His name is Linus.

Born June 1st at 12:11 - 8lbs 9oz, 20 inches;
we saved the best for last. ;)

And they lived happily ever after. :)



 

On The Unexpected Contentment of Parenthood. And Living the Good Life.

Roman and Alex: chocolate-chippity-apple-pancake-style

 
I have one week to rearrange my daily life's paradigm.  One week to accept that my life right now is probably the easiest it will ever be.  In one week, a new person enters the world and enters our family and we embark on yet another, unique adventure in parenthood.  10 months ago I could not have told you this would be happening, but I can't remember ever feeling more sure that something was meant to be.  With this baby, this miraculous little person who nobody thought could be, cosmic divinity and fate has intervened in my perfectly planned life in a way that could not be more unexpected or more welcome.  And such is the pleasant but precariously balanced reality of parenthood, a delicate dance between serendipity, hope and determination.  I have rarely in my life experienced such contentment in the moment and such excitement for the future.

Everyone's entrance into the world is different, every pregnancy or adoption its own bubble of a world.  Roman's birth was unique in that it was our first, and he larger than life in both character and size.  Alexander's birth and entrance into our lives through adoption was in many ways the opposite of Roman's - we had two weeks' notice, total, for example - but no less filled with excitement and love.  Peace is a word that defines both his character and the feeling I had when I met him for the first time.  And now this third baby - the one true surprise I've ever had in my entire life (not kidding) - has brought a depth of appreciation for how blessed (and you know I never use that somewhat cliched word) we are beyond anything I could have guessed.  At this point in my pregnancy with Roman I was swollen, miserable and impatient.  I think by the time I was told I'd be having an emergency c-section I was almost relieved.  When we were matched with Alexander's birth mother I pretty much refused to believe it would work out until he was in my arms.  But with this baby I feel content, warm, fulfilled - and kind of in awe of how smoothly everything is going despite the fact that we've had a very stressful past two months.

The one thing all three of these welcomings into the world have in common is the unexpected.  They were all different, in the end, than we thought they would be.  And, actually, all of them were all the better for it. 

It's probably obvious and inevitable that I have been reflecting on motherhood and parenthood in general a lot lately - especially to anyone whose had a chance to talk to me.  In this last week, there's such a large element of wondering just how having a third child will change our family dynamic: wondering whether the brothers will all get along, what new level of madness the third dimension will unleash in the house, and what new depth of love and awe he will surely inspire.  There's no more concern for me about "how can I love him as much as the others" because I know now that there's limitless space to love your children in your heart as a parent, whether you have one or twenty.  In fact, the incredible reality that your heart simply grows with your family, and that you just can't help that, is perhaps the first real "unexpected" of parenthood.

There are other unexpected realities.  One such is the way that you are happy and willing to throw life into utter upheaval for the sake of a creature who screams when he's hungry and shows little appreciation for the world revolving around him.  You gleefully rearrange all the routine, predictability and calmness you've worked so hard to establish with your current children in order to welcome this little angel of a tyrant and never look back.

But I think the most unexpected thing is the level of contentment I feel right now at the hectic, crazy, wonderful and all-engulfing role as a mother.  I yell, I get cranky, I curse the gods, but at the end of the day - I feel damn good about choosing to be a mom, and about doing it with Matt.  I've never experienced anything even close to as rewarding or challenging.  And sometimes that gets lost in the quotidian complaints or the funny articles about the mind-numbing daily chores involved in raising miniature human beings who don't always "get it."  But it's never lost completely.  And it resurfaces relentlessly in all the unforgettable small things - like Alexander learning to twirl with his arms out in the kitchen with his brother and dad, like Roman laying in bed with us asking questions about our colleges and what it's like to live away from home, like watching the two go down the slide together and then smile at each other conspiratorially (not unlike Matt and I probably do on a daily basis).

The greatest happiness is living the life of your dreams.  Maybe 10 years ago people could not have guessed this life would be it for me - as wrapped up as I was in my jobs, my education, my self.  But looking back right now I can see no other road more worth the trip.  And I am so thankful for that.

Green Smoothies: Breakfast Cheat-Sheet

My Favorite Green Smoothie

I wouldn't call myself a health-nut.  I find people who obsessively eat things ONLY for their caloric or lack-thereof content and or vitamin value kind of annoying killjoys.  To me, focusing on those things saps the beauty, excitement and serendipity out of creating new things to eat every day - there are just too many calculations involved.  I generally go with whatever "sounds good" to me that day, and happily, that is usually a good combination of the 5 (6?) food groups.  I love vegetables, especially green ones, and always have.  I also really love seafood, whole grains, fruit, and dairy.  So with all that on my side, I'd say I provide myself and my family with a well-balanced, freshly-prepared and preservative free diet.

These days, being pregnant and all, I've admittedly had a harder time eating a well-balanced diet, because a lot of things haven't seemed appetizing at all.  I tend to crave sweet things when I'm pregnant anyway, but the weirdest thing that has happened to me this time around as that I can't stand the thought of grocery shopping.  For some reason I feel a gag coming on the second I think of the meat section at the supermarket, and I'm not one to test my personal theory  that I probably won't throw up because I'm more-gag-than-vomit when it comes to pregnancy, in public.  For this reason I've mostly been shopping at the closest, cleanest supermarket to me: Abela. 

