What I Haven't Been Posting About

Yup, we're gonna have another baby at the end of May.
We're all excited about what 2010 will bring in addition to the new addition and hope you have a very happy New Year.

Happy _________________!

We're up in the Adks to celebrate Xmas. Posting might be nil while we gorge on beet soup and Xmas cookies so we hope that y'all have yourself a merry whatever you wanna believe weather it be little babes in the manager or movies and Chinese.

More when we return to the granite state.

A Book Review?!

So I read Lorrie Moore's The Gate at The Stairs and well, of course it was readable because Moore is a great writer, but overall I give the book a B and that's only because I'm feeling generous after slogging through my students' terrible research papers. I have two more, but I'm a tad murderous, which means I should quit while all persons are still living in the house.

Anyway, Moore's book. If you're planning on reading it, you should stop reading this now because there are some minor spoilers. If I had to sum up in one phrase why it didn't work for me I would say that it doesn't gel. It just doesn't come together in any cohesive or particularly riveting way. It's about a 20 year old college student in Wisconsin who goes to work for an eccentric woman (the husband is pretty secondary) when she adopts a half-black toddler. It's also about Tassie's brother and parents, race relations, college life, terrorists, 9/11, and the bass guitar. And potatoes.

Maybe Moore's point was to take all these seemingly disparate things and loosely connect them because life tends to be more loose connections that well gelled pieces of the puzzle, but I wanted to be lost in the plot, it's a novel for goodness sake. Instead of feeling lost though, I felt distant.

Like, Tassie, the main character, is all involved with Mary-Emma, the adopted toddler, and then SOMETHING HORRIBLE HAPPENS, and she's no longer in Mary-Emma's life and Mary-Emma isn't mentioned again for more than 50 pages. I think that's weird. Maybe it's the mama in me, but wouldn't Tassie think about this poor 2 year old? Also, it bugged me that the toddler was so perfect. I just don't buy that someone whose been in foster care would so quickly and happily adapt. I hope I'm wrong, but most two-year olds who live in stable environments from day 1 have issues and tantrums and meltdowns in large public gatherings. It bugged me that Mary-Emma never did any of these things.

Also, Tassie plays the bass so every 30-50 fifty pages she whips it out and there's a paragraph about what she's playing, but it just didn't feel real to me. It felt like Moore giving her CHARACTER SOMETHING TO DO. Inorganic I guess is the word.
Oh, and there are pages of dialogue chunks about race and kids and I found it so boring! And finding Moore boring is so sad.

So yeah. Those are my quickie little thoughts. Ms. Kakutani felt quite different though.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY J-DOG!

It's a wintry day in NH. I have no idea what it's like in NYC, but I hope it's spectacular for one Mr. Unkie Speklunky Brobly!
Happy 41, Little Bro!

Although we are sort of trapped here because of the storm, today is a much better day than yesterday. At 5:30 yesterday morning, N said he needed me to help getting Miss Bean. I was a bit snippy since I was trying to ignore her and go back to sleep. Then N explained that he'd been up since 3AM vomiting, etc. I felt bad for him and got up, got Miss Bean changed and went downstairs to get her some water. I was thinking about N being sick, which made me think about last night's dinner when WHAM. I puked too.

At first I thought I had just puked because I can be sensitive to suggestion, but as the day wore on it was clear that I too had "The Bug." Since N was run over by a truck and I was merely run over by a Vespa I was in charge of the kid. I took Miss Bean with me to school because I wanted to be there to answer my students research paper questions. I probably should have just cancelled the class because less than half of them were there. I guess it was good for The Bean to get out and I was able to help N by moving his students photos out of his office.

N was a sickly shade of geen-gray when we returned. My issue was I'd vomit, feel great for about 30 minutes, and then get a slightly annoying stomach ache for 1-2 hours before it'd come to a head and I'd vomit again. Fun times.

Figures that Miss Bean would only nap 45 minutes on the day I needed a 2 hour miracle.

Although I was able to drive, I figured I shouldn't risk it so we spent hours in the house. I don't know what we did but at one point I had to hide this children's cook book that she likes (what could be better than pictures of babies and food!) because I just couldn't look at it without gagging and by the end of the day our carpet was covered in a 3-inch layer of crackers. Around 3:30 she started to get a little nutty so I took her to the daycare at the gym while I went and closed my eyes in the car. It was a good move, for her at least, because she was much cheerier when I picked her up an hour later.

