I think all vacations should automatically come with one at-home recovery day, where no one is expected to do anything but the bare minimum of feeding/clothing themselves/dependents and lying on the couch checking email is a perfectly good way to spend 6 hours. Unfortunately, despite making wise choices before we went away for the weekend (all the dishes were clean! all the laundry was put away! the toilet bowls were scrubbed!) I’m already behind on my to-do list for the week so I’m wearing my running shoes and blast through these dirty clothes and floors while the kids fall asleep sitting up watching Disney Jr. Caroline begged for a nap starting at 11 am and has been asleep for 3 hours already. I’m going to throw dinner at them at 6 and then crash for the night by 8. (I feel even worse for my husband, who has duty today into tomorrow and gets ZERO couch-sitting-email-checking time – at least at home I don’t have to wear real pants.)

We had a great weekend at Sesame Place. The ratio of 4 grown ups to 2 kids is MUCH more relaxing that the other way around. Caroline realized Elmo probably wasn’t going to try to eat her and loved every character, every show and every ride. The weather was glorious – 60 on Saturday and close to 70 on Sunday.

But, oh guys, it was so so so so SO crowded. I wasn’t prepared for quite so many people. Large groups of people suck, since statistically speaking you are bound to run into more Jerky McJerkfaces the bigger the group gets. It’s science: Out of 20 people, maybe 1 is the kind of self-entitled a-hole who thinks cutting in line in front of preschoolers is cool. So if you have 40 people, 2 of them are a-holes. In a super crowded amusement park where everyone is tired and wrangling toddlers and there is absolutely no beer, that number soars to approximately 17 bazillionteen. The park wasn’t prepared for that many people – let alone that many jerks – so by the end of Sunday we were glad all the “fun stuff” (tm Evan) was over and we could go home where there were no lines to ride the King Sized Magical Bed To Sleepytimes.

Although on the way out I added Christmas to our season passes so obviously it wasn’t TOO traumatic of an experience. Maybe I’ll knit us all matching wool hats and we’ll plan to go when it’s freezing and miserable so we won’t have to wait in so many lines.

Caroline’s reaction to the line at the spinning teacups

I’m going to talk about this paleo/primal thing for a minute. Feel free to skip to food pictures.

Short update: I love it. I eat so many eggs I’m afraid I might turn into a chicken. I’ve lost 5 pounds, eat real butter and real cream, and am shocked at how little I miss most of my old diet.

Long update, in bullet point form because I keep thinking of things to add:

1. I am not technically following a Paleo diet because I still eat cheese. It’s closer to the Primal Blueprint diet, but I’m not sure I’m even doing that correctly. I don’t actually care very much about whether or not a caveman would have eaten it – I care whether or not it’s going to give me a migraine or make me feel like I’m dying (both things that happen now if I eat the wrong stuff). Being sort of lax with the rules mean I’m not getting all that magical fat-melting the interwebs seemed to promise, but it also means I don’t want to jump off a bridge.

2. Once I got through a few days carb/added sugar/Diet Coke-free my cravings for said things dropped off the map almost entirely. It’s like all the willpower I’ve lacked my entire life just SHOWED UP. Oh hey, Willpower, nice to see you. I could have used you back when my pregnancy cravings had me eating McDonald’s fries twice a day but whatever. I’m really glad the desire is gone because I am NOT making the whole family stick to my diet. Caroline basically does it on her own – she’d rather have eggs for breakfast than cereal – but Evan would starve without carbs. Thanks to my new willpower when I bought the kids special treat donuts after the Fresh Beat Band concert, I managed to bring one home, look at it for a while, then leave it for E to eat. I NEVER could have done that before.

3. I’ve thrown out all the rules about breakfast, lunch and dinner. Steak at 10 am, eggs and bacon for dinner, and eating any time I feel hungry is the new plan. Since I can’t count on easy, instant food I also do a lot more cooking (and dishes) and eat a lot more leftovers. Also, eggs. All the time.

4. I sometimes get this weird burning in my nose, like I accidentally inhaled water. I have NO idea if my new diet is to blame but it happens 3-4 times a day and it’s something that has never happened to me before (unless I really did get water up my nose). Dr. Google seems to think it’s an unrelated sinus infection, but I swear I’m not sick and haven’t been for a while. It might be my face rebelling against my diet (although my skin and hair seems to like it.)

