The Concrete Gardener

A Short Photo Update

2012-06-02T09:35:00.001-04:00

Sadly our iPhoto library is still lost, and I am incapable of thinking through making a new one. When we were getting rid of all our stuff and scanning all our files, having that external hard drive gave me a huge sense of security and grounding. Even though we were saying goodbye to many physical reminders of our lives up to that point, there was evidence of those things in the forms of photos and so on.

It was actually not that hard to lose the hard drive. It was much harder for Eug from a technical standpoint: how could this happen, how could we not have a backup? Perhaps it was not hard for me because the present is so all-consuming.

He's really cute and fat, I promise.

But Eli is doing well, Noah is doing relatively well. I alternate between thinking Noah's the most wonderful thing since chocolate and having absolutely no idea how to understand and process his fiery emotions. I was reminded that when I was two, I thought my parents buried our dog alive and nothing could convince me otherwise. Even at fourteen, by which time I could rationally conclude my parents wouldn't bury our dog alive, the memory remained so powerful that I couldn't quite let it go. With that in mind, I try to take Noah's point of view seriously, however outlandish it seems.

Like Noah, Eli came out small-average and is quickly becoming huge from my resorting to breastfeeding pretty much any time I'm not sure what else to do. Breastfeeding covers over almost everything.

Reflections on Sanity

2012-05-22T09:40:00.001-04:00

I haven't known what to write here because my much of my energy seems to be dedicated to sanity. And I'm proud and don't like the idea of you coming here and finding a discussion (with myself) of how to stay sane; you probably have sanity covered pretty well, and if you don't there are better places to find refuge.

I also didn't want to talk about sleep deprivation because it seems a bit obvious when one has a 4-week old (can you believe he is four weeks already!). In fact, we have a newborn who wakes up a bunch of times every night to eat, and a 2 year old who wakes up a bunch of times just 'cos.

So, other than those two topics, what is there? Noah celebrated his second birthday and I made the chocolate beet cake and some raspberry vanilla ice-cream. Photos to come. Gladys is visiting from Nairobi this week, because she's helping run a conference at the ICC entitled "Money, Sex and Power" (what a title- you should see the speaker list)-and I am super excited, as you can tell.

And there's additional grace. We've received grace in our finances, in eating well, and in our first purchase of real, new, furniture. I have been struggling not to have somewhere to sit with Noah and Eli so we went and ordered a couch, which should arrive around the same time Eug finishes painting the living room (as with much of our house, the project grew). We'd initially hoped to make the sofa, but we realized that our sanity was more valuable: It was less my most frugal moment and more a moment of feeling of great abundance that we could afford to do something to stay sane. It was also a moment where I saw where money can buy happiness.

I hope to post photos in the next few months, but take a short break from posting other kinds of things until my dissertation proposal (attempt #2) is in good shape. It may be that I have to post, because I'm too excited about this or that attempt at growing stuff and so on. But at least in theory, I'll focus on Eug, Noah, Eli, our house, cooking, and the dissertation for the next month or so. See how focused I am!?

Week in Review

2012-05-18T09:24:00.002-04:00

I haven't been blogging as much recently because I've been thinking about thinking about my dissertation, (sleepless nights, two little people, and overly ambitious expectations.). Today, my reward for doing a tiny bit on my dissertation is the pleasure of writing a post while Eli nurses (and Noah is with my mom- thank you mom!) I have twenty minutes before Noah gets back, so sorry for the stream of consciousness and lack of editing:

First, some fun links:
Beet Chocolate Cake I'd be suspicious but my friend Bridget is in love with the stuff (and likely could share a recipe without sugar.) Beets are coming into season at Fruit and Veg City, so I'm going to try it out.
Christian Unschooling, a great blog for those of us who feel like unschooling would be "despite" our faith rather than "because".
No More Harvard Debt, for those of us who have paid off tens of thousands for our degrees. He's at a different point in his life than us (see six figure salary), but what I saw was a surprisingly relatable view of finances.

A shout out to our favorite coffee shop, Expresso Lab in the Old Biscuit Mill for giving us free beans in celebration of Eli's birth, and for always giving Noah the best Babycino in Cape Town. We love this coffee shop, and we'd love for all their coffee to go fully fair trade. Along these lines, Luke, our friend with big coffee dreams is back from his trip to Ethiopia where he was discovering what might be possible linking fair trade coffee and small business entrepreneurs, starting in Ethiopia. I hope to feature more of his story here.

Our photo library is still lost. There's hope, but it's sort of sad so we're struggling to make a new photo library and start over. I know that you stop by to see pictures of Noah and Eli. Poor Eli has lived a thus far undocumented life.

I was thinking more about pregnancy and parenting preferences, but I've run out of time, so I'll rename this post "week in review" and talk more about parenting choices later.

Balancing Attachment Parenting, Elimination Communication and Transitioning to Cloth Diapers

2012-05-13T11:11:00.003-04:00

Thanks for your feedback on Unschooling. I'll probably keep coming back to it as something I'm thinking about (as you all suggest, there's a balance to be had and each of us will probably find a different balance).

Attachment Parenting
Here's a recent article about a related subject: attachment parenting, which has raised a lot of discussion in parenting circles. When Noah was born, I hadn't heard of attachment parenting, but I did a lot of AP-like things. With Eli I'm much more conscious of what these things are- baby wearing, cosleeping, breastfeeding. Rather than being anti-feminist, which it's accused of, I found attachment parenting made me feel like I could rely on my instincts; I did it because it was easier and gave me confidence, not because it's necessarily better.

It would be a sad kind of feminism that didn't allow us our instincts and our connection with our babies. It's also silly to take things to extremes: I forget to put Eli down occasionally, which leads to ridiculous things like being in the toilet with him for two days straight and not brushing my hair or washing my face. But that's silly, because Eug is available and Eli also does great laying on his lambskin.

I'm not all that strident in many of my beliefs around baby care, but I really believe the context and timing of our choices may matter more than the actual choices. Research offers support for breastfeeding, but otherwise I simply don't know enough. Rather I want to use the wisdom of our instincts, of trusted friends and family, not because they're necessarily right (each generation has their own strange ideas), but because we can glean the context in which a particular child-rearing idea worked, or didn't.