So we made it through. She was in bed by 6:20 and I passed out from 6:30-7:00, but after that I gathered the strength to eat some Saltines with N and watch some TV. N and I have never been sick at the same time, but at least it was a quick bug and I was able to parent.

Being sick does make you appreciate being healthy. Hope you're all feeling well these days. Except for J-dog. He should be good and drunk by noon.

December!

Hard to believe it, no? Our travels were successful. The Bean had 72 hours of non-stop fun and excitement chilling with her granny, grampy, unkie, the great aunties, her very cool 3 year old 2nd cousin, and loads of other relatives. She did well with the car time and spoiled us by sleeping in past 6! every morning. One morning she even slept till 6:45! I think it was because the rooms were so dark because she was back to her fairly normally 5:45 wake up here in NH by Monday morn.

I did okay giving her multiple car naps. The one "disaster" of the trip was when the restaurant in Newport forgot to put in our dinner order so we had to contend with an over-tired, very hungry Bean. It was a good lesson to always have food stowed away. It's nice that, with the exception of having kilos of Cheerios, bunny crackers, and raisins for snacks, The Bean can pretty much eat where and what we eat. I was very happy that I had a banana to supplement her dinner on Saturday night though. Without that "nana" things might have been even crazier than a naked toddler spinning in circles in the hotel room.

Personally, I feel like a cow. There's too much food at Thanksgiving. I wouldn't want to give any of it up, but it is pretty insane to have 35 sides, right? My potatoes were a success and as far as I know no one died eating them.

Now we're back in the swing of things. I made a butternut squash soup last night. It got much better when I took my honey's suggestion and added heavy cream and hot sauce, but it was no black bean deliciousness. I have conferences with my students about their research papers this week. It's hard to believe that next week is the last week of classes. I've really enjoyed teaching this past semester. I like the students and it's so nice to do something non-mama related for a few hours. I got a really good evaluation, but I most likely won't be teaching in the spring because they don't offer that many comp classes. The plan now is to have our amazing babysitter come twice a week (instead of once) so I can go off and write, write, edit, write. I'd like to have a send-out worthy version of my YA done by late spring and also write a short story. I used to only write short stories, but I haven't written one in about 2! years. Sending stuff of to mags might also be a good use of my non-mama time.

I'm currently reading Commencement by J. Courtney Smith. It's from the library and it's not that great, but also light enough and decently written enough that I'm going to finish it. Not sure I'd recommend it although I still have 100+ pages to go. I'm not sure why it got so much attention over the summer.

Next up is Lorrie Moore's The Gate at the Stairs and Dave Egger's Zeitoun. I do love books and being into a novel even if it's not life changing.

To top off this extra long postie, here's a pic of The Bean and her granny holding hands on the cliff walk in Newport!

Mmmmmmm!

That's what The Bean says when she's eating something particularly tasty. Like mom's homemade split pea soup or soup from Price Chopper or no nitrate Chicken dogs. It's actually really nice to hear her enthusiasm especially if it is something I made. I rarely get the mmmm's from N.

I'm hoping that the mashed potatoes I just made get some mmmm's from The Bean. If the fat content doesn't kill ya, they're pretty darn good. The secret I learned last year is avoiding Russets like the plague. It's all about the Yukons, baby. They're so much easier to mash---in fact I think I might have overdone it and whipped them. Oh well. What's not to love about butter, sour cream, and the top secret ingredient?

We'll heading down to Boston tomorrow and then over to Newport for some chowder on Sat. I'm looking forward to it and forcing myself to be zen about naps. She'll sleep when she's tired, right?

Anyway, posting will probably be nil till we come back so enjoy your turkey and your family. Come on, it's family.

Other Days

So yesterday The Bean woke up crying at 4:00 AM. It's the teeth thing so we pumped her with Motrin but she didn't fall back asleep till 5:00. I didn't fall back asleep till 5:45 and then I woke up with a shot at 6:00 because I had to teach. Then, I couldn't find my wallet cuz I'm forever moving it from the diaper bag to my purse to my car. I was all set to go to work without it when N. found it under a cookbook. Then, when I was driving onto the highway, the cap to my water bottle fell off, the bottle flipped out of the holder and I got soaked with freezing water while turning the corner. Of course the Xerox machine was broken by the time I got to school.

