Winter Memories

Some thoughts on attempting to provide an idyllic life...

As Spring is finally arriving, I feel fortunate to be a procrastinator.  Why might you ask?  Because in this part of the mid-Atlantic, if I have actually planted my seeds on time, they would have all frozen.  I am rather new to organic gardening (and gardening in general).  I used to joke that I have pets because they remind me to feed and water them, while plants can not.  Fortunately both my dog and cat are quite effective at asking for their meals and my husband is a good guy at keeping me on routine.  Between my son's food allergies and just trying to become a more budget-conscious and healthy mama, gardening is something I'm working on.  This will come up later in this post.

Anyways, I thought I would share one of my more memorable winter moments this year.  We got a big snow and as anyone with a toddler knows, it takes more time to get ready to go outside than the actual amount of time your little one enjoys outside.  While it seems like a rather futile exercise, it was worth it to see his smile and glee in the snow.  We came inside and I thought I would be a softie and give him some hot chocolate, which he got very excited about.  So excited that he spilled it on the floor...  No worries.  I am the type of mom who likes to think she doesn't get upset about these things.  It helped that I was just imagining myself as a Norman Rockwell mom giving my son hot chocolate after a good time in the snow.  As I'm recovering from this thought and see the spilled milk, next I see both the dog and the toddler trying to lick the milk off the floor...  Hmm.  Maybe sometimes dogs are bad influences on toddlers... or it could be vice versa?

So after I filled my child with chocolate and sugar, I decided to try to be that "healthy" mom again and make fresh carrot/apple/kale juice.  As I'm making the juice, I should have known that silence with a toddler is never golden.  He seemed to be behaving and so did the dog, so I continued to work on making the juice with the juicer.  I'm not exactly sure what happened, but suddenly it was like a carrot juice bomb went off.  There was carrot juice everywhere.  The cabinets the floor, the top of the dogs head.  As I struggled to clean up as much as I could and not get upset by the huge mess I had to pick up, I looked more closely at the dog and the toddler.  They were both quiet and content because the toddler had found a whole package of graham crackers on the top of the table, had removed them and like a good human brother was systematically (with the dog) chewing across the top of the graham crackers.  He would take a bite then he offered it to the dog.  An entire 8 graham crackers together in a chunk had been nibbled off the top.  I had to laugh because really what else could I do?  I also made a small mental note that I'm glad my dog gets his monthly heartworm/parasite preventative so I didn't have to worry too much.  I've found often when I get so involved in trying to be a healthy, ideal mom, my son and dog remind me what's important, having a little fun.