Every so often, I come across a recipe on the internets that speaks to me. It doesn't happen often, but a few months ago I fell on these crazy looking Carmelita's on Pinterest (courtesy of Lulu the Baker). Everything about them appealed to me. The drippy caramel, the melted chocolate, and the fact that all this was sandwiched inside of an oatmeal crust - just thinking about it makes me... hungry. But one cannot subscribe to healthy eating and to a world where Carmelita's are a regular occurrence so I tucked the recipe into that little spot in my brain that I reserve for naughty stuff and went on my way. Then, the perfect event reared its head - we were invited to a Mother's Day BBQ and I was tasked with dessert! So I cracked open that naughty nook and got to work. And now, I share with you, the sickest dessert in the history of desserts - I even added a little party to the name for affect - the Fiesta Carmelita.
Ingredients:
2 bags of chewy Werthers caramels
1 cup heavy cream
3 sticks of butter (I never said they were healthy!)
1.5 cups brown sugar, packed
2 cups flour
2 cups old-fashioned or rolled oats
2tsp's baking soda
1 bag of chocolate chips
While I amended some of the ingredients a bit, I followed Lulu's instructions to the t:
"Combine caramels and cream in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir until completely smooth; set aside. In a separate bowl, combine melted butter, brown sugar, flour, oats, and baking soda. Pat half of the oatmeal mixture into the bottom of the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove pan from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over crust. Pour caramel mixture over chocolate chips. Crumble remaining oatmeal mixture over caramel. Return to oven and bake an additional 15-20 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool completely before cutting.
*A stint in the fridge will help them cool off if you're pinched for time. They shouldn't be served cold, but all of that molten caramel takes a long time to cool down. They should be stored and served at room temperature."
Time Magazine released their latest issue today and unveiled a provocative cover that features a hot, blond mom standing with her boob exposed and her dumbstruck three-year-old suckling at it.
Without reading the story and based on the headline, you'd think it would be about that beaten-to-death "Mommy Wars" topic that rears its head every 25 minutes (and I've written about more than once). But it's not. It's actually a profile of Dr. Bill Sears, the 72-year-old doctor and author who began writing books 20 years ago that say parents must wear their babies as an appendage at all times, sleep with their babies lest they feel abandoned for 8 hours, breast-feed for at least one year to even be considered a mom, and pretty much arm your children with zero independence, no self-soothing skills and ensure that they need mommy and daddy for ev-er-y-thing until they at least 15. He even warns that that babies who cry too much — even those who are left to "cry it out" for short periods at night as they learn to go to sleep on their own — could suffer permanent brain damage, leading to a lower IQ, behavioral problems and more. No, seriously!
But my own opinions aside, I learned about the Time cover only secondary to a segment that aired on this morning's Morning Joe (below), during which Managing Editor Rick Stengel of Time Magazine appeared, most likely to promote the new issue, but also to be on the receiving end of a host and a guest, both of whom have vaginas, about the potentially gratuitous boob shot it portrays and the message that the headline, "Are you mom enough?" sends. I heard about it from my boss at work who saw the segment and said she thought of me as she is aware that I sometimes struggle with being a good full-time employee and being the type of mom my girls deserve. She too is a mom who works hard, and undoubtedly has stuggled with the same sometime feelings of guilt - both about kids and work - and has encouraged me to work hard but not to miss those moments with my kids that can't be recovered. I think about her advice often as I decide whether I can be spared at work for a few hours to chaperone a field trip or attend a religious service on a friday morning.
The opinion that moms must be all-mom-all-the-time in order to be a successful parent, along with Stengel's smug attitude about the cover, lit me a fire just hot enough to bother writing this post. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of breast-feeding, I'm a fan of bottle feeding, hell, I'm just a fan of feeding your child using whatever method ensures nourishment. I've said it before, I don't judge how other parents parent, so long as a child is not put in harm's way.
What I'm not a fan of, is slinging mud at both sides just to see who screams louder. And you know, this cover, regardless of what's inside of it, will prompt countless conversations, blog posts, tweets, status updates, Pins, etc about who is the mightiest parent of them all. Is it the stay-at-home-mom who wore her baby until her back broke, nursed till baby was enrolled in kindergarten, and snuggled baby and (all previous kids) in the "family bed" forcing daddy to lock himself in the bathroom with nudie magazines and a sock? Or is it the parents who kept baby beside them until they decided it was time for his/her own room, nurse or bottle fed or combined the two till it was time, encouraged their kids to walk, talk, and eat at their own pace, and wore them once in a while just to get dinner on the table in a timely manner?
