Lasagna Revelation

Anna fights sleep, but she invariably loses. She is sleeping now. But I hope her fight was worth it. Today, in her attempts to stay awake, she managed to work in one more half-ounce of yummy yummy soy beans, one more giggle for her papa, one last attempt to roll over. (As of today, she has all the actions figured out that would allow her to turn over. She just can't put them together fast enough to get any momentum going.)

May she not seek to cram as much into every minute of the day as her mother, her grandmother, or -- god forbid -- any of her great-grandmothers. Oh, the long line of over-achieving women. Oh, the long life and long days ahead for daughters of these.

It's not the overwork that has been a big deal for me as much as my tendency to make things complicated -- or, in the worst cases, Complicated. This came home to me last year most clearly in what I came to refer to as the Lasagna Revelation. Simply enough, a friend invited us for dinner. Since I'm hard to feed due to celiac disease, I asked what was on the menu and what I might be able to contribute. "No problem," she said. "I'm making lasagna with brown rice noodles."

Lasagna, I thought to myself. Gee, that's a lot of work. I worried about my friend undertaking such a big project and having to add the complications of catering to my special needs -- checking ingredients, avoiding cross-contamination, the boring details of my kitchen life.

Lasagna, as it turned out, was not a big project at all. It is perfectly possible to make lasagna with some nice ground beef, some good quality bottled tomato sauce, layered with some brown rice noodles, and topped with some grated mozza. Pop it in a pan, heat to bubbly, and voila. Imagine my surprise at the lack of complication to this generous and kind meal.

This set off my Lasagna Revelation. I got home from the dinner and sat in the kitchen and cried. "Stephen," I said, "I didn't know lasagna could be so easy." He quietly (and mostly supportively) laughed as I burst into tears.

Why? Because I realized that lasagna, for me, really is a big project. Here's how I make lasagna.
First, I till the soil. Then I add compost and allow it to warm gently. Then I plant the tomatoes, the zucchini, the eggplants, the herbs. The garlic is already in the ground from last fall. We tend the vegetables, sporadically, interpreting "organic gardening" to include a harmonious relationship with weeds. At the end of the growing season, we harvest the tomatoes, the zucchini, the eggplants. I prepare some plain whole tomatoes and some tomato sauce for the freezer and freeze it in freezer bags. I make pesto and freeze it in ice cube trays.

At some point in the winter, I decide to make lasagna. I thaw the tomatoes or tomato sauce. Chop onions, garlic, zucchini, eggplant, red pepper, mushroom. Let them all simmer to a rich homemade sauce. I wash, stem, and chop a pound of spinach. This is a lot of spinach. I grate three kinds of cheese.

Then I make the lasagna. Sans ground beef, it is still basically tomato sauce, layered with some brown rice noodles and some spinach and cheese, and topped with some grated mozza. Pop it in a pan, heat to bubbly, and voila. But my lasagna required more than a year of careful tending in the lead-up. Delicious, of course. But, let's face it, Complicated.

It's more than gardening that went into that year of careful tending. It's always more than gardening. It's a whole lifetime's worth of complex, interrelated values (often expressed as Issues) that I can't escape, that I contend with every time I try to do something as simple as making supper or as challenging as making and rearing a baby. This does not mean I ever really live up to the ethical standards that I set for myself -- this is part of what makes it all so Complicated, with the rationalizations and the shifting priorities and the self-flagellation. But I do, truly, love the complexity of systems and value my part in that complexity, whether it makes things taste better or not.

A lot of the complications I create will probably, similarly be around food. With celiac rampant on both sides of Anna's family, she's likely to need to eschew wheat from the earliest age. I want for her to have passions and passionate values and expressions of them. I just hope they are not too complicated.

(My Libran friends who have made it to the end of this post are saying to themselves, "Sister, you don't know from Complicated until you try living on the scales." You are brave Librans, all. Help my baby!)

First Christmas

With just one final family gathering to go before the last of the aunts and uncles "from away" head for their various homes, I think we can say that we have survived Anna's first Christmas. Santa kept it simple, with some lovely little musical instruments, and aunts and uncles were wonderfully generous with practical, needed gifts to make the house baby-safe as Anna gets moving in the coming weeks.

Anna's gift to all was her happy presence. She was much in demand for social engagements, and her parents have obliged as often as possible.

Stephen and I are coming to terms with having given birth to a baby girl who is more outgoing than both of us put together. Anna Sophia loves to be around people, to watch what they're doing and hear their conversations. She also loves to be the centre of attention. More than once, she basically fell asleep -- her little body going very, very still and her breathing relaxing to its sleeping rate -- but conserved just enough energy to keep her eyes open to see what was going on. By noon on Christmas day, she was slumped in her father's arms, refusing to even blink in case she might not be able to get her eyes open again.

