Author: kakakakaty

Share the Shearer’s

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As I mentioned before – Mark’s race was a weekend-long family affair. We were in Cincinnati for 2 nights/3 days along with my parents and other family. I have 2 rules when traveling with kids: 1) a suite or 2 regular hotel rooms are essential and 2) bring SNACKS. Lots of snacks.

Luckily not long before the race weekend Shearer’s asked me to be part of their Share the Shearer’s and try out their new line of healthier chips (in comparison to their classic Red Bag line). Ever since I learned that Shearer’s was not only a local company but one of the greenest good manufacturing plants in the world, we have made an effort to buy only their chips for parties and home. So accepting their offer was a no-brainer as I already buy their product.

It was perfect – I could stock our hotel room with snacks for us, for my parents and for other family who would be stopping by throughout the weekend. Shearer’s sent me a box of assorted chips – the new potato chips, along with several flavors of Riceworks and Shapers. The day we left I also went and picked up some grocery items like cheese, yogurt, water and fruit to round out the selection we’d have in the hotel room.

Thank goodness for the snacks! First of all, the Black Bean Salsa and Cinnamon Shapers were gone days before we hit the road. Mark and Matilda took care of those in short order. In fact we passed the cinnamon ones off as dessert a couple of times (18 grams of whole grains and low sugar in a dessert – score one for mom!). During our 4-hour drive to Cincinnati we all shared the Sea Salt Riceworks which were NOT what I was expecting from a “brown rice crisp”. They were a little nutty, salty and crunchy and quite delicious; I’m pretty sure I had way more than my share of that bag.

In the hotel room we sampled the chips with visiting family….believe me, people were more than happy to come hang out in our room! The sour cream and onion and the rippled were everyone’s favorite. And no one had any idea they were eating chips without trans fat. In fact, my mom asked for a bag of Rippled to take home – they were as good as her favorite potato chips (and that woman is a potato chip connoisseur). Mark chowed down on the BBQ and Classic flavors post-race… he said the salt was “essential” after running.

I gave the Sweet Chili and Tangy BBQ Riceworks Chips to a co-worker who is gluten-free. Later that day he not only thanked me 3 times he asked to throw one of the bags in my trash. He had eaten both bags and was embarrassed to have 2 “empties” in his own trashcan. Guess that means they were really good!

Chips aren’t a pantry staple in our house, but Shearer’s will always be our go-to when the craving hits. It’s nice to know that you can get the flavor you want without the junk you don’t want. It’s a company I’m more than happy to support.

Disclosure: Shearer’s provided chips to sample and a grocery gift card to supplement our selection for the weekend. The opinions are strictly my own.

In Defense of a 30 Minute Meal

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Foodie. Hippie. Locavore. Food Douche. Call it what you will but we, like thousands of other families, have take great strides to improve what we eat. Make more homemade. Support local agriculture. Cook more.

There’s an article by fellow Clevelander, Michael Ruhlman, that’s been making the rounds for the last year and when first I read it I nodded along in agreement. Everyone has time to cook – just not everyone makes the choice to cook.

But as it’s resurfaced and I’ve read it again, this time through the lens of a working mother of 2 kids under 5, I get defensive.

I cook a lot. I make much of what we eat from scratch. But why should it have to take an hour or more for it to be considered real cooking? In reality, if it weren’t for the “fast and easy meal” recipes from people like Jamie Oliver and – my favorite source – America’s Test Kitchen, then I would probably not cook as much as I do today.

America’s Test Kitchen – my current favorite recipe magazine

Here is our evening: I pick up Matilda from preschool, drop the carpool kid off, and walk in the door between 5:15 and 5:30 . Mark and the Madman get home between 5:30 and 5:45. The Madman goes to bed at 7:00.  That leaves –  at the most – 90 minutes for dinner to be cooked and eaten, baths to be given and, hopefully, some playtime, reading and snuggles thrown in. I imagine that this scene is played out in countless homes of working parents throughout the country.

