The end, again!

Once again, the summer is almost over and I have no idea where it went.

Today, I am thirty years old. Tomorrow, my baby boy is four and a half months old. Time, she is a-flying.

I know I am due for a much longer, more informative post. And maybe even some crafty project updates -- but there won't be many. I've had little no time to myself. Ben has been sick, gone through some really crabby weeks, and his bed-time routine is a work in progress. The boy doesn't go down without a fight. He is cute, though. I think I'll keep him.

Napping is good.

I put makeup on today. I don't know why. Just got tired of seeing a frizzy-haired hag in the mirror, I guess.

Ben is nine weeks old. He's starting to sleep in three- and four-hour chunks at night, but more importantly, he does not wake up for two-hour increments in between those chunks to work on digesting. That was ROUGH. It still happens once in a while, but far less frequently. I'm trying very hard to establish a loose daytime schedule: Morning and afternoon naps. So far so good, this week -- with the exception of his first round of shots, which he received on Thursday. Poor little legs! He's really into kicking those fat legs. Mom forgot to give him Tylenol *before* he konked out post-shots, so waking up was not pleasant.

Getting pretty tired of the June Gloom. Chicago has been gray gray gray, and wet, mostly. We had one fleeting day of sun yesterday.... I hope that July is better!

In other news:
-My crabapple tree has mealy bugs (which are gross!), and maybe scab. It is shedding leaves as if it were fall. I finally was able to treat it yesterday, and I will have to continue for the next few weeks. It is quite a sad little tree right now, so I hope my father-in-law's advice works!
-Daphne tore up her nose on the inlaws' fence while barking at who-knows-what. It looks like she got into a fight. Poor Daphs. She's been meek and quiet for the last few days. Nose seems to be healing, though.
-Uncle Joe and Aunt Becky stopped in for a visit last weekend. It is so nice to have visitors -- breaks up the Groundhog Day monotony a little. Plus, I had not seen them in a whole year! I am very much looking forward to getting home in August, and in September for my brother's wedding. Being six hours from family sucks.
-I am nearing completion of a knitted object!!! (Granted, it was begun before the baby was born, but still...) This gives me hope that I can continue the obsession whilst mothering.

Your faves

Amber commented on my last post that she was surprised that I'm cooking already. Well, that carbonara recipe is about as complex as I've gotten. I just get sooo tired of the same old "easy" meals week after week, that I have to look for new easy stuff to concoct.* Most All of my frozen pre-made entrees from Trader Joe's have been met with the dreaded "it's fine" from my husband. (I always ask if he likes said dish, so that I might know whether to purchase again. "Fine" is the death knell.) It is not easy cooking for this guy: Bland is his middle name.

What are your favorite Super Easy meals that you make on a regular basis?

*I should note that we roast lots of chicken, and I do use the ol' crock pot a lot in the winter. (Sara - too funny. I make the exact same roast-to-bbq-sandwich cycle. What else are you gonna do for a meat and potatoes guy??)

Yummies

I'm doing my best to make some "real" meals once in a while; otherwise, it's take-out. I can only handle so many sandwiches, pizzas, and Thai noodles. Also, neither of us is a huge fan of the pre-made frozen dishes you find at the grocery. (Max, even less so than me.) Anywho, I had bookmarked Nigella's Spaghetti alla Carbonara, and finally made it last week. The first time I made a pasta carbonara, it was for Max's parents, and it was a disaster. I used the recipe from my trusty Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I won't fault the cookbook -- it was probably all me. That said, I still believe the Nigella recipe to be superior. I sorta guessed at the exact measurements of ingredients, since this recipe gives them in metric and I really did not have the brain power or the will to convert. You really can't go wrong with white wine and pancetta. (Bacon makes everything better.) It's pretty easy. Just a matter of assembling ingredients.

Also, I have enjoyed catching up on the last twenty or so entries over at Baking Bites. The author went to Paris, and she has several blog posts on my personal heaven, that is, French baked goods. Those of you who attended my wedding will recall the French macaron favors. I will probably never make them myself, but there's a bakery in my 'hood that sells them. And another bakery that sells the most perfect cream puffs....

I'm making myself hungry.

Generating generations

Mother's Day has come and gone, but, being a new mother myself, I am still thinking about the subject of motherhood. The day itself, though meant to be celebratory, I think is bittersweet for most of us on some level. Marin said it well: "I'm sad and happy for everybody [on Mother's Day]. Everybody has a mom, lost a mom, loves their mom, is estranged from their mom, hasn't spoken to their mom, considers their mom as their best friend... moms are universal."

