Life Off Headset

Weekly Recap + what we ate

Voting was at the top of my list this week, and I did that. There is a drop box at the library and I dropped my ballot there on my weekly library book run. I’m a big fan of early voting and voting by drop off ballot. I hope this continues to be an options. It is so much more convenient. Also, I feel like actually having the ballot made me more interested in researching the ballot measures.

I finished up the Halloween costumes this week. The three year old was a cloud. I had had plans to draw some raindrops on a pair of grey pants, but I didn’t get that far. The three year old was definitely unenthusiastic about wearing his costume, but then I told him he could ram people while wearing it, and he put it right on and proceeded to run at me over and over again. The baby still has to be bribed with food to wear her costume. The eight year old and I made a rainbow headband to go with her rainbow dress. I do wonder if at some point the younger kids will realize that they get to choose their own costume and they don’t have to go with whatever group costume their sister picks. I do like a good family costume, though.

I felt like I had a lot of errands to run this week. The car had to go in for an emissions test, library books to pick up, Halloween candy to buy, packages to return. I went into Target for the first time in a while and it was actually kind of overwhelming. I had forgotten that there was so much stuff in the world to be purchased and put in our homes. I am by no means a minimalist, but I do feel like the past six months without casual Target runs has helped me focus on what I do have in the house rather than what I don’t.

This week in drawing class, we worked on reverse value drawings. Using white conte crayon on black paper, we drew the areas of light on a page, rather than the areas of dark that we had done with the last assignment.

I felt like this assignment was quite difficult because you couldn’t erase like you could with the charcoal. At the same time, it was also a very dramatic and high impact method of drawing. I’m actually really happy with how my drawing turned out.

random collection of light capturing objects.

Friday night we carved the pumpkin. Well, actually, I carved the pumpkin. The kids usually come up with the design, but I am the one who actually wields the sharp objects. The eight year old did help pull out the guts. But all in all, it is one of those activities which the kids are really enthusiastic about and then half way through, I’m in my artistic Zen moment and look up to realize that the kids are nowhere to be found.

Every Halloween I’ve carved the pumpkin with a combination of a drill and my leatherman. And as much fun as that is, every year I say, “I should get a pumpkin carving kit.”

This year the Husband got me a pumpkin carving kit. I’m still on the fence as to whether it makes carving pumpkins easier, but it definitely gives you more tricks to pull out. I was able to carve “Boo” on the back of my pumpkin by whittling away the skin until there was a thin membrane of flesh that glowed when the light was put in the pumpkin.

Random food tidbit- The weather has cooled this past week, with many rainy days. Cooler weather is oatmeal for breakfast weather. One of my favorite ways to eat oatmeal is to treat it almost like a congee: sprinkled with scallions and ginger, drizzled with sesame oil and ume vinegar and topped with a boiled egg with a little bit of soy sauce. It is one of my favorite savory breakfasts.

What I’m listening to right now:
-Podcasts, some conservative ones. I was feeling like my left wing/ liberal/ NPR bubble was getting predictable, and I wanted to hear some different viewpoints. One of the podcasts I’ve been listening to is The National Review’s The Editors podcast. I don’t always agree with what they say, but I do see the logic of their viewpoints.
– CDs. When I was in college, I spent a lot of money on CDs at the Princeton Record Exchange. Lately I’ve been pulling out some of those CDs and revisiting my college days. I could probably do a deep dive into the contents of my CD library – it is mostly opera, musicals, movie soundtracks, early music, and obscure vocal music. One of the albums I’ve been listening to lately is music by the 17th Century Roman Composer Giovanni Felice Sances. I was in a record store one time – maybe it was Tower Records? – and back then the stores would have music stations with headphones set up among the CD racks, and one could listen to new release CDs. (Definitely a pre-COVID thing. Actually I guess it’s a pre iTunes/Spotify/Pandora, etc. thing) I was browsing the CD racks and this guy is listening at the station next to me. He suddenly turns to me and says, “You should listen to this one. It’s really good.” So I put the headphones on and pressed play. And it was like listening to Italian sunshine dancing with joy. So I bought that CD. 17th Century Music for sopranos, harp and guitar by Sances, performed by Musica Fabula, for the record (pun! Also – Classical albums are not the best at naming themselves, it would seem.) Google yields no trace of that CD, but if you can find it, it’s fabulous.

What We Ate:

Saturday: We finally got wings this night. We ordered the family pack which was sooo much food, but really tasty.

Sunday: Mushroom, spinach, ham crepes. Another kitchen sink meal.

