Springtime

I have to confess: I've been giddily over-shopping for Cleo's Easter basket. There are multiple bunnies, many grams of high-fructose corn syrup, and shreds of blue excelsior that are destined to live forever in the fibers of our dining room rug. There are also two new dresses, and even a matching dress for Baby Cousin who we're not seeing until May. Even after a mild winter, there's something that happens in my brain when spring comes and Easter gets close: "Eeeeeee! Little girls in white tights! Colored eggs! Those insanely cute mini daffodils!"

I need to do a little deep breathing. And then I need to put away all the groceries in the world, that are currently waiting for me on the kitchen floor (lamb! asparagus! dozens of eggs! heavy cream!). Happy Spring, everyone.

Happy Halloween

Cleo went as a lamb. I was mutton dressed as lamb. Okay, a mama sheep. Very close.

This afternoon, as I was singing her to sleep for her nap, we had this exchange:

Cleo: "Next Howlaween, I want to dress up as Dark Vader, okay?"
Me: "Um, sure, sweetie. That's fine" (pause) "Do you know someone who dressed up as Darth Vader this year?"
Cleo, breathily, impressed: "Ian!"

So, there you go. Innocent lamb one minute, wooed by the dark side (boys!) the next. Babyhood is quite definitely over.

This One's For You, Sprout

One of my dear sisters-in-law has just managed to leave her beloved Egypt (with her husband, mother and two small children). Her fortitude, resourcefulness, and bravery are remarkable, and her fellow Egyptians who are fighting for their freedom are just as impressive. If you live in the US, please take a moment to urge the White House to keep up the pressure on Mubarak to step down immediately. Here are phone numbers:


Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461


Another of my dear sisters-in-law is outdoing even The Great Kingsolver in finding ways to eat locally, sustainably, and deliciously. They're making their own cured meat! From their own lovingly-raised animals! And what are you doing this week?


And my third dear sister-in-law is not only getting her PhD in General Awesomeness and Smartitude (or something like that), she's making a brand new human being. Inside her very own body! From scratch! It's mind-blowing. 


Which brings me to my two points today. One: I am related to amazing women. Two: I have a lot of opinions about baby gear. My pregnant sister-in-law just asked for some advice in the gear and stuff department, and I figured a blog response, with its linkable links and searchable terms, might be the most convenient way to reply. So, for you, dear mother-to-be of my niece or nephew Sprout, are my best gear tips:

Ergo Baby Carrier. We started using this as soon as Cleo could hold her head up, and she's still comfy in it at age two and a half. It's flexible, adjustable, comfortable, and sturdy. However, for the first few months, we only used...

The Moby Wrap. I LOVED the Moby wrap. For the whole first year, I could wrap Cleo up snugly next to me-- we used three or four different positions as she got bigger and stronger and heavier. When she was small and slept a lot, I could actually work with her in there! I adored it, and so did Cleo. But not all kids like being that confined. I wouldn't buy it until after the baby's born, so you can tell if Sprout is a "wrap-me-upper" or a "don't-fence-me-inner"


Aden and Anais swaddling blankets. Cleo loved being swaddled, and it calmed her right down. These blankets are thin, soft, and very big. We loved them and used them constantly. I feel like I could still swaddle a newborn in my sleep. And will do so if asked!


Nosefrida and saline spray. Cleo doesn't exactly liked being squirted up the nose and then hoovered out, but it sure helps with stuffiness. Way better than the bulb syringes.


Baby Bjorn bouncer. She slept in this at night for the first few months, when she wasn't in our bed or her cradle. I have a clear memory of hanging one arm off the side of the bed, so I could bounce her as I "slept." We liked this one, but there are lots of baby bouncers and there's no need to spend this much. The major benefit of this one is it's foldability and non-cutesy style. I also hear raves about battery-powered baby swings, but we never got one.


A travel bed/bassinet/moses basket. This one is fantastic-- lightweight, folds down to travel, can have rocker-legs or sit flat on the floor, has a sunshade, and the handle folds down. Ours was a gift from the grandparents that Sprout and Cleo have in common, and is yours if you want it!


