abc family

Photographic Evidence

It's been a long stressful week and I had to abort a migraine with my special migraine-killing drugs tonight, so no fancy words are coming out of this brain, but it occurred to me that it would be easy to share some photos. And also I haven't been blogging so long that if you haven't been catching photos on Twitter, you might have no idea what my kids look like now! Whoa!

One of the really fun things about this stage with our munchkins is that their activities offer lots of natural photo ops. Except for the one at Costco, where I did ask them to gather nicely around the shopping cart, none of these was posed.

They're not really supposed to get in our bed, but how could I scold when they're so happy? (Linus in blue)

The children are looking odd here, aren't they?

(Ha! But seriously, they worked together to make the snowman family and then demanded I photograph it. I certainly hope that creature in the back isn't supposed to be the mother.)

Family trips to Costco are a fun way to get out of the house (since the outdoors is off-limits due to frigidity). (l to r: Linus, Ambrose)

I just love this one because it's so cute and it would be perfect... and then there's the kid at the end picking his nose. Oh, Ambrose. So hilarious and ridiculous and adorable.

Bread!

Ages ago I promised my kind and hilarious friend Maureen that I would send her my basic bread recipe, and then I failed to do that. (Not because I'm too lazy to copy and paste, but because it's not actually written down anywhere.)

But THEN she suggested I post it here this week, and I'm thrilled for an excuse to phone in one of these posts, so here we go.

Oh, but first, a little back story.

My dad makes very good basic white sandwich bread. Excellent bread, really - soft and light, but still a little chewy. I swear, you haven't had toast until you've had toast made with this bread. When my siblings and I were in high school (I promise I am not making this up) our friends used to come over and ask for toast at 11pm or whenever, because toast made with my dad's bread is just that good.

He CLAIMS the recipe is from James Beard's bread cookbook, but I have used that recipe as written and I can attest that it does not result in bread like my father's. I determined there must be some x factors involved, so about a year and a half ago I resolved to figure it out. (Dad is eternally generous and would bring a batch of six loaves of bread for our freezer whenever he came down, but I figured it was time for us to become bread-self-sufficient. Self-bread-sufficient. Self-breadficient?)

I had him tell me exactly how he makes the bread. And then I tried doing it like that, and then I tried a bunch of variations, and eventually I devised a method that does not involve kneading by hand (which my dad does, but which I prefer not to do for a variety of reasons) and which is reasonably foolproof.

The original recipe is flour, water, salt, and yeast, which are the basic ingredients for your chewier breads, but softer breads are generally enriched, and this is one of the things that was bugging me about my dad's bread: how could it be so soft and not be enriched? But I eventually figured out that it IS enriched: he adds an extremely generous glop of oil to the bowl that holds the dough, and ends up kneading most of it in. So I made it easier on myself and just add the oil near the beginning now.

Anyway, here's the recipe. I am a little nervous about sharing it because I've only tested it myself, but I think it should work. I weigh the ingredients when I do the recipe, but I am sharing volume measurements here, because I know that is what most people do. If you want the weights, let me know!

Basic White Bread

makes two loaves

for 4"x8" pans:
2-1/2 cups warm water
1 Tbsp yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
6-8 cups flour
2 Tbsp oil
1 Tbsp salt

for 5"x9" pans:
3-1/2 cups warm water
4 tsp yeast
1 Tbsp sugar
9-11 cups flour
3 Tbsp oil
5 tsp salt

(I know these are not quite the same proportions. It's okay! All measurements are general anyway. Feel free to wing it.)

1. Dump the water into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add yeast and sugar. Stir together and let sit about 5 minutes, until foamy.

2. Add (the low-end amount of) flour, the oil, and the salt. Using dough hook (on "Stir" speed), knead until dough forms a ball on hook and cleans sides of bowl, adding more flour if necessary. Once the dough balls up, it should not be sticky to the touch; if it is, add a little more flour. Err on the side of adding extra flour.

Once dough is smooth and uniform (this will take at least 5 minutes of kneading), transfer to oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap or clean cloth, and let dough rise until doubled, 60-90 minutes. (It might take longer if it's sitting in a cool place.) You'll know it's ready to be punched down when you can stick a fingertip into it and it doesn't bounce back at all.

Deflate the dough and let it rise until doubled again, which should take a little less time this round. Deflate and let it rest for 5 minutes before forming it into loaves. (Make sure you grease the bread pans really well. I use at least a couple teaspoons butter per pan.)

