Fannee Doolee

Half-way, Hamburgers and Happiness

Today is the official half-way mark of this pregnancy - let's hope the second half goes a little better than the first.  I was not too surprised to find out that we're having a girl, and I felt overjoyed to see those first glimpses of her little face, hands, her beating heart.  She clearly waved at us during the ultrasound, and at one point she had her mouth wide open as if calling out to us.  The best part was listening to the kids' reactions though.  After the doctor informed us that she saw a "hamburger" I said - that means it's a girl.  An asked, "Really?  How can you tell."  Without missing a beat, my OB replied rather matter-of-factly, "because she doesn't have a penis." 

"Hamburgers" and "hot dogs" are lay-person terms for what the visual depiction of a baby's genitalia looks like through an ultrasound.  In her honor, I made hamburgers on the grill tonight.  The kids could not have been more thrilled.  Logan insisted on putting ketchup and mustard on his, and both kids devoured their burgers, thanking me the whole time for making such a delicious dinner.  I said, "if I'd known you'd like it so much, I'd have made hamburgers for dinner every night this month!"  Logan thought that sounded like a swell idea. 

On Saturday, we took the kids to see the matinee performance of the high school's production of "Your a Good Man, Charlie Brown."  An had a starring role in the behind-the-scenes work on this show - she was on the make-up crew and helped with some fairly elaborate set-up and clean up for the finale's special effects.  The show itself is really nothing more than several charming one-liners and comic-strip length dialogs strung together with various musical numbers, all pulled off rather impressively by the student cast.  About half of the cast members were teens from our church, and the attendees at the matinee performance seemed to include a majority of the toddler families from church as well. 

For the finale, the cast sings a sentimental but up-beat number called "Happiness is . . ."   The special effects included bubble sprays, and the numerous kids in the audience immediately took flight from their seats to dance and play in the bubbles in the theater aisles.  The effect combined the audience with the stage show, and I was struck by how soon the day will come when our little ones will be the young adults on stage, taking their final curtain call before leaving the nest.  At church the next morning, I was glad to hear from the other moms who attended that it wasn't just my pregnancy-inflated hormones that led me to tear up. 

It's a . . . .

Watch and find out!

Good Clean Fun

Churros

Yesterday, I attended my second class on "The Art of Positive Parenting," a six-week  course being offered by my firm - more on that later.  For now, it suffices to say that I am embracing the concept of establishing open, supportive lines of communication with my children and relieving myself of the "good mother" syndrome, described basically as the need to micromanage your children and solve all of their problems for them.

So it was fortuitous that I came home from work in that rather open-minded state on the night that An and her friends were planning to use my kitchen to prepare Churros, a Mexican dessert, to take in to Spanish class the next day.  Although I was a little apprehensive about three teenagers deep-frying on an electric range, I limited my interference to purely safety-related guidance and let them have at it.  The final product was quite lovely, albeit a bit "turd" shaped:

The actual recipe called for a fluted pastry tube, but we improvised with a baggie and some tinfoil, hence the shape.  However, the taste was out of this world.  Recipe below. 

Churros

Ingredients: (Makes one plate full)
Vegetable or Olive Oil
1 cup water
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

Prepare to fry the churros by heating oil in a pan (1 to 1&1/2 inches) to 360 degrees F.

To make churro dough, heat water, margarine and salt to rolling boil in 3-quart saucepan; stir in flour. Stir vigorously over low heat until mixture forms a ball, about 1 minute; remove from heat. Beat eggs all at once; continue beating until smooth and then add to saucepan while stirring mixture.

Spoon mixture into cake decorators tube with large star tip (like the kind use to decorate cakes). Squeeze 4-inch strips of dough into hot oil. Fry 3 or 4 strips at a time until golden brown, turning once, about 2 minutes on each side. Drain on paper towels. (Mix Sugar and the optional cinnamon); roll churros in sugar or dump the sugar on the pile of churros, like the pros. That churro taste will take you right back to your favorite summer days walking the paseos of Spain.

Note: REAL churros in Spain are made without cinnamon mixed with the sugar, but the cinnamon adds an extra nice flavor.

