Daily living – Page 16 – My Truant Pen

Fun and busy

We had a very busy weekend. Very busy.

By the time Monday morning rolls around, I rarely remember what I did on Friday. I believe it involved the Red Sox and a playoff game. Oh, and decorating a Patrick cake. And wrapping all Grey’s presents.

Saturday morning as A. took Grey to his dance class, I drove to iParty to procure balloons. I came home and decorated with balloons and streamers and Spongebob-themed partyware. I got done a little early and sat on my front porch and watched the wild turkeys mutually menacing the neighbor’s cat and enjoyed a truly lovely fall day. Then all everyone appeared all at once.

Grey had Jefferson and N. (a girl from church), and their respective parents. The kids played together pretty well — although the difference between boy-personalities and girl-personalities was marked. Grey got a balloon that sings an incredibly obnoxious version of “Happy Birthday” when you hit it. (Who’s brilliant idea was that? Oh yeah… mine.) So Grey and Jefferson were happily hitting each other over the head with balloons and giggling furiously. N. was terrified. The kids played together for a bit while we grownups sat on the couch and gossiped. Then there was happy-birthday-singing, followed by candle-blowing-out and cake-eating. (Two years olds can be surprisingly reticent to eat cake.) This was followed by present-opening. I was impressed that the other two kids didn’t try to open the presents themselves. This is a hard part of other people’s birthdays. Then the party was over and the diapers were full and the kids were cranky and it was time to go home. Perfect. The presents all seemed to be a big hit and Grey got down to the serious work of playing with them.

Then A. worked on caulking the windows in the living room while I planted bulbs and mowed the lawns and Grey failed to take a nap.

When the yardwork/home maintenance/nap failure was complete, we headed to a friends’ house for a game and socialization. I hooked Grey up with Baby’s First Princess Bride Viewing. (Not surprisingly he liked the sword fight.) I got to spend time with some neat folks I rarely get to see and ooh and ah over how much their kids have grown. (Well, one is so new he hasn’t really grown, but I got to nuzzle fuzzy-baby-head which really… no complaints there.) Grey got McDonald’s for his birthday dinner, which delighted him greatly. (Easy to please.) And we got home just in time to pour him into bed and for me to watch the first six innings of the game. (I’m glad I stopped before it got too depressing.)

Sunday! I took Grey to church sola so that A. could do more window-caulking. Every other week Grey is terrific/terrible at church. This was the week for terrific. During the word for children he announced that he he was three years old and had his birthday. Perhaps I should keep a log of information he volunteers during word for children. He ran happily and fearlessly to his Sunday School class. He ate about 80000 oreos after church. He played on the playground. He remembered the signs for “I love God” and melted his father’s and my hearts by doing them so nicely.

We went to Macaroni Grill for lunch. I have to admit that I’m a sucker for their dessert ravioli. Then we went to meet up with the same friends we rarely see from the previous day at Kimball’s Farms. I had been under the impression that this was, you know, a farm. Ha. It was actually an amusement park with goats. The weather was spectacular and delightful, but my back was not spectacular and delightful, so I let my husband Grey-wrangle while I sat on a bench and read a mystery novel. Apparently, Grey is surprisingly good at mini golf. Also, never trust the millionaire philanthropist. We had a lovely, leisurely time there with neat people, and headed home as night began to fall.

To no one’s surprise, Grey fell asleep on the drive home. Unfortunately, he sort of woke up when we got home. He asked for bread. Surmising he was hungry, A. fed him two eggs and put him back to bed. He told me he was hungry. We fed him two more eggs, a piece of toast and a serving of apple sauce. Really — he’s not that physically large. 4 eggs, a slice of buttered toast and apple sauce? That’s like half his body-weight, but he totally packed it away.

It was a really, really nice weekend. There was no laundry done (let us not speak of my hobo-like appearance at this juncture — I think yoga pants with a hoodie sweatshirt are COMPLETELY appropriate office wear). There was no grocery shopping. (Milk? Who needs milk?) But there was joy and sunshine and leaves and “bungy balls” and birthdays and cake and friends. I’ll take it.

When did he learn how to unwrap presents?

We are not after your spicy brains. Trust us. — We may not be potty trained, but we can totally beat you in Super Mario Bros.

