Starting in the Basement

Once summer starts (which it has here in Boston) I am always on the hunt to make the perfect burger.  Last night I think I found the best burger so far, and it was super easy.  Unfortunately I was too hungry to take a picture but it doesn’t really look like anything special.  Just picture a homemade hamburger with onions and pickles.  I used a lower fat beef but compensated by adding in some other fat, because that is how I roll.  ; )

Burger

(makes 3 burgers)

1 pound 90-93% beef

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1 tablespoon cold butter

3 slices cheddar cheese

Directions:  Add all ingredients to beef and mix just to combine.  Do not overmix.  Form 3 patties.  Cut the tablespoon of butter into 3 pieces and insert one into the middle of each patty.  Right before cooking, salt and pepper both sides of they patty (if you do this too early you will lose some of the moisture in the burger).  Grill burgers to desired doneness, melting the cheese on the patty at the end.

Onion Marmalade

1 medium red onion

1 cup water

1 teaspoon ground coriander

2 tablespoons butter

Directions:  Add onion and water to a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Add the coriander and butter and season with salt and pepper.  Let simmer, stirring often, for about 20 minutes or until most of the liquid is gone.

Burger Assembly

Grill or toast hamburger buns.  If grilled, you can add a little melted butter to the bun before grilling.  Spread a generous amount of onion marmalade on the bun with the burger.  Top with sliced pickles.  Enjoy!

Frenchie’s mom sent some pictures of him as a child as well as some other family pictures.  She also sent white linen overalls for Camille.  LOVE the French clothes!

Here is Frenchie when he was 1 day old.  He looks like a generic baby.

Here he is at his baptism.  His mother’s hair is so fabulous!

I think he is around 2 years old here.  What a cutie!

Another one, around 2 I think.  The hair just gets better and better.

And my favorite.  Is that a boy or a girl?  Can you tell it was the 70′s??  Something about this reminds me of the kid from The Shining.  REDRUM!!

We can only hope that Camille turns out this cute and with just as much hair!

Last Friday Camille celebrated her 2 month birthday!  I wanted to do something for each month that we could document in pictures to watch her grow and since there are just a few things I do well (and I’m addicted to sugar) I decided to bake for each month.  The first month I made a raspberry cake with lemon buttercream topped with lemon curd.  The recipe was supposed to be a layer cake but since I knew I would have to eat most of it myself I only made one layer, which ended up looking a little sad.

Camille was also not thrilled about the photo shoot but she will appreciate it someday!  : )

Her 2 month birthday came right in time because I saw this post about cupcakes and HAD TO MAKE THEM IMMEDIATELY!  I love me some marshmallows so I am always trying to incorporate them into my baking.  I also noticed that Stop and Shop (our local grocery store) is carrying Jumbo Mallows and I needed an excuse to buy them.  They are HUGE!  I think each marshmallow is about 4 regular large marshmallows.  2 of them would make up Camille’s head.

When I went to the store to buy the ingredients for these cupcakes I was already a little ashamed of my shopping basket.  To make matters worse, one of my new mom friends was there and I ran into my coworker who doesn’t eat carbs.  I tried my best to hide the contents of my basket but that bag of Jumbo marshmallows was hard to hide.

I love that the package says, “great for snacking.”  Snacking to me implies that you can eat more than one but one of these babies is already 90 calories!  However, there is a cool recipe for a single serving of a rice crispy treat on the bag.  One marshmallow, a little butter and a little cereal in the microwave and voila, a fresh treat!  Now that is a snack.

Anyway, back to Camille.  I made a half recipe of these awesome S’more cupcakes so that we could put them in the shape of the number 2 for the birthday picture.  (BTW, they were delicious, I highly recommend these cupcakes)

Also, since my friend Jen gave me some beautiful lilies for Mother’s Day, I wanted to add those into the picture as well.  I posed the beautiful Camille next to the lovely lilies and the yummy cupcakes and innocently bumped her head into one of the flowers.  Next thing we know, the poor baby has a very bright yellow stain on her thinly haired head.  At first I tried to pretend like nothing happened and then Frenchie noticed and tried to brush it off but the damage had been done.  Man that stuff stains!  Her poor little head is still yellow after lots of wiping and two baths.

