To cook dinner or not to cook dinner

I was holding a crying toddler as I attempted to mash potatoes in my KitchenAid while talking on the phone to a friend who, hearing the panic in my voice and chaos in my house, asked me why I even bothered cooking "real" meals.


Now that's a good question. It seems there's something very un-progressive about 1) thinking your KitchenAid is cool, and 2) wanting to put a home cooked meal on the table almost every night. Almost is a key word here. Before having to provide 3 meals and multiple snacks every day for my twins, I loved to dine out, and still do. But now, even though their restaurant behavior seems to be fairly exceptional lately, it just seems to make more sense to eat at home most nights.


Maybe it's my own mother's model. Bless her heart (am I now a Southern belle?), the woman had a balanced meal on the table EVERY night. Though my sister and I didn't know it, we didn't have too many luxuries growing up, but my mom was and still is, a master grocery shopper, and always seemed to pick up special treats like artichokes and lobsters when they were on sale at the market. Truth be told it was cheaper to cook at home vs. in a restaurant or take-out, so the latter wasn't even an option, but let's give credit where credit is due, it takes a lot of effort to churn out decent tasting meals every night.


Luckily my husband picks up a lot of the slack and is always willing to help when he gets home. When we have guests, he runs the cooking show, thank God! He's a far better cook than me, and it seems to come naturally to him, which slightly shames me into trying to be a better cook. I have about 5 meals that I cook relatively well (more on that in the future), but even those I have the potential to mess up!

note: Ina's the BEST!

I think the key is organization. For example, I started a Capponata while making the girls breakfast, but this is rarely an option since most days my girls won't stand for anything but my undivided attention. Maybe they're taking a turn, and won't need me to watch Sesame Street with them anymore. Regardless, I'll keep plugging away at my little menus inspired by Ina, Tyler, and Giada and try and hold on to the easy, fast, yet amazing ones so that I can perpetuate my Donna Reed facade.

Just when you thought your life was crazy.....

Bravo (my fave channel) has introduced "9 By Design," a docu-drama about Cortney & Robert Novogratz who have, get this, seven children, and a fabulous design/house-flipping business in NYC. Why so many kids I wondered? I gather they're both from big southern families and just think that's how you do it. They have two sets of twins in the bunch, and a new baby.

The Novogratz kids include Wolfgang, 12; twins Bellamy and Tallulah, 11; Breaker, 9; twins Five and Holleder, 4, and Major, 1. Did you notice that Five is #5? I love it!

The homes they design are fabulous, and have sold for record prices even by NY standards. But I really love their parenting style. In the first episode, Cortney sends the 4-year-old twins into a hall closet to play.

It seems they live in the houses for a while before they sell, and keep moving into two-bedroom apartments. At nearly nine-months pregnant Cortney also appears to pack her own house and move all in one day. I'm so impressed by this superwoman.

Watch it on Tuesdays at 10pm on Bravo. http://www.bravotv.com/9-by-design

I Should Be Dancing

I've loved this photo of a dancing Brigitte Bardot since I saw it on another blog over a year ago. I actually wish I owned it so that I could frame it and hang it on a wall somewhere in my house. Yes, it makes me that happy. She's so young, beautiful, carefree, and epitomizes "the look" of the moment" in her miniskirt, boots, and straight long hair. Although I share zero resemblence to Lady B, it reminds of me when I was fun. More than likely, however, I was dancing and embarrassing myself, but that's okay too.

Now I wait until weddings and other major life events to embarrass myself (I mean, dance) in public.

Sleeping Like Gypsies

Our family of four sleeps together. This statement elicits different responses from different people. Some are horrified, and say “get those kids out of your bed ASAP,” while others think it’s completely normal usually because they shared a bed with their children (co-slept) at some point. Recently a Ukrainian woman informed me that my family sleeps like gypsies! I think she meant that as a not-so-great-thing, but I have a mild obsession with gypsies so I thought it was fantastic.

It wasn’t always this way. In preparation for the girls I read “Babywise: Giving your baby the gift of nighttime sleep” like it was the bible. I was convinced that if I did everything this book said, my girls would sleep through the night on their own. They did not.

When the nurses at Beth Israel instructed us to swaddle the girls, always put them to sleep in separate cribs, and NEVER let them sleep with us or on us (for their own safety), we complied. I thought it made sense since they were so little it would have been too easy to suffocate them. But at about 5 months-old, we realized that they would sleep infinitely longer if they were cuddled in bed with us, and so it began. We tried a handful of times to sleep train them in their cribs, patting their backs without picking them while they wailed, making our way closer and closer to the door, was torture for my husband and me. So we moved a queen-sized mattress to the floor of the nursery so they could sleep there without risk of falling out of our high bed (my dad's idea), and they could come find us if they woke up in the middle of the night. This worked for a time.

Basically I think we’re too lazy to start a sleep battle with the kids. I asked a friend with pre-teens what she thought and she confessed that she’d done the same thing. I love the advice she received from her pediatrician. He told her that these years (infant through pre-school) are the “comfort years” and it was completely natural. I'm embarrassed to confess that I lied to our last pediatrician. She adamantly believed the kids needed to learn to soothe themselves and sleep in their own cribs, and was pretty inflexible on this point, so I lied, so that I wouldn't have to be lectured by her. Needless to say, she's no longer our doctor and I promise not to lie to a physician again.

