NaBloPoMo

Once I get into bed, almost nothing gets me out.

Even when Sawyer awakes with a cry, I try my best to convince Steve to get him (my rationale is that he can fall back asleep within seconds while it can take me hours). Last night, it was legitimately my turn, so I got up, led him back to bed and rubbed his back for a few minutes. He was quiet and seemed to be nearly asleep so I returned to bed. A few minutes later, he awoke again and started a cycle of coming to his gate, crying out, and returning to his bed. It seemed like the cycles were getting longer and he was clearly okay, so I decided to let him figure it out on his own rather than start the pattern all over again.

In the meantime, I was starting to fall asleep again when Steve's elbow crept into my space. I pushed it back and he took that as a sign that I was pushing him out to get Sawyer - in my groggy state, I wasn't able to tell him otherwise.

Okay, that was a bit of a long aside.

My original point was to show that I just don't get out of bed - not to pee (even when I was pregnant), not if I forgot to brush my teeth, not if I forgot to submit my timesheet, rarely even for Sawyer.

But this month, I have gotten out of bed after I've almost fallen asleep, not one, not two, but THREE times because I had forgotten to blog that day. Today was one of those days. We were watching friday public affairs on public television (I know, a riveting friday night activity) and I fell asleep on the couch before Steve pointed out I should go to bed.

As I was falling asleep, I suddenly realized I hadn't blogged, and that today was the last day of NaBloPoMO. For several minutes, I started writing a post in my head and then decided I had come too close to posting every day to miss it just b/c I didn't want to get out of bed. So I did, and here I am. 30 days, post every day. Let's see where i go next. Maybe I will actually post before 10pm one day!

fridge friday

This is a fridge friday post, sans pictures.

Today is the last Friday of November and the bottom shelf of our fridge contains the same cabbages, rutabagas, turnips, and beets that were there on the first Friday of November.

Perhaps my goal for this weekend will be to figure out how to use them up. Kim-chee, rutabaga fries, turnip soup, roasted veggies. I'm guessing the beets might be done for.

amish friendship bread

Today, a coworker gave me some starter mix for "Amish Friendship Bread" - each day for 10 days, you "mush" it together in a ziploc bag. On day 6, you add 1 cup milk, sugar, and flour, and on day 10, you divide into four more bags and give three to friends, keep one for yourself, and make 2 loaves of bread with the remainder.

Apparently, it is more like sour cream coffeecake than bread. One of the ingredients is "instant vanilla pudding mix" - not exactly a stereotypical amish item, I would think.

I'm looking forward to trying it.

books and movies

This week, I finished the books Plenty, Sammy's White House (by Al Gore's daughter), and Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls for my bookgroup. Next, I'm planning to read Food Politics.

Tonight, I watched the movie Cassanova.


Someday, I will blog before 11pm and actually have more to say about the things I read and watch. But that someday is not today.

a little democracy

Sawyer attended his first town meeting tonight. There was a meeting to conduct a straw poll about where a new elementary school should be placed.

It was held in the junior high gym and it was standing-room only - probably 1000 people.

For most of the time, Sawyer played in the lobby -pressing buttons on the water machines, counting doors, walking on the windowsill (6 inches from the floor). Finally, the presentations were over, the commenters were done yapping, and it was time to vote. I had convinced him to go into the Ergo, and we went into the gym. We had all (well, not the wee ones) been given day-glo index cards which would be counted. I told him I had to hold up the card to vote. At which point, he started pointing to other cards and saying "vote" "vote" "vote."

a orange... doon-doon?

Sawyer's birthday today. He had a great day. He gave me a recap when he was getting changed into his pjs this evening:

- blow candles!
- cake!
- pay-do Finn!
- Didney!
- fire truck!
- orange doon-doon!
- happy birtday to me!

translation:
- blow candles! (we had candles this morning, this afternoon on cake, and this evening at dinner - he is fascinated by them.)
- cake! (it turned out great - you'd never guess it was wheat-free, egg-free, although my frosting could use some work)
- pay-do Finn! (after our little party, we stopped by to deliver cake to Finn's older sister and were invited in to do some play-dough)
- Didney! (he adores her, even though she had a cold while visiting today)
- fire truck (he got a fire truck from Uncle Eric and Auntie Marie, as well as a little wood fire truck/ambulance/police car trio this morning)
- orange doon-doon (aka an orange balloon - we hung two green balloons from his doorframe and put balloons on all dining room chairs, and an orange balloon was just floating around
and he played with it quite a bit.

He also talked to grandma and grandpa on the phone and actually talked and sang to them (usually, he just stares at the phone and then gives it a kiss). They got him a very cute letter train that says "Sawyer" - he got to open it first thing this morning and played with it for a long time, forming different "words."

birthday preparations

Tomorrow is Sawyer's second birthday. I've been slightly fretting for the last week or so about how we would celebrate. Didn't want to do something too big but also didn't want to just have us. It turns out that his daycare will be closed tomorrow afternoon so he'll be home for the whole afternoon. Two of his friends from the neighborhood will come over for a birthday snack and opening presents - between the gifts from relatives and us, the table looks awfully full.

We've been reading books about birthdays for a few days now - it will be fun to see what he thinks.

Here's a picture of the table that will greet him in the morning (after he sees the two balloons hanging from his doorframe).

We'll let him open one present (from grandma) in the morning and then the rest in the afternoon.

I also decided to bake a cake. Last year, I made cupcakes because it had been so long since I attempted to bake anything more than banana bread. But I was slightly inspired this year. Since one of the kids has allergies to dairy, eggs, and nuts, I found a highly-recommended chocolate cake recipe and am currently bakingthat -I'll keep my fingers crossed to see how it comes out. It only took 10 minutes to mix in one bowl so that's definitely a plus.

A full report coming tomorrow...

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santa and the fire truck

We went to Bath this afternoon to see Santa arrive by fire truck. I knew Santa probably wouldn't be much of an attraction but I figured the fire truck would be very cool. There was caroling on the library green where there is a large gazebo.

As the choir (or whomever the group of people wearing santa hats were) started singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and we walked around the side of the gazebo. In those 30 seconds, we had already missed the event! The fire truck drove up into the parking lot as though it was a regular old chevy sedan, dropped off santa and drove off. I'm not sure Sawyer even saw it! He was one of the first to see Santa and it probably registered that he was dressed funny with a very white beard but not much more than that.

There was a parade of sorts down main street and everyone had jingle bells. Sawyer got to walk on the yellow centerline of the road and at the end, there were two police cars, complete with flashing lights, to block off traffic and instead of going inside to sit on santa's lap, we stood at the curb and looked at the police cars and watched the policeman. One opened the front door for Sawyer and for once in his life, he didn't ask to drive the car. Same policeman gave him a "trading card" with a picture and his contact information.

Not bad for a first attempt at xmas activities (both for us, and for Bath).

winter's coming

It's been a hard adjustment to the start of cold weather. We're used to going out after naptime and having at least a few other kids around (along with their parents). But now, most days (okay, basing this on a 3-day sample), everyone's inside.

We could stay inside too, but (a) I'm inside all day every day and I think Sawyer probably is more than I'd like as well, and (b) there aren't many activities inside for us to do.

It's probably more of an issue for the mornings when Sawyer is likely to start bouncing off the walls. But I realized this afternoon that he is probably old enough to do some baking with me (we made chocolate chip cookies) and he is starting to be more interested in drawing (last time we tried, he just ate the crayons).

so bright...

