Mike, Music and Michaela

When I became a mom, I knew I’d have to haul around a lot of stuff.  Diapers, bottles, pacifiers, changes of clothing, etc.  Now that Michaela is two, the load has lightened and I don’t carry around the same large quantity of stuff that I used to.  But I’m finding that instead, I have become a kid stuff sherpa of sorts, carrying frequent (not heavy) loads.

Buy diapers.  Take some to daycare.  Take some to Grandma’s house.  Keep some at home.  Buy more diapers.  Do the same dance.  Take extra clothes to daycare.  Take extra clothes to Grandma’s.  One outfit gets dirty at one of those places.  Bring it home, take another outfit to replace it.  It’s constant.

* * *

Michaela has a big vocabulary and she’s a chatty girl.  There are a few words, though, that she mispronounces and they’re hilarious.  She says “hat-too” instead of “tattoo.”  She calls them “dan-daids” instead of “bandaids.”  She carries an Elmo “pack-pack,” not “backpack.”

There are also things she pronounces properly, but I didn’t know she knew.  Like today, when she was “helping” me give Rey a bath and she pointed and exclaimed “That’s Rey’s penis!”   Twice.  Um, yeah, it is.

We need to mic her up so we have a record for posterity.

* * *

Terrible Twos?  Around here, they’re more like “Whine-y Twos.”  Michaela gets very overwrought sometimes and has become prone to dramatics.  Today she told me her nose was running and she wanted a tissue.  I got her a tissue and she freaked out.  “Noooooooooo, Mommy!  No want a tissue!  No tissue!”  Okay, no problem.  I put the tissue on the counter, at which point she freaked out.  “Want a tissue, Mommy!  No put it away!”  Okay, fine.  “Here, Michaela, here’s the tissue.  If you don’t want it right now, we can put it in your pocket.”  More freaking out.  “Nooooo!  No want it in my pocket!”

Fine.  I give up.

* * *

I read something the other day asking female parents if Mother’s Day was more for you or for your mom.  For me, it’s still more for my mom.  Maybe it will be more about me when Michaela’s old enough to really know what’s going on?  I have to say, though–at daycare this week, they made flowers out of construction paper tracings of their hand.  When I arrived to pick her up, Michaela handed it to me and said, “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.” and my little heart melted.

* * *

For the record, Michaela alternates between calling me Mommy, Mama, Mom, and (occasionally) Music.

* * *

Every night, before I go to bed, I look in on Michaela.  I cover her up if she’s tossed off her blanket, I stroke her hair, and I tell her I love her.  It’s one of the best moments of my day.  Being a mom is hard, but it’s pretty darn rewarding.

My brother, his girlfriend, and her mom came over for dinner tonight.  Mike usually does the cooking, but this time, I decided I would, and that I’d use only ingredients we already had on hand.  (Mostly because Mike did a grocery store and Costco run yesterday, so we had a lot of stuff.)  In addition to a green salad and Mike’s homemade rosemary bread (with rosemary from my mom’s garden!), I also made a take on Stuffed Chicken with Asparagus and Parmesan Rice.  Here’s my spin on it:

Ingredients

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, or more as needed
1 cup chopped fresh asparagus
1 cup chopped fresh mushrooms
1 teaspoon garlic powder, or to taste
salt and ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons butter, divided

2 1/4 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup uncooked brown rice
1 (14.5 ounce) can fire roasted diced tomatoes (with juice)
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese, or to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Place the chicken breasts between two sheets of heavy plastic (resealable freezer bags work well) on a solid, level surface. Firmly pound the chicken with the smooth side of a meat mallet to a thickness of 1/4 inch.
Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, and cook and stir the asparagus and mushrooms, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper just until the asparagus is bright green and beginning to become tender, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
Lay each chicken breast out onto a work surface, and place 1/6 of the asparagus and mushroom mixture on the chicken, and top with 1/4 of the Cheddar cheese. Roll the chicken breast around the filling and secure with toothpicks or tie with cotton kitchen string; place the stuffed breasts into a 9×13-inch baking dish, seam sides down. Top each breast with about 1/2 tablespoon of butter.
Bake in the preheated oven until the chicken is no longer pink and the juices run clear, 40 to 50 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of a stuffed breast should read 160 degrees F.
While chicken is baking, bring chicken broth and 1 tablespoon of butter to a boil in a saucepan. Stir in rice and tomatoes, reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook the rice until tender and the broth has been absorbed, about 40 minutes. Remove from heat, and let rice stand covered for about 5 minutes; stir in Parmesan cheese. Serve stuffed chicken breasts on the cooked rice.

I was worried about it, since it was the first time I’d made it, but the meal ended up being really good.  Hopefully it was enough to make a good impression on the woman who someday might be my brother’s mother-in-law!

