This past year

[In true motherly fashion, I began this post six weeks ago. It was the anniversary of Little Man's entry earthside. As he took his birthday nap, I mused. I'm just now getting back to it and publishing these birthday ruminations. ]

A year ago today I sat just about where I’m sitting now. Propped up on pillows on the right side of the bed a snuggle’s breath away from my sleeping baby.

So much has changed. For one thing, the bed now sits in a Chicago apartment building rather than above a garage in South Carolina. For another there are no longer ambiguous stains on my sheets (pee? sweat? breast milk?)- only unambiguous ones (drool, definitely drool). The kitchen cabinets sport baby locks, the desk drawers have yardsticks stuck through the handles, and the trash can sits on top of the sofa. On the book shelf,  Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth and Birthing from Within have been replaced by That’s Not My Teddy and Goodnight Moon. Mr. Quotidian and I spend our dates on the couch with a bottle of wine rather than out… somewhere. Our movies come with mandatory intermissions. 6:30 a.m. is considered sleeping in.

Yet the babe sleeping next to me is still the same, essentially at least. Yes, he’s longer, heavier, and has 7 teeth now. And yes, instead of just sleeping he also giggles, grabs at cats’ tails, and wills himself towards the ceiling fan. He has gone through several nicknames in the intervening months. (He now prefers Mr. Thed from his daddy and Snuggle-wuggle-wigwam on his silly days.) And yet he still locks eyes with me as he nurses. Still clenches my heart with his cries. Still trusts me.

So perhaps it’s me that’s changed? I now know my way around such terms as bilirubin, meconium, and object permanence. I can decipher all  most of the forum abbreviations. (Though BM still throws me each time. In mothering forums, it usually means breastmilk. My first thought is always bowel movement.So typical sentences such as “we’ve been giving her a bottle of bm before bed…” always cause a double take.) I have working opinions on breastfeeding, infant sleep, milestones, and vaccinations.

But those things seem more like growth rather than change.  In the same way that Little Man being able to get off the couch by himself is simply a new expression of the established need to explore his surroundings, being a mama has forced me to adapt and learn new coping devices. But does that really change who I am? Is motherhood a feather duster that simply brushes away old habits and selfishness, leaving the shelf cleaner but in basically the same form? Or is it a chrysalis in which everything I am is broken down, liquified, and then remade in an all together new form? How much can a person adapt before they become someone new? Does it even matter? Perhaps it’s just frivolous introspection aggravated by lack of sleep.

I feel like I should have some big personal epiphany to share with you regarding motherhood, change, and self. Words that would buff out the scratches and stains left by the day after day after day, leaving the dignity of motherhood to gleam in the melting afternoon light. Lacking that however, I am unsure how to end this. So perhaps I will just settle back into the pillows and watch as the light dribbles shadows across my sweet one’s face.  As I have many times this past year.

Skillet Dinners: An almost recipe

Here’s a revelation I’ve recently come to: scrambled eggs can’t be for breakfast and dinner every night. Even Mr. Quotidian needs some variety. Regrettably, there was a period of time where variety equaled take out. While part of it was lack of energy and all the typical reasons for ordering take out, another large part of it was curiosity. Where are the hole in the wall restaurants that all the locals go to? What does Banh Mi taste like? Is that sandwich place as sustainable as it advertises? What’s the closest place that will satisfy my noodle craving? Greek? Thai? Pizza? All four?

I’ve officially had my curiosity sated. While the thrill of discovery still woos me sometimes (Chicago is a big city after all), I’ve had to admit that I simply don’t really like take out. It’s not that anything we’ve ordered has ever been bad. It’s just I know I could make it better. I’ve been cooking for myself for so long, that I’ve grown accustomed to personalizing dinner to my taste. More herbs. Less cayenne. Broth instead of water. An extra egg. A splash of vinegar. Extra care taken in making sure the top is perfectly brown and crunchy. Short of employing a personal chef, there’s just no way to order that kind of personalization.

The one thing I’ve had trouble wrapping my tongs around though is simplicity in cooking. The older Baby-tidian gets, the simpler my cooking has needed to become. And that’s where take out has one over on me. It is simple. There’s no pantry inventory. No rushing to the store. No balancing heavy bags and a fidgety baby while fumbling keys into a lock. No realizing the spatula is dirty. No sink full of dishes. There’s just a menu, a phone call, and sinful amounts of plastic. (Seriously, how many bags does a sandwich need to be in before it’s adequately protected from the noxious world?)

