At the surface, it seems harmless enough. Who doesn’t want to avoid stressful situations and/or people? Wouldn’t doing so make one less stressed out and thus happier?

But I see three fundamental flaws in it.

1. True happiness is an internal thing and is not necessarily dependent on external circumstances. This is, of course, easier said than done, but advising people to make their lives easier in order to be happier seems like telling them they can’t be happy until things are less stressful in their lives, and that’s simply not true.
2. No one can avoid all stressful people and situations, nor would one truly want to. My children, for example, are some of the most stress-inducing people I know, but I wouldn’t want to avoid them. Likewise, people’s jobs often provide some of the most stressful situations they encounter in their lives, but avoiding work is usually a bad idea. Relationships with parents, siblings, and spouses can be stressful at times because the closer people get to each other, the more likely they are to encounter the parts of each other that are annoying and unpleasant. But these relationships can be the most fulfilling of all if, instead of avoiding them, we invest in them. Of course, I’m not saying that one should never avoid a toxic relationship, but stressful does not equal toxic.
3. Dealing with hard things makes us stronger and more compassionate, which makes us more capable of happiness. So far in my life, dealing with hard things has taught me 1) that I am strong enough to deal with hard things, which makes me feel confident in my abilities, and 2) that hard stuff is hard, and I never know what other people are going through, so I should give them the benefit of the doubt and show kindness when I can. Both of these have ultimately led to me becoming a better, happier person. By dealing with difficult people, I’ve learned to understand where they’re coming from, even if I don’t agree with it. And I’ve learned to appreciate the people I love even more.

This isn’t the only bit of advice I’ve seen that was terrible, but I actually felt like I could respond to this one without hurting anyone’s feelings. Can we all collectively decide to let this one die?

When I order something I love at Bombay House, I memorize the name of it and come home to research recipes for it. The thing about Indian food is that there’s a little bit of an initial cost to buy the weird spices you need—coriander, turmeric, garam masala, and cardamom usually cover it. After that, the only things I need to remember to buy when making Indian food are fresh ginger, plain yogurt, and sometimes whipping cream or coconut milk, depending on the recipe. In fact, I keep ginger in my freezer and coconut milk in my canned goods all the time, so usually Indian food is something I can make just with what’s on hand, unless I need to go get yogurt.

Every time I make a delicious Indian recipe, though, I feel amazed that I can make such wonderful food myself. It almost seems like magic. Throw onions, garlic, ginger, and tomatoes together with some spices and cream/yogurt/coconut milk and make something transcendent.

For Indian food, I love to use basmati rice, but I know it’s much more expensive than regular white rice, so I understand if you just want to use that. I will include instructions for doing the basmati in case you want to try it.

Anyway, I sometimes get requests for my recipes, so here’s my chicken coconut kurma recipe. Rather than give you a long list of ingredients at the beginning, some of which are used multiple times during the recipe, I’ve bolded ingredients so you can easily scan for your shopping list.

Chicken Coconut Kurma

Sprinkle 2-3 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts with  1/2 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. cumin, 1/2 tsp. coriander, 1/4 tsp. turmeric, 1/4 tsp. cayenne, and a dash of black pepper. Let sit one hour.

45 minutes into the hour, start on the rest. Grate a 1 inch square frozen gingerroot (not peeled). Add 6–7 cloves of garlic and 1/2 cup water. Blend (in a blender) until smooth. Also chop up an onion at this point and set aside.

Rinse 2 cups basmati rice in water. To do this, I measure the rice into a bowl and pour in cold water until it’s an inch or two above the top of the rice. Stir the kernels around a bit, making the water cloudy with starch. Pour off most of the water and pour new water in. Repeat until the water stops looking so cloudy. You won’t get it all the way clear, but it definitely starts looking clearer after the fourth or fifth time you do it. Put the rinsed rice in a pot with 4 cups water, 2 Tbsp. oil, and salt to taste (you know how much you like, probably). You can also add turmeric for color if desired. Don’t turn on your burner yet.

Okay, by now, you’re probably ready to brown the chicken. My recipe doesn’t say, but I like to chop it up into bite-sized pieces. I do this after letting it sit in its spices because sprinkling evenly over intact chicken breasts is easier than over chunks. So I chop up the chicken at this point and fry it up in some oil until browned. Remove from pan.

