A good sign that I'm getting my postpartum groove on is that I'm back in the kitchen. I've made dinner most nights this week and I have to remind myself that just a few weeks ago that seemed like a cliff too sheer for scaling. I haven't tackled anything complicated (yet) but things have been tasty. I did read that pine nuts, spinach and raisins are a traditional Catalan combination, so I threw some over pasta and mom and Damon absolutely loved it. So easy. I will tell you how I did it.

Make a pound of corkscrew pasta. (That's the shape I favored for this, anyway, but any pasta will do.)
Saute a bag of spinach in a little bit of olive oil and salt.
Once the spinach is almost done, throw the raisins in the pan and give it another minute. Stir it around a bit. Turn off the heat and leave the combo in the hot pan.
Scatter some pine nuts on a cookie sheet in one layer. Stick them under the broiler for 45 seconds (YMMV on time, but don't be late. They burn quickly.)
Throw the pine nuts in the pan. Then star mixing in pasta until you have a pleasing ratio. If it feels dry just add a bit more olive oil.
I wrote this one out because I would not normally have tried this combination. I decided to do it because I wasn't very hungry, so curiosity won out over a sure thing. And it was good. Truly.

I was more mindful that night because I was so happy to be busy at the stove. That's when I realized something. Let me give you background first:

When it's just family I usually plate food at the stove and then carry it to the table. (When friends are here we serve at the table or buffet style so they can control what they get.)

Okay, here's what I realized: I always leave a little bit of each kind of food (main, side, bread, etc) on the stovetop or counter. Never once have I mentioned it, but I always do it. And I've never examined the habit. But I know why I do it.

More background: I rarely clean the kitchen. The deal is that I cook, and then after we eat I go be-pajama Alden and take a little break while Damon (or my mom if she's here) takes care of business.

So finally: It's fun to pick at food. I love to sample while I cook. (Although sometimes I lose interest in the finished product. Odd.) So I make sure that whoever is cleaning the kitchen has little snacks to cheer the chore along.

What's funny to me is that earlier this week was the first time I'd ever given it actual thought. I've been doing it all my cooking life, which goes back to college. I've never told Damon why it's there. He's never mentioned it. The food is always gone. For all I know he's dumping it in the garbage. I hope not. But I don't want to bring it up and break the spell.

Mutch thanks for all your good thoughts on Damon and his college friend. I have passed it all along and we shall see what he does. Damon is ever optimistic and will take every person at his or her word. I go through life with an eyebrow permanently cocked. Sometimes we need third party opinions. Also, satogareu called me out, entirely correctly, on my lack of neutrality in story telling. So true! But you should have seen the first version.

We've just returned to Knoxville from a round robin of family visits -- Lexington -> Cincinnati -> Louisville -> home. Being back in Ohio made me yearn for my hometown. I'd be happy to live there again. But for now I'm thrilled to be under my own roof, regardless of where the house sits. Elliot, turns out, is not a fan of riding in the car. By the time we pulled into our garage he had gone all hoarse from yelling.

Warning: This photo could make you spontaneously pregnant.

The boys are catching a nap at Grammy's house. I'm fascinated by how they hold their hands the same way -- thumb tucked under pointer finger.

Buddy Hackett!:


He doesn't always look like that:


Pumpkin pie:


Today we took Alden to the zoo, talking all the way about how we will see Wilbur the Camel (stupid, I know) who he got to feed at a recent visit. We make him our last stop, which means Alden is both tired and hungry. No camels. So I say, "I'll bet Wilbur already went to take his nap." But I didn't want to give up so soon, in case he had just been relocated. So I carry Alden over to a nearby zoo worker and say, "Hey, we're here to see Wilbur. Is he around or is he taking his nap?" She looks directly at my expectant son's face and says, "The camels aren't here. They're only here on the weekends during the winter." (Dying to know where they go during the week). So I look meaningfully at Alden and say, "I see, okay. But Wilbur is just napping, right? Not gone. We can see him at our next visit." And she says, "No, the camels are all gone." And I say, "Yup, got it. All gone and Wilbur is napping. We'll see him another day." And she looks at me like I'm slow and says, "There aren't any camels here." Gah! The day was saved when we walked by the alpacas and llamas, who are camel-ish enough. Alden was satisfied that the one in the far distance was probably Wilbur, who was probably sleeping.

