 | Diary Navigation:
|
December 3, 2004
The great irony of our Thanksgiving is that a stomach bug swept through our family, starting with John, beginning Thanksgiving day. John, being the cook in our family, started preparations for our feast Wednesday night. He’d been plotting the menu for about ten days and he embraced the grocery shopping like a kid in the candy store. Wednesday night he put the turkey in a brining solution, made an out of this world pumpkin-banana mouse tart (thank you Barefoot Contessa), the cranberry relish and glaze for the turkey. He started cooking around 7am Thanksgiving day while Ava and I played and she made acquaintance with the television by watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. (She went nuts) After the meal was nearly ready John poured himself a holiday seabreeze that he described as “the canary in the mine.” He got very warm and thought it was from all the cooking, being on his feet so long, not eating… He laid down “for a few minutes” and wasn’t able to get up. I felt so, so bad for him. On top of that, I had stripped the bed that morning and our sheets were in the washing machine. I got upstairs and he’s lying on our mattress pad in a low moan horribly sick to his stomach.
The wonderful meal went on without him. My sister joined us, bailing out of the Thanksgiving-for-30 festival at my parent’s house. (very luck for us) Ava ate a few bites of food, four dinner rolls and I put her down for her nap so we could enjoy the rest of the meal. “The boyfriend” ate a little turkey and some mashed potatoes that “tasted weird” (could it be the garlic?) and that was it. After Ava woke up from her nap we went to my parent’s house for a couple of hours and let John rest in some relative quiet. Ava drank up the attention like mad and ate about six pumpkin cookies. She was such a hound. Anytime anyone grabbed a cookie she would race over to them and do the signs “more” and “please” saying “moor peeeese” much to the delight of my family. What a ham. Of course every time she did it she got more cookies. The next day the tummy bug found me. Despite the low-grade illness – just some nausea and intestinal disturbances – we had a wonderful four-day weekend. We sunk into our newly re-arranged living room with our Netflix and really enjoyed our time together as a family. Truthfully we hardly did anything outside of the house.
Lots of TV talk…
Over the long weekend John and I watched “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset” from Netflix. I had seen “Before Sunrise” (Ethan Hawk, Julia Deply – meet on the train, wander around Vienna for 24 hours, agree to meet back in six months) when it came out around 10 years ago. I was in my early 20’s (like the characters in the movie) and absolutely adored the movie. “Before Sunset” is what happens 10 years later. Again the characters are my age and quickly settle into that wonderful dialog about life, why they didn’t meet six months later (not a spoiler – it has been widely discussed in movie reviews) and what has happened in the ensuing years. I loved watching the movies back to back. They were so romantic and marked some touchstones in my own life too. John hadn’t seen the first one, but enjoyed them very much too. They sparked some really nice cuddling in front of the fire, talking about our own journeys to find each other and what marriage means. It was a very cool way to mark our anniversary. I would totally recommend this as an “in the house” date night.
We also watched the documentary “Spellbound” one night after Ava went to bed. Lane joined us for most of it, which was cool too. The documentary follows 8 young people who are preparing for the National Spelling Bee – different backgrounds, social, economic etc… It sounds sort of odd, but it was really a wonderful film. The movie cracked Lane up too. I think he was kind of bored and restless in the house, but seemed to really enjoy sitting down with us to watch the movie.
Ava soaked up four straight days of no day care, plenty of attention from mom, dad, Meghan, Lane and the extended family. She had an absolute vocabulary explosion this week adding probably 15 words. It was like a light bulb went off… The bubbles in the sink, teeth, boat, cheese, Triscuit, cracker, feet, mouth… she start parroting back everything, remembering it and assigning meaning. We probably read 60 books this weekend (she got sooo many as gifts when she was born – what great gifts!) but most significantly Ava discovered the television. During the Thanksgiving Day parade she caught sight of the floats, the music and stood in front of the TV squealing with excitement. John and I turned on “Clifford the Big Red Dog” on Starz on Demand and she went nuts for the “big puppy.” She also watched bits and pieces of “Finding Nemo” all weekend. The television really only keeps her interest for about 10-15 minutes at a time, but it is so funny to watch her watching it. Last night she was sitting on my lap on the couch – I was watching “30 Minute Meals” on FoodNetwork and Ava picked up the remote, started pushing buttons and saying “Momo” (translation = Nemo) over and over again. We’ve created a monster. We’ve watched bits and pieces of Nemo for the past few days – like 10 minutes at a time. I am a little worried about the fact that Ava has now seen Nemo’s mom Coral die a couple of times. She doesn’t understand it at all – she thinks all the orange and white fish are Nemo. Why do so many Disney films kill off the mom? How do you explain that to children once they get big enough to understand? I hadn’t seen the movie prior to showing it to Ava and now I kind of wish I hadn’t. I love the colors, the ocean, the fish, but the death of the mom is sort of disturbing.
