Daring Young Mom

Since today is Sunday, a day of rest, I thought I’d dazzle you all with my amazing meme-o-licious, fill-in-the-blank writing skills.

I’ve been tagged by Sarah from Mothering on the Edge, who apparently thinks I’m worthy of inviting over to play. I hope my kids never stop saying, “going over to play” and never start saying “going over to hang out.”

Kitchen Day
1. How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? How many are in your family?
We eat out about twice per month. DYD eats out for lunch every day because he just can’t get enough of that MegaCorp tomato soup. How many are “in” my family? Well, if we eat them, then I’d say they were ALL “in” my family…

2. How many cookbooks do you own?
Over 30. There are maybe 12 that I use on a regular basis.

3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week?
What do you mean “refer”? I look at them a lot. They are pretty. They have pictures of yummy, nutritious and beautiful food. To make something, maybe 4 times per week.

4. Do you collect recipes from other sources? If so, what are some of your favorite sources (relatives, friends, magazines, advertisements, packages, the internet, etc)
Um…all of those things…and my fellow mammary-gland proprietors. I have become quite good at making an exotic milk dish that Magoo finds scrum-diddly-umptious.

5. How do you store those recipes?
I freeze them cryogenically so that in the year 2098, when all recipes have become extinct, I will still be able to wow my homies with pork-rind chili bean casserole.

Seriously, I put untried recipes in a folder to be tested. Once I’ve tried them and decided they’re a keeper, I type them up in a 5×7 format, print them off on cardstock and put them in a recipe box for everyday use. The electronic copy goes on my PDA so I can buy ingredients if I decide to make a recipe last minute when I’m already out and about.

6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas?
If you don’t follow the recipe exactly, at least the first time, “they” will come and find you. You know”—them”. And you know what “they” do. Yeah, everyone knows. So the second time around, “they” are a little more merciful. On the second time through with a recipe, I like to play around a bit.

7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it?
I have stated previously that I am ¼ Indian. If it weren’t so darned time consuming, I’d cook Indian food every day. As it is, my cooking is predominated by pasta because it’s easy. I suppose that makes me ½ Italian on the lazy side of my family.

8. What’s your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation?
Measuring. I like to measure things and count. Counting is fun. I especially like counting out 12 quarter-cups because my bigger measuring cups are dirty, only to have Laylee stand next to me and begin, 9, 7, 13, eleven-teen. That is the BEST.

9. What’s your least favorite part?
Grating. On my nerves, it is.

10. Do you plan menus before you shop?
Yessir.

11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances?
-KitchenAid
-electronic kitchen scale
-the atomic easy-clean kitchen button that I push as I walk out, run away fast and then NEVER look over my shoulder at the light, the blinding light, searing my eyes. Then all is spotless. That was a good investment. Don’t listen to those environmental nut-jobs. They wouldn’t know a clean kitchen if it ran smack into them in their tie-dyed bio-diesel hybrid refurbished recumbent bikes.

12. If you could buy one new thing for your kitchen, money was no object, and space not an issue, what would you most like to have?
Now that I’ve got that atomic clean-o-matic thing, there’s not much left on my wishlist. I think I’d settle for a red 7-cup DLC-2007N Cuisinart food processor, pronounced Queezenard.

13. Since money and space probably are objects, what are you most likely to buy next?
Jeans.

14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage?
My upstairs neighbors never use theirs. I know a way in. Yes, I am serious.

15. Grocery shop alone or with others?
Yes.

16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week?
Your mom. I don’t know. Stop grilling me with your endless questions. Who are you, some kitchen data research firm? Leave me alone and stop staring at my banana bread.

17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors?
Red. I mostly use pomegranates and “meat juice.”

18. What’s the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you?
I “helped” a lot when I was little. The first project I remember tackling on my own was soft cheesy pretzels, sometime in elementary school. I’ve always liked it cheesy.

