On Sunday, we celebrated Astra’s first birthday. We invited a few close friends and family who’ve held a special place in our lives during the first year of her life and it was quite lovely. She is a real charmer - walking all over the place and loving her party. I don’t pretend to think that she knew the party was actually for her - but that kid loves a party. Nearly 3 hours of a constant stream of people hugging, taking pictures, and fussing over her and she didn’t shed a single tear. She just tooted around grabbing the nearest set of knees…eating crackers and bits of cheese. She now uses several signs - the most clear being the sign for “more” - where she puts her thumbs and index fingers together and touches her two hands together. At one point, she was putting her cracker on Libby Rosen’s chest, making the signal for “more” and then picking the cracker up and finishing it up. Adorable.
I guess that, when we started this journey, I didn’t really understand what it meant when people say “it take’s a village.” Now, I am acutely aware of it - and we are so very lucky to have such an amazing village surrounding us. We are so very VERY lucky.
We’ve started daycare, which overall is quite good. It is nice to have her around other kids and with the legislature back in session, it is crucial to me being able to fulfill my duties to clients…and, sometimes I even manage to get the kitchen picked up during the day so that we don’t have to do that kind of thing during those precious few hours we are all together in the evenings.
That’s the Trouble With Daycare. It is lovely. I like the facility - and I like Alaina and Rhonita, who are adept at buggy rides and putting her hair in little teeny spouts atop her head.
But, I miss her. I occasionally find myself struggling to find meaning in day to day activities when she is, truth be told, the axis of all things in my world. I try to embrace my newfound “adult time” and the obvious and overwhelming joy that comes from being able to schedule a meeting ANY TIME I WANT. <cue sarcasm>
Anyone who knows me knows that I thrive on logistics management, which I have much more control over now….but I also struggle with the notion that another set of adults spend more time with my baby than I do. I REALLY struggle with it. Despite my appearance of adaptability and ability to go with the flow, change is not my strong suit, and that is what this is: a huge change.
Goodbye to the luxury of 9 months with 2 parents home all day long - when Wednesday and Saturday were nearly identical and pants were more optional. I’ll adapt and thrive and so will she, but I’ll still look at her little mug on my Blackberry and call to check in at least once a day.
This Christmas was a big hit. The company was great, the food was delicious, and the laughs were plentiful. Oh, and we all gave our dancing shoes a run for their money with mom’s new Wii.
But, the best part, of course, was little Astra. Not only was she a trooper - a true party girl (shocking, I know). She hung in there with all the commotion and hub-bub - even seemed to enjoy it. She rode the reindeer, ate beef tenderloin and gave kisses aplenty.
We spent Christmas Eve with Jason’s parents in Olathe. A wonderful way to spend the day - when we are there, Astra gets to play with all of Jason’s old toys and really loves them…not to mention the fact that there is an entire room full of music. Anyone who knows Astra knows that she loves music.
On Christmas morning, we spent just our little family - opened gifts on the dining room table (we decided to do a small tree up on the table to simplify logistics). Astra, of course, is a little young for presents, but she got a lot of good stuff. Complete collections of Peter Rabbit and Curious George stories were my favorite of the gifts to give. Then we headed to my parent’s house, where we did Christmas with my family. I think that unwrapping stockings is my favorite part of that tradition - other than having everyone together and the fact that Jason wears his jammies. I hope that when Astra is 33 years old, we are all having so much fun together. It really is such a blessing to have such an amazing family.
Next up was the Carkhuff Christmas with my dad’s side….and then the next day we did my mom’s side. Almost everyone showed up, everyone ate and drank and was merry…and I was again reminded that I’ve brought a little one into one of the best extended families in the world. We are so very lucky.
So it was kind of a big weekend. A good friend took our first family photos….we interviewed our first “real” babysitter (who happens to be the daughter of one of my childhood babysitters)…and Jason got a new job at the St. Francis Foundation.
Meanwhile, little miss Astra has learned how to administer baby kisses….play peek-a-boo…and waves bye-bye. It’s really more cute than one person should be safely subjected to on a regular basis.
Oh, and she really likes peanut stew. I’ll post the recipe as soon as I can. It’s super easy and delicious for all involved.
As would be expected, we’ve now been told by our pediatrician and my allergist that this “don’t feed your kid peanut butter” business is a bunch of malarkey and that the reason there has been such an uptick in peanut allergies is because people QUIT feeding their babies things with peanuts. They say that the best reason not to feed a baby peanut butter is because it is sticky and they can choke on it.
