Gingerbread cookie dough 2013

I have continued with my gingerbread cookie dough experimenting and I will share what I have learned. It is unlikely that anyone will make gingerbread cookies after Christmas season but I couldn't share it earlier because I was still testing my theories and improving the recipe.

Estonian Gingerbread cookies

2013 edition

150 g sugar for caramelizing (+ some water)
200 g/ml hot water
210 g sugar
250 g unsalted butter
Spices (see below)
2 eggs (I use large eggs)
600 g flour (I use Type 550, 12% protein)
1 tsp soda
1 tsp baking powder

Spices (Kristiina's mix 2013):
3 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp clover
2 tsp cardamom
1 tsp ginger (dry powder)
1 tsp black pepper
a few allspice berries
1/8 nutmeg
fresh zest from half an orange

Pour 150 g sugar in a thick-bottomed pot, add some water, heat and dissolve. Also heat 200 ml water in another dish. When all the sugar has dissolved (the syrup no longer looks cloudy), heat the syrup until water evaporates and the melted sugar turns brown. Mix by swirling the pot, don't use a spoon. Stop caramelizing before it starts smoking. Drizzle in the 200 ml water. Beware the hot water vapor. When the caramelized sugar is dissolved, add 210 g sugar and mix until dissolved. Then add 250 g butter. Add ground spices (approx. 70-80 degrees Celsius syrup). Cool down the syrup. When the mix is about 40 degrees Celsius (warm but not hot), whisk in 2 eggs, one at a time. Mix flour with soda and baking powder and mix it into the syrup. I use a wooden spoon (less messy) but some people use a hand to mix until even. Put the dough in two clean strong plastic bads and refrigerate for at least overnight, but 3-4 days is even better. Cook cookies in 200 C oven for 4 and a half minutes.

Some tidbits:
The sugar for caramelizing can be melted without dissolving it in water. However, I have found it much easier to control the process if the sugar is evenly dissolved and then evenly melted and caramelized. If you just pour dry sugar in a pot and heat it, then it's easy to end up with half of it burnt and the other half still white and dry and chunks of sugar floating in it.

It seems that gingerbread cookies are very different in different parts of the world. Only Estonian traditional gingerbread cookie recipes start with heating caramelized syrup.  The brown syrup can also be bought in the store but I would like my recipe not to depend on a certain product that might disappear from the stores at any time. I'm sure the heated syrup method is traditional in some other countries as well but I haven't seen any modern recipe with heated syrup originating from any other country than Estonia. Here it is common knowledge that gingerbread cookies are done with caramelized syrup. Just mixing flour, sugar, butter, and spices would not qualify as more than a gingerbread-flavored cookie.

The spices vary in different countries as well. In USA, gingerbread cookies are flavored with ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. In Estonia, the typical mix contains cinnamon, clover and cardamom. Sometimes other spices like black pepper or coriander are used. I like gingerbread cookies to be very spicy and aromatic, so I used more spices than they used in any recipe that I found. I also really love the taste of orange with the taste of caramel and cinnamon. Mmmm... Orange zest is not often used but it's really good.

There seems to be some disagreement when the spices should be added. In my experience, it's a bad idea to boil the spices. You just lose so much of the flavor. Also, don't add the spices to cold syrup, otherwise the spices won't mix into the dough that well and even keeping the dough in the fridge for a couple of weeks doesn't help much. I got best results when I added the spices to hot (near boiling temperature) syrup and then cooled down the syrup in cold water bath. This way the spices were released and they didn't have too much time to just fly away. Cooling the syrup in room temperature results in very spicy smell in your home and quite mild tasting cookies. Also, if you keep them in the oven for too long, half the aroma is lost.

It is very important that you don't add the flour when the syrup is still too hot. Near room temperature is good. If the flour gets too much heat, then gluten in the flour will be cooked: the dough will be hard to work with, but the cookies will be very nice and crisp. The dough was just horribly sticky but the cookies almost made me think it's worth it to repeat the mistake.  

Don't over-cook them. If the sides of the cookie are caramel brown from being in the oven, then you have lost half the taste. Orange taste goes first. Use a timer. If you're unsure if the cookies are done,  flip them over and look for any brown patches. And wait for them to cool down and harden a little before you move then from the parchment paper.

If you use too much flour while making the cookies, then you might end up with bland and dry cookies. Especially true if you re-roll the same piece of dough several times and add flour every time. In stead, try rolling the dough on a sheet of parchment paper and pressing in the shapes there. The shapes look better, you need much less flour, and it takes less time to make cookies. Win.  

