they're out there somewhere!

Well, operation Friends With Kids is officially underway! We attended our first PEPS group meeting yesterday at the home of one of the other members. PEPS is the Program for Early Parenting Support, and it's a series of twelve weekly meetings with a group of parents in your area with babies all born around the same time. Our group consists of eight couples with babies born between August 10 and September 2. And yep, it turns out that regular three-month old babies aren't usually this big! Guess the doctor was right...

Lincoln helped us to make a good impression on our future play-date companions by entering the house screaming, and picking the scream back up at convenient intervals throughout the course of the evening. All the other little babes were peacefully sleeping in their infant seats or draped across their mothers' laps, but not our little force of nature! He was only content when one of us was standing up with him facing the crowd, so he could see every little thing that was going on. He finally passed out about five minutes before we left, but woke up again as soon as we set foot outside.

I'm pretty excited to see how this whole thing goes. We're not incredibly social people as it is, and for whatever reason, our friends just aren't getting in on the baby game. That is, except for these guys, who just had a beautiful new daughter, but they live a little bit outside of our play-date range, as we discovered a few weeks ago. I think it will be nice to be able to commiserate with some other folks who are in the same boat that we are, even if it's just once a week for a while and then we never see them again. Everyone says that they continue to meet with their PEPS groups for long after the twelve weeks is over though, so there's always the chance that we'll make some new actual friends out of this experience.

tastes like fall!

Fall is definitely my favorite season, hands down. There's just something about new school supplies, crunchy leaves, football, fuzzy sweaters and scarves, and delicious fall veggies that I find so comforting. When I saw the big pile of winter squash in the market the other day it looked so much like fall that I picked a couple up, even though I seemed to remember that Gus wasn't such a big fan.

I started out with a simple roasted acorn squash a few nights ago. I just cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, drizzled on some olive oil and sprinkled on some salt and pepper and popped it in the oven cut side down in a baking dish for about an hour at 375. It was tender and delicious and even husband-approved. I think the reason he claimed not to like squash was that he had never had it without brown sugar, and he doesn't like sweet interfering with his savory. Even pineapple on pizza is a no-no for this guy. Just simply roasted and seasoned, he admitted it was quite tasty. Yeah!

So, with one squash success under my belt, I decided to try a more advanced application for dinner tonight: butternut squash soup. The recipe is another really simple one, and really highlights the buttery sweet goodness of the squash. Just cut it in half and scoop out the seeds, place it cut side down in a baking dish and let it roast for about an hour at 375. No oil, salt or pepper this time though, just the squash. When the squash is just about done, heat a large pot or dutch oven and saute an onion in some butter. Once the squash is tender, scoop it out of the shell and add it to the pot along with four cups of chicken broth. Use a stick blender or a regular blender to break everything down and mix it all together, then let it simmer for a little bit while you finish the rest of dinner, set the table, feed your baby, or what ever. Taste for seasoning- I just added a little cayenne pepper for kick, no salt or pepper was needed, and serve it up! Delicious and nutritious, and a lovely shade of orange too!

Any favorite fall vegetable recipes you'd like to share?

Happy Halloween!

Our little monkey wishes you a happy and safe Halloween!

this just in: Lincoln has HANDS!!

Over the last week or so, Lincoln has had the majority of his fist in his mouth most of the time. We assumed that meant that he knew where that fist was originating, but it seems that he has only actually realized that he has hands in the last day.


It's amazing to watch him study his own body so closely and try to determine just what he's seeing. I swear you can actually see his mind working as he turns his hands around and pulls his fists in close to his face to examine them.

He uses one hand to grab the other and stop it from moving long enough so he can get a good look. Then sometimes one finger will wiggle free, and you end up with this confused look:


It's just so amazing! I love watching this development happen right before our eyes. Awesome!

mixer cover 2.0

I've gotten a couple of requests lately for a cover to fit the Kitchenaid Artisan mixer, which is a different model than the one I have. Thanks to a generous friend and neighbor, I was able to borrow one to work out the sizing. (It's a shorter mixer and the bowl has a handle on it.)

I initially thought I could just take the length off of the cover that I designed for the Professional model, but I wasn't happy with the way the handle jutted out when I did. In the end, it took me three modifications before I came up with proportions that I was happy with! I'm pleased with the results though, and now that I have the pattern set the production time should be much less.

This first model is for a co-worker of Gus, who sent me a photo of her kitchen and said that she kind of had a thing for roosters. I was pretty sure that although there is a plethora of country-themed rooster fabric in existence out in the world, that was not what she had in mind.

