Ode to a Sister

When I was little, my sister, Lauren, woke up because she couldn't hear me breathing in the bed next to her. She ran upstairs to get my parents who hurried me to a hospital. After that she trained herself to sleep to the sound of my breathing so she could always wake up if I was struggling.

This is the earliest example I can think of her saving my bacon, but it most certainly was not the last.

In junior high she knew I was lonely because I was painfully shy. She invited younger siblings of good friends to hang out with us, dialed phone numbers of friends and shoved the phone in my face at the last second so I couldn't chicken out, and often invited me to hang out with her and her friends.

When she moved to college she spent many hours on the phone with me and drove home nearly every weekend to just spend time with me when I needed a friend.

When I moved to Utah State, I spent more time in her apartment than in my own.

She spent more time planning my wedding than I did.

She once made my husband dinner for his birthday because we both had late classes (so did she.)

She watched my baby once a week this semester, even though she was busy with classes, her thesis, and student teaching.

There are so many other examples of how she has looked out for me. Whenever she heard of a problem in my life she did everything she could to fix it,  even at times in our lives when I didn't treat her very well. She would drop everything to help a friend.

Now, she is applying for jobs all over the country and it is breaking my heart. The only other times we've been more than  an hour drive apart is when she served two performing missions to Nauvoo, Illinois. And I, extremely selfishly, didn't like it very much. I like her close to me. This is going to be rough.

Today she graduates with her master’s. She worked so hard. She is passionate about what she does and incredibly good at it. This March she won an award at a conference in her field for the research she did for her master’s thesis. People, she ain't just a pretty face. She's a smarty pants.

But most importantly, she will always, always, be my best friend.

Rookie Mistakes: Baby Edition

While I was pregnant I had repeated dreams that I had my baby, I did something stupid, and my mother called Child Protective Services and ended up raising my baby girl.

Luckily, that hasn't happened. My mother loves me too much. But I've done some stupid things thus far. 

When Squeaky girl was 3 days old we took her to the doctor's office for the first time. Did you know that you have to strip your child completely naked so they can weigh her? Yup, that happens. Do you know what happens when a three day old child feels a cool breeze on her bare behind? Yes, she pees. She pees everywhere, all over the table and her pajamas and her mother's hands. It was the very first time we had taken her anywhere and in my foolishness, I didn't think that I needed an extra outfit for a 15 minute doctor's appointment. Brad arranged her swaddling blanket around her like a toga and we took her home. I took my three day old baby home, in a Logan January, with no more clothing than a Greek Goddess.

She was not impressed. 

In general, we have learned that we need to be careful when there is not a diaper on her behind. There was that time in the first week that she managed to spray so hard she hit the closet door from the changing table.

She thinks she's hilarious. A sneaky one, this girl of mine.

About a month ago we were at church with my family. I stood up carrying Squeaky, Brad grabbed the car seat, and my sister, Lauren, offered to carry the diaper bag for us. She left with the bag and told us she'd meet us at home. That's when we realized there was poop all over Squeaky's back, and we had nothing to fix it. Luckily, my sister Brecklyn was still there and loaned us her two year old's diaper. It may have covered more than her swaddle toga.

We have also recently found out what her kryptonite is.

Wind.


We took her on a picnic and she screamed and screamed and screamed. We spent a half an hour changing her diaper, feeding her, offering her pacifiers, books, blankets, and toys until we realized that all she wanted was to be in her stroller out of the gentle breeze. I guess when you're about 2 feet long it doesn't take much to take your breath away.

Anyway, we are starting to figure things out. Everyone always asks us, "Is she sleeping through the night yet?" To which I always want to answer, "Of course not. She's a baby! Babies are not capable of a full night! They like to remind their parents that they are not actually in control of their lives." But, in reality, she's doing pretty good. Sometimes, she only wakes up once during the whole night! Of course, sometimes she wakes up 10-12 times, but you know. Progress. Mostly progress. Sometimes progress. We hope.

I told Brad before Squeaky was born that I wanted her to sleep in our room for the first four months. After all, that's what my parents always did. It would be easy to get to her for midnight feedings, and I would be able to listen to her breathing. It sounded sweet, idyllic, picturesque.

