Hoo, Hoo, Hoosiers!

Today has been an Indiana fall Saturday if ever there was one. Shawn, Violet, and I got out of bed around 8am for pancakes and showers before a 10 o'clock meeting at St. Joan of Arc. We decided to go ahead and get Vi baptized in the Catholic church and we had a baptism prep meeting this morning. The church is only a handful of blocks from our house and on a nice day we would have walked but today was anything but nice. Chilly and rainy, it was definitely a day that makes us Midwesterners save our pennies in hopes of retiring somewhere without seasons.

Violet was sleepy before we even left the meeting, although she was a model baby the whole time, and she fell asleep quickly after we got home and nursed her. I had a couple of errands to run and when I got home from those, Vi was still sleeping. Shawn had "done his chores" while I was gone and was ready for a nap himself. So this afternoon all 3 of us enjoyed some daylight REM cycles and missed nothing more than a couple college football games and more rain.

When the sun set, (not that anyone really noticed it leaving as it was dark all day), we made a fire in the fireplace, ate chicken and dumplings, and drank a couple beers. Violet shit on her 1st outfit of the day which was a good reason to change her into her I.U. cheer leading outfit before the Cream and Crimson's 1t game of the season. After comparing her to the real I.U. cheer squad on TV, I've decided all cheerleaders should have fat rolls on their legs. Not only is it ADORABLE, it would make the post-partum alumnus feel better about the state of their own legs and thus more likely to donate to their alma mater.

I.U. won, I put Violet to bed, and now we're watching the news. How can these weekend days flip by so quickly? Ahhh, at least we still have Sunday.

V*O*T*E*

Violet went to the polls today and helped me cast my ballot. My mom "Took the Day Off For Barack" to help with the campaign so I stayed home with Violet. We are going to walk over to the campaign office after lunch to see if they need any help from a lady and a baby. Not sure what we can do, but we'll do anything! One thing we can do is remind you all (does anyone really need reminding?) to get out there and VOTE!!!

This is a selfie taken outside our polling place. What a gorgeous Election Day!!

1st Halloween

Last night was Violet's first Halloween. She dressed as a puppy and, unbeknown to her, hosted her first Halloween party. Shawn and I made chili and had a group of family and friends over for beer and trick or treating. Violet, her cousin Charlie, and my goddaughter Ruby made for a ridiculously cute 6 months and under crowd!

I couldn't help but notice what having kids does to the way people celebrate Halloween and, I'm guessing, the rest of the holidays, too. Over are the days of Shawn and I dressing up like a pimp and a naughty cop (though Jeff and Steph sure looked great in those costumes!). Instead we dolled up the baby and fawned over her.

The single adult version of Halloween sure is fun, though. After our guests left, Shawn went to meet some of his former co-workers at a bar and, since he'd already had a few, I dropped him off. It was fun seeing the throngs of twenty-somethings dressed up headed out for a night of drinking in Broad Ripple. I was a teeny bit jealous. Not because I wanted to join them last night, (hungover parenting sounds like the scariest part of Halloween), but because essentially, that part of my life is over. The element of being carefree, which was always such an important part of partying in my twenties, has been replaced by the constant tug of my daughter's need for me. I wouldn't trade Violet for being carefree; I'm too in love with her.

I'm starting to see why parents live vicariously through their kids. It's not that I would change any part of the way I have lived my life up to this point, it's just that my life has been great and I am already nostalgic for certain parts that are over. Who wouldn't want to do college twice? I am looking forward to all the great stuff that is to come for me and Shawn, don't get me wrong, but college and singledom is over for us. The consolation is that Violet still gets to do all the fun stuff. And we get to watch. As her daddy, Shawn probably prefers seeing her dressed up as a puppy than a dominatrix, but she surely won't let us choose her costumes forever!

Obama Obaby

Thursday started off crisp (read: COLD) as Shawn, Violet, and I headed downtown for the Obama rally on the American Legion Mall. We picked up Peggy and some Long's Donuts, and found our way into the serpentine lines that were weaving their way into the gates. It was a long morning for Violet, we left home at 9am and didn't get back until after 1 o'clock, but I am sure that someday she'll be thrilled to know that her political activism started in some small way when she was just 5 months old.

