Acceptance

Noah has been driving me crazy over clothes lately.  I almost feel bad saying that, because Noah, who is so easy-going and level-headed and mature, very rarely drives me crazy over anything.  In the past couple of weeks, though, whenever the temperature outdoors has taken a significant nosedive from its unseasonable warmth, Noah and I have had a standoff in the morning.  One day I suggested he wear jeans instead of shorts, and he vehemently protested, "Everyone else will be wearing shorts!"  (Trust me, you would not have wanted to see the look of utter disgust he threw me when we arrived at school and saw his friends all (shivering, I might add) in shorts!)  I insisted he wear his winter coat instead of a spring jacket one day (because the temperature had plummeted back to sub-zero), and he huffed and stomped around and muttered several times under his breath, "Everyone else will be wearing a lighter jacket."  It has kind of caught me off-guard, seeing the boy who previously had no opinion whatsoever about clothing suddenly become keenly aware of being "just like everyone else."

I realize that this awareness of others and the desire to fit in with them is a normal part of human development, and part of the way we establish our own identity.  I went through it at his age, too.  I have a very clear recollection of a heated argument between my mom and I over whether it was practical or utterly ridiculous to wear rainboots to school in grade 8.  (You can guess which side I was on, but honestly, today I take my mom's point of view and splash around happy as a duck in my wellies on rainy days!)  I also remember being freezing cold for six months out of the year as a teenager because, in my efforts to dress like other kids my age, I insisted on wearing Matt's leather cross-country team jacket unbuttoned on my daily half-hour walk to and from highschool, in frigid Sault Ste. Marie winters.  (I took the word "cool" to a whole new level.)  My parents used to use the example, "If all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?" to try to get me to see that it was not always wise to follow others.  I'm sure I probably just rolled my eyes at them and protested that there was a big difference between clothes and bridges, because when I found myself inadvertently using that exact same line on Noah last week, that's what he did to me.  I realize, as a parent now, that my mom and dad probably used that example because it's really difficult to otherwise explain to a child this valuable life lesson that took us adults decades to learn (and that sometimes, honestly, we all still forget).

We humans are pretty hard on ourselves and each other sometimes, even as grown-ups.  While we talk about acceptance and acknowledge that difference is a beautiful thing, how often do we still stare and judge, shake our heads and talk behind backs, exclude and ignore, build ourselves up by taking others down?  How often do we doubt the voice within us that wants so much to be heard, and listen instead to the thousand outside voices that try to shout in unison, the ones that drown out the softer, more meaningful sounds?  Children who ridicule other kids in the schoolyard for not wearing the right clothes, or not playing the right sports, or not listening to the right music, become adults who inwardly criticize other parents in the schoolyard for not feeding their kids the right foods, or not signing them up for the right activities, or not limiting their daily screen time.  There are always both kids and adults in the world who feel left out and lost and lonely because they think that they don't fit in.  Sometimes we forget that it's okay to be ourselves and to let others be themselves, too -- we don't need to be the same to appreciate and respect one another.

I like to think that I am confident in who I am, but I'll admit that inside, I have always had a strong desire to please other people.  I really work at not letting that desire sway me from being my best self.  There are times, even here on this blog, where I have a moment or two of panic after I hit "publish", wondering if people are going to judge me for my thoughts, for what I believe in and feel is important, and hoping that people are going to "Like" my posts, and, by extension, me.  It takes courage for all of us to show the world what's in our hearts, and we should remember to be kind to others when they have the bravery to reveal their true selves.  Our relationships with others have the potential to enrich our lives beautifully; we are social creatures with a need to feel connected to and accepted by others of our kind.  We have to watch, though, that our need for belonging doesn't ever make us think that we're not good enough just the way we are.

In day-to-day life, Noah's desire to want to wear the same kind of clothes as his friends is pretty harmless.  But it's the realization that soon there will be other, much more important issues for Noah to face, and decisions for him to make, that causes me to think so much about how he might be influenced by his peers.  I hope that Noah will realize that what makes him, or any individual, so wonderful is that none of us will ever be "just like everyone else".  I hope he'll understand that he shouldn't want to be just that.  I hope Noah will always be able to tune out the noisy voices that go against what feels right to him, and hear most clearly the one strong, confident voice deep within that will forever lead him down the road to his own happiness.

