A year ago today...

August 5th is a hard day for my husband. Eight years ago today, he lost his father to cancer. He was only 16 years old. Every year on this day, he gets really quiet and uncommunicative and melancholy, and I often feel confused because I don't notice the day. When I see a calendar, I understand. The funny thing is that in August of 2002, I was getting kicked out of boarding school. I know it doesn't compare really, but it's interesting to think that even though we didn't know each other, we were both going through the hardest time of our lives.

Last year, on August 5th, nothing particular was going on. John was working and I wasn't yet, so I didn't really have much to do. When he came home from work, he said, "Hey, you should test and see if you're pregnant!" (I had bought the tests a week before, "just in case.")

"Nah," I said, "I'm probably not pregnant, it's too soon to test, and there's no reason to think I might be pregnant."

He sighed. "Okay," he said, and went on with what he was doing. He looked melancholy.

Then I realized what day it was. So I decided he could have his way.

Five minutes later, I walked into the living room in some agitation, trying to keep from letting on. "It's supposed to sit for five minutes, but you can go in and look at it now if you want." I had already looked at it, but didn't want to "jump to conclusions" since I hadn't waited for the five minutes yet.

John gave me a funny look, probably because my face was switching back and forth between chalky white and scarlet red. But he got up, went into the bathroom, and looked at the test on the counter. Then he came back and started hugging me. We were going to have a baby.

"If it's a boy, we should name him Mark because of your dad," I said. (We had already decided on this a long time before, that the first boy would be named Mark.)

"Well, we don't know it will be a boy," John said.

"It will," I said. "It's too poetic and perfect for it not to be a boy."



It was a boy, and I love him so much.

Mark Sr., I wish I could have known you. May you rest in peace. Mark Jr., I hope you grow up like your namesake, strong in your faith and your character.

Chicken stock

I'm always talking about my chicken stock, how easy it is, how it uses scraps I wouldn't use otherwise, how many dishes I can make from it, and so forth. I may or may not have mentioned how extremely healthy it is, extracting nutrients like calcium and gelatin from the bones and cartilage. I'm a shameless carnivore, but I do believe in using every part of an animal if you're going to kill it, just like you shouldn't cut down a tree and not use the wood. Maybe it's the Native American in me (oh, you didn't know I was part Native American? It's a small part, obviously).

Anyway, as I was making it this time, I figured it was high time to give you guys some pictures. As I know from hard-earned experience, not all chicken stock is created equal! I've made greyish, cloudy, watery, flavorless stocks and I've made stocks that were a flavor explosion. Luckily there is a science to it, so I now make good stock every time.

Step one is the right ingredients. In addition to the carcass, picked mostly clean of meat, I always add half an onion and one carrot, if I have it. It really makes a difference. Any giblets I have (this time I didn't have any) go in too, except the liver. I've found it doesn't matter whether they are raw or cooked, even though the Joy of Cooking warns me my stock will be cloudy if I put them in raw. It never is.

The Jello-like thing in the crockpot is the drippings from roasting the chicken. I poured them into a cup when we took the chicken out to carve. There was about half a cup of fat that separated out, which I scooped out and threw away (chicken fat just isn't that useful, I'm afraid (or at least I haven't found a good use for it yet)). You'll notice it's solid, like an aspic -- this is due to the gelatin in the cartilage, which is very good for you.


I add two quarts of water, plus a little for when it evaporates a bit. I find I really do have to measure the water, because too much makes a watery stock, and too little won't yield enough stock for two soups.


I also pour in about a tablespoon of cider vinegar. This helps leach the minerals out of the bones.


It's supposed to soak with the bones for 30 minutes, but that's about how long it takes the crockpot to heat up, so I just turn the crockpot on once all the ingredients are in.


I turn the pot on low for 8 hours. More doesn't hurt anything either. But high must not be used, because if the stock boils, it gets cloudy and doesn't taste nearly as good. Bleck. Also, my other crockpot, which only has one setting, is also too hot. The stove works fine if you can watch it and make sure it only simmers, not boils, and that it doesn't evaporate too much, but I never have that kind of attention to spare.


When it's done, I pour it into jars, or cool it and pour it into yogurt containers if I don't have jars to spare. (It's important to cool it first if you do this, though; otherwise it takes on a plasticky taste and probably some chemicals as well.)


There it is, golden and delicious! I didn't strain it this time, so it has a little sediment on the bottom. If the carcass comes apart too much, I sometimes do strain it. This recipe made two quarts.

Here's a good recipe to use chicken stock in:

Chicken Curry Pilaf

Melt some butter in a saucepan that has a lid, maybe a tablespoon or so. Add the amount of uncooked rice that you're going to want to eat. (John and I eat about 3/4 cup, uncooked, between the two of us.) Cook the rice in the butter until it is golden and smells heavenly. Then start to pour in chicken stock. Start with twice the amount of rice, and leave it for 15 minutes or so, covered. Once all the stock is absorbed, add a little more and stir the rice. Keep adding and stirring until the stock stops absorbing and the rice is nice and wet. Then add a little shredded chicken, some peas, and a lot of curry powder and salt. Sauteed onions might be nice too. Yum!

