we do more than just eat pie

sometimes we take two spoons to the same yogurt and use mama's belly as a table.

grahamwich

to commemorate our work at the county clerk, where else would we go for lunch but to ...

naming OUR baby: update

looks like we have a graham!

patrick made it known that he liked the name graham a lot.  he seemed more passionate about the name graham than i seemed about callum, but i told him that he was going to have to go and change the birth certificate himself.  and he almost did, but then he asked me if i could.  i figured i'd just go do it since i had agreed to the name.  

it was so incredibly easy to change the birth certificate!!
it took maybe four minutes, and there was no wait. so easy in fact, that i almost went back this week and changed it back to callum.

crazy, crazy mama. 

(clearly i'm still not super comfortable with this name, since this was over a week ago and i'm just now getting around to posting it, i haven't changed the names of photo folders on my desktop, and i haven't even broadcast it on FB.  plus his callum marden larkin social security card arrived the same day i changed his birth certificate. but i'm trying here.)

baby brother's birth story, part one (of 22 hours)

saturday, may 12

"patrick, the shocks on your car are broken or something."
"no they're not, why do you say that?"
"because this is the bumpiest ride ever. i wish we took my car."

we hopped out of the car to discuss our plan of attack for the day with our realtor, phil. 

turns out we were going to venture into some more northern neighborhoods while still staying within chicago lines, putting us in proximity of a few really good schools. 

"ok, we'll meet you at 'beans and bagels' in rockwell crossing then!" we hopped back into our car to head north separately from phil.  

when we were just two blocks away, i wasn't sure if i was spilling my warm tea on myself ... or ... "patrick, it's not an emergency or anything, but my water just broke."

i swear he almost swerved off the road.

***

at that point i generally would have preferred to go home, where piper was being watched by our friend meg, to finish packing my hospital bag and take a shower before heading out to have a baby.  but i was GBS Positive for this pregnancy, and after my water broke we called the doctor who said i really should head right over to the hospital to protect the baby.

GBS Positive = Go to Hospital if Water Breaks
in pregnancy, as the last several weeks approch, the doctor tests for presence of a certain bacteria in the mother.  it's called group b strep (GBS), it comes and goes, and is harmless to the mother. however, it can be passed to the baby during delivery which is quite dangerous. therefore if it's present, the mother needs to take antibiotics while giving birth. i didn't have it with piper, but tested positive this time.  it's easy enough to manage, you just have to let the hospital staff know upon arrival and they'll make sure you get the antibiotics. but because my water broke, the baby was now prematurely exposed. which meant i had to get to the hospital and start on the antibiotics. 

we were pretty far away and it took a good 45 minutes through weird saturday traffic to get over to the hospital.  on the way, i texted meg to see what kind of plans she had for the afternoon. thank goodness she didn't have any and was able to keep watching piper.

after telling patrick it was no big deal, i freaked out the entire drive. i was sweating, i was so nervous! when your water breaks, it releases a hormone into your body that helps induce contractions.  so i was convinced that i was going to start having crazy contractions while we were stuck in traffic.  i know patrick was sweatin' it too.  but we obviously made it. 

i tried to blame patrick's shocks for breaking my water.

naming a baby

The following post from DesignMom couldn't have come at a better time. It was about two or three weeks after the baby was born, just as all the post-partum hormones in my body were surging. I was going through those ups and downs that happen after sleepless nights on end, and having the kind of days where the wrong question at the wrong time could send me into a tearful fit. And then this post came along, and sounded so much like our own story. This lady didn't even sound crazy. I stopped worrying about what people might be thinking of me. I knew we would indeed give our little guy an official name, and it wasn't the end of the world that we hadn't decided yet. Thank goodness for this post.

