heave ho hum

So we shipped the baby off to my parents' house tonight. Mike and I actually have to go to the same conference tomorrow through Friday, and we have to leave by 6am, so we thought it would be best to do the baby handover tonight. It felt yucky, actually. It's one thing to stay overnight somewhere else without her, but it's just weird to be here at home by ourselves. Melancholy. I'm not sure what we do with our time now, but I really don't know what we did with it before. Could happy hour and spending all out money on frivolous things like eyebrow waxes really have taken up that much of our time before?? I guess so. Because now we're just zombies without the baby here, losering at our laptops, biding our time before bed, because we're not used to getting any sleep anyway, so what's the use in trying before 11?

I suppose this is good for us. Ains will have a ball at gma and gpa's - as long as my mom doesn't feed her old hot dogs from their convenience store like she does to the dog.

OH! One spectacular thing!! Guess who the keynote speaker is at this conference we're going to?? Matt. Roloff. Matt Effin Roloff from Little People Big World!! "Think Big, Dream Big" is the topic. It will be wonderful. I only watched that show FIVE MILLION TIMES while I was on maternity leave. So all is not lost.

So lullabye little one. Maybe your hump days be happy and the downhill slide to the weekend be swift. Peace out.

Bill and Barb

So this weekend, Grandma Number Two (dad's mom) moved to Spearfish. (Grandma Number One already lives here, in the nursing home, since she had a stroke about a year and a half ago.) My Grandma T, the one that moved this weekend, is much more mobile and actually in good health. The problem is, she has a bit of dimentia, so living on her own is becoming more of a problem. She was in an apartment building for older people before, so they had some organized activities and meals, but she still had to be pretty independent. Unfortunately, there was a scummy 40-something caretaker guy that took advantage of that. He was asking her for money, never huge amounts because my aunt watches it pretty closely, but still. And always hanging out in her apartment, chain smoking. And the managers of the building didn't seem to care. So, needless to say, everyone decided it was best that she move here, where there's more family and more people to look out for her. There's a wonderful facility, actually just like two blocks from our house, that has three meals a day, lots of activities (painting classes, Wii tournaments, wine and cheese nights - jeez, I might move in!), and residents still get to have their own small apartments.

So we were helping move her stuff in all day Saturday while she was out exploring the hills with my cousin and aunt (the home said it's best for patients with dimentia to come only after everything is moved in, because it can be understandingly overwhelming). My job was to organize her whole closet and her eight or nine jewelry boxes. It was pretty cool, actually. There wasn't anything that valuable, just sentimental - old costume jewelry, my grandpa's cuff links and pocket watch, some rings my great aunt hand painted. I found a silver pendant with my baby picture in it, and the shell casing from my grandpa's military funeral. I also got to look through lots of old photos. I found the above one of my grandma and grandpa when they were young, and I think it's lovely. My grandpa was always my kindred spirit in a way (bookish, creative, traditional, stubborn, particular) and I still can't look at pictures of him, 14 years after he died, without heart pangs. My grandma still has the same spirit as in that picture, dry-witted and playful. And I hope to see her a lot now that she's closer.

a holiday retrospective

Phew. I think we made it. A little poorer, a few more pounds, but we're all intact. The first holiday with a little one was simultaneously wonderful and exhausting. We hosted a Christmas Eve Pasta & Presents party for my family, so that was a big part of the exhausting part. I have the utmost respect for all the holidays my parents have hosted over the years. We just hit the ground running at 6am and didn't stop until midnight. But it was a good time. I think it was a breath of fresh air for my whole extended family to have something new about Christmas. I mean, it's really a holiday for kids, so it was nice to have one around again. Pretty soon Ains will understand about Santa and all that, so it'll be even more fun. The last couple years have just been a lot of, you know, drinking and eating and fighting about politics. So a little glimmer of wonderment was refreshing. Also, a red Christmas tutu. How can you argue the merits and lunacy of Sarah Palin when there's a baby in a red Christmas tutu in the room?!

The holidays did get me thinking about some things I've been trying to ignore for the last nine months (maybe 10 years)? Like religion. I mean, growing up we weren't the most religious family, but we were definitely holiday Catholics at least, and had phases of being a lot more regular. We all went through CCD and First Communion and Confirmation, as did Mike and his sister in the Lutheran Church. And there was something special about Christmas because of that - the story, the advent candles, midnight mass. Just the smell of church at Christmas, incense and grandma perfume and candle smoke. That night, of all the nights, you could FEEL faith ... and family.