This brings me to choking - and eating. Little Miss Astra can safely eat anything she wants - or that we want her to - as long as it is mushy and small and she cannot choke on it. This is pretty awesome. She really likes curry - and spicy food. Limes. Lemons. Kiwi. Garlic. She ate chorizo-crusted chicken breast at Harry’s Country Club the other day and seemed to love it. Ate a little bit of everything on her first Thanksgiving, too. She is a champ.
To that end, here’s my recipe for baby AND adult friendly lentil stew, which she LOVES. (Takes about 40 minutes start to finish.)
5 or so carrots, chopped
5 or so stalks of celery, chopped
1 large white onion, chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped
1 bag of lentils
8 cups of water (or however much water the bag of lentils calls for)
Madras (Indian) curry powder
Cayenne
Thyme
Black Pepper
3 bay leaves
salt to taste (2 tbsp)
hot sauce
Cook the carrots, celery, onion and garlic until onion is soft. Add spices and cook for a couple of minutes. Rinse lentils and add those along with the required water. Cook until lentils are tender. Remove a couple of cups of the stew (this is the part for baby), grind it up a little so that it is in age-appropriate chunks. To the remaining (non-baby) stew, add salt, hot sauce and more curry. Serve with sour cream (yogurt for baby) and more hot sauce for the adults.
YUM.
Over the weekend, Astra and Jason have had pinkeye (well, it’s actually “bacterial conjunctivitis” - not quite as awful as pinkeye, apparently - but equally pitiful on a baby). I went out on Saturday night and felt like a million bucks until I woke up on Sunday feeling like a train hit me. Woke up this morning to an ear infection and heinous chest cold.
So, in our household, we are currently rocking 3 cases of conjunctivitis, 2 nasty coughs, 1 ear infection, 1 chest cold and 1 seriously grumpy baby. I say grumpy, but probably on a scale of 1-10, she is only a 5….but this baby lives her live at about a 1, so it’s all relative.
For a kid with both of her eyelids nearly stuck shut, she’s great - and her favorite playtoy, the cat, has been a real champ as well…although as we near the evening, she’s not loving life and so we are taking our public health risks on the road and going to walk at the mall. At least we will be near Bath & Bodyworks where they have enough nasty fruit-scented hand sanitizer to last a lifetime.
As of today, she crawls - sometimes standing for a second on her own, has 4 teeth, and can point out the cat and other objects of her interest. Because I’ve decided that I should treat this blog as something of a journal - I’m just going to post little tidbits instead of whole stories….and try to do it much more frequently. Off to the fruit farm for cider slush.
ASL in the House - a/k/a Astra’s “Helen Keller Moment” - today Astra is six months old, and apparently has been paying attention…
It’s been a really long time since I wrote last. I guess that I’ve always thought that the idea of blogging is more interesting than actually blogging. Add to that the fact that time is whizzing past at warp speed. I was reading the blog of another friend earlier this weekend and it inspired me to write - as I’d intended this to be something of a journal - maybe something that Astra can read later in her life and learn a little something about her parents, and about her earliest days. I’ll try to do better. Really.
It is a struggle to write new blog entries - because I feel like there should be some kind of philosophical bent to the entries…but it is actually quite a difficult task. So, in the meantime, I’ll just stick with the basics: She is amazing - a charmer of a baby. She squeals with delight and really only cries when she’s hungry or needs a diaper change. She rolls over and sits up and giggles relentlessly. A real heart breaker. She’s gotten the “all clear” from her neurologist - which means that we get to move farther and farther away from those scary first days.
She handled her first big road trip like a champ. We drove the 16 hours to Saginaw, Mich. to visit Jason’s family. She got to meet loads of Jason’s family, including her Great Grandmother - and her cousin Alaina who is only a week younger. We took her to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to see Monet’s water lilies. She’s starting to have little tastes of food - kiwi, blueberries, raspberries, dark sweet cherries….she even appears to dig lemons (just like her dad). The Kansas Children’s Discovery Center has just opened - and she loves to go there and watch the other kids play. Most of the activities (okay, all of them) are geared for older kids - but she still seems to get a big kick out of watching what she’ll get to do within the next years. She went to her first blues concert on the 4th of July - getting to see Mike Zito and even stayed up late for the fireworks.
She’s weighing in at right at 18 pounds - and is still a little breastfeeding champ. I’m nearly certain that she’s ready to start trying out some solid foods - but I’m not certain that Jason and I are ready for that. We’re holding out for 6 months. We plan on skipping the rice cereal and heading right for some sweet potatoes. We will keep you posted on how it all goes.
So…signing off for now….and I will try to be more frequent with the posts from now on. G’night all.
