94monkeys

[94monkeys]

This hit all 4 corners of cooking these days: It wasn't too hard, I liked it, it makes a great lunch and the toddler also ate it (scooping with her hands like a bear but what can you do).

I used a little more rice than it called for and just tossed on some chips instead of cutting tortillas because... that's what I felt like.

[94monkeys]

Dead Dad part 2 of ?

TL;DR I'm so very tired of everything and I'm still really sad.

It hasn't even been 2 months since I lost my dad. We scheduled the memorial service/ "celebration of life" (I hate typing that term, though it is in the spirit of my dad) for this summer and I also got a 40th birthday invitation for that night. Sorry, I can't, dead dad! I called in dead dad, I mean, sick to work on Monday and spent about 2 hours lying in bed. To be fair, I also had a really bad cold but I would have just popped a few Tylenol and gone till I tested positive for dead dad.

My mom has decided to speed-run her grief by A) selling my childhood home in a big ass hurry, and B) moving to the burb where my brother and his family live. A) I knew was coming since she has wanted to for years, but I was hoping she would give all of us a minute. Instead she texts me "do you want our dining room table?" and I am dunked back into my feelings in the middle of an ordinary workday. Do I want it???? As for B) I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up that she would move somewhere where she could come over and help me once in a while, but it rankles that she basically picked my brother over me. She basically told me we live too much in the "inner city" (what a joke, we are in one of Chicago's safest neighborhoods) and said that we would probably move anyway.

She texts us all of these excited updates because heaven forbid we don't validate her choices right now, only for her to turn around and completely invalidate mine. She lost a husband, I lost a dad, both irreplaceable, which is worse? I don't want to say something that will hurt her feelings, so we're just not talking.

We also moved a few weeks ago--albeit just within the neighborhood--contributing to my general feeling of displacement & loss. The move took twice as long and probably 3 times as many boxes as I expected, so I'm firing myself as move coordinator; my husband can take the next one. It was fine though. Movers are my heroes. We are getting to unpacked and we have a lot, a lot of space. We also have big bay windows to look out of, and I spend at least half an hour a day with the toddler watching the neighbors. She's just like me sometimes. I love her so freaking much. Without her, my husband and Zoloft I'd still be in bed 8 weeks later.

Work? Uh... it's going fine. I spent a lot of time in March coasting/sliding because I felt like just bodily showing up to work was what I could handle, and then I dug myself out of the hole, and now I will probably slide back into the hole... The people who need to be happy with my productivity are happy with it, and that's enough.

It's the time of year and also in my life where it feels like spring will never come.

[94monkeys]

Dark stuff ahead

One week ago my dad died.

God, it never gets easier to write. I hate it here (in awareness of my own mortality and the mortality of everyone I love).

I gotta be honest, I don't know what the fuck I am doing. I am extremely going through the motions in all aspects of my life (confusing my toddler who knows that something is up but, thankfully, is too small to really understand so is just her normal sweet relentless self). Since the worst times are when I am alone with my thoughts, I try to stay busy and spend out my energy--fearing like the Wile E. Coyote that if I stop frantically running in mid-air I will just drop and drop.

He was such a good person, and so funny, and curious about everything. Back when I used to both run and write about it here, my dad was one of my biggest boosters. He originally tried to get me into running when I was in 5th grade and it didn't take, but he ran my first 5K with me, and when I did my first half marathon he road-tripped through New Jersey to support me. I still remember us eating Sonic in the rain in his rented van after the race--a feast! I saw him at Mile 25 of the NYC Marathon, right at the marker, and he raised both arms and shouted "YOU'RE GONNA FINISH!"

Dad, it hurts so much having to go on without you.

[94monkeys]

I made these but halved the recipe and only with ground beef because I had some in the freezer. Honestly, they were terrific.

For the 900th time I am trying to become a meal planning and regular cooking person, in part because the baby now eats dinner and in part to save money. Traditionally I have been very lazy about dinner but I have misgivings about serving her the same meal 3-4 nights in a row. She’s in a place where I can hand her some crackers in the high chair and talk to her while I cook something QUICKLY and she won’t go nuts, so the only missing part of the equation is the “something” to cook. (These meatballs I made after she went to bed but I think I could do them faster next time.)