Baby Bjorn travel bed. When Sprout's a little bigger, this is the travel bed to get. It's like a pack-and-play except lighter, simpler, more compact, less dumb and more good in every way. And we have used both. There's one you can test drive at the grandparents' house. 


The great stroller issue... We started out with a snap-n-go, which is a frame that you just plop the infant car seat into. It worked great, and was way cheaper than the infant carrier conversion kit that our fancy stroller was made for. Speaking of the fancy stroller, I love it. It has gotten a beating over the last two and a half years, and I'm only now starting to wish we'd treated it nicer (we tend to leave it out on the porch, and the sliding mechanism is getting a little sticky). The only drawbacks are that there's not much cargo space, and it's so not a one-handed fold/unfold. But I love that it stands alone while folded, and its maneuverability and ability to handle rough terrain are awesome. It's also compact and lightweight for how big and sturdy it is.


Diapers.com. If you use disposable diapers, this is a great way to get them. Free quick shipping and good prices. Or look into the Amazon Subscribe and Save program, where the diapers are slightly cheaper, and you sign up for regular deliveries.

The exercise/yoga/pilates ball. This saved our lives. We loved it so much, we traveled with one. If Cleo was overtired, it never failed for us hold her tight, bounce really hard, sing really loud, and just outlast her. It also makes a good footstool to use with...

A glider. They are big, ugly, and expensive. But if you ever end up holding Sprout during naps, it will make you cry tears of gratitude if you can put your feet up, lay your head back, and snooze a little too. We used our (hideous, hand-me-down, four-babies-and-counting) glider with strategically placed small pillows to make everyone really comfortable and secure. Most gliders can either rock or be locked in position. That was a nice feature, since you could lock it in a semi-reclined position, for maximum parental comfort. And yes, I'm sure someone at the AAP is getting hives since I talked about nodding off in a chair while holding a child. It worked for us. I do not guarantee that it's a sensible idea for anyone else.


Sleep sacks and a space heater. We keep our house cold at night, but we want the good old baby to be warm. What to do? She's not exactly a pro at keeping a blanket on, so once she graduated from swaddling (six months? eight?), we moved on to the sleep sack. She did recently discover how to unzip it, and also how to unsnap all four thousand snaps on her pajamas. The adorable/pathetic result of this is that when we checked on her before going to bed ourselves, we found her huddled in the corner of her crib, sound asleep, naked except for her diaper. Poor kid. I picked her up, re-pajama-ed her, and put her back down. She barely woke up. The next night, we told her that we had a special new way to put on her sleepy suit! Backwards! How funny! Works great.


An infant nail clipper is not necessary. You can just bite 'em off until you're comfortable using grownup clippers, and you can be much more precise and gentle with your teeth than with a fiddly little tool.


If Sprout uses a pacifier, you might want a night time pacifier retention device. We made our own by securely sewing one of these pacifiers to the hand of one of these bunnies.


Cotton flannel wipes. When I thought we were going to do cloth diapers, we got a supply of these. We ending up going with disposable diapers, but those wipes have been great for spit ups, highchair wipe downs, hand wipes, face wipes, nose blows, etc. They're sturdy, soft, washable, and plentiful. We probably put a dozen in every load of hot white laundry we do. So 12 or 18 wipes should do it, if you want to always be able to grab one.


See Kai Run shoes. These are expensive, but awesome. Cheap kids shoes are a terrible thing: stiff, slippery, crappy, pinchy, bad (one exception: we found some comfy Ugg-style winter boots at Target). Scrimp on the baby clothes, where there are lots of great ways and places to save. But go for the good stuff with shoes. My advice is to let the grandparents and aunts and uncles know that shoes are an excellent gift and here's the size we need right now. These shoes were Cleo's first. Sigh.

A white noise machine. We only started using this later, maybe around a year or eighteen months, but it really helped Cleo keep sleeping once she was asleep.

The Green Light! Again, a bigger-kid item, but it has saved us from the horror of waking up every morning at 4:15. You set the clock so it lights up at the appointed wake-up time, and explain the the little dear that morning does not begin until that light comes on. Before that, it's time for sleeping.

