Birthday Traditions

Me and my mom on my first birthday. 

Today is Piglet's fourth birthday, and also the Eve of Nativity for us.  Until this year, Piglet never really got what his birthday was all about, so we just subsumed birthday gifts in with our 12 days of Christmas gifts and didn't worry about a celebration on the day.  We have an annual party sometime during the 12 days anyway, so as to celebrate Piglet's birthday, plus several namesdays that happen to fall during that time, but this is the first year that Piglet really gets what birthdays are all about.  He has been talking about his birthday for weeks, and is very excited to be four.  He has occasionally asked me for something random "for his birthday" over the last few weeks, but he is still innocent of so much toy marketing (another reason to love not having a television) and I think has low expectations for presents.  I know this is probably the last year that will be true, and I intend to savor it.

You can't see it very well, but my mom made me a house cake.  
Yep, a house.  Take that, petting zoo.

I've been thinking on and off all week about how to make his birthday special, given that it is Christmas Eve (and thus a busy church day), and also still the Fast (so dinner has to be vegan).  Growing up, my mother always made sure that we felt special on our birthdays.  She had a blue plate that said "It's Your Special Day" and the birthday person got to use it all day long (we always called it the special plate).  My mom gave each of us girls one when we got to be adults, so I have one to use now too.  My mom made a special breakfast (or sometimes my dad would go buy donuts), and we got to pick our birthday meal.  There was sparkling grape juice for the wine goblets, and the good china, silverware, and nice tablecloth put out.  We could pick our birthday dessert (not everyone is a cake fan in our house--my dad is very partial to pie, for instance); I usually picked chocolate zucchini cake, having a July birthday.  We rarely had big birthday parties growing up, and I'm now grateful for that tradition, having seen the arms race of birthday celebrations amongst parents my age.  (If you are getting a petting zoo for their first birthday, what on earth are you going to do when they are 10, or 16?  Just because you can doesn't mean you should.  Just sayin')

Chocolate zucchini cake.
Nom-nom-nom.

So as I wrapped presents yesterday (both for Christmas and birthday), I pondered a bit.  I had already decided that Piglet was too young to make a decision about dinner--he doesn't remember enough of what we eat, and I pretty much know what fasting dinners are particular favorites of his.  So I'm making sloppy soys (Sloppy Joes, but with soy crumbles), using my mother's tried and true recipe (see below), and I'm going to see if there are some vegan cookies at Whole Foods later today.  I'd make a whole vegan dessert, but with it being Christmas Eve, and tomorrow there will be lots of non-fasting desserts, it seems a waste.  Piglet doesn't like fizzy drinks, so I'm considering what type of drink would be a treat for him.  We don't keep juice in the house, but perhaps I can find some small amount that will make for a dinner treat.

The hat cake. 

My husband has been surprisingly Scroogey about this whole process.  He always complains that his birthdays have never been fun for him, and so I was surprised when I started discussing my plans with him and he was definitely not on board.  He wanted to give Piglet a small glass of grapefruit juice squeezed from the fruit and nothing else (Piglet does like this, but it seems decidedly un-festal to me).  I asked him what his own family birthday traditions were and wasn't too surprised to hear they didn't have any.  His family isn't strong on those sorts of things.

 As I mentioned in my Christmas Traditions post, I think having these sorts of traditions is important.  It creates family ritual and memories for years to come.  I still remember the year my youngest sister requested noodles for her birthday dinner.  Nothing on them, just plain noodles.  Or the year I started decorating cakes for my parents' birthdays.  I did a flowery one for my mom in January, and then made a fishing cake for my dad in September, complete with a fisherman doll that I made myself.  

The famous fishing cake, which if I do say so myself, was totally neat.
I used blue gel to make water look real.

  So in the spirit of creating a rich tapestry of family traditions, I'm weaving a new thread this year with birthdays.  H is old enough to be trusted with the blue "special" plate and to appreciate a nice tablecloth on the table.  He understand the concept of special treats, and is interested in presents.  So I hope this day is nice for him.  I hope that when our kids are grown, they too will look back on our family birthday parties with nostalgia and happiness, grateful for the times we shared.

Sloppy Joes (courtesy of my mom)
*To make vegan, simply substitute one package soy crumbles.  We prefer Morningstar Farms to Boca.*

1# ground beef
1 large onion, diced (or 1 c. frozen)
1 green bell pepper, diced (or whatever color you have around)
1 can Campbell's condensed tomato soup (I've also made this with tetrapaks of tomato soup, just make sure you are using about 10 oz.)
1 T. white vinegar
2 T. brown sugar
few dashes cayenne pepper
few dashes celery salt
1-2 T. ketchup
1-2 T. mustard (Dijon is particularly nice and zippy)
few shakes Worchestershire sauce (optional)

Brown beef, onions and pepper in large skillet.  Add remainder ingredients and simmer until nice and bubbly.  This is one of those recipes that you might want to taste as you go along and adjust ingredients accordingly.  I generally dislike those types of recipes, since I never am able to replicate the dash-of-this, and pinch-of-that of the cook, but the above will yield a good result even if you don't tinker with it. You can add chili powder (up to 1T.) and BBQ sauce (up to 1/4 c) if you like.  I serve these on buns with pickles.