A few photos of the chefs in action:

An and Skyler contemplate doubling or quadrupling the recipe while Mai fashions a pastry tube out of tin foil.

I was a little worried that someone's hair would catch on fire.

Speaking of hair . . .

Logan and Kiki pay complements to chef Mai.

Prom

Columbus is the home of Nationwide Insurance, a company that inundates the city with its huge advertising campaigns.  The latest is one that features three repeated pictures  - the first two showing images of unchanging youth.  In one series, it's a young man with a mop-top crop of curly dark hair; another features a cute pre-schooler with pig-tails and knee socks; a third (my favorite) is a Fabio inspired cover of a romance novel titled "Forever Young."  Then, the third picture in each series slams down the message of the campaign with a contrasting image - the same smiling young man appears, but now nearly bald; the cute little pre-schooler becomes a sassy teen with goth make-up to compliment her pig-tails and thigh-high looking knee socks; Fabio becomes withered and wrinkled, and his formerly buxom heroine gazes sadly down at her empty corset.  The tag line for this campaign:  Life comes at you fast.

That is exactly what I felt like this Saturday, rushing around at the last minute trying to find a boutonniere, picking up a An's prom dress from the cleaners, tracking her down to take pictures, and calling after her at all hours of the night to check in on her whereabouts.  I should've had at least another ten years to prepare for being a prom parent! 

Click the flickr icon in the left sidebar for more prom photos.    

M'Bump

With a third pregnancy, I guess there's really no such thing as "popping" in the fourth month - it's pretty much a gradual spread.  Those stretched-out ab muscles don't pose much resistance.  Hence, I now look fairly pregnant:

17.5 weeks

(No, the blur is not some artsy Photoshop treatment; I've been getting a little braver with my camera settings and forgot to switch back to auto focus before giving my camera to An to snap a few photos).

I'm also feeling better and ready to start being excited about this baby.  With Logan, I kept an in-depth pregnancy journal chronicling every single craving, dream, pound and stretch mark.  With Keelin, I started to keep a calendar, but soon gave up when I realized the only things I would be recording were my endless stream of maladies.  With this pregnancy, I have known from the get go that any record keeping I would do at all would have to take place here. 

The first thing I recall about this pregnancy is my super-sonic smelling ability.  It appeared in the first few weeks, even before I knew I was pregnant.   Our choir sang in mixed formation one morning, and I found myself sitting next to a gruff but golden-voiced baritone who often performs maintenance and odd-jobs for the church.  Patrick was on my other side, and I couldn't help but lean over in the middle of the service and whisper to him how wonderful the man on my other side smelled - a little Old Spice, perhaps, with a little Downey and maybe some Colgate.  I could have climbed onto his lap and fallen asleep right there in the sanctuary.

Then I started having the crazy dreams and my hormones kicked in.  In the weeks - OK months - that followed, it has been all I could do to keep from memorializing my morning sickness.  I lie in bed at night and compose the lists - the times I've thrown up, the different places I've thrown up, the things I've thrown up, including numerous interesting food combinations, some more pleasant than others.  If you get the picture, be immensely grateful I resisted that urge.   

I began feeling those first little squishy-flippy sensations in my belly the last few days of March, and by the first week of April, I began experiencing daily that sensation that some tiny muscle or membrane deep within me was "flexing."  Now, that sensation comes several times a day, and this morning sitting in church I felt more definite "pokes," or at least what I imagined were tiny little feet dancing on my bladder. 

As for cravings, mostly I crave anything that will take this foul-mouthed nausea away, which has led to a rather unhealthy vice:  Coke.  I drink one or two every day.  Full-strength, of course not diet and not even caffeine free (I never did give up coffee this time around).  I am also constantly chewing and spitting out double mint gum.  It's the only thing (besides the fizzy coke) that takes that sweaty-jockstrap taste out of my mouth, but the gum also makes me gag after a few minutes, so I spit it out and reach for a new piece a few minutes after that.

