Food, Part I
This weekend the Hicks family spent a really lovely weekend in Boulder, which we've not done since September 2006 when I was pregnant with Claire. We stayed at the super-comfy St. Julien and took advantage of its great location by taking many strolls along Pearl Street and the Boulder Creek Path. We also took in yummy tapas and lunch at The Med with Mel and Alex. It was so good to catch up and to see and know that they are doing well. And in true foody style, while we were eating, we were talking about food, specifically about gardening and fresh produce. Claire's culinary adventurousness continues to amaze and delight us. While in Boulder, she dined on hummus (a food she has loved since she first tried it around 9 months old), baba ganoush, arugula with goat cheese and fig compote, asparagus and all sorts of other really yummy and good for her foods. To say that we are thrilled that her food tastes don't revolve around mac and cheese is a gross understatement. (And yes, we are absolutely saying little prayers every day that we don't ever have to venture down that sad, sad, mac and cheese road).

Monday night, Robb and I had a quiet date night out at the Black Cat. And oh my, I do not have enough superlatives to describe the heavenlyness of their gnocchi. Or the fresh mozzerella I enjoyed as my first course for that matter. We will definitely go back!

And then there is the garden. This is my first year with an honest to goodness garden and it is awesome! I have harvested countless bags of leaf lettuce and you can't even tell I've been out there. Plus, I now have grape tomatoes on the vine. And soon there will be corn and peppers and basil. Mmmm.

Food Part II
I also seem to be reading and thinking a lot about food lately. I am over half way through with Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and it has provided for a lot of stimulating discussion. Though it reads a bit like a textbook on the history of food and food marketing in America, his basic premise--that as Americans we eat too many things that aren't even recognizeable as food--is one that resonates with me. He also spends a good deal of time writing about the various low-carb, low-fat, low-sugar foods that are now available on the grocery store shelves. All I can say is Amen--the late-1990's were some sort of a Snackwell's hell for me personally. 

Additionally, I am reading Eat, Pray, Love, which is only somewhat about food, but "eat" is in the title, so I figure it counts, right? 

But then I picked up Deceptively Delicious today on some sort of a cookbook binge. I think my defense of this purchase went something like, "hey, there's all this hype about this book and really, who couldn't use another kid-friendly cookbook?" I have to say this was probably a poor impulse buy. After merely leafing through it, I can see that Jessica Seinfeld and I aren't on the same page. Every  recipe that would typically use butter, actually calls for trans-fat free soft margarine spread. Hmmm, Mr. Pollan would not approve of that for sure. Plus, I don't think I like the idea of sneaking vegetables into my family's food. Yes, I've been known to substitute pumpkin puree or applesauce in some recipes for baked goods to lessen the amount of fat from butter in the recipe. But really, if you need to sneak winter squash puree into your family's quesadillas, that ain't cool. I guess I'm kind of philosophically opposed to trying to slip one over the kids, but beyond that, adding 1/2 cup of vegetable puree to a lasagna that serves 10 people isn't really going to change the world. That's less than one tablespoon of vegetables per serving, not exactly the same as a nice big salad, now is it?

From the very start I knew it would happen, I guess I just didn't know it would happen so soon. 

It's true, just one short year into Claire's life and I've already become "Claire's mom." I walked into the daycare today to pick her up, and little Evie called out, "Hi Claire Bear's mom." 

Since signing up for the blackhole of time that is facebook, I've haven't been around these parts as much. Oops. Oh, and we've been one reporter short at the Bulletin, so I've been writing more and going in on Tuesdays to help proof the paper; I've also been doing some training sessions with the writers and ad people on some of the more technical aspects of  writing. I was in my nerdy glory: creating handouts for a training session and finding ice breaker cartoons to share. Though I love reporting and am happy to help out, the bummer with writing a lot for work is that I don't feel like writing anywhere else, including e-mails and letters to others. 

I'd like to write that I am having big epiphanies daily here, but really we are just doing the day-to-day stuff. Claire turned a year old last week and I can't believe I already have a toddler. She is so close to walking; any day she is just going to take off. She can say "mama," "dada," and "pup" quite plainly. You need to know what you are listening for to hear "Cooper," which sounds like "oooooer," and "ball" which sounds like "baaa." 

