MDM*intake

So. I've officially been telecommuting and homeschooling for two weeks. My mission has been to be prepared, not planned. It appears as though this simple approach was the best choice I could have made.

On the work front, I'm keeping track of all my projects diligently with a neat to-do list, arranging schedules so that I can get to meetings and communicating efficiently with all my awesome coworkers. On the homeschooling front, we're enjoying a decompressing "de-schooling" period, stumbled onto a fun homeschoolers gym class at the Y and are realizing just how many in-real-life learning opportunities happen every single day.

We're also still struggling a bit to find that work/school/home and family/alone time balance, we've gotten on each other's nerves once or 30 times and we're a little bit more disorganized that I'd like us to be.

But, overall, the good keeps getting gooder and the bad is so far straightening itself out. I feel incredibly blessed that I was able to do this for my family. Especially for Sir Azrielle McPurrsons, aka Tubby, Tub, Tubblies. How did he LIVE WITHOUT ME during the days?!

My monster turns 11 today. Eep! Of course, I can hardly believe it.

He brought in fruit kabobs for a class snack, and we put together favors for each of his classmates that includes a pencil case, some tchotchke and a party invitation. He was going for a penguin/sports theme, but alas, we were hard-pressed to find any skateboarding penguin pencils. Shocking, I know.

Tonight, we're off to a Sixers game, to which he we told him, he could invite a friend. We also invited that friend to sleep over. That's right, ON A SCHOOL NIGHT. Because we're awesome like that.

Sunday, we'll do the traditional dinner, gifts and cake at my mom's house. By the way, despite the awesomeness we JUST acquired with the school night sleepover, we're actually really mean because he has to wait FOUR WHOLE DAYS for his gifts. Poor baby.

I have the best coworkers on earth. This fact was most recently proven by the fact that I found these pictures in my email inbox early this morning.

Avery's art teacher is my coworker's wife, (got that?) which means that AC's latest art project, Rico the Sock Monkey, came for a visit to the office :)

The football-, lacrosse-, basketball-playing skateboarder:



The goes-with-me-everywhere, loves-to-visit girl:


Sigh. They're the best! :)

I was reading through the forums at the MotheringDotCommune website (the online forums for Mothering Magazine) and came across an interesting thread titled "Any Moms of an Only Child." I was intrigued for two reasons. Number one, because I have an only child, heh. And Number two, because I've found my only child scenario to be very different than those of my closest friends (both online and off) who either have several children or none.

Now that I think about it... I don't think I know any moms of one. Huh.



Anyway, finding this thread prompted me to add my voice, which kind of caught me off guard. Not the adding my voice part, that's rarely a problem, but the adding my voice to this particular subject. Considering, apparently, that all my friends are either one extreme or the other, one would think the topic would've come up. It almost seems taboo, or at the very least, to be a sensitive subject to approach.

But why?


We're talking about such a basic topic here. Maybe it falls too close to sex and/or religion and/or politics? Even so, the reproduction of the human race greatly effects so much of this planet and society, how can we not talk about it?


At any rate, clearly the thread got me thinking. Too bad for you, eh?

There were so many reasons why the moms chose to be moms-to-one: sustainability of the earth; having the ability to travel said earth more easily; experiencing a difficult pregnancy or infertility issues; not having the resources (time, money, energy) to afford more children; just plain wanting one kid; and on and on.



Of course this is all one-sided, and what would be really interesting (to me, because I'm selfish like that) is to hear why people choose to have more than one or none. Obviously, I can relate pretty easily to the moms about having an only, and it's nice to find a tribe of ladies in a similar situation as my own, but hearing differing opinions and thoughts makes for a way richer head trip, don't you think?


And so, in conclusion (that was for you, kah)...

Really though, in the name of self-awareness, honesty and mindfulness, I'm copying my reply posted to the forum, and placing it here on my blog. It's neither long and detailed, nor very opinionated, it's just more than I would normally put here, and for no good reason. Important topics are sometimes hard to talk about. Like MPG's and plastic bags and veg*nism and chocolate. Wait chocolate isn't hard to talk about. Though it's VERY important!

