Lions and tigers and kitty cats

Since we don't let Bee watch TV or videos, occasionally we need some distraction during that witching hour between arriving home from work and eating dinner.  When all else fails, I have resorted to showing her photos of animals on the Internet. She picks the animal, I Google it for photographs.

My favorite one this evening: a male lion in full roar, jaws agape. I asked Bee, "What do you think that animal is doing?"  

She immediately said, "Laughing!"  

Muffling my own laughter, I answered, "After a fashion, Bee, yes he is. . .but it's more like he's roaring."

Home sick. Homesick.

Well my cold got the best of me and I decided not to be one of those people who show up at work saying, "Oh my gosh I am so sick!"  And then they proceed to infect everyone in the office.  (Thanks people.)  

I went back to bed after David left for work and slept until almost 11, which is quite a record for me.  I think it has been about three years since I have slept that late.  

I woke up and was doing a pretty good job hiding out in my room, but came out in search of food about 30 minutes too early.  Bee likes her babysitter but she loves me and it was "all Mama time" once she remembered that I was still at home and not at work. 

Putting her down for her nap was a nightmare.  I can put her down for a nap. The babysitter can put her down for a nap. However, evidently the combination of the two of us there was not working routine-wise.  Two hours later. . . 

Poor Bee. I think she is getting sick too. How can she not?  I have been washing my hands and trying not to kiss her but still, we're inevitably in close contact.  

So being at home and having a whole day, or most of a day, to myself sounds really nice in theory, and it was, but now I am wishing David home. It's too weird being here with the babysitter here. I am not a good patient. 

This morning, I was able to pull myself back into a deep sleep by concentrating very closely on my memory of the beach house that my parents have rented for us a couple times in the Outer Banks, NC.  It was a delicious daydream, thinking about the salty air, slightly worn beach house, and early sunrise runs on the beach with Max and Bee in her jogging stroller.  The wonderful feeling of being on vacation and being free to relax.  Going bargain hunting at the outlets with my Mom and my sister.  Eating fried seafood anything.  It's so nice to escape from the reality of being sick, Eastern Europe and the weekly grind, for a time.  

Slow

I am in my bathrobe and pajamas contemplating the big pile of dishes David has left me. He and Bee are off at church. I declined to join them. My cold has arrived and I am a bit under the weather, so to speak. 

Sleeping in this morning helped a little bit. So will the pot of ginger tea that is steeping right now.  

I still really want to go to Starbucks, my weekly indulgence, later this morning. We shall see if I feel up to it. We definitely have to go out to the market.  

My job while the family is at church is to plan the meals this week.  

Later today:  

--Laundry.

--Maybe a slow walk with Max in order to get some fresh air.

--Resting so I can go to work tomorrow.

 

How sweet it is. . .

I woke up at 2 AM this morning, thinking that it was 5 AM and time to get up and ready for our day trip (which was long, yet interesting and just a bit overwhelming).  The thing that I did notice at 2 AM was that my throat really hurt.  There has been a horrible cold virus going around my office and I fear that I may be the latest victim.  

I have been drinking hot tea and bread with honey and went to the pharmacist and got some strange medicinal cough drops.  There is no luxury in being sick once you're a parent, so I am doing everything in my power to not be sick, to just "say no" to virulent viruses.

David, the wonderful man that he is, not only drove me 7 hours round trip to a cheese festival today, he also made me butternut squash soup for dinner. From scratch.  With homemade vegetable stock.  And he cleaned up.  

It was so much work, and all because he wanted to make me feel better. The result was pure love in a bowl, garnished with warm chunks of squash, onion and rice.  How sweet it is to be loved by him.

Cheese festival

Just a short post because I have a long list of things to do tonight before I try to go to bed early. We are leaving the city at 7 am tomorrow (the only way to beat the traffic) to drive into the mountains for a shepherd's festival. This is the time of year when the shepherds bring their sheep down from their high mountain pastures and celebrate the end of summer. There will be local cheese and plum brandy, as well as a competition for the most beautiful livestock. It will be a nice break from city life, and Bee is very excited to go see the animals.  

The longest month

This week. This month.  They both seem to be moving by at a snail's pace.  David and I have had, between the two of us, an after work event every night this week.  We have been alternating coming home and taking care of Bee. 