Quick, kid-friendly fare (homemade chicken fingers and "chips")

In today's fast-paced world, families are often looking for quick meals to eat in the short time between when everyone gets home from work and school and when they need to be somewhere else for evening activities.  We have two weekday nights like that; Noah has swim practice at 5:15 every Tuesday and Thursday evening, and it's always a bit of a scramble to fit in homework and a healthy dinner before we rush back out the door.  I have to be sure to plan something that's relatively easy to make, that will give Noah the protein and energy he needs for swimming, and that the boys are likely to eat in a reasonable amount of time, which, if you've read about their selective eating habits, is no easy feat!

These homemade, gluten-free chicken fingers are one of my perfect solutions:  they're quick to prepare and cook, and quick to disappear off the boys' plates, because Noah and Will really love them!  Served with these roasted sweet and russet potato "chips", and a mixed green salad loaded with colourful veggies, they make a nutritious dinner that is hands down better than a Happy Meal.

Crispy Corn Flake Chicken Fingers

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, sliced into strips lengthwise
3 cups corn flake cereal (I use Nature's Path brand, which is gluten-free, and sweetened with fruit juice rather than sugar)
sea salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 400 F.
In a food processor, pulse corn flake cereal to make coarse crumbs.  Pour cereal crumbs into a shallow dish, and add sea salt and pepper to taste.  Mix crumbs with seasonings.

Place chicken breast strips a few at a time into the cereal crumb mixture.  Press crumbs onto chicken strips with your hands (or a fork, if you're squeamish like I am!) until each strip is well-coated, then place chicken strips onto a wire rack on a baking sheet. 

Once all chicken strips are coated with cereal crumbs, place baking sheet in the preheated oven and bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink inside.  Remove from oven and serve.

The corn flake coating crisps up nicely in the oven and results in great tasting chicken fingers with a crunchy outside and a tender inside.  Leftover chicken fingers packed with a variety of raw veggies make a great kids' lunch at school the next day, too.  The best part about them, though, is that on busy weeknights, they make all of us happy!

Soap, shampoo, and a SPIDER!

I shared my shower with a spider this morning.  There I was, minding my own business, taking a few moments to fully wake up under the warm, running water and using the quiet time to think about stuff (because really, isn't the shower the best place for thinking?), when all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something skittering towards me on the wall.  My first thought in my instantly VERY awake state was a panicked string of words not fit for repeating here.  But then, and I'm not sure whether it was because of all the yoga I've been practising lately, or the memory of my poor mom's long ago run-in with an earwig in the bathtub that resulted in a broken rib or two in her attempts to escape it, or the constant pleas from Will to let undesirable creepy crawly things "live their natural life" rather than schmucking them, I calmed down, and decided to do nothing.

Yes, folks, there was a spider, less than three inches from my face, and I did nothing.  Sure, I kept throwing him furtive glances over my shoulder while I shampooed and rinsed, and I wasn't particularly happy about him being there, but I managed to convince myself that really, he was only an innocent little spider, and likely not able to chew my arm off or anything.  After awhile I got more bold around the spider, and started studying him with an inquisitiveness Noah and Will would have been proud of.  I noticed with fascination that he was dipping his front legs in water droplets on the shower wall and then putting each leg in his mouth (do spiders have mouths?) for a few seconds, as if he were taking a drink (do spiders take drinks?).  I started thinking like the boys do, and had a Eureka! moment where I realized that if I attached a tiny squeegee-type cleaning implement to the spider somehow, he could actually clean my shower while he roamed about!  Now wasn't that fascinating!?

Feeling very pleased with my reasonable approach to the spider in my shower, I decided to share my moment with Will once I was dressed.  I told him there had been a spider in my shower, and when he asked me what I did about it, I said, "Nothing.  I just let him be."

"Oh, that's good,"  Will reassured me.  "I have a spider in my shower, too.  I just leave him alone.  We're both happy that way."

And just as I was about to go merrily about the rest of my day, Will, whose eyeballs have been absolutely glued to this book



since we borrowed it from the library on Saturday, and who is now our resident expert on all of the terrible things that could possibly happen to a person, very matter-of-factly dropped this little gem of advice on me:

"You'll be alright as long as you don't see a Sydney funnel-web spider.  It's black, and about the size of the palm of your hand.  It will grab you, bite you several times with fangs as sharp as a sand tiger shark, and kill you if you don't get treatment within an hour."