Nursing at Mass? An experience

I've read several arguments about whether it is appropriate to nurse in Mass. I do admit that this is a slightly different question than whether it is okay to nurse in public at all. After all, I don't believe in giving Cheerios to older kids in Mass, but I think it's fine to give them Cheerios in the park.

However, I do fall on the side that says it's fine to nurse in Mass. My defense is the passage, "Which of you, if your son or ox falls into a pit, would not pull him out on the Sabbath day?" Necessary service of others does not hinder us from worshiping God. Then there's the passage, "When I was hungry, you gave me food ... Whenever you did it for one of these little ones, you did it for me."

I realized this past weekend, though, that I've internalized these debates too much. I probably shouldn't have read them in the first place, because I already know what I think. I read some really nasty comments from people online, and I couldn't help but feel, as the baby started sucking on my shoulder at Mass last Sunday, that the people around me in church were the same kind of people, thinking the same kind of things. I felt that if I tried to feed my son, those people would judge me. I felt the weight of their judgment even though no one was even looking at me.

I have not come out on this blog to talk about the problems Marko and I have had in our nursing relationship. I'm not really sure why, except that perhaps I felt very ashamed. I had expected things to go so well, and it was very humbling when they didn't. Suffice it to say that Marko was 10 weeks old before he was reliably latching on without the help of a plastic shield. Now we have a different problem. He will only nurse when he's happy and not overly tired or hungry. I've found that nursing him every 45 minutes tends to prevent those huge meltdowns that cause him to refuse to nurse. If I don't do that ... well, you'll see.

So I was in Mass on Sunday. I had last nursed the baby at 9:30, at home. Mass starts at 10:30; we have to leave the house at 10. I offered to let Marko nurse right before we walked out the door, but he wasn't interested. Once we had gotten to Mass, it had been an hour since he'd last nursed, but it seemed a little strange to try to nurse a baby who showed no signs of hunger and was perfectly content, there in a place where I might be disapproved of. (Why do I fear disapproval so intensely?) I wanted to sit in the back row, but there were no kneelers in the back row, so we sat a few rows up. I picked the seat because no one was behind us, but then a family came into the row behind us. A few surreptitious glances told me it was a mom, a dad, and a preteen boy, with the preteen boy right behind me. Great.

But Marko was happy and contented, as he usually is in church, so I tried not to worry. Perhaps he'd last till the end of Mass -- or at least till a convenient moment, like the Offertory, when everyone's sitting down anyway.

Guess what time he picked? Yep. The consecration. As the priest began the Eucharistic Prayer, Marko began rooting around. I have been very attuned to early signs of hunger, and I knew it was time. So I sat down -- or tried to. The family behind me was all kneeling with their elbows on the pew, and didn't make any attempt to scootch to the side or pull their arms back. Normally I wouldn't mind that, but I can't nurse a baby while hanging on the edge of the pew. I considered scootching to a point between the dad's arms and the son's arms, but then embarrassment took hold of me. I can be pretty darn discreet if I try, but I do have to be able to see what I'm doing. I can, however, block the view for everyone at most angles. Breathing down my neck from right over my shoulder, though? There is no way to block that view. Either I do it blind -- a recipe for frustration -- or the kid gets to see everything. Cringe.

Now I know that even trying is risky. There is a possibility that the baby will latch right on and nurse away. But there's a stronger possibility that he will fuss around a bit first, and a very real possibility that he will arch backward and scream bloody murder. I don't know why. But that's what he does. The priest is starting in with the consecration of the bread and I'm frankly terrified of causing a spectacle right then. I don't consider myself responsible for others paying attention, but I would feel pretty bad if, right at the most sacred part of the Mass, I flashed half the congregation as a screaming baby arched away from me.

However, I didn't want to climb over people to get out right then either. I let Marko chomp on my finger while the consecration finished. I will not pretend that I was at all recollected during this point. I breathed a sigh of relief as the priest said, "Let us proclaim the mystery of faith," and as the voices of the congregation replied, I kicked my husband's shin and made him let me out of the pew.

Rushing to the back of the church, I scoped out places to be. The back rows were all filled up -- no help there (and besides, he might cry). The entrance around the side door -- nowhere to sit down. I'm not good at nursing without sitting down. I made tracks for the main vestibule. Why, that place was packed! Toddlers, babies, whole families, everyone was in the vestibule. It has glass doors and a sound system, so it is clearly intended as a cry room, and it is definitely being used. Very busy, very distracting. I have a distractable almost-four-month-old, so that option is out too. The stairwell on the left has the sound of a tantruming toddler issuing forth. I finally reach the right-hand stairwell and sit down on the stairs. I try to nurse.

