What did you do in 2021 that you’d never done before? Lost a sibling; started a flossing habit; biked a metric century; biked to Indiana; caught a mouse with my own hands; eliminated dairy from my diet for an extended time; solo parented for a weekend; actively sought out professional mentorship; took both kids ice skating; dropped a kid off for day camp; met with a flying consul.
Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? My word for 2021 was NOTICE. I did a lot of noticing!
Did anyone close to you give birth? No
Did anyone close to you die? My brother Eric died a week before his 25th birthday.
What countries (or new places) did you visit? I biked to Indiana a number of times.
What would you like to have in 2022 that you lacked in 2021? Childcare.
What date from 2021 will remain etched up on your memory, and why? February 22. While making dinner (red curry with butternut squash) the evening of the 21st, I got a call from my sister. Our brother was dead. They found him at home. I somehow got through the rest of the evening, including calling my parents, largely in a state of shock.
What was your biggest achievement of the year? This was probably the best year I’ve had at my job but also the hardest.
Did you suffer illness or injury? We thankfully avoided COVID for all of 2021 despite close family exposures. I was diagnosed with (more) osteoarthritis in my foot in September which a couple of months of PT helped address.
What was the best thing you bought? I intentionally didn’t buy clothes for 6 months which was pretty terrific and helped shift my awareness of consumption a bit. I bought panniers for my bike that were instrumental in supporting bike adventures and facilitating grocery runs. Right now I’m appreciating my adjustable kettlebells for home workouts.
Whose behavior merited celebration? Everyone who got vaccinated even if they were afraid to do so. Everyone who put their community ahead of their individual desires.
Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Everyone who had the option to get vaccinated but didn’t. Everyone who participated in the Capitol invasion. Everyone who tried to interfere with other people making responsible choices for their health and the health of our communities. A whole lot of white people.
Where did most of your money go? Food and rent.
What did you get really, really, really excited about? Beans. Biking.
What song will always remind you of 2021?
Compared to this time last year, are you: i. happier or sadder? Sadder ii. richer or poorer? Richer
What do you wish you’d done more of? Running, traveling, spending time with other people.
What do you wish you’d done less of? Making complex choices about COVID risks. Worrying about COVID. Reading about COVID.
How did you spend Christmas? In Rockford with my family. We got a hotel room for the night and it made a world of difference in terms of stress. I made Roberto The Soup for Christmas Eve dinner, and Mark and I made breakfast tacos for Christmas Day. My sister’s kids were under the weather earlier in the week, so we didn’t get to spend much time with them, but it was wonderful to all be together. We got to have a bit of outside time in the afternoon, including uncovering a nest of mice in the treehouse, but left in time to be home for dinner. It was wonderful to have the time together, particularly during the first holiday season after Eric’s death.
Did you fall in love in 2021? I fell in love with my bike all over again. Also beans.
What was the best thing you ate? I went all in on beans.
What was your favorite TV program? The Expanse.
Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No, pretty much the same jerks year after year.
What was your greatest musical discovery? The Hackers Soundtrack is as good as I remembered.
What did you want and get? Hundreds of miles on my bike. Really great tan lines. Trips to the beach with the kids. HUGS. Several glorious restaurant meals. More than one professional haircut. A new friend or two.
What did you want and not get? Mostly travel, but also peace of mind.
What was your favorite film of the year? Dune, which I’m so glad I was able to see in the theater.
What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 41. The small kid and I went out in the snow to pick up an early morning birthday coffee. I felt depressed about having a midwinter, mid-pandemic birthday when I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything or see anyone. I think we ordered pizza and I made cocktails. I don’t think we had cake. The next morning we drove up north to pick up pastries from Sauce and Bread. We took a snowy walk in Roseland Cemetery and saw a bunch of deer. I made ramen for dinner.
Since plans on my actual birthday weren’t possible, we had lunch at Reggie’s On The Beach for my half birthday. No friends or cocktails, but I’ll take it.
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? More travel. More hugs.