Meal Planning Revisited: Brainless Edition

Earlier this fall, I wrote about meal planning and our meal rotation schedule.  I wrote that I was cooking a week’s worth of meals at a time and that was making things so much easier.  That whole system worked well for about two months, or until the middle of October when a couple of life-things collided.  Number one is that we’ve had a ton of sickness in the house this fall.  Basically from Birdie’s birth to now (four months) we’ve had no sick-free days.

In mid-October, I got sick and it took me almost two weeks to recover, at which time Birdie developed bronchiolitis and has been sick ever since (including a brief hospitalization). The boys have been sick on and off all fall. As if that wasn't enough to make life crazy, my husband entered the intense part of his latest Supreme Court argument in early November, and has been working like a crazy man ever since.  He argues on January 18, so we have little respite until then.  And we still have the sickness to contend with.

So, with all that, I’ve been unable to cook a week’s worth of meals at a time.  I simply don’t have enough help on the weekends to be able to cook for several hours.  Until the Nativity Fast started on November 28, I was keeping to our meal rotation schedule fairly well, but sticking to very easy-to-prepare meals within the rotation, and making everything in the 30-60 minutes before dinner time (all the while listening to two or three screaming children.  It is never just one screaming child, always two, often all three).  Having regular egg, pasta and casserole nights helped this process greatly.  Then the Fast started and my meal rotation schedule didn’t quite work since my vegan meal repertoire is much smaller because of my various allergies and intolerances.  I’ve been managing to plan our meals every week and mostly executing them according to schedule, but my primary goal has been fast and easy.  So Tuesdays have been spaghetti night and Thursdays have been stir fry night (which I can’t eat, but that is another story). 

I thought perhaps it might be time to think about a more intentional “brainless meal” rotation schedule.  Obviously now that we are coming to the end of the fast, and readying for 12 days of feasting, things will be easier, but Great Lent is around the corner, and I know we’ll be right back here before too long. 

So, without further ado, here are my brainless meal tips, recipes, and suggestions.

1. Get a monthly planner that you can see a month at a glance.  I like the 8x10 size that opens to each month with about 2” squares for each day. 

2. Plan one week at a time.  I find it easier to deal with a week at a time when I’m stressed.  The task of choosing new recipes and going through the rotation a month at a time is not fun when I’m feeling overwhelmed.

3. Choose meals that can be prepped and cooked, start to finish, in under an hour.  Under 30 minutes is an especial bonus.  Make a list of 5-7 meals that you can make in under 30 minutes without consulting a recipe, or with minimal recipe consultation.  Keep the ingredients on hand for those 5-7 meals if you can.  My 5-7 meals during this fast have been: Super Bean Burritos, Cuban Black Bean Soup, Mujuddarah, Persian Rice Pilaf, Lentil Soup, Spaghetti, and Teriyaki Tofu Stirfry (recipes below)

4. Do whatever you can to save time/steps in preparation.  I use frozen chopped onions, frozen pre-sliced carrots, frozen chopped spinach, convenience cut broccoli florets (fresh, not frozen), pre-minced garlic, Better Than Boullion condensed stock (beef, no-chicken, and vegetable, depending on the recipe), shredded cheese (for non-fasting recipes), canned beans, tomatoes, jarred spaghetti sauce, frozen meatballs (soy and real meat), and frozen brown rice.  The frozen rice has saved my bacon more than a few nights in the last few months.

5. Keep ingredients on hand for truly last-minute emergency-type meals that can be made in 10-15 minutes.  I always have several boxes of macaroni and cheese (plus butter and milk), pasta and marinara sauce, frozen meatballs, eggs, veggie burgers, condensed tomato soup, sliced cheddar cheese and bread (for grilled cheese and tomato soup), and condensed pea soup on hand.  Now, it must be said that the first and last things are items my husband won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, but they are good to just get the kids (and often myself) fed.  Frittatas are incredibly fast, require few ingredients and little prep and are very filling.  My favorite one is this one HERE (although I use a Mexican blend of cheese rather than Muenster since it is hard to find that pre-shredded).  I sometimes keep hot dogs around for those nights when I know my husband will be away and it will be a three-kids-crying, hair-on-fire type evening.  All those items can be made and on the table in under 15 minutes.

