Twenty-Five by Thirty

Sara once wrote a clever little piece entitled 'Twenty-Five by Twenty-Five' or something along those lines. It presented the notion that one should compile a list of Twenty-Five Significant Things to Accomplish By the Time One is Twenty-Five , and documented Sara's attempts to produce such a list by the required deadline. I remember reading it, laughing over it, and determining to write my own list as a good mental exercise - one should set goals and all that, after all! But there was no rush. Twenty-Five (or 'Five-and-Twenty,' as my eighteen-year-old self liked to call it) was safely a long way off.

Now it suddenly dawned on me this weekend that I am actually Twenty-Five already, and I still have no list. How tempus fugits! However am I going to determine now if I've accomplished all the goals I (should have) set for myself all those years ago? How will I know if my life thus far has been wasted or well-spent?? At least, those are the questions my former self probably would have posed, casting up her hands in melodramatical despair. At this point in my life, my response is more along the lines of, 'Ooops.' And let's see if we can't come up with a list, really quick now:

Twenty-Five Significant Things to Accomplish By the Time I am Twenty-Five (In No Particular Order):

1) Buy a house
2) Get married
3) Have a baby
4) Quit my job
Ummm....
5) Learn how to spell 'Renaissance'
6) Wear contacts regularly
7) Develop a filing system for credit card bills and receipts
8) Burn candles
9) Look up and learn the words to 'On My Own' from Les Miz
10) Read The Importance of Being Earnest aloud to Michael
Oh boy...
11) Cut my hair
12) Schedule a dentist appointment
13) Paint my toenails
14) Fill my car with gas
15) Make the bed
16) Wash the dishes
17) Run the laundry
18) Change light bulb in office. How can I type in the dark??
19) Move pile of papers off desk. Grr. Need to clean office.
20) Clean office
21) Check email
22) Eat a muffin
23) Check email
24) Empty the trash
25) Contemplate Life

Whew, it looks like I'm ahead of the game and have successfully accomplished all the goals I set for myself earlier in life! What, it's cheating just because I knew when I wrote that list that I'd already completed it? Ah, but that's another trick about growing older: one loses one's ideals; one becomes cynical and pragmatic; one learns the devious shortcuts that make the world go 'round.

And to think it will soon be June!

But no more slogging through the mud or wishing for my old hobbit-hole for me!

Jane's been with us for less than a month and already I can't imagine life without her. She very much belongs, although I'm still not sure I actually feel like a mother or realise that she's our baby. She still almost feels like a cute, adorable baby who's come to live with us. I love this stage (she's starting to smile naturally now, meaning she actually smiles in response to my smile, not merely an unconscious twitch of the mouth in her sleep) and mourn the fact that they grow up so fast, even though I am eager to see the kind of personality she is going to develop. Michael is looking forward to the age when she begins to respond more, such as talking to us and catching the baseball when you toss it to her. 'At this point,' he observed, 'she's more like a really cute pet.'

Her first brush with grandparents is scheduled to occur in four days, when my parents are flying down for the weekend. I think we'll go out and have a picture package made. Thus far not a day has gone by that we haven't taken a picture of her, and we've been emailing updates faithfully to my family every day.

I finally checked out Eats, Shoots and Leaves from the library. Now that the fuss has died down, I can actually get my hands on it (last summer the waiting list exceeded 27 names). I've been reading it in bits and pieces during meal-times (Jane's) and enjoying it immensely, even though it is a bit of a jar to keep stumbling across the British convention of placing the commas outside the quotation marks. ('But aside from that', she acquiesced, 'it's a very jolly book indeed.')

Sleeping Beauty

Jane has happy dreams, judging from her expressions while sleeping. The closest she's come to smiling has happened in her sleep, and I'm always just too late with the camera to quite do the smile justice. But it's very heartening, betokening peaceful thoughts and idyllic childhood.

