The Next Family » Talking About Death

I spoke with Tyler after I picked him up from school today. The conversation flowed smoother than I expected, and I know he is forewarned, but I am sure that as the reality of this sets in he will have questions or maybe some acting out or depression. I asked him if he remembered what was in his body, and he said yes, his spirit, and that spirits held love and care. We talked about how bodies sometimes got old and stopped working or sometimes they could get hurt really badly and stop working, and he said, yes, and then the body dies. We talked about how the spirit is forever, and that when a person dies it is their body, but the spirit doesn’t die. Tyler said spirits are stronger than any bad things and they are even stronger than houses. I asked Tyler where he thought spirits went when the body dies, and he said, up there. I figured I could work with that theory, and I said yes, the body becomes part of the earth and that the spirit goes to the spirit world. I reminded Tyler of the verse in our bedtime prayer…

via The Next Family » Talking About Death originally posted at 2001 November « curlykidz.

Parent Sportsmanship – an oxymoron?

 via Parents Behaving Badly? The Relationship between the Sportsmanship Behaviors of Adults and Athletes in Youth Basketball Games

Results suggest that positive spectator and coach behaviors were significant predictors of positive player behaviors. Similarly, negative spectator behaviors were predictive of negative player behaviors, while negative coach behaviors were not.

So if you didn’t already know, I am a volleyball mom. My 10yo daughter plays for Team AZ, a Starlings affiliated club at our local Salvation Army community center. It’s a wonderful program run by some dedicated & passionate individuals… many of them volunteers. Because so many wonderful people dedicate their time to this center and it’s programs, our club fees are only $250 a year, while most clubs charge anywhere from $500 to $2500.

I am incredibly thankful to have a program like this available for our girls… I am proud of the community of volunteers who coach the teams, administrate the program, the girls who put their hearts into the game and the families that support them. Almost all the time, that is.

Today our girls placed sixth in the tournament, winning one of their three games in two sets and losing the other two games in two sets. We had some spectacular highs… a number of aces, better teamwork than we’ve seen during the vast majority of practices, and the highlight of the tournament… my Halle got her first “spike” during a game.

OK, maybe that wasn’t the highlight of the tournament for EVERYBODY, but it sure was for me!

We had a moment that I was BEYOND proud of…

Menu Plan Monday: You too can be SUPERWOMAN

Make it Fast, Cook it Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking

So is anybody tired of me blogging about my crock pot yet?

Sorry peeps… but you probably better learn to love it, and that I’m going to plug Stephanie O’Dea, her blog www.crockpost365.com and her book (on the right) every chance I get!

My daughter plays volleyball, and I am the team mom. My responsibilities are largely to coordinate the feeding of a team of twelve pre-teen girls throughout an eight-hour tournament. Now, anybody who has tried to feed ONE child a healthy meal on the go knows what challenge that is… imagine feeding twelve that come from different religious and cultural backgrounds and have a variety of palates.

I’m really proud of the fact that I actually seem pretty good at this… and not just in my own mind! I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from coaches (mine and the jealous ones at the next table) and parents, but most importantly, from the girls themselves. By the end of the season last year, I would practically get mobbed at the curb when I pulled up… I didn’t have to carry much in! Saturday morning when I was getting set up to serve the girls a mini breakfast before their first game, one of my daughter’s teammates looked at me and said in an awed voice,

OHHHH… you’re THE mom…

A girl who was on Halle’s team last year asked her who she thought it was, if not a parent. The first girl said, THE mom with the food.

The day I was serving it up at the first volleyball tournament of the season, a good friend of mine signed her son up for little league & told me she might be needing some of my super powers. So partly for her, and partly related to a rant on parents and youth sports, I’m sharing how I feed a team of 12 girls.

wild child goes to see big bird…

 …but not on Sesame Street!

In my little circle of parents from SoMo, Tyler is one of the oldest children. People have been stressing me out by asking me what I’m doing about high school for at least a year now.

High school? My little shortie? All, um… 65 (maybe) pounds of him?

*shutthefuckup*

The Next Family » Banking While Black

Scenario: My sitter is black. Priscilla has been babysitting for me since Tyler was 2 mos old. So as not to deal with the hassle of receipts, I pay her by check with the note “childcare” and the dates covered in the memo section. Every month for 3.5 years I’ve written her a check drawn on Wells Fargo Bank. Almost every month for the last two years she has been cashing these checks at the same branch…

The Next Family » Banking While Black originally posted in 2000 at Banking while Black « curlykidz.

The Next Family » Half-Breeds

Last night while at my sister’s band concert someone came up to me during the intermission and complimented me on how pretty my kids are, and I thanked her.  Then she asked, right in front of Tyler, who has a mind like a steel trap and never forgets a damn thing, “are they half-breeds?” I sat there in stunned silence, thinking…

Oh, no she didn’t…

The Next Family » Half-Breeds.

“Half-Breeds” « curlykidz.

