New Normal?

Tomorrow I'm starting work. You all might be sick of me talking about it, but I'm still pretty nervous about the whole thing. Last night I finally stopped procrastinating as much and finished up most of the things I needed to get done before tomorrow. 

We have done several test runs of the schedule and for the most part it working pretty well. Little things, like having a clear path out of our room (so I don't scream and wake Matt up) and having clothes out for Madeleine the night before, surprisingly made a big difference.

Stay-at-home mom schedule/working full time at home

One thing that is constantly surprising me is how much more organized we need to be, even though I'm only working part time. I cannot even imagine working full time out of the house. Things that used to be flexible like bedtime are suddenly a set time, and other things that I didn't even have to think about matter - like what we are eating for breakfast.

Our new schedule

On the other side, it's interesting seeing the switch of childcare. Matt used to be in charge of bedtimes and I was queen of the morning. Now it's swapped. Madeleine loves being able to go with daddy to "Daddy's home" since her daycare is just right across the parking lot from his building. I think it will help him and me too. He's awful at waking up with an alarm and I'm not so great about going to bed consistently. So far, this has been helping with both.

I realize that this is many people's everyday lives and my respect for them has gone up. I've been a full time stay-at-home-mom the first 6 months of Madeleine's life. The last 2 years I've been a working mom either at home or at someone else's home, but I never had Madeleine away from me. She came with me everywhere I went, so this is the first time I'm juggling daycare, home, and a bit of work. I've been on the side lines supporting these women as their babysitter, and now I'm dipping my toe into their lives, and I'm just a bit overwhelmed. 

Teddy Bear Picnic

It's funny how every summer I can't quite find the will to blog. The weather is just too beautiful and summer days are literally full of our favorite things. 

With the summer coming to a close, I desperately wanted to throw a party for Madeleine. I was really planning on doing it on her half birthday, but we ended up moving right around then. So I decided to host an unbirthday teddy bear picnic. 

I kept the whole party pretty simple. I asked everyone to pack their own lunches. Siblings were welcomed and no gifts were needed. We pretty much just kept to inviting our neighbors that live in Princeton, but even with that limit we still had around 35 people come! 

It was so much fun. (At least for me)

Madeleine woke up that morning shocked to find so much sugar on our table. She only requested pink cupcakes (her current favorite color). I also bought goldfish, made honeycomb rice crispies, and 

Lotte Koala cookies. We grabbed our coffee table and our pile of quilts and headed to the park. 

Madeleine was thrilled that some of our friends were already there when we arrived, and by lunch time everyone had shown up. The kids ran around around while the adults sat on the blankets and talked. I really only saw Madeleine when she would run over and grab a cupcake before running off again.

We didn't have any games or anything, so around nap time people started heading home. It was nice and relaxing for me, and I loved seeing everyone that had been gone all summer. 

Hopefully we can do something like this next year. I think it was a good compromise for our little Christmas girl.

(All photo credit goes to my friend Rachel. I didn't take a single photo. Thankfully she did!)

First Paper Explained

Matt got his first paper published!!!!

While this may not be the most ground-breaking thing for Chemistry, it is for our family. Matt publishing this paper means 1) He got one project to work so now that shows that he is at least kind of competent and 2) he has a decent shot at getting a job. I'm going to let him explain what his paper is and hopefully you'll kind of understand what he has been working on for the last year.

Matt's explanation in laymen's terms:  Fluorine is a special member of the periodic table because it is the element that is most electronegative; in other words, it has a very strong attachment to its electrons. This is very important when designing pharmaceutical drugs. Usually, the human body degrades drugs by oxidizing them, a fancy term for "stealing all of their electrons" which causes the drug to fall apart and stop working. If you add fluorine to a drug, it makes it more resistant to having its electrons stolen, and this allows it to last longer and be more effective at treating disease.

Here are a few examples of fluorinated drugs (the fluorine is represented with the letter 'F'). The one on the left is an antibiotic where the fluorine increases its ability to kill bacteria, and the one on the right is used to treat high cholesterol. In both cases, the addition of the fluorine causes the drug to be much more effective at a lower dose.