That is until we realized that she cries, laughs, snores, coughs, hiccups, and makes any noise imaginable in her sleep, (this is why we call her Squeaky) and it is impossible to sleep through. One night when she was about three weeks old, after a particularly amazing 1 1/2 hour of sleep, I got up to feed Amelia, and her bassinet wasn't there. After going through several terrifying scenarios in my head, I found her in her bassinet in the hallway. Brad couldn't take it anymore and had moved her far enough away that we wouldn't hear every grunt and squeak and close enough to hear her cry. It changed our lives. We finally started sleeping for two, three hours at a time. A week later, she was in her own room. Not what we imagined, but it's working.

Well, I guess that's it for now, but I have a feeling there will be many more rookie mistakes to come.

Cooking Log: 20 Minute Chickpea Curry

I was lazy and didn't take pictures or anything but I still wanted to keep track of this recipe I tried. Brad said it was almost as good as Tandoori Oven, which is a great compliment considering how much we both love that place.

I got the recipe here.

What I changed: I cooked up my own garbanzo beans and reduced the red curry paste to 2 T.

What I'll change next time: Even less curry paste next time. Also, it didn't take very long to make so next time I need to make a side of naan!

Tortilla Heaven

I'm willing to do a lot of inconvenient things to save money, but not everything is worth it. For example, I have absolutely no desire to make pasta from scratch. It's already incredibly cheap to buy dry and I rely on it for busy night meals. Though homemade pasta tastes amazing, it's not good enough for me to take the time--and you need equipment. Bleck.

Tortillas on the other hand...

If you know Brad and I very well at all you know that we love Mexican food. Yes, I realize that the way we eat burritos is not authentic, but I still love it. Last summer when I had "morning" sickness I did not do any cooking. Brad had burritos for lunch and dinner pretty much every day and I had...water... Maybe applesauce on a good day. I'm embarrassed to say how many store-bought burritos we could go through in a week. cough...30...cough.

Well, Squeaky Girl is here and I'm feeling good, so I decided to take our regular burritos up a notch and make tortillas from scratch. I am in love. They were so good. Brad raved and raved about them and has asked me a couple times when I will make them again. I'm still buying tortillas (we eat too many of them for me to keep up with the demand), but for an occasional meal, they are well worth the extra effort.

I got this fantastic recipe from here. I am just going to plagiarize and copy their instructions because I thought they were well-written and easy to understand.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ⅓ cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup warm water

Instructions:

1. Combine flour, salt and baking powder in the bowl of a stand mixer. With the dough hook attached mix dry ingredients until well combined. Add oil and water with mixer running at a medium speed. Mix for 1 minute, stopping several timesto scrape the sides of the bowl. After about 1 minute, or when mixture comes together and begins to form a ball, decrease mixing speed to low. Continue to mix for 1 minute or until dough is smooth.
2. Transfer from mixing bowl to a well-floured work surface. Divide dough in half, then in half again. Continue until you have 16 fairly equal portions. Form each piece into a ball and flatten with the palm of your hand as much as possible. If dough is sticky, use a bit more flour. Cover flattened balls of dough with a clean kitchen towel and allow to rest for 15 minutes before proceeding.
3. After rest period, heat a large pan over medium-high heat. Roll each dough piece into a rough circle, about 6-7 inches in diameter, keep work surface and rolling pin lightly floured. Don’t stack uncooked tortillas on top of each other or they will get soggy.
4. When pan is very hot, place one dough circle into pan and allow to cook about 1 minute or until bottom surface has a few pale brown spots. The uncooked surface will begin to show a few little bubbles. If tortilla is browning too fast, reduced heat a bit. If it’s taking longer than a minute to see a few pale golden brown spots on underside of tortillas, increase heat a bit. Flip to other side and cook for about 30 seconds. You want the tortilla to be soft but have a few small pale golden brown spots on surface. Remove from pan with tongs and stack in a covered container or zippered bag till all tortillas are cooked. This will keep them soft and pliable.
5. Wipe out the pan in between tortillas if flour is started to accumulate.
6. Serve warm or allow to cool for later use. When ready to use, place a slightly damp paper towel in the bottom of a container (with a cover) that will hold the stacked tortillas. Microwave, uncovered for 15-25 seconds (start with 15) or until warm, then cover to hold heat while serving.
7. The tortillas will keep well stored in an airtight container or zippered bag at at room temperature for 24 hours or can be frozen indefinitely. To freeze, separate tortillas with parchment paper or waxed paper and place in a zippered bag before placing in freezer.

What I would change:

I wish that I had made them bigger. Next time I think I will double the recipe and still only break them into 16 pieces. 