Monday: Lamb meatballs and Greek salad

Tuesday: Broccoli and tofu stir fry with noodles. Used up the rest of the egg noodles from last week’s eggplant salad.

Wednesday: Braised chicken with squash and greens. The sauce for this was really tasty and the baby devoured the squash in the recipe.

Thursday: Indian Instant Pot Black Eyed Peas and Spinach, and Cumin Potatoes and Cauliflower

Friday: Pizza, Arni’s Jr Salads, and The Greatest Showman. The Husband and I saw this in the theatre when it first came out – it was one of our first dates after the three year old was born. It is still the glitzy, shiny, fun and heartfelt movie that I remember. And Hugh Jackman is insanely beautiful and talented.

Anatomy of a Fall Walk

Most mornings I will put the baby in her stroller, and the three year old and I will go for a walk. He has learned to put his own shoes and socks on, grab his mask and helmet to meet me outside by the shed where he will grab his Skut bike. Off we will go- him pushing along on his bike and me following with the baby. The baby will only nap for me in her stroller, so the incentive for these daily walks is great, even aside from the lure of fresh air and physical activity.

These days, we are well into fall. The weather has been cooler.

Because we go for a walk almost every day, I am noticing how gradual and varied the changing of the leaves is. Usually I am deep into production this time of year and I look up one day and the trees are ablaze with colour, and when I next look up the trees are bare. The current daily excursions have forced me to see how incrementally things change, and how each tree moves at its own pace. There are trees that have dropped almost all of their golden and red leaves and there are trees that are still green with maybe the faintest hint of red on a few leaf tips.

The going is slow. There are many stops along the way to look at this patch or dirt or that bunch of sticks. To gaze at the light filtering through the leaves. To periodically pull the mask down and breathe. Also the three year old has this endearing routine where he stops at a driveway, turns his skut bike, and backs into the drive while going, “beep, beep, beep.” Sometimes he does this with every drive way on our walk.

The other day a heavy mist had settled over everything, giving the morning a strangely cozy air, despite the damp that hung in the air. We pass by one tree that has deposited a magnificent thick carpet of gold and orange on the ground. I’ve always loved the sound of walking through fallen leaves. I even purposely scuff my feet through them to make that crisp crunch and rustle sound.

Halloween decorations are out full force. The neighborhood tends towards macabre decorations. Graveyards and skeletons abound. Spiders too. The eight year old has always wanted to decorate for Halloween, and this year the Halloween discounts were pretty steep even at the beginning of the month so I picked up some candy corn lights and black cheese cloth while at the craft store. It doesn’t make for all out Halloween extravaganza, but it will be a little something.

The park down the road is under construction. Earlier this year, we had come to the park only to find the playground fenced in and the play structures gone. They are putting in new equipment, and we’ve enjoyed watching everything being built from the ground up. I am particularly excited about this strange swing that looks like two people can use at once- a bucket swing and a standing swing linked together.

At the park, we usually stop for a while. The baby is usually asleep by now. I sit on a bench and read my book, and the three year old scoots around- watching the construction vehicles building the playground (“Look, Mama! Diggers!), chasing squirrels on his bike, riding lazy circles up and down the small hills.

Eventually he rolls back to where I am sitting.

“Can you set your alarm for ten minutes?” he says.

Sometimes I cheat and set it for more so I can squeeze in a little more reading. Or sometimes, truth be told, scrolling.

When the alarm goes off, we start heading home.

We pass houses with Biden/Harris signs standing amid cobwebs and ghostly tatters of fabric draped from trees.

We collect some leaves and later in the afternoon make some leaf rubbings.

Finally we arrive back home. All told we usually walk for an hour and a half. The three year old puts his Skuut bike back into the shed, backing it in while going “Beep, beep, beep.”

Weekly Recap + what we ate

I feel like this picture of my hand pretty much sums up a lot of my week.

First, there is the burn mark from where I splattered hot roux on my hand while making gumbo. That hurt like a motherf-cker. I now understand why boiling oil was used as a lethal weapon during medieval times. It could absolutely be a lethal weapon in current times. Despite the fact that every single gumbo recipe I read had some variation of the phrase, “Be careful not to let the roux splatter….” I still managed to do it.

Then there is the streak of pink nail polish from the late night when, as I was reaching for my toothbrush, I knocked a jar of nail polish on the floor, shattering it and splattering pink nail polish across our white bathroom tile. You know that horrific feeling you have when you look at a mess and realize how un-clean-up-able it is? Yeah that. I managed to find a jar of nail polish remover and got most of it off the tile. It is still imbedded in the grout, however. And I’m sure inhaling nail polish remover at 2am did wonders for me.