As I’ve been focusing more on training my cooking with Team Simplicity, the skillet dinner has emerged as a kind and forgiving teammate. There’s no actual recipe involved, so it’s impossible to be “out” of something. The skillet serves as both cooking device and serving vessel. (It can even be the plate if you don’t have anyone to impress. Spoons are recommended. The finger pick and vacuum approach really only works at the stove. Minimalism can only go so far.)

Everything in this recipe is optional, though I usually include some kind of protein, vegetables, aromatics, and perhaps a starch. These ingredients can be pre-cooked leftovers or raw.

Protein ideas: ground beef, bacon, beans, cut up leftover steak, tofu (if you’re into that sort of thing),
Vegetable ideas: whatever is abundant and cheap at the farmer’s market, the triumvirate of carrots, onions, and celery, leftover roasted potatoes
Starch ideas: leftovers! (Seriously, I don’t really add a starch unless I have leftovers of some kind. It’s just not worth the effort to cook new. Add more veggies if you need to bulk it up) rice, pasta, couscous

Lacking a concrete set of instructions, here’s what I did last night:

• Gather ingredients; mine were four medium zuchhinni, an onion, 3 cloves of garlic, a pound of ground beef, about a cupful of tart cherries, and mixed herbs from my window boxes.
• Heat your largest skillet. Add crumbled beef and chopped onion. If the onion sticks, add a pat of butter. Season with salt and cook till meat is mostly brown and onions are about half cooked.
• Add the chopped zuchhinni and stir. Cook covered until tender. Deglaze with a little wine or vinegar if necessary. Season to taste.
• Turn off the heat and add the pitted cherries and minced herbs. Stir together.
• Serve.

Milestones: Ordering food just for him

After several eatings out where I was left slightly peckish due to a certain Little Man picking off my plate, it was clear it was time to start ordering some food just for him. Though in typical baby form, when we ordered him this bowl of fruit, he decided he wasn’t hungry. Or at least had more of an appetite for spoons and napkins than he did for fruit.

A beautiful kitchen does not good food make

A series of what can only be considered fortunate events culminated in finally pushing the Quotidian household towards Chicago. If cities could be soul mates, I’d say I’ve found my other half. As the Intelligentsia website put it, Chicago is “a city that is brooding, practical and reluctantly beautiful.” (Their flagship coffeebar, by the way, is a mere 472 ft from my front door.) I hesitate to label myself in front of others who know me so well because I can just imagine you coming up with counter examples to any category in which I choose to place myself. However, brooding practicality seems as good a description of my personality as any.  It’s true I once favored the purely decorative, whether it was collections of porcelain figurines or jelly shoes that caused my toes to grow funny. As I’ve grown older, though,  I’ve come to recognize the beauty in things like a quilt casually crumpled over the back of a chair, a bowed shelf of canned goods in a cold basement,  or even an expanse of cleared off table.

And you don’t know me well if you think I don’t indulge in a good brood every once in awhile.

While I do get a thrill out of already claiming Chicago as “my city,” I know that I am still a newcomer here. There are new corners to be rounded just about everywhere I go. So it seems a bit disingenuous to inventory all the reasons Chicago and I are the perfect match. Things like not being the only one sporting the homeless granny chic grocery cart. Or being able to attend a live jazz concert simply by opening my window. Or that summer here waits until spring is finished speaking. There are also some things that are common to any major city- enjoying public transportation along with people from all different economic backgrounds, passing a couple in the street and not being able to assume the conversation you overhear will be in English, and deciding on a cuisine for dinner (Japanese, Italian, Lebanese, ect) still leaves you with about three restaurant choices within walking distance.

There are also other less desirable things common to cities. Namely, the mac ‘n’ cheese kitchen. You know the type: a room that seems like an afterthought with a fridge squeezed in, postage stamp size counters,  and just enough cupboard space to store a few pots, bowls, and of course, your blue stash of mac ‘n’ cheese. I am now the proud owner renter of just such a kitchen.

This is the picture I took  during our apartment hunt which turned into more of a scavenge when two (!) apartments were rented out from under us. By the time the dust had settled, this was the only apartment left out of the dozen or so we’d looked at. The rest of the apartment is quite nice. There’s wood floors instead of plastic elementary school style tile. (Yes, that huge hole in the floor is still there. It grabs disturbingly as stocking feet.) The apartment is on the south side of the building, so even though I don’t have any private outdoor space, there’s ample sunlight.  And the location is something out of a dream. Two bus lines within blocks that will take you downtown within 20 minutes. A local bagel bakery, diner,  and chocolate shop clustered at the end of the block. The kitchen, however, was cause for big tears and gnashing teeth. And maybe a little sackcloth. Only Mr. Quotidian will know whether or not ashes and swearing off cooking for the duration of our lease were involved, and he’s been sworn to secrecy on the matter.

