Christmas '08

    This Christmas has been one of those great times as a family I wish I could bottle up. I worked yesterday and at the last minute we all went out to Japanese Steak House with our friends Craig and Carrie. This is the first year we haven't done something with my family on Christmas Eve, since it had gotten to stressful to have everyone over at our house. 

     When Ar picked me up from work to take us out, I thought he had lost his mind - we almost never take all four kids out to dinner, let alone with another family with 3 kids the same age. Instead, it was fantastic! The key to going out to dinner with our kids is to have a chef lighting the food on fire in front of us. We had such a good time, and also got to stop by Ar's grandparents, who didn't feel up to coming over for Christmas this year. We opened up pyjamas when we got home. Ariel had decided to wait to wrap all the presents until Christmas Eve to perpetuate the Santa story - I abandoned him at 11:00 and he was up until 6 am; wrapping presents and finishing up the sword and shields he made (from a Book of Mormon Battles website, oddly enough). 

  We finally had a white Christmas in Washington, which is lovely. We walked across the lawn to Ariel's parents (one of the keys to a great Christmas is not getting into a car) and when everyone arrived, we opened presents. We only spent about 50$ on each kid, but they were very happy with what we got them, it is truly a joy to watch them open their presents and enjoy the time with them. Ariel's parents gave us a huge suprise; a Wii - I cannot wait to play!! The rest of the day was super relaxed, instead of having a big meal we just had snacks and turkey sandwiches and played board games.  We are working on winding the kids down (Ar is very, very tired), but at the moment they are roller blading around the house listening to the Mamma Mia soundtrack. 

oh yeah, I am being productive.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Peanut Butter Cups

On Saturday, I started off my weekend with not one, but two, interviews. Given that Friday was absolutely a day from hell (a tree fell over in our front yard, patients went to the ICU, and two kids threw giant tantrums), it might have been nice to have a chill weekend, but I wasn't going to get it.
The first was a phone interview of Ariel and I for a parenting book Marc and Amy Vachon are writing on Equally Shared Parenting. I had emailed them several months ago about an article in the New York Times that featured them, and they thought we might have some input because we pretty much split parenting equally - and we are crazy enough to have four kids between 4 and 7. The phone interview was really fun.
My second interview was a sort of job interview...I heard through the grape vine that a local M.D. was looking to hire a Nurse practitioner and I sent him my resume, although I still have at least six months to graduation. His practice is called a micro practice, and he has no employees in order to keep overhead low. This allows him to spend from between 1/2 hour to 2 hours with his patients, and he has a strong holistic base. If he were to decide to hire me, it would check off almost all of my wish list for a job (Women's Health! Holistic medicine! Part time!!) . We met for lunch, and I was expecting a straight forward job interview, but he was on a slightly different wave length...he was calm and thoughtful, and I was rather nervous and yammery. I am going to start doing some observation time with him and he is going to provide me with some holistic training. At some point I think we will decide if the position would be a good fit for both of us. Overall, the interview was pleased, but I am a bit stressed about my first impression.
The rest of the day I barely sat down; I got some Christmas shopping down and took 1/2 the kids to a friends Gladiator birthday party.
When I woke up today, I was rather wrung out and just wanted to sit around. A friend brought over her three kids this morning so she could perform at church. Later on, we met my sister and her kids and grandkids at Charlie Safari. That was definitely an excellent idea; the kids played for a good three hours on the inside jungle gym. By the time we got home I was feeling much better, I even snuck in time to watch a very good Friday Night Lights episode and work on a school project.
As the kids got ready for bed, I realized what my weekend needed to be complete: peanut butter cups. Yumm. Now I can go to bed in peace.


Ingredients
For the base
2 ounces (50 grams) soft dark brown sugar
7 ounces (200 grams) icing sugar
2 ounces (50 grams) butter, softened
7 ounces (200 grams) smooth peanut butter
For the topping:
7 ounces (200 grams) milk chocolate
3 1/2 ounces (100 grams) dark chocolate
Gold buttons and edible gold stars to decorate, or other decorations of your choice
For the base:
Directions
Place all the ingredients for the base in the bowl of a food processor. Blend the mixture until the mixture takes on a sandy texture.
Place 48 gold petit four cases in sets of miniature tart tins or mini-muffin tins (each indent about 1 3/4-inches in diameter). Use 1 teaspoon of the base mixture to fill the bases of the petit four cases. Press the sandy mixture down into the cases as best you can to form a layer at the bottom of each paper case.
Place the milk chocolate and dark chocolate together into a heatproof bowl. Suspend the bowl over a pan of simmering water (the water should not touch the bottom of the bowl). Melt the chocolate gently while stirring. Spoon teaspoonfuls of the melted chocolate onto the top of each of the sandy bases of the petit four cases.
Decorate the tops of the chocolate covered peanut butter cups with either a gold button or gold star in the middle of each and transfer them to the fridge. Let them set in the fridge, for about 30 minutes.
To serve, arrange the chocolate peanut butter cups in their cases on a clean plate.

Samaritan's Dilemma, or not apologizing any more.

I just finished reading the Samaritan's Dilemma and combined with post-election euphoria, it has made me think about what a good time it is to be a liberal. I have been very guilty of being embarassed about believing in the good government is capable of doing. After all, we all know that only bleeding heart, naive idiots believe that. This book by Deborah Stone was very inspiring; she sets a few pretty basic ideas. First off, most people universally agree that it is good and moral to help your neighbor. Second, Reaganism drilled the opposite idea into our heads: government help is bad and harmful. To need help is un-American.

The rest of the book is a very reasoned argument why help is not harmful and altruism is a powerful political force. She really rips apart the lies of the "government help is harmful" world view. I was amazed at how much of those ideas I had absorbed, even growing up in a left leaning household. We need the help of our neighbor, and we need to give that help to be a part of the democratic process. No more apologizing for wanting an American government that plays the role of the good Samiritan.

P.S. The kids have been playing together very nicely all day long. My former pessimistic mood from last post is over.

Frazzle

Today I contemplated a sad, bitter truth. I cannot stay home with my kids all day without losing my mind. I try very, very hard to be Maria Von Trapp. Instead of cute little curtain dresses and guitar solos, I have my little Von Trapps who get in fist fights every five minutes over someone sticking out their tongue. Instead of Maria, I look like Goldie Hawn in Overboard. We have been home together now for two days (Ar got his free pass day to hang out with his brother and I took yesterday off since the kids didn't have school)
My children are really lovely and they do play with each other very well, but someone always seems to mad at someone else. I am sure that just around the corner there is some great parenting technique I haven't figured out to get the kids to stop the bickering, but I haven't caught on yet. I know we only have ourselves to blame, as four kids between 4 and 7 in a 1400 sq. ft. house doesn't really sound like such a great idea. I have decided that that is what I really want for Christmas; Peace in my house and goodwill towards siblings. As of 6 o'clock tonight, I got tired enough I resorted to the lowest common denominator; the kids are all happy curled up together watching Prince Caspian.

In a totally unrelated note, I have an ARNP job prospect on the horizon! I still don't graduate for four or five months, but this job would be very close to perfect if it does work out. If it goes any further, I will certainly post more details.