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Geben sie ihrem baby eine korrekte ausbildung, früh.

Some parents-to-be can get pretty hyper about 'educating' their developing fetus...employing methods as monstrous as playing recorded physics problems through padded headphones, directly through the mother's tum. There are books you can read to your baby and recitations to make in hopes the little muffin will pick up various precision skills and cognitive abilities galore - genius attributes. I can't say I blame them for trying - and who's to say it doesn't have an impact...it just seems kind of boring to sit through hours of narrated Feynman or Witten theories and, truth be told, I don't understand the stuff myself.

We're following suit to some degree, providing our child with a pre-birth education suitable to our own less 'academic' lifestyle. There are, of course, stories and conversation in Persian. But what I know for a fact this little basketball has a propensity for and enjoys the most is music. The German and French varieties to be specific. Every time we cruise around with die Fantastischen Vier or Kyo blasting this baby kicks up a storm - I can only assume practicing the dance moves is an integral part of fetal development and in this way we are enhancing the process by providing fabulous sounds to frolick to and perhaps baby erlernt ein wenig Deutsches auf der seite.

How to save your marriage - and a tank of gas!

Hamid and I work really well together all the way around I think, and are generally perfectly content to be with eachother 24/7. As business partners, best friends, and husband and wife we've learned countless ways to communicate with, maneuver around, and live happily ever after with eachother. I stopped listening to people who wanted us to believe that our being joined at the hip would be the demise of our love affair. Three+ years later and we're doing just fine, in spite of all the 'advice'.

But there was one pitfall we were totally unprepared for and that is navigating the broad and busy streets of the United States with nothing more than our wits and a strained lean out the window to glimpse a streetsign as we're carried along in impossibly quick and grumpy traffic - oh, and a printed sheet of ever-so-useless MapQuest or Expedia directions that have been reliable only in that they never once failed to screw us up entirely. You see, when we were living abroad we either always had a hired driver or we utilized taxis to get where we needed to go - generally relying on the internal navigation provided by our chauffers to get us through the maze of streets, alleys, and dirt roads to our destination. Taxis and private drivers are neither realistic nor affordable as a sole means of transport in America so upon settling back in the States we bought ourselves a car. We truly enjoy being able to pack ourselves and the dog up for a weekend hike at Lake Mohave, or kissing Mooshy ta-ta and cruising to Vegas for a day of shopping and sushi. It's also our ticket to continued adventure as we plan a move to Washington State - I seriously cannot imagine once again packing up everything we own and schlepping it onto a plane. A car just makes so much more sense when there is no ocean to be crossed.

So this car has been a blessing, but until recently, we spent far too much time stuck in it, arguing over which way we were supposed to have gone and whether or not the online mapping service was fallible or trying to determine if whichever of us had entered the destination address was at fault. I cannot count the miles I sat with my forehead against the passenger side window, glaring at the road, hating the feeling of absolute helplessness because I had no idea where we were and even less of a clue how to get where we were trying to go; racking up the wasted gallons of overpriced gas in my head like dollar signs...

Enter the Garmin StreetPilot GPS Navigation System. A wonder of modern technology and a true saving grace - stepping in to spew step-by-step directions to both of us in any accent or foreign language we prefer like some tiny plastic superhero with graphics. The Garmin even accounts for user error, recalculating the entire trip at a false move or a late turn - providing a fresh new map of how-to-get-where-you're-going-without-a-single-argument.

So far we've had the Garmin installed in the car for about a month and it has saved us at least five tanks of gas, plus our otherwise stress free lifestyle is yet to be disrupted with a disagreement about why we didn't turn onto the freeway back there. Well worth the $250 investment - and then some.

Speaking of....

I've been doing tons of research into all manner of birth and baby related issues, items, and ideas - all of which hold equal importance and interest for me as we reach the halfway mark of our pregnancy. At four and a half months I'm gloriously immersed in all things baby and have recently been making decisions on everything from cord blood banking (no thank you), to glass or plastic bottles (glass is the obvious and immeditae choice), plastic or cloth diapers (cloth, without a doubt - although sadly there is no diaper service in the small Washington town we plan to situate ourselves in for the birth of this little basketball), to strollers (yes, we really *do* need to spend $500 on a Bob...) and so on....

But one thing I have yet to come to a solid conclusion on is what exactly to do with the placenta after the baby is born. Now, I have no intention of following the fry-it-up-into-pate habits of some families. I'm vegetarian and that pretty much includes preparing and eating my own body parts as a meal. Although I will say I offer no disrespect to those who do make this choice - it's very cool to be so very much at one with your body and the process of birth that you come literally full circle and ingest the nourishing sac that held and grew your baby for nine months...it's just not something that rings true for me individually.

Birth, and all the bloody muck that comes along with it, is a totally personal and natural experience, or at least it should be... In the west we've really done a number on ourselves, removing anything truly natural and normal about the process so that practically all of us are scheduled for neat and tidy C-sections at the convenience of our attending physicians. I, for one, am thrilled to not only be able to access choices that will facilitate a return to 'normal and natural' but to experiment with birth rituals practiced by post-labor mothers all over the world.

