I just finished a slice of warm homemade bread topped with fresh homemade strawberry-blueberry jam. That was after hanging the curtain panel I finished sewing today for the kids’ room. Which I worked on after taking the kids on a playdate, which was then followed by the ‘rock concert’ they produced outside on the neighbor’s front lawn (which is at the perfect ’stage’ height next to ours) - they sang and danced to hits like “How much is that puppy in the window?”, “Rockin’ Robin”, and “Hit the Road Jack”. At the top of their preschool lungs. I think I should have charged our neighbors admission. Or at least a cover charge.

My goals for tomorrow? Reorganize the nursery closet, drop off donations my kids picked out for Goodwill,  churn my own butter, train for that marathon I always wanted to run, and papier mache a lifesize replica of Michaelangelo’s David.

This whole bio-diesel and alternative fuel trend has done a number on our grocery budget. The problem is, corn or corn-derived products are in just about everything. And if they’re not in it, they’re used to make it. But corn is now in high demand to produce alternative fuels, and that’s driven the price of corn up and up and up.

If you removed everything that depends on corn from your grocer’s shelves the grocery store would look more like a hardware store. With corn prices skyrocketing, the cost of everything else we eat is going up. And for my family, that has corresponded with a growth in the number of people eating our food. In the last 6 months we went from 4 people to 7 people in the house and our food budget is getting out of control.

Up until now we tried to control it by not eating out anymore and cutting back on convenience foods. We’ve been making our own bread, and lately making our own jam. But it’s still out of control. So over the last month or so my mother-in-law has been planting vegetables. Some are of her choosing (beets, garlic, parsley, potatoes - things that aren’t too expensive or that we don’t use much), but others are things I picked out - tomatoes, bell peppers, and… BLUEBERRIES! I’m looking forward to eating locally - as local as it gets - straight from our backyard. In fact, I made a salad last week out of lettuce, and beet leaves, and parsley from our garden. It was a bit of a hassle to clean all those leafy greens, but I have to remind myself that I don’t have to buy $1.99 bags of salad anymore.

So, with the cost of food skyrocketing, what are you doing to make it easier? I’m thinking about making my own cheese, but I don’t know if that’ll save enough money to make the time spent worthwhile. Any other ideas out there for frugal feeding?

It’s official. My semi-professional business-mobile minivan has been christened. It is now a soccer-mom taxi. Ages ago when I was an SUV-driving suburbanite hip mom I posted this lovely bit of YouTube-dom. For those of you who don’t want to click over, it’s “Mom my ride” - a tongue in cheek play on Pimp My Ride, only for minivan driving moms. A few short months later I tragically traded in my super-cool SUV for a white minivan. Yes, white. As if there weren’t enough white minivans on the road already to populate an entire nation.

And I kept my minivan mostly clear of any kid-related mess. No spoiled milk. No sippy cups. Crumbs cleaned up quickly, no soccer ball dents or diaper-related clutter. My minivan was for business use (well, and personal mom use too, to be fair).

But yesterday I came back to my minivan after it had been parked in the hellish heat of a parking lot for 2 hours in the middle of the day only to find melted crayon. On my leather seats. Melted yellow crayon. That’s it for me. The tide has turned. Next thing you know I’ll be cleaning up curdled milk and spilled juice boxes, picking up little plastic action figures (and their body parts), bemoaning the fact that the back seat is littered with clean diapers, coloring pages, and the occasional stale animal cracker (I say occasional only because my 2-year old is bound to find them and eat them off the floor before they go stale). The melted crayon is only the beginning.

Bruiser smiled today. It was his first smile, and it was the most precious smile ever beheld by human eyes. (Ok, so I’m a bit biased.)

And what else? I was going through Bean’s school bag today with all the stuff from her last day of preschool, and I happened across an “About Me” page they did last week. On the fill-in-the-blank question for what she wants to be when she grows up she wrote “Mommy.” She makes my heart smile.

1. More people to love your kids every day.
2. They can get up with the kids in the morning - and you can sleep in! (Oh happy day!!!)
3. You can have date nights any time, without hiring a babysitter!
4. You get help with housework.
5. Your mind will be expanded as you learn all the ways they used to do things, back in the day (or back in the USSR, in my case).
6. You’ll hone your skills for diplomacy - but it’s too bad the UN won’t accept ‘My in-laws lived with me’ as actual experience on a resume.
7. You’ll develop a new appreciation for your husband - for all the ways he ‘overcame the odds.’
8. You won’t have to worry any more about becoming prideful - it just won’t be a possibility.
9. Learn new things about yourself - like, what is the true extent of your patience?
10. Never be lonely again

Is Mudlark these days? Good question. Most of the time I’m reveling in the fact that I’m getting my family back. Back from where, you might ask? Well, let’s just say I’m regaining control of my kids. Over the last 6 months I sank into working-mom-dom, followed by overdue pregnancy blues, and then into blissful new mom-hood. Blissful new mom-hood brought with it the realization that I wasn’t a stay at home mom for 4 years just to turn my kids over to someone else and let them teach them all the things I don’t want them to learn.

So lately I’ve been reclaiming my children. They like it, I think. Except for the fact that reclaiming them means re-instituting rules that they’ve gotten away from. And the sudden onset of discipline (which they’ve lacked for, oh, about 6 months). But I have a secret to tell you… shhh… (if you’re under the age of 15 stop reading here)… here it is… kids like discipline. They like to know the rules and understand where the boundaries are. So I may be the heavy right now, but my kids are happier. And they’re becoming the sweet, respectful, well-mannered children I thought I’d lost.

Wanna know what else I’ve been doing? Watching Lost. Lots of it. Fast and furious. Hour after hour. The minute we get the kids in bed we camp out on the couch and watch pirated creatively-obtained episodes of Lost, accompanied by popcorn or ice cream. We’re half way through season 3.

No worries - I’m not wasting time. I’m nursing. Which is good because we found out today that Bruiser (baby #3 - we decided that his earlier coined nickname, Peanut, definitely didn’t fit him) isn’t gaining weight. As in, in 2 weeks’ time he’s only gained an ounce. He’s quite a bit longer, but he’s getting skinnier by the day. (Note: this is probably not due to my stellar diet - note the popcorn and ice cream course enjoyed nightly with Lost). So I say, Moms, ignore the docs. You know your kid best. I called to schedule a weight check and they hesitated to let me come in - ’silly mom, don’t be so paranoid… your kid is probably just fine!’ But I was right. I knew my kid wasn’t gaining, and I’m so glad I found out now rather than waiting until his next appointment in a month!

The lactation consultant said he’s lazy. No news to me! That would explain why he stubbornly refused to heed my pleas to exit my womb on time. And his reluctance to respond to the pitocin in the hospital and just. come. out. Lazy kid. That’s okay though. There’s grace for that. And lots of nursing. Which very well might bring more Lost. And ice cream. And popcorn. It’s a rough life…