Today is my seventh wedding anniversary! I must say, this marriage
is unexpectedly great.
As everyone knows, Tobias and I had a shotgun wedding and deep down inside, I don't think most people had a lot of hope for us. But, as Sahsez would say "Ha on you!" because so far, so wonderful.
To pat ourselves on the back for a marriage well-executed, we are going to Brasserie L'ecole tonight. Normally we go to a B&B on our anniversary but M'hijo is still getting up three times a night and I wouldn't want to inflict one of my nights on any of the grandparents, so we will return home to sleep. In separate beds. Me with the kids. Le sigh.
Yesterday I took a nap in the middle of the day, and it's the first nap I've taken for three or four weeks. Somehow, even though the baby hasn't stopped waking up several times a night, I've been surviving without naps. But Monday morning he started a new thing where he is wide awake at 5ish and ready for action, and this is what really did me in. Hence the nap yesterday.
It's amazing how an hour or so of sleep in the daytime can somehow make up for weeks of lost nighttime sleep. Good thing too, because I realized on Tuesday how truly exhausted I was. At the grocery store, I had to reread my entire list after getting every single item and check the list against the contents of my cart each time. I couldn't keep two items in my head, just one.
It went like this: Read the list, check the cart, grab some rigatoni. Read the list, check the cart, get some milk. Read the list, check the cart, choose an avocado. Read the list, check the cart, choose an avoca---no wait, I just got one of those, see? There it is. Right there. So I can cross that off. Where's my pen? Oh, I didn't bring a pen. Okay. Read the list, check the cart, choose some parsley. Wait, did I get milk? Oh yes, there it is. I already got it. Okay. Read the list, check the cart, choose some parsl-- damnit! ad nauseum
That evening, being Valentine's Day, my dad and I attended a lecture on Flannery O'Connor, the Southern US writer of many dark, dark stories. The lecturer read a significant portion of A Good Man is Hard to Find, a short story that includes the execution-style murders of an entire family. Mmm, Valentine's Day!
The lecture was really good, but man was it hard to stay awake! If I was tired at 1:30pm at the grocery store, I was dead on my feet at 7pm at the lecture.
Exhaustion woes aside, though, M'hijo is an easy baby who is almost always happy and fairly predictable. The only time I can't count on him to be in a jovial mood is at the witching hour. This starts at about 5pm in our house. This is when I have to bring out the big guns. Just feeding and changing him isn't going to cut it during the witching hour. He requires a swaddle, bouncing, a soother and sometimes loud Ssshhing into his ear. But the good news is, if I do all those things, he is always consolable. It just takes a bit more work than usual. And I can tend to get quite frazzled in the process.
I have read online of other mothers' approaches to making the witching hour easier. It's usually something like put the baby down for a nap right before it begins, get older children involved in an activity, have dinner ready by then so you don't have the added stress of something burning on the stove while you console your little monkies, make sure everyone has reasonable blood sugar levels by having a snack at 3 or 4, etc. These all sound like they would work just fine, but they also involve work (which I try to avoid) and organization (which I lack), so I have made up my own witching hour solution. And it is called pour Mummy a glass of wine at 4:45. I tried this yesterday and it works wonderfully!
So basically yesterday was the beginning of a new lease on life for me. Nap + boozing = a happy family.
Reading: The Lives of Saints by Nino Ricci. I am finding this pretty boring, but I will finish it. Also How To Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young. I don't actually need any instruction in this department, but I enjoy learning about other people's techniques. The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith. These books are so formulaic, you'd think I'd stop reading them. But I can't. The sense of place he evokes is so soothing, I don't even care what happens in the story, I just want to read them to transport myself to Botswana for a while.
Listening to: All You Can Eat a podcast from the Pacific Palate blog.
Eating: Okay, the new recipes. Hmm, are there any? I'm at a loss. Oh yes! I've thought of two.
New Recipe Number 11: Vietnamese Caramelized Pork Chops - from a back issue of Gourmet. You make caramel, add lime juice, fish sauce, salt, and shallots and smother pork chops with it before putting them on the grill pan. This was okay, but the flavour of the sauce didn't really stick on the meat. Not sure if letting the meat sit in the sauce longer would help, since it's not really a marinade or anything. A recipe that looks better on paper, I think.
New Recipe Number 12: Vietnamese rice noodle salad - also from the Gourmet. Eh, whatever, I know how to make much more tasty versions of cold Asian noodle salads. This was too bland.
New Recipes Number 13: Grilled eggplant - sort of a no-brainer, but I'm glad I was inspired to put eggplant on the grill pan by this recipe in Nigel Slater's Appetite. Delicioso! I made Slater's "A creamy and unctuous potato dish" as well, this time using the stipulated heavy cream rather than cheating with coffee cream and milk, and man was it good! I think we are eating too much meat these days so it's nice to have a meatless meal that is so satisfying.
