A new project: Mamamorphosis
For the first time since I was pregnant with Almost3, I slept enough last night to get up earlier than I had to.
The rest of the house is quiet. I imagine this will be the baby’s cue to start teething.
So in these dwindling pre-dawn moments, I’ll fill in the interested on a new 90-day challenge-reinvention project I’m launching: Mamamorphosis.
If you’ve enjoyed my sometimes ramblings on this humble blog, join my friend LKW and I for a body-mind-spirit journey that will take us through the rest of 2011. You can jump in with your own Mamamorphosis or just point and snicker at ours. You don’t even have to be a mama, though the un-childed may tire of all the poop talk.
… as an aside, I know each stage is precious and all that, but when does the “mama look a DIS!” stage of potty training end? *sigh*.
Before the chaos of Life with Two Boys cranks up, I’ve got to get the coffee on.
See you in 2012…
Beach breakfast. Or, a paean to farm fresh eggs.
Beach hats
We’re at the beach. We manage to crawl down to 30A at least once a summer, and so far the only shortcoming preventing me from lobbying for full-time relocation is the abysmal lack of organic produce and meatstuffs. The local Publix has a shameful selection of plastic-wrapped, overpriced California dregs (I bought one of the only two heads of broccoli, so don’t make a special trip), there are no farmer’s markets, and the closest Whole Foods is, alarmingly, the one by my house in Birmingham, Alabama. I’ve learned to pack in what I want.
Happily, just as we were running out of eggs, our friends came to stay for the weekend fresh from their mama’s house in Greenville, where she keeps a cotillion of gorgeous chickens. I’ve determined it’s a delightful law of nature that pretty chickens lay pretty eggs, because here’s what I discovered next to the coffee pot when I finally stumbled into the kitchen this morning:
They’re even more stunning on the inside.
Didja know egg yolks are supposed to be orange? Next time you crack open a supermarket egg, get out your color wheel. If it’s yellow, it ain’t worth eating.
Mama C also sent along homemade bread, poundcake, chicken thighs, vegetables, and green bean casserole. That woman has flair. And her homemade bread was downright symphonic beneath one of Francesca’s Finest, fried and drippy.
We’re tucking into the rest of her Southern feast tonight, and I’m already wearing my eatin’ pants. Thanks again, MBC!
That's my happy face. Photo by Kelly Marshall
In my pre-baby life, I was already – ahem – intense.
A heightened sense of doomsday inevitability is customary in the women of my tribe, but when I had my first baby in 2008, I was not prepared for the extreme ratcheting up of my already torqued mind-chatter. Postpartum depression is what I braced for; instead, six sleep-zombied months in, I was a hair-trigger tinder box; the slightest noise made me hit the ceiling. When I began to empathize with the battalion of twitchy chipmunks colonizing the underbelly of our yard, I knew it was more than Too Much Coffee.
Postpartum anxiety is the lesser-known sibling of PPD – there’s a whole rainbow of mood disorders that peck away at pregnant and new mothers, the non-childrened among you may be interested to know. Women way saner than me get caught in the chemical quagmire that can bubble up without warning; add sleeplessness into the mix, and sad can become dangerous right quick. I lost a cousin this way. Word to the wise: if your new-mother pal/sister/cousin/wife seems A Bit Off, step in. A hallmark of Crazy is that you think you’re fine.
With a bit of counseling and a baby who finally slept at 8 months, my postpartum haze cleared and I leveled out at Only Moderately More Anxious Than Before I Had Kids. As it turns out, there’s no going back to one’s blissful pre-child paradigm, wherein the radar didn’t register “croup” and “my child will some day have to use the grown-up bathroom by himself, and that’s when we’ll start the pepper spray training.”
I mention this because, six weeks post-Parc, I sense the specter of irrational anxiety. It sidles in, sneaky-like. The baby ramps up to Spitting Cat while I’m driving, and I get short of breath. I drive past the Cahaba River on the way home from Grandma’s, and mentally rehearse each step of my disaster choreography should the car careen into the water. (S-C-W-O). I commit the cardinal sin of waking a sleeping baby by feeling his forehead for the seventeenth time. He looked hot! And do you KNOW what the fever protocol is for a baby younger than six weeks?? That’s why you wash your hands, visitors.
