A grim evening meal

Little toddler L. and I had a disappointing meal from the grocery store tonight. Mark was staying late at work. When Mark is home, I try to make something ok, or at least have nice leftovers – a meal that is the outcome of chopping, stirring, heat, and some amount of time. But when it’s just me and L., I stick to scrambled eggs and sautéed zucchini on toast. Tonight, though, I just could not stand the thought of another evening of eggs and zucchini on toast, and on the way home from daycare pickup I succumbed to the cheap package of ravioli at Trader Joe’s. The package promised burrata mozzarella and tomato, yum! But the final flavor gave off a distinct airplane food flavor and texture that I had no idea was possible this far from cruising altitude. The ravioli were mushy, technically editable, but not enjoyable. 

To make matters worse, I made roasted broccoli with olive oil. Typically, this is food that the whole family can get behind with pleasure. But tonight I was distracted, and I made the horrible mistake of going too light on the olive oil. So instead of delicious roasted vegetables, we had sad little virtuous singed shrubs, that were only moderately better than the ravioli because they had some texture.

Leo has not had exposure to airplane food yet, so is not yet jaded. He consumed about a ravioli and a half before realizing that they were becoming increasingly gross as the cheese began to congeal at room temperature. He tried and discarded the broccoli. Soon he declared himself “all done” and descended from his chair, asking for milk. 

I felt guilty about food waste, and ate some ravioli and some broccoli.

My deep love for Trader Joe’s remains intact, and there are many wonderful products that I could tell you try, starting with their whole wheat toaster waffles. (Try them with almond butter for the ideal fast breakfast or snack!) But I am braking my blogging silence for this very important public service announcement: do not buy Trader Joe’s burrata ravioli. At the end of your dinner, your stomach will be full of nothing but regret.

Hopes for the new year

It feels like so much happened in the past few months, and we’ve been engaged in some sort of epic struggle of survival to get through each week. Yet things can mostly be summarized as: we both work full time, and have a toddler. We often find ourselves feeling torn – we want to spend all our time with our child because he is the sweetest little boy, and simultaneously we miss our free time that we had before him to do…everything and anything else. We both want him to grow up quickly so that he can be entertained by a Disney movie and leave us alone for an hour, and wish he would stay in this state of wonder and cuddles forever. I suspect that these feelings will continue until he is a teenager and wants nothing to do with us.

I don’t really want to blog much about our son, both because I think it would be really boring to read about the things we find most exciting (He love balls and climbing things! He eats anything! etcetera) and because I’m grateful nobody documented my upbringing in a publicly available space. However, this does make keeping a blog difficult because right now our whole universe revolves around him, and I don’t want to write about my career conundrums, the angst of our times, or our personal angst of being torn between two coasts. So instead I keep my silence.

But I do hope that this year I can do things that are outside my family, work, or the doldrums. And perhaps I may even find a moment or two to tell you about it?

^ An apple tarte tartin I made over the holidays, thanks to a nice 5 to 1 adult to child ratio.

Seek and destroy

We wimped out and did not take baby L. back east for our friend’s wedding. I went solo. This turned out to be a terrific decision. Everyone is familiar with the horrors of a screeching, wriggly baby on a flight, and it’s easy to imagine that this would not be fun over six hours across the country. What is less talked about, I think, are the challenges of a wanna-be toddler upon arrival. Over the past few weeks, L. has turned into a cute little curious tornado of destruction. If an object can be pulled, he pulls it. Chairs are pulled across the floor, books are pulled off bookshelves, lamp cords are yanked, and drawer knobs are tested. If an object can be picked up and thrown, he picks it up and throws it. Toys are thrown out of bins, wooden blocks are hurled, slippers are cast aside, and handfuls of food are tossed on the ground. If he can crawl under something, he goes under. If he can crawl over something, he crawls over. What’s more, L. is now adept at standing up and holding onto furniture to navigate around rooms, bringing ever more objects into his happy maw.

While our house is relatively well baby-proofed by this point, meaning that L. can cause limited destruction, the same cannot be said of random Airbnbs. Plus, L. sleeps badly the first night or two in a new place, so it would have been horrible in general. Bad sleep for babies is way worse than bad sleep for grown-ups. We toss and turn, and maybe get up to have some water or read. When babies can’t sleep, they scream.

