Saying Yes

This post was originally written on Thursday, March 27th.

Tonight I took our almost five month old daughter who is named after my husband's deceased brother to the viewing for the niece of a good friend of ours who had just passed away at nine months.  It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.  I stood in a line of a hundred people, just waiting patiently to say a few words to her family and pray in front of her achingly small coffin.  It is almost three years to the day that we did this for Riley, standing in a packed indoor arena for eight hours while people waited to say a kind word and share a memory.

Her name was Issa, which means Jesus in Islam.  She lived only nine months.  She miraculously lived nine months.  She had Trisomy 18.  I never met her.  I have never even met her parents or anyone else in her family except her aunt and uncle, but they have taught me so much about love in the last year.  More than I thought was possible, even after going through the shattering marathon of Riley's death with my husband and his family.

Issa died on the Solemnity of the Annunciation, the day the Angel Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her she is to bear the Son of God.  The day Mary says "Yes."  Yes to being a possibly unwed mother (she didn't know if Joseph would stay with her after learning she was pregnant).  Yes to bearing the Son of God Himself.  The biggest "Yes" in the history of history.  And Issa died on this day.

Don and I were talking about Issa just a few days before she passed, were talking about the Yes her family had said in welcoming her into their lives.  All parents say this Yes, but usually without ever contemplating the exquisite joys and agonies that will follow.  We say Yes, we will welcome this child, without thinking that one day that child may be taken away from us.  That one day they may be called back to God sooner than we would want.  Sooner than was in our plan.  We believe that we will go first, and never have to experience the pain of losing something that we so joyously welcomed into the world.

When our plan and Gods plan do not match up, if our own Yes is ripped form us, the agony is shearing.  It is a limb amputated.  That child is part of our body, our life.  It is not supposed to be removed.  We said Yes, Yes to life.  We didn't know we were saying Yes to that life for as long as we could have it, we didn't know it was conditional.

But Issa's family did.

They knew that saying Yes meant also saying goodbye.  Maybe it would be a few hours, maybe it would be a few weeks, but they were going to have to say goodbye.  That one Yes, that incredible act of love and faith, has had unbelievable echos, as evidenced by the people packed into the small chapel just to pay their respects and say goodbye and share their stories.  As evidenced by these words, written by someone who never even met Issa.  Who doesn't know her parents or her family.

Her uncle once told me a story about an Irish priest who visited with the family, and met Issa for a time.  He called her the rock breaker, a flower in Ireland that takes root in the rockiest of soil.  As the seed grows, it literally breaks the rocks apart to push up toward the sun.  We are the fragile ones, he said.  She is a fucking rock breaker.

That is the miracle of a Yes.  Saying Yes lays us bare to rock breakers.  They seed themselves in our hearts, breaking us open as they push up toward the sun.  Incredibly painful and exquisitely joyful.

Thank you, Sean and Felicia, for your Yes.  Thank you for Issa.  I hope I can meet you soon to tell you in person how she has made love known to me.

Thank you, Matt and Susie, for your Yes.  Thank you for Riley.  I hope the joy that he brought to our world continues to battle the agony of his absence.

Thank you, God, for the miracles of my own Yes.  For Lucy Jane and Susan Riley.  For however long.

One Mom, Two Kids, Twenty Pounds of Stuff, and Zero Patience: A Comedy of Errors

<<Woman hits the car steering wheel with her hand, and swears>>

God damn it!

Mom, I know you’re angry, but it’s just gonna be ok!  You don’t hit things though.  You don’t hit the steering wheel.  You might break it, you know?

I know, honey.  And I want you to know I am not angry at you.  I am angry at myself and the situation.  I think I left the lights on in the car and now the car is dead, and we are going to be late.  Again.

I know, but Mooooom, you don’t have to be angry because it’s just going to be ok.

I know, honey.  Hop on out and we will take the other car.  Let’s go back through the house to the garage.

<<Woman gets out of the car, and opens the rear door.  She grabs her purse, a large diaper bag, and lifts out an infant car seat.  She helps her other daughter down from the car and then holds her hand while slipping/walking on an icy walkway back to a house>>

OK. 9:50. let’s hustle, ok honey?

<<The little girl walks up the steps to the house at a glacial pace while peering into a party favor bag she is holding, the woman following behind her and becoming visibly irritated while struggling to hold the purse, diaper bag and car seat>>

Hustle up Lu, please.  I’m carrying a lot, ok, and my arms are getting sore.  And we are going to be late to church. 

<<They make their way through the house and into the garage in back>>

OK.  OK, here we go.  Hop into your seat and buckle the top buckle please.  I will finish your buckle when I get your sister in.

<<Woman skates around the ice covering the garage floor to put the infant seat into the other side of the car, skates across the back driveway to open the gate, and skates back to the car.  The clock reads 9:56am>>

Lucy.  Lucy why didn’t you buckle your seatbelt?

