Change of plans

We've been putting off this posting, knowing how some might react, but it's time we let our friends and family know. After much consideration, I've decided to quit my PhD program and return to playing in orchestras. Being back in L.A., I've gotten in touch with my old teacher and conductor and he said they have a place for me beginning next season. It's a big step, but Jenna and I feel it's the right thing to do. I've just been so stressed out and bogged down with homework in my program that I don't have enough time to help with the kids. With the orchestra I'll only be gone at night when they're asleep, that way Jenna can get her work in during the day. Most of all, playing music is what I love.

Thank you for all your support.

Delicious Dessert

A new favorite! It is soo yummy that I even dug into it last night in the middle of the night when I was up for one of Clare's feedings. (Wait, did I just admit that???)


Hungarian Shortbread

2 cups flour, plus more as needed
1 tsp. baking powder
1⁄8 tsp. fine salt
1⁄2 lb. unsalted butter, plus more for pan, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
3⁄4 cup raspberry jam (or any kind that sounds good to you!)


1. Using a sieve over a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. Cream butter in a large bowl, using a hand mixer on high speed, until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and egg yolks; mix until sugar is dissolved and mixture is light, about 4 minutes. With mixer on low speed, slowly add flour mixture; mix until dough just begins to come together, about 1 minute.


2. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface; bring it together with your hands. Divide dough in half and form 2 balls. Wrap each ball in plastic wrap; freeze for at least 30 minutes or up to 3 hours.


3. Arrange an oven rack in center of oven; heat to 350°. Grease a 10" springform pan with butter. Remove a ball of dough from freezer, unwrap, and grate, using the large holes of a box grater, directly into prepared pan. Gently pat grated dough to even it out. Spread jam evenly over dough, leaving about a 1⁄2" border around edges. Grate remaining dough over jam layer; pat gently until surface is even. Bake until light golden brown, about 25–30 minutes. Let cool completely in pan, on a rack, before cutting into wedges.

My babies

Do you think they look like siblings? I can't decide.

Treasure the doing

This totally made me bawl, maybe because I only get 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night, maybe because I still have pregnancy-new mom hormones or maybe because I have the most beautiful little 4 week old angel sleeping serenely in my arms as I read it but I figure a few other moms and dads would enjoy it also. (Thanks Jodi)


"All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education,all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are,they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me,finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations –what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet,and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, "Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame." The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?". (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.
I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less. Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life.

When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were."

-Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

Easter

We had a nice easter this year. It started on Friday with the neighborhood Easter egg hunt. Shea was, of course, a big fan. We had tons of fun filling, hiding and finding the eggs and then having lunch with all our friends.

On your marks...


The hunt




The take



This little squirrely squirrel was a BIG fan of our eggs and the kids had to fight him off to claim a few of them.



Easter morning Shea was happy to find that the bunny had visited our house. And I'm embarrassed to say that yes, he had candy for breakfast and most of lunch.



The result?
This unstoppable naked blur of energy. We literally couldn't get him to stop for 5 seconds. It was comedic how hyped up he was.


I did try to take an Easter photo. Not so easy to do all by yourself with a toddler and a newborn. Clare was having none of it and Shea was a good sport for a few photos until he started saying "Take her away, take her away, take her away." over and over. Here are a few of my favorites from that photo shoot.


We hope yours was good. Happy Easter!

Sharing

Thursday at preschool they dyed Easter eggs. Shea couldn't wait to eat one for his snack after his nap. So when he woke up he and daddy peeled it and he dove into his very first hard boiled egg. (I know, I know, my poor child is almost 3 and never had a hard boiled egg - bad mommy.) Well, I'll start making them now because he LOVED it! As he's munching down his egg he turns to me, holds out the egg and asks, "Mommy would you like a bite?" And I, so pleased that he wanted to share something that he was enjoying so much, said, "Yes please." Whereupon he whispers, "Mommy, can you say no thank you instead?"

:-) :-) :-)

A little Bling

Yes, my mommy makes jewelry and yes, she makes me wear it. But I actually think it's pretty cool, look at me showing it off.

Fighting DARTH!