Then there is the general ugliness of an eczema flare up. I’ve had eczema on my hand since just after my oldest was born. When I went to the dermatologist about it he said, “Well, my suggestions would be to get a platinum wedding band and also to stop doing the dishes.” While I could totally get behind those two suggestions, I thought they were a little impractical. I stopped wearing my wedding ring and started wearing gloves to wash the dishes instead. Anyhow, the eczema tends to rear it’s head with the slightest provocation; stress, hormones, diet… Who know why, but it’s been particularly bad lately.

Which is all to say my right hand is kind of a mess right now.

Other things this week… We took family photos. Lessons learned this time around:
1) It’s all about the accessories. I think I tried on everything in my closet, but couldn’t decide what to wear. I finally settled on a very uninteresting grey dress and was decidedly lukewarm about it. This was about half an hour before I had to leave. But I decided that blah was better than nothing. But as I was getting my shoes on, I remembered – I love hats. So I put one on and then added a scarf and suddenly I loved my outfit. Hooray!
2) No one will wear what you want them to wear. And it doesn’t matter. I spent so much time trying to pick the perfectly coordinated a but not too matchy outfits for a cool fall afternoon. And then it was 78 degrees. And the eight year old decided that she didn’t want to wear the original dress because she wanted to save it for Halloween. And the three year old wanted to wear his pink panda crocs. The baby didn’t fit the original dress I picked and did fit in a cute outfit that didn’t go with my carefully curated colour scheme. Agh! Next time I’ll save my mental energy and it can be a free for all.
3) Take the picture of the kids first. We left the group picture of the kids for last, and by then the baby was losing her shit. I’m pretty sure in all the pictures she is either eating a goldfish cracker or bawling her eyes out. Next time, I think we’ll make sure to do the kids pictures first. Maybe even start earlier in the afternoon and have the Husband come later.

This week in drawing class we worked on value. That is to say lightness, darkenss, and shadows. I feel like charcoal makes every drawing look better. This assignment really challenged me to to look at light and dark as not stark opposites, but rather as gentle gradations leading to each other. I’m used to thinking shadows are dark, but really they often aren’t the darkest things in an image.

I call this one “Still life with child” – note the three year old’s contribution over on the right.

Lately while working on my drawing assignments, I’ve been listening to Elaine Paige On Sunday. It’s a radio show about musical theatre hosted by one of the super stars of musical theatre. There is something beautifully unironic about musical theatre – the bold wearing of one’s heart on one’s shoulder is probably considered unfashionable these days. Having big feeling is no longer cool, it seems. Any how, I’ve been loving listening to this radio show, even periodically singing along. I’d forgotten how many wonderful, clever, powerful, heartfelt songs are out there. I’m also enjoying hearing what is current in the musical theatre world. I’m (shockingly!) unfamiliar with Hamilton, but I think perhaps I will put it on my “to listen” list.

Another fun thing – One day the Husband and I went to the appliance store to look at ranges. The trip was shorter than anticipated because the store we went to had only one double oven on display and it wasn’t one that we were interested in. So here we were with some unexpected free time.
“Let’s go get milkshakes,” one of us suggested.
“And fries?”
“And fries.”

So we got milkshakes and fries from Five Guys and went to sit at the park. Salty hot fries dipped in sweet, thick milkshakes is one of my favorite food indulgences.

After we finished our shakes and fries, the kids went to play on the playground. I put the baby in a swing, which she loved with all her baby joy. Then the three year old came over and wanted on the swing. But there was not bucket swing available. So I put him on the regular swing and gave him a push. Then, I said to him, “I’m going to teach you something. When you go forward put your legs out. When you go backwards, bring your legs in.”

And he got it! He started pumping his strong sturdy little three year old legs! I nothing else, I have given him this one little life skill.

This week’s to do list:
-pay the bills
-vote.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Gumbo. The cause of the hand mishap. I actually made this on Friday so that the gumbo would have a chance to sit and improve overnight. This was my first attempt – I was trying to find recipes to use up some peppers and celery and I’ve always enjoyed gumbo at restaurants, so I thought I’d give it a try. Aside from the scalding roux, it was very straight forward to make, and ended up being quite tasty. Not sure if it was authentic at all, but I feel like one shouldn’t let what food should be get in the way of what it is.

Sunday: Cauliflower tacos with homemade tortillas! From Dinner Illustrated. I didn’t have mango, so I made the slaw with apples instead. I think cabbage slaw is one of my pandemic discoveries.

