Tastes Like Chicken

I'm a blight on the pristine face of Southern Hospitality.  No really.  It's true.

This past weekend, while meal planning on Pinterest, I came across this delicious looking recipe for chicken noodle soup.  It's Paula Deen's.  I like Paula.  I admire all that she's accomplished and the few recipes I've had enough butter to try to make were very enjoyable.  I don't even mind the whole spokesperson for Type 2 Diabetes thing.  It's not exactly like she claimed to be a nutritionist.  And I don't think Ms. Deen (no offense ma'am) glamorizes the disease.  How glamorous can an overweight woman in her 60s with large gray hair be?  Fabulous, yes.  Glamorous, hardly.  She writes cookbooks and hosts cooking shows.  And I don't think many people would deny that bacon does make everything better.

Ok, back to the chicken soup.  It calls for a whole chicken, a "roaster".  I've never purchased a whole chicken and could only find a "fryer."  I sure hope that's good enough.  The bird is supposed to be cut into pieces and cooked in onions and herbs to make homemade stock for the base of the soup.  I'm not unaware of the things that make me squeamish, so I had Jonathan hack the poor thing up last night.  I thought that would be good enough.  Through a well-practiced series of maneuvers with tongs, ladles, and kitchen shears I've developed over the years, I'd never actually have to touch the raw chicken.  Check.  My little buddy has now been stewed in herbs and all I have to do is pick it clean once it cools.

I start in on the process feeling pretty proud of myself for what I am about to accomplish.  Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup.  The realization that my husband's coworkers will be jealous of his lunch swell my ego.  But only a minute into the process, the "squish" noises, goopy/stretchy boiled skin, and crunching of bones band together to chip away at my confidence, I lose it.  Completely.  There is lots of gagging and even a stupid little dance.  (You know, the one you do when a spider crawls across the bathroom floor.)  I'm sweating.  Not because the task is physically taxing, but because I am that. freaked. out.  I finish the job and wash the horrible greasy mess off my hands.

The soup is currently on the stove top.  It smells amazing but I am not sure I can eat it.  Even if it is the best chicken noodle soup recipe on the face of this earth, I will not be picking a chicken clean to make it again.  Southern women will just have to kick me out of the club if that's what it takes.

I got this. Oh, never mind.

Jamie and I got the rare opportunity to spend two hours on Sunday doing girl stuff.  She picked me up for a our date and I helped her pick out "real" makeup (as in, department store counter stuff).  We managed to hardly talk about our children at all, which is quite an accomplishment for mothers of toddlers.  But we did talk about how hard it is not to have control over your own life like before parenthood, even as your child gets easier.  I mean, Dane's pretty predictable now.  He eats really well and sleeps 11 hours straight every night.  Oh, wait.  That was last week.  Damn.

I mean, really, Dane?  I swear it's like he bugs our room and when he hears us say how well the new parenting trick we tried worked out and all the wonderful reasons (that we attribute to ourselves, of course) why our child eats such a well-rounded diet, he laughs (muahahaha) and plots to bring us down from our high horse.  It's been three days since Dane ate dinner.  It's also been three days since he slept for more than two hours at a time.  Is there a newborn in my house?  Because I can't remember feeling like I knew less about parenting since there was a three-week old living in the pack-n-play in my room.  I don't know whether to start from the basics and sleep train his grumpy little butt again or if there's a more concerning issue at the root and I need to take him to the pediatrician.  There really is nothing like having a child to remind you how little you know.

What Almost Wasn't

Tonight when Dane was letting me rock him to sleep, I thought back to the days when we found out that having a child wasn't going to be as easy as we had hoped.  See, Jonathan and I are in the minority of infertile couples in that we found out before we ever started trying to conceive that it was going to take a miracle.  We had a small suspicion, had some testing done, and what we feared was true.

In the months prior, we had picked out names (one boy name and one girl name) for our hypothetical child.  It was so much fun imaging what he or she might be like, and I (not so secretly) wished he or she would have brown eyes.  What can I say?  I am a sucker  for some brown eyes.

