C is for Cora!

so, cora’s birthday party came off beautifully.  I’ll say this by way of explanation and then the ridiculous over-self-analysis will stop there:  I debated and debated whether to even do a party (mainly on account of her incapacity to remember and also the distinct possibility that a party would be overwhelming and ridiculous) and finally gave in to the other side of the argument which is that it’s not only her first birthday party, but our first birthday party, as parents, and as a family.  And I think that, in general, birthdays should be special and parties should be done right.  Furthermore, we have about a bajillion birthday parties in our future, but we will always remember this one.  Thus, a themed party, sponsored by the letter C, a la cookie monster.  And, self-analysis aside, I’m really glad we did.  It was so much fun.

here’s basically how the day went:

1. Henry took the day off, we got up later than usual (8), and I put the chili in the crock-pot.  I used a proper texas chili recipe, being a 7th generation Texan and all, complete with 5 pounds of chuck and a chili puree (*see item 4.)

2. Then we went to breakfast at the Tin Shed and fed Cora Everything Naughty.  She thought she’d died and gone to heaven.  (Seriously, some of the best biscuits and gravy I’ve ever had.)

3. We went to a toy store up the street and picked out a Playmobil airplane and a rolling inchworm, which she loves.  The look on her face was priceless as she played with the toys in the car on the way home.  I think it was dawning on her that birthdays are really, completely awesome.

4. We came home and Cora took a 2 hour nap.  During which time I checked the crockpot and discovered that I had unwittingly made 5-alarm chili that was very delicious but entirely unedible for the little people coming over.  I did a little panicking, googled “how to cool down chili that is too spicy?” and ended up removing most of the broth, adding a bunch of beans and tomatoes (I suppose it is now my very own recipe, but I’ve no idea how to ever replicate it…) and a spoonful of vinegar.  All of which worked pretty well.  I tinkered a little more with it and then made the executive decision that the little people could just have grilled cheese and rice.  It worked out perfectly:  the adults literally scraped the crockpot clean, and the kids inhaled the sandwiches… I think we would have run out of chili altogether if the kids and adults had both eaten it.

5. Cora woke up and she and Henry went for a walk.  Aren’t they cute?

6.  The party got going around four.  I think we had 8 kids under the age of 5, and there were a few wild moments, but by and large, just a whole lot of fun.  There was a noticeable uptick in the activity level after the cupcakes were eaten, and the clay and crayons were a big hit.  Cora really seemed to enjoy herself.   She likes being around other kids and it didn’t hurt that she’d had such a nice long nap.

… and then everyone went home.  Nick and Erika stuck around for a couple of hours… the night ended with Cora laughing hysterically on the bed at Nick and then a hot bath and bed.  We watched the office, did the dishes, and mopped the floors.  Pretty nearly a perfect day.

one year and counting

a year ago today, this:

I can’t believe it has been a year.  And now we are drinking beer, watching the floor dry and smelling wonderful smell of murphy’s oil soap after a rather wild party.  Which I’ll post about tomorrow, I swear.  She is the best thing that has ever happened to us, and I am so in love with her that I actually miss her when she occasionally* sleeps through the night.  More about all that tomorrow, though.  For now I am just pleased that we made it through a whole year with both bodies and minds intact and are happily looking forward to many more.

*actually, never.  but I’m learning to deal with it and feel sure that by the time she hits adolescence I won’t be spending an hour or two in the rocker every night trying to coax her back to bed.

the rhythm of things.

It has been a busy summer, and I am so happy that fall is around the corner.  I think there is some space in my head that opens up every September when that crisp smell returns to the air and gusts of wind start showering the yard with pine-needles and leaves.  I quit feeling guilty about the disaster that has been the garden this summer, because–hey, it’s about to be rainy/muddy/cold for the next 9 months, so who cares.  Also I finally am feeling interested in my kitchen again, probably much to Henry’s relief, and am thinking about cooking chinese food and baking bread.

And we’re planning a birthday party, which is a wild concept to get my brain around, but that’s a topic for another post.

Anyway, I feel the time has come for a catch-up again.  Maybe I’ll be more regular with this thing this fall when the work schedule calms down (oh, yes, it’s going to calm down) and we are inside more due to the crappy weather.