This afternoon, Sawyer and I went out to enjoy the sunny - although blustery - day. I finally took out my winter coat and was sitting on the porch finishing my tea, while he was scampering around the front yard, wearing his winter coat and mittens, along with Steve's hat (b/c I couldn't find his in the jumble that is currently our mudroom).

It was definitely a windy day and at one point, he looked up and said "eyes cold. need glasses".

It was a surprisingly insightful statement, since he has worn sunglasses for exactly 0.5 seconds before tearing them off his face. I wear them frequently when driving and often when out and about in town, so perhaps he thinks there is a connection.

(after a suprisingly great morning of shopping for pants that can be easily pulled-up/down for the supposedly forthcoming potty-training

thanksgiving

We had a lovely thanksgiving. Pretty quiet morning. I prepared cranberries (both regular and spicy NPR ) - Sawyer helped me wash them and when I let him try one he couldn't stop eating them - yep, raw! Steve prepped the green beans. We took a long walk (well, long by Sawyer standards - an hour with no complaining either!) in our woods, had a small lunch of mac-n-cheese, with herring and crackers. Sawyer took a long nap and so did I, while Steve did some work in the shop.

We had dinner with friends, which was a beautiful, huge spread and it was great to spend time with everyone. There were candles on the table and that was the biggest attraction for Sawyer (although the abundance of trucks on the floor between courses was a big draw too).

I almost forgot to blog today. I was just in bed reading my new book - Plenty - and I think I read something about time, looked at the clock, and realized it was 11:14 and I hadn't blogged!

It felt like a really long day, which was nice because I have three more - may they be just as long!

zen of fish

Last night, I finished reading Zen of Fish by Trevor Corson. It's a look inside sushi in america, from the perspective of students at a sushi academy, interspersed with information about the fish used in sushi, and the methods of preparation.

I'm not sure of the technical term for his style but it is one of the only non-fiction types that I can easily read - kind of like a really good Sunday magazine in-depth article.

A few things I learned:

- sashimi is just fish, no rice
- you aren't supposed to use chopsticks with nigiri (which is fish and rice)
- you are supposed to dip nigiri in the soy sauce fish first, not rice first (and if you are caucasian and visit Japan, you'll probably get rice tightly composed so it doesn't fall apart when you do put it in rice first)
- octopus have brains in each of their tentacles
- in Japan, wasabi is added to the rice in the right proportion for the fish being served. It's an american invention to add lots of wasabi to soy sauce and then drench the sushi in it.
- the popularity of tekka or toro (aka tuna) is also an american invention, introduced to Japan after world war 2. Traditionally, sushi incorporates lots of different fish prepared in many different ways. So it's not just the mercury or the overfishing that are reasons to seek out other types of sushi.
- if you want the chef to serve you what he or she thinks you will enjoy, you sit at the sushi bar and say omakase, which means as you wish.

Corson has a sushi blog (well, archive of past blog posts) and has another general blog called the Scrawling Claw.

american pie

For some reason, we have started to teach Sawyer how to sing American Pie. It must have been on the radio and I started singing the one verse that I know and he asked for it "again."

He picks up songs pretty quickly and will fill-in the blanks if we start the verse. A few times now, he has started the song ... "bye, bye..." At the moment, it goes something like this:

Me: Bye, Bye, Miss American
S: Pie
Me; Drove my
S: cheby to the leby
Me: but the
S: leby ... dry
Me: them goood old
S: boys ... wikey and rice
Me: singing this will be the day that I
S: bye.

I think if we are going to continue singing we might have to make new lyrics for the last phrase. Any suggestions?

you can't cheat!

Yesterday, after posting about how I had nothing to say, I realized I did have something to note. But I figured I'd write it yesterday, save it as a draft and then post it today! voila! But blogger knows better, I guess. Because when I tried to do that, it posted as yesterday. Oh well. But I now see if I had clicked on Post Options, I maybe (??) could have changed the post date and time.

I think I have sunk to a new low in blogging.

a little hand part two

Of course, Steve thought he'd be coming back to our bed, so he left the gate in Sawyer's room unlocked. Next thing I know, I've got a little hand saying "mama" - he climbed up into bed and I groggily woke up enough to look at a book with him. At this point, I thought Steve had already gotten up and was downstairs.

The book had a picture of an apple.

Sawyer: apple, please.
Me: no apples here.
Sawyer: apple, please.
Me: look here's a green parrot.
Sawyer; apple, please.
Me: okay, go get an apple.

Sawyer gets down from bed and toddles off, I assume to go see Steve and ask for an apple (or at least get distracted by a truck and let me go back to sleep). I roll over and close my eyes.

After a few minutes, I hear Sawyer coming back up the stairs, making a slight thumping noise. He toddles in and thrusts several bananas up onto the bed. That's when I realized Steve probably wasn't downstairs.

He climbed up, I peeled a banana, and we finished looking at the rest of the book.

a little hand

Sawyer has been out of his crib for about two weeks now. At first, we just put the crib mattress on the floor, but he has always been such an active sleeper (it wasn't uncommon to hear a clunk or a thunk when he rolled around and kicked the crib) that he kept rolling and/or scooting off the mattress. We had some yoga pillows surrounding the mattress but that didn't seem to help.

At least twice, I have checked on him and found him fast asleep in the middle of the floor. Luckily, I was able to pick him up and put him back in bed but I don't think he always stayed there. And Steve says while I was gone, Sawyer woke up frequently.

On Saturday night, we switched the crib mattress for a futon, thinking that perhaps a larger surface area would give him more rolling room without necessarily waking him up. That night, he woke up twice before midnight (not a good sign). The first time he went back to sleep on his own. The second time (or was the third time?) Steve went in to comfort him. Apparently, the larger surface area also allows Steve more rolling room b/c he fell asleep there too.

Next thing he knows, it's morning and a little hand is reaching for his hand with an "oohhh! it's dada".

Hopefully, that's the memory he'll keep about his new bed.

blogging

The problem with blogging is that I spend half the day contemplating a particular topic that I want to blog about...writing sentences in my head, figuring out what I really mean.

But by the time I have enough time to write, it is 10:23 and all I want to do is sleep.

A friend of a coworker is doing NaNoMo (national novel writing month) and he works at a place where he does three hours of "real work" and spends two hours writing his novel. I'd say I want to work somewhere like that but I've been there (however briefly) and I know myself well enough to know it might be good for the month of November but not for much longer.

And since I don't have the time, you are left with the remnants of my day. I suppose this is a common phenomenon, but at least some bloggers, like Lanker Loksh, can come up with an amusing anecdote to make us laugh. The highlight of my day was spending over an hour reconciling my expense report with my credit card.

deadwood

Speaking of things that Steve likes that I don't prefer ...

We relatively frequently watch netflix movies with our neighbors and friends Mike and Wendy. Recently, we watched one episode of Rome, the HBO series about life during the reign of Caesar and Co. They suggested that we might also like Deadwood, because it was done by the same producers.

It should have been a clue that Rome was rather violent with a fairly complex storyline (they kept stopping to explain who was who, what the backstory was, and why it was relevant), not to mention that it was hard to tell the characters apart.

But I agreed to try Deadwood. Steve loved it. I hated it and surfed thru the second episode. But Steve wants to watch them all. So we increased our netflix from 2 to 3 movies so we could at least watch something else. I had hoped he would do a marathon watching while I was gone but the veteran's day postal holiday kind of made it difficult.

I have occasionally watched it (or rather sat on the couch surfing while Steve watches) and continue to hate it. Part of it is because it's a western and I very rarely like shows of that genre. Part of it is because most of the characters have a rather staged and stilted manner of talking, mostly sprinkled with every third word of "f-ing" something. It's also violent in a pretty graphic way. Last night's episode involved a complicated backcountry surgery to rid someone of gallstones. I think I prefer the clean sanitized version of ER. It made me almost sick just to listen to it.