So what's the problem? Well it turns out its not easy to put fluorine in molecules. One popular way of doing this is to take an oxygen (an 'O' atom) and convert directly into a fluorine. However, so far, the methods for doing this are either really expensive or they can result in big explosions. In short, the paper I just published describes a new way to add fluorine without the explosions or high cost. Hopefully, this will allow pharmaceutical companies to make cheaper drugs safely.

While this all may sound important, discoveries like this are made daily in the scientific community, and it is difficult to judge at the onset how important a discovery may prove to be.

Blueberries

We've gone blueberry picking twice this year already and I'm sure we'll go again before the season is over. I love berry season here. We missed the strawberries thanks to moving but we did get to pick cherries, which I had not done before. The sweet cherries are only around for two days since they get picked so quickly, but we made it for the blueberries.

I have a soft spot for blueberry picking. It was one of my first adventures here in Princeton and my first introduction to Terhune Orchard's. Since then, we go all the time, and even when we don't quite make it over there, we get their food from the farmer's market.

We are doing  trying to do"Plastic free July" so I really wanted to get more blueberries. We can get berries plastic free at the farmer's market, but I really think it's good for Madeleine and Baby X to see where food comes from and to be outside. 

I make her wear black. She makes sure she still gets a tutu.

Madeleine was having a bit of a hard time not eating all of the berries, so we had to leave after a bit. They gave me a free apple cider donut for bring a bag. I love those things! Anyway, part of the reason we went today was to get some more blueberries to freeze. I don't really cook with berries when they are not in season, but I do make blueberry muffins time to time. I figured that two jars of berries would be enough for four batches, which I think is enough for winter.

Here is how I do it if anyone is curious.

After washing them, I stick them on a cookie sheet and pick out all the leaves, stems, and bad berries.

Then I spread them out as much as possible and put the cookie sheet in the freezer over night. In the morning they are rock hard and I can stick them in a jar. Since I frozen them on a cookie sheet, I can pull out one berry at a time, or just pour out as many as I need.

Jar from last week's berries

I put some extras in the fridge for us to eat and make blueberry banana muffins with later.

Moving and a new place

And with a good-bye comes a hello.

Guys, I would totally be lying if I said I was thrilled about the new place when I first walked in.

When we moved in, I thought we were going to die or at least Madeleine. She figured out how to undo the deadlock and escape the house within an hour of getting here. Then we noticed that there were so many things that she could get in trouble with, like long window binds cords that she sucked on, no shelving that was out of her reach (we are in the handicap unit), and glass closet doors (she threw a chair at) just to name a few. Matt and I spent the next few days frantically trying to toddler proof. On top of that, even though this is a new complex, we had so many issues with hasty construction. At this point, 9 days out, we still have broken AC and don't have card access to our front door. 

But there is also a lot of good. The washer and dryer are amazing. With the help of them and the dishwasher, we have less than an hour of cleaning per day. I spent two hours a day doing dishes at Butler. I cannot believe how much extra time I have. The handicap unit means that there are more things at toddler level, which is nice for a few things. Madeleine was thrilled to run her own load of laundry a few days ago. We also have our own tiny back area. It's not fenced or anything but it does mean we have a place for outside toys. 

As for actual move , it was pretty easy. My mom and brother came out from Utah, and my brother helped Matt so much with the actual moving. People from church came and watched Madeleine while I packed since we were only given 42 hour notice that we were moving. The actual move took 6 hours and we spent two days packing and unpacking. By the end of the actual move day, we had everything more or less unpacked. It was amazing! The whole move cost us just under $64. Pretty sweet. :) I think I made most of my goals. Matt and I were able to go through every single thing before we packed them. I consider that a major win in itself.

May Day festival

Our local Waldorf school has a May Day celebration.

