Mo' Fuss

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. On the blog, from time to time, I have been known to engage in hyperbole. When I talk about the babies fussing up a storm or being inconsolable I am often just exaggerating for artistic effect. Even though I've been doing this for four years on the blog now that there are babies involved there are repercussions to the license I am taking. Generally this comes in the call of a frantic call from my mother or in Jen not speaking to me for a couple of days.


Today I have been given permission by Jen to tell it like it is. The babies were kind of a mess today. Elliott spent large patches of the day wailing. After trying everything we'd often try feeding him which worked for short times. He couldn't, we thought, possibly still be hungry after we fed him twenty minutes ago.

Oh, how wrong we were.


They took turns hanging out in their Rock 'n Play Sleepers while the other fussed. It got so bad that while I napped Jen assembled the second Rock 'n Play Sleeper even after arguing with me incessantly about the absurdity of these purchases and promising to return one or both of them.

Who's the fool now?


So it was that we didn't get out to the patio until dusk to enjoy a brief pre-dinner drink. For Jen and her mum I poured this pinot grigio rose from PrimaTerra of Italy. I admit, I only bought this because I was intrigued by it being the palest rose I'd ever seen. It turns out it was quite tasty if not indistinguishable from normal pinot grigio. I think that perhaps it was the result of a wine-making accident that they have capitalized on it. I know so little about wine that it's hard to say.


After a couple of minutes Martin started fussing so Jen got the opportunity to use her nursing cape for the first time. I'm pretty sure that's not what it's actually called but that is what I choose to call it nonetheless.


While I grilled I enjoyed this Dog Days Dortmunder Style Lager
from Two Brothers Brewing Company, right in Jen's mum's back yard. After the disappointing experience I had with their other summer beer, Long Haul, this was a refreshing surprise. It was a very crisp, clean tasting lager with a slightly sweet finish. It was perfect for a hot day at the grill. It's just unfortunate that it was an overcast evening in the mid 70s.


I grilled up some chicken that I'd marinated for forty-eight hours in a spicy avocado marinade then topped it with a salad of grilled corn, farm tomatoes, lime, red onion, olive oil, and avocado.


I also grilled up these locally grown New York Japanese toy eggplants with a little salt and pepper and then finished them with fresh thyme from my mother's garden.


With the remaining cabbage from the farm I made a slaw with red onion, carrot, whole grain mustard, mayonnaise, lime juice hot sauce, salt, and pepper. We didn't really need this dish but I couldn't bare the thought of the cabbage remaining in the fridge for a second longer.


I had thought to use this cherry chocolate bread from Hot Bread Kitchen for a pre-dinner treat. I thought it would have a savory chocolate flavor but it ended up being so sweet that we had slices of it for dessert instead.

Last night's viewing of Time Machine Chefs was a tremendous disappointment. It was a good idea with very poor execution. After hearing about it my father-in-law suggested another program called Let's Cook History on Enlightenment dining. Tonight we are opting to watch that to make up for the raw disappointment of Time Machine Chefs. But first, a viewing of The Curse of Mr. Bean to make up for all the Olympic diving we've been missing.

That's right. This blog will now almost exclusively be about TV programs that we watch while feeding babies. There has been much clamoring for more entries on this subject.

Silent, secret clamoring.

Beach Baby, Beach Baby

Today began with Jen formulating what would be our most adventurous day with the babies yet. This only involved a five minute trip to the beach but the fact that she even suggested it in the first place struck me as particularly audacious. The five minute drive meant a precision feeding at 11:00 AM followed by the short drive which was sandwiched between two thirty-minute packing and unpacking sessions.

After navigating the stroller across the beach sand (a chore I do not recommend) we were at our destination.



The beach was met with mixed reviews. Actually they weren't that mixed, the guys seemed to hate it. They didn't like the sun. They didn't like the sand.


And they hated having their toes dipped in the water more than anything they've experienced in their short time on this Earth.


After the beach we went to the park to have a picnic lunch. The Wombats enjoyed this significantly more than the beach.