I am writing this listening to NPR at 6am while aforementioned congested baby sleeps on my chest.

[94monkeys]

Sometimes you feel like a post

*blows the dust off this thing*

I have actually missed this place, and writing something other than for work!

I really have no excuse so I'm just going to roll into some life updates and then hit Post now (now???? Tumblr are you ok??????) and go to bed with a book.

Decembaby: is now 13 months old and a true delight. Stands up whenever she can hold onto something, screeches happily when she sees me, will eat yogurt or cheese off of whatever it's served on.

Her cow's milk protein allergy: Is gone but I did in fact quit dairy for about 9 months. I don't recommend it but it was probably easier in 2023 than it would have been even 5 years earlier. The best new thing I ate were these vegan chocolate sea salt cookies. Give them to someone you love.

My own health: You know... it's okay. We've had colds most of the time since November but that's life with a baby in day care. We're lucky it hasn't been worse. I am not in good shape right now and still trying to find my groove with regular exercise. The nadir of Decembaby's 1st year of life was when I had sciatica and it literally hurt to a) pick her up and b) sleep. Torture. But I am sleeping a lot better and since I quit breastfeeding I actually feel like I have energy for stuff, imagine that. Stuff like:

Life otherwise:

I started a new job about 6 months ago. TL;DR I didn't blog about this but I lost my job while I was pregnant, an experience I do not recommend (see also hiring a lawyer for the first time, which I had to do related to that). Anyway I really like my new job and I do find karma to be a relaxing thought!

The top question I got while I was pregnant was "when are you going to move? you need more space!" well, delighting my haters, we are moving in a few months! Turns out we do need it. But disappointing my haters, we are staying in the city and our neighborhood, just moving about 4 blocks. I truly can't wait to do little decor projects and arrange everything just so (I told you I felt like I had energy again!).

We're going to Miami Beach in a few weeks to celebrate when my husband and I first started dating! I still love him a lot, and you know my love is pure of heart because he won't read this. I really like Miami Beach

This is way way too long. Anyway, how have you been?

[94monkeys]

What a difference a year makes!

One year ago we transferred the embryo that became our sweet Decembaby.

There are a lot of superstitions associated with embryo transfers (keep your feet warm; eat French fries post-procedure) and I did none of them because emotionally the best I could do was hope that something wouldn't go wrong. I could never have imagined that I would be here today with a healthy 15-week-old. (Or literally here helping her practice kicking while she babbles at her toy astronaut, while I'm also remote volunteering and hoping I don't accidentally use my Parent Voice while talking to an adult voter.)

Lots to catch up on but parenting is a real trip and I am glad that we were able to embark.

[94monkeys]

Tiny training buddy!

I’ve started the Nike Training Club postpartum series which is good AND free but I think I need something more comprehensive. I don’t have the anatomical knowledge so I can only say that some moves and positions are uncomfortable and they used to not be, so I need some guidance there. I would love to get back to running but physically I don’t think I’m ready.

(For transparency the baby has interrupted me every SINGLE workout I’ve done in the morning, which is not all that surprising since she has no concept of time. She seems to prefer interrupting the postpartum workouts specifically… o the irony.)

[94monkeys]

UGH Tumblr ate a 6-paragraph post I just wrote but I wanted to thank y’all for your advice and commiseration.

The baby is fine though not discernably different. I am OK, I’ve been on the diet for a little more than a week now. I lowered my expectations a lot to get through this for now, and after we go to the pediatrician maybe we’ll have a better sense of what we have to do. At least I hope so.

I do have a choice and feel lucky that the peds fully support a switch to formula if we decide to do that. Shedding the guilt I feel about all of it is harder… but I’m trying. Over everything my kid needs me to make good choices for all of us and for me to be present and patient with her, and I can do those things! It doesn’t hurt that she has recently started smiling and (help!) is about 1000x cuter, which I didn’t even think was possible.

[94monkeys]

Well, that was a nice 10 minutes of feeling like things were under control around here.

My Decembaby is not gaining weight as fast as she should be. After various consultations the doctor recommended she go on a dairy-free diet… which means I have to go on a dairy-free diet. The good news is that it’s probably something she will grow out of… the bad news is that I may have to stay on it as long as she is breastfeeding.

