My younger daughter is beginning to read.

Technically, she’s been able to read for a couple years now, but I don’t count a child as “reading” until they’re zipping through chapter books for fun. And actually, by my standards, my daughter is not quite there just yet. But she’s getting close!

I recently noticed that, for the first time ever, she was actually reading the picture books we lugged home from the library. And then, for her daily reading, I assigned her the book The One and Only Ivan and she sank into the story.

As luck would have it, Ivan was a perfect starter book. It’s thick, so it feels important, but the line spacing is wide and the chapters are short. There are simple drawings to help the story along, and the writing is nuanced and compelling. Each day she’d read a chapter or two out loud to me before reading to herself for another 20 minutes or so. At one point, she put the book down and refused to read anymore because the story was too sad. I was thrilled that the story was affecting her so deeply—nothing screams reading comprehension success louder than falling into a funk because of a book—so I sat with her while she read the rough spots. Once over the hump, she sailed through to the end.

She enjoys the American Girl series, but they’re not quite fast-paced enough for her. Harry Potter is a little too taxing yet. Magic Tree House books (which I hate) are a huge hit. I can’t keep enough on hand. Right now we’re reading Flora and Ulysses out loud together—I read one page and she reads the next—but the vocabulary (obfuscation! malfeasance! surreptitious! etc) is above her level. In retrospect, it was not the best choice.

By conventional standards, my younger daughter is a fairly late reader, but because her elementary skills are due to a lack of interest rather than a lack of ability (her older sister’s situation was reversed), and because her desire to read is steadily increasing, I am completely at ease with letting her learn at her own level. Her process feels natural and organic. The only thing I’m struggling with is finding entertaining and well-written books that take into account both her (older) age and lower skill level. Ideas, anyone?

P.S. My younger son (age 9) is also starting to take off. He’s a couple steps behind my younger daughter, but he’s in love with the Magic Treehouse series (gah). His main problem is zero patience to sound anything out.

This same time, years previous: Sally Fallon’s pancakes, out and about, the quotidian (4.23.12), cauliflower potato soup, me and you, and the radishes, the perils of homemade chicken broth, and shoofly pie.  

When we were in Pennsylvania a few weeks back, we (our family plus my parents) stayed in a little cottage belonging to some long-time friends of my parents. It was cozy and perfect, and, what with the tighter-than-normal quarters and the being-on-an-adventure feeling, it brought back heart-tugging memories of traveling around Central America. What a special year that was.

Anyway, my mother and I had made plans to bring breakfast foods and snacks, but then we received word that we weren’t supposed to bring any food—they would stock the kitchen for us. Which was super sweet and made the little getaway that much more exotic. Blue corn chips! Ostrich-sized (practically) farm eggs! Hot chocolate! Creamed honey!

I’m not a huge fan of honey, preferring jams and jellies on my morning toast, but this honey was totally different. It was like cold butter and tasted of honey, but deeper and richer without the back-of-the-throat burn that I get from regular honey.

Once home, I poked around the web, trying to learn more about this wondrous oddity. Apparently, creamed honey is just honey with a different crystalline structure. To make the change, simply beat a little creamed honey into regular honey, wait a week, and there you have it. In other words, it’s like making homemade yogurt, but sweeter.

To locate some plain creamed honey (some of the creamed honeys are flavored with weird things like lavender), I called around to a bunch of stores. It’s hard to come by in these parts, but I finally found some and my husband picked it up. Using my brand new immersion blender (DON’T DO THIS—I think I may have burned it up), I beat in the starter. For the next several days, every time I tipped the jar to see if the honey had solidified, it slumped to one side most disappointingly. Finally, I despaired. But then, a week later, I tilted the honey jar and there was no movement. Solid honey! Success!

Like yogurt, my homemade creamed honey is not as thick as the commercial variety. It’s more like a reallyreallyreally thick caramel sauce, or, conversely, like a softened chewy-hard caramel. It’s delicious on toast, millet muffins, oatcakes, in peanut butter sandwiches, and stirred into hot tea. It’s also fantastic straight off the spoon for a lazy afternoon pick-me-up.

Creamed Honey 

10 parts regular, not-grainy honey
1-2 parts creamed honey

Before starting: if your honey is grainy, set the jar in a pan of very hot water until the honey has returned to its original liquid state.

Put both honeys into a stand mixer—do not use an immersion blender—and beat until thoroughly mixed. (I’m assuming this will work but have yet to try it for myself.) Pour the honey into jars, lid tightly, and store at room temperature for one week. At this point the honey should be solid. Creamed honey will last indefinitely and will never, miraculously enough, get grainy.

