The Untitled Title Page » Food

I need to eat better…

Adrian — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:23:18 +0000

No pictures in this post, sorry picture liking people. This will be just words, and probably boring words, maybe upsetting to many people.

I can eat whatever I want (see, I told you it would be upsetting). I have always been able to. I can’t gain weight (more upsetting). I’m glad I can’t. I used to want to weigh more when I was little, but now I’m fine with it. I am happy with the skinny lot I was granted.

However, I should probably eat better. It’s not that we don’t eat well, we do. We eat organic mostly, red meat sparingly, some meals entirely veggie. But when I eat, I EAT. And if I’m done eating and I will be hungry again in 3 hours, I will eat again. I do this all the time. By all the time I mean practically on a daily basis. I find myself going out at 9pm to grab more food.

And therein is where the problem lies. Going out to eat. There aren’t a ton of healthy options when you want to grab something quick, even less later in the evening. It’s not that I get junk (to me, junk is McDonalds or an equivalent), but still, it’s not as good as it could be. I could still go out to get my 2nd dinner but get something a little healthier. Or maybe not as much. I don’t seem to have a very timely “I’m full” mechanism. Then I’ll eat and eat and eat and at the end feel like I want to puke. It happened once. By happened I mean puke. It was for a birthday dinner (mine) and I ate 2 appetizers, a main course and 2 pieces of cheesecake (courtesy of my friends and The Cheesecake Factory). The cheesecake made a return engagement before we left the restaurant.

But then I was fine and we proceeded to watch a forgettable movie.

So I guess what I’m saying is I should be wiser. I could do many things. I’ll choose to do a few for now. I could only eat my 1 dinner and not a 2nd. I’ll choose to continue eating when I’m hungry. I could eat only at home for my 2nd dinner. I’ll choose to try and find quicker things to make at home, frozen perhaps, from Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, but I’ll also choose to continue to get my 2nd dinner food out as well. I’ll also choose to try and cut out the unhealthier options I may choose (choose pun) for my 2nd dinner.

You can choose to hate me because I am choosing to do this rather than having to, but maybe if I don’t choose to do this now, I’ll have to when I get a heart attack.

Lazy girl’s “stock”

Emily — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:35:56 +0000

I have struggled with the concept of stock for cooking. Bouillon, while convenient and cheap, gives me headaches (I suspect due to the high salt content and the MSG… even without the headaches I’m sketchy on the salt). I’ve used Better Than Bouillon and have really liked it. It’s not that much more expensive, really, and it lasts a while. However, corn syrup solids are high on the ingredient list so I’m not thrilled with that, either. If I were really good I’d make my own stock, but I’m not. I make a lot of things. I just haven’t gotten to stock, though I want to. I keep carrot bits and peelings and the ends of onions and the stems of parsley in the freezer in a bag for the day that I’ll suddenly make stock. Last week I needed to boil the chicken to shred it, and the sauce for the same dish needed some chicken stock. So I put some of the frozen veggies and a cube of salt free veggie bouillon (not bad, but not much flavor either) in while the chicken cooked and then used the leftover “stock” for the sauce. Excellent. It worked.

Cooking, for me, is a creative endeavor. It’s a way I can plan and experiment and create something out of little parts. I’ve been focusing a lot lately on what we’re eating and trying out different grains and such. It’s been good, though we have encountered a few misses. That’s the nature of it, I suppose. Anyway, the bummer with cooking is that you eat it and your creation is gone. Which is why I sometimes take pictures, and sometimes share it. For something that is such a huge part of our lives, it’s nice to document it. I remember lots of places and days by things we ate and tried, so why not?

Moving on.

I think I wrote, what, four blog posts in August? Oh well. It was a busy month and we spent a good chunk of it sick. Nothing makes me sadder than a sick baby, let me tell you. Especially when I didn’t feel top notch either. She just wasn’t herself (not very “Morgan-y” as Adrian says). The day she finally laughed again–at Toby, what else?–was a huge relief. Also she went back to sleeping better, which made all of us a little happier. So the story is that maybe I’ll blog more, maybe I won’t. I just haven’t been feeling it. I haven’t even pulled out my camera much at all. Sadness. I should be doing more, I just totally haven’t felt like it.

Speaking of how I feel, I feel like I’m so behind sometimes. I guess that’s just normal. I always felt that way in college, like I was so busy, and now I am kicking myself for not doing more and enjoying it more. Same with pre-baby married life. And I imagine in ten years when I have 15 kids (it’s gonna be a busy ten years, let me tell you) I’ll be laughing at my current self thinking how naive I am. Hehehe! I feel like I’m getting done what needs to, but I don’t think I’m getting ahead and that bugs me. Also, I’m not enjoying it enough, and that’s sad and silly. I’ve tried to just stop and chill and roll around with Morgan a little more. The laundry (which is my word that means everything from dirty clothes to dirty dishes and dirty floors) really doesn’t actually matter that much. Except that I won’t often put Morgan down on said dirty floors and she is so ready to crawl and even stand that I probably should do something about that.

