Tag Archives: Prairie Parent

Back to school can make us wonder if we’ve done enough

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If you’ve missed it along the way, for the past couple years I’ve had the privilege (and fun) of developing and acting as the editor of Prairie Parent, a parenting magazine in Western North Dakota.

This month’s issue tackled the fun, worry, stress and excitement of back to school. And while I don’t have kids in school yet, I know with time flying the way it does it’s just around the corner.

and so is driving…

After a conversation with my friend up the road who is raising four kids, with only one left at home now that school has started, I started reflecting on that time and what we do with it.

And why, as parents, do we feel like we’re never doing enough.

Back to school can make us wonder if we’ve done enough
Prairie Parent

Have a read on the site and then browse the rest of our contributors take on the season at www.prairieparent.com. I’m pretty proud of the thoughtful and heartfelt material these parents put out into the world each month.

Because at the end of the day, as parents, sometimes we just need each other to get through it. (I say this as I’m in a one hour, going on three week and counting bedtime battle with my two-year-old…Lord help me)

 

Creative Kids

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There you have it. A relic from my early days working to hone my skills as a poet. This one is official, because it’s typed up on one of the first computers ever delivered to our elementary country school in the middle of nowhere, the kind we all used to play Oregon Trail and make Happy Birthday banners that would print off at our teacher’s desk, slowly and loudly as we stood by and watched, waiting to rip those little holey-perforated edges off.

Oh, nostalgia. That’s the source of my creativity these days. But back then, there was no such thing. My muse was this fascinating world surrounding me, one full of dirt turned to mud and mud turned to snow and snow turned to ice and ice turned to water filling the creek bed and sending it rushing through the trees.

I spent hours along that ever changing creek, making up songs and singing them at the top of my lungs. And when I wasn’t making up songs, I was spending time with my neighbor friend up the hill trying to figure out how to make a go cart from the scraps in our dad’s shops or concocting a genius way to keep the bugs from our faces with a ketchup bottle and a bike helmet for when we rode our bikes like the wind up and down that road.

Because we were kids and we had no creative limits, a fact that could be proven from our made-from-scratch recipes in our moms’ kitchens, convinced that red hots and spaghetti noodles go together, if only someone was brave enough to try it.

We were.  And it was disgusting. Actually, come to think of it, nothing we invented or created was ever really that genius or durable or useful, but it didn’t matter. To us it was about the process and the fact that our parents let go of the reigns, or their hope of a spotless kitchen, and let us try.

And we sure had fun trying.

I listen to my two year old daughter making up songs in her room as she’s lying down in the dark, waiting for sleep, or in the bathtub washing her baby doll, and I know she’s like me in that way. I can set her up with a couple tubs of Play Dough or a set of paints and she’s good for a long stretch. The activities that keep her attention the longest are the creative things and I love it.

I’m happy to oblige and, if I can, sit down next to her and color too, a little piece of my childhood indulged.

This month in Prairie Parent, we celebrate kids and all of their creativity that’s in them.

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We feature two young girls who have turned their love for crafting into businesses, we profile an event that celebrates and encourages young inventors and entrepreneurs and we ask kids to tell us why art is important to them.

In my “From the Editor” piece, I reflect a bit more on what it meant to me to be a creative kid and why I’m giving up my kitchen table for the time being. Read it here and then head on over to our website to read the rest of the issue!

Give up the kitchen table and give kids space to create

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Next month we’re doing a special issue called “Ask Us.” Send in your parenting questions and we’ll throw them at the experts or our contributors to advise.

Comment here, send them to jessieveeder@gmail.com or visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/prairieparent. 

Happy parenting! Spring’s coming soon, I promise.

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Prairie Parent: Carrying on my Mother’s Christmas Traditions

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This month’s Prairie Parent celebrates the holidays. Check it out online and read my “From the Editor” piece reflecting on how mother’s are often the real Santas of the holidays.

Becoming my Mother. Becoming Santa Clause.
From the Editor, Prairie Parent
December 2017

And while you’re at it, enjoy my mother’s fudge recipe. I’ve shared this before, but since it’s not likely she’ll be able to send out her fudge packages to friends and family this year, perhaps you can make and share this in her honor. I know she’s going to miss being home for Christmas this year. But I’m going to try my best to keep her beautiful traditions going while she’s away this holiday and each Christmas here after so that my girls can have the warm Christmas memories I’ve been fortunate to cherish.

Momma’s Mouth Watering Fudge

Here’s what you need:

  • 1 12 oz package semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1 12 oz package milk chocolate chips
  • 3 teaspoons vanilla
  • 4 1/2 cups of sugar
  • 1 pound of butter (No worries, I’ll post my Momma’s instructional aerobic video after Christmas)
  • 1 12 oz can evaporated milk

Got it?
Ok, onward.