Sippy cups. These are for older kids, obviously, but learn from us: pick one kind of inexpensive and widely available cup, and stick to that. Otherwise, you'll have an avalanche of mismatched plastic and silicon parts threatening to engulf your kitchen and you can never find the right damn part when you need it. Most are BPA-free now, and if you don't put them in the dishwasher and you replace them when they start to look worn, I think the health risks of plastic are pretty well minimized. We like the kind linked above since they don't leak, and they only have three parts, unlike some that have up to seven parts per cup. 

Christmas Wrap-Up, Brought to You by Christmas Smack-Down

The Christmas Smack-Down is called walking pneumonia (or, as they like to call it these days, "atypical pneumonia" which, as my dad helpfully pointed out, is only appropriate). The good news is that I feel pretty well, as long as I don't do anything helpful or productive. Stairs, more than a few minutes of brisk walking, and a little feeble snow-sweeping have all sent me to my bed in the last few days.


The even better news is that I get enough down time to write a blog post! Oh boy! And so I'm going to commit to the immortal brain that is the internet all the things I want to remember for next year's holidays. So, Christmas Wrap-Up:


1) Singing and candlelight are a magical combination. We lit the advent wreath every Sunday evening, and sang O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The lyrics can be found here. This lovely practice has led to a certain two-year-old wandering around, mutter-singing "an' ranson cappive I-i-isra-rew" in a husky alto. Here's a sweet, if not strictly traditional, rendition by Sufjan Stevens (who is blessed among singer-songwriters for producing Christmas music that everyone in our house likes to listen to).


2) I have discovered The Easiest Recipe in the World (That Can Still Be Served to Guests). It's a delicious roasted sausage/bean/tomato concoction, and it's even easier if you use canned tomatoes, frozen chopped onions and dried garlic bits (heretical? I don't care. A good dinner in four minutes worth of work trumps that kind of heresy). The next day, if you have leftovers, chop up the sausage and dump everything in a pot with a bag of frozen chopped kale and some chicken broth, and you get a super hearty and tasty soup.


3) Silver glitter-glue on brown paper makes elegant giftwrap. It takes a while to dry, so make big sheets of it right before you go to bed so you can monopolize the whole dinner table and maybe some of the kitchen counters. Just draw swirly lines and patterns with the glue bottle, and it'll leave a lovely raised glittery line.


4) Salt dough is a great kid activity, and if you're all crafty and fairly anal, you can make some surprisingly refined ornaments to keep or give away. Here are a couple beautiful examples of what's possible. For the little kids, of course, it's all about squishing and rolling and mashing and poking and just enough tiny little licks to establish that it tastes pretty bad, just like Mama said.


5) I can't cook whole poultry to save my life. Somehow, every single time, I manage to turn out a bird that's overcooked on top and still bloody on the bottom. Between those unappealing strata, there's always a thin band of perfectly cooked meat, but it's awfully hard to carve around. So, that will be my next kitchen challenge to master. And until I've done it, I'm not cooking another whole bird on a holiday. Next year, I'll make a hearty beef stew sometime in November and stash it in the freezer. On Christmas day, I'll heat it up, add some fresh vegetables, and we'll eat it with hot rolls, extra-good butter, and a pie for dessert. Rhubarb, if we see some in the store. 


6) Kids and icing are a classic combination. If you're decorating cookies with people less than a yard tall, Cheerios are a nice option along with (or instead of) sprinkles, colored sugars, and candies. The dry, savory crunch is actually a tasty combination with all that sugar. Other dry cereal would work too, of course. We might tackle gingerbread houses next year, and I can just see a roof thatched with Corn Chex. Royal icing is my adhesive of choice, although I noticed this recipe the other day, that looks like it might be a little tastier, what with the presence of actual butter.


7) Gingerbread makes extra-pretty decorated cookies. I used a recipe from my Great-Aunt Issy, which is spicy and easy. I made a double batch, which made enough for a cookie swap, an open studio party, four Christmas packages, and a good stash left over for the household. There are still two left, and they get better with a little age on them, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to bake them in late November next year.


