Getting hyphy with baby


Oh man is it hard to blog (or do anything else really) when you have a newborn in your arms. Here's a photo of Ira getting ready to get hyphy in mommy's scraper. That kid loves to move. Whether it's rolling in the stroller (6 inch rims!), going dumb with the gas break dips at stop lights, or doing a 3 am slow dance by the night light, he loves motion.

He's almost 5 weeks old now and doing great. He's holding up his head for longer periods of time and becoming more and more alert. Little dude is getting a lot bigger, too, which is precious because his little face is filling out with the cutest cheeky jowls. I can't wait for when he smiles at me.

Most of my days are pretty much the same. I stay in bed (note, I didn't say sleep in bed) until around 9 am, get up and nurse Ira in the chair, then I attempt to make myself some breakfast. Sometimes I get the granola made, but by the time I get a chance to eat it, it's long gotten soggy. Then it's time for Ira to eat again. So I feed him and then hope he naps afterward. If he does, then I can do laundry. Babies make a lot of dirty clothes, so I'm usually washing diapers or outfits and blankets any given day. While I've got laundry going and if baby is still sleeping, I try to pick up around the house, do dishes, wash bottles, make the bed. Then baby is ready to eat again, so we nurse. More recently, he's not always napping in between feedings, so sometimes I hold him and we make googly eyes at each other for an hour or so, while I watch Tyra, Rachel Ray, Oprah or Tivo'ed Sex & The City out of the corner of my eye. Typically between 2-4 he'll nap again and that's when I make my lunch. Sometimes I can get a burrito made and eaten before he wakes again, but other times I just have time for a handful of tortilla or pita chips, a chunk of cheese and a glass of juice. Then around 5-ish, Leon comes home and by then I'm pretty much spent. But then there are still chores to do and laundry to finish before I make it to bed and start all over again.

OMG! I can't believe I just spent my baby break (Ira's just starting to wake up) blogging instead of getting something else done.

Bourdain watch 2006!


Can't wait until Wednesday's Top Chef when Anthony Bourdain will be guest judge!

Okay, more about food and cooking. I finally agreed to have my family over for Thanksgiving this year. Initially, I didn't think I'd be able to put together a huge meal with the new baby and all. But mom & dad have agreed to make most of the food and help clean up, so that's better. I have insisted to make the stuffing (my mom thinks that Stove Top cornbread stuffing is acceptable for some reason) and a vegetarian gravy. The stuffing recipe I used was taken from the Bee last year. I can't find the archive of it online, so here it is, spelled out below so that when my printed copy is lost or destroyed (they always are), I can find it here. Seriously, it's the best!

Sourdough Stuffing with Sage, Thyme and Marjoram
1 hour

12 tablespoons butter or nondairy alternative (c'mon! use the butter!)
3 medium onions, finely diced (ow, my hands!)
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 red bell peppers, finely diced
3 tablespoons minced fresh sage
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
2/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 rounds of sourdough from Paragary's (they bake it fresh every morning), cut into 1 inch cubes and left out overnight, uncovered
1 to 1.5 cups of vegetable broth

Preheat oven to 400 F

In a large skillet, melt the butter over a medium-high flame. Add the onions, garlic and bell peppers and saute until tender, about 6-8 minutes. Add the sage, thyme, marjoram, parsley, salt and pepper and cook another minute. Remove skillet from the heat.

Place the bread cubes in a large bowl. Stir in the vegetables. Pour the broth over the bread and vegetable mixture and mix well.

Transfer the stuffing to a large, lightly oiled or buttered (again, use the butter) casserole dish and bake 25 minutes. Uncover and bake an additionl 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let stand 5 minutes before serving.

My new boss


Great news. A couple of my good Tower friends recently got new jobs. So awesome, right? Me? I've got a new job, too. I'm a mom and this is my new boss. He's like a lot of bosses in a way. Really demanding and not always clear about what he wants. I can honestly say that this is probably the hardest job I've ever had. I'm on call 24 hours a day and there are no days off. I get a few hour-long breaks here and there, but I usually spend those on my other jobs, which are maid and cook. Sorry, it's a "woe is me" kind of day.

First day


So today is our first day on our own. Leon's back at work and it's just me,
Ira and Heylove. Thank goodness the dog practically takes care of herself. So far, everything is fine so long as I can get things done with baby in one hand.

Well, some friends are asking what this is like, this being a mom thing and how I'm doing. It's true, all the cheesy things that people say about having kids. It's amazing, it's life affirming, it puts everything else in your life into a different perspective. It's also a lot of worry! I'm contstantly worrying, am I doing everything right? Is he getting enough to eat? Is he comfortable? Is the oven a safe place to keep him warm? It's all a little overwhelming sometimes. I love it though. I love Ira so much that it makes my heart want to explode and coat everything around me with gooey love. Okay, enough about babies!

On Saturday, I was so stoked to get out. I went to Katy's going away party and caught the last part of the 4 Eyes set. Man, it was the greatest! I really wished I could have had a frosty cold beer, but I'm still on meds from the HELLP. It was my first party/show since having baby and I felt a little akward and stiff without a cold one to swig from. I still had fun though.

I've been watching too much TV lately. It feels so wrong, but what else is there to do? Not much at this point, since baby eats so often. But I caught a couple of episodes of Commited: The Christies show. In a nutshell: SNORING! The production quality of the show is totally phoned in. The audio is bad, the boom mike is visible in many of the shots, there are errant sequences of bad animation and when they need to blur someone's face out, they use a black dot that you can totally see through. On top of all that, the Christie's life is pretty boring. They keep showing them being interviewed by various media, but it's always the same questions and answers.

Zzzz.

Little things


These days, since I don't get out much, I have to find my humor by watching tv or by little things like the Butterscotch Pony. I saw this at Target the other day and it made me think of the Butterscotch Stallion. Pretty, pretty, pretty funny.

And then I was watching Tyra today. She had Doug and Jackie Christie on, talking about the plight of the professional athlete and the temptation of sports groupies. She said that being a professional athlete surrounded by groupies was like being a kid in a sexual candy store. Dude, what is a sexual candy store? Doesn't really sound like a place for a kid to be. Oh, Tyra. You want to be Oprah for the young ladies, but you fall so short.

All Ira, all the time.


Here's Ira with his buddy Isaac. Oh, babies...so cute. They're made this way so that when you need to feed them at 3 AM, you think it's real sweet. Everything is going good so far. Thank goodness I'm not feeling sick anymore (I developed and recovered from HELLP syndrome). I am still tired because of the late night feedings and anemia (souvenir from the HELLP). I'm also sort of getting a little bored/stir crazy from being mostly cooped up inside. Yesterday we took baby to the co-op for lunch (he just LOVES spicy udon noodles!) and today we went to Target. It's kind of hard to make a lot of plans though. Right now, baby wants to eat every 1.5 - 3 hours and that's from the start of one feeding to the next. So if he takes 30 minutes to eat, I might only have an hour to nap, clean, shower or feed myself until the next feeding. But, baby...so presh! So worth it.