Monday: The Husband cooked. He made Greek green beans, pork, and udon noodles.

Tuesday: Eggplant noodle salad. From the Greens cookbook.

Wednesday: Dumplings and leftovers. We had tried to get wings, thinking that would be a quick simple meal for post photo shoot, but then the wings placed turned out to be closed. So we punted, went home and had dumplings from the freezer and left over noodle salad.

Thursday: Take out banh mi sandwiches. Second attempt at wings, but they were closed again. Bummer.

Friday: Pizza and move – Troop Zero. Movie about a group of scrappy kids who form a girl scout like troop. Full of great performances of quirky, heartfelt characters.

Mementos

Thirteen months ago, when I went to the hospital to deliver the baby, among the myriad of bracelets they put on my wrist was a bright red one that said “ALLERGY”. I have a slight latex allergy; it causes my skin to get all blotchy and irritated. The red bracelet encircled my left wrist, nestled between the plastic ID bracelet with my name and my doctor’s name, and the ducky bracelet with a barcode which corresponded to an identical ducky bracelet around the baby’s tiny ankle.

During our stay in the hospital, Every time someone came to take the baby away for a weight check she would be scanned like a library book an entered into a tracking system. When she was brought back, she would be scanned, her bracelet cross checked with my bracelet and then when everything proved to match, I would sign for her. It was reassuring because I’m never at all sure I could pick my baby out of a line up. With their squishy, squinty face, and perpetually damp hair, there is something very generic looking to me about newborns. Truth be told, I feel this way probably for at least the first six months of a baby’s life.

After we left the hospital with our nameless baby, the Husband and I had a pact: the hospital bracelets would stay on until we name the baby. That took three weeks. I seem to recall that the name bracelet and ducky bracelet fell off on their own before I made the trip to Vital Records to make the baby’s name official.

The allergy bracelet, however, stayed as secure as the day they put it on me. I suppose durability is a desirable trait of a temporary allergy bracelet.

So I just… left it on.

And then somehow it morphed from something I neglected to remove into something that I was holding on to.

Every so often, someone would catch sight of the bracelet and ask, “Oh, were you in the hospital recently?”

And I would somewhat sheepishly admit, “Actually it’s leftover from when my child was born.”

I couldn’t exactly articulate why I had formed such an attachment to my allergy bracelet. I just knew that I found something comforting in its constant presence on my left wrist. Even after the red had all rubbed off and the black letters had started to fade, I would look at it and remember that quiet calm morning when my daughter was born, and the friendly doctors and nurses who welcomed her into this world.

In the 2000 movie Momento, Guy Pearce plays an insurance inspector who is unable to store short term memories and thus has to leave himself clues to figure out how to solve the central mystery of the plot. Likewise, some days I look up and I wonder how I got here – frazzled, tired, with a barnacle baby attached to me, drowning in the chaos. I look down and in this faded red plastic band around my wrist, I am reminded: “You thought it would be fun to have another kid, remember?”

Right. That happened.

At some point keeping the bracelet on became a challenge I set for myself: see how long you can cling to this last physical vestige of your last birth experience. And eventually that too slipped away and the challenge just became: see how long this one thing can remain constant in your life. Some days I would look at it with a detached, almost scientific, curiosity, as if it were another species whose lifespan I was studying.

“Does it show signs of letting go?” I would wonder to myself.

I often feel that inertia is a trait that I too easily embody, and perhaps in truth the allergy bracelet stayed on because I just didn’t bother to take it off. I had thought about taking it off for family photos, perhaps feeling a little self conscious about it, the same way I felt self conscious about taking family photos with my outgrown pandemic hair and crooked bangs I had trimmed myself. But then I realized that, actually aren’t these family photos supposed to capture the moment we are in? They are not meant to be timeless embodiments of an ideal. Let’s not try to erase or cover up the vestiges of the year we’ve lived. So I left the bracelet on.

Last week, one year and 28 days after the baby was born, I woke up and found my wrist bare, the allergy bracelet lying next to me on the bed. The plastic had finally cracked and torn. I had a brief moment of panic when I woke and it was missing, as if it were an heirloom bangle. The memories and travels that the allergy bracelet had seen in the past year are certainly priceless in its own way.

My wrist feels a little bare now. But not in a bad way. Kind of in a reborn kind of way. I’ve moved past the baby phase and am now into the toddler phase.

For now, I will tuck it in the Ziploc bag alongside the hospital bracelets of the three children, evidence of a time when they were new.

