food fights

This article on children who are picky eaters appeared in this week's NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/dining/

Apparently, children will eat anything until they're two, and then nothing. Maybe. If you or your spouse were a picky eater, the odds that your children will also be picky is quite high, as pickiness seems to be a genetic trait. The article details some of the evolutionary reasons that refusing new and strange and bitter foods might have been a survival skill. (The main lesson for those of you with infants is to feed them the maximum diversity of foods until they're old enough to refuse, in the hope that they will return to variety sooner rather than later.)

Now, anyone who ate dinner with my family during my childhood probably remembers (and may still be scarred by) the epic battles that occurred at mealtimes. I refused to eat most things, especially if they were green or touching each other. Mom and Dad insisted I try at least one bite of everything (this was later upped to finishing whatever small portion of green things was on my plate). I was pretty stubborn and so were they, and so many meals ended with me sitting at the table by myself, staring down some peas. By some magic transformation, I now eat pretty much everything - I am not only omnivorous but open to new tastes and spices and ingredients. Overripe bananas and tapioca are still out, however, on textural grounds.

Steve was picky both as a child and as a young adult. He didn't like a lot of foods and he wasn't terribly open to trying new things either. He too is fairly adventurous now - he's more of a germaphobe than a finicky eater - although there are still some foods he is squeamish about. Liver is a definite out, as we discovered in Taiwan when I mistakenly ordered it (hey, my Chinese wasn't great, and I saw the character for beef and thought the dish sounded fine!).

My mom and dad read the Times article and promptly descended into finger-pointing. I quote:
"Given the article's suggestion that genes account for 78 per cent of the child's eating habits, we wondered here about the two of us. I called your grammy. She says she doesn't recall any of the four of us being finicky. Then again, when I was a toddler, she and I were alone and she recalls I could eat whatever I pleased. So perhaps I wasn't really tested. Your mom promptly said she was a perfect little child, of course. But then she had to admit her mom used to say she was a bit cranky about what she would eat. So perhaps that's where the genes come from?"

Anyway. I think we're doomed. :)

wall decorations

Since we rent our apartment, painting the walls isn't really an option. And since I am artistically challenged, painting or stenciling figures on the walls is similarly out of the question. But our walls are rather bare and our paint (see previous postings on lead paint) is not great, so I've been trying to figure out what fun thing can be done to add some interest and color and cover up the cracks.

I've discovered wall stickers. They seem great - easy to apply, removable, colorful. I'm thinking I might put some up next to the crib and some near the dresser/changing table. Here are a couple of websites with cool designs:

http://www.fermlivingshop.us/stickers/
http://pillowsandthrows.com/
http://www.whatisblik.com/restik.html

Steve and I particularly like the "Jungle" series under Blik's Wee Gallery.

false advertising

Cousin Luke and I were Google chatting yesterday about the unbearable cuteness that marks all published baby pictures, videos, and blogs. I mean, is Silas always grinning that much? Does Danica make noises other than giggles? He mentioned that he and Cassie had babysat their friend's two daughters, and amid the wailing and crying and screaming wondered where the cuteness was.

Steve and I talked about it over dinner and decided that, in the interests of truth in advertising (and birth control?), we'd have to take some video and post some pics of our baby screaming and generally carrying on while we helplessly paced and rocked and cooed. Wait for it.

childbirth classes and other things

Well, Steve and I have finally emerged from the disaster that was our apartment post-renovation. We have new paint in the kitchen and bathroom, new doors, and unleaded door jambs. However, our landlord appears to have hired someone without the first clue about working with leaded paint, and the place was a dusty, dirty mess. We have cleaned everything we own, as well as the walls and floors of the apartment. Twice. Sometimes three times - Hepa vacuum, soap and water, Hepa vacuum. It took probably four solid days of both of us working. (On a happy note, we bought our first ever vacuum, a Miele Sirius, and it's so cute and light and awesome that we love it.)

phew. We're so glad that it's over and we are finally able to enjoy our home again - particularly the kitchen. Two weeks of eating out was more than enough for us - we had homemade white bean and kale soup yesterday and it was so wholesome and yummy.

We had our childbirth classes this past weekend. We opted for the intensive weekend edition - 6 hours on Saturday and 6 on Sunday. Saturday was really helpful and informative. We really liked our instructor and learned a lot about the process and our options and what to expect. I had done some reading, but the class definitely answered some questions that I had. We also watched 3 birth videos, which I found really tough going - I know that they're supposed to demystify the process and thus empower you, but they had sort of the opposite effect on me. I felt more anxious afterwards - but not in the sense that I needed more information, just that things looked really very painful. (I'm not saying this came as a surprise, but I don't know if I found it helpful to be so reminded of the fact that something painful is in my near future.) And then on Sunday... we skipped class entirely. We didn't really have any more questions, and we didn't feel we needed to practice various breathing techniques or positions, and it was such a beautiful day...

We went to Rockefeller State Park instead. It was a gorgeous autumn day, with the leaves just beginning to change colors and fall onto the paths. We wandered around for over an hour. I was so happy to be out and enjoying the air and the forest - very peaceful and soul-restoring - much more what we needed from the day.

We've now had classes in newborn care, breastfeeding, and childbirth. I won't say we feel ready, but we certainly feel more informed. We were talking yesterday about how interesting it is that these sort of paid classes have, for a certain segment of the population (urban upper middle class?), effectively replaced the more organic and ad-hoc and historically common way of learning what to do from friends and family. It makes perfect sense, but it's still sort of odd.