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2021? Jean shorts and my David Rose-esque star sweater for the 2nd year in a row.
What kept you sane? Nicolas, my sister, Eva, Kim and Angie, KZ, Jenny and Iona, my 5 year journal.
Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Who has time for that?
What political issue stirred you the most? I had the opportunity to participate in the Racial Equity Institute’s Groundwater workshop which was absolutely transformational for me. Every day offers an ongoing recommitment to undoing white supremacy, past and present.
My book club read Antoine de St Exupéry’s Night Flight this month, and as I hurried to finish the book last night, I was struck by this quote:
“Even though human life may be the most precious thing on earth, we always behave as if there were something of higher value than human life.”
The narrator was talking about a pilot, lost to the skies, the value of his life – or any individual life – held in balance opposite the value of his cargo – but this reflection runs parallel to so much of what’s happening in our country this week – a vocal, visible, occasionally violent acknowledgement that for far too long, Black lives have been treated as less valuable than property (unless those Black lives actually were property).
A place to start is by saying the words: Black Lives Matter.
As a white person raised in a white family in a white neighborhood, a white church, and white schools, it is safe to say that I have a lifetime of deeply ingrained white supremacy to unlearn. In America, but particularly as a white people in America, white supremacy is inseparable from the streets we walk, the food we eat, the laws we follow, the air we breathe. There is nothing that we do that is not informed by white supremacy, and the sooner we realize this, the sooner we can start the difficult and necessary work of becoming anti-racist.
A place to start is by saying the words: I am racist. I want to become anti-racist.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably been overwhelmed with information about things to do, books to read, or places to give. Here are a few things that have been meaningful for me:
Seeing White: White supremacy treats whiteness as the default. Season 2 of the terrific Scene on Radio podcast turns a critical lens onto that assertion.
Thick And Other Essays: Tressie McMillan Cottom’s criticism is challenging and wide-ranging, but should be required reading.
Finally, in the interest of sharing information with people who want it (vs people who I think might want it), I’m going to try putting together a little newsletter with links and things. Perhaps you’ll join me?
I keep waking up from anxiety dreams that are very much Of These Times: I am in a busy shop. I am in a crowded grocery store. In my dreams, I feel panicked because I am somewhere I am not supposed to be.
I am finding that our February spending fast prepared us well for this period. It doesn’t feel difficult to avoid shopping or eating out because we did that for the four weeks Before, though I miss buying coffee with nearly the same intensity. But also when I find myself pulling up the website for the grocery store multiple times a day, I know how to stop myself, and what questions to ask: what am I trying to soothe by loading this shopping cart? What does having good butter in the freezer mean to me? Do we need these things, or can they wait a few more days, and what will waiting feel like?
But also: I am struggling to reconcile the urgency with which we were tightening our belts in service of debt reduction – our priority in the Before – with a new sense of abundance in this moment when we are tremendously fortunate. While my employer has frozen salaries for at least the next fiscal year, I expect to continue to be comfortably employed, and so the stimulus payment warming our checking account, along with temporary student loan forbearance, feels like an embarrassment of riches at a time when so many others are in personal and financial jeopardy.
This week has felt heavy in different ways than the previous weeks. I miss my family and my friends, and wonder when I’ll be able to see them again in person. I am mourning the loss of small things, like my older son’s cancelled swimming lessons, or the opportunity to take the toddler to the zoo or the beach at this specific wondrous age. I am deeply grateful that we were able to go to Belgium before Christmas – and wonder how that will be possible again in an entirely changed world. I read a farewell post from a friend preparing to leave Chicago after many years, and found myself trying to imagine our vibrant city without its festivals, with the beaches closed, with no lakefront path for summer long runs. And then I found myself feeling guilty for experiencing these passing waves of sadness in the face of so much horror and suffering in the world.
So much of adulthood seems to involve holding contradictory things in balance: dreams for the future and realities of the present, the flaws of the systems in which we operate and the need for those systems to continue, the immediate needs of our loved ones and the also painfully pressing needs of the whole world.
