food for thought

When Ben was about a year old and Tony and I were beginning to despair of ever getting an uninterrupted night’s sleep again, we attended a baby sleep seminar (we only had one kid, so we had time for things like this). The seminar, led by the same calm and competent woman who’d taught our birth and nursing classes, ran through the basic information about what disrupts a baby’s sleep (teething; stomach upset; brain development; disturbances in the force…) and various approaches to handling them. She covered Ferber, she covered Weisbluth, and then she mentioned a new book, by Elizabeth Pantley: . I was sold by the title alone, which set her ideas well apart from the other, more well-known sleep docs. I was not about to put Ben in his crib, shut the door, and leave the room. I didn’t believe that would teach him anything that I wanted him to learn.

So I bought Pantley’s book and read it thoroughly. She advises that you start by making charts of your child’s sleeping and waking patterns, and I still have one of these, of a fairly typical night. I wrote:

Last night Ben slept from 7:15-8:15; 9:20-12:30; 1-2:30; 3-4:15; 4:30-6; 6:30-8:15. Oy.

But after a couple weeks of somewhat demoralizing charting, I began to see some patterns, began to be able to pat him down to sleep again without always nursing him, and slowly, gradually, our nights improved. And neither of us cried about it.

Now, perhaps our nights would have improved without my charts, but Pantley’s book, with its tables and graphs, its supportive advice and its frequent quotations from other parents, helped make me feel like I was not alone, like I was taking steps to improve our situation and, most importantly, like it was going to get better. And it did.

So I was already inclined to like , and when I saw that MotherTalk wanted reviewers, I signed up because while sleep is no longer an issue (some combination of our experience and Eli’s personality means Eli has always slept more easily than his older brother), discipline certainly is. I don’t know what’s to come, but right now, I can’t imagine two more intense subjects for discipline than a 5 year-old and a 2 year-old. We are Discipline Hungry around here, and I ate Pantley’s book right up.

First of all, lest you get the impression from her title that this book will have you tiptoeing around your kids, afraid to discipline them lest they shatter like so many wineglasses, don’t worry. Pantley’s not looking to provoke tears, but she acknowledges—often-- that telling your kids no is going to upset them, and that’s ok. As she puts it, “You want your child to be unhappy about his misbehavior and the consequences it brings. This leads to better self-discipline and will help him to make decisions about how to act.” But I do agree with her that once the crying starts (my child’s or mine!) the opportunity for reasoned conversation, thoughtful reflection, or calm acceptance has been lost. And given how rarely those opportunities come at all, I don’t want to deliberately forestall them. So no-cry, here we go.

The opening section clearly and concisely sets out a foundation for discipline. She dispels myths that can get in the way of parenting well (“Good parents don’t lose their patience”) and promotes attitudes that support it (“Parents who do the right thing 70% of the time should feel proud of the job they are doing.”) She connects how you parent a teenager with how that child’s been parented as a kid, and I love the chart which makes it all look so clear: “Typical Older Child Behavior (leaves dirty dishes/clothes around the house); Preferred Behavior (obvious!); “How to Help Your Young Child Develop Preferred Behavior (as a Toddler, Preschooler, or Young Child).” Now, of course I know (and Pantley acknowledges) that it’s not always a direct route from A to B, but still I find such charts comforting; they suggest that there’s a possibility of success.

This section offered a lot of information I already know. I’m fortunate to parent in the context of a co-operative preschool, and we gather frequently for parent education meetings and more informal gatherings that cover a lot of Pantley’s material. Still, it’s useful to have the information gathered in one place, by a writer with a cheerful and encouraging tone. Sometimes it’s just helpful to pick up a book that tells you: “Keep in mind that [your child] isn’t out to get you, he isn’t trying to anger you, and he doesn’t have a master plan to drive you crazy. He’s just going about life in his blissful little world.” I like all the book’s quotations from parents, too, which offer a community like my preschool community; the remarks remind you that you’re not going it alone. The lovely pictures of kids throughout the book remind you why you make the effort (I’m going to keep flipping to the picture of Tristan, on page 137, when I need a laugh).