5. My exercise schedule has been pretty sad (or non-existent) since E’s schedule changed back in August. I stopped running and haven’t been going to Stroller Strides. Now that I’ve seen a little success with the diet change I’m more motivated to see if I can amp it up with some workouts. I think it would make a big difference in my shape/jeans size.

6. I’m going to stick with it. It’s not so much that it’s some sort of magical cure-all weight-loss miracle plan, but just that I like it. I like drinking my coffee with real cream and I like putting steak on top of my lunch salad and I like eating eggs – all things I WASN’T doing before because I thought I needed to eat low fat to lose (or even maintain) my weight. This is better.

7. Still no plans to turn this into a blog about paleo/primal stuff, but if you want to talk about it I’m more than happy to on email or Facebook. Thank you to people who emailed me suggestions and recipes and blogs to follow – it’s been SUPER helpful!

8. Who can tell me where to get coconut flour? Don’t say Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods – we don’t have those.

So, to answer the title question, here’s what’s for dinner (complete with a lot of Google-fu to find the recipes):

1. Thai-Inspired Scallop Soup – The Primal Blueprint Cookbook (I KNOW I found this recipe online somewhere but can’t re-find it. It was totally amazing, so I might remake it and blog it)
2. Turkish Eggs – Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals (basic recipe can also be found here)
3. Smoked Salmon, Egg and Asparagus Roll-ups – Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals (just what it sounds/looks like)
4. Bison Chili – The Primal Blueprint Cookbook (just basic chili, no beans)

5. Artichoke & Green Olive Dip – Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals (almost the same as this one)
6. Nut Crackers – The Primal Blueprint Cookbook (This one IS online – recipe #2 here.)
7. Deep Dish Pizza Casserole – A Girl Worth Saving
8. Meat sauce over roasted eggplant – I made spaghetti for everyone else and just threw some eggplant in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. It was better than noodles.

9. Coconut Almond Coleslaw – The Primal Blueprint Cookbook (I was most meh about this one)
10. Bacon & Mushroom Dip – Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals (online here)
11. Zucchini Carbonara – Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals (someone blogged it here)
12. Chicken & Artichokes With Garlic Sauce – Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals (REALLY good, really easy, I’ve made it twice. There’s a version online here, but I used anchovies instead of fish sauce.)

I’ve also eaten a lot of broccoli made with this recipe I found on the Girl’s Gone Child blog and successfully replaced rice with grated cauliflower in both fried rice and jambalaya. Plus eggs. Did I mention eggs yet?

(Links in this post are not sponsored or affiliate links, just stuff I’ve read or bought on my own.)

P.S. ALSO, I made Jalapeno Popper Quiche last night (minus the crust) and it was SO FREAKING GOOD I didn’t even take time to eat a picture before E and I ate it all.

It’s been a week since Caroline’s accident and she has almost entirely forgotten about it. She doesn’t even request baby Motrin anymore because she’s too busy trying to injure herself further. It’s actually been nice for me to have somewhere to direct my neuroses – if there was NOTHING I could do for her I would drive myself insane reliving the fall. But now I’m so busy chasing her down and trying to distract her with quiet activities and making sure she isn’t using her left arm too much that I don’t have time to sit and dwell.

Do you realize how many times a day we take our eyes off our children? A zillion. Trying to narrow that down to zero is impossible, unless you never sleep or blink. There are so many moments you need to look at something else – the road, the food on the hot stove, your other child, the inside of your eyelids – that there a hundred opportunities a day for them to hurt themselves no matter how carefully you watch. Hyper-vigilance doesn’t prevent them from rolling off their bed during nap time or choking on a bite of food or accidentally pushing their sister off the playscape.

From that very first positive pregnancy test we do what we can to protect our babies. We give up our vices and our lunch meat in the name of avoiding hidden dangers and unseen poisons. We educate ourselves on birth and chemicals and nutrition and “baby-proof” our homes. But babies can’t themselves be baby-proofed. There are things, seen and unseen, that can hurt our children or might hurt our children or could potentially maybe hurt our children. Film at 11. And no matter how careful you are there’s no guarantee a meteor won’t fall out of the sky and crush your house tomorrow.