Even at home, supervising all this motion is somehow exhausting. We remember it wasn’t so long ago that we could just leave him places, and L. wasn’t even able to roll over. We read books and watched TV shows. I made it all the way through Anna Karenina. Now, we fall into bed at 8:30pm hoping to make it through a few pages of something before we wearily turn off the light.

(And yet! L. has learned a new skill. Now multiple times a day he crawls up to us, stands up, and hugs our legs with a big smile, before sitting back down and continuing his explorations. These hugs are the best things ever and melt our hearts. He is also babbling nonstop, which is likewise adorable. We are surviving as others have survived before us, and so is L.)

Summer is here

Summer is here in the Pacific Northwest, and it is glorious! I wish I could say that we’ve been out hiking every weekend and I’ve been puttering about in the garden during the week, but no. With our limited free time on the weekend we have been going on long runs to prepare for an early July marathon for Mark, and half marathon for me. The garden is total chaos. But even so, we are really enjoying the weather, the flowers, (in other people’s yards,) and the mountains, (in the distance,) and nearly every day we marvel at how lucky we are to be here.

Our lives have gotten much easier since a big baby-proofing push a weekend or two ago. We blinked and suddenly baby L. is not only crawling, but also crawling up the stairs, opening up drawers, pulling books off the bookshelves, standing up, and trying to climb anything and everything. Since putting up baby gates on both flights of stairs, and locks on all our kitchen cabinets, it’s now possible to just keep half an eye on him and sit down for a little while, rather than need to keep both eyes on him and feel ready to sprint over to nab him at a moment’s notice.

We are now gearing up for the next great Parenting Challenge: flying to the East Coast for our good friend’s wedding. There will be no baby gates. However, there will be some nice quiet beaches with a lot of sand, and we’re bringing a stroller, so we should survive. I hope.

Hi and bye

In a few hours I will head to the airport for my first work trip since forever. I am mostly ready. Which is to say, I have a valid passport and I’ve checked in to my flight. I have not finished packing. I need to finish reviewing my presentation and print off some things. I am also still in my pjs and have not yet had breakfast, but this is less notable because it’s hardly 6:30 am.

In my defense, it does feel like I have been going, going, going for the past two weeks at work, and when not at work, at childcare. Mark got taken out by another bad daycare cold for a while, so I have been in constant triage mode for a while now. Yet for all the chaos, the kitchen trash that desperately needed to be taken out two days ago, and the fact that I am sending my child to daycare with leftover boxed Annie’s Mac and Cheese for lunch (is it a little better that I added peas?) dare I say I also feel quite well…alive?

Not to mention that over 16 hours of being in transit has never sounded so relaxing to me?

*****

Pictured below: a semi-failed brioche that I accidentally used double the yeast for because I was trying to multitask. It came out weirdly spongy, but otherwise not so bad! With that much butter and eggs and carbs involved, the low bar is still pretty high.

Sometime it is sunshine and there are roses

I am enjoying being back at work much more than I thought I would. It’s great having grown-up conversations about interesting things with other grown-ups, and my job is way easier than full-time childcare. I treasure my time with baby L. even more because of it’s scarcity.

And I really do treasure my time with him, even if it means I’m only able to execute my dinner plans half the time. (Sometimes L. is put-downable, and sometimes not.) I have started walking to pick him up from daycare. It’s a trek – 35 minutes there, longer on the way back because a large portion is going up hill with a stroller – but I enjoy the fresh air, and so does he. It’s also so amazing to see L. grow and change day by day. He is able to sit up by himself now! And he smiles and laughs, and loves all foods! (And makes such a mess!) There’s nothing better than to see him and Mark together. I love both of them so much, just seeing them making silly faces together on the couch brings me immeasurable joy.

It’s not all sunshine and roses, but I am grateful.

Back to work

I am almost done with my last week of maternity leave. This also means that our little baby boy is now six months old! He has gone from a tiny shriveled sleepy potato to a happy, babbling boy who loves to play peek-a-boo and look at books, who can sit up by himself, and eat solid foods. We adore him!