Other news: I missed gym for about 40 days because I was too busy being at home with ill kids, then too busy trying to get back on track in the lab and then being too busy with the Christmas season. I haven't even started with my PhD thesis and I have not managed to do even one proper experiment for my current work project. Fortunately, the combination of LOTS of gingerbread cookies and the missed gym, did not have the combined effect I was afraid of. Also, I'm turning 30 in less than a month and have decided to postpone any "Where have I got in 30 years"-contemplation to next year, to a time barely before I am 31 years old.  

Both Good and Bad

It's been FOREVER since my last post, so I'll just write about some things without much effort to write everything. And that's particularly easy because not much is happening. Kids grow, I barely have any hobbies left and barely have any time to myself. Exercising is also impossible and also impossible to watch any series or read any books or meet with friends. Or so I thought until I decided that it's a defeatist attitude that robs me of having a life besides being a mommy.

So then I got a membership card to the gym that I liked the most and also started playing tabletop role-playing games with my friends. That means I have even less spare time but it's totally worth it. I spend less time with my kids and I felt guilty about it for a little while until I realized that I'd be setting a really bad example for them if I didn't do what I believed was the right thing to do. I want to raise them to be strong and brave and when they have a goal, I want them to be determined and I want them to believe that their life is mostly in their own hands (except if their goal is to win at a lottery, in which case I'd hope they give up quickly). So if I believe that a woman shouldn't give up everything to just babysit and cook, then what kind of an example am I setting by spending all my evenings either babysitting my own kids or cooking for them.   Making time for sports and hobbies is not easy but it definitely makes me feel better about myself. Going to the gym seems to do good things with my concentration and inspiration as well which makes creative work easier but it also takes away time, especially because my workouts can't all be in the evening so the pros and cons even out. It's good for health anyway.

This week has been horrible though. Liisa had the worst stomach flu. We can't even hire a nanny for such an illness (too contageous) and Erkki has been busy at work so I've been at home with the kids. No work, no gym. Okay, I work in the evening when it's possible but it really has me envying people who can just do their job and feel good about it. It's starting to feel like an invisible prison. I have the car keys in my bag pocket, the car is visible from the window, I just really want to try this experiment with these plants are are in the exactly the right size. No one else is using the microscope, I have my solutions ready, I could just go and do the experiment, but I can't! I can't leave the apartment. I'm just stuck here putting away toys, totally aware of the work that is expected of me, work that even I expect from myself. I'm not really to kind of person to spontaneously go to the store because of a random craving but it feels horrible to know that I couldn't go even if I wanted.

But at least the kids are cute and generally well-behaved. That's what I keep telling myself. I'M IN PRISON, but at least it's cute! And when I tell myself they are well-behaved, I completely leave out Liisa's personality. Behaving well and being sane are totally different things. Let me explain.

Liisa is a giggling ball of random mischief. She climbs up the bookshelf, I pick her up and put her down, she lands walking and without a pause, she climbs on the couch, then to the armrest, then the backrest and tries to stand on top of it. "GAAAAAH! LIISA, come down right now!" . She giggles maniacally, lies down on the backrest and as I approach, she (still smiling) closes her eyes blissfully and starts breathing heavily as if pretending to be asleep. I put her on the floor and she walks straight towards the bookshelf. One day she discovered that she's able to climb on the kitchen table using a much more challenging (=dangerous) route than simply using the chair for simple climbing. She somehow pulls herself up from the side, adjusts herself to a sitting position and laughs with anticipation how I plan to stop her. There is no stopping her. Fortunately she still follows some rules and when I tell her to stop outside home she usually listens or lets me stop her from doing anything really dangerous. Basically it's a game for her to act insane. I don't even dare to imagine how this trait of hers will manifest itself when she's in her teens.

In some ways completely the opposite, Siiri has become more social and a bit less scared of the world, but she still panicks too easily. It's been a struggle to find a physical hobby for her. Ballet I didn't like, modern dancing for children was too random for her (she had a meltdown and later refused to go there), track and field was too intimidating and she panicked already the first time. From the look on her face, I would have thought the room was full of demons only she could see. Perhaps she was a bit too young for such a large group. Finally we have been sticking with acrobatics. It was going great until some boys were mean to her there so now she refuses to participate. The acrobatics class itself is perfect for her so we really don't want her to quit. Not easy to decide how to encourage her.

