Instant Pot Roundup

It’s no secret that I love cooking in my instant pot. Jer bought it for me a year and a half ago and it is truly one of my most used kitchen appliances; I typically use it 4-5 times a week, and sometimes it gets used multiple times a day.

I’ve used it for foods I didn’t plan to, like when we had a potential gas leak in our stove and I had about five minutes to decide how to cook dinner so I attempted cooking pasta in the IP and it worked! Or the time we were having friends over for dinner and I burned rice so badly on the stovetop that I couldn’t clean out the pot well enough to start over so the IP became a rice cooker that night. I haven’t perfected pasta or rice so they are not on my list below, but it was nice to be able to cook them in a pinch.

And I meal plan around as many simple IP meals as possible, especially during the summer when I don’t want the stove on in our un-air-conditioned apartment. 

I so often sing the praises of my IP to anyone who will listen so I decided to do a roundup of many of my favorite methods and recipes to have them all in the same place. Let’s be real, this may be just as much for me as it is for anyone else.

Here are some of my go-to's:

Quinoa, perfect every time

I use this method (from Detoxinista)

Put a 1:1 ratio of dry quinoa and water or broth in the IP. Cook on high pressure for one minute and let it naturally release for 15 minutes. The pin should drop by then. Open the IP and fluff your perfectly cooked quinoa!

Some of my favorite quinoa recipes are variations of these:

-Quinoa & feta salad

-Black bean and quinoa enchiladas

Beans

I buy beans in bulk for a few reasons. It’s a huge money saver, for one. Cans leech a lot of unsavory things into food so I mostly avoid canned foods. I am able to know my beans are properly prepared with an overnight soak when I cook them myself, the soaking makes the final product more easily digestible. And they really just taste better when you cook them yourself.
Method:

Soak up to two pounds of beans overnight. Rinse in the morning, put in the instant pot and fill with water until just above the beans. Cook on high pressure- black beans for 8-10 minutes, garbanzo beans for 12-14 minutes. The longer cook times are for softer beans. Let the pressure release naturally until the pin drops, typically up to 45 minutes. The beans make the water very frothy so if you manually release the pressure you will clog the release valve with aquafaba or the like.

I make big batches and once they are cooled off in the fridge I store them in 1.5-3 cup portions in the freezer to use as needed. (One 15oz can of beans = 1.5 cups.)
Some favorite recipes:

-Homemade hummus
-Cook & mash black beans down into a paste with salt, chili powder, cumin, lime juice, and the like and use that as a base for tacos or dip
-Black bean cake (made with butter and honey) This cake used to be a standard in my baking repertoire; I even made it for Harrison's first birthday, topped with homemade whipped cream. It is delicious and I've never noticed a bean taste while eating it.

Beets

Jeremy, Harrison, and Dylan all have an affinity for beets. I do not, but they are a weekly staple on our grocery list. After buying pre-cooked beets for a time, I realized that buy fresh beets and pressure cooking them could save some money and it didn't require boiling or roasting forever to make them tender.
Method: Rinse the beets to ride them of dirt. No need to peel. Cut the tops and bottoms off if you'd like. Put some water in the bottom of the instant pot, along with the trivet. I cut the beets into similarly sized chunks as needed for even cooking. Cook medium sized beets for 18 minutes or so. Larger ones for 22 minutes or more. Longer if you want them soft enough for a baby who is learning to eat (hi Dylan!) Release the pressure manually when the cook time is done. When you are ready to eat them, rub your fingers over the skin and it'll come right off. Or leave the skin on and enjoy the assumed extra nutrition. Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica. You're welcome.

So many squashes
It's almost winter and the squashes are everywhere. You can turn on your oven and roast them to perfection if you want, and sometimes you really do want that, or you can pressure cook them in minimal time, and then reheat and season at will with other recipes.
Method: spaghetti squash- cut in half crosswise rather than lengthwise, this will get you longer strings of squash in the end. Scoop out seeds. Put a cup of water and the trivet in the IP, put the cut squash on top. Cook at high pressure for 7 minutes, release the pressure manually, and carefully remove the hot squash. When it's cooled enough to touch, use a fork to scrape the squash out of the peel; it will come out in strands. Adjust the cooking time up or down if you want firmer or softer squash.
Method: butternut squash- I prefer to peel the squash before cooking it. Cut it in half, remove the seeds, peel if you choose to do so ahead of time. Add water and the trivet to the IP, put the two halves of the squash on top. Cook at high pressure for 12 minutes, wait 5 more minutes before releasing the pressure manually. Remove the squash and slice or dice as preferred. I make a vegetable lasagna with thinly sliced butternut squash, and this IP method is the best way to get the squash cooked but still firm enough to slice and layer in the lasagna.
Method: acorn squash- this I have not perfected aside from making mashed acorn squash. So if you want something that holds its shape, cook for less time or search around for a real recipe. But if you don't want to deal with too much cutting and any peeling, mashed acorn squash is the ideal. Cut off the top and bottom, cut in half and remove the seeds. Add water and the trivet to the instant pot. Put the squash halves on top, season with salt and etc, add butter or oil where the seeds were, and cook on high pressure for five minutes. Release the pressure manually soon after. Once the squash has cooled enough to touch, scoop out the flesh into a bowl and mash it, adding more seasonings as desired.
I also cooked a sugar pumpkin in the instant pot this season using a similar method and it yielded some great pumpkin puree!

