Someone please tell me how to make time slow down. Seriously.

Since the day Benji was born I’ve been sad because he’s growing up too quickly. Okay, I am obviously exaggerating. I didn’t start getting really sad until he was about 3 months old when I had to put away his tiny little newborn sleepers, hardly able to believe that my big three-month-old once fit into them. I realized then that even though 6 p.m grocery store line-ups and morning meetings that are still going strong past noon seem to take forever, they actually don’t. Nothing does. Time goes more quickly the older you get (don’t believe me? Think about how long a two-hour car trip used to take when you were six) and I know that soon-- too soon-- I will be one of those weirdos who stops people with babies on the street to tell them to enjoy every second because of how quickly they grow up. I know that I will blink and my kids will be grown-up people making excuses not to have to see me (please God don’t let this happen--please let my children live next door because they can’t live without me)(or at the very least let them have me on speed dial).

The thing is that it’s hard not to mentally rush things-- you look forward to your child sleeping through the night and learning to walk and run and speak and read and he does all that stuff and it’s the best, cutest stuff ever and then he is asking to learn to drive and before you know it he doesn’t want to cuddle with you or kiss in public and then he tells you that he is bringing someone else to the prom. Sad stuff.

At least once a day I remind myself to enjoy a moment. It can be a moment when 2-year-old Benji old and 4-month-old Aviva are holding hands while Aviva nurses or when Benji is singing the ABCs at the top of his lungs while simultaneously clapping and marching though the kitchen or when sweet Aviva is sleeping on me, her warm little body splayed out on my chest as she periodically sighs contentedly. Even in those moments I know that too soon they will be sepia memories (was it Benji or Aviva who used to march through the kitchen while singing ABCs? How did Aviva get the cat to hold her hand while she was nursing? ) but I don’t know how to make them last. I don’t know how to make time go more slowly (other than spending all of our time in meetings with my colleagues). Every day I find myself tucking Benji in or feeding Aviva at 3 a.m. and I realize that my babies are one day farther away from me.

It’s not that I don’t want my kids to grow up, I just want it to take longer. I want more spit up in my hair and diapers to change and play dough under my finger nails. I want more wet kisses and middle of the night cuddles and for bubbles to stay amazing for a while longer. I want to always be able to kiss any pain away. I want to be the protector and confidante and best friend for twice--no-- ten times as long.

Recently I was in a store while Benji was sucking on his fingers and an older woman came to tell me that her daughter used to do the same thing. I asked how she got her to stop and she told me that the daughter did it until she was ten, but in secret. Then she lowered her voice and said that she’d better watch what she says because her daughter is in the store. She also added that her daughter is now in her fifties but that she didn’t want to embarrass her. This gray-haired woman hasn’t sucked her fingers in over forty years but in her mother’s mind it was just last night that she snuck into her bedroom and pulled her fingers out of her mouth as she slept.

The reason those crazies stop you in the street to tell you that time goes quickly and to enjoy every second is because it’s true. I know that too soon I will be looking back at this post* and ten or twenty years will have passed and my heart breaks a little just thinking about that.

*Well, that’s assuming this Internet thing is still going strong. I don’t know about you, but I think that it might just be a fad.

It's been a while, but I had a baby, okay?

It’s been a while. I know. Since I last posted I had a baby girl. While I am delighted to have her, I did find the process of getting in her in much easier than getting her out. Also, newborns keep you busy. And tired. And often stained. But I feel like the fact that my kids are now two years and four months respectively, things are getting easier (I was going to add a joke about my third child being 35 years old but decided against it because I knew that I would get in trouble)(and also because of how mature and helpful my 35-year-old child husband is).

For the record, It’s not that I haven’t been blogging, it’s that I’ve been doing it for someone else’s website* as I’ve found having forced deadlines works best for me (as evidenced by the fact that I haven’t updated this blog in 6 months). That said, I prefer to blog without a fear of being edited (many of my good jokes were edited out because I tend to put them in brackets and some editors don’t like brackets)(I do)(see?).