6. When you have some extra time, either in the kitchen or otherwise, chop up some green peppers and freeze them in Ziplocs.  If you really have a bunch of time, fry up a pound of ground beef, one chopped onion and one green pepper and freeze it as a casserole base (I have a ton of recipes that start out with this combination).  When I was able to eat turkey, I used to buy a bunch of turkey tenderloins, cook them in the oven, cube them and freeze them in recipe-size portions, so when I had a crazy afternoon, I could pull one out and have it ready to go in under an hour.  I have used them for Caesar salads, turkey noodle soup, turkey alfredo, etc.  You could do the same with chicken breasts, or you could buy a rotisserie chicken, cut it off the bone and freeze it in recipe-size portions.  Or just buy one and use it right away.  Obviously, these sorts of steps imply that you have some time when your hair isn’t on fire (mine is most of the time right now, so I haven’t been able to do much of this lately), so if you don’t have time for this, don’t sweat it.

7. I have several recipes that are basically throw together-type recipes with no chopping, minimal measuring and lots of can-opening involved, but the result is still healthy and nutritious.  Our meal tonight, for example, took 30 minutes to put together and was a healthy comforting black bean soup.  (Well, I served it with Fritos Scoops, but you can’t have everything…)

8. Don’t stress about side dishes.  Keep baby carrots on hand for easy boiling (or if you like them raw, serve them with hummus or ranch dressing; I personally don’t like them any way but cooked).  Buy broccoli pre-cut and just throw in the steamer.  Saute a bag of spinach in olive oil and salt.  Keep a bag of tator tots in the freezer and throw in the oven for a special treat.  Or keep frozen cubed potatoes and lipton onion soup mix and combine and roast for 45 minutes if you have the time.  I generally try to have one vegetable side and if I get two, that’s a bonus.  Lately we’ve been eating a lot of steamed broccoli florets, boiled “baby” carrots, and sautéed spinach. 

9. Explore your grocer’s freezer section for ready-meals that don’t cost a fortune and fit your family’s eating ethos/allergy needs.  If you happen to have a Trader Joe’s nearby, they are brilliant at this.  I often keep a few packages of their meat-free enchiladas as well as the cheese ones (since I can’t eat tofu).  They take about 45-50 minutes to heat up in the oven, but have zero prep, so I just have to remember to pop them in the oven ahead of time.  TJ’s also has some easy stir-fry ready meals that you just open and heat—the basic shrimp stir fry is fast and easy and good.  I realize some of these things may not be cost-effective for people on a tight budget, or with larger families, but it is still cheaper than take-away or eating out.  These aren’t for long-term budget-friendly eating solutions, but rather for those seasons when everything is coming apart at the seams.

I do know some of the items on my list are processed, and we do try to limit our consumption of processed foods, but lately I find that I care less about having everything from scratch and more about just getting dinner on the table however it happens.  Also, there are some things we always buy organic and some things I get organic if available but otherwise don’t worry about it, and some things I almost never buy organic.  Some of it has to do with our urban shopping experience, but some of it is just trying to be practical. 

And for the recipes.  These are all vegan, owing to our being in the Nativity Fast, so my 5-7 brainless meals for ordinary time are different (I’ll share those on another post, maybe), but you could add meat, cheese or dairy as necessary to your family’s needs/restrictions, etc. 

Cuban Black Bean Soup – courtesy of Southern Hospitality Blog

5-15 oz cans black beans, rinsed

5 cups no-chicken or chicken stock, divided (I used Better than Boullion no-chicken stock)

1/3 cup olive oil

1 cup diced frozen onions (or 1 large fresh if you have time to chop)

1 T. minced garlic

1 green pepper diced

1 14-oz can diced tomatoes

2 T. cider vinegar

1T. cumin

1 tsp. salt

½ tsp. black pepper

Dash cayenne pepper or to taste (I don’t like things very spicy)

1 tsp. dried cilantro or 1 T. fresh if you happen to have it on hand

4 c. frozen brown rice or rice mixture (we used a rice/barley mix from TJ’s that was lovely)

Directions:

In large Dutch oven or soup pot, add all ingredients except tomatoes, rice, beans, and broth.  Fry on medium-high heat until golden brown and fragrant, about 8-10 minutes.  (Optional step for additional creaminess: While that is cooking, take two cans of beans, add two cups of broth and use a hand blender or blender to process until smooth). Add remainder ingredients and heat until warmed through. 

This is lovely served with corn chips and sour cream, but you could omit one or both and it would still be tasty.  Probably would be good with grated cheddar on top as well.  I served with boiled carrots on the side.