Gingersnaps
(from Church Recipe Book, Lennoxville, Quebec)

1 cup shortening, butter or clear bacon fat

1 cup molasses

3 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. [baking] soda

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. cinnamon

Method:

Boil together molasses, brown sugar, and shortening.  Cool and add beaten egg and dry ingredients.  CHILL OVERNIGHT.  Roll out 1/4 inch thick on generously floured board.  Use small amounts of dough, keeping remainder of dough in fridge.  Cut in desired shapes, place on ungreased pan and bake in moderate oven (325-350) for 10 minutes. 

[I learned that when "chill overnight" is in all caps, it means that it looks like cake batter when you first make it, and you'll be sure you've screwed it up. Fear not. As long as it's cold, it's nice and easy to handle, and is very hard to overwork since there's so little liquid in the dough to toughen the gluten (thanks to Joe Pastry for that geeky tip), so it's another good parent/kid project.]


8) Don't worry about finding a parking place for church on Christmas Eve. The church is packed, but the rest of downtown is deserted. Do remember quarters for the meter and some care packages with sandwiches and warm socks, because the only people still downtown are Parking Enforcement and the homeless.


9) I have a wonderful family and delightful friends. Cheers, all. Merry Christmas.

The days these days: two and a half years old

Cleo wakes up at 5:30, sometimes even six. This is much better than 4:30, and it's all thanks to one of those ridiculous gadgets that Parents These Days rely on, and without which generations of children grew and thrived. It is this silly thing, and it has saved us. Saved Cleo from being a tired, out-of-sortsy kid, and saved her parents from being grouchy about experiencing hours of pre-dawn darkness (mostly experienced by her dad, it must be said, but if Dada ain't happy, ain't nobody happy).

So now, the first thing we hear most days is, "The green light is green! Mama! Dada! The green  light is green! It's morning!" And so we begin. The morning routine is what it's been for a while: oatmeal, milk, waking Mama at seven o'clock, and sending Dada off to work in the attic at 7:30.

Once the urgent items (clothing, food, etc) have been taken care of, the first question is, "What day to is?" Which means, in toddler-ese, "What day is it and how shall we amuse ourselves?" Monday is Mama and Cleo Day, Tuesday and Thursday are school days, Wednesday is Dada and Cleo go to the library, and Friday is usually Have Someone Over Day.

Her friends and their parents are an endless source of fascination. She declares several times a day. "I'm named [some friend], you're named [that friend's mother]." Or she'll pick up a rock and declare that it is named Layla (always, always Layla). And she and her dad make up collaborative stories, usually featuring people we know in some kind of conflict or peril. The themes of these stories ebb and flow, persist and change, until they're nearly incomprehensible to people who haven't seen the whole evolution.

"Once upon a time, there was a..."
"A little girl named Hazel, and she was crying!"
"Why was she crying?"
"Because monkeys stole her mama!"
"And what did Hazel do?"
"Pauline was there!"
"Did Pauline help her find her mama?"
"Yes! And they had pacifiers!"

And so on. Some other recurring themes this month are bears who live in caves, the macaroni monster, brushing one's teeth, eating one's clothes, the monkey-catching kit, robot mechanics who fix garbage trucks, frogs who are experts in animal sounds, going to the doctor's office, and a honeybee who can't buzz.

She has an insatiable appetite for this, and as soon as one story is all wrapped up, she says, "Tell me anonner 'tory!" This can get tedious sometimes, but the power of a story to immediately captivate and distract her is a useful tool.

Another thing she loves is going for walks. At any hour of the day-- dark, light, or raining, she'll ask to go for "a yiddle walk" Sometimes she walks happily, but other times we'll get ten feet down the sidewalk, and she'll stop, turn, throw her arms in the air, and say dramatically, "Carry me!" I think her perfect day would be to be carried around the neighborhood, being told story after story after story, with stops at the bakery, the toy store, and the library just to break things up a bit. One new attraction of the library is the bathroom, which is a thrilling destination for a recently potty-trained girl. Part of the appeal there is the automatic flush, which is the height of excitement. Every time we use an unfamiliar public bathroom, it gets the question, "Does it fush automatit-yee?" and there's a moment of disappointment if the answer is no.