But of course my head is filled with so many things that sometimes I think I’m going to burst. Right now it’s graphic design. I feel like I’ve always been fairly decent at design, so I’d like to try it digitally. Because that’s what I need: another thing to do and work on. Sometimes I feel like I’m this crazy amorphous sponge, soaking up whatever I can and expanding in every possible direction. Like one of those sponges in a capsule that emerge when you put them in warm water. Yeah, like that.

And if that’s not a fantastic self image, I can’t imagine what would be. Who needs a manicure when you can be a dinosaur shaped sponge?

Peach Juice!

Emily — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:44:27 +0000

We went to the Redmond Farmer’s Market and got some pretty great stuff: fresh pastured eggs, sheep’s cheese and fresh mozzarella, and of course lots of fruits and veggies. The peaches we bought were ripe and smelled heavenly, so I cut two up and just blended them for Morgan (who is 6 months old today… what?!?!). They were so juicy it turned into a juice more than a puree, so we gave it to her in a cup. She watches us whenever we drink from cups and get really excited when we let her gnaw on the edge of one, so she was even more excited to discover that this cup tasted good, too. She didn’t like it when Adrian would take it away to give her a break, and as you can see she even helped hold on to it. The food that is easily mashable has been my favorite to give her so far: avocados, which she also usually likes, and these peaches. She also really likes apples, though I did cook those first of course.

Trader Joes: “Mini” Croissants

Emily — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:23:53 +0000

[I am FINALLY going to TJ's as soon as Morgan wakes up from her nap, so it seemed a good day to post this. Two food posts in a row is too much? Sorry, but I don't think so.]

Because, judging off the comments my Trader Joe’s post received, we have some folks out there who love TJ’s as much as I do, I thought I’d share one of my favorites. There are many, of course, but because no one mentioned these it seemed really more like a public service to show you these:

They claim to be mini croissants, but they’re a pretty good size once they rise. See, they start out all small like this

You let them rise overnight and in the morning they look like this:

Then you cook them for about 30 minutes (and don’t overcook them like I did a little) and they’ll look like this:

They are really good, seriously. They’re flaky without leaving that gross layer of gunk feeling on the top of your mouth like cheap croissants can do. Please tell me you know what I’m talking about and I don’t sound totally crazy.

Anyway, I think it’s $3.99 for the pack of 8–or the same price for a pack of four pains au chocolat, which we haven’t tried yet. It’s not a bad price, because you just have to trust me that they taste really good. We don’t have them all the time, but I love them for a super easy treat breakfast.

The birthday food

Emily — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:53:00 +0000

Food is an important part of celebrating. It just is. And we like food anytime, no celebration required. Here’s a sampling of the birthday fare this year:

Bialys. Adrian always talks about bialys (sort of like bagels, but different). Apparently you can only find them near New York or that part of the east. I even went to some place called Mikey’s Brooklyn Bagel Shop or some such thing and they didn’t know what I was talking about. So a couple months ago I found this recipe and decided I’d make them for his birthday. I am very afraid of making breads because it never seems to come out like I imagine. Here, the dough wasn’t rising right, but it came out okay in the end. Maybe not having anything in my head to compare it to was a good thing.

On Saturday, since his birthday was on Sunday this year, we went to the Il Fornaio Risotteria in downtown Seattle. It was good, as always. It’s hard to find real Italian food (Olive Garden doesn’t count, though I still argue it’s not bad for what it is, you just can’t compare it to actual Italian food).

We split a pizza for an appetizer. It was a little oilier than we felt it should be, but the pesto and veggies were good. Note the nice thin crust. Ahhhh. Looking at the picture makes me want to go to Italy. Or at least back to the restaurant, which is substantially cheaper than flying to Europe.

Adrian and Morgan with the desserts. We had creme brulee AND a chocolate fudge-like cake. Both very good. (Oh, and we had main courses of a grilled pear ravioli and the porcini risotto. Yummy.)

The rest of the birthday food got a little drawn out because my big plans for Sunday didn’t work out until Monday, but I’ll spare you the details. We’ll just say Saturday was the celebration day.

Food, Inc.

Emily — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:38:44 +0000

It’s a little embarrassing to be this far behind in blogging. I don’t know why, since it’s not really an essential part of life (but what better way to ruin the monotony of wash the clothes-fold the clothes-wear the clothes-fill up hamper AGAIN than to waste time blogging?). I think the lack here has something to do with the lazy days of summer and that Morgan is quickly bored when I do anything on the computer these days. Therefore, anything I post will be old, but I”ll try to get to it anyway.

For Adrian’s birthday last weekend we went to see Food, Inc. at this little theater in Seattle. It’s a small documentary, so that’s the only place it was playing anywhere near us. It was our first movie since Morgan was born, but we figured it would be reasonably baby safe since we weren’t expecting violence and loud explosions in a documentary about the food industry. And it worked out that she slept almost the whole time anyway.