The second section, building on the first, offers basic parenting skills and tools. She starts with a list of the various problems that can trigger difficult behavior and offers ways to address them. Again, these are set out in a clear and concise way: Problem (Tiredness, for example), Solutions (make sure your kids gets naps; try not to drag them around on a day’s worth of errands; etc.) She offers a long list of strategies to get you through a tricky transition or diffuse a temper tantrum, from playacting to happy face cards to time outs. Some are silly, some are serious, but since one size doesn’t fit all, it’s great to have loads to choose from. Here, as in the rest of the book, Pantley offers charts, quotations from parents, a “reminder page,” for those of us with short attention spans, with a list of strategies; she’s offering a lot of information and makes it both easy to find and easy to use.

The third section, on anger, is the one I really focused on, because lately this is my biggest issue. I can absorb all kinds of good advice about disciplining my kids, but if I can’t speak to them without losing my temper, then they’re not going to hear it. The trick, for me, has always been that the big stuff doesn’t necessarily make me angry, and an easy day after a good night’s sleep doesn’t always guarantee a day without a flare-up. I can sail pretty calmly through playground meltdowns, grocery store whining, or my five year-old’s recent chant “You don’t know anything about me! You don’t know my feelings!” with a quiet, “I’m sorry you’re feeling like that right now,” but then find myself surprisingly worked up by a bit of toothpaste flying off the toothbrush into my hair. I grab the toothbrush from the out-of-control hand while part of me watches me lose my temper and thinks, “Really? This is the battle you’re fighting today?”

But as Pantley reassures us, this is normal. This happens because we’re doing this hard work -- guiding willful people through the day, all day long, often without much support, parenting moving targets, kids whose ideas and needs change without warning--and because we are human, our reactions don’t always fit the perceived crime. What helped me even more is her reminder that adults need reminders and test limits, too. We don’t always obey the known rules; we sometimes, willfully and consciously, “disobey.” Think about it. Why else are there speed limit signs posted every five miles on the highway? So Pantley offers a plan to manage anger, and even more helpfully, ideas on how to identify and reduce the situations that cause anger.

It has worked for me. In the past few days, we’ve endured an unusual series of bedtime meltdowns sparked by my refusing Ben's last-minute requests for more dinner, dessert, more playtime, more books, etc. I’ve been hit, kicked, and called “Stupid butt-head Caroline” by my usually even-tempered and peaceful five year-old. And tempting though it has been to march him into his room, turn out the light, and slam the door, I’ve instead managed to keep some perspective. Two of his good friends are moving away next month. He is graduating from preschool next week. His little brother is suddenly a very active player in our games and our family plans. We haven’t gotten to the part where he doesn’t melt down at all, but we’re working on that, and in the meantime, I haven’t lost my temper with him since reading Pantley’s book. Tony and I have already spent time talking about adopting some of her ideas, and as soon as I finish this review, he’ll start reading the book.

The final section, “Specific Solutions for Everyday Problems,” offers an alphabetical list of the misbehaviors a parent has to deal with, from babytalk to yelling, and capsule strategies to address them. The section and its epigraph give you a great sense of the overall tone of Pantley’s book:

The list of topics in this section sounds like my three-year-old daughter’s daily to-do list!

It’s a serious book, but it knows humor can help. Here, and with its charts, its clear, non-patronizing tone, its careful repetition, the book simply models the approach it suggests we take with our kids.

This is not the first book about discipline that I’ve read, but I think it may be the last. Pantley isn’t afraid of writing out the obvious, and that turns out to be helpful to read, so I’ll leave you with one more quotation:

Children are childish. Children are inexperienced, naïve, and narcissistic. They have limited knowledge about social rules and expected behavior. Furthermore, they are separate people from us and they have free will.

Someone without kids might read this and think, why bother? But I read this and smile. Indeed, they are separate people, they have free will, and doesn’t that just make the days interesting?!

Labels: book reviews, family life, mothertalk

No, we haven't moved out of San Francisco, we just know where to get a dose of small town (and summer weather!) when we (read I) need it: over the bridge and in Marin, where today we joined friends for their hometown pancake breakfast/Memorial Day Parade.

And when a couple enterprising kids rolled by us with their lemonade stand on a cart, you know we made a purchase!

Labels: family life, food, holidays, san francisco

Ben has discovered baseball.

At five, he’s come to his new interest a bit later than some of his friends. One of his preschool buddies last year wore a San Francisco Giants uniform every day, complete with eye black. Another close friend plays ball with the passion and determination of a boy who might really make it one day; he does his own play by play, with real players' names but details of his own life: “Here comes Reyes to the plate; he’s had three bowls of Puffins this morning and he’s feeling good.”