Given how little we know and how much changes, wisdom is most powerful in the context of relationship and environment and figuring out what is working for a family: So if unschooling or attachment parenting is running you, your spouse, or your child into the ground, maybe it's time to change tactic. And if using some crutch (computer, running water, watching this 20 times with Noah) to pass the time is the difference between feeling like a run down, exasperated parent and not, I'd say use the crutch. Though it's not always so easy to identify what's not working, is it!?

Elimination Communication
I've started taking Eli to pee in the bathtub (this is the only potty that's big enough for this boy) and it's fun. It's easier now, when he can't move around and he's peeing and pooping pretty much continuously.

When Eli was first born it felt a bit daunting to start, because he didn't like the potty and it's getting colder here, so it doesn't make sense for him to be naked for any length of time. But taking him to the bathtub with each diaper change has been a really easy way to start out.

Transitioning to Cloth Diapers/Nappies
The last thing that's happening here is the transition to cloth diapers. We spent the first two weeks in disposables- for the sake of sanity and because it was raining so much- and it's a little tough to get used to washing again every day (multiple loads). Eli also came out a little small for Bumgenius Diapers, our diaper of choice. Another reason to do elimination communication: laziness. The cost of disposables and the amount of trash we created in two weeks was staggering.

Happy Mother's Day! Here's to trying whatever works. Noah turned two yesterday! He also pulled out the external hard drive with our photos, so it no longer works- note how calm I am? That's how much I trust Eug to work miracles or look up on the internet how to work miracles.

Thinking More about Unschooling

2012-05-09T13:56:00.001-04:00

I vacillate a lot as a parent- from angry to super kind and loving, and everything in between. Parenting brings out all my own issues. Particularly with a new baby, I tend to have age inappropriate expectations of Noah, which is compounded by the fact that he's a toddler and is thus annoying to his parents. All this must be very confusing for Noah.

Thinking about this and, tangentially, the death of Maurice Sendak, I've recently found this website on unschooling really helpful. A lot of what I'm reading about unschooling encourages parents to see a situation from a child's perspective, which has been powerful for me.

I'm still use bribery, but I'm starting to try to understand why bribery works (perhaps as an acknowledgement that I've just made him do something that he doesn't want to do), and how to make it less about bribery and getting Noah to do what I want-- which has the underlying attempt at control-- and more about figuring out how to live together as a family- with all the transitions that we're in the midst of.

He's not yet two, and so I'm not talking family meetings or deep discussions of feelings. I guess I'm just starting to figure out how to process Noah's behavior less personally and more in the context of his development and needs. Really, I just wanted to recommend that unschooling website.

In other news, Eug installed a motion-sensitive light in our front area, partially in the hopes that it would scare the cat who keeps pooping in the granadilla, and partially in the hopes that people will stop jumping over our wall and taking stuff from our tiny front space. While Eug connected the wires, Noah had free reign of the drill, which is surprisingly not very dangerous. If I had more energy I'd put Eli down, get up and download the video so you can see it. It may be that you don't need to see videos of our toddler, though. Here's to Noah turning two on Saturday- maybe that'll give me an excuse to post more photos and videos of him.

Making Ice-Cream in Cape Town

2012-05-08T06:49:00.001-04:00

We're big on treats in our household- things like eating out occasionally, having dessert, special day trips, and so on (this is why Eug and I both have fairly large personal allowances for all non-essential spending, so that we can treat each other to meals and buy gifts and meals for family, and pay entrance fees or whatever). When we don't have a newborn, we reserve one day of the week for something out-of-the-ordinary, and we have dessert or something every night after Noah (the kids??) are asleep.

For the past 5 months, this hasn't included ice-cream, because, at least in SA supermarkets, ice-cream is full of strange, strange ingredients, and cream is not one of them.

So, for my birthday, Eug bought me an ice-cream maker and so began our ice-cream making.

A Cost-Benefit Analysis

The cost of the ice-cream maker is R600
The cost of a 1L-2L batch of home made ice-cream is R10-R20, depending on your source of cream, yoghurt, or milk.
The cost of 2L of ice-cream in the supermarket is about R40-R60, if you buy a single serving at a nice ice-cream shop it can cost R30. Steers Ice-cream with dip is R10/serving.
Depending on how often you get ice-cream from these different sources, your break-even point may be earlier or later. I think we'll break even at about 30 weeks, which seems like a reasonable point.

Intangible Costs: Storage

After being super careful about getting appliances, we have another appliance. oh well. It's a fun one.

Hard-to-calculate Benefits: Health

The store-bought ice-cream didn't make us feel particularly good, so the ice-cream we're making in the ice-cream maker feels and tastes tons, tons better.
We're able to drastically reduce the amount of sugar in our dessert, without feeling deprived. I have a major sweet tooth and I'm surprised by how much it can be satiated without processed sugar now:

My favorite ice-cream/frozen yoghurt recipe so far doesn't have any sugar. It's

3 bananas
about a cup of plain whole milk yoghurt
A little less than a cup of milk.

It's surprisingly sweet and lovely. Although we don't always have cream in the house, we usually do have plain yoghurt, which I try to make from scratch. When the yoghurt is made from scratch, the cost of the ice-cream is really, really low- less than R10 for 4-6 servings.

A New Orientation towards Health Care

2012-05-07T06:42:00.001-04:00

With our move to Cape Town we had to think anew about health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, house insurance, and so on. I wanted to talk about a rationale for going without health insurance, even when everyone around you might consider it essential.

There's two important caveats: 1) Medical aid in South Africa is generally not very good if you don't have any work benefits- it's expensive and doesn't cover everything, or even most things (for many people, it really only covers catastrophic events). 2) We're pretty healthy so I mean absolutely no disrespect to all the folks who absolutely need insurance to cover chronic medication, surgery and the like. I'm largely writing about those of us who are insured in the event of possible emergencies.

A while ago, I talked about South African banks and I wonder if we need to imagine something creative for health insurance, also. This isn't limited to South Africa, though small groups of wealthy South Africans (I count myself among you) may be uniquely positioned to do something brave. South Africa is also trying to create a more cohesive National Health System, but it's a long ways off.