The documentary was pretty good, and definitely was a little eye opening about what’s going on with the food we eat. I feel like I’m pretty aware of these things, so it wasn’t completely earth shattering to me–this is one of those preaching to the converted situations, I think, because you’d have to already have an interest before bothering to go see it. There were definitely some interesting parts to it, and it made us a little more determined to be careful and aware about what we eat. My favorite scene was a family driving through Burger King, and they were explaining how they could get tons of food off the dollar menu for the same price as just a few vegetables or fruit at the store. I don’t think I had realized so clearly how crazy that is before. I was thinking about these mustard greens that were sitting in our fridge that I had spent $2.50 on (I’m trying to learn how to cook these things!) and how much food that would equate at McDonald’s. And it’s really sad that it’s actually cheaper to buy unhealthy food. Why is that? Because of corn subsidies. But that’s a longer story than I feel like writing about.

The other most interesting bit to me were all the connections between government (the FDA, USDA, even the Supreme Court) and the agricultural companies. It’s no wonder the system is the way it is.

Happily, we were still able to go out for Adrian’s birthday dinner, though the next night (Sunday, his actual birthday) when I was being lazy and just reheated this Shepherd’s Pie I had made and frozen previously, we both felt a little yucky while eating it and ended up throwing the rest away. So it’s true that this movie might make you lose your appetite, though I say it’s still worth seeing.

Trader Joe’s, a.k.a. the most wonderful-est store

Emily — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:34:19 +0000

I love Trader Joe’s. We all know this. I might have put my foot down about moving to Washington if they didn’t have TJ’s up here. Well, probably not, though maybe my sun-deprived self would have been happy if I HAD done that. (Hehehe.) We just found out last weekend from a friendly craft store employee that a TJ’s is opening in REDMOND. Woo hoo! No more driving all the way to Bellevue or Kirkland! Not only that, it’ll be in the center with the craft store, which is the perfect walking distance from the library and post office… which means I can very easily and pleasantly get to many of my favorite places at once. Oh my oh my.

On to the point.

I’m planning on trekking it out to Bellevue in the next few days (okay, okay, it’s not really SO far, but it’s kind of something I have to plan in advance for with Morgan, who is still not a fan of the car… it’s really hard to drive with my arm going numb because I’m reaching around her seat to hold the pacifier in her mouth while my throat is getting a little hoarse from singing every song I can think of) for a little TJ trip and I’m wondering what products other people love. Somewhat intentionally I don’t keep snacky stuff on hand because (a) it’s more expensive and (b) it’s usually not as healthy as food you make yourself. The fact that we don’t have that kind of thing on hand, though, means that for lunch for me or for late-night “I’m still hungry” moments when we don’t feel like cooking anything we have nothing to grab and eat besides chocolate chips.

Not that I’m guilty of eating lots of bags of chocolate chips. For lunch. Ahem.

Now we’re out of chocolate chips, but luckily “pints” of Haagen-Dazs have been on sale at the grocery store lately so we have those for munchiness. Yes, yes, very healthy. Actually, have you tried the Haagen-Dazs “five” line? It’s made with only five ingredients, which of course makes me feel better because they’re all normal ingredients. So far, I’ve tried ginger and mint, and they are very very good. This could be a problem for me, because even if it does only contain pronounceable ingredients it can’t be good to eat so much of it.

Back to the point: One of the great things about Trader Joe’s is that it’s generally cheaper than grocery stores, and also generally healthier–though of course like anywhere you still have to be savvy. But I love that you can get organic food for the same price as regular food at the grocery store, butter is cheaper, etc. Our addictions often ebb and flow, but right now I’m still on the wheat and flaxseed crackers (was also a pregnancy staple). We’ve also been drinking this green food drink that’s pretty good, and of course I stock up on the frozen veggies but that’s not really a TJ-specific product (just a cheaper/better-than-grocery-store one). I love their hummus, but I started making it at home–with TJ’s canned garbanzo beans and TJ’s lemons, of course. I also buy the noodle boxes for Adrian to have on hand at work.

So, O Masses, please PLEASE tell me your favorite TJ’s products. Specifically, I’m looking for things we can have for “quick food”, but I would love to hear about whatever it is that you love and buy often from TJ’s. Not that I really need more inspiration to love it, but I would love to get some ideas for things I maybe haven’t tried. And we can all bask in the Trader Joe’s love together. Ahhhh.

Breakfast

Emily — Wed, 20 May 2009 02:17:50 +0000

Wanted to make this shortbread. Raspberries were on sale. Fresh whipped cream, at that point, seemed mandatory.

[Shortbread biscuits from Everyday Food May 2009...the exact recipe wasn't online.]

The problem with baking is that Adrian doesn’t enjoy baked goods as much as I do. So then I eat it all myself. For breakfast, lunch, and dessert. And I think life is excellent that way.