Babies do have the most reprehensible table manners, and Jane is, alas, no exception. I keep telling her that there's no need to rush and that she should take daintier swallows, but she persists in her desperate gulps and gasps and gags as if anticipating an impending food shortage. This invariably leads to a certain discomfort a few minutes later. So I sit her up and pat her back until she yields the appropriate sound effect. 'Good girl,' I tell her. 'That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Happy now?' She gives me such a surprised look that I have to explain my commendation. 'Yes, I know it's not the most ladylike thing, but there are exceptions to every etiquette rule. This is one of them.' Ah. Having had that cleared up to her satisfaction, she drifts off to sleep and starts smiling.

On top of the world

We're listening to the soundtrack from The Parent Trap, and it just occurred to me that the lines 'And the love that I've found Since you have been around' sound exactly like the the lines 'A smile, a smile, to make this life worthwhile' from the Smile Song. Coincidence? Cheap rip-off? One wonders. We listen to music nearly every day, and - since I don't mind hearing good music again and again - pretty much all day, alternating between classical pieces for the improvement of Jane's IQ and fun CDs for the advancement of her well-roundedness. (Michael insists that the song Bad to the Bone comes from Terminator, when anyone can see it's from The Parent Trap! I heard it on the movie - during the poker game scene - and it's on my Parent Trap CD!)

In bits and snatches I'm working on writing in Jane's baby book. Poring over my baby book was a favourite pastime of mine as a child, and I'm grateful to my mother for taking the time and effort to record so much of my early life. I wonder whether my early memories really are as strong as I think they are or if their original fuzziness was enhanced and bolstered by my access to all those pictures and stories. Anyway it was a great source of fond memories and fun times, and I want Jane to be able to page back through these early days, looking at pictures, seeing what Michael and I were doing and thinking about her, touching locks of her hair, and learning about herself. (Okay, maybe I won't go so far as to save her toothbrushes. Scrapbooking should go only so far.)
Some things I do not miss about pregnancy:

- Having to shift three pillows every time I want to roll over in the middle of the night. Now I can actually roll over in my sleep again.
- Spilling water all down my shirt. I never used to be a messy eater, so my theory is that with all those excess square inches in front, my odds of spilling things on me went way up. Now if I spill water, it actually hits the floor.
Some things I expect I will miss about pregnancy:

- The phenomenal fingernail and hair growth.
- Getting escorted to the front of the line at airports. (Okay, so this only happened once.)

Eau de Baby

Recently Michael handed Jane to me after a diaper change. I noticed that she smelled really, really nice...like baby powder, only we don't use baby powder on her. Obviously something else was at work here. I was on the brink of an amazing discovery. My thoughts ran rampant in giddy exultation. Why did I never notice that she smelled like this before?...My baby has her own distinctive, signature scent and I don't even discover it until she's two weeks old...Or maybe it's not distinctive - maybe it's generic Baby Scent, and all babies smell like this, and that's why they patterned the classic baby powder scent after this...Wow, I raised five younger brothers and I never noticed that they exuded classic Baby Scent!...Or maybe this is classic Baby Girl Scent, and the boys didn't exude it, which would account for my not having noticed it then....Finally I pointed it out to Michael. 'Did you notice that Jane has begun to develop her own signature scent?' I asked. 'She sure smells nice, doesn't she?' He gave me a funny look. 'That's the baby wipes smell, love.' Oh. Well, anyway, it was an interesting theory.

Overheard at the changing table

Michael: Now, Jane, this isn't going to hurt a bit. So don't even bother wrinkling up your face to cry.
Jane: WAAAHHH!
Michael: Yes, that was a bit cold, wasn't it? And you know why? Because your parents are too cheap to buy you a wipes warmer!