By the way, for all this disclosure, you can thank St. Francis and OMSH for their recent inspiration.

Hi, everyone!

I'm a single momma to a 10-year-old monster. There are lots of reasons why I've chosen to have only one child, all of which have evolved and changed over the years. Currently, my primary reasons involve sustainability and durability of our planet. No explanation needed I'm sure, as I see many of those reasons listed here

Of course, I've found being a single mother affects my decision greatly, as well. Becoming unexpectedly pregnant as a teenager determined that my son and I would be faced with some unique challenges, and that things might not be as easy as they could've been had I done things in a more traditional manner. Overall, I love being a mom and I don't regret a single moment of it. That's not to say that things haven't been nearly completely overwhelming (financially, emotionally, spiritually) many, many, many times over the past ten years. Though I wouldn't want trade any of it for a second, and I know that my son and I have an amazing relationship because of it, I certainly don't have the desire to repeat it

I appreciate the general sense of control and manageability that comes with one child, which is also something I've seen mentioned here, and is especially important to me not only as a single parent, but one who works full time out of the house. I can't imagine having to not only shuttle two kids around to lessons, practices, etc., but also afford everyone's interests. And in the middle of it all, still have the energy, time and money to hit the gym and cook healthy meals. In my house, I feel like we're already using all of our resources and adding another life would cause something (like sanity?) to suffer. I'm in awe of how parents make it work.

Also, I'm pretty sure fighting with one kid about bedtime/homework/showering/incessant texting/picking scabs at the dinner table/et. al. is just plenty for me. We all know what a mess one kid can make, I don't need to experience the carnage three or four little monsters could cause on a daily basis. I mean, isn't it generally a good idea to not be outnumbered?

It's funny because I absolutely love when my house is full of kids. I enjoy the loudness and energy and happiness and even the mess I just don't think I'd love it every day.

Eh, who am I kidding? The real reason why I'm not having any more children is because the one I already have is my favorite. We're not supposed to have favorites - I mean, really, what kind of mom would I be if I had another?!

Mikaela

---

PS: I do know two other mommas of one - Amy and Leanne, AC's bro's mom (bro below)!

I asked around about that sunshine winter squash I got in the CSA share a couple weeks ago, and the overwhelming recommendation was to roast it. Even in the recipes I was given, roasting the squash first was part of the directions. I decided to simply roast it this first go around, figuring it would give me the opportunity to get to know the flavor.


I cut it in half, then put in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour, in a shallow pan of water. Looking back, that seems like an obscenely high temperature. That's because I didn't read the directions completely. I had about five things going on in the kitchen, preserving some fruits and veggies (more on that later), and I just wasn't paying close enough attention to the recipe. Turns out, the 400 degrees instruction was for a roasted soup. I ended up with a side of roasted sunshine squash mash (I only added a bit of water, no Earth Balance, butter, etc.) - which was actually really tasty.

AC came in the house after a long day at school and several hours skateboarding, famished, and immediately pointed to the bowl on the counter, asking what it was. I told him to taste it and, in spite of me it seems (after what I said), he grabbed a fork, took a bite and announced that it was, "really good."

Another bite.

"This is better than really good, it's excellent!"

Another bite.

"It tastes like sweet potatoes!"

Ah, the power of the sweet potato... I had to hold him back from devouring the entire bowl, and so I busied him with making a veggie burger for himself while I scooped some onto his plate as a side. While he was eating, I decided to savor-up the squash a bit for myself. I added salt, pepper and sauteed leeks.


To balance out the sweetness of this side dish, I made a quick spicy marinade. Using an immersion blender, I mixed tamari, garlic (turned into a paste using a microplane), Jason's homemade hot sauce, liquid smoke and pureed tomatoes, and poured it onto slices of wild rice tempeh.

A couple hours later when I was ready to eat, I warmed up the sunshine squash in the microwave. In a frying pan, I steamed chopped leeks for few minutes, then added the tempeh (including marinade from the container) and cooked it at a high heat for bit. A little side salad of cherry tomatoes and lettuce splashed with Bragg aminos rounded out the plate.