Mental zephyrs

I’ve been moody lately, for me. By moody, I mean that my general emotional tenor has not been logical or consistent based on external stimuli. Some days I’m just cranky as a bear with a sore tooth, while other days I’m Ms. Sunshine and Light. Today is a Sunshine and Light day. Wednesday? Bear needing a root canal.

This morning, as so often happens, my son climbed into bed to snuggle me. He even says, “snuggle”. He nestled into my arms, his butt against the bulge of his baby brother and his fuzzy-head at perfect kissable height and we drowsed there together for 10 minutes. How can that fail to bring joy to the heart? On a perfect clear October commute where the highway is lined with the slow fire of the dying year (really, the colors are magnificent this year), I listened to him discourse at length about whether Jesus had ever used bad words like “ca ca poo poo head” and gotten a time out.

One never knows just how much theology to teach a three year old. But I’m pretty sure the gospels are silent on Jesus’ use of the phrase “ca ca poo poo head”.

I remember part of why this stage of pregnancy is so tiring. You KNOW that you might have up to (by my count) 30 more days until you are holding an actual real baby. You know that the odds of going into labor today are very small. (Less than 1 in 30.) You know that likely you have a long hard slog ahead of you. And yet you think that maybe? Just maybe? And some of my friends are every so slightly more pregnant than I am and they are having labor pains and it’s days or hours until they will have babies and I could too! Or, well, it could be November.

Hm. What if I am in active labor on election day? Hm hm.

And thus you see the pattern of my thoughts, scattered high, low and in-between by the autumnal zephyrs like so many crisp new-fallen leaves.

My life of leisure

This morning started out with Grey’s 3 year well-child checkup. I remember when I used to send emails about his 6 week checkup etc. they were full of data! And information! But 3 years? Grey is developmentally fine. His height and weight are fine. He has lots of ear wax. We should probably make with the potty-training.

The big news, I guess, was that Grey got his flu shot. I asked if I could have one too. Grey’s pediatrician has a low opinion of grownup-doctors. “Why didn’t your midwife give you one?” “They don’t have any?” “What about your primary care doctor?” “They wouldn’t give me one until after my due date.” “Well, I can’t give you ours because they’re formulated for kids, and you are not a kid. [insert rant on how grownup doctors don’t plan ahead].” Frankly, I think he’s entirely right. I can’t believe my OB/GYN office didn’t order at least SOME vaccine for their patients who are, you know, pretty much universally supposed to ge flu shots.

Then I dropped A. off at home, Grey off at daycare and bought several small sundry things (like the hardware to hang the light-blocking shades) that were needful.

I arrived at the ultrasound clinic a little early and turned off the tv, since I was the only patient in the waiting room. It took the staff less than 2 minutes to realize the tv was off and attempt to turn it back on. When I rule the world, we will have a constitutional right to not have to be exposed to daytime television involving quiz shows that ask questions like “What color is Pokemon?”

The ultrasound tech was new, at least to the organization. One room, two pregnancies, three ultrasound techs. But she was good — I liked her.

You will be shocked, SHOCKED to hear that everything is JUST FINE. The facts:
* The baby appears to be about 5 lbs 11 oz. Note: ultrasounds are off by as much as a pound. But even at 4 lbs 11 oz a baby with 2.5 weeks to go will likely squeak over the 5 lb worry threshhold. And he’s very likely over that threshhold already.
* The baby has hair
* He is definitely, for sure, fourth confirming ultrasound a he.
* He is also opposed to letting people get the measurements they want in ultrasounds with him.
* His head is really, really, really low. Really low. She almost couldn’t measure his head because it was blocked by my pelvis.
* His heartbeat was perfectly fine
* He has plenty of amniotic fluid.
* My cervix does not look like it’s letting its occupant out anytime soon.
* He is a squirmy little bugger

THEN I went to Walgreens where the guy in front of me in line was saying how his roommate stole his prescription and he’d heard some horrible people abused these sorts of drugs and you know he might DIE if he didn’t get more of this stuff and have seizures but it didn’t matter because he had cancer so he was going to die soon anyway and his doctor was out of town and unavailable to call and couldn’t she just fill his prescription? Did he mention he might die without it?

I was impressed with how the pharmacist handled the situation.

And I finally got my flu shot.
Midwife: 0
PCP: 0
Pediatrician: 0
Walgreens: 1

They even remembered I had called and had things ready to go for me.

And finally, home. 6 hours after I left in the morning.