Meals are always good for some entertainment, too. Luckily, she still likes sitting in her high chair and watching me cook. There are a few things she can do to help, like stir, grind pepper, dump measuring cups into mixing bowls, and poke the egg yolks with a fork before the serious scrambling begins (sometimes I think she requests eggs for breakfast just because she looks forward to the yolk-poking). She's a good eater, and has recently been parroting our food policy back to us

"I don't want it!"
"Well, you don't have to eat anything you don't want to eat, but..."
"...but dat's what's for dinner"
"Exactly right"

And three minutes later, if I carefully don't pay too much attention to what she's doing, she'll usually be munching happily. The only consistent refusals tend to be texture-related: big pieces of cooked onion, cooked mushrooms, fresh chopped herbs, and any kind of greens, cooked or raw. She has enjoyed lemon slices, raw onions, spicy Indian lime pickle, stinky goat cheese, and kim chee. I know this is the age that many kids start resisting foods, so I'm trying to stay grateful and happy for each good meal, and hope I won't despair if she takes a turn for the pickier. The result of all this cheerful eating (or maybe the cause) is that she's grown like a weed. I was so used to having a baby who was slight and small, hovering around the tenth percentile for height and weight. But now, she's beautifully average! I was so surprised the first time I realized that she was bigger than some of her peers. And she's so sturdy, with strong, fast arms and legs (that get a lot of exercise doing laps around the kitchen island).

In the last few months, I've noticed that the baby that used to live with us is now really, really gone. Cleo is a kid with a developed personality, preferences, habits, and interests. Sometimes I miss my cuddly little baby, but I'm loving this kid who I can hold hands and have a chat with as we walk down the street. In some ways it's harder now, in more ways it's easier, but mostly it's impossible to completely realize that this is a short, fleeting stage too, and before long we'll be on to a whole new kid yet again.

Potty Training

Day One

This is going to be easy! She's a genius, she'll get it right away. I bet there won't be any more accidents after... oh. Well, by this evening she'll have it down for sure.

Day Two

You know, she's always been so stalwart in the face of minor scrapes and bumps. You think there's a correlation between a high pain threshold and having trouble identifying that uncomfortable "I have to pee" feeling? You think she'll be in diapers forever? I mean, she's a genius and all, that's clear, but maybe she'll just be the first incontinent nobel laureate. 

Day Three

That book said we'd be going on outings by now. This is taking forever. 

Day Four

Hey, this isn't so bad. No accidents yet today! And maybe by next week we'll be able to expand the potty proximity radius enough that we can go for a short walk.

Day Five

Those kids still in diapers are a bunch of chumps. I mean, sure, it must be nice to leave the house for longer than half an hour, but she's so accomplished! She's doing great!

Day Six

I can't believe it's only been a week. I can't believe I thought she'd never get it. By next week, I bet we'll be ready for an impromptu weekend road trip! Or we would be, if we were those people. Maybe a nice impromptu weekend Dry Pants Festival at home instead. Sounds good. But I'm not giving any speeches in front of a Mission Accomplished banner yet. Give it a little while.

Bulk Chicken, Master Recipe

This recipe is the pinnacle of my career as a lazy/cheap/picky home cook. It is tasty, fairly cheap for a meat dish, and unbelievably easy given how nice it looks and tastes. Like most recipes, it could be endlessly varied and changed, so let me draw back the curtain and show you the reasoning behind the recipe, and invite you to do your own tinkering. Here's what makes the difference for me:

1) Boneless chicken thighs. Cheap and tasty, yes, but here are their oft-overlooked Special Features: They are both Fatty and Thin.

Fatty means that (unlike chicken breasts) they're good even if they get a little overcooked (a bonus both to busy cooks and to cooks who get freaked out by salmonella).

Thin means that they will both thaw quickly and cook quickly. If you really get intimate with a boneless skinless chicken thigh, you'll see that it's relatively uniform in thickness once you open it up, and that that thickness is less than an inch. When you lay them out flat in a preheated roasting pan, those suckers can cook through in fifteen minutes.