Ah, but the baby that was calmly sucking my finger five minutes ago is pretty agitated now. He arches away and starts to scream. I try to coax him back, letting him suck on my finger, trying my tricks, but he will have none of it. And I'm acutely aware that this is the stairwell that leads to the choir loft -- it isn't really soundproof. So I scurry back out of the vestibule and try to just bounce the baby and make him forget that he wants to nurse. No way. He isn't really a screamer, but he is making loud fussy noises. So I slink out the side door.

There's no one around outside, and Marko likes the outdoors, so I figure we can try again. No luck. He screams and screams. None of my coaxing methods are doing a lick of good. He is full-on meltdown mode and there just isn't any way he's going to be nursing. At this point I know the drill. There is nothing I can do but soothe him the best I can until I can get him to fall asleep. Once he wakes up again, if I can try again before he's too awake, I might be able to nurse. Maybe. In any event, it's not happening now. It's 11:20, almost two hours since he's nursed, and I feel like a terrible mother. Why didn't I swallow my embarrassment and just feed him when he started looking hungry? Or, better yet, offer before he asked? The sun is beating down on both of us and we are both crying hard. He's hungry and tired and wants comfort. All I want is to give it to him. Yet something is out of alignment between the two of us. I have what he wants, but he won't take it.

Eventually I dry my tears, walk him around a bit, bounce him, and he settles down. I creep back inside and sit down next to John. Uh-oh, I sat down! Bad news! Baby starts to cry again. John takes over, takes him to the back, and I kneel in my place and cry. Why can't I mother my child? I demand of God. Why does he do this? Why won't you help? Mass ends without either an answer or any comfort.

There is no point in trying to nurse the baby again and make him angrier, so John buckles him into his carseat and we head home. He's not as upset anymore, but he makes some fussy noises and I worry that he will cry the whole way home. He falls asleep though. I'm feeling hopeful that he'll stay asleep till we get home, and I can get him right out of his seat, bring him up to my rocking chair, and give him a good nurse. We stop briefly on the way home to get some food at the drive-through, and I eat it guiltily, feeling horrible that I am eating while my baby is still hungry. The food has no flavor.

Baby awakes in the car and his short period of post-nap contentedness passes too quickly. He starts to scream and cry and sob pitifully. I ache with the fullness of milk. He hasn't eaten in three hours, and it wasn't even all that much then. I'm flustered, anxious. I snap at John. He doesn't understand why it is such a torment to me to hear my baby cry. But the nursing relationship is such a close one that we are almost one person; his sobs hurt me almost physically.

We get home and I rush to unbuckle my baby. He's hot and sweaty and teary-eyed. I hold him close and whisper to him as I bring him up to our apartment door, as I wait for John to unlock it. Once inside, I banish John, who was only trying to help, because I know letting John comfort him will only delay things. It's not like he'll sleep again, when he just slept. It's find a way to feed him now, or live with an hour or two of crying.

Rocking doesn't help, pacifier doesn't help, standing and swaying doesn't help, singing doesn't help, finger-sucking doesn't help. I bring out the big guns: the bath. We look at ourselves in the mirror as the tub fills. Marko loves the mirror, he quiets a little. He also likes hearing the water run. He likes being against my skin. Finally, blessedly, he latches on. It's a little after one o' clock.

Of course he marathon nurses then, like he's been starving for days. But when he's finally done, he flashes me a giant smile. Like he's saying, "Thanks, Mom! It was just what I needed!"

The rest of the day was shaky, and I spent much of it taking baby on a walk or bouncing him in my arms. Any semblance of schedule or order was gone. He didn't get much naptime. But at least he wasn't starving.

Why am I sharing this? Partly because it is the biggest cross I'm bearing right now. I love to nurse my baby, and it breaks my heart when there's a disconnect there and it isn't working. I would gladly do the labor all over if it meant I could start him off right with nursing this time -- ignore the pushy lactation consultant, refuse the plastic shield, let him figure out how to nurse in his own time and way.

Another reason is to give you a feel for what it's like. Some people disapprove of moms nursing in Mass, but I think that's because they don't know what it's like. They don't know what moms go through. They say ignorant things like "Just wait till Mass is over" because they never nursed a baby and don't know that a baby can't wait.

I'm not sure what the right course would have been, though I've thought of half a dozen things I wish I'd done differently. In any event, you can imagine I won't be trying to make him wait again.

Mother-baby inseparability

It didn't occur to me until recently how unusual or counter-cultural my commitment to staying near my baby at all times might be. Even stay-at-home moms normally hire a babysitter at least sometimes. My mother didn't, not at this age. When Joseph was maybe six to nine months, she started leaving him with me (a very familiar and trusted person) for very short periods of time (generally an hour or less). That seemed pretty normal to me. After all, he didn't like being left, even under these relatively pleasant circumstances, so it made sense most of the time for him to go along with mom.