Mazel tov

Michael recently auditioned for the role of a bottle dancer in our church's summer theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof. The tryouts were two weeks ago Sunday, when I was (unbeknownst to everyone else) in early labour; the first read-through was a week ago Saturday, at which Michael received his copy of the script and found that he had indeed been cast as one of the four bottle dancers, whose role is to perform an intricate and complex Jewish folk dance while balancing a bottle on the head. (This being a church production, all references to alcohol have been cleverly eliminated; thus when the innkeeper - not bartender - offers his guests a drink, he doesn't add 'of vodka' in our script, nor does he lament having 100 unfinished barrels of the stuff to get rid of at the end of the play.) I've gone to both practises with him, partly to admire his performance and partly to show off Jane to the other cast members.

Initially he was not listed as being part of the ensemble, which would be a random townie who gets to sing in all the general songs. Somewhat disappointed, he talked to the director to ascertain what was lacking in his singing during the tryouts. 'It's all right,' he told me afterwards. 'They took me off the list because they thought they would make it easy on me, with the new baby and all. But when I told them I wanted to be part of the ensemble, they put me back on.' 'I should hope so!' I told him. 'My word! Catherine pitched you to me as someone who can sing and dance!' (Catherine certainly did her best to show us each to best advantage to each other the night we met. According to Ron, her matchmaking style consists of the following formula: 'You stand here; you stand here. Stay right there while I go get the vise.')

Jane's umbilical cord fell off this morning. She is embarking on her third week ex utero, so that seems about right. Meanwhile we still continue to live off the generosity of friends, who have provided us with meals so thoroughly that I still haven't cooked since coming home from the hospital. If you ever wondered whether it's worth the effort and thought to bring a meal to a new mom (or anyone under duress, for that matter), rest assured, it is. What a blessing this blissful time is! It's not that I can't cook, but that it is so wonderful to be able to relax and enjoy this time with my baby instead of having to dream up what's for dinner, shop for groceries, and stand at the sink peeling potatoes or whatever. I always thought that bringing people meals was a nice thing to do, and now I know from the inside that those feelings of righteousness and nobility from doing such a grand deed are completely justified. =)

I had a whole slew of funny stories from early in pregnancy, when the Scatterbrain Hormone was at its highest, which I didn't post because we were keeping things quiet until past the first trimester. However, I am gratified to note that new motherhood has its own brand of Quirky Hormone, involving such scenarios as removing the box from a picture frame with the fire poker, using a candle to burn the legs off a pair of nylons, and rooting through last week's garbage to find a return address that got inadvertently thrown away before the thank-you-note was written. As the Neverending Story most annoyingly said, that's another story and shall be told at another time.

These are the days of miracle and wonder

Jane Victoria is ten days old now, and it's hard to imagine life without her. Last Sunday Benjamin and Amanda came over to bring by some meals for us (it's been SO wonderful - I haven't cooked a meal yet since coming home from the hospital!) Benjamin told us later that he mentioned to Michael, 'So how is...um...the baby doing?' and thought afterwards, 'Wait a minute. Michael and Rose have known her just as long as I have. They don't remember her name any better than I do!' Her nickname to us is often Baby, because that's what we called her for so long. And not to be a tiresome doting Mama, but she is SUCH a model child! She is really and truly sleeping through the night now, weighed eight lbs. on her one-week check-up, hardly ever cries, smiles in her sleep, and loves her car seat.

Motherhood is such a fulfilling and satisfying role. I know that having children is supposed to polish us up by highlighting our areas of selfishness, but so far there's been so little suffering involved that I'm questioning the value of having children as a character reformation device. =) I expect that things will change as the novelty of having her around wears off and the reality of her sin nature asserts itself, but for the present she is absolutely lovable and I want to serve her and take care of her, and don't mind the sacrifice a bit.

We still get out of the house every day, and it's such a fun thing to gad about with her. She hasn't slowed us down a bit, which is exactly what I had hoped for, because I value my independence so much that I couldn't imagine being laid up for weeks according to the old-fashioned notion of a decent period of confinement. I often think of the A.A. Milne poem that begins, 'Wherever I go, there's always Pooh; there's always Pooh and me.' She's my little buddy, and even though our conversations are a bit one-sided at this point, it's delightful to have her as a daily companion.

