Surprise Me Sunday

I dubbed this month Clean Out the Pantry Month. In that vein, every Sunday I've cooked a meal, entirely unplanned, from whatever I find in the pantry and/or fridge. Thus Surprise Me Sunday. I think it may survive past October because it's turned out fairly well so far.

Earlier in the month I made a falafel and hummus and the following week it was chicken soup with leftover Ethiopian vegetables. Last week it was a spicy lentil soup (I added berbere) with toasted tortilla wedges and quark, which is sort of a cross between cream cheese and sour cream. Tonight's meal was basil stir fry over rice. Had basil, 1/2 an onion, orange pepper and green beans that needed to be used up. Rice in the pantry. Voila. Very simple but quite tasty.

There are several benefits to Surprise Me Sunday dinners. Most obvious, of course, is that the pantry and fridge are slowly becoming less cluttered. Random food stuffs don't get lost in the back of the pantry for years on end and fewer veggies mold in the fridge.


Less tangible is the boost to my confidence in the kitchen. I am not afraid to admit that I am not a great cook. I don't feel confident in my ability to experiment or deviate from recipes. And while I haven't tackled anything overly ambitious (yet!), just winging it with easy menus helps immensely. Eventually I'd like to make Surprise Me Sunday into a bit of a challenge ala Chopped. Take truly random ingredients and find a way to make them into something delicious. Or at least edible.

So stay tuned to see what surprise meal each Sunday brings!

Gonna do it Glee-style

Here's what happened last time.....

Isa turned 3! It was hot, hot, hot (note everyone trying to stay in the shade). There was a sprinkler and butterfly cupcakes handmade by yours truly.

Isa decided she was finally ready to be potty-trained! One morning I changed her into big girl underpants and she never looked back. Sorry, no photos of that milestone. :)

On a weekend when the grandparents took Isa, I changed her room into a "Big Girl Room" complete with canopy over the bed and a chandelier. It was very well received!

We went to several baseball games with Grandma and Papaw. Isa can sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" all by herself. Now if she'd just do it on camera....

And we went to the Puyallup Fair. There were fake cows to milk and real bunnies to pet.



We attended an event with our adoption agency down in Portland. It was fun to see so many other adorable habesha darlings, as well as our attorney who was visiting from Ethiopia. Isa had a blast at the Portland Children's Museum.

And that's what you missed.....

Not okay

Too exhausted to coherently write anything for the blog right now.

Instead, let me send you here for a great post.

And, even though it probably goes without saying, it's NOT OKAY in my world either.

Busy, busy, busy

As you can see from the date of the post (why does Blogger use the "start" date rather than "posted" date??) I started a draft of this post several weeks ago and didn't get around to finishing it. So here it is. Better late than never, right?

Heritage Camp was amazing this year. Isa was old enough to participate in more events and really interact with the other children. There were quite a few little ones there this year and they all had a blast. We met up with old friends and made quite a few new friends. The weekend in pictures:

playing an Ethiopian drum

Ephraim looking rather pleased with the addition to his harem (Elsa, not so much!)

Smile, guys!

Sawyer was such a good sport

Best buddies :)

Solome & Isa looking lovely in their traditional dresses

Isa hearts Sawyer

Dancing- lots and lots of dancing

Also lots of hugging

Isa admiring the habesha grandma's jewelry

Our travel buddy and big-girl friend "Rusalem"

On the Monday after camp we watched my friend Amanda's daughter Kaylee for the day. Kaylee is almost 11 months and very mellow. The only snag came when she resisted naptime so I put her in the Ergo, bounced and sang to her until she fell asleep.

Confession time: I've been seriously feeling the urge for another baby lately. I blame all my friends and family who have added gorgeous babies recently. I was hoping that having Kaylee and Isa for the day would show me exactly why I don't want another baby anytime soon but she was too darn easy. Having to snuggle a little baby to sleep was so lovely. Way to make it worse, Kaylee! Luckily, there isn't a chance in hell that I'll be able to afford another adoption for many years. If money was no option, I would probably be filling out paperwork right now.

On Tuesday, I was only an hour into work when Christina called to say Isa had a fever. This is only the second recorded fever that Isa has ever had. Given her unbelievably strong immune system, I know that any fever on her means she's really sick. She had a low-grade fever all day Tuesday. The fever was gone on Wednesday, but she was still really lethargic- she even took a 4 1/2 hour nap!

