Polenta, Salmon and Shrimp...the new holy trinity?

So my dad is a cookin' genius, he looked in my fridge and whipped this baby up in like half an hour! That's the good news. The bad news is the man never ever uses recipes and is terrible at giving instructions to us mere mortals who dare attempt recreating his culinary creations. So I can try to tell you all how to make this tasty trio, but I can't guarantee any kind of quality control, sorry.

Okay so here goes, the salmon was baked with a simple salt, pepper rub and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

The shrimp was pan fried and served with a sauce which I can only assume is part ketchup part garlic, part pepper, and all delicious.

Finally the Polenta (the organic Polenta that comes in a tube at your local Trader Joes) was also pan fried, served with feta cheese and sprinkled with dill.

Wish he could make my dinner every day!

Peek a Boo

Authentically Speaking...

I have a game that I like to play, (and all you wanna-be-Freud's can chime in if you like.) I like to pretend to go back in time and re-write my life. I take this game very seriously and carefully craft each aspect of my new life..my job, my place of residence, my fabulous new-found sense of style, etc., avoiding all of the 'mistakes' that I made the first time around.

Except something I began to realize in the last few years of playing is not everything in my life needs to be re-written, some things are pretty gosh darn great and I wouldn't' want to change them one bit. My husband for example? Truly, hands down the best husband in the universe, (and yes five seconds after I write this he will invariably do something to land on my shit list but so it goes...) And my brand new baby? She is amazing, wouldn't give any part of my mommy life for anything (poopy diapers and 3am feedings included)!

And there in lies the dilemma because as all of you know if you change one tiny thing your whole life could turn out completely different (as demonstrated in that creepy Butterfly Effect movie)

So something that occurred to me at 3 in the morning today (don't blame the baby she was sleeping like an angel) why oh why am I spending all of this time obsessing over a life that isn't (and never will be unless I invent a time machine) when I could pour all of that energy into authentically living the life I have (and kinda love most of the time)?

So that's it folks I am making a New Life Resolution (it's like a New Year's resolution but grander and more fancy sounding) I resolve to life my life and tell the tale! So what if I have an MBA but no career, or any prospect of a career per se? So what if it's going to take me the length of three pregnancies to lose this pregnancy weight? So what if my dog will never be trained enough to walk properly on a leash (or my husband be trained enough to put his dirty clothes in the hamper!)? And so what if people think I'm a little ridiculous? I kind of am! And I kind of like it that way.

A Day in the Life...

As a parent of a six week old.

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS ILLUSION-SHATTERING INFORMATION

ie if you think having a baby is all cuddles and coos, do not proceed...

I thought it might be "fun" to see what life is really like with a baby. So I'm picking a random day (Wed April 7th) to keep track of all that goes on- the good, the bad, and the very smelly. I'm planning on repeating this at different ages and stages of Aliza's life to see if my job gets any easier or harder. Any bets?

The short version-

soiled diaper units-15

nursing units dispensed-13

coffee units consumed-0 mg

time spent day-dreaming about consuming coffee units- approximately 2 3/4 hours

The long version-

12:00am (yes your days officially start at 12am now that you are a parent) Aliza, who sleeps right next to me for now, is awake! Hubby changes her while I get ready to nurse. Poor guy wouldn't even have had to wake up but darn puppy needs to be let out to go potty too (it's like they're conspiring against us)! I nurse le bebe while Hubby starts a load of diapers.

3:01am Change & nurse.

4:45am Change & nurse.

7:09am Wake up (for real this time) Hubby changes le bebe, I nurse her (yay for division of labor!). She then sleeps on Hubby (at this stage she only sleeps on one of us or in her stroller ONLY while it's moving) and in the meantime I make breakfast.

8:20am Just to see if she'll sleep I put her in her (barely ever used) crib, she wakes up within minutes quite angry! I nurse her for a bit, she proceeds to throw up most of it. I change her diaper and rush to get dressed and leave the house.

9:01am Arrive at Stroller Strides for an hour workout while baby (mercifully) sleeps.

9:58am Back home,I manage to shower in under three minutes, change the baby, nurse her, pack my lunch and snacks for the day.

10:51am On the road again to a "playdate" (I use the term playdate loosely since Aliza is obviously too young to care about any babies that may be playing in the vicinity)

4 diaper changes, 3 feedings while on playdate with awesome mommies!

3:51pm On the way home I pick up puppy from daycare (yes we send our dog to daycare whenever we can it results in one tired puppy and one happy mommy)

4:25 pm Change diaper, nurse, change diaper, nurse (this kid sure can eat!)

5:14pm Put in her bouncy seat and she actually stays calm! Manage to unload dishwasher & reload it, tidy up in kitchen for a bit!

5:35pm Her calmness doesn't last long so I stick her in the Ergo and bounce on the exercise ball until she falls asleep. With arms free I dump photos from the playdate and begin editing.

6:00pm Diaper change, & nurse.

6:15pm Hubby is home!!! Do a happy dance.

6:25pm Hubby changes a diaper (because let's face it he's been dying to all day) while I hang out at the computer then we switch off and I hold her and continue to edit photos while he makes dinner.

7:10pm I put her in the bouncy and she hangs out while we both attempt to scarf down our dinner...peace doesn't last long and he goes off to change her diaper again.