A group of young people who call themselves The Simple Way (best known for Shane Claiborne) in Philadelphia pools resources to insure one another. I'm throwing it out there, with very limited knowledge, because I think that there are more humane, less capitalist ways to imagine coverage for emergencies. Where we have a safety net, but the safety net is other people (and in S.A., also the government health system). I don't think going totally without a safety net is a good idea, because there are too many stories of tragedy doubled because of finances. Our safety net is currently about a two years expenses worth of emergency fund. (Our budget is pretty unique because we don't have a consistent monthly income). This safety net means we can take risks without becoming a burden to anyone if something does happen. Insurance is set up to make insurance companies money, so the chances that we will save money are fairly high.

Regardless of whether foregoing insurance is foolhardy or financially savvy (which may depend a lot on your own health and age), I've found paying for health care has been counterintuitively healthy. I thought it gauche to find the cheapest care or refuse care because of cost, but it's actually empowering. I got a cash discount on my hemoglobin test, and I refused the other tests because I knew I'd had them before. Having Eli at home was both cheaper and better. For Eli's care we're shopping around- we could spend a few hours waiting in a queue and get his BCG and weight check free, or we can get an appointment with a nurse and pay about $8 (R50), or we can pay much more and go to a pediatrician (we're taking the middle $8 road). Whereas in the past I've been ok relying on tests as a measure of my wellness, I'm now holding us to a higher standard. Medical care is vital, I'm all for it (and we will always get Noah and Eli the best care we possibly can). But I've looked to doctors for answers and when I didn't find good answers, I thought I needed to look to other doctors rather than try out different things myself (I'm not talking about doing surgery on myself, but on weighing things like side effects of medication and so on).

For the most part, as a young family blessed with pretty good health, answers lie with us. When we have back problems or wrist problems or stomach bugs or even high blood pressure, the cause and the solutions are often pretty clear, and they're not at the bottom of a pill bottle.

Beginnings, Endings, and Plastic Insulation: 12 days with Eli

2012-05-04T04:24:00.001-04:00

It feels like Eli has been with us a long time. Whereas with Noah we had a plan of how we do things- I had 12 weeks maternity leave, a plan for after those weeks, a breast pump, good friends to copy and lots of books- with Eli we really have no idea, and are taking things as they come. Thank God for the help of family. The thing is, without a plan, we also feel like we should find a new rhythm pretty fast, particularly for Noah's sake. So in my signature style, I started a couple of Google docs to try to get the house running again. Then Eug and I pondered the fact that Eli isn't yet two weeks old, and is still completely unpredictable.

Which started me trying to express how these moments with a newborn are at once very good, physically draining, and fleeting (many of you know this already).

On Sunday, Eli's sixth day, we carefully devised a plan to go to a cafe for coffee during Noah's nap. Since we never taught Noah to nap by himself, this is a complicated science. After several hours of implementing, we succeeded and sat down to our coffee with Noah in his stroller and Eli asleep in my arms.

At the next table came a mother and grown daughter. The mother had fairly serious dementia, and she knew it, so the conversation was so painful as she tried valiantly to make the lunch enjoyable for her daughter. She had dressed her absolute best, and she didn't seem to understand the menu options so she tried to stick with a safe "sounds nice" and "yes I'll have that". For the daughter, the moment was pretty strained as she tried to get something her mom would genuinely enjoy- she'd even brought along a small bottle of champagne for her mom- and you could only imagine everything surrounding this weekly lunch date. It was clear that they were both trying to make the best of a really tough time of life, and it was also clear that this kind of pain- the pain of aging and nearing death- is unavoidable.

And there were Eug and I, drinking our coffee in near-silence and trying not to fall asleep (and, I suppose, eavesdropping on our neighbors).

The daughter looked over to our table a lot- 6 day-olds get a lot of attention- and when we left, she commented on what a good time this was in our lives, and on how much I should enjoy the blessing of having babies. It was a strange juxtaposition. We are blessed to be celebrating the beginning of life. But there are endings, too: With two children, I wonder if that very significant life stage of bearing our own biological children is over (although we don't yet have a plan for family size). Unexpectedly, pregnancy felt like the most basic fulfillment of what my body was meant to do, and I spent a big chunk of my twenties either thinking about pregnancy, actually pregnant, or recovering from pregnancies. There are other endings too, as we adjust to uncertainty on how best to manage our careers/vocations in a family of four.

So the time is good, but I am learning to enter into- to really feel- the beginnings and the endings and even the sleep deprivation and hormone changes.

Lest you really didn't want to read all that, our other discovery is that Cape Town can be cold, houses are not built for cold (though we have a wonderful fireplace) and that our 100-year-old wooden windows have really large holes.

In the U.S. we'd use window kits that use clear plastic which are shrunk onto the windows to act as an insulating layer for the duration of the winter. Here in Cape Town, we haven't been able to find that plastic so we taped clear trash bags onto our upstairs windows. They're not as invisible as the Boston version, but they're a really good option if you're in an old Cape Town house. We can't cover the large downstairs windows- nor would we want to- but our two bedrooms are now a lot warmer. It's also our biggest achievement since Eli was born, so I pretty much have to tell you about it.

A Photo Diary of Eli's First two days.

2012-04-25T10:04:00.000-04:00

Here's Noah a few hours before he becomes a big brother. He's been helping remove the paint on the gate, in preparation for our painting it.

After mild contractions for a couple of days, I went into labour on Sunday evening. It was really good to just stay in our bedroom- this is where I ended up having Eli. My parents came and picked up Noah at around 2am, 1hr30mins before Eli was born. The midwife arrived around 2:30am, just in time to help guide the hardest part of the labour.

Eli made it out*, caught by the midwife, the placenta followed quickly, and we could all get into bed and hang out together. Eug got to cuddle with Eli while I was checked over**.

Noah really likes his little brother, though it's hard for him that I'm not as available.

Our neighbors are lending us this beautiful cradle, which we keep in the living room- it makes it easy for us to eat downstairs in the kitchen while Eli is little and our downstairs is not clean enough for him to be on the floor. Last night, we had our first regular family meal- it's great to work on getting to "normal" life very gradually.

This is our attempt at a family photo where you can see Eli. It was chaos, as you can tell. We're just happy everyone is wearing clothes. Anna's rabbit features prominently in our family.

*By "made it out", I don't mean to imply I'm either superwoman or that labour is easy. Labour was great because of many things- many beyond my control, like physiology or the prayers of friends and family- as well as the environment and having Eug and the midwives helping.

