Breakfast Quiche

We have some out of town guests here to stay and so I prepared a little breakfast ahead today. It's a quiche (or two of them, actually) made from left overs from last night's dinner. My husband made a sausage, shrimp and lobster boil last night. There was a huge pot of it left over. So I did what I do pretty often when we have a lot left over and tried to put some of the ingredients together in a different dish.

I think it's pretty easy. I buy a frozen pie crust at our local natural food store. Then I follow the Mollie Katzen recipe below, substituting whatever ingredients I think might taste good in a pie shell with cheese and surrounded by a baked egg-cream custard. http://www.fabulousfoods.com/recipes/mollie-katzen-s-gruyere-quiche

I hope my guests will enjoy this tomorrow morning or even as a late night snack.

Anticipatory Grief

Over a year ago, my husband's father was diagnosed with cancer. It was shortly after my husband and kids and I went with him and my mother in-law to South Dakota to visit the tourist sights there. My children were on Spring Break from school. I had planned to take them to Springfield, IL alone since my husband would be working. I called my in-laws to ask if they would like to meet up along the way since they live in Chicago and generally enjoy taking road trips. Instead, my father in-law became very excited about taking us all to South Dakota. He didn't want to take "no" for an answer and despite having a lot of work to do, my husband finally agreed to put everything aside and make a go of a long road trip together.

It was a lot of fun. My in-laws have a lot of love for South Dakota's Badlands and Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument. We were there before the summer crowds and so we got to enjoy the sights without waiting in long lines or pushing past a lot of other tourists. We stopped along the road and watched buffalos roam and prairie dogs pop their heads up from holes in the ground. We climbed up rocks and hiked on paths. It was exciting for my kids. My father in-law loves to teach them about geology and my mother in-law loves to tell stories about adventures that she has been on in her life. None of us knew that only a week or so after our trip we would be given such frightening news.

Since then, most of the focus of our time with my in-laws has been on making the time for my father in-law memorable for my kids and my husband and comfortable for him. There have been some arguments and tears about putting together plans for what will happen after he is gone. The large majority of what we have experienced, however is a greater appreciation for the role he has played in my husband's life and for the love that he has been able to give so freely to my children.

The first couple of months were confusing since I wanted to so much to support and help my mother in-law and she seemed to be very strongly against allowing me to help in any way. I had thoughts of bringing food over and stocking her freezer with meals that I would prepare for them so that when the chemo treatments came, at least she wouldn't have to cook. I thought of helping her clean to give her more time to be with him doing things they would both enjoy. I had to step back and allow her to tell me what she was comfortable with allowing me to do to help. Since that is nothing--I have had a pretty easy go of things.

My father in-law has done much better with chemotherapy and radiation than anyone expected. He and my mother in-law rented a place in the town we live in so that they can come here and stay together without being in our home. We used to have them come to stay for long stretches of time and found that it was not easy to get along after a few days. I don't think it was what they liked hearing, but I thought it was better that they stay in their own place. I'm not a morning person and they like big cooked breakfasts that go on and on with lots of talking in the morning. I like my routine of spending time with my husband alone at night after the kids go to bed and they tended to like to share that time with us every night. We eat more when they stay with us. We eat less healthy foods when they stay with us. We argue over who is in charge and who should be disciplining the kids and so forth. There is a lot more cleaning for me to do. All of the rules the kids expect to live by when it is just us in the home become relaxed and after a while, I feel really removed from what is going on with my husband and kids who naturally focus on the people who are happy and lively and talking. I find myself staying in the background and trying to keep order in the home and growing resentful when I would rather not. When they stay in their own place, they visit and go home and we all have a much better time.

With all of this happening, it is easy to forget that our time together is short. Last night, my daughter couldn't sleep and asked me for a bedtime story at midnight. She really couldn't sleep. I told her a story that in my mind was a little like what I could remember of the book, "Heidi". It may actually be nothing like the book. I read it so long ago that I really only remember a few of the details. I pictured a man with a gray beard who could be grumpy and was determined to do things on his own. So that's how I started the story. I told her that he lived far above the village away from the rest of the people and only grunted 'hello' when he had to because someone in the village was determined to be friendly to him. He let his beard grow long and he wore his clothes the way he liked them instead of worrying about what others wore. Often times, they weren't very clean by the time he got to the village to sell his goat's milk because he did a lot of his work along the way. I said that this little girl kept wandering around the meadow where his goats would eat flowers and she would drink from the spring of water that ran from the mountain where he lived. He wanted to tell her to go away but he didn't. Instead, he taught her how to take care of the goats. He showed her the garden where he grew his vegetables and made stew for her to share with him while they read stories by the fire. He didn't tell her that he liked to be around her. He just told her that the stew was her reward for helping him with his chores. He listened to her sing and didn't tell her that it made him happy. Before long, they were friends. Once they were friends, he told her she meant the world to him. She kissed his forehead and said she knew that. When he grew ill, she came to his cottage to talk to him, but he sent her away. She returned again and again anyway and delivered flowers, milk from the goats and cheese and bread. She sang to him. She brought her parents to help him when he got very sick and while he didn't like accepting their help, he finally allowed them to be his friends, too. Before he died, he held her hand and told her she was the best friend he ever had and she never forgot how happy she felt to have been able to make a difference in his life or the lessons he taught her about how to care for the animals or the plants near his home in the mountains. When she grew up, she raised her children in the mountains and she would tell them stories about her friend who was so grumpy and stayed away from the villagers but really wasn't grumpy and really liked people a lot after all.