Here's the post (or find it here):

from the designmom blog, photo by bluelily photography

The lovely Gina recently posted about baby naming in Sweden. We exchanged a couple of emails about the traditions there and she explained that Swedes will sometimes take many months — even a year! — before they name their babies.
It got me thinking about my own baby naming stories. As soon as we knew he was a boy, we picked Ralph’s name. But Maude’s first birth certificate said Miriam (seems so strange now, it wouldn’t fit her at all!). We ended up changing her name to Maude the day after we filed the Miriam paperwork, but we didn’t get around to getting a new birth certificate for a few months.
I remember standing in line at a bland government office, arms full of little toddler Ralph and tiny baby Maude, going through the red tape to get the new certificate, feeling completely overwhelmed, and promising myself that if we had any more babies, we’d have the name figured out before we left the hospital — so that I’d never have to refile that paperwork again. Hah!
What about you? Did your baby’s name come to you right away? Or did you have to search for it? Are any of you like the Swedish? Did you spend a few months after the baby was born trying on names until you decided?

P.S. — I find Swedish child-rearing endlessly interesting. Remember the preschools that are entirely outdoor? Also, remember tiny Baby June?

bang bang pie shop

while i was still pregnant, there was a place i really wanted to take patrick and piper for breakfast.

so patrick gathered his kindle.

and piper brought her ipad.

(luckily i wasn't the only piggy)

and mama had pie for breakfast!

(it was shaker blood orange pie with a balsamic drizzle)

brunch with the girls

after i dropped holly off at the airport at the end of her visit, i immediately headed to meet christine, lena, amy, and elaine (plus milla, christine's friend from SF who just moved to chicago) for my second brunch of the day. i was pregnant, so that makes it ok.

we've been trying to get the ball rolling with a standing brunch date (like what i do with my brunch club group).  and for our may brunch, all the girls brought gifts for the baby and surprised me with them! they all got baby boy clothes for the new little man. it was SO sweet of them.

thank you, thank you, thank you, girls!

christine's gift happened to be a two-parter, with a gift for piper as well. i took piper's home to her so that she could open it herself, and she was ready to rip into right away!

the ribbon was VERY fun.

taking her new shirt over to the couch with her

the kids got 'little brother' and 'big sister' tee shirts from christine ...

they're adorable, and piper loved opening her gift! thank you, christine!

holly's chicago weekend part 4

continued from holly's chicago weekend part 3 (here) ...
saturday
lara came over on saturday morning. while holly and i had grand plans of heading out to a farmer's market early in the morning and whipping up some farm fresh breakfast for lara's arrival, we instead all kind of slept in and decided we'd go out for brunch instead.

morning
miss lara came over. yay!!! it was so great to see her!
we walked to brunch and had a lovely time catching up with lara.
on our walk back home, we spotted a scripps license plate frame and tried to take a self portrait of our faces at the butt of a stranger's car.  not weird or anything.

afternoon
we went for mani/pedis and then saw lara off with her friends for the wedding they were all attending.  so sad to see her go.
late afternoon
sarah came over and she got to play with miss piper and talk to patrick for awhile. piper LOVED sarah. she wanted to BE sarah, and by the end of the visit, piper was sporting sarah's shades and gold iphone. 

 snuggled up in sarah's lap

becoming mini sarah

evening
eventually, our stomachs started to grumble, but we were in a low key kind of mood. we decided to go to a BYOB called Urban Belly.

instead of going to the wine shop around the corner, i thought it'd be fun to go to a wine shop over in the noble square area, a slowly emerging neighborhood, where they usually have several bottles of wine open for tasting. however, we had a self-proclaimed pot head helping us and she was super weird. we settled on a luis pato wine out of portugal, instead of something from the $10 rack that our pot head was steering us toward. again, she was so weird.

we finally headed over to Urban Belly. it's a small communal dining style restaurant, owned by chef bill kim his wife yvonne, which boasts itself as 'noodles reimagined.' it's definitely out of the way, but the chef has an interesting background including that he was sous chef and chef de cuisine at charlie trotter's (which has been awarded best restaurant in the country and the world, over the years). he wanted to get away from fine dining, and opened his own restaurant under his and his wife's own creative concepting. urban belly received a bib gourmand star from the michelin guide for 2011, but i heard there was a lot of controversy with those awards last year?