Take a deep breath. Exhale. One thing at a time. One step forward. Sending love.
We’re nearing the end of January and I have yet to write about Belgium, or December, or my 40th birthday, or probably other things that merit time in this space. In the interest of ever getting to any of it, here’s a year-end link dump for your mid-week perusal.
How Not to Kill Your Partner (Just Kidding) — Cup of Jo — in the comments, someone differentiates between relationship issues and roommate issues, which is SUCH a useful distinction.
1. What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before?
Hired a babysitter; served on a conference planning committee; traveled internationally with two children; saw a world record being broken; wore a stick-on heart rate monitor for multiple weeks; successfully made falafel and a trifle and fish and a bunch of other semi-ambitious dishes; lost a kid in a crowded public place; got mastitis (twice!).
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I made a 40×40 list, but finished less than half of it, so I’m extending the deadline until my 41st birthday.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Several friends, but no one in my inner circle.
5. What countries (or new places) did you visit?
No new places this year. We spent 3 weeks in Belgium, including a day trip to Holland to visit family. I went to Champaign 3 times for work, and Iowa 3 times for sad reasons.
6. What would you like to have in 2020 that you lacked in 2019?
Financial independence (or at least a path there)
7. What date from 2019 will remain etched up on your memory, and why?
A lot of stuff happened this year, and as a result, many of the dates are fuzzy. I remember very clearly where I was when I learned that my grandma died, but I couldn’t tell you the date – it was the first week of August, and the funeral was a few days before the baby’s birthday, but that’s all I’ve got.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Mostly keeping my shit together from August through mid-November. Graduating from therapy. These things are related.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Patience. With myself, my partner, my big kid.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I’m very grateful that 2019 was medically very boring.
11. What was the best thing you bought? Weleda Skin Food. My Get to Workbook. The no frills men’s jeans I bought at C&A after yet another pair of pants failed me.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My kids are amazing, even if they drive me bananas at times. The big kid, age 5, is an avid letter writer and is doing 4th grade math and can play chess and poker and piano (if he pays attention to what he’s doing) and ran 5K on his birthday and has been drawing all of these involved pictures depicting all of the important things from our trip to Belgium. He plans to move to Belgium when he is 18, but he also plans to open a coffee shop near Boston called CoffeeFish. The small kid, age 16 months, is clever and naughty and irrepressibly joyful. He has a head of curls and adores his big brother and runs to the door and yells MA! when I come home.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Most elected officials’, same as in previous years.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Food and rent and debt and travel.
16. What song will always remind you of 2019?
I really didn’t listen to much music this year beyond random Spotify playlists. This track came up often:
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder?
Happier
ii. richer or poorer?
Poorer.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Sleep, running, time with friends, lying on the couch doing nothing – same as it ever was.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worrying about money, dealing with moving and apartment disasters.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
We were in Belgium for Sinterklaas, so the big kid enjoyed all manner of chocolate and surprises, while the small kid was delighted to get to eat little cookies off the floor.
We shifted our family’s celebration to December 23, when we celebrate our dating anniversary. We opened stockings and exchanged books: The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates for me The Landmark Thucydides for N P is for Pterodactyl by Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter for the big kid Never Touch a Dragon for the small kid
I worked Christmas Eve before watching the big kid perform in his choir at the Christmas Eve Tableau at Rockefeller Chapel. He was a donkey in the pageant.
We spent Christmas day in Rockford with my family – snacks and presents at my sister’s, more gifts and brunch at my parents’, then a mostly leisurely afternoon with the family.
21. Did you fall in love in 2019?
With the view from our Belgian apartment and the convenience of having actual appliances in our new Chicago apartment.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I can’t think of anything ground-shattering. I mostly listened to a bajillion podcasts.
