Cookin’ With The Kiddlywinks

The other night, I made an herbed braised chicken for dinner for Kullervo and me.  I stuffed the chicken with apples, covered it with garlic, fresh thyme, green onions, and leeks, and braised it in white wine with cabbage.  Kullervo said that it might have been the best roasted chicken I’d ever made.  (I didn’t try it—I generally find poultry to be kind of gross.)  However, even with the best of intentions, he wasn’t able to eat an entire chicken for dinner, so we had plenty of leftovers.

So the next day, the kids and I decided we wanted to spend a bunch of time cooking.  I really enjoy cooking with my kids.  I have the patience for the messes and the spills and the fact that it takes at least three times as long.  (It’s a point of pride for me, too, because Kullervo doesn’t like cooking with the kids, and I feel like in general, he is much better at doing stuff with them than I am.)  There are also the generically educational aspects to it—measurements, fractions, and whatnot.  I also spend a decent amount of time talking to the kids about where we get our produce, and living sustainably, etc.

Anyway, I told the kids that we were going to take the chicken from last night, and they were going to choose all the other ingredients, within reason, and we were going to cook their creation.  So, I had them choose if they wanted rice or pasta.  Then I had them choose what kind of a sauce we wanted to make—a tomato based sauce, a cheese based sauce, or a brown butter sauce.  And they chose which vegetables they wanted.

So we measured out the rice and got that cooking in the rice cooker.  Then Hazel and I set about making brown butter sauce—which I had never made before, and I think we actually did incorrectly.  While Hazel stirred, I chopped up the vegetables they asked for—green onions, garlic scapes, red and green bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, corn, and Swiss chard.  We cooked them with the butter and the chicken, and Hazel delighted in getting to add the salt and pepper.

Hazel stirring her dinner in the cast iron pan

One of the things that I love about cooking with my kids is that they like to try all the individual ingredients.  They ate some of the cold chicken.  They tried raw garlic scapes and green onions.  I didn’t let them try the bell peppers ahead of time because we only had a couple of small ones from our CSA and I wanted them in the dish.  They tasted the corn from our garden that we froze last weekend.  They also tasted each of the herbs in our herb garden to see which one they wanted to flavor it with—rosemary, thyme, or sage.  They tried to convince me that the Stevia plant would be a good idea, but I wouldn’t let them use it, although I did let them munch on some leaves.

While we were working on that, Oliver was busy with our snack recipe.  We got a recipe from my sister for no-bake protein balls that is filled with healthy stuff like ground flaxseed and oats and peanut butter (and chocolate chips and coconut too!).  He mixed the ingredients together and rolled all of the individual balls.

Oliver, rolling the dough to make our protein snack!

Oliver with the finished product!

Altogether, it was a successful meal and they both ate a healthy meal that they prepared themselves, with a fun snack for dessert!

Don’t Be A Crybaby

So, the general response that I get when I tell people (and let’s face it—I’m a big complainer, so I tell everyone I see, even strangers on the street) about Hank’s propensity for insomnia falls into one of two camps.  Either I should let him cry it out, and it’ll suck for a few days and then be done… or clearly there is something wrong, like he is sick or teething or dying or I’m a bad mother, so I should go to him and we should hug it out.

I’ve read The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley, and I love it.  I love the idea of gently putting my baby to sleep and having him know how to just go to sleep.  And, when I put him down at night, that works.  I follow our routine, and I put him in his crib, rub his back a few times, tell him I love him, and I leave.  He generally rolls over and goes straight to sleep.  It’s absolutely lovely.

But that doesn’t help me two hours later when he wakes up crying.  If I go in to him, he wants to nurse.  Which I might be happy to do, except then two hours later he wakes again and wants to nurse.  And he is nine months old, 23 pounds, and I’m not old enough to have the kind of saggy boobs that will surely result from overfeeding a tired baby.  If I don’t nurse him when he wakes up, he just cries and gets more and more worked up.  Kullervo is able to go to him and calm him down… sometimes… and it takes a really long time, and still doesn’t last for more than a couple of hours.

The poor thing just doesn’t know how to fall asleep.

