Somebody's Bakin' Blondies

What a horrible title for that last post! No wonder hardly anyone has read it. I had to write again sooner than I may have wished, just to redeem myself as someone with at least a modicum of something interesting to say! Not that I should be raising the bar of expectation for this or any forthcoming posts.

Snow day, again! Guess who is at work today and who is not? Right, I'm at home, and Mr. E is working at the hospital. I have a pile of work to do, which I thought I was going to do because Mr. E was going to pick up my mom this morning and bring her over to watch Sprout while I worked. You know this plan goes awry because I am blogging (and baking blondies) instead of working while Sprout takes a nap babbles in his crib. The whole reason why Mr. E works one weekday a month instead of two weekend days is so that I'm not home alone on weekends with Sprout and feeling like I never get a break. So maybe today is not really like that, since I am home as a bonus, but I am so annoyed that Mr. E's workday has to collide with another snow day!!! So! Annoyed!!! There are still hours to bill, there is still shit I need to get done. Which I can't, and won't today, because my mom didn't come over at 9 like she said she would when she declined to get picked up at 7:30 this morning. Actually, I'm just really bummed that I am here and Mr. E is not. He works two days a stinkin' month! I wanted to have family day. And French toast for breakfast. (So I didn't really want to work...the truth comes out.)

No real news to report...glad I am cycling...sad I have no news to report.

I will just share what I am baking today:
Blondies from Amy's Bread. This wouldn't be my baking experience without a few modifications. I use pecans instead of walnuts. They are so much better. I served toasted pecans as a snack to my father-in-law one time and he kept saying, "These walnuts are so good. I didn't think I like walnuts, but these are delicious!" That's because they were pecans. Use them.

* Need a 12 x 17 inch pan. This is called a baker's half sheet.

4 Cups unbleached All Purpose Flour
2 1/4 TSP Baking Powder
1 TSP Kosher Salt
2 Cups unsalted Butter, melted
3 1/2 Cups Dark Brown Sugar
4 Large Eggs
1 1/3 TSP. Vanilla Extract
2 Cups + 2 TBSP Semisweet chocolate chips
2 3/4 Cups toasted walnuts pecans


1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 12 X 17 inch pan with softened butter or vegetable shortening. Cover with parchment paper.
2. In medium bowl, add the flour, baking powder and salt and whisk together. I never do this, I just add to the big bowl when ready.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the melted butter and brown sugar, stir to combine then allow the butter to cool slightly before continuing. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla. I whisk the eggs and vanilla together, then stir into the big bowl.
4. Fold the flour mixture into the sugar mixture and stir until it is almost combined then add 1/4 of the chocolate and walnuts pecans and fold them into the batter. Sometimes I put all the stuff into the batter, instead of sprinkling on top.
5. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips evenly on top of bars. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 325 and bake for 16 – 21 minutes, turning half way through front to back. This whole temperature switch never seeemed to make a difference, and I find that these have to bake way longer in your home oven than a commercial oven. Watch for golden browning on the top and edges. They are usually best baked when I think they've gone a little too long...but they haven't. If you like gooey, uncooked centers (what are you, a barbarian?), then you don't have to worry about extra baking time and the time stated in the recipe may work for you.
6. Allow the Blondies to cool completely on a wire rack before cutting into 25 bars. Cut the bars into any size you want.

Today I do not have enough brown sugar, so I am using the rest of my brown and then using white. I also use a scale to weigh instead of measure my ingredients and I highly recommend this practice!! I may not have enough eggs but I haven't checked yet. I don't have pecans, and though I do have walnuts, I think I will leave out the nuts this time. I would have walked across the street to the grocery store that is literally across the street, but I can't today because nobody came over to help me take care of Sprout and I am somewhat helpless alone with a toddler all day.

Happy Baking!!!! And eating. That is the real reason why I love to bake sweets.

Death and Travel

Lately on my mind is how the significant and memorable events in my life have involved death or travel. Sometimes both at the same time (my grandmother died while Mr. E and I were in Lake Placid for our honeymoon.) I first dealt closely with death when two close friends, Audrey and Jon, died in a car accident. It was Audrey's 14th birthday. Jon died the next day. He was pronounced brain dead at the hospital and his family removed him from life support. I was at the hospital that day. I saw his bloated body, practically unrecognizable, living and breathing only thanks to machines. I sat with his sister, whom I knew separately because we danced together. On Audrey's golden birthday--September 14th--she was a passenger in a car driven by her older brother, a car that crashed into a tree going 90 miles an hour on a windy country road. I always wondered what that was like for her parents. How could they not hate their son for that? Which is also a terrible thought to have.