Abela is expensive because it's a specialty supermarket - one of the only places in Abu Dhabi where you can buy pork products, as well as many other international (mainly American and British) imports.  This is a big deal (especially for us bacon-eaters).  It's also a big deal that it's a 2-minute drive from my house.  But because of this "big deal" the prices are inflated at least 25-30% as compared to Carrefour or Lulu.  Nevermind.  The produce is usually a lot nicer, and they are one of the only places that seems to sell baby spinach.  Mmmmm, love me some baby spinach.

So speaking of baby spinach, I've been buying the $5.00 / box baby spinach lately.  Yes, shamelessly.  And in order not to waste a single leaf, I started making green smoothies.

My favorite color is green, but I first got my idea for green smoothies from this blog post at Naturally Nina, a blog I've recently taken to following.  My interest was piqued by her comment that she too had some hesitance in adding green things to her morning fruit smoothies, thinking it would introduce an irreversible grassy element to them.  But when she claimed that actually you couldn't even taste the spinach, and that you got a great green color and all the natural vitamins and minerals along with it, I couldn't resist trying. 

I am pretty boring when it comes to smoothies - I always make banana, vanilla and milk smoothies.  But since the introduction of "green" into my smoothies, the variety has exploded.  I would highly recommend experimenting with your favorite flavors (Nina uses Mango and Spinach), but here's my favorite so far - an easy, delicious, gag-free, and coincidentally quite healthy way to start the day.  No calculations necessary.

* * *

My Favorite Green Smoothie

Serves 1-2

I have listed amounts as complete approximations.  I usually eyeball it with smoothies and recommend you do the same. 

As an unrelated bonus: kids actually like this too.  Roman had a half cup of it, much to my surprise and delight. :)

INGREDIENTS

 1 banana, in large chunks

1/3 cup plain yogurt

1/2 - 1 cup whole milk (adjust to your liking)

1/2 Hass avocado

10-15 baby spinach leaves

1 small handful of whole almonds

1-2 tbsp natural sugar (I use brown cain sugar)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

METHOD

Whizz it all up in a blender until the nuts are in smithereens and you have a nice, even green color. 

Drink cold for breakfast or as an accompaniment. 

You can also make this thicker by reducing the milk and eat it as a yogurt-y type thing with granola or muesli.  Yummers.

His name is Roman.

Born May 1st at 17:20 - 10lbs 4oz, 21 inches;
the biggest and cutest baby on the block.

And we just love him. :)

One Happy Camper.

That's Ludovictus, who has, incidentally, not yet decided to make his appearance.

I guess technically the fact that I was apparently actually due closer to the 16th might have something to do with it. But, also interesting, is that one is actually not considered "overdue" until two weeks after the "due date" (what a misnomer). :)

In this time of sanity-testing-type-waiting, I have opted to avoid the blogosphere (mostly to spare everyone unnecessary late-pregnancy rants).

Stay tuned.

The Tortilla Crisis &, um, Happy 39 Weeks!

I am a serious corn tortilla hoarder.

Another Friday has come, and with it the end to another week of pregnancy (Thank God).

How callaced and bitter do I sound and it's not even my due date?!

Nobody really tells you about the dark side of pregnancy - those last mortifyingly endless weeks of heavy and constant anticipation. Or maybe if they do tell you, you're still so far stuck in the pink cloud of early-pregnancy euphoria that you refuse to listen and assume they're just bitter and pathetic. I'm pretty sure that's what I did anyway, but now I know they weren't lying. I am humbled by my own deluded willingness to believe that I would never reach this stage (especially knowing my own impatience).

Yes, it's "Happy" 39 weeks - but I have to be completely honest, I'm a little less than on cloud (3)9. Not that I'm angry or bitter, I'm just frustrated and impatient. And I think I am allowed to say that without seeming really horrible, because (in all honesty) the impatience and readiness to have this baby does not in any way lessen the excitement and happiness I feel about it.

On that note - I figured it was about time for a little pictorial bump update. Here's the midge and me last week, in the kitchen, as usual. O Sole Mio and all that jazz.

38 weeks and still smiling.

* * *

On a somewhat unrelated but almost equally important note, there is one other big reason (besides my entirely-selfish impatience) why Ludovictus needs to get his butt out into the open air: I have reached a serious corn tortilla crisis.

It is a little known fact (because nobody seems to care) that the UK is pretty much completely and utterly devoid of good corn tortillas (my personal crack cocaine). What they sell (in copious amounts) are these wretched things they refer to as "wraps." They come in all sorts of ridiculous "Mexican" flavors like "salsa," "cumin" or "chili & jalapeno." *insert mini gag noise here*

I'm sorry, but if I wanted badly made flour tortillas, I'd whip up a batch myself. My grandmother and her family are from the north of Mexico and I'm willing to bet my first attempt at their staple starch would STILL be better than the crap Tesco sells.

Yes, I freakin' do judge people who use "fajita kits." Because if they'd tasted the real thing, they would too!

I could go on about this for pages and pages (and probably will at a later date), so I'll stop here, but if you want to see what "Mexican Food" means to most British people, simply take a gander at this website and see the constant hell I have to endure when trying to make some comfort food.