Since she was born and still today, at three months old, the two things people notice first about Anna are her bright, alert eyes that take everything in and her incredibly strong little body -- especially her legs. She has been able to support her own weight for weeks, but she "stands" with support for longer and longer times now, bouncing or sliding whenever she possibly can.

In her house painted with bright primary colours and hung with vivid paintings on every available surface, it's not surprising that she's observant. She hasn't figured out that she can see as much with her eyes casually open as she can with her eyes wide and her eyebrows raised, so she has a look of constant surprise. As much as she likes to be surprised by objects, patterns, and colours, she still loves people's faces the best. And if their faces are making funny noises, all the better.

Stephen and I are trying to figure out how we will parent a person who is showing signs that she could turn out to be laid-back, socially well-adjusted, and athletic. Based on our own experiences and personalities, we're better prepared for a misfit with an aversion to organized sports. I will know how to console a child hurt by emotional bullies who tell her she's "too smart for her own good" or that her unfashionable clothes make her look ridiculous. I will know what to do to buoy up a child's confidence when she gets picked last for softball. I don't quite know what I'll do if she wears mascara and is a rugby star. I'm not close-minded. I'm just allergic to mascara and suffer from Post Traumatic Gym Teacher Disorder.

I'd better get prepared to be as ready to learn from Anna as I am to indoctrinate her. I'm sure that next Christmas, when she's more aware of the goings-on and when she's fully ambulatory on those little legs, will be a great learning opportunity.

Different Parents

I’ve always been surprised when people describe me as “calm” or “laidback.” I’ve never perceived myself as deserving either of these descriptors. I’ve always suspected I’m inexcusably bossy and uptight. I’m equally surprised when people think I’m “organized,” when in my cluttered mind, I’m constitutionally unable to set a priority. And I still remember the shock of being described as “sanguine” when I was nineteen and realized that I apparently gave off a general air of nonchalant happiness after all those years of adolescent angst when I perceived myself, and expected others to perceive me, as “moody” at best and “morose” at worst.
I still suspect those who know me best -- Stephen especially -- know that I’m frenetic, bossy, uptight, disorganized, and moody. But new parenthood is providing a whole new mirror, and I have to admit that I’m a different parent than I thought I’d be, and this is a great relief.
I started to find out early. First of all, it took such determination to be able to get pregnant and stay pregnant that I learned a motivated self-discipline I had never asked or expected of myself before. It took a very strict diet, regular exercise, and a committed yoga practice, and all these enriched my life.

Having discovered willpower, I worried I would be one of those mothers who imposed my will on a baby. All those bossy instincts that I try (unsuccessfully) to either suppress or direct towards useful activity . . .

I let go my worry about imposing my will after about sixteen hours of labour. I thought a nice, unmedicated vaginal delivery would be the best start for my baby. Anna had other ideas. She thought it would be best to be born by c-section. All of a sudden, I learned a lesson in setting priorities: get this baby born without her needing to express distress to be born the way she wants to.

I never thought I would be a mother who would bottlefeed my baby. I was determined to breastfeed, and I thought a nice steady diet of breastmilk would be the best start for my baby. Again, Anna had other ideas. Soon after she was born, I discovered reserves of calm I didn’t know I had when Anna, who couldn’t latch at all, turned purple and shaky with crying every time she caught sight of my breast. And I was able to let go my determination to pump milk for her when I realized that the infernal mechanical contraption extracted more tears than milk from me (making me more “lachrymose” than “lactating”). Anna needed a mom who was more sanguine than morose.

I was worried that as a mother, I would “go soft,” somehow, and relinquish values and desires and dreams and even my sense of identity and self. And I have definitely gone soft in some ways -- but not in the ways I expected. I’m still determined to maintain my sense of independent identity and activity, to set an example at the very least. (Thanks, Stephen, for helping support this determination.) But the joyous flipside of needing my independence is that I want the same for Anna, and so I don’t need to feel any smothering possessiveness about her. She is so amazingly her own self, her own person already. This bodes well for her independent identity and activity -- and it makes us, her parents, love and appreciate our babysitters!

There are so many ways I give in. I give in to the pleasure of cuddles and kisses and games. I have gotten so tender-hearted at the thought of suffering, anyone’s suffering, that it would be unbearable if I didn’t use it as a motivation to crank up the active compassion response.
As an oldest daughter, I am so touched every day to be experiencing what I now realize my parents must have experienced all those years ago, to feel what they must have felt for me, and I know now in a way I didn’t know before just how fortunate and blessed I am.

And perhaps we all have different parents than we, or they, might think.