Ben has a tee, some balls and a bat (he even has a pair of batting gloves, a birthday gift from his uncle), all of which he does play with, but for the most part, despite going to a game last month (the impetus behind this new interest) baseball is not really a ball-oriented activity for him. Instead, he colors in pictures of team mascots that he prints out from the Major League Baseball kids' site (for the record, Lou Seal and Mr. Met are his favorites). He draws intricate diagrams of baseball diamonds, labeling all the different elements of the field. And today, he and Tony turned the train track into the Giants park (can you see how the megablocks spell out AT & T?), found some felt to cut into bases, and fielded a strong team of plastic animal players. He spent a long time this morning, playing in his room by himself, just announcing players coming to bat, and right now he's singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" to Eli.

Time to get the boy to some more games!

Labels: family life

It's taken me a few days to post about Eli's birthday because after celebrating the day thoroughly and well (a party with many good friends and cupcakes; a party with just the four of us and a chocolate layer cake), the wheels sort of came off the cart there for a couple days.

First, there was the dislocated elbow--totally my fault--this has happened to both boys before; I should know by now they are too heavy for their loose ligaments and it doesn't do to swing them around by their hands. Luckily it doesn't take more than a minute at the doctor to pop the elbow back in place, and it doesn't seem to hurt a whole lot either. (Or else Eli is just a big stoic). But still, you know, the guilt...

Then came the disintegration of the lovey blanket, which we've been watching for some time now, but couldn't figure out quite how to address. Well, I bought a spare lovey, but I didn't think that was really going to be acceptable, so it's been sitting in the closet. And then yesterday morning the patch, the label that he particularly loves, came off the lovey. I put it in my pocket for safe-keeping, while I tried to come up with a repair plan.

Not an hour later, Eli went to his blanket, as he does periodically throughout the day, and started turning, turning, turning it, looking for the patch. I watched a moment, unsure, and then pulled it from my pocket and offered it to him. He stared at it, wide-eyed, then looked at me and burst into tears. He wailed. He cried the big, gasping sobs of a child whose puppy has just died.

I thought he was going to hyperventilate, or throw up. I have never seen either of my boys cry so long and so hard. He wept for a solid hour, until Ben (bless him, such a guy sometimes) picked his head up from his intricate drawing and came over to assess the situation: Eli sobbing, me ineffectually trying to distract or comfort him.

"Hey, little bear," Ben said, "Can I read you a book?"

Eli paused, just long enough for Ben to decide that reading was probably a good idea, and so he began, and Eli listened, hiccuping a bit, and slowly calming down.

I kept the spare lovey in the closet. Turns out Tony can sew well enough, and he restored the patch to its former spot on the blanket, with a few extra, reinforcing stitches.

And Eli has had a taste of a couple life lessons (pain, disappointment, loss), but happily just toddler size portions of these lessons. I think the taste of chocolate cake is probably still stronger.

Labels: birthdays, family life

It's a good party when...

• all the shoes come off
• kids play duck-duck-goose on the lawn
• 3 preschool seekers take several minutes to find all the toddler hiders
• the parents get to eat and talk with other adults
• everyone gets seconds on cupcakes
• no one leaves in tears

"Moh pa-pa?" asked Eli afterward, as he fell asleep for his nap.

"No more party," I told him.

"No moh pa-pa," he answered; "Good pa-pa."

Good party, indeed.

Labels: birthdays, family life

I'm not sure these text-free recipe diagrams would work for me; after all, after however many years, I still don't understand what those little laundry labels in my clothes mean. I am definitely a word person, not an image person. But the pictures are appealing; I could imagine a poster decorating my kitchen wall...
Meanwhile, the designer is apparently still working out some of the bugs in this system: "The ingredients are still a work in progress," she said in the New York Times; "For example, it's hard to explain the difference between flour, baking powder, anthrax and cocaine without words."
OK! Let me know when you work that out...

Labels: cooking, reading, recipes

MotherTalk bloggers are talking about today; here's what I'm thinking about danger and boys...

For three years after Ben was born, I thought we lived without a dangerous boy. We baby proofed the house, as recommended, before Ben started to walk, but in retrospect needn’t have bothered; he wasn’t about to attempt the stairs on his own, and he’d run from the kitchen when I opened the oven door. When we walked to the local pumpkin patch and considered the hay ride, three year-old Ben regarded it warily: “Mama, does it go out of the pumpkin patch?” he asked. “Are there buckles [seatbelts]? Is it bumpy? Does it go fast?”