Everything is local, minus the tamari, salt, pepper, liquid smoke, aminos and tempeh. The tempeh easily could have been local (Cricklewood Soyfoods makes fantastic tempeh in Mertztown), but with that whole fruit and veggie preservation thing I mentioned before, I'm on a mission to get the freezer cleaned out. I found some errant tempeh packages from my co-op in the depths.

As a winter squash, the sunshine has tons of vitamin A, is good for B6, potassium and fiber, and is alkaline - it's totally a keeper in this house. Actually, it's a keeper because it tastes like sweet potato :) I'm particularly excited about that point because it positively reinforced the ten-year-old monster when tasting new veggies. As much as I love my greens, this squash has done more for me than kale ever has!

Next up is a Kabocha (aka Bon Bon) squash. Same advice you think? Just roast it?

> Cross-posted at www.farmtophilly.com

I have a couple thoughts regarding the whole momma thing...

One, my monster shaved his head:


Two, he's now in fifth grade and wearing deodorant.

I think these things, along with the gf, can be connected, yes?

Eep. I am so not ready for this.

May I have my child back?

Please?

This week's One Local Summer meal has been brought to you by the letter S: scrumptious squashed and stuffed spicy seitan!


One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 09

• Pattypan squash (DelVal College - 12 miles), stuffed a sauteéd mixture of the squash, seitan (Ray's Seitan - 37 miles), onion, red frying peppers, carrots, garlic (all from Blooming Glen Farm CSA crop share - 5 miles) and jalapeño (our garden - 0 miles). I spiced it up the hot sauce Jason made last week with peppers from Blooming Glen and our garden. Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil, sage, thyme, black pepper
• Boiled red potatoes (Blooming Glen) with with vegan buttery spread (Earth Balance - 117 miles).
• Fresh, raw heirloom tomato slices and cucumber half-circles (Blooming Glen).
• Whirlwind Witbier (Victory Brewing Company - 45 miles).

I was planning on not featuring the same beer or wine twice at any of these OLS meals, but this Whirlwind Whitbier is awesome. We had a few bottles left over from last week and instead of going out to pick up something new, we stuck with it. At this point, the I'm confident saying that it's my favorite Victory brew. I love white beers like Blue Moon and Hoegaarden, and Victory does a fine interpretation with this spicy cardamom and citrus blend. I didn't even know that Victory made a white beer - another unexpected benefit of OLS this year - and I think it's becoming my favorite local beer overall.

Ok, now to the food!

I'm overflowing with produce to the point that I'm storing some of our CSA and garden bounty on the dining room table. It looks pretty and takes care of a centerpiece, but I discovered an added benefit, as well. Because they're always in view, all week, I've been considering how to use the peppers, onion, garlic and potatoes in my meal. And when I saw some gorgeous pattypan squash at DelVal, I immediately put them in the context of that bowl on the table.



From the recipes I found online, patty pan squash seems to be traditionally stuffed with sausage, so I incorporated some sausage-y spices like pepper and sage into the seitan mixture I put together for our vegan dinner. I upped the hotness a bit more by using Jason's pepper sauce. I decided to serve the squash with very simple veggies that would cool all that spice. It was a great meal, and two squash fit perfectly into the toaster oven. Hooray for no super hot kitchen or preheating a giant stove!


Only one more week of OLS. I can't believe it!

So, uh.

Avery has a girlfriend.

...

?!

Brought to you by... Rhode Island!


One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 07

• Kalamata loaf (Fisherman's farmers market - 0 miles) with vegan buttery spread brought from PA (Earth Balance - 117 miles).
• Stir fry of onion, zucchini and yellow squash (Alternative Food Co-op - 5 miles) and string beans (Fisherman's farmers market - 0 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil.
• Seitan brought from PA (Ray's Seitan in Philadelphia - 37 miles) stir fried with onion and garlic scapes (Alternative Food Co-op - 5 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: olive oil.
• Blueberries and blackberries (Fisherman's farmers market).
• Boiled corn (Hodgkin's Farm - 18 miles) with Earth Balance.
  