Let me just tell you– it was good. Oh so good.

Roasted veggie pasta

Emily — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:32:31 +0000

Part of our plan with changing the blog and website was to expand the things we write about but create some sort of organization or category for it all. We’re still working out the kinks, but we have all kinds of ideas about things we could write about among our various interests. I feel a bit like I’m just throwing things to see what sticks. Anyway, one of the possibilities of things to write about is food recipes. I feel presumptuous putting them up because I’m not an incredible cook or anything. However, I can share things we like. If y’all like it– great. If not, then I don’t have to put this sort of thing up. That said, here we go with recipe number one.

I like vegetables, I really do. I am not quite like Vanessa, my best friend since elementary school, who once said, “Vegetables are my life.” She’s also vegan, so they really are, in fact, her life. I’m not there, but I like them all the same. I know there are a few among the readership here who don’t like vegetables (if your name starts with a K or a T, I’m probably referring to you!). A good part of the time, I really think that a dislike for vegetables comes from the way it’s cooked, not the vegetable itself. And one of the best ways to bring out great flavor in vegetables is to roast them. So you should try it, even if you already have ways you like eating veggies! This recipe takes one of my favorites, roasted vegetables, and combines it with an easy favorite, pasta. Mmm hmm.

(As a side note, preparing vegetables in a variety of ways–raw, steamed, boiled, roasted, etc.–brings out different nutrients. I happen to like roasted because it can start to naturally caramelize the vegetables, but all ways are good for you.)

So first you need to roast yourself some vegetables.

Ah, I enjoy this, let me tell you. Here’s what you do:

1. Cut yourself up a variety of vegetables. I used 3 carrots, 1 red onion, 2 zucchini, about 10 mushrooms, and 5 peeled whole cloves of garlic. I also chopped up some fresh rosemary.

It helps if they are around the same size. In this case it made the most sense to do them approximately bite-size.You could also use a wide variety; just about anything will roast, so it just depends what might be good for the recipe you’re doing. Other types of squash or even eggplant would be good here (if I cared for eggplant much). Get creative!

Vegetables, even when they’re cut to the same size, roast at different rates, just like they would if you were boiling them. Carrots take a lot longer than zucchini. Onions are probably my single favorite veggie to roast because they get so incredibly sweet over time. So they can cook in less time, but the longer they’re in the better they get, I think. Just keep all that in mind.

2. Toss the carrots, onions, and garlic with a good amount of olive oil (1-2 tablespoons) and some salt and pepper. Put them in the oven at 400 degrees. You don’t have to preheat completely or anything fancy for this. Periodically, something like every 15 minutes, take out the pan and retoss all the vegetables.

3. After about 30 minutes, add the zucchini, mushrooms, and rosemary. If it looks like it needs more, add some olive oil. And a little salt and pepper if you were stingy earlier. You could definitely add other herbs, dried or fresh, as you feel like. I’m not very adventurous with herbs because I’m always afraid I’ll combine to make a bad flavor. But you shouldn’t be wimpy like I am.

This was the point at which I took the above picture. You can see how the carrots and onion are already getting nicely cooked. It was actually probably longer than 30 minutes, but these things can be challenging when you’re cooking with a 2 month old strapped to you. I could have added the rosemary earlier, I think. But one of the beautiful things about this is you don’t have to be precise.

4. Let these cook for another 20 minutes or so, retossing occasionally. (You should also probably now start cooking your pasta if you haven’t already.) When they’re all done, fish out the whole garlic cloves. I cut them into smaller pieces and put them back in, but if you fear garlic you can just throw them out entirely. I like stinking, when it means that I got to eat roasted garlic.

5. Meanwhile, work on the red pepper.

Red pepper is awesome roasted straight on the flame if you have a gas stove or a grill. If not, you can pop it in the broiler. As you can see (or perhaps not, since we have a black stove top), the skin gets nice and black. Rotate it every few minutes until the whole thing is black. This probably took me 10-15 minutes, though I think the broiler would be faster. I’m not sure. Anyway, when it’s all black wrap it up in foil and a paper towel to steam and sweat. After about 5 minutes unwrap it and use the paper towel to get the skin off. Then cut off the top, get all the inside stuff out, and slice and cut into bite-size pieces.

I know it’s a pain to have to roast something separately, but trust me that this is really really good.

6. When the pasta is ready, drain it and put it back in the pot, then add all your vegetables. Toss it up and serve.

I put some shredded parmesan cheese on top, because I like parmesan on everything. I’m one of those people. Last night we ate this with some goat cheese and bread. Come to think of it, the goat cheese probably would have been good on top of the pasta as well. But I also will eat goat cheese with anything, so you do whatever you want.

Let me know if you try this. At least try the roasted vegetables. Seriously, do it! They’re good alone or with just about anything.

