Moving to Palo Alto!

We have spent the last 5 days in Palo Alto, and it's been so much more than a search for housing!  We have started getting familiar with the Bay area and I am finally able to envision us living out here. I hadn't been to Palo Alto since I was about 12 when my grandparents lived here. I remembered it being lush and sunny and beautiful and always dreamed of living here... and now that fuzzy dream is becoming real.

We spent one afternoon walking around the Stanford campus which is as gorgeous as advertised! We met some graduating seniors who were playing campus golf, which means walking around campus with a shopping cart full of booze, and tennis balls to hit around with golf clubs. We took their picture, they took our picture, we got to talking and joined them for a while. They were so friendly and welcoming to us and everyone else passing by, and it was the most random fun party with strangers who felt like new friends.

We had the best time catching up with friends who we are so looking forward to seeing more of! We got to have pho and ice cream with Anjuli, James, Andrew and Kalinda, who is exactly Valerie's age (they were born one day apart!), get bedtime hugs from Kalinda, drink the tartest, most amazing lemonade made from the lemons on Brett and Ali's lemon tree, meet sweet tiny baby Amanda, grill out and play cornhole, meet Tushar and get pumped for the upcoming #tushela nuptials!

I can't wait to return with Valerie, spend more time with these friends and hopefully meet new friends!  There is so much I love about it here. There is recycling everywhere, including in our hotel room.  I just feel like these are my people. There are tons of places to get fresh juice, acai bowls, vegan and organic and crunchy hippie food, and everything grows here!  Citrus, all kinds of fruits, grapes for wine, olives, avocados... it's an incredible, sun-drenched oasis. Everyone rides bikes around town. The weather is the same every day - cool in the morning, then the sun comes out and it warms up to 70 in the hot sun, and then quickly cools back down in the evening. The lack of rain is causing some terrible problems but selfishly I love the dry sunny weather.

The purpose of our trip was to find housing for our arrival at the end of July and we are super excited about the lovely home we have found which is slightly bigger than a breadbox - in the nick of time on the last day. At first we got discouraged by the cray-cray rental market out here but after going to see 8-10 options we did find a few that we could get excited about.

Our new home is small but new and lovely, bright and open, with room for Valerie to run and play, a bedroom for guests to visit, and out back, a porch and a beautiful garden under a Japanese maple with lemon, mandarin orange, fig, peach and plum trees. It's going to be perfect for us and we can't wait to have friends over and visitors to share the lovely space.

Coming out here feels like a dream... the only things bringing me back to reality are the stresses of finding a job and daycare... this is still real life and not a vacation! But I have a good feeling it's going to work out. I can't wait to see what this adventure holds for us. Everything is so much fun with Valerie at two and a half years old - ok not everything - we have our moments. But I still have the feeling we'll always remember these days as some of the best times of our lives.

Super Rich Oreo Chocolate Peanut Butter Explosion Ice Cream Pie

My friend Sarah hosted a get-together this weekend to celebrate fall birthdays (since both she and her fiance have one) and she emailed me earlier this week to ask me where I recommended she get an ice cream cake.  She thought I might be an authority on the topic! Imagine that!

I immediately knew what I had to do:  I had to make a variation on the ice cream cake my mom always made (at my request) growing up.  She got it from my elementary school cookbook back in the day. It involved an oreo crust, a layer of homemade fudge, a layer of ice cream and cool whip topping. This thing absolutely embarrasses any store bought ice cream cake. And seriously Coldstone has a pretty great one. But I brought it to a whole new level and I couldn't not share it on here. 

First of all I had to make it gluten free since Sarah's fiance Peter, one of the birthday honorees, can't eat gluten. That was a super easy modification for this recipe, I just needed gluten-free Oreos for the crust. I bought a pack each of K-toos and Mi-del's and I used all 35 cookies (leaving one for a garnish on top). You definitely could not tell the difference from regular Oreos!

The second, very important edit was to make this a chocolate peanut butter cake. The ice cream I chose to use is one of my all time favorites, UDF Homemade Brand's Peanut butter & chip. And I added a layer of peanut butter to the cake.  CLUTCH I TELL YOU. I am obsessed with Smucker's Creamy Natural Peanut Butter. I don't know how they do it but it's the best peanut butter for real.

The third edit was the cool whip, which had to go.  I hate that stuff... so gross and fake and horrible for you. I made real whipped cream from scratch instead with heavy whipping cream.

I found a recipe for the fudge layer at Pinch of Yum using Pinterest since I couldn't get the original recipe from my mom in time.