But all in all, the kids are in their cutest age - 2 years and 4.5 years and me and Erkki still struggle with enjoying the everyday life of being a parent. Yeah sure there are countless cute moments and funny moments and memorable moments and heart-warming moments, but it would be a stretch to say that it has improved our general happiness levels. I have all these happy moments but there are also all the moments when I force myself to ignore a grim reality, to calm myself and do that needs to be done. And the lack of freedom is just so absolute that it's better to pretend that there wasn't any freedom before either. Parenting is a very complex experience. Can't get the good parts without enduring the bad. And anyway, it could just be a phase. It will be better when the youngest is at least 5 years old.

Big Kids Eat Jam

One unusual thing about Siiri is that she doesn't drink juice and she doesn't eat jam. She didn't even eat berries until she was 3 years old and went out picking and eating tiny naturally growing strawberries in the forest with her grandparents. She's generally a good eater but she just REALLY HATES JAM. Even when I make a cake with pieces of fruit, whole berries, or a berry filling, Siiri picks out any parts that even remotely resemble jam. Even when she doesn't see the jam, she tastes the sweet-and-sour flavor and cringes.   She hates anything resembling jam so much that she will leave her favorite part of the cake uneaten if it's even touched a cooked piece of apple. She has happily eaten uncooked fruit as long as I remember and access to berries is very seasonal anyway.

Last summer when Siiri had just recently eaten strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries for the first time, she asked for frozen raspberries from the freezer. She was slowly nibbling on them and declared, "I am now old enough to eat raspberries!" and as we were discussing age and eating different things, she said, "When I am four years old, I will eat jam." I was amused, but I also remember thinking that, since it's Siiri, she might be telling the truth.  If she really thinks she will eat jam when she's 4 years old, she actually might, but I will not believe it until I see it! I made a mental note to remember her bold statement but I also decided not to remind her of it because I wouldn't want her to force herself to eat anything just to keep her word.

Months passed and Siiri's 4th birthday was approaching when Siiri again started talking about it. "Mom, is my birthday almost here? Will I be 4 years old? Does it mean that I will eat jam?" I replied something like, "Yes, you will soon be 4 years old. Will you eat jam? If you say so." As her birthday drew closer, she talked about it more and more. She mentioned it several times during the week before her birthday. I found it extremely hard to believe because about a week before her birthday, a tiny amount of jam somehow got smeared on the side of her plate of porridge; Siiri stared at the jam in absolute disgust and couldn't start eating her porridge until I had cleaned the jam off her plate. 

Finally, it was Siiri's birthday. We made porridge, like we always do, and took out the jam, like we always do. Siiri sat down and said, "I am now four years old. I will eat jam now." I took some porridge on a spoon, smared it with a little bit of jam and gave it to Siiri. She stared at it a little while and then, in a motion that can be described with the phrase, "lets get it over with!", she put the spoon in her mouth. All time stopped. She turned the food in her mouth, looking like she's trying not to vomit and then swallowed, looking suddenly very pale.  I handed her some water and she grabbed it and washed down the "foul" taste. She said, "Now I am four years old. I ate jam."

Later she sometimes mentioned that she now eats jam, but when I casually offered her jam, she always refused. It was very brave of her to try jam and I didn't want to push it. Her birthday in May was followed by a summer of eating lots of fresh berries. Perhaps Liisa has also been giving a good example in this regard. Liisa drinks juice, eats jam and all kinds of berries and fruit. When we bought some perfect sweet cherries and gave some to the kids, Liisa rushed to eat as much as possible as fast as possible. Siiri was curious and tried some as well. Sweet cherries are of course delicious so it didn't take long until they were both eating plenty of sweet cherries. Siiri even happily ate a few sour cherries when we got to pick them fresh from a cherry tree. However, Siiri still seemed to hate jam.

Fast forward to yesterday. We were driving home from a wedding and we had been driving about 2 hours and were discussing dinner. Siiri requested, "lets make pancakes! Pancakes with jam! It is my favorite food in whole world!".  We tried not to show our amusement too much, "with jam? Are you sure?". Siiri replied, "yes! Lets make pancakes with jam. It is the best food!". So, just because we were curious, we agreed with that plan and made pancakes and I served it with the strawberry jam that I made this summer.

Siiri took a pancake, covered it with jam and ATE IT!  She was thoughtful while chewing but she ate it and asked for more. I helped her put more and more jam on her plate and she ate all of it. Today in the morning Siiri said that she now eats jam and only wants jam on her porridge. She actually ate the jam first, then added more jam and ate that too.  Wow.

