Avoidance

I have been studiously avoiding updating my blog. I can't even exactly put my finger on why I'm doing this. Part of me is wondering if maybe I'm done with the blogging and I can't face putting it out of its misery so I'm starving the poor dear to death. Every time I think about being done with it, though, that doesn't seem like the answer either. It's just really difficult right now to find the time.

When we were expecting Atticus and Liam was just newly walking, many people tempered their congratulations with a wry "you're gonna have your hands full!" I would smile and think to myself "I'll show you." For a while, I really felt like I was managing to 'show them', whatever that means. Having two didn't seem all that much harder or different than having one. Yossie didn't have that experience. He felt the impact of Two immediately and I was perplexed by his reaction. Now I am truly feeling it though. It is hard. It's wonderful and amazing also, please don't get me wrong. But it's exhausting and difficult too.

I'm not going to abandon the blog. It's been a great tool for me and I've met some really cool people through it as well. I just need to be realistic about what I can handle right now.

In the food department, (are there other departments? I'm not sure.) a few things have changed and many have stayed the same. We love our green smoothies. We eat a lot of raw fruits and veggies. Maybe there are some lower middle class families who can afford to buy all organic food in this economy ($3.83/gallon as of yesterday), but I have to excuse us from that list for the time being. I've been lucking out with the bananas lately. I can find organic, fair trade bananas for 49 cents a pound at the co-op in the 'over ripe' box if I manage to hit upon the right day to shop there. It seems to be a different day each week so it's unpredictable but some weeks I manage it. Otherwise they're more than twice as much money. I've been going to Aldi for some of our food and that has helped some. I don't mind buying the thick-skinned fruits there since I'm just going to peel them anyway. I also bought a bag of Red Delicious apples there. Normally apples are something I reserve to come out of the organic fund but these I planned to turn them into applesauce so I just washed them well, cut them up and stewed them, then slipped off the peel and blended them in the Vitamix. I added a banana also for sweetness. It's not the most beautiful applesauce you've ever seen, kind of a brown sugar color, but Atticus likes it and that was kind of the whole idea anyway. Other Aldi purchases: avocados, blue corn tortilla chips, watermelon, cans of beans, trail mix for Yossie, a bag of Yukon gold potatoes (we do still love our hash browns on occasion), and some frozen vegetables. The savings is undeniable. You do sacrifice taste and probably some health as well when you buy produce that isn't organic.

Thankfully, our CSA boxes are here! We paid for them in April so it feels like free food now. This week we got lettuce, asparagus, spring garlic, bok choy, and a little spinach. We munched a few spinach leaves straight from the box and remarked how much more flavor comes from spinach fresh from the garden. There should be plenty more as the season unfolds.

In other news, my boys are getting so big! Atticus can say 'mama' and 'dada' and he can sign 'more' and 'milk'. Liam chatters all the live long day and is a very snuggly big brother with only minimal brother-squashing activities. I have been reading Amanda Blake Soule's incredibly beautiful and inspirational book "Creative Families" and I have a lot of ideas that I want to incorporate into my family. Kesa and I talked yesterday about doing a regular art adventure with our kiddos and I am really looking forward to that. I found this cool blog The Artful Parent to aid in that quest.

So, in the words of the resilient residents of Whoville, "we are here!" Even though some of the time we are tearing our hair out or falling asleep on the couch in the middle of a chapter.