If it's not sh*tty products, then it's blatantly ignorant portrayals of "Mexicans" on packaging and the media.
Sadly,I buy these chips every week from Tesco. Love the um, mustard bottle (wtf?) in his "belt."

There is actually one tortilla machine in the UK (called "El monstruo"), located at a decent restaurant in Notting Hill. But they're version of corn tortillas is as good as biting into stale cardboard. Your tacos crack, your huevos rancheros are impossible to cut through. You have to sell an organ to be able to afford them. No good for anyone involved.

For these and many other reasons, I basically force my mother to break international customs laws and bring me copious amounts of my favorite corn tortillas straight from Texas whenever she comes to visit. This usually means that half of one entire large suitcase is lined with pre-portioned ziplock bags containing pre-frozen corn tortillas from H.E.B. It is always a big production when she gets here to unpack as quickly as possible and transfer the loot to my freezer, where I carefully ration and hoard them until her next (or our next) scheduled visit to the US.

Sadly, pregnancy has made me less than careful with my rationing. Usually I'm a pretty strict totalitarian with regards to household corn tortilla usage. Matt is typically relegated to the Tesco Slighly Salted Tortilla Chips (see above) or bread, being a hopeless gringo at heart (unless he really demands tortillas). He just doesn't show me the kind of orgasmic culinary joy I expect when I toast my little preciouses by hand on the gas stove to eat with a Mexican meal (probably made with my also-rationed salsa verde and Sazon Goya).

Point being: today I used two of the last four tortillas in the last package of rationed corn tortillas that were in the freezer. And mom doesn't arrive for baby's arrival until the 13th of April. Can you really blame me for the less than chipper post?!

Happy Friday!

Eat a corn tortilla for me, especially you lucky bastards in the Southwest and California. :)

April tomorrow?! Better get on that knitting.

Say hello to Ludovictus.

Well, it's official: I'm absolutely ready for the baby to come out. A woman can only go have coffee or lunch or whatever with other pregnant women so many times before she starts to have a desperate feeling that the term "lady of leisure" has taken on a whole new and not-so-flattering meaning. That, coupled with an uncontrollable urge to gnaw her own arm off out of boredom, can really make anyone reconsider any impending fear of sleepless nights or painful deliveries.

Luckily, I still have my knitting to cling to. My mom calls me a spider and I think maybe my friends are starting to think the same thing because when I'm not fiendishly crawling around my cave plotting what to eat next, I'm weaving a veritable web of baby clothes.

Here are the most recent additions to the previous collection of 1 (aka the green cardigan):

1. After making my green cardigan, I decided to dig through the proverbial stash and pick something suitable out for a baby boy's scarfling. I then also took the project one step further (I am hardcore) and decided to make the scarf a two-toned ditty (big deal for a beginner knitter) by using up some of the pea green cashmerino I had left over from the cardigan. Here is the finished set:

Don't hate them because they're beautiful.

2. As mentioned in my Childlike Glee post my next project was the Debbie Bliss Shawl-collared jacket. I made this little thing in record time (pregnancy-driven mania will do that to you) and just when I was ready to put on the finishing touches, I realized I had accidentally thrown away the pretty little buttons I bought for it at Peter Jones. I still haven't gone back to get more, so here it is sans buttons. Still pretty darn cute if you ask me.

3. In a last-ditch effort to quell my obsessive contemplation of every movement in my belly, I knitted this number a week ago or so with some Debbie Bliss Cathay yarn I found on sale at Peter Jones. Lovely. And I even had enough left over to start on a pair of socks to match. I'm about 3/4 through the first one and now that I've officially put my gym membership on hold, I think I'll probably finish that and the second off in the next couple of days. :)

L's Dr. Seuss-y hat and soon-to-be matching socks.


* * *

On a somewhat tangentially related note: Matt and I made my top secret chocolate chip cookies with nuts this weekend (which we devoured in record time) and he suggested something I'd dared only contemplate: after making a dozen or so to last us for a couple of days, we froze the remaining cookie dough in pre-portioned balls and plan on Matt throwing them into the oven to bake right before we head to the Birth Center to have the baby.

How happy of a laboring woman am I going to be with warm-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookies with nuts in my hands and tummy and there for me to nibble on intermittently during the subsequent madness? Bravo Matteo. :)

My Heart Belongs to Mimsy. For Now.

newborn mim with her rat-ified aunt

Another unexpected but welcomed change that came along while newly pregnant, was finding out that I was also about to be an aunt. This piece of news was a surprise, but filled with plenty of happiness and excitement for my quickly-growing kid sister. If only I lived a little closer to her, the two babies would have ready-made playmates and cousins all rolled into one!

I remember the thrill of seeing the ultrasounds, and generally hearing about all the things I'd shortly be going through ahead of time. When I first arrived in Texas, a few days before Thanksgiving, I even got to feel the little brat squirming around in Carla's belly. That was pretty neat, but nothing prepared me for the utter excitement of finding out Carla was expecting a girl!

Caaa & Mom at her baby shower last September

Our family is full of girls, which guaranteed that everyone would not only fawn over the little-she, but get to feel the matriarchy was once again being passed on. Plus, if you know Carla and her husband, the speculation as to the baby's physical appearance was something approaching that of Suri Cruise or Shiloh Jolie-Pitt.

the celebrities


the real star

Lucky for Caaa, Ava Sophia (who I like to call Mim, Mimsy or Mimsica, depending on my mood) came nowhere near disappointing, and actually beat the competition out if you ask me. My mom and sister joke that I held her more than Carla at times during the first weeks of her life. If you had a niece as cute and happy as her, you'd want to as well.

