The Gruffalo

We have watched The Gruffalo a few times on Netflix every now and then and when C saw the book at Novel Neighbor we purchased it. It has become a bedtime favorite -  I love that part! when she hears her favorite couplet "A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo? / A gruffalo? Why, didn't you know?"

I bought the audiobook for 95 cents and they adore listening to it in the car (and The Gruffalo's Child). AGAIN! they shout. We listen to this 7 minute recording a few times in a row during each trip. It delights me how the repetition makes it richer for them, more enjoyable with each listen. I love that snake voice! Clementine says when the narrator adds a hiss: Where are you going, little brown moussssssssse...

I bought the audiobook less than two weeks ago and now they both recite it!

Amazing! said the gruffalo.

Anniversary Weekend

// With Luke at a gig on Friday night, the girls and I went to Amanda's to meet her kittens! The girls were thrilled.

// A Saturday afternoon visit to Novel Neighbor in Webster Groves. Luke bought Homo Deus, I ordered my latest library check-out cookbook and bought some books for the girls and for gifts.

// I was really proud of the girls' dinner on Saturday: steak, cherry tomatoes, corn on the cob ("Pwain. I don't like butter or doz spwinkles [salt]." - Clementine), farm share blueberries (Josie), a hard-boiled egg minus the yolk (Josie), half of an avocado sprinkled with Maldon salt (again, Josie).

// Sunday: 6th anniversary plus a baby shower for a good friend! On the way home from the shower I bought ingredients for tamarind chicken thighs (I had ordered the tamarind already) at Lucky's Market. Set up the marinade mise en place for Clementine (fish sauce, soy sauce, tamarind concentrate, honey, red pepper flakes, toasted sesame oil):

Voila! Sprinkled with raw jalapeño (SO hot) and sprigs of cilantro.

(We also made brownies).

Jenny came over for dinner plus whole fruit margaritas. I used the rest of the lime I had zested for the marinade and felt like a Real Cook for a second.

While we visited I made the rest of our food for the week: pork tenderloin with an ancho-cocoa rub, green beans, bacon and eggs, blistered sweet peppers.

// When I was away at the shower Luke cleaned the entire house and folded and put away (!) all the laundry. I made him spicy food. We speak each other's love languages.



Anniversaries: 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 / 2016 (anniversary trip to Montreal)

Reading Lately

Patient HM: A story of memory, madness, and family secrets by Luke Dittrich

Tragic mental strife

And ice pick lobotomies

This book's a bummer.

The Mansion of Happiness: A history of life and death by Jill Lepore

Going to put it off

Patient HM was too much

Sorrow for right now.

Power Vegetables by Peter Meehan

Recipe intros

Are funny little essays

Let's all eat more kale!

Reading Lately

Reviews of my latest library books.

5 Minute Hairstyles by Jenny Strebe

It's not for those post 

Telogen effluvium

I need extensions.

EveryDayCook by Alton Brown

Cookies, pies, and more

Way too involved anyway

I really miss carbs.

Josie Lately

Josie is able to express her opinion more and more about food (NO YIKE IT!) and telling me to stop it when I tell her stop doing something (YOU TOP IT!)

Here she's reading one of her favorites, Sleepy Time. I ordered several of this author's books because both girls loved Babies so much - given to us by my sister-in-law after Josie's birth - and am happy to learn Babies was a landmark book in 1963: the first book to depict babies of different ethnicities together. (Sadly, there is still an "apartheid of children's literature" -- read Ashley's recent post about it here).

Hugging a newly favored lovey, "Corn".

Feelings

Nothing more than feelings.

But we ARE our feelings, thanks....


...Inside Out, the saddest movie I've ever seen! Everyone else in the theater was enjoying themselves and I was weeping (not so silently), snuffling - every now and then - I'm thinking of the part with the wagon - I gasped and cried some more. 'Her parents reminisce about when Riley was small... which means that we're living the good part now,' I lamented to Luke later. 'The good part is now [sobs]'. Can you feel nostalgic for the present? I suspect there's a 35 letter German word for it.

