This week I'm grateful for... mundanity

When I was younger I used to shy away from routine and what I perceived to be a boring life. I would do anything to avoid conformity and frowned upon anything I considered to be 'establishment'. I'm a reckless, challenging person at the best of times but there was a patch in my life there where I felt out of control and I thought I loved it.

How wrong I was.

A quiet family life has brought me more happiness than I ever could have mustered as a young punk. My life is fun, funny, interesting, satisfying and rich. It's the same old me, but with a new level of maturity and an appreciation for what some people know from a much earlier age than I: being proud of your lot and content within it are two of the keys to great happiness.

So, this week I'm grateful for...

1. Mundanity - not the profanity I always expected it was. There is loud joy in quiet contentment.

2. Flowers - and the beautiful bearer of them.

3. Sparkle shoes - you make my youngest daughter dance.

So, what's making you smile today? Grab my I'm grateful for... button from my sidebar if you like, add your I'm Grateful For post below and please add a link back to me in your post. Then pop over to visit other bloggers who are spreading a little sunshine. Happy weekend to you!


[Image by thimble and violet]

Busting out of the Comfort Zone

The V8 Supercars. Surprise. I had a fantastic time in the pits during practice, talking to the drivers and crew and learning all sorts of interesting facts about cars, cars, cars. The smells, the sounds, the sights, I kind of 'got it'. I can't say I'm car racing's newest fan, but I will say that I'm not knocking anything I don't know about in future.

It's good to break this habit. I have a bad tendency to turn my nose up at things I consider... 'not me'. It really switches you off from experiencing things that are a bit out of your usual comfort zone but are great fun nonetheless. It's good to hang out with people you ordinarily wouldn't meet and talk about things you ordinarily wouldn't consider. Good for sparking creative inspiration and good for the soul.

I'm challenging myself to embrace new experiences from now on. I'm going to drag my little family along to something new whenever I can. You just never know what the Tsunamis are going to be into so it's up to LOML and I to introduce them to as many different things as we can. And you never know, I just might find a new passion of my own along the way.

Do you shake things up regularly? What do you to do get yourself out of your comfort zone?

[Image]

This Saturday I'm grateful for... new experiences.

Here in Maxabellaland, Saturday is traditionally a sport, shop, sort the clothes, sweep the floors, strangle the Tsunamis (insert other 's' words here - no pun intended) kinda day. But it's nice to pause to appreciate the things in your life that are positive and affirming, whatever they may be. Thank you to all the lovely blogs that link up for yummy bloggy visits each Grateful Saturday.




This Saturday, I'm grateful for...


1. New experiences - it is so easy to become a creature of habit and routine when you are raising young children. I appreciate a break from my real life every time, even if I happen to find myself in the middle of the boganvillea V8 Supercars with my eyes hurting from sponsored shirts and my ears hurting from Dire Straits.


2. Cushions - they make the decor so easy to change, but when you just need a little extra softness there, there or there, cushions really come into their own. It may interest you to know that we somehow manage to house over 40 cushions in Maxabellaland...


3. The kindness of strangers - thank you for asking me whether I was in pain and needed help today. That's just my face, but thank you anyway. 

What's making you smile today? Join the linky and then tour the list to find a new blog to love...

[Image via weheartit.Source unknown.]

The drip, drip, drip of routine

I've always hated routine. Before the Tsunamis I was the kind of person who would mix up the route to work so I didn't have to do the same thing day in day out. The thought of already knowing today what I was going to do tomorrow was enough to make me feel a bit panicky.

Perfectly suited to young children then!

It's something I've struggled with all my babying years. When I became a mum, I knew I'd need to embrace a routine and in the early days I went so far as to 'Gina Ford' Maxi-Taxi under the assumption that my lack of routine was causing his sleeplessness. Turns out Maxi-Taxi doesn't really like routines either. It was a total, unmitigated disaster and the month we spent with meany Gina was easily the worst month of my parenting career to date.