But I just can't see us being a really regular part of a church. So how do you convey Christmas as anything except present-palooza if God isn't part of it? How do you justify celebrating something based on nothing but consumerism? I mean, I know lots of people do, or they just base it on family togetherness, but I have a hard time reconciling it in my head to the point where I can feel great about it. But I suppose all the baby Jesus stuff is just an excuse for a lot of people anyway. So I'm not sure what we'll do. I know Mike wouldn't mind if Ainsley grew up with a little church in her life - at least for the moral grounding and fostering tradition and community support aspects. I don't necessarily disagree with him, but it just feels a little off to me. Like, what if she questions it too? I don't want my answer to be "because that's just what people do." Which is hypocritical. Which is kind of my beef with organized religion in the first place.

But maybe it's ok ... to afford her an education in Christianity so she can make an informed decision about her own faith someday. Like, so she's not so starving for faith that she runs off and joins a cult or ends up not believing in ANYTHING. I don't know. I have this idea of doing some kind of blessing/baptism this summer, something outside by the creek, something for family. It's partially to appease all the grandparents, of course, but also so she knows we definitely believe in something, that we're not alone. I mean, we aren't godless heathens. We do have faith, but we (I) just don't think it has to fit into a business model built on stale, out-of-touch rules that foster more judgement from peers than God. Maybe I can just ignore it until next Christmas?? Maybe not.

resolute

I am miserable at New Year's resolutions. So I guess a vow to return to posting regularly will have to coincide with another holiday. Today's (January 8th's) options include:

National Joygerm Day

Saint Gudula Feast Day (Christian)

Show & Tell Day at Work

Birthday - Elvis Presley Birthday (singer)

Midwife's Day/Women's Day (Greece)

So .... not a lot to choose from. Maybe Show & Tell Day is the most appropriate? Not really at work, but whatevs. Hmm, Saint Gudula Feast Day. I always like a feast. Midwife's/Women's Day? Totally appropriate, but I'm neither in Greece or Greek. Plus, all talk of midwives makes me feel guilty because of Ainsley's drug-riddled, western-medicine-stoked birth.

So this is what a joygerm is:

"The joygerm finds its origin in happy people and spreads with verbal or physical contact with another person. You might have the joygerm if you have symptoms of delight, high spirits, joie de vivre, and a smile on your face, or something worse…the ability to laugh and feel/express glee. A person can affect another in the following ways: a hug, kiss, love letter, compliment, or any unexpected act of compassion."

Maybe spreading the joygerm could be my secondary Show-&-Tell-Saint-Gudula-Elvis-Greek Midwife's Day Resolution.

Gaaaah! So anyway, we're back.

gerber-licious

Ok, confession. I've been reading the book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" ... for like two years. I'm terrible at finishing books. I bought this one at an airport somewhere, read a few chapters and then lost it for a while, and I just kept forgetting to take it on subsequent car trips. And, seriously, I love my Time magazine and a billion internet articles and blogs, but I'm just not much of a bookie these days.

But I digress. So, in this book, this family decides to eat as locally as possible for a year. Every time I read some of it, I get all jazzed about the prospect, even though I know I'll never really do it or stick with it for long. But I did parlay my momentary enthusiasm into a baby-food-making extravaganza today. It's something I've been meaning to try - it just seems like it would be so easy. And WAY more economical. I mean, Ainsley's already eating almost a whole thing of baby food in the morning and at night, and if you figure at least a dollar a container, seven days a week, it starts to add up. But more than that, I just get kind of grossed out when I think of any mass food production - big 'ol vats of pesticidey food in big factories with rats and their poop and someone's finger getting cut off and falling in, gaahh (I guess I've never fully recovered from The Jungle??). I mean, I'll eat all that crap, but we want better for our kids, right?

So. Baby food making. It was a lot of work, but the results weren't entirely disappointing. I found local squash, apples and carrots at one of the greenhouses in town, and then it was just a whole lot of chopping and boiling and food processing and straining. Mike was gone all afternoon, so it was intermixed with baby wrangling (who, BY THE WAY, is now the rolling-over EXPERT of the civilized world! I witnessed it officially for the first time last night, but the frequency and ease with which she has been executing both tummy to back and the more advanced back to tummy moves today makes me believe the daycare ladies were keeping this a secret for a while).

I steamed the vegetables and stewed the fruit, adding some big-box nectarines and avocadoes to the mix. After a batch was cooked and strained, I used ice cube trays to freeze individual tablespoons of baby food, so that should be handy. The final verdict (with my little taste-tester's help):

Applesauce: awesome. Just like real applesauce. The food processor pureed it really finely and Ainsley gobbled it up.