 Thanks, Will.  I may never shower again.

Colourful quinoa salad

The vibrant blooms popping up everywhere outside lately have taken my usual cravings for fresh, colourful foods up a notch, and the meals coming out of our kitchen this week have been another welcome sign of spring.  On today's lunch menu was this delicious quinoa salad, which I threw together quite easily using some already cooked quinoa, a bunch of bright, crunchy veggies from the crisper, and a zingy homemade citrus vinaigrette.

If you haven't yet tried quinoa, a highly nutritious (and gluten-free) ancient grain, let me encourage you to add it to your diet!  Quinoa is a complete, balanced protein, rich in fibre and vitamins, and is really tasty prepared as a hot breakfast cereal, used in any warm dish where you would normally use rice, or eaten cold in a salad like this one.

Colourful Quinoa Salad

1 cup uncooked quinoa  (I buy the truRoots brand from Costco which is already pre-rinsed; if your quinoa is not pre-rinsed, it is very important to rinse it well under running water for 3 minutes or it will taste bitter)
2 cups water
1/2 cup green beans, chopped into bite-sized pieces (I blanched the beans by dropping them into a pot of boiling water for 30 seconds, draining them, plunging them into a bowl of ice water, and then draining them again)
1/2 cup cucumber, diced
1 small carrot, cut in half lengthwise and then thinly sliced
1 stalk of celery, diced
1/4 - 1/2 of a red pepper, diced
1/4 - 1/2 of a yellow pepper, diced
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tbsp chopped fresh chives (I actually picked these out of my herb garden today, if you can believe it!  We love an early spring!)

For the dressing:

juice of 1/2 a lemon, freshly squeezed
juice of 1/2 an orange, freshly squeezed
1 tbsp mixed lemon and orange zest
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp raw honey
sea salt and pepper, to taste

Place quinoa and water in a saucepan over high heat.  Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.  Remove saucepan from heat and let quinoa stand for 5 minutes.  Fluff quinoa with a fork and let cool.

In a large bowl, combine cooled quinoa, blanched green beans, cucumber, carrot, celery, red and yellow peppers, parsley and chives. 

Combine all dressing ingredients in a jar with a tight fitting lid, and shake well.  Pour dressing over quinoa, veggies and herbs and stir gently until dressing is well-distributed.

It's best if you can prepare this salad an hour or two ahead of when you plan to serve it, and then let it sit in the fridge to allow the flavours to mix and intensify. Mmmmm!

This wholesome salad makes a lovely lunch -- I served ours on a bed of fresh baby spinach leaves and sprinkled it with chopped walnuts to add even more colour and crunch.  I hope, if you try it, that this salad will brighten your day!

Rise and shine

Suddenly, everything feels new and different in the world around me.  There are times when this feeling has unsettled me, made me sense that maybe my feet weren't planted firmly on the ground and that I might tumble off an edge somewhere, but now is not one of those times.  Today the change is a ray of sunshine, a breath of fresh air that wraps me in a friendly embrace and makes me feel like I'm floating on the notes of a pretty melody. 

In just a few short weeks, the outside view has gone from this

to this

and the lightning quick shift in seasons seems to have awoken new life everywhere I look.  Though the same process happens sometime every spring, its breathtaking beauty never ceases to fill me with joy and wonder.

I love living in a part of the world where the seasons change so noticeably.  It's a frequent reminder that humans, like all living things, were never meant to be static.  Just as the delicate green buds burst forth from their confining skins each spring, just as the early blooming flowers turn their lovely faces to the sun for encouragement, just as the sweetly chirping birds build marvelous nests in which to nurture new life, so too should we be inspired to grow, and blossom, and create all over again as we move through the seasons of our life.  If we've been sleeping too long through the gray sameness of winter, spring reminds us that there is always more beauty deep within us, ready to unfold if we heed its tentative whispers and give it the nourishment it needs to flourish.

I'm inspired by the tender transformations all around me this time of year.  The loveliness of spring is gentle proof that we don't need to fear or resist change, for it has the power to lead us to a fuller, more vibrant life.  This wonderful truth seen in nature calls me to walk confidently and happily forward, each footstep solidly grounded by past experience and earned wisdom, each heartbeat and thought reaching up into the bright blue beyond, full of hope and promise and wonder for what I am yet to become.