Fry onions in oil (I reuse my oil from the chicken, but you can add more if needed) until medium brown, otherwise known as slightly caramelized. Pour in that garlic–ginger paste you made earlier in the blender. Continue frying until it gets a little thick. Add 1 tsp. cumin, 1 tsp. coriander, 1/4 tsp. turmeric, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Fry 30 seconds. Add 2 chopped tomatoes (I use canned usually, and since my kids aren’t fans of chunky cooked tomatoes, I use crushed, about 3/4 can). Turn heat to low and cook 3–4 minutes, mashing with the back of a slotted spoon.

Whip 4 Tbsp. (1/4 cup) plain yogurt in a small bowl. Add to sauce. Add your browned chicken, 1 c. water, and 1 tsp. salt.  Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, 20 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking on the bottom.

The moment you put the lid on to start the simmer, turn on the burner for your rice. When it comes to a boil, cover and reduce heat to low. Basmati rice cooks 15 minutes, not 20 like white rice, so the timing should be just about perfect for everything to finish cooking at the same time.

Add 1 tsp. garam masala, 2 Tbsp. chopped cashews, 3 Tbsp. raisins (golden are best, but I always use regular because they’re cheaper), and 6 Tbsp. coconut cream (the thick, creamy stuff that rises to the top of a can of coconut milk). Mix gently. Turn up the heat and stir now and then until sauce is fairly thick. Serve over rice. If you’re really adventurous and confident in your multitasking skills, serve with naan as well.

Tonight I tried making mango lassis because I had a mango on hand, something that has never before happened. I also had leftover plain yogurt, so I tried it. Ours were probably not authentic, having far too much milk in them because nobody wanted them as thick as the recipe called for, but I’ll leave you to find a recipe for those on your own (or make up your own because it’s basically a yogurt–mango milkshake with sugar in it).

Enjoy!

Here are some things I’ve learned about El Guapo recently:

1. His favorite food in the world might be pizza. At least once a day he’ll ask for “Pizza? Please?”

2. He hates having doors closed on him. I think he’s more sensitive to this than the older boys have been because he’s aware he’s the youngest and mad that sometimes everybody except him gets to do certain things. The worst is when Lego and Duplo go outside to play and I can’t go out at the moment because I’m teaching piano or making dinner or doing dishes or whatever. Since we don’t have a completely fenced-in back yard, he’s not really safe outside without an adult making sure he doesn’t run into the road. El Guapo LOVES to go outside (he’s a big fan of spring), and he’s figured out how to open the wooden front door but not the glass door past it. He just stands there longingly trying to figure out how to get the door open. One time I saw him bring my keys from my desk and try to “unlock” the glass door as he said, “Lock!” over and over.

3. He doesn’t mind going to bed. Each night when he starts acting tired, I ask him, “Are you ready to go in your bed?” Most nights, he replies in a very chipper voice, “Bye bye, Dada!” He knows that he always gives Jonathon a hug and kiss goodnight before going to sleep.

4. He’s learning to run and it’s the funniest thing ever to watch.

5. He loves Lego people (as in the toy, not his big brother). He takes their heads off and puts them back on, sits them down on each others’ heads, puts their “hats” on (sometimes it’s hair), carries them around, whatever. We tried for months to keep him away from Legos, but finally we’ve given in.

5. He loves dogs. There’s a little dog next door who’s rather old and slow, and El Guapo will follow him around until he can pet him. There’s another dog, larger and more hyper, that usually stays in their back yard, and he always asks me to pick him up so he can see her.

6. He has learned the concept of possession, which has added the words “my” and “mine” to his vocabulary. This also means that he knows if something is “Eela’s” or “Nanio’s,” and he always loves pointing out “Mama’s car” and “Dada’s car.”

7. He’s learned how to say Duplo’s name (see #6 for his pronunciation).

8. He’s expanded his singing repertoire beyond just the Star Wars theme to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Once There Was a Snowman,” and the Iron Man theme song (from the kids’ cartoon, which the boys only watched a few times but which apparently made a musical impression on El Guapo). He likes “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam,” but he hasn’t figured out how to actually sing it yet.

9. He has sharp eyes. Sometimes tiny details that we haven’t even noticed catch his eye. For instance, Jonathon was reading him a little book from the library about clothing. Each page had an illustration of an article of clothing, and on one page was a pink dress with a slightly darker pink bow on the front. “Tie!” El Guapo explained, pointing to it.