Don't feel too sorry for him, though. He was a right pill all day long and I was delighted to bundle him off to bed.

http://www.hunch.com/media/reports/food/

While I am conservative on some points, I more frequently find myself in the liberal pool. This is true of most of my friends.

This survey pretty much nailed me right on the head. But I do like shortbread cookies, so I can still tell myself I'm at least a little unpredictable.

I'm going to try to present this neutrally. I'm curious to hear what you think Damon should do.

When he was in college he befriended a girl who didn't have much of a social circle. She had cerebral palsy and, seemingly, some emotional issues connected to the same. Their relationship was conducted via party conversations and the occasional phone call and email.

She began confiding in him more than he felt was comfortable. She also was pushing for more frequency of contact. He had no idea if her intentions were romantic, but he did his best to keep things where they were and stay out of the drama she tended to create. After graduation he faded out of her life fairly quickly.

Shortly after that she contacted his mother repeatedly over the course of several months, trying to locate him. His mom declined to share his contact information and she eventually gave up.

Now, about ten years later (she and Damon are both in their mid 30s), she's found him on Facebook and sent a friend request. It came with a fairly involved note about how she's still upset that he abandoned her and vanished, that she wants an explanation, wants to rekindle their friendship, etc. He decided to just ignore it. Multiple friend requests followed with an escalating level of ALL CAPS. Her final one went along the lines of, "I'll never know why you hate me now so I'll never have closure. But fine. I hope you're happy. PS -- I almost died six months ago."

That was last week. Today he got an email from a woman he doesn't know. She is a friend of this woman, and wanted to make an appeal to Damon to contact her. She said it's very important and that a simple hello would bring this sick woman a lot of joy.

Damon has always felt sorry about the emotional distress she experiences, self created or not. I can see him starting to crack and want to send her a "I just got really busy so please don't take it personally. I'm still really busy, but I hope you're happy and well." kind of email.

Smart internet friends, what say you?

I wasn't kidding when I said I would try to stretch this birthday out.

Tonight I returned to the kitchen for the first time in weeks. I think I washed out in about my eighth month of pregnancy and mom has been handling the honors since she got here.

The thing is, I love to be in the kitchen and I'm awfully attached to controlling the nutritional input for my family. I'm far from perfect, but at least I can control whether I'm hitting my own minimum standards.

I decided that tonight is "birthday dinner" night and I would cook and then bake a cake.

Sidebar: I've latched on to the idea that every year I am going to bake my sons' birthday cakes with my own little hands. Not from scratch, mind you. But at least I cracked the eggs, I ran the mixer, and -- whatever the end result may be -- it came out of my oven.

Last year I made an abomination of a monkey cake.

It did taste great.

This year I decided to take it down a level and make a rainbow cake. It went fine until about here:

I baked it as long as the box instructed. And then a little longer. When the toothpick came out clean I took it out to cool. But about ten minutes after that it became clear the cake wasn't really done. I threw it back in the oven and dumped a plate of store-bought cookies on the table. Everyone got a glass of milk for dunking. Birthday dinner will carry over until tomorrow if it turns out that the extra bake time finished off the cake. If not I'll just save up the rest of my fumbling for next year.

On a more successful note, I made white wine risotto with roasted shrimp, tomato and thyme for dinner and it was delicious. Alden spent the entire meal begging for his fourth serving of pickled okra.

And now, unrelated, let me see if I've got this video posting thing down. I took this months ago and finally managed to get it from camera to computer.

My sweet potato turned two yesterday.



He has no idea what a birthday is, but he knows to yell "Happy Day!" whenever he sees a pointy paper hat.

His day started on a down note, as we reported to his 2-year-old checkup at 8:15. Two vaccinations and a blood test were on the schedule, and all things considered I think he took it well. The blood draw took a minute and the whole time he sobbed into my shoulder, alternating between "No thank you!" and "I'm sorry!" The "I'm sorry" came, I think, in response to the nurse saying it first. But it still made me queasy. The nurse could be heard muttering, "Oh god, I can't wait until I get my master's and don't have to do this anymore." He was pitiful indeed. I am a little bit excited about the test though. In addition to testing his cholesterol (They start that at two -- good grief) they will test his lead level. I fully expect it to have dropped dramatically from our horrifying one-year-old results and I can't wait to hear it confirmed.