Steve is watching again now so I'm headed upstairs to read in bed.

summer people

Just finished reading Summer People by Brian Groh. It's a first novel that got pretty good reviews in the Portland Press Herald. It took me a while to finish it and I'm not sure I'd recommend it. The basic plot definitely fits the category of "beach read" and the cover art with a lake and a close-up of long female legs complete with flip-flops hanging over the side of a boat confirms that.

What is interesting is that most of the story is told from the perspective of a guy. It's basically a story of teenage (really early twenties) angst - who am I? what do I want to do? who do I love? - with plenty of drinking and some sex thrown in. I'm not sure if I found it a difficult story to absorb because it wasn't an engaging story, or because I read it in fits and starts over the past few weeks, or if it was because the main character was male. There were some good plot lines about the differences between growing up in Cleveland and summering in coastal Maine.

Each chapter started with a few phrases that provided an overview of what would happen. From Chapter Eleven: "Nathan confesses his plans - A chilling cry - Paramedics provided succor and shame - Night at the hospital - Eldwin draws a circle." I felt a bit like I was reading sidenotes to a play. Not sure it's a technique that I like.

A intriguing aside is that Steve (of the Tolkien, Robert Jordan, Ursula LeGuin books) said he thought it looked like an interesting book. I can count on one hand the number of times that he has shown any interest in a fiction book that I'm reading. I didn't ask him whether that was based on the cover art, the storyline, or the fact that the

birthday expectations

Sawyer's birthday is in a little over a week. Two of his friends (or perhaps more accurately, children of two of our friends) had birthdays this past week. Yesterday, I was telling Sawyer that it had been Caleb's birthday and Bertie's birthday and that they had a celebration and had cake and ice cream and presents and that it would soon be his birthday.

Me: What do you want for your birthday?
Sawyer: cake
Me: Do you want anything else for your birthday? Maybe a fire truck?
Sawyer: nope
Me: school bus? (now, naming his favorite things, hoping to elicit an "aye" which is yes in sawyer-speak)
Sawyer: nope
Me: the moon?
Sawyer: nope
Me: drive car?
Sawyer: nope
Me: cake?
Sawyer: aye!

Guess we don't need to worry so much about what to get him - and since the only birthday book I could find at the library today was The Birthday Box (which he has asked for at least 3 times since then) - I'm thinking he'll like our gifts just fine (not that we have decided yet).

please

In the last month or so, Sawyer has gotten remarkably more polite. It used to be that he requested another serving with "mooorre!" (with a slightly morose, mostly loud demanding tone). With some practice, he now says "more please" usually quietly but also slightly breathlessly as soon as the first bite of food has entered his mouth. You'd think he was the youngest of five children trying to make sure he'll get enough.

a conversation from today:

sawyer: cracker please (this is while Steve was in the midst of washing dishes)
steve: here you go, can you say thank you?
sawyer: thank you please

free rice

"what if knowing what a word meant could help feed hungry people around the world? at free rice it does "(thanks to the washington post for this lead)

This is totally addictive. may distract you from your regularly scheduled life.

You know you want to click on it....

For each word I get right, 10 grains of rice are donated through the United Nations to end world hunger. You are probably thinking, uh, yeah, joy, do you know how many grains of rice you had for dinner? well, my grains were added to 201,225,290 other grains - and that's just today!

Take a look and let me know your score.

a birth story,... almost two years later

It was the first time I listened to Garrison Keillor in several months (*this post is being written two years after the fact via memory - which is probably hazy on some details - I have a handwritten journal somewhere but I can't bring myself to find it. I should also give thanks to greenstylemom for hosting a birth story carnival and finally inspiring me to put this to paper).

Morning after Thanksgiving, 2005, first day of my vacation, one week before my due date. And I had PLANS for that week - I knew too many people who had early babies recently so I wasn't really expecting to get more than a week but at least a few days. Lots of stuff to do, get the house clean, maybe do some unpacking from the garage, do some christmas shopping with my friend Wendy, freeze a bunch of meals, pick out some birth announcements, make the birthing center dinner, make the birthing cds, etc. etc.

So it was 9am, I had slept in and was listening to the daily author note/poem when I suddenly felt a wetness. First thought - Did I just pee myself? Oh, that's weird. Oh, wait, that's not pee! I jump out of bed, call (in a slightly panicked voice) to Steve and come down the stairs. He meets me with a concerned look and I tell him my water broke. He says "yah, that's great, we're going to have a baby!". I say, nooo, I'm not ready. He says, "well, it's a bit late for that."

We call the midwife, she tells us that contractions will probably start in an hour or two and that I should just have a quiet morning and she'd talk to us in a few hours. I think I spent a good portion of the morning making mix CDs of "music to birth by." We had only moved into our house three weeks earlier and most of our furniture was still in storage - just one small card table in the kitchen and our small couch in the living room (plus bed upstairs). Construction was still going on - some on the inside, some on the outside with shingling. I don't remember if there was work scheduled on that Friday or not. I seem to remember that Steve asked Rob the carpenter to either work outside or not work on that day once my water broke.

A bit about my birthplace .... I had chosen an independent birthing center, at the suggestion of the nurse practioner I had been seeing. It seemed like a good idea, since I had been in a hospital exactly twice, both times to visit Steve's parents when they were dying. We did tour the birth wing at one local hospital and found it underwhelming, compared to the experience that seemed to be offered at the birth center. There were two midwives that shared a practice to support births at this center. I saw them alternately throughout my pregnancy. There were also birth classes as well as breastfeeding and other classes.

So, with that background, I don't remember the afternoon but in the evening, when nothing had yet happened, we checked in with the midwife, decided to go see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We had tried to see it on the previous afternoon (movies on holidays are a tradition in my family) but one mile from our house, the subaru was already slipping in the 1/2 inch of unplowed snow/rain, so we turned around and returned home. Later that day, we joined Wendy and kids for a thanksgiving dinner. I made cranberries and a fruit punch with pineapple, ginger ale, and tonic water. I later learned that tonic water contains quinine, which is also classified as a class-c drug for pregnant women. While it seems unlikely that it could actually induce labor, it always made me wonder. After the movie, we went to Shaw's and bought some rather random food that I thought I might want, filled the prescription for Ambien because the midwife thought I should take it to be sure to get a good night's sleep. I'm uncertain whether I actually took it that night.

Slept fine that night. When nothing had happened the next morning, we went in to check-in with the midwife. She did a VERY quick manual check (later learned it was because of concern of introducing infection) and checked the baby's signs. Everything looked good. She didn't seem particularly concerned that it was already 24 hours past my water breaking (the typical point at which interventions would start in a hospital-supervised birth). She sent us on our way, suggesting that we stick around the area rather than drive back up to Brunswick, and gave us some suggestions about how to kick-start things (I don't remember what they were - except for one - coming up later). We did some errands, including some rug shopping. I remember thinking that it was very surreal to be shopping for rugs and carpet options while knowing that we would have a baby within just a short time.

By this time, I was having occasional cramps but they were sporadic, could barely be timed and felt like menstrual cramps. We had take-out Indian food that evening and I'm not sure how we spent the rest of the evening (making more CDs? watching TV - did we have the TV yet? reading a book?).

