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My aunt’s recipe: 1) 1/2 cup unbleached white flour + 2) 1 cup milk + 3) 3 eggs + 4) 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg = batter. Split into 3 equal parts for 3 pancakes! Then preheat oven to 425, have three glass 9 inch pie dishes ready with a generous tablespoon of butter in each. Slip them in at the last few minutes of the preheating to melt the butter. Yank them out, add the equally separated batter. Watch them. In our oven it takes about 8 minutes. It could take up to 11. It should be bubbly and nicely light brown in parts, and still yellow in the middle. Add syrup, freshly whipped cream, berries, powdered sugar, or just eat plain! Delish.
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SuperBoy loves music. Don’t all little tikes? He dances along, twirls, shrugs his shoulders, twists his wrists, and bobs his head from side to side. Sometimes there is jumping up and down involved. He only listens to two kids of music, though: classical or a limited selection of children/folk tunes. Why so limited? Why not open up his horizons to encompass the normal range of what’s out there? Well, for a few reasons. Most pop culture music has bad beats & bad lyrics. Classical music affects neurological development in a positive way (read more on my posts here and here). Heavy metal is bad for everyone’s ear drums. Folk & children’s tunes are generally benign enough lyrics-wise, and can be tolerated for protracted periods of time (by moi). What to we actually listen to, most of the time, aside from a small collection of random kid’s CDs? 1) Classical Minnesota Public Radio. MPR, baby! It’s commercial-free (unless you count the inane member drives), plays a huge variety, and never gets dull. When it burgeons into modern or what sounds like the scary violins in a thriller movie, we turn to our CD collection of opera, piano concertos, and orchestral suites. We had him listen to classical music exclusively until he was about 10-12 months, when those neurons were really REALLY forming. See below for reference to lecture on The Profound Effects of Music on Life. SuperBoy really loves Maria Callas. We have this old CD of her performing about 12 arias. He…
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When you’re 33 weeks pregnant, there are several inappropriate things you do not want to hear, not from your partner, family members, friends, or strangers. I have personally experienced all of these during this pregnancy or the last. People, don’t say this stuff! 1) Wow. You’re big. (Usually followed by: how much bigger do you think you’ll get?) Yep, and chances are you’re just going to get bigger. It’s called pregnancy and you grow in all parts of your body, not limited to your belly. A hair dresser once told me (when I showed her a photo of how I liked my hair when I was about 40 weeks pregnant with SuperBoy), “Oh, honey, we can do that hair, but this girl’s face is shaped differently than yours.” Um. That was me. 45 pounds heavier. Oope! 2) So how uncomfortable are you? More than you can imagine. And do you want me to be graphic? I can describe which parts of my body the baby’s body chooses to body slam. I can also describe all the other uncomfortable parts of life that revolve around my pregnancy-related-areas. Is this a question people ask just to rub in that you’re a beached whale and they’re not? 3) Do you want it to be over yet? What a tricky question. No, I want my child to grow until she’s considered full-term. And then I want her to come out without medical intervention. So the answer is no. But the answer is also YES…
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This is part 6 of our Birth & Parenting Series. Part 1 (Thoughts From a Mother of Four) is here, part 2 (Mother of Seven Shares Her Empowering Birth Stories) is here, part 3 (First-Time Mother of Twins) is here, part 4 (How First-Time Parents Braved a Placental Abruption) is here, and part 5 (Childbirth Collective Doula Film Premiere) is here. This first-time mama shares her story about how she approached natural labor, how she and her husband worked hard through incredibly difficult environmental circumstances, and how she knew to trust her body (maternal instincts win out!). I am blown away by what she endured at the hospital, and really inspired by her positivity and honesty. We all think we can “handle” things, but it takes a real woman to know what she can and cannot control. Great example, great article. I am no expert when it comes to giving birth. Unlike many of the other impressive women who have shared their story on this blog, I have only done it one time. And other than the fact that it resulted in a healthy baby, the labor and delivery process wasn’t exactly a smashing success for me. To be brutally honest, I went into the birthing experience a little overconfidently. I assumed that giving birth would be difficult, but manageable. After all, I had: (a) read a lot of birthing books; (b) taken all of the recommended labor workshops; (c) compiled a killer I-Pod mix; and (d) had diligently maintained an active pregnancy, replete with…
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Winter in Minnesota: lots of lotion, itchiness, and no incentive to bathe (sorry, AA!) as it’s cold, dry, and just all around bad weather here. I know, I know, it’s been a mild winter. That’s nice. But it’s not SoCal, okay? What to do for your dry winter skin? 1) Hydration & nutrition. First off, stay hydrated. Water moves from the inside out. So drink up, H2O that is, especially if you’re a soda, coffee, or tea drinker as those are dehydrants. And what you eat has a HUGE impact on your skin. I’m no expert, but it’s things you’d think of, like berries, good fats (avocado, nuts), beans, dark chocolate (yes!!!). Google it up (as my dad says). 2) Lotion. Secondly, lotion up. And with real stuff, not the icky smear-around-cheap-crap. Go buy something that is a little more expensive, but has real and penetrating ingredients. I love any variety of things I find at the Coop, but stick with lots of great oils as well. My mom got a few gallons of this Goat’s Milk lotion from some little vendor in Vermont a few years back for all of us for Christmas (she thought she was ordered a far smaller quantity–and probably made this goat farmer’s year with her purchase order). It’s amazing. For pregnant mamas, the Mambino Organics Moisturizing Toning Oil is amazing (my sister gave it to me last pregnancy and I still have some left over for this one!) and a little goes a…
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Parenting Style Talk: Maybe It Starts With the Parent
There’s lots of talk around the world of media about parenting styles lately. I propose we should focus a little more on who we are and how we behave, and let it follow suit. Are we putting our needs first, disguised as “what’s best for my child”? Are we failing to corral our own behavioral patterns and instead blaming our child’s behavior for our negativity? Let’s look at these articles first and see what secrets they purport to divulge on the great Parenting Style Solution. Remember last year when Amy Chua wrote “Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother” and there was an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Why Chinese Parents Are Superior,” and then a follow up rebuttal piece by Ayelet Waldman “In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom?” Both are excellent reads, I might add, and the comment sections are fabulous(ly entertaining) and interesting. Now there’s the “Why French Parents are Superior” piece in the Journal by Pamela Druckerman, author of “Bringing Up Bebe.” Once again, there are various rebuttals, like these letters to the editor in the WSJ and this article in the NYT: “Building Self-Control, the American Way.” The authors of the NYT article run this blog called Welcome to Your Brain, and they just came out with a book about brain development from conception through college. Totally need to get this! This last article is most compelling to me, partly because it’s based on the science of the human brain and…
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