19. How did you learn to cook?
Grammy. She was called “Mom” back then. Times change.

20. Tag 2 people to do this or their computers will burst into flames and your blog will be cursed with 30 days of heckling comments.
No.

Subtitle — I’m sorry but we are too immature to attend your lecture series.

Several friends and advisors have recommended the book Why Marriages Succeed or Fail by John Gottman. We’ve even been invited to attend the lecture he’s giving on his theories of marriage in Seattle later this month. He’s supposed to be a great speaker and quite an expert in the field. Besides, if so many people are recommending that we read “improve your marriage” books, maybe they all know something we don’t. Maybe the universe is conspiring to keep us together or something.

So we thought, “What the hay? Let’s save our marriage.” We decided to read the book first and then decide if we wanted to spend the $70+ it would cost to buy lecture tickets and pay a babysitter.

To start out, I should say that this book does not contain theories. Theories are contained in much less scientific books, books written by other psychologists and therapists who are relying only on their anecdotal evidence of what makes marriage last.

This is not the case with John “5 to 1” Gottman, as Dan has lovingly nicknamed him. No, John Gottman has spent 20 years researching couples scientifically to determine what makes a marriage last. He is like a surgeon or, if you will, a medical doctor. He’s sort of like a scientist or someone who conducts experiments in a laboratory. It’s like he relies on evidence scientifically rather than guess-work. He’s groundbreaking, like someone covering new territory that’s never yet been explored, like an explorer, embarking on new terrain scientifically. He is ecdotal, rather than those other people, who are anecdotal.

The preceding paragraph is a paraphrase of the first 30 pages of the book, scientifically. I have come to be a firm believer that psychology books should never be read aloud, especially by two people with warped senses of humor who analyze form neurotically.

Like most parenting, marriage, weight-loss, or other psychology or self-help books I’ve read, this one is extremely repetitively, redundant. In this case, the dude goes out of his way to the point of insanity to lay a foundation that his work is done scientifically.

WE GET THE POINT. We appreciate the point. We are comforted by the point. Dan is so convinced of the importance of the point that he begins sprinkling the reading with the word “scientifically” every few sentences. The funny part is, I can never quite tell when he has added “scientifically” or when John “5 to 1” Gottman has thrown it in to sound…well…scientific.

Moving on.

He then explains a major premise of the book. There are three types of marriages that can be successful. He explains how they work. He gives examples of how they work. The couples in the marriages work through their problems by saying things like “I see” and “hmmmm” and “but I really feel…” There are many examples given of each style of conflict resolution. You should read it yourself. We did and we are most definitely not getting divorced. We’ve decided to cleave, multiply and replenish. Thank you John.

Our favorite part of the book, the part that had us literally rolling on the floor laughing, came when he started to talk about the fact, scientifically, that marriages will only succeed if the couple maintains a ratio of 5 positive interactions for every 1 negative interaction. “5 to 1”. Okay. Got it. I am sure that this is true. I trust the scientific method that produced these findings.

But there’s more. It’s like if there were 5 good things in the marriage, there could only be one bad. To look at it from another angle, if you had 5 bad interactions with your spouse, you would need to fabricate 25 positive ones to make up for it. If you buy a bunch of grapes at the store and 10 of the grapes are rotten but only 48 are fresh, you can pretty much expect the entire bunch to self-implode in a matter of days.

Every time the guy would come up with yet another “5 to 1” analogy, we would both lose it. Tears, streaming down our faces.

We kept thinking he was done with that topic but then he’d give ANOTHER analogy. When he got to the analogy about the nutrients found in soil, scientifically in a “5 to 1” ratio, we couldn’t take it any more. Laughing so hard I could barely speak, I told Dan that it seemed to me the whole thing was kind of like worm sweat. If you have 5 particles of water in a droplet of worm sweat, you can only have one particle of salt or somebody’s gonna find that worm and run it over with their BMX. Dan fell to the floor on his face and began crying like a small child, scientifically.