I do know we took a walk in the dark before dinner around the neighborhood and we ran into Mike and Finn taking a walk. Finn was singing "twinkle, twinkle, little star" (he was almost exactly the same age that Sawyer is now, and Sawyer also sings it frequently). We hadn't told anyone in the neighborhood that my labor had started because I didn't want the attention especially since we didn't know when it would actually start. I especially didn't want to say anything to Mike b/c I knew, as an ER doctor and husband to someone who had one high-risk birth, he was very skeptical of our choice to go to a birthing center, even one affiliated with a hospital and just as close as going from one floor to another within a typical large hospital. Steve wasn't able to keep it a secret, however, and Mike was appropriately concerned - although to his credit, he was very discreet about his concern - at least to me. I'll have to ask Steve if they had a conversation about it.

Went to bed. Woke up at about 3:30 with the idea to do some yoga. During much of the last few months of my pregnancy, I frequently woke up wide awake at 4:30 or so (a completely new experience for someone who was typically groggy at 7:30, waking slowly to NPR). I went downstairs, set up a little nest in the corner and put on my yoga cd. Did that for about an hour, without noticing too much difference. I sat on the birth ball and listened to the music and did some breathing. This waiting wasn't really something I had expected. By about 5, I woke up Steve and we sat together. I realized that I felt like I didn't want to make progress until I was closer to the birthing center. We called the midwife (should clarify that "call" meant "page" and she called us) and she asked if we could wait a few hours until the contractions were more significant. I think I said I wasn't sure. She told us to meet her at Ballard House at about 9am.

So we got ready and drove down (I realize there are four hours between the call and the meet-up - not sure how those early-morning hours were passed, maybe making mix cds?), sitting on a pillow to reduce the effect of contractions which were coming ocassionally. Contractions! ha - that should really be in quotes. No wonder the midwife wanted me to wait!

She did a quick check and was going to suggest that we go out to take a walk on Cape Elizabeth but I just couldn't gather the motivation. It was a beautiful, sunny, and somewhat warm Sunday. It would have been a nice day for a walk but I was perfectly happy in the nice comfy birth suite.

My expectations for what would happen at this point were pretty different from what actually happened. I think I wanted to be at the birthing center because I thought the midwife would help me figure out what to do next. But instead, she mostly left Steve and I to myself. She checked in with us occasionally but she never offered much guidance. When you read fiction, the midwife is actively involved in the process, providing ideas about postures to try or things to think about. Of course, I suppose it was questionable how far along I was, but I remember feeling that this wasn't what I expected. My contractions had definitely increased but were still pretty small. We tried the ball but that was very painful so I was mostly laying on the bed in a curled-up fetal position. Not really in pain exactly but in discomfort. There were two midwives in the practice and I had a preference for which one I wanted to attend my birth b/c from my appointments, I always felt more comfortable with her. But it was the other midwife on call that weekend. I should read more birthing stories to know whether my experience was unusual or whether that support is only provided by a doula.

At about noon, I finally asked if I could try the birthing pool. The nurse (there already b/c she had taken care of a baby at an earlier birth that day and decided to stay) started the water. The midwife asked again if I wanted to try the ... enema ... (there I said it). She had repeatedly suggested this since our first visit after my water broke, and every time, I had the same shirking, horrified reaction. We were supposed to have done it at home but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. At this point, I asked for a detailed explanation of what it was, and what would happen. When she explained it, I realized that it was very different from what I thought - i had been picturing what I guess is a colon-cleanse. By comparison, an enema suddenly seemed doable, especially if it meant things would get started. The midwife was saying, although she didn't want to pressure me, that if things weren't moving by about 4pm, we would probably need to take a walk across the street (e.g. admit to the hospital). Soo.... I said I'd do it. Steve helped me with it, and WOW, yep, that did the trick. No need to get in the pool now. I went from stage 1 to stage 3 in about 20 minutes (or quiet labor to really active labor - you can see I'm doing this from memory b/c I don't remember the actual terms).

At this point, we finally used a mix cd. Actually, though, it wasn't even a mix - just a enya cd. Although the midwife and nurse were trying to get me to move around the room, I again wanted just to lay on my side. When I suddenly wanted to push, they started to guide me through it. I remember feeling very nervous at this point. I think this part was about 15 minutes of active pushing. It felt like it lasted forever and I can't imagine a typical two-hours of pushing. Steve was prepped to catch but when Sawyer actually came out, there were four other hands b/c he came so quickly. I remember not quite realizing that it had happened when suddenly this small, slightly purple, wet being is on my chest. There's a picture of me at this point looking down at him with a look on my face that clearly says "wait, how did THIS get here?"

I brought him to my breast and that, at least, seemed completely natural as he nuzzled against me. We went thru the after-birth activities (placenta, checking height/weight, trying to breastfeed, meeting the "discharge" criteria (eating, drinking, walking, peeing), snuggling, taking some pictures that I still adore, and maybe a little nap (is that possible?). During this time, our nurse was awesome. Just the best. I think the midwife left shortly after the birth actually happened (and come to think of it, I don't think I ever saw her again b/c the other midwife did my check-ups).

The actual act of trying to breastfeed was definitely more complicated than the initial nuzzling. It felt kind of natural and kind of like a brand-new skill that I had to learn really fast. But there weren't any issues and we were cleared to go home. We packed up him in several layers and drove home (again, me on pillow). We were home by about 6pm. Wendy, a very thoughtful neighbor (and wife to Mike mentioned above) had delivered a little gingerbread family (complete with icing for Joy, Steve, Sawyer) and a bowl of the most amazing spaghetti which we devoured. (I later learned the secret ingredient was ketchup. It now tops our list of comfort food.)

Sooo... that's the story for Sawyer Jensen Prescott, born November 27, 2005. Funny how the actual birth only took 10 lines to describe but this was a really long post. Overall, it was a good, relatively straightforward experience. Although my midwife wasn't warm and fuzzy, she did have the experience to know what was needed and probably kept us out of the hospital and possible interventions. I was glad I chose a birthing center although I'm not certain whether I would do it again - granted the midwives are different now but I wonder whether a hospital closer to home would be better. We'll see, I guess.

And now he's almost two!

nineteen minutes / ten hours

Left hotel in Boulder at 5am, arrived Brunswick at 7pm, spent ten hours in between either sitting on airplane (1.5 hours on tarmac in Denver, 4 hours in air, 45 minutes on tarmac in New York, 1.5 hours in air) or sitting in airport lobby. Or, briefly, running between terminals at laguardia (which included going out of security, walking outside, down the sidewalk, past the freight entrances and into the us scareways terminal) to make our next flight (which, at least was also late, so we did make it). Having never been to laguardia, I now know why people try to avoid it.

Two redeeming details of the day.

First detail (can it be a detail if it takes up ten hours?). While sitting, I read Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Piccoult. I know, it's not fine literature. But she writes a darn good story and it was a perfect length - I started reading when I got on the airplane and I finished it just as the wheels came down over Portland. The quandries in her books always make you think.

Second detail. I'm home with my sweeties. One's a chatterbox and one's a bit groggy. But they are both awfully cute. Good to be home.

101 things

so another long day, with not much to report.

had dinner this evening with jess in denver and she was going to see a concert - old joe medicine show - she tried to convince me to come with her but it doesn't start until 9pm and since i have to leave at 5am tomorrow to get to the airport, it didn't seem like such a good idea.

however, i'll have an interesting post soon. i've seen a few blogs where they have a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. i started brainstorming a list yesterday and i think i'm going to do it. i'll try to finish the list over the weekend and then i'll figure out when to start it.

long day

Just finished a very long day of sitting in a conference room for a workshop.