Sweet Potatoes
I used to not like sweet potatoes. Why? I really don't know, and I can say now that at least I know I was missing out. They are a staple at this point. And truthfully I prefer them diced and roasted, doused in coconut oil and/or butter, sprinkled liberally with salt and cinnamon, and maybe mixed in with some cooked apples and whole cranberries; or seasoned with chili powder and cumin and mixed in a bowl with similarly seasoned chickpeas and diced chicken. But, if I want simple steamed slices that Dylan can easily grab on to, or if I want to mash them for this that or the other recipe, the Instant Pot for sure comes in handy.
Method: Detoxinista has an in-depth post about cook times for a variety of sizes of sweet potatoes, so I'm going to let her do the talking here.
One of my favorite recipes with mashed sweet potatoes is this brownie recipe. What? Sweet potatoes + chocolate? Yeah, it's a thing. But let me be real, this particular recipe isn't like a typical brownie, but I still find it tasty. There are other recipes out there with more ingredients that may hold up to regular brownies a bit better. Yes, there's a whole internet world out there with sweet potato brownie variations. Give them a try!

Hard-boiled eggs, so easy to peel I've done it with one hand

I like my hard-boiled eggs with soft yolk, still gooey in the very center. Also I don't ever have much ice in my freezer. With the combination of those two factoids, I've learned the best method for my hard boiled eggs is as follows-
Put a cup of water and the trivet in the instant pot. Place eggs on the trivet, as little as you'd like or as many as will fit. Cook on high pressure for 3 minutes and release the pressure manually as soon as the timer is up. Have prepared a bowl with cold water and a few cubes of ice (as is all I ever have on hand). As soon as the pressure is done releasing and the pin drops, open the lid and take the eggs out with a spoon and put them in the "cold" water. The ice will melt quickly and the water will get warm quickly. So the eggs will slow cooking but still be hot enough to cook themselves for a bit longer. Drain the water and add more cold tap water once or twice. Then eat the eggs or store in the fridge. If I had enough ice to do a real ice bath, 4 minutes in the instant pot would be my magic number. If you like your yolks firmer then a longer cook time is for you. Experiment to find your favorite version!

Shredded chicken

At 10.5 months old, Dylan is showing quite the affinity for food. So much so that there are times I'm not sure what to feed him when we sit down to eat but he's so excited that we are sitting at the table that I need to give him something. He often eats what we are eating but there are still many foods I'm waiting to introduce so sometimes our dinners aren't quite Dylan friendly. Enter: shredded chicken. I try to keep some on hand and he loves it! Also, shredding chicken was one of my gateways into eating meat again after 10 years as a vegetarian. I eat shredded chicken in a variety of recipes many times a week, and the Instant Pot has made it remarkably simple. I typically buy chicken thighs (have I yet made it clear that I am all about saving money while still eating well? Thighs are a cheaper cut of meat so that's what I get).
Method: Add a cup of water to the bottom of the instant pot, and the trivet. Place the thighs on the trivet and season with salt, pepper, and whatever else. (Lime juice and cumin? Thyme and lemon slices? Smoked paprika and sage?) Cook on high pressure for 8 minutes, and manually release the pressure. Move the thighs to a bowl and immediately shred with two forks. The longer they rest the harder they are to shred. Or use this hack that has theoretically changed my chicken shredding life, except that I don't have a hand-held mixer and I'm too lazy to lug my Kitchenaid out of the closet so I just use two forks more often than not. Save the chicken in the fridge or freezer and re-heat and re-season to add it to anything your heart desires. Save the liquid in the bottom of the pot for cooking grains or making soup.

Elderberry Syrup
Elderberry syrup is a staple for us. It's a great preventative for getting sick, and it is proven to shorten the duration of a virus if you have one. It works with your immune system without introducing anything to your body that will keep it from working optimally. It is not something you should take every day for a long duration of time, as it stimulates your immune system so you don't want that day after day. So during the late fall and winter when our vitamin D levels are a bit depleted and our time spent outdoors is often less than optimal, and we are often stuffing ourselves with junk food in the name of holiday after holiday- factors that cause the "flu season" to be a thing- we take small doses of elderberry syrup a few days on, a few days off. If we are sick we take higher doses for the duration of our sickness.
Method: I use Wellness Mama's method. It doesn't take much less time than making it on the stovetop, but it's less hands-on time since it doesn't require watching and stirring, which is why I prefer to use the IP.
I also like to make elderberry gummies out of my syrup. They are so simple to make, and if you don't have any type of silicone molds you can let the liquid cool in a glass container in the fridge and then cut into pieces. Harrison likes to take it either way but the gummies are especially fun.

Some favorite full meal recipes

Vegan quinoa burrito bowls
This recipe is a great base for a meal or a side dish. It is light and tasty, and easily customizable. Cook in bone broth and add cheese to your finished product if that's your fancy. Switch out the veggies for something you like better. Top with any variety of foods. Use it as a base for a taco filling. Etc etc etc. It is an easy to make one-pot meal, requiring a small bit of vegetable dicing and then sautéing in the IP before adding the rest of the ingredients and pressure cooking it all together. It doesn't require much time at all.

Turkey Vegetable Lasagna Soup

I just love this soup SO MUCH. It requires a bit of prep chopping veggies, and while the ingredients list isn't expansive, there are still a lot of parts involved to get to the finished product. But it is worth it every time. It's a one-pot meal, hooray for the minimal kitchen clean up that it requires! And it's definitely customizable. I typically use my homemade bone broth as the base, and I don't often add any noodles, I find it hearty enough without. Instead of melting a bunch of mozzarella cheese into the final product after cooking, I just use Trader Joe's delicious organic vodka sauce in place of the marinara the recipe calls for. Or you can omit the dairy altogether for a soup that is still tasty. It calls for 2 tablespoons of tomato paste but I don't think I've ever added that. And I've also never made the optional cheese mixture that is for serving the soup over. (For the sake of simplicity and less groceries to buy.) Do what you want with it!

Southwestern Chicken and Rice
This is a go-to almost every week. It's very much a dump meal. Put it all in the instant pot, turn it on, and forget about it (until it's time to shred the chicken). Then customize it to your meal preference. We usually just eat it in a bowl, topped with cheddar or goat cheese depending on our mood. Sometimes I fail to add the corn and/or the beans. Still tasty!

