More IS (sometimes) More

So much of our life these days seems to center on the concept that "less is more." And this is true, I think, when it comes to a lot of things, like toys and extracurricular activities for kids and time spent staring at screens. Simplifying life--in a multitude of ways--can make for a much richer daily experience. But sometimes more IS more, in a good way. One easy example: having four kids = way more fun than having three kids. Certainly you can never have too much love.

Last summer, just before our lion baby arrived, our friends Avi and Marc (along with their son, Elijah) invited us to join them for a couple of nights in a house that they were renting on Cape Cod. We threw caution to the wind, and joined them, as did our friend Meg and her daughters, Aviva and Liesl. It was our first time attempting a multi-family vacation, and I wasn't sure how it would go. The logistics of sharing a house, meals, and a schedule could have made the vacation feel like more trouble than it was worth.

our crew: Jaz, Lena, Zeb, me, Elijah, Avi, Marc, Liesl, Meg, and Aviva
missing from photo: Lukas

But instead, it was one of the best vacations ever. The presence of extra adults and extra kids made our time at the beach all the more relaxing and entertaining. Perhaps we are an unusual group, but sharing a house was nothing less than lovely: how fun for the grown-ups to get to hang-out child-free after all the kids were in bed! And there were six kids in the tub at bathtime, always someone to play with. I came home feeling sun-kissed and convinced: more friends on vacation together is absolutely more in the best sense of the word.

Marc reading a bedtime story to Zeb and Elijah

Lena, Luke, Jaz and Marc
cooking dinner on the beach

salt and sand and smoke and hot dogs, oh my

And if we thought last year was fun, we are surely going to be blown away this year. We started planning early with the hopes of finding a house that six families could share for a week this summer. And we found one! For 5 days in June, we will be co-habitating with 10 of our most favorite mama and papa friends, and their 7 beautiful children (all together, we will be 12 adults and 11 kids). We will be spending our days at the beach, making fabulous dinners, cozying up around ocean-side campfires, checking out P-town, and partying long after the little ones are asleep. I am so excited.

As we look ahead to summer--and warmth and sun--I find myself feeling especially grateful for our amazing community of friends who enrich our lives so entirely. They are everything I ever wished for; we are the luckiest.

Leo Potter

I suppose it was somewhat predictable. That the youngest in our four-pack of sons, the youngest to sit unassisted, to pull himself up to stand, to climb on top of the toilet, to throw himself head-first down slides would also be the youngest of the four to require a trip to the doctor for stitches. Predictable, maybe. But no less devastating than it would have been otherwise.

Leo, 8 months

Leo got five stitches in his forehead last Monday.


The wound has healed up beautifully, and he had the stitches removed yesterday. There will be a scar, of course, but it likely won't be that noticeable when he's older.


And, yes, Voldemort is to blame.

An Old Scar, Revisited

My younger sister, Fiona, was here, visiting from New Mexico last week: a whirlwind trip that included house-hunting (and house-finding, and offer-making, and then deciding she didn't want to live in New England after all), visiting old friends, visiting relatives, being "auntie Fiona" to the boys, and tattooing my wife and me.

Fiona is a tattoo artist (a profession that suits her perfectly), and has been for a few years, but this was my first time going under her needle.


I got my first--and only--tattoo in January of 2001, when I was 20 years old. Lena and I had recently broken up after having lived together for 2 years. I had a new girlfriend, and I went to visit her in Oregon, and that's where I got my tattoo. Before we broke up, Lena and I had been engaged, and had spent some time designing our future wedding rings: a larger band, a space full of tiny stones, and then a smaller band. The tattoo that I chose was reminiscent of our design (minus the stones), and when people asked I told them that it symbolized my marriage to myself.

Lena and I broke up mainly due to my inability to be alone; she had started an outdoor leadership program that involved a series of 10-day trips into the wilderness. The first time she left, I felt so very lost. I had gone from living with my parents to living with Lena, and I had never learned how to live on my own. I left the relationship and jumped straight into a new one. By the time I got to Oregon, I knew that I had made a mistake.

Getting tattooed in my state of grief actually felt pretty good. I mean, it hurt very much, but it felt somewhat relieving to feel pain on the outside, and I was grateful to have a visible scar from this difficult time in my life. At the time, I wrote in my journal:

Went to Oregon.
Tried to Fall in Love.
Saw the Ocean.
Felt like I was going to Fall Off.
Got a Tattoo.
Good to Hurt Somewhere Else.

Taking care of my arm as it healed was a good introduction to taking care of myself in a larger sense. So, while months later I could see that I had been in no state to permanently alter my body, I did not regret my decision. The only thing that has bothered me about the tattoo over the years is that there were a few spots in the larger band that the tattoo artist missed. It has long been my plan to have Fiona do-over the whole tattoo so as to fill in those missing spots.

And that is exactly what she did last week.


Fiona first outlined each of the bands, and then went back with a larger needle to fill them in. After she had done the first outline, I felt fairly certain that she should just leave it like that. Really, I wasn't that bothered by the original errors, and I couldn't imagine tolerating the pain of the fill-in.