1.  We had the parade of the Aunts in August.  Maggie came first, and stayed for about 3 weeks.  She has lived in Asia for the last (um?) 5 years and we haven’t seen her in the last 2… she’s been in India working on a master’s degree, and finally came home this summer.  Since my parents moved to Lake Tahoe, we got to have her at our house while she visited her (numerous) friends in the Portland area and got acquainted with Cora.  This is Maggie and Cora:

Maggie is now off in Massachusetts working with Heifer International and learning to be an organic farmer and cook, which she will presumably go and do in some far-flung location.  She’s going to Tufts next year to get a masters (I know– how many does a girl really need?) in public health and nutrition.

Bonnie came next, sadly for only a week.  She was in a wedding here in Portland and had to sandwich us in between a month in Ethiopia on a serve trip with her school and fall classes starting.  Bonnie lives in Madrid, and we don’t see her or Maggie as often as we like.  {A small part of me mourns the old-fashioned concept of a family all living in the same town (or country! or continent!) and spending regular time together, not buying plane tickets and obtaining passports for holidays, etc.  I think it is interesting that we live all over the frickin’ place, but I’d like everyone to be a little closer.  boo.}  My parents came up for the last few days of Bonnie’s visit, which was nice… here are Bonnie and the Bedford:

2. Last week we went out to New Jersey for the weekend to the shore house of Leah’s family, my soon-to-be sister-in-law.  She and Matt (Henry’s brother) are engaged, which we are thrilled about.  She is a beautiful, winning, kind girl with an extraordinarily nice family, and they seem very happy together.  Ronn and Margie were there as well, and it was such a treat to get to see them again after only 2 months since our visit in July to Michigan.  Cora is pretty nuts about all of her grandparents, and it has been so gratifying to watch them get acquainted.  Like an idiot, I forgot to bring my camera, so here are some pictures from our trip to Michigan in July:

Cora is growing very fond of books, and has taken to paging through them and babbling to herself, which is beyond cute.  Thanks in no small part to her grandparents reading to her and showering her with books.

Isn’t Lake Michigan so pretty?

3.  And what has Cora been up to lately?  Well, a lot.  She is a hysterically funny kid, into everything and with a sly sense of humor.  She likes to offer Henry or I a cheerio and at the last second before putting it in my mouth will change course and eat it herself, and laugh like a hyena.  It is an intentional fake-out, she thinks it is hilarious, and makes me marvel at how sophisticated her sense of humor is.  She loves to play peek-a-boo, and has started singing along with whatever music is playing.  She dances, mainly to the Michael Jackson Pandora station we’ve been listening to since all the Michael Jackson chaos this summer.  She sings along rather loudly in church, and finished the doxology a couple of weeks ago with a loud yell, which made the whole church laugh… she is generally a really happy, delightful baby.  She’s crawling everywhere, cruising around the furniture, eating dust bunnies and old food off the floor, and testing the boundaries (i.e. crawling up to the fireplace screen and then looking at me before touching it, anticipating the reaction).  She eats pretty much anything we put in front of her, and is still nursing 4 or 5 times a day.  We are still (very happily) using cloth diapers– it has saved us about a bajillion dollars, and after 11 months of heavy use are still more or less stain-free and holding up nicely.

I am still working in the ER, and trying to scale back a bit.  The usual schedule is 7a-3p mon/wed/fri, and on wednesday and friday we have a babysitter from when Henry leaves for work at 11 until I get home around 3:30.  It is working out well, but I’d like to get down to only 2 days a week and am in the process of making that happen.  I’m also working on a project or two at our church, which I’ll post about at some point.

OK, I think that’s it for now… can’t think what else to add, and feel that I’ve done my duty to posterity and Cora, whose infancy is not getting recorded in a baby book.

swine flu and other misadventures

By way of keeping track of things for Cora’s as-yet-nonexistent baby book, the following things have happened over the last 2 weeks:

1. She finally started crawling…

2….and immediately thereafter pulling up to standing and getting into everything.