Other than the needle sticks, the appointment went just fine. He's 25 pounds and he's 33 (I think) inches tall. A peanut. But a smart peanut. His language is well ahead, he knows his numbers, colors and shapes (including funky stuff like trapezoid) and he can even do some simple counting like telling us how many stickers he has. Normally I get a little impatient with "My kid's so smart" stuff. But it's his birthday, so I'll indulge just a little. Most importantly, he continues to crack me up. The other day I said, "I'm making you saag paneer for lunch" and he said, "Mommy, what are you talking about?" in this utterly exasperated way that just laid me out.

Last night we took him to Market Square, which is the little restaurant and funky shop spot downtown.

We found an air vent in the sidewalk.


And I let him take some photos with my camera.


Then we got a table on the patio of one of our favorite restaurants and had a vanilla and blueberry cupcake for dessert.


Grammy gave Alden his own watch.

His expression tells the story of how mommy and daddy aren't so good with the fancy wrapped presents, as he had no idea what that was. When she handed it to him and said, "What is this?" He said, "Trash!" and our every entreaty to open it got the same response. "Need trashcan."

What was exciting to him (other than the food) was that the hostess would stand right by our table when she yelled for parties waiting out on the square. He was enthusiastic about helping her and spent part of the night with his hands cupped around his mouth shouting "Betty! Betty! Lady is waiting for you!" until Betty and her friends were safely seated and drinking their wine.

He even capped off the night with a little love for little brother.

Note the restraining hand of Grammy, keeping him from loving too much.

Tomorrow the progressive celebration continues. We're going to eat lunch in the park and then swing and slide and swing and slide. Maybe if I keep the second birthday party rolling he will consent to pause here for a little while, rather than growing up so fast.

Damon is taking Alden down to bed.

Damon: Say goodnight to everyone.
Alden:
-- Good night Mommy
-- Good night Grammy
-- Good night Foot-Bump Elliot*
-- See you tomorrow pizza**
(trailing away down the stairs)
-- Good night noodles***
-- Good night cookies***


*Out of concern for flu season in general and swine flu in particular, our pediatrician suggested we teach Alden to greet Elliot by patting him on the foot rather than getting right in his face. Every single nurse I saw in the hospital warned me about swine flu -- it's rampant here.
**As he passed our boxed leftovers. He was correct.
***He ate no such thing that day.

I thought it would be routine. And then I was surprised. Then I thought it might suck. But it totally didn't.

One week ago today I had just been admitted to the hospital, and was drifting away on a tide of demerol and phenergan. Not, as one might assume (and most people did), because I was in labor. Instead it seems my gall bladder surrendered under the irritation of the pregnancy. One minute I was cruising along and the next I was snapped over with a very specific kind of piercing pain. Monday morning I got the shot in the hip and then went home to sleep it off and hoped to see the back of the issue. But when the drugs wore off the pain was back and I was admitted at about 9pm. Sonograms were not helpful because my gall bladder was shoved so far up under my ribs, and finally the doctors decided that we needed to get the baby out before anything else could be done. The hope was that would correct the issue and we could all forget it. Otherwise, at least a gastroenterologist could proceed with more invasive tests.

I never thought I'd be induced, but also wasn't too worried about it. I was 39 weeks pregnant and already 3cm dilated, so I felt confident my body was already warming up the orchestra.