27. What did you want and get?
3 weeks completely checked out from work
28. What did you want and not get?
Entry into the 2020 Chicago Marathon
29. What was your favorite film of the year?
I watched two movies in 2019: The Post (on the flight home from Belgium) and The Secret of Kells (on the big kid’s birthday). I would like to watch more movies, with and without my kids.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Brunch at The Gundis, coffee at Intelligentsia (where we took surveys in exchange for future free coffees), cupcakes at Molly’s, emergency water shut off at home, baby in a bear suit napping on my chest.
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Sleep
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2018?
Whatever fits.
33. What kept you sane?
Nicolas, my sister, Eva, Karen, Kim and Angie, Anne and KZ, long walks
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Who has time for that?
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
Another terrible, terrible year.
The month starts with a spontaneous trip to the Arboretum on a gray day. We’re members, but have barely visited this year because the baby couldn’t (wouldn’t) tolerate the car. Weather and naps mean that we can’t stay as long as we’d like, but it’s a lovely excursion while it lasts.
At work, we shut down the intranet that I somehow came to manage nearly seven years ago. The shut-down was supposed to happen in mid-2016. We have a party to celebrate, and I bring a glazed vanilla cake from Simple Cake baked in my grandma’s Bundt pan.
My work isn’t typically tied to the cycles of the academic year, but this year I’ve volunteered for a number of things that keep me busy as the academic year arrives with a roar. I make exhaustive lists in my planner and on my whiteboard. Both are completely filled with text. No wonder I feel like I’m drowning. Deep breaths, and one foot in front of another until the end of October.
We implement Falafel Fridays. The falafel can be accompanied by an exciting veggie side, or by homemade hummus, or by anything we need to use up, or by whatever looks good at the grocery store. We can eat in or get take out or meet at one of several falafely restaurants near us (though regrettably not Beni Falafel – see you in November!). Anything to put at least one meal per week on autopilot.
We work on making room in our budget, in part because we need to, and in part because we want to, and in part because we’re going to Belgium in two months and travel is always more expensive than anticipated. One week into this new focus on belt-tightening, we notice that our AC is making a strange noise. It stops working completely just in time for a brief but miserable heat wave. Fall is almost in sight, but not soon enough to postpone the repairs, particularly since we still can’t open most of our windows and the new windows, expected in August, still have no ETA. Sorry, landlord. Sorry, eating out budget, but we just can’t cook when it’s 95 degrees inside.
Another month with too much time spent on the road. At the beginning of the month, we drive out to Rockford to celebrate the a number of birthdays (my mom, two siblings, and the big kid) and take family photos with all of the siblings and their kids. A week later, I drive to Iowa to meet my mom and aunt at my grandparents’ house – one last visit to pick up furniture and odds and ends before the house goes on the market. It’s an exhausting out-and-back with an excessive amount of ice cream in the middle.
And then the following weekend, another trip to Rockford to celebrate the big kid’s birthday. His actual birthday is spent doing low-key fun things: pancakes and a special birthday balloon, a farmers’ market walk in the morning, then a run: five whole kilometers, one for every year. Pizza lunch at Jolly Pumpkin, his pick, then meeting his friend at the playground for cake (chocolate, with marshmallow frosting, both from Simple Cake – he requested chocolate with blueberries which I failed to deliver due to frosting miscalculations). A movie on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn. More pizza and cake the next day with his cousins, and many hours of solo time with his grandparents. We can’t deliver much on the present front, but hopefully the happy memories will make up for it.
Also somehow I forgot to tell you that I read the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy this summer, which I LOVED. Also The Egypt Game, for my book club, and Big Little Lies, just because.
September Eats
Chickpeas and kale, last fall’s obsession, brought back just in time for the weather to hit the 80s again.
Pasta alla Norma Sorta, except with Beyond Meat sausage (shockingly good!) swapped in for the prosciutto and Violife parm for the mozzarella. So perhaps more precisely Pasta Alla Norma Sorta Sorta.
Work unexpectedly extends the gift of a long holiday weekend. In Belgium, this is called “making the bridge”.
