A BRIDAL SHOWER FOR MY SISTER

We threw my sister a party this past weekend. She is lovely, diligent, talented, compassionate, empathetic, funny, competitive, creative (....and she is getting married this summer!!!) She is a wonderful friend, I love having her as my little sister, and I am so glad I got to celebrate with her. 

       

congratulations eunice & val! 

OLD PINE BY BEN HOWARD

I keep coming back to this song.

It sounds especially wonderful when heard through headphones. 

The space between the notes and words is almost as significant as the song itself.
It sl-o-wly fills you up.

It makes me feel like I'm flying, it reminds me of a dream, it is the soundtrack to my favorite memories. 

It is both epic and terribly intimate.

AN ODE TO LEMON

The way I feel about lemons is akin to the way that maybe snout to tail enthusiasts feel about their meat. The versatility, the novelty, the functionality! It has vitamin C, a great smell, and fabulous color. You can squeeze it in some water to flavor it and give you an extra boost, you can add it to homemade cleaner made up of vinegar and baking soda to give your cleanser a fresh scent, you can take used lemons to wipe down your counter tops, you can make candied lemon peels with the peel, you can roast it to top your chicken, you can add it to a salad dressing or just simply squeeze some on sautéed kale or mushrooms, you can add some to tonic water and gin, or use the juices to make a simple syrup, and my recent obsession: you can bake with it.  In the past few weeks, I’ve made two different kinds of lemon cake and two different kinds of lemon pie. I’m a little bit in love.  Another huge pro to this little fruit is that it is inexpensive and it only takes a little to get a big effect.

Enter here:  an idea to make even more things out of lemon, friends, and a day that I shall hereby dub “lemon day”.  We got together for this occasion and proceeded to make lemon marmalade, lemon preserves, a lemon lavender cake using spelt flour, and lemon cocktails. I had never made jam or marmalade before, but thankfully Megan and Elizabeth were already experienced in the arts, so it wasn’t as intimidating of a process and something I shall try again soon. The cocktails were refreshing, the cake was full of texture, the preserves are still preserving, and the marmalade is so good – I eat it almost everyday with some brie on a cracker.

SLOANE AT 9 MONTHS

Ken and I both agree that this might be our favorite month with her yet.

There is so much to say about how she is growing right now; she learns something new everyday. I couldn't possibly document it all, as much as I try, but here is some semblance of such an attempt.

Everything is something to be discovered and when she is on the move, she has to observe everything in her path, no crumb is too small.  Right now her job is that of an explorer, and I love observing this adventurous spirit. She crawls, pulls up, climbs..she fits perfectly underneath the dining table. I am giddy with the privilege that I am a witness to something kind of miraculous - to watch this baby learn new things - things that I didn't realize until now were things that I once had to learn. I can see the dawn of realization come over her face as she opens and closes a cabinet door, pushes a chair around, takes a large cup in her hand and look it all over - top, bottom, side, inside, and maybe a lick and a bang to check out the feel and consistency of the thing. Her hands wrap around the roundness of a lime in her hands and she smiles with glee, seemingly overjoyed at being able to wrap her small hands around something so round and concrete. But her favorite thing to observe still seems to be people, and she will get especially still watching other children.

What helps in her explorations is being able to pull herself to standing position in order to reach things, and she does this with great expertise now. She has also taken one or two steps on her own, and she have never so much looked like a tiny person... or a baby t-rex! 

Her need to communicate is getting stronger. When she drops something, sees her puffs, is asked if she wants milk, spots papa, or wants to be picked up, her eyes get wide and she lets out a very insistent, "Doh!", "Mah!, "Bah!" or other such utterance, which is accompanied by an expression that says, I'm sure you must understand what I'm saying! 

She is also doing more imitation. When I make a sound she will sometimes try to imitate me or follow along. When I clap, she claps. When I raise my arms, she will too. Our favorite party trick right now is that when I say, “Hip Hip…”, she will triumphantly raise both her arms in a “Hurray!” 

She is as patient as ever, especially when shopping, but she is increasingly getting bored of sitting in the exersaucer or car seat too long, and is sure to let us know with cries and yelps. Luckily, this coincides with her fascination with just about anything, so handing her something new - anything new – whisk, Tupperware top, plastic card, sunglasses, a lime etc. will usually keep her occupied for a while. I’ve started to grab random things from the house before we leave the house, just in case I need to hand it to her to keep her busy. 

She is also starting to exhibit will by holding on tight to things when we try to take it away, and by insisting that she picks up her own food off of her plate in order to place it in her mouth herself. I still find myself watching with fascination how she is so adamant about doing this herself.  There's also more whining because she really wants to tell us something! but doesn't have the words yet. 

And I marvel at how she is such her very own person. My tiny baby, who once had the faculties of a potato, is becoming an entire person all of her own. It does not stop blowing my mind and I am trying my very best over here to not take any of it for granted. 