How was I supposed to cook -  I mean really cook – in a kitchen like this? Sure, it’d be perfectly adequate for other people, but for me? Where’s my food processor and 16 pots and pans supposed to go? Not to mention all my pantry foodstuffs,herbs, and spices, which accounted for an eighth of our moving boxes all on their own. My cookbook collection probably bumps that fraction up to a quarter. Where were all these chef-ly accouterments supposed to go in a kitchen like this?

To hell with a chef’s kitchen you say? Power to the small kitchened people? Granite and stainless be damned, too, you say?

Oh,
….right.

A few days after signing the lease through tears, I decided sackcloth and ashes was probably not the most helpful response. (Actually Mr. Quotidian decided for me and I was forced to agree.) After all, a beautiful kitchen does not good food make. Do I seem sure of that? It’s only because I’ve repeated it as a mantra these past weeks. As I came to terms with my new kitchen, I began to look at it as a creative challenge. A wise person once taught me that limits are the harbinger of creativity. If that’s true, and I believe it is, this will be one of my most creative kitchens yet.

Here are some of my limits:

• I’d rather spend money on quality ingredients than fancy kitchen organizers. Therefore, make every effort to repurpose things I already own. When something must be bought, try to purchase things that can be repurposed themselves in a new kitchen. (I won’t, after all, be living with this kitchen forever.)
• The kitchen must be as intrinsically baby proof as possible. Safety latches and rubber bands can only go so far.
• Even though it’s small, it must not feel cluttery. The counters will be kept clear.

“beautiful kitchens do not good food make”
“beautiful kitchens do not good food make”

“beautiful kitchens do not good food make”
“beautiful kitchens do not good food make”

A Chef’s Kitchen

After belly flopping into the Chicago apartment classifieds the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a disturbing undercurrent: the “chef’s kitchen.” While this sounds very posh and all, it inevitably means two things. See if you can guess.

Is it the thoughtfully laid out floor plan, making everything easily accessible with minimum effort? Or a sink that easily accommodates all the dishes that predictably accompany cooking? Or a dedicated pantry space to properly store food staples? Or how about a space that makes the chef in question feel wanted instead of exiled to a hole?

Nope. A “chef’s kitchen” simply means granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. Preferably new.

Now, I’m not arguing that the above kitchens aren’t nice looking. A couple of them are actually quite beautiful. And I really wouldn’t complain about cooking in them. What troubles me, however, is the way serious cooking is equated with granite and stainless, preferably new. As if good food couldn’t come from an outdated Formica topped kitchen with mismatched appliances.

I suppose it’s a side effect of the “foodie” movement. (And don’t even get me started on the word “foodie.” Or “chef” for that matter.) Food as an idea has become trendy. In many ways that’s a positive development. People who used to fill their grocery carts with boxes and cans are now filling it with vegetables. Or even forgoing the cart altogether in favor of a market basket. the people responsible for bringing us food deserve a little of the lime light. Food is beautiful, necessary, photogenic, and decidedly sensual.

It’s also just dinner. Good food doesn’t have a thing to do with granite and stainless. New or not. Any kitchen can be a chef’s kitchen. The only requirement is someone cooking in it.

The prince of spring

To beat the midafternoon blues, Babytidian and I have been tossing the I Spy quilt in the yard and settling where ever it lands. Well, I settle at least. Babytidian never seems to quite settle anywhere anymore these days. He’s happiest when exploring, whether that’s in front of the bathroom cabinets, in the compost bucket, or behind the couch. Being a bit like a baby Cortés, however, he’s mostly conquered all the inside frontiers (except the compost bucket, that’s still gleefully undiscovered territory). And I suspect he gets bored of the stillness of the house. Outside, on the other hand, is always moving. Birds swoop and sway on branches. Old leaves continue to float down while new ones unfurl. And there are always new flowers to see and grab.

On our most recent expedition, we discovered that the clover was blooming. Almost without thinking about it, I began making a clover chain. It was as if something deep in my brain registered all the stimuli, and that was the only acceptable response. Like how you automatically reach out to pet a cat when it brushes against your legs. Or how you lift a flower to you nose even if you know it doesn’t have a scent. It’s just what you do. So, when seated in a blooming clover patch, you make clover chains. In this particular patch, there were just enough flowers to fashion a baby head sized crown. When Babytidian trundled back by, I set the crown on his head. To my very great surprise, my hat-hating baby left it there and continued on his quest to touch the highest heights. Though his regal glory did become a bit lopsided, it remained on his head for a good thirty minutes, not even faltering during a fierce tickle battle with Daddy. I found the crown later that night, finally discarded on the kitchen floor.