But now I’m armed. I’ve learned to immediately change the channel, put down the newspaper, navigate away from the webpage, or silence the storyteller if the news involves Bad Stuff Happening To Kids. Last time, the suckerpunch that did me in was served up by CNN sensationalizing a hideous and graphic event that befell a heroic mother and her young son, the details of which I’ll now go back to forgetting. If you’re in a similar postpartum boat, I humbly suggest a news diet. Some stories you can’t un-hear.
On a more positive note, I’ve got my megadoses of MinTran and calcium lactate, my copy of this very helpful workbook, and my 2.5 year old as living proof that babies don’t perish from colic. What has helped most, though, is the shocking realization that “this too shall pass” really is true – for the sucky moments and the precious ones. And this time, I’m determined to savor the precious.
… Digital thermometer in hand.
The VBAC that became a CBAC: Parc’s birth story
The next ICAN meeting is tomorrow night, and I’ve been swearing I’d tell Parc’s birth story online before then.
But other distractions like showering, a mewling newborn, and middling vegan chocolate cupcakes keep sucking my time into a vortex of Wait, It’s Friday Again?
Sidenote: I could give a rip about veganism; I eat meat like an (organic, sustainable, hormone-free) Abilene rancher. But I’m worried Parc will follow in his brother’s newborn dairy intolerance footsteps, and I don’t need LESS sleep right now.
That's a yawn, y'all.
Please hold; this last cupcake looks so lonely.
I’m sorry – what? Birth story. Right.
… You know – it’s been a month. Despite my ambiguous and sentimental refusal to delete the ContractionMaster app and its (lengthy) history from my iPhone, I’m not interested in reliving the blow-by-blow in narrative form. Probably because I didn’t get the VBAC outcome I thought I wanted. Happily, I did end up getting the outcome I needed. Frea-kayy.
But here’s the 2-franc version anyway. The tools we employed to try and convince baby Parc to JUST COME OUT were: a 6-week self hypnosis course, driving to Chattanooga, midwives, mid-labor acupuncture, water, endless vomiting (ok, more “rude side effect” than “strategy”), and the full complement of minor birth strategies like walking, squatting, vocalizing, visualizing, and longshoreman swearing.
After 30 hours, the last 10 of which peaked in hideous every-two-minute contractions, I had achieved precisely 1.5 cm of effaceless nothing and was pronounced “still in early labor“.
Check please.
At my high-pitched insistence, we transferred to the hospital and the exceptionally calm and sensible back-up OB my midwives work with. I was immediately smitten by his professorial and wise Carrollian caterpillar aura. Possibly because he was the gateway to an epidural. A few hours, 7cm, and persistent variable and late heart decelerations later, my new boyfriend and I agreed that baby-as-yet-nameless wasn’t budging without search and rescue ops. In stark contrast to the heartbroken hysterics that accompanied my first c-section, this time around I rolled my eyes and said, “Oh just take the baby.” I may have waved my hand.
Parcas was born mid-afternoon on the 5th, thanks to a c-section that I really didn’t mind all that much. I was shocked. It helped that nobody on the TN team made a crass joke or tried to wheedle concert tickets from my husband, but by and large, I think I felt better about Parc’s c-section – and by extension the first c-section – because it didn’t seem like my fault. This time around, I tried everything I was willing to try, and I still got nowhere.
Yes, it’s possible that a week of laboring around the clock could have pushed Parc into the world oldschool-style. But that would have required either that I simultaneously get pushed OUT of the world, or for Parc to have taken up residence in a different mother. … Frankly, I haven’t met the woman who could have handled that birth. I’m sure she exists, and if you meet her, please let her know that Parc was OP when the Wise Caterpillar finally got him out.
A month after the fact, I’m recovering brilliantly on all fronts. In an extra-delightful move, Dr. Wonderland offered to cut out the keloid scar caused by my badly done first incision, after furrowing his brow at the news that the Alabama group had used staples to close it. Hacks. From an acupuncture/energy field/wooey-wooey perspective, the removal of a gigantic, knotty, energy-blocking scar is, like, life-changing. If you’re into all that.