• Trinity IPA (Trinity Beer Company - 34 miles) and Newport Storm Summer Ale and Rhode Island Blueberry Ale (Coastal Extreme Brewing Company - 24 miles).
  

Lucky for me, our campground has a weekly farmers' market. I visited both Sundays that we were there and, in addition to the above, I picked up flowers and basil. Another bonus is the great food co-op located just about five miles from the campground. Although I don't recall exactly what farms the zucchini, squash, onion, scapes, berries and bread came from, I know they were all from RI. When in Rhode Island, every place is a half-hour away - definitely local ;)

This is my favorite OLS meal so far. Probably because it was gobbled up while in front of the campfire.

Dewds, I baked.

Sorta.

Look, homemade flour tortillas!



















One Local Summer 2007, Dinner Menu 06

• Whole wheat flour tortillas (McGeary Organics/Annville Flouring Mill - 94 miles), a layer of lettuce (Blooming Glen Farm CSA crop share - 5 miles) stuffed with a tofu scrambler made from tofu (Fresh Tofu - 25 miles), red frying peppers, onion, purple spring onions (Blooming Glen) several varieties of tomatoes (from Blooming Glen, and our garden - 0 miles), jalepeno peppers (our garden) and mushrooms (West Grove, PA - 60 miles). Nonlocal ingredients used: Cumin, paprika, tumeric, salt, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, olive oil.
  
• A chilled salad of blanched Romano string beans, orange cherry tomatoes (Blooming Glen) and a julienned chocolate pepper (our garden) splashed with a bit of vinegar. Nonlocal ingredients used: vinegar.
• Boiled sweet corn (Blooming Glen) with vegan buttery spread (Earth Balance - 117 miles).
• Strawberries for dessert (Blooming Glen).
• Christian W. Klay Jumonville Glen Red wine (brought home from our Falling water trip - 0 miles).

Meredith turned me onto Annville Flouring Mill right before the start of OLS, and I contacted them right away. It's taken several weeks, but I finally received my package of organic whole wheat pastry flour from them. Oh, and that would be fifty pounds of organic whole wheat pastry flour. They would have mailed me a two-pound bag earlier, but I kind of thought that conflicted with the whole eat local thing, so while I waited for the big bag, I found some people with which to share. I ended up with ten pounds and this was my first shot using the flour.



















As a rule, I don't bake. It's too specific and I'm distracted too easily. I also don't like being told what to do and certainly don't like feeling incompetent; baking does both of those things to me. Although I'm pretty comfortable knowing what substitutions are viable while following a cooking recipe (for instance, I have a ridiculous amount of squash in the fridge - something that I could substitute if I were using a recipe that called for eggplant), I'm all thumbs when it comes to baking.

Besides that, I can never remember which is which: baking soda or baking powder?

My definition of baking includes anything that requires flour and/or baking powder. (Or is it soda?). Tortillas contain both of those things and so, even though we eat them pretty often, I never even considered making them. That is until, of course, OLS.



















My ugly tortillas are from this recipe. They tasted pretty good, but a were maybe a little too thick and a bit floury. I'm thinking that I may have over-floured the counter while I was rolling them out. They were sticking to the rolling pin (that I had to borrow from my dad), and I figured a little flour on the counter is good, so more is better, right? Still, they weren't bad for my first try. Considering I still have at least 9 1/2 pound of flour left, I'm sure I'll have another opportunity soon to perfect my recipe.

This meal also has about four different kinds of tomatoes. My favorite cherry tomatoes from Blooming Glen so far, are the green grape variety that I picked last week. They're perfectly acidic and so unique looking. I threw some in the scrambler along with some red cherry and regular tomatoes.



















We also got to finally pick the chocolate pepper from our garden. This signifies the end of our experiment: it tasted like pepper, not chocolate. Just in case you were wondering.

























