On Anna's Plate

Ahhhh, Sunday.  A day of rest. 

OR.

Alternatively, a day when your baby wakes up at 4:30, then again at 6:00, and then you go into the bathroom to find a giant roach hanging out on the bathmat.  Also: I found a tick in my hair last night.

I found a TICK.  In my HAIR.

So, that’s how our weekend shaped up.

At last we had a good meal on Friday night.  I made this easy pesto:

…with the arugula we had leftover from our farmers’ market purchases.  We tossed the pesto with fresh tomatoes (also from the fm) and pasta, and dinner was served. 

For the pesto, in the food processor I combined: 2 cups arugula, 1/4 cup olive oil, and about 3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese, plus a little shake of garlic salt.  Very easy, and the arugula gives the pesto a little bit of a kick.

We’re thinking we might attempt to go to church this morning, which could be nice, or could go very, very poorly.  On the one hand: Lila could have a total meltdown.  On the other hand: we get to have HUMAN CONTACT for an hour.

Wish us luck!  Hope you have a great Sunday. 

Yesterday afternoon, we strapped Lila into the stroller and headed to…the Greene Street farmers’ market!  Huntsville has a few different farmers’ markets, but we’d never been to this one before.  Thursday afternoons aren’t a great time for us during the school year…but this summer, our schedule is wide open.  I’m so glad we visited this market—it was great!  There were probably about 20-25 booths, selling everything from fresh bread to veggies to homemade ice cream and popsicles.  I LOVE a good farmers’ market. 

Lila did great too—we stayed for about an hour, and she slept for the most part.  She’s getting better and better about liking her car seat and the stroller, which is a huge relief.

Since we were already at the market, we picked up goods to make dinner:

Simple summer sandwiches with fresh tomato slices, spicy SPICY arugula, and lavender goat cheese, all on still-warm bread.  Pretty delicious.  

I just got back from a Pure Barre class, and soon I’m headed to my doctor for my six week post-partum checkup—I can’t believe six weeks have passed already! Hopefully everything checks out okay…wish me luck!

Hello, hello…Thursday already? I know I’ve said this a hundred times, but our days REALLY blend together nowadays.  It will be August before we know it.

Last night, we had a quintessential summer meal:

A big spinach salad, topped with grilled shrimp, grilled corn, avocado, and goat cheese.  Didn’t even need dressing!

Fresh, sweet corn is always a big signifier of summer for me.  The first time I *really* had corn was in grad school in Indiana—I’d obviously eaten corn before that, but I had no idea that it could taste SO good.  My parents drove up to help me move into my new digs, and we all visited the local farmers’ market together.  We bought some corn, and were blown away by just how good it was.  In fact, my parents bought a bunch to take back home to give to their friends…and they ended up just eating all of it themselves!   We still laugh about that.

What summer food are you looking forward to? 

I know, I know.  I’m late to the game.

But are you all that surprised?  It took me like three years to join Twitter, and then after I joined, I promptly tweeted twice and then kind of forgot all about it. 

But I’m back on Twitter.  And I joined Instagram.  Spending 20 hours a day glued to a bouncing exercise ball with only your phone to occupy you will do that to a girl.

I’m still kind of “meh” about Twitter—I know this is kind of a grandma thing to say, but I just…don’t get it. 

But Instagram? 

Instagram I love. 

It’s just so easy.  And fun.  And…addictive.  I foresee many Instagram posts in my future.  Here are some of the pics I’ve posted so far, including today’s lunch:

Are you on Instagram?  I’m loweanna, if you’re interested in following pictures of dogs, babies, and summer!

We had wonderful friends come to visit us from St. Louis:

…including the little baby that I used to nanny for:

…who is now ALL grown up:

Crazy!

Jodi was excited to hold the baby:

Will was not quite as thrilled:

Enjoy being an only child while it lasts, kiddo!

Ryan fulfilled a lifelong dream of eating a restaurant-prepared Bacon Burger Dog (which he has actually discussed on the blog before, because you really can’t discuss a Bacon Burger Dog too many times):

He said it was everything he’d dreamed it would be.

This conversation happened, via text message, conveniently about ten minutes after Ryan left the house to “run errands”:

…and someone, subsequently, got a bath:

On Sunday, after Jodi and Nathaniel and Will headed back to St. Louis, we celebrated my very first Mother’s Day:

…bouncing on the ball.  Where else? 