Moral of the story: trust your kids. You never know when they might be telling the truth.  

They Get Better Over Time

It's time for a kid update. There isn't much new here for people whom I've already bored to death by talking about my kids but it has been a while since I talked about them in my blog. Siiri is 4.2 years old and Liisa is 1.8 years old and parenting is more enjoyable than ever. They are starting to play together and they are both very clever. Although they are sisters and raised in a similar way, they have very different personalities and skills. They both have their talents but Liisa is more of a physical people person and Siiri is an analytical numbers' person. Both personalities come with their unique challenges.

Siiri is very strong willed. She is very demanding and everything needs to be just how she likes it. She wants the right spoon given to her in the right way and wants to get her own porridge plate and doesn't allow me to open the box of cocoa powder and wants a new glass of bubbly water with a new straw that must be the right color and the straw must not be bent.  When she's in a good mood, she will forgive the "mistakes" and when she has just woken up and is still grumpy, and I make one "mistake" then she starts crying like it's the end of the world and wants me to "undo" the mistake by "putting the time right".  That's how she calls reversing time so that she can rewrite history. I can "put the time right" by making the kitchen timer or my mobile phone timer beep. I generally believe the parent to be superior to children so I let her make as few demands as possible so it ends up being a battle over little things. Erkki has much more patience for Siiri's moods and handles her tantrums better than I do, but I spend more time discussing the world with Siiri.

On the other hand, if that's the price of her superior intellectual abilities then it might be worth it. Her favorite game (except for iPad strategy game "My kingdom for the Princess") is "the number game", as she calls it. I give her a math problem and she answers it. It started out as "if I give you one apple and I give you one more apple, how many do you have?" and now we have reached "how much is three times three?" and she says, "Nine!". When she's well rested and feeling good, she can correctly, with no fingers and within 1-2 seconds, answer math problems like, 3+2, 3-2, 5+5, 5-4, 8+3, 100+300, 30+20, 50+50, 10+8, 50-50,19-1, 19+1, 15+2, 4+4, 0-0, 2*3, 2*2, 2*4, 2*5, 3*4. I know because she's nearby and I just checked most of them. Other skills include naming all the colors, counting to 120 (and probably more), writing her own name at 3 years of age, writing other words (with mistakes), speaks clearly in complex sentences, knows all the seasons, all the months and the birthdays of many people and has relatively clear understanding of time. She once asked me, "Was it when I was 3 years old? Perhaps in April?", which is awesome because her birthday is in May. She has no problem with object shapes and sizes and so on. As is typical of gifted children, she is several ages at the same time. Physically 4 years old, emotionally 3 years old, math abilities of an 8 year old, reading and writing of a 5-6 year old, text comprehension of a 4 year old and vocabulary of a 8-9 year old. I'm very proud of her.  But then it's all the more unexpected when a kid like that throws a major tantrum over her straw being bent by someone other than herself. 

It must be very difficult for her to understand so much about the world. She asks very big questions about life and death, people and the world. I give her the honest answer and never lie to her. Well okay, I sometimes tell an inconsequential white lie to avoid a tantrum and then I feel guilty about it. When she asks why children aren't supposed to drink alcohol, I tell her the truth, when she asks what would happen if she drank pure vinegar, I give her a simplified but truthful answer. I find that when I tell her the truth about life, she feels curious and easily cooperates with me. When I give her a muddled half-response, she looks discouraged from asking anything at all. Some topics I do refuse to discuss with her. As far as she is concearned, children just appear in women's bellies and they somehow get out and for a long time Erkki occasionally went out of the apartment to just stand on the balcony for no good reason. Now she has already figured out that Erkki smokes but I won't tell about sex before she either asks or it appears that she has heard some false information about it.

Liisa is very different from Siiri. She is super easy to raise as long as we manage to keep her alive. She falls asleep without rocking, she eats just about anything and loves everything sweet and tasty.   Also, like Siiri, she loves vegetables and that's the first thing she eats off her plate. She's 1.8 years old and she eats with a fork or a spoon without a problem. She can even eat soup and doesn't spill much. When she's thirsty, she goes to the table, picks up her glass of water, drinks and puts it back. Liisa talks very little and barely makes a difference between letters. Like when I say, "Liisa, say EEEEE", she says AAAA, I say EEE, she looks at me like "that's what I said" and repeats AAA. Our nanny hasn't really tried to teach her the alphabet and I think it shows. Now I want to spend more time with Liisa to teach her the alphabet so she might start to hear the difference between the letters.