After Maxi-Taxi refused to be Ginaed we moved into a more loose routine where as long as a pattern of feed, hang out, try to sleep prevailed, we were satisfied. I managed to handle the drip, drip, drip of a routine provided I got out of the house every day and did something completely new as often as possible.

Three Tsunamis in and these days I actually enjoy the rituals of every day living. I still need to break things up every now and then, but I'm much happier in the pocket of routine.  I'm lucky that most days are different in Maxabellaland (the Tsunamis go to different places in the morning or I'm home or I have class in the evening or... something!). It all helps. I still think I would go nuts if every day was exactly the same. In fact, I'm certain that I would.

Do you get regular breaks from your routine? Or, even better, are you lucky enough to thrive on routine?

[Image from My Sweet Prints]

Easy Sunday: Acceptable Broccoli, Zucchini and Bacon Pasta Bake

I'm breaking my sweet Sundays and going savoury. I feel the need to share some of my standby Monday / Tuesday meals. On M/T I leave food in the fridge for Annabelle, our M/T nanny, to reheat for the Tsunamis' dining pleasure. So it needs to not dry out, be safe to reheat and it needs to be food that they'll eat without fussing.  This pasta bake ticks all the boxes. It's the only food Maxi-Taxi will eat that has 'green bits' in it and not spend hours sitting there picking out minute bits of vegetable that are not actually visible to the naked eye.

Acceptable Broccoli, Zucchini and Bacon Pasta Bake

300g wholemeal pasta spirals
60g butter
1/4 cup wholemeal plain flour
450ml reduced-fat milk
1 reduced-salt chicken stock cube
2 tsp olive oil
4 short cut bacon rashers, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large head broccoli
2 grated zucchinis
1 1/2 cups grated tasty cheese
Wholemeal breadcrumbs
Butter


• Preheat oven to 180°C.

• Cook the pasta, drain.

• Melt butter in a heavy-based saucepan over medium-high heat. Add flour. Cook, stirring, for 1 to 2 minutes, or until mixture is bubbling. Remove from heat. Slowly add milk, stirring until mixture is smooth. Return to heat. Melt the stock cube in a little boiling water and add to mixture. Cook, stirring, for 10 minutes or until mixture comes to the boil. Add 1 cup cheese and stir through.

• Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Add the bacon, onion and garlic and cook, until soft and lightly caramelised.

• Break the broccoli into small florets. Add grated zucchini. Cook in the microwave until soft. Use a fork to mash. Place in ovenproof dish.

• Add pasta, bacon, onion, garlic, zucchini and broccoli and mix together. Pour the cheesy sauce over and mix well. Sprinkle ½ cup cheese on top. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over top and dot with small dobs of butter. Bake about 30 minutes until golden.

Enjoy!

[Image by Louise Lister from Taste ; recipe my own]

The loving links in my support chain

I'll apologise in advance for the loooong post, but there's a lot to say today.

About a week ago, as she returned to work after 18 months maternity leave, MulitpleMum wrote a fantastic post about being a working mother. It inspired to me think through what helps me manage the business of combining children and career.

Aside from being the reigning Mrs Organised Universe (read my previous post on getting three young children out of the house if you dare!) there is an even more important thing that relieves the strain of being a working mum. It's a mantra that working mums need to hear and believe at all times.

It takes a village, people.

If you're going to do the mum and career thing, you need a strong support chain either paid or friended. In a way, you need a support chain that can pick up the 'mumming' bit for you when you're at work or the 'worky' thing for you when you're being a mum. It's no good not asking for or finding the help you need. It's the support chain that gets you through thinking 'I'm lucky, grateful and managing' rather than 'I'm exhausted, worried and stressed'.
Our paid support chain is linked by nanny Annabelle, preschool, daycare, school and after school care (ASC). It's backed up with the loving 'friended' help from the children's paternal grandparents and uncle and our neighbours.