I think if I’d had the successful VBAC I thought I needed, I wouldn’t have been able to let go of my (substantial) baggage from my first c-section. It probably would have cemented said carry-ons with decades of If Only I’d Tried Harder The First Time. There’s a nice little Zen koan that I think of often – it certainly applies in the case of my VBAC that became a CBAC.
Daddy scrubs
Other than the healthy baby and the ability to sit on my tuchas without portable assistance, perhaps the best gift from Parc’s birth was learning in the crucible of those endless pre-epidural hours that my husband is just about the best doula I can imagine. My good friend and lead midwife wasn’t able to make it to Chattanooga until we got to the hospital, and at first I panicked. But in the vacuum and the Twilight Zone of a very long night, I learned to lean on someone like I never have. Whatever Parc’s exit route, I wouldn’t trade that journey for the world.
It’s not in the plan, but if I ever get pregnant again, I’m scheduling that third c the day I pee on a stick.
We’ll see.
A peephole in the chrysalis
So here’s my new kid.
The little one, not the big blonde 2.5 year old who managed to regress to all-paci-all-the-time AND grow up fivefold during mama’s four-day Tennessee adventure.
When I have more than a few stolen newborn nap seconds, I’ll fill in the details that transpired between my last post from 5 weeks ago and today. To wit: A Somewhat Racy Bellycast, An Entirely Satisfying Mother Blessing Even Though The Henna Slid Right Off, The Tornadoes That Missed My Parents’ New House By A Few Yards, The VBAC That Resoundingly Wasn’t, and A Second C-Section That Redeemed The First Not Least Because I Scored A Free Tummy Tuck.
HOLLA.
But for now: the little one’s name is Parcas. The Parcae were the Three Fates (in Latin), but we chose it because Parcas also means rhapsody in Gaelic. Since big brother’s name is Gaelic for torch, or light in the darkness, we felt it would be hard on Babydeux to be slapped with a handle Considerably Less Poetic And Allusive Of Proud Heritage. Either way, we’re calling him Parc.
Happily, this means the brothers can travel to NYC and take hilarious photos of themselves beneath a variety of signs, when they’re not studying for Rhodes Scholar-dom.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m estimating I have about four minutes to chop avocados before Little Chunk wants back in his Ergo. And mama wants guacamole.
Cheers -
e
Let the resting begin.
I started this merry blog a few months ago with a pair of ulterior motives: kickstart myself out of VBAC-prep denial, and possibly score a little scribbling gig here and there.
I mention this in case you’re wondering why Not A Peach has been hung out to dry lo these many weeks. As it turns out, both motives worked, like, instantly. So I’ve been bouncing between new projects and blissed out Hypnobabies-nosis, and only occasionally mixing up the two.
We also took a mini spring break-lette to hop over to Atlanta, buy all of IKEA, and introduce Lochran to Georgia’s finest accomplishment since they took dibsies on the peach, the Bigass Aquarium.
He was impressed.
If you haven’t been, I recommend it. Lochran’s only 2.4, and he could have stayed all day. Word to the wise: unless you have 24″ pythons, bring an umbrella stroller.
"Aquatic wonderment" and, seconds later, "stimuli overload and toddler collapse."
The GA Fish Pokey was also my first chance to bust out Lochran’s SafetyTats, which I ordered when he was still womb-bound, despite much spousal eye-rolling. I enjoy when a product works exactly like it’s been advertised, and the SafetyTats scored high marks across the board – I went with the Original, which took water+seconds to apply and, despite Lochran’s dedication to picking at it, stayed crystal clear for 3 days until I took it off with olive oil. My kid hasn’t yet proven himself a flight risk, but even I got separated from the herd at the Aquarium. I’ll definitely rock the SafetyTat again, though I’ll remember next time to put it somewhere more visible than “under his jacket sleeve that kept unrolling.”
In other news, my Hypnobabies journey has improved substantially. After a few false starts, my initial resistance has evolved into rabid fan-dom.
Fair warning: if your personal cocktail of cynicism and knee-jerk ridicule rivals mine, and you still intend to take Hypnobabies for a test drive, please understand there will be an adjustment period. In short, the audio tracks are, ahem, a bit hokey.