Other entries in the lots-of-feelings category:

 I caught this interview with pianist Simone Dinnerstein on my way to the gym. She discusses her struggles with infertility and miscarriages and the impact on her career in addition to performing in Cuba, her new work, etc. I wondered if I had ever heard a woman discuss infertility so openly in a forum that wasn't expressly about that topic, much less how it impacted her career. Such a common struggle and yet here I was being rather shocked (in a pleased, let's shed some light and lift some hearts kind of way) to hear it on the radio.

Sally Mann's memoir Hold Still. I reacted deeply to this book. Her writing is exquisite, her humor wry, her life unapologetic. Inspired by the amount of non-ephemeral ephemera she draws on -- unpublished photos, journal entries -- I took a digital sabbatical to put down the phone, examine my FOMO, and think about what I'm creating. I plan to read this book again very soon and I'm not a re-reader. She leaves so much unexplored I hope capital letters HOPE she writes another memoir.

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 And, what are you carrying forward? That's what I'm thinking about after these moving interviews with flight nurses and Elizabeth Alexander.

Sign in my office from Best Made Company

What's Making Me Happy This Week

// The Hats of Ascot. Let's have a party like THIS! 

// Culottes! I knew they were having a moment when I searched 'culotte' at Nordstrom.com and almost every pair was more than $200. (Similar searches: 'cape', 'capelet') New York mag discusses them here.

// This little dog - no collar, no leash - was waiting for his person in the bed of a truck at the YMCA at 7:30 a.m.

there's a water bowl and it wasn't hot yet, don't freak out.

// RED VELVET ISN'T A THING. The red velvet rant on Orange Is the New Black is exactly how I feel about red velvet, blech blech blech.

// I have a few episodes to go with the season of OITNB and I am loving it. Because

Less Piper, more everyone else

More back stories
More making me thinking about mothers and mothering
More Black Cindy and Taystee, two of my favorite actresses. And Morello!
So many sly little jokes
Multidimensional characters - no one is 100% bad or 100% good

// Hanging out with these turkeys on Father's Day. We walked to Torchy's for tacos. (C on the green chile queso: I LIKE IT.)

At our private playground, Burger King.

At Mommy's playground, Central Market.

First Thursday

During First Thursday at the Pearl Brewery complex the shops are open late and there is some sort of live music (this Thursday was a DJ). Pearl is one of my favorite parts of SA because of its pedestrian-friendliness and fabulous stores and restaurants. A hotel is opening there in the spring so if you are planning a trip to SA, I am pre-recommending it (I will scout out when it opens - because I care about you! And, cocktails).

I seized upon this First Thursday as the First Outing Solo with Kids after the First Solo Daycare Pick-Up. (People with two+ kids, I can hear you snort-laughing through the Internet right now). But it's hard! Getting them in car, unfurling unfamiliar stroller, wrangling that stroller through doorways (btw, thanks but no thanks for all of your help, fellow San Antonians. It's not like I ask people for huge favors but hold the door open and help a mother out, huh? Jeez.) Luke is gone more and more now, meaning I have to embrace solo outings because OH HAY-ULL NO we will not be cooped up in the house. Fall and winter are the only reasons to live in SA - so you can eat fish tacos on a patio while your Yankee friends shovel their sidewalks.

We shall sally forth!

This was the debut of the double stroller. The shot in front of the majestic, circular Stable building was good...

But the close-up is much better.

Bakery Lorraine opened today at Pearl. We had a lemon blueberry muffin (mu-ah, Clem said and signed) and a spinach and goat cheese panini that contained 25% cheese and 75% gobs of delicious wilted spinach - yum (but did not get a mu-ah from the tiny diner).

 Space hog.

