by Jen Logan | May 22, 2019 | Life, Parenting
My daughter loves cooking. She also loves eating and has a pretty refined palate for a child. Tonight, she took one bite of the fish my husband had prepared for dinner and went directly to the refrigerator. She pulled out a jar of capers and half a lemon that had been sitting on the counter and returned to the table to top off her fish. I have to say I loved watching this, mostly because my husband has added extra spice, toppings or ingredients to pretty much every dinner I have ever cooked. I am a three ingredient kind of cook whereas he is a believer in layers of flavor. Apparently his cod didn’t have quite enough layers for our little lass though. As I was smirking at her going to town on her plate like Cat Cora she turned to me and said “What? You know I have to have capers on my fish!” Precocious does not even begin to explain this child some days.
by Jen Logan | May 8, 2019 | Being Awesome, Chick Stuff, Parenting
A friend of mine recently told a story about being the only mom participating in an activity while other moms sat back watching. She was on vacation, in the ocean taking a surf lesson with her husband and kids. Other moms sat on the beach taking photos and watching while their families had an adventure. The women documented the event as their families experienced it.
Her daughter noticed the anomaly and pointed it out. The tween asked why her mom was not doing what the other moms were doing (or not doing). In this story, the mom explained that she was in the water because she had recently gotten into better shape and was finally comfortable in the wet suit, whereas six months prior she would have probably made an excuse to sit on the beach instead of getting in the water. She shared with her daughter that she was happy to be in a mindset where she would rather be participating in the adventure.
I wondered how many other moms were sitting on the sidelines for the same reason and how many were watching from a distance simply because “that’s what the moms do.” Most of my adventures as a kid were led by my dad. Sometimes my mom participated, and sometimes not. Her participation seemed to depend on the level of danger involved. I think she shied away from some of our adventures after she mistakenly engaged the clutch instead of the brake on my dad’s motorcycle and almost ran me over. For the short period of time I played sports as a child, the dads coached and the moms watched. It seemed like anything physical was a “dad” activity and mom was left with arts and crafts or trips to the mall.
I have never been one to follow the crowd. I don’t sit on the sidelines and watch because “that’s what the moms do” and I have never bought the idea that different activities are better suited for boys than girls. I grew up on a motorcycle and skateboard. I am the mom who doesn’t mind getting dirty and certainly doesn’t mind making an ass out of herself. If it’s fun, I will do it. I am often a mom among dads and that’s just fine. There should be more of us if you ask me.
This story was on my mind when my family headed off to Florida for vacation a few weeks ago. Lo and behold, I saw moms all over the theme parks sitting and watching as their families rode the rides. It was most noticeable at the water park. Maybe the moms didn’t want to get their hair wet, or maybe they were uncomfortable climbing up the stairs in their bathing suits. Maybe they just wanted to relax and get a tan. I have no idea why these moms were watching instead of participating. All I know is I am not one of those moms.
We spent less than a week in Florida and I felt like I needed a vacation to recover when we got home. We were busy while we were there and I was often the one running up first to the rides. I have a handful of photos from vacation, but not nearly as many as I would like. But I will trade the documents of the memories for experiencing the memories any day!
by Jen Logan | Nov 12, 2018 | Life, Parenting
My daughter busted us eating her candy at least three times in the past week. I would like to say that this only happens around Halloween, but it’s not true. It’s an ongoing battle in our house. Whenever our daughter brings home candy she puts it in a cup in the cupboard. She has her daily piece from this stash. My husband also has his daily piece from this stash. I might also dig into the cup now and then depending on which side of the bed my little mini me crawled out of. All of a sudden the candy is gone and everybody is blaming each other for eating it all. The same thing happens with cereal. Anything sweet just seems to disappear in our house. It’s like living with magicians, or burglars.
This year on Halloween we went trick or treating with one of Riley’s classmates. Her parents were gracious enough to have us over even though the Mom was due with baby number two a few days later. We had pizza and salad and the dads took the girls out trick or treating. The moms hung back and passed out candy. It worked out pretty well because I could jump up and get to the door pretty quickly and let preggers take her time to get up to see the kids. After a few hours and several tumbles in the grass our girls and their handlers returned with their loot.
My daughter considered the candy hers and hers alone. My husband figured since he had to follow her around in the cold he deserved some of the candy as well. She tipped us out with chocolate bars that she didn’t like and sent us on our way that night. Since then the bag has been sitting in our kitchen, and all three of us have been eating from it, quietly when nobody else is looking. The bag has started to sag as the candy has gotten up and walked away on it’s own.
Last week my daughter finally organized all of her candy. She gave some to me, some to her dad and the rest she put back in her bag. I don’t know if she has created a candy spreadsheet, but she is definitely trying to control her inventory. She has taken stock of the laffy taffy and starburst, the jolly ranchers and twizzlers. She knows exactly what should be in that bag. I’m not going to tell her about the skittles wrapper I found while doing the laundry last night. I think her dad may have helped some little rainbow candy escape a child’s mouth. The wrapper was tucked into a box of dryer sheets. The garbage can was two feet away but I’m sure he had just been scolded for the wrappers she found in the kitchen garbage can while he was trying to hide the evidence of his latest theft. For a sugar junkie he’s really bad at covering his tracks. I mean, come on man, it takes two seconds to wrap it up in a kleenex or something else gross she would never touch while looking in the garbage. Total amateur.