Books Read – September 2020

Not as many books read in September, mostly because one of my reads was quite intense and lengthy. I also probably did more random internet surfing this month than usual – probably a result of COVID fatigue starting to wear on me.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson – 4h 35m. Funny, touching read. Lillian, the main character, is asked by her wealthy childhood friend to come care for her stepchildren who have a strange behavioral quirk. TBeneath this seemingly satirical story, is a contemplation of class, wealth, and how we create and maintain connections while figuring out what you really want in your life. One of my favorite quotes:
“Maybe raising children was just giving them the things you loved most in the world and hoping that they loved them too.”

Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan – Audiobook narrated by Mark Bramhall, David de Vries, MacLeod Andrews, and Rebecca Soler. This was actually a middle grade book, something I didn’t realize until I was a couple chapters in. It’s a magical, musical, and engrossing story that tells three different stories which somehow intertwine. It is a story about music, specifically a harmonica, and the people who find joy and solace in owning it. Part of the charm of the audiobook is that musical excerpts that are prominent in the story are incorporated into the audio experience.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown – 15h 45m. This classic recounts the bloody, brutal, and heart-breaking story of the conflict between Native Americans and the White people who settled the American West, taking ownership of land that, to the Native Americans, didn’t really belong to anyone. In the opposition between the drive for growth and “progress” on the one hand, and peaceful earth-conscious living on the other, bloody, cruel, and desperate conflicts seemed inevitable. This was a hard book to read for me because it is hard to imagine how reparations can be made when the country that we are now is so different from the country that was taken from the Native Americans.

Limelight by Amy Poeppel – 6h 49m. Light, fun, fluffy novel about a woman who befriends a trainwreck of a pop star about to make his Broadway debut. She attempts to help him get his life on track, while trying to keep her own life together. The scenes that took the reader into the rehearsal process made me miss work and the excitement and energy of creating theatre.

Weekly Recap + what we ate

Ghost sightings on our neighborhood walk.

This week definitely felt like the rut. I had a video chat with a friend and she said that life these days was kind of like, “Lather, rinse, and repeat.”

Halloween is coming up. I’m a little torn about how to mark the occasion. The eight year old loves Halloween, and she has come up with a family costume concept. Last year they all went as characters from The Little Prince – the eight year old was a Rose with a costume courtesy of a costume sale at work; the three year old was the Fox; and the baby was the Little Prince himself – basically a green sleeper and a yellow scarf. This year they will all be weather themed. I’ve finished the baby’s costume, but she will only wear it if bribed with food…

The baby is really into climbing on chairs these days. If the chairs are tucked in or inaccessible, she will pull them out so she can climb on them. I made a comment to the Husband how 75% of my day is pulling the baby off chairs. If I don’t get her off the chairs, she will do one of several things: 1) rock back and forth while holding on to the back of the chair, 2) climb onto the dining table/ her sister’s distance learning table/ any variety of table that is around, 3) get into stuff -the other day she got into my sewing things and started pulling the pins out of the pin cushion, 3) get herself stuck under the table if she hasn’t pulled the chair out far enough, 4) Lord knows what else. I love her persistent sense of exploration, but man is it exhausting to keep up with her. Given that the other two kids were still months from crawling when they were this age, it’s definitely been something I wasn’t quite prepared for.

One thing we started doing is putting the chairs on their sides after meals. It kind of makes our dining room look like the aftermath of battle, with all the fallen chairs.

Being with the kids every single moment, I’m finding myself noticing milestones in more minute ways than before. Like this past week the baby also has started putting things away – if you give her a cup and open the cup drawer, she will put it in. If you hand her her dirty clothes, she will put them in the hamper. I feel like with my other kids, these things seemed to happen more gradually. Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn’t. Either way, I feel like I’m noticing the baby’s lightbulb moments more – the moment when she does something and realizes she did it. And then does it again.

This week’s drawing class assignment was about mapping and siting – that is to say, being able to take proportions and recreate them on the page. We had to set up a still life and draw it. This was mine:

The sippy cup was my initial inspiration – I thought the shape of it would be visually interesting. And from there, I added other feeding adjacent items. But, it turns out that most baby and feeding things are all curves and soft edges. I’m sure there is something purposefully “feminine” in that design, but the homogeneity of line doesn’t make for a very complex still life. So I added the pile of books – which I guess are kind of a feeding item since I do a lot of reading while pumping and nursing. On the whole I’m quite delighted with this little slice of right now life.

I’m really enjoying the two older kids playing together these days. Usually it is some imaginative play session led by the eight year old. Last week, they got good use of the backyard playing things like “Coronation Day” and “Camping”. The latter involved making a “fire” out of overgrown okra pods.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Smoked Salmon and Bagels. It was simple Saturday and this is about as simple as it gets. Bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, onions, tomatoes, capers.