Elliott, in particular, enjoyed the picnic because he got to sleep through the entire thing.


After getting home, and taking a glorious two-and-a-half hour nap, we went out to the back patio and enjoyed a drink.


Jen's mum, when asked about beer, said the only time she ever enjoyed beer was when she got to have shandies living in England. Hearing that I searched out a beer and found this Porch Rocker from Samuel Adams. This is a shandy-type beer or Radler, a German-style shandy I had not heard of before having this.

Overtly this is not my favorite type of beer but after a long day at the beach, outside, and sitting in the warm humid August air this was a perfectly refreshing way to begin dinner.


After out drinks I put out this salad of farm kale, farm cucumbers, farm tomatoes, farm grilled peppers, mixed greens, feta cheese, olive oil, lemon, salt, and pepper.


To recreate my summer youth for my mother-in-law I made up these stuffed clams (or 'stuffies' as they were called in Rhode Island) to start out the meal.


For the main course I overdid the breaded seafood theme by making this baked scrod which was actually some fantastic haddock I got on sale with lemon, fresh thyme from my mother's garden, olive oil, butter, salt, and pepper. Using haddock was a bit of an extravagance that one doesn't often experience in the restaurants of Rhode Island but, technically, it is still a recognized preparation by all accounts I can find.


After bathing the guys and putting them to sleep we were ready to settle down and watch last night's premier of Time Machine Chefs. I explained the premise of this show to Jen's mum as people going to a castle and using only techniques found in the 1500's to create a typical meal of that day. She said that was boring because she mistakenly thought that I meant they did this in every episode.

After I explained to her that I was just giving an example of one time period they were cooking from she warmed up to the idea of watching it.

However, it's on a major network so I'm sure they'll screw it all up.

Sleep Predictions and Nineteenth Centry Swimwear

I keep hearing conflicting estimates on when the babies will sleep better through the night. Some people have told me it will take eighteen years. Some people have said it will last forever. Others have had shorter (but still undesirable) estimates such as eight months. Today someone told me twelve weeks. I choose to believe this estimate. It's a goal I can hold out in front of myself and ultimately be sorely disappointed. Twelve weeks would mean we're one third of the way through our relatively sleepless nights. I could do another eight weeks of this. I'd rather do none but eight weeks seems possible.

It gave me a glimmer of hope that will likely be extinguished by disappointment forty weeks from now when they're still waking up every two hours.

I left work a little early today because I just had to come home and try to get a little sleep. Elliott had a profoundly bad night last night, shrieking and inconsolable. Our entire night was spent trying to get him to calm down. We finally got him to get to sleep around 5:45 AM.

I needed to leave for work at 6:00 AM.


On my way home I picked up this week's farm share. We got two pounds of tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, two eggplants, some Boothby Blonde cucumbers, Opal basil, purple peppers, Walla Walla onions, green beans, Bright Lights Swiss chard, peaches, nectarines, and donut peaches.


When I got home I found Elliott chilling in a Boppy and Martin sleeping in his car seat. After calming Elliott a little more I couldn't find a blanket so I just covered him with some old stained shorts to keep him warm and fell asleep on the bed.

I'm eagerly awaiting my "#1 Dad" mug.


Nana popped in yesterday afternoon as our fourth round of outside help. This was much appreciated. While the guys were happy to see their Nana, we were happy to occasionally be able to sit out a round or two of feedings/burpings. Unfortunately she uad the unenviable task of trying to calm Elliott last night while he was in full freak out mode.


I only had about 30 minutes to put some dinner out while the babies were resting. I started with this Von Trapp Oma from Trapp Family Lodge in Vermont with Champagne grapes.


I poured Jen and Nana a glass of rose from l'Escargot. I have something of a linguistics background so I'd explain: "l'escargot" is French for "the escargot."


I used some Gotham Greens gourmet greens as a base for this "Nicoise" salad. I pan roasted a nice piece of Norwegian salmon in olive oil with a few strips of bacon in the oven. With the greens I added farm green beans and tomatoes, cherry tomatoes from mom's garden, boiled potatoes, green olives, avocado, and red onion with some lemon, olive oil, salt, and pepper.


