It sounded a bit like a Little Rascals episode downstairs. I could picture the little people in the kitchen trying to get the skillet right over the top burner. There were lots of clanking noises. This reminded me of that Katharine Hepburn movie where she cooks pancakes… making a huge mess. That was enough to put a smile on my face. They worked quietly, being careful not to fight and squabble. The fridge opened quite a bit. Dad’s flight wasn’t coming in until later that day, and the teenagers, of course, were sleeping, so it was up to these little guys, the real heavyweights, to pull off this “Breakfast in Bed,” bit.

I learned later that it went like this: The older of the two had already strategized and planned ahead. He had asked another grownup “how to cook an egg.” He rubbed the butter all over the pan – although he worried that he had used too much butter. (He didn’t.) He was fascinated at how quickly the egg “turned white.” While the egg cooked, he made the toast, leaving off the butter (to make up for using too much on the skillet). Then, he made the tea.

Meanwhile, the youngest, the baby, was watching all of this big kitchen production, wondering what he could do. “I mean – eggs, toast – and even her favorite tea?! What is left for me?! Never mind the fact that I just made her a life-size origami dress (more on that later), I have to come up with something to serve her.”

So, he remembered that tuna salad I had brought him at Whole Foods yesterday. So, he pulled, what else – but tuna salad out of the fridge. Who doesn’t think of having a tuna salad sandwich, along with their egg, for breakfast? Working parallel alongside of his brother, he proceeded to make me a tuna fish sandwich. As the final flourish, there just happened to be a bit of leftover fried kale, so he threw that on the side of the plate, like potato chips.

Throughout all of this, I did not move or stir in my bed. I just stayed put and imagined their little hands, with bodies, barely tall enough to reach the counter, cooking away.

Then, they began the migration up to the bedroom. This was quite a challenge. Our bedroom is on the third floor, which includes two landings. They walked slowly. They stumbled.  The kale, as airy as it is, had slid off the plate and left a trail of powdered dust all over the stairs. Fairy dust, I like to think of it. None of this even fazed them. They continued and tarried on upstairs.

By the time they made it to the top, I had, maybe, a tablespoon of tea left in my cup.

They jumped on the bed and stared over me while I ate. They gave me the “play-by-play” of all the events that happened in the kitchen…”Then, I got out the tea bag… and I put water in the tea kettle.” This was a very big deal to them. And it was — and I showed them how big of a deal I thought it was too.

I did finally catch them working on their cards.

They presented me with their cards, handmade, with teabags glued on top,

and told me all about how they had “planned this for over two weeks.”

Please notice the little drawing of “Susiej”

Then, the littlest one sighed, and said, “Why can’t there be a kid’s day?”

They kept waiting, watching me eat… and then, they announced that they were hungry too. Soon, I was downstairs, cleaning up their mess in the kitchen and making them pancakes. I got the kitchen cleaned just in time to make room for Daddy, who came in with my favorite goat cheeses, and wine, and made dinner for all of us.

No, this is not whipped cream…

it’s stiff and too soapy. But, if you just happen to have a bar of Ivory Soap in the house, go get it… right now.

Luckily, we have quite a bit of it stashed around in a collection…

Then, stick it in the microwave — two minutes should do it.

Then, surprise!

It grows into this amazing mountain, hollow on the inside. It’s still soap — you can break off pieces to use it to wash your hands.  Go to Our Best Bites, the inventor of this soap miracle, for more ways to transform this concoction — including a way to make “new soap.” Pinterest, of course, was where I saw the soapy mountain.

As much as he loves what happened, he’s hasn’t recovered from the shock of watching this transformation. Too afraid to hardly touch it — and certainly not yet willing to do this to “all of his soap.” not willing to give up any more bars of soap for this… even though it’s still soap.