Well…sometimes I just don’t understand that it’s a little tricky for me.

Were you looking at your princess wand?

Yeeeaaaahhhh. Oh, mama.  I wan’t to sit upstairs when we get there.  Can we do that?  Can we sit upstairs mama?  Can we sit upstairs?  Mama?  Mama?

What?  Oh…yes.  I think we will probably have to sit upstairs because we are going to be late.  But we will see.

<<Woman parks the car.  She unbuckles the sleeping baby, and in the parking lot attempts to wrangle her into a Moby wrap that is wrapped too tightly.  The now awake, freezing, and unhappy baby protests.  Loudly.  She unbuckles her other daughter and, holding the bobbing infant into the wrap, they run across the street and enter the church.  She is not carrying her diaper bag, but she is holding a pacifier in her mouth.>>

Lucy.  Lucy, over here.  Lucy.  LUCY!

<<The woman hisses to her older daughter in a loud whisper as her daughter wanders through a crowd of priests, alter boys and girls, and families whose babies are being baptized that are gathered in the back of the church.  It is very crowded, and the pews are all full.  She wrangles her daughter to the back of the church to try and wait until everyone has processed up the aisle.  However, her daughter starts dancing in the back and singing loudly while the priest starts the mass.  All eyes are on them>>

Lucy, please come here!  Sweetie we are in church, please stand still back here until we can find a seat.

<<Her daughter glares at her, folds her arms over her chest and sinks to the floor against the back wall of the church>>

Mom.  I know.

<<The scene changes.  The mother and her two daughters are seated up in the balcony, and it is now halfway through mass.  Her daughter has just returned from the children’s liturgy, and is sobbing loudly>>

But Moooooooooooom I can’t help it.  I just caaaaaaaaaan’t.  I don’t even understand why we can’t dooooo it!  Puuuhlease let me do it!

Lucy, please come here so I can talk to you.

<<The child backs away from her mother, her eyes wide, looking as if she is afraid of being beaten.  They are seated in the front row of the balcony, so her daughter is drawing the eyes of literally everyone seated there.>>

Lucy.  Please come here love.

<<The child shakes her head no and backs father away, her hands clasped to her chest>>

Lucy.  Please.  Come.  Here.

<<The mother kneels down on the floor, trying to appeal to her daughter, while still rocking back and forth to keep her infant asleep>>

Sit on my lap, sweetie, and we will talk.

I just want to stay until the end I want to STAYYYYYYYYYYY!

We can stay until the end, we can stay until after communion.  But you have to be able to calm down.  Ok?

But sometimes I just caaaaaan’t!!!  I don’t even understand I will try but I can’t control it!!

<<The woman is very purposefully not looking at anyone except her daughter.>>

Come sit in my lap and we will talk and figure this out, ok?

<<More time passes.  The priest begins the Lord ’s Prayer.  The woman remains seated with her infant in the wrap on her chest and her three year old on her lap.  She tried to hold her older daughters hand.  Her older daughter repeatedly pulls her hand away>>

Can you hold my hand for the Lord ’s Prayer?

<<Her daughter glances back and glares at her, while withdrawing her hand once more.  The mother, in a fit of immature anger, removes her older daughter from her lap>>

NOOOOOOOO!  Noooooo please I wan’t to sit on your lap please NOOOOOOO don’t PUSH me OFFFFFF Mama please!

OK, love.  I want you to sit on my lap too.  Can you please hold my hand while we are praying? We are praying this prayer in community.  And now we are going to the peace be with you.

<<The daughter climbs back in her lap, and turns to give her mother a hug and kiss of Peace.  They both give the infant a kiss.  The mother turns to the older couple seated next to her and shakes their hands in peace, but keeps her face blank.  She does not acknowledge their smiles of pity>>

Mama, can I go over and give Owen a hug for the Peace be with you?

No, sweetie.  He is at the other side of the balcony and I can’t see you over there.  And it is over now.

No MOM NO!  I never got to see Owen!   I never got to see him and give him the Peace!  Mom PLEASE PLEASE PLEAAAAASE let me see OWEEEEEENNNNN!!!!

Love, the Peace is over right now.  I can’t walk you over there and it is too far to go by yourself.  We can see Owen after mass.

Nooooooo Mama NOOOOO!  NOOOOOOOO!  You never let me see Owen for the Peace!   PLEASE LET ME GO SEE HIM!!!!

<<The girl is sobbing again, her nose running, and tries to back away from her mother towards her friend at the opposite end of the balcony.  All of the other parishioners are kneeling for the transubstantiation.>>

Lucy.  Please come back here.  We are going to go downstairs for communion and then we can see Owen later, or on Tuesday at school.

Nooooooo!!  I don’t understand WHYYYYYYYY!!!