Butter Chicken

I LOVE Indian food. And this recipe... well, THIS RECIPE YOU GUYS. It has me licking the bowl. The recipe theoretically makes enough to save half the sauce for another meal, but that is never the case here. I roast or boil some vegetables on the side and add them in with the cubed chicken at the end to bulk everything up. Combined with rice and naan (Indian food is 1000x better with naan), and combined with my love of extra sauce on everything, there is just enough sauce even while the recipe  claims you are making a double batch. You can make this dairy free by using coconut oil and coconut milk. But I've never tried it that way because I love butter and will never be afraid of it (helloooo Kerrygold all day every day). And getting an immersion blender made this remarkably easier, as I no longer need to transfer boiling liquid and chunks of tomatoes into my food processor for a 4 second blend. This recipe is everything.

Dal Makhani
I haven't made this recipe in a long time, but I'm adding it here because it is in my original instant pot post, and I remember how flavorful it is. It's great as a side, or eat it as a meal over rice and/or with naan or whatnot. I will definitely be giving this a try again very soon. If you are a fan of Indian food, the blog this recipe comes from, as well as the blog the above butter chicken is listed on, has some amazing recipes that have never failed me.

Other recipes

My previous Instant Pot post goes over my methods for whole chicken, bone broth, (no need to roast forever and ever!), a sweet potato and lentil stew recipe, and my own lentil soup.

So, there's a start. There's always more, but the above are most or all of my go-to's. I may add to this as I find more favorites, so check back if you're curious. Happy pressure cooking!

six cars

Way back in 2011, Jer and I were dating, I was driving a Ford Ranger, and he a very old Honda Accord. We both lived in Lexington and my truck was used to drive to work and to hang out with Jer. And once we took it to a drive-in movie.

Jeremy moved to Los Angeles in and when that move came to be a reality in my life, I determined that driving across the country and living in a large city was not fit for my trusty truck. (Jer’s Honda didn’t make the move either.)

It was my first foray in to car shopping- my parents had generously given me my first two (a GMC Sonoma before the Ranger). With advice coming from ALL directions, I set my sights on a brand new dealership hatchback, and it ultimately came down to a 2012 Honda Fit or a 2011 Ford Fiesta.

A lime green Fiesta ultimately made the cut- car number one of six in me and Jer's six years of marriage, and the reason, perhaps (or most definitely), for all of the car shuffling we’ve done over these years. Should have gone with the Honda.

Her name was Gemma

We held on to that Fiesta for a while actually. It officially became *our* car in 2013 when we got married. And then it wasn’t until 2015 when we started noticing issues with it. Like the time we were stuck in traffic on the 405 and it stalled out. Or how it occasionally decided to not accelerate when we asked it to. And then doing some reading on it led me to realize that though the model had been in Europe for a while, the transmission in our car was brand new to the USA for its model year. And everyone with the car was beginning to have transmission problems. Great. 

We started looking around for a more reliable car, as we didn’t want the issues to pile up and render our car un-driveable, and we test drove a brand new Honda Fit (again!) After a failed attempt at lowering the price, we went home with the Fiesta and navigated through our next steps.

Cue: our Credit Union’s car buying program. They had someone on staff specifically to purchase cars for the Credit Union members, provided the car was purchased with their financing. Win-win, yeah?! No haggling, no searching, no effort aside from telling them what we wanted, just some waiting. We gave them a budget and decided we wanted a Honda Accord, and then the waiting began. Two months later we sold the Fiesta to a Ford dealership, took a Lyft to our Credit Union, signed some paperwork, and drove off with our new-to-us 2012 Honda Accord. It had heated seats and I was happy.

Let it also be known in this timeline that I was knowingly pregnant with Harrison in the last few weeks that we had the Fiesta, so he has technically been in all six of our cars.

So that was sometime in September of 2015. My full-time job had unexpectedly ended a week or so before we got the news the Accord had been found, and being pregnant meant I didn’t want to search for any long-term commitment to replace that job. I worked very part-time during my entire pregnancy with Harrison, and stopped working completely around 37 weeks. 

This part-time/no work was not because we could afford to live that way. Our budget was in the red every month after Harrison’s birth for quite some time. (Hello student loans and hello car loan and hello Los Angeles rent prices and all that.) Towards the end of that year (2016) we were out of ideas for how to sustain ourselves and decided to join a Financial Peace University course that some friends from our church were facilitating.

Admittedly, I was skeptical. I had heard of Dave Ramsey/Financial Peace University and knew that people had good results but my skepticism came from already having a good handle on money, no credit card debt, no extravagant purchases, and literally only spending money on what we needed. So how could spending $100 (that we didn’t have) on this course really help our situation? We really just needed another income.

Well, Dave Ramsey wasn’t necessarily life-changing in a big bold exciting way, but we learned some very beneficial information, and at the end of it all, Jer and I came to the decision that we needed to get rid of the Accord and purchase a cheap car with cash- to get rid of our monthly car payment and to lower our insurance rate.

So that’s what we did. In late January 2017 I scoured Craigslist for weeks and found a 2001 Toyota Corolla that we test drove, got a pre-purchase inspection on, and bought with cash. We had some equity on the Accord and it all worked out. Then the brakes went out when someone cut Jer off on the highway, resulting in a fender-bender, but even with all the truthful information it was determined to be the other driver’s fault and we were cut a check for the damages to our car (scrapes and scratches that blended in with the older scrapes and scratches!) So we ... made some money? Except the brakes needed fixed and then other things needed fixed and then 16 months down the road Jeremy had strong feelings about the safety of the car and we were making a little bit more money (yay full-time nannying with Harrison in tow!) and we said sorry Dave Ramsey and purchased a car that required a car payment. At that point we knew we had baby #2 on the way and a beater just wasn’t cutting it for a family car.