My solution is to seek out recipes and ideas with faster cooking times and things I can do ahead. The entire family loves this Korean Beef Rice Bowl. It’s a 30-minute meal that, with a little prep (I do all the chopping, cutting and marinating the night before), can be on the table in 10 minutes. Because of this recipe and others like it, on the nights Matilda has gymnastics we can still have a healthy, real-food dinner cooked by me. We all enjoy it, it’s healthy and it makes me feel good that I made it. A really crazy night might see scrambled eggs with spinach and herbs from our garden thrown on a plate. In the few minutes it takes to cook dinner Matilda can have the table set and when the boys walk in we all sit down for dinner. 

My goal every work-week is to make 3 home-cooked meals with enough leftovers to get us through 2 more dinners. I do what I can on the weekends to make this happen. Something I learned from the 30-minute-meal type shows is to prep all the veggies as soon as I get home from the market. On the weekends I’ll roast a chicken (or 2) to use during the week or make overnight stock if my freezer stash is getting low. I’ll clean and chop and measure out all my mise en place for the 3 meals on Sunday night. I store them in tupperware, labeled with blue tape. I’ll fill a huge bowl with torn lettuce for my lunch salads and will make a big batch of tuna salad. If I’m feeling wild and crazy I’ll make my own mayonnaise, butter or bread, too. 

Some weekends I’ll even get chicken breasts from the Plum Creek Farm stand at the farmers market and will spend an hour cutting them up to make chicken nuggets to stash in the freezer for nights I don’t feel like cooking. Or I’ll make a big batch of waffles on a Sunday morning and freeze the leftovers for out-the-door breakfasts (yes, I give my kids waffles that are still-frozen…they eat them in the car). But I also never feel guilty serving my kid a store-bought nugget or waffle when the homemade supply runs out.

Listen, I do love to cook – when I have time to enjoy it. Give me a weekend with nothing pressing and I’ll make chicken pot pie, braised short ribs or a luscious lasagna from scratch. But trying to shove the meal prep or long cooking (and/or oven-heating) time into my small window of weekday evening of time with my kids is not a high priority. That’s not even mentioning the stress of trying to cook while tripping over a one year old who is reaching for the burner knobs on the stove while the 4 year old whines that she’s hungry. That is not enjoyable for anyone.

I do think that Ruhlman’s overall point is very valid: everyone has time to cook, but not everyone chooses to do so. And while I’m happy that today he has time to enjoy “carnal exertions” with his lovely wife during the hour his dinner roasts in the oven, I’m sure he remembers a little bit of what life was like when his kids were knee-high rugrats clamoring for “food! food! now!”

So please, Michael, stop making at-home 30-minute cooks feel like we are the enemy to good food. And please don’t discourage editors, publishers, producers and chefs from developing new fast meal ideas. I rely on them. In fact, I invite you over to see how I can have a rocking from-scratch meal on the table 20 minutes after I walk in the door.

Race Day

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…continued from here
Dark and early Sunday morning Mark’s alarm went off at 4:30 so he could eat breakfast well ahead of the 6:30 race start. I crawled out from under the covers at 5:15, scooped up the Madman and dropped him off in my parent’s room, and we headed for the car.

Ready to run

A quick drop off near the starting line and I went back to the hotel where they were just setting up the breakfast. I grabbed a bagel, banana and coffee and went up to the room to watch the weather. While it wasn’t raining when I dropped Mark off the radar didn’t look good. By the time my mom brought the kids back down to my room at 6:15 there was a steady downpour outside. Yuck.

At 7:15 we gathered in the lobby with signs, noisemakers and umbrellas and all headed outside. The hotel was right on the marathon course at about mile 6 ½. There was a good size crowd already gathered and we found a spot right along the midline of the road. The leaders had already passed that point but soon we saw some of the 30,408(!) runners trudge up the hill and around the curve.

The best cheering section ever

My mom spotted him first and we all cheered and yelled as he ran by. The rain had tapered off to drizzle at this point and he seemed pretty chipper. (I had 8 different signs for cheering, the one my dad is holding above got the most smiles/laughs from runners).

Blurry but happy!