Mother's say nothing prepares you for the overwhelming, all-encompassing love you feel the first time you see your child. If that's true, then it's also true that nobody ever even talks about the love you feel as a first-time aunt. As soon as I walked into that hospital room last November and saw her, I knew: My Heart Belonged to Mimsy. In a way it had never belonged to anyone before.

Once he got to meet her, I think Uncle Matt felt the same way.

At that point, Ludovictus was still relatively unwilling to make his presence known in terms of uteran kicking power, so it was a little hard to feel as strong of a connection with him as I did with the fiendishly cute, squirming and breathing, little Mim. (I have to admit, I wondered at my own maternal instinct!) But actually, seeing Caaa go through the first couple of months of life with Mimsy and getting to share in the diapers, the picking of clothes, the dancing and dallying with the midget, made me even more excited and desperate for April to come around. In the meantime, I also got to use the new creation as a guinea pig for my new baby gear.

Baby Bjorn, how I love thee...

The only thing in the world that can even approach the beauty and excitement that comes with waiting for your own progeny to arrive into the world is seeing someone you love have a baby too. And then spoiling the heck out of that baby until yours comes along (and probably thereafter anyway). :)

crashing my baby shower in style at 2 weeks old

she's a charmer

cracking up

quite the little person

Happy Chinese Year of the Ox!

the lovely little family

So yes, my heart belongs to Mimsy. Definitely. But just until this little guy comes along:

Happy 34 weeks! :)

We got our stroller! --err, pram! um, buggy, puschair thing?!

And they drink "latte" too. :)

Once I figured out the whole healthcare aspect of being pregnant, everything else seemed like it would be pretty straightforward. It's easy to buy baby clothes, easy to choose the crib (cot?!) you like, easy to pluck freakish little stuffed animals from every child's store you wander into. But there was one thing I found particularly stressful - especially in the London culture of "Yummy Mummies" and "latte-drinking-black-wearing-uber-chic-urban-babies," which is fierce and eagle-eyed enough to make even me cower a little bit - : choosing a stroller.

Or pram.

Or buggy.

Or pushchair.

Whatever the heck they call them here, I'm sticking with stroller. It just makes more sense to me (I'm a strollin' kinda gal) and doesn't sound like something you'd need to use in an insane asylum (please see the last alternative name above). I think these little miniature, manually operated, luxury transportation devices deserve their own post for a couple of reasons, but mostly because they took me on the longest, bumpiest non-mobile ride of my life with regards to baby purchases.

* * *

My Long Long (SatNav-less) Ride Through the Land of Strollers

this is probably way too opinionated to be at all helpful

5. Which one is this again?
From what I can tell, since the time Matt and I were children, the number, types, styles and varieties of strollers out there and available to the common parent has more than exponentially grown. (It's just not bad enough that you have to choose between 10 different diaper brands, or 6 different burp cloth types.) In plain English: there are so freakin' many of them it makes your head spin.

At first I was naive enough to try looking online to get a sense of what was out there. What a joke! Not only do you not get a good sense of size, smoothness, ease of folding, etc. - you can't see what color the thing really is. Not to mention, it's hard to decipher which brand provides quality vs. which brand provides bragging rights without seeing the other people looking at the things.

In a futile attempt to be politically correct and modern, I asked (well, technically "demanded"), that Matt make this his one task to decide on. I wanted him to choose the "travel system," having convinced myself it would appeal to his manly sense of practicality, that he would be just as concerned as me with finding the perfect, light-weight, fashionable stroller to push his baby boy in. Let me tell you, even if he had been (which I don't think he was), I wouldn't have let him.

The moment my mom and I walked into the stroller section at Peter Jones (one of my favorite places in London), nobody was making the decision but me. Sadly, even then, I was still too overwhelmed by all the choices to really make up my mind for another 4-5 months.


4. Logistically speaking, a nightmare.
Let's see, after I'd decided I did NOT want a Graco, Silver Cross, Quinny, Stokke, Combi, Phil & Ted's or Mamas and Papas, the pram department was a little easier to navigate. But before I could navigate the store, I had to figure out how to navigate my own house and neighborhood.

We have three flights of stairs inside our flat, and approximately 6-8 extremely steep stone steps leading up to our front door. Plus we live a little over 1/2 mile from the nearest tube stop.

Imagine, if you will, a pleasantly plump, recently un-pregnant Brenda, standing at the front steps, trying to hold a newborn baby, a diaper bag, a purse AND a stroller while climbing the aforementioned 6-8 extremely steep stone steps leading up to the inconveniently narrow landing to enter the house. Not a pretty picture for anyone, especially not the man-child, but definitely not for any of the many valuable objects also held in her two hands either.

If it isn't going up the stairs, then it's going down: getting on the Tube, leaving the house, etc.. And if it isn't stairs, it's narrow people-filled corridors in shops, supermarkets, and buses, not to mention the Tube, once you've actually managed to get to the train.

Many of my suburban American friends (and family members) looked at me slightly confused when I tried to explain this dilemma.