My daughter loved the story. I hope my daughters will both remember how happy they have made their Grandpa over the last eleven years. I think they will. I worry about the grief ahead, but I am grateful for the time we have now.

Scattered Thoughts on Parenting

My children asked me to tell them a bedtime story the other night. I told them that there was a little puppy who was out in the yard watching his owner pull weeds from the garden. It was Springtime. The grass was wet under his feet. The air smelled of bunny rabbits who were hiding in the shrubs nearby. He followed and tracked a bumble bee. He was pretty sure that he would be able to get those rabbits later.

The owner of the puppy saw him and warned him that he might not like what happened if he kept following that bee. He couldn't imagine why and her words didn't draw him in like the joy of getting right next to the bee and watching it move from blade of grass to flower and back into the air. He could get as close to it as the whiskers on his face were close to his nose. That made him think he could catch it and swallow it up. The owner warned him again to be careful.

Within seconds of the owner's warning of danger ahead, the puppy was jumping in the air and his tongue touched the bumble bee. The bee was even quicker, though. He stung the puppy right on his tongue. The puppy cried and whimpered in disbelief and pain. The owner hugged him and brought him inside and gave him a bowl of ice. She had to hold him down while he squirmed and her kids brought her a tweezers that they usually used to remove ticks he often picked up when he rolled in deer droppings and they cleaned it for her. She pulled the translucent stinger out of his tongue. He cried more. She comforted him, but he didn't seem to understand. He hid under the bed and tried to figure out what happened. The owner and her kids imagined that he would fall asleep and dream of catching more bees and maybe even bunny rabbits, too.

My kids liked that story. They gave me hugs and kisses and went to sleep. I hoped they would take the idea from the story that I tried to bury inside...one of a Mom who loves her kids and would warn them to stay away from danger and help them when they forgot or didn't listen and who would comfort them if they made mistakes. I want them to see me as being nearby but giving them the freedom to make their own choices. I hope I do that well. My tendency seems to be more on the helicopter Mom side than the free range Mom one.

It made me think of my recent attempts to reconcile with my Mom. Seems like a big stretch. I will have to explain why. I have always wanted to be close to my Mom. I have always admired her for being strong in ways that I am not. She has been through more tragedies and traumas than ten average people, but she never admits to feeling depressed or sad. She has a large number of women friends who travel with her and keep her company and enjoy her humor and style and ability to entertain. She stays fit. She looks well put together and prepared for every social occasion. She had seven kids and maintains the figure of a woman in her twenties. I love watching her with people when we are together because she always knows how to act and doesn't seem to say the wrong thing unless she means to and on those occasions, she seems pleased with herself for doing so. She is excellent at keeping secrets.

I, on the other hand have few women friends. I have a couple of amazing friends from childhood and several acquaintances from later life. I once had style and seemed able to put myself together. I don't know how I lost that. I struggle to keep my hair groomed and forget to put on make up almost every day of the year. I put on weight after my kids were born instead of losing the baby weight. When I buy new clothes or make up, I leave them in my closet or on the bathroom shelf hoping that one day I will have a reason to wear them. Usually that reason is that my Mom is coming to town. Since that has happened twice in the last five years...they don't get much attention. When I say the wrong thing to people, it is usually because the filter that I used to have has disappeared. I have been through half the traumas that my Mom has experienced, but they seemed to have hit me much harder and taken a greater toll on me. I haven't recovered like she has recovered. I feel sadness and experience deep depressions and I don't have a sense of ease with people even when I want very much to be able to enjoy their company. Making plans with me can be like negotiating a treaty. I can put up a lot of obstacles to its success. It isn't that I don't care about the people who are kind enough to want to spend time with me. It is more that I am afraid to let myself care about whether or not they will really be willing to show up. When I hurt people, I apologize. I make a lot of mistakes, but I don't feel like I deserve to make them. I keep no secrets. I find that being around people who appear to me to be keeping secrets makes me anxious to the point that I feel physical reactions like stomach aches and headaches and shaking hands.

I think of how my Grandma, who took care of me when my Mom went to work and my Dad passed away used to be so doting on my Mom that it made my Mom a little annoyed. I would wake up for school, often late and come downstairs for breakfast and see that my Grandma had prepared poached eggs on English muffins and grapefruit halves for herself and my Mom and for me when I asked. She would make breakfast for whichever of us kids would wake up in time to eat it but if we put her to the trouble of making it and lingered in bed--she would get really angry. I tended to make her angry. I didn't want to--but I did that a lot. When I think of her and miss her, which is oddly almost every day, I think of things she did for me like making those breakfasts and how I didn't appreciate her. I only noticed at the time that she was angry with me so often. I see how my Mom cares for my sister's son now and realize that she has taken on a lot of the roles she resented my Grandma for taking on when she was a single mother. The same issues are argued over with different characters. The same behaviors and misunderstandings continue. I'm not part of any of that. My kids aren't part of it, either.