Interesting and important topic about methods for estimating the probability of impact to birds and bats from wind energy facilities.

Lots to think about but can't blog about it yet. Tomorrow will be a similar day.

a different place

ways in which boulder is different from brunswick (or even portland, a more comparably sized city):

like most towns west of mississippi, mostly laid out on a grid. street numbers match the nearest cross street (1380 is between 13th and 14th street, 450 is between 4th and 5th).

at intersections, there are large, readable signs showing the names of both streets.

bike lanes EVERYWHERE. literally everywhere. i'm surprised there is not a lane on 36 from boulder to denver.

a pedestrian mall with lots of hip shops and very cool sculptural features on which kids can play without fear of running into street or listening to car noise (brunswick has zilch, portland, I suppose, has monument square but it just doesn't compare).

people who bike EVERYWHERE. okay, maybe not everywhere. but it sure seems like EVERYONE bikes a lot. maybe part of this is because University of Colorado is here so the students might skew it but I don't think so.

many tea shops. perhaps as many tea shops as coffee shops.

sun. did i mention sun? yesterday it was seventy. yes, that's right. it was 32 and blustery in maine. there are usually 300 days of sun. steve reminded me that he wanted to move here, but i thought the rockies were too big. sometimes, my judgement isn't very good.

green space - from downtown, you can hike/walk/run/bike into the mountains from at least three trailheads. and that's not counting the little green pocket parks throughout town.

beautiful architecture. i still don't know the exact style but the streets have a great neighborhood feel. the streets are narrow, there are always sidewalks, the houses have a low-slung 1 1/2 story frame, with enough originality to make it interesting.

of course, that very attractive housing is very expensive housing. i didn't even browse the real estate b/c i know it's crazy.

housing that keeps getting built. a few miles north of town is a canyon where our friends Josh and Carmel live. we were here in 2004 and along the road to the canyon was a very small "new urban" development that was just being built - it was about 1-2 blocks just sitting in the middle of what seemed like nowhere. Now, it is probably at least 25 blocks wide and long. aka SPRAWL. makes our new england definition of sprawl seem kind of silly. when it's dark, you can see lights in every direction for as far as you can see. lots of lights. Now, probably it would be similar in New England if there weren't so many trees and you could get up on a plateau, but there's a big difference between a subdivision with 30 houses and one with 300 houses.

radio - on the dial between 88 and 92, there are TWO spanish-speaking stations and TWO christian stations.

people. there are a lot of people here and a lot of cars. did I already say SPRAWL? it definitely does not have the feel of a small town in the same way that portland does. in the denver area, there were 1,000 new residents every WEEK for ten years during the 1990s.

and I haven't even mentioned the water issues.

that's why I like to travel. when you don't leave your state very frequently, you don't have to go far to realize how different things can be.

larger than life

Sometimes the problem with a good story is it sticks with you even when it's done. Especially when the story is on the big screen and you've seen a movie in the theater exactly twice in the last two years.

I saw American Gangster this evening. I was slightly doubtful, expecting a shoot-em-up, but the ticket guy assured me it was more drama than violence. And he was right. I should have realized Denzel Washington is always good, regardless of his role. It was also the sort of epic-length movie that needs to be seen on the big screen. I can almost guarantee that I would have fallen asleep if I watched at home.

I splurged on popcorn and skittles, but skipped the diet coke, in my attempt to eat more healthy (I also snuck in a water bottle, some cheese and an apple, so perhaps that balances the junk food?).

However, when I left the movie I found myself paranoid at every turn. Why are those people grouped around the car next to my mine? Why is that car following me so closely on the highway? Does the music on the radio at the redlight mean I'm about to be sideswiped when the light turns green? Should I park next to the truck in the hotel parking lot or will someone jump out and grab me? Is it safe for me to go in the back door of the hotel?

I'm not sure whether the lesson is that I shouldn't watch such dramatic movies or that I shoulddn't eat so much sugar.

Now I am happily watching fluff tv, which I can turn off with no negative effects (or so I hope).

disorienting

I'm blogging from Boulder for the next few days.

I'm here for a meeting next week and I came a few days early for a mini-vacation. It's the first time in over two years that I've had more than 24 hours completely to myself (no work, no kid, no husband - not that those things aren't great but sometimes a break makes you appreciate them more - or so I hear). So far, so good.

This morning, I flew out with my coworker Jess this morning and we arrived in Denver about 2pm. She headed into town to meet up with a friend and I headed up to Boulder. After checking in to the hotel, I went up to downtown Boulder and walked around. It's such a nice treat to be able to wander in and out of stores completely on my own schedule and whim.

I had a great happy hour dinner at Sunflower, an all-organic restaurant, and did some window-shopping at several cute little stores on the Pearl Street Mall - books, clothes, paper, home decor - all very appealing but luckily, I have NO room in my bag.

I was prepared for the same weather as at home (chilly when I left and apparently now very cold and very blustery today) but was pleasantly surprised that it is seventy degrees!

After the stores closed, I browsed in the Boulder bookstore and bought a book for the trip home (which will stay in the rental car until then or I know I'll start - and probably finish - it. Hopefully, Nineteen Minutes (used for $5!) by Jodi Piccoult will be better than December Wedding by Anita Shreve, which is what I got for the trip out. I had initially planned to bring a library book (either Zen of Fish by Trevor Corson or Gravedigger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates), but I couldn't really get into either of them enough to justify a 4-hour straight read. But the airport choices were pretty slim pickings too, so I ended up with that choice. I did pick up The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman during the layover and that seems to be a lot more interesting.

Unfortunately, I managed to lose my car. I usually have a pretty good sense of directions and I can look at a map and have a pretty good sense of where I am and where I need to go. I've also been to Boulder at least a few times and so I thought I had a map in my head (unfortunately, there wasn't one in the car). When I went looking for the car, I realized it wasn't where I thought I left it. When I parked it, I thought I made a careful note of where it was - in a parking garage by Walnut and Broadway, on the top floor, across from a building that said "foundry", and I thought I walked right towards the main street. But when I returned to that spot, nothing looked the same. So I walked up and down, looking at the other garages, but none of them were tall enough. After the third round of walking a 5-6 block loop, and starting to slightly panic, I decided I should probably look at the garages on the other side of Pearl Street, even though I felt fairly confident I had walked a certain way. Sure enough, the last garage that I checked was the one where I had parked. Not sure how I got myself all turned around but it was an odd sensation to have everything flipped 180 degrees.

zen fridge

Fridge is pretty empty today - it almost feels organized!

Didn't make banana bread (but moved bananas to freezer to save for making later). Meant to make chicken stock but didn't do that either (chicken remains still in bag in fridge - hopefully, Steve will toss on garbage day).

from the top ...

leftover quinoa stew from dinner club night, cottage cheese, strawberry yogurt (do you know they color it with beets?), leftover milk, an avocado (yep, still there - can it possibly be edible?), the same jarred food from last week.

middle shelf - lettuce (the first of the non-CSA greens, now that the season is over), 2 cartons of milk, 2 containers of hummus, ricotta cheese, sour cream, tortillas, beef for stew, brussel sprouts, 3 packages of tofu (yep, same as last week).

bottom shelf - 3 cabbages, large rutabaga, small turnips and rutabagas, leftover chicken/rice stew, 2 packages of fresh eggs, 1 package of hard-boiled eggs

drawers - hmmm... carrots, cabbage, beets, apples, a pepper, scallions, radishes, limes.