I can’t undo what happened, but I can learn my lesson. My phone is no longer surgically attached to my hand. I’ve missed a lot of blog posts and tweets and no, I didn’t see your kid’s karate belt ceremony pictures on Facebook. But Caroline and I have talked and cuddled and laughed more than ever before. I am holding her with my eyes and my heart but not holding her back even though I want to wrap her in bubble wrap and lock her in a padded castle. In the last week she learned the phrase “I DO IT” and although my heart leaps into my throat when she won’t hold my hand I so admire her determination to be independent even in the face of a broken bone. She is brave. Children are brave. We are brave for bringing them into this big scary world and brave for letting them go.

I have sworn up and down and sideways that even though I REALLY LOVE taking pictures I have no intentions of become a professional photographer. Not even a “mom with a camera” who starts a business as a hobby after all her friends demand she share her talent with the world. (Sidenote: no one has demanded any such thing from me. I’ve had exactly one friend ask if I could take a headshot, and only because she didn’t want to pay a REAL photographer.) And I’m serious: I do not want a photography business. But I do love taking pictures and I have this fancy camera and at this point no matter how I fancy them up in Photoshop my adorable gingers still just look like my gingers.

So what I’m saying is hey, friends, anyone want to schedule a playdate where I can take pictures of you and your family? I make no promises and I’m bringing the kids and you’ll have to work out prints and stuff on your own but I’ll bring the camera and the person to press the shutter button so ALL OF YOU get to be in the photo. Or just your kids, if that’s who you need pictures of for Christmas cards.

We can go to one of the local parks or ponds or your back yard. I know of some really cool spots. Like an old train bridge for example. (Don’t worry, they don’t use those tracks anymore. Probably. I’m like, 99.99999% sure.)

p.s. That’s a poofy skirt under a dress. She picked it out.

This place is called Indian Leap. There is a tragic story involved, but it’s pretty self explanatory.

Caroline suspects this is a stupid idea. I’ll let you know soon.

P.S. Email or text or Facebook or whatevs if you want a playdate.

Back in high school I used to get super bored in classes like Physics and Algebra II. Is the anything more boring than Algebra II? I imagine there’s a room at most prisons where they lock prisoners in front of and endless loop of a video explaining the quadratic equation and exponentials and logarithms. Except that’s probably considered cruel and unusual punishment so we only make 9th graders do it. So back when I was facing that kind of torture, I used to stare at the ends of my hair, find my split ends, and slooooooowly peel them apart as far as they would go. It was horrifying and satisfying at the same time.

These days I can only dream of having that kind of time on my hands. There isn’t much time for sitting and staring into the distance as a mom. And even if I did, I’d be hard-pressed to find any split ends to peel thanks to the bottle of Dove Damage Therapy Intensive Repair conditioner I was sent to review. I was really skeptical when I saw “Up to 95% fewer split ends!” on the bottle, since I am not gentle with my hair. It goes up in those tangly hair bands by 10 am almost every day, gets sprayed with homemade sun-in on the regular, and I haven’t had a trim since…I don’t even remember. I’m currently trying to “grow it out”, which means I’ll let it get as long and unruly as I can stand and them chop off 6 inches, after which I’ll totally regret it and begin the process all over. But since I started using the Intensive Repair, the ends are much softer, much less damaged and almost split-end free.

p.s. Want to see your husband look at you like a crazy person? Ask him to help you take macro shots of your hair since your arm’s not long enough to do it yourself.

The Intensive Repair conditioner goes on really thick and feels super indulgent. It also does what conditioners are supposed to do – gets out and prevents tangles. (Remember when the thing you put on after shampoo was called cream rinse? This conditioner feels like that, but without the oily residue to weigh hair down.) The Fiber Active technology actually penetrates each hair strand, helping rebind damaged proteins to prevent future split ends and damage. That’s just fancy hair-care product talk for “Dude, it works.” I’m 100% planning to make this a permanent product switch and buy this on my own from now on, I like it that much.

You can enter the BlogHer giveaway below by following their directions (and get the coupon for your own bottle of Intensive Therapy), but feel free to comment on this post telling me I’m not the only weirdo who enjoyed peeling their split ends. Because that feels maybe I’m only one step away from being the strange girl who ends up in the hospital with a ball of hair in her stomach from chewing on it.

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