It had a craft sale. There were many amazing crafters, surprisingly. So far in New Jersey, the craft shows has been duds. But this one was small but great. The best part was meeting one of my favorite doll makers! One of Madeleine's dolls is getting a lot of love and need repairs, and this lady was nice enough to give me advice on how to fix her! I'm pretty excited. Meanwhile Madeleine had fun looking at her dolls. When we had to leave she helped put the dolls "to bed" (away) and then said goodbye to all of them. It was really cute.

Right after that it was time for the May pole. I was pretty bored to be honest, but Madeleine was entranced. She clapped and danced along on the side and when they invited kids to come out to the field at the end she was one of the first ones out.

Watching the older kids dancing.

After that we bought a few tickets and did a few activities. This was probably my favorite part. The first one Madeleine did was go dig for treasure in the sand box. Madeleine was SO excited that they had colored water rocks buried in the sand. She would start shouting out the color of the rocks when she first saw them and then would carefully line them on the edge so she could dig for more. They were her special treasures throughout the day. She would carefully give them to me while she climbed on the playgrounds, and then ask for them back as soon as her hands were free again. 

After that we made flower crowns. I love how they made them. They braided fabric so we could just stick the flowers in the braid. It was pretty and way easier than the one I made for Easter.

Madeleine would hand me the flowers and feathers. When we finished, she told me she was ready to go home to show "B and Dodger". So we did and played with our friends.

I love going to the waldorf school's festivals. We want to the Michaelmas festival last year and really enjoyed that too. I love that little boys run around with flowers in their hair while sword fighting. It reminds of the little boys in our neighborhood. I like that they aren't so influenced by being "manly" and play with what they like.

Holiday Photos

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was nice, but did not go according to plan at all. Madeleine got a high fever the whole weekend. I cracked a tooth and Matt got sick and ended up pulling an all nighter at work. So it wasn't really relaxing but we did get a few things done that I had been putting off.

One thing that I was determine to do was take family photos on campus while all the students were still on break. Since everyone is sick, we took photos for about 30 minutes before calling it a day. Thankfully we got a few good ones. Setting up a tripod is not fun.

Madeleine was so miserable. Thankfully I had taken a few of just her a few weeks ago when we were on a family walk before church.

This year I think went way better than last year's photos. I'm trying to save enough money up so that we can have a professional photographer take family photos for us. I like doing them myself, but it takes so much longer and I can't be as picky about the what's in the photo. But some of the candids are hilarious.

Matt and I had a long discussion that about if family photos are worth taking. They are great after the fact but sometimes it's the last thing everyone wants to be doing.  Thankfully, I have low expectations for these family photos, so I don't find them that stressful.

Do you think family photos are worth it? How often do you do them?

Cupcakes

The last week has been a frustrating one for me. My little people are getting smarter and in more trouble. It's ranged from popping in the bathtub to coloring in library books (on the color wheel of all things). And during all of this, I decided that it was a good time to make Madeleine's Halloween costume. But now her costume is done, (it was supposed to be an hour project), and I can turn back to some of the more important things in my life, like cupcakes.

So almost a week ago, we went to the re-opening of House of Cupcakes!

We got there 10 minutes early and I was a bit surprised there was no line at the door. Turns out they had just opened up and there was already a group of people inside. The previous store would have been full from the number of people that was there, but in this new place there was plenty of space! I was really happy about that, because that was one of the things I disliked about the last store...there was no room.

We ordered my favorite cupcake - fudge truffle for Madeleine and me to split.

I snapped a quick picture before cutting it in half. Baby X took advantage of that moment and swiped a bit of Madeleine's frosting. He was so proud of himself, but then frosting ended up on his forehead instead of his mouth. Ah, the advantages of having good hand eye coordination.

After I finished up my half and was waiting on Madeleine, a reporter came up to me and started to talk to me about the cupcakes. Madeleine finished up her half while I was talking to the reporter, and then tried to get my attention. I personally wanted to clean up Madeleine's chocolate covered hands before she wiped them all over me, (Too late, cupcake ended up all over the front of my shirt) but the lady didn't take a hint. So Madeleine being the little independent toddler that she is, grabbed her plate and pushed through the crowed to the counter. She stood on her tip toes and pushed her plate onto the counter, "More. More."