Good bye old Corolla

Enter our 2010 Ford Fusion, purchased in June 2018. Sporty silver exterior, heated leather seats, a back-up camera, and a V6 engine that proved to me driving could be for fun and not just for function. We got terrible gas mileage but we felt safe in it and truly enjoyed that car. After the Fiesta fiasco I hadn't anticipated purposely seeking out a Ford again (unless it was a truck), but the Fusions had great ratings, and our Credit Union car guy, while he wasn’t directly involved this time around, did give me some advice on a car that would last, in our price range, and the Fusion was one of them.

Hello new Fusion

Six months later, a week or so before Dylan was born, we put his car seat in the Fusion with Harrison’s help, and with that came some lovely moments of excitement and reflection and joy for the times to come. Visions of Harrison and our new baby in the backseat of the car, together.

Happy anticipation for baby #2

And then just about two weeks after Dylan’s birth, and before he had even been in the car (yay, homebirth!), the Fusion was totaled. Jer and Harrison were in the car and there were two other cars involved and thankfully no one was hurt. And the Fusion was towed away that day, never to be driven again.

We didn’t know right away if it was totaled or not, that news took a (very frustrating) week. Once we got the news we didn’t know what to do with it. Should we start looking for a new car right away? Should we wait on more information from our car insurance? (Our car insurance coverage, by the way, was UP TO SNUFF thanks to what we learned from Dave Ramsey. So thankful.)

We ended up going two months without a car. Two months of grocery shopping and baby appointments and two emergency room visits with Dylan, all while learning how to be a family of four. I don’t recommend it, though if you need to deal with something like that, it’s great to have a community of people around you who are willing to help. And we CERTAINLY did. I am forever grateful to all the friends who lent us cars and gave us rides and brought us necessities.

In the midst of those two months we actually went to Carmax and purchased a car. A Honda Fit! (Really! The third one in our car history!) And we owned that car for ... six days... and it didn’t feel right from day one. Carmax has a seven-day return policy, and I can now vouch for how no-hassle that return policy is. Almost immediately after we decided the Honda was not right for us (car number 4.5?), we received two generous gifts in quick succession that lead to us getting a 2006 Volvo sedan in early March.

number 4.5

I praised that Volvo up and down and all around. It was gifted to us and we couldn’t have been more thankful. We got a pre-purchase inspection on it, got new tires and a new timing belt, took care of other miscellany, and kept a running list of a few other repairs down the pipeline. No car payment + a generous financial gift + some savings = we could repair this car and keep it forever.

It was supposed to be forever ...

Well, forever lasted about four months. Volvos are one of the safest cars on the market, but the repairs this one needed kept getting put off, for no externalized reasons. Jer and I just independently couldn’t figure out the benefit of putting more money into a 2006 car with 120k miles, particularly as the repairs list kept getting added to, so neither one of us pushed to get the work done.

Jer ended up externalizing the thought that maybe the money could be better spent, and I realized I was on the same page. So in early July we hesitantly had the Volvo appraised at Carmax; simply to see what we could get for it, and evaluate our options from there. We had every intention of keeping it for at least another week, or for a lot longer.

Interestingly enough, while Carmax was doing their appraisal inspection, they apparently forgot to latch the hood properly before taking it for a drive. And so while they were driving it, the hood flipped up and the mounts on either side got so bent out of shape the hood could no longer be latched back down. And so immediately our car was rendered un-drivable. Of course this would happen to us. Thanks, Carmax! They ended up offering us more than we anticipated for the car, and refunded us for a three day rental car, so we took their check and left that day with no car to our name. That was not the plan in any way, but goodbye car #5!

It was very evident that even as a single-income family, getting a new car that was reliable enough and safe enough for the four of us meant financing. (Sorry Dave Ramsey.) So we dug deep and went car shopping for the next three days. Stressful, frustrating, annoying. But we did it and on the third day we found the car that was meant to be. We test drove a Honda Fit! For the fourth time in our car saga! And we didn’t get it! Again! Instead, our new to us car is a 2015 Toyota Corolla. Nothing flashy, though it does have the convenience of keyless entry and a backup camera. It’s little things like that that we don’t need but greatly benefit from. We feel safe, we are assured through the brand and through the certified pre-own program that we probably don’t have a lemon, and we are hopeful that this is finally the car we hold on to and will see Harrison learning to drive in 13 years from now.

Actual forever?

— — — 

Now ... if we went back to 2011 when I made the decision to buy the lime green Fiesta instead of the Honda Fit, and went home with the Fit ... where would we be today?? Hah. I guess it’s clear enough at this point it’s not the car for us. And if it could have been ... we’ll never know.

40 weeks in, 40 weeks out

This week marks Dylan living on the outside in this world for the same amount of time he lived inside my womb. With that comes a tinge of nostalgia and a lot continued reflection that's been happening through the duration of his life on this earth and before his existence.

With motherhood has come the expected emotions, the expected highs and lows, the expected love, the indescribable depth of that love, and many unexpected feelings as well.

I think back to Harrison being born, well over three years ago, and how over the course of the first year of his life I felt a sense of loneliness that I had never felt before.

It's a loneliness that arrived slowly and unexpectedly. Some of it happened due to the city I live in- people are always coming and going, so many of my closest friends moved out of state in the months after Harrison was born. Some of it happened because Jeremy and I are the only family we have out here in Los Angeles. Each of our sets of parents and all of our siblings live in different states, and raising our family away from the families we grew up with started to wear on me (and wears on me still to this day). Some of it happened because I declined invitations to events that didn't feel feasible to me; driving with a newborn who doesn't like his car seat was not always worth the effort, or going to a party that started at 9pm just didn't really work for me anymore (not that it ever really did, but I made it work pre-parenthood), and invitations to said get togethers became less and less frequent.

The day Dylan came into existence- like the exact day of "sperm meets egg" type of existence, the day of a miracle happening in my body while I was completely unaware until weeks later and could only pinpoint by looking back on my calendar- was a day wrought with a lot of difficult emotion. I was dealt a large blow that I'm sure didn't feel like anything to those who inadvertently dealt it, and I spent much of the day holding back tears when I thought of it, or trying to get it out of my mind so that I wouldn't feel so upset. It felt like the loneliest of lonely days, and it felt like any energy I had left to pull together the withering threads of my dwindling community was pointless. In my mind, no one had my family's back, and I was personally friend-less.