My mom thinks I started to engage in risky behavior after Jon and Audrey died. I guess she didn't recognize that I was already starting to do that. Sometimes I agree with her though. Maybe there was a correlation, if not causation. At any rate...this is something that I remember so well. The experience of seeing death so closely at a young age, and losing friends so young as well, changed how I saw the world and how I dealt with death. Certainly I recognize how this has made me more compassionate to others experiencing the death of a loved one. I get so emotional at funerals, even if I was not close with the decedent, because I see and feel the pain their loved ones are feeling. I will never forget what it was like to see Audrey and Jon's parents after the accident. Even seeing them years later...and knowing that hole in their lives was still there.

I've noticed since Blue's death that the people who have lost a loved one are much better at witnessing and talking about death and grief and losing a child. They didn't need to lose a pregnancy or a living child themselves. But if they lost a parent or a sibling, they knew what to say and what not to say. I'm sorry for their losses and their experiences, but I am grateful for their support and understanding. Blue's death has been by far the most difficult experience I have had, and sometimes even now I can't believe I have survived.

When I think of what's happened to me in my life, the next thing that comes to mind as significant in my life are road trips and plane trips and sites and sights seen. Croatia and Peru are the two trips I've taken recently (2009 and 2010--been busy with other important things actually recently!) that were so awesome and of which I am proud. Proud for going there and planning everything on our own and making the adventures happen. In 2003 I took a road trip of the Canadian Rockies and Pacific Northwest for two months on my own. I lived out of my VW Jetta, camping and staying with friends along the way. I think that trip shaped the way I see the world today as well. I have so many amazing stories from that trip. After that I lived in the mountains in Colorado and while visiting a friend in Utah for a few days, made a new friend with whom I traveled to Hawaii for three weeks the following autumn. That too was an awesome adventure that produced great stories. I miss it!!! If I could change anything about now, it would be putting travel back in my life, even with a 15-month-old and desire for more kids. Although I think I feel more held back from traveling by having to work in a meaningful job that makes me enough money, than by having a toddler. Any advice? I don't especially love being a lawyer, but it does pay the bills better than living out of your car.

My parents are going to Africa in July to visit friends in Namibia, and they have invited all of us kids and our kids. Such an amazing opportunity but I don't think we can swing it. Damn job and billable hours requirement! For now Mr. E and I have planned a ski trip this month, just the two of us, while Sprout hangs with his grandparents. (Maybe if this hadn't already been planned before we knew about Africa, we would have gone to Africa without Sprout instead of Colorado.) I am nervous about this though! Sprout knows them well and doesn't cry when they watch him and put him to bed (unlike what he does for the babysitters). But I worry about them paying enough attention to him, being able to pull him up out of the bathtub, feeding him when he's being fussy. He's such a good little guy and he won't give them any extra trouble...but 16-month-olds are a lot of work for 70-year-olds, right?? Just for now I am regretting not having kids earlier...so my parents could be younger. I'm just hoping no one ends up scarred from this experience! We are already planning on taking Sprout on the 2015 ski trip. Since 2-year-olds can ski. :)

Painting Rainbows

I haven't been pregnant now for 15 months, and I think it's time get Sprout's tattoo. It will go on my inner upper left arm, close to my heart. Blue's tattoo is on the inside of my right wrist, on the pulse point.

Yesterday I painted rainbows...Which one should I pick?

Congratulations and welcome all the new rainbows and rainbows to come in 2014...especially the little brother of Blue Sunday.

BL/AD

As you may or may not know, I've been trying to sort through this anger and jealousy about how life is unfair and how that leads me to have thoughts like "I hate everyone I know (and don't know) who is pregnant."

I have been trying to figure out when and why I first started having these feelings, because a few years ago when I felt like I was really ready to meet a man and start a family, I was also kind of jealous of women who were already there where I wanted to be. I would sometimes think about the guy I met when I was 28, and how he ruined everything because he turned out to be a real dick. I moved in with him, moved to a new town for him, and although I did end up really loving that town, it was only a matter of weeks before I realized the move was a big mistake and the relationship was doomed. And I would sometimes rage at him in my head, usually when making a long drive by myself, thinking that I had been ready then and if he had just been the right person or at least not a dick then I wouldn't have been in the situation of being over 30* and trying to settle down with the New York City men of Match.com. It's HIS fault I met Chris--who turned out to be VERY MUCH like him--and went on to have a dead baby. But my point is that I was sad and angry before I lost Blue. But it wasn't such a sharp pain. The jealousy was softer, more like an "oh, I wish..." before I would realize that I didn't have "..." because I had made other choices, other choices that I really liked. Even if I experienced some sadness or depression during the times I was living those other choices, it wasn't like I was stabbed in the heart every time I saw a pregnant woman or heard about a friend's pregnancy, birth, or newborn.