"But the so-and-so stroller rides like a dream."
"But the so-and-so stroller isn't really THAT heavy."
"But the so-and-so stroller folds up really easily once you take the wheel off!"

Yeah, that's all really, really great...when you have a car! Because when you have a car, you don't have to carry crap everywhere. You have a place to leave your child while you fold the stroller (as opposed to, well, the floor, which would be my only option). You also have this really great thing called a "trunk" (or "boot" if you're British), where you can fold and put the stroller without having to lug it up even ONE flight of stairs. Not to mention, you don't have to deal (most of the time) with the exciting travails of public transport.

Public Transport-Related Mini-rant: Last week I actually saw a fat, crochety, old woman curse at a new mother on the bus because of her "stupid giant pram" getting in the way of the aforementioned fat butt's sitting space. I was beyond myself. It was all I could do to stop myself from saying: Gee, Ma'am, couldn't it be that she ALSO has a right to take up a little (albeit LESS THAN YOU) space on this here public bus? Or is your butt just contributing that much more to the world than her un-obese-we-are-the- world-we-are-the-children human child?
I didn't say it. But I wanted to.

More to the point: I needed something light, bright, easy to fold, long lasting, manoeuvreable - svelte.

Everything fat-butt lady wasn't, my stroller needed to be.


3. The "Poshness" Factor (a.k.a. "Why aren't you getting a Bugaboo?").
I didn't realize how oblivious to my surroundings I'd been until I became pregnant.

Suddenly, everyone has a baby. Everyone has this brand or that of this gadget or those things. Take a walk down King's Rd. in Chelsea one day and you'll be shocked at the amount of new, high-tech and really, ridiculously expensive kid gear you'll see. Everything from designer baby clothes to designer diaper bags, to more full-time nannies than you can imagine.

Happily, the proverbial rat race for coolest urban baby doesn't really interest me. (Ludo's already got that won, hands down anyway. :)) But seriously, though, especially once you start meeting other pregnant women your age (or slightly older, as is usually the case with me - I am, of course you know, a child bride and child mother compared to most big city dwelling females), it's hard not to get roped into the "what kind of ____ are you getting?" game.

After about the 27.39th time someone asked me why I didn't want to get a Bugaboo, I decided to just start acting like I hadn't heard them. It's much easier that way, because explaining practical reasons doesn't seem to get you anywhere.

It's just a fact of life, so you move on and try to keep perspective on the things that really matter.


2. And then there were two: Maclaren and Bugaboo.
Not that there's an outright rivalry between the two brands, but they sure do seem to compete head-to-head for the top position as "Posh Pram" in London.

You can't avoid crashing into at least two of them at any major department store in the middle of the day. You can't walk by John Lewis without seeing someone propping a Cameleon or Bee into a cab. And you can't really miss some of Maclaren's more artsy-fartsy print designs, even if you wanted to.

Yikes.

I had eliminated most of the other brands based on the non-fatt-butt-lady criteria listed above. And when it came down to it, both of these brands offer beautiful, light-weight, long-lasting strollers, but they were still extremely different in my mind:

One of them seemed to fall into the camp of the understated. It reasonably, and in a British accent said to me, "I work well. I'm kind of expensive, but not so much that you'll have to take out a second mortgage. And I have the test of time on my side because people keep me - for years and children to come."

The other seemed to scream, well, everything. "Look at me! I'm expensive! I'm really bright! I'm the coolest new-mom toy out there right now! And I'm Dutch - which by default makes me cooler than some stuffy English brand! Buy me or you're a real loser!"

And generally, my advice would be that if a stroller screams at you in any way, but especially a self-absorbed snooty way, you'd better not buy it.

Well that and if it's like twice as expensive as the other one, requires two hands to fold, is relatively bulky in comparison, and seems to constantly be listed on second-hand stroller sites, proving (in my mind) that it really isn't that long-lasting (not in a material sense) because people generally seem to want to get rid of it the moment they have a second child. The other, by comparison, is rarely being resold, sells-out online and at department stores immediately, and is good until the kid is like 4 years old.

My mind was made up. "Posh," or not.


1. "Our child is not a frog, Brenda."
Ah, the Maclaren Techno XLR. The new dream. My child's first form of non-human transportation.

I felt like I was buying a car for the first time (maybe because I've never done it?). But seriously, this thing is a sweet, sweet ride. What other vehicle automatically comes with not one but two complimentary, fully, lifetime guaranteed dedicated chauffeurs who will also feed and love you unconditionally as well as push you anywhere you need to go? Granted, there's no leather seats on this one, but suede and a sun-roof ought to be good enough for a newborn, right?

From the moment we chose it, I became obsessed with finding the right color. Sadly, in this regard, the XLR is limited.

But I narrowed it down to two at first:

soft blue and coffee brown or soft blue and navy;
not the most exciting of choices, but somehow aesthetically pleasing

Until, of course, I came across this:

This picture does not do the green justice;
think lily-pad mixed with sweet peas mixed with crazy one-eyed monster

While I have mentioned my penchant for green before, I think pregnancy has exacerbated the obsession. My child already owns more green clothing and stuffed animals than humanly necessary or appropriate. And when I showed this picture to Matt, he repeated what he's been saying for the past four or five months already: "Brenda, our child is not a frog."