Super Bean Burritos –courtesy of Mel’s Kitchen Café

2 cups frozen brown rice

2 tablespoons olive oil
1c. frozen diced onion (or 1 fresh diced if you have time)

2 ½-3 tsp. minced garlic
1 can diced green chilis or rotel

1 teaspoon cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cans black or pinto beans, drained and rinsed

1 1/2 cups water
1 (10 oz) package frozen corn or 1 can whole kernel corn, drained
6 green onions, white and green parts finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

10 burrito-sized (10-inch) flour tortillas
(optional for non-vegan meal): 2 c. shredded cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese

Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, chilis/rotel and cumin; season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are softened and golden, about 7-8 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook, stirring for 1 minute.

Add one can of beans and mash gently in the pan (a potato masher or fork works great here). Add the second can of beans and the water and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 10-12 minutes, being careful not to let the mixture stick to the bottom of the pot. Add corn; cook to heat through, 2-3 minutes. Stir in onion and garlic powders. Remove from heat; stir in green onions and cooked rice.

Put 2/3 c. bean mixture inside each tortilla, wrap and place seam side down on a tray, repeating until bean mixture is used up.  Her original recipe says this makes 16, but I’ve never gotten more than 10-12 out of it.  If you have leftovers, wrap each burrito in plastic wrap and freeze; reheat in the microwave or toaster oven to eat (remove plastic wrap before heating).

Green Lentil Soup – adapted from my MIL's recipe

**This one takes longer than 30 minutes, but is prep-free if you use frozen and convenience cut-vegetables**

16 oz package green lentils

10-16 oz package frozen pre-sliced carrots (doesn’t matter so much about quantity)

1 c. frozen diced onions

2-3 stalks celery

(or, if your grocery has this, buy a 16 oz tub of pre-diced fresh onion/celery—you can freeze it until you need it)

6 tsp. minced garlic

6 ½ c. vegetable stock (I use Better than Boullion

Place all ingredients in Dutch oven and cook on low until lentils are soft, about one hour.  Use hand blender to puree into thick creaminess.  Serve with crusty bread.

Persian Rice Pilaf - Adapted from Rice & Spice by Robin Robertson

2 T. olive oil

1 c. frozen diced onion, 1 large fresh onion diced if you have time

4-6 c. frozen brown rice

1/3 c. each raisins or chopped dried apricots

1 tsp. paprika

3 c. hot vegetable stock (I used Better Than Boullion vegetable)

½ + tsp. ground cinnamon

1 ½ tsp. salt with Better than Boullion, but adjust to taste

1/8 tsp. cayenne (just right!)

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

2 tsp. dried parsley

3+ tbsp. slivered almonds for garnish (optional)

Instructions:

·        Heat the oil in a large skillet over low heat. Add the onion, cover, and cook for about 7 minutes or until soft. (Makes for amazing sweetness and great texture.) 

·        Increase the heat to medium, add the rice, raisins (or apricots), and paprika, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring to coat the rice with the oil. 

·        Pour the hot stock or water over the rice mixture, season with the cinnamon, salt, and cayenne, stir to combine, and cover.

·        Reduce the heat to low and simmer gently for 20 minutes or until the rice is tender and the water is absorbed. 

·        Serve with almonds on the side.

Mujuddarah – courtesy my friend, Michelle Bayouth

**This one takes longer than 30 minutes, but requires only occasional attendance while cooking and almost zero prep)

1 c. green lentils (French or black lentils are extra nice)

1 c. long grain brown rice

4 c. water

2 c. frozen chopped onions

4 T. olive oil

2 shy tsp. salt

Combine lentils, rice and water in large pot, cover, bring to boil, set timer for 15 minutes.  In a sauté pan, add onions and olive oil and sauté on medium heat.  (I usually just turn the burner on medium, make sure the onions are well coated, and put the lid on, checking periodically to stir it around).   When onions are nice and brown, turn off heat and set aside.  When your timer goes off, add salt to lentils and rice, replace lid, and reset timer for 45 minutes.  Add carmelized onions to lentils and rice after the timer goes off and stir to combine.  Serve hot with a drizzle of olive oil.

Teriyaki Tofu Stirfry – adapted from The Ethnic Vegan

**This one requires a bit of advance preparation, but each step is fast and can be completed while you do other things.  This is where the weekly menu plan comes in handy.  Keep in mind that the tofu should be frozen for at least 48 hours before marinading overnight, so plan this meal a few days ahead. For those not needing a vegan meal, you can shave some time off this meal by substituting your favorite ready-cooked meat, cut into bite size pieces.**

Ingredients:

2 lbs. extra firm tofu, frozen for at least 48 hours, then thawed completely

Teriyaki Marinade:

1 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/2 cup unbleached cane sugar
2 tsp. powdered ginger

3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/4 cup sesame oil (toasted sesame oil is lovely)
2 tsp. dried mustard

2 packages stir fry vegetables (I like Trader Joe’s Harvest Hodgepodge)

Sesame seeds for garnish

Chow mein noodles for garnish (optional)

2-4 c. frozen brown rice, depending on how far you need to stretch this meal

On Grocery Day:

Place tofu in freezer

Two days before Meal:

Defrost tofu completely

Day before Meal:

Drain tofu, squeeze out as much water as you can with your hands (like a sponge), cut into cubes, and bake  in 9x13 lightly oiled pan at 375 for about 45 minutes-1 hour, or until hard and slightly golden brown.  While tofu is baking, simmer marinade in small sauce pan for 10 minutes on stove.  After tofu is baked, pour hot marinade over tofu, cover, and place in refrigerator overnight.