After attending my first real “story time” at the library with my son, I felt as if I had stumbled upon the great renaissance of my entire life. There were so many amazing stories! For starters,  I had never heard of the book “Goodnight Moon,” until I heard it for the first time at story time, as an adult.  That was a revelation right there and then.  We would check out stacks and stacks of books, and I fell in love with the narratives, just as much as the illustrations. Pumpkin Moonshine, To Market, To Market, Blue Bowl Down, Owl Moon, My Lucky Day… and I found myself sitting on the sofa, opening up the pages just to “see what happened,” long after the boys went to sleep. Treasures, they were.

The bonus was having something to do, together, with the boys, that we both LOVED. We would spend hours going through the stacks of books.

One of my fondest memories is opening up the pages of Arthur Geisert’s “After the Flood,” and watching how Geisert’s imagination unfolded onto the page, re-creating how life was re-born as the waters receded.

If you remember correctly, the Ark landed on the top of a mountain. So, Noah and his family decided to move down the mountain to the fertile land below. To do this, they cut trees and built a

slide to move the ark down the mountain.

Noah, his family, and the animals all worked together.

Why, you might be wondering, would they need to bother with that heavy ark?

The answer is enchanting…

The book illustrates how the roof was removed from the top of the ark, and the ark was turned over to make a shelter. It would become their home!

The ending, like all children’s story books, is just as comforting and reassuring:

At night, stories were read to the children and to the animals…

Of course they were…And, I just checked out a whole stack of Geisert books to read with my kids. What could be a better Mother’s Day present?

For the past two weeks, I have been bombarded with an avalanche of questions.

“What is your favorite candy?”

“Really? You don’t remember? And besides, do you have some for me? Is that why you’re asking?”

No, there were no Smarties.

“What’s your favorite color?”

This is always a tough one… because I never know how to respond. Color needs context. When my oldest was a first grader, I told him how much I loved to wear black. The next “flower” he made for me at school was black. I try to never answer that one… and say something about “all the colors of the rainbow.”

Over the next few days the questions jumped to tea, and then towards, “what time do you wake up?”

Then it dawned on me. It’s Mother’s Day this weekend. Like boys trying to be the first one to score a touchdown goal, they are literally falling all over themselves to be the “one” who will surprise me with the thing I loved the most.

My husband tells me the biggest fight is over the “tea.” Who’s going to make it and who’s serving it to me… in bed. Then, another one, who accepts the loss, thinks he’ll “one-up” the other brother by saying, “But I know which one is their favorite.”

Then, they asked him if they could order Jumbo-Sized Smarties… from Amazon. “You’re going to flip out, dad,” they said. “They’re $24, because you have to buy them in bulk.”

I think I could really throw them if I told them about the old-fashioned soda fountain,  inside of the big-time JCPenny story on Main Street. I was small, so the second thing to greet my senses when I walked in was the chekered brown and tan floor. The first thing to hit me was the smell: a combination of ice cream, caramel, cheeseburgers, new clothes and roasted peanuts. This was heaven. My aunt used to take me there, and it was then and there that I learned it was not “OK” to eat gum found on the bar stools while we sat at the counter.

We sat at the counter and waited for the store-made “Zagnuts.” Remeber those? Roasted peanuts. The man behind the counter would scoop them out of the bin into a paper bag and sent us on our way. The bag was warm from the candy, and soon the bag held grease stains. My aunt had her own bag of Zagnuts, so I didn’t have to share with her. Then, we zipped away in her car. Later, I learned that my aunt  was diabetic. Did she need that candy, or was she cheating?

Those warm Zagnuts (not the kind you find in the wrapper at the grocery store) are my favorite. But, I don’t want to overly stress the boys. They’d hunt down a shop that would custom make Zagnuts for me, and serve them to me warm. They quest to be the first one to supply me with a warm Zagnut would create too much competition and strife. I don’t think one exists.

I’m always amazed by their innocence in the weeks and days leading up to Christmas, birthdays and Mother’s Day. The boys never seem to be “missing” for extended periods of times (while they’re busy wrapping, inventing verses and rhymes, and shopping) nor do I notice the “mess” of pulled out wrapping paper and ribbons that appear on the “morning.” Their “wrapping station location” must be guarded 24 x 7 — because I have yet to find the spot. I am humbled… I always thought I never everything they were up to.

