Baby Travels

I'm guessing that F leading the race for Most Traveled Baby On The Planet. At last tally, this baby had been on 21 airplanes by the time she was 8 1/2 months old. She's so savvy, we stand in line at security and she takes her own shoes off.

Ok, her shoes are actually socks made to look like shoes and she takes them off everywhere, but the point is, this girl knows the drill.

That said, I've learned that traveling with a 3 month old is a whole different sack of potatoes than traveling with a 9 month old. At 3 months, she slept. At 9 months, she parties. Hard. She's so squirmy that, short of a few squats, I got a full on Turbo Kick workout on the way home from Guadeloupe last month.

As if that weren't daunting enough she's started teething in the past couple days and LORDY it's a wild ride.

With this in mind as I prepare for our upcoming trip to Turkey, I've begun early to arm myself with possible protection against my little whirling dervish.

1. Boon Baby Squirt Spoon: Gastronomic Genius for Feeding Fledglings.

Felicity has only eaten one jar of store bought baby food in her entire long life, but this sucker looks like it's too travel friendly to pass up. You stuff the squishy handle full of pureed food. When you've identified a local hungry baby, you squeeze the handle which deposits the baby food directly onto the bowl of the spoon. Then, when you're finished, you can put the little cap right back on the spoon and store the rest for later. This process makes the baby feeding much more efficient, but getting the food into the baby's belly and not just all over the rest of the plane is still not guaranteed.

2. Flyebaby For My Baby. Maybe:
Luckily, F is extremely social and views plane rides as one big campaign stop on her way to Empress of the World. While I'm struggling to herd our bags, our other people and F down the length of the plane (we're unerringly in THE LAST row of every flight), she's busy literally shifting from side to side making eye contact with each passenger so she can give them a personalized smile, giggle or wave. You think I'm exaggerating. I'm not.

However, she is the squirmiest baby I've ever met. The above pictured Flyebaby is advertised as a way for Mama and Baby to get some good face time during the flight while Baby rests comfortably in a gently swinging hammock.

Me, I'm just looking forward to those straps! Lockdown will be sweet.

3. Enlisting Solid Help

This will be the fourth trip to Turkey for P and me, but this year we are bringing along some backup. Not only will my sister be joining us, but we're also taking HC out of school for the two weeks we'll be gone. She's great with the baby, but more importantly, she might learn a thing or two about Turkey!

Wish me luck and pass the Baby Benedryl.

Scheduling Is Not My Forte

Wanna know how my summer is going to go? I knew you did.

In less than a week I leave for Turkey for ten days. With a teething infant.

Less than a week after that, I'm throwing an all-out Sweet Sixteen for HC at our house.

A week after that, Felicity and I are flying to Dallas where I'm co-hosting a wedding shower.

Two weeks after that, the whole crew and I are flying to Austin for the wedding.

Two weeks after that I'm hosting a baby shower at my house where I won't know any of the guests except the pregnant honoree.

A week after that we're packing HC off for three weeks at a Shakespeare Conservatory in Oxford, England.

A week after that I'm hosting a fundraiser for P's foundation at my house.

Oh, also, in case I didn't mention in, half my house is being remodeled.

I need a drink.

Happy Mother's Day

Mom.

There are many things I did not inherit from you. My height, for example, totally came from Dad. As did my temper. And my vampire teeth. In certain ways I'm more like Dad than your other kids. That said, I had a disturbing revelation this afternoon on my first official Mother's Day.

(In previous years I enforced a Step-Mother's Day modification, but this year being F's first experience with the Mother's Day situation, I thought we should just stick with the traditional celebration. I'm rainchecking my Step-Mother's day for sometime in November when I'll really need it.)

First of all, it was an awesome day. P and I took the baby to church with us, where she was greatly admired. On the way out, a stranger called out me, "She wins the best baby award!" Nevermind that holding her was like holding a two cats that don't like each other (scratching included). At least she impresses the strangers. That's really what life's all about.

When we got home, HC had prepared my favorite breakfast of ALL TIME: toasted mini-bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers and diced red onion. P made mimosas the size of the Pacific Ocean and I drank the whole thing. And a half.

Then I even had presents!

They're totally stereotypically Mom presents and I couldn't be happier. HC wrangled F into making little hand- and foot-print decorative stones for my garden! They're so small I'll have to find someplace awesome to put them so they don't just get lost amid the foliage.

Luckily, they're covered in gold glitter glue, and every little bling helps.

The day continued with such lovelinesses, but I digress.