The nurses put in my IV and started me on little bumps of pitocin at around 8am on Tuesday. I dilated to 4cm. And stayed there for about 7 hours. One of the many weird things about this was that I was braced for the agony of the pitocin contraction. And then it turns out they were not remarkable to me. I was offered an epidural, and declined at that point because I still valued my ability to move around freely more than I felt hampered by pain. So on and on we went. No one, bless them, at any time said anything about a c-section or otherwise made me feel like a clock was ticking. Finally, because no position was having an impact, I said I'd go ahead and take that epidural. They hooked me up with the epi-lite (TM, if only in my head) which meant I could still move my legs and happily sit up cross-legged or kneel, which had been my preference all day. And still no real progress. I'd made it maybe to near 5cm by 5:45. My doctor came in and spent a lot of time checking out the situation. She finally said, "I think he's just sitting a little bit funny and not hitting your cervix at the right angle." Her suggestion was that we turn the epidural up and that I lie down on my left side, on the theory that would rotate him in the right way. Her hope was that if it worked we could have him in just a few hours. She asked me if I felt comfortable with her going to a work dinner she had planned, reassuring me that she could be back in 15 minutes if we called her. I said something breezy like, "Oh please do, no reason to sit around and watch me poke along." Damon went down to grab dinner around 6. He rolled back in around 6:15. At about 6:20 my nurse came in to say, "I thought I'd come check and see if anything is happening." The next thing she said was, "OH! He's on the perineum. Don't! Move!" I swooped my hand down, and there he was. The nurse hit her walkie talkie and a handful of other nurses came scooting in just Elliot glided into the arms of Nurse Diane. I had just enough time to say, "Seriously?!?!?!" before she dropped him on my chest. I guess Dr. Roberts was on to something with her funky angle observation. After that I got a serious talking-to from the on-call doctor, who wanted me to really hear her when she said that if we choose to have another baby we should be fully prepared for an unassisted home birth. Should the next one not be at a funky angle we might have less than an hour from start to finish. (PS -- A "next one" is not on the agenda.)

The birth experience was at no point what I expected. And yet, it was funny, thrilling, and perfect for us.


Note the lack of head molding, as he spent just about no time in the birth canal.
7 lbs 3 oz
21 inches
seriously delightful


Alden is being generous and sweet, but he's also clearly insecure. He wants to nurse every time he lays eyes on me, and gets all "Moooooommmmmmmmy" about everything. I've got a lot of patience for it. I know this is rocking his world.


Elliot is already deeply committed to scientific research.


His hair is so thick and black that one nurse asked me if my husband is Hispanic. Then the pediatric nurse practitioner said, "I speak Spanish so I see an awful lot of Hispanic families. I have never seen a baby with this much hair." The truth is that I had the same head of hair. It's a call back to our Sicilian heritage. He's also a champion nurser and I may need to write a whole other post about how much easier (which is not to say totally easy) it is to nurse the second time around.

Almost down to single digits, y'all. I am happy to have arrived in that place where labor is a welcome experience, just so I can get a little bit of my body back. I'm ready to haul this little guy around on the outside rather than nestling him up under my lungs. And, of course, I'm ready to meet him. He's more rambunctious than Alden was and I'm so curious to know if that will translate.

My mom has arrived, and not a moment too soon. Alden gave us five nights in a row of 3am fit throwing and I was starting to hope for the sweet release of death. Yesterday she hustled him off to the mall playground and engaged in a 3.5-hour forced fun session that finally ended when he laid on the floor and sighed, "Go home please." Finally, he slept through the night. There never was a more grateful mommy.

I've started looking at every pesky thing on my work calendar and thinking, "Huh, maybe I'll go into labor and I won't have to attend that meeting."

So, yeah, it's all about the waiting now. I'm also pretty tickled with the timing, as maternity leave will coincide with all the new fall shows. I shall nurse to the rhythm of Dancing With the Stars. Anything else I shouldn't miss?

The baby, he has turned. Hooray! I'd love to say it was something I did, but it wasn't. Shortly after I started fretting I felt some major movement. The acupuncturist said, "Don't do a thing. You can turn a baby breech just like you can turn a baby upside down." So I tabled everything until we got another ultrasound, and that's when we got the good news.

Tomorrow I'll be 37 weeks. It's so nice to be in the home stretch. Doc is projecting seven pounds at delivery and that it won't be any time in the next few days. I know both of those things are simply educated guesses, but they work for me fine so I'm putting them in the 'win' column as well.

The other night Alden put his arms around me and said, "Don't worry Mommy. I gotcha." I can hardly stand the sweetness.

Tomorrow I will probably be complaining about work or my hips or the heat, but today life feels awfully good.