Birthday Cake

Emily — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:55:00 +0000

Here we are finally getting to that birthday cake we bought Morgan the night before she was born (coincidentally). We had tried for it on her one week birthday but it was frozen and took longer to thaw than we expected. Bummer. So we broke into it the next day instead. A whole (small) Godiva chocolate cheesecake. So yummy.

Things We Did Before Kids #3

Emily — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:48:00 +0000

I had more posts ready to go before Morgan was born and was just going to roll them out slowly so that I’d have something to post while “waiting”. Well, she’s here, but I still have the posts and pictures ready so I will go ahead and just put this up and then the other in a couple days. Sorry about the lack of baby pictures, which are probably more what many people would like to see. At least it’s something to read.

We like food. This should not be a surprise to anyone who has ever read our blog. I’ve liked trying new things ever since I was mature enough to start branching out, and Adrian will eat just about anything. And he knows a lot, since he grew up around restauranteurs. He has taught me a lot. One of the things he introduced me to was sushi. It’s probably his favorite, and I’ve definitely warmed up a lot since our first date when I was wondering what on earth I’d eat when this guy pulls up to a sushi restaurant. Now I ask for it as much as he does, though I’m still iffy on the really raw stuff (also, I’m aware I’m pregnant and you’re not supposed to be eating raw fish when pregnant, so please nobody stress out on me–I only eat cooked stuff and figure I’m okay).

So as one of our last hurrahs we went to our new favorite sushi restaurant. Side note: I like going to good sushi places and seeing raw octopus tentacles in the little refrigerated cases. I feel like it’s a mark of a “real” sushi place. Mmm… tempura vegetables and tofu. My favorite is the pumpkin, but the green beans taste pretty good, too.
Salmon Kama, which is broiled salmon cheek. It’s rather caveman-like to rip it apart and eat it, but somehow it feels civilized when you’re using chopsticks. I like to think so. And it tastes good.
This is art, not food. Adrian ordered the omakase, where you tell the chef how much you want to spend and they make you a plate with all kinds of things. I think it just looks beautiful, because they pay such attention to little details on it. Look at that whole chunk of crab on the avocado (I could have a bite of that one, so I’m pointing it out), the different types of eel and tuna and salmon–which was possibly the deepest orange I’ve ever seen for salmon… it was gorgeous. I get a kick watching Adrian try it all to see his reactions to the flavors. He even had sea urchin.

As the baby kicked around when the food started hitting her, I wondered if the fact that crunchy roll was one of the few things that sounded good when I was all nauseated at the beginning is a sign that she’ll be a sushi eater, too. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Morgan Josephine…A Daddy’s Tale

Adrian — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:36:00 +0000

I know many of you have been clamoring for more details about this sweet little baby, so let me just get a few of them out of the way for you before I get into the story.

Name: Morgan Josephine

DOB: January 24, 2009

Time: 4:02 pm

Height: 21″

Weight: 6 pounds, 5.5 ounces

So it all started Saturday morning. Emily has had previous experiences in the past couple of weeks with contractions. They would usually wake her up, make her feel uncomfortable, but they were sporadic and she was able to go back to sleep and ignore them. 6:30 am some more of these contractions began, but this time Emily was not able to ignore them, they were more intense but still a little sporadic. I finally woke up sometime around 8:00 because I noticed her squirming around more than usual, so I asked her what was up and how she was feeling. She let me know that she was having contractions again, but she couldn’t ignore these. We continued to time them for about 30 minutes and they were still all over the map. 8 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, but still intense enough that we knew these were a little different.

Now…every weekend since Week 37 we have been having our last “date night(s)” as a couple just in case we would not be able to again. We did that at week 37, a couple of nights, same with week 38, so we decided to give it one last go in week 39. Earlier this week, I was talking to Glorious about The Cheesecake Factory, and he mentioned how somebody told them that cheesecake was supposed to help make labor easier. Of course this was all scientifically backed by years of research. We had been meaning to go back and get the baby (and us too…ahem) an entire Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake for her birthday. And that is exactly what we did Friday night. But we also had a slice of Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake with our dinner. I realized that I did not like that one as much because it tasted too “cheesecakey” to me.

So it must have been that cheesecake, right? All that crazy sour cream cheese is really making her uterus go crazy. At about 9:00 I mentioned to Emily that she might as well get in and take a shower now while she can just in case this is more down the path of labor than her other previous contractions had been. She proceeded to shower, and every time she would feel the start of a contraction, or have one end, she’d put her hand out of the door and bang on the wall. They were now coming in at every 5 minutes pretty consistently, and a minute long, give or take 5 seconds. Side note, Emily also proceeded to shave her legs, because you don’t want to birth with hairy legs, right? I mean, when the midwives get down there, and see a little stubble, they just storm out of the room. :)

After Emily was finished with her shower, she put on some clothes and said that she was going to go downstairs and watch some TV to try and get her mind off of the contractions. She thought it would be a good distraction and help them go away. I decided to get in the shower too, and used my fancy badger hair shaving brush that Emily bought for me during our recruiting trip up here, so I would be extra silky smooth if the baby was going to come today. That and trying to email people to get their cell phone numbers in case the baby did come, took us to about 10:30.

