“What’s this?” Mr. Handsome asked the other morning when he came into the kitchen and saw me dividing peanuts into four little glasses. “Do we have a bunch of Dumbos around here?”

“Ha. Very funny,” I smirked. “We just might.”

Peanuts were my latest attempt at dealing with the bickering, name calling, bad table manners, and poor attitudes that had been cluttering up my home. All the typical techniques—gentle reprimands, scoldings, shrieks, threats and dire consequences—weren’t doing the trick. My throat was raw from yakking/explaining/arguing/laying down the law, and I was exhausted. It was time to pull out the nuts.

While I’ve been accused (rightly so, I’m afraid) of being a tad bit nutty and my kids are nuts (they get it honestly), I’ve never before parented with nuts. I’ve employed pennies and mini M&Ms in the warfare against bad behavior, but the humble groundnut had, until that morning, largely been ignored.

The treatment plan is as follows:
1. Line four glasses up on the counter and place 10 peanuts (or 20 peanut halves) in each glass.
2. When a child does something wrong (talks back, name calls, disobeys, etc), announce, “I’m eating one of your peanuts,” and calmly walk to the counter and pick a nut out of the appropriate glass. And eat it. (Look at that! You can simultaneously fortify yourself and discipline your children! Three cheers for multitasking!)
3. When the allotted amount of time is up (see point number four), the kids get to eat their remaining nuts. (The Baby Nickel insists on chopping his few remaining nuts—he’s struggling, the poor kid—into as many pieces as possible so he can have more than the other kids and subsequently not feel so bad about himself.)
4. For optimum effectiveness, use the treatment for short periods of time. (We do not continue with peanut therapy in the pm; in this house it’s the mornings that are tough.)
5. For additional fun, include a cup for yourself, name a bad behavior you want to correct, and let the children monitor you.

So there you have it. After one day of peanut therapy, their behavior was much improved (even Miss Beccaboo’s, and she doesn’t like peanuts). The powerful peanut shocked them into goodness, I guess.

I wonder how long it will take the psychologists to start utilizing this new treatment plan. The new DSM is coming out in 2012—do you think they’ll make mention of this groundbreaking peanut therapy? Maybe I ought to patent it.

Yours truly,
A Dumbo Mom

P.S. Allergic to nuts? Try raisins.

About one year ago: Caramelized Onions.

Yo-Yo has been begging us to quit the spending fast. That he is unable to convince us to buy him a treat irritates him to no end. We’ve pointed out that he has his own money to spend, that he’s not starving, and that we’ve met all his needs (buying the kid underwear to replace his shredded loincloths doesn’t count as breaking the fast), but that doesn’t appease him any. Simply the idea of self-imposed frugality bugs him. What he doesn’t realize is that now that we know he’s watching and understands our little game, he’s given us more reason than ever to stick it out, to show him how few monetary needs we really have. There’s a lesson here, kiddo! Listen up!

Poor child. The suffering we inflict on him has no end.

So far we’re doing pretty good, though I must admit that I was sorely tempted to buy a coffee this morning when I went to Barnes and Noble for some writing time. To sit in a café and use their electricity (no wireless, though!) without buying anything at all brought on some tiny twinges of guilt, but I was strong. I buy coffees other times, I reasoned. I don’t need to buy them every time. (Right?)

Now that I have no flexibility with my purchases, I detest grocery shopping. Last night’s trip to the store was just so dang boring:

25-pound sack of bread flour
4 gallons of 2% milk
4 pounds of butter
10 pounds of potatoes
2 pounds of carrots
1 bunch of celery
1 container of tapioca
1 container of sour cream

As I was putting the milk in the fridge I got an incredible urge for a bowl of bought cereal, pretzels, ice cream, chips, and popcorn. So I made popcorn and opened a quart of grape juice. That was nice.

But not as nice as it could’ve been.

We still have insane amounts of food in this house. Wanna see?

Here’s the jelly cupboard. (Can you see where I took out the jar of grape juice to go with last night’s popcorn?) Mr. Handsome hauled two wash basket loads of canned goods from the basement and restocked the shelves. This is what the shelves in the basement look like now.

Still way too full. But wait! What’s that I spy? Empty canning jars! Lots of empty canning jars!

(To provide perspective, this is what we started with. It might not seem much more than what you see in these photos, but it is. Trust me.)

We’re doing our best to put a serious dent in the food supply (we’re pretty much having an applesauce free-for-all), but it’s a big job. We had three extra kids to feed yesterday, so unbeknownst to them, I enlisted their services.

Lunch: grilled cheese sandwiches with pesto from the freezer (check), oven-roasted tomatoes (check), and fruit smoothies with frozen strawberries (check) and frozen apricot chunks (check).

Mid afternoon snack: butternut squash pie (check).

Supper: biscuits with dried beef gravy (check—the beef had been in the freezer for going on two years and I still have some left), scrambled eggs, canned green beans (two quarts, check), frozen corn (1 ½ quarts, check), and some leftover rhubarb-strawberry crisp and squash pie (check, check, check).