Hope you had a GREAT weekend—thanks so much for all of the comments and e-mails regarding my last post. 

Happy Monday!

Now that my first Mother’s Day ever is around the corner, it feels like an appropriate time to write a post that I’ve been thinking about for a while now—the Mommy Guilt post. 

Mommy Guilt: I’ve got it.  Bad.

In fact, I had it even before Lila gasped her first breath.  My Mommy Guilt started during pregnancy—a common occurrence, I’m sure.  I felt guilty from the very beginning—guilty that I wasn’t giving up coffee, guilty that I resented the pregnancy for taking away my wine, guilty that the artificial sweeteners I hadn’t completely cut from my diet meant that Lila was going to come out with a tail and three ears.  And most of all, I felt guilty that I wasn’t excited enough about the (unplanned) pregnancy.  I felt guilty for my anxiety, and for the fact that when I saw the two blue lines on my pregnancy test, my reaction wasn’t one of pure joy—in fact, I distinctly remember thinking, “Shit.” 

My negative thoughts about the pregnancy ultimately did transform into excitement and happiness and gratitude, but it certainly took me a while to get there.

And now that I’m plunging into actual motherhood, the Mommy Guilt is back in full force.  Turns out that what I thought was Mommy Guilt during pregnancy was only the tip of the iceberg. 

When you’re a mother, there are things to feel guilty about during every second of every minute of every hour of every day. 

My baby drinks formula, and I feel guilty about it.  Instead of staring blissfully into Lila’s eyes during our feedings, I sometimes play Angry Birds on my phone, and I feel guilty about it.  I feel guilty that I feel relieved when Lila goes down for a nap.  I feel guilty that instead of reading baby and parenting books, I’m eagerly awaiting Lauren Conrad’s next tome (actually, I think my guilt about that one stems from being an English teacher, but regardless…).  I choose to go to an exercise class instead of snuggling with Lila for an extra hour in the morning, and I feel guilty about it.  I resent my new “mommy belly,” and I feel guilty about it.

And most of all, I worry that I don’t feel guilty enough about any of these things…and then I feel guilty about that.

I spend a lot of time reading blogs of new mothers, and I’ve noticed a startling (for me, anyway) trend—there seems to be a tendency for new moms to say things like…

I can’t imagine being away from my baby—the minute she goes down for a nap, I miss her.

Even on his worst days, I wish time would just slow down!

…and, perhaps most pervasively…

I can’t even remember life before our baby.

I read statements like this, and I just think…really?  Like, REALLY?! 

When Lila goes down for a nap, my first thought is almost always, “Thank fucking god.”  I’m already looking forward to our first childless vacation.  On Lila’s worst days, it’s a struggle for me not to call the hospital and ask about their return policy.  And, finally, I definitely still remember life before Lila…and it was awesome. 

We traveled every summer.  We met up with friends for spontaneous beers on random Tuesday nights.  We slept as late as we wanted, and stayed up late drinking wine and cooking elaborate dinners and just enjoying each other.

How could I forget all this?  And, more importantly, why would I want to?  The notion that, after childbirth, a mother forgets everything that came before is one that disturbs me.  I love Lila, but I also love my husband, and I love myself, and I loved those days before we had a child.  I’m incredibly grateful that we took the time to be with each other just as a couple before having Lila, and, if I’m totally honest, there are definitely days when I miss our pre-child identities. 

One thing I’m learning about motherhood is that many, many women like to treat it as a competition.  Who can breastfeed the longest?  Who can raise the smartest kid?  Whose kid is smiling/rolling over/crawling/walking/talking first?  Who is the happiest mother?

Who cares?

Sometimes it seems like admitting that motherhood is difficult, or challenging, or uninspiring, is like admitting some sort of defeat—a defeat that makes you “lesser than” as a mom. 

Why are we so reluctant to admit that raising a child is hard?

When you give birth, people send you all sorts of cards and messages and e-mails congratulating you on your big accomplishment, and assuring you that motherhood is simply the best.  I was happy to receive the positivity in those messages, but I was much, much more grateful when one of Ryan’s cousins sent me this message, regarding the transition to parenthood:

It’s fucking impossible.  Who ever thought bringing home a baby would be so ridiculous?

I read those words, and I thought, Thank you.  It felt like such a relief to know that I wasn’t the only one who found all of the late night feedings and diaper changes and hours of crying difficult—in fact, fucking impossible.  Just knowing that I wasn’t alone in my feelings made me feel a little less guilty about them.