We went back to the hotel and I left the kid with my parents, threw the rest of the signs in the car and headed over to Hyde Park Square to meet up with the course at mile 11. Except I never made it there. From the hotel the only way (as far as I could tell) to get there was to cross the marathon course which, obviously, wasn’t happening. I circled around for a bit in the adjoining neighborhoods and finally parked and found the route. I got set with my camera and signs, asked a volunteer where we were – mile 10ish – and pulled out my phone to see where Mark was. According to his Facebook updates via Runmeter he was already at mile 12. Shit.

I hustled back to the car and mapped my way to the “Party Zone” at mile 21.5. I wasn’t too worried about missing Mark at 10 because my cousin and aunt were planning to cheer at miles 14 and 17 (which, for spectators, were only a few blocks apart). I got to my spot around 8:50 and checked Facebook again – he was already at mile 18 – he was flying!

A few minutes later I got a call from my cousin, Carrie. They got a little lost but, were now at mile 16 – had he gone past yet? My heart fell; according to Runmeter he was already well past that spot. And Mark hadn’t seen a familiar face for over 12 miles. I felt awful!

But if he was at 18 already I would see him shortly at 21.5. I cheered as I waited; lots of people were looking ragged. Just beat down and ready to stop. I fact one guy cramped up as he went by and I helped prop him up as another spectator massaged his calves. After 20 minutes I got worried that maybe he was injured and had to stop…he should have gone by me by now.

Then my phone rang – Carrie and my Aunt Gretchen were driving along the route to get to the finish and they saw Mark! They were able to pull over and cheer for him – what a relief! He had just passed mile 19 when they saw him….apparently the Runmeter App had gone wonky and the mileage was off.

Then around the corner he came. He looked pretty beat down, but he was still running. I yelled and rattled the cow bell and tried to take a few photos. I wanted to do everything at once; I was so excited to see him. I fact I started crying a little bit and he told me later that he did, too.

Five miles to go

I jumped back in my car and hightailed it downtown for the finish. The crowd was huge and I had to drive around several blocks before I find a parking garage with open spots. I ran down to the finish area and shimmied my way up to the barricade. I was on the wrong side- the half-marathon lane was directly in front of me – but I didn’t want to risk missing him cross the finish as I tried to get a better spot.

My cousin called and said they were on the other side, right next to the finish line. Now all we had to do was watch for him to come down the final quarter-mile. After not very long I spotted him. I screamed and yelled and waved around my sign and as he passed by he spotted me.


I cried.

Mark crossed the finish at 4:21. I am just so damn proud of him.
—————————

By the time we got back to the hotel we had 15 minutes to clear out*. So we threw everything together and headed north to my cousin’s apartment. She graciously offered her place for Mark to shower and relax.
I had set up a lunch for everyone at nearby InCahoots*. Mark was able to sit and rest for a bit and M was excited to give him the gifts we had purchased to commemorate his accomplishment.
Official Flying Pig Finisher hat and jacket
After a little more time visiting and resting at Carrie’s apartment we all hit the road for home.
My Aunt in the center (my cousin took the photo)
Notice the awesome shirts my sister got for the kids
Despite the rain and long drives it was a terrific weekend. One that I hope I never forget. Mark just started running last June. He turned 39 2 weeks ago. He trained through a Cleveland winter – rain, sleet, snow, wind, slush, and ice (even a few rogue skunk encounters) – nothing stopped him. More than once he returned from a 10+ mile run with his coat and hair covered in frost. He even bought running cleats for traction in the snow and ice. He did almost all of his runs after the kids went to bed, hitting the pavement after 8 PM, so he wouldn’t miss any time with them.

Mark is truly an inspiration to me. I love you, Mark!

*You’d think that when an entire hotel is full of runners that maybe they’d have a pretty flexible check-out time, considering the timing of the race. But no, the Spring Hill Midtown was pretty rude and we had to be out by noon, even though they told me (a Marriott Rewards member) a week prior that a late check-out “should be no problem”.

**They were fantastic about accommodating us. And the food was really good, too. I would totally recommend them if you are in the area. (I got nothing for saying this, they were just great to us).