Remember to:

Roll them out as thin as you can. They puff up in the pan.

What I wish I could change:

Seriously, how do you make tortillas round? How? How? How? I tried so hard. I rolled it out from the center as carefully as possible and it became an artful blob. I traced a circle on the dough and cut it out, then when I picked it up off the counter it stretched out. 

Thai Peanut Sauce and Naan

Every so often when I get sick of my usual meals I go looking for a random recipe (usually on pinterest) and try it. Occasionally the result is wasted ingredients, empty bellies, and leftovers left to mold in the fridge. Rarely the result is an unabashed success. Mostly, it's pretty good but next time I make it I want to change it a little bit. Unfortunately I have usually completely forgotten what I wanted to change when I make it again and it's another night of pretty good food when it could've been great. Which is why I'm now going to blog about my experiments. So I can remember that really all I wanted was another teaspoon of pepper.

Of course I decided this last week and even took pictures while I was cooking and I was going to write about it! And then I remembered, oh yeah. I have a brand new baby. Her wish is my command. By that I mean I usually end up rocking, reading aloud, and breastfeeding and not working on my own to do list. But finally, she is asleep, at least for five minutes, and I can write about what I cooked.

Which brings us to...

ahem...I was waiting for the drumroll...

The recipe for the peanut sauce I got from here.  The sauce was so good. But warning, it was incredibly spicy. Like "please, pass the tissues because I'm losing my baby weight through nasal drainage" spicy. Like probably shouldn't be eating this spicy and breastfeeding spicy. But, I loved it and baby girl didn't seem to complain more than the usual in the next day. The only change I want to make to the sauce is maybe using yellow curry paste instead of red to tone it down a little bit. I also didn't garnish with any peanuts because I didn't have any and I thought it was fine without them.

The Pan-Fried Turmeric Chicken that was on the same website was a dud, however. To me it just tasted like chicken, the turmeric really didn't come through at all. I think next time I would do something different for chicken altogether.

Anyway, back to the sauce.

It was easy.  Easy enough and fast enough to make in the twenty minute breaks Squeaky-girl bestows upon me.

The recipe:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

3/4 cup coconut milk

2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar or to taste

Salt to taste

1. Plop all the ingredients in a pot. Whisk together.
2. Transfer to low heat and whisk until combined.
3. Once the sauce begins to bubble, remove from heat and it's ready to go!

This was good served over some chicken and naan, but I had it for several lunches just with rice and it was great. I really only needed about a tablespoon of it to flavor my rice. I think next time I make it I want to try it with a different color of curry paste to see if it's a more manageable level of spice, but I like it this way as well.

And for the naan:

I got the recipe from my most favorite cookbook . I have never had an absolute failure from this cookbook. It's just basic and reliable.

Ingredients:

3 cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup milk, slightly warmed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Approx. 1/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoons melted butter

1. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Mix warm milk and oil and then stir into dry ingredients. Add the water, 2 tablespoons at a time, until the dough forms a fairly stiff ball. If it's a little dry, add a little more water, if a little sticky, add just a little bit of flour.

2. Knead dough for 2-3 minutes, until smooth and workable. Brush dough with melted butter, cover, and leave for 30 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 450. Place pizza stone in oven to heat. (I wish I had a pizza stone but I just used a cookie sheet.)

4. Divide dough into 4 equal balls. Brush with butter, cover and leave for another 20-30 minutes.

5. Take one piece of dough, roll into 8 inch circular-ish shape, 1/4 inch thick, on lightly floured surface. Repeat with other three pieces of dough.

6. Place dough on hot pizza stone, bake 3-4 minutes (until brown spots form), flip, and bake 7-8 minutes. Remove bread, and brush with butter.

7. Wrap cooked naan in foil to keep warm, cut each piece in half to serve.

My first naan was a little more stiff than I would have liked so I didn't roll it quite as thin and din't cook it quite as long.

Maybe Godzilla Was Just Pregnant, or the Birth Story of My Sweet Squeaky Baby, Part II

Note: I've decided not to share my baby's name on this blog because it is public. If you're one of my facebook friends, you can check my facebook page for her name.

Jumping right back in to my tale from part I:

At 8 the nurse came in and started getting things ready which woke Brad up.

"Hey Brad, we're going to push now," I told him, with a big smile on my face.

"Oh, baby time!" He replied while simultaneously rubbing his eyes and jogging to my side.