Liisa doesn't talk but she understand what we say. When I tell her that we're considering going out to play, she jumps up, grabs her shoes, point to the front door and yells, "Yes!". Also, she's very straightforward. When she wants to eat a cucumber, she grabs it and bites in the middle, even when the cucumber is covered with a plastic wrap. I also just found a pod of peas with bite marks on it, but the peas were still intact. This sort of impulse-directed behavior could also be just an age-related trait but it comes very naturally to her. It also leads her straight to danger. She has opened the car door twice while we were driving 90 km/h on a freeway  before we figured out how the child safety lock works.  Liisa is still absolutely addicted to my braid. Holding on to my braid while sucking on her thumb relaxes her in seconds. It still sometimes surprises me how effective my braid is at calming her. 

Although Liisa doesn't talk, she says some words and calls many animals by the sound that they make or she names activites by other means. I don't count them as words but I guess they are oficially counted as well. Her words are (so I can read in the future): mommy, daddy, cat (mjau), dog (auh), lion (rhhhou), elephant (brhhhou), frog (crooowk), mouse (iip-iip), wolf (auuuuuu), car/driving (v-v-v-v), ice cream (noisy licking sound), eating (nom-nom) drinking (sipping sound), sleeping (heavy exhaling), hurting (blowing in air: phh-phh-phh). We have also heard her say: Liisa, Siiri, sun, thank you, give me, into water. 

Liisa has a very fun personality. One day I was still at the computer when Liisa wanted to go to bed. She yelled from another room, "Mommy! Mommy!" and then it was quiet. I was washing the dishes and she didn't sound the least bit distressed. Then I heard an insistent but somewhat muffled repeat, "Mommy, Mommy!". A moment of silence and then again, "Mommy-Mommy-Mommy". Okay, fine. "Liisa, I'm coming." But Liisa was nowhere to be seen. "Liisa... Where are you?". I figured that Liisa wants to hint that she's sleepy so I checked the bedroom. It was completely quiet but it seemed like there was a kid-sized bump under the blanket. I fake-yelled, "Liisa, where are you?" and heard quiet but merry giggling coming from under the blanket.  She tried to be very quiet but was so proud of being so well hidden that she kept bursting into fits of giggling. Now whenever she goes missing around bed time I look for her under various blankets.

Siiri and Liisa both seem introverted and they enjoy solitary play. It's a good thing because household chores take a lot of time and it seems like they use that time to recharge themselves mentally. Siiri definitely needs her quiet alone time but it seems like Liisa also needs a lot of quiet time between her social play time. Siiri is most probably socionics type INTp - kind of grumpy and very introspective - and Liisa seems like IxFx. Liisa is very positive and totally wreckless and absolutely devious. She goes and surprises Siiri with hugs to make Siiri run away yelling, "Mom! Liisa is hugging me! Make her stop!" while Liisa is hoping that Siiri forgets to take iPad with her, so that Liisa can take it from her. They are so cute.

Nannies Can Annoy

My life is so confusing lately that I gave up on analyzing it.  How do I  write about my life if I'm just drifting from week to week, just observing where life takes me. Usually I like to take an active role in it but for a while it was better not to analyze and just keep up with the fast pace of everything.

We wrote a review article in a peer reviewed journal.  That was super cool. At first it seemed impossible, then I started working on it and realized how much help I really need from other people on this project and it was discouraging. Then I tried to work super hard and it still seemed impossible, but only in the "super challenging and highly ambitious" way. Well, finally we did it. I feel kind of proud that we did it, but even more I feel grateful to other people involved, for compensating for my lack of experience with writing scientific articles. 

Our nanny issues are finally getting resolved. I haven't discussed them so much in here, but I have bitched about it to almost everyone I know.  So basically when I started going to work in September, when Liisa was 11 and a half months old, we had a hard time finding a babysitter that she would be okay with. We met with about 3 carefully selected people and then hired a nanny but Liisa didn't get used to her so we ended it and met with more candidates. Finally we hired a person who has a child herself and Liisa was friendly with her from the beginning. She has been the nanny for almost a year. During that time there have been small annoyances that get worse over time. Like having her kid stay over much longer than I liked, not using the safety belt of the swing outside our house, often surprising us with text messages that she can't come to work because of some good excuse.  The excuses sounded very solid but she missed almost one day per week. Nanny and Liisa didn't always make it outside even when the weather was nice and sometimes when I gave Liisa over in her pajamas (in our home), I returned several hours later and she was still in her pajamas. It was even more annoying to find Siiri still in her pajamas since she can dress herself if only someone gives her the clothes. And, weirdly, most annoying, I started to notice that she tried to butter me up on pay days. That's when the kids had their hair combed nicely and the floor had been wiped and then she even told me in a sweet-as-honey tone of voice, "Oh, I wiped the floor to make your life easier.". I should have probably been happy, and a part of me was, of course. But another part of me felt very tense from that amount of manipulation. 