So my plan is for this to be my last catching-you-up-because-I haven’t-bothered-to-update-update-recently post. Regular posts ahead. No joke.


*I will hopefully get around to including links to those posts in case you care to catch up on my very glamorous and exciting life. In the meantime, if you are super-keen you can look them up on www.Mommyish.com.

Everyone in My House Is a PIcky Eater Including My Cat (alternate title: I Hate Making Dinner)

Are you one of my Facebook friends who posts pictures of stuff they cook -or worse- grow and then cook for all the world to see? If yes, please don’t send a friend request to my husband. Seriously. I don’t need for him to find out that pita pizza, taco night and pasta isn’t what everyone else is eating on a regular basis. I mean it.

I do try really hard to make healthy meals for my family but there are a few complications, namely I have a new baby (okay, newish-- she is four months old but really doesn’t like to be put down for any length of time)(she is indeed on my lap as I write this in case you’re wondering); I am a vegetarian (who eats fish); my husband is a meat eater (who also enjoys fish but hates eggs, quiche, eggplant, lentils and most bean dishes) and my picky toddler is allergic to fish and seafood. In addition, at least 66.6 percent of us are lactose intolerant and finally, I really don’t enjoy cooking.

In the old days, I used to make fish a couple of times a week-- as an easy, healthy source of protein that my husband and I could agree on but now if we want to eat fish we have to do it after our son is in bed or eat at the table with him while he eats something else, which involves getting up about every three minutes to wash our hands using techniques gleaned from the movie Silkwood.

I won’t lie- the picky kid is the easiest to feed (well other than me)(and the baby who is not yet on solids). I make him casseroles and quiches and bakes and freeze them in individual servings. Unlike my husband, he is also happy to eat and omelet or crepes for dinner. However, the difficulty lies in the fact that everything I read says that we should all not only be eating meals together but eating the same meal together.

I spend a lot of time on cooking websites optimistically searching through articles with promising titles like “Easy Meals For The Whole Family!” and “Everyday Dinners That Everyone Will Love!” but generally three out five contain meat, one is a fish dish and the last one involves lentils, beans or both. I suspect that if I had unlimited time and a modicum of talent when it comes to cooking, this wouldn’t be an issue, but I really don’t. Entertaining is always stressful for me when I have to make something new, because cooking really just doesn’t come naturally to me (though, weirdly, I am a kickass baker-- if I could serve cake, pie and squares for supper every night, there would be no issue)(in part because most cakes that I make do not contain fish, lentils or beans).

This isn’t to say that I haven’t found any meals that we can all enjoy together -- I have -- and I’ve been quick to add them to the weekly rotation. But owing to the fact that it is a weekly rotation, my husband quickly gets sick of them and we soon find ourselves eating pita pizza or Subway or TV dinners while my son enjoys quiche and broccoli.  

I have come to terms with the fact that I might eventually have to start feeding my children meat, particularly if my son doesn’t outgrow his fish allergy --a fantasy of mine that has taken the place former fantasies, like waking up with perfect eyesight (or perfect breasts). I even took the step of buying free range, locally raised, humanely slaughtered, organic beef for my son, worried that I was depriving him of an important source of protein-- but he didn’t like it (we tried it a few times). And while I am okay with the fact that my husband eats meat, and even barbeques (aforementioned free range, locally raised, humanely slaughtered, organic) meat at our house, I just can’t bring myself to prepare it for him as vegetarianism is something that I truly believe in for health, environmental and ethical reasons (also, who the crap wants to cook three separate meals?).

My hope is that with experience I will become better at preparing new and exciting things for dinner but in the interim if you are a Facebook friend of my husband’s and you do plan to post something about the amazing six course dinner you prepared last night, would you at least change your privacy settings? We’re having tacos again tonight and I’d like him to believe me when I tell him that you probably are too.

Note: An edited version of this post was originally published by b5media www.mommyish.com