  • Butter an 8×12 baking dish
  • Bring sugar and evaporated milk to a boil, stirring constantly. Continue to stir and boil for 7 minutes.
  • Remove pot from heat and stir chocolate chips, vanilla and butter.
  • Stir until smooth and pour into the buttered baking dish
  • Refrigerate until set
  • Ask your hubby or the woman in your life with incredible strength to help you cut the fudge into squares
  • Serve up on a cute platter and stand back and smile as you experience that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with spreading holiday cheer.

If you haven’t picked up a copy of my book “Coming Home” there’s still time to get a signed copy before Christmas! Recipes, photography, poetry and stories from the ranch. It makes a great gift for the prairie lover in your life.

Order it today at www.jessieveedermusic.com 

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Take the picture

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I’m trying to get my photo situation under control. Or, I should say, I’ve been thinking about getting my photo situation under control.

Since I moved back to the ranch seven years ago, that’s pretty much been the mission of my life, to take photos of it all. I would tout my big camera along with me everywhere, capturing the way the sun set on the petals of a wildflower, the soak of the rain, the sparkle of a snow bank, the lines on my husband’s face.

I was obsessed. I created thousands of images and posted them here. I loaded up my computer, my phone, my camera cards. I did my best at organizing them at least by year, but even with my best effort, it became sort of a kazillion GB mess.

Now that I’ve added a child to the mix of things, it’s gotten downright ridiculous. I made an 80 page photo book just of the first two months of her life with every intention of doing another one at least by her first birthday, suddenly so aware and sort of frantic about the importance of not only taking the photo, but printing it as well.

And rightly so. About the time that my baby was born was the time that every technology in my universe seemed to fail me. My computer crashed and on its way to its death, it drug along the external drive where I had backed up everything. And because we had terrible internet at the time, the great mysterious services like the Cloud were useless to me.

Needless to say, there was a lot of cussing and despair involved in my attempt to recover my precious memories. And I wound up saving my computer in a fragmented form, thanks to a techie band mate, but I couldn’t save the backup. And the backup was what I really needed…

Waahhhhhhh…..

I was determined to be better about all these damn photographs I was going to be taking in this next phase of my life. I was going to keep on top of it. Make prints. Make books. Make use of them so that when Edie’s my age she doesn’t have to figure out how to recuperate ancient laptops to retrieve her memories the way we do with old home movies and slides.

I was going to put her memories in books I tell you! I was going to do better than my mother, who has our memories in piles in a trunk in her living room and the overflow in a drawer in the buffet and another overflow in another drawer in the kitchen.

But I’m not convinced people can change. And here I am, a year and a half later with one photo album and another thousand photos of my baby in all phases of getting there on my computer and an overwhelming feeling that our memories have the potential to be lost forever if I don’t get on the ball, especially cause here I am pregnant again, and Oh My GAWD, I’m halfway through this baby-growing business and I haven’t even taken a photo of my belly!!!

I took like seventy thousand photos of my growing belly with Edie!! This kid’s not even born yet and I have some explaining to do!!

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So anyway, I have a goal. Before this baby is born, I’m going to catch up on the album thing. It’s not that hard. I just have to do it.

In the meantime, I have signed up for a cool service called Chatbooks, where they automatically send you little square books featuring photos off of my Instagram feed. So if anything, in the end, I’ll have a nice little collection of our day to day life, because I put the responsibility in someone else’s hands.

So this was on my mind when I was putting together September’s issue of Prairie Parent. Because soon it will be school picture time, and soon moms and dads of seniors will be digging through the archives of their child’s life, pulling out the favorites, and putting them in books and on poster boards for relatives and friends to reminisce over.

Time goes too fast. I always thought it. I think it more every day. Photographs and videos are our only visual connection to a past we can’t hold on to. So I’ve decided not to apologize about it, and just keep snapping. And while I regret a few photos taken of me (Ahem…Little Sister!!!) I don’t think I’ll ever regret one taken of my growing and changing family…

Read more about “Taking the Picture” in my From the Editor column in this Month’s Prairie Parent. And check out the full issue of the magazine online at www.prairieparent.com

Counting Photos, Collecting Memories

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In his words: What’s it like to be a dad?

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It’s Father’s Day month and to honor dads and grampas and uncles and brothers and sons who make this world go round, this issue of Prairie Parent is dedicated to dads.

To kick it off I did a little interview with my husband as we took a three-hour car ride home from the big town, our daughter tucked into her carseat sleeping in the back seat of his pickup after a long day of shopping.

I might be biased, but I think it’s an adorable interview. A lot of times we don’t consider or report on or talk about what parenthood is like for dads.  They sort of get pushed aside as babysitters or the incompetent third child. But most of the time the truth is, if you have a good man in your life, dads are a essential piece of the complicated and delicate puzzle that makes up a family.

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And I want to be honest here, sometimes it’s hard for me to step back and let him do the parenting thing his way. Sometimes he drives me crazy because I don’t think he’s paying enough attention or holding the right things as priorities.