10. He’s polite. El Guapo often says please when asking for things and thank you when he gets them. He says he’s sorry and gives “soft touches” when he hurts someone, and he even closes his eyes during the prayer. He’s a good boy who brings joy and a little craziness into our home every day.

Stay tuned for Lego’s birthday update on Thursday! He’s having a Star Wars party.

The article kind of baffled me because I haven’t really had trouble teaching colors to my kids. I just find objects that come a) in identical shapes, b) in varying colors, and c) in solid colors (so no bit of green on the red object, for instance). Colored blocks work great (as long as they’re all the same shape), as do game pieces, Tupperware bell tumblers, Candyland cards, etc.

Group all the red objects in one pile and all the blue objects in another. I never teach more than four colors at once. Point to the red pile say “red.” Then name each object and say, “The block is red. Red block. The cup is red. Red cup. The ball is red. Red ball.” Then do the same for the blues. Remove one object from a pile and hand it to your child. Ask, “Where does it go? Is it red? Or blue?”

If the child gets it right, praise him or her and choose another object to sort. If the child gets it wrong, say, “No, it’s blue,” and place it in the correct pile yourself. After a while, you’ll find that they get it right more often than not.

Just now, El Guapo and I played with Candyland cards for over 20 minutes. He was fascinated. He kept collecting all the orange cards, and he could identify red cards, though he called them blue. A pretty good start, I say.

1. He finally started saying “Mama” on Christmas Day. What a nice present!

2. He can sing the Star Wars theme song and does so often.

3. He loves cars. “Car!” is often the first word out of his mouth in the morning when he wakes up.

4. He knows how to make the appropriate sound effects when playing with his brothers’ toy light sabers.

5. He says Lego’s name, “Ee-la!”

6. He can’t say Duplo’s name yet.

7. He’s suddenly loving books. He doesn’t even seem to care which ones. He’ll grab a random book and demand, “Kook!” It’s so fun sharing a book with a little person.

8. He’s kinda tiny, but getting less so. As of his checkup last week, he’s finally passed the 21-pound mark, which average babies pass around their first birthday. He hit it at 18 months. People remark sometimes, “He doesn’t look big enough to be walking!” Um, he’s well over a year old. He’s plenty old enough to be walking, even if he’s tiny-sized.

9. El Guapo loves to go outside, so by extension, he loves shoes, socks, coats, and hats. Before the weather got bitterly cold and stayed that way for a month, he’d bring his socks and shoes to me when he wanted to go outside and then just sit patiently waiting for me to put them on. If I didn’t get the hint at that point, he’d bring me mine. Incidentally, “shoes,” “sockie,” “coke (coat),” and “hat,” are all among his first words.

10. He doesn’t like to drink from bottles or sippy cups. I used to be able to help him drink from an open cup, but he won’t even do that anymore. He sometimes drinks well from a straw, but sometimes not. Mostly, he eats his meal and then wants to nurse. I have been battling this since he was about 3 months old, and I really don’t know what to do about it. It’s hard having an older baby so dependent on me that I can’t leave him for more than a couple hours at a time.

11. At some point, he became really picky about food too. He’ll eat his weight in blueberries, cooked broccoli, and ramen noodles, but it’s anybody’s guess what else he’ll actually eat on any given day.

12. Speaking of broccoli, he calls it “trees.” Yeah, pretty cliche, but also cute.

13. El Guapo liked Christmas and gained a few Christmas-related words, which mostly surfaced after Christmas was over. But now all the Christmas ideas are getting jumbled. For instance, he says “Ho ho ho” to mean Santa, but I’ve heard him say “ho ho ho” while pointing at a Christmas tree. And now he sometimes says “ho ho ho” when pointing to regular trees too. I wish I could get his little “ho ho HO-oh!” on camera so you could hear it.

14. We’re working on improving his terrible sleep habits. He’s up every 2. 5 hours or so, which is worse than he was doing at 2 months of age. I had made some good progress one night, and then he got sick. Once he and I are feeling better, though, we’re getting back at it. It’s time to get this baby sleeping better.

15. He still loves dogs and cats.

16. The boys have trained him to make raspberry sounds while poking at either his or their belly button.

He’s learning new words all the time and figuring out what to do to act more like a little child and less like a baby. We love our little Bub.