Zombies, Madeleine and apples

Friday: I spent Friday madly doing chores. Upside of being a human adult: ability to plan for the future. Downside: doing as much laundry as humanly possible on a Friday night. After I collapsed into gelatinous goo, I got to watch a bit of the playoff game. I have yet to watch an entire game this playoff season. That is sad. But with the west coastness and extra-inningness… oh well.

Saturday: This was an entirely fun for me day! While I did get up with Grey to give him his waffles, applesauce and strawberries while turning on “Robin Hood” (why yes, I am up for the “Parent of the Year” award — why do you ask?), A. took him to dance class, allowing me to sleep in. Then I went all by myself to our monthly local gaming get-together and played no fewer than three Zombie-related games. (Braaaaaiiiins.) I had to leave early.

Why?

Because I had a date. Better yet, a date coupled with a surprise. My loving husband had gotten us tickets to *something* and gotten a friend to babysit Grey. Anyway, we fed our friend dinner and then went downtown.

On the T in I asked A. where it was we were going. He said that we were going to a concert with a folk singer named Cesaria Evora. Ok. A bit random — never heard of her before but it sounded like fun! And I was wearing a dress! And going out! And with my beloved husband!

Then we got to the actual theater. Hmm… seems like there’s an additional name on that marquee:

: Wait a minute… what

I totally went squeey-fangirl on him. It was an excellent surprise and I was completely bamboozled. He did very well.

I really, really, really like Madeleine Peyroux’s music. It’s some of my absolute favorite. I was totally expecting to just love her concert. Instead, it was utterly bizarre. For one thing, the Orpheum was this strange combination of rococo opera house meets Fenway park (seriously — they sold hot dogs in the lobby) meets Shakespeare’s Globe theater. (Where I come from you don’t get seated after the lights go out. People were still arriving and being seated an hour later!) For another thing, I have never in my life seen a performer as terrified and uncomfortable as Madeleine was. This includes the 7th grade concert where April Kenny threw up beforehand. She was dressed in a long suit that was at LEAST 3 sizes too large for her. My mother in law would not let me out of the house in this suit. She held her guitar protectively in front of her. When she wasn’t playing, she sort of hunched over and clutched her suit jacket together as though attempting to be invisible. She looked completely miserable — like she wanted nothing so much as to disappear and get OFF THAT STAGE. She got this sort of grimace that was supposed to be a smile when she approached the microphone, which she only did when absolutely necessary. Her patter when she retuned between songs was about as feeble as I’ve ever heard — and the next act didn’t have anyone on stage who spoke English. And worst of all, she didn’t even relax and enjoy when she was making music. She played with her timing in some sort of attempt to… I don’t know… but it didn’t work. She didn’t hit the timing at all. When her set was done, she introduced the rest of her band but refused to introduce herself, and when the playing was done she FLED offstage. She nearly ran, I swear. I have no idea what was up with that — if she hates live performance ever and always, if she got broken up with 5 minutes before curtain, or if she had some sort abdominal pain issue, but it was almost upsetting to watch.

The act after her, on the other hand? The one she was opening for? ROCKED. It was this 70 year old Cape Verdean singer who practically limped on stage and drove the crowd WILD. Her band was FANTASTIC and everything about the show was totally on. And she just exuded confidence and presence and dontgiveadamness. She only spoke in Portuguese. And when she put down her microphone and did the ever so slightest shimmy of a dance, the crowd went absolutely nuts as though Elvis had just done a pelvic thrust.

If you asked me which one I’d rather have a CD of? Totally Madeleine — way more my style. Which performance did I enjoy more? Without a doubt Cesaria was more fun to experience. It was weird.

After the show, I found myself in dire need of dessert. For some reason, the Theater District in Boston does not cater to the “I need dessert” after a show crowd, so we ended up walking all the way down the street to the first place that would take us and feed us something sweet.

By the way, not that this is apropos of anything, but I’m apparently pregnant enough that even the wait staff at the Four Seasons will congratulate me on sight.

It was an awesome day.

Sunday: But wait! The weekend is not over yet!

Sadly, Grey wasn’t feeling very well on Sunday. We went to church, where he melted down in Sunday School. (Seems like every other week — he’s either great or totally melty.) Then after church I had a meeting and A. and Grey helped plant a few trees. Grey was definitely really tired and not feeling 100%… we’d planned on going apple picking. Was this still a good idea?

