Food Fight

So I guess it’s time to share the latest round of family drama in the See household. You may know that both of our kids are small for their age. Jake is off the charts-- as in not even approaching the bottom of the chart-- weight-wise. For years we have dealt with picky eating.

We managed it pretty well at home, introducing new things slowly and repeatedly, but the pickiness was usually worse on trips. At someone else’s house, the brand of food wouldn’t be right, the house would smell funny, the butter would be wrong, you get the picture. That’s fun because you can mix in travel stress, parental angst, and relatives’ expectations to make a delightful stew of stress and recrimination.

As the years passed, Jake became drawn to international food. His favorites: Greek, Italian, and Mexican, but not standard American (read: birthday party casual) food. Barbeques and class parties were unpleasant. And Thanksgiving was the worst of all.

You would have the Thanksgiving school meal, followed by 3 or 4 days of not eating the same wonderful (yet despised by him) food as we traveled from relative to relative’s house for multiple Thanksgiving dinners. By the time we would return from our holiday travels, he would look weary and wan. We tried to throw in some Taco Bell and Subway along the highways to keep him going.

For those of you who have dealt with picky eaters, you know it can put a strain on the marital relationship. Usually the mother, for fear that her child will expire, will feed the child what he/she wishes, while the father puts his foot down, knowing that no such coddling occurred when he was a child! “He’ll eat when he’s hungry enough,” becomes the line of choice. At least that’s how it’s been for the past 10 years in this household.

So, Tom and I have reached a delicate balance, trying to juggle my wishes, Tom’s wishes, and Jake’s health. I have never cooked separate meals for Jake, even though our doctors have given us their blessing to give him milkshakes or whatever it takes to help him gain. I have had to explain to people who wonder why I don’t do more to fatten him up, that I’m dealing with multiple factors here. I am not the only parent in this house, and my way is not necessarily the right way. Also, I bring the style of my family of origin to parenting, as does Tom, but that's a topic for another post.

We have had to try to back off and relinquish our desire to control Jake. Sometimes we do this well, and sometimes not. I am sure we are not the only family who has nearly come to tears over whether a kid eats a bite of chicken potpie.

Anyway, things have improved vastly over that past years, months, and even the last few weeks, most of it due to Tom's being a great cook. Chicken enchiladas? Delish. Chili? Bring it on! Flank steak? Yum! Hamburger? Well…I’ll try it. Venison? Not terrible. He even ate salad recently! Woo-hoo! Still no interest in hotdogs, chicken nuggets, or French fries. But as I told Tom years ago, I will never force a kid to eat a hot dog. Ick.

I felt like we were making progress and were on target for a great Thanksgiving meal.

Until the expander.

Last Wednesday Jake got a palate expander put in his mouth in anticipation of braces down the road. He was a total trouper, and I gave him a hot piece of Dominoes pizza for lunch. That thing squished through the expander like Jell-O through a sieve and got lodged on the roof of his mouth. “Aaaaaaaaagh!” he yelled. “Aaaaaaaagh!” I yelled. Toothpicks, a water pick, and major intervention finally got the offending food out of his mouth.

Turns out we should have started with wee little bits of food to get him used to an entirely new way of eating. Now he is too freaked out to eat because he does not want to get food caught in it.

The first few days I was able to get away with giving him smoothies and shakes, chicken broth for dinner, and Instant Breakfast for breakfast. I could tell that Tom thought I was babying him, but I didn't care.

Now, however, the statute of limitations is up. It’s been more than a week and he should be eating. His peers have adjusted to their expanders just fine. I shudder to think of his caloric intake.

And the old standbys we used to get extra calories in him between meals (apple with peanut butter every day after school…) are no longer an option. Neither is mindless snacking, which always helps me gain weight (!)

Tom’s neck veins were bulging as Jake flailed, freaked, and complained last night while attempting to eat one of his favorite foods—tacos. Multiple trips upstairs to the waterpik and to time-out just made dinner all the more pleasant.

And today? Is Jake’s 5th Grade Barbarian Feast at school. Lamb Stew, Bread bowls, nuts, Venison. Nice.

