7 Quick Takes: African-American Picture Books, Part 2

To those who’ve commented and emailed: I’m so sorry it’s taking me a long time to respond. We’ve had a very busy month and I’m quite behind on correspondence and writing. Your thoughts and comments are very much appreciated, though!

A few weeks back I reviewed a few picture books featuring black main characters. Thank you so much to the many people who commented on the last post with additional book suggestions! As I mentioned, it’s hard to find picture books featuring African-American or African protagonists at our local bookstore. The few books our store carries tend to focus on the Civil Rights era and racism; important topics, but surely not the only time we should see black kids as the main characters in picture books. Good books are out there, but it takes a little hunting. As with any genre, some of the books are “twaddle”, some have good stories but weak illustrations (or vice-versa), some do not share our values, and some are truly excellent. I plan to continue to review books as we try them from the library.

1) Please, Puppy, Please by Spike and Tonya Lee, illustrated by Kadir Nelson

Carl and I both loved this funny, well-illustrated text, and the babies were captivated by the vivid illustrations. This sweet, simple story follows a day in the life of two children and their exuberant puppy. Appropriate for young children, though bigger kids might still enjoy the pictures and the humor while newly independent readers will enjoy the simple text they can read by themselves. 5 stars.

2) Where’s Jamela by Niki Daly

The Jamela books are a South African series. We’ve only tried Where’s Jamela so far, and I was very impressed. The illustrations are brilliant – full of life, action, and humor. The story is enjoyable, and the flavor of life in South Africa adds special fun to an already great story about spunky Jamela, her concerns about an upcoming move, her family and her warm and engaging neighborhood. We will definitely collect these books for our own shelves. 5 stars.

3) Whose Knees Are These? by Jabari Aseem

A simple board book, appropriate for babies and toddlers. A mother wonders aloud about the owner of these fine strong brown knees she sees dangling from trees, etc. They turn out to belong to her son. Sweet, but not particularly interesting to read as a parent, and kids will outgrow it quickly. We will get this one out of the library but don’t plan to buy it for ourselves. 3 stars.

4) Where Does the Trail Lead? by Burton Albert, illustrated by Brian Pinkney

A boy explores a coastal trail passing tide pools, sand dunes, and driftwood, eventually arriving at his family’s campsite. While inoffensive and perhaps a nice add-in for a unit study on coastal areas, this book doesn’t have much of a story to catch kids’ interest. Overall the pictures felt a bit gray and bland. There’s nothing especially wrong with this book but it wasn’t my cup of tea. 2 stars.

5) He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands by Kadir Nelson

Kadir Nelson’s warm and beautiful illustrations bring the classic American spiritual to life. There’s no “story”, per se, just the lyrics of the hymn with images of a family enjoying time together in the world God created and shepherds. One thing I hadn’t realized before reading this book is that hymns/songs in book form are fantastic for babies. The music really helps them engage with books and enjoy reading together when they’re too small to truly understand the stories. It’s tough to say if older kids would enjoy this book – I suppose it depends on the child.  5 stars.

6) Lola at the Library, Lola Reads to Leo, and Lola Loves Stories by Anna McQuinn, illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw

I have mixed feelings about these books. Lola is very cute, and the illustrations are bright and happy. However, the text reads more like an advertisement for the library or books than a story. For example, Lola goes to the library and describes everything she likes to do at the library. There isn’t really a plot. Also, while I know the illustrations are cartoonish and I’m sure it’s not intentional, the illustration of Lola’s Dad almost looks more ”monkey-like” than human. It was a bit unsettling and an unpleasant stereotype. Overall, these might be good books to read once to explain how a library works to a small child (Lola at the Library ) or accompany the arrival of a new baby sibling (Lola Reads to Leo). 3 stars.

It’s rare to find a book that features transracial/mixed-race families like ours. This book has very nice illustrations. That said, I don’t think the text would appeal to most kids (or to the parents who have to read it out loud). The words are rather stream-of-consciousness, a free-association description of all the skin colors in the children’s family. I’ve read comments from others describing this book as very meaningful to them as they grew up in mixed-race families so we may revisit it when the kids are bigger. For now it remains a library book. 2 stars.

Easter

We had a very pleasant Easter – egg dyeing using thrift-store ties on Saturday, church on Sunday morning, neighbors over for Easter dinner, and a very non-Eastery James Bond Skyfall viewing in the evening after a movie and TV-free Lent. For Easter dinner we had:

• Glazed ham with homemade mustard sauce
• Cream cheese mashed potatoes
• Asparagus broiled with butter and parmesan cheese
• Shredded carrots in vinaigrette
• Salad with olive oil and balsamic dressing
• Hot rolls with butter (I made my life simpler by using frozen Sister Schubert’s yeast rolls)
• Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (this recipe was fantastic – I doubled the batter, substituted raisins for nuts, and used 1/4 cup applesauce instead of pineapple. I poured the batter into two round cake pans and baked about 25 minutes. The frosting does not need to be doubled)
• Chocolates
• Drink options of wine, water, milk, and apple juice (for the kids), followed by coffee with dessert

This was by far the largest number of dishes I’ve ever made for guests. My mother loves to set a beautiful formal table and create elaborate special meals for guests. It’s a gift that she’s perfected into both a hobby and a skill. It took me a few years to realize that following the Biblical command to practice hospitality doesn’t mean I have to follow it in exactly the same way. Everyone has their own hosting style, and what’s fun for her is stressful for me. I love to cook, but the key difference between cooking a meal just for our household vs. for guests is that I’m an introvert. Having guests saps a lot of energy. Having them arrive when I’m already drained from two frenzied hours in the kitchen means I dread their arrival and have a hard time summoning social energy to make them welcome.