I think it was Warren Buffet who said, “We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.”

A dried bean appears to be dead. Hard as a rock, void of nutrients. Add water, and you can revitalize the bean and transform it into a creamy, nutritious mush. Still, although I love all kinds of beans, beans are still full of starch. However, a sprouted bean is just beginning to create new life — you’ve created a perpetual mini garden in your kitchen to feed your family “fresh food.”

It’s like an “indoor garden” right on your own counter.

I’ve been buried in a bevy of cookbooks lately, Raw Food Cookbooks

touting the benefits and “how-tos” of sprouting beans and grains. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

• We’ve all heard that beans are full of nutrients. However, there are amino acids in the bean that binds with calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, and zinc, making it hard to impossible for you to absorb those nutrients. When you sprout the beans, you are neutralizing these amino acids — which makes it easier for your body to gain access to these nutrients — especially protein.
• “The process of germination not only produces vitamin C, but also changes the composition of grains and seeds in numerous beneficial ways. Sprouting increases vitamin B content, especially B2, B5, and B6. Carotene increases dramatically-sometimes even eightfold.” Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
• Sprouting activates nutrients that are bound up in the seeds, making more protein available in the food. For example, a grain of wheat, increases its vitamin E content 300% after only 2 days of growth and the B2 vitamin riboflavin jumps from 13 milligrams to 54 mg in the sprout. In general, b vitamins can increase 300% to 1400% depending on the variety.
• Sprouting also makes the bean easier to digest and eliminates the gasses traditionally found in beans.

So, I began the process of bringing my dried beans to life — not just through “rehydration” but actually turning the bean into a plant… live food.  Here’s how I proceeded.

Admittedly, I started with probably the hardest bean to sprout — the garbanzo bean. If you want to try sprouting, pick a softer bean — like a lentil, which can sprout in almost a day. My family loves garbanzo beans, and I’m a very patient person, so I rolled up my sleeves and forged ahead.

I made this sprouting process as simple as possible. I refused to buy any extra “sprouting” equipment.

I simply soaked the garbanzo beans overnight — probably about 36 hours. Garbanzo beans are VERY hard — rocks, really, and required to be soaked longer than most beans. I changed the water at least every 12 hours. (Soaking them in the refrigerator may have eliminated this fresh water changes.)

Then, when the garbanzo beans were done soaking, (just beginning to soften), I rinsed them thoroughly and just set them up in a colander. I rinsed them every few hours. Sprouting took a couple of days. But once they sprouted,

they were beautiful.

Now, here is where I made my mistake.

I immediately began to process the beans in my food processor. I had read too many over-zealous raw cookbooks, who had convinced me that heat destroys all the nutrient value of any food. I added the garlic, salt, the tahini, the lemon juice, and just whizzed away. The soft beans actually did turn into a creamy hummus — without much effort!

The taste, I will admit, was Putrid! I was quite disappointed… and I wouldn’t even let my family taste this raw concoction… for fear that I would turn them off sprouted food forever.

Back to square one, after realizing that I have been eating cooked food my whole life, and I haven’t died yet. A little heat would have done this hummus some good. Besides, what good is a nutritious food is no one is eating it?  So, I’m working on this again — this time, cooking the garbanzo beans after sprouting. Sprouting, they tell me, will cut the cooking time in half. If you’ve ever cooked a garbanzo bean, you know that’s reason enough to sprout.

My first introduction into gardening was by my mother, of course. I was less than five years old the morning she dedicated a 4×4 square plot of our yard to me. “This was my very own flower garden,” she said. The first plants we planted were Morning Roses. Not really roses, as they had fern-like leaves that looked, at first, as if they might be sharp, but were actually quite soft, yet sturdy.