As I've been thinking about all this, I realize my jealousy, anger, envy and sadness exist on the babyloss calendar as "Before Loss" and "After Death." Everything feels different in the new AD world. And when I find myself with generalized feelings of just-plain-feeling-shitty because, e.g., someone I know is pregnant (again), I just miss my BL life more than I can comprehend. I just want to go back to being that person who didn't rage about things she couldn't control. (Ha! See preceding paragraph. No, but I would rather be the soft-jealousy-feeling kind of person than the one who hates everyone sometimes. At least that soft jealousy can serve to remind you to pursue the things you really value and want for your life. This other kind just wears you down beyond the nub that you already are.)

The funny thing is that after I thought about this, I felt a little less pressure to get pregnant again ASAP. I mean, I KNOW that other people's pregnancies don't mean I have a reduced chance for having another baby...but I finally have started to feel that way too. In casual conversation I learned that a friend from high school just had her second child, a daughter, recently (I had known she had an older son but did not know she was pregnant), and I wasn't stabbed in the heart. I was aware that I could have been stabbed in the heart by the news. Which is another AD experience, but not as bad as the actual stabbing part.

*Lying about your age to represent that you are under 30 is a double-edged sword. Trust me.

. . .

On to other topics. Let's talk about my dear Aunt Flo. Feel free to stop reading now if you don't want a play-by-play of my vaginal discharge of the past two weeks. To continue, scroll down. :)








A little over a week ago I noticed some very light pink, very light spotting. In the initial moment, I was so thrilled to be getting my cycle back! Something was happening! Something that could lead to my getting pregnant again soon!! Then I was sad, thinking, "haven't I been having enough sex to have skipped the period part and gone straight to being pregnant?" Then I searched the Internet obsessively for posts about implantation bleeding. Over the next few days I had more spotting, mostly light and brown in color. Similar to what was described as implantation bleeding. So of course I peed on a stick. And of course I am not pregnant. I didn't really feel pregnant anyway. More sadness, mixed with some general crabbiness. The bleeding continued for a few more days and never got heavy and never really got red, though there may have been a few patches. So, I have now convinced myself that even though my period took 14 months to return, I had an anovulatory cycle that was discharging some old blood as a result of the light cramping that occurred as my cycle was getting back into gear. That makes sense, right? And I almost went out for OPKs, and almost started having sex on a daily basis...and then I realized that I want to just CHILL OUT about this for a little while and see what happens.

I don't know where this falls on the AD calendar...maybe somewhere around the Renaissance?

I Don't Know Your Story

I wrote the paragraphs below last summer, and never published them as a post because it seemed incomplete. I am slowly creeping out of a fog of heavy grief. I am trying to focus on the positive within myself, and trying not to  compare myself to others I think "have it better." Or who are lucky enough not to have a dead baby in their past. Sometimes, though, I admit it feels better to compare myself to someone I think has it worse. Did I write that I already or only think it? I think it so often, I cannot tell the difference. Not exactly evil, but not exactly nice. I don't know, maybe it's just a variation on the theme of thinking of those less fortunate, and being grateful for what you have.

I was never good at being grateful, or being present, and I am no better in the long, broad wake of baby loss.

Compare and compare and compare I will, but I don't know your story...

And yet I imagine I do. And I hate you because your story is not complicated like mine. It is not grief-ridden like mine. You are young and if not beautiful then you are cute and sweet-looking. Your husband is young and tall and he carries your son, not yet two or even one, on his shoulders. He holds your daughter's small hand and you all walk slowly together. Your daughter is not yet three. You are pregnant and your belly button is slightly sticking out under your blue cotton dress. And I fucking hate you for having these three kids, because you will have your third child without complication, I can tell by the sweet look on your face.

I am 35 and anxiously awaiting the arrival of my second son, hoping with my entire being that this second son will live. The thing that caused his brother's death cannot cause his, but in the world where I now live, lots of different bad things can happen to babies before they are born. And so I freak out now and again and have days of grief and anxiety and moodiness. I think that this isn't fair, why can't I go back to being oblivious? Like you.