Meanwhile this article (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44210) provides interesting food for thought. One thing I appreciate about Buchanan is that he is so not a pandering politician; he is not afraid to speak his mind and to speak out honestly. The disadvantage is that his forthrightness is often just too forthright. Sometimes he has valuable things to say, but he blunts his effectiveness by being so abrasive about it. Plus sometimes he's just plain wrong. This time he really misses the boat. For one thing, to say that Germany didn't invade France/Holland/Belgium until after Britain declared war on Germany is ludicrous, because he had every intention of doing so: he just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Here Buchanan invokes the logical absurdity post hoc ergo propter hoc. As if Hitler would have stopped at Poland had Churchill had the sense to leave him alone! For another thing, we didn't enter the war with the intention of swapping one cruel dictator for another. At the beginning of the war, Russia was still our enemy. The alliance with Stalin was a necessary evil to get the job done. Now, I'm not happy with the agreement at Yalta either, but to equate the results of that summit with the motivations for fighting the whole war is incredibly naive and simplistic. Buchanan needs to study up on his history a bit more.

Bringing up Baby

It didn't even have to be Mother's Day yesterday for me to realise how wonderful this life is. I'm reveling in the throes of motherhood with all my might. Jane is such a practically-perfect-in-every-way baby that it really seems almost too good to be true. She doesn't cry very much, is generally happy (meaning she's not crying; judging from her expressions of furrowed brows she's profoundly puzzled and slightly detached from this world) when awake, almost slept through the night the last two nights (meaning she lasted for 3- and 4-hour stretches at a time, and I was the one waking her up to feed, which at this age is as close to sleeping through the night as you can get), and is adorably cute to boot. Moreover we both (Michael and I) feel great despite having not caught up on sleep yet, and I'm gradually easing back into all but the most fitted of my pre-pregnancy clothes, and I haven't taken any of those painkillers they sent me home from the hospital with, and the weather is beautiful and the flowers are in bloom and the birds are singing. Things are so good that I'm half worried lest we break out in boils presently and our cattle and sheep all get slain by the Amalekites.

Yesterday we went to church, after much deliberation about germs and such. We decided to risk it since by leaving Jane in her car seat/stroller combo, we could open both canopies and shield her from the adoring public in a virtual incubator. Plus I was sure I would win the Mother's Day prize for youngest baby. And would you know it, they asked all mothers to stand and just gave everyone a book! I felt so ripped off. But later we were standing in the hallway talking with Joy, another young mother whose baby is nine months old. Joy was exclaiming over how disappointed she was that the only mothers they recognised were the youngest mother and the oldest mother present. 'And if only that 22-year-old hadn't been there, I so would have won!' she exclaimed to the associate pastor. 'Look at Rose. If you'd given the prize for youngest baby, she would have gotten that! Five days old and they bring her to church!' 'Wait here,' the pastor told me, and came back with a whole stack of Dr. Stanley books for us!

Today is my first day of parenting solo. Reality set in at last and Michael had to go back to work today. But I am relieved to report that after one hour of being alone with the Baby, post-partum depression has not set in, so I think at this point we are safely past that risk. We are going to have a splendid time together, and already have a fun week lined up. As soon as JC Penney opens this morning, we're going in to get Jane's portrait taken, courtesy of a really wonderful coupon I got from Parenting magazine, the one useful contribution that circular has made to my life. (Rachelle learned the hard way that you look at the fine print very hard to make sure there is no hidden sitting fee. This was going to be a family portrait until I noticed that only the first person is free.)

Random political thought of the day (proving that I can momentarily tear my mind away from Jane and notice the outside world): Hmmm, and I thought Chippendales was a furniture store.