Morning Roses open only in the morning. Four o’clocks open in the afternoon. Moon flowers bloom at night. Enchantment is the only word to describe the feeling I had about peculiar flowers that followed the tick of a clock.

In 1751, Carolus Linnaeus had a similar vision. He hypothesized a Flower Clock garden plan that would take advantage of several plants that open or close their flowers at particular times of the day to accurately predict the time. He called it the Horologium Florae. Several botanical gardens attempted the idea in the early 19th century, with mixed success.

“Many plants exhibit a strong circadian rhythm, and a few have been observed to open at quite a regular time, but the accuracy of such a clock is diminished because flowering time is affected by weather and seasonal effects.

No one can precisely capture the bloom of a Morning Rose.

During a recent visit to a museum with my son, I stumbled upon this intriguing piece of art, by Brandon Antczak,

who attempted to capture what Linnaeus was also unable to capture in real life, onto paper. The piece exhibited is titled Mr. Linnaeus’ Larks & Owls. Interestingly, Antczak ran into similar challenges.

Brandon compiled images for each specific plant species from herbariums around the world. Using water as a solvent he transferred the ink from each plants’ image onto paper using a printing press. The swelling of the paper, combined with the pressure from the press caused creases to form in the paper, a physical attribute reminiscent of plant roots.

Here, those imperfections of physical life created art. The swelling of the paper creates something texturally beautiful.

What is even more interesting, is the list of plants, along with their bloom times. 

The list has scribbles of modifications and changes — looking surprisingly similar to my own garden list and plans, after real-life invades.

I remember that when it came to my own flower garden, I missed everything. In the mornings, I forgot to check on the roses, as I was occupied with Captain Kangaroo. By afternoon, I was busy climbing a tree, so I missed the Four O’Clocks. When the Moon Flowers came out, I was playing Ghost in the Graveyard. There was a rhythmic mystery going on in my very own flower garden, but I scarcely took the time to participate and watch what was going on.

Visually, I missed the blooms at their appointed times. Yet, the beatings of their appointed bloom times cycled through my memory. I may not have seen the Morning Rose close, but I knew it did. I never forgot the spectacle that my eyes have yet to see.

Apparently, all of us who speak the language of plants, have yet to capture their elusive rhythms.

There were just a few Oreos left, and only one boy in the house, so I offered to make him an Oreo milkshake with the Magic Bullet. I’m just learning to master the MB, even though my brother bought it for me a few years back. I just got it out of the box… and I’m having some fun with.

The Oreo shake was a pretty big hit… made a nice back drop for that elusive bonding moment that only comes once in a blue moon to a mom of four boys. I savored every minute.

Soon, an older brother trickled home… he nodded at the Oreo masterpiece, now a puddle in the bottom of a black-speckled MB plastic mug. Since the Oreos were gone, I offered to make him a Strawberry milkshake. He passed.

Then, the baby came home. Once he got wind of the fact that there were no Oreos left, that his only option was a strawberry shake, he had one big hissy fit. He threw out a few unkind and forbidden words. The strawberry milkshake I had offered was immediately revoked, and he was sent to bed.

Then, he dodged me. And I dodged him back… and soon he had slipped out the back door. Mad as a hornet. He wandered down the driveway and found himself on the street, in the rain, in his barefeet. A puddle started to pool around his feet.  He didn’t know where to go. All the doors to his friend’s house were closed, as it was well past dinner time.

He snuck back to our driveway, and hid along the steps of the patio, thinking that there, he was hidden from his brothers. The brothers? They were sitting in the the kitchen, watching, and laughing. Then, he snuck in through the side-door, trying to slip in unnoticed, to get some relief from the rain. But his brothers knew…they saw it all.

I warned them, “Don’t say a word to him. Not a word. I don’t want him any more upset than he already is.”

They behaved. Instead, they spoke to each other.

• “Well, I get all of his Origami paper.”
• “I guess I’ll take all of his Legos.”
• “And I definitely get his bed.”