Of course on Monday she had her two month appointment with the nurse practitioner so I was worried what she would think of her new “blonde” look.  As the nurse asked me the normal questions and Camille sat calmly on my lap, I could her taking peaks at her head.  Finally she asked if I had any questions and I told her the story of the flowers.  Apparently our story made her day.  She thought it was about the funniest story she had heard all month.  I was embarrassed but I am glad I could make her day.  More importantly, her stats were great.  When she left the hospital she was in the 3rd percentile for weight at 5 pounds, 7 ounces.  She is now 10 pounds, 3 ounces and in the 30th percentile!  She was in the 5th percentile for length and is now in the 70th percentile at 23 inches!  And she said she is sitting up like a 4 month old and has great neck control.  What a superstar!

I can’t wait to see what the next month brings.  I am already planning out her 3 month picture.

As I begin to exercise again I realized I need to decide which types of exercise I want to prioritize.  I feel overwhelmed by the possibilities now that my body is my own again (mostly, except for my milk bags).  Should I run, do step aerobics, bootcamp, power yoga, or try something new?  When I was pregnant I decided that I really wanted to try kickboxing because I want to work on my self-confidence and ass-kicking abilities, but I would like to find a class for that and right now I am not ready to leave the little peanut for an exercise class.

Two weeks ago I started doing Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred and have done it a few times each week.  It is a great workout but I am already bored with Level 1 even though I am not ready to go to Level 2 so I knew I needed to add something else.  This week I decided to go back to yoga and I wanted to talk a little bit about my history with yoga.

I started doing yoga in 1999, my sophomore year of college, at Lewis and Clark College.  Some of you may know that I graduated from Oberlin College but you may not know that after my freshman year I left Oberlin to go back home to Portland and spent a year at Lewis and Clark.  It was a very odd time in my life because I was a bit of a mess and I didn’t know what I was doing.  I think Lewis and Clark had an exercise class requirement and I signed up for yoga for the mind-body aspect because I thought that was something I really needed at that time.  Taking a college class was a great introduction to yoga because I really learned the fundamentals of the practice like breathing correctly and how to do the basic poses correctly and without injury.  Since then I have done yoga off and on.  I have taken college classes at Oberlin, classes at many gyms, gone to private studios and I often do my own style at home.   I think every yogi has their favorite poses and one that I always look forward to and do on my own is tree pose.

I feel like tree pose is fitting because I love trees.  I know, very original.  Are there people who do not love trees?  I think my appreciation of trees, or at least the consciousness of my appreciation, began at outdoor school in 6th grade.  The counselors made us pick a favorite tree, sit down with our notebooks, and write about what we saw around us.  I discovered at that moment how comforting trees are and what they give to us.  A cover from the rain, something to lean against, a root to sit on.  Living in the city now I often crave walking through the woods and being surrounded by trees.  It is incredibly comforting to me.  Where is this post going?  I really don’t know, but let’s go back to yoga.

Tree pose is a balancing pose and is meant to show the balance and calmness of a tree.  To do the pose you bring one foot up your leg as far as you can and put your hands above your head or in prayer pose.  The foot can land above or below your knee, it doesn’t matter, but I always work to get my foot as high as possible.  I love this pose because I am truly able to clear my mind, which I think you are supposed to do during all the yoga poses.  However, during a balancing pose, if your mind wanders you lose your balance and you’ll have to drop a foot or fall over.  My inability to bring attention to myself makes it impossible for me to fall out of balancing poses during a group class.  Somebody might LOOK at me!  Gahh!  So I concentrate on my foot rooting into the ground and my arms keeping balance.  If I am really into it sometimes I start swaying in the wind like a real tree.  I totally lose myself in this pose.

All this talk of tree love is to say that yoga is definitely going to be one of my regular exercises now.  I did Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown yesterday which was a great workout although not a very traditional yoga class.  I also want to add in other exercise videos though to really burn calories.

Any suggestions on exercise videos to rent or Exercise TV On Demand videos??

Camille is now 7 weeks old and she has changed so much already!  I remember when my childhood cat, Kitty, was a kitten she was so adorable my friend’s little sister told me to only feed her carrots so maybe she wouldn’t get any bigger.  I sometimes feel the same way about my baby.  I want her to stay tiny and it makes me anxious when she grows out of an outfit (which so far has only happened once) or when I weigh her and realize she is almost 10 pounds already!

On the other hand, as she gets older there are other changes, like smiles.  These smiles are practically impossible to catch on camera but I swear, she does it all the time!  At her one month appointment the pediatrician pointed out that she was more alert now and I said that I had seen her smile while she was awake.  The doctor looked at me like I was crazy and very condescendingly  said that these smiles were “non-responsive” and she would not have a responsive smile until 6-8 weeks.  I told her that the smile was cute whether it was responsive or not (and secretly thought to myself that she was actually very advanced and was actually having responsive smiles already.  I mean, I look at her, smile, and then she smiles.  How is that not responsive?).  Anyway, now that she is 7 weeks she is definitely giving us smiles and they are extremely cute.