The point is, Mom, I concluded the afternoon by mowing the yard. When I was a teenager, I was SHOCKED and FLABBERGASTED and incredulous and generally alienated when you told me that you "sort of liked" mowing the lawn. Mowing the lawn was the worst.

And yet, this afternoon, with the (admittedly, loud) white noise of the push mower giving my imagination a smooth lake to swim in, and dusk slowly descending on the spring blooms and my blood flowing in satisfactory way...I related.

It was peaceful in its cacophony, creative in its destruction, restful in its exertion. I sort of enjoyed it, my Mother's Day mow.

Does this mean I'm going to start grinding my own wheat and gleaning leftover animals from various farms and streetcorners? Because when it comes to heredity, I'd like to draw the line somewhere.

Aint No Mountain High Enough

...too keep me from packin' for you, babe.

The baby and I are setting off on an epic adventure tomorrow evening. Before that can happen though, I must address the catastrophic laundry situation. On a normal day, the laundry piles are big. Often, quite big. Mostly because it's all the way down stairs and I'm both lazy and forgetful.

I never remember to switch the loads until I step out into the frigid bathroom post-shower and am suddenly faced with the reality of no clean towels.

It's even worse now that I've been avoiding the basement in all its torn-up, mold-farming glory for the sake of my sanity.

Today though, I'm up to the challenge. So far I've divided it up into several piles and I have one observation to make: You know you have a baby girl when you divide your laundry into darks, whites, delicates and pink.

That's right.

I have an entire load of just pink.

Moving On

So the basement flooded.

Big deal.

Who cares, even? HC probably cares because she has to actually make the "living room" live up to its name, but at the same time she's seizing the day and totally taking over A's room while it's going through this vulnerable stage so it all comes out in the wash.

Heh. Wash. You should see the dirt down there.

ANYWAY. The point of this blog is not for me to get rebogged-down in the drama that is my broken house, but instead for me to show you my lemonade.

Not real lemonade, mind you. My darling lemon tree is barely holding on through these winter months. Fake lemonade. For my fake feelings of serenity and acceptance.

The first one is this: I'm repainting in a big, bad way.

The hallway is going to be "iced mint". Yeah, that's right. The new guest room is purple and gold. And HC's room is (by her choosing) going to be light blue and grey. I'll be the first to admit that these color choices could be a mistake of epic proportions, but I'll also be the first to sass-back that I DON'T CARE. It's now or never. My love won't wait. (Kiss me my darling...)

Dear Sanity,

Thanks for sticking it out one more day. Youdabest.

As a special thanks, I give you a little glimpse into one of the best scenes of my life from the past month. Happy girls with Legally Blond playing in the background. "Look how cute there's judge and everything! And jury-people!.

Tomato Soup

It's officially the first Friday in Lent. As such, I've been completely inspired to try out a kajillion new vegetarian recipes. I even got a little over-excited and started yesterday.

Last night I made stuffed poblanos and veggie paella. Both were tasty, but I'm not sure I'd make either again. I know I did something wrong with the paella because, although I have never eaten it before, I saw a chef get booted off Top Chef for having non-crispy-crunchy paella and mind was definitely soft.

Next assignment: order paella somewhere good so my mouth knows what it's talking about.

Tonight I made Tomato and Gin soup, Spanish Lentils with Mushrooms, and Lemon Garlic Pasta. The lentils were decidedly UNpopular, the pasta was unremarkable, but the Tomato Soup really hit the spot. Also, I think it's cool because it uses potato as a thickener. So without further ado, a recipe:

Amanda’s Tomato-Gin Soup
Adapted from Gourmet

1 1/2 cups chopped onion
3 cloves minced garlic
1 chopped shallot
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 lb. tomatoes, halved
2 pounds russet potato, peeled and chopped
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
2 bay leaves
4 cups vegetable broth (or chicken broth)
1 cup chilled heavy cream
1/3 cup gin
3/4 tsp. grated nutmeg

Cook onion, garlic and shallots in butter in a 4-qt. pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened but not browned, about 5 minutes. Add tomato, potato, tomato paste, bay leaves, broth, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper, and bring to a boil. Simmer briskly, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes.

Discard bay leaves. Or, if you're like me, forget completely they're in there. Puree soup with a hand blender until smooth. Don't mind those little green bits. It's just the bay leaf you were supposed to take out. It won't kill you.

Stir in cream, gin, nutmeg and 1/2 tsp. salt. Simmer gently, stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve soup hot, topped with chopped chives. Alternately, top with freshly whipped heavy cream or a dollop of crème fraiche.