Needless to say, we did not go for a hay ride. For the most part he will sit instead of stand, walk instead of run, cuddle instead of climb. The quintessential Ben moment was when he stood on the couch (an uncharacteristic height for him to achieve) and called out, about to jump, “Watch, Mama! I’m gonna be safe!” This boy who came out hollering after such a short, sharp labor--well, we joke that being born is the only fast thing he’s ever done.

And then Eli arrived. It took him 17 hours to make the trip out of my body, and he was so quiet on his arrival that the doctors and nurses rubbed his feet and hair vigorously as I cradled him in my arms until he squeaked his protest and they let him be. And yet for a while it didn’t seem like he’d be much different than our older cautious boy. He crawled at ten months, walked at sixteen, a similar pace as his brother.

But then he started to run. And climb. And now every day I find myself unpeeling his fingers' tight hold on the kitchen drawer pulls, where he hangs midway up the bank of drawers, a rock climber with his summit (the cereal, the fresh banana bread, the clean wine glasses) just out of reach. “Where do we climb, Eli?” I ask him. “Pah-pah! [playground]” he laughs, and runs off, until he finds some other chair/table/lamp to climb.

I got this far in my writing when Tony brought the boys home from the park: Ben, looking just as he had when he left the house; Eli, covered in dirt and blood. He’d been running after a ball, tripped over a gopher hole, and gotten a bloody nose. Perhaps that’s my quintessential Eli moment—he throws himself full throttle at the world, and sometimes doesn’t manage a soft landing.

And I love it. I love my cautious guy (who reminds me so much of myself), and I love my adventurer. I want to encourage each boy to be exactly who he is, while continuing to admire the strengths of the other, too. I want each to have the confidence to take risks, the judgment to evaluate which risks are worth taking, and the strength (physical and emotional) to recover from the risks that didn’t quite work out.

Right now the risks are minor and the stakes pretty low – if I gave Eli a match today, after all, he’d more likely get a splinter than a burn. I wonder what the future holds, as my boys move farther away from my protection, as their world broadens. But it looks like one of them will be pointing out the dangers, the other one rushing toward them. My two dangerous boys.

Labels: family life, mothering, mothertalk

Last week: sandals, capris, tank top.

This week: boots, socks, jeans, long-sleeved shirt, wool sweater, down jacket, scarf.

San Francisco weather used to make me crazy. Now I'm just kind of amused.

Labels: san francisco

Every other Thursday, I manage a day without children. I leave the house early to meet my writing group, allowing an hour to drive 17 miles through rush hour traffic. If I'm lucky I arrive in time to pick up some tea at the Peet's on the corner. We circle our metal folding chairs in a kindergarten classroom decorated with posters defining "community" and "friendship." Some of us bring our kids—the nursing toddler, the preschooler on vacation—and we set out crayons and Lincoln Logs to keep them occupied while we catch up on our personal and publishing news, then settle in to discuss and critique each other's writing. Even when I haven't shared my work, I leave after 90 minutes recharged and full of ideas for my own writing. I spend the afternoon holed up in a café with my laptop and my latte.

I've been feeling particularly grateful for my writing group since watching The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (Jane Anderson, 2005), the true story of a woman who "raised ten kids on twenty-five words or less."

Read more of this month's column at Literary Mama.

Labels: mama at the movies, movies, writing

6:30 A.M.
With two little kids, I didn't really expect to sleep in. Still, Tony got up with Eli at 6, and I got to keep my eyes closed another half hour, until Ben came thundering down the hall. Sweet guy, he's been waiting to give me my Mother's Day present since he made it in preschool on Friday afternoon, and now he can't wait another minute. We snuggle up in bed to read his card and admire the "garden" of shiny pebbles, feathers, and bits of potpourri pressed into playdoh in a big yogurt lid. I don't have to fake my enthusiasm, even at this hour: I love it.


7:00 A.M.
Tony and Eli bring me breakfast, the Sunday Times, a little gift and another card. Then the big gift: they all leave for two hours while I read the paper, uninterrupted.

10:00 A.M.
We walk over to the park, where we run into a friend with her two girls (her partner's off on a training ride for the SF to LA LifeCycle). We all ride the carousel a while, hopping from animal to animal.

noon
Eli falls asleep on the stroll home and miraculously transfers to nap in the crib. Tony, Ben and I eat lunch on the sunny deck.