As everyone knows, Tobias and I had a shotgun wedding and deep down inside, I don't think most people had a lot of hope for us. But, as Sahsez would say "Ha on you!" because so far, so wonderful.
To pat ourselves on the back for a marriage well-executed, we are going to Brasserie L'ecole tonight. Normally we go to a B&B on our anniversary but M'hijo is still getting up three times a night and I wouldn't want to inflict one of my nights on any of the grandparents, so we will return home to sleep. In separate beds. Me with the kids. Le sigh.
Yesterday I took a nap in the middle of the day, and it's the first nap I've taken for three or four weeks. Somehow, even though the baby hasn't stopped waking up several times a night, I've been surviving without naps. But Monday morning he started a new thing where he is wide awake at 5ish and ready for action, and this is what really did me in. Hence the nap yesterday.
It's amazing how an hour or so of sleep in the daytime can somehow make up for weeks of lost nighttime sleep. Good thing too, because I realized on Tuesday how truly exhausted I was. At the grocery store, I had to reread my entire list after getting every single item and check the list against the contents of my cart each time. I couldn't keep two items in my head, just one.
It went like this: Read the list, check the cart, grab some rigatoni. Read the list, check the cart, get some milk. Read the list, check the cart, choose an avocado. Read the list, check the cart, choose an avoca---no wait, I just got one of those, see? There it is. Right there. So I can cross that off. Where's my pen? Oh, I didn't bring a pen. Okay. Read the list, check the cart, choose some parsley. Wait, did I get milk? Oh yes, there it is. I already got it. Okay. Read the list, check the cart, choose some parsl-- damnit! ad nauseum
That evening, being Valentine's Day, my dad and I attended a lecture on Flannery O'Connor, the Southern US writer of many dark, dark stories. The lecturer read a significant portion of A Good Man is Hard to Find, a short story that includes the execution-style murders of an entire family. Mmm, Valentine's Day!
The lecture was really good, but man was it hard to stay awake! If I was tired at 1:30pm at the grocery store, I was dead on my feet at 7pm at the lecture.
Exhaustion woes aside, though, M'hijo is an easy baby who is almost always happy and fairly predictable. The only time I can't count on him to be in a jovial mood is at the witching hour. This starts at about 5pm in our house. This is when I have to bring out the big guns. Just feeding and changing him isn't going to cut it during the witching hour. He requires a swaddle, bouncing, a soother and sometimes loud Ssshhing into his ear. But the good news is, if I do all those things, he is always consolable. It just takes a bit more work than usual. And I can tend to get quite frazzled in the process.
I have read online of other mothers' approaches to making the witching hour easier. It's usually something like put the baby down for a nap right before it begins, get older children involved in an activity, have dinner ready by then so you don't have the added stress of something burning on the stove while you console your little monkies, make sure everyone has reasonable blood sugar levels by having a snack at 3 or 4, etc. These all sound like they would work just fine, but they also involve work (which I try to avoid) and organization (which I lack), so I have made up my own witching hour solution. And it is called pour Mummy a glass of wine at 4:45. I tried this yesterday and it works wonderfully!
So basically yesterday was the beginning of a new lease on life for me. Nap + boozing = a happy family.
Reading: The Lives of Saints by Nino Ricci. I am finding this pretty boring, but I will finish it. Also How To Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young. I don't actually need any instruction in this department, but I enjoy learning about other people's techniques. The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith. These books are so formulaic, you'd think I'd stop reading them. But I can't. The sense of place he evokes is so soothing, I don't even care what happens in the story, I just want to read them to transport myself to Botswana for a while.
Listening to: All You Can Eat a podcast from the Pacific Palate blog.
Eating: Okay, the new recipes. Hmm, are there any? I'm at a loss. Oh yes! I've thought of two.
New Recipe Number 11: Vietnamese Caramelized Pork Chops - from a back issue of Gourmet. You make caramel, add lime juice, fish sauce, salt, and shallots and smother pork chops with it before putting them on the grill pan. This was okay, but the flavour of the sauce didn't really stick on the meat. Not sure if letting the meat sit in the sauce longer would help, since it's not really a marinade or anything. A recipe that looks better on paper, I think.
New Recipe Number 12: Vietnamese rice noodle salad - also from the Gourmet. Eh, whatever, I know how to make much more tasty versions of cold Asian noodle salads. This was too bland.
New Recipes Number 13: Grilled eggplant - sort of a no-brainer, but I'm glad I was inspired to put eggplant on the grill pan by this recipe in Nigel Slater's Appetite. Delicioso! I made Slater's "A creamy and unctuous potato dish" as well, this time using the stipulated heavy cream rather than cheating with coffee cream and milk, and man was it good! I think we are eating too much meat these days so it's nice to have a meatless meal that is so satisfying.