Motherhood without community is hard. Life without community is hard.

Dylan grew in my womb and my body nourished him. Harrison continued to grow and learn and thrive and frequently kissed my belly "for baby," and I delighted in him and my growing baby. I was in awe, and I was happy, on that level of motherhood and life.

I made efforts to find community. I reached out to people best I could and tried to set up playdates. I joined an app that was basically Tinder for moms, and then ghosted the few that I made contact with (is that the correct term? Hah.) I was having a hard time figuring out how to find solid friendships that could be beneficial. I wanted fun friendships, but I was also trying to dig deep to find what I knew I needed most- people I could relate to, people with similar values, people who understood the phase of life I was in, because they were in it too. It was really difficult for me, 87% percent introvert and all. I found myself unable to carry a conversation with anyone- old friends, acquaintances, new friends- I spent all day catering to the conversations and needs of my toddler and I was tired and felt like I lost any adult conversation skills I might have previously had.

Shortly before Dylan was born, a friend of mine asked me something along the lines of what my greatest hesitancy was about being Mom to two kids. I was truthful and said I was afraid of feeling even more lonely.

Dylan was born and we had friends visit and bring food and help and I was so grateful. I was never really void of friendships, but void of deep relationships. And then Dylan got a little bit older and I learned how to manage a baby and a toddler, and the newness was over, and Jeremy went back to work, and I went back to feeling lonely and trying to figure out how to fill my days and what I could do to care for my children and care for my relationship needs.

I've been reflecting on this more this week than ever, because now at this nostalgic 40 weeks in / 40 weeks out Dylan and I have reached, I am feeling for the first time in years that I have finally found the community I've been needing.

My social cup is more full than it's been in years. My "people I can relate to" cup is more full than it's been in years. I found people I can talk with without feeling awkward. I found people with similar parenting styles, similar interests. Different ones too, and it still works. I've re-connected with old friends and current friends and have made more of an effort to see them, pushing myself out of my "wait and see" comfort zone and instead being forthcoming about setting up time to be together with our kids. I just committed last night to joining an informal co-op, a group of parents and kids with a loosely structured morning together once a week. I discovered Free Forest School and the boys and I have been thoroughly enjoying our beach days with them and have been dipping our toes into park days as well.

I feel like I reached such a low at the very beginning of Dylan's 40 weeks in, and find it interesting that this journey has gotten to the opposite point at 40 weeks out. I like the cyclicality of it, even through the difficulty. I'm just at the beginning of feeling like I have something good going on in terms of community, and I'm excited to see where it takes me and Harrison and Dylan over the course of the next little while. I'm excited when I wake up in the  mornings because I know each day of Jeremy's work-week is going to involve doing life with people who I want to invest my time in, and the energy seems mutual. I feel more confident as a mother and more confident as an individual. When the days feel long with Harrison and Dylan, it is easier to stay patient and calm and gentle.

Motherhood with community is easier. Life with community is easier. Let's do this.


*** *** ***
*** *** ***
*** *** ***


Also just to get technical, since pregnancy is measured from the start of the mother's last monthly cycle, rather than the whole sperm-meets-egg phenomenon that happens 10-16ish days later, and I have been referring to the latter, it's actually been something more like 38 weeks + 3 days in, 38 weeks + 3 days out with Dylan. 40 + 40 reads better, so there you have it.

when Harrison was sick

Harrison was sick for a few days.

He kind of just broke down on Friday afternoon, while we were at a park with friends. He had been engaging in play for an hour or so and then his demeanor slowly and subtly changed to lethargic. He sat in my lap for a while, observing some other kids. He continued observing for longer than he typically would. We walked to a picnic table to eat a snack, and he sat listlessly, ignoring his food. And shortly after he started crying big heavy tears over something so trivial I can’t even remember what it was. All so out of character. I picked him up to comfort him and realized he had quickly become a tiny heater, the type of high temperature easily assessed by just being near someone. The slight sunburn on my legs was reacting to his skin against mine. 

We packed up and got in the car. I turned on the air conditioning and took a few moments to send some texts before driving home. Harrison is usually very vocal about me driving off immediately, but not even 30 seconds in to me getting in to the car I looked back and saw both Dylan AND Harrison had given in to sleep with just the cradle of their carseats. My “few moments” to myself lasted much longer that day, even if they were while sitting in the car. (Actually who am I kidding, the car is one of the only places I can have those moments these days anyway, and even there Harrison has started talking a mile a minute to me most of the time and requires a lot of engagement). 

I find a thermometer when we get home, only to realize the batteries are dead. I search around and eventually find another. 101 degrees. Highest temperature I’ve ever seen him have, and only the third time he’s been sick to the point of a lethargic afternoon.

Cause for concern? No. I believe our bodies are more than capable of healing themselves if we give them time and the right tools. A fever is generally a good thing, though we are taught to fear it. It is our body’s immune response to fighting off whatever is making us sick. Our body is using that heat to help us feel better. We don’t want to suppress it, within reason. I personally don’t feel the need to intervene with a fever until it reaches 103-104 degrees. Slightly lower in a young baby. Lowering a fever prematurely is taking away one of the things the body needs to heal.

Harrison sits on the couch for most of the afternoon, reading books, watching some Daniel Tiger, driving his cars, singing songs, talking to me. He’s not interested in eating, and getting him to drink is a chore but I do my best. He refuses bone broth, which is a bummer. He drinks it often, but being sick has changed all of his typical preferences apparently. He gets some watered down kombucha instead, with a few immune-boosting supplements mixed in. A whole-food vitamin C powder, echinacea drops, and a wellness support tincture that involves a few different herbs. I’m out of Elderberry syrup and though the ingredients are in my pantry, I don’t have the opportunity to make any (did I mention I was solo-parenting Thursday through Tuesday night?) It’s the perfect time for Elderberry, but oh well. We’ll work with what we have. He also takes a dose of Oscillococcinum. I assume his lethargy means he’s feeling compounded by flu symptoms and all the aches and run-down feelings that come with them. I also let him nurse far more than I would generally tolerate during the day. In fact, I actually invite him to nurse a few times because he’s not even asking for it like he usually does. Never underestimate the power of breastmilk.