We spend the 4th at my parents’, in part to get out of the city, and in part to celebrate my dad’s retirement. We bring a spumoni cake – not the brilliant ice cream thing making the rounds in the NYTimes, unfortunately, though this is equally spectacular – and veggie kabobs and our swimsuits. The baby loves the pool as much as anticipated, though he gets overwhelmed quickly, retreating to the safety of a snuggly towel on Papa’s lap. The big kid can finally touch the bottom of the shallow end with his tippy-toes, which is exciting for all involved.
More early morning walks with the kids, sometimes with coffee, often with foraged fruit. One morning we hear chirping and look over to spot two juvenile raccoons snuggled up together on a porch rail, calling for their mama. The big kid and I imagine what they might be saying, or what he and his brother would say if they couldn’t find me.
The baby masters hands-and-knees crawling over the July 4th weekend. He’s been scooting along on his belly for what feels like months, and all of a sudden, he’s off! It’s so fun to see him exploring, though it feels like we’re constantly pulling things out of his mouth. I suppose that’s all part of being a tiny scientist.
These curls! I’m dead.
I pass a blissful morning in personal and professional conversation on the patio at Spoke and Bird. We used to go here all the time when we lived in Pilsen and it was around the corner from the Chicago Women’s Park and Gardens and on the way to the Lakefront Path. I grumble about work, but I’m deeply grateful for the many opportunities for professional connection it affords me, and particularly for the flexibility to have mornings like this.
We find a little push-cart for the baby on the neighborhood Buy Nothing group. He discovers it with glee the next morning, crawling over in his sleep sack to start playing. In what feels like no time, he’s doing laps in the kitchen, pausing to inspect the washing machine with every pass.
I spend what feels like weeks agonizing about how we’re going to make a second work trip to Champaign work for our family. All of us in a hotel room for 2.5 days sounds miserable. The baby moves around too much at night to safely sleep in a hotel bed BUT ALSO nurses too much at night to expect that nights away will be anything but difficult for everyone. The big kid would love a night or two with his grandparents, but that means extra time in the car, which is the thing the baby hates more than anything in the world. Ultimately, we decide that the best way to make it work without messing with nursing is for me to miss the first evening of activities. I feel terribly guilty asking for this, even though I know that it’s the best possible compromise for my family.
Once I’m there, I feel like it’s important to make it clear the sacrifices involved, and to make visible the struggle of balancing the personal and the professional. In the parking lot after the last session, another participant approaches me to thank me for saying what I did. These sessions were her first time away from her kids as well, though hers are quite a bit older than mine. I feel deep gratitude that she shared her experience with me.
And being away isn’t as difficult as any of anticipated – as always, the anticipation is worse than the actuality. I soak up the solo time – back to back runs in dear and familiar places, meals and drinks with good good friends, painting my nails, loads of coffee – but after one night am ready to be home.
The big kid asks for a bow and arrows for his birthday. Their birthdays are coming up soon, one in August, the other in September. How quickly the time is passing. The big kid looks so small in photos from last year. It hurts my heart sometimes to think how abruptly his world changed, and I’m grateful for the extent to which he’s been able to take it in stride.
We weather a dangerously hot weekend, deeply grateful for central air conditioning, particularly after the misery of last summer’s heat. Our experience of the heat wave pales in comparison to that of our family in decidedly un-air conditioned Belgium. And then it’s over nearly as quickly as it started, the temperatures dropping by 30 degrees overnight. We go out for a walk and are unexpectedly caught in a severe thunderstorm, hiding out with lunch and then cupcakes rather than getting soaked to the bone.
I finally get the bike trailer hooked up – only to blow the rim off of one of the wheels the first time we tried to take it out. I’m grateful that we weren’t actually on the road and that we were more scared than hurt. Another week of waiting before we’re able to ride, but then we make it happen, the big kid endlessly chattering as we run errands. His big idea for a summer outing involves a family bike ride to the “dinosaur museum”. He offered to pack a picnic since we will be hungry. Smart guy.