When Mother’s Day rolls around this Sunday, I want to celebrate all of what it means to be a mother—the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The failures and the successes.  The pride and, yes, the guilt.  If you’re a mother, I hope you will too.

Yesterday, I headed to Earth Fare to pick up some stuff for dinner.  Do you know Earth Fare?  It’s basically a mini-Whole Foods.  I think maybe it’s a Southern chain?  We had one in Charleston that I used to love, back in the old college days.

Anywho.

I got some kale and pineapple to make this salad:

Tropical massaged kale salad with pineapple and cucumber.  Delicious—I just massaged the kale with sesame oil, tamari, lime juice, and a little chili sauce, and then added the pineapple and cucumber and let it sit for about an hour.  Very refreshing!

I also stopped by the fish counter and picked up a few tuna steaks…

…which must have been made of gold, because before I knew it, I’d spent half of Lila’s college fund on freakin’ tuna.  The price sign was upside down when I ordered the tuna and I couldn’t really read it, so I was in for quite a shock when I saw the price sticker on my little bundle of fish.  I resisted the urge to ask the man behind the counter if the tuna was crusted in diamonds.  Still, I was too embarrassed to give it back.  So last night, we enjoyed a very expensive tuna dinner. 

It was all very “Jessica Simpson buying underwear on the first season of Newlyweds”:

Skip forward to 6:30 to see the scene I’m referring to.  Or watch the entire clip and get a little misty-eyed about the way things were for those two crazy kids back when tuna was still chicken, and Maxwell Drew was just a faint 10 lb. twinkle in Jessica’s eye. 

God I miss Newlyweds. 

Hope you have a wonderful Wednesday! Off to a Pure Barre class…

Hello, hello!

Did you have a good weekend?  We had fun over here—Lila got to meet her Seattle grandparents!

Ryan’s parents came in for a quick weekend trip—they got in on Friday night, and left on Monday.  They’re coming back in June for a longer visit, but couldn’t wait until then to meet baby Lila.  We had a pretty low-key weekend…I guess everything we do nowadays is pretty low-key. 

Before we knew it, the weekend was over and it was time to say goodbye to Granddad and Mimi:

…but they’ll be back soon!

This weekend marked another important date—Lila’s one month birthday! Can’t believe it’s been a whole month—this time really has flown by.  We had a wild celebration last night:

That’s about as wild as it gets around here. 

Here are a few of the things we’ve been loving this first month:

Freddy the Lamaze Firefly:

This seems to be the only toy Lila has interest in so far…and she loves him! She’ll spend upwards of an hour, stretched out on the bed, watching him “fly” back and forth.  His wings have a black-and-white pattern on the back, which is just perfect for her right now.  She’ll be more interested in colors eventually, but for right now, black and white is where it’s at. 

Lila gets the hiccups pretty frequently, especially after laying flat on her back for a while.  When the hiccups come on, but she isn’t ready to stop playing, she really likes being propped up in the boppy:

Perfect!

When she’s not playing with Freddy, she’s either eating:

…from her Dr. Brown’s bottles, which we also love—they seem to really reduce the amount of air she takes in during her feedings.

Or, she’s sleeping in her vibrating chair, which has been a lifesaver: 

She can sleep in the chair for hours, and the vibrations and soft lullaby music really seem to calm her down.  She has a swing, but for right now, the vibrating chair is where it’s at.  And speaking of lifesavers, the Swaddleme velcro swaddlers are awesome.  When she’s really tired, Lila loves being wrapped up nice and tight in a Swaddleme—they work magic in minutes.  

At night, Lila sleeps in her Nap Nanny:

…which is basically what we use instead of a bassinet.  We weren’t planning on using the Nap Nanny for nighttime sleeping, but we put her in it on one of our first nights home from the hospital and she fell right asleep, so we’ve been using it as her “bed” ever since.  Eventually we’ll transfer her to the crib, but right now, the Nap Nanny is working perfectly…and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

These are some of the things we’ve loved this month—I’m sure next month, we’ll have a totally different list!

Hope you’ve had a great start to your week!

Hi friends!  Doing the Friday dance over here…although we’re running on a little less sleep over here.  After a few nights of great sleeping, Lila decided to throw a little party last night.  It was an all-nighter, and Ryan and I were both invited—lucky us!

Dinner last night was an early Cinco de Mayo meal:

Tacos with toppings.  Easy and delicious.