Actually, even worse was her relationship with Siiri. I got the feeling that she didn't really get along with her. Siiri certainly didn't like the nanny very much. When we first started, we had a deal that the pay is the same, regardless of whether there is only Liisa or also Siiri. A couple of months ago it was already very clear that the nanny winced whenever she found out that Siiri was ill and would also be staying at home. The nanny then initiated a talk that the job is much harder with two children and perhaps I could consider a higher pay for the time when there are two children. Okay, maybe then she will make more of an effort to also pay attention to Siiri. I started to pay her 20% more for taking care of two kids.  Now her salary for minding two children was above regular fee for being a nanny. And you know what - it changed nothing. When Siiri started to cough and we told the nanny that Siiri is staying home (but they can still go outdoors if the weather is nice) the nanny TOTALLY winced! Then I thought, any pay is too much for that attitude.

I'm totally fed up with looking for nannies so in stead of looking for another daytime nanny, I applied for a private kindergarten place for Liisa and we got it. YAY!!!  Liisa can now go and play with other kids and there is no chance that she will be running around in her pajamas the entire day. She's starting right after our vacation, just before August. I am so relieved. 

Anyway, if you have small children, there are never enough nannies. We also have a nanny who sometimes takes care of the kids in the evening (during our Dungeons and Dragons game nights), but often cancels. She can sometimes come over when our other nanny cancels. We also have wonderful help from Erkki's parents with whom the kids (or at least Siiri) spend a night almost every week. I also have two sisters who live close enough to be able to help when all else fails during an emergency. And still we need another nanny or two. Right now I don't even dare to dream of taking up exercising again and we so often miss game nights and every week me and Erkki have to decide whether we spend our free night socially or just the two of us. We would like to do both, so we need more free nights, hence we need more nannies.

We interviewed a nanny candidate a couple of days ago and it was very promising. A 20-year old young woman, giving off really friendly vibe and was saying perfect things like, "my evenings are mostly free" and she looked delighted when I told her that we should make plans for next week.   It really seemed like she's a responsible young woman who would be really happy with a part time job that is mostly in the evenings and lasts for a longer time (not only until the end of the summer). If she had a family of her own, I'd feel guilty about robbing her away for evenings but now it seemed like it would be an ideal arrangement for both of us. 

I also have an update about kids but I'll leave that for the next blog post or this post would be too long to read casually.

Finally Spring!

THE SNOW IS MELTING!!!!!   It really is! This has been the longest winter I can remember. It looked like ice age for a while. When the calendar hinted that we could go out looking for the first flowers, it was still minus 10 degrees (Celsius) outside, freezing and windy! I was suddenly much more interested in weather broadcasts. I usually just look out the window, but the weather broadcast I got from looking out the window was always, "the winter is never going to end. Give up already.", so every morning I looked at one week weather broadcast on my phone to see if the weather will change any time soon. For weeks the weather broadcast said that winter will end next week and every time it was a false alarm. Three days before it was supposed to be getting warm, they changed the broadcast to "-3 to 0, possibly snowing" but now the spring is finally here!   Yay!

Not like I can really enjoy spring weather because lately I drive to work. And I work a lot. I am keeping busy with presentations, I organized a conference workshop on transgenic plants and I'm writing an article with other people. I like to work and I feel the happiest after a productive day at work and when I can spend time with kids who are in a good mood and behaving well. Like today - I am helping with a university plant course and I stayed in the lab quite long. Then I also went grocery shopping and made it home about an hour before children's bedtime. Today I actually looked forward to coming home and tucking them in - I mean, chasing them around the apartment to make sure they get into their pajamas and their teeth brushed and their story read.  Usually I dread those tasks that never seem to get resolved. It doesn't matter how many times I tuck them in, they still have to be tucked in the next day and each day after that until they're teenagers. Today when I came home, Liisa and Siiri were just so adorable and they did all the perfect things. Liisa was cute and ticklish, mischievously stole my hair band and hid it around her wrist. Siiri had a conversation with me, about kindergarten and how all the girls are pretty but none of the boys are pretty. She also managed to answer some complex math questions. I asked her, if she took a piece of dough and cut it in half and cut those pieces in three, how many pieces would she have, and she said, six. She'll be four years old in one month. Liisa and Siiri were having such a good time tonight so I didn't mind that they stayed up for an hour longer than the time we usually aim for.