Meal day:

Toss frozen vegetables, frozen rice, and tofu with any remaining marinade into large pot (I use a 7-qt Dutch oven), stir to combine, and cover on medium heat.  Serve when heated through (about 15-20 minutes).  Top with sesame seeds.

Ring around the Rosy

As a general rule, I don't make New Year's resolutions because I inevitably fall short and then feel like a failure.  But this year, I decided to make a few guidelines for myself, and implement one thing at a time.  One is not to try not to sweat the postpartum weight loss until I'm closer to weaning, and to try not to expect too much of myself until everyone in this household is healthy.  (We're nowhere near that yet).

Another is to make 3 cards every week, and to make all the cards in my idea files by the end of the year.  Obviously, there are a lot of factors that will probably thwart me in this resolution, but I'd like to have it as a goal to start so I have some structure to my week instead of being glued to my office chair nursing a baby, or waiting to nurse a baby.  There's a lot of crafting I can do over a nursing or sleeping baby, and I've got to get myself out of this rut.  Plus, Birdie seems to be on the verge of getting something like a schedule during the day, so maybe I'll start feeling more sane soon.



Today represents a start to the cards anyway.  I'm pretty happy with this card--I've been wanting to try paper roses for a long time but just never got around to it.  They are surprisingly easy!  A bit time consuming at first, but I could see getting faster as I go.  Some of it was learning curve, and some of it was that I decided to suede some of the petals, so that took longer than if I had just made them straight.  But I think the extra texture was worth it.

There were many different places of inspiration for this card, but I will say that if you google "fancy flower punch roses, stampin' up" you'll get a ton of great tutorials on how to make them.  The little white flowers I recreated from a card I saw on Ann Schach's blog. For the background, I saw someone do that on a card and thought it looked like a pressed tin ceiling.  I thought the finial press would be the perfect background for this card.  

Supplies:

Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Old Olive, Crumb Cake cardstock

Elements of Style stamp set (for the sentiment)

Fancy Flower punch, Five petal flower punch, large oval punch

Finial embossing folder

Crumb Cake, Always Artichoke, Pretty in Pink ink, Rose red marker

Color Spritzer tool

sponges

pearls

paper snips

glue dots

paper piercing tool (for shaping and curling)

bone folder (for shaping, sueding and curling)

Scotch quick dry glue (you could also use tombow mono adhesive or a glue gun)

Nizhni Stories

I wrote these a while back as part of a writer's workshop.  They detail a few episodes of my time living in as a student in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia in the fall of 1998.  I posted them to my Facebook page last week, but thought they might be a good read here as well.  Apologies if you are seeing these twice.

Ludmilla (Mama), Masha, Masha's husband Sasha, and Katya

            “GEE-ELL!  Zaftrak!”  My Russian mama’s high voice rudely pierced my sleep-addled brain.

            “Okay!”  I called back.  I rolled onto my side, staring at the mille fleur pattern of the Persian rug on the wall across from the bed.  Groaning a little, I got up, smoothing the blanket encased in the top sheet, trying the make the diamond shaped hole in the middle lie smooth.  I pulled the rug-like bedspread up over the large square pillow and headed down the dark narrow hallway, past the pink leather padded inner front door to the kitchen on the left. 

            Mama was dressed in her at-home robe, the salmon colored ruffles hanging limply where the halves crossed her body.  Her short faded blond hair was sticking up at odd angles and again I felt guilty for displacing Mama to the fold-out couch for half a semester.  I never had anything to say about it, however.  Mama had installed me in Katya’s room, Katya in her room and taken the couch for herself before I even arrived to stay.  The couch was a typical Russian foldout—the precursor to the futon.  It was padded and covered with a brown fleecy slipcover and unfolded flat for sleeping. 

            Mama bustled around the kitchen finishing breakfast.  Mama cooks very different than my mother, but I like nearly everything Mama makes.  My own mother measures most things with teaspoon and cup measures.  Mama throws a little of this, a pinch of that, a saucer of flour and voila— a dense dough results.  Mama pats the dough into little balls, flattens them with the palm of her hand and fries in them in the skillet.  Five minutes later, the golden glistening disks sat on my plate, smothered in homemade blackberry jam and smetana, the thin kind of sour cream that Russians eat with nearly everything.  