Now the update on me.  I am very jealous of Camille right now because while she is getting cuter, my body is falling apart.  For some reason I actually believed that I would lose the baby weight very quickly.  I have never lost weight easily so I don’t know why I thought it would work this time but it probably had something to do with all those people who said breastfeeding made you lose weight (liars!).  I gained about 30 pounds during pregnancy and when I got home from the hospital I literally had only lost the 6 pounds that Camille weighed!  After 2 weeks I was down 15 pounds and I have pretty much stayed there since.  Other fabulous body changes have been some ugly stretch marks on my stomach, horribly dry skin, weird bumps on my upper arms, dark circles under my eyes, National Geographic boobs, and back fat.   Yes, I try to avoid all mirrors if possible.  Last week I started counting calories to try to get my portions back in control and I started the 30 Day Shred (ouch) so hopefully I will see some results.

I am trying to be patient because it took nine months to put on, blah blah blah, but I get frustrated when I go to my new mothers class and almost all the women seem to already have flat bellies!  They are all very nice women but I kind of want to stab them all in the eye for that.  They also put on makeup even though the class starts at 10 am which means I am lucky if I brush my hair before rolling out of the house at 9:59.  Whatever.

I very rarely drive in Boston for several reasons.  First, I do not really need to go anywhere driving distance because most things are walkable.  Second, usually Frenchie does the driving if we go anywhere because he gets frustrated with my driving and it is just easier that way.  The third reason is that driving in Boston really sucks!

However, on the rare occasion that I do get in the car by myself, I often have a strong feeling of “I am freeeeeee!!!!”  I do not realize that I feel trapped until I start driving and then suddenly the possibilities are endless.  I could go anywhere and do anything.  Just drive and drive without stopping.  Obviously, my first instinct is to go West, because, well, I wouldn’t make it very far East, who wants to go North where it is colder and the South has nothing for me.  More importantly, my current life goal is to make it back to the west coast so when I get in the drivers seat I picture myself driving the 3000 miles and never looking back.

I hope it doesn’t sound like I want to escape my family, because ideally I would like Frenchie and Camille to join me.  But that takes conversations and planning and when I get in that car I just want to go!

I had that feeling last night when I drove to the grocery store by myself.  For multiple reasons, I did not want to go back home, and I felt so light driving the 4 blocks home from the store, quickly scarfing down my Russell Stover Caramel Marshmallow Egg before I got home and was made fun of for my sugar obsession.

But, I am home, and I am in a terrible mood, and all I want to do right now is grab Camille and run for the hills (preferably the West Hills of Portland).  Instead I am stuck in the house, feeling like crap and trying to make it through the day.  In case I brought my two readers down with me, here are some pictures of cuteness to cheer you up.

Thought this would be fun for a Friday.

A. Age: 30

B. Bed Size: Queen, but I dream about having a king.

C. Chore you hate: Matching socks after doing laundry.

D. Dogs: Dogs are cute, but I doubt I will ever have one.  If I did I would get a Bernese Mountain Dog because they are awesome!

E. Essential to start your day: Coffee in any form

F. Favorite color: Green

G. Gold or silver: Both please!

H. Height: 5’6″, unless I am calculating my BMI, then I am 5’7″.  : )

I. Instruments you play: Growing up I played the clarinet and the piano.  I have tried to learn to play the guitar but my hands are really small so it is hard.  I want to learn to play the banjo next!

J.  Job Title: Public interest attorney.  Mom to Camille.  Amateur baker.

K. Kids: 1, almost 4 weeks old.  Camille.  She hates her sponge baths.

L.  Live: In a 1 bedroom in Brookline Village, Massachusetts.  Moving to a 3 bedroom next door in July.  I. Can’t. Wait.

M.  Mom’s Name: Linda

N.  Nicknames: Em, Grenouille

O.  Overnight hospital stays: Once, about 4 weeks ago when I had a baby.  I was so nervous about being in the hospital but it was fine!  Not that I want to do it again anytime soon.

P.  Pet Peeve: Loud chewing.

Q.  Quote from a movie: “Bon appetit!” (said in Julia Child’s voice)

R.  Right or left handed: right

S.  Siblings: One brother.  Yes, he looks like Mark Wahlberg. And he looks like me, so I guess I look like Marky Mark as well?

T:  Time you wake up: Whenever Camille wakes up.  But when I was working, 6:30 AM, but I stay in bed until 7:30AM.