Really, who cares. That's so not the point for me. If you watch the segment below, the two points that do resonate for me are:
1) According to Stengel, the image on the cover "represents the attachment between mother and child." There is SO MUCH WRONG with this statement that it's crazy. According to Stengel, if you don't have a kid hanging off your boob, you have failed at bonding with your kid.
Loving that this comes from a MAN. I guess to complement this view, Stengel sees no way for dads to bond as strongly with their children, since they have no boobs. I mean, how could they? And if you're a mom who didn't nurse then obviously your bond with your kid is far less than if you had. I mean, obv.
2) The hosts brought up a great point - if you're a dad who leaves work early to go cheer on your kid in little league you are a hero. But if you're a mom who needs to cut out early to take little Junior to the pediatrician? Well, that's coming outta your vacation time. And you can be sure that your promotion just moved a little further south, Mom.
Oh, the double-standards that abound in our modern, post-feminist, tech-savvy, contemporary society continue to astound. Personally, I feel lucky to have found a place of employment filled with managers who are moms and get that even though I'm not at the top of the food chain, my kids sometimes take priority, even between the hours of 8:30am and 5:30pm. Lucky me, but it's cover pieces like this that send a message to women that screams if you don't sell your soul to your children, you are not worthy of having any.
And that, my friends, couldn't be further from the truth.
I don't typically blast out my kids birthdays on my blog because, let's face it, who really cares. But this post isn't so much about a birthday as it is about the fact that there's this crazy thing that happens after your kid turns five and goes to kindergarten and then turns six and you notice all these changes, and some are big and others small, and is this happening at your house too????
Alex was my first child, often lovingly referred to (by me) as my "original" baby. She came just when I needed her most, and we've been a dynamic duo ever since (well, trio if you count her really cute lil sister). She has promised me that that we can live together forever and ever and I've promised her that I have never loved anyone as much as I love her and her sister. My feelings are 100 percent truth, and in all honesty, if things keep going this way, she may actually live up to her promise also.
Bottom line - she's an extraordinary kid and oh-so-loving. Which works out for me.
But in the last year, in between the tulips and butterflies and rainbows, there have been moments of OHMYGODWHOSEKIDISTHAT and I blame kindergarten.
A month or two ago, my not-quite-six-year-old came home and told me that two kids in her class were going on a date.
"A date?" I asked, keeping my voice even even if I was half in shock. "What's a date?"
"It's when a boy and a girl get together at night."
"What do they do on a date? What's the difference between a date and a playdate?" I was scared to hear what was next.
"The kids go out to a restaurant and eat dinner - a boy and a girl." I pressed her for more. "That's all I got," she said (for real). "But at the end you can kiss on the lips."
"Oh, and I forgot - you don't sit next to each other, you sit across from each other so you can look at each other."
I was totally appalled and not at all ready for this but the part of me that appreciates irony entertained the conversation. "They go out to eat? Who drives? Who orders? Neither kid can read! WHO PAYS!!!???"
We laughed. Because seriously, the whole thing was ridiculous.
Then the other day she came home from a playdate (with a girl) and proceeded to define "sexy" for me.
"It means stylish and pretty, mom," she told me like I'm an idiot.
While she wasn't wrong in her description, my heart sank. My sweet little six year old, my Spongebob Squarepants loving daughter who can't sleep unless I cuddle with her and still comes into my bed in the middle of the night several times a month - she was explaining what sexy means.
There's nothing to be done. As proof, we were listening to a popular morning show on the radio a few months ago and the word slut was being tossed around as casually as the forecast and before I could switch it (or even noticed), a little voice from the backseat says to me, "Mommy, what's a slut?"
I wasn't going there.
No matter how hard we try to shield our kids from the overly sexualized, less gentle world than my generation grew up in (and that's not saying much), it's just not possible. And I don't blame those kids who are teaching her these things prematurely. They're good kids who are learning from older siblings who have friends with older siblings.
So now she's six and in a few months she'll go to first grade and the social scene will only become more intense with each year. And each year, I'll lose a little more of the control that I struggle to hold on to due to the simple fact that I let her out into the world. And she'll lose a little more of that beautiful innocence that I wish she could possess forever.
So here's the plan. I'm going to do everything I can to instill decent values in my kids while they're under my roof. So with work and school and stuff, that leaves about two hours a day, plus weekends, to make my mark. I think it's going ok. They don't curse (Mommy! That's a BAAADDDD word!) and they know when they're saying something I won't like. They have nice table manners, say please and thank you, and other parents tell me that my girls are a pleasure to have in their homes. I'm sure they'll be privy to pretty much everything within the next few years, but I'll do whatever I can to protect those little people so they grow up to be big people who can feel proud to be who they are.
Happy sixth birthday to my delicious little girl...
