Kids Cooking Class at Nonna Beppa Soho

"I wish we could get one of those things for our house!"

This was Aiden, referring to a pasta maker. The crew and I attended a Kids Cooking Class this past weekend at Nonna Beppa, an authentic Italian restaurant in Soho, and let me tell you, the restaurant is the truth!

Not only are the majority of ingredients at Nonna Beppa imported straight from Italy (think cured meats and many cheeses), but the Kids Cooking Class is a Pasta-Making Class.

From scratch.

I'm talking combining the flour and eggs, kneading the pasta dough, allowing the dough to rest, dividing the pasta dough, rolling out the pasta, thinning the pasta, cutting the pasta, cooking the pasta, and last but not least, eating the pasta... the whole nine yards!

The kids thought it was so cool and they were really into it.

And, by "kids," I mean Aiden and the other big kids. August was too cool for school and had other toddler business to tend to. Like running up and down the restaurant, drinking water, and taking a nap. Oh, and the "eating" portion of the class.

(Fun Fact: Pasta is legit his favorite thing to eat. In fact, 9 out of 10 times, he eats some type of pasta for dinner and all I do is switch up the sauce. #toddlerlife)

I  was also seriously impressed with the entire class. And with the wine selection. (#dontjudgeme)

Tania, the teacher, helped the kids every step of the way by explaining everything to them in a kid-friendly way. She was also very patient, worked with the kids on the skills they were lacking, and shouted them out when they were rocking it out!

Thanks, Tania!

On the menu was tagliatelle and ravioli. And who knew that you used little cute square to make ravioli?!

While their pasta was cooking up, I enjoyed a little more wine, ordered my meal, and admired the chic and trendy scenery that is Nonna Beppa.

Then, it was time to eat! While the kids ate their delish pasta, HEB and I ate a yummy 3-course meal. Everything was cooked to perfection.

Interested? Kids Cooking Class takes place every other Sunday at noon. Visit the Nonna Beppa website to learn more information or to reserve your spot. 

(You're welcome.)

Thanks so much to the entire team at Nonna Beppa for the fun experience. The wine was amazing. And the pasta was pretty good too!

{Disclaimer: The kids were provided with a complimentary Pasta-Making Class and the grown-ups were provided with a complimentary meal in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed herein are my own.}

{Relationship Stories} Guarded

{photo via}

I'm hanging out on the Lower East Side at happy hour with wo of my girlfriends and after a few five-dollar lychee martinis, I get started with some details about this thing I've got going on with The Guy.

Specifically the fact that I'm all screwed up when it comes to dating and relationships and that I might kinda, sorta, really benefit from seeing a therapist.

Don't know what I'm talking about? Sigh. Catch yourself up by reading this. And then bear with me as I share my theory, y'all. 

I talk a lot about my past on this corner of the web -- my crazy, unstable, and very, very messy upbringing. At the age of five, I was a witness to my family getting evicted from an apartment that I lived in since birth. I was five-years-old. Five! Let that marinate for a minute. 

That night (when I was five-years-old... five!), we slept in a shelter, which is where we stayed for the next couple weeks until my mother took us to my maternal grandmother's house. And so began the crazy, unstable, emotional roller-coaster that would be my life.

I was in and out of foster homes, enduring emotional and physical abuse, not really feeling like there was someone around to protect me and look out for my well-being. (Well, not anyone other than my sister. But she's three years older than me so she didn't have that much power to be the grown-up that I needed in my life. She tried though.) 

I learned a few things from that upbringing... Resilience. Heck, look it up in the dictionary and you just might find the biography of Alicia Harper. Faith. I had to trust in God to get me through those years of hell. (He never said the weapon wouldn't form; He said it wouldn't prosper -- Isaiah 54:17). Optimism. I needed to look forward to a better tomorrow in order to make it through my today. Love. Kindness. Joy. Hard work. Independence. Drive. And a slew of other qualities that makes me the Mommy Delicious that I am today.

For that, I'm thankful.

I managed to get a full scholarship to a great university and I truly looked forward to the life that I'd create as a grown-up, which, I proclaimed, would be nothing like the one I had growing up.  

Fast forward a few years to my first serious adult relationship. Aiden's otherparent. After enduring emotional, financial, and physical abuse, we all know how that one ended -- not good. I still suffer from PTSD and have flashbacks of those incidents from time to time -- it's not easy to get through that kind of trauma. I went through a year of therapy after that and it really helped me to pick up the pieces of my life, learn some hard and heavy lessons, and move forward.

Resilience, at its finest. 