The way I figured it, we’d have a melty, tired, not-quite-right boy at home or a melty-tired-not-quite-right boy at the apple orchard, so why not pick apples while the sun shined? It was the right decision. The weather cleared just in the nick of time. Grey was GREAT at the orchard. He loved picking the apples. He played hide and seek. He loved eating the apples. We got pumpkins. It was a really lovely time. One should go apple picking at least once a fall when one lives in New England.

But the fun didn’t stop there! I realized when I got home just how many apples half a bushel is. The answer is: a lot. Many. More than we are going to eat. So I figured I’d send Grey and A. over with some apples for Jefferson and his family while I made dinner. Grey did a great job of decorating a bag to put them in. Then the guys took the apples over. Long story short, this resulted in Jefferson coming over to our house for the boys’ first ever playdate! They did really really well together (and looked soooooo cute!) It was fun.

Then I collapsed on the couch and the Sox collapsed in the 12th and I’m tired today. But all in all, it was one of the finest weekends I’ve had in a long time.

36 weeks pregnant

So I just had my 36 week checkup. The big news: I’m 1 cm dilated and 90% effaced. (waits) I hear all of you women who know what I’m talking about throwing up your hands with squee! and trying figure out why I’m calmly sitting here at my desk at work instead of feverishly at home packing my hospital bag and hanging the light-blocking shades. Well, see, the thing is that I was 90% effaced and 1 cm dilated LAST pregnancy at my 36 week checkup. You remember that pregnancy. The one where I gave birth 13 days after my due date — 6 weeks after my 36 week checkup? First time mothers almost always go before their due dates when they’re at all dilated at 36 weeks. But me? No. I prefer to do things on my own schedule.

So what do dilated and effaced MEAN? Well, imagine that the baby-holding area is comprised of two balloons, with a big filled area and a thick neck where the balloons are tied. There’s a water balloon INSIDE a, er, muscle-balloon. The water balloon part is the amniotic sac. The muscle balloon is the uterus. The amniotic sac doesn’t change prior to pregnancy. You only get the baby out of that when it pops — and when it pops you have to get the child out relatively soon or they’re likely to get infected. But that outer balloon — the tied off area is the cervix. Towards the end of pregnancy it begins to get thinner and weaker in preparation for opening up. That’s effacement. Then it sort of unwinds and opens up as you get closer to delivering the baby. That’s dilation. When you are 10 cm dilated, you’re ready to push the baby through the neck of the balloon — it’s all the way open. Much of the purpose of contractions is to open up the mouth of the cervix.

Basically, all the stuff that holds the baby in place is getting thinner, weaker and more open. So these things are often considered a sign that labor is going to happen soon.

Or not. In my case.

It’s very tiring to be “any moment now!” for nearly six weeks. That’s why I’m taking an “eh” attitude towards this news. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if I don’t go way past due, but I’m not going to hold my breath thinking I’m going to go before my due date.

In other, non-baby related news, A. went to the allergist today. He spends several weeks a year miserable and sneezing his head off with allergies, despite daily Claritin, and finally got fed up enough to see the doctor. The results are that he’s allergic to house dust, dust mites and (of all things) poplar.

Well, hopefully the house dust we’ve taken steps by addressing by getting the house cleaned periodically. (It would be interesting to track his allergies as compared to cleaning dates.) Poplar is hard to control — I don’t think there’s tons in New England though. But dust mites? Dust mites we can do something about. My doctor’s office HAPPENS to be right next to a Linens N Things that happened to be having a buy one get one 50% off sale on a bunch of bedding. So I picked up some pillow protectors, some brand new pillows (but we LIKE the old, floppy feather pillows we have!), and a new neck pillow for him. I think we’ll order the mattress and box spring protectors since they weren’t on sale. But hopefully that, combined with a nose spray and some eye drops, will make my poor husband less miserable. It’s reassuring to find out that he’s NOT allergic to cats!

Thus ends today’s exciting adventures in our periodic series “Visits to Doctors”. Join us next Tuesday for the next thrilling installment.

Room renovation — a room as old as I grows up

As I mentioned previously, we bought our first house a little under a year ago. There are many great things about this house. The bones are very solid. (The house is listed as being built in 1900, which is shorthand for no one knows when it was built, but probably between 1890 and 1910). The layout of the house is excellent. I love the view from the back and the town. And it’s really a pretty large house — certainly big enough for our needs.