She is my bliss.

SEVEN SHORTS FOR MOTHER’S DAY

1

I arrived at the front door step of Sloane’s daycare at the same time as another mom who was also picking up her wee one. We gave each other big ‘yay we are about to see our babies’ smiles, and I watched her face as she greeted her baby when Cathy brought him out to her. She was beaming so much it was as if the sun lived inside her head. Her voice went up an octave, her shoulders scrunched inwards and her arms reached out to take him into her. The baby’s face came alive when he saw her coming for him and this filled her up, I could see it. Sloane was next, and when she came around the corner in Cathy’s arms, I felt my heart lift, mind buzz, and body shift towards her, involuntarily mirroring what I had just seen happen next to me.

2

Growing up, my friend Jackie* had never wanted kids.  I remember when she called me to tell me that she was pregnant, her voice sounded bewildered but happy.  I remember her talking about post-partem depression. I remember her telling me stories of how funny and smart her girls were. I remember her telling me that she would watch how other moms interacted with their children and how she felt like she wasn’t a good mom, that she didn’t even know if she knew how to be a good mom, that she didn’t know if she wanted to be one.  I remember hearing my friend talk to her children and thinking that I was seeing a brilliant side of her that I’ve never seen before. I remember how proud she was of how well the girls were adjusting to the change, how grown up they seemed even at 4 and 5 years old, and how heartbroken she was about not being able to see them.  I remember her wondering about what they would think of her as a mom when they were all grown.

3

Growing up, my friend Lana* had always wanted kids.  Many years later, she doesn’t have one yet, but she is surrounded by them, gaggles of them, and she mothers them like they are her own. She as a lot of love to give and even without a baby, she has a mother’s heart, and I know she already feels like a mom to the child that she will one day have. 

4

Claire* is pretty much a mom in her own right because even though her boyfriend’s children have their own mom,    Claire wakes up extra early to take them to school, celebrates birthdays, drives them to activities, takes them on trips, talks them through decisions, worries about them, and has brought them into the folds of who she is, seamlessly.

5

Bridget* is pregnant and it is her first so she is racked with excitement, worries, fears, joys, and nausea. This is the biggest and greatest thing that she has had to wait for in her entire life, and she thinks about how at the same time her baby is born, she is going to be reborn into a new kind of a person, a mother. 

6

My mother-in-law can clean a kitchen like no one else’s business; it’s a work of art. She has a giant heart, especially for her children and granddaughter, and she is diligent about taking care of her own mother. She raised two children that turned out to be wonderful and compassionate people, and I attribute a lot of my husband’s good qualities to her mothering. I am grateful to her for that, and I am grateful that she loves me like I am part of her family.

 

7

One of the many things that they don’t tell you about being a mom is that when your children grow up and leave to go live their own lives, you have to relearn what it means to be a mom in that new context.  You may also have to find yourself again (yes, it seems we are forever losing and finding ourselves), you may have extra time to reflect on your regrets and hopes, and you are also still trying to best mother your three grown children who live too far away.  My mom is a force to be reckoned with and her openness and authenticity in living out her journey inspires her three daughters.  Just like a mom should, I think.   

Happy Mother’s Day.

*pseudonyms

A PAPA AND HIS BABY GIRL

K. is finally coming back tomorrow, and it’s a good thing because we miss him so. Because we miss him and because I have these stray and wonderful nuggets in my phone of the two of them, here we go:

PAPA COME BAAAAAAAACK!

SUMMER WISH LIST

from left to right, clockwise: 1, 2, 3, 4

THAT TIME I THREW AWAY A HUGE BATCH OF SALAD

I'm really really not having a bad week. Let's get that out of the way first.

It's just that we are into week two of Operation "While Ken Is Away For Work' and while last week went by without a hitch, this one is feeling a bit more daunting. What do you mean, you ask? Well, for starters, last week, Sloane all of a sudden decided that bed time really was bed time and that she would fall asleep as soon as she hit the crib. It was glorious. 'I think she's gotten it!' I told Ken over the phone. I saw a bright future ahead of us. Also, it was the of the utmost help that I started last week off by going to bed extra extra early for the first couple of days. (It's always the sleep thing, isn't it?)

A few things aside, I'm having a good week filled with things like homemade corn tortillas and a special lemon day with my lady friends (more on this later!), but something is slightly askew. When I described to Ken what I am about to describe here now, he prescribed more sleep, and repeatedly assured me that I would not end up at a mental institute. That's what husbands are for!


You know what I have to do in these days? At least once a day, I empty out all of the things that are in my brain down onto a piece of paper. I write it out - the words, the thoughts, the lists, the to-dos. It's nothing fancy, and it's a lot of scribbles, but it helps. I used to do this back in the day, and we're back to it now, for different reasons, but it works for me, especially because it sometimes really feels like things are going to overflow out of my brain and dribble down the sides of my head.