The crowd was huge (estimated at 35,000!), diverse, and electrified. Less than 2 weeks until the election and it looks like Obama is actually leading nationally. Indiana is still too close to tell, but after living in this reddest of red states most of my life, I am thrilled to see it even looking a bit purple. If we actually went blue, holy hell, I'd jump for joy!! I am excited at the possibility of raising Violet during a period of progressive thought, rather than with the evil empire under which she was born. With luck and leadership, maybe the mistakes of the Bush years will be overcome before she is old enough to understand how scary this time has been.

The Pumping Closet, Trisha Yearwood, and The Grown-up Taste of Nuts

Four days a week, twice a day for 20-30 minutes at a time, I am hooked up to a machine expressing breast milk for Violet's next day's meals. My work had established a supply room for me to use for pumping purposes but the frequency that staff needs to get things out of there made it difficult for me to feel comfortable getting topless in that room. Twice I heard someone outside the door, keys jingling, about to walk in on me looking like a working Holstein dairy cow at milking time. I have moved my operation and am much more comfortable in the bathroom even though people think being forced to pump in the restroom is a hardship. This is a really nice restroom--a onesie, no stalls--with tile floors and a frosted glass window. It is big enough that I sit in a chair by the window, not on the pot. It is also adjacent to the office kitchenette which means I don't have to tote test tubes full of milk through the office letting all of my co-workers see whether I am having a high or low producing day.

I have a pumping schedule I try to stick to--10:30 & 2:30--but I have to be flexible. Some days I have a 10am meeting so I have to pump early or late, and there are days when the phone rings and I run behind. I think there has only been one day that I didn't get my two pumpings in so I think I'm doing pretty well. I always try to take something work-related to read with me into the pumping station but, with so much of my work being via phone or computer, there simply isn't always a paper document that needs my attention. In addition, mine is a double pump so I don't really have a free hand which further limits my options for double tasking. Most books require 2 hands and proofreading is out cause I couldn't hold a pen.

So my standby reading material for my pumps is the Redbook magazine that has been sent to our office by mistake for well over a year. I think that the subscription has finally run out, however, because I have read the August and September issues cover to cover but haven't seen anything more recent. Redbook, competing with titles like Ladies Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens, is the Grandmother of all the "Mom" magazines with headlines ranging from "16 Savory Soups" to "Real Women, Real Weight Loss" and "How to Get Your Husband to Do Almost Anything Without Nagging." It is that magazine that has a glossy photo on the cover of a slice of fruit pie, filthy with shortening and sugar, with the article byline "Walk Off The Weight!" superimposed right over the lattice crust. It is a momazine. I could bring in one of my magazines from home--Vanity Fair or Real Simple--something more my taste. But something about pre-meditating my reading material makes it seem a bit more like slacking at work.

One of the Redbook issues I read has the chubby country star, Trisha Yearwood, on the cover. The article about her was pretty ho-hum. I read only half of it before moving on to a nice spread about how to get a handle on my family's debt. But, since I spend so much time pumping and have so few periodicals available to me, I went back to the article about Trisha later in the week and finished it. Included in the layout were a few of her favorite Southern style recipes with photos included. One, a Chicken Spinach Lasagna Casserole, seemed exceedingly grody to me when I first read it. It contained the great triumvirate of casserole ingredients: cream of mushroom soup, mayonnaise, and sour cream. Nothing wrong with those three, aside from the fat content, especially when you know it will be topped with shredded cheese. What got me was the casserole topping--not your usual breadcrumbs or french fried onions, but pecans. Pecans on casserole--ugh! I like most nuts now but remember being thoroughly grossed out as a kid when chocolate chip cookies had walnuts or waffles had pecans. Who would ruin a perfectly good cookie or waffle with nuts?? My mom said nuts were "Yummy." I thought they were unnecessary. I don't know when I finally warmed up to nuts, but it was definitely an acquired taste.

It was probably my 5th or 6th reading of the Redbook, likely during one of my pumping sessions right before lunch, when the recipe started to intrigue me. I mean, I do like spinach and chicken. Casseroles are an easy meal for a weeknight. It is fall and something hot is always comforting and good. I do like pecans in other settings; pies, cookies, bars...could Trisha be on to something? So I tore it out. And, sitting in my pumping closet milking myself, tearing out Trisha Yearwood's Chicken Spinach Lasagna Casserole recipe, I realized I was the target reader for Redbook.

