A last hurrah

My friend Marina recently had her fifth and called her last big prenatal outing her last hurrah. I decided yesterday that in spite of my large girth and looming due date (one week) I really wanted to accompany my husband to his very first book signing in Washington DC, and bring our daughters along with us. So yesterday we had our last hurrah. It couldn't have been better.

I met up with a dear old childhood friend of mine (wondrous pilgrim) who lives in the city and the day was sunny and in the upper sixties. The folks at the bookstore (Politics and Prose) were very kind and so helpful and down in their lowere level is the best kept secret in coffee in d.c. I haven't had such a good lattè since the leaving Italy. And the pastry were worthy of the coffee too, to put it mildly.

It was such a joy to see Ben give his talk on comics to a group of school age children and while he signed copies of his book the girls and I perused the children's section and bought a book or two of our own. After the booksigning we parted ways with my friend and we headed to Chinatown for dumplings. Zita (who is gluten intolerant ) and I went to a food truck (wow. . . . foodtrucks. . . . .) and ate our food on the steps of the portrait museum, watching the washingtonians enjoying the fine weather on their lunch breaks and Ben and the others went for dumplings. Afterward we visited the museum and headed home on the metro.

One cannot put a price tag on a days outing in February with the sunshine and birdsong of April. Oh. . . . and the vienna metro sure has a lot of buskers now. Whenever we give them money I laugh and think about how all the starving artists are just passing the same money around to one another.

Per gravagna e per fede

Ecco. Devo scrivere in Italiano.

Fede,

Arrivera il bambino (a?) nel principio da Marzo. Speddiamo che tutto andava bene! Adesso mi sento grandissima! Le bimbe s hanno molto entusiasmo. La Angelica e la Zita volanno un fratellino ma la Giulia vole una sorellina.

Habbiamo preso un altro gatto anche noi!! In nostro e chiamato "Nicco" perche la Angelica recorda un gatto similare che Giuseppe ha dato lo stesso nome! Forse "Gustavo" e proprio un bel nome per un micio. Angelica ancora piace le luchertole e adesso anche le dinosaure. (? questo parola in Italiano non sonno sicuro. . . . )

Speddiamo che torniamo questo estate. Fa un preghiera a San Barttolomeo e San Rocco. . . . . .

Ci manca tantissimo!!!

Anche grazie a la Lina per la bellisima lettera che ha mandato per Natale!


Baci a Gravagna,

Anna

Look who's three!

Today we our first beautiful thick snow of the year and it was really lovely to get out and walk in it. It was beautiful thick wet stuff and it wasn't very cold so it made the snow so enjoyable. I have been so busy nesting for this baby, getting out the diapers and washing some of the things packed away when Julia was little. It seems like every time I have to get out those little yellow stains that show up on perfectly clean things. I washed my wool puddle pads which where way dirtier than I thought and now I have to re-lanolize them. And I sewed a silk I dyed into a blanket backing it with flannel and I loved how it turned out. Ben calls it my hippy baby blanket. It is rather psychidelic.
My midwives host a birth circle on the last tuesday of the month and I went the other night and met lots of wonderful moms and it was really fantastic, They always have San Pellegrino which is seriously like my favorite thing to drink when pregnant.

Wow this post is all about being pregnant but really I have been reading other things besides diaper catalogs. I am reading "Travels with my Aunt" by Graham Greene and it is the funniest book I have read in a long time. Perfect winter reading. Ben and I have been watching Dr. Who and I finally learned to knit socks and made a pair for Julia. I helped out with our neighbor's pig slaughtering in exchange for some meat and feel like I finally am getting a little bit better at making the different cuts on a pig. This year I was able to bone out some hams into pork cutlets and that was fun and tasty. Andrew did five pigs this year over two last year so it was a good opportunity to really cement in what I did last year and learn some more. So all in all it hasn't been a bad winter but it is getting to the point where I start to dream of zucchini and tomatoes and ripe peaches and blackberries. Sigh. . . . those days are still far off.

At least we have baby to look forward to sometime in the next four to six weeks!

Forgot to post this picture of Zita and Julia dressed as Bavarian shepherdesses for their Christmas play.

We are swinging back into more normal routine this week as much as we can with Julia's Birthday and Epiphany in the same week. It always is our final hurrah to the Christmas season. We tried burning frankincense this week which was cool but did make the whole house very smoky and I just kept feeling like I was at mass. It was a very strange feeling to have in one's home. Incidentally you can make a great incensor out of a tin can.