Anyway, back to work. Happy Columbus Day!

parenting books

We have recently begun to realize that in a few short weeks, we are going to find ourselves at home with a baby, and neither of us has a clue what to do.

Tonight, we are signed up to take a newborn care class, at the same place we're having our childbirth prep class (which is scheduled for October 6th and 7th, a two-day intensive) and a breastfeeding class. But we also went to the library last weekend and took out a few books on babies - Dr. Sears, the What to Expect series, and Armin Brott's New Father book. The first two are encyclopedic and daunting.

Anyone have recommendations?

sonogram

I went to the hospital today for a sonogram, because at my last appointment Dr. Rutenberg noticed that I was measuring a bit small. She wanted to take a closer look at the baby and make sure that s/he was coming along okay. (She also said really not to worry, so I didn't.)

Well, as the technician noted, this baby is not small! S/he already weighs 4 lbs 13 oz. Sheesh!! We've still got 7 weeks to go! We got to see the baby on the screen, but unlike earlier sonograms you could only see parts of the baby at any one time (there's a leg! there's the head! some random internal organs!). There weren't any really good printouts to share. Sorry.

baby names

Who knew it would be so hard to pick a name?
We have been talking about names for months now, and yet still, if baby were to be born tomorrow, he/she would be nameless for a few days while negotiations continued. Are all prospective parents so indecisive, or is it just us?

If you haven't had a baby recently, you probably aren't aware of some of the fun new options for researching names. The Social Security Administration is a wealth of interesting and sortable statistics - you can look up names by state, by decade, and by popularity: www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

For a cool graph and historical perspective, check out this site: www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager

In other exciting baby news, I'm having a sonogram today so that they can do a growth check. woo-hoo! I hope to get a print-out that we can post here.

lead paint paranoia, part deux

Some of you are aware that Steve and I have had our own little lead paint drama. We tested our kitchen cupboards in early July and were horrified to discover that they had problematic levels of lead on the surfaces. We know our apartment building is old, but we assumed that the old lead paint was safely buried beneath layers of new paint. For most of the surfaces, that's true. But the doors and cupboards stick and hence there's a good bit of friction, so those particular areas are really not safe. It's fine for now, but when we have a baby crawling around and sticking everything in his/her mouth, it would be dangerous.

We hired an environmental consultant, who made some recommendations. We had a little bit of a letter-writing war with our landlord, who finally sent in his own environmental consultant, who made the same recommendations. More letters followed. (Having a lawyer in the household is a nice little advantage, I find.) And now, two months later, the contractors have finally arrived to fix the problems. The bathroom is being totally repainted and "sealed". All of the internal doors (closets, bed, and bath) are being removed and the door jambs stripped and repainted. And the kitchen cabinet doors are being removed entirely, and the shelves repainted. Work started in the apartment today and will probably continue for 3-4 days. Although it is rather disruptive, we're happy that the work is being done - it will allow us to stay in the apartment for longer without the nagging worry that the paint is poisoning us or baby.

We bought the lead paint testing kit at our local hardware store for $7-8. If you're living in an old place (with a baby) and are seeing substantial friction or peeling paint, you might want to check it out.

food musings

Carl has increased my guilt level about this blog by claiming to check for new posts every day. Since it was a month between postings, I doubt he's telling the truth, but still... I feel compelled to write with slightly more frequency. As there still isn't a baby to show off, I'm left with my own random thoughts. (Carl's daughter Danica has her own website/blog, so his postings are off-the-scale cute.)

We have been, this summer, much more fully embracing the ideal of locally grown food. We have been enthusiastic farmer's market shoppers for the last 5-6 years, even when it meant taking the subway to Union Square and lugging home bags on the R train. (My favorite such experience was when I bought a Christmas tree. The Canadian dude who sold it to me fashioned backpack straps out of twine, and I stuck our little tree on my back and rode the subway with it. Sadly, no pictures were taken.) But we had always supplemented with grocery store produce. This summer, however, we have relied entirely on the Hastings-on-Hudson farmer's market for all our fruits and vegetables, as well as some meat, cheese, eggs, and pasta. (Bananas are the main exception - bananas help pregnant ladies ward off leg cramps, and farmers have yet to grow them in the Northeast!)

I think our increased interest in trying to eat locally stems from a couple of sources. One is the general zeitgeist - locavorism seems to be the eco-chic trend of the day - another is our own increased sense of identification and love for the Hudson River region, and lastly we have been reading a number of foodie books. We both read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and I also read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Marion Nestle's What to Eat, and Smith and MacKinnon's Plenty. I also like the Oregon-based website culinate.com. All of these books have made us much more aware of how far food travels, the environmental costs of such a system, and the increased possibilities of local eating.

It has been different, but not in the way that I expected. I do occasionally miss some foods, but my dominant impression has instead been the joy of seeing new things arrive, the amazing quality of the food that we've eaten, and the sense of cornucopian plenty that attends each brief season. When sugar snap peas were here, they were amazing. Ditto for cherries. August was dominated by corn, tomatoes, and peaches - we ate scads of them every week. The peaches and blueberries are now gone, but the new crop of apples is arriving. It's been fun to indulge in something - gorging on it - knowing that in a week or month it'll be gone for the season.

Of course, it must be confessed that we are not yet so devoted that we intend to boycott the grocery store once winter hits. Our farmer's market closes in late November and does not reappear until June, and I'm sure we will return to our old habits for those six months. But this summer has been lovely and yummy...

A new belly pic, at 32 weeks. Only two months to go!