My gift to his teacher is a cranky, hungry kid.

You can bet I threw in a thermos of Instant Breakfast just in case. Call me the enabler.

And the true Barbarian? I think it’s whoever invented this thing:

To Paint or Not to Paint, That is the Question

So I've been thinking of painting my front door black. I think the results could be dramatic. This is not my dream door by any means, but replacing it is not in the budget.

Here are some images of black entry doors.

What I'd really like is a lovely divided light door in a warm wood tone, no storm door, and much bigger sidelights. When the former owners installed this new door 10 or so years ago, they kept the small sidelights, which is a bummer because our house gets very little light.

Anyway, here's an interior shot of the door. Imagine it and the sidelights and trim black and give me feedback (please!)

The dealbreaker could be the outside of the door. Here's a picture, spiderwebs complimentary.

The ghostlike image of someone in a blue bathrobe hovering in the reflection? Yeah. I'm sick of being home sick.

That's off-white vinyl on the sidelights and bright white on the metal storm door. I'm thinking that while painting the interior of the door and trim would work, trying to paint the exterior would be a nightmare that could end up costing me money down the road because of peeling paint. I don't think I can get rid of the storm door because this area of our home is super drafty.

So please weigh in:

Painting this door black:

Good idea

or

Can of Worms?

A Way with Words

I have a fever. I know some of my blogging pals have written while drinking wine, but this is my first (and hopefully last) blogging-while-feverish (BWF) post.

So, as I was dozing on and off today I thought about words.

For instance, at some point when I was a little kid I got the words "hangar" and "curtain" mixed up in my head. To this day, when I am thinking of one, the other pops into my head unbidden. Useless information, I know.

Then there are words that just bug me. For instance, I dislike the word "tissue." When I was young, I would hear my dad talking on the phone to patients, and the word “tissue” will forever be linked in my brain to things like bloody, swollen, and diseased. Ick.

I also don’t like “slacks.” Tom agrees. They’re pants, people.

And, you may remember from my ill-fated Victoria’s Secret trip with both kids in tow, I don’t do “panties.” I wear underwear.

I like to ask people about words they dislike. For my mother-in-law it’s “guts.”

For my cousin it’s “trousers” and the word “moist.” Imagine my surprise when my shy, mild-mannered husband blurted out to her, “Well then, I guess you really hate moist trousers!”

Embarrassing.

I guess I deserve that for all the times I’ve said racy things in public when I didn’t really know what I was talking about.

So, since I’m sick, I’ll throw it out there to you.

What words do you dislike and why?

So the Thing That Separates Me From Fred Sanford is What?

My name is Anna See and I have a problem with CHAIRS.


Today we will take a tour into the seemy underbelly of the See household to discover just how many chairs I've accumulated over the years. Prepare yourself for lots of dog hair, Legos, bad paint jobs, bad judgment and even worse photography.


Note: no dust bunnies were harmed in the making of this blog post.


I would like some lovely new chairs. They should be comfortable and stylish. Slipper chairs from Target, perhaps?

The problem is, this house is already full of chairs. Chairs seem to seek me out wherever I go. You may have already read about these chairs I found in the trash and fixed up:




They have two buddies--adirondack chairs-- chipping away in the yard and a few more "finds" on the back porch which, thankfully, can not be seen too clearly in this photo.

The suede chair I snagged out of the trash and spray painted is suffering right now. Her legs have started to separate from her body. Not sure what to do about that.

And you remember my thrift store dining room chairs. I bought 7, but only 5 survive. Not the most comfy things, but I LOVE how they look with their fresh coat of heirloom white.

But there's a lot around here I haven't shown you. The 6 Ikea dining chairs I got for $3.00 each are scattered around the house with various slipcovers and degrees of dog hair. They are comfortable and versatile.


I want to stain or paint the grungy legs of the ones that are in the kitchen, but I haven't gotten motivated to do it.

They can also be found in my office and our bedroom.