How foolish we were. I naively, stupidly thought that the hardest part was over. I just thought I needed to muscle through a little bit longer and then I could cuddle my baby. By nine a.m. the nurse and Brad could see that our baby had a head full of hair. I was thrilled that they could already see her head. That meant it couldn't be much longer, right? I was more tired at that moment than I think I have every been before. I had just pulled the first all-nighter of my life, not to mention weeks of poor sleep before that. The day before I had miraculously had a burst of energy and decided to clean our apartment which had resulted in a sparkling kitchen and bathroom and utter exhaustion. I was so tired that I was almost falling asleep between every contraction and could not even speak more than a few words at a time to Brad and the nurse. By ten I had made hardly any more progress, was shivering uncontrollably, and had back pain that the epidural hardly touched.

The nurse finally suggested calling my OB/GYN to use a vacuum. I wanted to be able to say that I didn't need any help, that I could push  on my own. But I knew that I really didn't have much more to give. I just wanted my baby. If possible, I wanted to avoid a C-section and the nasty recovery that comes with it, but other than that I wasn't very picky anymore. I was too tired to be picky.

This is what happens when your mom takes a little bit too long pushing. Poor baby. Luckily, her head was pretty much back to normal by the next day.

Unfortunately, the vacuum was only minimally helpful. Because baby girl had so much hair, the vacuum kept losing the suction about halfway through the push. After six contractions with the vacuum, they told me that a C-section was looking likely, but I could keep pushing for a little while if I wanted. I kept going. About every ten minutes the doctor would say, "If you don't make enough progress with this contraction, we'll have to go to a C-section." So I focused as much as I could to use what little strength I had and each time I made just enough progress.

A close-up of baby's hair.

At 10:45, the doctor told me I had 15-20 minutes left. At about this time, the nurse thought she saw a dark tinge to the fluid so decided to call NICU just in case the baby aspirated any meconium. A little after eleven, I started hyperventilating and got an oxygen mask. Around 11:20, I asked Brad to call my mom. If there is one thing that being a mother has taught me, it is that I need my mom way more than I thought I did. The moment I saw my mom walk through the door, I first felt a rush of relief and tears. My second thought was how amazing it is that my mom's hair and makeup is pretty much always perfect.

My mom's presence was the final push I needed (no pun intended) and twenty minutes later, baby's head was finally through. The doctor asked me if I wanted to feel her hair, so I reached down to touch my baby for the very first time. I was so amazed by how long her hair was, I burst out laughing which forced the rest of her body out. I'm glad I have that funny memory because the next few moments were the worst of my entire life. Baby had swallowed 3 ml of meconium and was totally unresponsive. She was rushed to the other side of the room so they could get her breathing. It was probably only seconds, but it felt like eternity. I couldn't even speak, I just shoved Brad away from me. I wanted her to have one parent with her, even if I couldn't get up. My mom stayed with me, squeezing my hand and stroking my hair while we watched and waited for her to cry. And waited, and waited, and waited. I have never prayed so hard in my entire life. When I finally heard her start squawking, I wanted to cheer but I was overcome. I just sobbed silently.

Congratulations! You've given birth to a pale, wrinkly old man!

Brad carried her over to me and laid her on my chest. My mom took a few pictures of our first few moments as a family and then quietly slipped out to give us some time together.

This and most of the following pictures were taken later by my dad.

Motherhood is simultaneously the hardest, best thing ever done. I think Brad feels the same thing about fatherhood. I feel so blessed to have our daughter. I don't deserve this blessing, but I will spend the rest of my life expressing my gratitude to my Father in Heaven for such a precious gift.

And to finish out, just a few more pictures of our beautiful girl:

This facial expression reminds my mom of me.

This picture was taken because I was feeling a little self-conscious about the state of my hair and makeup but still wanted our first family picture to be taken.

She loves her tongue.

Somehow, no one stopped us from taking her home with us.

The two of us spend a lot of time on this couch.

She allows me about 10 minutes of practice at a time.

Life is just so hard.

And last of all, one happy family.

Maybe Godzilla Was Just Pregnant, or the Birth Story of My Sweet Squeaky Baby, Part I

Warning: This post is about the birth of a human child. Births are gross. If you are queasy or don't necessarily want to hear mention of female body parts like uteruses (uteri?), skip this post. The next one will probably only mention cute things about babies.