What's crazy and freaky and mind-blowing is the way the cycle of events works. I left the drama of my upbringing only to create it once again in my adult life. And I barely escaped it in my adult-life. 

See what I'm talking about when I say I need therapy? More therapy?  

I guess we have a tendency to gravitate towards things that are familiar to us. There's comfort in that, even if it's unhealthy. 

The thing about the horrific events that have taken place in my life is, while they've helped me to learn so much about the great things about life, they've left me shattered. And guarded.

Extremely guarded. Abnormally guarded.

The scars of my past have made me very protective of my thoughts and feelings and situations in my life, and I don't know how to share them with others. (Except for when it comes to writing. I can put it all out there in an article or blog post.)  

Enter The Guy. He's nice and sweet and smart and handsome and honest and comes from a good family and wants to build something with me. He's the guy I've been praying for! 

During the cocktail therapy session with my girls (hey, it's cheaper than a regular therapy session), I went on and on and on about my guardedness. (Is that even a word?) I've been guarded for so long, not really letting anyone in my heart for so long, maintaining these superficially relationships with folks that I genuinely care about for so long.

Sigh.  

I'm finally at a point in my life where I don't have to be this way anymore... and I don't know how not to be this way. Here I have this perfectly good (and good-to-me and good-for-me) guy who just wants to love me and like me and go at this thing together... and I don't know how to let him. I want to be successful at this, but I, must admit, I don't know how to do this. (My Type-A personality is not okay with this, by the way.)

He's been patient, I guess. But we're at the point where he's starting to think that I'm hiding things from him. But I'm not. Not intentionally anyhow. I genuinely don't find it necessary to share certain things with him. 

He's all like, "But... we're trying to build something together, why wouldn't you think to tell me about that?"

And I'm all like, "Uh... uh... I need more time to process your question and formulate a response."

I don't think that's gonna work for much longer though.

I take another sip of my lychee martini and I spill it all out to my girls. They sit there and listen to me, order more martinis with me, wallow when necessary, validate my feelings, and lean in for hugs when I need them. Then they give it to me straight and tell me that, yes, I do in fact need to speak with a therapist about my guardedness (It is a word. I'm proclaiming it.) 

Gotta love girl talk.

{This post was first published on Mommy Delicious on October 27, 2013. And it's about HEB. We're coming up on six years in this relationship thing.}

On Recognizing Kids As Fully Human

This meme knows my life.

Real talk: I'm not a morning person. Matter of fact, most mornings I'm cranky as hell. 

Also, I'm cranky when I don't get enough sleep. Or when I'm home and want to take a nap, but can't. Or when someone in my house wakes me up from a nap. Or when I'm hungry. Hangry. 

Or when I think things are stupid, but I have to do them anyway. (That makes me really cranky.)

And you know what? 

Because I'm grown, I get to "get away" with being cranky for the most part. (I mean, I don't walk around with an attitude or anything, but if folks know that I'm not in a good mood, they tend to leave me alone. Or hold the space for me as I work through my feelings.)

Here's the thing though: that's not the norm for our kids. Generally kids aren't offered that same level of grace. If kids are having a rough day or a rough moment, it's seen as disrespectful or unacceptable. 

In fact, I've found that so much of motherhood (Black motherhood) has been folks looking at me to prove to them that I have control over my kids.

But motherhood has taught me to accept my children as fully human. And that means holding the space for them to experience the gamut of human emotions. 

The other day, Aiden was super moody as I was helping him with his homework. Actually, he walked into the house in a funk, went to his room, sat on his bed for a few minutes, and then came out into the living room. When I asked him if he wanted to talk about his day, he declined. 

That's cool. 

But I told him that I'm here for him if he wanted to talk about anything. I left the space for him to just... be.

While we were going over his homework, he was snappy. I checked him when he tried to direct his energy towards me. I told him that he's allowed to be in a bad mood, but he's not allowed to speak to me any 'ol way. 

I asked him if he wanted a hug, he declined. 

That's cool. 

Again, I told him that I'm here for him. And we continued with his history assignment. 

Ten minutes later, he wanted a hug. So we did that. And I could feel the release as we embraced. 

The thing is: I could have easily yelled at him or sent him to his room for being "rude" or grounded him or took away his phone for his behavior. I could have easily seen his behavior as unacceptable.

But I didn't.

Because kids are allowed to be cranky. And because kids are allowed to be in a funk. And because kids are allowed to be in a bad mood. Just as much as adults are allowed. And it's my job to help Aiden navigate and make sense of these tricky feelings instead of punishing him for them. 

And that's what I'll continue to do.