But Fiona insisted that I not back-out of my original vision. Yes, it would hurt, but only for a short while. It was absolutely excruciating. Either I had forgotten how much it hurt the first time around, or it actually hurt a whole lot more the second time (Fiona says that tattooing over scar tissue (i.e. a pre-existing tattoo) does actually hurt worse than tattooing on fresh skin). Additionally, my current life is so different from the life I was living 9 years ago: I am now practically the definition of happy and fulfilled, whereas back then I was lost and depressed. And thus, I found my tolerance for this type of pain (I liken it to what I imagine it would feel like to be slowly, deeply scratched with a piece of burning hot, jagged, broken glass) had been greatly reduced.


I left the session--my arm wrapped in plastic wrap--feeling grateful to my sister for being able to persevere in spite of my agony (inflicting pain is, of course, her least favorite part of the job), glad that it was over, and a bit traumatized. In some ways, revisiting the pain of my original tattoo brought me back to the place I had been in when I first decided to get it. I felt lost and disoriented. My arm was quite swollen and sore, and I quickly became painfully aware of just how often my children grab on to me for one reason or another. Ow. I wished that I could go back in time and visit the 20-year-old version of myself, whisper in her ear and tell her what life would look like in 9 years: Lena and I would be back together--married--living in the cutest little house with our four amazing sons. How that information would have carried me through the dark months to come.

In the days since Fiona "re-blacked" me, I have been forced to open a different--deeper, yet invisible--scar in the reactions from acquaintances who don't know my birth history.

"But surely the feeling of getting a tattoo can't compare to the feeling of childbirth!" They've exclaimed, one after another, as if reciting from a common script.

And I smile weakly and change the subject. And think again about myself at 20, so fully obsessed with birth and entirely certain about my life goal to become a homebirth midwife. I wouldn't want her to know this part of the future: what my births would actually look like. That I'd never experience the pain of childbirth.

Often when I meet a pregnant mama awaiting the birth of her first child, I will lie about my births. If she asks, I will say, "yes, I birthed them all vaginally, without drugs. I did it; and you can do it too." Sometimes I feel a bit guilty about spreading this mistruth (I am generally quite honest about my birth experiences, and happy to share them, in the right context). But this is what I wanted to hear when I was pregnant. I wanted to hear nothing but affirmations. I could never understand why people would share their births-gone-awry stories with me, pregnant, naive and impressionable. I never asked to hear anyone's birth story out of fear that it would not be positive. But still, people would offer their stories of unbearable pain, of labors ending in c-sections, either as a warning or simply without realizing that the information might not be helpful.

Thus my "new" tattoo has been unintentionally linked with my births. I look at it (and try not to scratch it; it is oh-so-itchy as it heals), and see its significance differently. I no longer see the 20-year-old, having ink burned into her arm as if to somehow ground herself onto the earth, but instead see the pain that I have--and have not--endured, bringing 3 people into this world. I am contemplating expanding this new meaning by adding something--more rings? To represent the kids?--to the tattoo. Of course, that would involve going through this all again. But I think I am strong enough to do it.

Favorite Chicken

Sometimes my kids are eager to help me make dinner--or lunch, or breakfast, or dessert, for that matter--and sometimes they have no interest in being my cooking assistants. In the latter circumstance, I feel ever so grateful for the lay-out of our house that puts the kitchen counters just as close as they could possibly be to the playroom. I can prepare meals and the kids can be nearly under my feet, yet absolutely not under my feet. Especially in the evenings, I find that they really want to be with me, but can often be placated by my proximity, even if I'm not giving them my full attention. And I love being able to peek in on them and overhear the funny things the say and the crazy games they come up with.


I took the above photos the other night in the midst of making Favorite Chicken, which, unlike Favorite Rice, is actually not one of the kids' favorite foods . . . yet. It earned its title because it was my favorite dinner when I was little, and I'm planning to keep on making it for our brood until they finally fall in love with Favorite Chicken too.

Favorite Chicken is made with just a few simple ingredients:

boneless chicken breasts

flour
egg
bread crumbs

Begin by preparing the chicken: trim it, wash it, and cut each breast in half width-wise (to reduce the thickness; I recommend scissors). You could cut it up into bite-size pieces, like chicken nuggests, or you can leave it as larger serving-size pieces. I like to make a pile of flour and a pile of bread crumbs (made from old bread in the food processor) right on the counter (this kind of drives My Love crazy, but I really believe that counters are meant to be used), and I whisk the eggs up in a casserole dish.


Each piece of chicken gets to make the rounds from one medium to another. First up: flour.

After coating the chicken in flour, move it on to the egg.

Once both sides of chicken have been thoroughly dipped in egg, it's bread crumb time.


Move the bread-crumb-covered chicken to a plate while you work on the next piece.


The chicken can be cooked in a skillet, on a griddle, or in an electric frying pan (I use a stove-top cast iron griddle). Heat up the cooking surface to a medium temperature, and grease it with a bit of butter. Lay the pieces of chicken on top.


Cook for about 3-5 minutes, depending on the thickness of the meat and the temperature of the pan or griddle. Then flip, and continue cooking until done (meat inside should be completely white), 3-5 minutes more.

Serve with a wedge of lemon for true mouth-watering deliciousness.

favorite chicken with broccoli and "squiggly noodles"

I wonder if it would work to make some homemade chicken nuggets using this recipe and then freeze them for a future harried evening? Perhaps I'll try it one of these days since I'm planning to make Favorite Chicken at least three more times this month, hoping that repetition will work wonders on the kids' palates. And if the kids don't come around, there will just be more left over for Lena and me. Yum.