6:45 came early this morning, as Jamie and I stayed up late last night reading and talking. At midnight, we talked about stupid we were, and how tonight, we were going to go to bed at 9pm.
Chocolate milk and banana bread for breakfast started our day off right while Olivia returned to school on the first day. Not even five minutes after she left is when I heard the first “I miss Olivia”. I appeased her with oranges, and two episodes of Phineus and Ferb, answered some emails and worked a bit from my phone while we cuddled. I dozed with Violet a bit, finally got up and ignored the list of ten things that I wanted to organize before Olivia came home from Kindergarten at noon.
Violet and I played with her sister’s Lego until she got home from school.
Those are scrapbook paper supplies holders (Michaels) and each one of them is the perfect size to not only hold a couple or a few Lego sets, depending on the size, but the instructions that come along with them.
Pitas and dip are one of my easy go to lunches for the kids, and we had a two year old screaming for pitas, like her life depended on it, and no pitas. Not wanting to go outside because it’s freezing, I found a recipe that had three ingredients and used it to make delicious greek pitas, at-home. Bonus points - active recipe working time was under five minutes, and a two year old that fell asleep on the floor with a bag of skittles I told her she wasn’t allowed to open before lunch.
Five Minute Homemade Greek Pitas
1 cup hot water
2.5 cups of flour
1 teaspoon quick rising yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
Mix the water and yeast together, let sit for five minutes in the mixer. When the yeast has gotten fluffy in the water, add the flour, olive oil and salt and knead with the dough hook for 5-6 minutes. Let rise for one hour until doubled in size. Cut dough into six pieces and flatten with rolling pin.
Grease cast iron skillet or pan but don’t use too much oil. Cook on the first side for thirty seconds, and the second side for 1-2 minutes on medium high. I found it helpful to cover during the second side cooking. Greek pitas are thicker, smaller usually and don’t have many pockets on the inside - but they are delicious, especially if you season them. For the kids, I just cut them up and served them with some cucumbers and leftover chicken, with some tzatziki sauce.
Are you a tea granny? Over the past few days, I’ve gone through an incredible amount of the Bubbie’s Baklava Tea from DAVIDsTEA that Jamie gave me in my stocking. It’s delicious, and has made it into the ranks of one of my top three favorite teas.
Half way through the day I realized that something has changed over the course of the last few months. Being more organized, consciously being more in the moment and being more patient has left me able to embrace the chaos - and relax knowing that all of the messes can be cleaned up when they’re finished. Since we’ve organized the house and everywhere has a place, clean up is simple, and takes just fifteen minutes to bring the house from kid disaster play area to ‘oh, dad’s coming home, clean up!’
And has left me to realize that sometimes, you need to get up on a counter to play with Goldieblox Zipline. At this moment, Olivia was screaming at Violet to put it in the right place, because everyone knows the Zipline needs to go from high to low. She took a five on the stairs shortly after this bout of crazy.
The 60 minutes outside today? That’s not happening. The kids spent exactly seven minutes outside in the back yard until they demanded to come in because I was being mean and it’s cold out there. Fine/quiet time for all. The half-hour break I just imposed of the kids reading quietly has now ended.
We’ve got pitas leftover for dinner. The kids are demanding bunny mac and cheese. I think it’s going to be a bunny mac and cheese, pitas with hummus and watermelon kind of dinner tonight.
Violet is forever in pajamas. I wish I could be too, they look cozy. I’ve come to the conclusion that unless we are going out to dinner, shopping or somewhere special toddlers in our house have two dress codes: naked and footed pjs.
May all the Mondays be as cheery as the first one of 2015.