When I finally settled in for Disc 1 Track 1, “Special Place”, I laughed so loud I woke up my own kid. The background music is 1990s space-age electronica ludicrous, and the voiceover lady’s breath pattern rivals Garrison Keillor. OY. Five seconds of Prairie Home Companion sends me into a claustrophobic fit.
But I’d scored the discs for free and my midwife’s midwifery partner in TN included Hypnobabies on her “required” list of birth prep, so I resolved to at least try once more, some other day, like maybe when I went into labor my birthing time. (Please hold, because I just fell into a deep state of relaxation at the mention of the word “labor”, and now I’ve got to count back up to conscious. And clean up all this oatmeal.)
A few days later, I started hitting the proverbial third trimester late afternoon wall. Despite my on-point supplements, decent food, a protein snack, and Floradix, 4-7PM found me leaden and couch-bound, and going to bed right after Lochran. Jenn insisted I add in a daily nap, but naps don’t work on me. I can’t sleep in the day – I just fidget and count all the boxes still unchecked on my to-do list. But with another 6-8 weeks left on the Babydeux clock, I agreed to at least lie down in the afternoon.
Ever the multi-tasker, I figured I’d fulfill my Hypnobabies obligation while I was fidgeting, and at least distract myself by counting the Hypnolady’s mouth noises and page rustles. And then, magic. I got bored and zoned out, and turned my attention to grocery lists and mentally re-arranging Babydeux’s closet. But when I tuned back in to hear the Hypnolady “counting back up to awareness,” I felt like I’d napped for four hours. And I stayed up, alert, rested, and energetic, until 10PM. I don’t stay alert until 10PM when I’m un-pregnant.
It wasn’t a fluke. Two weeks later, I’ve been listening to a Hypnobabies session almost every day, and it’s a bona-fide energy pill. If I miss a session, I hit a wall. If I get a 40 minute session, I’m golden until 10PM. I struggled momentarily with my resistance to sitting still on command, but then I found the Hypnobabies forum on Facebook, and I decided it didn’t matter if I was motionless.
Who knows if hypnosis will help when Babydeux makes his/her appearance in May, but it sho nuff ain’t gonna make things worse. And for now, Hypnobabies is the reason I’m rested, so I’m sold. If that Hypnolady would just record a breathy post-partum Hypnonewbornplustoddlers, I’d be locked in for life.
Cracking open Hypnobabies: a VBAC state of mind
Today, I moved my borrowed Hypnobabies home study course materials from my garage to my desk. Lest their lender think I’m not taking good care of the box (thanks again to Kaleigh, Birmingham’s own Hypno-doula): my garage has doors and the box was sitting on our dedicated, padded-top, spit-shine clean Take It Inside Table. I’ve even acknowledged the box every time I’ve walked past in the 40 days since it came home with me, which I feel certain counts for at least two of the home study lessons.
My parents’ impending Alabama relocation dominated my calendar last week, as my mother was in town to house hunt, Grandma-cize Lochran, and nurture her lifelong obsession with laundry. NB: if your toddler doesn’t already have one, I strongly recommend adopting a grandmother with a laundry addiction. It was less cute growing up, when “just let me start the wash” took precedence over, say, giving someone the Heimlich, but it sure comes in handy now that the boy has taken to smearing jam on all his outfits.
But with Grandma back in Michigan to suffer through her last few weeks of overcast snow and flat Midwestern accents, there’s little left to do in Chez Hunter but vacuum or dig into Hypnobabies. I now present my real-time unpacking reactions to the home study materials.
1. Pamphlet: The Rights of Childbearing Women. Skipping this one; I know my rights, and as I’ve admitted already, I am prone to ideological distraction by way of avoiding actual physical work.
2. 4 sheets of paper
- Intro letter. Necessary legalese … for reals, what jerk tries to sue Hypnobabies for an unrelaxed birth?
- Basic Guidelines. Resonant: “Hypnobabies works, but not without time, effort, and commitment on your part!” I suppose this means all those weeks on the Take It Inside Table count for nothing. Gyp.
- Suggestions for care providers on language/terms to use. I.e., say “pressure wave” instead of “contraction”, “pressure” instead of “pain”. … I could have sold tickets to “the look on my former OBs face if I’d made this request.” Even I’m having trouble not snickering. Hm. Cynical Sitcom Paradigm is currently standing in the way of Hypnobabies Viability. I really hope the hypno wins.