Also in the kitchen is this bench. It's an old church pew. It used to be in the front hall of my home growing up. My mom would hide her Tab and Coke behind it so we couldn't drink it. Now I use that same space as a pseudo-pantry. It's probably the only piece of furniture in the house that is safe from a can of white spray paint.

When I think of getting a nice built-in window seat here, with drawers underneath, I can't bear the thought of getting rid of this bench. This is where you will find Shadow perched (!!!!) waiting for me to get home from work.

"Pantry" view:






Then there is this elephant in the room, the dining room to be precise. Remember how I told you my grandparents were furniture people? Well, in addition to the broken settee and chair I have waiting for a new home in the basement I have this huge chair in my dining room, one in my bedroom, and a corner chair in my upstairs hall, all from the same Victorian furniture set. That pea green upholstery from the 70's is a terry cloth towel, I believe.

Wouldn't they look fun and funky painted a dove gray with black and white and hot pink upholstery? But that still wouldn't make them any more comfortable.

There's also the one that represents my first foray into spray painting and recovering furniture using a staple gun. This one is hanging out in a corner, looking for a new home.

Then we have these 2 wing back chairs. When I was growing up they were green and gold velvet. I had them covered in denim about 15 years ago and they could use some sprucing up again. Silhouette pillow courtesy of my super-creative friend Theresa. Every Thanksgiving my parents sat in these at either end of our really long dining room table.



What about my mom's little cane chair next to her antique desk? I remember her sitting there in our old house paying bills and writing notes on thick correspondence cards-- all January Jones-like with her blond hair and housecoat. Later, this became a good spot for me to sit and talk to boyfriends on the phone until the wee hours.




Do we dare venture upstairs to the top of the house?

This dainty chair was used by the smallest relative each Thanksgiving. I was the youngest, so that was usually me!



What about this one in Jake's room? It is huge AND uncomfortable, but for some reason we all love it. I'm mad at myself for getting rid of the slipcover my grandmother made for it in the 50's. Darn. How do you like all the crap on it? Keeping it real.

In fact, I'll admit that there's no way we could possibly SIT on all of the chairs I'm showing you, given their varying degrees of uncomfortableness (?) and disrepair, but they do make good holding areas for stuff.

Guest room time. This old chippy wicker rocker was on our screened porch growing up. It's the chair I rocked (and rocked!) my daughter in when she was a baby.



I love this armless rocker in the basement. Unfortunately, it got punctured in the moving van (by another chair!) and has a hole in it. My grandpa tried to talk me through how to re-cane it before he died, but here it sits. It was in my bedroom growing up.




Any tour would not be complete without a peek into the creepy unfinished basement area:


A favorite platform rocker from my Dad's parents. It needs a new arm.

Yes, those are stacks and stacks of other chairs. I do believe these pictures clearly illustrate the dangers of having storage space. Thank God I don't have a garage.

So, I guess it's beginning to become clear why there are no new Target slipper chairs in my future. I really do want fresh, stylish furniture, but I can't help but be drawn to the Charlie Brown aspects of hand-me-downs and cast-offs. I feel like they can be redeemed. And if not by me, then by whom?

Which may explain why I did not hesitate before picking this up at the thrift shop on Thursday for $2.00.


Yes, I know, Tom is a saint.

Behold the Power of Words

So I got my first snarky comment on this blog. I don’t count the one from the hermit crab lover who gently guided me to some resources on how to adequately care for hermit crabs after Molly’s crab died from neglect. She could have called me a killer, but she held it in rather graciously. I’m not going to write about the current state of our other crab, Smiley. He’s just molting, right?

The snarky comment came from someone named “Anonymous” who commented on my post about how men can’t find anything in the house. She said it, and my readers’ comments, helped explain why the divorce rate is so high. I don’t think she liked how I kindly and gently asked Tom to check his body’s orifices for the missing remote control, or something like that.

This got me thinking. When I started blogging, I had neither read a blog nor commented on one. I was “writing for myself.” Tom and my sister were my only readers. When people I didn’t know stumbled across the blog, then actually came back for more and started commenting—go Shana and Kate!—I was surprised and thrilled. The comment section became a way to make new friends and to reconnect with several dear friends I don’t see very often.

