Culinations

Peach helped me whip up our first pumpkin pie of the season this afternoon, while Pimento supervised from her perch in the Baby Bjorn.

This was less than four hours ago, and the pie is already half gone.  I'll admit to doing the most damage, but I count pumpkin as a veggie, so it's practically health food... Right?

Inspired by our collaborative efforts, Peach invented her first original recipe.

"Whatever you make, you have to try," I sagely advised.
"No, you can just try it for me and tell me what it tastes like."

Eventually she conceded to trying it, as long as we did it at the same time.  And then the creation commenced.

She carefully mixed sugar, cinnamon, Reddi-Wip, and shredded cheddar and then lovingly pressed the mixture into a mini-muffin tin and handed it off for a round in the already-hot oven.  A few minutes later, they were brown and bubbly.

She dubbed them Daffodil Daisies. They tasted like Candied Cheese.

Little Pimento had a taste, too.  And was the only one who wanted more.

Milestones Apart

Little Pimento (we also regularly call her "The Bird") is piling on the milestones, and Peach will not be outdone.

 

The small one is about a week and a half into her crawling masters class, and has seemingly developed the ability to materialize across the room in mere seconds, pulling up on anything that she can get her hands on.

What's that noise?!  Oh, look at that, the baby is introducing the floor lamp to the TV.

Her little legs seem to be spring-loaded, instinctively refusing a seated position for the better option of being upright.  Now that she has crawling figured out, she's fixated on walking. 

Shaking things is nothing terribly new, but today she turned it up a notch and got busy with the maracas, cracking us all up and prompting Peach to imitate ("Look! I taught her that!") a full-body rock.  Her accompanying ape-like expression puts it over the top.  She also might be using her new move to facilitate a hello/goodbye wave.  We'll have to present more opportunities to practice those burgeoning communications.

Topping off all of this obsessive development, there seems to be a tooth-pocalypse going down in Pimento's mouth.  The drool hasn't stopped for four days, and I've got her popping teething tablets like an addict.  Upon inspection, it looks like there are no fewer than five teeth laying siege to her defenseless gums.  It's incredibly pathetic.  And it's turning my normally easy-going baby into a clingy, restless retread of her big sister.  

Speaking of whom, Peach is blowing us away with her grown-up-ness, spouting vocabulary and creative story-telling that instantly turns us to putty.  We want to encourage her without rushing her, mainly because her sudden language prowess serves as proof that she'll soon be too grown-up for the nightly snuggles, laps to sit on, and "hold me!"s she currently demands.

When Daddy was putting her to sleep last night, he facetiously asked if she would still want to come snuggle in our bed when she was married.  

She answered, "Only if my husband doesn't snuggle me." 

And she was quite serious.

Mobility: A Work In Progress

Little Pimento is stuck.
Not that she can't move herself around, because the rolling and scooching is surprisingly fast and effective when she wants to get across the living room to dump the dog's toy basket and chew on his (apparently) much better rubber toys.  But she wants to do SO! MUCH! MORE!

We schlepped up to the play area at the mall today to meet some friends for a little air-conditioned physical activity, and Pimento was not satisfied to be prone while her big sis jumped and clambered on everything in sight.  No, I was quickly drafted to play the role of body support while she drunkenly stomped around the padded floor, greeting everyone with a proud, open-mouthed grin.

Which is especially adorable with her three teeth-- the two prominent bottom incisors and one little bud of an incisor on her top left, thereby gaining another nickname from me: Fang.

I could handle my hunched-over walking-assistant duties for a few minutes at a time before lowering her to the floor for more crawling practice.  She's very good at push-ups and will roll to one side with a  provocative leg-extension and a come-hither gaze, usually followed by some bodily emission to remind you of why babies are not sexy.  Cute, yes.  Sexy, no.

Tonight, the mobility-quest continued with some visible hip-lifts as part of the push-ups.  She's trying so hard!  I know we're not far from full-on crawling, and I have to admit, I'm a little scared.  As much as I want her to learn something new, I'm in no rush to endlessly chase her from room to room.  Time to install the baby gates!

The Job Narrative

Below is the narrative requested as part of the application materials for a glorified board-op job in public radio.  One I'm more than qualified for, but I didn't have the also-"required" bachelor's degree to back up my experience and training, so I was cut from the prospective candidates early on.  Still, I thought this quasi-memoir was worth sharing, even if I am dismally under-educated.  Enjoy!