 

There are several methods for forming loaves, and I've been making bread for years and am still not particularly good at it, so I have no advice. But the Internet is your friend if you want tutorials!

Cover loaves in pans and let rise until the loaf is an inch or so above the edge of the pan. (This takes about 45 minutes, in my experience.)

 

Bake loaves at 350F, ~35 minutes for smaller loaves, ~45 minutes for larger ones, or until the loaf sounds hollow when you remove it from the pan and knock on the bottom. Take the loaves out of their pans, put them on a cooling rack, and brush the outsides with melted butter. (I use about 2 tablespoons per loaf - the crust stays much softer if you're generous with the butter here.) Try to wait as long as you can to cut into them, as they will keep baking for a while after they come out.

 

Oh, and ping me if you have any questions!

 

Notes:

I use all-purpose flour and canola oil. Bread flour would be fine, as would other types of oil, I'm sure. I doubt this recipe would work well with whole wheat flour.

Ouch

I took copious notes throughout my day yesterday and am working on putting together a day in the life post, but the reason it isn't ready is the same reason I almost didn't manage to write at all anything tonight: ohhhh my head hurts.

Do you get migraines? I can't say I recommend it. In fact I heartily disrecommend it.

I've always been headache prone due to jankity sinuses, but I would only get a couple killer headaches a year. It wasn't until last summer or early fall that I started having them regularly, two or even three a week. It correlated with weaning and cycle regulation after over seven continuous years of pregnancy and/or nursing, so I suspected a hormonal cause, but it's hard to nail that stuff down. And anyway there wasn't much to do about it except get pregnant again, which seemed kind of extreme as a headache remedy, so instead I started working with my doctor and it's been months of trying different meds and chasing down triggers and yadda yadda yadda.

(I also collected advice for a while, but I'm done with that stage now, although I thank you for your kind instincts. I'm still collected sympathy if you've got any extra.)

One tough thing for me about having chronic or recurring pain is that I tend to play Reverse Pain Olympics, so I'm always reminding myself how much worse other people have it. And then one day I can't stop crying and I feel like life is too big and hard and WHY? Why am I so overwhelmed when on paper my day to day life is so much easier than it was a year ago?

Then I remember: my head hurts all the time. That does tend to wear a person down.

So it's this constant balancing game trying to prevent the pain from starting in the first place (stress and exhaustion appear to be my migraine triggers, I discovered after a hardcore elimination diet, but my sinuses are a nasty wild card all their own), managing it when it inevitably shows up, and keeping all the necessary parts of my daily life happening through it. It's difficult.

And when my head doesn't hurt at the moment, I'm such a jerk, I can't remember why the headaches are a big deal. Why not simply rise above them and continue carrying out the tasks of my vocation with elegance?  But then another one hits and it's like... OHHHHH YES THIS. Sorry, can't talk about living a meaningful balanced life just now because it appears someone managed to shove invisible ice picks in there above my eyebrows.

(I'm promise I'm only a jerk to myself. If YOU have headaches, I feel terrible for YOU, and cut YOU all kinds of slack.)

The headaches have kept me much quieter than usual online this winter, and I've been hibernating socially, which makes my extrovert self miserable. (Thank goodness for the phone chats and iMessage, or I'd be gibbering by now.)

Also, I know this is an unoriginal sentiment, but I'm so ready for this winter to be over so we can go outside and not have to literally hibernate any more.

Bah.

Busy

When my sister Branwen and I each had one baby, we'd take them sometimes to daily Mass at a nearby chapel and see big families there, and these mothers of big families would smile at us and encourage us and tell us how much they missed the days with just one small baby. 

And I totally get that now, because when I'm shepherding four small children through the grocery store parking lot trying to keep them from getting hit by rogue texting maniacs in SUVs, I think about how easy it was when I could grab my one baby from her car seat, balance her on my hip, and go.

Other than that, though, it turns out I don't miss the single-baby days. Sure, life was logistically simpler then, but I was so bored.

Once we get in the grocery store, I might have to remind the children not to grab things off the shelves, but I have four of them to talk to. We talk and joke together. They might argue once or twice, but they are kind to each other too, and they hold hands, and I get to enjoy their presence and their relationships with each other. Going to the grocery store with one baby was easier because I could just strap her on my chest and zip through my list. But these days it's an adventure and it turns out I like adventure.