Race Travel Report

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This past weekend we picked up the kids from school early, loaded up the station wagon and drove the 4+ hours down to Cincinnati for Mark’s 1st marathon. To say it was a great weekend would be an understatement. You might think that only runners can write race reports, but spouses who spend hours planning and organizing the logistics of an out-of-town race also have a story to tell…

Such a great traveler (thank god for travel DVD players)

My parents also drove down for the weekend which was not only a nice thing to do (coming to cheer for their son-in-law) but also turned out to be an invaluable asset. The extra hands to help wrangle the kids was a godsend for me as I stressed about getting around on race day. I can’t thank them enough for giving up their weekend and helping out.

On Saturday they took MAD while Mark, M and I headed to the expo. It’s a bit overwhelming being a first timer, but M had a great time checking out the booths and getting freebies. As a runner Mark got a nice backpack and a tech shirt. After we left the expo we decided to check out a bit of the course. It ran right past our hotel at about mile 6.5 which was smack dab in the middle of a major uphill climb. In fact I was worried at the steepness and length of the hills. Mark did a good deal of hill training but the terrain in Cleveland can’t compare to that of Cincinnati. In fact, miles 3 to 9 were all uphill. He wasn’t worried, though. On our drive I tried to scope out where I would cheer and we saw some really beautiful neighborhoods.

Bib secured, pigs ready to fly

We grabbed lunch at nearby Mt. Adams Bar and Grill, which was a very cute and accommodating place with good food. (Once we found parking. Mt Adams is a darling area, but parking is really hard to find). Afterwords Mark and MAD took a nap while my mom, M and I checked out the beautiful Eden Park which was across the street from our hotel. We soaked up the sunshine and warmth while we could – the Sunday forecast had a 90% chance of rain. As it was my first time in Cincinnati-proper I was really impressed with the parks, houses and architecture. Cinci has much more to offer then I had thought.

My mom doesn’t usually have a spout of water coming out of her head

For dinner we headed over to Kentucky for dinner at Pompilio’s. I had researched pasta places extensively and had called the restaurant earlier in the week. While they wouldn’t take reservations they insisted it would only be a 30-45 min wait at 6 PM, even with the Reds game and the marathon. We got there and saw crowds waiting outside. I made my way through the (smokey – I forgot not every state has the same wonderful smoking ban that OH does) bar and the hostess told me it would be a 3 hour wait! Thank goodness for smartphones because we were looking for a new place immediately. We ended up at Martino’s On Vine near the UC campus. It was a great place; not crowded, fantastic service and good prices. My cousin, Carrie, who lives in Blue Ash and my Aunt (from Columbus) came down to join us and it was great to catch up with them. Mark got his big plate of spaghetti and meatballs and was a happy camper.

My parents, wonderful people that they are, offered to take M to the hotel pool then have her sleep in their room on the pull-out couch so Mark would get good sleep. We eagerly accepted since the night before no one really got any sleep with all 4 of us in a single hotel room. I was able to keep MAD pretty quiet all night so Mark was able to get a pretty solid 6 1/2 hours of sleep before is alarm went off at 4:30 on Sunday morning.

Race day is a whole other story…

One

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Dear MAD,

Last Sunday you turned 1. It feels like just a moment ago that you were born, making our family complete, and now you are already ticking off the days until you’re 2.

1 week

Your first year was a pretty easy one, filled with smiles and dimples and not much sleep. I look back over the last year and can’t believe that it’s passed so quickly. Other than your sleep issues, you are an amazingly content baby. It helps that you adore your big sister and she adores you. She loves to entertain you with songs, dances and stories and you are more than happy to be her audience. No one can draw a belly laugh from you like she can.

You started out as a big brute of a baby, topping the growth charts and busting out of clothes in no time. But in the last few months your pace has slowed and you are in clothes that match your age (12-18 months) and sit squarely in the low to middle end of the growth charts. Your one-year check-up clocked you at 21 lbs. 3 oz and 29.5 inches.

 6 months

You aren’t quite walking yet and seem perfectly content to cruise and crawl. You are lightning quick and shoot across the room to harass the dog in no time. You’ve been standing and walking with help for at least 2 months and are just now starting to take a few tentative steps way from the furniture. But as soon as you realize you aren’t holding on you drop down to your knees. You also “walk” on your knees, which is funny to watch. You’ve been able to crawl up the stairs without help for awhile, and it’s one of your favorite things to do.