Some of us form our parenting ideas to be the opposite of how we were raised. Not me -- I really like the way I was raised; I think I turned out okay; and when I saw my mom raising my younger siblings, her choices made perfect sense to me. I'm a bit stricter on discipline, generally (though we'll see how I manage with my own kid), and there are a few other minor things I'm doing or plan to do differently, but 90% of my parenting philosophy is just like my mom's. I'm very grateful to her for exposing me to so much baby knowledge when I was growing up.

Anyway. I recently was offered a job, out of the blue, by the school I used to work for. It's just one class a day. But I absolutely refuse to leave my baby with a sitter (supposing I could afford one, which I can't) even for that short amount of time. But the school encouraged me to bring the baby along, and so I decided to accept. (Fingers crossed that he adapts well! I think he will, because it's not his first time in a classroom -- I spent most of my pregnancy with him in one!) Taking baby with me wherever I go, making him a part of whatever I do, is how I raise him and want to continue raising him.

However, some people might object to this method. I was prepared for people to say, "You need time to yourself. You and your husband need to 'get away' sometimes." The answers to that are fairly simple: baby has to sleep sometime. We're lucky in that he sleeps a lot. So I have "me" time during his naps, and we have "us" time after he goes to bed at night. Not to mention that I enjoy my time with him while he is awake, and we both love to play with him together. He comes with us to restaurants, to church, on walks, and almost always behaves well. I don't think a marriage will wither and fall apart if our "date nights" are spent in our own living room or at the dining room table. There's nothing magic about being out of the house with the baby nowhere around. And we're both happy with our current situation.

What I wasn't prepared for was the objection that my baby won't be independent if I never leave him. Partly, I'm just not that concerned about independence. Most people nowadays are too independent rather than not enough -- they know how to get by on their own, but they don't know how to form close relationships with others. But of course there could definitely be a problem if a child never developed any independence at all.

First off, we need to figure out how much independence is even appropriate for any given age. I think it's fair to say that a baby shouldn't be more emotionally independent than he is physically independent. That's a natural part of baby development anyway: at an age where a baby shouldn't be left alone, he is terrified of being left alone. If he can't feed himself, if he can't go to the bathroom by himself, if he can't climb into his crib and take a snooze when he's tired, naturally he doesn't want to be by himself. His instincts are telling him that he isn't safe on his own, he's safe with mom and dad who feed him, change his diaper, and put him to bed.

We know, as grownups, that Stacey the babysitter also knows how to feed, change, and put down the baby. But the baby doesn't know that. Stacey the babysitter could be an axe murderer for all he knows. He might even warm up to her while his parents are still there -- but the second they leave the room, he starts to scream. The people who provide for him are GONE. Instinct tells him to scream in the most heartrending tone he can, because this will bring his parents back and he will be safe again.

Until the second year, a baby does not understand the concept of "object permanence," that a thing or person still exists when not in sight. He can't call up a mental picture of the person. All he knows is that he has been abandoned. He also has no sense of time; in fact, he doesn't develop this until about the age of three. So to him, an hour-long "date night" might as well be forever. Mom and Dad can tell him, till they're blue in the face, "We'll be back in an hour," but they could be saying "We'll be back next year" for all he understands. He might be okay for five minutes or so, but when five minutes has passed, he suddenly realizes, "I've been waiting forever and they're still not back! They are never coming back!" So we ought to look on them with compassion when they do their brokenhearted separation anxiety cry: that's the cry of someone who's lost his parents and will never see them again. When the parents finally come into the room, he clings to them like glue and will not let them out of his sight for the rest of the day. He's afraid they'll sneak off again and do their disappearing act.

One would think that babies eventually would learn that when parents go away, they come back. But they don't figure this out until their brain is ready to learn this. The only thing that might make them okay with being left would be to make them love and trust the babysitter with the same sort of attachment they have to their parents. Sometimes babies replace their mom with a babysitter in their mind, especially when they are in daycare all day, and will cry on leaving the babysitter.

That's just horrible to me. If my baby needs someone he loves and trusts around, well, here I am! Made-to-order! I didn't have a child so that someone else could be my child's mother for me.

But what about when baby is neurologically ready for separation? Will the way I've raised him prevent him from making this step calmly? Here's Dr. Sears on the issue, from The Baby Book:

"In a classic study, called the strange-situations experiment, researchers studied two groups of infants (labeled "securely attached" and "insecurely attached") during an unfamiliar play situation. The most securely attached infants . . . actually showed less anxiety when separated from their mothers to explore toys in the same room. They periodically checked in with the mother for reassurance that it was OK to explore. The mother seemed to add energy to the infant's explorations. Since the infant did not need to waste effort worrying about whether she was there, he could use that energy for exploring.