This same time, years previous: out of character, ailments, and rhubarb crunch.

I struggle to find the balance between appreciating my increasing age (and the wisdom and experience that comes with it) and grieving the loss of youth and time. So a couple weeks ago I brought up the topic with the young women who meet in my home. I used three quotes to get the group thinking:

The mortality rate is holding at a scandalous 100 percent. (Tim Reider)

I once laughed at the vanity of women of thirty or forty who whitened their ruddy old skin with lead, but now I know such salves are not disguises for old crones who wish to catch a young husband. Instead they are only a mask we wear so that we can, for a little while, still recognize ourselves. (Rebecca Johns, The Countess)

Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age. (Gloria Steinem)

Funny thing was, not a single one of the women in the group was wrestling with the aging issue. They were mostly fine with getting older, and some of them were downright excited.

So then I wondered if this was an age thing (ha). I’m ten years older than the women in the group. Maybe 29-years-olds don’t think about aging and 39-year-olds do? Or am I superficial and immature and they’re extra well-adjusted? So, with the topic stalling, I shifted tactics and asked how their mothers aged. Surely they’ve seen angst there! But again, no. Rather, some of their mothers were giddy—giddy!—about getting grey hair. Which left me scratching my (greying) head because, while grey is beautiful, the fact is, it signifies “winding down” and “lost abilities” and, ultimately—not to be morbid or anything—death. I’m not stressing over those things, mind you, but I’m not exactly eager, either.

Have you seen this interview with Frances McDormand? In it, the naturally (and beautifully) aging actress gently and boldly calls out women (specifically women in the media, but I’m extending that to include women everywhere) who perpetuate the illusion of everlasting youth. Are we being fair to our daughters and sons when we try to appear what we aren’t? Are we being fair to ourselves? Where’s the line? How to “look nice” and accept the inevitable?

Then again, no matter how down-to-earth we pride ourselves on being, aren’t we all maintaining an image, masking our less-attractive traits while highlighting the nicer ones?

Why is it so hard to age with confidence?

Here’s a thought. Maybe aging is like parenting: it’s super frustrating with the first and second kids, but by baby number three you become more or less resigned to your lot in life as parent. In other words, maybe once I get a full head of grey hair and a face covered in wrinkles I’ll finally stop worrying the topic to death.

I recently learned that women, after going through menopause, experience a huge burst of energy. When I first heard this, I was all like, Wha—? How did I not know this? Because how amazing will it be to have no kids, the house paid off, and a surge of energy for who-knows-what and the-sky’s-the-limit? In the midst of my angst, this unanticipated reprieve was a balm. Aging isn’t all about winding down. There are up-swings, too. For the first time I actually felt excited for the next stage.

‘Course, maybe I’m blowing everything out of proportion. Maybe my particular burst of energy will be wildly underwhelming. But really, at this point I don’t care. Just the mere hope is enough to boost my spirits. Onward ho!

The other day when my husband and I were discussing the aging conundrum, he told me about a report he heard on NPR, the gist of which was: they put a bunch of old people in a room and told them they couldn’t talk about anything that had happened after, say, 1950. The room was time-period appropriate, with old magazines and such (I suppose, anyway). The researchers ran tests on the people before and after their time in the room. The people were healthier, more energetic, and appeared more youthful in photos after their 1950’s hangout. In other words, thinking you’re younger can actually make you younger.

Another example of this mind-over-matter trick: you know how nurses are always on their feet, but many of them aren’t healthy and say they have no time to workout? Well, the researchers told them that they needed to treat their job as a workout. Basically, they were to pretend they were working out all day. Sure enough, their weight dropped, general health improved, and so on.

Maybe the best way to deal with aging is to pretend it’s not happening? I mean, prepare a will, draw up a funeral plan, and have realistic expectations about how many (and what sort of) interventions you’ll do and then turn a blind eye? Like, instead of doing the crossword puzzles to keep the mind from atrophying, do them because they’re fun! Or, instead of working out to shore up the decrepit muscles, exercise because it feels awesome! Instead of retiring because you can’t keep up, move on because you have other things on which you want to focus your energy! It’s not lying, it’s just reframing. Right?

Is this too Pollyanna-ish? Or is it just plain smart?

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (4.21.14), therapy, chocolate ice cream, my lot, chocolate mayonnaise cake, bacon-wrapped jalapenos, and what they really want.