In my high-school economics class, I learned that everything has a cost, even the things you don’t think of as costing actual money. Eating a sandwich has a cost, namely, the opportunity to eat everything else you didn’t eat instead of that sandwich. There are pros and cons for every decision, and because time is limited, for everything you do, there are many things you could have done that you now don’t have time to do because of what you did.

But we mothers seem to have forgotten this basic principle. “How on earth does she have time to make such nutritious meals?” we ask ourselves. “I can barely put a frozen pizza in the oven most nights.” Or, “How does she keep her house so clean? Mine is constantly in chaos.” Or, “Why can’t I seem to make beautiful dresses for my daughters and do their hair so perfectly for church like she does?”

The thing is, that woman you’re looking at who does something you wish you could do? She’s probably not doing something you’re doing. That’s how she finds the time. Maybe you have a job and she doesn’t. Maybe you spend a lot of time teaching your kids to read, or canning all your homegrown fruits and vegetables, or baking yummy treats for your family, or refinishing old furniture you got for super cheap at garage sales. She’s probably wondering how YOU find the time.

Or maybe it’s not even that grand. Maybe she finds the time to make delicious and nutritious dinners each night because she doesn’t care if her hair and makeup are done each day. If you care about looking put together, you have to own that it’s going to eat into your time for other things. And that’s okay, if looking put together matters to you more than those other things. You can give yourself permission to not do something that someone else did with the half hour or whatever that it took you to get ready in the morning.

As for me, I’ve made some choices. I choose to teach piano to help support my family (and because I love doing it). I choose to accept freelance editing jobs when they come along, even though they tend to stress me out, because they pay well. I choose to read to my children and to spend time teaching them stuff. I choose to play with my children a little each day. I choose to volunteer in Lego’s classroom three days a week. I choose to cook real meals most nights. I choose to go to church for three hours every Sunday and to spend some time during the week serving in the Church (playing piano for the choir, preparing to teach music to the children, etc.). I choose to garden and tend my yard during the spring and summer months. I choose to do very little work in the evenings (between 8 and 10 p.m.) when I can help it so I can recharge for the next day. These aren’t all the choices I make on a daily basis, but you get the idea.

By choosing these things, I make the choice not to do certain things. I choose not to put on makeup every day or do more with my hair than wash it and run a brush through it. I wish I looked more put together, but I’ve decided that other things matter more to me than this. I choose not to make my own bread. I choose not to sew very often. I choose not to get a full-time job, even though it would mean a much more comfortable living situation for my family, probably. I choose not to have a perfectly clean house all the time.

This last one I want to talk about a little. The thing is, I wish I did have a cleaner house. But the fact is, I’ve used up all my time on other things, so I usually have dishes in the sink at the end of the day, counters scattered with some clutter, and toys and kids’ clothes strewn throughout the house despite having picked it all up at least once during the day (with the kids’ help, of course). I’ve had to come to the realization that if I want a cleaner house, I have to give up something else. I can’t have it all.

Do I give up my quiet, work-free evenings? My volunteering? My playtime with the kids? When I put it in these terms, it becomes harder to decide. Maybe having a decent but not perfectly clean house is a cost I’m willing to pay to be able to do these other things.

Ultimately, if you weigh your options and think the choices you’re making are working for you, allow yourself to stop feeling guilty for not doing the other things you could be doing. And if the choices you’re making are NOT working for you, reconsider them. What could you swap out that might make you happier?

We went to my favorite spot in town: the “barn park,” as some friends used to call it. It doesn’t involve a barn at all; it’s next to the cemetery, and it has large fields and whatnot for soccer and baseball. One the southwest end of the park are some hills that are perfect for sledding.

At first we couldn’t get down the hill because the snow was so fluffy that the sleds kept getting stuck. But then we found an area where some other children (now gone) had made compressed paths, and one of the paths even had a jump in it!

El Guapo hated sledding and eventually just needed to be snuggled while his brothers giggled and flew down the hill and trudged back up again over and over and over. The house next to the park had some big wind chimes that sounded like Christmas bells ringing. Other than the laughter of the older boys and the occasional chimes, all was silent. The clouds that had brought the snowstorm earlier had parted, and there were some blue skies peeking through. It was so utterly beautiful and happy and Christmasy that I was almost overcome by joy and peace.

I hope your Christmas is full of joy and peace and family as well. Thank you all for being so good to me. Merry Christmas!

