melted smoosh

this is a bit different from what's saving my life ... although, looking back at those posts, I guess most of the items that made my list aren't absolutely imperative for survival after all. but still, it seems a bit preposterous to talk about coffee creamer saving my life, so here we are.  1) Coffee creamer in oatmilk and dairy forms. flavored coffee creamer has been a small but much appreciated highlight of my day for as long as I've been drinking coffee (i.e., twenty-plus years). I love the staples like hazelnut or sweet cream, and treat myself to seasonal flavors like peppermint white mocha or Irish cream when the mood strikes. over the past few months, I've bought the same flavored creamers from Aldi that I always do and noticed that they had a strange, slightly bitter aftertaste. that's weird , I would think. maybe I just didn't add as much as I normally do so I'm tasting more coffee. or, maybe I didn't shake up the bottle well. then I spent a wee...

if three years is enough to merit the status of a tradition, we can safely say that our New Year's Eve open house/carol sing is in the running. looking back at my camera roll confirms that we did this for the first time two years ago. then we decided to do it again last year, and this year, our friend's parents who always come to visit over the holiday break (and whose beautiful voices are welcome additions to our carol-singing) asked if we were hosting again and I said, "sure!"  New Year's Eve 2024 New Year's Eve 2023 with baby Elizabeth and friends New Year's Eve 2023 New Year's Eve 2022 with our old piano (and babies on the organ bench) this year, Amelia, Ryan and their kids drove down from Erie and we spent the afternoon together before the party. we hit up the natural history museum, a perennial favourite with its life-size dinosaur skeletons, precious gems and minerals, and dioramas of woodland creatures.  big dino, little girls sitting inside a ...

our Sunday rhythm follows a predictable pattern most weeks. Nick leaves the house first to play for 9 AM mass. I hustle the kids into the van so the older girls can get to catechism classes at a different church at 9:15, then we drive across town for 11 AM mass. at this stage in my parenting journey (with kids ages 11, 8, 3, and 21 months), I'm at a sweet spot where I can truly focus on the service for about half of it. a quarter of the time is spent completely dedicated to child-directed activities (doling out snacks, preventing toddlers from escaping the pew, reminding older children to participate, and sometimes taking a particularly fractious child out to the vestibule). and a quarter is spent mentally suspended between the two extremes, gauging when to let Victoria quietly chatter to herself as she reads one of her board books and when to intervene (for example, when the chatter escalates to screaming "NO! NO! NO!" if Elizabeth snatches her book away). Greta is happy...

as the years fly by, I find myself appreciating traditions all the more. pandemics and politics have made the world feel hostile and unpredictable; my own expectations for keeping a tidy house and staying in good shape are often torpedoed by the reality of life with four young kids; inflation and our day-to-day expenses (predominantly educating and caring for those four kids!) have shot up so that now, decades into our respective careers, our disposable income is less than it was when we first started working.  and yet, at Christmas time, all of those gripes and discontents fall by the wayside. I spend the day of Christmas Eve in the kitchen, playing vocal and instrumental CDs recorded years ago by my siblings to share with extended family in the days before Facebook, chopping vegetables and making Christmas cookies just as I did as a child. Christmas Eve dinner will always be clam chowder with rolls (as a kid, we always had Grands buttermilk biscuits; my kids now prefer crescent r...