FennelFiles

I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately. Before I had kids I had a glut of time, and I took it for granted. At that point in my life I never thought I had enough, but as I look back now I can appreciate the teeming amounts of time at my disposal. After Lennon was born I encountered a massive time famine—something every new parent experiences. I struggled and felt bitter and angry that I couldn’t complete a project, sleep later than 7 am or start and finish a single load of laundry. Bitterness and anger were replaced by guilt for feeling bitterness and anger. And I never thought I would feel foul over having to attend to a sweet little peanut of love at 5 am, but there I was crankified and cussing at a job I signed up for willingly. Giving birth to an early bird only compounded the misery I felt for mornings.

One day about a year ago I woke up annoyed as usual. Only this time it was at me for the fact that I’d spent the last two years waking up angry. What a waste of energy this frustration over something that wasn’t going to change for a long, long time. So I stopped myself from falling into my cranky routine and called it quits on the attitude. My kids wake up early. They wake up happy and bouncy and they are excited to see us most mornings. They approach sunrise awakenings like we were all separated by a long vacation and every morning is a greeting at the airport arrivals gate. I realized I was wasting precious happy little kid moments because I was too busy feeling bitter over being woken up at the crack of dark.

And then right about the time Calla turned a year old I started accomplishing things again. The efficiency switch turned back on in my brain and my life became more organized. Random, I know, because there is so much more work involved in raising two kids versus one. Taking turns with your spouse or sleeping when the baby sleeps all become blessedly novel ideas when a second child is involved. After Calla joined the family Scott and I would reminisce about the good old days. Not the ones where we could go to the movies on a whim because my sleep-deprived brain can’t recall that far back. Instead we spoke fondly of the days when we could just take a nap.

I always knew I worked best when juggling multiple projects at once. I just never thought the rule applied to raising kids. Kids, work, chores, and hobbies—it was like everything important in my life sifted into a nice airy pile of fresh flour and cocoa powder ready to be poured into a decadent chocolate dessert. The rest of the clumps, the items I always say I want to do but deep down I don’t care so much about, got dumped into the sink and flushed away. Baking, gardening and writing went into the dessert but joining a gym and organizing photo albums got flushed. There are some ingredients like reading and knitting that are slightly clumpy and with a little extra sifting make it into my life but movies and skiing more than once a year both went down the drain.

Someone once told me not to gunk up my life with self-made problems because in her eyes I lead a pretty perfect life. And compared to her situation I do. For me fretting about time is a self-made problem. In the pre-Calla days I couldn’t stand for Lennon to have dried chunks of food on his shirt, and I spent a lot of wasted time changing him into clean outfits. I laugh at that woman now, especially on those summer days when I pick Calla up from daycare thickly coated in mud and wearing only a dirty shirt and a diaper. And I laugh at my former self on nights like tonight. My former self would never leave crusty dinner dishes sitting on the dining room table so that she could sit and write instead. Perhaps it isn’t that I’ve found more time to accomplish everything but that I’ve found a good balance between the tasks that need to get done and giving myself permission to do the things that make me happy.

Tonight laundry placed higher on the chores list than cleaning the dishes and so did creativity. I’ll fit the dishes in tomorrow morning sometime before 7 am because technically I am a morning person now.

On nights when baking edges out laundry try this adapted Joy of Cooking recipe for almond thumbprint cookies. They are fun, quick and easy to make, especially when baking on school nights.

Vegan Almond Thumbprint Cookies
Makes about 25 two inch cookies (you might want to think about doubling the recipe because the cookies are small and can easily be consumed by the handful)

Directions:
-Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and grease a cookie sheet or forget the extra grease and lay down a piece of parchment paper instead.

-Whisk together:
*1 ½ cups of flour
*1/3 cup cornstarch (this can be clumpy so sift it in)
*1/4 tsp baking powder
*1/4 tsp baking soda
*1/4 tsp salt

-Beat together:
*3 ½ TBS softened margarine (not melted but not straight out of the freezer either)
*3 TBS canola oil
*1/2 cup sugar
*egg replacer (the equivalent of one egg)
*2 ½ tsp vanilla extract
*1/4 tsp almond

-Beat the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined. Once combined, take a spoon and scoop enough dough to make a small ¾ inch ball.

-Place the balls on the cookie sheet about 2 inches apart.

-With your knuckle or your kid’s thumb, press down the center of each ball to make a deep well. Make sure you don’t press so hard that you hit the cookie sheet. And don’t worry if the dough wants to split a little. Just push the sides back into place until you have a little space to hold the jam.

-Pour into the wells:
*small spoonfuls of fruit jam or preserves (my peach jam worked very well in this recipe but you can use just about anything thick and yummy)

-Bake until the cookies just start to turn golden, about six to nine minutes

-Let the cookies stand for a few moments before moving them from the sheet onto a wire rack to cool

-Sit down with your kids and a glass of cold milk and try not to eat the whole plate

Lennon filling cookies.

Old plastic baby spoons hold just the right amount of jam and are easy for little kids to use.

And of course, you must sample the dough.