For a drink I poured myself this Pils from Stoudt's Brewing Company. This is not generally my favorite style of beer but this was a very nice, very refreshing beer with a lemony hop flavor. It was extremly light and paired well with the nice cool summer salad.


After dinner we engaged in some baby-related activities. It generally takes me about twenty minutes to write a blog entry. Tonight was no different except that the twenty minutes was stretched out in four-minute bursts over the course of a couple of hours. Now I'm ready to return to bed as the effects of my short nap are wearing off.

While we watched some Olympic track and field events, the babies settled down in their nineteenth century swimming attire and got some rest.

Some grand mustaches would really have completed the look.

Minor Successes

Last night's plan to divide the babies up was a smashing success! In this smashing success we all got a small amount of sleep! At one point I slept for more than one hour consecutively!


After a long day of baby-minding, and napping, I snapped to work in getting dinner together starting with a tomato salad with a yellow tomato from the Greenmarket, red tomato from the farm share, rice vinegar, salt, pepper, and my mother's basil.


For the main dish I cooked up some garlic, onion, summer squash, broccoli, cauliflower and cauliflower then tossed in some cooked rigatoni with fresh basil.


For a drink I poured this Snake Dog IPA from Flying Dog Brewery. After having their Wildeman Farmhouse Ale I was anxious to try another of their brews and this was was nice. It was a slightly chalky-tasting IPA which went nicely with tonight's light dinner.


For the ladies I made Aperol Spritzes, a drink that was on Jen's list of drinks she wanted to have after she gave birth. It had been such a long time since I made this that we had to look up the ingredients which sent Lisa and I walking to the wine store in town to pick up some Prosecco. The drink was met with a warm response from Jen's sisters.

The babies' response was more tepid. Once they figured out we were taking a ten minute break to have dinner they both started fussing until we attended to their needs which seemed to be nothing more than holding them and making sure we were not enjoying an uninterrupted meal.

With the success of last night I'm excited to try these new sleeping arrangements again this evening. However, if there is one thing I've learned so far it's that what works today does not necessarily work tomorrow. With all the fussing they've done at various points throughout today I'm sure things could change pretty quickly overnight. Especially after we treat them to another bath this evening.

I've also learned that things are much easier with two live-in helpers.

Go figure.

Wild Salmon, Wild Babies

Jen was kind enough to let me sleep tonight. I think she felt bad for me after seeing me drag my sorry body across our front lawn last night as I returned home from work, a broken man.

I was only supposed to sleep until 2:00 AM last night but she didn't wake me. I remember waking up at 3:00 AM, realizing what was happening, and attempting to drag my body off the bed to relieve her. Unfortunately, I collapsed halfway through getting off the bed in a haze of exhaustion and slept until 7:00 AM.

Jen and Jen's mum then spent all day with the babies. Apparently there was a lot of fussing, gas, and poop-explosions today that I missed.



Martin likes to rotate around in his crib during the day. While my mother-in-law was cleaning up he had worked himself perpendicular to Elliott, something he does quite often.



After cleaning for a bit more she found that he had done a full 180 degree rotation, a new record for his short life. I can only imagine this makes things more difficult for him since one of his favorite pastimes is kicking his little brother in the head while he sleeps.

It's spooky how he does this because you never see him moving. You just look away then look back and he has made some degree of rotation. He's like those evil angel statues in Doctor Who except less evil.

And more snuggly.



After getting home I had a very short amount of time to put together dinner. It was a race against our hunger and knowing that the babies are programmed to spoil dinner by waking up in the middle of it no matter what time we start.

I made this salad of Chiogga beets from the farm with Marcona almonds, Sun Gold tomatoes, balsamic glaze, and baby greens with olive oil.



For the main course I cooked down some onion and garlic in olive oil and butter then tossed in some summer squash, chives from my mother's garden, salt, and pepper.

