Category — Domesticity

I rescued the last of my basil earlier this week, in anticipation of Vancouver’s trademark downpours. This afternoon will be spent making pesto! I thought I’d share my favourite recipe with you:

Classic Pesto, care of Epicurious.com

Ingredients:

• 4 cups fresh basil leaves (from about 3 large bunches)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup freshly grated pecorino Sardo or Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

Combine first 4 ingredients in blender or food processor. Blend until paste forms, stopping often to push down basil. Add both cheeses and salt; blend until smooth. Transfer to small bowl. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Top with 1/2 inch olive oil and chill or freeze for later use.)

Your face is an orbit. Pursed lips, supple skin. Bright eyes, like moons. A constellation.

You are a little ship, a face like an ocean cresting. Raven hair and blue eyes the size of boulders. 

I swim in your sea from day’s break to day’s end. You are my life’s greatest treasure. Lying beside you these first days has felt like a rebirth. Your soul, your face, every inch of you speaks pure. Your loveliness outshines the rainbow that nestled itself outside our window yesterday. I would spend the rest of my days gazing at your face if the world, the Lord, would allow. Instead I will take my moments, store them in my heart like gold, and watch you grow, grow, grow up into heaven, out into the world.

We welcomed our little girl one week ago today. Madeleine Jacoba Hope.

Madeleine comes from the root ‘Magdalen’ meaning ‘High Tower.’ Therefore she is named after Mary Magdalene and also the wonderful writer, Madeleine L’Engle. Jacoba (pronounced Yacoba) is my grandmother’s middle name, common to the Dutch, which shares the same Hebrew root as my brother James’ name. Hope is a word that has particularly captured me this year (I wrote about it here.) Also, we felt the name appropriate due to to the amount of times we had to reach out to Jesus for hope during her labour and delivery. It was a long journey to meet our little girl. 

Madeleine weighed in at 9 lbs 11 oz after 81 hours of labour, start to finish. Although we laboured almost entirely at home, she was delivered naturally by our midwives at Burnaby General Hospital in the wee hours of the morning. Mommy was too tired to go anymore without a little help (a small amount of IV Oxytocin.)

Our new life with Madeleine:

In the words of Madeleine L’Engle, one of our little girl’s namesakes: “Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.”

Our prayer is that our little one will tell the story of Christ through her beautiful, adventurous, and marvelous life. 

looks like:

Michael set up the birth tub in our living room the other night. He made sure to practice contractions.

Living, working, shopping, churching in my own neighbourhood has become immensely important to me.

This passion began when Michael and I were first praying about where to live when we got married. We started off living in the tiny loft of the house where I’d lived for the previous five years. When we prayed we never felt God giving us a clear answer on the location question. We had settled on living in Kitsilano, renting part of a house or an apartment, until my dad and stepmom offered to sell us a condo they owned in Burnaby. The offer was clear out of the blue and as we prayed we felt it was God’s leading. We said yes. So, since last spring, we have lived in a corner of suburbia.

I never expected it, but I grieved moving out of Vancouver. I had fallen in love with my dirty corner of southeast Vancouver. I loved the hole-in-the-wall takeout Indian, the $2 bags of naan, and the crazy Chinese lady with the wooden broom handle. I missed running into neighbours on the street and housemates on the front stoop. Now I lived in apartment-land. On the 13th floor. APART-ment. It’s written right in the name.

I suffered something of a depression. I hardly went out. It was easy to do because I was newly self-employed and was working crazy long hours. Plus Michael and I were newly wed and working on building our relationship. My life felt disjointed. All of my favourite digs were on Fraser and Main, now I was a city away. We went to church near Vancouver’s city hall, but we were paying taxes in Burnaby. Familiar faces were non-existent.

I decided to get a (very) part-time job at Starbucks to meet people in the neighbourhood. And, you know, it worked! But I was SO overworked (5-9 AM at Starbucks, 9-6/7/8 at my desk) I had to quit. No matter, the short stint at the neighbourhood coffee shop opened up relationships where I lived. Now I walk into Starbucks and meet friendly faces. They even treat me to free beverages. They ask after our baby. They make me feel welcome — at home.

Slowly, slowly this area has become home. I think, in our right-now, click-culture, we forget that things take time. Relationships are forged. Homes are built. The expectation that these things will happen overnight is our great adversary.  