An auspicious find

aus pi cious [aw-spish-us]
adjective
1590′s “of good omen,” from L. auspicium, divination by observing the flight of birds, from auspex, “augur,” lit. “one who takes signs from the flight of birds
1. promising success; opportune; favorable: an auspicious occasion
2. favored by fortune; prosperous; fortunate
3. a pair of brand new snow boots bought on the very same day the decision to move to Chicago was made; preparedness for real winter; thrifted on the cheap from His House on River Dr.: These auspicious boots will keep my feet warm this winter in Chicago.

Winter? Your line is….

I finally gave up waiting for winter about a month ago. Having been spoiled by the past two snowy winters and thus forgotten the true meaning of a southern winter, I almost overlooked it. That’s how winters are here: ignorable. Like a school girl with stage fright, she barely makes it out of the shadows to rush through her lines before running off stage left. But looking through my pictures, I see her there, in the background.

We tugged the sleeves of our sweaters down and pulled our hoods up.
Only the husks of flowers remained.
We cuddled steaming mugs close to our hearts.
Blooming citrus trees made the greenhouse air thick and sweet as syrup.
Christmas cookies were made and eaten.
Frost left her red lip prints on the arugula field.
Scarves dangled from our necks.
Bare branches laced across the sky.
Lost mittens grew soggy in the cold rain.
A recipe that used the oven was an advantage, not a liability.
Pots were stacked empty against the greenhouse.
Blankets littered every comfy surface.

So perhaps it is not so much that winter forgot her lines as I forgot to listen to them.

learning to read

(Calm down grandmas. It’s not Baby-tidian that’s learning to read.)

I was one of those kids who stayed up till 2 in the morning. I wasn’t talking on the phone or sneaking into places I shouldn’t be, but ever the nerd, I was reading. I read anything and everything that would fit between two covers. Through all of middle school and most of high school, I could lose whole weekends to a book. I’d start a new book on the Friday bus ride home and the next time I looked up it was the wee hours of Monday morning. Since my wise parents pretended not to notice the slit of light coming from under my door at all hours, I never had to resort to the flashlight under a blanket cover.

The only thing I (mildly) regret about all that time spent turning pages is that I consumed mostly pop culture lit. You know the type: multi-book family sagas that begin on the Mayflower and end in the California gold rush, or books detailing the myriad trials of teenagers, be they twins, babysitters, or orphans. I haven’t read as many  classic literature books as I often pretend to. So instead of those late night reading sessions contributing to a rhythmically beating literary heart, I’m left with vague palpatations of plot twists and character descriptions. For example, on a shelf somewhere is a book about a girl trapped in a basement. Whether by friend or foe, for what reason, for how long, I’ll never remember. She types out her memories of adolescent angst on the random typewriter locked in with her. There is also a book about a boy who is able to time travel to the past where he meets his doppelganger who has typhoid, or perhaps tuberculosis. It may or may not involve being stuck in a library.

Anyway, the point I was wanting to make is that in the past I spent hours and hours reading. I read like I napped; if it didn’t last at least 2 hours, it wasn’t worth it. While I still routinely take hours long naps with Babytidian, I’ve had to give up such lingering over pages. As part of my preparation for giving birth, I compiled a rather ambitious list of books I’d like to read. The first few weeks I had a stack teetering next to the bed (right next to the midnight nursing snacks and water). Now I’m lucky if I get all my email read each day. For longer than I ‘d care to admit, I gave up book reading altogether. I subsisted on blogs, Netflix, and Hulu. It was just easier. I could still listen to the dialogue even if Babytidian took my attention away from the screen. (Try as I might, I just couldn’t keep reading if I wasn’t looking at the page.) But I felt mentally bloated and weak.

Slowly, I’ve been relearning how to read. In small bits.

And pieces.

Here.

And there.

While I do sorely miss the days when I would only budge from my comfy chair to make trips to the kitchen and the bathroom, I’m beginning to enjoy reading this way. Instead of sprinting through a book and barely catching my breath before opening the next, I am forced to mosey through the pages, letting each paragraph dissolve on my mind like a lozenge. Perhaps I should take up poetry reading…

Milestones: First Wind Blown Hair