I started to suspect that I would have to let him cry it out.  To validate this idea, I called the one person I was certain would tell me to just let him cry—my mother.  When Hank was a month old and she came to visit, she told me to put him on a schedule, that he didn’t need to eat on demand, he should eat every four hours, and if it hadn’t been four hours, he should cry until it was.  (I didn’t follow this advice.)  So I was certain she would tell me Hank should cry it out.

So, of course, she didn’t.  She said that if he’s crying a lot at night, he must be sick or teething.

I really don’t think he is though.  He’s not crying in pain… he’s fussing.  And when I go to him, it doesn’t help.  What helps is going back to sleep.  He won’t take a pacifier.  He won’t suck his thumb or fingers.  And he really enjoys sitting himself up, so if I lie him down, he just pushes his little body back up so he can holler at me some more, with accusing eyes about the fact that I won’t just help him fall asleep.

I have spent a lot of hours considering crying it out.  So many people recommend it.  So many.  And it doesn’t fundamentally bother me to consider other people’s babies crying it out.  But the idea of my baby crying it out does.  So I have spent some time navel-gazing, trying to figure out what exactly it is that bothers me about it.  Is the issue to do with him… or is it an issue with me that I shouldn’t project onto him?

I haven’t come up with any definite answers yet.  I think that part of it is just the natural maternal instinct to not like the idea of my child hurting or being sad and not going.  I think part of it relates to some really powerful memories from my own childhood of feeling abandoned and feeling alone.  I think that one of my goals as a parent is for my kids to know that I love them unconditionally… and ignoring crying doesn’t seem to convey that.  But if this is an issue where I am concerned with my own reaction, or a short term solution, as opposed to how it affects the baby long term, then I don’t think that’s fair to the baby.  It’s always easier to do something as a short term fix than to implement a long term solution—hence all the problems with government policies.  Long term, I want my children to know how to sleep and sleep well, and I want them to be independent and not need me to coddle them, if that makes sense.

I’ve also had to consider the fact that if Oliver or Hazel decided they didn’t want to go to bed, and threw a fit about it and cried… I would totally tell them to suck it up, tell them I loved them, and leave them to it.  If they cried in the middle of the night, I would go to them… but I wouldn’t do whatever they wanted just because they had a nightmare—I would reassure them and leave, and if they got really upset about it, tell them I loved them and that they needed to go back to sleep anyway.

So what makes my nine month old different than my four year old?  There is certainly a matter of being able to communicate ‘suck it up and I love you’ to Hazel, but can’t be sure that Hank gets the nuance.

Ultimately, we have decided that at night, we are going to try to let him cry, situation depending.  We’ve done it for three nights now… and it’s hard.  The first night we did it, he first woke up at 11:30.  I figured I would nurse him and put him back to bed, and he could then go for a longer stretch.  No big deal.  Except that he woke up again at 1:00.  Kullervo went in to him, rubbed his back for awhile, and he fell back to sleep.  Success!  Except that he woke up again shortly afterwards.  So we let him cry.  And he cried on and off (and, I guess, slept on and off) for the rest of the night.  I’m honestly not sure how much he cried because when I would drift off to sleep, I would dream he was crying.  I also had a dream that Oliver and Hazel were sitting on a beach, staring vacantly at me like they were zombies, chanting, “My mommy lets me cry.  My mommy doesn’t care.”  Seriously.  We brought him into our room at 6:00, and I nursed him and we both fell back to sleep.

The next night, I think he woke up less.  I didn’t have any zombie child dreams, which I consider a mild victory over my subconscious.  I’ve been giving him extra love throughout the day, and he honestly doesn’t seem any worse for wear.  He is still happy to see me in the morning, and all day long, and seems more well rested.

And then, last night, he slept.  He slept from 7:15 until 5:00.  When he woke up then, we let him fuss for a few minutes, but then brought him into bed with us, where he nursed and then slept until we woke him up at 7:00.  And we have all had such a wonderful day as a result.

So, I’m still not wild about the idea of letting Hank cry it out at night.  But I am wild about the idea of all of us being better rested.  Should we backslide, we might consider other options.  In the meantime, I was able to have an amazing, fun filled day with all of my kids today.

But Why?

