Points for creativity

I was changing Cheeks McGoo's diaper last night around 1 am. In my sleep addled state I could not figure out why, if I had just changed her diaper, she was still writhing on the changing table and screeching. I fumbled around in the dark for quite some time and finally realized that I had put the clean diaper on top of the dirty one!

God bless all the sleep deprived parents everywhere.

A Universal Truth:

Eating lots of food at a pot luck luncheon is certain to end badly.

I don't know whether it was just too much randomness (brownie and mini meatballs sharing the same plate!) or the fact that the food was sitting out in the hot, hot, sun (baby shrimp in that pasta salad!) or just general overindulgence (Cheeks slept the whole time freeing up my hands) but whatever it was, I feel gross.

My upset stomach might also have something to do with the fact that the packers are coming to our apartment tomorrow to put all my worldly possessions in boxes and put them on a boat to America.

It also might be the fact that my dear husband will be supervising these movers alone while I embark on a monumental hopefully never to be repeated day long journey with both my girls back home. Unassisted. This is high level parenting, people.

Home. With a capital H. I cannot wait. (Although it won't really be Home until my husband gets there too.)

You can't go home again

If you're me--you can't go home for another WEEK. (My flight tomorrow from Bucharest was canceled and that was the soonest date available..)

I will be flying steerage IN A WEEK with an awful layover in Frankfurt. Oh. What. Fun.

(I won't even go into detail about my husband's experience with United airline's telephone agents. It might better be called customer disservice.)

I am going to try not to complain, though. I am thankful I have a home to stay in; there are so many people stuck in hotels and sleeping on the floors of airports.

The sun here is shining, the weather is beautiful, and I think Bee and Cheeks and I will spend the afternoon enjoying the park.

Postscript -- Now we are going on Monday, through Munich My dear husband consulted with our local travel agent and bravely called United airlines again. Monday is better than Wednesday, at least!

Backwards

So if anyone else needs an excuse, I have officially declared today backwards day:

It is raining and gray outside and I have been stuck in the house with the girls. In between diaper changes for Cheeks and playing "Romanian princess" with Bee I have been reading endless news articles about what the volcano in Iceland may or may not be doing, and which planes may or may not be flying.

I still have no idea if I should be packing to leave on Thursday. Should I prepare myself to say goodbye to my life for the past two years (and my husband for a month) or should I prepare for another evening watching Netflix on my computer? Who knows!

By 3 pm I had had enough. I shut off my computer and spent the afternoon making kitchen volcanoes with Bee. (Gotta love good old fashioned baking soda and vinegar.) Then we had an indoor picnic with imaginary tea and plenty of real tea biscuits.

Now my husband is home and is supervising while Bee goes swimming in the bathtub. We are wearing our pajamas and making pancakes and eggs for dinner tonight. Breakfast for dinner. And tonight I am going to read a favorite novel and drink a nice glass of port wine. No more thinking about airplanes.

Stuck stuck stuck like a duck in the muck

So my bags are packed, I have said my goodbyes, Bee is prepped for her airplane adventure, and, well, a volcano erupted in Iceland and there are literally no flights going anywhere in Europe because of a slow moving cloud of dangerous ash.

It's annoying: The governments of almost every country in Europe are closing their airports and airspace in 12 hour increments. Right before they are set to reopen, they call up the weather service for confirmation that "yep, the dangerous invisible ash cloud is still there" and then they close for another 12 hours. They don't know what to do. I guess there is nothing else they can do.

Airlines in the United States have canceled nearly all of their transatlantic flights. They are not coping well with this disaster either--but I wouldn't expect anything else from them. United Airlines finally officially canceled my flight Sunday afternoon. We called to rebook. Unknown to us, we were accidentally routed to domestic bookings. We spent about 20 minutes on hold before a surly representative transferred us to the international department where we spent two hours on hold before Skype disconnected our call. Whoops. We called every European reservations line for United Airlines with no success. We couldn't reach anyone, not even in Finland. We called back to the US and heard the following, "Your estimated wait time to speak with a customer service representative is 180 minutes."

*&*#%!*&#!!!

Then we were disconnected again.

However, on our third try with US reservations, a small miracle occurred--we were immediately connected to an agent who was able to change our flight. And she was nice. But we were exhausted and overwrought from an afternoon spent on the phone. My flight home today was moved to Thursday.