Sunday: Squash and Apple Schwarma. Ages ago we had a subscription to a vegan meal kit. At the time, the meal kit’s recipes were being developed by Mark Bittman, which was one of the main draws for my wanting to subscribe. Anyhow we no longer subscribe, but several of the recipes that we got from the kit was still use, this one most of all. It is the perfect balance of savory and sweet and a good way to use up squash.

Monday: Stir Fry Bok Choy, Mushrooms, Tofu. Kitchen sink stir fry.

Tuesday: Pasta with Mustard Greens and capers. This is adapted from Dinner Illustrated. The original recipe calls for broccoli rabe.

Wednesday: The Husband cooked. He made some kind of corn, cheese, one pot thingy that we ate in wraps. It was actually quite tasty.

Thursday: Mac ‘n’ cheese and hot dogs. The Husband made post dance class dinner. Although, I think in truth the eight year old made the mac ‘n’ cheese – it was the stuff in the blue box.

Friday: pizza and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. It was the eight year old’s turn to choose. She’s been really into seeing all the Star Wars movies. I’m not as into the whole franchise as other people in this house, but I thought this one was pretty good – it was surprisingly funny, which I think is the mark of J.J. Abrams.

On being stuck under a sleeping baby

The baby has been super cranky for over a week. The previously wonderful sleeper sometimes is tough to get down and wakes frequently in the night. So we are back to nursing to sleep.
Just today it occurred to me to check for molars. And sure enough, she has them coming in. On both sides.
Teething is a bitch. I mean if you think about the sheer mechanics of it- teeth must push their way through the gums to emerge. It’s not like the gums part like the Red Sea or any other similar gentle making of the way. No, the teeth forge a path, basically slicing through your gums. The term “erupting” is very apt, I find. And it’s not like your teeth are super sharp and they slice through like butter. It certainly must take a lot of force for these blunt objects to come through.
All of which to say, no wonder the baby has been a fragile, quivering, clingy ball of need these past few weeks. The constant crying has been hard. Something about incessant wailing makes me impatient and irrational. They like to talk about sleep deprivation as a torture technique, but perhaps the constant air raid siren of a cranky baby is one as well.
We do a lot of comfort nursing.
Right now she has managed to fall asleep on me. Her little pink mouth has disengaged from my nipple, and her dimpled hand clutches at my shirt. My left arm is starting to dampen from her sleepy sweat, even as the weight of her head makes that arm start to tingle and go numb. I peer at that sweet head and see the sweat glistening, as if someone had sprinkled craft glitter in her hair.
Part of me is annoyed. It was supposed to be my “night off”, my child free evening while the Husband and kids cleaned up from dinner. I had a to do list that I was going to bang out tonight. But instead I am here- Mama Mattress, human body pillow. Molds to your body shape! The ads all enthuse.
I could use some water.
There is a cricket in the room somewhere.
The eight year old did set me up with a footstool and a pillow before she moved in with her evening. That was nice.
I listen to the sound of the Husband put the other kids to bed. Laughter and stories.
I read a chapter of my book. Answer some emails. Fill out a questionnaire for a baby study at the university.
Much as I feel the burden of being a her bed, every time she stirs, I think, “Please don’t wake up!”

If being nestled here in my lap as we sit in Daddy’s comfy chair… if this means that she is resting and not in pain… then I guess I don’t mind.

Weekly Recap + what we ate

I spent the weekend swapping the baby’s 6 month clothes out for 12 month clothes. The nine month clothes still fit. She grows so fast! Most of the 12 month clothes we had were “boy” clothes, left over from the 3 year old. Much as I say it’s ok for her to wear boy clothes, I do love seeing her wear something pretty once in a while. Luckily another mom from my mom’s group was passing along two big bags of 12 month clothes. So I passed along a good chunk of our 12 month boy clothes to yet another mom in my mom’s group. (All this handing down of baby clothes reminds me of the section in Adam Minter’s book where he talks about how very little baby clothes actually make it to third world countries, where a lot of our donated clothing ends up. Baby clothes tend to get very little wear, so they are passed along among friends or resold here in America.)

Fall has settled in. I booked some family photos, and used this handy peak foliage map to decide on a date that would have good fall colour. Now I’m obsessed with trying to decide what we will all wear.