"When going from oneness to separateness, the securely attached baby establishes a balance between his desire to explore and his continued need for the feeling of security provided by a trusted caregiver. When a novel toy or a stranger upsets the balance, or mother leaves and thus reduces baby's sense of security, baby feels compelled to reestablish the original equilibrium. The consistent availability of a trusted caregiver provides needed reassurance and promotes independence, confidence, and trust, leading to an important milestone by the end of the first year -- the ability to play alone."

So, keeping baby close ("attached" as Sears puts it) actually helps a baby develop independence. And that makes sense, if you understand how a baby's brain works. If he is assured of his own safety, he won't mind moving forward. But if he thinks Mom won't be around when he needs her -- well, it's no wonder he panics.

I didn't do a lot of science to make my own decision, though. I just knew that babies cry when their moms leave, so I won't leave. A baby's cry might seem like an attempt an manipulation, or a misguided notion that something's wrong when we, the grownups, know baby's fine. But in fact, babies cry because of deeply-ingrained instincts which tell them something's not right. The more we study about babies, the more we realize that each time they cry, it is for something that they actually need. If the cavemen had put their babies on a strict schedule and ignored them when they cried, our species would have died out a long time ago.

A note on inseparability and breastfeeding: It used to be easy to explain to people why I wouldn't leave the baby -- because I'm nursing him! No one else can feed him, so I have to be there. But nowadays, that's no longer true. I could, theoretically, use an uncomfortable and expensive pump to get the milk out, and then a plastic bottle to get the milk into the baby. Many do this. However, the less mother and baby are together, the more prolactin (the milk-producing and nurturing hormone) goes down. The nursing relationship goes so much better when mom and baby are together all the time, and touching much of the time. Yet another way that our biological systems expect us to do what is best for us anyway. (Also, Marko won't take a bottle anyway. I never really pushed it in the first place, but at this age he's unlikely to start now. That's fine with me -- it's much better for his teeth if he goes straight to cups when he's older.)

So -- any feedback? I'm curious to hear from parents with kids older than mine. At what age did you leave your baby with a sitter, and how did he take it?

I Have Arrived

Do you remember how I used to post a lot complaining about how hard it was to strike a balance among food I like, food John likes, food that is good for me, and food that I can afford?

A few days ago, John made dinner for me. It was very simple -- boiled potatoes with lots of toppings. One of those topics was chicken from one I roasted last week. John picked the meat off the bones, something I was more than happy to do, because chicken picking is one of my least favorite kitchen jobs. (Second only to pots and pans.)

I went into the kitchen after dinner and saw my casserole dish, the one that had held the chicken carcass and about an inch of delicious drippings, sitting in the sink empty. John had thrown away my chicken carcass. He thought that my delicious basis for a wide variety of soups was garbage.

Well, I did (eventually) (mostly) forgive him. I realize that to some people, a chicken carcass is just a pile of bones, good for nothing. And the drippings in the pan are just waste. But these days I waste nothing.

The anger I initially felt, however, proved to me that I have finally made my food methodology my own. Instead of grudgingly trying to extract some watery stock out of leftover bones, I now prize that carcass like gold and fill my daydreams with soup possibilities. (I had planned carrot soup and broccoli-cheddar soup from this carcass.) I enjoy making dinner, I enjoy eating it, and I am proud of the money I save, to the point of indignation when John suggests just eating a frozen pizza. (Though I still do like going out to eat every once in awhile, or ordering pizza like we did last week. But I would hate to do that all the time.)

The average chicken I buy is about five pounds and costs me about $4.50. I roast it on the first day, and we each have a leg (with rice and a vegetable on the side). For the next two days, I use a breast apiece to make some kind of rice or pasta dish. Recent ones have been pesto pasta, pasta with cream sauce, and a curried rice pilaf. These are my favorite meals, and I tend to please myself with them. I know they're a bit gourmet for John, but he doesn't complain.

The next two days are SOUP, the soup that I did not get to make with this particular chicken. I make it in the crock pot nowadays. I have a huge crock pot for this. I start by putting the carcass and all the drippings into the pot, along with half an onion and a carrot, both roughly chopped. (Over the year I've been doing this, I've found that these two vegetables are indispensable. Celery is a nice addition but not absolutely vital. Without onion, the stock is bland; without carrot, it's rather colorless and unappetizing.) I add two or even three quarts of water, a small splash of cider vinegar and soak that a bit before I set the crock pot on low. It cooks all day and is DELISH by dinner. All I need to do is defat it. (I do this by ladling off the first quart out of the top, and putting that in a jar in the fridge for the next day. What's left in the pot generally has no significant fat left. (A little fat is fine though.))

One carcass used to just make one soup, but now that I do it in the crock pot and know how much water I can add without weakening it, it easily makes two. Favorite soups include chicken and rice, chicken corn chowder, and broccoli-cheddar. I can even do chicken noodle soup now, now that I've realized how vital carrots are. It makes my soup look and taste a lot more like the canned version, only better.

