I think it says a lot about me that of all the 555 blog posts I deleted to re-release this site, a pancake recipe is the one that made it through relatively unscathed.

I mean, the recipe hasn’t changed, that is. The intro is re-written, courtesy of not being quite as smarmy as I was when I wrote this in 2018.

This recipe came about because the minute you develop a food intolerance (or take on a restrictive life-style change) the first thing you lose is all your go-to recipes and food from childhood memories.

But as you experiment with new flours, recipes, and foods, you start to see that maybe — just maybe — you can piece together some of your favorite recipes.

Enter: the grain-free German pancake!

Growing up, these were a delectable Sunday treat every few months. (And I can imagine why — at 6 eggs each and 6 people in the family, that’s a lot of eggs!)

They’re bigger, breadier, and crispier than traditional pan fried pancakes, but they still have that savory, buttery, light flavor.

They’re also easier to make in my opinion because you just whip everything up and stick it in a pan. None of that frying and burning nonsense.

They come out big, so I recommend splitting them with someone, but hey, I’ve eaten a whole one once or twice (or thrice) and I’ve lived to tell the tale.

Paleo German Pancake Ingredients

1/4 Cup Butter, Melted

Pinch of salt

Dollop of cream or coconut milk (Optional, but it gives it greater height/volume in the final product)

6 Eggs

1/3 Cup Arrowroot flour

2/3 Cup Bob’s Red Mill Blanched Almond Flour

Paleo German Pancake Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
2. Whisk melted butter, eggs and salt
3. Add in the flours and whisk until smooth (A couple lumps won’t ruin anything)
4. Slip into a lined brownie or cake pan (You really want to line this sucker, even oiling it will result in a stuck-on mess)
5. Bake for ~ 28 minutes

The end result will be light, fluffy, steamy and delicious! Add more butter and drizzle with maple syrup (or, as #1 and #2 prefer, topped with whipped cream).

Tell me how it goes if you make this!

“Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“It’s almost my bud-day comin’ up!”

Our toddler is three this week.

How big a miracle is that?

That his long, stringy, 99% muscle body used to be a fat little burrito with some rice slipping out the bottom of the wrap.

That he used to run into everything… corners, floors, stairs, people, his own feet. And now he takes a running leap to launch from the couch to the bean-bag chair and back again without even a grunt.

That the fastest way to get him to stop what he’s doing and come R U N N I N G is to simply start the sentence, “Behbeh, can you help me [insert any chore].”

That we waited almost 2.5 years to get to talk to him (!) because he was way more focused on learning to run than learning to string words together.

And now he regularly surprises me with observations, phrases, and punch lines he’s learning from us and a few select TV shows (“Bluey” on Disney + is a new favorite. An Australian dog family. You’rE welcome).

But for all these miracles, the biggest change for me is that this will be the first of his four birthdays (his day of birth, 1, and 2) that I’m not dreading.

Unfortunately, dread, grief, and loss was a big part of my birth story. And for the past few years, a little bit of it has crept back in on the reminder of the day.

Birth trauma is a real thing. Even if you get a beautiful, healthy baby out of it. And I’m no longer surprised when, within a few minutes of speaking honestly, many moms I talk to are still working through some of the painful feelings that came with their bundles of joy.

A few examples:

I don’t have any pleased and proud birth photos to share, with mom looking sweaty and tired and glowing. (I can be happy for people and also jealous of those photos — trust me.) Mine have low lights, fake smiles, and medical equipment.

And the first days and weeks were just as dark. The ratio of sweat, tears, and blood to baby laughs and relieved sighs is really depressing to look back on. In fact, I frequently don’t. There are still days when I get that photo reminder of “Where you were two years ago!!” and I race to close out of the app before a bad memory takes me too far away from where we are now.

But we got through it. Humans are magicians at persevering, moms especially. We had a lot going for us then, and we have a lot going for us now. But grief takes some time to work through, absorb, heal from.

I’m glad I have the photos. I think they’ll get easier to look at as the years go on. And that way I know I have a way to see how beautiful and perfect this little boy was/is in hindsight. Because, wow. He’s so beautiful.

So, the biggest gift I am giving my little man on his third birthday is forgiving myself for those early days of grief.

Want to know something weird? It’s uncomfortable to admit this. But it was hard to look him in the eyes in the first year of his life. I felt so ashamed and broken by what my birth was like, and how I turned out to be as a mother.

But time and therapy, another baby, and a gentle and hopeful husband has healed so much of that. I know more of who I am now, and why I am the way I am, and – most importantly – that all those things are OK. I also know exactly what I am capable of giving this little boy: absolutely everything.

I am completely and utterly delighted by everything about him. I love him more than I love myself. I love how we really are more than any birth story that could have been. And I don’t have to hold anything back in the smiles we share today.

Hey friends. It’s been a long time. Thanks for sticking with me!

You know how corn fields get rotated, so each field gets a year “off” to replenish the nutrients and wildlife that will serve the next yield?

No, of course you don’t.

We’re all terribly inexperienced with the principles of farming and agriculture. It’s OK. You can still follow along with this metaphor.

Anyway, I needed some time to process all the perfect and not-perfect ways my life has changed as a result of launching into full-blown parenthood in 2017.

2017! That was three years ago.

Not only would I not physically recognize the woman I was then, I would not relate to her mentally.

Er, I did not.

All of the blog articles on here sounded so… what… smug? Selfish? Figured-it-all-out-did-you? I just wanted to smack the person who wrote all that. So, it had to go.

Another complicating factor is that I write for other people for a living.

So when I have a moment of downtime (that is, when I fight and claw my way to a minute of down time) the last thing I should do or could do was get back on the computer to keep writing.

But. My husband recently came home to be a SAHD. And everything’s still busy, but there are… long periods of time…. of every day…. when…. I am not the primary caretaker.

This has allowed me to almost come back to the place where I can start to figure out who I am now that my life has changed so much.

Theory: People talk a lot about losing your identify when you become a mother. And like most people, that didn’t feel real to me until it happened to me.

(It’s awful.)

But maybe it’s not how much you change that makes you lose yourself. Maybe it’s that what you can care about changes so much that you don’t recognize the person who used to care about different things.

The things I cared about were suddenly very real, and physical, and overwhelming… and very exclusive to the little family bubble of my husband and I. Because not many people care as much about the size of your toddler’s poop as your spouse does.

(It’s… intimidatingly huge, y’all.)

As the kids get older and less… shall we say… of an invasive alien species that dominates all within the time-space continuum… and as I reclaim a normal work day for the first time in three years (3 years!). I am starting to care about some of the things I used to care about. And it’s…. refreshing.

I hope to be back more regularly to write. It’s mostly a one-way thing, but I always welcome a little comment or email if you have something you particularly liked or want to add.

As we get rolling, here’s a roll out of GIFs that express how I’ve experienced 2020 so far:

When I finally felt the urge to write here again

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When they took Frasier and Friends off Netflix the same day

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When I finally de-clench all my muscles at the end of a long, hard day…. and #2 starts screaming for no reason

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When my husband stayed home the first day from work to become a SAHD

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When I get to my co-working space and have — get this — enough time to get all my work done

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When #1 asks “Are you happy, mommy?” after I angrily scold everyone for whatever just happened

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When I learned Athleta released a plus-size exercise line…

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… And I place my order and everything fits ***beautifully***

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When I make it two weeks without refined sugar…

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And then COVID stress sends me right to the chocolate bar aisle

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Hope 2020 has been good to you! <3 Me