Every room in the house is perfectly usable for what it is. Other than a sewer pipe ready to disintigrate at the slightest touch, the house really was in move in condition.

But every room in the house could also stand an update. The first two stories of the house are entirely wood-panelled with drop ceilings. Every. Single. Room. (Or was when we moved in.) Better yet, each room has a DIFFERENT drop ceiling and DIFFERENT panelling. Basically, the house was more or less redone around the time I was born. And it’s been well-maintained since, but the decor is what you might call dated.

We painted a bit when we moved in (our office and Grey’s room — beige is no color for a little boy’s room!) We actually offered on the house when I was pregnant — the same weekend we made the offer I discovered this fact. I ended up miscarrying that child, but the house was purchased with the expectation that there would be four of us living there. The second floor has three bedrooms. Our room is ok (shag carpet and white panelling!), Grey’s room we painted over the panelling. But the nursery was by far the worst and smallest of the rooms. Here’s a picture from the first time we visited the house:

Another view -- love that closet door! It's the details that really make a room

Now, it is not true that it would be impossible to put a child in that room. However, that is not a room that speaks to me of the nurture and warmth needed for a new baby. That is a room that speaks to me of, uh, a middle aged couple putting in a den in about 1975. (It was one of four tv viewing areas in the house as they had it set up.)

So I wanted to redo it.

The easy option would’ve been a coat of paint. There’s a lot to be said of a coat of paint. Grey’s room looks really good with the coat of paint over the panelling. But the drop ceiling wasn’t in good shape. The panelling was buckling in spots. And that carpet! Carpet is really not meant to be there for 30 years, even if the room has been lightly used. Did I really want my precious little spawn learning to crawl on that carpet? No, I did not. Also, the closet door was a sin against God and man. And I wanted an overhead fan.

So you start with removing the panelling. If you remove the panelling, you MUST remove the drop ceiling, as the drop ceiling is attached to the panelling. But you need to remove the drop ceiling ANYWAY because it turns out the light fixture was held up ONLY by the drop ceiling and that’s not going to work for a ceiling fan. So we need to put up a new ceiling. But there are wires that ran under the drop ceiling, so we can’t just go back the the layer above the drop ceiling — we need to add a new layer. (Actually, we ended up removing two layers — the drop ceiling and the water damaged ceiling tiles above that. And by we I mean my husband because pregnant women do not belong on ladders doing demo in rooms that may contain lead.) And so we removed two layers of ceiling and panelling to discover the badly damaged horsehair plaster walls that were original to the house.

The room at this stage was rather amusing in it’s hideousness. But here’s the thing. There were some big holes in that plaster wall. There’s wallpaper on all of it, which is probably good since paint from the same era would likely be lead paint. This is not a wall you can work with. We need to put new drywall in the entire room. That’s not actually the bad part. The bad part is that makes the room 1 inch smaller in every dimension (.5 inch drywall on all the walls). Unless you have redrywalled a room, you may never look at the trim in a room — inside and around the windows and doors and on the baseboard.

Thank heavens my husband got laid off about this time. (He got another job right away — but ended up with 2 weeks off.) He did what software engineers do when confronted with a hardware problem: he ordered about 8 books off Amazon, googled each problem and basically did a crash course in drywalling, painting and trim. He did an amazing, astounding job.

First, the ceiling. He added firring strips (strips of wood) to the ceiling, cursing roundly because the studs were elusive and had a tendency to disappear halfway through the ceiling. This was to create room to run the wires under the new ceiling. Then he and a friend and a rented contraption attached the new drywall on the ceiling to the firring strips. He cut a hole where the light fixture was to go. (Yeah, to add to the fun, lighting was an issue for the entire first half of the project — right from demo!)

Then we had a debacle getting the right drywall for the walls. This resulted in a whole heap of re-measuring and recutting. The studs in the walls were no more cooperative in their locations, once we had the drywall in place, either. Then taping and mudding. Remember — this includes the ceiling. Then priming. (I finally get to start helping around this point.) Finally, we get to paint the whole thing — ceiling and walls and closet. You start to feel like you’re almost done.

You are laughably wrong. The hardest part is yet ahead. But wait! You can’t do it yet. Because you need to put the new carpet in before you put the new trim in, or it won’t work measurement-wise. The room lived in this state for many a week before the carpet went in. (Lowe’s did the installation — we have no complaints with that whole process. It wasn’t nearly as expensive as I expected, either.)