Long runs happen again, finally. I miss this part of marathon training – the hours of podcasts and meditative steps by the lake, the early mornings and the clothes drenched in sweat. Maybe next year. For now, I’m deeply grateful for any miles I can sneak in.
I spend an afternoon playing tourist with friends from grade school. Our conversations are wide ranging, hilarious, and restorative as we wander around downtown, taking in hot dogs and cocktails and architecture and broken shoes. It is a good, good thing to connect with people who understand where you’re from, even if the intermediate steps in your lives haven’t been the same.
We go to member night at the science museum. It’s too hot for outdoor activities, so we enjoy our scoops of ice cream and as many exhibits as we can manage before the kids melt into tired puddles. We decide to do just one more thing, and then happen into a whole hallway full of magnetic shapes which keep both kids enthralled. These sorts of things always risk throwing the entire evening off – we are an early bedtime household – but they’re almost always worth it.
At the end of the month, the baby stands up on his own for the first time. Steps can’t be far behind.
The House, the Food and Issues in Between — NYTimes – for this line from Julia Moskin: “From this episode I learned two things. First, hell is other people in the kitchen. Two, life — and summer in particular — is too short to eat a bad salad.”
I’m God’s Ex-Girlfriend — Gloria Beth Amodeo – I’m going to have some thoughts on this when I catch my breath.
We moved, and it was awful, and nearly everything that could go wrong did.
We moved, and it was awful, and nearly everything that could go wrong did, but in the middle of it, I took a break to take the big kid to a bubble run, $5 each to run a mile around the track in perfect weather with bystanders blowing bubbles, plus our own bubble wands, snacks, and small cups of boba, a first for him. He tired quickly, but found extra steam when we were done running and all he had to do was joyfully chase the bubbles.
We moved, and it was awful, and nearly everything that could go wrong did, and every part of my body was bruised for weeks, which is about how long it took to sort out all of the money and repairs and losses.
We moved, and it was awful, and nearly everything that could go wrong did, but at some point, it was finally over and we went on with our lives.
The big kid moved into his own room. We thought this would be harder than it turned out to be. He shared our bed until a week before the baby was born, and then shared our room after that. Now he is on his own in the room he will eventually share with his brother, and we have returned to the enormous floor bed that we referred to as our nest. It’s not the best for our backs, but it is the best for the baby, and so we make it work, much as we made the previous arrangements work.
We gave up our couch in the move – sold, along with many other things, to our remarkably accommodating subletter when it became apparent that the couch was not coming out of the apartment. This would have been a much more painful decision had the whole situation not been so absurdly stressful. Instead, we gave it a moment, and then let it go.
In the new place, we have appliances. It’s a mid-century housewife’s dream: a dishwasher AND a washer/dryer. Months ago, I told my therapist that if there was a single thing that could improve my day-to-day happiness, it would be a dishwasher. I wasn’t wrong.
But we also have repairs: windows that don’t close, water damage from previous roof leaks, a closet door that won’t stay on its track. If there is one thing we appreciated about our previous place, it was the responsive maintenance folks. We miss them already.
With the new place, new routines, some intended to save money, like eliminating the Saturday morning grocery store breakfast, and others to capitalize on the disruptive nature of moving, like establishing new cleaning routines, and still others to address the incursion of a horde of milipedes, like mopping the floors with essential oils and hoping for the best.
For Father’s Day, a trip to the north side for lunch, pie, and a walk. We stop at the fancy olive oil store and pick up a bottle. The baby naps in the car. Salmon and potatoes for dinner, just what was requested. We are deeply grateful for our calm and consistent Papa.
The baby’s sleep is broken, temporarily, and I spend a week or more up at 5, walking to Starbucks in order to keep the house quiet and myself going. I choose to focus on the spectacular morning night and the delicious baby snuggles and not the fact that I’m hanging on by a thread.