1) A dryish marinade. Browning is the friend of flavor, but liquid is the enemy of browning. I'm not interested in doing a lot of tedious patting-dry of marinated raw meat, so I kept the wet ingredients down to one: balsamic vinegar, since it's so intense, you don't need much to do the job. Everywhere else, I went for flavorful but dry. I used salt instead of soy sauce, tomato paste instead of canned or sauce, and dried herbs and pepper flakes. With the addition of olives and olive oil, I hit all my marinade bases (salt, acid, sugar, spice, oil), with no extra liquid that would get in the way of browning.

2) Oven browning. When I think of baked chicken, I don't usually think caramelized and delicious. I tend to think soft and pale. But that's not necessarily true. If you use a hot oven and a heavy pre-heated roasting pan, and leave a generous amount of room between thinnish pieces of meat, the liquid that the meat gives off during cooking will have a chance to reduce and caramelize, resulting in the sticky brown residue that is the sign of a delicious meal to come.

3) Double tomato. The tomato paste will get a little browned in the oven, along with the chicken juices and the rest of the marinade. This is a good start. The real trick is in getting that delicious brown goop off the pan and onto the dinner plates with a minimum of fuss and trouble. Here you go: canned tomatoes. They're wet enough to deglaze the brown bits, and they add their own oomph to the sauce when they mingle with the olives, garlic, and herbs. The ones I recommend are Muir Glen Fire Roasted (and when you say BPA, I put my fingers in my ears and say lalalalalafire-roasted. I don't use them often, but when I do, I use these). The tomatoes also pretty up the chicken nicely. I can't be bothered to flip the chicken as it cooks, so only one side gets brown. But it doesn't matter how pale and gnarly the chicken is when it's camouflaged under a little pile of olive-and-herb-flecked tomato. You could, of course substitute many different liquids and vegetables (or liquidy vegetables) for the canned tomatoes.

4) Vast quantities. Chicken thighs can often be bought at a good price if you go for the huge packages, and this recipe works well for that. All the ingredients freeze and thaw well, and there's not a whole lot of chopping or prepping involved (chop garlic and olives, assemble marinade, mix with chicken). Just freeze the raw chicken in dinner-sized batches (this recipe makes about twelve servings, and I usually freeze it in three two-pound batches). Making this one huge recipe is easier than many single-meal recipes I make, and it gets me three almost-done dinners. Yay.

One freezer tip: if you use big gallon-sized plastic bags and press out the air before you seal them up, you can flatten the chicken and spread it out. If you then lay the flattened bags down in the freezer, they'll freeze like big tiles, and be easier to stack in the freezer and way quicker to thaw when it comes time.

5) Completely optional ingredients. I like olives. I like garlic. As established, I like those fire-roasted canned tomatoes. The good news to those of you who are not me is: the success of this dish rests on none of these ingredients. Tinker! Tamper! Adjust! And let me know what you discover.

Tomato and Olive Roasted Chicken Thighs

1/2 cup finely minced garlic (this chicken cooks very quickly-- practically pulverize the garlic, or you'll end up with crunchy hunks of raw garlic. Sorry, unwitting recipe-testers!)

3/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 cup roughly chopped kalamata olives (1 10-oz jar pitted olives)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp red pepper flakes

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp dried oregano

6 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs

3 cans fire-roasted canned tomatoes

Mix garlic, oil, vinegar, olives, salt, pepper flakes, tomato paste, oregano, and chicken. Let it marinate for an hour or a day (or freeze for later use as outlined above). The directions below are for one quarter to one third of this recipe. To cook it all at once, your best best is to do it in several batches, so that the chicken doesn't get over-crowded in the pan. On the other hand, if you're cooking for twelve, do what you can do and good luck to you.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees, with a heavy roasting pan or large skillet in the oven to heat as well. Lay one and a half to two pounds of the chicken pieces flat in the hot pan, and bake 20 minutes. Leave enough space around the chicken so that the juices can brown. After twenty minutes in the oven, remove chicken from pan and set aside in a bowl. Deglaze roasting pan with one can of tomatoes. Cook down until thick. Add any accumulated chicken juices to sauce. Put chicken pieces back into hot sauce to heat through, and serve when ready.