Here goes. I am calling my version:

Oreo Chocolate Peanut Butter Explosion Ice Cream Pie

Crust:
 35 oreos (or gluten free version)
1.5 stick butter
Crush the oreos, melt the butter, mix together and spread in bottom of 9.75x14.75x2 dish. 35 yields a nice super thick crust.  You could use fewer for less crust.

Fudge:
1.5 (ish) cups of chocolate chips
1 stick butter
1 can evaporated milk
2 cups powdered sugar
combine in saucepan, bring to boil and stir continuously while it boils for 8 minutes, then let cool before layering over crust.

 Peanut Butter:
majority of a jar of Smuckers natural creamy peanut butter

Ice cream of choice. 
My choice:  3 pints of Homemade brand Peanut Butter & Chip, softened just enough to spread
4 pints would have been better but my 9.75x14.75x2 dish would have overflowed! A deeper dish would be perfect.

Whipped cream:
carton of heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup (ish) powdered sugar
splash of vanilla extract
whip together using hand mixer (preferably in an ice cold bowl using ice cold beaters) on increasingly high speed until it forms stiff peaks.

Toppings: go wild, get creative! I used rainbow sprinkles, birthday cake M&Ms, mini chocolate chips, a Reeses cup and an Oreo to make it festive and birthday-ish. You could use any sort of candy or decorations that strike your fancy!  The plain white whipped cream top layer is a perfect canvas for any theme or inspiration.

 I made this in 3 stages. The first night I made the oreo crust and refrigerated it in the glass dish, and made the whipped cream. The second night I made the fudge and added it as well as the peanut butter layer over the crust and refrigerated it, and the morning of the party I softened and added the ice cream, whipped cream and toppings to then be frozen. This worked out great.  But you could certainly do all of it at once if you have time, it just needs to freeze together for several hours before serving.

I can't even explain to you how good this is.  If you are a chocolate, peanut butter, ice cream and oreo lover like I am... this is dessert nirvana. It is SO rich. This recipe will feed a LOT of people, at least 20 depending on how huge of slices they want. Maybe not 20 NFL players.

But... go ahead and make it.  If you dare. I can't promise you won't eat piece after piece like me, and when you find someone else's abandoned piece at the end of the night that you won't also eat that, like I did. It's that good. And I am that shameless. OCPBEICP (Oreo Chocolate Peanut Butter Explosion Ice Cream Pie) for the win.

First Words

This is the most exciting time in a mom's life.  Well. So far.  For me. My daughter will be 17 months old this Friday.  What's so exciting at 17 months? WORDS. Communication. Talking!!!

There is absolutely nothing like hearing real actual words come out of your baby's mouth.  It is the cutest and most miraculous sound in the world. It starts gradually and it's hard to put your finger on the exact moment it starts.  For Valerie, it started with animal sounds. Specifically, moo. The first thing she ever said that meant something was while looking at pictures of cows, toy cows and her stuffed cow.  It was a really energetic shout when you asked her what a cow says: "Boooooooo!"

I'm not counting moo as her first word though since I'm not sure it's technically a word. Looking back, I am going to say that Valerie's first real word was bye-bye, although I wasn't there the first time she said it.  We heard from her teachers at school one day that she had said bye-bye to one of them. It wasn't long before we heard it for ourselves! After over a year of babbling and nonsense syllables... to get a real word response was so amazing. Even just to have a word parroted back to you for the first time! Amazing.

I started writing down the words she knew as I figured them out to get an idea of how many there were. There were maybe 10 animal sounds, 10 real words and 5-10 signs when I first started keeping track. She likes signing a lot.  She uses the signs for baby, mama, daddy, dog, eat, more, ball, milk, please and flower all the time. She can say baby, mama, daddy, and ball as well, but she doesn't say eat, more, milk, please or flower yet.  Kind of interesting. I'm not exactly sure why some of the words and signs go together so easily and others she only signs.

It's absolutely fascinating to watch her learn at this age. Every day is some new discovery, for her and for us as her parents. It's a means for her personality to emerge, bit by bit, like seeing the light come on inside. When she wakes up in the morning, sometimes she will recite some of her words.  "Mama, daddy, huff-huff (dog), all done!"

She LOVES babies and dogs. We do not have either in our house (besides her) but she goes bananas whenever she sees one. Dogs she prefers in theory or at a distance. When they come very close sometimes they are a little scary, although she warms up over time. Babies are another story. She loves to grab and kiss babies repeatedly if given the opportunity. She likes kids her age and older, too, but her favorites are the littlest babies.  She vigorously makes the sign for baby, rocking her arms back and forth, and has gotten pretty good at saying "beebee." It started out as "ba" at first, then baba, and now beebee.