I'm sure if you have kids you know how they can latch on to something and NEVER (ever, ever, ever, ever) let it go. Well for Shea, this is currently Star Wars. The kids is obsessed! Every day lately (sorry Spiderman) he is Luke Skywalker, Chris is Darth Vader (tee hee hee - Shea knows that Darth is Luke's father so daddy is therefore Darth) and my personal favorite, yours truly is Princess Leah (but so is Clare, so that's not saying much.)
Anyway - ever since Shea got his light saber at Christmas he's wanted to fight Darth Vader. Then a few months ago we were eating near the Jedi Training Camp at Disneyland and he saw that kids could actually get on the stage and fight Darth! Since then, I have heard about how much he wants to fight Darth Vader EVERY SINGLE DAY, multiple times!!! So while Grandma and Grandpa were here we went to Disneyland so Shea could fight Darth. Well, it turns out, that not every kid sitting there gets to participate - they choose kids from the audience and call them up. I was so scared that they wouldn't pick Shea and he would be the most crushed little boy in the world. Well, thanks to Grandma who made it impossible for them NOT to pick him, he actually made it up on stage with a light saber and a Jedi robe. He was way too young, he couldn't figure out how to work his light saber and he couldn't follow the fighting sequence, but the cute guys running the show were absolutely adorable with him and kept talking to him and making comments that had the whole crowd busting up. So eventually Darth comes out and Shea takes one look at the full size, all decked out, up close and personal Darth Vader and bolts!!! It was pretty hilarious. Here are the pics.
(And yes, Shea wants a chance to redeem himself because we're back to him asking multiple times every day to go to Disneyland and fight Darth again.)

Clare's Blessing

We were able to bless our beautiful little Clare last Sunday while Grandma and Grandpa were still here. Two of my cute brothers and their families drove up from Mesa just for the blessing. It was so sweet of them to come and we loved seeing them. Chris' blessing was beautiful and I'm so grateful to have a husband who is worthy to bestow such blessings on our kids.

My mom worked every single day of the two weeks she was here on Clare's blessing dress. I ordered the fabric and pattern from some little heirloom sewing website and when it got here and I opened it, wow, it was WAY over my head so I left it in Grandma's capable hands. It turned out SO incredibly delicate, sweet and beautiful. (And it has hand embroidery ALL over it!) Thanks so much mom!

True Confessions

Hi, My name is Jenna Flood and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE .... LOVE McDonalds.
I wish it weren't so but it's true. I LOVE MacDo! I promised Shea today that if he was good at the doctor's office, I'd buy him a Happy Meal on the way home. That promise had absolutely nothing to do with Shea and how good I wanted him to be, it was 100 % about Mommy's wicked chicken nugget craving. What is it about the salt, starch, sugar and fat, glorious fat in those nuggets, fries and Dr. Pepper? Heaven! If only I could always resist - I'm only 8 1/2 pounds up from my pre-pregnancy weight, but with those golden arches around the corner, I wouldn't be surprised if I started gaining it all back at this point. (We really hardly ever go there, but some days, I can resist no more!)

What had you done at one week old?

I'm pretty sure all I had done was eat and sleep at home, I'll have to double check with my mom, but Clare...

Has already been to DISNEYLAND!!!
Had dinners with her family at Poquito Mas, El Cholo and Marie Calendar's
been shopping at Target (several times)
and hung out at the LA Farmer's Market and ridden the trolley at the Grove!

However, her favorite, favorite, favorite activity of the first weeks of her life has been sleeping on Grandpa's chest. Can you say baby hog????!!!! :-)
Well, she loved EVERY second and is now definitely protesting being forced to sleep by herself. (Thanks a lot dad!!!) :-)

This is Jeopardy!

Yes, that was me coming in second on Jeopardy! tonight. Jenna is going to tell everyone that it's my fault she didn't tell all our friends to watch tonight, but I reminded her to blog it... Sorry. Before anyone asks why I didn't do better, yes, it was the buzzer. Of course, categories like "Cats" and "The Canary Islands" didn't help!

This link should go to the Jeopardy site list of this week's contestants.
www.sonypictures.com/tv/shows/jeopardy/showguide_thisweek.php

Things I'd forgotten about having a newborn!

1. Just how good that tiny, swaddled up bundle feels sleeping on your chest.
2. How adorable daddys look with that tiny swaddled up bundle sleeping on their chests.
3. How much Shout you go through.
4. That smell!!!! Ohh yummy!!!!
5. Just how bad breastfeeding really does hurt in the beginning.
6. How hard it is to wake up for a 5:30 am feeding when you've already done two since you "went to bed."
7. How seriously teeny, tiny they are. (Even when they're born at a healthy 8'4".)
8. How gross the liquid yellow poo is. (Sorry, too much info, I know, but if you've had kids you know what I'm talking about!)
9. Just how enormously you love them from the very first minute.

What am I forgetting moms and dads?