 The reception I went to fortunately ended just after 6 pm so I am home early-ish, and off to go have some family time before we both crash for the night.

Craving

I could never grow tired of ice cream.  

My favorite is mint chocolate chip, the bright green kind, mind you, covered, and I mean covered with rainbow sprinkles.  (I used to call them jimmies but most people north of the Mason-Dixon line have no idea what that means, so, sprinkles it is.) For the perfect ice cream archetype, mint chocolate chip ice cream-sprinkles combination should be precariously firmly stacked on top of a sugar cone (the brittle pseudo waffle cones with the sharp point at the bottom).  

In Europe, mint chocolate chip ice cream is a weak imitation of the American kind. The chips are slivers, the ice cream is a pale mint color as opposed to bright green dye. It's disappointing so I usually order something else.  However, you know what Europe has that America does not? Gelato!  Think ice cream that doesn't melt as quickly with a more intense flavor.  Hazelnut gelato is nothing short of a revelation.

In Germany, where my sister lives, everything is expensive with the exception of the lowly ice cream cone.  One scoop still only costs one Euro.  David and I visited her in May. The last morning of our vacation I spent a perfect thirty minutes sitting in the sunny town square, eating a chocolate ice cream cone and reading American Vogue, while Bee napped in her stroller.  That was heaven.  

Tonight I had vanilla frozen yogurt topped with a few pieces of extra dark (85%) chocolate.  My plan was to melt the chocolate and pour it over the yogurt, but the chocolate was too dark to melt. So, I broke it into pieces and enjoyed it as a topping.  Ice cream is one treat I could never give up.

Like a child without her favorite stuffed animal

Well, posting will be light for a while while I mourn the apparent loss of my once perky laptop computer.  We are trying to erase the disc and rewrite the hard drive but unfortunately, it seems like it's dead forever.  

Taking back my house

I am sitting in the living room, enjoying a few minutes to myself during our busy Sunday.  Max is curled up on the rug in a patch of sunlight, fast asleep, looking very angelic.  Bee just went down for her nap and David is lying down for a few minutes.  

I am listening to the hum of the refrigerator (it's actually making a bit of a wheezing noise which makes me fear that it too is going to need to be replaced), the whir of the washing machine, and the whoosh of cars going down the street.  The construction workers across the street are, thankfully, not working today.

On my list for this afternoon:

--Dusting, vacuuming, and laundry

--Putting flannel sheets on our bed (the temperatures are definitely down in the 40s at night)

--Finding our Halloween decorations

--Putting together Bee's "Autumn shelf" in her play kitchen

--Sorting through Bee's clothing and pulling out pieces she has outgrown

--Making the meal plan for the week (I bought lots of vegetables at the market, now I need to decide what to do with them)

--Going for a family run

--Talking to my parents on iChat

The menu tonight

Appetizers:  

Bruschetta with tomato, roasted garlic, parmesan, and a drizzle of olive oil

Antipasto: green olives, sun dried tomatoes, and pickled red peppers 

(Bee loved the bruschetta and green olives.)

Dinner:

Salad with sun-dried tomato dressing

Vegetarian pizza

White pizza with spinach

Dessert:

Betty Crocker's one spoon chocolate cake

(We have been making this for company a lot recently, as it is very tasty. You can prepare it in 10 minutes and then it only bakes for a half an hour.)

Verdict:  everything was very good, but pizza from scratch for a crowd is really too much effort

After hours

While I do not like cleaning up after a big dinner party (today I think we managed to use every dish in our kitchen) I do enjoy the time spent cleaning with my husband--chatting in the kitchen about how the evening went, exchanging small bits of news and gossip, and enjoying one last glass of wine (him) or cup of decaf tea (me).  

Sharing the chore together makes it less miserable, and as parents usually home with our toddler daughter, it's almost like a mini date (almost, but not quite--the whole counter wiping thing really isn't very romantic).

Highlight of my day

Usually my work colleagues will speak English with me, even though I speak their foreign language fairly well. But this afternoon, I was the only American in the room and after a few minutes, they dropped English.  We were laughing and joking when I realized that I was following along with no problem, laughing with the rest of them, and speaking their language without hesitating over potential grammar mistakes.  After months of studying until my eyes hurt, stressing over the genitive and dative cases, and worrying about learning every cultural nuance and reference, it finally clicked--if only for a few brief minutes.  