I got a really nice piece of wild Alaskan salmon, squeezed a little lemon juice on it, dusted it with salt and pepper, spread chopped lemon basil from the farm over the top, and drizzled it with olive oil before roasting it.

I am proud to say that my mother-in-law, who declared her dislike for summer squash, went back for seconds.



For beer I celebrated my mother-in-law's extreme hatred of monkeys with this Monkey Fist IPA from Shipyard Brewing Company in Maine. This was a really nice IPA with a rich amber color. However, I almost think that a Bud Light would have been welcome after two full days of work and very little sleep.

Okay, I admit that was hyperbole.



After dinner we settled down to the Olympic opening ceremony. Jen's mum hated the opening ceremony just about as much as anyone in the world could hate anything. I don't think she minded the parade of nations so much but she could have dealt with 100% less ridiculous reenactment of this history of Britain.

Four years ago we watched the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in our stuffy New York City apartment the day before leaving for our honeymoon. Today we watched it in our cozy, air conditioned suburban apartment while soothing our newborn babies.

Four years from now I hope to introduce the guys to Animalympics, the greatest movie about the Olympics ever made.

Having kids is going to make it so much easier to convince Jen it is okay for me to watch cartoons.

Why else have children?

Giant Babies

When I leave the house I see babies everywhere. Giant babies! Regular sized babies are freaking me out right now. They're so damned big! Every corner I turn there is some chunky, hulking, bruiser in a stroller. The baby must be ten or eleven pounds! How do you deal with babies that big?



For an example, here's the giant mammoth they put on the Baby Bjorn Babysitter Balance box. This item was recommended to us as an amazing unit to use to sooth fussy babies.



Here's Elliott on his inaugural ride in the Babysitter Balance. The waist harness rubbing against his forehead just seemed to make him all the more cranky.



I returned to work yesterday. That was really difficult. I was so exhausted after staying up all night with the babies, and Jen picking up the farm share, that I couldn't even bring myself to unpack the bags and take a proper picture. I just came home, took a picture, then sat around all cranky before going to bed.

This week we got two pounds more of summer squash, an eggplant, some Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage, a bunch of Chiogga beets with greens, scallions, sage, lemon basil, Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, nectarines, peaches, and blueberries.



Tonight we got a visit from Aunt Caolan and Uncle Paul. Not only did they come to visit the babies but they brought dinner. We were thinking of instituting a rule whereby people needed to pay admission to see the babies and this would be in the form of dinner so that we could have a second's rest. Caolan and Paul had such foresight that they did this without even having to be notified of the changes to our policies and procedures!



To celebrate our dinner guests I opened this bottle of 2007 Cremant de Bordeaux that we'd miraculously been able to sneak home from France last year much to the chagrin of our liquid-averse TSA.



I put out a salad with some tomatoes I got at the market, feta, olive oil, salt, pepper, and sage that my mother brought from her garden last weekend.



The main course was macaroni and cheese made by Caolan which was fantastic. The babies even kept quiet for five or ten minutes so that we could enjoy dinner with our friends. Well, I don't actually think they had any intention of giving us any peace and quiet. It just worked out that way. It's nice to imagine that they are that thoughtful.



For a drink I had this Sorachi Ace from Brooklyn Brewery. I've been eyeballing this beer for years now and I finally just picked up a bottle yesterday to have with dinner. After trying their Oishi at the brewery a few months back I was even more excited to try it and it did not disappoint. It had a wonderful citrus taste from the hops and beautiful carbonation streaming up from the bottom of the glass.



The boys were a little difficult this afternoon. Jen and her mum still managed to find time to make this crisp with sugar plums and peaches from the farm. Reportedly it took 90 minutes for them to put it together but still a great accomplishment that they were able to do anything at all with the babies in Full Fuss Mode.



After dinner the boys were showered with gifts by Paul and Caolan. They were able to restrain their excitement in this photo but I could tell they were psyched.

My only regret about today is that I just couldn't have more than one glass of that tasty beer for fear of passing out.



Though one glass was plenty. Martin managed to stay awake though.

That's good because he was my designated snuggler.