You love anything and everything that has a button, but you prefer the real thing over toys. Remotes and phones don’t stand a chance with you.

There are still no teeth in your mouth. You’ve been drooling, chewing and cranky as if teeth were coming in for months but so far, nothing. I’m enjoying the extra time with your gummy grin.

At “school” you are now the big man on campus – one of the oldest in the room – and you take charge when you enter. You know the routine and as soon as you get there in the morning you make your rounds.

1 year!

You still take 2 naps – sometimes as long as 3 hours. Getting you to sleep is a breeze and you’re a pretty sound sleeper. But it seems that you can’t go more than 5-6 hours without a cuddle or a snack. As tired as I am from getting up every night, I can’t say I don’t enjoy cuddling and rocking you in the dim light of your midnight room. I’m treasuring them because I know their days are limited.

Happy birthday, my little Madman. I love you with all my heart.

-Mama

The Daughter Project

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There are all kinds of websites out there that advocate going on a shopping diet, simplifying, getting rid of the clutter in your life. But, mostly, they promote the simplicity in the name of calming your own life. Which is, for most, a good goal.

But could you wear the same thing for 180 days? That’s 6 months. One dress. Every day, no exceptions. Every time you want to buy something new, donate that money to others instead. Talk about simplicity…mind-boggling simplicity. My friend Amy is doing just that, and no, she’s not crazy. She is doing to raise awareness, money and hope for the forgotten.

I came to know Amy through her aunt, who is a good friend of mine. We were all in a fabulous book club together back in Toledo. (Those ladies are still going strong after a decade and I miss them dearly). The first thing to know about Amy is that she is a beautiful soul. And I don’t say that lightly. Actually I don’t think I’ve ever said that of anyone before. She has an ease about her that radiates warmth and kindness and is the kind of person you want to get to know.

Anyway, Amy came across this idea of wearing one dress for 6 months around the same time she became aware of The Daughter Project:

The Daughter Project is a non-profit organization in Northwest Ohio that exists to help girls recover from the trauma of sex trafficking and to help prevent others from being trafficked.

An idea to wear the dress to gain awareness for both the horrendous problem of sex trafficking in our state and raise funds for The Daughter Project was born. She slipped on her little gray t-shirt dress in November and hasn’t looked back. In addition to everything else Amy is also crazy creative; if anyone can rock a single dress for 180 days and look amazing it’s Amy.

She’s been able to raise a lot of awareness – she works on the campus of BGSU and lots of college students have been lending her accessories to jazz up her outfits. Friends are joining her for a month at a time in their own dress. Sororities have held yard-sales to raise money for The Daughter Project in Amy’s honor. All the news outlets in NW Ohio have picked up her story and it’s made its way through the wires to CNN.

Some facts to ponder:

– Nationwide as many as 300,000 underage girls are being sold for sex in America.

– The Trafficking Victims Protection Act provides federal money to care for foreign victims of sex trafficking but no federal money has gone to help American girls.

– According to the Ohio Trafficking Commission about 1,000 American-born children and about 800 immigrants are forced into the sex trade in Ohio every year.

– Because of weak state laws in Ohio the state is quick to label child prostitutes as delinquents and to incarcerate them, rarely looking further at the adults involved.

– Due to it’s proximity to Canada (Toronto is an arrival destination for international victims) Toledo ranks fourth in the U.S. in terms of arrests, investigations and rescue of domestic child-sex victims.

This is an issue I knew existed, but not until Amy embarked on her project did I know how dire the problem is. Nor did I understand how big of an issue it is here in Ohio.

I ask you to do 2 things – go give Amy some comment love and encouragement as she heads into the home stretch of her 180 days in her gray dress. And please consider skipping that next self-indulgent purchase at the Gap and instead donate to the Daughter Project (or any of the “kindred organizations” listed on their site).

All photos taken from Amy’s site with her permission

Sleep: I gots (Update)

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I’m such an awful blogger. Almost a month has gone by since that last post. I’ve been busy on twitter but not inspired to post here. Why? Because I’ve been SLEEPING.