Cooking essentials

David and I collect kitchen gadgets, the more ridiculous and useless, the better. I read every Williams Sonoma catalog from cover to covert.  I could spend hours browsing at Sur La Table. I love cookbooks, cooking magazines, baking blogs, and anything to do with fresh, seasonal ingredients.  Cooking is not only a hobby, it is also a nexus of family bonding, and a means for entertaining friends.

One of the most used items in our kitchen is our set of Le Creuset silicone prep bowls.  We use them for measuring ingredients, during meal preparation, and as snack bowls for Bee.  They are easy to clean and a their bright colors are a cheerful addition to my kitchen.  

Almost every night, I fill the largest bowl (1 cup measure) with frozen yogurt or vanilla ice cream for dessert. It provides perfect portion control, which means I can load up the ice cream with extra toppings!

Essentials

This will be brief as my computer is undergoing a heart transplant right now. My new auxiliary hard drive finally works with the double USB cords (it didn't draw enough power to run it off my laptop before).  I am making a backup copy of my computer and then will be moving a ton of video off, so that I can free up enough space to hopefully make it run normally again. 

It has been raining almost all day and as I was splashing to the market after work this evening I was thanking my lucky stars that I had worn my Dansko clogs.  They are truly a case of "function over form", but despite their less than aesthetic appearance, Dansko has made the perfect shoe for wading across flooded sidewalks and over rain-filled potholes. Plus, I can walk really, really fast in them. I got my loaf of bread home before it became soggy.  

At home, we all ate chicken (hear that, Mom, we ate meat!) soup that our babysitter prepared for us.  It was an easy dinner, and now there is nothing left to do tonight but hope my computer gains new life and fall asleep listening to the rain.

Thunderstruck

Last night, David and I were about to fall asleep when we were both scared witless by a monstrous crack of thunder.  Just one. I don't know why.  It had been raining on and off all day, this wasn't a thunderstorm's rumbling approach. One lonely thunderhead must have been floating by and encountered some extreme shift in the atmosphere.  It sounded as though a portion of the sky had exploded.  

"BOOM!"  David and I both lay motionless, shocked, silent.  Then I said, "Bee is totally going to wake up." David agreed. Sure enough, a few seconds later I heard her pitiful cry of, "Mommeeeeeee."  

I ran to her room and scooped a very shaken Bee into my arms.  She lay with me on the couch for some time, shocked awake. I whispered reassurances. I could feel her eyelashes fluttering on my face as she lay there silently, blinking into the darkness, trying to comprehend what had occurred.  She didn't want to go back to sleep, and I don't blame her. Finally David had to come in and help put her back to bed.  

How do you explain thunder to a small child? You can't.  You can just say, "It was a big noise, but it's gone now, honey."  You can try to protect your child from many scary realities, but thunderstorms are, unfortunately, unavoidable.  

Into Great Silence

I am not a movie person, for the most part. I like big, fat, adventure-filled novels.  I can count on two hands the number of movies I have seen in my life that really moved my spirit.  

David and I just finished watching "Into Great Silence," a nearly three hour documentary about the Grande Chartreuse Cistercian monastery--a hermit-like monastic order of the strictest observance.  

The monks pray the liturgy of the hours, including a three hour middle of the night prayer session, which takes place every night, complete basic chores, and study in their cells.  Every movement, every chore, everything they do gives glory to God; their very lives become an act of ceaseless prayer.  They are silent and separate, except when joined in prayer as a community, at the once weekly communal meal, and once weekly walking excursion outdoors.

We watched the movie on three separate nights. Every scene was beautiful and made me want to do more to strengthen my own prayer life. I highly recommend it.  

Food weekend

I am having a few minutes by myself in the apartment. Max and I just got back from a family run. David and Bee (in her jogging stroller) are going one extra "fast" lap.  Max is the slowest runner in the family.  He likes to be pulled along by his leash like a fat toy boat.  

The apartment is sparkling and still after my nearly 2 hours of clean-up from this morning's Sunday brunch for eight.  

On the menu:

Baked egg casserole with vegetables

Skillet hash browns

Dimply plum cake (it looked beautiful but I think the cake part was a bit dry; recipe found here)

Pumpkin donuts (the recipe was from this month's Cuisine At Home; we were deep fried donut virgins until this morning and they were a revelation)

Blueberry muffins

Bread and cheese board (including a delicious rustic Camembert) 

Our friend Ana (one of Bee's favorite people) brought tomatoes stuffed with eggplant as well as a tray of sweets from a local bakery

There was plenty of food, to say the least!