I'm leaving town for almost a week for a business trip to Boulder (okay, the business trip is only 2 days and I'm taking a mini-vacation by myself (yah!). Since it's pretty tough to entertain a two-year-old and make dinner, let alone try to decide WHAT to make, I've left them with a list o simple suggestions. None of which involve rutabaga or cabbage so I'm guessing the fridge will look very similar next week.

btw, I did try to encourage SnS to come with me and visit our friends Josh and Carmel who live in Boulder but Steve is pretty busy at work with a deadline so he decided it didn't make sense. I guess Sawyer will never get to fly for free, since his birthday is in two weeks and we are staying here for thanksgiving.

what to read next

I like to read but I very rarely buy books. The library is a regular trip – sometimes, with Sawyer, sometimes by myself. Most of the books I have bought recently are for Sawyer, although I’ve realized that most of his non-library books have been around for a while – might need to buy something new for his birthday.

Recently, I haven’t read many books that I really liked. Today, I happened to look at the Amazon Top 100 List for 2007. I initially thought I’d take a look and see what I read – but what I discovered is that I haven’t read much. Exactly one item on both the Editors’ List and the Topsellers List. So much for my reputation in bookgroup (current and past) for having read everything… Now that one book was really good and it was one of the few books I read that I would consider buying.

#31 - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbrara Kingsolver.

Out of curiosity, I looked at the NYTimes lists as well. Hardcover Fiction - nope, Hardcover Non-Fiction - nope. Trade Fiction - okay, yup, these look familiar. I've read about 1/3 of the books, but none very recently.

more later … when I can type without misspelling.

abc with me

the picture missing from the post below (b/c I didn't have the patience for it to upload last night).

abc with me

For a few weeks now, Sawyer has been singing his abcs.

One of the funny things about daycare is the things they learn that you didn't teach them! I think we have occasionally sung the song, and he'll fill in a letter here and there but if you had asked me, I would have guessed it would be several more months before he picked up on the whole thing. But the older kids (all two of them!) do more singing and apparently he loves that song and Teresa often sings it during diaper changes.

His rendition from a few weeks ago (October 8, 2007) will be posted separately.

Of course, the postscript to this video is that when I picked him up from daycare the next week, I mentioned that he had sung it, and found out he had been singing it for a while -- mostly because of a new toy - a school bus with lights and buttons for each letter (he LOVES all buses). Apparently, he played with it a lot and couldn't help but learn the song when it was repeated so frequently.

I had a very mixed reaction to the whole thing, ranging from "wow, he knows his abcs!" to "oh, he learned it from a plastic bus??" to "do you think we need to worry about autism if he knows his abcs already?" to "boy, it's nice to be able to get him to break into song when he's complaining and put a smile back on his face!". Maybe those are the four stages of parenthood - it's probably just an inkling of what's to come.

364 more days

It's hard to believe that this time next year, we'll be sitting in front of the tube, anxiously awaiting early returns (or maybe the race will be practically decided at 10pm).

This year, not so much anxiety about the results of voting. It is remarkable how quick the whole process can be - I think I drove from work into town, voted, filled my gas tank and drove back to work all within 25 minutes.

There were local votes for town council and school board. I don't think any of the races were particularly contentious, although one of the candidates for our district of town council is the real estate agent for a potential industrial park in our district and that seems like a pretty big conflict of interest! The composition of both groups will be important over the next few years as there are many BIG important issues facing our town (approving a comprehensive plan; helping to determine what will happen on the Navy base when it closes; determining how a new elementary school will be configured, and where it will be sited; not to mention the myriad daily responsibilities of running a town or school system). Makes me glad I'm just on the Conservation Commission!

On a state level, there were several referendum questions - a racino in Washington County, bond issues for R&D, the state college system, and land conservation, as well as extending term limits for state legislators. I voted yes on all of them (although my vote was fairly well considered, not just the first option!). If it weren't late, perhaps I would provide an explanation of my thinking ... maybe I'll save that for a later post when I need ideas for NaBloPoMo!

So now that I only have 364 more days, I guess I actually have to start paying real attention and start to develop an opinion about who I like.

monday menu planner

This post is inspired by GreenStyleMom who also started a NaBloPoMo group for blogging about green topics.

Here's my Monday Menu :

Monday - we attended a Common House Dinner (broccoli-cheddar soup with homemade whole wheat bread and salad, along with cookies and mint tea for dessert). Apparently, the bread is reportedly very easy to make and doesn't require any kneading. I don't yet have the recipe, but I'm hoping it's really that simple, because it's tasty.

Tuesday - squash gratin (leftover from sunday) with tofu added and stir-fried bok choi.

Wednesday - Dinner Club. We cook - will be making Quinoa-Kale Chowder with cornbread.

Thursday - Chicken stew (hopefully in the slow cooker) and maybe I can convince Steve to try to make the bread.

Friday - well, maybe Cabbage Soup (supposedly better than it sounds) ... possibly there will be a Common House potluck, so perhaps we'll do that instead.

You'll notice that rutabagas, turnips, and beets don't have a prominent part in this week's menu. The problem is that I'll be traveling for work to Colorado for most of next week (definitely a new post), and I'm guessing Steve isn't likely to get creative with the several pounds in the frig! So I'll have to look up long-term storage options. Maybe we can keep them in our garage?

crib? what crib?

In other news, Sawyer climbed out of his crib this afternoon. He's been getting close for a few weeks now. He hoists himself up in the corner, gets to a certain point when he realizes he might tip over, and then backs off.

But when Steve put him down for his nap this afternoon, he had no interest in sleeping. He walked around the crib for a while, complained for a while, and then Steve thought it was finally quite. But then just as Steve was starting to fall asleep for his own snoozer (as we call them), he heard a pitter-patter, pitter-patter. Uh-oh. And apparently, he was having nothing to do with getting back into his crib. So he was awake for the rest of the afternoon, first playing with Steve, then with me, then with the neighborhood kids. Remarkably agreeable for someone with so little sleep, especially since he took a really short nap yesterday too (it's typically not unususal for him to sleep 2-3 hours in the afternoon on the weekends).

We weren't sure what to think about tonight but decided we'd put the mattress on the floor and see what happened. I gave him a pillow for the first time and told him a story about "a little Squirmmel who couldn't fall asleep and then like a monkey, went climbing, climbing, climbing, pitter-patter, tip-toe. But this Squirrmel was very sleepy and when he went to his bed, he discovered a pillow, a new pillow that was all his. This was a very special pillow - Squirmmel could lay his head there all night long and tell it stories and the pillow would listen carefully." Then I took him upstairs and made a big deal about the new special setup and read him a story in bed (not a usual routine). And then crossed my fingers.

I should say that the lack of crib is made more difficult by the lack of doors in our house (that's a post for another time - a "benefit" of being married to a cabinetmaker). I suppose he could probably open the door but it feels more complicated. For now, I put two blue bins in front the curtain that serves as the door. It won't stop him but perhaps it will slow him down.

Probably it was more sheer exhaustion (and confusion about the time change) but we haven't heard a peep from him. We'll see how tomorrow morning goes.

Any tips on making the transition out of the crib more smoothly?

a day of walking in conserved lands

It was a perfect meal to end a day in which several hours was spent outside. This morning, we tried to go for a walk in the Town Commons, a conservation area in town. That sort of worked. We typically just venture into the woods behind our house but since we were inside for most of yesterday, it seemed like a good day for a walk. Sawyer didn't exactly agree. He was fine with being outside but would have been perfectly happy to stay in the parking lot and watch the cars go by - or perhaps to walk 10 feet in and scoop up leaves and branches and moss and rocks. But it was nice to do some exploring in an area we haven't been recently.