Annabelle does Monday and Tuesday pick ups from after school care and preschool / daycare. She works from about 4.15pm until 6.45pm and she's the reason I'm not tearing my hair out trying to collect children from three different places before 6pm. She brings them home and heats up the dinner I've left in the fridge. After dinner she starts baths which is generally about the time either myself or LOML gets home. So easy and worth every penny for the amount of stress she relieves on these two days. She's been with us for over a year and has seen The Badoo grow from a babe in arms to the cheeky little monkey she is today.

Preschool and daycare are obviously two other links in the support chain. I am fortunate that they are in the same lovely complex about 10 minutes drive from home. Cappers goes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays to the preschool area and The Badoo is in the daycare on Mondays and Tuesdays only.  It is such a nuturing, peaceful place (yes, it's actually peaceful at a daycare!) and they both absolutely love it.

Maxi-Taxi goes to ASC in a dedicated classroom and area at his school on Mondays and Tuesdays until 4.30pm as Annabelle isn't available to collect him at 3pm. He goes with his neighbour and friend, Sasha, and Annabelle picks up both of them and drops Sasha home on her way. Maxi-Taxi loves having an extra place at school to call his own and I enjoy knowing that the fantastic girls who run the centre are always there for him, anytime. They run a school holiday programme which Maxi-Taxi attends once a week in the holidays.

Most mornings before school, Maxi-Taxi goes to Sasha's place and Andrea, Sasha's mum, drops him at school for me. In exchange, I take Sasha to school and soccer training on Wednesdays, my home day.  You can proably guess by now that Andrea and her family are like an extension of our own family. We're so lucky we live in the same street (there's a sweet story about how we met which I'll post one day soon).

Another very important link in my support chain is LOML's family. My beautiful, family-is-everything Italian in-laws look after the children on Thursdays and Fridays. They've done this since the children were babies. Nonno collects Maxi-Taxi and Cappers from school and daycare on Thursdays and Maxi-Taxi from school on Fridays. On Friday Cappers and The Badoo are with Nonna and Nonno all day. On Thursdays when Nonna is at work (she's the much loved cook in a daycare centre four days a week)  it's just Nonno and The Badoo, gardening and cleaning together like two little peas. LOML's much younger brother, Guis, is Nonno's back up and he often steps in to do the pick ups.

The final link in my support chain is my work. I treat 'em mean, but I'm always grateful for the flexibility they offer me. Family really does come first. I don't work on Wednesdays and I work from home every other Friday (when I try to stack in all my conference call meetings so I can clean my house while I'm on mute!) I generally leave the office at a reasonable time and keep up from my Blackberry, which is a godsend. Plus I have two adorable "work husbands" (well, my gay work husband calls himself the mistress) who will step in occasionally to keep the work ship floating when the captain is offshore.

There you have it. Another complicated arrangement, I know, but it works for us as the beat of our week. And it's a rhythm that we are all happy to dance to.

Do you rely on a support chain? Have you ever found yourself with broken links that make your stress levels rise? What else do you do to manage?

[Sweet heart chain by Little Jane Street]

The Maxabellaland Morning Routine for Working ParentsTM

Prepare to be dazzled by the Maxabellaland Morning Routine for Working Parents^TM (MMRWP). It is a modern miracle of engineering. The MMRWP has been tested on a prototype family group consisting of 1 adult male, 1 adult female, 1 schoolchild, 1 preschooler and 1 toddler.  Sadly it has yet to work on the Preschooler prototype who likes to sleep in, refuses all breakfast temptations and runs screaming at the sight of a hair brush (this is genetic).

The key to a successful MMRWP is that most of the action takes place the night before at The Launch Pad.^TM  The Launch Pad is a plain, brown leather with milk-smears and stale popcorn decorated couch in the family living room. Don't be fooled by its ordinary somewhat drab appearance. It is Ground Control for the MMRWP.