Eventually I realized that I needed to create my own style of hospitality – something that would enable us to freely and frequently welcome guests with bounty but simplicity.  We set a goal for the number of times we’d like to welcome guests into our home each month, and went from there. Usually I cook a simple but homemade meal that works no matter how crazy the day. Often that means a big pot of soup, a salad, and bread, along with a quick tidy of the kitchen. Sometimes I mentally plan what to serve, then deliberately cut out one dish. More often than not dessert is just chocolates, if anything. The nice thing about a generation raised with terrible fast food and frozen dinners is that guests are delighted to have plentiful home-cooked meals. Once, we knew we wanted to invite a large group of neighbors over. However, the house badly needed a cleaning after busy work weeks for both of us, nd I didn’t have time to cook for that many. Instead, we had an after-dinner ice-cream social on the back porch: I whipped up a pan of brownies, brewed a pot of coffee, and guests made themselves sundaes with brownies, ice cream, and a few no-prep toppings like berries, nuts, and fudge sauce. It was fun and relaxing for guests and hosts alike.

All that to say, a meal like this is not the norm when hosting guests, but it worked. Our neighbors graciously had us over for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners when Carl worked both holidays this year. We wanted to create something truly special, both for Easter and in thanks to them. We prepped everything we could the night before and I wrote out a quick timetable since three different foods needed three different oven temperatures. Once the cold foods were prepared and everything else was boiling and baking I still had time to sit and read with the kids on the couch before guests arrived. After doing the dishes, I think Carl prefers the simpler three-dish dinners though!

What hosting tactics work for your household and personality?

Edited to add: learning to feed guests hasn’t been a perfectly smooth process. There was the episode of greasy ham and too-dry cornbread, the burned soup where we should’ve just ordered a pizza, and a few meals where I didn’t make enough and had to scramble. Practice makes progress.

Haferflocken? Nein Danke

Six weeks ago Jack started rice cereal on his doctor’s orders due to severe reflux. Initially, he hated it. The food tasted different. It felt different. The spoon was not a bottle. You can see his original reaction here.

Somewhat earlier in the training process, or, “painting the baby with oatmeal.”

However, after lots of varied but persistent introductions he’s more than delighted whenever we buckle him into his booster seat for a meal these days. At six months he opens his mouth wide, cleans each mouthful off the spoon, barely dribbles, and neatly keeps his hands in his lap without struggling (anymore…). While we plan to have him feed himself as well, so far we’ve found that starting with a puree of food helps because it first lets him adjust to the taste of a new thing before introducing a new texture. One new factor at a time seems to be the magic key with our boy.

His twin sister, however, is less excited about solids. In part, it’s just because she cares less about food in general while he could eat all.day.long. She’s progressed from spitting everything out, but it’s hard to hit her sweet spot between “hungry enough to try something” and “too full from that delicious bottle to care about food.” The mechanics of eating from a spoon haven’t quite come together for her yet. She politely mouths things, swallows about 40% of her meal, and smiles a lot. Sometimes she tries to swallow but accidentally squishes the food out her lips. Sometimes she just sputters for the fun of it as oatmeal or sweet potato droplets fly across the kitchen. She does like the taste and will eagerly wait for an approaching spoon. However, rather than opening her mouth for the spoon when she sees it she sticks out a hopeful tongue. Like any baby the majority of her nutrition comes from her liquid feedings so we’re in no rush. We have plenty of time to let her figure things out, and for the most part she enjoys the process. Except, that is, for this morning when she’d had her fill, saw the oatmeal-laden spoon coming her way, and began to wail an irritated “Nein! Nein! Nein!” Her English is non-existent, but her German is coming along nicely.

(Last week Jack looked up and yelled “Damn!” while peacefully playing on his back. Perhaps we should redirect him toward German too.)

Seven Quick Takes: Race and Picture Books

Race! And adoption! How’s that for a non-controversial start to a Friday? At least most people have no quibble with picture books.