food reviewer steve dolinsky says this, "In many ways, the restaurant feels like a response to David Chang's wild success in New York with his Momofuku empire. Both guys are Korean; both love pig and both have set-up shop in out-of-the-way neighborhoods. Kim has been honing his recipes and adding his own Korean spin. Like Chang, who began in a gritty part of the Lower East Side, Kim opted to open his "baby" as he called it, on a similarly desolate stretch of North California Avenue, in what might graciously be called Avondale, although local real estate agents might stretch it and say Far North Logan Square."

bill kim's second restaurant is a block away from us, and has a korean-latin influence; it's called belly shack. 

i didn't want to eat in my own backyard while having guests in town, so thought we'd venture out, but i think i made the wrong call! look sarah, belly shack has gluten free choices!!!

The "Shack" is located under the Western Blue Line Station and decorated with Banksy-inspired graffiti decorating the walls. Belly Shack is Bill Kim and his wife, Yvonne Cadiz-Kim's new Latin-Asian inspired casual dining restaurant. The menu is short and focused, but still takes some risks (there are even several vegetarian/vegan and gluten-free choices).

we took sarah back to her friends' place after dinner, and then we ourselves headed off to bed.

sunday

holly's flight was on sunday, but we did have time to squeeze in brunch.  patrick picked, and off to revolution brewery we went.  it's in the logan square neighborhood.  we definitely took holly to some places a typical tourist would never venture to. 

revolution brewery

i never order pancakes.

not a pancake person.

usually.

but i loved my porter pancakes with michigan cherries, which looked something like the above.

after brunch, a HUGE storm came in and it was time for holly to leave us.

at the airport, she actually got to hang out with lara who was also flying back out!

piper looks sad to see her go.

bye holly!

sorry the weather was so freakishly chilly, we didn't get to spend much time outside, and that our scripps party never came together.  none the less, it was great to spend time with you!

what we've been calling him

we've been introducing him as graham.
but i still accidentally think baby cal sometimes.

what i love

i love his little feet.

i may love piper's hands, but i love baby brother's feet.

this little guy

this little boy is freakin' wonderful.

...

 

he came out with blond hair!

(it's already getting darker)

with his signature scratch on his nose

holly's chicago weekend part 3

continued from part 2. (here)

after tea at the peninsula, holly and i came home and watched pipes for a little bit while patrick went somewhere. when he came back, we headed on our way out to dinner.

friday evening
for background, when leslie visited, we went to the girl & the goat and were able to snag seats at the bar at 10p on a weeknight. this time with holly,  it was 9p on a weekend, but we decided to give it a go!!!

this is stephanie izard's restaurant. she was the winner of the fourth season of top chef. to date, i think she is the only woman in nine seasons to have won top chef.

it was packed when we got there, so we stalked a spot at the bar where it looked like the party was finished with drinks and just waiting for their table to be ready. we asked them, and they said they'd been waiting 3.5 hours for a table. that is WAY too long to wait for a table!!! they were crazy. and half an hour later, when they left, they gave us their spot at the bar. it pays to have a giant pregnant belly!! but really it was holly's quick thinking that got us the spot.

here's a pic from the website.

the night we were there, we could even see stephanie izard hustling on the line in the kitchen.

"The Goat's menu is divided into three categories: Vegetable, Fish, and of course Meat--while vegetable, fish, or meat are respectively the main stars of their categories, there are crossovers in each area so you'll get a little bit of everything. Bread is baked daily, and there are always new creations on the menu.