Michaela loves Elmo.  In fact, we had an Elmo/Sesame Street-themed birthday party for her when she turned two.  And while she got to sit on Sesame Street at BlogHer back in August, it didn’t compare to meeting Elmo and Big Bird live and in-person.  You see, Sea World has a Sesame Street-themed section of the park, and they do meet and greets with the cute red guy and the big yellow bird a couple of times a day.  So when we got a membership to Sea World, for us it was a question of when, not if, Michaela would get to meet them.

I wasn’t sure how she’d do, since Michaela is introverted and can be timid around strangers.  But I guess to her, Elmo and Big Birds aren’t strangers, because she was perfectly fine with them.  In fact, she gave Elmo a hug and gave him five, and she tickled Big Bird’s feathers.

Michaela was so comfortable, in fact, that she keep putting on her cheese face and the Sea World employee taking pictures was genuinely charmed and said Michaela was the cutest kid she’d seen all day (and that’s saying something, because a lot of kids churn through there!).

The beginning of Michaela’s “cheeeeeeeeeeese” face.

Not bad for a Thursday afternoon!  (Note to self: be thankful for living in San Diego and having a flexible schedule.)

No more crib?

You mean all this space is mine?  I am going to fill my bed up with with stuffed animals, and climb in with them!

I love my big girl bed!

I’ve written before about how much I love taking Michaela to Balboa Park, which is my favorite place in the city.  We have a membership at the science museum, we used to be (and soon will be again) zoo members, and sometimes we head there just to wander around the park.  These pictures are a perfect example of one of those days; Mike had a meeting there so Michaela and I hitched a ride and then enjoyed the flowers and  Niki de St. Phalle sculptures in front of the Mingei.  As you can see, Michaela loves it just as much as her mommy!

Michaela sang “Twinkle, twinkle” all the way through tonight.  It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her do that, and it’s so sweet.  She’s MY little star!

I don’t usually bake things, let alone from scratch.  But when we were in Paris, I ate far too many crepes avec Nutella et banane and came away with a not-so-secret desire to eat more Nutella.  That’s why, when I saw this recipe in Scholastic Parents magazine, I knew I should make it to celebrate our friend Kami’s birthday.

And let me tell you, it was delicious.  (I paired it with these sweet potato and chorizo enchiladas, and by the end of the meal, we’d all eaten so much and so well, we all wished we’d worn pants with elastic waistbands.)

Hazelnut Cake with Nutella Mousse

Ingredients for the cake

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for the pan

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan

1 1/2 cups unhusked hazelnuts, toasted

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup hazelnut paste (I couldn’t find this and was too lazy to make hazelnut paste, so I used peanut butter and cut back a bit on the butter in the cake)

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 large eggs

1 tsp baking powder

Pinch of kosher salt

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Ingredients for the mousse

1 1/2 cups Nutella

1/2 cup of mascarpone or cream cheese (I used cream cheese)

1 cup of heavy cream, chilled

Directions for the cake

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.  Butter and flour a 9″ round or square baking pan.

2. In a food processor, pulse the hazelnuts until coarsely chopped and set them aside.

3. In a mixing bowl, combine butter, sugar, hazelnut paste, and vanilla.  Beat until light and fluffy.  Then beat in eggs one at a time.  (I used our KitchenAide stand mixer, which made this really easy.)

4. Add the baking podwer, salt, and cocoa, and beat to combine.  Gradually add the flour, stopping when it is just combines.  Fold 1 cup of the chopped hazelnuts into the batter, reserving the rest for garnish.  (I accidentally forgot to fold the nuts into the batter, so I sprinkled some on top of the batter once I had it in the pan.  I also had a bit of a crunch in the cake because the peanut butter I used was chunky.)

5. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Let cake cool for 10 minutes, remove fro the pan and let cool completely.

Directions for the mousse

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the Nutella and mascarpone.

2. In another large bowl, beat heavy cream to soft peaks.  Add a spoonful to the Nutella mixture and stir until you don’t see any streaks.

3. Using a rubber spatula, fold a third of the remaining whipped cream into the mixture.  Lift the mixture gently from underneath, bring the spatula up, turn it over, and fold the mixture over as you rotate the bowl slowly.  Do this gently so it stays fluffy.  Repeat two more times with the remaining whipped cream until you have a fluffy, homogenous mixture.

To assemble the pieces

1. Cut the cake into 3″ squares or rounds and cut each of these in half equatorially.  (I didn’t do this, and instead just cut my cake in half equatorially.)