As a general rule, I support explaining my decisions to my kids.  They want to know why, and I want them to know that usually, when I tell them no, there is an underlying purpose–be it safety, convenience, level of annoyance, etc.

However, I’m about to throw the towel in with this.  The trouble with explaining things is that my kids have lately started thinking that if they don’t like my reasoning, they can ignore the instruction.  For example, I was lying down with the baby, and he had just fallen asleep.  Oliver walked into the room and said he wanted to come snuggle with the baby too.  I told him no, because the baby had just fallen asleep and I didn’t want Oliver to wake him up.  Oliver proceeded to climb into my bed anyway, and said, “Don’t worry, I won’t wake him up.”

The fact is, when I say no, the answer is no.  I try not to say no too often, but when I say no, my kids don’t (shouldn’t) get to negotiate, or choose whether or not my reasons are good enough for them to decide to obey.

I realize as I write this that this is a pendulum type of parenting experience.  Right now, the pendulum has swung too far in terms of the kids not listening until they are convinced.  I need to push the pendulum back.

The rule has got to be that if I say no, or stop this, or do that, they listen. Later, when it is appropriate, they can ask why and we can discuss it.  But first they have to listen.  So I think that, for a little while, they aren’t going to get to know the reasons.

Kid Logic

Oliver was feeling a bit under the weather today after school, and the weather outside is corroborating.  So, after filling him with Tylenol, warm juice, and lots of snuggles, I settled him in on the couch with Hazel, and told them that they each could choose one television show to watch.  (Note: this also enabled a much-appreciated shower for me.)

Usually, if they get to watch television, we have a blanket rule that Hazel gets to choose the show on even days, and Oliver gets to choose the show on odd days.  Today, being an even day, was Hazel’s day.  However, Oliver decided that since he was feeling sick, he should get to choose the show.

Now, this could lead to disaster, right?  But here’s the thing–both kids wanted to watch the same show.  Oliver insisted, though, that it was his show.  Hazel insisted that it was her show.  I insisted that the smell in the room might be emanating from me, and that I was going to go shower.

Cut to 22 minutes later, when the show was over.  I said to the kids, “OK, who gets to choose the next show.”  (Yes, I realize that this was perilous.)

Oliver said, “Not me!  I chose the first show.”

Hazel said, “No, not me!  I chose the first show.”

Yes, that’s right… my children spent a couple of minutes this afternoon fighting about why they shouldn’t get to pick the TV show that they watched.

This is why I love being a mom.  Randomness abounds.

Nine Months Down

Nine months pregnant.  Three weeks to go before the doctor takes the baby out.

I have to say, it’s a little weird having a viable human being that just, you know, lives in me.  I live in Chicago, he lives in Katy.  (And not the one in Texas.)

So, what’s it like to be nine months pregnant?

Clothes

First, let me tell you about getting dressed.  All of my maternity jeans are stretched out or too small.  Which means that either the elastic doesn’t stay up—thus showing anyone who is looking (which, luckily, let’s face it, is probably limited to Kullervo) what color undies I chose this morning—or the buttons are too tight and I can’t keep them closed for long.  Oh, and there are the maternity jeans that don’t have a button on top… they have a snap.  Like the kind on kids’ clothes who aren’t capable of unbuttoning fast enough to make it to the bathroom.  Which, of course, for me, means that I might be walking my kids to school and all of a sudden the snap on my jeans decides that it’s had enough… and just pops open.

Now, this is mostly a problem because it’s uncomfortable.  My belly is of a size that a normal person who is not bending at awkward angles cannot possibly see the waistband of my pants.  And if they are doing awkward robotic yoga poses to see the pattern of my stretch marks, I’m judging them.  I’m not going to lie.

How about shirts, you ask?  At this point, most of my shirts do not cover my entire baby bump.  So there is a wind flap of round tummy poking out of the bottom of all of my shirts.

The benefit to all of this happening when I’m pregnant?  If anyone comments on my exposed stomach, I can choose from the following responses:

“I haven’t seen that part of my body in a couple of months.  How’s it looking?”

“Sold!  You may now buy me a shirt that suits your sensibilities.”

“Yeah, I totally don’t care anymore.”