With all that said, I am very curious about the less, shall we say, gastronomic way of utilizing the placenta - an organ that is otherwise regarded as worthless and thrown in the trash at hospitals all over the country (and nevermind the French who mix it up into every possible cosmetic concoction they can come up with). I think I've found a nice middle ground somewhere between 'placenta with shallots' and the sad waste of tossing it all away as useless: drying and encapsulation. Preserving and then taking the placenta in this way, like a vitamin, is believed to have positive effects on the post-partum woman for anything from the very common postpartum depression and anxiety to helping with the natural flow of breastmilk and thus promoting the healthy, natural relationship between mother and child.


Now, for those who found this post by way of a Google search for placenta recipes, I won't be needing these:

Placenta Cocktail:
1/4 cup raw placenta
8oz vegetable juice
2 ice cubes
1/2 cup carrot
Blend at high speed for 10 seconds

Placenta Lasagne:
Using a standard lasagne recipe, substitute the following for one layer of cheese:
In 2 tbl. olive oil, quickly saute meat of 3/4 placenta, ground or minced; plus 2 sliced cloves of garlic, 1/2 tsp. oregano, 1/2 diced onion & 2 tbl. tomato paste, or 1 whole tomato.

Placenta Spaghetti:
Cut meat of 3/4 placenta into bite size pieces, then brown quickly in 1 tbl. butter plus 1 tbl. oil. Add 1 large can tomato puree, 2 cans crushed pear tomatoes, 1 onion, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tbl. molasses, 1 bay leaf, 1 tbl. rosemary, 1 tsp. ea. of salt, honey, oregano, basil, and fennel. Simmer 1 1/2 hours.

Placenta Stew:
Meat of 3/4 placenta in bite size chunks, 1 potato (cubed), 1/4 cup fresh parsley, 2 carrots, 3 stalks celery, 1 zucchini, 1 large tomato, 1 small onion. Dredge meat in 1 tbl. flour mixed with 1 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. paprika, pinch of cloves, pinch of pepper, 6-8 crushed coriander seeds. Saute meat in 2 tbl. oil, then add vegetables (cut up) and 4-5 cups of water. Bring to full boil, then simmer for 1 hour.

Placenta Pizza:
Grind placenta. Saute in 2 tbl. olive oil with 4 garlic cloves, then add 1/4 tsp. fennel, 1/4 tsp. pepper, 1/4 tsp. paprika, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. oregano, 1/4 tsp. thyme, and 1/4 cup of wine. Allow to stand for 30 minutes, then use with your favorite home made pizza recipe. It's a fine placenta sausage topping.


Bon appetit!

Your placenta ruined my Christmas

I don't really like to complain...the universe being as generous and forthcoming with blessings as it has been and all but yesterday was really very disappointing.

We drove all the way to Vegas, super excited and sure that even if we weren't able to determine the gender of the baby we'd at least get a good solid photo of him or her; something to post here and coo at. Something to send to the many friends and family who literally cover the four corners of the earth. But it was not meant to be. When we arrived at the midwife's office she was in a back room "holding a placenta" according to her assistant who then explained that another woman had just given birth to a baby girl and that she herself, a very sweet well-trained doula with no idea how to work the ultrasound machine or sonogram printer, would handle our prenatal appointment.

Needless to say we did not find out the sex of our little swallowed basketball nor did we get even the grainiest squelch of an image to take home with us. She could hardly find the baby and when she finally did she couldn't find the photo paper to load into the empty machine. I practically cried right there on the table with blue goo all over my stomach and nothing to show for it. I'd built the possibility of that day up for so many weeks that it was inevitable I suppose. I admittedly but only briefly considered pulling a Carlito's Way to try to get the midwife in the room but held my tears and my tongue and went shopping instead; wanting to at least take advantage of our big-city locae to get some clothes for this alien body I'm now housed in. This body that can no longer fit into the first batch of baby-body clothes I purchased so many months ago. But even retail therapy, a darling doting husband, and a delicious Japanese lunch could not assuage my grief and we drove home feeling like little kids who'd been cheated out of a trip to the beach or toy store. Worse, still - kids who had been taken to the toy store fully expecting they'd leave with something in hand only to be told at the door there was someone else's placenta in the way and they would have to come back another time.

We arrived home so late and so thoroughly depressed that I threw myself into bed, ready for that day to be good and finished so I could start a new and better one. While waiting for Hamid I sat there in the dark feeling my stomach as has become my habit - this great taut protrusion where once there was a virtually concave space...and BAM I felt a small but quite strong push from inside my abdomen, right near where my hand was resting. It was unmistakeable - the baby had kicked me for the first time. Again, BAM! Down and to the left - what I can only assume was a foot danced into my other hand. Those small movements over the course of maybe ten seconds changed the entire past 24 hours from a drudge into one of the most ecstatic days of my life thus far...talk about a silver lining.