Soon...

Thank you everyone for your comments and wishes (here, at Jeffrey's blog, via email, etc.) and all the wonderful things said about Adeleine's birth. We could not be more in love with her. I really and truly cannot wait to tell you all about her birth and show you lots more pictures (she's already a week old!) and check in with all of your blogs and see what all of YOU have been up to as well. But the last week has been an experiment in all things unplanned and so I'm only now sitting down to the computer and trying to figure out where to begin.

Good things happened: the baby, my friend Jessica in town from Texas, time with family, time with my adopted family and the girls' cousins, amazing friends and neighbors bringing food and gifts, etc. Hard things happened: Jeffrey's mom fell and broke her wrist the night before Adeleine's birth and the week after has been full of bad medical decisions on the part of a doctor or two, a surgery, the search for ongoing care, Jeffrey feeling torn between his new baby, a two-year old needing lots of extra attention, his post-partum wife, and his ailing mother, and Jeffrey spending most of Monday at the hospital with her and his step-dad. Unplanned things happened: Penelope got a bad cold, gave it to the baby, and I somehow came down with one of the only ear infections I've ever had.

And that's literally just been the last week. FULL, to say the least.

I know we're going to make it... It's just been a completely different time than we expected. Other than the baby--who is all newborn and strange noises and cries that are all her own, and who is also incredibly lovely and sweet and beautiful and sleeps and eats better than I could ever have imagined. (Knock on wood, of course. I won't be sure of anything for weeks, based on my last experience.) And Penelope has been amazing in her own way, and really only had about 24 hours of adjustment/emotions over the new creature in her world before turning into a doting and loving and only sometimes-irritated older sister.



Talk to you all soon.

Introducing Adeleine Caoimhe

[Note: This is Jeffrey (aka Daddoo) posting for Annagrace.]

Adeleine was born at 1:28 PM. You can see initial photos and part of our story at Jeffrey's blog (http://daddoo.jeffreykaye.com). Or, look at the photos at http://jeffreykaye.com/photoblog.

Ordinary time

The house is so still.

Birds are chirping at the feeder outside the big living room window, the sun-dappled leaves on the big maple and cherry trees are rustling, more birds are flying through the just-fading light. The occasional car hurtles by below. The curtains dance a bit at the edges. A blind string somewhere tap, tap, taps its window casing. I can smell the rosemary in the front garden.

Inside it's quiet. Jeffrey and Pea are out looking for a missing piece of equipment for the camera tripod, just in case the baby comes this weekend. Dinner was made, eaten, put away, and cleaned up after. For once there isn't any music on.

I've been cramping heavily off and on since last night. 39-week appointment showed a very soft cervix and and estimation of anywhere from a couple of days to a week. I go in and out of anticipation and peace. Most of the time I am completely confident that she will born at the perfect time, whenever that is.

It's an interesting week of anniversaries, though. Today was my dad's birthday. He would have been 60. It's hard to imagine a scenario where, if he were still alive, he would be in any way, shape, or form, a part of my life. Much less my girls' lives. When he died he was not to be trusted. Monday marks 11 years since. He was cruel and selfish, bitter, controlling. A week from today was my favorite grandmother's birthday, my father's mother. The woman who suggested that my mother should probably leave him. My middle name is hers and my first name is for her dear friend. She was flawed, of course, but she was compassionate. She appeared to me several times when I was pregnant with Penelope and it was always comforting. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, Adeleine will be born.

Last year I marked the 10-year anniversary of my father's death with some of my close girlfriends. We sat and drank and ate and told stories and laughed, and ended up talking very little of him. What is left to say, really? Mostly it was about me and who I am now, post-secrets, post-sadness. How strong I am, how loved I am. And how safe. I am incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by friends whose honesty runs deep, who don't even try to pretend to have answers to things that none of us can ever really understand. Friends who cried with me and drank with me during the worst memory-dredging, who offered their own stories and broken hearts, and then let me move on and let me change. Let me decide for myself what to keep and what to throw away. This year, for the first time, I feel like I have nothing left of my father to grieve. I finally feel like it's over. My own story is still alive and being worked out daily, but his part in it is done. Finished.

And tonight the house is so still. Peaceful. The sun has started to slip behind the line of trees and field. The birds are quiet. The occasional neighbor and dog walk by. The baby's room is ready. The hospital bag is packed and so is Pea's. The house is clean and mostly tidy. There are new books to read and new movies to watch and enough tempting leftovers in the fridge to make cooking this weekend all but unnecessary. I'm going upstairs to change the laundry out and put on some cozy pajamas. There's more to think about but it doesn't need to be written, just yet.

37/38

Another reason in the very long list of Why I Love My Midwives is that they let Penelope participate in our appointments. Not only is it actually ok to have my husband and child with me if I so desire (not always encouraged other places, you know), but one of them in particular is really great at involving Pea in everything that goes on and explaining to her the what/why/how. At our 37-wk appointment last week, Penelope got to measure my belly, help find the baby's heartbeat, and then stand on a chair next to the table while Kathleen used a sharpie to draw the baby's position on my belly. Penelope was completely enthralled, of course, and it was amazing to see her connect at a new level with the thought that there really IS a live baby in there!