I went downstairs to see how Emily was doing and find out how her contractions were going. Still about the same, 5 minutes apart, about a minute long. Definitely a pattern, and not tapering off either. Emily had decided that it was time for her to use the birth ball, so we both came back upstairs to our room, rolled out the ball, and then out of nowhere the contractions seemed to move up to being only 3 minutes apart and still about a minute long. She had a few of these and we called our Doula Wendy at about 11:30 to let her know what was going on and get her advice. From what we told her, and what she has seen, it sounded to her like this was the real deal. Okay. But she also said that typically, contractions that begin in the morning, tend to run through the afternoon and go into the evening, when the baby will be born. Okay, she will call us back in 60 minutes to see how things are going. Since we hadn’t eaten since about 9:00 pm Friday night, Wendy wanted me to get Emily to eat some protein and drink about 16 ounces every hour. She asked if I felt whether she should come over or whether she would be in the way, and I let her know that I thought we were doing find so far. Good luck to me on getting her to eat though.

I went downstairs and told Emily’s mom what was going on and asked if she would be able to make some eggs and toast so that I could go back up and be with Emily. She did and I was able to get Emily to eat probably a good 6-7 forkfuls of scrambled eggs, and a quarter of a piece of toast in the next 45 minutes. She was drinking pretty well too, and really using the birth ball to help with each contraction. There were 2 times where she mentioned about going to the hospital, but I told her she did not use the secret word. Emily kindly pointed out that we had never defined a secret word, at which point I told her that I guess she was out of luck on that one then. Sometime around 1:00 Emily also mentioned that she did not feel she was coping well, this was a signal to me that the contractions were in fact increasing in intensity and I decided give it a few minutes and call Wendy back. She conveniently lives 1 left turn, 1 right turn, and another left turn away from us (about 5 minutes if you take your time), so she made it over here pretty quickly. I gave her the quick recap of everything that was new and she talked to Emily about it and let me know that I should probably get the car packed just so we have everything ready to go when we need it, whenever that might be. I also called the midwives and spoke to Ali and let her know what was happening and that Wendy was coming over. We heard about Wendy from the midwives at the Birth Center, so Ali was comfortable with letting Wendy determine when we should come into the Birth Center, to just give her a call back then.

Loading my car took a while because I was trying to attach my cool car seat that I bought to match the interior of my car and was having some difficulty with it. I have never attached or used a car seat before, plus I wanted to get back upstairs and see how Emily was doing. Needless to say, it was a pain, but I got it taken care of. Everything was put in the trunk too, and we also threw in Emily’s car seat that is supposed to go into her car. I get back upstairs and Wendy tells me that we are probably going to be leaving within 30 minutes, that we are getting to that point. Alrighty. She wants me to move the passenger seat all the way forward with the bith ball in it, so that Emily can kneel behind it into the rear seat so that the position is almost like using the birth ball. That means I had to take the car seat out and have Wendy put it in her minivan since my trunk is now full. It was a pain getting out just like it was getting it in. And knowing that we know had a countdown, I was trying to get it all done as quickly as possible.

I get all of that done, get back upstairs and ask how things are going. They are finishing a conversation about laboring in the tub, and Wendy thinks it is a good idea, so we are going to leave now for the Birth Center. I called up Ali and let her know that we were planning on going in now, and let her speak to Wendy. Now, in order to do this, Emily has to have a contraction, then feel well enough to stand up, walk out of our bedroom, down the stairs, through the living and dining room, down the drive way and into the backseat of my car. Easier said than done, and that was not terribly easy to say either. Well
, she did it. We got in my car, put in a few last minute items, and were on our way. It was about 2:00-2:15 and the Birth Center was 20-25 minutes away.

Now…up to this time, I felt that I was handling everything pretty well. I was not nervous or stressed at all, but I absolutely do not like seeing Emily in pain. During the car ride, I could tell that she was in much more pain than I had seen before, since I just spent the better part of the last hour getting things situated while Wendy helped her cope and labor. It made me cry a few times when a contraction would hit because I knew how uncomfortable she was feeling, and all I could really do was drive safely, go slow over bumps, shift smoothly and let her know how proud I was of her. Of course, this was also the first time I had ever driven to the Birth Center from home, since I always come directly from work, so I had to work the directions back home in reverse and make sure I did not mess up. Luckily I did fine, and Wendy was behind me the entire time to make sure of that. Of course, before we drove off Wendy said “if Emily is in really bad pain, or says she can feel the baby or the baby is coming out, just pull over.” Oh yeah, sure…and you want me to drive slowly AND safely? Well, I still did, but I don’t have 400 horsepower to drive like my grandma.