Cyndi has ANOTHER new crack-pot

Crock-Pot® Smart-Pot® Slow Cooker

So a couple months ago I broke down and bought a programmable slow cooker. I was convinced that my old fashioned manual crock pot low setting was just a little too high for the number of hours I’m usually away from home. It would be ideal if I was gone for about 8 hours, but I’m usually away for ten. I needed something with a manual setting. And since I wound up using my crockpot at most of my daughter’s volleyball tournaments last year, something with a locking lid would be a dream come true.Initially, I LOVED this crock pot, except the hinged lid. I was thinking of it falling down as people were trying to serve themselved, but that problem didn’t manifest itself. A few weeks after the purchase, I had my son clean it for the first time… and in trying to remove the lid, he broke the hinge. I was sure he’d been too rough with it, but I could still use the front latch to secure the lid well enough for transporting it and although awkward, was able to open and close the lid well enough. But then another week or two passed, and while scrubbing the rim of the lid, the handle broke off in my hand. But I still loved the other features, so I thought I could live with it. Except one thing. There is no little handle on top… so the first time I tried to take the lid off a cooked dish… ouch! It only took a few times of having to use tongs to take off the lid before I was pretty much over that. So we stopped making dinners in the crock pot, although I was using my old manual to make oatmeal several times a week.  

Set 'n Forget® 6 Qt. Programmable Slow Cooker With Spoon/Lid

With a couple rounds of company planned, volleyball season fast approaching, and a hankering for several meals we’d already tried or were wanting to try, I started looking for a crockpot that had all the programmable features I wanted… with a better lid. 

*cue angels singing from the heavens* 

  The Hamilton Beach Set ‘n Forget® 6 Qt. Programmable Slow Cooker With Spoon/Lid is everything I loved about the Crockpot Smartpot and then some. It’s time programming is much more flexible, and it can be programmed by temperature as well. I made a fabulous Chicken with Lemon & Herbs and some INCREDIBLE Apple Dumplings. To quote my son… “This meal deserves a moment of silence.    

Presto® PopLite® hot air corn popper

So as long as I’m sharing my affection for small kitchen appliances, let me tell you about how we went micro-waveless. Over the summer, my microwave just quit. Just like that. I decided not to replace it for two reasons… money was really tight over the summer, but aside from that… there is NOTHING healthy that can be cooked in the microwave better than on the stove, in the crockpot, oven, steamer, or wok… and I already owned at least one all of those appliances.    

 

But then a few weeks later we had a movie night. And here I am with this bulk box of microwave popcorn and no microwave. For several months we ran down the block to my best friend’s house when we wanted popcorn… but then we moved three weeks ago. So I decided that microwave popcorn isn’t all that healthy anyway… but wasn’t thrilled about the idea of having to pop it on the stove (even less so about the kids doing so). So I got a popcorn popper last Sunday… and between Sunday & Monday must have made four or five HUGE bowls of YUMMY popcorn. Without all the preservatives and chemicals. A little salt, some melted butter, and PRESTO!   

 

     

     

Menu Plan Monday: Cyndi has a new crack-pot « curlykidz     

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Letting go (and moving on)

So a few people have commented about how I fell off the blogosphere right after I met my dad… and while I’ll admit that I didn’t write for a couple weeks because I was trying to sort out feelings that were raw and new, that can only account for a week or two of my absence. After that, I’ve just been very busy with visits to and from family, and wrestling with some very, very difficult personal decisions. I’m not quite comfortable making this chapter totally public quite yet, but I do have the story in a note on my facebook. So, if you’re not already on my FB page, fix that…

via Facebook | Cyndi Whitmore: Letting go (and moving on).

Yes, Tyler… there IS a Santa Claus « reminiscing @curlykidz

Yes, Tyler… there IS a Santa Claus « curlykidz.

Thanksgiving

Reunions

So a lot’s happened on the family front since last week…

I spent about two and a half hours on the phone with my uncle Friday night, followed by a good four hours with my aunt on Saturday and another hour(ish) on Sunday. Mostly we were catching up with each other on what’s happened in the last thirty-four or so years, and each other’s families and children. I can’t remember what day or hour into conversation that my aunt and I talked about my biological father and where to go with all that.. but she wanted to let me know that he was going to be in PHX over Thanksgiving, thinking it might be more comfortable for me, if he and I were to meet, if it were on my turf, so to speak. She’s a smart lady, my auntie.

So I asked the question that had been on my mind since the first contact. Since she had asked if it was OK with me to tell him she’d found me, should I assume that this is information he wants to know? He wasn’t the one to come looking for me, and he hadn’t had any more children, so I couldn’t help wondering if this was something he’d welcome. So my aunt and I had a pretty candid discussion, and she admitted that he’s not one who deals well with emotion, and tends to withdraw from any kind of intense emotional situations. Based on the things I mentioned already and just kinda putting together this and that from various conversations, I’d already gotten that impression. My aunt had suggested telling him and giving him my number and letting him take the next step. I told her I was OK with her telling him that she’d gotten in touch with me, but asked her to leave it at that.  If he asked about or expressed an interest in contacting me, she could give him my number, but I didn’t want him to feel at all pressured by any expectations, hers or mine, real or perceived.I have a dad, and he’s awesome. I’d like to get to know [bio dad], but I don’t want anything that he can’t give freely.