Adopting kids of another race changes your perspective. Overt acts of racism aside, picturing myself in my kids’ shoes has made me realize how different the experience of everyday life can be for people of other races in our town. Early in our adoption process, I headed to the bookstore to pick up gifts for the babies’ half-brothers. It’s the only “new books” provider for 45 minutes around – a major national chain. At first, I reached for my favorite classic kids’ books. Maybe Mike Mulligan or Make Way for Ducklings or Ferdinand or… I flipped through the pages. In every single book, every single character was white. I paused. They’re wonderful stories, but it’d be thoughtful if the gifts showed someone of the boys’ race. I browsed through the children’s area for half an hour, growing increasingly frustrated. Almost every human character was caucasian. At best, some books portrayed a side-kick of another race. Only a handful of picture books featured an African-American or African kid as the main character, and an even tinier percentage weren’t specifically about the Civil Rights era (an important topic, but not the only one we want to read about with small kids). Of those (perhaps four or so) books, almost all were poorly written with mediocre illustrations. I walked out of the store with a new perspective and two “safe” human-free stories about construction trucks and  dinosaurs. 30-40% of our town’s population is black. What if I were an African-American five-year-old going to the bookstore? Wouldn’t I wonder why I couldn’t find a single fun story about a kid who looked like me?

On placement day we again brought gifts for the twins’ half-brothers. Remembering the bookstore experience, I headed to the toy store instead. In the aisles of superheroes and dolls and Legos and balls every human character was white. I finally, after much wandering, spotted one Playmobil set of rescue personnel with a black ambulance attendant (I bought a playdough kit). While waiting for adoption news I borrowed a few library books on caring for babies. My husband started reading through the instructions on infant care illustrated with plentiful photos. After a while he paused, paged back through a few sections, then said slowly “…all of these babies are white. None of them look like the kids we’re going to adopt.” We started over from the beginning and finally found a brown-skinned baby on page 99. She was Indian.

I don’t want to oversimplify, but for want of a better way to say it, much of our social structure assumes “whiteness” (an idea I would have scoffed at a year ago). Naturally some stories feature only white characters – Mike Mulligan is a pretty accurate reflection of a rural New England town or village. But shouldn’t that “naturally” run in two directions? We’ll be reading plenty of classics like Mike Mulligan, but I realized that I will need to search hard and carefully to build a good supplement of quality resources featuring characters who look like my kids. Knowing there are many other parents in the same boat (and plenty of families, regardless of race, who just enjoy good children’s books) the homeschooled kid and future homeschooling parent in me decided to periodically reviewing the resources we come across, both good and bad. I keep a running Pinterest page of books to try. Feel free to chime in with your recommendations or thoughts!

1)

Please, Baby, Please by Spike and Tonya Lee, illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Highly recommended. A baby spends her day getting into mischief, testing her parents’ patience. The cover doesn’t do the bright, entertaining, full-page illustrations justice. The simple text is appropriate for small children. Detailed pictures draw the reader in, and we enjoy the humor as parents. Our babies can’t stop staring at the colorful pictures and trying to touch them. The Lees also wrote Please, Puppy, Please, which we’ve yet to read. Kadir Nelson illustrated a number of other books on our yet-to-try list including He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.

2)

Galimoto by Karen Lynn Williams, illustrated by Catherine Stock. Highly recommended. Kondi, a resourceful little boy in Africa, spends his day collecting wire scraps to build a galimoto (a toy vehicle). An engaging storyline with great illustrations full of details from life in a small village. Neat, also, because I saw many handcrafted toys and masterpieces from wire scraps like this when in Kenya.

3)

The Snowy Day, Peter’s Chair and the rest of the Peter series by Ezra Jack Keats. Highly recommended. Classics, and some of the very first US picture books featuring a black main character. Simple stories small kids can relate to. Creative illustrations made with Keats’ classic collage techniques.

4)

Corduroy by Don Freeman. Highly recommended. A classic most of us grew up with. A little black girl named Lisa falls in love with a bear in the store window, but can’t take him home. Corduroy spends an adventurous night in the department store before eventually finding a real home with Lisa after all. Fun, sweet and irresistible to kids.

5)

Hush Little Baby, Pegony-Po, Max Found Two Sticks, and numerous others by Brian and Andrea Pinkney. Pretty good. I have mixed feelings about these books. The Pinkneys are prolific authors and illustrators of children’s’ books featuring African American main characters. However, the quality is highly variable and despite colorful and vivid lines, the illustrations sometimes feel rather wooden. This is, perhaps, because the characters’ facial expressions rarely change no matter the mood or action in each illustration. Still, there are many more to try, the stories are clean, family-oriented, and gentle, and the pictures do capture our kids’ attention. Hush Little Baby tells, through the illustrations, a sweet story of a father and brother trying to comfort the baby of the family while Mama is off to town. We will try each potential option from the library before deciding to invest in a copy for home.

6)

Happy Christmas Gemma by Sarah Hayes, illustrated by Jan Ormerod. Recommended. Borrowed from the library at Christmas. A boy narrates preparations for Christmas and the antics of his baby sister. We both loved the illustrations. This story is nothing out of this world, just a warm, gently funny tale. A nice unique flavor, too, since the characters are a black family living in Britain with relatives in Jamaica.

