Meal Time by Any Other Name

Before reading on, I want all of you to understand a fundamental truth about me. I LOVE food. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about food, eating food, planning my next meal, and dreaming about food. Every time I travel I am almost as interested in where/what I am going to be able to eat as anything else I may do on the trip. If money were no object or if I were less risk averse and if I didn't have a family that I loved to see occasionally, I would love to go to culinary school and open my own restaurant. (Those are two big IFs and as a result I foresee either of those things happening anytime soon.) I don't think I can overstate how much I love food, I really don't.

With that in mind it shouldn't surprise anyone that I have recently been pondering the conventions of meal time, more specifically the names we give to our meals. I feel like breakfast, lunch, and dinner (or supper) don't really describe the world's eating habits well enough to be as entrenched as they are. I certainly don't mean to say they're not useful, I just think they're too limited for the broad usage they enjoy. Nor do I mean to imply that I have all of the answers, as a matter of fact I was hoping this post could serve as a plea for suggestions on how we can collectively improve the labels we put on our meals. My suggestions (and problem meals) follow:

• Brunch - I don't know if this is supposed to be a breakfast at lunch time, a lunch-sized breakfast, or a late-ish breakfast that serves some lunch-type foods. I like the idea of breakfast for lunch because I rarely eat breakfast early and anytime I brunch I never lunch.
  
• Brinner - I feel like this is a no brainer, breakfast served at dinner. I don't want to have to explain that I love breakfast so I made it for dinner, I just want to say I ate brinner.
• 4th Meal - Call me a sucker for marketing campaigns, but I like the idea of acknowledging that some midnight snacks aren't snacks at all, but full-on meals. (Admittedly, I am suffering from a lack of creativity on what to call a large late-night pantry raid.)
• ??? - I recently celebrated a birthday. Andrea made me an awesome banana cream pie. So awesome, in fact, that I ate a large slice of it for my breakfast. What does one call dessert for breakfast? (I feel like the hobbits may have solved this, but I'm not up on my Tolkien.)
• ??? - When I was younger, my mom took my brother, sister, and me out for banana splits in lieu of a more traditional dinner a couple of times. Not only do I have very fond memories of these excursions, I remain confused on how to adequately describe the experience. Like the pie for breakfast, I don't know what to call dessert for dinner. (On a random side note, I realized that I have been misquoting the band ABC and their classic song, "Playground". While writing the post I looked up the lyrics and realized that what I had always thought to be "I gotta break cause my mother said be home by dessert" is, in fact, "I gotta break cause my mother said be home by dizzark". The word dizzark intended to rhyme with pizzark (dark and park). Oh well.)

How about you? Are there any meals you enjoy on their own merits and feel like the pesky monikers of breakfast, lunch, or dinner don't do them justice? Any suggestions for my problem meals? Thanks in advance and bon appétit.

Grieving for a Fred

This past Thursday our TiVo died after 6 years and 357 days of service. During that time I have gone from being in awe of the technology, to loving it, to just taking it for granted. If Fred were still alive (that was our TiVo's name), I'd apologize that I ever took him for granted. When he died he took a number of hours of unwatched TV with him leaving all of us stunned and feeling like we have no way of catching up.

After just three full days without it, Abigail said that she is going to ask Santa for a TiVo for Christmas, "because [she's] tired of watching inappropriate commercials". I was ready for a new TiVo by Saturday night when Andrea monopolized the remote to watch one of those investigative news shows and drove me to the other room.

So while I never took the opportunity to express my gratitude to him during his faithful service, I am taking the time now. Thank you Fred, thank you TiVo. I miss you and can't wait to upgrade- I just hope Santa reads our blog.

mouths of babes

Owen offered the family prayer the other night, and gave us a little insight into his psyche:

"And please bless that no one will steal Molly....just in case."

The "just in case" was the best part--gotta cover all your bases.

Happy Halloween!

I think Owen is trying to look spooky here...it works. But mostly he just looks sad!

Luckily Alec is the one that takes the kids trick-or-treating. An especially good deal for me when it's raining!

The fruits of their labors...

Molly Poppins

It could be said that I have oversold one or all of my children in the previous posts. Of course my children aren't perfect. They apply to the laws of nature...for every positive there is an equal and opposite negative. While they can be very charming, smart, funny and obedient some of the time. They are also annoying, dumb, strange and defiant some of the time. But I'm just trying to keep it positive.

But this one....
There's no overselling this one.

Molly. She's got a serious case of the Mary Poppins. She's practically perfect in every way. Cuddly, soft, sleepy, smiley and content.