After lunch at Wild Oats, a cafe in town (not affiliated with the grocery store), I headed to meet up with folks from the Conservation Commission (of which I've been a member for 3 years) and board members from the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust.

We were doing a sitewalk to confirm "baseline" conditions at two properties which were recently protected from future development - in all, more than a mile of saltwater frontage is now protected, one of the last undeveloped areas along Brunswick's coastline.

The land is on Maquoit Bay and has some great views out to Casco Bay, along with at least one mile of walking trails on old woods roads, as well as several freshwater streams, and marshes that support commercial clamming. It is also one of the only spots where you can actually legally put your foot in the ocean in Brunswick. Technically, Brunswick is a coastal town with 65 miles of coastline but it's easy to forget that fact (especially when I live on the non-coastal town line!) and when you have to drive to Freeport or Harpswell to see the ocean. With this property, Brunswick doubled the town's public access to the water. And it's only 10 minutes from our house!

While these walks are pretty typical and we do them 5-6 times a year to monitor properties, this is the first time the two organizations are collaborating on a specific project, and it's also a quite large piece of land to be protected. One of the parcels was purchased by the town (with assistance from Land for Maine's Future and Trust for Public Land, and I'm sure several other organizations) and an easement on the other adjacent parcel (without public access but permanently protected from development) was donated by the landowners.

I have some connection to the project because when I first moved to Maine, I was working on the Maine Coast Protection Initiative, a joint effort of several state and federal organizations to help bring land trusts and other local conservation organizations together to identify how they could work more effectively to protect more land. Part of my work was helping to write the state plan for the Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program, a federal program that provides funding to protect important land in coastal areas. Although we didn't identify specific parcels, we developed the criteria by which coastal land in Maine would be evaluated. Maine was the first state in the nation to put together a plan in collaboration with many different non-profit, state, and federal organizations. All of the coastal states can nominate specific parcels which are then evaluated by NOAA, the sponsoring federal agency.

Although I'm not certain whether it was the presence of the Plan or if this parcel really has extraordinary features, it was ranked the number one priority in the country for protection under this program. So it feels good to know that my work had some impact and I didn't just produce a planning document that sat on a shelf in Augusta.

The walk itself was about three hours and we tromped all over the place - up and down gullies, thru marshes, bushwacking quite a bit. It was a perfect day to be out in the woods and it was a great group of people to join in the exploration.

I look forward to returning there soon - we'll take the most direct route and head out to Rocky Point. We'll probably wait on more gully-crossing until the town puts in some bridges.

a warm fall dinner for a dark november night

On the first night of daylight savings time, I cooked a winter squash gratin for dinner. Despite Steve's misgivings, it was actually quite tasty. It included butternut squash (from the CSA), onions (also from the CSA) carmelized with sage and thyme (from our garden), and then cooked (for an hour - so not a weekday meal) with goat cheese (from a local farm) and milk (also from a local farm), and some ricotta and a bit of kale. Quite yummy - served with arugula salad and leftover cornbread. There's lots of leftovers - Steve says he'll eat it all week but we'll see if he gets tired of it. I think it might also make a good base for soup.

instead of lead

After tug was given a higher purpose for scientific research, I asked if they could test Sawyer's SIGG bottles. They are the new hip kiddie accessory to replace plastic water bottles, which supposedly have unsafe amounts of Bisphenol A, thought to be either a hormone-disruptor and/or a carcinogen. Research is still uncertain but it seems like one of those choices that if you can make it easily, why not?

Of course, we have two SIGG and we don't use them as much as we probably should - he's starting to drink from glass now. I originally hoped to have one to leave at his daycare but I don't think she believed me when I said it should just be washed with hot water, NOT put in the dishwasher, and so he hasn't taken it there recently. But when we are out and about, he takes one of the SIGG bottles.

I felt fairly certain that they were probably safe, given that a) they are known for being non-toxic (although if you asked me for specifics, I'm not sure I could have answered coherently before I started writing this post), and b) they are made in switzerland (and if you can't trust the swiss...?).

One is bright blue and has red characters = fine. One is yellow and has several zoo characters of different colors. This one tested with funny amounts of trace so the scientist ran more tests (all of which were accompanied by exclamations of "how interesting! oh, this is just fascinating!). Turned out that it contains bismuth, which I learned is the heaviest of the periodic metals (remember your periodic table? I didn't either). I also learned that it is now being used as a replacement for lead.

I thought I was just getting toys tested and I learned more about chemistry than I have in along time.

heirloom toys that come with more than memories

My mom carefully and lovingly stored away many of the toys that my brothers and I played with as kids and she has sent at least some of them to us over the last two years so that Sawyer can enjoy them as well. Some of them I remember, some I do not. The ones I remember best were some bath toys - a fisher-price tug boat and a green turtle who could swim on its back.

I've always kind of wondered whether some of the toys were really safe - after all, they were made from plastic nearly thirty years ago. Since we know bad stuff leaches out of plastic in the short-term, imagine what could happen when it actually starts to degrade! Not to mention that in the mid-seventies when lead was okay to use in housepaint, gasoline, and who knows what else.

But it's hard to refuse a gift toy (unless it has lights and music, in which case it can be hidden at first opportunity), and even harder to turn down a very cute toy that brings back fond memories.

Today, we said goodbye to tugboat.

Our local library had a free screening for lead in toys today. The flyer said to prioritize so I grabbed several toys from his bins, focusing on the wheeled variety that he now plays with most frequently. I also thought to take turtle and tug from the tub.

The testing was sponsored by Cornerstones of Science, an award-winning program at our library that runs all sorts of "science for the masses" programs - book discussions, public speakers, raising monarch butterflies, and apparently lead-testing as well (it's now being replicated at libraries across the country so keep an eye out for it near you).

It was great to hear about this program because it's been on my mind recently, because of the too-numerous-to-count recalls of toys due to unsafe levels of lead. I had been thinking that someone enterprising should come up with a home-testing kit. But then I also read recently that these tests don't work. Not to mention that apparently there is ONE inspector at the responsible for testing of all toys.

But you want to know about tug, right?

The tests were conducted by two people - Jocelyn, the staffperson for Cornerstones of Science, and a scientist who has been doing research (whose name I unfortunately don't remember and whose connection to the library I don't quite know - I'd guess he's affiliated with one of the collecges). They had two spectrometers, which look like super-size bar-code readers (and apparently costs $35,000 - guess that's why the home tests aren't very reliable!). They hold it on various parts of the toy and it beeps while it determines the presence of lead. If it reads less than 0.1, it's considered fine, even though there are no standards for acceptable levels of lead in toys. There can occasionally be trace amounts of lead on the bottom of toy cars and that's considered okay. Anything about 1.0 is considered an issue.

So, the results for my toys: red dollar tractor from target = fine; red, blue, yellow dollar trains from target = fine (a relief b/c I've wondered whether they were related to the thomas recalls); wooden red and blue wind-me-up train = fine; stuffed red pepper doll = fine; green turtle who floats on his back (circa 1978) = fine.

Tug with black smokestack and orange hull = not so fine. Like ten times not so fine. The orange registered 10.4. Not terribly surprising. The scientist was very intrigued and ran several more detailed tests. He explained them all but I have to admit I didn't fully understand what he was showing me so I can hardly explain it again. The first result was all I really needed to know - this tug wasn't going back to the bathtub. I donated it to him for further research. Apparently, he was really intrigued by whether it was the paint or the base of the plastic, and plans to take it apart.