He’s also trying to talk more, which is going rather weirdly. First of all, he calls me Dada. He also calls Jon Boy Dada. We have this conversation about ten times a day:

El Guapo, patting my chest affectionately: “Dada!”
Me: “No! Mama.”
El Guapo, patting again: “Dada!”
Me: “No! I’m Mama. Say Ma. Ma. Ma.”
El Guapo: “Dada!”

He smiles so pluckily its as if he thinks that his thick mother might eventually figure out that her name is Dada and that he’s right. Last night we did get him to say “Nah-Nah” (like Mama, but with N’s) once, so maybe he just can’t. I don’t know.

Then, once in a while, he’ll say a word he’s never said before, once, almost perfectly. Like “book” or “cheese” or “thank you.” Then he won’t repeat it. Ever. Instead, he just says “light” a million times a day.

Duplo is becoming more interested in reading and is figuring out more and more words. He’s in that stage where he’ll decode a single word on a sign or a book and ask why it’s there. He spends hours a day playing with wooden blocks and is super interested in how things are put together and what the functions of different pieces of machinery are.

Lego just started first grade and is doing fine. He actually seems to come home cranky more often than not, but he claims to love school, so maybe he’s just tired after a long day of working hard. He also learned to ride his bike without training wheels this weekend. I really can’t say who’s prouder of him, us or him. We’ve been working with him on it all summer, but we weren’t even outside when he figured it out. He was out with his cousins and tried a smaller bike, and when he learned how to ride that, he tried his own and did just fine.

So yeah, we’re doing great and learning all the time. Never a dull moment at our house, let me tell you.

Which is why it’s so surprising to me that I’ve suddenly gotten into homemade cleaning products. I just don’t feel like the sort of person who makes her own laundry detergent, you know? Not that I have anything against people who do; I just didn’t see myself joining their ranks.

But a few months back, I saw a blog post from someone who moved into a place with a horrible, old, black, gucky tub. Like mine, you might say. She tried a whole bunch of things to clean it and reviewed each one. In the end, the one she recommended most highly was . . . borax. Plain old-fashioned boric acid borax. I didn’t even know you could clean a tub with borax. I didn’t even know where I could acquire it. What I did know is that I’d tried a whole host of things to clean our nasty tub, and none of them had made much difference. If borax could get it whiter, I’d consider it a triumph. So I went to my grocery store’s laundry aisle and bought a box of borax. I scrubbed and scrubbed (she did warn that elbow grease was needed), and you know what? That tub looked better after I was done than I’d ever seen it. Not that it was perfect, mind you, but it was better. (Update: At my mother-in-law’s suggestion, I tried a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser for some of the black spots on the tub, and it worked wonders as well. It didn’t do as good of a job on the general grayness as the borax did, though.) One downside is that borax doesn’t dissolve in water, so you end up with a gritty residue where you use it. It rinses off easily, though.

Now that I’d seen the power of borax on my tub, I decided to try it for its main purpose, laundry. I used it to freshen the scent of musty loads, and it does work great for that without the risk of bleaching the colors. It isn’t so awesome at stain removal, unfortunately.

I guess borax was my entry drug. After that, I was more willing to try cream of tartar (and later baking soda) to scrub my stovetop. Cream of tartar works great for greasy, cooked-on food stains. Again, it requires elbow grease, but it does work really well. Baking soda does not work half so well. I later used cream o’ tartar to scrub clean a cookie sheet that had had burned food on it (babysitter didn’t know it was in the oven when we left . . . oops), and it worked for that too. Too bad cream of tartar isn’t exactly cheap.

Well, after trying these, I guess the logical next step was to try making my own laundry detergent. To be honest, I kind of felt like I’d gone over to the dark side when I first started contemplating it. But the more I thought about paying $25 for three months’ worth of laundry detergent, the more I wanted to see if homemade detergent, which cost more like $35 a year, worked as well as some people online said it did. I had to find Fels Naptha soap and washing soda, the latter of which I actually had to ask an employee for help finding. I have to admit, my first load of laundry didn’t come completely clean with 2 Tbsp. of my detergent. But upping it to 3 Tbsp. seemed to solve the problem, so maybe I just do really big loads.

So yeah. Natural cleaning products for the win. Maybe I’ll mix up some vinegar and water and use it to clean my kitchen. Ca-RAAA-zy!