3. She also has begun to intentionally shake her head “no,” which is hilarious by itself, but just this morning has begun to add the Cuban Finger to her head shaking.  (for those that haven’t lived in Miami, this is the slow back and forth waving of your index finger that is oddly more shaming than flipping the bird, especially in traffic.)

4. She got swine flu.  Yes, really.  My mom and sister picked it up in Tahoe last week, and Maggie promptly got on a plane and came here to infect the Portland Peeps.  The sickest ones have been Cora and her cousin Grey, and Grey’s parents Ben and Carrie.  Maggie recovered after about 5 days, my mom was deathly ill for about a week, and Henry and I have both had very mild symptoms that resolved with a good night’s sleep and were probably not really the flu.  Cora and Grey were both promptly put on Tamiflu by their pediatricians and have bounced nicely.  She ran a fever for about 3 days and has not had a great appetite, but otherwise has more or less been herself.  I would not have thought this was a big deal at all had I not known it was the Dreaded Swine Flu, also known as the H1N1 virus.  The above picture was taken on day 2 of the fever.  More or less business as usual as far as she is concerned.

5. Cora got her own iPhone to play with after drowning mine in the toilet (long story) and I had to get a new one.  Actually what happened is that Henry got the new one he’s been pining for and I got his old one and Cora got my old (drowned) one.  So everyone’s happy.  Except Cora can’t figure out why the cool fish bowl app doesn’t work on her iPhone.

how to raise a girl.

I’ve had this pervasive feeling ever since the instant I knew I was pregnant that I was the mother of a daughter… and not just one daughter, but only daughters. Henry was convinced I was crazy, that the hormones had gotten to my brain and caused some sort of hormonal meningitis.  Then, around 16 weeks in, the ultrasound tech and I got antsy one slow Saturday at work and decided to take a look… and, oddly it looked like a boy.  (full disclosure: he was flamboyantly gay and prone to see penis’s where there are none.)  I was shocked, Henry felt his diagnosis of me (CRAZY, CERTIFIED) was substantiated, and my poor dad got all excited about finally having another Y chromosome in the family.

Two weeks later we went to the proper 20-week ultrasound and were solemnly assured by the ultrasound tech that if there were boy body parts, we’d have seen them.  And she was right.  Cora is undoubtedly a girl.  And now we have to figure out how to raise her in these somewhat frightening times.

I grew up thinking that feminism was a bad thing (and that Bill and Hilary were the devil), but was also raised in a house without barbies and TV and full of national geographic and books about girls like Anne (with an E) and Nancy Drew and Emily of New Moon who were imaginative and brave and adventurous.  I was profoundly lucky to grow up at a huge camp out in the sticks in east texas where there were forests to build forts in, horse pastures, swimming pools, a lake, and enough space to generally run wild.  My mom was careful to teach us the basics of how to iron a shirt, balance a checkbook, cook dinner, fold laundry, and be gracious to guests in our home, but I didn’t get the sense that we were only doing that because we were girls.  (My dad did get waited on hand and foot a little bit, but I quit begrudging him that when he pointed out last year that he had purchased six or seven cars in the last decade and none of them were for him.)  Mainly it just seemed like those were life skills we would need as adults and mom felt responsible to send us out of the house properly equipped to be functional adults in society.

And now I find myself in a world full of pink and purple princessy toys that don’t jive with anything I thought was cool as a kid, and I wonder why that is.  I don’t think the pressure was on in the 80’s to act like tiny beauty queens, and I definitely don’t think marketing to little girls was as sexualized as it is today.  We are making a big effort to keep Cora’s environment as gender-neutral as possible and let her figure out the differences between men and women by watching how Henry and I behave.

I also don’t think feminism is such a dirty term anymore.  It is a dismaying thing to feel that your opinion is less valuable, or that your work is worth less, or your rights less important because of your gender or your race.  I fervently hope that Cora will never feel limited by her gender, that she will feel that she can do whatever it is her future holds without hesitation about what she “ought” to want or do as a woman.