My mom told me that the purpose of the last couple months of pregnancy was to make you so miserable that you would be willing to do anything to get the baby out of your body. That was definitely true in my case. The last 4 weeks of my pregnancy I had contractions almost every single day. Several times they even became consistently three minutes apart. I couldn't sleep through them and hence was getting little to no sleep at night and I had no energy to do anything at all.

A candid shot that my dad took at a concert that shows some of my discomfort.

Some very simple tasks became incredibly difficult. Things like playing my violin (every time I played on the E string, my bow would hit my belly), reading books to small children (they struggled to get comfortable on my shrinking lap), sweeping the kitchen floor (I had to sit my behind on the floor in order to sweep the pile into the dustpan.)

My nephew finally decided it was just easier to lean his elbow on my stomach rather than leaning back.

 I gave my Senior Recital 7 1/2 months pregnant. I went in to the hospital the day before because I started having contractions for the first time. They told me they were probably caused by stress. Huh. Who would have thought a senior recital and impending motherhood could be so stressful.

Last picture taken of me before getting rid of the bump ten days later. This was the day I ended up driving to the hospital in a blizzard with Brad and my parents because we thought the baby was coming. That story is worth its own blog post. Needless to say, we were all getting sick of false alarms.

At 9:30 p.m. on January 5th, Brad and I were watching a movie when my usual contractions all of a sudden became much, much, much more painful. I pretended to watch the movie while moving between bouncing on an exercise ball, doing gentle yoga stretches, and beating my head against the wall. Brad  obediently fulfilled his duty by stroking my hair and telling me I was beautiful. At this point my contractions were five minutes apart, but I did not want to be sent home from the hospital again. I had decided to wait until they were 2 minutes apart.

At 10:30 I turned off the movie and told Brad it was time to pack our bags. In the time between contractions I would run around grabbing everything I thought we might need (we didn't use half of it) and during the contraction I laid on the bed looking rather unhappy. Now when I say I laid on the bed looking rather unhappy I mean that I crawled around the bed, grabbing whatever was closest, clenching it in two fists, and attempting to tear it apart.

"Hey, you kind of look like Godzilla," Brad said as he packed the camera charger into the diaper bag.

"Poor misunderstood Godzilla," I replied, "Poor thing was probably just pregnant and cranky."

As the contractions got closer and closer together, I was no longer able to run around fetching useless items and had to resort to telling Brad what to do. 

In between contractions: "Hey, this isn't so bad. I think we can stay at the apartment for a few more hours. Did you pack the camera charger?"

During a contraction: "Argh! I need drugs and a hospital and nurses and doctors! Someone help me! Grab that darn camera charger!"

At about 12:30 I had enough and told Brad it was time to go to the hospital, and would he please grab the camera charger? In the car, I called my mom to tell her we were on our way. Well, Brad told her, I mostly just groaned into the phone. When we got to the hospital, I knew I had about 30 seconds before the next contraction started, so I ran in as fast as I could waddle on swollen feet while Brad fetched our bags. We checked in, I tried on the gorgeous gown they had available for the evening, and we waited for the nurse to check my cervix. I had been dilated to 1 cm for about a month so I was praying that these contractions were actually doing something, and I was a 3! Not amazing, but I could take it! They told us to hang out for an hour, when they would check my cervix again to make sure that things were moving along. 

An hour later I was a four and the nurse happily announced that I would not be leaving the hospital without a baby. I was excited because a) I get a baby! b) It meant I could officially be admitted and get pain meds. I had made a goal months before not to ask for an epidural until I was dilated to a 7 so I could move around during most of the labor, but that goal was out the window. Contractions were way worse than I expected. I wanted relief and I wanted it now. Excep, the anesthesiologist had just gone into a C-section. Awesome. I kept focusing on my breathing and bruising Brad's hands while I waited.. When the anesthesiologist came in I treated him like a celebrity. I knew instantly that he was a kindred spirit.

Can I just say that epidurals are amazing? I felt so good afterwards and I started dilating much faster once I had it. I think my body was finally able to relax and do what it needed to do. So grateful for modern medicine. Even though I was finally able to manage the pain, Brad and I both could not sleep. We were like kids on Christmas Eve, except for we were gonna get a real, live baby in the morning and not just a Barbie. At 6 a.m. Brad finally fell asleep and I read a book. At 7, I was checked again and was dilated to a ten! The nurse told me we would wait another hour and then start pushing at 8. I happily texted the mothers (Brad's mom and mine) and thought to myself that I could have a baby by 10:30.

Yeah, no.

Read on to Part II.