Kiddie carpet

I just found a great website for kid carpet, appropriate for a playroom. These are actually made for day care centers and schools so they really hold up. www.kidcarpet.com

Chickpea Soup

I just made this soup a few nights ago...forgive me its not completely exact in the directions, a lot of it is to taste, anyway. So easy, filling and mostly made from things in your pantry.

Use a medium-sized soup pot. Drizzle about 2 tbsp. olive oil in the bottom of the pot on medium heat. Add 1/2 large or 1 small onion, 3 carrots, 3 celery stalks and small jar of roasted red peppers. Don't go crazy chopping everything because at the end you blend it all anyway. Let those ingredients soften somewhat, stirring occasionally...about 5 minutes. Add 2 cans of drained and rinsed chickpeas and 2 cans of chicken broth. Let come to a boil and then let simmer about 15-20 minutes or until veggies are soft. The spices you add are to your own taste, but this is what I used---3 pinches of cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, few shakes of cinnnamon, black pepper. Put this in, stir and then taste...you may want more cumin, more heat, etc.
Now take a hand-held emulsifier (or use a blender if you don't have the hand-held, just keep the removable insert in the top off or the hot soup will spray all over your kitchen) and blend the soup until smooth.
This soup is kind of like a warm hummus with some sweet spice to it. I served it w/ stir fried tofu cooked w/ garlic and cinnamon...I put a few tofu pieces on the top of each soup bowl. It'd be good w/ a dollop of some spiced yogurt or sour cream also--low fat obviously since this soup is very healthy and low-cal.

Try it...this soup is delicious, even my toddler liked it.

"I'm too tired..."

Imagine this: its 7:18 pm, I'm in my oldest daughter's bedroom (actual age:3, her imagined age: 17) asking her to put on a Pull-Up before bed. For the past few nights she's wanted to put the Pull-Up on herself, so in the interest of encouraging her independence, tonight I ask her to "show me how big she is" and perform her latest accomplishment. To my surprise, she doesn't want to do it. As I'm writing this, though, it makes perfect sense she wouldn't want to do it once I asked her...she thinks she's a teenager, of course she'd rebel against this request. Anyway, her response was this (at the same time she is literally slowly sliding down her bean bag chair as if she has lost all energy) "But I'm just too tired from everything I do all day"

Are you kidding??? It was actually hysterical, and of course I started laughing and then she joined in the giggling. On second thought, though, I had to ask myself if I really whine like that. All my daughter does is repeat. She repeats it as I say it and then over and over and over again. So she's getting this from me.

The fact of the matter is I am too tired from everything I do all day. Like every other parent, I am sleep deprived. I should be sleeping right now but I'm writing this. But you know what? My house is quiet, my kids are sleeping, my husband is snoring and I'm free to do what I want for the next 7 hours. OK, I'm not going out or anything but that isn't even important. For the first time all day I'm just thinking about me. It sounds borderline pathetic, but I don't care, I've learned its the little things in life that make the biggest difference. I take care of my kids all day, try to keep my husband happy, make sure there is food in the house, clean the floors, vacuumn about 2 times a day, shower at night like all Mommies do, manage school & doctor appointments, put shoes away, take care of all house related disasters and drive a mini-van. And when I really dig down deep into who I am and who I want to be...the fact of the matter is, I love it. Everyday is a balance of routine and unexpected turns, but for better or worse, when Mommy speaks, they always listen.