7)

More More More Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams. I don’t like to give negative reviews, but this book just did not appeal to us. On the plus side (and this is actually a big, rare plus) it features families of multiple races and transracial families with a white Grandma and a black grandson. Also, it won the Caldecott Honor medal for its illustrations which have gotten rave reviews from other readers. However, my husband and I both found the illustrations rather garish/clashy and not very enjoyable to look at. We also weren’t particularly interested in the text. I found it a bit hard to pick up the right rhythm for read aloud. It’s possible our kids would like it when they’re bigger, but as parents who would have to read it over and over, we’re exercising veto power and not buying it. I suppose this is another one to get from the library and choose for yourself – tastes differ.

Images from Amazon, Goodreads, and other linked sources. Most books available on Amazon. For other Seven Quick Takes entries please visit Conversion Diary.

Leek, Olive, and Goat Cheese Pastry

We had this leek, olive, and goat cheese pastry for dinner this week. With a few modifications to the basic recipe it was delicious and easy to assemble in stages on a busy evening. I cooked the leeks, chopped olives, and crumbled and shredded cheese during the kids’ afternoon nap. When Carl came home all I had to do was stir everything together, roll and assemble the pastry, and pop it in the oven. It would be delicious with something fresh and light like a salad to balance the stronger cheese and olive flavors. My modified version of the recipe is posted below. The original comes from Better Homes & Gardens’ All-Time Favorites brochure.

LEEK, OLIVE, & GOAT CHEESE PASTRY

Serves 4 as a main meal, 6 as a side

• 1 sheet of puff pastry (what we used), or one frozen or homemade tart or piecrust
• 1 cup finely chopped leek (white part only, save the green parts for making vegetable broth another day)
• [1/2 cup finely chopped fennel - the original called for this but our store didn't have fennel in stock. It was still very good without it.]
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 cup total crumbled aged goat cheese (chèvre) and shredded Parmesan (I used 3/4 cup goat cheese, 1/4 cup parmesan – you could use one or the other, less or more)
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped Gaeta, kalamata, or other Italian olives (The original calls for 3/4 cup, but we found the olive flavor overwhelmed the other ingredients. I would use 1/2 cup next time, and rinse and dry the olives to get rid of some of the brine)
• 1 Tbsp fresh thyme (we only had dry on hand – adjust accordingly as you like)

1. Preheat oven to 375. Allow crust to stand/defrost according to package directions. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll crust into an 11 inch circle on the baking sheet (flour the surface if using puff pastry).

2. Cook the leeks (and fennel, if you have it) in the olive oil over medium heat for 5 to 6 minutes until tender. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese, olives, and thyme. Cool slightly.

3. Spread filling in center of pastry, leaving the outer 1.5 inches uncovered. Fold uncovered pastry up around the edges (like a galette).

4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until pastry is golden brown. Cut into wedges and serve warm.

I can picture a lot of tasty variations on this one – mushrooms instead of olives, slivers of sun-dried tomatoes, throwing in a shallot…

 

Six Month Snapshot

Our babies turn six months old today. They’re changing, fast, and I wanted to capture a snapshot of these days before life changes yet again. None of these details are momentous, but they’re things I’m likely to forget as time passes. No day is identical or scheduled to the minute, but we do follow the same basic routine week to week. The structure supports their sleep habits. We also find it’s a big help in reducing crying and helping us accurately diagnose what’s bothering them if they’re fussy without multiple throws at the hungry?tired?wet?uncomfortable?bored?justmessingwithmyhead? dartboard. Overall, with two babies that tend to need the same things around the same time, a routine makes sure they get quality sleep and fit in all their feedings, tummy time, and other needs. It also lets their parents maintain a reasonably clean and tidy house and get quality time together. If Dad has a day off the sleep patterns stay the same, but we feed the kids together when they wake up, and work other activities like church, errands, or hiking into the mix.

0400/0430: The first alarm goes off. Carl is catatonic until he’s had his coffee and dislikes waiting for it to brew and take effect each morning. His efficient solution? Make coffee for the week and refrigerate it in a jug. Each night he pours coffee for the morning into a travel/thermos mug and puts it by the bed. When his first alarm goes off he gulps it down and goes back to sleep. Caffeine has about a thirty minute wait time to full effectiveness – thirty minutes later, it naturally wakes him up. By 4:30 or 4:45 he’s up. I usually sleep about twenty minutes longer than he does, but find getting up well before the kids key to my sanity and a smoothly running home.  Every morning Carl works through a small section of a medical review books to keep his knowledge fresh, exercises, shaves, showers, dresses, and sometimes fits in a small chore or two. I may do chores, check email, do my Bible Study reading, or work on paperwork and administrative tasks before pulling breakfast together. I used to feel a need to completely fill this time with chores before the babies woke, but found that a little quiet time writing or reading leaves me in a much better mood for the day. I gladly get up two hours before the kids to guarantee that time. It’s no sacrifice since we go to bed early and get an uninterupted night’s sleep.

~0600-0615: We eat breakfast together every day, a habit passed on from my family. Even if we’re sleepy and just eating cereal or bagels, starting the day with a meal together really helps things get off on the right foot.