- Letter from newborn to nursing staff re: on-demand breastfeeding. Non-issue. Anyway, I’ll be in Tennessee.
3. 6 Hypnobabies CDs. Best quote: “Never play this CD in a moving vehicle.” Dammit! Does everything have to be fodder for a Seinfeld episode?
4. Big spiral bound notebook. Wow that’s heavy. But it’s on really nice paper stock, which is appealing to my inner paper junkie. It’s possible I could take this more seriously. Extra encouraging: “In Hypnobabies, you will not be asked to chant or dance around candles, however you will be encouraged to embrace some concepts … such as using your inner mind AS THOUGH IT WERE A COMPUTER.” OK I’M TOTALLY SOLD! I’m surgically attached to my laptop and my new iPhone. I will now win at Hypnobabies.
5. Quick Reference Booklet & Birth Partner’s Guide. Yeah, yeah… I’m skipping right to the part where my brain turns into a sick 15″ MacBook Pro with the EXTRA extra gigs.
6. Pamphlet: Prenatal Perineal Massage. You know what – Google this one yourself. And when you’ve recovered from the floor-slapping giggling fit, don’t forget to erase all those porn-y cookies from your browsing history.
As it turns out, this final pamphlet unearthed a natural birthing fear even more sinister than a second c-section – that the only way to achieve my VBAC goal isn’t by overcoming my labyrinthine headgame and my couch tater exercise regimen, but by resorting to maternity outfits like this:
They're more than just jersey knit sackbelly suspender-pants - they're a state of mind.
Y’ALL. Images like this drive women to the epidural – this pamphlet must have been the inspiration behind this clip from Baby Mama. I’m not saying I’ll only hop on board a birth strategy that foregrounds looking like Vera Farmiga while crowning, but come on, International Childbirth Education Association, publisher of this pamphlet. Help a mama out with some photography that’s a little more contemporary, or at least a little less 80s time-warp night terrors. That this woman thinks perineal massage is a grand idea is not a selling point – she’s dressed like a family of socially inept Ice Capades clowns I went to elementary school with. But if that chick on the Childbirth Connection pamphlet at the beginning of this post said to give it a whirl, I might not write it off instantaneously. See the difference?
I should point out, neither of these pamphlets is published by Hypnobabies – they’re just included in the home study course. So, as such, Hypnobabies shouldn’t be held responsible for the unfortunate sartorial choices of ICEA’s photostylist. … You know, I don’t mean to be flip about natural birth, perineal massage, or the boxy fuchsia shirt I’m sure this nice long lost Ice Capader spent a long time matching to her fuchsia socks. At first blush, the Hypnobabies course seems about right for a mama who lives mostly in her mind, (i.e., me), and I do plan to crack its beautifully tabbed, heavy weight, semi-gloss pages open soon, very soon.
Just as soon as I finish pasting this picture of Amy Poehler over the Perineal Massage ice skating clown.
- ebh
Calamity Tart: How to Ruin a Valentine’s Birthday.
There are better ways to burn through a fat pound of Callebaut chocolate. Three batches of Gourmet’s chocolate chip cookies, for example. A decadent pregnancy facial. Or even this monstrosity of Vegas excess. But what I wouldn’t recommend, unless your pastry skills are a few notches above piddling, is the Chocolate Tart from Gourmet’s big yellow book. … which is currently seven bucks on Amazon. !! I was robbed. You’re crazy if you don’t grab one now.
The book recipe I used isn’t on their website, but it’s more or less this one, just without the candied Clementines … which I would have left out anyway, since the tart was for my husband’s birthday. He doesn’t like pesky fruit interlopers in his chocolate. I’ve made this tart once before, with ripping success, and since Alan’s birthday is on Valentine’s Day, it seemed like the perfect double-duty cake substitute.
Alas, the tart proved more Capricious Chemistry than Reliable Go-To. I won’t try for an encore until such time as all current and future Hunter children are of sleepaway camp age. That’s like six months old, right?
What I will repeat is the crust this recipe calls for – butter, sugar, and crushed up English wheat cookies, AKA, Digestive Biscuits. … Oy. Sometimes I think those Brits are just trying to dupe Americans away from the precious few tasty bits of their cuisine. What’s in a name, indeed.