Yes, I’m not even kidding you to say that on March 4th – one night after my last post about not having any sleep for 13 months – MAD started sleeping 10-12 hours straight. That, right there, is the power of the internet and universe. Put something “out there” and it will change.

The first night I thought it was a fluke. Then he slept 7:30 PM – 7 AM the next night. And the next. He went 10 days like that. Now he wakes up around 5 for breakfast but then he goes back to sleep until 7-7:30. It. Is. Glorious.

Add to that M sleeping in until 8:30 on some weekends. Plus we have taught her (and she actually complies) that she’s not allowed out of her room in the morning until “7 is the first number on her clock”. Not being able to go downstairs at 6:30 has (for now) stopped the early morning waking.

So, that’s where I’ve been…in bed. And reading a book I bought nearly a year ago and haven’t had the energy to read.

If you’ll excuse me, I might need to do this for another 3 months just to catch up.

Sleep, Can I Haz?

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M didn’t sleep through the night until probably 22 months. For her 1st year she was up to eat at least once a night (2-3 times a night for the first six months); I was breastfeeding and she refused a bottle so I was always the one up with her. I perfected the half-awake stumble to her room and would fall asleep in the rocker with her in my arms. I can still clearly remember the first time I got an interrupted 8 hours of sleep when she was a toddler – I felt drunk! I was a bit woozy and light headed and happy all from a single night’s sleep.

Around 6 months we started to try anything anyone suggested. We gave Weissbluth, Ferber, and Hogg each a month each with no improvement. I read Babywise and The No Cry Sleep Solution but they were no help. We spent months going “by the book” but it always made things worse. She would scream for hours on end. Everyone says “give it a few days! It will get shorter every night!” It didn’t. For about 6 months, each night we’d go through the complicated dance of bedtime, following this rule or that one, and she would always wake up and demand attention. We eventually gave in and came up with a solution which basically gave her 10 minutes to go back to sleep and if not one of us would go in, tend to her and be back in our bed in a few minutes. We got used to the interrupted sleep. And around the time she was 2 she slept through the night; around age 3 we could go in her room and check on her – something unheard of in her light-sleeper infant days.

When we got pregnant with MAD I told the universe it owed me a good sleeper.

MAD slept his first straight 8 hours at 6 weeks. By 8 weeks that 8 hour stretch at night was consistent. At 12 weeks he was clocking 9-10 hours a night without a wake-up, even when I would go in and checks on him. It’s was awesome and I thanked the universe.

He’s always gotten up once to eat…in those beautiful weeks when he was sleeping he’d go down between 6 and 7 PM and wake up around 2 or 3 AM to eat, then sleep another 3-4 hours. I would go to bed at 10 and get about 6 hours of sleep before feeding him and another 2-3 hours after. Life was pretty good.

At about 14 weeks it all changed.

MAD started waking up about every 3 hours to eat. Although he’ll take a bottle Sir Stubborn refuses formula of any brand or type. It’s all boob juice all the time (even though he had formula every day for the first 60+ days of his life…at some point he just started refusing it). By this time I was back at work and barley pumping enough to keep up with his daycare bottle needs so the limited supply couldn’t be used at night. I chalked the extra feedings up to a growth spurt and wearily soldiered on.

At 6 months we started some “sleep training” because I was literally falling asleep work from the sleep deprivation. We tried letting him cry. We tried bottles of whole milk (our pediatrician’s suggestion) and water to get him weaned off those night feedings. We tried stuffing him full of food before bed. NOTHING WORKS. This kid needs to/wants to eat every 3-4 hours around the clock. During the day he gets solids and bottles but at night it’s all me. His cry is more of a scream and he’ll scream himself hoarse before he falls back to sleep.

Now we’re staring down 11 months and he STILL gets up twice a night. Usually around midnight and then around 3 or 4. Sometimes Mark can get him settled back to sleep at the second wake-up, but more often than not I have to go in and feed him at some point.

