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."