It's now sitting in all its green and brown glory in our hallway, where I stare at it, mess with it and stroke it lovingly, in turns.

Well, so what? :)

Most Recent Long-Overdue Realization: "Wow. I'm Gonna Be a Mom."

The whole themed-week thing worked for me. I'm hoping it worked for you too, because I think I might do it a little more often between now and the eventual and inevitable demise of this blog in the distant but nevertheless somewhat foreseeable future.

* * *

As clichéd as this may sound, it has taken me a whole 33 weeks to have what I like to call my most recent long-overdue realization: "Wow," I thought to myself in the middle of the night sometime last week "I'm gonna be a 'Mom'."

It is unbelievably, in fact shockingly, easy to live with a little human growing inside your belly for nearly eight months without this fact actually "hitting" you. You acknowledge him, love him, talk to him and even refer to him more often than most people would like, and yet, throughout all of that, you can draw this thin, wavering, fragile, but existent, line between the reality you know and have always known and the one that is about to take over for...well, forever. There are a million things that go on that can trigger the realization either sooner or later, but no matter how late or how early, I guess it has to come. And when it does, it is overwhelming. Exciting. Scary. All-encompassing. Moreso than being pregnant. Moreso than having a giant belly or having to give up your entire wardrobe and a slew of your favorite foods and drinks.

In some ways, as much as I hate to admit it, once it does hit, you have to fight a feeling of quickly growing panic and paranoia that, I think, any good parent-to-be should feel at some point. But nobody really admits this, and much less tells you about it aside from making the occasional remark about "how much your life is going to change." That doesn't even begin to prepare you for realizing it yourself. Much less actually having a baby (I suspect).

Despite the many frightening, different, unfamiliar and somewhat daunting things that stare you unwaveringly in the face once things 'click,' it is a miracle of nature that you (or at least "I") manage to find even MORE reasons why you are happy, excited, eager, and even downright impatient about jumping in the proverbial parental saddle (after a full-recovery and some much-needed pampering, of course).

In honor of this realization, its miraculous nature, and the further and comparatively wildly vast realization that came with it (that no matter how unique or outstanding or extraordinary we pretend to be, the emotional universal human experience is actually pretty, um, universal), I'm dedicating this week's entries to my impending transformation into a parental unit and a bunch of random things relating to the official "pre-transformation period," also known as pregnancy. :)

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Memorable Moments Leading Up to My Long Overdue Realization

in no particular order, unless you're a follower of Freud

5. Why do I suddenly hate seafood markets?
There I was, the picture of summer-vacation-relaxation, in a sun dress, walking along dreamily on an Athenian street sipping my prerequisite Greek Frappe (aka the best way to drink instant coffee) and talking Matt's ear off, as usual, when my eye first caught the endless stalls of fruit ahead of me.

Suddenly I'm dragging Matt through the aisles of one of Athen's largest open-air markets, just around the corner from our hotel. After the fruit, came the meat. Huge slabs of beef, whole pigs, countless examples of offal (and why we, onomotopoeically, call it that) lay before me. Butchers and their blood-stained aprons hack away unmercifully with cleavers that belong only in horror movies and foreign markets. I was fine. I love butchers. I love meat. I love open-air, un-air-conditioned markets.

Walking toward the next set of stalls, I get a glimpse of my favorite part of any food selling establishment: the fishmongers. I love to eat fish. I love the word monger. A match made in heaven.

Then suddenly, t h e b r e e z e b l o w s.

And I do something I NEVER do in a fishmarket - I gag. Big time.

And when I gag, especially more than once (which, in this case, is an understatement) two things always happen: 1. Matt laughs and 2. I almost throw up.

I was seized with a feeling of total and utter hopelessness. The meat around me suddenly began to smell rancid. The Frappe taste only made it worse. And there was no way out without having to pass at least ten more stalls of stinky, nasty sea-y stuff. What was with my sense of smell?! I have allergies - I can't smell anything!

Athenian Meat Market & the goodly Frappe; before the gagging episode

It was then and there, at that amazingly putrid moment of vomity madness, that Ludovictus first made his presence known. :)


4. Malaysian Chicken Delight - don't go there.
Continuing with the theme of being sick, I should mention that I am one of the blessed and the lucky who was almost not sick at all during her pregnancy. The following is an account of one of two incidents during which the pregnancy thing got the best of my stomach:

Never act excited about a dish you've never tasted while talking to the restaurant's owner about it if you're pregnant. In fact, just don't try anything you're not completely sure you'll love. Because you just never know.

The little Malaysian lady who owns and works at the Chinese place down the street from us really did assure me that I would LOVE the Malaysian Chicken. Having read the description, I was pretty sure I would love it too (what's not to love about chicken cooked in a shrimp paste sauce with vegetables?). But the moment I took the first bite, I knew I could not have been wronger. The chicken tasted flat-out ROTTEN. Like it was a hundred-year-old chicken that had been fermenting underground and then sauteed in shrimp paste and put on my plate.

Matt tasted it and thought it was a little weird too, but then he tasted it again when I told him I swore the flesh was literally decomposing and said he actually liked it.

I then had to suffer through the rest of the meal picking at the bell peppers on the plate and secretly eating Matt's beef and broccoli while the woman's head was turned. She kept coming over and singing the praises of the chicken and telling me what she would order for me NEXT TIME. It was all I could do to hold it together and not gag in her face (I did, however, gag several times at the table - much to Matt's amusement).