I did not have the restorative maternity leave that I had dreamed of. I am not emerging from this half year with new insights into where I want to take my career. I am not in great shape and back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I did not improve my Spanish skills. I don’t remember the last time I went out dancing. I did not hang out in coffee shops or take a single mid-day yoga class. I do not feel renewed. I feel tired.

And yet, I do feel happy and changed by the past half year. Mark and I get so much joy and satisfaction from the day-to-day labor of raising a baby, and growing together as a family. I care less about some things, and more about others. I have learned a lot.

Also, although revelations about my career path remain elusive, one thing I have learned is that I do not want to be a stay-at-home mom. Full-time childcare and homemaking is really tough! I am excited to return to my job, which I find meaningful and interesting.

I am curious and hopeful for the next phase ahead.

The first of many

Well, that didn’t take long. Little baby L. got his first cold from daycare last week. and took Mark down with him. I remain hale and hearty, albeit tired. So tired! It turns out that babies, like grown-ups, don’t sleep so well when their noses are totally stopped up. This has meant worse sleep all around for many days in a row.

I did try to physically leave the house despite my exhaustion. I tried going shopping. Since I will start traveling for work again soon and need to look professional, I want to do a refresh of my wardrobe. My current situation is a bit grim. Between the pandemic, pregnancy, and maternity leave, I haven’t warn much but sweatpants for years.

What I’m most excited about, though, is putting in a few minutes here and there to tackle the wild mess that is our garden. I dream of making it a pleasant place to spend time this summer with our boy. I’m not sure I’ll have the follow-through to achieve this aim, but at least for now it feels nice and highly productive to putter around since the status quo is so bad. For example, I am finally raking up all the leaves that are currently burying whatever may or may not be growing out there. The previous tenants also left loads of gardening supplies around, and I want to sort out what is trash and what is not. If nothing else, this spring I want to grow some flowers.

Highs and lows

Full disclosure that I have had two bad nights of sleep in a row, so I don’t know how cogent this blog post will be. Baby L. had his latest round of vaccines two days ago. Unlike his previous vaccinations, he developed a fever afterward in the middle of the night. This meant that we were all awake in the middle of the night with him. (But all hail baby Tylenol!) Then last night, for whatever reason, little L. was awake and crying at midnight and three A.M., plus I had a series of weird dreams and nightmares that woke me up, Apparently I cannot handle even the trailers for horror movies.

Every part of me yearns for a nap. But we have meals to plan, and groceries to buy, laundry to wash, and we’ve run out of coffee which means that leaving the house has become of dire importance.

I am happy to say that a nap will soon be possible, tomorrow if nothing else! Our little one started daycare last week. I was very torn up about it, but in the transition was far easier than I’d imagined. Baby L. was generally happy and smiling when I dropped him off and cheery when picked him up. I really like his caretakers, and trust I that he is getting the attention he needs. This means that I have glorious chunks free time at long last! Last week I imminently flew into cleaning out and reorganizing closets, which I suppose had been bothering me more than I had realized. On Friday for fun I went to a bookstore and fancy hot chocolate shop. Next week I aim to knock off as many items on our to-do list as possible, such as taking the car in for maintenance. Wee!

Time

In those brief moments when baby L. is entertaining himself or napping, I have to make an important decision. Do I use this time to: prep dinner, empty the dishwasher, tidy up a corner of the house, take a shower, feed myself, or try and tackle a random task, such as calling the insurance company to dispute a claim, putting up a little holiday decor, or starting a load of laundry?

Food and tidying are typically highest priority. Showering is somewhere in the middle, which is why I have not done so in two days. Random tasks, like writing this blog, are often low priority.

Otherwise, it’s baby, baby, and more baby.

I do have time for some things, though. I can listen to NPR all day, and take Leo out on as many long walks as I have energy for.

I also have plenty of time to think. Lately I’ve been pondering returning to work. My day job sounds like a delightful respite after several months of providing child care around the clock, but I have some worries. How will I manage a full-time job, and also being a mom? Is it really ok to send the baby to daycare full-time, and do I feel guilty about it? (Should I feel guilty about it?) When will I have time for non-work and non-baby related activities? And, as always, what will we eat for dinner?