We strolled around a bit (trying to get those 10,000 steps). Stopped in Twig and had my hands on Lena Dunham's new book, but as I'm trying to downsize, spent a ridiculous whoopsie-daisy amount on hair cut/color/keratin treatment that very morning, and will eventually get it from library (though I'm number 36 in the queue), I couldn't part with another $28.

Assisted waving: C was shouting BYE-BYE! BYE-BYE to people (and cars) and I asked her to 'help Josie say bye-bye'.

Bike World has some great signage.

My beautiful bike from Bike World, in the garage...

Back to car, click into the car seats, fold up stroller, drive home, put Wolf 1 to bed, give Wolf 2 the two-hour bottle while watching Nashville while wondering why I watch Nashville, it's completely unwatchable (I think it's a hate-watch, like Scandal; see also: the Instagram hate-follow). The First Thursday outing was a confidence builder for me.

The stroller reminds me to tell you about my friend and very fine writer Amy George Rush, and the book that she wrote about 9-11 responders, Under One Flag. Buy her book! (She gave me the stroller - thanks Amy!)

Another babely patriot friend, a veteran herself, is featured in the philanthropic Pin-Ups for Vets calendar - she's Miss April and is featured here on the Huffington Post. Go Shannon!

Sitting in My Stroller

Clementine has been receiving the Highlights Hello magazine (Aunt Ruth, thank you for the great gift!) for several months but in the last six weeks she has become completely enamored of it. Recitation of the first time of the poem from the May issue, Stroller Time, brings her out of a crying jag (as will 'what does the dog say?' sniff sniff RUFF RUFF sniff sniff) and brings her such joy:

The power of poetry.

Last week I asked her to retrieve Sitting in My Stroller - which is not the cover of the magazine - and when she brought me the right issue I thought it was a fluke. She did it again. So of course I had to test her:

Sitting in my stroller

There's such a lot to see.

Like furry doggy faces

Looking back at me.

Sitting in my stroller 

We're off to see the ducks.

Watch them all come running

With waddles, quacks, and clucks.

Sitting in my stroller

 I look up at the sky.

The clouds are fat and fluffy

As they go drifting by.

Sitting in my stroller

My daddy pushes me.

Good bye doggies, ducks, and clouds,

We're going home, you see!

April Reads

After reading Lorrie Moore for the first time earlier this month, I'm going to pick up her short story collection Birds of America and novel Gate at the Stairs later today.

Two thirds of the way through How Toddlers Thrive -- a peek into how to deal with the roiling toddler psyche. Three isn't going to be a picnic - several moms have mentioned recently (Becky here and hey Becky it was great to meet you this weekend!) how hard that age is. I must plan some coping strategies because I am not patient by nature. (Author intro below)

Oh cookbooks always cookbooks to thumb through -- The Cook's Illustrated Baking Book (a beautiful book except that it's in black and white -- food photography looks terrible in b&w! Reminds me of the vignette "The Case of the Colorblind Painter" in Oliver Sacks' Anthropologist on Mars in which an artist loses his color vision and one of his many challenges is overcoming his disgust of food that looked so unappealing - for a while he was able to eat only foods that looked 'right' in black and white -- black beans, white rice, etc).

Healthy eating kick  Going to re-peruse Martha Stewart Inc's Meatless and Power Foods. I was feeling good about pregnancy weight gain for the first trimester but now something like this has happened:

oh dear.

Anyhoo healthy, reasonable countermeasures must be employed. Cutting down on meat has left carbs carbs carbs; it shouldn't but I haven't figured out how to swap meat for not-cheese, not-pasta. I've started reading the blogs Skinny Taste and Eating Whole for inspiration. I made the crockpot skinny buffalo chicken last night, scooped it on to romaine leaves, proclaimed it tasty (same for this salad - no stone fruit in season so I swapped strawberries). We'll have lettuce cup tacos later this week. Another post for another day is the stressful dinner situation I find myself in: C is starving when she gets home, Luke is on his way out the door (if not gone already), and I want to cook something nutritious and sit and eat it together Around the Table Like All the Studies and Anecdotal Evidence Say We Should (as does How Toddlers Thrive).