We arrived at the Birth Center about 2:40, and luckily Abigail, one of the student doulas, was able to arrive before us and start the bath and prepare the room. The Birth Center has 3 bedrooms, and we spent a lot of our time meeting in Room 3, so we headed straight there. Emily was FOCUSSED on getting to that floor by the tub and getting her birth ball back. I went back and forth with Wendy a few times to make sure we had everything inside. Ali showed up a few minutes later and then so did Tonya, one of the other student midwives. Val, the other midwife, was not on call, and when we told her that we hired Wendy as our doula, she mentioned that meant she would not be at the birth because the universe cannot handle her and Wendy there together, or something to that affect. It looks like she may need to take up a side-job in ESP or something.

So Emily labors for about 10-15 minutes or so and decides that she want so get in the tub. It is filled up now, so we do not have to wait anymore. Interestingly, after every contraction now, Emily needs a drink of water. She is stil very lucid and with us mentally too. All of the books and our Birth Zone classes had all said that you will typically enter into an oxytocin-induced state of loopiness. That absolutely was not the case with Emily, and you will understand how as we proceed. Emily’s contractions seem to be a little longer now, and she is really needing to use much lower-toned sounds to get through them. Wendy was great at helping her really use her moaning to move through each contraction, she would also squeeze onto our hands during each one, but surprisingly to me, not with as tight a Kung Fu grip as you might expect. No broken bones or bruised knuckles here.

Emily enjoyed being in the tub for a few minutes and I ask if I should go in now, so I change into my bathing suit and hop on it. For those of you who may not have realized yet, by this point, Emily is naked. Once we got into the Birth Center, the clothes went off, no sense in them now. Your inhibitions fly out the window when you are this far along. Well, how far? Tonya asks if she would like to be measured and we agree. Part of Emily and my agreement was that all measures of progression or otherwise, would be shared to me, and then I would share them to Emily. This way, if you are not as far along as you may think you are, you will not have that number of centimeter dilated hanging over you, thinking how much more you have to go. Since Emily was in the tub, Tonya could not do it so the lefty Ali came in and measured. 8 centimeters. No sense in not letting everybody know that. We are CLOSE. And to think, with everything that Emily has read, all of her doula training, the classes, the people we know, to think she would be at this point in labor at this time was not something she was expecting. That is partly why we maybe were not taking things as seriously in the early portion, since Emily knew very well the amount of time and the steps of progression she should be taking. Typically, early labor is supposed to be from 6-12 hours, active is from 4-8 hours, transition is from a few minutes to a few hours and pushing about an hour. Best case on average for a first-time mom you are looking at 11 hours. At this point, we are at 3:00, about 8 and a half hours in, and all Emily has left to do is transition and push.

The tub was really nice, there was plenty of room for Emily to position herself in, and I was able to sit in a corner and help drizzle water on her lower back and hold her hand or her foot too. Ali had her 2 young boys with her, and Abigail is fairly new, so Tonya took the reins and we knew her fairly well so it was all really very comfortable. The rooms really are like suites at a hotel, dim lighting with candles, and since it was a Saturday afternoon, peace and quiet. Except for the animal moans every few minutes. I am not sure how to explain them really. Very low on the octave scale. Throaty. She moaned the word “low” a few times. Or “oh baby oh baby oh baby…”

Now…during certain parts of labor, the oxytocin is supposed to kick in and you are supposed to lose your sense of humor. Everybody who knows me knows that I like to joke around. But I made a promise to Emily that I would not joke during labor, I knew that it would be tough, maybe the toughest thing I ever did. Maybe even tougher than that one time I passed a kidney stone, but I would give it the old college try. And do you know what happened? What must only be the most awesome pain coping technique known to womankind, Emily transformed into a standup comedianne. There were AT LEAST 5 instances where all of us were cracking up out loud. On a few of them, Abigail and Tonya seemed to try and hide it by looking at me as if to say “um, we can’t be laughing” but there I was, shrugging it off and laughing away. When you hear your wife say “Booya!” during and after a contraction, you know that a) you have a very special woman as your wife and b) you say booya around your wife too much. At one point, MID-contraction mind you, Wendy told Emily “easy” as in take it easy with the pushing on this one, when my sweet wife, stops dead in her tracks of labor, turns her head, and gives Wendy a look that must only say “are you serious? EASY?” Again, outbursts of laughter. At this point, I no longer felt I had to keep the lids on my comedic repertoire, but I really do not even recall if I used a single zinger.

Do you know what is really cool? Seeing this all happen, in the water. If you asked us back in May, would we be giving birth outside of a hospital we would have told you no. If you asked us if we would birth in a tub we wouls tell you no way. But you know what? All it takes is exposure. Read some books, take some classes, watch some videos. Get informed about the whole process. I never thought I would be okay with a water birth, but there I was, in the tub, about to catch our baby. You could feel her head, and see as it progressed out more with each contraction and push. She had her left hand up with her head as she was coming, so Tonya just needed to make sure it did not fly out and that Emily was able to pace it nice and easy (there is that word again) to avoid any tearing.