~0615 (sometimes 0545 or 0600): Carl heads out the door to work. I shower, tidy the kitchen, wrap up a few chores, assemble bottles, and generally try to make sure everything is laid out and ready for the day.

0700/0730: The twins wake up cooing and happy after sleeping through the night. I pick each one up for a good morning hug and cuddle, then put them back down in their cribs on their stomachs, facing each other. First-thing-in-the-morning tummy time works well for us right now because 1) their stomachs are empty so they don’t spit up, 2) they’ve been on their backs all night so they’re actually pretty happy to spend time in a new position, 3) they love being set down face to face. Much smiling and squealing at each other ensues. I open the curtains, lay out clothing and burp cloths, pick them up to change diapers and put them back down on their stomachs, mix formula, and heat bottles while talking or singing to the kids. “Morning has Broken” is a favorite hymn for this time – the Third Day version on the link has some alterations to the original hymn and gaelic tune, but you get the idea. After about ten minutes of tummy time Jack becomes impatient. I feed him his breakfast bottle in the rocking chair next to Annie’s crib, flipping her onto her back when she, too, eventually gets tired on her stomach. Once Jack finishes he sits in the swing with a toy for some post-feeding upright time (reduces spit up…at least theoretically) while Annie eats. Throughout feeding there’s lots of talk about our day, lots of singing, and lots of making funny noises for our boy if he starts to get fussy and bored while waiting. I wash and lotion their faces, and oil and comb their hair. Usually we head to the guest bedroom for playtime. I put on some classical music – it’s still just background noise to the babies, but it makes the morning more interesting and fun for Mom. Tickling while singing “Ten Little Monkeys” (they know that song is associated with tickling and start flailing and squealing as soon as I sing the first measure), practicing sitting up, kicking around on their backs playing with toys, peek-a-boo, and sometimes picture books round out the morning before it’s time to change diapers, get dressed for the day, and go down for their morning nap. Occasionally I need to do chores during this time, but since having only two kids is a temporary luxury, I try to follow a rule of focusing on them during their awake time and doing chores or computer time during their naps.

0900/0930 – 1130: I watch for their drowsy-but-not-tired signs and put the kids down for their morning naps. It’s a quick routine – into their crib or car seat, tucked in, blinds closed, fan on and out of the room. Put together those cues mean sleep time to them and they’re usually asleep within two minutes with no fussing. They usually nap for two hours, sometimes three. While they nap, I work on chores and sometimes even get a start on dinner. Meal planning happens before our weekly grocery shopping run, but sometimes a meal can still catch you by surprise when evening comes and the meat isn’t defrosted or vegetables need chopping. A quick recipe or ingredient review in the morning helps the afternoon and evening run smoothly. I also try to fit at least 15 minutes of something calm and refreshing in here – sitting down with a book, for example. Sometimes I’ll also eat an early lunch, a meal that migrates throughout the middle of the day depending on the babies’ behavior. Toward the end of nap time I mix formula for the next feeding so everything is set when the first baby wakes.

~1130: The first baby starts chirping. I sneak him or her out for a diaper change and then we settle onto the couch for a little one-on-one time and a lunch bottle. Sometimes we just sit and cuddle, sometimes I’ll play a recorded book, lecture, or sermon in the background. Four hours of feeding babies a day adds up… About 75% of the time the other twin sleeps until almost the end of this feeding. Sometimes they wake up and fuss off and on. Sometimes they drift back off, or kick around contentedly while they wait upstairs. The simple fact of twins is that there are two of them and one of me. I try to be attentive, but of necessity they are also learning quite early to be patient. Once the bottle is empty, the first baby goes in a bouncy seat with a toy for some post-feeding upright time while the second baby gets changed and fed. If the weather is even halfway decent (meaning anything other than a torrential downpour) we’ll often head out for a long walk or errands. The kids love getting out of the house into the sunshine, and it’s good for me too. The logistics of getting two small babies out the door can be off-putting, but it is always worth it. Depending on the outing length it may be time for their afternoon nap when we get back, or we may spend some more time doing tummy time, playing on the floor, flying through the air like superman, etc. There’s no way to hold both babies all the time, and they’re learning to play independently very well, but I try to regularly pick one or the other up for some individual cuddles and play. It’s hard to get all the attention you want with another baby always getting in the way!

~1300/1330: The babies go down for a two or three-hour afternoon nap when they start showing drowsy signs. It’s back to more of the same household routines for me, plus possibly laying out bedtime/bathtime supplies or getting dinner in the oven depending on what time Carl will be home.