Here’s what my freezers look like.

They’re emptying out nicely but there’s still a ridiculous amount of food in them.

I realize I’m soon going to shift my focus from freezer to garden, so I’m feeling the pressure to keep lids a-popping and bags a-defrosting. I focus on frozen and think positive thoughts. We can eat it. We can eat it. We can eat it.

As for the pantry, it’s certainly depleted (contrary to all appearances). No longer do we have white rice, cereal, wheat crackers, canned black olives, or lentils. I’m running low on whiskey, sherry, and pasta. But aside from those shortages, we’re still awash in a surprising amount of nonessentials: cracked wheat, kalamata olives, matzoh meal, coconut cream, canned pineapple, ranch dressing, canned grape leaves, dulce de leche, wine, chocolate, nuts, sweetened condensed milk, canned beans, hominy, barley, and cake flour.

There have only been a couple times that I’ve seriously felt the pinch. This morning at the café was one of those times, and the other time was when we went to Pittsburgh—making stops for junk food and coffee was out of the question (though Mr. Handsome did get a plain tall coffee because he was falling asleep—it was a question of life or death) and we relied on my brother for any entrance fees (he may have done that anyway in his role of host, but we didn’t even offer to chip in, something I don’t like not doing). (I did take him a box filled with various jars of canned goods.)

I have a list of things that I want to buy when we go off the freeze—for starters, chocolate tights, mascara, a camera battery, a flowy blouse, and sunglasses—but for now I’m sitting tight. I have a feeling that it might be quite awhile before Mr. Handsome buckles.

Until then, we certainly are in no danger of starving.

Two months, and one week and counting…..

About one year ago: To the dentist she goes, kind of.

Life has been rather tough around here lately. I’m not sure why since we have a good, stable routine (but yet did something out-of-the-ordinary), are getting enough sleep, and are eating well. Regardless, life has felt a bit overwhelming. Mostly because the kids fight continually. I tried my best to nix that on Monday (maybe I’ll write about my brilliant techniques later), but then on Tuesday night I got a new idea.

Because the forecast was calling for sunny weather and 60 to 70 degree temps for Wednesday through Saturday, I decided to shake things up a bit. Hey, I thought to myself. I can do anything I want. I’m a homeschooler. Sometimes I’m slow on the uptake.

The truth is, I’m ready to quit the kids’ studies right now. I know that homeschool families are expected to go through a bunch of draggy angst in February, but for me, the blah-fits strike when green stuff starts poking through the brown and the kids forget that they possess foot apparel. Then I just want to scream, ENOUGH! and head outdoors to the toolshed. But alas, we’ve not studied sufficiently for one year (by my self-imposed and ill-defined measuring stick), and besides, it really is too early to put up all the winter clothes. So instead, we slog through our lessons and wallow around in our sun-drenched misery.

Or not. Or not? Or NOT!

For illustration purposes, take a look at Miss Beccaboo’s poking techniques. She is The Queen of Poke:

Tuesday night I called the kids to me (saying that makes me feel like a clucky, head-bobbing hen) and informed them that for the rest of the week we would have a different schedule. We would do our school reading time in the evening (we’re between read alouds anyway, having just finished up To Kill A Mockingbird on Sunday) and review the next morning’s independent work assignments. In the morning they could sail straight through their studies and then on out the door. I would sail out after them and then we’d all do some garden work together.

We’ve now actualized one day of the new plan; it’s officially kid-tested and mother-approved.

We didn’t get outside as quickly as I had hoped—we still had chores and attitudes to deal with, after all—but outside we did get. I pruned the red raspberries and cleaned up the asparagus bed (THE ASPARAGUS IS COMING UP! I SAW A FAT WHITE SHOOT WITH MY VERY OWN EYES!) and the kids loaded up all the brush and brambles in the wheelbarrow and hauled them down to the burn pile. I transplanted out the rhubarb (and broke a shovel), and the kids worked at shoveling dirt back into a hole that they made last fall. The Baby Nickel went against my orders and collected the eggs from the coop and then one of them busted in his pants pocket. I wasn’t ready to go inside yet (I lock the doors and carry the key when we all go outside to work—it helps to keep us all on the same page) so he sat on the sunny porch steps in his underwear and “read”/shredded the newspaper flyers. We finally went inside for our lunch, which I already told you about yesterday.

Today will be only slightly different. I’m watching my friend’s children from mid-morning through supper. This means that my kids will probably get their jobs and independent work done more quickly than before and then they’ll stay outside and play all day long. Despite needing to cook bigger meals, I hope to get my flower beds cleaned up and do some weeding in the strawberries. We’ll see.

P.S. It’s still dark outside and Yo-Yo is up. He asked for a pencil and sat right down at the table to do his grammar pages. It appears we’re off to a good start!

About one year ago: Butterscotch Pudding, and Warm Chocolate Sourdough Cake (Only click on the latter link if you have a full stomach; otherwise, bad things might happen.)