** This is in case you are wondering why Eug lost his shirt. Skin to skin contact to bring Eli's temp up.

Day 1 with Eli

2012-04-23T12:28:00.001-04:00

Once again I'm really grateful to God for a healthy birth.

Mr Eli at 5am.

Two years ago I gave birth to Noah in Boston; while I was cared for by midwives I ultimately gave birth at Mt Auburn hospital- you can read about it here. It's fairly rare to give birth at home in Massachusetts, though one of our friends has done it twice.

Not having a point of comparison, I was pretty uncritical of the experience, but looking back it was mainly a test of pain endurance- lying down in a hospital bed to give birth with 6 people yelling at me to push was torture in comparison to today's experience. Unmedicated birth is no walk in the park either way, but it doesn't need to be as terrifying and painful as it was that day- with alarms, monitoring and the like. The difference was less in the level of pain, but in the level of control: I didn't have to ask anyone when to push and when not to, worry about when I'd get my baby back, or whether I'd be forced to leave before lunch (or forced to stay, as the case may be). I also knew my bill beforehand this time around.

Anyway, so that's my plug for giving birth at home (with backup), for uncomplicated pregnancies.

This isn't turning into a very fun read, sorry! The short version: birth was painful but wonderful (I never thought I'd say such a thing). My midwife, and the midwife who came to assist, were amazing- I feel hugely blessed to have had them assist. If I think of better insights, maybe I'll try to write again?

Day 1 with Eli (Too much information included below):

I'm able to walk- thank you God. No stitches, after a million the first time.
I'm peeing in the bathtub, because making it up and down the stairs is still a little too much. I have to be extra quick crouching down, because there's a window in an unfortunate place and our street is pretty busy. The first day after giving birth is not super fun, but then it doesn't need to be.
Second time around breastfeeding is a lot easier. Less self doubt. Maybe that's like a lot of things in life?
Eli fell asleep during his first poop. Apparently I am crazy enough to catch his first poop in the potty- he was simultaneously enraged at the feeling of pooping and tired out by it. Second poop, size of a tiny grape, same thing. Life is hard when you're new to it.
He's been awake for pretty large segments of the day, so I'm hoping that means he'll sleep tonight.
Noah is super, super excited. He is pretty convinced he is personally responsible for Eli.
We're so grateful for everyone's love and support. We don't feel responsible for any of it.

Photos to follow!

With love.

Friday Adventures and Celebrations

2012-04-20T15:46:00.000-04:00

Moving swiftly on from the subject of free love and communes, here's a bunch of photos.

We have a lot to celebrate: Eug finished laying the concrete, I felt excited enough to do a little on my dissertation, Tiny Blob turned, we paid our U.S. taxes (our lives are a little geographically complicated), and today I was finally able to transfer our car into our name without going into labour in the long queue. Up to now, we didn't officially own the car and the whole thing felt a little tenuous.

We've also been fighting colds this week, so almost every meal has included squeezing orange juice and somehow consuming cloves and cloves of garlic. Noah only seemed sick for about a day, I'm a little sick, and Eug is holding out. We very seldom get sick so I'm grateful this time around seems mild.

Tonight's meal, in celebration of all the great blessings, was sausage, garlic naan, and orange juice. Something in between eating out and not cooking.

This week's spinach started out bigger than Noah...

Noah is back in our bed. He thinks it's awesome here. We're not sure.

Eug fitted an old macro lens on the camera today, and the manual focus meant I could take a better-than-usual photo of the view from our bedroom. This is Devil's Peak and Table Mountain: I can never quite get over the fact that we're in a super-urban environment, yet we get to look out at this every day.

Noah sometimes baths in a bucket several times a day, if we're home.

Unsure of a better Friday adventure, we went to our old haunt: the aquarium.

It was good to return home. Noah and I haven't been home much the last couple of weeks, mainly because the house is very messy and chaotic at the moment, and if Eug is working on laying concrete, I usually can't keep Noah away from the action. It's been really good to stay home and let Noah play again, despite the chaos.

And sourdough garlic naan: Great comfort food if you're fighting illness. I've been learning how to make them most efficiently, with least cleanup. Shaping them with my hands on the stovetop, before they go into the pan, has worked well. I love that our stove has a glass top.

And the rest of our dinner:

We're very grateful for days like today.

Hippies and Communal Life

2012-04-19T13:39:00.002-04:00

I've been in communal environments during two key periods of my life: from 16-18, and (more or less) from 18-24.5. As I inch closer to my thirties, grounded by family, I find myself simultaneously drawn to, and terrified by communal life. It can go so wrong or so right.

My age 16-18 experiences were beautiful, partially because they were so fleeting. There was total freedom.

The second experience was in a communal church where Eug and I married. Perhaps surprisingly, I loved sharing physical possessions and living communally. The problem was that the second time around, community was not just sharing possessions: there was this accompanying confusing sense that you didn't quite know which way was up anymore. Kindness sometimes felt like abuse, love sometimes felt like domination, and so on. The community was much more important than family, which was disastrous for our new marriage. The experience left me confused and I spent several years healing afterwards.

Now, I wonder how we navigate the "Acts church" idea of sharing everything and having everything in common, without forcing communist conformity. One way seems to be learning to open our home, which we hope to do gradually as we live in Cape Town. I'm hoping that in doing this, we feel the safety of having our space while gradually edging out of our comfort zone.

The second seems to be related to having core truths that we're willing to stand by, and being willing to think rather than follow (recognizing that we learn huge amounts from relationship). A hippie-nomad-Jesus following-unschooling-blogger I've been following the last couple of months wrote- quite gently and forgivingly- about her husband "seeking passion with someone else". I innocently thought maybe he was thinking of traveling somewhere cool with his guy friends for a few months, but my friend set me straight.

I had memories from my second idealistic-community experience rush back. I wasn't quite sure which way was up, and felt super uncomfortable. Was the blogger trying to be ok with this, and using Jesus as the reason? Should I be? (I'm not) We're in different places, and I'd found myself (briefly) jumping on a stranger's bandwagon rather than thinking for myself.

Perhaps in community there's a lot to be gained in the doing: hosting, spending time, sharing cash when it's not coerced. Perhaps in the abstract- in saying how the world should be or how others should live- we have to be careful.

As I get more secure in my own thoughts, I am less fearful of community. If what I'm against is consumerism, life in a cubical, and so on, then what I'm for has to exist and has to be better. And community, with careful and gentle boundaries, seems essential to the good life.