Reading good stuff? Recommendations, life coaching, and childrearing tips welcomed.

Happy spring everybody! Seems like the abominable snow-winter has finally loosed its grip.

Parenting Zeitgeist

I'm sure it's only on my radar because I am a parent now, but there seems to be a lot of coverage of parenting styles, how having kids doesn't make you happier, actually diminishes your marriage, new books on these topics, etc in the media now. Reading mommy blogs (the wildly popular prototypes of Love Taza and Hey Natalie Jean -- which don't stop at celebrating motherhood but in my view actually fetishize it*) provides a counterpoint to this scholarly** activity.

*I wonder why I read these -- the writing is terrible, terrible and the content -- well, there is no content. Photography's good though.
**Is it scholarly or fear mongering and preying on the anxieties of people worried about Being Very Good Parents? Talk amongst yourselves.

Here are some Parenting Zeitgeist interviews and articles I've found thought-provoking recently. Click through when you have a minute or forty (I find my forty during my 'workouts').

I read Hannah Rosin's The Overprotected Kid article yesterday while slowly cycling stationarily -- is helicopter parenting leading to better, more well-adjusted kids? Does being a good parent mean spending a lot of time, all your time with your kids? The article focuses on new playgrounds in the UK that encourage risky play -- with fire! -- that is likely more in tune with healthy child development (which is probably more violent and Lord of the Flies than we care to admit or gasp! foster) than our sanitized, plastic primary color models here. Watch kids play at the one of these playgrounds here. It's terrifying.

The article references a bestseller I've heard about but have not read, All Joy and No Fun. Click to listen to the author Jennifer Senior's Fresh Air interview.  Read her 2010 article that spawned the book here ('All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting').

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On the anti-helicopter parenting technique front: I checked out, didn't read, returned Baby Knows Best a couple of months ago because I spotted it on the New Books shelf -- didn't know Resources for Infant Educarers was a thing but it must be thing because later I ran across this Vanity Fair article about RIE in Hollywood. (That makes it a thing, no?)

And now a corollary, Washington Post reporter Brigid Schulte's Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time [click for partial transcript and interview here] I was on board with her - I'm all for an egalitarian marriage too - until she mentioned that she and her husband had agreed to rules regarding chores to minimize conflict - seems reasonable. It's your turn to do this, mine to do this, we don't need to discuss it... And she provided the anecdote of TEXTING A PHOTO OF THE UNMADE BED TO HER HUSBAND AS A REMINDER THAT HE HAD NEGLECTED TO MAKE THE BED.

And then I wasn't on board on anymore because who likes a nag?! Who wants to be a behavior modification project for their spouse? I was reminded of why Esther Perel argues against perfectly egalitarian partnerships -- what could be more poisoning to eroticism, sexiness, playfulness than your spouse texting you a chore that you forgot?


What do you think, readers? Are unrealistic expectations for parent-parent, parent-child relationships causing serious problems for our generation vis a vis paroxysms of guilt, insecurity, inadequacy, and constant comparison? (Be careful around those mommy blogs! They can send you into a domestic shame spiral. See also: all of Facebook and Instagram) Is this all a narcissistic exercise in self-seriousness? Should we all just relax and do our best? Should we simply not care what anyone else thinks of our choices?*

*“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” - Marcus Aurelius

March Reads

From the already-behind 2014-Novel-a-Month category:

Dust by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor [read full enthusiastic NYT review here]:

In 2011, writing in the Book Review about a memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina, ­Alexandra Fuller opened with a marvelous plea: “Harried reader, I’ll save you precious time. Skip this review and head directly to the bookstore.”

Harried reader, skip this one, too, and go buy Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s “Dust.” In this dazzling novel you will find the entirety of human experience — tearshed, bloodshed, lust, love — in staggering proportions.

