Music Therapy

There are soundtracks to many stages of my life. That is, I associate music with various chapters or events in my life, as I'm sure many people do, and I've been listening to new music lately. As you know, I'm also in a new phase of my life.

I think High Highs "Open Season" is keeping me sane. It's my daily guarantee of forty minutes of inner solitude, and a fortunate reminder that love is all you need.

Despite what I said, this is hard (I fear I didn't make that clear last time we spoke). Even on the days when Liam is at "school' I feel like a waiter in the weeds; and having Liam in the mix makes it that much harder to rise to the challenge (he's a twelve-top upstairs when your downstairs section is full). Surely we're feeding off one another's energy, and the morning sets the day. The mornings have been rough, and so have the days. I'm exhausted. Still not hysterically so, like I'm not slap-happy or simultaneously laughing and crying, but that's because there isn't a lot of happy or laughing connected with this kind of tired. I'm mostly just pissed off and crying.

I can feel myself attempting to squelch the Nasty-Yelly Mommy, and by the end of the day - which doesn't really have an end because they all just bleed into one another - I have a pounding headache as a reminder of all the frustration I've suppressed trying to maintain my inside voice. I don't like yelling, and I find yelling at children futile and damaging. So, of course I want to keep squelching this ugly person inside of me. My husband would chime in here to remind me, in the midst of my being hard on myself, that I've been recovering from major surgery (the C-section), post-partum preeclampsia, and some nasty, unrelenting virus that Liam brought home from school. And he's right. I haven't been in good health, and that's contributing to my lack of energy and patience. But the problem remains, and those are the causes I can't control.

I'm not really sure what to do to make this better. I'm still mulling it over, trying to figure it all out. I'm taking little steps to see if I can get a handle on things by just doing a bunch of small, practical things to make getting through the day a little easier. But there might be something inside me that has to change; maybe my attitude, maybe my expectations, maybe something deeper. In the meantime, I'm using music  therapy, and it's likely that I'll always associate the sometimes melancholy, sometimes upbeat, always nostalgic "Open Season" with the first couple months of Eliot's life.

And then there were four.

We brought our second baby boy home almost two weeks ago, completing our family of four (five, if you include our dog, Cecilia) and sending my husband and I into the fog of exhaustion that accompanies caring for a newborn. Eliot is an easy baby, he sleeps soundly and long enough that we've managed to mostly avoid the cognitive dysfunction of sleeplessness. Sure we're tired, but not hysterically so. As far as he's concerned, we're on familiar territory. Trekking a path we've already carved out and memorized. The challenge, this time around, has come with the unfamiliar territory of navigating the emotional landscape of a toddler whose entire world has been turned over. The same toddler who, only a couple months ago, asked if Baby Eliot would "have his own Mommy", and who is now struggling with appetite loss, difficulty sleeping, and a harder time playing independently for short periods of parental unavailability. He toggles between love and aggression, wanting in the same moment to kiss his brother's foot and hit him in the face.

It's not as bad as I thought it would be when I was crying myself to sleep countless nights during trimester three, wondering if my son would ever forgive us for bringing another child into the family, and whether I would be capable of loving another child as much as I loved the one I already had. Alas, I have put those fears to rest--our big boy still loves us, and I am deeply in love with Baby Eliot. But the signs of Liam's emotional upheaval are unmistakable, and because I love him and want him to be happy, I feel it's important for me to help him to both understand and overcome the way he's feeling. Of course, in order to do that, I have to understand how he's feeling. And I'm not sure I do, but my best guess is that he feels insecure. He realizes that he is now not the only priority, and that our attention is split between his demands and the baby's, and that there's absolutely no going back to the way things were.

I was pretty well convinced that the only advice I needed in order to make the transition/addition go smoothly was to be sure to incorporate Liam in the management and care of the little one. So that he could feel like he had an important role to play in his baby brother's welfare. And to be sure, this is good advice. But when it took more than a week for Liam to even want to touch the baby, I realized that there is much more to it than just getting him involved, and much more to his emotional response than just feeling left out. Even more important than letting him help with lost pacifiers, diaper changes, and burping duties, we have to be attentive to his emotional needs, and consistently and compassionately remind him--with words and actions--that we still love him as much as we always have, that we'll always be there for him when he needs us, and that eventually his baby brother will be his best friend.

A Shift in the Universe

Shortly before Liam's first birthday he got a terrible cold in his nose that made it impossible for him to breathe with his mouth closed. He was forced to go without nursing and without his passie for almost a week. By the time he recovered he'd lost interest in the passie, and he hasn't taken one since. I have no idea what it's like to ween a child from a passie, but I imagine it must be a difficult thing to do.

A couple weeks ago I thought to myself, "I think watching my baby grow up is the most difficult thing I've ever done." I don't remember why exactly, but it was a thought I was very aware of. Sometimes I think people feel guilty when they think their role as parent is hard, and there's a mounting trend of parents writing blogs defending them. Being a parent is hard work. It's hard work because it takes a lot of energy to please people other than yourself, to take their needs, desires, interests, and temperments into consideration before your own. It's hard work because you sometimes have to divide your limited self into an infinite number of pieces. It's hard because you never expected to love anyone as much as you love your child(ren).

For me, the hardest part is the letting go of each precious fleeting moment.  Now, I'm certainly not claiming that every moment is precious, what parent could? but I do sometimes wish I could stop time just long enough to commit the precious ones to memory.