<<The scene fasts forward again.  The woman and her daughters are in line for communion.  Her older daughter is sobbing, not so quietly.  She is holding her daughters hand, her purse and both of their coats.  They go through the line.  Her daughter shrinks away from the priest as he goes to touch her forehead to bless her.  The woman takes communion.  She takes a larger than normal sip of the communion wine.  As she walks with her sobbing daughter back down the aisle she very purposefully look straight ahead, ignoring several well meaning and sympathetic smiles from various friends and acquaintances.>>

Put on your coat, love.  We have to get home to spend some time with Papa.

But mama we have more things to do in church!  It’s not over!  There are more things to do!!!

No sweetie.  Communion is over and we can leave before prayer just for today.  We need to get home.  We need to spend some time with Papa.

But the juice!!!!  There is more to do in church!!

It’s ok sweetie.  We are not going to have juice and cookies today.  We have lunch waiting already at home.  I already had it in the oven.

<<The woman zips up her daughter’s coat, and draper her own coat over her infant in the wrap.  She gets her keys out of her purse and leads her daughter across the street>>

Mama this is just ruiiiiined!!  There is more to do in church!  Is that our car?

No, sweetie, we parked in the other lot.

Whose car is it?

I don’t really know. 

But we usually park in that lot.

I know, but we didn’t today.  Today we parked in this one here.

But its soooooo faaaaaaaaaar!!!  I’m so cold!!!

<<The girl stops on the sidewalk, shivering>>

Well, if we get to the car then you will be able to warm up.

But I can’t even know that Mom!  Where even is it!?

Hold onto my hand, its right over here.  If you can get into your seat I will put your sister in and then buckle you.  Here let me move this other seat up a little bit to give you more room.

<<The woman goes around to the other side of the car, removes the sleeping infant from the wrap, and attempts to wrangle the now awake, freezing and unhappy baby into the car seat.  The girl in the other car seat starts to sob loudly again>>

Lu, what is it?

My princess waaaaaand!!! Where iiiisssss it?!!

<<The woman goes around to the other side of the car and quickly buckles the car seat before her daughter starts to writhe in existential agony>>

I don’t know, honey.  We can call the church lost and found tomorrow to ask them to look in the balcony for it.

Mooooooooooooommmm but there is more to do in church and its LOST NOW!!  I NEED IT.

<<The woman goes around the car again, slipping once on ice, grabbing the car for support.  She gets into the drivers seat, and turns around 180 degrees to put a pacifier in the crying infants mouth.  She turns around again and starts the car, breathing deeply>>

It’s going to be ok, honey.  We are going to go home.  And spend some time with your Papa.

That Time Lucy Didn’t Know That When People Die We Don’t Eat Them, or How American Girls Dolls Taught My Daughter That Cannibalism Is A Cultural Taboo

In May, while I was engaged in various bridesmaids’ activities in the city of Chicago, weekend off Don was alone and lose in the Windy City with a ten mile run rush of endorphins and his wallet.  A dangerous combination, made even more so by our location in the Watertower Place on Michigan Avenue.  When I returned to the hotel room to change for the rehearsal dinner, I found Don napping and several gigantic American Girl Doll bags crowding the hotel room entryway. 

Little did I know that this frenzy of commerce, followed by my horrified and confused exclamation of “What have you done!?” would lead to some of the most interesting and unexpected conversation that I could ever hope to have with my three year old daughter.

Lucy's Kit Kittredge haircut

Since Kit Kittredge came into our lives that fateful Memorial Day we have decided to focus less on the dolls and their many accessories and outfits, and more on the girl’s stories and their accompanying book series.  So far we have read all of Kits, Kaya’s and Felicities books, and Lucy has decided we will work our way through the rest of the girls chronologically.  It is adorable how she has every girl’s description memorized, and sometimes fashions names for her imaginary friends or playmates from one of the girl’s biographies.  The other day in the car she was having an elaborate imaginary play session with someone named “Spunky Colonia” and after a few minutes it was Don who figured out that she was remembering that phrase from Felicities’ description as a “spunky, sprightly colonial girl.”

So far we have had long talks about homelessness, poverty, the Great Depression, kidnapping, tribal rivalries, tyranny, patriotism, and hoboes.  These are all subjects I never expected to discuss with a three year old, but they came along naturally enough in the framework of the stories we have read so far.

Last night, however, I encountered a new subject while reading the last book in the Felicity series that really took my by surprise: cannibalism.  If you are not familiar with the American Girl’s let me sum something up for you, an observation that was put very succinctly by Don after we had already read a few stories.  American Girl dolls serve a very important function for privileged families.  They provide these families with a framework to teach their privileged daughters about adversity, usually the kind of adversity that these girls will largely be sheltered from their entire lives.  Poverty, depression, hunger, homelessness, imprisonment, death, war, etc.  Each girl lives in a time of change and turmoil, and has to display great strength of character to overcome her situation or problems that arise.