7pm- bedtime- approaches quickly and I get Harrison and Dylan in bed not a moment too soon. Harrison is asleep in minutes, without effort. On any normal day, his 20 minute car nap would mean bedtime pushed to 8pm or later. Today is not normal.

Saturday morning after Harrison gets 13 hours of sleep (out of the ordinary again) he has some energy. For a short while. Food is still not interesting. Then I realize I have a little heater on my hands once again and this time the thermometer is closer to 102 degrees. We continue the supplements and quiet play and rest.

I find my throat is becoming a bit scratchy and I take a dose of Throat Calm every 15 minutes for an hour. It’s very broad-spectrum so I’m hopeful I can avoid an actual sore throat. By the end of the hour everything feels normal again. Success!

Harrison lays on the couch for a long period of time throughout the morning, eyes glazed over, passively existing while Dylan and I play in front of him and I check in every so often. We get in the car for just over an hour round-trip, and he naps for a bit. Home and we take a short walk around the block; he’s been asking and asking for me to drive toy cars with him on the wall down the street. I oblige and he laughs and laughs while we make the cars drive and fly and crash in to each other. Home again and he quiets down once more, going around the block was a bit too much. No appetite, we make it to 6:45 and he lays in bed in his daytime clothes to wait for me to get Dylan ready for bed so that I can help him next. I turn around to set Dylan down and Harrison is already asleep.

Between 8-11pm he’s in a strange state of consciousness. He’s crying out and moving around more than usual and I lay next to him and pull the hair up off the back of his sweaty neck and tell him I’m right there next to him and he settles for a short while and then starts back up again. Is this what a fever dream is? I do my best to comfort him. Dylan thankfully sleeps through it all.

6:30am and Harrison jolts awake, loudly insisting he wants us all to go play in the living room. I stayed up too late trying to get a few minutes to myself and sleepily tell him it’s too early and that he needs to go back to bed and I keep my eyes closed. This never works after 5:30am. But then I’m woken again at 7am but this time it’s by Dylan, and Harrison is fast asleep on the other side of me.

Dylan and I go into the living room to play and eat and whatever else we do on Sunday mornings and I anticipate Harrison’s awakening at any point. He never sleeps past 8, so there my assumption lies.

A smiley, noticeably cheerful Harrison walks out of the bedroom, stuffed animal in hand, at 8:30am. Who is this kid? 13.5 hours of sleep did him well, his body temperature feels normal, and he asks for food. We share breakfast, we facetime with Jeremy, and I find I have my toddler back- full of intense, happy energy, ready to take on the day. We made it!

*** *** ***

Reflecting back on this, I am continually amazed by how our bodies work. A healthy body can handle so many things with such ease. We are so quick to medicate sometimes that we don’t give our bodies a fighting chance to work the way they were made to. And then we find ourselves needing to heal twice- once from the sickness, and once from the medicine. Harrison, at almost 3.5 years old, has never taken an antibiotic or any over-the-counter medication (“not even” Tylenol or anything of the sort.) He takes cod liver oil daily, eats a nourishing diet (which includes lots of healthy animal fats and animal protein), and gets real food and herbal supplements as needed, along with some homeopathics. Dylan is the same. I am thankful for my family’s health and the confidence that I have to take care of us in the best way that I see.

--- --- ---

Also, I am slowly getting more in to the world of homeopathy and it seems to be the next rabbit trail I am heading down. I keep Arnica, Chamomilla, and Ledum in the diaper bag so I can administer them anywhere anytime for falls/cuts/scrapes/bruises, fussiness/teething, and bug bites/stings respectively. Homeopathics are great for supporting the body through so much more than illness, and doing so without disrupting gut flora or interfering with the body's natural response mechanisms.

being the help for the wealthy

I’ve found myself in Pacific Palisades often over the past few weeks. These visits have been the first time in almost eight years that I have ventured to that part of the city. In part because I’ve had no real reason to be there, but perhaps also in part because I’ve avoided it. Yesterday I was driving east on Sunset to get to a park to meet up with a group of other moms and their kids, and my body had a subtly physical reaction to driving the road. A sense of familiarity … and dread. I was just close enough to a house I lived in when I first moved to Los Angeles, and my brain and my heart didn’t know what to do about it. I felt my stomach tighten ever so slightly and my pulse raised a few beats. I felt tension in my limbs. After a few moments I turned off Sunset to a familiar road to the park and my body lightened up. It’s curious how past experiences can set you off, in small and large ways. So here’s a story:

--- --- ---

I moved to Los Angeles a few months after Jeremy did, back in 2011. We were dating and I decided to take the plunge to live closer to him. I spent the first month in the city hurriedly job searching, and couch surfing until I could confirm a source of income. Primarily looking for nannying jobs, I got an interview with a family and my contact was some woman who lived in a different state and worked for the family remotely.

Jeremy drove me to my interview. We drove to the Palisades and as I was unfamiliar with any part of LA, it wasn’t until we actually got there that I realized we were in one of the very affluent parts of the city. The house we arrived at had a large privacy wall around the perimeter and big gates that only opened once I called the house and the housekeeper buzzed me in. It was a big house, clearly worth a lot of money, and I later learned it was the former house of a specific celebrity. (Keeping details vague on here to avoid potential smearing.) 

I don’t remember much of the interview aside from the fact that I saw a different side to my future employer that I rarely saw again. Loving and kind, tender with one of her kids who crawled into her lap while we were chatting, laying out what my job would be. She brought up our shared Christian faith which felt comforting to me. The kids went to a private Christian school on the other side of town.

