gerber-licious

Ok, confession. I've been reading the book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" ... for like two years. I'm terrible at finishing books. I bought this one at an airport somewhere, read a few chapters and then lost it for a while, and I just kept forgetting to take it on subsequent car trips. And, seriously, I love my Time magazine and a billion internet articles and blogs, but I'm just not much of a bookie these days.

But I digress. So, in this book, this family decides to eat as locally as possible for a year. Every time I read some of it, I get all jazzed about the prospect, even though I know I'll never really do it or stick with it for long. But I did parlay my momentary enthusiasm into a baby-food-making extravaganza today. It's something I've been meaning to try - it just seems like it would be so easy. And WAY more economical. I mean, Ainsley's already eating almost a whole thing of baby food in the morning and at night, and if you figure at least a dollar a container, seven days a week, it starts to add up. But more than that, I just get kind of grossed out when I think of any mass food production - big 'ol vats of pesticidey food in big factories with rats and their poop and someone's finger getting cut off and falling in, gaahh (I guess I've never fully recovered from The Jungle??). I mean, I'll eat all that crap, but we want better for our kids, right?

So. Baby food making. It was a lot of work, but the results weren't entirely disappointing. I found local squash, apples and carrots at one of the greenhouses in town, and then it was just a whole lot of chopping and boiling and food processing and straining. Mike was gone all afternoon, so it was intermixed with baby wrangling (who, BY THE WAY, is now the rolling-over EXPERT of the civilized world! I witnessed it officially for the first time last night, but the frequency and ease with which she has been executing both tummy to back and the more advanced back to tummy moves today makes me believe the daycare ladies were keeping this a secret for a while).

I steamed the vegetables and stewed the fruit, adding some big-box nectarines and avocadoes to the mix. After a batch was cooked and strained, I used ice cube trays to freeze individual tablespoons of baby food, so that should be handy. The final verdict (with my little taste-tester's help):

Applesauce: awesome. Just like real applesauce. The food processor pureed it really finely and Ainsley gobbled it up.

Carrots: eh. Final product was still kind of chunky ... or grainy rather. I mean, it went through the strainer but it's just hard to get that "first foods" almost liquid texture of baby food. Ainsley ate it for supper, but I think she thought blowing the little chunks out was really fun because carrots were everywhere at the end.

She didn't try these, but as far as cooking:

Squash: Fine, kind of watery. I'm pretty sure I was supposed to get acorn squash instead of summer squash, but I figured it wouldn't hurt anything. It pureed as well as the apples and tastes like, well, squash.

Nectarines: This looked and smelled really good. Must be all the pesticides and genetic engineering. Hehe.

Avocado: Hmm. I didn't cook this one or anything, just pureed and froze it. But it kind of turned brown, like guacamole does if you don't add lime or lemon juice. Next time maybe I'll try that, if Ainsley's had citrus by then.

I'm glad I tried this. It was kind of a rainy day, so it was fun to just chill with the baby and pretend to be a hippie earth mama, because I don't feel like I have the time to be, normally. It was an awful lot of work for three ice cube trays of baby food (what would that be? Like a dozen cubes each? So 6 meals per tray probably, three trays, nine days of baby food). I think next time it will go faster, though, and I could do more of the things she ends up liking. Definitely the applesauce.

hannah banana

After a long wait, our little Hannah Banana Fofanna is here! She is the second daughter of Mike's sister Tara and her husband Rickey (aka our niece and Ainsley's cousin). After you have one kid, it's very hard to comprehend that a completely different mix of the two of you will come out the second time around, so we were all waiting with bated breath. The verdict? Her dad said it best, she looks exactly like her sister and completely different. In a weird way, it's true. I can't wait to go visit in a couple of weeks - look at those cheeks! They need to be experienced in person. There is also a stunning shock of hair under that hat - hair you could probably BRAID, it's so long. Hannah's sister Ava was (and is) such a tiny beautiful little angel baby, it's kind of cool to see that Ainsley has a Colorado doppelganger. They were almost exactly the same size at birth (um, giant), and both kind of have that intense frosty look down pat. Until Ainsley started smiling, she'd always look at us like, CAREFUL mom and dad, or I will EFF you up! Just a very intense, furrowed-brow kind of thing - even when they aren't angry or sad, just thinking hard (it's actually from Mike's mom's side of the family - called the Hofland Scowl or Tovaas Smile, depending on who you ask).