Luckily, Sawyer usually takes a bath only once or maybe twice a week at this point (partly due to his extra-dry skin, partly due to parental laziness - although he is usually pretty clean), so I'm thinking that he probably wasn't very exposed, given that there were no chips or scratches. They thought it looked like it was in pretty good condition. I'll try not to think about about whether hot water could cause degradation!

There are a few other Fisher-Price toys from 1978 that we have in our house - I didn't think to bring them along but I'm guessing that we'll probably choose to put them all back in a box. One sidenote - did you know that Fisher-Price was owned by Quaker Oats in the seventies? And that the toys used to be Made in USA? hmmm... lead or local? (ya, I get that 30-year-old toys don't really count the same).

So, I think for my christmas shopping, I'll be taking a closer look at pickel's lead-free toy list over at My Two Boys. Check it out to enter her free giveaways.

inside my fridge - rutabagas win

As part as NaBloPoMo, I joined several groups - mostly as a way to get ideas about what to write about every day! One group is Fridge Friday, where everyone agrees to post a picture of their fridge.

So here's my fridge for this week...

I actually have two pictures - one before I cleaned it, and after I made room for the last batch of CSA shares.
Before I cleaned it, it's pretty stuffed full - although until I actually started taking things out, I don't think I realized how disorganized it had gotten.

The door never really changes. All the small shelves have dressings, sauces, butter, and sometimes beer. The bottom drawer has milk * (usually oakhurst but I stopped at morning glory today and somewhat splurged on glass bottles from smiling hill farm), half-and-half, and a bottle of white wine.



As for the rest of the frig, well, it's probably better to talk about what it looks like now. Local items are marked with an asterisk.


Top shelf - green chile peppers*, 2 bags of argula*, tomatillos*, maple syrup*, bananas (clearly time to make banana bread), avacado, leftover olives, scallion/ginger sauce for rice, 2 jars of applesauce, miso, green olive paste, TJ's red pepper paste

Middle shelf - leftover filling for greens pie*, leftover scallion/ginger rice, cottage cheese, sour cream, yogurt, ricotta cheese, rutabaga* (yes, it's the HUGE one in the middle), 3 (count them THREE) heads of cabbage* (time to make kim-chee), cranberries, 3 packs of tofu, cheese, cheese, cheese, 3 1/2 lemons

Bottom shelf - several bags of greens, including lettuce*, bok choi*, as well as turnips*, rutabagas* (of a normal size), eggs, and TJ's peanut butter

Drawers - carrots*, beets*, cabbage* (yep, another one), maybe more rutabagas*, apples*, green peppers*, radishes*, scallions, and a lone lime.


And wait, I'm not done yet - in addition to all that I added, I also did some much-needed cleaMostly what is really interesting is what I took out, all of which had gone bad, including (warning that if you don't like to read about rotten food, you may want to skip the next paragraph):

cottage cheese; a rotten cantalope; 1/2 eaten apple; 1/2 finished cup of Sawyer's milk; 3 bags of rotten greens; 2 small tupperware of salad fixings; pinto beans in the can; 3 snack bags of 3 carrots each, all of which were now dried up; a very soft avocado; one tupperware of old spaghetti; a container of sliced ginger for long-gone sushi; and (this one makes me sad) a moldy quart of homemade salsa. Back in August, when you could get a 1/2 bushel of tomatoes at the farmers' market, I made a LOT of salsa. But clearly we aren't eating it fast enough.

And when I cleaned it, I discovered:

3 1/2 lemons; 2 open applesauce jars, 2 extra tofus (each on a separate shelf). Why is it so hard to keep the fridge organized in a way that reduces compost?

And which food will be still be here next Friday?

oh, and the brussel sprouts? sitting on the kitchen table, waiting for steve to pluck them from the stalk so they can be added to the frig.

rutabaga or brussel sprouts?

Today was the last day to pick up our CSA farmshare at Crystal Springs. We split a share with our neighbors (not literally but a few houses down the road), Bill and Jean. If you don't know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. A farmer offers a certain number of shares (I think Crystal Springs has 300 spots) and you pay for your share in the early winter. Then from early June until late October, you pick up your share of whatever veggies they are offering.

It works for the farmer because they get a steady income and the community shares the risk with the farmer. If it's a good season, you might get lots of food and if the weather is more challenging, you might get fewer big juicy tomatoes and more cabbage. It also often means that land can be protected from development. At Crystal Springs, the local land trust owns the land, which is permanently protected, and leases the land to Farmer Seth. They also recently remodeled the farmhouse, where his family and farm interns now live.

The way it works is that, each week, one of us goes to the farm and picks up whatever vegetables they are offering. For most of the season, there were hordes of greens every week - standard lettuce, arugula, baby bok choi, mitzui, kale, plus at least several other types of mixed greens whose names I can never remember. And the other stuff really varied, depending on the month and what was growing.

Going to the farm on Friday has been a really nice way to end the week this year. I drive thru downtown and head out Pleasant Hill Road into rural Brunswick. It's a nice change from my typical day when I leave work and speed down the interstate trying to pick up Sawyer vaguely on time from daycare. On a few summer fridays, I did pick up Sawyer first and took him with me to pick up the share. It was fun to visit the sheep or see the farm equipment ("digger! tractor! box truck!") but it was rather tricky to keep him from trying all the veggies, so I have to admit it's easier to go by myself.

For many Fridays of the season, we would often feel that there really were not many veggies. And yet, somehow, we never quite managed to finish our entire 1/2 share during one week. So I have NO idea how a family would work with a full share! I suppose you would have to do more detailed meal planning than we could do recently. All season long, we did get potatoes, onions, and squash that should still last us for at least 2-3 more months (along with rutabaga, cabbage, turnips, and beets that will keep for a while as well). And the recipe for Greens Pie (perhaps I'll post that later) by itself was worth the cost of the share - especially since it was the only thing that kept the greens from rotting.

I think we are going to try to keep eating local when it's possible over the winter. We are definitely more aware of the sources of our food. One of the nice benefits was that there were frequently other local farmers offering other organic food for a very reasonable price (apples for .50/lb, goat cheese, milk, sometimes ice cream, as well as lamb from the farm's sheep). In early fall, you could also pre-order ham from pigs raised at the farm. We ordered one pound of bacon and a 1/2 ham, which I just picked up today - 7.4 pounds!

While it was a good experience, and we were glad to support a local farmer, we aren't going to sign-up again for next year. I initially thought that if we had a CSA share, I would be less likely to spend money at the local farmers' market. But I'm not sure it worked out that way - typically, Sawyer and I would go to the Saturday market and pick up the veggies we really wanted. We might have spent slightly less because of the CSA but I think we'd prefer to keep going to the farmers' market and get specifically what we want. We're still supporting local farmers - but there will probably be less waste.

what i have never liked about november

It's always gray. It starts out gray and it ends gray. It's almost as bad as March but I suppose there is usually less snow.

Today started out typically gray, although it was a bit warmer. Gray all day, rain this afternoon.

But then, as we drove onto Echo Road, there was a full rainbow above the garage. A nice surprise.

Just in time for NaBloPoMo

Inspired by LankerLoksh, Doppelganger, and the other blogs I spent many hours browsing last November (and have checked regularly since then), I decided to join the fun this year.

I spent about two hours brainstorming on the right name. Possibilities that were actually available but which I did not select include: midnightjuniper, earliblue, wildindigo, falseindigo, baptisia, midnightarugula, articglow, purpleparsnip, morebroccoliplease, and chocolatepepper. Is the theme obvious yet? Some of my favorites were already taken - but frequently by someone who posted 1-2 entries back in 2004 and haven't touched it since. Hopefully, I won't join those ranks!