Preschool at home

Bee is getting to be of the age where she has the interest, and the attention span, for simple projects and learning.  

I have never been the kind of parent who is interested in Baby Einstein DVDs or Leap Pad pre-computer technology.  For one thing, I generally don't buy anything made in China, and for another thing, they feel like a parenting cop-out.  

On the other hand, I don't sit Bee down to make her practice words or counting or review alphabet flash cards either. Her learning is entirely existential.  We count to ten as we walk up the stairs, notice the colors of her Playdoh, and discuss the different shapes in her beloved "trucks" book (yep, Bee has a tomboy streak, she loves to play Legos and trains with her daddy).  In the kitchen, she has a particular talent for stirring muffin batter and crumbling goat cheese (not at the same time, though).

Bee is fascinated by nature.  She and her babysitter go to the park every day and they usually bring something home with them.  The windowsill in her play area is covered with bags of acorns, assorted smooth stones, and a few colorful leaves.  My idea is to create a nature corner or shelf, where I could display her treasure along with a few seasonal books.  I wish, so much, that we had a local library full of books on pumpkins and autumn and craft ideas.  It is so much easier at home.  There is a saying here, "he who never tries, never succeeds," so I think that I will start small, and see whether it catches Bee's interest.

It's in the air

We came back from walking Max this evening, opened our front door and walked into a solid wall of smell.  Our neighbors must have been frying fish and it seeped up into our apartment.  

I opened all the windows and patio doors and have been enjoying the cooler weather. It has started to rain outside, a tentative drizzle after over a month of mostly drought. The cooler air and first autumn leaves are signs that fall is around the corner.  

Bee needs a new winter coat this year and I found the perfect one at Lands End. I have ordered her winter gear there every year. They actually make warm clothing for cold weather, as opposed to some designer jacket with a thin, merely decorative, fleece lining. 

Our Bee spent her earliest months in a Latvian winter. Her nanny took her out walking, every day, for at least two hours, regardless of the weather.  We drew the line at going out when the temperature was below 20 degrees F. Last winter, her daycare class played outside every day. Kids cannot hole up indoors all winter.  The wilds of Eastern Europe are no different.  We are out walking rain, snow, or shine.  I like the purple jacket here, especially for its versatility.

Greek Smurfs

Well, I thought about it and I am not going to write about how I wiped out on the metro platform during rush hour this morning running to catch my train and injured both knees because it is just too depressing.

There was, however, a bright spot in my day.  David is going to get to go to a conference in Athens just after Columbus Day weekend. It's conveniently after the long holiday weekend which means Bee and I will fly out with him on Friday night and come back to the Wilds of Eastern Europe on Monday--by ourselves.  Mama and Baby time here we come! We will listen to Disney princess music constantly, bake cookies, and play with makeup.  Icky girl stuff.

David found out this morning that he had the chance to go, like magic, his boss said "yes you should go" and then his boss's boss approved the idea. We reserved tickets and I found a hotel for us to stay in . . . 

This is what I end up picking when I have had a week like the one that I have: Baby Grand Hotel Athens.  It's trying so hard to be cool it's just funny. Evidently one of the rooms has a Smurf theme.  Bee would go crazy for that.  I think David's hoping for the Spiderman suite. I will definitely take lots of pictures.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Just when life starts to seem neat and routine--disaster reaches out and slugs you in the gut.

I should not have household help.  It is a privilege I do not deserve. However, here in Eastern Europe, it is a bit more affordable than in the US.  

Unfortunately, Bee's babysitter and our housekeeper have managed to create so many conflicts with each other that they can no longer work together.  Our housekeeper has acted very unprofessional.  We are going to have to fire her and there is nothing more unpleasant.  

Bee's babysitter is not the innocent victim in this, though.  She has fueled their problems.  This fact makes me very torn about firing the housekeeper.  The babysitter seems to be doing a good job taking care of Bee. You know, though, I am not there all day with her so who knows what she's doing? What if she watches TV all day and ignores my precious daughter? What if she doesn't watch her closely enough while they are at the park? What if she yells at Bee? What if? What if? What if?