And I’m wondering, you blog readers, what do you think?  How do you successfully steer a kid through the gauntlet the media and our consumer culture has laid in her path to adulthood?  I’m curious.

ah, also:  vintage LEGO ad via sociological images, and picture torn from a feminist coloring book at girlsnotchicks.com.

good housekeeping

sorry for the long absence.  I’ve been busy, mainly just trying to keep the lid on things around here.  It is summer (finally) and we’ve been trying to spend a lot of time outside just soaking it up.

anyway, by way of getting down to business, here is a (somewhat photo-journalistic) recap of what the last month or so has looked like:

1. First, we went camping.  It was the middle of june, and seemed like a reasonably safe time to plan a camp-out, and so we went to the coast for a weekend of hiking and car-camping.

unfortunately, the weather didn’t really cooperate.

cora was a really good sport about it.  and yes, that is a full-body fleece bunting.  in june.

It helped that it was so pretty.  It is hard to believe that we live in a big city but are less than 2 hours away from All Of This.

which came in handy when we packed up after only one night and went home to eat thai takeout in our living room in front of our fireplace and appreciate how dry it is inside our house.

2.  Also, in May, Cora’s cousin Grey turned 1.

the party was somethin else.  Grey’s mom, (my cousin) Carrie, is really good at that sort of thing.

cora’s favorite part was the bubbles.  and, obviously, the party hats.

3.  Then, a couple weeks later, uncle ben challenged uncle henry to a rib-off.

ben was feeling smug.  and ready to go to town on those ribs.

We ate an ungodly amount of ribs.  In fact, somehow between the four of us we polished off four racks of ribs, a pot of beans, a large bowl of potato salad and a lot of beer.  There weren’t any leftovers.

Henry won the rib-off, but just barely.

4.  Last week Cora and I took another trip to Lake Tahoe to visit my parents (who increasingly just think of/refer to themselves as Cora’s Mimi and Granddaddy) and also my dear friend Stephanie who was out for a little vacation.

Lake Tahoe is pretty breathtaking in the summer.  The lake changes color (navy to teal to aqua to silver back to navy) over the course of the day, and is perfectly clear… you can see (supposedly) sixty feet below the surface.

my hair is getting progressively shorter.  I should probably take Henry’s approach for a while and just not go to the hairdresser.

that red house is my parent’s new digs.  their house is altogether adorable and homey, and the view is magnificent… camp is just below them.

we had a great time.  it was so good to catch up with stephanie and just get to relax at mom and dad’s.  henry stayed in portland and got a lot of studying done for his licensing exam.  I’m glad he got so much work done, but I would just like to say *for the record* that travelling alone with an infant is hard work.  especially when both parent and child have come down with respiratory infections and are feeling tired and surly.

5. Otherwise, we are just going on about our business.  Spending a lot of time in the yard trying to keep Cora from eating dirt and grass and pushing her in the swing… cooking a fair bit (though I have hit a creative slump in the kitchen and begun to hate it– I’m hoping to have a breakthrough sometime soon)… working on a revolving list of house projects that include sanding/painting the ginormous round dining table I scored off of craigslist recently… watching Cora flirt with the idea crawling and enjoying her increasingly coherent babbling and laughing.  Here are a few more recent pictures of her for Those Of You who keep asking:

and I think that about does it.  I’ll try to be a more responsible blogger in the future and not cream you in the face with a whole month’s worth of posts.

but, on the other hand, considering it has taken me a whole day just to put this one together, maybe not…

muppets take manhattan

Last week Cora and I went on a big adventure to New York.  One of my best friends lives in Harlem and is moving back to New Orleans next month and I decided that the time had arrived.  Plus, Henry has been trying to study for his licensing exams but keeps getting sidetracked by his job (which tends to metastasize all over his life, much to my annoyance) and his very adorable baby who is being spottily parented by his chronically sleep-deprived spouse.  So I figured it would be helpful for us to skip town for a week and get out of his hair so he could get organized and get some work done.

We had a blast. I didn’t realize how much I needed to get out of town and bust up the routine a little bit.  It was great to see Leslie… a lot of laughing and philosophizing was done, a tattoo was procured (not for me, unfortunately… I figured Henry would never let me go travelling alone again), and a boat-load of good food got eaten.  Cora had her first experience with Playground Swings, and I had my first Moment as a mama in a playground full of toddlers and expensive strollers and other mamas. Cora loved the swings.  It may have been the best part of her trip.