Soon, that little Tazmanian Devil came out of hiding and staked his claim on all his stuff. And I immediately countered with, “And just make sure all your homework is done first.”

The process was simply, really. I had read other stories of people using enzyme cleaners, like Bac-Out, to wash their floors and discovering that ants, bugs and lizards didn’t like the smell.  Surprising, really, because Bac-Out doesn’t smell bad it all — it’s smells like citrus, and does a great job of getting rid of bathroom odors. Really? Pine Sol smells worse — and even that doesn’t permanently get rid of ants.

I can’t help myself. If I see an ant, I grab it an plop it into a carefully prepared bowl of sugar mixed with a lethal dose of Diatomaceous Earth (not lethal to humans). Same thing I use to handle pantry moths. 

Inspired, and curious, I started moping my floors with enzymes. Within seconds of distributing the enzymes on my floor, ants that I didn’t even know I had, came scurrying out of the woodwork. I swear, if I could hear them, they were saying,  ”Get me outta here!”

But are the floors clean? One person commented that the grout on her tile floor gets progressively whiter every time she cleans with enzymes. Guess what? My grout, is now  back to “cream-colored” so bright and pretty.  I’m talking about the grout in our first floor bathroom that gets a tremendous amount of traffic from the boys and their friends, constantly. I had accepted it would be “gray” forever.

So, you know where this is headed, don’t you? I couldn’t resist. I bit the bullet and started making my own, garbage enzymes. I just wanted to see if I could do it — you know, kind of an experiement.  How hard could it be? I’m already saving citrus peels for my own do-it-yourself Citrasol.

Why do this? I know, you can simply go out and buy Bac-Out. But, making your own garbage enzyme makes a “mash” that is so good for cleaning the sludge out of your drains, which also eliminates fruit flies.

More on that in the coming weeks. In short, the benefits of the “mash” is worth the trouble. In the third-world, Garbage Enzymes is the latest craze to save the environment. A  Study of the Garbage Enzyme’s Effects in Domestic Wastewate by the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, helped me sleep better. Garbage Enzymes are the “new compost.”

“It makes good use of kitchen waste which would otherwise end up in landfills and generate methane, a potent greenhouse gas. It is something that housewives can do. And the enzyme also reduces our reliance on chemical cleaners, detergent. The Star.

Yet, The whole time I was preparing the materials, I was saying under my breath, “You DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS,” but the other voice kept saying — “but enzymes are so powerful, you need the extra cleaning power, and making  your own is practically free!”

The battle raged in my mind for two weeks, until the first batch of garbage enzymes was completed. That battle stopped once the first batch of garbage enzyme was done, and I saw for myself how simple it was to make. The whole process, hands-on time, was probably about 10 minutes, tops. Now the enzymes “make themselves” over a period of two weeks. Think of it as yeast rising a bread, except this takes longer.

I know this sounds terribly complicated, and most of you have already stopped reading by now. Who wants to go to all the trouble to “make” a cleaner.  But, if you’re still with me, keep reading. Again, this is pretty much a “hands-off” process, and one that I highly recommend.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started.

• A plastic container with a lid, large enough to hold 2 liters. Plastic is best. I used an old pickle jar… but be sure to leave the lid slightly ajar, as the gases in the concoction need to expand. This goes for plastic and glass.
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon yeast. Without this, the garbage enzyme will take 3 months to ferment.
• 1 liter water
• 2 cups citrus scraps. Technically, you can use vegetables and fruits. But, let’s be honest. Do you want to clean with tomatoes? Let’s keep it sweet-smelling by only using citrus.
• If you don’t have 2 cups of citrus peels, just keep adding them to the container until you have two cups. The enzymes will start being created on the day you have the full two cups.

1. Mix all the ingredients together.
2. Mark the date you created the mixture on the container.
3. Shake once a day for one week.
4. After one week, just let it sit.
5. Keep the lid slightly loose, to let the gas escape for the first week.
6. After two weeks, strain the mixture and store it in an empty container. Once, I let it sit an extra 10 days, and it was still in perfect shape.
7. Keep the leftover pulp, the mash. Flush it down your toilets to clean out the drains.