Our current heroine, Felicity, is living in colonial Virginia in 1775, and facing the many changes that our country faced at the dawn of the American Revolution.  Her beloved Grandfather is a loyalist to King George while the rest of the family are Patriots.  At the end of the books, her Grandfather goes out in bad weather to help several people at the jail, becomes ill, and eventually dies.  Now, I expected this to affect Lucy deeply, as she is very sensitive to death.  I expected tears and sadness and a long talk about the nature of life and death.

What I did not expect was this.

Lucy: did they take his bones back to the plantation to bury them?

Me: Yes, they did.  He wanted to be buried at his plantation.

Lucy: oh.  After they ate him?

Me: I’m sorry.  What?

Lucy: They buried his bones after they ate him.

Me: Just one second sweetie.  Let me think about this.  <<pause to gather my incredibly scattered wits>>  Lucy, do you think that we eat people after they die, like we are eating Chubbs?

Lucy: Well, yeah.

Me:  OK, that is understandable.  Let’s talk about that.  Eating other humans is actually called cannibalism, and amongst humans it is considered to be very, very bad.  It’s called a cultural taboo.

Lucy: Taboooooooo.

Me:  Yeah.  So we do eat lots of different animals.

Lucy: YEAH!  We NUM them up!

Me: That’s right.  We eat cows, and pigs, and chickens, and many other things…

Lucy: AND horses!

Me:  Well, actually, in America we don’t really eat horse.  That is considered another kind of taboo because they are companion animals, like dogs and cats.  In other places they eat dogs and cats and horses, but not in America.

Lucy: oh…

Me: And we don’t eat other humans either.  It’s very, very bad.  Some animals eat each other.  For instance, if a shark gets hurt and other sharks are around, they might eat the hurt shark.  But one of the things that separate us from other animals is that we do not eat our dead, we bury them.

Lucy: OK.

In hindsight, it makes sense.  I mean, I was an anthropology major.  I know all about the various cultures that condoned and practiced cannibalism of some form throughout history.  Even now it is not considered a mental illness, and is practiced in extreme circumstances, during wars or famines, though it is then almost always considered a crime.

The point being that the cultural taboo against cannibalism is just that – cultural.  It is passed on through culture, and a culture can either subscribe to it or not.  Children learn a culture through all sorts of avenues: parents, extended family, schools, other children, media, etc.  Most of the time I feel like the question of cannibalism gets addressed without parents even really knowing.  I guess I never really thought it was going to be an actual conversation that I had with my kids, something that I had to spell out and explain. 

But Lucy is the precocious kind, and we have had to have all sorts of conversations with her that we never expected.  The difference between boys and girls conversation came when she was only 21 months!  This past summer we bought a pig at the Steuben County 4-H Fair, had it butchered and processed and have most of it in our basement freezer.  We like knowing where our meat came from, and supporting local kids and their families instead of factory farming corporations when we choose to eat meat.  Lucy actually met Chubs at the fair before we bought him, and she was very excited when we picked up the meat and took it back to the house.  

Chubs

However, the first night we had a pork burger at the house, it was too big for her to finish, and Don started to explain to her how important it was that we don’t waste meat.  He told her that Chubs died so that we could eat him, and we had to respect and honor that by not wasting him.  She looked at him, her eyes filled with tears, her lips trembled and she exclaimed “He died?!  I didn’t want him to die!!  Why did he have to die, Daddy?!”  Well, it seems we had skipped a key step in our explanation process there.  She knew we were buying Chubs to eat.  She knew we took him to the butcher.  She knew he came back from the butcher as many packages wrapped in white paper filled with bacon and chips and sausage.  But she didn’t know that to go from pen to butcher to our freezer he had to die in the process.

The whole Chubs affair (after a heartfelt talk and explanation she continues to enjoy pork products more than any other meat.  If you tell her something came from Chubs, she will devour it) probably contributed to her confusion over cannibalism as well.  We wanted some meat, we bought Chubs, and then we ate him.  Felicity’s grandfather died, so he was already dead, so they probably ate him.  Right?

We finished the Felicity books last night, and tomorrow we hope to go to the library to pick up the Josephina series.  Josephina lives on a ranchero in New Mexico in 1824.  I can’t begin to imagine what conversations this new character will open up.

First Day!

First Day! First Day! First Day!

Yesterday was Lucy’s first day of school.  Well, in true Zimmer fashion, it was everyone else’s second day of school, but Lucy’s first.  Her first day she had missed because we all traveled together to my lovely college roommate’s wedding on Cape Cod (wooooo!  Congratulations Trish and Dan!)  So there we were, the last parents to drop off their child, taking video and shooting pictures of her, teary eyed behind our sunglasses.

"First day!!"