But I don't know your story...

I suppose there is a woman watching me, thinking that I look so happy, so glowing, so ignorant, the blissful kind. Maybe she's tried for years to get pregnant and yet no pregnancies. Maybe she's had multiple--or even just one--early miscarriage. She's never felt a baby move from the inside. She's never talked about her baby or strollers or night-feedings with strangers. Maybe she hates my pregnant guts.

...and you don't know mine.

To Wean, or Not To Wean?

I need help, you guys!

LLL lady says to keep nursing through cold and flu season to keep giving Sprout antibodies and comfort if/when he does get sick. I could take herbal supplement (chasteberry) to help bring back my period. I am not exactly sold on the stuff. And it's contraindicated in pregnancy, so I would be obsessively testing, and that could get expensive. Speaking of expensive...I just looked it up and it is not expensive, so that won't help me decide.

A few mornings ago, Sprout was crying when he got up and after I changed his diaper I set him down for a moment to rinse the diaper and he just stood, crying, staring at me and waiting for me to pick him up to nurse. Two days later he woke up happy and I played with him briefly and just got him breakfast right away and he didn't seem like he needed to nurse. The next day he was really asking for it again. But, that was some progress towards baby-led weaning. I'm just not sure I can hold out the whole way...I REALLY want to try to get pregnant again. I mean, have I mentioned that at all yet? Ha!

I made a plan to nurse--we're down to morning and night, as of this weekend, actually! No daytime nursing yesterday or today. OK, cool!--through the holidays/end of year. Then in January I would scale back to once per day, either morning or night, not really sure, I guess eliminating night would be nice so that I can be out during bedtime on occasion (probably like never, but a gal can dream). Then I imagine that my period will return immediately and I will have another October baby. I was just saying a gal can dream. Ideally I would skip the period and just catch the first egg. Or two. Twins would be nice and give me more hope for having four kids instead of just three. So far my kids only have a 50/50 chance, so I am not about to start counting any chickens! But anyway, that was a recent thought but I still am not sure.

I would keep nursing if I could pregnant at the same time. What would you do...wean now, and maybe force it? Or wean later, when Sprout is ready, maybe after cold/flu season, but continue to wait to try for the next bebe? When I sit in a quiet room and close my eyes and try to really think this through, all I get is tick tick Tick Tick TIck TICk TICK TICK!

It's Worse

There is no reason to compare pregnancy loss to the loss of a child, but today I did anyway and I think I have my answer. Losing a child is worse.

I was bored at work this morning and f'ing around on Facebook when I came across a number of condolences messages to a friend and ex-boyfriend from college. We had not kept in touch right after college but, thanks to Facebook, had more recently reconnected and exchanged a few emails. I would say in the past year or two. Actually I just checked my Facebook messages and got sucked into a rabbit hole of reading old Facebook messages. Wow. My friend and I were in touch back in 2009 for the first time since college. More than a year or two ago.

I will get right to it: his 6-year-old daughter was hit by a car and killed on Monday. This is unbelievable. Apparently she walked out between parked cars; there were no allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the driver. He and his wife have an older daughter who is 9, I think. This is just so sad. I cried and wrote something on his wall and spent the rest of the day being really out of it and unfocused at work.

I also told one of the secretaries and we talked about loss for a few minutes. Her sister died of cancer last year and she is a pretty understanding person. She is also known as the office gossip, so I figured after the fact that she was a good person to tell because she would tell other people what happened to explain why I was out of it (if anyone actually noticed). Later that day a card was being circulated for sympathy and condolences for one of the partners who works from home. I don't know her very well is my point. I signed the card, writing simply "my condolences," thinking about my friend and his daughter and whether or not I cared at all about whom this partner lost. I asked the secretary and it was the partner's uncle. On the day I found out my friend's 6-year-old daughter just died, I have to sign a card for someone-I-don't-care-about-at-all's elderly uncle? After that it was late enough in the day that I just chatted with another associate and then left.

But anyway, as I was reading the condolences on my friend's wall, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling to try to find a status update, I was thinking what could it be? He had come up in my news feed quite a bit lately and I was pretty sure his wife wasn't pregnant. He is an only child so it wasn't a sibling and it didn't seem like parents and then some posts mentioned his wife and one daughter but not the other. As I was thinking was it the loss of a pregnancy or of a 9- or 6-year-old child, I just knew in my heart that losing the child at that age would be devastatingly...worse. And I was just speechless and sad and I wish this never happened.