Tuesday's child

We are pleased to announce the birth of Jane Victoria Focht, who graced us with her arrival yesterday morning around midnight. She weighed 7 lbs. 6 oz., measured 20.5 inches long, and looks, well, like a standard baby as far as we can tell. (Of course we think she's the most adorable one in the world, but it would look a bit partial for us to make that assertion.)

All went well. We came home from the hospital today, and are doing splendidly except for a colossal lack of sleep. Pictures to follow soon.

Stork watch

Meaning, as Michael pointed out, that none have been sighted yet, although conditions are ripe.

Wrapping up

I left work for the last time today, and much as I loved my job and enjoyed my time there and appreciated all the dear people with whom I worked, I have the most glorious end-of-term feeling! Not that I anticipate any long stretch of sleeping in of mornings or anything like that, but it's a very buoyant and free sensation.

I have only the best things to say about the place I've worked for the past almost-year. And I've so enjoyed the friendships I've made while there. This past week has been a perfect capstone to a satisfying career. Yesterday Amy in HR asked me what I wanted for my going-away party. There's not so much turnover that this is a real issue, but it just happened that one lady left just last Friday, and we had cake for her party. Then of course we had pie and ice cream for Monica's and my party on Monday (fortunately I shared a birthday with someone who was up for a creative alternative to store-bought cake and cardboard icing), and after agreeing that everyone was probably caked-out by now, we decided to have a going-away brunch instead. So we had bagels and orange juice in the kitchen this morning, and it was all so pleasant and cheery. Also I found out that they've started an office pool on when Baby comes, how much Baby weighs, and whether Baby is a boy or a girl! The funniest part is that all the guys in the back warehouse have all gotten on board most excitedly with this pool, happy to have something to bet money on even if they don't really have much of an idea. It's so cute - they're guessing like 15 lbs. and random days that are probably notgoing to come true, but it's all in good fun...plus Jennifer told me they want to give me half of the money in the end! Isn't that sweet? And gambling is actually against the rules in the employee handbook, and dear Mr. W, the owner, apparently put up one of the biggest stakes of all. Yes, I'm sad to leave, but I can't think of a better reason to do so.

Storks and storms

Overheard on last night’s walk:

Me: So do you think it would be a worthwhile investment to spend, say, $5 on a plastic stork for our yard in the hopes of eliciting free cookies and maybe other food from the neighbours?
Michael (horrified): What a mercenary idea! Where do you come up with these things?
Me: Okay, okay, I was just kidding! We don’t have to do it.
Michael: It’s pretty scary the way your mind works sometimes. I mean, you would think they would have to send people away to training camps to indoctrinate them to think like that.

So last night we were watching a show when this background tune came on. The only line I caught was, ‘“Come in,” she said; “I’ll give you shelter from the storm.”’ It was very catchy, and I liked it so much that I looked up the lyrics online afterwards, only to discover that it was a Bob Marley song! Now, I don’t know anything about Bob Marley except that I am supposed to hate his music; I’ve heard so many bad things about his voice and style that I’m totally prejudiced against him, and here the only song of his that I’ve actually heard I find that I like very much indeed! This is a pretty kettle of fish.

‘Twas the eighteenth of April in 2005…

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
How Paul Revere drank all the beer.

Thus began one of our poems from the inimitable Poem Game, a Penney family tradition wherein all the participants write the first line of a famous poem, then pass the paper one person to the left, rhyme the line and write a new one, and pass it on. There are several variations, including the four-line doggerel, the eight-line poem, or simply passing the paper around until it ends up back with the person who starts it. Terribly fun, even in circles of people who protest themselves not literary. (Actually, when it involves those without the writing bug, the results can be even sillier than ever.) My personal favourite and a Penney family classic:

The windshield factor was fifteen below;
On that frigid terrain only real men could go.
Did they venture for fortune, for love, or for fame?
Or did they attempt to rescue a dame?
Yes, the rains came down and the winds did blow
And all they could cry was, ‘Oh, oh, oh!’
They wondered why they’d ever left
(Their jaws were square and their chins were cleft.)
They faced the challenge with derring-do;
Their motor-bikes in a circle they drew
Not giving the villains a single clue
As to what they were doing; I leave it to you.