 - 1530/1600: The first baby wakes. If I got alone time with one twin in the morning, I try to get alone time with the other twin in the afternoon as I change them and feed them their afternoon snack bottle. As with the morning, Twin 1 goes in the bouncy seat for upright time while I collect and feed Twin 2. Usually I pull both babies onto my lap to read a stack of picture books together for 20 minutes or so – about their maximum attention span right now. Sometimes Carl gets home early, around 1630. His shortest days are 10 hours, but by going in early he can sometimes make it home for a little pre-bed play time. Other days he works 12 or 14 or 18 hours, so we enjoy the early days when we can get them. Jack gets a quick spoon-feeding of rice cereal in the evening (after much patient coaxing and regular introductions he’s spoon-feeding like a champ), and Annie will start solids soon as well. If Carl’s home, the kids get Daddy play time, if he’s not, they might hang out in their Bumbo seats watching me cook dinner, play on the floor with occasional Mom visits for cuddles, or kick around in the Johnny Jumper for 15 minutes (a favorite treat for both of them). Around 1730 our son goes down for a short catnap is his swing in the library. Our daughter gave up her evening nap about six weeks ago, but sometimes sits in the library in her bouncy seat for some evening quiet/wind-down time during his nap. Otherwise, she usually stays with us and enjoys getting all the attention to herself. Some evenings we have dinner together before we put the kids down. Twice a week (more often dries out their sensitive skin) we start the babies evenings a little early with 1730 or 1745 bath. Otherwise:

- 1800: Bedtime! We lotion or oil the kids head-to-toe, change their diapers, and suit them up in a fresh onesie, sleeper, and sleep sack for bedtime. Bedtime is peaceful and quiet with one soft shaded light and (often) classical music or Gregorian chant playing from Pandora. We love this peaceful family time with all four of us, talking over the day and feeding the kids their dinnertime bottle. By 1845 they are tucked in with a family prayer and kisses goodnight. Fan on, lights off, and that’s the last we hear from them until wake-up time in the morning. Nights when Carl can’t be home for bedtime are definitely the hardest part of parenting baby twins. It’s doable, but by the time I’ve fed and tucked in the last kid I could crawl into a crib and fall right to sleep with them.

1845/1900: If we haven’t already, Carl and I sit down to dinner together, then do dishes, and prep Carl’s bedtime snack, morning coffee, and lunch for the next day. We also try to do a quick tidy each evening, tossing stray burp rags in the hamper, folding up blankets, returning bouncers and Bumbos to their proper places, and returning toys to the toy basket. It only takes five minutes, and keeps the house reasonably tidy. Carl has his evening snack. Usually, this leaves a nice little gap of time to read or play a game, followed by Bible reading together (we just finished Isaiah and are now reading the epistles of Peter). Around 2000 Carl’s bedtime alarm goes off (he’s nothing if not systematic about planning his day) and by 2030 or 2045 we’re usually brushed, changed, and ready for bed. Carl always goes in to check on the babies one last time. Last night he walked in to Annie talking in her sleep for the first time.

An Abbreviated Daybook

Outside my window: Gray skies and chilly days. Sunday, though, the weather after church was so warm and sunny that we packed up the kids, stopped to pick up a sack of BBQ and hushpuppies, and headed to a nearby state park for a riverside picnic and hiking. Getting out the door with two babies is just a bit more work, but always worth it.

I am listening to artillery. It’s been a noisy “war zone” week with helicopters barreling back and forth just above the treetops all day and the Marines in town for training. Artillery is normal here, with occasional loud days and disrupted nights. However, the Marines living over by the coast don’t have ranges long enough for their biggest guns and rockets, so they haul them inland every Spring and then cram a year’s worth of training into two weeks, firing all day and all night and shaking our house like a baby’s rattle. Imagine a bus careening off the road and ramming your house every two minutes; it’s a close approximate.

In the kitchen we’ve been experimenting with vegetable soups for Lent. I’m working alphabetically through the single-vegetable soups section of James Peterson’s wonderful Splendid Soups. Artichoke, asparagus, and avocado all made delicious soups. We’re skipping beets (not a favorite) and cardoons (car-what? car-where? no specialty Italian veggies in rural nowheresville) and moving on to carrots.

I am reading An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler. A fantastic read if you’re looking for motivation in the kitchen. It is delightful and inspiring. It is neither a cookbook nor a series of essays, but something in between, full of ideas on how to use every part of everything, and use it well. It’s an invitation to play in the kitchen, starting from the ground up rather than from a recipe down. The tone is sometimes a bit annoying (affected casual, if that’s possible?), and every so often there’s something that sounds good but doesn’t really bear up scientifically. This book assumes some basic cooking knowledge and is not really for beginners even though it’s presented that way. Those small caveats aside, I’m reading and re-reading, making mental lists, playing in the kitchen, and planning on buying it for keeps after returning the library copy.

I am creating something out of nothing. Or at least, meals out of scraps I normally overlook or throw away, thanks to An Everlasting Meal. Last night I brewed up a savory vegetable broth with the greens from leeks, tough broccoli steams, onion skins and ends, celery leaves, a couple of carrots, and other odds and ends. It will be the base for carrot soup on Friday. Meanwhile, parmesan risotto for dinner with bacon-wrapped asparagus.

I am thankful for my husband. The twins received another round of immunizations on Friday. Fussy fevers x 2 are much more manageable when Dad is home to baby juggle.