We’ve been playing Uno on Sunday nights. The three year old manages to play a proper card once in a while. It’s adorable because he likes to yell “Uno!” every time he drops a card in the pile, even though he has a hoard of cards still sitting in front of him. Last week, the husband also made hot chocolate to go with our Uno game. It was what you see in the dictionary under “cozy.”

My parents sent us a care package this week. Yay for getting mail! In the box was a 100 pack of face masks – the high quality kind from Taiwan. Apparently the masks from Taiwan are really difficult to procure. There might have been an email chain last week from my cousin, on behalf of my aunt who had access to a shipment from Taiwan. It would involve a pick up location in a parking lot.

Also in the package were three dragon fruits from my parent’s tree. The baby and the three year old love dragon fruit. The eight year old will eat it if I freeze it. I love the vivid pink colour of the skin. It sort of belies the mellow, almost bland flavour of the flesh inside.

On Thursday, I took the baby down to the Reach for my weekly happy hour with my friend Kristen. Despite working literally across the plaza, I had not been to the Reach. It was a little surreal to be at the Kennedy Center and see it all closed up and quiet.

The Husband moved the drafting table into the sunroom, and I’ve been very much enjoying the soft light and sense of place of having a drawing nook. This week’s homework was about drawing negative space – the areas that make up the emptiness around an object. The idea that an object is not defined just by its own shape, but also about the shapes it creates in space. For me, it was the kind of assignment where once I recognized the concept and started thinking about it, I started looking for negative space in the world around me.

Cute things the three year old says:
“You never know where your dragon is.”
“But it’s so bouncy!” Said in response to our admoniation that he shouldn’t be rough with the baby’s head.
“Is that squishy food?” Asking about everything and if the answer is “Yes”, he will try to feed it to the baby.

It’s crazy to think, but eighteen months ago, the three year old was still nursing to sleep and didn’t really speak. He was actually about to start working with a speech therapist to address the speech delay. And now, I read him chapters from my books to put him to bed (last month it was Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee), and he is using words like “organize”. I’m on my college’s alumni listserv for parents, and one thing the wise parent there always say is “This too shall pass.” It is often used as a mantra for challenging times, but I think it is also a beautiful reminder to capture and savour all the fleeting moments of growing children.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Butter chicken – leftover sauce from our last time making butter chicken. Also, thanks to the Instant Pot I was able to cook the chicken from frozen. I don’t know that the InstantPot makes food taste better than otherwise, but it sure is convenient.

Sunday: Pita, Tzatziki, and Cucumbers. Our neighbor gave use a containter of Tzatizki from the famer’s market. She had lived in Turkey once and said this was pretty authentic stuff. Either way, it was pretty tasty. I made flatbread to go with it – this recipe, with half whole wheat flour. And I used the tortilla press!

Monday: Macaroni and Cheese from Dinner Illustrated. Easy one pot recipe that has chard (we used kale) mixed in. Really creamy and tasty.

Tuesday: Husband called an audible and we got Greek take out.

Wednesday: Braised Cod with Peppers. Sounds fancy, but actually really easy and tasty.

Thursday: Another audible because it was dance night and the meal I had planned was not condusive to making ahead. oops. We got wings from a new place.

Friday: Pizza while watching Fireman Sam and Stinky and Dirty. It was the three year old’s turn to pick the movie (clearly). We watched the original Fireman Sam, a British stop motion animation version that premiered in 1987. There was something very soothing about the muted tone of it – both in the visuals and the energy.

Weekly Recap + what we ate

Last weekend the eight year old had first Communion, and so we all dressed up and went to church for the first time in half a year. There was a limit on how many guests each family could bring – which we maxed out just by bringing the other kids. Each family had their own pew and every other row was empty. Everyone was masked. The eight year old was asked to do the first reading, and she did great!

I’m not the Catholic one in the family, but I’ve always found going to church soothing. The getting dressed up, the communal singing (which is now not allowed), and the contemplation. Our church is on the liberal side of things, and I find the homilies are often meditations on how to be more mindful about your actions and reactions. Though these days the two little kids don’t really sit still, so maybe not so soothing and experience in real life.

Afterwards the eight year old got to chose lunch, and she chose Indian take out. We ordered chaat papari, though I was a little nervous that it was going to be soggy, but surprisingly they bundled the yogurt and tamarind sauce separately. Even more bonus, there was more than enough, so now we have extra tamarind sauce in the fridge. Yum!

Monday was a day off from school, so the Husband took the day as well and we went to Longwood Gardens. In pre COVID times we would often go as a weekend trip; we’d book a hotel with a pool, and maybe also go to the Please Touch Museum. This time we took it as a day trip – leaving around 8:30a and getting home just after 6pm.