So anyway, it’s now been 230 years since the midnight ride of Paul Revere, although according to Paul Harvey, it was really Israel Bissel who deserves the credit for spreading the alarm. We were trying to remember at breakfast if the alarm was the night of the 18th and therefore it the morning of the 19th when the battle of Concord happened. And we just finished reading Johnny Tremain, so we should know! Alas, we’re still stranded halfway through The Great Impersonation; need to get cracking if we’re to finish that before Baby arrives.

It was such a nice weekend, though not nearly so restful as it should have been. I had the girls I’ve been mentoring over for a slumber party on Friday night, and after a lesson, pizza and Pepsi, a movie, and a rousing game of spoons, I was falling asleep by 11:00. The girls, not being old and boring yet, stayed up until who knows when, and still got up early the next morning for bacon and eggs. Saturday was lovely; Michael mowed the lawn and assembled the stroller while I organised the nursery a tiny bit more and ran hundreds of loads of laundry. We took a chicken out of the freezer and determined to go to church the next morning with the explicit intention of inviting someone over for dinner (the fun thing about hospitality is that Michael really enjoys it too, and half the time it’s his idea – ‘We don’t have anything planned for Sunday, do we? We should really have someone over’). Benjamin and Amanda came over, and we showed them The Court Jester, which they had never seen before. Plot we’ve got – quite a lot.

And now we’re trying to keep the schedule gloriously unfree because we know not what the morrow may bring!

Living and Dyeing

On New Year’s Eve 2003 we had several friends over to celebrate. We were all newly married, and we drank sparkling cider and enjoyed a sit-down dinner in our formal dining room, which to this day remains bereft of furniture, since we’re still saving up for a nice dining room set. All this information is incidental to the point of this post, and merely sets the stage for the astounding events to follow. The party left us with tablecloths and napkins to launder, most of which were fresh from the wedding registry (sad to admit that this was the first time I’d used this tablecloth since we were married in August? Well, at any rate, it was the first time it needed washing). It was a blue-and-white checkered print, and since it was sort of fuzzy and soft, much like our master bath towels, I blithely tossed them all in the laundry together. Our towels, previously a lovely warm vanilla colour, ended up a rather dingy blue-grey, while the tablecloth and napkins escaped apparently unscathed. Michael expressed some surprise at this apparent lapse of common sense – washing un-like colours, especially on a first washing (Me: ‘But I washed it on the cold cycle! I thought nothing bad could happen in cold water!’) – but was generally forbearing and understanding of the situation, and hasn’t complained at all in the past year-plus about our master bath towels not looking quite so sprightly as they ought.

So this last weekend I thought I had spotted a brilliant solution. I picked up a few really cute maternity tops at the local upscale Goodwill (all Motherhood or Mimi brand names, except for like $5 each instead of $45) and brought them proudly home to wash. One was a rather bright red top, and I was seized with the notion of tossing it in with the unfortunate towels, to compensate for the blue hue with a good red shift. Of course I didn’t really expect it to work, because of course colours don’t bleed in cold water, only hot, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to try.

Well. Michael pulled the towels out of the washer, clean and fresh and complete with random pink spots on them. It reminds me a bit of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, with an inexorable pink stain that just gets progressively worse and worse. It actually doesn’t look bad, and I’m trying to look on the bright side: it’s sort of like one step away from having monogrammed towels! Now Michael and I can have our own personalised towels without having our initials sewn on to them. But I have now officially given up on the towels and will try no further attempts at rectifying the situation.