           Mama went to the pantry closet in the hall that also doubled as a coat closet and pulled down a new jar of compote, the tiny Russian apples preserved and floating on the top.  Mmm, my favorite.  Mama poured me a glass and then sat down in the opposite chair to eat her own breakfast.  Mama didn’t speak any English, but tried to speak slowly for her American daughter and they had a halting conversation about the planned activities for the day.  I was nearly finished when Katya shuffled in, wearing a T-shirt and underpants, her gangly legs bare and her feet shoved into a pair of ratty slippers.  I stood up to make room for Katya at the small table and brought my dishes to the sink.  Picking up the baking soda from the sink, I poured a little in my hand, made a paste and added mustard powder from the box perched precariously on the sink ledge.  I set about washing my dishes with the paste in my hands.  Soap of champions, I thought.  As I washed, I remembered the conversation with Mama the night before.  

         Mama had come home from her job at the bank, and was rummaging in the freezing balcony for some item of food that was stored there because the refrigerator was too small. Emerging from between a stack of pots and pans with a home-canned jar in hand, Mama asked me if I would like to have kooreetsa for supper.  Kooreesta, kooreesta, I thought frantically.  I know I should know the word, but blank on the meaning.  I look desperately at Mama.  Mama asks again and tries hand motions.  "Minutchko," I say, and run into my room for dictionary.  K…ka…kee…kooreetsa: chicken!  Holding my finger on the entry I show Mama and say yes, kooretsa would be fine.  Mama giggles like a schoolgirl and tries out the English word on her tongue.  “CHEE-ken.”  She grinned, her blue eyes twinkling.  I smile now, rinsing off the gritty residue from the plate and my hands and heads for the shower. 

** 

Marjory came over for supper and Mama made pizza.  Or, at least Mama’s version of pizza, which was more like a pirogi with toppings.  She thinks the only thing Americans eat is pizza.  I kept thinking I should introduce her to a good old-fashioned casserole.  She was giggling in that high-pitched chortle of hers as she pulled the long pan out of the oven.  “PEE-tsa!”  she kept exclaiming with glee, followed by peals of laughter.  Mama was pretty proud of herself. 

**

            After a long and hard search, I finally bought a coat.  It was camel colored wool and ankle-length with a big floppy hood.  The matching camel lining was quilted and made the coat sit heavy on my shoulders.  It had eight matching buttons up the front in a neat rectangle, a ninth button holding the collar together.  I had an ivory beret and a hand-loomed crocheted scarf that I’d bought from a babushka selling them along the road.  Mama had been asking for days if I had found a coat yet—my old pea coat had been deemed insufficient two weeks ago.  In the interim, Mama pulled an old fur beast out of the closet and made me wear it when I went out.  I hated it.  I stepped up my search for a coat in short order after that.  I gleefully wore my new coat home, the beast stuffed into my satchel. I nonchalantly hung the lovely new garment in the coat closet.  I was studying in my room when Mama came home from work. 

            “Ooohh!” she exclaimed from the hallway, her voice piercing the stillness.  I jumped a little.  It had been silent in the flat for hours.  I poked my head into the hallway.  She was standing in front of the hallway vanity examining my coat, her own coat still on her back and her feet still shod in outdoor boots.  She giggled and asked me where I got it.  I remembered the name of the store but told her the street it was located on instead.  She ran a hand over the quilted lining in approval.  “Will this be warm enough—maybe this is a fall coat.”  She mused more to herself that to me.  “Oh no,” I put in.  “This is very warm.”  I shoved up my sweater sleeve a couple of inches to reveal two layers of long underwear.  “I wear many clothes.” I got out.  She smiled at me again and hung the coat in the closet.  Turning she said,

            “How much did you pay for it?”  Uh-oh.  Numbers weren’t my strong suit in either language.  I tried and failed to say it in Russian.  Mama tried to tell me how much she had paid for her last coat and I blinked dumbly at her.  Mama went into Katya’s room for a minute and emerged with a calculator.  I grinned with relief.  Something I could use!  I punched in the price of the coat and converted it to dollars.  She did the same to tell me the price she’d paid.  About the same.  I felt good about that.  She smiled at me again, the language barrier making things awkward again.  She congratulated me again and I mumbled thanks and went back to my room to study.

 

Me and my lovely coat, outside the flat, November 1998

             The phone rang a lot that evening. Mama’s voice trilled in the hallway.  Her sister called, her daughter called, some friends called.  Everyone got to hear the whole story of my coat, including the price.  I gave up studying and listened in, smiling at her mother’s pride.

7 Quick Takes, Late Edition

--1--

I spent today in New York City at the Mt Sinai allergy practice.  I'm sort of at the end of what my allergist here in Philly can do for me (I'm pretty extreme when it comes to allergies), and I started seeing someone up there.  Now that I'm not pregnant anymore, we can move forward on a management plan.  Today's visit was to redo all the original testing to establish a baseline and go from there.  I feel more hopeful about the whole thing than I have in a long time.