I cannot answer these questions. I have to trust that she is taking care of my daughter.  All evidence points to the babysitter as being caring and involved. Bee is happy to see her come every day. They go to the park and make little art projects together.  But I cannot know, I can only have faith and that faith is not easily given when it comes to Bee. 

It is impossible to know a mother's love until you have become one. Right now, all of me wants to just stay home and be Bee's mommy.  I can take care of her the best. No babysitters. No housekeepers.  Nobody else but me and David and my baby.  

All the things she said

I still cannot get over the fact that my little Bee talks.  She uses adjectives and action verbs and pronouns and she's not even two yet!  (I cannot help the exclamation point. I am a proud mama.)

After so many long months of baby gurgles, crying, and sober silence, my daughter has become a chatterbox.  Whereas previously I had to guess and infer, now she can let me know what's on her mind (sometimes a little too accurately). 

Bee has this annoying tendency to wake up about ten minutes before our alarm and start calling Mommeeee at increasing volume and pitch until I go rescue her from her crib.  Sure enough, at 5:20 this morning she was up and ready to go. I tossed her into my bed and said, "Wake up Daddy."  She climbed all over him saying, "Hey Daddy, hey.  Morning!"  

I crawled back into my side of the bed, clinging to the covers, hoping for a few more minutes of sleep. It was not to be. Bee scooted over to my side and asked me very seriously, "Mommy? Friday? Friday?"  "No Baby, it's Tuesday, Friday's not for a couple more days," I said.  

Her question really hit me in the gut. I realized that she's hoping for Friday because she knows its the start of the weekend and David and I are home.  A tidal wave of working-mommy guilt followed.  But more than the guilt I was amazed at the question.  That she knew to ask.  She has a dozen little questions or statements just like that every day. Right now, watching Bee acquire language is the coolest thing about being a parent.

Broken

My mother has always claimed that everything around the house always breaks at the same time. When I was younger and didn't have my own household I tended to disbelieve this statement.  "It's just bad luck," I would say.  Bad luck, curse of the broken appliances, whatever it may be, everything is falling apart around here.

First, my computer hard drive filled up.  My once perky laptop is wheezing like a sick old man. This is not good because we are definitely not getting new computers this year.  I ordered an external hard drive for some extra storage. It arrived today, but unfortunately my laptop does not provide enough power through the USB cord to make it go.  The helpful Indian customer service representative is sending us a cord that plugs into two USB outlets for an added power boost. Hopefully that will help. 

Next, the washing machine stopped spinning, leaving me with soapy sodden clothing.  My current solution, until we can have a maintenance person look at it, is to not wash anything and ignore the growing laundry pile.

Then, I came home tonight and discovered that Max had scalped Bee's rag doll, the one I bought for her in Latvia. Her yellow yarn hair appears to have been ripped off in one enthusiastic bite, leaving her completely bald.  Fortunately, she was not decapitated.  David called the doll a cancer patient so many times I was about to smack him, all the while reassuring my very concerned daughter that we will find a way to fix her dolly's baldness.  Next project for me: learn how to sew on yarn hair.   Baiba, that's the doll's name, is wearing a headscarf in the meantime and looks very despondent.

The good parts of my day:  eating really good soup by candlelight and making a blueberry cake with the last of the blueberries.  David called it a giant blueberry muffin cake, and I can see his point, but the cake was more work than muffins so I would prefer a little more credit than that.

I am cutting my losses and going to bed.  Hopefully nothing will go bust in the night.

Vegetable stock

The apartment has been filled with delicious smells all weekend. 

Last night, after Bee went to bed, David made peach-blueberry buckle. It's kind of like a cobbler, but with a firmer topping, similar to a pie crust.  (I hate to admit it, because I like to think that baking is purely my domain, but David's actually quite a good baker, taking after his father in this regard.)

Every time we buy peaches they seem to encounter some kind of misadventure on the way home, which requires us to cook them immediately.  They have been squashed in the basket (peach cobbler), the vendor cheated us with overripe ones (peach cake), and then yesterday, the bag we were carrying them in broke open while we were still shopping. The peaches were rolling all over the place, and we scrambled to find them.

We bought a couple pounds of blueberries at the market as well, so I searched for a dessert that would incorporate both.  Finally, around 10 pm, the buckle finished baking; we dished it out hot with vanilla ice cream.  Words cannot describe its juicy, purple-stained perfection.  