Making Gnocchi from scratch

2012-04-17T13:51:00.000-04:00

Here's a repost of a post from 2008, because I really want to put a post up but I also really want to figure some work stuff, and I want you to try making gnocchi, because it's pretty fun (don't let the pictures put you off, and don't use whole wheat flour like I did here):

Here's a link to tell you a little about Gnocchi. Here I learned that gnocchi were traditionally eaten in Latin America on the 29th of each month, when people were poorest, because it is a cheap but hearty meal. Perhaps that's why this recipe fits in this blog-- it's a cheap, simple, and good way to use up extra potatoes because gnocchi freeze extremely well (though you should not refrigerate them for more than an afternoon.)

But I associate gnocchi with Italy, with summers in a small town near Venice, with my high school roommates Anna and Lia and her extended family, by the river. We were surrounded by the huge garden sculptures created by her uncle and had the time to spend the day on making gnocchi. Those times contain so many good memories. Over the years, I've tried to make gnocchi with various friends in various places, specifically because they are time consuming they are also an opportunity to talk and enjoy friends' company.

At their best they're light and beautiful, and boil very quickly. You may also try stir-frying them with some tomato sauce (which is probably not traditional so you shouldn't publicize it too much) Although most commonly created out of potato, flour and an optional egg, you can also use ricotta cheese or even spinach. The ideal sauce would be a pesto or simple tomato-basil sauce. Keep it simple and wholesome.

Here are some pictures of the process, most recently performed last week with the unsuspecting Christine, my favourite American roommate of all time (my only American roommate-- we were roommates our first year at Wellesley, where I was privileged to spend a year with such an awesome woman before she transferred to another W school in Chicago).

Step 1: Prepare the Potatoes

The first thing you need to do is boil your potatoes with a little salt. Here are a lot of potatoes, you don't need nearly as many if you're just making gnocchi for one meal (2 would suffice). Some recipes suggest russet potatoes, or any drier potatoes. I used these potatoes because they were locally grown and in a cheap large bag. You leave the skins on while boiling so that excess water doesn't have the chance to get in. The drier the potato, the lighter the gnocchi.

After boiling and leaving to cool, peel the potatoes.

Step 2: Prepare the Dough

Next, crush or mash the potatoes. You want the mixture to be as smooth as possible but you don't want to add anything to help the process. You can add an egg per 3-5 potatoes though it's not essential. The egg helps to meld the dough together, so if you're making gnocchi for the first time, it may be a good idea.

Then, add flour. Above is a picture of dough made with white flour, below dough is made with wheat flour. The good thing about wheat flour is that it has some good proteins. You add flour gradually until you have about a one potato-to-one cup flour ratio, until the dough feels a bit like bread dough, although heavier. See below to get a sense. Try to squash as many of the bits of potato as possible, to make a consistent smooth dough. Knead the dough as you would bread dough, taking flour from the outside and folding the dough into the center. Once you're satisfied, onto the next step!

Take pieces of dough and role out into little worms.

Cut into 1.5cm segments as shown in the picture above.

Step 3: Make the Gnocchi

Making the gnocchi is the fun part. Place your thumb in the center of the gnocchi and flip off the fork, so that the gnocchi curves inwards and there is an indentation on one side and fork marks on the other. Don't worry too much about making this perfect. Look at pictures online to get a sense of what to aim for, but ultimately this is about increasing the surface area for boiling, not creating the perfect shape.

As you can see, these whole wheat gnocchi are far from perfect!

Step 4: Boil or Store

Finally, to boil a portion of gnocchi place in salted vigorously boiling water. They cook very quickly. You know they're done when they float-- even if this is after a very short amount of time. Make sure they're not stuck on the bottom, ok? Serve with butter, basil pesto, meat sauce, or tomato-basil sauce. I love gnocchi with creamy pesto.

If you made more than you and your family and friends can eat then and there, place in portion-size bags and freeze immediately.

Enjoy!

Natural Body Care- On not buying Shampoo, Facewash, Moisturizer and Conditioner

2012-04-16T09:04:00.002-04:00

I was at the mall a few days ago (!) when one of those makeup salespeople--think male European model--asked if I wore makeup. When I said no, he said "why not?" I wish I'd had a witty response (Do YOU wear makeup? Because I'm THIS beautiful without it?!) but I think I mumbled something about Noah needing to pee (again).

The reality is, I'm so far from wearing makeup I'm in another universe. I'm in the universe where water is good enough. And I like this universe.

Over the past year or so, I've stopped buying almost all beauty, body care, and cleaning products. Together, these changes add up to a lot in our household- both in what we need and in the chemicals in our home. That said, my clothing and house is not super clean, so I've also learned not to be too much of a perfectionist.

The exception is if I receive gifts of shower gel or moisturizer or soap- I consider those a blessing so I usually use them. I also use Sunlight dishwashing soap, regular toothpaste and floss.

So here's what we use:

For washing my hair, I use about 1tbsp of bicarb in a cup of water, every 4 days or so. It's become less and less frequent over the past 18 months that I haven't been using shampoo. Eug uses bar soap.
For washing my face, I use a mixture of castor oil and olive oil.
Although the oil gets steamed off, I don't have to use moisturizer because the face wash cleans and nourishes.
For super treats for my hair and skin, I use the occasional older avocado.
For exfoliation every week or two (or month or two, when I remember), I use a little nutmeg in a little milk.
For body moisturizer, I use almond or apricot oil.
For deodorant, I use bicarb.
We use bar soap for washing, and Noah doesn't get washed with soap unless something he becomes extraordinarily dirty (like, once every 3 months). Water works- even for things like finger paints.

For cleaning, we use bicarb and vinegar for pretty much everything.
For washing clothes, we use a mixture of laundry soap and washing soda (sodium carbonate).
For washing the floor, we mix a little Sunlight in warm water.

There's plenty of ways chemicals still get into our house- paint, paint cleaner, anything new we do buy (in the form of linens or foam etc. So I'm not trying to earn frugal-sustainability points here.

I guess my main testimony here is that it's incredibly freeing it is not to have to think about many products. We don't have to buy them, store them, or worry about them. For most cleaning products, I've found that the benefits just don't outweigh the risks and waste and wasted attention. There are times of exception, and I love the nice smells of commercially produced stuff. Yet it's so much easier to know the one or two companies that produce vinegar or bicarbonate of soda or oil, than the multitude of companies that produce unnecessary products with unpronounceable factory-produced ingredients.