Girl & the Goat sits in the West Loop smack dab in the Randolph Restaurant Corridor, but the location is still gritty enough to appeal to the chef’s integrity. The Goat has a variety of seating choices, including a comfortable lounge, bar seats, standard table seating, and four seats close enough to the kitchen line that you might be asked to help."

now i can't remember exactly what we had, but i can tell you it was delicious. i believe the salad we ordered might have been kohlrabi, almonds, and blueberries? we ordered the house baked bread with a tomato oil and a mushroom butter (the name of the side was some sort of play on campbell's soup). holly noted that the tomato oil kept separating. i never would have noticed, or minded. leave it to the wife of a chef to notice the details! that's why it's fun to eat out with holly, she's definitely a good dining partner! and we shared the goat rillette empanadas. yes, of course i had some goat while at girl and the goa, even though i'm one of those non-red-meat people. i loved the flavors of the empanada, i just wished there wasn't so much of that darned meat part in there! i'm sure all the 'normal' people were wishing there was more. i may not be a meat eater, but i kind of want to be. them's fightin' words.

who can resist this cute little goat?

we were too full for dessert (not to mention it was pressing midnight!)!

holly even snuck away with one of the menus for scott.
i'm so glad we waited it out to eat here!

p.s. i think holly has a real picture of the real us eating here. holly, yes?

baby's first week: a quick recap

we ran into a few little hiccups during our baby boy's first week, but he rebounded beautifully and is healthy and strong. 

since he was born "big" he had to pass glucose tests before/after meals while in the hospital.  this was to make sure that his body was monitoring his blood sugars, which can drop when a large baby doesn't have access to an umbilical cord, aka endless buffet. 

rawr!

he didn't seem to be latching all that well, but he did just fine on his tests, indicating that he was getting enough food.

however, when we returned to the doctor at his 4 day appointment, he had a fever of 101, had lost 15% of his birthweight (the healthy threshold being 10%) and he had high bilirubin levels (jaundice).

 the evening before his 4 day appointment we noticed

he was looking a little yellow, poor fellow

we were sent to children's memorial hospital.
these things are not uncommon for infants, but were serious enough to not treat lightly.

it was a little scary, because our little guy was SO lethargic by this point.
results at the hospital showed he didn't need the jaundice lamp treatments, but he had to be monitored.  i switched to pumping, feeding him expressed milk with a bottle, so that we knew how much food he was getting.

piper holding her baby and giving her brother a pacifier.

master multi-tasker.

we had several follow up appointments with the pediatricians, and a lactation consultant came to our home.

he started gaining weight (and has since surpassed his birthweight), his bilirubin levels declined, and of course his fever dissipated. 

he's doing just fine! 

between all the doctor's appointments, deciding on a name and dealing with birth certificate people calling us just wasn't our highest priority while we were focusing on these other things.

he is our super snuggly, lovey baby with or without a name!

do we have a name YET?

since everyone is asking, here's the low down.
get ready, it's a long, messy story.

we did not pick a name (or even settle on a small handful of names) before we got to the hospital.

then the baby was born.

and patrick said his name was graham.

after a veto and my two weeks of trying to convince him otherwise, it's true that patrick had eventually come back to me and told me he was ok with the name graham months after my initial suggestion. but we discussed it no further than that. i was very frustrated regarding the lack of discussion around names, but figured a healthy baby should be the focus.

after patrick declared the baby's name as graham at the hospital, i was left sitting with my jaw dropped in my delivery bed and asked, shouldn't we discuss it?  there are other names i like, too, and we just haven't even discussed it and i had no idea you were set on that name.

he asked what other names i liked, noting that it could not be ned.  (it's true, i like ned.)

i reminded him that he had seen the list i made 100x, but that i still loved the nickname cal.  yet patrick does not like calvin or other variations like callan. turned out he does like callum, which is gaelic. turned out he seemed to like it a whole lot.

so we left the hospital undecided between two first names:
1. callum, with nickname cal
2. graham

note, they're both 6 letters, have the short 'a' sound as in cat, and end in m. 