It was as if a lightbulb went on. 

Reading through the list of responsibilities, I became excited at the prospect of filling a void with my unique expertise and enthusiasm. Public radio holds a place of honor on my list of dream jobs. I cut my teeth on public radio, I have over five years of radio experience with a focus on news, and I've never been anything less than a positive team-player.

My first radio internship was at WKSU in Kent, Ohio. I knew little about audio editing and even less about the software used to do it (CoolEdit, in those days), but I learned quickly. I was charged with assembling a four-hour playlist of folk music and adding fades to the front and back of each song, utilizing a library of CDs and a series of quasi-compatible PCs and the accompanying software. It was solitary work, and a good lesson on technological flexibility.

Flash forward to my second internship, with a title as an assistant producer and call screener for a prominent Cleveland-area talk radio program, The Mike Trivisonno Show. Under the tutelage of master-producer Marty Allen, I was introduced to the fine art of weaving together a compelling broadcast, from guests and callers to the subtler, deft timing of each audio element. Live radio can get messy, but he taught me to keep it moving.

When I finally went out on my own, news was my comfort zone. At KGRN in Grinnell, Iowa, I became the one-woman news team, mini-disc recorder and elderly computer included. It was a short-lived experiment, and I learned more from my mistakes (long-winded newscasts about street paving and echoey audio from public meetings) than I could have imagined. Still, without that stepping stone, I wouldn't have found myself in Minneapolis at the Minnesota News Network.

Once I became part of a “real” news room, I discovered how little I knew. The news director, Stan Turner, was an old school news man who expected his reporters to do their jobs without nagging, though his coaching on the pacing and tone of my newscasts was invaluable. The broadcast format was brief, so the writing and sound clips had to be compelling and concise. MNN had over 70 affiliate stations statewide, a statistic which demanded we keep an open mind about our coverage and not become metro-centric. Peer editing quickly honed my skills, and I was motivated to contribute my best work for the benefit of the team. The software workhorses were CoolEdit/Adobe Audition, WireReady and Audio Vault-- two new programs, but I had to catch on fast or be left in the dust. Working strictly by phone and email, I was expected to churn out ten stories a day while maintaining my afternoon schedule of newscasts. I got such a rush the first time I hit the mark at the end of a syndicated broadcast, and I never tired of the challenge. MNN was a great bootcamp for me as a radio journalist, and choosing to move back to Cleveland and start a family was one of the most difficult decisions I've ever made.

Back in Cleveland, I served as a part-time news anchor for Metro Networks' local hub. With the birth of our first baby just weeks away, my husband took a chance on a radio news opportunity with a cluster of stations in Brunswick, Georgia, and off we went. I started working as a board op for remote broadcasts on the country station, later adding a regular air shift and work on the A/C and rock stations, live appearances and other responsibilities. There was more new software to learn (Scott Systems, TLC), promos and commercials to record, as well as weekend programming to upload. Somewhere in there, I had a baby, and she started coming to work with me. Our coworkers became like family. There was some social dysfunction, but they made the Yankees feel welcome.

My husband's quest for advancement took us to a news/talk station in Pensacola, where I filled in with traffic reports and weekend shifts on a country station. More new software (archaic automation systems on the country station, their names a long lost memory), but I wouldn't be intimidated. Before long, we were trekking across Florida to Orlando, where the big news/talk station provided a bump in market size and pay for our family's main provider. I was mostly at home with our daughter, but there was plenty of fill-in work, especially with my background in news.

Once my husband was established with his afternoon shift, I often jumped in as an early-morning reporter or late-morning anchor, thrilled to be part of a news team again. Stories for the morning were typically either built from audio recorded on the street/in live interviews the day before, provided from the ABC affiliate website, the AP newswire, or gathered by phone. Once the on-air versions were ready, reporters wrote a separate version and posted it to the website. I studied with the veteran reporters and anchors, determined to become an asset. I learned what was expected and I delivered, crafting balanced newscasts with a variety of voices. A story was not complete without opposing viewpoints. I began to understand that information can become closer to entertainment when thoughtfully and artfully presented, and I strived for compelling storytelling, ultimately earning an AP award for my efforts. Near the end of my time with WDBO, I settled into some regular hours, confident in the leadership role granted to the anchor, charged with steering the action in the newsroom for optimal coverage of the day's top stories.