--2--

Piglet has been off school all this week and while it hasn't been easy, it hasn't been terrible either. I have had a lot of extra help from my regular babysitter, as Birdie is still cranky and sick, and I'm terribly tired (see #3).    But even so, the week has gone better than expected, and I'm starting to be able to appreciate who he is as a person rather than this unruly being that has to be constantly disciplined and monitored for acting out. He is getting very close to four, so maybe what everyone says is true, that four is a bit easier.  On the other hand, he did fall in the toilet and banged his forehead on the procelain this week.  I'm still laughing.

--3--

We actually had two nights that lasted past 1 a.m. this week!  We've had several weeks of whatever sleep I get before 1 a.m. is what I get, and I was getting seriously giddy from the lack of sleep.  So while I'm still very seriously sleep deprived, I no longer feel like I am a danger to myself and others from the lack of sleep.

--4--

Okay, I know this is sort of dumb, but I discovered by accident this week that my novel has a Barnes and Noble listing.  So neat!  Kind of makes me feel official.  Or something.

--5--

Boo graduated out of services this week, so now I only have one child receiving therapy--woot woot!  Boo is walking pretty well, gaining about a word a day (or more sometimes) and is fond of multi-syllabic words like broccoli or chocolate.  He's started asking to use the potty.  Sometimes I forget he is only 19 (almost 20) months--he seems more like a 2.5 year old to me. Oh, and I forgot to mention in #2 that Piglet is finally cough-free for the first time in three years!! YAY!!  Turns out it was sinusitis and that an extra long course of antibiotics did the trick.  Now we just have to wean him down from all the other meds he's been on to manage the cough.  

--6--

Birdie still sounds awful, but our pediatrician said we just have to wait for her lungs to heal.  In other news, her head is HUGE!  (All my kids have big heads).  I always think of Mike Myers in So I Married an Axe Murderer when I think of their HUGE heads.  (If you haven't seen this film, run, do not walk, to the nearest Netflix streamer and watch it.  You'll thank me).

--7--

Nothing new to share, because I have zero creative energy right now for anything except MDS (working on Birdie's baby book...), but I CASEd this from Nance Leedy a few months back.  I just love that pop of red on the flowers--I forget how nice this set is.  

Two Pears

*I have another post in the hopper, but am struggling to finish it, so I'm going to leave you a little story of my early days in Moscow.  I have a few of these stories floating around on my hard drive that I may pull out and share along the way.

I arrived at Sheremetyevo II in Moscow late in the evening, exhausted and jet lagged after more than 24 hours in transit due to a six hour layover in Warsaw.  I had more luggage than I could hope to manage by myself, but somehow I managed to clear customs without a hassle or a cart.  I had been given to understand that someone from the University would be picking me up at the airport.  In my naïveté, I assumed that someone would speak some English.  Wrong.  I got a Georgian with a handful of English words who didn’t know how to put them in a sentence.  It was muggy and smoky in the city—peat fires from the countryside kept smoke rolling over the city for weeks after.  There was the familiar smell of Moscow, and the sights and sounds denied me for four years. 

When we arrived at my apartment in the south central part of the city (a part completely unknown to me) he helped me with my luggage and bade me farewell.  I stood looking around my little apartment that I had arranged to let from some friends who had worked my job in the previous academic year.  They had promised that the fridge and cabinets would be stocked for me when I came (I had paid someone to do this) and that everything would be reasonably clean.                  

Well, the apartment was clean, but there were two lonely pears and two slices of something that looked like ham in the fridge and that was it.  Someone had thoughtfully placed flowers on the table, but you can’t eat those.  It was too late for me to be hungry, so I just rummaged through my luggage to find my nightgown and crawled into bed after a quick phone call to the States to let my mother know I had arrived safely. 

I woke up the next morning lost.  I didn’t know where I was in the city, I had no rubles and was terrified to leave my apartment for fear that I wouldn’t be able to find it again. I wasn’t precisely sure of the address and Russians are notorious for giving bad directions or making up directions if they don’t know.  So I waited.  I had a vague notion that someone was supposed to phone me—I remembered Valery saying something about it when he dropped me off the previous night.  I started unpacking my things, feeling sick in my stomach.  After what seemed a lifetime, someone from the college where I was to work phoned late in the day and offered a brief tour of the area.  Larry came by and took me out for an hour, showing me where I could change money, but little else. 