I do something similar with beef. This is a beef week; I'm using a 3-lb. ground beef roll from Aldi. I guess it's around $5, maybe almost $6. Since it comes deep-frozen, I have to defrost and use it within short order. Generally one beef roll can make four of the following: tacos, chili, shepherd's pie, beef stroganoff, spaghetti. Out of all of those, only one (shepherd's pie) I am not really thrilled about, but it's okay and it is also John's favorite, so I make sure to make it every week. (I made it last night -- perhaps I should post my recipe, seeing as I made it up.)

With this system, I rarely make a dinner that costs more than a dollar. And it often yields leftovers for lunches, too! The tacos I made on Monday made two dinners and two lunches for me (though the second lunch was a "taco salad" because we were out of tortillas). The meat, which is the big expense, is eked out with lots of cheaper ingredients like potatoes, beans, and rice. With this savings, we are still only spending $60-70 every two weeks, even though I'm buying more vegetables than I used to.

Sure, our variety isn't stellar. Every two weeks or so, the entrees repeat. But I keep myself entertained with new vegetables and trying to think up new things to do with noodles and a chicken breast for those "creative" meals. And I like everything on the menu. John really likes some of it and is okay with everything else. Soup is always a hit, as is the roast chicken on the first day and the shepherd's pie. Really anything that can be eaten out of a bowl. Even when I make meals with several dishes, he will sometimes load them all into a bowl together and eat them that way. (Blech. Not my style. I don't like my food touching.) Many of the foods of my childhood (stir fry, teriyaki, enchiladas) are never going to fly around here, but some of them (beef stroganoff, green noodles, southwestern chicken casserole) work quite well. Plus, I'm making new things that we both enjoy.

Just as I foresaw, now that I can stay home and have the energy to make good dinners, I'm saving money and eating better. Just in time for Marko to get old enough to start complaining about what I make ... that will come all too soon, I'm sure!

The accidental cabbage

I do almost all of my shopping at Aldi. I really can't stand the store. It doesn't have a wide variety of things, so I have to make a separate trip to another store sometimes to buy a single item. Our local store is always filled with poorly behaved kids who run up and down the aisles smashing into things. And you have to bag your own groceries. I stink at bagging my own groceries. I always overload a bag and have the bottom rip out -- or don't bring enough bags -- or can't figure out how to get the cart back to the stand when I had to put the sleeping baby in his carseat in order to load the groceries into the car. The whole thing is a stressful experience, but I do it because it's cheap and we are very hungry people on a tight budget.

Anyway, I was in the store about two weeks ago. I was feeling very disorganized because I hadn't even brought a list, on the grounds that "I know what I buy, I'm here every two weeks and I always get the same things." Also because I was carrying a baby and trying to maneuver a cart at the same time. For a person who can't walk and chew gum, this is kind of a challenge.

I walked past the produce section and saw a sign that said "Iceberg lettuce" and the price per pound. I thought, "Hey, I think John would want that for sandwiches," so I reached into the box below the sign and grabbed one of the green spheres.

A day or two later, I was pottering around the kitchen and John was browsing in the fridge. "Why did you get a cabbage?" he asked.

"I didn't," I replied. "I got an iceberg lettuce; they look just the same."

"Even down to the label that says 'Cabbage'?"

Yeah, I had bought cabbage. I never buy cabbage. I generally buy carrots, peas, and corn for dinner vegetables, and lettuce, tomato, and green peppers for lunch vegetables. That's it. (I admit that I'm in a bit of a rut, but like I said, Aldi doesn't have a huge selection in the first place.)

"Do you like cabbage?" I asked.

"Um, I don't really know," John replied. "I guess it would depend on how you cooked it."

I looked at the cabbage and pondered a moment. The game was ON. I was going to cook this dang cabbage and John was going to like it, by golly!

I spent a couple of days on research first. I searched online for cabbage recipes that sounded good. I picked two, each requiring half a cabbage, and waited for a day that needed a side dish. The trouble was, I couldn't really picture what either of the dishes would taste like. Cabbage is an odd vegetable; it tastes radically different depending on how you cook it. The only way I was sure I liked it was alongside corned beef, but I was going to try something new.

The first recipe was sweet and sour cabbage. It appealed by its easiness, and had my requirement of not needing any ingredients I didn't have in the house. (I was not going to spend more money when I'd already wasted some buying this unwanted cabbage!) It was very simple: cut the half cabbage into wedges, each wedge having some core. Brown the wedges in a small amount of olive oil. Add a cup of water and a tablespoon each of sugar and apple cider vinegar, and cook till soft.
Before I cut into the cabbage, I peeled off the outmost leaf and tasted it. It was delicious! I'd forgotten that peppery bite that cabbage has. I remembered my mom's story of how she used to come home from school and sit reading The Joy of Cooking and munching on raw cabbage. I felt close to her as I ate my leaf.

The dish was as easy as it sounded, and I really enjoyed it. John, though, gave it an immediate thumbs down. I was so glad I hadn't cooked the whole cabbage that way! John ate his share like a trooper; I savored the rest.

