Happy Birthday Oliver!

I remember being in the hospital and marveling at how I could report Oliver's age in hours, and then felt sad as the days ticked by and I was soon referring to how old he was in weeks. Well, weeks turned into months and now here I am, one year from the day Oliver came into our lives. I watched a neighbor cradle her tiny, sleeping three-week-old against her chest and I started to say, I remember when Oliver was that little, but stopped, because I realized that I can't actually remember him ever being that small. Now I'm the parent saying, "They grow up so quickly, don't they?"

Raising a baby has proven to be simultaneously the most humbling and joyful experience in my life. No parenting books or warnings from seasoned friends could have prepared me for what it would be like to be up at all hours of the night for weeks on end, to feel my blood pressure rise with each wail, to question every decision I make about Oliver, to second- and third- and fourth-guess those decisions, or to worry until my heart aches.

And yet I can't imagine life without my little boy. The baby whose happiness is my happiness. Who flashes a huge toothless smile at the sight of me. Who loves no one more in the world than his mom or dad. Whose his own person with his own personality, thoughts and desires. And whose toys scattered around the house, fleet of strollers cluttering our front porch and the debris zone left at meal times remind me that my life has forever changed. But for the better.

We're throwing a party for Oliver to celebrate his first birthday. Sure he doesn't understand the concept of birthdays or that we're gathering to celebrate him, so I'll admit that the party is just as much for Chris and me. Because what we're also celebrating is that we made it our first year as parents. And like the past year, we expect the next twelve months to be everything, yet nothing we expected.

Dinner is Served

Although I enjoy cooking, it's become a chore since Oliver was born and dinner time isn't a time for relaxation anymore, but rather is usually a stress point. The baby is cranky, I'm cranky, we're all hungry and I'm frustrated with myself both because I'm still not able to pull a simple dinner together despite being home all day and because I can't ignore these self-imposed unrealistic expectations. I have a few meals I can make quickly and without a recipe - about the only food I can muster the energy to make these days - but I grew bored of those long ago. So when the e-mail from a friend went out asking who would be interested in doing a monthly meal exchange, I almost responded in all capital letters I was that 100% ON BOARD, SIGN ME UP, WHEN DO WE START? Hallelujah, the meal exchange was going to be the answer to my prayers. When one friend responded with, "So I'm NOT the only one who's a mess when it comes to dinner time?" I realized I'm not the only one either.

The nine of us who make up the new meal exchange club met in a new parents group at a local hospital and we keep seeing each other at soup swaps one or another hosts. It is at these swaps that we bring six quarts of soup and then go home with six different quarts of soup, all bound to taste better than our own creations just because someone other than ourselves made it. I can only imagine that during the hiatus of soup swaps during the busy, and hot, summer months, many of us in this newly formed meal exchange group had drawn a blank on what to serve for dinner, had stared into an empty freezer and had wondered how six quarts of soup could have gone so quickly.

The meal exchange club doesn't officially kick off until October, but the organizer threw the option out there to do an abbreviated swap with anyone who could cook seven, four-person meals with a week's notice. It was a lot of work to multiply a recipe by SEVEN, (makes me nervous about next month when everyone will be participating and I'll need to make the same recipe nine times over) but I reminded myself what a couple of hours of work would yield. I peeled 11 pounds of butternut squash, chopped four heads of cauliflower, diced seven onions, rinsed six cans of chickpeas, poured lemon juice by the cup instead of the teaspoon and spilled tiny granules of cous cous all over my kitchen as I tried to pour carefully measured cups of cous cous into Ziploc bags. A large bag of curry from bulk spices section of the grocery store went along with everything else into the largest pot we own, the stock pot Chris bought for his home brewing. Since I split a lot of the preparation over two days, the pot had to go into the refrigerator, which required me to remove a shelf so it would fit. Once I was finished cooking, the pot's contents had cooled and my kitchen had fully embraced the pungent aroma of curry, I laid seven one-gallon Ziploc bags upright on the floor of my kitchen, carefully ladled an equal portion into each bag, sealed them and laid them flat on a shelf in the freezer to freeze into a thick sheet of curry.

We trooped into our friend's house last night carting babies and boxes or large canvas tote bags full of instant dinners for the weeks ahead. We spread out on the table hotdishes, the main components for a beans and rice dinner, a stew and vacuum-packed pizzas. We repacked one of each meal in our containers, stuck around to socialize some and then headed home.