The emotion of the day was somewhat lost in the last minute hustle and preparation, but now as I am writing it I recall the long discernment process that we had leading up to this seemingly careless walk into a brick building at 8am.  Do we send Lucy to preschool this year, or wait another year?  Is she ready?  If so, what school do we send her to?  A parochial school, a public school program, or one of the many Montessori options available?  Is a self directed environment better for her than a more structured program?  Will they teach character strengths and focus on moral development along with ABC’s and 123’s?  If we decide to send her and decide where we should send her, then what schedule do we go with?  Full days, half days, how many days a week?

The options are endless, and even though we were just talking about preschool, each decision seemed to carry the weight of her entire educational career.  We wanted to make smart, informed decisions.  We wanted our decisions to carry the weight of our own educational experiences.  And the weight of these decisions were compounded by the fact that many of our friends here have degrees in education and were wrestling with these decisions concerning children of their own.  We had a group of young professional friends highly educated about education and neurotically analyzing every aspect of each preschool system and its possible implications on growth, development, character, morality, intellect, and future success.

In some respects this is a very exciting and beneficial environment for raising ones child.  In other respects, it is a quagmirey hell of second guessing and too much information.

But, make a decision we did, and I think it will turn out to be the right decision for us and for Lucy.  For preschool.  So 8am came (well, 8:07am) and we walked Lucy into her brand new preschool building (well, Don and I walked, and Lucy bounced) wearing the first day of school outfit she requested (jean skirt, cookie shirt, her friend Pauline’s old play shoes), her tummy full of the first day of school breakfast she had ordered the night before (oatmeal).  Don held out little video camera, capturing the moments, while I held Lucy’s hand through the parking lot.

And Lucy, how did she do?  Were there tears of separation and anxiety?  A long, drawn out goodbye?  Was she nervous about entering the classroom already full of children loudly playing and interacting and joining them on their little gathering mat?

Um, no.

Lucy quickly found her special cubby (there is a picture of a ladybug above it, which starts with an “L” just like “Lucy”) and hung up her backpack.  (Note: Yes, she has a backpack for preschool.  All the kids do.  Yes, I totally overdid it and bought her a purple backpack with a pink horse on it from Pottery Barn and had her name embroidered on it.  Yes it is ridiculous.  What does a preschooler carry in her backpack, you ask?  Well, today it was  a stuffed squirrel, two American Girl doll books (Kaya), a tin of magnetic dolls that we took on our trip, a folded up blanket, some felt sandwich food, two bracelets, a bag of cheerios and dried fruit, her sunglasses, and a fruit and vegetable pouch.  She will not put her backpack on unless it is bulging out of the sides.  Literally.)  She then ran past us into the room, stopped for exactly three seconds to locate her friend C, then ran up to her, grabbed her in an aggressive toddler embrace, and started jumping up and down for the next 90 seconds.  Her teacher called her back to the front of the room to put her ladybug popsicle stick into the “here at school today” cup, and Lucy immediately ran back to the circle of children.

Parents?  What parents?

Don and I glanced at each other and at the teacher.  That was it?  No hugs?  No goodbyes?  Should we just leave since she is so happy?  Should we force her to say goodbye to us to acknowledge the magnitude of our own emotions?  Finally, her teacher saved us.

“Lucy, would you like to say goodbye to your mom and dad before we begin?”

Lucy pranced over (literally) and we each had barely a second to put our arms around her and kiss her cheek before she wriggled away and ran back to her friend. 

As we walked out the door and back to our car, Don and I held hands.

“Well, I guess we made the right decision to send her this year.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“Maybe we should think about upping her days from two to three or five.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

Still not ready to miss this face every morning.

Or maybe not.

Bonus Recipe for First Day of School Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

3 cups of water

1 cup whole oats

1/4 cup barley

1/4 cup farro

1 1/2 tablespoons of flax seeds

1 1/2 tablespoons oat bran

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

1 medium apple diced into small pieces

1/3 cup raisins

1-2 tablespoons of butter

sweetener to taste (brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, agave syrup, whatever)

1.  Bring water to a boil in a small pot.  When the water starts to steam add the apples and raisins to cook them through and plump them up.

2.  When the water is a t a full boil add the oats, faro, barley, flax seeds and bran.  I usually put these all together in a measuring cup and shake it a little bit to let the bran, cinnamon and flax seeds permeate through the cracks.  This keeps them from clumping when you add them to the water.  Stir well and put the heat on low.

3.  It takes about 10-20 minutes to cook all of the grains through, but I usually know its done when they absorb all of the water.  Then I stir in the butter and something sweet, and scoop some out in a bowl to let it cool down.  I have to let it cool on the counter for at least 5 minutes before Lucy sees it, or she will start eating it without checking and scald her mouth.

4.  It can be saved and reheated for several days.  When I reheat it I add a splash of milk or cream before popping it in the microwave for 30 seconds.