Panic

I’m not really a panicky person.  I’m not the most laid back person I know, but I am usually happy to roll with the punches.

Not anymore.  All day long I have a stream of things that I need to get done before the baby is born.  Note that most of these things are of little to no consequence.  Some of the things on this list include:

• Rearrange the furniture to be the way that I want it. (
  • Note that Kullervo is happy to do this anytime, and is fully capable of doing it after the baby is born.
• Set up the crib in Hazel’s room
  • Once again, Kullervo can do this in about 15 minutes… and it can wait until the baby is born.  For at least three days, the baby and I will be hanging out in the hospital, and after that the baby will be sleeping in our room with us.
• Set up the bassinet
  • This one is perhaps more important than the others, but mostly because I have no idea how to put the thing together and it looks scary in pieces.
• Clean the entire house, top to bottom.
  • Can we just say HA!  Climbing stairs exhausts me.  And babies can only see, like, 12 inches or something.  He totally won’t notice if he is greeted by dust bunnies.
• Buy all the food
  • I actually did this today.  I went to the grocery store and bought food to make four vegetable lasagnas to freeze.  Of course, before I could do that, I had to make space in the freezer.  And since I was inventorying the contents of the freezer, I figured I should go ahead and clean the shelves.

Mostly I realize that this is insanity manifesting itself in the form of to-do lists that I am never capable of remembering by the time I get to a pen and paper.  So I write down that I should do the laundry.

Physical Symptoms

Without getting too gross, it’s time for all of the lovely physical symptoms that the baby is near cooked.  Besides the fact that the pop-up turkey timer (i.e. my belly button) has long since popped (the turkey ones are never accurate either, in my experience), that is.

In the last two days, I think the baby has dropped a bit.  I think this because the horrific heartburn that has plagued me for months has subsided a bit (as in, I am chewing about 6-8 Tums a day instead of 12-14).  Also, I have to pee pretty much all the time.  I would really like to get a good night’s sleep before the bi-hourly feedings begin, but I wake up at least twice a night, sometimes as often as five times.  And when I wake up, I’m usually too groggy to figure out why I’ve woken up, so I lie in bed wondering what’s going on and why I feel so darned uncomfortable…

Also, general movement has gotten a lot more difficult.  This could partially be due to the fact that I keep forgetting that at nine months pregnant, nobody (except apparently me) expects me to be as physically active as I was when I was not pregnant.  I climb the few stairs to get to my front door and am completely out of breath.  I walk the kids to school and am pretty sure that this baby is trying to get out of me.

And there are contractions… I think.  I don’t really know what contractions feel like, so I can’t be sure.  Today I was crossing a fairly busy intersection with Hazel to pick Oliver up from school, and in the middle of the road I was overcome by some fairly intense pain.  Poor Hazel—we were holding hands, and I squeezed hers a bit too tightly.  She, oblivious, said, “Mommy, what game are we playing?” and squeezed my hand back.

Finally, and to me, the most hilarious, are the things that strangers say to me.  None of it bothers me in the slightest, but I find endless amusement in the lack of verbal restraint I bring out in people.  For some reason, I can’t even remember the doozies that I’ve heard in the last couple of weeks.

“Oh my gosh… you’re huge!”

“Oh, you’re tiny!  Are you sure that baby’s ready to come out?”

“Are you sure you’re not having twins?”

“You look so done.”  (I feel like this is the equivalent of telling someone they look tired or sick.  It’s just sort of insulting.)

I haven’t been plagued with other people’s problem of strangers touching their bellies (I repel people, I guess).  There was a five year old girl the other day who asked if she could touch my stomach.  I told her no.  Normally I wouldn’t mind at all, but this girl was annoying and kept insisting that Oliver was a girl because he has long hair.  She insisted this even after I, almost a grown up, and definitely his mother, told her that he was definitely a boy.  I felt smugly satisfied that I denied her access to my second son.

Yeah, that’s right.  I was able to one up a five year old.  And I was proud of it.

Luckily, with all of my other pregnancy symptoms, being overly emotional isn’t one that I’m suffering from right now.

Things As They Really Are

One of my favorite people in the world put up a blog post that is worth reading.

Because I can’t read anything without seeing both the serious and the silly, but I didn’t want to detract from her blog, I wanted to post the silly here.