It's weird - after you have a new baby, all other new babies give you such a different feeling. Before mommyhood, new babies were obviously anticipated and exciting, but also very curious, like an exhibit in a museum. After mommyhood, new babies make you feel more like you just want to steal them for the day and snuggle, snuggle, snuggle. Yes, Ains is still a baby, but already when I try to cradle her like a newborn she squirms and kicks and stares at me like "HEY LADY! There are THINGS around to LOOK AT and POTENTIALLY STICK IN MY MOUTH! SIT ME UP NOW!!" They grow up so fast. The whole labor thing is different, too. Knowing what that's like. It's so exhausting and horrible and beautiful and way more special than you could ever know before you actually get to experience it.

So ... welcome to the world, Hannah Rae.

barf-ola

The barfing flu of doom descended on the house yesterday, so as I got to spend all day writhing in pain near the toilet while Mike did the parenting, tonight it is my turn. Yay! It's really awful, actually. I woke up yesterday thinking it was some kind of lightweight karmic retribution for having three beers Saturday night, but when I was still barfing at 5:00, I started to suspect something was up. I ceased barfing at about 9:00 last night, and actually made it to work today, but I'm still not quite right. And now Mike is in the full throes. Man, I hope the wee one doesn't get this mess (although I suspect it is all a bi-product of daycare - they ladies there say this nastiness has been going around). We aren't quite used to the germ exposure at casa gussiaas - I guess that's part of parenthood.

Speaking of, I've been biding my time tonight (after baby went to bed) waiting for the first post-hiatus episode of Jon & Kate plus 8. I watched SOOOO many episodes of that show on maternity leave - I couldn't help but stay tuned for the trainwreck break-up. I always saw hints of douche in Jon - I feel a little bit vindicated that he's been such a public sleazebag the last couple of weeks (22-year-old girlfriend ... DISGUSTING earring, etc.). Plus, it's always easy to rail on the wife for being bossy or pushy or whatever, but I feel like she was just getting it done. And she found a way to set their kids up for life and still get to spend loads of time with them working from home (after spending YEARS worrying about money), and she was crucified as exploitive and opportunistic. I can't say I wouldn't do the same thing. Ok, I should do a little work for the next half an hour - work has been absolutely insane lately. Good night.

torrential

I must start posting, I must start posting. I really hate these gaps in getting something on this blog. I used to do that when I kept journals, and then every few months there would be a post summarizing the elapsed time. Which just kind of sucks. Especially now that I'm trying to chronicle a baby, who is literally growing and changing EVERY day.

The problem is time (isn't that always the problem?). Before, time felt like it was going fast, like a swift river. Like, if you had the right boat, you could catch it and ride it (not that I did that very effectively). But now it's a 200-foot waterfall and I'm sort of just tumbling around in the rocks. The weekdays, especially, run together in a kind of (controlled?) chaotic blur. It's kind of good for me, not being able to worry and obsess about things. But it's mostly bad because I feel like I'm missing everything and not doing anything except working and dishes and baths and blechchch. Like all the stuff I have to be doing, and none of the stuff I'd like to be doing. Especially with Ainsley. I kind of had a vision of our family doing fun things together - taking trips, making things, learning things, having adventures, living rich lives. I know she's still a little young, but at this rate I feel like we'll never be able to do those things. And that makes me feel like I've failed already. Is this how everyone feels? I'm not sure - Mike and I both come from families of teachers. Trust me, it's not that I don't think teachers work hard - they do. But at least there were summers. Even though my parents always did other work in the summer, I still remember running around fairs and art festivals while my parents worked in the Corn Crib, our family cotton-candy-snowcones-popcorn concession stand that we towed around Black Hills all summer. I remember helping my mom plant a garden every year. I don't know if I'll ever be able to teach that to Ainsley, because who has time to plant a freakin' garden? It breaks my heart.

