Three hours talking about myself?! Cake! And oh-so delightful. My individual adoption interview went really well last week. At least, I knew all the answers! It does blow my mind that even with 24 pages of autobiography, they still have questions to ask us. And obviously talking about myself is something that I do well, but even with my skill it was a pretty tiring process. There was one question that she asked me that I honestly haven’t ever thought about and it forced me to pause (for just a moment). When talking about my postpartum depression/therapy experience, Joy asked, “And what, do you feel, did you learn or get out of therapy?” Sheesh! That’s kind of a HUGE question. I’m pretty sure I rambled about learning to love and appreciate myself, to understand that the balance of putting myself first – so that I HAVE something to give to others – is a crucial practice (and that it will take practice). So, here I am, practicing what I preach – putting myself first with some quality latte and writing time.

Cooking is something that I’ve been doing for myself lately (well, yes, it’s for my family, too, but mostly for me). I’ve been researching new recipes, creating my own cookbook of recipes that I’ve printed out and plastic sheeted, and I’ve been planning meals for the whole week on Sunday afternoons. Monday has become Soup Night. I love the fall for it so nicely lends itself to the promotion and practice of Soup Night. I HEART my Crockpot and have blogged before on my Crockpot-head tendencies. Therefore, Monday is a happy day as it’s Crockpot Day/Soup Night.

I don’t toss around the H-word, and when I do employ the H-word it is because no other word carries the weighted emotion that it embodies, but here goes: The boys HATE my Crockpot and LOATHE Soup Night. They’ve both gone through phases of being the lead picky-eater in the house, but Soup Night provides them for a beautiful brother-bonding opportunity. They unite in their anti-Soup Night stand. It would be quite beautiful except that it’s quite annoying. The pediatricians of the world, parenting magazines, food-propagandists proclaim that you must feed a picky child the same food TEN TIMES before they like it. Does that mean I should make the same soup ten Mondays in a row? Or does a ten-times-dose of soup in general work? All I know is they are NOT fans. We at least have Matthew trained now: he knows that wrinkling his nose and announcing his disgust is unacceptable. So, while Zach is literally gagging, rolling his eyes, and proclaiming: “eeeewww, blech! Gross!” Matthew, with the fakest, most forced smile in history, voice dripping with phony-joy says, “Mmmm, this smells good.” Then he forces down a spoonful trying to hide his secret desire to spew. He follows his torture with a sarcasm-dripping, “Mmmm, I LIKE it.” Meanwhile, he’s shooting a look at Zach that says, “Dude. What have we done to deserve this? Why does she hate us so? How the heck do we get out of here alive?!”

Ahhh, I love Soup Night.