Then I had to collect research papers from students and now I have to spend the whole weekend busting my butt to read them so I can return them on Tuesday. I read two yesterday and it took forever! I'm not even grading---I'm just commenting and trying to help them. The papers are worth %25 of the final grade so I feel obligated to take the time. Ugh!

This morning The Bean got up at 5:00 (after waking up at 11:00 PM) and was in a really cranky mood. I know it's not her fault and most of the time she's pretty cheery, but by 7:00 I was begging N to take her with him to work. Things got a little better as the day progressed. We had an early morning play date here, took a short nap, and went out to lunch. Then we had two! friends over in the afternoon. I don't know when our house became play-date central. I'm mostly okay with it although I feel like I was inside too much. Hopefully, I'll be able to take a nice long walk tomorrow before we travel down to Putney, VT to see one of N's friends and her daughter.

Okay, the Internet-free weekend is beginning in like 30 seconds so the next time I'm on here I better only have 3 papers to go!
Happy weekend!

A Good Day

Today was a good day. The Bean slept till 6:00! I taught a good class and The Bean took the elusive two hour nap! Yay!! By the time lunch was had, we didn't have much time till our afternoon play date at Tots and Tea. Things were okay there---Miss Bean ate a lot of sugar (Teddy Grahams and undiluted apple juice) and became a bit of a nutter. But still....some days are so long you just don't know how you're going to survive the seven hours till bedtime. Days like today feel like a small miracle.

Hopefully there'll be more days like today.

What else? I've been on a soup kick. So far I've made chicken no-Nick-Noodle, split pea, and black bean. The black bean has been N's fave thus far. Tonight's dinner was crusty bread, salad, and bean soup and he said it was "restaurant food." The trick to having decent dinners on a regular basis I have finally learned is advance planning. On the weekend we just figure out 2-3 meals we can have for the week. Nothing fancy---we had soup tonight and we're going to have a crock pot dinner tomorrow and probably Thursday we'll have leftovers and maybe takeout on Friday. Just knowing what to have and having the ingredients is most of the battle. I'm loving the soup thing because I can make a vat on the weekend when N is around and not have to think about it when dinner rolls around during the week.

Of course N and The Bean would probably be happy with pizza four nights a week, but that's why the lord made mamas!
Oh, and send your soup suggestions thisaway! What do you think about veggie chowder?

Yay Yankees!

Thanks to the boys in the pinstripes, a certain NH mama doesn't have to the dinner dishes/clean-up for a week!

I wish the games weren't on so late. I could barely make it to the 4th inning for most of them and the parts that I saw were pretty exciting. Also, for the next NPR pledge drive, I'm giving to Vermont Public Radio instead of New Hampshire's. They didn't even announce the series games---they'd only be like in sports, the Celtics won, the Bobcats lost. N said this morning the announcer said something like, "The World Series ended in the Bronx last night. Some said the Yankees won."
Whatever, you sad little Red Sox fans. You're going to miss my $50 pledge. I'm so not going to miss doing the dishes though.

It's November? Already?

Hope y'all had a good Halloween. Miss Bean was a sheep and although she didn't baa once in costume a good time was had by all. Some friends and their son from up in the boonies came down here cuz you know, we're all urban. The rain held off so we got to check out all the kiddies on the green. Later, we took our sleepy sheep to a little get together in our neighborhood. The Bean seemed to enjoy all the festivities. The only time she seemed scared was when she was place directly in front of a giant gorilla. But who wouldn't find that scary?

What is scary is daylight savings being over. The Bean got up at 4:30 this morning. Although this was deemed NOT OKAY by the parental units, it didn't seem to change a damn thing. We're trying to keep her up till 7:00 (her old bedtime was between 6:15-6:30) but it doesn't seem to be working. She's hungry for dinner at 4:30 and ready for bed at 5:30. What to do? What to do!

And, surprise, surprise, here's a photo for ya!


I know he's scary, but don't be afraid of the man in the big hat!