Liisa and Siiri are pretty fun company but they still need constant looking after. Siiri can manage with iPad for a couple of hours but Liisa can't be left alone for that long. Liisa has absolutely no sense of danger. Or rather, she notices danger, she giggles and runs toward it faster! She's 1,5 years old now and she climbs everywhere. One day I caught her (literally) climbing on top of a large armchair.  From the floor she wouldn't reach that high even with her hands stretched up but she wouldn't let such a small detail as danger of falling stop her from climbing as high as possible. Some time later I stopped her from "jumping" on the edge of the bed. She can't really jump but she likes to practice. She also likes to sit at the edge of things with her back towards the edge. Seems like an easy mistake to make, but the does it on purpose. She shifts closer to the edge and then peeks behind her if she still has room to spare and then looks away and tries again. Her wild  eyes look high on adrenaline when she does such things. A few days ago I found her standing in a corner surrounded by a sofa and an armchair. The only way she could have got there is by sliding herself over the armrest of the armchair. Later she even demonstrated it by repeating it over and over again. The armrest is as high as Liisa's neck when she stands next to it.

Liisa is making both me and Erkki very jumpy. Liisa is a fun toddler - giggling and joking around - but she's also a bit nuts. One time when we were on the big bed, Liisa stood up and ran for the edge. I tried to jump after her yelling, "Liisa! Stop! Gaaahhhh!!!", but she was having too much fun to notice me. Somehow, right before the edge, she dropped herself on her stomach, threw her feet over the edge, landed on her feet and kept on running, leaving me to cope with my adrenaline surge.  Another time she was sitting on a dining chair meant for grown-ups and then started rocking her legs over the edge. I warned her to be more careful, so she grabbed on to the side of the dining table, briefly stared at me with a defiant look in her eyes, slid her ass over the edge of the chair and landed on her feet and then her bottom thumped on the floor. She got up, mumbled enthusiastically and climbed on another dining chair. Liisa has much better dexterity than I expected at her age and she really needs it with all the crazy things she tries all the time. She doesn't fall nearly as often and I would have feared. Anyway it doesn't matter if it's a really careful kid like Siiri or an adrenaline junkie in diapers like Liisa, kids sometimes fall either way. Actually they fall about as often. Siiri was careful but rather clumsy, Liisa is dexterous but reckless.

Liisa barely talks but she understands very well. And Siiri often makes an extra effort to understand her. Sometimes Siiri translates her distress to us: "Mom, Liisa wants to drink water" and then I ask Liisa, "Do you want to drink water?" and Liisa nods and says "Yes". More often, Siiri tells me what she wants Liisa to know: "Mom, I want Liisa to watch another cartoon on iPad." Sometimes I secretly catch them communicating with each other when they think no one is watching. Siiri talks and Liisa grunts.

But most of my time is spent at work. I have been too busy. I have a HUGE deadline in two weeks and I have been working as hard as my domestic obligations allow. It's a huge problem if I plan to write something and to read scientific articles but then I get only a few hours of sleep and I can barely stay awake. Speaking of barely staying awake... It's nearly midnight. I used to regularly stay awake until 3 am but now it's not even midnight and I can barely keep my eyes open.   Nighty night.

Mutually Enjoyable Activities

I'm getting a bit closer to truth in my quest to find how some people really enjoy being at home with small children. I think it's mostly about how you spend your time and what emotion it gives you.   or

A while back I read a book "His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-proof Marriage" by Willard F. Harley. It's a good book that I recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about successful partnership.  One of the main goals is to get positive experiences with your partner. In the book they recommend to spend all free time together to achieve that. I disagree with the idea of spending all free time together, but I started thinking, maybe the idea of having positive experiences together also applies to kids. If I think about being at home with kids, what thoughts and emotions come to mind and what exactly are we experiencing together with the children. I took a moment and thought about it. I remembered waking up at night to loud screaming, spending one and a half hours lying in bed, trying to convince two toddlers to fall asleep, and all other annoying things.  Then I concentrated and thought of the good things: Siiri being really polite and smart, being pleased with knowing something that she shouldn't know at her are, Liisa being super cute in a truly devious way, laughing so hard that she almost falls over as she escapes and runs around the corner in only her diapers.  The first thoughts made me feel how I really wish I could spend as little time at home as possible, whereas the positive thoughts made me feel much love toward my children.