Thanks to that fickle flight of fancy in measuring, the metric system, I had no idea how many cookies I needed for the recipe’s called-for 7 ounces. Two points for Google calculator … I’m serious, I need a Google implant.
I used this many. Which left just a few lonely wheatbiscuits looking for a good time … my toddler spat his out, but mine was an achievement in barely sweet wheaty heartiness when dunked in third trimester tea.
French mobsters use Callebaut shoes for their hits, I've heard.
In a headrush of overzealous Valen-birthday dedication, I decided to fill the recipe’s “one pound of chopped bittersweet” requirement with two blocks of Callebaut chocolate, instead of the way easier, already tiny, considerably cheaper, likely indistinguishable Ghirardelli chips in the baking aisle. I’m not a chocoholic, and my chocolate connoisseur-dom is barely past the No Drugstore Candy stage, so I’ve got no answer for my actions.
Which is to say, unless you’re on the monthly Jacques Torres plan, I wouldn’t inflame your carpal tunnel by chopping two cement-like bricks of Callebaut.
NB: if you're going to eat all the escapees, be ready for the sugar and caffeine shakes.
But if you do get energetic, nickel-circumference melted just fine for me. Ooh – here’s a fun chopping trick, in case you don’t already know it.
This was taught to me by one of the most disagreeable and least productive denizens presumably still freeloading off his parents in the fine state of New Jersey. Wet a paper towel, and set your cutting board on top of it – the cutting board won’t move while you’re chopping, regardless of what you envision beneath the knife. As a bonus, you’ve got a built-in wet rag with which you may wipe up kitchen sludge and 3-point into the trash can, before moving on with your considerably improved, single life. Score!
Regrettably, this was the high point not only of my New Jersey distraction, but also of Gourmet Chocolate Tart, the 2011 edition.
The instructions are deceptively simple – heat up the heavy cream, temper your egg yolks, stir them in, and when the custard hits 160 degrees, whisk in the melted chocolate. I tempered just fine, but either the custard or the chocolate broke when I stirred them together. The mixture is supposed to be smooth, not clotted. And the watery liquid is more or less clarified butter, which leads me to believe the custard was too hot, and the butterfat in the chocolate had a good old-fashioned Alabama come-apart. The vapors!
Never one to chunk ten bucks of carpal-chopped chocolate at the first sign of disaster, I decided to finish out the recipe and let the tart set up in the fridge for a couple hours. Also, I had no more eggs, and even less ability to brave the Valentine’s Day hordes at Whole Foods at 5PM, so this was my husband’s only chance at a birthday candle platform.
Conveniently, our kitchen floor is badly balanced, so all the ghee migrated to one side and congealed for easy scraping. When I slid the tart out of its springform collar, I tasted some of the residual crumbs and discovered the chocolate had just broken, not burnt. The flavor was spectacular, and if I’d pulled it together in enough time to whip the quart of heavy cream sitting in my fridge, purpose-bought for the occasion, I could probably have masked the pockmarked surface entirely.
But by then I’d already opened my big Yankee mouth to regale our guests with the Misadventures of Calamity Tart, so I had to offer them the chance to dodge dessert. Emboldened by my cheap wine, they all voted pro-slice. Whether it was truth or wine-soaked tastebuds, the unanimous verdict was the only element ruined by my marginal pastry skills was the appearance – a few even went back for seconds.
Even with the last-minute save, I’m not sure I’ll brave this tart any time soon – and when I finally get back around to it, I’ll definitely take Gourmet up on their footnote, “May be made one day ahead and refrigerated,” in case I need an extra 24 to make a bakery run.
- ebh
Cat puke: a fresh pasta update quickie
A few weeks ago, I promised to sample the fresh manicotti offerings from Whole Foods Market, after a disappointing run-in with a blister pack of flapjack raviolis that were so bland they actually leached taste from the rest of the food on our plates. Pasta night rolled around again yesterday, so Alan grabbed a box on his way home.
Personally, I would have gone with the plain cheese, but I suppose the spinach version gave us a chance to sample Penne Lane’s flavor dexterity. Anyway, “extra vegetables” was my excuse for not making Lochran eat his peas.