The next dish was a cheesy cabbage casserole. I had to boil the cabbage in salted water (along with an onion, but I didn't have one) and pour a cheese sauce (just a bechamel with Colby cheese, but I used cheddar) over it. Then I put bread crumbs over the top and baked it.

This was more of a success. Anything with cheese is heaven to me, and John liked it too. It would have been better with the onions, though, and garlic would have been good too. I like things stronger!

Moral of the story? An accident at the grocery store might be a good thing after all! An unexpected vegetable might just be a bit of serendipity.

When John went to the store for me this past weekend (double husband points!), I had him pick up a cabbage.

Attachment parenting

I started reading baby blogs awhile before Marko was born. I really enjoyed them as a preview of things to come: adorable baby pictures, stories of babies' recent achievements, explanations of how the moms worked through various problems. Only, as I read several popular baby blogs, I found myself disagreeing intensely with the parenting choices of some of the moms. "I'm out for the first time without baby," one would cheer. "He's two weeks old and I'm SO GLAD to get away!" Or, "Baby's three months old and it still takes a half hour to put him down for the night. So tonight we let him cry it out instead!" Or, "It's been a week and I'm still not enjoying breastfeeding, so bottles it is!"

I have had very strong views on parenting since I was about sixteen years old and participated in the care of my younger brother, so things like this don't just make me shake my head and say "Different strokes for different folks," they make me cringe and have to hold myself back from commenting right away.

Luckily, I've since found more blogs that agree with more of my parenting views. But I think I should explain those views once and for all on this blog. Generally speaking, my style tends toward "attachment parenting." This is the theory, developed mostly by Dr. Sears, of keeping babies close to you and following your instincts in how to care for them. Seems fairly obvious to me, but the previous generation of childcare experts, like Dr. Spock, had insisted on a very detached style of childraising, where the baby is taught "independence" from the very beginning by being placed in a crib in a separate room, being fed a scientifically-determined number of ounces of formula on a strict schedule, and so forth. This way, children would grow up better-adjusted and more independent.

Well, here we are 50 years later and kids don't seem any better-adjusted than they used to be. To be honest, I'm not positive that the details of how you care for a baby are necessarily going to determine whether they end up in therapy 30 years later or not. After all, they won't remember whether they cried themselves to sleep in a crib at a year old or not. However, these things might make a difference, and besides, I just can't see treating a baby as an experimental object or an animal that needs to be trained just because they can't talk and might not remember what I do. Instead, I think of a baby as a human being that just can't communicate what he wants and can't understand how the adult world works. He runs on instinct for the most part, but instinct that tells him what he needs and how to communicate those needs. I don't believe that I know what a baby needs better than his instincts do.

Attachment parenting has seven principles. (Later, others added an eighth, "gentle discipline," but on the one hand, that doesn't apply to babies like the others do, and on the other, it's rather vague and doesn't seem very helpful to me.) Dr. Sears' formulation of the seven principles is the "Seven Baby B's": Birth bonding, Breastfeeding, Babywearing, Bedding close to baby, Belief in the language value of your baby's cry, Beware of baby trainers, Balance. I hope to write a post on each of these principles eventually, but for now I'll give a brief summary of each.

Birth bonding: The norm for the past generation or two, which is slowly changing (at last), is to separate a baby from its mother as soon as it is born. The baby is smacked, suctioned, and taken to the baby nursery for several hours before the mother ever gets a chance to hold it. Birth bonding suggests that mothers hold their babies as soon as possible, for a chance to begin bonding with them. Fathers, too, should get a chance to hold the baby soon. (Unfortunately, I did not get to hold Marko right away, as I had hoped and planned, as you can find from my birth story. But at least he remained in the same room, and I was able to hold him around 30 or 40 minutes later.)

Breastfeeding: It's the healthiest way to feed a baby, of course, but attachment parenting suggests that it has benefits beyond just a healthy meal. Breastfeeding promotes bonding and is very comforting to the baby. You can prop up a baby with a bottle in a bouncer, but you can't prop a baby up with a breast and leave it alone. Breastfeeding pretty much requires lots of snuggling. Attachment parenting eschews strict schedules and suggests cue feeding (also called demand feeding), that is, feeding when the baby is hungry.

Babywearing: This is the practice of carrying baby around in some kind of sling or carrier. It's practiced by most cultures around the world, as any National Geographic will tell you. Now Marko isn't all that keen on his wrap these days; he prefers to be held in my arms. However, he does like to be held. All babies do. This way they're close to mom and it's easy to make their needs known. All a carrier does is make it possible for mom to use her hands at the same time. I've heard lots of complaints from parents that they "just can't put the baby down" and "he wants to be held all the time!" Well, yeah. Babies do like to be held. Luckily I also like holding babies. Marko does spend a good amount of time on the floor or in his bouncy seat, but if he wants to be held, I hold him. Particularly if we're going somewhere, I carry him instead of plopping him in a stroller or lugging around a gigantic carseat. Sometimes this isn't quite as convenient, but he likes it better. I just don't want to leave the care of my baby to a lot of "artificial parents" like swings, strollers, carseats, bouncers, exersaucers, pack 'n' plays, and so forth. He feels right in my arms, so I keep him there.