For the love of music

When we were kids, my brother Frank and I used to entertain ourselves by "writing" and performing our own songs.  One composition that sticks out in my mind was a ridiculous country song we called The Breakfast Blues.  Frank would get out his guitar and strum an overly dramatic melancholy tune, and I would belt out the story of some poor sap who lost his dog and his truck, and who had to eat burnt toast for breakfast (which, to a kid, I suppose, is a real cause for woe).  Our songs were hilarious to us (and probably more than mildly annoying to our poor parents), but our performance exercises actually helped lead Frank and I to some serious and useful discoveries:  first, that there would definitely not be a singing career in my future (thankfully, I do have other talents!), but more importantly, that Frank had a wonderful gift and a true love for music, one that he would continue to nurture and develop beautifully as time went on.

In the years since our early duets, Frank has poured his heart and a lot of hard work into his music, and he has grown into an incredibly talented songwriter, performer, and teacher.  It's fascinating to me to hear him talk of the broad range of creative projects he's working on, ones that encompass many different genres of music and allow him opportunities to travel and meet interesting new people.  Listening to his recorded albums and hearing him play and sing live always fills me with huge emotions, both because his music is so honest and inspiring, and because I'm so proud of the amazing person my little brother has become.  I have such a deep admiration for the way he has always been true to himself, for how he has followed his dreams and filled his life with what he loves best, no matter how difficult that may have been for him at times.

I'm very excited about Frank's latest music project:  a new album with a new band and a tour that will bring him to my city to perform.  frank deresti and the lake effect's this time, a folk/jazz/roots-influenced collection of songs, will be released on April 12th, and you can listen to the title track here:



Thank you for sharing your extraordinary talents with the world, Frank.  Your beautiful music moves us all.

You can find more information about frank deresti and the lake effect and a schedule of their upcoming tour here. 

Just "four" fun

We've been having a really marvelous March Break around here.  For the most part, the weather has been beautifully sunny and warm, and our days have been filled with hours of outdoor play and the laughter of giddy cousins who were thrilled to be together after a long time apart.  My brother Jamie and his two lovely children were here visiting for the first half of the week, and the four kids enjoyed sports of all kinds in the mild outdoor air, making and flying paper spacecraft, building forts, taking a trip to a local maple sugar bush to sample the sweet taste of spring, and just generally being kids in all their wonderfully silly glory.  As for Jamie and I, we filled our hearts up watching our kids having so much fun together, and enjoyed having an unrushed opportunity to catch up on the details of each other's lives.

Oh, and I'll throw in a cute little spring lamb, too!

It's always such a treat to be reunited with extended family members we don't get to see very often due to us living far apart from each other.  When our four children were born, Jamie's family and mine lived in the same city, and we all shared many good times in those early years of the kids' lives.  I love how the four cousins just pick up wherever they left off each time they're together again now; time and distance don't seem to have any effect on the special ties they made all those years ago and still have to each other.  I love, too, how seeing my nephew and niece gives me a chance to replace the mental images of them I've lovingly stored in my mind since our last visit with new pictures, ones that reflect how much they've grown and changed.  When I think of Ryan now, I'll see a more mature version of his sweet, freckled face and hear his smart and sensitive words in the conversations we had this week.  I'll remember Megan's shy, cute grin, which has now lost all traces of babyhood, and I'll see the twinkle she had in her eye whenever she was around our pets.  The only sad part about seeing these wonderful kids and their dad is that it made us all more keenly aware of how much we miss them when they're not here anymore.

The weather changed drastically this morning; gray skies and thunder and large drops of rain rolled in as Jamie and the kids, the boys and I were saying our goodbyes.  It was as if Mother Nature was sensing our collective wistful mood.  Once the cousins' vehicle disappeared from view, Noah retreated to his bed once again where he moped and read for the rest of the morning, and Will wandered the house for a long while, sadly repeating that he just didn't know what to do.  Personally, I've been finding the house a little too quiet and rather empty with only three of us in it today.  We are all so very glad, though, that we had the chance to spend a few truly delightful days with family.  Our memory banks are now once again full with a beautiful collection of warm, sunny moments we will hold very close to us until we can all be together again.