Everyone froze and looked at me. I was full out laughing. It was too cute, and I told them that half of cupcake was plenty for her.

And go figure...that's the part that made it into the article.

""With remnants of the dark chocolate cake and frosting still clinging to her face, Nielsen’s daughter brought her empty plate over to the bakery’s counter after she was finished, hoping to try some more.

“She’s 21 months old, and that’s not stopping her from asking for seconds,” Nielsen said."

Link to the article here

She did get seconds later that night. After we picked up Matt, we swung by for a second cupcake. 

And you know...we might have a lunch date there today too.

What can I say? Their chocolate cake rocks.

Feminism and Princeton

Princeton's used book sale today. I had been looking forward for it for months. Matt and I have drastically slowed our book buying since minimizing our things, but I had one book I desperately wanted - the book, The Feminine Mystique. That's all I came for. I'm a bit of snob about classics. I only buy them if they are used and hard-cover. I like them marked up and used, not new and pristine, on the off chance that the previous owner had some insight that I'd be interested in.

The sale opened to the public at noon, so I carefully put Madeleine and Baby X for an early nap, so they'd be nice and happy for our errand. We came twenty minutes early so I could feed them before we walked in the room. It seemed to be going fine, until we actually got in the room. And we realized that the stroller didn't fit.

"Ma'me the children's books are in the back. There is a separate entrance for that."

"Oh no thanks, I'm looking for a book for me."

Silence...

"Can you help me find it? I'm looking for The Feminine Mystique"

"I'll just give you a map."

She handed it to me and then I was faced with trying to get this double umbrella stroller through these narrow rows. Technically the stroller fit through the rows, but turning the corners was difficult. The whole mission was made even more difficult by stubborn people who wouldn't move an inch for me to get by. As I struggled, Baby X started to cry. I was in the middle of the maze of books. There wasn't much I could do about it. Anyway the section I was looking for was right next to the exit, so I figured I'd just go for it.

I could make it about a foot before someone's foot was in the way. I would have to say "Excuse me" several times before they'd usually acknowledge me. Somewhere in Autobiographies the rude looks turned into whispers. The two old ladies behind me started to "whisper", the way old ladies at church do when they don't like the teacher - they move their heads together but talk loud enough that everyone can hear. "She's so young. Why in the world did she bring that stroller in here?" "Didn't you see? There is two of them!" "How irresponsible. I'd never bring my babies to a place like this. Not that I had children at her age." 

I was able to escape into Fiction, but my stroller got stuck on a table leg. I would have been able to clear it except for this man would not move over a few inches for me to get by. Another women came over and tried to get his attention, but he just ignored her too. As she helped me lift the stroller over the leg, he mumbled. "This is why they invented birth control." Can you believe he said that! Ugh. That jerk.

Finally I reached the Gender section. While I quickly scanned over the titles of the books, Madeleine starting to act up. The one person in that small area (the least crowded of the whole place), rolled his eyes, "F*ing children" before walking off and complained to the librarians. One of the librarians scampered over to me, helped me look for the book, said they must of sold out of the copies, "Too bad. We had a signed one here earlier but it was a bit more on the expensive side." Before guiding me to the children's section and leaving. I left on the verge of tears and let Madeleine play upstairs until I had calmed down.

So can we talk about this?

Do you read anything that rubbed you wrong?

Here's a few things that bothered me. 

1) A community event was not arranged to accommodate families.

2) As a mother, clearly the only thing I'd be interested in reading is children's books. I never read for myself.

3) My age deemed me an irresponsible parent and probably person.

4) People felt comfortable to make comments about my life planning and birth control methods. 

5) People rather complain and swear about me bringing kids than helping me find my book.

So why did this bother me so much? 