I’ve done the math and thanks to the joy of pregnancy night trips to the bathroom, I haven’t slept more than 6 consecutive hours in over 13 months. I get weepy when I think about it, because all I want is sleep.

Choosy Idiots Choose Jif

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My husband got this in an email from a local chapter of a professional association for designers:

 “I make lunches, I car pool, I workout, I run errands, I volunteer, I’m in meetings, I pay bills, I manage, I organize, I design, I help with homework, I cook, I read bedtime stories. I’m a mom.”

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. This is really the message you want to me sending to all of your members? That you have to have a vagina to be capable of doing all of those things?

A few weeks ago as I was elbow deep in baking – one of my favorite things to do – I sent a quick post on facebook thanking Mark for taking M and running 2 blocks to the store to get me more yeast while I continued to make bread. The responses were ridiculous. It was as if he had cured a major malady, such was the outpouring of “what a wonderful man”, “you are so lucky” and “I hope to have a husband like that some day”.

Again, what the hell? Yes it was nice, but he ran a 10 minute errand for me 1) because he knows I enjoy baking and 2) because he’s going to be eating the damn delicious homemade bread.

Nothing gets him or I more riled up than this crazy assumption, one played upon by the media, that fathers are bumbling, no-help idiots. Guess what? In our house Mark is the one who makes M’s lunch – every single morning. He also does the laundry and, since MAD was born, is solely responsible for M’s bath and bedtime stories.

We are a partnership – equal partners and parents to the fullest extent. We both car pool, cook and run errands. We both work (and make very similar salaries), do housework, yard work, grocery shop and workout. We carve out time for each other but also make sure the other has time to pursue a social life and hobbies. I go workout with a trainer while he takes both kids to M’s ballet class. He spends 2-3 hours each Sunday on his marathon training long runs while I run errands with the kids. I enjoy a monthly(ish) girls night out and he goes for beers with friends or freezes his ass off watching the Browns lose.

We help each other out. He wants new running socks and I’ll take a lunch hour to go buy him some. I’m missing an ingredient and he’ll run to the store for me. To me this is normal; it’s how it “should be”. The work/marriage/life balance is crazy hard. Sometimes we both feel like we are getting the short end of the stick, but we put major effort into helping each other out. I might cringe at M’s hair when Mark does it and I know he cringse when I’m the one trying to get her to go to bed (he has much more paitence for that task). But we are married; we are partners in this life we have chosen together. He doesn’t need a mother to make his lunch and do his laundry; I don’t need a man to start the lawn mower or take out the trash.

And we sure as hell don’t need marketers or professional organizations trying to perpetuate those stereotypes.

Oily

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In the past I’ve mentioned my love for Eucerin Calming Body Wash Daily Shower Oil. Midwest winters are harsh. Midwest winters in a house with radiant heat (i.e. no chance to run a whole-house humidifier) are brutal. My skin loves that shower oil and when I follow my shower with some Burt’s Bees Mama Oil my skin is happy. It still flakes some and I get a few itchy spots, but it’s so much better than before.

So when AndreAnna started posting about the Oil Cleansing Method it made sense. I fact, I checked the back of the Eucerin and saw that my beloved shower oil was mostly castor and soja oils. I’d been washing my body with oils for awhile, doing the same with my face seemed ok.

I started the OCM about 3 weeks ago and I’m totally happy with it. It has not changed my skin into that of a glowy super model. But it’s as clear as it was with harsher cleansers, not nearly as dry and the ingredients for about a 6 month supply cost all of $17. I’m using a castor/grapeseed combo and after the first week when I switched the ratios (I used 80% castor 20% grapeseed – oops!) and my skin got super-dry, the process is working for me.

What made me laugh the other morning is when I looked around my bathroom. Shower oil in the bathtub, my homemade face oil on the sink, a bottle of Moroccan Oil (a year-round product – I LOVE this stuff!) with my hair stuff and a new-for-dry-hair-winter purchase: V05 Hot Oil. Yes, the old school Alberto V05…what can I say?  It works.

You’d think I’d leave an oil slick in my wake, but in reality it barely keeps the cracking skin and brittle, staticy hair at bay. I can’t wait for the first humid thunderstorm of spring.