One of her funniest quirks is cat.  According to Valerie, instead of meow, cats say "aieee!" We keep teaching meow and at some point she will learn to say meow but I hope it doesn't happen too soon. It cracks me up when she chases my mom's cat saying "aieeee!"

Apple was a fun one the first time she said it. I was feeding her applesauce at dinner and said, "Ap-ple," very deliberately. And she said it back! "Ap-ple."  It was the first time I ever heard her repeat back a word to me so purposefully. I teared up I was so surprised and excited.

She finally, FINALLY learned my favorite word in the past few weeks.  The most beautiful word there is to come out of your baby's mouth: "Mama." Now it's one of her favorites.  When she comes home from school she says mama, mama, mama, mama until she finds me. Then she quickly moves on to gagoo (cracker), gagoo, gagoo, gagoo..... as in, get me a snack mama. Mama is still pretty much chopped liver.  But I will take it! It felt like so long I waited for her to say that one. I still fill up with sunshine every time she says it.

This morning when I was getting her ready for school she was being so sweet, her usual sunny morning self. She was laying on her changing pad and I sang her a good morning song and kicked her legs around to the beat.  She loved it.  She gave me a huge smile and a reverent, "Mommm-myyyy."
 I could not stop smiling all day, thinking of that sweet smile and that "mommmmyyy."  She ADORED her mama in that moment. I could have cried.

These are the days, friends. These are the days of our lives. These are the moments to remember.

Food babe's kale salad and avocado toast!

My dad is staying with us for a few weeks this spring since Rich is traveling a lot for work right now.  We absolutely love having him. It makes the work travel so much less excruciating for me, the parent left behind. And regardless of whether Rich is gone or home it's awesome to have the extra help. Every time he comes to stay I feel beyond spoiled.

It's also nice to have someone to eat dinner with besides my toddler (and it's not like I eat with her anyway. I need both hands free to corral that situation). It means I may actually on occasion have a real dinner as opposed to crackers and hummus or whatever Valerie didn't finish off her tray.

Tonight was an especially good one.  I have to credit one of my favorite bloggers/facebook pages, Food babe, for inspiring this dinner.  This morning she shared on facebook her breakfast of avocado, dijon mustard and black pepper on toast. I already knew I LOVE avocado on toast, and I love avocado with dijon mustard, but this exact combination I had not yet tried. I sometimes have a grilled avocado and cheese sandwich with butter, but after trying avocado on toast with just mustard and pepper, WOW, no butter needed. My toast was rye toast. And just wow, the combination of the creamy avocado, the rye toast crunch, the zesty mustard and the spice of the pepper... here is how you know it's GOOD: my dad claims to hate avocado, but he took a bite, and was converted.

"Wow... that avocado is really good with the dijon mustard..." "this is pretty tasty!"  He ate the whole slice. I was amazed. This is a man who claims guacamole is nauseating.

There are a lot of foods my dad and I can't agree on. Meat - he loves. Cooked vegetables - he hates. Tofu - out of the question. But one thing we can agree on is kale. And last week I saw Food Babe had a recipe for melt-in-your-mouth kale salad. It looked pretty simple and I knew we had to try it. The key is using a food processor to chop the kale into tiny pieces.  If you've ever eaten a non-finely-chopped kale salad, you know why. That stuff takes some serious chewing. The food processor takes the work out and helps make even more of the amazing nutrients in kale available for digestion. Win-win!

The dressing is so simple - olive oil, lemon juice and honey.  I never think to put honey in my salad dressing but I am going to so much more from now on. You would not believe how sweet and delicious it is. I don't really love the flavor of honey by itself, but in dressing... YES.

Food babe calls for currants but I chopped up some dried cranberries instead since I had some handy.

The salad was pretty quick and easy to throw together. I already had some leftover grated parmigiano and toasted pine nuts since I made pesto the other day so it worked out perfectly. And it looks so pretty and vibrant green when you toss it all together! I can't wait to make this salad for guests the next time we have some. It is going in the staple file. We just about licked the bowl clean!

Superfood salad with garlic-ginger-lime shrimp!

Sometimes I am so proud of myself in the kitchen.  These times are few and far between because "dinner" is usually leftovers or hummus and crackers or, let's be honest, it's ice cream.

But tonight I actually made dinner and it was a GOOD one so I had to share! Here is the "recipe." Keep in mind I made this up with what I had in the kitchen and I didn't measure.  I will make some best guesses. But feel free to modify and use whatever you have fresh in your kitchen!

