Cornucopia

Autumn has arrived and we have been doing fall-ish activities like baking a pumpkin and making leaf rubbings. It all sounds very idyllic unless you know that I have been knocked out--flat on my back--sick as a dog for the past two days.

My third trimester of pregnancy arrived with a particular vengeance: Thursday night stomach flu. There is nothing quite like lying on the bathroom floor, puking your guts out and worrying about going into preterm labor at the same time. But fortunately, I didn't and am finally feeling better today, which means only mildly nauseous. But really, it's not a good idea to get the stomach flu and lose 6 pounds in 12 hours when you are a hungry pregnant mother. I feel sick, yet am starving. Not an enjoyable contrast.

But the weekend must be saved. Before I go back into the malestrom of my workweek, Bee and I have been trying to do some quiet autumn activities together. Last night, I swapped out the books in her reading corner for autumn and bear themed stories. She was very excited this morning to discover a whole new array of reading material and was content occupied the whole time my dear husband was making French toast. And since he was making an entire loaf of bread (not sure why he made so much for just him and Bee, as I had regular toast) it took quite a while.

After breakfast, Bee and I checked on the leaves that we had collected last week. I had pressed them under some heavy books last weekend because we planned on making leaf rubbings. This project stems (excuse my pun) from a horrible little book called "Leaves, Leaves, Leaves!" that I ordered through Amazon.com.

I like ordering children's books from Amazon, because you can generally preview the first couple pages and make sure that the text is not insipid. For this one however, I was lured in by the "buy four paperbacks, get one free" promotion and added it to my cart on a whim. The cover seemed cute. All about leaves. What I didn't know is that is nearly 50 pages of the scientific life cycle of a leaf told out through a conversation between a mother bear and baby bear. As in the baby bear asks, "What's chlorophyll Mommy?" And then the Mommy bear makes a scientific chart to explain.

Anyway, we read it once and I was sure that would be the end of it, as it was so boring, but to my complete dismay, it's Bee's new favorite book. Evidently she is a budding (oh the puns) scientist. We have read it as her bedtime story for 7 out of the past 10 nights. But anyway, the bears collect leaves in the book and so that's what Bee and I did last week. Now pressed and dried, we spent the morning making leaf rubbings. Or I should say I rubbed, and Bee decorated. They look cute.

So this afternoon, after Bee naps (or does not nap but hides out in her room rearranging the furniture) we will make pumpkin bread. I had a particular craving for pumpkin bread about three weeks ago, and checked my cupboard to discover I had no canned pumpkin left. So I begged my mother to send me some. She did (as she has been wonderful about mailing me every strange pregnancy craving I have had this year, just ask her about the canned clams). And as she emphasized, it wasn't ordinary canned pumpkin, but Trader Joe's organic canned pumpkin.

However, while the canned pumpkin was winging its way from America to Romania, we discovered that fresh pumpkins had arrived in the market. We couldn't resist, as we found a glorious light orange ten pounder--these are not your American jack-o-lanterns but hearty "feed a family of ten" Romanian pumpkins. I baked it (in halves, cut side down, with an inch of water in a pan, at 350 degrees) for about two hours and now have many heaping cups of sunshine colored pumpkin puree. Between my cupboard and my freezer, I now have enough pumpkin for as many pies, doughnuts, breads, and muffins as my heart desires. And since I am pregnant, that is many. At least when I don't have the stomach flu.