I moved in shortly after, to a very small room at the back of the house that didn’t have an entrance from the inside, so it was private. I slept on what I later realized to be a broken bed, next to a nightstand with an intercom phone and a desk. There was a microwave and a built in chest of drawers, and a nice bathroom with a nice shower stall. My new home.

The phone was a funny thing to me at first, and maybe still is, though it also became a nuisance. The house was “so big” (it was but it really wasn’t) that the family all communicated with each other over the intercom. Every single room in the house had one, and every single phone voiced the intercom messages at all hours of the day. Including my phone, in my private room, on my days off, in the early hours of the morning.

I worked 5 days a week and didn’t ask for enough compensation. Five elementary school aged kids. I worked alongside the mom and dad and we shared pick up and drop off responsibilities. School, sports, friends, so many extra-curriculars. The tutor quit shortly after I was hired, shared her phone number with me, and texted me later giving me some details about how the job wasn’t worth it. Instead of hiring a new tutor, her responsibilities fell to me. I helped with homework and school projects. I befriended the kids the best I could and tried to form an older sister type of relationship with them. I became friends with the two full-time housekeepers and the full-time groundskeeper/gardener. My brand new “I’m moving to Los Angeles” car stayed parked in a spot at the bottom of the long driveway, and I was only allowed to transport the kids in a Chrysler minivan, an old Acura SUV with a broken seat, or occasionally the grandmother’s Lexus sedan, if she was there too. The claim was my car wasn’t safe enough, but the irony was that the Acura I drove the most was in hindsight very dangerous because I could barely reach the pedals since the driver’s seat was broken. 

The almost centenarian grandmother made me cry one of my first days of work. She wanted me to run some errands and was insistent she gave me directions to get to the store. I politely stood there while she told me where to go (me knowing I would google it before I left). Her first direction was “head in to town,” to which I tried to interject “which way is town- right or left out of the driveway?” She quickly chastised “Don’t interrupt me young lady,” and continued her directions that I didn’t pay attention to, as my brain shut down. When she was done, I went straight to my room to google directions while holding back tears. That conversation wasn’t inherently unkind, just very unexpected.

I had issues with one of the children who didn’t want to listen to anything I asked him to do. He decided he had no respect for me and that was that. I approached his mom about it at one point, flabbergasted and entirely unsure of what to do; especially as my job was to get him to do things like finish his homework or go to bed on time and I was the one who got in trouble if these things were not attained in the manner they were supposed to be. The result of my conversation with the mother was that she chatted about it with her son, and they jointly decided he didn’t have to listen to me. Sweet.

One of the kids boasted to me that he had a bank account with an entire college fund because when he broke his finger years before, the doctor messed up when fixing it and so the mom sued the doctor.

The kids were all supposed to contribute to a quilt for their school. There was a different theme for each grade and they all came home with ziplock bags full of supplies. I was handed all five ziplock bags by the mother (who always talked to me with a huge smile on her face, regardless of the tone of conversation), and she asked me to make the quilt squares for the kids. Oh, okay. This girl = can sew a straight line, but not crafty. I spent so much of my unpaid time coming up with ideas, ironing, sewing, and felt-tip markering those squares and got them handed in on time. The housekeeper was given another square that belonged to a different family to give to her sister to complete. Apparently her sister was a seamstress. I received a passive-aggressive email from the mom few days later with a picture of a beautifully completed quilt square that looked professionally done with the words “Did the kid’s squares look like this?” Yeah, never replied to that email. I guess they should have done better outsourcing. For the project the kids were supposed to complete.

I was always getting mixed messages and poor communication about what my job actually was, and then getting talked to about not doing things correctly- when they were never explained to me in the first place. My favorite days were the ones where I didn’t actually have to worry about the kids, but rather this that and the other errand needed running. I would go to the post office, the food store, the vet (they had so many pets, some better cared for than others). My name was on their credit card and I was allowed to use it at will for myself, within reason, and I would treat myself to a cupcake in town or eat lunch out. I used it a bit more once I realized I had charged them a Kentucky salary rather than a Los Angeles salary.

I went trick-or-treating with three of the kids while the parents took the other two elsewhere. I took them to a friend’s house where all of the uppity parents were dressed in full costume. I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and had never felt so out of place. We walked through a neighborhood where every house gave king sized candy bars. I thought that only happened in the movies. The kids were allowed to eat as much candy as they wanted that night, and the rest of it was donated to the troops the next day. For weeks I found hidden candy and wrappers in their nightstands.

About six weeks in to my job, they found a “GREAT SCHOOL!” … on the OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY. The kids just HAD to be enrolled, education was of UTMOST IMPORTANCE. The dad chatted with me about it, they were moving in a week, and would I consider going with them?

Not to worry that I had only just moved to Los Angeles from the east coast to be closer to my boyfriend.

In that week, the housekeepers were told to make plans to find somewhere else to work. They both had connections and no issues figuring out what to do. One was actually asked to move with them, but she wasn’t necessarily in the states legally, so she stayed put. The groundskeeper, father of a few kids, wasn’t talked to. The four of us “help” had whispered conversations about what he was supposed to do. This was his full-time job. His salary and cell phone relied solely on this job. The day the family left, I found one of the housekeepers crying in the pantry. The groundskeeper, our friend, was unceremoniously let go that day. No notice, his services just “weren’t needed any more.” I drove one of the cars later that day, after the dad had used it, and saw the groundskeeper’s (former) cell phone just sitting in the center console like it was nothing. He had to go home to his family that day, a few weeks before Christmas, unemployed, without warning.