Superfood salad with garlic-ginger-lime shrimp! serves 2

1 box power greens (baby kale, spinach, chard and mizuna) (organic)
handful of grape tomatoes, halved (organic)
1 carrot, shredded (organic)
1/2 cup parsley, roughly chopped (organic)
green onion, chopped (organic)
4 fingerling potatoes (organic)
walnuts, toasted
feta cheese
1/4-1/2 cup olive oil (total guess... I really don't know how much olive oil)
1/2 lime
1/8 lemon
1 clove garlic
fresh ginger
18 cocktail shrimp (precooked)(or buy raw and cook it)
for the potatoes: rosemary, basil, oregano, garlic powder, olive oil

soooo pretty!!!!

for the dressing: pour olive oil and the juice of half a lime and a little lemon into a bowl. chop up the clove of garlic and grate some ginger into the mixture. let the shrimp marinate in this while you make the salad.

chop the potatoes into small wedges (the smaller the pieces, the faster they cook). pour olive oil over them and add the herbs and mix til coated. bake at 415F for about 25-30 minutes or until they are getting crispy and brown outside and flip halfway through.

toast the walnuts on a baking sheet until they begin to darken (but not burn!!).

divide the greens between 2 large plates. chop the tomatoes, grate the carrot, chop the green onion and parsley, and arrange over the greens. add the walnuts, feta, and the potatoes when done. then arrange the shrimp on top (a nice circle in the middle looks fancy!) and pour the rest of the dressing over it all.

If you have a whiny, hungry, crabby toddler clinging to your legs and crying to be held the entire time you're making this salad, ply her with shrimp.  This worked for me.  I hope your toddler also loves shrimp.

This tasted SO fresh and light and healthy and I LOVE the tangy grated ginger and citrus dressing. Nothing compares to homemade dressing. I will definitely have a post on making dressing coming soon.

It's also best enjoyed after the baby goes to bed when you can really focus on the flavors. Pay no attention to the socks, shoes, magnets, toys, and coats all over the kitchen floor, but do try not to trip over them. And do not forget a beverage. I had a tasty Warsteiner beer to complement this beautiful green plate of delightfulness and I was totally satisfied.  Bon appetite!

A Salute to Single Parents and People with a Long Commute

Single parents of the world, if I could give all of you a two week vacation to a tropical island resort, I would, because you deserve a break.  I am fortunate enough to have a wonderful husband to share the work of parenting with and I still yearn for a tropical vacation approximately 27-28 times an hour on any given day (quadruple that in the winter).

I have extra appreciation for single parents this week because Rich had to go out of town for work for 5 days and I am on day 4 of "single momming it." It's actually gone pretty well. I am managing just fine.
I've even enjoyed my time with Valerie more than I expected this week.  We've had some sweet morning snuggles and some fun moments that probably wouldn't have happened if dad was here.

But she is also entering a SUPER fun phase of being SUPER whiny and clingy. When we're home she wants to be held all the time and will loudly whine and carry on if she's not being properly catered to. And her demands can be challenging to meet if one needs to, say, make dinner, or take off one's coat.

We get home around 6-6:30 every evening and she's already starving for dinner, so I immediately try to distract her so I can quickly heat up/cut up some dinner for her. Meanwhile she's whining and moaning at my feet to pick her up and take her over to the fridge so she can point to the pictures of babies on the fridge.  Her demands are really pretty simple.  "I don't know why you can't just stop what you're doing and help me look at my baby friends on the fridge Mom! and by the way I'M STARVING WHERE IS MY DINNER WOMAN!?!?"

Then, there's dinner, which I have to admit is getting faster and better every day. Two words that usually describe her eating dinner are slow and messy. But she is actually improving in both these areas. The past two nights she's eaten really good dinners, not taken forever, and not thrown excessive handfuls of food on the floor. So, fantastic progress there.

Evenings can be a bear and they are a lot less fun by myself than with Rich's help.  When we're both home, we take turns picking her up from school (and enduring the sometimes fussy/trafficky drive home), and then one of us can play with her while the other gets dinner ready and we can coach her through dinner together, and then one of us can put her to bed while the other cleans up.

Alone, I get to leave work, drive to her school, pick her up and try to entertain her while battling traffic, make dinner, listen to whining, watch her eat, put her to bed and then clean up. Thank god she's asleep by 7:30-8 because that is an exhausting two hours after a full day of work.

Mornings are not so bad. She's pretty cheerful and cute in the morning (once she gets her bottle!!!  It's like the toddler equivalent of coffee.  DO NOT talk to her til she's sucked down 8 oz of milk in one go).

The worst part about single mom mornings is the extra driving.  Rich usually does the morning daycare drop-off because it's close to his work. It's completely out of the way for me. We live 7 minutes away from my work, but when I have to drop her off first, it takes closer to 30-40 minutes.  And I really, really hate driving in traffic.