I am wearing jeans, a sage green t-shirt, and a charcoal gray Old Navy cardigan.

Around the house Taxes, plus advance preparations for many things: Easter (the neighbors are coming for Easter dinner), a road trip (our first nights away from home with the babies. Tips for traveling with babies, anyone?), and house guests, in addition to the usual chores and cooking. We started into Spring yard work over the weekend as well.

A few plans for the rest of the week: Walking with a friend and her young baby, hosting dinner for a house-hunting Army doctor moving to our post this summer, and a Palm Sunday potluck at church.

A peek into my day…

Our daughter is always done at bedtime, no matter how early we start her feeding. At the start of her evening bottle she is wide awake, squealing and smiling. By halfway through, she’s rubbing her eyes and burrowing into our shoulders. At the end, it’s always a race to coax a burp out of her before she flops over into a warm limp puddle of sleeping baby. Her brother is exactly the opposite. With eight delicious ounces in his belly he thinks it’s party time and always flails, chats, and coos as we put him down and give him a goodnight kiss. He’s always asleep within a few minutes, though.

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

For more entries focused on finding contentment in everyday life, please visit Like Mother, Like Daughter.

{Pretty}

I’d always envisioned sewing quilts and curtains, painting the walls, and lovingly preparing a nursery while waiting on our little one’s arrival. Instead, we had one week’s (tentative) notice. We brought the twins home to a mostly bare room with a few bags scattered around the walls and a box of loaner infant clothes from a friend. That first night Carl scavenged around the house for rocking chairs, a lamp, and a table, we changed the kids on a folded towel, and they slept in laundry baskets in our closet.  We’ve gradually been working on pulling together a more practical room for them using items from around the house, thrift store purches, and a few new items. Their room contains more storebought items than I’d planned because, it turns out, it’s much harder to craft those adorable baby items once the twins have arrived. With my arms full of babies, I made the decision to spend just a bit more than my normal penny-pinching temperment allows in favor of having a workable room sometime this decade. It’s not finished, but we have a rough framework – lots of “natural” touches like bamboo and baskets. Themes of navy, sage, and yellow that will grow with them as they get bigger. Furniture so mismatched it almost works. Here’s a quick tour, snapped in bits and pieces during the babies’ morning routine, and starting with the view from the doorway:

The breakdown, with links where applicable:

Rocking Chairs: Already owned. Originally purchased from thrift stores and borrowed from other rooms when we brought the babies home. I love feeding the twins and thinking about the 80 or 100 years of parents rocking babies in the same chair before me.

Pillows: A (Christmas?) gift from my parents, that ended up looking nice when plopped down in the nursery one day.

Jenny Lind Cribs: From Target/Amazon. We wanted a new crib due to all the old recalls and drop-side safety concerns. These were reasonably priced and non-bulky. We bought the first one on sale (can’t remember the sale price), and my parents gave us the second one as a baby gift when the twins got too long to sleep together. It pays to shop around – just day to day and store to store I found $20 price fluctuations.

Mattresses: One was a hand-me-down, one came from Target after the options at Walmart weren’t very good.

Sheets/blankets: Gifts from friends and neighbors.

Table: An old folding table from Walmart that we had around the house. $8 or so originally, I think? It’s not pretty and it doesn’t match anything, but it does it’s job holding dripping bottles, sticky medicine, and baby hair oil without causing worries.

Vaguely Ikat-ish Rug: From T.J. Maxx. They often have a great section of clearance rugs. I think this was $40 or so back in the fall. We had a nice oriental rug (a gift to Carl from his family years ago), but needed something that was easy to clean and wouldn’t cause stress every time our son spit up on it while we paced the floor.

Lidded storage baskets under the cribs: From a bulk sale at the grocery store. They mostly hold toys the babies haven’t grown into yet. We also keep the pack-n-play (baby gift from Carl’s family) under the cribs.

Geometric Navy and White Curtains: From Lowes. Around $22 each after the military discount. This is the kind of thing I’d prefer to sew, but after three months of not finding time I decided buying some was the better part of valour. Probably not a bad financial decision once you consider the cost of heavy fabric for drapes and the time invested…

Blackout material to back the curtains: We picked a material that is also designed to provide an environmental barrier since we have old single-pane windows that let in a lot of cold/heat. $6.99/yd, bought for half price so $3.50/yd at JoAnne Fabrics. My visiting mother helped cut out the material. Rather than sewing it on, we clipped it to the top of the curtains with the ring clips – so far it works and looks great. A nice change from jury-rigging a sheet over the blinds every night as we did for the first three months.

Curtain Hardware: Curtain rings, curtain rod, brackets, all from JoAnne Fabrics at 50% off. I don’t remember the price.

Bamboo Blind: Also from Lowes. The previous white slatted blind in the room frayed and broke, and had to be replaced after it no longer worked and couldn’t be fixed. I picked a Levelor bamboo blind with a privacy lining because I love the look and Levelor is a solid/durable brand. Around $70 after the military discount, I think?