A colleague organizes a team for the city’s bike to work challenge, and that’s all the nudge that I need to fall back in love with my bike after a few years away. Now I’m frustrated when the weather or other circumstances prevent me from riding, especially since my commute is a total of 5 minutes door-to-door. (I don’t contribute much to my team’s mileage, but I do my best.)
Standing! The baby is standing! And playing with balls! Every ball he can find! At the same time!
I use my last morsel of vacation to take the kids to the beach (we intended to go to the pool, but couldn’t). The last time I was at the beach was my due date, big as a house and so uncomfortable, unbelievably still pregnant after weeks of false alarms. The baby, now on the outside, kicks his feet happily at the edge of the water while big brother runs around. We return home tired and coated in sand.
And then, at the end of the month, my dad retires. It’s the end of an era, and I look forward to whatever comes next for my parents.
Where the Wild Things Are — Food52 — OMG, this series of posts about Amanda Hesser’s family’s struggles with various invaders had me stifling giggles and horrified gasps
For Father’s Day, vegan pancakes, 70s salads and pie at First Slice, walking around coffee from The Coffee Studio, and olive oil poached salmon with fingerling potatoes and roasted mushroom as requested.
Sugar snap pea salad with grilled asparagus, grilled zucchini, and tempeh to make it a whole meal
Gazpacho, the big kid’s request from his special cookbook, except we didn’t have enough vinegar, and then we accidentally had too much vinegar and so no one could finish.
Where did May go? Lost in the flurry of moving preparations, and then blacked out by the incredibly challenging move itself.
On the first day of the month, I chop my hair off, all of it, as short as it’s ever been. Of course on haircut day, my hair looks as good as it ever has.
Two trips to Rockford, both celebratory, though the baby cries most of the drive. A Frozen birthday party for a five year old. So many little girls in princess dresses. Bubbles and sidewalk chalk and the baby rolling around. And then my sister’s graduation from nursing school at the university – then a college – where I graduated 18 years ago. I just about burst with pride for her, colored with a shade of nostalgia for my own college experience. The arts center where the ceremony is held smells familiar, even after all of these years.
In the same week, the baby sits up on his own, pulls up to standing, and figures out crawling. All of a sudden, he’s into everything, making our small space feel even smaller, especially as the boxes pile up.
I am working on learning Dutch, albeit slowly. I do a few modules every day, often while pumping, and send Nicolas screenshots of the silly phrases Duolingo has me say. For example: “Pardon, ik ben een appel.”
We spend an evening at the Field Museum at their member night, well worth the ruined bedtime. The big kid gets a coooooooooool airbrushed seahorse tattoo that we’re sure will end in heartbreak with swimming lessons a few days later, but it hangs on much longer than we expect.
The baby starts playing peekaboo at the dinner table. It is excessively cute.
Mother’s Day is delightful, despite a very early morning with the kids. I’m gifted solo time – a run, coffee and letters, solo grocery shopping – beautiful tulips, and a funny plant picked out by the big kid. We go to the zoo and have an early dinner and ice cream after the kids are in bed.
The baby is sick for a week, rashy and sleeping poorly. I alternate between trying not to worry and obsessively reading about measles.
The guys finally make it to chess club at the library. The big kid wins several of his games against kids twice his age. He’s gotten SO GOOD so quickly, handily defeating me and occasionally defeating his papa.
The baby is finally old enough – nine months, I can’t believe it – and the weather finally OK enough to go for a stroller run or two. He generally isn’t inclined to fall asleep, but he falls asleep at the point when I turn around to head home. This gives me hope for summer weekend runs – if summer ever arrives. I take both kids out one morning, and a tiny baby squirrel takes refuge under the stroller!
For yet another year, we do not do Bike the Drive, despite it being on my 40×40 list. (Perhaps I’ll give myself through my 40th year to finish?)
But mostly, mostly, mostly we spend the month packing, trying to strike a balance between getting ready and staying sane in our small space. The move itself is challenging and awful and takes about four times as long as it should, but the kids hold up tremendously well under pressure, dramatically better than I do, and it does (or it will) eventually end.