I alternate between grim competence and complete collapse over this news. I have never in my life given up a whole food group at once, and I’ve been lucky enough not to have allergies or intolerances. Lucky too to replace all the dairy stuff in our fridge and to seek out “compliant” foods. But I’m just so tired. I was in a good place where I was eating enough, mostly eating good stuff, and now I have to read labels and read new recipes and obsess and… I hate it! I love my baby but I miss pizza already and it’s been like 4 days.

And our pediatrician has given us/me basically NO support on this. Osteoporosis runs in my family, so I asked for a list of good non-dairy calcium sources and they sent me one that was MOSTLY dairy. What the fuck man. So now I gotta research all this stuff and somehow figure it out on the fly, while my brain feels like a dead pinball machine with all these screws and springs rattling for nothing, while taking care of the baby and occasionally washing my hair and so on. I completely broke open when I asked for tips and the nurse wrote to me “the detox period is a long one but if you follow it diligently you may see some small improvements.” Oh great! All I have to do is overthink everything I eat when I worked so hard NOT to do that! Small improvements!

I’m pretty sure I know what the best thing for my mental health would be… but I am stubborn so we are going to try this detox for 2 weeks and see how it goes. I am hungry.

Also while I’m complaining I got a summons for jury duty for the same day my husband goes back to work (Uh… no?) and last night our TV died MINUTES before the State of the Union. I think we need to unplug February and plug it back in again.

[94monkeys]

Lately I've done some cooking because surprisingly you can get tired of takeout. It takes a while but it happens! Also, and I saw this in my own mom (but didn't realize it), cooking is a little slice of me time... I listen to my silly little podcasts, I don't have the baby on me (usually), and I'm not trying to do 18 other things.

Lemon Chicken Piccata. YUM. Very tender chicken! Paired with whole-wheat pasta tossed in olive oil with spinach and halved cherry tomatoes.

Slow Cooker Turkey White Bean Chili. This was pretty bland (even for me!)—next time I would season the meat. I also think slow-cooker recipes should have a warning label if you have to cook something before you put it in a slow cooker (the turkey and the onions/ peppers in this case). It adds a degree of difficulty! I did feel quite pleased with myself when I was chucking everything in while tending to a fussy bebe and then again at the end of the day when it was done.

No Bake Lactation Cookies. Now listen, do I think these lactation products work? I have my doubts based on personal experience. Will I keep trying them? Yes. Were these delicious? Also yes.

Caprese Chicken Skillet. This is from a cookbook called Well Plated I just ordered off Instagram. I left the chicken on too long but that was my mistake. High potential for a redo, love all things Caprese. (I just realized I have one of those clear cookbook holder doodads, yet I pulled this recipe off the Internet and cooked from that. My last 2 brain cells were not cooperating on that one!)

Chocolate Lactation Smoothie. See above re my reservations about whether these work or not. This wasn't particularly delicious or satisfying so I will continue hacking smoothies together my own way. We just got a sweet new blender so there will be more smoothies ahead.

Curry Chicken Salad. My ongoing quest to recreate this one discontinued Whole Foods wrap. This one was pretty close! I made it into open-face sandwiches with whole-wheat English muffins. Left out the raisins because I didn't want it to be too sweet. (It's listed as Whole30 although I didn't pay too much attention to the requirements because I'm not doing that.)

Tuscan White Bean Pasta. Doubled the garlic but still found this kind of bland? It was solid and hearty but just missing some excitement. Will probably redo.

Salted Chocolate Tart with Kettle Chip Crust. Another recreation, this one of a Stephanie Izard dessert I love and can't get any more. This was so delicious and honestly fun to put together (feeding the potato chips into the food processor was a real novelty). I'd never made ganache before and now I'm scared at how easy it is. My crust didn't hold together so great so next time I will work on that. Will redo and maybe add peanut butter ganache???

[94monkeys]

But she kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

Popping my head up for a quick update here.

My daughter was born 6 weeks ago. Somehow it feels like five seconds and an eternity at the same time. I keep thinking it's still the beginning of January, in the safe time warm cocoon of our apartment where we spent 98% of our waking hours.