U.  Underwear: yes

V.  Vegetables you dislike: I like all the vegetables I have tried so far although I only like freshly picked tomatoes.  No grocery store tomatoes for me.

W.  What makes you run late: Now Camille makes me late.  Before, the stupid T made me a late A LOT.

X.  X-rays you’ve had: Only on my teeth.

Y.  Yummy food you make: Beef Bourguinon, chocolate toffee cookies, cinnamon rolls with cream cheese glaze and so much more.

Z.  Zoo – favorite animal: Big cats!

3 weeks in and I want to talk about me.  While I was still pregnant I thought A LOT about labor and some about taking care of a baby but I had not considered how I was going to feel after labor.  I knew that the recovery would be tough if I had a c section but for some reason I did not think about the recovery from a vaginal delivery.  Luckily, I heard a lot of advice and words of wisdom from friends, family, nurses and doctors about postpartum but the best three pieces of advice for me were:

1.  You need somebody with you for the first 2 weeks.  If it is not your partner, then your partner should figure out an alternative.  I was lucky enough to have my mom here and I think I would have run screaming without her.

2.  The first week is hard.

3.  Breastfeeding is your full time job.  There should be no expectation that you will have time to do anything else.  No cleaning, no cooking, no errands.

The first week was hard.  I was in pain.  My emotions were all over the place.  And I was tired!  The only thing that got me through was knowing that is was going to get easier.  And it did.  By the end of week 2 I was feeling much better, physically and emotionally.  Week 3 I am still not fully recovered and I still feel like my hormones are a little wacky but it has gotten a lot easier.  I am looking forward to exercising again and I am able to do more every day.  Another surprising thing for me is that I am still the same person.  Just because I had a baby and I am now a mom, it turns out that those are the only things that changed.  Everything else about me is the same, which is good and bad.

My biggest struggle now is that I feel like I should be more productive during the day.  I am still working on thank you cards, paperwork for Camille, posting pictures, make birth announcements and other life projects.  But the days go by really quickly and I seem to be busy enough (see #3 above) and it seems like Camille sleeps a little less each day.  Luckily she is incredibly cute (see below) and I love taking care of her.

SLEEP

It has been 2 weeks and 1 day since baby Camille was born.  Everyday we get a little more confident, and everyday she sleeps a little less.  The pediatrician said that the first 2 weeks they are in a newborn stupor and sleep a lot but then they start to wake up.  I have been tracking her sleeping and eating on an iPhone app (I know, I know, nerd alert!) and she was sleeping 18 hours a day and is now sleeping about 15 hours.  You would think that means Frenchie and I would get plenty of sleep but somehow it does not work like that.  I guess because we have to do other things like eat, post pictures on the internet and update our families on her progress.  Oh yeah, and Frenchie works too!  While I do like to track my child’s sleep, I have found from my bouts of insomnia that the worst thing you can do is actually keep track of how much you sleep.  It just makes you more tired, angry and resentful.  So instead we sleep when we sleep and if I am tired during the day I try to take a nap when Camille is napping.  So far, I am tired, but not crazy tired.

AWAKE

Now for her awake time.  She spends a lot of that fussing and crying.  Maybe she is frustrated because she can’t see colors, or more than 8 inches in front of her.  That does sound a little boring!  We try to entertain her by reading to her in multiple languages and exposing her to lots of different music.  These things also seem to annoy her but hopefully she will eventually enjoy them.   I am looking forward to when she is more interested in toys and playing.  But I also don’t want her to grow up too fast!  Ackk!

HEALTH

Camille had her two week appointment today and she is doing great.  She was 5 lbs, 15 oz. at birth, 5 lbs, 7 oz. at discharge, and today she is 6 lbs, 5 oz!  Apparently any questions I had about breastfeeding were unnecessary because it is obviously working just fine.  Her cord stump (ew) has still not fallen off so we have to give it a little TLC and she has diaper rash!   The diaper changing area in our apartment is very dark so we didn’t even notice.  The nurse assured us that we are not bad parents but I am still not so sure.

GEAR

Have you heard of a “push gift“?  While we did not call it that, I received an awesome gift after Camille was born.  I had been coveting a crazy stroller for months and we decided to finally go for it.  Isn’t it cute?

CUTENESS

Sponge bath time!

“You’re complete.  Let’s have a baby!”

I was happy to hear this but also kind of annoyed because, come on, I feel like the baby is about to slide out of me, of course I am complete and WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN CRAZY DIANNE THE MIDWIFE?