Over the summer she bought herself a little locker to protect her valuables. She doesn’t keep her jewelry or money in it, she hides her candy from her parents. I’m guessing she will put some of her Halloween candy in there. It’s only a matter of time before she realizes that the bag is dwindling at night. Luckily she has given me the combination since she thinks it is only her dad who eats her candy while she sleeps.
by Jen Logan | Sep 27, 2018 | Life, Parenting
My daughter is a very kind child. It’s one of her greatest attributes and I hope she is always able to reach into that place in herself and remain kind as she grows up and learns that others in the world are not often like her. She displayed some of this kindness while we were on a family vacation this weekend, and as always I was impressed with her ability to be compassionate at such a young age.
We go to a Great Wolf Lodge a few times a year for little weekend getaways. It’s a hotel with a water park and other fun stuff for kids to do. My parents love spending time with Riley and they decided since we hadn’t gotten away for a little while as a family, we should all go. So the five of us jumped in the car and took a little three hour trip up north. I have to say, my parents are great sports when it comes to doing things for their grandchild. We stayed in a suite that had a little log cabin in one room with bunk beds. My husband and I slept in there with our daughter the first night and it was like sleeping on a medieval torture device. When she declared she wanted her grandparents to sleep in there the second night they gladly agreed. They had seen the beds and my husband and myself after a night in the beds, but they slept there anyway. They also dragged their elderly butts up 57 steps to the top of a three person raft water slide repeatedly over the course of the weekend just to be able to bounce around and hear their grandchild laugh firsthand. I know it was 57 steps because my mother counted them on her first trip up.
One of the other activities that my daughter likes to do at the hotel is called Magic Quest. It’s basically a bunch of scavenger hunts in the hotel to earn badges. If you complete all of the quests you are named a master magi, a title which is highly revered by seven year olds. My daughter spent many hours in between playing in the water park, pumping half of my dad’s paycheck into arcade games and stuffing all form of sugar in her mouth running around the hotel gathering runes to complete her quests. Her favorite person to do this with was of course her grandpa. We all got to play at some point, but by the end of the trip she was grabbing his hand and sneaking out the door to go adventuring with her favorite playmate.
On our day of departure she had one more quest to complete to become a quest master. She and her grandpa were working diligently to complete the job before we had to leave. With only about fifteen minutes to go they ran across a little boy who was struggling to complete the quest he was working on. They stopped to help and my dad explained to her that if she helped the little boy she would not have time to finish her own quest and become a master. She thought about it for a few moments and said “that’s okay, he needs help. I want to help him.” So she did. She abandoned her own journey to help him finish his quest with no complaints. I came in after loading the car and started to round up the troops when my dad shared this story with me. He said “You created a good one there.” I would have to agree.
We all gathered together and helped our little magi who had to go back to the beginning of her quest and start over because there was a time limit. She ran around the hotel and with a little help from her dad and myself, she was able to find all of the runes and become a master magi. It’s funny the things you learn from your kids. Earlier in the trip my daughter had stopped to pick up a pair of wolf ears that a little girl dropped on the floor. She handed them back to the little girl who was in a panic because at first she thought that my daughter was picking up the ears for herself. The girl turned to her mother and said “Mama, that little girl just gave me back my ears. She picked them up for me!” She was surprised by my daughter’s kindness. I watched lots of other kids pushing and shoving their way through lines, knocking down smaller kids over the weekend. I even watched a dad leave his kid behind on the steps to make it to the front of the line for a raft. I am grateful that my daughter isn’t making her way through life like that. I’m proud of her for stopping to pick up the ears for another kid, and for abandoning her mission to help someone else because it was the right thing to do. We did create a pretty good little human being. I am so grateful that I get to learn from her every day.
by Jen Logan | Aug 16, 2018 | Life, Parenting
The other night I told my daughter we were going to church in the morning because it was a holy day of obligation. When she argued that it was a weekday and not a church day I told her we were going to celebrate the virgin Mary. I explained that we have all kinds of celebrations for Jesus but just this one day for his mother who was so important. She asked “will there be cake?” I guess it’s not a proper celebration without cake in her mind. I almost lied just to get her to comply, but I knew that would somehow lead to me actually purchasing a cake, so I stuck with the truth.
When I shared this story with my husband his reaction was “I’ll go to church with you if there’s cake!” Now he is sending me photos of cake ideas. He’s going to be really surprised when he comes home to find 24 cupcakes with rosaries on them. He forgets it is summer and I am home with a small child all day – we have nothing but time. So for anyone who didn’t celebrate the Assumption with a little cake after mass – you are doing it wrong.
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