Babies coughing
trouble sleeping
needing cuddles
moaning, weeping
Juice at midnight
up at dawn
laundry’s whirring
Daddy’s gone
Games tomorrow
books today
Soup and crackers
prayers to say
H1N1
Achy, dripping
hacking, then some
tea for sipping
House a mess
the fever stays
Hold on, dears
Just a few more days.
I’m not even sure when it started, this habit of using the Opera Voice to nag our children, but it’s become a mainstay in our household. My husband and I are musical, but we don’t have opera on our iPods. I remember going to operas as a child, and there’s just no arguing with a soprano, who, arms outstretched, is proclaiming her undying love for her man. Nobody says, “Yes, but what does she really mean?” There’s something so definitive about opera. You never heard Luciano Pavarotti sing, “I’m not sure,” or “Let me get back to you on that.” Opera stars know what they want, and they’re willing to crack the chandeliers to attain it.
And face it, parenting is a miracle wrapped up in a whole lot of mundane. The day-to-day stuff includes a lot of “Hey! Stop picking your nose!” (repeat 50 times) or “Quit smacking your brother!” (repeat 72 times) or even, “Go back and flush! (repeat every day, for the rest of their childhood). The parent tires of saying it just as much as the kids tire of hearing it; they start to tune out. I’ve definitely been weary of hearing myself saying these things.
That’s where opera comes in. Even if you’ve never attended an opera in your life, you might be familiar with the British rock band Queen and their 1975 rock opera hit, “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
"I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango?
Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening ..."
And then later:
"Mamma mia, mamma mia, mamma mia let me go!"
I often sing this little excerpt while cooking dinner. My children know that it is a happy Opera Voice; Mommy is simply reliving her childhood and no action is required. I don’t even know what these words mean, but I remember them. They are burned into my brain. And therein, perhaps, lies the magic of opera.
The higher the Opera Voice, the more serious the infraction: a mellow, alto means just a gentle nag, something like, “Please make your bed-o! I’m not the maid-o!” But when I take a deep breath and pull out all the stops, the Opera Voice can climb to screeching heights. This is reserved for directions that have been previously ignored, like “If you don’t take the garbage out NOW, I’m going to scream-ah and take away the Wii-ah!!”
I’d like to come up with some in-depth analysis of why Opera Voice is effective when parenting. I might suggest that the high timbre of the singing catches their attention, while expressing urgency; or maybe our brains are wired to hear music more readily than plain talking. But that would be just silly. I think, for me, the Opera Voice is a wonderful tool to remind my kids that their Mom is just this side of loony. That if they were to push me far enough, I would have the capacity to embarrass them beyond compare. Sure, up until now the Opera Voice is reserved for the privacy of our own home. But if called upon, I could scare up a vibrato as wide as the frozen foods aisle, or sing a chorus that reaches the length of the soccer field.
You think I wouldn’t be crazy enough to use Opera Voice in front of the neighbors?
Try me.
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 can (15 oz.) whole or quartered beets, drained (reserve liquid)
1-1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup juice from beets
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 squares (1 ounce each) unsweetened chocolate, melted
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 13-inch baking pan.
In medium bowl, measure flour, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine. Set aside.
Puree drained beets in a food processor or heavy-duty blender. Scrape into a large bowl. Add sugar, vegetable oil, and 1/2 cup reserved beet juice to the pureed beets and mix on medium speed until combined. Add eggs and vanilla extract, blending until completely incorporated.
Add flour mixture to the beet mixture. Using medium speed, mix until combined, at least two minutes, scraping down sides often. Add melted unsweetened chocolate and mix until combined.
Pour into baking pan. Distribute chocolate chips evenly over the top of the batter. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Do not over-bake or it will become dry. Let cool to room temperature.
Yield: 36 to 48 servings, depending on cut size
Parenting breeds sneakiness. As soon as those little darlings come into your life, you begin relying on all your wiles, all your most clever schemes, in order to trick them into doing what’s best for them, in the interest of allowing them to retain their dignity and independence.
Being a sneak in my family is mostly centered around food. My veggie-phobic kids have a discerning taste for all things processed, junky, and sugary. While my husband and I enjoy whole grains and organic fruits and veggies, our kids are just fine with macaroni and cheese from a box and meat, meat, meat. So early on, we realized that if we were going to get our picky kids to eat something good for them, they’d have to think they were eating something bad for them. And so began the endless search for recipes that allow healthy things to be slipped in alongside the junk.
My food processor is my main weapon in my arsenal for sneaky cooking. Take any fruit or vegetable, blend that puppy into submission, and suddenly, you’ve got something that even the pickiest eater can’t even recognize. I think my first attempt at tricking the children had to be meatloaf; admittedly, an obvious choice, with its ground beef mystery-meat reputation, made legendary by lunch ladies in cafeterias everywhere. My meatloaf usually contains whole grain bread crumbs, and finely chopped mushroom, carrot and sometimes even zucchini. And my kids eat it up, dipping it boldly in ketchup, happily chewing away, not noticing my sneaky grin.
Next came smoothies, another great way of sneaking fruits into the kids’ diet. My kids would never dream of eating a regular banana, but stick it in a blender with some milk, ice, honey and peanut butter and call it a “Power Shake,” and suddenly, they’re gulping it down with reckless abandon.
Moms like Jessica Seinfeld encourage us in our sneakiness with books like “Deceptively Delicious.” In her book, Seinfeld details her sneaky scheme of cooking for her picky eaters by integrating a variety of vegetable purees into her recipes. The fact that her book reached the top of best seller lists shows that she struck a chord: Moms everywhere struggle with their picky eaters.
Perhaps the most brilliant recipe I’ve come across is for Chocolate Beet Cake. Yes, you read that right. Beets, those huge, beautiful veggies with their deep red-purple color and their sweet flavor. I love them, and could eat them like candy. My kids? Highly suspicious. Maybe it was the year our garden produced a bumper crop of beets that made me think of doing an internet search for beet recipes. What could I possibly sneak them into? This rich, chocolatey cake recipe has become a staple in our household, and the kids have never once asked me why I always seem to bake it when they’re not around. All I know is that they love it. But if I want them to continue to love it, I have to hold myself back from offering them a second piece of cake. After all my hard work, I wouldn’t want them to become suspicious.
It seems appropriate that just as I'm about to sit down to write my first post, my daughter, who is 1-1/2, has decided to take off her clothes.
Since she is my fourth child, I know better than to wonder why she wants to remove her clothes. As a child, the removal of clothes is something similar to adults scratching their head; it starts with a subconscious urge, then a conscious nagging, and before you've had a chance to analyze why you're scratching, or which hand should execute the scratch, you've ... well, you've already done it. And so here stands my daughter, completely naked, after yanking, tugging and wrestling out of her pink footed pajamas first, then her diaper. She smiles at me as if to say, "Didn't I do a great thing?" She is cradling her baby doll, who is also completely naked.
As she turns to leave the room, I get an unabashed view of her baby bottom. As this is my first post, I'd like to wax philosophical about how the art of blogging makes me unsure, makes me feel naked and exposed; how I'm stepping as a child into a world yet unknown to me. But that would be self-indulgent.
Besides, I'm the Mommy. If there's a diaper-less baby in the house, there's a good chance I'm going to need a mop soon.