Anyway, at this point I was completely numb and could just barely feel when I was having a contraction but they wanted to do a practice push right away.  I could feel a tiny bit on my right side when the contraction started so I went with that feeling and the nurse felt my abdomen to see when I was contracting.  I tried pushing and everybody looked at me like, “really? that’s all you got?”  The nurse looks at me and says, “bear down like you are pooping” so I tried again.  She said it was a little better and I said I was worried I was actually pooping.  The nurse told me that everybody poops while delivering so just go!  I laughed and the next contraction I apparently pushed much better.

Well, what I did not know at this point was that the baby had not been tolerating the contractions since my water broke. Probably because it happened quickly and she dropped down too fast.  So everybody was getting really excited about my pushing and trying to get me to do this as quickly as possible.  Between contractions they made me lie on my side so I started to get the sense that something was wrong but I wasn’t really worried.  I actually felt very calm and I knew everything was going to be ok.  They also gave me oxygen at this point to help.  I continued to push with the contractions and they all said I was doing great but there were some murmurs of an episiotomy to get her out faster.  Then all of the sudden a doctor came in and said that I was pushing great but for a first baby it can take a couple hours to push out a baby and they did not think she had that much time.  I was so scared she was going to say c-section but instead she mentioned the vacuum.  I didn’t think that sounded so much better but I looked at Frenchie and he said “let’s do it”.  We were both expecting that I would be pushing for a while so it was strange to know that she was now going to be out in a matter of minutes!

While they were setting up for the vacuum I continued to push through contractions and at one point they told Frenchie to look down and see her head.  He did and said he saw hair!  He looked so excited and kept yelling at me to push it out because I think we were both hoping I could do it now before the vacuum arrived.  A different doctor arrived and said that she was going to be doing the vacuum extraction and she was sorry she hadn’t been around before.  I had no idea what she was talking about but just got ready to go.

All of the sudden there were like 15 people in the room because they have to call the pediatrician’s for a vacuum procedure and then a bunch of nurses came in, maybe because they were bored.   They told me that I would not be able to hold her right away because the pediatrician’s had to check her out.  That is when I realized I still had my bra on and I needed to get it off because I wanted to do skin to skin as soon as possible.  The nurse sort of laughed at me and said maybe we should worry about your bra later.

The doctor then put the vacuum in place and during the next contraction told me to push.  I pushed once and her head slipped out right away.  Frenchie said it was very smooth!  I pushed one more time and her body came out.  The doctor stuck her right on my belly and said, “hold your baby.”  I grabbed onto the slippery little girl and started crying.  She was already screaming.  The doctor cut the cord and then they had to hand her off to the pediatrician’s to get checked out.  Luckily somebody asked if dad wanted to get a camera because we had totally forgotten about taking pictures!  They checked her out and she looked great.  She got a 8 and 9 on her APGAR.  The midwife said it was the smoothest vacuum procedure she had ever seen.  The doctor came over to talk to me and I asked her what her name was and she said Dr. Barren, which I thought was sort of hilarious.  She was born at 5:07 AM on March 20, 2011.

They brought in the scale and told Frenchie to get the camera ready.  They told him that it would first measure in grams so not to be alarmed.  He said, “that’s ok.  Grams are my unit.”  The midwife thought this was the best thing she had heard all night.  They were all cracking up!  She was 2700 grams, or 5 lbs, 15 oz.  A little peanut!  I finally got to hold her and sort of did some skin to skin which is all the rage.  After they finished stitching me up and doing whatever it is they do “down there” I got to try breastfeeding which worked pretty well.  The shift was changing at 7 AM so they decided not to transfer us to recovery until the new shift came in.  Well that ended up being quite a long wait!  Frenchie started pacing the room telling me how tired and hungry  he was.  I was like, “you are tired??”  Anyway, finally a Rosie O’Donnell look alike came and took us upstairs to our recovery room where we ordered everything off the cafeteria menu.  That egg sandwich tasted so good even though it was a nasty cafeteria bagel and egg sandwich.  Nothing stops my hunger.

We had the baby at the Brigham and Woman’s Hospital and even with the few annoyances of the day (mostly waiting around) I thought the care was amazing.  I have never been in the hospital before and I was so impressed with the nurses.  They have a really hard job and I personally would never want to do it but I felt so lucky that I had such great care.  They really seemed to care and listen to all of our stupid questions and made sure I was not in any pain.  Well, as much as they could.

So that is the story as I remember it.  Frenchie’s impression is probably a little different but either way, we were really happy with how everything worked out.