Then we did some marital self tests. These are the kind of tests that use multiple negatives so by the end of reading a question, you’re not sure what “yes” actually means. They are the kind of scientific questions that you probably shouldn’t answer together, questions like:

-Is your spouse understanding and compassionate?
-Is love not important in your marriage?
-Do you think it is important for a married couple to care about each other’s feelings?
-Would it be not okay with you if your spouse did not find separate living quarters?
-Do you not think spice (spouse plural?) should not interact in any way or not throughout their marriages?

We didn’t not pass the tests and we found enough truth and were sufficiently thought-provoked that we are going to continue reading the book.

I actually think it’s a great book scientifically. We’re just too immature to attend a lecture where the dude may quote from his book, say “5 to 1”, use a double-negative or the word “scientific.” We’re like 14 year old boys with a penchant for flatulence who can’t get over the fact that their 7th grade science teacher’s name is mister McFar(t)land.

As we were kissing goodnight a couple of days ago, in a sincere attempt to incorporate what we’re learning, Dan asked, “If we kiss 5 times, can we slap each other?” Then the laughing and the snorting. We figured if we laughed 5 times, we should probably only snort once.

For show and tell today, we’re doing eyes. Mine is green. Yes, I only have one. I photoshop the other one in every time I post, lest you suspect I am from another planet. You don’t suspect, do you? Phew!

Much drama swirling in the air this week. Do you feel it? I told my grocery checker tonight that everyone I talk to is experiencing major trauma or drama or sickness in their life right now. He said he was doing okay. I thought I’d let you all know that. Dave is doing alright.

A big shout out to Grandpa Dave for being cheerful while checking out my groceries at 10:00pm.

In my personal circle, the drama seems to be subsiding.

I’ll be back up and running soon, perchance tomorrow.

I have a good group of orders for the DYM shirts in both styles. If you want to get an order to me, please email me by late Friday night. I will be putting in my order and sending payment insturctions this weekend. Thanks!

Laylee: Who’s your dad?
Me: Papa.
Laylee: Who’s my dad? (I promise her parentage is not in question.)
Me: Dan Daring
Laylee: So he’s your dad too.
Me: Nope he’s not.
Laylee: You and me are in the same family and he’s the dad so he’s your dad too. (Again, I promise…)

Laylee: I want to tweeze these few pears out of my chin.
Me: You don’t have any pears on your chin.
Laylee: Yes I do and I can’t find my tweezers. Can I borrow yours?

Laylee: Is daddy getting me ice cream?
Me: Yes.
Laylee: I want my ice cream cone.
Me: Oh. He’s getting you an ice cream sundae.
Laylee (hysterical): But I want some ice cream TODAY!

Laylee: Are we going to see Daddy at MegaCorp?
Me: Yes.
Laylee: It’s not called MegaCorp.
Me: Oh, really?
Laylee: Yeah. It’s called WORK-A-CORP! (giggling) Because you go there to WORK! Bwa-ha-ha-ha.

All of these conversations occurred today and I thought I’d share, for those of you not living with your own personal miniature comedienne.

Dan asked me later whether or not I went on to explain that there are two kinds of “sundaes,” one being a day of the week and the other a type of ice cream treat. I told him I didn’t have the energy to explain the intricacies of the wonderful world of homonyms this afternoon at McD’s.

I also did not have the energy or frankly the verbal skills to explain the concept of narcissism, and the fact that I don’t think the real Snow White suffers from it to the point of wanting to wear underpants bearing her own likeness.

My little “Snow White,” as she insists on being called, wants to wear the same pair of Snow White underwear every single day. Being a person over the age of three, I can foresee certain difficulties inherent in this course of action. I have explained all of these to her.

What I’d really like to say is, “Do you think Snow White is so narcissistic as to imprint her own smiling face on all of her underwear? No. She most likely has undies covered in little flowers, birdies or fields of grass.”

“Now the queen on the other hand… the queen would definitely wear wicked-queen-with-the-green-face underpants. She cares about no one but herself. Who would you rather be like?”