Princeton is such an educated community. There were rare and expensive books there. The people shopping were not poor college students. No, most of them were the rich retirees that make up the rest of the Princeton community. These people are educated and they value education. But they didn't value mine.  They rather glare and make comments about me than support a mother who values educating herself and her children. They feel superior and confident enough to not only make comments, but to quietly assert that they could make better decisions about my life than I can. They also feel comfortable enough to imply that I should be more careful about birth control. Classy right there.

What gave these people rights to comment about my birth control and sex life?

What gave them the right to be there but not me?

What makes them superior than me?

From my point of view nothing.

The thing that struck me the most was the irony of the situation. One of the main focuses of The Femine Mystique is about how housewives get depressed. Matt and I discussed this at length and decided that it wasn't necessarily being a housewife that causes the depression, but the lack of serious thinking and acknowledgement. I was there to get a book that made me think. I was there for a book about feminism. Yet, these highly educated people at the moment would have loved to have me home tending to "my" children instead of trying to get a book for myself.

Feminism to me fights for women's right for privacy about their birth control, sex life, and life choices such as being a stay-at-home-mom and having my children when I want.

 Feminism to me fights for all people to be treated with respect - even children.

Feminism to me means that I have a right to education and books.

I've seen people post "why I don't need feminism."

Well I do, because I absolutely hated this afternoon.

I'd really like this blog post to be a starting place for a good discussion. So can we chat about this? Do you think I'm being too sensitive or I was right to be upset? What does feminism mean to you? Do you think it's still relevant? Do you think things like access to birth control should be something that people should be voting on? (You either have to deal with kids or birth control is how I see it. And with kids, comes maternity and family care...which I know people don't like.) Do you think there is such things as a "feminist housewife"? What things does a "feminist housewife" stand up for?

Please comment, even if you think this is all BS. Really.

Morning Photos

I'm kind of a brat when it comes to family photos. I insist on them at least twice a year if not more. This fall has been a bit of doozy though, since I waited to late too book most of my favorite local photographers. I'm still trying to get a professional photographer, but that didn't stop me from waking my family up at sunrise (7:11 is not that early) and dragging them to our backyard for practice photos. 

I took just over 100 photos...and we got 6 that kind of turned out. :) Posing a family is hard stuff when you're not behind the camera! I should have taken a picture of all the things we needed to keep Madeleine looking the right way. It helped that we were looking toward her best friend's house. So all we had to say was "Where is B's house?" for the first twenty photos or so.

The lighting was beautiful. Did I mention I love living here?

So yeah, hopefully we can get a few more pretty photos before Fall is over. I would love to get some done on campus.

Princeton in the Fall

I love living here in Princeton. It's beautiful basically all year round, but Fall in New England is especially beautiful. On Sunday we went on a family drive and later bike ride to enjoy how beautiful our home is.

Here are a few from our bike ride. These are all less than 5 miles from our home.

Choosing to start biking as a family was a brilliant thing for us. Not only do we get to spend time together, we get to work out, save money, and enjoy the view.

I mean wouldn't you be looking forward to going to the grocery store if this was your drive?

I honestly can't get enough of it. I love sitting on the back porch with Baby X as the wind blows the leaves around with Madeleine chasing after them. It's basically perfect.

Today was one of those days that was a bit harder as a mom, but I'm excited for tonight when Madeleine and I get to bike to the store to grab diapers.

We live right on the right side of this bridge. I was so disappointed that I couldn't get the light balance right to really capture how pretty it is, but I really I love living here.

Breaking down Lindt's door and an awesome pair of shoes

 Last Friday Princeton had a big sidewalk sale. We were planning to go as a family but Matt got off work a little late. Madeleine and I ended up going instead as mommy daughter and Sophie date.

We biked over to downtown and stopped by all our favorite places. We dropped off our library books, admired and touched all the purses at Kate Spade, and Madeleine ran around the toy store with her arms full of baby dolls. Leaving the baby dolls behind was very emotional. The toy store gave her with a consolation lollipop. We started walking over to Lindt chocolate but Madeleine got distracted by the jazz band. She sat on some steps just listening to the music for a while.  