We found out yesterday that Michael’s sister is moving into our neighbourhood, two blocks from the little Anglican church we have been visiting and the butcher where we buy our steak and kolbassa. On Sunday we met up with our neighbour Tricia and her son Diego at McDonalds. We talked politics over Happy Meals (she’s meeting some federal big wigs as I type). Jennifer, our neighbour on the 8th floor, greeted us at the grocery store the other day. Her two-year-old daughter Amelia is looking forward to playing with our baby when s/he comes. 

Today, I thank God. We have a home.

I am spending my last weeks writing. Combing through pages, scraps, post-its, binders and journals that make up my book. The one I have been working on for 1.5 years. 

Soon everything will change. Irreversibly. Forever. We will welcome our child into this world with trembling arms. We will mess up. Drop him/her. Give her/him all the love we’ve got. 

I stare at my growing body and marvel. I walk across the street to Save-On-Foods for the free air conditioning and walk home smiling. 

I am trying to relish every moment with Michael because I am all too aware of the fact that our relationship will never be the same again. It will never be ‘just us’ again and I love us. Yes, we are gaining the most incredible gift in the world but I am also experiencing a real sense of loss. I will never be woman — independent and fierce — again. And yet I will be more. I will be mother. 

These days feel surreal. I am slow-moving, yet I am accomplishing much. A baby is nearly ready to be born — inside my body — baking, daily. I am preparing my heart, my mind and our home to welcome our child. Michael and I are freezing fresh berries, preparing meals, and today (against better judgement) I baked dozens of oatmeal chocolate chunk cookies and loaves of banana bread, for the days when we can barely keep our eyes open. We’ve bought our stroller, folded the onesies, checked off the labour list, and now — for a few more weeks — we wait. 

My mom came over the other night. I asked her about her labours. All but one of her children (the last) came 5-10 days early. So we may be meeting our son/daughter sooner than we think. 

These are amazing — real, emotional, overwhelming, exciting, full — days.

Thank you for sharing them with me, friends.

Staring at items
on the table.
Which shall I move?
What’s the plan of attack?

One… two… ten… eighteen…
staring back at me.

There are too many!
Where do they live?
Finally, after too many minutes of consideration,
I declare to a single item:

“YOU: tape dispenser!
I am moving you to the office! Now.”

One item at a time.
Back and forth.
My multitasking brain now
mush.

Help. me. please. 

I am a female version of Gumby.
My hands like Jello.
Standing, clearing the table
a new ceramic bowl, now,
a thousand pieces
strewn across the floor.

So, I splurged.

Yesterday we celebrated Father’s Day with a visit to my dad and stepdad, but before stepping out of the house my husband got to experience his very first father’s day:

Eggs Benny. Homemade Hollandaise. Fruit Salad. Bacon. Fresh coffee. A letterpress card.

And tickets! to see Death Cab at the Coliseum next month. Woohoo!

I read this interesting article about how to bond with your preborn baby over the weekend. Apparently baby will be rocking out at the concert with us!

“Concert-going mothers report their preborn babies jump at the sudden sound of drums. In fact, from at least the 23rd week on, a preborn baby’s hearing is developed enough to enable him to respond to outside noise… Even the five-month-old fetus has been found to have discriminating musical ears.”  - From 7 Ways to Bond with your Preborn Baby 

And now Michael is off to Toronto for a week of work. Darling, I miss you already.

Since arriving home I have slowly been piecing our house together to make room for our new addition (due August 27, by the way.)

I’ve been purging, storing, cleaning and sorting every square inch of our home. I’m happy with the progress in all but our bedroom — the one room in our house that has always remained unfinished. Until now we’ve had two tall chests of drawers near the base of our bed, a set Michael inherited from his grandma’s deceased neighbour. (Grim, but true.) ;)

We’ve had our eyes open for a set of drawers for the past month or so, assured it is the piece to really complete the space.

I’ve had my eyes on some vintage sets, like this:

$250 at a vintage shop in New Westminster’s Antique Alley

and this:

But Michael and I differ in our affections (/repulsions) to retro furniture. (I love it, he hates it. Shocker.)

I’ve also been keeping my eye on Ikea, though our preference is for real wood. I’m particularly taken with the Engan collection.

Then, today, I popped into Value Village to pick up a VCR (I borrowed a prenatal yoga video from my sister-in-law and have also been dying to watch some of my old VHS favourites like Reality Bites and Fried Green Tomatoes) and I happened upon this find:

for only $35!

Sometimes a little determination and a little luck is all you need.