By the way

Now that I'm about to quit my job, here is where I work:

http://www.colonial-lighting.com/home.htm

Pictures and Conversation, Part 2

We have been getting dreadfully erratic about our Sunday Pregnant Picture of late. This time around it was well into the week before we got to take it. (We forgot on Sunday and then it was many days before I felt pretty enough to document my condition.) So in addition to our standard pose, I also wanted a couple of free-standing, carefully scripted candid shots, to give the appearance of breezy elegance and casual, carefree ease and happiness.

The first picture I relaxed completely, to allow the full effects of the expansion to be visible. ‘This will be the “Wow, I can’t believe how pregnant I looked then!” picture,’ I explained to Michael, who was patiently working the camera. ‘It will be a curiosity piece, because I’m never going to be this big again, except under similar circumstances.’

Next I wanted one a bit more controlled, for the exact opposite effect, to prove how non-pregnant it is possible to look at 8+ months along. ‘Now I’m going to suck it up a bit, so I can look back and think, “And that’s how I looked at 8+ months pregnant!”’ And held the pose (with some difficulty. It reminded me a bit of those corset-tying scenes in old Victorian novels. ‘Don’t breathe, Mabel! Don’t breathe!’)

Michael peered through the viewfinder. ‘Okay,’ he called. ‘Go ahead and suck it up!’ Distressed yelps resulted from me and evil cackles from Michael. Funny, funny man.

(This is all very silly and I readily admit it. I don’t know why it’s so important to me to prove by pictures how un-pregnant I look when I’m perfectly happy being pregnant, feel great, and wouldn’t wish a thing otherwise. Sigh.)

Further thoughts on Holland

And yet, for all that, there are some things that the Dutch (possibly Europeans in general) do better (or, shall we say, we could take a page from them):

-European hospitality. You can’t enter someone’s house without being offered coffee or tea. You always linger around the table after dinner sipping drinks, laughing, and talking. Sure, I know we drink coffee here, and when you go over to someone’s house for dinner you usually get offered water or juice or coke or something, but for the most part people don’t keep their tea sets and coffee creamers always at the ready here. It’s a social ritual over there. And it’s GOOD stuff!

-European diet. The bread you buy in the bakery is generally far better quality than your typical sandwich bread here. Even the cheapest run-of-the-mill sandwich bread there is hearty and nutritious. Breakfast often consists of yogurt, bread and cheese, bread and meat, jam, and of course the classic chocolate sprinkle sandwiches! Overall, the foods seem far less processed, possibly one reason why Europeans manage to look so thin compared to their American counterparts (either that or the fact that everyone smokes like crazy over there).

-European roundabouts! I fell in love with these in England and still adore the notion of not having to come to a dead stop when it’s perfectly obvious that no one’s coming from all directions. Plus if you’re scrambling to decipher a map (NOT lost, just momentarily confused of bearings) it’s so convenient to be able to circle without having to make a snap decision and end up heading off to the wrong corner of the country.

I must say, the Euro was a big disappointment. We took a trip into Germany one day since the border was so nearby. Wandering around the fairy-talish city of Bremen, I was delighted to see a coin glittering at me from the ground, and went through the great effort of bending over and picking it up (no mean feat at my current girth), delighted with the prospect of adding a German coin to my collection, only to realize that, of course, it was just a common 1-cent Euro piece, like I had tons of already. Blah.

Pictures and Conversation, Part 1

‘And what,’ thought Alice, ‘is the use of a book without any pictures or conversation?’

Overhead at the dinner table:

Michael: This is really good. What is it?
Me: ‘Hearty Chicken and Rice Soup.’
Michael: Hmm, that’s funny. It looks and tastes like it has barley in it.
Me: Well, actually it does. That was just the soup’s name in the cookbook.
Michael: What a funny cookbook! I wonder why it would call for barley in a rice dish!
Me: Ummm…actually, it did call for rice, but I thought barley would be better.
Michael: Ah. And did you actually use chicken for the chicken part, or maybe some leftover quail that you had lying around?

