Just for an evening

OK, I’ll admit to being one of those people who didn’t believe that Twitter/Facebook would ever replace blogging, but yeah, it’s totally doing that for me. Rather than sitting down to write up a whole post, I can post all those scintillating nuggets of poo information all day long. From my laptop, my phone, at work, at home, wherever.

So if you read any of my tweets or Facebook posts on Monday night, you figured out I went to see Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds play. It was a charity show at McCaw Hall in Seattle, which is the home of the Pacific Northwest Ballet. Between the fact that the entire ticket price went to charity, the rarity of these acoustic shows, and the fact that it was at a venue designed for music, I *had* to go. And TJ was helpful in convincing me it was worth spending the money, which is surprising, since he’s usually not down with the willy-nilly spending of cash.

So I bought a ticket for myself, since I couldn’t find anyone else to go with me. Turns out they released tickets just before the show, so I got a fantastic 1st tier box seat with a great view. I guess buying single tickets pays off.

I felt weird going by myself, especially before the show when everyone was milling around in the lobby, but McCaw Hall is very pretty and had lots of interesting Nutcracker costumes and statues around. I got myself a very expensive diet Coke and a cookie and settled into my seat when the doors opened. By the way, don’t get the cookies at McCaw Hall – they are nasty.

The opening band, The Head and the Heart, were good, but not my taste. Pretty alt-country songs, and great energy on stage, but they just didn’t wow me. The rest of the crowd was pretty into them, though, and they’re local, so I imagine it must have been HUGE for them since Dave Matthews specifically asked them to open for him. Word on the street is that he doesn’t usually have opening bands.

Dave and Tim came on around 8:30, and played until after 11pm. They played a lot of songs I didn’t recognize, since I haven’t been keeping up much with their newer stuff, but played enough of the old stuff to keep me happy. The sound was really good, the inter-song banter was odd but amusing, and Tim Reynolds did not say a word the entire time.

The crowd was a crazy mix of college age folks, yuppies in their 30s, and oddly, a bunch of older folks (50s and 60s). Then again, DMB has been around for 15+ years, so I guess that’s not surprising. I’m a lot older than I think, I guess.

Anyway, it was an evening well spent. I’m so glad I went, even if I had to be the loser who goes to a show by herself. DMB was the soundtrack to my life in some of the best times I’ve had. I took my last Caltech final while listening to ‘Under the Table and Dreaming’. I listened to their ‘Live at Red Rocks’ album for hours on end while working out in 1999 and it eventually made me skinny Unfortunately, while that didn’t last, I still love their music.

So I’ll leave you with ‘Satellite’:

Mama, ooo, didn't mean to make you cry

Two weeks ago, we reached a milestone I never thought I'd see. I have breastfed BabyT for 11 months! 11! That's one month short of a year! When I wrote this, I never imagined we'd make it this long.

Around 4 months it actually got EASY, and quick. Easier than pumping and heating up bottles. So when we hit 6 months and I gave myself permission to quit, we kept going.

I've still never been comfortable nursing in public - I've done it a few times in a pinch, or at a mom's group where other people are doing it (lemming, I know). But T is way too big and wiggly to be happy under a blanket or nursing cover so we just nurse at home, and give her a bottle or cup when we're out and about.  Every time I see someone nursing in public, I want to give them a high-five for being brave and kicking ass but of course, they'd think I was crazy.

The weird thing is that I'm not planning to quit at 1 year, which I totally thought I'd do (if I ever imagined in my wildest dreams that I'd make it this far). BabyT is still allergic to dairy so no cow's milk for her. We started her on soymilk which she likes - I tried it and it's YUM.  We buy the vanilla flavor so it's nice and sweet.

Plus, September is going to be super-busy for us, with trips and parties and starting daycare, so introducing another transition might not be wise. So for a few more months, we'll keep nursing. Of course, where we live, it's totally normal - I've known tons of people who kept nursing until 18 months, 2 years, or older. 
 
I know a lot of people just don't get the extended nursing thing.  Heck, even I didn't get it until the last couple of months.  Someone commenting on AskMoxie nailed it- she said she had been planning to wean at a year, but when her baby turned 1, the mama realized that she was *still* a baby.  That's where I am.
 
BabyT is not yet reliably drinking a large volume from a cup and we've tried several different kids of sippy and straw cups with various beverages:  water, soymilk, watered down juice.  I think she's just not ready yet, and will get there on her own time, like everything else.  In the meantime, I don't want to offer her *more* bottles since we're trying to phase those out.  So nursing it is.   
 
I am phasing out pumping milk at home - if she needs milk when I'm not around, we've got formula to finish up, and of course, the yummy soymilk.  I'm really excited about not having to buy any more formula - I didn't love feeding it to her, with all of its special handling rules and how processed it is.  I do think it helped get her iron levels back up to normal, so I can't hate on it too much.
 
My next step will be to phase out pumping at work, and then I will do my happy dance.  Because there is nothing stranger than sitting in your office hooked up to a breastpump while trying to answer work email. 
 
I know we've been working towards weaning since 6.5 months when we introduced solids, but quitting the pump seems like an even huger leap forward.  Like many paradoxes in this new life of mine, I'm both happy and sad.  Yes, I'm actually sad to contemplate that in a few months, BabyT will  no longer be nursing.  Did I really just say that?  Who am I??

How sweet it is to be loved by you

 Birthday Cupcake Test

Since BabyT's 1st birthday is coming up next month, I had to find a cupcake recipe without dairy. And for a while we thought she might also be allergic to soy, but we've given her tofu a few times recently to test that and she tolerates it well with none of that telltale redness on her hands and mouth.

However, when I was looking for recipes, we thought she was allergic to both dairy and soy, so I found this simple recipe for Vegan Chocolate Cake. It works really well as cupcakes, and I added a teaspoon of cinnamon just to make it interesting.

