If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.

…

• you wait until nap time to eat the cookie someone gave you so you don’t have to share it
• you pick a half a gnawed raw carrot up off the floor and put it in the fridge for later
• you delight in your cats because you can love them and then throw them on the floor when you’re done with them
• you keep a mental tally of how many times your jeans have been spilled, smeared, leaked, peed, and pooed on. And you don’t even think about washing them until that tally reaches at least 17. (Poo counts as 5 points)
• you spend your baby-free evenings watching videos to learn new ways to fold cloth diapers
• you understand what it means to be physically but not sexually attracted to someone
• you look down and realize you’ve been wearing oatmeal as some kind of nouveau pendant. Suddenly stranger’s small smiles and headshakes make sense
• you can locate your child anywhere in the house based solely on the unique sound patterns resonating from the particular things being banged together
• you spend your falling asleep moments trying to describe the smell of your sleeping baby’s head
• you wonder how you met new people before you had a baby as an ice breaker
• you carry around the sinking knowledge that sometime, somewhere, a guest is going to find that apple core your toddler dropped in a secret hiding place
• you’ve slept with a teddy bear for the first time since your own childhood in a desperate attempt to make it smell like you so you can trick your baby into sleeping longer
• it’s totally normal for your toddler to finish his lunch after his nap…. off the floor where he threw it
• you’ll drink a glass a water that’s 15% baby backwash without a second thought
• you forget to drop the royal “we” when your child’s not with you
• you have nursed/snuggled/read to/ played with your child… while pooping
• you plan date nights with the same attention to detail and wishful thinking that you used to plan your wedding when you were thirteen
• you rarely snap all the snaps
• you know what a full body hug feels like

Ever since Aunt Rachel and Tiffany visited and showed him where the silverware goes, he’s never let a dishwasher-door-open moment pass without helping put away something. His favorite are the spoons. Dirty ones.

• Convincing myself that “shucking” is onomatopoetic
• Embracing summer rather than retreating from her
• Admitting that his baby feet are not so baby anymore
• Smiling at my little man’s inventiveness concerning games- can you guess his favorite?

• Discovering the savory side of berries
• Pedaling ever more confidently all over the city
• Puzzling over  how one meets people in a new city without a bank of classmates or coworkers
• Appreciating how old friends in a new place can make the new place feel more comfortable
• Ironing out my laundry routine so that I’m not monopolizing the coin op machines but also have diapers always at the ready
• Expanding my carnivorous horizons through Mint Creek Farm’s meat CSA. (Lamb spare ribs, where have you been all my life?)
• Witnessing a paradigm shift in my thinking about nature after realizing that animals observe us just as much as (or more than) we observe them
• Finding excuses to put herbs from my window boxes into anything
• Growing a new kombucha scoby
• Flavoring that kombucha with the essence of summer- blueberries, tarragon, peaches, pineapple sage, and melon, and…
• Pointing out every time I see a front yard/ roof top/ community garden that’s thriving

• watching people’s personalities being imprinted onto gingerbread men
• private moments of affection in the midst of a crowd
• the way a simple piece of clothing can carry the weight of family connection
• music making whether solo or tandem
• the various qualities of light this time of year–multicolored smudges on the wall from Christmas tree lights, candlelit staining the floor, weak winter sun fading across muted brown tree trunks
• the omnipresent tree as backdrop for all family activities
• that one last game before bed
• tossing coins into the train bed for good luck
• Baby-tidian’s comfortableness in the many willing baby-holding arms

A time for persevering

and a time for idleness.

A time for cool baths

and  a time for warm towels.

A time for naps

and a time for… er… more naps.

A time for sun

and a time for shade.

There is a time for fire

and a time for ice.

A season  for every purpose under heaven.

Even if that season is endless summer.

]]> http://collectedquotidian.com/2011/09/15/a-time-for-everything/feed/ 0 http://collectedquotidian.com/2011/08/01/a-knuckle-sandwich/ http://collectedquotidian.com/2011/08/01/a-knuckle-sandwich/#comments Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:19:34 +0000 Jana@ Collected Quotidian http://collectedquotidian.com/?p=1602 I want to eat his baby knuckles that dimple in rather than sticking out.

Pie crust has always been a big deal to me.  My dear sweet Grandma Rolf was a pie making goddess from crust to crumbs. A visit to her house was never complete without some sort of pie, though most commonly it was a sweet spicy-scented apple pie that came out of her oven. As a child I didn’t realize what a perfect slice of Americana I was as I sat at the table digging into my warm apple pie and melty vanilla ice cream. I only knew it was good.

She set the bar high. When my friends would scrape out the filling and leave the crust behind, I was confused. The crust was my favorite part! It wasn’t until I tasted a commercially prepared crust that I understood and empathized with their behavior. When I became my own cook there was never even the option of a store bought crust. To do such a thing felt on the order of building a cold, tough, mealy sidewalk over her grave.

While I hear tell that my grandma used lard and butter for most of her pie baking days, near the end she had switched to an oil based crust because it was “healthier.” While this is probably the crust I grew up on so I can attest to its goodness, ironically I’m too uncomfortable with the unhealthy aspects of low quality vegetable oil to make it. So I had to start from scratch finding my own recipe.

That recipe I’ve never quite perfected. Working with butter and lard can be finicky. They need to be really cold (best if frozen) and stay that way (multiple stints in the freezer between steps). All this requires much forethought, planning, and big chunks of time. I have none of those things at this point in my Life With the Little. But I still wanted to make things with crusts… pies, quiches, tarts both sweet and savory. I still refused to buy crusts as even early motherhood doesn’t justify such brutishness to my heritage. (A little melodramatic you ask? Of course. But it’s times like these where a girl’s gotta hold on to some culinary ethics. After all, not everything can be all cheese toast and boiled eggs.)

Just a few days ago, I found myself craving quiche. (I’ve had more postpartum cravings than I did pregnancy cravings. Weird, right?) But my energy to make anything, let alone a good pie crust, lay sprawled on the floor next to my cat. I could not rouse it. For the first time I allowed my thoughts to roam to the oil crust. Would it really be so bad? Just this once? I never got far enough to answer that question because on its heels came another one. What if I just used a better oil? And then: Why have I never thought of this before?

Coconut oil makes a very nice crispy crust. If you are sensitive to coconut flavor, you might be able to taste the coconut. If this is a problem for you, you could just use this recipe for dishes that would benefit from a little coconut essence.