Noah and his Granadilla (Passion Fruit)

2012-04-14T11:11:00.000-04:00

The latest fruit discovery for Noah has been granadilla (passion fruit). It's actually an invasive species in Durban, and growing up the granadilla was so plentiful in our garden that it literally fell from the sky (the vines would climb different trees and fences). Now, we are growing 3 plants outside, but I'm not sure how well they'll do in Cape Town, which has less of a tropical climate. We went one week without as much produce, because I hadn't gotten to Fruit and Veg City, and I noticed a difference in Noah's behavior- he was both hyperactive and moody. A couple of days of eating really well again, and he's back to his usual self.

The abundance of affordable fruit is one of our most tangible blessings here in Cape Town. Good food and time, who could ask for more?

Home-Made Yoghurt Here in Cape Town

2012-04-13T15:59:00.001-04:00

Looks so much better in a jar.

As longtime readers know, I used to make my yoghurt in a slow cooker. Making yoghurt is very easy, and it's a good way to save a little money while producing something tasty and wholesome. A couple of things make it more difficult here in Cape Town.

We don't have a slow cooker.
I haven't been able to find milk in glass jars, or really, good milk in general. One major incentive for homemade yoghurt is no waste and high quality yoghurt, but in this case, I have to throw away the milk sachets and I'm not sure of the quality of the milk.
I wasn't super sure of the yoghurt starter options, either. Most had stabilizers, etc.
We have been consuming much less dairy than we did in the U.S. (primarily because fresh fruit is so affordable here), so I've been unsure of how much milk/yoghurt to buy.

There are many great tutorials for stove-top yoghurt making online, so I won't reproduce one here. I'll just let you know why I decided to make yoghurt, given the issues above:

Stovetop yoghurt turned out to be very easy to make- just as easy as slow cooker yoghurt.
I'll keep looking and asking for milk in jars (maybe even raw milk, one day!) but in the meantime, the amount of plastic used in a sachet is much less than a yoghurt container. I'm also just buying the same amount of milk every week (about 2 liters), but turning one liter into yoghurt. The yoghurt I make has only 2 ingredients, milk and a little yoghurt starter, so I think the quality is automatically better than most store-bought yoghurts. Fruit and Veg City actually doesn't sell full-cream plain yoghurt, so I'd have to make an extra stop during the week to get store-bought yoghurt.
Finding myself trapped in Woolworths (which for some reason I find terrifying), I bought their plain yoghurt and felt like it was a great starter option. From now on, I just use a little of the previous week's yoghurt.
Not sure how to deal with low consumption, except by knowing that the yoghurt is there and should be used. Yoghurt is healthier than just drinking milk, and we've been enjoying ours.

Bonuses:

The yoghurt has a gentle honey flavor because I put a little honey in the pot before heating the milk, ostensibly to prevent the milk from scalding.
The cost of 1L of yoghurt is about R6, vs. R20 for the same amount of store-bought yoghurt. R14: enough for a drink of some kind!

Curtains are up. Made by hand, while watching movies, I think.

Other curtain, made of sacking material. It hangs straight down to cover the fridge and a shelf that I am still going to varnish. There's a glimpse of Eug's beer making equipment here. Encouragement for you to visit. Encouragement for me to hurry up and give birth so I can drink (a tiny, tiny amount of) alcohol again (sorry Tiny blob).

I am most excited about stealing bits of other people's plants and trying to grow them. I know this isn't really how you reproduce lavender (you're supposed to root in "rooting mixture") but I thought I'd give them a couple days in the kitchen first.

Life on the Wild Side

2012-04-12T14:12:00.000-04:00

I'm sortof joking because we're not terribly wild characters, but I think our lives are nevertheless wild and full of adventures. Here's what's been happening the last couple of days:

Noah believes that if he can't see us, we can't see him. This is him playing hide and seek in his Pooh Gown.

He Reveals his whereabouts. Who would have known?

Strawberry plants from my dad. I put them in self-watering soda bottles, and I'll hang them next to the others. I'm fairly obsessed with self-watering soda bottles at the moment: you can pick up bottles on the street, they are quite protected against pests, and it's almost infinitely scalable in a country with burglar guards. My resolve only strengthened when this week, an unknown creature dug up all my swisschard, which has been growing in tires. My gardening goal is now to have small-medium plants in self-watering containers, medium-large plants and fruit bearing shrubs in tires or stacked tires, and decorative plants (herbs like lavender) in concrete pots that we started making when there was occasionally concrete left over at the end of a day's work on the bathroom. I like the idea of container gardening using patterns to create a beautiful space- especially in our front area, since our street can be a somewhat depressing place without any signs of green life.

We've been investing in a collection of metal buckets. Noah has found one is big enough to bath in, or clean his bum in, in this case.

And the bathroom update:

This is the shower before waterproofing etc. The pipes are all complete and plywood boards (waterproofed on the other side already) are Eug's choice for creating a flat surface for the tiles. Eug laid cement and installed the drain. We're going for a simple wet bathroom, so the floor needs to slope slightly towards the drain.

You can see the stair boards above the shower. A lot of choices around fixing up such an old house revolve around the best ways to waterproof.

Part of the floor has cement already. Eug installed new pipes behind the toilet and again, included a plywood board to create a space between the brick and the tiles.

These are the floor tiles and associated gear. They're rust-colored stone tiles

These are the wall tiles, currently in our living room. They're really big. Unfortunately cement needs about 28 days to dry properly, so it'll be a while before tiling. Another thing that's new to us is that we can't leave Noah's car seat in our car when we're parked on the street. It's a minor inconvenience, but the car seat is always in our living room. We have to think of some kind of easy storage plan.

Facebook Fast and Introductions

2012-04-11T11:37:00.000-04:00

I was off Facebook for Lent- though I went on a few times to check messages- and it was a quiet, understated experience. The biggest challenge for me was watching my Concrete Gardener stats go down, as many of my readers come over from Facebook. I realized how much I like knowing people are reading- maybe I like it too much. So I worked through that a little bit. I also had prayers answered in surprising ways during the Lenten time, which increased my faith.