Last week Liam got a cold in his nose that made it impossible for him to breathe with his mouth closed. He was forced to go without nursing for a few days and now that he's on the mend he's lost interest. Tonight, after he bit me and before went to bed he said, "bye-bye milk". And I think he meant it. Just as easily as he gave up his passie 8 months ago, he's given up on breastfeeding; and he's done it all by himself. I'm proud and happy and heartbroken all at the same time. It's a bittersweet shift in the universe.

Homemade Playdough

Now that Liam is capable of playing with toys without putting them in his mouth I thought I'd whip him up a quick batch of playdough. The recipe (which I found online) was excellent and extremely simple and did not call for cream of tartar, so I thought I'd share it.

In a medium saucepan whisk together
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup of salt.

Over low heat, add
1/2 cup water.
Whisk until the mixture is smooth.

Then, whisk in
3 tsp. white vinegar
2 Tbsp. olive oil.


Swap your whisk for a rubber spatula and stir the mixture until it reaches the consistency of playdough. This step should only take a minute or two. Remove the saucepan from the heat.

The dough will be warm to the touch for a bit, but once it's cool enough to handle you can knead in the food coloring.

Paradise Lost: A Reflection

Is this what Adam looked like when he was banished from Eden?

I'm re-reading Milton's great epic at a very interesting time in my life and finding my new experiences bringing something unexpected to the table. I'm very briefly covering the work in my Western Humanities II class, treating three major themes in roughly two hours and forty-five minutes: the Fall, theodicy, and salvation. Needless to say it's an incredible undertaking--cramming so much into so little--but at least my students seem receptive and up for the challenge.

Last Thursday we covered the Fall.

The interestingly unexpected experience greeting me at the door? I'm also beginning to notice Liam using a term very closely resembling "NO" in tone and delivery. It's early enough that he'll still use it while playfully babbling in his crib, trying to master the syllable and experiment with the force, but I can sense impending disobedience and I'm confronted with the challenge of responding to it. And I'm feeling a bit like God probably did when he saw the Devil flying toward His newly created world with the intention of tricking Man into deliberate disobedience: panicked, yet resolved. It's the apex of conflict in a film whose ending is known.

My boy is going to start exercising his will against mine.

I've come to the conclusion that the story of the Fall is universal, whether you believe in the doctrine of Original Sin or not. It's the story of a relationship that holds between creator and created, parent and child, the one that grows by growing apart, and the love that, sometimes painfully, binds each generation together. For Milton, it's a story about freedom and consequences. And love and forgiveness. It's a story about how hard it can be to be a parent, how to love so freely and yet to such great depths all while knowing that at least once, your child will break your heart. All this nothing more than a simple consequence of our freedom.

I never could have come to this in high school, but I'm glad David Lyons suggested I read it.

Short and Sweet

Summer officially ends on Tuesday when Fall 2011 classes begin. I never planted a garden, never learned how to knit, never made jam, and never canned anything. Still, it was Liam's first active summer and we had a great time swimming, splashing, swinging, grilling, making new friends, and visiting with family. Of course every end is also a bittersweet beginning so there are always new things around the corner. And lucky for us it stays relatively warm in Chattanooga until Christmas.

I am currently working diligently on completing a project I should have finished long ago. I'll keep you posted.

Summer Muffins

It's been summer here in Chattanooga for at least 8 weeks already. With temperatures in the 90's one might hesitate to turn on the oven but I've been making mini muffins for Liam for a while now. These ones are perfect for using up your extra zucchini and sneaking some extra veggies into baby's diet.

Summer Muffins (makes 48 mini muffins or 24 mini muffins and one 8" loaf)
Preheat oven to 350 F.

You'll need
2 cups grated zucchini (about 2 medium)
1 cup grated carrots (I used about a dozen baby carrots)

Let veggies drain on paper towel for about 30 minutes.

In a medium sized bowl whisk together:
 2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground clove
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

In a separate bowl whisk to combine:
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Add 4 large eggs (room temperature) one at a time until combined.
Fold in your zucchini and carrots.

Add the dry ingredients all at once and gently fold together just until the batter is moist.
If you like raisins, here's where you'd add about 1/2 cup. I love raisins so I used 3/4 cup.

Divide the batter evenly among your muffin cups, which should either be lined or sprayed with cooking spray (I did the latter), and bake at 350 F until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 13-15 minutes. If you're making the loaf too, grease the bottom of the loaf pan with shortening and increase the baking time to about 50 minutes.

I did it!

I've been working on something: the perfect banana bread.

I have tried dozens of recipes for banana bread in hopes of achieving that a bread that is dense, dark, moist, and banana-y. Most of the time I get a light, yellowish bread with a very nice outer crust with what seems to be only a touch of the banana's flavor. I think these breads have their time and place, but not now and not here.

You know you want my bread. So here's how to do it:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Lightly grease your 9 x 5 loaf pan with shortening and line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper.

Peel and mash 3 or 4 very ripe bananas. Set aside.
In the oven (as it preheats), toast 1/2 cup of pecan halves. Let them cool while you bring the batter together. 

Sift together

1 and 2/3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt.

With either a hand or stand mixer whisk until fluffy

1 cup + 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar 
2 room temperature eggs.

With mixer on low, drizzle

1/2 cup melted and cooled butter.

Stir in the mashed bananas with a spatula or paddle attachment followed by

2 Tbsp. sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract.

Gently fold in the dry ingredients just until mixed. Finely chop the toasted, cooled pecans in a food processor and gently fold them into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack before removing the bread from the pan.

Enjoy!