Katie says:

The idea of Things As They Really Are is one of the most profound spiritual concepts I’ve ever encountered.  It’s about much more than adhering to the “correct” interpretation of abstract theological principles; it’s about embracing all the truth we can, even difficult truth…

Reading that made me think about all of the (less-than-spiritual) difficult truths I’ve had to embrace.  Here are some, in no particular order.

• Kids will always think that jokes about penises, passing gas, underwear, and poop are funny.
• Teaching jokes about penises, passing gas, underwear, and poop to your kids is one of the many joys of parenting.
• … I will probably also always think that jokes about penises, passing gas, underwear, and poop are funny.
• My very-near-perfect-love-of-my-life will probably never put away his laundry.  Or put his dirty socks with the dirty laundry.
• My otherwise-brilliant five year old cannot put on clothes while he talks.  Multi-tasking is just not in the cards.
• My otherwise-naturally-pleasant-smelling three year old will never smell fresh and clean as long as she refuses to wipe after she pees.  (sigh)
• My inability to not do something right when I think about it will always drive my ever-loving husband just a little bit crazy.
• Thought bubble over my head: Dinner’s cooked, hot, and ready to be served?  Great!  Let me just quickly do some more research on cloth diapers… ooh!  Something shiny!  Must explore shiny things immediately! 
• As much as I love being pregnant, it really is difficult to sleep the last few weeks.  Also, there are a lot of gross things about pregnancy that nobody really talks about.
• I love my cats dearly, but pretty much everything that comes out of their bodies is disgusting.
• And I’m still mad at The Beast for drinking leftover milk from Hazel’s Cocoa Puffs and throwing it up ten minutes later on my bed.  Seriously, not a good survival tactic.
• And the mini-monster spends enough time outside these days that when he has diarrhea… seriously–do it outside somewhere.  It’s really just gross in the litter box.

That might be all for now.  What are some of your difficult truths?

The Ups and Downs of Pregnancy

Today I am 31 weeks pregnant, which means that I have (less than) nine weeks to go before I meet this baby boy.  I’ve been wanting to reflect on some of the pros and cons of pregnancy.  For this post, I’m going to focus on fashion.

So, as a pregnant woman, there’s the wardrobe issue.  And this is an issue that begins (with me, at least) right before I start showing.  Right before I start showing, I’m certain that I am showing, and I want to get this show on the road and be obviously pregnant.  So I want to wear clothes that announce something like:  “It isn’t just potato chips and ice cream!  I’m making a human!”

Then I start showing, and my jeans get a bit too tight to be comfortable (read: they don’t really zip without drawing blood).  So I have to find something to wear.  On the positive side, I’ve always wanted to be one of those women who wears skirts all the time and looks together and cute.  On the negative side, I’ve never been one of those women.  Whenever I wear a skirt, I tend to feel like I look like I am totally out of place.  Nonetheless, I’ve been wearing some skirts.  (Often with yoga shorts underneath, because let’s face it, it gets hot in the summer, and my thighs aren’t getting any smaller.)  A side benefit to this is that when I wear skirts, my wonderful husband and too-sweet-to-be-real kids tell me how pretty I look.

A downside to pregnancy is that no matter how many advances there have been in maternity clothes, they just really aren’t cute unless you’re willing to spend much more money than I will spend on clothes that I will only wear for a few months.  However, this time around, I got a lot of maternity clothes from friends, which added variety and some clothing staples for a very reasonable price (thanks guys!).

An upside to being pregnant is that you can get away with wearing pretty much anything.  People are very willing to overlook fashion don’ts when you’re pregnant.  I tend to be a walking fashion don’t in my regular life, but I get a lot more conciliatory looks now, and I am perfectly comfortable letting people believe that I am dressing this way solely because I’m pregnant and not because I have the fashion sense of two year old boy.

Another upside? I feel no qualms about raiding Kullervo’s closet.  His workout shorts have helped me survive the summer, and I just found out this morning that I can button his jeans below my belly. Nothing is safe!