I really hope that something will be figured out by Thursday. Most countries in the region are facing a near-revolt from their airlines. Lufthansa has been angrily repositioning its planes around Germany. KLM and Air France have sent up test flights. These have all returned safely. This would point to the Europeans perhaps being a bit overcautious, but, at the same time, safety is paramount.

The second time around

Babycakes, aka "Cheeks McGee", turns four months old today. I have been thinking about how much my life has changed (again) in these few short months. Take two in parenting an infant:

It'll be okay. Miss Bee is my daily confirmation that babies will eventually sleep, eat, and use the bathroom on my own. I spent far too much of Miss Bee's babyhood worrying about her milestones, whether she was eating too much or too little, and whether I shouldn't really be doing x or y. I consulted baby books and internet websites. I charted her growth. If she was asleep, I was concerned about when she would wake up. If she was awake, I was worrying about when she would go to sleep again so I could have some time to myself. All that worry was a massive waste of energy. I probably could have powered the international space station with the combined force of my fears.

Nowadays, I don't have time to worry about anything other than the prospect of major calamity. Taking care of multiple small children is a lot like running across a wobbly bridge suspended over a shark tank. You know you're going to fall in, no doubt about it, you just hope that when you do, the sharks don't eat you. In a way, embracing failure is a heck of a lot more relaxing than striving for perfection.

All babies are different. This seems very obvious, but it has come as a surprise to me just how different Cheeks is from her big sister. Unlike Bee, I can put her down for a nap when she is tired, yet still awake. I put her down in her crib, she makes a little face, and she goes to sleep. I don't need to wait for all out REMs. It has taken me the first three and a half months of her life to actually figure this out, but ever since I have, it has made nap time and bedtime so gloriously efficient. On the first go round, we spent the first year of Bee's life holding her until she fell asleep and then carrying her like a stick of dynamite to her crib. But that's just the way Bee was. It was the only way to get her to sleep. (And breaking her of this habit was not very fun.) It's amazing how at such a young age, my daughters can already be so different from each other.

My stomach will never be the same. Oh vanity! I am beginning to wonder when the "baby weight" can no longer be attributed to pregnancy and is just extra weight. (Not yet, please!) Before traveling back to Romania I saw my doctor and was bemoaning the fact that nothing fit because I still had ten plus pounds left to lose. She merrily informed me that losing weight after the second pregnancy takes forever and that it's just nearly impossible. Well thanks. So far my strategy has been to go running, come home, look at my marshmallow shaped stomach, and eat chocolate in despair. This is only marginally effective; I'll let you know if I come up with anything better.

Bedtime is sacrosanct. The one thing that we really got right with Bee and are continuing with Cheeks is the concept of bedtime. As in, little people must go to bed before 8 pm so that my husband and I can have some time to ourselves. This is impossible, of course, with a newborn but lately Cheeks has started going to bed around the same time as her sister, and we are hoping to continue that routine. Time alone. Two of my favorite words in the English language. It's not selfish to want to be away from your kids for a little while each day. In fact, I think it has made me a better parent as a result. (It is tragic that our routines will be thrown into complete disarray when we travel back to the US next week and all have jet lag. A three year old, a four month old, jet lag, and me--I have no words to describe how this fills me with dread!)

So here's to the first four months of parenting two daughters. I have been so lucky to have this time at home. In short, they have been the best four months of my life.

Leavin'

Oh what a difference a day makes. Yesterday at this time, I was tapping my fingers impatiently, waiting for my dear husband to call me back and tell me if he was able to rebook our flights back to the US. I am traveling alone with Babycakes and Miss Bee and had hoped to use my meager frequent flyer miles to upgrade our (full fare economy) tickets to business class.

Customer service call centers love my husband and they will go out of their way to help him, so charming is he. If I call, I inevitably get the most surly representative available, so he is the family's point man for ordering things, making reservations, and solving any other problems that require use of the telephone.

In the past few years, flying international economy on United Airlines has become little more than punishment. There is the horrible food, unfriendly service, and a long roster additional fees. As they have expanded their "Economy Plus" section, they have reduced legroom in steerage to mere inches. God forbid if the person if front of you reclines his seat! The last time I flew, I felt like an overcooked waffle inside of a smelly foam waffle iron.

