Tippy Toes and Tantrums

Disney Desserts and Why Caramel Apples are the Best

My sister and I have an unspoken rule that whenever one of us goes to Disneyland or Disney World (although neither of us have been to Disney World in years), we bring back the other a caramel apple. Last week we were at Disneyland for the 24-hour Monstrous Summer event, and I brought back my sister a Sully caramel apple. 

He reminds me of the line from Where the Wild Things Are: "We'll eat you up—we love you so!"

Sully led to a conversation about why Disney caramel apples are the best. My sister said it's good caramel, and I agree, but think the fact that they are freshly made helps, too. (You can watch the caramel apple making in the windows of Marceline's Confectionery and other Disneyland candy shops.) Fresh + good caramel + a dash of cute = the best caramel apples ever. Disney will put the apples in a little plastic container that allows for safe transport. They are the yummiest souvenir. We spied the new Sorcerer Mickey caramel apples, too, but the hat made him too tall to fit into the to-go containers. Sully was the perfect size. 

Here are some of the noteworthy treats that made it into our bellies:

Our first Dole Whips! This one was the float.

A design-your-own ice cream bar at Clarabelle's Hand-Scooped Ice Cream in California Adventure. 

A late night snack of churros bites from Cozy Cone Motel in Radiator Springs at California Adventure. 

Mint Juleps with (unpictured) Mickey-shaped beignets, enjoyed while listening to live jazz music at the Mint Julep Bar in Disneyland's French Quarter. It's the perfect afternoon break.

Finally, after a few mentions that Kevin and Rocket did not look happy in the last post, here's a happier picture taken with my iPhone. The less happy photo was photo number 19, using two cameras, that I'd taken at one location, not including the accidental video when I pressed the wrong button. They weren't tired of Disneyland, but tired of me 

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Remodel: Ready to Recap From Start to Finish

I'm finally ready to talk about the remodel. People ask me questions frequently and want to talk about it, but I don't. Part is been-there, done-that, part is that is the wound is still a teensy bit open. We love the house, it's incredible, and it will work well for our family, but there is the part where I still remember the downsides of construction. Every day was a confrontation, from tiny things to huge, potential deal breakers, and it wasn't fun. Not to mention, we lived here among the dust heaps, construction tools and debris with little escape. 

I could not have done this remodel 10 years ago. I don't think at age 30 - ahem - I could have stood so strong for so long. A friend told me last year that her mother always says, "If you don't open your mouth, you open your wallet." I said that to myself many times during the remodel, that if I didn't speak up, I'd end up paying for something I didn't want, didn't work, or was flat out wrong. Here is a simple fact of construction, and really life: you are your own advocate. No one was going to speak up for us. Many times I'd point something out to our builder, only to have the response be, "yeah, I noticed that, too." What I wanted to scream each time was, "THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?" 

See, the wound hasn't healed. 

Then there are the moments, when I am sitting at the kitchen island on the family room side, working at my laptop, while dinner cooks a few feet in front of me, the kids are just behind me watching a baseball game, and golden light comes through the slats of of the kitchen shutters and I can see the pink roses outside in the sunlight. 

Or there is the morning, when I reach my office early, it's peaceful, and look out at Rocket coloring at the art table, awash in soft light. 

Those moments are perfect and it was all worth it to take our okay house and make it something that will work for us long term through the many stages of our family, with young kids, to teens, to someday an empty nest. 

This week I'll put a Band-Aid over the wound and begin to talk about what went well, what we'd do differently, and of course, show pictures, beginning with our master bathroom, simply because it is the cleanest room in the house. 

Where to Find Poutine at AT&T Park

Let's pause for a brief public service announcement. The Giants announced they would be selling poutine this year, but at the start of the season, it was impossible to find. We came across it by accident, not on one of our many trips around the park searching for it, so here is the location for other search parties:

Main level, near the left field line, at the Derby Grill, next to the Ghirardelli stand. If you are standing behind the bleachers, you've gone too far. 

We had looked at the Derby Grill closer to home plate, but didn't see poutine. Maybe it wasn't on the menu at the time, maybe we missed it, maybe it still isn't on the menu. The point is, it's not easy to find.

Unfortunately we were on our way to get ice cream when the discovery was made, so we still haven't tried the poutine. Next time.