I went to the east coast with them, I didn’t have much of a choice. Jeremy was invited to come with us for a time, and they paid for both of our plane tickets. We stayed in one of their houses that was about an hour’s drive from their new house near the “GREAT SCHOOL!” It was much larger than the Los Angeles house and the beach was about a mile away. I was given the guest room on the second floor, a far cry from my LA lodging. I had a California-King bed, and walk in closet the size of my room in LA, a bathroom with two vanities, a deep round hot tub bath, and a large glass-walled walk-in shower. There was a balcony overlooking the canals they lived on.

I drove an hour or more each way to get to work, and quickly found that my childcare job turned in to a “help them move” job. Jeremy was there “on vacation,” but got roped in to most of the work I had to do. Unpacking everyone. Seriously I was organizing the dad’s golf shirts and underwear in his exclusive closet. I unpacked about 50 of the mom's old 1980's power suits into an already overflowing  closet off of the movie theatre room. She seemed to notice my hesitation about her keeping them, and assured me that I'd understand when I was older. I'm still waiting for that enlightenment. The new house was far smaller than the LA house and the kids all had to share rooms. The grandmother no longer had her own suite and seemed pretty lost in her room in the hallway with the kids. I kind of felt for her, it seemed like she didn’t have much say in the matter and she was used to being entirely independent, save for driving.

I accidentally disconnected the Internet to the point of unrepair TWICE while in the early days their east coast  house. The second time I was just following instructions the Internet repair person told me when he was fixing it after I broke it the first time. I was horrified and terrified all at once when I realized what I did. I got an earful, and then just stayed out of the way for the next few days.

My childcare duties never really picked back up. I was just managing their move. And talking with all the new hired help they were testing out. And exchanging phone numbers with them so we could text in private about if they should bother to keep the job.

Each of the kids had a pet, and there were two adorable Matli-poo dogs who I loved. I took them both to the groomers one day and one was shaved and the other was just bathed. When I brought them home, the kids thought the shaved one was SO CUTE that they wanted the other one shaved, and I was told to immediately turn around and bring the other one back to get shaved as well. The groomer was so dumfounded, something I could relate to entirely.

I took a week that month to travel to China with my family. When I asked my employers about the trip, the mom said “Sure you can go but we really need you here so make it quick.” (Big smile on her face and all.) I told all the necessary people I was leaving, particularly their accountant who lived in a different state, as he was in charge of my payroll.

While I was overseas I found an email and a followup email from the accountant, sent in rapid succession a good 12 hours before I noticed them. One was asking why I hadn’t sent my hours to him yet. The next one was asking why I hadn’t replied to the first email yet. Neither had a very kind tone. I replied back that I was in China and implied the massive time difference and that I had emailed him about it already and sorry he didn't receive the email. I got a quick reply back with a noticeable difference in tone, “Ni Hao! I spent a year living in China! Have a great trip!” And that was that. 

Christmas was rapidly approaching and one of the mom’s “Best friends in the whole world,” came over to organize all of the kid’s presents. Another friend of the family did all the shopping. Once the presents were labeled they were passed on to me to wrap and re-label the kid’s names and from “Mom and Dad” or “Santa” or whoever else, and put under the tree. I wrapped the presents for the other “help,” and somehow didn’t come across mine, it was an actual surprise when I opened it later that week (it was not wrapped). (Here’s THAT story, written out many years ago and I promise you it’s worth the read.)

I was home with my family on Christmas Day when I got a SCATHING text from the Mom. No Merry Christmas for me. Instead it was about how one of the kids did not receive a present from Santa and he was MORTIFIED and was going to be scarred for life. (Never mind that the “best friend in the whole world” was the one in charge of labeling all the presents, I was just the wrapper and re-labeler.) After texting back “Merry Christmas!” I took the high road and texted some suggestions, with my Mom’s help, about how maybe a present could be “found” on the roof next to the chimney with the kid’s name on it from Santa. I didn’t hear anything back, and the issue was never brought up again.

After Christmas and New Year’s I flew back to their east coast home, on my dime, wearing my new watch (seriously, read this post about my Christmas present), and found the organic Harry and David pears I had sent to them sitting on a counter unboxed and uneaten. I ate most of them my first week back.

I started to get serious about relocating back to Los Angeles and interviewed for a nannying job via Skype. A few days later I was hired for that job and I made quick plans to leave. On my last day there were no real goodbyes, no parting gifts, no kind words. I took the train back to their house an hour away and the next day I was taking a taxi to the airport and getting the heck out of the state. I received an unkind text the night after I left that one of their cars didn’t have enough gas in it and I should have filled it up before I left. I decided not to reply to it.

In some form of kindness, they knew I was going back to their Palisades house where most of my stuff still was. It was up for sale but they weren’t on a fast track to sell it. They knew I was going to stay there for “a few nights.” I didn’t have a place to live or a roommate. I had a start date for my new job and a boyfriend and a car that I could finally drive, I needed some time to sort out the rest. And naturally I worked as fast as I could to sort it all out. One afternoon while I was at their house I ran in to the dad who had flown back for an event. He gave me a cheerful “hello,” asked how I was doing, and was unperturbed that I was there. I was certainly a little frustrated that I was still there, but roommates and new apartments don’t just appear out of thin air and I was doing everything I could to figure it out. That night I sent a courtesy email to the mom, thanking her for letting me stay in their home while I figured out where I was moving to.

I woke up the next morning to a cruel email about how I overstayed my welcome and they were showing the house to potential buyers and how dare I still be there I was being entirely unprofessional and it wasn’t her fault I didn’t have a place to live yet and I needed to let her accountant know as soon as I moved out so they could change the gate code.

Jeremy drove in that morning, as we had already planned, and found me sitting in the bed with tears rolling down my cheeks. He somehow had the feeling to open my laptop up and he saw the email there. Without words he started packing my stuff up and we loaded everything into my car and drove out of the driveway for the very last time. I sent a joint email to the mom and the accountant that they could change the gate code, and we drove down Sunset Boulevard out ot the Palisades, never to return again … 

… until these past few weeks, eight years later … now frequenting some of the places these strange memories are from, in a body that isn’t entirely certain how to feel about it. What a ride.