We were sad enough on the day we learned our test results, but a few days later, when we recalled the names we had picked out, it made it all the more real.  The names made our "child" a real person, and so the wound was fresh again.

When I was smelling Dane's hair tonight as he snored on my lap, I thought "wow, if I had only known that this  would be the child we were missing out on..."  I'm not sure I could have functioned with that grief.

We are so blessed to have been given the chance to experience infertility.  I say that in all seriousness.  I don't wish it on anyone, but infertility has brought me wonderful friends, infertility has taught me how to hope, and infertility has made me stronger.  Granted, I say this as someone who is on the other side of the fight now.  I didn't feel this way three years ago, and I don't expect everyone who goes through it (even those who are as lucky as us and have a child) to have the same opinion.  But in this moment, I'm grateful for...well, for being grateful.

And if you're wondering, yes, "Dane" was the boy name we picked out over three and a half years before he joined us!

Forget Preggo Brain. Mommy Brain is terminal.

When I was pregnant, I did and said lots of really dumb things.  This is the one I remember best.  Jonathan was cooking meatloaf for dinner and I was sitting my happy pregnant butt on the sofa watching Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Meals.  Jonathan walked in the living room, looked at the tv, and said "wow, what's she making?  It looks delicious."  I quickly answered "I don't know but it smells like meatloaf!"  I was not kidding.  I immediately realized that no, we do not have smell-o-vision.  Of course I felt like a big doofus and was thankful that Jonathan was the only one who saw it.  When they witnessed my extra-special behavior, other women told me, "oh, pregnancy brain is the worst!"  I held on to the belief that it would get better after Dane was born.  Hilarious.

What no one tells you (or at least what no one told me) was that yes, pregnancy brain does go away, but it is replaced by a much more serious problem:  mommy brain.  I've heard several theories on why mommy brain exists:

1. Sleep Deprivation - I think this is pretty self-explanatory.  
2. Stay at Home Mommy/Parent syndrome - someone whose job it is (yes, it's a job, I'm not even going to argue that there is any other possibility) to stay at home with an infant or small child every day doesn't get to stretch those intellectual muscles on a daily basis.  The majority of the SAHP's interactions are limited to keeping the toddler from flushing toys down the toilet, trying not to put powdered formula in place of creamer in his/her coffee (yes, Larkin, that one is for you!), and being insanely creative enough to keep everyone occupied and his/herself sane.  This particular theory does not apply to me since I work at least 30 hours a week.  I'm convinced being a SAHP is the hardest job there is, and all of you deserve a ton of respect.
3. Hormonal Changes - Perfectly legit.  I mean, our bodies don't look anything like they used to, even if you weigh the same or less as you did before becoming pregnant.  And there's the fact that finding time to eat healthy and be fit is harder than it was before parenthood.

My favorite theory on mommy brain is what I call focus.  Your priorities suddenly and dramatically shift once you become a parent.  Once upon a time, making sure the house was clean for company was pretty important.  Now I regularly apologize to visitors for the legos and dog hair that litter the floor.  Yes, I am sorry that they're there, but it's not going to change anytime soon and I've learned to be ok with that.  I can recite every medication/dosage that Dane takes and remember every detail from his last pediatrician appointment.  If you ask me to email you my address, I will forget within three minutes of you telling me.  I find it unbelievably hard to focus on anything but my child.  Lunch date with the girls?  All we talk about is our children.  Dinner and a movie with the hubby?  Discussions on what new food to introduce Dane to next.  I have no idea if this will get better as Dane gains more independence.  I guess I'll tell you in another five years.

The worst thing about mommy brain?  You keep forgetting you have it!  You actually think you can still function like a normal human being.  WRONG.  Case in point:  I made a pound cake several months ago that I had made about four times in the previous few weeks.  I knew the recipe by heart, so I surveyed my pantry for the necessary ingredients and went to the store to pick up the ones I didn't have.  I get home and realize I didn't buy almond extract.  I leave the cake batter in the mixer, run to the store, get back home and finish the batter.  I go to pour the batter into the pan and realize I don't have a bundt pan.  I go back to the store, buy a bundt pan, wash and dry it, then see the bundt pan that we've had for six years staring back at me.  Why did I rely on my jacked-up memory to make a cake?  I have a smart phone.  I could have easily looked up the ingredients while I was in the store.  But that's just it.  You forget that you're forgetful.