It was definitely a good trip. We enjoyed fall colour. I like seeing what vegetables they are growing in their gardens. And consequently annoying the Husband when I ask, “Why can’t we grow those?” We saw a frog in the lily pad garden. The chrysanthemums were prepped for planting. The chrysanthemum show is always breathtaking there. I’m not sure if we will get back this year for it, though. And trees. We spent lots of time among the trees.

One thing I’ve resolved to do this year was to take more pictures with the Husband. One of my mentors from my early stage management days sends these wonderful holiday cards and there are always great pictures of her and husband together, huge smiles on their faces. It makes me so happy and inspired to see them. Last year, I realized that I don’t have many pictures with the Husband, the way Mary does. I’m always so busy taking pictures of the kids, with the kids, or of random lovely things in my life. Or of the area I parked in. But no pictures of me and the Husband who is in a lot of ways the most important relationship. So this year, I’ve been handing the phone to the eight year old more often and asking her to take pictures of her parents. She’s taken some good ones and I love that I have them now. The three year old, on the other hand, is decidedly not quite up for the task:

Anyhow, it was good to get out of the house and be outdoors. Longwood is always beautiful, regardless of the season.

Some random thoughts from this week:

I am a terrible decision maker. I contemplate and ruminate and pro and con and go back and forth. This week, I came across something in Carolyn Hax’s column (second letter here) that really was eye-opening for me. The advice Hax writes is so clear eyed and wise and I really love reading her column and her live chats. She wrote, to a letter writing contemplating two career options: “When careful research shows neither option is clearly superior, that could be the definition of a tough decision — or the opposite. If neither is clearly right, then neither’s clearly wrong.” I have terrible FOBO when it comes to decision making; there is something freeing in this realization that if there is no perfect decision, then there is really no wrong decision either. I’ve been reframing some things lately – rather than saying, “There is no perfect solution here.” I’ve been saying, “There is no wrong solution here.” And it helps me move on a little sooner. I still obsess. But maybe with a little less anxiety and a little more grace.

Election season is ramping up. Last week was certainly one for the history books. We watched the presidential debates, which one commentator called “The worst debates ever”. It was really disheartening. And then the President tested positive for COVID. What a crazy week for the news cycle.

Every Wednesday, after piano lessons, we get breakfast sandwiches from Mr. Jay. The eight year old is in charge of calling in the order. Well two weeks ago when I went to pick up sandwiches, I had mentioned that it was the baby’s first birthday. This week, when I went to pick up the sandwiches, he gave us a present for her. It was so touching.

Loving this single little curl at the nape of the baby’s neck. I want to bottle it and keep it forever!

This week’s drawing class homework was to draw and area of the house over several days, layering one day upon the other. I chose our living room sofa. Each class begins with us all sharing our work, and I loved how this assignment seemed to really encapsulate pandemic living. One of my fellow students did a lovely piece of the front door with the coming and going of Amazon packages.

The assignment was inspired by a project that Joan Linder did where she drew her kitchen sink over a number of weeks. Exploring Linder’s work, I came across this series she did of baby gear, and I found it quite inspiring, the art and lines that she found in these things that are so utilitarian.

What We Ate:

Saturday: I’m not sure we had dinner. I think we were full from the Indian food at lunch. Maybe we had sandwiches?

Sunday: Cilantro Chicken with Tortillas and cabbage slaw. The recipe for the chicken came from our church cookbook, and it was basically cilantro, onions, spices, garlic whizzed together in a blender and poured over chicken. The original called for the chicken to be baked with the sauce, but given that our oven was broken, I stuck it all in the Instant Pot and it was tasty. This was also our first attempt to make corn tortillas with the tortilla press that I had ordered and it was easy and fun and really delicious.

Monday: Wendy’s on the way home from Longwood Gardens. Haven’t had this in a long time, and I have to say, one of the foods I miss most during quarantine is french fries.

Tuesday: Spinach Orzo with Pork Chops. The Husband cooked.

Wednesday: Sweet Potatoe Chicken Curry from Dinner Illustrated. We have an overabundance of sweet potatoes.

Thursday: Ratatouille. To use up some peppers and zucchini.

Friday: Pizza and Bride and Prejudice. Fun take on Jane Austen’s classic.

Haikus

Baby broke a bowl.
Handmade shards crashing to the floor
when I looked away.

Baby unravels
toilet paper. Unspooling
my sanity too.

Grinning self portraits
flood my photo stream, my phone
left unattended.

To Justice Ginsburg
Waymaker for equality
Our daughters thank you.