This post has a lot of information. But this is not the last thing I have to say on the topic. I’ll continue to give updates on how great it is to have your own garbage enzyme around your house.

Quite a bit of time has passed, years, really, since I sat with mothers of children my own age to marvel at some new development in motherhood. There hasn’t been any. We’ve all been there, done that. We can handle those new developments now, realizing, through our years of experience, that there are uphill climbs, and downhill climbs and new progressions require a meager shift in our lives. We have learned to yield, rather than, to create a mountain of what could be a simple mole hill.

Except for this one thing. Naps. Our children dropped them years ago by the age of 2, to our dismay. However, like all things, we got over it, and learned to juggle the daily domestic responsibilities with toddlers in tow, which soon gave way to having children in school.

Nevertheless now, we are amazed that we can take naps in the presence of our children. It is simply amazing. Once again, we as mothers, who put aside such “child development” conversations long ago, are discussing them, because we are so bewildered. We discuss how and where it happens:

• There was actually room for me on the couch, so I sat down.
• We were watching a movie together, and then, I just dropped. Exhausted.

It is odd, too how the kids react. This is new for them. They are as quiet as cotton. They do not want to do anything to cause a disruption in this peaceful slumber, so foreign to their eyes.

Of course, none of this could happen without our kids being old enough to handle themselves all by themselves. And second, we have handled just about any mess they kids could come up with anyway. We just don’t care what happens while we sleep. We just want some sleep.

Except for when the moment comes, about 20 minutes into the nap, when he really needs “something.” He creeps over beside me and begins to talk to my eyelids, as if there is a part of me that is always awake, and he merely needs to tap into that dimension, while the rest of me just goes on sleeping.

This new wave of “true” reality shows (how true would you act at your job if someone were following you around with a camera?) provides a new level of entertainment to TV. I watch one, in particular, with the manly men in my house, with horror. The Deadliest Catch must be as close to hell on earth as you can get.

Heralded by the shows’s writers as the most dangerous job in the world, these men face the harsh reality of trying to make enough money to support their families and literally keep their businesses afloat. There is blood and cuts and stitches that go untreated…there is just not enough time in four months to worry about such trivialities.  Fishing for opilio or “snow crab,” causes the men to face some of the harshest conditions any of them have ever experienced in more than a quarter century of fishing.

Here’s what I’ve observed about these men — God love them for trying to support their families:

• No sleep. I thought nursing a newborn was bad. These men operate on no sleep, so dizzy they can’t stand up, doing HEAVY labor. And, don’t forget to watch the boom and that flying anchor, or you could loose a nose.
• Stuck on a boat for four months at a time. You CANNOT run out to the grocery store just for a break in a boat-ful of testosterone.
• Seasickness would be my constant battle… as I watch the ship toss in a cyclone of thunderous waves.
• HEAVY crates are hoisted out of the water — via pulleys, as wind and waves thrash again and again against the boat.
• Throwing that anchor out to drop the crates — did you see that poor guy that got hit on the side of his face with the anchor — his nose was moved to one side of his face. No medical support was called. Just a band-aid and time. CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT KIND OF PAIN? Makes my eyes water.
• The food. Did you see that mess? They eat like kings, in a second rate kitchen. They are ravenously hungry, and thank goodness for those men, they is an unlimited supply of vitals. They need it.  Right after that, they showed us the clogged toilet on the ship, that finally exploded …. and then, I remember being seasick.

When I think I can’t take another second of this show, I notice myself. I’m seated comfortably on the sofa. My feet are dry. There is no wind. I am warm. I am SOOOO comfortable. I am dry. My toes are not pruned.

I am in heaven. I have seen enough… no problem in my day can match what these men are facing. I curl up in my DRY bed, that sits on a floor that is not moving, and I sleep like a baby.

Life is good.