It also made me think about community, and whether there's a way to generate more opportunities to talk: There's no pressure if you're a lurker, but I wanted everyone to have an opportunity to introduce themselves, for no reason but to create community. Many readers are connected somehow, or you could be!

I'm not trying to create an "in" community and "out of" community here, so don't feel you have to wash your hair with bicarb or make your infant pee in a yoghurt container from birth- I suspect only a few readers do, the rest just appreciate the crazy.

Some things you could include in your comment:
- Where you are in the world.
- What you're doing (however you define that).
- Anything you're excited about trying out this month or year.

Fail Fast

2012-04-10T14:44:00.002-04:00

Our pastor at the Vineyard in Boston sometimes shared the phrase, "Try fast, Fail fast, Try Again Fast". I'm not sure who to attribute it to, but I think it applies to our lives at the moment.

And it's good. Eug is failing with the bathroom a lot, and I'm amazed by all the progress he's making despite the pain and the mess. He's my hero. The bad news is that the concrete needs 28 days to set before he can tile. The good news is, he's very close to laying the concrete. The other good news is that we have tiles. The other other good news is that, barring tragedy, we will have a baby long before we have a bathroom (he is allowed to be born at home from today). But the take home message here is that my husband is a very gifted and persistent man- which is something many of you know already.

I'm also in the strange space of being grateful that my PhD proposal went abysmally. I am very seldom called on to show real character, and when I do have to, I often make the wrong decision- the one that is superficially "correct" or expected. This time, when faced with weeks of intense work improving the proposal before the birth of Tiny blob (who may arrive early-ish, I feel it in my bones, like every other woman), I just decided to just not do it right now- or to do it very gradually. I feel quite free, despite having other work.

Postponing my rewrite/revisions went against my personality- my personality keeps every deadline and fulfills every expectation- but it really helped me develop character. The decision wasn't about what would be appropriate or look good for my career, it was about what I would feel good about in twenty years time. I like the idea of failing fast, and trying again and again, until we make progress. I would like my final dissertation to be something I can "defend" proudly.

For those of you who are jealous that we are no longer washing diapers, there's a dark side: Noah's new obsession with public bathrooms. Today, we were at one of the most beautiful places in the world (pictures from a previous trip there) with my sister-in-law and nephew, and where did Noah and I spend half our time? Yes. The bathroom. Wherever we go, we find ourselves in the public bathroom, where Noah purposely just pees a little so that he can go through the ritual of flushing the toilet, washing his hands, and leaving the bathroom, only to ask to go back. Oh well.

If only I was in the bathroom...

Embracing Infant Safety Research Without Fear

2012-04-07T14:30:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of things we're told as expectant mothers, and unless we're all reading the studies ourselves, it can be very, very hard to parse out what to embrace as serious guidance and what to consider "optional". I'm not a professional on this stuff, but I wanted to speak to how I navigate some of these choices.

Here's just a few safety recommendations: Babies should always be put on their backs to sleep. Cribs are not supposed to have drop sides, and slats have to be the perfect distance apart (these are fairly recent). Mobiles need to be far away, or not present at all. Never have a crib near a window. Mattresses should be very firm, and there shouldn't be any blankets or bumpers in the crib before 12 months of age (though your baby can be swaddled as a newborn). Breast pumps, crib mattresses, and car seats are all supposed to be bought new. The car seat needs to be rear facing, in the middle of the back seat, until our babies turn 2. There may be dodgy substances emitted by your new crib mattress, which could also be dangerous. The American Academy of Pediatrics is also against Water births (which has basis in water birth never having been subject to a randomized control trial) and ambivalent about Home births (which only has basis in the U.S. urban context, at most). They're also ambivalent about cosleeping.

I want to embrace good research (to the extent it's available) without embracing the overall regulation that often accompanies it. SIDs deaths are real and babies are vulnerable little creatures.

Yet the underlying reasons that cribs seem to be recalled and blankets, bumpers and windows are such a problem seems related to social and cultural issues: sleeping far from our babies so that we don't notice distress (though I know we all need to leave our sleeping babies sometimes, and agree with the research that says they should be on their backs, far away from anything that could harm them). The pressure to buy items new seems related to social trust: did a user of the breast pump have Hepatitis? Was the car seat in an accident? Has the mattress been exposed to environmental toxins? The underlying fear of home births seems based in a strong interest to have a million backup plans (many technology-based) in the event something will go wrong.

I say "no!" to being motivated by these social pressures and fears, and also the sense that we can control all outcomes. At the same time, I say "yes!" to being as safe as we can be. We have a hospital five minutes away in case of emergency. I will take every precaution to keep my baby safe and healthy- at night, he'll sleep right next to me on very firm foam, without things that may suffocate him. I kept Noah in a rear facing car seat as long as I could handle it.

But in this, and all things, I acknowledge that there are many things we don't control. Rather than buying stuff to quell my fears, as I'm told to by various safety agencies, I want to accept that parenting involves fears and mistakes and losing control again and again.

Tokai Market and Happy Easter

2012-04-06T14:47:00.001-04:00

Our wonderful neighbor introduced us to Tokai Market, which happens every Saturday. We're never quite in our element when encountering gourmet food, but it's a wonderful place to meet friends and share a meal outdoors. There is raw honey and quite a bit of good produce.

A large sand area for Noah to enjoy...

Pancakes, SA style

For some reason Noah wanted to be fed? Or maybe we were just afraid he'd eat all three pancakes.

Eug has been growing a beard. He looks good. obviously.

I wish I could video record Noah pooping. He is in love with our new toilet, and will stay on it for 30 minutes if we let him, making socially inappropriate noises.

Celebrating Good Friday together. I made Sourdough Naan with mushrooms and caramelized onions (and some corn), because it's a meal that takes a little longer than others to prepare and so it made the food feel sacred. It's the end of the day, --usually Noah seems to gradually lose his clothes so we're lucky if he has clothes by dinner.

Happy Easter! May this time be experienced as sacred/set aside.

Less Punishment, More....? On Parenting a two-year old

2012-04-05T14:19:00.001-04:00

I have a lot of baggage around parenting that seems to be about control. I think a lot of people raised or exposed to Southern Baptist theology find themselves seeped in Calvinist theology about children- that children need to have their will subdued (I'm not actually sure if this is Calvinist, I tried fact-checking and came across some really weird stuff on predestination).