The real tragedy of childhood or infancy is that time is so insidious that you don't realize it passing. Children don't grow up in days or even years, they grow up so slowly that we can't even recognize it as such until we look backwards. For all I can remember, Claire has always been babbling, giggling, and crawling. It wasn't like one day she was a baby lying on the floor on a blanket and then the next she was mobile. It all happens so quickly and yet so slowly that the moments run together and we don't realize that the baby we brought home from the hospital is the same toddler who now loves to pet her puppy and eat hummus. I can't decide if it's like watching time-lapse photography or a video on fast forward.

Somehow, it is spring. I do not know when or how this happened, but it is the end of March. This winter has been an abolute blur; in fact, on Monday we were driving back into town (we'd been in Minnesota for Easter), and I commented to Robb what a nice fall day it was. Fall people. Like the season two seasons before the season we are now in!

So what news of Wyoming, you ask. 

Well, Claire is growing up to be quite the little girl already. She is babbling lots, saying some words (dada, mama, pup and baaa for what a sheep says). And she's cruising now, using our furniture to hold onto and walk around. It's amazing to think that she is a whole little person now with her own little agenda (usually her agenda includes eating as many blueberries as she can con out of us at a meal and chasing Cooper around while he tries desperately to find some corner of the house that she can't crawl to).

It started slowly about 4 years ago. I began to notice people using the prefix "dis" instead of the antonym for words. At first I thought it was my students who didn't know for example that disincentive was not the opposite of incentive. But now it seems that everyone, including The New York Times, is disregarding the thesaurus and dissing whatever they will.

(I secretly hate that I am this anal retentive. Yet I am completely incapable of ignoring shit like this.)

In the laugh-out-loud column, score one big amazing homerun for Juno. Robb and I had a little date night Saturday and took in the film and it rocked. The writing was just spot-on and the dialog was so real. It made me want to sit down to just with Juno and Bleeker over lunch. And the humor was sarcastic, but not bitingly so. It was that perfect balance of wry humor and wit that leaves you laughing, not feeling sorry for the abuses the recipient of the sarcasm endures. I could definitely see that movie about 10 more times.  

In the crying column, score some for Claire and me. Claire got a little spoiled last week while she had her cold thinking that she should spend her nights with Mom and Dad. So for the past three nights, even though she is no longer sick, she’s been up from midnight until 3:00 AM wanting to socialize. If we go into her room, she wants to hang out and she starts talking, singing and laughing. But if we leave the room, she screams hysterically. Monday night I tried everything to get her back to sleep: rocking, nursing, humming, swaying, rocking while humming, swaying while singning, you get the idea. Nothing worked. She was not about to miss out on her little social hour. So last night we gave Claire her first real taste of tough love. When she woke up, I went to her and stayed next to her crib soothing her for 5 minutes, then I'd leave for 15 minutes while she cried (sometimes whimpering, sometimes wailing). We did this from 4:00 until 6:00 so we are all a little bit tired today. But eventually she did decide it was better to fall asleep with Mommy in the room than to have Mommy leave. I of course felt like the world's most evil mother, but I realize at 9 months old, she is getting pretty adept at training her parents. All the books say 3 to 4 nights of this and we'll have it licked; we shall see...they've never met Claire. 

In the wildly random column, I am increasingly aware of my own physical vulnerabilities. Robb and I went downhill skiing a couple of weeks back, one of my favorite outdoor activities. And since I was pregnant last year, it had been two years since I had been swishing down the slopes. But even after I got my skiing form back a few runs in, I found myself skiing cautiously. It used to be that I attacked the hills, eager to learn more and improve my form each year (I am an OK skier at best--I can ski many black diamond runs, but I ski slowly and methodically). But on that day, I found myself completely content to meander down blue runs; it was thrilling enough to be outside and having some alone time with Robb. I didn't need to race down the hill or push the limits. I also think it is the brain's way of protecting an aging body. Somehow my brain knows that if I wreck and injure myself, the healing will take longer. And I'm a mom now, so if I wreck, everyone will feel the pain. 