New carpet, painted walls, light fixture in place… done, right?

No, there is yet the trim.

Did you know each window has 8 pieces of trim? (4 on the inside and 4 on the outside?) And moreover, each piece of trim has to be exactly the right length? Ambitious people even mitre it so they have nice angles. AHHAHAHAHAH!

We spent like 2 hours in the hardware store attempting to transform our careful window measurements into lengths of wood we should buy, considering all the variables like “Will it fit in our car”. Hours more went into measuring three times before sawing once, hammering into place, praying like fury, and caulking the inevitable shortcomings. Working together, it took two of us five hours to do one window. And that was without mishap. And it was the easy window.

The trim took a long time, and it was hard to do, but we perservered! And finally, after trimming, touching up, installing closet doors, trying not to get any paint on the new carpet and using so much caulk that the room would likely float if placed in water, I declared it done and ready to recieve a baby. Or at least baby furniture.

And here it is … a room for the next 30 years.

Needless to say, we are very proud of ourselves. Not bad for a pair of knowledge workers!

The macro and the micro

There’s been a lot written and talked about regarding housing and real estate lately. Since most of us live somewhere, most of us have some sort of stake in “the housing market”, whether as renters or mortgage-holders. (Perhaps some of you out there are really homeowners — I only know one or two people who really are.)

Well, after thinking about it for years, starting and chickening out twice, and trying to figure out what the heck the “right” thing to do really was, A. and I found the house we wanted to live in about 11 months ago. 10 months ago we moved in. The part of me that reads WAAAAY too many financial websites wonders if we did the right thing. Housing prices have fallen since then, so maybe we could’ve gotten a better deal. But on the other hand, financing has gotten harder to secure, even with really really good credit ratings. A’s recent job changes might actually matter now, as opposed to being pretty much a non-issue when we bought this house. The interest rate is a little higher. Etc.

But the part of me that actually lives in this house knows that we made exactly the right choice. I love it. And moreover, I love the community I live in.

I was raised in a town that had a post office, a tavern, a general store and two churches. While they were all walking distance, nothing else was. The nearest grocery store was 17 miles away (over a mountain pass — for real). The nearest gas station was 5. Let’s not discuss how far it was to the nearest Starbucks.

I am absolutely gobsmacked and enamoured of how much I can walk to in this town. This is an incomplete list, but here are some things that Grey (2 years old) and I (nearly 9 months pregnant) can and have walked to: the library, post office, town hall/voting center, playground, elementary school, our bank, a used book store, ice cream stand, a live theater, a bicycle store, a learning toys store, Grey’s dance studio, Dunkin’ Donuts, Honeydew Donuts, independent bakeries, grocery store, Walgreens, 3 salons, farm stand, massage studios (multiple), 2 sushi restaurants, Indian restaurant, innumerable Italian restaurants, liquor store, billiards hall, our chiropractor, used sporting goods store, 3 different medical specialties (hoping never to need the hematology and oncology clinic, thanks), and lots of other things.

This morning I wanted to get an eye exam. I have yet to be impressed by an independent optometrist, so I decided that at least Pearl Vision would be professional and not obnoxious. So I walked there (less than a mile). On my way, I stopped at the bookstore to buy a book in case I had to wait long for an exam. On the way back I stopped at a local bakery and bought a delicious bagel and some snackies. I stopped by the farm stand to see what they sold (mostly flowers and decorations — no produce sadly).

This was entirely plausible for me, even in my gravid condition.

How COOL is that?

And that’s not all that’s neat about our location. A longish walk (too far for toddlers) the other direction is the Middlesex Fells reservation and the Stone Zoo. Oh yeah, and we’re less than a mile from I93 and maybe 2 miles from I95.

There’s a carillon that plays on the hour in the town commons. Every time I hear it, I think what a cool place this is to live.

And just to add a topping to my conviction that I’m living where I want to, this is what greeted me this morning as I began my walk. These pictures is taken in front of our house:

Why don't you come inside and join me for dinner?

There’s always room for P-I-E

None of us were feeling all that well yesterday. Grey was Mr. Melty McPants. A. and I took turns taking naps and collapsing in heaps and generally being the grownup responsible.

We looked at the idea of doing the grocery shopping for the week and roundly rejected it. But then the question arose: what do we feed the gamers on Monday?

I looked in my heart and found the answer. Pie. Ever and always, pie.