Examples of parenting I was most familiar with had a strong undertone of needing to transform your child from a sinner into something else. Obedience was held up as the Ultimate Good. I remember hearing parents at my old church describe how they had to spank their children because their child's will was too strong, or that their children were manipulative, and so on. I remember words to children along the lines of "I really don't want to spank you, but...".

I think this fear of being manipulated comes in early on in parenting. We do things like leave our tiny babies to cry, or other things that run counter to our instinct, because we're fearful of the consequences. If we don't, will our children become drug addicts and do crazy stuff? Or in the short term, will they become spoiled brats?

I've found walking this line challenging- I think Noah needs boundaries and guidance and so on. But I don't want to "break" him, and I'm pretty sure I'm more manipulative than he (much to my shame). When I'm upset at his "disobedience", I have to check myself- am I upset because he's not conforming to my will immediately, because he doesn't understand, or because I feel like I've lost control of a situation? Doing this check helps me to understand my anger.

Noah gets 1 minute time-outs, which are needed for Eug and I to try to maintain our composure and not totally lose it. They're not super effective for Noah, but I usually feel better afterwards. Explaining stuff is sometimes effective, sometimes not. If he's worked up, then it's sometimes better just to breathe deeply and try not to cry.

Trying not to get angry at Noah is hilarious. Two year olds are infuriating sometimes- they don't make any sense. We see the world differently. But at least theoretically, I like to spend as much time enjoying his company as possible, and helping him to gradually learn new things.

I'd love to hear how others navigate discipline!

Making the most of Incredible Days

2012-04-03T10:52:00.001-04:00

Noah's sleeping on me, as he sometimes does when he gets totally exhausted and finally collapses. It's pretty awesome.

I feel like the blog has had a slightly somber tone as we figure out our way here in Cape Town. And there are justifiable reasons for this:

Yesterday, my PhD proposal defense went as badly as my wildest imaginings, and I spent the afternoon, and early morning, in defensive conversations in my head about how I was right and my readers were wrong. I spent several more hours thinking about how I would never be able to sit and read a book because there are so many things hanging over us. Eug and I then pursued plan F with the bathroom. I was mainly shopping as moral support and because Eug can't open a bank account in South Africa.

We then sat down and reflected on exactly how shockingly awesome our lives are. We even have the capacity to bless others, though we often tread water. Noah fell asleep in my arms, and I am able to write here.

In that light, I'm hoping to pursue more of the tone of my recent favorite blogs- Momentary Delight and Sparkling Adventures (aren't the titles great on their own?), in as authentic a way as a I can, with the thought that gratitude can be as real as struggle. And the two can coexist:

On Sunday we visited a church where Noah is in love with Rarah (Sarah), a 10-year old who knows just how to treat an almost two-year old. We then met old friends from Durban who were visiting for the weekend, visited the tidal pool in Camps Bay, and returned home tired and satisfied. Today, I saw my grandparents and parents, and I hung out with Noah on the beach, again, as Eug worked on the bathroom. Not only is Noah cared for by family, he gets to have adventures almost every day of his life.

With this in mind, I hope to leave some of the sense of struggle behind. Struggles are real but relative. Maybe the choices over deadlines- real or imagined- are actual choices, not unwieldy burdens.

Two years of [Interrupted] Elimination Communication: Our Story

2012-04-02T13:00:00.002-04:00

I started this post after Noah's first day with no "misses"- that is, he didn't wear his diaper all day, and stayed dry throughout the day. It was February 28. Now (April 2), Noah very seldom pees or poops on the floor and we're without diapers during the day and night. He's almost 23 months old, so it's relatively early, but not extraordinarily so. Still, I'm a huge advocate for Elimination Communication, or introducing babies to the toilet from birth.

We started elimination communication when Noah was about a month old, and for the most part, it worked remarkably well. By two months, he sometimes stayed dry throughout the day and night without the use of diapers. As I returned to work when he was 12 weeks old, it was harder for me to be part of the process and winter in Boston set it, with all it's unbearable cold (except for this year, apparently!). Still, Eug and I tried on and off until he was about 8 months old.

At 8 months, after the second move of his short life, he all but refused to look at the toilet. We didn't force him. He would occasionally tell us when he pooped, and we'd spend part of the day with him out of diapers. Still, he never suffered from diaper rash, diapers were never absolutely normal, and we very seldom used wipes- cloth or disposable. During his long potty strike, he showed tremendous control, as he'd often wait hours to pee until we put a diaper on. But for almost a year, he wore diapers anytime he was outside the house, and much of the time when he was at home.

As we settled in South Africa and things became more familiar, he suddenly wanted to use the potty again. Within a month, he consistently used the potty. He walks to the potty and asks us to take his pants down (he can't do that yet). We keep a small, portable potty available when we're going out for a few hours, though he's ok with using a regular public toilet, as long as we can get there quite quickly.

With the prospect of a second baby, I wasn't sure how I'd wash that many diapers, (Noah may want to wear diapers again when he sees Tiny blob, and that's ok). With our second baby, I hope to start EM from birth. As with Noah, I'll try to keep expectations to a minimum.

With Noah, the time when EM was most effective and fun was before he was mobile: it was one of the few ways we could communicate, and it was something he could "do" even before he could hold his head up. Rather than being a source of stress or mess, EM has been really fun and natural, and actually let us come into much less contact with poop than we do when it's smeared all over Noah's bum. Even though we were never all-in diaper-free, I think we gained a lot from what we were able to handle.

Here's to hardwood floors and less laundry. And tiny, tiny underwear. Tiny underwear is the cutest thing since cloth diapers.

A Trip to the Aquarium

2012-03-31T10:01:00.024-04:00

It's getting a bit cooler, and we've been missing our Friday adventures the last couple of weeks, because of the bathroom renovations.

Yesterday we decided to throw caution to the wind and go out. Soon after moving here, we bought yearlong memberships to the aquarium. It works well for us because Noah loves spending time looking at the fish and sharks, but he doesn't have a very long attention span. Multiple short trips are just the thing for learning about water life and enjoying the nearby harbour.

We discovered the largest tank had been scrubbed since our last visit and suddenly we could see the giant turtle, sharks, and schools of fish perfectly. It was beautiful:

Noah got splashed by the penguin

We try to coordinate our wardrobes.

The turtle came right up to say hi to Noah

And then went on his way...