I was less than 3 months pregnant then, and we have not been back to that restaurant ever since.

Admittedly, this is partly because as soon as I walked out the front door, I turned my head and vomited all over the sidewalk. I don't know if the owner saw, but I know that the group of people standing outside the bar next door did. And so did the two guys who ran past us to avoid the further vomiting the entire way home. They must have found it odd that Matt was actually laughing at me. Bastard.


3. Wait, a MIDWIFE?
As much as it pains me to admit this, there are a couple of reasons I am glad we have lived in the UK this long. One of them is the chance to find at least one reason not to hate the NHS (National Health Service). Well, oddly, I still haven't done that, but I do have a newfound appreciation for British healthcare in one aspect: childbirth.

I was less than thrilled when, newly pregnant and eager to get started on prenatal care, every hospital I called kept talking about seeing a "midwife." A midwife? Where the hell are the doctors? Aren't midwives those hippie-chick, tree-hugging freaks who hate pain killers and try to lure you into having your child at home where the dangerous process of childbirth could quickly spiral out of control and find you and your newborn dead in the arms of your hyperventilating husband?

Well, I guess if you've grown up in the US that's definitely how you might see it. I sure did. Matt got the lion's share of my rants in this regard, until I finally started to find out more and realized that actually, no, midwives are not freaks - they are trained medical professionals. And they are used in all the hospitals here when it comes to childbirth - OBGYNs are only in the picture if your pregnancy is high-risk (because that's what they specialize in - special births like c-sections and inductions). Otherwise, midwives know all they need to know for normal births.

Normal births! What a concept! You mean people can give birth naturally without being induced, without getting an epidural, without needing twenty IVs stuck in their arms and in a room that's quiet and comfy with just their husband and midwife? Shocking, isn't it? (Well, it was to me.)

Enter The Birth Centre and Pippa my midwife. What relief and what excitement! Whatever I need to do for my safety and that of the baby, I will do, but for now, I can't tell you how excited I am about the possibility of having my baby in such a comfortable, professional, personal place...

They have nothing to do with the NHS. Just thought I'd make that clear. I'm still not over my hatred.


2. "I hope those prawns aren't for YOU."

Just after coming home from the US after Christmas, I ventured to the grocery store to shop for something I now consider a luxury given its scarcity in the UK: fresh, uncooked, unpeeled shrimp.
Of course, they call them prawns here. And they seem to consider it odd that you ever want them unpeeled or uncooked. Or without copious amounts of mayonnaise mixed into them. But we'll save "The Shrimp Cocktail Rant" for another (rainier) day.

I was still in that awkward "I don't think I look pregnant but I clearly do" stage. People were giving me the knowing looks, the knowing smiles, the works. I'm not gonna lie - I kinda liked it. But these little pleasantries were taken to a new level when I made it to the fish counter and ordered 500g of prawns only to have the gentleman serving me pointedly stare and say, "I hope those prawns aren't for YOU."

*begin time freeze for explanation*

He meant well. He really did. British people, weirdly, are all told by their doctors, or rather, midwives, and every other person whose ever known a pregnant person or been pregnant themselves, that prawns (and all seafood) are bad for you in pregnancy. I really don't get this at ALL. The medical explanation is that you're not supposed to have undercooked seafood. But who the hell eats raw shrimp!? Anyway, he meant well.

*end time freeze for explanation*

I actually just smiled at him - even let out an incredulous giggle - and said, "Well, yes, they are actually." To which he responded with feigned indifference and yet obvious shock at my lack of concern for the unborn, with a shrug.


1. Second Class Citizenship Ahoy!
One of the best parts of being pregnant thus far has been watching Matt. He has gone from being a normal, happy but only somewhat interested father-to-be to a suddenly freaked-out-what-the-hell-is-that-moving-in-your-stomach guy to an excited, picky-name-picking paternal force.

The other night he had to go out to a business dinner where he apparently had the occasion to speak to some recent new-dads. The gist of their sage advice to him, man-to-man, was this:

*insert Matt's comically disconcerted face here*

"They said, 'Get ready to become a second-class citizen in your own house.'"

I laughed.

Is that harsh? :)

* * *

Childlike Glee.

That's what I'm currently experiencing for two reasons:

1. Because I just received these little goodies in the mail, which means...

...now I can start on my next project - preciousness "inYARNate" for Ludovictus:

Debbie Bliss' Shawl-Collared Jacket

2. Because my dear friend Nancy the Psychologist-by-day- Knitter-Extraordinaire-by-night surprised me with a beautiful handmade gift for Ludovictus in the mail a couple of days ago!

There's nothing quite like receiving a thoughtful package to rejuvenate your faith in humanity as essentially good. :)

Midge hat and blanket à la Nancy

Oh yeah, Happy 33 Weeks!

Hello, my name is Brenda. I'm 28 years old. And I am a knitter.

My stash.

(Happy 31 weeks!)

It was five years ago on a cold and rainy day in South Bend, Indiana that I decided to get a hobby (apparently studying for a double major while maintaining a long-distance relationship just didn't "challenge" me). Having perused the possibilities and by-passed things like drawing, painting, losing weight and pottery (they all involve having way too much innate ability and generally expensive equipment), I settled on knitting. Not crocheting - that's for old women and sucks - but knitting.