We stayed in Brooklyn at the house of some mutual friends, and I really really liked it.  It felt like Sesame Street and Portland mashed up together, minus the mountains and plus the whole rest of the world.  I loved hearing twenty different languages on the subway and seeing the hoards of Hasidic Jewish kids in the neighborhood.  It made me a little sad to realize how white-bread Portland is… we are going to have to intentionally look for ways to teach our kids that the rest of the world isn’t white and doesn’t shop at REI.

And mostly, it just felt like we were in the pulsing center of everything.  New York is so happenin’ and so un-American at the same time.

And at the end of the trip we went to New Jersey and stayed with Cora’s Uncle Matt and Aunt Leah for 2 days…  all in all a fantastic trip.  I’d love to do it again, but next time I’m bringing Henry.

people. seriously.

holy adorableness.  take a look at this blog I just found. and the clothes she has made for her daughters. someday I will be this cool, I am sure of it.

we are having a splendid morning… cora woke up at 7:30, and by 9:30 was down for her morning nap… and is still down an hour and a half later.  she is complying nicely with this new Schedule (thanks to the recent trip to the east coast and the ensuing jetlag.)  I don’t know what to do with myself… I painted my toenails, repotted a tomato plant that Genie obligingly left on my stoop yesterday… this followed by a vase of tulips cut from the garden! we have the nicest neighbors.

by way of catching people up, she is turning into a proper Baby… slowly figuring out how to sit up on her own, eating semi-solid food (and enjoying the wearing of it and the smearing of it on henry’s glasses even more…), and sleeping reliably through the night.  photographic evidence below.

she passionately loves rice cereal, which smells/looks to me like wallpaper paste.  she does this hysterical shark-attack routine where she tries to fall onto the spoon if we’re moving too slow for her.  I’m glad she’s happy anyway.  I’m about to go steam some sweet potatoes and see how that goes over.

existential crises and other drama

well, I’m back.

I had sort of abandoned the blog in a fit of self-consciousness–after all, blogging (outside the realm of posting pictures of your kids for your family) is pretty much an exercise in narcissism regardless of how you angle it, not to mention a major cliche of sorts.  There is a nervous part of me that doesn’t want to be one of the arty mom bloggers.  And I had a good old fashioned August Funk in the middle of the winter that left me with a profound feeling of What’s The Point and an general attitude of Eff It All.  Poor Henry has been quite the patient and long-suffering spouse over the last few weeks, and is figuring out that my usually sunny disposition comes with a dark streak.

But, I’m feeling better! (I’m not dead yet!) I had a rough couple of weeks at work which made me feel that if I never darkened the door of another hospital IT WOULD BE TOO SOON, and the delicate balance I’d been maintaining of parenting being a break from working and vice versa got all screwed up.  Then I had a (very minor!) scooter wreck on Monday evening that made me feel breathlessly glad to be alive, the weather cleared up, and a tiny boy at our church fell out his second story bedroom window onto his head, which cost me a night of sleep thinking about how utterly horrifying it would be to have my child in that ICU bed hanging onto her life by a thread… to be sitting there wondering what disabilities she would have to deal with, to wonder if she would ever talk or walk or laugh again.

I had a little visit with myself and concluded that life is fragile and tenuous, God is inexplicably good to us in spite of our dreadful behavior, and it would be a crime to continue having a crappy attitude.   And also that anything can take on a narcissistic hue if you’re narcissistic enough.  (I blame Henry for even thinking about this; Narcissism was not in my working vocabulary prior to meeting him.  dang psychologists.)  Blogging is/can be a good exercise for me in expressing my thoughts and venting and keeping track of what Cora is up to so I don’t forget… thus the return to the blog.

Anyway.  I will have some good chatty posts about The Kid and Other Stuff sometime soon.

lake tahoe

in short: we went down to visit my mom and dad last month for a week at their new digs on the banks of lake tahoe.  my dad is the new director of zephyr cove retreat center, and got a pretty sweet little cabin on the lake in with the package.  enjoy a post long on pictures and short on discussion, as the pictures speak for themselves.