7:45pm I put her in the Ergo and bounce on the exercise ball until she is asleep! It is glorious! I finish editing all of the photos, catch up on emails and watch the cast of Glee perform on Oprah, cannot wait for that show to resume. Hubby finally has time to shower! He tell me he thinks he hasn't showered all week...umm good thing we're not in the same bed for now!

8:45pm I nurse her again and we all go to bed...until the cycle starts over in just a few short hours.

Goodnight moon!

Challah French Toast

How have I gone this long in life without trying this? Soooo good!

To make some at home (once Passover is over) take four large eggs, 1 cup of milk, dash of salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar, some vanilla extract and cinnamon (if you like that kind of thing)

Serve with powdered sugar, maple syrup or whatever else floats your French toast boat!

On my own

All of my helpers have officially left the premises as of Monday 3/21/10 4pm. (That's hubby the first two weeks, my mother in law week three and my mom week four)

Now it's just me, puppy, baby and the judgmental conga line in my head...

Status report day one- everyone has survived without any permanent damage, despite no internet, no TV and no electricity during lunch. Let's see how this brand new momma fares during the rest of the week.

Five things I thought before I became a parent

Before I became a parent I said some silly, silly things...here are some of them in no particular order:

On baby necessities-
Then: Who needs a glider rocker? I mean what a waste of money on a butt-ugly-doesn't match-anything-you-own piece of furniture.
Now: Dear, wonderful, (lent by my neighbor) rocker, I love you, please don't ever break, I don't know how I would nurse without you.

More on baby necessities..is it necessary to have all of these necessities?

Then: Diaper wipes warmer? I mean seriously? This baby is in need of her butt wiped by warm wipes instead of regular ones?
Now: Umm can we warm the changing pad we put her on? (Anything to stop the screaming.)

On balancing the needs of a dog and a baby-
Then: (commenting on suggestions on how to prepare your dog for the arrival of a new baby) Having a screaming toy baby to prepare your dog seems a little excessive, I'm sure our furry baby will adjust to a human baby just fine!
Now: Why is our dog hiding under the kitchen table refusing to come out? Why is our dog running into the walls on purpose? Uh-oh.

On parenting-
Then: All I'm going to do for the first six weeks is feed the baby booby, I'm sure my husband can do the rest.
Now: Cue obnoxious laugh track. Delusional mommy to be, what were you thinking?

On my appearance-
Then: I won't worry about losing the pregnancy weight until at least six weeks postpartum, I mean they don't even clear you for exercise until then right?
Now: Must break every mirror in house. Must not wear clothes...just get a muumuu for now and all will be fine.

Developmental milestones....

A: dude I'm three weeks old? Did you expect me to walk and talk by now?

Aliza is three weeks old now and there are no significant incidents to report...and no news is good news right? And while it would be nice if she would learn to change her own diaper (or at least stop screaming until she turns purple while we change it for her) overall life with a brand new baby is pretty swell. We did not put our baby "on a schedule" but she seems to have one of her own, at least for now. And I could report that she only wakes twice at night and lets us sleep for three or four hour stretches at a time but I don't want the other mothers to stone me. Other than that we poop and such, eat and such and fuss and such. She is super duper close to smiling at us, for now she smiles absentmindedly during feedings and sometimes right before she starts to wail! I can also report that she has more control over her eyes and responds to sounds as well, this is both good and bad news as every little noise can wake her up. My favorite newborn reflex is the "stick em up" hands that she exhibits every time she is startled, like a little bandit, pretty hilarious.

Cloth diaper report- we are using two dozen infant Chinese pre-folds (from Nicki's Diapers), five x-small Thirsties covers (three from Nickis and two bought in a panic when we realized three just wasn't enough from Sew Crafty Baby- an awesome mommy run store with free shipping!) We are washing them on a Whirlpool front loading HE machine and are using the "whitest white setting (which includes an extra rinse) with BioKleen detergent...everything is going pretty well in this department, once you get the hang of it cloth diapering is easy and baby seems pretty content, everyone should try it, it's not that hard!

Two Weeks Old

I still can't believe we made one of these littly itty bitty beings from scratch, from scratch people!

Aliza is two weeks old today and to celebrate we took some newborn photos of her with this talented lady, Eden Thome. Eden was so patient with us as the session took just a little longer than expected...okay so our booger cried for three hours before settling down enough to allow us to take photos of her and Eden just smiled through it all and reminded mommy to be patient.

The best part was that Eden was able to capture this smile from her, now to be fair she is not smiling consciously yet but still, how cool is that? Right before this photo was taken I asked my sweet little daughter to grace us with her first smile. Her response? A loud fart/poop! And about two seconds later this happy with herself little grin! Yup, nothing wrong with her sense of comedic timing.

How to make Gangsta rap child friendly

Our little bundle requires lots of entertaining input to maintain an appropriate happiness output, so I find myself singing to her a lot (and wishing I had taken those singing lessons when I had the time.) And while I can Doo-wop and I can Disney, I absolutely draw the line at Barney, which is what I almost caught myself singing to her the other day...you know the one "I love you, you love me"...ugh. I think our young one would benefit more from Mommy's old school Gangsta rap favorites than Barney! But making Tupac and Ice Cube child friendly can be a challenge. Here's my take on the chorus to Snoop Dogg's Gin and Juice:

"Rollin' down the street in my stroller

Sippin' on booby juice

Laid back, with my mind on my mommy and my mommy on mind"

What do you think? Would Barney rap that?