1 P.M.
Tony (who's fighting a cold) takes a nap; Ben plays lego while I get ready for my reading.

4 P.M.
We meet up with my writing group at the Nomad Cafe in Berkeley. The microphone's set up in the children's play area, so our kids lounge on big cushions, look at picture books and play with Exo-Bonz at our feet while the 6 of us take turns reading from our work. It feels just like our bi-weekly meetings!

6 P.M.
Pizza dinner with most of the writing group at one member's house. Eli can't believe his luck: we're letting him play with marbles (he's almost old enough to deal with choking hazards; besides, I figure, most of these are small enough to go through). Ben discovers the trains just as we're about to go, but is lured away by the promise of a stop at a friend's house.

9 P.M.
We're finally heading home, the boys delirious from playing with their two friends. Ben falls asleep when we're halfway home; Eli, wired, can't stop talking. By the time we get home, he's sighing "Mama, mama, mama!!" like a little drunk. And falls asleep after three minutes in the crib. I'm not far behind.

Labels: family life, holidays, writing

I started practicing yoga when I was pregnant with my first son, Ben. Until then, yoga had always been on my big life “to-do” list, like learning to play guitar and living in Paris. It wasn’t until the nice lady who was giving me a pregnancy massage told me that the burning pain under my shoulder blade was from my diaphragm (yes, that’s right, it got pushed all the way over there), that I made the time for yoga.

And it helped. It didn’t just help the burning pain, it helped me sleep a little better, and to stress out a little less; it helped me feel more balanced – physically and emotionally—for the rest of the pregnancy.

After Ben was born, I went back to yoga with him. He was kind of a fussy, colicky guy at first, and mom and baby yoga seemed like a great solution: calm baby, calm mama. Well, it didn’t entirely work out that way. I was still a little too unsteady about being a mother to manage tree poses with a baby in the crook of my arm.

Yoga on my own continued to work wonders, however, and I kept at it as much as I could, figuring that a calm mama could better handle a fussy child. When I got pregnant the second time, I practiced yoga all the way through, and was attended through a 17 hour natural childbirth by my yoga teacher/doula.

Now I don’t get to yoga classes very often at all. My family’s schedule seems to shift daily, so right now I need the kind of exercise that I can grab when the opportunity presents itself. I run every other day and aspire to setting aside some time, a place, at home where I can lay out a mat and sink into a nice downward dog every once in a while.

I’m newly motivated to do this by reading Elizabeth Irvine’s , a book I learned about from Andi and Miriam at MotherTalk. It’s a gorgeous, easy to manage book – you could lay it on the floor next to you as you practice, so that you can see if you’re getting the poses approximately right. Irvine writes with an engaging tone, and peppers her prose with plenty of real-world examples to support her points. “We take on board whatever thoughts we feed ourselves,” she says, pointing out how deflated you can feel, for example, after a well-meaning friend says, “You look tired.” She offers strategies to avoid absorbing everything the world dishes out.

The book’s thus much more than a yoga manual. Irvine believes, as I do, that what we eat and what we think and how we feel are all pretty tightly connected. As she puts it, “You know the saying, ‘you are what you eat.’ Similarly I feel there’s truth to ‘we are what we hold in ourselves.’ We become what we think, read, and watch and whom we spend our time with.” So she offers useful and specific nutrition tips—not just about what to feed yourself and your family (whole grains; juice instead of soda, etc), but how, suggesting ways to get your kids involved in the preparation of meals in order to get them more interested in actually eating what’s on the table, and sitting with you to do so. She’s preaching to the choir with me. Tony and I have insisted on family dinner since Ben was a little bug, and it has its ups and downs, of course (our toddler, Eli, having now rejected both high chair and booster, does a lot of jumping down from his chair and running around the table at dinner), but still, we are convinced, having grown up with nightly family dinners ourselves, that this is a ritual well worth passing on to our own kids.

Now, I have a pretty low tolerance for the kinds of floaty ideas that books like this seem often to offer, and happily Irvine's writing is as grounded as she'd like us all to be. Still, she does recommend visualization, a technique that always wakes up my inner cynic. Back during my first pregnancy, a friend told me about her childbirth prep class in Berkeley, in which she was instructed to visualize her contractions “hugging and caressing” her baby. We laughed and joked about visualizing the IV full of pain medication (though in fact, between the two of us we’ve now managed 4 drug-free deliveries).