I went back to my apartment and was left alone for four days—no phone calls, no visits, nothing.  A stranger in a strange land.  I kept forgetting to eat, and couldn’t face the bare fridge with those two pathetic little pears and the weird looking ham slices.  I was homesick, jet lagged, and afraid to leave my apartment.  I woke up sobbing each of those four days and wondered what I had been thinking, joining an organization that didn’t do a thing to ease an expat into the city or the culture.  My previous experience in Russia hadn’t prepared me for this in the least.  The loneliness was the worst—days and weeks stretched out before me with nothing in them, and I was very afraid.  Larry had placed the fear of God in me about being out at night by myself and I didn’t know what I would do when it started getting dark at 4:00 in the afternoon.  I didn’t know anyone in the city and I didn’t know my part of the city at all.  I knew my way around downtown and the immediate surround, but I couldn’t even figure out how to get a bus to the Metro, much less get downtown on it.  I felt as though I were drowning and didn’t know how to come up for air.  The Russian part of my brain had gone on strike and my fear was eating me up.  I remember the day I ate the last of the pears.  I thought, now I have to leave and make my way and hope for the best.  It was with great trepidation that I locked my apartment after those four days, and went out in search of food.  

The Art of Breathing Freely

Another of my favorite movies of all time is Sunshine, the tale of three generations of a Jewish family in Hungary, beginning in the late 19^th century on up through the 1960s.  Ralph Fiennes brilliantly plays all three generations of the main male character and Jennifer Ehle and her mother, Rosemary Harris, play the other main character, Valerie, over time.  The film chronicles the many peaks and valleys that form part of being a (mostly) secular Jew in Europe at the turn of the 20^th century, as well as a wonderful telling of early 20^th century Eastern European development and history.  We watch as Hungary transforms from a Byzantine-style monarchy to a modern, albeit Communist, state.  When I was teaching as part of my PhD program I showed part of this film to my students because it clearly showed many of the themes we covered in the history of 19^th and 20^th century Europe.  One of the final lines of the film, about the character of Valerie, is that she alone had mastered the art of breathing freely in a repressive society.

I think about that line quite often.  It has echoed in my head frequently this fall, as I’ve felt a constant pressure in my chest.  It is a weight that makes my shoulders hunch over and my diaphragm contract.  I find it hard to draw a deep breath most of the time, and have to remind myself to push back against the weight of it. I know it is stress.  The fullness in my chest is the stress of two children under age 2, plus an older child who isn't to the Age of Usefulness yet.  It is the weight of getting the two little ones out of the house every day to pick up Piglet from preschool via the bus or cab.  It is the stress of getting dinner on the table every night while at least two of the three children scream at me for an hour while I do so.  It is the constant neediness of the two little ones, and the constant vigilance required to keep the older one from tearing the house apart.  It is the weight of having a colicky baby who wants to nurse 12-16 times a day.  It is the absolute sleep deprivation.  It is the literal weight of double baby wearing, which I do on a daily basis because it is easier and faster than hauling a stroller or letting the (relatively) new walker explore the city while I run after him with the baby strapped to me.  I had a vivid lesson in why this is a bad idea this morning as I let Boo down to walk a little while as we waited for a holiday lights show to start downtown.  He wandered around about 4 feet in front of me for a little while, but soon bored of that and took off beyond the rope barrier.  In my haste to catch him before he got lost in the crowd, I tripped getting around the barrier and went down hard.  I caught Boo and dragged him back to where we had been waiting and gave him a few more minutes of wiggle time before giving up and chucking him on my back once more.  That brought the total weight of the little people on me close to 40 pounds.  The weight is well distributed between the two ERGOs, and most of it goes down to my hips like a hiking backpack, but it is still a lot of weight to lug around day after day.  There is the stress of the bedtime routine, when my husband and I chase down both boys and literally wrestle them into pajamas night after night while Birdie screams her head off.  (Or, alternately, I sit in a chair and nurse Birdie for the nth time that day while my husband does the wrestling and I listen to the chaos from the other room, unable to do a single thing about it).  It is having more children than hands.  Sometimes I feel as though I never fully rid myself of that extra weight at the end of the day, and climb into bed bowed low by the fullness of my days. 

Today I went to pick up my older son from preschool without the other two children, a rarity for me.  Piglet got out at 1:00 and I had my sitter for the afternoon.  As I walked down the sunny street with a cold wind blowing at my back, I remembered the reasons I like living in the city—the hustle and bustle of the streets, the ease of movement, and the little corner shops and restaurants.  I looked up as I walked and breathed deeply of the cool air, feeling the rush fill my lungs, and the pressure in my chest eased just a little.  Temporarily free of the physical burden of motherhood, I was able to remind myself that these years are fleeting, and some day soon, I will be able to take a deep breath without having their constant need grinding against me.  But those years are still in the future, and I can’t live into them now; I have to learn how to breathe freely in this present moment.  And so I will remind myself to look up more often, and to take a deep breath, even as I shoulder the forty pound burden of my days.