5 Things to Know for Your 32nd Birthday

After a horrific night trying to calm an inexplicably hysterical Lucy for several hours (I will not get into the specifics now.  It was so bad I may not get into the specifics ever, unless I need to use this as emotional collateral one day in family therapy), I thought that both Don and I would be sleeping in every available second this morning.  Especially because it is a certain someone’s 32^nd Birthday, and I had very vague plans to ruin our “My Body is a Temple” week of healthy eating with cinnamon rolls and bacon for a birthday breakfast.  However, we were both up with the birds and the sun at 6am, Don for a run and me for a cup of coffee. 

While browsing the web with my cup of joe (ok, mostly it’s a cup of natural vanilla creamer, lets be honest) I came across an entirely ridiculous daily blog on CNN called 5 Things to Know for Your New Day.  This, apparently, is a daily feature updated at 6am designed to “clue in” busy morning commuters and news junkies to the top five stories trending (at 6am) along with some other “buzzy items.”

There were no surprises on today’s list of super important YOU MUST KNOW THIS news items: more analysis and commentary on the same information of the George Zimmerman acquittal, more analysis and commentary on the death of Corey Monteith, more gossip and speculation on the birth of the Royal Baby, a story on weapons being shipped to North Korea by Cuba, and a story on beating the summer heat wave.  Nothing ground breaking, nothing new, nothing really positive.

It’s craptastic.  Especially given that today IS a special day.  It is my love’s 32^nd Birthday, and that makes it a day deserving of far better analysis, commentary, speculation and fluff than CNN has managed to throw at us today.  So I decided to write my own list of news, some real news stories and some of a more domestic variety, and offer it up to you all today, as a tribute to the love of my life.

Here you are, Donny, your very own 5 Things to Know for Your 32^nd Birthday:

1. Our friends at www.ryot.org always have their ears to the ground for news, and offer their readers action items in order to make a difference in the stories they read.  Today, on your most excellent birthday, they have some real reporting gems!  Here are my favorites:

Hero Biologist Rescues 375 Pound Black Bear From Drowning

Twin Mutant Ninja Pandas Born at Zoo in Atlanta

Queen Stamps Gay Marriage into Law in Britain

2. This day in history!  Although surely the most auspicious of events, July 17^th is not only known as your birthday, my love.  Many other events occurred and many other people were born and died on this day, both famous and infamous.  Here are  a few fun facts, courtesy of HistoryOrb.com:
• 1762 – Catherine II becomes the Tsarina of Russia.  Weird things ensue.
• 1861 – Congress authorizes paper money!
• 1890 – Cecil Rhodes becomes premier of Cape Colony.  He later travels north.  Rhodesia happens.  A whole lot of shit ensues.
• 1934 – Babe Ruth draws his 2,000th base on balls at Cleveland!
• 1952 – David Hasselhoff is born!
• 1955 – Disneyland opened its doors in “rural” Orange County, CA.  Happiness ensues.
• 1981 – YOU are born!  Also, Humbar Estuary Bridge, UK, world's longest span (1.4 km), opens; 1981 - Israeli bombers destroy PLO/al-Fatah headquarters in Beirut; 1981 - Lobby Walkways at KC's Hyatt Regency collapse 114 die, 200 injured; 1981 - USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk USSR;  and, Fulton County (Atlanta) grand jury indicts Wayne B William 23 year old photographers, for murder of 2 of 28 blacks killed in Atlanta
• 1998 – Russia buries Tsar Nicolas II and his family 80 years after they were murdered.  Weird.

3. Great news!  You know how you have been considering joining Twitter so that you can follow news sources and get instant updates on important topics of our times?  Well here is the final incentive: Pope Francis Offers Indulgences to Twitter Followers!  Now, in addition to keeping up with world news and education reform and the Chicago Cubs, you can also reduce your time in purgatory while helping the Church find its way to modern times.

4. In the world of science, an exciting announcement was made today by paleontologists digging in the Utah desert.  They have described a new species of dinosaur found there, the Nasutoceratops titusi, a member of the triceratops family with an even bigger nose!  The name actually means big-nosed horn-face.  Descriptive, if not original.

5. Lucy took a nap!  After almost a week of hellish evenings due to over-exhaustion, our daughter finally listened to her body’s dire warnings and fell asleep at nap time.  She did not play Kit Kittridge for an hour, rearrange her bedroom furniture, sneak into the bathroom to make maps out of toilet paper rolls, or put on all the dresses in her closet at the same time.  She slept for two hours.  And awake pleasant and excited to take you dinner at work.  Hallelujah!

6. BONUS: Your favorite movie, Die Hard, was released 25 years ago this week!  Although the franchise has gone downhill slightly in the character development and dialogue departments (explosions and random killings are still high caliber) with the latest installment that we saw a few days ago, the bar remains high on this most excellent of movie series.  You can amuse yourself with this quiz to test your knowledge of the films offered by our very internationally minded friends at the Guardian.

P.S. Don’t be intimidated by the fact that I scored a 19 out of 20 – it’s a testament to my love of you that I have watched them so many times in the last 9 years!