I haven’t made chicken pot pie for the gamers in many moons, despite the fact it’s a perennial favorite. It’s also a pain in the heinie.

First, the pasty starter. Our recipe couldn’t be simpler. Salt (1 tablespoon), Crisco (3 scant cups) and flour (5 cups). Must be very cold to be workable. I made that before I collapsed for my nap and stuck it in the freezer.

Then, chop up 2 onions and fry them in 1/2 cup butter, while browning a bunch of chicken (3 cups?) in olive oil and rosemary. For the record, few things smell better than onions frying in butter. Add 1/2 cup flour to the onion/butter mix, 1 teaspoon salt and enough pepper to look right. (My husband winces whenever he watches me cook. This is the man who exploded in rage at the pie starter recipe because it calls for three “scant” cups Crisco. I quote: “Scant cup? Scant cup!? What the hell, I can’t do a scant cup! I took analytical chemistry!” He also, for the record, modified my pie starter recipe to read 1 tablespoon salt instead of 3 teaspoons since they’re equivalent and “You’re more likely to make a measuring error if you have to repeat the action three times. Learned that one in analytical chemistry, too.”)

Once the mixture is just right, add in 4 cups chicken broth and 1 cup milk. Let bubble for a little while. Add in the chicken and, uh, appropriate amounts of frozen corn and frozen carrots. (Maybe 2 cups each?)

Let that bubble on the stove while you roll out the bottom pie crusts. I used my two favorite pie pans, the “Pi” pan I got this year for Christmas and a pretty pie pan a friend gave me at Mocksgiving a few years back. They’re both bigger than my regular glass pie pans. (I have about 7 pie pans, but hold firmly that I need them all, thankyouverymuch.)

Divide the stuffing between the two shells, and cover them with a top crust. This filling will not settle, so the pie will be as full as it is now. Also, please note that since this filling is gooey you can’t redo a top crust if you mess it up.

You can freeze pot pies, or cook them straight away, or refridgerate for a day or two. Cooking time changes dramatically depending on which of those you choose, from over an hour if they’re frozen to about half an hour if they’re not. Watch the crust — it’ll tell you when it’s done.

Theoretically the pie is supposed to sit for 20 minutes to gel. I’ve rarely been patient enough for this step.

Extremely exciting information! Or not.

Yesterday I left work at 5 to pick up my son. I’m really bad about actually leaving work at 5, but Kimmie’s daycare is much less accommodating than regular daycare re: pickup times. (And also a half hour drive away.) He was the last kid there. At 5:30. How do other parents do it?!?!?

Anyway, I got home and started dinner. I had a Plan. I may not be able to make friends for Grey at daycare, but I can set things up and facilitate things so he does have friends. (I remember this being a consolation — Jasmine wouldn’t acknowledge my existence at school but at least I had someone to play with after school.) So when A. got home I kept an eye out the front window. And when our neighbor boy (let’s give him the pseudonym of Jefferson) got home we gave them 10 minutes to get settled in and then went over to see if they wanted to play and have dinner with us.

Jefferson and Grey are going to be good friends. Jefferson is about 8 months younger, but he’s highly verbal. The two of them did pretty well sharing (for a pair of 2 year olds). There was riotous laughter and the two year old version of jokes. (Mostly this involves saying funny sounds and words like “Poo poo caca”.) Jefferson brought down the house by announcing, in response to the question “What does Daddy do” (he’s an architect), “I have a screwdriver.”

So the boys got to play together for an hour, and we got to get to know our neighbors a little better and established that we’d all be comfortable with one set of parents watching the kids, which opens the doors to playdates and sleepovers and periodically actually going out to eat etc.

The reason this is such a big deal to me is because it’s really hard for me. I simply do not know how to be a good neighbor, and I do not know how to facilitate my son making friends. I’m trying to figure it out as I go and it makes me really nervous. I would almost call it a social anxiety — I haven’t asked someone if they wanted to come over and play for 20 years. (And when I did, two decades ago, as often as not they said no.) But I did it! And it was fun! And hopefully we’ll do it again!

Then after that, I went and read Robin McKinley’s new book in the bathtub. Ah, bliss.

Then neither A. nor I could fall asleep, despite it being like 2 hours past our bedtime. I am a sleepy, sleepy girl this morning. (And Grey was a bit of a crankosaur.)