But this book isn’t just about me, of course; remember the ? And look again at the cover photo, that little body folded next to his mama’s. It’s about teaching my children some healthy habits, offering them some tools to get them through the day. And I believe Irvine when she claims that kids are particularly adept at visualization techniques. Most nights after Eli is settled into bed, I crawl in for another cuddle with Ben, who asks me to tickle his belly and tell him the story of the day he was born. Irvine would certainly approve of this sweet ritual, and I’m not looking to drop it anytime soon, but I might suggest adding a little visualization tomorrow night, and see how Ben and I do with it. Irvine offers a couple narrative routes to get you started (“Seeing A Star,” “The Rainbow,” “Soaring with an Eagle”), and I’m sure once you get in the habit, it’s pretty easy to come up with some that work for yourself and your child.

She suggests a variety of other calming strategies, like drawing a mandala (not my style, but I can see Ben, who loves to concentrate on a drawing, getting a lot out of it) or writing acrostic or diamante poems, two ideas I love. All of these various techniques – yoga, breathing, visualizations, balanced nutrition—Irvine argues, can make a difference in helping a child deal with difficulties from eczema (the condition in her son which first led Irvine to alternative therapies) to ADD to a lack of self-confidence and more. They certainly can’t hurt. Also, I appreciate how she cycles back to both her tips and the various issues they might assist with throughout the book, approaching them all from different angles, to reiterate her argument that we are fully interconnected beings.

I began to lose Irvine slightly in the last section of the book, “Home,” which seemed a little less grounded in practical advice and information and a bit more reliant on platitudes (“Each child is a unique gift;” “Children have magical ways about them”). But in the generous spirit of the book, I’ll think of these as mantras, to repeat (perhaps through clenched teeth!) during difficult moments of parenting.

I found the book simple, clear and useful. It reiterated some things I know already and practice, inspired me to try adding a couple more habits to my family life, and taught me a few things I didn’t know. I’m looking forward to adding some of her ideas to our daily routine.

Labels: book reviews, mothertalk

This is a repost from my old blog; now I have a pretty picture to show you what pandowdy looks like!

I was doing more than the usual baking toward the end of my pregnancy with Eli. It was a good antidote to the uncertainty of our renovation, and it was certainly making my friends and family happy. Even my doula, who wanted me to go on a no-wheat, no yeast, no sugar diet because I’d cultured positive for group-b strep, acknowledged that it would probably be less stressful for me to be hooked up to IV antibiotics during my labor (to prevent transmitting the bacteria to my baby), than change my diet and end my baking tear. The day we discussed this, as I recall, I’d baked both bread and a strawberry-rhubarb pie. (In the event, my water didn’t break until the minute Eli’s head popped out, rendering the antibiotic issue happily moot). Ben, always an excellent kitchen assistant, would wake up those days, during that sweet season of baking, asking, “What kind of pandowdy will we make today, Mama?”

Ah, pandowdy. A classic American dessert which is essentially pie for slobs. It has all the just-dump-the-fruit-in-the-pan appeal of a crisp or cobbler, but with the slightly fancy touch of a pie crust on top. Except you don’t have to prebake the crust, or roll it out very carefully, or even crimp the edges. In fact, part way through baking you slice it up and push the crust down under the fruit a bit so that the juice runs over the top and carmelizes the crust. Yum. It looks a mess (hence the name: pandowdy = dowdy in the pan), but tastes fabulous. Here’s an adaptation from Joy of Cooking and Deborah Madison’s lovely Local Flavors.

For the crust
1 c plus 2 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 c butter, in chunks
1/2 tsp vanilla
2-3 tbsp ice water

Using a food processor, blend the flour, sugar, and salt together, then work in the butter until coarse crumbs form. Add the vanilla and sprinkle in just enough water for the dough to clump together with a few pulses of the food processor. Shape the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill while you prepare the fruit.

Preheat the oven to 400. Lightly butter a 2-quart baking dish.

For the filling
7-8 c fruit, chopped into large bite-sized chunks (I used rhubarb and strawberries, but you could use apple and rhubarb, apple, blueberries, peaches and blueberries, whatever you’ve got and sounds good)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c maple syrup or brown sugar

Toss the fruit with the other ingredients and spread in the baking dish.

Roll out the chilled dough to about 1/8 inch thick and about an inch wider than your dish (but don’t sweat it if the dough is a slightly different shape than your dish, leaving some gaps where the fruit is uncovered; this is pie for slobs, remember?). Lay the dough over the fruit, tucking the edges into the fruit.

