My husband and I were up too late planning a surprise for the children, and then I couldn’t sleep because I kept dreaming about the surprise. Also, I couldn’t sleep because a wicked fever blister was in the process of breaking out on my lip. I kept bumping it in my sleep, jolting myself awake with pain every single time, and then I started having nightmarish visions in which my whole face turned into one violent blister. So I woke up tired.

But not cranky tired, like how I woke up yesterday morning, thanks to a certain little boy who climbed into bed with me while I was in the middle of a fabulous dream, a dream in which I discovered that the local liquor store had a pie shop in the back—(I was stunned and thrilled and then all day long, when I was fully awake, I kept musing over this fascinating revelation) (they had home canned green beans, too)—and woke me up. He was chattering to himself under his breath, and when I overheard, “I love waking up to birds singing,” my irritation almost melted, but it wasn’t until I went downstairs, stomped around while making my coffee, lectured my little bird-loving angel, and barked at my husband several times, only then was I finally able to get over my rude awakening.

I have no idea how I survived a decade of interrupted sleep. It must’ve been the oxytocin.

My husband took my son to work with him this morning. My husband (and fellow workers) are tearing down a house that burned, getting ready to rebuild, and it’s the sort of thing that my son can actually help out with. He wore my husband’s carhartt jacket and work boots. The jacket was a little big; the boots fit.

The remaining children and I ate our granola and then huddled around the fire. I read a bunch of books to them, and they worked on their math problems (one child suffered an extended hissy fit), and I knitted.

I started another hat yesterday morning. I got the whole thing going all by myself, no twisting or dropped stitches (yet). I am immensely satisfied. I have high hopes of not being A Lost Knitting Cause.

While the kids went upstairs to play and fight (they never did figure out which), I took notes on potential Kitchen Chronicles, planned a few meals, scrubbed potatoes, and got some food—chicken broth, spinach, corn—out of the freezer to thaw.

Lunch was sandwiches and applesauce. There’s nothing sweet in the house, so I had my afternoon coffee all by itself.

I’ve been meaning to tell you about this oatmeal that I’ve been eating most mornings (though not today—today was granola, remember?), but I never know what to say about it so I don’t say anything. Which isn’t really fair because there’s a good chance you might enjoy it as much as I do, even though it’s low-key, like my morning.

I already have a steel-cut oatmeal recipe in the index but this one is better. The oats get toasted in butter, which adds all sorts of flavor, and I cut back on the water, eliminating any hint of gummy. The end result is an oatmeal that is chewy and nutty, and utterly satisfying.

Toasted Steel-Cut Oatmeal
Inspired by Sarah of Recipes for a Postmodern Planet and Kim Boyce, author of Good to the Grain

Nuts, berries, and maple sugar are optional, but lovely.

1 cup steel-cut oats
1 tablespoon butter
3 cups water
½ teaspoon salt

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the oats and stir for several minutes, or until the oats are fragrant and a couple shades darker. Add the water and salt and stir to combine. Bring to a boil and stir well before reducing the heat to low and lidding the pan. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, or until the liquid is absorbed and the oats are chewy-tender.

This same time, years previous: the case of the whomping shovel

*sunbathing: they were all kicked out of the house while I had my writing group, so they spread out the beach towels, played card games, and got sunburned
*rock-a-bye baby
*a rag swing
*braids: she’s finally letting me do something with her hair! Now if I could just convince her to let me trim it…
*cat on chair
*chocolate chip cookies
*Calvin and Hobbs and some afternoon zzzs
*completed and imperfect: I have a lot to learn
*he made us tea and then shrink-wrapped it so it would stay warm
*caramelized sprouts: I ate them with lots of lemon, feta, and some brown rice
*Valentine’s Day sweetness, savored

This same time, years previous: homemade Twix bars, dulce de leche coffee, blueberry cornmeal muffins, the morning after

When I got up this morning, I put on something other than a t-shirt, fleece, and my one-and-only pair of everyday jeans.

I attribute my ruffles to the fact that it’s Friday and I don’t have nine kids in my house, and to my current infatuation with Downton Abbey. Actually, “infatuation” might be a little strong. I’m enjoying the show a good deal—it’s so calm and, and … stately—but I’m not completely hooked. Or maybe I am and I just don’t know it? My husband refuses to watch it with me. The whole lord and servant thing makes him mad.

About the nine kids thing—well, this was us at supper last night.

We had beans and rice and all the fixings (contrary to all appearances, there was food to eat—I made plates-to-order in the kitchen in hopes of keeping the mess to a minimum) and a dessert bar—cake, two kinds of cookies, and fresh rhubarb pie, courtesy of my sister-in-law.

Afterwards, my husband and I blitzed the house while two of the girls washed dishes, kids got baths, and the baby entertained any of the kids that weren’t bathing or washing dishes.

By 7:30, the house was shipshape and all the kids ran off to play. I sat down in the rocker, someone plopped the baby in my lap, and she promptly conked out. I sniffed her head, held her pudgy hands, and visited with the other adult, until we were interrupted by a push-up competition (I did not participate), at which point everything got loud and chaotic and then the parents came to collect their progeny and we tossed our kids in bed, the end.

But backing up the boat a leedle farther… The night before (Wednesday night, for those of you keeping track), three of the extra kids spent the night. It was a night from hell. The littlest child woke up at 1:30 with the homesick blues. Over the course of the next hour and a half, he went from sniffles to full-blown gut-wrenching, eardrum-piercing howls. Two of the other kids woke up and tried to help out, all to no avail. We finally put Sad Boy on the floor in our room and shut the door. My husband lay down with him, but it wasn’t until the kid was sobbing at the top of his lungs that I finally turn on the light and told him sternly that he could not cry like that because he would wake the other kids. And then he went to sleep.

Lesson learned: zero tolerance for homesickness works. Perhaps?

Except that the torture wasn’t over yet because we had to keep the light on, and I couldn’t sleep very well with my retinas getting scorched and all. Also, I felt disoriented because my husband’s feet were where his head should be since he was sleeping upside down in order to be closer to Sad Boy. Not that a big man head hanging over the foot of the bed would actually be a comfort.

At 4:30, when I realized the kid was sleeping—hallelujah!—I gingerly switched off the light. But just when I was nodding off—I do not believe this!—he started up again with the sniffling so I had to turn the light on again. My poor eyeballs.

In the morning, phrases from Clarence’s speech (better yet, watch it) kept rolling through my head. The words were indecipherable, more like moanings with a cadence, but it was Clarence’s voice in my head, for sure. I felt his anguished presence.

O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such night
Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days–
So full of dismal terror was the time.


La-de-da-de-da.

All that to say, I’m really digging today’s leggings and ruffles and quiet house.

This same time, years previous: coconut pudding, an open letter to Isaiah, I don’t feel much like writing