The night before Launch, Adult Male and Adult Female consult The Chart^TM and lay out every item of clothing to be worn or carried by the family group the next day. This includes clothing, handbags, hair accessories, shoes, school bags, stethoscope, library books, sports equipment, handcuffs, computer bags, phones, keys, letters to post, the lot. The Launch Pad has an annexe - The Fridge Shelf ^TM. Lunches needed for the morning are made the night before and kept fresh and ready in a basket on The Fridge Shelf.

So, if it's leaving Maxabellaland tomorrow, it's at The Launch Pad or The Fridge Shelf tonight.

On the Morning of Launch it's critical that everyone just gets on with the job and doesn't deviate from the important business of Getting Out The Door. When the children were smaller, it used to be fun to pretend to be rockets and get ready to whizz, whizz, whizz out the door. This suggestion would now be met with derision and cause mass panic and chaos. Lives could be lost. We keep it straight.

Adult Male wakes early and gets the Toddler her beloved 'bottiglia' (Adult Male is of Italian background so it's not quite as pretentious as it sounds.) School Child soon joins them and eats the standard breakfast of all young Aussie children, Weetbix and Milk. Adult Female drags herself down the stairs looking like a broken-down hag after a night on the turps. She promptly disappears into the bathroom to do things unknown and generally emerges looking not much better.

Whole family takes it in turns to try to rouse Preschooler from her slumber. Adult Male wants to spray her with water (a technique picked up from a nazi-mum on Wife Swap USA) but Adult Female resists. School Child wants to pummel her senseless but Adult Female resists. Toddler gets her nappy changed on top of the bed with much squealing, kicking and hysterical nappy throwing, but the Preschooler slumbers on. Under threats of being left behind to fend for herself and, dear god, tie her own shoelaces, the Preschooler eventually rumples herself out of bed and everyone takes it in turns to try to get her to eat breakfast. She consents to a mandarin, a nutritious, wholesome start to any child's day.

Family hits The Launch Pad and here the miracle MMRWP is realised. The Launch Pad focuses everyone and helps get them sorted. 10, 9, 8... Adult Male and Adult Female take turns assisting the prototype children to get dressed. 7, 6, 5... The Toddler insists on changing her shoes three times, four times, for the love of god just keep the damn shoes on, five times, not Adult Female's shoes your shoes, your own shoes, six times... 4, 3... clothes are on, shoes are tied, bags are hefted... 2,1... and before too long they are all ready and whizz, whizz, whizzing out the door. Just like little rockets... blast, I forgot to change out of my slippers!

Easy Sunday: Delish Ricotta Pancakes

Is there anything more scrummy than Sunday brunch and Sunday papers?

Just typing the combination makes me drool with longing. Back in the day, LOML and I had Sunday brunch every single week. Wherever we found ourselves (we did a lot of travel in our junior burger years) (warning: I use parentheses A LOT in this post) (even more than usual), we'd find the right cafe (nothing fancy with the eggs, everything fancy with the bread), select the right table (window, large enough for papers, no drafts) and order much the same thing. Sunday brunch is not for trial and error! Cosy food, cosy cafe and Sunday paper walls neatly tucking us into our own little world.

These days Sunday brunch involves a favourite child-tolerant (there isn't an eating establishment on earth without golden arches that is truly 'child-friendly') outdoor deli-cafe and three crazed Tsunamis running around high on life and banana bread. There is always some kind of epic spill involving 2 waiters, 38 napkins and a change of clothes (generally the waiters'). You can also guarantee that someone will insist on bringing their dog to the cafe, sending Maxi-Taxi screaming from the venue with a screech so terrifying that the majority of patrons prepare to evacuate due to fire.

So, you know, we tend to eat in.