*Start Explanation Regarding my Perceived Suckage of Crocheting*

When I was about 14 or 15 (and yes, in the Girl Scouts), my troop leaders decided it would be a good idea to do a crafty-type badge which included learning to crochet as one of the requirements. The only exposure I'd ever had to crocheting before that was watching my grandmother do it with tiny hooks and tiny thread, which always resulted in the copious amounts of homemade doilies littering the house (tastefully, no doubt). While I was ever-amazed at the dexterity her chubby-old-woman hands displayed while weaving her proverbial web, I was never really taken by the urge to pick the hobby up myself.

Ironically, my leaders decided to teach us to crochet (no t knowing how themselves, I suspect) using the same tiny hooks and tiny thread. At the best of times I could make out a wad of knots. At the worst of times I simply had to start snipping randomly with scissors in hopes of eventually finding the other end of the string. I am not a patient person, people. This was torture.

I came out of those very frustrating 4-6 hours with nothing more than a large spool of tiny thread, a tiny hook, and a couple of mangled mini-doilies, one of which, oddly, resembled the letter A and would therefore be gifted to the aforementioned grandmother (whose name is Ana) for Christmas. (Ah the serendipitous things life brings to us! I'm a make-lemonade kinda girl.) The others got strewn on the Christmas tree as "decoration" (yet ano ther example of the boundless extents of parental love) and have been, over the years, lost to the foreboding and all-eating attic. Thank GOD.

*End Explanation Regarding my Perceived Suckage of Crocheting*

So, having decided determinedly not to crochet, I made my knitting intentions known to my mother and sister, Carla (a.k.a Caaa the Queenmidge). My sister, the "artistic one," went out and bought me a "teach yourself how to knit" booklet, some cream-colored wool yarn, and a couple of size US7 needles in bright blue. A decent size of needle. Not too small, not too big.

The ability to successfully manipulate these needles in my hands and recognize the stitches I was making was all the encouragement I needed. I dove head first into what became known to everyone close to me as the "never-ending-scarf-capade" (ok, I'm paraphrasing). I made a never-ending scarf in cream for myself (which was too wide and I never used). I made a never-ending scarf in cream for my sister (which I never finished and never gave her). I made a never-ending-do-rag for my mom's dog (Hopi Midgebean I, said in a British Accent) which even the dog wouldn't wear. Then I started making never-ending scarves in navy blue. By that point I didn't even pretend to make them for people anymore. I just made them because I had to. I needed to.

This over the course of two or three years. Then I stopped. And the world sighed a great sigh of relief. Flash ahead Quantum-Leap-style to January 2007 and me sitting alone in a Westminster hotel (which shall remain nameless) on our first week in London. Matt is at work. I'm watching Big Brother and the Shilpa Shetty-Jade Goody saga is unraveling (pun intended) before my eyes. (Incidentally, it was Jade Goody and her name-calling that taught me what a Poppadom is, so I may still have come out on the upside of the losing-brain-cells-while-watching-Big-Brother battle.) I start knitting an afghan - don't ask what possessed me - and give up after about three days of futile efforts. I didn't realize then, but I truly believe upon hindsight that it was peoples' rejections of my creations that was causing them to tend to alternative-proportions and styles.

It wasn't until the summer of 2008 when I found out I was pregnant with Ludovictus (read: an unconditional and non-speaking perma-audience located in my torso who has no taste or sense of proportion yet) that I found someone who could truly appreciate my handy work. And so I embarked on the knitting adventure once more - this time armed with a lovely little book I found at Peter Jones (and a new term in my vocab: Haberdashery!):

Ah, Debbie Bliss - yarn-knotter-artiste-extraordinaire!
Female savior of the knitting persuasion!

Not only did I get her book - I also purchased the loveliest of things: cotton yarn and baby cashmerino yarn, also by Debbie Bliss. Her range, if you haven't seen it, comes in unorthodox but still baby-esque pale tones. They give you a sense of choosing something "other" and yet acceptable by the general public. Her patterns are simple, classic, modern and absolutely British. (And believe me, I really needed to find something British that I loved!) My first project were a pair of these for my favorite (and only) little niece Ava Sophia a.k.a Mimsy:

I successfully completed the 0-3 months pattern which came out the right size for a 2 year old (don't know what happened there). Most importantly they looked just like the ones in the book, and this boosted my knitting ego quite a bit.

My second and current project was a little something for Ludo. I opted for a cardigan (hey, he'll be born in London ok?) in pea green cashmerino. And much to my own surprise, it looks great!

About 90% of the way through this cardigan I joined a local knitting group at a really awesome yarn store down the street in Putney: Stash Yarns. There are a bunch of lovely ladies there who helped me master the finishing touches (seams), and without them I would have been lost. (Ever grateful.) I just have to sew the buttons on and it'll be set to bring the little guy home in! All this success has made me reconsider my ban on crocheting. Maybe if I just get a bigger hook...

* * *

Here are some other lovely hand-knitted things I've received as gifts recently:

This is the sweater Matt came home from the hospital in!
Handmade by his mom 20-something years ago.

This is the sweater my MIL made for our baby.
I'm thinking little-shepherd-boy-cum-Parisian-poet...love it.