… Snicker. Penne Lane. Get it??
As far as I’m concerned the FDA can go suck tainted eggs, but in case you care, here’s their part of the label. In my earlier post, I wondered if the familiar white cardboard box meant I had stumbled on Fratelli Ravioli, reincarnated … I don’t think that’s the case. Out of the package, the pasta part of the Penne Lane manicotti seemed a bit mushy, and it didn’t improve with the baking.
I followed the package instructions using my standby pasta sauce, and it’s my pleasure to report the filling’s flavor was emphatically nice. Whattaya want for nuthin? It was just Nice. The spinach was assertive and bright on the palate, and the texture of the cheese was creamy, if a bit spongy. If you don’t like a strong spinach flavor, don’t get this manicotti. I approved of the filling/pasta ratio, though it didn’t approach Obscenely Overstuffed, which would have earned extra points. Overall, Penne Lane was good enough that I’d try other flavors, but not so savory that I’d get the spinach again.
Caveat Serve-or: if you’re easily upset by unattractive food, consider cutting these in half before lifting them out of the pan. I shoveled them up whole and slopped innards every which way but Tuesday, which prompted my husband to complain that his plate looked like a pile of hairballs. Fortunately, our only dinner guests were a two year-old who eats his own boogers and my midwife, who, if she’s going to lose her appetite over spilled ricotta, is in the wrong profession.
That said, I’m not sure it’s possible to bake spinach and ricotta filling without it resembling cat puke, so I don’t fault Penne Lane for the gross-out. It just seems fair to raise the flag that this might not be the take-and-bake to serve your visually delicate mother-in-law.
Buon appetito!
- e
VBAC quagmire: what if mine IS a lemon??
Lochran, 10 days before I went into labor. Yes, I got even bigger.
I got wedged in my own car door yesterday.
Running late to teach MUSE ON WHEELS, my annual Shakespeare workshop at the Advent School, I screeched into the tightest spot possible on the parking deck’s ground floor and in one smooth move, threw open my door, swung my feet to the ground, lost a shoe, snagged my purse on the gearshift, and cemented my belly into the 8 inch space between my door handle and the frame. Dear Emerald Green 1998 Isuzu Crosswind Hooptie Driver: learn to park.
I’m only 28 weeks and I haven’t yet reached the Small Planet stage of belly circumference, but … it’s hard to overlook that I’m pregnant. Which is to say, this morning may not have been my finest hour in obvious space relation disasters. Further complicating my piglet-in-a-mailbox predicament, it’s currently Five Zillion Degrees Below Zero in Alabama, and I had rendered myself immobile by sausaging said 28-week belly into my only winter coat, which is not maternity certified.
Mama will be inside soaking her face in hot chocolate, thanks.
Gray skies and frozen ground was real cute a month ago when I snapped this picture before grumping back to my slippers and a Snuggie. But here in mid-February, Mama’s had 4 weeks too many of Michigan sense memory to be amused any longer. I live in Alabama now. And we got sh*t on again last night. Dear Grand Cayman: please expedite my Visa.
But I digress.
As I was prying Babydeux free and clambering over the center console while dislodging my travel cup lid and losing my other shoe, I began to wonder if A) Hyundai will still be visible on Babydeux’s tush by the time early May rolls around, and B), if, perhaps, I was a bit delusional when I blogged the other day that for me, this VBAC will be mostly a head game.
An average Wednesday. Photo by Hugh Hunter
Unpregnant, I am very small. I’m 5’1″ if I’m doing yoga regularly (so, never), and my ell-bees hover between the 2 and 3 digit mark. I’ve always been too lazy for exercise, and until the food scales fell from my eyes two years ago, I was more or less on the Unfettered French Fries and Pizza Diet. … All right I’m still on that diet, but now it’s all organic and homemade.
I mention this only to illustrate just how resoundingly I do not, and have never lived mindfully inside my body. It’s just – there. I’ve never had to take care of it, or even be aware of it. I never did sports, I’ve never broken a bone, I’ve never even owned a scale. I ran a mile once in a wrong-headed, short-lived audition for the crew team in college, after 4 years of being harangued on the quad to Come Be A Coxswain, You’re Little And It’s Fun. I couldn’t move for three weeks. Corporeal frustrations just aren’t my struggle. This will likely change after TWO kids, and that’s probably for the best.