But really, I didn't want to talk about desserts, but rather vegetables.  Right now my vegetable stock just finished boiling.  In the United States, at Safeway (the one that also serves Starbucks inside and has a great bakery next door that sells triple chocolate scones--that heavenly depository of all that is convenient and wonderful) sells low sodium organic vegetable broth. No need to add water, just flip the top, pour it into a pot, and you are ready to start making soup. I would order cases of the broth if I could have it shipped here, which I can't, because it makes soup a very viable weeknight dinner option.  

Now that it is September, and fall is coming (never mind that it is still 85 degrees outside) I wanted to make my favorite corn and vegetable soup with fat dumplings.  On Monday.  This is going to be possible because I am making my own stock today.  It's currently simmering on the stove.  Vegetable stock is easy, and not even very time consuming to prepare, it just needs to simmer on the stove for an hour.  But this way, tomorrow night I will be eating my soup and dumplings before 10 pm.

I had to substitute a few vegetables in the stock recipe--leeks for green onions and celeriac and parsnip root for celery, but I think the flavor should be similar.  Now that the stock is in the pot there is nothing left to do except keep an eye on it, stir occasionally, and avoid cleaning up the disaster that Bee created in the living room before heading off to her nap.  

On the weekends, David and I cook constantly.  With a toddler, we try to sneak in a little food prep here and there throughout the day, as to make the actual meal preparation a little less arduous.  That's why, when David wakes up from his nap  (the man loves his sleep) he is going to be caramelizing a whole lotta onions for me for our pizza tonight.

I never thought I would have to say:

"Bee, please do not lick your sandals." 

Abundance

Our local farmer's market shopping list from this morning.  Almost everything is from farms in the countryside, within 100 miles:

Vegetables

Hot peppers

Red peppers

Parsley root

Celeriac

Carrots

Red peppers

Potatoes

Onions

Mushrooms*

Butternut squash

Squash

Tomatoes

Basil 

Parsley

Horseradish root (no idea what I will do with this, but I have never seen it sold fresh so I bought one)

Fruit

Blueberries (probably the last week for them)

Apples* (brought in from Italy)

Peaches (the very, very last from in-country)

Grapes (the harvest is in full swing)

Kiwi* (from somewhere far, far away)

*not local

I've posted our meal list on a sidebar, so you can see what we plan to cook.  All the root vegetables are for vegetable stock because I want to make my first fall soup this week.  (Never mind that it's still over 80 degrees outside.)

Buying local

David's cousin sent me a bunch of pictures from their visit to the Wilds of Eastern Europe. Included were two pictures of me doing some local shopping.

I love roadside stands. I love to see what people out in the countryside are selling and making. On our way back into the city, we stopped at this roadside stand to buy the local honey. The woman had numerous flavors, and offered samples and explanations,  "This honey is collected by bees with the first spring flowers." I tasted it, and it was the lightest, sweetest honey. It tasted like sunshine. There was one group of jars with honey that was much darker than the other. The seller explained, "This honey was harvested in a stand of fir trees." It had a very rich taste, with undertones of pine sap.  The flavor still haunts me. I wish I had bought it, but at the time I thought it would be too strong for David and Bee.  The honey I chose was mint honey.  It is a dark honey, with the scent and taste of mint. For most of my life, honey was something that came in a plastic bear shaped bottle and tasted like nothing special.

In the foreground of the picture you can see stacks of local cheese. I bought one while in countryside this weekend and it is also delicious.  The bottles on the lowest shelf of the stand are fruit syrup.  We bought a bottle of raspberry syrup and you can add it to coffee or pour it over ice cream.  

The second picture is much more banal, me getting ripped off by a little old lady selling flowers. I am a sucker for little old ladies selling things. I hate to haggle, and I'm not very good at it, so they are always happy to have me as a customer!  

Etsy bitsy time waster

I found out about Etsy.com just recently and boy it is the ultimate Internet time sucker. I could spend all day there just browsing.  

Etsy is like a giant online craft store, with people selling all manner of handmade items--including very cute children's clothing, accessories, and costumes.  

I just bought Abby a birthday crown and a reversible jumper. Most people are happy to do custom orders and it's interesting to correspond with the different sellers about what you are specifically looking for.  

