Nels Tutoring Me on Last Night's Dinner's Side Dish:

"You just say cous. And then you say cous again."

Making Connections

"Mommy, I'm ready for a wipe!"

Pause.

"When you crash when you're surfing, it's called a wipeout."

Here's to Mothers

Count me among the vast horde who never realized how significant a holiday Mother's Day is until I became one myself.

Thank you, mom, for the occasional "special day" when I got to take off school and go shopping at the mall with you and eat a Carl's Jr. Famous Star and onion rings for lunch. And thank you for eating the tomatoes from my burger.

Thank you, step-mom, for taking me, an ungrateful, alien creature into your home and feeding me homemade doughnuts and potstickers, and tortillas made from scratch. Also for the handmade Christmas stockings.

Thank you, mother-in-law, for helping us clean the house when we MOVED. Nothing says "I love you" like being perfectly willing to clean someone else's bathroom after they take all the stuff out of it.

I hope I can live up to it all. The paradox of motherhood is that, while one loves one's children with an intensity that borders on frightening, one can also be terribly bored by playing pirates for more than two minutes.

Pretty much the instant I gave birth to a child for the first time, I felt an enormous debt of gratitude to every woman from the beginning of time who's ever gone through with it. As I've resisted the urge to toss an unpleasant child out the window, I've gained a new respect for even the most damaging of mothers who at least made the attempt to raise their children.

To me the joy of motherhood is to have the opportunity of loving someone I've known since the day he was born. To see Nels pick up a new book and look it over and take it over to his corner in the sectional sofa, cocooned with all the throw pillows, and settle in for what would be a good read if he actually read yet. For Willem to throw his arms around my neck when I am sitting cross-legged on the floor and to say "Hi" with his mouth almost on mine. Motherhood is a burden and a gift, one I feel undeserving of but grateful for almost every day. Here's to all you moms out there, biological or otherwise. Here's to all the women who have taken it upon themselves to love and nurture, and to God who teaches and shows us how to do it.

A Good Man is Hard to Find

Mine brought me home a 1.75 litre bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin and a bottle of vermouth for Mother's Day. Read it and weep, ladies.

All mothers of my acquaintance have a standing invitation for martinis at my place.

Sun Valley, Beautiful Dud

So the husband and I went to Sun Valley, Idaho for our seventh anniversary. This may seem like a strange destination to choose, but, since we live in Boise now and have seen almost nothing of the state, it seemed like a good opportunity to go somewhere that we'd actually heard of but was a relatively short drive away.

We won't be going back any time soon. Let me first say that we are VERY thankful to Shaun's parents for watching the kids and giving us the opportunity to spend two entire nights and mornings sleeping free of the responsibility of getting up to tend to young ones. That alone was worth the price of admission. But Sun Valley in May? Creepy.

The setting is beautiful. The mountains are RIGHT THERE. But Sun Valley Resort (where we stayed at the original lodge) and the town of Ketchum were really a downer. It didn't help that we were there during the off-season. Shaun spent Sunday afternoon on a bike ride and my plan had been to look around at the superior art galleries and swanky boutiques. Alas, almost nothing was open. Much of that was due to the fact that it was Sunday. But I encountered so many hand-written "See you in 3 weeks!" signs on shop doors that I started to feel like I was experiencing August in Europe but without the ambiance and copious number of bakeries.

One would think that the fact that I grew up next to Santa Barbara (another bastion of the service/those being served economy) would have reconciled me to the dynamic of Sun Valley. But instead it creeped me out. Everyone knew everyone else. This gave me unpleasant high school flash-backs. I will admit that I have a small case of class bigotry and that perfectly groomed rich people give me the heebie-jeebies. I don't think that it's OK to make assumptions about people just because they are wealthy, but it's very hard not to do. I had supposed that Ketchum, the city to which Sun Valley Resort is appended, was a bit more of a city in its own right, but it had the soulless feel of a town that owes its entire existence to rich tourists.

I had pushed for staying at the Sun Valley Lodge because of its storied history and famous clientele. Little did I know that it has been refurbished during many unfortunate periods (late 70's/early 80's country French oak, anyone?) and that it smells bad. Any resort with shops that sell Prada should not smell funky.

Add to all this the self-loathing I experienced when I ill-advisedly wandered into an upscale (UNDERSTATEMENT) shop curated like an art gallery and fell in love with a $500 Dries Van Noten striped cotton blouse, and you can see how it wasn't the most unqualified success of a weekend I've ever had.

Thankfully we drove the route of Shaun's bike ride (up to the top of Galena pass and back) before he did it, and that was a soul cleanser. I was able to vicariously enjoy the virtues of his four-hour ride. That was the actual day of our anniversary, and we followed the ride with a nice dinner in Hailey at CK's that hit just the right note. The next day we had my favorite meal of the trip (feral fennel soup and panini with brie and smoked ham) at Cristina's. I felt like I was in Europe. In a good way.

I can see how Sun Valley in the winter would be quite magical (if still smelly), but I think our next Idaho excursion will involve a tent, a camp stove, and a more down-to-earth vibe.

Happy Birthday, Shaun

Today is that magical day of the year when Shaun becomes only one year younger than I am. The best part of any family celebration in the past year has been assisting Nels in making a card for the honoree. He draws a picture and then one asks him, "what do you want the card to say?"

The reply, word for word:

"Dear Daddy,

I love your birthday.

I love you, but please don't fight at my birthday.

I don't want you to be sassy or naughty at my birthday.

Dear Daddy, please don't be a monster at my birthday!

I love you for your birthday, but don't --please-- talk naughty and sassy. But I love you."

And, yes, those birthday sentiments DO reflect EXACTLY what kind of week we've had around here.

Food for Thought

"Now I'm not saying presentation is everything, but, let's face it: if you know how to produce a nice, tasty frosting or icing, and you know how to apply it in an attractive manner, well, heck; that's my definition of power."

-Alton Brown