Need Help Meeting Goals for 2013? Make a Vision Board

Creating a vision board makes your goals 96% more likely to be realized. I just made that up, but it feels true, like of form of self-visualization. See it happening, and it will happen. Vision boards are easy to make, even for the highly distracted, like me, and they work as a reminder for your goals and dreams without leaving Post-It reminders around the house. 

When I visited Coca-Cola headquarters a few months back*, we made vision boards, which I'll admit, at first sounded like we were asked to do awkward ice breakers. Trust fall! Then I realized I had been doing a vision board, just less focused, called Pinterest. Pinterest is like a giant, varied vision board, but Coca-Cola was inviting us to determine the most important things in our lives, our goals, our interests, our dreams, and focus on them, then make it visual. When I saw tables of every type of magazine, plus chilled Diet Coke, I was in. 

It was a vision board that look me through the rough parts of the remodel. Now I can see things happening, but months ago, when things were still very rough, and times were even more stressful, I really needed the pictures to help keep me focused on the outcome. Eyes on the prize. I say that all the time to my kids, and while they routinely ignore me, it works. 

Below is my vision board, but I have to say that I got a case of the ADDs during the project and started reading the magazines instead of hunting for items to represent my life. White space as a design tool, was how I explained the gaps to others. Diet Coke, magazines, and no kids was the real reason. 

Every vision board should include a unicorn, in my opinion. Even more than now, life was focused on the house's construction and design process, and the struggle to balance work, life, maintaining traditions (this was just before Halloween), and having fun with the kids. (The blurred out part in the top included personal information about the house.)

Here it is, on display in the laundry room, amidst the construction:

Get some magazines, a glue stick, and a poster board and start visualizing your year. When you look back at the end of 2013, where do you want to be? What do you want to accomplish? Find a visual representation of those goals and dreams, put them on paper, and keep it up where it will catch your eye. Diet Coke is optional, but recommended. Unicorns are highly encouraged. 

* I'd written a long post about the trip that was eaten by Typepad, back in October. Because it's gone forever, let's assume it was the best piece of prose ever written and moved all readers to laughter, then tears. Once I get over the loss, I will re-write it. Or part of it. I mean, it's January now, after all. 

How - and Why - We Ended Up with a Furby

The crazy eyes will get you.

No way, we thought when Clover made a very late addition to her Christmas list. No way are we getting a toy that will only hold her interest briefly, while annoying us for a very long time. That it was too close to Christmas would have been a solid final response, but really, there was a set of grandparents who still needed a gift idea because all of the other art supplies, books, and trinkets had been taken by other relatives who don't wait until the last minute to shop.

Please, no Furby, we continued. 

Suddenly, it was the eve before Christmas Eve, and the grandparents still had no gift. I started having second thoughts. It wasn't because my parents still needed a gift, but if they hadn't, the issue would have been moot. As we thought about what they could buy her, the Furby was the only thing left that Clover really wanted. There were two small reasons why I was weakening: one, I worried her friends would get one, and she'd be hurt, especially because her best friend already owned one and they wanted to play with them together; and two, a gift needed to be purchased. It was the third thought that was major, and won Clover a Furby: she's 10. She's on the cusp of growing out of toys, and into the realm of teen-dom. Shouldn't we hold on to childhood for one more Christmas? Next Christmas it could be electronics, and clothes, but for now, it was still a toy. 

That thought was how Kevin and I found ourselves late at night at a Toys R Us that appeared to have been looted. We waded through the mess to find there were no Furbys left. Of course, once we decide to let her get a Furby, it's too late. I drove through the rain to Target, while he looked on his phone to see if Amazon could still overnight (nope). Thankfully, pushed back on a low shelf, were six yellow and teal Furbys, ready for a home. 

We didn't tell Clover our opinion had changed, which meant when she ripped open the gift from my parents, she was both surprised and excited. One of the first things she said was to me, "HA! I GOT IT! HAHA!" Her moment of excitement was worth it, not only because it was the toy we'd rejected, but because how often in life do you get a present wrapped so that it cannot be guessed by size, sound, or shape, only to have it be the one thing you really wanted, but never thought you'd get. Even if we've learned more about Furbish than we'd ever wanted to know (and we'd wanted to know nothing), it was worth it.

As long as no one wakes him up. Please, do not wake him up.