I don't know what the answer is. I think I've learned that I don't want to be at home full time, not that we could afford it anyway. I mean, a 5-hour-a-day job would be ideal, but we all know that doesn't really exist. So I don't want to not work, but I just want MORE TIME. Maybe that's the existential dilemma. Maybe years of grasping at time is what makes all of our parents crazier and crazier as they age. And maybe, inevitably, that is the direction we will go in as well, no matter how hard we fight.

lunch post

I think I have to start posting over lunch at work because I don't know when else to do it. I'm already getting up a 5:15, attempting to work out, then daycare drop-off, then work, then the blur through dinner and bath and books and bottles and after all that I obviously turn into a (very sleepy) pumpkin, and what would come out of my brain onto this blog at that time of night would be mostly stringy pumpkin seed mush and nonsense. So, lunch time it is, at least today. But now I'm sitting here, and I have stagefright, and nothing to write about. Gahhh! I just can't win.

enfermo

My work computer is SICK. It just started spazzing out yesterday, so I think I have a trojan horse or some other bad virus, but my virus scan didn't find anything, nor did the two other malware scanning programs I downloaded from microsoft. Luckily I backed up a bunch of files on a flash drive before everything went south, so I have most of what I need in case my hard drive needs to be wiped or something drastic like that. This happened at my old job, and that is indeed what had to happen to fix it. I guess that is the internets for you - everytime I think I have her broken, she bites.

Anyway, the irony of all this is that despite it being the weekend, I'm presenting on a webinar next week to the small business admin and REALLY need to work on the powerpoint, because they don't generally let me out in front of people and I would like to do a good job. We finally got a new computer desk yesterday, so Mike is dilligently working to get that put together so I can work on our home computer this afternoon without sitting on the floor. It'll be fine, I'm sure, it's just been a relentless string of crazy little things around here for the last couple of weeks that sort of feel like a big crazy thing when you add them all up. Also, I'm a little annoyed because it would be great to actually have the weekend to hang out and enjoy our new house instead of running endless virus scans and putting together furniture and generally taking care of stuff. A girl can dream. On top of it, Ainsley has been waking up in the night for the last couple of days which is a little weird. I think she's just getting hungry and it's probably time to start her on cereal. She's just a week shy of four months and the doctor said starting solids at four to six months is fine, so maybe that'll be the project for this week.

grumpsickle mcgee

Finally, FINALLY the baby is asleep. I guess it was ill-advised to keep her up until 11:00 last night skyping with Mike's mom and my sister, no matter how awake she seemed to be. We got her from daycare after work and her sheet said she slept for ONE HOUR AND 15 MINUTES today. That's it, after she went to bed at 11:00 and got up at 5:30 this morning. That's the ironic thing about tired babies - when they're extra-super tired, they do everything in their power to NOT sleep. Anyway, one hour and 15 minutes of naps does not a happy baby make. So all night she's been over-tired and bawling and cranky, which was so weird because now that she's out of the new baby phase she's been all smiles and giggles and fun every night. I couldn't even remember what to do. It's like when you're used to them sleeping through the night and they happen to wake up at 1:30, like Ainsley did the other night, you feel like you're going to DIE despite the fact that you were getting up a zillion times a night for months.

Anyway, I finally put Ainsley in our bed and laid with her for a few minutes and she went right out. I hope she doesn't make the connection that incessant crying equals mom and dad's bed. I'm weak-willed, I will cave in a second. When she was still in the bassinett, we never let her sleep with us overnight because I think it would have been hard to sleep well, but in the morning after she ate at 5 or 6 or whenever I'd always lay her down between us and snooze with her for the last hour or two before getting up. It was, and still is, one of my favorite things, just lying there smelling baby head and watching her sleep. I have a feeling that never gets old, even when she's 3 or 6 or 12 ... or in college. I'm not afraid.