Happily, by Thursday morning she was fine. Which was good because Friday night my sister got married!! Isa was supposed to be the flower girl but, in true nearly-3 year old style, wasn't able to scatter her petals properly after a couple tries at Thursday's rehearsal. Mollie doesn't think that preschooler antics during a wedding are cute, so she decided to relieve Isa of her duty. I was pretty disappointed, but honestly should have known it was going to end up that way. Isa certainly can't be relied upon to do anything properly without a fair bit of practice and even then, because of her age, remains pretty unpredictable. Fortunately, she seemed to forget that she was supposed to be party of the wedding and was a model little one sitting with her cousins during the wedding and the reception dinner. As soon as the dancing started, Isa hit the floor with her cousin Caroline (wish I'd thought to put my camera in the diaper bag so I could show you pictures of those two!). She danced from about 8 until after 11. By the end she was essentially asleep on her feet but if you tried to pull her off the dance floor, she would protest loudly.

Sunday after the wedding we went to a Mariners game with my parents. Isa loves baseball, primarily because Papaw works at the stadium. Anything associated with Papaw earns high praise in Isa's book!

Up next.... a belated post on Isa's 3rd birthday and our trip to Glacier National Park.

Just to tide you over

A long, juicy post will come tomorrow or Wednesday with all the details of the last month. But here are a few brief nuggets of info.

We have a new car! It's a 2008 Mercury Mariner. I thought I'd taken a pic of the outside but now I remember that the camera batteries died right after I took the first interior shot.

Isa B is officially in print!

We went to Ethiopian Heritage Camp last weekend. Lots of wonderful photos, but I find this one especially endearing:

More to come.....

Preschool Update

Well, after much deliberation and long talks with my parents and then the preschool director, it was decided that Isa will take a break from preschool. All the crazy behavior is shouting that she's just not ready yet for preschool. On many days, there is a single teacher for the 5 children and that means no real one-on-one time. So Isa is misbehaving (in BIG ways!) in order to get that attention. We'll keep in touch with Sprout and maybe she'll be ready to try again in the fall. I really think that this preschool is a great fit for her if/when she's ready for that much time away from me, in a group setting. She did well when it was twice a week but three times a week was too much with everything else we have going. If money were no option, I'd just continue to pay the full price and send her twice a week. But our budget can't take that.

There were lots of tears on my end about this decision, primarily because I LOVE this preschool. I love the director and teacher. I love the other kiddos. I love the location. I love the entire vibe of the school. And while logically I know this has nothing to do with my parenting, it still feels like a parenting failure that my child is the one having major tantrums. It's pretty devasting when your child has such extreme behavior issues and difficult not to take it personally. Plus-let's be honest- there's also a part of me that is selfishly sad to be losing my scheduled baby-free time each week.

The upside is that we'll have more free time again. And this summer is already grossly overscheduled and a little less running around will be good. There are lots of friends that we haven't seen in months because there just hasn't been any time to get together. Without MWF school, there will be more opportunities for my parents to take Isa for overnights. Then today we took my car into the shop for a tune-up and found out that there are some major repairs needed. For example, the left front wheel could have broken off at any point- yikes! It isn't worth putting that much money into the old car, so any saved preschool money will be used towards a new car.

The 2010 to-do list is really turning out to be a bust!

Et tu, Isa B

The last two weeks at preschool have been dicey for Miss Isa B. Last Wednesday she started throwing things and Friday it got so bad that they called me to come get her. She was throwing toys AT the other kids and I could hear her wild animals screams in the background.

After racking my brain, all I could think was that it had been a very hectic couple of weeks. She was going to sleep a little later because of the longer days and still getting up by 6 a.m. So maybe she was harried and sleep deprived (a combination I know well). And she just snapped.

She spent the weekend with my parents and seemed to do well. Monday and Wednesday this week she did much better at preschool. A few minor incidents of throwing or hitting, but easily redirected and no tantrums. Pretty typical preschool stuff. I thought perhaps the previous week had just been a fluke.

Until today. When I got a call that she was again throwing. The teacher would put her in the "take a break" beanbag and instead of waiting until she'd calmed down then rejoining the group, Isa would sneak back into the room, grab something and throw it, then go back to the beanbag.

On the way home today, I asked her about it. Here was our dialogue:

Me: Isa, Miss Rachelle said you had trouble with throwing again today. Why were you so mad?

Isa: (in a sad, soft voice) I want to be with you.

Me: Don't you want to go to preschool?

Isa: No. I want to be with you.

*sigh* It's hard to argue with that. It isn't a necessity. She doesn't have to be in school because I'm working. It's supposed to be a treat for both of us. She's not yet three and she's definitely a Mama's girl. Maybe she simply isn't ready for preschool yet. To be honest, that's exactly why I didn't go to preschool- I wanted to be with my mom instead.

And now, lest this post become too depressing as I think of the loss of my morning free time, I leave you with a goofy picture of Isa, Space Cowgirl. (She's wearing a pseudo-cowboy hat and astronaut vest.)