Bedding close to baby: Cosleeping is encouraged in attachment parenting. Some people think it's unsafe for a baby to sleep in his parents' bed, but new research is beginning to show what people around the world have known for thousands of years -- it's quite a safe way for a baby to sleep, though certain precautions do need to be exercised. For those who don't cosleep in the same bed, there's sleeping in the same room, with the baby in a bassinet or crib nearby. This allows parents to be much more responsive to baby's needs. Besides, sleeping in the same room with mom and dad cuts the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) in half! (Or, to put it another way, making a baby sleep in a separate room doubles his risk of SIDS.)

Belief in the language value of your baby's cry: In other words, when the baby cries, you shouldn't assume, as some do, that the baby is just "exercising his lungs" and actually feels fine. If he's crying, something is wrong. It may or may not be something you can fix -- colic, for instance, can be soothed to some extent, but the baby will still cry -- but it does mean something. Like adults, babies cry when they are unhappy. The sound of a baby crying stresses adults out big time. When I'm driving and the baby cries in the back seat, it's all I can do not to pull over at the side of the road and go help that baby. This is an example of instinct telling us what to do: comfort the baby and see what we can do to help. Maybe he's hungry, wet, or tired. Maybe he's just lonely and wants to be held. In any event, the one thing he isn't doing is trying to manipulate you. He's just trying to tell you something is wrong so you'll help him.

Beware of baby trainers: I think I've mentioned Ferber and Ezzo on this blog before, as examples of people who insist that parents put their babies on a strict schedule. If it's time to eat and baby's sleeping, you wake up the baby and feed him. If it's time to sleep and baby's crying, you are supposed to tune them out. I'm sorry, I just can't and won't ignore a crying baby, and I have a hard time approving those who do. I understand when a parent just can't take it anymore, and they lay the baby down in a crib for fifteen minutes while they step out of the room. But I don't understand a parent who isn't having any trouble establishing one of these schedules just to make things even easier, or from a false belief that this will teach a baby independence. I don't know if you've noticed, but a human infant is one of the most dependent creatures there are. Independence is something developed much later -- in the toddler and preschool years.

Balance: This is a nice reminder that we can't do everything. Of course we would like our babies to be happy all the time, but sometimes you have to accept that they won't be. Of course we would love to jump to our babies' needs all the time, but a mother of twins sometimes has to make one twin wait while she helps the other, or a mother of ten has to decide whose needs are the most urgent at the moment. An exhausted mother might need to call up a babysitter while she grabs a few hours of desperately needed sleep. Attachment parenting isn't about wearing yourself down, but about doing the best you can.

In addition to these seven standards, there's a current running through them all of staying close to your baby. Parents should, as much as possible, be the ones to care for their children, not passing them off to daycare at an early age. I know the current expectation is for six to twelve weeks of maternity leave before mom goes back to work. I also know that it's really hard to buck the trend when dads are paid so little. But I think a baby being with his parents all the time is the ideal. I've left Marko twice, but each time it was with his dad. He has never been apart from both parents since we brought him home from the hospital.

Someone suggested to me the other day that Marko won't be independent if he's never apart from me. Which I'm sure is true, but on the other hand, long before I'm ready he's going to be going off to college and apart from me all the time. When he's a few years older, he'll already start branching out from me a lot. But while he's a baby, he belongs with me. Not only am I the one with the food, but I'm one of the two he knows best and feels safest with.

At three months old, he's too young for much separation anxiety. That starts at about six months old, or around there. Separation anxiety is a normal stage of a baby's development, and it can't be skipped simply by keeping him alone or with strangers all the time. It is completely natural for a baby to want to be with mom. (Check out this comic!) As a nanny & babysitter, I've never seen a baby from six months to two years who happily waved goodbye to mom and didn't mind. I think that ought to tell us something.

So, there it is. I believe in staying close to my baby 24/7, in listening to him when he cries, in giving him all the snuggles he needs, in feeding him whenever he asks (which happens to be, at the moment, every 45 minutes or so. He's so distracted he's not eating a ton at once, but luckily I don't really mind feeding him in little snacks. It's better than never getting enough, right?). And I've been rewarded with a baby who is happy 90% of the time, who isn't generally clingy, who is very responsive and happy, whose face lights up when he sees Daddy and me. I admit I have an easier baby than most, but as I mentioned a few weeks ago, when we were on our trip to Seattle and he didn't get so much attention, he wasn't as happy. So I think the way I care for him has a lot to do with his good temper and "easy" ways.

Stay tuned for more specific parenting-related topics!