What I came up with is a simple khaki cover with red flat piping detail and a rooster applique on the pocket. I took a cue from Margo's suggestion about the skirt and added a split-corner detail like you might see on a tailored bed skirt. And like all of my covers, it's also fully lined so there are no raw edges exposed and it's interfaced so it's got a little bit of body. I love it, and I hope that its new owner does too!

update on the job front

It's been almost three weeks since I interviewed for the job that I talked about before. I was thinking that they must have hired someone, because it had been so long and I hadn't heard anything, but I was surprised because I thought that they would have at least called to let me know.

Well, on Friday morning I finally got a call, which I missed because I'm sure I was changing a diaper or feeding Lincoln or starting a load of laundry or something. It was the lovely woman that I had interviewed with, offering me a second interview for the position. Of course I was pleased, because that meant that I had been correct in my assessment that the interview had gone well and that I was a good fit for the job; but I was also kind of upset because that meant that I was going to have to make a decision! I hate that!

I put off the call on Friday so I could give myself the weekend to think about it and talk it over with Gus, but in the end I think that I've known all along what I would do. I called this morning and thanked them for the opportunity to meet with them, and told them that I really thought that a position in their company was something that I would really enjoy and excel at. They said that they agreed, and that was why they would like me to come in and speak with them more. I said that I would love to come, but I was afraid that it just wasn't the right time for me. Lincoln is only going to be this small particular age and size once, and I just don't want to miss a thing.

Maybe in a few months things will be different, and at that point it might be the right thing for me to be working back out in the real world. For now though, I'm pretty sure I'm right where I belong. And if this big smile is any indication, I think that Lincoln might agree.

approximately 4,000 more reasons it would have been great to have birthed at home:

Despite all the planning and preparation that we did before Lincoln's arrival, one thing we never really spent much time thinking about was the expense of the actual birth itself. Part of the reason for that was the fact that we are fortunate enough to have health insurance, and the midwives that we worked with were chosen from a list of preferred providers on the insurance company website. Once we were certain that our midwifery care would be covered at the same rate as a traditional hospital birth (80% in our case), we just filed it away as something that we didn't really need to be concerned about.

We were soon pleased to discover that one perk of midwifery, and especially homebirth, is that the cost of care is really minimal. And by choosing to birth at home, we were even able to avoid the fee that the midwives charge to labor and deliver in their (lovely) birthing center. Instead, we were simply given a list of things to order from a hospital supply website. The total cost of our birthing kit was just $35 and included such things as a footprint kit, a nasal aspirator, and a whole slew of various absorbent and protective pads. We opted to spring for the labor tub ($300) and the doula ($350) out of pocket because we felt that it was a small price to pay to have everything just the way we wanted it to be in the comfort of our own home.

Well, obviously, things didn't exactly go as planned. We ended up starting our birthing adventure at home with our midwives, labor tub, and doula, but ending it at UW Medical Center in an operating room. And again, fortunately for us, we have health insurance through my husband's employer. And yes, it covers labor, delivery, and recovery at 80% regardless of where it takes place as long as you're with a network provider. And yes, UW and their doctors are in the network just like our midwives.

But...

(I know you had to see that coming!)

Turns out that giving birth in a hospital is A LOT more expensive than giving birth at home would have been! And since hospitals and doctors charge based on what's known as fee-for-service, we even got to pay extra for the cesarean! And we got to pay the anesthesiologist once for the epidural that I received when we first arrived at the hospital, and again for the anesthesia that I received during the surgery! And one fee for the room that we were set up in when we arrived, and a separate fee for the room that we recovered in! When it's all said and done, even just our 20% portion of the hospital bill amounts to more than the total fee that we would have owed the midwives without insurance! And not even just a little more- like a thousand dollars more!

Does your brain hurt yet? That means that for less than $3,000, we had nearly a whole pregnancy's worth of prenatal care- including home visits, three midwives in attendance during my long labor, and post-natal follow-ups. Our 72 hours at UW? More than $20,000! Something just isn't adding up!

I'm not going to get into the politics of the whole thing here, but I think that it is sufficient to say that health care here in America is a broken system. I am grateful that we are fortunate enough to be among the insured, but even with that benefit, Lincoln's birth is going to cost us much more than we ever imagined. And what if we hadn't been insured? The family that doesn't have access to health insurance benefits probably doesn't have $20,000 to pay hospital bills.

The last two episodes (391- More is Less & 392- Someone Else's Money) of This American Life offer a glimpse into the health care system in America, and as always, they're intriguing to listen to. Listen on the web or download in iTunes, it's a good use of an hour or two!

You can also visit the website of The MAMA Campaign to read about some important work that our midwives are involved in to help make midwifery available to more families.