I really do want to enjoy parenting before it's all over. It's worth the effort to try if this could make a difference. I started to pay more attention to spending time doing tasks that we all enjoy as much as possible. Basically, there are several kinds of activities that two people of the same household can share. There are the ones both of us enjoy, there are the ones that only one of us enjoys and the other one is doing reluctantly for the benefit of the other, and there are the ones that neither enjoys but must be done anyway (e.g. bed time). Then the objective is to spend more time on activities that are pleasant for both people. If the time spent together is spent in a positive and happy way, then as a result, when you think of the other person, you have fond memories and a positive emotion. The relationship will improve.

Mhh, I keep talking about relationships, in stead of a generic happiness level or enjoyment. Well, at home, the relationship determines the happiness level. There are several reasons why being a stay-at-home mother can feel less than pure joy for me personally. The most important one is that when I am at home, I am not at work. My self image is closely tied with the need to be good at what I do professionally. When my babysitter calls in sick, I'm barely getting anything done and I feel like I want to be in the lab  and do something useful in stead of "relaxing" and trying to get the kids to fall asleep. After a productive day at work, I feel many times happier at home as well. But this I can not affect. I found another babysitter as a substitute and now I'm again stressed that things will be changing soon. Other reasons for not enjoying too much time at home include slow pace of life, lack of freedom, lack of social interaction with grownups, lack of control over things (If I had the choice, kids would always enjoy their meal and it would take them 10 minutes to fall asleep.). But when I have a job, I should be able to make the necessary changes that would make life at home more enjoyable.

Talking of relations at home, me and Erkki are good. We don't have much time together but we spend it very mutually enjoyably, watching Star Trek: Next Generation series. We're at the 4th season already. Me and Liisa are good. She's a bit too needy but that's probably due to her age (1,4 years). I'm still breastfeeding, although it's only once a day and sometimes she skips the meal. Liisa is a lot of fun, except when I (in her opinion) neglect her to take care of chores. Then she goes the extra mile to act mischievous  - shoveling things out of drawers and banging metal dishes on a glass table. She still responds very well to any positive attention. Siiri and me... Well, that's complicated. She can be very needy. She's also still having night terrors and random freak-outs when things don't go her way. She seems stressed about the world around her. I would interpret her stress as a sign that I should let her be "a child" and stop teaching her things that are meant for older children, like reading and simple calculations, except some of the best times we've had together have been moments when she has a really smart moment and she's really smiling at her success and I'm really proud of her.

But still me and Siiri are having some problems but I can't pinpoint how to fix it. At night when she wakes up crying and screaming, she doesn't allow me near her. "Mommy, go away, I don't want you.You are bad. Go away!". Also, she doesn't really hug me and she often demands that I treat her like a 1 year old - along with dressing her and spoon-feeding her. Okay, so she thinks that I am closer with Liisa and thinks she should act like Liisa to get closer to me, but I keep telling her that I want to play big-kid games with her, not pretend that she's a baby. When she behaves like that, I don't enjoy it at all and it seems to me like she isn't enjoying it either. Back to the theory of spending time together doing mutually enjoyable things, I have started to introduce new activities to Siiri. We now sometimes make cakes together.  She loves it. A couple of Fridays, I have picked up Siiri from kindergarten early to spend time with her alone. We went to the Library and we went ice skating. I would like to have long conversations with her but aside from using me as a walking Google ("what's an ambulance? What's a doctor? Why?") she usually just wants to listen to silence together. I don't think the time we spend together on those Fridays is enough to negate all the bad times we have had at home but it's slowly making a difference in how Siiri behaves with me. And it really must be making some difference, because I actually started writing this post about a month ago and I had to delete huge chunks of it because my emotions had already changed too much to agree with what I had written.

Last week Siiri had chicken pox and now I'm checking Liisa several times a day to see if she caught the infection or not. Tomorrow Siiri is going back to kindergarten and she seems happy about it. I am really busy at work. I am giving a presentation at the institute seminar (oh gosh!), I'm helping organize a workshop about transgenic plants (4 hours!!!), I have several scientific projects in progress (gas exchange and molecular level isolations and analyses) and I'm perhaps also writing a review article (I'm most excited and worried about this one).