It's true, I couldn't fall asleep on Sunday night because my brain would not.shut.off. It was running amuck cataloguing all of the things that I had to do for this upcoming week (I want to insert a note here to say, when I say "all the things I had to do", I don't mean it in the ways of "all the things that I have to do that I actually don't want to do", I mean it in the sense of "all the things I want to do and need to do in order to keep my life running both smooth and joyful."  Just so we're clear.) I made it to work on Monday in one piece (why yes, I do feel a huge sense of accomplishment by just making it into work; it's no simple feat.) but later on that day, I found myself in a situation where I totally forgot my phone number. I was leaving a voice message and after the area code, MY MIND WENT COMPLETELY BLANK and grasping for straws, I started saying my very old telephone number because that is what my brain pushed that out of my mouth in a mad panic. Needless to say, that was one of the more embarassing voice messages I've left.  Later on that evening, while preparing Sloane's food for the next day, I forgot to put the steam basket into the pot, leaving the apple slices to just boil in the water instead of being steamed. Up until this point, it was laughable. Then, while I was taking out my contacts, I must have had a moment of blacking/blanking out because I found myself grabbing my bare eyeballs with my fingers trying to take my contact out. Confused, I looked down into the sink and saw that I must have taken my contacts out and then discarded them into the sink. It was at this moment, I had the tiniest of breakdowns.  Nothing too dramatic, just a slight feeling of hysteria and sadness of what-the-heck.

Just so you don't think I'm all mope and despair, this Monday was pretty fantastic. Work was long, but not bad. Sloane was especially plush and snuggly, and she entertained herself with the cabinet door long enough for me to get some things done. Friends came over to have a lemon party and I enjoyed the heck out of that.  I'll have you know, that of the three things that I messed up on or forgot, I remembered and did about 54 things.

I'm writing about the ridiculousness that is the loss of some of my very basic facilities like remembering my phone number and taking out my contacts, because Tuesday's evening felt very much a part of the song that is entitled, "Is Christine going to hold it together?" Granted, the failure of the salad wasn't due to anything of my doing. I had made this gigantic batch of chicken, broccoli slaw, kale, red onion, and dried cranberries topped with an oil and balsamic vinegar dressing (inspired by Shutterbean) that I was going to eat the crap out of, but when I opened up the container of it today, something funky had happened. Strange, because on day one, I muched my way through a super delicious bowl of it, but today, it was a different animal.  It was probably the chicken that had turned, but regardless, the whole thing smelled rancid and it was inedible. Terribly disappointed, I bravely went forth to conquer the next item on my list, which was returning an ill-fitting pair of jeans at that mall which is in the westest of ends, and when we get there, it was raining the fattest raindrops I ever did see. Sloane and I made it there and back, you'll be happy to know, and you'll also be interested to know that I inhaled the waffle fries that I picked up at Chik-fil-a in lightening speed.

If this were a movie, the poignant scene would be the one where right after the woman put the baby to sleep, she finds herself in the bathroom, without toilet paper, without a husband around to get her some toilet paper, listening to the baby struggle crying trying to fall asleep.  Then the end of the movie, if tonight was the end of that movie, you would see the woman in serene calm, baby asleep, and you would see the woman sitting alone, eating juicy grapes, listening to some amorphous and instrumental music, slaying her to-do list, and tap tap tapping a blog post on the laptop's keyboard.

I have to write these things down, because I need to remember, that all of this - the wide-eyed wonder, the strain, the bouts of superwomanhood, the bouts of losingmymind, the satisfaction and peace, the planning and waiting - is the joy and depth that is my life right now.  The joy and depth! Some of it has to do with being a mom, some of it has to do with me just figuring out how to do some of the things I want to do.  A lot of it has to do with finding myself in the balance.  Probably even more has to do with me finding my capacity through a very pervasive kind of grace.

FIRST FRIDAY CHEERS MEANS SUMMER IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER

There are things that make me love this town so hard and I've noticed that usually these feelings come out full force when the weather is turning and summer is announcing her sweet self.  Being outside in the sun's glow with good food, drink and friends is totally my M.O.  Yesterday, we went out to Hardywood Park Brewery's foodtruck court with a friend who was in town and tonight we met some friends at Friday Cheers to hear Shovel and Rope play. The weather whiplashed from warm to windy and cold as the sun set, but boy did it feel good to roam around the grassy knoll on Brown's Island surrounded by other folk who were likewise eager to get their summer on.

Thanks laura for the family photos! 

AMAZING pizza from Grate Pizza food truck: 

Duck confit & smoked gouda-crucifer mash & wild mushroom & crispy potato & blackberry gastrique.