Ever since Claire was about 2 months old and just the smallest hints of her personality began to reveal themselves, I have joked that she is our Little Big Girl. She has always been fascinated with anything that would make her seem more of a big girl: holding the spoon, "playing" with the big kids, etc. While holding my sister's newborn during our Christmas visit to Minnesota, I realized just how much Claire really has grown up during these short eight months. Having recently outgrown the need to be nursed or rocked to sleep, she now puts herself to bed at night. After our routine of pajamas, stories, nursing and talking, we just lay her in her crib and she talks to herself for about 32 seconds and then is asleep. 

As a parent, this is what you want for your child. You want her to be happy and secure enough to soothe herself to sleep. And, at a certain point, you want the peace of a sleeping child too. But as her mommy, it's just another indication of how fast her infancy is passing; it is a reminder that she will never be this small and innocent again. And that is just a tiny bit sad to be.

She still lets me rock her down for naps, and so today as I rocked her, Mozart playing softly in the background, I tried to capture every detail: the hush of her slow, rhythmic breathing; the sweet smell of milk and baby lotion; the gentle curves of her profile; and her smooth, soft hand grasping my finger. I sat holding her long after she had fallen asleep, absolutely amazed at this wonderful, beautiful little person.

Ugh, where does the time go!?

This weekend we hosted our first annual holiday bash complete with 50 guests, amazing appetizers and lots of libations. Our house was FULL as our friends, neighbors and colleagues mingled and made merry. I was in my own little heaven managing to have combined two of my favorite things: entertaining and Christmas. The food included smoked salmon and wasabi topped crackers, caramelized onions and gorgonzola crustinis, open-face roast beef sandwiches and cilantro shrimp. And the damage included 33 bottles of wine and 4 cases of beer (and I know I was the youngest person at the party, so it's not like we were catering to 22-year-olds). Robb and I worked really hard on the guest list to come up with an interesting group of people who might not socialize together but who have things in common. After the invites went out I was a little nervous about wandering so far from our small group of tried and trues, but the party was awesome and it was fun to see people whom we often say, "we should do something with them," about. And the cool thing about a seven-month-old: Claire slept through the whole ordeal. We put her to bed before the guests arrived and that's where she stayed for the duration (don't ask me about the 1-4 a.m. ordeal that we went through with her because I'm just not talking about that). 

Claire continues to amaze and delight us. She is sitting up now and crawling in reverse. I don't really think it's her intention to go backwards, she just sort of ends up doing it. Her favorite food is avocado mashed with banana. Now before you judge her, I have to say, I've tasted it and it's darn good. I told Robb the other night that Gerber should bottle that combo and his response was, "who would buy that?". I probably wouldn't have bought it 2 months ago, but now I have to say it's a positively tasty little treat. We do all sorts of crazy things to get her going with her belly laugh (which has got to be the sweetest sound on this earth), including disco dancing complete with Robb and me singing. And sometimes she looks at us with this absolutely miffed look as if to say, "I cannot believe you are my parents." I keep telling her to wait until her teenage years when we can really turn up the embarrassment quotient.

Our book club is reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter for January and I'm very excited because it's a book that I've wanted to read for quite some time but have never picked up. So, I'm about 60 pages in and just loving the prose and pacing. I keep wondering how these seemingly disparate story lines are going to be woven together. 

Claire and I head to Minnesota next Tuesday and I am positively giddy with excitement. I can't wait to see my family and to show them their niece/granddaughter again. 

Oh and from the "this really should not be so frustrating" files: I need a new winter coat. Last year I was wearing my maternity poncho which was very cute indeed and so when I pulled out my coat this winter, I didn't realize how ratty it really was when I put it into storage in the spring of 2006. Anyway, after nearly a month of web searches (because remember I live in a town of 5,000 with only one clothing store and most of it is sporting goods), I still have no coat to show for my efforts. I'm getting desperate people. It's cold here. I can no longer go skipping around town in my little shell.

How did I not know about this earlier!? I surfed over to Etsy last night and already I am an addict. Addict I tell you. So many awesome, handmade items! I have been scouring the site marveling at the pretty knits, the beautiful jewelry, the clever kids' t-shirts, and the list goes on.

I haven't made a pledge to buy handmade items this year, but many of the gifts I am giving are handmade. Some even handmade from recycled goods. And I can't tell you how exciting that is for me. (I am such a dork).

She's making videos again.

I have found this service wonderful for reducing the number of unsolicited mail order catalogs I receive. Check it out and do your part.
http://www.catalogchoice.org/