I've made them twice now, and they come out great each time. The fascinating thing is that they don't have any dairy or eggs - they just use baking soda and vinegar for leavening.

Personally, I don't care for frosting. I like plain cake donuts, and I've asked frou-frou cupcake joints to give me unfrosted cupcakes. But some people think it's heresy to have an unfrosted cupcake so I figured I should research frosting recipes since other people besides BabyT and me are going to eat these birthday cupcakes.

Dairy-free frosting recipes are harder to find. A lot of them use Crisco, which is just gross, or lots of eggs. BabyT is ok with eggs so far, but I didn't want to overload her with a ton of egg whites since they're pretty allergenic. We haven't yet given her a whole egg, though she's definitely had things with egg in them.

So I was quite pleased to find this Vegan Chocolate Frosting recipe. BabyT and I made a trip to Whole Foods to buy the good dark chocolate (Scharffenberger) and grapeseed oil.

I can't recall if I've ever made frosting before. If I needed some, I used that nasty shelf-stable Betty Crocker stuff in a tub (shudder) or just made a simple powdered sugar glaze. The stuff I made today was *serious* frosting.

I melted the chocolate into the oil in the microwave instead of a saucepan, so that I could use the same glass bowl for freezing and whipping the mixture.

It turns out that I shouldn't have bought unsweetened chocolate, because it took a ton of the agave nectar plus some additional powdered sugar to make the frosting mix sweet enough (and I prefer things to be not that sweet!). Next time, I'll try the bittersweet or maybe even the semi-sweet.

I had a small hiccup at the whipping stage - when I froze the mix for 15 minutes and then used my hand mixer to beat it, it turned all gross and oily. I was very depressed (that was some expensive chocolate!) but figured I'd stick it back into the freezer for a while as per some of the comments on the recipe post.

Bingo! With about 40 minutes in the freezer, the mixture hardened, and then when I beat it, it turned into a gorgeous, fluffy light brown frosting. It was an amazing transformation.

For the first time in my life I used a pastry bag and made some small frosting "poofs". Clearly I need more practice to make these look like fancy cupcakes. Also, I realized that I couldn't just use a ziploc bag instead of the pastry bag. The ziploc split and the frosting oozed everywhere except through the tip. Sigh.

I frosted some using a spatula, and those looked fine, too, so that's probably what I'll do for BabyT's birthday cupcakes.  At Whole Foods, I bought some pink nonpareils, which are colored with beet juice.  I don't really get the idea behind "natural" junk food.  I mean, you're decorating a cake, which isn't exactly health food, so who cares if the tiny sprinkles are made from all natural ingredients or not?

So I think we have a winner here, both with the cupcakes and the frosting.  We're having two parties for her - one with her baby friends here in Seattle, and the family party in Tucson, so I'll get to make these cupcakes twice more.

Any tips on using the pastry bag?  I was trying to get an elegant swirly cone of frosting on top of the cupcakes but I'm not sure how to do that.  Mamas out there, what did you make for your baby's first birthday?

I will find a way and I will have you

When I was a kid, I LOVED back-to-school shopping - all those new writing implements, pristine notebooks, folders, planners, yay!

I would start out perfectly organized, using my best handwriting for my notes (this was in the Dark Ages, before laptops were common). In college, I even had a system of using multiple colored pens and highlighters to take lecture notes. And those were some pretty notes. It pained me to put them in the recycle bin after lugging them from house to house for 10 years without using them.

As an adult, I have free access to decent office supplies at work (for job-related stuff) so I don't have any occasions to shop for stationery or school supplies. But I crave them.

I found a pen on my desk the day I returned from maternity leave and it was a Marvelous Pen. It was like the Pen Fairy had left me a present welcoming me back to work - the perfect combination of rollerball/gel pen, with a nice squashy grip and unbelievably smooth writing action. I loved that pen. Until my coworker Michelle saw it one day, and told me it was her lost pen. She knew it was a Marvelous Pen, and she wanted it back, so I grudgingly gave it back to her.

For months I sought that pen: Target, Office Depot, Staples. For some reason I never bought the right one - I knew the brand (Uniball Jet Stream RT), but every pack I bought wasn't quite right.

The Target pens were too light and plasticky and were more traditional ballpoint than rollerball.

TJ bought one pack for me at Office Depot, but those were too inky and not "gel" enough.

I bought another set that were ok, but the point was far too fine. At that point, I had enough pens that we'd never need to buy more, but the quest still continued.

Yesterday, I bought what I thought was a set of 3 Marvelous Pens. Bold, rollerball, from Office Depot, with a nice weight to them. But sadly, these are not the droids (um, pens) I was looking for either. They are too ball-pointy, and don't have the nice squishy grip.

Aaaghh. Am I destined to never find these pens again?

I'm the kid who ran away with the circus

Because I'm impulsive, and I'm afraid I'd chicken out, I already put in my application for the UCU show I mentioned previously.

It wasn't a complicated application, and I had already selected my photos over the weekend, so I just spent a bit of time answering their questions about my craft, the process to make my items and my pricing - all things I've had to either write up or think about previously.

Here are the photos I chose.  I wanted a mix of product types and materials, plus the show organizers specifically requested a group shot of several items together.



So now I just wait.  They won't post their selections until the end of September, and I have to start preparations long before that if I'm accepted, so now I'm going to focus on writing up my "project plan" for what needs to be done, and of course, making things.  Even if I'm rejected, having the stock on hand will be great for holiday sales, not to mention just fun to do.

It's nice to have something big to work towards - the world of BabyT has a lot of small, repetitive tasks that are roughly the same week to week.

So wish me luck and better sleep in the coming months so I can work on crafty goodness!