Happy Birthday my love!  It has been my honor and pleasure to know you these last 11 years or so of your life, and I look forward to the next 80 plus years together.

Sopa de Lima y Pollo

So, the origin of this soup started way back in the day when I was living in a small house in South Bend with my sassy half-Brazilian Roo Juliana.  One day in winter I came home from work or class or some sort of activity to find her making chicken soup in the kitchen since she was getting a cold.  Her usual method of cold symptom treatment involved overdosing on Vitamin C and taking homeopathic drops that smelled like rotting fungus, and in addition to that she was also on a gluten-dairy-soy free diet due to food sensitivities and thyroid issues.  So, naturally, I was generally intrigued by whatever she cooked.  Every home cooked meal was a struggle to triumph over overwhelming odds stacked against deliciousness.

But what caught my attention in particular that day was an unusual odor in a chicken soup kitchen.  It was bright and fresh and utterly welcome on a cold February day.  It was crisp, but also strangely comforting.  It was lime. 

“What are you doing?” I asked, slightly alarmed but overwhelmingly intrigued. “Are you putting lime in that soup?”

“Yeah,” she answered much too casually for my taste.

“In chicken noodle soup?” I pressed on, my tone hopefully conveying my growing bewilderment.  Lime in chicken noodle soup?  I demand an explanation!

“Yeah,” she turned, smiling at my insistence, “It’s Portuguese.”

“Ooohhhh…Interesting…”  She knew there was no faster way to derail my attention than to say that something was Portuguese or Brazilian or Mexican or French, or from any one of the places that she had family or that her family worked.  I would immediately go research it, and buy her a few minutes time to finish her dinner.  Clever girl.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back on it, I believe that this was where my dissatisfaction with traditional chicken soup was born.  Chicken noodle soup just tastes flat to me.  In fact, I don’t think I have ever really made chicken noodle soup, at least not unless I am under duress.  At best, store-bought soup is either too salty or flavorless, the chicken is dry (how, how you ask, can chicken that is floating in a liquid matrix be dry?  Well, go grab some canned chicken noodle soup and see for yourself) and the noodles are one nudge away from disintegrating.  To quote the newly budding food critic we have in the house “mama, that’s gwoss.”

The pollo in Sopa de Lima y Pollo.

If I make chicken soup, I make chicken tortilla soup, but I have always been dissatisfied with the traditional (by this I mean traditional American) base recipes for chicken tortilla soup as well.  When I make soup, I usually want to make it from scratch.  I want to own everything about that soup, from the chicken bones in the stock to the chopped vegetables to the tortilla…ok, well, not the tortilla chips in this instance.  But I just can’t abide adding a can of enchilada sauce to soup, it seems wrong and weird.  To me, who is a total soup psycho.  I have had this kind of tortilla soup before and don’t get me wrong, it is delicious.  It’s just not what I was looking for.

I own this stock, baby.

In fact, it was not until I came across this recipe for Sopa de Lima on one of my favorite food blogs, Homesick Texan, that I realized what I was looking for all along was some sort of Portuguese chicken noodle soup and chicken tortilla soup hybrid.  I wanted the thickness of the tortillas in the broth, the chunks of chicken, the myriad of chopped veggies, and none of the inevitably soggy noodles.  I wanted to freshness of the lime and the cilantro.  I wanted no chunks of tomatoes that I would put in out of guilt but end up throwing to my dog or giving to my daughter or just leaving in the bottom of the bowl.  I wanted the chicken to be the star, and the limey broth to be the best supporting actress that wins the Oscar.  I wanted this, what I have so arrogantly called, Sopa de Lima y Pollo.

Sopa de Lima y Pollo

For the soup:

2 medium yellow onions, diced
10 cloves garlic

3 bell peppers, diced

1-2 poblano chiles, diced
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon oregano
2 cups chopped cilantro, divided
Pinch of cayenne
Zest of one large lime

4 cups of tortilla chips

32 oz of chicken stock, home made if you can

4 cups of shredded or chopped chicken, your choice

4 ears of sweet corn, cut off the cob (or one bag of frozen sweet corn)
Salt and black pepper to taste
Juice of one large lime

For Garnish:
1/2 cup shredded Monterrey Jack or sharp Cheddar
1 avocado, pitted and peeled, cubed

Sour cream
1 lime, cut into slices

Tortilla chips

Dice the onions, peppers, and chili.  Grate the garlic cloves.  Chop the cilantro.  Zest the lime.

Throw the onions into a big, biiiiig pot and sauté them for a few minutes until they get happy (you know, translucent, goldeny).  Throw in the garlic for a few minutes, then add the peppers and chili.    Let all of the veggies get happy together for about five minutes.  Remember to salt and pepper the veggies each time you add something new.

Add in the cumin, coriander, cayenne and lime zest and let them fry into the oil for a little bit.  This will make the spices “bloom” and you will be happier when you eat the soup!