Now I want comments. I love comments. Does this serve my narcissistic side? Sure. But it also makes me feel as if my writing doesn’t just go into a vacuum. I feel connected to my readers, most of whom I’ve never met. Since I’ve started reading other blogs, and commenting on them, I’ve actually been writing less often. I have found myself drawn into a blogging community, and more of my time has gone to keeping up with other people’s writing. I don’t want to miss out.

But back to the snarkiness…Do you find it interesting that I read that comment 6 times in a row? That’s kind of like picking at a scab isn’t it? And I wasn’t even upset. And I don’t regret what I wrote about Tom at all. And I’m not too concerned about what “Anonymous” thinks of me.

Can you imagine how many times I would have read it if it had come from someone I knew and cared deeply about?

This just reminded me of the power of words. We tend to cling to the negative and let it penetrate deeply into our souls. We wrap it up and put it in our pocket. We pull it out when we are feeling insecure or vulnerable, unwrap it, and let the pain cut a little deeper.

What could seem like a passing remark can linger for years.

I hate to think of how I may have used words over the years carelessly and for sport. As a sister, a friend, and especially as a teacher. Every day we have a chance to build people up or break them down.

Just today at lunch with my friends I said more about someone than I should have. I’m going to take this as a reminder to watch my words, with my friends, my kids, and yes, even Tom, if he can get the remote out of his ass long enough to listen.

Wordless Wednesday-- Worst Mini Golf Outing Ever

Eddie Haskell

Do you know Eddie Haskell? If you grew up on “Leave it to Beaver” re-runs like I did, you know he is the perfectly groomed suck-up who tries to win adults over with flattery and impeccable manners while wreaking havoc behind the scenes. I remember how he’d pour on the charm with Mrs. Cleaver (who wasn’t buying it), and then turn around and act like a real turd to the Beav.

Maybe you have a real-life Eddie (or Edwina) Haskell in your or your children’s lives. You’ll note charm, looks, intelligence-- all the outward appearances of perfection. Then every once in a while you get a glimpse of an inner Eddie/Edwina. Perhaps it’s a quick elbow jab to a younger sibling when no one appears to be watching. A cutting remark. A mean ploy that the teacher never sees, but all the kids do. A desire for division instead of unity.

I’ve been trying to understand why Eddie, and the modern day equivalents in my own life, get under my skin so much. I think it’s because I want genuine kindness, not perfection. I think perfection is not only over-rated, it’s impossible. And I believe that when we are real with each other, everyone benefits. Eddie isn’t about being real. Eddie is about projecting an image.

I think back to when I was a new mom and my son was perfect. He used baby sign language, showed early brilliance and a keen sensitivity to all around him. To listen to me talk you would have thought he would get his doctorate by age 6, followed shortly by the Nobel Prize.

When I came to realize that he wasn’t perfect, my baby daughter wasn’t perfect, and neither was their mother (for some reason I had accepted this fact about Tom much earlier)…. it was a momentary bummer, but it was somehow freeing. I think it helped me become a less self-righteous and annoying parent.

I tell myself when I run across seemingly perfect kids (at least when their life stories are narrated by one or both parents), that there is likely at least a tad of behind the scenes drama somewhere. Maybe it’s screaming meltdowns during homework or a refusal to practice the piano… but something!

My kids are thoughtful and kind. Often. They care about the poor and the disenfranchised. Sometimes. They are well groomed. On occasion.

Other times they leave people out. They are grumpy. They play favorites. They don’t make eye contact. They mumble. They are selfish. They choose popularity over what’s right.

And you know what? That describes me too. Depending on the day, my hormones, my Diet Pepsi intake, and whether or not I’ve stopped to pray.

I wish we didn’t have a conspiracy of silence, in which we all pretend that everything’s great all the time. I wish other moms would share their kids’ problems so I could share mine. I wish I didn’t have the urge to unmask all the little Eddie and Edwinas, as if bringing them down a notch would somehow build me up.

I guess I wish none of us were sinners. As if.