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Photography lessons:
A Beautiful Mess Photo Idea Book: 95 Inspiring Ideas for Photographing Your Friends, Your World, and Yourself by Elsie Larson and Emma Chapman

Beyond Snapshots: How to Take That Fancy DSLR Camera Off "Auto" and Photograph Your Life like a Pro by Rachel Devine and Peta Mazey

Fantasy alternative career:
The Science Writers' Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Pitch, Publish, and Prosper in the Digital Age
by writers of SciLance, Thomas Hayden and Michelle Nijhuis (editors)

ROAD TRIP!
Lonely Planet Texas guide and maybe this too - it's not at the library but I'll probably order it

Parenting how-to:
Jo Frost's Toddler Rules : Your 5-step Guide to Shaping Proper Behavior

Have a great week everyone!

February Reads



Cover images via Goodreads

Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong - and What You Really Need to Know by Emily Oster  Came across this when googling 'sushi during pregnancy' because I really really want spicy tuna rolls and who better to give me license than the Interwebs?

Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body by Hugh Aldersey-Williams  Read the NYT review here 

Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart   I think I've read some of his short fiction in the New Yorker.

Realizing that I read little to no fiction (I blame the doozies IQ84, The Art of Fielding, and The Marriage Plot over the past year or so), I've decided to read one novel a month.  Of course I finished the January installment in mid-February... I wasn't on board with Sweet Tooth and it was slow going but the denouement was crash bang WOW!

Not sure what to read next -- if I were more organized I'd work from a list of classics or important-novel-of-the-decade or Nobel prize winner bibliographies but I probably should just go into the baby's room and pull a long-ago-purchased, never-read selection from there.  But she's sleeping so I'll get back to watching season two of Girls [me: it's genius, absolute genius.  Luke: it's unwatchable].

Esther Perel's TED talk...

  ...is something you should listen to right away.

May I recommend her book Mating in Captivity... great reading.

Perel's recent feature in the New York Times.

Likes & Finds

Tidbits from around the Interwebs...

This dishware is so pretty, particularly the pale pink, though only a white-frosted cupcake would look appealing on it.  Can you imagine beef stroganoff on a pink plate?  Blech.  And this is why I will only have white plates, always.

Some Etsy shops have caught my eye:  Triple 7 Recycled, Urban Mettle planters, Mag + Pie children's clothing

This infographics book is great!  Accompanying each infographic is a narrative by the designer about how/why he chose to present the information in that manner.

This gal is funny -- I just found her blog but I enjoy her Instagram more -- her pithiness and humor really shine in short captions.  So refreshing to see a woman being funny (because women aren't funny).  She's in St Louis and I don't know her but someone that I know almost certainly does, because that's how the Lou operates - degrees of separation on a subatomic scale.

Another great Instagram feed is Humans of New York.  It's uplifting, hilarious, poignant, sad... I look forward to it every day.  [I also like HONY's dog's feed, @susiethedoggie, who is one adorable, elderly Chihuahua...mix?  who also has great observations about life in the city.]

Finally, Steve Almond draws a line from our innate bloodlust, sublimated into the modern proxy of football (and other violent sports), at no cost to ourselves but very real damage to the athletes... worth a read.

Checked Out - January

A Reader's Book of Days: True Tales from the Lives and Works of Writers for Every Day of the Year

The Beginner's Photography Guide

Best American Infographics 2013

Photographing Your Children: A Handbook of Style and Instruction

Frommer's Easy Guide to Montreal and Quebec City

Plum: Gratifying Vegan Dishes from Seattle's Plum Bistro

AND...

