training

It was one of those rare afternoons when both my girls were down for a nap, the toys were picked up, our condo was in some sort of organized and clean order, and I had taken care of the essentials for myself (I was showered and had eaten). I decided I would get started on dinner for the evening.

I looked at my list of dinners I planned for that week, and tonight’s meal was red beans and rice. Running my finger down the list of ingredients on the recipe card, I decided I had the time to chop everything before the girls woke up.

Soon onion, celery, and green pepper were all in neat piles on my cutting board ready to be sautéed and not a peep had come from the girls’ room. I glanced at the rest of the ingredients and read the steps for the recipe. If I worked quickly, I guessed that I could prepare everything now and just let it simmer until dinner. Then all that needed to be done would be to cook the rice. Easy.

I decided to make a go of it. I was excited. I was racing against a clock that had an unknown time limit. And even though I knew the potential for things to get crazy when the girls woke up was great, the excitement of getting something done was too much for me to stop. I grabbed the andouille sausage from the freezer and dropped it in the pot just when my 5 month old Harper woke up. Like most babies who are on a 2 1/2 to 3-hour feeding schedule, I knew Harper would be hungry and not willing to wait until the sausage was a “nice, golden brown” like the recipe called for. But I didn’t want to stop cooking, so I gambled I could do two things at once. I put the lid on the pot, turned the stove to medium-high, and quickly made a bottle for Harper.

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If you had a quarter for every time you’ve heard the word “crisis” lately, well, you could probably single-handedly stimulate the economy. These days it seems like bad news is everywhere — on television, the Internet, at playgroups, and at the checkout stand in the supermarket. All the talk of a recession, a struggling stock market, and layoffs probably has your anxiety level sky high.

It is not hard to imagine that all this bad news may be getting to your kids too. Chances are you have probably already fielded some tough questions like, “What does ‘recession’ mean?” For most of us, these questions are tough to answer — it is hard to know how to tell kids what is happening without frightening them.

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With the advent of digital cameras, not to mention the arrival of baby, we are sure your collection of photographs increased exponentially. While you try to get your hands around all those pictures let us show you a few ways to use them that don’t start with printing.

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