Ben had to fill out a survey for Shelf Awareness "Daily enlightenment in the book trade", some sort of reviewers. They wanted to know all the gritty details of his llong literary journey. He asked me to help him with it and I was honored. One of the questions was about books you have "fake read." We both fondly remembered (fakely of course) "Paradise lost", by John Milton. Did anyone at Christendom ever really read that book? Oh and Ben and I share at least two of five top favorite authors. Neil Gaiman and C.S: Lewis. Hooray! Remember, "A survey a day keeps the marriage counselor away."

Oh and Gwen taught us speed scrabble during her wonderful visit with us and I am totally hooked!

smoothie for sale

Anna's Pregnancy smoothie, adapted from a midwifery blog. I like it because it is, (or can be), all raw!

I cup yogurt
I/2 cup milk (raw if possible)
1 banana
1 TBS flax seeds or 2 tsp flax seed oil
3TBS coconut oil
1-2 raw eggs (I only do this with our own eggs and I only use the ones the day they are laid just to be exrtra careful, but if you have acsess to free range local eggs from a healthy flock this is okay otherwise a big no-no)

blend well

then add
1 cup fronzen berries
cinnamon or vanilla

you can also add a little honey or maple syrup to sweeten if needed

I think this baby packs a whopping 28 grams of protein and all of your calcium requirements. . . and the coconut oil stabilizes your blood sugar and the raw eggs give your liver a break.

Oh and Ben and my kids love this smoothie too and it is a great healthy snack. Wow, is there anything this smoothie can't do?

Oh and it is really important to blend the coconut oil into the other ingredients before adding the frozen stuff or you get these gross globs of cold coconut oil. Yuck.. . .

Buon Natale!!!! Christ the Lord is born!

The tree, the panettone, the waldorf dolls, most importantly the bambino divino!!!

We have had a lovely Christmas so far. The baby Jesus is here at last and the feasting has begun. With no less than nine kinds of cheese in the fridge, a new case of wine and the girls blissfully happy with their new dollhouse and furnishings from their grandmothers we will hopefully live out the last days of 2010 to their fullest.

Of course, today was full of bundling everyone out the door for the second mass of the weekend into the bitter cold followed by the usual crash from the sugar high of yesterday but all things considered everybody got to bed by eight. (even my husband) I am so full of baklava and chocolate that I for the first time in three days went to go make some nourishing nettle tea and soak some oats for a breakfast porridge. I am needing my health comfort foods already. There is something to a hot breakfast that is so needed at this time of year. I was on this smoothie kick the past two weeks and they are absolutely energizing and so nourishing but I have to down a glass of hot tea immediately afterward or I lost my core heat.

Hmmm footsteps, look like I spoke too soon. . . . .

Julia is down for food. So typical.

Oh m goodness she is a fickle thing. Here is a sample of our conversation this morning in bed. (they are almost all like this)

Julia: Mama I want some pants.

Me: Oh, Pants?

Julia: Yeah I want pants.

Me: Oh, okay there are your little red pants. They are over there, on the floor of your bedroom.

Julia: No I don't want pants.

Me: (puzzled) But you just said you wanted pants. You don't have to wear those. There are others here in the drawer.

Julia: (with emphasis) No, I DON'T want pants

Me: You don't want pants now?

Julia : Yeah no pants. (walks away shaking her head)

I just don't get it, do I. . . . . .

Okay I am off to do bed duty round two. How could I think it could be this easy the day after Christmas. I just don't get it do I?

. . . .Been a long and fun filled fall full of tons of fun family visitors and now we are gearing up for Christmas. I have been working hard on making the girls waldorf dolls, which consumes pretty much almost all my time now. I just finished the third one last night and realized that I did used to blog in a world without dollmaking and all our wonderful guests. So here I am again. I am not so little now and Hatke number four is going to be making an appearence early this spring.
Latley I have been drinking lots of awesome smoothies and have enjoyed cutting my own hair. I watched Scott Pilgrim and decided to bite the bullet and finally cut myself a cool thick bang (alas mine is not pink like Ramona Flowers) I had been on the fence with this one for a while. Last time I had bangs was back in my Audrey Hepburn phase freshman year of college.

The chickens have stopped laying almost completely this last couple weeks as we approach the solstice and there is pretty much no daylight at all. I am going to have to cave and buy eggs for the Christmas baking. Ben has been hoping we could get away without buying eggs but Christmas baking is CHristmas baking.

Hopefully I'll get a picture of the waldorf dolls up before they become worn with love.