Overall, I’d say that the pregnancy wardrobe comes out as a win.  It’s frustrating that I usually don’t feel cute or comfortable in what I’m wearing, but since people really only focus on the moving parts in the middle and the game of ‘guess the body part’, I’m the only one who really notices.

Lessons Learned

Things I learned from my kids today:

1. Little things bring a lot of happiness.  Oliver was so excited today when I ordered him a pair of jeans that came with a belt. His first belt!  He was also thrilled to be able to use a little lamp I just clipped onto his bed to read just one more book before going to bed.

2. If you teach your mono-lingual child about false cognates, and he comes up with a Nintendo DS being a false cognate for diez-the Spanish word for ten-you should just go with it.

3. Sometimes, having someone else around to help you change your underwear and sheets after you wet the bed can make your whole night better. (And major props to Kullervo for his ability to change sheets lightning fast! If there were parental superpowers, that would definitely be one of them.)

4. If you tell kids that their Auntie E really misses them, they will pose for a picture to make her day.

Guilty!

So, remember way back in January when my phone was stolen from me? What? You don’t remember all of the details of my life? Gah.

Well, anyway, the two kids who took it finally had their day in court this week.

I got a summons a few months ago in the mail telling me to show up at the juvenile courts at 9:00am. My incredibly supportive husband took the day off from work so that he could be there with me to hold my hand, since I really had no idea what to expect. And I was a bit concerned that I hadn’t heard about what to expect from the state attorney–the last I’d heard, they were going to pursue the case if they could, but the evidence just wasn’t that great.

Anyway, I showed up in court that morning, we waited for an hour (and one of the boys had the audacity to sit near me while we waited!), and finally met with the state attorney who told us that the case was going to be postponed. The interesting thing–or perhaps terrifically sad thing–was why. One of the two boys who took my phone (the one who actually took it, whom I will call E for purposes of this story), was on probation at the time of the crime against me, and since then had committed another crime.

E is clearly one of those kids who is going to wind up in jail for a long time, it’s just a matter of how many crimes he will commit before then.

Because of the new crime, and because my case wasn’t great in terms of having enough evidence to definitely convict, the state attorney wanted to lump them all together and give the guy a plea bargain–including more severe probation requirements, etc. But that had to happen later, so we could go home that day.

A month later, I went back to court for the new court date… just to get a phone call when I was walking in the door saying that it was going to be postponed again.

Finally, though, on Wednesday, I went to court… and stayed in court until it was over. I found out that that morning, E had been given a plea, which he accepted. He admitted guilt in committing the crime against me. The sentence hasn’t happened yet, but one of the items will be a restraining order against any illegal activity against me (which seems strange, because I feel like we are all supposedly restrained from illegal activity, but if he breaks the restraining order it is easier to give swift justice because of breaking a court order on top of having to prove a crime. Or something.).

The other boy, D, was also offered a plea, but rejected it. He wanted to go to trial. And I would have to testify as to what happened. The state attorney made it clear that we still didn’t have a super strong case against him. I didn’t see who took my phone (I know E took it because of inadmissible evidence–hearsay from their principal, who refused to testify), I didn’t see their faces when it happened, etc.

So we went to trial. Both the public defender and the state attorney waived their right to opening statements, so the very first thing that happened after everyone was sworn in (D, me, and the police officers on duty at the time), was I had to get on the stand and testify.

I was nervous. Not only was I having to talk in front of people (which I’m really not good at), not only did I have to say all of this in front of someone who had committed a crime against me, but I also was supposed to recall, with details, events that happened 7 months ago. And I’m pregnant–I can’t remember what I had for breakfast!

The state attorney went first, and I got to tell what I remembered in pieces, afterwards kicking myself for not giving more details. I remembered being on the phone with my mom, noticing two figures on either side of me, the phone being taken, turning around and seeing two black boys–one taller than the other, the taller one with dreadlocks in his hair–running away from me. I saw one of them get on a bus, and the other one not get on the bus. I screamed, a bunch of people stopped the bus, the police came, they found the other boy, and I IDed him from the police car based on his height (he’s quite tall), the clothes he was wearing, and his hair. I was asked if I remember what he was wearing, and I said that I don’t now, but at the time I did, and it was the same thing.