Spotivate: Where the Local Families Go for Fun

This year, I'm optimistic our remodel will eventually finish. Not as optimistic as I was in November when I wrote on our Christmas cards that it would be complete in early January. I was so naive that I shocked myself when I reread our finished holiday card last week. So naive! But it will end, someday. I think. With a brand new house that sucked up all of our money, we're not going far this coming year, which puts more emphasis on local activities to add fun and excitement to our schedule. My goal is to create memorable experiences with my family that are memorable in a good way. Not memorable because we are all sharing one bathroom without a sink or because we sleep among dry wall dust. Those memories can be forgotten, I hope, without tons of therapy for post traumatic stress disorder. 

Enter Spotivate. This is good stuff that is happening now nearby. No hearing about what we missed over the weekend at school on Monday morning. I remember the depressed embarrassment I felt when I first learned about the May Fete parade in Palo Alto a few years ago. I was surprised I hadn't known about it when everyone else did. Spotivate's like an assistant who scouts out activities based on my interests that would have let me in on the May Fete secret. 

Spotivate comes to me, which is perfect for my new scatterbrained status (I blame the remodel). I follow Spotivate on Twitter and Facebook, which means that even when I am not at their site wondering what to do this weekend, tips come to me. Last night it was a tweet about how kids eat free at a local restaurant, which couldn't have been targeted better. Being kitchen-less, we eat out all the time and are thrilled anytime we stumble across family deals. 

I know what my friends are up to, not when it's too late after they check in on Facebook, but before, when plans are being made. The activity recommendations can be highly personalized. Spotivate knows which areas I like exploring best, and what we like to do, and highlights appropriate recommendations. It's not scrolling through a general calendar, looking for a golden nugget hidden among toddler activities. There's nothing wrong with toddler activities if you have a toddler. I don't. 

Find me on Spotivate as Silicon Valley Mamas to see what we've up to. I'd love to find out what you're got planned, too. Even if your friends haven't tried Spotivate yet, you can highlight great ideas on Facebook with the click of a button, rallying friends for an activity you discovered on the site. Maybe we'll run into each other at a place that isn't the zoo.

This post is sponsored by Spotivate. Want to learn more? Check out the Spotivate Video

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ESRB and How Video Game Ratings Help Parents

It's prime video game buying and giving time, which means it's time to get educated about the ratings. I'm in this video of bloggers talking about how we use the Entertainment Software Ratings Board ratings, and while it's an honor to be among this crowd of bloggers, it's almost embarrassing to share as I'm the one in the construction zone with bad lighting and giants bags attacking my eyes. The upside is that our house has progressed far from this time. 

How to Pick Paint Colors (or 50 Shades of Gray)

Last night, I emailed the Excel spreadsheet with all of my paint decisions over to the builder and I felt relief greater than when I turned in my thesis in grad school. Much like with grad school, the deadline didn't stop the stress dreams. I woke up a few times, mid-dream, freaking out over a color decision.

Here's what I learned about picking paint colors:

• Don't paint swatches on your walls like they do on TV shows. The swatch colors will bleed through unless you hit those spots with 30 layers of primer. Instead, you need a brush out.
• Make your own brush outs. You can pay your painter or paint store to do a brush out for you - which is taking a sample of paint and painting it onto a special type of poster board. It's generally $5-10 here for someone to make a brush out for you, but with a few supplies, you can make your own for much less. Our paint store sells tiny 3 inch paint rollers packaged with it's own tiny tray and the special brush out paper, all conveniently near the register. I used about three of those, plus four sheets of special poster board that I cut into smaller pieces. The little Benjamin Moore samples cost $4 at my paint store. That was the biggest expense, and we went overboard. I think I bought 20 different 2 oz containers, which still seems a little crazy, but colors that look nearly identical, can look very different when painted out. The $4 jars cost less than a ton of regret. 
• Look at your brush outs during different times of day in the room they will be used. It sounds simple, but colors change so much in different lights. What looks like flat gray, may actually be blue in better light. Or that blue may actually be a gray. This blue/gray dilemma occurred in nearly every room of my house. 
• A single comment on Apartment Therapy can really get into your head. It may have been made by a pseudo-hipster commenting on a non-iPhone from a cafe serving only hand-pressed sustainably-harvested coffee with intricate designs in the foam that are then Instagrammed immediately, but that comment will stick. 
• Use Houzz.com like a real authority. Not the comments - please, not the comments - but real life photos of the paints you are considering are incredibly helpful. 
• Ignore the paint names. I stuck with Copley Gray a little longer than I should because I lived near Copley Square in Boston. Sometimes it's not a sign, but a coincidence. Move on. 
• If you're going to let your kids pick their room colors, then stand back and let them. I violated this when Rocket asked for a black ceiling, one black wall, one red wall, and one blue wall. The fourth wall color kept changing. I said no, this was not a crack house. We negotiated and he settled with San Francisco Giants orange on two walls. It turns out that orange is bright - and truly the best match for the Giants' orange appeared to be called Oriole, which was all wrong. I bought four orange samples and he went with the one I picked up by accident for their bathroom: August Morning. I keep calling it cantaloupe. I thought about overriding him, but a jumble of child psychology got in my head and I let it go. It's a happy color, probably the happiest in the house, which makes it appropriate for this kid. 
• Bring whatever item you are trying to match into the paint store. Lighting makes a huge difference, and bringing a key item to the store saves many trips back and forth, trust me. Major League baseballs are not white, they are more Mountain Peak White.
• Accent walls are dead. Sorry if that hurts, but that's what a commenter on Apartment Therapy said. 