But it’s Friday! And my birthday party is tomorrow! (I turn 30 on the 23rd. Yeah, I know. It’s simultaneously hard to believe I’m that old and hard to believe I’m only that old.) And I’m gonna dress up and see my friends and have chocolate and maybe they’ll sing Happy Birthday and embarrass me. And Grey starts dance tomorrow.

I’m really enjoying myself these days — a sure sign that the times are about to change.

Weekend review

These are the days that, in the future, I will look back on as golden. I’m pretty sure I’ll forget the petty annoyances and frustrations and remember the golden times. Memory is a wonderful thing that way.

Saturday was Stoneham Town Day! This is definitely the sort of even that is perfect for a new family with a young child moving to town. Most of the organizations in town had booths there — from the cub scout troup to the “Friends of the Fells” to the candidates vying for election in the primary tomorrow. There was a Kiddy Korner with a big bouncy house, some very tame carnival rides (appropriate for 2 year olds). There was cotton candy and slushies and local talent performing near the gazebo. There were many free give aways and raffles. It was both fun and useful to me. Notably, I got to corner and spend significant time talking to the other candidate running in the Democratic primary, whom I decided I preferred. (Note to voters: if you do not want the government run by the same old good old boys, quit electing people who claim they can get you more pork because they “know people” up on the hill. Kthxbye.) Grey had a fantastic time. He loved the big slide. He loved the bouncy house (he went in three times!) He loved the little airplane ride. He loved the balloons he got. And best of all? It’s 3 blocks to our house so we didn’t need to carry anything and just walked home when he got tired. In fact, people were parking on the street almost right up to our house for the event, so we COULDN’T have driven any closer in if we’d wanted to! I’m really liking our house and really liking Stoneham.

After that, I had a massage. I think I’ve finally found a local massage therapist who works for me — good combination of convenient (once again walking distance!), correctly priced and good at what she does. Mmmmm massage….

Sunday was church. I’m realizing that church is much easier for me to go to in some ways now. With Grey being Full! Of! Energy! we’re often looking for things to do with him during the day. It’s hard to stay home with him all day long. (This will not improve come winter… ugh.) Anyway, in addition to being a wonderful place for us, church is a good activity for him too. This Sunday he went out to Sunday School no problemo — running ahead and leading the pack, actually. I’m seeing all my dire predictions of the last decade come true. Anytime there was some kid cutely speaking out of turn during word for children, or making funny faces, or volunteering irrelevant information I knew in my heart of hearts that eventually it would be MY child doing that. And oh! It begins!

Sunday afternoon was dedicated to detrashing the cars. Seriously, people. When you have a toddler and an hour daily commute, it is very very hard to keep your car in any shape that reasonable adults would consider acceptable. But I removed the trash, vaccuumed the car, organized the toy (his first action of the morning involved dumping all the toys OUT of the nice boxes I had them in — les sigh), and installed the new big boy car seats — the booster+ seats. I also put him to the side, since pretty soon we’ll need to put the infant car seat on the other side. And I dusted the interior of the car and cleaned the inside of the windshield. For the record? This is hard to do 8 months pregnant.

We also did a gigantic avalanche worth of clothes. There was the regular tsnunami of dirty laundry, and in addition a good 3 – 4 loads of baby clothes, blankets, diapers, bibs and toys that needed to be washed. Most of them got washed, dried, folded, carted upstairs and put away in the beautiful baby’s room (which I think is almost ready for it’s formal unveiling pictures!)

And there were some truly wonderful moments. Grey has reached that stage where he can break my heart unexpectedly with an overabundance of love. He did it twice yesterday. We were driving to church and listening to some Gospel bluegrass (seriously, if it weren’t for my positions on, you know, the issues, I could totally pass as Christian Conservative). Grey asked if these were Jesus songs (a taxonomic distinction that interests him greatly) and I said they were. Then he said, “Jesus songs jump in my heart.” There are like 4000 ways you could interpret that, but he said it so earnestly and happily that, I don’t know, it just made me rejoice. (Of course, I teared up like three times on my way to church so obviously some pregnancy hormones were involved.) Then at night, as we were watching our family “Muppet Show” and eating cookies that Grey and daddy made together, Grey turned to me and told me, “Mommy, I love you very very much.” No preamble. Not in response to anything. He knows more or less what it means — at least as much as any of us.

My son is full of joy and he loves me. My husband is full of cookies and he loves me. What more could I possibly ask?