Yoga

Okay, here's a fair warning. You might want to get a tissue. You've been warned. If you hate to read sad stories, um, go check out some other blog that's funny.

Still here? Here goes nothing.

In 1997 I became a mom. Despite my best intentions, I had a cesarean section. It was not easy, and I definitely had my moments of feeling like a failure. After all, my mother had delivered me and my brother naturally (at least mostly naturally) in the South in the early 1970's, which was no mean feat. My mother-in-law, too, had delivered her three children with ease. I had assumed that I, too, would have a glorious natural childbirth experience.

I got lucky and was able to breastfeed pretty easily. The first month, however, was not all wine and roses, and my husband (Craig) spied a flier for La Leche League and urged me to go to a meeting. My mother had given me her old copy of "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding," telling me that the book had good information, but that the ladies of LLL were a bit "culty."

So with a little trepidation, I walked to the Quaker meeting house for my first LLL meeting. I maneuvered my big bulky stroller into the small space and felt more than a little awkward. After all, baby-toting was still very new to me.

The first person I made eye contact with was a young, radiant pregnant woman. She smiled warmly and invited me to sit with her. In a few minutes, I had learned that she was pregnant with her second child and that her first child, Arabella, was a preschooler. I also learned that this nice woman was a writer and was very interested in yoga, and that she was a fallen-away vegetarian. She was articulate and pretty and interesting and wow! She was my first official "mommy friend."

We saw each other often at LLL meetings and even got together other times. She had a beautiful baby boy (who walked at 8 months!) and co-founded the Memphis chapter of Attachment Parenting International. She began teaching yoga, beginning with a prenatal yoga class, which I attended. She brought food to my house when my second child was born, and provided plenty of emotional support when I made the difficult decision to quit my job. When her child was diagnosed with Asperger's, I was there for her as she learned to navigate the world of IEP's and alternative therapies. In 2000, she asked me to be a co-leader of the API group.

Christie was beautiful. That showed all the time. She had a ready smile and a musical laugh. She was gentle and positive. After September 11, she threw herself into organizing "Peace Picnics" at her child's preschool. She was devoted to National TV Turnoff week, which always made me laugh, because at my house, the TV wouldn't know what to do if it were off for a whole week! She was also very talented and disciplined. She landed a major writing contract - four children's books to be co-written with Bill and Martha Sears! She kept that news to herself as long as she possibly could, but when she finally told me, she was ready to burst. It was amazing! (And the books are fantastic! Buy them!)


In 2002, I was working part-time, and Christie asked me to attend her sparsely-populated Wednesday morning yoga class. It was a level 2 class, a little more challenging than I was ready for, but the only class that fit into my schedule. Generally there were two to five women in the class, and we all enjoyed getting to know each other. Around June of that year, I noticed that Christie was acting a little, well, ditzy. And about as soon as I started suspecting, she told me that she was pregnant again. Delightful news! Craig and I had already decided that we were done having children, so another baby to spoil!

Christie decided to cut back to just prenatal yoga classes in September. Which meant I didn't see her every week anymore. I drifted into another yoga class on Wednesday mornings, but it was crowded and the room was always cold; it wasn't the same.

She and I talked on the phone plenty, and still had our monthly API meetings. Except in October, when we both totally forgot the meeting (the fourth Monday had come earlier in the month than usual...we both thought the meeting was the following week). I called her after work on October 28, 2002, and we had a great conversation about our kids, our lives, Halloween costumes, the API group, our shared forgetfulness, and soup. And that was the last time we talked.

My answering machine was blinking when I got home from work on Tuesday, November 5. It was a friend, telling me that Christie had been in a car accident on Monday afternoon. It was bad, but the kids were okay. I returned the call and learned that Christie was not okay. They had taken the baby via c-section. Christie wasn't going to wake up.

Christie was going to die. She might already be dead.

I remember falling to the floor and crying. Once I collected my wits, I called the hospital, trying to get some information. One person told me that she wasn't on the census. Another person said that she was in surgery. I didn't get it. (Craig finally, gently told me what I failed to understand: they were taking her organs, which she was able to donate.)

I attended my Wednesday yoga class the next day, tearful. The teacher had known Christie and was crying, too. I did the poses and cried.

Her funeral was the following Friday. Craig and I attended, and the cathedral was full. The eulogy was delivered by Christie's best friend and fellow writer, Emily Yellin. She read from Christie's journals. Her journals conveyed her passion for writing, for yoga, for her husband, for her children.

I fell away from yoga. Any time I tried it, Christie's cheerful voice, her constant tweaking of the pose, her pretty voice when she chanted, all haunted me. Craig and the kids gave me a yoga mat and props for Christmas, and they pretty much spent all their time in the closet, like most exercise equipment does.

But last night I took the kids to a yoga class. It was a good class: gentle and breath-centered, a different approach than Christie's perfectionist Iyengar school of yoga. But in the quiet, just for a moment, I knew something. Christie would be glad that I was there.