One Decade of Motherhood

At 5:50 p.m. tonight I will have been a mother for 10 years. I have to be precise about the time because Clover is exact about things like that and insists she's nine until her birth minute hits. But really, motherhood began the second I found out I was pregnant, with all of the bed rest, horrible morning sickness, saying goodbye to caffeine for awhile and to my normal-sized ankles forever. Clover took over my body immediately. I was horribly sick, ate only refried beans for weeks (that includes breakfast which should make anyone ill), and craved sugar. At age 10, Clover would be perfectly content to live off of refried beans and Laffy Taffy. I've known her from the start.

She's always been strong and independent, but now her age is starting to match that. Now 10, soon 13, then 16, and then off to college. The pace is quickening, whether I like it or not. 

I'm lucky for so many things, but one that I reflect on often is that Clover is her age. Her interests are that of a girl, not a girl desperate to be a teenager. Those things will come, but she's in no hurry to get there. She's comfortable with herself, and she doesn't change to fit in, trusting that people will like her as she is. And they do. She's smart and sweet, with a range of interests so diverse, it was mentioned by her fifth grade teacher during her parent-teacher conference. One minute she's drawing cats and other cute creatures, then the next, she's talking about fantasy football stats, he said. The girl has range. 

Coincidentally, this is an appropriate time to change her room. With the remodel, it's time to repaint and redecorate, and she's seized this opportunity...and the Pottery Barn Teen catalog. Left behind will be the cutesy quilt on the little girl's bed, replaced with an ombre duvet cover, and a loft bed. There will still be Legos, stuffies with names, and enough books to fill a library. Signs of childhood continued, and not yet nostalgia for her past. 

Oh Clo, the last 10 years went by fast, and the next 10 will go by in a blink. Learning to walk was a big milestone of your early years, but the next 10 will be about learning to fly. 

I'll admit, I'm a little nervous about this next decade, but I cannot wait to watch you bloom. Ten years ago, you made me what I am, a mom. I love you, sweet Clover. 

Remodel: Day 23 - The Needed Reminder

It was golden hour in my bedroom. That could be taken many ways, but I mean that the evening light was perfect, just the way I like it after dinner, when the kids are on their way to bed, and the day shifts to night, and quiet finally returns.

Working from my sister's house with the kids here is really, really hard. It's hard enough at our house, but at least I can send them to their own rooms. Here, they share a room and we're always on top of each other, which means I need to send one to their room and the other outside when I need to separate them. I failed at first when I sent one to their room and the other to the bathroom because I couldn't think of anything else. 

Tonight I went to the house and it was quiet. The street was quiet, even though my neighbors were outside, the house was quiet, and the whole neighborhood was quiet. A couple walking by called out to ask how the project was going. I'd never seen them before, but the guy gave me a big thumbs up when I said it was going well. I miss our house, I miss golden hour in my bedroom, but I am so glad we didn't give up on the house and move away. I'm sad not to be living in our house now, but at least I know we'll be back. If we moved, the golden hour calm would have been gone. 

Good news! We're getting a little bit closer to a kitchen floor.