And it was pretty amazing for me to see, too.

Now here I am at 38 wks.



Huge, huge, huge. Continuing to swell in the heat, but at least I've proven that it really IS mostly the heat, as when it was cooler today my hands and feet were completely back to normal and I felt SO much better. Going back and forth wishing the baby will come a bit early (the hot days especially bring that on) and then hoping she waits till Jessica arrives from Texas on my due date. I keep going into Baby A's room and looking through everything that's all ready for her... And every night when Pea asks for a story I tell her again what's going to happen when Mama has the baby and who will take her and how she'll be very close by and the first one to see the baby. She looked at me the other day as I was getting dressed and said, looking thoughtfully at my huge, heavy belly, "baby need a come out now, yeah."

Best banana cake

Jeffrey's birthday is this week, also known as the one time a year I attempt to get over my fear of serious baking by making him a cake. The funny thing is that every year they manage to turn out much, much better than I could ever hope,



(including this one, made 3 years ago--devil's food filled with raspberry preserves and frosted with chocolate ganache and fresh raspberries)

but it's still not enough to turn me into a regular baker. Other than quick breads and muffins, I stay pretty far away from any sort of cooking that requires a high level of measurement accuracy.

The last couple of years Jeffrey has requested banana cake and so I've been on the hunt for a really great recipe, as too often banana cake tastes to me like a huge banana bread covered in frosting. I love banana bread, but banana cake should be lighter with a softer crumb, not stodgy and heavy and stacked in a frosted pile that ends up hitting your gut like a solid. And this is unfortunately how most banana cakes recipes taste.




I think this year I found the winning recipe. I also found a really great filling, and though this year I frosted the finish product with a light cream cheese frosting,
next year (if it's on the menu again) I'll simply fill it and top with powdered sugar.




The flavor of this cake is SO good and so much more complex than is typical, that the frosting was too much and ended up overwhelming the lightness of everything else.



Here's the recipe, and yes, the order of the ingredients and method will seem a bit strange compared to standard cake recipes, but this really IS the way you do it.



Banana Cake (from Joy of Cooking)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Get ingredients to room temperature.

Mash together:
2 large ripe bananas
2 Tbsp sour cream OR yogurt

Add and mix well:
2 eggs
2 tsp grated lemon zest
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

In a large bowl, beat on low speed for 30 seconds:
2 c cake flour (OR 2 c - 4 Tbsp regular flour)
3/4 c + 2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Add 1/2 the banana mixture along with:
10 Tbsp butter, softened

Beat on low speed until dry ingredients are moistened. Increase speed to medium and beat for 1 1/2 minutes, scraping sides of bowl as needed. Then gradually add rest of banana mixture. Scrape batter into pan (9" springform, but I improvised with what I had* and just watched the cooking time) and spread evenly. Bake until toothpick in the center comes out clean and the cake springs back when lightly pressed, about 30 minutes.



Filling (from The Quick Recipe)

1 cup heavy cream, chilled
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 very ripe banana, peeled and broken into 4 pieces

While the cake is cooling, place the cream and sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (I used my hand-held mixer because it was easier and the results were still good). Beat at medium-high speed until medium-stiff peaks form, 1.5 minutes. Add banana, one piece at a time, and beat until the cream holds stiff peaks, about 30 seconds longer. Spread onto cooled cake layers, leaving room at the edges if you plan to frost (so it doesn't leak into frosting).





*I made 2 recipes of the cake (separately, as I'm not sure you can ever really double cake recipes successfully?) and divided it into three 8"x2" cake pans, and made a double recipe of the filling and it was plenty.

ENJOY!

Little firecracker

Oh, 4th of July. The holiday that sends dogs everywhere running for cover. And who knew that when we moved to this neighborhood last year, we were moving mere blocks away from 3 or 4 families who, based on the 3 hour display that easily rivaled the ones on TV, take the livelihood of fireworks vendors everywhere quite seriously.

This was the first year in a long time that we weren't out of town for the holiday, and though I missed the beach so much (one day I will spend the entire summer season by water...) I am just not brave enough to be more than 30 minutes away from my midwives/hospital at this point in the game. And the upside was that we got to introduce Penelope to small fireworks (though safely, I didn't marry a Boy Scout for nothing!) and realize that every window in our house held an incredible view of very large ones. Now every single morning when she wakes (I'm NOT kidding) she tells us all over again how much she LOVES fireworks, even though some of them, in the moment, were NOT her favorite and are we going to see more today? More fireworks? More sparklers? Please? Bitte? She really, really, REALLY likes them! Etc. etc.

Here are some pictures from the evening.

How the girls are

Well, here's the second one, at 36 weeks. I'm pretty sure she's living up to the half-pound a week growth that they estimate at this point in the game. And she's started feeling a lot lower--not sure if she's officially dropped, we'll find out in a few days.