When I went to the grocery I bought all the ingredients I needed to make the casserole, including the pecans. I think it was a Wednesday night when I made it, nuts and all. I think Shawn liked it--he eats almost anything I cook without a complaint. It was very casserole-y and the pecans were an interesting touch. I don't know that it will find itself into our regular dinner rotation but I kept the recipe. That meal, more than even Violet's birth itself, confirmed my identity as a mom. A mom with nuts on top.

Adding Family Members The Easy Way

When it comes to growing your family tree, there are two ways to do it. One is by marriage, the other is by baby. I am excited to report that my oldest brother Jeff has invited his girlfriend, Stephanie, to join the clan and she accepted. Hooray and Congrats! We celebrated their engagement with a brunch including both sides of the newly joined family on Sunday.

But is marriage really the easier of the two ways to increase the number of family members? The day of the actual event, marriage definitely is easier. Who would rather give birth than go to a big party often with an open bar? But what about the days, weeks, months and years that follow the blessed event? Babies are a more intense, concentrated kind of work right out of the gate. They need oodles of attention, require lots of patience, and can leave parents with more questions than answers. Babies won't let themselves be ignored.

Marriages, on the other hand, tend to start off with both parties running on cruise control, enjoying the afterglow of their wedding celebration and honeymoon. It is easy to assume that your marriage will always be that easy, that good. Then, life starts to flip by. Careers change, money gets tough, houses are bought and sold, babies enter the picture. And, if you are like me, you have an "a-ha" moment as you look across the kitchen at the guy talking to the baby in his best Baby-ese falsetto and realize you haven't really spoken to each other since last Wednesday. You've compared schedules, swapped baby anecdotes, and updated each other on joint bank account expenditures, but you haven't actually talked. And you wonder, how long could you ignore your marriage and have it survive? So make an effort. Just a little effort. A nice hug in the kitchen goes a long way.

In a lot of ways (hell, in almost every way imaginable!), Shawn and I are lucky. Though we didn't plan on making a Violet so quickly, we sure got a good one. And the good, old, pre-kid days of our marriage, though they were few, are still recent enough memories that we actually remember why we liked each other before we became family. I think that is a big reason why people end up getting divorced after they have a couple kids. Raising humans is so time consuming, so all consuming, so unignorable, that a marriage silently withering away is barely noticeable until it is too late. Some couples don't have the "a-ha" moment in the kitchen, or if they do, they ignore it and keep emptying the dishwasher. And, ignore enough of those moments and then it is too late.

So, for Jeff and Stephanie, I wish you guys lots of "A-Ha! I Love You!" moments. And maybe even a few little Violets. With their own names, of course.

Two Good Reasons To Go To Bed

Does the wonder of babies ever wear off? I know that I can be blinded to it temporarily due to exhaustion or frustration but I don't think I ever really cease to be amazed by what we've created. And Violet's constant changes only add to my awe.

The photo was taken last week. I was up late doing laundry and when I came to bed I saw Shawn and his clone sleeping soundly looking more like one another than ever. People constantly remark how much Vi looks like her Dad but it has always been hard for me to see. She looks like my baby, he looks like my husband. I saw similarities before, but that night I saw a true resemblance. How funny genetics are! As my Dad said, children are bundles of your DNA that you send marching off in to the future. Clearly, Shawn's DNA is on its way. Hopefully, a smidgen of mine is in there, too.

I guess since she looks so much like Shawn, it is only fair that she still favors me. Not like she did at 2 months when she would scream at the approach of anyone else, but I still have the touch. She loves her Daddy and her Grammy but I think I am still her go-to, especially when the times get tough. When she's tired or scared, there is no substitute for Mama. What a flattering, warming, all-around heart-melting feeling!

Prolactin, the mothering hormone as it is called, is definitely doing it's job on me. I can't get enough of my sweet baby. I guess it is prolactin that makes me patiently tolerate the pain when Violet yanks on a fist-full of my hair and murderously angry when a mosquito bites her leg and indifferent to the rolls of chub left on my belly from my pregnancy. Maybe it is prolactin that makes me beam with pride when she squeals in a new way or googly-eyed over how much her hair has grown. Whatever it is, hormone-induced or just plain mother's love, Violet is the coolest person I've ever met!