By the way, I'm writing this blog as unfinished cake batter sits in my mixer and my husband is going to get eggs that I sent him after.  Yes, I've already been to the grocery store once this morning.  Oops.  Mommy brain strikes again.

Happiness is a Cupcake

Well, not really - but it's certainly unmistakable evidence.  Especially around my house.

About four or five months ago, I took an interest in cooking.  I've always had an interest in food.  Cooking?  Not so much.  Thankfully, I am blessed with Jonathan, who is not only an amazing cook and master of the grill, but he enjoys it. He gets Cooks Illustrated magazine.  It is full of really neat tips and reviews of kitchen tools and ingredients.  But it also happens to be incredibly boring.  I mean, there are no glossy photos of the delicious treats the magazine writes about - just black and white sketches.  And it gets way too scientific for my taste.  But my husband, being an engineer (and nerd), gets really excited when a new issue is in the mailbox.

Now back to my cooking.  I don't really know what happened.  I think it was a combination of several things.  When Dane began to be able to eat "real" food and enjoyed a few of the things I had forced myself to cook, it felt great.  I felt necessary, appreciated, and even a little honored.  Maybe that's how new mothers who are able to breastfeed feel.  (After a torturous 16 days producing a mere 5mL of breastmilk PER DAY, I gave up.  I was devastated.  More on that in another post.)  I knew that by cooking, I was doing something super important for my family, for my child whose brain is rapidly developing.  I began to enjoy planning what to cook and feed the guys and take pride in the whole process.

Then came Pinterest.  There is a daily deluge of deliciousness awaiting me upon login.  (Ahhhh, sorry I got all cheesy, Pinterest brings out the best and worst in me.)  Seriously, Pinterest is food porn.  And because the majority of the pinners I follow are mothers of young children, the recipes are simple and healthful, not to mention beautiful.  Of course there are plenty of muffin-top-inducing sweet treats.  And when I have time and energy to cook those, it's a sure sign that I am feeling my best.  My best pal Jamie got me hooked on Pinterest.  She pestered me for a couple of weeks before I joined.  I have no idea what was keeping me.  If you don't like bandwagons or fancy yourself a "go against the flow" kind of girl, get over yourself and join.  You'll thank me.

Oh, and there's that last component of why I started cooking:  I was finally happy.  For the first time in years, everything seems lined up perfectly.  I'm madly in love with my husband, I'm not in fertility treatments anymore, Dane is well, and I enjoy my job.  No man drama, no egg retrievals, and no more infant reflux.

So yes, in my house, happiness is indeed a cupcake.

First Post!

Original title for this post, right?  I just wanted to let potential readers know what they were in for and unfortunately, I didn't inherit my mother's creative gene.  (She's really amazing at everything she tries.  It's ridiculous.)

In 2006, a close friend married my husband, Jonathan, and I near the Georgia coast.  The wedding was supposed to be at a park, followed by a country club reception, but due to torrential rains the ceremony was moved inside to the reception site.  When I say torrential rains, this is no exaggeration.  I have never and hope to never again see rain like this.  Sideways rain, rain in Biblical proportions.  It was incredible.  We crammed into the lobby of the country club, wedding participants on the landing and guests below us, standing room only.  It was very intimate (even with 100+ guests) and turned out better than anything I could have planned.

The ceremony was a whopping 12 minutes long, just the way we wanted it.  Lucas, aforementioned friend and officiant, was the best person we could have picked for the job.  We gave him a few Bible verses that we wanted and let him run with the rest of it.  One of the things he said that still sticks with me is "I believe that Love came when Love was ready."  So that's why I decided to name this blog "When Love Came."  It's our love story - not just mine and Jonathan's, but Dane's as well.  Just as Jonathan and I had quite the thorny path finding our way to one another, finding our sweet boy through infertility had its share of heartache.  We are so blessed that love did come to us, in so very many ways.  This is our love story.  We're living it every day.