When a news director position was offered to my husband, he leapt at the chance to lead a newsroom, and we came to Madison. And discovered I was pregnant. With morning sickness sapping my motivation to job-hunt, I accepted an offer from my stepdad to help out with his burgeoning Fair Trade import/wholesale business and worked from home in my spare time. What was initially a low-key endeavor became a great lesson in time management, and I've become rather adept at maintaining contact with our customers by phone, via email, and through various social networking sites.

Now, here I am, ready to get back to work in radio and primed for the position as [producer] of [talk radio program]. Please, allow me to be everything you're looking for.

Ta Da!  

Maybe I can recycle this into cover-letter material for the next great gig that comes my way.  Until then, I'm going to love up on the girls and hubs and enjoy my current job title: Mama. 

Toothaches and Bossa Nova

Pimento is teething.  And there might be some gassiness in play, as well.  She's wakeful, napping not more than thirty minutes at a stretch during daylight, and outright fighting sleep at bedtime, finally drifting off in our arms, but twisting and flailing when horizontal.  We've dispensed the go-to remedies to combat the teething, wakefulness, and gas.  She's finally sleeping now, snuggled up with big sis in the biggest bed.

And I still can't sleep.
I have a raging toothache that spans the left half of my jaw, and no amount of home remedies or pain meds can dull it long enough for me to relax.  It could be some sort of teething sympathy pains, though the more likely cause is a remaining wisdom tooth shoving its way into a full mouth and leaving the well-established inhabitants little option but to jostle and bump each other out of the way, in slow-motion.  Which frigging hurts like a mother.  It makes me want to curse and kick and grab some pliers for a little G D relief!

It started throbbing earlier this week, so I called and made an appointment with my dentist.  Can I wait 'til next Thursday?  Sure!  It wasn't unbearable at that point.  Now Thursday looks like a distant mirage, my vision blurred by the pain.

When I was struggling to settle Pimento for the night, experimenting with putting her to sleep in a crib (which I was able to do once earlier, and lasted half as long as it took me to accomplish), Daddy had the clear-headed genius to bring me the radio, tuned to some mellow World Music.
As I rocked and soothed, the tunes went from flutes and guitars to blues and finally, my go-to good mood music, Bossa Nova.  A familiar melody.  All the tension of a restless baby, combined with a wrenched shoulder (oh, didn't I mention that?) and the throb of toothache, lifted away by chill Brazilian syncopations.

Now, with an anesthetic-soaked cotton ball stuffed in my cheek, I try to focus on that feeling, those oceanic rhythms and mellowness lifting me out of my aching body and onto a higher plane, where I can see the big picture.
Where baby teeth arrive and naps can resume.
Where bedtime doesn't take three hours of constant soothing. (Yes, I'll still miss it when she's all grown up.)
Where Thursday really isn't that far off.

(But it still can't come soon enough.)
 

The Car Accident

The girls and I were in a wreck today.

No one was injured.

But our '97 Subaru wagon won't be joining us on any more adventures.  Poor girl was hauled off on a flatbed truck to the junkyard.  Her sacrifice will not be forgotten.
Two other vehicles were involved, and both drove away from the scene while I stood in the midday sun, sweating along with my babes, waiting for and then watching Zack the tow truck operator load up our mangled chariot.

My first call was to 911.  Both girls were crying and Peach was complaining that her chest hurt.  During the course of the call, the crying and complaints subsided, but I wasn't confident in my judgement.  Send an ambulance, just in case.

My second call was to my husband.  We're all okay, the car looks bad, we'll figure something out.  I think I repeated the word "okay" in several contexts, probably trying to convince myself more than anyone that it could have been worse.  Apparently, my default operating system in a crisis is forced calm and optimism.  He called and sent messages every few minutes to check on us and offer guidance.  I'd never been in a car-totaling accident before, and he knew I was shell-shocked.

I've been repeating the split-second scenario of the moments before and during impact, trying to decipher exactly what happened and how, but I'm still completely baffled.  It simply should not have happened.
I had just retrieved Peach from preschool, and was planning to take both girls to visit Daddy at a nearby hospital where he was being treated for his chronic condition.  Peach was having a fit about wanting to choose the order of the afternoon's planned activities, and was emphatically arguing that the library should be the first stop.
We were moving, and then we weren't.  I noticed the brake lights in front of me, and reacted accordingly.  There's no way I didn't hit my brakes in time to avoid a collision.  We weren't even going fast enough for the airbags to deploy.  It's as if the brakes just didn't engage, despite full pressure from my panicked right foot.  And yet, the front end of our workhorse vehicle was fully smooshed, hood folded and lights crushed, fluids leaking and engine exposed.  Thank you, Japanese engineering, for making a smooshable car that keeps the passengers fully intact.
I want answers.  I want CSI-style skid-mark analysis.  I want to inspect the black box aboard my craft.