The boy is the sick (not really anymore though)

Pukefest 2007 has reared its ugly head. The Boy (but he now wants his Internet name to be Alex) was all showered and dressed for church yesterday, ate two bites of cereal, and immediately threw it all up on the kitchen floor. Needless to say, he missed church and apparently threw up even more while Susie and I were gone. Fortunately, he had good aim, and a bowl that he carried around, so no more messes.

He ran low grade fever and looked pretty much like death warmed over all day...no color in his face, very sleepy, etc., and didn't hold anything down until about 7 p.m. So we decided to keep him home from school today.

Mondays are very busy for me at work. And since our department has a management vacancy right now, I really didn't feel that it would be a good decision to stay home all day. So I, dedicated and loyal employee that I am, woke up at o'dark-thirty and got to work well before the sun was up. I put in two hours before I needed to be back home to tag in as The Husband (heretofore to be known as Craig) had to go teach. I brought home some work that is for a web-based application, so I didn't quite leave my colleagues in a lurch.

Amazing how efficient one can be when one is on a deadline. I got all the work done in two hours that normally takes three, and even did some other things that someone else usually does (because they arrive that early every day). So that wasn't bad.

And now Alex is playing video games and looking like the picture of health. I'm just waiting for him to digest some real food, then I'll be convinced.

In other news, there might be other news. I've decided to be superstitious about it, though, so I'm not going to tell the internets what's going on until I know for sure.

More cooking with kids, girl-style

Last night was Susie's night in the kitchen. Being two years older than The Boy, she's a bit more coordinated and was able to do more of the actual prep work for a dinner of salad sandwiches. She peeled and chopped the eggs and mixed up the egg and olive, and squeezed out all the moisture from the spinach and helped mix the spinach salad.

None of the cooking was remotely difficult or reliant on attention to cooking times, so we spent the time chatting about various things, mainly her newfound ability to cry with almost no provocation at all.

She's noticed it, too.

It's science fair time, and in fourth grade the kids are required to submit a project. Much of the work has been completed in class, in stages, so the parents haven't felt pressured to make a science project for their kids. But the project is culminating (and hopefully, baby teeth are decaying in our samples of soda and other liquids as we speak) and she's stressed.

In part she's stressed because she opted to work with a group instead of on her own. (Which is a mark of how different she is from me.) (And I'll post about that in greater depth some other time.)

Susie is a great student - really a teacher's dream - and as a result, our telephone rings a lot each evening with a few of her friends calling for homework help. The first few times it happened it was cute. It was a compliment. Now it's annoying. Susie needs downtime and she really likes her family time in the evenings. We're a busy, on-the-go family with lots of activities throughout the week, and the quiet evenings are crucial for her.

Add to that the fact that one of her friends is a high-drama friend who has trouble with the idea that "Best friends" does not mean "Exclusive friends", and you've got a 'tween who needs some time with mom.

I wish I could tell her that all this will end fast and that it's all going to be okay and not to worry about it, but I can't. That would be dishonest. My life at school was sheer hell from fourth grade to seventh, and only marginally better for eighth to eleventh. Really, in all honesty, I much prefer adulthood. Eight to seventeen was a time I would prefer to forget.

But Susie has social skills that I couldn't have dreamed of having when I was twice her age. At two she was so self-assured and confident and got along well with other kids. (My mother once remarked, while watching her play with a bunch of other kids at at La Leche League meeting, that there was no way I could have done that at the same age.) When she started preschool the teachers were stunned that she'd never been in daycare or preschool before. She's very, very good with people.

She also has an amazing degree of intrapersonal awareness (Gardner fans, that one was for you!). She knows what she's feeling and often she knows why. She can describe what "stressed about science project" feels like in a physical way (feels like crying and swallows down that lump in her throat). And she knows why her friends get on her nerves.

Living with a kid with this much self-awareness and social sophistication is humbling. It also keeps me a little on edge, reining myself in, because it's very, very easy to slip and treat her like she's older than she is. So I walk a thin line to keep my expectations of her and conversations with her on an age-appropriate level. Because nine going on thirty is really still just nine.

From Holidays in M...

And she's really good at chopping eggs.

Little girls love French desserts

Last night was Girl Scouts, and since The Husband is back to school, that means I'm on Girl Scout duty (and The Boy gets to come with me). The girls are getting ready for Thinking Day, which is essentially an international festival in which each troop chooses a different country and makes a visual and skit presentation. We studied Ireland a couple of years ago, and last year, the girls (unprompted by any adults, I promise) chose Iraq. This year they chose France, which is tres facile compared to Iraq.

Since I'm not a camper and really don't enjoy entertaining groups of giggling girls and don't live in the right kind of house to be the cookie mom, Thinking Day is where I get to give my time and skills to the troop. Because I love cooking, and part of the presentation is a bite-sized morsel, for each girl in the service unit (roughly 200), that represents our country. For Ireland, I baked 20 loaves of Irish Soda Bread (thank goodness Thinking Day is in February! That made the kitchen so nice and cozy warm.), and for Iraq I made a carrot dish called Helawat al Jazr, which is amazingly sweet and you don't want to know how many pounds of carrots I used. Because it was a lot. I could have kept a farm of rabbits for at least a week.