This morning I debated what I should make for dinner tonight. If I have the time, should I try to come up with something fresh and original or should I already break into my stash of homemade frozen dinners? You can probably guess what the answer is. That's what they're there for, right? With my freezer now stuffed with dinners and soups acquired at the first soup swap of the fall season, I grabbed the most accessible dinner, a vegetarian tator tot hotdish. Add bread and a salad, and voila, dinner is served.

Happy Anniversary

Happy anniversary and birthday to the man who gave me Oliver. I was eight months pregnant when we spent our first anniversary writing an offer on what would become our new home in St. Paul, and I thought our lives had changed so much since our wedding day the year before. Fast forward another year and our life a year ago feels almost unrecognizable. I look forward to anniversary number three, when I hope Chris and I will look back and marvel in all that had transpired. Until then, we can only wonder what the future will bring.

Free-range food

Last week Oliver and I were out in the garden picking tomatoes for dinner that night, and when we finished, I set Oliver and the tomatoes on the deck so I could weed and water the garden. Oliver enjoys being outside and I let him do his own thing. When I went to collect him to go inside to start dinner, I was shocked to find him covered in tomato juice and seeds - he'd noshed on every tomato I had picked! Oliver loves tomatoes, but it didn't occur to me that he'd try to eat one I hadn't sliced and handed to him. Since he doesn't have any teeth, he didn't do too much damage (other than making a mess of his clothes) and I was able to cut off the sections he'd bitten into and use the unmarred pieces.

So yesterday when Oliver and I went apple picking yesterday with a friend and her 13-month-old, I was prepared to give Oliver free range. It was a gorgeous day with a hint of crisp fall air and the orchard was littered with recently-fallen apples and branches hanging at baby level. My friend and I moved from tree to tree trying to find room for just one more apples in our bags, and the boys crawled around in the grass and tried tasting every apple they could get their hands on. Us moms left with 20+ pounds of apples between the two of us and the boys with bellies full of sweet Minnesota grown apples.

Oliver update: 11 months

With little hair and no teeth, those characteristics about Oliver haven't changed since birth. I've gotten so many extra months of preserved babyhood with his bald head and gummy smile that I think I'm going to be sad when he actually sprouts teeth and hair.

Whereas Oliver is retaining his youthful good looks, he's racing towards toddlerhood by learning to crawl. He learned how to pull himself up into a sitting position only about three weeks ago, but that small milestone seemed to improve his mood, because he had control in whether he wanted to be lying down or sitting upright. Now that he's crawling, he's able to catch up with his baby friends. I can't believe how being able to crawl (and eventually stand and walk) opens up a new world for a baby. Oliver has bursts of giddy excitement about being able to move about more easily. He doesn't get upset about being left behind in another room, because he can now follow us. If I leave him in the living room to play with his toys and go into the kitchen, I'll look up to eventually see a slow-crawling baby lumbering around the corner. He still doesn't do a traditional crawl on all fours, but rather gets his hands and one leg moving, and the other leg does a crab walk. As soon as Oliver picked up any sort of speed, he slowed himself down again by trying to figure out how to carry his toys and crawl at the same time. Just like a dog, he's learned that he can carry smaller toys with his mouth!

Most mornings now when I go into Oliver's room, I find him standing in his crib, and he's quite proud of himself. He's still learning how to pull himself up in other situations. I was sitting on the couch the other day and I've never seem Oliver so determined to pull himself up, not just into a standing position, but try to pull himself all the way onto the couch to be with Mommy.

Oliver's independence has grown. The women in my moms groups were really helpful with strategies on how to deal with Oliver's separation anxiety, and between their suggestions (and help on putting it in perspective) and maturity, Oliver is more comfortable spending time with people other than mom and dad. He can also play for longer periods by himself and is comfortable playing with other kids. His two main fascinations seem to be our neighbor's cat and doors. He's drawn to any door left ajar and he enjoys opening and closing it. Simple pleasures in life, right?

With our last container of formula about finished, I'm transitioning Oliver to cow's milk and am considering giving up breastfeeding all together when he turns one. Calling it quits with breastfeeding is both a sad and liberating notion, but I think liberation will eventually win out. But it's clear he's leaving babyhood as he nurses for mere minutes and prefers to be back on the floor playing than being cuddled.

I'm hoping that by next month I can report that Oliver is taking his first steps. While he isn't content to sit on my lap anymore, he does enjoy having me cart him around on my hip. I'm still able to carry him without throwing out my back, but I have noticed that hoisting him above my head, swinging him in the air - all the horse play he loves - is becoming a little more difficult. When he started standing up in his crib, we lowered his mattress to the lowest level and now instead of laying him gently onto his mattress, I can't reach over the rails and back down to the mattress, so I kind of drop him the last two or three inches with a gentle thud.