This month I'm learning about our new camera, planning our spring trip to Canada, and exploring vegan options. The vegan smoothie book looks delicious - C and I are headed to the grocery store this evening to stock up on frozen fruit, agave sweetener, and vanilla soy milk. This is my attempt to get my breakfast plan in order rather than the daily morning scrounge (handful of Nilla Wafers or Craisins, frozen waffle, 95 cent egg and cheese English muffin at work, banana that gets too bruised in transit that I refuse to eat it...). If the sweet ones work out I will advance to green smoothies, which, admittedly, sound revolting at the moment. Plant-based start to day, starting with cocoa-peanut butter-banana smoothie, we here come!

cover images via Goodreads and the veganista.com

Reading Now

Kitchen Literacy (not first checkout)

Raising Confident Readers

Baby Read-Aloud Basics (more on this below)

Brave New Quilts - I don't know anything about quilts but this is a beautiful book that blends 20th century art history with modern quilt design.  Already on my list of someday hobbies.

VB6 (at least fifth checkout, never cracked it open.  I think my subconscious is resistant to the idea of no eggs for breakfast)

Six o'Clock Solutions  (this was featured in the September 2013 issue of Southern Living and the pork with plums and red onion sounded delish, as did the other quick weeknight recipes)


We are voracious readers but have not done a good enough job reading to C as a routine-- although she sees us reading all the time.  Too often, however, the source is our phones, a habit I am breaking NOW.  This passage is from the introduction of Baby Read-Aloud Basics and I find it very much a call to arms ['the number of words babies hear each day is the single most important predictor of future intelligence, school success, and social skills'.]  We do talk to her a lot -- she and I had a loud conversation about the green veggies and yellow bananas at the grocery store yesterday and I did get several funny looks -- sorry, people, I'm encouraging this little human's BRAIN DEVELOPMENT.  These carrots are ORANGE!  And so crunchy. Crunchy crunchy crunchy! [bounce bounce bounce in her carrier goes the little Ergonaut]

 

 

Reading anything good these days?  I picked up Ian McEwan's new book Sweet Tooth at the library for $1, so perhaps I'll read some fiction again soon.

Likes & Finds

The New York Public Library unveiled the 100 great children's books of the last 100 years.  Shop them by reading level. (Thanks Erin for posting this link!)

Want to experience mittelschmerz?  Browse baby shoes!  C hasn't worn shoes even once yet - fun to see what's available.  (ps... when should she wear shoes?!)

Pick a painted pumpkin project.  (How pretty.)

Friday night lights!  Our third year in SATX we are going to attend a football game at last.    We live just a few blocks from the high school and hearing the band practice early in the morning as I head to work always brings a smile to my face.

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What fall things are you up to?  I see a lot of pumpkin and apple picking out there!  Here's a list of SATX pumpkin patch-hayride-etc events.  Looking forward to attending at least one.

Here and There

A few goodies from my time trolling the Internet avoiding tasks and to-dos.

Pendleton's Pinterest boards including my favorite "wool and whiskers"

Bee doorknocker! See it on a door here.  Did you know the bee is my spirit animal?  Sometimes I like to think about having bees, but then I think about 1) "My Girl" and 2) what would I do with pounds and pounds of honey?

I really enjoy Alana Chernila's blog - this post was great - and someday I will cook from the book of hers that I own. 

Silvuh leathuh!

Just discovered this made-in-USA brand at Nordstrom, WAYF.  Plenty of crazy prints and oddly fitting cuts.  CAN'T WAIT TO PURCHASE -- this dress meow meow and some wacky pants.

ZARA FOR BABIES!  Think there's The Dress in there for Clemmie's non-iPhone baby photos.  Whenever that happens.


I don't know how but Picasa made a gif of Betsy and Clementine at the Switchback Smokehouse.  So here it is!

 

 

Reading Now

Reading, slowly:

Superfood Smoothies by Julie Morris

Mad Hungry Cravings by Lucinda Scala Quinn

How to Read Literature by Terry Eagleton

Make-up Secrets: Solutions to Every Woman's Beauty Issues and Make-up Dilemmas by Jemma Kidd

Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd

The Grilling Book by the editors of Bon Appetit

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

cover photos via Barnes and Noble and Goodreads