So, that's it. Number six, can you believe it? Only four dinners left. Speaking of which...

I realize that this makes two OLS posts in a row! I had to get this week's meal done today because we're leaving for Rhode Island midweek. I do plan on scouring some local RI goodness while I'm there, but if anyone has a scoop (specifically where to find tofu, seitan, tempeh and/or bread), please let me know. I will post the meals I come up with when I get back in the middle of the month.

PS: Here's an extra shot of AC and his sloppy plate. And sloppy hair. He started dredlock-ing it yesterday.



















Eat your lettuce!

Is it September yet?

• Injury sustained Wed., July 11:Cause: failed landing of a board slide at the skate park.

• Injury sustained Thu., July 12:Cause: bailed off his skateboard trying to land a nine-step jump at the skate park (for the record, he landed it several times first; this was from his fourth or fifth attempt).

• Injuries sustained Tue., July 17:Cause: a game of man hunt involving 10pm darkness, gravel and a pothole.

• Injury sustained Sun., July 22:Cause: street skating.

In order to lighten the mood and ease the stinging of washing fresh wounds, I've been distracting AC with the camera, promising a special flick'r set of just his busted up self.

'Cause I hear that's what all the good moms do.

FDR skate park in Philadelphia especially rocks because it represents the awesomeness that a group of passionate people can accomplish. In the mid-nineties, when skateboarding was banned from Love Park, the city tried to make nice with the skateboarding community by donating a piece of land in FDR Park (Broad and Pattison Streets) below an I-95 overpass for a new skate park.

Unfortunately, their half-assed efforts (the construction of two pyramids and a grindbox) proved to only further piss off the skaters.

Fortunately, the anger was transferred positively, and fueled the skating community to build their own park.

Like any grassroots project, especially those headed by such a strong willed population, the construction of FDR skate park had many ups and downs and lots of drama. In the end, a pretty amazing concrete park emerged, thanks to the fundraising and volunteer efforts of the skateboarders. There's an excellent article about FDR here. I do hope that the second generation of skaters at FDR (Avery, et. al.) appreciate those who came before them, rose up to the Man, and took care of business.

We went on Saturday, the boys to skate and me to take photographs of them, the graffiti and concrete landscape. There's a half-pipe that's good for kids just learning to ride, but otherwise, FDR is not a place for a kid to learn how to skateboard. Even though Avery is a confident skater and is familiar with the park and the concept of carving lines, we still always get there early to be out of the way by late afternoon.


And, of course, I must mention food, right? After FDR, we headed into Chinatown for fabulous vegetarian lunches at Singapore :)

Check out our photos from the day here, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikaelamartin/sets/72157600302119505/.

Finally! An excuse to buy baby bananas!

So, that's strawberries and cute bananas, steamed organic carrots with a sprinkling of dried basil leaves (on of AC's faves) and a piece of candy from one of our local (and largest!) Asian markets, Assi in North Wales. On the side, in a glass bowl for microwaving: steamed and diced broccoli and red bell peppers; they're mixed with Annie's Organic Shells and White Cheddar, which was prepared with soy milk and Earth Balance.

The divider for the bottom portion of the bento (the one with carrots) was recently lost. There's no way that we have to buy a whole new lunch box for the replacement piece, right?

Happy birthday, monster!

We spent the morning at FDR skate park, stopping for lunch with Rodney at Kingdom of Vegetarians (where we had the best wonton soup EVER), back to FDR for a couple hours, then to Grandma Sam's for a little family party with Avery's dinner choice of vegetarian tacos and a cheesecake birthday cake. It was so wonderful to have everyone (little bro Aren, Leanne, Rodney, Brookie, John, Mike, Sam and Jason) there celebrating. And, of course, giving gifts! :P

I'd never been to Kingdom of Vegetarians before, which Rodney recommended - mistakenly as "Vegetarian Kingdom." But, dude. Isn't KINGDOM OF VEGETARIANS, so much cooler? Seriously. A kingdom? That would imply rulers. How do I get voted in? Man... I would own that wonton soup.