the Bored Mother's Smoothie

 There is an expression in French, derived, it would seem, from a government and administration-centric culture, prone to strikes and work disruptions of all kinds.

“Le service minimum”, or “faire le service minimum”, whose meaning is quite transparent, obviously. Maintaining a bare-minimum level of service that doesn’t give an extra inch of time or commitment to the institution you report to, or its customers for that matter.And I’m afraid this is exactly where I am these days, folks. Showing up here once a week for good measure – although I did skip a week recently, trying to post something mostly for my own sanity and to not tell myself that I have given up completely.

The layers of resistance that need to be overcome are so thick. For one paragraph in my document, I have sat down aimlessly for two hours beforehand, frantically checking messages from my son as he is slowly receiving his college acceptance letters from educational institutions here and abroad. Also refreshing no less frantically my news and political social media feed, as I am trying to make sense of what is currently going on in the Middle East and beyond.

The feeling is not dissimilar from the confusion experienced six years ago as schools had just closed for an indefinite period in the wheels of the first wave of covid cases. Schools and children-related routines should not be affected this time around, thank God. Looking back, I still wonder how we did this. But there is this same sense that our economic and mental landscapes are changing fast; that we’re not quite sure what the world will look like in a few months, a few weeks even, maybe.

Adding to this the prospect of an older child about to go to college in a region, or continent, as of yet unknown to him, and us. And a mother who has difficulty planning and visualizing the future in the most predictable, reassuring times. And you end up with a potent mix of paralysis and fear, translated as endless rumination that results in very little in terms of concrete actions.

I seem to be completely drained of energy and the post-school afternoons have been hard again, after a short-lived burst of cooking energy that made supervising homework and piano practice a little less soul-killing for a while.

The old back-at-home procrastination is back. It takes a while to take off my shoes and coat, to get myself organized and centered in my room before I brace the kitchen and living room area where it seems like my boys only want to jump and run and play ball, while claiming they are focusing hard on their school assignments.

I have had to go back to old classics as a result. My “salmon with good sauce”, my “pasta with pink sauce”, the carrot soup no one will complain about. A pasta salad with feta. My trusted rotation of New York Times sheet-pan chicken dinners.

I execute all this without much heart, in the hopes that a Mary Poppins of sorts will show up and take over all domestic obligations for a month - and possibly for the rest of my life, should she be willing to do so.

As I navigate these doldrums, novelty has only come in the form of a smoothie.

Partially because it would seem that I have more energy upon waking up, before the late afternoon and evening “tunnel”, as moms call it in France – the infamous “tunnel du soir” and its cortege of meal-prepping and baths, and homework and stories that we parents all know too well. And partially because my seventeen-year-old seems to only be ingesting breakfast in liquid form these days. He always leaves too late and never has time for more than a glass of milk when we’re lucky. Sometimes a banana, wich I often need to frantically shove in his backpack as he is calling the elevator. Remind me to check the backpack this weekend, as several items in various stages of putrefaction have been excavated from the front pocket over the years.

I had all but given up on breakfast at my house – the other three kids being picky and difficult in their own way about a meal that shouldn’t be that challenging, in my book. Toast or cereal with a piece of fruit, what is so hard about that?  But one of my mindless war-and-catastrophe doom-scrolling sessions brought inspiration in the form of a random article in the Washington Post. It was so random that I haven’t been able to find it again when writing this post. But it involved a doctor and his breakfast routine, that much I can say.

The breakfast routine being a simple banana and peanut butter smoothie.

So, there I was, trying different versions of a banana-peanut butter smoothie this week, as my oldest son had a week of mock-baccalaureate exams. It turns out he barely had time for the smoothie as well. Which makes me think his skip-breakfast behavior has more to do with a moral attitude than with any kind of objective schedule. The same way that his ten-year-old brother has been refusing any type of morning sustenance since his favorite Kashi chocolate cereal mysteriously went out of stock a few months ago.

Nevertheless, both boys did have a few gulps of my smoothie before leaving for school this week, which I consider a major victory.

A sweeter version involving dates ended up winning my boys’ tasting contest, but if you want something a little lighter, the bare-bones Washington Post doctor’s version fits the bill for me.

I am curious to add some oats to it to see how it turns out.   In the meantime, I will keep my “service minimum” going at night, until my energy comes back.

Morning Smoothie for a Worn-Out (did I say bored?) Mom and her Couldn't-Care-Less Teenage Boy

The Washington Post doctor’s version was basically this, which I have later seen in various iterations all over the Internet, give or take a few add-ons such as 1/4 cup of oats.

1 banana

1 tablespoon peanut butter

 ½ cup almond milk   

Of course you can use any type of milk you like. I also tried a version with plain Greek yogurt, which my children didn’t like as much.

Any type of nut butter will also do.   

I have read that using frozen bananas and/or add a few ice cubes in the blender makes for a smoother texture. The difference was too subtle for me to notice. But anything involving frozen ingredients that you find when your house has gone into a state of life-threatening scarcity and there’s nothing to eat for breakfast, is always a winning scenario in my book.

The version with dates was this one, but all recipes seem to agree on the ½ cup milk-1 tablespoon nut butter per banana. You can then throw in a few dates and add some protein powder if you wish.