Sunday I got a voice mail from my aunt, to let me know she’d spoken with [bio dad]. She was pretty excited, because she’d expected kind of a non-reaction at first, but that he’d been very interested, asked a lot of questions, and seemed almost excited. She said she thought he’d call, but wasn’t sure when. I was thinking in my mind, that he’d probably call the following weekend. I know it took me from Tuesday to Friday night to really get to a point where I could wrap my head around everything to string two sentences together and have anything resembling an intelligent conversation.

But [bio dad] surprised us both, and called me the next evening. He was visibly audibly nervous and clearly way out of his comfort zone. He introduced himself by name and I said hello… he asked how I was, I asked how he was, and he laughed shakily and said,

Scared.

It made the conversation a lot easier for me, that’s for sure. Shoot, I was just incredibly nervous. But I understood how he must have felt. 

He told me right up front at the beginning of the conversation that he’s not real good with people or emotions, and if he said or did anything that I felt crossed the line or upset me to please let him know. I told him that was fair, and not to worry… I’m not one who’s known for holding back her feelings. If you make me mad, there will be no doubt in your mind.

We had a nice conversation, though there was a real awkward moment when he asked me if my children were mulatto, and I had to explain that was a socially acceptable term about a hundred years ago, but today most people consider it a racial slur. He took that pretty well, didn’t get defensive and go for a derail, reworded his question, and then told me that a couple of the other grandkids in the family are multiracial. I got the feeling he was trying to make a connection with me somehow. It was a little misguided, but not ill intentioned, and I don’t think I’ve ever had the “that thing you said was racist” conversation go so well.

He brought up that he would be in PHX for the holiday, and asked if he could buy me a cup of coffee, and I told him I’d really like that. So in addition to that reunion, my uncle Joe and his wife Debbie are driving up on Saturday to have breakfast with us and spend some time together. Two weeks after that, coincidentally my birthday weekend, my aunt Joyce will be in town and we’ll be getting together for dinner.

Tackle It Tuesday – week 48

Quick Beader

I am going to mail these Quick Beaders to Becky Boop.

She’s been waiting on them for a LOOONG time.

I bought them in May.

Sometimes I really suck in the friend department…

I’m glad she loves me anyway.

 

 

 

“Big Fat Head”

"Big Fat Head"

Dr 2nd Grade,

Could you please speak with the boy who sits behind Daija about this? Its such a struggle for my girls to maintain a healthy self esteem and racial identity. This isn’t the first time Daija has complained that someone in class made her feel bad about her hair, But its the first time she’s begged me to straighten it…

“Even if it burns me, I promise not to cry.”

I’m pretty upset by this, and so is she.

Menu Plan Monday: Cyndi has a new crack-pot

Crock-Pot® Smart-Pot® Slow Cooker

OK, so I’ve amused people to no end by my habit of referring to my blackberry as my crackberry… so I couldn’t resist the title for a blog about my new toy. I invested in a new crock pot today… I have one, but it has a couple limitations, the biggest being that I’m away from the house for 9-10 hours during the week, and it’s a manual crock pot and always cooks most things in 6-8. Secondly, it’s 4 quarts, and there are a couple great looking recipes that feed 7-8 people (which means I could stretch it to two meals for the curly crew or leftovers for my lunch).  So my new purchase is 6 qts, with a locking lid and a timer with auto off feature… I can start the crock pot with the timer on the low end of the recommended cooking time, then it will switch to warm. If it isn’t quite done when I get home, I can just pop that sucker on high while the kids & I make salads, set the table, etc.

Make it Fast, Cook it Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking

Earlier this week, Amazon.com delivered my new cookbook. I looked through it Friday night and was happy to see that my faith in Becky Boop was not misplaced… I have never seen a cookbook that had so many recipes that I was excited to make. Even better, many of them required little or no chopping or preparing. Saturday morning I had a little chit chat with the spawn about how much fast food we won’t be eating anymore. I figured I’d get their buy-in a great deal faster if they had some ownership. I had each of the kids pick out a dinner recipe from the new book of spells. Last night we had Halle’s pick, Sweet & Spicy Salmon, which was good, but a little chewy. I think I cooked it a little too long… that recipe is definitely one that leans towards the lower end of the cooking time range. Daija chose Sweet & Spicy Chicken Wings, which we’ll be having for dinner tonight, and Tyler chose Chicken Pot Pie for Wednesday. I have the fixings for Crockpot Cowboy Stew and Chicken Tacos to fill in the rest of the week that we’re not eating some version of Turkey.

I may never use another pot or pan. I’ll be honest, when I was standing and looking at the frozen turkeys, I wondered if they make crock pots big enough to cook a turkey in.

Attitude of Gratitude

Today will not be a day of rest for me, since I’ll be doing all the things I didn’t get done while I was on the phone for the better part of Friday night and Saturday. But it will be a thankful day…

Today I am grateful for the internets and for Facebook.

They brought me  two aunts, four uncles, eight cousins, and two second cousins.

That’s a lotta family to get on a random Tuesday evening.