But it’s not true. He is paying attention (and if I’m really honest, I’m probably not paying attention to how much he is paying attention, you know?) And, yes, his priorities are different than my priorities sometimes, but when I stop being annoyed and really think about it, that’s a good thing. Edie needs us both, she needs both our perspectives and opinions and different and unique types of care. I’m a lucky mom to have a man like him around and she’s a lucky kid to have a dad like him.

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So check out his interview at the link below and moms, if you get a chance this Father’s Day, grab a minute with your man to ask him what it means to him to be a dad. It will be well worth your time.

Real Talk: What’s it Like to be a Dad? 
Father’s Day Q&A
www.prairieparent.com

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A Definition of Motherhood

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Mother’s Day is approaching and I am feeling pretty special because my bouquet of lilies already arrived yesterday. I’ve been watching them work on opening up and blooming on my kitchen table, surrounded by smashed peas, coloring books and stickers and I’ve decided they fit in perfectly there.

Tonight my mom stopped in to see Edie. We were running around all over last weekend so they haven’t seen each other for a while. Our steaks were just getting off the grill and Edie was full of kiwi and peas, so Gramma B took her granddaughter outside for a wagon ride so we could eat our entire meal together without interruption.

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It was sweet.

And it’s even sweeter to see the two of them together. They have a funny relationship, one that’s based on Edie’s automatic assumption that if gramma’s coming over it means mom is leaving. So they have to jump that hurdle every time. But once it’s jumped, Edie just makes my mom laugh and laugh. I love it.

And I love my mom more with every minute I’m in this motherhood game myself.

Here she is at mom’s coffeeshop learning how to mix her own drink : )

This month’s “From the Editor” section in the Prairie Parent publication is all about reflecting on what it really takes to be a mom, and the realization that my mom had to develop these very same set of skills raising me.

And how much more I appreciate her for it now.

Check it out, and then read all of the other fun Mother’s Day inspired stories from our staff of talented writers.

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Patience-Plus: A Definiton of Motherhood
by Jessie Veeder, Editor
Prairie Parent, May 2017

My personal favorite this month is the Kids Talk section where 2nd graders tell us their favorite things about their moms and, for the dads, a really great list of Mother’s Day gift ideas (because it’s not too late)!

Happy Mother’s Day to the moms, grandmas, daughters, sisters, aunties and cousins showing us every day what it means when a woman loves you.

 

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Parenting on the Prairie

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Good Wednesday to you all!

Just thought I’d take a little break from the frantic pace I try to achieve in my attempt to get a week’s worth of work done in the two days that Edie’s at daycare to share a couple parenting related pieces of news.

#1 Our Crazy Cat Had Kittens

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Yeah. Pixie, my husband’s pixiebob cat, turned the new carpet under the bed in the basement bedroom into a maternity ward yesterday while I was out and I came home to find her nursing four squeaky, stripey, adorable kittens.

I discovered her situation early last week when she was staring at us through the glass door on the deck. I went out to give her a scratch and, well, there was no denying the cat was knocked up.

So we let her in to watch her and make sure everything went smoothly.

And the cat was thrilled.

Turned out the little person living here didn’t share her sentiment. Because while Edie loves the kitty when she’s outside, passing her by for a point and pat on her way from the car, she isn’t so keen on another creature sitting on her mom or dad’s lap or brushing by her chair. I mean, clearly the cat should know better, it has her name embroidered on it for gawd sake.

Nope. If that cat gets anywhere near that chair Edie makes a beeline from across the room to show her who’s boss.

And on Sunday, when the cat dared climb up to share my lap with Edie, I watched my sweet innocent baby stare straight ahead to divert my attention so that I wouldn’t notice her little hand reaching over to try and pinch that cat’s paw.

So now we know my kid has a jealous bone and it’s not just reserved for humans.

And now we have four more cats to help teach her a lesson about sharing.

I’ll keep you posted. And also, let me know if you want to add a stripy kitten to your family. (Warning: they are a tiny part bobcat)

#2 I’ve Been Editing a Parenting Publication

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but since September I’ve been working as the editor of a Western North Dakota based parenting publication. It’s been a fun little project that has been unfolding pretty nicely and has been available as a free publication for readers to pick up in Western North Dakota. But we’ve recently made it available online and have a nice new website to go with it, so now you can read it too if you’d like!

www.prairieparent.com

Every issue I write a little “From the Editor” piece about what I’m learning on this new parenting journey and then my great set of writers tackle a variety of issue from staying healthy to where to get cute clothes and everything else that’s on the minds of parents out here on the prairie.

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This month’s issue is about love and there’s a really cute section called “Kids Talk” where I go out and ask kids really important questions, like what are they thankful for and how they think Santa gets to all the houses all in one night.

This month they tell me what love means to them and it’s adorable. You can read their answers here:

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If you’re interested, you can follow Prairie Parent on Facebook to get the latest updates.

But I’ll keep (most of) the kitten and Edie stories right here where they belong.

Well, it’s curling night tonight, so I better start stretching now!

Peace, love  and the glory of motherhood,

Jessie