Slosh in the chicken stock.  I say slosh because when I added mine in I added all 32 oz at once from another giant pot on the stove and there was a lot of sloshing involved.  Then squeeze in the juice of one lime.  Please, please, please use fresh lime juice!

Take your four cups, or four handfuls, of chips and crush them up in your hands into the pot.  The more crushed they are, the better, so really get out your aggression here.  Stir the chips into the pot.  The point of this addition is to help thicken the soup with the corn flour and meal in the chips, so there are a number of other techniques you can use.  You can use corn tortillas, corn meal soaked in hot water or hot milk.  Corn tortillas would probably be more muy authentico, but I didn’t have any so I used tortilla chips.

Add in the chicken, corn, and cilantro.

Bring the soup to a low boil and then turn it down to low and let it simmer for an hour or so.  Or, really, you can eat it at anytime right now.  But it is nice to give the flavors a little time to come together.

When the game is over and all your guests come home, start dishing out the soup.  Add in a little cilantro, a slice of lime, some diced avocado, shredded cheese, more crushed tortilla chips.  This soup also freezes and reheats really well, and is great in a crock pot in case you are taking it to a tailgate, party, squirrel fry, etc. 

Picture Day

This week, we finally got around to taking family photos, something I have been wanting to do since Lucy was born.  I put it off and put it off, always using finances or Don’s residency schedule as excuses.  But now that Don is an attending we have the spare change and the time to do it (horay!)  Last week Don and I agreed to just pull the trigger, find a photographer, and get some pictures taken before Lucy is going off to college and I am sitting on the porch, sobbing, wondering why I don’t have any professional family pictures of her in addition to the 20,000 “amateur” photos we have.

On Monday, scrambling to get everyone ready, fix my hair and makeup, pick a top for Lucy, and several other things it became apparent that I was totally unprepared for the session.  I hadnt figured out what we should wear, I didn’t have any idea of where we would go or what we should do, I hadn’t thought about whether or not to bring our dog with us.  I went to the gym and 90 minutes before we were to meet the photographer at a park 15 minutes from our house I was still un-showered and screwing around on my computer.  After huffing and stomping around the house, we finally all managed to get dressed and made it into the car in a sullen silence. 

Don peeked at me and asked if this was something I even wanted to do, or if it was just something that he thought I had really wanted to do, and I was doing it because I thought he wanted family pictures.  It took me a while to answer, and when I did all I could say without bursting into tears was "I want to do it…I'm just not happy with how I look."

I know that this is something that deeply resonates with many other mamas, and many other women, out there.  I know because I remember the way my own Mom would react whenever the camera would appear for a candid picture.  She would cross her eyes or stick out her tongue or do something else funny.  I know because later that same evening, after we celebrated our family picture fait accompli by going out to dinner, I read this article by Allison Tate.  It is about her own fear of being photographed, and her deeper fear that she would not be photographed. 

What a curious and heart rending paradox of feeling, one that was incubating inside me only hours before.  I didn’t want to be in those family pictures.  I was considering asking if maybe we could just take pictures of Lucy.  I didn’t want a picture on the wall chronicling the ten (or fifteen) pounds I still need to lose and the new wrinkle by my mouth and the way one of my eyes always closes more than the other when I smile and my weird hormonal acne.  Even after getting a good workout at the gym I still felt bloated and muffin-topy and my hair was doing it’s frizzy not really going to curl thing.  I looked in the mirror, and the image I saw staring back at me was so discordant when compared with the image I have of myself.  My brain was releasing clouds of neurotransmitters that started breaking down my post-workout endorphin rush.  I was too hideous for family pictures, pictures that I wouldn’t want to look at in an old shoe box let alone frame and hang on our wall.

And yet, at the same time, I wanted to take these pictures desperately.  I want Lucy to look back on pictures of her family, and not wonder “where was my mama?”  I don’t want her to grow up thinking that if a woman doesn’t conform to society’s standard of beauty then she doesn’t deserve to be loved or celebrated.  That she doesn’t even deserve to be remembered.  I wish there was an instagram filter that captured the joy in a picture instead of bringing out blue or sepia tones, which could make you look the way you feel you should.  But there isn’t.  That joy, those memories, come from my presence and my attitude; they have to. 

I may not look like a model or an actress, or myself when I was twenty.  I may stiff be haunted when reading a magazine or watching TV or even looking at my friends pictures on Facebook by images of other women looking younger, more beautiful, more put together than I ever remember feeling.  I may feel frazzled and ill kempt and 10 pounds too heavy all the time.  But I am me, and to my daughter I am the image of what a woman looks like.

I want that image to be beautiful because I am happy and joyful to be together as a family.  I want that image to be playful and smiling and serious by turns because I am in the moment, not stuck inside my own head.  Most of all, I just want those images to BE.