Transition was fast, and the only reason pushing took 45 minutes, slow compared to the way Emily progressed through all the other stages, was because of that little left hand up with her head. 4:02, out came her head, then the rest of her. It was so pe
aceful. At one point just before this I sat there with my mouth agape, looking at this little head making its way out. The realization was inevitable. All I have ever wanted, ever wanted, was to be a husband and a father. You can take everything else I have accomplished away, all of our stuff, it just did not matter. Not one bit. Do you ever have that feeling where you know that life is good and if it was your time, you had lived a full life? I think I felt that at that moment. It only lasted a second, until I realized my mouth was wide open, but it was here. THAT day had finally arrived. And out she came, I put my hand on her back while Tonya helped with the rest and up she went to Emily’s chest. All was well. I gave our little baby a kiss on her head, her first kiss, my favorite kiss. The cold air of the world hit the roof of her mouth and she let us know with a few notes that only a parent could love that everything was alright. Ali asked for our camera, she could not find it, only the camcorder. Turns out, in all the rush towards the end of Emily’s laboring at home, I left it next to her phone on the floor. So out came her iPhone for our first family portait, and another. Those we will keep close to the heart. Then the camcorder to record her first few minutes here with us. Maybe she will want to watch it one day, I am sure Emily and I will be watching it much sooner than that.

And there we were, the Vanzulli clan has a new addition. We had a name in mind, but did not settle on it until today. God definitely gave us increase with this sweet little baby. Life is good. Nothing else really matters, you know? And now we adjust to a new life, a life without going out to eat all the time, or dates on a whim, or late nights on the Wii, or 2-seat sports cars. But when you look at her face, and the tears well up in your eyes, you just know this is what you have been waiting for your entire life. Forget about meaningless goals and achievements, I would take this any day of the week, for any price. Everytime.

Saturday night, we left the Birth Center around 9:00 pm (you have to do 3 things before you can leave, eat, pee and breast feed) and were getting ready to take our first night’s sleep together as a family in our own bed.

Baby Morgan sleeping on mommy’s chest. Tell me that’s not cute.

Here I am holding her after a feeding.

And now for the two pictures that will melt a frozen caveman’s heart…

Hello world, nice to meet you, I am cute, I like sleep, look at my stylish onesie.

I just overloaded you with cuteness by adding in a newborn yawn! World peace is at hand, hunger is no more, AND you get to witness my infamous left hand that was like glue to my head during delivery.

Things We Did Before Kids #2

Emily — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:09:00 +0000

…We went to movies. In the theater. But I don’t have a picture of it, for which I apologize.

Last week we thought it would be a good idea to get to a movie, since we hadn’t gone since summertime and we really did want to see the James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. That’s the kind of movie that’s worth seeing on a big screen. And it’ll be a really really long time until we get to theater-going again.

Well.

Seeing as the movie came out at Thanksgiving, it’s hard to find in theaters anymore. Between the holidays and traveling and all that snow we just hadn’t gotten out to see it. There’s one theater around here where it’s still playing. We knew it was some different kind of theater where they serve real food, but other than that didn’t know much about it. When I called to ask for the time, they told me it was in the “dry” theater, so no alcohol is served. Okay, whatever, of course. I did not think to ask how much it is, because I figured it couldn’t possibly be that much more than a regular theater, right?

Well.

We went to Red Robin for dinner and then headed over to the theater. This is like a final date night, right? We were excited. So we go to the desk in what appears to be a lounge area. Already this is not a normal looking theater. We ordered our tickets. And the guy says, “Okay, that’ll be $64. That doesn’t include any food.” Holy cow, are you kidding? I actually felt sick to my stomach, because now we’d have felt pretty stupid saying forget it after chatting with the guy and everything. Adrian paused but reached for his wallet, and I said something like, “Are you sure we want to?” because I couldn’t handle it. So, in the end, we saw the movie. It was good. I got over my sick-in-the-stomach feeling and decided that we’d just have to chalk it up as one really good last date night. The theater really is super fancy. We could have ordered food in the lounge, except that we just ate since we didn’t know the whole setup. We were shown to our seats, which were giant suede recliners. There were only 24 seats in the whole theater, spread out in groupings of two. They gave me a chenile blanket (since I had checked my coat… have you ever heard of a movie theater with a coat check?). Between the seats we had a button to call a waiter, so when we decided we were thirsty as the movie started we asked for some water, which was served on our little table. It WAS quite the experience, at least, so we’d like to think we got more than just a movie out of it.

So this is a perfect example of the dumb stuff we got to do before having kids. Also, it’s a warning to everyone out there that if you hear of some new theater in town that serves fancy food and drinks, consider carefully before you go. And I suggest asking how much it is over the phone.