mistaken, she really did have the shakes. i thought it was all an act. who knew that this little 60lb. body was going through chocolate detox. she was jones-ing and i would not give her the godiva fix that she wanted. i guesstimate, factoring in that she got chocolate from both grandparents, a few aunts, and santa claus, gb ate around 30-40 pieces of godiva and lindt between december 26th and january 2nd or 3rd. i think we have passed the critical detoxification time period. things seem to better this week. however, as this is a difficult time in her recovery period, please see the following announcement:


attention well-meaning grandparents, sister, aunts, uncles, neighbors, and friends:
IF YOU ENCOUNTER THIS CHILD, DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT GIVE HER CHOCOLATE!

i realize that this kid is cute. i mean, she's mine and i would think she was cute even if she wasn't. but, beware: SHE KNOWS SHE'S CUTE AND SHE WILL USE IT AGAINST YOU. do not be fooled. call her mother, immediately.

tales of the feminist bread baker

ok. so i tend to obsess over things from time to time. little or big, there is no pattern to the things that capture my attention and distract me from an ever-present to do list. this is why school was so wonderful. i like thinking in semesters. i like having a syllabus for a class and rubric for projects/papers. these things keep me on task. they tell me what i must accomplish, especially if i want to make an a. and with the exception of my math class, i always wanted to make an a. now mind you, not much was accomplished outside of school during my tenure as a student. this is why the home in which i have been living for the past three years has many unfinished projects. anyway...

my latest obsession revolves around the food that i feed my family. i have been a member of the 'holy church of the high-priced organic' since my oldest daughter was about 7. it was at this time that i knew of a child, a girl my daughter's age, that started her monthly cycles. it freaked me out! i started doing some research, and well, i have been buying organic ever since. it has been hard in this current economy to continue to buy organic. we are currently a one income household with two income's worth of bills each month. organic eggs and milk are twice the price as regular. then , this weekend i became acquainted with the evils of high fructose corn syrup. this crap is in everything!!!!!! early sunday morning found me going through my pantry and fridge reading every label. the room started to spin and i began to hyperventilate. HFCS everywhere. about this time, my seven year old came down stairs and picked up the loaf of bread (a loaf of bread containing HFCS) off of the counter to make her usual peanut-butter toast when i tackled her and covered her with my body as if to protect her from a grenade or something. i think i weirded her out a little. anyway. it was on sunday that i decided i would start making my own bread. (when i announced this to one of my girlfriends, her response was, "you need a job.") well, that is true but, i think i would have had the same reaction even i were gainfully employed. there is a limited amount of bread without HFCS on the market and it is pricey. so, there was a link to a homemade bread recipe on one of the 'evils of HFCS' web pages, which is where i got the idea. so sunday after church... i. made. homemade. bread. and it didn't suck! below i have posted the pics from that afternoon. a shout out to my photographer, g. who said he took the action shots of me kneading the dough in 'sport mode'. (i have also posted pictures so that my mother will stop thinking i lied to her.)


this recipe was super easy. i had always pictured women who made their own bread as, well, um, amish. who has time? this first step, where you mix everything together, takes the longest. probably about 15 min, if you have everything set out.

here i am kneading the dough. this part was the best. it was very cathartic beating and working the dough. however, after making two batches of bread, i have learned that during this step you have to be careful not to add too much flour. i use less flour when i use my kitchenaid mixer, an appliance that i have just come to appreciate. but it is not as much fun, and the small child likes to help during the kneading part.


here is my little doughy-baby. all snuggly
and warm in her bowl. yes, bread is feminine! now here is where bread is time consuming... you have to let is rise, for like an hour. this is god's way of helping me with my instant gratification issues.






another action shot with the flour just a-flyin'. more kneading. you have to punch it down and get all of the air out so you can shape it into loaves.






here are my loaves ready to go in the oven. but you have to cover the loaf pans and let the dough rise one more time. i did take a picture, but this posting pictures thing is getting tedious and i am lazy. one more picture, though. finished product.






isn't she pretty? my little doughy-baby is all grown up with a loaf of her own. i told you bread was feminine!

the wrap up: things i learned while making bread...

1. too much flour makes the bread dense.
2. you can alter a recipe and nothing explodes. my first batch was white bread because the website that convinced me i could do this said white was the easiest way to get started. my second batch was honey wheat.
3. i can still have feminist tendencies and bake my own bread. once upon a time, i shunned anything domestic. cooking. cleaning...well, i still shun cleaning. but really anything that labeled me a 'homemaker', i tended to poo-poo. i felt like i was betraying all of my sisters by admitting that i liked to do homey stuff. i just couldn't talk about potty training or casserole making for hours on end...but now, as i am less than 365 days away from being a 40 year old woman, i am beginning to embrace many of these homemaker-esque tendencies. and i'm doing it willingly. i have thoroughly enjoyed baking bread for my family. i know that i have done something good for them. something that gives life to their lives, especially to my growing daughters. what could be more feminist than that?

i have also become obsessed with the high cost of organic eggs. i am currently scheming a way to raise chickens within the city limits in my subdivision that has covenants against livestock. i even have a blue print for my coop. another blog for another time...

a bad mommy moment

don't you just love those shining moments in life that serve to remind you that you are off of your game. my most recent reminder came this evening as i was in the office on my computer reading the news on the npr home page. now i have to admit that i was being a little smug, patting myself on the back, for not only keeping up with recent events but doing so on npr. how smart and sophisticated of me... (i actually changed my internet homepage before christmas because i hated all of the ads on yahoo, msn, etc. for aesthetic reasons) so, here i am in my smug-laden state when i hear from the family room..."boys, go get mama's plastic stripper shoes out of the lego box." (in a very southern accent a la joy turner from the trailer park). my name is earl was on and my seven year old was watching it...for god knows how long, no wonder it was so quiet. i love tivo and i don't love tivo. i do tivo my name is earl, a very guilty pleasure, but not for public viewing and not for my seven year old. i am sure it is only a matter of time before i get asked the question, "mom, what are stripper shoes?" wonderful.