Here’s the view into the other corner and along the wall:

Baby Swing: Hand-me-down from a friend at church. Very useful for feeding twins alone since the waiting/finished twin can hang out upright in the swing while I feed the other.

Dresser: Craigslist. I love dressers that are up on legs, so we jumped for this one when it popped up used at a great price back in the fall. I’d been planning on painting it and using it in our bedroom, but when the babies arrived we changed course. It had a deliberately distressed finish, which I suppose works well for something destined for toddlers… I’m debating changing out the handles.

Lamp: Hand-me-down. The base used to stand in my brother’s room. The red shade was Carl’s idea to keep the glare down at night and make things cozy and drowsy when feeding the babies at bedtime. He originally jury-rigged one with a red pillowcase.

Changing pad: Target. We haven’t bothered with a cover since we like the wipeable surface.

Diaper/burp cloth basket: Old. Used to be storage in my college dorm room. The little wooden basket holding the hand sanitizer and toiletries came as the holder for a baby shower gift.

Diaper Pail: Arm & Hammer. Bought with a gift card someone sent as a baby gift.

Trash basket: Old. Stolen from another room in the house. Originally 50% off at Hobby Lobby for $6 or so, I think?

So there you have it, our not-done but coming together nursery. The back wall not shown has their closet door, fan for white noise, laundry basket, and humidifier. Definitely not the most scenic part of the room…

{Happy}

Our baby smurfs, out on a family hike in the winter woods:

{Funny}

The challenge of collared shirts when you have enormous cheeks and no identifiable neck.

{Real}

My parents came to visit, and my grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousins all drove up to see them and meet the babies. It was crazy but fun – we’re lucky the babies have so many relatives who love them (only a fraction of whom they’ve met). Most of the day looked like this: a swirl of people, with babies being passed from hand to hand at the center of it:

{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}

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PRETTY

Out on a walk in her first snow. It was a meager half-inch, but this winter-missing, born-and-raised Chicagoan will take it. Below is a more typical picture of winter here in the South:

*Image credit to Dave Granlund, Metrowest Daily News

HAPPY

FUNNY

Someone was unimpressed by her mother’s finger-over-the-lens photography skills:

REAL

You probably know that you’re not supposed to use Pyrex glass pans under the broiler. I did. Then we moved here, and had to leave our old metal broiler pan behind in Texas. One day we were in the countdown hour to dinner and I realized dinner required broiling. Just that once, I tentatively slid a glass Pyrex 13×9 under the broiler. It was fine. Nothing happened. Between one thing and another I kept reverting to a glass dish for the next two and a half years. Until last week, when I pulled a lovely Filipino-style marinated london broil out of the oven, set it on the counter, and the glass pan exploded:

When I say the pan exploded, I’m not exagerating – in a split second it disintegrated with a deafening bang, sending screaming hot shards of glass shrapnel spinning throughout the kitchen. It is a small miracle that nobody was hurt – only minutes before I’d moved the fussy-from-immunizations babies from the kitchen (where they usually watch me make dinner) to the next room for a nap. Because it was cold I had on jeans, thick socks, a long-sleeved shirt and leather moccasins, plus a spare old shirt of my husband’s that I wear as a smock when feeding our spit-uppy son. No glass made it through the clothing layers for burns or cuts. But basically? When your glass pan says “don’t use under a broiler”, don’t use it under a broiler.

After a quick rinse and pat dry to remove any glass splinters, the London Broil was delicious though .

Also REAL:

Someone was outraged! Outraged! that his mother had attempted to give him rice cereal for the first time. We have another 20 equally blurry, equally irritated photos of him giving his opinion on this new form of baby torture. Normally I’d be with the “wait until they’re bigger” for solids crowd, but in this case his doctor hopes that something a little more solid will help him keep food down.

Word Play (or “The day I finally gave up and grabbed a dictionary”)

I was home schooled for twelve years in a joyously nerdy family. We studied latin and greek roots, cherry-picked the book-lined walls, hauled a laundry basket full of new reading home from the library each week, and slogged through many years of vocabulary workbooks. After that, I attended a university with a rigorous classics and writing-centric core curriculum, wrote military history articles for a newspaper, and spent years knocking out business and competitor reports. I thought I had a good vocabulary. Then I met the works of Edmund Crispin.

My mother-in-law recently introduced us to Crispin’s deliciously funny mysteries. In his stories, the mystery quite often plays second fiddle to the hilarious dialogue, commentary, and characters. The writing is intelligent and cheeky, as if P.G. Wodehouse married Dorothy Sayers and read the dictionary to their in-utero author son. Bonus points if you know these at first glance – I didn’t: Logomachy; Hierophantically; Objurgatory; Minatory (makes sense once you think of the myth…I didn’t); Proscenium; Tutelary (not what I guessed); Exiguous; Epicene (wrong there, too – I was thinking of Epicureans); Atavism.

At least I got Rhadamanthine. Maybe I should have taken Latin for longer? For now, I choose to blame the current level of reading in this house. It’s melting our brains:

How could this melt your brain Mom? There are eight whole words on this page!