I tried to prepare myself as best as I could for what was ahead, but I was not prepared for how emotionally intense this experience would be. I don't know if I can fully express it now! We're so happy and so lucky and it's still so hard. Decembaby is healthy but feeding her is challenging and so is figuring out why she's upset, when she's upset. (Surely the sleep deprivation isn't helping on that front.) It's wild to me to think that this is such an ordinary, core human experience, that happens all the time, that is so ordinary and so transformative at the same time. WILD!

Thankfully my brain is starting to come back online (I swear the first 2 weeks I could not remember a single thing) and I am feeling a little more like myself, being able to do more than just the flat basics of existence. I do want to try and get something down about these weeks because I'm so acutely aware that they will never happen again—that she is always going to be growing up. So: I'm still here, just been fundamentally altered as a person! I'd like to get around to sharing my birth story at some point too. Soon, but for now going to pick up the baby again.

[94monkeys]

For everyone whose holiday isn’t going the way they planned, or is sad today for reasons they can or can’t pinpoint, may I offer you a warm baby clad in fleece with a soft little head and a chubby little cheek.

We’re just hunkering down at home over here getting to know each other. My mom’s been bringing meals, my sisters have been in and out cheering us up and helping with errands. Last night we watched Love Actually on TV from the Mr Bean scene forward and back around to the beginning, just the 3 of us. Well, Decembaby didn’t really watch.

If I feel one thing about parenting it’s that I’ve never felt so totally up to a task and so inadequate at the same time. In an instant I can go from “I don’t know what she needs, I suck,” to “we’re doing it, best that’s ever been.” This experience was cemented in the hospital when she screamed at me for fully 20 minutes as I put her in her car seat to go home, only to get full nurse approval of my baby installation on the first try. (I guess practicing with her Baby Yoda Build-a-Bear really paid off!)

She’s perfect and we love her so much.

Now I’m going to set her down to snooze, make a big breakfast with COFFEE and put on the Peanuts Xmas special.

[94monkeys]

I bought this for my nephew "from" the new baby and it was a MASSIVE hit. He loves a shaking toy and I love the absurdity of a 10-month-old carrying a dumbbell, but he literally won't put it down. We Zoomed with my family a few days ago to open presents and I was laughing to tears at it. My brother keeps texting me killer photos of him—picture all the "don't wait till January 1st!!!" #fitfluencer #fitspo memes you've seen, except with a baby who can't quite walk yet.

In conclusion, buy your baby or a baby you love a rattling dumbbell.

PS I'm also dying over this Fisher Price set with the same idea in mind. THE SHAKER BOTTLE!!!! This is how you know millennials are deep into their parenthood eras (well, some of them)—that something like this would get national traction.

P.P.S. No one should feel obligated to give gifts but things like this are why I love shopping for gifts. I try to always respect what people want and (perhaps more importantly) whether they don't want "stuff," but it does give me joy to find them something that they will appreciate. That's why I bought gifts for a baby that won't even be able to open her own on Xmas. She will look cute next to them though!

[94monkeys]

Holy shit, I had a baby.

[94monkeys]

I'm at a stage in my life when sleep has never been important to me and I'm only getting worse. When my beloved jersey sheets I bought 1 million years ago from Target started ripping I was bereft. But these are SO soft and cozy—perfect for winter.

My spouse was like "everything's changing around here! We got new sheets!" Oh yes that's the big news in the house. I laughed so hard my nonexistent abs hurt.

[94monkeys]

Gotta get this off my chest.

It's not funny that someone ripped open one of our Amazon packages for the baby, likely because it was labeled "lithium ion battery" on the outside.

But.

It is funny that the battery-operated item inside was a lactation massager—for breasts. They didn't even bother to steal it. Just put it right back in the box and fake closed it up like we wouldn't notice.

I'm sure they expected a big payday like an iPad or even a phone. But that's what you get for being someone who rips open other people's packages!!!!

[94monkeys]

I made this last night and it was so good. Trader Joe's didn't have any orecchiette, so I made it with cascatelli, the new pasta shape (sure!)

Next time I might make it with 1/2 zucchini and 1/2 some other veggie just for fun. I would also like to try making my own pesto but I didn't do it this time.