I can't bring myself to let my daughters get swept in to all of that. I have to deal with a lot of backlash for my choices from people who love and admire my Mom for good reasons. I don't get to enjoy close relationships with any of my other siblings because they also believe I am wrong or simply don't want to engage with anyone in my family very much. I feel judged a lot of the time. Somehow, she makes me believe at times that I deserve to have missed out on her being there when I struggled or when big events happened in my life like graduations and engagements and pregnancy and my children's birthdays and so on. She tells me I didn't deserve better than a priest who was abusive toward me because he was nothing compared to my monster of a real father. I sink down low when she says those things. Even now, she says that she believes those things and when she says them to me, I believe her. My only defense is to hide from her. I feel like the puppy in my story who hides under the bed. I may only understand part of the story, but the part of the story that I understand makes me very frightened. I know there are all of the good sides to her, but I don't know when they will appear or when I will see the part that hurts me.

I don't blame my Mom the way I did for years for the bad things that she was unable to stop in my family or even the things she intentionally participated in that were harmful to me. I see her anger toward my Dad who has been dead since 1980 for what it is now. I used to try to see it from my own understanding. I saw a man whose brain was damaged by a rough childhood and difficult relationships with his siblings and Dad and then a terrible brain tumor that caused him great pain. I didn't want to hear what my siblings said about him or what my Mom said or what her boyfriend, a Catholic priest who called my Dad a monster had to say about my Dad. I lost him when I was almost nine years old. I see how my girls who are around that age see their Dad. I see how I have been stuck in time with the kind of picture a young girl has of her Dad at that age. My Mom had to deal with me watching her transform from being the center of my life to being at the sidelines. She never felt that was fair. I can see why she would feel that way.

I feel like all of this is like the puppy in the garden because if I can manage to remain aware of my role in my children's lives--that of a guide and not a puppet master--maybe they will have better futures and more confidence when they strike out on their own. I am a big believer in letting them make mistakes that will teach them early rather than cleaning up their messes for them and not allowing them to experience consequences. I hope and pray always that I am making the best decisions for them. I want them to listen to me, but I never approach them with statements like, "If you don't listen to me--I'm going to make you suffer." I struggled in work situations for years with bosses who took those approaches. I never seemed to last in any work situation unless I had a boss who took an approach like, "I support your successes. I'll promote you when you work hard. I can't support your lack of effort." In the rare cases when I found such an exceptional boss, I stayed. Maybe with a better foundation at home, my kids will do better in the world when their time comes. Maybe they won't see their bosses' strengths or weaknesses as being so important but will be able to focus on their own work more. They won't feel as afraid as I did of having the rug pulled out from under them by uncertainty because they will be able to recognize in themselves the strengths they will need to go from one place to another with ease. I hope so, anyway.

My Mom's birthday is coming up and since she has a group of friends she likes to play cards with--I ordered a set of playing cards for her with my children's pictures on them. I don't know if things will ever get better than this between her and me. I know that they can't get much worse if I continue to keep boundaries. I just wish that she believed me when I tell her that I would love to be closer and I would love for my kids to be closer. I simply have to put them and myself before her. If her desires are to create situations that I don't feel are good for any of us--I have to let myself be the bad guy and accept that this is as good as it may get for all of us. My Mom doesn't send me birthday gifts and hasn't for years. She doesn't celebrate things in my life. All of that stopped somewhere in my high school years. When she does say she will do something, I steel myself against believing her. I still try to celebrate her. I know that she is in the later stage of her life. I have to admit that I send things more as an example to my children of how to behave even when someone doesn't know how to behave toward you but deserves your respect if only for the position they hold in your life. I'll never have another mother. At times, I feel like she has swallowed my entire life with her unreasonable anger toward me, my husband, my in-laws and other people she feels are unfairly kind to me and not as agreeable toward her. Other times, I feel a deep sadness for her because she sees nothing wrong in measuring her happiness against mine and hoping that hers is greater. Then I see how I look at my kids and always hope for more for them and realize she never gets to feel the pride of seeing that the future will be better or has already begun to get better. She never gets to look at me and feel joy instead of seeing how she feels life robbed her and unfairly rewarded me. For years, I only saw how that hurt me. As a mother, I see how that would hurt her. I wouldn't want to be near my children, either if I felt those things. I am sad that this is all that she can allow herself to see.

I don't know if I will ever stop feeling unworthy of the good things that do happen in my life. I try very hard. I don't know if I'll ever stop feeling panic that whatever I hold dear will disappear, but I try. It's on me now. I have to do better for my kids who are watching me and learning.