Oh sure she's been crying lately at strangers, doesn't really take a bottle or a Binky, and she has a massive bald spot on the back of her head...but no sense dwelling on the negative!

I love babies. I now see why my mom pretty much just kept having babies until she basically couldn't have any more babies. Babies are the best thing ever invented.

My mom also used to say that she didn't have favorite children, just favorite stages and ages. I'd have to say I agree. My favorite is definitely babies. Although I may have to come up with a new favorite stage here at some point, otherwise I run the risk of not liking any of my children. Wish me luck.

Here's to Mollipop--my perfect, favorite child (you know, because she's a baby)!

To our dragon, dinosaur, animal loving boy...

Here is why you should want a child with an anal retentive personality like Owen...

His shoes can be found neatly organized on the floor of his closet, not strewn about the house.

He doesn't just throw his clothes into the hamper after he takes them off (which, for others of my children I would gladly take at least that), but he examines them to see if they are actually dirty, and if they are not dirty he folds them neatly and puts them back in his drawer! Or if they are stained he will bring them to me to put stain remover on them.

He almost always clears his place from the table without being prompted.

When the baby was still waking up at night, I would sit in my bed and just roll up the dirty diapers, throw them off the end of the bed into the darkness, hoping for them to land somewhere near the door. At some point every morning I realized that someone was picking them all up and actually throwing them away for me. Owen said, "I bet you thought your husband was doing that." And I did. But, no, it was Owen. That's when "Owen's Diaper Service" or "ODS" was born.

Owen has afternoon kindergarten, and Nate has morning preschool. I love running errands with Owen in the mornings. He stays right by the cart, has fun looking at things, but doesn't always ask to buy them. And when the baby gets fussy, he entertains her. Plus when we get home he turns into "Owen's Robot Delivery Service" and he will help put things away where they belong.

Owen is very smart. I feel like I can say that without seeming like I'm bragging, because I don't think I had much to do with it--he just came that way. He already reads. Like reads, reads. And nobody really taught him. He probably read a lot sooner than I even realized (about a year ago), because by the time I knew he could read he was already beyond the "cat" and "hat" variety of words. Somehow all the TV watching and computer gaming he likes to do really paid off! (just kidding. kind of.)(Owen off to his first day of Kindergarten)

Of course his anal retentiveness has its negative side. Opposition in all things right? For example, if you try to challenge his knowledge of prehistoric beings or dragons (or any other knowledge for that matter), he doesn't take it very gracefully. Somewhere along the line though, his Grammy or Pops taught him the phrase, "my mistake." It has been wonderful for him to realize that it's okay to make mistakes and not be right all the time.

Here's to Owen: the service-oriented, detail-oriented, intellectual!

Abigail--or as she prefers now, "Abby"

Here's Abigail on her first day of 3rd grade this week...

We are two days into the school year, and she has made her official declaration that she would like her teacher to call her "Abby" this year. I'm a little uncertain about this, even though I call her Abby the majority of the time. I guess I always envisioned the world knowing her as Abigail, and those she's closest to calling her Abby. But, it is her life apparently.

Speaking of which, since when did eight-year-olds become tweens? I didn't think this started until 10 or so. I think I was still pretty oblivious at 8. This summer Abigail has really come to fit the true definition of a tween...in-between. One day she'll be combing her dolls hair and watching Sesame Street, and the next you'll find her listening to her ipod, wanting nothing to do with "little kid" stuff, and acting all moody like a teenager. It's definitely interesting to watch.

Today I spent a good hour or so in Abigail's room while she was at school. The mess in there had reached critical mass, and I was just waiting for the summer to end, so I could go in there and throw a bunch of stuff away (a garbage bag and a half, btw), without her tears and complaints about how that sucker wrapper is part of a collection, or that rock is the one she found while riding her bike around the block, or some other such excuse. (I'm thinking of showing her that Hoarders show as some type of scare tactic. Is that wrong? I thought about posting a "before" picture of her room, but I was honestly too embarrassed.)

Anyway, what I realized it what a creative girl she is, and how much she loves to read--the majority of the mess was mostly accumulated arts/crafts projects and books. She has also taken on a new desired identity of being "sporty". It was around the same time Molly was born, so I'm not sure if it was to differentiate herself from her sister or what. But we'll see if it lasts. Today for school I asked her if she wanted a bow in her hair to match her outfit. She said, "No, Mom. I'm Abby, I'm casual." She did end up with a flower clip though.

Here's to Abby--the casual, bookworm, artist (possible hoarder).