Ricotta Pancakes with yoghurt, banana and honey

1 cup (150g) self-raising flour (Wholemeal also works great!)
1 tsp bicarb of soda
Pinch of salt
2 tbs (40g) caster sugar
125g fresh ricotta
1 cup (250ml) skim milk (Buttermilk also yummy here.)
1 egg, beaten
25g unsalted butter, melted
1/2 lemon, rind grated, juiced (In all honesty, our lemon tree is such a dud that I usually leave out the lemons. They are missed, but only fleetingly.)
Oil spray, to fry
Sliced bananas, yoghurt and honey, to serve

Sift flour, soda and salt into a bowl and stir in sugar. In a separate bowl, combine the ricotta, milk, egg, melted butter, lemon rind and juice. Beat well until smooth. Gradually whisk this into the dry ingredients to form a smooooooooth batter.

Heat a heavy based, non-stick frypan, spray lightly with oil spray and pour in batter to form a 12cm pancake. Cook over medium heat until bubbles appear on the surface (about 3 mins), flip and cook for another 1-2 mins.

Keep warm while you cook the remaining pancakes. Makes about 8.

Serve hot with spoonful of yoghurt, banana slices and generous drizzle of honey. Yummo. The kids will love this one too.

Kids, what kids?

[Recipe: taste.com.au]
[Important note: my pancakes generally look not-a-patch on the Luke Burgess photo above. Nor does my photography.]

All this and high-heels too?

This morning I got dressed for work. Involves changing clothes (usually), washing and moisturising face ($12.95 pump-pack Cetaphil convert), putting hair in (signature?) ponytail.

Then I chased the Tsunamis from one end of the house to the other getting them ready for school / preschool / Nonnos. Clambered artlessly onto chair to get something down from impossibly high kitchen cupboard. Did a quick once-around with the vacuum after The Badoo broke a string of beads. Raced up and down the stairs about 4 times because I am naturally forgetful and it's the only exercise I get somedays.

Bolted out the front door and down the front steps with The Badoo under one arm, computer under the other, Cappers backpack on my back and my handbag balanced seal-like on my nose. Landed a smooch on LOML as I opened the car door with my foot. Drove Maxi-Taxi to before school care (at the school). Walked up the steep path to school and down the steep path to school.

Drove to the train station. Ran from car to station. Fled up station stairs. Fled down station stairs. Leaped onto train. Skipped merrily from train station into work (as you do). And landed, seal-like at my desk.

Now, how would I have done all that in a pair of high-heels?

Or with manicured fingers?

How?

Really, not particularly busy

I spend my days fending off well-meaning types who tell me I'm busy. Instead of asking 'how are you?' they say 'how are you, busy?'.  In 2010 it's like a mantra. There seems to be a fear that if you're not swamped, stressed and running around madly that somehow you're not doing it right. You're not interesting or worthy.

But, instead of joining the busy brigade, I feel like I'm pretty much under control and would adore the opportunity to answer 'I'm fine, how are you?'. I don't find that my life is a juggle or a struggle or even a muggle at all.

There's an assumption that when you're a 'working mum', you're going to be stressed out and bleeding. But it's actually the SAHM who do it tougher if you ask me.

At work, you get to sit down. At home your left butt cheek hits a chair and it's like you've pressed a 'mmmuuuuuum can you...' button.

At work you can eat your lunch without having to explain exactly what's in it. You don't have to share it. You don't have 3 pairs of eyes steadily watching you eat it. You just eat.

Most importantly, when you're at work, there is no one messing up your house.

The only time I think the WM has it busier than the SAHM is in the mornings. There is a lot to accomplish before 7.45am at our place and we need military-like obedience to The Routine if we're going to make it out the door on time. (Military-like obedience in preschool set? We are frequently late for work.)

It really is three quarters of an hour of insanely, tear-your-hair-out busy in my day and 23 1/4 hours of not so much. I think that's a win!

So, um, I'm fine, how are you?
[Image: Claro Cortes IV / Reuters]