The defense got a turn to ask me questions, and I’d been told that she would try to confuse me and make me say stuff that didn’t make sense. She didn’t ask me much at all though, and that ended quickly.

At one point during my testimony, the public defender objected to something I was saying… and it really was dramatic like it is in the books and on TV. OBJECTION! Seriously, when someone interrupts you to object to what you’re saying, it really throws a wrench into remembering what your train of thought was! Plus, it sort of feels insulting, while I realize it isn’t actually personal.

Then I was asked to leave the courtroom while the other witnesses testified. One of the police officers went in, and D would have the opportunity to testify if he chose.

I was allowed back into the courtroom for the closing statements and the verdict. The public defender’s closing arguments weren’t very coherently put together, I thought. She said a lot of stuff that didn’t seem relevant (that I didn’t specify if the person running away had dreadlocks or braids, that E had braids). The state attorney’s closing was much better, in my opinion.

And then the judge gave his verdict. He talked through his thought process, and his stream of consciousness as he listened to all of the witnesses. He thought I was credible (yay!). And it turned out that when D got on the stand to defend himself, his version of events didn’t agree with mine–he said that he remembered one person running up to me (E), and then one person running away. He ran away because he had marijuana in his pocket and thought the police were going to arrest him because of that. And he said that lots of the boys at the bus stop had dreads or braids, so, as I didn’t remember any faces, to single him out based solely on his hair doesn’t mean it was him.

The judge basically had to choose who was a more credible witness–me, or D. He said the fact that I didn’t remember all the details made me more credible, because I clearly wasn’t trying to make stuff up or invent what happened.

And he decided that D was guilty on all counts–including a felony. I’m not sure exactly what all the counts were, but I was shocked. I really wasn’t expecting him to get a guilty verdict at all, let alone a felony.

Sentencing will happen later, and I have the right to know what the final sentence is for both boys. I will write a victim’s impact statement saying the impact this had on my family, which will be read to the judge for him to consider when he determines the sentences.

I am so glad that I was able to come home and tell my sweet babies that the two boys who took my phone were going to get punished for doing the wrong thing. It’s nice to be able to tell my kids, at least in this instance, that the system worked.

The August De-Plastic Project

I’ve been wanting to do something to be more committed to lowering my carbon footprint while at the same time teaching my children to be conscious of the decisions that we make and why.  To that end, we subscribe to a CSA for our meat and produce, which deserves another blog post in and of itself.  (And which I will hopefully get to.)

I picked up the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine and read this article about plastic bags.  We generally try to be conscious of our plastic bag usage, but we still wind up with gobs and gobs of bags from the grocery store, etc.  Because inevitably, even though I have at least 5 reusable shopping bags, I leave them at home when I go shopping.

So, I decided that, for the month of August, I will avoid having my groceries (and, where possible, all other goods) bagged in plastic bags.  Hopefully at the end of the month, it will become so ingrained in my habits that I can continue it afterwards.

I decided that I will continue to use the plastic farmstand bags at the grocery store to bag my produce.  I’m going to look for reusable bags when I go out, but for now, I need my produce to stay fresh in my fridge.  And, because the stuff I get from my CSA isn’t bagged, I reuse the bags for the other produce that I get.

Today was the first day I had to go to the store since August began.  I had limited success.  First, I forgot my canvas bags.  Even though we were running late, I ran back into the house to gather them. Score: me-1, plastic bags-0.

Then, when we got to the grocery store, I forgot them in the car.  (sigh.) I didn’t realize this until we had finished shopping and were about to get in line. Score: plastic bags-1, me-1.

I asked for the checkout people to use paper bags instead.  I figured, this would be okay because not only are they recyclable, but as school is about to start, Oliver might have books to cover (and paper bags make great book covers).  We also use double bagged paper bags in the car as a garbage can, as mostly in the car we wind up emptying recyclable containers (cans of soda, paper, etc). Score: me-2, plastic bags-1.

Everything was fine after that (except for the few grumbly looks the bagging person gave to me), and I took my groceries home.  As I was putting the food away, I noticed something.

Foiled by Plastic

In avoiding having the watermelon leak condensation onto the paper bag, the bagger at the store bagged my watermelon in a plastic bag. Score: me-2, plastic bags-2.