Here I will admit that I am terribly spoiled by my 7 minute commute.  It's the BEST FRICKIN THING EVER. It makes me crabby to have to spend 80 minutes of my day driving rather than 14. I realize some people have far longer commutes than this.  Like one or even two hours each way.  I would recommend dramatic life changes for those people... if it were me.  I could not cope with such a long commute every day. Way too much time lost. If it's a driving commute, that is.  A bus or train commute where you can take a nap, work or surf the web is a different animal. That's not so bad.  But driving for more than an hour a day every day would seriously downgrade my standard happiness quotient.

So, single parents and people with long commutes...and, lord have mercy, people who are both(!!!!)... I salute you, brave citizens. I have nearly survived my 5 days of single parenting and extra driving and I can't wait to get back into my spoiled working mom routine where I have tons of help. Hopefully this experience will help me to properly appreciate how easy I have it.

It's a good life. Reading back through this, it sounds like a pretty dreary daily routine, but I honestly feel like I have it all. Family and work and friends and great health... My daughter is healthy and growing and turning into an awesome little person.  It's a lot of work, but she also brings us so much joy. I get to spend my days with people I love and people I laugh with and pretty soon there will be drinking on patios too.  It doesn't get any better than that!

I wouldn't keep you little

A lot of parents say they wish they could keep their babies little forever.  I'm not one of those parents. While I adore my now-14-month-old "little baby" who's quickly toddling her way to toddler status, I never for a moment wish to go back to when she was a tiny, inert lump, which newborns are.

Don't get me wrong, she was a cute lump, but honestly there is nothing about that stage that I miss. She didn't smile for the first time until she was about 12 weeks old and it was a LOOOOOONG 12 weeks waiting for that smile. When you put so much time, blood, sweat and milk into caring for a completely helpless human, the least you want in return is a little love and they can't give it yet.

People who say they wish they could keep their babies little are probably referring to the smiling, sitting-up stage around 5-8 months. Babies definitely get cuter around this age as they fatten up and lose their smushed alien newborn look. But I wouldn't go back to this stage either, cute as it was. Valerie wanted to go places and reach for things but she couldn't crawl yet. It was frustrating for her to wiggle on her hands and knees trying and failing to get anywhere. And of course she still really could not communicate at all except by crying or smiling.

Each age for me has been more fun than the last. Every tiny step toward personhood is a victory. Every new development lets a baby show you her personality, her love, her curiosity; every gain in physical strength lets her explore and discover the world around her and you begin to see who she will be. This is so much greater to me than an adorable but impenetrable creature who is impossible to interact with.

Every day my struggle is to enjoy her as she is now and not wish away the day, hoping that tomorrow will be the day she finally says "mama" or uses a spoon to eat. Every time she makes the next big leap in development there's another one right behind it that she can't do yet.

She is new to walking and getting steadier every day and I can't lie, seeing her walk on her own feet fills me with joy every time. And not just because she's so hilariously and adorably wobbly.

I can't imagine seeing her toddling around the backyard pointing at everything she sees and wishing she was a tiny baby again.  Nothing is more thrilling than seeing her grow into an upright, capable person.

I sing songs to Valerie all the time now. Her eyes absolutely light up whenever she hears one of her favorite songs. Keep in mind I can't carry a tune to save my life. I'm still trying to learn the words to the animal sounds song even though I've heard it about a million times (that one is her absolute favorite). But she loves it when I sing and smiles and claps for more. I'm sure she will soon be demanding that I never sing again and I don't want to be singing the ABCs 10 times a day forever, but tonight I was trying to remember the words to "Baby Beluga" and "Down by the Bay" on the way home and actually really enjoying myself.  Anyone having a rough day should try singing their favorite kid's song to a toddler who listens, entranced. One of those mom moments you never anticipated loving, but there it is.

Today was a pretty successful one in the ongoing struggle to enjoy the moment. It is getting easier. All I have to do is ask, "what does a chicken say?"  and the tiny answer, "cuck cuck," climbs inside my heart and fills it to the brim til I can't imagine loving her any more. 

This is my experience of being a mom so far: getting to watch this brand new person meet herself as she gradually becomes aware that she exists. I have no idea what tomorrow holds but my little girl will be a little older, a little stronger, and a little more aware than she was today, and I will be there to see it.

I have an image of her in my mind, wearing a backpack, her hair in pigtails, getting on the school bus by herself. Off to school she goes!  I love to imagine her like this, old enough to tell me about her day, ask questions, surprise me and make me laugh with the things she says.

I know that day is coming faster than I realize and I can hardly wait.