And as for Penelope, she now asks us to tell her stories at bedtime. Not read her stories but tell her stories. And her favorites are Jeffrey's camping stories.

"Daddoo tell Pea 'tories about capping. And 'tars! And seeping in a tet!"

And today, when I was having some trouble understanding what she was trying to tell me, a phrase I just couldn't for the life of me understand, she sighed a big, deep sigh and said, "Mama, tink--TINK what Pea is saying!"

She likes to measure my belly with the little measuring tape one of the midwives gave her for her doctor kit. Today when she draped the skinny little tape across my midsection she proclaimed, "14 months!" Sure feels like 14 months, kid. I just realized that we've been talking about a new baby coming for about as long as she can remember... I wonder if she can even realize that there really is an end in sight? An end to what she refers to as, "Mama lap too 'mall for Peanut!" (tragic) and an end that includes a real, live, human baby.

She makes up the funniest song and dance routines--hair flying, feet stomping, hands every which-way, and hilarious mish-mashes of songs she's heard, the Oregon Ducks fight song, and her own imagination.

The summer heat is now almost more than I can bear...my hands and feet swell up like I've been eating pickles 'n Pringles. And I haven't! I've stayed true to my largely-healthy eating habits. It's not fair. And do NOT begrudge me the nightly bowl of ice-cream I've become accustomed to--some days it's the hight point after hours of sweaty, awkward discomfort.

My third pregnant friend, and the one right before me in the lineup, gave birth Monday night--9 days early, lucky girl! Sounds like it was an amazing birth, too--fast, when it came right down to it. And such a tiny thing: 6 lbs, 15oz and 18 inches long. I got to meet her tonight when I brought them dinner and I'm pretty sure she is the tiniest human I have ever held. Tiny and long little feet and toes and fingers and nose. Beautiful dark, silky hair that lays on her head so perfectly arranged. Quinn Poppy...pretty name, too.

The completely selfish part of me is just a teensy bit irritated, by the way, that there's no one left to be born but Adeleine...and not for a whole 21 days (at least). Don't get me wrong--I'm thrilled for every single one of my three friends who have given birth exactly on or earlier than their due dates. But good lord, that sort of thing just does NOT happen in my family without heavy medical involvement and so, much as I'd love to dream otherwise, it's going to be a long three weeks.

Weekend update

Friday we had an "environmentally-friendly pest control company" come out and spray. More as insurance against the bugs, as we haven't seen much of anything yet. But this time around we decided to not wait until the spiders were so big and so many, and basically this means that I will sleep better this summer than I have in years. Well, I would sleep better if it wasn't for the human who has taken up residence in my body...

Saturday was our baby shower. My mom and sister hosted and it was beautiful and really, really fun. And the food...? Well, the food was incredible.

Lots of this (plums with Gorgonzola and pancetta):



This (heirloom tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and basil):



This (strawberry-rhubarb crisp, brilliant red and still tart):



This (punch!):



And a beautiful salad and vegetables, and a basket full of pink, foot-shaped cookies. Also baked and decorated by my sister.



And the cake? My sister outdid herself again.



Really--she should just do this sort of thing as a business.



Here we all are--my sister, mom, Penelope, and me.



So many people came, even though it was bloody, bloody hot (101! In June!), and the kids played out back in the wading pool while the adults downed cold drinks and tried to stay cool indoors. My feet and ankles swelled up rather nicely and apparently my dress was a bit more revealing than I'd intended (I have to Photoshop out a few crotch shots...nice), but Jeffrey and I had a great time and I think Pea did too.

Kelly brought Baby Lamb (Liam) and Penelope was in heaven, kissing him and holding him and whispering to him. She's talked about meeting him for months.





Isn't that a sweet little man face? So serious and thoughtful! Although when they first arrived I almost burst into tears--Pea had caught sight of his car seat coming through the door, a car seat exactly like the one we bought for Adeleine, and she jumped off the couch crying, "Baby Adideene here! Hooray!" and I had to explain that even though this was Baby Adeleine's party, she wasn't exactly here yet. Tragic.



This picture makes me laugh because I'm obviously mid-sentence, talking to someone outside the frame, and my ham of a girl, who's been photographed constantly her entire life, is completely focused on the camera.

Sunday we didn't do much. Pea stayed Saturday night with Grammi and Auntie, and Jeffrey and I had been up late having pedicures, dinner, and a movie (anything to stay cool, you know), so we got up slowly, went to Costco, and I did my best to not have a complete emotional breakdown every time opened my mouth. I just felt a bit on the edge. Overwhelmed, tired, hot, huge, and no longer in charge of my body at all.

Tonight Kelly called me up at the very last minute, and, because I have a VERY kind husband, I was able to leave the last homemade pizza in the oven with a timer, hand a cranky Peanut over to him (made crankier still by my sudden departure), change my clothes, throw on just barely enough makeup to make me look half-way sane, and tear across town to meet her for the 6:55 showing of SATC. So fun! It was one of her first outings alone since Baby Lamb was born, and it just may be one of my last for a while...you never, never know. And I can always, always hope, right?