Last night, since the girls were doing research and learning all about France, I made crepes for their snack. And I was a little nervous about it, since some girls in that age group (1st-5th grade) are notoriously picky. But I figured if I also brought strawberries, vanilla pudding, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream in a can, they'd be good sports.

So I grabbed my crepemaker (doesn't everyone have one?), whipped up the crepe batter in the blender, transferred it to a Tupperware container, and hit the road.

Making the crepes took about an hour, but I was not even trying to rush. The Boy acted as my garbage disposal: he ate whatever crepes didn't quite turn out right (not quite circular, holes in them, etc.) . This is the child who, like me, prefers his pancakes plain or with a little butter. (I've been known to eat a whole batch of crepes with nothing in or on them, so I totally get where he's coming from.) One girl's dad was in the kitchen with me, and he took a whirl with M'Sieur Crepe too (and he did great!).

Each girl got to choose her own fillings, and no crepes were thrown away. A few girls wanted seconds, but we really had just the right number for each girl and adult to have one. And they loved them and life was wonderful. As a working mom who does not have time to bake cookies and do all that other fun stuff, I definitely felt like I had won the mommy wars last night.

The question did arise: what will I make for Thinking Day itself? Our troop leader always wants to make my life simple and suggested that we simply buy and slice French bread. But really, doing this mad quantity cooking one day a year is really a lot of fun for me. So I'm thinking mini-tarts (like Anthony Bourdain's recipe for Tartes au Poires) or mini-quiches.

I don't have my family cookbook handy, so I'll edit to add the recipes for crepes and Irish Soda bread later. But here's the Iraqi carrots. Yummy.

Helawat al Jazr (Sweet Cardamom Carrots)

Ingredients: 1 pound carrots, peeled and finely grated
1 cup and 2 tablespoons sugar
2 cups low-fat milk
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
Pine nuts
Pistachios
Almonds
Raisins

Directions:
Steam the carrots with the sugar, milk, cardamom, and lemon peel for about 15 minutes, until the carrots are tender. Pour into a sieve, pressing firmly on the carrots to remove all the liquid. Set the liquid aside.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour. Add the carrots, stirring to coat with the flour mixture, and toss for 3 or 4 minutes.
Pour the reserved liquid over the carrots, mix well, and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour into individual serving dishes and garnish with pine nuts, pistachios, almonds, and raisins.

The Boy is The Awesome

[edited to add: The ladies over at Crazy Hip Blog Mamas and LTDChix have asked us to share our "Living the Mommy Dream" stories. This one is one of my favorites. May 29, 2007

edited further to add: I won! June 21, 2007]

On Monday, while my family enjoyed the traditional Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday bar lunch (doesn't everyone do that?), we made a meal plan for the week. I know, I know. Stop flaunting my superior organizational skills, right? Well, we did. And I wanted some buy-in from the under-five-foot crowd, so each kid (and husband) took ownership of one meal. They chose the menu and would be responsible for at least hanging out in the kitchen during the preparation.

So last night was The Boy's meal. Spaghetti. But we are physically incapable of stopping at just spaghetti. That would be too easy. So we also did Mock Chicken Parmesan (which contains neither chicken nor Parmesan), Italian spinach, spinach and cheese ravioli, and salad. Which is enough fun for two people right there, but as the phrase goes, The Boy "kicked it up a notch."

Because he insisted that we pretend during our preparations that we were on a cooking show. So we had to address the camera and demonstrate techniques and have witty banter and, get this, go to commercial. Yes, we had commercial breaks in which we commiserated about the hot lights and the annoying guy with the camera. Because? We're totally on crack.

Best part? Hard to say. The food was fabulous. Watching my son wield a santoku knife and slice a tomato very carefully (and quite well) was pretty great. But making a mundane task into some seriously fun mother-son time? Was awesome.

Plus, he totally ate spinach.

Recipes? I'm almost ashamed since it was so easy.

Italianish Spinach
Thaw a package of chopped frozen spinach (the 10 oz. size). When it's thawed, squeeze out the water. Mix spinach with 1/2 cup lowfat or nonfat sour cream and about 2 tablespoons of parmesan cheese. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

Mock Chicken Parmesan
Pour about 1/2 cup prepared spaghetti sauce into a baking dish (I use Ragu organic garden vegetable). Place four vegetarian "chicken" patties into the dish (Boca is our favorite). Spoon about 2 tablespoons sauce over each patty, then sprinkle each with about 1 tablespoon mozzarella cheese. Put in the oven with the spinach. Watch how fast it disappears. Whine that Boca only puts four patties in a box when everyone knows they should put six.

The rest of it is not worthy of recipes since it simply involves raw vegetables, the remainder of the jar of sauce, and some pasta.

Susie's night is tomorrow. She chose "Picnic night" so we'll be making sandwiches and sitting on the floor. Except if we want to sit on chairs. She's nice that way.