To be honest, I got bored before she did, and I dragged her off to Lindt. Oh man, does my baby know her way around a chocolate place or what. She walked in and held her hand out to the person giving the free sample. I started laughing, usually the sale associates just give one to me and then gives another when Madeleine eats it. I guess this time she figured she'd just tell them right off the bat that she wanted one. We then went and picked out a few pieces and sat on a bench to eat them.

 She tried to get the chocolate out of the wrapper but then decided to ask.

Picking one favorite of chocolate is so hard! There were only 3 pieces and one of them was for Matt. She debated between the two for a while.

She picked the pink one and popped it in her mouth. I told her it was all gone and she jumped up with Sophie.

And took off running....

She stopped to touch the directory.

And then started running again.

All the way back to Lindt chocolate which was now closed.

She was so confused why they wouldn't let her in. She pushed and shoved at that door. She asked me for help. Poor thing. All she wanted was chocolate.

Eventually I was able to drag her away from the door. We walked around for a bit. She stopped at every light or grate to inspect it.

Then right in the middle of a door knob inspection, she saw something!

Daddy!! 

Well yeah...I mean he did happen to show up then, but the real thing that caught her eye were these girl's shoes.

Can I just stop and say for a second that I'm so grateful for all the people that let my toddler pet their shoes? This actually happens a lot, and people are always so sweet to us. This girl was French and thought it was so funny that Madeleine was completely enamored with them.

Our date ended soon after that. Madeleine is so funny. I love her little fearless personality. She's so curious and determined. 

Life lately

We are loving summer here in Princeton, even Matt has been able to join us in the fun. :) It's been laid back yet really busy. Funny how that works. I'm now watching Baby X around 45 hours a week. The first week was crazy, but last week I felt pretty comfortable with both kids. Our scheduled with him looks something like this.

Monday - Play inside all morning - Nap - Play until dinner

Tuesday - Neighborhood playgroup - Nap - Play until dinner

Wednesday - Church playgroup - nap - play until dinner

Thursday - play - nap - walk around downtown Princeton and farmer's market

Friday - play - nap - park

Playing lately has been almost all outdoors with our friends. Usually there is water to play in and chairs for the moms. It's lovely. I found if I have something structured for half of the day, the other half seems to fly by. If I don't, I seem to look at the clock until nap time. Madeleine loves playing outside. When she wakes up from nap, she grabs her shoes and runs to the front door screaming "Mum-meeee".  If I let her out, she grabs the stroller and walks to her friend Be's house. It's adorable.

When Baby X isn't around we have a lot of fun too. Here are a few of the things we've been up to.

Beach

We've been going at least once a week. It's wonderful. Sometimes we go to Applebee's on the way home or walk around the Outlet mall.

Biking

Last weekend I bought a bike! So far it's been a great purchase since we've biked to the grocery store, Trader Joe's, Walmart, the library, and church. Madeleine loves it. When Matt is home, she grabs her helmet and walks up to his bike, usually screaming, "Dada!" 

World Cup

Living in student housing, I think, made watching the world cup so much more fun. We watch many of the matches with our neighbors, and then we saw yesterday's game at the Princeton library. There were so many people there and it was wonderful experience.

Yoga

I've been taking a yoga class and it's one of the highlights of my week. It's a little over an hour and half long and is exactly what I need at the end of the week.

Watching lighting storms

There has been some fabulous lighting storms. Matt and I have enjoyed watching them together after Madeleine is in bed.

Gardening

Our garden is doing pretty well! We've been eating a lot of salads from it and our tomatoes are just about ripe! 

Minimalizing

We've been going through our stuff and getting rid of things after Madeleine has gone to bed. It's been a wonderful on-going process and we're pretty happy with it.

Trying a lot of new recipes

Some have been good...some have been really awful.

Throw in a lot of chocolate milkshakes and that's been our summer so far. It's been delightful. Matt is liking his work and I'm loving mine. :)

How has your summer been?