I envy mothers whose babies sleep in their cribs and had the backbone to sleep-train their little ones. If I had it to do over again, I probably would let them cry-it-out at 6 months-old, and they’d never have know any differently. But I am now a defacto “attachment” parenting mom, and I’m okay with it. Sophie and Sienna may be the only children I have, and eventually they won’t want to sleep with me (they probably won’t even want to talk to me when they’re teenagers), so I’ll keep them close to me as long as possible.

Great Style

Trying to distract my toddlers as I checked my emails, I grabbed the box of Warhol Red Books on the shelf and let them go through the photos. I guess I'd forgotten that there was some pretty raunchy stuff in there! (Don't worry, they're too little to understand.) What I did notice as I was cleaning up, was a few unbelievably gorgeous images of 70s icon Marisa Berenson, looking Bain de Soleil tan somewhere on the Mediterranean, I presume. Now this is how I want to look this summer.

I'm baaaaack....and with a new drink

It's been months since my last entry, but since I only have a handful of friends who read my blog updates, I'm quite sure that I haven't been missed! I've been inspired by the movie "Julie & Julia" (as background noise) as I continuously run in to coax my sad, sick twins back to sleep every time they wake up crying. I think the character in the movie might have taken her blog a little too seriously, but she didn't have sick twins (or twins at all for that matter), but did wind up with a job or a book deal or something I predict. I have no such ambitions.

With the advent of my darling husband finishing our basement renovation which includes a face lifted bedroom, bathroom, playroom, and bar/second kitchen, I have some wonderful news: I've rediscovered a CLASSIC COCKTAIL!

Here's the recipe:
Vodka Gimlet II
1.5oz Vodka
1oz fresh lime juice
.5oz simple sugar syrup

Combine ingredients in cocktail shaker with ice. Shake. Strain into chilled martini glass.

Clearly there's a Vodka Gimlet I as well, that substitutes Rose's Lime for the fresh stuff, but don't even bother with that!

I've heard the martini saying that one's not enough and two's too many, and it's almost true for this treat as well. I find that one's not enough, two's not quite enough, and three's pretty much too many. I say: Have fun and enjoy responsibly.

Little devils, or just toddlers?

My once angelic 16-month-old girls are walking, talking a little, and raising a whole lotta hell. They're biting, pulling hair, and throwing food. Our pediatrician says that the violent behavior should be dealt with via a time-out of one minute separating the attacking twin. I'm not entirely in support of this method, but we're following her recommendation. I can deal with the girls doing things to each other, but it's a different story when they hurt friends. Just yesterday we had our twin playgroup+husbands for brunch. My girls, tired from missing their nap, were in attack mode. Needless to say, we'll be lucky if anyone wants to play with us in the future.

So now I'm looking for a solution to the food throwing. It's not making me that nuts, but it's driving my poor, very neat, Italian husband batty. The blogs give varying advice:

• slapping the child's hand(!)


• taking them out of the highchair, and making them clean up the thrown food


• removing the food, and making the toddler stay at the table until the family's finished


• doing nothing

I found this advice a little humorous, but not necessarily wrong:
"I invite you to take a step back and really think of why this is driving you insane. I have 4 kiddos. They all throw food over their chair at some point. They think it's funny. They are learning cause and effect. Really, she's not trying to be defiant....she's just learning. It's not fun to spend much of our time cleaning up after our little ones, I know. But it's part of the job and it will pass; and the time spent cleaning up little messes isn't that much time in the whole scope of things. I honestly don't recommend any discipline for this. I reccommend humor...and lots of it. You can say to her, "food is for eating, not throwing." in a calm no big deal way, then show her how to say "excuse me" or say "all done please". Then clean her up and get her down and be on her way to playing or whatever. Children are curious creatures. Choose your battles. Think about why you get upset about certain things. What is your belief about it, and why do you have that belief. I always tell moms to go within and listen to their inner wise loving mamma. She will always know what to do next. It's not easy, but take a big calming breath, look at your daughter and just smile. You are her example. This does not need fixing. It will pass:)
Best wishes in your parenting journey. Embrace that yummy spirit of your daughter.

In peace, A. mom of 4. Birth and Parenting Mentor www.birthingfromwithin.com"

I would like to believe that my twins are just experimenting with "cause & effect" (another theory), but the giggles and defiant looks they give me when they're tossing their food leads me to believe they're actually testing their adoring father and me. We're going to opt for a calm response like "no throwing food" and indicating that you say "I'm done, please" and then we'll remove the food. We'll see if it works.

The thing about being a parent is that every child is different. What works for one may not work for another. Yes, having a good sense of humor is key, and of course, whatever the current issue is will inevitably pass (as the peaceful mom of 4 from above stated). However, if you're a good parent you want to "do the right thing." You don't want to scar their little psche by being too strict, but you also don't want to create a menace to society. Do your research. See what others are doing and if it sounds good to you, then give it a try! But wait, don't try the corporal punishment solution....hello....they're only toddlers!