I am a scholar. I live inside my head – sometimes, to the exclusion of the tangible world altogether. It’s really fun in here. So when I got pregnant with Lochran three years ago, my first impulse was to research myself silly. Also part of my charm: I was born loaded for bear. It took about three links-to-links before I stumbled on The Business of Being Born, and from my new position as shotgun rider on the bandwagon, I devoured all manner of natural birth literature, every title of which I heartily recommend to the knocked-up. PS, cookbooks count as birth literature. How do you think that fetus gets fed?
Here’s the rub: I stopped at the books. Ina May Gaskin, resident Boss Of Midwifery, has a signature, oft-trumpeted quote from her Guide to Childbirth: “Remember this, for it is as true and true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.”
Since I’ve always been quite pleased to inhabit this particular maintenance-free anatomy, I read this passage as an endorsement to think positively, and then birth a water buffalo with my not-a-lemon body. Add in the endless tales bandied about by the natural birth crew of armies of 4’8″ slender-hipped heroines who had 11 pound babies three weeks past their due date, and I was pretty confident I wouldn’t need to do much more than meditate my kid through my cervix.
Qualification: I get the motivation for these fireside stories. In the birth-as-sickness culture that characterizes the majority of American OB/GYNs, “your baby is too big to birth” is the A#1 fear to instill in new mothers, to convince them to have c-sections instead of trying for a vaginal birth. It is a line, and it should be questioned. My troubles had nothing to do with Lochran’s size.
… If I hadn’t destroyed every last one, right about here is where I’d insert a photograph of my face at Week 39 of Lochran’s pregnancy, after having slept no longer than 90 minutes at a time – sitting up in a recliner – for four months. Because I was a lemon.
The details aren’t interesting. In short, 33 years of cavalier body stewardship steered me right into: insomnia starting at Week 8; full-body heroin-withdrawal-like itching that started at Week 12; a uterine fibroid at Week 16 that kept me doubled over until I found acupuncture; and, most destructive, a bizarre pain just below my ribcage that manifested whenever I laid down, starting at Week 20. And just for comic effect, I gained 50 pounds with Lochran – half my pre-pregnancy weight – and the day I went into labor I didn’t look pregnant from behind; it was all in my belly. Imagine the comfort of that geometry. By the time I hit 26 weeks and tried water aerobics and went looking for a chiropractor, who I saw twice weekly ’til d-day, it was too late for anything but triage.
When my labor finally kicked in at 41 weeks and 3 days, I was already done. In hindsight, the only way I could see a vaginal delivery working under those circumstances is if he’d been a Hollywood-style “had the baby in the car” bullet train labor. Instead, he decided to take his sweet bippy time, and by the 24 hour mark, I’d barely cracked a centimeter. And I went into labor at midnight, so by the time I transferred to the hospital I hadn’t laid down in 36 hours. After a phenergan, the first 5-hour stretch of sleep I’d had in 20+ weeks, 5 hours of hard labor to get to 2cm, an epidural, 5 more hours of pitocin to get me to 2.5cm, I threw it in and let them take the baby. And then the actual gut-slicing was about the most traumatic experience I’ve had.
For me, the roughest aftermath was that I hadn’t been bullied, or duped, or cajoled into a blessed one of those interventions. That might have been better – I know how to fight authority. But I don’t know how to fight physicality. In the condition I’d kept it in, my body couldn’t handle birth.
These days, I like to think I’m behaving more like an owner of a body, rather than a renter. I still don’t exercise much, but I take my vitamins occasionally, I’ve found a magical chiropractor, and when I do eat brownies they’re not from Sarah Lee. Sometimes, I even stretch. And when Alabama thaws I swear I’m going to walk. My body may be getting on board this time: the itching didn’t come back, I’m gaining less weight (take THAT, Mickey D’s), and the fibroid disappeared so completely that my new OB refers to it as “that fibroid someone told you you had” with great skepticism. And I’m sleeping, thanks in large part to the saintlike amount of nighttime massage my husband is contributing.
I’m pretty sure I still have a lemon, but this time around I’m working on the recipe for icebox pie. We’ll see how it tastes in early May.
- ebh