Later:

Me: What would you like, a cinnamon roll or a slice of peach cobbler?
Michael: I’ll take a cinnamon roll.
Me: What! You’d rather have a cinnamon roll than a slice of juicy peach cobbler fresh from the oven, all crunchy and crisp, with ice cream melting over it??
Michael: Oh, boy! I’ll take peach cobbler then. Silly me!

Overheard on the nightly walk:

Me (breathing deeply): Ah, the fresh scent of spring!
Michael (sniffing): Actually, it smells a lot like a dryer vent.
Me: Well, maybe it’s Spring Fresh fabric softener.

America for me!

There's a poem somewhere beginning, 'Oh, the old world...' and goes on to describe the wonders and delights of Greece and Rome and all that, but winds up each verse with '...America for me!' After two weeks of touring on the continent, I am delighted with all that I saw and ate but immensely glad to be back on home soil once more and incredibly proud to be an American!

Fortunately daylight savings time works right into the whole jetlag thing, so we're so zombied-out with the time change anyway that we won't even feel the injustice of waking up an hour earlier tomorrow. Baby already makes me feel hungry all the time, so the meal weirdness isn't as much of an issue as it usually is with travel.

Well, what can I say about Holland? Wonderful food, fabulous chocolate sprinkles (I ate a chocolate sprinkle sandwich for breakfast every day), incredibly warm and friendly people, and really uncharacteristically good weather for us the two weeks we were there. It was really too fabulous of a trip - and so much better than expected, considering my apprehensions about timeframe, pregnant travel, expense of the euro, etc. - to complain about anything, so let's just briefly catalogue the ways in which I come away with an improved opinion of America (the following are sweeping generalisations):

-American plumbing. In America you usually have warm water in the powder rooms. The sinks are usually big enough to fit both hands under the faucet at once. The towels are usually big and folded over a rack rather than hung from a rivet on a hook on the wall. The toilet paper is usually white (not brown, except in some environmentally nutty stores where they sell recycled toilet paper) and actually soft.

-American cuisine. In America, if you order water in a restaurant, it is usually a good way of indulging your cheapness and acknowledging that you don't want to pay for a drink. It is not common to order water, explicitly specify that it be tap water and not bottled, and be brought bottled water (and charged a hefty price in Euros for it). It is furthermore not common in America, should such a situation befall you, to be told by the waiter, after you are caught sneaking off to the WC with the bottle to covertly fill it up because you are dying of thirst, that you are not allowed to help yourself to water from the WC.

-American customer service. In America, there are signs everywhere. There are people in the airports to direct you if you are confused. Now, in all fairness, not everyone in America can speak a foreign language for the assistance of any hapless tourist who happens by. But at least we try. And we generally have good, prompt, and attentive service in public places. This may be because, without a minimum wage of 8-10 euros/hour, many people in the service-oriented industry are working for tips and actually have a vested interest in keeping the customers happy.

Hmm, that should do it for the basic observations. In general, Holland is still a country of windmills and canals (most without railings and many with narrow, cobbled streets directly adjoining along which it is a harrowing nightmare to parallel park) and tulips (although it wasn't tulip season yet when we went). Because most of the country is polder (reclaimed from the sea), meaning it was dyked (sp?) in and pumped dry across the centuries, its architecture isn't nearly as old as that in England. No castles, and the charming stone churches don't go back much beyond the 1600s. But there are thatched cottages and farms aplenty.

It was never meant to be a sight-seeing vacation; it was always about the people and the family that my Oma (Dutch word for grandmother) wanted us to visit. That was our expectation, and everything else that happened was a bonus. That being said, it was a bonus - full of serendipity and happiness.

But I'm glad to be back!

(Observation: Baby is a very helpful traveling companion. Owing to Baby's presence, we got to skip the long line at check-in and got a whole extra meal on the flight back.)