My grandmother, who passed away in 1997, and my mother as a teen. Each had seven children.
* * *
I stare at the baby at my breast, knowing that he will be a grown man some day, fully independent, but wishing that he could stay small. Funny -- I never thought I'd have anything in common with Marie Barone.


Little heart, little heart,
you have sung in me like the spiral alder-bud.
You, who gave birth to this mother
comprehend--for how much longer?--my mysteries.

~ excerpt from the poem "The Network of the Imaginary Mother" by Robin Morgan

That's from one of my favorite poetry books called Cries of the Spirit: More Than 300 Poems in Celebration of Women's Spirituality. I like to read poetry when I'm feeling a bit spiritually bereft. Until now, I always skipped the section of poems titled "Mothering." I have finally realized that most of the poems in that section are not simply about being a mother, but on the relationship between mothers and their children, particularly their daughters.

We are still backwards, here, for the most part. Ben sleeps heavily during the day, and I can't seem to turn him around yet. Although he's nearly doubled in weight, I think we still have a month or so to go before things smooth out. My mom says that if mothers told their daughters how difficult it is to care for a new baby, nobody would ever have children. Fortunately, she says, the urge to have one's own children, in those who choose to do so, is strong enough to override one's previous knowledge of these rather tortuous first months. But I still cannot figure out how she did this seven times. She says the hormones make you forget. Isn't that called "losing your mind"??

Three weeks old

Some day I'll get a picture of him with his eyes open...

Managed to make it out today to buy some plants and mulch! I'm ready to transform my yucky little yard. Last summer I tried grass, but it didn't work out very well. Right now the crab apple petals hide the old grass roots, which, thankfully, have at least kept my yard from turning into a total mud pit through the spring. Quite unsightly, though.


I plan to put in as many hostas as I can afford, with mulch to fill in the spaces. (Great price on hostas at Home Depot right now, btw!) I also plan to start some seedlings in old egg cartons I've saved. Usually I just toss the seeds straight into the yard, but they never seem to come up well. I figure I just need to give them a head start. No tomatoes this year; it was a huge pain trying to protect them from rats. That's city livin' for ya! (Eeew.) My mom doesn't have it any better out in the country, with those pesky chipmunks. But at least chipmunks are cute, and don't live in sewers.

Birth story, sans gore (I hope)

The madness is beginning to die down, now. Benjamin Lawrence will be three weeks old on Sunday. We're still not sleeping all that well at night, but at least things are starting to feel.... mildly routine-like. We even managed a trip to the grocery store this week -- my first trip alone, in the car, with the little one! (Our pediatrician is a half block away, so we always walk there.)

Sometimes I look at him and can't believe that a few weeks ago, he was in me. Ben was five days early, which didn't surprise me a great deal. I had not gained any weight in the last three weeks of pregnancy (but my stomach continued to grow,) and he was constantly doing his impression of a corkscrew. At 10 a.m. on Saturday the 18th, I was waking up and felt a little "pop" in my lower abdomen. Thought it was gas, but soon realized that my water had broken. Contractions did not start until right around the time we left for the hospital, at 4:30 p.m. Soon after arriving, things got very intense and progressed quickly. I had hoped to make it far enough along in order to use a tub to continue laboring without drugs for just a little longer. But by 4cm, with contractions coming on a rather irregular basis and not in the least wave-like, I was exhausted. The epidural was welcomed. Luckily, things continued to progress rapidly. I pushed for an hour and forty-five minutes, although it didn't seem that long, and at 12:51 a.m., Ben was born! Stubborn boy resisted every measure and finally they resorted to forceps. (He still bears a small dent on the top of his forehead, poor baby.) Eight hours of labor -- not bad for a first timer! I can't describe the feeling of giving birth. It is just the strangest, overwhelming, most wonderful feeling when that little being finally enters the world. He weighed the same as Owen at birth, 6 lbs, 12 oz.
My husband loves to tell how he had to keep walking past the tub with the afterbirth in it, feeling like Pee Wee Herman in the burning pet shop, avoiding the snakes. I laughed so hard when he told me that... Is it weird that I am slightly disappointed that I didn't get to see the placenta?

Anyway, there are lots of pictures stuck in the camera. And when I have time, I'll post a few. Toots McGee, as he's been dubbed, is fussing at this very moment - so I best get going....