With regard to business class-- I don't really care much for the free champagne, or the airline's attempt at gourmet meals, or marginally nicer flight attendants. It's not about the cachet. What I want out of business class is the space. The space to get up and take my two children to the lavatory, to nurse my daughter without her kicking a stranger in the stomach, to hold Miss Bee on my lap when she is feeling tired. . . glorious, glorious legroom.

Within minutes, my dear husband calls me back and says he talked to the nicest representative who was able to use my miles and confirm our upgrade. (Maybe I really should start listening in on these telephone calls.) The catch is we have to fly a week earlier than planned. "No problem," I chirp.

New reservations taken care of, I am confronted by the fact that I am leaving in less than a week. With Babycakes under my arm, I run several wild laps through my apartment. Ohmygoodness. There is so much to do. . .

Whole Foods

On Sunday morning, I found myself in tears in the grocery store parking lot. I was not crying because I am going to miss the overly bright tenuously stocked aisles of the Mega Image, but rather because I had been yelled at a group of total strangers, again, while trying to obtain a fiscal receipt.

A fiscal receipt is a complicated form that shows how much tax was paid on a purchase. Merchants hate to fill them out, and I would too, quite frankly, as they are written in longhand, filled out in triplicate, and require the use of a calculator. As a result, most establishments only have maybe one person who can fill out this form. And that person is usually in a bad mood.

After politely waiting in line with my groceries for nearly twenty minutes and paying for my purchases, the cashier handed off my receipt to a cashier in another line to fill out my fiscal receipt. However, everyone else in his line started yelling, at the cashier, at me, at the state of the Romanian tax system in general.

I think that it was just the sheer amount of yelling this time that made my eyes tear up. If it were America, well I wouldn't have to be going through this ridiculous procedure, but if it were I would stand my ground. Unfortunately, my Romanian is really not up to a fighting level. It was a rather ignominious ending to two years of shopping in Bucharest. Any other groceries that my family needs in the next two weeks are going to be the sole responsibility of my husband. I quit.

Saying goodbye to my friends in the market was another story. I will genuinely miss our weekly pilgrimages to Argentina and Catalina's fantastic fruit and vegetable stall. They are the epitome of small entrepreneurs, selling hard to find luxuries like pineapples, sweet potatoes, and seedless grapes. Their produce is always fresh. They love Miss Bee and have watched her grow up. And they are really, really kind.

We were all sad to say goodbye to each other; I am certain they will miss our business! We brought chocolates, they stuffed a huge bag full of an assortment of fresh fruit, and they joked they would come visit us in America. You know, I wouldn't mind it at all if they did.

Comfort food

We have been trying a lot of new recipes lately. So many, in fact, that they are piling up faster than I can blog about them.

Here are our most recent recipe ventures:

Jeanne Lemlin's Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Dill Dumplings: The title tells you all you need to know. Roasting the red peppers adds a bit of extra cooking time, but the result is a rich, velvety soup that we absolutely devoured.

Sesame Whole Wheat Bread: This was a recipe from King Arthur Flour's baking magazine. I was unimpressed with the result, the bread was much too dry, but am looking forward to trying additional recipes in future issues of the magazine.

Hamburger buns two ways: One way turns out lovely soft rolls, the other turns out bread similar to a doorstop. Your choice!

And now, may I present to you, my new favorite breakfast:


The photo does not do this dish justice. It is a puffed apple pancake, a heavenly concoction of butter, baked apples, topped with a light pancake batter. I think that I could eat this every Saturday morning for the rest of my life, perfectly content.

I have 20 days left in Romania, which is starting to feel like a frighteningly short period of time. Fortunately, I have a welcome distraction this week in the form of my sparkling little sister. Bee worships her. Babycakes coos in her general direction. And I am just so happy to have some sisterly company. We have been cooking all our family favorites, including fajitas for Easter Sunday. (None of us are particular fans of ham.)

We did stick with tradition on Good Friday and made these most perfect hot cross buns. They were so easy to enjoy because you make the rolls the night before. They rise overnight in the refrigerator and are ready to bake first thing the next morning. As a result of this one recipe, I am now a devoted fan of Alexandra's Kitchen.

(Recipes #21-27)