Instead, I get to enjoy my citation for "failure to yield" or some such legalese term for "dummy rear-ended a stopped car", as well as a four-year-old daughter who will never let me forget how much she "doesn't want to hit any cars this time" during subsequent travels.  She really wanted to ride in the ambulance that was sent.  I'm thankful that wasn't necessary.

Once the wreck was cleared away, the attending officer, Amy, kindly chauffeured us to the aforementioned hospital, where Daddy's station vehicle was available to receive both kiddos' car seats.  On the way to there, I learned that the blast-force A/C in a fully-equipped police cruiser does not adequately cool the back seat, as it is fully obstructed by a bullet-proof pane.  So, while thrilling for Peach, the ride in a police car was torture for hot little Pimento and is overall not an experience I'll choose to repeat.

We spent a few languorous hours with Daddy in his hospital room, soaking in his sanity and sating our nerves with Spongebob and single-serving snacks.  Peach didn't want to leave, but Pimento was struggling to cope with her combo teething/vaccination pain (Oh yes! Did I mention little P had her 6-month checkup and shots this morning, too?  It's truly been a joyous day.) and I needed to get in gear for the evening's impending bedtime routine.
Peach was apparently still expecting a stop at the library.  Sweet naivete.

It was a poorly-timed departure.  We pulled out of the hospital parking garage and into rush-hour traffic, compounded by construction and extra drivers, diverted to our route by a grass fire.  It took us the better part of an hour to make it home, which was less than five miles away.  Add an insect-induced anxiety attack from Peach and factor in non-functional A/C, and you'll understand why I was at the brink of tears for twenty minutes once we were home.  (I called hubs, and he talked me down, like I knew he would.  Thank Jeebus for that man.)

And now, a prayer.

Dear Universe,
Thank you for keeping my family from harm today.  I solemnly swear that I've learned whatever lesson you were trying to teach me.  Please let tomorrow be better.
Amen.

How do I know she's growing up?

Peach is four now.
Having had a recent birthday, there are nevertheless very few stark benchmarks that come with her new age.  As expected, most of her development has been gradual and therefore difficult to pinpoint.  Which is why I'm amazed to notice these pinpointable changes.

She rides a bike.
That is, she rode a brand new, lovingly team-Stein-assembled Disney Princess birthday bike (with training wheels! and a seat for a doll/stuffed animal! and a handlebar pouch for snacks!) several times on successive days, until she almost fell off one too many times while navigating the uneven turn from our driveway onto the front walk.  Now she wants to ride her tricycle again.  We might try again tomorrow, fully strapped with the knee and elbow pads that came with her 3rd birthday Disney Princess rollerskates.  That first day, when she jumped right on and took to it like a fish to water, Daddy and I co-marveled at how tiny she looked perched atop her shiny new ride.  A one-block trek was punctuated with multiple stops for snacks (from the princess pouch, of course), inspecting ants, and picking dandelions.

Her ponies are no longer just the factory-labeled characters.
They are free to be Mommy or Daddy, requesting help from the other to "get the water out of the trunk" [of the car], much like the real-life counterparts.  A "little sister" character is now common in her cast, too, usually being denied the use of a tiara or other personal item belonging to either Mommy or the big sister.

What really knocked me out, though, is the skill she flaunted today.
She can craft familiar animals from playdough.  She's been squeezing and rolling it proficiently for over a year, including some exploration with various plastic apparatuses and molds to make abstract and food-like shapes, but the independent combination of basic shapes to form animals (and even a fairly recognizable pink/purple Tinker Bell) blows me away.  True, she's basing her creations on the included illustrated instructions (from a Crayola Model Magic Pop-a-Dot kit with kangaroo/platypus options), but her ability to translate those flat images into a three-dimensional creation seems like a disproportionately advanced skill.  Maybe it's just Mommy pride.

Like the pride I feel every time she requests and eats a green salad.
I still haven't completely mastered that skill.