We're in a sweet spot right now, parenting-wise. We don't have any babies, but all our children are too young for the tough problems of older childhood and adolescence (and we've been lucky that Camilla's school years have so far been free of serious issues). And life is full of all the little problems like biting and food-throwing and nighttime wake-ups and Cheerios all over the floor, and the fight against entropy is a constant uphill battle and Bryan and I fall into bed every night exhausted, but ohhhh we laugh so much. So so much.

I like adventure, but the small everyday kind, which is maybe why I've always been a voracious reader. (Hmm. Which is the chicken and which is the egg, there?) I read a book recently in which a character claimed a "big life" is fast-paced and full of big-ticket adventures, and in the weeks since I read it I've gotten continually more angry about that idea. I mean, even if we agreed that "big" is the right adjective for that kind of life, what makes a "good" life? 

My life feels big when my twins play their game in which they turn my head to kiss me on the lips, one then the other, back and forth. My life feels big when I come across Camilla curled in her favorite chair, reading a book I loved as a child. When I'm in bedroom and I hear the big two bustling in the living room and Blaise yells, "Mama, don't come out!" and then a few minutes later he comes to get me and they jump and yell a gleeful "Surprise!" at me because they've cleaned up. (They do this regularly. I feign utter shock every time.) When all four children are playing together happily for an hour, making a "party" out of blankets and pillows and stuffed animals and books. When the simplest jokes make Linus or Ambrose scream with laughter, when I find them reading on the bed in a row, when they climb on my lap or need me for comfort and my family is just... my family. As it is every day. My life is big, and it is definitely good.

Life was a lot easier with just one baby, and quieter, but I used to watch the clock then. There's no time for that now and I love it. I love the pace of our life now, the fact that it doesn't quite fit in the allotted hours, that the meager half hour of calm that Bryan and I get each evening when the house is finally quiet and tidy feels so valuable because it is so rare. I know that this is our ordinary time, and I will miss it when it is gone.

I'm just... lucky.

"You're done, right?"

I'm doing Conversion Diary's 7 Posts in 7 Days, which means I'll be scrambling for material (and, yes, phoning it in) this week. I also went to see a dear friend's newborn this morning, and I've got babies on the brain, so I figured, why not start the week by talking about them?

Polite people would never dream of asking, but I guess they might wonder: are there more Mosher babies coming down the pike? 

The answer: no, not right now, for reasons. But also: someday, maybe.

It's such a complicated and personal question, isn't it? So many personal issues and so much discernment go into answering it. And I know there's privilege in my feeling like I *can* venture to answer it in certain ways. We're both open to the idea of more children, we could afford them, and it's likely we'd be able to conceive (although of course there are never any guarantees). Those are important things and I'm grateful. But on the other hand the prospect of adding to our family right now is daunting. We're not ready, and we think it's okay.

We live in a community where people have many children. I know that in the common perception WE have many children, but no. I'm talking MANY. Seven or ten children, very close together, and you've never seen anything like these parents. The spouses seem able to communicate by telepathy, and each of them is always carrying a small child around, and they're calm as anything. It blows my mind. I mean, I'm sure that at Mass (where we usually see them) they probably appear more collected than at 5:30pm on a random Tuesday, but still. The parents of the big families amaze me.

But with friends of mine who are my age and have a small handful of kids like I do, I discuss the idea that maybe everyone isn't called to have all those kids, that maybe we aren't. You should see the joy that some of these families have in their many children. It's beautiful: such a witness to God's goodness and to the inherent goodness of each new life. But at the thought of having a baby less than two years after a previous one, or of having another one annnnny time in the near future after having four in 4.5 years, I don't feel joyful. I feel like I want to cry, or maybe crawl in a hole and sleep for a year.

And maybe that's okay. Is it a weakness on my part? Perhaps, and I'm willing to own it. We all have weaknesses. But I feel like the gift God has given me, as I've struggled and loved my way through seven years of parenting so far, is the ability to let go of fear surrounding this issue. Could I mess it up? Theoretically. Do I trust him to help me avoid messing it up? Well... yes. I guess I do.

So here we are, marking time, and every month we pray and decide whether to mark time for another cycle. Sometimes a small person vomits at midnight or I wake up with the second migraine in a week and we just know, and sometimes the discussion is longer and deeper, but Bryan and I have remained on the same page so far. More kids? Maybe someday. For now? It's God's game as always, but we're voting no.

Doesn't mean I won't hold a friend's cuddly warm new baby every chance I get, though. I loved doing that today.

(I won't lie. I also kind of loved handing her back and coming home knowing I will get to sleep tonight.)