I went to another Barre class yesterday morning, and I’m feeling it today—those classes are no joke.  I was going to go to another class today, but when I woke up and could barely lift my legs out of bed, I decided a little break might be necessary.  I know I need to ease back into these workouts—my strength is nowhere near where it used to be, even though I worked out during my pregnancy.

It’s hard not to throw myself into working out with abandon for a few reasons.  First and foremost, I like exercising.  I like the way it makes me feel, and I love the stress release that comes with it.  I’ve always been an exerciser, and consider it a part of my identity.  No, I don’t win medals at races. No, I don’t run marathons.  But I consistently do something on most days of the week, and I like to push myself.  I like sweat.  I like breathlessness.  I like my red face.  Working out is not something I have to do—it’s something I like doing.  Eating healthy doesn’t always come easily for me, but exercise?  That I love.

And secondly—and this is where things get a little more complicated—I miss my old body, and, frankly, I’d like to have it back. 

I read this article on the Huffington Post yesterday, and while I enjoyed parts of it, some of it really rubbed me the wrong way.  In the article, Winterton writes, “It’s time to pause and ask where our obsession with eradicating the physical evidence of pregnancy and birth has come from…” and then argues that much of it comes from societal pressure.  She writes that women in America are “reared on a diet of post-baby celebrity bodies,” and therefore feel a strong need to return to “the ‘perfect, taut stomach’ of a pre-pregnancy teenage girl” almost immediately after giving birth.

First of all, my stomach has never been the perfect, taut stomach of a pre-pregnancy teenage girl—even when I was a teenage girl.  My body pre-pregnancy certainly was not perfect—but it was my body.  So much of pregnancy and motherhood is about relinquishing control, and part of that is relinquishing control of your body.  In pregnancy, your body, especially your stomach, becomes something not wholly your own.  Post-pregnancy,especially  if you decide to breastfeed, you certainly hand over your breasts. 

And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with feeling a little bit sad about this—or even angry.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with mourning the loss of your old body, rather than celebrating your new one.  Honestly, it’s pretty hard for most women to celebrate stretch marks.  In the article, one mother calls her stretch marks a “badge of motherhood.”  I think it’s wonderful that she thinks of her body in such positive terms.  But you know what?  I have a badge of motherhood too—her name is Lila.  So you can keep the stretch marks. 

I don’t think it means that I’m superficial or have fallen prey to the evils of our celebrity-obsessed society, simply because I’d like to fit in my shorts again.  I’m not striving to be Jessica Alba—I just want to recognize my body again.  With everything that has changed in the past nine months, seeing my old, familiar body will be like welcoming an old friend back into my life.  And these days, I’ll take familiarity wherever I can get it.

Whew—long post.  If you’re still reading, have a great weekend!

Hello, hello! Mid-week already?

We had an interesting morning over here—Lila got the hiccups during playtime and vomited all over her play mat (and her hair…and my robe…and my hair…).  Welcome to my life, friends.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad…she was nice and clean after a morning bath…ready to take on the world again:

At noon, I ventured over to a workout spot that I’ve been wanting to try for months now: Pure Barre.  Have you heard of this workout? 

It’s a combination of pilates, ballet, and yoga.  You do exercises with resistance bands, light weights, and balls.  Sounds pretty simple, right?

Ummmm…simple, yes.  Easy?  NO.  My legs were seriously SHAKING by about halfway through the hour-long workout.  Like, earthquake shaking.  Thirteen year-old girl meeting Justin Bieber shaking.  Lindsay Lohan on the first day of rehab shaking. 

Each exercise was simple enough—little movements, squats, and pulses.  But by the end of each segment, my body was on fire.  It was unlike any workout I’ve ever done.

I loved it.

I mean, I kind of hated it and wished I were dead halfway through…but I loved it.

I signed up for a new members deal—unlimited classes for the first month for 100 dollars.  Seems kind of pricey, I know, but I think these classes could be perfect for helping me to get back into shape after baby.  They’re very low-impact, which is nice—I love running, but I probably need to take it easy on the running for at least another few weeks.  Plus, the Pure Barre class is all about strengthening and toning, which is exactly what my body needs right now.

Anyway, I’ll let you know how they go!

Dinner tonight was easy—another vegetarian pasta dish!  Chickpeas, asparagus, and cherry tomatoes, sauted with olive oil and white wine, and served over pasta with goat cheese on top:

Easy but delicious!

Have a great night!