Pink masoor dal with kachumberraita – I think I might’ve gotten the wrong kind of lentils? This was good, but not pink, and the cook time felt wrong based on the formula.
Really excellent vegan waffles at Peter and Alisa’s housewarming party – we brought the batter; Peter manned the waffle iron
We book a babysitter and finally go out for that milestone birthday – fish and chips and a cocktail at a spot in our old neighborhood that, it turns out, is full of young families on a Friday night. We (I) ogle other people’s babies while missing ours, then take a walk past our old garden plot and our old apartment. I miss the life that we had there, and the golden light of early evening. We don’t often see that light these days.
The big kid takes swimming lessons at the University pool. It’s well organized chaos, and I’m grateful that he’s hanging on someone else for a change.
I mark seven years on the job with a coconut donut. This is the longest I have worked anywhere.
We plan to visit my ancient grandmother for Easter, then change those plans at the last minute. Instead, we stay home, dye Easter eggs, and make a disastrous batch of matzo ball soup on a rainy weekend.
We find outrageously cheap flights to Belgium, a trip we were certain we couldn’t afford this year. Instead, we will spend 3 weeks there in the late fall, our flights entirely covered by travel points, with our housing nearly free as well. It’s all happening!
The baby still hasn’t figured out crawling; instead, he hops on his butt like a frog. It’s surprisingly effective.
A bike trailer shows up on a neighborhood listserv for cheap, so at the end of my intentional spending Lent, I make an impulse buy. The same day, a strap on my bike helmet breaks. This is how it goes – one spontaneous purchase results in others, necessary or no. That was weeks ago, but weekend weather and plans have yet to allow us to go for a ride.
The big kid wins a prize at an Easter egg hunt – a basket full of candy on top of the candy he collected in the hunt. I hate feeling like the food police, but this candy is just awful, and I’m grateful that we already had a wonderful box of treats at home from the Zurenborg Paashaas, as it means the big kid is absolutely fine with sharing.
I present at a conference that is pretty far outside my wheelhouse. The opening plenaries are engaging and challenging, and I feel grateful to be there. There will be no conference travel for me this year – or perhaps next – and while that’s fine, it’s also a little sad.
Mom comes in for a quick visit, arriving after work on a beautiful Friday night and leaving in an incoming snowstorm Saturday morning. Will this winter ever end? We just do the normal things – dinner at our favorite Thai place in the neighborhood, breakfast errands at the grocery store – but decide to scramble the routine a bit in order to try to win free pie for a year. The first 50 in line win – we are #53-57 due to folks cutting in line. Ah well, we still had pie.
There’s that saying about not crying over spilled milk – I have the most epic spill of my pumping career, but thankfully, I realllllly needed to pump, so I am more concerned about the carpet underneath the spill than the spill itself.
A few weeks after we made a list of all of the things that we want in a new place – a place pops up on the University marketplace site that checks all the boxes. It is as good in person as it seemed in the ad, so we throw caution to the wind and put in an application despite having 6 months left on our lease.
And so the rest of April is consumed with housing worries – will we get the place? Can we afford the place if we get it? Our application is approved – now, can we find a subletter? Will one of the many people who comes through to see our apartment decide to take it? Again, can we afford it? One thing after another, which will likely continue until we are settled in with a subletter secured.
But! In a month or so, we will move to the northwest corner of our neighborhood into a condo rented from an owner. We will have a dishwasher and laundry in unit. We will have windows that look out into trees. We will have central AC. It will be stressful until we get there, but we will get there.
Ottolenghi’s pasta and zucchini salad – We tend to lean hard on the puttanescas over here and rarely branch out to other pastas. This was so good and I can’t wait to make it with summer produce.
Wild rice and mushroom casserole – Warm, comforting, but very beige and with an absolutely absurd amount of bread crumbs. Next time I’ll omit the crumbs and double the mushrooms.
latterdaybohemian 