Plum butter, boys

I finally got around to making the plum butter I was going on about last weekend when waxing rhapsodic about Italian prune plums. Naturally, the day I intended to make them, they weren't quite ripe enough, but alas. This is a simple, flavorful spread that is both beautiful and intensely plummy, as you'd hope it would be. Though the skins are left behind in the food mill phase, they cook with the plum flesh long enough to stain it a dark, rich magenta. Gorgeous, and hard to photo once canned; this pic doesn't do the hue justice. I'll try again later when I've spread some on toast. Today has felt very long, friends. T left for NY early this morning, and as Ol is not in camp or anything right now, and Jack goes just a few hours in the morning, I'm wearing the Mom hat a lot! Walks, experiments with a disposable camera, painting, making a tray with their handprints on it, generalized mayhem, a bath for Percy which always results in more mayhem, and in the midst of chopping the plums, I cut the bejesus out of my pinkie finger. T has been nuts over knife-sharpening lately, and this was a quick and deep slice into the old digit.

I wasn't sure if it would require stitches so called the boys out of quiet time after just 20 minutes because a tightly-wrapped band-aid seemed like a prudent first start, and I needed them to bring me one (I was applying extreme pressure at the moment AND did not in any way feel like dealing with the hospital). It then seemed wise to teach Jack how to make a phone call should he and Ol ever be home alone with me or T and one of us got hurt. So, we made a phone list and hung it in a place he can access easily and practiced calling my mom and my cell phone. Check that off the list of things to teach!

Aren't they cute in this pic?

Superheroes, ice cream, lusty love

The boys are really in the throes of superhero pretend play, and they utilize outfit ideas, tools, phrases, mannerisms, villains and weapons from both actual books and films as well as their wildly active imaginations. Today I said that if they'd take their quiet time seriously (read: stay upstairs, be relatively quiet, and let me have quiet time), they could spend it together. When they came downstairs an hour later, both had underpants over their jeans (Jack) and shorts (Oliver), per old-school Batman and Robin costumes, belts on to serve as utility belts, and Oliver was wielding a kobee (a make-believe explosive device). Being that Ol had on underpants that say "vroom, vroom" and are covered with cars OVER plaid shorts, it was somewhat hard to take him seriously. But I tried. They said they were saving me from the step of fire and that I needed to see the part of the wall in the stairwell that opens at their command because it held their assortment of guns and other weaponry. I feigned amazement and thanked them for their supervision. Funny.

Today has been another one chock full of cooking. A double batch of spelt-cherry-cardamom scones, fresh ricotta, homemade ice cream with caramelized figs and honey and now some Lusty Sungold Love which I'll serve over grilled bread and fresh ricotta as the centerpiece of our Meatless Monday meal. Doesn't that all sound fabulous? Is your mouth watering? Mmm!

Some form of whiplash

Well, the boys are definitely back! The energy in our house has changed dramatically, and while I'm so happy to have them home, I realize how "on" I feel when they are. That pressure doesn't come from within, or at least it doesn't now. It is a direct response to two very bright, extremely talkative, whirling dervishes who spin constantly, whirring out questions, comments, narration, ideas, requests, demands, pleas, negotiations and so forth in every direction. I feel like one of those cartoon characters with oversized ears who is trying to catch 85 different falling objects as they plummet towards him. In the cartoons of course, the character uses feet, hands, head, whatever, and always seems to catch most everything. In real life, you just get by as best you can without the aid of magic limbs. Jesus, I'm tired already.

It's like a slight form of whiplash, emotional whiplash, and sometimes these feelings really make me feel like a sub-par mom. I just do not want to be on all the time. I was so desperate to see them yesterday, but I'm so shocked by how amped up and, simultaneously, tired I felt by lunchtime today. And then I realized there are three weeks of summer left, and I wish so desperately that part of me didn't dread that time, but some part of me does. It was so nice to have time this past week to not rush, to not hurry, to not stress about fitting everything in, to be able to stay up late without the horrible knowledge hanging over me that that was a dumb, dumb decision because the early wake-up the next morning was coming so soon, to think and read, and hear my own thoughts, to finish sentences and conversations without interruption. All of that is infinitely harder when the kids are here. That's parenting I guess, but I still wonder when it might seem more balanced, a bit less intense. Will it? When? I guess I just need to get back into the groove.