As for aversions, would you believe . . . chocolate???  Only since Easter have I managed to sneak down a few M & M's.  I cannot remember any Easter when I have not gorged myself on Reese's peanutbutter cup eggs (truly, the perfect chocolate-peanut butter ratio, no matter what the Germans say), and this year I ate not a one. 

My exercise routine has been non-existence, but I do think I can count the walk from my car to my office each day, especially the extra miles I gain looking for my car (pregnancy has made me prone to forgetting where I parked) and from my many trips to the bathroom.  As luck would have it, my office is located the furthest possible distance from the women's rest room.  There is no one in the entire 37 floor building that has to walk further to the bathroom than I do. 

I mentioned previously that my face is a mess - more so than with either previous pregnancy, but my hair and nails are jammin' despite the fact that I frequently forget to take my pre-natals (hopefully all those extra nutrients in the Coke will make up for that).  And I already have sooo many stretch marks, who knows if I'll even notice when I inevitably add to that collection. 

Kiki and Logan remain excited about the baby.  Kiki is convinced I'm having twins.  Logan gently reminds her that she'll have to help him take care of this next baby.  I think they both predict it's a girl.   Less than two weeks till we find out!

I'm seriously considering selling the naming rights, however, so start thinking up some good monikers.   

Wind Energy

Alternate title: What We Did On Spring Break, Part II

Our drive to and from Michigan takes us along a strip of I-75 that sits about 5 miles away from four enormous wind turbines that were erected a few years ago. As Patrick loves all things green, this portion of the trip becomes a bit precarious as he tries to spy the whirling giants through the tree tops and misty skies.  Once spotted, I am always amazed at how larger-than-life they appear, even from miles away.

This last time we passed by the turbines, it was a glorious day, and we had some time to spare, so I gave Patrick the go ahead to exit the freeway and head toward the giant pinwheels.  Our little jaunt turned out to be an educational sight-seeing venture and unique photo shoot:

Patrick could hardly contain himself.

According to this information published by Green Energy Ohio (Patrick is a member, of course), the first two turbines went up in 2003. 

Family photo.   An is thinking "Why am I standing here in the middle of a cornfield?  All of my friends got to go to the beach!"

I had Logan pose for perspective, to help give a sense of the size of these things.  Although they are enormous, they are amazingly silent.   The three blades are also unexpectedly narrow, but apparently designed for maximum efficiency.

Looking over these pictures during Easter week, I couldn't help but think of images of the cross. 

Modern symbols of sacrifice and renewal.

King Logan v. Evil Queen Ba Ba

Alternate title:  "What I Did on My Spring Break in Michigan with Nana and Two Kids" by An.

So Emo

So Emo, originally uploaded by Fannee Doolee.

A few weeks ago, it happened - An stumped me with a vocabulary word from the Modern American Teen Vernacular that I'd never heard before: emo.

"What's 'emo' ?"

"You know - emo."

I didn't know - was it a person/creature, like Elmo? Was it a band? A movie? A code word for some strange ritual kids do to themselves or each other?

Patrick didn't know either, but thanks to the many definitions at urbandictionary.com, we are enlightened.  This one seems particularly applicable:

"Genre of softcore punk music that integrates unenthusiastic melodramatic 17 year olds who don't smile, high pitched overwrought lyrics and inaudible guitar rifts with tight wool sweaters, tighter jeans, itchy scarfs (even in the summer), ripped chucks with favorite bands signature, black square rimmed glasses, and ebony greasy unwashed hair that is required to cover at least 3/5 the of the face at an angle."

"OH! So THAT'S emo!" I totally get it. In fact, I'm now working on writing a self-help book titled, "Living With Your Emo Teen" and a companion book, "Emo Kindergartners: How Soon Can It Start?"

The photo above, which will be the cover for the former title, was taken after An stayed after school for a Drama Club make-up crew meeting during which she became somewhat of a guinea pig.  I don't think we're going to try to repeat this look for prom.  Click on the photo to see The Many Emo Faces of An in my flickr photostream. 

Profile

Profile, originally uploaded by Fannee Doolee.

Equal time for the many faces of Kiki.