(little baby's middle name is definitely marden, which was patrick's mother's maiden name.)

later in the week after we went home nameless, the birth certificate people called and said we had to submit our paperwork by the next morning.  in my exhaustion, i didn't ask what the 'or else' would be but i figured the urgency would help us decide.

the next morning came, and i cried to patrick as we put a name on the papers and faxed them away.  i cried because a) post-natal hormones make me crazy and b) i just wasn't ready to commit. but we did actually submit a name about a week after he was born.  there were still a lot of other more important things going on with the baby (see "baby's first week" post), and i just kind of threw my arms up in the air and said, let's just be done with it. 

as could have been predicted, over the weekend i had "buyer's remorse" so much that i thought i hated the name we picked, which was callum. 

i wanted to know how we could change it. patrick researched how to change a first name online, which in illinois looked to be a six month process.  i was crushed, but not convinced this was true.

i tried redialing the number that the birth certificate people had called me from. it just rang, and rang, and rang. i was so MAD that they had pressured me into submitting something; wouldn't we have been better off just waiting? like a crazy lady, i tried multiple times throughout the day.

the next day i called the hospital, and got passed around, eventually reaching the the post-natal data center.  and i was put in touch with a real person from the birth certificates team!

i asked her to check on whether they had definitely submitted our papers. i thought maybe i could intercept them.  but they had already been sent in. i started crying. the lady could tell. i asked her if she knew how to change a name.

she said i had to go to the county clerk. i started crying more, and through my choked back tears, explained that we researched it and found out that it takes six months.

she laughed kindly, and said that's not the case with a newborn, and that's only when you have to work through the state.  at this point, we just have to go through the county, and have basically the first year to change the name at the county clerk's office.  she said i just have to go down with ID, and explain that the hospital submitted the name we provided, but that we've had a change of  heart.

i felt SO much better. i didn't want our son's name to be callum only by reasons of default, or because it would be too hard to change it.  just knowing we weren't stuck with the name gave me relief. 

and after i got off the phone, i instantly felt better about having a little cal.

i told patrick that it should be easy to change it to graham ... if we wanted.
and i was back at square one, undecided.
oh my god ... again!


so i have introduced the baby to nurse, doctors and strangers with both names, to try to see if one fits or feels better. 

the frustrating thing about the name callum, is that when we were in the hospital and wrote that name on the patient info on our white board, some people mis-pronounced it. it's a pretty common name in the UK.  it's just less common here, so we'd be looking at a lifetime of mis-pronunciation. however, i get that for devon, and i've survived.  but do i want to go through all that for my son's name too?  not sure!  i think callum is a great name, though, and i love the nickname cal.  and i even think he looks like a little cal.

when i asked piper to call him cal, she moo'd back at me.  that's CAL, piper, not COW!

but after i threw my fit over needing to know how to change the name, patrick figured that we were, in fact, changing cal's name to graham.  it turns out that while i thought patrick had switched his allegiance to callum in the names discussion, he actually says he still likes graham better.  graham was my number one choice at the beginning, but when patrick said no, i had dismissed it. so getting used to it as a real contender so late in the game was a shock.  but it sure does sound pretty darn good with larkin.  and people are familiar with the name graham. 

so, sigh, i still really sit between the two. 
we've asked people to take sides, out of curiosity, and the "votes" are actually pretty split as well.

if we go with graham, i've got to go down to the icky county clerk's office (with a newborn!) and find out if it's as easy to change as the birth certificates lady told me it would be.  otherwise, we just need to resolve to stick with callum.  we just have to decide!!

i'm telling people that we have to finalize paperwork either way, even though we don't technically have to do any paperwork if we stick with cal.  it's just too long of a story to break it down for everyone.  and to me, it's still a matter of finalizing anyway. 
so there you have it, folks!

stay tuned.

her beauty mark

did you know piper has a beauty mark?
i'm guessing that when all her other freckles (that she's bound to have like her mama) come in, this beauty mark will fade into the masses.  then she'll have like 100 beauty marks.  but this is the first:

my beauty queen

a beauty mark and lashes to die for

(it is so hard to get this little lady to hold still enough to get a picture!)