Bake until the crust is light gold, 30-35 minutes. Remove the pandowdy from the oven and lower the heat to 350. Slice across the crust diagonally into 2-inch squares. Use a spatula to press the crust down into the fruit and tilt the pan to let the juices flow over the crust (don’t worry if there’s not much juice yet, and of course don’t worry about breaking or crushing the crust – that’s the point).

Return the dish to the oven and continue to bake until the crust is really golden and glazed and the fruit is tender when pierced, about 20-30 minutes more. If you remember, baste the crust with the fruit juices once or twice during this second baking. Serve warm , with vanilla ice cream.

Labels: family life, recipes

Dionne Ford just wants five minutes to work on her novel. Here's how her day begins:

Every morning starts at a deficit. The day has not even begun, and I'm already behind. I hear shouting: "I want to take a shower!" "I don't want to take a shower!" "I need to take a shower!" "Get up!" It could be my husband. It could be one of my daughters. It could be my subconscious. I mean to get up before them all, to sit quietly and listen for guidance for the day, some instruction that will steel me when my plans all go to hell.

Click on over to Literary Mama to see if she ever gets those five minutes.

Labels: literary mama, reading, writing

We never know when we're going to enjoy a hit of real, fogless summer, but we're in the midst of it now: all the doors and windows open, me in a sundress, the boys in shorts, and grilled pizza for dinner. Yum!

Labels: family life, food, san francisco

4 May 1997: chocolate chip banana bread for a hike on Mt. Tamalpais, Tony's and my first (blind) date

October 1998: Caesar salad pizza, eaten to the accompaniment of Don Ho recordings and tree toad croakings, while on vacation in Maui

September 1999: margarita pizza and champagne at the Oakville Grocery in Healdsburg to celebrate our engagement

July 2000: butternut squash ravioli in brown butter, spinach salad with fresh raspberries, and an amaretto-infused wedding cake

September 2001: mushroom ravioli, spinach and pear salad with candied walnuts and blue cheese, and chocolate bread pudding, a comfort-foods dinner for friends after the 9/11 attacks

April 2002: asparagus and mushroom fajitas at Chevy’s with 5-week old Ben, our first restaurant meal as a family of three

April 2003: poached salmon with dill sauce, steamed green beans with lemon zest and slivered almonds, and lemon tart – an Easter picnic I made at home and carried to the hospital where Tony’s mom was undergoing cancer treatment

September 2004: tiny servings of extra-sharp cheddar cheese, cherry tomatoes and ice water (while Tony and Ben eat proper meals) during the first trimester of a queasy pregnancy

May 2005: pancakes at the Volunteer Fireman’s Breakfast in downtown Mill Valley, our first big family outing, a week after Eli’s birth

January 2006: tofu with fried basil and onions, veggie spring rolls, pad thai and mussamun curry, take-out, to celebrate our first night home after a year-long renovation

4 May 2007: a poached egg with crème fraiche and snipped chive, served in its shell, balanced on a bed of crystal-clear salt, the 2nd in our 7-course “garden tasting menu” at Fifth Floor Restaurant, a perfect, decadent meal to celebrate ten years.

Labels: family life, food

When Ben was a little bit, we participated in a "nurse-in," breastfeeding with about 1,200 other moms, babies, and toddlers in a big Berkeley auditorium. Ben could hardly focus, so wide-eyed at the site of all those kids nursing at the same time, but he latched on long enough for us to help set a new world record.

I was happy to read recently that the record's been broken yet again, this time in the Philippines.
Congratulations to all those moms and their kids!

Labels: mothering

One of the (many) reasons we renovated our house last year was because our little Edwardian, with all its chair rails and moldings, didn't have much open wall space for Tony's late father's enormous paintings. Now, we've been able to hang several of the fabulous, gorgeous canvases... but as it turns out, Ben needs plenty of display space, too. He's taken to taping his pictures (right now it's all trains, all the time) to the half-wall over his art table, to doors, and now to the front window.
On the far right, you see an Amtrak train ("toot!!" it says,) its pantograph carefully connecting it to the electric wires above. The sign on the bottom says simply, "Ben Love Tony." And this morning's addition, after we'd baked banana coconut muffins, welcomed friends for a playdate: "Muffins Waiting."

I'm so happy to live in this house!

(a note about the muffins: you can replace half the butter with 3/4 c ground flax seed and feel virtuous about eating two or three...)

Labels: cooking, family life