Carrots: eh. Final product was still kind of chunky ... or grainy rather. I mean, it went through the strainer but it's just hard to get that "first foods" almost liquid texture of baby food. Ainsley ate it for supper, but I think she thought blowing the little chunks out was really fun because carrots were everywhere at the end.

She didn't try these, but as far as cooking:

Squash: Fine, kind of watery. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to get acorn squash instead of summer squash, but I figured it wouldn't hurt anything. It pureed as well as the apples and tastes like, well, squash.

Nectarines: This looked and smelled really good. Must be all the pesticides and genetic engineering. Hehe.

Avocado: Hmm. I didn't cook this one or anything, just pureed and froze it. But it kind of turned brown, like guacamole does if you don't add lime or lemon juice. Next time maybe I'll try that, if Ainsley's had citrus by then.

I'm glad I tried this. It was kind of a rainy day, so it was fun to just chill with the baby and pretend to be a hippie earth mama, because I don't feel like I have the time to be, normally. It was an awful lot of work for three ice cube trays of baby food (what would that be? Like a dozen cubes each? So 6 meals per tray probably, three trays, nine days of baby food). I think next time it will go faster, though, and I could do more of the things she ends up liking. Definitely the applesauce.

hannah banana

After a long wait, our little Hannah Banana Fofanna is here! She is the second daughter of Mike's sister Tara and her husband Rickey (aka our niece and Ainsley's cousin). After you have one kid, it's very hard to comprehend that a completely different mix of the two of you will come out the second time around, so we were all waiting with bated breath. The verdict? Her dad said it best, she looks exactly like her sister and completely different. In a weird way, it's true. I can't wait to go visit in a couple of weeks - look at those cheeks! They need to be experienced in person. There is also a stunning shock of hair under that hat - hair you could probably BRAID, it's so long. Hannah's sister Ava was (and is) such a tiny beautiful little angel baby, it's kind of cool to see that Ainsley has a Colorado doppelganger. They were almost exactly the same size at birth (um, giant), and both kind of have that intense frosty look down pat. Until Ainsley started smiling, she'd always look at us like, CAREFUL mom and dad, or I will EFF you up! Just a very intense, furrowed-brow kind of thing - even when they aren't angry or sad, just thinking hard (it's actually from Mike's mom's side of the family - called the Hofland Scowl or Tovaas Smile, depending on who you ask).

It's weird - after you have a new baby, all other new babies give you such a different feeling. Before mommyhood, new babies were obviously anticipated and exciting, but also very curious, like an exhibit in a museum. After mommyhood, new babies make you feel more like you just want to steal them for the day and snuggle, snuggle, snuggle. Yes, Ains is still a baby, but already when I try to cradle her like a newborn she squirms and kicks and stares at me like "HEY LADY! There are THINGS around to LOOK AT and POTENTIALLY STICK IN MY MOUTH! SIT ME UP NOW!!" They grow up so fast. The whole labor thing is different, too. Knowing what that's like. It's so exhausting and horrible and beautiful and way more special than you could ever know before you actually get to experience it.

So ... welcome to the world, Hannah Rae.

barf-ola

The barfing flu of doom descended on the house yesterday, so as I got to spend all day writhing in pain near the toilet while Mike did the parenting, tonight it is my turn. Yay! It's really awful, actually. I woke up yesterday thinking it was some kind of lightweight karmic retribution for having three beers Saturday night, but when I was still barfing at 5:00, I started to suspect something was up. I ceased barfing at about 9:00 last night, and actually made it to work today, but I'm still not quite right. And now Mike is in the full throes. Man, I hope the wee one doesn't get this mess (although I suspect it is all a bi-product of daycare - they ladies there say this nastiness has been going around). We aren't quite used to the germ exposure at casa gussiaas - I guess that's part of parenthood.

Speaking of, I've been biding my time tonight (after baby went to bed) waiting for the first post-hiatus episode of Jon & Kate plus 8. I watched SOOOO many episodes of that show on maternity leave - I couldn't help but stay tuned for the trainwreck break-up. I always saw hints of douche in Jon - I feel a little bit vindicated that he's been such a public sleazebag the last couple of weeks (22-year-old girlfriend ... DISGUSTING earring, etc.). Plus, it's always easy to rail on the wife for being bossy or pushy or whatever, but I feel like she was just getting it done. And she found a way to set their kids up for life and still get to spend loads of time with them working from home (after spending YEARS worrying about money), and she was crucified as exploitive and opportunistic. I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing. Ok, I should do a little work for the next half an hour - work has been absolutely insane lately. Good night.