2. Schmear the mousse on each half, then sprinkle with chopped nuts.  Place top half on bottom half and serve.

Mike and I were really excited when we signed Michaela up for her first-ever Easter egg hunt.  One of the local branches of the YMCA was hosting it; the description promised the egg hunt, games, lunch and more.  Because the hunt was divided by age group, we felt confident Michaela would be able to fully participate with other 1-3 year-old kids.  In practice, though, this morning’s egg hunt was a bust.

We arrived to find a line of parents and kids, waiting for… what exactly?  It wasn’t immediately clear.  But we waited in line for, as it turned out, a wrist band that indicated Michaela was registered and able to participate.  Great.  People were already lined up around a roped-off section of a play field, Easter baskets in hand.  We got as close to the front as we could without crowding other families, only to be squeezed out by other parents who’d arrived after us.  These people literally pushed past Mike and Michaela to get closer to the front, so they’d have a better chance at eggs.  Annoying, sure, but I was prepared to laugh it off.

The girl (seriously, she couldn’t have been more than 16) who was facilitating the hunt didn’t seem to realize that 1-3 year olds don’t have a good sense of time.  So she seemed really surprised when, said “30 seconds until we start, let’s kick it off with a big cheer,” the kids cheered and then started rushing onto the field.  That was okay, though.  They’re little kids, they don’t know any better.  The adults, on the other hand…

This is my central complaint about today’s egg hunt.  In flagrant violation of the rules, which clearly stated, “parents are to remain outside the fence of the egg hunt area,” adults pushed forward onto the field, edging little kids out of the way and grabbing at eggs for their kids.  Michaela was able to get one solitary egg, because she was fighting 30 years olds for access.  It was insane.  Parents were coming up with baskets full of eggs.  And the kids?  The 1-3 year olds who were supposed to be hunting?  Sorry, kiddos.

(By the way, the eggs were the little plastic ones.  Totally empty.  You didn’t really get anything more if you had 10 eggs instead of 2.)

Now, you may be wondering: why is this such a big deal?  Well, besides the fact that I paid $8 for Michaela to get to participate and I somehow expected she would actually be able to do more than grab one egg and then cower, it’s also a big deal because this was one of my first blatant encounters with helicopter parents and it scared the living daylights out of me.  These parents are so intent on giving their kids everything, or on making sure their kids win, that they were willing to shove others aside and violate the rules.  These people are raising children, so what can you expect from their kids except the same “me! me! me!” behavior?  This isn’t about an egg hunt; it’s about the future of the world.  Heaven help us all.

Things I learned today:

1) Mike and I need to host our own egg hunt for Michaela at home.

2) Don’t waste money on YMCA events.

3) There are a lot of a-holes out there, and society is in peril.

Happy Easter.

Sometimes, things come up and Mike or I- or both of us- have to travel for work.  We’re incredibly fortunate that we have family nearby to help with Michaela, plus Mike’s super awesome assistant (who is a practically a member of our family).  And so when I have to go to Sacramento two weeks in a row, followed by a trip to Oakland at the same time Mike needs to be in Las Vegas, we cobble together coverage and it works out.  That’s the case this month.  But sometimes we (I, really) get pressure about our traveling not being good for Michaela.  I like to think of it as, “While we are away, Michaela gets to spend time with her grandparents, and Mike and I are able to keep our jobs.  Everybody wins!”  I’ve come to the conclusion that constantly assessing the infamous “work-life  balance” — is this okay for me?  for Mike?  for Michaela? — is just a part of being a working mom.

Michaela is a very verbal child.  She knows a lot of words, and she’s not afraid to use them.  She talks A LOT.  And now she’s started “reading.”

The other day, Mike sat down with her on the couch so she could “read” me “The Three Little Pigs.”  As Mike turned the pages, she narrated what was happening on each page, both describing the action (“Big Bad Wolf run away!”) and quoting, in her 2-year old way, the words (“Not by da hair onna chinny chin!”).  It’s gotta be one of the cutest things ever.

She also likes to sing songs to us.  Favorites include the ABCs and “Twinkle Twinkle.”  She knows part of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” except she insists Mary had an “Inka Kitty,” Inka being my mom’s cat, who Michaela adores.  In the song, as in life, Inka Kitty has “fur as black as coal.”

Michaela can answer a host of questions.  If it’s a question about color (“what color is that parrot?”), the answer is often “white.”  If the question is about “how many,” the answer is often “two.”  Either that, or she shows off her counting skills and goes right up to 10.  If it’s question she doesn’t know the answer to, or one that’s too complex for her to answer, she often says, “good!”

She loves to identify people.  When we look at pictures, she can tell us which one is Cousin Peyton, which one is Grandma Lynda (or Grandma Janice or Grandma Laura), which one is Grandpa Bill (or Grandpa Bruce or Papa Var), etc.  And whenever she sees my camera lately, she asks me to “take a smile.”  I guess because when I take her picture, I often tell her to smile.

It’s really too cute!