John and I have decided to do our best to do an “anti-mall” Christmas this year. We’re committed to buying most of our gifts at locally owned and operated stores, hopefully with a little more character and an eye toward living within our budget. After a number of days at home, Saturday we decided to bundle up and do a little shopping in a gentrifying neighborhood with a number of cool little shops. We made a terrific loop to a local kitchen store (could have spent about $1000 in there) an art gallery, a tea shop and a store for lotions and potions. We picked up a few gifts and had a very nice time. Besides Rafi one of Ava’s favorite CD’s is Ella Fitzgerald/Louis Armstrong Duets that is just magnificent. Somehow we got to singing “Dancing Cheek to Cheek” from that CD as we were walking down the street on our shopping trip and Ava just laughed and clapped and bobbed her head. My sweet girl… It was just one of those moments you wish you could bottle.
One of the things I’ve tried to capture in writing this diary is some of my girl’s quirks and preferences. These little things are fleeting, in my view, and are some of the things I’m afraid I will forget when she’s starting kindergarten or going through puberty. Ava loves to eat things out of pretty bowls or plates. She does not like children specific plates that are plastic and have animals. She wants our pretty white ramekins, a small pinch bowl, one of those faux crystal Mikasa serving dishes. It cracks me right up. We can serve her almost anything if its in a pretty container. When we all sit down for a meal she wants to eat off the same plates, eat the same foods and gets offended when she doesn’t get a placemat too. She can be a little stinker. One of the most hectic times of our day is from the time we get home (usually around 5:30pm) to the time we start the going-to-bed ritual (usually around 7:15pm). No matter how much advance preparation I do, we walk through the door and the chaos begins. Ava is hungry, cranky, me too, someone has to get dinner ready… We’ve discovered that Ava absolutely loves apples and oranges, so I’ve been cutting up some fruit, maybe a piece of string cheese, putting it in a pretty bowl to try to tide her over to dinner. Of course, she usually fills up on that snack and doesn’t eat a ton of dinner. Any of you pro-mommies have any suggestions?
I was talking with a friend of mine who has a daughter just six weeks younger than Ava. They are in talks to add another child to their family and we were reminiscing about those early baby days, how hard they were, how confusing it was… It led to some comparisons – is parenting a toddler harder or easier than parenting a baby? I think it was easier to move around in the world with a baby, especially pre-mobility. Ava’s routine is pretty well set now and it is hard to deviate much. When we’re with her she requires much more focused attention than she did when she was a baby. Her latest trick is, for example, if we’re standing at the counter in the kitchen wedging herself between us and the counter, pushing on our legs, asking to be picked up. But for my part I think I am enjoying toddlerhood more than babyhood. I’m certainly not trying to rush my girl through her milestones, but I love seeing her personality emerge, I love being able to communicate with her more, I delight in her quirks and funny little ways. Those things weren’t quite so apparent when she was a baby. So I guess I think babyhood was easier, for the most part, but toddlerhood is more fun.
The holidays are approaching so quickly and I have done little to prepare. Our house felt like such a disaster that I didn’t want to get the Christmas decorations out until we’d restored a little bit of order. Saturday is supposed to be a beautiful day, so I think we’re going to put up our outside decorations and work on our inside ones as well. I’ve joined my blended family’s tradition of picking out and chopping down a real Christmas tree. My family always did an artificial tree… So I think we’ll head out sometime this weekend to get that done. And we still need a Christmas card picture, no small task, so we may end up using a really sweet picture of the three kids we took this summer at the beach. I enjoy the festiveness of this time of year, but wish there was a way to feel less frenzied by it all. I think I’m going to try to take an afternoon off work here in the next couple of weeks to really do a big Christmas shop/bake/wrapping etc… OK, maybe that will be a whole day, not just an afternoon.
I’ll close this rather mundane entry by sharing the recipe for the pumpkin cookies Ava loves so… They are very tasty and keep well.
Thanks for reading—
--Kate
Pumpkin Cookies
4 cups unsifted flour
2 cups quick oats, uncooked
2 t. baking soda
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. salt
1 1/2 cups butter or margarine, softened
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1 can (16oz) Libby's pumpkin
Combine flour, oats, cinnamon, soda and salt - set aside.
Cream butter, gradually adding sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla - mix well. Alternate additions of dry ingredients and pumpkin mixing well after each addition. Drop by heaping tablespoons onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Cook at 350 for approximately 15-20 minutes until cookies are firm and lightly brown. Makes 50-60 cookies.
The recipe gives the option of adding raisins, nuts and/or chocolate chips, which I didn't when I made them. I topped with cream cheese frosting - this recipe was just enough frosting for the cookies.
Cream cheese frosting
cream together 8oz of cream cheese (softened) and 1/2 cup butter or margarine (softened). Add 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar.
 |  |
|
want to keep a diary on iParenting?
Authoring a diary on the iParenting network allows you to chronicle your family's story, preserving it for years to come. It's also a great way to get the most out of the iParenting community. Click here to start...
|
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families. 