Singing the bedtime blues

I really wanted to write about my new banana yellow dress that garnered me compliments today and had me bouncing around the office. 

Unfortunately, I can't write about my dress because my little banshee in the next bedroom has just finished screaming at me for the past 30 minutes.  I am emotionally exhausted.

I know why she is so angry.  This weekend when we were on our vacation we stayed in a hotel that didn't have cribs. It did, however, have a giant king sized bed that Bee slept in with us.  She is a big fan of sleeping next to her Mommy.   

Despite all my other attachment-parenting tendencies, we really never practiced co-sleeping. When Bee was a baby, we were staying with my parents and sleeping in a double bed that had no room for a fragile infant.  Additionally, I liked the privacy of having Bee sleeping in another room.  It was nice to have some privacy, a few hours of relief from parenting. 

Despite my best intentions, there were plenty of nights that I fell asleep while nursing her and she managed to spend most of the night in our bed.  It was a really tough habit to break.  By 18 months, we finally convinced Bee to sleep in her bed, alone: All. Night. Long.  (Those are three magical words that, for a time, I never thought I would say again.) 

I can't say that I dislike sleeping with my little Bean curled up against me, with her soft dreaming face and fat little arms.  There is something animalistic about sleeping with your child, fulfilling a primeval need for warmth and comfort.  

However, Bee has returned home to the hard cold realities of the single life in her crib.  I am lucky to have such a vocal and persistent child, one who is very clear about what she wants and does not want.  It's just the way she expresses these wants (screaming "Mommy" and heart-rending sobbing) that leaves a bit to be desired.   

We have been comforting her and trying to be positive these past few nights at home. I am exhausted.  Unfortunately, I think it'll take a few more nights for her to get back into her sleeping routine.  

First day of school

All day long I have been expecting something, not sure what, but it's the first day of school, and even though I am grown up, part of me still yearns for an organized backpack and blank notebooks.  

Growing up, shopping for school supplies was a yearly ritual.  In elementary school it was for a new pencil box, pink erasers, composition notebooks, and number #2 pencils. (Who bought the #1s and #3s? Do they really even exist?)  

Every elementary school classroom was equipped with a pencil sharpener that sprayed woody shavings everywhere. Each year, on the first day, all the students would take their brand new, yet unchewed yellow pencils and grind them to perfect points.  Over time, their nibs would get soft from writing and be snapped off in frustration. As the weeks of school went by, filled with cupcakes, gluey art classes and Halloween parades, those pencils would grow shorter and shorter, until you could hide them in a clenched fist.

In middle school, I graduated to mechanical pencils which made a decisive "click click" when you pressed the eraser for more lead.  They were black plastic with neon pocket clips.  The extra lead came in a clear plastic case that was deliciously small and efficient.  Eventually, I switched to writing in pen, preferring a bold blue Bic, pressing so hard on my paper you could feel the letters come through on the back side like braille.

I first started collecting pens in high school. I liked garish ones with sparkles, plumes, and lights. At university the obsession continued and I managed to buy every color of Jelly Roll on the market.  I remember trying to re-read my class notes but couldn't because the runny pink ink and my cursive writing changed words into something that looked like a lie detector test. I still have these pens in my desk, lying in wait for some spectacular rainbow-colored project--some day-when I have time- perhaps in retirement I will make sparkly cards for my grandchildren. . .

Computers, and their progression into modernity, hold no such nostalgia for me. My family had an Apple and then another and then something else. I had a Dell in college and then a overheated Compaq laptop.  I have no love for them. I do not long for their antiquated screens and myriad viruses.

Despite my waxing poetic, as a child I was never ready to go back to school. The preparations for the first day were exciting, but I dreaded the end of summer vacation.  Looking back now, I only wish that my life could be so simple. 

Back in the city:

I am clinging to the last hours of my long weekend/mini vacation like a child unwilling to let go of a favorite toy.  There is nothing so terrible waiting for me in the office tomorrow.  It's just that it was so wonderful to go away on a short trip with David and Bee.  

We drove into the heart of the country and stayed in an ancient fortified town, founded by Germans.  Our hotel was right in the heart of the old city. We ate pizza and had too much gelato and basked in the early morning sunshine and watched Bee chase pigeons.  It was so much better spending time as a family than working in the office. 

I know this for sure-- I work so I can live. I will never live so I can work.